Last Updated: Mar 25th, 2013 - 16:46:15 Newsletters : 2008 Newsletters : 9 May 2008 Thought for the Day "Houses, land and buildings are called REAL Estate because their value is real". This is what my parents told me when I asked them why houses were called real estate way back in the 1950s. They went through the depression and had a good idea about the value of money. No matter that the government goes off the gold standard nor how the government manipulates our paper money the value of real estate holds firm. Gold also maintains its value, as Lord Rees-Mogg notes: "In 1908, good farmland in England was worth about 45 pounds per acre. Similar land would now be worth about 4,500 pounds an acre...On that basis, land has risen by about 100 times over the last century. We can be more precise about gold. In 1908, an ounce of gold was worth four sovereign coins. At the current dollar price of $900, an ounce of gold is worth about 450 pounds, or about 110 times what it was worth a century ago." Gold and land retain similar values over very long periods of time. Paper money loses value continually. Property is called REAL estate so perhaps gold should be called REAL money. Should we then search for REAL economics to explain the world in which we live? May 9, 2008, 16:04 Newsletters : 2008 Newsletters : 9 May 2008 Are We Running Out of Food? The Greens and the Socialists have a very strange world view and little understanding of human nature or REAL economics. This idea that the world is running out of food is nonsense. As Kel says in this article: "In sum, the real cause of continually rising food prices is the printing of money by world governments. And the real cause of actual food shortages is the prevention of profitable global trade in food by the ill-advised policies of the governments of the very people who are starving. To the extent that any other reasons proposed contribute to a reduced supply more than temporarily, it is likely because governments prevent the market from working. To ignore these primary drivers of current world food shortages is either willfully to dismiss economic logic, or to be unaware of it." [ Visit Website ] May 7, 2008, 10:26 Newsletters : 2008 Newsletters : 9 May 2008 Is the Nursing Market Malfunctioning? In the light of the recent efforts of junior doctors to improve their wages it may be of interest to see how the price mechanism works for that other group of medical people - nurses. If we could restrain governments from trying to control markets and just leave them to market forces we would not continue to suffer from strikes and shortages such as we are now encountering. Thank heavens the government doesn't control the food industry - although they now seem to be trying! [ Visit Website ] May 6, 2008, 10:26 Newsletters : 2008 Newsletters : 9 May 2008 Bugs In The Tank What does this mean for "Peak Oil"? Amyris Biotechnologies, a company in Emeryville, California, that spun out of the University of California at Berkeley several years ago, has pioneered a way of custom designing microbes to produce a whole range of specialised hydrocarbons (including molecules that are exact replicas of artemisinin, an anti-malarial drug) as well as fuels like petrol, diesel and aviation spirit. No more "Peak Oil"! May 5, 2008, 18:07 Newsletters : 2008 Newsletters : 9 May 2008 China Farms The World To Feed A Ravenous Economy Do you remember the British Empire? The American Empire seems to be getting a little shaky lately. Now, here is the Chinese Empire in the making! The world is changing we'd better get with it. May 5, 2008, 13:55 Newsletters : 2008 Newsletters : 9 May 2008 Fiat Currency: Using the Past to See into the Future If we want to stop war in the world, one way would be to make fiat currencies illegal. War is so expensive that for millenia emperors have waged war by devaluing their currency to pay the cost. America is no different. If America had to raise $1 Trillion in taxes to wage war on Saddam the tax-payers would undoubtedly have said,"NO". What a blessing that would have been! May 5, 2008, 13:30 Newsletters : 2008 Newsletters : 9 May 2008 Is IMF Trying To Recover Its Gold By Pretending To Sell It? Questions about the amount of gold held by the Central Banks of the world continue to arise. Who owns what? Russia has declared that it will be increasing its gold reserves; Others continue to sell. What will China do? The IMF seems keen to sell 400 tonnes of gold and buy shares so that they will have continual income now that the third world countries no longer want to borrow IMF money. BUT, where is this IMF gold? Why is it a secret? Is there dirty work at the cross roads? Or is this just business as usual? All will be revealed in time - but I can't say how much time! May 2, 2008, 10:17