Plato

Today I stumbled across the Greek philosopher Plato. In his most famous work The Republic he writes about politics in an ideal Utopian country. His idea is breath taking: The political rulers should be philosophers, not warriers or business men. These philosophers acting as political rulers should have no remuneration so that there is no conflict of interest and should be without a family as to be able to dedicate themselves completely to the people they govern. Plato sees the philosophers as the most just people and therefore the least susceptible to corruption. He points out the human tendency to corruption by power and thus the road to timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny. He envisions city states with no slaves and no discrimination between men and women. Imaging today's world where all economic and political leaders are unpaid, all CEOs, CFOs, presidents, senators, council man, board members, all working for free for the best interest of the people! Now that would be something.

He warns the reader of other types of political systems. He criticizes timocracy, a sort of authoritarian regime, not unlike a military dictatorship. The third worst regime is oligarchy, the rule of a small band of rich people, millionaires that only respect money. He sees democracy as a poor form of government due to its susceptibility to being ruled by unfit "sectarian" demagogues. In his eyes the worst regime is tyranny, where the whimsical desires of the ruler become law and there is no check upon arbitrariness. There is little doubt that today we live in an oligarchy, where a small elite decides and runs everything and they are only guided by profits. The democracy is a farce to calm people down.

Anyway, The Republic would be good reading for any aspiring politician.

Real Estate in Europe

I am following the Spanish real estate market for months now. Today I found an interesting chart comparing real estate prices from several European countries and the US. The chart shows the year on the x-axis, the average home price in € on the y-axis. All prices are CPI adjusted. It is difficult to understand why real estate is more expensive in Spain than in Germany or Austria where salaries are higher. Still, after the UK, Spain has the highest home prices. The article published by Citigroup expects a 5 to 6 year downturn of home prices totaling a 25% fall in countries like UK and Spain where there has been a significant boom in the last decade(s).

Nothing Changes

This 45-minute video entitled The American Power Structure by Ron Paul was shot in 1988. That is 21 years ago. The amazing thing about this video is that is all very up-to-date, every issue in 1988 is still a hot issue today, the problems are still the same (inflation, depression, the Fed, IMF, power elite, ...). Just replace "billion" with "trillion", "Reagan" with "Bush" or "Obama" and nobody would know that this interview was filmed in 1988.

What has changed? The power elite is still holding on to their power, the game they are playing is just bigger and faster with more zeros at the end of each figure. No change there. So, what has changed? Hopefully more people are aware of this manipulation. More people are dropping out and looking for an alternative life style such as growing their own food and building their own houses with alternative materials and thereby controling more their own destiny because they have realized that their money, job, and human/civil rights are all controlled by someone else.

Trillion

This article asks what is one trillion? A trillion is a million million, or 1,000,000,000,000. A one followed by 12 zeros. Or 1e12 (1 times 10 to the power of 12) for mathematicians. Can we image what this is? The US $1 note has the following dimensions: 155.956 mm × 66.294 mm x 0.10922 mm. That got me thinking and getting out the calculator I reached the following facts. Here are some guiding examples to stir your imagination of what 1 trillion is:

• $1 note is 0.10922 mm thick. = 0.00010922 m = 0.00000010922 km = 1e-7 km. Hence, 1 trillion $1 notes stacked are: 10,922 km = distance from London, UK to Seoul, Korea = 2.5 times the distance from LA to NYC. In short, the stack would run from LA to NYC, back to LA again and one more time from LA to Oklahoma.
• $1 note is 155.956 mm long = 0.155956 m = 0.000155956 km = 1.55956e-4 km. Hence, 1 trillion $1 notes lined up are: 1.5e8 km = 155,956,000 km = 4000 times around the earth = 500 times the distance earth to moon = a bit more than the distance earth to sun. In short, one trillion dollar bills placed end to end would reach 96.9 million miles, far enough to reach the sun.
• $1 note surface size is 155.956 mm × 66.294 mm = 0.155956 m × 0.066294 m = 0.000155956 km × 0.000066294 km = 0.00000001033894706 km² = 1.033894706e-8 km². Hence, 1 trillion $1 notes have a surface size = 1.033894706e+4 km² = 10338.947064 km².
  
• One trillion seconds equals 31,546 years; that's 315 centuries;
  
• The average new car costs $28,400. $1 trillion would buy more than 35 million cars.
• India has a population of 1,096,000,000. 1,000 times the people in India make 1 trillion people.
• The world population in 2007 was 6,587,890,000. 1 trillion is 150 times bigger. So if we hand out $150 to each person on this planet we hand out 1 trillion dollars.
• There are an estimated 306,507,000 US residents in 2009. If we split 1 trillion dollars across all US residents we can hand each one $3,262.
  
• There are 3e9 base pairs in the human genome. 1 trillion is 300 times bigger than the base pairs in the human genome.
• As of 2003 there are 5e10 observable galaxies. 1 trillion is 20 times bigger.
• The human brain has around 1e11 neurons. 1 trillion is 10 times bigger.
• There are 4e11 stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy. 1 trillion is 2.5 times as big as all stars in our galaxy.
• There are an estimated 3,500,000,000,000 (3.5 trillion) fish in the ocean.
• The human body consists of roughly of 10 trillion human cells.
  
• If you are born on Jan 1, year 0 (like the year of the birth of Jesus), and you spend $1 million every single day up to today (2009 years later), then you have spent only 733,285 million dollars, and you have still 266 thousand million dollars left to spend before you reach the $1 trillion limit. You can spend $1 million every day for 2,740 years to spend a total of $1 trillion.
• Likewise, if you spend a generous $1,000 a day (that is a high income salary of $365,000 a year), you can spend $1,000 a day for 2.7 million years before you spent $1 trillion. A dinosaur with $1 trillion in his pocket, who spends $1,000 daily for more than 2 million years would still have money left in his wallet today.

Sources: a and b and my calculator.

The current crisis of the financial sector and their bailouts will cost 4 trillion dollars (and counting, because the crisis is not over). Some people put a total figure of 15 trillion dollars on the total cost. The US budget deficit in 2010 will be close to 2 trillion dollars. Everything is in the trillions now.

If we take a family with 2 adults and 2 kids, then the 15 trillion cost for this single family is: $195,754. How is the average family going to pay back $200K?

And with trillions of debt and the chosen quantitative easing there is only one possible outcome: inflation.

PS: Have a look at this great visualization of a million dollars, a trillion and the US debt.

Peak Oil

This Peak Oil presentation by Matthew Simmons is excellent. I recommend reading it. It's a 6 MB file but worth the download. Note the similarity of energy to money: he asks for a public 3rd party audit of the oil reserves, just like Ron Paul asks for an audit of the Federal Reserve; he warns of a run on the energy "bank" once nations accept that the oil supply cannot meet demand, ... And he urges policy makers to act rapidly to avoid that the lights go out.

Childhood Gone

I was shocked by this article in the New York Times. To me these kids have lost their childhood. These kids are 14 years old! Don't mess with their mind please. Teach them peace and they will create peace. Teach them war and they will create war. Needless to say that Homeland Security supports this effort and spends money on it. Is that what you want for your child? What are our options: A peaceful childhood surrounded by values and love or a childhood surrounded by artificial fear and terrorism? Instead of guns and violence we should give them education in civil rights and humanity. The way I see it, what we will get back is what we seed: fear, aggressive behavior, violence, war and thoughtless/mindless obedience.

The terror thread is so unreal, so small, so blown out of proportion by the media under the guidance of the politicians. Death toll from worldwide terrorism in 2008 was 15,765. In comparison 7 million people died of cancer in 2008. This is a ratio of 1:500. If we take the number for the US only the ratio is above 1:1000. One thousand times as many US citizens die of cancer than of terrorism. Yet, the amount of money spent on the War on Terror outweighs the government funding for cancer treatment many times over. Is this efficient use of tax money?

Another reader commented "this smells of tyrannical fascism". Agreed. Remember the Nazi Youth Organization. Does it sound and look similar?

Double Talk and Cuba

A colleague of my wife mailed me this comparison of Cuba and the US. I found it enchanting, a bit partial but still very factual. Even though it is in Spanish I could not resist in posting it:

Recientemente se ha celebrado la reunión de la OEA (organización de estados americanos, OAS en ingles) de la que Cuba permanece excluída desde los 60s, "porque su sistema es contrario a los intereses de dicha organización". Consultando la Wikipedia y tras ver cuáles son los propósitos de la OEA, no he podido evitar extraer algunas conclusiones que dejan al descubierto la doble moral y el lenguaje orwelliano (la guerra es la paz...) de la que hacen gala los "dirigentes del mundo".

Wikipedia: "La declaración de la organización dice que trabaja para fortalecer la paz y seguridad, consolidar la democracia, promover los derechos humanos, apoyar el desarrollo social y económico y promover el desarrollo sostenible en América."

Compararé (quizá de forma un poco parcial a la hora de seleccionar los puntos, pero desde la veracidad de los "hechos") cómo ha servido USA y Cuba a la consecución de dichos propósitos.

1) fortalecer la paz y seguridad
USA: 1915-> invade Haití, 1916-> República Dominicana, 1982-> ayuda al Reino Unido en la invasión de Malvinas, 1983-> Granada, 1989-> Panamá, 1991-> nuevamente Haití, etc (y sólo he comentado paises latinoamericanos)

Cuba: no ha invadido otros paises en el siglo XX

2) consolidar la democracia
USA: Derrocamiento de gobiernos democráticamente electos-> 1946: organiza el asesinato del presidente Boliviano Gualberto Villarroe, 1954-> gobierno de Jacobo Arbenz en Guatemala, 1955-> Perón (argentina), 1973-> Allende (chile),1975->Velasco Alvarado (Perú); apoyo a grupos terroristas o contrarevoluciones armadas en Cuba, Nicaragua, etc. Resumiendo, USA ha derrocado gobiernos demócratas y apoyado a regímenes dictatoriales anteponiendo los intereses económicos de sus transnacionales a la libertad y soberanía popular que siempre ha alegado defender y promover. En aquel entonces la "legitimación" de dichas tropelías se escudaba en la "lucha contra el comunismo", actualmente la excusa ha pasado a ser la "lucha contra el terrorismo".

Cuba: colaboró con la emancipación africana en Angola y en la lucha contra el apartheid sudafricano. Por ello la sudáfrica actual ha condecorado recientemente a Fidel Castro con su máxima condecoración (aunque dichos premios no son garantía de nada: Henry Kissinger recibió el premio nobel de la paz tras apoyar el golpe de estado de Pinochet, y promover directamente el bombardeo masivo a Camboya (aunque estoy fué posterior a la consecución del premio))

Podría hablarse de la "democracia usamericana" Vs "democracia cubana", y aunque seguramente debería documentar más al respecto, me atreveré a hacer unos pequeños apuntes, muy por encima. Es patente que ninguno de los casos existe una democracia real (en la que el demos: pueblo sea el que toma directamente las decisiones), pero creo que podría ser materia de debate establecer qué elemento limita con más fruición el ejercicio de la democracia real: 1) El partido/estado cubano o 2) la élite empresarial americana. El 80% de los senadores de USA son millonarios, mientras que el % de millonarios en la población total es entorno al 15%... ¿sería lícito hablar de plutocracia? Igualmente, la inmensa mayoría (desconozco el dato exacto) de los burócratas cubanos (que igual que en USA son elegidos mediante elecciones...) pertenecen al partido comunista.

3) promover los derechos humanos
USA: no ha firmado la Convención sobre los Derechos del Niño (por discrepancias sobre el trabajo infantil y sobretodo por la pena de muerte a menores). Recientemente en el Foro Mundial del Agua, USA votó en contra de que el agua fuera considerado un derecho humano (garantizando su acceso, dificultado la obtención de beneficio mediante su privatización).

Cuba: ha firmado y ratificado los derechos del Niño, y apoyó junto a otros paises (entre ellos el reino de España) la propuesta para que los recursos de agua potable fueran un derecho.

4) apoyar el desarrollo social y económico
USA: El imperialismo usamericano ha esquilmado riquezas latinoamericanas "manu empresariari" (Desde la United Fruit Company hasta las petroleras actuales, muy recomendable el libro que Chavez regaló a Obama "Las venas abiertas de latinoamérica" de Galeano). El consenso de Washington (ajustes estructurales impuestos por el FMI para la concesión de préstamos: Privatización, desregulación, reducción del gasto social, es decir: neoliberalismo impuesto) han fomentado el estancamiento del crecimiento a la par que aumentaba la desigualdad, pobreza y malestar general.

USA ha fomentado los tratados de "libre" comercio (TLC) bilaterales. "libres" al seguir subvencionando los productos que exporta (y con una ley sobre dumping interno "alegal"), perjudiciales para asalariados usamericanos y extranjeros, beneficiosas para la élite empresarial. Ejemplos: TLCN (Canadá, USA y México), ALCA (Área de Libre Comercio de las Américas, Cuba excluída). Los TLC junto al consenso de Washington explican por qué si en los 70s el directivo ganaba 30 veces más que el asalariado, en el año 2000 ha pasado a ganar 400 veces más, y aunque la productividad del asalariado ha aumentado, su poder adquisitivo se ha visto menguado.

En lo referente al apoyo social podría hablarse de La escuela de las Américas (ubicada actualmente en Georgia, USA) y que ha formado a decenas de miles de policías y militares que han servido para derrocar revoluciones sociales y democráticas por toda latinoamérica, siendo El general Noriega uno de sus graduados más condecorados en la práctica de los crímenes de lesa humanidad.

Cuba: ha promovido programas para la alfabetización en latinoamérica ("yo sí puedo", implantado también en Sevilla), ayuda sanitaria por medio de "exportar" (no confundir con fuga de cerebros) a sus profesionales médicos ("operación milagro" para devolver la vista) a paises donde buena parte de la sociedad carece de acceso a la sanidad. Muchos sabréis que el gobierno de USA es el único país que prohibe que sus ciudadanos visiten cuba, pero hay una excepción consentida por el gobierno usamericano pero convenientemente escondida a la opinión pública por motivos obvios: anualmente 5-10 niños negros de clase social baja, viajan a Cuba donde el estado les proporciona una Beca total gracias a la cual se les permite realizar estudios básicos y universitarios de forma totalmente gratuita. Reconozco que esto último es más una curiosidad que un "argumento", podéis prescindir de él.

Cuba apuesta por tratados cooperativos multilaterales como ALBA (Alternativa Bolivariana para América Latina y El Caribe) que "pone el énfasis en la lucha contra la pobreza y la exclusión social".

5) promover el desarrollo sostenible en América
USA: Serían necesarias más de 5 tierras para universalizar el modo de vida usamericano.

Cuba: es el país con mayor nivel de vida en un sistema sostenible (es posible universalizarlo en una sola tierra). El eje "y" indica el índice de desarollo humano según los estima la ONU
y el eje "x" el número de tierras necesarias.

Tras estos 5 puntos, ¿no os resulta un tanto desconcertante que Cuba no tenga cabida en la OEA y que en cambio la sede de dicha organización esté ubicada en Washington?

Para terminar, una obviedad que al parecer sigue siendo necesaria: ni Cuba ni USA representan el Cielo ni el Infierno (ni respectiva ni contrariamente). Y autoreferenciandome: "Para formarse una opinión propia, resulta imperativo escuchar otro tipo de versiones, descubrir los grises que aparecen cuando se va más allá del mundo simplista y binario que se nos presenta." Lenin decia: "La verdad es siempre revolucionaria".

Los datos históricos están extraídos de estudios de William Blum, Noam Chomsky y Eduardo Galeano.

Cuba and Sustainability

Once again about Cuba. I am intrigued by Cuba. It is certainly a fascinating place. Not without mistakes and problems, that is for sure. Still, they are doing many things right. New Scientist journal states: "Only one country, Cuba, is developing sustainably, according to a new report - and even that is due to an oil embargo imposed upon it". The article is here but not free. The New Scientist investigated the living conditions and ecological footprints of 93 countries. Upon this research it derived a chart with HDI (Human Development Index = quality of life) on the vertical axis and the ecological footprint (how many plants would be necessary according to the resource consumption of the given life style). Cuba achieved an 0.82 on the HDI scale and if everyone would live like Cuba we would need only 0.8 planets, i.e. Cuba is sustainable. The US on the other hand has a 0.98 on the HDI scale, but if everyone lived like the US we would need more than 5 planets, i.e. the US is a long long way off sustainability. The chart (in Spanish) can be found here.

IMF

Just finished watching the 90 minute documentary "Life and Debt" which uses texts from the book "A Small Place". More details on the film project here. The 2001 documentary showcases the influence and results of the IMF getting their hands on Jamaica. Why is it that every country that signs an agreement with the IMF or World Bank shortly thereafter has reduced social services, reduced health care, reduced sustainability, higher external dependence, higher unemployment and even more debt than before? There are so many documented cases now, isn't it hence obvious that the IMF is not serving the 3rd world but only serving the IMF creators and owners? With the US being the biggest owner and the US combined with Western Europe owning 80% of the IMF, whose interest are being served by the IMF?

Watch it and then think about it! What can average off-the-street Jamaicans do? Maybe forming small coops and producing their own food (gardens and life stock) to reduce living expenses and create some independence is a good first step. Creating local tokens and exchanges of goods and man hours might be another useful initial step. What else? What else can countries with lots of available human labor but limited energy (mostly sun and wind) and no capital do to escape the strong hold of globalization?

Transition Movement Videos

I stumbled across a video collection on the topics of permaculture, transition culture, and sustainability. The video collection is created and maintained by Transition Culture. The RSS feed of videos (http://www.videobomb.com/rss/users/submittedvideos/Transition_Movement) can be added into RSS Readers like Google Reader or directly into Miro Internet TV. Currently there are some 18 videos on food grow parties, urban forest, local resiliance, etc.

The official "In Transition 1.0" video is available in full length here, or in 6 segments here.

Risk of Oil ETFs

I have looked at oil commodities various times at the past. It is clear that any financial instrument has risk. While commodities are safer than equities, commodities are not safe. I always knew that there are risks with USO, OIL, etc. I never spent time on really understanding where the risks lie. Today I had a look at that. First we need to distinguish ETFs from ETNs. ETNs are a lot more risky (in comparison to ETFs) as a default of the issuer will cause your paper commodity to have value zero. Hence, if Barclays goes bankrupt, OIL (issued by Barclays) will have value of $0. ETFs - in theory - have some protection. If the ETF issuer fails, the paper commodity is partially backed by a real commodity and after months or years in the court and lots of paperwork the owner of an ETF whose issuer failed will get some of the invested money back. That is the easy part.

What are the risks of USO and USL? Both are ETFs. There are many risks to be found in the prospectus. Some key issues are: investment in a) swaps, b) treasuries and c) over-the-counter contracts with investment banks. When USO and USL receive money from investors, they invest in oil futures, but a portion gets also invested in swaps, treasuries, and OTC investment bank contracts. The prospectus unfortunately does not specify which percentage goes into oil futures and which remaining percentage goes into the aforementioned rest. Swaps have an elevated element of risk. One can argue that today with the US printing nearly unlimited amounts of treasuries, even treasuries are no longer safe. And that investment banks can crash we have seen recently.

More here: Risks on ETFs. Oil ETFs, and Contango and Oil ETFs.

Moral Humility

I read an interesting quote today. "Our righteous minds were designed to, - unite us into teams, - divide us against other teams, - blind us to the truth." Jonathan Haidt used it in his 2008 TED Talk. He used this quote in the context of social evolution. Somehow I feel this is what the politicians and corporations do with the help of the media. They sell us ideas and products so we feel part of a group. They strengthen our identity by setting us up against other groups. National unity is never stronger then in times of war when "we have to stick together to fight the others". And by putting us into groups and then dividing the different groups they obtain one of their goals: that the truth is obscured and that the masses are blinded.

Improving the world means having to work with other people, and frequently with people of different opinion. Jonathan Haidt recommended moral humility as the way to approach human interaction for problem resolution. Moral authority comes from moral humility and the Dalai Lama is one of the best examples. We certainly can use this strategy for the way we deal with others in everyday life. Wouldn't it be lovely to have morally responsible and morally humble people as our leaders, as our politicians? Imagine what world this would be!

The Human Side

I liked this article on The Oil Drum entitled Life after the Crash: Lessons from Kenya. It makes us look inside. Happiness comes from the inside and in order to be happy one does not need to fulfill ones desires, we just need to cover our needs. I also liked his observation that in Kenya, people are not getting by because of politics and the financial system, instead people are getting by despite politics and the financial system. Politicians and bankers are the two biggest road blocks for social improvement in the author's home country. I believe that is equally true for many countries, including the so-called first world. The financial institutions and politicians are not going to solve problems for us, they mostly steal from the poor and middle class. (Watch "Argentina's Economic Collapse" (Memoria del Saqueo, Social Genocide) if you have doubts.) We have to strive for happiness by reducing our wants and desires. The crash and peak oil will bring the opportunity of a simpler life and it is our obligation to turn this into a more meaningful, satisfying personal experience: A life with less money, more time and a new closeness to our key resources like family, food, water, and the land.

Food Storage

A friend just reported his completed food storage project. He was taught by Mormons how to do it. They showed him three ways of storage: a) plastic containers, b) tin cans and c) by drying. He has now 1 year of food stored away for his family. There are clearly more options such as d) boiling food in glass jars (marmalades, fish, etc.) , e) sealing in oil (veggies), etc.

Storing in Plastic Containers

From the three choices my friend went for the plastic containers. He bought the food in bulk in 25 pound bags - raw in the bag. He bought five gallon FDA approved plastic containers. He bought dry ice. The dry ice is frozen CO2 at -109F. Dry ice dances around vigorously at room temperature. First one puts a chunk of it in the bottom of the bucket; next one dumps the food over it; then one waits till the hissing stop (the dry ice is boiling). This does not take long. The released CO2 is heavier than oxygen and hence pushes the air/oxygen up and out of the container. Not all of it - but enough to suffocate possible bugs. Finally one closes the container with the lid. The food has a 30-year storage life. Once the container is opened, the food must be eaten, or the process repeated. It might be a good idea to mix foods in a container this way fewer containers have to be open at any point in time. y friend has selected raw wheat, black beans, sugar, oats, and pasta. Instead of 5 containers each one with one ingredient, it might be better to have each container holding a portion of all food items.

Storing in Tin Cans

To store food in tin cans they put a chemical pouch in the can that absorbs oxygen; then they have a can sealer. It ends up like regular canned food.

Storing by Drying Food

One can store fruit and veggies if dried. One can possibly use a solar oven to dry fruit. The Mormon church says that dried apple slices have a 30 year storage life. Dried carrots have a 20 year storage life.

How to Cook?

Do you have energy and water to cook it? Do you have a hand-powered mill to grind cereals? Do you have an emergency cooker such as a wood burner or a camping gas burner? Or a solar oven?

What to Store?

GreatDreams prepared this list for 1 person for 1 year: 300 lbs Wheat, 100 lbs Rice, 50 lbs Beans, 50 lbs Peas, 50 lbs Lentils, 50 lbs Oatmeal, 10 lbs Alfalfa Seeds, 80 lbs Dried Powdered Milk, 50 lbs Peanut Butter, 60 lbs Honey or Sugar, 5 lbs Salt, Cayenne Pepper, Herbal Seasonings, Dried Fruit, Canned food, Canned Sardines/tuna/ salmon. On my personal list I have added: cous cous, olive oil, sunflower seed oil, seeds to eat (linseed, chia, etc.), seeds to plant, chocolate, vitamin pills, pasta, some bottles of whiskey, sauerkraut, etc.

Other helpful links with good ideas are: food storage on e-How, www.LongTermFoodStorage.org, Planning Guide to Dry Food Storage, Low Energy Food Preservation, and Energy Conscious Cooking.

Salad Mallow

I am always interested in plants to grow as food. Here is a lovely article on Salad Mallow from the PRI. Looks promising. After I have success with my recently planted chia I might try to grow some Salad Mallow on our terrace. Here are more articles on food plants.

Organic Food in Bilbao

I am looking for 2 contacts for our food supply: a) a local food basket provider to buy a weekly ration of vegetables and b) a store to buy bulk items like rice, cereals or pasta.

With this desire in mind I spent a full day researching the options for the city I live in, Bilbao. To my disappointing surprise I could not come up with a lot. Let's see what I have found.

Food Basket in Bilbao, Spain

• Ekologistakmartxan
  • http://www.ekologistakmartxan.org/555.html

  • Spanish newspaper article on food baskets in Bilbao

  • The store does not hook up buyers and local suppliers (farmers) themselves but they have people that can get you connected. When I called them one or two groups were full and some problems were delaying new groups. I was advised to check again with them in a months time.

  • These offers might include something like a weekly basket of 4kg of veggies at €10. You pick up the basket at the store. This currently seems to be the most interesting option.

Organic Food Basket via Internet

• Recapte
  • Recapte is a company that does food basket orders via the internet and ships them via postal service.

  • Their offer is a weekly 10kg of veggie basket for €30.

  • The transport cost and carbon foot print is not ideal.

  • Furthermore I have read some critical opinions about it. If you read the detailed comments in this article you see that some people are not fully satisfied and that their marketing is possibly not 100% honest.

• Daiqui
  
• They have a wide offering, not only food baskets but all sorts of organic products, all for shipping via internet. The have a small and a large vegetable as well as a small and large fruit basket.
  

Organic Food Stores in Bilbao, Spain

• Consumer Coop Bizigai

  • Asociaciones y Cooperativas de Consumidores de Alimentos Ecológicos Bizigai

  • This coop is like a store. You have to pay a monthly membership fee and that gives you the right to shop in their store. It is too far for walking for where I live so I am not too interested.

  • Article about Bizigai

• Koopera Merkatua, Calle Fernández del Campo 16-18, Bilbao Casco Viejo

• Kresala, Calle Jardines, 2, Bilbao Casco Viejo, Tel: 944 153 501

• Azak, Pablo Alzola, 8. 48012 Bilbao. Tel: 944 271 001

• Bio-Bio, Elcano, 12. Bilbao. Tel: 944 210 362

• Kimua, Calle Ercilla 44, Bilbao. Tel: 944 394 216

• Ekobizi, Azurleku Auzoa 13, Bilbao. Tel: 944 122 666

Organic Food Stores on the Internet

• http://www.miherbodietetica.com

• http://www.quinua.es

• http://www.ecoenvio.es

• http://www.daiqui.com

• http://www.latomaca.com
  

In summary, for me and other people living in Bilbao, Spain, the options for food or vegetable baskets are limited, but there is movement and it is getting better.

For buying bulk I have not found the solution I was looking for. The local stores (in my experience) don't sell bulk and buying bulk over the internet is not ideal due to extra packaging, shipping cost and carbon footprint of the shipping. Furthermore, the internet stores have very few organic bulk items. Most items are actually 500g items. I would prefer a local store where I can go once every 3 months and buy the bulk items at reasonable rates. I will keep looking. However, there is no rice or cereals growing anywhere nearby, so somehow it will have to be transported anyway.

Carbon Politics

Remember the talk of the most powerful person on this planet on energy, given on Earth Day 2009? Obama, just like previous US presidents, is pushing the free market solution to carbon management. I quote him: "Carbon pollution would become like a commodity. It would have a value as a limited resource." This is really scary.

Haven't we learned? Carbon Derivatives to Become World’s Largest Derivatives Market. Instantly. That means that market speculation and manipulation will take place. The banks will control the carbon market. Once again, the rich will misuse it. The banks will get rich on it. Management fees, commissions, etc. But worst of all, the environment will not receive the expected and desired benefit. It will be a economy based on scarcity (see Zeitgeist). Speculations will run wild. There will be bubbles. It will be an unstable, unpredictable, and unsustainable system. It would be more beneficial to have a stable and transparent system, allowing companies to plan and execute the carbon reduction in a fixed economic environment (as opposed to an environment where the prices of carbon on the carbon derivative exchanges fluctuate drastically). And in the end, the environment and we as consumers will pay the price. Reduction through consistent regulation - in my opinion - could show quicker effects on reducing global warming and would have less risk of failing. It can even be cheaper for the corporations who have to implement it because it will reduce the middle man (the banks), advance technology faster and thereby reduce implementation cost, and reduce speculative risks. To play with words, the US will be using a system for carbon management. But we don't need more management, what we need is carbon reduction. Management has no intrinsic value for the society. Carbon reduction does have intrinsic value for the society.

Let's reduce the management (that makes the banks and speculators rich) and go directly to the reduction.

Inflation

Want to have some fun poking around in historical data? A friend once told me that his dad paid off his home loan in about 10 years and now, a generation later, it takes most young people his age group 20 and even 30 years to pay off their home loan. Today our salaries are higher. How come that we actually need more time to pay of the mortgage? Could it be that we are actually poorer?

There is this little thing called inflation, a form of silent tax that the government imposes on us in a more or less secretive fashion. On this site there are a lot of historical charts showing prices of a wide variety of things adjusted by inflation. Browse around just for fun. There are a few surprises waiting. The chart I liked most was the one on US average hourly earnings: Today we earn as much as in 1940! Since 1974 it is steadily downhill, for 35 consecutive years we are earning less and less and we have now reached the earning level of 1940. Wow!

Inflation and the consumer price index (CPI) can be measured in many ways. The government continues to change the formula how the CPI is computed. One has to be very wary about the governmental CPI. Alternative inflation formulas (like fixed consumer good basket index) should be used alternatively to CPI to get a better understanding of the real inflation. One alternative measure for the inflation is described in this whitepaper on The Truth about CPI from Euro Pacific Capital.

Ayres Warr Model

A friend of mine has written an article on "Some Implications of the Ayres Warr Model". He builds on the Ayres Warr model and puts all the terms of energy, efficiency, economic production output, labor, energy supply and energy prices into a new relationship. The advantage of his model is that it is a mathematical formula that one can play with to derive real numbers. The disadvantage is that the model needs further validation with historic data to increase the level of confidence in the model. I see that this model can be useful in predicting tendencies. It is not intended to predict given prices on a given date. I also see that as a model is tells us how the oil prices should react to certain changes in supply, efficiency or economic production. It will not tell us how it will react. The model shows us what the value of energy is, but the true intrinsic value can be far off the price. In short we can have a bubble where the price is significantly above the intrinsic value. In this context the model can possible help us see and recognize bubbles.

Putting the price of energy or oil aside, it gives conclusions on how the economy would react to reduced production and it concludes that increasing energy efficiency is the best way for increasing economic output. Interestingly, better efficiency would also benefit the energy producers as energy prices would go up according to the model.

A summary of this long document was posted on The Oil Drum at http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5378. A long discussion with 100 comments can also be found there.

Permaculture in Spain

Today I was looking for local permaculture projects. Out of curiosity, to read about them and to see what is going on, and - of course - to borrow some ideas. We live in the Basque Country and our local region is Biscay.

Here are some Spanish links that I found useful. All these sites are in Spanish.

• www.permacultura-es.org : This site lists Spanish proyects, news articles and related resources.
• www.redpermacultura.org : Articles with useful hand-on tips and related news.
• institutodepermacultura.pbworks.com : Presents some 20 permaculturists in Spain and their projects.
• tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/PermaculturaIberica : Newsgroup where some 186 Spanish permaculturists chat. There are some 30 entries per month.

In summary, there are dozens of permaculture projects in Spain, but I found very little in Biscay. Malaga and the Canary Islands seem to be popular spots for permaculture. It is motivating to see other people working the land and turning old farms around.

4 Months

It's 1st of May. Labor Day. Personally for me it is also "TC + 4 months". I use Jan 1, 2009 as the rough date when I realized that we are in Times of Change ("TC"), around then I was awakened to a realization that we are facing drastic challenges.

With 4 months having passed it is also time to re-assess and see what we have accomplished. A friend who got concerned about peak oil and the economic and political crisis at the same time as I has achieved the following. This is what he shared: "Made much progress here. Backyard is now a vegetable garden (US$1000 + many hours of hard work). Chicken coup is in the works. I have stored a one-year supply of food - raw wheat, black beans, sugar, oats, pasta (the Mormon church showed me how to do this). The food has a 30-year storage life. I have a 30 day supply of water (which I consider a weak point). Also I'm replicating all of this in a remote site 300 kilometer away that I originally purchased for other activities. Despite all this we must not to forget to enjoy life, kids ...". Wow, I was impressed. No, let me correct that: I was very impressed! Hats off. I am putting this in the blog because it will be motivational to others. It shows that one can truly accomplish a lot in only several months. I also liked his last sentence: "must not forget to enjoy life". This is exactly the positive attitude we need. Despite the bad news that hits us daily we should remain positive in order to not lose our sanity in this corrupt and mad world.

And I? What have I finished in 4 months?

• I did take care of my finances. We paid off the bank credit. I shifted my investment from equities to commodities and I am slowly shifting left-over money from US$ currency to € currency. There is still some ongoing effort here but the majority of the reallocation is done. Still I am very concerned about these issues.
  
• No, I did not purchase the rural plot yet. I looked a lot in a single village and found 2 candidates. But both are overpriced and that is a key point for hesitation. I am considering (but have not done it) to look in a different area which would also be 30min/30km away from our current home. The dream of a country home with a permaculture garden is still months away.
• There are about 10 more plants on our terrace in our city flat and I spent time teaching the kids the value of trees, plants, how to take care of them, etc. I even told them about CO2, oxygen, etc. Not sure they understand that part but frequently they understand more than we think. I could turn our 10 square meter terrace into a garden, but I did not do it (I always have excuses, don't I) because we are going to live abroad next year, so the garden would be unattended.
• I looked for organic food supply, but so far my 5 to 10h search has revealed little. Bulk organic food - when bought over the Internet has some 33% cost in transportation and a high environmental footprint. That can't be the solution. I found one place for buying a food basket, but again the farm is more than 100km away and the food is shipped by mail, again adding substantially to the cost and CO2 foot print. The most promising link is a cooperative in the city center. They have information of producers that provide food baskets for some 30 consumers and that can be picked up locally in the city center once a week. We have to follow up this lead. It is the most promising looking one. Still, I have to look more. I would like to have two places: a) one to buy bulk food (grains/pasta) from and b) local access to a food basket or coop for the occasional buy.
• We have and always had a minor food store at home, food that will last us a few weeks. I have not yet increased the volume yet.
• I learned a lot about a lot of things: cooking with wood, heating with wood, about edible plants, permaculture approaches. I still have a lot more to learn (packaging, storing food, etc.).
  
• I changed my opinion on many issues: politics, outlook on future, values, priorities, ...
  
• I spread the news to reach critical mass eventually: talked to friends
  in several countries, created this web blog, ...
  
• I am definitely accelerating in the theoretical part, but as my wife says, I have to put it to practice.
  

It is clear that this is just a baby step forward. I agree with my wife: on many issues I have to put the theory to practice. The practical experience will come and it will take years to absorb it. A food forest is not grown overnight, it needs some 5 to 10 years. A new person is not born overnight, I will need years to evolve. Let's do another re-assessment at "TC + 1 year".