Great Depression Online Archive Issue:

A True American Hero

Great Depression Online
Long Beach, CA
September 18, 2009

Inside This Issue You Will Discover…

*** Technically Speaking
*** A World Improver We Can Celebrate in Earnest
*** A True American Hero
*** And More

Getting Technical

“From a technical perspective, the recession is very likely over at this point,” announced Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday while standing before a gathering at the Brookings Institute.

Yet before the room could exhale, he added, “it’s still going to feel like a very weak economy for some time.”

Here at the GDO we shun the ‘technical perspective’ like we shun a bacon-wrapped hot dog from a Los Angles street cart vendor.  We’re suspicious of its integrity and what may happen if we consume it.  From our experience the first bite is much better than the last…before our gut has confirmed what it’s made of.

~~~~~~Don’t Miss the Train~~~~~~

Right now, there is a small window of opportunity you can take advantage of… And if you do, you could be able to secure your family’s financial future forever.  Some people will take advantage of this, but most others won’t.  They’ll simply watch as the train passes them by.

Which will you be?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Technically speaking, numbers, like hot dog meat, can be ground up with yesterday’s floor waste and refabricated into something that seems better than what it is.  In other words, the technical perspective is a fraud.  The empirical is what we’re after around here…practical, observable evidence.

Thus we put more credence in the second part of Bernanke’s statement than the first part. 

Sure GDP may technically be positive in the third quarter, but it’s only because the Fed has monkeyed the federal funds rates down to practically zero, has added another trillion dollars to its balance sheet, and is borrowing nearly $1.8 trillion this year alone.  Seems like a horrible waste of money to us.  Plus, for the man on the street, this positive GDP growth is as reliable as Grade A hot dog meat.

A World Improver We Can Celebrate in Earnest

Still we won’t dwell on the economy today.  Food is what’s on our mind…and the words of 18th Century malcontent and pamphleteer Jonathan Swift…

“Whoever makes two ears of corn or two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before, deserves better of mankind, and does more essential services to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.”

Last Saturday Norman Borlaug died. 

Most likely you’ve never heard of him.  We never had until we came across an article in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, titled The Man Who Defused the ‘Population Bomb’.

Here’s a world improver we at the GDO can standup behind and celebrate in earnest.  Unlike the whole race of politicians put together, he really did make the world a better place.  Not only did he grow two ears of corn where only one grew before; he grew over six.  What’s more he did it over and over again, the world over, for over 50-years.

Here’s what we mean…

A True American Hero

“Norman Borlaug—arguably the greatest American of the 20th century—died late Saturday after 95 richly accomplished years.  The very personification of human goodness, Borlaug saved more lives than anyone who has ever lived.

“Born in 1914 in rural Cresco, Iowa, where he was educated in a one-room schoolhouse, Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work ending the India-Pakistan food shortage of the mid-1960s.  He spent most of his life in impoverished nations, patiently teaching poor farmers in India, Mexico, South America, Africa and elsewhere the Green Revolution agricultural techniques that have prevented the global famines widely predicted when the world population began to skyrocket following World War II.

“In 1999, the Atlantic Monthly estimated that Borlaug's efforts—combined with those of the many developing-world agriculture-extension agents he trained and the crop-research facilities he founded in poor nations—saved the lives of one billion human beings.

“From the Civil War through the Dust Bowl, the typical American farm produced about 24 bushels of corn per acre; by 2006, the figure was about 155 bushels per acre.”

By our quick back of the napkin calculation, that comes out to over six ears of corn where only one grew before.

“Often it is said America lacks heroes who can provide constructive examples to the young.  Here was such a hero.”

R.I.P.

Sincerely,

M.N. Gordon
Great Depression Online

P.S.  Over 500 years ago, Marco Polo made his fortune just like this.  Recently Joe Kennedy used this business to make his fortune as well.  It’s one of the world’s oldest professions (no, not that one).  Now, before you start worrying that it’s too complicated, that you don’t know anything about it, or that you need to have a lot of money to get started, let me tell you, you’re wrong on all counts.  What’s more, it’s easy.

Learn more here.

 

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