Good Article on Bailout

[raderag]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/29/miron.bailout/index.html?iref=mpstoryview


CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (CNN) -- Congress has balked at the Bush administration's proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. Under this plan, the Treasury would have bought the "troubled assets" of financial institutions in an attempt to avoid economic meltdown.
This bailout was a terrible idea. Here's why.
The current mess would never have occurred in the absence of ill-conceived federal policies. The federal government chartered Fannie Mae in 1938 and Freddie Mac in 1970; these two mortgage lending institutions are at the center of the crisis. The government implicitly promised these institutions that it would make good on their debts, so Fannie and Freddie took on huge amounts of excessive risk.
Worse, beginning in 1977 and even more in the 1990s and the early part of this century, Congress pushed mortgage lenders and Fannie/Freddie to expand subprime lending. The industry was happy to oblige, given the implicit promise of federal backing, and subprime lending soared.
This subprime lending was more than a minor relaxation of existing credit guidelines. This lending was a wholesale abandonment of reasonable lending practices in which borrowers with poor credit characteristics got mortgages they were ill-equipped to handle.
Once housing prices declined and economic conditions worsened, defaults and delinquencies soared, leaving the industry holding large amounts of severely depreciated mortgage assets.


The fact that government bears such a huge responsibility for the current mess means any response should eliminate the conditions that created this situation in the first place, not attempt to fix bad government with more government.
The obvious alternative to a bailout is letting troubled financial institutions declare bankruptcy. Bankruptcy means that shareholders typically get wiped out and the creditors own the company.
Bankruptcy does not mean the company disappears; it is just owned by someone new (as has occurred with several airlines). Bankruptcy punishes those who took excessive risks while preserving those aspects of a businesses that remain profitable.
In contrast, a bailout transfers enormous wealth from taxpayers to those who knowingly engaged in risky subprime lending. Thus, the bailout encourages companies to take large, imprudent risks and count on getting bailed out by government. This "moral hazard" generates enormous distortions in an economy's allocation of its financial resources.
Thoughtful advocates of the bailout might concede this perspective, but they argue that a bailout is necessary to prevent economic collapse. According to this view, lenders are not making loans, even for worthy projects, because they cannot get capital. This view has a grain of truth; if the bailout does not occur, more bankruptcies are possible and credit conditions may worsen for a time.
Talk of Armageddon, however, is ridiculous scare-mongering. If financial institutions cannot make productive loans, a profit opportunity exists for someone else. This might not happen instantly, but it will happen.
Further, the current credit freeze is likely due to Wall Street's hope of a bailout; bankers will not sell their lousy assets for 20 cents on the dollar if the government might pay 30, 50, or 80 cents.
The costs of the bailout, moreover, are almost certainly being understated. The administration's claim is that many mortgage assets are merely illiquid, not truly worthless, implying taxpayers will recoup much of their $700 billion.
If these assets are worth something, however, private parties should want to buy them, and they would do so if the owners would accept fair market value. Far more likely is that current owners have brushed under the rug how little their assets are worth.
The bailout has more problems. The final legislation will probably include numerous side conditions and special dealings that reward Washington lobbyists and their clients.
Anticipation of the bailout will engender strategic behavior by Wall Street institutions as they shuffle their assets and position their balance sheets to maximize their take. The bailout will open the door to further federal meddling in financial markets.
So what should the government do? Eliminate those policies that generated the current mess. This means, at a general level, abandoning the goal of home ownership independent of ability to pay. This means, in particular, getting rid of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with policies like the Community Reinvestment Act that pressure banks into subprime lending.
The right view of the financial mess is that an enormous fraction of subprime lending should never have occurred in the first place. Someone has to pay for that. That someone should not be, and does not need to be, the U.S. taxpayer.

[tking]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/29/miron.bailout/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

They pretty much hit the nail on the head. Good article. The tragedy is that in the meantime, while they figure a way out without making the ones pay who should (and those never will, I assure you), thousands of people will be out of a job, already are I'm sure. The small business owner will go down the tubes (all it takes is 24-48 hours of bottomed out stock to effect credit lines for months and years), and the fat cats will still be fat, while the hard-working family will find themselves without a way to pay bills. The only thing I would beg to differ with them about in the article is that it's not as serious as they're making it. If anything, it's more serious. What people don't realize is that it isn't the white-collar jobs that keep this country's economy going. It's the blue-collar worker, and THEY are the ones who will suffer the most. As one legislator put it: A plumber gets a big job, and he has to order parts. That requires a line of credit for a certain amount of time. Right now, he won't be able to get it, and he'll lose the job.

It's more or less the same with us and wheat and cattle. The market determines whether we live or die in those industries. Right now we're on life support. The only ones who will be able to make it out, if this continues very long, will be the ones who have oil and gas money as their operating money. If they should call our loans, we'll be sunk. We don't have oil and gas money. I doubt they will because the economy overall in Oklahoma is good. But...one never knows. If the bank board members and the FSA board members get nervous, we'll need to come up with a few hundred thousand dollars to pay the loans.

So, while I am against the government doing this bail out, I realize that every hour that ticks by without something in place is bringing us closer to very real economic disasters. It's a no-win situation, and the sad part is that the American people are as much to blame as anything. America has bought into the message that just because it's out there, we deserve to have it whether we can pay for it or not. (Did a study once on advertising and the subliminal messages contained in them...it's fascinating and true!)

But..one thing we always know is that God will take care of us. He always does, and in that we have great confidence.

[JBaker45]

It's more or less the same with us and wheat and cattle. The market determines whether we live or die in those industries. Right now we're on life support. The only ones who will be able to make it out, if this continues very long, will be the ones who have oil and gas money as their operating money. If they should call our loans, we'll be sunk. We don't have oil and gas money. I doubt they will because the economy overall in Oklahoma is good. But...one never knows. If the bank board members and the FSA board members get nervous, we'll need to come up with a few hundred thousand dollars to pay the loans.
Terri,

Are you and John feeling any effects from this yet? And do you expect to?


Thanks,
John

[tking]

Terri,

Are you and John feeling any effects from this yet? And do you expect to?


Thanks,
John

Well..yes and no. What we've been feeling the most over the last year is that fuel has doubled, fertilizer has doubled, feed has more than doubled, and herbicides have doubled. Of course, the price of tractor tires and any parts for repair have fluctuated some, too, but not quite as badly. In the winter of last year, wheat skyrocketed. People like us can never hang on to our wheat very long, so we got in on some of it going up, but not the maximum amount. Where it's at now is below what it was at harvest by over $1/bushel. (Just to give you an idea...wheat around here is normally between $3.50 and $4.00/per bushel. It shot up to over $12/bushel in December--unbelievable! We got in on some of the $7.00/bushel stuff when it was on its way up. Thankfully so or we wouldn't have been able to pay feed bills and such since their price had already doubled by that time. At harvest this year it was around $7/bushel, went up to $8 for about 2 hours one day, then began to steadily go down. It dropped $.40/bushel day before yesterday and went back up $.02 today. There's a cap on how much it can go down or it probably would've dropped a lot more. I just checked the market, and it's at $6.17/bushel as of now.) We've still got some in storage that we've been holding on to, waiting for the upswing again. Only thing is that now it is plummeting instead of going on the upswing like it normally does. The cattle market went down a little early on in the year, but so far, it hasn't dropped like wheat. Where the problem comes in is that all of the expenses for putting in the crop will have to be paid for, and if the wheat continues to drop, we'll be in the hole with nowhere to borrow money or rather, we will have to weigh the options of borrowing and holding our breath that the market will come back up by harvest next year, or opt out of some of the things we need to do to insure a decent crop. We'll have to start feeding the cattle in about a month, and if we can't, we'll be in the same boat as some were last year...sell the cattle for less than good market value. They also didn't pass the Farm Bill until just recently, so we haven't gotten any of the "safety net" money we usually do. It's kind of complicated...lol. You have to be thinking a year in advance nearly. If the market continues to be unstable, it'll end up effecting everyone because of the ripple effect like we've seen with fuel.

Sorry so longwinded, but like I say, it's a tad complicated. Basically what the market does on paper determines our income off farming. That's why John has a job besides farming, and I take care of our cattle plus another fella's cattle for supplemental income. We can't depend on the farming to pay our debts (which we're trying to bail out of since '03) AND provide a living. The only small farmers like us (we only have about 750 acres) that don't have that problem are the ones with gas or oil lease money coming in. The corporate farms can stand to suffer for a while before they start to lose ground. Plus, they are the ones that get most of the Farm Bill money allotted to actual farms (farmers only get about 30-35% of the farm bill money to begin with and out of that the corporate farms get the majority of it), so they'll have a bit more cushion when the gov. finally doles it out this year.

Ha! You'll think twice before asking next time won't ya :-P.

[raderag]

Well..yes and no. What we've been feeling the most over the last year is that fuel has doubled, fertilizer has doubled, feed has more than doubled, and herbicides have doubled. Of course, the price of tractor tires and any parts for repair have fluctuated some, too, but not quite as badly. In the winter of last year, wheat skyrocketed. People like us can never hang on to our wheat very long, so we got in on some of it going up, but not the maximum amount. Where it's at now is below what it was at harvest by over $1/bushel. (Just to give you an idea...wheat around here is normally between $3.50 and $4.00/per bushel. It shot up to over $12/bushel in December--unbelievable! We got in on some of the $7.00/bushel stuff when it was on its way up. Thankfully so or we wouldn't have been able to pay feed bills and such since their price had already doubled by that time. At harvest this year it was around $7/bushel, went up to $8 for about 2 hours one day, then began to steadily go down. It dropped $.40/bushel day before yesterday and went back up $.02 today. There's a cap on how much it can go down or it probably would've dropped a lot more. I just checked the market, and it's at $6.17/bushel as of now.) We've still got some in storage that we've been holding on to, waiting for the upswing again. Only thing is that now it is plummeting instead of going on the upswing like it normally does. The cattle market went down a little early on in the year, but so far, it hasn't dropped like wheat. Where the problem comes in is that all of the expenses for putting in the crop will have to be paid for, and if the wheat continues to drop, we'll be in the hole with nowhere to borrow money or rather, we will have to weigh the options of borrowing and holding our breath that the market will come back up by harvest next year, or opt out of some of the things we need to do to insure a decent crop. We'll have to start feeding the cattle in about a month, and if we can't, we'll be in the same boat as some were last year...sell the cattle for less than good market value. They also didn't pass the Farm Bill until just recently, so we haven't gotten any of the "safety net" money we usually do. It's kind of complicated...lol. You have to be thinking a year in advance nearly. If the market continues to be unstable, it'll end up effecting everyone because of the ripple effect like we've seen with fuel.

Sorry so longwinded, but like I say, it's a tad complicated. Basically what the market does on paper determines our income off farming. That's why John has a job besides farming, and I take care of our cattle plus another fella's cattle for supplemental income. We can't depend on the farming to pay our debts (which we're trying to bail out of since '03) AND provide a living. The only small farmers like us (we only have about 750 acres) that don't have that problem are the ones with gas or oil lease money coming in. The corporate farms can stand to suffer for a while before they start to lose ground. Plus, they are the ones that get most of the Farm Bill money allotted to actual farms (farmers only get about 30-35% of the farm bill money to begin with and out of that the corporate farms get the majority of it), so they'll have a bit more cushion when the gov. finally doles it out this year.

Ha! You'll think twice before asking next time won't ya :-P.

That was interesting!

[tking]

That was interesting!

lol...well good! It's frustrating and fascinating being farmers, but it's also one the best jobs I've ever had. You find out all kinds of things about the government and the stock market :-P. Kinda weird, but true.

[JBaker45]

Ha! You'll think twice before asking next time won't ya :-P.
Hahaha.. But I am surprised and somewhat amazed at the volatility in the feed area. That must be quite a rollercoaster ride.

Are you able to follow the market trend here by adjusting the price of your beef? I suppose you have to compete with what everyone else is doing.

[tking]

Hahaha.. But I am surprised and somewhat amazed at the volatility in the feed area. That must be quite a rollercoaster ride.

Are you able to follow the market trend here by adjusting the price of your beef? I suppose you have to compete with what everyone else is doing.

Farmers are often called the biggest gamblers on the planet...LOL! Everything about it is a rollercoaster ride cause we don't control nature or have any say so really in what our product brings in money wise. Sometimes it's just a crap shoot...lol.

We don't get to price our beef. We take the calves to sale at approximately the same time every year. We watch the market and try to gauge when would be the best time within that particular time frame to sell. The last two or three years we've been fortunate to have pretty good beef prices. On the average now we get anywhere from $1.10/hundredweight to the upper limit of $1.35/hundredweight on 500-600 pound calves. A few years ago, both those figures were under $1.00. The more they weigh, the less per pound, naturally. The rise in feed prices kinda messed that up, though. The rise in fuel forced us to start hiring someone to haul them to sale since it would take us 3 or 4 trips with our stock trailer vs. their one trip, and their one trip is cheaper than the fuel for us to do it. Who'd have ever thought it would be cheaper to hire a semi to haul calves than to haul them yourself?! Strangeness...lol.

Incidentally, here's just a fun little FYI...there's approximately $.10 worth of wheat in a 1-lb. loaf of bread ;-).

[tking]

Here's another good one: LINK (http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080930/us_time/thebailoutdefeatapoliticalcredibilitycrisis)

The Bailout Defeat: A Political Credibility Crisis



By MICHAEL SCHERER / WASHINGTON
Tue Sep 30, 6:55 PM ET



There was a lack of trust, a loss of confidence, a popular revolt.

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Nearly every major political leader in the U.S. supported the $700 billion financial-bailout bill. The President. The Vice President. The Treasury Secretary. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Democratic and Republican nominees for President. The Democratic and Republican leadership of the House and Senate. All of them said the same thing: vote yes.


But a majority of those politicians anointed by the Constitution to reflect the will of the people voted no. This is a remarkable event, the culmination of a historic sense of betrayal that Americans have long felt for their representatives in Washington. The nation's credit crisis on Monday exposed a much deeper and more fundamental problem: a crisis of political credibility that now threatens to harm our nation further, should the markets freeze up and more companies begin to fail, as many experts predict.


The problem has been growing for years. Roughly 28% of Americans approve of President Bush. Roughly 18% of Americans approve of Congress. Now those low numbers and majority of bad feelings have manifested themselves in the starkest of terms.


Asked to take a leap of faith regarding a dizzyingly complex problem, a critical mass of voters refused to trust their leaders, turning down the medicine that was offered. And so the politicians who are most exposed to popular whims have run for cover. With an election on the horizon, 95 House Democrats and 133 House Republicans opposed the bill. Some portion voted no for clearly ideological reasons. But many more were simply doing what politicians do - responding to the will of the people.


An analysis by statistician Nate Silver, who runs FiveThirtyEight.com, made this clear. Of the 38 incumbent members of Congress from both parties who are considered vulnerable in the coming election, 30 voted against the bill (eight supported it). By contrast, members of Congress from relatively safe districts were evenly divided - 197 for it to 198 against it.


"What this showed more than anything else was that not even members of Congress can ignore a switchboard system of Capitol Hill that is so totally jammed," said Peter Sepp, a conservative opponent of the bill with the National Taxpayers Alliance.


If the experts are right, the nation now risks great financial hardship, because there was no one to stand up and explain the situation. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 778 points on the news. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson warned Monday afternoon that car loans and student loans were likely to tighten. Other economists have warned of the possibility of widespread corporate failures and unemployment, if the short-term credit markets freeze up. Bank failures, or mergers, are likely to continue. The taxpayer costs of federal insurance on deposits could increase.


In a worst-case scenario, economic historians may find that all of Paulson's predictions come true, leaving the cost to the Federal Government far greater than the risky $700 billion investment in the private sector. If this comes to pass, the historians will find many people to blame: Paulson and President Bush for failing to explain the plan better. The House leadership for failing to whip enough votes. Even the presidential candidates for failing to use their bully pulpit to force the issue.


But those historians should not forget that roots of the failure predate the vote on Monday, and even the mistakes of Wall Street. Years ago, the trust between the people and their politicians was broken. Credibility was lost. The reserve of goodwill went bankrupt. And when they needed it most, our nation's leaders found that they had squandered their ability to exert influence over the people who chose them to lead.

[tking]

...as of right now is down to $5.77/bushel. That's another $.40/bushel since I posted. This was my point. No matter what they do, our country is in for some very hard times now because they didn't take care of business when they should have. The whole world sees us as vulnerable and some, I'm sure, see us as ripe for the picking.

[JBaker45]

...as of right now is down to $5.77/bushel. That's another $.40/bushel since I posted. This was my point. No matter what they do, our country is in for some very hard times now because they didn't take care of business when they should have. The whole world sees us as vulnerable and some, I'm sure, see us as ripe for the picking.
Wow.. Terri, when the price of wheat in a loaf of bread reaches a day's wage, then you and I will know that we are have reached the point in time depicted in Revelation 6:6 - Yikes

[tking]

Wow.. Terri, when the price of wheat in a loaf of bread reaches a day's wage, then you and I will know that we are have reached the point in time depicted in Revelation 6:6 - Yikes

It actually fell another .03 yesterday. At closing, our wheat was worth $5.74/bushel. A couple years ago we'd have thought this was a windfall, but in light of where it went late last year and throughout this summer and the cost of things (which, of course haven't gone down and won't), it's a black cloud over the wheat market. I'm just hopeful and prayerful it'll rebound some before the year is out. Bear in mind what I said about it reaching over $12/bushel this past fall and winter...someone made a killin...and you can bet a lot of them are heavily involved with Wall Street; not many farmers actually had that wheat to sell, it was on paper at the hands of those involved in commodities *shudder*. The manipulation of the market is just mind boggling.

[Tallen]

and you can bet a lot of them are heavily involved with Wall Street; not many farmers actually had that wheat to sell, it was on paper at the hands of those involved in commodities *shudder*. The manipulation of the market is just mind boggling.

Is there anyway to keep the wheat in storage until the markets rebound?

I am thinking about Joseph.

And the seven years of dearth began to come, according as Joseph had said: and the dearth was in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread: and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph; what he saith to you, do. And the famine was over all the face of the earth: And Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt. And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands. (Genesis 41:54-57 KJV)

[tking]

Is there anyway to keep the wheat in storage until the markets rebound?

I am thinking about Joseph.

And the seven years of dearth began to come, according as Joseph had said: and the dearth was in all lands; but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. And when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried to Pharaoh for bread: and Pharaoh said unto all the Egyptians, Go unto Joseph; what he saith to you, do. And the famine was over all the face of the earth: And Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt. And all countries came into Egypt to Joseph for to buy corn; because that the famine was so sore in all lands. (Genesis 41:54-57 KJV)

We do have some in storage (although it's stored somewhere else, that's complicated, too...lol), and we'll hold on to it as long as we can this year. We can't afford to hold on to it and sell it next year, though, because we'll have double-crop income, which means that the government will end up with it pretty much because it'll cost so much in taxes to have the double income. Most farmers like us have to sell a certain amount at harvest in order to pay the combiners, the fuel bills, and all the other bills accumulated up to that point, as well as having enough cash to get everything ready to replant. If we could afford to just hang on to it and not sell it for years, that'd be great, but no matter when we sell it, the taxes will gut us. Plus, you have to pay storage fees, and after so many months, they begin to eat into the price as well.

Yeah..I think of Joseph often in our profession.

[Tallen]

We do have some in storage (although it's stored somewhere else, that's complicated, too...lol), and we'll hold on to it as long as we can this year. We can't afford to hold on to it and sell it next year, though, because we'll have double-crop income, which means that the government will end up with it pretty much because it'll cost so much in taxes to have the double income. Most farmers like us have to sell a certain amount at harvest in order to pay the combiners, the fuel bills, and all the other bills accumulated up to that point, as well as having enough cash to get everything ready to replant. If we could afford to just hang on to it and not sell it for years, that'd be great, but no matter when we sell it, the taxes will gut us. Plus, you have to pay storage fees, and after so many months, they begin to eat into the price as well.

Yeah..I think of Joseph often in our profession.

We need to get the government out of private farming, and only allow them to store for times of famine. :bigthink:

[tking]

We need to get the government out of private farming, and only allow them to store for times of famine. :bigthink:

Oh we'd love to get the government out of farming...lol...but that's never going to happen. American wheat is used for export as well as domestic, so it's stored at huge shipping facilities. From there it goes to whatever country or industry that it's sold to. The bad part is that I suspect if we ever were to have a famine, not only would we not have any wheat stored for this country, no other country would be willing to sell to us except at tremendously high over-market value.

We don't have a huge silo to store much in, but we do store enough in our own bins to replant, so we could last a little while. Good thing about cattle is that we can have plenty of meat and sneak some milk, too, if we should really need it. And we'd have water..got a couple wells that the cattle use. If that ever happens, we'll just invite all of you all to come participate in a community garden!! :sparkle:

[Tallen]

Oh we'd love to get the government out of farming...lol...but that's never going to happen. American wheat is used for export as well as domestic, so it's stored at huge shipping facilities. From there it goes to whatever country or industry that it's sold to. The bad part is that I suspect if we ever were to have a famine, not only would we not have any wheat stored for this country, no other country would be willing to sell to us except at tremendously high over-market value.

We don't have a huge silo to store much in, but we do store enough in our own bins to replant, so we could last a little while. Good thing about cattle is that we can have plenty of meat and sneak some milk, too, if we should really need it. And we'd have water..got a couple wells that the cattle use. If that ever happens, we'll just invite all of you all to come participate in a community garden!! :sparkle:

Sounds good.

BTW Terri, how long can you store wheat?

[tking]

Sounds good.

BTW Terri, how long can you store wheat?

Do you mean store it personally or store it as in we've delivered it to the Co-op but haven't sold it yet (in other words it's in one of those huge facilities I was talking about)?

Personally, we can store it as long as we can keep the bugs and rodents out. For what we replant, we have to use pesticides to control that, so it isn't good for consumption. If we were to ever store it for personal use as in making bread or something, we'd have to come up with some type of storage facility that would keep those things out. Ideally, we'd do it like in old times...keep enough for personal use to get us through a couple or three years in case we had a failure, and replant every year for harvest to replenish.

Storing it at the huge facilities...indefinitely. But, like I say, eventually the cost of storage would eat up your crop income. That would take years and years, though...well...depending on how much you have stored.

[Tallen]

Do you mean store it personally or store it as in we've delivered it to the Co-op but haven't sold it yet (in other words it's in one of those huge facilities I was talking about)?

Personally, we can store it as long as we can keep the bugs and rodents out. For what we replant, we have to use pesticides to control that, so it isn't good for consumption. If we were to ever store it for personal use as in making bread or something, we'd have to come up with some type of storage facility that would keep those things out. Ideally, we'd do it like in old times...keep enough for personal use to get us through a couple or three years in case we had a failure, and replant every year for harvest to replenish.

Storing it at the huge facilities...indefinitely. But, like I say, eventually the cost of storage would eat up your crop income. That would take years and years, though...well...depending on how much you have stored.

Well that pretty much covers what I was thinking. In particular I was thinking of rodents eating up the grain. I would think that is a huge problem for farmers.

I have read that Joseph's problem was keeping rodents from eating Egypt's store. What they think is that they created underground storage in the desert where it was kept dry. Some think they made stone wall pits, and then capped them with a stone lid. I think I read some where that they have found evidence of these storage tanks, but don't quote me on that.

[tking]

Well that pretty much covers what I was thinking. In particular I was thinking of rodents eating up the grain. I would think that is a huge problem for farmers.

I have read that Joseph's problem was keeping rodents from eating Egypt's store. What they think is that they created underground storage in the desert where it was kept dry. Some think they made stone wall pits, and then capped them with a stone lid. I think I read some where that they have found evidence of these storage tanks, but don't quote me on that.

To tell you the truth, I'm not quite sure what they could do to eliminate the rodent destruction...at least not completely. Our storage bins have cement floors, and those little field mice will tunnel underneath the floor and keep digging at it til the concrete gives way and they come up through the hole that makes. Before we started storing what we needed in grain carts, I'd have to go out every year and clean out the mouse holes in the floor and daub some quikcrete in there...lol. It was amazing to me to see how determined those little fellas are.

If Joseph did do the stone wall and cap thing, that would be as effective as our metal and cement ones. He'd still have a few get in, but it wouldn't be nearly as bad as it could be. And just another little FYI, there are x number of rodent droppings allowed in wheat that is used to make our breads and such...as well as bits of fur and small rocks. Now...go buy a big ole loaf...lol :devil:

[Tallen]

If Joseph did do the stone wall and cap thing, that would be as effective as our metal and cement ones. He'd still have a few get in, but it wouldn't be nearly as bad as it could be.

If I remember right, it's been awhile, I think he buried the bins about 20 feet down in the sand so that the rodents wouldn't get to them. Or maybe it was 12 feet. :bigthink:


And just another little FYI, there are x number of rodent droppings allowed in wheat that is used to make our breads and such...as well as bits of fur and small rocks. Now...go buy a big ole loaf...lol :devil:

If we knew what we ate we would probably stop eating. Especially what comes out of fast food places. http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/23/23_4_149.gif (http://www.smileycentral.com/?partner=ZSzeb001_ZSYYYYYYYYUS)






http://www.smileycentral.com/sig.jsp?pc=ZSzeb113&pp=ZSYYYYYYYYUS (http://smiley.smileycentral.com/download/index.jhtml?partner=ZSzeb113_ZSYYYYYYYYUS&utm_id=7921)

[JBaker45]

To tell you the truth, I'm not quite sure what they could do to eliminate the rodent destruction...
That's right..

I've seen movies of gain silos being opened and hundreds, maybe thousands, of rats poring out - and no wheat.

(Kind of like the Tribble thing.)

[tking]

That's right..

I've seen movies of gain silos being opened and hundreds, maybe thousands, of rats poring out - and no wheat.

(Kind of like the Tribble thing.)

Yep, I can see that happening pretty easily. That's one reason farmers used to try to encourage snakes and cats to stay around the barns. They'd eat the mice and bugs. Usually every time we'd open up the door to the bin, we'd have a snake of some kind coiled up in the metal braces of the door...lol.

[tking]

And now it's down to $5.49. Argh!

[Tallen]

And now it's down to $5.49. Argh!

And they raised the price of a loaf of bread at the store. :bigthink:

[tking]

Yep, and it fell to $5.33 by close today.

[Tallen]

Yep, and it fell to $5.33 by close today.

Amazing.

[raderag]

Yep, and it fell to $5.33 by close today.

Wait, you can grow wheat in Oklahoma? I thought it was too warm there?

[raderag]

Amazing.

BTW, what are pork bellies?

[tking]

Wait, you can grow wheat in Oklahoma? I thought it was too warm there?

Yeah, wheat is the main crop here. We grow hard red winter wheat, which means it's planted in the fall (like right now) and harvested in the summer. Texas grows wheat, too. Our harvesters start out in TX and work their way up, all the way to Canada actually.

Linky (http://www.okfarmbureau.org/commodity/commodity_wheat.asp)

Wheat is grown in all 77 counties in Oklahoma. Hard Red Winter Wheat, the primary class of wheat, is produced on over six million acres across the state.

[raderag]

Yeah, wheat is the main crop here. We grow hard red winter wheat, which means it's planted in the fall (like right now) and harvested in the summer. Texas grows wheat, too. Our harvesters start out in TX and work their way up, all the way to Canada actually.

Linky (http://www.okfarmbureau.org/commodity/commodity_wheat.asp)

Wheat is grown in all 77 counties in Oklahoma. Hard Red Winter Wheat, the primary class of wheat, is produced on over six million acres across the state.

Is Ok in a drought? Central TX is horrible.

[tking]

BTW, what are pork bellies?

It's the under side of the pig, where our bacon comes from. Other bacons are made from other parts...like Canadian bacon comes from the back.

Bacons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacon)

[tking]

Is Ok in a drought? Central TX is horrible.

We're not in our part of the state (SW corner), however, the panhandle is in the worst drought since the dust bowl era in the 1930s. We've had unseasonably mild summers for the last 2 or 3 years in our area. This was a record year for some parts of our state for rain..mostly the northeastern part.

BTW, we also pasture some of our wheat, which means we run calves on it from about November or December until we sell the calves in the last of February, early March. Then that wheat is still harvested, although the yield is less than the fields where we don't pasture it out. Usually it goes something like this....wean and separate the calves from the cows (we run a cow/calf operation vs. a feeder calf operation meaning we keep the same cows and sell the calves from them each year instead of hauling in a truck load of small calves to fatten up) in late Oct., early Nov. At that time we put them in about a 15 acre confined area of blue stem, then the last of November, early December, (whenever the wheat gets big enough to withstand grazing) we turn them out on the wheat. Then we pull them off and sell them in late February, generally. That's where watching the market comes in. We might wait a couple or three weeks to sell them so we can get the best price...gotta watch the trends that time of year to see what the market appears to be doing locally as well as the national trend. We can't hold them too long, though, or the wheat won't be harvestable (is that even a word?).