The Riley Factor
Fort Plain, NY
December 31, 2012, Issue No. 126(All the Rock Creek Farm news that's fit to print, along with unfit-to-print rumors, prognostications & bloviations.)
Riley and the Littles -- On this day, New Year's Eve, 2012, we have about a foot and a half of snow lying on the ground, here in Middle-of-Nowhere. Riley loves it, shoveling his long nose into the white and running around like he is plowing a snowfield. He also appears perfectly comfortable lying motionless in a snow bed for 5-10 minutes, as long as he has an audience, ensuring that he has not been abandoned.
Fort Plain, NY
December 31, 2012, Issue No. 126(All the Rock Creek Farm news that's fit to print, along with unfit-to-print rumors, prognostications & bloviations.)
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to All
Riley and the Littles -- On this day, New Year's Eve, 2012, we have about a foot and a half of snow lying on the ground, here in Middle-of-Nowhere. Riley loves it, shoveling his long nose into the white and running around like he is plowing a snowfield. He also appears perfectly comfortable lying motionless in a snow bed for 5-10 minutes, as long as he has an audience, ensuring that he has not been abandoned.
Plowing and Planting -- The only crops growing here now are ice and snow.
And They're Off -- Rio and Blondie love running around the pasture fence line, stopping to roll around on their backs in the snow - entertaining for us and horrifying for the steer and calves who run for their lives as if they are about to be steamrolled.
The Herd of Five -- Eli, Lily, Abraham, Isaac and Abby are as content as, well, cows. With snow on the ground, mooing becomes louder and more frequent since they now rely solely on hay for feed, with pasture grass well hidden under the snow. And when the hay supply gets low, which it does around noon each day, they call-out for more food to be placed on the buffet line.
Mowings, Musings and the Woods -- Early in December, Vernon Peachy spent a week in our woods felling, limbing and bucking 25 or so hardwood trees. We are trying to clear the woods a bit, making it less dense, removing selected trees so others receive more sunlight. Once transported back to the woodshed, these 25 former trees will become 15-20 cords of firewood for use next winter and beyond. We started this process a couple of years ago, and so far it has worked-out fine. Generally, we heat the house with wood, with the combination oil/wood burner in the basement and a wood stove in the kitchen. Depending on temperatures, we use 7-12 cords of fire wood over the course of the winter. Splitting, stacking and moving the wood around is good exercise.
Fowl Weather -- All's fine in the hen house. We have 8 turkeys, 2 roosters and 13 hens with us for the winter. Breeding will begin in the spring.
Visitors -- Stevie & CJ visited for a few days over Christmas, and Ames stopped in for a while just before. Nancy was away, spending a week and change in Western Mass visiting her mother, kids and grandchildren. And before the new year arrived, Nancy returned to Middle-of-Nowhere, bringing Beverly, Miranda and John for a couple of days.
Blog -- The Riley Factor's official blog site is located at http://the-riley-factor.
Quotes of the Month --
The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. -- U.S. Constitution, Second Amendment
You are what your record says you are. -- Bill Parcells
You get what you tolerate. -- Mike Ditka
On January 20, 2013, the U.S. descent into socialism will be officially confirmed. -- Bob Bauman, Freedom Alliance, former U.S. Congressman (DE)
We have a fundamental problem today with American politics. All we do is spend money in exchange for buying votes. -- Stuart Varney
America is now a Socialist country. -- Ron Paul, U.S. Congressman
I'm an analog man in a digital world. -- Joe Walsh
We're a generation of men raised by women. -- Fight Club
Until tonight I had no idea “Les Miserables” referred to the people who just listened to Russell Crowe sing for 2 1/2 hours. -- Andy Levy
Over the past few hundred years, capitalism has vastly improved the quality of our lives. Yet most voters around the world still don't realize it... and are happy to elect politicians who demonize economic liberty and free markets. Many free market advocates openly fret that economic freedom may only be compatible with the kind of prosperity the West has experienced over the last 60 years - and that a stagnant economy (or worse) will invariably lead to less economic freedoms. This is not just the greatest threat to your stock portfolio but to your whole way of life. As Benjamin Franklin warned more than two centuries ago, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Alexander Green, Investment U
Never trust a government that doesn't trust its own citizens with guns. -- Benjamin Franklin
One of the ordinary modes by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance is by disarming the people and making it an offense to keep arms. -- Joseph Story, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1840
Don't let the behaviour of others destroy your inner peace. -- His Holiness, the 14th Dali Lama
President Obama is a small-minded guy when big issues are at hand. The only big idea Obama has ever had is big government.Obama will spend every dollar he gets his hands on. -- Senator Lindsey Graham
Facts of the Month --
Inflation -- Currently, the U.S. government is printing $2 billion of currency per day, each one of those dollars reducing the value of your dollars, of all the dollars in circulation and in savings.
Global Warming -- The planet has warmed 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit in the last hundred years, and zero degrees since 1998.
Food Stamps -- 47,710,324 people were enrolled in the U.S. SNAP Food Stamp Program in September, an increase of 607,559 from the 47,102,765 enrolled in August. The new numbers mean that an estimated one in 6.5 people in America were on food stamps in September. In the 1970s, one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps.
Pets -- 62 percent of all American households have a pet living with them. 46.3 million households own 78.2 million dogs. Cat households of 38.9 million own 86.4 million cats. Freshwater fish, birds, reptiles and horses, along with small animals such as rabbits, hamsters and others, represent another 25.3 million pets.
National Debt -- At $16.4 trillion, the current National Debt equates to over $52,000 for every man, woman and child in America. Each day, the government adds to the debt level with spending that exceeds tax revenue. In addition, debt is added with the current Federal Reserve program that every month buys $45 billion of treasury securities and $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities, purportedly to reduce unemployment and spur the housing market.
China now consumes 53.2% of the world’s cement, 47.7% of its iron ore, 46.9% of its coal and 45.4% of its steel. -- Marc Faber
Gold & Silver --
Here are a few specific gold price predictions and quotations from experts looking ahead to 2013 prices. (1) Raymond Key, head of metals trading at Deutsche Bank, told Bloomberg News last week that he expects gold to surpass $2,000 an ounce next year. (2) ScotiaMocatta, a large bullion bank, issued its annual gold forecast last week, predicting a 2013 range from $1,600 to a new high of $2,200, due to “the broad-based appeal of gold as an alternative currency” and “monetization” of debts. And (3) Michael Mullaney, the chief investment officer of the $9.5 billion Fiduciary Trust in Boston, says, “It’s a good time to garner some protection in portfolios by having some real asset like gold.” Major dealers across the country are reporting increased sales of gold coins. -- Mike Fuljenz, Money
Commentary of the Month --
Of all the threats to American liberty posed by the Obama Administration, the most dangerous is the corruption of the U.S. Department of Justice, where high-level misfeasance, malfeasance and nonfeasance have become the norm. The U.S. Department of Justice is supposed to be a neutral guardian of the rule of law and protector of our national order. It is supposed to uphold the United States Constitution. Instead, under President Barack Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder, it has become the national enforcer of Chicago-style thuggery on the national scene. -- Wayne LaPierre, NRA EVP
Green Energy --
Take a look at a short list of the biggest "green" scam artists in recent memory:
- Electric car battery producer A123 hiked executive pay 36% after canning 125 employees...
- First Solar, one of the world's largest solar companies, slashed 2,000 jobs in April — after increasing executive and CEO pay to $50 million...
- Willard & Kelsey Solar Group lent its executives $500,000 and paid them $1 million — before beginning operations...
- Beacon Power paid executives $260,000 in bonuses as it collapsed...
Incarceration --
The United States imprisons more of its citizens than any other nation on earth, both in total and per capita.
Freedom is ringing in the prison yard...
Since Barack Obama took his first oath of office four years ago, our national debt has gone up 50%. The U.S. dollar has depreciated 5%. And unemployment has risen 12%. All since January 20, 2009. Meanwhile, the U.S. government has lost its triple-A credit rating for the first time in history. Unemployment is stuck at close to double digits. And that's just the official rate. The real unemployment rate, the one economists call "U6," that counts those who have given up looking for work, is 15%. 23 million Americans have no job. Millions more are reduced to working part-time in menial tasks. With such a large slice of the population out of work and broke, 46 million Americans are now living on food stamps. That's 1/7th of our country! We're turning into a welfare state at exactly the time the government is going broke. 49% of American households get government handouts—even more than the 47% Mitt Romney so infamously cited. Never before in history have so many people depended on Uncle Sam for housing, food and health care. Many of these millions are truly needy and deserving. But half the country pays no federal taxes—that's a problem!
Mitt Romney gave it the old college try. But when half the population sees the government as a paycheck, they're never going to elect someone who wants to cut back on the handouts. Like Ben Franklin said, when people find that they can vote themselves money, we're in trouble.
Meanwhile, Obama is running up more debt in one term than all other presidents combined, from George Washington to George W. Bush. The U.S. has now accumulated the biggest debt in world history and it is growing by $45,000 per second.
-- Roger Conrad, Investing Daily
