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Thursday, September 24, 2009

Bell Weather??

How Can I Take This Guy Seriously?

Progressive Dairyman=a farm publication. Agriculture oriented. You would expect the editor to be familiar with ag terminology.

Wouldn't you?

However, in a recent article about us all being afraid to spend money we don't have, the editor makes a reference to a term often used in discussion of economic trends:

"The consumer confidence index is a measure of this trust. It is a
bell-weather market signal and a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Bellwether is an old agricultural term. It refers to a castrated male sheep, which is used to lead a flock of sheep and has a bell on its collar. It is used today to discuss political and economic indicators.

It does not however, refer to a cumulonimbus ringing the wind chimes on the porch.

Picky, I know, but I am becoming very aggravated with any number of ag publications full of advice for farmers during this crisis. It is easy to sit in an office and say do this or do that, but not so easy to fulfull these suggestions when your checkbook has been running on empty for months and every dollar you make costs you two. I mean which one of the two you lost do you spend as that first dollar mentioned in the article? And what kind of weather would ring that bell?

10 comments:

Jan said...

Farmers in our smelt protected Central Valley have been approved for low interest federal loans which they will have to pay back.

No one is sure what they are supposed to *buy* since what they need is water. And the government won't let them have it.

The world is mad.

Linda,IL said...

Amen! I get so sick & tired of these publications' advise. So much of it is geared for the mega dairies that I don't even read them. We quit doing business with a couple of feed companies because their reps advise us to do this or that = more work, more $$. No thanks; got more than enough work & not enough $$.

Tina Marie the Willow Witch said...

Like your new header, ya baby brother will be OK, he turned 30 yesterday and he was diagnosed with shingles...told him he was getting old, but I didnt mean for him to prove it...Just real painful right now, side of his face is all swollen.

R.Powers said...

I like those misty cows too!

~ Sara ~ said...

OK... don't get me started with editors of ag publications. They have ALWAYS and I do mean that (ever since I was a 12 year old so there for ALWAYS) rubbed me the wrong way.

Some of them just either don't know what they are talking about or they just aren't the brightest crayon in the box. Or both... :)

Jeffro said...

They know how to sell magazines. If they knew how to run a farm, they'd be gettin' rich doing that.

June said...

I can't speak to the worth of advice in those publications, but I can tell you: NOBODY knows how to spell or punctuate anymore.
It has driven me to gnashing of teeth for years!

threecollie said...

AkA, it is a small thing but it just rankled. How can these people sit in an office somewhere and tell us...people who are looking at losing our businesses, our livelihoods and our very lifestyles and tell us we should spend more money to get the economy going? And not even with correct grammar!

Jan, we have been following that situation with horror. If the government can do that to a place that puts vegetables on the tables of the whole nation...for a fish...what hope is there for farms like ours?

Linda, it has gotten so bad that I have let the subscriptions to many of the FREE ones expire. They are so out of touch with what is going on out here that you would think they lived inside the Beltway

WW, thanks, lucky shot on a pretty morning before the fog burned off. Glad to hear that your brother is okay. That must have been scary.

FC, thanks, lucky shot

Sara, I had, up until recently, a soft spot in my anti dairy media heart, for Progressive Dairyman. However, I get tired of the publications which are supposed to serve us and provide useful information blaming us for what we do. And they seem to have jumped right on the bandwagon. Dang!

Jeffro, well said! When the big guys are losing sixty or seventy thousand a month it doesn't seem to me to have much meaning to tell them to spend that first dollar.

June, I know I make mistakes too, some from hurry, some from ignorance, but darn it, that was just absurd. It irritated me.

DayPhoto said...

We need to change out EVERYONE in the govenment! EVERYONE. But who are the people we can put in? I'm afraid the 'good' people would never run because they don't want to be part of such crookedness. So the crooks stay in.

Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com

threecollie said...

LInda, we just found the roll call vote so we could see how our NY legislators voted. All Democrats...all voted in favor of fish. I am ashamed of them and sorry for the people in California that they are injuring with this idiocy. I agree. Throw the bums out.