spacecase0

one of the things I have run into is how people deal with inputs and output ratios, 
if you look at your farm just like a country and look at the trade deficit issue it all seems to show the answer well,
this seems to work with most areas: calories, money, fertilizer...
so my new goal is to optimize things flowing to my farm and not out of it,
even if I can buy something for a low price, it will likely be better if I can figure out how to grow it or get it out of the ground even if it is more work.

if we look at the Amish, they seem to already be doing this very well,
they make real things from the land that they can replace with no external inputs, then sell some of it, they take no loans, they just collect the money, and expand form there,
so seems to me they collect wealth by having that trade balance in the correct direction,
there are so many forces in place in the modern world to make sure that trade balance goes the other direction, the biggest one if the irs (along with the rest of the banking system), consumerism is one of the other big ones, but I guess rent (or a loan for something you "own") is another big one for most people
one of the main reasons the USA sells very cheep food to the rest of the world is to keep them from establishing a strong agricultural base, and it works very well,
the only way out of this is to ignore the cheep food because you are not making it and never do things like take loans and other things that are not that possible in our world

anyone else think about this trade balance issue ?