It rained the whole of yesterday. I walked out a bit at 10 AM to see if I could see a few things, but the wind here is strong and drives the temperature, from around 8-10 degrees to zero. It’s too humid to freeze or snow, though. Small mercies.
The first week I was down here – the last week of June – the weather was chilly and damp – the kind of damp that makes your knees and knuckles ache.
At first, I shrugged it off. Nothing’s perfect, I told myself.
Then a particularly cold blast from the ocean sent me scuttling to the provinces in search of warmer weather. But after a couple of days, I realized that with only English, a small town can pose problems, and I came back, sheepishly.
You can’t have beautiful old colonial houses, pristine air and water, safe streets… and complain because the weather is a bit chilly for a few months in the year. What kind of a pioneering attitude is that, I told myself.
Then again, I don’t fool myself I’m pioneer material. At heart, I’m a traditionalist. Even a bit of stick-in-the-mud. It’s an accident that I end up in the vanguard of things.
And the reason for that…the problem.. is rationality. I tend to argue things to their logical conclusions and then follow those conclusions – even when they don’t necessarily come easily. I call this a problem, because I’m not convinced that rationality is the best way to arrive at decisions. Instinct – gut – is better in most cases. And in some, just doing what the other fellow’s doing seems to work just fine. But I’ve always had a tendency to fall for beautiful symmetries – even when they’re misleading. Especially when they’re misleading.
And the beautiful, symmetrical argument is that the safest bet for most people is land.
They aren’t making cheap farmland in the US. There was still some in places like Alabama and Mississippi and Tennessee, until recently. But now it’s all been bought up. And what’s left is probably the dregs, as far as fertility goes.
Holing up in the Ozarks with a cache of ammunition probably works for some Americans. But somehow, I think a foreign born citizen taking to moonshine country might not work. It would be a shame to survive the Feds – and then succumb to the locals.
No offense meant.
In times of difficulty, people tend to stick to race and faith. I think it’s to be expected. I’ve begun to grow suspicious of everything foreign too – although personally, I’m nothing but a patchwork of foreign and borrowed.
It also sits much better with many people – morally – to hold a piece of dirt than to cling to ingots ….or scraps…of precious metal. Maybe childhood stories about golden calves…about Midas turning his little girl into gold…bother us at a certain level.
And gold mining is one of the worst businesses when it comes to water usage and damage to the environment.
Even if no one wants your piece of dirt…even if it crumbles with every other asset class into nothingness…..you can always scrape in the dust for turnips and roots. There’s something reassuring about that. Something solid.
You can’t eat wind – which is what we have an oversupply of now.
So – it’s land for many people.
And that’s what I’m seeing. Americans and Canadians are moving down here in something stronger than a trickle. Some of them, on a temporary basis. But the temporary seems to change into longer term for many.
My interest is both personal and professional. I came down to see for myself how the economic crisis is playing out in this part of the globe. And why Soros…among many other investors…is down here….
I’m on an assignment, it goes without saying. But one I’ve set myself.
I hope to leverage the information. How, I don’t know..