Category: Capital

Posted on

The Darker Role of Capital – An Occupying Force

Touch the Soil News #883 (Feature photo – The Brazilian Cerrado, a target of foreign investment – CCA SA 3.0 Unported) A few months ago, we did some research on the size and scope of global capital. In this context, capital is money not needed for living, but consolidated for investment. While the numbers are not regularly tabulated (though they should be) we found that the global investment market was valued at around $330 trillion dollars. Of importance is that on the other side of any investment is a debt of some sorts. Either a loan debt, a debt employees owe to stockholders, or a debt that investors believe the…

Read more

Posted on

Duking it Out

Touch the Soil News #703 Grocery stores are the realm of big capital. Unlike the small neighborhood grocers of 50 years ago, billions of dollars of investments have muscled into the backrooms of every grocery chain. Big investors have always warred against each other, but more aggressive incarnations are erupting in the grocery industry. As we speak, Canadian grocery stores continue to take a walloping from U.S. grocery giants that moved in. A recent story by the Canadian Press revealed that between 2004 and 2015, Canadian grocers lost over 11 percent of their market share to the likes of Costco and Wal-Mart. In the United States, American grocery stores are…

Read more

Posted on

Farmland – On the Pulse of Capital

Touch the Soil News #451 The role of capital today is a double-edged sword. Yes, raising capital to launch an enterprise is important. After the enterprise is launched, it is cash flow that is the key. However, capital always seeks to take out more than it puts in. After extensive research, estimates are that in the U.S. there is about $95 trillion of capital seeking to feed off a $19 trillion dollar annual economy. This large volume of capital seeks to limit the largest contributor to a nation’s cash flows – cut wages, jobs and benefits. Payroll slips generate some 70 percent of a nation’s cash flows. So, anyone in business…

Read more