Riders at chutes, County Rodeo 2021
ECONOMY
Natural Resources + Culture = Economy.
There are two cultures, two economies: Rural production and urban consumption.
These two economies don’t understand each other.
Natural resources exist in the ground, in the dirt, on the land.
Rural weath creation comes from the work of producers on the land, outdoors.
https://www.choicesmagazine.org/choices-magazine/theme-articles/rural-wealth-creation/theme-overview-rural-wealth-creation
https://www.choicesmagazine.org/choices-magazine/theme-articles/rural-wealth-creation/federal-forest-policy-and-community-prosperity-in-the-pacific-northwest-
Rural economy is based in rural natural resources.
Picture miners, ranchers, farmers, loggers, fishermen, and market gardeners.
Watershed + Producers = Products.
The production economy is a resource-based economy.
If it isn’t grown, it’s mined. Products come from the ground.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHz0V186NUQ - A short film about Oregon sunstones that gets you out on the land with miners and geologists.
Urban economy receives specific resources — water, minerals, food — from the land. Products of the rural economy are transported to the urban consumption culture. Rural products + urban culture = urban economy.
Government exists within the urban boundary.
Therefore, government doesn’t understand rural culture/economy. [Refer to Toward One Oregon]
Snake River Music Gardens aims to present basic truth about economy and provide a clearinghouse for the true economy.
TheWallowa Resources website gives a blue print of how the natural resources economy should operate to bring prosperity into rural America: https://www.wallowaresources.org/aboutus
When you understand the equation Natural Resources + Culture = Economy,
you can see clearly your place in your culture, and your function in your economy.
MINING and ECONOMY by Kenneth Anderson, Mining Geologist-Engineer
[Editor’s note: Ken Anderson has boiled the essentials of economy down to bumper-sticker simplicity.]
Mining is our most vital industry. No other business or industry can operate without using minerals. You cannot manufacture anything without using minerals directly or indirectly.
ALL jobs depends on minerals.
If 140 small gold mines in Eastern Oregon were allowed to go to work with minimal regulation, they would create about 300 jobs and 2.3 million dollars of new wealth per month.
US Geological Survey estimates every dollar of minerals produced help the overall economy by 28.6 to 1. Thus local miners would improve the economy by $60 million per month.
Our nation is facing economic breakdown. Reasons:
40 years of short-sighted unbalanced laws and regulations
To save our country we must put a moratorium on regulations that stop or delay production of vital resources of life, until our economy recovers.
Regulations have forced us to buy overseas the very things regulations won’t let our country produce.
All new wealth comes from the ground.
Wealth is expanded by processing and manufacturing useful products.
We came into the world absolutely bare; everything we have comes from the ground.
Ranchers, farmers, fishermen, loggers, oilmen and miners are the foundation of all economies.
We must have the freedom to recover the products and resources of the earth.
For more information contact: Ken Anderson, Mining Geologist-Engineer,
Retired, (541) 523-2521
[Ken Anderson, geological engineer consultant, formerly served as president of the Eastern Oregon Mining Association; Ken teaches mining and economy to anyone who will listen.]