Two issues were brought up - "productivity" and "currency".

The funny thing is that the "productivity" cited is being measured
only in currency, and the "currency" cited is doing nothing more
than following the productivity.  But the overall effect is much less
humorous than one might think.

PRODUCTIVITY

> Dr. Shilling used the example that the U.S. farmer is 17 times as
> productive now while over the same time period the U.S. beekeeper
> still has the same honey production average per hive (in some states
> less) as a 100 years ago.

Dr. Shilling did not explain the primary reasons for the "productivity gain".

The majority of the "gain" was solely due to the massive increase of "inputs",
in the form of fossil fuels to run machines, chemical fertilizers and pesticides,
and enough water to drain entire rivers dry.  All these "enhancements" required
a transition to extensive monocultures, which allowed formerly obscure pests
to become significant threats, thus forcing the use of ever-more toxic pesticides,
specialized hybridized crops, transgenic plants, and so on.  So while "productivity"
was higher, the actual produce being produced was changed for the convenience of
the process, and became something completely different.  Why do you think the
term "Frankenfood" has crept into the language?

Beekeepers certainly could also increase "productivity" by increasing inputs.

The most direct route would be simply feeding their hives year-round with beet
sugar, cane sugar, HFCS, or other replacement for nectar that is cheaper than
honey.  While the resulting crop would only be "honey" in the narrowest sense,
check out the spherical objects one finds in the produce section of the supermarket
claimed to be "tomatoes", and compare the taste to nearly any tomato you
care to grow in a pot on your windowsill to find out what sacrifices have been
made by other food producers on the altar of "productivity".

One minor "detail" about monocultures was a body-blow to beekeeping.
The elimination of most all vegetation other than the "desired crop" meant
that countless acres that supported excellent honey harvests years ago
now provide no opportunity for honeybees, and worse, no habitat for natural
predators that traditionally kept pest populations low.  (Of course,
monocultures of this sort also created a demand for truckloads of imported
pollination hives, which should have been a big clue that something very
basic was wrong with the entire approach.)

One impact of increased pesticide use was the appearance of the phrase
"pesticide kill" in the vocabulary of beekeepers.  The most recent variation
on this theme is the current "concerns" being expressed over Imidacloprid.

http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0203a&L=bee-l&D=0&P=7295

While it is strictly true that more food is produced per acre as a result of all
the above, the impact of  these activities, while a subject of ongoing debate,
is clearly not "positive", for beekeeping, or for the environment as a whole.
The only debate is about the amount of negative impact, and how soon the
negative impact will render the land useless for agriculture of any sort.

In some specific cases, the impact of intensive agriculture, using the
most modern techniques, has resulted in clear and compelling short-term
impact that can only be described as disastrous.  A typical example is
Spain's expansion of monoculture olive plantations and extensive use of
greenhouses in Andalusia to grow "truck garden" vegetables, which is
quickly turning the area into a desert.  When I last visited Spain in the
1970s, that exact area was a finalist in my personal list of "Edens".
Now, it looks more like a setting for a Mel Gibson "Mad Max" movie.

http://www.iht.com/articles/53459.html

In short, they are using more water than the aquifer can provide, and
drawing down the water table, which allows seawater to enter the aquifer.
Once the water table is invaded by seawater, one gets high-salinity soil,
which means nothing will grow.  This is a problem that, if unchecked,
may not be "fixable" for several generations, if ever.

Once one understands the techniques used to achieve the "productivity"
statistics, one can see that many of the techniques used are nothing
more than cheap card tricks that may look good on next quarter's
financial report to stockholders, but look very bad from the point of view of
anyone who might want to farm or eat a few decades from now.

The astute beekeeper might ask about the amazing secrets of productivity
used by the counties that export large quantities of honey.  Have they
increased yield per hive?  Have they discovered labor-saving techniques?

It seems that the only "advantage" these countries have is low-cost labor and
a willingness to play fast and loose with the rules of the game to the point of
having entire crops rejected as "contaminated".

http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0203D&L=bee-l&P=R431&D=0&m=38471

CURRENCY

> The US dollar's strength, caused by political factors -- the US is currently
> the world's only superpower...

Currency is the ultimate fungible commodity - trading never stops, and
the foreign exchange markets are the closest to a "perfect market" of
any commodity market.

The US Dollar is not "strong" against nearly all other currencies due to political
factors, it is "strong" because capital flows towards the best overall investments.

http://www.economist.co.uk/agenda/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=1056789

Like it or not, currencies are worth exactly what one can get for them on the
various FOREX exchanges, and not a Ruble more or less.  If anything, the
lack of ability of other countries to address their own internal economic
problems has kept the dollar "strong", despite constant US attempts to
"make the dollar weaker", and hence, make US export goods less "expensive".
The US greenback remains the hardest currency on the planet for reasons that
are valid to every currency trader on the planet, and the only true "superpower"
seems to be the currency trading markets themselves.  Even the US cannot
seem to influence the markets.

Perhaps the term "the world's only superpower" is an appropriate one for the US,
but only in the economic sense, which brings us full circle back to "productivity".

        jim  (who never uses the title "Dr.", in deference to Dr. Seuss)