Too much serious talk lately. Let’s lighten things up by talking about food. I’ve been eating good lately. Maybe a little too good. I don’t want to step on that scale until I fast and exercise some! I cooked some chicken breasts on the grill the other day. Also grilled some poblanos, tomatillos and onion to make a green sauce. Fill ed up some corn tortillas, topped it with Cotija cheese, fresh chopped cilantro and it was great. Had lobster tail for dinner on our 33rd wedding anniversary. Traditional meal with baked potato, asparagus and melted butter. Had a Wedge Salad before that. Wedge of iceberg lettuce, bacon, blue cheese dressing, tomato and a little red onion. Very tasty. Took the leftover lobster and chopped it up and mixed it with my version of elote. I grilled some corn on the cob. Cut off the kernels. Mixed it with some lime juice, mayo, cilantro pesto, and Cotija cheese. Added a little celery and some chopped up grilled veggies from the other nigh. Stuffed it all in a corn tortilla and loved it! I had a hankering for turtles (the candy not the soup) the other night. Made some caramel sauce, chilled it, put it over chopped walnuts, topped that with chocolate ganache, chilled it and they were delicious! But the caramel ran if I didn’t keep them chilled. So, a couple nights later, I made ice cream added the chopped up turtles to it and man, was that great! It was great. Went over to a neighbors house for dinner. He made pork tenderloin three ways, had sweet potatoes with pistachios, a very al dente green been salad, and a Jezebel sauce. Somebody else brought Chicken Liver Pate for appetizer and I brought Crepes Suzette for dessert. There was also Angel Food cake cupcakes with Raspberry cream frosting.
Again, been living it up too good lately. Time to fast and exercise, and then, get on the scale!
How did this administration try to fix this country when it went down the tubes two years ago? By bailing out Banks, Investment Firms, Insurance Companies and Automakers. The closest time they came to American Workers is when they bailed out the auto companies. Yes, there was some stimulus money to build roads and infrastructure, but that really hasn’t pushed us over the top to recovery has it? No, it hasn’t. We’re stuck in the doldrums.
Let’s talk about the housing market for a little bit. The Democrats blame Bush and the Republicans for the housing market crash, but it was the Democrats that wanted everybody to own a house. The Republicans wanted to create an oversight committee to watch Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac because of questionable lending practices, but the idea was kaboshed by the Democrats. Houses for everyone, no credit and no income necessary! Crash. So what do we do. We (the now Democratic run government) give money directly to the banks so their balance sheets look good. That sounds like something the Republicans would have done. Couldn’t we have given that money to the banks through homeowners? Now, the banks’ balance sheets look good AND they own the homes! Now I wasn’t necessarily for helping people who couldn’t pay their mortgages because they got in over their heads (no thanks to the banks). I would have liked to have seen some help for homeowners like me, who were making their payments, but could have used the extra money to keep the economy going. If I got help paying my mortgage, I could have spent some more money expanding and keeping my business going. Instead I had to take the money out of my retirement account and get penalized by the government because I’m not over 59 1/2 years old. I ended up selling my business for half of what it was worth and then selling my home for two thirds what it was worth. I now live in Arizona and have to work to pay my mortgage here, instead of moving here with the mortgage paid off and the retirement fund intact! I know! Your heart bleeds for me. There are a lot more people out there that are worse off than me! But here’s something I have in common with a lot of homeowners, I’ve got a lot of equity in my home. But if I miss some payments, the bank gets the home and that equity is gone! I’m in the poor house! And banks don’t care. They’re the nicest people around when your there making a deposit, but miss some payments on your mortgage and its “buh bye” time! And don’t let the door it you in the back! There should be some kind of law that if a home is foreclosed on the homeowner gets his/her equity back. That would sure take the sting out of losing your home and maybe the banks would be a little more flexible in working with you in hard times. Yeah, Obama try and pass that law “for the people”. I’d like to see how far you get with that!
Now let’s talk a little bit about the economy. You should take a look at my article about “The Death of the American Middle Class” and Michael Snyder’s article The Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking. Here Are the Stats to Prove It that are mentioned elsewhere in this blog. Those articles focus on jobs leaving the US because of the world economy in which we now live and can’t compete with countries like China that on average pay their workers $1 a day. But what can we do for ourselves here in America? Remember your history lessons about the Depression of the 1930’s? FDR creating all those public works programs to put unemployed people back to work? It all got mixed reviews and some didn’t think it helped at all. But when World War II broke out there wasn’t much unemployment. Now I’m not suggesting another all out war with half the world, in fact wars now-a-days put us deeper in debt, so forget that. We don’t have many more trillions of dollars, do we? Anyway, let’s get people back to work somehow. Remember programs like Vista and the Peace Corp? Vista programs were in the US and the Peace Corp was in foreign countries. You volunteer to help with a project. The project assignments were usually 2 years. You got your room and board paid for and $100 per month in the bank. So, when you got back home you got some good real world work experience under your belt and you had $2,400 in the bank. Not bad back in the 70s. Now the outside world is a little scary these days, so I would emphasize the Vista program for right here in the good old US of A. Remember Selective Service? Otherwise known as the Draft! But instead of going into the Army, you go into a Vista program. Let’s say a teenager drops out of high school. Bam! Vista. Let’s say you graduate from high school, don’t go to college and you don’t have a job. Bam! Vista. Let’s say you’re over 18, under 21 and have no job. Bam! Vista. Put kids to work. Get them off the streets. Break up gangs. Move them around the country doing community service, don’t let them have cell phones so they can’t keep in touch with their homies, teach them a trade. Maybe they can get a job when their “tour of duty” is up. After age 21, Vista is voluntary. Use old, abandoned military bases to work out of. Have them fix them up if they’re in bad condition. I can hear the bleeding heart liberals and the ACLU now, forced labor camps! Come on. Kids were drafted and sent to Vet Nam in my day, this would be a piece of cake and they would get paid for it! Maybe even make it illegal for someone under 18 to have a job! Concentrate on high school for goodness sakes. Be a kid while you can. So who’s going to cook your fries at McDonald’s? Other people that are now out of work, or at least they’d be 18 year old! That takes care of people under 21, but what about older people with families to take care of? The wave of the future is alternative energy sources. Countries like China and India are working on it hard, are we? There’s got to be something we, as a nation, could do? Something on the order of President Kennedy’s promise to put a man on the moon before the decade was up. We did it then, and we got to do something now to ween us off of our dependence on foreign oil.
Now, let’s talk about small businesses and about businesses in general. What kind of relationship does Congress and the politicos in Washington D.C. have with the business world. Anti-business to say the least. I think that’s mostly coming from the Democratic party. Usually, the Republicans are pro business. I’m not saying to let the BP’s of the world slide. Hit them and hit them hard. But you’ve got to lighten up on businesses in general. Small businesses are the backbone of America. They employ more people than big corporations. If you make the environment for small businesses nurturing, helpful and positive, maybe more will open up. Maybe more will expand. Lighten up on us. Don’t try and squeeze all the money you can out of us. Don’t come up with new taxes. Here’s a tax in Sedona, Az. that is incredibly anti-business. The city of Sedona charges restaurants a seat tax for sewer charges. It doesn’t matter if you have customers in those seats, or how much water you use! Just the number of seats. I was looking into opening a restaurant and was told by the Big Park Water people, that I would have to pay $850 for each seat over 9 seats to “buy” in to the sewer system. That would have been another $18,000 extra. Thanks, but no thanks! How about this for an idea, base sewer charges on how much water is used no matter who you are. Homeowners and businesses alike. Don’t reach into the pockets of business people to make your budgets balance!
Well, these things aren’t cure-alls, but they would be good starts! Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to worry about where our next oil fix is coming from? Maybe then we could pull back our armed forces and let the rest of the world figure out what to do with the “violent gangs” of the international community. I’d love to see a return of the 50s to the United States. The armed forces are home and everybody’s working. The innocence of that era will never return, but hopefully our confidence will.
According to Michael Snyder who is editor of theeconomiccollapseblog.com and his article entitled The Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking. Here Are the Stats to Prove it. Click on it to see it. The basic gist of the article is America can’t compete with the low cost of overseas labor, so we’re losing jobs. People are out of work longer, wealth is being accumulated by a small group of super rich people and the middle class is moving into the poor class. I think that about sums up the article and, I think, the article is right on the money. Excuse the pun. So much for the “world economy”. Maybe those anarchists are on to something after all!
I had an idea a long time ago about equalizing labor costs throughout the world with a labor tax that would be imposed on U.S. companies moving their operations to foreign countries just because the labor costs were lower. The tax would have in effect equalized the labor costs. So if a company wanted to move out of the U.S. to avoid paying workers $30 an hour to a country where it can pay workers $1 an hour, it would be taxed $29 per hour per hour worked for each laborer. So with labor costs equalized, the company would be moving out of the U.S. for reasons other than lower labor costs. Like lower costs of raw materials, or building something in the country the product is sold in to reduce shipping cost, and so on. So, hopefully this tax would have kept companies here, but guess what? They’re all pretty much gone! Could it get any worse? I guess things can always get worse with more companies relocating, but I think there’s a more even handed way to equalize labor cost around the world.
How about a “cost of labor tariff”? The costs of imports coming into a country would be adjusted by the cost of labor in the exporting country. So if labor is $1 an hour in China and they’re are shipping products to the U.S. where the labor cost for producing the same product is $30 an hour then the price of that product is going to be going way up. I can hear you now. Tariff? Trade wars. Everybody loses with that one. But what if the “cost of labor tariff” was a U.N sanctioned law and was adopted around the world by all countries? Or at least by all developed countries that have labor unions. I would think that the Teamsters would love a law like this. It protects high priced labor (America, Europe) and at the same time maybe it would even encourage cheap labor countries to up their pay scales. A win for labor, but not so good for the consumer since they would undoubtedly be paying higher prices. But where would all the tariff revenue be going? It could be used to lower personal taxes, so the consumer would still have money to spend. So the “cost of labor tariff” would just be a way to redistribute wealth by equalizing labor cost throughout the world.
The flaw in this approach is that it would encourage already high labor cost countries to go even higher. To put a brake on this, a worldwide benchmark of labor costs should be used. Doing this by job would be a daunting task. It would be somewhat easier is it were done by industry. So, let’s say on a worldwide average, 100 man hours were needed to make a car and the average per hour wage for an autoworker worldwide was $20. Lets say the average auto worker in the U.S. makes, with benefits, $70 an hour, France $50 and China $1. If the average worldwide labor benchmark for autoworkers is $20, then China would have to pay $1,900 for every car it built and shipped to the U.S. and France. China can get around the tariff by increasing the amount it pays its autoworkers. What if the U.S or France wants to sell their cars in China? Good luck! Or they better start building them in China to sell to the Chinese. But they’re already doing this. As a matter of fact, GM now sells more cars in China then in the US!
Ahhh, the tariff game. It messes around with the free market system, but the inequities in labor costs are profound. It should hurt to be at the bottom of the labor cost ladder. You want those countries to improve the standard of living. But it should hurt somewhat to be at the top too. I think unions cause this problems in more developed countries. Case in point. The town I used to live in in Illinois had budget problems like many towns across the nation during the recession. It was announced that all non-union workers wouldn’t be getting a raise in 2009. The police were scheduled to get a 2% increase and were asked to forgo the increase. They said no. When the budget crisis grew bigger, they were asked if they would like to all take furloughs days, splitting the cost reduction among all members of the force, or have layoffs. They chose layoffs because there was no way anyone was going to go backwards on the pay scale. So much for the free market system when it comes to labor costs and unions. That’s not to say that labor costs haven’t moved down during this recession. The car industry when faced with extinction made the unions come to the negotiating table. And I’m sure a lot of non-union companies decreased wages when it was a matter of survival. But there is a lot of people out of work and that’s because there are no jobs. Those jobs have gone overseas. How will we ever get them back? Labor tariff, anyone?
I saw an news blurb on TV the other day about how all this committed foreign aid to Haiti has not gotten there yet and I’m thinking to myself “well if we were to give Haiti a billion dollars all at once, how much would actually end up helping the Haitian people and how much would line the pockets of the people in power?”. What if instead of giving aid to countries in the form of cash we give them aid in the form of bulldozers, tractors, trucks, buses, equipment to build roads and pre-manufactured homes equipped with solar panels to generate electricity and hot water? Yes food and water are important, medical help too, but after all this time, the Haitian people are still out of work, living in shanty towns, rubble is still all over the place and there’s really no end in sight to when things are actually going to get better.
So let’s start shipping! Here’s some bulldozers and trucks, get busy. US workers, build some more bulldozers and trucks. Here’s some tractors, get farming. US workers, build some more tractors. Here’s some trucks, take the produce to market. US workers, build even more trucks. Where’s the market that you take the food to? Build some towns with solar homes manufactured in the US by US workers. Lets start building homes even if they’re being shipped overseas! Get some guys together and show them how to build roads, if they don’t know already. Maybe they just need the equipment. Let’s give them road building equipment. US workers, make some more road building equipment. So we’re not just giving them cash. We’re giving them the means to make their lives better.
So, the US government pays our companies the cash for the goods we’re shipping out. Our workers in the US are put to work. Everybody is making money here. Even the government gets some of the money back in the form of taxes! We give the products to Haiti, or whatever country needs them at the moment. The people in those countries get busy with jobs to do the things that need to be done. Everybody wins!
Hi! About a month ago I got a quote from a solar power contractor here in Arizona to put solar cell panels on the roof of our house to provide our house with “green” electricity and, if I had any excess capacity, to sell the excess to the power company. Well, the estimate came out to around $61,000. I thought that was a bit much. I would get something like a $14,000 credit from the feds over three years to help with the costs, but that still left us with having to come up with $47,000.
I just read about the Obama administration handing out $2 billion in grants to companies in the southwest, Arizona included, to build solar powered electric generating plants. These power plants would still be conventional in the sense that, although they would use solar power to generate electricity, the electricity generated would still be used to boil water to create steam to turn generators to then create electricity which would then go into the grid. The problem with building a plant like this in Arizona is water. We’re already short on water, so where are you going to the water to this without impacting the environment?
Solution! Instead of centralizing the electric generating facility into a conventional power plant that needs massive amounts of water to generate steam, why not take the money and decentralize the generation of electricity by installing solar panels on customer’s roofs?! Start with entities that have large roof areas like shopping centers. Then go to interested home owners (like me) and install solar panels on their roofs at no charge. Then offer electricity at deeply discounted prices like 50% off of customer rates that don’t have solar roofs, for those that volunteer to put solar panels on their roofs. The solar panels are owned by the power company and are to be maintained by the power company. When they need replacement or repairs, the power company takes care of it just like all the transformers and power lines they already take care of.
And while we’re at it, why don’t the state governments in sunshiny states like Arizona (or the federal government for all states) mandate that all new homes built be built with solar panels on their roofs? Yes, it adds to the cost of construction resulting in a higher priced house, but its going to save the homeowner money in the long run (that’s what solar panel salesmen are telling us now anyway) and its green and it reduces our dependence on foreign oil, etc, etc. When these solar panels start to break down the owner has the option of replacing them himself (he continues to get free electricity) or turning them over to the power company to fix (he gets a 50% reduction in rates). So you’ve got the best of both worlds! For those that are rich enough to be their own power company, they buy and maintain their own solar panels and get free electricity. And for those of us that can’t afford the large initial capital outlay, we can still go green, help the environment and alleviate our dependence on foreign oil and still get some money off on our electric bills! A win win situation for all.
Now I know there may be some problems to work out like what if the roof needs repairing, or after the electric company installs the solar panels all of a sudden the roof starts leaking, etc, etc. All I can say is, if we can put a man on the moon, so we should be able to do this. And lets start doing this soon. Don’t wait until the oil runs out! And I also like this plan because it directly helps people. The government bails out banks, investment houses, insurance companies, car companies and now it wants to directly help power companies. Let’s help the power companies out by helping their customers out. The power companies will then reap the benefits through their customers!
PJs Pub in Oak Creek, Arizona looks just like another bar from the outside and when you first walk inside. So, when I had another hankering for a cheeseburger, that’s where I went because I think they have the best burgers around. But when the waitress mentioned the specials, I decided to switch! The special I switched to was the Macadamia Nut Encrusted Halibut with Roasted Red Pepper Coulis, Couscous, Asparagus and Baby Carrots. Now, when’s the last time you heard a special like that in a bar? Never for me! And because it was something similar to what I would serve in my restaurant back in Chicago, a fine dining white tablecloth Bistro no less, I wanted to check it out and see how it compared. Well, it was outstanding! The fish was cooked perfectly and the presentation was carefully executed, not just thrown together! I ate every last bit and at $14, this was definitely THE buy of Sedona! I always talk about value for your meal in Sedona and this was the best that I can remember in a long time!
By the way, my wife had the Southwest Cheeseburger with Swiss, BBQ Sauce (in house), and Onion Ring and it was good. That’s what I was going to order before I switched. The place was happening. There was a Cowboy with his chaps on with his Cowgirl (I don’t know where there horses were parked), sports on TV, music playing, lots of people going in and out to the outdoor smoking area, happy smiling faces, pretty waitresses and bartenders , etc, etc. If you don’t mind the high seats and bar tables, check this place out for some upscale dining specials… and great cheeseburgers!
Did you watch the President the other night talking from the Oval Office about the BP oil spill? I did. In the last part of the address he tried to inspire our nation’s creative talent and entrepreneurs to do some research and development on alternative energy sources in order to get away from our dependence on oil and other fossil fuels. Wouldn’t it have been nice if George Bush made that plea after the 9/11 attacks back in 2001? We would have had a 9 year head start!
Our system of free enterprise, with the laws of supply and demand are all driven by cost. If its cheaper to buy gas to get around than its is to buy an all electric car, most people are still going to keep buying cars that use gas because its cheaper. We’re not all benevolent millionaires. I just got an estimate to put solar panels on my home. The company wanted $61,000 to do it. Of course, I would get a $16,000 discount right away, and another $14,000 in tax write offs over 5 years. Plus the money I’d save over the life of the system, etc, etc. Its a no brainer, right? I didn’t do it because I don’t have that much extra cash sitting around. I’d love to switch to solar, but come on $61,000. That’s a lot of electricity.
Why doesn’t the government step in like they did with the auto industry? If it wasn’t for the government mandating seat belts and other safety features plus better gas mileage, we’d still be riding around in Ford Pintos that get 15 miles to the gallon! So why not say that any new houses built have to have solar panels on them and insulation up the ying yang, so energy costs per year are under $100. That would be nice. Maybe then we wouldn’t have to build any new nuclear power plants, dig up more coal or drill oil wells in mile deep water. How do you get existing home owners to go alternative? Wouldn’t it be nice if the electric utility companies had programs in place so that they would install solar systems on their customers homes for the promise of reduced rates, say 50% off compared to homes that don’t have solar. This would eliminate the need for homeowners to have all that money up front, eliminate the middle man and the whole electrical system is still owned by the utility along with the responsibility for repairs and maintenance. It would be nice if I didn’t have to worry about rebates, 5 years of tax write offs, and amortizing my investment over the life of the solar cells and hope my investment pays off. All I know is that I got 50% of my electric bill, that would be great and I can take that to the bank!
Like the Beach Boys asked a long time ago, “Wouldn’t it be nice?”
I hate to stifle anyone’s creativity or wanderlust or doing something totally dangerous that might require enormous manpower and money to help rescue you when you run in to trouble, but don’t ya get tired of the bill being paid by some one other than the person being rescued? I am. The 16 year old American girl sailing around the world is the latest culprit. Over a million dollars spent in finding and rescuing her and for some reason the Australian government picks up the tab?! Her family breathes a big sigh of relief (over finding and rescuing her, I’m sure), but probably another big sigh that they don’t have to pay anything for the rescue! Remember the guy that said his son was in the silver balloon that got away? He was just looking for some publicity so he could get a reality TV show. This teenage girl sailor wanted a TV show too and is saving her story for the big prime time special show that’s going to pay her a lot of money. What’s the difference between the two? Not much in my book! OK. One was a planned hoax. The other was not a hoax. But both were planned with the goal of making money from TV. If she makes any money out of this, that money should go to the Australian government!
How do we solve problems like this in the future? Arizona has a “Stupid Drivers Law”. If you drive into a swollen river and get swept away, you pay the price for your rescue. There should be laws like that for all the kinds of adventure seekers we have out there that get into trouble. They should pay for an insurance policy that will pay for their rescue, if needed. So if the sailing around the world 16 year old girl sailor has to be rescued, their insurance policy covers the cost of the rescue. Let’s say the insurance policy costs $100,000 and the parents can’t afford it. Then maybe the parents wouldn’t have let her go in the first place. Problem solved. What if they let her go without the insurance policy? Then hand them the bill. Unless Australia wants to pick up the tab for saving every adventure seeker that gets into trouble while looking to make a buck from their adventure! Can’t wait to hear about the 5 year old sailing around the world alone!
These are recipes of customers favorite food offerings from Burgundy Bistro. This restaurant was in business for 16 years in the south suburbs of Chicago before the original owners sold it. Sorry to say it is no longer in business, but the recipes live on! There are videos also available. Some made right in the restaurant’s kitchen!
The Recipe eBook is just $15
Don’t worry if you don’t have a Paypal account. It takes Visa, MasterCard and others!
I recently went to a supermarket and after shopping all around I ended up in the produce department. So, I want to buy 40 poblano peppers for a party I’m cooking for and what do I do? I grab a plastic bag off the roll and try to open it, but can’t. It’s too slippery, so I lick my fingers to add a little moisture and grip to open the plastic bag. When I licked my fingers, I got a most disgusting taste and wanted to spit the taste out. But I was in public and in the store, so just grin and bear it, I said to myself. Well, the next day I got a fever and diarrhea that lasted for 48 hours. Forget the Pepto Bismol. I finally took a couple tabs of Imodium and that locked me up for two days. Hallelujah!
So, what’s the moral of the story? Don’t lick your fingers when your shopping in a food store. I was pushing the cart. I was looking at food products all over the store. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people probably handled these things. And then I go and lick my fingers so I can open a plastic bag. Never again! If you’re in the produce isle, just pat your fingers on some of the wet produce that’s been watered by the sprinkler systems to get the moisture you need to open those slippery plastic bags. Some stores have sanitizer stations. Use them! My wife and I now carry wet wipes in our car and after shopping, wash our hands. And before we eat anything while riding in the car, we definitely wet wipe our hands.
I was standing in a Starbucks one time while my wife was getting a coffee. A woman and her young son came in after us. While the woman was at the counter placing her order, her son licked the handle on the door from one end to the other. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, but I’d rather not have to get sick to get stronger. Lot’s of bad stuff going around out there. Be vigilant and be careful!