Monday Musings: September 6, 2010
Sunday, September 5, 2010 at 13:34 I grow awesome tomatoes. Probably the best in the Truckee Meadows. I stand by that.
Here’s the proof:
The last big bad tomato that I was bragging about only came in at 1.6 pounds. Only.
This baby is a proud 1.10 pounds.
Here’s how it served up (and fed three adults for the ‘salad course’):
Drizzled with EEVO, some Spanish Sherry Vinegar, sea salt and black pepper, we could hardly move on to the main course … but of course we did. Ha.
I wish I could really remember which varieties I planted this year - or any year. My notes always manage to get lost. I think this might be Marvel Stripe. I also had Boxcar Willie and Mortgage Lifter in the mix along with some others.
You’ll notice some interesting statistical graphics through this blog post. They are intended to show you how an increasingly large share of money - that might go to schools, your police and fire department, and into your mortgage payments - is going, instead, to the richest 1% of our citizens. In fact, those rich people now get the largest percentage of our economy since before the Great Depression.
Why do you think that is? Can this be a good thing for America?
Remember, the wealthy don’t spend their money the same way that you and I do. You’re probably not sending your disposable income to a bank in the Cayman Islands, investing in exclusive and very limited funds, or even buying the occasional private jet. Remember, these people don’t fly on the airlines like you and I do. But your airline tickets generally aren’t tax deductible like the jet is - since it’s listed as a business expense. Yup, these folks do buy disposable items like clothing. Such as bespoke suits on Saville Row in London, and leather shoes in Rome. Not at Macy’s or Target where it goes into American pockets.
The upper 1%. Believe me, they’re earning way more than anything you and I could imagine. Uh, like executives from Big Pharma and insurance.
What do you think Sharron Angle - the Tea Party or the GOP - intend to do about it … supposing she thinks it’s a problem. Supposing she’s even aware of the fact. Hmmmm.
Got an email from PLAN Director, Bob Fulkerson, directing me to read an article from The Nation, called ‘Nevada Goes Bust.’ Believe me, you’ll want to read this, too.
“Rancho versus Agassi Prep. The underresourced versus the opulent. The collapse of the state sector despite the resources available via the private. The sense of possibility versus the sense of impending doom. It is, in many ways, a metaphor for Nevada as a whole these days.”
This article could also be about an increasingly unequal distribution of resources within our state. Like the gamblers we are, when things were hot, we threw the dice … never giving a second thought to ‘what if’. Jim Gibbons et al plaed a high-stakes version of ‘kick the can’ - with our most vulnerable citizens, hourly wage workers and students the losers. And, Sharron Angle would have people believe that it was somehow all Harry Reid’s fault.
Sheesh. And the TeaNuts argue that taxes must be lower? Lower than what? How do they intend to paying the freaking bills?
When times were flush, we still put only 6.4% of the largesse toward the general fund - the boring but necessary stuff like infrastructure, schools and such. We ranked fiftieth in the nation of percentage of money directed to the general fund - for the state with the lowest number of state employees per 1,000 residents.
When you’re already at the bottom in every measure, where are you going to cut?
Just a thought.
Mr. Maven and I took our lunch downtown on the river Saturday - I had been wanting to visit the Spread Peace Cafe, located on Sierra St. in the Palladio and facing the Truckee River. Local activist/entreprenuers, Randy and Roberta Tams and Tysha and Chris Tinney, are trying to make a difference in the community via the restaurant. For each meal patrons buy, meals are given to the homeless.
This is a place to get inspired, if for no other reason than the great location overlooking the Truckee River. Even inside, there are huge screens with what we assumed might be riverside and Lake Tahoe live shots. They were pre-recorded but they were just that lifelike.
The food is healthy, with great vegetarian and vegan options. Mr. Maven and I shared a good, smokey pulled pork sandwich with slaw, then a slice of scrumptious house made red velvet cake. Everything was freshly made and very tasty, except I thought the slaw needed more dressing.
There is great seating indoors and several patio tables, too. They have a full bar setup, plenty of big screens for game time action, yet the sports bar feel is tempered by a rock wall with splashing fountains. This is the kind of business we should support along the River Walk. They’ve got the beginnings of a good thing going, if they can weather a slow economy and coming winter. It was slow in there on Saturday, but I attributed that to the Labor Day weekend.
It seems that nobody except casino neophyte Barney Ng - owner of the ever flailing and failing Siena Casino in downtown Reno - is surprised that it is tanking. I said it when the place opened. Location, location, location. The Siena didn’t have it. I also couldn’t figure out where all the patrons for high-end spa facilities were going to come from. Maybe the LakeMill Lodge?
The RSCVA and Reno city fathers would like to know what’s up with all the secrecy behind Hot August Nights (Reno’s premier summer event featuring old cars) and their dealings with Long Beach, California. It shouldn’t be too surprising that HAN director Bruce Walter wants to play it close to the vest - when he’s trying to sell Reno out. Who wouldn’t.
Reno ought to tell HAN to stick it, and come up with a better event. Hot August Nights is still viable, but the supply of ‘57 Chevy’s has got to end sometime, and the graying of the event has to also take an eventual toll. I’m a baby boomer and I just don’t care about recycled bebop anymore. We had a stable of old cars - really nice ones - here at Rancho Maven. We were original HAN supporters, but as with many things, the cars were sold and we’ve moved on. Reno-Sparks and the RSCVA ought to as well - and capitalize on whatever Long Beach doesn’t have and never will.
Now, let’s get back to those charts.
This is Labor Day, and in an article by economist Robert Reich, it’s not particularly a Labor Day to celebrate. It’s been a long time since the American working man and woman has been in such rough shape.
There are a lot of suggestions as to how this might be turned around, but too many miss the point - wrongly framing the problem as a matter of waiting out a dismal business cycle. Nope. That ain’t the problem, and unless you clearly understand the problem, you’re not gonna even begin to get to a solution.
Here’s an excerpt from Reich’s article:
elcome to the worst Labor Day in the memory of most Americans. Organized labor is down to about 7 percent of the private work force. Members of non-organized labor - most of the rest of us - are unemployed, underemployed or underwater. The Labor Department reported on Friday that just 67,000 new private-sector jobs were created in August, which, when added to the loss of public-sector (mostly temporary Census worker jobs) resulted in a net loss of over 50,000 jobs for the month. But at least 125,000 net new jobs are needed to keep up with the growth of the potential work force.
Face it: The national economy isn’t escaping the gravitational pull of the Great Recession. None of the standard booster rockets are working. Near-zero short-term interest rates from the Fed, almost record-low borrowing costs in the bond market, a giant stimulus package, along with tax credits for small businesses that hire the long-term unemployed have all failed to do enough.
That’s because the real problem has to do with the structure of the economy, not the business cycle. No booster rocket can work unless consumers are able, at some point, to keep the economy moving on their own. But consumers no longer have the purchasing power to buy the goods and services they produce as workers; for some time now, their means haven’t kept up with what the growing economy could and should have been able to provide them.
Read on by clicking here.
My point here is that Nevadans and Americans have to stop all this wishful thinking they’ve engaged in for about the last 30 years or so. This will probably mean owning up to some painful choices - like tax increases. It might also mean that we have to create an environment that will allow our political candidates to utter the ‘T’ word without immediate penalty of ‘You Lose’.
I’m talking about hearing truth.
When I sat in front of my oncologist more than eight years ago, after days of exhausting diagnostic testing to determine if I had cancer and how bad it might be, she asked me if I wanted it “sugar-coated or between the eyes.” I told her to give it to me right between the eyes. I’ve always figured that truth might hurt, but it hurts worse the longer it’s deferred. In fact, it could have killed me.
Isn’t it time we heard the truth?
-maven
