Coke, Almonds, Slime, 263 Horses and Torpidity July 23, 2009March 15, 2017 COKE ZERO Paul O’Donnell (on yesterday’s nutrition tips): “If you are a Diet Coke guy, try Coke Zero. I’ll bet my subscription fee you’ll switch.” ☞ According to this, “Coke Zero is sweetened with aspartame and acesulfame potassium (ace-k) and has zero calories. The only chemical difference between Coke Zero and Diet Coke is that Coke Zero has about half the aspartame but has more ace-k.” So can we even taste the difference? Well, a software development team blind tested Diet Coke, Classic Coke, and Coke Zero and reports: “Adam, Brian, and I all correctly identified the three flavors of Coke. Adam and I choose Coke Zero as the best, while Brian favored Coke Classic. Tim thought Coke Zero was Coke Classic and he also thought it was the best tasting. So, Coke Zero is our big winner.” ALMOND MILK Kristen Eisenman: “Almond Milk is a great tasting alternative to cow milk. The Almond Breeze Unsweetened Vanilla is great in cereal or in Rooibos Tea and only has 40 calories per cup. The Chocolate makes a great Mocha. Check it out.” TAURUS I love that Ford’s new Taurus is getting great reviews. I have just two quibbles. First, instead of 18mpg city / 28 mpg highway, I’d prefer a car that does twice as well, even if there aren’t 263 horses pulling it. Second, why are some of these cool safety options options? Adaptive Cruise Control: it maintains a set speed, but also keeps a driver-defined distance from vehicles ahead, and will use active braking when necessary to slow the Taurus to maintain that distance. Collision Warning: audible and visual alerts warn a distracted driver about a potential frontal collision and pre-arms the brakes to provide full power when the driver hits the brake pedal. Blind Spot Monitoring: Keeps an electronic eye on a driver’s blind spots and warns drivers using an orange icon in the mirror and on the digital IP readout. Cross Traffic Alert: Helps drivers detects oncoming traffic approaching the vehicle from the side while reversing out of a parking space. MORE SLIME George Mokray: “[Given your recent interest in slime], you might want to take a look at PetroAlgae (bulletin board symbol PALG). They have a combined fuel and food algae system that is beginning to get some press. If you do take a look, let me know what you think as I am considering investing a nickel.” ☞ I don’t know nearly enough to assess their prospects – which I hope are good – let alone guess whether it could possibly be worth its current $1.3 billion valuation – which I doubt. Certainly it would have been a better buy a few months ago at 25 cents than fifty times higher today at $13. GLOBAL WARMING = LESS PRODUCTIVITY Yes, yes, moving most of the world’s cities inland is going to be expensive . . . but here’s the other thing: we tend to get less done when it’s hot. NPR seems to be surprised by this, as if it weren’t completely obvious why tropical, torpid, sluggish, lethargic, lazy-hazy economies have underperformed brisk ones. But the study NPR reports on takes an interesting twist: it compares output of the same countries based on how hot their year was. It turns out that economic output even within the same country goes down when the temperature goes up. But did we really need graduate degrees to figure this one out?
Schwarzenegger’s Leadership February 23, 2009March 12, 2017 SELL-BY DATE I found an open half gallon of pomegranate blueberry frozen yogurt in the back of the freezer. I hadn’t seen it in a long time. It was about three-fourths eaten, with ice whiskers well advanced and hanging down from the lid (but those are easily rinsed off). It smelled fine. “You’re not going to eat that!” Charles said. (Charles was 1,200 miles away, but I heard him anyway.) “Well, let’s see,” I said, checking the sell-by date. “Oh, good!” It said it had to be sold by June 2008 and, judging from the length of those ice whiskers, it clearly had been, so I was good to go. It was delicious. The I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter/Light sell-by dated August 26 – and merely refrigerated, not frozen – was primo, as well. (As long-time readers know, I am engaged in a life’s work experimenting on the refrigerator-shelf-life of various foods. Fresh apples, I discovered in one of my signature breakthroughs, only look bad after several months – they get crinkled – when in fact they are fine to eat. If this column ever mysteriously disappears, you will know I have pushed the envelope just a little too far. But not this time.) FIREFOX TIP Now that some of us are trying Firefox (so far so good, at my end), Gary Diehl wants to be sure we don’t miss this: “Yesterday I fired up my browser when my girlfriend was standing there. She was surprised to see that my ‘homepage’ was my five favorite sites, each in its own tab. She has used Firefox for quite a while and didn’t know that your homepage could be multiple tabs. All you have to do is open your favorite sites and then: Click Tools. Click Options. Click the Main tab. Click Use current pages. Click OK.” SCHWARZENEGGER Hats off to Governor Schwarzenegger for his leadership in this interview with George Stephanopoulos yesterday morning. I particularly like the “cancer patient” analogy. From the transcript: . . . I feel very strongly that I think that President Obama right now needs team players. He — this is why we’re here in Washington right now. We have, you know, more than 40 governors coming together here in Washington, and our idea is to get together with the White House, with this administration, and to work together, to have Congress, the White House, and the governors, and everyone work together, because it’s a very difficult time now, where we have to play together, rather than using politics and always attacking everything… . . . You’ve got to go and say, “What is right for the country right now?” I mean, I see that as kind of like, you go to a doctor, the doctor’s office, and say, “Look, can you examine me?” The doctor says, “You have cancer.” What you want to do at that point is you want to see this team of doctors around you, have their act together, be very clear, and say, “This is what we need to do,” rather than see a bunch of doctors fighting in front of you and arguing about the treatment. I mean, that is the worst thing. It creates insecurity in the patient. The same is with the people in America. That creates insecurity when you have those two parties always arguing and attacking each other, rather than coming together and saying to the American people, “Here’s the recipe. This is going to be tough, but this is what we need to do for the next two years. And we both believe in that.” That will bring calmness to the market and stability to the market. . . . ☞ Meanwhile, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal went on Meet the Press to criticize the just-passed $787 trillion stimulus package. Not enough tax cuts, and the wrong kind; too much spending, and the wrong kind. . . . GOV. JINDAL: Well, let’s be clear. The best thing that Washington could do to help Louisiana and all of our states with our budgets is to get this economy moving again. I think we just have a fundamental disagreement here. I don’t think the best way to do that is for the government to tax and borrow more money. I think the best thing they could’ve done, for example, was to cut taxes on things like capital gains, the lower tax brackets, to get the private sector spending again. ☞ Yes! That’s why we’re in trouble! People think of the 15% capital gains tax they’d have to pay if they made a big gain and figure the 85% sliver they’d get to keep if they doubled or tripled their money, just isn’t interesting when they can get 2% from a Treasury bond (taxed at ordinary income tax rates). Predictably, I think Republicans like Schwarzenegger (and Florida’s Charlie Crist, who took a similar approach) have a better vision for our future than those like Governor Jindal (and the all-but-three Republican Senators and Representatives who voted against the stimulus package). AND THANK YOU TO . . . America, for being the kind of country in which a movie like Milk could do so well last night. To think that in 40 years we could have gone from this topic being all but entirely taboo to acceptance speeches like this one (screenwriter Dustin Lance Black) and this one (best actor Sean Penn) – it makes one proud.
Odds, Ends January 23, 2009March 12, 2017 STAR SIGHTING Some of you reading yesterday’s column seem to think I met Marisa Tomei (not “Melissa” Tomei) at an Inaugural event. Not that WOULD have been something. BACK ACHING Brooks Hilliard: “I have the same problem with back aches when standing for long hours, but found a cure for it: Take two aspirin about 30 minutes BEFORE the long stand begins and re-dose about every 4 hours. I say aspirin because it works better for me for all types of aches and pains than Tylenol or Advil.” SARDINES (again) Linda Melazzo: “They are known as ‘health food in a can’ and are loaded with omega 3 and contain virtually no mercury and are a good source of calcium. If you mash them with some Dijon mustard and onion and put them on crackers they are delish. My grandfather turned me on to the snack them I was a kid. Little did I know how good they were for you.” SOCIAL SECURITY AT 62 Bill Winterberg: “Remember that if one takes SS from age 62 and intends to pay back benefits received through age 70, then reapply for the higher payout, one gets to pay with money that (in normal market conditions, i.e. not deflation) has lost purchasing power. If inflation averages 3% for 8 years, the future value of $10,000 of 2009 benefits is $12,667 in 2017, but the recipient only needs to pay back $10,000 (the benefit paid) after 8 years! Plus, no interest on the benefits needs to be paid, so this is a double-dip.” SKYPE Joe, in France: “I have a Skype-In number. It’s a New York area code, but it actually comes to Skype in my computer. You should get one too! It’s cheap and very useful. For example, HP tech support would only call me in the U.S., not overseas. So I gave them my New York Skype number and they called thinking I was in New York! Even though the world is coming to an end, some things keep getting better! Like Skype!” Next week: Mark Twain on Economics
A Sardine Recipe Even I Wouldn’t Try December 9, 2008March 12, 2017 MICRO LOANS Mike Hanlon: ‘One other good place for microloans is Kiva.org. They allow you to choose to whom you will lend and you get updates on how the people are doing. Be sure to check out their press page – the group is endorsed by Bill Clinton and has some wonderful videos (follow CNBC’s John Larson as he goes to Africa and meets some of the people who receive his loans). We decided to join as a family – my wife, two sons, and I chose two or three recipients each. So far, by rolling over repayments, we’ve made 24 loans. I also oversee a campaign at work: Our building collected used ink cartridges, traded them in for cash and used the cash to set up a Kiva account. We’ve helped seven entrepreneurs, from Cambodia to Afghanistan to Nicaragua and thanks to repayments, we’ll help more.’ I-BONDS Kevin Kitts: ‘If I read TreasuryDirect.gov correctly, it looks like I-BONDS are currently paying 5.64%. Of course, one is limited to an investment of only $5,000.00 per Social Security Number (though you can always advise your wife and children that it might be a good investment for them as well). Another option might be investing in TIPS through a mutual fund (or directly). What steps can one take to prepare for a highly inflationary environment and do you think it is coming?’ ☞ You read it right. I-bonds purchased between now and April have a fixed rate of just 0.7% – but also accrue interest to adjust for inflation, which is how the current rate gets up to 5.64%. Both TIPS (inside a tax-deferred retirement account)and I-Bonds are reasonably good, conservative ways to prepare for an inflationary environment, and yes, I think sooner or later we have one coming. Stephen Willey: ‘I bought some I-Bonds in ’01 when you first suggested them – and got a few free plane trips by using my credit cards [no longer allowed] – and my 14- and 11-year-olds’ college tuitions are now covered. Thanks. IMO, I-Bonds are the best 529 out there. [If you cash them in to pay for tuition, there is usually no tax due on the interest they’ve earned.] When Treasury decreased the annual limit [from $30,000] to $5000, I knew that, one, they were a good deal and, two, those of us lucky/skillful enough to have acquired some dollar denominated wealth, were in jeopardy of having the government take much of it back via monetarization/inflation.’ MILK The real Harvey Milk in his own words. Under two minutes . . . recorded 30 years ago. See Sean Penn as Harvey Milk today. SWISS CHEESE What’s the point? So it’s got holes. Big whoop. Did anyone ever think about taste? It’s bland, inoffensive . . . what’s the word? Neutral! Oh – I get it. EGGPLANT Mark Kirby: ‘Ohmigod! You’ve got me craving eggplant and it’s only 8:45 in the morning. I’ll have to try your method of cooking. I love eggplant any way – fried, parmesan, and my late mother made an eggplant casserole that was exquisite.’ SARDINES Brooks Hilliard: ‘Just spent 5 days early last month in and around Lisbon (my first time in Portugal). The Euro is down, local prices are reasonable, and many of the local (i.e., non-tourist) restaurants serve grilled sardines. I liked some of the other food better, but the sardines were quite good.’ Gil Walker: ‘A small tin of sardines, drained and rinsed, dumped into a partial carton of low fat cottage cheese, makes a healthy (and tasty) breakfast! My wife thinks my taste buds are shot. My grandkids think I am weird!’ COOKING LIKE A GUY™ Tim Couch: “Speaking of food, when is your book coming out?” ☞ A fine dining experience cannot be rushed.
Mr. Market Miscalculates The Zelig of Vegetables December 3, 2008March 12, 2017 MR. MARKET MISCALCULATES – MACRO No one writes about finance more insightfully – or elegantly – than Jim Grant. If you don’t subscribe to his Interest Rate Observer ($850 a year), you can get his collected wisdom here, in Mr. Market Miscalculates: The Bubble Years and Beyond, for $14.96 – or two samples free. MR. MARKET MISCALCULATES – MICRO When the market does get something wrong – and you can see it clearly at the time, without the benefit of hindsight – there is an opportunity. Of course, this doesn’t happen to most of us too often, if ever. And even when it does, the opportunity can be hard to seize. Say it was clear to you at the time that much of the nation’s real estate market was wildly overheated. How would you profit from the market’s miscalculation? You could short (or buy puts on) the stocks of the nation’s home builders. But if you did it too soon and lost your nerve as the stocks rose even higher – and covered your shorts – or simply watched your puts expire worthless, your sharp insight would have been rewarded with a sharp loss. So for most of us, it makes little sense to try to beat the market by choosing individual stocks (index funds make more sense) or to ‘time’ the market, attempting to jump in before it goes up and out before it goes down. Both are very hard to do successfully. That said, there are a lot of very bright people whose professional lives revolve around finding ‘mispricings’ in the market and exploiting them, and – even if only as spectators – it’s interesting to see examples of their strategies. Like this one from my friend Chris Brown of fledgling Aristides Capital. Of the relative pricing of Ford Motor’s common stock () and its $3.25 convertible preferred. He writes: ‘F is at 2.83, the F.PRS is at 8.35. F.PRS converts to 2.8249 F shares at any time at the owner’s option. So, if you buy the F.PRS and short 2.8249 times as many of the Ford common, you are paying $0.36 for the entirety of the future dividend stream of the Ford preferred, which is $0.8125 per quarter, and is supposed to last at least 2-3 quarters.’ ☞ In English: you want to be long and short the same amount of Ford so the price movement of the stock doesn’t matter. What you gain (or lose) owning the convertible you lose (or gain) by shorting the common. But! But! But! But! But! You get $32,500 a year in dividends on each 10,000 shares of the $3.25 convertible that you own (convertible into 28,249 common shares); while you pay zero in dividends shorting 28,249 shares of the common. So you get to keep $32,500 a year even if you don’t have any idea whether Ford stock is going up or down. And the cost of doing this? Well, there are the commissions, but they should be small. And there is the cost of tying up your money. And in Chris’s case, there was a cost of 36 cents* per $3.25 convertible – $3,600 on 10,000 shares (if that’s how many he bought) *When Chris took this position, shorting 2.8249 shares of Ford at $2.83 brought him $7.99. (Right? 2.8249 x $2.83 = $7.99.) Chipping in another 36 cents out of his own pocket, he had enough to buy one share of the convertible for $8.35. (Right? $7.99 + $0.36 = $8.35.) So what’s the catch? Well, especially for average Joe’s like us, there are lots of catches. First, when I went to try this myself, I quickly discovered that my broker couldn’t borrow shares of Ford for me to short. Yours may or may not be able to. Second, even if I had been able to short F, by the time I tried, that modest 36-cent spread had widened, to a slightly less attractive 61 cents – because the price of the convertible I would have bought had not fallen as much as the price of the 2.8249 shares of the common I would have shorted. By the time you read this, the spread could be wider still (or narrower). Third, there would be commissions to pay, though at my broker they are trivial. But fourth – and mainly – what if Ford goes broke before it is able to make even one more $0.8125 quarterly dividend payment on the $3.25 convertible? So there’s risk, but Chris thinks it’s a good risk to take. And that’s how (some) really smart investment professionals spend their days, trying to find little mispricings like that, where Mr. Market, through carelessness, has left a few crumbs on the table. And now, at last: EGGPLANT You’ve heard of the three-minute egg? Behold the three-minute eggplant: Buy an eggplant. They’re cheap. They’re large. And yet a big eggplant has only 125 calories, with the skin. (The skin is good. Eat the skin.) Slice ‘the long way.’ Maybe five or six slices, each vaguely half an inch thick. (It doesn’t matter.) Microwave for 3 or 4 minutes. It’s okay to put the slices on top of each other – microwaves can penetrate anything. Let cool; salt and pepper to taste. Yes, eggplant absorbs anything – it is the Zelig of vegetables – so you can goop it up with olive oil, cheese, tomato sauce, whatever. But why? Fresh from the microwave it is moist, mushy, and healthy. Where I’d experiment, beyond the salt and pepper, is in whatever other seasonings you might have around. And/or a soupçon of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Lite with each bite. SARDINES You don’t hear much about sardines anymore.
The Polar Bears Are In Hot Water A Cooking Tip September 8, 2008March 11, 2017 PRAYING FOR A PIPELINE Listen to the Republican Vice Presidential nominee exhorting worshippers to pray for a pipeline. I have little standing in matters of faith, but it strikes me as oddly unChristian to mock community organizing amongst the downtrodden . . . and yet pray for the construction of an oil pipeline. No? Oddly unChristian, yet completely in line with today’s Republican Party. They mock Al Gore, they mock John Kerry (and his Silver Star and three Purple Hearts), and now they mock Barack Obama. Only Sarah Palin – who lobbied for the Bridge to Nowhere, and raised taxes in Wasilla, and left her tiny town, which had been debt-free, $22 million in hock, and says she got a D in macro-economics at the University of Idaho – only she has what it takes to cope with our country’s enormous economic challenges and regain the respect of the world. She and her running mate, the hot-tempered ‘maverick,’ fifth from the bottom of his class of 899, whose campaign is run by lobbyists and who voted 95% of the time with George W. Bush. To augment her prayer and facilitate the pipeline, Governor Palin has sued to strip the polar bear of its Threatened Species status (tell that to your 10-year-old and ask her how she wants you to vote in November), ignoring the scientists (here we go again) – or worse. ‘Essentially, she lied,’ said University of Alaska professor Rick Steiner, according to ABC News. Both she and Senator McCain are fine Americans and remarkable people. But they are running this campaign out of the same mocking, dishonest Republican playbook (Obama is ready to lower almost everyone’s taxes, not raise them), in the urgent Republican hope of getting four more years. SAVE MONEY, TIME, AND THE PLANET The fastest way to grill, roast, bake, boil or broil something, of course, is to microwave it. This makes Charles a little crazy – he even roasts toast, which can’t be an efficient use of energy, though it’s darn good toast – but I am the kind of guy whose artichokes take six minutes instead of 45, and whose baked potatoes, back when I ate baked potatoes – likewise. (The truly fastest way to grill, roast, bake, boil or broil something, is not to cook it in the first place. Those readers trying to lose weight, save money, or accustomed to scraping extra mashed potatoes into the garbage, have doubtless considered this.) But if you are one of those gourmets who insist on boiling things, I have a suggestion. Get one of these, if you don’t already have one – a kettle – and bring your water to a boil fast, without a lot of heat escaping, and with a whistle to alert you to when the water is boiling*, so you don’t keep it boiling longer than you have to, steaming up your kitchen, and, if you’ve lost track and become engrossed in a rerun of Law and Order, boiling all the water away, only to realize it when you begin to smell metallic fumes – which can’t be good for you, and which can set off your smoke detector and scare you half to death, and lead to your falling off whatever you’ve climbed on to try to silence the damn thing – and then, with your pot molten and bone dry, have to start the boiling process all over again. (Not that this has ever happened to me.) Okay? Let me recap. You boil water in a kettle. And now the kettle is whistling. You return to the kitchen, deftly shift the kettle off the hot burner (which you leave burning), switching it for the dry pot of pasta or potatoes or shrimp or whatever you were going to boil . . . even as you pour two or three quarts of boiling water from the kettle into that pot, over the pasta, potatoes, or shrimp. Tada! You’ve saved time, money (by using less energy), and, in a tiny but real way, lived a little lighter on the land. The engineers in the crowd will note that much the same result could have been achieved simply by using a lid. But (leaving aside whatever extra heat escapes from under the lid that a sealed kettle would retain), the problem with this is that, to know when the water has reached its boil – sans a kettle’s whistle – you have to stand there in the kitchen and watch the pot. I will not insult this readership by supplying the next line. *I think the model I linked you to has a whistle, but it doesn’t say. COME MEET SARAH JESSICA PARKER IN CHARLES’ STUDIO TOMORROW If you happen to live in the New York area and want to help Barack Obama, check this out. It could be fun.
A Peck of Pickens Peppers And Pickens' Dickens of a Plan? August 5, 2008March 11, 2017 Yesterday, the peppers got bumped by hugely good news for humans. (Seriously: a game-changer, in case you missed it.) And that was after bumping them Friday for this fundamentally important story: how the TV news folks are failing our democracy. (I urge you to take a look and share it widely.) Today, the peppers will not be bumped! PEPPERS I asked why red and yellow peppers cost so much more than green ones. Are they higher up in the pepper trees and thus harder to pick? Is it expensive to dye them? Anne Vivino-Hintze: ‘Pepper trees????? All peppers start out green. After they reach full size, some varieties turn red, some varieties turn yellow, some turn orange. As their color develops, so does their sweetness. In my home garden I grow a variety called a chocolate pepper that starts green but at maturity turns brown on the outside with red flesh on the inside. Very good, but doesn’t taste like chocolate. So the red and yellow and orange peppers have to make it to full green size unscathed and then remain on the low bush while their bright color and sweet flavor develops. All the while avoiding damage from slugs and farm equipment and large human feet.’ Jeff Groff: ‘They take longer to ripen. They’re not dyed. They actually turn red or yellow. They sit in the field or greenhouse longer than green peppers. That’s why they cost more.’ Mike Rutkaus: ‘I think the red and yellow peppers are more nutritious. They have more of the colorful anthrocyanins in them that preserve your eyesight, etc. Like blueberries and strawberries and red wine. So they are more valuable, people know this at some level, and suppliers can charge more for them.’ Peter K: ‘It costs more for ripe peppers, as it does for vine-ripened tomatoes or Spatlese wine, which is why I always skip the green peppers at the salad bar. From Wikipedia article Bell pepper: ‘Green peppers are unripe bell peppers, while the others are all ripe, with the color variation based on cultivar selection. Because they are unripe, green peppers are less sweet and slightly more bitter than yellow, orange, purple or red peppers.’ ‘ Michael Joy: ‘I imagine that green peppers are cheaper because the growers have a longer time to get them to market before they go bad. Also, since ANY bell pepper that is not ripe can be a green pepper, there are more sources of green peppers. Meanwhile once ripe (in either yellow or red), the growers have a shorter time to get them to the consumer. And only a yellow pepper will be yellow, so there aren’t as many of them.’ PTARMIGAN My brother: ‘You write, ‘Have you not heard of eggplant ptarmigan?’ No. And it’s probably more expensive than chicken.’ Ed: ‘‘Eggplant ptarmigan’??? As an avid birdwatcher, I urge you not to encourage people to eat ptarmigan.’ ☞ Oops. It seems I left out the second ‘i’ in parmigian, and Spell Check took a wild guess. PICKENS Peter Kaczowka: ‘There are some good ideas in Pickens’ plan, but using natural gas for transportation is not one of them. Internal combustion engines are badly inefficient, compared to electric engines and generating electricity, not to mention being dirty and noisy. Pickens seems to believe that it will take 30 years before electric cars are practical, but somehow we can switch our cars to natural gas quickly. The US would need a network of natural gas filling stations, while we already have electric ‘filling stations’ everywhere. A better use for natural gas would be to replace oil for use in home heating and electric power generation. Together heat and power generation account for nearly 20% of the oil we use. Stop using oil for that, get some SUVs off the road, and we can hit his 38% reduction in oil use. Many folks here in the Northeast would appreciate moving from oil heat to natural gas.’ James Ooi: ‘US GDP is $13 trillion, so importing $700 billion of oil represents less than 6% of our national income, so ‘going broke fast’ seems exaggerated, akin to saying I’m going broke fast because I earn $100K and spend $6K on heating and gasoline and will have spent $60K in 10 years. Our wealth as a nation depends far more on using the lowest cost source of energy (subject to environmental concerns, and here, wind power shines) than it does trying to source our energy from within the country. T. Boone Pickens surely knows this, so I wonder about his motives.’ ☞ Hmmm. There are 300 million of us in the U.S., so spending $700 billion a year comes to $2,333 a year for each of us; about $10,000 for a family of four (plus a dog). I have nothing against the Canadians, Venezuelans, or Middle Easterners from whom we get most of our oil. After all, they can use that $700 billion to buy our products (or, say, 100 million acres of prime American farmland each year . . . or all the stock of Apple and IBM and Yahoo! and Amazon and Boeing and the entire US airline and auto industry each year). But speaking selfishly, I guess I’d rather we sent that money to ourselves, to build clean, renewable energy sources. But James is not the only one who wonders about Pickens’s motives. David Bruce kindly sent me this link, suggesting that gaining a water monopoly, and a right of way to pipe his water to thirsty cities, may be a quiet part of his plan. Tomorrow: That $490 Billion Budget Deficit Is Actually $700 Billion or More
NRDC Recycling Tips July 31, 2008March 11, 2017 But first, an enigma: Through what principle of agronomics are red and yellow peppers two or three times as expensive as green peppers? Can anyone tell me? Are red and yellow dyes that much more expensive than green? The main costs of the peppers are identical: the cost of packing and shipping them to the store, the cost of store labor for stocking them, the store’s rent and utilities. Is it that the red and yellow peppers grow only at the very top of the pepper tree and are thus an order of magnitude more difficult and dangerous to pick? I need to know! And now . . . THE MULTIPLICATION GAME In terms of stuff (yesterday’s video), one looks for ways to live lighter on the land. And in terms of the Bush economy, one looks to economize. (A grand eight years for the rich and powerful, yes, but a time when – since the year 2000, NBC Nightly News reports – middle class families have seen their income drop by $1,175 while life’s necessities keep getting more expensive – gasoline up $2,200 a year, health insurance up $363, food up $220, the average yearly mortgage payment up $1,729.) A psychological trick that may help if you don’t do it already: multiply whatever little thing you’re buying by 365, if you buy it every day. It’s not a $4 Starbucks – it’s a $1,460 annual Starbucks habit. (Sorry, Starbucks; I love you!) Brewing coffee at home – toss in a little cinnamon or hot chocolate mix – and taking it with you in a go cup, which you can then use for your free office coffee instead of Styrofoam cups, saves you $1,000 a year. It’s not a 75-cent bottle of water twice a day, it’s a $547 annual water bill. Yet just as $220 Johnny Walker Blue bottles are auspiciously refilled with Glenlivet at one fifth the price (I poured a Blue aficionado three unlabeled jiggers, one Blue, two Glenlivet, and watched happily as he couldn’t tell them apart), so the water bottle may be refilled – free – with delicious chilled tapwater, saving $527 a year and the need for 730 petroleum-based plastic bottles (of the 30-odd billion Americans throw out each year). And don’t even get me started on cigarettes. Paper towels? Have you people not heard of a sponge? Beef? Have you people not heard of pork? Pork? Have you not heard of chicken? Chicken? Have you not heard of eggplant parmigian? The further down the food chain you go, and the less processing went into making it, the less resources were required – and, often, the less it costs and the better it is for you. Most of you know at least much about all this as I do, and most of you know I’m not proposing you never have a Starbucks or a burger. But I am proposing you ask the chef at your next BBQ for an Andy Burger. Just once, at least. Try it! (An Andy Burger is a fully loaded cheeseburger, with lettuce, tomato, and pickle on a grilled bun – hold the burger. Slather on the ketchup. The grill marks impart that beefy aroma, and ketchup is the main point of a burger anyway . . . I’m telling you, it’s every bit as good as the traditional burger but less expensive, lighter on the land, healthier, and much easier on the cow.) RECYCLING 101 Good tips from the Natural Resources Defense Council.
You Just Never Know May 19, 2008March 11, 2017 So much backed up to write about, but how can I not start with this? I am sitting here with an opened bag of New York Style® Brand Original Plain Bagel Crisps®. It’s a blue and yellow themed bag with a bit of the New York skyline and the faint outline of a street map labeled MANHATTAN – these are the original New York style bagel crisps, after all. I haven’t opened the bag because I already fell for that once. Plain bagel crisps seem an ascetic snack. Crunchy and tasty, yes (try the garlic or sea salt varieties, too) – but without butter or cheese or caviar, what could we be talking about here? Six ounces for the whole bag. (And, trust me, I would eat the whole bag.) Well, the first thing to say about New York Style® Brand Original Plain Bagel Crisps® is that consuming the contents of that 6-ounce bag would set you back 840 calories. A like weight of filet mignon: 348 calories. The second thing to say about New York Style® Brand Original Plain Bagel Crisps® is that they are distributed by a company called New York Style Brand based in – New Jersey. But the main thing to tell you about New York Style® Brand Original Plain Bagel Crisps® – and as a guy born on 77th Street and Lexington Avenue I feel I know something about New Yorkiness – is that, according to an imprint on the side of the bag (and this is what impelled me to my keyboard) . . . scroll down . . . scroll down . . . scroll down . . . scroll down . . . scroll down . . . scroll down . . . scroll down . . . scroll down . . . scroll down . . . they are “MADE IN BULGARIA.” IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD – PART 3 I love that we are becoming one cozy human village, far too interconNetted by commerce and culture ever again to go to war (well, not with Bulgaria, anyway). But when it becomes economical to import original New York Style bagel crisps from Bulgaria, I do worry a little about our competitiveness. And about the ecological folly of eating food grown not in our own backyards but all over the world . . . (Where did the palm oil come from? New Jersey? Where did the sugar and locust bean gum come from? Bulgaria?) . . . and processed 7,000 miles away. (Needless to say, I didn’t buy these bagel crisps; my young and handsome partner, who as a point of pride never reads labels or price tags, did.) But just when you were maybe getting used to the threat of climate change (you’ve switched to CFLs, the rest is in God’s hands) and numb to our economic problems, the worst of which, the stock market seems to be saying, may be over (but I wouldn’t bet on it) and unconcerned about Bird Flu (summer’s here!) – and everything else we have to worry about (it’s always something) – now comes this. It’s the June cover of The Atlantic Monthly, a completely fascinating story about the prospect for something really big hitting the Earth sometime in this century (about 10%) . . . how a probability like that can be calculated (it actually can be) . . . and just how small that big thing would have to be (and why it wouldn’t necessarily even have to hit the earth) to wipe out all of us, or a great many of us – and what we might be able to do about it, if we get cracking, if only NASA had not been instructed to focus on manned missions to the moon and Mars instead. Granted, this is not keeping me up nights. Ten percent is a pretty small chance and any given century has roughly 100 years to run, by my calculation, which brings the chance this year down to one in a thousand, and the chance today (for those of us who live in the moment) to one in three hundred sixty-five thousand, also known as “simply not gonna happen.” But it’s fascinating nonetheless – and a problem we could solve without having to kill anyone or spend a trillion dollars – so we really ought to try, and hats off to The Atlantic for making such an engaging, compelling case. As I was reading it, I kept coming back to an e-mail I got last week from a friend who had been detained in Houston. Just another email like any other, on a day like any other, this one asking whether I might be able to put up his girlfriend, flying in from Germany, until Sunday night when he got back. “I am in a bit of a bad situation,” he explained. “I was talking with two friends on the street early Sunday morning. A drunk driver hit a parked car and sent it crashing towards us. I and one of my friends were pinned under the car. I was able to wiggle my out from underneath him and the car and am fine. My friend died. I am staying in Houston until the memorial service.” Ugh, ugh, ugh. But do you see my point? Whether it be a drunk driver out of the blue affecting one person, or an earthquake out of the blue affecting millions, or a space rock out of the blue affecting all life on earth . . . every miraculous day – I’m telling you nothing you do not know – is precious. The neat thing about the space rock is that you can see it coming and divert it. (Comets are harder.)
Fun / Not Fun May 5, 2008March 11, 2017 FUN MoveOn.org sent its list this 60-second quiz, wherein you get five chances to show you know the difference between President Bush and Senator McCain. It’s fun! See how you do! (For those willing to enter a real – or fake – email, there’s an equally interesting 60-second bonus round, followed by an even quicker ‘carrot round.’) EDY’S TANGERINE FROZEN FRUIT BAR Summer is coming and I think it’s important that you know about Edy’s Tangerine Frozen Fruit Bars. They are so tangy and sweet! So cold and refreshing! And here’s the thing: You can have one . . . and then a few minutes later, another. And then ANOTHER! And – I know this to be true because I just did it – ANOTHER. And because they’re only 80 calories each and no fat, you’re still way ahead of where you’d have been eating just half a slice of cheesecake. Life is good. Now take that quiz. NOT FUN John Mauldin (no radical) explains how they manipulated the numbers to show a sliver of growth the last two quarters when in fact there were slight declines. So, yes, by the most common definition (two consecutive quarters of negative growth), we’re in a recession. And, he explains, the economy in April lost closer to 300,000 jobs than the reported 20,000 – as will be confirmed when the numbers are eventually revised. If you don’t believe these assertions, I think you will after you read his explanation. He goes on to make the case for looming sharp hikes in the price of meat and chicken (the price of corn is no longer – what is the idiom? – chickenfeed). It is not a pretty picture. Our SUVs continuously convert our wealth into pollution, burning a blend of oil (that we buy from the Saudis, more or less, with money we borrow from the Chinese) and corn (that would otherwise go to feed the chickens). With $6-a-bushel corn (for decades, it was around $2), those chickens cost more to feed. The feed itself costs more to transport to the chickens (because fuel prices have risen). The chickens cost more to transport to your local KFC (because fuel prices have risen). Your KFC costs more to heat, light, and cool (because fuel prices have risen). If the price of every physical thing is rising because of higher fuel costs, then inflation – and long-term interest rates – might be expected to rise also. This is not good news for the housing market. Or the stock market. But if you’re a CEO making 433 times as much as his average employee (up from 40 times as much in 1980 and just 24 times as much in 1965) . . . or a Senator who owns a bunch of houses (John and Cindy McCain own eight or nine) . . . or a hedge fund manager whose multi-million-dollar performance bonuses are taxed at 15% (because the Republicans blocked a move to tax them as ordinary income), you should weather all this just fine. (Even so, take that quiz.)