Giving Thanks

It's trite, but true, that most of us living a comfortable middle class lifestyle take a few perfunctory seconds each Thanksgiving to "count our blessings" and give thanks before or after we tuck into a gigantic excess of calories.  We went around our table and each person thought about what to give thanks for and for the most part it was the usual litany of being happy that our friends and family were gathered together to reflect on our fortunate position.  The possibility this was merely a happy accident and that we could just as easily be homeless in America or living in a hut in India does not occur to most people, including yours truly.  I think most of us feel we have made our own reality and the fortunate combination of stable home lives, mentoring and just being born white in America in the latter part of the 20th century is an afterthought, when in fact it has more to do with our social status than any conscious decisions on our part.  Just as the children of the 1% will never know what many of us deal with on a regular basis; job security, health issues we can't pay for, etc., we in the middle class will probably never know the grinding poverty which forecloses many of the options we take for granted.  College education, an extra pair of shoes, knowing at the end of the day we will have a full stomach are all things most of the rest of the world deal with on a daily basis.  So, yes, I am thankful for all the things I mostly take for granted, but I hope many of the people I forget about on a regular basis will someday experience the bounty we celebrated yesterday.

Health Care for all

The news for the ACA, aka Obamacare is getting better by the day.  Even the news media, with their fascination with the good news, bad news meme is finding it harder to come up with equivalent horror stories about rising premiums or website delays to balance the good news of formerly uninsured people finding affordable insurance.   NPR explored the private insurance exchanges being used by large companies to try to rein in health care costs.  By giving their employees a fixed amount of money each month to find their own insurance, companies with thousands workers can now figure exactly how much insurance is costing them.  Also, they can now cap the amount they give to employees and leave said employees holding the bag if costs go up.  I believe this will eventually drive a groundswell of support for "Medicare for all".  This was not politically feasible until now, since the vast majority of Americans with healthcare through their employer were not willing to change something that worked for them.  However, by forcing most people to deal with the bewildering complexity the insurance companies deliberately use to drive up costs, there will be more support for the simpler, single payer system.

Changing tastes

Apropos of my post regarding carrot storage for the winter, I find the changing tastes of Americans interesting and in some ways troubling.  As recently as my own childhood, I remember eating lots more potatoes and root veg during the winter and mostly canned green vegetables.  The fresh versions of green beans, greens and other summer vegetables were either not available or of such poor quality when they finally made it to our local A&P that my mother bypassed them.  The interstate highway system, the development of post harvest cooling techniques and the overall improvement of the cold chain have led to a revolution in fresh vegetable options for winter consumption.  Blast freezing has also vastly improved the frozen foods section, so the possibilities for eating a balanced, healthy diet have never been so good.  So why is obesity endemic in the population?  If you casually check the shopping carts at most grocery stores, the proportion of processed foods in most are very high compared to fresh or minimally processed vegetables.  As the cartoon character Pogo (another holdover from the 1950s) has famously said, "We have met the enemy and he is us".

Freeze and aftermath

Winter made an early visit to the NCR on Saturday with a couple of inches of the white stuff and temps in the single digits this morning.  Anticipating the onslaught, I harvested the last of my carrot crop and am trying an old storage technique.  I dug a trench in one of my cold frames and buried a 30 gallon plastic tote up to its rim.  I put the carrots in the bin, layered the carrots with clean sand, snapped the lid on the bin and mulched the frame with straw.  I put the lights back on the frame and now I'll wait until February or March to see if the carrots hold up.  Otherwise, it is back to the tasteless supermarket imposters for the spring.  I filled up a spare refrigerator with spinach, broccoli, parsley and carrots, so we'll eat garden veggies til sometime in December.  By then, the seed catalogs will be coming in and I'll start planning for next year.

Where were you in 63

Not quite as catchy as the slogan from American Graffiti (Where were you in 62), but for many of my generation  it was a point of pride to remember exactly where you were and what you were doing at 12:30 central time on Nov. 22, 1963.  I can still remember the light shining through the streaked windows in the library at St. John the Evangelist catholic school that afternoon when the news reached the nuns who in turn told us the president was in hospital after being shot in Dallas.  The rest of the afternoon and evening were a blur, and the indelible images of the horse drawn caisson rolling into Arlington cemetery took up the rest of the weekend.  As a 7th grader I was curiously detached for the most part, but at some level I realized history was being made.  Catholics in particular took the assassination very badly.  One of our own had been gunned down and the world would never be quite the same again.  A Canadian friend was commenting on the approaching anniversary the other day and casually stated the FBI was behind the death as if it were established fact.  I wonder what the verdict will be 50 years from now.

Finding a voice and a champion

Although many have known she was the champion of the middle and working classes for years, the senior senator from Massachusetts came out swinging on perhaps the most pressing issue for baby boomers facing retirement.  Elizabeth Warren said it is not the time to cut Social Security, but expand it as the only retirement plan most Americans can really count on when they stop working for pay.  The loss of defined benefit pensions which a more highly unionized earlier generation used to stave off poverty was traded for the grand experiment of the 401K plan.  Employers would match the contribution of workers and the resulting investment in the stock market would create a wealthy retired class...NOT.  When the dot com bubble burst, many lost almost all their retirement savings.  The real estate bust continued that crisis.   The stagnating wages of most in the middle class prevented much saving and now the "grand bargain"  sought by many in D.C. would chip away at the last refuge of  60 somethings on the verge of retirement.   Enter Senator Warren with a diametrically opposed message.  Let's say something about our society by treating those who worked all their lives and played by the rules to enjoy a decent retirement.  The naysayers on the right who feel we can afford endless war and 550 billion dollar "defense" budgets have no reply to the Ms. Warren's economic populism. 

Food Security and the produce business

People got no jobs, people got no money.  That is the quote Charley Pierce uses to describe the current economic situation.  Most economists call it a lack of demand and cluelessly wonder why, calling it is a lack of business confidence.  I guess that is technically correct, but it misses the point.  Without money to spend, the middle class and the working poor can't generate demand which might inspire business to expand and create more jobs.  It is a virtuous cycle, but the starting point is money in people's pockets.  That is the problem today.  Everyone in the produce business is lamenting the poor business conditions of the last few weeks.  They have run out of possible explanations as to why the slowdown is happening just before Thanksgiving.  The massive cuts to the food stamp program are probably the single most important reason for the slump.   With billions of dollars more being cut from the program later this year and unemployment benefits running out for millions of people, conditions will only get worse.  Cutting money from people who will spend it immediately for necessities like food and shelter is not only cruel, it is economic suicide.  The lemmings on the right in Congress are diving off the cliff and they are dragging many of us with them.