I’m in a shitty mood. I am puttering around and not getting anything done and I figured this was a good time to type another home page musing and try to make you feel as miserable as me. Yes, misery likes company.
Before that, however, we’ll start off with a story that sums up one of today’s global problems. It starts with an old Sherlock’s Haven customer who was walking on the beach here in San Francisco, near Ft. Baker, and he picked up a glass bottle, thinking he’d toss it in the can when his morning constitutional was over. Be a good Samaritan, he thought. As he walked, the bottle rubbed against his jeans and out popped a true Genie. Turban and everything. As the guy stood there, stunned, the Genie, in perfect English (it is never explained how a Genie, stuck in a bottle for about 4,000 years learned this language) explained that the guy had unleashed this special power and the Genie was authorized to grant the man one wish…anything he wanted.
It took a second or two, but the guy decided he’d like to see his closest friend who now lived in Hawaii…he was, however, afraid to fly and many years had passed since he had seen this dear friend. And, in case you haven’t noticed, our lives are not getting longer. “Please, if you will, build me a causeway between here and Hawaii so that I may drive, and not have to fly or take a lengthy and costly boat trip, to see my friend.”
“Are you kidding?” responded the Genie. Have you any idea of the materials that would demand, plus the logistics of securing the causeway to a not always stable ocean floor, plus the unpredictable issues of tectonic plates moving, tsunamis overcoming and ruining roadways, storms and wind? It’s all but impossible. Think of something else, please.”
The man wanted to be accommodating, so he thought a bit and had an idea. “OK…how about something that would benefit everyone? How about peace in the Mid-East?”
The Genie frowned, shook his head, spit on the ground and said, “will that be 2 lanes or 4?”
Another customer asked me if I had plans to post a new article on this page and the answer was that the subject of today’s high cost of everything, especially food, crossed my mind, but it would be old news and boring.
Just this evening, though, two things occurred that caused the rethinking of that initial dismissal of the topic.
What prompted the initial idea was the $12.99 I had to pay for 12 oz. of Oscar Meyer’s bacon at Safeway. Didn’t it, in the recent past, cost about $3.99 for 8 oz.? Now, they don’t want to sell only 1/2 lb., it isn’t worth the time, effort and/or packaging cost. Maybe I should become kosher. (Always more expensive, because Rabbis need to be paid off…there’s a racket for ya…kosher meat must be astronomical these days.)
Looking at prices in the supermarket must have penetrated deep into my psyche. I recently awoke with a dream still vivid. I was on the East Coast and needed a cup of coffee, so I went to the stand at the end of the block and asked for a small, black coffee. “25” said the counterman. I hesitated. Did he mean 25 dollars?
in today’s world, that didn’t sound all that bizarre. “25 cents” repeated the counterman. Whew! That much I not only could afford but offered the counterman some advice: “you should go out West. Where I live, they’re getting $3 for a cup of coffee.” The idea of the East Coast being cheaper must have come from the time of my after school and summertime job at a corner luncheonette (aka Candy Store) when a cup of coffee, sit down at the counter, was 10 cents. I also made a mean Egg Cream for about 10 or 15 cents and my favorite, a Lime Rickey, which is not easily found these days. Very refreshing hot weather drink.
Attendant on this high cost of living are the wages some people are getting. One of the local school districts was advertising for teachers, starting at about $75,000 per and going up to about $150,000 per. I didn’t realize they were getting that much, although that is still far, far from sufficient to buy a home in this area. Even at the top of that pay scale, one would need about 15 years of gross wages to pay for a house. Even at the $5,000 or $6,000 a teacher might make when I was in public school, it would only take 3 years of gross wages to afford a quite nice home.
What is the cause of this price/earnings discrepancy? You can call in all the economists you want, but my sense of it is that it’s simple greed. Remember about 20 or even 30 years ago when a few Wall St. moguls were giving lectures to impressionable college kids telling them that greed was good? Mean spirited men (for the most part) we can agree on, but these guys were mostly limited to a few Wall St. firms, and the relatively few others who aspired to unlimited wealth. Today, however, everybody is out for as much as they can get. Everything is being monetized as much as possible. The example I’ll give, and you undoubtedly have your own examples, is my online newspaper subscription. All of a sudden, after a bunch of years, along with a raise in subscription rates, completely understandable, they are now demanding extra payments for the word games and extra for the cooking/recipe section. This approach is mirrored everywhere it seems. Have you noticed?
What makes this tougher is the fact that I am not on a pension, so there are no annual cost-of-living raises in my present or my future. My failure to sometimes contribute to “Feeding America” may come back to haunt me.
That’s about it. Enough bitching for now. I hope you’re feeling shitty after all that. I’m feeling quite a bit better.
Marty
We’re up to “Prayer in The Portable Curmudgeon
Pray, n. To ask the laws of the universe to be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy. Ambrose Bierce
Pregnancy
”If pregnancy were a book, they would cut the last two chapters.” Nora Ephron
“Prejudice”
”I am free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally.” W.C. fields
”I don’t like principles. I prefer prejudice .” George S. Kaufman
“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” William James
”President”
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I’m beginning to believe it.” Clarence Darrow