Inquisting Minds Want To Know...

A Little Something Different...To Eat!

Inspired by Ruth at Nostalgic For the Pleistocene, I thought I would try a little food blogging.

I was poking through the freezer when I found some psuedo-crab that was quickly headed towards freezer-burn-dom.  Crab is a favorite of mine.  Even the fake sort of crab is tasty to me.

Cookery to the rescue!

This is the time of year when local farmers put fresh produce out on "honor stands".  We have one around the corner that claims to be "organic".  We found another one a few miles away that had fresh corn.  Yum!

My beloved bride loves zucchini.  We slice it, run it through an egg wash, dip it in seasoned flour, and fry it up.  We also use a lot of it in zucchini bread in the winter.

But you cannot get zucchini in the middle of winter.  So we buy a lot of it in the fall.  As a result, there were several courgettes sitting on the counter.

I tossed the salvagable frozen crab into a medium frying pan with some seasame oil, five spice, powdered ginger, paprika, and powdered garlic.  I added zucchini chopped into large cubes and some red onion.

Scott Conant be damned.

I think I probably should have held off on adding the crab meat.  The chunks of zucchini needed a little more cooking and the crab kind of fell apart by the time the zucchini was done.

Towards the end I added some seasame and ginger marinade that we had in the fridge.

As I pulled the mix out of the pan, I wasn't terribly certain that I had something that was....um....edible.

Surprise!  It was pretty good! 

A bed of pasta or rice would have made it perfect.  Next time, I would like to have some red peppers to toss into the pot.  Perhaps some broccoli as well.

At Low, Low Rates!

Via Zero Hedge, and all of the unquantified credibility that the anonymity of the site suggests.

The group wondered aloud why the Treasury and the Congress were not being more opportunistic. Rates are at historical lows. Why aren’t we issuing 50 year or even 100 year treasuries? At these exceptional rates, that would allow us time enough and room enough to put the debt in order - a chance to structure the debt hodgepodge in an almost logical manner. It would give us a chance to hand off to our children something far less burdensome.

More ice cubes were marinated and the brain trust (ex me) concluded that the primary deterrent probably was that going to a 50 or 100 year might raise interest costs somewhat. That would yield, quickly, to political finger-pointing.

So, here it was again - politics. I don’t want to be accused of “busting the budget” by auctioning something that yields several basis points more. “The kids? The hell with the kids! They ain’t voting in this election.”

 I do not know if this conversation ever existed, but I think the idea is reasonably sound.  We use short term treasuries to access much lower interest rates.  But now long term interest rates are lower than short term rates were a few years ago.  Doesn't it make sense to lock in the low rates now?

Mental Break

A New Biopic On Hitler?

I am sure you have seen many send-ups using this stretch of video.  This one is pretty damned good.  It is a little old.  It takes me a while to get around.

Hitler and the Bollywood Biopic from Gregory Atkins on Vimeo.

Mr. Obama's Great White Whale

Every time I hear Mr. Obama talk about raising taxes on the 'rich'....

Every time I hear Mr. Obama speak derisively about the luxury of private jets....

Every time I hear a story about Mr. Obama's NCLB appointees halting the construction of a new Boeing plant in South Carolina....

Every time I read about Mr. Obama's EPA initiatives to install 'Cap and Trade' and other anti-CO₂ measures without the benefit of Congressional authorization...

Every time I think of the impact of Obamacare...

I think of the above cartoon.  I've been thinking of the cartoon long before Mr. Ramirez drew it!

Investment drives our economy.  The wealthy and corporations are sitting on huge piles of cash instead of investing it because they fear that new taxes and regulations will make it impossible to recoup those investments.  This isn't about making new money.  It is about recovering the invested principle.

Those investments create jobs.  Jobs like the union jobs in Kansas and Oklahoma that build private jets.  Jobs like the non-union jobs created by the Boeing plant in South Carolina.  (For transparency, my employer has sold and will continue to sell products being used to build that plant.  In the larger scheme of things, it isn't a lot of money.  For us, the amounts are significant.  We also do business with other Boeing plants as well as the aircraft manufacturers in Kansas and Oklahoma.)

The government needs revenue.  Some regulations are indeed required.

There is a reason why the United States had a 'Great Depression' while the rest of the world had a depression.  There is a reason why the United States is in a 'Great Recession' while the rest of the world had a recession.

That reason is an excess of government and a lack of individual liberty.  When Mr. Obama comes to view individuals...and corporations...as being not only qualified and capable of operating without total government direction, but also far more qualified at discerning the best use of their money, then we will see a recovery.

Showing Us What He Has Got

President Barack Obama used a boisterous Labor Day rally to put congressional Republicans on the spot, challenging them to place the country's interests above all else and vote to create jobs and put the economy back on a path toward growth. "Show us what you've got," he said.

That is precisely what they have been doing, Mr. Obama.  One of the primary reasons why employers have not been hiring new workers is due to uncertainty.  Specifically, they are uncertain if future labor, market, and tax conditions/policies will make it possible to earn a profit.  Repeated calls for punitive taxes on the "rich", our out of control federal deficit spending, initiatives that openly place union interests far above that of business owners, and regulations that raise the cost of business justify those concerns.  

The problem is not that the GOP has yet to "Show us what [they've] got."  The problem is that Mr. Obama and his allies in Congress have shown us what they have got for far too long.  And the people with any money left are doing the smart thing by sitting on it until something changes to make being in business in America profitable again.