Welcome to my foray into the magical and mystical world of bloggery.
And please, don’t take anything you see here too seriously. This is my take of the world, the way I see it. If I come off a little aggressive or arrogant sometimes it is just that there is no one’s opinion I value higher than my own. There is no one I had rather love to hear voice those opinions than…well, me.
I treasure truth over illusion, God over chaos and fun over the grim outlook that seems to permeate so much of the world today. So sit back and leave the driving to me. Check your prejudices at the door and embrace mine.
Come on in and have a look around
Today's Hogwash:
RECESSION?
Well friends, my lovely bride and I just got back from San Francisco. I have been to New York City on Thanksgiving and watched the Macy’s parade.
My lovely bride has been in Singapore come quitting time Friday and, most significant, I have been top Wal-Mart on Black Friday at 5 AM. Both in Houston and in Oakland, CA. (The same store where the customer was trampled to death last year). And Yet, none of these compare to Union Square.
The above picture gives only a hint of the real thing. Isn’t there supposed to be a recession in this country? Aren’t millions of Americans fearing they are about to lose their jobs and their life saving?
If you pay much attention to the news, TV, internet and newspaper, to hear them tell it, the good ole U S of A is all but in the tank and teetering on the verge of becoming a second-rate third-world country.
But then, if the US drops down to that low of status, I guess we would end up dragging the rest of the world with us, so we would be a second-rate, third-world, First-place country. The point is, people still have money to spend.
This past week, all week long, we saw restaurant after restaurant packed to the rafters and these weren’t just Noodle stands and Thai BBQ chicken joints. These were $25-a-head for a Denny’s Grand Slam style breakfast, the one you get for $5.99 down the street from my house.
At lunch you had to stand in line for a $12.99 sandwich or a $36 medium size pepperoni pizza. Fortunately, my lovely daughter directed me to a place where I could get fantastic a prime rib dinner with soup, salad, baked potato, green beans and carrots for $15.
The catch? It was an out-of-the-way neighborhood place where they know their regular customer’s names, preferences and troubles. We were lucky to know someone who knew someone who knew the way to the out-of-the-way place.
Oddly enough, the place wasn’t running over with customers like all the $44 a head Steak places were.
I saw bag after bag after bulging shopping bag, going in and out of Macy’s, Bloomingdales and DWS, the $500-a-pair shoe store.
Gas was almost $4 a gallon and yet the streets and freeways were gridlocked by thousands of Jags, Benz’s, Lexus’s and Caddies.
I saw herds of folk pushing their way into $280-$480-a-night boutique hotels and when they were turned away they all headed for the $500 and $600-a-night luxury giants like The St. Francis, the Drake and the Ritz.
One question that bugs me is this, How can we be in a recession when no one is living like we are? Oh sure, we have all the Gloomy Gus, glass-half-empty types moaning and groaning about how tough things are but I suspect this recession isn’t any worse than the other ones I have lived through in my life.
It has always been a cyclical thing, it goes up. It goes down, it goes up again. The problem is that we never can tell when it will do what.
Why not look at it this way, if things get worse, I still bet I don’t really starve to death if I can’t afford $8 a pound coffee or ribeye steak. I won’t be sleeping in my car and eating dog food although my truck’s seat does lean back all the way and is pretty comfortable.
It’s only money. I have my friends and family to love and who love me, I can get out of bed in the mornings and I stay relatively cool in the summer and warm in the winter. As it has often been said, "You never see a hearse pulling a U-HAUL. God is on His throne and all is well with my soul.
I refuse to participate in any depression or recession. I suggest you do the same.
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