The Open Road

Drove down to DC and back this weekend. From New Hampshire that's six states. We did the traditional thru New York City and down the Jersey Turnpike to the Delaware Memorial Bridge route. Except for New York, the road conditions are excellent. Vermont is resurfacing I91 again, laying fresh black asphalt on top of fresh black asphalt. Vermont still has some porkulus money to spend. Ignore those NPR pieces about how America's infrastructure is falling to pieces. The Interstates in the Northeast and Mid Atlantic are in fine shape.
New York was a mess. Some lanes on the George Washington bridge were closed and that backed up traffic on the Cross Bronx expressway clear back to Coop City. That cost us an hour of walking pace traffic jam. It was so bad we took the Tappan Zee bridge on the way back.
Someone is spending some bucks on mile markers. All the way down Vermont and across Massachusetts we have fresh new mile markers, marking every tenth of a mile. They are growing in size, this years growth of mile markers are 12 inch by 18 inch, nearly the size of a speed limit sign. They are planting them on US 302, a secondary road in the Northern kingdom. These are new, we didn't used to have them. Some nanny state agency is pushing them and I have know idea where the money is coming from.
Once we get down into New Jersey the truck traffic is HEAVY. Like maybe one fifth of the vehicles are trucks. Full of freight, going to customers. There must be some life left in the economy to keep all those trucks loaded. If all that freight went by rail the railroads would be rich beyond measure.
Americans don't drive American cars any more, at least not the 6 passenger V8 rear drive sedans and station wagons of yore. Mostly they drive dinky four door sedans painted gray and made in Japan. Some SUV's, some minivans, lotta pickup trucks, but the little gray econo boxes are the majority vehicle. My Mercury Grand Marquis handled the trip in comfort and style.

Bad ideas never die

Last year we managed to kill the New Hampshire casino gambling bill. It took a lot of doing, but we did it in the house. Major objections to NH casinos are the tackiness will offend tourists, the gambling revenues come from sucker citizens who lack the self discipline to avoid gambling away the rent money, and the mob connections of casino operators and personnel.
Well, it's like a snake, gambling is coming up again in the NH legislature. NHPR was cheering that on this morning. Just 'cause a snake is lying on the floor and not moving much doesn't mean it's dead. You have to cut a snake up into six inch lengths to make sure you killed it.
The pro gambling people think casino's will pay rivers of tax money which they will dedicate to their favorite causes, health and human services, education, the environment, what ever. Every one has a favorite cause they want my tax money to pay for.

Blogging may be light

I'm going on a long road trip starting tomorrow. I'll do some catchup when I get back next week

New building?

Solyndra, a startup, was constructing a new factory building on a new site before they went belly up.
Wow. All the famous startups around here got started renting existing, old and shabby, industrial space, old mill buildings. Digital Equipment Corp (DEC) got started in an old woolen mill in Maynard MA. New buildings are expensive, and probably a lot of that $535 million US taxpayer loan guarantee went into construction.
Maybe Solyndra failed because it's principles were spendthrifts?

Hot Products create demand

As we struggle thru Great Depression 2.0, everyone laments the "lack of demand" i.e. people aren't buying stuff. If only they say, people would spend more, we would be on the road to recovery.
Target Stores cut some deal with a hot Italian designer to do some really nice clothes that Target would sell at typical Target prices (low). The stuff was so good that eager shoppers bought up every thing on the store shelves and crashed the web site trying to order over the web.
That's the answer to the lack of demand, offer desirable product. Even a big bland box store like Target can pack 'em in with the right merchandise. People will spend money for the right stuff.

Antibiotic residues in Pork?

USDA announced tighter limits or more inspections of pork looking for "antibiotic residues" that might be harmful if eaten.
No mention of breeding up an antibiotic resistant version of the andromeda strain by feeding penicillin and other antibiotics to farm animals. A common practice but very dangerous. The damn bugs learn how to survive antibiotics. A lot of antibiotics that worked just fine when I was a child are no longer effective, the bugs have learned to resist them.
Bad enough that we over prescribe antibiotics for humans. Worse is feeding them to farm animals by the pound. Sooner or later an antibiotic resistant bug will jump from animals to humans (swine flu anyone). The farmers claim that the antibiotics make the animals grow faster and bigger and squawk whenever someone suggests limiting antibiotic use.
Anyhow, I don't see a problem with "antibiotic residues" in pork, that could not be solved by banning the use of antibiotics as feed.

Demand, the fix for Great Depression 2.0

70% of the US economy is consumer spending. Right now the consumers have stopped spending, which means that companies cannot sell their products. Which means they lay off workers and stop buying parts.
To get the consumers to spend again, we need some new and attractive products that everybody "just has to have." Let's start with a look at the US auto industry, as a vast consumer producer.
The US car companies haven't introduced a new type of car since Lee Iaccoca invented the minivan back in the 1980's. They used to introduce new types of cars every few years, the station wagon in 1954, the compact cars in 1959, the pony cars in 1964, the SUV and the minivan later. Each new car resulted in a shower of sales. Then Detroit went to sleep and now they don't even bother with yearly restyle anymore. They used to restyle and announce "all new" cars every September. The suits in Detroit lack the stones to do that anymore, for fear that a new design that doesn't sell will be blamed on them.
How about a "mini hauler". A small car that somehow can carry furniture home from the auction or sheetrock back from the lumber year. Perhaps a hatchback with a really really big hatch, perhaps a detachable roof. What we want is a low price car that can get you to work, and haul stuff, smaller and more agile that an F150 pickup.
How about a commuter's hot rod? All the car has to do is get one person to work in some style, and with enough power and handling for rush hour on Rt 128. Maybe even four on the floor. A small car, with a small engine that gets 30 mpg and yet is still fun to drive. Give it one passenger seat just in case the lucky owner has a significant other, and it's somewhere to put a few bags of groceries.
How about a skier's sled? Comes with a stylish factory ski rack guaranteed not to separate at 80 mph full of expensive skis. Plus a good snow car, front wheel drive, traction control, an out side air temp gauge so you can tell if that black patch on the asphalt is a puddle or an ice patch. Good ground clearance for pushing into unplowed parking lots. Big fat tires to float you over snow. You could sell it to boarders and bikers too.
A snow country hot rod. Something as jazzy as a Mustang or Camaro, that would get around in winter. I used to lust after a new Camaro until a friend came up skiing in one. That car got stuck in my driveway, got stuck in the Cannon Mt driveway, couldn't climb the hill into my mother's place. After that weekend it came clear that if I bought something like that everyone would just laugh at it (and me) in snow country. Shouldn't be too hard to do. Good styling, 50/50 weight distribution, front wheel drive, big fat tires, reasonable engine power, say 300 horse.