Dan from Madison

Anecdotal Observance About The Economy

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My wife and I live pretty busy lives, with kids, work, a hobby farm, and other diversions to keep us moving. Last night we had the rare date alone. We are building a house on the farm (more on this at a later date) and needed some time alone to talk about a lot of things.

It was her choice to pick the eats, so she picked this place. It was absolutely jammed and the staff said it was a 1.5 – 2 hour wait for dinner. You literally couldn’t find a place at the bar for a drink.

I laughed (I assume impolitely) at the staff when they said the wait was so long and we left for another place. The next stop was one of our old reliable eateries, Jac’s on Monroe Street. We were once again greeted with a packed house. The person seating customers had her best frowny face on and told us it was going to be at least a half hour.

Exasperated and “hungry enough to eat the butt out of a skunk” as my grandfather used to say, we then had a short debate over Indian food or steak. The wife chose steak, so we ended up at Fleming’s. Even this high end steakhouse was almost full. We had a short wait (we got a spot at the nice bar there) and then got seated.

All of these places are not cheap. Of the three, Jac’s is the most affordable, but you still won’t get out of there under $75 for a couple if you are drinking.

My wife was the one who said that from this experience she isn’t buying the talk about a bad economy. And that might be true, at least for Madison. It isn’t even a football weekend.

My thought was that perhaps instead of a larger vacation or other big purchase, people may be doing more “staycations” or going out to eat locally instead of the usual travel destination or vegas weekend. Hard to say.

I’m 100% Pro Life. End of Story.

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That is a post from Herman Cain’s Facebook page. Hard to say how involved Herman is in this medium, I would assume just a little.

But I like this post. I really love it when people don’t waste time and just say exactly where they stand. Why beat around the bush?

I have a friend who is a zany believer in the well disproven vaccines = autism deal. She plainly says that there is absolutely nothing that I can say or show her that will change her mind on the issue. I respect that much more than someone who wastes my time trying to show them how stupid their stance is, but are in the end someone who’s mind could never be changed in the first place, with regard to the subject of vaccines = autism.

To me, there really isn’t a vast “presidential matrix” of issues that most people vote on. It is nice every once in a while to see exactly where someone comes down on an issue.

Clearly, Cain doesn’t care about the pro-abortion vote (some may call this pro-choice).

As a side note – to me, this issue isn’t a make or break, I am much more of a guns and money guy.

At this point, I am a Cain guy, although this fight will be decided well before our primary here in Wisco. And that is why I am not paying too much attention to it.

Happy Monday!

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I received a call from the alarm company at 1.30am this morning. The alarm was going off at work, a front door violation. This has happened before – punks drive by and toss a rock or shoot out the front door and nothing else happens. I told them to not worry about it, but if there was motion in the showroom to give me a shout back. I received a call a few minutes later – showroom motion. Crap. Send the cops, I will be there in 20 minutes. I arrived to find this scene.

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Conversation Ender

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A friend of mine posted the above on her Facebook page today. She is an extremely nice person, but believes in nonsense like accupuncture, and the vaccinations are bad for you woo-woo, and other things like that. She is also into all natural foods.

The above reminded me of my grandparents (my father’s parents), who I loved very much and had many great times with when I was a young boy. My Grandmother grew up in squalor in Munich, and my Grandfather did the same in Riga, Latvia. They met in Chicago. I have some photos of my Grandmother and her family in front of their rabbit cages – they raised them for meat. They had no indoor plumbing, of course. This was just after the turn of the century. I don’t have any photos of my grandfather when he was growing up. His father was killed in WW1 and he was shifted from relative to relative. I can only assume that a camera and photos were the last thing on his mind.

I was treated to the way that my grandparents ate when I spent summer weeks at their house in northern Wisconsin (Birchwood, for those who may be interested). We ate all sorts of shit that my friend of today would simply puke on if presented to her. Processed meats, fortified grains, you name it. Coming from the places they did, although they lived a comfortable retirement, they still wasted nothing. If we had chicken for dinner, we would make soup that night or the next day out of the carcass. It wasn’t even a question, we just did it. All the leftovers went into the soup.

I think my favorite was when after a roast or something was cooked, my grandmother would take the rendered fat and wait until it solidified, then scraped it up, put it in the fridge, and hauled it out for a lunch the next day. She would simply spread it on rye bread and that was it. Take it or leave it. My grandpa would wash that down with a beer or two.

This is what people, when they were poor, had to do to scratch it out every day. My comment, which ended all of the “hell yeas!” and “I agrees” in the Facebook thread above was:

I admit I miss the lard and rye bread sandwiches my grandmother used to feed us.

Lack of perspective cracks me up at times.

Generation X To The Rescue?

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I like writing about things I know little about, because typically I learn a lot from the commenters, and get humbled at times. I am sure that the following will be one of those types of posts.

I have had this thought rolling around in my head for quite some time, and wanted to air it out to see what type of play it will get.

Our entitlement programs steam ahead into oblivion here in the US. In particular Social Security, while not exactly a Ponzi Scheme (but close enough), is on the Highway to Hell, if something isn’t done to fix it.

The only time I remember that something was honestly tried to fix SS was when GW Bush attempted to let a tiny portion (was it 4%?) of new inputs be allowed to be managed in a private account. Not many will remember that debate, but it was ridiculous. Literally, I heard over and over that the OLD PEOPLE WERE GOING TO BE THROWN OUT INTO THE STREETS AND FREEZING COLD. The noise was incredible, and very little logical, well thought out debate was presented. I am still disgusted when I think of how that debate was framed.

Every time that I get my pay stub I look at those numbers leaving my net pay and cringe knowing that MY PROMISE will be broken. This is a system that will most likely be insolvent by the time I get to the age of collecting. I have taken it for granted, and so have many of the folks I have talked to that are my age. My age – Generation X.

Loosely, Gen X is described as the post Boomer generation, the 13th to be raised under the flag of the good ‘ol USA. The birth years (again, loosely) are said to vary from definition to definition, but center between 1961 and 1981. I fall almost smack dab in the middle of it. So does my wife. And most of my friends. We talk about things like this.

This time period saw some of the lowest birth rates in the US. We don’t have enough of us to support all of you (I’m talkin’ to you, Boomers!). We are paying into a system (Social Security) that is designed, mathematically, to fail. Of course SS is just one of our many entitlement programs that are going to be under intense pressure in the future – if nothing changes. That is a big if.

The thrust of my thinking here is that it will be up to my g-g-g-Generation to fix this mess. As I look at all the grey hairs in the Senate and House (there are exceptions, of course) my thinking is that these things aren’t about political parties, they are age and culture differences. The folks I hang around with – Democrat, Republican, Tea, whataver, want things fixed, and done right. This isn’t universal, of course, but I hear a lot more common sense out of younger people and younger CongressCritters than the Old Guard.

Paul Ryan is a Gen X’er. I think the guy is fantastic and a breath of fresh air, and I firmly believe that his message and belief system is held in check a LOT by the Old Guard (I am pointing that finger at you again, Boomers). Sarah Palin is also a Gen X’er. Have you heard anyone else in politics say things like this? Again, this isn’t a party thing, it is a generational thing. I sort of feel like in a lot of respects, we have our own old person combine in Washington DC.

If we stay on the current course there will be hell to pay for anyone who hasn’t saved their dough, as far as retirement goes. But most of us (at least the people my age that I talk to) aren’t that stupid. Some of us are.

I guess I am tired of the Old Guard who screwed up the system telling me and others like Ryan how bad it could get screwed up if attempts are made to fix it. To me, it isn’t about parties, it is about generations. Generation X might end up being the folks that have to fix…everything.