Food for the future

I'm seriously thinking that moving as much as possible toward being a locavore is where we're headed in this household. What's a "locavore?" Basically, it's somebody who buys as much food, as possible, from local sources. We've long been fans of the Little Rock and North Little Rock Farmers' Markets, but we're now seeing the emergence of sources that will offer products throughout the year, not just during the growing months.

Reason to become a locavore

Here's the scenario: with a coupon for $1.00 off a bag of Dole lettuce, I ran into my friendly, neighborhood, Kroger store on the way home one night this week. With the produce area directly ahead, I started scanning the horizon for the section of the department that usually held the Dole products. Whoa! What's that? I'm staring at [...]

Technorati Tags: Locavore, Food,

Say So Long

Not to me! But to my good friends at Shaka Smoke Lodge in the River Market. I'm trying really hard to figure out how to avoid duplicates between here and Twitter and Facebook. If you get doubled up, let me know and I'll try to sort through it. In the meantime, know that Shaka was one of the originals at the market.

A River Market original is going, going, gone

It is, I guess, just another sign of the tough economic times; although the official word from the owners is that they're just getting burned out and need to call it quits. We visited Shaka Smoke Lodge [...]

SHaka, Barbecue

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Lessons NOT Learned

I've just about had it with this stuff. Not that I can do anything about it, beyond complain.

Top 10 at Merrill made $209 million last year

Not bad considering the Merrill Lynch lost almost $28 billion. When the GOP and the Wall Street apologists attack the Obama plan to move the country beyond the failed policies of the past, this is who they are supporting. It's the American oligarchs and their political muscle who [...]

Merrill Lynch, Banking Crisis

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How Madoff Did It

Simply fascinating look into how Bernie Madoff pulled off one of the biggest financial rip-offs ever:

Madoff's Universe Exposed: A Peek Into Bernie's World

Among Bernard Madoff's many dupes were his closest friends, including two tycoons he loved as surrogate fathers: the late Norman F. Levy--whose girlfriend, supermodel Carmen Dell'Orefice, would lose her life savings--and the prominent philanthropist Carl J. Shapiro. Amid the sobs, screams, and curses in [...]

Madoff

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Here Comes The Credit

Maybe. Unless it comes with strings attached like those from the credit cards we have. Skyrocketing interest rates, late fees, and over-limit fees. I'm headed back to cash.

Fed Launches Program to Stimulate Consumer Credit

The Federal Reserve rolled out program today geared towards ”boosting the availability of credit to consumers and small businesses.” The Fed will lend up to $200 billion to spur consumer lending — for autos, education, credit cards and other things. The bold program, dubbed the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, was first announced late last year and [...]

Credit, Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility

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Digging Into Your Pockets

Ever write a bad check? Sure you have. Most people probably have done it, once or twice. If your bank didn't cover it, and charge you 20 bucks or more, you probably found yourself paying a collection agency even more to make it right.  But, it was likely nothing like this:

D.A.s Around the Country Are Taking A Cut From Collection Agencies - at Your Expense

"They make you feel like a criminal. They try scare tactics, harassment and everything. And you take a look and ask, 'Seriously, is the attorney general of Florida after me for a $14 bounced check?' " - Michael O'Neil, who wrote two bad checks while living in Florida. Amazing story. Basically, these District Attorney offices are renting out their name to deceptive bill collectors for bounced checks under $100. Think about it: [...]

Collection Agencies

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Putting Karl Rove on the Defensive

I didn't bounce around the Sunday talk shows as much as I usually do, so I missed this little exchange on ABC. It's one of the better highlights that I've seen, so far! And, yes, there IS a video clip on the link below.

Vanden Huevel rips Rove: ‘It’s laughable for you to talk about fiscal responsibility.’

Today on ABC’s This Week, Karl Rove slammed the cost of President Obama’s new budget. The Nation’s Katrina Vanden Heuvel quickly fired back at Rove’s newly-discovered sense of fiscal responsibility, observing that Rove and President Bush “helped plunge this nation into trillion dollars of debt”: VANDEN HEUEVEL: But, Mr. Rove – ROVE: Call me Karl. VANDEN HEUVEL: [...]

Karl Rove, Katrina Vanden Huevel

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TV Sports=Lotsa $$$$$

The numbers are huge, but let's think this through. The economy is tanking, television advertisers are pulling back, holding onto the few dollars they have. What happens to these high-dollar ESPN deals when even the advertisers with deep pockets start saying "no"? Or, will there ALWAYS be money for sports? I'm not sure.

ESPN Spending $1.1 Billion For NFL Rights, $300 Million for MLB, $270 Million for NASCAR

Some interesting numbers on how much ESPN spends for its major sports programming. via WSJ.com. ESPN spends about $2.2 billion annually for the broadcast rights to major sports in the U.S. alone, according to industry figures. Its payments include $300 million for 80 Major League Baseball games, $270 million for the final 17 Nascar races, $1.1 billion for [...]

Sports, NFL, Baseball, NASCAR, ESPN

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Who's Running These Companies?

Good golly! (And that's the clean version). What the heck is going on with these big companies? How can you suddenly realize you're losing all this money.

The AIG Money Pit

Back for more: Sources close to the company said the loss will be near $60 billion due to writedowns on a variety of assets including commercial real estate. That massive loss is likely to spur downgrades in its insurance and credit ratings that will force AIG to raise collateral that it doesn’t have. I’m not even going to [...]

AIG, Insurance

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Doing Something Right

They may not be working. Yet. But Americans seem to be lining up behind the economic stimulus plans.

Poll Shows Approval Of Obama/Dems Performance On Economy, Disapproval Of GOP

The new AP/GfK poll shows that the public is optimistic that the stimulus plan will work, and they approve the performance of Democrats on the economy -- and disapprove of the Republicans. The poll was conducted from February 12-17, during [...]

Bond's Big Turnaround

Hate it one day. Love it the next. It's all politics. Just politics.

Kit Bond Touts Effects Of Stimulus Bill He Voted Against

Last week, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) slammed President Obama’s recovery and reinvestment plan. “Hold on to your wallets folks because with the passage of this trillion-dollar baby the Democrats will be poised to spend as much as $3 trillion in your tax dollars,” Bond said. “Unfortunately, this bill stimulates the debt, it stimulates the growth [...]

Kit Bond, Recovery and Reinvestment

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Here Come The Trains

I, quite frankly, am amazed. There's an Arkansas-Dallas link on this map! So, what is "high-speed" for trains?

Map Of Potential High-Speed Rail Built By The Stimulus

After much clamoring by energy hawks, who knows what it was that finally brought high-speed rail to the stimulus -- perhaps a little nudge from ol' Amtrak Joe? -- but it got in, to the tune of $8 billion. And now the question is, [...]

High-Speed Rail, Railroad

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Enough Blame To Go Around

Pointing that fickle finger of blame, some from the conservative side of the blogosphere just may be painting themselves into a philosophical corner.

Making Things Up, One Day At A Time

Malkin has quite a doozy up at memeorandum right now: On Nov. 4, after Barack Obama clinched the White House, the market closed at 9,625.28. In mid-morning trading today, the day President Obama signs his massive Generational Theft Act into law and a day before he unveils a massive new mortgage entitlement, the Dow dropped to to [...]

Wall Street, Stock Market

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Cheer Up!

Could it be possible? Can we "think" our way around all of these economic problems? Heck, I'll give anything a shot right about now!

Zachary Karabell: Enough already

The financial markets are again getting pummeled, both domestically and globally; the nearly $800 billion stimulus package signed with fanfare by President Obama has done little to alter the mood. In fact, if you read through financial websites and assorted blogs on politics, economics, or anything related to those, you will find a nearly endless sea of misery. The level of anger, pessimism, despair, and sheer hopelessness seems to reach new peaks every week, in inverse relation to [...]

Stimulus Package, Barack Obama

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Worse And Worse

How much longer can these headlines continue?
GM and Chrysler need another $21.6 billion

General Motors and Chrysler LLC presented their updated turnaround plans to the federal government Tuesday and said they could need an additional $21.6 billion in federal loans between them because of worsening demands for their cars and trucks. The two firms also detailed plans to cut 50,000 jobs by [...]

Chrysler, General Motors

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Novel Ideas

Here's a bit of progressive thinking about our jobs troubles. And by "progressive" I mean forward-thinking, not liberal. There are a couple of good suggestions in the comments, too.

5 Million New Jobs Instantly

Dean Baker explains how to put 5 million people into jobs right away, in Quick, What's Wrong With a Tax Cut that Shortens Work Hours? "For example, if employers of 50 million workers cut hours by 10 [...]

Unemployment, Tax Cuts, Jobs

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The Divide Widens

The divide between congressional Republicans and their counterparts in governorships isn't narrowing. If anything, the economic stimulus bill has widened the gap.

GOP governors sing a different tune

Congressional Republicans have the luxury of debating philosophy. Republican governors, however, are a little more concerned about practical impacts, and they're not nearly as obstinate when it comes to President Obama's economic agenda. President [...]

Economy, Economic Stimulus

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Good TV

This kind of stuff on early morning TV will certainly help wake you up!  CNBC's Mark Haynes goes ballistic over something Arianna Huffington said. Ya' got yer transcript and a video clip on the link.

CNBC’s Mark Haines Unleashes His Inner Dick Armey

After Arianna Huffington was on Morning Joe making the argument that taxpayers should get for their money what Warren Buffet got for his money when he put money into failed banks, CNBC's Mark Haynes unleashed his inner Dick Armey: "I was listening to Arianna Huffington. What's the word I'm searching for...clueless? Hey look, in the future you might want to[...]

Looking Ahead

If our new president thought he got hit with a couple of rounds of bad news today (losing two more nominees), there are several predictions out there that Friday could be worse. Why? One word: jobs.

When Black Friday comes

As Politico says, this has been the toughest week for Obama yet. The Daschle withdrawl (which I’m glad to see) will be discussed endlessly for the next 68 hours or so. And we’ll see another two days of approving coverage of the McCain-Wurzelbacher anti-stimulus jihad. But Friday morning, there’s going to [...]

You Go, Claire!

Stopping by the house, in between errands, I wanted to take the time to post the video that goes along with something I meant to mention yesterday - Senator Claire McCaskill pummeling the executives who got big bonuses at the same time their companies were taking billions from the government. Enjoy. She's good!