Lift Up Your Hearts!

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This is for my Carngie Mellon MechE grad daughter, who loves gears.  Check out the rest of this Celebrating a Simple Life post for more fascinating videos and a TED lecture by kinetic sculptor David Roy.

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One of my favorite lost causes.  Just when the Republicans have about convinced me to vote for Barack Obama in the coming election, along comes Joe Biden to shove me in the other direction.  The Obama administration has given up on the dollar coin.    "Nobody wants them," Biden said.  One would think a politician would know better than to call any voter a "nobody."  I want the dollar coins, very much, and make a point of spending them when I get the opportunity.  I'd like to see two- and five-dollar coins, as well.  What I don't want are 1-, 5-, and maybe even 10-cent coins. and yet "the Mint says it is committed to producing the one-cent pieces."  My Favorite Economist says that is technically an incorrect statement:  The Mint has nothing to say about what gets minted—that is completely up to Congress.  Which is why the dollar coins will still be minted in limited quantities.  It's also a specious argument to say that eliminating the coin will save $50 million per year, without mentioning how much would be saved by eliminating the dollar bill.  I've seen estimates ranging from $183 million to $500 million per year, depending on whether or not we bite the bullet and close down the secondary branch of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.  Here's more from My Favorite Economist:

Getting rid of the bill makes more sense.  Did we have 10-cent bills when we were kids?  A dime from then (pre-65) is worth over $2.30 in silver now.  Even using the government's own inflation numbers a dollar is down to 13.7 cents from 1964.

Politically, however, the powerful states Massachusetts and Texas are both against the idea.  Massachusetts is where the paper for our currency is made, and the second Bureau of Engraving and Printing—which could be eliminated if the $1 bill were no longer printed—is in Texas.  In this season of "payroll tax holidays" and other stupid PR moves to give the public bread and circuses, reasoned argument does not prevail.

Americans are wedded to the $1 bill because they think if it exists it will still be worth something.  Getting rid of it is a psychological admission that the currency has gone to junk.  Same thing about the utterly useless cent.  Now there is a coin the Congress should eliminate.

You can read more about the benefits of replacing small-denomination bills with coins from the Dollar Coin Alliance.  The EU, Switzerland, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Japan are among the major countries where the change in your pocket has real value.  If we can't muster the political will to make this change, what hope do we ever have of adopting the metric system?  That switch was predicted to be "imminent" when I was a child ... half a century ago.

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The Tooth Fairy Economy.  It's all well and good to talk about inflation-adjusted dollar values, but what does it all mean?  When I was losing my primary teeth 50+ years ago, the Tooth Fairy routinely left a dime under my pillow (molars earned a quarter, presumably because of their size).  In 2011, according to the Official Tooth Fairy Poll, the average American child received $2.52 per tooth.  (I think the Tooth Fairy should leave coins, not bills, which is a bit awkward when your largest widely-circulating coin is the quarter.)

Do you want to know how the American economy is doing?  Forget Dow Jones and the NASDAQ—check out the Tooth Fairy Market Price:

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My Political Statement.  This year we ended our Christmas newsletter with the following:  I’ve spared you the mundane as well as the bad, the ugly, and a lot more of the good than you see here.  You don’t need to know about work frustrations (but still employed), computer problems (but still functioning), or health issues (but much to be thankful for); no doubt you have plenty of your own.  And you certainly don’t want to hear any comments about the current political or economic situation!  I'm sure that's true of most people, but one friend responded, "I would be very interested in your comments about the current political situation!."  So this is for you, Jamie.  (Not that I have any assurance that he ever reads this blog.....)

1. We have a Democratic president, many of whose policies I think are disastrous.  I pray for him daily.
2. We have a Republican state governor, many of whose policies I think are disastrous.  I pray for him daily.
3. In our most recent election I voted—with pleasure—in our non-partisan city mayoral race for someone with whom I have many areas of disagreement but who I believe has done a good job in the past.  I pray for her daily.
4. I wish I could make more political decisions as in #3.  I am not holding my breath.  But I'm still praying.

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A Plug for Penzeys.  Is is possible to have a political disagreement over spices?  Bill Penzey frequently writes essays in their catalogue that have political implications with which I disagree strongly.  (I've tried to engage in conversation, but for some reason he's too busy—providing the seasonings I love—to write back.)  That doesn't change a bit what I've said before:

Penzeys can be considered the Cadillac of spices.  You can certainly find herbs and spices for less money elsewhere.  But there are times when it's worth paying a little extra for quality, and quality is where Penzeys excels.  Variety, too—they have exotic herbs and spices I'd never heard of, plus a stunning variety of their own excellent blends.  They even excel in quantity, from tiny jars for the spices you use rarely, to large bags (at a commensurately lower per-ounce price) for greater needs.

My recent Penzeys experience deserves a public accolade, so here it is.

I was seeking a small gift that would say "thank you" to some people whose kindness I had particularly felt recently, and was having a hard time finding something that would be (1) appreciated, (2) healthful, (3) consumable, and (4) a little different.  Then my Penzeys catalogue arrived.

Their latest promotion, the Kind Heart gift box, is billed as "the perfect gift for those whose little acts of kindness have brightened your life."  Voilà!  I picked up the telephone.  When the representative told me the total price, I said, "That can't be right."  She replied, "Oh, if you think it's important to thank these people, it's important to us, too.  All you pay is the shipping charges."  That wasn't advertised!  It sure brightened my day, not so much for the savings, though they were appreciated, but for the delightful surprise and the attitude.  Of course you can't stay in business for long that way, and Penzeys is a good business.  What's particularly encouraging is they don't find any contradiction in being simultaneously committed to good quality, good business, and good deeds.

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Oatmeal Season.  Our weather has been warm again for a while—in that lovely range when the HVAC blows neither hot nor cold—but the first cold snap of the year was sufficient to reset my breakfast habits.  In the hot months I eat (homemade) granola, and in the cold, oatmeal (steel-cut Irish, or "old fashioned" rolled oats; not <shudder> the flavored, instant variety).  I really like oatmeal cooked in milk, but I use water to make clean-up easier, and add dry milk powder at the very end.  To me, oatmeal requires raisins.  The other flavorings I use include maple syrup, honey, brown sugar, cinnamon sugar, Penzeys Cake Spice sugar, various jams—or nothing at all (the steel-cut oats have a wonderful taste by themselves).  It's great to have a food that I love to eat and is good for me!  I'm not sure why oatmeal has such bad press, unless it's because of those packets of over-sweetened, over-processed mush that bear the same name on the grocery shelves....

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Thanks to the Occasional CEO, I now understand more about the new generation gap in communications.  Previous communication gaps had more to do with content than method, but this one is fundamental.

E-mail is a wonderful means of communication for those of us who love language and communicate better when we have time to think.  It has most of the advantages of postal mail but is much faster.

Our nephews (and their parents) text all the time.  I'll agree that texting has its place, but in my world that place is small and limited.  Since my cell phone doesn't do e-mail, I like texts when I'm away from home because you can send a message without (needing to) interrupt the recipient.  (It's even better when communicating with Switzerland, where texts are free for the recipient and for the sender cost a whole lot less than calls to a foreign cell phone.)  But even with a full keyboard (which my phone doesn't have), you still have to peck out a message one letter at a time, leading to incomplete sentences, lack of punctuation, and abbreviations, which are like fingernails on a blackboard to me.  U C?

Using the word "blackboard" reveals my age also, neh?

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