The Big Picture - Macro Perspective on the Capital Markets, Economy, Technology, and Digital Media

Via National Geographic:

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click for enormous graphic

Hat tip Neatorama

From the Anecdotal Evidence files:

For the past few years on the holiday weekend, I have been watching to see if there are any signs of stabilization in the economy or the real estate markets. My frame of reference are restaurants and homes for sale.

The restaurants seemed reasonably busy, but not crazed. We tend to go to either nice places or local dives. On Saturday night, Starr Boggs was busy, but still had a few empty tables at 8:30 (all the outdoor tables were filled). Stone Creek Inn was fully booked weeks in advance; Canal Cafe is small and always jammed. Some favorites in Sag Harbor and East Hampton were all busy. A new waterfront place (Rumba) opened in a spot that had been empty for a while. Orlando’s was busy, but closed early Saturday at 3 (“it was dead”).

At worst, it seems to be slowing a bit, but not falling off the cliff.

The real difference this year has been residential Real Estate. The homes for sale along our trip to the beach is up substantially from previous years. I counted 25 homes for sale or rent (4), and 2 in contract (its been 14-16 the past few years). Some of the rentals are also for sale. Everywhere else we went this weekend as well as Memorial day weekend, it seems there are simply many, many more Blue and White realtor signs up.

My best guess is that bargain hunters are out in force. Anyone who has been holding off selling as they await better times or higher prices may have finally reached the end of their ropes. Maybe Wall Street has moved on, or are concerned about profits and layoffs.

Regardless, there seems to be a lot of inventory. Yes, there is a random factor to whatever places we happened to go to. But my RE sales count is from precisely the same route to the beach every year. And my wife’s family has had a home out here for 50 years. Harry (who is no longer with us) had a good eye for property, buying back in 1961. The missus says she simply has never seen so many properties for sale.

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Previously:
Trouble in the Hamptons? (May 26, 2008)

Quiet in the Hamptons (May 31st, 2009)

Busy Weekend in the Hamptons (August 16th, 2009)

Vacation in the Hamptons (July 8th, 2010)

Single best tip I can give you for grilling, is that you should line your grill with aluminum foil. And the reason is what cooks your food is infrared radiation, light that comes off your barbecue from coals. Sounds funny but that red glow, that’s what’s cooking your food. Actually a combination of the red glow you see and infrared radiation that you can’t see but it’s there and it’s light and it reflects off things that are shiny.

So your grungy black barbecue, that means that the side of the barbecue is absorbing the heat not your food. So what you really want to do is line your barbecue with aluminum foil with the shiny side towards the coals. That reflects heat back up into the food, makes it cook faster and much more even.

The other great thing about barbecue is that a lot of flavor you get from barbecue is actually from fat dripping on the fire. So if you’re cooking something that doesn’t have any fat in it, like grilled vegetables, brush them with olive oil and brush them quite liberally because the olive oil that drips off and goes down and causes some flare ups, that will create a lot of flavor.

HILARIOUS: Donald Trump disrespects New Yorkers by taking Sarah Palin to a pizza chain and eating his stacked slices with a fork.

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Whenever I mention one of my favored coffee makers — such as the Capresso 465.05 CoffeeTeam TS 10-Cup Digital Coffeemaker with Conical Burr Grinder and Thermal Carafe — invariably someone will email complaining about the $216 price tag.

The Capresso is an awesome machine. You can get modestly better coffee from a French Press — I use one on occasion — but its nowhere near as convenient as the combination of a grinder/timer/thermos. Sleep late? No worries, piping hot coffee is waiting for you downstairs.

This morning, I see that Amazon is running a one day special on the Cuisinart DGB-550BK Grind-and-Brew 12-Cup Automatic Coffeemaker for $59. AMZN list price is $189, but I have seen more typically  at $129 — and you can easily find it online for $99.

Regardless, $59 is a good price for a decent grind & brew coffee maker. The Capresso equivalent (w/o the thermos carafe) is about $162.

I just ordered the Cuisinart for our weekend place . . .

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Previously:
Your Coffee Sucks!

Williams-Sonoma is nowcarrying a selection of specialty brewing equipment and accessories from Hario, a glass-manufacturing giant from Japan, including the unusual iced coffee slow drippers.

They also have the more standard pouring kettle, grinder and filter cone and woodnecks.

The Japanese coffee gear is stocked at most of the company’s stores, and on williams-sonoma.com.

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Graphic via NYT

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Source:
Coffee’s Slow Dance
OLIVER STRAND
NYT, February 9, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/magazine/13Food-t-000.html

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Take a look at the chart above constructed from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics 2009 Consumer Expenditure Survey. It conveys a sense of how Egypt’s poverty combined with the sharp rise in food prices sparked the political revolt against the Mubarek government.

The chart illustrates how the lower income groups in the U.S. really get squeezed when food and gas prices rise. In the U.S. the average annual income for the consumer units (households) measured is $62,857, where food expenditures consume a little over 10 percent of income.

But averages distort the true picture of what is really going on as only 15 percent of consumer units fit into this income group. Many have drowned in pools of water where the average depth is only 11 inches deep. Almost one third of the households in the U.S. spend close to or more than 20 percent of their annual income on food.

Remember this the next time the market cheerleaders and policymakers tout core CPI and dismiss food and energy inflation. It may also help explain the rise in social angst in U.S. society.

In the US, we eat almost 300 million turkeys per year. About a third of them are consumed in the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Let the slaughter begin!

hat tip Flowing Data

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See also:

• The Genetics of White Meat and Dark Meat from Scientific American (Thanks, Erin Biba!)
• Tyrannosaurus Rex Had a Wishbone from Smithsonian’s Dinosaur Tracking blog
• Why Arsenic is Used in Turkey Processing, and Why It’s Not Worth the Risk
• A Genetically Modified Thanksgiving from Popular Science
• The Genetic Origins of Snood Erections from The Annals of Improbable Resarch
• A 3-Dimensional Cosehedron-Shaped Pecan Pie, and other Thanksgiving DIY projects from Popular Mechanics
• 1969 Study On Frozen Turkey Semen Ability to Impregnate Female Turkeys
• It’s Not Actually the Tryptophan Making You Sleepy
• How to Turn Leftover Turkey Fryer Oil into Biodiesel
• A Whole Episode of the Science Jim Show dedicated to Thanksgiving, turkeys and Benjamin Franklin