Oh Muni, how you make my ride so interesting

Those poor cross-town express Muni drivers who have never done the trip before. Today's new driver, who apparently had never driven the route or even been on the route before, took us on a tour of Golden Gate Park before finally getting back to 9th and Irving.

The express route heads west on Fell and is supposed to veer left onto Kezar after passing Stanyan and eventually end up on Lincoln, instead, the bus veered right onto Kennedy Drive and into Golden Gate Park. The driver apparently thought she was going the right way; in fact, before passing Stanyan, she was in the correct land and actually changed lanes and moved into the wrong lane. So, we continue down Kennedy Drive, past the Conservatory of Flowers, and then turning left to pass in front of the De Young Museum, and following a 44 bus to 9th Avenue. I might add, once someone finally told our driver she made a wrong turn, I feared that the driver was going to attempt a u-turn on Kennedy to get back to Kezar.

Bus turns on Lincoln, I get off, and I hear the driver say- "So, there's no more stops until 19th, right?" Wrong!!! The express bus stops like 4 more times before 19th Avenue.

Good job Muni for doing a bang-up job preparing drivers for new routes, so I've now been on buses where the driver skips stops, asks passengers which way to go, and now have completely gotten lost. I can only hope that some of money they are trying to wring out of us passengers goes toward familiarizing drivers with their routes before letting them loose on the streets.

Random food dorkiness

Over the past few weeks, I've begun to notice more and more use of a word that for some reason, I've never really paid attention to: cloying. I'm seeing and hearing it all over the place- on egullet, on food network, in various wine descriptions. Where have I been?

Cloying is defined as "To cause distaste or disgust by supplying with too much of something originally pleasant, especially something rich or sweet" or "overly ingratiating or sentimental." Brilliant, I can use the same word to describe a god-awful chardonnay as well as my family.

Really, where have I been on this word, because I could have been using cloying all over the place these past years, and not only about food and wine. Is cloying the new word amongst "those who know"? I have no idea. What I do know is that the next time I'm out wine tasting, I'll be sure to drop it into random conversation and act all smug about it.

Note- I almost found myself writing "drop some knowledge" in the above sentence. I may not be above using cloying, but I certainly am not so far down as to use "drop some knowledge." I have some standards.

The other thing that I want to point readers to is an article in today's Washington Post about Chipotle using locally raised pork products for their restaurants. The focus of this article is Chipotle's Charlotteville, Virginia operations and their relationship with Polyface Farm (the subject of a chapter in Michael Pollan's "The Omnivore's Dilemma," which I highly recommend to everyone). The article notes the difficulties many restaurants have in working with these small, sustainable farming operations and getting meat that meets their own safety standards (read: refrigeration). It's nice to see such a large outfit like Chipotle attempting to be even more aware of their food supply and make an effort to use local products without being cloying.

I'm so happy with my new found word, and I don't even think I will write about all the whining going on about fire trucks have too loud a siren (really, isn't that the point?) or the Board of Supervisors passing a law that will fine people for paving their front lawn. Ok, maybe I will say something- I look forward to the day when we do have a water shortage, and someone will think, hey, if I just pave over my front lawn, I don't have to worry about, then gets smacked with a fine for trying to either save water or not let his front lawn die. If someone is so intent on paving over their front lawn, they must either not care about the front lawn or are too lazy to do anything about it, in which case, you end with a dead mess in the front or an overgrown forest- which the city will probably fine you for having a messy front lawn. Oh yeah, once again, the City is intent on running people's lives by telling them what the can and can't do with their own property. I should just put that on auto-text.

Buried

Just a few things to ponder. ...

1) Buried at the end of this article on the drop in house prices is a very important point:

Many sellers in some parts of the country seem to be cutting prices more aggressively. While sales of existing homes notched a surprise increase in February after falling for six straight months, the median price fell, according to data Monday from the National Association of Realtors.


The trade group said sales rose 2.9 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.03 million units — the biggest increase in a year. But the median existing sales price in February fell to $195,900, the largest year-over-year drop on records that go back to 1999.

So, prices are going down, but sales are up? Hmmm, that's pretty interesting, but the vast majority of the article explains how home prices going down is terrible, even though sales are up. If only I had an adequate economic model or theory that could project what happens when you have excess supply and low demand.

2) Good thing we passed Prop. 1A a few years ago. Apparently, the state is already looking at way to get at the large amount of money coming in from the gas taxes. The sales tax on gasoline raised $3.8 billion last year, money that is supposed to go solely to transportation and transportation-related infrastructure projects. Needless to say, that's a tidy sum that could be used to pay for various social policies at the expense of needed transportation upgrades, upgrades that only increase every year they are delayed and risk the overall economy of the state.

3) I do not consider today's game in Japan as opening day, but, if you drafted Huston Street, you're already at a disadvantage.

What is he doing?

Bernanke just doesn't get it: the availability of currency is not the problem just yet, except that there may be too much.

On the other hand, Mercury News columnist Vindu Goel does get it.

Here are two important points made:

The Fed's deals ultimately transfer a lot of risk from private companies to the taxpayers. And that sends a bad message to the next generation of risk-takers: It's OK to gamble big because the government will protect you from losses.

The economists call this "moral hazard." It's the same whether the gambler is a bank or a family that doesn't buy flood insurance and counts on federal disaster relief to pick up the slack.

"If people don't bear the costs of their actions, they impose a cost on society," said Tom Davidoff, an assistant professor at University of California-Berkeley's Haas School of Business. In the case of Bear Stearns, "You have an investment bank that lost a bunch of money because they made some bad gambles. Will this induce banks in the future to say, 'Heads I win, tails I win, because I'll get bailed out.'?"

and

As the dollar keeps reaching new lows against the euro, the yen and other foreign currencies, consumers and businesses could see rising inflation here at home.

And once inflation gets going, it's difficult to tame, as anyone who lived through the 1970s will remember.

Fundamentally, the Fed's recent burst of activity smacks more of panic than sensible economic policy.

Bernanke and his colleagues ought to give the financial system a little time to adjust to the banks' massive loan write-offs, six rounds of Fed rate cuts, the upcoming tax rebates and rising commodity prices.

If a few financial institutions fail, so be it - they'll be more cautious next time. If some homeowners lose their houses, well, "every time there's a foreclosure, that's a buying opportunity for someone," said David R. Henderson, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

Not only does it appear that the Fed is panicking, but, as others have pointed out, it looks like the Fed is ignoring the 70s and ignoring inflation (not to mention making the dollar weaker and making my upcoming trip to Europe even more expensive). Unsurprisingly, the stock market is already down today after it's exuberance from Tuesday.

Not everything is as it seems

So, I'm gonna save my March Madness column for later this week (GO BAYLOR!!!!), and instead, I'm just gonna point out two articles that perfectly capture how messed up things are:

1) Dallas to turn off red light cameras. Why you ask?

The city said the cameras are failing to generate enough red-light-running fines to justify their costs.

Dallas lawmakers originally estimated a gross yearly revenue of about $15 million for the system. The city is about $4 million below that estimate.

So, for everyone to see, the City of Dallas is using red light cameras as a source of revenue, not for safety reasons. I have no problem with that, I just wish municipalities that install these things come out and say it- when the rationale is "safety" but the reality is to make money, just say it's about making money.

2) City of Charlotte to see increase in water rates. Ok, so what? They are in a drought and prices should go up in order to get people to conserve, right? Well. . . .

Because of restrictions on water use, officials predict a $29 million dollar shortfall over this year and next. They worry they won't meet financial obligations. Charlotte's water rates are low compared with other cities, they say. And for the average water user, the proposed increase translates to what may seem a manageable figure: $6.36 a month.

.......

The department estimates Charlotte-Mecklenburg's lawn-watering ban and conservation efforts will cause a shortfall of about $9.3 million between now and June. If the restrictions continue through early 2009, as expected, utility officials say they'll lose $20 million more.

The ban on lawn watering hit the department especially hard because the utility charges more for irrigation than household water use -- and Charlotteans love to water their lawns.

The residents of Charlotte, being good citizens, conserve their water usage at the urging of the city, then, at the end of the year, the city sees that they undercollected revenue from their water sales, and have to raise prices to make up the shortfall. It's just one of those things that make utility regulation very difficult- in emergency situations, you want people to stop using, but as a result, you end up reducing utility revenue, and then they have to raise rates to recover that lost revenue. Unfortunately, or fortunately if you don't like utility regulation and economic lectures, I have to stop there.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

CNN and High-Def

In yesterday's New York Times, there was an article about CNN's ratings during this primary season. The article notes that for the month of February, CNN beat out Fox News during prime time. The then goes on to list a litany of things that CNN has done since 2006 that shows it's moving forward. However, the article also notes that Fox News still won February overall and "CNN is still regularly trounced in the ratings by Fox News."

Why do I bring up an article about the success of CNN? Well, the article fails to mention one very important thing that may be more important than all the other changes the article lists: CNN is the only cable news network that broadcasts in HD. To anyone out there with an HD TV, and there are an ever-increasing number of them, high definition makes a world of difference compared to non-HD. Are there other cable news channels I'd much rather watch, very much so, but having to watch them in non-HD is frustrating. CNN has way too many panelists for one show (8 at two tables!!!), but having it all broadcast in loving HD makes them somewhat tolerable. Plus, the CNN map in HD is much more impressive then Fox's attempt at their board in non-HD.

So, to Fox News and MSNBC: if you want to improve your ratings during prime-time primary season, upgrade to HD. Yes, you may think people don't want to see your talking heads in HD, but if people can put up with Paul Begala's 1,000 teeth, his cringe-inducing smirk, and the over-application of make-up, then I'm sure people can deal with Fred Barnes' smirks and Pat Buchanan's attempt at hiding his balding head in HD.

Overheard at the bar

Met up with my friends Vansmack and his wife for a few games of darts and some High Life's at the local bar. Vansmack went and played a few songs on the juke box- one of the songs come on, and a guy playing darts next us starts talking to the girl he's playing darts with and says "Ohh, I know this song, ohh, who sings this? Oh, that's right, this is Toad the Wet Sprocket." Vansmack runs away from the area laughing hysterically. A bit more of the song plays and says "Oh no, I think this might be The Gin Blossoms." I start laughing and shaking my head. Vansmack comes back, still laughing, then I let him know about the Gin Blossoms line. The girl next to us then looks at us and asks "Do you know who sings this song?" I say, "Yeah, it's 'Don't Fear the Reaper' by Blue Oyster Cult." She looks at me with a quizzical look like she don't know who that is, so I say, "It's the More Cowbell song." She still didn't know what I was talking about.

Yep, someone thought "Don't Fear the Reaper" sounded like Toad the Wet Sprocket and/or The Gin Blossoms. I'm am afraid of/for the next generation.