Just Cured - Experience Fine Foods

Something tells me I am going to regret what I am about to do.† I have studiously avoided political or similar commentary on this blog — for the simple reason that I don’t want this site to devolve into what I have seen and read on other blogs.† I have resisted writing this, but the words just keep trying to burst forth.

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I can no longer stand the posturing and finger pointing associated with the credit crisis.† It seems everyone wants to lay blame at the foot of someone particular.† None of what the politicians and the media are saying makes any sense; they are trying to take something unbelievably complex and ascribe a single cause to it.† The truth is that we are all responsible and (almost) no one is to blame.

The Republicans want to blame the Democrats, and the Democrats want to blame the Republicans — each for a lack of oversight and regulation of the financial markets.† A policy of hands off the financial markets has been a staple of every administration since at least Jimmy Carter’s.† Right or wrong, for a third of a century, our government has bought into the efficiency of the capital markets.† For either party to blame the other for this policy when it proved to be grossly flawed is simply wrong.

There is the great hue and cry over the immense fortunes made on Wall Street selling mortgage backed securities.† Well, the investment banks didn’t create these products in a vacuum.† For every slice and dice of a pool of mortgages into ever more complex instruments, Wall Street had a customer clamoring for an investment with the attributes of this slice or that dice.

A commercial bank† or insurance company needed an investment asset with a particular return, maturity and risk profile to match with and lock in a return against a particular deposit liability or policy guarantee.† Or, a hedge fund needed an instrument that effectively hedged some other investment the fund made.† Or, a foreign central bank wanted a greater return on an investment it still viewed as safe.

The people who bought and sold this stuff were wrong, but they were not reckless.† The buyers and sellers of this investment paper are some of the smartest people I have ever (or will ever) run across.† There is a consistent theme with bubbles — they are all based on a fact known at the time that later proves to be a fatally flawed assumption.† It could be that the demand for tulip bulbs will greatly outstrip a permanently limited supply or that business and consumer spending for internet based services has no limit or, in this case, that people with no investment in their homes will act similarly with respect to keeping those homes as those who have a substantial cash investment in their homes.

So, who is responsible?† The people who bought homes that historical measures told them they couldn’t afford?† The lenders who made the loans there were ready buyers for?† The investment bankers in business to make money for their clients who had a huge appetite for these mortgage backed securities and created the financial instruments?† The rating agencies, the most valuable asset of which is the integrity of their critical analysis, who gave AAA ratings to the paper?† The buyers of the securities, incredibly sophisticated in their own rights, who believed they were making safe and sound investments for their shareholders?

Let’s not forget the politicians.† Voters living in their dream homes and freely spending the proceeds of home equity lines are happy voters.† And happy voters rain contributions and votes on those responsible for their happiness.† State and local governments and chambers of commerce trumpeted their thriving local economies and pointed to rising home values.† Those same governments benefited from increasing property tax revenues.

From Main Street to Wall Street and the financial centers around the world, virtually everyone saw the Emperor’s New Clothes — and agreed that they were truly magnificent.† And now we hear this crisis is attributable to a failure to regulate the financial industry?† Some regulator at the FDIC or state banking commission was going to point out the the Emperor was, in fact, naked?† And who was going to believe it?† The absolutely smartest, astute and critical minds — buyers, sellers and independent analysts alike — attested to the safety and value of these investments.

No one was going to derail this train.† Until it derailed itself.† As it happens with every bubble; it bursts from the stresses of its own ever expanding size, not from some external pinprick.

Do we need this huge bailout under discussion and negotiation today?† I don’t know; but if Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke are frightened, I am scared.† They know the dirty little secret of the financial markets: that their strength and flexibility are based on the willingness of a few dozen worldwide players to accept every day each others’ unsecured promises to pay in transactions involving billions of dollars.

Those promises to pay are a function of the market for financial derivatives, and those deriviatives support the transactions we engage in every day.† Your local trucking company would probably be out of business were it not hedging fuel prices through derivative contracts.† Your employer financed its most recent expansion with a floating rate bank loan and then used a derivative contract to fix the interest rate.† Your grocer stabilizes chicken prices with derivatives.

The counterparties to those contracts and thousands of similar contracts are those few dozen global players; and they share, hedge and reallocate the risk of those contracts among themselves daily.† If just a few of those institutions stop accepting the promises of the others, the world markets come to a screeching halt.† Those instiutions are not telling you and me how close they are to severing ties; but they are telling Messrs. Paulson and Bernanke, and the international players are telling their central banks who are telling the Treasury and the Fed. And they are telling each other indirectly — the rate at which the bank players are willing to lend money to each other overnight more than doubled in one day last week, jumping from 3.1% to 6.4% toprol xl 100mg

Putting this crisis in the hands of Congress six weeks before an election?† Yeah, I am terrified.

I need some help from my customers and readers.  I want to add a page to the Just Cured web site that incorporates comments (positive ones preferred) from customers.

So, if you have have anything you’d like to say about Just Cured’s salmon — and have actually consumed some of it — drop me an email or post a comment to this blog entry.  I won’t identify you precisely on the site; I will refer to your first name and location only.

Utility crews began digging a new trench in Vine Street this week.† Traffic is a mess and parking for the businesses in the area is nonexistent.† Note that this trench is approximately eight feet west of the trench dug and filled in the Spring.† That project disrupted the neighborhood for about two months.

I do not know the purpose of this little dig.† Perhaps the businesses struggling to survive in this overlooked stretch of Over the Rhine needed yet another challenge thrown their way.

For some reason, the last verse of this classic tune pops into my head every time I walk past the dig.

I ran across this group on my way from a morning meeting.

This is a group of students from the Art Academy of Cincinnati receiving their first instruction in the use of the 4×5 view camera.  The location is Vine Street between 12th and 13th.

I admit to having the giggles at the thought of this old (and old fashioned) guy snapping a photo with his iPhone of a bunch of very young men and women learning the operation of a camera incorporating technology that is about 170 years old.

Under ordinary circumstances, the first question we ask a dinner guest to our home is “what may I offer you to drink?”† The first question my wife asked tonight’s guests was “would you like to take a shower?”

Our dinner guests this evening were my wife’s sister and her husband.† Their home has been without power for 55 hours.† The second offer we made them was to charge their cell phones.† The third was every (11 in total, 3 badly out of date) D cell battery we had in the house.

For the unaware, Cincinnati suffered a major windstorm associated with the remains of Hurricane Ike on Sunday.† Sustained winds were in the 50 mph range with gusts to 80 mph.† There was virtually no warning of such severe weather.† As of the open of Tuesday’s 10:00 p.m. news, nearly 500,000 utility customers in the area were still without electricity.† Duke Energy estimates that some customers may be without power until Sunday.

The first things to disappear from the market were ice, batteries and gasoline from the few stations that had electricity to power the pumps.† A few grocery stores are fully open; most are operating on generator power that will support a few lights and the computer systems, all perishables have been removed from the cases.† Despite fires in buildings surrounding Findlay Market, the Market House never lost power.† All Market vendors should be open and operating normally on Wednesday.

On Monday, that same sister and her daughter separately delivered the contents of their home freezers to the walk-in freezer at my landlord’s facility.† My landlord loaned his refrigerated truck to his cousins so they could save some of the inventory of their retail store.

Every conversation in this city opens with “do you have power?” and follows with offers to assist in small ways.† Our city’s residents don’t prepare for an event like this; in hurricane zones, residents collect emergency kits of canned goods, bottled water, batteries, battery powered radios and TVs, candles and the like.† As a result, those affected here have limited supplies, and the stores are long sold out of the things in short supply.

At least we have adequate water, cool temperatures and otherwise benign weather for the cleanup phase.

I have felt an amazing sense of cooperation and camaraderie among all I have encountered this week.† I wonder what it would take to make that attitude last a while longer?

At the other end of my block, there are two older women who often sit outside for much of the day.† The first is always well dressed in casual clothes, usually with a bit of sparkle to an accessory, glitter here, a sequin or more there, a group of rhinestones somewhere else.† We speak almost every day.† Pleasantries mostly, but I am often tempted to stop and visit a while.† That she has but one chair outside her building makes me pause when I think about chatting.

The second, a few doors closer to my work, has been crocheting an enormous afghan this week in bright orange and black.† At first I thought she or a family member was a football fan (snide comment about that not being football unnecessary).† Then I thought it was to be a Halloween gift or decor.† Today, two younger women were talking to her as I walked past.† I overheard her telling them “no, I simply found these two colors of yarn in the back of the closet and decided to make something with them.”† I am sure that afghan will keep her comfortable as the days continue to get cooler and her little sliver of sidewalk receives fewer minutes of sun.

Wednesday must be car washing day in the neighborhood.† I counted no fewer than a dozen cars in various stages of wash, wax, buff, polish or vacuum on a rather short walk this morning.† Interestingly, I saw no evidence today of the young guy who has a little business washing cars where the owners park them for the day or of his wagon of supplies.

I walked past two very young gentlemen who were just greeting each other.† As I made eye contact with the one facing me (as I try to do with all I pass) and nodded, he exclaimed “Yo, b***h.”† I kept pace, sure that he was greeting his pal, and he continued “What you lookin’ at, b***h.† Yeah, you cracker.”† His strings of cracker this and m-f that receded into the normal sounds of the city over the remainder of the block.† It occurred to me that this was the first instance of a person’s speaking to me with any sort of disrespect in the neighborhood since I began spending every day there.

At lunch today, another regular of my favorite place gave me a sport shirt bearing his new logo.† This young entrepreneur is selling a line of jeans incorporating patches of sting ray skin on the pockets and also repping a line of athletic shoes emblazoned with references to Bible verses.† Today, he was sporting a pair bearing witness to Philippians 14:3 (”I can do everything through Him who gives me strength”).† I am not sure of the etiquette in this situation; do I return the favor with a piece of Just Cured embroidered clothing?† Buy a pair of jeans?† Or shoes?

Thanks Stephan!† Oh, and eat your heart out, ds.

As I reported here a few days ago, Just Cured and I appeared yesterday in a cooking segment on the local Fox affiliate’s morning news show.† I featured our newest product, the Half Smoked Salmon in a NiÁoise salad.

Thanks to Sheila, Rob, Frank and their producer, Helen, for the opportunity to appear, for the hospitality they extended to me, and for the kind words.

Here’s the video:

Video, copyright 2008, WXIX-Fox 19.† Used with permission.