Horizon

Actually it does make sense. Trader Joe's is a chain and are able to buy in bulk. I planned our Christmas party menu around Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer. The flyer tells you how they do it: "We have beautiful, firm textured, cooked, tail-on shrimp for $6.99 per pound. How'd we do it? We negotiated hard, made our commitments early and secured an outstanding deal - just in time for the holidays."

Local independent food markets are selling a concept as much as a product. "You are buying local and small therefore you are defeating big business and are a better person."

I don't know if buying local really sticks it to big businees. The chain market in New Jersey (employee owned and operated) had "Local Hot House Jersey Tomatoes" that were $1.29 more a pound than non-local tomatoes and there was an active bitch session going on next to the display questioning why the local tomatoes were more expensive.

Furthermore, the frozen chicken strips are frozen -- they're much easier to transport and keep on hand, and processing can be centralized. The same is certainly not true of an organic cheese.

why the local tomatoes were more expensive

This is part of an interesting paradox. Anyone who's spent much time in seriously rural areas can tell you that the grocery store produce is terrible. The problem is that they're so far away from the distribution networks that even though an area produces a great deal of food, it never actually gets back to the local consumers.

I bought both products and we've been putting them in the same quesadillas so obviously there's some kind of logic at work. But it at least calls into question the notion that the value of a thing is the price someone will pay for it. Back during the anti-France phase when we were getting Haut-Medoc at TJ's for $5 a bottle, that wasn't the value of the wine either, just what we happened to pay for it.

BTW one of the coolest small projects in our area is a revival of the old greengrocer's wagon idea. There's a nonprofit that sends out trucks to sell organic produce in poor neighborhoods that are far from grocery stores selling good fresh food. Why this idea should need a nonprofit's help is beyond me, but there it is.

But it at least calls into question the notion that the value of a thing is the price someone will pay for it.

No, the value of a thing to you is the price you will pay for it. There's a difference. And I don't see that any of these examples question that.

There's a basic older idea (cf. E.P. Thompson) that a thing of a certain quality has its intrinsic value. Meat is worth more than cheese, shoes and lamps cost more to buy than to repair, etc. When prices start swelling and shrinking and leapfrogging over each other it induces what my mother-in-law calls "economic vertigo." It's disorienting. It's not logical. Doesn't anyone else find it strange?

Yes, Martha, I do. Every time I go to the wonderful Farmers' Market outside of Atlanta, I am appalled at the price of a good cheese. I don't understand it, can't explain it, and hesitate to even mention it because I am liable to be thought ignorant.

I think you're on to something Martha. Just because imposing prices that map onto some intrinsic value rather than the market has proven to be terrible policy doesn't mean that the sensation isn't very real.

I find it especially bizarre that I sometimes must pay more for something as a kit than fully assembled and finished. This applies both to beer and to muzzleloaders. I also suspect that I'll pay more for a few boards to build some bookshelves with than I did for a miniturized digital camera.

I find it especially bizarre that I sometimes must pay more for something as a kit than fully assembled and finished.

This is probably because the manufacturing process drives toward an assembled product. Everytime you go out of process you make the product more expensive.

I find it especially bizarre that I sometimes must pay more for something as a kit than fully assembled and finished. This applies both to beer and to muzzleloaders.

Really? Are beer kits that expensive or is beer that cheap out there? The way I brew I pay approximately 35% of what I'd pay getting decent beer from the store. I'd imagine all grain would be even cheaper.

Maybe it depends how you define "decent beer"?

Anyone who goes through the trouble to brew beer will know what "decent beer" means. ;)

The problem with brewing from an economic perpective is there's always that temptation to buy more equipment.

It's been said that all Internet conversations tend ineluctably toward polarized diatribes about totalitarianism.

How nice that at least some of our conversations tend ineluctably toward the subject of beer.

Perhaps an amended form of Godwin's Law needs to be introduced for this group.

As you point out, the problem with homebrewing is amortizing equipment purchases over time. I remember figuring that I'd need to brew six or seven batches of hefe-weizen before my equipment had paid for itself. Of course, as soon as I'd done this, I bought more equipment.

All grain is even worse -- sure the ingredients are cheaper than extract, but now I'm having to amortize my mash tun and its stainless fittings, as well as my steam injector with all its copper and silicone fittings. It'll take quite a while for that to pay off.

It's also probably cheating to compare the cost of homebrew against the equivalent cost-per-volume of imported wheat double-bock or Belgian honey ale. If all you'd be drinking at the moment is a thirty-cent can of Pearl, that's really not cost-effective.

Perhaps an amended form of Godwin's Law needs to be introduced for this group.

Don't forget cats.

That reminds me, Martha, I took an amazing photo of my cat the other day. I think he looks like a young Marlon Brando.

As you point out, the problem with homebrewing is amortizing equipment purchases over time.

Amortizing. Good word. I'm going to try to use that from now on.

I'm somewhat proud to say that my equipment purchases after the initial investment have been minimal, though that has perhaps more to do with living in a ridiculously small apartment than any special will power on my part.

On the other hand I have still never made a perfect batch.

'It's been said that all Internet conversations tend ineluctably toward polarized diatribes about totalitarianism. '

Agreed- too many w*anky leftists fall back on this chestnut (and they are the chianti collectivists).

Alan A. -- LOL at the Godwin Premium Dry Beer sign. Wonder if the purveyors of same could profit from reuse of their brand name as the Spam people have.

A.H. -- My college paper had a cat named Bogart who drank beer. He also used to slouch on the sofa in a human sitting position. But I can't see how a cat can look like Brando. Want to show us?

Robbie -- Wossamatta, dontcha like cats or beer? Didn't I hear you had a soft spot for both?

Amortizing. Good word.

You know, it hadn't occurred to me, but it would make a good euphemism, wouldn't it?

Shall we have another, Alan?

Well, I do need to amortize my capital expenditures...

A.H. -- My college paper had a cat named Bogart who drank beer. He also used to slouch on the sofa in a human sitting position. But I can't see how a cat can look like Brando. Want to show us?

I admit it's a stretch. Okay fine, he looks nothing like a young Brando. But the picture's here, since you asked. Somehow when I converted it it got a bit blown out. Oh well.

Meaning this one? Sweet cat picture but I dunno about Brando.

I do like beer. Tomorrow a friend is coming off the wago after a year- I composed a poem:

To Friend Who is About to Return to the Vine

Dear friend, after twelvemonth of sober dreams
And wanderings to the heart of dark-
You are now the Orpheus of Milton Keynes,
Whose strolling bass and sweet gitar we can hark-
Should we follow you and brave the canals in Victoria Park.

No wine, no beer, no aperitif;
No cocktails, no rum.
Not even the tiniest digestif,
Nor indeed a wine gum.
From June to June in clear-eyed temperence,
In the lucid tower of Abstinence
There now penetrates a groan?
Not a groan but a song: it's Bacchus calling his favourite home.

Bring on the rites and the corybants
Splash your tub with wine
The hour of the piss-up is imminent
And, drunk or sober, we have so little time.
And so much to drink and think.
A dismal art, some say (with one eye on the steeple);
I tend to think it a dismal art when practised by dismal people.

It is Right and Proper to not give a fig
And risk all threatened pauperations
For we live in the age of the messianic prig
Of percentages and obscene libations
Such as bourbon and coke and vodka jelly-
Give me wine and beer (and my booze belly).
They say to slag these morons just ain't fair
But I wish they'd all just drink elsewhere.

To hear of your return to vine
Makes me offer up thanks-
That your abstention has reached its Time:
We bacchants need you in our ranks.
To fight back to back, with wit our tools
To kick against the pricks and canting fools.
To swallow a bumper and to pillory-
Is noble (notwithstanding the sore head and passing misery).

So welcome back and offer advice tacit:
As Mark E Smith said: DON'T MAKE A FOOKIN' CAREER OUT OF IT-AH!