The economist in me

This will be post #1,750... can I reach 1,800 by my birthday?  Fifty posts in two months is possible, but considering I am behind on my reading...well, the fun is in the trying, as it is with so many other things.  Alas.  Of course, by posting tonight...  funny, though; my blood sugar was a bit low after work so no gym, but this was fine; I handled some banking issues for the food pantry and myself, caught up on some emails, handled some insurance stuff... in short, the paperwork pile is much less reduced.  This is good!  Also good... regular J! returns.  My scores were higher -- even with leaving four questions on the board -- but the Final J! was completely out of my category, alas..  I also finished one of mom's puzzle books today; I have many to go through, but some day they will be completed, and I will be very sad.

Inflation data came out, and one thing that struck me was the difference between price growth in food eaten at home (high but moderate) and food eaten away from home -- which was 4.2%.  Whoa!  That is a lot, and I am certainly seeing it when I go out.  Which, by the way, seems to be less; I have been saying I am overdue for a restaurant trip -- to say nothing of the fact that it is my turn to treat for sibling dinner -- but I keep finding reasons to not do it.  High gas prices and the need to save for the bathroom renovation (still waiting for the contract) were the most recent reasons, and while they are good ones... the extra $20 I spend here or there will probably not make an appreciable difference.  Consider it doing my part to arrest this raging inflation.

Speaking of, I was also fascinated by the latest employment data; it appeared that many people noted that nearly all of the growth was due to immigrants in the job force.  This is sort of good, but, again, to me this is a symptom of the fact that Americans do not want to work, especially in the poorer/lower classes.  This would have been less relevant had not one of the social justice groups I deal with had a group discussion about how -- when we got started -- the point of a food bank was to provide food to supplement your grocery needs, and now it has become the entirety of your food purchase.  Yes, costs are higher for everyone, but they are also higher for food pantries, and if people expect more... to me, these are related; there is no mechanism to force people work (ahem, liberals) and thus they do not, and then have to rely/demand to supply their needs.  Again, not all of these people can work, but... a bunch of them could, and if they were... well, our crushing need for imported laborers would be rather less.  Yet another reason to vote Republican, not that we need any not to.