Sweet tooths prove to be recession proof

With Easter and other upcoming religious holidays, The Neilson Company is expecting the sales of chocolate to soar in April.  But it isn’t just these events keeping the candy companies alive and well.  Although many businesses are suffering from the effects of the recession, profits for Nestle and Cadbury have risen.  Even during the Great Depression, Americans were able to save some wiggle room for their sugar rushes.  Why is this?

An article in the New York Times reflect that candy brings back less stressful times for citizens and is an inexpensive escape.

Indeed, store owners and manufacturers find that the hottest-selling candies these days are cheaper, old-fashioned ones. In addition to strong sales of Necco Wafers and Mary Janes, the New England Confectionery Company said sales of Sweetheart candies jumped 20 percent at Valentine’s Day. Eastern Sales and Marketing, a major candy representative for manufacturers, has noticed “double digit growth” for Gummy Bears, Violet Gum and Jelly Bellies, according to John Anastasi, the company’s senior vice president of the confectionery business unit.

As store owners struggle to keep Bit-O-Honeys, Swedish Fish and Sour Balls on the shelves, adults allow themselves to indulge more in a quick mood lifter without the feelings of guilt.  Along with candy, other food products that will still remain in our tight budgets are seafood, beer and dry pastas .

Rebelling by ‘Going Galt’

In protest to President Obama’s policies, conservatives are pulling out of the economy and using Ayn Rand’s 52-year-old novel, Atlas Shrugged, as a guide.  The protagonist, John Galt, is an outcast who retreats from a society that takes from the brilliant and creative to give to those less successful and more than willing to recieve from the more accomplished.  No wonder Stephen Moore of “The Wallstreet Journal” thinks that this should be required reading with the mess our nation is currently in.

Americans are naturally against government becoming more central in their lives; however, being called a ‘socialist’ is not as insulting as it was in the 1930s when it was associated with the cold war and Soviet-style Communisism.  “European-style socialism” in countries like Sweden, Norway and Finland seems to be more appropriate for Obama’s agenda with policies like universal health care, more funding for education and a greater tax on the wealthy.

David Wiegel makes a point that this phenomenen is another conservative insta-cause sprung up by the awakening of a silent majority, but that this idea of revolution will become more of a  marketing slogan.  Consider last year’s “Drill Baby Drill” mania, the Palin merchandise industry and Joe the Plumber.

Obama addresses Congress and a nation

On Tuesday, President Obama faced Congress and concerned Americans in his first address and discussed his plans to rebuild and recover the nation.  He said that it was time to stop avoiding the big issues with short-term solutions that have lead us into the economic crises at hand.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that for too long, we have not always met these responsibilities — as a government or as a people. I say this not to lay blame or look backward, but because it is only by understanding how we arrived at this moment that we’ll be able to lift ourselves out of this predicament.

The three main areas that Obama focuses to invest on are energy, health care and education, confident that building new foundations in these places will guide America to be stronger than ever.  He challenged Congress to not rely on foreign oil but renewable sources of energy.  For every American, there should be affordable and reliable health care.  Declining schools are another contributor to why the nation is presently in its state, for education holds the key to our future. Although he spoke about grave matters, his speech was presented with ambitious hopes.

Obama expects to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term.  There are already two trillion dollars of waste that his administration plans to cut out.  Instead of presenting his argument with false promises and apologies, he asked for citizens to understand that our problems did not happen overnight and would not be fixed overnight.

500K Can’t Support All Lifestyles

To a college student living at home with her parents, five hundred thousand dollars (the cap for banking executives whose firms take government bailout money) still seems like a staggering amount to survive on; however, a successful banker living in New York City has a much different lifestyle to support.

In fact, this sum total will not even cover private school for one child and the mortgage costs on a house if you are living on the Upper East Side, according to Allen Salkin, staff reporter for The New York Times.

• Private school: $32,000 a year per student.

• Mortgage: $96,000 a year.

• Co-op maintenance fee: $96,000 a year.

• Nanny: $45,000 a year.

The total is already at $269,000, and the list for living expenses has barely been touched.

Whenever I hear that someone has an annual income of half a million, I assume that surely he or she can make it work. Just take out some vacation homes, fancy dinners, big cars, and other frivolous perks and your good to go. But, maybe not. If this salary means dragging your kids out of their school and selling your home in a a fire sale, then perhaps President Obama should take this into consideration before cutting salaries from individuals who are used to making $2-3 million a year and rightfully revolve their lives around this sum.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/fashion/08halfmill.html?em

What has been scaring me and keeping me away

Since high school, I have purposely been staying away from the media and their reports on local news, national crises, and world affairs.  The overwhelming flow of information of all the wrong happening around me filled me with a since of anxiety and helplessness, which eventually developed into an unhealthy mentality to not get involved.  Plus, filtering through what was on television, newspapers, and the internet was just too much for me to handle. I figured that if I could not personally change what was happening, why even be curious?

My best friend would tell me about a documentary she saw on how young girls in Africa would be walking to school, when they would suddenly be kidnapped by a man on horseback who would rape her and just keep her.  This got so normal that parents would just keep their daughters at home. I would hear this and get so upset that I would shake and think, “Man, that’s really bad.”  And my best friend would tell me that she wished that she could go over there and do something, anything. But we both knew that the cold, hard truth was neither of us were going to drop our lives and fly to another continent to help these girls.

Heck, if I hear on the news that there is a drug dealer living across the street from me, I’m not going to knock on his or her door and ask that person to quit.  It isn’t because I am apathetic- it’s that I feel it probably will not matter. Even when I hear my family passionately discussing the recent crimes uncovered on a daily basis from our fellow civilians, it frustrates me.  That they are informed and shake their heads but are not in the positions to instill change makes it feel like a sick entertainment, to just share in others pain and misery.

I hope that this class will spark my curiousity, again.  If we are really going through the biggest economic crises since the Great Depression, it is crucial that I learn how to be better informed and to understand what is happening around me.  This will be a very important experience for me that I’ve been avoiding for most of my adult life.  I’m still scared, but it’s not keeping me away this semester.

A Brief Synopsis

Born as the third daughter of five children, I have always been around people whether I liked it or not. It took awhile for me to discover a tangible identity as the middle child, but it came with the years. I am known as the dreamer, the writer, the one with the head in the clouds. An odd ball when compared with the business savvy backgrounds of my parents and other siblings.

My greatest goal is to discover what I am amazing at and channel that into a fulfilling career that I will love; however, finding out what that is has proved to be harder than expected. I imagine that it will revolve around writing.  But whether it will be as an editor, teacher, professor, columnist, novelist, or continuing graduate student for creative writing is anyone’s guess.