I love wine, but I’m leaning towards Californian wines; they’re awesome and grow in my extended neighborhood. More precisely, I love drinking wine, not keeping it locked up in a refrigerated vault, and certainly not investing in it. Hence, I have little sympathy for those who were buying high-dollar French wines for the purpose of investing in them, instead of drinking them, and I certainly don’t feel sorry for them in their plight. But a plight it is.
Beer, Wine, & Food
Mad Cow: the Costs of Trying to Keep Costs Down
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Mad Cow: the Costs of Trying to Keep Costs Down
“The US is one of two major beef-exporting countries with no comprehensive traceability system,” said Erin Borror, economist at the Meat Export Federation. The other country is India. The issue was Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or Mad Cow Disease. Humans contract it by eating contaminated beef. It’s always fatal. Lack of traceability “places the US at risk if an outbreak occurs in this country,” Borror said. That was last November.
The Beer War on American Soil
by Wolf Richter • • 14 Comments
I love beer. Particularly craft beer. I’m a sucker for a good IPA, or an amber, or a pale ale. For special occasions, there’s the expensive stuff. If I’m traveling, I try to discover local brews. And the first swig is one of the simplest great pleasures in life. But I’ll stick to the numbers. And they’re morose for the US beer industry. Yet there is an astonishing winner.
Liquid (and Delicious) Economic Indicators
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Liquid (and Delicious) Economic Indicators
With the European Union going into recession possibly, with the US growing, but not enough, with China booming, or crashing, and with Japan languishing, the worldwide economic picture is confusing, and debt crises have been swept under the rug by voluminous money-printing. But there is one economic indicator that is particularly … tasty and, if consumed in quantity, more vertigo-inducing than all the Eurozone bailout mechanisms: wine.
Friday Night Economic Indices
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Friday Night Economic Indices
There still are some economic numbers that aren’t seasonally adjusted or manipulated with fancy statistical footwork by governmental, quasi-governmental, or non-governmental number mongers. And they give us the true picture of the worldwide economy: beer, wine, mood, and San Francisco real estate—with more predictive power than is allowed by law.
Merde! Chinese Wines Did What to French Wines?
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Merde! Chinese Wines Did What to French Wines?
In France, the litany of job reductions continues. Today, it was Air France. It followed automaker PSA Peugeot Citroën, French banks, nuclear-power conglomerate Areva, drug maker Sanofi, newspapers, ferry operator Seafrance, etc. It’s tough out there. And now, France’s heavily subsidized signature industry—wines—got slapped in the face. By China.
Noodle Guy Wins In Dispute Between Japan and Taiwan
by Wolf Richter • • Comments Off on Noodle Guy Wins In Dispute Between Japan and Taiwan
Udon noodles came, like so many things in Japan, from China. Kūkai, a Buddhist monk from the province of Sanuki on the Japanese island of Shikoku, had brought them back. Today, the province is called Kagawa Prefecture, but the noodles are still called Sanuki udon—which sparked an international dispute between Japan and Taiwan. All because of a noodle guy.