Consumer spending

Just for you edification, consumer spending (aka consumption) accounts for just less than two-thirds of the American economy. Drops in consumer spending like we are seeing are a very big deal.

Normally investment is about 15% of the economy, government spending 20%. Exports and imports net to about zero.

Saving Motown

I never thought I’d say this, but I think I might agree with David Brooks.

Granting immortality to Detroit’s Big Three does not enhance creative destruction. It retards it. It crosses a line, a bright line. It is not about saving a system; there will still be cars made and sold in America. It is about saving politically powerful corporations. A Detroit bailout would set a precedent for every single politically connected corporation in America. There already is a long line of lobbyists bidding for federal money. If Detroit gets money, then everyone would have a case. After all, are the employees of Circuit City or the newspaper industry inferior to the employees of Chrysler?

NewMexiKen Household Hint

Another in a series of household hints based upon NewMexiKen’s personal experience:

When walking around the house with a full mug of coffee, it is not better to set the mug down on the 4-by-4-inch top of a bed post.

Headline question of the day

“Dow-Jones Closes Above 1,000 Mark For the First Time”

The date was November 14th. What year?

Answer here.

Not exactly a trick question

Which would you rather own, General Motors or Footlocker?

(You’d be wealthier if you owned Footlocker.)

November 14th

Today is the birthday

… of Buckwheat Zydeco. He’s 61.

Contemporary zydeco’s most popular performer, accordionist Stanley “Buckwheat” Dural was the natural successor to the throne vacated by the death of his mentor Clifton Chenier; infusing his propulsive party music with strains of rock and R&B, his urbanized sound — complete with touches of synthesizer and trumpet — married traditional and contemporary zydeco with uncommon flair, in the process reaching a wider mainstream audience than any artist before him. (allmusic)

… of Prince Charles. He’s 60. I thought it was “ladies-in-waiting,” not princes-in-waiting.

… of Condoleezza Rice. She’s 54.

… of Yanni (Yawn-ee). He’s 54.

… of Laura San Giacomo. She’s 47.

Today is the birthday of Astrid Lindgren, born Astrid Ericsson in Sweden in 1907.

She’s the creator of Pippi Longstocking, a nine-year-old girl with no parents who lives in a red house at the edge of a Swedish village with her horse and her pet monkey, Mr. Nilsson. She has red pigtails, and she wears one black stocking and one brown, with black shoes twice as long as her feet. She eats whole chocolate cakes and sleeps with her feet on the pillow, and she’s the strongest girl in the world.

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media (2006)

Composer Aaron Copland was born on November 14, 1900, in Brooklyn to Russian-Jewish immigrants.

In 1942, Copland began working with Martha Graham on Appalachian Spring, a ballet that eventually won the 1944 Pulitzer Prize in music. The Library of Congress’s Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation commissioned the work from Graham and Copland. Between July 1942 and July 1943, Graham sent three scripts to Copland. On receiving the third script, Copland wrote the music we know as Appalachian Spring.

Hearing the music, Graham revised the action yet again:

I have been working on your music. It is so beautiful and so wonderfully made. I have become obsessed by it. But I have also been doing a little cursing, too, as you probably did earlier over that not-so-good script. But what you did from that has made me change in many places. Naturally that will not do anything to the music, it is simply that the music made me change. It is so knit and of a completeness that it takes you into very strong hands and leads you into its own world. And there I am.

In the end, no script accompanied what Copland called “Ballet for Martha” and Graham retitled, Appalachian Spring. A splendid collaboration between American masters of music and dance, the ballet premiered at the Library of Congress’s Coolidge Auditorium in 1944.

Library of Congress

First Lady Mamie Eisenhower was born on this date in 1896. She died in 1979.

Joseph McCarthy was born on this date in 1908. Fortunately he died in 1957.

Claude Monet was born on this date in 1840. He died in 1926.

The term “impressionist” is derived from Monet’s painting Impression, soleil levant.

Click to view larger version.

The first Dodge

… was completed on this date in 1914. When asked why the Dodge Brothers wanted to build their own car, John Dodge replied, “Just think of all the Ford owners who will someday want an automobile.”

Some background from This Day in History from the History Channel:

On this day, John and Horace Dodge completed their first Dodge vehicle, a car informally known as “Old Betsy.” The same day, the Dodge brothers gave “Old Betsy” a quick test drive through the streets of Detroit, Michigan, and the vehicle was shipped to a buyer in Tennessee. John and Horace, who began their business career as bicycle manufacturers in 1897, first entered the automotive industry as auto parts manufacturers in 1901. They built engines for Ransom Olds and Henry Ford among others, and in 1910 the Dodge Brothers Company was the largest parts-manufacturing firm in the United States. In 1914, the intrepid brothers founded the new Dodge Brothers Motor Car Company, and began work on their first complete automobile at their Hamtramck factory. Dodge vehicles became known for their quality and sturdiness, and by 1919, the Dodge brothers were among the richest men in America. In early 1920, just as he was completing work on his 110-room mansion on the Grosse Point waterfront in Michigan, John fell ill from respiratory problems and died. Horace, who also suffered from chronic lung problems, died from pneumonia in December of the same year. The company was later sold to a New York bank, and in 1928, the Chrysler Corporation bought the Dodge name, its factories, and the large network of Dodge car dealers. Under Chrysler’s direction Dodge became a successful producer of cars and trucks marketed for their ruggedness, and today Dodge sells a lineup of over a dozen cars and trucks.

NewMexiKen applied for a job at Dodge Main in Hamtramck in 1965 or 1966, but ended up in an electrical equipment factory nearby. Dodge Main was the original Dodge factory, ultimately demolished in 1980. Though I heard that work at Dodge Main was particularly tough and dirty I always thought it would have been cool to build cars, even if only for a summer. Or, more likely, especially if only for a summer.

Timing

An old man was lying on his death bed, wishing for one more pleasure out of life. Suddenly, he smelled the scent of cookies coming from the kitchen. With all the strength left in him, he made his way to the kitchen, where his wife was busy baking. It took all he had to reach out for a cookie. Just when he got his hands on one, his wife slapped him on the wrist. “Leave those alone,” she said. “They’re for the funeral.”