Here it is at the beginning of August and the kids are back in school already. How the times have changed. Back in my day I literally would trudge to school (Okay the local bus stop) uphill both ways in several feet of snow some days. In those days school did not start again until after Labor Day. Maybe that’s why my generation (That would be generation Oregon Trail) is so much tougher. Kids actually had full summer vacations to do kid things, like you know, build forts, chase squirrels and have adventures in the forest. At least that was my childhood. And growing up in a rural mountain town in southern California school was only canceled when we had three feet of snow and the highways were not plowed. One foot of snow? I was still walking up multiple hills in my nineties hand-me-down snow gear for a mile to the bus stop. When we did go back to school in early September as the knarled oak trees were just beginning to change colors in our mountain town from orange to yellow my favorite subject was always writing. I loved when our teacher gave us topics like, what did you do during summer break or the more 2022 version what does the recession mean to me and how can families even possibly think of enjoying a summer vacation with gas prices at an all-time high in Joe Biden’s America.
I grew up in a household where we were used to lean times. Sometimes we had one working car. Sometimes that meant my mom walking to the grocery store a mile away with two kids under ten in tow on snowy roads in the dead of winter just to buy eggs and milk. My dad would be at work at a chemical factory in Los Angeles two hours away and he would only come home on weekends. These felt like hard times in our family but we had a forest for us kids to play in, lots of furry feline fr
iends and my parents always were working hard to provide for our family. There were no free EBT cards from the federal government. There was no Obamacare free health insurance for all. Americans were expected to work hard to feed their families in George H.W. Bush’s America. (I mean not that my hippie parents ever would have voted for him) If our family had gone through the 2022 recession in the 90’s there is no doubt in my mind with three kids to support not to mention multiple felines, we would have ended up homeless. I don’t know how my mid-nineties parents could have afforded six dollars a gallon for gas or five dollars for a gallon of milk.
I remember being a kid and our family having almost no money. I remember us kids getting one small gift each for Christmas and we felt blessed. New school clothes were not something that happened every year unless they were hand-me-downs. There were a few years we didn’t have hot water in our house because our family could not afford a new water heater. I feel like millions of Americans who live off of debt and credit cards don’t know how bad it can really get. But thanks to Joe Biden’s America we are all about to find out.
What now folks?
As the humid August days slowly cool down into the Santa Ana winds of early September and autumn is at last on the sweaty horizon here in So Cal in our household, we can already see the effects of a recession. In our ski town, groceries are so exorbitantly priced, that I have to wonder some days, are we residing in Anchorage Alaska? I paid seven dollars for a bag of grapes the other day. My best friend, who eats exclusively organic, told me a bag of organic grapes is twelve dollars now! That is insane! In our household have switched to eating chicken four times a week as beef and shrimp are a luxury in Joe Biden’s America. I spent over one hundred and fifty dollars on cat supplies the other day and it makes me sad. I can afford to buy a thirty-dollar bag of cat treats for our spoiled felines but at these prices, a lot of people are going to start abandoning their pets at shelters soon.
Yes in Joe Biden’s America in our household, we had to make some changes. We had to learn how to save more at the grocery store. As much as our family loves steak and short ribs those were things I could afford to buy when Donald Trump was president and beef ribs were still eight dollars a pound.
Beef, because the west wasn’t won on salad
Why is meat such as beef at such a ridiculously high price in 2022? Of course, the drought has something to do with it. Cattle are being grazed on drought-stricken ranchlands and coming into market underweight. But aside from that, having a liberal in the white house does nothing to help the American farmer. The cost of corn is so atrociously high that farmers are forced to pay more for their cattle at feedlots. Farmers are being paid less at market than what their animals are worth. And that is all before Joe Biden’s Americans Families Plan started screwing over the hardworking farming community. According to FoxNews,
Ninety-eight percent of the more than 2 million farms and ranches in the United States are family farms. These family farms produce 86% of the value of the food, fiber and renewable fuels that power the U.S. economy and help address food insecurity around the world. Everyone agrees that when U.S. farmers succeed, America succeeds.
Why then are the hardworking families that own and operate farm and ranch businesses being told to shoulder the burden for the American Families Plan’s massive $1.8 trillion price tag?
To pay for this plan, President Joe Biden has proposed changes to the tax code, including increasing capital gains tax rates, increasing taxes on appreciated assets like farmland and limiting the use of like-kind exchanges. The next generation of family farmers will face devastating consequences if the president has his way, as his proposed changes put the future of nearly 2 million family-owned farm operations at risk.
Read the whole article here. But we are not headed for a recession folks! How is any of this even okay to screw over the hardworking people who feed our country like this? In Joe Biden’s America, it’s getting harder and harder to buy that ground chuck for our families with price tags of over five dollars a pound for ground beef.
So these days I cook up a lot of lentils in our household. Lentils are dirt cheap and a little goes a long way. Lentils are also high in protein and fiber. Check out this recipe for a great pumpkin and lentil stew. So delicious, you will not even miss the meat! This is a great low-cost lentil stew for our household as we grow our own pumpkins each summer. These pumpkins come in so handy too when I make homemade dog treats for our pup. These Pumpkin and Chicken Pup Treats are so inexpensive to make as I also use homemade chicken broth. Anytime we have a leftover rotisserie chicken I make a big pot of homemade bone broth for these treats. I also freze the excess to use in curries.
Now that a recession is looming on the economical horizon our family is preparing as best as we can. One change we have made pre-recession is finding ourselves having chicken for dinner. A lot. Where we live I can still find chicken for two dollars a pound at some grocers and that is a third of the price of many other types of meat. Also, my Curried Chicken Salad is beyond amazing in the summertime.
In our household, we really try not to waste food even before a recession became all too real. We grow our own tomatoes in our garden and sometimes we end up with a lot of extra tomatoes. This easy Indian dish Bangalore-style Tomato Rice is so simple and so amazingly delicious. It’s a very cheap family-friendly vegetarian meal for your family during an upcoming recession.
In our household, dal and rice have become two staples as they are so cheap compared to all the meats you can buy at American supermarkets. My travels to India have taught me that cooking a gourmet meal on a budget is very doable if you stick to cheaper staples like dal, rice and chicken. I mean these worldwide travels were way back when we could afford plane tickets and our airline industry was not struggling to keep their heads above water. If you do plan on catching a plane in Joe Biden’s America be prepared for canceled flights and spending at least one evening in an airport. I never imagined over three years ago when we were lucky enough to travel abroad to India that it would be the last time we would be traveling to this spice capital for many years to come.
Just last Thursday over 14,000 flights were canceled. When the pandemic began, airlines began giving older pilots buy-out packages. Now that the global pandemic is starting to look in the rearview our world travelers require over 10,000 pilots a year. Airlines are surviving on half of that. But I mean really, with the price of gas, the plane ticket prices going through the roof and the price of food, who can even afford to travel unless out of necessity these days?
What recession folks?
Our somewhat senile forty-sixth president seems unclear that we are heading down a steep on-ramp to a devastating recession. In our household, we are getting as ready as we can be. Our household garden is a huge part of that. We plant our own garden in the spring each year. Growing your own foods now in 2022 is a great way to save some cash and now in 2022, it is the time to learn to live a little more sustainably. Everyone wants to buy an electric vehicle although even with a $4,500 tax credit so many Americans can’t even afford one. Can’t afford that super expensive new Prius or Tesla? One way to cut your monthly grocery bill is to grow your own veggies and fruits! We have harvested so much fresh green leaf lettuce and kale from our garden this year. And thank God my asshole dog has decided to eat all the sunflowers in the garden to help me save money on pet food! Our Honeycrisp apple tree is loaded with fruit ready to harvest in the fall. I’ll be creating my world-famous Apple Fritter Cake to hand out on my pop-up picnic small business adventures. Unfortunately, my small business is nowhere near recession proof but I hope all those foodies with dietary restrictions on holiday will still be willing to book this unique experience when they visit Big Bear Lake.
If not come this autumn, it’s back to my real job, as a wagering ambassador, handicapper and degenerate gambler extrodinaire at Santa Anita Park. We may be in the middle of a recession but people still want to gamble. One thing about this global pandemic is; Sports betting has become even more popular than ever! This is great for anyone who works in the ever-expanding sports betting industry.
What the recession means to me is I’ll be riding my mountain bike to work as a hiking guide here in Big Bear Lake when I can. Anything to save on a gallon of stupid expensive gas here and there. Our family vacation motorhoming to Alaska will have to be out off for a few years (Probably until we have a conservative in the White House and this country’s economy is somewhat stable again) But it’s okay because I can feel like I’m back in Talkeetka Alaska right here at home every time I pay ten dollars a package for a sleeve of Oreos, because this is Joe Biden’s America folks and Build Back Better makes our country recession proof!