Safeway in Snohomish re-grand opening

Feel free to comment about any deals you see at any merchant in our community.

Normally, I would not advertise for a large corporate entity, but I thought in view of the economic climate, we could all get a tip from time to time on where to save money.  For many families, groceries are an enormous expense and if you pay attention to prices like I do, you can see inflationary pressures on many commodities that work it’s way into our food prices, although much has been moderating since last year.

On way home late this afternoon I decided to go check out the Safeway that was recently remodeled.  The store looks much more inviting than before.  Quite honestly, I used to shop there a lot prior to the remodel of Top Foods and the subsequent Fred Meyer up in Snohomish Station.  But, the store was woefully old and the produce department was filthy.

Today, the store, although hardly anywhere near as large as in Everett or Mill Creek stores, it is looking good and the prices are excellent.   Safeway has a lot of deals going on right now that you should check out.   The photo in the link is from their website offering coupons and Free deals on specific items on specific days.

Abraham Lincoln

There is much to be thankful for.

The origin of this day from Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation:

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

Abraham Lincoln – 1863

Mike “Mish”  Shedlock, of famed Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis blog and also a registered investment advisor with Sitka Pacific Capital Management , authors the idea that small businesses may not be in the position to borrow due to the economic environment we find ourselves in.  In fact, the thesis is that while we hear the drumbeat from the media about lenders “not lending” the truth of the matter is that debt servicing loads and credit worthiness of borrowers (small business owners) may be more of a factor than what is traditionally reported.

Mike Shedlock provides four reasons banks may be reluctant to approve small business loans and lines of credit:

1) There are no credit-worthy businesses that want to borrow.

2) Consumers are tapped out and do not want to borrow.

3) Banks are scared to death of pending commercial real estate losses, credit card losses, residential real estate losses, home equity lines of credit losses, and losses in general.

4) Asset prices are simply too high (and banks know it) and the securitization market has dried up. (editor note: emphasis added)

Below is a graphic from the article with data provided by the Treasury Department

Top 10 Small Biz Lenders

Economics has had a justifiable inferiority complex versus real sciences the past century. It has attempted to overcome this by throwing lots of smart mathematicians at its practice, in an attempt to make the social art seem more “sciency,” and thus  more credible. This had led to lots and lots of formulas and models. The problems is, Economics places way too much weight on these. It creates an illusion of precision where none exists. The belief in their models led to all manner of mischief, from subprime to derivatives to risk management.

And he continues on with an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal piece by Mark Whitehouse:  Crisis Compels Economists to Reach for New Paradigm.

“The past century saw two revolutions in the way economists view the world. Both required painful crises to set them in motion, but both arguably improved government’s ability to manage the economy.

The first came after the Depression, when economists built some of the first mathematical models that policy makers could use to try to manage the economy. The second came after the inflationary 1970s, when economists created new models that took into account how people’s expectations, such as about prices or income, can influence the economy over time.

During the second revolution, the U.S. economy entered a period of stability and low inflation that lasted from the 1980s through most of the 2000s, leading many economists to believe they had triumphed over business cycles. As Robert Lucas of the University of Chicago, one of the intellectual fathers of the models, put it in 2003: The “central problem of depression-prevention has been solved…for many decades.”

The result was a new orthodoxy, known as “rational expectations,” that still dominates, underpinning everything from the way pension funds invest to how financial analysts put values on securities. Among its main branches is the idea that markets are “efficient,” meaning that even an uninformed investor can get a fair shake, because the price of any security tends to reflect all available information relevant to its value.

Headline:  “House Health Bill Penalizes All but Tiniest Employers for Not Providing Insurance”

Under the House measure, employers with payrolls exceeding $400,000 a year would have to provide health insurance or pay the 8% penalty. Employers with payrolls between $250,000 and $400,000 a year would pay a smaller penalty, and those less than $250,000 would be exempt. Certain small firms would get tax credits to help buy coverage.

The relatively low thresholds for penalties triggered the sharpest criticism yet from employer groups, who said the burden on small business is too high and doesn’t do enough to help them expand insurance coverage.

As a micro-small business owner the coverage for our personal health plan for my family has doubled in the last three years.   I can’t imagine the premiums for insuring our small staff, never mind having the potential penalty hovering over a small business owner if they meet certain thresholds that the House Democrats are trumpeting.

Providing health care plans for employees is a great thing.  It seems to me that what we need to do is find a way to decrease the costs and I’m uncertain how this plan would accomplish that goal.    At the onset, it appears to force health care premiums on most small businesses at the very level the premiums are at today.