Apples!

Today I listen to Boston radio, the title is: Apple Season In New England. The question-master David Boeri first shows several special varieties of apples of New England. The first kind is lamb abbey permain, the second kind is porter which is the apple comes from Massachusetts, the third one Harrison which is the extinct one, it looks ugly, but it has the fabulous taste. He then introduces the Nashoba wine. The first one cyser honey apple wine, it was very popular when sugar was very expensive and honey was available. The second one is dry apple wine. In 1900, New England colonies lived on sweet cider. It was so important for them at that time.

Americans are called apple pie because apples are everywhere, in the stores, in the farm land, and even in the yard. They find an apple tree which very old probably 60—70 years old. It is from generation to generation and generation. It about 50 feet tall and the fruits are sweet. It’s amazing.Then the master of this program interviewed Bob, the owner of a big orchard. Bob followed his father and uncle and became the orchard owner. In 1910, one barrel of apple is $3 in New York. At that time New England is the Global Maker. The apples were sold to England, Chile, South Africa, and even China. Bob, his wife and their son come every fall from New Jersey. The farm stands next to their house. Bob says it’s a labor of love. Every fall they sell their apples on sale. They sell their land as real estate.

The primary reason for planting apple tree was hard cider for hundreds years ago. It was the preferred drink of Commonwealth, the pilgrim, and the colonies. The second president John Adam drank a tanker for breakfast. The wine makers are very classical in New England. Boston has nowhere can compete with those farms’ prices and taxes. In 1995, with the local and estate contribution, Tack bought the big farm when he was 30 years old. He is a software engineer. His parents and in-laws work for free to help him manage the farm. Every fall he sells apples and attract so many families come to pick apples. He puts a lot of decorations for his orchard. When he saw more and more families come he said it worth it.

Then one listener called and asked how they could stop the super market from using apples from China and apple products like apple juice. The master answered now the world juice markets are dominated by China. It’s tuff and that’s something on the horizon. The Chinese planted a lot of apple trees 10 years ago. China now becomes the largest apple producer in the world. The state of Washington produced about 5% of the apples in the world. America imports the apples a lot from China. It has been coming in for several years now.

Some point of views.

Today I read an article from New York Time, November 9, 2009. The author is Allan Sloan, a professional economy critic. He believes that the government uses trillions of dollars to help the giant financial institutions bail out is wrong. He doesn't agree with many economists said the Great Recession has ended. He lists that unemployment is marching toward 10% and the house foreclosures are still rising. He is very angry that the salary of the employee is 150,000; but the bonus is 250,000. People who work at Wall Street they send their children to $40,000-a-year private schools, and they live in Manhattan. According to the Time’s poll, 63% of the respondents feel the Wall Street executives’ pay is completely out of line. He also mentions that 60 trillion of government money flowing into GM and Chrysler. He said the money didn’t use to help the retiree’s pension. He called the CEOs pigs.

I think the author is extremely angry, he stand by the side of Main Street, I feel the American’s economy is becoming worse and worse. Almost every international student can’t find job now. Because so many old employees were laid off. Some of my friends had no jobs and they had to go back to China.

I have a friend her husband owned 3 buildings at Bacon Hill, her family rent the 3 buildings to the tenants, and they charge the renting fees. Because the bad economy, there are less and less tenants rent their studios. This year they don’t have enough money pay for the mortgages. They sell 2 buildings in order to pay back the money to the bank. 3 years ago the building they owned each one worth 4 million dollars. This year each of the building just sold at 2,900,000. They lost 1 million.

As an international student, I can truly feel the bad recession, I agree with the author the economy is still bad. I had a job at Dunking Donuts, the tips the customers gave us is less and less. 3 0r 4 years ago, the co-worker told me he can get 5-6 dollars one hour. Now I can only get 1 dollar one hour, sometimes 50 cents one hour. I think people have no money, so they don’t give tips. I think it’s like a big circle, customers have no money. All the employees earn less money, so they don’t buy extra stuff, just the basic needs. The result is everyone has less money. It’s the bad circulation.

Actually I don’t know how to fix the bad economy, it’s too complicated for me to find a way to solve the giant problem. I just use my eyes to watch, to observe, and to think. I know that the year salary of Blankfein who is the CEO of Goldman Sachs is 1,000 times of the average worker. That’s the system. I have no comments about it because I don’t want to judge the system good or not.

I like to keep observing and thinking.