Shopping Day

Today I had a personal shopping day. I headed to the Galleria. I took the camera with me and made a few shots from the hip. If I would have brought my big "professional" looking camera to my eye, I would have had a security guard on me in no time. It would be easier to get what I want in the frame but on the other hand it is kind of fun to see what shows up while I'm walking through the store with my finger lightly on the camera ready to push the shutter while I'm looking the other way. I know it is silly but I feel a bit like I'm flirting with danger.

There were serious shoppers out today. Every place I went I saw women loading up the trunk of their car with their purchases. Oh, I did see one man at Costco. He was loading the trunk of his car with liquor and wine. I'm thinking some stuff about the division of labor between the sexes at Christmas time but I think I'll just let it go. Ho, Ho, Ho.

Produce of Mexico

I bought this bunch of asparagus in Houston, Texas for $1.99. It clearly says produce of Mexico. But when I buy a similar bunch of asparagus in San Miguel de Allende, I pay 50 pesos for it. That is about four dollars(depending on the exchange rate that day.) Can someone please explain to me why I would pay 50% less in the USA when it has been transported, refrigerated, warehoused and handled for 900 miles over several days.

This asparagus story reminds me of another asparagus story. I went to an organic sheep cheese farm near Queretaro. This is an area of beautiful fertile valleys. The owner of the land had been raising asparagus for Walmart but every year they squeezed him a little more on price until finally he gave up raising asparagus and started raising sheep and making wonderful cheeses.

Maybe he has gone back to raising asparagus but selling it in Mexico for a price that pays for his land and labor.

Fried Zucchini

Have you ever cooked for someone who is taking chemo? Up until now, we were blessed. Ned ate anything and everything I put in front of him. In fact back during the summer while having both chemo and radiation, he gained some weight.

Since he started on a different round of chemicals it hasn't been as smooth. The first three weeks, he just wasn't eating as much as he usually did. The next three weeks he had some food preferences and potatoes were high on his list. Well here it is at the end of the treatment and there isn't much that tastes good. One night I made a lovely roasted pork tenderloin and some roasted vegetables, including roasted baby potatoes. He ate a bite or two of everything but not with any gusto.

You know what he will eat.....fried chicken (only legs and wings), mashed potatoes and cream gravy. Yesterday I asked him if any vegetable sounded good. He mentioned fried zucchini. Last night I made milanesa de pollo (it is fried) and fried zucchini. He ate that. Even went back for a small second helping. We seem to be on a fried diet.

The lady in the photograph has a chicken tienda in the back of the big mercado in the center of town. Her place is maybe four feet by 6 feet. In that space is a big refrigerator and a counter with several different containers of mole. She is always nicely dressed and smiling. It is interesting most of the places that sell only chicken are run by women while the places that sells meat and sausage are run by men.

I was surprised yesterday in the mercado. It wasn't a busy place at noon. Usually the aisles are full of women buying veggies and meat for their comida and the little counters that serve food are full as well. The economy here in San Miguel is really hurting. I hope that the snow birds and Canadians arrive soon.

Tres Pechos

The Fair still has the side shows. This poor woman has three breasts. We didn't go see them.

But that isn't what I'm writing about today. While we were at the fair, we talked with a young man for quite a while. His story is still going around in my head. I'll call him Juan. He was a good looking, cleancut man. The kind of guy you would like to have in your neighborhood.

When Juan was a boy his mother took him to the USA. He said that when they crossed the border they just walked across and went to stay with some relatives. He graduated from high school in the USA. His English was perfect. After high school he went to work and as young men do, he fell in love, got married. She was a US citizen. As the government began cracking down on businesses for hiring undocumented aliens, his boss told him he needed papers. He wanted Juan to get them because he was a good worker and the boss wanted to promote him.

By this time a baby was on the way. Juan knew he needed to get his immigration status settled so he could take care of his family. Moving to Mexico to live wasn't an option with his wife. So Juan returned to Mexico alone to try to get permission to live in the USA. The baby has gotten very sick when the wife has visited him in Mexico so she doesn't want to visit here either and besides it is very expensive for her and the baby to come back and forth. Juan told us how much he misses his family and how he is especially missing seeing his baby doing all the "firsts" that babies do.

Juan decided that while he was here working on the paperwork and waiting, and waiting, he would go to college and that would help him when he got back to the USA. He went to the University in Guanajuanto to enroll. When he showed them his high school diploma, the University said that since he didn't graduate in Mexico, he would have to pay three times the tuition even though he was a Mexican citizen. The only jobs he has been able to find are jobs that pay $10 a day.

Juan is a sad man with a foot on both sides of the border. He was such a nice young man. My heart goes out to him and his family. I hope that the attorney who is helping him try to get his papers through the US Consulate is really "helping him" and not just taking his money. I have a feeling that there are a lot of other Juans.

What Does It Cost?

The bills for Ned's treatments are starting to arrive. We are in shock at the price tags. I'm feeling guilty about the amount of money that is being paid by Medicare on our behalf. How can these prices be right? How can our nation afford to pay these prices. I'm not just talking about the government affording it, I'm talking about the total economic wealth of our country....government, business and individuals.

While I was in waiting rooms yesterday waiting for Ned, I read this article in the current issue of Atlantic Monthly. The author, David Goldhill, is a business man who lost his father due to hospital borne infections that resulted in a $700,000 medical bill. That prompted him to take a good look at our health-care system. The article is the lead article in the September issue and it is long so I'm not going to get into his business analysis of what is wrong. I hope you'll go read it for yourself. It reinforced my feeling that the proposals that are currently being worked on in Congress are not going to fix health-care because they are based on the same business model that we have now.

While I'm convinced that we need to do something, I haven't heard anything from Democrat or Republican that I think will make a radical change in the system for the better. Mr. Goldhill's ideas about what to do appeal to me but we would have to transition into a different business model. One where the patient is the direct consumer of health care. In our current system the providers of health-care are more accountable to insurance companies and government agencies than to us.

Have you ever walked into a car showroom, asked the salesman which car would be right for you and then said, "I'll take it" and you never asked any questions about the car or what the car cost? Well that is what we are doing and probably most everyone else who is covered by insurance isn't asking what does all of this cost either. In fact, I don't believe that the doctors could answer that question if we asked them. It just isn't the way that health care is provided. And we are at fault as well as the health-care providers. If something new comes out, even if the advantage over other treatments isn't significant, we tell our doctors we want to move on to the newest and greatest. Of course, a lot of that is encouraged by advertisements on television for drugs to treat everything from erectile dysfunction to growing thicker eyelashes. If instead of asking for the newest drug or treatment, we started asking questions about the cost/benefit ratio, I'm sure the doctor would send us off to the business office.

Maybe next week, I'll ask what does that little bag of Taxol cost.

Cost of Living

Since we have moved into the apartment, I've been acquiring kitchen stuff....jelly, catsup, mustard, horseradish, pickles, cheeses and of course seasonings, sauces and vinegars that you see above. Most of the stuff in the refrigerator will be consummed before we leave but most of these bottles will still have a lot of miles left in them. It is really amazing how many prepared condiments that we use in cooking. No wonder our food is so tasty.

Setting up house is expensive but fortunately this apartment came furnished with all the sheets and towels. Really all we needed to do was move in and buy groceries. I kept a ledger of everything we bought, and I do mean everything, that it took to furnish the San Miguel house. It was shocking even though we were buying things at discount stores and consignment shops.

But where I'm headed with this is, I've been thinking about what is the difference in our cost of living here and in San Miguel. At first I didn't have a handle on it at all because usually when we are in Houston we are on "vacation" and we expect to spend more just like you would on any vacation. After we realized that we would be here for a while, we made some adjustments. We stopped using credit cards. I use to be able to keep a running total in my head of all the charges on the credit cards because I was the Chief Purchasing Agent in the household. Now that we are retired, Ned does as much purchasing if not more that I do. I can't keep track of it in my head like I use to. So we have gone back to our San Miguel method of cost control. We cash a check for the week's expenses and on any day we can add up what is in our pocket and know where we stand on our budget. A little simplistic but it works.

My rough estimates of the differences of the cost of living is that we are spending about 1/3 more for food and entertainment. Gasoline is the big kicker. We seldom drive the car in San Miguel so sometimes we'll go for a couple of months without buying gasoline. Here the tank gets filled about every 7 to 10 days. Right now there isn't that much difference in the cost of gasoline between Mexico and the USA. It is the number of fill-ups that makes a big difference. Here we live in houses with air-conditioning and while electricity is expensive it costs less per kilowatt hour than in Mexico. I can't even imagine what it would cost to air-condition our little house in San Miguel.

I'm totally leaving out the cost of housing. I'm just looking at expenses day-to-day. Even though San Miguel is more expensive than most places in Mexico, I think in San Miguel we live on about 1/2 of what our expenses are in Houston.

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

Take me out
To the ball game
Take me out
With the crowd
Buy me some peanuts
And Crackerjack
I don't care if
I never never get back

Let me root, root root
For the home team
If they don't win
It's a shame
For it's one, two,
Three strikes you're out
At the old ball game!

Isn't this song just a part of Americana. We all know it and can sing along. But here is what it will cost you today to go to an Astros game.................

Tickets: anywhere from $7 to $52.

Parking close to the stadium : $25 to $30

4 burgers, chips, 2 beers and 2 sodas $67
Beer $7.50
Water $4
Cotton Candy $5

How do people afford to take their family? And it isn't just baseball. The cost for all kinds of entertainment just staggers me. Yet when Ned and Son #1 and his boys went to see the Astros, the stadium was full. It just seems strange to me that in today's economy people are spending this kind of money on entertainment.

Oh, by the way, the Astros lost.

A Little Culture is Expensive

I have been reading about the Museum of Natural Science's exhibition of the Terra Cotta Warriors. It is named a top 5 "must see" exhibition by Time Magazine and it is right here in Houston. I am in Houston. Therefore I should go see it. I went on line to see if I could get a ticket. I know that basically I have been gone from Houston's museum scene for 8 years but I wasn't prepared for what I saw. Talk about culture shock.......
Tickets for just the exhibition of the Terra Cotta Warriors are:
Members - $15
non-members - $30
Seniors - $24

But wait there is more. There are two other special exhibitions at the Museum of Natural Science that I'd like to see; Genghis Khan and Diamonds The cost for each of them is...
For Genghis Members - $12 For Diamonds $10
Non-members - $22 $22
Seniors - $18 $18

If I wanted to see the IMAX theatre or the Butterfly house it would cost me another $11 and $7 respectively.

And if I wanted to see the regular exhibition halls the general admission is $15 or $10 for seniors.

Can you believe this in today's economy? Who can afford to take the family?

I'd also like to go to the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. It is near the Oncologist's office and while Ned is taking chemo I could go there and wander around to my heart's content. Houston's MFA is looking like a bargain. I could get in there for $3.50 since I definitely qualify as a senior.

A Mall Walker

I blame it on the heat because as a friend commented on facebook, I'm not old enough to be a mall walker. But mall walker I have become. It is just too hot and humid to exercise outside. I took my camera long the first day but I can't walk and photograph at the same time so now I'm just walking.

This photo was made in Neiman-Marcus on Saturday. Bad economy or not, this upscale store was busy.

Isolation

Yesterday Ned and I headed off for our respective exercise plans. Bellas Artes for a yoga class for me and the gym for Ned. Both places were closed by the direction of Civil Protection. The streets were very quiet. I would say that on the street one person in fifty was wearing a mask although most of the cab drivers that passed by were wearing them.

This is the Mexican Labor Day weekend but all public events are closed from May 1 through May 5. Ana Marie Salazar writes in her blog Mexico Today:

That the federal government will close down all non essential activities. Sooooo: The police, army, hospitals, doctors and other essential services will be provided …and the federal government is asking state governments to also start a partial shutdown of local governments.

The schools are closed in San Miguel but it doesn't feel like a school holiday. The kids aren't out on the streets playing. I've heard from friends who are involved in the tourist business in one way or another. Everything they had booked has been cancelled. They have had to let employees go. Another quote from Mexico Today:

Jesús Kumate said the epidemic could affect the country for at least a year, since there are relapses or renewed outbreaks… He said that in the case of influenza, the renewed outbreaks occur every two months, or what could happen also is that the virus could mutate yet again over that year.

While I have some concern about getting the swine flu, I'm mostly depressed about the personal economic blow that most Mexicans are facing.

If you aren't already reading Mexico Today, you should add it to your blog list to get a great daily overview of the Mexican news especially during this flu crisis.

Another blog that is reporting on the flu in Mexico City is a Midwesterner in Mexico. Her blog today gives the facts as well as personal reactions.

Wash Your Hands

So far we have not heard of a case of swine flu here in our State of Guanajuato. Life goes on in San Miguel. Swine flu or no swine flu. It is very quiet on the street. I've been out and about this morning and I saw very few people with masks on. Most people seemed to be going about their daily tasks. But here is the thing, there aren't very many tourists. A lot of the jobs in San Miguel depend on tourist and the owners of restaurants, hotels and B&B's can't keep paying their employees. I expect that financially things are going to get very difficult quickly for a lot of people.

Mexico has been hit so many ways this year. The economy both from reduced exports and from a decline in tourism. The drug war. An earthquake yesterday. And now on top of everything the swine flu. Personally, I don't think Mexico is even close to the USA in being prepared for a pandemic but from the reactions of the people in Mexico City this weekend, I think that they, the citizens, will take every precaution that they can do personally to try to control the spread of the virus. However on the government level I think it will look more like the USA's response to Katrina which was lots of show but not very well executed.

On a personal level I've been thinking about how my parents must have worried about polio back when my sister and I were children. There wasn't a vaccine back then so during the summer we couldn't go to swimming pools and we stayed out of crowds. Maybe the news on the radio told about new cases of polio but I don't remember that. I do remember seeing people in iron lungs on the newsreels at the movies. The thing is we weren't bombarded with 24/7 news reports of every new case of polio around the world. If you listen to all the reports of "The Swine Flu Pandemic" you'll soon be ready to run screaming through the streets. I think I'll take a more cautious approach. Please excuse me while I go wash my hands.

Big Ticket Items

There are a few things that I've been talking about buying for more than a year. Ned wants me to quit talking about them and go ahead and buy them. But you know, with the economy the way it is, I'm feeling apprehensive about spending any money outside of what we need for everyday living. And certainly upgrading something that is working seems very excessive.

I read an article about what has happened in Japan since their recession back in the 1990's. Basically that recession/depression changed the Japanese spending habits. They returned to thrift and they have not returned to spending. Not on speciality foods or on big ticket items like Plasma TVs. Their economy is stagnating. The Japanese aren't buying the things they produce and now they can't find people in another country to buy them either.

Is this recession in the USA going to change spending habits? Yes, I know that it is today. Right now they say that Americans are saving at higher rates than they have in many years. What about 10 years from now? Twenty years from now? Will we stop buying things that we don't absolutely need? Stop going on vacations that we can't pay for in cash?

Should I buy a couple of big ticket items to help the economy and maybe someone will keep a job or should I save because I don't know what is coming down the pike? Where is the balance?

What Is In Your Shopping Cart?

Yesterday we made a run to Queretaro to hit the box stores. We haven't been since.....I think it was before Thanksgiving. I was wondering how stores like Costco might be doing with the dollar exchanging at 14.30 to 14.70 pesos in the last week or so. I had a long shopping list. I also wanted to check out the prices and to see if there were fewer customers. Not fewer customers that we could tell.

I didn't do an extensive check of prices. I only looked at the items that I was interested in except for laptop computers. The reason I checked them out was because we walked by and I had recently checked on some HP laptop prices. I was shocked. They were almost double the amount of the on-line price. Why? They are made in Mexico. I obviously don't understand tariffs and duties, the Mexican government or the goblal economy.

I wanted to buy some steaks, ribeye or NY strip. The cost of the meat seemed to me to be about the same per kilo as the last time we shopped. So far the price hasn't been affected by the exchange rate. In fact, I didn't notice a big difference in food prices except for a few things.

One big bummer was that Costco didn't have Kirkland butter yesterday. I've written before about the Mexican butter, which I don't like. I couldn't find dry roasted nuts. I need those for a appetizer that I like to make. And there were a few other things like that. But there always are some things that you can't get on the day that you want them. One thing I didn't buy was a couple of New Zealand racks of lamb. You don't see New Zealand rack of lamb very often in Costco. The price wasn't too bad. Rack of lamb makes such an easy dinner party. Rack of lamb, couscous and asparagus. Easy-peasy. I'm sure I'll regret not buying them but I had already bought rock-cornish hens and I didn't think I could get it all in my little freezer.

Well the freezer and pantry are full and I'm ready to cook.....starting Monday.

Paradox of Thrift

Are you cutting back on spending? If you are one of the millions of people who have lost jobs, no doubt you have eliminated everything but the most essential things. What if you still have a job, are you still cutting back on spending? Here in this household, we have talked about how we can save more and spend less. We've always tried to live within our income and so saving some of our retirement income isn't foreign to us. Is the worst over? I don't think so.

I know I'm not the only blogger who feels that way. Gloria, Vive la Vida blog, recently wrote about her frugality at the grocery store. Some of my kids are expanding their vegetable garden.

The government recently reported that in the last three months of 2008 Americans' rate of saving rose to 2.9 percent compared to less than a year ago when we saved at a rate of less than 1 percent. Some economist think that the savings rate could rise to as high as 6 percent. Could it be that consumers could start to spend and save more like their Depression era grandparents? Sounds good to me. Walking around with high credit card debt and taking cash out of home equity was not living within your income.

But here's the thing, that gets us into this Paradox of Thrift. I'm not an economist so I'm not going to get into the technical stuff but you can read about John Maynard Keynes theory here. My simple way of putting it is that the less we spend, the less goods and services we use, the more people get laid off, the less goods and service we use........ But wait, there is another opposing view. If demand goes down, prices will fall until once again demand resumes which limits the cycle. And also, money that is saved becomes available to be loaned at lower interest rates and that stimulates the economy. Either way, things get pretty rocky until you reach an equilibrium.

My heart just breaks for the families I see on TV who are struggling and I'd like to throw something through the TV at the Wall Street Executives who tell us how they would lose their main people if they don't give them big bonuses. Oh, but of course, they are not paying them bonuses with OUR tax money. Yeah sure! These are the people who thought up all these hedge funds and schemes that brought their firms to their knees yet the corporation still wants to reward them. The Landscapist expresses his disgust about Wall Street strongly in a long rant and I pretty much agree with him although I couldn't write that post.

At any rate, inspite of Wall Street, The Paradox of Thrift theory, the burst bubble, the Recession, I'm a Depression era baby. I think it is better to work hard, live within your actual income and save. Be thrifty and save something, even if you are retired.

Wrapping Things Up

I think we have all our shopping done and the good news is that I stuck to the list. Now this is hard to do when you are walking around a Super Store! I saw new products that I wanted to try but what if I liked them, then they would just perpetuate more things on the list the next visit.

While I was shopping for grocery items I wanted to bring back to San Miguel, I was thinking that the list has gotten smaller. Now I can get good canned tomatoes in San Miguel but I still can't get chicken broth. I've found substitutes for some things. I used to bring back several boxes of trisquits or wheat thins but this time I'm just bringing back one box of each. I still haven't found a substitute for fritos. Still today while I shopped I thought that I could get by without these things but it is nice that I can get them.

The picture above was taken at the Empire Cafe. We met friends for brunch at a restaurant on Washington Avenue but it had closed so we tried another place, Baby Barnaby. They had lots of people waiting so the third restaurant choice, The Empire Cafe, worked out. I always enjoy going there. It is a little funky and a little noisy but the food is good.

There is news about The Recession and I don't doubt that many people have lost jobs and things are very difficult but the shopping malls, grocery stores and restaurants in Houston do not seem any different. There are customers. I know that Houston has not been hit as hard as other parts of the country but I have felt like there is an elephant in the room that is being ignored. Maybe the economic impact is just being felt a little later here. I read in the paper that the oil companies are looking at layoffs now that the price of oil has dropped. That does have a ripple effect on the Houston economy.

We are starting to wrap things up on this trip to Houston. We aren't leaving for a while but we have a family wedding this weekend and so that will mean a lot of family around. Let the party begin!

Shopping Mecca

The United States is a shopping mecca. We are in Houston and we have been hitting the stores like Target, Costco and Micro Center. I'm not buying much but I'm spending a lot of time just wandering up and down aisles.

The longer we live in Mexico the more amazed I am when we come back to Houston and go into the stores. You have so many choices and the prices are so good compared to Mexico. In San Miguel you do not have the variety of choices.....endive, probably not.....radicchio, never seen it in Mexico. Need an external hard drive? I doubt you would find more than three choices and I don't think you would find a 2 terabyte external hard drive at all. At Micro Center there must have been 10 brands with three or four different gigabyte sizes for each brand.

Since the last time we were here a new Costco has opened in the inner city. I've never seen a Costco like this one. Most of them are similar, even the ones in Mexico although they may not have as good a selection as the stores in the USA. But this one had the widest variety of "stuff" I've ever seen and at great prices. The meats and fish looked so good. There were 2" thick filet mignon.....5 of them in one package for $26. I didn't look at price per pound.....I was so overwhelmed at the value but I'd say that each filet was 5 to 7 ozs. Then they had whole Alaskan king crab.....about $4 a pound, so the two crabs cost about $18. One of my favorites, rack of Australian lamb, $10.99 a pound. Each rack cost about $12 to $13. Or thick cut lamb chops for $6.99 a pound. Yes, yes, I know this doesn't sound much like everyday food but sometimes you can afford a treat......especially at these prices.

The way the stores are decorated and the aisles are arranged are all about enticing you to "shop." It is hard to resist buying things that you don't really need. Maybe that is why some Americans have been spending more than they earn.

So Far This Week

So far this week we have had unseasonably cold weather. Usually at this time of year I'm wear a short sleeve T-shirt and getting sunburned if I forget to put on sunscreen. But it has been windy and quite chilly. We helped with a party in the country that was suppose to be under tents. Forget about it, it was too cold and windy to sit out there and besides the posole would have been cold by the time they put their spoon in for the second bite. We managed to get all the guests inside the house where the fireplaces were lit and it was cozy. Yesterday was a little warmer but we were wearing jackets when we went out last night.

The peso has weakened against the dollar. I don't understand it when all you hear is the gloom and doom of the financial markets in the USA on the TV. But I guess that it is just more proof that the financial situation is global. In a way, this is good for us as we are getting 12.5 to 13.1 pesos for each of our dollars so long as we buy in the Mexican markets. We haven't been shopping at Costco or Walmart or buying anything imported, so I'll have to see how that is going to affect us.
This weekend is the Day of the Dead celebration and the preparations have begun in San Miguel. Marigolds have been planted in the plazas and in our "traffic" pots. "Traffic pots" are much more attractive than barricades. In a few days this street and all the other streets around the Jardin will be decorated with flags and sawdust street altars.

I love Day of the Dead here in San Miguel which is a very quiet celebration in many ways but it is so beautiful. However this year, we are headed to Patzcuaro to the Artesanias Mercado and also we'll get out in the village cemeteries to see the beautiful flowers and altars.

So far this week has been great but there is still a lot to look forward to. I'll blog if our internet connection works.

Mortgage Mess

I'm hearing all this stuff about ways to help the mortgage holders, caught in this credit collapse, avoid foreclosure so they can stay in their homes. This sounds good but I don't see how it is going to work.

Let's just say that Joe bought a house on Harmony Lane and he is only paying interest on the house because he didn't have the money to put down on the house or to pay the principal but he is sure that he will be making more money in a couple of years or he'll sell the house for a profit. Mary bought the house next door. She saved up for a down payment and she bought a house on which she could pay the interest, principal and taxes. It was a stretch but she is making those payments every month.

A couple of years go by and Joe now needs to come up with the real cost of the house but he can't so he is in trouble and headed for foreclosure. On top of that the real estate bubble has popped and he can't sell the house for as much as his mortgage obligation. Mary's house isn't worth as much as she paid either but she is still meeting her mortgage obligations.

So from what I'm understanding about what both the candidates are saying about helping people in foreclosure, the government will somehow help Joe by giving him better interests rates and/or by refinancing the house at its current value.

Am I misunderstanding or misintrepreting these proposals or did Mary, faithful Mary who makes prudent decisions and lives up to her obligations, just get screwed.

Take My Picture

Early last Sunday morning I was in Austin wandering around the Capitol taking pictures with the Holga lens on my DSLR. There were some runners out and about, just a few tourist staring up at the Capitol and over on Congress Street (Avenue? not sure which one) there were some homeless people. They were sitting on benches facing the sun, going through the trash cans or just standing around. This man was watching me photograph and when I got to where he was sitting, he said, "Take my picture." I took it and he wanted to see the picture. I showed it to him, and he said, "Thank you." I smiled at him and said, "I'll see ya later" and I moved on down the street.

Why didn't I sit down and talk with him? This has bothered me ever since I downloaded and looked at the digital files.

Economic Impressions

Before I left to go to Texas, Steve Cotton commented on my blog that he would like to hear my impressions of the economic situation while I was back in Texas. Surprisingly, I didn't 'see' strong evidence of an economic downturn in Houston or Austin.

While in Austin I went to Precision Camera. Local camera stores have been closing for the last eight or so years due to internet marketing and of course, the digital revolution. Precision has hung in there and they are a large store in a prime location. They were having an event with some camera reps demonstrating new equipment. I was surprised at how many people were in the store and apparently buying because a couple of things I wanted to see were sold out.

At the huge Galleria Mall in Houston the parking lots and stores seemed as full as they were when I was there in September of last year. Which doesn't mean that they were jammed with shoppers but there were not fewer than a year ago. What surprised me in the stores was that there were not more sale racks than there were. Most merchandise was fresh...Fall clothing, Thanksgiving and Christmas items. The stores looked great with Christmas decorations going up. It looked like business as usual. Of course, it is predicted that this holiday season is not going to be a profitable one for the stores, so as we move toward the end of the year, the merchandising strategy could change quickly.

Most of the restaurants I went to were more mid-level restaurants. Again, I didn't see any slow down in patrons. I did go to an expensive steak house one night and while it was busy I didn't think it was quite as busy as when I was there another time mid-year.

I can't comment on the housing market but in general Houston and Austin have not been affected by the downturn in the housing market like some other parts of the country. But when I drove through neighborhoods, I did not see an unusual number of For Sale signs or any foreclosure signs.

Now, where I did get the feeling for the economy was in talking to friends. The talk always went to retirement savings, the stock market, and what they were doing to cut back on spending and "hunker down" until this recession was over. All my friends seemed to feel that it is going to get worse before it gets better.