An Economist’s Travelogue
Jun 30th 2010mikeUncategorized
The motor force of capitalist economies is the accumulation of capital—the drive by businesses to make as much profit as possible and use as much of this profit as they can to expand their operations. The growth of capital is built into the nature of the system; it is relentless and never-ending. Read More
Jun 19th 2010mikeUncategorized
If you have never driven the Big Sur Highway, which is the most famous part of California 1, you should to do it someday. Just east of Carmel, where Clint Eastwood was once mayor, you begin a twisting, turning, hair-raising ride above the Pacific Ocean. On a clear day, the views from the plentiful pullouts are awe-inspiring. And on the east side of the road there are steep and nearly roadless hills and mountains that are themselves beautiful. The Bixby Creek Bridge , about thirteen miles south of Carmel, is one of the most photographed bridges in the world. You wonder how such a road could have been built (it was built in part by convict labor and funded in part by New Deal money) and how it can be maintained in the face of harsh winter storms that erode and destroy parts of it every year. 
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Jun 11th 2010mikeUncategorized
We were so entranced by Point Reyes that we returned three weeks later. After our first stay, we reserved a room at the Point Montara Lighthouse hostel, on a cliff overlooking the ocean, twenty-five miles south of San Francisco. Here we had a small private room, but we prepared our meals in the communal kitchen. At night we left our window open and fell asleep to the sound of the surf just a few feet below us. From the hostel we walked across California 1 to the village of Montara and on to a hike on cliffs overlooking the highway and the sea. We also hiked along the cliffs south through Moss Beach to the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve where we watched the harbor seals with their pups. They stick their heads out of the water, looking like periscopes. They swim so gracefully and clamber up onto rocks and shore so clumsily. Unlike elephant seals, which might spend eleven months in the open ocean and land only to mate and nurse their young, harbor seals have to keep their flippers dry and must spend more time out of water. Read More
Jun 3rd 2010mikeUncategorized
California 1 is an engineering marvel, a highway that hugs the breathtaking California coast for hundreds of miles. It doesn’t go from the northern to the southern border, but it covers enough of the coast to satisfy you for a long time. US 101 will get you into California from the north, but while it stays close to the coast and the ocean comes out of hiding at several points, this highway stays east of the Pacific. Read More
May 23rd 2010mikeUncategorized
We have been nearly fifty days in California. It is a state of geographical extremes: the deserts, the Sierras, the long ocean coast, and the central valleys. It is a great agricultural state, and every visitor ought to travel through the San Joaquin, Imperial, or Sacramento Valleys to see the sources of the food we eat. Go during a harvest and watch the brown-skinned men, women, and children pick our crops, the people we fear and hate but without whom we wouldn’t have such cheap food or any at all. Vegetables, fruits, nuts, rice, milk, meat. It is all here in great abundance, and it is all produced from start to finish by the brown-skinned people. Cheap labor and subsidized capital are the basis of agriculture and most other businesses, and those that own the land and every other bit of capital aim to keep that labor cheap and those subsidies intact. Read More
Cheap Motels and a Hot Plate
An Economist’s Travelogue
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