quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

that article really bothers me cause every other sentence is either 'wtf' or 'otm' and its very unpleasant to read something like that

Instead, they have scrutinized the market and created customized products for less price-sensitive customers. Facebook and Apple, Starbucks and the Boston Beer Company (which makes Sam Adams lager) show that people who identify and meet untapped needs can create thousands of jobs and billions in wealth.

otm

As our economy recovers, there will be nearly infinite ways to meet custom needs at premium prices.

wtf

Meanwhile, the idea (or at least the hope) is that as China and other emerging nations develop, the United States can stay on the profitable forefront, delivering specific high-tech parts to their factories and the latest upmarket foods to their middle class.

otm

According to this view, the fracturing of industrial manufacturing, however painful, has helped prepare parts of the economy for this new course.

wtf

it's like, yeah it's def good that people can sell gourmet beef jerky to each other and I am 100% behind that happening even, but it's prob not something you can build the american economy on, also why are you talking about adam smith

Definitely not something you can build the economy on when the article says the jerky company is in the red!

I think there are also some really key differences between handmade jerky sold at retail and precision machined aerospace components sold to multibillion dollar companies that renders the term "craft manufacturing" pretty meaningless.

time was when americans actually made things

"You know what the trouble is, Brucey? We used to make artisanal pickles in this country, build longboards with fair-trade lumber. Now we just put our hand in the next guy's pocket."

Everyone should become yoga instructors, and that way everyone could give everyone else yoga lessons

Chris Woehrle (...) decided to become an artisanal food craftsman — any kind of artisanal food craftsman.

are there any 'artisanal craftsmen' who specialize in antisanal handcrafted redundancies?

I am an artisanal time waster and procrastinator. I am the goddamn Nobel Prize winner of perfected nothing.

can we just agree that the article was poorly written?

it was a bad article

on the bright side you can find some kickstarter projects where people are making fine artisinal products out of machine-sculpted aluminum or stuff using homegrown 3d printers

well my problem w/ these articles is that they always conflate 'this thing in brooklyn is not a bad thing for the economy, u kno'(people will pay more $$ for gourmet jerky, dude has job) with 'this can save the economy' I guess this dicussion should go in its proper thread tho.

these are like a dime a dozen the last few years, but w/e:

http://www.torontolife.com/daily/informer/from-print-edition-informer/2012/02/15/almost-rich/

omg! These people are just this close to being rich, but damn if they really feel like they're quite living the correct rich person lifestyle.

when you run out of artisinal craftsman opportunities you can become a curator of same

I like the bit where the author says that pre-industrial revolution humans had a profoundly inefficient economy

in the nyt article

lol @ that almost rich article

kinda wish everyone profiled in it was murdered

feel bad for them because they r so close to being rich but not rich must be horrible

can't remember if this has been posted here, but it can't be posted enough:

http://www.artisanalpencilsharpening.com/

was posted in the craftsmanship &c thread

can i just take a mo to rep for local artisans here:

http://www.realpickles.com/

sooooooo fucking good.

NYT thing reminded me. oh man their garlic dill pickles are the pizickle bizzomb.

im sure those r good but gdamn claiming that the only real way to pickle something is in fact w/o vinegar using fermentation takes some fn stones - i mean theres a reason why theres a whole nother word for it fermentation that is generally understood to not mean the same thing as pickling

yeah i don't even get into the specifics. and i've never met the pickle people. though i do know a swell guy here who owns a small mead company. and kombucha company. dude is pretty radical. seriously, though, you have to try real pickle company's beets. and cabbage! they know what they're doing.

lagoon getting angry about pickling

its srs biz!

theyre claiming kimchi is more a real pickle than a lil gherkin, preposterous!

don't mess with kim chi

i know her brother

kimchi is great but its not like if u asked people if it was a pickle theyd be all hell yeah but whats this other lil cucumber lookin thing

well it's just two different uses of the word pickle

but being that 'pickle' suggests 'pickled cucumber' for like 98% of americans they prob should call themselves 'real pickling' or something

its their claim that fermentation is real pickling thats so preposterous!

u r very upset about this

thank you kim chi spenditnow

it outrageous!

i mean srsly folks vinegar is 'modern'

We use lactic acid fermentation to make our Real Pickles products. It is the original pickling method and has been an essential part of healthy human diets throughout the world for thousands of years. In Asia, consumption of fermented vegetables dates back at least to the 3rd Century B.C.E., when the Great Wall of China was being constructed. In Europe, sauerkraut is known to have been an important food among the ancient Romans.

Today, Real Pickles is one of a small handful of businesses in the United States producing raw, lactic acid fermented pickles (also known as lacto-fermented or naturally fermented). This traditional pickling process went out of favor with the advent of industrial food production. Modern pickling methods, including use of vinegar (usually in place of fermentation) and pasteurization, produce a uniform, shelf stable product suitable to the needs of the large food corporations. Unfortunately, modern pickles do not offer the authentic flavor or health-promoting qualities of traditional pickles.

ya but tbh this stuff is not that complicated and how many selling points do you have

obvs they just dont want to call their wares 'fermented vegetables'

real is just overcompensating tho

http://realpickles.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-and-organic-pickles.html

you know I never realized the connection before now

Occupying the streets. Making organic pickles. Any connection here? I would say so.

dude for real you GOTTA try their dope pickles. yum!

cabbage corporate food system cucumbers decentralization diversity equitable farmers fermented pickles food as a right Good Food Awards local mud Occupy Wall Street organic people-centered pickle posse pickles Real Pickles recipes regional resiliency sauerkraut small business social change social responsibility stocking up sustainable

yah i would totally eat them, i mean like for instance this company has prob the most annoying name in the history of food but really does taste good

http://i.imgur.com/kro0t.jpg

http://realpickles.blogspot.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-and-organic-pickles.html

you know I never realized the connection before now

― iatee, Thursday, February 16, 2012 10:32 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Occupying the streets. Making organic pickles. Any connection here? I would say so.

― iatee, Thursday, February 16, 2012 10:33 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao @ this

yeah I mean the problem is these people are marketing to a really annoying demographic, and because of that their marketing techniques have to be pretty nonsense, they can't just say 'so we make pickles, they're pretty good, you should try em', they have to create a narrative for you to invest yourself in. I'm sure these are nice people and if you got them drunk they'd be like 'lol yeah pickles are pickles pretty much...'