Give Me Cannoli's or Give Me Death! (More Obstacles)

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I posted in my profile the following quote, which I think appropriate to the direction this blog is heading. It's important to make it clear:

“Liberty, to define it, is nothing other than the absence of impediments to motion” - Thomas Hobbes

He is rapidly becoming my favorite political and economic thinker. Again.

Anyway, let's continue showing the regulatory nightmare that impedes liberty and wealth. If you haven't, start with part one here.

I love the idea of micro-businesses. Let's say you have a great recipe to share with people. Wouldn't it be great to have a kitchen that actually meets FDA and Health Code standards so you could sell your product?
This woman thought so.  I noted, with ever increasing frustration, that Chicago disagreed. I don't even understand. Cooking, as an art or craft, is truly available to everyone.  Cooking is easy - don't get me wrong, being a chef is not. But a single recipe, perfected, is one of the fastest ways to provide a service and gain wealth. It ranks with programming as a way to go from poverty to reasonable wealth, and a career,  expediently.  It's hard work, but it didn't require a costly education to bake a few types of cookies and sell them.  What story of a chef doesn't start with a recipe learned from a grandparent?

Zina Murray wanted to remove an obstacle to wealth for individuals in poverty. With a much smaller start up cost, her clients could build and row a business.

They were closed down, and have re-opened. I couldn't find a Brick and mortar location.  They are focusing on helping people work through the system's sizable amount of paperwork, even as that system closed their business.They teach food safety as well.

Minnesota seems to agree that baked goods need not be made in an FDA kitchen. But "Cottage Food" laws
prevent most in-home bakers from expanding. After a certain amount of profit, you become a bakery, and are suddenly subject to FDA regulations. And recently - very recently, the Second District court dismissed the suit against the law.

I realize we need to have healthy food standards. There are people, who, in attempt to make a quick buck or shave down margins, will ignore customer health. However, I believe these people are becoming fewer in number, and in ignoring quality, will lose money.

Perhaps Zina Murray should open her Logan Square Kitchen in St. Paul.

Let's say that in order to save money, you want a garden. Now that's something we can't have. Now I have no problem with agricultural science, or even GMOs - they are reducing famine and hunger. I do have a problem when local government tells people they can't grow vegetables - healthy, life-sustaining vegetables, on their property. You know, property they purchased and paid taxes on?
What's more, small scale production will help in areas that generally don't have grocery access. It cuts down on food costs and increases sustainability. Small-scale food growing is not for the wealthy or the suburbs. It has a beneficial impact on urban areas. I'm no environmentalist hippy, but when you can save money, increase property values, and help the environment, and feed people - I call that a win-win...win...win.

Now, this is an attempt to keep Miami Shores "character."  I might suggest Hermine and Tom sell their home to a Stepford wife. Because apparently "character" means "bland mediocrity" in Miami Shores.

I have seen, first hand, what a garden can do for an area. Compare my what I drive past nearly every day, to a drive I take about once a month. I'll take a garden, any day of the week.

It's this foolish madness - byzantine and Kafka-esque ordinances. You can put ugly flamingo's and fruit in your front yard, but not zucchini. The orange and the strawberry and the hideous garden gnome is permitted, but WOE, WOE unto the CARROT.

I say blow their minds: Plant a Tomato!


This is only part two. We have more idiocy at local levels. I am reminded of person who get upset when you decide that you don't want to see the movie they want to see. Instead of going alone, they cajole, coerce and restrict you. It's childish in the extreme.

Part three we will discuss when the government fixes prices by making things more expensive.

Where the fight is fought

Such an epic title! Where the fight is fought, where the war is won! TONIGHT, WE DINE IN HELL!

How I Imagine All Mecha Anime. 

Seriously, I wanted to get your attention, but the battle isn't some Frank Miller epic. 

History does show that eventually violence is the way to solve income disparity. The problem with "Guns, God, and Grenades" is that the wealthy can buy way more Guns, way more god, and many more grenades. 

So let's call violent insurrection plan D and see what else we can bring to the table. 

My solution to the wealth disparity is pretty straight forward. It's small business.

I know I am hearing groans from some my more socialist friends, but hear me out. You see, when we get upset about business, it's rarely the small business that we rage against. It's the Wal-marts and the targets and the Krafts. The huge corporations.  That's who we have a problem with. 

We never have a problem with the Yellow Bicycle Shops or The family Run Coffee shops or the Greek Diners. It's not the farmers at the Farmer's market who are the utter cockbites 

At least from a capitalist standpoint. As people, I hear anecdotal, some small business owners can be real dicks. 

It usually happens when a small or medium size business grows just so to put profit over people. A small business - say, a local bike shop, is run by people who love bikes, who live and breathe and talk bikes, and who hired people so in love with bikes that they hung around a bike shop until hired. 

I am talking about the Coffee shop owner who had a vision of a comfortable place with well made  locally-sourced food at a fair price. The type of coffee shop or diner restaurant where the owner is still in the kitchen, willing to come out and chat with the customer. 

Or the record store where the clerk is an elitist snob - who wouldn't be caught dead listening to "Now that's what I call Pop Vol 3784634739" but can rattle of the influence to Mars Volta (That's a band, right?)

This song is the cat's Meaow! It's sure to give the bluenose's the heebie-jeebies

These companies and people aren't making a mint, and while the bottom line is important, they have yet to reach the point where money is more important than quality of service, product and experience.

Passionate, grassroots capitalism is going to save our asses. I guarantee it.

Now, why we should be doubly mad. These companies are often under the same laws that larger companies are under. A rule for Wal-mart is a rule for Small businesses. What's worse, these small businesses don't have the money to fight these regulations. They have to follow the rules but aren't the rule makers. 

And if violence comes, guess which businesses get looted? The small ones. The ones that can't afford to get robbed or to pay for lawyers. 

Regulations and risks make it hard for small businesses today. As ever, your anarcho-moderate writer isn't suggesting pure deregulation. I am just hopping on the hipster bandwagon by saying small, local businesses, who care about the product only a little more than the bottom line, are how we are going to beat the wealthy. We put our money into those companies, and not into the Wal-marts and Palermo's.

So today, I say to you, gird up they loins with thy thin and spare wallet, and take your hard earned dollars (75 cents after inflation) and spend it locally as often as you can. 

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