Posted on 02/24/2013 4:01:18 AM PST by Kaslin
Did you hear the big news from the world of small business? Jewish delis are closing in both Los Angeles, and New York City.
The trend has been a long time in the making, especially in New York City where Jewish delis’s used to number in the thousands and now total less than one hundred. Yet the Los Angeles Times reported this “news” just this past week, and the details that the report included – and the details that were ignored– point to some far greater problems.
The article, written by Journalist Tiffany Hsu, notes that the decline of the L.A. area Jewish delis “seems to be accelerating partly because of health concerns over the schmaltz-spread fare...” This may very well be the case – certainly American adults are inclined to being more “health conscious” with their dietary choices, rather than less, and food categories of all types that are perceived to be un-healthy are probably headed for a declined in consumption.
From there, the article suggests that “skyrocketing” food costs have driven some delis out of business. That may be true, too, but what has caused that to happen? The article suggests that “mass exports” of food to Japan is the culprit on the price spike. The story also blames the decline of LA-area Jewish delis on “the recession,” “too much competition” from other restaurant sectors, and the notion that younger consumers “don’t understand delis and comfort food.”
It was only one small news story in the LA Times. But let’s think through some of the ideas in this news story – ideas reported as “facts” – and consider what they mean from an economic standpoint. Consider, for example, the notion of “too much competition.” What exactly does this mean?
Obviously the more competitive a marketplace is, the more difficult it is for any particular business entity to survive and thrive. But how do we know when the level of competition is appropriate, and when it is “too much?”
Americans are accustomed to fierce competition in other arenas – in sports, especially, and even in the arts and entertainment. Similarly, most of us would never say “my favorite team didn’t make it to the Super Bowl this year because there was too much competition in the NFL.”
But when it comes to local small businesses, we often succumb to this vague, un-defined notion that there is this magical amount of competition that’s “just right,” and if our favorite business can’t compete, then therefore there is “too much” competition.
Yet in our free market economic system, we understand that competition is a good thing. If competition means that certain business entities or entire business categories decline because of the competition, then so be it. It is fairer and more just to allow businesses to rise and fall according to the market demands of consumers, rather than imposing artificial “limits” on the number of people who are to be permitted to participate in an industry.
But what are we to make of this idea that the delis’ failure is because consumers “don’t understand?” If a consumer chooses to “not understand” any particular business, and therefore chooses not to patronize it, then that consumer has made their choice – haven’t they? We’re all better-off if, win or lose, we honor and respect the choices of consumers, rather than presuming that they are ignorant if they make a choice that we don’t like.
And guess what the LA Times article about the delis completely ignored? The impact of government policy on small businesses. Nowhere did it reference the expansive and onerous mandates placed upon business via Obamacare, the impact on business owners of the President’s payroll tax hike, or his income tax increases on “rich people.”
No, the LA Times apparently wasn’t interested in how the President’s income tax hikes have taken money away from what the I.R.S. designates as “Subchapter S Corporations” (sometimes abbreviated as “S-corps”), and how this has effectively taken money directly out of small corporations, many of which operate small businesses. Likewise, the article made no reference to the fact California voters approved an increase in state income tax rates for “rich people” (thus leading to even less revenue in Subchapter-S Corporations) on their ballot last November, nor did it acknowledge that California has for years been on a trajectory of higher and higher unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation mandates for businesses.
It is perhaps more comfortable to pretend that our current government policies are not problematic, and blame the struggling economy on “too much competition” and consumers who “don’t understand.”
But how many more delis must fail, before we get honest and acknowledge that government is our problem?
Jewish Deli Dilemma? Free ham.
Then the government entities that raise the tax or instituted the regulation turn around and call the businesses "greedy" when they raise prices. And people swallow that lie.
Every time the price of gas goes up, Democrats are out there squealing about the greedy oil companies. It's gotten to the point that everyone thinks oil companies are Satan personified. People refuse to acknowledge that market principles are at work. I make the point that if oil companies are truly greedy, then why does the cost of gas go up and down? Why doesn't the cost always stay high?
The average 'mileage' for a morsel of food on your plate is about 1500. A lot of fuel is expended just to get food from it's source to your plate. Making fuel cheaper won't make the food any better.
Buy local if you can. You'll get a lot more bang for your buck so to speak. Ethanol fuel is a very expensive dog-and-pony show that we could all do without. Trading food for fuel is nonsensical.
AND Americans are paying less than seven percent of disposable income on food prepared at home.
I am curious why you think our choices are being restricted as to what we eat.
And
Food is often less expensive than ever before in history.
Ok, first, try to buy something that doesn't have corn in it and corn that's not geneticly modified. If you're successful in that, try the same with soy beans.
Some folks may point to a grand conspiracy but the reason, I think, is more related to your comment about the price of food. That would be because both soy beans and especially corn are highly subsidiezed. So what you don't pay at the grocery is made up in taxes.
I can go to a local convience store and get a 44 oz soda for 69 cents. Why? It's because high frutose corn syrup is un-naturally cheap.
What we'er ending up with is an industrial food system that cranks out more empty calories and less nutrition than ever before.
And as far a choices go, where do you get your raw dairy products?
Delis’s?
There can be some discussion today about what is actually "food". I'm not so sure it is such a bargain given the food related disease rates we have today. A lot of that is related to behavior in that people tend to go for the 'cheap calories'. That's why we have kids today that are both obese and malnourished.
We’re close in age and appetite! On a recent visit to my local deli, I found the price of my favorite, the Brisket Combo (with the obligatory pickle spear)surpassed $10 after taxes.
That’s what’s killing delis. Food cost & overhead.
Well, if you dreamed of a Reuben (cheese/corned beef/sauerkraut) it wasn’t a Jewish deli because the combo of meat and cheese is not Kosher.
Since Passover is approaching, a grocery store I frequent had gefilte fish in the *International* section. This is a rare occurrence. I bought two jars, along with a bottle of borscht, for a few indulgent lunches in the coming weeks. Wish I could have also found a jar of pickled green tomatoes.
I can make all these foods myself, but no one else in my family will eat them and they all take time and some take ingredients not easily found out here. I have lived w/o real Jewish delis for decades, so I had to learn how to cook like Bubbeh.
This weekend, I am having guests and will serve a real potato kugel made with schmaltz and gribbens (which I made last week). I have served this before and everyone loves it, but I always make 2x the amount needed so I have the leftovers.
This is real Jewish soul food. I can find a Reuben and even decent corned beef at many restaurants. Chopped liver, gefilte fish and borscht however, is non-existent out here unless I make it. Then I have to eat it all by myself because everyone else is grossed out by it.
Years ago, one of the supermarket delis had real pastrami. My husband bought some and when I went back to purchase more, I couldn’t find it. I asked the deli manager who responded:”Oh, it is over here. We just cut off all that pepper because people wouldn’t eat it.”
All this food was once cooked at home from simple ingredients by people who considered it everyday food for poor people. Search out the recipes, stockpile the ingredients, which are not always common any more, and they can all be homemade.
Labor cost and associated government costs are what is killing delis.
It’s Mayor Bloomberg’s restrictions on salt, butter, soda, and anything that’s good in yer comfort food.
Modern technology has also probably made us two-thirds less active than we were. The 1950s diet was still horrendous health-wise, with twice many eggs, tons of sugar, cooking fat, butter and oil and less nutritious meat like chicken than we use today. The stay at home housewife not only took in many less calories but burned actually burned them the hard way, through her domesticated lifestyle: three hours a day doing the housework, an hour walking to and from the shops downtown an hour on the shopping itself, another hour making dinner, play with the kids etc. Not a routine I would trade for the world but it does go to show the importance of exercise in the battle to maintain a healthy balance
The story misses the mark.
Jewish delis were usually kosher at one time. Once they became ‘kosher-style’(non-kosher), their days were numbered. Any Eastern European food just isn’t that popular with Americanized tastes.
Still plenty of kosher food available around Jewish communities. It’s just more centered around grocery stores, supermarkets or caterers. And they still have traditional dishes. And a lot of American Jews have learned to prefer Middle Eastern/Israeli food.
The ubiquitous Lubavitch movement always has access to kosher meat and milk products.
Taxation burdens our customers and drives them out of our stores - especially when it is coupled with the climate of economic fear this Administration is cultivating. Probably doesn't effect Walmart or grocery stores quite as much, but anything remotely discretionary is taking a big hit right now.
In the past we might have chalked this up to traditional American "fiscal prudence", but that isn't really the driving force behind the recessionary spiral we are re-entering.
When you said “Reuben” you reminded me of my favorite deli in town only it’s now the ONLY deli in town. Important to`Support Your Local Deli’, so I’ll go there for lunch this week.
I remember their pastrami was to die for and last time I ate there I was tempted, just tempted, to smuggle some pastrami in my coat pocket, order a sandwich, add the extra pastrami so the sandwich stood half a foot high, and when the owner came by I would point to it & marvel, “What a wonderful sandwich! My compliments to the cooks.” But I demurred.
This actually happened at Lindy’s in New York. When Lindy saw the monster sandwich, he screamed, loped into the kitchen & began throwing plates.
Anyway, too much processed/frozen/microwaveable food, and not enough staples & home cooking. What’s not to understand?
Let me throw in another element and that is the actual act of eating. Except for going out to eat and holiday feasting, daily easting has pretty much devolved into something you do while doing something else considered more important, like driving, TV,video games, etc. The once normal gathering around the table for dinner with Mom, Dad, and the kids has become the exception, I think, rather than the rule. Much to society’s dissadvantage.
Potatoes. Rice. Flour. Beans. Carrots. Peppers. Meat. Fish.
I could go on, but I'm sure you get my point.
You are quite right about processed foods, which was pretty much my original point. If you are willing to prepare your own food from staples, as (non-rich) people all used to do, then you can avoid corn and soy.
If you want the convenience of prepared foods, you will take what the market assembles.
The price of corn went up a bunch a couple of years back due to the idiotic policy of making auto fuel out of food. Resulted in a bunch of pissing and moaning by liberals about how poor people around the world were being starved by greedy American agro-corporations. Then the price went down, and the same liberals pissed and moaned about poor Mexican farmers being driven off their land by cheap American corn.
Anyway, too much processed/frozen/microwaveable food, and not enough staples & home cooking. What’s not to understand?
True, dat.
A couple times a year, my husband goes off w/his buddies, so I don’t have to think about cooking for anyone except me and the dog. Several times, I just stocked up on microwave food from the grocery. YUCK! None of it was worth eating.
I think I am going to get a brisket and make corned beef and pastrami. It’s been years since I did it myself, but it was so worth it.
I stand corrected.
Us South Texans think of a deli in the north as a kosher place but since extremely few exist in our area we are ignorant of the facts you present.
The same applies to Yankees who even dare to think what real Mexican food consists of. Northern Mexican food does taste like the real thing down here. For those who think Mexican food is HOT, you are sadly, just plain wrong.
Different cultures/different locations in the United States.
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