Welcome to NorthBay biz’ annual Harvest Fair/Wine issue.
At 148 pages, it’s the largest issue we’ve produced this year, which isn’t too surprising since this issue has long been a reader and advertiser favorite. NorthBay biz is the official print publication of the well-established and highly successful Sonoma County Harvest Fair. Inside, you’ll find the 2006 Harvest Fair schedule of events to help you navigate your way around this year’s Fair.
This Harvest Fair issue is filled with wine facts, figures and fancy. In the cover story, “It Was the Wine Talking,” five local sommeliers share some secrets of their trade, in a Q&A format you’ll find as entertaining as it is informative. Altogether, there are 10 stories in this issue that explore both the lighter and more serious side of growing grapes and making world-class wine in Napa and Sonoma counties. In addition to all the stories about the wine industry, you’ll find all our new and regular features, including “Pairing Pros,” plus all our monthly columns, including both wine columnists, Rich Thomas’ “VineWise” and Bob Ecker’s “This Side of the Hill.” So, sit back, relax and enjoy this very special issue of NorthBay biz and, above all, enjoy the Fair.
Hate to admit this at times, but yep; I’m part of the baby boomer generation. Sure, we’ve made our share of positive contributions to society at large but, overall, boomers are a hedonistic bunch, unable to get over our own sense of self-importance and always believing the world revolves around us. Well, maybe the time has come that these self-aggrandizing delusions are about to come true in a perverse way.
The baby boomers are getting ready to retire. And that means a demographic day of reckoning is here. In 1960, there were approximately nine workers for every Social Security recipient, and as you would expect, the financial snapshot of the SS program revealed glowing health. The same picture taken today, however, shows just three workers per beneficiary. By 2025, there will be just over two workers per recipient.
There is some good news: while it’s true the number of people older than 65 has doubled in our nation since 1960, our economy has quadrupled. However, given all the scientific medical advances, the number of people living past age 85 is also projected to rise dramatically—and they will, of course, continue to collect their Social Security checks. When you add it all up—more retirees, less workers, people living longer; the system has only one place to go—into default. Congress, over time, has applied some bandages to this problem. It’s delayed retirement age, raised the tax rate and expanded the tax base. But none of this is enough to withstand the coming confluence of demographic circumstance. In 1960, the percent of the federal budget dedicated to Social Security/Medicare spending was 13 percent. In 2002, it had grown to 33 percent!
We can’t continue to direct larger and larger chunks of our economy into a government- run entitlement system. Continuing to confiscate and redistribute all this financial might without letting this money work in a free market economy could be the root of the problem. Clearly, the solution isn’t more of the same—raising the tax rate, raising the tax cap, cutting benefits, raising the retirement age, etc. If we want to save Social Security, it needs to be ripped out by its 1935 roots and replanted with basic structural reform. It needs to be modernized and strengthened. It needs a radical transformation if it’s to survive.
When politicians deny there’s a problem with Social Security or say there’s no rush to fix the system, it’s an egregious breech of their pledge to serve the people’s best interest. There’s no denying the reality of the number of boomers about to become eligible for benefits. It’s this onslaught of numbers the current system can’t possibly sustain. It’s clear the time is NOW to transform this relic from the depression years into the wealth-producing dynamo it can become with modern financial restructuring. How much longer can we continue to fuel a program that produces such a dismal investment return and doesn’t begin to tap its potential earning power? The dollars invested in Social Security should be growing exponentially, into real substantial wealth that every American alive today, and their heirs, can share. It’s time for reform—or real financial disaster looms.
There are a few more items I’d like to mention quickly before this column ends. It seems we’re once again at loggerheads over Measure R. If passed, it will impose a quarter-cent tax to fund a rail line between Cloverdale and Larkspur. It seems as though the folks who normally support mass transit and environmental issues magically transform into NIMBYs when their community might be touched by projects of this sort. For once, if we want to do more than just talk about helping create a cleaner environment, while also relieving Highway 101 congestion, then let’s give SMART a chance and vote yes on Measure R on November 7.
Just received a press release from the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), with its take on the California Legislature’s passage of a new energy “cap-and-trade” system designed to cut emissions in California 25 percent by 2020. I could paraphrase its position, but I couldn’t say it as forcefully as CEI has: “With energy as one of the largest costs for industrial and manufacturing businesses, the increase in prices sure to come from an emissions cap will drive jobs out of California to neighboring states. The legislation will also force consumers to use much less electricity and gasoline and to pay much higher prices for what they do use. Moreover, it is unclear how California will keep utilities from simply increasing the share of power purchased from out-of-state sources—sources likely to be derived from coal-fired power plants—thereby actually increasing greenhouse gas emissions overall.”
The concluding paragraph of the release is the clincher: “While its actions are being lauded as a step into the future, California is actually a late entry into the already failed game of energy rationing,” says Director of Energy & Global Warming Policy, Myron Ebell. “Europe, Japan and Canada are all failing spectacularly to meet their emissions reductions targets under the Kyoto Protocol, despite years of breathless cheerleading for cap-and-trade mechanisms. What California has done today is decide to become a Third World economy.”
Finally, kudos to Governor Schwarzenegger for vetoing Senate Bill 815. This measure would have unraveled all the positive changes instituted with the passage of Senate Bill 899 in 2004 that resulted in lowering workers’ compensation insurance premiums in California. These lower rates are credited with helping create more jobs and in turning the state’s economy around.
That’s it for now. Enjoy this month’s magazine.
