Piper auritum, Rootbeer Plant, Mexican Pepperleaf, Hoja Santa

    I found this beautiful plant at a plant sale at the local botanical gardens. One of the cute ladies there stopped me and said, "Are you sure you really want to buy that? It's invasive!"
     I looked down at the inncoent little plant. It had one seed leaf and one true leaf and a REALLY cheap price. Then I considered my scale of invasiveness (fucking bamboo at damn near the top, followed up quickly by burmuda grass and orange honeysuckle) versus her scale of invasiveness (who knows) and replied that yes, I was going to buy the edible invasive Mexican plant. I have other wonderful edible plants of Mexican origin, like the Cardinal Sage and the Agave Americana. What could go wrong?
     It took Rootbeer plant almost a year to start growing, but at the start of the rainy season it took off. Its still one compact plant, and hasn't sent out any runners that I can find. It has started to form the unusual white growths shown in the picture. I can't wait to see what happens with those.
     Culinarily, according to Wikipedia it is most commonly used to wrap food (meat and fish) in prior to steaming much as corn husks and banana leaves are used. It has safrole in it, the main ingredient in sassafrass, which is considered to be a carcinogen. So it appears that eating large amounts of Rootbeer plant is not a good idea, even though it is one of the main ingredients in mole verde and is used to make tea and add flavor to chocolate drinks.

     I have found that rootbeer plant does freeze down where it is planted in my front yard, but it came back in the spring. Its still a very compact plant, attractive, and smells fantastic.

Signs of an Impending Recession

     After living through the uncertainty that became prevalent throughout American culture in 2020, I have been thinking even more than usual about the impending zombie invasion. Kidding. Actually have been thinking about protecting our future selves against the inevitable economic downturn. We know it will be coming. Eventually the price of everything, including transportation and food, will be so high that very few will be able to work. And working won't be able to get a person ahead of costs, at least, not the single householder. People will have to live in government housing, or perhaps in familial compounds or maybe stacked mobile homes like in Ready Player One.

     Perhaps the greatest indicator of our changing economy has been the currency itself. The money is no longer backed by gold. Silver, nickel, and copper pieces no longer contain their metals in quantities in line with their metallic value. And then there's the treasury bill.

     It is known that China owns a large portion of our government debt, and that eventually it will have to be collected on. This debt has arisen out of Americans desire to persue happiness, and to a large degree we have achieved many of the indicators of happiness. People live in relative comfort with full bellies and healthcare to treat their ailments. We feel safe and secure, so much so that a large portion of the population has retreated into depression and drugs, or at least ambivalence to others and ourselves.

     Learned a fascinating fact recently - if the interest rates on ten year treasury notes falls below the interest rates on three month treasury notes, then it's an indication of an unsettling economy. As I'm writing this, 

10 year treasury note interest = 1.58

3 month treasury note interest = 0.03

So right now things are looking good in that respect. 

     Another interesting fact - the unemployment rate always goes up in the midst of a recession. As I'm writing this,

Florida unemployment rate is 4.7, and Michigan unemployment rate is 5.1. Both of these numbers are down from spring of 2020, when they were 14.2 and 23.6 respectively.

     As for economic indicators, it loooks like the unemployment rate and treasury interest rates are pretty easy to grasp concepts of how we are doing. It's unclear as to how to protect oneself from an economic downturn. I'm still working on that. 

     I would be interested to know what you think regarding economic downturn?