Cheaper, Tastier, HFCS free Cereal

I have been a fan of Mom's Best cereal for a while now. They have a wide variety of tasty, High Fructose Corn Syrup free cereals that are very inexpensive. However, at the grocery store I was interested in a more fruity variety of cereal than those currently in the Mom's Best line up. I very much enjoyed the Annie's Fruity Bunnies that I recently bought, but was looking for something more in my preferred price range with a similar level of fruitiness.

I stumbled on Hospitality Fruit Whirls.* They were only $2 per pound, or $1 for the 8 oz box I purchased. I had very little to lose, and with a lack of HFCS and a claim of being somewhat "natural" I was sold. As to the taste, delicious. Better than Froot Loops from what I remember. The only downside, more sugars than Froot Loops or Froot Loops Reduced Sugar (and added salt). Similarly, it has more sugar than Fruity Bunnies. However, being half the price of Annie's and often less than half the price of the Kellogg's products, Fruity Whirls remain an excellent bargain and delicious.

I plan on checking out their other varieties of "Hospitality" cereal the next time I visit the store. For only a buck, I feel like I have little to lose.



*Really, this is the best I could do for a website.

71 MPG Polo TDI

Paul Volcker, almost as smart as Alan Greenspan

In what amounts to the smartest policy suggestion in recent history, Paul Volckler suggests that money market funds are "free riders" that "weaken the financial system." Money market funds are an incredibly important source of short term loans to business, and have a failure rate far below that of the banks. Yet, Volckler would prefer banks to be the only providers of short term liquidity.

Volcker speaks:

“In my vision of the new financial system, you obviously want to protect banks and have strong banks, and I don’t think they should be put at a competitive disadvantage vis-a-vis money-market funds”

So a free market concept providing higher yields to customers with a lower failure rate (around 1 fund ever 10 years) should be dispensed with in order to protect banks? Banks that require government insurance just to exist.

Thanks Paul. I will write that one down.

via bloomberg

Unemployed?

According to The Money Game, The Unemployed Never Had It So Bad. They are basing this conclusion on the above clever chart. Strangely, I come to the opposite conclusion. It seems to me the unemployed never had it so good. They clearly have the resources (and incentives) to stay unemployed longer as evidenced by the upward trend. Say what you would like, there is always a job out there. It may not be a job you are particularly interested in, but a job exists if you have to get one. The chart shows that people are able to hold out longer to find a job they prefer to the jobs immediately available.

Carl's Jr. launches Big Mac rival

Why can't I get this? via LA Times

I guess I will have to drive to Delaware and find a Hardee's.

I come from a land down under

I dismissed these people as idiots, years ago.