The Jaffe Briefing - February 25, 2022

OFFSHORE – The future is clearly wind energy, underscored by the fact that companies vying to build wind energy turbines off New Jersey’s coast are willing to spend at least $3.2 billion for the development rights. Further, feverish bidding is expected today, the AP reports, as an entity we’ve never heard of – the United States Bureau of Ocean Energy Management – coordinates all the fervor. The potential is enormous, as the eight proposed sites of more than 500,000 acres in New Jersey and New York waters could ultimately power two million homes, year after year. One site, just off LBI, would comprise 114,000 acres and power 500,000 homes. Some detractors say the feds are moving waaaay too fast and are going tooooo big with this terrific environmental project. As long as we don’t see these mega wind farms from our beach chairs, why care?

KEARNY – This town is known for lots of things, but gourmet strawberries? Kearny has the crazy distinction of having the most expensive strawberries in the entire country, grown at a vertical farm. NJ.com reports these strawberries sell for $6 apiece, and have become some sort of cult fruit for chefs. And foodies are willing to pay dearly for this apparent delicacy: eight large berries for $50, six medium ones for the bargain-basement price of $29. Perhaps what makes these “Omakase” strawberries even more alluring is that you can’t find them at your local Whole Foods. You can only buy online, with the marketing team promising a strawberry that is “so pure, so intense, and so sublime, they’re transformative.” Are you ready for the next frontier of fruit? Prepare to pay dearly.

STATEWIDE – Ok, sure, the world is falling apart. But as nothing makes sense anymore, the feds are reporting that the unemployment rate hasn’t been this low since 1970. The number of us collecting unemployment has dropped to a 52-year-low, with only 1.4 million Americans collecting benefits last week, the third straight week of decline. Meanwhile, the number of newly-unemployed people has also dropped to record lows, around 232,000. At one point, the fact that good, stable jobs are available for anyone would be the gleaming cornerstone of the American Dream. Today, such a news story has become a tiny reference, barely worth a mention. But let’s celebrate it here.

BRIEFING BREATHER

Competitive art used to be an Olympic sport.

TRENTON – There’s at least one bill that should get unanimous support in the state Legislature: a proposed law that would ban any public entity in New Jersey from doing business with Russia’s government or other entities that can benefit Putin’s regime. Sen. Paul Sarlo is the first to propose this obvious legislation, as chair of the Senate Budget Committee. There may be a lot to unravel, as NJ.com notes the state’s pension fund has about $226 million invested in Russian interests, as well as $21 million in Belarus, a Putin ally. As the Russian stock market has already dropped around 50% since the senseless attack, without the U.S. sanctions yet to take any real effect, it doesn’t seem to be a wise investment, anyway, as the Russian economy craters to the detriment of its people.

IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS

KIEV, UKRAINE – Perhaps our “Word of the Day” should be “Denazify.” And that word is the excuse that Russian warlord Vladimir Putin is using to attack and kill innocent people in a democratic country. Putin’s propaganda claims Ukraine is being run by Nazis, despite the fact the country’s president is Jewish, the descendant of Holocaust victims, and runs a government that is actually elected by its citizens. Yeah, there’s a lot of history here, as both the Nazis and the Soviets battled for Ukraine during the war. As Putin attempts to rewrite established history and shovel a bunch of lies to the world, Ukraine’s president sums up the whole “Denazify” issue well: “How could a people that lost 8 million people in the fight against Nazism support Nazism?” Putin’s entire misinformation campaign is downright frightening, yet believable to most of his people.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

It was this day in 1950 that “Your Show of Shows” premiered in NBC with Sid Caesar and an all-star writing team of Mel Brooks, Neil Simon and Woody Allen.

"The trouble with telling a good story is that it invariably reminds the other fellow of a dull one." 

-Sid Caesar

WORD OF THE DAY

Slipshod – [SLIP-SHAHD] – adjective

Definition: Wearing loose shoes or slippers; shabby

Example: Working from home because of these icy roads, my appearance is slipshod at best.

WIT OF THE DAY

"I have decided to conduct a special military operation... to protect people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide... for the last eight years.”

-Vladimir Putin

BIDEN BLURB

“No one expected the sanctions to prevent anything from happening.”

-Joe Biden

WEATHER IN A WORD

Slippery