The documentary Food, Inc. (mentioned in this New York Times article) casts a critical eye on the practices of agribusiness interests like Monsanto—and opens a debate on America’s food consumption practices. Food, Inc. taps into a trend that’s been growing for years now: locally-sourced agriculture. Long the exclusive provenance of liberal elites and Brooklynites, locavorism (locavoraciousness?) is taking on new luster in the mainstream. Americans, newly aware of their “carbon footprints,” are expressing concern about how their food is grown and how far it must travel.

Food social consciousness (for lack of a better phrase) has its origins in California, unsurprisingly. The acclaimed chef Alice Waters opened the local-as-possible Chez Panisse in Berkeley (epicenter of all things liberal) in 1971. It’s been one of the nation’s most respected restaurants since then—for the quality of its food, not its model of ingredient sourcing. But with a fresh-faced Democratic president in the White House and a First Lady bent on ruining the South Lawn for the sake of produce, “locally-grown” is the new hotness.

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Readers of “Senior Citizenship” know that I spent spring break in California. Needless to say, I flew there. Tramp steamers are a charming mode of transport, I hear, but I only had nine days off and wanted to maximize my time on the ground. I also fly whenever I go home to Boston; doing so is vastly quicker than trains or (shudder) buses would be. So my carbon footprint is huge. Enough about me, though—let’s talk about the process of flying itself.

Warren Buffett once quipped that an investor in airlines at the incipience of air travel would, by the turn of the century, have made nothing for his investment. In other words, airlines have never been able to muster sustained profitability. There are a multitude of reasons: airlines operate in an ultra-competitive environment; are subject to costly safety regulations by the federal government; and are prisoners to fuel price swings. Consumers, furthermore, are rarely “brand-loyal” in their air travel, opting to choose the cheapest flights for their desired routes. It is, I believe, consumer tastes that pose the biggest risk to airline profitability.

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This is two days late, hence the title.

In an October column I argued for the provision of government funds to aid GM and Chrysler in maintaining solvency. My argument was three-fold: GM and Chrysler (and Ford) have made significant improvements in their business processes; are building cars that, for the first time in decades, are truly competitive; and are an integral part of the American economy. Even if it’s politically unpopular – only 22% of people, at present, support a bailout of the auto industry– I still feel that GM/Chrysler’s government-funded survival is necessary.

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Last week both PBS and CNBC aired financial-crisis specials. Both pieces are entertaining – maybe I’m biased – but above all they leave the viewer with an impression of the complexity of the modern financial system. The interconnectedness of disparate parts of that system contributed to its near-total implosion. But we can’t do anything about complexity – it’s built into the financial system. We can look back fondly at simpler times, but complicated-ness is today’s reality.

Complexity in the financial industry should be viewed as a given: no amount of regulatory oversight will change it. What is the point of increased regulation, then (I’m increasingly asking myself)? It’s all well and good to suggest that more oversight is needed, but how would that work in practice, and what difference would it really make? I’m sure the House Banking Committee had fun chastising the CEOs of the eight biggest Wall Street banks, but doing so was hardly productive. Increased “regulation” in the future would probably look like that: people in charge would take a tongue-lashing on the Hill and possibly pay fines as penance. What good does that do anyone?

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Today’s NYT business section – which I feel obligated to read as an MSB student, even if I prefer “House & Home” and “Thursday Styles” – had a brief piece on a Playmobil airport security set. The toy has garnered criticism online, largely from parents who see little need for a plaything that encourages acceptance of the so-called “State Security Apparatus.” The company, based in Germany, countered with the claim that it presents real-life situations to children through its toys. Leaving aside the fact that an airport security Playmobil is boring, the situation raises questions about toys’ role in our culture and toy companies’ responsibilities to its main customers.

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I made it to the Washington Auto Show last week. Shiny cars have long fascinated me (as do most shiny things), but my trip had a practical purpose. I hoped to both examine domestic automakers’ offerings to see if I was justified in calling for a Detroit bailout and scope out the latest “green” cars and trucks – the future (like it or not) of personal mobility.

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Never have “Senior Citizenship” and “Capital Idea” dovetailed in a meaningful way. A topic broached last Friday – the handling of winter weather in Washington – is worth mentioning in a business context, though. I discussed D.C. in the winter as an example of the importance of attitude; now I’d like to focus on the practical implications of Northeast winters in this semi-Southern city. As you may recall, there were a couple inches of snow last Tuesday – small potatoes to those of us from cold places, but a big deal for the Californians and international students (all of whom are also captivated by shiny things). The snow was minimally cleared on Tuesday and by Wednesday morning it had iced over, effectively shutting the city down.

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As we all know by now, the global economic crisis – which began, more or less, in the banking industry – has rippled outward in a cavalcade of wealth destruction. Equity and debt markets have been hammered; the dollar has been propped up only because it’s seen as a relatively safe place to park money (even with Fed rates near zero). And the commodities markets – which saw a spectacular run-up in the last few years – have come back down to earth, for better or worse. As I discussed several weeks ago, the prices of recycled goods have plummeted, making recycling less economically attractive (although in cities like Boston, recycling is still cheaper than filling landfills). Oil is much cheaper now than it was in the summer, too – a boon to those of us who drive. But is cheaper oil a good thing for us in the long run?

I guess it’s worth acknowledging that oil prices will only stay low for so long. As soon as the economy picks up (whenever that is), demand for oil will surpass its pre-$4/gallon levels, and prices will shoot up commensurately. Until then, we can enjoy seeing gas that costs less than $2 a gallon. The time to fix the proverbial roof is when the proverbial sun is shining, though. What roof could I be referring to, perchance? Just our gluttonous and inequitable energy consumption.

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The impending dissolution of Citigroup marks both the breakup of the nation’s one-time largest financial institution and the failure of Sanford Weill’s “one-stop” banking model. In the landmark merger that created Citigroup in 1998, investment and retail banking were brought together under one roof. There’s an obvious conflict of interest problem when banks that are retained for advisory services are also permitted to invest in the stocks of the companies they’re advising – but that’s not the real concern at Citi. Its operations just became too vast and complex for anyone to keep an eye on. It refused to specialize in any single banking activity – hubris that has cost Citi employees and stockholders dearly.

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Over the course of the fall semester I discussed some causes and effects of the global economic crisis. In the former category were Wall Street’s blind ambition, unrealistic monetary policy, and excessive lending and spending; in the latter were automaker woes, zero-percent interest rate policy, endowment implosions, and a recycling recession. All in all, the tone was grim. Some have even posited that with this, the worst downturn since the Depression, people may discover the joys of material asceticism. Some, no doubt, will, but the cultural tide will be moving against them.

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University endowments are plummeting in value, in lockstep with the rest of the market. Endowments increased substantially in the past few years as managers poured funds into risky, high-return investments. Harvard – ever the pioneer of American higher education – had only about a fifth of its $36 billion endowment in stocks and bonds. The balance of its portfolio was invested in so-called “illiquid assets” – things as esoteric as timber forest and oil stockpiles – and, as the economy soured, those illiquid assets became even more toxic than GM’s common stock. Oil lost two-thirds of its value, for example. So, aside from the fact that we’re college students, why should we care where universities invest?

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I had a final in Finance – my major – earlier today. It was pretty rough, as I expected. Now that it’s over and I can breathe, I’ve gotten to thinking about the major and what I’ve learned. Many newly jobless Wall Streeters are finance majors or CFAs; no longer does a degree guarantee you a job in banking. More to the point, many – though not all – of the people responsible for our economic crisis were finance majors. Does finance coursework need to change – do future bankers need to learn more than just valuation methodologies and Black-Scholes option pricing? I think the answer is yes.

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Funny thing about an economic downturn is that all parts of the economy get, ah, turned down. Fewer cars and TVs will be sold this year than in the past, unsurprisingly – but would you have thought that the recycling industry would also be affected? Maybe you did, in which case you should, perhaps, be the one writing this column. Not interested? Pipe down, then. Recycling is, in fact, an industry – one whose aim has been profit. The recession we’re in has changed that, though.

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This year’s “Black Friday” – the day after Thanksgiving where strong retail sales push stores “into the black” – was marred by the death of a Walmart employee on Long Island. The man, Jdimypai Damour, was trampled by frenzied shoppers too fixated on $498 plasma TVs to notice his plight. In a New York Times article, a research analyst from NPD Group was quoted as saying, “From what I understand, [Damour was] a temporary employee and had no idea what he was dealing with.” What, then, should he have expected? Death-by-trampling shouldn’t be an occupational hazard in a retail job. Then again, in America, perhaps it should.

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On the future of American automakers, everyone, it seems, has a different opinion. The consensus here at Georgetown (speaking anecdotally) is that they should be allowed to fail. Automakers’ woes are attributable to a few things: their inability to anticipate the market’s move to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars; their unwillingness to retool factories or modify their product offerings as such; and the crushing weight of labor and health care contracts. So why should taxpayers bail them out – effectively absolving them of their failures?

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