What Stuff Costs

     We were headed out for a dinner one weekend recently, and were reviewing the options as we drove. Eventually we settled on a well known BBQ place that we'd been to a number of times before. We decided to get takeout.
     But $9.95 for a BBQ plate? Since when did BBQ rate so lofty a price? We walked out, in search of a better use for our dollars.
    There's a story in this morning's N.Y. Times about pants that can cost $550...plain old khaki pants! The story quotes one manufacturer as saying there is still a demand, despite the Great Recession. Demand from who? Goldman Sachs VP's? Ironically, clothing for the rest of us has gotten much cheaper in the last few years, since it's now all manufactured by workers being paid about $3 a day in Indonesia and China or South America, Meanwhile Alabama's old textile mills sit empty and the workers either un or under employed. In Tallassee they're trying to turn two old mills into mixed-use developments.
     I was shopping for some new ties to wear on-air and went to one of the few remaining true department stores in Montgomery. The two ties that I spotted as possibilities? $112 each.
     And speaking of costs...since the value of our homes has dropped so much during that G.R., how come property taxes haven't plummeted?