Not if you are a lobsterman.  Or an Icelandic banker.

We're eating lobster pretty much once or twice a week.  Why?  Because they are cheap.  You can get them anywhere, even on the side of the road.  I never thought of doing anything but eating them steamed, it's that much of a treat.  Now we are trying to dress them up in various dishes.

So what happened?  Trilateral Commission? No.  Not unless Jimmy Carter and Billy Clinton are members.


You can buy a lobster like this one for $5-$10 at the grocery store.
You see, Carter initiated the Community Reinvestment Act, then Clinton "strengthened" it (and to be fair, Bush didn't complain).  This gave banks incentive to give loans to "subprime" borrowers.  Community "organizers" then sued the banks for not giving out enough.  Mortgage Backed Securities packaged little slices of the mortgages together and sold them on the world-wide market.  Standard and Poor's estimated that mortgages to Americans who put less than 20% down were no more risky than those who put the entire 20% down.  So money from all over the world flowed into mortgages in the US, driving rates down, and variable rates way down.

The cheap mortgages drove house prices up.  When the bubble burst, odd things happened.

One thing that happend was the banks in Iceland failed.  The country is on the verge of revolution.

So you might ask if Maine Lobster is harvested by Icelandic fishermen, or eaten by Iclandic tourists.  I suspect some are, but that's not the problem.

OK, one major problem is that folks are cutting back on eating lobster.  Folks are eating McDonalds instead.  Maybe they should bring back the lobster roll.  The catch is strong this year, and the fish processors are cutting production.  One huge part of the cut in production is the Icelandic banks that provided credit to them are basically bankrupt.  So the processors have huge untapped lines of credit from folks who can't extend any credit.

So demand is low driven lower by both individuals and huge corporations buying less lobster.  Supply is high driven higher by the fact that if you need to catch more lobster to make a living, you catch more lobster.  And you can buy them at retail (even cooked for you) for under $5 a pound without even driving to the docks.

And Nova Scotia's lobster season starts on Monday.