Hopes Inch Higher

First Lady Michelle Obama clearly is not a publicity hound, so when she appears in public there's a good chance something significant has occurred. This week's announcement by Walmart that it is going to adopt strict new food standards is one of those occasions.

Some 140 million people, or almost half of all Americans, shop at Walmart, making it the largest grocery store chain in the land, among other things. Now that the super store is committed to reducing salt and sugar in processed foods, and to getting more fresh produce into its stores, the entire supply chain will be affected -- in positive ways.

This builds on other efforts -- most notably by the British chef Jamie Oliver -- to improve the quality of school lunches for the millions of American children, many of them poor and obese.

The First Lady has been vocal on the obesity crisis and she appears to be making headway in her campaign to improve Americans' diet and therefore our health.

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This was a week of striking developments. In Michigan, the auto companies are back in the black, and Buick is now the leading brand among new cars being purchased. It would be a shame if the city of Detroit died, which some analysts have predicted, and in personal terms, I'd hate to see my birth city become a wasteland any worse than it has already been for decades. Maybe the resurgent auto industry will help pull Detroit back up into an urban destination, rather than a site of desolation.

We ( U.S. citizens) apparently going to get all of the money our government sank into the insurance giant AIG, according to news reports.

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Around here, the news is small and local. The weather is spectacular as our version of an early spring continues. New ideas are starting to sprout among entrepreneurs after the dormancy of winter + recession. It's possible to start feeling vaguely optimistic again about the economy.

I've long been a big fan of small businesses. They drive the economy, provide most employment opportunity, and (despite the Walmart item above) are the source of most of the good ideas that emerge in the American economy.

We are in many ways a nation of small business owners, and that ecosystem is, IMHO, the healthiest aspect of our global, interlocking, sluggish national economy.

Here in California we have aggressive new political leadership, so some of this huge state's huge problems (like staying solvent, or attaining an annual budget) may now finally be solved by the Governor and his team.

Me, I spent some more time as a babysitter to the precocious two-year-old who instructs me how to take care of him. As only a two-year-old can do.

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