Due to the large Asian population in California, Japanese food and sushi in particular are very popular.

They are now making sushi with curcumin and this is one of my favorites. This Asian spice has a lot of medecinal properties and it tastes great when added on a sushi, what a great combination. You can find information about the nutritional properties of turmeric curcumin at this link: https://www.amazon.com/Turmeric-Curcumin-Extract-Standardized-Curcuminoids/dp/B00HNVB3Y6.

Below we discuss more generally about the benefits of eating sushi for it value in nourishment and as a nutriment.

It Contains Omega-3 Fatty Acids

You’ve probably heard of people saying that fish is good for you. This is because the oils in the fish contain essential fatty acids that our body needs.

These fatty acids are the ones that we don’t consume enough in our daily diet. Think of eating sushi as supplementing your nutrition with healthy fatty acids which supports your cardiovascular health.

Lean Choice When On A Diet

Let’s face it, fish are generally healthy. Regardless you’re in a diet or not, you can eat any kind of fish you want. When eating in restaurants, meat is usually lathered in oil – and we don’t want that.

When you are watching your weight, or simply making the right choices of food, sushi is the best choice. It doesn’t only tastes good, it is also a healthier option compared to anything offered in any menu.

Sushi Is Art

Do you know that in Japan, sushi makers have to undergo extensive training to master this art? In fact, if you go to sushi places, you will meet sushi makers who have been making this cuisinart for at least a decade.

These masters usually keep an apprentice with them to pass down their knowledge. In the United States, chefs undergo intensive training too. Sushi doesn’t only rely on the kind of fish a chef uses, it also is heavily judged in the way it was made and the way it was presented.

It’s fun

There are plenty of varieties of sushi. You can playfully pick any kind of sushi you want from nigari to the famous maki. To be honest, it is also quite fun to use chopsticks and dip your sushi in some soy sauce with wasabi. But the best part of it all is picking the sushi that you believe tastes the best.

It Is A Part Of An Old Culture

Sushi is a great way of exploring a different culture. Japanese highly value their sushi as an art for many years and its simplistic nature represent the people of Japan very well. Although many Western and Eastern influences have been adapted in the modern day sushi, this food is still a good representation of who the Japanese are.

You Can Make One At Home

Believe it or not, making your own sushi platter is not that expensive depending on the season. If you are lucky enough to catch a deal of fresh fish either on a supermarket or a farmer’s market, you can surely save big bucks instead of ordering one from a restaurant. It has a very minimal ingredients.

If you have an intricate hand, you will enjoy making these for sure. If you have some company coming over, it’s a great way to impress your house guests!

Social Security is a major issue in today’s political field. The problems with it and the many proposed solutions are debated daily. Nearly every Californian citizen is enrolled in Social Security yet few know the full extent of the problem, or how the system works.

Now that we understand the full extent of the problem with Social Security, we can look at the proposed solutions and judge how well they will fix the problem. Different solutions include “Personal Retirement Accounts” (PRAs), diversifying Social Security’s trust funds’ investments, and raising payroll taxes, or the amount of wages subject to payroll taxes.

The most well known option is PRAs (Personal Retirement Accounts); this is the option on which President George W Bush’s plan was based. PRAs are not used to solve Social Security’s lack of funding, but to reform the system for future generations. This is part of a comprehensive solution to give younger workers the option to save some of their payroll taxes. Through PRAs, whatever money unused by the retiree could be passed on to children and grandchildren instead of the government. This system of Personal Retirement accounts is similar to the Federal employee retirement program known as the “Thrift Savings Plan” (TSP). In this system, PRAs could not be emptied all at once, but would be paid out over time as an addition to traditional Social Security benefits.

In the President’s plan workers would be permitted to allocate their PRAs among a small number of highly diversified index funds, as patterned by the TSP. PRAs would be protected from sudden market swings on the eve of retirement by being automatically invested in a “Life Cycle Portfolio”. Meaning when the worker reaches the age of 47 the portfolio would gradually shift the allocation of investments so it is weighted more heavily toward low-risk bonds, unless the worker and his spouse opt out by signing a waiver claiming they know the risks involved.

This plan of PRAs is not a solution to Social Security’s financial problem. This solution seems to be the only way to make Social Security a decent investment for future generations. PRAs would permanently change the very structure of the system, unlike the Band-aid fix of raising payroll taxes. The President’s plan will affect only those born after 1950; the system will remain the same for anyone 55 or older, those soon to be or collecting Social Security.

The problem with PRAs is that they will result in bringing in less income (part of the workers payroll taxes will be invested separately) at the very moment, we need more. Due to the changing demographics, less money is coming in for the growing number of retirees. Companies such as AARP are adamantly against PRAs because they “weaken Social Security.” Yet finding any plausible solution to Social Security’s problem is not an easy task. AARP has proposed two solutions not involving PRAs.

Those being: diversifying the Social Security Trust Funds’ investments, and raising the maximum amount of wages subject to payroll taxes. These solutions have their own set of problems. Raising payroll taxes enough to keep the government’s entitlements promises to future retirees would require doubling or tripling payroll taxes; that means 30 to 40% of a worker’s wages would go towards retirement benefits alone, not to mention his other federal, income, state, and local taxes! Raising payroll taxes is a temporary fix, since 1950, payroll taxes have been raised 20 times and we still have a problem. Diversifying the Trust fund’s investments is also temporary and will not solve the structural problem with Social Security.

None of these plans, besides raising taxes, brings in the needed higher revenue to pay for these coming retirees. Yet simply raising taxes will not solve the problem. The President plans to work with congress to find a feasible solution, involving his proposed PRAs. There is no written plan, but we know and are finding out more every day, the very structure of the system must be changed; PRAs are a way to change the structure of the system without quitting it.

There is no perfect solution yet, only different elements needed to solve the rising failure of Social Security. These elements; a reformed structure and a higher income during the transition to a new structure, are needed to find a solution for Social Security. We have patched the problem many times and we now need a permanent solution, or the system will fail and a generation will be left without the benefits they have paid into the system.

California took quite a hard blow during the 2007 to 2009 recession and predictions are that it will continue to lag behind for a while even as the rest of the country picks up.

This year’s economic growth for California is projected at 1.5 percent with two hundred thousand jobs being added; currently the rate of unemployment stands at about 11 percent which is higher than the country’s average of 8.3 percent.

According to a report, the state’s economy will continue to recover but the problem is that the process will take quite some time. Come 2013 the rate of unemployment will still stand at an unattractive 10.3 percent.

California finances might be assisted by the entertainment (Hollywood), technology and international trade sectors as things look rather promising there. The real estate sector which was among the worst hit is improving but all indications are that it will take a considerable amount of time for things to get back to where they should be.

California‘s median household income drastically fell in the five year period between 2006 and 2011 by about 13.5%. This translates to the lowest household income for 18 years meaning that all the gains (on household income) that were made during the 90s as a result of a booming economy have pretty much been done away with. Currently, California’s economy is the 9th largest in the world which is a fall from the 8th position that it was not long ago.

Another indicator that all is not exactly well in California is the state’s budget. This year’s budget deficit is 16 billion dollars which is way more than what was previously predicted. Basically what this means is that the state will have to find solutions to deal with this issue and one option is increasing taxes which of course will first have to be approved by voters come November. The other option will be to cut funding to the education sector and public safety.

One of the reasons that the governor gave for this deficit increase is that the state failed to collect the amount of taxes they had expected; tax revenue actually fell by 3.5 billion dollars. He also attributed the increase to an unfavorable economy saying that the rate of growth of the same was not exactly what was anticipated due to the bad loans issue. Governor Brown asked the people of California to approve the tax increases saying that doing so will greatly assist in lifting the state from the financial quagmire that it is currently in.

Brown’s proposition is to raise the taxes of people making 250,000 dollars and above; this is however not a permanent measure. According to the governor doing this would add about 9 billion dollars to the state’s coffers although analysts say that the actual figure is 6.8 billion dollars.

There are some analysts who are claiming that the deficit could actually be more than the official figure of 16 billion, maybe more than 17 billion. There has been a lot of criticism on the state of California on its inability to improve its performance seeing that its residents are some of the highest taxed in the world.