December 11, 1941: Wartime Rationing Begins In America

A 1943 book of ration stamps

December 11, 1941: Four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, 3 days after declaring war on Japan, and on the day that the other Axis nations, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, declared war on America and America responded in kind, America begins wartime rationing of various items.

American civilians first received ration books -- War Ration Book Number One, or the Sugar Book -- on May 4, 1942, through more than 100,000 school teachers, Parent-Teacher Associations (PTA), and other volunteers. Sugar was the first consumer commodity rationed. Bakeries, ice cream makers, and other commercial users received rations of about 70 percent of normal usage.

On a 1994 Thanksgiving episode of the TV sitcom Mad About You, Sylvia Buchman (played by Cynthia Harris) explained to her son, Paul (Paul Reiser) and daughter-in-law, Jamie (Helen Hunt) that she loved sweet potatoes with marshmallows, but since marshmallows are mostly sugar, she didn't have them during "The War," so she made a vow that, when The War was over, she would never go without marshmallows on Thanksgiving again. And Jamie didn't have marshmallows.

Coffee was rationed on November 27, 1942 -- the day after Thanksgiving -- to 1 pound every 5 weeks. How the hell did we win The War with less coffee? We didn't: We shipped it to the soldiers and sailors, so they could operate with peak efficiency.

By the end of 1942, ration coupons were used for 9 other items. Typewriters, gasoline, bicycles, footwear, silk, nylon, fuel oil, stoves, meat, lard, shortening and cooking oils, cheese, butter, margarine, processed foods (canned, bottled, and frozen), dried fruits, canned milk, firewood and coal, jams, jellies, and fruit butters were rationed by November 1943.

Nylon stockings had only been put on the market in 1940, and women were upset over losing them. Some responded by drawing lines down their legs with a pen, to make it look like they were wearing stockings. Which led to a joke: One woman said to the other, "Your seams are crooked," and the second woman said, "That shows what you know: I'm not wearing stockings!"

Rubber was rationed, needed for the tires for military vehicles: Cars, trucks, jeeps, planes. Scrap metal was donated, to be converted for use in building such vehicles. The auto industry turned its attention to building trucks, jeeps and planes. Essentially, a 1946 automobile looked pretty much the same as a 1942 automobile.

The work of issuing ration books and exchanging used stamps for certificates was handled by some 5,500 local ration boards of mostly volunteers. As a result of the gasoline rationing, all forms of automobile racing, including the Indianapolis 500, were banned.

In addition, gasoline and oil rationing led to "wartime travel restrictions." This changed the way baseball schedules were handled, and led to Spring Training been held in the North instead of the South, and the cancellation of the All-Star Game in 1945, despite V-E Day (but not yet V-J Day) having already happened.

All rationing in the United States ended in 1946.

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December 11, 1941 was a Thursday. Rock singer J. Frank Wilson, hockey star Jean-Paul Parise and Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, were born.

Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. There were 2 games in the NHL. The New York Rangers beat their then-co-tenants at Madison Square Garden, the Brooklyn Americans, 5-3. And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-1 at the Montreal Forum. Gerry Heffernan scored the winning goal, 6:50 into overtime.

January 19, 2025: The Economy When Joe Biden Left the Presidency

NOTE: While these entries are dated 2022, I decided to backdate the posting dates of events from 2023 onward to the same date in 2022.

January 19, 2025: These were the economic conditions on the last full day in office for President Joe Biden:

* The previous Friday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had closed at 43,487.83. That was an all-time high. (It didn't change on Monday, January 19: Due to the federal Martin Luther King Day holiday, the stock market is closed.) The day he was inaugurated to take over from Donald Trump, it was 30,930.52.

On March 23, 2020, early in the COVID lockdown, it bottomed out at 18,591.93. It could be argued that such a thing might have happened even if the President at the time had done everything right in regard to the pandemic.

* The unemployment rate is 4.1 percent. Biden became the 1st President ever to leave office having created jobs in every full month in office. Trump left it as the 2nd President ever to leave office having a net loss of jobs. The 1st was Herbert Hoover (1929-33). As bad as both George Bushes were (the father, 1989-93; the son, 2001-09), they managed to squeak through with slight gains at the end.

* Inflation, the very thing Trump campaigned on and won in 2024 (along with the allegedly connected fears of immigration and crime), is at 2.9 percent. When Trump left office, it was 1.7 percent -- but that was after COVID had artificially held prices down, because purchasing had gone down. Because of the return to buying in late 2020, and especially in mid-2021 after the last of the COVID restrictions were lifted, It hit 9.0 percent in June 2022, its highest rate in 41 years.

On August 16, 2022, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, having gotten it through a very closely divided Congress, and it worked. The rise in inflation was only slightly his fault, largely the fault of COVID and Trump's stupid response to it; the drop inflation was all him. But he and Vice President Kamala Harris did a lousy job of showing people that in 2024.

* As for the 2 items most often cited by 2024 voters as being too expensive: The average price of a gallon of gas in the United States is around $3.12; while the average price of a dozen eggs is, oddly, about the same.

Trump's idea to raise tariffs isn't going to lower prices. That usually does the exact opposite: It raises prices. And, in his interview with Time magazine after being named its Person of the Year, the dumb schmuck admitted that he wasn't so great and powerful when it came to prices: "I'd like to bring them down. It's hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it's very hard." He spoke like a child. That's because he has the understanding of a child, when it comes to the economy and pretty much anything else.

And I have barely even touched on any other issue: Crime, immigration, the environment, foreign policy, the corruption of Trump and his flunkies, etc.

These are the bases for which Trump's handling of the economy should be measured. Will the media hold him to account if he handles it badly? Or if he handles any other issue badly? They have shown no indication that they will.

But to it's all on him now. He has effective control of all 3 branches of government, and the media. And, for those of you who voted for him, it's also all on you. Whatever happens over the next four years, it's because you chose this guy.

If it works out in your favor, you are well within your rights to gloat.

If it doesn't -- if Trump crashes the economy a second time, if crime gets worse, if the immigration problem is not fixed, if there is a foreign-policy disaster, if there is another pandemic -- I am well within my rights to tell you that I told you so.

Because, in spite of whatever dictatorial ambitions he has, I do have that right.

As for Joe Biden, who, today, says goodbye after spending 50 of the last 54 years in elective office...

Thank you, Mr. President. You, too, Dr. Jill Biden. You, too, Vice President Kamala Harris. You, too, everyone who worked for them. (Except you, Merrick Garland and Robert Mueller, who turned out to be as useful as a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest.)

Godspeed, folks.

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January 19, 2025 was a Sunday. In the NFL Playoffs, the NFC saw the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Los Angeles Rams, 28-22 at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia; while the AFC saw the Buffalo Bills beat the Baltimore Ravens, 27-25 at Highmark Stadium in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, New York. Both games were played in snowfall and on slick fields, and both went back and forth before a winner could be established.

The day before, in the AFC, the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Houston Texans, 23-14 at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City; and the Washington Commanders beat the Detroit Lions, 45-31 at Ford Field in Detroit. For the Lions, it was a stunning defeat, following a season that saw them go a franchise-best 15-2, win the NFC North Division, and achieve the Number 1 seed in the NFC Playoffs.

For the team formerly known as the Washington Redskins, it was their 1st advancement to the NFC Championship Game in 33 years. For over 10 years, they had been a great team, reaching 4 Super Bowls and winning 3. For the next 30 years, they had battled mediocrity.

For about 25 years, under the ownership of Dan Snyder, they had become just about irrelevant, and even embarrassing, on the field and in the boardroom, before Snyder sold the team to a group led by Josh Harris, which had also bought the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers and the NHL's New Jersey Devils, in each case with little success, and little reason to believe the renamed Commanders would get any better -- but anything would have been better than Snyder's regime.

Baseball was out of season. There were 7 games in the NBA:

* The Brooklyn Nets lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder, 127-101 at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City.

* The Denver Nuggets beat the Orlando Magic, 113-100 at the Kia Center in Orlando.

* The Miami Heat beat the San Antonio Spurs, 113-100 at the Kaseya Center in Miami.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 123-109 at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.

* The Los Angeles Clippers beat their arch-rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers, 116-102. This was the 1st time the teams had played each other at the Clippers' new home, the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California -- a mile south of the Lakers' former home, The Forum.

* The Sacramento Kings beat the Washington Wizards, 123-100 at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.

* And the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Chicago Bulls, 113-102 at the Moda Center in Portland.

And there were 3 games in the NHL:

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the New York Rangers lost to the Montreal Canadiens, 5-4 at Madison Square Garden. Patrick Laine scored the winning goal with 1:40 left in overtime.

* The New Jersey Devils lost to the Ottawa Senators, 2-1 at the Prudential Center in Newark.

* And the Dallas Stars beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-1 at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.