Reader question:

Please explain this passage. What does the speaker mean by “sugar high”?

“We are in an economic boom most folks thought was impossible, I don’t see an end do it... I don’t think this is anything resembling a sugar high.”

My comments:

The main point of the speaker is that he or she believes that the current economic boom is going to last for some time.

While most people didn’t think the boost was even possible, the speaker believes it’s not only here, but here to stay, i.e. able to last for a while.

In other words, it’s not like a person on a sugar high, which is stimulating and exciting but which is, like, a flash in the pan, um, something that’s ephemeral, something that’s gone before you’re able to really enjoy it.

A person on a sugar high?

That’s what a person of low energy feels like after drinking a cup of sugar water, say.

High, as in high and giddy, like someone who gets high on alcohol or drugs.

Well, maybe not as high and giddy as someone who’s taken brandy or whiskey or cocaine, but you get my idea. My idea is, you know, we all need sugar to survive, sugar in its various forms we take from food. It is what gives us glucose in the blood and fat in the body.

In medical terms, when sugar (or rather glucose) in our blood drops to a certain level, we begin to feel tired and low in energy, not to mention dizzy. For diabetics, low blood level can even be fatal, but any normal person will faint or at least feel low in energy.

At any rate, at this point, if one drinks a cup of sweet water, one will feel a burst of energy. Like, instantly. Hence, they’ll feel high, high in energy and high in spirits again.

Not quite as high and giddy as if they’d taken alcohol or cocaine, but, still, you get my point.

Sugar high, by the way, doesn’t last long. As this intake of sugar is digested and absorbed, the burst of energy it brings subsides and goes away.

OK, that’s it, the idea of sugar high, or energy and excitement after an intake of sugar.

Back to our example, once again. What the speaker means to say is that he or she thinks the economic boom will last for a while rather than dissipate immediately because it does not look like (resemble) a person on a sugar high.

All right, here are a few recent media examples of sugar high, both metaphorically and in the literal sense:

1. It certainly isn’t the best of times or anywhere close to the worst of times, but the latest jobs report still told a story of two slightly different economic recoveries — or at least one that’s reaching a turning point.

On the one hand, if you like good news, there was plenty of it. The 201,000 jobs the economy added in August were almost exactly as many as were expected, which is quite strong for a recovery that’s this long in the tooth. Indeed, if you were auditioning for the role of a Fox News host, you might point out that we've added slightly more jobs in the last year — an average of 194,000 a month — than we had at this point of 2013 (an average of 191,000 a month).

Sure, that's highly misleading considering that Republicans just gave President Trump a big fiscal stimulus, after having forced a big austerity package on President Barack Obama five years ago. But it's still fairly remarkable when you consider that unemployment is 3.9 percent right now vs. 7.2 percent then. Job growth is supposed to be faster when more people are looking for work — when unemployment is high. So even if you discount some of this, as you should, the point is that the economy hasn’t lost a lot of momentum even as we’ve gained a lot of jobs.

Even better, though, is that workers might finally be starting to get the kind of raises you would expect in this economy. For a long time, this has been the recovery’s Achilles’ heel: We’ve added a lot more paychecks, but they haven't been much bigger ones.

Part of that, as former Obama adviser Jason Furman points out, is the result of lousy productivity growth, and another part is the result of low inflation. But the rest of it is something of a mystery. Wages are supposed to go up more when unemployment is low because workers should, in theory, have more bargaining power then. But that hasn’t really happened.

On the other hand, there were a few dark linings in the Friday unemployment report to what was an otherwise silver cloud.

As impressive as job growth has been the last year, it has slowed in the past few months. Again, this might be nothing. But the jobs numbers for the previous two months were just revised down by 50,000. Those revisions, the St. Louis Federal Reserve has found, tend to be pro-cyclical: up when growth is up, and down when growth is down. It could be, then, that the sugar high from Trump’s $1.5 trillion corporate tax cut is starting to fade. Or that there aren’t as many people who don’t have jobs who still want them. Or both.

- Wages are finally rising more. The recovery might be entering a new phase, WashingtonPost.com, September 7, 2018.

2. Making candy isn’t an exact science.

Discovering the perfect recipe doesn’t happen overnight. It takes years, it takes practice and most importantly, it takes mistakes.

Kause’s Karamels was built on mistakes and tweaks to a caramel recipe found in a magazine in the 1950s by Joanna Rapp’s grandmother. The recipe has been passed down through the family for three generations, with every family member adding their own happy accidents to create the delicious treat.

“My mother’s mistake when making it holds the caramel longer,” Rapp said. “My husband messed up making the candy one day and that’s how we ended up with how to make our suckers. It’s just happy accidents.”

The small candy business started in 2014, Rapp started it in memory of her grandmother. She plans on keeping the business small — really, making candy is just a hobby for her.

“This gets grandma’s legacy out there,” Rapp said. “But the recipe will always just stay in my family.”

Kause’s Karamels — covered in chocolate, of course — will join about 25,000 other pieces of chocolate at Death by Chocolate, a benefit for the Rotary Club of Twin Falls. Proceeds go into the Rotary Club’s foundation, which goes into helping the community.

“Eat chocolate for charity; it’s your civic duty,” said event organizer Jill Skeem.

The event pits area chefs against each other in five categories: Best chocolate brownie, cake, cookie, candy and best unique dessert. Rapp will be entering the candy category.

Skeem started the event at her rotary club in Boston as a way to get the community involved with raising money for the club. Death by Chocolate has been going on for 16 years in Boston and 14 years in Twin Falls.

“Everyone is happy with this event,” Skeem said. “I think everybody is just on a sugar high by the end of it.”

- Eat chocolate, it's your civic duty: 14th annual Death by Chocolate is Thursday, MagicValley.com, January 30, 2019.

3. It’s been just over seven years since “Linsanity” descended on the New York Knicks, via a little-known point guard named Jeremy Lin. Now a grizzled and well-traveled veteran at 30 years old, Lin is set to be headed to the Toronto Raptors once the Atlanta Hawks officially buy him out.

Lin played in 51 games for the Hawks this season, starting one, as he is averaging 10.7 points, 3.5 assists and 2.3 rebounds per game thus far. An expiring contract brought a fair amount of rumored interest as last week’s trade deadline approached, and the Hawks’ initially reported stance on not doing a buyout seemingly shifted with a potential push from Lin’s representation.

With Kyle Lowry dealing with a lingering back issue, and Fred VanVleet (left thumb soreness) now a little banged up himself, Lin may find a solid immediate role off the bench for the Raptors. As they look to get over the hump in a LeBron James-less Eastern Conference and make a deep playoff run, adding a veteran backcourt piece like Lin looks like a good move.

The trade with the Memphis Grizzlies for Marc Gasol took away some of their depth (Delon Wright, C.J. Miles), and Raptors president Masai Ujiri quickly suggested the team would “attack” the buyout market after the trade deadline. Adding Lin doesn’t necessarily qualify as an attack of the buyout market, but there haven’t been many getting done to this point. There’s still time for that to change though, with a March 1 deadline for players who are waived or bought out to be added and be postseason eligible for a new team.

The sugar high of “Linsanity” is long gone, and not coming to Canada in full. But with some playoff experience (17 games) to offer, along with double-digit scoring off the bench, Lin is sure to quickly become a fan favorite in Toronto.

- Jeremy Lin headed to Raptors after buyout from Hawks, February 11, 2019.

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About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：張欣 編輯：丹妮）