Shopping for Better Things

Many people clip coupons.  I clip articles.  Save up enough of them and I can go to the grocery store of ideas and buy something.  So here are two clippings that when put together might feed a family of two for a couple of minutes.  Mallory, 6 seconds tops.

In the first article by Rabbi Geoffrey Mitelman, http://goo.gl/Qkqbm  he posits that too many people ask the question “do you believe in God?” In asking this, he says it begs a binary response.  And in a heated, polarized world a yes or no response has no where to go, or grow.  Plus, how can you really sum up thousands of years of progress across broad theological and rational spectrums with “yup” or “nope.”  Instead, the rabbi asks us to ask “How can we bring more justice and kindness into this world?”

Regardless of whatever particular worldview we hold, we have a responsibility to find ways to improve ourselves, our society and our world. … So by focusing the discussion around how people act more than on what they believe, we can now have a more productive dialogue. Yes, we may all be coming at this question from different ways, but now the arguments stop being attacks and counter-attacks about who is right, and instead, become an exploration about the ways we need to work together to create the kind of world we hope for.

Hopefully we can agree on this point.  And if nothing else, article one leaves me with a positive future-focused attitude to bring to my next problem. 

My second coupon is my favorite kind, data. 

GlobeScan, an international opinion research consultancy, released a report asking Americans to agree or disagree with the statement “ [is the] free market economy the best system on which to base the future of the world?”  Another binary question.  But the results are worth exploring. http://goo.gl/KJdvS

Americans believe less and less that the free market economy is the best.  In 2002, 80 percent answered yes.  After the Great Recession, there’s a precipitous drop.  In fact, today it’s more likely that a Brazilian or a Chinese person would agree with the statement. Since both are humming economies, this isn’t really surprising.  But that Americans no longer believe in their chief product is astonishing.

The connection is that in the rush to be conservative, we’re scraping the very layers of this country that promise that tomorrow’s a better day.  If the market economy only exists to fuel the market economy while ignoring its citizen’s lives, how have we made the World better?  If you look at the budget and only see 1s and 0s, you’re missing the opportunity to realize that civilization is either moving forward or backward with every line item.  Scrapping high speed rail lines, killing funding for health care, and reducing elderly retirement and medical help fixes A problem, but not THE problem.    

Democrats need to frame the environment as “how do we make lives better?” and restore confidence in a shattered system.  This is the rubric of a progressive; this one is pushing his cart down the aisle.

Nice Quote Mr. Reid

“Not a single child, not a single student, not a single teacher, not a single nurse, not a single police officer, not a single senior led us into this recession,” Mr. Reid said, decrying the massive number of cuts to federal spending offered by the House. “Not one, and punishing innocent bystanders will not lead us to a recovery. We’ll continue talking and continue working to find a middle ground.”

Mr. Reid of Nevada, speaking on budget negotiations with the House, quoted from an article here.

This is Not Good

Deflation is really not good.  Think about what would happen if suddenly, everything sold for less than it did last month. 

Krugman lays it out here in economics major detail: http://goo.gl/Wg7V.  But for the layperson, here’s the shtick.  First, if I build widgets and widget prices are going to be lower next month than this month, why would I invest money in building widgets?  I’m better off holding onto my money.  With lowered prices comes lower wage growth, especially in economies with unemployment.  Why pay more to people making widgets when there are a 100 people knocking on the door for a job?  Third, all of this is reinforcing.  Less spending begets less demand which begets lower wages which begets less spending.  Then suddenly, no one wants a widget.

I wasn’t really nervous until I saw this chart.  For those who didn’t watch Lost in Translation, Japan went through a housing boom in the 1980s to be followed by 20 years of economic funk.  Think Detroit with kimono robes and sushi. 

Two things compound the problem:

1. There’s a lot of pressure to cut government spending (ie trim the deficit).  Since we’re a borrowing country, this deficit money is a net flow into the US economy.  Cut the spending and you cut the flow.  Cut the flow and suddenly there’s $1 trillion less demand in widgets.  Dōmo arigatō.

2. Tea Partiers are throwing stones at the Federal Reserve’s action to inject $600 B into our economy.  In the Tea Party thesaurus, “central” and “reserve” are synonyms with Hitler and Maoism (or something).  See this comic:

But the Federal Reserve’s actions are to prevent the chart (above) from becoming reality.  What does a Japanese-style 20 years of non-growth look like?  Well, think close up of Bill Murray and a world where Scarlett Johansson doesn’t wear makeup.  It’s that bad.

How the Casino Vote Played Out

Patrick and I had been wondering where the Yes votes accumulated for Maine bond issue 1 – which allows Oxford County to build its new casino. The vote was extremely close – 282,463 (50.5%) for and 276,845 against (49.5%).  In all of my research, I couldn’t Google a map that showed the county by county breakdown so I created one for dedicated Moogaz readers.

The northwestern rural interior clearly came out supporting the measure the strongest: Oxford, Somerset and Franklin counties all had stronger than 56% support.

Coming out strongly against the measure were the Downeast counties with Washington County leading the way; only 30% of voters supported the measure.   No doubt this was payback for the Maine state legislature voting against a similar casino measure for Washington County earlier this year.  

Along the I-95 corridor, Kennebec County (Augusta, Waterville) stands out in that they were an urban area strongly supportive of the measure.  York, Cumberland were not too far behind.  Of the I-95 urban centers, only Bangor (Penobscot County) voted strongly against.  This was no doubt because of their own Casino interests.

	Yes		No
Oxford	16150	62%	9703	38%
Kennebec	30258	58%	22164	42%
Somerset	11342	57%	8390	43%
Franklin	7401	56%	5925	44%
Androscoggin	22441	54%	19144	46%
York	42563	53%	37925	47%
Cumberland	65500	52%	61200	48%
Sagadahoc	8276	51%	7806	49%
Aroostook	13028	49%	13301	51%
Piscataquis	3678	49%	3816	51%
Lincoln	8167	48%	8772	52%
Waldo	7853	45%	9490	55%
Knox	7581	43%	10098	57%
Penobscot	25095	42%	34396	58%
Hancock	9376	37%	15823	63%
Washington	3754	30%	8892	70%

Comparing a very similar 2008 Oxford County initiative which was voted down 54-46, the Downeast support decrease is dramatic.  Cumberland and York Counties clearly were swayed by the jobs argument though; their support increased 8% and 10% respectively from 2008 to 2010.  The real game changers though were Kennebec and Androscoggin Counties, where 18 and 21% more voters voted Yes this time around.  Harder hit by the Recession than the urban centers to the South or the tourist towns to the East, these mill towns clearly sympathized with the Northern Counties and the jobs argument.  

	2008	2010	Change
Washington	59%	30%	-29%
Hancock	55%	37%	-18%
Knox	52%	43%	-9%
Penobscot	46%	42%	-4%
Waldo	48%	45%	-3%
Lincoln	47%	48%	1%
Aroostook	47%	49%	3%
Cumberland	44%	52%	8%
Piscataquis	41%	49%	8%
Sagadahoc	42%	51%	10%
York	43%	53%	10%
Franklin	39%	56%	16%
Kennebec	39%	58%	18%
Somerset	37%	57%	20%
Androscoggin	33%	54%	21%
Oxford	35%	62%	28%

Well, plenty of numbers to think about until construction completes in a couple of years.

Grizzly Bears, Amélie, and Giving them the Unicorn Stick

I tend to block out Sarah Palin.  She’s loud and annoying and frankly does an injustice to grizzly bears, who up until this year were a proud species.   But then she went and messed with unicorns.  Nobody in the Gosselin household disparages unicorns.  It’s an unwritten rule.  If Amelie, my four year found out, she’d be really upset.  After all, she’s going as a unicorn for Halloween this year.  And we do a unicorn story every night.

Ok, so here is mamma bear’s quote:

California would need to create more than four million jobs over the next 10 years to keep up. Does anyone seriously think that the liberal policies of Pelosi and Reid and Obama -- heck a Boxer and a Brown -- are going to be able to turn this around and get the job done. They act like they're permanent residents of a unicorn ranch in fantasyland if they really think they're gonna be able to turn it around with the liberal policies they have to continue, and you know, it's pixie dust.

She’s right about the jobs.  I’ve been saving a graph in my back pocket and now it’s perfect save-the-unicorn arming material.   The Washington Post has an awesome interactive feature which shows just how many jobs we’ve lost since the start of the Great Recession and what it would take to get back to full employment.  The interactive feature is cool, the job losses staggering. http://goo.gl/YlsH

I’m pretty sure I know the policies that the Democrats would use to fix the problem: infrastructure improvements, stimulus spending in clean energy jobs, focuses on exports.

What exactly would the furry creatures over there in grizzly land propose?  Well, princess fuzzy herself doesn’t really offer an ideas (other than to disparage the great winged white unicorn).  So I’ll go to my Pledge to America pocket card to find out how Boehner and the Republicans plan to get job growth to 6%.

And there it is.  The massive proposal for stimulating the economy and generating 6% job growth is …

• Permanently stop all job-killing tax hikes
• Give small businesses a tax deduction equal to 20% of their business income
• Rein in red tape
• Repeal job-killing mandates

Which is to say an Obama-style stimulus plan (remember the stimulus plan was 30% tax breaks) plus ABSOLUTELY NO OTHER PLAN ON CREATING NEW JOBS.  It’s right there in the GOP “plan”.

No new energy jobs plan.

No new exporting job plan.

No new transportation plan.

Nothing about how our population is aging and how immigration could generate jobs.

They’re plan will “continue to lead the fight against terrorism with a plan to keep terrorists out of America.” Actual quote. Well, that’s good i guess.

Here’s where I wish I could see a media clip of an elegant unicorn stick (that’s what Amelie calls the horn) impaling a loud, stupid bear.  OMG, it actually exists.  This wikipedia article is hilarious.  http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Bears_vs._Unicorns_Conflict I’m stealing the picture for the end of this post.

Malaise, Ain’t it a Bitch

What do you do if you really want to vote non-of-the-above.

First, the Democrats were in power and people voted for a Contract for America.  Then the Republicans were in power and the Democrats took Congress.  Now the Democrats are in power and here we go again.

Matt Bai in the NY Times this morning argues that the real issues people care about have nothing to do with jobs or healthcare.  People are generally going too fast, see too much rudeness, are surrounded by chatting heads and an endless see of technology that does little to improve basic lives.

Fuel that with a destructive media machine whose single goal is to sell talk and inject it with cash flying all over the place from everyone but the little guy and there you have the discontent that has been brewing for a while.  The policy neutral independent who just wants a better life for his or her child has a simple voting rubric: antiestablishment.

Nate Silver knows his numbers.  And in a blog this week he reinforces this independent malaise by suggesting 2012 may be the year of the third party.  Actually, he gives 15 reasons why a third party is a real contender this cycle. 

Heading into what will certainly be a disastrous election, as a Democrat I’m buoyed by the fact that the voting has little to do with the mountain of achievements Obama has made in the first two years.   And if the trend continues, the electorate will be ready to switch back by 2012.  So that’s good.  Even if we’re not really solving anything.

Cynicism, the Technocrat, and Solar Panels in the Desert

In a Great Recession, we’re surrounded by cynicism.  The market may not rebound.  Jobs are lost.  We’re doomed to fail to China.  Truthfully, these fears and worries were always present, but in a hopeful economy the doubts are suppressed.  In a Great Recession, all we have is doubt.

Hold that thought for a minute.

Today the White House announced that it will return solar panels to its roof.  This is good right?  It reinforces the push for renewable energy.  It falls in line with stimulus investments in clean energy and Obama’s mandate that Federal buildings go green. We should be happy.

But then creeps in doubt.  Didn’t we already install these things during Jimmy Carter’s presidency?  Wasn’t Jimmy Carter a failure?  Aren’t Obama’s poll numbers in the bag?  Oh God, what if Obama is Jimmy Carter? 

What starts out as a nice little technocrat decision to add a solar panel back up to the roof is actually a doubt megaphone.   And you can be assured that the cynicism police will be out in force – I can already hear the piercing shrivel of Megyn Kelly.

And this is where Obama is failing us.  (No, not that Megyn has a y in it, but yes that’s a problem)

In a Great Recession where all there is is doubt, we need bold confidence.  It isn’t enough that the stimulus has good things in it or that we’re making small but good steps, we need to know where we’re going.  America goes through the past like Mallory goes through diapers. They crave the future.  To quote Michael J Fox in American President “People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.” 

Well, all we have right now is sand.  Someone tee up a mirage please. 

How inspirational COULD it have been if Obama wrote an executive order mandating that every Federal building would have solar panels in 5 years?  Now that’s a mirage I could sink my teeth into. 

Where is the Populist Angst?

We’re deep in a Great Recession.  The haves seem to be doing well though (Google profit up, MasterCard up, Mobil skyrocketing, Apple up, Microsoft up).  And the have nots not so much. (Unemployment, etc)  Yet the only credible populist uprising, namely the Tea Party, is squarely pointed against government, and not the elite.  In most historical cases, government has been the vehicle OF populism, not its enemy.  Unions, trust busting, regulation.  So what happened?  Here’s three thoughts.

1) The link between unemployment and Wall Street was never really connected.  I think there’s a couple reasons for this.  First is that today’s Wall Street business are not necessarily its employers.  Big banks may run the economy, but their tentacles are so far and wide it’s hard to connect a local bank or employer shutting down with the power plays in Manhattan.  In the past, if big businesses were profitable and shutting down factories towns felt it directly.   Now, faults are so spread out – maybe it was globalism, education, immigration – that the direct cause and effect is hard to establish.  And, small town Joe probably has money in some 401K tied to one of these companies or he’s impressed with its latest product so how can he be angry at these big businesses?

2) The Democrats are in power, so the zealots are on the right (and they’re the party of businesses).  If it were the other way around, Democrats could yell class war and point the finger at the cozy relationship between business and Republicans.  But it was Democrats who supported TARP in order to save the economy. And Democrats who worked with big businesses to craft Finance and Health Care legislation. It’s hard to yell at the fox in your coop when you’re working with him to build the fence.

3) We’re ever more a diverse fractious nation.  An educated middle manager who loses his/her job to outsourcing probably finds it pretty difficult to relate to a burger flipping minimum wage earner who also lost his/her job to outsourcing because all of the customers lost their jobs.  Maybe at one time we all watched the same television at 8pm, but now we’re flipping through a million forms of media.

So here we are.  Angry but not sure who to be angry at.  Leadership that can’t be angry.  And not sure if our neighbor is angry at the same thing.  Profits rolling in and people unemployed.

Ariana Huffington would like to kick off a populist movement, her book and blog community are trying to stir up the pot.

But who knows, maybe a lack of populism is a good thing?  At least we’re not rioting in the streets. 

Our House is a Very Very Fine House

I always wonder if the Great Depression felt black and white.  Did people realize they were in the Great Depression?  Were bread lines the norm for everyone? 

This morning’s labor report clearly lays out that the jobs recovery will be a long slog. But what is the norm for our generation.  25% of Americans will have been out of work for some period during the Great Recession.  And those remaining or back in the work force will have lower wages.  But on this Labor Day, I’m going to Georgia’s soccer game.  I’m having a BBQ.

Robert Reiche writes a brilliant piece in the Times today where he articulates the true cause of the Great Recession.  Yes it was precipitated by Wall Street, but the heart of our collective pain starts with computers and satellites and policies that concentrated wealth. 

There’s too many things to buy nowadays and too much competition abroad to have the salaries necessary to buy those things.  And government can’t encourage thriftiness because consumerism drives the economy which drives tax revenues.  So we’re left with this malaise.  Hungover, fat, and too poor to buy breakfast all at the same time.  What will be the picture of our generation 50 years from now.

The true promise of the Obama election was to turn around the clock on these bread and butter issues.  Healthcare, college grants, infrastructure, energy economy, bank reform are pieces of the new New Deal, but people just need a chicken in every pot and a fireside chat to tell them things are going to be great again.  Still waiting on it, for now I’m watching soccer and having a BBQ.

Nate Silver, Hero to Geeks

If you use to follow fivethirtyeight.com and wonder now where it went, Nate inked a deal with the NYTimes to incorporate the blog. Ok, interesting enough.

In his latest post, Silver argues that all of the inflated journalism surrounding the lowered GDP estimates is more playing to the double dip narrative and less fact.   If you haven’t followed the news, the latest estimate for GDP quarter growth was reported as less than stellar.  In fact, some looked at it and said it was indicative of a double dip recession.  Reporters were practically drooling to release the news as it played to the Obama isn’t doing enough story.  What Silver argues though, is that the numbers are skewed by two factors.  Overall, demand is up and most factors are positive.

So what is the truth behind the revision.

1) State and local government spending is down.  This we knew.

2) Imports are up dramatically.  In fact, most of the increase in domestic demand is being fed by imports, which are cheaper.  And imports minus exports is an adjustment to GDP.  But why the surge in imports?  US manufacturers have been trimming their inventories and their capacities in the wake of the Great Recession.  And foreign importers are lowering prices to keep and attract buyers.  So with cheap foreign goods available, distributors are looking overseas to restock their inventories.

What this means is that gross domestic product might be down, but demand is healthy. 

So don’t panic yet.  And say something nice to a geek today. And make sure you check behind the curtain.

Moving back to a Producing Economy

This article by The Financial Times lays out the Great Recession and steps the US could take to transition from consuming to exporting.  It’s an interesting, easy read written from a worldly viewpoint.  (some articles require a FT account, not sure if this is one of them).

Can anyone see the irony in reading this article?  Bonus points if you write it in the comments.