Robert Reich tells "the large narrative" of our economy

I was at a meet-and-greet last night with Brian O'Donnell, who's running for State Representative for District 59, and he and I got to talking about things I was feeling about Obama (what is it with his inability to articulate clear rationales and guiding visions?), the Democratic Party (how can they continue to be so staggeringly fumbling, bumbling, and timid since the Carter Administration?), the Tea Party (who are fighting tirelessly for our RIGHT to get dicked by insurance companies, to have our jobs outsourced overseas, to a crappy education and low-paying unskilled jobs!), and -- of course! -- to the economy (when will someone have the backbone to say that Free Trade has been the biggest shafting of the middle-class worker since Indentured Servitude?).

Well, I enjoyed the meeting, even if it might have been a bit heavy on the "greet" for poor Mr. O'Donnell. But he listened (or feigned listening) as politely as a ... well, a politician. Which he's not. Yet. (Despite J. Paul Brown's supporters are mailing literature accusing O'Donnell of being a "tax and spend politician," even though he's never held office. He has, in fact, been working as a wildlands advocate for Trout Unlimited.)

O'Donnell and I did end up find some shared ground, though: Our respect for economist Robert Reich.

Last night Reich reminded me why that's so, when he was interviewed on NPR's "Fresh Air." In the 20-minute interview, Reich is refreshingly clear, logical, and honest as he explained his view of where we are economically, and how we got here. And where we are is where we were at the start of the Great Depression: with a historic concentration of wealth in the hands of the wealthiest few, and a crushed middle class unable to afford to keep fueling the economy.

In 1928, says Reich, 23 percent of the country's wealth was in the hands of the richest 1 percent of the population; in 2007, the had 23.5 percent. Census data released this week show that the top-earning 20 percent of Americans received nearly half the income generated in the United States.

Reich cites some clear steps in how we got here, including the mechanization then out-sourcing of the workforce, an overly indebted middle class, and an absurdly wealthy upper class that turns to speculation as sport.

And he shares the concern over President Obama's lack of skill in articulating the situation and a rationale for moving beyond it, playing into the hands of Tea Partiers and those who would keep the status quo.  "He [Obama] has failed to connect the dots," says Reich, "and failed to provide the public a large and understandable narrative."

Like Reich can.

Listen to or read the "Fresh Air" interview here.

Watch an interview with Reich about his new book Aftershock: The Next Economy and America’s Future here and below.

A mountain man's stance on a flat earth

I was browsing my personal book-backstock, tucked away on backroom bookshelf, the other day. I was pulling out selections that sparked a mood or memory, then cracking them open at random pages to see what highlighted passages I might encounter, to see what spark of insight or creativity the aphorical wisdom therein might ignite.

I like to think of it as the I Ching of the second-rate writer.

Anyway, at one point I withdrew a paperback-version of a classic of Western nature writing, parted its pages reverently at a point I left it to greater powers to select ... and all the pages spilled out like leaves in windgust.

Was that some kind of ... sign??

Actually, no. It was cheap-shit Chinese book binding. But the event did extract a memory ...

I was teaching a course on Western Environmental Literature, and put this book on my reading lest, knowing the students would be surprised, engaged, and challenged by its story and messages.

And in keeping with my own message and theme of the course -- stand by your land -- I instructed the campus bookstore to order the book from a small, West-based publishing house.

Books came. Assignments made. Books purchased. Reading began.

Then the pages fell out of the damn things. Every damn copy of the damn things.

Was that some kind of sign? I doubt it. But the page facing up when own copy imploded displayed the information that this here edition of this classic of Western nature writing was printed in China.

I sensed the surge of money digitally passing out of the region and over the ocean ...

I felt the weight the many heavy cartons of books returning on that ocean encased in an enormous steel hull driven by kilo-barrels of oil ...

Email to publisher ensued, wherein I described the ... glitch, let's call it, in the bookbinding. They responded with, essentially, we know -- it was a bad batch of books. I replied, expressing my ... surprise, let's say, that they would still choose to ship an order -- especially an order for a college class -- knowing the books were doomed to vomit their insides.

And, I appended the hypothesis that even if the students didn't deserve such shitty-ass books, maybe the publishing house did, getting what it deserved for having their classics of Western nature writing printed in China.

Something like that. I'm sure I was quintessentially professorial through it all.

Anyway, my cyber-sparring oppenent seemed to absorb my digital jabs well enough -- except that last one. A terse retort snapped into my inbox:

"Well, it's a flat earth now." 

End of conversation.

An a most unsatisfying end to that conversation, that was. But, I'm here to report that, as I gathered up the fully re-shuffled fallen pages from that former textbook the other day, it still achieved its mystical, magical insight-sparking goal. Because I now have response to that flat-earth defense:

I, myself, like my earth with topography. With moutains and valleys and lakes and rivers and canyons. And with mountain towns and desert hamlets and riverside cities. And I like the variety of cultures that are shaped by those varieted topographies, a diversity reflecting the individual landscapes that hold and support the folks who choose to live there.

And I, myself, choose to work for and support that topography.

So, thanks for the insight!

Epilogue: That company based in the West but helping flatten the earth did later make recompense by sending myself and my class much more expensive and nicer hardcover copies of the book to replace the crap they'd shipped the first time.

I guess they make better books in Hong Kong.

How about a cinema bailout?

My wife and I had a rare treat Saturday: A kid-free night. So we spent it in a rare way: We went to a movie.

We passed a couple of fun hours entertained by this year's Oscar winner for Best Picture, Slumdog Millionaire. And it was, in our minds after seeing it, a well-worthy recipient of film's most prestigious honor. I'm glad we got to see it on the proverbial big screen, too -- there's nothing to replace seeing a theatrical movie the way it's meant to be seen: Big.

That this film was so worth a night out -- complete with sharing popcorn and holding hands in the dark in front of the big screen -- was no surprise. That we shared it with an audience of only six others was.

Granted, we saw Slumdog many months after its release. And our hometown theater is a small venue in a small town. Still ... as I tallied our total outlay for out little night out, I couldn't help but wonder if perhaps something else was contributing to so few others sharing our Saturday night at the movies.

Perhaps the same thing that makes it such a rare experience for us: the excessive, exorbitant cost.

I realize seeing a movie in Durango is still a relatively inexpensive experience compared with life in the Big City, where seeing a movie can run you upwards of $12 -- but that only adds to my argument.

My wife and I paid $19 for the two of us to see Slumdog down the road from house. Then we coughed up another $6-plus for popcorn -- served by three guys working behind the counter (and it seemed to take three of them ....) even though we were the only people in the lobby at showtime in our downtown duplex cinema.

So, $25 for two of us for a two-hour movie. Is it any wonder we so rarely venture to the movies? That so few others are willing to pay up for a night out?

Now, I'm no economic genius (for evidence, ask aforementioned wife), but doesn't it make sense to ... charge less and put more people in the seats? Have people buying more popcorn and soda, even if they pay less per unit??

I like going to the movies. And I know I myself, and my wife, would go to the theater several times a month -- there's usually that many good movies, and it's that enjoyable to see a film on the big screen (even if those screens keep getting smaller -- our own High Five Theater in Durango now is home to seven screens -- and the average home TV keeps getting bigger).

And I know we would go more, a lot more, if it wasn't $8.50 a pop to go. Half that -- even a nice even $5 -- seems fair. And much more reasonable. And doable.

At that price, I wonder how many more seats they'd be filling. I wonder how more neighbors we'd be sharing our night out with, if the studios and mega-cinema corporations had that kind of vision?

How much more fun would that be?

I also wonder how many teens would be out there, too. I know in a little town like ours -- like in most towns of any size anywhere -- teens are always looking for social things they can do. And they all like going to movies. So, make seeing a movie cost a square and affordable $5, make a bag of popcorn a simple buck or two, and don't you think kids would be flocking in? Over and over and over??

Folk wisdom says motion pictures helped keep America peaceful and together and uplifted during the last depression, during the real Depression.

Where, I wonder, is the wisdom now?

More of the power of pictures - and sounds

Pending a Four Corners follow-up on Mr. Wright's great link to Magnum Photo's "The Places We Live," here's a BBC story about organic farming near the Kibera, Kenya slum, with photographs...

(Mohamed and the pumpkin [BBC Worldservice, some rights reserved])

(The surroundings [BBC Worldservice, some rights reserved])

a Google map of Kibera...



and more pictures.

Change - "...we are the ones we have been waiting for."

Last Friday, as George W. Bush sought desperately to defer reckonings for eight years of foreign policy, economic, and environmental blundering onto the next administration, - Tim DeChristopher took a final exam on economics, walked into a BLM auction in downtown Salt Lake City, took a bidding number, and threw a wrench into one of the outgoing administration's machinations to deliver lasting gifts to extraction industries all over our map.




Patrick Shea, a Clinton-era head of the Bureau of Land Management, has offered to represent DeChristopher in any legal actions, and though at this point he lacks the $1,700,000 it would take to claim his winning bids on 22,000 acres, this act of very civil disobedience will delay any re-auctioning of a few pieces of Utah's canyon country until after January 20th. DeChristopher further explains his action on the One Utah blog, where you can thank him, and donate to a legal fund.

Amps, Gas, Grass or Algae; Nobody Rides for Free

Congratulations Durango Transit, for announcing that Main Avenue Trolley rides will be fare free in '09. While this covers only a small part of my little corner of self-chosen paradise, it's about time.

Let's not strain anything patting ourselves on the back just yet though, because we're running several decades behind the curve on this one. Many lost ideals ago, I was an operational cog in a couple of free transit systems, in other self-congratulatory paradises far, far away from home...

One system moved a large percentage of 4 million+ yearly visitors from one grand national park view to the next. The buses carried up to 100 people each and ran on propane. The talk was of banning all private cars from park roads in the near future. Then oil prices dropped. The last time I visited, smog from power plants and internal combustion engines clouded the views; and the roads were clogged with cars, SUVs, and tour buses. The free bus system belched diesel smoke, service was reduced to an inconvenience, and the buses ran half-empty.

The other - ah, paradise, at any price! I lived in a cheap trailer slum just outside of a ski town, and drove a free bus for a decent wage. I carried local paupers and self-anointed royals, on my appointed rounds through neighborhoods ranging in price from the low-shelters to the high-exorbitants. An abandoned rail-bed through the valley was on track to become a bike/ski commuter path. We were on the way to post-car craze enlightenment. But housing costs kept rising, chasing job-holding locals down-valley. A few years later, the bike path plan was shelved for lack of interest, the bus system carried mostly visitors, and the 'local' work-force commuted from up to 60 miles away. My 'decent wage' was pushing me down-valley with the rest, so I just kept going.

Now, here we are - fresh from a round of oil industry rapaciousness that pushed Durango-area transit use up 30-some percent over 2007. Our president-in-waiting promises to move us toward alternative energy, and Colorado governor Bill Ritter's statewide focus on renewable energy production seems to be bearing local fruit in last week's announcement of a plan to make oil from algae near Ignacio, and last spring's exploration of solar power farming near the same town. With all this and the promise of free buses to keep us warm, what could go wrong?

Yesterday, I filled my old Subaru up with good old, bad old unleaded gas, and the total on the pump didn't make me cringe. Don't get me wrong, I'm still living in a trailer just outside of town here in our paradise, can't afford $4 gas, and am not advocating the tough love of keeping energy costs at luxury levels. I am pointing out that cost-based conversions are notably temporary. Though there are plenty of reasons (a tanked economy, climate change, trade deficits, etc.) to replace fossil fuels with other means of warming, cooling and transporting our society, faith in change fades with falling prices at the pump. Unless pushed by a committed and vocal citizenry, no administration will be able to convert us to alternative, renewable, sustainable energy production and use.

Though my once high ideals are long tempered by broken promises and the pragmatism of survival, I've lived long enough to prove that change is always possible, so I've been exploring some options lately.

Amping up the ailing auto industry was discussed on radio program Science Friday this week, and here are some avenues for further exploration:

• Plug In America promotes nationwide development of all-electric vehicles. One currently in production goes over 200 miles per 4-hour charge on recyclable batteries. Though the current sports-car model is way, way out of my price range, the Tesla Motors rep revealed that his company has applied for a bit of the guaranteed loans being promised by our government, to jump-start production of a sedan at half the price.

Half of a hundred thousand is still too high for me, so I may be electrifying my old Suby someday:

Whether vehicles have electric, internal combustion, or hybrid engines, energy has to go into the tanks and batteries. Whether it's pond scum algae, solar or wind generated electricity, gas from grass (corn and sugarcane), or the same old fossil technologies we've loved and hated for several lifetimes - should be up to us, not to the rising and falling fortunes of energy corporations and politicians. If you want more information on sustainable energy and economics, check out a Green Festival near you:


If you still have a few bucks to spend, a Green Festival is coming to Denver next year; but why wait? With the economic wounds of fuel price gouging still bleeding, and more corporate bail-outs blowing in the wind, it's time to press the loan officers known as Congress, Colorado's Legislature, Governor Bill Ritter, and the incoming Obama administration to require corporate business plans that deliver sustainable energy production and use to the masses, rather than continuing to transport massive wealth to self-proclaimed oil royalty at home and abroad. It's long past time to press the political brain-trusts of La Plata and San Juan (N. M.) counties to institute a transit system up and down the Animas River valley, to connect the economic zone that stretches from Purgatory to Farmington. We elect them to represent our interests. Now times are hard again, and it's time they get to work.

The World, the Workers and (the late) Studs

Stories of work and workers from writers such as Studs Terkel, Howard Zinn, and a host of others - help insulate me from the temptation of trying to 'move on up' to live off the rest of the world's workers, and I'd like to wish Studs a posthumous "thank you." I have a tattered copy of "Working," a book of interviews about how it feels to work all day, every day of a working life. The Chicago Tribune has an obituary, with some video clips. Though he reportedly preferred not to use the word 'death', Studs Terkel titled a 2003 book "Hope Dies Last," and he checked out hoping to see Barack Obama elected president.

A presidential poll 'robocall' asked, "Do you think that, in these challenging economic times, it is a good idea to tell people to take the day off from work or school? Press 1 if you agree with this, press 2 if you disagree, or press 3 if you are not sure." The question, reported by someone named ProfJonathan yesterday, helped remind me why I'm a radical, something I've been considering a lot during this economy-dominated election cycle. I work with my hands, sometimes my head, and always with full awarenenss that many would love to profit from my labor. The awareness was planted with my first adult job 40-some years ago, and then nurtured by learning of workers' struggles in mines, fields and factories before my time.

Here in Colorado we had strikes, goons, head-bashing and at least one 'massacre' over in Walsenburg, as the 'wobblies' (International Workers of the World) tried to organize mineworkers in the early 1900s. Unions have fallen on hard times, but as times get harder, I expect to see more desire for worker representation, and a little remedial labor education may help us avoid some extreme actions and reactions. For a taste of what I'm talking about, check out the "Why Capitalism Must Go!" conference later this month. Go if you care, or dare, to find out why they've put a picture of Che Guevara on the poster. I've always stayed a free-agent, giving up pay and bennies for a free life of seasonal gainful employment and very private enterprise, so don't look for me there.

I will not be working tomorrow, however. The original intent of our founding fathers would have made me irrelevant to the voting process for most of my life. Limited to white, male landowners - American elections were initially a process more akin to choosing the governing hierarchy of a private club, than to an exercise of democracy. The vastly flawed system we operate under now is better though, and it deserves and requires thoughtful participation to make it better. Judging by the poll question, we seem to be still debating whether workers should have full participation in the election process. Having voted a few weeks ago, I'll be out observing my neighbors as we struggle, wittingly or not, toward a more perfect union. If possible, I suggest a day of voting, observing, and helping get out a measurable sample of what we are thinking now. Wednesday we can go back to post-mortems of our politics, economy and yes - to work.

Ski bums finding the bumming hard

A good article on NewWest.net looks at an issue afflicting modern-day ski bums in Rocky Mountain ski towns: The bumming ain't cheap.

"Ski bum housing search grows desperate," by Michael Pearlman, examines how the days of living cheap in some lovely little mountain town so you can work a slave-labor job -- but one that comes with a ski pass -- so you can ski your arse off and hang with a tribe of other powder fiends have fallen victim to second-home and luxury life-style economics.

As gentrification extends to every back-alley cabin and shag-carpeted rental condo, it’s the workers on the lowest rung of the employment ladder that are most affected. When real estate prices skyrocketed in recent years, landlords and deep-pocketed investors cashed in, remodeling and selling older, low-end condominiums, the lifeblood of the rental market in most mountain towns. New owners who financed purchases with no money down had to increase rents to cover their mortgages, while skid housing was demolished to make way for new construction.

Personally, as a graduate of the School of Ski Bumming, this is tragic. College is fine; but for a real education in Life and How To Live It, nothing can beat a season, or seasons (or life, as some of us have stretched this portion of our educations) lived simply and scraping by in exchange for place and tribe and getting out and actually doing things.

And to do that, to experience that, to learn that, there must be places to do that. Entire micro-economies that feed that.

Maybe it's time for a ski-bum bailout, eh?