A Child's Walk

A child's walk through life is an easy one, isn't it?  Making a place in our community for a newborn isn’t difficult.  A home and family, doctors and medicine, schools and vacations, college and career; it’s an easy path, pretty much, isn’t it?

It is indeed easy for some, but certainly not for all. There's a huge and widening gap between those who 'have' and those who 'have not'.

No one chooses poverty for their family, but for many, it comes anyway.  None choose for their children to be fast-tracked to failure.  No parent chooses for their family to go hungry and slowly die from curable illnesses.  But it comes despite their attempts at escape.

Elias stands with his mother and baby brother before
leaving for school from their temporary home.  Mom
was forced to move into the shelter with her four
children when she lost her nurse's assistant job
two months ago.

Pointing at the poor in condescension, as though through some character flaw, poverty came from within them ...  speaks too truthfully about the one pointing.  We miss, perhaps, an underlying truth: poverty is a crime, and the poor are its victims.  Is that true?

This November, do we have a candidate in mind who understands the issue in our country?   

If a community exists just as a coalition of businesses and the families who own them, of homeowners and consumers; well then, it makes sense that they would provide for themselves to the exclusion of others.  No sense in diluting the value of resources by attaching too many teat-suckers to the udder, I suppose. 

Public schooling needn’t provide a quality education for the non-contributing members of society and their offspring.  They’re not in any position to make good use of it anyway.

Healthcare needn’t be made affordable, particularly.  Basic services should be enough for the masses.

Food distribution should follow the flow of money, naturally.  Just like every other commodity, food costs money to produce, to distribute, to buy and consume.  It’s natural that way.  Food, transportation, education, energy, water, roads, police, street lights, parks, libraries, shopping centers, all of them naturally follow the money because they all cost something.

If on the other hand, a community (or nation) exists for the sake of its citizenry, then the disenfranchisement of some is a troublesome circumstance.  If the lesser resourced among us are marginalized, then we at the center are the ones who have done them and their children a great disservice.

Thus arises the questions of what is to be done.  

Both the issue and its solution are structural, not partisan, not political party specific, and not addressed by one-line slogans.  Solutions, by the way, are many and easily incorporated into local and regional processes.  All the impediments to such ... all the impediments are political and cultural will. 

“The social contract is starting to unravel in many countries,” OECD Secretary-General
Angel Gurria said in a statement.   “This study dispels the assumptions that the benefits
of economic growth will automatically trickle down to the disadvantaged and that the
greater inequality fosters greater social mobility.”

The gap between rich and poor is a wide one and getting wider rapidly. In the 30-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, only Turkey and Mexico have more unequal societies than the United States. “Nowhere has this trend been so stark as in the United States,” the OECD concluded in a 2008 study. In the U.S., the rich-poor gap has widened by 22 percent (1967-2015), more than in most developed countries.

Raghuram Rajan, the IMF’s former chief economist, says countries with high levels of inequality tend to produce ineffective economic policies. Political systems in economically divided countries grow polarized and immobilized by the sort of zero-sum politics now gripping Washington, he said. 

Welfare, by the way, isn't a solution.  It began well, and even now is a safety net for many along the way, but it's often more of a problem for a given community than a benefit.  With billions invested each year, we've unintentionally rewritten the culture of the poor.  Taking advantage of the opportunity offered, the poor are often entangled and eventually trapped as they adjust to what's required for continued survival.  It's a dead end that kills every good thing along the way.

Simple solutions?  Can you think of a few?

“There is nothing inevitable about high and growing inequalities,” Gurria said. “Up-skilling the workforce is by far the most powerful instrument to counter rising inequality. The investment in people must begin in early childhood and be followed through into formal education and work.” 

A Child's Smile

Ever wonder why a child's smile might be so appealing?
         Or why children are so often delightful when grownups are so often not?
             

Kids; some possibilities:

• They're wide open to new information.
• They're excited to try things they've not tried before.
• They'll take the leap if you'll promise to catch them!
• They're inspired by a more distant horizon...

And they're willing to share it all with their friends.

Doing things together is an end in itself; they call it 'play'.

Then there's ...                                                                            

... of such is the kingdom of heaven ...? 

Was Jesus just being poetic, or is this instructive somehow.

Ready to go at a moment's notice ....

And, what's the message?

Go thou therefore and build a building with chairs where you may sit ...

Be like everyone else all the time, except go to this building on Sundays ...

Go, sit in this place which I have shown thee, and there sit til the trumpet sounds and the cows come home ...

Even teens can be retrieved from the edge of adulthood sometimes ...

Spend years getting ready to be useful.  ...  Years and years.  You'll probably want to still be in a class when you're really old.

NOT!        

Brought to you by Hope For Every Child and  TexasEx.Org 
Children pictured here are dear friends from Kenya and from Sao Tome & Principe, 2010-2012      

Go Where the Silence Is

... failing to engage the public in a fact-based discussion of the hard choices that will very soon be forced on Washington.

Getting to the bottom of things; I wish sometimes that I had the skill and guts to be a journalist.  Too many gaping holes in the news; sensational tidbits with no backing.  Can't help thinking... honest questions have been left behind, along with the facts, the objective truths we were trying so hard to face. 

Dear God, this is not what we need.

Spotlighting competitive spins on a controversial issue does not constitute good journalism. Facts coupled with a wide range of perspectives on those facts does.

Amy Goodman,
investigative journalist

For a non-provocative example from a few years back: a headline on NPR in '04 was “Bush's plan to reform Social Security.” The show aired a clip of Bush claiming that Social Security is in crisis and that our record budget deficits are caused by shortfalls in the program. Cut to next story—we heard no follow-up, no checking on whether there's any truth to the claim (in fact, the reverse is true—the Social Security trust fund is subsidizing the rest of the federal budget). It's as if there are no facts beyond what the president says. You'd never know by listening to Morning Edition's segment that there is a controversy over whether Social Security is really in crisis. Contrast that with a subsequent independent news program. After listening to guests debating the merits of privatizing Social Security, the host, Amy Goodman, asks a question that shows she's done her homework:

“… Every ... proposal acknowledges that private accounts by themselves do little to solve the system's projected shortfall ... Instead, these proposals rely on deep cuts in benefits to future retirees. ... The controller general of the Government Accountability Office … said that the creation of private accounts for Social Security will not deal with the solvency and sustainability of the Social Security fund. Your response to that?”

It's a straightforward question.  It assumes there's a world of facts that listeners have a right to know and that deserve the light. Spotlighting competitive spins on a controversial issue does not constitute good journalism. Facts coupled with a wide range of perspectives on those facts does. 

Goodman is a recipient of journalism's highest honors, including the Robert F. Kennedy Prize for International Reporting, the George Polk Award, and the Alfred DuPont-Columbia Journalism Award.

"Independent media can go to where the silence is and break the sound barrier, doing what the corporate networks refuse to do."

Which brings us to Presidential Campaign Politics '12

• Democrats and Republicans have spent hundreds of millions (actually) of dollars in talking about each other and in spinning the truth. 
•  Neither candidate has yet objectively or accurately portrayed either themselves or the other.  Each party has deliberately misrepresented the truth, and in some cases, lied outright.

  This isn't what we want or need!

"... the deplorable tone of this particular campaign. Besides being marked by a cavalier disregard for facts on both sides, the campaign also has become bitter and trivial. It is failing to engage the public in a fact-based discussion of the hard choices that will very soon be forced on Washington."

... and I approved this message.

Triviality 1:  In Chicago, the Obama campaign for weeks has been consumed with the date (1999 or 2001?) of Romney’s departure from Bain Capital, the venture-capital firm he founded. The reason? The Obama campaign wants to blame Romney for management decisions made after Feb. 11, 1999, at a few of the companies in which Bain invested. 

Romney did retain ownership and corporate titles listed in routine SEC filings after February 1999, but no evidence has yet shown that he exercised any active control over Bain’s investment decisions during this time. Romney was working 12-hour days, six days a week, as president of the 2002 Winter Olympics committee and was not actively involved in Bain.

Factless claim 2:  Obama's team has even stooped to make a false claim that Romney favored banning abortion in cases of rape or incest, as though the contrast between their actual positions was not sufficiently clear.

 In doing so, the president mirrors the distortions of opponents who once accused him of favoring “infanticide.”

... and I approved this message.

• Neither party has been willing to concede their own mistakes, their expensive and ineffective solutions, their big ideas that didn't play out and got dropped.  

• Neither party is willing to note their own contribution to difficulties we now face.  And ...

Exaggeration 3:  For his part, Romney has claimed to have created as many as 100,000 jobs while at Bain, happily taking credit for hiring that happened long after he left, and offering no actual accounting for the figure. 

Groundless accusation 4:  Romney has accused Obama of waging a “war on women” based on job losses from a recession that started more than a year before Obama took office. 

Outright lies 5: Romney has falsely stated in a TV ad that an inspector general found stimulus contracts “were steered to ‘friends and family,’ ” when the IG made no such finding. 

Knowing misrepresentation 6:  Romney has repeatedly misrepresented Obama’s new health care law.

Pointed Slander 7:  Obama campaign aides recently suggested Romney was guilty of a “felony.” 

Groundless insult 8:  A Romney surrogate said the president should “learn to be an American.”

And as yet, there has been SILENCE on many things that matter.

• ... And neither candidate speaks candidly of what he would actually do if elected.  

Here's a route from facts to decision.

Skipped steps leave you foolish and

inadequately informed.  Decisions,

particularly the big ones, deserve the

care and study that brings wisdom to

the table.  In its absence, all we have is

an opinion that someone else has given us.

The choice of president deserves more than an

advertising campaign where the wealthiest
clique wins.

• Romney won’t say how he plans to cut taxes further without losing revenues. Cutting or eliminating the deduction for home mortgages or for state income taxes? 
• Obama says nothing about how Social Security is to be preserved. Raising the payroll tax, perhaps?
• Big deal? Well, we're left to choose on popularity instead of the candidate's offered content.

Neither has offered a coherent plan.  Neither dares talk about past performance in depth.  Promises to repeal this or balance that are unsupported and in many cases, somewhere between unsupportable and impossible.  Both sides are avoiding objective discussion, and major media is letting them do so. This is not what we as a country and as thoughtful citizens need.

 

 

More silence: ... and neither party has heard or responded to the vocal dissidents.  Now world wide, OWS protesters are being routinely abused, illegally detained, but none so far are being heard or answered.

We criticize the middle eastern countries for their violent response to dissent and protest.  In the west, we offer the same response only with a somewhat reduced level of violence.  A disappointing hypocrisy.

Rather than sincerely engage the protesters, government here is doing what it can to intimidate them, to silence them, to push them aside.  Federal, state, and municipal regulators are reshaping the law to preclude a public forum for the dissenters.



Much like the Vietnam War era protests, dissidents are classified as anarchists, traitors, anti-American trouble makers.

The establishment will probably have to kill a few before we realize that their protest belongs to us all.

How many times have we seen this same scenario?

Kayaking through alligators

"Today's kayak trip through the mangrove
tunnels was so fun and beautiful," she says.
A therapeutic reprieve from the weight of daily life,
"... when I'm on the move, my brain can finally
be where I am and no where else."

An Atlanta lawyer describes her furiously-paced life and her discovery.  "When you are kayaking through the alligators."

"People ask why I don't just sit and do nothing when I'm overwhelmed and exhausted. It's because when I sit I can still think, but when I'm on the move, my brain can finally be where I am and no where else."

She's right, of course. Whether it's an hour's walk around a park or a month's trek through the Omo Valley (I wish), it's a chance to (ctrl/alt/del) reboot and start fresh.

Simple stuff. Take a friend.  They could probably use the break too.

Sanity in two minutes!

Two minutes!

Two minutes is about the amount of time we gain on the way to work by driving at the maximum speed we can manage, running lights, and passing illegally. 

Police did the speed test in Chicago with siren and lights.  They beat the unmarked car, driven across the city at the speed limit and obeying all the rules, by just two minutes.

Those two minutes are critical if you're a first responder, I imagine, but on the way to work?  No, not at all.  Not worth the risks, the insults to others, the reputation for being a jerk, or the mental shape it leaves us in when we arrive.

Drivers here in Southern Maryland are nastier than most.  Perhaps it's a trickle-down from our nation's capital.  Tailgating is common, and pushing rudely through traffic is the norm for many.  Gestures abound.  Think it through ... what is going on in our minds when we drive that way?

... wake up fool, the light's green! 

... come on moron, hang up and drive.

... stupid jerk, speed up or get out of the way.

... no chance maggot, you're not cutting in in front of me!

These are conversations which, if offered face to face, would provoke interesting results.  As a private conversation with just yourself, you only stir up your own soul.

Now, from a heart view, saying those things in private is the same as saying them face to face, isn't it.  Getting emotionally involved in the go-to-work traffic is behaviorally the same as joining a fight in a bar, pretty much.  Responding in kind to the emotions of others, getting angry, focusing it on someone....  It's a character issue.  Ugh..

From a legal perspective, we know we're not supposed to hurt people.  From a character perspective, however, we know that hate and abuse in the privacy of our mind is at its root the same choice; to insult, to put them down, to do them harm.  Disappointing.

Street vendors in Nigeria, a common part

of the traffic scene

Bad driving is perhaps a cultural norm.  Too fast, too close, cutting in, pushing to get in front ....

Djibouti - and a truckload of goats.

The country installed their first

traffic light while we were there.

Everybody kind of ignored it.

     I was surprised to find that drivers in Africa (Kenya, Nigeria, Djibouti, Sao Tome) are actually nicer than Maryland drivers.  Even with city traffic and no functioning traffic lights, they just get along, they make room for each other, and gridlock doesn't happen.  Nobody sweats passing or being passed. Everybody gets where they're going, and everybody else is OK with that. 

TWO MINUTES!
Which brings us back to the 'two minutes'.  That's all we get for driving like a jackass.  That's all the benefit there is to behaving like an impatient child throwing a tantrum.  Publicly.  For everyone to see.

What if we relaxed and enjoyed those extra two minutes, maybe with some pleasant music or a little meditation?   We could start the day refreshed instead of burned and fouled by anger.

If we've done it in our heart (insult, harm, verbal assault, name calling ...), we've done it.  It's the same.   Jesus said calling someone a fool was enough by itself to ... well, you know. 

Thoughts?

Hmmm; how did I come to this understanding?

Good judgement comes with experience, and most of that comes from bad judgement. 

P.S.   A safe following distance is 2-4 seconds.  At speed, that's a few car lengths, at least.   Sure, that leaves room for someone to cut in front of us.  Smile and let 'em.  Graciously make a place for others; we'll all get where we're going.

A Gorilla in the Global Economy?

“Let them eat credit” was a line written by Prof. Raghuram Govind Rajan, and it remains as cleverly appropriate as any on our descent into The Great Recession.  Among the many factors ...

These are structural concerns, not party differences. 
Both parties have brought us here over decades. 
Despite heroic attempts, neither candidate or party
has yet addressed adequately our national concerns
in this arena.

In the U.S., our middle and lower classes scrambled to get by in a decade-long decline of wages and salaries.  The government, the FED, and Wall Street gave us their solution; we were offered cheap credit as a substitute for wage improvements. 

We took it.

Then it took us - and the country, and much of the world - to the cleaners.  The U.S., the E.U. and most national economies were wagged like a dog's tail by the risk-taking (and errors) of a corporate few.

 

Red companies are super-connected, yellow are very connected.
At the core, just 147 corporations, mainly banks

We're beginning to understand why and how the upheaval happened.  Among our discoveries, it seems there's a large gorilla at the heart of the global economy.

 

A surprising study recently by the University of Zurich discovered just 147 corporations* at the core of the entire world's economy (illustrated here).   According to Forbes, those few hold the reins to the entire global economy.

*Their analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a tightly interconnected core group, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy.

There are too many corporations in this newly identified core to be a conspiracy for world rule, something that will disappoint the radical conspiracists.  They are also too few in number and too poorly regulated to be particularly predictable, but they are perhaps worth watching.  It's just a naturally-forming network where newcomers connect preferentially to highly connected members.  The structure is inherently unstable and has been subject to large-scale manipulation.

Sample of the international financial network, where the nodes represent

major financial institutions belonging to the core and the links give the

strongest existing relations among them; node colors indicate different

geographical areas: EU (red), US (blue), other countries (green); the 

width and the darkness of the links show their weight; only the most 

prominent links are shown; the network shows a high connectivity, 

with many mutual cross-shareholdings as well as longer cycles; this 

indicates that the financial sector is strongly interdependent, which 

make the network vulnerable to instability.

Many of these firms are financially larger than all but a few of the world's wealthiest countries.  Many are officially identified as 'too big to fail', a vulnerability increased by the interconnectedness of their ownership and control structures.

That the economic future of the world is in the hands of so few is troubling... 

There is nothing wrong with working hard, contributing meaningfully to the marketplace, and becoming wealthy.  What we have, though, is a broken system that funnels most of the world's productivity and most of the power into the hands of the ultra-wealthy and the gigantic corporations that they own.  Their business model, of course, is focused not on serving the citizens of the world but on their bottom line.

There are perhaps benefits to such an economic model, but the likely risks and downside continue to increase in magnitude.  The model is outside the regulatory pervue of any one nation and beyond our national and international attempts to rein it in as yet.

From a local (national, governmental) view, America's contribution to this juncture distributes across Republicans and Democrats.  This trends began in the last century with deregulatory initiatives which each administration has supported at the behest of industry.  Attempts at regulatory reform have had mixed results so far, and are considered inadequate. 

So, who are these few who can so shake the world with their actions?

The top 50 of the super-connected, transnational companies ...

1. Barclays      GB

2. Capital Group Companies Inc    US
3. FMR Corporation                        US
4. AXA                                     FR
5. State Street Corporation            US
6. JP Morgan Chase                      US                      ... some familiar names.
7. Legal & General Group GB                          45 of these are financial sector corporations.
8. Vanguard Group Inc                   US            Together, these 50 control 40% of the world marketplace.
9. UBS AG                       CH                            A third of these are on the 'too big to fail' list.*
10. Merrill Lynch & Co Inc*           US         Several have been caught illegally manipulating the market.
11. Wellington Management Co     US        Each has a history of 'bottom line' motivation.
12. Deutsche Bank AG    DE                        None can claim having served the interests of their host nation.
13. Franklin Resources Inc              US         Many are suspect for illegal market manipulation at
14. Credit Suisse Group       CH                       governmental behest (foreign and domestic firms).
15. Walton Enterprises LLC            US         There are documented cases where such activity
16. Bank of New York Mellon        US            was only inadvertently discovered and thwarted.
17. Natixis                               FR
18. Goldman Sachs Group Inc       US

19. T Rowe Price Group Inc             US
20. Legg Mason Inc                          US
21. Morgan Stanley                       US
22. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial  JP
23. Northern Trust Corporation       US
24. Société Générale               FR
25. Bank of America                      US
26. Lloyds TSB Group plc        GB
27. Invesco plc                          GB
28. Allianz SE 29. TIAA        DE
29. TIAA                                           US
30. Old Mutual Public Limited GB
31. Aviva plc                             GB
32. Schroders plc                      GB
33. Dodge & Cox                             US
34. Lehman Brothers*                   US
35. Sun Life Financial Inc     CA
36. Standard Life plc               DE
37. CNCE                                    FR
38. Nomura Holdings Inc     JP
39. The Depository Trust Company  US
40. Massachusetts Mutual Life        US
41. ING Groep NV         NL
42. Brandes Investment Partners LP
43. Unicredito Italiano SPA
44. Deposit Insurance Corporation of Japan
45. Vereniging Aegon

46. BNP Paribas
47. Affiliated Managers Group Inc
48. Resona Holdings Inc
49. Capital Group International Inc
50. China Petrochemical Group Company
* Lehman still existed in the 2007 dataset used

Here's a Wikepedia breakout of the 2007–2012 global financial crisis elements: Major dimensions 2000s energy crisis 2008–2012 global recession Automotive industry crisis of 2008–2010 Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act European sovereign-debt crisis Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Subprime crisis impact timeline Subprime mortgage crisis United States housing bubble United States housing market correction Countries Belgium Greece Hungary Iceland Ireland Latvia Russia Spain Ukraine Causes Causes of the 2007–2012 global financial crisis Causes of the 2008–2012 global recession Causes of the United States housing bubble Credit rating agencies and the subprime crisis Government policies and the subprime mortgage crisis Summits 34th G8 summit (July 2008) 2008 G-20 Washington summit (November 2008) APEC Peru 2008 (November 2008) 2009 G-20 London Summit (April 2009) Government legislation and spending Banking (Special Provisions) Act 2008 Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) 2008 European Union stimulus plan 2008 United Kingdom bank rescue package Chinese economic stimulus program China–Japan–South Korea trilateral summit Anglo Irish Bank Corporation Act 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Green New Deal 2008–2009 Keynesian resurgence Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Federal Reserve responses to the subprime crisis Government intervention during the subprime mortgage crisis National fiscal policy response to the late 2000s recession Regulatory responses to the subprime crisis Subprime mortgage crisis solutions debate Company bailouts, buyouts, or bankruptcies General Motors Chrysler Northern Rock Bear Stearns,  New York City Catholic Building Society Countrywide Financial, Calabasas, California Alliance & Leicester Roskilde Bank Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Derbyshire Building Society Cheshire Building Society Merrill Lynch,  New York City American International Group, New York City Lehman Brothers, New York City  HBOS Washington Mutual, Seattle, Washington Lehman Brothers Bradford & Bingley Fortis Dexia Wachovia, Charlotte, North Carolina Landsbanki Glitnir Kaupthing Bank BankWest (subsidiary of HBOS) Sovereign Bank, Wyomissing, Pennsylvania Barnsley Building Society National City Bank, Cleveland, Ohio Commerce Bancorp, Cherry Hill, New Jersey Scarborough Building Society IndyMac Federal Bank Anglo Irish Bank BTA Bank Alliance Bank Bank of Antigua Straumur Investment Bank Dunfermline Building Society Caja de Ahorros Castilla La Mancha Philippine American Life and General Insurance Company Chesham Building Society (100% Bought) CajaSur So, what happens next?  We could leave such conversation to the wingers, R or L, and go on our plebeian way.  After all, these things are difficult and one person can't make a difference anyway.     Northern Rock Bear Stearns,  New York City Catholic Building Society Countrywide Financial, Calabasas, California Alliance & Leicester Roskilde Bank Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Derbyshire Building Society Cheshire Building Society Merrill Lynch,  New York City American International Group, New York City Lehman Brothers, New York City  HBOS Washington Mutual, Seattle, Washington Lehman Brothers Bradford & Bingley Fortis Dexia Wachovia, Charlotte, North Carolina Landsbanki Glitnir Kaupthing Bank BankWest (subsidiary of HBOS) Sovereign Bank, Wyomissing, Pennsylvania Barnsley Building Society National City Bank, Cleveland, Ohio Commerce Bancorp, Cherry Hill, New Jersey Scarborough Building Society IndyMac Federal Bank Anglo Irish Bank BTA Bank Alliance Bank Bank of Antigua Straumur Investment Bank Dunfermline Building Society Caja de Ahorros Castilla La Mancha Philippine American Life and General Insurance Company Chesham Building Society (100% Bought) CajaSur So, what happens next?  We could leave such conversation to the wingers, R or L, and go on our plebeian way.  After all, these things are difficult and one person can't make a difference anyway.