News Blog

How Will It End?

4/7/2009

A long, slow, grinding decline — that’s what I fear more than anything.  My grandparents were in their early 20s when America entered the Depression; indeed, it must have been depressing after the boom of the Roaring Twenties to encounter such hardship.  The Depression dislocated people, mentally and geographically.  Unlike today’s fall, where at least some of us seem to think we had it coming, people seemed more shocked by the economic upheavals of that earlier era.  And yet there are optimistic investors driving up the stock market on the hope that if they can somehow make those indices bigger,  the dark and looming larger problems will go away by themselves.  As if  it were that easy.    Read More

Reading Between The Headlines

2/7/2009

In the last few days there have been a number of unusual headlines that have got me wondering what’s really going on in America today.  The backdrop of course is the economic “crisis” which if not fixed fast will lead to “catastrophe” which is why we have to give the banks all the money.  At least, that’s what I’ve been getting out of the latest talking points. 

I could be oversimplifying but I’m probably not alone.  In a scathing NYT piece “Slumdogs Unite!,” columnist Frank Rich refers to a “tsunami of populist rage” which is how he described the mood of America with regard to the shenanigans of the rich.  Addressing the Daschle debacle specifically, Rich suggests that the Obama administration, as well as most of Congress, is a bit out of touch when it comes to the views of so-called “ordinary” Americans — those of us who don’t have limos and mansions to forget to pay taxes on.  And he says that this disconnect could cause trouble for the governing class later on. Read More

Money Wants To Be Free

12/14/2008

Suppose we were to uncomplicate money.

I was reading a story in the Washington Post today about how the city of New York is cutting a daycare program for middle-class Alzheimer’s sufferers.   The program is badly needed by the families it serves, but the $1.2 million price tag and relatively low number of beneficiaries made it tempting to city government, and they cut the program.  All 12 centers will close by the end of the month.  Meanwhile, the hundreds of families they served are out of luck.

Once again, the question arises — why must we do without needed services provided by willing service providers just because of this arbitrary, made-up thing called money?  It’s true that when viewed through the usual lens of “because that’s the way capitalism works”, you can almost rationalize hurting real people to save a buck.  But when you jump up a level and look at the big picture, it just seems stupid that people go cold or hungry or without healthcare or education, because they weren’t blessed by birth or circumstance with a large enough share of the coin of the realm. Read More

What Is Capitalism?

Originally posted on iBrattleboro.com 10/28/2008

When I was ten, I borrowed a book from the School library called Capitalism, Communism, Socialism, which purported to explain the various economic systems to ten year olds.  My parents made me take it back because they said little children should not be reading about dangerous ideas like communism.  I showed them — in my senior year of high school, I wrote a term paper on The Communist Manifesto.

Despite this early interest in economics, I realized recently that I have almost no idea what capitalism really is, despite the fact that I use the word all the time.  So this essay is an effort to learn. Read More

Banking and Me

9/30/2008

My problem with the bailout is manifold but at least part of it is personal. Being a person of relatively low income, I’ve had a lot of opportunity to deal with the less friendly side of banks. At times, it seems as though they really do want a pound of flesh given the outrageous rates they charge on their credit cards — up to 33%, if you can believe it — and the fees on banking services generally.

I have a little bit of history with banks. As a young woman, I worked for banks and savings and loans for almost ten years, right through the financial crises of the early 1980s. One of my employers went under while I worked there and was taken into receivership by the federal government. I still remember the auditors marching in in their black suits. And hey, guess what the problem was? Worthless mortgage-backed securities, a measly $48 million dollars worth. Read More

Living Through The New Depression

5/23/2007

I’m sure there are still some starry-eyed optimists out there, but lately, everybody I know is fed up with with the way things are going. Maybe it was tax bills, or the impeachment vote, or colony collapse disorder, but I feel as though we collectively sagged over the last few months. For me it was the Virginia Tech shootings, a weekend during which (coincidentally) over 150 people died in Baghdad. I kind of fell apart, and was starting to think there might be something wrong with me when my neighbor mentioned in passing that she had been feeling the same way.

Misery loves company. I was relieved to know that I was not the only one who couldn’t take any more bad news. Since that dreary weekend, I’ve run into a surprising number of people near and far who feel, as I do, that something’s got to give. Many Americans seem to be ready for a change to something inspiringly different. Read More

American Mythos Part 3

A little over 2000 years ago, a group of men decided to put together a book of the historical documents and texts they had floating around. These men were of a tribal culture that had originated in the desert, herding animals and worshipping a warlike male god. This jealous male god is still with us today–his name is Jehovah; the book is the Bible. But at the time that the early Jews were commencing their archival efforts, they were under pressure from a neighboring tribe, a tribe that worshipped a nature goddess. These men did not want the goddess religion to prevail over their own people, who were starting to slip back into old ways. So the early Jewish priests and scribes adopted a foundation myth that battled the goddess by making women the enemy. Read More

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