Thoughts and Ruminations

I’ve been doing some reading for a class I’m taking at Xavier, and in the midst of a wonderful essay by Wendell Berry, I found one of the clearest statements about the present economy and our economic goals. So often, you have to read the words of brilliant writers and thinkers ten times through, looking up their million-dollar words in dictionaries, to finally get their meaning. This writing, however, is clear, accessible, and easy to understand with a little bit of work.  If we apply the same energy to thoughts like these that we do to clearing out our schedule to watch the X-Factor, we might find our intellectual capacities expand beyond where we thought we were previously capable.

Enjoy, chew on this gift from Wendell Berry, and let’s practice this vision of a better economy together!

We live, as we must sooner or later recognize, in an era of sentimental economics and, consequently, of sentimental politics.

Sentimental communism holds in effect that everybody and everything should suffer for the good of “the many” who, though miserable in the present, will be happy in the future for exactly the same reasons that they are miserable in the present.

Sentimental capitalism is not so different from sentimental communism as the corporate and political powers claim.  Sentimental capitalism holds in effect that everything small, local, private, personal, natural, good, and beautiful must be sacrificed in the interest of the “free market” and the great corporations, which will bring unprecedented security and happiness to “the many”- in, of course, the future.

…

The economic theory used to justify the global economy in its “free market” version is again perfectly groundless and sentimental.  The idea is that what is good for the corporations will sooner or later- though not of course immediately- be good for everybody.

That sentimentality is based, in turn, on a fantasy:  the proposition that the great corporations, in “freely” competing with one another for raw materials, labor, and market share, will drive one another indefinitely, not only toward greater “efficiencies” of manufacture but also toward higher bids for raw materials and labor and lower prices to consumers.  As a result, all the world’s people will be economically secure- in the future.  It would be hard to object to such a proposition, if only it were true.

The “law of competition” does not imply that many competitors will compete indefinitely.  The law of competition is a single paradox: Competition destroys competition.  The law of competition implies that many competitors, competing without restraint, will ultimately and inevitably reduce the number of competitors to one.  the law of competition, in short, is the law of war.

This idea of a global “free market” economy, despite its obvious moral flaws and its dangerous practical weaknesses, is now the ruling orthodoxy of the age.  Its propaganda is subscribed to and distributed by most political leaders, editorial writers, and other “opinion makers.”  The powers that be, while continuing to budget huge sums for “national defense,” have apparently abandoned any idea of national or local self-sufficiency, even in food.  They have also given up the idea that a national or local government might justly place restraints on economic activity in order to protect its land and its people.

Unsurprisingly, among people who wish to preserve things other than money, there is a growing perception that the global “free market” economy is inherently an enemy to the natural world, to human health and freedom, to industrial workers, and to farmers and others in the land-use economies; and furthermore, that it is inherently an enemy to good work and good economic practice.“

I’m going to post two pictures below.  One is a great snapshot of where we’re currently going as a society.  The other is less and less normal as our preferred way of interacting.

After viewing the photos, pay attention to these questions:

1)  What differences do you notice in relationship between the two pictures?

2)  Which of these do you think is a more healthy,engaged form of human relationship?

3) If you think one to be more healthy, what habits should we pursue that emphasize that form of relationship over others?

The problem with the free market is that the profit motive trumps all other concerns, which leads to monopolization of societies by powerful corporations. – Me

I’ve been pretty hands-off with the whole health-care debate in more public settings.  I don’t shy away from talking about it around the dinner table at our community house, I talk about it with friends on the phone, and I listen to wise people like Tom Ashbrook and Howard Dean and Bill Frist talk about it on the radio.  I watch interviews on major news outlets.  I watched President Obama’s major speech before both houses of Congress and spent time reflecting on it with friends.  I’ve even read some of the legislative language of bills being considered.  But I haven’t taken a strong stance on the issue for several reasons.

1.  I just know health care reform needs to happen, but I don’t know specifics.

2.  Bethany and I have opted out of insurance to some degree by joining a Christian healthcare sharing co-op, so this isn’t a terribly “present” thing for us (to be more specific, we joined one Christian healthcare sharing group, but were unsettled by newsletter after newsletter warning us of “socialism” and “big government” and all sorts of Obama conspiracies.  I thought I was reading Fox News rather than reading Christians with wise, reasonable perspectives.  So we switched to a group much more even-handed and wise in their approach to the issue of reform).

3.  And this is the big one.  I’ve just been too involved in trying to stay afloat in the series of challenges that have followed moving to Cincinnati to spend a whole lot of time reflecting on larger issues.  It’s been hard enough to be intentional thinking about larger issues, let alone processing those issues outwardly in blog form.  After several years of being out of whack (reflecting much more often than acting), I’ve slid to the opposite extreme here in the short-term (acting not reflecting).  This post, however, will be an attempt at thinking more deeply.

The real instigator for choosing to write is this intriguing op-ed Whole Foods CEO John Mackey wrote in the Wall Street Journal.  When I heard that a whole lot of mess was going down around this op-ed, I read it with the eager expectation that the CEO of a company committed in some ways to a more sustainable, more just economy would have something substantive to say, something to draw us deeper as a society.  And a couple things he said do make sense, but they struck me as isolated and disconnected from the larger problem; like driftwood aimlessly floating on the ocean’s surface.

My heart fell when Mackey started with a nifty context-setting quote from Margaret Thatcher, that “the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”  ”Seriously?” I thought.  ”He’s going to perpetuate that either/or stuff further?”  The amount of leaders in our country willing to abandon the “we’re drifting toward totalitarian communism!” every time something is discussed with the role of government involved is extremely, extremely low.  I could go through a list of them, but the most compelling quote in recent memory for me calling us beyond the either/or extremes of total socialism or total free market was Obama’s in the health-care speech.  Wherever we fall on the political spectrum, this statement deserves serious reflection;

“You see, our predecessors understood that government could not, and should not, solve every problem.  They understood that there are instances when the gains in security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom.  But they also understood that the danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, the vulnerable can be exploited.

And they knew that when any government measure, no matter how carefully crafted or beneficial, is subject to scorn; when any efforts to help people in need are attacked as un-American; when facts and reason are thrown overboard and only timidity passes for wisdom, and we can no longer even engage in a civil conversation with each other over the things that truly matter — that at that point we don’t merely lose our capacity to solve big challenges.  We lose something essential about ourselves.”

“There are instances when the gains in security from government action are not worth the added constraints on our freedom.”
“The danger of too much government is matched by the perils of too little; that without the leavening hand of wise policy, markets can crash, monopolies can stifle competition, the vulnerable can be exploited.”

These words are the kind of political leadership we desperately need when we have such big issues to grapple with as the American public. To shape the conversation in wise ways. To be a constant voice for wisdom and good conversations where we hear one another well even as we disagree and try to find commonality. It is because of a desire for that kind of leadership that my heart fell with the Thatcher quote coming first in Mackey’s op-ed. I read further with a heavy heart, expecting it to be one of “those articles,” the ones that could’ve been written just as easily in the 60′s in the heart of the Cold War. It was.

While we clearly need health-care reform, the last thing our country needs is a massive new health-care entitlement that will create hundreds of billions of dollars of new unfunded deficits and move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system. Instead, we should be trying to achieve reforms by moving in the opposite direction—toward less government control and more individual empowerment.

In these initial remarks, Mackey established for me that he doesn’t understand the health care issue very well. By casting the issue as fundamentally about government takeover vs. individual empowerment, Mackey showed himself either to be dangerously naive or immorally pretending to ignore the elephant in the room. John Mackey should know just as well as any other educated citizen that the heart of the issue is not government vs. individual. The heart of the issue is, first, that health care is a for-profit business in our society. And second, in a much deeper sense, that business (in general) is defined almost purely by financial profit at the expense of any other factor. I’ll deal with these one after another.

1. Health care is a for-profit business in our society.

What this literally means, in strict business understanding (and the raw numbers and incentives of health-care corporations will bear this out) is that human beings are considered no different than, say, coffee mugs. They are a cost-bearing object in a system that seeks to minimize cost and maximize profit for the good of the company. Shouldn’t that strike persons with any moral sensibility as deeply wrong? And shouldn’t that change the national conversation about “rationing care” (usually cast in terms that “the government will ration whether you receive treatment”) so people understand that health care companies ration care every day in our society in order to maximize profit?

Pure free-market advocates proclaim that a purely free-market system would minimize cost and inefficiencies, streamline the process, and provide the best quality service for whatever issue they’re speaking of. Mackey is one of them, and says here

“Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges.”

That all sounds well and good in theory, but when we get down to the nitty-gritty, we are forced to confess a simple foundational fact.  The human being’s actual health care is the cost to be minimized in order for the health care company to be successful and profitable.  So the business that is founded on care seeks to minimize care. The fact that this isn’t a bigger, more obvious issue to us is utterly absurd.  Utterly, utterly absurd.  And even more absurd is our lack of awareness that free-market advocates (like Milton Friedman himself) believe the “invisible hand” has no moral responsibility. It is not the business of business to decide what is moral or not.

But health care is a different kind of business, when human lives are directly at stake. And when humans are in fact a cost to be minimized rather than people to be dignified and served, we have lost our way.

2.  Business (in general) is defined almost purely by financial profit at the expense of any other factor

I’ve stated above that health care should not be thought of like any other business, but I believe in a larger sense that business itself, in a virtuous society, should not be defined by financial profit alone.  Milton Friedman’s basic commitment to a completely free market and his interpretation of Adam Smith has led to the state of the American economic system today, and Friedman himself states that his economy runs on self-interest and greed as virtues. Committed Christians, if they’re Biblically rigorous, realize this sort of thinking is insane.

Friedman explicitly stated this perspective in his now-famous 1970 article “ The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits,” in the New York Times where he stated,

When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the “social responsibilities of business in a free-enterprise system,” I am reminded of the wonderful line about the Frenchman who discovered at the age of 70 that he had been speaking prose all his life. The businessmen believe that they are defending free enterprise when they declaim that business is not concerned “merely” with profit but also with promoting desirable “social” ends; that business has a “social conscience” and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing employment, eliminating discrimination, avoid ing pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of reformers. In fact they are–or would be if they or anyone else took them seriously–preaching pure and unadulterated socialism. Businessmen who talk this way are unwitting puppets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades.

It is precisely on this point that I find Mackey’s op-ed so disappointing and deflating.  Why?  Because he sounds exactly like Friedman.  Why is that a problem?  Because what’s been lost in all the hullabaloo following the op-ed (with liberals boycotting Whole Foods and conservatives backslapping and thinking Mackey is one of them) is that Mackey is deeply different than Friedman and the average conservative.  In fact, Mackey believes this, that

The most successful businesses put the customer first, ahead of the investors. In the profit-centered business, customer happiness is merely a means to an end: maximizing profits. In the customer-centered business, customer happiness is an end in itself, and will be pursued with greater interest, passion, and empathy than the profit-centered business is capable of.

But the average reader of Mackey’s op-ed didn’t get that, because he wasn’t intentional enough in the words he used to lead them in that direction.  In short, Mackey wasted a prime opportunity to speak truth to the system, and given that he was writing for the influential Wall Street Journal, he is either incredibly dense or has spent so much time in his Whole Foods and sustainable food ivory tower that he didn’t consider the effects of such an article.  I think the answer is clearly the latter.  He was and is naive about how much the average citizen doesn’t “get it,” so he shoots off a few words and thinks he’s contributed well.

Does the average reader know that Mackey wrote a letter in 2006 to all of his staff announcing that he would reduce his own salary to $1 a year, donate his stock portfolio to charity and set up a $100,000 emergency fund for staff facing personal problems? Do they know that while CEO of Whole Foods Market in 2008, he earned a total compensation of just $33,831, which included a base salary of $1, and a cash bonus of $33,830?  Do they know he’s instituted caps on executive pay at the company?  No, they don’t.  And won’t now, because Mackey didn’t encourage more reasonable thought on health care.

And, in a wider sense, Mackey’s writing is simply naive to the fact that America’s economy isn’t run the way he envisions it. Ours is not “enlightened capitalism” (at least not in the direction of the policy of the last 25 years), but financial profit-centered capitalism.

And what free-market purists overlook often to the neglect of the public they are shaping is that in the free-market system, several companies (and eventually one) will emerge from the dog-eat-dog world of competition because they streamline costs better, are more “efficient” at what they provide, and we will have entered the situation of monopoly. When companies get so big, and they can leverage economies of scale in buying mass amounts of raw products for their service, competition cannot survive. And not only will competition be eliminated through economies of scale (a dispassionate cost-analysis), it will be eliminated through the massive company purchasing all competitors that would challenge their rule and absorbing them into their corporate structure.

In case any reader would think this could never happen, this is a reality in a great majority of American society. Banks, computer companies (Microsoft), news companies (Time Warner, News Corp), pharmaceutical companies (Bristol Myers Squibb, Merck, Pfizer), financial service companies (Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo) and health care companies (Aetna, Cigna) have centralized control of the marketplace, limiting competition while intensively lobbying government for legislation that benefits them at the expense of all others.

When these monopolistic companies with big pockets supply the money for expensive political campaigns, legislators and presidents are beholden to them to at least throw MASSIVE bones in their direction from time to time (President Obama is not exempt from this, by the way, with his biggest campaign contributor being Goldman Sachs). In a supremely ironic twist, the beneficiaries of free market success manipulate governance to ensure keeping their place. They institute with their political minions a corporate welfare system that dwarfs the poverty-targeted government welfare system.  Pure capitalism creates a sort of socialism where the distribution of wealth is continually sucked upwards to the elites, both through corporate profit and governmental payouts.

The reality is that there is very little real competition in the American marketplace, and that most “competition” we observe is not real competition, but different brands of the same company that use different messages to bring business to different brands, while all the profit goes into the same coffers.

So the average consumer is naive to how monopolized their world is.

Which makes John Mackey that much more naive when he is a “captain of industry” and refuses to acknowledge the elephant in the room.

Which makes me very, very sad.

“Highly charged exchanges take place between those who believe patriotism is automatically possessed by those in authority and those who assert that patriotism is not a pattern imposed but a condition earned by the quality of an individual’s or a people’s behavior…It is time to talk of patriotism not as an abstraction steeped in nostalgia, but as behavior that can be judged by the standard of “liberty and justice for all.” Patriotism can be a great asset for any organized society, but it can also be a tool manipulated by unscrupulous or cowardly leaders and elites.”

Ralph Nader, “We Need a New Kind of Patriotism,” in The Ralph Nader Reader.
Originally published in Life magazine in 1971

I just have a couple thoughts in reflection on this change in American politics. Since Bethany says I have a habit of taking the wind out of people’s sails sometimes, I’ll say the positive things first.

1) This is no doubt a major historical moment in America. I haven’t seen the video of Barack’s acceptance speech in Chicago, but from Bethany’s description of Jesse Jackson and Oprah and others weeping, it gave me chills. To think that just over 40 years ago, black students were beaten and jailed for daring to eat at a Memphis lunch counter with whites, and this happened just two days ago? Amazing.

2) Barack is an inspiring figure, and the global celebrations that sprung up from hearing of his election is telling for the integrity of America worldwide. The world is tired of eight years of George Bush’s absurd foreign policy drama of crusading, unilateralism, and machismo. His us v. them and good v. evil policies have caused Islam to become more radicalized and made our world a more dangerous place. Barack will have a different foreign policy presence, to be sure, and the effect of that foreign policy all the way down to daily life in villages in the Middle East would surprise us, I think.

3)The neo-conservative agenda for governance and economics is falling apart at the seams. Alan Greenspan admits it, and not many others. The country heard the McCain fearmongering “Obama’s a socialist” claims and let it slide off our backs like water on a duck. Most reasonable people I’ve talked to believe that the best approach for a just economy is a mix of capitalist and socialist ideas. The days of McCarthy’s “red scare” don’t fly today like they did fifty years ago.

4)Obama has a VP who won’t be afraid to light a fire under him. Whoever else becomes a part of Obama’s cabinet (and I do believe he will surround himself with wise advisors rather than power-seekers or suck-ups), Biden won’t passively knuckle under to Barack. And that’s good.

The negative:
1) Obama talks out of both sides of his mouth on abortion. He claims to want to reduce abortions, spoke clearly of abortion as a moral issue, yet defends Roe v. Wade at every opportunity. I would like to see him navigate a centrist path for Americans on this where we can provide room for abortions in desperate medical situations but remove abortion from being a free, unencumbered choice like whether I get the chocolate or vanilla shake at BK. He claimed in the debates that no female makes that decision lightly. That’s laughable. A number of females treat it very lightly; as a way to remove the unseemly consequence from self-centered sexuality.

2) While I do believe Obama carries some strong doses of wisdom and discernment, he can run the risk of becoming a chameleon and pandering to whatever group he’s speaking to. An example of this is the Israel/Palestine issue. He studied up on the Palestinian people’s plight as an Illinois senator, dining with and listening to an important Palestinian advocate (Rashid Khalidi, whom McCain childishly attacked in his last desperate days), yet when he spoke before AIPAC (the powerful pro-Israel political action committee), he spoke like Israel was the only virtuous and suffering group. Which one is experiencing much deeper human rights abuses on a daily basis, Barack?! It’s clearly the Palestinians! Speak up for them on the world scale, and in supporting them, reject their extremist elements (Hamas) and help Israel and Palestine work towards peace as a gutsy leader. If you’re looking for mentors, call Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu. They’ve got enough guts to call the situation what it is. I’d like to see Barack make some gutsy, polarizing stands from time to time that make people pick sides. I don’t want this all of the time, just some of the time.

I have a video from Ralph Nader that I embedded below here where he gives some stern warnings about Barack. He offers some really important perspectives on Obama that will take some of the luster off the “golden boy” image.

3) Barack is a corporate president-elect now. A whole lot of his money came from corporations, and if you don’t think that came with strings attached, you’re about as naive as George Bush on that carrier in 2003. And if Barack wants to be re-elected, he’s got to get some things done for those corporations over the next four years if he wants to have a shot to win again. This will lead to him compromising significantly, hedging stronger statements by emphasizing both sides, and generally caring for corporations over the common person…that is, unless the people of America unite to force him and the Congress to vote a certain way like blacks did in 1964 with the Civil Rights Act.

So, as you can see, I’m conflicted about this guy. I think he’s the best leader for America amongst the two candidates, I think his VP is the best leader for America amongst the two candidates. If I had my druthers, either one of my two favorite leaders Ralph Nader or Dennis Kucinich would be in this place. They couldn’t get there because their integrity matters too much, so. *sigh* All is not hopeless, yet all is not peaches and cream either.

I’ll state this and hopefully a million times more in my life; the biggest hope for America is a citizenry that unites around issues of justice and equity and works consistently and passionately toward that end. Our present political system corrupts the very people who have the best ideas; they need you and me lighting a fire under them to make solid change happen. I’m still learning how to do that, but at least I’m trying, right?

**In the last week, I’ve seen this legislator interviewed and given time to speak through extended comments in an unprecedented act of civility and (grudging, at times) respect to his leadership; networks ranging from left-leaning (MSNBC) to conservative (FOX News).  Here’s the letter I received from his office today.**

Dear Friend,

Yesterday marked a day that will go down in history, when Congressional Democrats and Republicans alike took on full responsibility to protect the interests of taxpaying Americans, and defeated the deceptive bail out bill, defying the dictates of the Administration, the House Majority Leadership, the House Minority Leadership and the special interests on Wall Street.

Obviously Congress must consider quickly another course. There are immediate issues which demand attention and responsible action by the Congress so that the taxpayers, their assets, and their futures are protected.

We MUST do something to protect millions of Americans whose homes, bank deposits, investments, and pensions are at risk in a financial system that has become seriously corrupted. We are told that we must stabilize markets in order for the people to be protected. I think we need to protect peoples’ homes, bank deposits, investments, and pensions, to order to stabilize the market.

We cannot delay taking action. But the action must benefit all Americans, not just a privileged few. Otherwise, more plans will fail, and the financial security of everyone will be at risk.

The $700 billion bailout would have added to our existing unbearable load of national debt, trade deficits, and the cost of paying for the war. It would have been a disaster for the American public and the government for decades and maybe even centuries to come.

To be sure, there are many different reasons why people voted against the bailout. The legislation did not regard in any meaningful way the plight of millions of Americans who are about to lose their homes.  It did nothing to strengthen existing regulatory structures or impose new ones at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve in order to protect investors. There were no direct protections for bank depositors. There was nothing to stop further speculation, which is what brought us into this mess in the first place.

This was a bailout for some firms (and investors) on Wall Street, with the idea that in doing so there would be certain, unspecified, general benefits to the economy.

This is a perfect time to open a broader discussion about our financial system, especially our monetary system. Such a discussion is like searching for a needle in a haystack, and then, upon finding it, discussing its qualities at great length. Let me briefly describe the haystack instead.

Here is a very quick explanation of the $700 billion bailout within the context of the mechanics of our monetary and banking system:

The taxpayers loan money to the banks. But the taxpayers do not have the money. So we have to borrow it from the banks to give it back to the banks. But the banks do not have the money to loan to the government. So they create it into existence (through a mechanism called fractional reserve) and then loan it to us, at interest, so we can then give it back to them.

Confused?

This is the system. This is the standard mechanism used to expand the money supply on a daily basis not a special one designed only for the “$700 billion” transaction. People will explain this to you in many different ways, but this is what it comes down to.

The banks needed Congress’ approval. Of course in this topsy turvy world, it is the banks which set the terms of the money they are borrowing from the taxpayers. And what do we get for this transaction? Long term debt enslavement of our country. We get to pay back to the banks trillions of dollars ($700 billion with compounded interest) and the banks give us their bad debt which they cull from everywhere in the world.

Who could turn down a deal like this? I did.

The globalization of the debt puts the United States in the position that in order to repay the money that we borrow from the banks (for the banks) we could be forced to accept International Monetary Fund dictates which involve cutting health, social security benefits and all other social spending in addition to reducing wages and exploiting our natural resources. This inevitably leads to a loss of economic, social and political freedom.

Under the failed $700 billion bailout plan, Wall Street’s profits are Wall Street’s profits and Wall Street’s losses are the taxpayers’ losses. Profits are capitalized. Losses are socialized.

We are at a teachable moment on matters of money and finance. In the coming days and weeks, I will share with you thoughts about what can be done to take us not just in a new direction, but in a new direction which is just.

Thank you,

Dennis Kucinich

**Nate speaking again.  Here’s another good link with some good comments to follow regarding Kucinich’s leadership on this issue.**

Kucinich offers some good, sound bipartisan thinking on the economic crisis.  He has really done a number on me to be one of the very few politicians that I trust doesn’t put spin on what he says.  He speaks forthrightly, strives for a government accountable to its citizens, gained Fox News’ Neil Cavuto’s grudging respect (Neil said in this interview “you have a good gut on this”…”you oftentimes blame and go after many in your own party and the other party”),

…and he said axiomatic.

Here’s another video where Kucinich offers good, sound thinking on health care and foreign policy in an entertaining conversation with Bill O’Reilly. Both refused to back down and Kucinich called out O’Reilly when mischaracterized, taking the conversation beyond buzz words and into substantive dialogue.

O’Reilly: You represent a soft approach to Iran, al-Qaeda…
Kucinich: Soft, are you kidding me?
O’Reilly: You don’t want to confront them militarily.
Kucinich: When is the truth soft?
O’Reilly: Well, I don’t know what the truth is…
Kucinich: The truth is, we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq.
O’Reilly: Iraq’s a different thing. We won that.
Kucinich: Where’s the soft approach?
O’Reilly: You don’t want to confront Putin militarily in Georgia, you don’t want to confront Iran militarily, you don’t want to do all that.
Kucinich: (laughing) Why have a war if you don’t need it?
O’Reilly: Ok, but if Iran develops nuclear weapons, you’re ok with it.
Kucinich: Oh, no…
O’Reilly: Well, what are you going to do to stop it?
Kucinich: What I’ve said is we need to get rid of all nuclear weapons.
O’Reilly: Well, that’s not going to happen.
Kucinich: Well, it must happen…we have to come to a point where we realize that these weapons threaten our existence.

Ron Paul sparring with Bill O’Reilly. Aside from not getting a chance to make a reasonable argument at length, Paul says some very honest, challenging things in this interview. I’m impressed by him. Thanks to John Daubert telling me I MUST check out Ron Paul, I have really, really been impressed by him.

I heard this question from a caller to Tom Ashbrook’s On Point today, and it’s a good one:

“How is it that any time we talk about safeguarding Social Security or national health care, we’re told, “The money’s not there,” when in the last couple weeks, the government has extended hundreds of billions of dollars of loans to wealthy Wall Street firms?”

I think that’s a great question, and I think I’d sharpen the question even further by offering my own;
“Why is it that each time we talk about safeguarding Social Security or national health care, we’re told, “That’s enabling the poor,” while when investors treat Wall Street like a casino and start to reap the consequences of their actions, the government leaps to their aid and bails them out in what is clearly enabling their actions?

Do you think if the normal citizen was caught in a bad loan, they could approach the Federal Reserve and simply switch from the bad loan to a better one?

I will say that it’s been great to see Washington step up to the plate and deny the multi-million dollar severence packages of the former Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac CEOs; men who still profited greatly from destructive financial decisions that resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs and nationwide economic stability.

And in response, evidently both McCain and Obama have stepped up their rhetoric on the Wall Street crisis.

Obama called for more aggressive regulation, saying,
“The challenges facing our financial system today are more evidence that too many folks in Washington and on Wall Street weren’t minding the store,” Mr. Obama said. “Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to C.E.O.’s while ignoring middle-class Americans have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.”

Hopefully Obama would act justly and back up his words in a presidency or continued Senate role. He has received $9.9 million dollars from individuals in the securities and investment industry, so he’s certainly not free from the voice of Wall St. folks and their strings attached to contributions. And when it comes to the so-called “golden parachutes” of CEOs, Obama has co-sponsored a bill with eight other Democrats that is currently before the Senate Banking Committee, S.1181, that would amend the Securities Act of 1934 to include a separate shareholder vote on executive compensation.  With the present situation being a board of fat cats approving clauses for another fat cat, I’d say extending approval to shareholders at large is a step in the right direction when it comes to restoring some equity in how business is done. Sounds a little too drastic for Washington, since there’s a good number of them who are former top executives in the private sector.  We’ll see.

McCain has forcefully talked about cleaning up Wall Street, saying,
“We are going to reform the way Wall Street does business and put an end to the greed that has driven our markets into chaos…We will stop multimillion dollar payouts to CEO’s who have broken the public trust. We will put an end to running Wall Street like a casino. We will make businesses work for the benefit of their shareholders and employees. And we will make sure that your savings, IRA, 401k and pension accounts are protected.”

While it’s great to hear big rhetoric in the aftermath of this crisis, I have to comment that it’s a little strange to hear John McCain talk about reforming Wall Street when detailed analysis of his consistent position as a public servant has been completely against regulation of investment firms of any kind. Rings a little hollow. And I chuckled a bit when I heard McCain speak about stopping “multimillion dollar payouts to CEOs who have broken the public trust,” being that McCain’s top economic advisor (and one-time candidate to be his running mate) Carly Fiorina was dismissed as the CEO of Hewlett Packard in 2005 after a merger with Compaq floundered, stock prices plunged 50 percent, and 20,000 people were laid off. Fiorina walked away with a $21.4 million severance package.

Asked whether McCain was talking about CEOs like Fiorina, McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said McCain was “talking about the issues that are before us today.” You know, he’s right. How unwise to consider how the past gives insight on the present and future. Clearly the past doesn’t have anything to say about one’s present positions.

“We’re talking about Freddie and Fannie and CEOs like Jimmy Cayne of Bear Stearns, Angelo Mozilo at Countrywide, folks that are largely responsible for what happened and walk away with this kind of multimillion dollar payout,” Rogers said. “I don’t think there’s any analogy there,” he said, referring to Fiorina.

To suggest there’s no analogy there is laughable, especially when 20,000 people lost their jobs at HP The American people should be smart enough to catch on to this. I emphasize should be…we often let ourselves be dumber and more naive than we really are.

Last night, Bethany and I watched the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency for the first time (I’d read some of the Transcripts of the event from before). Something Barack Obama said sparked something in my head that interacted with something I read a week ago that Kurt Vonnegut said in his novel Player Piano I’m reading right now. It’s crazy how different things can come together like this.

When it comes to Vonnegut, I have to confess. I knew very little about the guy several months ago. Some of my friends mentioned their sadness at his death, but I just knew him as a novelist who wrote a book with a weird name that people liked (Slaughterhouse Five). But four weeks ago, everything changed for me; at least everything having to do with Kurt Vonnegut. Bethany and I had just finished watching the stellar movie Sicko and were mindlessly watching the credits and the final credit said: “Kurt Vonnegut: Thanks for Everything” or something like that. In that moment, something clicked, a couple synapses in my brain fired differently than before, and I committed to reading this man’s work.

So Bethany and I traipsed over to the local library a couple days later, and after a conversation with a well-Vonnegut-read librarian, I began with his novel Cat’s Cradle. Maybe I shouldn’t have started with that one, because Kurt flat-out floored me with wit, irony, and powerful points he made in very quiet ways. I’m sure I’ll talk a little about how Cat’s Cradle affected me in the future sometime, but in this post I’d like to quote the section from Player Piano that’s messing with me right now, and put it side by side with Obama’s thoughts I heard last night. These two things have affecting my wrestling with the role of government and my thoughts on wealthy and poverty for the last week or so. I’ll post my more extended reflections tomorrow, but maybe these will spark something for you the reader as well that take you in a bit different direction than me.

As with any book, this section may not make much sense to persons outside of the world Vonnegut sets up in Player Piano, but I think this one is more straight-forward, and thus more quotable. This is a conversation between Dr. Paul Proteus and his wife Anita, who are social elites in their town, as Paul is the highest-paid person in town and manager of the most prestigious firm in town (Ilium Works). To provide some wider context, the advent of machines in industrialization, (brought on by the inventiveness of the engineer class of which Paul was a part) caused many persons to lose their jobs at the Ilium Works and thus plunged them into despair. Those who weren’t considered intelligent enough to go to college to be an engineer then had to choose between enlisting in the Army or doing menial labor for the state in what was called the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps (or, “Reeks and Wrecks” for short). Paul just a couple hours earlier had traveled into a depressed neighborhood called “Homestead” to pick up some whiskey for his friend and those persons who lost their jobs had found out who we was. Here’s the conversation;

Anita said, “Tell me about today.”
Paul responded, “Nothing about today. One more, like all the rest.”
“You got the whiskey?”
“Yes, I had to go across the river to get it.”
“Was it such an awful ordeal?” she chided. She couldn’t understand why he hated to run errands into Homestead, and teased him about it. “Was it so awful?” she said again, bordering on baby talk, as though he were a lazy little boy coaxed into doing a small favor for his mother.
“Pretty bad.”
“Really?” She was surprised. “Nothing violent, I hope.”
“No, Everybody was very polite, in fact. One of the pensioners recognized me from the old days and threw an impromptu party for me.”
“Well, that sounds like downright fun.”
“Does, doesn’t it? His name is Rudy Hertz.” Without describing his own reactions, he told her what had happened. (persons had stared at him with loathing) He found himself watching her closely, experimenting.
“And that upset you? She laughed. “You are a sensitive darling, aren’t you? You tell me you’ve been through a nightmare, and nothing happened at all.”
“They hate me.”
“They proved they loved and admired you. And, what’s more, they should.”
“The man with the thick glasses as much said his son’s life wasn’t worth living on account of me.”
“You said that. He didn’t. And I won’t have you saying ridiculous things. Do you get some sort of pleasure out of making things up to feel guilty about? If his son isn’t bright enough for anything but the Reeks and Wrecks or the Army, is that your fault?“
“No; but if it hadn’t been for men like me, he might have a machine in the plant-”
“Is he starving?”
“Of course not. Nobody starves.”
“And he’s got a place to live and warm clothes. He has what he’d have if he were running a stupid machine, swearing at it, making mistakes, striking every year, fighting with the foreman, coming in with hangovers.”
“You’re right, you’re right.” He held up his hands. “Of course you’re right. It’s just a h#$ll of a time to be alive, is all- just this g#$%&*n messy business of people having to get used to new ideas. And people just don’t, that’s all. I wish this were a hundred years form now, with everybody used to the change.”

Now, as you reflect on the conversation, I’d encourage you to consider that Paul and Anita are approaching the issue from the perspective of having all their needs and wants taken care of. They live on the other side of town from these persons they’re speaking of, and to even be around them made Paul very uncomfortable. Does our position in life affect the way we think about what is right in the world? Put another way, recognizing our limited experience, shouldn’t we have the courage to put ourselves in the uncomfortable places of our world? Those places where we can’t stand back and sling around stereotypes and labels?

And on another topic, is progress measured by how much persons aren’t familiar with the past, where everybody is “used to the change” and doesn’t ask questions?

Now here’s the clip of the Barack interaction with Rick Warren:

Warren: What’s the most significant position you held ten years ago that you no longer hold today, that you flipped on, you changed on because you actually see it differently?

Obama: I think a good example would be the issue of welfare reform where I always believed welfare had to be changed. I was much more concerned ten years ago when President Clinton initially signed the bill that this could have disastrous results. I worked in the Illinois legislature to make sure we were providing child care and health care and other support services for the women who were going to be kicked off the rolls after a certain time. It worked better than I think a lot of people anticipated and you know one of the things that I am absolutely convinced of is that we have to have work as a centerpiece of any social policy.

Warren: Ok.

Obama: Not only because — not only because ultimately people who work are going to get more income, but the intrinsic dignity of work, the sense of purpose.

Warren: We were made for work.

Obama: We were made for work, and the sense that you are part of a community, because you’re making a contribution, no matter how small to the well-being of the country as a whole. I think that is something that Democrats generally, I think, have made a significant shift on.

And later in the interview, Obama comes back to something that Vonnegut touches on:

Warren: In a minute, in one minute because I know you could take the entire hour on this, tell me in a minute why you want to be president?

Obama: You know, I remember what my mother used to tell me. I was talking to somebody a while back and said the one time that she’d get really angry with me is if she ever thought that I was being mean to somebody or unfair to somebody. She said, “Imagine standing in their shoes, imagine looking through their eyes,” that basic idea of empathy. And that I think is what’s made America special, is that notion that everybody’s got a shot. If we see somebody down and out, if we see a kid who can’t afford college…that we care for them too.

Is there a way that our political thinking can have a strong current of empathy?
Are we willing to do our very best to get outside our own experience and consider how government can bring fairness, work to give folks an equal shot?
Can government be more than it is, and can wealthy people get outside of their posh status and disconnection from other social classes that leads to labeling all poor people as lazy, dumb, and therefore undeserving of having their situation elevated?
Can government, in its best sense, draw us out of our selfishness to consider a larger common good together?
Will the rich and the poor sacrifice for that?
Are these questions not as moral as questions of abortion and human sexuality?

These are burning questions I live with. There is no easy answer, but I just don’t think government at its heart is either as big and bad as people think it is or as inept as people think it is. When public perception leans in that way for many years, perception becomes reality and governments become what people expect, I think.

And this post is what happens when different voices all smash together in an ugly collision that I must pay attention to unless I want to be a spineless, cowardly, lazy ninny of a human being. I am committed to reading for change, watching television and movies for change, listening for change, and speaking for change. Nothing or no one I come into contact with lacks the ability to change my perspectives on life. This makes for a tiring, frustrating, complex existence, but the more I embrace that complexity rather than taking the lazy/easier-way-out of a world of me or a chorus of voices that always agree with me, the more my brain gets the exercise it needs to be stronger, wiser, more humble, more receptive, today than yesterday. I feel pretty good about that today. Just don’t ask me tomorrow.

As I asked in my post below several days ago, I will ask again.  Five Afghan children were killed yesterday by NATO forces in a botched artillery strike.  Five people created in the image of God, people sustained actively by God.  People who, if we have an consistent pro-life ethic, should be bitterly mourned.  Who will be prosecuted for their deaths?  Where will their parents turn for justice?  

Who is responsible?