economy

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Apples and apples

IMG_8487There’s more than corn and beans in the farmland here. Last Sunday, we visited an apple farm/orchard in Monticello, Illinois, which had 17 varieties.

Appropriately (for Monticello), one was Thomas Jefferson’s favorite, Spitzenberg. We got a little carried away and bought five half-pecks for $20.

IMG_8489Fortunately, one is a long-keeper, Buff, which is supposed to last until late winter if it stays cold.

IMG_8485If we don’t eat them all, we can feed them to our deer. See this backyard scene, where we played boule at the potluck in honor of John Dewey’s 150th birthday on Tuesday.

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Preserving the $ by invading Iraq

This is old news, but I was reminded of it by a discussion on this weekend. It’s worth thinking about again in these parlous economic times.

Sharma, Tracy, and Kumar (2004) talk about one of the major, but little-discussed reasons for invading Iraq. Is militarism the best way to boost our economy?

What prompted the U.S. attack on Iraq, a country under sanctions for 12 years (1991-2003), struggling to obtain clean water and basic medicines? A little discussed factor responsible for the invasion was the desire to preserve “dollar imperialism” as this hegemony began to be challenged by the euro.

References

Caryl, Christian (2009, October 16). Decline of the dollar. Foreign Policy.

Sharma, Sohan; Tracy, Sue; & Kumar, Surinder (2004, February). The Invasion of Iraq: Dollar vs Euro Re-denominating Iraqi oil in U. S. dollars, instead of the euro. Z magazine.

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The Soloist (2009)

The Soloist (2009) is an excellent film based on the true-life book, The Soloist by Steve Lopez. Lopez is a Los Angeles Times columnist who discovers Nathaniel Ayers, a Juilliard School dropout, who becomes schizophrenic and homeless, living on the streets of LA.

Ayers is a classically-trained cellist, who now has only a two string violin to play and instead of a concert stage, an urban tunnel or street corner. Lopez wonders how Ayers can stand to play in those conditions, but Ayers tells him that “the only thing that I hear is the music and the applause of the doves and the pigeons.” Ayers is hooked and decides to write a series of feature articles in the Times.

Robert Downey Jr. portrays  Lopez in the movie, and Jamie Foxx portrays Ayers. The two main characters give terrific performances, as do the actual homeless extras from the Lamp Community.

Ayers’s story makes us wonder about the many other homeless people in LA and elsewhere. As Lamp says,

Close to 74,000 people are homeless in Los Angeles–more than in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco combined. Los Angeles’ Skid Row, a 52-block area east of the downtown business district, has the highest concentration of homelessness in the United States. More than half of the homeless men and women in this area are chronically homeless, meaning they struggle with a mental or physical disability and have been living on the street for years.

That relatively greater challenge in LA doesn’t of course diminish the shameful job we do across the US in dealing with homelessness. The book, Ayers’s music, and the movie all reinforce Jane Addams’s view that art and cultural activities can reduce our isolation form one another, and reinforce essential human: “Social Life and art have always seemed to go best at Hull-House.”

The DVD includes features with the real Steve Lopez and Nathaniel Ayers, and also, Beth’s Story, an animated short telling another story of homelessness:

References

Addams, Jane (1930). The second twenty years at Hull-House: September 1909 to September 1929. New York, Macmillan.

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The US supplies the guns

weaponsAfter the 9/11 attacks I wrote about 12 steps to respond to 9/11, because “we have to do something!” Number 3 on that list was for the US to stop being the world’s top supplier of arms around the world, at that time selling over 1/2 of all the weapons.

The New York Times Pentagon correspondent Thom Shanker, provides a helpful update, showing that the US market share has grown to 2/3, establishing a virtual monopoly:

Despite a recession that knocked down global arms sales last year, the United States expanded its role as the world’s leading weapons supplier, increasing its share to more than two-thirds of all foreign armaments deals, according to a new Congressional study.

The United States signed weapons agreements valued at $37.8 billion in 2008, or 68.4 percent of all business in the global arms bazaar, up significantly from American sales of $25.4 billion the year before.

via Despite Slump, U.S. Role as Top Arms Supplier Grows – NYTimes.com.

When we wonder about wars around the world, why don’t we ask about our own role in supplying the weapons that people use to fight them?

Tom Engelhardt raises some more disturbing questions in his essay, Is America hooked on war?

References

Engelhardt, Tom (2009, September 17). Is America hooked on war?. Mother Jones.

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Health care illogic

Following Rep. Joe Willon’s (R, SC) outburst druing the President’s speech, the Obama administration has scrambled to show that it will guarantee no reasonable means of healthcare for people in the US illegally. That position strikes many people as sensible. But it’s not only cruel, unfair, and unmanageable, it actually undermines the very effort to secure affordable, reliable healthcare for everyone.

No one in power is even talking about government health care for all (that’s a plan that would really work). Instead, the proposal is simply to require everyone to get health care insurance, through a government-managed insurance exchange, employer-provided group coverage, or private insurance. With a large pool of buyers in the exchange, it’s possible that health care costs could be controlled.

Denying undocumented workers and their families access to both the exchange and employer-provided group coverage means that very few will have insurance of any kind. This, in turn, will increase demands on expensive emergency room care, whose costs are ultimately borne by the government and individuals with private insurance.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D, IL) put it this way last week:

So, and remember, we’re not talking about government health care, we’re talking about everybody is going to be required to get health care insurance,” said Gutierrez. “And so as we go to this big store, right, where everybody is required. And this exchange, the health care exchange, where if you don’t have health care you are required to go purchase it. When you go and attempt to purchase it, what does the administration say? The administration says, ‘You will have to prove that you are legally in the United States and have a Social Security number and a right to that.’

Some immigrants, and let me say it – hundreds of thousands of them — who have businesses, who are prospering, who are paying taxes— even when they wish to buy because it’s going to be a requirement to buy it, this administration has told them don’t buy. You can’t. You can’t buy.

via Latino Lawmaker Rips Obama for Making It Harder for Illegals to Buy Private Insurance – George’s Bottom Line

One thing that could make the exchange work is to bring in large numbers of relatively healthy people. New immigrants use 55% less health care than native-born Americans, according to a Harvard/Columbia University study (Physicians for a National Health Program, 2005).

Denying health insurance is foolish and spiteful. It’s also absurd: We should demand that immigrants share the burden of paying for healthcare, not exclude them in a way that ultimately endangers not only theirs, but everyone’s health and finances.

See also The bottom line in health care.

References

Physicians for a National Health Program (2005, July 27). Immigrants’ health care costs are low.

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Dr. Evil’s community engagement

Richard Berman, aka Dr. Evil is

the force behind several industry-backed nonprofits that share staff and office space with his very for-profit communications and advertising firm, Berman and Company. The firm promises clients it will not ‘just change the debate’ but ‘start’ one, and a range of companies, from Anheuser-Busch to Philip Morris to the casino chain Harrah’s, have signed up for Berman’s ‘aggressive’ and ‘hard-hitting’ advocacy. Some clients pay Berman and Co. directly, while others donate to his nonprofits—but much of the cash winds up in the same place, via hefty management fees the front groups pay to Berman’s company.

Among Berman’s outfits is the Center for Consumer Freedom, which targets critics of fast food, alcohol, and mercury-laden fish. (Seen its commercial in which the “food police” yank an ice cream cone from a little boy?) Berman’s Employment Policies Institute campaigns against minimum-wage increases. And his Employee Freedom Action Committee crusades against unionization.

via Dr. Evil’s Payday | Mother Jones

This Mother Jones article goes on to show several examples in which mainstream news agencies pick up on the press releases of Berman’s organizations, using them in a totally unexamined, uncritical way.

One might view Berman’s method as a form of community engagement, offering appealing names (e.g., “Consumer Freedom”) and prima facie activities to promote a greater good. But it’s the opposite of what Jane Addams meant when she talked about making the entire social organism democratic.

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No tent cities for the wealthy

A continuing saga locally, similar to that in many other communities, is that of tent cities.

St. Mary’s Catholic Church in east Champaign apparently will be the home for the Safe Haven tent community for the next month.

The Rev. Tom Royer, pastor of the church at 612 E. Park Ave., sent a letter to Mayor Jerry Schweighart and the city council, dated Sunday, that “the parish of St. Mary has decided to host the Safe Haven tent community for 30 days.”

“This will give them (residents) additional time to work with you and the zoning commission to find a more permanent location for their community,” wrote Royer, who did not give a date when the tent city would locate at the church.

City Zoning Administrator Kevin Phillips said Wednesday the city still holds that tent cities are in violation of the city’s zoning ordinance, and he said the city would take enforcement action if the tent city does relocate at St. Mary’s Catholic Church.

via Eastern Champaign church takes in tent city residents

The discussions revolve around questions such as whether the tent city would annoy nearby residents, or how long it will be allowed to stay in a particular location. It’s amazing to me how little talk there is about alternatives. What other options are there for people who are down on their luck, often facing physical and emotional, as well as financial challenges? Shouldn’t we be asking ourselves what we can do to provide housing, not how to prevent people from coping?

One can’t help but recall Anatole France’s (1844-1924) famous passage from Le lys rouge (The red lily):

Cela consiste pour les pauvres à soutenir et à conserver les riches dans leur puissance et leur oisiveté. Ils y doivent travailler devant la majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain.

For the poor it consists in sustaining and preserving the wealthy in their power and their laziness. The poor must work for this, in presence of the majestic quality of the law which prohibits the wealthy as well as the poor from sleeping under the bridges, from begging in the streets, and from stealing bread.

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“Free parking isn’t free”

As someone who tries to walk modest distances in town, I’ve been impressed again and again with how unfriendly our cites are for walkers. There are dangerous intersections, or worse, busy roads with no designated crossing. There are missing sidewalks and senseless barriers. Making things worse is the fact that everything is so far apart. One of the culprits here is our irrational obsession with free parking, which like any addiction creates its own need.

Seth Zeren has an excellent essay on Worldchanging about why “free parking” actually costs us all a lot.  He points out that what seemed once to be reasonable zoning requirements for parking actually costs us all a lot in terms of polution, traffic, health, aesthetics, and even direct cash.

Why do Americans drive everywhere? Because everything’s far apart. Why’s it far apart? Often because there’s so much parking in between! In the end, creating bright green cities will require undoing the damage created by mandating free parking.

Free Parking Isn’t Free, August 4, 2009

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The health care plan we can’t discuss

Health care experts agree that switching to a single-payer system would provide better care and sharply reduce health care costs. But that switch won’t happen. Our representatives in Washington won’t even allow the alternative to be discussed.

Our health care system is based on corporate welfare, not individual and family welfare:

“One out of every three dollars in our current health care system goes for corporate profits, stock options, executive salaries, advertising, marketing, the cost of paperwork,” [U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio] said. “If you took the money that’s being wasted and put it into a not-for-profit system, you’d suddenly have enough money to cover every American.”

The quote above is from an NPR story (Single Payer: The Health Care Plan Not On The Table). There are links from there to previous stories on a single-payer system and the resolute refusal of our leaders to talk about it.

Some opponents of President Obama’s health care plan warn that it could lead to a single payer system. Unfortunately, there’s little hope of that happening. The plan is being crafted to ensure that those who now benefit from the bloated health care system will continue to do so, and that those profits, stock options, and executive salaries will be secure forever.

References

Horsley, Scott (2009, July 24). Single payer: The health care plan not on the table. National Public Radio.

Nichols, John (2009, July 27). Hope for health reform? Push single-payer now. The Nation.

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The bottom line in health care

healthIn my previous post on Single-payer health care: Why not?, I talked about our family’s experiences with health care in France, UK, Ireland, Italy, China, Australia, and other places in comparison to that in the US. This included health care for children and the elderly, and both minor (blood donation, physicals, skin growth removal) and major (broken hip, eye infection) procedures.

Thinking a bit more about this I realized that there were four essential facts that emerged from this wide variety of experiences. In every industrialized country except the US,

  1. Equitable: Everyone has the right to health care.
  2. Effective: People live longer, healthier lives.
  3. Economical: They spend less on health care, as much as 50% less.
  4. Efficient: There is much less bureaucracy, fewer forms, less running around, less waiting.

dollarI might add a fifth point, too: The scare stories that we hear (“you have to wait forever!” “you can’t choose your doctor!”) are simply false, or they index issues that are the same or worse in the US. The information we get about health care promotes profit, not health.

There are many issues–changing demographics, new technologies, new medical knowledge, changing standards, globalization, and more–which affect health care. But the fundamental difference in the current US situation is that health care is driven by the bottom line. Insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, media corporations, hospitals and clinics, doctors and other health care professionals, and all others involved in health care operate in a system in which rewards bear little relation to the overall quality of care or efficient use of resources.

One can debate each of the points above, but the evidence from OECD, UN, WHO, WTO, and other international organizations is overwhelming in support of them. Other systems offer health care that is more equitable, more effective, more economical, and more efficient.

So, why is single-payer, or national health care not even worth discussing? Why does the Obama plan dismiss it? Why does even public broadcasting ignore it?