We Were Gonna Change the World, Marty . . .

A follow-up to my previous post mentioning the sneaky prescience of the film “Sneakers.”

Today, someone hijacked the main Associated Press Twitter account, tweeted that two explosions had occurred at the White House, injuring President Barack Obama – sending the US stock markets into a precipitous if brief free-fall. 

Here’s the graph, and more information on the incident, from Ars Technica:

Per Ars, the markets dropped 150 points in the minutes following this single tweet, recovering when the AP – through other Twitter accounts – announced the hack. 

This isn’t a prank, folks. 

Imagine if all of the AP’s Twitter feeds had been hacked, with confirmatory – or at least a lack of denials – coming out of other AP feeds. This seven-minute market blip could have lasted a lot longer, even before other news outlets had determined that the tweet was incorrect. 

Now imagine some social aspect of two or more news organizations were simultaneously hacked, with confirmatory messages coming from multiple news sources. That causes the market blip to last longer. Possibly a lot longer. 

What’s wrong with this country, Marty? Money. You taught me that. Evil defense contractors had it; noble causes did not. Politicians are bought and sold like so much chattel. Our problems multiply. Pollution, crime, drugs, poverty, disease, hunger, despair. We throw gobs of money at them. The problems always get worse. Why is that? Because money’s most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don’t have it. 

I agree. Who did you say you were working for? 

Oh, that’s just my day job. Listen, when I was in prison, I learned that everything in this world, including money, operates not on reality –

– But the perception of reality.

Posit: People think a bank might be financially shaky. 

Consequence: People start to withdraw their money. 

Result: Pretty soon, it is financially shaky. 

Conclusion: You can make banks fail. 

Bzzt. Done that. Maybe you’ve read about a few? Thing bigger. 

Stock markets? 

Yes. 

Currency markets? 

Yes. 

Commodities markets? 

Yes. 

Small countries?

I might be able to crash the whole damn system. 

And if you think this kind of power is going to end up giving money to Greenpeace, the United Negro College Fund, Amnesty International and the Democratic Party so those organizations can do good, well, you have rocks in your head, son and daughter, you have rocks in your head, and Crease is going to come along and bust you head.

The Great Recession, RIP?

So, the so-called “Great Recession” is officially over, eh?

Forgive me if I’m not in a partying mood.

The Great Recession, in fact, ended a year ago in July, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. They’re not exactly celebrating. Here’s the nut from their news release:

[T]he committee did not conclude that economic conditions since that month have been favorable or that the economy has returned to operating at normal capacity. Rather, the committee determined only that the recession ended and a recovery began in that month.

So it’s kind of a looking for the silver lining in the clouds moment, I assume. And as you read more deeply into their news release, you really, really have to look for any glint of silver.

The committee decided that any future downturn of the economy would be a new recession and not a continuation of the recession that began in December 2007.

So whee. We’re on the uptick. But you know, given the cyclical nature of our economy, there are likely to be more downticks. But at least future downticks won’t be added to the Great Recession’s duration.

What LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley said waaaay back in 1998 still sticks with me:

Now, brethren, I want to make it very clear that I am not prophesying, that I am not predicting years of famine in the future. But I am suggesting that the time has come to get our houses in order.

So many of our people are living on the very edge of their incomes. In fact, some are living on borrowings.
We have witnessed in recent weeks wide and fearsome swings in the markets of the world. The economy is a fragile thing. A stumble in the economy in Jakarta or Moscow can immediately affect the entire world. It can eventually reach down to each of us as individuals. There is a portent of stormy weather ahead to which we had better give heed.

I hope with all my heart that we shall never slip into a depression. I am a child of the Great Depression of the thirties. I finished the university in 1932, when unemployment in this area exceeded 33 percent.
My father was then president of the largest stake in the Church in this valley. It was before our present welfare program was established. He walked the floor worrying about his people. He and his associates established a great wood-chopping project designed to keep the home furnaces and stoves going and the people warm in the winter. They had no money with which to buy coal. Men who had been affluent were among those who chopped wood.

I repeat, I hope we will never again see such a depression. But I am troubled by the huge consumer installment debt which hangs over the people of the nation, including our own people.

There have been temptations to get more debt. Instead, we’ve listened to him and, thanks mostly to Michelle, we have instead put money away for the future. Not nearly enough, but we have made a start. The roiling stock markets have eaten away at our savings, but still we will save and hope against hope that optimism will return.

Will Sugar Shorten the School Year?

Sounds like Sugar-Salem School District Super Alan Dunn is floating a proposal among classified employees (and teachers as well, natch) to shorten the school year, as has been done in neighboring districts to save money.

When my wife spoke to Dunn earlier this week on the topic, it sounded like the idea wasn’t on the table. Whether he was just holding it close to his heart or whether he’s been getting lots of phone calls on the matter is something I don’t know.

But it is significant he’s talking to classified employees – those who earn an hourly wage, as opposed to those who earn a salary. They – cafeteria workers, janitors, et cetera) would be the most impacted by a shortened school year, as they’d see their hours cut.

That seems unfair – until, as we discussed last night – you realize these folks already have to count on finding other jobs for the summer as they’re not cooking at the schools or driving buses and such throughout the summer.

More importantly – and it’s a symbolic importance, perhaps, more than a monetary-saving one – the gesture throws a bone to patrons who’ll be asked to pay more taxes for schools in just a few weeks.

It’s hard to tell how much of a money-saving this would bring the district, but it at least offers the appearance that the district is willing to do what it takes to save money, especially as they’re asking for a supplemental levy on May 25, which will effectively see an additional $180 in property taxes tacked on to each $100,000 in value. That’s a significant amount of money – for us, it’s about an additional 20 percent on our annual tax bill.

I’m willing to vote for the levy – we’ve got three kids in Sugar schools, and if the levy can help educate them in the face of state budget holdbacks, I’m willing to pony up. Even if I didn’t have kids in the district and still lived here, I’d vote yes on the levy. Kids need an education.

Scary Times

This economy scares the hell out of me – but not in the good Las Vegas way.

I am lucky in that I have a job right now, lucky that I’m not still in the same industry I was five years ago (newspapers). Being unemployed – or in my case, in 2005, underemployed, as I worked as a bricklayer, telemarketer, and store shelf stocker – is not fun.

But as I read these stories at CNN Money, I have to think, well, maybe it’s not the economy.

These people – and I really feel for them; I was in the same boat in 2005 – talk about being out of work for a year, or searching for work for a year or more without success. Some of them say they’ve given up looking (at least two of them are in my current field, which means, good for me, two fewer competing for other jobs). But their stories sound the same as the experience I had in 2005: Sending out hundreds of resumes, getting calls back on a handful of jobs, getting interviews for one or two, getting offered zilch.

That situation has not changed between 2005 and 2010. Not one bit. If I were in the same position now as I was in 2005, I’m fairly confident I’d be able to get back into the telemarketing and store stocking jobs I had then – both of those companies still exist locally, both are still hiring. The bricklaying gig would be harder to replicate, with the slowdown in construction and the fact that it was my brother’s business I got in with, and he’s no longer in that business (we both got out of careers in 2005 that have cratered in 2010).

So, if the situation is unchanged – at least from my perspective – between 2005 and 2010, what’s going on? More people are looking for jobs, obviously. But that might be a false statistic – because I have no idea how many people were out there, looking for the same kinds of jobs I was looking for in 2005. The competition then may have been just as fierce as today, it’s just that more people were employed (or underemployed) back then.

The folks quoted on CNN are white collar, just as I am. It’s never been easy to get white-collar jobs. Though I criticized Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickeled and Dimed when I read it at the time, but a lot of it rings true: It’s the employer, not the employee, who has the power, or at least most of it. I really empathize with these folks, because I’ve been in their shoes before. Hopefully, never again.

You Want How Much? Or, is Free TV Going to Die?

Wow. Just read this article sent to me by my good friend Alan, about how our free braodcast television services may be marching towards a pay model like cable television. Not that such things matter to me; we don't watch broadcast TV or have cable TV in the home, so it doesn't really matter how much they make people pay for it. But when they start charging for the crud we watch on the Internet, that's when we'll stand up and take notice.

It's all going to come to this: The traditional models for distributing and paying for content is fundamentally changing, thanks to the Internet. But, thanks to the Internet, the "everything is free" mentality is the one that reigns, even though we pay ISPs for access. Outfits such as the cable companies are lucky in that, from the beginning, they've trained us to expect to have to pay. One of the models proposed for fixing what ails traditional media is to make ISPs pay for content, thus making Internet surfers pay much more for access. We may see the time when the cost of our Internet service is not based on bandwidth, but on the types of content we want to gain from our Internet access. Is that any better than the trickle-torture proposed by making us pay for each and every site we want to visit? I don't know. It kinda works for cable -- they charge extra for premium channels.

It's a sticky situation. One I see working now on the net is a certain level of free access, followed by an expanded level of access for which people pay. That's the model being explored by the likes of YouTube and Hulu, and Murdoch's NewsCorp, and is already being used to some extent by a wide variety of entities from Comics.com (where I go daily to read my funnies) to Fark.com. Both allow free access, but for other features -- and I'm not sure what they are because for now I'm content with the free stuff being offered -- folks have to pony up a small monthly or yearly charge for access.

But that route is fraught with peril as well. How do you determine how much to make people pay? Try to squeeze too much and you chase away the people you want coming to your site to build up your eyeball numbers. And maybe that's an old-fashioned way of thinking. I'd really love to see companies like Flickr and such, who are using this tiered approach, open up and talk about how much the services are really costing, and how much they're able to pay their expenses with the fees they're charging. So many other things on the Internet are open-source, it's too bad a good financial model seems to be behind that knowledge wall.

Another route -- do like the BBC, and don't charge for access. But levy a tax on every television set a family owns, and use that revenue to pay for broadcasting, programming and such. I don't see that one going over all that well on this side of the Atlantic. I know it would seriously cause us to chuck some of the many, many TVs we have in the house, and, if they did the same thing for computers, make us reconsider how they're used in the home as well. And since that kind of taxation stomples on Freedom, Mother, Apple Pie and the American way, I think the vast majority of folks here would take a "you can tax my TV set when you can pry it out of my cold, dead hands" kind of attitude. But we might be willing -- and in fact, are willing -- to pay already ridiculous fees for services such as cable TV or cell phones. I used to work for a Baby Bell, and I can tell you, one of the biggest money sinks out there that people just roll over and pay for the most part is the cell phone. I'm stoggered at remembering handling bills for $300, $500 a month, consistently, from families who just paid it. Five hundred a month is almost what I pay for my house, folks. No way you'll get that out of me for a stinking cell phone service.

My hands smell like turkey. I've been making enchiladas from Boxing Day leftovers. I should go wash my hands.

How much would people pay for that non sequitur? Probably not much, eh?

Wha?

Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakira has written an odd, nonsensical column urging – or maybe warning about – Americans lurching back into spending mode to ease the worldwide recession. I’ve read it several times and still can’t fathom what he’s talking about.

He seems concerned that Americans will emerge from this recession riddled with debt. He also seems concerned that other countries – he mentions Germany and China – seem to be idling, waiting for Americans to spend again to get the world economy moving. And then he goes on about the savings rates, lambasting the government for “a series of government policies and programs [that] subsidized debt and expenditure and did nothing to reward savings.”

The most nonsensical thing he writes is this:

The biggest of these, of course, is the tax deductibility of mortgage interest, which costs the country almost $100 billion every year. Please don't tell me it creates an ownership society. Margaret Thatcher eliminated a similar program in Britain, and Canada doesn't have one either—and both have the same home-owner-ship rates as America. The policy does not encourage home-owner-ship; it encourages the accumulation of debt.

On the planet I’m from, this home mortgage interest deduction is a no-nevermind. Yes, I pay mortgage interest. So does everyone else with a mortgage. But I’ve not once been able to deduct it, because my itemized deductions never exceeds that of the standard deduction. I can’t believe I’m alone in this. It makes no difference to me if that interest is deductible or not. Maybe it does to others. But he just kind of inserts this paragraph into the column, without really explaining why. Does he want the tax deduction eliminated so that federal government can get more money through taxation? Does he think eliminating the deduction will encourage more frugality among Americans, or that the absence of such a deduction would have encouraged Americans to buy smaller homes? I don’t know. And I’m not sure he does, either, because he doesn’t really say.

He also seems to advocate a national sales tax, citing that as another “incentive” Americans have – over others in other countries, I suppose – to spend. He misses the boat here entirely, because in some countries that have national sales taxes, there are no such things as regional or state sales taxes, which most states in the US have. So once again is he lamenting that there’s tax money out there that’s not being fed to the Federal government? I don’t know. And he doesn’t really say. Do we need a national sales tax? I’d have to have a good reason to say yes. Health care? Sure. But having a tax merely to remove an incentive to spend seems a silly reason and surely wouldn’t stem the government’s need to spend whatever it takes in, plus some. I hope that’s not what he’s talking about.

In the end, he seems convinced that once somebody in the media makes the announcement: “The recession is over!” we’re all going to lurch back into our overspending habits. That may well be. But he’s got to figure out that there are people, like us, who didn’t overspend to begin with, who are scratching our heads over the whole mess.

For instance, my wife and I have been laughing over this “Cash for Clunkers” program which rewards those who bought gas-guzzling vehicles but doesn’t really help people like us who may actually have clunkers they’d like to trade in for a better-operating vehicle but don’t qualify for the program, so we’ll continue driving our cars into the ground while those whose cars work but get poor gas mileage can get new vehicles. Not that we want a new vehicle – but it’s just that with these government programs, they always start out with the aim of helping a certain group, and they miss every time.

Do we get government help? Sure. Show me anyone in the country who doesn't have their hand in the pie somehow and I'll show you a rotten liar. We get reduced school lunch prices for our kids. We get tax breaks because of our kids. All sorts of goodies come our way because of our kids.

Graduation: Then What?

Maybe I'll jinx things by mention this, but I'm now one week -- and one passing grade -- away from having a masters degree in english, with an emphasis on technical writing. I'm not saying this to brag; I'm mentioning it because if (and I certainly hope when) I pass the final class I'm in -- it ends Friday -- a significant chapter of my life will close, and another will open.

I'll be able to add a few more pretentious initials to my signature. I'll contemplate a course of study that might lead me to other pretentious initials, though at this point I'm not sure if a doctorate with a technical writing emphasis is right for me. Maybe something in English, but then again I'd have to look at how much ground I'd have to re-plow. I have to admit of the courses I've taken in my university career thus far, the ones that stand out the most have been the English ones, and a few from this masters program, specifically those focusing on writing for the web (which I still don't quite know how to do properly, so I'll continue trying).

I chose the fuzzy graduate clip art for this reason: I"m not sure where I'll be going next. This degree, while handy, does nothing for me in my current job, but may help me in future employment pursuits. Furthering my education more would also help, because, like bachelors degrees fifteen years ago, masters degrees are becoming a dime a dozen these days. That's kind of frightening, because I've worked hard these past 2 1/2 years to earn what I'm hopefully earning this summer. What it does do is help me get my foot in the door at BYU-Idaho, though I can't say I'm smitten with the idea of teaching.

I do know it's going to be weird, not having classes and homework. I've gotten so used to those two things over the past few years I might be a little antsy, trying to figure out what to do with my time. There's always the novel, of course, but then again, there's always the novel. And with the economy the way it is, I'm not sure there are a lot of openings for types like me, and if there are, there are certainly a lot of types like me out there with freshly-minted masters degrees. So do I get more out of this than a bit of gleeful angst about the future and a certificate to hang on the wall (for which I'm going to have to rearrange things now, thank you very much)? The assumption is yes. That's the state of the world now. Assume, but don't plan on anything too solid. Hope without guarantees.

The Next Bailout: Student Loans?

The question is: Should current holders of student loans get a federal bailout, just like the banking and automotive industries?

My short answer: No.

My longer answer: No. Really. No.

There’s a movement, reported about here, to get the federal government to cancel current student loan debt, which totals about $600 billion – a bit less than the banking industry received in the first round of bailouts approved last year.

The article contains an interesting journalistic “others” statement, unattributed because, obviously, others have said it and everyone ought to agree with it: “Others said [lawyer Robert] Applebaum at least was raising awareness of the problems with how higher education is financed.”

Applebaum, of New York, started a Facebook group with the aim of getting the government to cancel outstanding student loans. He argues he had to leave a public service job as a prosecutor in Brooklyn for a private law firm to pay down $96,000 in student loan debt. The article goes on to quote other students, like John Lampman of Hampden, Maryland, who owes $180,000 in student loans after earning a masters degree in photography and electronic media.

I feel badly for students starting out in this economy with this kind of debt. But I’m firmly in the camp of David Ribar, an economics professor quoted in the story as saying:

“Think of the poor kid who for one reason or another refused to take out loans, didn't go to college and is now making decent money. That person now has to pay taxes so somebody else's loan can be forgiven? That doesn't seem very fair.”

It’s not fair, and I’ll tell you why. These people bought educations they can’t afford, just as irresponsibly as people who bought homes they can’t afford. Why should the taxpayer have to pay for their overindulgence?

Overindulgence? Is that fair? Yes it is. I speak as a student who is only six credits away from completing a masters degree in a program that is nationally-recognized for producing excellent technical communicators. For the past two and a half years, I’ve worked a full-time job and gone to school, building on the bachelor’s degree I already have in journalism and mass communication. During the seven years I’ll have spent in school, my total student loan debt was $1,500. I got a few tiny grants here and there, plus a measly $250 scholarship. The rest of the bill, I paid for, by working summers and even a few semesters at full- and part-time jobs. The masters degree I’m working on now will be completely self-funded. All of this because I chose schools that didn’t require me to break the bank to attend. My total bill for my masters degree will be less than $9,000.

And I get tax breaks for this money, just like holders of student loans get for their outstanding debt. The secret here is that I didn’t let my desire – my need – for an education to outweigh my ability to pay for it. I know I’m lucky. Many are not in my shoes. But many are. They’ve worked hard and attended less expensive schools in order to achieve their educational dreams. Maybe the University of Idaho and Utah State University don’t look as impressive on a resume as the Maryland Institute College of Art. But I don’t feel I’ve sold myself short attending less-expensive schools. The program I’m in at Utah State is well-regarded nationwide. And it’s my ability to work and think that people will look at, not the cost I had to pay for those abilities. Good schools produce many mediocre students who have much heavier debt loads than the brightest who come out of state universities.

So I say no to forgiving current student loans, the same as I say no to forgiving the debt of people who bought homes they can’t afford. I should not have to pay for the indulgences of others.

At Least Somebody's Got Money to Burn. Or At Least Singe

I've written here of late of the follies I've run into trying to cahs a $3.25 refund check from a local vending machine company. (Update: I called them today and left a message re: insufficient funds. Still can't figure out why the credit union thinks it's such a huge risk to cash this check for me and let the other guy's overdraft protection kick in.)

But not everybody's in this kind of situation. Today, we received a check from our insurance company for the kingly sum of four cents -- a refund they offered because my wife likes to round her checks to the nearest dollar. Alas, they don't want to caretake this four cents on their accounts, but instead will spend the money for a stamp, envelope, accompanying letter and the labor involved in assemblage of such to send the money to us. And so it goes.

How Bad Is It Out There, Part Three

Took a check in to the bank today to get it cashed. Was refused, because the teller said the account on which it was drawn didn't have enough cash to cover it.

The check was for $3.25.

(It's a refund I got from a vending machine company when one of their machines ate a $5 bill.)

How Bad Is It Out There, Part Two

In nearly nine years of home ownership, we have almost always paid extra principal on our monthly mortgage payments. More importantly, we have never been late on a payment. Then came this month. The payment was due on March 1st. I didn't get paid until February 27th, so the payment was going to be late that month. That Tuesday, National City Mortgage called my wife to ask when the payment was coming. She, of course, told them the proverbial (and literal, in this case) check was in the mail.

So I have to ask: is National City that hard up for cash, or that nervous about how many time bombs they've got in their portfolio, that they're calling people with stellar records to hound them for payment? Don't know the reason, but obviously there is concern.

Still, in our case, it's exaggerated concern. I just pulled our credit report, and it remains blotch-free. We pay less for our mortgage than many around here pay for rent. We shouldn't have the power to mangle mortgage-lender nerves with one late-in-the-mail payment. Sign of the times we live in, I suppose.

Posted with LifeCast

Tulip Mania

Michael Lewis, a writer for Vanity Fair magazine, has in the magazine's April 2009 issue a rather fascinating article on the collapse of the Icelandic economy. While I profess to know next to nothing about economics, banking, metallurty, engineering and physics, what Lewis writes is a lucid tale of motivated, energetic and intelligent people getting hip deep into something and not knowing (or at least not caring) that they really don't understand what's going on.

First of all, there's this, according to Lewis (and to be fair, he says this of the global financial crisis, not necessarily just the Icelandic one):

One of the hidden causes of the current global financial crisis is that the people who saw it coming had more to gain from it by taking short positions than they did by trying to publicize the problem.

I have to ask, who doesn't behave like this -- taking short-term gains over something that might happen? There are few who can see the big picture, and even fewer in the right position who will listen to them. Don't rock the boat is the prevailing attitude. I recognize that in myself sometimes, which is why I don't go in for things like piloting planes or doing anything more complicated behind the wheels of a vehicle or a financial statement than staying between the lines and closing my eyes as I buy and hold during this meltdown. As Bill Cosby says, "Greed jumps right on your head." That seems to have happened in Iceland. He compares the country's losses -- which totalled about 850 times the nation's gross domestic product -- to the tulip mania in the Netherlands during the 16th century, when speculators bought tulip bulbs at enormously exaggerated prices until the bottom dropped out of the market, inciting a financial panic.

As I read this article, I began to see more and more of myself in it (in addition to seeing more and more how oddly people in general behave). There's this, for example:

Word spread in Icelandic economic circles that this distinguished professor at Chicago had taken a special interest in Iceland. In May 2008, [Bob] Aliber was invited by the University of Iceland’s economics department to give a speech. To an audience of students, bankers, and journalists, he explained that Iceland, far from having an innate talent for high finance, had all the markings of a giant bubble, but he spoke the technical language of academic economists. (“Monetary Turbulence and the Icelandic Economy,” he called his speech.) In the following Q&A session someone asked him to predict the future, and he lapsed into plain English. As an audience member recalls, Aliber said, “I give you nine months. Your banks are dead. Your bankers are either stupid or greedy. And I’ll bet they are on planes trying to sell their assets right now.”

Reaction to his statement was odd: A few listened, the rest tried to suppress it, including the government, which worked to push journalists not to report on the speech. The nation's economy collapsed in October, five months later. Here we learn that nobody likes to hear bad news, even if they don't quite understand it. (Lewis himself was called by a "leading current events TV show," after only three days in the country, to talk about the crisis. The audience, Lewis wrote, said, would "enjoy hearing someone try to explain it, even if that person didn’t have any idea what he was talking about—which goes to show, I suppose, that not everything in Iceland is different from other places."

Lewis aptly sums up the crisis by interviewing an Iceland fisherman who was captain of his own boat at 23 and who spent seven years learning the trade until he felt he was quite good at it, only to leave fishing to become a currency trader with little to no education in currency trading, aside from knowing the fact that people could make a lot of money at it. "For the first time, I am without a word," the fisherman-cum-trader said when Lewis asked him why he felt he could trade currency without a seven-year apprenticeship.

Simply fascinating reading. I'd like to see Lewis do similar treatment to the U.S. crisis, but I'm afraid he'd find it much more difficult. I know I do.

[Insert Quote Here]

Your Stunned Silence is Very Reassuring

Frighteningly, I appear to be ahead of the curve on a lot of the advice given to shell-shocked career-holders during our Brave New Economy. Today, CNN.com and its assorted experts agree that, for some people, a layoff or a job loss might mean making a career change. Did that back in 2005, when I left the circus that is newspaper journalism for the milder, albeit clownish, world of, well, I want to call it civil service, but since I'm not a direct employee of the government, I guess you have to call it the pseudo-military-industrial complex. I'm a technical writer at a dump, if that helps the explanation any.

Additionally, President Obama is telling people this is a good time to go back to school to re-tool for a new economy based on technology. This July, I'll finish with a masters degree in technical writing which, for the last year, has placed a strong emphasis on integrating what I know now with the extremely circusy world of internet publishing.

So I'm ahead of the curve, right? Right?

Your stunned silence is very reassuring.

What Does Idaho Want

Idaho Gov. C.L . "Butch" Otter made minor national waves a few weeks ago at a national governors' conference as one of several Republican governors considering rejecting some or all of the money coming to his state from the stimulus bill signed into law by President Barack Obama.

It appears he should have listened to his constituents, because according to these really interesting state records, there are plenty of hands being extended Washington's way.

The most fascinating reading comes here, where non-state agencies (ranging form school districts to cities to private individuals to private corporations) have created a $4.7 billion letter to Santa, outlining how much stimulus money they feel they could use. As you'd expect with such programs, there range in this list items from the useful and forward-thinking to a few that are downright comical in their self-centeredness.

A few suggest they'd spend stimulus money doing what President Obama suggested -- developing alternative energy projects. There are, for example, requests for:

• About $220 million from a company called Augua Caliente for drilling exploratory wells to find sources of geothermal energy for power generation.
• $2.2 million from Clark County -- population of less than 1,000 -- to build a community wind turbine.
• About $500 million from Idaho Wind Power LLC to build two wind farms of 100 MW each, plus another $20 million for a geothermal facility.
• $4.6 million to develop a hydroelectric project on the Henry's Fork of the Snake River, from the Fall River Rural Electric Co-op.

One proposal that evidently came too late was from Grow Idaho Falls, Inc., which wanted $13.1 million to "Establish a for‐profit energy park located between Idaho Falls and the INL. Purchase land, Site studies, engineering, gas pipeline extension, extension of fiber optics." Too bad they missed the deadline. They're obviously trying to capitalize on Areva, Inc's plans to build a $2 billion uranium enrichment plant in the area.

Now, on to the oddballs:

• Melody Russell, no hometown listed, wants $37,000 to pay off her credit cards.
• Bill Mulligan of Three Rivers Timber wants $7 million to revive an idle logging business.
• Donna's Bookkeeping and Tax Service wants $135,000 for ongoing business expenses.

Locals are also lining up for some of the moolah:

• $3.9 million for expansion of the Madison Library
• Madison Memorial Hospital wants about $780,000 for sundry projects, ranging from fiber optics to a facility to house patients' electronic records.
• The Madison School District wants $1.5 million to renovate the current high school and convert it into a junior high, following the opening of the district's new high school.
• $1.6 million to build a new fire station in Madison County

Notably absent from the list is the City of Idaho Falls, which seems to be the state's only major city not seeking a handout. Best represented among Idaho's cities is Meridian, whose mayor, like our governor, made waves in decrying these government handouts.

The list makes for interesting reading. The desire for socialism seems alive and well in this, one of the reddest states in the union. And it should e noted here that I don't consider socialism to be a bad word, nor a bad concept. Especially when it comes to projects related to infrastructure, energy conservation and energy development, I applaud these money-seekers, and wish them well.

Update: The Idaho Statesman has a story on Melody Russell here. They're not the goldbrickers one would imagine. I wish them well.

Remaining Optimistic

I read something rather disconcerting today while scanning Digg at lunchtime. Time magazine has this piece on the ongoing foreclosure crisis, which bears this quote from Jeff Wagoner, a Kansas City, Mo., bankruptcy attorney:

"It sounds crazy, but I'd say unless you're making over $350,000 a year, the more you're paid, the more vulnerable you are. If you lose a job, you're going to have a hard time finding another that pays as much. Or maybe you need to move to find that new job, but you're stuck with a house you can't sell."

The American ideal tells us that the more money we have, the happier we are. Study after study, of course, shows that is generally not true. Do we in some ways set ourselves up for failure, reacting to increasing wealth with increasing wants that turn into needs? It seems odd to me that when i read stories of financial woe, I almost always note that these people who have lost their jobs or homes or both say they're struggling to pay their bills, and almost always include monthly cell phone bills, cable TV bills and other frivolities in their litany of woe. They argue that cell phones are a necessity in this day and age. I say they're not. We have one, of course, but it's only turned on when we're on vacation. We pay less than $50 a year for the thing. We don't have TV in the house. We do have one indulgence: high-speed internet. But it's a want, not a need. We could live without it -- though you dear folk would be deprived of my daily musings on the absurd and useless thing that is my life.

There's a lot of hand-wringing out there among the chattering class that part of the trouble the economy is seeing is that people have finally reigned in their spending and are actually saving now. I don't see that as a bad thing. I think, in many ways, it'll encourage us all to be more aware of what things cost, aware of how we consume and use the things we buy and maybe encourage us to make the things we have last longer. Just this week, for example, we gave five boxes of videos, clothing and toys to one of Michelle's nieces. That night, we had a family in our ward stop by to drop off two big sacks of clothes their kids had grown out of, for our own brood. I like that kind of spirit. They were able to bring us clothes because another neighbor gave them some their kids had grown out of.

So I will remain optimistic about the basic goodness of humanity, and not allow myself to get scared by the economic woes we're facing as a nation. I'm far from making $350,000 a year, but we're far from living paycheck to paycheck on what I do make. And we'll keep it that way.

Stimulus, Sweet Stimulus

It looks like President Obama's stimulus package might have direct benefits for yours truly. Here's the official poop from our company:

Great news for [the Idaho Cleanup Project]. We’re hearing we will receive about $400 million from the President’s stimulus package. The dollars, coming to us over the next three years, will create or save several hundred jobs. Those who were previously laid off are some of the first folks we’ll be talking to.

This is a good thing, not only for the local and regional economy but for the State of Idaho since we’re actually accelerating cleanup of the site.

This news has had immediate effect. The company was planning layoffs at the end of March; those have now been postponed. (Postponing them isn't as good news as calling them off completely would be, but it's still better news than we were expecting.) Writer/editors weren't targeted as part of the layoff this time around, and we've lost a few to retirement since the last layoff, so we weren't anticipating any surprises. But we've been surprised before -- in fact, a year ago at this time the only thing that saved my skin is that I was not the lowest guy on the totem pole. I'm in that same position this year, but you never know how things will work out.

Still, it's interesting to see how this stimulus is stimulating government jobs, not necessarily those in the private sector. Of course they talk about the ripple effect -- one saved government job might save others, et cetera, et cetera, but I do understand why there's a lot of animosity out there when it appears that the government is helping their own, rather than the ordinary citizen. I recognize that, longside all the folks on the desert who decry "encroaching socialism" that we're already on the government payroll. Pot calling the kettle black and all that. That's us.

Unreality

This economy, apparently, is shaking everybody's fillings loose. Especially those accustomed to getting an annual bonus. Witness here a New York Times article outlining the down-and-outs of people accustomed to large bonuses (I'm talking high five-figures to low six-figures here) who are now getting smaller bonuses this year. One fellow laments his expected $24,000 bonus this year, less than half of what he got last year. He says he uses the bonus for day-to-day living, not "frivolities." Considering my bonus for 2008 was a $25 Wal-Mart gift card ad a square of fudge made and packaged in China, I'm not so sure I feel all that badly for Mister Day-to-Day. True, he may live in an area where the cost of living is higher than where I live. That is his choice. But considering his lamentations over a reduced bonus that is about half my yearly salary, pardon me if I don't weep too much.

Have we become a society of entitlement? Apparently so.

Just How Bad is it Out There?

A few months ago, I was at the ATM at the credit union, chatting with a lady who was painting an advertising mural on the union's windows. We got to talking about the economy. She mentioned her husband had just been laid off from a job as a painter, and was looking for work. That, I'll admit, was my first hint that this recession was going to be more than something they jabber about on the television.

There, but for the grace of God goes I, I suppose I could say. I actually hit my financial and career nadir iin 2005, when I quit a job I didn't like any more. Took more than a year to find the job I currently have. Learned a lot in that year. Learned that you find work where you can, and often work two jobs to make sure things keep going. I hated that worse than I hated the job I left. I'm glad I'm happy where I work now, glad that, at least for the moment, things here appear recession-proof. I've survived three layoffs here already, and look to survive another one coming up in March. I would not want to be job-hunting now, given the economic climate. **Knocks very loudly on wood** Maybe I'm lucky I did my career hopping four years ago. Maybe that was a way to get me prepared for now.

Then there's this: bailoutbooth.com. It's a new classified ad website, where, by all appearances, the brokers give you cahs for what you want to sell. They're taking advantage of the current economic crisis. What's most telling, however, are the stories told to Bailout Bill here. Some of these hurt -- they're from folks who are genuinely (at least as genuinely as the Internet can be) having trouble. Then there are the comical stories from people who woefully overestimate themselves and waste money, like the guy who blew $6,000 trying to save a cashew tree, the Brooklynite looking for help so she can maintain her lifestyle which includes a 150-lb St. Bernard, and the high school dropout who is $3,000 in credit card debt and rueing the fact that his lackof a high school diploma is making it "a little difficult" to get into college. So a collage of the sensical and nonsensical, the deserving with the dumb. Arianna Huffington over at the Huffington Post may have bragged that "This recession will be blogged," but it' won't be by her or pretenders like those at unemploymentality.com. It'll be thanks to Bailout Bill.

Addendum: Of course, you have to wonder what is worse: the apparent lack of financial sense exhibited by some posting their requests to Bailout Bill, or folks like me, the ambulance chasers of the Recession of Aught Nine. Don't get me wrong: I have a lot of sympathy for people who find themselves in financial straits, whether they deserve to be there or not. My Dad, an immigrant from the Netherlands, often said that the United States is a great country to live in if you have money, but if you don't it's one of the worst places. Growing up, he said, they were poor but didn't know it, because everyone else was doing the same thing, namely bragging about having THREE kinds of vegetables for dinner. Get poor here (and pretty much everywhere in the developed world) and you know it.