In Real Life

What does it mean that the last "combat troops" have now left Iraq?

This seems to be getting fanfare with the President's Oval Office speech tonight. I don't ever remember hearing that distinction before. With combat troops gone, as the astute cspan caller asked, who will defend the 50,000 troops that remain?

The Economist magazine tells of the 2 million troops in Iraq since Day 1, out of which 4000+ have come back in body bags, and another 45,000 returned wounded. The reality of traumatic brain injury, which even has an acronym TBI, and PTSD which has become a household word. Which makes it 1 in 40 troops coming back wounded or dead.

Not nice to talk about that side but how many are congresspeople's sons or daughters? Given 435 Representatives and 100 Senators, if each one sent a family member the odds are that 13 of them would be impaired or killed in the war. Consequences for their policy actions.

What will the anti-Iraq group that stands vigil silently every Wednesday night in front of the Beaverton library do now? Perhaps take up Afghanistan as a cause.

Mr Obama gave a blip mention to the state of the US economy, the middle class. Is there still a middle class in this country? I feel like I abandoned that notion a long time ago - in the last recession. There will be more resources for our economy and education, he seemed to imply. Really?

Private Planes over Hillsboro: Revenue Forecast

This morning several pieces of economic news.

First, the weekly unemployment report from the U.S. Dept of Labor, the august institution that has been reporting since 1913. Is that older than the Census, no I guess not. This has been a lost year - UI numbers are up to 10.1 million, counting regular unemployment benefits + emergency benefits + extended benefits. We haven't seen numbers in the 10M range since April; well we aren't at the peak we were at then of 10.4M, yet.

Also today, the Oregon economic and revenue forecast: down another $377 million. On top of the $577M shock at the last forecast, that puts the Oregon budget down about $1Billion. For this biennium, since the state like to see time in biennial slices. So between now and June 2011 we need to pare back on schools, prisons, human services (and all the rest of the programs which together are quite small). Or - institute more taxes.

Oh wait, we already did that - remember Measure 66 and 67? Acc. to the state economist, the "data is still out" as to the real impact of M66 and M67. Will it be the state's savior, as the Democrats said? Or will it kill business, as the Republicans said? I would say (being now a Progressive, though my party does not appear to communicate very well with its 1800 members) neither. It is nice to not have to take party lines any more.

The state economist, Mr Potiowsky, seemed almost optimistic about the prospects of an Intel plant. This made me nervous. Isn't economics supposed to be the dismal? Why wasn't he more dismal?? For a fab that has been rumored since 2005 (according to various google rumors out there) - the new new technology of 450mm wafers. A lot of construction then - the sustainable level of 200 new jobs. Not that exciting.

This evening lets take a tally at the street level.
At the gym I see that Intel has rented not only Conference Room 1, 2, 3 publicly, but also Conference Room 4 (privately). Intel spouses are working out while their mates are meeting. I did also see 250 jobs posted for Hillsboro on their website. Engineering jobs too - interesting software jobs, and related hardware, marketing etc. Lets see the world through software eyes just this once, ok. +4, +250

Spillover effect - Jamba Juice. High tech parents with kids in tow, +1.
The land next to this strip mall - in development, earthmoving equipment and everything. A good sign, I think. Though, what about all those vacant buildings that remain - Evergreen Parkway, Sunset Hwy, etc.? I hope no one is thinking we can build ourselves out of this recession. +1, -1

Small businesses? They truck up and down I-5 all day and night I am convinced. So I guess they can afford these trips. +1

So, maybe if you, like Mr Potiowsky, hope for something it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Private planes flying at twilight. +1 Someone has the money to fly these planes. At twilight. How cool!

Final economic tally:
+4 + 250 + 1 +1 -1 +1 +1 = +257. Not bad for one day.

Like a Republican Flipchart: OMB news

OMB came out with what they call a "Mid-Session budget review", so ok I've never met federal-ese with numbers in it I didn't like to pore over to find what is in the tea leaves so - this seemed *way* more interesting than anything I was supposed to be working on..

What it shows are receipts (revenue to the government), outlays (what the feds spend on everything), and the net difference (deficits for the next 10 years). This is a 10 year view, and an update from the February budget projection.

How do things look? Looking at what we collect in terms of social security payroll tax and what we pay out, these numbers are fairly close. You could very certainly make tweaks to social security and make it balance. That is if you want there to be a nexus between taxes collected and what they are paid out for. As opposed to randomly collecting my hard earned income tax pennies and using it to build B-1 bombers and such which I did not ask for.

Here is the breakout of federal revenue for the current year, George this is for you!
43% Personal Income tax; 33% Social Security payroll tax; 9% Medicare payroll tax; 6.2% Corporate tax, 1.8% Unemployment tax. And other miscellaneous receipts.

But what we pay out is more than what we take in, consistently, every year. "Deficits as far as OMB can see", well for the 10 year view. And while I think and know that budgets are political statements, and this is authored by OMB, which is under direction and control by the White House (you know, the one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, that one). All of it looks unsustainable. Even to a Democratic administration.

If it were me looking at this budget at my kitchen table, like I was feeling when I thought my Little Theroem daughter might get accepted to MIT, with possibly no financial aid. Ack! Must get a better job cause this is important! Must get more income!

As Fareed would advocate, we need a VAT (Value-Added-Tax).

There are other interesting things in this document, look for yourself:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2011/assets/11msr.pdf

Policy choices are costed out in there, over 10 years, with their budget impact. Most of this is at the margins. Its like trying to influence the ocean subduction zone by messing with outflows at the mouth of the Columbia River. It may be the right thing to do, but it has no impact.

Then read to the footnotes at the very end to find that the total federal debt it over $7 Trillion (or as they like to put it $7,000 Billion, which sounds smaller don't you think?)

Climbing Tiers not Ladders

April is the cruelest month..

The Unemployment report that comes out on Thursdays - lets look at the one from last week. Count up how many are claiming regular benefits + emergency unemployment benefits (EUC) + extended benefits (EB) - you get to 9.9 million.

The peak was April 2010, at 10.4 million people.

Maybe you have heard of the "Tier 5" clamour. Right now you can get up to 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, thats it. Just cause Congress keeps extending the deadline does not increase 99 weeks for you, they will cut you off.

Well, so find a job already! I ran into my friend who manages a Worksource Oregon center today. She did look pretty down. So whats up? Lots and lots of unemployed construction workers, that is what they know, and there is precious little out there for them. Have many people signed up for retraining, I asked. Well, she told me, you have to be able to sustain yourself on unemployment checks to stay in training - not feasible for everyone. She did tell me there were some new job listings. Perhaps not enough for the throngs that visit her office daily. I tried to offer encouragement, well at least you are letting them know about resources, options, and are a kind voice to listen...

Tier 5 would add an additional 20 weeks of benefits to states with high unemployment. Courageous advocate Senator Stabenow from Michigan has put this legislation forward. Not exactly a career ladder, but the desparate plight of the unemployed now hopes for tiers.

In a previous life, refocusing from other previous lives (not 9 exactly, yet) in software and manufacturing project management - I kept a clipping file before I discovered blogging (which is way more fun). There was the Valentine's Day 2004 unemployment extension (in Oregon). My local economist has this clipping posted on her cube wall.

Fareed Zakaria has a weekly show on CNN called GPS (Global Public Square), almost better than cspan and that is a tough thing. He had a liberal economist on last week, Jeff Sachs from Columbia. Unlike other liberal economists that I might follow through twitter, those Nobel Prize winning ones, this Mr Sachs was saying no to more stimulus. And in fact in-stead of stimulus we should have spent federal money on Investment.

Apart from the usual left (more stimulus!) right (less deficit spending!) rhetoric that I am at the point of -completely- tuning out, this was the first sensible thing I've heard lately. Yes of course. Invest in infrastructure - clean energy. Build smart grids. Build a new Sellwood Bridge. How obvious this should be - it would create j-o-b-s.

Without new jobs or investment we are headed for another season of political stalemate this fall. The less interesting thing to do is to add yet another tier of unemployment - lets see that would bring it to 99 weeks + 20 more weeks = 119 weeks. It takes 38.7 weeks to have a baby, sooo, you could have 3.0 babies in that time while you are collecting those unemployment checks. This is not ok.

Here is why I love Portland

Berries turning into raisins on the sidewalk. The smell of fresh basil, a bunch in my basket. Giant fig trees that have been here since the last millenium.

Maybe I will move here; maybe someone will buy my suburban home and turn it into a Montessori school - could happen..

Bought a video from the Hollywood Street Roots guy "Scott". So how did you get the production resources to make a video, I asked him. He met a video producer at the local Starbucks. Donation filmmaking. Another reason to love Portland. His video is titled "Homeless in PDX", so will check this out.

Nervousness at the Capitol

In keeping with the "as seen and heard" tradition, what is the sentiment in Salem this chilly August pre-furlough day?

Faces I recognize in the cafe. Gary Blackmer, runs the Secretary of State audits division. I could legitimately have said hello since when last we were in the same room together it was for a retirement gather for a mutual friend. But alas, either I was in stealth mode (or thought I was? or like to be?) or I just choked.

Another face I wanted to say Merkley but no it was Dave Hunt (Speaker of the House). What about that budget, I could have asked. Where is our salvation. But, I let him stand peaceably in line.

I almost envy the job of the capitol janitor, methodically pushing his silent soft wide broom across the marble floors. And walls too.

Now that they have displaced the bus depot since the Marion county building was determined to have "structural flaws", they say crime is up here at Willson park. Well the townies are at bay today, thank you.

People in agency hallways are already posing what if scenarios about the next Gov. What if it's Dudley. Yes what if. No one can imagine a zero-based budget but perhaps this is just a failure of imagination.

Next week will be interesting- just how do you hack $1 million off the state budget??

The Bread was Baked Fresh Today (on trust)

Chances are 50/50 someone trying to sell you something is lying.

On anticipation: It is still "summer" yet dead daisies abound. So we already live one month ahead in anticipation. Maybe retail has it right (or has us assessed right).

Jackie, my creative writing Motown counterpart. Oh! Does she run around taking pics with her iphone? Thats my life, and observation. Her destiny was to get out of New Jersey (as well all must) go to Illinois along the lakefront (as some of us must) and get a PhD in film studies.

I suppose after I read Harriet the Spy in 4th grade it was really my high school creative writing class that got me into observation mode. Jackie living in Portland, well she took the same class. We have the same history, race riots sophomore year, etc. Yes it was pretty incredible, but all a part of us.

The bread thing - how much would you need to make for you to lie for your boss? Well, I guess I make enough now. Back when I was in grad school looking for summer work, I found a job 2 blocks away at the Acton Bakery (Mass). Where I was told to tell the customers "The bread was baked fresh today!". Hmm, I told them I didn't make enough (at $6.50/hour min wage), so I didn't have to lie. So maybe you can trust people making minimum wage to tell you the truth.

But wait, we are in a Great Recession and no one would dare do anything to get fired, so.. I think you can trust people as far as you can throw them. Or till they've lied to you 3 times. Problem is, the longer you work someplace, the more friends you have, and the more people on your X list (those who have lied to you three times).

So lets see - trust. You can trust people who make minimum wage when we're not in a Recession. You can trust people as far as you can throw them. You can generally not trust people from New Jersey until they have escaped; except of course Mayor Cory Booker in Newark, he remains an inspiration. I hate to think trust is taken day at a time. But maybe our observation about whether to trust someone changes every day.

The State of the Northwest Economy, mid-August

Hillsboro - all the old shops are turning into discount mattress stores. Even "Just a Buck" couldn't make it, and is now a mattress store. Also the old independent video store on 185th which turned into Blockbuster and is now --- a mattress store. score: -2
Hillsboro 2 - Yahoo parking lot has, maybe for the first time since I've been watching, more cars than the DHS parking lot! It is Sunday too, so they must be logging overtime! score: +1

Highway 101 along Hood Canal - signs of creative destruction as old establishments go by the wayside and do-not sit vacant but have new creative owners (like the restaurant in Hoodsport). score: +1
Highway 101 2 - counted 3 new espresso stands. Well I guess the "Seattle class" is making their mark and the locals are able to make money off them, one double-caramel-macchiato at a time. score: +3

Portland - why when you drive into Portland along I-5 is the billboard announcing "Welcome to Portland" a Bud Lite bill board? Isn't Portland the micro-brew capitol of the free world? Problem with branding here. score: -1

Tally for mid-August: +2. Economic recovery?

Private property rights - Part 2

After my heightened level of concern had dissipated some, staring at my trees swaying in the breeze - since they are 100's of feet high this is a magical thing.. My neighbor Bob came by in his truck. He was not yelling this time so I found out his story of building a house, having to purchase a third lot to allow for water/septic separation, cost of electrical lines, building permits etc. He assured me he did not take out any of my trees, and the trees on his land he took out were carefully done so as not to topple on my trees.

OK I will have to take his word for it. I am ok with this.

Now there are other reasons to look into Washington State law, or RCW (Revised Code of Washington) as they affectionately call it.

My real purpose for going up there had been to clear some brush - well lacking either tools, not liking the prime time mosquitoes and being unprepared for them, and being a bit frazzled over the whole neighbor-clearcutting deal, I ran out of time. My 2:00 deadline of going to the group picnic had approached!

The property owners of this little set of lots (as many as 765 landowners apparently, so not so terribly little) have an annual summer picnic at the River Kitchen along the Duckabush River. So I trekked over with my organic Eugene strawberries. Along with yummy grilled hot dogs, multiple varieties of macaroni salad, bean salad and even chocolate cheesecake (with chocolate chips), I met a few people.

Mostly Glenn who is one of these rennasaince people who has been around, and around, and around, and has an opinion on everything but despite that is still searching for answers (I love it!). Of all the 765 landowners I should run into, some with houses and triple lots, some with canal frontage and nice boats, I would run into another simple lot owner, on my street at that.

After I assured him I was not the one who "bulldozed" his lot, his concern was mainly about public access to the river for fishing. For many years he thought there was a public access lot to the river over near the kitchen. However someone chewed his son out once attempting to gain access there, saying it was private property.

So how does one attempt access to the waters of the state. For some issues studying federal policy from cspan on down does not prove helpful. He was telling me that lot owners along the river own to the middle of the river. I thought perhaps the state owned the water, but his reply was yes maybe but not the land underneath - so unless you can throw yourself in and float..

I have not thought much about river access. In Oregon (California too?) ocean beach access is public, though people may own beachfront lots they cannot own the actual beach, which has to be available to the public.

So what about these rivers? What about the steelhead, cutthroat, trout, that, even though numbers are way down apparently, are looking for fishers to get them? A question for RCW to be sure.

One more person I ran into up there was Brett, who was one of the first people I met up there back in the days when stock options could buy land. Not like today where stock options are but a legend and land is not something normal working bureaucrats can afford.

He told me he "lived off the land". Nice to be near a national park I guess, where you can harvest holly in the winter (and sell it), and whatever else I forget. The nicest person you could meet. Didn't laugh at me and my daughter when we were in danger of being sucked into the mud on our oyster quest (someone told me there are even mud snakes, good thing we steered clear of them!). And still helping out at picnics and such, a little more bedraggled with fewer teeth than before.

So much for before & after pics

I thought I was visiting my land to take some before pictures, as in before I get it developed to put a trailer up here. Turns out my forested neighbor beat me to it.

I arrive to try to figure out where my property boundary has disappeared to, and hear someone down hill yelling at me "That's private property!"

What about my private property rights?? Did they take one of my trees out? I don't remember this much sun up here, ever. My property is a stand of old growth Cascade forest, with a little flat spot just right for camping. It seems the last undeveloped parcel here in Washington.

Well there seems to be electricity next door now. Mason county PUD, even though this is Jefferson county.

I knew things were doomed several years ago when they tore down the gorgeous big leaf maple across the street several years ago. That was step one. Now I hear a chainsaw and barking dog from my up hill neighbor, all the noises of home :(

And now, well I will go to this picnic and try to be neighborly. But maybe I should familiarize myself with the procedures for civil lawsuits here in Washington State.

The Continuum: 1963 - 1982 - 2001 - 2010

Where were you in 1963? On June 12, 1982? On September 11, 2001? Today?

Yes it *is* about civil rights. Build that mosque - its a cultural center (thank you Little Theorem).

1963 - JFK assassination (watched the funeral all day on TV)

June 12, 1982 - No Nukes rally in NYC draws 1 million people (I was there!)

September 11, 2001 - An unreal blue sky marked the day - chaos in NYC was felt on the west coast. A red, white & blue streamer from my rear view mirror - continues today, one hybrid car later, in sympathy, in memory, in solidarity, with NYC and New Jerseyans everywhere, with the spirit of tolerance. With the prayer of peace.

How Stable is the State

HR 1586 was signed by Pres Obama yesterday. Known as either "aid to states" or "a state bailout" or a "jobs bill" or "payoff to the special interest teachers unions", it will provide $36 billion to states. Of this, $10 billion is for education, and $26 billion for Medicaid match.

OK a lot of states have been banking on this money. In Oregon I'm sure it will be helpful. What interesting tea leaves do we find lurking? To pass the bill in the House it had to be fully offset (every penny paid for). So I guess there will be no more "emergency" spending bills.

An emergency lets you spend money without the revenue to pay for it. Let's see, I will be taking the kids clothes shopping this afternoon, though I still owe on my credit cards and don't really have any spare money. And no taxing authority either much as I might like. But no doubt they will make it seem an emergency with school approaching quite soon, so spend I must.

But in Congress offsets are the new reality. Closing foreign tax loopholes, and scaling down food stamp benefits starting in 2014. Tricky how future savings can count as a way to pay for something today. Maybe Nordstrom Rack will take my IOU for "I promise not to go shopping next year, so I don't really have to pay for this blouse now do I?"

Oh and rescinding Stimulus money. This is a precedent. To help pay for this aid-to-states bill some of those unspent stimulus dollars have been rescinded, or taken back. Which I guess makes sense, if it was such an emergency why, 18 months after passage of the Stimulus bill, is there money still left on the table?

So, besides the political win for Democratic congresspeople as they flock home to enjoy the rest of their recess in their home sandboxes, will this money stabilize the states? It is another short term temporary infusion. Always deferring the ultimate fiscal reality till tomorrow, after that next election.

If I had not failed Fluid Mechanics

Have you ever been in a situation where everyone seemed to know what was going on except you? Like maybe you didn't speak the language, didn't know how to use the tools. You could watch in bewilderment, but no one was explaining anything to you.

Thats how it felt when I took a course in Fluid Mechanics. Why would someone do this, you may ask? Back in the days when it was easi-er to get into a good college and it didn't cost a quarter-million dollars to send 2 kids to good colleges, if you did well on the math SATs, you were leafletted with postcards inviting you to the exciting and lucrative field of engineering.

Well who in high school doesn't want an exciting and lucrative career? That would use your excellent math skills? Certainly this would be a better life than working at the city library the rest of my days, yes? So why not chose a major, like say civil engineering, at random from a catalog? Well, it didn't work out that great back then (though since then, random choices I've made have worked out very well, more in future blogs, like say that Progressive Party).

Fluid Mechanics was a required course. I didn't fail exactly, how did I manage to get a D - oh yes, I showed up for all the classes, recitations, and labs. So showing up can get a person credit, Keanu Reeves was right.

The one thing that sticks with me, and this relates to the BP news we heard from the Obama administration this past week. A very long equation which solves for theta, and has many terms on the right side. This models fluid flow, apparently. If I look a bit I could probably find it in my garage, since I likely did not bequeath this text to either of my math-y kids (or maybe I burned it, I forget). Anyhow to solve this equation you have to hack off the least significant variables.

Yes and what did we hear about the BP spill this past week? The first news was "75% of the oil has been: burned, absorbed, collected, and is basically gone". Then later Ms. Lubchenko (from Oregon, so you know you can trust her), the head of NOAA, announces it was really 50% that was gone.

OK so the "rest" is still out there - instead of the oil left to clean up being 18 Exxon Valdez' worth, we "only" have 9 Exxon Valdez' left to clean up. Is this supposed to provide comfort? To oystermen, to oil workers, to marsh preservationists, to shorebirds?

And so if 50% or even if its only 20%? Back to that 80/20 rule (which I did not learn in fluid mechanics) - it will cost 80% of the resources to clean up that remaining pesky 20%. So we are a very very long way from being out of the woods. I think Obama and friends can present this data yes, show relief that the static kill is holding yes, but - they should continue to express remorse that we still have a long way to go. I am not ready for optimism on this and I am not buying it.

And what about those variables that got hacked off the equation? What do they represent? How many oil-slicked pelicans?

Entropy: score 1, Order: score 1

Today's tally:
Blackberry bushes (Himalayan, though they are omnipresent in Oregon, they are -invasive- hence unnatural and crowd out other native plants) - carefully trimmed back from the fence, from the street, from civilized sidewalks. Score 1 for order in the universe.

Along to upset the careful civilized order comes a McDonald's fry package (wrapper?), nestling in, to say, hey, I can take over. Score 1 for entropy in the universe.

Did you read the 9/11 Commission report? I did (well, mostly, especially the recommendations section). Connect the dots. I was hoping against hope that some federal agency would think I was a worthy new public administration graduate. Little did I know that there really aren't many federal agencies in Portland, and here I am.

At the time the 9/11 report was penned, there were 88 federal agencies responsible for various aspects of "intelligence". All gathered together to report to a new figurehead - the Director of National Intelligence. Or DNI (and I don't mean NPCs, though it sounds a little the same..) Now it turns out there are over 100 separate agencies! Intelligence appears to have been a growth industry since 9/11.

But we knew that. Bush played every Maslow's heirarchy "security" card in the book, and then some. Fear mongering was politically popular in the Bush era. Follow the money, my friend said, and it is amazing how this applies to so many situations. So it is no surprise that money was poured into intelligence.

I wonder if the Mythical Man Month applies here - the more people you throw at a project, the more interconnected lines of communication you create. Till you have a web of people who have to continue to communicate with each other instead of keeping their eyes on the terrorists in foreign countries that wish us ill.

Mirrored apparently to this multitude of intelligence agencies is the appropriations process. Now, if you watch cspan (no wonder I feel low-energy today, I have not have a dose of cspan in several days now, like someone who's been hiking in the desert, no water... Rachel Maddow will have to do) you will see that the Appropriations process really doesn't ever end in an actual appropriation. Its like a tangent line, you can never get there.

They debate and grandstand in Congress, but don't actually pass actual budgets. So then this is left to the Appropriations committees to do in quiet secret places. Voila, more money (probably even voted in by those Republicans who scream we need to get our fiscal house in order - well I guess they are thinking about tomorrow, not today when it comes to their favorite cause, and maybe even directly benefits their constituents).

Someone should get out the loppers and hack, like those invasive blackberries, those invasive extraneous intelligence committees. Somehow it seems easier with blackberries, for a moment in any case you have wiped them out of a little corner of the universe. But even to get to that state its not really "easy", it takes man vs. blackberry rage. So who will lead the charge to consolidate intelligence agencies?

postscript:
dear Little Theorem - have you read any books on NSA as yet?