Food Stamp Nation

Thank you for cspan.  Today's stats for the food stamp program (known as SNAP - Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program):

In 2013:  $70 billion annually spent on food stamps, serving 47 million people
In 2008:  $35 billion annually spent on food stamps, serving 22 million people

How can this be considered any kind of recovery, when twice as many people are dependent on the government for their very life sustenance, food for them and their families ?

Part of the Farm Bill, food stamps is (in Yoda speak).  Why is that?  Well, you have agriculture subsidies, agriculture policies, and the part of USDA that deals with food stamps too, the Food & Nutrition Service.  So this way the Farm Bill has something for everyone - handouts for farmers in farm states, and food stamp transfer payments for inner city ghetto dwellers.  The red and blue beasts of the U.S. Congress all get to go home to the pride and tell their constituents they have brought home the slaughtered buffalo (ok borrowing from the nature show that was just on public television.  My husband found that scene disturbing, but I was racking my brain trying to find an analogy to my workplace - it will come to me).

In a symbolic gesture that no doubt has been tried with every Farm Bill, Senator Inhofe proposed legislation that would turn SNAP into a state block grant program.  Well yes, I've heard that before.  Back in the early 1980s when I worked for the FNS as a QC reviewer, yep the topic came up back then - enter into the Reagan era.

Another part of the Farm Bill is the commodity food program.  My short stint at another non-lucrative profession working at the Century High School kitchen saw this up close.  Large (free!) batches of commodity chicken nuggets, cheese, and other commodities.  So the U.S. government pays for these excesses, which in turn are distributed to schools.

OK back to food stamps.  I am more than disheartened that the food stamp rate is so high.  The answer is not "family wage jobs" or "higher minimum wage" or "lets feed the kids breakfast every day too".  The answer is not more dependency on the government.

The answer might be victory gardens that each kid, each family, can cultivate.  Each community.  Each food stamp card should be given with a garden tool and a packet of seeds.

I have always thought it would be better to hand out sacks of rice and beans than food stamp cards.  But I suppose anything can be turned into a trading currency - hey, I'll sell you these 3 bags of rice for that bag of cocaine.  But that is a subject for another day.

Maximize Shareholder Value

That is what we learned in business school.  That is the mantra of corporations.  That is the mantra of capitalism.

I guess our Governor has gone off to learn about other ways of structuring society - the Happiness Index and all.  And my Unitarian friends are investigating socialism.  ok.

My country, the global world order, and every country striving out there to better the fortunes of its citizens, every nascent democracy, they are all striving for capitalism.  Yes, it can ravage and dehumanize people.  Yes, when taken to excess (have we seen this?!) it exploits people, it exploits those at the top too, who must chant the mantra "maximize shareholder value", as if nothing else matters.

Sure, if corporations are not held liable for destroying the health of its workers.  If they are not held liable for their "externalities", whether its injecting toxic chemicals into the groundwater to frack for some more shale gas, or just plain scraping off boat paint and letting it drift into the Columbia River (sorry, state secret here).

Yes, we need regulation.  Oregon needs legislation.  Bangladesh needs legislation.  Egypt needs legislation.

But when all is said and done, capitalism survives.  So lets not blame Apple for "working hard and playing by the rules", hey, where have I heard that one ?  They did as capitalism does, and maximized shareholder value, storing $100M of profits in Ireland.  Because its legal.  Because it maximizes shareholder value.  Because the IRS permits this.  If we citizens don't like this - then write to your elected representative and encourage change.

ok, back to my ipod.

Revenue Forecast, Tea Leaves

I am used to economists being pessimistic.  Or not agreeing.  That I expect.  What I don't expect is optimistic economists at the end of the fiscal year.  Here are some more tea leaves that leave me thinking..

* When asked by a Legislative oversight committee whether the recent increase in capital gain tax revenues was propotionately spread from rich to poor (what do you think??), the economist responded with "it is an issue of fairness".

Now excuse me, but the homeless guy at the bus shelter probably doesn't have a 401K, or a nice tidy stock portfolio.  Is this the latest entitlement that I didn't yet hear about?  Cell phones aren't enough, but we need to give away stock so everyone is part of the modern financial system - its only fair right?

Anyhow, I have never heard an economist use the word "fairness", I guess I thought they were about measuring objective reality and forecasting, not trying to pass public policy social judgement.

* The group, which is a forecasting arm of state government, praised the Legislative revenue office for their assistance.  Nice to be helpful and all.  And I guess when it comes to something big like a state economic forecast, you need to collect all views, and they certainly have the data.  But wait.  A Democratically controlled legislature, a Democratic governor, well it all leads to a certain spin on the "forecast" of the future doesn't it.

The presenter even mentioned that one of his advisors thought there was a 0% chance of a recession in 2014.  Really?  Since when are economists so rock solid sure about things?

Like in that movie "Zero Dark Thirty", where she says she is 100% sure that Bin Laden is in that house in central Abbotobad, Pakistan.  Then she recants, saying "oh, ok, 95%, I know certainty makes you guys crazy".

Someone spiked these economists cause they were too optimistic to be praticers of the dismal science.

Real Life African Wildlife Tales

Elephants today.  But fewer, and where are the poachers?  And who is cracking down on them?  And who is enforcing these laws?  And who is educating the children to care for these creatures?

To some African countries, tourism is the #1 economic story.  Tonight a contingent of African visitors came to our local World Affairs Council to meet and greet with Portland citizens.  We heard about campaigns to educate kids, some of who had never seen the wildlife of their nation (this was in Tanzania).  We heard about the relatively low level civil servant park ranger who had a tough time competing with organized para-military poachers who intimidated them, ran roughshod over them, and poached elephants, rhinos (this was in Zimbabwe).  We heard about efforts to protect national parks, and incentives for communities to protect their areas which were in some cases conservation areas (this was in Zamibia).

We heard about how the press, while reporting on poaching incidents, was not doing a public service but actually helping glorify the poaching and the wild sums the poachers gained with their illegal acts (this was in Botswana).  CITES enforcement might be a global protocol, but sometimes within individual nations it is hard to gain traction.

Is this a topic on the African Union's agenda?  Not today.  Hope, one local resident asked ?  Yes - the visitor delegation, sponsored by the U.S. State Department (as a seed initiative from Ms. Hillary Clinton, formerly Secretary of State) was able to meet one another on their 3-week trip to the U.S.  Many of their organizations were sponsored largely by Non-Governmental Organizations, many of these from the U.S.

Our little Zimbabwe Artists Project, a co-sponsor (rah!).  The gentleman from Botswana ended his wildlife tale saying, when your grandkids ask what is an elephant..  and you had a chance to stop the poaching, what will you tell them ?

My Monied Friends

Well, not my monied friends, but if I was President, I bet I would.  Obama does.  W did.

It is not about political stripes, there are entrenched monied interests on both sides of the aisle.  There are entrenched social welfare groups, just as there are entrenched pharmaceutical and military interests.

How I might wish that there were pure policy decisions based on merit, or serving the most people, or achieving worldwide aims like reducing rural poverty, or even clean drinking water for everyone.  In this country, parts of which are still seeking these opportunities.

But what happens to someone who climbed to the top of the political food chain, and is leader of the Free World?

I have thought lately that this designation is just so much history.  In what ways is the U.S. the leader of anything in the world?  Perhaps from the inside you are too used to things and cannot see your own country objectively.  I wonder how my Canadian daughter thinks about her birthright?  I wonder if I will have culture shock after going to Peru for 2 weeks this fall.

Maybe the answer is a populist President.  Someone self-taught, home-schooled even. Not any ivy league connections. No monied friends to hand out all that federal cash to.

There and back again

Like the Hobbit!
Planning a trip to Peru- who knew this was several time zones away?  And an overnight airport layover away?  OK well once we get these flights booked, we are going on an REI adventure trip.

After the adventure of airports both domestic and foreign, we'll see Machu Piccu up close, and also the Amazon.

I am not ready for some dreaded unusual disease, so will get shots ahead of time.  Time to explore.

The History of Electricity

Maybe it was on Downton Abbey, I forget..  I love that show, though it really is like a soap opera.  So it doesn't matter if I miss an episode, you can just jump right back in. 

I love the history of it, and the upstairs/downstairs of it.  Have to admit I relate more to those "below stairs" for some reason.  Oh, maybe its cause I am not one of the idle rich.  Or maybe cause my great aunt was "in service", so its in my DNA or something.

In one of the episodes electricity was new out at the estate, and was a little frightening to people.  Then a friend of mine told me when electricity first came out people were afraid to use it.  I can believe that.  Though it is difficult to.

So the pattern: fear (new!  it will fry our brains!), followed by acceptance (it is nice to have light to read by), followed by government mandates (Rural Electrification Act of 1930-something - a right to electricity!), and now we measure 'civilization' by having electricity in our homes.

Yes, will the same progression work for drones ?

First, fear (they will spy on me in my home!  an invasion of my privacy!), then acceptance (oh, another traffic enforcement drone, ho hum), followed by mandate (a drone for every citizen!), then finally we will measure how civilized we are by our drones.  Ah, Merry drone - the kitchen watch drone, Alex drone - the neighborhood watch drone.