Have an opinion about NPR? Tell it to the boss

Monday at noon, NPR president Vivian Schiller is going to join us in the Cantwell Room in the Saranac Lake Free Library.

The event is free and open to the public, on a first-come first-served basis. It's a great opportunity to meet and talk to one of the most influential media voices in the business.

Schiller also created the New York Times on-line news service, which has become an industry standard.

We'll be airing the hour-long discussion live on NCPR, but we won't be taking phone calls.

So if you want to chime in and take part, plan to join us in Saranac Lake.

If you can't make it, but have particular questions for Schiller (or for Ellen Rocco or myself) you can post them here in the comment section and I'll ask them Monday.

Hope to see you there...

A few thoughts

Now that I have been in the Chicago area for close to two months I have some thoughts to share.

1. There isn't really a way to plan. A friend of mine here just got a job about two hours away from the place where he signed a year lease less than a month ago. Now the three other people he lives with have to find another roommate that hopefully they can get along with. But at times like this I feel like you can't say no to a job because of location. Especially one that is exactly what he wants to do. So it is frustrating to try to plan ahead at all. That is why I came here with only two suitcases and my camera equipment.

2. I got an email for an interview saying they are interviewing about 7 people and there are these dates available. And I wondered if there is any strategy in picking a date. My thinking was do I wait and pick the last one so I am the freshest candidate in their mind. I realize that might be a little crazy to think about but that is the point at which I am at right now.

Just a few thoughts that are occupying my mind these days.

Sarah
photographer/recent graduate

The Shape of This Recovery

I have been reading some interesting pieces on the outlook for economic recovery. The more enlightened pieces, those taking into account how it was our current downturn became a "bubble", indicate that the economy is not likely to return to the way it was; nor would we want it to.

One thing to realize about the difficulties we have seen in the past year is that the economic euphoria we experienced, and came to understand as the norm, was an illusion. As the economy heated in the early 2000's, much of people's economic gain was based on home-value. It became an ATM, of sorts, driving cash consumption in the economy through the widespread availability of financing.

The universe of information available on the state of finances, corporate, personal, and public, indicate that incomes actually rose very little. People borrowed on their homes, purchased homes they couldn't afford, or speculated in real estate markets (assuming an eternal price appreciation). Even those that did not get involved in real estate likely exploited the credit bubble, through credit cards - how many of us have an outstanding balance? All of this credit resulted in heavy consumption, the principle driver of our economy. But it was not based on real income, so it was bound to find a cieling. At that point, the cashflow in the economy slowed significantly.

There are two parts to our dilemma here: 1. Consumption was based on the consumption of either previous savings (ie home equity) or future cashflow (ie credit cards). 2. Investment was principally in speculative markets, not in productive assets, not in projects that produce economic value.

These two facets resulted in a diminished ability within our economy, on a national basis, to be economically productive.

I would propose that economic growth and well-being is derived from investment in productive assets. Assets that, through their use, create real cashflow and income. Therefore, economically speaking, we will not see economic recovery until people begin to value investment in productive assets.

This is the reason that the economy isn't going to just recover into the state it was three or five years ago. That economy was not based on feasible economic practice - it was a shell game, a hope, a delusion.

An economic recovery that has long run potential will likely look like something completely different. Take out a black magic marker and mark a big X over all of the economic charts and expectations we have, and start fresh.

Don't think so much about why there are no jobs available, or why they will only pay you x amount. Think about how you can create value - think about the value you add to that business. Your creativity, not in the artistic sense, but in the economic activity sense is what will create the economic recovery that we all expect will come from someone else.

What are the things that we as a community can do to generate economic activity?

What are projects that we as a community can engage to make our economic future more stable and secure?

What do we need in the community for there to be economic well-being?

How can we develop these resources together?

Those are a few of the questions that I think will drive our economy locally - the same kind of thinking will be required nationally, but the people must start somewhere.

emotions and economics

People were used to having a measure of control over their incomes or investments. They feel betrayed.

For farmers, it's nothing new. Weather's always been a a financial wild-card. Drought that keeps crops from growing, rain that keeps crops from being harvested, are constants.

This year, though, dairy prices are at their lowest in thirty years. We no longer have dairy cows, but milk prices affect us. As dairy farmers sell their herds for slaughter, our grass-fed organic beef loses its value in a glut of meat. The Amish farmer who puts his milk in our bulk tank can't pay us for the electric to cool it. His horse's hooves clip-clopping around the driveway have been part of our lives. The next door neighbor told my son yesterday that he's selling his cows, and won't need him anymore. A man who rented our barn had an auction last week. He spoke about the decision with his pain sharp, and his tears glistening.

There's sun this evening- sun the bronze of turmpets, against lingering grey skies. We're moving cows. The animals are beautiful, pelts glowing with health and sun. The sheep are little cumulus clouds of white in a far pasture. We haven't been able to make enough hay to keep most of the animals through the winter. Each of them has a history, a geneology, but economics reduces them to commodities. We'll have to sell them cheaply, at a loss, then pay capital gain taxes on the money we supposedly made.

Rocky, a Belgian work horse, rumbles by, radiant and backlit. He weighs a ton, and the earth shakes as he passes. In the winter, he races at us, the, spraying snow as he breaks. How do we choose between hay for him, or a pregnant heifer?

I finally got my bachelor's degree last December. I make no more money than I did before, but, in middle age, it's a hedge against unemployment. I'd paid the last few years taxes with student loans. Now, I'm trying to pay them off, and FSA payments and taxes go unpaid.

I thought having a bachelor's degree would mean middle-class perks. I signed the kids up for piano lessons, which they loved. I thought I'd get braces for the girl that needs them so, on the cusp of adolescence. I bought a used car, that gives me wonderful automotive anonymity. No more rustbucket noise- just innocuous invisibility. We'll live without those trimmings. Sneakers for school, a restaurant meal, entering a store- I try to regard it as a Zen exercise in shedding excess. It feels, however, like deprivation.

I'm aware of my luck in having choices to make. The people on my caseload, just out of jail, whose only dream is priavcy or peace, would love to take my place. The mothers in Darfur whose children don't live long enough to have crooked teeth, or families in Sudan with no freezer full of lean beef or peanut butter for the winter humble me.

Is the degree of acceptance a coping mechanism that makes sense? Is it a function of my class, bred into me- the forelock- tugging equivalent of false consciousness? Is acceptance a reasonable reaction to something I can't change, without savings accounts, pensions, fall-back finances?

Value-added beef- humanely raised, healthy and local. Kids- witty, and concretely compent, but cultrually feral. Farm, failing despite best intentions. Where do I put the emphasis- how to choose?

The herd thunders by, crosses the road- steers, bull, calves, horses. Angus, Hereford, Highlanders, Charalois, Limousin. The landscape is drenched in a rainbow as the skies open. The kids belt out old country songs, barefoot in hand-me-downs, moving the cows. My love for it all pierces me. The pavement is rough and warm. The cows have passed, and I move aside for a car to pass.