This was taken at Rabbit Island, a place I'd never gone before this Summer. Ash always described it as a "poxy little hole full of pine trees." His scale of poxiness is a little off in my humble, Texan opinion. I mean, there aren't balls of tarry petrochemicals all over your feet when you come out of the chocolate milk colored water like in Galveston.
It can be a bit crowded on the weekends, but all-in-all I think it's pretty fantastic. The water's nice and warm and the big waves take me straight back to being a kid in those chocolate milk waters. You don't have time to give a damn when you're struggling to keep your footing in the water.
Things in the workshop are chugging along nicely, you can see Ash's new designs over there on the right. It's been fun testing them out and the leaves and stems don't get caught on as many things as you'd think they would. Of course, I am known for not being able to keep rings on my fingers for more than five minutes in a row.
I did a voice over for Marshalls Fashions (my Aunt Gail's clothing shop) today and it was a blast. My fifteen seconds of fame are upon us. Listen for me on Mainland TV. I'm the American one talking about the "Super Summer Sale!!!!!"
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Ash and Arlo at the beach
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I'd love to be swimming with you. Look at the sweet baby in his wee cap. (See I can talk New Zealander) Talk about shameless self-promotion, here's my Sunday column. I thought you might get nostalgic for the crazy US politics.
Peace and love to all,
Kathy
So the economy is sliding toward doldrums, people aren’t making enough money in their 50-plus hour a week jobs to buy houses and meet the nut on credit card bills. What’s a nation to do?
On the plus side, the House and the president reached agreement on a quick fix to feed some money into the retail sector. The Senate is fuzzying up that agreement, with smaller rebates to more people.
It’s unfortunate the Senate, rather than adding money for unemployed and poorer Americans, is raising the income limit for rebates. Perhaps the members didn’t listen to the economists in House hearings the week before. So far proposals are limited in understanding of both what’s at stake and the rare opportunity this challenge offers for a brighter future for most Americans.
I will welcome my check in the mail, should it ever come. It will go directly to pay debts, medical and otherwise. That might lead to some ancillary benefit to the local economy. But the greater chance is that whomever I pay also is in debt and will use money to pay that debt.
What has fueled the unprecedented “good economy” of the past few decades? Credit. We bought everything we wanted. For the past 20 years, young people have bought the notion it was in their best interest to “establish credit” and buy whatever their hearts desired. Unlike the two previous generations, they didn’t hew to the wisdom of saving up for big ticket items, like televisions and cars and a down payment on a home. With graduation came the certainty they must immediately buy a home, a car or two, televisions, computers, cell phones, cable, etc.
Their purchases amounted to more than self-indulgence; they provided jobs supplying those needs. People felt comfortable saying, “charge it” because they worked in those jobs building and servicing the homes, cars, televisions, cell phones, computers. And a society that looked on taxes with disdain willingly handed Visa and MasterCard a 1-2 percent surcharge from the sellers on top of all interest buyers paid.
And why was it a good idea in the past few decades to base the real world economy on plastic? Real jobs that paid real wages and the ever-optimistic view that those wages would incline every year above the cost of everything else.
But that didn’t happen, did it?
Look at the local economy. Industrial jobs of 1980 and 1990 paying $20 an hour salaries for line workers have been replaced with $10 an hour industrial jobs and $6.50 an hour retail jobs — many part-time, many without benefits. Because we trumpeted “local control” of programs like taking care of one another’s wellness and well-being and the environment, we have lost federal funding for those programs. That means loss of the degreed people who staffed them and the federal dollars that supplemented those jobs.
Most of the high tech jobs we once touted locally have gone to Mexico, China and India. That affects workers with degrees and advanced degrees, not just skilled and unskilled labor. Any stimulus package must help the long-term unemployed and underemployed.
We can cry that the world is flat and our jobs have gone overseas. And we probably should cry out against rewarding companies — with our collective assets, our tax dollars — that send jobs and investment elsewhere. But that in itself, like the “economic stimulus package,” will not solve the problem that American workers aren’t sharing in the rewards of their ever-increasing productivity. All of us who take our time and talents to work every day deserve a stake in prosperity.
At minimum, we deserve the comforting notion that our shared treasury maintains our shared assets. That also isn’t happening. This week the federal government reported that more than 17,000 bridges carrying 108 million people annually are behind in inspections.
Our national highway and rail systems are overcrowded and falling into ruin. In Texas we could see all new highways and lanes on old ones become toll roads. We are not investing in mass, rapid transit among major cities in Texas or throughout the nation.
Because we rely on 20th century transportation and energy, we increasingly foul our air and destroy our planet. By investing tax dollars in outdated technology, fuel and ideas of power distribution, we are increasing the cost of getting to work, heating and cooling our homes, operating those wonderful toys, beyond the means of average people. We have created an American Dream of an upwardly mobile middle class. And we are on the verge of destroying that middle class by pricing it out of the market.
That doesn’t even make sense for those who sit on the boards and tiptop multi-national corporations. We need to put incentives into the hands of the hardest working and most creative people in the world — the American rank and file. Why give Exxon-Mobil, which on Friday declared the largest quarterly profit of any company in U.S. history, billions of dollars to research against its own interests?
The federal and state governments should fund small research projects with promise in developing alternative fuel and alternative transportation concepts. The economy lost 17,000 jobs this week, the first drop in four years. Put Americans back to work at small companies that appreciate their genius and personal industry.
Models for this exist across the country. Austin is building a new “green industry park” that will focus on research and development of energy saving consumer projects, clean energy, and better, more people-centered transit systems. Sustainability should be our hallmark.
And we should dismantle the enormous, inept federal bureaucracy founded on cronyism, and replace it with the brain trust our public dollars have educated. The new federal structure should evaluate good ideas and feed that information to Congress and the Administration for funding. And others equally talented should be employed to ensure the money is well spent.
It’s time to stop taxing the poor to reward people for simply being rich. It’s time to use our resources to reward ingenuity and hard work.
KATHY WILLIAMS is assistant city editor of the Herald Democrat.
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