[CLUE-Talk] Re: A Call to Action

[Matt Gushee]

On Mon, Jul 15, 2002 at 05:36:49PM -0600, Jeffery Cann wrote:
> >
> > What country are you living in? Must be a different one from where I
> > live. I'm not talking about utopian fantasies, I'm talking about a
> > response to a major economic crisis, which in my opinion is just getting
> > started.  
> 
> One other thing -- why do you believe that we are beginning a major economic 
> crisis?  You have said this a few times in your posts to this thread.

Once again you're playing fast and loose with my words. I've said
exactly once that I think the crisis is just getting started. As for
there being a crisis, I had no idea that was a controversial statement.
But maybe it is.

> What evidence do you have other than a serious frustration with the
> current system?  Do you objectively think we are  on the verge of
> economic distruction? 

I don't *objectively* think anything. I'm a human, an inherently
subjective being, as are you. I also didn't use the word 'distruction'
[sic].

> If yes, please give me some facts and figures to support it so 
> I can learn more about your point of view and decide whether I agree with it.

Okay, that I can do.

FACTS:

  U.S. unemployment rate for June: 5.9%; the May figure of 5.8% was the
    highest in eight years.

  Dow-Jones Average, 7/15 close: 8,639
      * international stock markets are declining as well
        <http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/02_29/b3792139.htm>

  Foreign investment:
      Reportedly there is an exodus underway of foreign capital from US
      markets. I'm not finding any hard numbers on it, but try this for
      starters:
        <http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1026553489921&p=1012571727102>

  Americans without health insurance:
      "roughly 40 million" according to the National Academy of Sciences
        <http://www4.nas.edu/onpi/webextra.nsf/web/uninsured>
      44 million *in August 2000*, according to Consumers Union
        <http://www.consumersunion.org/health/secondopi800.htm>
    Number who lost their coverage due to unemployment in 2001:
        2,212,550, "the largest one-year increase in nearly a decade,"
        according to Families USA
          <http://coveringtheuninsured.org/media/docs/familiestable.pdf>

  Companies convicted or under investigation for accounting fraud and
  other unethical practices:
      Enron, Arther Andersen, Global Crossing, Tyco, Merrill Lynch,
      WorldCom, ImClone, Qwest ...

ANECDOTES:

  An awful lot of skilled people are persistently out of work (do the
  names Jed and Warren ring a bell?)

  Major employers are moving jobs with abandon to low-wage countries:
  Quark, Qwest ...

  Job listings on Monster.com, Dice.com, etc. are few and far between.

  Tech recruiters do nothing but whine about the lack of business.

  Retail stores can't move their goods (I've been moonlighting, if you
  can call it that, for a company that does retail inventories, so I
  have exposure to their grapevine).

  Iraq is evil and we need to bring about for a "regime change," despite
  the opposition of most of the world, including--AHEM--Saudi Arabia and
  other OPEC countries. That's OPEC, O-P-E-C, as in the 1973 oil
  crisis--and back then they were just playing. Okay, so maybe Bush is
  bluffing. But I wouldn't bet on it. Some people said he was bluffing
  last September when he threatened to invade Afghanistan.

As for what's going to happen, well ... I have to admit my pessimistic
view is largely intuitive. I studied history in college, and historians
tend to be pessimistic. And I have to say that our recent bubble reminds
me too much of the 1920s, and George Bush too much of Herbert Hoover,
for comfort. But it's just a hunch, and college was a long time ago.

But consider: do you think we've seen the last of the accounting
scandals? I hope you're right, but I suspect (mainly based on my
personal observations of business ethics, or lack thereof, in the 3
years since I came back from Japan) that the companies we've all heard
about are just the tip of the iceberg.

Do you think Bush is really going to crack down on corporate evildoers?
I'll believe that when he fires Harvey Pitt. 

Do you think war will be good for the economy? I wouldn't bet on that.
This isn't the 60s, and war production is likely to employ many fewer
people than it used to. Oh, and there's that little matter of OPEC.

So that's a large part of the basis for my views. But you know, I didn't
start out with the intention of converting anybody to my point of view.
I got into this debate against my better judgment because I found Mazi
Farhang's post earlier today unbearably smug. You at least are making an
honest attempt to engage with the ideas I'm presenting.

In any case, my purpose was and is to organize those for whom the system
is not working--and I meet a lot of them--to work on human-scaled,
locally-based solutions. If you've got a better idea, let's hear it.

-- 
Matt Gushee
Englewood, Colorado, USA
mgushee at havenrock.com
http://www.havenrock.com/