Economusing

So my friend's lovely smart daughter, the first in her family to graduate from college, majored in business at NYU and landed a job in NYC. The recession took out a lot of her more expensive colleagues first. The yearlings hoped they would be safe for a while but the while ended and she is coming home. This is so sad but maybe it is better to not spend a whole career working at Bogusville Inc.

America has experienced an internal brain drain. (Remember the brain drain? It was the migration of the smartest rich kids from India, etc. to the United States. They became American doctors and scientists and engineers and computer whizzes.) For the past many years, the bright kids in America's high schools swarmed off to college to become not doctors but financial alchemists, transforming someone else's money on paper, making huge salaries and nothing tangible. They built McMansions in Mamaroneck, next to the Mafiosi and the Kuwaiti royalty. They hired 2 nannies for the weekdays but just one for the weekends. They paid $22,000 in property/school taxes.

The real estate mess has not really hit those who already own their homes and still have jobs. They are, however, letting one or 2 of the 3 nannies go and getting by with one housekeeper. If these "folks" try to sell their houses, they may feel the pain. (Your house may be the surrogate for a rainy day fund and may lose a lot of its value, but the pop of the real estate bubble only hurts when you need the cash.)

Think of the people who clean those fancy houses: they work 3 jobs, they support 6 people, they send money to Mamacita in Guatemala, and they have no benefits. Even those with green cards have no health insurance. If you work 3 jobs and lose one of them, you are screwed. Did your rent go down? Did your food get cheaper? Did your car payment get reduced? Did you get younger and healthier? You are screwed. My parents were lucky to have the same "cleaner" since 1982. She started work at my backyard wedding and ended up essential to their being able to avoid the dreaded nursing home death. No one but my folks ever did the social security thing with her paycheck. She was essential and beloved and her situation gives a different significance to "under employed."

So what happens to a business major when business contracts? Can a business major make anything anyone would buy? One thinks of "starting a business" as opening a store front and selling something or offering some service. But business school does not teach one to manufacture a product. Business grads get jobs in companies. What will the federal stimulus do for hispanic housekeepers and business majors? Perhaps a business grad might start a company that offers to clean people's houses and hire all those hard working Central Americans who have awakened from the American dream.

Lost with GPS

The last time my personal mechanic (friend who drives my car to work, fixes it, drives it to my house, gets a ride home from me) returned my car, he laughed at me and said "Anne: you have maps in your car!" I love gadgets: my iPod, my many computers, my wireless routers, my speakers, my Palm, my phone. He couldn't believe I didn't have a GPS navigator. I do get lost sometimes but it's usually when I leave the YahooMap at my desk. I am pretty good at getting places.

So I went to a meeting at the Stockton Hotel. It's in Stockton, NY doncha know? I got so lost, over and over. I stopped for directions twice and managed to get info from left/right dyslexics both times. I missed the food, which wasn't a big loss.

I bought a Garmin nuvi270. It was really cheap, as these things go. I wanted it before I did one of my frequent runs to 1166, code for my parents' old house. I flew to JFK and rented a lovely large SUV. Spent the afternoon and night with my brother and his kids, went to 1166 the next AM, loaded up the car with a couple of chairs, bowls, books, and a 50 lb concrete mushroom, and drove home. The Garmin wanted me to go on Route 17, which I have always hated, but since I couldn't figure out the other way to do it, I gave in and took 17 from Binghamton. It was much better than last time. I just couldn't remember how to get off it.

The Garmin took me into windmill land. I went north and then west on a road I would name "Seasonal", without shoulders or center lines. Those who have driven with me know I hate steep roads and wow these roads were steep. At the top, there was a lot of snow on the ground and there were about 100 high tech enormous windmills. (Does anyone know where the wind becomes electricity and where the power lines are?)

So I got home pretty fast, despite my 40 mph tour through the roughest land I have seen in western NY. I would like to let Garmin know that Telegraph Hill is not a good way to route someone making that trip, unless they are visiting the farm up there, but I now cannot find my route on a map.

I probably will never see 1166 again: the buyer will tear it down and landscape it. I wonder what happens to the $22,000/year property and school tax when the building is gone. The end of an era.

I thought if I had a blog, I would write more. We'll see how that goes.

I am an MD but astonishingly poorly educated otherwise. Some educational lowpoints: I never took a science course in high school (made college confusing: the "first" time I went to college I took physics and didn't know there was a textbook!). I got through college without taking English. I was so mad at high school English teachers for ruining literature for me that I punished myself. I recently found a paper I wrote in sociology. I could swear I never took a sociology class! Made a big impression on me I guess. I took 4 years of Latin, 3 years of French, and 2 years of Spanish. I can count in French and Spanish and ask where the library is. I can't understand the answer however, so I try to travel to English speaking countries or in the company of my Francophone son. Fortunately, the rest of the world has better language skills than I do and can speak English.

Might finish this later: generator test in 4 minutes.

March 09 column from The Beacon

Editor: Infrastructure

The buzz word of the post finance-as-real-industry economy is “infrastructure.” Over a period of 25 years our economy morphed from one in which people made things they could eat, sit on, drive, or wear into one in which some people got really, really, really rich counting and betting on future money, while a lot of the rest of us earned a living servicing each other in government, schools, hospitals, and prisons. I knew this bogus economy couldn’t last.

So when the “Fed” has lowered interest rates to 0% above prime to stimulate the economy and there is nothing left in the tool chest, before double digit unemployment and deflation hit, we are discussing government spending on infrastructure to make jobs and fix what’s broken. Put people to work repairing bridges and crumbling schools, bringing train travel and internet service up to European standards, protecting and improving water supplies, updating the grid so that if it snows in winter, a million people in Kentucky aren’t without electricity for 2 weeks.

To me the most important infrastructure is people. The foundation of a strong nation is built upon the people who live there. They must be educated. They must understand their government. They must know how to learn. They must have a critical awareness of the world. We heard that spending on education would be protected in these hard times, even increased.

On a cold Saturday headed to the annual Legislative Breakfast, co-sponsored by our Western Region PTA, the Erie County Association of School Boards, the League of Women Voters, and school administrators, NPR reported that a large chunk of the education piece had been excised from the stimulus package in front of the US Senate. Apparently supporting human infrastructure by fixing crumbling schools is not that important a part of a stimulus package.

GM, obliged to present a plan to restructure to qualify for a zillion dollars from the US government to avoid bankruptcy, will probably fire 20,000 US workers and another 27,000 around the world. What are we getting for our money? CEO bonuses and shareholder dividends? The fired rank and file (and the laid-off non-GM folks who make the parts) will join those in need of health care coverage. They will not be sending their kids to college. They will not be paying income taxes. They will certainly not be supporting GM since they will be keeping their cars on the road for 15 years. We just hope they will not be forced to live in their cars like some neighbors we have heard about.

I took Amtrak to the LegEd Conference in Albany. I was so happy to be on a comfortable train in America and I was so angry when I got off. For most of the trip, there is one track and passenger trains get to wait while freight trains pass them. I missed the first session of the meeting. In Europe, the trains run on time. That’s what good infrastructure gets you.

Advocacy for children and education will be very hard this year, with the stresses the economy places on our resources. PTA and our school board, teacher, and library allies have a long row to hoe. It has always been a daunting task to pursue our issues. This year will be a particular challenge. We must stand together and keep our eyes on the prize. PTA power!

(From The Beacon, the newsletter of Western Region PTA. Copyright 2009. Reproduce with permission and attribution not for profit.)