Over at the Seventh Sense Ken Ashford points to a press release from an anti-abortion group that equates Krispy Kreme's giveaway on inauguration day to supporting abortion. You'll have to read it to believe it. As Ken says, these people do a good job of mocking themselves without any help from the rest of the world so I'll resist.
Apparently people in the Southeast have a lower level of confidence in the economy than the rest of the country, and we here in North Carolina have the lowest confidence in the Southeast. According to this article 70% of us have less confidence in our job security than six months ago and 35% of us feel it's likely we'll lose our jobs in the next six months. News like this won't help.
Ed Cone points to an interesting and scary article in the New York Times about coal ash ponds similar to the Tennessee pond that recently burst and contaminated hundreds of surrounding acres. If you look at this map you'll see that there are a couple just north of us here in Forsyth County. My question is this: What's the risk that those ponds could be contaminating the water system that feeds into the Triad?
Economic times are tough everywhere, and here in Winston-Salem it's no different. But as bad as it all seems as we hear about one layoff announcement after another, we've gotten off easy compared to Wilmington, Ohio:
In a town of fewer than 13,000 people. In the midst of the worst financial crisis in generations.
"It's going to test us," says Mayor David Raizk. "The numbers are frightening."
Those numbers came in a Nov. 10 announcement by
Deutsche Post World Net, the German owner of package-delivery company
DHL. After investing five years and nearly $9 billion, DHL is
abandoning its ill-starred effort to compete in the United States with
FedEx and UPS. Winding down its U.S. business will eliminate 9,500 DHL
positions around the country plus thousands more here at the company's
local partner, ABX Air.
Ouch.
Yes! Weekly's Keith Barber asks if it's wise for the city of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County to spend public funds on the new baseball stadium considering that our social services are stretched to the max. From his piece:
The official unveiling of the Winston- Salem minor league baseball team’s new name at the Millennium Center on Dec. 4 seemed a world away from the harsh realities facing many of Forsyth County’s residents. The general gaiety of the event enjoyed by an estimated 700 people felt like a scene out of the Roaring ’20s, like the day before the stock market crash of 1929…
At the end of October, the NC Employment Security Commission reported Forsyth’s unemployment rate at 6.3 percent. The number of unemployed individuals in Forsyth has risen 35.4 percent since the same period in 2007. Since Jan. 1, 2008, nine Forsyth employers have reported layoffs and 30 area businesses have shuttered their doors, putting more than 1,000 people out of work. And those are just the ones that have been reported.
Despite the hard times in Forsyth, the show went on at last week’s ceremony to announce the new name of the team formerly known as the Warthogs. Baseball Downtown and Mandalay Baseball, the managing entity of the minor league franchise, spared no expense at the event called “Baseball New Year.” When the team’s multi-millionaire owner, Billy Prim, and Winston-Salem Mayor Allen Joines unveiled the team’s new name — the Dash — the crowd roared its approval. All of this left me to wonder: Why would the city and the county agree to loan a multimillionaire upwards of $24 million to build a downtown ballpark when those funds could be more wisely spent on the needs of the homeless, the jobless and the hungry in Forsyth County? The Winston-Salem City Council agreed to put up $12 million toward the construction of the downtown ballpark in November 2007. In March of last year, the Forsyth County Commissioners approved a resolution allowing Prim’s company, Sports Menagerie LLC, and Brookstown Development Partners to receive economic development incentives up to $12.5 million to be paid in annual installments over a 25-year period. At that time, the economic outlook in Forsyth wasn’t as bleak as it currently is, but the picture wasn’t rosy by any stretch. In fact, Joines and the city council are four years into a 10-year plan to fight chronic homelessness. Andrea Kurtz of the United Way of Forsyth County is tasked with implementing the plan. Kurtz said the recession has pushed the resources of Forsyth’s social service agencies to their breaking point.
I've never liked the idea of public funding for ball parks that benefit private companies or individuals and my thinking on the Winston-Salem ball park has focused mainly on my disagreement with the philosophy of the use of public funds in this way. Until now I hadn't thought of the opportunity costs associated with the city's decision to fund the stadium, but when you do think about it they are substantial. Yes the city is due to get its money back eventually, but as Barber points out in the mean time the money could have been used to bolster social services now that it's really needed but it's tied up in the stadium project.
Since we've come this far I truly hope that the project is a success and that we see a revitalized downtown come out of this, but as a community we need to have a serious discussion about how tax dollars are used for private enterprise. What happens the next time an entrepreneur comes calling with an idea for a new theater, entertainment complex or indoor stadium that will be used as a cornerstone for some new revitalization effort in some other part of town? Do we whip out the checkbook or do we say "Good luck" and then provide as much help as we can to make it a reality by expediting permits, assigning someone to help them work through the red tape, etc.? As you might guess my vote would be for the latter.
Definition of schadenfreude: Pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. Greatest opportunity to engage in schadenfreude in at least two generations. Why? Vanity Fair has it here. Want to know why it's the greatest opportunity in memory? Here's a taste:
The new thriftiness takes a bit of getting used to. “I was at the
Food Emporium in Bedford [in Westchester County] yesterday, using my
Food Emporium discount card,” recounts one Greenwich woman. “The
well-dressed wife of a Wall Street guy was standing behind me. She
asked me how to get one. Then she said, ‘Have you ever used coupons?’ I
said, ‘Sure, maybe not lately, but sure.’ She said, ‘It’s all the rage
now—where do you get them?’”
One former Lehman executive in her 40s stood in her vast clothes
closet not long ago, talking to her personal stylist. On shelves around
her were at least 10 designer handbags that had cost her anywhere from
$6,000 to $10,000 each.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I guess I’ll have to get rid of the maid.”
Why not sell a few of those bags?, the stylist thought, but didn’t say so.
“Well,” the executive said after a moment, “I guess I’ll cut her from five days a week to four.”
And then there's this:
Alexandra Lebenthal, a New York–based wealth manager for investors
with between $2 million and $20 million in assets—the modest to
mid-level rich—offers a keenly authoritative portrait of a
thirtysomething Lehman banker, married with kids, in a guest column
called “What It Costs” on the Web site NewYorkSocialDiary. Blake and
Grigsby Somerset are fictional, their finances all too plausible.
Before Lehman’s stock began to plummet, Lebenthal suggests, Blake’s
annual compensation was $9.5 million—much of that in company stock. He
was carrying a $2 million loan used for a house in the Hamptons, but
felt perfectly able to afford his annual expenses: the Park Avenue
apartment maintenance ($120,000); the Hamptons house mortgage
($75,000); the nanny and driver ($100,000); his wife’s clothing
($100,000); the personal trainer three times a week ($18,000); food,
including restaurants ($30,000); charitable benefits and other
nonprofit causes ($200,000); private school for three children
($78,000); Christmas in Palm Beach ($15,000); spring in Aspen
($15,000); and a wedding-anniversary diamond necklace for Grigsby
($50,000).
At least Blake has been hired on by Barclays. But his Lehman stock
portfolio is now worthless. He and Grigsby have to cut their annual
living expenses from about $1 million to a fraction of that, and do it
in ways that don’t show, for the worst—the worst—would be the public disgrace of falling out of their social class.
First to go: vacations, the trainer, the driver, and entertaining.
No restaurants, no shopping excursions, no new ball clothes for Grigsby
(last year’s will have to do). But, for now—for appearances—the
Somersets will scrimp to keep the kids in their schools, and the nanny,
and the Hamptons house. For now.
Martin Eakes is one of the real good guys in this world. He's been an advocate for the poor, starting Self Help in 1980 with $77 raised in a bake sale and eventually providing financing to 50,000 home buyers who were considered higher risks by traditional lenders. He was also instrumental in the creation of the N.C. Coalition for Responsible Lending which pushed North Carolina to be the first state to pass an anti-predatory mortgage lending law in 1999.
Last week Eakes was jumped by four guys in a parking garage near his office in Durham. The beating left him with a severed left bicep, a torn hamstring and 15 stitches in his forehead. His nephew Patrick Eakes tells all about it here and it sounds like Martin is on the mend. Here's hoping for a quick recovery for one of the real good guys.
Virgil Goode, the five term US Congressman from Virginia's 5th district who gained some notoriety when he made a stink about an incoming Congressman taking the oath of office using the Quran (apparently he didn't care that the incoming Congressman was Muslim, thus making it much more sensible to use the Koran than the Bible), has probably lost his reelection bid. The margin is so slim that he's going to demand a recount, but if the count holds up then it will give Virginia more Democrats in Congress than Republicans, a stunning turn of events considering Goode had a 30 point edge in the polls as recently as August and the Republicans entered the election with an 8-3 edge in Congressional seats.
I'm not sure exactly why Goode lost, but I'm sure the economy had more than a little to do with it, especially when Goode continued running ads based on a fear-based campaign strategy straight out of Lee Atwater's playbook. Well, whatever the reason I'm sure some of the media are going to miss some of the gems that came out of Goode's mouth or pen. I'll share a couple below.
First, from a letter to constituents about that Muslim Congressman taking the oath on the Quran, who by the way was born and raised in the U.S.:
From a letter to USA Today defending his letter to constituents:
Immigration is arguably the most important
issue facing the country today. At least 12 million immigrants are here
illegally. And diversity visas, a program initiated in 1990 to grant
visas to people from countries that had low U.S. immigration at that
time, are bringing in 50,000 a year from various parts of the world,
including the Middle East.
Let us remember that we were not
attacked by a nation on 9/11; we were attacked by extremists who acted
in the name of the Islamic religion. I believe that if we do not stop
illegal immigration totally, reduce legal immigration and end diversity
visas, we are leaving ourselves vulnerable to infiltration by those who
want to mold the United States into the image of their religion, rather
than working within the Judeo-Christian principles that have made us a
beacon for freedom-loving persons around the world.
I wonder if anyone ever pointed out that a lot of illegal immigrants are Christian? Is a legal Christian immigrant preferable to an illegal Muslim immigrant? Oh, and as for our Judeo-Christian principles being a beacon I'd like to point out to the good ex-Congressman that many people, including the people we celebrate every Thanksgiving, came to America to escape religious persecution and to practice the religion of their choice without fear. There's nothing exclusive to Judeo-Christian tradition about it.
What truly kills me about people like Goode is that they seem to not realize that by imposing their religious values on the entire populace they open the door for someone else with other religious values to do the same at a later date. They also don't seem to see the hypocrisy of our country celebrating non-secular governments in the Middle East, and taking position that Islamic regimes like Iran's are bad and simultaneously calling for government policies at home to be based on Judeo-Christian values. In other words non-secular is good for the rest of the world, but not for the United States.
Of course the cynic in me thinks that this was a policy of convenience for Goode, a red-meat issue that he figured he could use to fire up his conservative base. Unfortunately for him I think his opponent did a good job of painting him as a political opportunist who's vote was for sale and by implication who's policies were for show only. I'll end this with the ad that his opponent ran that some observers think put the stake in the Goode campaign's heart:
An interesting piece at the Freakonomics blog looks into the "bigot belt" which is the swath of counties from Texas to West Virginia that actually went more Republican from 2004 to 2008 in the presidential elections. The question, simply put, was whether or not the reason was Obama's race. The answer ended up being yes, but the details of the research offered some enlightening conclusions.
The author, Eric Oliver, looked at whether it was really just race or perhaps the fact that these counties tended to be in heavy coal mining and oil drilling areas had something to do with it. Or maybe it was that these counties had a different racial breakdown than other areas. His conclusion was very interesting: these counties tended to have large white populations in states that were otherwise racially diverse. From the article:
These patterns are consistent with research on individual racial
attitudes. Historically, the greatest levels of racial violence
occurred within white enclaves near larger black populations,
particularly when these enclaves are poor and uneducated. Even today,
whites who live in poor, racially segregated neighborhoods within more
diverse metropolitan areas tend to be more racially hostile than whites
who live in either integrated neighborhoods or within largely white
regions. In more diverse settings, locally segregated whites have less
contact with nearby minorities yet also feel greater competition for
jobs and public goods. The combination of both increased racial
competition and racial isolation seems to be a recipe for generating
racial animosity.
As the author concludes we should not be fooled into thinking that this election has somehow catapulted us into an era of racially harmony. The fear of "other" has been with us since we crawled out of the primordial ooze, and I fear it will be ever thus.
I get enough email on any given day that it really takes a special subject line to grab my attention. My Dad managed it today with one word: Pricks.
Now my Dad's not a cusser so when he uses salty language it really sticks out. His email was in response to this post about how I'd like our next leader of the financial sector to be described. I really like what he wrote:
Put another way, I'll take a competent jerk over an incompetent clown any day, especially when it comes to my money.
Now I'm just waiting for an email from my Mom with the subject "A-holes" and I'll have seen everything.
Befuddled 