Too Poor to Make the News - NYTimes.com
Paul D. Fernhout
"Too Poor to Make the News" By BARBARA EHRENREICH
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/opinion/14ehrenreich.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all/
"""
... In some accounts, the recession is even described as the “great
leveler,” smudging the dizzying levels of inequality that characterized the
last couple of decades and squeezing everyone into a single great class, the
Nouveau Poor, in which we will all drive tiny fuel-efficient cars and grow
tomatoes on our porches.
... But the outlook is not so cozy when we look at the effects of the
recession on a group generally omitted from all the vivid narratives of
downward mobility — the already poor, the estimated 20 percent to 30 percent
of the population who struggle to get by in the best of times. This
demographic, the working poor, have already been living in an economic
depression of their own. From their point of view “the economy,” as a shared
condition, is a fiction.
... When I called food banks and homeless shelters around the country,
most staff members and directors seemed poised to offer press-pleasing tales
of formerly middle-class families brought low. But some, like Toni Muhammad
at Gateway Homeless Services in St. Louis, admitted that mostly they see
“the long-term poor,” who become even poorer when they lose the kind of
low-wage jobs that had been so easy for me to find from 1998 to 2000. As
Candy Hill, a vice president of Catholic Charities U.S.A., put it, “All the
focus is on the middle class — on Wall Street and Main Street — but it’s the
people on the back streets who are really suffering.”
... And for those who like their meat fresh, there’s the option of urban
hunting. In Racine, Wis., a 51-year-old laid-off mechanic told me he’s
supplementing his diet by “shooting squirrels and rabbits and eating them
stewed, baked and grilled.” In Detroit, where the wildlife population has
mounted as the human population ebbs, a retired truck driver is doing a
brisk business in raccoon carcasses, which he recommends marinating with
vinegar and spices.
... The most common coping strategy, though, is simply to increase the
number of paying people per square foot of dwelling space — by doubling up
or renting to couch-surfers. It’s hard to get firm numbers on overcrowding,
because no one likes to acknowledge it to census-takers, journalists or
anyone else who might be remotely connected to the authorities. At the legal
level, this includes Peg taking in her daughter and two grandchildren in a
trailer with barely room for two, or my nephew and his wife preparing to
squeeze all four of them into what is essentially a one-bedroom apartment.
But stories of Dickensian living arrangements abound.
... And doubling up is seldom a stable solution. According to Toni
Muhammad, about 70 percent of the people seeking emergency shelter in St.
Louis report they had been living with relatives “but the place was too
small.” When I asked Peg what it was like to share her trailer with her
daughter’s family, she said bleakly, “I just stay in my bedroom.”
The deprivations of the formerly affluent Nouveau Poor are real enough,
but the situation of the already poor suggests that they do not necessarily
presage a greener, more harmonious future with a flatter distribution of
wealth. There are no data yet on the effects of the recession on measures of
inequality, but historically the effect of downturns is to increase, not
decrease, class polarization.
The recession of the ’80s transformed the working class into the working
poor, as manufacturing jobs fled to the third world, forcing American
workers into the low-paying service and retail sector. The current recession
is knocking the working poor down another notch — from low-wage employment
and inadequate housing toward erratic employment and no housing at all.
Comfortable people have long imagined that American poverty is far more
luxurious than the third world variety, but the difference is rapidly narrowing.
Maybe “the economy,” as depicted on CNBC, will revive again, restoring
the kinds of jobs that sustained the working poor, however inadequately,
before the recession. Chances are, though, that they still won’t pay enough
to live on, at least not at any level of safety and dignity. In fact, hourly
wage growth, which had been running at about 4 percent a year, has undergone
what the Economic Policy Institute calls a “dramatic collapse” in the last
six months alone. In good times and grim ones, the misery at the bottom just
keeps piling up, like a bad debt that will eventually come due.
"""
Is open manufacturing and peer production really going to help this 20% to
30% of the US population any time soon?
I'd suggest, "no", if only for the reason that the poor have no space for
peer production in over-crowded apartments. But they also don't have tools
or materials or skills.
It would seem to me that for open manufacturing and peer production to help
the poorest, there would need to be essentially free public workshops with
free scrap materials for poor people to use, as well as free instructions.
In that sense, a HackerSpace or public FabLab could be seen as like a
community garden.
Here is a non-profit that has been helping communities put in gardens for
years. Maybe they could expand their program to community workshops?
"Isles | Fostering more self-reliant families in healthy, sustainable
communities"
http://isles.org/main/
That does not mean open manufacturing is worthless or might not help the
poor in the long term, even if it just was more a middle class thing; I'm
just poking at the realistic limits of OM right now.
A basic income would help all these poor people tomorrow, though -- even one
of only US$500 a month. That would be $1.8 trillion a year, or in two years,
the cost of the banking bailout more or less, and then we could see how it
went. It seems pretty obvious to me which would have made a bigger
difference to main street, which was supposedly the rationale for the
bailouts (the average people would supposedly get hurt if the big banks
failed, or so it was said, and then the banks took the money and put it
under their mattresses, gave it out as bonuses, or used it to buy other banks).
By the way, a comment I made on basic income and post-scarcity ended up on
the front-page of the site where I saw that above link:
"Conceptual Guerilla"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/
For after it scrolls:
"Too Good to Hide"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/2899
(Just mostly cut-and-paste for stuff I've posted here.)
Conceptual Guerrilla is a site that helped open my eyes in the early part of
this decade to a bunch of social issues. It was started by a "liberal" trial
lawyer, to focus on ideology as a counter to the "cheap labor" conservative
right.
It looks like it is the first mention of a "basic income" on that site:
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=search/node/%22basic+income%22
I'm glad I could give something back to it.
Here's something "optimistic" from that site: :-)
"Total Systems Disintegration 2009 by GEAB"
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/?q=node/2592
"Again, total collapse is impossible. Under-confidence is possible for a
time – money is proportional to confidence – confidence never totally
disappears, because there is still people, workers, land, buildings,
infrastructure, systems, etc. Even the unrealistic confidence (the delay in
facing facts) holds up money. There can only be a correction to the
overconfidence, which for a while produces an over correction, but this
overcorrection gets corrected by the substantial wealth showing the value of
the money. There cannot be a total collapse, because land and people and
infrastructure do not disappear. The stages of the collapse may be terrible
in local effects (riots, etc), but overall, the substantial wealth sustains
in a substantial way. It may look like things are in freefall, and headed
for zero, but the trampoline of substantial wealth is below – the momentum
of the fall to the trampoline drives the trampoline down below its level for
a while, but the trampoline pulls the level of money back up to level. Even
if all the governments and money and trade disappeared, there would be
people and work, options, efforts, rolling up of sleeves and fulfilling
needs using whatever was available. The ultimate wealth is people and nature
– they produce everything, and will continue to do so. ... Increasing the
money supply say 1% a month and GIVING this to everyone equally (only to
save the vast bureaucratic cost of distinguishing the 1% overpaid and 99%
underpaid) – which can be done by a computer, ie low bureaucracy - will
increase spending, increasing production, increasing market confidence: you
have to water the plants to make them grow. The gift (return of stolen
earnings) overcompensates all the underpaid for the inflation effect and
‘robs’ the overpaid gently, unobtrusively, automatically through their
spending. If the superrich cannot understand pay justice, they can at least
understand that you have to leave enough wool on the sheep so you can fleece
them again. Lastly, Hate is a luxury item – when things are tough, people
rally round, know they have to be tolerant, loving, cooperative, caring,
communal. When things are tough there is a rise in that sort of attitude –
some turning from competition and antagonism to cooperation and compassion.
Even if you do nothing, you have safety nets – family, friends, society.
Very, very few people in America will starve. When one is going down, one
feels that ‘maybe I will keep falling forever’, but there is the trampoline
below – the energy of people, the productivity, even in social disorder,
nature’s bounty. Things will come up again, even as they did after the last
boom and bust and boom again. Life is a wave - the very fact of things going
down stimulates people to turn things around. The 800 who own everything may
even let Obama do an FDR – the big enough bust makes even republicans more
responsible and realistic. People may even feel some shame – there has to be
something good about the bottom of the wave because it is all up from there.
..."
The rest of the article talks about "pay justice" but misses the point that
there are a lot of people the economy does not pay for whatever reason.
Still, the notion is also there in passing of giving an increase in the
money supply to everyone is a basic income (it's just not called that). So,
the idea is showing up in various places.
Personally, I feel that article is actually too optimistic about one thing.
I feel like our economy is fundamentally broken because of the reduction of
demand and increase of productivity has finally broken the income-from-jobs
link that the Triple Revolution memorandum was so concerned about. So, while
I agree with the trampoline idea there, including people taking action, I
feel the result will have to include structural change related to the Triple
Revolution memorandum ideas.
By the way, here are some recipes for urban raccoon, just in case:
http://www.backwoodsbound.com/zracoon.html
This one looks marginally palatable:
http://www.backwoodsbound.com/zracoon6.html
"""
Coon Stew
Sent in by Nathan Kesterson.
~ 1 raccoon, cleaned, skinned and quartered
~ pepper
~ 4 cups water
~ 2 carrots, diced
~ 1 stalk celery, diced
~ 2 large potatoes, cubed
~ salt
In a large pot, place the meat and cover with water. Bring to a boil and
cook for 1 hour.
Remove meat and allow to cool. Discard water.
Remove meat from bones and cut into 1" to 2" cubes. Sprinkle with pepper.
Add meat back to pot and add water, carrots, celery and potatoes. Season to
taste with salt.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook until veggies are tender. Adjust
seasoning if needed.
Serve and enjoy.
"""
But obviously, rice and beans is probably cheaper and healthier for you;
it's certainly healthier for the raccoon. :-) Especially when supplemented
with fresh veggies from a personal plot in a community garden (like one
Isles helps create). Or maybe with seasonal vegetables from the supermarket
when possible, such as from dumpster diving (if it is legal in your area):
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dumpster+diving+food
Example:
http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2007/09/19/dumpster-diving-the-easiest-way-to-find-free-food/
"Dumpsters are full of provisions with passed expiration dates which are all
edible. If you’re not afraid."
Yes, my European friends, the New York Times in now reporting people in US
cities are hunting wild animals in the streets to feed their families (and
Raccoon is not normally something most people in the US eat anymore).
Note, that in the story, there was a "a 51-year-old laid-off mechanic" who
was shooting squirrels and rabbits in Racine, Wisconsin. (Yes, squirrels are
those cute things in some European zoos; my relatives from the Netherlands
were all excited to see them outside of cages here in the USA.) The US
infrastructure is in a sad state and desperately needs to be greened and
poor people are crowded into terrible conditions, and instead of making and
remaking and maintaining stuff, experienced US mechanics are forced to hunt
wild animals to survive. Also, if you do the math, there won't be many
squirrels, raccoons, rabbits, or pigeons left around cities soon. Rats may
last longer -- they are pretty crafty. So, that mechanic's urban survival
strategy is not very sustainable in the long term.
What a spectacular failure of an economic control system and the related
ideology.
But will the last couple decades worth of politicians, CEOs, bankers,
generals, pundits, reporters, foundation managers, university presidents,
and economics faculty give back all those years of salary for those bad
decisions as penance for messing up the USA's economic control system?
Probably not. They still mostly don't see they have done anything wrong,
which is the first step towards penance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penance
"Penance is repentance of sins as well as the proper name of the Roman
Catholic, Anglican, and Orthodox Christian Sacrament of Penance and
Reconciliation/Confession. The word penance derives from Old French and
Latin poenitentia, both of which derive from the same root meaning
repentance, the desire to be forgiven; (in English see contrition). Penance
and repentance, similar in their derivation and original sense, have come to
symbolize conflicting views of the essence of repentance, arising from the
controversy as to the respective merits of "faith" and "good works." Word
derivations occur in many languages."
Still, there are some people who have started down that road:
"Confessions of a Recovering Economist"
http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue21/Stanford21.htm
"I am an economist. It is seventeen days since I last uttered the phrase
"supply and demand." But the demon still lurks untamed, within me.
Economics is an addiction. Every other addiction has a Twelve Step program,
laced with tough love and blunt self-honesty. Why not a Twelve Step program
for economists? God knows, we have done enough damage with our arrogant,
drunken prescriptions. Here's how each and every economist can face up to
their inner demons, and make their own small contribution to setting things
right. ..."
--Paul Fernhout
http://www.pdfernhout.net/
P.S. For more of your survival needs, consider learning how to manufacture
local produce: :-)
http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/
"The Garden with Insight garden simulator is an educational simulation that
uses weather, soil, and plant growth models to simulate a simple garden in
an open-ended microworld setting. You can plant vegetables and grow them to
learn more about plants, the soil, the weather, gardening, and science."