Obamanomics in the Great Recession

Building a Dam -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Pundits have made many comparisons between the Great Recession of 2008-2010 and the Great Depression of the 1930’s. While recent events have been scary and unsettling, 2010 doesn’t even approach the gravity of 1932. From 1929 to 1932, industrial production fell 45%. 5,000 banks folded and 25% of all workers (37% of all nonfarm workers) were unemployed. 2010 is a walk in the park compared to that.

There are similarities – in 2008, the machinery of capitalism did slip into near-neutral. Several major investment banks failed; GM and Chrysler had to be bailed out by Uncle Sam and unemployment flirted with the 10% mark. The Obama administration took a page from Franklin Roosevelt and attempted to right the situation with Keynesian pump-priming – a nearly $1 trillion stimulus package. The results seem middling to poor on recent review; it might be good to take a look back at FDR’s New Deal, particularly its largest agency, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to see how that model worked out.

The WPA was created in 1935 as part of the Emergency Relief Appropriation – enacted overwhelmingly by a House vote of 329 to 78. Across 8 years (1935-1943) WPA provided jobs to 8 million Americans and at one point was the largest employer in America. WPA created bridges, school buildings, utility infrastructure, lodges, libraries, theaters and many other public works throughout the nation. Nearly every town and hamlet in America enjoys the WPA legacy. Some national landmarks (LA’s Griffith Observatory and Oregon’s famous Timberline Lodge) owe their existence to WPA. The University of Texas at Austin has many beautiful Spanish-Mediterranean classroom buildings built by WPA. White Rock Lake here in Dallas has distinctive docks, bridges, gazebos, expanded Lawther Drive and a Bath House all created by either WPA or its companion program, Civiilian Conservation Corps (for teens and young adults).

WPA had limitations built into it. Employees could not work more than 30 hours/week, and only one member of a household could be an employee. Average annual wage was $1,200 (decent money for an otherwise unemployed, depression-era family). Despite these impositions, WPA lifted many people out of poverty and despair. 17% of the national black population was employed by WPA; in Mississippi, 60% of the WPA female employees had no husbands (they were divorced, separated, widowed or deserted); they were helped enormously by WPA.

By 1937, John Keynes’ economic theory had worked much of its magic – production, profit and wages were restored to 1929 levels. The government’s largesse gave dispossessed people spending money and indirectly created demand in the private economy. This pleasant state was oddly short-lived -- there was a Great Recession in 1937 which would compare to our 2010 debacle. Republicans in 1937 were hoping to wield the downturn as a weapon against FDR in the 1940 Presidential Election. Economists felt at the time (and more so since) that Congress was too quick in declaring success – a series of program cuts and tax increases had been implemented @ 1936 to curtail the growing deficit. A recovery was brought about in mid-1938 with farm subsidies and newly funded WPA projects. Full recovery to employment wasn’t achieved until war-time spending of 1941, but that’s not an indictment against FDR or the New Deal. Most of FDR’s programs struggled for Congressional passage and funding following 1936, despite his personal popularity.

WPA was savaged in the 1930’s much as Obama’s Stimulus package is today. WPA was accused of being the ultimate socialistic Pork Barrel spending, a bodacious, out-of-control buying of votes. In the 1930’s it was also seen as entrenching the power of labor unions. The exact same critiques are leveled today, and frequently met with the same Keynesian reply of yesteryear – there’s actually not enough priming of the pump. Noted economist Paul Krugman maintains that the trillion dollar stimulus of 2008-2009 was a decent first volley, but not nearly enough to fix things. A spending retrenchment at this point might send us in precisely the wrong direction.

What to make of the WPA, historically? In general, it did much to restore personal pride and economic balance to our nation. 1920’s Capitalism had failed us utterly, and the only pre-FDR remedies were bread lines and charitable giving. WPA gave a constructive way out of a destructive situation. What’s more, WPA made something very clear – that people are more important than money, things or even hallowed institutions when said institutions are unfathomable failures. Let’s hope that the lucidity of that message stays with us in the 2010 mid-terms. We don’t want to relive the 1930’s.

© 2010 blogSpotter

The Candy Man

Wonka gives us truth dipped in chocolate -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
When I was very young, I saw two categories of movie -- movies that were on television, and movies that my mother particularly wanted to see. That leaves out a wide swath of movies from the period before I had a driver's license and ticket money. I've recently seen "Wicker Man" and "Butterflies Are Free" from my early teen era, via Netflix. Both were smaller budget movies, very big in their quality and respective messages.

Another movie I finally saw was 1971's "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". I have to admit that as a self-conscious 14 year old, I probably would never have sought this movie out. I figured it was a silly musical about a magical chocolate factory and nothing really compelled me towards it. With 40 years' hindsight, "Wonka" was and is a movie well worth seeing. The movie has a very adult sensibility about it -- in places I thought maybe I was watching a Monty Python sketch or a John Waters movie. In fact, children were warned away from a couple of scary sequences which reminded me of "Clockwork Orange" or some other surreality meant mainly for adult eyes.

Wonka has characters (e.g., Oompa Loompas), words and tag phrases that follow us around today, much akin to the witticisms of Oscar Wilde or the characters' remarks from "Alice in Wonderland". My favorite, when the characters were stuck in a narrow hallway Willie says, "Sometimes you have to go backward to go forward".

"Wonka" was based on "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" -- written by Roald Dahl in 1964. Dalh also wrote "James and the Giant Peach" as well as many other works written for all different ages. In "Wonka", five children win golden tickets for a personal tour of the chocolate factory. The children (except for Charlie) are variously bratty, fool-hearty, gluttonous or stupid. I wondered if Dahl was pointing up the Seven Sins of Catholicism but who knows. Each of the naughty children meets with unpleasantness. One gets sent to a fudge boiler for drinking from the chocolate river. Another goes to the berry juicing room to be "dejuiced" after ignoring Wonka's warning about a test piece of chewing gum. Yet a third (bratty rich girl) goes down a garbage chute for bad eggs. A fourth lad gets transduced to a tiny ken-doll size after toying with Wonkavision.

Charlie emerges as the only one who isn't obstinate, bratty or greedy. He also resists temptations to sell Wonka's Gobsmacker factory secret to a rival candy maker Slugworth. For this, he wins Wonka's faith and is made heir to the entire chocolate factory. I've left out many details in this condensing of the tale. Each child has an adult guardian on tour with him, exhibiting the same character defects as the child and meeting the same fate as the respective child. Charlie is accompanied by has kindly grandfather where most of the children have a mother or father.

"Wonka" met with criticism from all directions when it came out. People in the children's literature business were horrified that a children's tale would have so much negativity -- primarily children going to metaphorical if not literal deaths. One boat ride through a tunnel has scary images flashed across the screen, though nothing actually too alarming.

Roald Dahl was originally a screen writer for the movie but was diverted to another project. The final edit was done without Dahl and he was unhappy with the end result, right down to the title. He thought there was too much emphasis on Willie Wonka and not on Charlie, the intended hero. He didn't like a scene where Charlie and his grandfather must belch their ways down from a ceiling (after drinking a test soda pop that makes you float in the air). Dahl was livid enough that he ceased working with the production company and wouldn't allow them to do his sequel, "Charlie and the Glass Elevator".

I thought that "Wonka" was excellent (particularly Gene Wilder in the title role), but have one minor plot quibble. I'm assuming the story is some type of allegory as are many children's stories. The four children who are variously shrunk, boiled, dejuiced and trashed are mostly guilty of impatience and gluttony. When Charlie and his grandfather drink the test soda, they've basically committed the same faux pas with about the same type of motivation. The only difference is maybe one of style -- Charlie isn't as snarky or mean as the other kids. OK, if Willie Wonka is a God-metaphor then maybe we can all take comfort -- you get points for not being snarky or mean.

If you get a chance, "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" is well worth viewing. The Netflix version was excellent quality. Extra musical bonus -- you'll soon recognize the theme song from a current AT&T commercial and be grooving to the song "Candy Man" (which was also a 1972 Sammy Davis Jr hit song).

© 2010 blogSpotter

Aquarian Afternoon

Hippie chic -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
I grew up in a transitional time -- a little too young for the '60's hippie movement and too old to really appreciate a lot of today's popular culture (still not into hip hop). As a UT freshman in 1975, I wanted desperately to be a hippie. This was in spite of the fact that the whole movement was mainstream and passé by that point. Also, I had an Air Force retiree dad who couldn't tolerate his youngest son looking like a pot head. So alas, I allowed my hippiedom to be squelched.

What exactly is a hippie? The American incarnation is as recent as 1965 (when the New York Times first used the term hippie in an article), although the concept of peace-loving non-conformity goes as far back as Jesus, Buddha or St. Francis of Assisi. Even here in America, there was a group in the early 1900's known as Der Wandervogel -- a communal group of German immigrants who promoted health food and looked down on crass materialism. The word hippie comes from hipster and that word is only as recent as the 1940's. Just prior to the 1960's, we had the "Beat Generation" of the '50's, championed by maverick poets and writers like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. Ginsberg was best known for his poem Howl and Kerouac was known for On the Road written like a personal journal. Both men promoted the concepts of personal and sexual freedom -- dramatic ideas for the fifties.

The full-on hippie movement came to us in the mid 60's and was probably a socially organic response to things like the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War and the dull, programmed sameness of American suburbs like Levittown. We were a pugilistic, materialistic society on the brink -- the hippie movement just might have saved us from our vacuous, vapid and hell-bent selves. Hippies questioned everything -- middle class values, nuclear weapons, polluting industries, eating meat and many other American traditions. Hippies also promoted mind expansion through psycho-active drugs and alternative religions. To a buttoned-down Methodist from Midland, this might all seem shocking but in retrospect it seems much like a cure for what ailed such a blinders-on society. Not to say we should all be hippies, but it might just be that they opened our minds and our eyes to some more constructive ideas.

The implicit idealism of the hippie movement was short-lived. Pragmatism and Idealism can't be dance partners for very long, and pragmatism usually prevails. San Francisco became overrun with homeless people, seeking the "free stores" and handouts that happened mostly in 1967's Summer of Love. A woman was stabbed to death at 1969's Altamont Concert (which featured the Rollins Stones). Students were shot by the National Guard at a 1970 Kent State protest and numerous rock luminaries succumbed to drug overdoses (Rock and Roll Heaven welcomed Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix among many others). Some hippies were being tracked by the FBI's COINTELPRO although as a group, hippies tended toward expression through lifestyle rather than strident political involvement. Still, the movement had lost much of its steam by the early 1970's.

Something else happened too, which is a credit to the hippie movement and a blessing to the world. America listened to the music -- much of the counter culture message was heard and became a part of our mainstream world. Our society became more open-minded. LGBT people have more freedom to live openly and young couples can live together without fear of ostracism. Religious and cultural diversity are more accepted -- diversity is a mantra of most companies and city councils. Health food which was once the domain of liberal fanatics is now a large-scale, profitable business for companies like Whole Foods.

I can imagine some friends and relatives who would pale at the idea of gay, American Buddhists eating Kashi cereal with oats and drinking green tea. I'm hoping that these friends and relatives will someday open their hearts and minds to the Aquarian Age, which is now in its middle age. When students and protestors levitated the Pentagon in 1967, they chanted, "The whole world is watching". I think in some sense they did levitate the Pentagon and the whole world was watching. In spite of what you might think about how the Vietnam War was resolved, it's good that hippies gave us a "none of the above" option for our conduct of foreign policy and conduct of life in general.

© 2010 blogSpotter