I've been reading a microecon textbook recently, because I am admittedly in over my head every time serious discussions of the topic come up. Recently, they've come up every day. Since I wax on publicly about economic policy from time to time, I figured I literally needed to do my homework. (You can do my homework, too -- MIT offers free online course materials for a number of their econ classes). I also read a couple of economics blogs every day, just to see what the people whose econ homework is decades behind them are saying, and I follow this up with the aforementioned dose of the Wall Street Journal. I present this information not to show that I'm uniquely or even adequately qualified to be talking about this, but to give anyone who reads this an idea of where I'm coming from when I say this:
Some of our public officials are massive idiots.
There are two glaring examples of this right now. Rachel Maddow has nicely covered the idiocy of Senator Richard Burr (R-N.C.), and here's a nice one-minute round up (full disclosure: put together by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee) of what he did:
Maddow also nicely, and with a heavy dose of snark, described what's so troubling about this incident on her show:
Second of all, the FDIC insures your freaking deposit, Senator Genius. Third of all, you think it‘s worth making a “run on the bank” anyway because of what you‘ve learned in Washington about what‘s going on in the financial sector but you don‘t tell your constituents. You instead just use that information you‘ve got because of your position as a senator to protect your own family?
And fourth, what kind of a genius admits to having done this and suggesting a “run on the banks” in public? What kind of a genius? A genius named United States senator from North Carolina Richard Burr, that‘s who. If you‘ve never heard of him, it‘s probably because he‘s vying with the likes of Senators Barrasso and Crapo to be the most anonymous member of the United States Senate.
So we have a Senator who thinks bank runs are a prudent, All-American response to a financial disaster. Excellent. Who can top that?
How about a Detroit City Councilman who decided to walk away from his dream home this week -- not because he was about to be foreclosed on, but because he was underwater in his mortgage? City Council member and probably mayoral candidate Kwame Kenyatta (a Democrat) and his wife, a former city commissioner, saw their home value fall from $225,000 to $100,000 this year, and faced a $1,000 increase on their $2,600 mortgage payments. So they walked away in December and rented a condo instead:
In Detroit, the median sales price for a home is now a pathetic $5,800, down more than $66,000 from seven years ago. An estimated 16,000 foreclosed homes are on the market in the city of about 920,000 residents. Detroit also has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, at around 20 percent.
Kenyatta's former neighborhood, North Rosedale Park, is unlike most of the rest of Detroit. Stately, well-kept brick homes line quiet, winding streets. It fights to hold off blight from surrounding northwest side neighborhoods.
Kenyatta's former home is the ugly duckling on its block. Dead grass spreads gray across the lawn. Withered advertising circulars are strewn about the porch and the hedges.
I am sympathetic to the Kenyattas' problem, particularly the upcoming mortgage-rate adjustment -- but my sympathy lies more strongly with their neighbors. "'If I'm going to follow you, you need to be a leader,' said Patricia Dixon, a former neighbor of Kenyatta's. 'You don't show leadership by walking away from your home in the city of Detroit. You have vandalism where they find out the houses are vacant. You have people stealing fireplaces.'"
If you are going to be in government, you must be focused on and capable of real leadership. Maybe Kenyatta and Burr both consider themselves leaders -- maybe other people do, too. But the direction both are leading people toward is a very dangerous, irresponsible direction. Our financial system -- and our financial recovery -- hinges upon people doing the right things, on people doing things like leaving their money in the banks, paying their taxes, staying in their homes and making their payments, and generally contributing to an overall return to financial health that will require, at times, moves that seem against an indvidual's short term interest -- but which have long-term dividends to offer in the form of a functioning, expanding economy.The financial issues facing us at every level -- local, statewide, nationally, and internationally -- are terribly complex. Most of us, and I include these men, do not have the time to understand every aspect. But if you're going to take a job where you'll be charged at some point with making decisions about these complex issues, you should at least be familiar enough to understand how your own actions figure into overall economic health. (And if not -- you should find a staff member, or an online course, or a nearby community college, to help you figure this stuff out, particularly if you're being paid for it).
I hope, I truly hope, that both of these men made their decisions based simply on ignorance of the issues, and not upon some idea that it's OK to put personal interests ahead of those of the public, but my suspicion runs in the other direction.TIP:
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Catherine Forsythe
Writer to the Stars
Emily Holleman
Iron Skillet
Leslie Harpole
old new lefty
Salon.com
Comments
Oh, and by the way, best line in your essay: "I've been reading a microecon textbook recently..."
Wow. I've been studying up on soundtrack music of the 80s in preparation for an essay on the cultural and geo-political significance of Kenny Loggins' music. I feel badly about this now.
BBE, sigh. Yes. He may still be Mayor Kenyatta.
Ha! Well, research is what matters, MJ, not the topic. Seems we're both spending time studying.
Agreed, Poet -- no surprise, but still disappointing.
The lion's share of my sympathy lies exactly where you say it should, O/E, I promise.
"It's just spend a buck to make a buck, you don't really give a flying fuck about the people in misery."
The only way to make it go away is blissful ignorance.
Or some apocalyptic event...
The conventional wisdom that the political arena governs over and can trump the economic is incorrect - that is, that if we could just get the right politicians and public officials in office, they could take care of things by doing the right things.
It would be better and more accurate to refer to it as the political economy of imperialism. If we continue to hope that public officials will do what must be done, then we need to consider the fact that they were nearly all of them neck deep in the deregulatory and privatization policies that facilitated the financial crisis and fed the Madoffs and Stanfords. This wasn't a mistake or an oversight. It WAS shortsightedness, but it's the kind of shortsightedness that has to be expected from a system whose raison d'etre is profit. In other words, the problem runs deeper than bad leadership. It's a bankrupt economic system, in more than one sense.
Listen up.
ALL of the following people are DEAD:
Barbara Hale~~Della Street
William Hopper~~Paul Drake
William Talman~~Hamilton burger
Ray Collins~~Lt. Tragg
Wesley Lau~~Lt. Anderson(Andy)
and GASP!!
RAYMOND BURR~~Perry Mason.
Did nobody else read the lede in OS??
And I'm jealous Saturn - I posted this exact same story on April 16:
http://open.salon.com/blog/grif82600/2009/04/15/right_wing_loonies_are_pissing_me_off_a_nightmare
No EP, no Cover, and very few ratings/comments. I don't get it.
And to the Eds. - it's RICHARD not RAYMOND. Just shows how well known he is.
Good post Saturn.
(and grif, I wish I knew how the magic of EP's worked, because I'd have a better answer to give you than -- oh man! That sucks. I bopped over and read your piece, though. Thanks for the link.)