It's Official!

Even with this week's Bullish announcement of the sale the largest transportation company in America, by famously shrewd investor, Warren Buffett, we could not bully our way out of the statistics of our spasming economy. The psychological threshold to a full scale Depression has been passed. 10.2% unemployment has been a reality in many parts of the country for quite some time, but the nationwide average crossed into this crippling territory for the first time in twenty-six years thanks to continuing fallout from the "Reagan Revolution" which promised a rosy future for everyone as more and more wealth concentrating in the top echelons of income would "trickle down" creating good jobs and security. The slash and burn approach to governmental agencies like the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration), DHSS (Department of Health and Social Services), FDA (Food and Drug Administration), DATCAP (Department of Agriculture Trade and Consumer Protection) as well as a veritable alphabet soup of other agencies has led to less and less oversight, less and less protection, and ultimately less and less healthy and wealthy lives for the middle class and the poorest among us. The rise in incomes for the top ten percent of United states citizens have come from the systematic exploitation of the bottom ninety percent among us. These real losses have hit the poorest the hardest as you might imagine.

We can no longer deny that there is classism (even though spell check doesn't think so) in our culture. The poor among us are many many more times as likely to be incarcerated. As we see every day, the wealthy thieves, get off with a slap on the wrist, or perhaps a huge bonus for picking our collective pockets, while someone who tries to escape the brutal truth of their lives at the bottom of the income "ladder" ends up with years of prison for their victimless crime. Remember the "Roaring Twenties"? Wealth was siphoned off by "organized crime" through providing folks illegal goods. The same thing is going on now with huge drug cartels that do not respect international borders. When we look to the law to put them out of business, their buying power provides clout with governmental agencies that are charged with enforcing the law. Corruption is not only a foreign problem. It is alive and well in the heartland. Simultaneously, large subsidies and corporate welfare is paid for by all ofr us, but benefits only a tiny fraction of the population. In some cases we end up worse off for the expenditure of public funds for dubious purposes.

The economic terror that has been unleashed on the world is directly attributable to large cash flows that defy oversight by any governmental agency. This has to stop. Just having huge cash reserves, enough to hide in foreign banks or a stash as gold somewhere, should not give someone the air of propriety. As long as we worship dollars, we will tend to forget the value of humanity, truth or justice. Building communities that are supportive and sustainable is not yet rewarded. Without funding the necessary changes we are only demonstrating continued reliance on un- sustainable extractive economic structures. When food co-ops can form and get money as easily as a new superstore, we will send the message that there is a way to get healthy food for less money. When priorities change, it will be evidenced by the way we think about health, safety and wealth. We need to rethink what our needs are so that we can get a handle on our wants. There will be a much deeper sense of security when our basic needs can be met at lower cost.

My own situation, as a professional had improved through educating myself and keeping myself in demand. Just in the past five years, I have had to learn to live on less than half of the income to which I had become accustomed. This, at a time that prices, for most things, continued to rise. Many of the things that I thought I had worked my way up to have been taken away. Just as I was climbing out of poverty, the rules changed. Health insurance, travel, vacations of any type, gifts for the giving, etc. have all gone the way of the dinosaur in my life. The moral anguish of not being able to give one's children the things they need to thrive creates desperation in most folks. Even those who are still "making it" in this economy have had to curtail their spending on extras. What we find now is that there are less and less dollars available to flow around in the economy.

Many of us started talking about these issues as far back as the eighties. Each dollar spent in the local economy tends to circulate ten to twenty times, rewarding our neighbors and enriching our local, sustainable community. If we spend our dollars at places owned or managed by far off corporations, the money tends to fly away, never to return. The same is true of our children. If they feel that they have to move away to achieve their dreams, they most-likely will never return to enrich our neighborhoods. In my time, I was called names for what I knew to be true, perhaps by the time my grandchildren become adults, the tide will have shifted and the truth will be self-evident to our decision-makers as well as the general public.

The good that can come of this economic downturn lies in our ability to learn and grow. Knowing that what worked in the past will no longer be helpful to us and being willing to ask ourselves hard questions like: Where do we go from here? These are the new realities with which we must grapple. These are the challenges of our age. If we think positively about ten percent unemployment, we might see our way to a new place in which those ten percent went out into the world to help others, start new initiatives that build community and help take care of our children. With modest amounts of investment we could allow new businesses and new approaches to old problems to arise that would surpass our wildest dreams of what could be.
Imagine, having all of our needs met at a fraction of the cost. It is possible through time tested and readily available structures. Co-operatives for food, transit and housing are already on the rise. The local food movement has unleashed a new breed of local economies, based on food for people and profit. What begins the process of change is changing our ideas. Then we need to make the sacrifices needed to reorient our lives. This frees us up, to have the latitude to re-envision a new social and economic order that will be sustainable for the next seven generations.

Peace be with you! Blessed Be! and Namaste', your humble servant, tcs