Making It In the New Economy

Almost two years after introducing the iPhone and a year since giving the world a new operating system, Apple had a splashy ceremony today showing off yet another iPhone, operating system upgrades, and new laptops.

But, Apple, realizing that these one-right-after-another "new models" reeks of Detroit's now famed planned obsolescence is offering consumers something not many manufacturers are doing these days: price reductions.  Not a lot, but enough to perhaps disguise the lack of sustainability in the constant "newness" they are pumping up.

So it seems the new economy isn't that different from the old economy.  Spend money on the new and shiny!

Banning Books About Agriculture

Michael Pollan and Alice Waters are the celebrated leaders of the locavore movement, that is, buying produce and meats grown and raised close to your home.  The idea is one of sustainability, the closer the food is to market, the less energy is used to produce it.  Also, local produce and meats mean, perhaps, more preservation of biodiversity because producers are not trying to "force" products in climates and regions they do not grow.  It's all great, in theory, or if you happen to live in the Berkeley Hills and are surrounded by some of the most productive farm land (thanks to irrigation, by the way) in the world.

Pollan's latest book, The Omnivore's Dilemma was chosen by the Washington State University faculty to be the "must read" for the incoming freshman class in 2009.  WSU (or as we call it Wazoo) has traditionally been Washington State's agriculture school.  One of the regents, a wheat farmer from Walla Walla, read the book and apparently mentioned his objections to the president of the university and sure enough, the book was pulled.  In Pollan's book he takes aim at large agri-businesses and how overly processed foods have led to an epidemic of obesity in America.

Wazoo apparently kowtowed to an ag-based regent as well as the industry that funds many of it's programs.  In a budget-crunch year, who can blame them?

Except, isn't academia supposed to be about ideas?

On the other hand, Pollan and his colleague, Alice Waters, owner of the expensive Berkeley restaurant Chez Panisse, can get quite hyperbolic about eating locally.  In fact, last year, Pollan and Waters seemed to revel in escalating food prices, believing in conventional economic theory that as prices escalated for processed food, at the point they equaled what people paid at local "Sunday Markets," people would chose locally grown food.  What they missed is that people were hurting and inflating food prices were, in reality, forcing many people to figure out what to jettison, medicines, food, electricity....In addition, Pollan and Waters very publicly advocated the Obamas for the firing of the first female Head Chef at the White House because she didn't pass their muster on plowing an organic garden or was not a so-called public face of the locavore movement.  It was a little cold-hearted.

Omnivore's Dilemma ought to be read by everyone, especially those students who intend on working in the agriculture industries.  However, the advocates of the buy local movement should also be open to understanding that not everyone will be able to buy locally much less want to.  That it will be extremely difficult to turn the clock back on the choices offered in our grocery stores.  But that little steps, the small ways each of us contribute to a more sustainable society, should be celebrated and each change leads to huge movements.

Conspicuous Consumption Makes the News!

In today's New York Times came an article about the demise of conspicuous consumption because of the recession.  I am shocked!

What these kinds of articles do, however, is set up a dynamic (a conflict if you will) between the folks who believe this recession (I really really want to use the "d" key instead of the "r" key, and then a few "p's") is a cultural policy window and those who, like the current and past federal administrations, understand that unfortunately, our economy is dependent upon consuming.  Those who see this as a cultural policy window are savoring the moment of  "I told you so."  They saw the worst of the worst, the McMansions, the expensive cars, the gaudy jewels, the $1,000 Sex In The City Jimmy Choo shoes, and consistently (in their minds) said our culture was far too out on a consumption limb.  They are thoroughly enjoying the idea that we'll all give up our cars, our McDonald's Big Macs, and our Nordstrom credit cards for a simple life growing lettuce instead of grass in our front yards.

But then there are the folks who are coming late to this debate.  Laurie David and her stopglobalwarming.org who is currently on a rant about toilet paper.  This from a woman who lives in a huge mansion in LA and probably spends on clothing in a month what many of us spend in a year!  Or Arianna Huffington, who once wrote a piece about how many Blackberry phones she owned.

Culture wars or divisions will always be a part of our society.  And this combined rush for "sustainable" living (local food sources, green architecture, transportation etc) along with an energized policy initiatives on the environment, we may gradually move our culture toward a renewed sense of "just enough" rather than "too much."  But I think pundits expounding on how everyone else should live is not good.  If it's one thing we do well it's seeing through hypocrisy.  In order to sway a cultural shift, we  need to let the impacts of this depression (oops, recession) seep in as well as provide positive answers.  In other words, yes, we can all live well with two pairs of Jimmy Choos not four!  The reality is while this depression will alter all of our lives, it will not be a radical change in our culture.  Radical takes time.  A major concern is that while this depression will alter lives, it may also further expand the disparity between the rich and poor, further eliminating the middle class.  And that is not good at all.

But the good news is, we're beginning to have discussions in the "public town square" about how much stuff is enough.

The Employment Dilemma

In today's news, Smurfit-Stone, one of the nation's largest supplier of cardboard boxes, has retained bankruptcy counsel.  Smurfit-Stone owns timberland, recycling centers, and paper mills through out the country.

Obviously their products are directly linked with consumer products.  Smurfit-Stone, like many American companies, borrowed heavily and is highly leveraged.  It borrowed money for, among other things, a merger and capital spending.  Yet, again, another manufacturing business in deep trouble and more than likely in it's last days.  Paper and cardboard, well, we can get 'em cheaper overseas.  No need to have it here.  I will say it again, I think this is wrong-headed.

So, here's the thing.  How are we going to create an economic recovery without being dependent upon consumer spending?  It seems to me that we may want to think all of this through before we go spending even more money.  Which isn't to say we shouldn't help people in foreclosures or unemployed, but we need some serious long term thinking here.

A wise woman friend started asking some questions the other day as we were walking.  She wondered what housing will look like as we re-adjust our economy.  Will people be building huge McMansions?  If so, who will live in them?  What will her daughter, in her late 20s, live in?  Will she ever be able to purchase a home?  What about people displaced because of the economy?  How are we going to provide basic services to them?

She also wondered whether people will study for jobs that may disappear?  Will young people go to college and bank on training when they begin to believe that the training may become obsolete?  Will there be such a thing as a career?

Last, she wondered whether our communities will pull together, demonstrating compassion or will we become a country of finger pointing and blame?

I thought, recently, about my parents generation.  Tom Brokaw's greatest generation  and how they rose out of the ashes of World War II, creating a nation of hope, a belief that if you worked hard and were committed, you had a career, a home, a neighborhood.  That the guy (or woman...eventually) next door could run for office, could find time to coach Little League, spend weekends with his family.  It all, in hindsight, seems to egalitarian.  Now you have to have been anointed by political elites to run for office,  you are glued to your Blackberry or laptop, too busy to even notice whether your child, who competes in everything in order to get into a "good school," scored a goal.  You're in the office on Saturday, working on Sunday, and maybe eat dinner one night a week with the family.  And chances are real good you'll be out of your job, laid off, within a year or two of starting.

It seems that the promises, the hopes of the greatest generation are dead.

But what if, what if, we began to think about those dreams again.  What if we demanded, from ourselves and policy makers, that we re-think the whole idea of work, community, family.  What if we begin conversations about finding long term employment, that is gratifying to the employees, produces quality goods, and mitigates harm to communities?  Why is that conversation so hard?