Category Archives: Economy

Race Talk

by

Toni Morrison wrote an essay about language and its uses that I think many people didn’t get on first read.

And then there’s this nonsense.

A lot of people have sounded off about this already. But here’s my concern: this Bruce woman, Glenn Beck, Fox News, “Joe the Plumber” among many others,is that their rhetoric and language can provoke action. Dangerous action. It’s also distracting. Like our obsession with the AIG bonuses (1% of the bailout money). Please. That’s not nearly as distressing as trying to unravel the plan to nationalize Citigroup and Bank of America. Because we really, really need to pay attention to that. It’s inevitable. And it’s going to take a shift in our thinking, patience and work to define our shared existence in this nation going forward. So I’m not sure what significance a culture war has right now when people just want to find balance, maintain a decent quality of life, and pursue happiness.

Someone wrote in my high school yearbook this quote: “You have the freedom of speech, just watch what you say.” I still have mixed feelings about that statement. Maybe I’m just asking for discernment, common sense, or just words that expand awareness rather than contract it. Words that create, rather than destroy. And the wisdom to know the difference.

Populist Outrage

by



Looks like AIG isn’t the only one who’s gonna get it. This was the scene today around Bowling Green in Lower Manhattan.

We need a hero for the people in these times…

But alas, we’re in a bear market. And all we can hope for is to find someone special and to cuddle with while we weather the storm.

Seriously. I cannot make this stuff up.

photos: © syreeta mcfadden

The Black Swan

by

Hindsight is said to be 20/20. But sometimes, it’s blurry.

The thing I learned from the “Brawl Street” confrontation between Jon Stewart and Jim Cramer is the latter.

more about "Jim Cramer on The Daily Show part 3", posted with vodpod

The crux and larger message in the interview however, shouldn’t get buried and should be repeated over and over. That message is that American investigative journalism has failed us in reportage on the financial crisis.

There’s truth to that, however, hindsight remains fuzzy. In 2006 and 2007, business reporters from the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and Business Week reported signs of distress in the mortgage market. By mid-2007, there were mortgage foreclosures and were growing at a rate that was anticipated to exceed the amount during the Great Depression. Alan Greenspan cautioned in late 2007 and 2008 that it was unclear if this problem could be isolated and not contaminate other areas of the financial markets.

In August 2007, the global financial markets went into defibrillation. And a few months after, This American Life did a brilliant show, “The Giant Pool of Money”, that unpacked the crisis to glean deeper meaning from it. In 2008, Vanity Fair did another brilliant article that deconstructed the Bear Stearns acquisition.

And then there’s CNBC. The bigger question that comes to play is who is CNBC’s audience? Investors, consumers, or corporations? The Daily Show put a spotlight on the fundamental problem that I think we already know. CNBC isn’t journalism. Jim Cramer isn’t a reporter. He’s a commentator. He’s a man who’s worked in the industry for years, built relationships with people that became leaders in the industry, and creators of financial products that grew money, real and most likely, imagined. Then the bottom fell out and things fell apart fast. And we learned that the financial market was made of widgets worth two trillion dollars more than the GDP.

Hmmmmm.

CNBC’s credibility was compromised. And that tagline, In Cramer We Trust? How can he continue to be a reliable source for commentary on market conditions when his own contacts have become unreliable? If the economy is a function of confidence, and confidence is supported by value of accurate information or simply insight that comes from trusted sources, then our confidence is shaken. But that’s if you were only relying on CNBC to provide you an accurate picture of the crisis. And if you were really paying attention, you would’ve been able to see how these things were connected. Maybe the reporting wasn’t loud enough, or maybe it’s hard to explain a system that requires insider knowledge of how concepts lead to wealth accumulation. Perhaps we needed the major news networks to have done a series of primetime specials noting how regulatory agencies didn’t do their due diligence, or risk management departments were understaffed within major financial institutions, or worse ignored, or better, explain why you need risk management, and that we were borrowing beyond our means from the Chinese that accelerated growth of our national debt. Or even how all our institutions over leveraged and borrowed while we obsessed (rightfully so) about Iraq, Afghanistan and the 2008 Election.

Did CNBC see this meltdown coming to report it accurately? Hindsight is a funny thing. I’m a layman at best, and worked in the real estate industry, and I can tell you one thing: I did see it coming. A lot of us did. Some may not have expected it to be so toxic that it would cause a system shut down. But there were signs of distress everywhere. It seemed to me that people were reluctant to connect the dots and prepare everyone that a correction was on the horizon. CNBC is a network in collusion with financial industry. It’s an offshoot of a larger conglomerate that relies on advertising dollars to support its programming and operations, and let’s be honest; it restricts what truth they can say. NBC could have reported these signs of distress, but they would’ve lost money and we wouldn’t have another Celebrity Apprentice.

Some of the conservative talking heads also are dismissive of the demographic that watches the Daily Show. It presumes that young people aren’t paying attention to the news and only get news from the Daily Show. That’s inaccurate. They’re paying attention, they’re twittering links, posting links on Facebook, reading Huffpo, NYT. The jokes wouldn’t be funny or make sense if you weren’t paying attention. And if you are paying attention, you must be resourceful enough to find news sources out there that you can trust and restore your confidence in the system.

Miss American Pie

by

I remember the first time I heard this song.

It was 1989 and I was in the 8th grade. It was a few weeks before my first trip to the nation’s capital. I didn’t understand the lyrics then, but I knew what I felt when I heard the song. I felt like I had been born too late. Like I missed whatever the living was to be had in the world. I felt the zeitgeist of the time through this song. And I was sad that I missed it. I missed hearing John and Bobby and Martin and Malcolm. I missed the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the birth of Rock and Roll, the anti-war protests. I missed 1968. I missed Woodstock. I missed 1969. I missed the summer of love. I felt I was born to a time where nothing of any significance would happen afterward.

And honestly, the generation before me didn’t help. They had their stories and insights about how they survived and struggled. How my generation didn’t understand what kind of challenges they faced, how they rose to the occasion and how my generation lacks the drive to affect changes in the world. The generation before me had changed the world that I am now privileged to live in and would never let me forget that.

I’m not ungrateful. I got to go to integrated schools and secure advance degrees because of it. But the promise of the future they had fought to secure for me slowly disappeared. Now it’s obvious. We’re all painfully aware of the fragility of our society in this economic crisis.

This month is the 50th anniversary of the inspiration behind this song. It was in February 1959 that Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Richie Valens died in a plane crash over Iowa. Don McLean makes an allusion to this tragedy in the song. It seemed to have defined him and the subsequent years of his generation. For us, September 2001 is still defining the kind of people we’re becoming.

And now, I find that I’m thinking a lot about generations. And it took me some time to entertain the idea that my generation’s time is Now. We’re here Now. I’m not entirely sure what we’ll bring into existence, but what I do hear in the ether is a desire for balance and correction. I hear in conversations I’ve had with friends and strangers over the past month the desire to restore balance and re-imagine what it means to be American. American identity can’t solely live in the idea that we are what we consume. There must be a deeper spirit that dwells here. Don McLean came of age when his nation was in crisis and as a songwriter, gave us this gift. What will we create when we emerge from this period of difficulty? What piece of the American pie will we leave the generations to follow us?

Future Shock

by

I’m not sure if they get it.

The debate over the economic stimulus package is ideological. Most economists say that we need massive, sweeping and deep intervention in the American economy from the American government. What I remember quite specifically from freshmen year econ: To spend is to beget demand which increases supply which begets production which begets jobs that beget growth in the economy for many generations to come. Amen. To quote the President, “That’s the point.”

What is the point of government if it’s not there to intervene at time of crisis?

The ideologues of the conservative movement is still singing the gospel of Reaganism. The revisionist version.

Last night’s press conference was crucial. My mom is a pharmacist tech in Wisconsin. She’s not the most sophisticated American when it comes to charts, Keynesian Economics, derivatives and the ilk, but what she said to me over phone was that she likes that Obama takes the time to explain things. The President’s campaign to market the stimulus package to the public seemed to work from what I was hearing on the other end of the phone.

The other significant point from the President that seems to be buried underneath chatter of post partisanship, spending, stimulus, Keynesian, is infrastructure. I highlighted the point for my mother. “There are a string of events that occurred over the past 8 years that haven’t necessarily been connected in an obvious way,” I said to her. “We treat them as separate events. Katrina and the levee failure in New Orleans, the Mississippi River Bridge collapse in Minneapolis, the episodes of train derailments on the east coast, the 2003 blackout, the rolling blackouts in California, the drought conditions last year in Atlanta… I could go on. Infrastructure is critical. Nationally, we haven’t invested in these areas in years. If we expect to move forward into the 21st century, we need to modernize.”

On the other end of the phone, I could imagine my mother’s face. A startled look of comprehension and a frown, “Well, when you put it like that, that makes a lot of sense. You writing about that yet?”

Sort of, I said.

Say Word!

by

It’s like he’s speaking sweet policy and political nothings in my ear.

.msnbcLinks {font-size:11px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #999; margin-top: 5px; background: transparent; text-align: center; width: 425px;} .msnbcLinks a {text-decoration:none !important; border-bottom: 1px dotted #999 !important; font-weight:normal !important; height: 13px;} .msnbcLinks a:link, .msnbcLinks a:visited {color: #5799db !important;} .msnbcLinks a:hover, .msnbcLinks a:active {color:#CC0000 !important;}

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I love these words: infrastructure, power grid, comprehensive energy policy. This was some serious tough talk from the leader of the free world. Refreshingly so and honest. The macro issues are clear, the stimulus isn’t necessarily a magic wand, but does set us on the path to enter the 21st century. It’s clear to me that the President understands that America needs to do some self care to compete and in doing so, looking inward, we can reflect and engage our outer realities with responsibility to the world.

The Sky Is Falling

by

Literally.

Many of my friends have wondered aloud, in countless conversations, is our way of life, sustainable? The jumbo mortgages, the SUVs, the student loans to cover the brand named degrees, the shopping, the consumption, the ‘good life’. Is it sustainable? Can the economy continue on a limitless upswing, and we reap the benefits from such expansion in growth with the national debt rising, a two front war with an invisible enemy and rising prices for essential goods.

In 2007, Ellen and I sat outside at Nabu eating sushi, with cranes looming over our heads at the construction site of yet another luxury condo, and wondered aloud.

It can’t be, she said. It’s bloated beyond proportion. There must be more to living in the world beyond work for the idea of the good life. Something’s gotta give.

In March, Bear Sterns buckled. Last week, the levees broke with Lehman, Merrill and AIG.

Main Street or the average man isn’t entirely clear what’s happening as it relates to them directly. With the constriction in the financial market, that’s teetering on the brink of failure, one thing to be certain of is that when Americans are unable to borrow even more money for the good life: cars, homes, food, etc. the realization of the global economy will hit pretty hard.

No man is an island, chicken little.

What I’ve learned at the onset of the Second Coming in American Politics, Part 1

by

A few things:
Namely, the second coming isn’t exactly what everyone expected. He can’t command the seas to part with a wooden staff.
He doesn’t turn water to wine.
He can’t raise the dead.
He doesn’t stutter. As a matter of fact, he’s the most loquacious and eloquent speaker of them all.
He’s a smidge darker than I originally imagined, yet a shade lighter than most.
He’s a shrewd politician and strategist.
He’ll make mistakes.

If the national stage is a microcosm for the rest of society, then at work, I’m watching the manifestation of generational struggles and long held wide beliefs of the intelligence and competence of African Americans by their white colleagues.

Example:
A coworker emailed me to ask me ‘Who’s side am I on?’ singularly. The project we’re working on is a joint venture between a Harlem based black owned company and Westchester based white owned company. I’m black and work for the Westchester company. The presumption is loaded in the question. As an obvious black person, I obviously fall on the black side.

I think she was rabidly pro-Hillary in the primary days.

Another question surfaces in the days to follow: What race is the admin on staff?
An answer in whispers: I think she’s Latino.
A snort in response: Same difference.

In this new world of American life and politics, there are still some miles to go before we sleep in the daily professional lives of working Americans. When we are we judge by character and performance rather than how we look?

The NYT magazine article from a couple of weeks foreshadows a period where an Obama presidency will not allow for any real or substantive critique of black America’s experience of discrimination or injustice as long as the Obamas are chilling in the Rose Garden. As if this singular, yet momentous reality in American history is prohibitive of rebuke or accountability. Generations of narrow-mindedness don’t dissolve overnight. It still lives in the ether. On both sides. Some of our most stalwart allies for equality still hold prejudices and presume an embattled attitude of ‘us’ versus ‘them’. And with a challenged economy, these attitudes that stem from a deep frustration of the current economic climate will worsen. I can only hope that it won’t be exacerbated by multi front military conflict in the Middle East and Asia.
I’ll more to say on that later.