Author Archives: Ponderer

About Ponderer

Ponderer also writes science fiction and science-inspired rhyming poetry. Check her out at katerauner.wordpress.com/ She worked at Rocky Flats for 22 years - you may know her as Kathy London.

Working Poor in America

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hand to mouthIn 2013, Linda Tirado saw a forum question online: Why do poor people do things that seem so self-destructive? Tirado is a poor person and wrote a lengthy reply. Her essay was picked up by huffingtonpost.com and has become the introduction to her book, Hand to Mouth – Living in Bootstrap America.

Though Tirado makes some wider comments about the working poor, this is a memoir, written about her personal experience. Memoirs are not the genre we typically review for this blog. But public assistance may be debated in the upcoming election cycle and the book offers insight you’ll get nowhere else.

I don’t know if the publisher tried to verify Tirado’s story, but her tales of a chaotic work history ring true for me. I spent my working career at Rocky Flats, where employers invested a lot of time and expense in recruiting and training employees, and therefore invested patience and expense in retaining them. Since I’ve retired I’ve met people whose work seems disposable. Supporting what Tirado writes, their employers invest little in them and fire them for (what seem to me) minor offenses. They invest little in their jobs and quit over (what seem to me to be) minor conflicts with bosses or coworkers.

If you’ve ever asked the question that led to this book – Why do poor people do things that seem so self-destructive? – or the many related questions of why – here are answers in poignant, personal terms.

Tirado notes that this is her story. After her essay went viral she received comments from poor people saying they had different experiences. “That’s fair and true. Keep it in mind,” Tirado writes. “What is neither fair nor true was the criticism I received inferring that I was the wrong sort of poor… that I was not born into poverty… [But that’s not] the only way someone might find herself unable to make rent.”

I’ve read complaints that public assistance goes to people who are undeserving. In contrast, Tirado is surely the deserving poor. She is married to the father of her two children. Her husband is a military veteran. They often work two or more jobs each, have tried to better their educations, and do not use illegal drugs.

Anyone who has been led to believe all poor people live in publicly-funded leisure, or should be ashamed of the help they receive, or that healthcare can be had for free at emergency rooms, owes it to themselves to read Tirado’s book.

I’m struck by the futility of her life: Continue reading →

Too Much Money

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US_productivity_and_real_wagesI’m afraid our country has too much money – or, at least, too much money in the wrong places.

America had a wonderful run after World War II when the middle class blossomed, but over the past thirty years or so there has been a gradual redistribution of wealth upwards.

Over the decades, the wealthy and powerful have tweaked the tax code and financial regulations to make it easier for them to make and keep money. When rising workforce productivity does not lead to rising wages, something seems unfair.

This trend has been documented in many places, for example:

“Unequal wealth distribution is hardly a new or uniquely American problem. In fact, it’s been prevalent throughout society since humans first built civilizations: A small minority of aristocrats has always wielded the most power throughout history.

“The [top] 1 percent [executives, doctors, lawyers and politicians, among other professions] are worth about 70 times the worth of the lower classes.

“It’s historically common for a powerful minority to control a majority of finances, but Americans haven’t seen a disparity this wide since before the Great Depression — and it keeps growing.” forbes.com

Ideally, the wealth at the top would be used to capitalize increased production and an expanding economy, but America today doesn’t need more production. Wealthy people, quite reasonably, want to invest money in a safe place that earns a decent return, which fueled the 2008 recession debacle – the financial industry decided to meet the demand through fraud.

Are we in the same place again?

I fear we will see increases in corporate corruption and more frequent bubbles. If more of this wealth (and the income that precedes it) belonged to the middle and lower classes, they would spend it on products and services which would grow the economy. That would be good for everyone, but I doubt many wealthy Americans (despite Warren Buffet) see their own enlightened self-interest here.

By the way – it may not be just the wealthy driving the problem. If Wall Street can count on a certain amount of money flowing into the stock market through 401k’s every month, but that money is not needed to increase production, will it just feed corruption and bubbles? More money to Wall Street could have negative consequences. This leads me to deep skepticism about, for example, privatizing Social Security Insurance.

The obvious solution many liberals jump to is to tax the wealthy and use that money for services to the rest of the country – to build roads and bridges perhaps, or provide direct subsidies. It would be better, in my opinion, to reverse the many tweaks to our economy that have lead to this imbalance, but that would involve a huge amount of work. With such polarization in our legislatures today, the problem is overwhelming. But returning the middle and lowers classes’ wealth seems imperative to our future.

Law of Holes

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Wikipedia says “the law of holes refers to a proverb which states that ‘if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging'”. This means, if you find yourself in an untenable position, you should stop and change, rather than exacerbate it. Wiki identifies the first use of a similar phrase and meaning in 1911 in the Washington Post. A version closer to the modern phrase has been attributed to humorist Will Rogers, and a modern version appeared in print in 1964 in The Bankers Magazine. The phrase has become popular in the UK thanks to British politician Denis Healey in the 1980s, who expressed the thought as “’when your opponent is in a hole and digging, for god’s sake don’t stop him’ or alternately ‘why would you want to take away his shovel?'” [ipglossary.com] If you sort out the “black hole” references in a google search, this political meaning seems most popular.

When Pretty Good Isn’t Good Enough

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Stop_Digging_^_-_geograph.org.uk_-_195319

An excavator that is in a hole and has stopped digging. Chris Wimbush

Recently I attended a talk at Western New Mexico University given by Jeff Bingaman, the former Democratic Senator from New Mexico. He spoke in front of a friendly home-town crowd on energy and environmental policies in the US Congress. Once viewed as independent, they increasingly overlap due to the challenges of climate change.

Bingaman gave predictions from various sources – including ExxonMobile – that really struck me. For a time frame of 2000 through 2040, worldwide:

  • Population will increase from six billion to nine billion – up by 50%.
  • Energy demand will double – up by 100%
  • CO2 emissions will only go up by 60%, mostly in the Asian Pacific countries while staying flat in the western world. (He didn’t touch on other causes of global warming such as methane releases and land use.)
  • Global GDP, Gross Domestic Product, or the total market value of goods and services produced worldwide in constant dollars, will triple – up by 200%.

To put those numbers in an admittedly limited analogy, if I hired 50% more workers and paid 60% more in supply costs (I’m assuming the CO2 is a measure of efficiency), but got 200% more income, I’d be happy. But even these fine numbers are accompanied by warnings that, while future impacts will vary from region to region around the globe, the effects of global warming include a rise in sea levels, a change in the amount and pattern of precipitation, and probably expansion of subtropical deserts. [Wikipedia Global Warming] Continue reading →

Social Security’s History and Future

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Social Security WorksRecently I reviewed a book because I hated the premise. I read this book because I like the premise. The title says it all (with an exclamation point): Social Security Works! Why Social Security Isn’t Going Broke and How Expanding It Will Help Us All. I wanted to see the proof offered by authors Nancy J. Altman and Eric R. Kingson.

With an average of five stars from over three hundred reviews on Amazon, the book has a following. Altman and Kingson aren’t Social Security’s only champions, as this article on slate.com shows, there was anger over Obama’s willingness to “give away the store…[and] cut spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security In exchange for a modest tax hike of $100 billion over 10 years—targeted at the wealthiest Americans… an outrageous deal.”

Some 54 million Americans receive benefits today, with the “average retiree’s checks roughly equal to the gross pay of someone working fulltime at the federal minimum wage.”

The authors seek to debunk “a three-decade-long, well-financed campaign [that] has sought to dismantle Social Security… [and been] successful in undermining confidence… The mainstream media has aided and abetted the campaign by uncritically accepting and advancing a panoply of misconceptions, while largely ignoring the facts.”

I must admit to being swayed by the anti-Social Security campaign. Since I started my career, I have assumed I would never receive any Social Security and used to joke that my tax went to my own grandmother. Yet, here I am, nearly forty years later, and Social Security looks secure for the next 20 years (assuming Congress doesn’t damage it.)

From the beginning, many opponents called Social Security socialism. “These same opponents rarely, however, express disgust with, or seek to privatize, America’s socialized police, fire, and prosecution services or our socialized system of roads, canals, and national parks, not to mention our socialized military.”

I found it interesting to read that President Eisenhower thought the opposite. In a message to Congress, he called Social Security “a reflection of the American heritage of sturdy self-reliance which has made our country strong and kept it free.” Continue reading →

Nobody’s Perfect

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Abraham Lincoln is the American president I admire the most. He led America through our Civil War, the bloodiest war in out history. Throughout, he showed remarkable sympathy for his opponents and tremendous political agility, while enduring personal tragedies and mental illnesses that would incapacitate most people. He seemed to maintain a sense of humor and, despite the difference in 19th century speaking styles, his words resonant today. He stood at a pivotal point in American history – before Lincoln, we said “the United States are'” but after Lincoln we say “the United States is.”

But the Great Man wasn’t above a little corruption. Continue reading →