Cash For Clunkers Hurts The Poor

I am not the only person who thinks Cash for Clunkers is bad for poor people, but with all the recent analysis dispensed by the talking-head pundit-class seemingly ignoring this simple injustice, I am tempted to think I am among few who do. Clunkers, as you know, is part of an automobile industry stimulus plan signed into law by the Obama administration that enjoys bi-partisan support in both houses of Congress. It is officially called the Car Allowance Rebate System, or CARS.

Apparently the program gained popularity after an op-ed by Alan S. Blinder appeared in the New York Times in July 2008. Mr. Blinder's essay was titled "A Modest Proposal: Eco-Friendly Stimulus."

Mr. Blinder (there's a name!) made three claims in his piece, first, that the plan would lead to a cleaner environment, second, that it would distribute income more equitably, and third, the plan would stimulate the economy.

Any reasonable person could doubt Mr. Blinder's claims, especially his claim that this plan would be good for poor people; that it would be "more equal":

"MORE EQUAL INCOME DISTRIBUTION It won’t surprise you to learn that the well-to-do own relatively few clunkers. Most are owned, instead, by low-income people. So if the government bought some of these vehicles at above-market prices, it would transfer a little purchasing power to the poor."

It seems to this writer that Mr. Blinder does not live in the real world. Who buys clunkers -- allegedly gas-guzzlers -- when they are new? The poor? Or the more "well-to-do"? That 1982 Cadillac that sits in the apartment complex in downtown Louisville; did a poor person buy that when it was new? The BMW 740s and the Chevrolet Suburbans and Ford Excursions; did poor people drive these off the lot when they first left the showroom? What about Hummers and Acura MDXs and Ford F-350s? None of these are particularly fuel efficient -- at least in a strict MPG comparison -- but surely it was the more affluent Americans who first drove these off the lot.

The same can be said for nearly any new car, especially the most fuel-efficient ones: Honda Civics are not cheap, at least compared to a lot of entry-level vehicles; and it is not the Honda Civic Hybrid that the poorest buyers purchase new, is it? See that 1998 Subaru wagon over there with temporary plates? That car was not recently bought by a rich person. (Well, in New Hampshire, where I am, one can never really tell.)

The fact is that almost every clunker on the road today that matters was purchased by someone who rather recently bought it used -- because a Clunker was all that person could afford. Cars trickle down just like technology trickles down: the safest, most fuel-efficient and technologically advanced cars NEVER start as entry-level offerings. Never. The best engineering always starts higher up. Yes, it is a sad irony that those who could benefit the most from a hybrid-like fuel mileage rating in their vehicles can't afford it. But that's the way of innovation.

And by the way, for most of my life I've been a Clunker driver. A used Clunker driver.

What does Cash For Clunkers do? It takes cars out of the marketplace that benefit the poor. To hell, really, with the idea that this "saves the environment." Poor people may drive inefficient cars, but they drive far fewer miles to begin with. Do readers know what happens to clunkers that are traded in for new cars? The auto dealership has to destroy the engine, and then crush the old clunker (fines WILL be levied if even certain parts from the clunkers are recirculated in a used-parts market). Just think of the economic foolishness this single fact represents. But think of the environmental impact as well: the auto industry and its parts-manufacturing complex have to deplete more of the earth's resources and consume more energy to create "new" stuff, all of which ARE the clunkers, or parts of the clunkers, of the future. Remember, that Toyota Prius you've got your eye on is a Clunker in the years ahead.

Who benefits economically from all of this? Not the poor, that's for sure. Mr. Jones, who has a Mercedes E-Class for himself, a BMW X5 for his wife, and an old Ford F-250 he uses around his gentleman's farm, will tool down to the nearest Clunker rebate center with his Clunker pick-up truck for the $4500 kickback he can use to get his 16-year-old daughter a brand new Honda Accord. But the poor man down the road who last year bought a dirt cheap Jeep Cherokee for his family will NEVER trade in his Clunker because he knows that even with a $4500 rebate he can't afford the monthly payments on a single new car that sits on the lot. And if he is approved for a line of credit, isn't he a high-risk borrower? Doesn't this perpetuate the sort of reckless lending and borrowing that have undeniably damaged the American economy?

Lest I give you the impression I am the only one thinking this way, let me cite "Marshall," who posted the following comment at Econbrowser:

One should consider the ever present unintended consequences [of the Clunkers program]. If the additional funds are approved, 750,000 usable cars that can be used by those who cannot afford a new one will be gone. How many additional people will be laid off from the auto replacement parts companies with a significant part of their customer base gone? Have an additional 750,000 people just taken on additional debt that they would not otherwise have done? How many additional foreclosures and cutbacks in spending in other areas will result? This crisis was caused by excessive leverage and this only intensifies the problem.

Cash for Clunkers is a NOT a good idea. It is NOT a good plan. It is really a stupid plan.

And it hurts the poor.

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Andrew Sullivan And Conservatism: A Cry For Help

I am thinking of writing at length about writer, pundit, and blogger extraordinaire Andrew Sullivan. But before I do, I was wondering what Contratimes readers thought about the man. Perhaps some of you watched the C-Span interview with him last night on Q & A. If you did see it, what do you think? I came away with something approaching confusion. How is this man a conservative? How is it that he is even considered a spokesman for conservatism?

Part of me wonders, not so much that he is some sort of charlatan, but whether he subsists solely on stereotype: he is the elegant, reasonable, open, and so-very-humble conservative much in demand these days. He is not like the many blockheads out there -- Bible-thumping and finger-wagging -- who call down brimstone on all things untoward and lynch personal privacy on the town common. His is an erudite, thoughtful conservatism; fashionable in its unfettered secularism and yet blithely tolerant of most things religious, even, I dare say, Catholic. He is gay with circumspection and restraint, but he is not politically restrained by religious precept nor is he given to radicalism. He defends gay marriage with soft-spoken ease; and he supports abortion only in the first trimester of pregnancy. In short, he is perceived as balanced; his poise makes him popular.

And he claims to be a good Catholic. I have no doubt that he is, at least in the Holy See of his own mind. He supports abortion, homosexual marriage; he believes that the Bible is fallible, errant. And yet to believe in these things he must doubt other elementary Catholic teachings as well. He must deny papal infallibility, for instance, which should be no real problem, since it is hardly an essential Catholic tenet. I can understand his jettisoning such tangential stuff, and can applaud his accepting the really important matters, like being nice to one's neighbors. What I find most curious, however, is how often people like Mr. Sullivan seem to land on the truth that the Bible and the papacy are always fallible on matters of sexuality and sexual holiness and yet are never fallible when it comes to love. After all, if the Bible and the Church are fallible, then surely we must conclude that both could be wrong about being kind, tolerant, loving, and merciful. Perhaps, for instance, we are NOT supposed to care for the poor; nor are we to be kind to our neighbors. Such teachings are mere corruptions of Christian teaching, rooted in so much ancient bias. I have never met a person who can tell me why anyone should care for the poor for purely secular reasons; and yet I do find many folks, like Mr. Sullivan, suggesting that religion has no place in politics. Mr. Sullivan abhors fundamentalism, it is clear. Yet he is apparently blind to that fundamentalism to which he holds so tenaciously: he is ignorant to the fact that everyone holds certain truths as fundamentals. Some truths, of course, are not one whit fun and are rather mental. But there is something rather fundamentally flawed in those who believe they are able to transcend religion and exist in some sort of political neutral zone, where religion does not reside. Religious faith resides everywhere. There is no escaping this fact. Any position that denies this is futile and pretentious. A man who theorizes we can fully partition the atmosphere can only exist in a vacuum: he may be a fine writer at a fashionable journal but he will be smothered should he put his theory into practice. Politics can exist independent of religious precepts about as well as nature loves a vacuum.

Well, perhaps I have already written about Mr. Sullivan; one could hardly think this post is a mere preamble, though it could be criticized, I am sure, as something of a ramble. Whether rant, ramble or preamble, I would like to know what you think, especially those of you who have a better sense of Mr. Sullivan's broad contributions to political and theological discourse.

Peace and mirth,

Bill Gnade

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Making Poverty History - An Analysis, Part VII

[This series begins here.]

I have floundered about for several posts now gripping for some handhold on the slopes of poverty and wealth. What is poverty and what is wealth? Why do those on the political and economic left who fear a Christian theocracy (on the right) nevertheless invoke religion to inspire state-run poverty relief programs? What are the secular, non-theistic reasons anyone should care about the poor? Why do so many critics of wealth appear to root their critiques, not in justice, but in envy and resentment?

These are some of the questions so far addressed. But we've not asked, "How do we care for the poor?"

Last year the Wall Street Journal ran a massive report on poverty and hunger relief programs. Most if not all of the Journal's report was based on information gathered by the United Nations. One startling fact was that the earth has never seen so many hungry people; simultaneously the earth has never produced so much food. India, for example, now the world's leading producer of wheat, watched helplessly as billions of tons of grain rotted away, unable to distribute that grain to its hungry neighbors. The reasons for this problem are complex, but almost always have to do with the need for infrastructure and laborers (i.e. jobs) to make distribution possible. For years, or so the UN and Journal reported, the mantra heard from relief and governmental agencies dealing with crises of poverty and famine has been, "Send us food! Send us money!" And the noble-spirited who heard that cry did in fact produce food and money for those in need. But the reality is that most of the aid did not reach its intended goal, stalled as it was in red-tape, beauracratic corruption and, most importantly, the dearth of facilities to deliver those goods. The new mantra, again according to the WSJ and the UN, is "Send jobs, send jobs."

You see, it is not possible to bring long term change, or even effective aid, to peoples who do not have the means to distribute what is given them. If there are no roads, and no vehicles for roads (or the equipment and know-how to build roads), there is no distribution industry. If there is no distribution, there is no relief. Hence, the need for developing these poor regions with viable economic programs, not solely for distribution of aid but for the nurturing of industries that generate local wealth, food and resources, is the most pressing need in alleviating hunger and poverty. Merely redistributing wealth does not help; economies need to be born in order to build locally sustainable wealth.

What's the old adage, "Give a man a fish and he'll have food for a day; teach a man to fish and he'll have food for a lifetime"? Well, it's something like that we're talking about.

But too often it is believed that free markets are the easy answer to world economic problems. While I admit that I am over-simplifying, there is nonetheless an almost idolatrous trust that "the market" will bring relief and justice to all. But we all know that the market, based on the idea that only what consumers consume will succeed in the marketplace, leads to all sorts of corruptions, the monopoly being one of them. Of course, there are others. The market currently sustains profits in human slave trade, particularly sex slaves, in various parts of the world. One can't rationalize this immoral reality merely by arguing that certain commodities won't sell if people don't want those commodities: some commodities should never be market commodities at all. In Oregon, the state supreme court has legalized public sex acts (presumably on view at certain bars and bookstores). Again, the rationale is dubiously offered that such acts will disappear if enough people refuse to buy that product. Or there is the exploitation of addiction in the sex, drug, tobacco, alcohol and gambling industries. Each of these, it could be argued, was never meant to be a marketable commodity in the first place, irrespective of how the beloved market flourishes or dies as such commodities are traded. Some things, it seems, should be off limits.

Hence, the role of government, not merely to protect against monopolies and price-gougings, is necessary to contol markets from running pell-mell into the trading of human flesh. Laissez-faire economics are not really desirable.

Of course, the apotheosis of free market power is found in corporations, viewed as demonic forces generally by those on the left of the political spectrum. Corporations embody the very loathsome value of concentrating wealth and power that leftists consider utterly deplorable. That corporations often do great good, like WalMart performed during hurricane Katrina, for example, rarely earns them much favor among their critics.

Curiously, leftists, in conflict with most if not all corporations and critical of concentrations of private wealth and ownership, nontheless support corporations of labor. Unions are after all incorporations of power and means themselves, and they do in fact wield massive power not only over ownership, but over the labor pool as well. And unions are not above corruption; unions also exploit worker and manager. Unions do want money, after all; they are not even above lusting after it. That is why, for just one example, legislation is now on the table in California to give union members the right to decline giving their union dues if those monies are to be used for political purposes contrary to members' personal political convictions.

My point in venturing here is simple: Poverty is not merely solved by distributing wealth, nor is it solved merely by unfettered free markets (which would be undesirable) or the unfettered power of labor-control. Wealth is only generated when ownership and labor dance together in a healthy, balanced and profit-seeking manner, all within the confines of fair and moral (ambiguous terms, I know) rules set by a state which favors the production of private wealth.

Anyone thinking that the solution to either poverty or the imbalance between the poor and the not poor is a simple solution is not paying attention.

Contratimes

Next in this series: Government spending and the care industry.

Making Poverty History - An Analysis, Part VI

[This series begins here, with sheer, inimitable and very sexy brilliance.]

In returning to the series on poverty and wealth, a New Hampshire news story should be highlighted. It has to do with the state's senior US senator, Judd Gregg. Perhaps most of you already know that Sen. Gregg (R), a former governor and very real millionaire, won $850,000 in Wednesday night's Powerball drawing. Local newscasts featured the delighted senator outside Powerball headquarters receiving an enormous (literally) check. He quipped how his wife (who was kidnapped last year in D.C., if you'll recall, but survived her horrific ordeal) did not want him to spend any of it; she had plans of her own.

Let's for a moment be as real and accurate as possible. Judd Gregg is a human being, vulnerable to all the enticements life tosses in each person's path. I confess that I too bought a ticket the other night, hoping for the $300 million pay off. Though Sen. Gregg and I are not members of the "super-rich" – those with assests exceeding mere millions – there is a huge gulf between the two of us, regardless of our being united by dreams for more money, or by our rather simple (and pathetic) gambling tendencies. And even if on Tuesday there was no gulf between myself and Senator Gregg, there certainly was one on Thursday. $850,000 is no small chasm.

Though Senator Gregg may take his winnings and do tremendous good with them (he's a skilled investor, I understand), I can't help but think that his purchase of a lottery ticket will not fare well with his state's constituents. The Gregg family is surely one of the true moneyed families of New Hampshire; Senator Gregg and his wife live in a seaside mansion in Rye and his brother holds some of the best business real estate in the state. Does Sen. Gregg really need to win anything? Does he really need to purchase several tickets at a gas station? Does he really need to keep the winning ticket for himself? (Update: Gregg has announced that he will give a "significant portion" of the winnings to charity.)

Look, I am not against the wealthy gaining more wealth. I am not against any man investing a dollar and getting a return of 340,000,000 percent (like the jackpot winner in Oregon). But I am certain others are against these sorts of things, and I am sure that Sen. Gregg must have known that this news might not play well with those he represents in the U.S. Senate. Again, I am not taking a morally high position here. My own judgments would undoubtedly be so many sour grapes. But I am taking the position that Sen. Gregg's lottery purchase was a political mistake; and that his making a small show of taking the winnings was also a political mistake.

But, and this may seem paradoxical, I am glad that Sen. Gregg was able to experience one of life's rarest pleasures. Unfortunately, because he is a political leader born in a very high caste, he perhaps should have considered a little more carefully whether the lottery is a pleasure in which he should be participating.

Next: Idolatry and the Free Market

Contratimes

Making Poverty History - An Analysis, Part V

When I was studying to become an educator, I had a debate with a professor teaching a course called, "The Sociology of Education." The professor had made a bold confession: she said that most of her energies were expended in the eradication of all types of competition in schools, and in the broader society. Needless to say, I found her goals non-sensical and dangerous, and I let her know it. For at the very least, competition bears three important gifts to life. Those three gifts are humility, adaptability, and a higher standard. If, for instance, a school playground is dominated by one particular athlete, his peers are indeed improved by his high caliber of play. But if a new kid shows up, a young Michael Jordan, then three things happen: the former star competes and, in losing, forms a healthy humility which leads to adapatability wherein the former star accepts the new framework and improves within it; and the entire playground moves upward in ability, as the standard has been raised. Yes, some will choose not to compete for a whole bunch of psychological reasons. Some, in fact, should not compete in the playground at all. Such people should compete in other arenas, like mathematics, business, music, theater. Nonetheless, new and higher standards are only born in a competitive environment. And when new standards are set, most if not all people benefit.

Moreover, there is no competition if there is no challenge to improve, adapt, grow; or exceed expectations. Even if just one person is performing a skill, that person must compete against himself in order to improve. The very exercise in surmounting any challenge is a form of competition against the limitations and obstacles created by that very "challenge."

The motivation for my professor, I am sad to say, was really borne of resentment: she resented that she had to compete and adapt. And she resented being possibly perceived as unequal to the tasks competition sets. With apologies for drifting perhaps too close to an ad hominem attack when I say this, my professor was an undeniably ugly woman, and she was obese. She was undeniably single as well. And she was not the smartest person in the room. With that said, I can assure you she despised me (it was clear) for being male and perhaps a little too smart. And she resented having to compete with me, or with anyone. Why should she not be honored for merely being true to herself, or kind, or a nice person, or for having "tried hard"? Why should she have to compete for male romantic affections with all those pretty females? Does not the love of beauty prove the shallowness of men, and the women who try to appeal such men? And why should she have to compete to have her opinions respected, approved, applauded?

Here's a confession of my own. I was perhaps the best athlete in my six-room elementary school. But when I went to the seven-town middle school, I quickly learned that I was not the best athlete. The bar was raised; there were new standards. My reaction? I quit sports. (Huge regrets, by the way.)

All this to say that competition in general is a good thing. Would not Darwin agree?

How is this connected to economics, particularly the economics of poverty? Perhaps I can answer this by paraphrasing a quote I heard during Martin Scorcese's film, No Direction Home, a documentary on Bob Dylan shown recently on PBS. I believe the quote is from an Allan Ginsberg poem (and search as I have, I cannot find the quote). Ginsberg said something like this: I look forward to the time in America when I can walk into a market and buy groceries on the strength of my good character.

Now I have intimately known this sentiment, but it is an ideal replete with resentment. It in fact drips with resentment. Ginsberg essentially is giving the middle finger to competition; but more importantly he is giving the middle finger to participation. On the surface, Ginsberg appears to be railing against the injustices of the market place: Why do I need money to feed myself? But in reality he is admitting his refusal to generate wealth not only for himself but for others. He wants to be rewarded merely for being human, for being nice or even a busy poet. Why should he have to adapt (he would say "conform") to earn a meal? And why should others who are not poets, but mere money-grabbing capitalists, get to have three meals a day, when he can't get one?

Why am I talking about resentment so much? Because most if not all of the pushes for socio-economic reform in this country since the 1960s (it began much earlier) are born of resentment, even envy; a resentment against competition and participation, and envy of those who have more than an other. It is not about justice in the pure abstract: it is about the perceived injustice by those who jealously protest against the producers of wealth.

Ultimately, the impassioned goal of those who abhor the injustices of the system is not to make everyone rich, and therefore equal; it is to make everyone equal, and therefore poor. In fact, it is a lot like making everyone "average", which is an absurdity. Make everyone on the planet worth a billion dollars, and everyone is worth nothing. Make everyone play basketball as well as Michael Jordan, no better or worse, and the world plunges into monochromatic poverty.

I am currently reading the brilliant and funny non-fiction work by David Brooks, Bobos in Paradise. Brooks makes an interesting note about America's transcendentalist writers (Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott, etc.) who, as intellectuals, chose to embrace simplicity and anti-materialism. I have always found this love of simplicity, a self-embraced poverty, simply infuriating, considering that the transcendentalists all came from wealthy families. It is always easy for the rich to romanticize poverty. But Brooks makes the brilliant observation that when we read the essays by the wealth-producing industrialists who were contemporaries of Emerson and his cohort, we snicker at the ugliness of thought and prose. Brooks wonders how it is that we think the prose of Thoreau, a blue-blood pretending not to be, is somehow more spiritually significant than the words of those visionaries who created an economic infrastructure that benefitted millions.

In closing this chapter (so to speak), let it be noted that Thoreau and Emerson and Ginsberg were only able to be essayists and poets and economic critics precisely because the world was rich enough to underwrite their literary ventures. People in abject poverty do NOT have the leisure to retreat to the forests, or smoke pot in poetry dens in Greenwich Village, all to make a literary name for themselves. Real poverty does not have time or energy for such luxury.

While everyone else was working, producing, and delivering groceries to countless markets, Ginsberg was doing the "real" work of writing poems berating such work.

Ask a rich man to embrace poverty, and you might start a literary movement. Ask a poor man to embrace poverty, and you might start a fight.

Peace.

[The next part begins here.]
Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Making Poverty History - An Analysis, Part IV

[Yesterday's installment of the Contratimes series on poverty and wealth ended abruptly, perhaps too abruptly, with the self-described imposition that "I was a fool." My amputated essay, cut off perhaps right when it was getting interesting, elicited one thoughtful response from a reader. In light of that response, I think I was remiss in ending my essay so suddenly. But the series continues nonetheless and as promised (now that was foolish!).]

I was a fool. Not because of the way I felt about poverty, or because I identified a need and yet felt helpless to do a thing about it. I was a fool because my solutions for the poverty issue were clouded by guilt, born of resentment, and nearly entirely wrong.

Though I mentioned in the first installment that so much anti-poverty rhetoric is imbued with religion, which is unbecoming of an allegedly secular society, I have to return to religion, particularly Christianity, for a moment.

If there is any one thing that Jesus said that suggests his divinity it is this: "The poor you will always have with you ..." For any religious leader to state this without so much as a bat of an eyelash is audacious and telling. (Moreover, for Jesus to complete his thought with, "... but you will not always have me", elevates my conviction that he was a bold figure indeed.) The poor are indeed always with us. Conversely, it would seem, that the rich must also always be with us, which might be a hard camel for some to swallow. Furthermore, striking at the very heart of Christ's message, we learn that God loves all men, all women, rich and poor. The poor are not more beloved by God; God loves all people liberally and equally. This is the Christian message, in part, and it is a message that irks many people to no end, who desire that God prefer one group over another; that God be tribal or preferential.

But my comments are not meant to suggest that God loves poverty or wealth. To do so would be to suggest that God loves murder and theft, since he loves the people who do such things. Nay. God loves people. Rich, poor, Republican, Democrat, good or bad. God loves indeed.

With that said, it is important for me to recognize that much if not all of my rage at poverty is born of a resentment toward others who have more than I possess. I resent that Mr. Jones has two or three homes; I resent that Maggie Smith went to St. Paul's, Harvard and Columbia, in large part because her parents attended those elite schools; I resent that I may be more talented or more gifted or more brilliant than the Vanderbilts, but my strengths leave me without reward.

But my resentment is foolish. It is not the path of love.

Moreover, my belief that my possessing X, or the Vandberbilts possessing A-Z, necessarily meant that someone else could not have X, or even a lowly P, was fallacious to the core. In my zeal, even my desire to be poor so that others might not be was so much wind; my poverty only proved that the poor were indeed always with us. Alas, if I chose not to eat because others were starving merely meant that I too was starving: It did nothing for those who were hungry.

My Interest In Academics, And Resentment

There were only two career paths I considered upon matriculating from college in 1984. One was the ministry, perhaps because there I might do some good, spreading the Gospel of Christ. The other option was a professorship, teaching philosophy and writing dynamic essays that too would change the world. Alas, I've walked neither path.

Why? The answers are complex. But here is part of the answer: I chose not to be a minister/priest or academic because both professions in a sense were inherently parasitic. In other words, I would be dependent on others to finance my way. In fact, an Episcopal priest friend of mine left the ministry for this very reason. He discovered that he had sought the ministry because he wanted to avoid the hard realities of making money on his own. As a result of that decision, he began a publishing business that now employs dozens of people. He felt that moving from college to parish to pulpit was little more than moving from one set of parents to the next.

And I realize the same could be said for a life in academia.

Let me predict what would have become of me in academia, or even the priesthood. For in either profession I would have held the rather lofty conviction that I was doing something that "benefitted others"; that I was selflessly shaping a new, better world. But in a moment's time, resentment would have bubbled forth. Without fail I would have scoffed at those dolts who only attended high school who made millions of dollars annually manufacturing innovative nose-hair clippers. Without fail I would have scoffed at that semi-literate author with a B.A. from Plymouth State College who won a prestigious award for a series of mediocre novels. Without fail I would have snickered at the lowly priest or bumbling associate professor who was offered a better position in an elite parish or university.

You see, my resentment springs from the idea that I am "better," "brighter", or doing "more beneficial" work than others; that I am worthier.

Of course, what I would be blind to as an academic or priest is the very real fact that the wealth generated to support my teaching or ministry is not generated by me, but by the workers and entrepeneurs outside the university or parish that produce wealth that eventually gets passed along to my bank account.

Isn't it at all odd how academia in particular is often now, at least in America, the repository of socialistic dreams, and is considered the great place of ideas and the formation of generations of new citizen-leaders, and yet it is full of men and women who do not know how to produce wealth, but know only how to receive it, or how to distribute it? Isn't it strange that while time is spent in university in preparation for the "real world", so much power is given to those professors who reside in what is considered "not the real world"?

It is easy to be a socialist in university, either as student or professor: Everything is provided for you, each person has his or her place and role; and no one seems to have a clue how the wealth is produced that underwrites the experience. It's all just magic.

I was that kind of fool.

(But there is more. See Part V here.)

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Making Poverty History - An Analysis, Part III

Thus far in our series on poverty and wealth we have noted that A) most arguments posited for alleviating poverty in America through social policy are based on religion, without any strong secular reasons being offered; and B) that wealth (and the contradictions surrounding it) is not only fraught with excess, it is at times grotesque in its blindness. So, too, are wealth's critics.

Let me admit right away that I am no economist. Far from it. But I have a general sense of how things work, and I want to share one thing that does not work.

What does not work is guilt.

I remember the first time I walked through Harvard Square in 1980†, a mere freshman. It was the last days of August: the streets were alive with vendors and musicians, jugglers and mimes. There were countless students milling about, many from countries I'd never see. Many students zipped through the Harvard Coop grabbing up books; others slipped into the Wursthaus for a Bavarian draft or bounded down the stairs to 33 Dunster Street for a pint of Guinness on tap. There was wealth and ambition and genius and haughtinesss everywhere – outside WordsWorth or Algiers or Grendel's. In many ways, it was the coolest place on earth (at least to me).

But there were also the signs of abject poverty: the man with no legs begging by the newsstand; the Vietnam veteran absent-mindedly rubbing his crotch on the platform of the T. Just walking the block from Church Street down Mass. Ave to Brattle Street was a reminder of disparity between the haves and the have-nots as numerous beggars loitered in wait of a handout.

Of course, I was vulnerable. I often felt waves of shame and guilt come over me for having money. Not loads of money, mind you. I felt shame for having any money. Months would eventually pass before I could harden myself to these alms-seekers, having too many times emptied my pockets of coins to a hail of alcohol-misted praise, "Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir." I was not the only one to steel my heart against them.

But my inner torment was powerful. In fact, it would reach such fervor that I imagined giving everything away, tossing even my dreams aside to help the homeless, the drifters, the alienated. My sense of injustice was heightened; my sense of economics black-and-white and simplistic: Surely we can all get on to help these people. If I could have, I would've become poor myself in order to alleviate poverty, convinced, as I was, that my having X meant that someone else could not possess Y. I was idealistic, passionate, righteous, and angry. There were reminders of my guilt everywhere. And I could hardly have fun in a place that was considered by many to be the cultural center of North America.

I even recall asking God to come down and smash the lot of capitalist looters that left in their wake the detritus of so much poverty and aimlessness.

My guilt knew no measure. I was a fool.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

†It should be noted that I did not attend Harvard. I'd hate to mislead anyone. But I did frequent Harvard Square as often as possible.

(The series continues tomorrow, in Part IV, I promise.)

Making Poverty History - An Analysis, Part II

Let's talk poverty, shall we?

In Part I of our poverty series, we noticed that leftists, who generally decry religious conviction in the public square or in the shaping of public policy, nonetheless are quick to cite religion when it comes to caring for the poor. We duly noted this infatuation with religion by those progressives who make a big show of their secularism. And we were left with a serious, unanswered question: What are the secular, a-theistic reasons for caring for the poor?

With this in mind let us take a brief tour through the neighborhoods of wealth, the metaphorical gated communities, if you will. And there can be no more obvious place to look at wealth than here, in America; in the land of opportunity. Of course, what I am about to say is as evident, perhaps even more so, in places like Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan. But I will confine myself to this land, to the land of the free, where so much is not free at all.

Let us begin by listing some facts:

1. Right now, in countless malls and boutiques, there are designer shoes "living" in luxurious environs, surrounded by careful staffers intent on maintaining the proper lighting, humidity, shelter and security for shoewear. In contrast, most people living on this planet have never experienced (nor will they) this sort of luxury. And let us add to the list the following: house pets, guns, cars, horses, jewelry, tools, stamps, storage boxes, bottles, books, magazines, baseballs, golf clubs, cosmetics, newspapers, compact discs: Most of these things have better "lives" than millions, perhaps billions of people on this planet. Just take a moment and think of all the human and natural resources being used right now to house and maintain new books, or new CDs. Think of the luxury in which new skis or new lingerie exist, each in perfectly controlled environments. There are garbage bags stored in handcrafted drawers made of finer materials than most homes in dozens of countries. Horses and goats are housed in barns that are warmer, cleaner, and more weatherproof than countless human shelters.
2. Right now, Hollywood movie producers and TV directors are making sets of the finest materials only to blow them up in fireballs, or to leave them in so much empty darkness when shooting stops. There are gorgeous apartments built solely for fictitious TV characters. On Broadway, while homeless people mill about New York, there are stage managers building million dollar sets: offices, castles, courtyards, living rooms - all to be used for high-priced games of make-believe.
   
3. Right now, the Rolling Stones are touring America erecting elaborate stage displays for effect only, displays carried about in 80 or so tractor-trailer units.
4. Right now, there are people who have spent more money on leather-backed Bibles than they've spent for shoes for a homeless child. Meanwhile, countless American drivers sit on leather-covered seats in German luxury cars without once thinking about the people on this planet who have never had a piece of leather clothing, or who have not eaten a decent piece of meat.
5. Right now, some Americans are appearing on TV proud of having consumed a record number of cheeseburgers, hot dogs or meatballs at some state fair.
   
6. Right now, there are environmental activists using countless laptop computers to berate the abuse of the environment, apparently oblivious to the fact that, according to a compelling NPR story last year, the computer industry is the most environmentally toxic and energy consumptive industry on the globe.
7. Right now, there are Democrats and Republicans retiring for the evening to their suburban and urban homes, which are perhaps thousands of miles from their second and third homes, all of which sit empty for most of the calendar year.
8. Right now there are Democrats who still seethe over the fact that President George W. Bush spent 40 million (private) dollars for his inaugural parties in January 2005, wondering aloud why that "money could not have been spent on other things." Curiously these same people are silent about the production costs of TV's "The West Wing," "The Daily Show", MTV or Link TV, never wondering - not for one second - whether the money spent on these shows, or the production of ANY Michael Moore film or even the production of the New York Times might be better spent elsewhere. Surely the money spent on "Queer Eye", PBS' Frontline, and The DaVinci Code could have been spent on the homeless?
9. Right now, there are hundreds of thousands of acres of empty parking lots, paved with so much spilled oil, that are illuminated from dusk to dawn by millions of streetlights. This energy is expended solely to alleviate people's anxieties about injury, theft and liability. In other words, 99% of the ambient glow (wasted energy) seen bouncing off night clouds along the corridors of metropolis is caused by fear.
10. Right now, another self-storage complex is being erected somewhere so that people can house, not their homeless neighbors or even themselves (it is SELF storage, after all), but the stuff that can't fit into their own homes.
    

Forsooth, I could go on about yachts and vacation homes and art museums and sporting events and heated toilet seats: the list is endless. There are things, mere things, considered of infinitely more value than 100 human beings. There are poets/singers making millions of dollars (they are rare, but they exist) who lament the exploitation of the worker, or the oppression of the arts. There are people who spend more money on birdseed for their window feeders than they spend on food for dying African children. There are excesses in materials on the outside of just one Borders Books building - with its faux and empty towers reaching skyward - which could easily have been driven to the nearest Habitat For Humanity project and erected as a nice home for a few families. In fact, just look at architecture everywhere: there are excesses of design that are strictly for design; for embellishment. Surely those materials could be used in some other way?

What I am saying here is nothing partisan: I am stating a set of facts. Nor am I making a value judgment here: I have not said a thing about whether wealth is good or bad. What I've tried to show are the contradictions and blindnesses of wealth and wealth's critics.

Lastly, this is not an American thing. This is a fact in nearly every country on this planet. And you know what? It's not going to change.

(More on poverty forthcoming in Part III.)

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

Making Poverty History - An Analysis, Part I

This might be a stupid question, but what is poverty? Is it the inability to purchase? Is it a dearth of choices? Is it a lack of education?

If it is a lack of education, was King Solomon or Julius Caesar poor since most of us, if not all of us, are better educated than either man? If poverty is the limiting of choices, is Bill Gates on a life raft in the middle of the Indian Ocean a poor man? Was Henry David Thoreau poor in his Walden Pond cabin, blue-blood as he was, even though he couldn't purchase anything on-line?

Or is poverty some combination of factors, some aggregate of 4 out of 10 criteria, or 6 of 7? Is it a mental condition – a mirage of the mind – or false perception based on the illusory promises of economics? Surely there have been millionaires who have lived as paupers, locked away in shacks or tenements: Is the miserly millionaire trapped in self-imposed squalor poor? Is the penniless pauper living in the king's castle as apprentice to the blacksmith poor? Is the young man who holds a Master of Arts from Syracuse poor merely because he chooses to live in the city's homeless shelter as a protest against the expectations of capitalism?

I've asked too many questions. But there is no doubt in my mind that poverty is an elastic, fluid or even vaporous thing. I know that I am poor in the eyes of the Vanderbilts, but I am rich compared to my neighbor. A homeless man in San Francisco is wealthier than a Haitian who has a home. Who then is poor? Conversely, who is rich?

For now, I will not answer these questions. Instead, today begins a Contratimes analysis of poverty and wealth in America; and of the ideas espoused to correct or eradicate that poverty, and, in some cases, that wealth.

***

Let me begin the analysis proper with this simple question (no question is simple, at least here): Why should anyone "care for the poor?"

The other day, during a televised press conference, President George W. Bush was asked the following question by a reporter addressed by the President as "April." I assume this is April Ryan of the American Urban Radio Network who covers the White House (please correct me if I am wrong). "April" asked:

Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, the Bible speaks of goodwill towards the least of these. With that, how are you going to bridge the divide of poverty and race in this country beyond economics and home ownership, that after Hurricane Katrina and also the Bill Bennett statements? And also, how can the Republican Party gain the black vote -- more of the black vote in 2008, after these public relations fiascos?

Please note something really important here (ignoring that the question is a fallaciously loaded question): The reporter unabashedly refers to the Bible – primarily Jesus' claim that His followers must serve "the least of these" as if each person is Jesus Himself – and thus refers to that Bible as a moral compass that should direct public policy. Problem?

Yes, there is, and it is a clear one: Arguments posited for "caring" for the poor, particularly arguments posited by leading Democrats, are religiously-based arguments. Hence, caring for the poor via public policy is a religious practice; and the justification for it comes directly from religious ideals, particularly Judeo-Christian ideals.

If you were paying close attention to the post-2004 election diatribes delivered by disappointed Democrats, you would have heard scripture cited repeatedly by such notables as Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Howard Dean. References to being "Our brothers' keeper", "Doing unto the least of these," "Turning the other cheek", and "Loving one's neighbor as oneself" came trippingly off the tongues of progressives everywhere. And these were offered largely as criticisms of Religious Right voters who, as you will remember, were blamed for turning out in droves to vote against the alleged compassion and social conscience of the Democrats' John Kerry. In light of the Religious Right's anti-Kerry votes, the Christian Right was not "very Christian" at all, or so judged leading Democrats.

Curiously, these Scriptural citations by Democrats were used politically to suggest that the Democratic Party was the "true" Christian party (you've heard them say this re: defense, healthcare, welfare, education, and civil rights) at the very same time Democrats were insisting that George Bush and Co. were attempting to establish a Christian theocracy!

In short, then, let us rip off the veneer and get to the heart of today's point: If separation of Church and State is so critical to leftists, why do they attempt to impose Judeo-Christian morality upon an apparently secular political state when it comes to poverty? Answer: they have never even thought about it.

Most of us haven't.

Why care for the poor? Who says we have to care for the poor? Who says "tax cuts for the rich" are unjust? Where, in this discussion, do we find our moral inspiration for fighting poverty in a secular state? Why should government be "our brothers' keeper"?

No one seems to notice that a reporter asked the President of the United States to use religion as a means to fight poverty through the vehicle of the state.

That is truly curious.

[Here endeth Part I. Part II begins here.]


Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.