Woodstock CT Café

More Insight on the Financial Crisis in the Financial Times. An article by George Magnus.

Below is the first cartoon in a 45-slide PowerPoint presentation that explains our current financial crisis and how we got here in an easy to understand format. It’s worth viewing and reading. It will take only 10 to 15 minutes.

This slide show was recomended by one of the Cafe’s Nobel Prize winning economic wizards. To see the full slide show access “The SUBPRIME PRIMER” here.

777 Isn’t that when all the bells and whistles go off and you win the jackpot?!? It would be if we were all down at Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun. Three sevens! Yup! That’s what a person can spend all night plugging in quarter after quarter into the one armed bandit in the hopes of finding one fabulous jackpot… looking for those three lucky numbers!

Well, we got the lucky numbers today. Right there on Wall Street. 7-7-7 !!! No bailout! No do-overs, no write it off, no “we have to do this or the world will come to an end”, no one to believe in, no one with any real credibility, no wonder.

I don’t know how it happened or why, but somehow a whole bunch of people took off their rose colored glasses and just said “NO!”

I’m not some financial whiz kid, but I could have told you the wheels were coming off. Did anybody believe for a slick minute that loaning people money that they were not capable of paying back would end up with a good ending? Did anybody who got one of those ‘loans’ knowing they couldn’t pay it back think that it would have a good ending?

No. What it came down to is everybody got ‘theirs’ without ever asking about the cost they weren’t paying. A long time ago, I was told “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Well all sorts of people, a lot of them supposedly knowledgeable, were willing to bank on the house of cards staying up just long enough for them to get theirs.

Well, the waitress just put the check on the table. I’m not looking forward to hitching up the belt and feeling the pain, but its high time to get to it. I hope we can all work through this and come out on the other side with a better appreciation for paying what something is worth, for the privilege of everyone following the rules and paying their way. Let’s do the right thing.

Becki

One of the things that is automatic in my life is the weekend visit to the transfer station (aka, the recycling center and in olden days … the dump).

When it comes to trash, there are only three ways to deal with it – keep it as they do in the Ozarks, put it on the roadside for Waste Management to pick up, or visit the Woodstock Transfer Station. Second to road maintenance, I suggest that the transfer station under the watchful eye of Bob Blair (with Avis Spalding as the Chairman of the Transfer Station Committee) may be the most important service the Town provides to its residents.

Yesterday, on Saturday, I made two trips to the station to transfer some wealth to other Woodstockians. Besides unloading our weekly trash, my wife has been on a mission to eliminate all unnecessary items from our house and I have been cleaning out things that we have accumulated and stored in the loft over our garage. We have a lot of stuff.

At the transfer station, my first stop is always the shed where people deposit still useful items that they do not need or want anymore. When I step into the shed, I have that feeling of being a kid again on Christmas morning; you know, when we woke up, we ran downstairs wide-eyed to see what gifts were placed in our stocking or under the tree by Santa. I often say or think “has my Christmas present arrived yet” when I step inside and my eyes start to adjust to the cluttered darkness.

On this visit, however, I was delivering goodies to the shed. The first item I placed in the shed was a coffee maker. This is when I met Tom who asked “Does it still work?” I said yes and pointed to two other coffee makers there also. Tom pointed out that the others were missing a pot and, without hesitation, swept up my former coffee maker before someone else could claim it. This was instant gratification for me too. Tom explained that he was taking it to give to someone at the school who needed it. We talked briefly and then I continued to transfer other precious items from my car to the shed.

After finishing with the shed, I transferred some nickels in the form of plastic bottles and a six-pack of empty Sam Adams beer bottles to containers for soccer dads and moms to scavenge each week to raise funds for their kids’ little league teams. This is the same labor-intensive activity that the Academy football boosters used to help fund the new Academy football program.

Slowly I get around to distributing our regular trash to the compactor, and glass bottles, tin cans, milk bottles, plastic bottles, unread Villager newspapers, and used batteries to their respective locations. Finally I drove over and backed up to bulky waste to deposit the unusable things. I couldn’t help note that much of the stuff I was getting rid of was stuff I got at the dump in the first place.  It was raining so I was holding a rather garish orchid umbrella, my favorite in fact. This prompted some off-color remarks from two friends across the way also in the process of unloading their trash. I pointed out that “I got it at the dump” … a phrase I use a lot.

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IN RESPONSE to the letter published in the Villager and on the Cafe and signed by Woodstock Academy Corporators -

In the past six months, a group of concerned citizens has spent time reviewing the Woodstock Academy’s application for expansion of its athletic fields adjacent to Bentley Field. As concerned citizens, we never stated that we are in “opposition” to the expansion of fields, or to the Woodstock Academy. We acknowledge that the Woodstock Academy has a need to expand its athletic facility. We also believe that an end goal of “superior” education includes provision for both academic facilities and athletic facilities that meet current standards.

Subsequent to the above and related to the Academy Corporators’ letter in which it was “resolved”–

No one in the group of concerned citizens strives to “change the endowed nature of the Woodstock Academy.” Furthermore, we too, gratefully acknowledge that the quality education offered by the Academy is due to an exemplary, dedicated faculty and staff.

Concerns are:
1.     The Academy’s illustrated priority as witnessed by the focused pursuit of a special permit for a large athletic expansion on unsuitable land and with an incomplete plan.
2.     The lack of an Academy promised long-range plan with timelines and budgets for ALL needs apparent.
3.      The lack of a contract between the town of Woodstock and the Woodstock Academy.
4.     Woodstock’s Conservation Commission, as well as the Academy’s consultant engineer firm (Design Professionals), produced similar reports in their separate reviews of the application. Both reports warn that inadequate supervision during construction, combined with incomplete planning, will cause probable environmental harm and ongoing costly maintenance. It is questionable whether the plan as submitted meets the requirements of the 2004 CT Stormwater Manual or the 2002 CT Guidelines for Soil Erosion and Sedimentation Control within a primary regional watershed. Read the rest of this entry »

This is all basically true (speaking to DB), but have no doubt, Fannie/Freddie have provided a steady supply of campaign cash to both sides for four decades, through both Republican and Democratic administrations and each party’s control of both houses of Congress. Fannie/Freddie represent equal opportunity crony capitalism, as evidenced by the actions of Dennis Hastert to shut down review of their operations. But we don’t have to go to Washington to see an example of an out-of-control quasi-governmental agency as we have one right here in the form of Woodstock Academy. Following the points made in your article:* The Academy has become a massive provider of reliable votes.
* A huge taxpayer rescue of $10 million may go even higher based on current major capital commitments.
* The Academy borrowed $10 million from U.S. capital markets with an explicit government guarantee of their debts.
* The Academy has become a government-run, privately owned education monopoly.
* The Academy has become heavily involved in politics, with multiple relatives serving on town boards and close supporters in the legislature.
* The Academy, as questions are raised about their more egregious practices, began to bully those who opposed them.
* Those who tried to ask questions about the Academy’s questionable accounting practices were politically targeted.
* Where were the regulators? The legislature created no regulator to oversee the Academy — the State Department of Education has to go hat in hand each year to the Legislature and does not intervene.
* With no oversight, the Academy has a green light to expand their operations at breakneck speed.
* The Academy regularly spends thousands of dollars on advertising and lobbying prior to key votes.
* The Academy has still not felt the need to even provide a budget for its athletic field expansion.
* Those who tried to halt this frenzy of activity found themselves hit by a political buzz saw.

DB - what are your thoughts on our own local version of Fannie Mae and Freddie.

Snuffy

Article #1000 at the Cafe

The head of a private school must be a top-notch fund raiser, a superb public relations person, a fine administrator, and a community leader. The first two criteria are synergistic and can impact favorably on the later two criteria. If all that was needed at Woodstock Academy is a fine administrator, then the Academy might as well hire a school Principal. I have a feeling that Marylou Bargnesi at NFA was at least very good at public relations, fundraising, and community leadership. Otherwise, how could she have increased the NFA endowment by $50,000,000?

The Academy needs to make a radical change in its leadership in order to satisfy all four criteria. The Academy has nine months to recruit someone with these four key qualifications. This will not be easy given the salary limitations at the Academy because private school headmasters usually command $2-$300,000 in salary with significant benefits. If someone was found who deserves this salary based on past performance (the four criteria above), this person should be hired with the stipulation that the increased cost of this Headmaster not come from the BOE budget. It should come either from the ensuing fundraising or interest on the few investments the Academy has.

Obviously the Academy should try to find the most qualified Headmaster.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ayn Rand must be rolling over in her grave. As a staunch defender of laissez-faire capitalism the one warning she gave us was of irrational selfishness and so it appears that she was right. Greed and stupidity on both the suppliers and the demanders has led us to this turning point where now the hard working, honest, and responsible heroes, of the like in Ayn Rand’s novels, are forced to bail out those who have failed. I read today Senator Dodd, Democrat of Ct. suggested to expand the bailout beyond forclosed mortgages to credit card and personal debt. Isn’t that wonderful? And what do the rest of us who have lived up to the demands of the American Promise get in return…less money for schools, hospitals, and infrastructure? Greater debt and taxes for our children? Loss of our social security and medicare benefits? Declining values on our homes?

While I remain confident in the philosophy of laissez-faire capitalism as socialism offers nothing for those of us who believe in hard-work and individual accountabiliy, I am increasingly losing confidence in the moral and ethical behavior of Americans who we depend on for the survival of our free markets. Many have seemingly lost the virtues of frugality, patience, and honesty that make capitalism work (for everyone)and replaced them with greed and need for immediate gratification. While some can blame a society that worships a materialistic hollywood and a rampant consumerism with unfettered advertising and loose morals, I believe the blame also falls onto an entitlement mentality which is fostered by an ever expanding liberalism. A liberalism that makes the claim that society is to blame for all problems and therefore society is responsible for solving all problems. This mentality has diminished individual accountability and has fostered a greedy and lazy attitude amongst many Americans.

While certainly our Republican friends have fed into the greed and exploitation of the stupid, I believe that the basic philosophy of the conservatism remains a sound one that has unfortunately been ignored by capitalists and vote-hungry politicians perhaps to the point where the demise of the system that supports them will occur. If so, this pulling of the rug is well deserved.. What happened to the Abe’s and the Teddy’s who believed in doing the right thing instead of the politically expedient? Read the rest of this entry »

Today (Sep 21st) as the Café’s third anniversary approaches and despite the doldrums of summer, Café readership continues to grow. A total of 998 articles and 10,293 comments have been posted since October 2005.

The Café estimates that there may be as many a 600-1000 people visiting frequently or infrequently by assessing the number of different Internet Protocol (IP) addresses that are recorded by our StatCounter.

The other interesting finding is that our host (Bright Egg) which manages small business commercial websites was surprised by the volume of “hits” on the Café. It turns out that we are not detecting all of our visitors with our StatCounter software because some visitors have ‘masked’ IP addresses (either intentionally or unintentionally).

Bright Egg measures about 50% higher visitation than our StatCounter. For example, my brother visited the Café and left a silly comment from ‘Nuclear Hobbit’. When he posted this comment, his IP was captured with the comment. I was interested in finding out what part of the world he was coming from because the last time he posted, it came from Brazil; but his IP was nowhere to be found in our StatCounter.

So the numbers that we provide may be an underestimate of visitation.

Below we have posted the daily visitation pattern from June 21st to September 20th (3 months) in the form of unique visits and number of page turns (clicks on an article or to comments).

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Ah, Barney Fife, what a character - you guys really hit my funnybone. I loved all those 60’s sit-coms - McHales Navy, Dick Van Dyke, Hogan’s Heroes, the Honeymooners. I still use those character analogies myself at work all the time.

But guys, the campaign season is over - you won the election - and you are governing now. In fact you have governed this town pretty much forever. So how about skipping the jokes and the campaign fluff and addressing the questions you were asked?

First, the town’s educational funding system provides funding priority - supremacy really - to its high school. The school regionalized and outgrew its facilities, after a +/-$10 million bailout by the taxpayers of Woodstock, arranged by the G.O.P. Shortly after the bailout, the G.O.P. silently, perhaps unknowingly, allowed the Academy to gain special funding status - with no review or check whatsoever - from the State legislature. Now the Academy has great ambitions, needs millions more, and the Trustees have nothing but scorn for the town, its taxpayers and its K-8 students - the very people who bailed them out when the Academy was in trouble.

Second, the G.O.P. has kept Prop 46 in place for 30 years, severely limiting funds available for the K-8 system, which has been incrementally reduced in staffing and programs each year for over two decades. This system is dying a death of a thousand tiny cuts. Read the rest of this entry »

Sarah Hamby’s article.

My comment about the article: 

It’s a good article Sarah. I’d like to correct some of the misinformation in the first comment which is typical of this commentor. The Woodstock Cafe (www.woodstockctcafe.com) was founded by me and my wife three years ago. It’s not a BOE website. In March of 2006 the Cafe proposed such an advisory committee, and we updated this proposal on September 9th before Fusco got into the act (http://www.woodstockctcafe.com/2008/09/09/proposal-for-a-boe-advisory-committee/ ). These people are litagants who want to form this committee. For one of these lawsuits the Judge used words like “pure folly”, (not) “sincere”, “disingenuous”, “baseless”, “shifted their argument”, and (lacking) “common sense” to characterize in handing down his decision. The difference between the Fusco-instigated committee and the Cafe proposal is the Cafe simply requests an objective, impartial group whereas the other cadre wants to poison the system with litigants’ interests whose objective is to trash the school system. As Sarah says, this has been hotly discussed at the Cafe from both sides, not just one side. You are all welcome to read the history of this discussion at the Cafe. Look back in time also.

John Leavitt

Also, Sarah Hamby’s article on Foye’s retirement.