Woodstock CT Café

from Newcomer

Yes, two years ago we were in free fall (to Kevin). Today, we are days aways from probably having our nation’s credit rating down-graded. The reports I’ve heard lately say that if that happens, it will almost certainly lead to more inflation. We already are experiencing inflation in cost of goods. I’m paying more for groceries today than I did two years ago. We are still enjoying low interest rates from lenders and that would be outstanding to take advantage of, if only I could find someone to lend. The lenders are being stingy, even when you have outstanding credit, which somehow I still do – thank God. So I submit to you that we are again on the verge of free-fall, albeit of a different nature. What may happen to our economy in the coming weeks if current predictions come to pass, is not something that I would define as stable.

ARRA may have saved a few jobs and even created a few, but my understanding is that it was not nearly as effective as even President Obama had hoped and presumed it would have been. I recall him saying not too long ago that those “shovel ready jobs” weren’t as shovel ready as he thought. I’ll give him credit for at least admitting it.

In the kind of severe recession we faced, lay-offs were happening on a massive scale but two years after ARRA, I’m still hearing crazy numbers like 300,000 new unemployment/jobless claims per week.

What about all of the $$ spent on extending unemployment benefits? Isn’t it possible that more people could have been helped and for a longer period of time if the government set up an unemployment program where recipients were required to earn something, even if they could only find work per diem for one day a week and then received benefits to make up the difference? What about a program like Clinton’s Americorp where people volunteer “X” amount of hours serving on their community projects and receive some sort of pro-rated compensation or so many dollars worth of credit toward higher education? Programs like these would have kept people involved, networking in some capacity, and productive and it would have stretched the government’s dollars further and longer. Maybe by that time, a few more projects would have been shovel-ready. At the very least, the way the funds were distributed and used should have been thought out and mandated more efficiently. But government is not known for being an efficient job creator and in this case, it shows.

If cuts are made with care and proper planning, they shouldn’t be damaging. Plus, neither the House nor the Senate is talking about overhauling and simplifying the tax code as part of these debt ceiling talks. They can’t do that because each party is beholden to their own special interests, be they big multi-national corporations, or the unions. No one wants to take on their “friends”. Big companies and small businesses aren’t hiring because they don’t trust this economy, nor this Congress, nor this President. And a complicated tax code doesn’t help. All of these things can be remedied, even if only temporarily, but it’s never going to happen. Read the rest of this entry »

from Kevin

To think we are in worse shape than we were two years ago I’m not sure reflects reality well (addressing Newcomer). Two years ago we were in free fall and today we are at least stabilized in no small part due to TARP and ARRA. I can tell you that this community, along with communities across the country, directly benefited from those programs and there would have been layoffs if they were not in place. Layoffs would have continued the downward spiral as it would have added to the pool of people who now can’t pay their bills, stop buying things and need public assistance as well. A lot of people seem to think that the government can snap its fingers and everything will be OK again. That’s not the reality of what governments can do.

When we were entering the recession a lot of depression era economics experts talked about the government and stimulus programs. One of the largest mistakes that happened then was that everyone started getting freaked out about the debt the depression and stimulus programs were causing and started pulling back into austerity programs. Of course this led to laying off government workers which began the downward spiral again. That’s when the depression started getting really bad. Unfortunately we’ve forgotten all that and are heading down the same path.

So is the economy getting any better? No of course not and the government is no longer doing anything to improve it. Even worse, the government through austerity programs is actively working to restart the downward spiral. Now I ask you, why do you think this is occurring?

Here’s what I’m unhappy with President Obama about. He is so concerned with bringing the other side to the table that again and again he capitulates so much as to not create a balanced approach. The Republicans are currently in a great place and can’t lose. They get their way and get to blame the bad results on the President. For example, in order to get some grudging Republican votes, the stimulus was too small and a third of that, tax cuts that ended up stimulating nothing and making the debt higher. When that didn’t do enough to stimulate the economy and caused deeper debt the Republicans get to blame him for it. Healthcare reform ended with a Republican plan, an individual mandate to try and get a few of them on board. Of course, now that’s the part everyone hates and the Republicans get to tar President Obama for it and claim they had nothing to do with it. Now we have the worst and most damaging thing of all about to happen. All attempts at government recovery have stopped and the Tea Party is about to set the agenda. President Obama is once again going over and talking big cuts with them to compromise instead of talking about ways to recover. Even if the debt ceiling is increased, but it is tied to massive cuts, we are in deep kimchi. When the layoffs that that will cause hit the economy we can kiss this fragile recovery good bye. The great news for Republicans is they will be able to once again point their fingers at President Obama as the cause. The Republicans win, likely gain power and who loses? Oh yes, the American people.

There is one way from a policy perspective to fix our financial situation and that is to move our GDP in a positive trajectory. The unemployment problem recedes, the debt problem corrects itself, etc. To be honest the 14th amendment solution might be the best outcome of this mess. At least that won’t cause damaging cuts. The best outcome would have been for congress to raise the debt limit and start focusing on jobs but that isn’t going to happen. Instead they are focused on not raising the debt limit and creating more layoffs which will surely put us back into a recession. A sad, sad, situation.

Thanks,

Kevin

I haven’t been paying much attention to visitation activity at the Café lately because we now have a very cordial group of visitors and little controversy to stir things up. But this morning out of curiousity I decided to take a look at where our visitors are coming from in Connecticut, Massachussetts, and Rhode Island. In the last three days, by far, most Cafe visitors access the Internet from a Woodstock ISP hub, but Storrs is a close second followed by Willington, Willimantic, and Mansfield Center. Many of these are probably Woodstockians in Woodstock. I’m not sure how this works because Becki and I, in North Woodstock, access the Internet from a Storrs hub multiple times every day. And other Woodstockians access the Internet from other hubs in surrounding towns.

The two figures below draw a picture of where more Café visitors are accessing the Internet, not necessarily their town location. These figures do not include the many out-of-state visitors and international visitors, some of which are Woodstockians on the road. And we welcome our reading visitor from Moscow, also.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Sincerbeaux’s visit the Café from their new home in Danville CA (due east over the hills from Oakland CA) where they are moving in the coming week. So below I have a map of where they are going and a picture of the downtown of Danville which looks like a typical downtown of many CA towns. We wish them the best in California and I would not be surprised to see them back in Woodstock on occasion.
Click to enlarge.
And also don’t forget Bob Blair (transfer station) who headed to the mid-west this week to get back to his roots near St. Paul MN. We wish him the best and I’m sure he will also be visiting the Cafe on ocassion.