a digression (or, why i hate macroeconomics)

there was an article recently in the economist that laid a fair bit of the blame for the Great Recession at the feet of academic economists, rather than the usual whipping boys of MBAs and financiers. in particular, the author takes on the 'rational expectations hypothesis', which has - as he asserts - fueled economic thinking for the past 30 years because it was logical, mathematical, and fittingly conservative (conservative a la reagan).

in another article in the same magazine, they point out that we will probably cross the 7 billion mark on the planet's population in 2011. remember when we hit 6 billion? that seemed like such a scary milestone in 1999! now we calmly look ahead to predictions of the population stabilizing at almost 9 billion by 2050.

the two are related, really. i'm getting there.

i think the economics problem runs much, much deeper than just the past 30 years, in both macro theory and micro theory. even keynes - who was liberal, claiming that aggregate markets were not self-correcting and advocating for government intervention in markets to keep things running smoothly - was not interested in exploring the long-term effects of the basis of the doctrine.

all of macroeconomics rests on calculations and determinations of gross domestic product. gross domestic product is simply the total sum of all domestic (on our shores) production in an economy. it's easy to calculate, and the government does it all the time, because it is the single most important indicator of overall economic health used.

GDP by country*

at the simplest, you can calculate gdp two ways: you can sum up all of the income in a nation, or you can sum up all the expenditures - all the goods and services purchased - in a nation. it's common knowledge that gdp is a flawed measure. but every so often i am stunned by the depths to which it is a flawed measure. to wit:

activities that raise gdp
a divorce, and the subsequent establishment of another household
buying a new car
buying a new toy for your kids
anything inherently wasteful that requires you to buy something new
ill health - like having cancer
having as many medical tests done as possible
elderly cared for in an institution, rather than by family
taking your kids to disneyland
driving an inefficient vehicle (relative to an efficient one)
getting a new cell phone as often as possible

activities that have no effect* on gdp
saving seeds from your garden and growing food from them
buying a used car from an individual person
swapping used clothes
conserving electricity or water by limiting use
lifelong health
reducing
reusing
reading to your kids
walking in the woods (if you don't drive to get there)
driving an efficient vehicle (relative to an inefficient one)

*when something has no effect on gdp, that means it has no significance in the national economy. you might as well say it hurts our economy.

we know - i think that this is, in fact, almost irrefutable, no matter how rosily you view the future - that we cannot support two billion additional people on this planet at the level of the total consumption of an average american. hell, most likely, we couldn't even support all the existing people on the planet at our level. not at our current technology, anyway.

yet the single biggest factor in determining our nation's economic health is, in fact, consumption, period. that's the metric we use to both assess economic health and set monetary and fiscal policy. the reliance on this measure means that for us to be better off, we have to consume more - all of us.

there's no way around that conclusion. and, both theory and experience tell us that when gdp falls, unemployment rises. the definition of a recession is a decline in gdp for two or more quarters. and recessions, as we know, cause real and immediate pain for millions of unemployed people and families.

we can't just abandon gdp as a measure. for starters, there's no getting around the fact that production does matter. we have to have some production. not everyone can live off the grid, getting their goods and services through bartering, and walking everywhere. someone has to buy new clothes at some point in time, even if only to pass them along to the other, more sustainable members of the community down below at the bottom of the consumption chain. we also know, we know, that increases in wealth - gdp - lead to healthier, longer lives for everyone. almost unequivocally, as gdp and wealth rise, so do education rates and advances for women. here's an interesting video from the viewpoint of a health professor. at the end of the country-wise progression he illustrates, there's still a large gap in income, and he does point out the inequalities within countries, too, as they march along towards higher health and wealth. but there's no doubt that as we've gotten wealthier, life expectancy has increased - and we're healthier, too.




the united nations, recognizing both the flaws with a measure like gdp as well as its significance, uses gross national income per capita as one of the main indicators in its Human Development Index - which combines the income measure with other, more 'healthy' indicators like education and life expectancy.

united nations human development index components

and i know, for certain, how lucky i am. i know the great benefits being born onto this planet as a white american grants a person. i'm grateful, very grateful, for the technology - the progress, the overall wealth of our nation - that enables me to sleep in a warm house at night, type on my computer whenever i want, go to school in my mid 30s, travel around the world if i want, limit my child-bearing if i want, say whatever the fuck i want, and live past 40 (hopefully).

so what can we do? we have to have some primary production. our reliance on gdp as the metric for our economy will push us to constantly expand consumption and utilization of resources. yet, if we all suddenly brought our consumption down to a more sustainable level, our economy would come to a screeching halt - with millions out of work. as people stop spending, producers stop producing - and then workers stop working.

how can we reconcile the motivation at the national economic level for more consumption, with the constant cultural messages that our planet is coming to an unsustainable collapse? how can we internalize - economically speaking - valuing the things that we need to value, like conservation, wildness, and genuine loving and kind interpersonal relationships?

how can we deal with economics? this is what i just don't know. economics runs our entire country - don't let all the rhetoric about democracy fool you. capitalism is our real state religion, and the entire basis for capitalism is microeconomic & macroeconomic theory. i'll pick on capitalism, and micro theory, later on.

i don't know, maybe it's just a pessimistic month for me right now. but as i sit in macro theory class learning about how the models predict any number of dire outcomes for humanity when consumption falls - and yet i know for certain that consumption must fall if we're to bring up billions of people to an equitable standard of living, let alone add two billion more into the mix, and i see the antiquated, uncreative tools that we use to assess economic success - i can think only one thing:

we're fucked.

awesome americans #1: kurt vonnegut

I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.

The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody would be to not be used for anything by anybody. Thank you for using me, even though I didn't want to be used by anybody.

I found me a place where I can do good without doing any harm, and I can see I'm doing good, and them I'm doing good for know I'm doing it, and they love me, Unk, as best they can. I found me a home.

--Sirens of Titan (1959)


We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

Make love when you can. It's good for you.

--Mother Night (1961)


Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies — "God damn it, you've got to be kind."

--God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965)


How nice - to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.

Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.

I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone.

--Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)


I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not.
So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things.
What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.
And all music is.

1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them.

--Breakfast of Champions (1973)


A great swindle of our time is the assumption that science has made religion obsolete. All science has damaged is the story of Adam and Eve and the story of Jonah and the Whale. Everything else holds up pretty well, particularly lessons about fairness and gentleness.People who find those lessons irrelevant in the twentieth century are simply using science as an excuse for greed and harshness. Science has nothing to do with it, friends.

--An address


What we will be seeking ... for the rest of our lives will be large, stable communities of like-minded people, which is to say relatives. They no longer exist. The lack of them is not only the main cause, but probably the only cause of our shapeless discontent in the midst of such prosperity.

--"Thoughts of a Free Thinker", commencement address, Hobart and William Smith Colleges (1974)


I was obviously born to draw better than most people, just as the widow Berman and Paul Slazinger were obviously born to tell stories better than most people can. Other people are obviously born to sing and dance or explain the stars in the sky or do magic tricks or be great leaders or athletes, and so on.

I think that could go back to the time when people had to live in small groups of relatives-maybe fifty or a hundred people at the most. And evolution or God or whatever arranged things genetically, to keep the little families going, to cheer them up, so that they could all have somebody to tell stories around the campfire at night, and somebody else to paint pictures on the walls of the caves, and somebody else who wasn't afraid of anything and so on.

That's what I think. And of course a scheme like that doesn't make sense anymore, because simply moderate giftedness has been made worthless by the printing press and radio and television and satellites and all that. A moderately gifed person who would have been a community treasure a thousand years ago has to give up, has to go into some other line of work, since modern communications put him or her into daily competition with nothing but world's champions.

The entire planet can get along nicely now with maybe a dozen champion performers in each area of human giftedness. A moderately gifted person has to keep his or her gifts all bottled up until, in a manner of speaking, he or she gets drunk at a wedding and tap-dances on the table like Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers. We have a name for him or her. We call him or her an 'exhibitionist.'

How do we reward such an exhibitionist? We say to him or her the next morning, 'Wow! Were you ever drunk last night!'

--Bluebeard (1987)


Many people need desperately to receive this message: "I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people don't care about them. You are not alone."

--Timequake (1997)

awesome americans

i started this whole blog idea thinking about being an american, and being patriotic - what that means, and what it doesn't mean, and how it all came to be.

it was living in germany that made me realize two things: that i am, irreversibly, an american through and through; and that i was ok with that.

but this same process happened before, too. i've learned this lesson before.

growing up, it seemed that our existence - out on the corner of the country - was nothing but irrelevant. news was something that happened somewhere else - the midwest, the east. politics, government - the northeast. arts & culture all came from europe. popular culture came from southern california. sports, events, everything - came from somewhere else.

and, in many ways, we didn't even fit into the west. the coastal edge of oregon and washington are an anomaly in the west. not dry. not open. not the typical home of the western archetypes, cowboys. liberal politically and open to government and laws. no one came to experience the west. no ski resorts with hollywood types, no dude ranches. nothing to entice the wealthy easterner or southerner to visit.

feeling irrelevant, and as if everything of value came from away, and loving art, i was a europhile. i wanted only to get to europe, to real culture, civilization, and relevance.

but in high school, i was exposed to a whole new batch of americans, through books and art, ones that made me realize that we had something to offer, that we had contributed something to the world stage other than bravado, empty promises of freedom and success (forced under the guise of war), and optimism. this coincided with trips around the west to visit national parks, where i found a landscape of unsurpassed beauty and joy.

awesome americans - and the national park service - drew me into loving america and loving being american for several years.

so, i've decided to do an occasional series of my personal inspirations. my awesome americans. they don't have to be significant to anyone else, and i'm not even trying to convince other people that they are worthy of their love, too. it's just a way to celebrate and remember the people who led me to recognize some of the amazing contributions we've had.

top of the list & first up: kurt vonnegut, who wrote a body of literature that has never been surpassed for me in terms of honesty, realism, and sweetness. and who could only have been american. not very exciting, perhaps, but coming soon.

old world, new world, no world

it's always so interesting to return to a place one used to live.

the feeling of belonging, yet not belonging. the feeling of both intimacy and strangeness. the same face of the same cashier who looks at you just a little bit extra, trying to figure out why you look familiar.

all these feelings were present many-fold on my recent trip back to germany, after over two years back in the states.

part of it is that i never really did feel that sense of belonging there. because i didn't really speak the language, and still didn't always get the small niceties and customs correct, i was always a little bit of a stranger in a strange land there.

i don't pretend to really know either germany or france. i don't even pretend to 'sort of' know, or 'make a stab at knowing' any place in the old world. it was while living there, after all, that i realized how completely and utterly american i am, through and through - even if i didn't want to be. but last week, while i was there, a friend idly asked me, "do you think the cultural difference between france and germany is larger or smaller than the cultural difference between the US and germany, or the US and france?"

my first instinct was to respond: oh, absolutely, france and germany are much more similar to each other than the US is to either of them. after all, one is new world, while the other two are old. the US is completely unique, sharing a common historical experience with almost no one, while the other two have been sharing a border and even swapping parcels of land for centuries. there must have been so much cross over between the two that they are like siblings, interrelated and interwoven by both history and shared present experience. we've fought along side one and against the other a couple of times, but we had a lot less at stake in these wars than either of them. we had no damage or atrocities on our soil, no civilians terrified or killed. surely even that negative shared experience would leave them with more in common with each other.

and yet, the more i thought about it, the more i'm not sure that's right. traditional - or even merely frequent - enmity is not always a bonding point.

there's definitely a difference when you cross the border between france and germany. the half-timbered fachwerkhaus gives way to stone or at least plaster over the timbers, sometimes plain, sometimes more ornate, with iron balconies and lamps. the merely occasional piles of dog crap on the sidewalk give way to frequent, almost constant piles of dog crap. favored beer and white wine give way to red wine, while bread you could use to defend yourself gives way to fluffy crumbly croissants. (my german friends are tearing their hair right now, admonishing me that there's many, many types of bread popular in germany, not just dark, heavy ones. i know, i know, but i'm generalizing to make a point. after all, they do drink beer in france, too. just not real beer, right?)

on the trip back from paris to frankfurt, aboard the high speed train line that is cooperatively shared by the french and german national rail companies, i watched an exchange between a french couple and a german guy. the french couple had seats that weren't together - one of them was next to the seat already occupied by the german, while the other was across the aisle. they spoke to him in french. he answered in german. neither spoke the others' language. i was pretty sure they were just wanting to swap seats so they could sit together, but he kept pointing to his seat reservation card. "do you speak english?" the german guy asked the couple. they shook their heads. still, he forged on in english, perhaps guessing that that was his best shot at being understood.

back over here, there's a lot we have in common with the german culture. you could say we inherited a lot of it. and yet thanks to the normans, french culture is not unfamiliar and french words are scattered through our language; in particular, a lot of common food names and terms come from france. the united states is peppered with both german and french last names. you can get a croissant in the morning and a bratwurst for lunch. people are as likely to trace their heritage to one as to the other, or even both. our lack of deep connection - a connection forged either from mutual aid and understand or from mutual distrust or enmity - leaves us free, in a sense, to love and appreciate both countries in any way we chose.

so i don't know. maybe our mixing-pot experiment of a country means maybe we're not so much the far point of a triangle as a bridge. without the baggage of history, without the centuries of grudges and memory, we don't really belong anywhere but here, but we're a little bit familiar with a lot of places. 

class warfare

if there's anything that makes me want to commit my life and actions more thoroughly to the eradication of social and economic classes, it's flying internationally.

it just somehow gets worse and worse. this past trip to europe i flew on united, simply because that was the airline i had frequent flier miles available to use. it's one thing to have to walk past a reasonable first class section or business class section, with wider, leather seats that recline more, personal 'entertainment on demand' units, and more leg room. ok, i look at it with longing, but that doesn't really inspire rebellion in me.

but recently, airlines are upping the anty in providing comfort to these royal classes, at the expense of the rest of us peons. on my recent flights to and from frankfurt from washington dc, united now has no fewer than four classes in which to divide us: first class, business class, economy plus, and economy. first class, instead of being two nice seats next to each other, is now one pod-like structure that completely surrounds and envelops the traveler. the molded plastic 'seat' features an iPod dock, a huge TV screen with entertainment and games on demand, connectors for your laptop, a leg rest and foot rest that - get this - combine with the seat to create a bed that lays completely flat. completely, utterly, absolutely flat, with a nice soft white pillow and blanket. a bed. on a plane. this was not a huge plane - the regular sections fit seven or eight seats across the width of the plane - but first class fit only four of these huge cocoons across the width of the plane, each seat requiring at least the equivalent of two rows by the standards of economy. business class was more like first class than economy - smaller pod-like seats that were next to each other, but still featuring the seat that lies completely flat. both of these sections, of course, also feature better food and free drinks.

it's when you (finally) get to the ever-shrinking area of the plane that's carrying the bulk of the passengers that it really gets annoying. here, the cost of those enormous bed-seats necessitates that every other row of seats be closer together. in the rock-bottom world of economy - i.e., a normal ticket - the seat back in front of me was a mere inch in front of my knees. my knees. i'm not a tall person. in fact i'd go so far as to say that i'm about as small a person as you're going to find on a plane without including minors. i'm the shortest person in 90 out of 100 gatherings of adults (for those of you who think that's a low estimate, my cousin's wife wins at any family gathering). once i had carefully stowed my carry on under the seat in front of me, it was impossible to reach it while sitting in my seat with someone next to me, because my head hit the seat back in front of me long before my arm could reach the floor. the rows are so close together that they cannot recline as much, either. i spent the next 8.5 hours twisting in my seat that barely reclined, desperately trying to find any sort of comfortable position, without even the heretofore sacred international flying perk of a free drink to pass the time with.

that's how they've suckered people into - or as we say in economics, provided incentives to encourage people to - paying more for what used to be standard: this new economy plus gig. as you check in, as you approach the gate, as you're getting ready to board a stream of cheerful advertisements featuring happy, smiling people sitting on the plane with their legs elegantly crossed encourages you to 'upgrade' to economy plus for "five inches more legroom!" it doesn't get you a flat place to sleep, free wine, or better food. all it gets you is what used to be standard - a seat you can cross your legs in and actually lean forward enough in to retrieve something out of your bag. this is what they're doing, my friends. they are going to keep cramming the seats closer and closer together until suddenly the economy section disappears and we're all paying more for what we used to get standard because - ta da! - now it's all economy plus. i'm not usually a conspiracy theorist, but as i sat fully upright, legs straight in front, desperately trying to sleep on the way to germany, it wasn't hard to come up with such nefarious schemes being perpetrated on us by the airlines.

everything is temporary

one of the nicest things about getting to know a place is that you can see when it changes.

sometimes change is good; sometimes, not so good. but i love both the excitement of the new and the mourning of what's lost.

i am irrationally attached to the place i grew up. not just to the overall place, but very specific places within it. streets. vistas. particular doorways or parking lots. specific trails and woods and beach cliffs.

one of my friends will occasionally post on facebook just a name - a name of a place that used to be there, that no longer exists. and everyone from there will leap in with other names, places we remember, places we wish were still there, places that frightened us as kids, places that we frequented as teenagers.

when you grow up in a place, change happens so slowly that you hardly realize what all is gone. it's the accumulated loss, from a perspective 20 years out, that is striking. how interesting it is to see what others remember, that i don't. and how the memories come flooding back, when that list starts getting created!

i don't know olympic national park well. i've only been there a handful of times. but we just got back from backpacking there, in exactly the same place we went last year. and it was astounding and awesome to be able to realize, in a very specific way, exactly what had changed over the year.

last year, kalaloch beach was covered in driftwood. and not just any driftwood. huge, monster, old temperate rainforest sitka spruce driftwood. the logs, several feet in diameter, polished to a grey smoothness, often still with giant root stubs attached, covered the first twenty or so feet of beach from the land. we scrambled up and over them, climbed all around, marveled at their length and girth. they were jumbled together like so many pick-up-sticks, crossing over each other, balancing on each other.

we marveled at the force that brought them miles downstream, out into the ocean, and back onto the beach. each looked as heavy and as permanent as any human construction. logs six, seven, ten feet wide and fifty feet long? they were clearly not going anywhere anytime soon.

except, they were. this year, the beach was almost empty of logs. all that mass, all that volume, all that weight, somehow during the course of the year, simply picked up, and swept away.

last year we camped at a bend in the river a few miles in. there, the river channel spread out and we were near some calm pools on a side channel. the main channel was across a gravel bar, out of sight and out of mind. 

this year, the entire river was in the main channel. those calm pools and side channels we were fishing in last year were expanses of gravel and silt, that we happily pitched out tents on. the main river was in one simple, fast moving channel and in twelve short months it had completely changed course. 

a few miles down the trail from us were a pair of backpackers who've been coming to this river for 50 years. when the road washed out, they biked in. sometimes they walked in. they'd been here in fall, when the initial ford was impassable, when they rowed in by boat. they'd been here when the only way to get here was on unmarked forest service roads, before the national park began routing people along this upper valley road. i wonder if they sometimes sit around like my friends and i, naming features and landmarks that no longer exist. i wonder if they remember when there was no himalaya berry in the meadow. when the large doug-fir still had its top. when there were more bears, and less people. 

i can love this beach, or my hometown, for what it is, but it will never be again exactly what it is now. everything is temporary. 

kith and kin

for all the completely opposite vegetation, climate, and landscape, i feel at home in the southwest. there's one key thing that southwesterners and northwesterns have in common, a key similarity that we can recognize in each other's eyes and culture and think: yeah, so you understand where i'm coming from.

it's rain worship.

for opposite reasons, and through opposite experiences, we both end up at the same point: the point at which rainfall becomes, in many ways, the defining feature of our existence.

in the northwest, as it rains all winter long, it becomes the focal point of our conversations - how much it's rained. how many days it's rained. how long it's been since we've seen the sun. how much above, or below, average this year is. how it compares to soaker years in the past. how, we tell newcomers, this ain't nothin yet; just you wait. sometimes it will rain for months.

and down in the southwest, by the end of fall, they are having similar conversations: how much it's rained. how many days it's been since it rained. how long it's been since they've seen the rain. how much above, or below, average this year is. how it compares to drought years in the past. how, i imagine them telling newcomers, this ain't nothin yet; just you wait. sometimes it won't rain for months.

all of us, eyes fixed to the skies, staring at the clouds. all of us worshipping - in a direct, this-is-what's-shaping my-life way, the rainfall.

and existence in both the northwest and southwest is defined by storms that come, like clockwork, with the rains. in the northwest, it's the winter storms. the grey clouds settle in and cover the landscape, for days on end. then, slowly, a storm will build; with little change in the color or tenor of the overhanging roof of clouds, winds gradually whip up and rain increases until, for hours or days, all natural hell breaks loose. bridges are closed. trees topple.  waves crash across lanes of traffic. rivers cease to stay in thier courses and innundate the banks around them, spilling across roads. falling trees cut off power for hours, sometimes days. and all around, coastal and valley residents are comforted by the knowledge that they are, in the grand scheme of things, only bit players; that nature always has the final word on whether thier pitiful endeavors - roads, bridges, houses, power lines - will stand or fall. wrapped in our insignificance in the face of all that's powerful, we can finally relax, and inhale and exhale with the gusts and breaths of the storm. it is a meditation. and we are nothing more or less than rain-worshippers, praying.

in the southwest, it's the summer storms. the dark clouds gather on the horizon almost daily. one can watch them marching ever closer, ever darker. then like a wall, the water hits. torrents run from the skies. freeway traffic slows to 40, to 30, as drivers search for a faster windshield wiper setting. isn't there a three? i can't see a thing! water gushes into roadways, which drop from four lanes to two as rivers form along the sides. rain flows across parking lots and skips over curbs, creating tiny canyons in xeric rock landscaping as it courses along. instead of the drama of the wind, here it's the drama of lightning. streaks split the sky over and over. lightning touches down and, the channel now open, will pulse two or three times over as built-up energy finds an open outlet. thunder booms all around. life comes to almost a standstill as everyone realizes that, in the grand scheme of things, we're only bit players; nature will flood your roads and burn your forests without a second glance. the storm breaths slightly; slowing down, the worshippers exhale a bit, relax a bit, only to realize that the pause was simply an intake of air. wham, another blast descends. until, finally, like exiting a room, the rain slows to a trickle and the foreboding dark sky gives way to the trademark southwest washed-clean blue with little, innocent, white fluffy clouds. everyone is breathing in time. it is a stop-what-you're doing, meditative moment in the hot day. and every person watching the sky is nothing more than a rain-worshipper, praying.