Charts & Graphs & Flowcharts, Oh My!

My husband and I disagree somewhat on our politics. I believe we’ve entered a stage of “Argentinian Democracy” where the top 1% wealth owners have betrayed the trust of the people by overstepping the boundaries in a greed orgy that lead to big take-home pay for the executives of multinational companies and investors in hedge funds. He believes the people who took out all those mortgages and couldn’t pay them are the greed problem and the reason our economy is in the state it’s in. The sad fact is that we’re both right. What a mess! It’s so complicated that most people can’t grasp the complexity of what went wrong. To the rescue come graphic artists! Check out FlowingData.com for a list of 27 graphics to help us all understand what went down and to visualize how much it costs.
debt_graphic.gif


Don’t look if you don’t want to know. The graphics are awesome, but they paint a pretty ugly picture.

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March 23, 2009 | Filed Under Great Recession | Leave a Comment 

Green Values for the Coming Downturn

So, yeah, the stock market is tanking — again — and we need to prepare ourselves for the coming shift in our economic environment. Translation? Things could get really ugly before they get anywhere near improving.

A voice from 1933:

“We are flat cold stony broke and no place in the world to get any money. Have been living mainly on boxes of food from the Red Cross and received the last one yesterday as they have stopped giving them out. We owe 6 months rent. Resources all drained. I wonder what will happen now? God help us.”

If you’ve been reading duh pookie for a while you’ll know that I’m a member of the Green Party. I have never believed the Greens would become a major political force, that’s not really possible with our political system. But what the Greens do have is a set of core values that I can ascribe to. They’re listed here with my two cents thrown in:

  1. ECOLOGICAL WISDOM: Stop killing everything already! There are only about 1000 mountain gorillas left on the planet. Rainforest destruction continues. Uh, bad. Rainforests make oxygen. Oh. Right.
  2. NON-VIOLENCE: This includes global non-violence whenever possible, and defense of the vulnerable. If we’re going to send massive numbers of soldiers all over the planet, wouldn’t you rather see them stopping atrocities than bullying the middle east over oil?
  3. DECENTRALIZATION: Our federal government is ridiculously bloated and top-heavy. This is a Libertarian tenant as well.Smaller government is better government.
  4. COMMUNITY-BASED ECONOMICS: Sustainable economics. This is going to become hugely important and should’ve been all along.
  5. GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY: I hope we see big time grassroots democracy via the Internet.
  6. SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY: This means people need to share, at least share what they can afford to. A surprising number of people have trouble with this.
  7. RESPECT FOR DIVERSITY: Straight up. People should be judged on their merits without bias.
  8. PERSONAL AND GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY: Do your personal actions reflect your personal responsibility? If you’re anything like me, this is easier quoted than enacted!
  9. FUTURE FOCUS AND SUSTAINABILITY: “Our actions and policies should be motivated by long-term goals. We seek to protect valuable natural resources, safely disposing of or “unmaking” all waste we create, while developing a sustainable economics that does not depend on continual expansion for survival. We must counterbalance the drive for short-term profits by assuring that economic development, new technologies, and fiscal policies are responsible to future generations who will inherit the results of our actions.”
  10. FEMINISM AND GENDER EQUITY: This one is covered by the others and could probably be dropped. However, all discussion of access to birth-control has dropped off everyone’s political messages. Even the Green Party. Doooood! Family planning is key! International Planned Parenthood needs you! (Or at least your money…)

Why are these values important in a downturn? Because not one of them is “make a ton of money no matter what it does to the environment, or anyone else.” If the big suppliers and distributors fail, I hope we have enough of a farmers’ market to supply what we need. I hope we’ll help each other out. I hope that when it’s all blown over, ten years from now, that some of these values have helped to shape what comes next.

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October 6, 2008 | Filed Under Great Recession | Leave a Comment