Recessionizing

The other morning, I was rattling along McAllister on the #5 line, heading to work. Yes, rattling along, as that early in the morning I am nothing more than a hyper-intelligent bag of potatoes, bouncing and jostling along the road, not talking to people on the bus (hyper-intelligent for a bag of potatoes, I mean). I usually wake up after visiting a market to get a bagel and an orange juice and ignore the young teenagers casually walking through the empty check stands on their way in, stuffing small objects in their pocket as they go--I'm not turning a blind eye to young people sticking it to a corporation, mind you; I just really dislike teenagers and would rather ignore them.

But my morning routine was shaken when I saw that Cafe Neon was gone. All of a sudden, the windows papered over in that brown butcher's paper decor that seems to mark storefronts more and more these days. One day here, the next day gone like a pot of coffee gone cold and stale and thrown out.

I used to go to Cafe Neon a lot; it was handy to Vaughn's apartment, so we would meet there after work before watching a ball game on TV. They did good french toast, I remember, from a year and a half ago.

I guess that is the nature of a recession. After seeing Cafe Neon was gone, I started noticing more and more empty store fronts along my usual walking/busriding routes.

The weird thing was, I couldn't even remember what some of the empty store fronts once contained--which probably explains why they are now empty, but still, it bothered me that I couldn't remember.

They say the recession is ending. The stock numbers are starting to trend upwards, for whatever that is worth. But I question that, because of my observation of these emptying stores.

I can think of three possible explanations for the discrepancy:

1) I'm not nearly as observant as I would like to think I am, and just haven't noticed all the failed stores until now that it has been brought home so thoroughly with the demise of Cafe Neon;

2) the recession is ending, but there are some lingering aftershocks that are catching up to some businesses that have been desperately holding on;

or 3) the recession continues, and any talk of it ending is premature, or at least not yet relevant on the ground.

I'm going to discard possibility 1 out of hand, because that would make me feel so much better. As for the latter options, I'm not qualified to answer. What do you all think?

A Tale Of Two Contract Disputes

Ah, Labor: the virtue of the working class; the sufferings of a mother bringing another future worker into the world to compete for resources; the source of hundreds of thousands of sports fanatics around the world. And typically, the side I would choose in any dispute.

A Bay Area Rapid Transit Union is calling a strike as of the end of service on Sunday night, which would shut down the central spine of the local public transit hub, overloading the other transit agencies and leaving thousands of workers free to worry less about whether their own jobs are secure, because they will be worrying about just how they will get to those jobs in the first place.

Keep in mind, we are also approaching the Labor Day weekend, when the Bay Bridge will be shut down for construction efforts. That could be interesting.

Why am I talking about a labor strike in a sports blog? Well, every story of a dispute needs a good cop/bad cop angle, and in this case, the BART union is the good cop. Even though the average BART worker salary is more than twice what I make.

The bad cop, sadly, comes from the world of sports.

The bad cop is San Francisco 49ers top draft pick, Michael Crabtree, who is threatening to hold out for an entire season. He wants to be paid 'top 5' money, commensurate with what someone drafted among the top five selections would earn, even though he was drafted at number 10.

A few disclaimers on this before people doubt my sympathy for the 'laborer': yes, as far as the BART union goes, it would be a hard job; they deserve to be well paid; and historically, management has been known to use economic downturns to stick it to the worker. As far as an athlete goes, yes, they can be considered labor, and have had legitimate labor issues over the decades--watch certain episodes of Ken Burns' excellent Baseball documentary; and yes, sports are physically demanding, with many consequences for the athlete in later years, so they do need to be well paid to take care of themselves and their family in later years.

But Michael Crabtree, regardless of wanting top five money without the rationale of, you know, actually being in the top five, seriously, can you really not live with whatever you are certain to earn as a top draft pick in the NFL? Every year the trend has been for players and agents to ask for more and more money. This is not a cost-of-living sort of trend; this is nothing to do with inflation. If Crabtree gets the sort of money he is looking for, according to SI.com's John Lopez, he would earn $3 million more per season than Jerry Rice ever made. Michael Crabtree is not yet Jerry Rice.

Michael, if you think you're going to struggle to make it in this admittedly expensive city, I can tell you where the cheap sushi and the good happy hour deals can be found.

Here's the thing: Crabtree's holdout may be a negotiating ploy, but it sure seems tactless, to say the least. Assuming you want to be a success at the game, and assuming you want fans to love you, don't you think you should avoid pissing everyone off as to how much money you think you deserve?

Sports are simply sports. This is a country where socialism is considered a dirty word--it's considered this mostly by people who don't pay attention to what socialism really is and whether it might be beneficial to them, instead relying on the advice of people with a vested interest in capitalistic trends. Nevertheless, until our currency becomes useless for anything except kindling, I don't think athletes should take our 'free market' spirit for granted, because it isn't like they are short of cash.

How much do you really need to live well?

Rolling The Coins of One's Life, Or Frugality In The Modern Era

Tonight, after running a space heater for a bit, which naturally caused my CD player to start detecting CDs successfully again, I sipped some wine and gathered up three rolls worth of dimes and one roll of nickels, preparatory to depositing them to my account tomorrow. All in all, it took maybe forty minutes, maybe an hour, because I was a bit tipsy. I spent several minutes with my fingers trapped inside the coin rollers, as if they were Chinese finger cuffs. Totally the wine's fault, that: it's not that I'm naturally uncoordinated or anything.

Really.

Even so, you would have to say that accumulating $17 while drinking wine is a pretty good hourly wage.

We'll ignore the fact that this change was mine to begin with, so I wasn't technically earning new money.

We'll also ignore the fact that earlier tonight, in the space of about ten minutes, I spent ten dollars on wine, cookies, and a lottery ticket, and also made an inquiry into a special order at a wine and liquor store that could cost $38 plus taxes.

Those details do not further the story, so shall be omitted.

How many people actually do anything with spare change? Oh, there are the change counters at some banks and at some stores. But how many people just let their change sit there doing nothing? No wonder pennies have been rumored to be on their way out for years. If currency isn't being spent, does it have any value?

I've mentioned before the interesting manifestations I have witnessed of humanity's version of frugality: selling junk food to strangers on a bus, swiping used food off a restaurant's deserted table, etc. What are some of the new details you pay attention to in calculating a budget these days? I've cancelled a subscription to a magazine I never finish reading anyway; I've preemptively cancelled my Amazon Prime membership so it won't renew this fall--shop locally, spend less, I say--Amazon makes it too easy to spend.

I've even gone through my bookshelves to see if there are books that, if I'm honest with myself, I won't ever read again, and that I might be able to trade in to a used book store for credit for other used books (I've found three so far; if you knew my pack rat tendencies when it comes to books, you would be shocked, believe me).

On the flip side, I also spent $18 on the new Green Day CD at a local record store, when I could have bought it for $10 through Amazon, so how frugal am I being? Do I get frugal spirit points for shopping locally? Or at least good karma?

But back to my original point, or my question to my readers, rather: are there any interesting, subtle ways that you have found to be more efficient in your spending these days?

Chronicles of a Paper Stack

For the last year or more, my weekend mornings can be summarized as follows: coffee, brewed or bought; pastries, scones, bagels, or cinnamon rolls; quiet music; and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Local newspapers, the print version, are in many ways a relic of a more patient, possibly less environmentally-friendly world, depending on one's perspective on the amount of energy required for the Internet. I'm not sure what the comparative carbon-footprints are. Nevertheless, there is something satisfying about getting all the way through an actual paper. Especially when you have to consider the value you are getting from your subscription.

When I first subscribed, I had a deal as good as drinking fine scotch in a wooded cabin on a rainy night, about $20 for 13 weeks of Wednesday through Sunday service. 13 weeks ago, the price went up to $40. I was fine with that, I could definitely afford it, and I felt good about paying to support a local daily newspaper, even though I could read the paper every day at work, and even though on many weekends, I have not been home and have been buying extra copies.

Yesterday, I got the bill for the next 13 months--which had already been charged to my credit card; you get the bill after the fact--and found the rate is now $80.

This is where I find myself wrestling with a conundrum.

The newspaper is the local daily newspaper. It is also run by a corporation. I'm not naturally inclined to trust corporations to have more than a fiduciary investment in a community, but I want to thwart the trend of newspapers dying across the country.

The corporation, while publicly fretting about having to shut down all together, has forced major concessions on the part of the union employees--union-busting, anyone? On the one hand, I would like to keep those workers employed and the newspaper in existence. On the other hand, should I support a corporation under the current paradigm of commercial journalism?

Of late, the Chronicle has made many, presumably costly, changes. These changes range from the substantive (new comics, a new round-up of headlines from newspapers around the world) to the cosmetic (the sports section being printed on green paper once again on Sundays, and an expensive new printing process to improve the visual quality) to the supposedly-substantive-but-merely-cosmetic (a new solipsistic column by a former mayor who clearly doesn't lack for self-enthusiasm). Are these changes increasing the value I get for my money? Is this the right question I should even be asking when it comes to a source of news? Is that part of the problem in and of itself? A newspaper is a profit-driven endeavor.

When you factor in the extra charge built into subscriptions to cover delivery costs, subscribing costs me more than would buying the papers daily, Wednesday-Sunday, which is a bit irritating when you consider that a subscription gives a paper a guaranteed income, upfront. Still, I can probably afford this. The question is, do I want to? When I have access to the daily paper at work, and could just buy the paper on the weekend for my ritual, is subscribing to the paper at this price worth it?

I'm not sure yet.

Random Thoughts: The Confidence Game

We all live in gated communities. Sometimes literally, as in housing projects with security fences, or a country-club enclave of the rich and snobby, but always figuratively. (Brief random tangent: San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom is getting married in the Bitterroot Valley, spending time in the new gated community near my hometown. How weird is that?)

Most of us have been spared hardships the rest of the world suffers, such as drought, food shortages, civil wars. Until recently, we were relatively unscathed by natural disasters. Even after the heartbreak of Hurricane Katrina, we have still been able to tune out stories of floods and tornadoes in the Midwest and around the world as apparently lacking a direct effect on our lives.

And the foundation of that insularity is our money. Economists talk about bubbles bursting, and I find that image quite appropriate. So much of our economy is based on intangible ideas, the perception of what something is worth, and a general understanding and acceptance that stocks are worth what we agree they are worth. Consider the subprime mortgage crisis: speculators, mortgage brokers, a whole flotilla of people greedy or gullible or both, all overextended their reach, like a balloon that is inflated too far.

It is not just our economy that is based on abstract ideas of value, of course, and there are sophisticated laws of supply and demand and market value that I won't pretend to understand. But fundamentally, we take pieces of paper and say, "Okay, this paper is good for this much product." Or we say, "This piece of paper called a stock was worth this much a while ago, and now, a few days later, it is worth an entirely different amount." It might make for an easy substitute for trading five oranges for a loaf of bread, or trading sex for free housing, or other more tangible economic transactions, but it is undeniably abstract, and based on 'consumer confidence.' And now in the heyday of electronic transfers and credit cards, it is a game of numbers, a confidence game. And of course, everyone wants to win when it comes to games.

But what does it mean to win this game? To have a bank account with inflated numbers? Does that really do you any good in the event of a natural catastrophe?

A current example of this can be found in Mexico. My friend Marina works for a non-profit group that distributes grant money to conservation projects in Mexico. They are currently gearing up for another battle against hotel lobbyists to defend current laws aimed at preserving mangroves along the coasts. Hoteliers want to remove the current stringent laws that forbid any destruction of wetlands; the people of New Orleans could tell them what a good idea that would be. But the thing is, hoteliers could make money by building additional properties, and their argument is that would benefit the locals economically. They do not consider the tangible effects of their actions on the environment. It's an argument of the abstract versus the tangible.

Standardization of costs and values through the abstract techniques of our modern economy is beneficial in many ways. An economy is a method of collecting and distributing and using resources, and money is, obviously, a simplifier for that process. But the process needs to stay tangible. We must understand that it is a tool to allow us to live, not a goal for which we live. Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs features many elements that can be fulfilled only with the possession of resources. But it is a long way to go between needing shelter and needing multiple homes in the suburbs, or needing satellite TV, or needing a new car every couple of years. A Humvee is not self-actualizing.

If we are told that suddenly our stocks have less value, or the dollar is losing strength, for most of us, that is a very abstract notion based purely on confidence and instinct. Phil Gramm has many flaws, including: a) calling Americans 'whiners', which is mostly unfair; and b) supporting a candidate for President who has not unequivocally distanced himself from the worst administration I have ever known. However, his assessment that we are going through a 'mental recession' is not entirely baseless, even if he didn't quite get the idea or the presentation right. Say what you will, but we are not the happiest people in the world by any measure.

The trick is to find meaning in life that can be more tangible, to establish what you really need, as opposed to what society says you want. Do something tangible, like pick up trash on the beach. Figure out what toys you might want that you would actually use. How much do you really need?