I read two items in the news that are guaranteed to make obese people and the parents who raise them feel guilty. First, obese people are contributing disproportionately to global warming. Apparently, because obese people are larger, they need more calories to sustain their weight. This also translates into the need for more fuel to move them around on cars and public transportation. According to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, obese people on average require eighteen percent more calories than people of the same height and age of normal weight.
The second story (and to me the more frightening one) is the lead story in today’s Washington Post, Obesity Threatens a Generation. Apparently, the youth of today who are obese or even overweight have a much higher likelihood of developing chronic diseases earlier in life.
Doctors are seeing confirmation of this daily: boys and girls in elementary school suffering from high blood pressure, high cholesterol and painful joint conditions; a soaring incidence of type 2 diabetes, once a rarity in pediatricians’ offices; even a spike in child gallstones, also once a singularly adult affliction. Minority youth are most severely affected, because so many are pushing the scales into the most dangerous territory.
I am worried not only for the children out there who are overweight but also for my own daughter. She had times in her childhood when she was technically obese. For a few years, we enrolled her in Taekwondo. During that time, she had a normal weight and was in great physical condition. Eventually chose to give up the sport to concentrate on her academics. We encouraged her to exercise but she got out of the habit.
Now that she is eighteen and is earning her own money, she has the freedom to buy whatever she wants. Apparently, our choice of junk foods is very modest, so she has begun to buy her own food. Her food choices have been discouraging. She eats what most in her generation eat: a preponderance of junk food. My wife and I have of course registered of concern, but are being careful not to overdo it. As a young adult, she has the right to make her own choices and too much nagging is likely to be counterproductive. Fortunately, her job at a bookstore provides exercise simply because associates are so often on their feet. That helps.
Obesity runs in my wife’s side of the family. I am hoping my daughter did not pick up that particular gene. Given that my wife is one of many Americans struggling with obesity, I cannot help but wonder if ten or twenty years down the line, or perhaps even sooner, my daughter will be struggling with the same issues. I hope of course that she will emulate me and eat better, and exercise regularly. Like most teenagers, she thinks she is immortal. She realizes she may have to eat better and exercise regularly someday, but for now, she chooses to ignore the issue.
As do a preponderance of our youth, apparently. I am skeptical that today’s youth will find the wherewithal to address the problem as adults. I think without some major societal intervention that it is much more likely that they will stick with their current eating and exercise choices, because it has the feeling of familiarity and thus provides the illusion of comfort in a confusing world.
The consequences for these latest generations are truly dire. Yet there is little in the way of planned action to address these chronic problems. It appalls me to think that I may live to an older age than my daughter, primarily because my mother fed us healthy and nutritious food. Single parent families or dual income families are disproportionately raising today’s generation. That was true for our daughter. We both had full time jobs when our daughter was growing up. Living on one income, however modestly, was out of the question until the last few years. Our daughter ate most of her lunches in the school cafeteria, where she could safely consume the foods she wanted, like pizza, rather than the foods she needed. She fit right in. Her friends largely did the same thing.
I think dual income parenting contributed a lot toward the obesity epidemic. With family time so squeezed, it is not surprising that parents often rustled up meals from of a box or out of a fast food bag. It was also not surprising that our children tended to prefer these meals too. Food vendors do not stay in business by making uninteresting food. In order to attract more business, food had to be jazzed up. In that sense, American capitalism succeeded very well. Over time, we developed strong preferences for this unhealthy kind of food.
Congress may have inadvertently done our kids in too. Our agricultural subsidies, most of which went to subsidizing grains that could rarely turn a profit, made grain incredibly cheap. When certain types of food are cheap to purchase, many of us feel inclined to consume more of them than we used to. It used to be that we would rotate through seasonal foods over the course of a year. With grain cheap all year round, we added more and more grain to our diets. With sugar also artificially cheap, we had a deadly combination: cereals and breads laced with sugars. Cheap grain also encouraged us to give it to our livestock, making the price of meat cost less too. Most foods served in America were relative bargains throughout the latter half of the 20th century. There was little reason for restaurants not to super-size our portions when the ingredients were so cheap.
Our additional eating was one part of the equation. Lack of exercise was the other part. When I was a youth, we were free to roam neighborhoods at will as long as our homework was done and we returned home in time for dinner. Neighborhoods were assumed safe. My parents gave little thought to where we were as long as we were in the neighborhood. We also lacked modern indoor distractions like computers and videogames. Going outside and playing with the kids on the block was a compelling alternative to the drudgery of being home. Modern parents perceive that if they give the same freedom to their children that their children are at risk from child molesters. Parents believe it is safer to keep children at home rather than let them roam the neighborhood. To make this unfortunate reality easier to swallow, we provided indoor amusements for them. The combination of a poor diet and reduced exercise appears to be toxic.
Few of our children are likely to end up in professions where exercise will be built into the jobs. Most are likely to spend their lives much as we do: in offices living sedentary work lives much like Dilbert’s. Perhaps in their off hours they will be able to grab some exercise. That seems unlikely, for they will likely have children of their own at home, and these children will have to be fed and protected.
Our society desperately needs a culture shift. We may need to reduce our workweeks to 35 hours a week simply to allow adults to have time for physical fitness and parenting. An hour-long workout may not be enough, but it is a start. Employers may need to be required to offer exercise facilities to their employees to use at work. Just as you cannot keep horses in the stables for days on end, neither should humans be trapped in cubicles, cars and their homes for days on end. We are built to move, not to sit.
Exercise needs to be seen as a necessary and critical part of being a human being. What has changed over the last generation or two is that most Americans must now dedicate time for exercise. It should be encouraged by our leaders and our employers. Health insurance premiums should be substantially discounted for people who participate in monitored exercise programs. Our children need more than recess and occasional PE classes. They need regular and more vigorous exercise at school, extending the school day if needed, as well as more healthful food in school cafeterias. Since they are children, their weekly exercise should be monitored and tracked by school officials. It may seem offensive to some to require our children to be regularly weighed and tested for their physical fitness at school. However, these prosaic activities also encourage children toward a lifelong appreciation toward the necessity of exercise and healthy eating.
My suspicion is that these are the sorts of steps that must be taken to keep future generations of Americans from being obese, dying prematurely and the obscene health care costs that are associated with obesity. They may seem Big Brotherish, but for the sake of our children, we need to do it.
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May 18th, 2008 at 08:47pm
Posted by
Mark |
Sociology |
no comments
Tags: Children, Exercise, Health Care, Obesity, Young Adults
There have been many deserved jeers over the new U.S. House Republicans’ slogan, “The Change You Deserve”, which they unveiled yesterday. They desperately need to convince the American public to keep pulling the levers for congressional Republicans this November. Somehow, they think this lame and wholly inappropriate slogan is going to make us overlook the last eight dreadful years. I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. This slogan sure is desperate, and lame.
The slogan has been viciously lampooned. Ironically, it apparently was first used in advertising for the antidepressant Effexor. The metaphor though is an interesting frame, though not for Republicans. Americans do deserve a dramatic change. Unfortunately for Congressional Republicans, since the Democrats took Congress in 2006, Republicans have been the anti-change party. Understandably, the political opposition prefers to jam sticks between the bicycle spokes of the opposing party rather than show them succeeding. They have been very effective, ensuring that little meaningful change occurred during the last two years. No matter what the House passed, it was killed in the Senate. Republicans may be in the minority there too, but they have the power of the filibuster, and they have been using it at rates unseen in any previous congress. Change has been stopped. There has been no change in deficit spending. There has been no change in the Iraq War. There has been no change on the environment. There has been no change in holding the Administration accountable for its crimes. Between Bush’s obsessive obstinacy and congressional Republicans effectiveness at gumming up the gears of government, it is no wonder that 81% of Americans disapprove of Congress.
Yet somehow, Americans are being asked to reelect these bozos in order to get “The Change You Deserve”. Most Americans feel like they have gotten plenty of change in the last eight years. Between stagnant wages, downsizing, two wars, half a trillion dollars squandered, millions more uninsured and no action on global warming, the nation feels like it has been gang raped. Now these people of all people want us to believe they can give us the change we deserve.
Maybe they are sobering up at last. House Republicans have been feeling very spooked lately, having lost three special congressional elections in a row. The latest happened Tuesday in a northern Mississippi district that is so red that President Bush carried it by more than twenty points in 2004. It suggests there are no safe seats for Republicans come November 4th.
Election Day promises to be the perfect storm that capsizes the Republican brand for a generation or more. I am one of these Democrats not afraid to dream large. I do not think a filibuster proof 60-vote Democratic majority in the Senate is out of reach. When over eighty percent of Americans say we are on the wrong course, this means this election will be a torrential storm that will shake the rafters and blow out the windows. It means a fundamental political realignment is likely.
I think there is a 50-50 chance that Democrats will achieve a filibuster proof majority in the U.S. Senate. House Republicans are worried about losing as many as 23 more House seats to the Democrats, having lost 31 seats in 2006. In truth, in 2006, voters were just miffed. Now they are royally pissed. Republicans will be lucky if they only lose another 31 seats. I would not be surprised if Democrats picked up another 45-50 seats.
In the presidential contest, it is clear that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee. It is also unfortunately clear that racism still exists in this country. I suspect the race factor could add as much as 5% to McCain’s vote total nationwide. Nonetheless, in the end it will not matter. The chronic need for change will overwhelm the race issue.
It is going to be a very blue election. I expect 58-62 Democrats in the Senate when the dust clears on November 5th. I expect 35-50 new Democratic house seats, making the House at least 60% Democratic. I will be surprised if John McCain exceeds 200 electoral votes. In any event, I cannot see him winning with these election dynamics.
So where is the downside for us Democrats? The downside will be that Democrats will be expected to govern competently. There is a reason Republicans rose to power in the first place. It had nothing to do with Democrats being “too liberal” or “too high taxes”. It had to do with complacent and corrupt Democrats feeling secure in their majority and forgetting those they served. It remains to be seen whether we have learned our lesson. If history is any guide, Republicans have some cause for hope. Change may be necessary, but it is damnably hard. Complacency may be more of a Democratic problem than a Republican problem. Republicans have proven reasonably effective at implementing their agenda. Unfortunately, their agenda and America’s needs rarely intersect. I am hopeful that with the influx of new Democrats and a Netroots base committed to real change that this predisposition can be overcome.
While Republicans promise small government and lower taxes, what they deliver instead is larger government, modest tax cuts and obscene amounts of long-term debt. Democrats are comfortable with larger government, are not terribly comfortable with deficit financing but are also leery of increasing taxes too much. The problem for Democrats will come when they try to align their promises with available revenues. Die hard Republicans still believe that all fiscal problems are solved by cutting taxes. Democrats cannot spend money on vital activities like addressing global warming and insuring all Americans’ health by putting it on the credit card as Republicans did. Taxes will have to go up. Of course, the most convenient target will be the wealthy. However, like a new oil well, it cannot be tapped indefinitely. Eventually more of the tax burden will have to go down the income chain.
Democrats must sell value. National health insurance, for example, is going to cost tens to hundreds of billions of dollars a year for starters. No one likes to add to his or her tax burden. However, tax increases can be sold by selling the value of the new services for their cost. For my family of three, our health insurance costs average about $12,000 a year. If I were to pay this in additional taxes, my tax burden would double. Presumably I would not have to pay this much. Nevertheless, even if I did I would hopefully have the certainty of not having to pay any additional costs to ensure my family. I do not have that certainty right now. The hard part of course is implementing a national health insurance plan that provides this value and does not squander the money. That takes competent government. Using such strategies, I think Democrats can sell the obvious tax increases that are needed to address these sorts of problems.
What we really do not need is more pandering. House Republicans want to pander to us by selling us the change we deserve. Heck, don’t we all deserve a pony? What we require is a president and Congress that will sell us the changes we need. If Barack Obama is to draw on the power of hope, then he needs to find the eloquence to sell to ordinary Americans on the ultimate value of these painful and taxing changes. Moreover, I hope we Americans can find the patience to give our bluer government a chance and to make the long-term changes that our country requires.
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May 15th, 2008 at 08:19pm
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2008 |
no comments
Tags: Election 2008, Republicans
You would not be surprised to learn that as a heterosexual man I am not particularly into the drag queen scene. In fact, I can think of few things less likely to interest me. Still, even though the topic does not interest me I can sit through any two-hour movie with a decent plot. I was surprised to find this oddly named movie about three drag queens, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar both fun and a little poignant.
Vida Boheme (Patrick Swayze), Chi-Chi Rodriguez (John Leguizamo) and Noxema Jackson (Wesley Snipes) are three New York City drag queens lusting to be named the city’s drag queen of the year. Granted, with the exception of Chi-Chi, they look more like Xena but Amazons make attractive women too. A tied vote though meant that both Vida and Noxema win the award. Consequently, both are sent to Hollywood to compete in a national drag queen competition. Afterward, in the hallway, they try to assuage Chi-Chi’s hurt feelings. Poor Chi-Chi was also hoping to win, primarily to boost her low self-esteem. Vida feels awful over her hurt feelings, and persuades Noxema to let her come along. In order to cut costs they will have to drive to the west coast. Being New Yorkers, they do not own cars, so they use their modest winnings to purchase a convertible off a used car lot. Off the three girls go to Hollywood, in drag, with of course the top down.
As you might anticipate, when three drag queens drive across the heartland they are likely to experience some hostility from less broadminded folk. A libidinous sheriff somewhere in the Midwest pulls them over. When Sheriff Dollard (Chris Penn) gets Vida alone behind the car, he tries to make out with her. To his utter shock, he quickly discovers Vida comes with a sort of package he does not expect. That, plus a stiff right from Vida (who when out of costume must box for sport) puts Sheriff Dollard flat out on the pavement. Their initial assessment that they killed him freaks them out, so they hustle away. Shortly thereafter, their car sputters to a stop in the middle of nowhere.
The kindness of Midwestern strangers gets them a ride to a nearby town that is so small they have only one event a year: a strawberry festival. The folks in this small town are so out of touch that it appears they can pass themselves off as ladies. Their car conveniently cannot be fixed until a part arrives on Monday. Meaning Vida, Chi-Chi and Noxema have to hang out all weekend in this oppressively backward little town in the flatlands.
Needless to say, they are by magnitudes the best dressed people in town. The townies are a dull, sullen and occasionally hostile bunch. The local rednecks apparently are having a hard time discerning that the women are actually guys. Chi-chi attracts the most attention. Vida has to avoid a group of rednecks who look like they want to assault her. The situation does not look promising, but among the townies are some good, stouthearted Midwestern women with traditional values, but who are also bored with life.
Vida, Chi-Chi and Noxema end up breathing something very unusual into this little town: a little life. They decorate their hotel room to make it fashionable. Noxema discovers a cache of 60s clothes in the general store. Soon they have most of the women in the town dolled up in a 60s retro style. This is just as well because the Strawberry Festival is almost upon them.
So yes, there are the sorts of laughs that you would expect when a car full of drag queens encounters a back corner of the Midwest. Yet the laughs are done with a light touch. Curiously, everyone in the movie, with the possible exception of Sheriff Dollard come across as plausible. (We discover the sheriff is indeed alive. Moreover, he becomes obsessed with the injustice that happened to him and goes in search of them.) Vida, Chi-Chi and Noxema are as flamboyant as you would expect, but every single member of the town feel authentic. It is also a town with a few bad apples, including the local mechanic Virgil (Arliss Howard), who abuses his wife Carol Ann (Stockard Channing). Pretty much everyone in this small town will learn a few lessons from these “girls” before they resume their trip to Hollywood.
So the movie has a light comedic touch with an odd feeling of plausibility. Granted, the climactic scene was quite unlikely, but it was deliciously satisfying.
What does Julie Newmar have to do with the movie? Very little, except Vida is obsessed with her figure and idolizes her as the ideal woman. You actually do briefly see Ms. Newmar playing herself at the end of the movie.
Undoubtedly, these roles were quite a stretch for Swayze, Snipes and Leguizamo, but that is part of the fun because they are quite convincing. For the first thirty minutes, my wife found the movie annoying and I was afraid she would give it up. Eventually though we both warmed up to it, and were glad we made it through the movie. It was amusing, fun and satisfying all at the same time.
This is not a B movie in the traditional sense, but neither is it close to being on anyone’s A list. It falls somewhere in between, but is much closer to a B movie than an A movie. It gets a solid 3 points on my 4-point scale, which means “better than average and worth seeing, but nothing overly special”. Unless you are very stuck up, you will probably enjoy it.
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May 13th, 2008 at 07:08pm
Posted by
Mark |
The Arts |
no comments
Tags: Movies
As I age, I am more and more drawn to history. Surveys report few students these days find history interesting. The 1998 book, The Life of Elizabeth I, by Alison Weir will dispel this notion. The book, which covers the 45 years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, is a page-turner. It is hard to put down and provides a fascinating, intimate and detailed look into the life of the last of the Tudor sovereigns, as well as the many fascinating characters that populated her court.
Elizabeth was born in 1533 to Anne Boleyn, one of King Henry VIII’s many wives who he found convenient to have executed. Having your mother executed by your father is a very traumatic thing for any daughter to deal with. Elizabeth herself once came close to being executed too and spent many months in the Tower of London. She was imprisoned by her half sister Queen Mary I for her Protestant faith. In the end, she was released and a dying Queen Mary permitted her to succeed her. She was crowned at age 25 and reigned for 45 long years. She remains one of England’s longest serving sovereigns. England’s current queen, Queen Elizabeth II, is one of the few to serve longer. During her reign, luminaries like William Shakespeare and Sir Francis Bacon were contemporaries.
Those lusting for a female president would find her a great example of a female leader. She was very well educated and spoke fluently in French, German, Latin, Spanish and Italian. She had thousands of horses at her disposal and was rigorous about morning walks and lengthy horse rides. She had one overriding goal during her reign: keep England out of foreign wars. She did not entirely succeed. While she wanted little to do with war, other countries very much wanted control of England. Spain was her principle enemy. She ended up lending support to Protestant governments fighting Spain, including the Netherlands and France. After her success defeating the Spanish Armada, she became proactive dealing with Spain. She periodically sent her fleet to destroy Spanish ships while they were in harbor. She also attempted to rule Ireland, often unsuccessfully. In general, she had little in the way of imperialistic ambitions. She realized that to the extent that England could get along with other countries it would remain at peace.
Known as The Virgin Queen, she remained a virgin in part because she felt it necessary to ensure England’s security. She had a constant stream of foreign suitors, which continued well past her childbearing years. There is little doubt that she was strongly heterosexual and she even fell in love a few times. She nearly married the French Duke Anjou, who was much younger than she was. However, it is clear that for a time their affections were real. It is even possible that their love was consummated. Elizabeth had much to recommend her as a spouse beyond the prestigious position of being queen. She was an accomplished equestrian, dancer, poet and scholar. She was politically adroit. She kept England at peace for so long by constantly leading on foreign suitors and playing them against each other. Playing the game of romance forestalled many military adventures against England.
She was often despised outside England for her militant Protestantism. She codified the Book of Common Prayer used by the Church of England. The Pope repeatedly offered bounties to anyone who would kill her. King Philip II’s Spanish Armada was one of many attempts that he made to revert England to what he said was the true religion of Roman Catholicism.
All these details are widely known. What Weir does is bring history to life. Elizabeth lived a public and very well documented life. She saw being England’s sovereign as a great responsibility. We are accustomed to presidents who are replaced in four or eight years. She led England’s foreign policy for forty-five years with one single and constant vision. She was both conservative and liberal. She was conservative in the sense that she was not anxious for England to change and wanted very much to preserve the status quo for future generations. She was also notorious niggardly, and ensured her royal household lived well within its means. She was liberal in being unusually compassionate. Perhaps because his father had so few problems having his opponents’ heads removed, she reserved this terrible punishment for a relative few. With every execution, she seemed a bit diminished. For decades, she dithered over the chronic problem of her stepsister, Mary Queen of Scots. Near the end, despite being protected in England, Mary was covertly working to violently overthrow her government and restore Catholicism. Equally traumatic was the execution she ordered late in her reign for her close advisor, Robert Devereux, more commonly known as the Earl of Essex. A headstrong young man with boundless ambition he failed miserably in his attempt to subjugate an Irish rebellion. When he returned to England, he tried to blame Elizabeth for his own failings and used his popularity to try to bring about civil insurrection. He paid with his life.
Catholicism was another constant problem that dominated her reign. After the Church of England was established, England remained full of Catholics, and many remained loyal to the faith. For many years, Elizabeth practiced benign tolerance of Catholicism, and even had some Catholic advisors in her government. As plots against her life and the state multiplied, she found it necessary to oppress Catholics. Eventually they were forbidden to attend mass and were required to attend Church of English services or be taxed. Today these actions would seem quite harsh. In the context of the times and the real need to keep England united, they were sensible strategies.
Elizabeth was also blessed with a coterie of top-notch political advisers, including the ever-present Lord Cecil, essentially her chief of staff and Lord Walsingham, who ran a huge spy apparatus for the state. If you have seen the two movies about Queen Elizabeth I starring Cate Blanchett (my motivation for reading this book), you will grow well acquainted with these two men. Movies can only give you a hint at the complexity of being a sovereign. She had many, many more in her cast of characters over her 45-year reign. She made the occasional misjudgment in her appointments, such as with Lord Essex. Overall though her record of appointing competent people to positions of power was excellent, and would be the envy of all politicians. That she did so over a 45 year reign is an extraordinary accomplishment.
This biography also captures the experience of living in Tudor times in a way that makes you feel as if you were alive back then. The prevalence of disease was a sad and overwhelming fact of life. Few people lived past their fortieth birthday. The plague hit London virtually every summer. The queen’s long life was due to being proactive. During the summer season, while Londoners died of the plague she took annual “progresses” into the English countryside to meet with many lords, ladies and the public. Indeed, she rarely stayed in one place very long. She had dozens of castles at her disposal. She and her court frequently moved from one to the other. There was no one place that she thought of as home.
Most kings and queens lived public and well-documented lives. Few though were kinder and acted in what were truly the best interests of her subjects. It is unsurprising that as a result she was so beloved. Alison Weir provides an exceeding intimate look at this remarkable woman that is compelling and brings history alive. I doubt that anyone can get past the first fifty or so pages of this biography and leave the rest of the book unread. Thanks to Weir’s biography, we are blessed with a human and intimate portrait of a truly remarkable woman. There is no question that in the top ten most influential women of all time, she would be on the list.
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May 11th, 2008 at 01:29pm
Posted by
Mark |
History |
no comments
Tags: Books, Queen Elizabeth I
In 1980 at the tender age 23, I voted for John B. Anderson for President. Anderson was an independent candidate. Anderson was full of great ideas that were politically non-starters. One of his ideas was to increase the federal gasoline taxes by fifty cents per gallon. This was at a time when you could buy a gallon of gasoline for under a dollar a gallon. His rationalization was that the tax would serve three purposes: reduce our dependence on foreign oil (we had already been through two oil shocks during the 1970s), give us incentive to practice conservation and provide the funds needed to achieve energy independence. This great idea killed his campaign. He started his campaign at above 25% support in polls and ended up with 7% of the vote.
In one of life’s little ironies, just a month after the tragic events of September 11th, John Anderson showed up at my church and gave a talk. (See picture.) He was then about to retire as president of the World Federalist Society (now Citizens for Global Solutions). There was time for questions and answers after his lecture. I went to the podium, looked him in the eye and told him I proudly voted for him in 1980. I mentioned his gas tax proposal and opined that events had sure proven him right. Had we taken the unpopular steps he suggested in 1980 and imposed on ourselves a fifty cent a gallon gasoline tax, the events of September 11th likely could have been avoided. It was President Reagan after all who strategically aligned us with Saudi Arabia, providing a compact of military arms for a dictatorial state for the assurance of low oil prices. It was our support of this oppressive state that provided the animus for Osama bin Laden, a citizen of Saudi Arabia to target the United States on September 11th. If only we had the courage to follow through on Anderson’s courageous idea, three thousand Americans who died that day would still be alive and we might also be energy independent today.
Change is never fun and serious change is usually resisted. Those who embrace inevitable changes though often end up ahead in the end. Why has the Euro been doing so well while the U.S. dollar has been in the toilet? It is because in Europe they were prepared for a changing world. Gasoline has been highly taxed for decades in Europe specifically to discourage the automobile and to encourage public transportation. If you have been to Western Europe, you know that it has phenomenal public transportation. Right now, Europe is also leading the way on global climate change. Among many initiatives, it is markedly reducing its carbon footprint through fuel efficiency standards in place today that we will not have in ten years. Not surprisingly, the European economy is doing rather well in shaky economic times. Its currency is so valuable because Europe as it is configured and managed is very well matched for our changing times.
What has the United States done? It would be polite to say we have been dragging our feet. In reality, we have largely ignored the environment and concentrated on glorious selfishness instead. We started an unnecessary and foolish war in Iraq that is bankrupting us. We have pretended to care about global climate change while doing almost nothing to address it. We have blithely ignored the consequences of our increased oil dependency. Public transportation, which is still inadequately funded, remains focused on highways and bridges. We have thrown mostly chump change at mass transit solutions.
It’s karmic payback time. In the years to come, we are going to get sticker shock at the cost of having ignoring these problems for so many decades. We may come to resemble Haiti in the sense that we will ask our leaders to deliver the impossible: address climate change, keep our taxes low but not allow our standard of living to change. If the 1980 election is any guide, when we discover our current leader cannot do it, we will elect someone else who will claim they can, but who will also fail.
Whether we like it or not, the times, they are a changing. We can choose to adapt to this new reality or, more likely, continue to try to have the same selfish lifestyle we always have had and take half measures. However, more of the same will only result in additional unnecessary pain. It is time to acknowledge that our future lives will be markedly more downscale than our current lives are. This transition is unlikely to be much fun. As a nation, we are in the initial phase of an extended high colonic.
Here are some likely outcomes that I see. Traditionally, the cost of living out in the country has been cheap. That is going to change. Life in the country may become a privilege for the rich. To live in the country you will have to pay the freight: ever-higher gas prices. As those living further out feel the gas squeeze, they will naturally choose to live closer in. By doing so, they will be less affected by the cost of oil. They will also be closer to jobs. By living closer in, they will have access to public transportation so they can get by with one or no cars. This will allow them to have a comparatively higher standard of living and more job security than if they live in the country or in a far-flung exurb.
This will work for a while. Of course, economic factors will make most who do not live around a city also want to move in closer too. This means land prices will rise the closer you are to urban areas. Which means the cost of living will go up around cities too. You will feel damned either way. As I suggested in a recent post, people watching these mega-trends are already making the smart choices. They are moving in now while housing prices and interest rates are down. Their houses are going to be smaller than they envisioned, but they will gladly pay this price for convenient access to jobs and transportation.
Energy costs will continue to rise, which will drive everything toward energy efficiency. Energy efficiency though will not come cheap. New houses will probably need more than just better insulation and highly energy efficient windows. They will need solar panels on the roof. It will be built into the building codes. Houses will be required to be built with LEED Silver or better standards. This will raise the cost of housing making it that much harder to afford to buy a house in the first place. Older houses are probably too hard to retrofit to be LEED compliant. Eventually they will become too expensive to inhabit, so they will have to be replaced with energy efficient houses. More likely, they will be replaced with condos and apartment communities. Demand will require it.
We will require readily accessible public transportation. This will mean heavy rail, light rail, trains, buses and bike trails everywhere and maybe even the return of trolleys. This cannot be done for free. It will require substantial tax increases. In short, we are all going to feel very squeezed which will have the consequence of us having lifestyles that will seem markedly poorer than our parents. We will probably resent this new reality.
What I have outlined is something of a best case. What actually happens is likely to be quite different and probably worse. Certain trends like people migrating from far-flung areas to closer in areas are inevitable. Most likely, we will try incentives like tax credits to ease the pain. Yet tax credits still have to be paid from somewhere. In short, to reinvent society takes incredible amounts of money. We will pay it one-way or the other. It can be intelligently accomplished through taxes and careful planning, or unintelligently through reaction to market forces. It is a road that we will have no choice but to traverse. However, we do have a choice on how painful it will be. As with most things, the sooner you start and the more intelligently it is accomplished, the less painful it will probably be.
I suspect that if a candidate today proposed a fifty cent a gallon tax on gasoline, he would get the same response at the voting booth that John Anderson received in 1980. Unfortunately, because we have dragged our feet for thirty years, the cost of procrastination has gone up dramatically.
So get ready. Our economic foundations are starting a seismic shift that will affect every one of us. Are you going to work with these natural forces? Or are you going to resist them? We all need to realize that to adjust to these new realities will require extraordinary sacrifice, akin to what our parents went through during World War II, but unfortunately lasting much longer. Over the next fifty years, we will have to reinvent ourselves as a society and as a world. I hope that this time we find the determination to do it intelligently. If government of the people, by the people and for the people is not to perish, we the people are going to have to come to terms with these costly changes that are already unfolding all around us.
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May 8th, 2008 at 07:46pm
Posted by
Mark |
Sociology |
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Tags: Energy Independence, Environment, John B. Anderson
Rising food and gas prices have been much on my mind lately. Unlike many Americans, rising gas prices do not bother me that much. I feel like we have been getting discount rates for gasoline for far too long. The effect has been counterproductive, encouraging urban sprawl and environmental degradation. I would like to see gas taxes raised to encourage conservation and to fund research into clean transportation solutions. It sure will not happen if we suspend federal gasoline taxes, a harebrained proposal that was endorsed by both presidential contenders John McCain and Hillary Clinton.
Rising food prices though do bother me. As I am one of the more economically fortunate Americans, I am not personally put out much by the rising cost of food. However, I do know that rising food prices are affecting many Americans. It has reached the point where some are going hungry who never went hungry before. Community food banks are running low, affected by both increased demand and fewer contributions. The drop in donations is due in part to the rising cost of food.
Cross our borders and the rising cost of food is not a minor cause for concern, but a major problem. In some poorer countries, it has morphed into full-blown crises. In Mexico, the cost of maize has increased 30% since the start of the year, making the simple corn tortilla almost a luxury item, and beyond the budget of many of Mexico’s poorest. Food riots in Haiti last month forced a change in government. The Washington Post documented the malnutrition and starvation occurring now in Mauritania, one of many poor countries with this problem. In Egypt, ten people died recently in fights in bread lines. The Philippines, which imports much of the rice it needs to feed its burgeoning population, is finding the supply of foreign rice scarce. What rice is available is far more expensive and unaffordable to many. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon called the rising price of food a global crisis.
What is driving up the cost of food? As you may know, there are two primary factors. One is that more of the world is becoming industrialized. With more money in their pockets, these newly emboldened consumers are consuming more food. Principally they are eating a lot more meat. In addition, rising oil prices are “fueling” the growth of renewable energy sources like ethanol. Biofuels that come from food sources mean that there is less food on the market to be consumed, which is contributes to the fast rising price of food. If these factors were not enough, rising oil prices are also contributing to the increased cost of growing food. It costs more for the gasoline to till the soil, plant and harvest crops. It also costs more to transport crops to market.
There may have been times in our past when food prices were this high, but I cannot recall them. In my memory, American farms have always produced far more food than could be consumed. Billions of metric tons are still shipped overseas to feed a growing world. The U.S. remains the world’s biggest food exporter, but that is changing. Now, with 6.5 billion humans across the world to feed even our surplus is not quite enough. Moreover, world demand for petroleum seems unstoppable. It appears that the world is in for a turbulent and hungry period, with hundreds of millions if not billions of people at risk of malnutrition or starvation.
I know that I will survive largely unaffected. I have the income to weather any food or energy crisis. Yet, my lifestyle also has the indirect effect of causing other people to go hungry. When I fill my gas tank with 5% ethanol, I am encouraging this industry. If people are going hungry, I would rather pay higher prices for gas without ethanol in it. I would prefer to divert these crops into food for consumption by my fellow human beings. If we are going to make the choice to use renewable fuels, then we must make sure these crops go to feed hungry people first. I have no problem with using open space that is currently not being farmed to grow non-food crops like switchgrass that can be made into renewal fuels. However, the lives of hungry people must first. If we need to expand food production in order to keep people from starving, we should choose this over cultivating crops for biofuels.
In addition, we in the developed world need to rethink our addiction to meat. I mentioned in an earlier post that vegetarianism is good for the planet. It is not only good for the planet; it is good for anyone who values human lives. The majority of corn and soy grown in our country goes not to feed humans, but animals, who we then slaughter for their meat. According to this New York Times story, it takes two to five times as much grain calories to fatten livestock for slaughter compared to humans consuming the grain directly. In the case of cattle on feedlots, the ratio goes as high as ten to one. While we need protein to survive, Americans typically consume about twice as much protein as they need. The protein we do need can just as easily come from plant sources as from meats. Despite high grain prices, grains are much cheaper per calorie than meat.
I do not plan to give up meat altogether, but I do feel the ethical imperative to start consuming less meat. My steaks, which are already rare treats, will be fewer and smaller. I plan to go without meat one day a week for a start, and then see if I can make it two days a week. Perhaps I can take some wisdom from my daughter, who eats comparatively little meat, but consumes plenty of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. There is ample protein in peanut butter, and it is loaded with the good kinds of unsaturated fats, not the bad ones. If I feel the need to consume an animal product, an egg or a slice of cheese is a better ethical choice.
Now I am more aware that by driving down the demand for meat, I am helping animals of all species. However, most importantly I am helping my fellow human beings survive. It is not much, but it is a start.
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May 5th, 2008 at 08:47pm
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2008 |
one comment
Tags: Biofuels, Food, Poverty, Vegetarianism
Have you seen Eddie Izzard yet? Izzard is an eccentric 46-year-old British comedian who comes to the states occasionally and gives sold out performances to fans of his very skewed British humor. He has quite a following among a certain class of people like, say, my wife and daughter. No one would mistake his popularity for that of more mainstream comedians like Jerry Seinfeld. He could not fill the Verizon Center. Nevertheless, he can draw a big crowd even if his latest show could not merit a Washington Post review. We found him at DAR Constitution Hall last night. The show started fifteen minutes late to accommodate the many late arriving patrons. However, by the time all were seated, at least 95% of the hall’s 3,702 seats were filled with very enthusiastic Eddie Izzard fans. The raucous welcome he received when he came on stage would make any politician drool.
Based on the demographics of the audience, Izzard draws a nearly exclusively white, generally young and certainly liberal audience. He is not afraid to swear or to poke fun at sacrosanct topics that would make most Americans squirm, such as religion and The Bible. His current tour “Stripped” attempts to condense the four and a half billion years of the Earth’s history into a two-hour gig, with overflowing amounts of skewed and erudite humor. For a change, Eddie does not appear in drag. Izzard is quite open about his transvestitism. Like most transvestites, he is heterosexual.
As a fan of Monty Python and other forms of British humor, I would be a natural candidate for Eddie Izzard’s humor. Our family has a collection of his videos that I have sampled. For some reason I rarely found myself laughing along. Since Eddie Izzard looms large in the life of my family, I figured it would be sporting of me to attend with my wife and daughter. Perhaps a two-hour show would make me appreciate Eddie more.
And I might have appreciated him more if we had closer seats. DAR Constitution Hall is huge, as concert halls go, and our seats were in the right balcony near the back, which meant we had to twist our necks and spines to watch him perform. Despite the brilliant stage lights, he was hard to see any detail, but he was easy enough to see prancing all around the stage. Izzard is a one-person show. His only prop is a microphone.
Unquestionably, Izzard is very well educated, which is the source of both his humor and his relatively understated popularity. He appeals to rebellious bookworms and geeks, the sort of people who know far too much obscure knowledge that has little practical applications, such as Liberal Arts majors. Thus, you are probably not going to find too many NASCAR fans at Eddie Izzard shows.
Izzard’s gentle antipathy toward organized religion was on fine display last night. He sliced and diced through conventional notions of God and many of the great Bible stories. He is quite irreverent and delighted poking fun at many of the stories in the Bible. He humorously retold the story of Moses’ flight from Egypt and Noah’s Ark and pointed out the many logical fallacies of both these legends and many others. Of course, the theme of “Stripped” constantly meandered off subject, resulting in a show that felt like potpourri. This is no matter of concern for Izzard fans, of course, and part of his charm. He can take any topic and turn it inside out, making it a topic of both laughter and derision.
Izzard is one of these comedians who have no problem prancing around the entire stage. Only a small part of his humor is verbal. Much of it is intonation, much of it is body language and a significant part of it comes from his ability to make the microphone behave in unusual ways.
For a non-fan like myself, I felt much like a Non-Jew at a Jewish wedding. In truth, I did find myself laughing on occasion. I think part of the reason I cannot appreciate Izzard more is that his comedic style is to go at the speed of light. I could hardly get in one humorous idea and decide whether it was something worth laughing over before he was on to the next humorous snippet. I felt like a 300-baud modem trying to translate a signal at 9600 baud. Clearly, the brains of most of the audience are much more agile than mine, which must plod along at a serene clip.
Therefore, it is unlikely that I will be an Eddie Izzard groupie, although our daughter was one of the stage door Johnnies who waited for him after the show. Nonetheless, I am glad I went. I have not ruled out attending other Eddie Izzard events in the future. If you enjoy British humor and particularly if you find yourself thinking unconventional thoughts then you should check out his shows if they come to your city, or try renting some of his DVDs and see if his brand of humor appeals to you.
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May 3rd, 2008 at 03:18pm
Posted by
Mark |
The Arts |
2 comments
Tags: Comedy, Eddie Izzard
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain is in the news today. He unveiled his comprehensive health care proposal: a $2500 tax credit for individuals and a $5000 tax credit for families to allow them to buy the health insurance plan of their choice. He believes that with such an approach that competition and the free market will make health care affordable so we can all be insured.
If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, Republicans like McCain must be from Pluto. It is amazing that reporters do not laugh him off the podium. McCain is not the first Republican to advance such a free market non-solution to our health care crisis. His proposal though is truly worthy of derision.
First, his plan is hazy on what to do with people with pre-existing conditions. He wants states to form insurance pools for these people, but his plan does not require any insurance company to be non-discriminatory. He also allows people to continue with their employer-based health insurance if they want. However, his plan would give employers incentive to ditch their health insurance plans altogether. Why should they pay for health care costs when the government will instead?
So assuming you do not have health insurance and an insurer will agree to sell you a health care plan then after your tax credit you will have to pay all the excess premiums, deductibles and co-pays. Naturally, your premiums will tend to be higher if you are older, have unhealthy habits or have a history of chronic health problems. I did price individual health plans on this web site. I checked plans in my zip code for a hypothetical couple age 40. The only plan I could find without any deductible was a plan with the HMO Kaiser Permanente. It costs $542 a month, limits you to their physicians and comes with a $20 co-pay any time you want to see a doctor. Generic drugs come with a $10 co-pay. Brand name drugs come with a $30 co-pay. So assuming you never see a doctor or take any medicines then after your tax credit you and your spouse will still have to pay $1504 a year. You can expect that as you age your premiums will go up. How much? If the same couple were 50 years old, they would have to cough up $872 a month, or $5464 after their tax credit.
Most likely, you have other bills to pay. You would want to reduce premiums and pay a yearly deductible instead. What is out there? Blue Cross/Blue Shield would be preferred. A 40-year-old couple would pay $259 a month for a plan with a $1000 a year deductible with an Anthem BC/BS plan. Unless you see the same doctor more than three times, co-pays are $30 a visit. If you see someone out of the network, the insurance company will pay 70% of what it considers a reasonable and customary fee. If your out of network doctor charges you $125, you file for reimbursement and your insurer considers $75 reasonable and customary, your costs come to $22.50 plus the amount over $75, or $72.50 a visit. This is of course after you have satisfied your annual deductible. If you see one of their preferred doctors then you just pay the co-pay. However, you may find, as I have, that a family member needs faster or better care than what you can get through a preferred provider. This plan costs $3108 a year if you never get sick or never need a prescription drug. In theory, you and your wife could pocket close to $2000 a year. If you are like most of us and get more than the sniffles once a year, you can probably add on that $1000 deductible, plus other co-pays for prescriptions. It’s hard to imagine that a tax credit will cover your health costs. If you and your spouse are age 50, the price rises to $333 a month.
Who is not paying? If you take the tax credit, your employer is not paying anything. Perhaps the money they might have spent to subsidize your health insurance will go to giving you a higher salary, but I would not hold your breath. Anyhow, I suspect the optimal cases I outlined are not close to your situation and you will need more health care. If I had to guess, I would guess that a typical family would be out $5000 to $10,000 a year on health care costs after their tax credit. I bet this is where most of us are at right now. In short, it will not necessarily improve your bottom line at all. Nor does it do anything to address the problem of rising health insurance. All this free market ideology sounds great but if it is so great why has it not worked so far? The same health insurance companies we have today are going to be offering roughly the same insurance they do now under McCain’s plan. By that time, of course it will be pricier.
Moreover, the older you get the more expensive insurance will become. You can try buying a less expensive health care plan, if you can find one, but health insurance is like sitting on a beanbag chair. If you pay a smaller premium, you get astronomical deductibles or unacceptable conditions and exclusions instead. It could mean, for example, that you cannot get the kind of health care you need when you need it, such as an organ transplant.
McCain’s health care plan also begs the question of how the tax credit will be paid for. He has already ruled out raising any new taxes. In fact, he wants to keep the tax cuts for the wealthy that he once denounced. It would probably help if we got out of Iraq but he has been quoted as saying he would be fine if we stayed there a hundred years. Even if we did get out of Iraq, the government would still be spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year more than it receives in revenues. Consequently, the cost of this health care tax credit would likely come from borrowed money. In some of my earlier blog posts, I pointed out that when the government borrows money from foreigners the effect is inflationary. It explains part of the high cost of commodities like gasoline. McCain talks about finding savings by cutting the size of government. However, every president these days says he will do it and none of them has yet succeeded. In any event, the real cost of government is not in running agencies like HHS or even the Pentagon. That’s pocket change. It is in programs considered largely untouchable, like Medicare, Medicaid and agricultural subsidies. The closest modern president to constrain the size of government was a Democrat: William Jefferson Clinton.
Clearly, this proposal is just more smoke and mirrors, providing the illusion that health care can be made affordable with doing nothing to address the underlying problems causing costs to spiral.
What will work? Many first world countries have nationalized health insurance. They offer universal quality health insurance and are doing it for a fraction of what we pay. If you have the time, you should watch Frontline’s Sick Around the World. You can watch the entire show on your computer. Washington Post Reporter T.R. Reid goes for Frontline to the United Kingdom, Japan, Switzerland, Germany and Taiwan to see how these countries provide universal health insurance. The mechanics of course vary by country, but it is clear that not all solutions require turning all health care professionals into civil servants or under-compensating physicians and health care professionals. I found Japan’s approach the most interesting. We could pick any of these models, have high quality and universal health insurance and pay considerably less per capita than we are currently paying, all without ever worrying about whether we could afford it.
Or we could put yet another Band-Aid on the problem, keep letting costs spiral out of control and believe that we can really cover everyone with tax credits, which is John McCain’s “solution” to our health care problem.
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April 29th, 2008 at 07:36pm
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2008 |
no comments
Tags: Health Care, John McCain, Republicans
It may not be summer yet, but there is mindless summer-like entertainment in the movie theaters, if you look for it. One movie that definitely qualifies and which I saw over the weekend is The Forbidden Kingdom, yet another martial arts movie but with an American flavor.
A proper martial arts movie must have a martial arts star or two in it, and this one comes with Jackie Chan. His selection may be appropriate because Enter the Dragon (1973) was arguably the first American made martial arts movie blockbuster, and Chan starred in it. Here Chan plays two roles. First, he plays a very old man who runs a Boston Chinatown pawnshop specializing in Kung Fu films. A somewhat obsessed American teenager named Jason (Michael Angarano) haunts his shop for obscure Kung Fu DVDs. While Jason would like to be a kung fu phenomenon, in fact he would have trouble mastering the Macarena. He is easily pushed around by bullies, who use his friendship with the pawnshop owner as way to execute a robbery of his store.
The pawnshop owner Old Hop just happens to have a very cool fighting stick in the back room that is seeking a way of getting back to its rightful owner in China. Jason tries to use it to defend himself in a fight. By doing so, he is suddenly transported back to China at some indeterminate time in the past. There he encounters Lu Yan (Jackie Chan), an aging kung fu expert, who just fortunately happens to speak English as a second language. When Lu Yan sees his fighting stick, he realizes it is the fighting stick of the legendary Monkey King, who apparently turned himself into stone some centuries back to avoid losing a fight. Jason does not quite realize it when he first arrives, but he has to bring the stick back to its master so The Monkey King can be resurrected and, coincidentally, he can get back to Boston. Needless to say there are plenty of others along the way who also want his fighting stick and they do not ask nicely for it. Lu Yan has the unfortunate job of trying to turn Jason into the Kung Fu master he always wanted to be. Given his ineptness, it seems an impossible task.
So this movie is yet another heroic quest movie with yet another implausible plot. Nevertheless, for Kung Fu addicts, it delivers plenty of martial arts as well as plenty of fighting moves that seem to defy the laws of gravity and which were doubtless executed with plenty of piano wire. In that sense, it is a bit like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon just of course not nearly as good. It is also a movie that does not take itself very seriously. A Kung Fu movie must come with a fighting chick and potential love interest, and this one includes Yifei Liu as Golden Sparrow who follows Jason and Lu Yan on this improbable adventure.
Sadly, I do not have much of an appreciation for Kung Fu movies but of those that I have seen this one seems average. There are many, many fights in this movie, which is fine because what plot exists is very thin so you might as well fill the time in with fights and special effects. It is all choreographed quite competently. You may find yourself like me and after the first ten minutes or so of fighting find it all rolls right over you. Thus, you may find yourself fighting sleep. I never quite nodded off though because there was enough humor in it to keep me reasonably engaged.
If you are looking to spend about two hours on a movie that will take your mind off more pressing earthbound issues like high gas prices or the skyrocketing cost of food, this movie will probably do the job. If you enjoy watching the martial arts, you will find even more to enjoy in this movie.
For me this movie while it has some humorous moments, it came across as largely vapid and formulaic. Since it was clear that Jason was going to succeed in overcoming evil, there was nothing resembling suspense. Clearly, you do not expect blockbusters movies in April, and this one does not come close to being in the blockbuster category. For April you could do a lot worse than The Forbidden City. Likely, you could do a lot better too.
2.7 on my 4.0 scale.
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April 27th, 2008 at 08:03pm
Posted by
Mark |
The Arts |
no comments
Tags: Movies
As a part time prognosticator, I sometimes get it wrong. Sometimes I get it right. When I get it right, it is not necessarily a reason for feeling smug. Today, I reread this post that I wrote back in 2005. I wrote it when the oil squeeze was just beginning. I remarked how uncomfortable I felt seeing new exurbias sprouting up in nearby Loudoun County, Virginia because virtually all of them are inaccessible to public transportation. I wondered what would happen to these communities with continued increases in price of oil or its unavailability.
Now we are finding out, and the answer is scary, as this NPR story reports. Ashburn, Virginia is in Loudon County, Virginia and part of the greater Washington D.C. metropolitan area. It is one of those newly built exurbias. What is happening in Ashburn is that home prices are tumbling much faster than the national average.
Realtor Danilo Bogdanovic surveyed two rows of neat, new, brick townhouses on Falkner’s Lane. “These were selling for about $550,000 at the peak, which was about August ‘05, and they’re selling right now for about $350,000,” Bogdanovic said. “Fifty percent of this community has been ether foreclosed on or is facing foreclosure.”
Coincidentally, my hair stylist lives in Ashburn. Today while she was cutting my hair, we were chatting about high gas prices. If she and her husband had to do it over again, she said, they would have never moved to Ashburn. Their gas prices are driving a big dent in their budget. Yet, I learned, moving in closer was not an option. They would lose too much money, because their house was worth less than they paid for it. If her house is on Falkner’s Lane, I can understand why she would feel blue, since she might now own a house worth $200,000 less than what she paid for it.
What might turn things around? As I implied back in 2005, some public transportation might help. That is not to say that it doesn’t exist in Loudoun County, but it is very limited and assumes you commute to work in Washington, D.C. A resident of Ashburn could drive or bike to the Dulles North Transportation Center and from there take an express bus into Washington D.C. This bus is not cheap. It costs $6.00 each way with a smart card, or $7.00 if you pay cash.
What would someone in Ashburn do if they needed to commute to some other job center like Tyson’s Corner? Perhaps they could catch another bus at the West Falls Church Metro Station, where the bus stops on its way into Washington. What if they need to take public transportation to go to a doctor’s office in Reston, Virginia? It might be technically possible at certain times of the day, if they can make it work with the commuter bus schedule and make their bus transfers on time. What if they need to take public transportation to go to the grocery store? As best I can tell, there are no such routes. Even if routes were put into place, given that Ashburn is such a sprawled out community they might have to walk a mile or more just to get to a bus stop.
For all practical purposes, residents of Ashburn are stuck. Owning a car is required to live there. Their lifestyle is held hostage by the price of oil. Oil prices may seem astronomical, but they are fortunate that gas is available at any price. Without it, Ashburn would become a gigantic modern ghost town. Combine rising oil prices with a falling dollar and the negative net worth of so many residents of Ashburn and you end up with houses that are worth $200,000 less than they were just three years ago. You have whole communities of people with negative equities in their houses, unable to move and who are one job loss away from financial catastrophe.
My own house is about three miles away from Reston. Reston is a major source of employment and has thousands of great jobs for knowledge workers. In the unlikely event that you lose your job at one company in Reston, you can probably pick another one like it somewhere else in Reston. A Fairfax Connector bus serves my neighborhood, but it operates during rush hours only. However, my house is just three to five miles away from thousands of jobs, not ten or fifteen miles away like in Ashburn. Where I live, you can probably get to your job without a car if needed. I bicycle to work, which is three miles away, three or four days a week. Consequently, gas prices affect me much less than most commuters. Yet even if I worked downtown, I still would not be too badly inconvenienced. I could bike to the Herndon Monroe Park and Ride, which is also three miles away, or grab the 929 bus, which runs by a road a few hundred feet from my door. Once at the Herndon Monroe Park and Ride there are plentiful express buses that will take me to the West Falls Church Metro station. From there I can get to any place on the Metro system. If I needed to take a bus to nearby Reston, Herndon, or even some of the local malls, I can transfer at the Herndon Monroe Park and Ride. Obviously, I could get to these places more quickly by car, but it is possible. The same cannot necessarily be said about communities like Ashburn.
My neighborhood is not immune to the real estate slowdown either. Our house has lost about $75,000 in value since its 2005 peak. However, that is $75,000 though, not $200,000. There are plenty of houses for sale on my street, virtually all in excellent condition. We live in a terrific family neighborhood where owners take pride in their houses. I suggested to my stylist that they should move to a house on my street. She would be two miles from work so the cost of gasoline would be insignificant. However, with the negative equity in her house, moving is out of the question. Where would she and her husband find the money to pay off their loan on closing?
I do not think these underlying dynamics are likely to change. We are at the beginning of a fundamental transformation of America. This means our love affair with the automobile is likely to change dramatically. At best, I expect oil prices will stay about where they are now. Therefore, for many homeowners out in exurbia the financial squeeze, already bad, is likely to get much more painful. The long-term trends though are clear. Unless you can work from your home or can find employment close by that pays your bills, do not buy in the exurbia. If you are in the exurbia and can move in close, this is the time to do it.
Housing prices are down substantially in good neighborhoods like mine that are close to jobs and public transportation. Because prices are down and mortgages are very affordable, now is an excellent time to buy in these neighborhoods. It may not be easy to sell your current house, but as I learned in 1993 if you lower the price enough you can sell any house. You can buy a better and closer house at a substantial discount and be primed for appreciation during this seismic realignment of society. In addition, selection is plentiful.
To the many residents of Ashburn and similar far-flung communities who are feeling the squeeze, you have my sympathy. If I lived in Ashburn, I would still move closer in if I could find a way. The long-term housing dynamics for Ashburn and places like it look dismal. You may find yourself inhabiting a modern ghost town.
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April 25th, 2008 at 09:25pm
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2008 |
no comments
Tags: Energy Independence, Environment, Housing, Loudoun County, Virginia
We went Thursday and had fantabulous seats - about 12 rows back....
