How high can we go?

Oil prices continue to ratchet upward, with today’s oil futures nearing a record of $95/barrel. As the cost of oil for heat rises and the price of gasoline heads higher, Google’s stock thrust through the $700 ceiling.

While I don’t claim to be an economics major, there seems to be some disconnect between the performance of the market and the perception of the strength of the US economy. If the stock market is a leading economic indicator of economic growth, then why are many Wall Street analysts voicing concerns about the sluggishness of the economy and worse, talking about recession? Recent reports on home sales point to a major slowdown and foreclosures are occurring at a record pace. One doesn’t need to be an expert in finance to know that the high cost of essential items, like fuel and food, doesn’t bode well for many, as we chug towards darkness and the colder days of winter.

It’s hard to find much about oil prices in the mainstream media that recognizes the peak oil possibilities spoken of by Kunstler, The Oil Drum and others. I’d say $100 oil is a pretty safe bet at this point.

Because I spend quite a bit of time on the road for my job, I’ve kept a close eye on gas prices. Back in August, 2006, when I started in my current position, the Cumberland Farms around the corner from my office had regular at $3.02. Since then, prices have backed off to $2.56, last March. Late May and early June saw it spike back to a “high” of $3.06 and the summer months it stayed consistently in the $2.75-$2.85 range.

Since I receive a mileage allotment, I do ok and cover my costs when gas stays below $3.00/gallon. I’m concerned where prices are headed, as oil continues to trend higher. It certainly affects people like me and others not as fortunate.

For anyone interested in something more than the inadequate, often clichéd reporting coming from mainstream financial storefronts, read through the comment section in The Oil Drum’s, "This Week in Petroleum" section.

In relation to my thoughts about peak oil possibilities, I’m back reading JK’s Monday pronouncements again and actually looking forward to them, sans comments, at his own website, not the blog.

FEMA fakes it

FEMA, coming of its botched response to Hurricane Katrina, needed to make a solid showing in the way it responded to the wildfires, in Southern California.

Early reports from the frontlines indicated that FEMA’s response had been quick and targeted to the needs of the region—that was until yesterday, when stories began to circulate about Tuesday’s faked news conference.

Apparently last Tuesday, FEMA informed news organizations that it was holding a new conference 15 minutes prior to the event—insufficient notice for reporters to make it on time to the briefing. Like much of what passes for transparency in the Bush administration, FEMA’s Deputy Administrator, Harvey Johnson, apparently with a nod to the adage of “the show must go on, had agency staff members act as stand-ins for missing media members and begin asking questions, the kind of questions that those in the business would characterize as “soft ball” questions.

While it might be laughable for its stupidity, if it wasn't the nation’s top agency, tasked with coordinating the first response to disasters in the U.S. Actually, FEMA’s disdain for media protocol is nothing new. Back in September of 2006, in the aftermath of Katrina, FEMA had requested that new photographers refrain from photographing victims and refused to allow reporters and photographers to accompany FEMA personnel on boats looking for victims. There was little or no coverage about this at the time.

FEMA issued the following statement, which in BushCo fashion, is just dripping with disingenuousness and coated with the veneer of cynicism that all Bush communiques with the media are known for.

FEMA's goal is to get information out as soon as possible, and in trying to do so we made an error in judgment. Our intent was to provide useful information and be responsive to the many questions we have received. We are reviewing our press procedures and will make the changes necessary to ensure that all of our communications are straight forward and transparent.

At FEMA, our focus is disaster operations and, in this case, it means working closely with the State of California to support their response to the devastating fires. We're committed to being there for the State and being good partners. In working to do so we did not put enough focus on how we communicate to the public.

The real story -- how well the response and recovery elements are working in this disaster -- should not be lost because of how we tried to meet the needs of the media in distributing facts.
We can and must do better, and apologize for this error in judgment.

Contrary to FEMA’s statement, the real story is how much this smacks of Soviet-era newspeak that we used to shake our heads and chuckle, when viewed from afar—little did we know that our leaders were watching and looking to imitate a similar lack of transparency in our own country.

It just keeps getting weirder and weirder all the time with this group of war criminals and political hacks.

Correctly diagnosing Maine's tax problem

Personally, I’m weary of much of what passes for policy dialogue in Maine. Going back to 2004 and before, when the champion of “slash-and-burn” tax cap referendums, Carol Palesky, foisted her referendum on the Pine Tree State, we’ve had a steady bleating coming from all corners that Maine’s taxes are too high. Rarely in that discussion are causes for these higher taxes ever addressed. Ah, actually, if cause-and-effect does get raised, the cause is always those “lazy people on public assistance,” or some variation of Maine as welfare kingdom.

While looking up a former client on LinkedIn and reviewing his contacts, I got directed over to a very interesting blog, by a gentleman in Wisconsin named John Michlig. I’ve had sprawl on my mind since last week’s GrowSmart Summit and have been doing quite a bit of reading on the subject. I found Michlig’s blog right up my alley. In fact, Michlig’s fully articulated writing style and variant takes on sprawl were refreshing. Rather than the usual wonkish, or condescending missives that too often pass for commentary, when it comes to smart growth and sustainable urban planning, Michlig’s writing is smart, original and makes real sense.

Take for instance, his post titled, “Sprawl-based Growth is EXPENSIVE.” Referencing Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, by Duany, Plater-Zyberk and Speck, Michlig clearly delineates an issue that no doubt is affecting our tax situation—the much higher costs associated with the primary means of development that Maine, particularly rural Maine, is experiencing—that being suburban sprawl.

Maybe this helps define what was gnawing at me most of the day, last Friday and after, sitting through a variety of workshops, in Augusta. To hear presenters sit and tell Summit participants that all we need to do is cut the size of state government, is a misrepresentation of the values that I think GrowSmart Maine is trying to perpetuate (unless I’m totally off track).

Michlig's posts that I’ve read thus far, clearly indict much of what is currently being foisted on residents of our state by developers. Rather than drink the Kool-Aid of the “slash and burn” crowd, let’s begin to address our zoning policies and not weaken our environmental regulations (which is another point that David Flanagan intimated during his presentation, by using the code words, making Maine more “business-friendly,” which always means making it easier for “pave and park” types of development projects).

Speaking of Flanagan, he’s managed to garner another invite as a panelist, this time for a symposium of business leaders and economic development “experts,” hosted by Mainebiz and MPBN, addressing the supposed “Pessimism” that exists in Maine’s business community. Maybe Alan Caron should be a bit more careful who he chooses to model smart growth for Maine.

I don’t know about pessimism in Maine’s business community, but Maine’s legacy of feudalism that passes itself off as economic development brings out the pessimist in me.

The obscenely wealthy and all the rest of us

Class is rarely mentioned in America today. We talk about sports, presidential elections and the past few days, forest fires. This isn’t to say that for people living in Southern California, experiencing the horrors of fire and devastation, there’s anything else they can focus on. Furthermore, death and natural disasters will always “lead,” when it comes to today’s news programming.

Despite ubiquitous news coverage, the scope of what gets reported seems to narrow over time. When Paris Hilton had her little run-in with the law, that’s all we seemed to have beamed into our homes. It’s probably not accidental, as corporations profit from the increasingly ignorant American population.

One of the things obvious to me in our very own state, is the growing chasm between those with real wealth and the rest of us. By using the term “us,” I’m lumping myself in with the diminished middle class (propped up by credit cards and other “smoke and mirrors” means of capital acquisition and attainment), watching whatever advantages that were carved and acquired during an aberrant period of post-WWII democratization and sharing of the wealth. Included in the “us” are those classified as lower income, some barely at a subsistence level and others living hand-to-mouth. For many of us on the bottom strata of the middle class, its not hard to imagine how easy it would be to descend to the bottom rungs of the socio-economic ladder. Social Darwinism, or the “survival of the fittest (or maybe, richest)” seems to be back in vogue in our fine nation.

I know it’s World Series night and all eyes will be focused on our national version of “bread and circuses,” but seeing this article by Holly Sklar and also, regularly rubbing elbows with people struggling to stay afloat, made it impossible for me to avoid injecting a dose of reality into today’s post.

One of the things that was apparent to me last Friday, when I was at the GrowSmart Summit, was that the crowd was not representative of most of Maine, at least the rural parts of Maine where average incomes are much lower than some of the more privileged parts of the state. Maybe that’s why panelists like David Flanagan, who keeps popping up on panels everywhere, are able to talk about cutting the state budget by $800 million and do so with a straight face, without batting an eye.

Here is a blog post linking to another article on the good fortunes of the richest Americans.

I give you Sklar’s article, which I read in Dissident Voice, in its entirety; consider this while you watch millionaires cavort and frolic about.

Billionaires Up, America Down
by, Holly Sklar

When it comes to producing billionaires, America is doing great.

Until 2005, multimillionaires could still make the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans. In 2006, the Forbes 400 went billionaires only.

This year, you’d need a Forbes 482 to fit all the billionaires.

A billion dollars is a lot of dough. Queen Elizabeth II, British monarch for five decades, would have to add $400 million to her $600 million fortune to reach $1 billion. And she’d need another $300 million to reach the Forbes 400 minimum of $1.3 billion. The average Forbes 400 member has $3.8 billion.

When the Forbes 400 began in 1982, it was dominated by oil and manufacturing fortunes. Today, says Forbes, “Wall Street is king.”

Nearly half the 45 new members, says Forbes, “made their fortunes in hedge funds and private equity. Money manager John Paulson joins the list after pocketing more than $1 billion short-selling subprime credit this summer.”

The 25th anniversary of the Forbes 400 isn’t party time for America.

We have a record 482 billionaires — and record foreclosures.

We have a record 482 billionaires — and a record 47 million people without any health insurance.

Since 2000, we have added 184 billionaires — and 5 million more people living below the poverty line.

The official poverty threshold for one person was a ridiculously low $10,294 in 2006. That won’t get you two pounds of caviar ($9,800) and 25 cigars ($730) on the Forbes Cost of Living Extremely Well Index. The $20,614 family-of-four poverty threshold is lower than the cost of three months of home flower arrangements ($24,525).

Wealth is being redistributed from poorer to richer.

Between 1983 and 2004, the average wealth of the top 1 percent of households grew by 78 percent, reports Edward Wolff, professor of economics at New York University. The bottom 40 percent lost 59 percent.

In 2004, one out of six households had zero or negative net worth. Nearly one out of three households had less than $10,000 in net worth, including home equity. That’s before the mortgage crisis hit.

In 1982, when the Forbes 400 had just 13 billionaires, the highest paid CEO made $108 million and the average full-time worker made $34,199, adjusted for inflation in $2006. Last year, the highest paid hedge fund manager hauled in $1.7 billion, the highest paid CEO made $647 million, and the average worker made $34,861, with vanishing health and pension coverage.

The Forbes 400 is even more of a rich men’s club than when it began. The number of women has dropped from 75 in 1982 to 39 today.

The 400 richest Americans have a conservatively estimated $1.54 trillion in combined wealth. That amount is more than 11 percent of our $13.8 trillion Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — the total annual value of goods and services produced by our nation of 303 million people. In 1982, Forbes 400 wealth measured less than 3 percent of U.S. GDP.

And the rich, notes Fortune magazine, “give away a smaller share of their income than the rest of us.”

Thanks to mega-tax cuts, the rich can afford more mega-yachts, accessorized with helicopters and mini-submarines. Meanwhile, the infrastructure of bridges, levees, mass transit, parks and other public assets inherited from earlier generations of taxpayers crumbles from neglect, and the holes in the safety net are growing.

The top 1 percent of households — average income $1.5 million — will save a collective $79.5 billion on their 2008 taxes, reports Citizens for Tax Justice. That’s more than the combined budgets of the Transportation Department, Small Business Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Tax cuts will save the top 1 percent a projected $715 billion between 2001 and 2010. And cost us $715 billion in mounting national debt plus interest.

The children and grandchildren of today’s underpaid workers will pay for the partying of today’s plutocrats and their retinue of lobbyists.

It’s time for Congress to roll back tax cuts for the wealthy and close the loophole letting billionaire hedge fund speculators pay taxes at a lower rate than their secretaries.

Inequality has roared back to 1920s levels. It was bad for our nation then. It’s bad for our nation now.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Different things for different people

[This is a highly subjective evaluation of Friday’s 2007 GrowSmart Maine Summit. Expecting one thing and finding out that many of the participants were looking for something much different for Maine’s future than I was. This post is less about a structured exercise in writing and more about trying to get my thoughts out while they are still relatively fresh and not overly-analyzed-JB]


It should be obvious to most, particularly those of us who’ve lived in Maine most of our lives that the state is changing. For some of us, those changes are not welcome and for the more cynical (a category to which I proudly claim membership), Brookings Report, or not, the state will continue to lose its former charm, as suburbanization continues to chew up the landscape. In fact, since 1980, an area of Maine the size of Rhode Island has converted from open spaces to residential usage.

While Maine’s population had remained static and stagnant, with growth coming to a virtual standstill in the 1990s that trend has now been reversed; Maine is now experiencing unprecedented growth. During the past decade, or so, the state’s annualized growth rate has doubled. Maine, which once ranked 46th in growth as late at 2000, has jumped to 26th nationally, experiencing the fastest growth in the U.S.

Transplants from away are arriving in Maine in record numbers, changing the character and the culture of the state. The midcoast region of Maine now numbers more residents from away, than natives.

When GrowSmart Maine commissioned the Brookings Institution to produce Charting Maine’s Future: An Action Plan for Promoting Sustainable Prosperity and Quality Place, it provided Mainers with an important document and potential roadmap, to aid residents in planning and plotting its future. While the document is important and even helpful, I find it interesting how the report's various recommendations have been seized upon by a variety of players to push forward agendas that they already had.

I was in attendance at Friday’s GrowSmart Maine Summit, which was held at the Augusta Civic Center. I estimated that there were around 1,000 people in attendance (the Press Herald pegged it at 700, Lewiston Sun Journal business writer, Carol Coultas, noted the attendance at 850). There was a healthy representation from Maine state government (Maine Planning Office, DEP, DECD), the non-profit sector, as well as real estate developers, engineers, consultants, municipal administrators and members of the state’s legislative delegation. Noticeably absent were members of the private sector and ordinary citizens. I imagine the latter were engaged in working and couldn’t afford to burn a vacation day, or lose productivity.

I had a chance to do some networking upon arriving, as well as spending some time in discussion with my executive director, who was also in attendance. We both felt that there was enough in the day’s agenda that had some connection with workforce development, to justify spending the day in various seminars.

The opening keynote by Harvard Professor Ronald Heifetz, on leadership, was brilliant. Heifetz mixed metaphors, with his subject matter ranging from soups and sexuality, to biology, with abundant biblical references thrown in for good measure.

Heifetz warned about confusing leadership with authority, as well as the importance of being able to recognize the differences between technical, versus adaptive change. Heifetz's contention is that many of the issues facing Maine and the country at large--sprawl, global warming, corporatization--are adaptive changes and don't lend themselves well to the same process that technical change is brought about by. All require changes in the way we live and less about a top-down governmental solution.

Part of the charge given to conference participants by Heifetz and echoed by GrowSmart's director, Alan Caron, was to spend some time meeting and talking to others that might not hold your own viewpoints. I would have enjoyed doing more of that but the size of the gathering and the tight framework of each seminar had participants being talked at, rather than having the opportunity to create dialogue.

I had signed up for a seminar titled, “Can Government Sreamline and Redesign Itself for the 21st Century?” While the tile was intriguing, the four panelists were a major disappointment. Beginning with the lack of technology limiting projection of visuals via PowerPoint, instead, having sheets of statistics being passed around the room, smacked of a lack of professionalism, or at least planning and was off-putting to me. As someone who presents regularly, I would think that one of these four people on the panel would have been better prepared with a laptop and a projector.

David Flanagan, the former president of Central Maine Power, former independent candidate for governor and now heading up the Maine Public Spending Research Group, was one of four boring panelists. It’s never a good sign when you begin with a policy wonk (Chuck Lawton/Planning Decisions), segue to a droning technocrat (Flanagan), have a pro-business, anti-tax crusader (Tony Payne/Alliance for Maine’s Future) in the three spot and end with an accountant (Beth Ashcroft/OPEGA).

Actually, Payne was a good presenter and made some decent points, but in my opinion, Flanagan and Payne represent an element that wants to gut government, rather than work off the GrowSmart/Brookings’ recommendations of reductions in the area of $60 to $100 million. Flanagan is promoting cuts in excess of $800 million, which in my opinion is unrealistic and even irresponsible.

After this torturous 90 minutes, it was back to the main auditorium for lunch and a few words from the governor. Governor Baldacci was in a trash talking mood, at times intimating that his move to consolidate schools, jails and even local PTA’s, stems from some deep well of philosophical resolve, rather than from the need to be seen as something other than your typical tax-and-spend Democrat and political hack.

If you happened to be hearing the governor for the first time, you would have thought he was the architect for smart growth and sustainable development. Since I’ve never heard the governor take a stand against any group looking to despoil the state’s pristine character (unless it was an Indian-run casino), his words came off sounding somewhat disingenuous to me.

After the morning’s disappointing seminar, I was hoping my afternoon would redeem my day and overcome being non-plussed up to this point.

I was off to “The Business Case for Smart Growth.” I was hoping that this would be about why it makes economic sense to do things that benefit people, places and the natural environment; a familiar theme of mine; putting people before profits.

It was apparent from the first 10 minutes, with Lee Sobel, from the US EPA’s Office of Development, Community & Environment that this was going to be a “paint by the numbers” recitation of government double-speak and gobbledygook. It was out the door and down the hall for me.

I ducked into a seminar on Main Street Renewal. Thinking this would be about how to revitalize Main Street and give merchants, citizens and others some ammo on how to stand up to corporate behemoths like Wal-Mart, Target and other big-box town-wreckers, a panelist was droning on about simplistic ideas such as hosting local events for your downtown area spurred me once again taking to the exit.

Scooting out of here, I retired to the auditorium to regroup, have a cup of coffee and jot down some notes. Realizing that time was ticking away on my day and that the conference was entirely different than my expectations, I now had only a brief window of opportunity to salvage the day.

[Grassroots organizers Rachel and Lucas, from NRCM]

Wandering through the exhibit area, I stopped at the Natural Resource Council of Maine’s table. They had a well-organized display about the Plum Creek Development Plan and NRCM’s reasons for opposing the current footprint of the project.

I met Rachel and Lucas, two young activists who came to Maine in August to work on NRCM’s campaign to help preserve the pristine character of the Moosehead Region. They are living in Augusta and Rachel had stumbled across my blog. She complimented me on my recent post about Augusta’s ugliness and the train wreck development that characterizes our state’s capital.

Despite my outward cynicism, I remain an idealist at heart and that’s probably why it was so refreshing to talk to two 20-somethings that still believe that grassroots campaigns are our only hope we have in resisting the onslaught of corporate development and profit-making.

[Author/researcher Stacy Mitchelll speaks about the Informed Growth Act]

Finally, it was time for the conference’s final afternoon sessions. For me, it was off to hear a discussion about the state’s Informed Growth Act.

This was well worth my time and the panelists, which included author/researcher Stacy Mitchell, Eleanor Kinney, attorney Peggy McGhee and Topsham select board member Michelle Jones, did an excellent job presenting and explaining this new law, designed to make it more difficult for large scale retail projects to set up shop in communities that oppose this kind of development.

The new law, passed in September, 2007, is the first statewide initiative like it in the U.S. It will require any municipality to make a decision on any proposed retail development of 75,000 square feet, or larger, to determine undue adverse impact. The law stipulates that the developer will bear the cost of the $40,000 fee to the State Planning Office for an economic impact study. This study will look at various possible negative effects, including existing retail operations, supply and demand for retail space, net job creation and loss, wages and benefits and the public cost of roads, police, fire, rescue and sewer, among other economic effects.

To get a sense of the scope of this type of project, there is no Shaw’s or Hannaford store in Maine larger than 44,000 square feet. A football field is 57,000 square feet.

I got to meet Mitchell and speak briefly to her. I told her that I appreciated her efforts with Big Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America’s Independent Businesses, to create a compendium of facts and information for activists and others to counter arguments that are often posited in support of big-box development. Mitchell’s book has become “the bible” for those who know intuitively that big-box development is bad news for communities and the citizens that live there. Mitchell’s book gives us the toolkit to speak articulately and authoritatively about the costs and negative fallout that accompanies the arrival of big-box retailers.

[L-R: IGA Panelists Stacy Mitchell, Peggy McGhee, Eleanor Kinney, Michelle Jones]

This seminar was in line with what I expected the entire conference to be about. More in line with what I thought smart growth was/is, more in line with the values of Wendell Berry and people that are about place and less about trying find a way to salve the consciences of developers and real estate agents who want to pay lip service to maintaining the state’s heritage and culture, while aiding and abetting its destruction.