Bank (De)regulation, Income Disparity, & Bank Failure - A Cycle

Mikaela says:
Every time I hear about income disparity, I think about this article from NPR, which connects some key dots.  Right before big economic collapses and bank failures, the income gap yawns open to eat all but the 1%.  Then comes regulation on banks, income equality gets better, the economy improves, and the Right decides it's time to deregulate again.  And then we start the cycle again.

Here's the graph from Harvard Business School Professor David Moss in 2010:

P.S. Check out these amazing graphs about income inequality in America over the last 40 years.  

Unequal pay for women planners

Mikaela says:

On the heals of President Obama's State of the Union speech, here's what I find an "embarrassment" not to mention demoralizing:

APA's Salary Survey for 2012 shows this pay discrepancy between men and women, which only GROWS with experience.

I'm speechless.  Infuriated and speechless.  Republicans have shut down the government over providing healthcare to Americans at price they can afford.  It's a Tea Party, a spilled wet dream.  You mean we can force the Democrats to negotiate about an adopted law AND we can stop the government?  Really?  Christmas!

I can't even imagine where we go from here.  No one seems to have a rational explanation for an end game.

I'm not feeling backlash yet.  What if we go on like this for weeks, and they start thinking maybe we should go without government at all?

And Darwin comes by and starts turning out lights? Hello, Great Depression.  Nice to see you again.  So nice of you to drop by. More on financial implications here.

John Boehner's Shut Down

With No New Plan, Boehner Makes Plea on Shutdown

This says what I want to say, in much the same exasperated tone:
Wrong Side of History

A Population Betrayed

Why Conservatives Should Reread Milton Friedman

Why the Right Fights

Why Boehner doesn't just ditch the hard right

Infuriating but Effective

Two articles detailing GOP efforts to act out the Handmaid's Tale.  They're getting steadily closer.

GOP lawmakers escalate their war on women

GOP Rep. says rape comments ‘taken out of context’

Women, Work, & Family

Mikaela says:

Given the next installment about to hit our family, I had to archive this amazing article about women in the workplace trying to balance childrearing.

This article is unapologetically written from the perspective of a woman arguably at the top of pyramid, with lots of choices about where and how to work and when. Anne-Marie Slaughter worked in the State Departments for 2 years and stepped down to take a more active role in the life of her teenage son, who was struggling.  Umm... awesome.  I love her candid advice in this article, as well as her honesty. She mentions several times not knowing what to say when some women ask her how to proceed, how to strike the perfect balance.

Brace yourself; it's a long article, but I love that about it, too. There are no candy-coated aphorisms offered here.  Just some really brutal truths served up for our contemplation, as well as some well-deserved praise for strong women role-models who don't often get recognized for their mothering AND professional success.

Enjoy!

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-cant-have-it-all/309020/1/

Class-based Hypocrisy from the Supreme Court

Mikaela says:

Had to archive this little gem from the Washington Post.  It's so surprising that the rule came in favor of the universal healthcare mandate, although a somewhat cynical friend speculated that right-leaning Chief Justice Roberts may have framed the ruling as constitutional only under the taxation clause as a short-term tactic toward the long-term strategy of wiping out taxation and anything hanging on it eventually. Sigh.  For the moment, though, hurray, America! You've joined other civilized nations in protecting the health of your own citizens.  Long time in coming...


But in the midst of diving around various analyses of the healthcare case, here was this about another recent ruling by this court:

Taken in context with the conservative majority’s other recent rulings, Alito’s majority opinion [in Knox v. Service Employees International Union, Local 1000] revealed the most class-based double standard the court has exhibited since before the New Deal. In the 2010 case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission — rendered by the same five justices who signed onto Alito’s ruling inKnox — the court ruled that corporations could directly spend their resources on political campaigns. These two decisions mean that a person who goes to work for the unionized Acme Widget Company can refuse to pay for the union’s intervention in political campaigns but has no recourse to reclaim the value of his labor that Acme reaps and opts to spend on political campaigns. Citizens United created a legal parity between companies and unions — both are free to dip into their treasuries for political activities — but Knox creates a legal disparity between them: a worker’s free-speech right entitles him to withhold funds from union campaign and lobbying activities, but not the value of his work from the company’s similar endeavors.

Does that not just kill you?  With the good comes the bad, I guess.  Holding my nose as I party...

Living in the Sprawl...

Mikaela says:

Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains
And there's no end in sight...

Ah the ironies of listening to Arcade Fire's brilliant The Suburbs as I labor to create the plan for a walkable, urban, transit-oriented development on Albuquerque's sprawling West Side.

Thanks, Mags for the kick in the donkey to get this gem of an album!

Accountability

Mikaela says:
Albuquerque's Mayor, as part of his "accountability measures" decided to post the name & salary of every City employee in an online database.

http://www.cabq.gov/abq-view
(See Graded and Ungraded Employees.)

That's the end of accountability, I guess, because the Mayor had no plans to address any issues with pay disparity, gender inequity, departmental inequity, etc.

I've done a very surface-level analysis of the Planning Department, for example, which headed by a woman might have the best chance for gender pay equity, one might expect. On average, men make $6,000 less more than women. Women are overwhelmingly assistants and support staff. Men are the engineers. Even with the same title, most men make at least 10% more money. Of the top 10 highest earners, 8 are men. Even the director makes less than 2 men that report to her.

Likewise, of the 25 top earners at the City, 20 are men (80%), and on average, these high-paid men make $6,000 more than high-paid women. Mayor Berry, if you care, is #25, making just over $100K per year.

Hurray. Such accountability, Mayor Berry! Way to go.

Silver Lining

Mikaela says:

This American Life did a brilliant show asking and answering a bunch of my questions surrounding mid-term elections, looking at liberal and conservative machinations (or lack thereof).

(Especially Act III: Jack Hitt Goes to Washington - interviewing Democratic Party insider Paul Begala about whether Democrats have a VERY secret messaging strategy or whether they're just incompetent.)

One story included an interview with a die-hard conservative adamantly opposed to tax increases who found himself traveling Colorado to stump AGAINST the tax-cutting ballot propositions 60, 61, and 101, which would have cause perpetual budget crises for the state and caused businesses to flee.

They were all roundly defeated. There you have it! Good news from an abysmal election...

Colorado voters reject tax-cutting measures 60, 61, 101

By Heath Urie

11/02/2010

Colorado voters overwhelmingly rejected three tax-cutting measures Tuesday, leading to a collective sigh of relief among government officials across the state who feared the passage of Amendments 60, 61 and Proposition 101 could have meant financial doom.

"Every local government and state government would have been reeling from the passage of those" measures, Boulder City Manager Jane Brautigam said. "It really would have been devastating to our community."

Proposition 101, a statutory change that would reduce vehicle taxes and fees and state income taxes, as well as eliminate telecommunication taxes, was failing statewide, with 68 percent of voters opposed.

Amendment 60, which would change the state constitution to require voters to approve all property-tax increases and would limit any new increases in property taxes to 10 years, was failing statewide, with 76 percent opposed.

Amendment 61 was another proposed constitutional amendment, which would prohibit the state from borrowing money and would place new restrictions on all types of borrowing for local governments. It was failing, with 73 percent opposed statewide.

"They just had to be stopped," Boulder City Councilman Matt Appelbaum said. "It would have destroyed us. It would have bankrupted the state."

Combined, the effects of the three measures on Boulder's budget were estimated to be between $26 million and $54 million within the next four years.

Mark Swanson, a Superior Democrat, said he voted against the measures and is glad so many others did, too.

"At some point, I think people have made a very common-sense judgment that some taxes are good taxes," he said.

Duende Poetry Series 2010 - Margaret Randall & Suzanne Lummis

Mikaela advocates:

A Poetry Reading
Sunday, September 12th at 3PM at the Anasazi Fields Winery in Placitas, NM
free to the public

Margaret Randall
Author of more than 100 books, will read from her newest book: My Town: A memoir of Albuquerque in poems, prose and photos (Wings Press, San Antonio). Author John Nichols wrote the introduction to the book, which is about growing up in the Duke City in the 1940s and 50s against the backdrop of Cold War politics, the Bomb, the area's race relations and the power of the desert.

Other recent titles from Randall include: To change the world: My years in Cuba (a memoir); and, With their backs to the Sea (poems). Two forthcoming titles are: First Laugh (Essays) from the University of Nebraska Press; and, Ruins (Poems and photos) from UNM Press.


Suzanne Lummis
Founder-director of the Los Angeles Poetry Festival, is part of the performance troupe Nearly Fatal Women and literary director of the Arroyo Arts Collective as well as editor of the online magazine "Speechless." Her class "The Poem Noir: Poetry goes to the movies" at UCLA Extension University has become famous over the years. Lummis' books of poetry include: Falling short of Heaven; Idiosyncracies; Spreading the Word; In Danger; and Open 24 Hours.

For all Duende poetry readings, wine, free snacks and non-alcoholic drinks are available. The event is free, though we encourage donations for the poets. For more information, contact Jim Fish at the winery at (505) 867-3062, email anasazifieldswinery@att.net or online at http://www.anasazifieldswinery.com/events.htm.

The next Duende Poetry Series reading will be in January, 2011. The series presents four readings per year. The September 12 reading is supported by the Witter Bynner Poetry Foundation of Santa Fe.

To reach the winery, turn onto Camino de los Pueblitos from Highway 165 in the Old Village of Placitas, across from the Presbyterian Church, follow the road through two stop signs, then turn left into the winery parking lot. From outside Placitas, take I-25 to exit 242, drive six miles to the old village and Camino de los Pueblitos, and continue on to the winery.

Right care, right time?

Mikaela says:
Okay, I have to post this letter from a local health care provider almost in its entirety or you won't believe it. Has it really come to this? Do that many people really drop everything and decide to spend umpteen hours waiting to be seen at the emergency room for ... hangnails or something else that can wait for an appointment? Really?

One way Presbyterian is working to help lower the cost of health care is to make sure patients get the health care they need in a setting that is most appropriate for the level of care they need. That’s why the Presbyterian Hospital Emergency Department is starting a new process for helping patients who come to the Presbyterian Hospital Emergency Department with non-emergencies beginning July 26, 2010.

All patients who enter the Emergency Department at Presbyterian Hospital will receive a medical screening exam to determine their appropriate level of care. Patients with conditions that are not emergencies will be directed to an onsite patient navigator, who will make an appointment for patients to be seen quickly in a primary care office or refer patients to urgent care if primary care is not timely enough or inconvenient.

If patients still wish to be treated in the emergency department after being informed their condition is not an emergency, they will be required to pay for services at the time of treatment. Under these circumstances, the health plan will likely not reimburse the patient.

Through this effort, emergency department services will be better accessible for patients with life-threatening emergencies. All State and Federal laws and regulations will continue to be followed to ensure patient safety and protect the health care system. Careful monitoring will occur to ensure patients receive timely care and patient safety is not compromised.

Patient education is central to helping patients determine the “right level of care at the right place” for their medical condition. We hope you will join us in our efforts to help educate your employees about accessing care most appropriately and maximizing their insurance coverage for the level of care that their health requires. Of course, true emergencies will continue to be covered by insurance, according to your Group Subscriber Agreement or Summary Plan Description.

We are very optimistic about this new and innovative approach as we work to make healthcare more affordable, accessible, and of the highest quality.

Day of Memories

Mikaela says:
Lest we forget what we are supposed to remember on this Memorial Day, a reading from Archibald MacLeish.

The Young Dead Soldiers

The young dead soldiers do not speak.

Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses: who has not heard them?

They have a silence that speaks for them at night and when the clock counts.

They say: We were young. We have died. Remember us.

They say: We have done what we could but until it is finished it is not done.

They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave.

They say: Our deaths are not ours; they are yours; they will mean what you make them.

They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say; it is you who must say this.

They say: We leave you our deaths. Give them meaning.

We were young, they say. We have died. Remember us.

NM Public Schools

Mikaela says:
I'm an ardent public school fan. I did just fine in public schools, and I believe a good, free public education is what we owe all children.

Which is why this little tidbit caught my eye and makes me fear for my daughter's education. Not only are the majority of our public schools in New Mexico not making "adequate progress" - more and more are losing ground each year.
Time for education overhaul? I think so!

(3 years til preschool, people! Get moving!)

Academy Awards 2010: Snore!

Mikaela says:
An hour in, and so far ... snoresville!

Only the histrionic tribute to John Hughes has been worth my attention.

I mean really, who cares about the movies this year? Is anyone out there rooting for a particular movie? I can want Precious to win just for the exposure, but did I see it? No! Too much of a downer. To be fair, Kleenex ads are too much of a downer for me, these days. Still...

Avatar should win best picture. Steve and Alec should be funnier. Enough said.

Afterward: Sandra Bullock's acceptance speech was among the classiest and funniest I've seen. Wasn't the biggest fan, but I'm kind of in love with her now!

Jeff Bridges is weird, man. I've always hated his teeth, anyway.

Friday m-pyre quiz

Mikaela says:
Well this should give you a little glimpse about what we're talking about behind the scenes.

• Healthcare? Nope.
  
• Why Democrats don't just call the Republican bluff and let them try to filibuster? Not even a little.

We're talking shoes, people! We invite you into our little tet-a-tet with this challenge:

• Who out there can match the shoes with the girl?

The 3 ms bought the following 3 shoes, but the question is - who bought which?

P.S. - Don't you just love shoes? We do!

Shoe #1: Born Miriam



Shoe #2: Born Lewisa


Shoe #3: Softwalk Montego


Regardless of the answer, do we have good taste, or what?

Christmas Wish for Peace

Mikaela says:
Apologies for the re-posting here, but I was so touched by this sermon of peace that I had to share it here.

One of the messages of Christmas that gets me every year is the longing for peace on earth.

This year, Rev. Christine Robinson shared the story of a Unitarian minister who authored the carol “It Came upon the Midnight Clear.” It's not one of my favorite carols, and I'd never paid much attention to the words. It deserves our attention, though. Read on.


Here are the first 2 verses. The rest come after Christine calls for them.

It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth
To touch their harps of gold!
"Peace on the earth, good will to men,
From heaven's all gracious King!
The world in solemn stillness lay
To hear the angels sing.

Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled
And still their heavenly music floats
O'er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains
They bend on hovering wing.
And ever o'er its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.

"Although this is one of the beloved carols of Christians, you’ll note that this is not a carol about Christ. It is a carol about peace....

Edmund Hamilton Sears, Unitarian minister, was a man who longed for peace. His longing was very personal; that is one of the reasons he could write such a beautiful hymn. He longed for peace inside himself, he longed for peace in his community, and he longed for an end of war. He wanted those things so much because he didn’t have them.

Sears was apparently a high-strung man, verging always on a nervous breakdown, haunted by a sense of inadequacy as a minister. Indeed, he never really carried a full workload as a minister; his wife did most of what we would call the pastoral work—the calling, the meetings, the counseling. Edmund couldn’t handle those things. If he lived today, he would probably be diagnosed as clinically depressed, as having some imbalance of brain chemistry that made it hard for him to concentrate, to rest, and to work. These days, he would have medicine to help him lead a normal life, but he lived before such things. So he had to always husband his strength and tranquility by long walks in the country, by working in his garden, and by writing.

Inner peace came hard to Sears, and yet, out of a rare experience of inner peace, he wrote a beautiful carol that now the world enjoys, and enjoys all the more because it is such a peaceful song to sing in a hectic season.

Sears also longed for peace in his community, and he didn’t have much there, either. The people in his community were embroiled in arguments over two important things: over slavery and over the rights of women. Sears was an abolitionist and spoke out for women’s suffrage. His congregation did not all appreciate his stands.

Now, Sears had his own handicaps and problems to think about, and perhaps another man would have said to himself, “I am just not strong enough to argue with my neighbors about national issues.” But he didn’t. He wrote and spoke and preached his conviction that slavery degraded human beings—slaves and owners alike—and degraded nations that allowed it. Sears longed for peace, but not at any price. He was willing to argue for what he believed, even when it caused conflict in his community. Sears spent his small strength fighting for abolition of slavery, knowing, perhaps, that sweeping the conflict among people under the rug does not bring peace, and that only justice can be the basis of lasting harmony.

Finally, Sears longed for peace in his world, which is to say, for an absence of war. And he didn’t have that either, I’m afraid. The Mexican War was going on. Sears thought it was an immoral war and wrote articles trying to convince others of his convictions. If you read the third verse of “It Came upon the Midnight Clear,” you can hear how discouraged he became about peace on earth.

Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world hath suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love song which they bring:
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing.

For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophet bards foretold,
When, with the ever-circling years,
Shall come the Age of Gold;
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And all the world give back the song
Which now the angels sing.

Edmund Hamilton Sears, Unitarian minister, didn’t see much peace in his time, but the Christmas hymn he wrote about peace was an important force in making peace on Earth one of the messages of Christmas. And probably, more than anything else he wrote in his life, “It Came upon the Midnight Clear” has been a force for peace in our world. For, when enough people hope for peace, then peace can come.

This longing for peace was underlined for me while listening to Performance Today yesterday. There's a classical chorale piece written in honor of the true story about the Christmas truce between German and British soldiers during World War I. From their trenches - just meters apart - the soldiers sang Christmas carols to each other.

Silent Night, holy night.
All is calm, all is bright.
...
Sleep in heavenly peace.
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Oh for a day of peace for all us all: A truce. Can you imagine it? A suspension of disagreement to feel the resonance of our similarities, the haunting familiarity of oneness, the power of our combined intention for peace: May this instinct continue to guide us toward the generosity of spirit that true calm requires.

Un-Merry Christmas Blocks

Mikaela says:
It's been a strange holiday season so far. I've been feeling the most Christmas spirit I've ever conjured up, predominantly because it's my little one's very first Christmas. (See the preview of Christmas morning present extravaganza to the left...)

At the same time, I keep tripping over the most un-Christmasy roadblocks to holiday cheer.

Example #1:
While listening to the classical radio station, which has brought so many bright holiday moments this season, an ad came on that starts with the admonition from a young woman to throw away the cookbook and just make dinner however you're inspired. You can hear the sizzling of what must be meat right about the moment the woman reveals that this is a funeral home ad. So ... cooking meat and dead bodies. Ugh. Methinks this gruesome juxtaposition is not what they intended. Perhaps the tiniest bit Dicksonian, but largely ... a Christmas spirit killer.

Example #2:
The healthcare bill rigmarole. Enough said.

Example #3:
For some reason, my husband and I, not normally horror film afficianados, cannot seem to get in or out of the holiday season without watching horror movies. Last year, we watched What Lies Beneath on Christmas morning as I finished the last of the gift wrapping before heading to my mother's for the day's main events.

This year, with a new HD television combined with Netflix instant watching, we've consumed not one, not two, but three horror movies so far, despite my request that we bar horror from our Christmas festivities this year.

• Let the Right One In - a dark little holiday charmer about a kid vampire and her little buddy and all the hijinks they get into - killing people, infecting people, beating up bullies
• House of Voices - a spirited morality tale about war orphans, abuse, murder, and motherhood.
  
• Haunted - a Christmas classic about a haunted house and the havoc it wreaks on a weak-minded, youngish spinster.

With the majority of my Christmas gifts purchased; my first year of holiday cookie baking almost complete; our real, live Christmas tree decorated; seasonal dish towels, mugs, and appetizer plates purchased; it's time to reap the Christmas spirit I've endeavored to sew.

If only the universe would stop making that quite so difficult...

Economics & Social Justice

Mikaela says:
You've got to go listen to NPR's Planet Money blog from today, which covers both the contributions of recently-deceased Paul Samuelson and a re-situating of Adam Smith in the dialog about governments' role in advocating for the poor in world markets by Amartya Sen, a Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics, in his new book, The Idea of Justice.

Samuelson on PBS Newshour interviewed by Paul Solman:

INTERVIEWER: [Y]our student, Robert Merton ...said, look, innovation always brings with it certain risks. You don't kill innovation as a result.

PAUL SAMUELSON: I'm not speaking in favor of killing innovation. I'm speaking in favor of centrist use of the market, which involves necessarily a considerable degree of regulation. Markets by themselves will get themselves inevitably into inequality and into their own destruction. It will happen again and again.

INTERVIEWER: You're a lifelong Democrat.

PAUL SAMUELSON: I'm an incurable centrist.

INTERVIEWER: Do you feel that there was simply an ideological shift towards free-market fundamentalism, some people have called it, that got us inevitably onto this track?

PAUL SAMUELSON: Since 1980, yes.

INTERVIEWER: And that's your explanation for what happened?

PAUL SAMUELSON: Yes. And not only that, the economics profession, the guys I have lunch with and love, have, generally speaking, moved greatly rightward. I'm not sure that all of the fiendish stuff could have been picked up by centrist regulators, but you don't have to be perfect in anything in economic life. If you spent 70 years in economics, you'll understand that.

INTERVIEWER: So things could have been a lot less bad?

PAUL SAMUELSON: Yes.

Sen on Adam Smith as the advocate of the Invisible Hand:

Sen: That's a complete caricature of Smith. [T]he invisible hand is not one of Adam Smith's theories. He uses the term three times in all of his entire corpus of work, twice as caricature. One is referring to the bloody and invisible hand, from Macbeth if I remember right. The later construction of this "story" that you have been sold from good economists is based on about 16 lines of Wealth of Nations, in which he discusses why people want exchange. For that, you don't need a big theory of morality, because they want each other's commodities.
...
How can you make these trades survive? Then you need mutual trust and understanding of each other. If you end up in a society with a lot of poor, what do you do? Then you need a concept of justice, you have to have transfer of rich to the poor.

This is from Wealth of Nations: Nearly all intervention in the interest of the rich, is almost invariably counterproductive, whereas all intervention of the state in the interest of the poor is almost always successful and achieves good results.

Smith is one of the heroes of my book - the real Smith not the manufactured Smith put together, totally different from the caricature of Smith.

Interviewer: So you're saying the Wealth of Nations was a tract advocating the redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor?

...

Sen: His criticism is always in the interest of the underdogs of society. ... The thing implied about racism ... In one state, he's very angry with Italy about the white supremacy argument. ... He says there isn't a negro anywhere in the North of Africa, with which he's familiar, who does not have a superior concept of justice which his sordid master is scarcely cable of understanding. He was a totally radical figure.

m-pyre birthday: recession edition

Mikaela says:
The m's thought it would be fun -- okay, bad word choice -- to write about how the recession has affected us as our birthday reflection this year.

So with my daughter screaming herself to sleep in the next room, heaters blaring in all the rooms, typing with fear of breaking a circuit any minute, I'll share a bit of what this recession has meant to me.

The biggest effect by far has been the impetus to quit my job. That's right, quit my full-time with great benefits job for an uncertain future as a consultant doing all manner of odd, small jobs.

You know the saying, "It's always darkest before dawn?" Here in the balloon fiesta city, we all know it's also the coldest right before dawn. It also translates into screaming baby, actually. The biggest scream is often the last one, right before she drifts away to sleep, oddly and miraculously enough.

And so it was that it took the biggest recession of my lifetime to push me to do the thing I knew I was supposed to do all along, which is ... not get pigeon-holed into a job for the sake of security. I'm a virgo and not a big risk-taker anyway. I don't like being out on a limb, but I also know that my skills will support a number of endeavors, and so I should assemble the odd jobs that make up a life that supports me, challenges me, and makes me happy. Did I mention they also need to be flexible enough to allow time to raise a little girl? Well, there's that, too.

My mom worked from the time I was two. She was a realtor, and her work was never done. She struggled to make ends meet, so there was little she could do to make time for extra commitments with us - organized sports, concerts, etc.? Not so much. But she raised us, and we never went hungry. And her efforts were enough.

Here I am, a generation later, and I can see that I may have chosen a path that allows me to take her to daycare and pick her up every day, but it's also the path that means I'm checking my email all hours of the day, and working late and once even pulling an all-nighter to shoehorn the work I need to get done into the shrinking available time to do it.

This recession has simultaneously given me the biggest freedom since going to school full-time (which most of us remember was not all that "free" to begin with) and the most stress I've ever had about work. I have five jobs at the moment - one of them full-time with flex hours and the rest very sporadic but still time-consuming. I'm lucky to have them all, even if I honestly don't know how I will find the time to complete them all.

In the meantime, Eric's job at UNM is looking increasingly grim, even as he personally struggles more and more to find meaning in his efforts there. He's been "keeping an eye out" for a while now, with no good options revealing themselves. Even with all his good connections and friends in high places, there's no positions to be had. If he can't find work, I really worry about everyone else in the job market. Yikes.

We can pay our bills for one more month on our savings, and then I pray that my consulting gigs start paying. It will be close, but I'm sure it will all be fine.

As the people who have coached me about money in my life say to do, I'm focusing on the abundance in the universe and the feeling of being buoyed by all the gifts and blessings I know to be my life. Life will provide.

In the meantime, I work, listen to NPR, drink coffee, and do yoga -- chanting T.S. Eliot's invocation (quoting an English mystic Julian of Norwich, author of the first book written in English by a woman): "All shall be well. All manner of things shall be well."

Maybe in the next year, I can add blogging to that daily list.

Maybe in the spring...

A little more from my pal T.S. Eliot, excerpting (and updating, where needed) from his fourth Quartet, Little Gidding:

In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul's sap quivers. ...
[W]hat you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfilment.
...
In the uncertain hour before the morning
Near the ending of interminable night
At the recurrent end of the unending
... I said: 'The wonder that I feel is easy,
Yet ease is cause of wonder. "
...
[L]ast year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice.
...
I find words I never thought to speak
In streets I never thought I should revisit
...
All shall be well, and
All manner of thing shall be well.
...I think, again, of this place,
And of people, not wholly commendable,
Of no immediate kin or kindness,
But of some peculiar genius,
All touched by a common genius,
United in the strife which divided them
...
The only hope, or else despair Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre— To be redeemed from fire by fire
... We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.
...
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
...
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning,
Every poem an epitaph.
...
A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded [website]
History is now and [the Internet].
...
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
...
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well

Buying Good (?) Health (Insurance)

Mikaela says:
So a little tidbit on the radio got me to thinking about how little we're hearing about who's most in the pockets of the health care industry. We hear a lot about this congressperson or that congressperson being for or against the bill and a lot about Republicans want this versus Democrats want that, but how does that map to the money?

Bad news: I haven't found much that directly answers that question.
Good news: There is some info out there.
Good news & bad news: I've barely scratched the surface.

Here's a quick snapshot of what I could scrape together in a fairly short amount of time.


Source: http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear=2009&indexType=c

Top Industries Giving to Members of Congress, 2010 Cycle

Source: http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/mems.php

Industry			% Received
Rank (of 50)	Industry	Total Contributions	Dems	Repubs	Top Individual Recipient
2	Health Professionals	$13,611,257	63%	37%	Harry Reid (D-Nev)
6	Insurance	$8,405,172	58%	42%	Charles E Schumer (D-NY)
10	Pharm/Health Prod	$5,434,796	61%	39%	Richard Burr (R-NC)
19	Hospitals/Nurs Homes	$3,872,639	74%	26%	Charles E Schumer (D-NY)
37	Health Services	$2,249,688	69%	31%	Charles E Schumer (D-NY)

Source: http://www.opensecrets.org/industries

Lobbyists in 2009
Source: http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indus_lobs.php?lname=H&year=2009

Industry	No. of Lobbyists
Health Professionals	781
Health Services/HMOs	988
Hospitals/Nursing Homes	1,172
Misc Health	165
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products	1,659

Senate Finance Committee Members Receiving the Most Contributions from Top 25 Healthcare Industry Orgs. 2007-2009

Recipient	From Clients	From Lobbyists	Overall Total
John McCain (R-Ariz.)	$427,530	$473,400	$900,930
Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)	$276,050	$237,722	$513,772
Max Baucus (D-Mont.)	$252,750	$200,899	$453,649
Arlen Specter (D-Penn.)	$116,750	$108,778	$225,528
Chris Dodd (D-Conn.)	$56,950	$130,808	$187,758
Mark Udall (D-Colo.)	$76,025	$79,150	$155,175
Mark Warner (D-Va.)	$46,650	$84,450	$131,100
Pat Roberts (R-Kan.)	$47,200	$83,420	$130,620
Mary Landrieu (D-La.)	$35,800	$67,000	$102,800
Patty Murray (D-Wa.)	$32,800	$59,500	$92,300
Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)	$22,500	$55,950	$78,450
Susan Collins (R-Maine)	$28,300	$40,916	$69,216

Here's another great article that breaks down individual recipients. It also provides a link to download two awesome pivot tables in Excel here, one for the health insurance companies and one for big pharma: http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/patients/articles/?storyId=28527

Happy hunting!