About a year ago, as part of a PSU Economics Department Symposium, I had the opportunity to stand in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and ask them to use their authority to refinance consumer debt at an interest rate more like 3-4%, with a repayment forbearance period along an income scale.
I found the authorization in their charter, I convinced my group, I made a Powerpoint with the words liquidity trap and helicopter money. I asked for changes to the ZZZ and the FDCPA.
I chickened out.
I'm sorry.
In many ways, it was already too late. My plan would have been most effective before Americans in recession dumped their money into paying their debt down.
Now, maybe I don't understand international capitol flows as well as I should.
But I do know that American consumers cannot keep up, with their stagnant incomes, on the interest payments they make to the banks, which now average 13% and range up to around 28%.
We are in a trap we can't afford. I do not see any justification where finance needs that money more than we do. Whether it should be going to individuals or to government is truly beyond the point. Finance is not using it to grow the economy by reinvesting it productively. Finance is using it to hoard wealth. While people are suffering.
We are in deep. Our problems are complicated and agreement is hard to come to.
But we, the people, cannot afford to buy our groceries on loan anymore.
We, the people, cannot afford to pay half, or more, of our incomes on housing anymore.
We, the people, want to work.
We want to believe our children will have a life at least as good as ours, if not better.
We, the people, at least the ones on my block, and in my classes, and in the grocery store and the thrift store, have changed the way we shop, and have stayed in town on our vacations, and have learned how to get by on less. We have seen our positions cut, our workloads increase, our wages fall and our leaders fiddle, all while we continue to just try to adjust.
We want a reallocation.
We want less hoarding. We want more work, and we want more of the benefit of our labor to be in our hands and in our communities.
We want the games to stop, because it is our lives and our futures that are being gambled by an entrenched minority that has ceased to provide adequately for the masses.
We, the people, are the 99%, and we cannot afford no change.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Sunday, September 11, 2011
I remember
I remember the alarm was set for early, because boyfriend was going to be on "AM Northwest."
I remember they called and said, "Turn on your tv right now" then hung up.
I remember the 6 year old girl, waking up and seeing the tv, the people covered in dust, everything beige. "Mommy," she said, "what planet is that?"
I remember going to work, at the newspaper. Boss was saying "Call all the airlines right now, they'll want to buy big ads, condolences."
She was in shock, too.
It felt like the dust was blowing all the way over here, the other side of the country was so close, and none of us could really breathe.
I remember afterward, for awhile, it seemed like more people carried a camera all the time, just like they did after Oklahoma.
As if that little machine was insurance, because if we could be the recorder, we would be more likely to survive.
I remember they called and said, "Turn on your tv right now" then hung up.
I remember the 6 year old girl, waking up and seeing the tv, the people covered in dust, everything beige. "Mommy," she said, "what planet is that?"
I remember going to work, at the newspaper. Boss was saying "Call all the airlines right now, they'll want to buy big ads, condolences."
She was in shock, too.
It felt like the dust was blowing all the way over here, the other side of the country was so close, and none of us could really breathe.
I remember afterward, for awhile, it seemed like more people carried a camera all the time, just like they did after Oklahoma.
As if that little machine was insurance, because if we could be the recorder, we would be more likely to survive.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
me being published running my mouth
I'm already seeing where I could take the 100% opposite view from the one I've taken here.. but heck... I got published!
(10.27.2011 - it appears that the link is gone. While I try to retrieve the full thread, here is a comment I posted, in response to a comment on the post, that gives a gist of the argument I was making.)
Hi Bob and dtafs! Thanks for jumping in! Great food for thought you’ve offered.
Before I get too wrapped up in that head of lettuce touched by your 7 cent Mexican, or wonder what strata of workers deserve to eat in restaurants every now and then, I’d like to revisit my original point. Calling the Madrona affordable housing is wrong.
The Madrona is a housing project. For what it is, a housing project for near homeless addicts, its wonderful news, and yes, dtafts, on that merit alone it is something to be commended. But to paraphrase what Bob said so well in his comment on Dan’s original posting, there should be a difference between affordable housing and housing projects.
I’ll refer you to this piece about the Madrona, written by Anna Griffin for the O. http://www.solaroregon.org/about/news_folder/madrona-studios-opening-most-worthwhile-part-of-portlands-rose-quarter-renewal You’ll notice that she never calls this ‘affordable housing’: “To move into the Madrona Studios, a rectangular box of an old Ramada Inn on Northeast Weidler, you must be homeless or nearly there.”
Where I get my tuft in a ruffle is when we lump hardworking, fully employed people who happen to be doing jobs that rest on the ‘no degree required’ scale in with recovering addicts and expect them to knead their soiled hats in their hands and whisper ‘thank you, sirs, may I have another?”
There should be a benefit to working.I am having a hard time fathoming that we actually disagree on that point.
Bob, you’ve provided a handy calculator and answered my direct question. You consider $8.73/ hr. a living wage for a single person in Portland, Ore. With 47% of take home toward housing, and a $53/week food budget. Really? Are you kidding me? That’s a lot of fast food down the gullet, and bound to up that medical cost pretty quick, don’t you think? Well, heck, on that scale, my 11.50/hr. worker really is earning a kings wage!
Apparently, though, that princely sum doesn’t extend to being allowed to dine alongside their betters or take a few days rest and travel once a year? (for the record, Bob, there is quite a continuum you’ve quoted between dining in a decent restaurant every now and then and the luxury of keeping domestics)
At what point does a person ‘need’ a vacation, dtafs? At what point do they deserve one? I have to let you know, poor folk do eat out, not as often from white tablecloths, but cost increases do affect them as well. And while you may not worry too much about those upper crusts who can afford to have their manors tended by crisply uniformed staff, I think they’re valid humans, so I tend to ‘worry’ about them, too.
So where we seem to diverge is on the realistic implementation and effects of ‘living wage.’ The question is one that is by no means settled, so on that point I’m gonna do my homework and come back for more real soon.
But again I would like to point out that we are constrained to the realities we live in; those being that we are in the midst of a recession and that wages are not likely to rise for a while. I’ll also note that Oregon’s minimum wage is already tied to rise with inflation.
Ultimately, though, the main point is just this, $11.50 an hour should afford a better quality of life than a housing project.
(10.27.2011 - it appears that the link is gone. While I try to retrieve the full thread, here is a comment I posted, in response to a comment on the post, that gives a gist of the argument I was making.)
Hi Bob and dtafs! Thanks for jumping in! Great food for thought you’ve offered.
Before I get too wrapped up in that head of lettuce touched by your 7 cent Mexican, or wonder what strata of workers deserve to eat in restaurants every now and then, I’d like to revisit my original point. Calling the Madrona affordable housing is wrong.
The Madrona is a housing project. For what it is, a housing project for near homeless addicts, its wonderful news, and yes, dtafts, on that merit alone it is something to be commended. But to paraphrase what Bob said so well in his comment on Dan’s original posting, there should be a difference between affordable housing and housing projects.
I’ll refer you to this piece about the Madrona, written by Anna Griffin for the O. http://www.solaroregon.org/about/news_folder/madrona-studios-opening-most-worthwhile-part-of-portlands-rose-quarter-renewal You’ll notice that she never calls this ‘affordable housing’: “To move into the Madrona Studios, a rectangular box of an old Ramada Inn on Northeast Weidler, you must be homeless or nearly there.”
Where I get my tuft in a ruffle is when we lump hardworking, fully employed people who happen to be doing jobs that rest on the ‘no degree required’ scale in with recovering addicts and expect them to knead their soiled hats in their hands and whisper ‘thank you, sirs, may I have another?”
There should be a benefit to working.I am having a hard time fathoming that we actually disagree on that point.
Bob, you’ve provided a handy calculator and answered my direct question. You consider $8.73/ hr. a living wage for a single person in Portland, Ore. With 47% of take home toward housing, and a $53/week food budget. Really? Are you kidding me? That’s a lot of fast food down the gullet, and bound to up that medical cost pretty quick, don’t you think? Well, heck, on that scale, my 11.50/hr. worker really is earning a kings wage!
Apparently, though, that princely sum doesn’t extend to being allowed to dine alongside their betters or take a few days rest and travel once a year? (for the record, Bob, there is quite a continuum you’ve quoted between dining in a decent restaurant every now and then and the luxury of keeping domestics)
At what point does a person ‘need’ a vacation, dtafs? At what point do they deserve one? I have to let you know, poor folk do eat out, not as often from white tablecloths, but cost increases do affect them as well. And while you may not worry too much about those upper crusts who can afford to have their manors tended by crisply uniformed staff, I think they’re valid humans, so I tend to ‘worry’ about them, too.
So where we seem to diverge is on the realistic implementation and effects of ‘living wage.’ The question is one that is by no means settled, so on that point I’m gonna do my homework and come back for more real soon.
But again I would like to point out that we are constrained to the realities we live in; those being that we are in the midst of a recession and that wages are not likely to rise for a while. I’ll also note that Oregon’s minimum wage is already tied to rise with inflation.
Ultimately, though, the main point is just this, $11.50 an hour should afford a better quality of life than a housing project.
Crazy Bus Man...
Today I took the only seat open on a crowded line 9, and there’s one of those guys sitting there reeking of booze and getting chewed on by some other washed out and useless whose conversation he jumped into, unwelcome.
No one wants to sit next to that guy.
But I do anyway. He says he wont bite. Almost looks like he’s grateful, to me, just for sitting down. Starts talking my ear off, old timer, 60 but looks like life’s been hell, he smells like hell, I can see the bottle peeking out from behind his coat, a bottle with a cap like mouthwash, but he reeks of hard booze.
But he has a smile, and a soft careful gentle about him. I can tell he’s harmless enough for 50 blocks, and I want to sit down. So I listen, put on my nice smile, he’s gonna talk, and I wanna sit, so ill listen.
Said he’s got cancer.
Had hair down to his ass, but cut it all off and gave it to the kids at st. judes.
"But I don’t want to go up to pill hill and get the microwave – that’s what I call it - they gave me some pills, but I quit ‘em, ill let the vodka do the job."
"I’ve got a real nice apartment, I get my check direct deposit and I put a nice parachute over my bed and one of those folding Japanese things and a real nice view and… I just want to die at home."
"I rode the rails when I got back from killing viet cong for a living,. 70’s and 80’s, went all over, till I came back to here and got in that fight over around Lloyd center. They called it murder, but I was just defending myself. They gave me a lawyer and he said, ‘just sit on your hands and don’t talk’., so that’s what I did. ‘ I wasn’t doing so good back then"
He shows me how kept quiet and just sat on his hands.
"I wasn’t convicted, though. They told me to take a plea. They called it manslaughter. So I went to prison. For ten years. "
Then his blue eyes just lit up... he was smiling, remembering prison.
I was not more than a few inches away from those eyes. You get real close to another person on a public bus. Temporary, but distance can just melt away. He’s glowing, now. While he tells me his story.
He built a garden while he did his ten years. The officers and the inmates aren’t supposed to get involved with each other. Keep their distance. But the guards brought in 40 tomato plants, and he built a fence for the string beans to crawl up.
He’s shining like a little boy, his bright blue eyes are dancing.
One time a hummingbird landed on him… and when he was telling it, remembering it he was back there, he was full of pure sweet satisfaction and love and joy. He held out both hands, 9 fingers, and he showed me where the bird landed, right on him, loved him for his prison garden.
I see my stop coming. I like this old guy. He calls himself an old hippy, talks about playing cat stevens on his guitar in the same breath he talks about killing in Vietnam.
He's still rambling on, while my stop is getting closer.
“And now, our guys coming home, they keep putting guns in their mouths and pulling the triggers. 6000 of em so far, just can’t handle being back because the government isn’t helping them get home, they get here, and they don’t know what to do. Just like Jimmy and Charlie, and Rob.. guys I grew up with, they did the same thing, just couldn’t take it. We all volunteered, then we got home, and…. you think they would have learned. I guess I’m just not as sensitive as them. I miss those guys.. but”
… he's closed his eyes and he says…
“About all that, I , … I only think about the good times.
But I’m watching his eyes get wet and I hear his voice drop low and he whispers… ‘I love everyone on this bus’
I should have stayed just a little while more. What does it matter to me, really, if I have to cross the street and catch the line back. The timing was all off… I left him alone when he had picked me to talk to. Who cares if he’s crazy, or he killed someone, or if I don’t know him so he shouldn’t matter. He picked me in that way we sometimes need to, just talk to anyone, someone, anonymous. He was starting to talk about that shot he took, aimed a little off, killed that whole family, but he didn’t mean to. The difference in his eyes between the hummingbird and that hellish war.
He didn’t mean to, just aimed a little off. Blue eyes sad and wet and trying not to cry.
He’s dying of cancer, and giving his hair, and some of his check each month, to those kids up on the hill, and just letting the vodka do the job because he just wants to die at home.
And I pulled the string.
I Went one stop, two blocks, past where I would have usually. I should have given him more time. Should have tried to get him back to that hummingbird, behind the prison wall.
His tomatoes and string beans, and watermelons this big, and the guards sneaking his seeds out to plant in their gardens at home. The way his eyes lit up, pride. Acceptance, he accomplished.
In that temporary moment of no distance between us, but still anonymous, free to just say what you need to, he talked to me about things I will not ever know myself.
Between Vietnam, and riding the rails, and manslaughter, and dying of cancer, that hummingbird in his prison garden is the place he goes back to, the place where he was accepted and accomplished and proud.
No one wants to sit next to that guy.
But I do anyway. He says he wont bite. Almost looks like he’s grateful, to me, just for sitting down. Starts talking my ear off, old timer, 60 but looks like life’s been hell, he smells like hell, I can see the bottle peeking out from behind his coat, a bottle with a cap like mouthwash, but he reeks of hard booze.
But he has a smile, and a soft careful gentle about him. I can tell he’s harmless enough for 50 blocks, and I want to sit down. So I listen, put on my nice smile, he’s gonna talk, and I wanna sit, so ill listen.
Said he’s got cancer.
Had hair down to his ass, but cut it all off and gave it to the kids at st. judes.
"But I don’t want to go up to pill hill and get the microwave – that’s what I call it - they gave me some pills, but I quit ‘em, ill let the vodka do the job."
"I’ve got a real nice apartment, I get my check direct deposit and I put a nice parachute over my bed and one of those folding Japanese things and a real nice view and… I just want to die at home."
"I rode the rails when I got back from killing viet cong for a living,. 70’s and 80’s, went all over, till I came back to here and got in that fight over around Lloyd center. They called it murder, but I was just defending myself. They gave me a lawyer and he said, ‘just sit on your hands and don’t talk’., so that’s what I did. ‘ I wasn’t doing so good back then"
He shows me how kept quiet and just sat on his hands.
"I wasn’t convicted, though. They told me to take a plea. They called it manslaughter. So I went to prison. For ten years. "
Then his blue eyes just lit up... he was smiling, remembering prison.
I was not more than a few inches away from those eyes. You get real close to another person on a public bus. Temporary, but distance can just melt away. He’s glowing, now. While he tells me his story.
He built a garden while he did his ten years. The officers and the inmates aren’t supposed to get involved with each other. Keep their distance. But the guards brought in 40 tomato plants, and he built a fence for the string beans to crawl up.
He’s shining like a little boy, his bright blue eyes are dancing.
One time a hummingbird landed on him… and when he was telling it, remembering it he was back there, he was full of pure sweet satisfaction and love and joy. He held out both hands, 9 fingers, and he showed me where the bird landed, right on him, loved him for his prison garden.
I see my stop coming. I like this old guy. He calls himself an old hippy, talks about playing cat stevens on his guitar in the same breath he talks about killing in Vietnam.
He's still rambling on, while my stop is getting closer.
“And now, our guys coming home, they keep putting guns in their mouths and pulling the triggers. 6000 of em so far, just can’t handle being back because the government isn’t helping them get home, they get here, and they don’t know what to do. Just like Jimmy and Charlie, and Rob.. guys I grew up with, they did the same thing, just couldn’t take it. We all volunteered, then we got home, and…. you think they would have learned. I guess I’m just not as sensitive as them. I miss those guys.. but”
… he's closed his eyes and he says…
“About all that, I , … I only think about the good times.
But I’m watching his eyes get wet and I hear his voice drop low and he whispers… ‘I love everyone on this bus’
I should have stayed just a little while more. What does it matter to me, really, if I have to cross the street and catch the line back. The timing was all off… I left him alone when he had picked me to talk to. Who cares if he’s crazy, or he killed someone, or if I don’t know him so he shouldn’t matter. He picked me in that way we sometimes need to, just talk to anyone, someone, anonymous. He was starting to talk about that shot he took, aimed a little off, killed that whole family, but he didn’t mean to. The difference in his eyes between the hummingbird and that hellish war.
He didn’t mean to, just aimed a little off. Blue eyes sad and wet and trying not to cry.
He’s dying of cancer, and giving his hair, and some of his check each month, to those kids up on the hill, and just letting the vodka do the job because he just wants to die at home.
And I pulled the string.
I Went one stop, two blocks, past where I would have usually. I should have given him more time. Should have tried to get him back to that hummingbird, behind the prison wall.
His tomatoes and string beans, and watermelons this big, and the guards sneaking his seeds out to plant in their gardens at home. The way his eyes lit up, pride. Acceptance, he accomplished.
In that temporary moment of no distance between us, but still anonymous, free to just say what you need to, he talked to me about things I will not ever know myself.
Between Vietnam, and riding the rails, and manslaughter, and dying of cancer, that hummingbird in his prison garden is the place he goes back to, the place where he was accepted and accomplished and proud.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
this is how much it costs to live indoors.
Oregonians average housing cost as a percentage of gross household income across income brackets, and percentage of Oregon population earning each income bracket. 2006 census data.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Project 2/3
For our project on housing & homelessness, I used 2006 Oregon census data, and investigated the percentage of income that Oregon families spend on shelter - rent or mortgage and their utilities - across different income brackets.
My suspicion was that lower income families are paying a huge percent of their income toward housing, the issue is known as the poverty trap.
I also wanted to show that not only are lesser incomes spending a high percentage (on average) of their income on shelter, but that there are a lot more people in those lower income brackets... median household income in Oregon ( 2006) was around $46,000 / year, which means that half of Oregonians earned less than that amount, while the top range of income for my study was over 200k.. an income that some still consider 'middle class' though it represents only 1.5% of the population at the high end of the range.
The first challenge was sorting through the 56,000 records of data that I had. A lot of time was spent waiting for the computer to catch up to what i had asked it to do. Huge data set for a little macbook to try to crunch! Eventually, I arranged each income grouping ( separated into 15k ranges) into a scatterplot with income on the y axis and percentage spent on the x axis. is a
This is an image of the 60k - 75k income graph
Now the design issues began. My initial idea was to layer each of the scatterplots, using color contrast to show the larger numbers of people in the lower income brackets, and eventually make something that would be interesting to look at, and also convey the huge numbers of Oregonians spending far more than the 'traditional wisdom' of 1/3 of their income on shelter.
Quite pretty, but it doesn't really convey the information. I banged my head on how to make this more effective for quite awhile. The idea I came up with was to print each individual layer onto a transparent sheet of plastic, and separate them so they could be viewed either individually or as a single image, with each layer labeled with its income and percentage info.
For web viewing purposes, here is a version of that concept, thrown together when I found out we weren't having an in person final, so bringing in my tactile object wasn't an option and it didn't photograph well)
Very interesting, but now I decided to go back to the drawing board and create a single image that used my data, but in a way that would clearly and immediately show the issue.
The poster design was full of its own challenges. After spending so long inside the huge mass of information, distilling everything down into simpler and simpler visual concepts was challenging for me. Lot of people tried to say 'bar graph, Jana", but it wasn't until I heard it from my dad that I actually listened.
Here it what came out of the process:
My suspicion was that lower income families are paying a huge percent of their income toward housing, the issue is known as the poverty trap.
I also wanted to show that not only are lesser incomes spending a high percentage (on average) of their income on shelter, but that there are a lot more people in those lower income brackets... median household income in Oregon ( 2006) was around $46,000 / year, which means that half of Oregonians earned less than that amount, while the top range of income for my study was over 200k.. an income that some still consider 'middle class' though it represents only 1.5% of the population at the high end of the range.
The first challenge was sorting through the 56,000 records of data that I had. A lot of time was spent waiting for the computer to catch up to what i had asked it to do. Huge data set for a little macbook to try to crunch! Eventually, I arranged each income grouping ( separated into 15k ranges) into a scatterplot with income on the y axis and percentage spent on the x axis. is a
This is an image of the 60k - 75k income graph
Now the design issues began. My initial idea was to layer each of the scatterplots, using color contrast to show the larger numbers of people in the lower income brackets, and eventually make something that would be interesting to look at, and also convey the huge numbers of Oregonians spending far more than the 'traditional wisdom' of 1/3 of their income on shelter.
Quite pretty, but it doesn't really convey the information. I banged my head on how to make this more effective for quite awhile. The idea I came up with was to print each individual layer onto a transparent sheet of plastic, and separate them so they could be viewed either individually or as a single image, with each layer labeled with its income and percentage info.
For web viewing purposes, here is a version of that concept, thrown together when I found out we weren't having an in person final, so bringing in my tactile object wasn't an option and it didn't photograph well)
Very interesting, but now I decided to go back to the drawing board and create a single image that used my data, but in a way that would clearly and immediately show the issue.
The poster design was full of its own challenges. After spending so long inside the huge mass of information, distilling everything down into simpler and simpler visual concepts was challenging for me. Lot of people tried to say 'bar graph, Jana", but it wasn't until I heard it from my dad that I actually listened.
Here it what came out of the process:
Sunday, February 1, 2009
reading response? or just a post ...
I am very disappointed with the 2009 Superbowl ads.
dot com's and house ads.
Some foreign cars rerunning things we've seen before. none of the innovative, big-budget, or inventive ads that I'm used to seeing in years past. 3d glasses that SoBe sponsored... didn't make any difference.
if design is really meant to capitalize on a new, user defined era, it was lacking in the same ol same ol that they stuffed at me tonight. There was even airtime for Gold For Cash, an infomercial, for gods sake... featuring ed mcmahon and mc hammer. The worst part? this was the best of the offerings.
this is truly the decline of western civilazation.
here's what i wanted to see, here's what would have made me faithful that America isn't D.O.A and just doesnt know it yet....
---- a jp morgan chase ad, (one of the feel-good, fuzzy type that at no point betrays its sponsor), featuring a multi-ethnic collage of American happy family moving forward... children climbing jungle gyms, mom or dad warmly greeting partner at the door with dinner waiting on table, and homework eagerly checked... smiling.... some tagline like.... (jesus, i dont know) .... chase, still here, so you can relax. (perhaps too hamhanded.. how about...oh, yeah.. here it is) ... the good life goes on ...
There was not a single ad during the Superbowl that featured the American Family smiling. not.a.single.one.
if design is new, interactive, reactive and assertive to its consumer, a voice of you and now and here and today that channels the constantly adapting and presents the truth (is there a capitol T?) of the real of today, I would have hoped that would mean more than godaddy.com and busty females and cutting to a pornographic promise that the web version is unrated.
dear god, save us, please... is that what real is now?
I know times are tight. i know we, the royal we of the American Dream, is teetering on the edge of complete ruin (the 'victims' of our own greed and avarice, forever grasping for more of of the illusive concept of 'growth') but for heavens sake... please, ad council of america, don't give up on me so quickly.
or, to put it another way....
I already knew that the American consumer had given up on the CEO. What makes me sad, scared, and hits it home, is that according to the grand and formerly untouchable ritual of all things US patriotic, it seems very likely that the American CEO has given up on the consumer.
dot com's and house ads.
Some foreign cars rerunning things we've seen before. none of the innovative, big-budget, or inventive ads that I'm used to seeing in years past. 3d glasses that SoBe sponsored... didn't make any difference.
if design is really meant to capitalize on a new, user defined era, it was lacking in the same ol same ol that they stuffed at me tonight. There was even airtime for Gold For Cash, an infomercial, for gods sake... featuring ed mcmahon and mc hammer. The worst part? this was the best of the offerings.
this is truly the decline of western civilazation.
here's what i wanted to see, here's what would have made me faithful that America isn't D.O.A and just doesnt know it yet....
---- a jp morgan chase ad, (one of the feel-good, fuzzy type that at no point betrays its sponsor), featuring a multi-ethnic collage of American happy family moving forward... children climbing jungle gyms, mom or dad warmly greeting partner at the door with dinner waiting on table, and homework eagerly checked... smiling.... some tagline like.... (jesus, i dont know) .... chase, still here, so you can relax. (perhaps too hamhanded.. how about...oh, yeah.. here it is) ... the good life goes on ...
There was not a single ad during the Superbowl that featured the American Family smiling. not.a.single.one.
if design is new, interactive, reactive and assertive to its consumer, a voice of you and now and here and today that channels the constantly adapting and presents the truth (is there a capitol T?) of the real of today, I would have hoped that would mean more than godaddy.com and busty females and cutting to a pornographic promise that the web version is unrated.
dear god, save us, please... is that what real is now?
I know times are tight. i know we, the royal we of the American Dream, is teetering on the edge of complete ruin (the 'victims' of our own greed and avarice, forever grasping for more of of the illusive concept of 'growth') but for heavens sake... please, ad council of america, don't give up on me so quickly.
or, to put it another way....
I already knew that the American consumer had given up on the CEO. What makes me sad, scared, and hits it home, is that according to the grand and formerly untouchable ritual of all things US patriotic, it seems very likely that the American CEO has given up on the consumer.
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