News Article
On the Edge -- stuck in a prolonged deflationary trap
Rick Smyre email newsletter comment on NY Times Op-ed piece by Paul Krugman.
I am sending referencing this article to you for two reasons....one to focus on the importance of the deflationary trap about which Krugman mentions in this article. Second, I am having more and more conversations with citizens at the local level who are obviously concerned, and I think almost to the point of getting involved...but they don't know what to do and are stuck with traditional knowledge and experience that relates less and less to the kind of society and economy that seems to be emerging. In my opinion, what we currently are observing at the federal level reflects problems on both sides of the isle with the way we will need to think about how to prepare for a future that is very different from the past. There is no template and if politics as usual continues to be the way we approach increasingly complex and difficult problems, we will continue to see both economic and social disruptions grow which will, in turn exacerbate the problems. It is interesting to see how the concept of "either/or" thinking is inhibiting and, at times, preventing the ability to think and act at a higher level of complexity. What is happening provides an opportunity for futures thinking and transformative dialogue at the local level in people and small groups who care about learning trends, weak signals and transformational concepts and methods. In my opinion, without developing new capacities for transformation at the local level, we will continue to see increased frustration that may boil over into anger and violence if the economy tumbles into such negative territories that citizens lose all faith in their leadership. As the Chinese say, "with crisis there is opportunity." The conversations I have had with people throughout the country this week gives me great hope that we will see more and more "access points" where the ideas and methods of community transformation will not be seen as just nice to know, but necessary to move beyond our present economic and potentially social debacle. Hope all of you have had a good week. All the best. Rick
Jenci February 6th, 2009 3:24 pm
Read the piece, but respectfully disagree with Krugman, at least with the assertion that Republicans want to put the country over the edge. I certainly agree with what you said below in terms of this being an opportune time to focus our thinking on a futures thinking and transformative dialogue, but I think the notion that Krugman makes in pointing fingers at the Republican Party for their opposition to this bill isn't completely fair. I am very involved politically in talking with people from both "sides of the aisle" all over the country sure, there are a fair number of people who would oppose any sort of stimulus spending regardless. But most of the politicians I've spoken with seem to understand that something does need to be done, the real issue is WHAT? The concern from members of the GOP has been that the stimulus bill is not the place to fund every program on the nation's collective "wish list" under the guise of "job creation." Even thinking locally, with that barometer in mind, would an economic development professional be able to claim victory if he/she spent the entire year's budget wining and dining prospects, only for the citizens to find out that those 45 new jobs were all low skill/low wage? Isn't the goal here to put American in a better position to compete upon a global state and within a global economy? That being said, we all know that a retail job is not equal to a manufacturing job in terms of multiplier effects or skill sets; and a manufacturing job is not equal to a job based in the knowledge economy. So absent in this conversation, in my humble opinion, is what kinds of jobs these programs will be creating - sure, you can give a grant to a community center for facade improvements and claim that there would be job creation, but if your definition of job creation is that a worker will be hired for a short period of time to perform the manual labor task of landscaping the exterior of that facility, is that really the most effective use of the taxpayer money? So, with this frame in mind, I just find that Krugman cannot lay the woes of this package's failure at the feet of the GOP, otherwise, we need to go back and totally rewrite all the Economic Development 101 books and journals and stop talking about the difference between jobs if simply throwing money at something and creating a job is a measure of economic success.
Jenci Spradlin
Twitter: jencitn