Morality v. Economy

To the Editor:

David Brooks’s assertion that “our moral and economic system is based on individual responsibility” is an excellent example of his ability to turn language inside out.

There is no system that is both moral and economic. Individual responsibility in a moral system is based on ethics and good behavior. Individual responsibility in an economic system is based on financial success. The amorality of our economic system, with its indifference to the social consequences of its actions, is the problem.

Donald de Fano
Somerset, Mass., Feb. 20, 2009

This letter to the editor was so succinct and captured so much of what I try to say in this blog, that I thought I'd share it here. David Brooks in an earlier OpEd made the mistake of conflating morality and economy and this letter writer sets him straight.

 Morality adheres to principles of human behavior based on equity and what one should do with a focus on how to get into Heaven, or be One with the Universe. Economy is about getting the most for the least, optimizing outputs based on inputs, securing a good deal in the short term, or financial security in the long term. Economy begins and ends here on earth, bound by the gravity of finance. as much as physical gravity. Morality aspires to loftier purposes. 

Cake2Bread is about a return to focus on Morality after a long, distracting time spent focusing on Economy. My argument is that by returning to Morality, we will find Economy and financial security - but it may not be the financial success we seek. It may be, for instance, the security that comes from the embrace of a loving community, that intervenes to keep a roof over a family's head (but not to make that family rich). The road we take at this fork may ultimately lead to salvation, just not the salvation that comes from a large house, fast car, fat bank account, closet full of designer clothes, etc., etc., etc. 

In the end of his muddled argument, David Brooks stumbles upon a pearl of wisdom - we are in this together. Because the economy is a system that all participate in, we all have a stake in its outcomes, and too many people falling through the cracks creates bigger holes that can consume us all. We can't afford to let things unravel (I wish the Republicans were listening). In the end, if we begin to see the nation as a very large community of which we all are a part, then we will begin to discern wisdom. As a wise man once said in response to a question, "Am I my brother's keeper? Yes, you are."

And they [Obama adminstration] seem to understand the big thing. The nation’s economy is not just the sum of its individuals. It is an interwoven context that we all share. To stabilize that communal landscape, sometimes you have to shower money upon those who have been foolish or self-indulgent. The greedy idiots may be greedy idiots, but they are our countrymen. And at some level, we’re all in this together. If their lives don’t stabilize, then our lives don’t stabilize.

Whistling Past the Graveyard

I wonder if we, starting with our leadership and moving down to our communities, are in collective denial about this economic challenge, just as we have been about climate change, and indeed, about our own mortality. The phrase that is the title of this post comes from our discomfort with fear and our attempts to tell ourselves not to be afraid. 

I think that's what we find with the Republican and Blue Dog Democrat attempts over the past several days to curtail spending that is in the Stimulus Package. Thinking we could continue with the same approach employed by Bush and the Republican Congress that got us into this mess - Tax Cuts - and somehow get a "stimulus" effect is wishful thinking on their part, or worse, a cynical attempt to play to their conservative base, regardless of the consequences. Sink the Stimulus and Save the GOP? What the Hell are they thinking? President Obama laughed in the clip last night that I saw, as he explained (I paraphrase): "No to Spending? What do you think Stimulus means? It means Spending!! How can you have a Stimulus Bill without Spending??" 

Paul Krugman, always wise, is getting more and more serious. In On The Edge (as in "edge of the abyss"), he writes today: 

A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to economic recovery. Over the last two weeks, what should have been a deadly serious debate about how to save an economy in desperate straits turned, instead, into hackneyed political theater, with Republicans spouting all the old clichés about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts.

It’s as if the dismal economic failure of the last eight years never happened — yet Democrats have, incredibly, been on the defensive. Even if a major stimulus bill does pass the Senate, there’s a real risk that important parts of the original plan, especially aid to state and local governments, will have been emasculated.

Somehow, Washington has lost any sense of what’s at stake — of the reality that we may well be falling into an economic abyss, and that if we do, it will be very hard to get out again.

It’s hard to exaggerate how much economic trouble we’re in. The crisis began with housing, but the implosion of the Bush-era housing bubble has set economic dominoes falling not just in the United States, but around the world.

It's time to call a Spade a Spade, put lofty post-partisan goals back in the closet, and kick some conservative rear ends. Let's force the Senate Republicans to put on the adult diapers and stand in front of the cameras on the floor of the Senate and be shown for what they are - Hoover obstructionists and reality deniers. Let them take public responsibility for putting the brakes on the stimulus package and enjoy the consequences. Even if we don't get a package, maybe in our abject misery in 2010 we can then elect overwhelming Democratic majorities and move forward. 

It is a far worse crisis that awaits us if we don't pass the stimulus package, than if either a) we have some wasteful spending buried in the stimulus bill  - GOP ARGUMENT; or b) we have a failed bipartisan approach out of the gate - EXEC BRANCH ARGUMENT - let's face it Mr. President, they don't want to play in your sand box, they are having too much fun throwing sand in your eyes.  I say don't fight back, banish them from the playground. They're not worth your time and you only lose ground trying to get them on board. Recess is over. It takes two to move into post-partisanship, and they've told you "no thanks."

Time to Go Bigger and Bolder

Building on my previous post, here is Arianna Huffington challenging our leadership to step out and lead.

"I support the stimulus package," Van Jones, author of The Green Economy, told me. "But when I look at it in its entirety, I fear that we may soon look back and say that we missed a huge chance to go bigger and bolder. After all, there were three flaws with the old economy that has crashed: it favored consumption over production; debt over smart savings; and environmental damage over environmental renewal. Some parts of the stimulus package seem to be more of the same -- trying to prop up the old, failed economy. That strategy simply won't work -- but we could waste a lot of money and time trying. Instead, we need a new direction for our economy. You can't jump halfway across a chasm -- you just end up falling into the abyss."

Rick Levin, president of Yale and an economics professor, echoed Van Jones' call for "bigger and bolder": "First of all, there's a question of magnitude. The overall stimulus is about 6 percent of GDP. We did not exit the Great Depression without a stimulus that amounted to about 25 percent of GDP -- we called that World War II... The second problem is with the mix... Only $335 billion worth goes to job creation -- that's about 3.5 million jobs, about $100,000 a job. Three-and-a-half million jobs is only two percentage points on the unemployment rate. That's not enough. I would get rid of the tax cuts and use the entire package for job creation... There are lots of great public works projects that would be well worth supporting. And, in the near term, what about CCC-type activities that put people to work right away, cleaning up public parks, weather-stripping homes, offices, schools, government buildings? Stimulus Package: If You Jump Halfway Across a Chasm You Fall Into the Abyss 

Are We a Society, or a Group of Individuals Out to Get While the Getting Is Good?

When did we become such a timid nation? We have become politically inept, ruled by fear that comes in many flavors, our leaders unable to govern our nation in the face of overwhelming facts that indicate a change, dramatic change is needed. We elected Barack Obama and gave him the mantle of change. But he seems to be cowtowing to get consensus from the most backward of our other elected officials, rather than driving change and using the power we gave him. Perhaps I'm not giving our new president enough leeway. 

But I'm with NYT Columnist Bob Herbert when he says that collectively we are Risking the Future by not putting 21st century infrastructure front and center in our plans to change. 

The society gave the nation’s infrastructure an overall grade of D and said it would require an investment of $2.2 trillion over five years to get it back into decent shape. When you juxtapose this tremendous national need with the wholesale destruction of employment that has occurred over the past several months (and that is expected to continue for some time), you have to wonder why President Obama and Congressional leaders are not moving with extraordinary quickness to put together an infrastructure investment program that is both vast and visionary.

Instead, we have infrastructure spending in the Democrats’ proposed stimulus package that, while admirable, is far too meager to have much of an impact on the nation’s overall infrastructure requirements or the demand for the creation of jobs.

Among those who have expressed their concerns publicly is Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania, a Democrat and persistent advocate of infrastructure investment. Just prior to President Obama’s inauguration, Mr. Rendell said of the stimulus package being considered by the House: “Anybody who thinks — if the president-elect thinks, or the team thinks — that this is the answer to America’s infrastructure needs is in a different universe.”

The big danger is that some variation of the currently proposed stimulus package will pass, another enormous bailout for the bankers will be authorized, and then the trillion-dollar-plus budget deficits will make their appearance, looming like unholy monsters over everything else, and Washington will suddenly lose its nerve.

Bankers get far too much attention and care these days. Bankers, who started out as clerks who minded our money and moved it back and forth between those who would save and those who would invest - valuable middlemen, mind you, but never the most important. Somewhere over the past several decades we came to focus exclusively on the money, always the money and the fascination with getting rich and spending - so that we forgot that money, and getting money, was simply a means to an end. And that end that we should all hold up as a collective goal is building a future that is sustainable, that has a firm foundation, and that provides good jobs and a rising standard of living. Too many label that as Socialism and look away.

Somewhere along the way, we became focused on trying to live like millionaires, rather than trying to live like human beings in communities. I think these two trends are tied together, focusing on money and finance, and focusing on trying to live like millionaires. 

If we are to pull out of this nose dive we're in (for we are really going down fast, when you stop and open your eyes), then we'll have to recognize reality when it hits us across the face like a 2x4. Our lives as individuals and our collective lives as a society depend on making investments in ourselves and working together. That means: 1) collectively spending on the infrastructure that is the foundation of our modern economy, which benefits us all - roads, water/wastewater systems, the internet, and the electric grid; and 2) collectively spending to create jobs that keep us all in sound financial health, not just a few lucky ones (that means you, Wall Street!).