California NIF Network Blog

Once again, proponents of ‘free market’ economics are trying to convince the public that there is no need for regulatory intervention in business matters. Currently, this argument is being used for two topics: health care reform and consumer protection in financial markets. In both instances, millions of dollars are being spent by scores of lobbyists to reshape legislation in their favor…or to stall unfavorable bills until they die. Lobbyists are asking legislators and the public to trust the ‘free market’…unfortunately it appears that they are gaining traction as legislation in both issues is meeting increased resistance. Once again, big money apparently has big influence…but the promises of a self-regulating ‘free market’ are based on ideological wishful-thinking rather than real-world evidence. It’s time to talk about what markets…any markets…can and cannot do.

You can trust businesses to do what businesses do…they maximize profits while they minimize losses. Businesses provide goods and services to make money. Sure…if they do a good job in responsibly and ethically providing what consumers need and want, they are also increasing the quality of life while stabilizing the vitality of the economy. But…their purpose is to make money, not to be altruistic or philanthropic.

We’ve heard some people talk about our ‘business engine’…this is the ability of businesses and markets to move the economy along the road toward more jobs and more prosperity. As long as we’re clear on what business is intended to do, we can then recognize the need for some mechanism to provide direction for that ‘business engine’ horsepower and sometimes to apply the brakes when high-risk behavior threatens public welfare. What we’ve found recently and through history is that a totally ‘free market’ is a high-powered machine that will go basically wherever the profits are highest without much regard for long-term risk or public welfare. Of course, there are exceptions, but the question we need to ask is how well we can trust the profit motive to supply public well-being.

Then let’s also consider a similar challenge by lobbyists, concerning the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Here’s what Simon Johnson wrote in the Washington Post last week: “…the primary counterarguments against the agency are based on either misunderstanding or misinformation. The consumer protection agency would not prevent the creation of products by the private sector, but it would make it much more likely that the products are not toxic for the people who use them—in the same way that we worry about the safety of cribs and medicine.” And “There’s no question that some financial firms would like to return to abusive practices, figuring they can once again make money and then move on. Yet serious financial sector firms would prefer to clean up their acts and work with properly informed customers.”

What’s at stake ultimately is public confidence. We’re addressing health care reform, because the public lacks confidence that current providers, insurers and policies can supply adequate and comprehensive coverage at a reasonable price. We’re addressing consumer protection in financial matters, because the public lacks confidence that banks, investment firms and insurers are willing to pursue their business without returning to the high-risk behavior that caused the current Great Recession.

What the opponents of these two reform efforts don’t understand is that they will benefit most when the public has confidence in the products they want to sell. Here’s the deal…I believe they will make more money by inspiring confidence with transparency and public oversight than by simply saying, “Trust us.” The ‘free market’ has proven its inability to safely and equitably support our long-term public needs. Its promise has fallen short enough times in the past 100 years or so that we shouldn’t be fooled again. The reforms being discussed in Washington, D.C. are necessary to revive the public’s trust in these two critical institutions…the health care community and the financial services sector of our economy. Of course, the specifics still need to be determined, but inaction on these legislative efforts will only keep the public's risk and uncertainty at a high level.

Posted by deliber8ca at 04:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

As Americans, I think we need to decide how we’re going to pay for the things we want. I know…I know…what a terribly quaint and dated idea! Somehow we’ve gotten ourselves into a culture of debt where it’s simply accepted that one of our monthly expenses is the payment of interest…on a mortgage, on a car loan, on credit cards, on second-mortgages, on loans for recreational vehicles, etc. This attitude has made many in the financial community very rich, growing this part of our economy dramatically during the last decade. In addition, we seem to accept that a large part of our taxes also go to the payment of interest on our national debt. I’m not going to spend time on the financial crisis in this post…I’ve shared my thoughts before and will again I’m sure. Today I want to raise the issue of debt as a lifestyle choice. What troubles me most about this topic is not that we would make this choice for ourselves, but that our children and grandchildren will have debt as a lifestyle inheritance…they will have no choice.

Now that we’re so far in debt, it might seem strange to propose a new public conversation about our addiction to debt. We’ve been in denial for a long time…why not continue? Of course, the first step in dealing with an addiction is accepting it…and people generally have to be in the gutter with nowhere else to fall before they see the reality of their situation. The first part of our public conversation then would have to be a national intervention. An intervention is an event where people who care deeply for the addict confront him or her with the stark and ugly truth about the terrible consequences of their addictive behavior. We care about our debt-ridden friends, family members and neighbors…don’t we? We care about our country…don’t we? In a national intervention, we’d have to look into each others’ eyes and say from the heart, “I’m a debt-addict.”

Unfortunately, we also have some very powerful enablers. An enabler makes sure an addiction continues, protecting the addict from the many of the consequences of their actions and sometimes even feeding the habit. Of course, we also know that enablers are always serving their own needs in keeping addiction going. Our primary enabler is the banking and financial industry…their marketing practices can be compared with those of the tobacco industry, specializing in getting young adults addicted with easy credit and very low minimum payments, and then increasing the credit limit to encourage more debt and long-term interest payments. Politicians are also very accomplished enablers in terms of public debt…spending more money than they know will come in through taxes, even in times of economic prosperity, for some things, and borrowing against future tax revenues for other things. Consumers are great enablers of one another…we’ve even created vast shopping malls where we can gather to give each other support and encouragement in one of our primary forms of entertainment…purchasing things we don’t need, we don’t have space for in our homes and we can’t afford. We have created a pervasive and addictive culture of debt, and it is many people’s job to keep and grow that debt.

So…what are we going to do, other than to face our cultural and individual addiction to debt? I (perhaps naïvely) believe we can still turn our debt future around. Yes…that would require huge and selfless sacrifices on our parts. But, on the other hand, do we want to wait until our kids and grandkids sit us down for a deservedly, angry intervention…or, worse still, do we want them to simply curse us in our graves for our unwillingness to deal with our self-destructive, debt behavior? We’re not powerless in this matter…we can still choose the honorable course of action. We can still choose to sacrifice ourselves for what we want rather than to make future generations shoulder the burden of our decisions. I don’t like this anymore than you do, but somehow we need to take responsibility for our actions, no matter how we got lured into our debt habit. We’ve got to decide…are we willing to pay for what we want, or are we so weak that we have to steal from our children’s piggy-banks?

Posted by deliber8ca at 10:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Political soul-searching is impossible for practicing politicians. Once we as individual citizens realize this simple point, we can start asking the tough questions they can’t afford to ask. It’s my feeling that a dramatic political reorganization is looming on the horizon. In California, adjustments in how cities and counties interact with state government are being seriously discussed. Elected leaders in these more local jurisdictions can’t hesitate for long…their ability to deliver critical services will be compromised within the next few months. Unfortunately, this appears to be only the beginning with California breaking-trail for the rest of our country. It’s too late to make the decisions that would solve our political problems with small adjustments…fine-tuning won’t create enough change quickly enough. I believe we need a soul-searching public conversation about how we want to balance our democracy to meet 21^st century needs.

In some previous posts, I’ve addressed some corollary topics…on our unsuccessful experiment in self-regulation, the dismantling of our equality infrastructure, our desire to create a new and improved, comfort bubble and why the ‘tea parties’ might be right. My focus today brings what I feel is some added clarity in current trends and our responsibility to talk…and then to act. While some folks might want to think that we look back into our political history in order to restore something that existed and was then lost, I believe our current situation is uniquely challenging. Our urbanization, our technology, our diversity, our global economy, our environmental challenges, our energy future…together these factors make the context of our public conversations unique and highly complex. Because every village, town, city, county and state has a different profile among these factors, all levels of participatory governance must be valued as equal and respected partners in democracy. A balanced democracy can provide increased effectiveness, accountability and adaptive capacity.

In evaluating governance at any level, effectiveness is probably the first criteria many people would identify. If government cannot deliver the right resources or services to the right person on a timely basis, it’s failed. Effectiveness is completely outcome-oriented. Our current political crisis is directly threatening many parts of what has been the delivery system for our national priorities. Many federal programs require state, county and city delivery agencies, but those agencies are losing staff and support funding at alarming rates. Some local school districts and local governments are faced with ending vital programs where federal funds are still available, because they can no longer fund their local program infrastructure. A balanced democracy is effective in delivering resources and services, because all levels of the delivery infrastructure are included in coordination, funding and evaluation.

Accountability holds people responsible as partners in democracy. It’s been my observation that accountability works differently at all levels of governance. At the local level, citizens can pick up the phone or send an email to contact elected officials and department directors about problems they’re having in getting resources or services. In addition, elected officials are simply more attentive to citizens’ complaints, because just a few disgruntled people can derail reelection hopes or plans to seek other offices. When we consider state and federal accountability, however, the sheer number of people who participate as advocates or voters dilutes the efforts of even the most motivated citizens. In recent history, accountability at these higher levels has only been effective through the intense scrutiny of the news media, but the record seems to show that job performance isn’t as important in gaining the media’s time and attention as personal scandals. A balanced democracy is accountable to the public, because it’s focused on the evaluation of job performance at all levels.

The capacity to adapt accurately and quickly to emerging needs and changing resources is also different across the range of levels in governance. Local leaders and agencies have a closer association with the diverse needs of their citizens, so they can recognize changes before they get to be crises. In many instances, programs can be efficiently adapted through policy changes rather than having to wait for legislation. At the state and federal levels, however, changes in policy and in legislation must be considered more deliberately…needs must be seen to be systemic to warrant changes in resources or services that will affect the whole country. As with accountability, the sheer number of people affected at the federal level makes change a more time-consuming, learning and action process. A balanced democracy is a user-friendly, fully-integrated learning organization, because it actively and carefully listens to the diverse voices of the public, mostly provided through non-profit and non-partisan organizations that practice dialogue and deliberation.

Sadly, we seem to have a ‘system of governance’ that’s not sustainable. Just as the continued accumulation of money and power by the ultra-wealthy threatens the long-term health of our economy, the unbalanced growth of power in state and federal, unfunded mandates on local school districts, counties, cities and small businesses threatens the health of our loosely-bound and increasingly fragile ‘system of governance.’ I believe we need a soul-searching public conversation about the roles, responsibilities and linkages of government. In addition, I believe that the concept of a balanced democracy can contribute some important tensions and trade-offs with the views of both liberal-leaning and conservative-leaning scholars, advocates and private citizens.

Posted by deliber8ca at 03:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It’s deep in our DNA to hunt for and then to gather what we need and want. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that we sometimes hunt with a little too much force and that we sometimes gather far more than we really need. I know it’s more complicated than this, but some of our human quirks can be understood at least in part by looking at how we are hard-wired. In good times, this kind of understanding is just ‘nice-to-know’…there’s no need for any kind of action on this knowledge. In difficult times, however, this kind of understanding can become ‘critical.’ I believe this is one of those times.

So…if we’re hard-wired for hunting and gathering, what does that have to do with us today? In my estimation, humanity…and particularly American humanity…has had quite a long time to learn the finer points of the hunter-gatherer role, so today there’s a significant sophistication in these tasks. We’ve hunted for bargains on the internet and we’ve gathered our stuff into over-sized houses, spacious walk-in closets and self-storage units. We’ve craved low-priced things so much that we’ve let corporations become disastrously bigger, promising ‘economies of scale’ savings to make what we think we want cheaper. We’ve wanted these things so deeply that we’re so much in debt now that it’ll take our children’s life incomes to pay for all our stuff. And…we’ve wanted it all so much that we’ve been willing to pay anything to keep the financial titans in business so our spending habit can continue. Like Oliver Twist in the famous book and movie, we approach those who keep us dependent, asking for “More, please.”

As Americans, we seem to be okay with the accumulation of things, wealth and power, even to obscene extremes. Some American corporate leaders continue to receive millions of dollars in salaries, benefits and bonuses while American workers who do heroic service in our states, counties and cities are laid off. Some American stockholders will start to see ‘recovery’ in their portfolios while more and more of their neighbors lose their houses in foreclosure through no fault of their own. Many politicians will receive generous donations from the corporations they protect from close scrutiny and careful regulation, guaranteeing continued support for reelection and the accumulation of more power.

Now, you’re probably wondering where this is going. We know this trend toward the accumulation of things and wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer people is not sustainable, so when will we decide enough is enough? We hope in our hearts that we’re capable of stepping back from the brink of excess…from the brink of economic suicide…to choose a better life for our children and grandchildren. Friends, the numbers on Wall Street are completely irrelevant, if we aren’t willing to make some fundamental changes in our own hunting and gathering tendencies…and to create some dramatic regulations that may control corporate hunters and gatherers.

We’re not ‘bad’ for wanting to hunt and gather. This natural survival trait is good when it’s not seeking more than we can ever conceivably need AND causing damage to others. Let’s face it…some of our natural tendencies need to be controlled by public oversight. We don’t have the self-control we need to do it on our own. It’s in our DNA…and you can’t fight your DNA! I really wish I could come to a different conclusion…I don’t like this either. What troubles me the most is that we thought we’d already learned this hard lesson. So many safeguards were put in place after the Great Depression. Then…we got this arrogant and misguided notion that we were wise enough to side-step those safeguards for a quick profit. Wrong!

Alan Greenspan was shocked that American financial leaders were capable of making seriously, self-destructive decisions. He thought they’d come back from the brink in time to avert a catastrophe. He thought they’d self-regulate. Greenspan obviously didn’t know about DNA. Our task in leading a public conversation is to do the job of philosophers…to look at the diverse extremes in human behavior, and then to ask how we can guide an inquiring public as they find and choose a healthy balance between these complex extremes for the well-being of all citizens.

Posted by deliber8ca at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is probably not the best time to address this question, but what the heck!? It’s probably not the worst time either. It’s almost midnight on a warm summer evening…listening to the sound of water flowing in our small waterfall and stream just outside my home office…feeling the gentle breeze through the open window. Earlier this evening, I saw a photo that brought an unexpected emotion …our daughter posted a photo of all of our grandchildren on her Facebook page. On July 3, we had a delightful dinner gathering with all 4 of our children, all of their spouses and all 6 of our grandchildren…what a wonderful gathering that was! And then I was reflecting earlier this evening about the fact that we are now the eldest generation for all those beautiful people. Holy crap! That’s a big responsibility…I think we need to do something about it!

But...why bother? Carole came home tonight exhausted after meetings with staff members, working through the troubling consequences and future fallout from our dysfunctional political system. I sent off an email blast to United Methodist colleagues, asking for their help in dramatically changing the way we talk about moral and ethical dilemmas…looking for partnerships as we try to create a more civil way of talking with each other as caring Christians. And then…today I also sent another email blast to a group of NIF colleagues with some information about the latest innovations we’ve worked into our recent publications on California water priorities. The problems are so huge…and the resources are so sparse. So…why bother?

In the quiet of the evening, I hear the answer to this question as clearly as you do: because we’re asked…called…required to bother! We can’t NOT bother! Everyone who’s gone before looks to us to sustain their concern and love through yet another generation…and everyone who will follow looks to us to prepare the way for their beautiful and hope-filled lives. I don’t want to sound sappy, but we’re living at the crossroads of history…every day. We have the knowledge and experience of every generation that has lived and struggled before us…so we can make the wisest possible decisions for our own sakes and for the sakes of all future generations. This is serious business, friends! There is a lot at stake! So, why is it so easy to set it all aside, asking ‘Why bother?’ For our precious children and grandchildren, and for the neighbors with whom they will share life…we must be bold in dealing with our most serious dilemmas! Persistently...creatively…passionately!

Posted by deliber8ca at 10:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the mess our communities, our states, our country and our world is in. I wonder if the adults of the early 1930s recognized the hardships their shortsightedness and negligence would cause their children…I wonder if they felt any responsibility or remorse. But then, they didn’t have the benefit of history on their side. Damn! We had their experiences, their learning and their systemic safeguards, but we still found a way to let greed and arrogance send us down a road of financial ruin. It happened on our watch, friends! And it should weigh heavily on our hearts. 

But then what can we do? Those of us who have worked together in the deliberation and dialogue community have a special opportunity…and responsibility. I feel we need to work overtime to make sense of our current crises, and to act responsibly in light of the deeply damaging consequences of our inaction for decades.

Here are some of the quotes I found as I tried to figure out what we might do as responsible adults in a difficult situation. They focus on our connections and our actions. I’m working on some NIF variations that might make our conversations more meaningful and powerful. I can’t just let the current crises run their course without taking some action.

A friend is one who knows us, but loves us anyway. --Fr. Jerome Cummings

The only way to have a friend is to be one. --Ralph Waldo Emerson