Robert Paterson's Weblog

Property Tax - Primrose path to ruin?

Can the Middle Class pay more? The bulk of the income taxes on PEI - about $600 million - come from the so called middle class. Nearly all the property tax comes from the middle class.

At least income tax is connected to the ability to pay. But property tax is not. While Property Tax used to be used directly for schools and roads and city maintenance - it never in its history of a tax hit too hard. But now there are signs that Property Tax is being used for general revenue and for programs that have nothing to do with the physical care of the places that we live in. With a shrinking population of kids, even the school burden should be dropping - but of course it is not.

Over the last 10 years - with a 2 year freeze as well - my property taxes have risen over 100%. Casual conversation with a few friends tell me that this is about the norm for many Canadians all over the country.

Throughout this time, inflation has been relatively low and wages have been about the same as well.

So the real burden has gone up.

At the same time "services" have not improved.

Many people are paying between $3,000 and $6,000 a year. The pips are squeaking already. The ceiling of what is possible is in sight.

BUT what are Local and Provincial Governments doing?

Where is the foresight?

In Stratford, the City has supported a massive increase in new houses. But is surprised now that the sewage lagoon is not up to the load. The price for a new one - $10 million. A tax increase of 20% is being discussed. What an insane idea! This is something that all the developers and new residents should have paid for and been part of a plan for the expansion of the City.

What price of anything is going up by 20% today? Only local taxes and university fees! Again these are costs born by the middle class.

Who saved for their retirement? The middle class. What has happened to their pensions? Well of course if you work for the government you are all right - if the fund goes south - raise taxes on the rest of us! But for the rest of the folks, their pension is now no longer a given.

The pie is shrinking and the bill is being sent to the middle class. The small elite can pay or avoids the bill. The expanding struggling poor live hand to mouth on the "services".

What to do?

There seems to be a problem with democracy as we know it. For 100 plus years, politicians got elected by expanding the pie. Much of the costs were pushed into the future. The people wanted the pie to expand. They did not mind, care or even notice that the costs were being deferred to their kids or grand kids.

But with the whole economy in a freeze - the costs are here right now and are only going to hit harder.

The sweet deal of promising more with a deferred cost is coming to a close.

In the hardest hit cities and states in the US things are already so bad that in 2010, they will have to lay off teachers, firemen and police. Whole sectors of cities are losing ALL SERVICES. Libraries and Public Media are already being cut. By 2011, much of road and other maintenance will have to be cut as well. But the needs of the bond holders will not go away - so taxes will have to be paid by an ever smaller and oppressed group of middle class.

This is the primrose path that we are all on. Cleveland and Detroit are the Canaries.

But again - how does a democracy cope? Do we have to wait until collapse? Can the formula be changed? What is our responsibility as citizens?

The times when government was small was when PEI and America were rural societies - when families and communities were largely self sufficient.

The shift to an industrial model not only moved most of us to the city, but made us all dependent.

Maybe the way home is to start to see how making families and communities self sufficient again? Local Food - Local Energy - Local Money - Real work that all people can do?

But how does a democracy adjust?

IKEA's brilliant Facebook campaign

The Swedish town of Malmo is a wonderful place.

Some feel it is wonderful because it is the spiritual home of a band that was once cool, the Cardigans.

But now all committed social networkers will think Malmo is wonderful because of its IKEA. You see, the Swedish purveyor of fast-food furniture decided to open a new store in Malmo and didn't really have a lot of money to let people know about it.

So it engaged a rather outre advertising agency called Forsman and Bodenfors to create a rather special launch campaign.

The agency created a Facebook profile for the store manager, Gordon Gustavsson. Over a two-week period, it uploaded images from of IKEA showrooms to his Facebook photo album.

Then it put out word that the first person to tag their name to a product in the pictures, won it.

Facebook being what it is, word got out and needy, enthusiastic Swedes begged for more pictures so that they could tag themselves to a new sofa, a new bed, or a new vase into which they could stick their plastic flowers or their dead grandparents' ashes.

Before Facebook could take credit for its own wonderful ingenuity in creating the world's most needed Web site, thousands of Swedes were spreading pictures of IKEA showrooms all around the personal galaxy known as their profile pages.

via news.cnet.com

Anyone could do this - just requires the the thinking - brilliant

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

Media - It's the collapse that will bring the new model not the new model the collapse

Graphic Source Earl Mardle

Thinking about Rupert Murdoch – Google Fuss, the shrinking of the Washington Post to only DC, The fudging of news paper circulation numbers, the collapse of the consumer economy are all signs of the conflict and the stress of the old system. Concurrently we are way beyond a few early adopters in the new. I see the growth of web based platforms for accessing media of all types, the explosion of devices to add content, the early sucess of new models such as Huffington, iTunes, Politico, Hulu, YouTube – this feels even beyond Supporters mobilize as much of the new – while not fully formed is already mainstream in usage.

Where are we along this line?

Above the line we appear to be in the Conflict Zone. Murdoch and the vitriol from the established media folks is the signal that tells me that we are here.

On the consumer/user/formerly audience front – a decisive shift to the web has taken place.

As Clay Shirky suggests, the new business model is not here yet. But one thing is for sure, old media is going broke. In Canada Canwest cannot even give a TV station away!

Maybe the new needs the utter collapse of the old in its market to get a hold financially?

What if in your town, there was no Newspaper or TV station at all? Then the new would get a foothold I think.

With the old growth cleared, what happens? New growth that was blocked by the old grows in its place.

We have been waiting maybe for the wrong thing to happen. We have hoped for the new model. But so long as the old canopy is blocking the light, the new and tender cannot grow.

So long as the Dinosaurs were about, the mammals were going no where.

So with the new nearly ready and the people ready – we wait for the fire and the then open space. 2011 is my bet.

via fastforwardblog.com

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

New Property Tax on PEI - A really bad idea

A new plan for property taxes on P.E.I. will cost homebuyers a lot of money, say real estate agents.

Provincial Treasurer Wes Sheridan called the change good news for Islanders. (CBC)

The changes, announced in the legislature Tuesday, follow a two-year freeze on Island property taxes, brought in when the current Liberal government was elected in 2007. That freeze is being lifted next year. Tax increases are now being tied to the P.E.I. Consumer Price Index.

"This is virtually a good news story right across the board where people can now see very transparently how their assessments are going to go up," said Provincial Treasurer Wes Sheridan.

But those controlled increases will only apply until the home is sold, at which time the taxes could go up substantially.

That's because after a home is purchased, the taxes would be based on the market value, which is often much higher than the assessed value.

Real estate agent Steve Yoston says in many cases that will result in a big hit for people buying a house.

"It will have a huge effect," said Yoston.

"Personally, with our home, that would put the taxes up by over $100 per month for a new buyer. And it would make it that much harder to find someone to buy our house because they'd have to be able to afford 100 more dollars per month."

Joel Ives, who sits on the executive of the P.E.I. Real Estate Association, said the changes will have a negative effect on unsuspecting Islanders.

"It's just going to come and hit the everyday person right in their pocketbook after they find the house that they want to buy," said Ives.

Sheridan said the system will remain transparent, because property tax bills will include both the assessed value and market value for all residential properties. Homeowners will be able to appeal either figure to the tax department.

Bills with the two taxable values will go out in the spring.

via cbc.ca

Property tax based on a value on your house - without any link to what you can afford - with the power to evict you should you not pay is not a "good" tax any way.

For years it has had the effect of pushing the elderly out of their homes as their fixed incomes could not cope with rising assessments.

The new plan for PEI will have all sorts of consequences.

It will drive people from away away - just as the Province is seeking to attract more people to offset our demographics. Being unique to PEI, it will bias people from away to other jurisdictions. Is this the intent? I doubt it but have people planning this thought of this? I doubt it.

It will freeze the property market on PEI. We all know that we all buy a bit more house than we can afford - especially at the lower end of the market - the new house buyer. Every penny counts. When property tax approaches your mortgage payment something is out of wack. Has this been modeled? I doubt it.

So what you ask? When do many people have to sell? Divorce, loss of a job, death in the family. Major life events cause many people to sell. What if they cannot now because of the freeze?

What are the major reasons for not paying property taxes? Major life events again. So the Province now can evict you for becoming a widow, losing your job or getting ill. Wow that is going to play well at the ballot box. Did any thought go into this? I doubt it.

The two really bad aspects of property tax is that they are not based on income or ability to pay and that the penalty of foreclosure is too steep a social price to pay.

This is the kind of idea that can balloon into a 7% pay cut kind of reaction from every home owner on PEI. Remember that?

There is no doubt that the Province needs more tax revenue - find a way to get it from a link to people's ability to pay.

There is no reason to believe that the PEI economy will inflate in the next 3 years to keep up with the inflation in house prices over the last 10 years.

Put the thinking caps back on folks.

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

News - Fear and Helplessness - The CBC shows us how

This morning, the Current, CBC's flagship of in depth radio news, which by the way is normally excellent, ran a story about Swine Flu that I struggled to make sense of - it seemed designed to make people more fearful and helpless.

Why take this pov that only offers more fear?

Over the last few weeks there have been stories about how dangerous Coyote's are becoming - a woman was killed recently, the first in recorded history, and this week a dog was attacked near Souris on PEI. This running story is also being covered in such a way as to increase people's fears and make them more helpless.

I would like to look at these two stories and show you why I think that their POV is so unworthy of our public broadcaster and to offer a better example of what a public broadcaster can and should do with issues like these.

The Killer Flu

At the heart of the Flu story were personal stories. The first was about a man who became so ill that he had to be put into an induced coma and will take years to recover. There was gruesome detail as to what he suffered. The second story featured a mother who was so frightened that she took her child's temperature every 5 minutes for 4 days. The story was largely about her panic. Panic is itself infectious.

But these are not mainstream stories. If you listen to the man carefully you will discover that he was very much in the at risk category being both asthmatic and overweight. It takes only a  moment to hear in the mother's voice that she is naturally a very anxious person. She is much more than a concerned mother - she is abnormally anxious.

These are outlyer stories - all about the edge of the people as a whole. What they do though is suggest that we are all at such risk and they model fear as the reaction.

So the guts of the piece was that we should be very afraid - that swine flu is very very dangerous. That we must all do the only thing possible which is to rely on the vaccine and the health care system. That we are individually helpless.

Why was this story run?

Things are getting better. In Canada the flu seems to have peaked. It may return in the winter or not. But so far so good. If of course if you or I get it - it's not fun. Some will also die. But thousands die every year of seasonal flu. More die in car accidents. You could run a story about a car accident. It would be gruesome. People would recall the experience with fear. But while it is much more likely that you will die in a cart accident than of swine flu, such a story would never make the air - what would be the point?

I ask - what was the point of this story? How does it help? Was this a story to justify a huge over reaction by all of us to the outbreak? What were the arguments in the policy discussions about the POV for the piece? What was the intended impact of the story?

What other kind of story could have been run?

Did anyone think to offer us all some real help and information that we might use to help us navigate the flu?

What might help - the Currents more normal approach - would be to offer more context - context that we can all use. Such as:

• What is the risk so far really to us as a population - On PEI I don't think there have been any deaths and the outbreak is well past its peak. In the Southern hemisphere the impact of this flu was mild - in reality in this case - so far this flu is not a huge risk to any of us as individuals. Yes some will get it - fewer will be very ill and very few are dying. You are more at risk getting into your car to go to the clinic to get a shot than of dying of the flu

• Let's also be clear about another key aspect - science is not sure how we get flu - yes there is no clear consensus yet - so all the advice about hand washing etc is not based on a certainty that contact is the path. In reality we know almost nothing about flu

• Not knowing how it is spread makes the comparison between small pox and flu for vaccination an apples and oranges debate. For 2 years out of the last 10, the flu vaccine has not matched the flu that arrived. Death rates did not move off the norms - so what does this mean? What it means is that we have no data that suggests that a vaccine either prevents flu or mitigates its risks of mortality. We don't know - BUT we have made the vaccine the only issue. The focus of the news has been the supply and the availability of a vaccine that we don't know works - we don't know if any of the vaccines have worked!

• What we do know a lot about is what to do if you get the flu. But here we offer next to no information. What should you do when you get the flu? Why are some more at risk than others of being very ill and dying? We can explain why having respiratory diseases such as asthma are so important - what is it about diabetes that puts people in so much risk for all infections - explain what we die of when we get flu - usually pneumonia or a violent immune response and what we can look out for. There is lots to say that could be very useful in reducing the risk of being very ill - but no, the news focuses on the areas where we are helpless.

• Why can't we help people cope rather than just get them excited about whether they will get a vaccination or not.

I am not just sounding off - here is a link to my client's site KETC - the PBS station in St Louis. Called "Living with the Flu" - it is full of advice that enables people to get control and to know things that can help them. This is full of advice that is helpful and that can give people back their power.

Such a POV does not cost more - it just takes more thought and care. It also taps into the vast public pool of knowledge that exists in any community. You will see that a wide range of organizations have been given access to the public by the station. Come on CBC - you can do this too.

Killer Coyotes

The Coyote story is the same - the POV right now is that Coyotes have gone mad. We are surrounded by killers - pets and people will be killed left and right.

So the response from many is fear = kill them all - lock up your pets - never have a dog off the lead - if you look at the comments one person suggests that pets off leads are the risk to kids - helplessness - besieged by killers - as we are besieged by swine flu. The response from officials is to make statement about there being no risk but not to include any information as to why this may be true. Only makes the fear worse as we don't trust bland statements anymore - we want information.

Like the flu, the real Coyote story is a complex one:

• The real issue - what is really new is that we have become part of their habitat - so we will bump into them more and they are getting less nervous of us. Foxes now are mainly urban in many parts of the world - our push into the burbs, garbage etc all weaken the natural barriers. In the suburbs of Sydney Australia you can bump some of the most poisonous snakes in the world - same issue - shared habitat.

• The real issue is that we are going to have to learn to live better with each other - and the responsibility is on us. This is what has happened to farmers in Africa and elephants.

• You can kill all the elephants but with Coyotes it's different. Hundreds of years of culling has failed to work - Coyotes tend to offset losses by increases in breeding. They are very adaptable

• Best we understand them better and then we can make some adjustments. As with flu, the best way is to know more about them. Then when we meet them we can do the safest thing for both sides. Who knows what really happened to the unfortunate young woman in Cape Breton. But I can hazard a guess. She was scared and not knowing that this was the worst thing you could do - ran and shouted. Worse, she may have fallen over. If she had known more about Coyotes - rather than just been scared - she would have known that being still was her best plan. That she was likely to be at risk ONLY if she ran. That fear and flight itself is a trigger with all predators. Fear itself is the killer. In my youth I was a diamond prospector in Botswana. I have by mistake walked into prides of lions, herds of elephants and most scary of all a baboon troop. I was really scared but had been taught that managing your fear and not making any sudden moves gets you out of all but the worst situations. Knowing about what you face and what they are all about is you most effective risk management.

• What the CBC can do is to help us learn more about Coyotes and what drives them, Then we can be prepared for when we bump into them or when our animals or children do.

The real story with both flu and Coyotes is that they are natural phenomena. Being well prepared is our best strategy for coping with anything that nature has in store for us.

We can't eliminate all risk from nature but knowledge goes a long long way. Stoking the fears and the unknown - not offering helpful information - simply makes us helpless and stupid.

It also in the end makes us switch off the radio and the TV and stop reading the paper.

This is why at KETC we are doing our best to offer context and information that will help people get their power back. Not just with the flu but the economy - where we are working with 70 stations in the 32 worst hit parts of the US to help people get through the greatest risk to their lives since the Depression.

It's not technically hard - but it does demand a new POV for News. One that the CBC can surely consider?

The Oil Drum: Campfire | How Relocalization Worked

Among other things, it’s clear from history; when complex societies overshoot their resource bases and decline, one of the things that consistently happens is that centralized economic arrangements fall apart, long distance trade declines sharply, and the vast majority of what we now call consumer goods get made at home, or very close to home. Now of course that violates some of the conventional wisdom that governs economic decisions these days; centralized economic arrangements are thought to yield economies of scale that make them more profitable by definition than decentralized local arrangements.

When history conflicts with theory, though, it’s not history that’s wrong, so a second look at the conventional wisdom is in order. The economies of scale and resulting profits of centralized economic arrangements don’t happen by themselves. They depend, among other things, on transportation infrastructure. This doesn’t happen by itself, either; it happens because governments pay for it, for purposes of their own. The Roman roads that made the tightly integrated Roman economy possible, for example, and the interstate highway system that does the same thing for America, were not produced by entrepreneurs; they were created by central governments for military purposes. (The legislation that launched the interstate system in the US, for example, was pushed by the Department of Defense, which wrestled with transportation bottlenecks all through the Second World War.)

Government programs of this kind subsidize economic centralization. The same thing is true of other requirements for centralization – for example, the maintenance of public order, so that shipments of consumer goods can get from one side of the country to the other without being looted. Governments don’t establish police forces and defend their borders for the purpose of allowing businesses to ship goods safely over long distances, but businesses profit mightily from these indirect subsidies nonetheless.

When civilizations come unglued, in turn, all these indirect subsidies for economic centralization go away. Roads are no longer maintained, harbors silt up, bandits infest the countryside, migrant nations invade and carve out chunks of territory for their own, and so on. Centralization stops being profitable, because the indirect subsidies that make it profitable aren’t there any more.

Ugo Bardi has written a very readable summary of how this process unfolded in one of the best documented cases, the fall of the Roman Empire. The end of Rome was a process of radical relocalization, and the result was the Middle Ages. The Roman Empire handled defense by putting huge linear fortifications along its frontiers; the Middle Ages replaced this with fortifications around every city and baronial hall. The Roman Empire was a political unity where decisions affecting every person within its borders were made by bureaucrats in Rome. Medieval Europe was the antithesis of this, a patchwork of independent feudal kingdoms the size of a Roman province, which were internally divided into self-governing fiefs, those into still smaller fiefs, and so on, to the point that a single village with a fortified manor house could be an autonomous political unit with its own laws and the recognized right to wage war on its neighbors.

The same process of radical decentralization affected the economy as well. The Roman economy was just as centralized as the Roman polity; in major industries such as pottery, mass production at huge regional factories was the order of the day, and the products were shipped out via sea and land for anything up to a thousand miles to the end user. That came to a screeching halt when the roads weren’t repaired any more, the Mediterranean became pirate heaven, and too many of the end users were getting dispossessed, and often dismembered as well, by invading Visigoths. The economic system that evolved to fill the void left by Rome’s implosion was thus every bit as relocalized as a feudal barony, and for exactly the same reasons.

via campfire.theoildrum.com

This stunningly clear piece then digs into the connection between a large economy based on easy communication - what we know now - and a hyper local one.

Greer talks about why Guilds then are essential - how they worked - and why a hyper local economy needs them.

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

American Football is for weeds - The Florentines show why

via youtube.com

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

RIP, D-N-I.net (updated) - James Fallows

After an outstanding ten-and-a-half year run, the website "Defense and the National Interest," better known as d-n-i.net, will close down next Monday, November 23. Chet Richards, who with his wife Ginger has run the site through that time, says that for various logistical and practical reasons he is ready to move on to day-job concerns.

Chet (shown here), a retired Air Force colonel and math PhD, has been one of the most committed and effective proponents of the ideas of combat developed in the 1970s and 1980s by another retired Air Force colonel, the late John Boyd -- background here and here. Chet is an original thinker and strategist himself and has written about theories of conflict as they apply to modern business, technological innovation, "soft power," and so on.

There's an immediate reason for mentioning the site's pending close, apart from an appreciation of Chet and Ginger Richards, William Lind, Chuck Spinney, and others who have contributed to d-n-i's success. This is the main online repository for a lot of Boyd's briefings and papers, so if you think you might ever be interested in them, set aside a little downloading time over the weekend. Handy shortcut to some downloads here. Thanks to all involved.

 Update: more on d-n-i, Richards, Boyd, and maintaining the archives here and here. 

via jamesfallows.theatlantic.com

The loss of DNI is a huge loss - But first of all my thanks to Chet and Ginger who have invested 10 years of their lives in curating this site.

Learning about the ideas of John Boyd has been one of the most influential parts of my life. Getting to know Chet and the circle that holds the flame has been one of the great pleasures too.

I put my hand up to those who have the technical skills as a hardworking volunteer.

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

End of Days: The Turning

via fragmentsfromfloyd.com

This exceptional image of the time of year and of the time of Fred and my lives is by my good buddy Fred First who lives in deepest rural West Virginia.

Fred has this "eye" - I skim the natural world - But Fred sees this kind of beauty all the time.

This image captures also my life right now. The end is in sight but I feel full of light. Nothing gets the juices going as the certainty that there is little time left.

Maybe this is why "Youth is wasted on the Young"? For when I was 20, I was immortal.

The days are long but life is short.

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

Quick Kindle Hands-on | ruk.ca - Is the future for "Papers"?

via ruk.ca

Peter's short video really helps those of us who have not used a Kindle to get a feel for at least how it can help us "read" a newspaper.

I had lunch with Jevon MacDonald last week and he speculated about how the Kindle could save a few quality papers. It's the Cell Phone Model.

Why could the New York Times send to all subscribers a Kindle - biased to the NYT making it very easy to get and search all things Times - instead of the "Paper".

Like a Cell Phone - they tie in the reader to a 3 year deal - the reader gets all the other benefits of the Kindle - all the costs of the "paper" go away - who knows what else the Times could do with w new Reader Platform?

When the Apple Tablet comes - its the same another platform - do the deal with Apple too and offer the Times reader the choice.

This model has worked well for cell phones - why not?

The Tipping Point for digital readership is here now. Saves the book industry a bundle too - all that printing, paper and returns.

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

Unemployment spreads like a cancer

via cohort11.americanobserver.net

HT to John Proffitt - Wow! When you see it like this - you see the power of the trend. It is eating out the heart of the nation.

The answer? The only one I see is "Reinvention" at a local level. The emergence of Local Food and Energy and of "Slow Money".

The winner takes it all system is what we have to change. The starting place is at home. It is surely about doing things as we see in places like Detroit who have no hope for help from outside. They only help will come from ourselves.

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

America is hungry

We start with people losing homes - then jobs - but hunger stalks the land - the Depression is here.

Children are starving in the US - Lots & Lots of them

Several stations are now following the local urban farming movements in their communities. Urban Farming is emerging as a response to blighted neighborhoods, unemployment, poverty and hunger.

How bad is the issue of Food Insecurity and real hunger in America? Will this grow as an issue? Will this become part of our work to help our communities look after themselves? Here is data that suggest that the issue is large and growing: From Economic Pic

Ed Harrison of Credit Writedowns (via The Guardian) details a disturbing trend:

The US Department of Agriculture highlights how the United States in the last decade, despite increased aggregate wealth, slid back significantly in terms of food insecurity as measure of poverty. With everyone now focused on the unemployment situation, it bears noting that even before the downturn in the economy there had been a large surge in food insecurity nationwide.

What is food insecurity?

Food insecurity – defined by the USDA as when “food intake … was reduced and their eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year because the household lacked money and other resources for food” – afflicted 14.6% of Americans in 2008. i.e., some 50 million people were too poor to guarantee being able to put food on the table.

Only three of the worst 17 states in terms of food insecurity showed an improvement over the past decade and my guess is things have gotten a whole lot worse.

Nearly half  of America’s children will depend on Food Stamps.  Children’s futures are really at risk – hunger at a young age and the wrong kind of food can ensure a lifetime of trouble:

		VIDEO: Nearly half of all US children will be in a household that uses food stamps at some point during their childhood, according to Mark Rank, Ph.D., poverty expert at the… Click here for more information.

Holidays and tables full of delicious food usually go hand in hand, but for nearly half of the children in the United States, this is not guaranteed.

“49 percent of all U.S. children will be in a household that uses food stamps at some point during their childhood,” says Mark R. Rank, Ph.D., poverty expert at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. “Food stamp use is a clear sign of poverty and food insecurity, two of the most detrimental economic conditions affecting a child’s health.”

According to Rank, the substantial risk of a child being in a family that uses food stamps is consistent with a wider body of research demonstrating that U.S. children face considerable economic risk throughout their childhood years. “Rather than being a time of security and safety, the childhood years for many American children are a time of economic turmoil, risk, and hardship,” Rank says.

Rank’s study, “Estimating the Risk of Food Stamp Use and Impoverishment During Childhood,” is published in the current issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine. Other study findings include:

• 90 percent of black children will be in a household that uses food stamps. This compares to 37 percent of white children.
• Nearly one-quarter of all American children will be in households that use food stamps for five or more years during childhood.
• 91 percent of children with single parents will be in a household receiving food stamps, compared to 37 percent of children in married households.
• Looking at race, marital status and education simultaneously, children who are black and whose head of household is not married with less than 12 years of education have a cumulative percentage of residing in a food stamp household of 97 percent by age 10.

“Understanding the degree to which American children are exposed to the risks of poverty and food insecurity across childhood is essential information for the health care and social service communities,” Rank says. “Even limited exposure to poverty can have detrimental effects upon a child’s overall quality of health and well-being.”

###

The study, co-authored with Thomas Hirschl, professor at Cornell University, is based on an analysis of 30 years of information taken from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), and looks at children between the ages of 1 and 20. The PSID is a longitudinal survey of a representative sample of U.S. individuals and their families interviewed annually since 1968.

via facingmortgagecrisis.org

This is the long term price of our failure - a generation where 49% of America kids rely on food stamps.

This is what is driving the pioneers in places like Detroit and Cleveland to convert the blighted wastelands into urban farms.

From desperation comes a response - not lead by any official but by the people themselves

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

How to use a "Cultural Map" to get what you really want

So we conclude this video series with 2 videos that sum up with how to use this idea to get what I think we all want – which is – to find out very quickly where we are now and then to see what we can do to affect our culture to start to get us on the path to the outcomes that we seek.

Of course the choice to do this is ours but all will be able to see it and the choices.

In this video we look at why would we care.

We have seen that we understand by seeing patterns. Until now we have focused on tangibles. Stuarts premise is that there is more value at looking at the pattern of the intangibles.

The key intangible is culture. So if we can see this pattern, we can map our way to the future.

Key to this pattern is our role.

We know what this is for parenting.

If we follow this we can have a quick look at any organization and see where it is and then make some valid decisions about what is going on and what to do.

It is as simple as seeing your role clearly.

All the gaps stem from this.

In this video we look at how we can use this new tool to “See” a new view of reality just as Galileo or Pasteur offered a new insight.

Start with “What is our role and then how can we be more effective”

Then is the culture and leadership aligned

Then is the org aligned

Then is the service/product aligned

The there must be a “face” can be an icon or a story.

We have relationships with a “face/icon”

Not with an institution. Icons and Symbols are best.

All must be aligned.

Without this you can all be very very hard creating entropy.

When you do this it will not be hard. With all aligned – there is very little friction. Flow – which is also a reward in itself.

via powerupproject.wordpress.com

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

Diversity and NPR and PBS - Go Local and GO Global

How can NPR and PBS reach a much more "diverse" audience?

The debate is currently framed as reaching more people who fit the classic definition of "Minority" in America.

My response to that POV is that it misses the core of what NPR and PBS are about in their broadcast aspect.

Their programming - I will come to their other aspect in a moment - has a POV about inquiry. This POV is limited to the number of people in America who share the value of inquiry.  Inquiry as we can see from the rest of the media landscape is a large market but it is not the mass market.

For NPR and for PBS's programming - I use this word carefully - to expand beyond "Inquiry" as a value would mean that it risks losing all its audience.

Imagine the New Hour as an ET POV? Or keep the New Hour and run a Celebrity ET kind of show next to it. Imagine a section in ME that has NPR's version of Rush?

This POV of Inquiry is not a race, gender, or religious feature. It is a personal value that transcends all these surface issues. To be clear, most white Americans do not value this value!

So how to reach all Americans and how to reach a much larger audience?

In the Facing the Mortgage Project we are facing all the people who live in the cities where the project is operating. The key is to understand that a station that is part of this work to help all in its area who need help with the financial crisis is that the main connector is NOT THE PROGRAMING!!!!!

Stations connect via all sorts of channels many of which are provided by our partners. They use the web on a very focused basis - the local website is becoming THE INFORMATION resource for the community - people who have no interest in All Things Considered or the News Hour or Masterpiece - will use the web site and many now are contributing their own stories to it.

In the FTMC project, we are creating a new relationship with ALL PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNITY - by a focus on helping ALL. This is not part of the traditional programming. But is does draw on the value of our traditional programming which is that we are trusted. No other organization in the community has the trust that public radio and TV has and so this gives us the ability to play this role as community convener.

Our programming has to have a POV that meets the POV of inquiry. If we dilute that we lose it all. Our work as Community Convener enables us to meet our obligation to serve all. The economic crisis that confronts Main Street America gives us the opportunity of a life time to meet this obligation.

So how then can we stay in our POV of Inquiry and expand our traditional audience?

If we do our job of Convening all America, then we have the right to go beyond the borders where there are millions who do not have programming that is trusted and that has a POV of Inquiry.

There are two places to start that I see. Canada and the Diaspora.

The CBC, a centralized bureaucracy, is retreating from local to a central factory. All along the border are communities of Canadians with no local presence. Take Kingston - a university town with a area population of 150,000 people. KNPR is just across the river. The nearest CBC station is Ottawa - hours away by car.

There are many Kingstons now. In 5 years my bet is that the CBC will only broadcast from a few major cities. already the local stations such as my own on PEI have no local budget or autonomy.

Taking NPR's figures for Inquiry Audience of about 30 million, The norms of conversion in Canada would suggest a potential audience of 3 million. The audience is there as WNED Buffalo knows who gets significant support from Toronto.

Getting this audience is not a matter of using the signal and merely offering the current offering to Canada. The CRTC will not allow that.

I think that the offering will mainly be via the web and will have to include a big local effort in the cities involved. There will be a "bureau" in Kingston. The Kingston Offering will be wrapped around the content from the traditional offering. Over time more and better Kingston and Canadian Content will appear. For as more border towns join, the Canadian network emerges with the ability to cover all what is going on in the country.

My second and related expansion would be to link the Diaspora - link the Indian, East African, Mexican - whatever groups in America to home and back.

Let's look at one group as an example. The Ethiopians and Sudanese.

When you get into a cab in Washington you notice two things. The Cab driver comes from this part of the world and he is listening to one station - WAMU the NPR local News Station.

Many conversations with many cab drivers in DC have given me these insights:

• All were brought up  with the BBC World Service - they are seriously into Inquiry and Radio that they can trust - they trust no state media at home. On a wider note not much of state media or any media in many places can be trusted
• They all speak English - On a wider note the number of middle class English speaking people in the wider world is likely in the billions now - in India there is a middle class who all speak English of about 300 million - more than the total population of the US. China will be graduating about 30 million university students a year about the size of the total population of Canada.
• Many listen to NPR also to improve their English. Being fluent in English and knowing what is going on the wider world is the key to employment in the developing world - So a trusted English speaking global media also helps those who seek to learn better English - a huge market
• The community is spread all over the US and Canada - many have family members spread all over and back home - staying in touch is very very very important. There is a soccer league that is part of the glue that offers games and hence meetings all over the continent
• Ethiopian food, music, literature, history are vital links in keeping the diaspora healthy - they are also making inroads into the local non Ethiopian culture. In England Tikka Masala has become the national dish - showing how a culture from away can affect the host culture - there is a huge opportunity to build on the cultural traditions and to use them as a bridge.
• All the Diaspora have family back home. Staying in touch and knowing what is going on is very important - there is not much trusted context and news on a day to day basis

As with looking at Canada, making progress with the Diaspora is not as simple as offering up the existing content.

As with Canada, I suspect that the web is the key as is enlisting the active participation of the community both in America and Canada for that matter and the community back home.

Each Diaspora will develop their own "Voice" - most of the material that they produce will be added to the traditional content of NPR and PBS - some of it will be used nationally and globally. Something happens any where in the world and NPR and the News Hour have access to local Bureau that they could only dream of today!

All this fussing about diversity in the classic sense is a huge distraction.

If stations get behind serving their community as conveners, then all are served. All are served in a much more important way than merely offering a program.

If the system serves Canada, the border stations become very successful and the system gets millions of nee members.

If the system serves the Diaspora everyone wins. Local stations, the communities, the news service and freedom and truth in the world.

Is this going to be hard to do? I suspect not.

As we are learning - start in a few places and discover how to do this. Get 2-3 border stations to think this through and invest as the CPB has done with KETC and FTMC a modest sum to get it going.

Try with one Diaspora - why not WAMU and the DC Ethiopians.

If we get the model, then we can roll it out more easily with every new group.

Are Politicians & Bureaucrats Stupid? Or is their challenge with crisis a values issue?

My friend Mike sent me this question by email - that is why so many jurisdictions have made such a hash of the Swine Flue Vaccine in the context of simply providing the service. My response is to I hope shed some light on the answer being more about values and culture rather than stupidity.

Hi Robert:
I was reading in the PEI Guardian this morning that H1N1 Flu shots to the general population on PEI would begin Nov 30th. Arm bands, extra chairs, long line ups etc etc.?
I am puzzled. In Sault Ste Marie, a blue collar city with pop approx 75,000 (and a large rural area), quickly developed a “best practice system”, which has been continually recognized province wide.............call for an appointment, arrive at appointment, get the shot, leave. I am not hi risk and was treated to my shot last week 10 minutes early. We actually had a choice of time and place.
Why are people in PEI, Toronto etc. being forced to wait in lines, get fancy bracelets etc................am I missing something?
Whether or not, we believe in the value of the H1N1 inoculation, why are our politicians, so bubble headed about this?

Here is my reply:

Hi  Mike
First of all great to hear from you

I think that the answer is that in general politicians and then bureaucracies are very poor at organizing anything - you see this in war. At the outset the bureaucracy, the main culture in peace, is in charge and getting anything done is difficult. But after a period where war reality is experienced, then all that bullshit goes out the window. Operation Market Garden - Bridge too far - may have been a lost battle but the entire operation was planned and executed in 2 weeks!!!

Politicians make poor businessmen and businessmen tend to make poor politicians - horses for courses - A Politician always thinks of what people think of him - business people think about what works. Bureaucrats think about safe before any other consideration - their processes always consume time and they can never see that time itself is a risk.

Why is this?

I don't think that this is about good or bad people or clever or stupid people. I think it is about what I am starting to see as the main values sets that make up human culture.

Politicians and Bureaucrats are "Nurturers" - their primary value is "Safe" their focus is on looking after the general good. The dark side of this is "Dependency" most Politicians love to be needed like the mum who will never let go or the dad who keeps his kids financially supported. If Safe is your key value then procedural risk is an anathema. Why Bureaucracies put process before outcomes. Nurturers also by definition hate change. Why you see the medical profession so slow to take up things that are really new - the early practitioner of washing hands and instruments, Semmelweiss was drummed out of the post that he had.

Business people are "Providers" - your lead value is this. (Mike is a Financial Planner) This is all about winning. Finding the best way to win. This is essential for all in business. GM for instance stopped being a "Winner" and became a nurturer - it mainly looked after its union!!! And it put process ahead of outcome - with a huge bureaucratic chain for every decision.

Your second value is nurturer - you have to look after your clients on their terms - a broker would have a second value of Win again - for it is all about them!

I am the third of these archetypes - A Pioneer - I "See" below the surface and into the future. My challenge is that unless I can connect to Providers and Nurturers who need what I see, then all my "seeing" is for nothing. The worst kind of people that I can ally myself with are a lot of others like me = a debating society!

Each of us is made up of these three parts actually but we all have a lead value.

So finally in answer to your question - my bet is that where the handling of this has been poor there have been too many Nurturers in the mix.

Ideally the best teams would have a key Pioneer who would "See" the landscape in all its complexity with a key Provider who could see what needs to be done with a key nurturer who would set up the process to get it done. Is that not why we worked so well together at CIBC?

(Mike ended up creating he best performing district in CIBC - but in spite of the results - because he used unorthodox methods - - his superiors had to stop him - a predictable bureaucratic response - he was not safe and I of course was seen as off the wall)

The problem is that most government organizations hate Pioneers and Providers and don't even have the few that they need

Here is a link to the site where my pal Stuart Baker and I are expanding on these ideas.

Fond regards
Rob

Harold Jarche » Time to get off the train

Time to get off the train

Posted on November 17th, 2009 by Harold Jarche

In Alvin & Heidi Toffler’s book, Revolutionary Wealth, they discuss the “clash of speeds” of our various societal structures, using a train analogy.

Speeding along at 100 mph is the enlightened business train; adapting and using new technologies (exploiting change).

Still fast at 90 mph is the civil society train; NGO’s, professional groups, activists, religious groups (demanding change).

Keeping up at 60 mph is the family train; working, shopping, trading & selling from home (adapting to change).

A distance back, at 30 mph is the union train, still focused on a mass-production mindset (denying change).

A bit further back at 25 mph is the large government bureaucracy train; slowing everybody else down (fighting change).

Limping along at 10 mph is the education train; protected by monopoly, bureaucracy & unions (blind to change).

Way back is at 5 mph is the international agency train: comprising organizations like WIPO, WTO, IMF (immune to change).

Even slower, at 3 mph is the political system train; discussing, debating but not accomplishing much (too busy to change).

Pulling up the rear at 1 mph is the legal train; so far behind that it hasn’t noticed the beginning of the financial bubble, let alone its collapse (rigor mortis).

Reflecting on the organizations I have worked in and worked with, I think these speed comparisons make a lot sense. Given that certain businesses can change so much quicker than education, it’s obvious that educational reform will come from without, not within, the system.

When we significantly change how we work, our education systems should follow suit, but due to its design constraints, the Edu-train cannot keep up with the Ent 2.0 train. Perhaps the only option for the passengers is to get off and find another train.

via jarche.com

Harold makes so much sense with this post. I was having breakfast with another Free Lancer today - we talked a lot about time as well. Of course Free Lancers freed of all those meetings, commutes, IT and HR departments - go at about 400 miles an hour - very hard to stay in touch with even business and GOVERNMENT!!!!!

For folks who can't help thinking about the new - picking the right client becomes ever more crucial

In the Power Up Project we look at the 3 Values sets that are part of this "speed" issue.

Nurturers - include Unions, Goverment and Education - hate all change - it is who they are

Providers - most business - will go for it if they can see how they can "Win"

Pioneers - Who "See" the future and can feel the past - Are all about Change

The challenge is clear - the hardest group to reach are Nurturers - They need lots of examples to think of shifting. Likely to start with Pioneers who have a nurturing side or with Providers with a Nurturing side.

But a direct approach merely based on evidence will get the same response as Galileo did from that epitome of Nuturing organizations - the Catholic Church. I am not making a snide joke. The Church responded to Galileo as all nurturers do when faced with the threat of real change - an Inquisition.

All those trying 2.0 in Ed will feel the power of the Inquisition I fear

Posted via web from Rob's posterous

Diversity - Color and Body Parts or Mindset?

There has been a big fuss at NPR recently - are there enough African Americans on staff? For all of Pub Media, an open and burning question - "Are we reaching enough "Minorities?" Defined by ethnic groups.

Are we seeing "Diversity" in the best context?

The core assumption that what we share is the color of our skin, our religion, or body and our gender. We do of course at a macro level. But we have even closer ties to our primary culture - a set of values.

In reality NPR and most of Public Media reach out to a group of people who share a set of values about - being inquisitive, wanting to get beneath the surface, wanting to know more, wanting maybe even to have a say because they know a lot themselves. As evidence of this, look at the nature of the comments on NPR's site. Here we see one of the few Islands of discourse on the web.

In reality Fox reaches out to a group of people who also share a group of values - they tend to feel certainty. They fear the new. They respect authority.

In reality Entertainment Tonight reaches out to a group of people who also share a group of values - they tend to see themselves as being outside any decision making  - they identify with others who have high status - the surface of things is very important to them.

In reality I am not sure that CNN reaches out to any clearly identifiable group and that may be their problem.

None of this is too tightly connected to color, race or body parts - though Fox may exclude most who are not White.

If NPR was to seek to expand its audience into the Fox or ET world what would happen? Would this help? I think that the Brand would get confused and all would be poorly served - a bit like CNN now who has reached into Fox and ET worlds from what was once a CBS stand.

Can you see where I am going. I don't think there is a homogeneous "Minority" group that can be so easily defined by one race or gender or body part. In each of these larger groups are subsets who cross over all groups and who share the tighter bond of values and hence potential attachment and engagement.

I think that we can see these in terms of archetypes made up by these three groups.

For each of these groups there is a healthy and there is a dark side.

Here below the fold is quick introduction to how we can make sense of this idea - the link to the site is here

What are Systems? Turtles all the way!

Johnt and I have been going back and forth on Twitter about what is and what is not a System. Of course Twitter is less than ideal for a debate like this and so here goes in long form.

We were stimulated to talk because of some posts by Bas Reuss who was making this point:

Organizations are not systems, but it helps to look at an organization as if it were a system. Changing something in the organization always has influence on other areas in the organization. The comparison refers to complexity, both organizations as well as systems are complex. It can help to deal with the complexity of an organization. But then again, by looking at it as a system you should not make it a system, the processes that occur in organizations are not comparable to systems at all.

I was confused by this assumption - that "Organizations are not systems." Johnt went on himself to ask how a sand pile or a car could be a system as well? I said that they all are systems. But simple stating without making a case - you cant make a case on Twitter is not good enough. So here goes:

My answer is that everything is a system.

What I think I see going on here a maybe confusion between things that are:

• Simple
• Complicated
• Complex
• Chaotic

If all this is new to you. Here is the master - Dave Snowden who will make it clear -

All systems are made up by things that in their own case can be any point along this range from simple to Chaotic. After all DNA is made up of 4 simple parts but together rules all life. After all birds flocking have only 4 rules - all simple ones like be close or don't collide. After all light visible to man is made up of only 3 colors.

It is helpful not to get confused between parts and systems. So lets look at what a system is.

Everything in the universe interacts and hence is part of a system. That is it. Everything is part of many systems. Nothing is excluded. There is nothing that is truly inert and that does not interact.

The proverbial sand pile shows us how this one all embracing pattern of change works.

Systems change not gradually but in jumps. All systems have periods of growth and then stability. They then decay and then suddenly die and the cycle renews. This is what we see in the famous sand pile experiment. The stability of the pile continues as a force removes sand. It is often surprising how long the structure can survive erosion. But there comes a point called "Criticality" when the removal of one grain, sets up a collapse.

So is a car a system?

A Car is in itself complicated. An engineer can build and repair a car. But a car is also part of a human cultural Meme that is a society built around cars and cheap oil. Here the rules of systems and memes apply. The "Car" was a Meme that took over from the "Horse". A Horse is a Complex entity but its meme, "Horse" is Chaotic and it was embedded, as "Car" is in human society. A large range of external events came together to erode the Meme of "Horse" and replace it with "Car". We can see a range of events eroding "Car" right now. We may even have to return to "Horse"!

Car is part of a system. So what about this claim that Organizations are not systems?

Humans interact with the world physically and the world affects us physically but the most important aspect of our interaction with each other and the world is our culture. We take on the world via our culture - we get through the ice age because of it. Agriculture and Business and Politics are aspects of our culture.

Our culture is like the sand pile or "car". New memes rise out of the ashes of the old and then seem all powerful but then erode and fall - Look at Eastern Germany or Romania. It's all memes in our culture. How we organize is all about memes too.

Organizations on paper look complicated - we have all sorts of engineering rules that we pretend govern them. Executives imagine that they pull levers and the organization responds in a predictable way. Most OD folks keep up the pretense that it is possible to engineer engineering linkages. As the Ex SVP of HR and OD at a big bank I was one of those fools or knaves.

But they are in reality human cultural systems. They actually work according to the rules of human culture. Our current engineering meme is terminally ill.

The real operating systems of most organizations are represented in Hugh's classic cartoon:

 

Most of our organizations have been hi jacked by their leaders and are designed to reward them. We tell ourselves that the Market is the key to society. All of our organized life has shifted to this meme. It is not that we are really all stupid or evil. It is a systems Meme.

Market has replaced State that replaced King that replaced Pope that replaced Chief that replaced Emperor that replaced King that replaced Chief - it's Turtles all the way.

Like "Car" we have cultural memes that have a life cycle. Like "Car" the current Meme that governs how we organize is nearing its end. You can always tell for it is when the Meme holders focus only on themselves that the end is near.  For the Church it was Indulgences. For Personal Kingship, it was Louis XIV. Today it is Goldman Sachs.

So what is the lesson? If you wish to know what is really going on - you have to do your best to "see" the systems. Seeing only their parts is to be blind to what affects us.

For instance the future of "car" will not be "Car+". The future of health care will not be Drugs+. It will be new. It will be here right now - like the mammals were there waiting 70 million years ago for the fall of the Dinos.

So how do we see them?

All systems are at least Complex and most are Chaotic - in that their order and form cannot be seen from the POV of the 2 dimensional and human time scaled world we inhabit. We need tools such as telescopes or computers and time to see the patterns of Galaxies, Fractals, Tectonic Drift, Bacteria, Viral Networks etc.

So how do we see the most important system that affects humanity - which is our culture?

The Power Up Project is where Stuart Baker and I are using a new tool to do just that. If you would like to see what we see go here.

We think we have found a very simple to use tool that can help you locate where you are in the sea of memes that is our reality.

To The Barkers: Answer This Question - The Market Ticker

"The recession ended in June": Dennis Kneale

"The recession was definitely over in September": Any one of a number of people.

Ok.  Let's say that I accept all this at face value, even though while driving through my definitely-beach-oriented local town here this afternoon I noted even more closed-and-gone storefronts than there were a couple of weeks ago, and last night at the local open-air mall, although the evening was absolutely gorgeous, you could have fired a 155mm Howitzer down the "main drag" without killing anyone - because there was almost nobody there, and literally not one shopping bag was in evidence.

I simply have to ask the pundits and the carnival barkers, of which CNBC is the worst (but certainly not the only sinner) the following - why do we need any of these programs if in fact the economy is growing again:

• Zero interest rates from The Fed.  Isn't 2%, 3%, 4%, 5% more consistent with economic growth?  If indeed the economy is expanding, why do we need "funny money"?

• $8,000 home-buyer tax credits.  And not just first-time credits either - those were recently expanded, and the NAR has said quite clearly that "but for this program housing would collapse."  Is this consistent with an economic recovery?

• FHA underwriting mortgages at 3.5%, their default rate is going parabolic, their reserves are down to well under half of the mandatory minimum and there is no evidence in sight that their performance metrics are improving.  With the aforementioned $8,000 "credit" and the FHA's willingness to monetize it, you can once again buy a home with "zero down", just as we did in the bubble.  Is this consistent with an economic - and housing market - recovery?

• The dollar carry trade.  It's obvious and starting in June of this year the correlation between the dollar's move and the S&P 500 became nearly 100% on an inverse basis.  Consumer confidence numbers were far below expectations Friday, yet as soon as that hit the dollar, the market rose - into worsening economic data.  Again, is this consistent with an economic recovery?

• "Cash for clunkers" - and oh, by the way, what happened to auto sales when it ended?  Is the near-vertical drop-off in GM's sales as soon as the program ended consistent with an economic recovery?  Is a claimed 10m expected 2010 units consistent with economic recovery when in 2005 and 2006 the industry sold nearly 17 and 16 million vehicles, respectively?

• 29.9% interest rates on credit cards via "jack-up" letters and other outrageous actions.  Again, is this sort of gouging consistent with economic recovery?

• Declining consumer credit demand.  I've published the graph before and will reproduce it below.  Is this consistent with economic recovery?
  
  

The Carnies and other Barkers have their desire to make you think things are just peachy.  Then again, so did Japan after their debt-fueled property crash.  The Nikkei surged on the back of the carry trade, just as has the S&P 500.

But a huge part - perhaps even the ultimate cause of the meltdown that took our stock indices down some 60% from their highs from October 2007 to the spring of 2009 - was the unwinding of that very same Yen carry trade.

The dollar-based carry trade, when (not if) it unwinds, will do even more damage than the Yen-based carry did.  And unwind it will.

Remember that everyone was certain that the Yen would not unwind, because Japan was not going to raise rates "any time soon."  They in fact didn't raise rates but it didn't matter - as soon as the first person yelled "FIRE!" the entire game came apart, as the unwind was self-reinforcing and margin calls produced yet more margin calls.

PIMCO has talked about "sugar highs" boosting the stock market.  The problem with sugar highs is that they wear off, and worse, they're full of calories and thus make you fat, destroying your ability to be mean and lean - to run and change direction quickly - later on.

Consumers are having none of it.  Confidence came in dramatically below expectations, and the reason is simple: there are no good-paying jobs unless your idea of "employment" is playing games with other people's money by being an "investment banker."  Call centers are all over in India, manufacturing is all over in China, we've got Starbucks coffee-servers, McDonalds' burger flippers and WalMart "greeters" - all jobs that pay 1/4 what the old manufacturing jobs did.

via market-ticker.denninger.net

What more can I say - other than I wonder what the fall out will be?

When all of this falls over, what will people think of the political process Who then will be able to get up and offer "Hope"?

Posted via web from Rob's posterous