Yesterday was the annual Baldridge Thanksgiving Party.  We held it at Dad and Sally's clubhouse and nearly everyone from the family was able to attend.

We missed having Heather Baldridge (Dennis's daughter) due to work conflicts.  Unable to attend due to military obligations were Darrell Baldridge (the younger) and Jay Tuculet (Amy's husband).  And we also missed Vic Baldridge and Dad's niece Martha and her son, Matt.

Still, we managed to have fun and eat way too much food...even though the menu was pared down from prior years.  I don't know if our stomachs are shrinking or what!  At any rate, the food (brought potluck style) was all delicious.  A new favorite was the mac and cheese casserole brought by Pamela's daughter, Sarah, and her new hubby, Jason.

One of the funnier moments in the day took place when Pam brought in an altered (and filched) "Yes on 8" poster.  She had modified it to say "Yes on Grandchildren" with the url www.hopefulgrandparents.org.  Wonder if that's real now that I've built a link!  Jason and Sarah held their own, joking that they'd warned Pam if she brought it up one more time it would be a looooong time before she saw a grandbaby.

It reminded me of the time Dan and I were visiting his grandmother and I noticed a bare spot in a wall of photos.  All unawares, I asked, "What's this spot for, Grandma?"

"Why that's for your children, dear," she replied.  Walked straight into that one.

Before we tucked into our traditional Thanksgiving spread, Dale talked for a bit about the family members we'd lost this past year, about how grateful he is for the way we come together and support each other during times of difficulty, and for how we keep traditions of coming together for events like Thanksgiving.

We have a lot to be thankful for, this Baldridge crew.  We come from different stripes politically, work a wide variety of jobs (or not at all), have myriad life experiences and points of view.  And we all manage to love each other and get along, despite differences (and plenty of ribbing).  Maybe the teasing is part of the reason we get along.  None of us take ourselves too seriously...and when we start to, the others remind us we're only human.

And that's enough.

The Supreme Court is taking up the case of a conservative group who wanted to place ads on television about a negative movie on Hillary Clinton.  The problem was, the ads were to air just before the primary.  So the FEC did not allow them to go on without disclosure, under the reasoning that the content of the movie ad was political in nature.

Which leads to today's Sunday Question.

When is censorship, in our democracy, appropriate?

I've been chatting with a few friends (including my best friend, Dan) about the request by Detroit's Big 3 (GM, Ford and Chrysler) for a bailout.  This is one of those issues where research leads to more research, questions lead to more questions, and the complexity of the problem (and the many iterations of its solutions) hurts the brain.

Dan shaped the bailout question in broad terms, "Is there value to having a vibrant, U.S. based automobile manufacturing sector?"

Given that just under 2% of our work force is employed by either the auto manufacturers or their suppliers, and that the profitability (or not) of the D3 (as I will affectionately refer to GM, Ford and Chrysler in the balance of this blog) is capable of moving our GDP in statistically significant increments, my answer is yes.  There is significant value to having the aforementioned sector in our economy. 

Which, as I mentioned, begs a new question.  Is a bailout the most effective and efficient way of achieving that goal?

Answering that question is where things start to get really sticky and complex.  Here's what I know so far:

1.  According to the Center for Automotive Research, if the D3 fail completely, the country will lose 3 million jobs in the first year.  Only 240,000 of those jobs will be auto workers, per se.  The rest of the job losses will come from "supplier shock" in a ripple effect across parts manufacturers, auto industry suppliers and the businesses that supply their raw materials.

2.  According to CAR's same report, the economic cost to the government in terms of lost revenue (tax, Social Security contributions) and expenditure (unemployment benefits) would be $156 billion over three years.

A partial failure, reducing the D3 by 50% would be less catastrophic, resulting in job losses of 2.5 million and government costs of $108 billion.

3.  The causes of the current crises involve a complex interaction of (at minimum) the following situations:

a)  The current economic crisis (high unemployment, wealth lost in the stock market, tight credit markets) left car sales at their lowest levels in two decades last quarter.

b)  The D3 was content to ride an SUV/Truck demand bubble, appearing to believe that Americans would always want their vehicles super-sized.  In this way, they were much like those who believed that real estate prices would always rise.

c)  The United Auto Worker's union--a powerful beast indeed--has not budged on compensation issues to any significant degree; essentially bleeding their parent companies with a highly paid workforce that is resistant to change.  (Auto workers at Chrysler and Ford make about $63,000 per year in cash.  Tool and Die workers are closer to $72,000.  Retirement benefits average about half that compensation level.)

d)  Increasing fuel prices and a growing awareness of both environmental concerns and the negatives of our dependence on foreign oil have contributed to the shift in demand from gas guzzlers to gas sippers.

I'm still grappling with the pros and cons of a D3 bailout.  Here's what I've got so far:

Pro:

1.  Bailing out these guys should save the major portion of 3 million jobs in the short term.

2.  The cost of the bailout (taking Obama's proposed $50 billion as the figure rather than congress or Bush's $25 billion figure) is likely to be less than the cost to government if the D3 fail.

3.  The 1980 Chrysler bailout "worked," saving 2/3 of workers' jobs at the time and eventually returning a profit of $311 million to the government on a $1.2 billion investment/bailout.

4.  In an economy already headed for a deep recession, we don't need another huge hit to employment, consumer confidence and production.  (The niggling fear in the back of my mind is that the failure of the D3 would change the "r-word" to the "d-word," tipping the scales into depression.

Con:

1.  The D3, their leadership and the UAW got into this mess through a lack of foresight about changing demand trends, by not investing in flexible plants that could switch more easily with shifts in demand, by being greedy and protectionist about wages and benefits, and by being tone deaf about environmental concerns.  Such a catastrophic lack of leadership among management and the union should not be rewarded (or perpetuated) by a bailout.  The bailout proposals as they stand have not requirements for making sure that substantive changes are made to the way the D3 conduct their business.

2.  Failing business models should be allowed to fail unless by their failure they will create a systemic failure.  This will be a hard hit, but it's not on the same scale as the (hopefully) averted financial sector meltdown.

3.  We've got too much on our bailout plate already with the $700 billion already pledged to shore up financial institutions and restore credit markets.

4.  There's no guarantee that $25 billion or even $50 billion will be enough.  GM's monthly "burn rate" is $2 billion.  Ford's is in the neighborhood of $2.5 billion.  At that rate, they'd have to entirely retool in under a year. 

Bottom line?  I'm still on the fence on this one.  In order for me to be for any bailout, there would have to be substantial strings attached.  In the interest of some semblance of blog brevity, I'll get into details on what I think those should be on Monday.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to folks pointing out pros and cons I might have missed.  And I'm glad I'm not Obama right now.

for taking a day off yesterday, I decided to bone up on Treasury Secretary Paulson's announcement of his "did I say we'd buy troubled investments?" about face to our $700 billion bailout/investment in the nation's financial system.

When you're already sick and tired from being actually sick and tired, nothing says "sleep, my little one" like a Paulson press conference.

Nonetheless, I slogged on and actually formed an opinion of the new strategy, despite the (ahem) less-than-polished presentation skills of the guy who's in charge of all that moola.

First, some background. 

As you recall, in September the U.S. financial sector came down with a giant case of the financial flu, due in most part to the decisive bursting of our housing bubble and aided by the iffy-nature of (unregulated) asset backed securities used to create liquidity in the mortgage and consumer credit markets.

Paulson asked for a blank $700 billion check to stop the flu from turning into Ebola and congress balked.  One week later, having put in place several necessary caveats about executive compensation and taxpayer participation in potential profits, Paulson took charge of what we now lovingly refer to as TARP.  TARP stands for "Troubled Asset Relief Program."

What Paulson announced on Wednesday makes that name moot.  Rather than purchasing troubled assets from banks in order to provide them with greater liquidity, Paulson decided to invest directly in 8 major banks so far(representing 55% of the U.S. banking system according to Paulson) by purchasing preferred stock.

Paulson took most of the press conference to get to his reason for the change of plans which is, in a nutshell, that buying up troubled assets would not have provided enough liquidity in a timely enough fashion to ease credit markets quickly.

One of the fundamental issues with the original request, as I recall, was that there didn't seem to be a reliable way to value these assets, which are essentially similar mortgages compressed into bundles of credit risk  and sold as securities.  It was a concern I shared, but I was somewhat reassured by Paulson's positive assertions that it would be possible to assess, correctly price and acquire these assets.

Turns out, we were both wrong.  Paulson in his belief that such a gargantuan task could be done, and done by the government, and me in believing smarter people than me could get that job done.

So in an odd way, I'm relieved by this development.  It's cleaner to invest in banks directly than it is to take on their drek and try to make sense of it.  It fulfills the same goal--getting banks stable by increasing their capital, thus freeing them up to begin lending once again.

What it doesn't do is account for a worse downslide to these troubled assets than we currently project.  That's of concern.

And there also doesn't appear to be any direct requirement of the banks receiving the capital that they actually use their newfound liquidity to lend money.  While it's true that banking regulators issued a statement saying that all banks have benefited from this program and thus all have responsibility to lend, to provide dividends, to manage compensation and to mitigate foreclosures...well, let's just say that I'm not sure strongly worded lectures on responsibility carry as much weight as contractual obligations.

Paulson also declared that he is on a "time out" with the balance of the TARP funds ($350 billion), waiting for incoming President Obama to have his say with the rest (and with congress's approval required).  At least, that's his plan for now and one that I think makes sense.

To sum up?  I think the about face is a good decision that leaves me more uneasy with Paulson's leadership of these programs than I was before.  Unfortunately, it appears Wall Street agreed with me.

I'm having a day off!  No writing.  No housework.  No cleaning or cooking.  No opinions.

Just hanging out with me.

Yesterday's driving and funeral took a lot out of me, thus the unusually timed respite.  I hope to catch up with comments, and have a few of my own to make, tomorrow.

Cheers!

Sorry about confusing the two days in yesterday's blog.  I meant to say Veteran's Day.  Thanks to those of you who corrected me (and to those of you who skipped right over it?  Well, you were in good company).

It is appropriate that today was the day of Uncle Stretch's funeral--the day after Veteran's Day and the cemetary was full of flags.  We started the day in Apple Valley under the compassionate and gracious care of Pastor Becky Sage of the Church in the Valley.  She spoke with wit, reverence and insight in talking about Uncle Stretch's life, his love of Annie, and his struggle these past two years without her.

It's been a long, difficult day.  Made easier by the company of family and friends.  And the faith that God's mercy is stronger than our darkest moments.

Godspeed, Uncle Stretch.  Be at peace.

The Baldridge clan will be gathering this weekend for our annual Thanksgiving Potluck.  A few of the usual family members won't be there.  Some won't be able to join us due to routine scheduling conflicts and I will miss each of the absent tremendously.

But two family members in particular won't be able to join us because they are serving in the military.  It's only fitting, this Memorial Day, to take a moment to tell you about these two young men.

Jay Tuculet, my nephew-in-law (if there is such a thing) is serving on the Ronald Reagan.  He's been out to sea for a number of months and will be coming home within days of the gathering.

Jay is relatively "new" to our patchwork family, having married Amy last year.  They have a son, David, who misses his Daddy every day.  And I am sure that Jay misses David and Amy even more.  When he joined the Navy, I'm not sure he knew this kind of cost would factor into his duty.  And yet he keeps on serving.

The other young man serving in the Navy from our Baldridge crew is my nephew, Darrell's son, Darrell Baldridge.  He joined the Navy more recently than Jay and he's hard at work adjusting to Navy life and learning what he needs to know. 

He doesn't have a son and wife waiting for him at home, but I am sure that it's tough to be away from family and friends, especially around the holidays.  We will miss them both this Sunday.

We have vets in our family, too.  My birth father, Samuel Costales, served in the Army during WWII.  Uncle Stretch served in WWII and Korea as a Marine.  Neither of them is with us this Memorial Day, but they survived their tours of duty and went on to civilian life.  I know from my Mom that the experience of the war changed Daddy Sam, especially liberating concentration camps.  And Uncle Stretch was marked forever by his years as a Marine.

My Dad, Chuck, was in the Army Reserves as a young man.  He never went overseas, but he served his country with pride.  Dan's dad, Dick, served in the Army and went on to join the State Department, retiring just last year.

I am proud of each and every one of these men.  I am humbled by their service to this country of ours.  And I am grateful for all the sons, daughters, husbands, wives, brothers and sisters who are serving in our military now.  I pray that they will come home safe.  And soon.

As I mentioned some months ago, I've been reading the book Cradle to Cradle, a mini-manifesto on how we can move from being mere consumers of our planet's resources into designing products, buildings, and infrastructure that work with nature's design rather than against it.

It requires radical rethinking on a scale past my "three R's" green consciousness (reduce, reuse, recycle), which is where most of us are on an individual basis in the U.S.  If that.

By peculiar confluence of events, I've been thinking more about my personal consumption habits; have been reading more about the ways we can rethink our energy sources, and about how we can (and should) restructure our country's approach to food and farming.

The meditation on personal consumption habits was brought about as I cleaned Uncle Stretch's kitchen last weekend.  He had, for a washrag, the top of an old tube sock.  At first, that struck me as amusing (especially since it wasn't the cleanest tube sock I'd ever seen).  But the more I thought about that repurposed sock, the more I realized it wasn't at all silly.

Why not use an item which was designed to absorb water, had ribs that could be used for light-duty scrubbing, and could be easily and safely cleaned for reuse rather than purchase throw-away sponges by the super pack?

It seems so retro.  Something that folks who lived through the Great Depression would do in order to be frugal; a habit that used to be irrelevant to our high-tech, revved up, consumerist lifestyle.  But frugality is something I feel will be coming very much into vogue as we dig our way out of the economic doldroms we splurged our way into...a quaint personal trait will become a positive characteristic.

On a grander scale, there are brighter minds than mine at work on how to rethink our approach to both energy and farming.  Thanks to Cindy, my sister-in-law, I read an excellent article (Farmer in Chief by Michael Pollan), addressed to our president-elect, about those very topics.  The article is well worth reading...but for those who don't have the time, here are some interesting facts from the article:

--Our food system uses the second highest amount of fossil fuels in our economy, trailing only cars in terms of consumption.

--Our farmers are paid to keep fields fallow rather than to plant crops that will replenish the soil and retain moisture.

--By separating the rearing of food animals and the growing of crops, we have inadvertantly created two problems:  Our arable land is growing less fertile and our factory feed-lots are producing literal tons of waste product.

In this last case, the waste products which used to nourish the farmlands, have become pollution.  So rather than having waste equal food, as posited in Cradle to Cradle, we have waste going to "waste" (pun intended) AND causing sickness.

I'm hopeful that Obama (and the folks in Congress) will be willing to step back from the way we've been doing things and take a fresh look; using an engineering and design approach to how we use energy (fuel) and how we create energy (food) for consumption.

In the meantime, I will be continuing my own evolution into a more responsible citizen of this planet.  One small example of a new habit I've picked up is saving scraps of paper (envelopes, receipts, the backs of cards and post-its) to use for note-taking and outlines.  I figure at the rate we get paper in this house, I'll never need to buy another notepad.

I'll continue to inform myself by reading and sharing articles and books about this topic.

And next time a tube sock gets a hole in the toe, it will become part of my rag collection rather than being tossed in the trash. 

Small steps.  Small steps.

 

I was thinking yesterday about the first science fiction book that made me fall in love with the genre.  It blew me away and marked me forever.  It was not at all the first sci-fi book I read, but it was the first I loved and it made me a sci-fi fan.  Which leads to the Sunday Question:

What was the first work of art (sculpture, painting, movie, book) that blew your socks off?

 

(as an aside, there seem to be some problems with comments uploading on weebly -- just as we're having a flood of exchanges -- nothing to do with me, all to do with weebly....I'll work on it when I get home.)

We had a wonderful visit with our friend today.  As always, I am amazed at how the frustrations of visiting, the barbed wire on the fences, the guards, the other inmates...all of it fades away as we enjoy each other's company.

I'm not so naive as to believe that the same is true for our friend.  When we leave him, we go home to our comfortable mattresses, to eating the foods we want (because we can buy them at the grocery store), to the freedoms of seeing others when we like, making phone calls when we need to talk, even watching the television programs we want.

He goes back to his dorm, his bunk, the track on which he runs his laps.  He goes back to the petty cruelties of guards, the constant vigilence of being surrounded by inmates, the lack of choices and dignity that make up the bulk of his days and nights.

There may be moments where, in the company of us four...shared so many times and places over the past twenty years...where he can relax, just a bit.  Where he may forget, in a moment of shared laughter, what the end of the visit holds for him. 

And even so, his spirits are good.  He produces meaning in the severe constraints of his life.  He reads, works out, counsels others and keeps his own counsel as well.

9 more months, Lord willing.

Lord.  Please be willing.