Further Fun and Frugality Reading

                As much fun as running for city council would have been (not!), it would definitely have reduced the time I could devote to reading. Here’s what I’ve been reading lately.

               

                Charles Finch has written an addictive mystery series featuring Charles Lennox, a Victorian detective and, well, if I tell you much more, I’d have to issue a spoiler alert. I found a couple of these in great shape for cheap at an estate sale just off Ward Parkway (the really nice part of Ward Parkway). I started one, and these things are like crack. There are several of them, and I’ve read them all. He just came out with a prequel this year, The Woman in the Water, and that would be a good one to start with. The library has them all.

                On one of my trips to get rid of stuff at Half Price Books, I happened on Melanie Benjamin’s The Swans of Fifth Avenue. For me, the danger of going to Half Price Books is it’s difficult to come out empty-handed. This book is about Truman Capote and his famous 1975 expose in Esquire in which he betrayed just about every confidence he’d ever been told by his cadre of “swans,” the very wealthy wives of very wealthy men who populated the upper east side of Midcentury Manhattan. The swans include Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman (who has been the subject of at least a couple of tell-all books and who died while serving as our Ambassador to France), Slim Hawks Hayward Keith (who lost a husband to Pamela), Marella Agnelli (who landed a husband Pamela couldn’t wrestle to the altar), Gloria Guinness, and Babe Paley, wife of Bill, who started CBS. The book is told more or less from Babe Paley’s perspective, and it’s a sad tale. For having so much money and property at their disposal, these people didn’t seem to enjoy their lives. In fact, if we were to meet them (or someone like them), I suspect we’d be bored in no time. I know I would. There’s only so much planning and attending parties I can stand. Nevertheless, if you’d like a good read about Midcentury Manhattan and how Truman Capote manipulated, betrayed, and slandered his friends, enemies, and acquaintances, this is a good place to start. The book is technically fiction, but it is well-researched. It will also make you considerably less envious of the One Percent.

                And that brings me to the very enjoyable The Art of Frugal Hedonism, by Annie Raser-Rowland and Adam Grubb, a couple of Australians with a great sense of humor. I found out about this book from the New Dream Organization (NewDream.org). The Johnson County Library has it. Alas, the Kansas City Library does not. I’m not dissing the Kansas City Library. Cosby Kemper is doing a great job, but let’s face it. Our city government has decided to short our schools and libraries and give us a two-mile streetcar and a bunch of luxury apartments downtown. Our tax dollars at work. Thankfully, we can borrow materials from the Johnson County libraries at no cost. The book is wide-ranging and addresses some issues we need to think about including “fake frugal,” which they define as “cheap disposable, or crummy things that quickly need replacing,” leading to our spending more money and having trash to dispose of. They go on to include cheap food in this category because of its low nutrition value and our tendency to waste cheap food, which I’ll talk more about later. They discuss stress and how our society puts a premium on “keeping busy.” On a personal note, whenever someone asks if I’m keeping busy, I’ll answer, “Not if I can help it,” “Am I supposed to?” or “Why? Is there a law?” The authors have discovered a way to earn less, work less, and live more. Their research indicates that, up until the Industrial Revolution, “work” was indeed a four-letter word. In 1783 Josiah Wedgwood issued an eleventh commandment: “Thou shalt not be idle.” Frankly it seems modern society is willing to honor that one more that the other ten. There is so much in this short book. I read the chapter on the burden of choice just after I was at a mainstream grocery store and a man complained to me about having so many choices when all he wanted was juice. I usually shop Aldi because of their prices and their limited choice. They advise having less house and considering sharing when possible. The house I’m in and really like is one I bought after moving from the house I thought would be my retirement house. That house had a shared drive. I’d advise that you never buy a house with a shared drive. There are too many people in this world who are insane, and you might just wind up some as your neighbors. Trust me on this one. You will be happier if you don’t have to depend on getting into and out of your garage if you don’t have to share a driveway with insane people. Plus you can fix the drive when it needs fixing and not have to get anyone’s agreement. They advise buying a house and not renovating it. I can agree here up to a point. To spend a lot of money on new bathrooms, given how little time we spend in them, has always seemed questionable to me. My 1927 house came with a small dysfunctional kitchen next to a small and rarely used breakfast room. After living here eleven years and being frustrated doing major cooking in a minor kitchen, I threw in the towel and had the wall between the two rooms taken out and a new kitchen I designed put in. I used Lowes’ cabinets and Formica countertops. That was nine years ago, and I have never regretted spending one cent of the money I spent on that kitchen. The authors bravely enter landmine territory and advise you to think very carefully about whether to have children (they don’t). They advise giving yourself a break and going a little crazy once in a while. Somewhere in the book, and I just couldn’t find it again easily while I was writing this, they described someone who was rigid and judgmental all the time as the kind of person who would being low-fat cottage cheese to a potluck., and that brings me to… .

                “Just Eat It,” a documentary by Grant Baldwin and Jenny Rustmeyer. I watched this on Kanopy, the library’s free streaming service. The film describes how much of our food production and consumption goes to waste. To demonstrate, the cohabiting Canadian producers vow to live only on discarded food for six months. As it turns out, they wound up with an excess of food. They were giving it away. And it still piled up. Grant Baldwin is seen in the end chowing down on a 32-ounce container of yogurt—one of hundreds. He gained ten pounds in the six months they spent doing this documentary. Jenny Rustmeyer would be very difficult to take in other than small doses. She has one of those fingernails-on-chalkboard voices that I can imagine could come from someone who would take discarded low-fat cottage cheese to a potluck, and she begins complaining right off the bat. I was asking myself, “Well, did anyone make you take this on?” In one scene she is at a grocery store asking if she could buy some produce that is being discarded. She’s directed to a bin where food that has just been taken off the shelf is. The food is on its way to a garbage bin. She screeches, “You know what? I’m not even going to ask for a discount.” I guess her goal is to meet her self-imposed discarded-food-for-six-months rule, but I hereby officially revoke her frugal card. I don’t know how committed these folks are to each other, but Grant Baldwin—what’s wrong with you? Don’t you have ears? Anyway, on the one hand, the film makes its point, but on the other hand, a lot of the salvaged food would fall under the category of fake frugality. Lots of processed stuff. Lots of empty calories. The message could be summed up in three words: Stop wasting food.

                And Jenny and Grant, please consider a book next time. It’s easier on the ears.

© 2018 Larry Roth

I'm Not Really Running for City Council!

             I have a confession to make. I’m not running for city council. That was an April Fool’s joke.  

             But my platform is based on people I've met who turned out to be major disappointments.

             Several years ago Dan bought a car one of his friends inherited. Dan had the car fixed up, put on new tires, and was set for many years of driving. No sooner had Dan finished his work than a woman on a cell phone in a SUV plowed into him. She was at a red light. He was across from her. She thought the light had changed, and without looking at either the light or ahead of her took off. Dan’s car was totaled.

                Dan wasn’t injured physically in the accident, but he lost several thousand dollars that he had spent on the car that the woman’s insurance company wouldn’t pay. Had Dan been injured, he could have found an attorney to handle his case, but ambulance chasers are not interested when the injury is merely financial.

                I mention Dan’s accident because I was at a social event and had a chance to speak with our then-state representative. I told her about Dan’s accident and said I thought driving while on a cell phone should be outlawed. Her one sentence response?

                “Oh, Realtors would never go for that.”

                So Missouri residents should be in danger from distracted drivers because… Realtors would never agree to give up driving while talking on cell phones?

                I had been a fan of that woman, but she’ll never get my vote. For anything.

                Recently I was at a neighborhood meeting and met my city council person. He’s not all that impressive, and I know he’s never voted against a tax incentive proposal. He’s not going to get my vote, either.

                Eight years ago I voted for our current mayor partly on the basis of a show our local PBS station ran in which two neighborhood activists took the mayor to areas in their neighborhoods that were being used as trash dumps. He was appalled and promised to take care of the problem. Instead he’s championed streetcars that duplicate existing bus lines and a variety of tax subsidized luxury apartments in Kansas City’s downtown. The stage lost a great actor when he decided to go into politics.

                I tried to put myself into these people’s shoes. I wanted to understand why they would run as neighborhood advocates and, once elected, become pod people shilling for developers and streetcar constructors when what people really want are potholes fixed, sidewalks and curbs replaced, which was supposed to happen when we voted for the GO bonds, which are evidently GOne, and so on. And my platform was the result.

                The story about the Burns and Mac interview was no April Fool’s joke. When I interviewed there I was in my early fifties, and it was clear Burns and Mac were not hiring people perceived as being past their prime. But it worked out for the best. They would not have been happy with me, and I sure would not have been happy with Burns and Mac—especially if that little prick would have been my supervisor or manager.

                So I’m sorry to disappoint all my potential supporters, but I will leave you with this advice: Go to the mayoral forums, ask hard questions, and if you can find a working one, take a bullshit detector with you.

© 2018 Larry Roth

I'm Running for City Council!

PRESS RELEASE

TO BE RELEASED EASTER SUNDAY 2018

I am hereby announcing I am running for city council. I’m going to share my platform as I and my supporters develop it. Here’s what we have so far. Please feel free to make suggestions.

Most candidates will tell you they will represent you. And you seem to believe them. It’s the triumph of hope over experience that people keep voting for candidates that make such promises and deliver nothing to voters. It’s almost like owning GE stock. Or continually voting for sales and property tax increases. (C’mon! Have you driven down Ward Parkway recently? And if we’re not going to fix Ward Parkway, what makes you think we’re going to do anything in your neighborhood?) So here’s what I promise.

First. I will vote for any and all tax incentives. I don’t need to know the details or whether they make sense. All I know is throwing money at development is a way to make this city great again. Just ask most of our council members. $17 mil for a parking garage for a luxury apartment building? Piece of cake. Next.

Being a city councilperson pays a little over $66,000 a year. C’mon. I made that much before the turn of the century! Do you really expect people to represent you for that kind of money? Especially if they have a spouse and children that like to eat more than rice and beans and shop anywhere but garage sales? If that’s all you’re willing to pay, well, you get what you pay for. I plan to take any and all income enhancements that are offered by developers, lobbyists, and especially Burns and Mac, and I mention them only because I had the most obnoxious interview there I’ve ever experienced. I hope Burns and Mac got wise and fired that little prick. By the way, if you take me to lunch, I eat low carb, and I’ll want enough leftovers to take some home to my dog.

Second. The streetcar has contributed so much to this community since it first began running its two-mile route. Oh, it has its problems in ice, snow, heavy rains, and so on, but how often do we have these problems? Soon, global warming will eliminate snow and ice in our area anyway.

Since the streetcar has been such a success and is so reliable, I favor extending it not only to the Plaza but also to Wichita, Topeka, Oklahoma City, and New York. 24 million tourists can’t be wrong. I also plan to go on as many foreign and domestic junkets to discover the wonders of streetcars and other forms of entertainment in other cities and countries as possible. While I might be willing to fly coach to such reasonably close destinations as Tulsa or Oklahoma City, I’ll require first class seating for anything further away in this country and at least business class to foreign destinations. After all, you don’t want me—your representative--exiting the plane looking rumpled—or even worse, sober—after an overseas trip, do you?

Third. I will require that Kansas City residents fill potholes on their own streets. People are always calling in and complaining about potholes. Well, let them discover just what a hassle it is to fill those potholes. The city will provide them with sources for asphalt and assess penalties for noncompliance. This will stop people complaining about potholes and free up funds for the things that really matter, like luxury apartment buildings and fixed rail good weather only transit, which is where our priorities should be focused. Potholes, schmotholes. We’re big picture people, people.

Fourth. Gentrification is a good thing. As property values increase on paper, the city can raise property taxes and generate more revenue for tax incentive programs. If we’re going to provide multi-decade tax abatements, we have to make up the lost revenue somehow, and that somehow is you. If you’re elderly and have problems paying these increased taxes, well, too bad. The young people moving in and gentrifying older neighborhoods don’t want to live around poor people, anyway. Here is an actual quote from one of the millennials we have coaxed downtown to live in taxpayer-subsidized luxury: “Who gives a damn. I work hard for my money, and I can afford to live [downtown]. I am not going to apologize for yearsnofnhard (sic) work, smart life choices and good decisions. I choose to live downtown because I can. People who work hard and make good life divisions (sic) shouldn’t be forced to now live with those that can’t keep their shit together.” As you can see, people who move downtown may say they want to live in a diverse area, but by that they don’t mean they want to live around or come into contact with diverse people. If they wanted to be around diverse people, they’d use the bus instead of lobbying for the streetcar.

Fifth. I promise to set up several committees on crime. Perhaps at least one of the committees can come up with some reasonable sounding approach to the problem. Perhaps we could soften the effect of crime by using euphemisms. If bribes can be referred to as income enhancement, why shouldn’t we refer to murder as premature passing?

My very first order of business will be to erect a statue in honor of former mayor Kay Waldo Barnes, Kansas City’s Madonna of tax incentives. This statue would go up in the Power and Light District and have an eternal flame to commemorate Kansas City’s eternal $14 million per year commitment to the Cordish Company. Did that woman know tax incentives or what?

So it’s up to you. If you want a council representative who is going to promise you neighborhood representation only to desert you once the first tax incentive proposal (with incentives going to you know who) passes over his or her desk or under his or her table at the Capital Grille and leave you with a bitter taste in your mouth as you swear never to vote for that person again only to be faced with yet another such candidate in another four years, then do as you always do, sucker. If, on the other hand, you want a representative who tells you in advance he’s a crook and doesn’t give a hoot about neighborhoods, I’m your man. You know what you’re getting, and I promise never to disappoint you.

Vote for me, and you will never have to lower your expectations again.

© 2018 Larry Roth

Is This as Good as It Gets? A Review of Robert J. Gordon's "The Rise and Fall of American Growth"

          Robert J. Gordon’s The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War is an interesting read. I say that in spite of its length (652 pages of text), its numerous graphs, its repetitiveness, and Dr. Gordon’s writing style that, whenever possible, lets you know he is a Scholar with a capital “S,” and, by gosh, he knows and uses his Latin plurals even if doing so detracts from readability. (For example, insurance premiums become insurance premia. Technically correct, but a tad precious.)

          With that out of the way, Dr. Gordon, with the help of numerous research assistants, spent nearly a decade putting this book together, and he tells a history that, I suppose, should be obvious, but that I never considered.

          Dr. Gordon points out that from medieval times to about 1770 there was not much growth. Beginning about 1770 inventions here and there allowed slow growth, and beginning in 1870 (and lasting until about 1970) there was phenomenal growth caused by what he calls the “Great Inventions.”

          He describes what life was like in 1870. Both on the farm and in the cities family members bathed in a large tub in the kitchen (usually the only room with heat) after carrying cold water in pails from the outside and warming it over an open-hearth fireplace for which wood or coal would have to be brought into the house as well. This was such a chore that people bathed as seldom as once a month.

          Lighting would be a candle or an oil lamp, both of which were expensive and used frugally. Food was eaten in season. Winter vegetables were turnips, potatoes, and whatever else could be stored. The Mason jar was not invented until 1859, and only during the Civil War did canned meats become available. Shoes and men’s clothing could be purchased from stores, but women’s clothes were made at home (shades of Turkmenistan today, as I described in my trip report last year). Food and clothing were both expensive.

          Life for women without servants was pure drudgery. (And for those with servants, the servants’ life was drudgery.) Water had to be brought into the house for cooking and laundry (which was done on scrub boards and may only have been done every few months), human waste was disposed of in privies. Life for working men was not much better. On the farm, plowing, planting, and so on was done with horse and mule power. In cities, hours were long and pay was small. There was no retirement as we know it. Men worked until they couldn’t and hoped their kids could take care of them.

          Dr. Gordon says farm houses were generally of decent size, but of course they were dark at night and isolated. City tenements were crowded; many people would occupy each room—often each bed, and sometimes sleeping was done in shifts, especially if some occupants worked days and others worked nights. In smaller cities and towns most people lived in houses of varying size and quality, none of which yet had water or sewer connections.

          The horse was the main means of transport. In rural areas, people were pretty much limited to the area they could reach by horse over rutted dirt roads, so their world was pretty small indeed. An average horse would produce 20-50 pounds of manure and a gallon of urine daily. And that was one horse. The daily amount of manure in cities was 5-10 tons per square mile. Add to that the fact that horses in this kind of service didn’t live too long, and when they died, their carcasses were often left to lay in the streets for days. Between the manure and the carcasses, you can (possibly) imagine the hazards to human health that came with city life.

          All this began to change in 1870. The first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, followed quickly by others. Smaller cities built feeder routes to connect with these new railroads. People could easily (if expensively) travel for the first time. The first plunger-type indoor water closet was invented in 1875, after which the knowledge of drainage and venting procedures necessary to install the device and prevent sewer gasses from backing up into houses were developed as well as the idea of bringing water into the home via indoor plumbing.

          In 1879 Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, which made candles and oil superfluous as sources for light.

          Shopping was limited to local merchants and the occasional peddler. In 1859 the first A&P was founded. Others followed. Soon chain stores were available in most cities. Montgomery Ward introduced the catalog in 1872; Sears followed in 1894. Soon groceries, clothes, and a host of other products were available at lower prices. Local merchants at first had the advantage in that they would allow items to be bought on credit. When Montgomery Ward and Sears began offering credit, that advantage was lost. Many people—local merchants especially—objected to chain stores and catalogs, much as many people these days object to Walmart and other “big box” retailers, but it’s good to remember A&P and Montgomery Ward are history, and Sears is struggling. Nothing lasts forever.

          Karl Benz invented an internal combustion engine in 1879 and by 1886 had one mounted on a three-wheel chassis, eventually opening up individual transportation to the masses (with much thanks to Henry Ford, whose mass-produced Model T sold for $269 in 1926) and allowing for cities free of horse manure and carcasses.

          A personal note here: Many younger people who have no personal knowledge and very little historical knowledge of urban transportation condemn the automobile and are pushing for what they consider “public transit,” that is streetcars—the very streetcars our ancestors happily replaced with maneuverable and cheaper buses. I’m writing this during an ice storm here in Kansas City. Our streetcar is inoperable, as it is so often during bad weather, and buses are filling in for it. Buses are far cheaper than fixed rail transit and far more maneuverable. Buses, in other words, are for transportation. Streetcars are taxpayer-funded nostalgia. OK. Back to the 1870s.

          In 2002, a massive ice storm hit Kansas City. Many of us were without power for several days. (I was without electricity for ten days.) That experience helps me understand a little what life would have been like in 1870, but even then, I had indoor plumbing and access to transportation, so deprived as I felt for ten days, that was nothing compared to the deprivations of everyday life for everyone in 1870. Of course, they and none of their ancestors going back centuries realized their deprivation. It was everyday life for them. So much for the good old days!

          After discussing life as it was and the miraculous inventions that changed life for the better for everyone, Dr. Gordon points out that the days of life-altering miracles may be over. (And speaking of life-altering, his chapter on medicine is a must read.) Consider all the infrastructure brought about by the automobile, indoor plumbing, sewers, electricity, central heat, and so on, and you can see that, in addition to changing lives for the better, these inventions mandated a massive jobs program, which lifted many boats (and yachts). By 1940 the work was mainly done. By 1970 it was pretty much over. Dr. Gordon allows that computers and the internet have improved lives (mostly in the areas of communication and bargain hunting), but they’ve not required a massive jobs program to bring them to every home. They’ve not had a major impact on productivity with the exception of the years between 1994 and 2004.

          It’s often been stated that just about everything has declined since about 1973, from wage raises to productivity. This book explains why Dr. Gordon believes that to be the case. Further, Dr. Gordon doesn’t think we’ll see growth like we saw between 1870 and 1970 again. So it’s possible that we need to get used to living in the world we have and, other than bigger, better, and flatter TVs and smartphones and so on, not to anticipate much in the way of life changing innovation.

          Dr. Gordon concludes with some suggestions, which include making the income tax more progressive, including taxing dividends and capital gains the same as ordinary income, raising the minimum wage, expanding the earned income tax credit (I’d favor expanding it to a guaranteed basic income), reducing incarceration, legalizing and taxing drugs, universal preschool, immigration reform (especially for foreign-born graduates of U.S. universities), tax reform--including a carbon tax, and facing up to the fiscal reckoning.

          This book was published before the 2016 election. One of my takeaways from the book is that if this is as good as it gets, that may explain some of the disenchantment people who voted for Donald Trump felt when they went to the polls. In recent memory, each generation has had it better than the last. If Dr. Gordon is correct, we will need to remember that was true only for a century. Perhaps we can take comfort in the fact that even if this is as good as it gets, it’s infinitely better than it was for our ancestors in 1870.

© 2018 Larry Roth

What's the Matter with "Kids These Days?" A Review of the Book by Malcolm Harris (B. 1988)

          “This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.”

                                                                     ---Attributed to Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

          I read a favorable review of Kids These Days, by Malcolm Harris (B. 1988) and thought I’d see what the millennial generation was thinking.

          On the one hand, Mr. Harris is a good writer and the book is mercifully short (228 pages of text). On the other hand, Mr. Harris really likes to complain. If this were the only book that pointed out that millennials are currently on the short end of the stick, the book would be useful. But it’s not the only book. That job has been done better by many authors including Andy Stern in his Raising the Floor, which offered the Universal Basic Income as a way to combat offshoring, automation, and the 1099 economy. Mr. Harris offers little in the way of solutions. After saying, “After all, books like this are supposed to end with a solution, right?” he suggests (halfheartedly) buying with a social conscience, voting, giving to causes you believe in, protesting, and “put it down,” which appears to be an argument that none of the above will work.

          It seems many book reviewers are willing to give Mr. Harris his millennial gold stars simply for showing up and mentioning “solutions.”

          I’ll be the first to admit millennials have challenges. But they are not alone. If Mr. Harris enters the labor market, he will no doubt in just a couple of decades find out what it’s like to be a fifty-something cast out into a labor market rife with age discrimination.

          Mr. Harris makes some allegations that are difficult to believe. Amazon.com shows different prices to different customers, for example. He also repeats the old saw (made popular by Dorcas Hardy in her 1991 book Social Insecurity) that people who collect Social Security will get more out of the system than they paid in. (This in spite of the fact that millions who die before they collect their first check will get nothing from the system.) News flash for Mr. Harris: I will get more out of my IRA than I paid in. That’s how retirement savings programs are supposed to work. Additionally, Mr. Harris says (on page 108), “The average dual-earner couple will pay over a million dollars in taxes into a system that half of Millennials (sic) think will leave them high and dry.”

          First, in order to pay over a million dollars into the system, the dual-earner couple would have to be pulling in almost $376,000 a year over a 40-year working life (and that includes the Medicare tax). And that would only be possible if all $376,000 per year were subject to Social Security taxes. The current maximum earnings taxed per worker for Social Security is $127,200 (for 2017). It would not be possible to pay a million dollars into Social Security. One wonders where Mr. Harris’ editor was when this statement needed factchecking. And keep in mind Mr. Harris is evidently assuming $376,000 per couple will be a typical income after spending much of the book arguing that millennials will have difficulty surviving the new economy.

         

          After wasting a couple of days I’ll never get back reading this book I wondered who Malcom Harris (B. 1988) is. The book offers little other than to say he is a communist and an editor at The New Inquiry who has written for the New Republic, Bookforum, the Village Voice, and the New York Times Magazine.

          It turns out there’s more to Mr. Harris than he lets on in this book. He had a privileged upbringing. He took part in the Occupy movement in 2011 and wound up in some legal trouble over that, which may be why he’s dismissive of “protest,” one of his suggestions. You can look this stuff as well as I can.

          Mr. Harris appears to be more a Maynard G. Krebs-style communist than a serious social activist.

          All in all, Mr. Harris’ book brings to mind Gertrude Stein’s description of the Oakland of her day: There’s no “there” there.

           

© 2018 Larry Roth

Shithole Countries Then and Now

          "Why do we want all these people from 'shithole countries' coming here?"

                                                                            Donald Trump, January 12, 2018

          My great-great grandfather came from a shithole country.

          It was the 1840s. There was a famine. At least one million people died in that famine. He and about 1.5 million other Irish men, women, and children did what they felt they had to do to survive. They came to America. They weren’t welcome. They encountered signs telling them “Irish and dogs not welcome here.” He eventually settled in Chicago, fought for the Union in the Civil War, married and had children, some of whom settled in Missouri’s Lead Belt—probably taking jobs there as miners.

          When our president made the statement about shithole countries I was reading Linda Gordon’s The Second Coming of the KKK: The Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition, and I was amazed at how President Trump’s sentiments echoed those of Klan members in the 1920s.

          The 1920s have always intrigued me. I majored in history and did several papers on the social, cultural, and economic issues people faced during that decade. I must confess my previous understanding of the Ku Klux Klan of that era was off according to Ms. Gordon.

          I always thought Klan members were probably rural know-nothings. That would make me wrong. It seems many were urban (including a large membership in New York City and on Long Island). The 1920s Klan had most of its members in the Midwest and west, and this was before much of the Great Migration of African Americans from the south to the urban centers of the North had taken place, so in the areas where the Klan had most of its members, there weren’t enough blacks to be perceived as a threat, so the 1920s Klan focused more on immigrants, Catholics, and Jews. In the west the focus was also on people of Mexican and Asian heritage. It was kind of an anti-(fill-in-the-blank) organization.

          The Klan, in other words, was flexible. In some areas, for example, German Jews were OK, but the Jews coming from shithole countries in Eastern Europe and Russia were beyond the Pale (pun intended). In other areas, some Catholics were acceptable and even joined the Klan. In the South, of course, blacks were the primary focus of Klan activity.

          Immigrants from shithole countries—especially Catholic and Orthodox shithole countries (Italy, Greece, and the like) were Klan targets.

          Dealing with Klan targets was also flexible. In some communities economic boycotts were successful; in other communities, homes and businesses were burned. In extreme cases targets were killed.

          In some areas, the Klan served as a moral police force—outing and shaming those who committed sexual offenses (sleeping around, having affairs with others’ spouses, etc.) or drank alcohol, which had been outlawed by Prohibition.

          The Klan’s reasons for targeting immigrants sounds like they were snatched out of today’s conservative political talking points: crime, stealing jobs from “true” Americans, etc., which were probably as dubious then as now.

          Another of the many things I didn’t know about the Klan is it was a financial pyramid scheme. There was a great deal of emphasis on recruiting members at least in part because dues were subject to commissions on the way to the national organization. In addition to dues, members were required to buy their uniforms, which were quite pricy. Somehow all these expenses made reminded me of Amway.

          The Klan became a powerful political force. Many state and local offices (especially in Oregon and Indiana) were close to 100% Klan members. The Klan even influenced the nomination of the 1924 Democratic presidential candidate. The Klan also became a powerful social and economic force. In many communities businesspeople almost had to join in order to stay in business. Once they joined, they got a sign to put in their windows advertising that they were “one of us.”

          In 1924 congressmen who were Klan members were instrumental in passing immigration “reform.” Immigration quotas were assigned based on the ethnic makeup of the country at that time. Seventy percent of immigrants could come from the UK, Germany, and the shithole country my great-great grandfather came from, Ireland. Jews from eastern Europe and Russia were radically restricted, and Chinese, Japanese, and South Asians were excluded. These quotas stayed in effect until 1965.

          The Klan may well have remained a force to be reckoned with had it not been a pyramid scheme. People on the lower end of the pyramid got fed up with the financial arrangements. Since there was an awful lot of money involved, there was also a lot of embezzlement. But the straw that broke the camel’s back turned out to involve one of the most powerful members of the Klan, Indiana Grand Dragon David Stephenson. Stephenson was known to be a sexual predator whose powerful position always kept him from being prosecuted, but he went too far. He kidnapped, raped, and injured his secretary who, believing herself “ruined,” committed suicide. Stephenson was convicted of murder. The 1920s were a decade of sensationalist newspaper reporting. The publicity decimated membership and dues.

          President Trump’s outburst and this book caused me to do some thinking about immigration. We’re a nation of immigrants. If we go back far enough into history, we are all immigrants. Even Native Americans came here from somewhere else—most likely Asia.

          Most of our ancestors came here because things were so bad where they were living they were willing to take a chance on a new country. I’d think few people who were happy and prospering where they were would leave. So, in some respects, all our ancestors came from shithole countries or at least shithole situations. They left their shithole countries in search of a better life, and they didn’t go back.

I’ve been very fortunate in that I’ve been able to see much of the world. What I’ve seen has been interesting, but never tempting. I’m glad my ancestors left their shithole countries, how about you?

I’m not going to pretend that I have any answers on immigration, but I will say it’s not, as some people would like to say, as simple as “illegal is illegal.”

If things were that simple, we’d all be in jail for speeding.

Just as I was about to post this, I came across a CNN article that emphasizes how we—including some modern-day immigration hawks—are all descendants of people who came here from shithole countries.

Here’s the link:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/24/us/immigration-resistance-genealogy-jennifer-mendelsohn-trnd/index.html

© 2018 Larry Roth

America: Who Stole the Dream?

          We’ve had miserable weather the past few weeks. I’m not going to complain because I knew what Kansas City weather was like when I moved back here from California way back when. Since it was icy and cold I took the opportunity to go through the books I’d picked up at estate sales last year and decide which ones I really will read and which ones would go to Half Price Books. That’s how I came to read America: Who Stole the Dream, by Donald L. Bartlett and James B. Steele.

          These guys must feel like modern-day Cassandras. The book was published in 1996 (during the Clinton years), and it could be read as a list of reasons people got fed up enough to elect Donald Trump twenty years later.

          It’s all there and more. America separating into the have-mores and the have-lesses, companies sending jobs abroad with the government’s blessing and in some cases assistance (again, this was during the Clinton Administration), massive abuses of the H-1B visa program (we’ll talk more about that later), lobbying abuses, the “retraining” scam (the main beneficiaries of these programs, it turns out, are the contractors, schools, and people employed to administer the programs, which offer little benefit to those being retrained for jobs that aren’t there), etc.

          I found the discussion of the H-1B visa abuses particularly interesting. Messrs. Bartlett and Steele give some rather egregious examples from 1996 including Hillary Clinton’s hairstylist getting one for a stylist (for $5.25 an hour), Pat Buchanan’s sister got one to hire an au par for $13.54 per hour, Richard Nixon’s former attorney was granted one to hire a housekeeper, and the list goes on. In each of these cases the visa was granted because there supposedly were no American workers qualified to do the jobs. No Americans qualified to style hair? To babysit? To clean house?

          Recently, more than twenty years later, H-1B visas have come under more scrutiny. In February of last year the New York Times reported on H-1B visas’ being used to cut labor costs in the tech industry. One example given was the University of California, San Francisco importing foreign nationals and paying them $65,000 a year to do the jobs of people who, after training their replacements, would lose their jobs, which had paid $130,000. Obviously, the argument that there were no Americans qualified to do these jobs falls apart upon examination.

          Who can blame people for being upset? Electing Donald Trump may seem like a drastic measure, but you can see that people who feel like they’re being shafted might be willing to do something drastic when the status quo seems lined up against them and unwilling to change. After all, isn’t that how the American Revolution started? There’s a precedent.

          When I read books about what’s wrong with the system I always want to hear the authors’ solutions. Unfortunately, this is where the book fails. It suggests steps the government can take. After 200 pages of documenting how government, as Ronald Reagan used to say, is the problem, the authors seem to believe the government will have a “road to Damascus” experience.

          I’d suggest we not rely on a suddenly benevolent government and start taking our fates into our own hands.

          In 2005 I wrote Political Frugality to provide a roadmap for an economic approach to protesting marriage inequality. We’ve won that one. Let’s use those same tactics to protest economic inequality.

           

© 2018 Larry Roth