How much is enough?

I promised myself I wouldn’t read the economic news, but both yesterday and this morning, I couldn’t help myself. One editorial in Sunday’s paper that really stood out was Iain Levison’s Washington Post op-ed piece, “The Blow the Working Class Saw Coming:”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/13/AR2009021301645.html

Levison’s piece chronicled the experience of two North Carolina day laborers that traveled sixty miles to Raleigh, N.C. to lay carpet on a job, their first paid gig since early December. The article mentions how these two and way too many others have been living the economic retrenchment for several years now, well before the rest of us started to wake up to headlines about massive job cuts and stimulus debates. Levison then pulled back his focus to contrast the experiences of the working and middle classes (whose incomes have stagnated, if not declined, and who face an uncertain future) with the privileged Wall Street kingpins (whose $1,400 trash cans, multi-million dollar compensation packages, and golden parachutes ensure luxury beyond our wildest dreams.)

Levison sums it up pretty simply: “Stop taking so much.”

And he then asks: How much is enough? Or to rephrase it a bit, what does one person need?

Which brings me to a thought experiment, jokingly posed by a friend of mine when I mentioned an interview for a temporary contract position on Friday:

“If this was an episode of the Twilight Zone, you would be faced with getting a job, OR having the stimulus package pass and OTHER people all over the country and the world finding jobs and being ‘ok’.
Being so sweet and moral, you would choose the second one, and then you would live a life poor, possibly homeless, but happy inside, being the only one who would even know you had saved the world…”

Of course this scenario is counterfactual—this isn’t the Twilight Zone (though it may be the twilight of the American Empire) and the fate of the world does not hang on my temporary contract editing and project management job, which I did get, by the way.

But my “Twilight Zone” friend has often posed Levison’s question: how much does one person need?

Let’s assume for the moment that on Friday I had been offered a $20 million salary per annum (not that I ever would be, since even the best editors do not command these numbers).

At what point out of this obscene $20 million pay-out would my basic needs (food, shelter, clothing, health care) for a LIFETIME be met? At what point would my obligations--thankfully just a modest mortgage and student loans--be paid off? At what point would any and all of my insane desires to possess something beautiful and frivolous (a mint condition beaded 1920’s dress that actually fit me, a Margaux Lange Barbie doll necklace (http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=20156211, a trip to Prague, a Heywood Wakefield vanity, all the books on my Amazon wish list, knee-high buttery leather black boots) be met? Even with this list, I’d have a long way to go before I spent even a million dollars. What would I do with the other 19 million after I’ve satiated every reasonable need, want, or desire?

It’s all about rewarding greed—the same greed trickling down to the ordinary folk that fueled our consumption-driven economy. Think about how such obscene compensation insulates the recipients from the consequences of their bad decisions. Think about the consequences to their employees, to their shareholders, to their communities, to this country, to the rest of the world.

So think—on this brilliantly sunny but chilly February day—about the consequences of anyone taking a $20 million salary. Even to run a company. Because in the end, who has to go without for someone to get that kind of money? Who has to lose their job or livelihood? Who has to give up dreams of independence, education, security, stability, retirement?

Perhaps in the Twilight Zone, a Wall Street kingpin indeed actually faced the choice between himself or the rest of the world…

Signs of the times

I read today on the Craftzine blog that Craft magazine will no longer produce its print publication. I am saddened, as it was a quality publication with great production values and even better articles, projects, and ideas. It will be missed by many in the crafting community.

I am an avid reader of the sister on-line publication, the Craftzine blog, and have forwarded many of its quirky articles and projects to friends over the past few years (think yarnbombing, button wreaths, apartment walls handpainted to look like art deco wall paper, basement rec rooms decorated by Sharpie drawings, and many other mad, wonderful, beautiful expressions of artistry, whimsy, and creativity).

The loss of Craft is an example of something larger though. What disturbs me even more than the impact on the crafting world of the loss of a beloved and respected source of information, is the contraction in the publishing industry that the loss of Craft exemplifies. It's this: fewer and fewer people are buying and reading books, magazines, and newspapers. With a shrinking audience, the print publishing industry is dying and supposedly being replaced by the Internet. Now I love the Internet (Etsy, Wikipedia, Alternet, Ebay, Amazon, Huffington Post), but...

OK, so I recently lost a job in the publishing industry and so I may be reacting to my personal situation, but I think there are some larger issues to grapple with. What does this crisis in the marketplace of ideas say about the ways that individuals take in and transmit information? What does it say about the quality of information that is out there? What does it say about the future of our democracy? What does it say about where we are going as a civilization and culture? In 200 years will someone have saved books, magazines, and newspapers, like the Moors did with the learning of the ancient Greeks and Romans, or will all this knowledge be lost? (OK, so maybe People magazine or a drugstore bodice ripper isn't worth saving, but some of what is printed is indeed valuable as a literature, as a contribution to knowledge, as a historic document. And reading and gaining knowledge is a worthwhile endeavor.)

Not the valentine I wanted to send to my friends and colleagues. But here's something you can all do. Show your love for the printed word. Buy and read something today. Buy a newspaper, a magazine, a novel. Try something you've never read before. Open yourself to a new idea or experience that comes from a source printed on paper. Who knows: you might be inspired to yarnbomb a city bus or decorate your rec room with Sharpie drawings.


The message is ready to be sent with the following file or link attachments:Shortcut to: http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2009/02/thank_you_craft_friends.html

Change, change, and more change

What a difference four hours can make. About two and a half weeks ago, on Wednesday, January 28, 2009, my life changed profoundly. I went from reading the economic news at breakfast to becoming an economic statistic by lunchtime. Of course the 17 jobs shed at my small company wouldn't even make the back page of the local section of the newspaper, compared with the headline-making catastrophic job losses at Caterpillar (22,000 jobs--sheesh) or General Motors.

But one of the thousands of jobs shed in the month of January, on that bone-chillingly damp Wednesday was mine. This event forces me to take stock and make (I hope) positive changes in my life goals, in my consumption habits, in my activities, in my relationship to my community, friends, and family, and in my career path. It's a journey--perhaps one that I wouldn't have chosen to make--and this blog-writing exercise is part of that journey.

Having studied history, I can't help but be fascinated by the larger historical forces at play in the Great Debacle of 2008, even as I am dealing with my own personal situation (update a resume, find freelance work, find a JOB. With health insurance.) Like Thucydides, even as I participate in these events on an intensely personal level, I'll observe and chronicled the experience. (Though if my blog postings actually survive through next year, let alone across the millenia, I'd be mighty surprised.) But I'll be sharing my observations about anything and everything in the coming weeks and months with anyone who cares to read them.

Anna
P.S. I confess that I never drank the expensive coffee drinks. I always helped myself to the free coffee in my warm office.