You create the life you live with the imagination you have. I think I had this conversation with Kurt Vonnegut before he died over his "Humanist Requiem" that we recorded. He was in Dresden and my teacher Eva Turner was in the Blitz. But they all looked at me strangely for having the hubris to think that I could crawl out of the heavy metal brain damage from the mines and succeed in their business. I did and without the alcohol or the drugs.
I was in the Army for six years. Shall we swap war stories? Perhaps you would like to compare war stories with my friends who marched across Iwo Jima and back or my uncle who flew 36 bomber missions over Germany or the Black Ops folks in my family in Vietnam and Afghanistan and Iraq, etc. I am grateful for the service that people have given. I also don't consider four years of hell to be equal to 17. It took me into my sixties before I realized why I had so much trouble finding professors who would teach me. They didn't think it was worth it, even though my technique and repertoire was the best in the school. They figured the brain damage would make it a waste. Shall we coin the word galenatrate? Or shall we just put those war stories to bed and build a better world for all concerned beginning with what's between our own ears. I came to New York with stories like Coventry, I met an artist whose parents kept him in a chicken coop growing up. He said to me. So what are you complaining about? Get to work! REH From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, September 06, 2010 9:44 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, , EDUCATION; Ray Harrell Subject: RE: [Futurework] FW: [TriumphOfContent] How to Endthe GreatRecession (Robert Reich - The NY Times) I'm sorry to scare you. I haven't suggested 'going back' to anything. But having lived in a city during a period which gave rise to a new verb, perhaps I can view life more objectively. (See http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/coventrate) KSH 00, you wrote: Perhaps you never had to ride a train boxcar and live in a tent. All of these things you preach scarred my parents and made it acceptable for me to grow up in hell. I would rather start a war than go back. I dont know where you guys get this belief that people wont be hanging from trees again. I will send you a picture of my grandfathers barn with four men hanging from the rafters after they cheated the poor. You scare me to death. I never thought that I would have to contemplate going back to the days that you seem to wish for. REH From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson Sent: Monday, September 06, 2010 3:00 AM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, , EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] FW: [TriumphOfContent] How to Endthe GreatRecession (Robert Reich - The NY Times) The following, in today's New York Times, contains the beginnings of the wisdom that Robert Reich, and the bunch gathered around Obama, doesn't have. Governments could then do the same with banks and big business. Without the moral hazard of knowing that if they're big enough they will be rescued from foolishness by governments, they'll quickly sort themselves out just like the Californian '49ers. After all, at bottom they depend on mass consumer support quite as much as, if not more than, governments. It was only when governments went hyper-militaristic and started printing money to buy armies and pay for warfare a century ago that the rot really started. Both left-wing and right-wing political ideologues (eager for governmental power for themselves) are still in denial about this. Now that the major powers can't afford big nationalistic wars any longer, and can only pick on weak, small nations (and not very successfully either), perhaps we are actually at the beginning of a solution. Keith ------ Housing Woes Bring New Cry: Let Market Fall By DAVID <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/david_streitfe ld/index.html?inline=nyt-per> STREITFELD The unexpectedly deep plunge in home sales this summer is likely to force the Obama administration to choose between future homeowners and current ones, a predicament officials had been eager to avoid. Over the last 18 months, the administration has rolled out just about every program it could think of to prop up the ailing housing market, using tax credits, mortgage modification programs, low interest rates, government-backed loans and other assistance intended to keep values up and delinquent borrowers out of foreclosure. The goal was to stabilize the market until a resurgent economy created new households that demanded places to live. As the economy again sputters and potential buyers flee July housing sales sank 26 percent from July 2009 there is a growing sense of exhaustion with government intervention. Some economists and analysts are now urging a dose of shock therapy that would greatly shift the benefits to future homeowners: Let the housing market crash. When prices are lower, these experts argue, buyers will pour in, creating the elusive stability the government has spent billions upon billions trying to achieve. Housing needs to go back to reasonable levels,said Anthony B. Sanders, a professor of real estate finance at George Mason University. If we keep trying to stimulate the market, thats the definition of insanity. The further the market descends, however, the more miserable one group important both politically and economically will be: the tens of millions of homeowners who have already seen their home values drop an average of 30 percent. The poorer these owners feel, the less likely they will indulge in the sort of consumer spending the economy needs to recover. If they see an identical house down the street going for half what they owe, the temptation to default might be irresistible. That could make the markets current malaise seem minor. Caught in the middle is an administration that gambled on a recovery that is not happening. The administration made a bet that a rising economy would solve the housing problem and now they are out of chips,said Howard Glaser, a former Clinton administration housing official with close ties to policy makers in the administration. They are deeply worried and dont really know what to do. That was clear last week, when the secretary of housing and urban development, Shaun <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/d/shaun_donovan/ index.html?inline=nyt-per> Donovan, appeared to side with current homeowners, telling CNN the administration would go everywhere we canto make sure the slumping market recovers. Mr. Donovan even opened the door to another housing tax credit like the one that expired last spring, which paid first-time buyers as much as $8,000 and buyers who were moving up $6,500. The cost to taxpayers was in the neighborhood of $30 billion, much of which went to people who would have bought anyway. Administration press officers quickly backpedaled from Mr. Donovans comment, saying a revived credit was either highly unlikely or flat-out impossible. Mr. Donovan declined to be interviewed for this article. In a statement, a White House spokeswoman responded to questions about possible new stimulus measures by pointing to those already in the works. In the weeks ahead, we will focus on successfully getting off the ground programs we have recently announced,the spokeswoman, Amy Brundage, said. Among those initiatives are $3 billion to keep the unemployed from losing their homes and a refinancing program that will try to cut the mortgage balances of owners who owe more than their property is worth. A previous program with similar goals had limited success. If last years tax credit was supposed to be a bridge over a rough patch, it ended with a glimpse of the abyss. The average home now takes more than a year to sell. Add in the homes that are foreclosed but not yet for sale and the total is greater still. Builders are in even worse shape. Sales of new homes are lower than in the depths of the recession <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/r/recession_an d_depression/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier> of the early 1980s, when mortgage rates were double what they are now, unemployment was pervasive and the gloom was at least as thick. The deteriorating circumstances have given a new voice to the do nothingchorus, whose members think the era of trying to buy stability while hoping the market will catch fire called extend and pretendor delay and prayhas run its course. We have had enough artificial support and need to let the free market do its thing,said the housing analyst Ivy Zelman. Michael L. Moskowitz, president of Equity Now, a direct mortgage lender that operates in New York and seven other states, also advocates letting the market fall. Prices are still artificially high,he said. The government is discriminating against the renters who are able to buy at $200,000 but cant at $250,000. A small decline in home prices might not make too much of a difference to a slack economy. But an unchecked drop of 10 percent or more might prove entirely discouraging to the millions of owners just hanging on, especially those who bought in the last few years under the impression that a turnaround had already begun. The government is on the hook for many of these mortgages, another reason policy makers have been aggressively seeking stability. What helped support the market last year could now cause it to crumble. Since 2006, the Federal <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/f/federal _housing_administration/index.html?inline=nyt-org> Housing Administration has insured millions of low down payment loans. During the first two years, officials concede, the credit quality of the borrowers was too low. With little at stake and a queasy economy, buyers bailed: nearly 12 percent were delinquent after a year. Last fall, F.H.A. cash reserves fell below the Congressionally mandated minimum, and the agency had to shore up its finances. Government-backed loans in 2009 went to buyers with higher credit <http://www.nytimes.com/info/credit-score/?inline=nyt-classifier> scores. Yet the percentage of first-year defaults was still 5 percent, according to data from the research firm CoreLogic. These are at-risk buyers,said Sam Khater, a CoreLogic economist. They have very little equity, and thats the largest predictor of default. This is the risk policy makers face. If home prices begin to fall again with any serious velocity, borrowers may stay away in such numbers that the market never recovers,said Mr. Glaser, a consultant whose clients include the National <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/nationa l_association_of_realtors/index.html?inline=nyt-org> Association of Realtors. Those sorts of worries have a few people from the world of finance suggesting that the administration should do much more, not less. William <http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/william_h_gros s/index.html?inline=nyt-per> H. Gross, managing director at Pimco, a giant manager of bond funds, has proposed the government refinance at lower rates millions of mortgages it owns or insures. Such a bold action, Mr. Gross said in a recent speech, would provide a crucial stimulus of $50 to $60 billion in consumption,as well as increase housing prices. The idea has gained little traction. Instead, there is a sense that, even with much more modest notions, government intervention is not the answer. The National Association of Realtors, the driving force behind the credit last year, is not calling for a new round of stimulus. Some members of the National Association of Home Builders say a new credit of $25,000 would raise demand but their chances of getting this through Congress are nonexistent. Our members are saying that if we cant get a very large tax credit one that really brings people off the bench why use our political capital at all?said David Crowe, the chief economist for the home builders. That might give the Obama administration permission to take the risk of doing nothing. Keith Hudson, Saltford, England Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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