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The winning entry comes from Jacob Frenkel, top economist for money pit insurer AIG. Speaking at Davos earlier this year about the economy, he proclaimed economic prospects for the second half of 2008 quite good, adding: “When you’re in a stormy sea, the critical question is to ask how strong is my vessel .”
Pity Frenkel didn’t think to run that same analysis on AIG.
There are many things I can add to my never-ending “Are We in a Recession” tally. There’s the sudden cornucopia of free samples at the Grand Central Market, the five empty taxis that whizzed by me as I waited for the light to change at the intersection of Broadway/Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street at 6:15 this past Tuesday evening and the recent five day weekend where none of the frequent vacationers on my block felt impelled to leave town, but perhaps nothing beats the trouble ahead sign I experienced last week.
I was on a standing-room-only Lexington Avenue express train when, suddenly, I felt a touch on my right shoulder. That, needless to say, is the shoulder I swing my handbag over. I was absolutely stunned. Crime? In the subways? In 2008? The trade-off for New York City’s absurd unaffordability is that at least we the citizens are supposed to feel safe. Subway crime is so 1988.
I’m happy to report that my shock did not, however, override the instincts and startle reflex I developed growing up in the New York City of the dark and dirty 1970s and 1980s. I jumped even as I pulled my handbag even further forward onto my chest. I then looked up to see a 20something man walking as quickly as he possibly could through the train and away from me. As my mouth opened — to do or say what I don’t know since I was stunned by my sudden and unwanted journey back in time– he yelled across the car, “Lady, I’m not stealing your bag. I was just trying to get though the train.”
Of course he was trying to steal my carry-all. If he wasn’t, he never would have looked back and most certainly wouldn’t have drawn attention to himself by saying anything. I’m guessing he was testing to see how touch sensitive I was, and was then going to do the old slice-the-strap-with-a-razor trick.
So, if I have to live like it’s 1988 again, can I have my city back? Please ….
I suppose only a parent of two boys would laugh when she read that the first two children abandoned at Nebraska hospitals after the enactment of a law aimed at protecting infants of overwhelmed moms were not babies but instead two boys ages 11 and 15.
I must confess I tossed aside the galley of Mothers on the Fast Track by Mary Ann Mason and her daughter Eve Mason Ekman a year ago, barely bothering to read more than the ill chosen title. I was absolutely sure it was yet another book about how those darn moms didn’t know how to negotiate with their employers and if they just presented their case in a recommended way for telecommuting, flextime and whatever else they needed, those corporations would see the light.
Well, my bad.
The terrific book is all about how professional women find themselves, often through no fault of their own, falling off the fast track at work after becoming parents. For this reader, the chapter that most resonated was “The Second Tier” about how organizations ranging from HMO’s to academic powerhouses have taken advantage of the fact that many of these women are so desperate to keep some link to the work world that they will work for pennies on the dollar.
Thank you, thank you, Mary Ann Mason for validating me. As my friends know, I’ve been ranting for years about how the ever growing number of absolutely first rate semi-employed female reporters and writers has become entwined into the economic structure of journalism itself.
I’m not one to underestimate all the things that have changed in our society since I was a child due to the influx of mothers into the paid workforce, but I can’t quite bring myself to blame them for the demise of local pool clubs, a la The Washington Post, especially when it seems the culprit really lies elsewhere:
At pools built 40, 50 or 60 years ago, bath houses are moldering. Pumps do not work. A sinkhole threatens the entire parking lot of one club in Fairfax County. And at the same time that many of these clubs need new people and their money, pool memberships are plummeting.
In many neighborhoods, older families no longer have young children. Two-career families have no time. And some immigrant families are less inclined to join because they are new to the area or because the pool does not hold the same cultural value for them as it does for generations of suburban Americans.
However a few paragraphs down the reporter points out that pool clubs in the more affluent towns surrounding Washington D.C. are somehow not facing this problem:
Many pools continue to thrive in such affluent inner enclaves as North Arlington, McLean and Bethesda, where initiation fees exceed $1,000 and waiting lists stretch four years or more.
Let’s get real here. Are there really that many more stay-at-home moms in Bethesda than Rockville? Do immigrant children really not enjoy swimming on a hot summer day? Why, whenever this intrepid blogger shows up at a pool club, does she see numerous elderly folks playing tennis, golf, and otherwise enjoying life?
Missing in this feature is a town-to-town income comparison that would, no doubt, explain the reasons for Washington D.C.’s dying pool clubs much more accurately and honestly than an article pointing the finger at working moms and immigrants. The lack of honesty in our national discourse when it comes to the politics of rich and poor should never be underestimated.
Hot off the presses from Publishers Lunch:
UCLA Medical Center OB/GYN Dr. Michael Lu’s HOW TO MAKE A SMART AND HEALTHY BABY: What You Need to Know Before You Get Pregnant, revealing the latest science on how preconception is a critical period for a child’s lifelong health and development while offering easy-to-follow advice including how to eat the right foods, undergo an immune tune-up and detoxify one’s environment, to Caroline Sutton at Collins, in a pre-empt, by Dan Ambrosio at Vigliano Associates (World).
Here’s the real evidence the economy is in the crapper, courtesy of Craig’s List:
HUGE sale -rain or shine Tent if it rains - 1000’s of things from several families - kid’s stuff, electronics, clothing, art work, household items, electronics, TOOLS, Bikes, toys, sculpture, games, designer linens, furniture - Brand new Executive Gifts, never opened - Way too many different objects to name - all at bargain bargain prices. We have to clear out our stuff ! THIS SATURDAY and SUNDAY, June 28 and June 29 , 9AM - 5 PM. 26 Hilltop Road off 121 North, WACCABUC.
Waccabuc? This is a town so exclusive, no one has ever heard of it.
This intrepid reporter promises to get on the case promptly and report back.
The news that shouldn’t be news study of the week comes courtesy of Rutgers University and the journal Politics and Policy. Researchers took a look at the academics offered spots on a number of op-ed pages including the The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. The results: men wrote more than 80% of the academic op-eds at The New York Times and — drum roll, please — 97% of such op-eds at The Wall Street Journal. In a demonstration of grace, noblesse oblige and chivalry, editors at the Times and Journal would not comment on the findings.
Like all bibliophiles, I find there are too many books to read and not enough time to get to even one percent of them. As a result, every so often I will try to catch up with books I always meant to read but somehow never did. This month has been a particularly productive. First, I finally acted on the advice of hundreds of folks over the years, and picked up a copy of Eric Ambler’s classic A Coffin for Dimitrios, which was indeed as good as promised. But instead of sticking with Ambler, I got intrigued by the 1970s.
Let me backtrack. Last month I read the compelling revisionist history The Sixties Unplugged, by Gerard DeGroot. DeGroot takes on the decade from a left-wing perspective, arguing that aside from a few genuine moments of revolutionary change such as the Stonewall riots and the resultant cry for equal rights for homosexuals, most 60s movements - including the anti-war movement — were narcissistic in origin and quickly subsumed by capitalist interests. It’s an incredible work of history, one that challenges just about every belief you have about what you think you know, and leaves you desperate for more information at the same time. So I moved on to the 1970s. And because I wanted to see the decade from the completely opposite political perspective, I checked Neo-Con David Frum’s How We Got Here out of my local library.
All I can say is that it is a tribute to the uniquely fascinating properties of the 1970s, which is indeed a truly under-appreciated decade in our nation’s history, that I was able to read as much of this book as I did. I won’t waste anyone’s time ripping apart a book that is almost a decade old, but I will take moment to note it did provide a few moments of unintentional insight, particularly into the hypocrisy of the neo-cons. One in particular stands out: Frum’s look at the inflation of the 1970s.
Low interest rates are very pleasant, but they can also stimulate inflation. Ideally, the Federal Reserve acts as a thermostat. It lowers interest rates and injects cash into the economy during recessions, and it raises interest rates and removes cash during booms, thus preserving a stable, stead price level. But if the Federal Reserve were to continue lowering interest rates during a boom, cash would soon become ridiculously over-plentiful and its value would begin to tumble.
So where was Mr. Frum during the Greenspan era? Oh, right. He was busy adding such lovely phrases as “axis of evil” to President George W. Bush’s lexicon and clearly too busy to take on the disastrous economic policies of the Fed.
As for me, I just put the well-regarded Something Happened: A Political and Cultural Overview of the Seventies on reserve at the library.
My out-to-lunch parenting skills finally explained, courtesy of Dutch researchers. Their study also explains, no doubt, why I found this article from The Weekly Standard so compelling. The title says it all. It’s called, “The Kindergarchy: Every Child a Dauphin.” Go read it. The author posits that there is something very, very wrong with how we raise our children today. The money quote:
My mother never read to me, and my father took me to no ballgames, though we did go to Golden Gloves fights a few times. When I began my modest athletic career, my parents never came to any of my games, and I should have been embarrassed had they done so. My parents never met any of my girlfriends in high school. No photographic or video record exists of my uneven progress through early life.
As someone who spent $700 last year at a school auction last year to have a teacher take pictures of my younger son over the course of the school year, I think the author’s parents were on to something.
