Guest Editorial: George Kalogridis
Following is a guest editorial from Ojai resident George Kalogridis, founder of George's Organics International.
Peak to Trough: Why Ojai Leaders Still Don’t Get It
Economists have their own jargon, which includes a unique interpretation of the terms peak (the top of a trend) and trough (when the trend starts to reverse course). The beginning of a recession is known as a peak. The current recession is at its peak right now, but we are starting this recession at or below the previous Trough levels of earlier recessions. The economy is so bad that we are starting this economic downturn where many previous recessions stopped.
Retail sales for October were down 2.8%, the largest drop on record and the fourth straight monthly decline. Shoppers around the country say they are planning to spend an average of $431 for gifts this holiday season, down from $859 last year according to the twenty-third annual survey on holiday spending from the American Research Group, Inc. The overall average planned spending is down almost 50% from 2007 and it is the lowest level of planned spending recorded by the American Research Group since 1991.
- Initial unemployment claims of 516,000 were the highest since Sept 2001; just after the attacks of 911. Continued unemployment claims are the highest level since 1983. (Bloomberg News)
From MarketWatch: Citi says it plans about 50,000 job cuts in the "near-term" Citigroup said at the end of the September it employed 352,000 people, and that its near-term headcount target is about 300,000.
From Bloomberg: In a research note released this morning, Goldman Sachs slashed their Q4 GDP forecast from a decline of 3.5%, to a decline of 5% in Q4 (at an annual rate). They are now forecasting unemployment will reach 9% by Q4 2009. They are also forecasting (not in Bloomberg article) that unemployment will rise to 6.8% in November with 350,000 in reported job losses.
It should be noted that historically most layoffs occur in December so unemployment will accelerate and will focus on white collar middle management jobs.
- The world recession has already started.
TOKYO (AP)-- Recession is back in Japan after a seven-year hiatus, and fingers this time are pointing outside the country as the latest global boom quickly deteriorates into bust.
The British economy faces its toughest year in almost three decades, the Governor of the Bank of England said yesterday. Mervyn King gave warning of “very difficult times” ahead and an even sharper recession than that of the early Nineties.
- Consumers are already hurting badly
“Earlier downturns followed strong booms, so families went into recessions with higher incomes and lower debt loads,” said Elizabeth Warren, a professor at Harvard Law School ... “But the fundamentals are off for families even before we hit the recession this time, so bankruptcy filings are likely to rise faster.” NY Times.
- The tourist and travel industry is also projecting tough times.
In its 2009 forecast — completed in September, but revised after the stock market collapsed in October — PKF Consulting of Atlanta expects hotels to fill an average of just 58.3% of rooms, or a 4.4% drop in the occupancy expected this year. If true, that would be the worst occupancy rate at U.S. hotels since 1988, when Smith Travel Research started tracking the data.
- Home sales will continue their declines. The Sub-prime and Alt-A mortgages are behind us but housing is just starting to enter the Adjustable rate mortgage adjustment period that will peak in 2009. Most are tied to LIBOR which is at historic highs, which is why mortgage rates have not come down.
The crisis contributed to pushing up cancellations and drove homebuyer confidence and the company's traffic and demand to record lows, ( Toll Brothers) CEO said, pointing to "accelerating fears of job losses, a large decline in consumer spending, a significant capital crunch, increased credit market disruption, and plummeting stock market values." AP
There are more examples showing the severity of this recession but now we need to look at the “solutions” put forth by the Ojai city leaders at the latest “marketing Ojai meeting”. Spend money on a consultant to develop revitalization plan for downtown Ojai. I have asked the city of Ojai how much they spent on outside consultants, over the past several years, and the city does not know the answer. Consultant spending is in the budget under several different headings but it is not broken out easily see who has received the funding and what the results of that spending have accomplished for the city of Ojai. In plain language the Ojai city budget is rather opaque, the financial figures are there but easy access to whom and where the dollars have gone is not. Before Ojai spends one more dime on a consultant the city should issue a report on past consulting spending so everyone can ascertain if the money has been well spent in the past.
However, let’s talk about a “revitalization” plan. Would it rebuild the downtown Arcade? Or would the plan allow developers the opportunity to rebuild the areas around the Arcade? In her book “The Shock Doctrine” Naomi Klein details how people use catastrophes, natural or manmade, to push though policy decisions that would otherwise not be acceptable to the populace in normal times. If this revitalization consultant is funded, then those supporting development will push the results of the report as the only way out of the current financial mess. The narrative will follow this logical path; we only have one option on the table and the consultant has a good track record with redevelopment and we need to act quickly to reverse the downward trend in tourism. It will, I fear, will happen as Ojai retailers look for any lifeline in hard times. But the revitalization will not help retailers next year or the year after. Once the upscale development is done, Ojai will be for ever and irrevocably changed.
At the last city council meeting the city leaders demonstrated they were still in denial over the magnitude of the downturn in the economy. In light of the “Great Recession” that is upon us, revenue projections need to be cut by 50% ASAP to make the 2009-10 budget viable. Marketing programs should focus both on a short term immediate programs that will offer lower cost alternatives to bring in tourist, such as developing day trip bus tours from the surrounding Southern California area and long term strategic planning on focusing the messages about the appeal of Ojai to tourist.
What we do know is that there will be a lot of Federal money available to cities and small towns as part of the new administrations New, New Deal. What Ojai should be focused on is gathering a team of Grant writers to be ready for the federal dollars appropriated in first quarter of 2009. I’m sure there are talented grant writers here in Ojai. The city should be focused on identifying the grant writers and developing a plan to qualify for the federal dollars. Tourism can be one of the areas Ojai looks to improve, however Ojai needs to diversify its tax base to attract new sustainable energy businesses, such as consultants and management companies, who could move to Ojai and shore up our local economy. That would be real economic development, not rewarding developers who seek to change the village atmosphere of Ojai.
George Kalogridis
Ojai
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Comments (17)
kia ora, George,
for the salient, real, honest, economic update.
I note that you lost track near the end of the article, in your focus on the CITY of Ojai, rather than the Ojai Valley, and your mind returning to the old-concept (gone) of economics as bankster 'money' and dependency on the Federal government.
given the magnitude of the economic and political change we are going through now, there is no reason to expect that an 'administration' in Washington DC will have any relevance to a community on the West Coast, in this coming Year 2009.
grants-writing, even in the best of 'monetary' economies and insider connections, only results in cash rewards. in this new world, sans cash, no one amongst the level-headed, those who honor family, and our living valley of chaparral-forest and water and creatures, would waste a minute of their priceless sacred resource of stewardship ... not waste it on paperwork for Washington ... but would rather invest all of their love in local permaculture, local barter associations, local education and community associations ... bicycle networks ... food-banks, seed-banks, tree-banks ... alternative-health libraries and networks ... multicultural wisdom associations ... networks with the native and aboriginal peoples ... etc. etc.
building community that will 'provide' for hundreds and thousands of years ... provide the nurturing peace of integrity of spirit.
arohanui, enfolding love,
Millennium Twain
Comment #1 Posted by: Millennium Twain | November 30, 2008 10:11 AM
Kudos to George Kalogridis for a solidly researched and cogent piece of writing.
Re: "a revitalization plan" for Ojai
In our awakened, post-Federal Reserve fraud, post-Wall Street world, it is no longer possible to view what is vital as having anything to do with money, "revenue projections," "viable budgets," tourism appeal, tourism dollars, grant writing, grant reception, "lower cost alternatives," "qualifying for federal dollars," etc.
Money is that which gets between vital relationships; it is that which sucks vitality and trust and beauty out of communities; it is a means of control and can never be a component of vitality.
Ojai will stand or fall on its humility before nature, its front-yard and back-yard gardens, its relationship to trees, to plants, to the seasons, its human and other-animal relationships.
Millennium speaks poetically but truly in his comment above. Our "sacred stewardship" is our calling. The bribe of money that Western culture offers us to be other than we are, derailing us again and again from our heartfelt missions, must be refused, again and again, until what is left is the truth -- spontaneous creation: a plant growing from a seed, a baby growing in a womb, the cycles of nature . . . the perfection of our world before "economics" made its black-hat entry.
We are given this gift of understanding by the great greed of our time -- a greed that has reduced the economic world to shambles, like a stage collapsing on closing night, allowing the audience to remember that it was all just a play.
Sincerely,
Jock Doubleday
Director
Natural Woman, Natural Man, Inc.
A California 501(c)3 Public Benefit Nonprofit Corporation
spontaneouscreation dot org
Comment #2 Posted by: Jock Doubleday | November 30, 2008 12:02 PM
Good article George. Nice to see you here on the post. I appreciate that you were trying to bring the national economic collapse down to the local level, and perhaps I'll comment on the local portion in another comment later. Instead, want to talk about the macro economic cause of this collapse.
If anything, you've understated the magnitude of the economic collapse that's going on. These bailouts to the big banks and Wall St. are totally inadequate. So far, Obama has picked exactly the wrong people to be in charge of the nation's economy. It is still possible that he will take office and move left and bring all the Citi/Goldman-Sachs acolytes with whom he's packed his cabinet along for the ride, but that is not a good bet.
What is happening to this economy is a macro economic collapse. We've hit the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush debt wall. Sadly, during the election Obama and the Democrats were being intellectually dishonest when they pretended that it was only the last 8 years that had precipitated this collapse. They were trying to pretend that the Clinton years were all sweetness and light with regard to the economy. The great myth of the "GO-GO 90's". Nothing could be further from the truth. The collapse we are witnessing took 28 years to induce.
The primary culprit is the wage gap, the gap between rising productivity and falling wages. This gap has been widening since 1973. From a purely macro economic perspective, if wages do not match productivity, the only way to balance the economy or to keep the economy going is to increase debt across the board so that workers can purchase the goods and services being created with the ever increasing productivity. If the wage gap were mirroring productivity, as it would in a healthy economy, the workers would have enough money to purchase the goods with their earnings. But when there is a large and increasing gap, the only way to balance the equation is to go into debt. The workers have to buy everything on credit.
I will now use one of my most hated terms--consumer. The term consumer is really rather perfect. It perfectly exposes the contempt that business has for workers(people). People are not workers or labor to business, they are merely consumers. This usage totally exposes the schizophrenia of business in this country. They seem incapable of seeing the macro economic forest for the profits(trees). To them, workers are only units that buy, by whatever means they can including unsustainable debt. They basically see us all as marks. Now, when I refer to business, I do not mean the small businesses that make up so much of the real economy. When I say business I am referring to the wizards who run the economic policy of this country. The Robert Rubins, the Alan Greenspans--you know, the ones who just gave themselves 5 trillion dollars and counting because their bubble economy has expired. When debt is used to balance the macro-economic equation, two things happen. The first will explain why these wizards have set us, once again, on this disastrous course and the second will explain what is happening now. First, when debt is used to plug the wage gap, profits quadruple for corporations. Second, the growing debt immediately starts a bubble economy. If the economy is mistreated in this way for any length of time, a string of bubbles will develop that could even lead to a mania. This is exactly what has occurred. While the bubble(s) is/are in place, the economy appears to be healthy and humming. Wealth is created and profits are artificially high. But when the bubble bursts, often as much as four times the wealth created during the bubble period is blown away instantly. This is what we are seeing now. This is the forth time in our history that business has done this to our economy.. They don't really seem capable of learning.
The only good way to ameliorate a decomposing bubble economy is to immediately lower the value of the over valued items, write down all of the bad debt(debt forgiveness) and correct the wage gap. Until this is done, the economy cannot get any better. We've certainly spent/given away more than enough money to have done this. We could have gone out into the country and re-valued all of the real estate downward. A small house here in Ojai that sold for $700K two years ago at the height of the mania could be re-valued at it's true value of between $200-350K. The debt the buyer incurred could be forgiven and a new mortgage for the true value of the house could have been written. This would have significantly lowered the costs to the consumer and would have slightly tightened the wage gap by default. If this were coupled with serious corporate reform and wage increases, even if they have to be subsidized by the state, the economy would quickly recover. Remember this: Consumers(READ: workers) are over 70% of GDP! You cannot bleed workers for nearly thirty years, saddle them with unimaginable, unsustainable debt and expect the economy to "grow".
Now, if you'll notice, if you're even still reading, I started the last paragraph outlining the only good way to deal with this macro-economic meltdown. I also stated that this imbalance and subsequent collapse is the fourth in our history as a nation. FDR's New Deal was the only time anyone ever tried anything like what I've written above. Of course, it was too little too late and while it had some positive effects on the situation, the Great Depression, it took the usual solution to really solve the problem. The usual solution is a massive war.
All of the efforts taken to date on this collapse exactly mirror Hoover's and Roosevelt's early efforts to "fix" the Great Depression, even right down to the massive "bailouts" to the bankers. None of it helped. So far we've printed money to the tune of 5 trillion dollars and given it to the bankers on the top of this pyramid scheme. They've busily built elaborate scaffoldings and buttresses for the very top of the pyramid. The Goldman-Sachs block, the Citi block, etc. But all the while the base of the pyramid is turning to jello. This incredible printing of money is not even close to sustainable. It's not possible. The next thing that will happen is that the US currency will be devalued. I would not be surprised to see the dollar go away all together.
This will sound strange to some of you, but I agree with MT to an extent. I believe that human beings are not really evolving physically anymore. There aren't really major mutations that then breed true throughout the whole species over time. In fact, we are vary similar if not identical to our ancestors fifty, even one-hundred thousand years ago. All the same hardware. Sure we've has some software upgrades and our technology has grown significantly in the last maybe 2,000 years, but we are largely the same animals that followed herds out of Africa. The human species evolves as a society. And like any animal that has ever evolved on Earth, if we do not continue to evolve we go extinct. I believe our economy, our whole construct of capitalism in this form is an evolutionary plateau. We must evolve beyond this static plateau. We need to transcend our economy and move up the ladder. The current state of our economy can be the beginnings of a new evolutionary step. I have no idea what that new transcendent economy looks like. But I know our current construct is killing us--all of us. Climate change, the death of the oceans, dwindling species diversity, rampant resource depletion and misuse(Cadillac Escalades for fuck sake!), war, strife, poverty and even dogs and cats living together. Maybe MT is speaking about this next step in our evolution, who knows. But one thing I know for sure. If we do not evolve beyond this evolutionary plateau we will go extinct, like any other animal in the 4 billion year life of this planet. Fixing our economy in the traditional way is not a good option. A massive war might fix the economy or it might kill us all.
Comment #3 Posted by: SPK | November 30, 2008 12:46 PM
"There is a Fish in the Courthouse" is more than just a famous book of Ventura County corruption long known, it is a way of life for uncounted numbers working and self-serving within this judicial branch of the state. Attorneys,judges, special interests,politicians,industry sweethearts,banking board members,high-end contractors and developers, all line up at the trough to wallow and feast in public generated revenue swill. Does this seem like
dramatics? Collusion,corruption, massive public debt,squandering public resources and trust, this is the legacy the Bushy Republicans have left and that poor management and decisions from Ojai council is systemic from. This "dramatic" stage show will see the curtains close for good, I hope!
Comment #4 Posted by: anonymous | November 30, 2008 12:55 PM
SPK,
I have to disagree with some of your basic tenets on the use of stimulus to pull the economy out of the depression.
First the New Deal did cause a rebound in the economy. However two years later the Republicans fearing deficits cut back on spending for the New Deal and that led to the lack of capital that pushed the economy lower. Also Keynesian economics had not yet been developed, the "General Theory" was not published until 1936. The fact that the General Theory was written as a solution to the Great Depression; this gives our county some hope that a Keynesian response will have the desired effect to pull the US and world economy out of this Great Recession.
We are helped at this time by many of the New Deal policies. FDIC insurance, unemployment benefits, etc. so the pain is not as extreme as the depression. Economist expect unemployment to reach 8% next year. At the height of the Great Depression it was 20+%.
As for the retreads from the Clinton and Bush administrations I have to agree with Obama that now is not the time for "on the job training". He stated, in response to that very question that him team members will carry out his vision. We know that his vision starts with the disadvantaged so think of ways the government will want to spend the first Trillion dollars that Obama will get from Congress in January. How about hiring building contractors to develop new middle class housing in the inner cities, small towns and villages like ours. These same people can create a planned community at our military bases so that soldiers families do not live in substandard housing, some dating back to WWII. Why should, the least fortunate of us, not have good, safe, & pleasant housing?
Of course all this construction will have to be green from solar panels to the building materials themselves. Workers will be paid based on Union scale, per the Davis Bacon Act, so wages will improve and workers will have more money to spend, When these developments end; there will be a significant change in the quality of life for the disadvantaged and those who sever our country.
War may have pulled the US out of the Great Depression but investment in people and green technology will lead the way out of this economic calamity.
So I agree with you that there will be a new step on the evolutionary economic ladder, but I think Obama already sees it clearly.
However, regardless of the stimulus packed enacted next year; 2009 will be the worst economic performance you and I have ever lived through. It already baked into the economy.
Comment #5 Posted by: George Kalogridis | November 30, 2008 03:33 PM
blessings SPK! Anon, Jock!
I guess George, who sometimes sounds sane, is playing devil's advocate here -- saying that since the Rockefeller/Cheney / Bush/Paulson gangsters have looted $8 Trillion from the US Treasury in the last three months -- with the endorsement of the 'new' Obama Administration -- that we should stay the course of infinite domestic corruption and world-rape, and loot trillions more in alleged Jobs programs which will sustain a modest middle (mindless consumer) class, and add millions more to the impoversished class.
what fakir George K. doesn't tell us, is that the only reason the gangster US got away with pillaging the world through our indebtedeness for the last century at gunpoint ... is that we looted the world with our war machine and our nuclear- aerospace- threat ... on behalf of our string-pullers in London, Paris, Geneva, etc.
that past is no longer retraceable, as an honest George K. would tell if there was one. we no longer hold the nuclear threat, we are no longer the biggest bully on the block, and Asia and Latin America and Africa and the Middle East will no longer allow themselves to be raped, or our 95-percent extinct Gaia to be decimated any longer.
and, wonder of wonders, we HAVE evolved!
'American's now have a measure of self-respect, enlightenment, and love for their fellow human beings, and Mother nature! [for the first time in the fifty-three years I have been here to witness it.]
it is no longer spiritually, psychologically, or in any manner possible for us to anniilate all of creation to satisfy our television- and- fastfood- driven former adolescent madness.
thanks to the love of Goddess Moon, this nurturing living valley of spirit, we HERE in this Valley can understand clearly what perhaps our continent-spanning 'federal-dependency-drug-addict' culture is seeing in spurts and starts.
the greenback stops here!
in fact, it is extinct ...
with and for all our sacred relations,
Millennium Twain
Comment #6 Posted by: MT | November 30, 2008 04:29 PM
Millennium,
I don't dispute one word you say, however I do not see the end of modern civilizaion, nor do I see a return to what has been normal for the past 20 years.
But to take your point on nature, I have been calling this past 20 years the Smokey the Bear Market. Like the forest service in the 50's, when any fire was a bad fire, the Federal Reserve would not allow the US econmy to enter into a sustained recession. So just like the fuel that build up on the forest floor, the banking and brokerage system continuted to accumulate a lot of bad practices that eventually blew up in a raging fire of human greed.
I do believe in the redemptive power of the human race. It will not happen over night but the forces of greed will eventually subside and something close to a rational mind will be allowed to sprout. It's up to the people to nurish it, to make it grow and florish.
If I belived that there was no chance for redemption then, I would not bother to bring this issue to the public mind.
Comment #7 Posted by: George Kalogridis | November 30, 2008 05:39 PM
look what they've done..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgiwXj2GMGg
Comment #8 Posted by: auf wiedersehen | November 30, 2008 05:44 PM
"we are vary similar if not identical to our ancestors"
It's spelled "very", your doom and gloom is about as accurate as your spelling ! If Obama would just call for the massive overhaul of our power grid infrastructure, ie, massive build out of a 100 new nuclear power plants, we could get a leg up on all of this mounting debt. We need to have something of value for our money, something to show for our investment. By acting now while oil has dropped in price, along with other commodities we could begin to turn the tide.
Comment #9 Posted by: BC | November 30, 2008 05:53 PM
BC, you've got an errant article floating around: "a 100."
Comment #10 Posted by: Pot Meet Kettle | November 30, 2008 06:07 PM
agreed, George,
redemption is what we are looking at.
yet you have totally missed the boat, if you think that the collapsing of fascist civilization is a negative. the end of the gangster-state will allow a ten-times GREATER economy to flourish ... and permaculture to be manifested worldwide ... and the forests and rainforests, and living oceans and atmosphere returned.
i.e., ten times more sacred world culture, TRUE civilization, and a return of divine nature tenfold.
an economy focused on human respect, rather than gangland subjugation.
here, apparently on that same subject -- as all discussions in the world today are -- is Robert Brezsny this week, writing his astrological forecast for Cancerians:
"Two of the best money-saving steps you can take, says TV's mock pundit Stephen Colbert, are to stop filling your hot tub with champagne and stop lining your gerbil's cage with hundred-dollar bills.
"I highly recommend that you brainstorm about initiating similar conservative and preservative actions, Cancerian.
"It's time for you to get really serious about shedding wasteful habits, cutting out needless excesses, and culling trivial activities that impinge on the time and energy you have available for the really important things.
"This shouldn't be a cause for demoralization, by the way. On the contrary, the more creative you are about setting limits, the more long-term blessings you'll set in motion."
i.e., again -- not a reason to sing the blues ...
rather a reason to celebrate!
to celebrate 'reason' ...
Comment #11 Posted by: MT | November 30, 2008 06:16 PM
Really Brian,
You think I don't know how to spell very? That's the sum total of your inane input?
Comment #12 Posted by: spk | November 30, 2008 11:48 PM
MT,
Again I don't disagree with you, but have you ever been in a place where there was anarchy? Where the rule of law has crumbled and basic social services had ceased to exist.
I have been escorted by armed gunmen is such places, when all I was trying to do was set up organic farmers in impoverished countries.
I do not want the social fabric to rip. I do want, and believe, that the CEO worship of the past two decades will end and good works by good people will be extolled as our role models.
Tearing down is easy, building on rubble is hard. I would rather remove the bad leaders in Ojai, than watch the city collapse into bankruptcy.
Comment #13 Posted by: George Kalogridis | December 1, 2008 07:34 AM
I'm reading the editorial and all the comments with great interest!
Good to see George Kalogridis on the Ojai Post.
Comment #14 Posted by: Suza | December 1, 2008 08:27 AM
George, I DO disagree with you ... WHOLLY ... with your thoughtless portrait of the murderous corporate state as 'civilization', viz the covert rule of Security State 'law'.
you don't know what the word anarchy means ... consult your dictionary.
it means without violence -- without the predatory patriarchy of your adolescent gunmen, armed by the lawyers, which disallow society, social services, to exist on this continent of North America ...
there never has been a social fabric in the United States -- at least not in my lifetime. there has only been a police state, of enforced servitude and ignorance and sickness.
you are the one advocating the continuation of "the tearing down", the big brother-hood (literally) whose only purpose is to create permanent separation, to sow dissension and falsehoods, to further their rule by 9/11s, 10/10s, endless war against Latin America, Africa, Asia, Arabia, Polynesia, and our Mother Earth.
as to Ojai CITY ... there are no Ojai CITY Leaders. if they were leaders they would be focused on the Ojai VALLEY, and the community, and our sacred web of living nature here. you wouldn't be advocating grants-writing, and a focus on the CITY which falsely calls itself Ojai.
you would be immersed in the subject of our current companion thread:
http://www.ojaipost.com/2008/11/heart_of_the_goddess_moon.shtml
of what community and economy is ... rather than what the perverse business community wants it to be, and ENFORCES it to be ....
Comment #15 Posted by: Millennium | December 1, 2008 09:45 AM
Not really sure that thread you posted MT is a "companion" to this one about the economy. That thread is largely incomprehensible.
Comment #16 Posted by: spk | December 1, 2008 05:05 PM
Matilija Dam Ecosystem Restoration Project
Design Oversight Group
Coordination Meeting
December 4, 2008
9:00 AM – 12:00
Ventura County Watershed Protection District, Saticoy Operations Yard
AGENDA
The primary focus for this meeting will be on Levee review and on the Potential Slurry Disposal Areas (MODA/BRDA). Other features may be discussed or tabled until future DOG meetings.
• Introductions
• Schedule/Status
• Slurry Disposal (MODA/BRDA) – Criteria development/review
• Levee Review -
• Other Items (discussed as time allows)
o Slurry Alignment and Recreation Trail
o Giant Reed Removal
o High Flow Bypass
o Foster Park Wells
o Real Estate Acquisition
o Bridges
Comment #17 Posted by: abigail | December 2, 2008 08:23 PM