Queercents

I bought gas this evening–a pretty rare event for me. I rely heavily on public transportation, so I only need to fill up my car every five or six weeks. The Sunoco station has little TVs playing the news above each pump, presumably to distract you from the astronomical amount of money you’re dropping on that gas, and I noticed an economic pundit say something about, “including the possibility of the r-word.”

Not, “including the possibility of the r-word, recession.” She didn’t need to explain it: everyone knows what the r-word is. What’s that joke–the media has correctly predicted two out of the last 97 recessions? Obviously, they’re talking about it enough.

On the one hand, I find the truly apocalyptic economic forecasting pretty convincing: fuel and food prices affect more people more deeply than most other economic markers, and they’re getting out of control. I believe that the people directly affected by the subprime meltdown are in real trouble, and that letting the market correct itself around them is socially unconscionable. Read the rest of this entry »

After college graduation, I gave myself a break from intense reading–for a couple of months, I read nothing but light novels and graphic fiction. I love fiction and comics all the time, and don’t always see them as fluffy–but after writing my thesis and loading up on literary theory and cultural studies courses at the end, I consciously gave myself a break.

The first genuinely challenging thing I read that summer was How To Be Alone, a book of essays by Jonathan Franzen. It was the perfect thing to start understanding all that literary theory and cultural studies in the context of a 9-to-5 and life outside academia.

How To Be Alone is about the problem of individuality–all the arguments, from the perspectives of brain function and social construction, that what we think of as our personalities are less under our control than we hope–and then his struggles towards individuality anyway. (If you can imagine, for Jonathan Franzen, being an individual has a lot to do with reading literary fiction.) Read the rest of this entry »

Rhea Becker is a Boston-based journalist and blogs at The Boomer Chronicles, a fantastic site for baby boomers. She employs humor (e.g. “Does this blog make me look fat?”) and other commentary about life on the verge of fifty (check out her five-part series on Aging and Our Senses). She’s written a guest post for Queercents about the demise of the mom and pop shop in America and why we should support local businesses. These are her words…

I’m lucky. Independent businesses are plentiful in my neighborhood of Boston (Jamaica Plain). This enables me to spend my money at a shop owned by an individual rather than continue to stuff the belly of the corporate beast. So instead of shopping at Home Depot or Lowe’s, I shop at the locally owned hardware store. One Saturday morning a few years ago I was out doing my errands when I stopped at the hardware store for a few things. When I got to the register, I realized I had meant to go to my bank first. I didn’t have a cent (nor a credit card) on me. I told the man behind the counter that I would be back to buy my things later. Without missing a beat, he began to ring up my purchases. “You’re in here all the time. Just come back and pay later.” Try that at Home Depot. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week I was on the phone with a friend, and it seemed to me that out of nowhere she said, “Gosh, you sound really panicky about money lately. I mean, really panicky.”

I was miffed and quickly denied it. But when I hung up the phone, I realized that I shouldn’t BS myself. Yes, I have been panicky about money. I write about money, which means I read a lot about money, and everything I’m reading seems to materialize around me. There’s business trouble for my family, my 401(k) looks like it has been mauled by a money-eating monster, and I’m a full-time student again, this time around living in the second most expensive city to rent in the U.S. with my partner who is also a full-time student.

By all means, yeah, I’ve been concerned with how to survive without getting into loads of debt, as I’m sure many of you are. Read the rest of this entry »

So the economy is slowing down. Even after ten years with a General Motors dealership in Northern Minnesota my dad was the least senior employee and first in line to be laid off. Entrepreneurship is taking a hit too I think. Here is a photo documentary of the economy in my neighborhood where three shops have either closed or changed ownership in the past few weeks alone.

I’ve been visiting In The Company of Thieves (”Thieves”) in the 900 Block of East Johnson for almost four years now. I see Penelope Trunk there pretty often. They have great sandwiches. Their Thieves Breakfast used to be under $3 and included coffee or tea, juice or milk, and a pastry! The new owners don’t have the Thieves Breakfast anymore. New owners and higher prices are a sign of the slower economy I think. Read the rest of this entry »

Many of us want to save the world in some way. That’s why we volunteer, support causes, donate to charity, fundraise, etc. We make our strongest efforts for the issues that matter most to us.

Social responsibility calls for decisions that benefit society at large, sometimes at the expense of our own best interests. Given the option, we’d prefer to save money on food, clothes, transportation, services, etc. We treat our finances in much the same way a company attempts to satisfy investors: keep costs lows, earnings up, and don’t go belly up.

The cheapest option is often the only choice for many consumers to manage survival in a paycheck-to-paycheck world. It’s unfortunate that most affordable options are often harmful to the environment, workers and even politics. Read the rest of this entry »

The US government has been moving fairly quickly to pass some form of stimulus package to try to head off a recession. The stimulus package would basically amount to mailing $150 billion out to everyone, with the point being for them to spend it to keep the economy going. Not everyone agrees that an actual recession (two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth) is in the cards, but I guess no one in Washington, D.C., wants to deal with a recession in the middle of a presidential election, so they’re trying to do something just in case. I have a rather negative view of the federal government’s ability to do anything useful with the money we send their way, and I am usually happy to keep more of my money, so how could I possibly object to the government sending me a few hundred dollars to spend?

Like just about any government program, there’s a hidden cost to the stimulus package. Free money sounds like a great idea, until you ask yourself - where did this money come from? As economist Don Boudreaux points out, there are essentially three ways to fund this package - taxes, borrowing, or creating new money. The first two options just move money from some people to others, and the third results in inflation. Of course, one other way to pay for it would be to cut other spending to offset the cost… yeah, right. The bottom line is that we’re all going to be on the hook for this $150 billion one way or another. Either our current dollars are devalued or we get to pay back the cost through future taxes. Read the rest of this entry »

State lawmakers in Colorado are considering a bill to establish a do-not-mail list. The Denver Channel reports:

Rep. Sara Gagliardi (D-Arvada) said her measure would allow fines against companies that send mail to people on the list. She and other supporters said the list could help cut down on identity theft and help the environment.

“The statistics are just overwhleming. Ninety-million pounds of junk mail a year. It costs somewhere between $2 and $4 million to clean it up,” Gagliardi said.

Even without a state law, there are some things you can do to reduce the amount of junk mail you receive. However, nothing is so encompassing as a law that would actually fine companies. Of course, the Postal Service opposes the law: Read the rest of this entry »

The Federal Reserve has been getting a lot of attention in the last few months. With the recent housing meltdown and market volatility, it’s hard to miss the articles in the financial press. Some have blamed the Fed for causing the housing bubble, and others have argued that the Fed should take action to provide some relief. Meanwhile, one of the 2008 presidential candidates, Dr. Ron Paul, has long argued for abolishing the Federal Reserve and returning to a gold standard of the kind used around the turn of the century (as opposed to the Bretton Woods system which was in place from 1946-1971). Would that really restore financial stability to the economy? Volumes have been written on this subject, but I will try to at least summarize my own views without reciting every monetary theory in existence. Read the rest of this entry »

The university at which I’m now in my second week of attendance held its annual Green Day Fair this week, so I stopped by the student union to see what kind of action was underway. Days earlier, I had spent a little time online researching my school’s reputation in fields other than my own. It’s apparently a worldwide leader in environmental science, one of the earliest and most forward-thinking in climate studies, and basically a poster-child for one of my most recent Queercents posts by way of its active role as an institution with a complex relationship to both the environment and its students.

The university is actively changing its demands within the energy economy. There was some interesting information available at the fair, both about the school and the responsibility of the individual.

The energy emitted by a traditional incandescent tungsten light bulb is about 5% light and 95% heat. So, if you live in a climate where the summer months boil and are still using the archaic bulbs, your light bulbs are affecting the portion of your electric bill attributed to air conditioning in addition to your lighting. The newer energy-efficient bulbs are definitely more expensive initially but last anywhere from 8 to 15 times the length of the old school bulbs, creating an obvious long term savings. Greenpeace was of course on campus with a Seize the Light Brigade Campaign. Read the rest of this entry »