Mendolonium

We’ve have had a good haul of homegrown produce during January, normally a slow month, – nearly 20 pounds.  There have been peas, a few herbs, and some carrots.  But most of the credit goes to our little orange tree which produced for the first time along with a one of our neighbor’s orange trees that fortunately (for us) has a branch hanging over into our backyard. I did a rather lazy job of  planning and planting our winter garden this year.  I found myself so mired in canning tomatoes and jam that I neglected to put the peas in as early as I would of liked am now far short my favorite vegetable.  Many of my pea seeds never even stood a chance at full maturity; I planted them in a raised bed under the roof line of our garage and they were pounded into oblivion by rain pouring off of the roof during five days of storms in December.  Most of our greens grew a bit and then mysteriously disappeared; perhaps mowed down by the ubiquitous sow bugs that inhabit our garden?  I planted a crop of late fall potatoes (my experience being that potatoes do not do well in Pasadena during very warm weather) and they were growing beautifully only to have their greens pressed into the ground so hard that they yellowed and began to rot during the aforementioned heavy rains.  I ended up harvesting only slightly more potatoes than I planted in the first place.  I planted too many carrots and neglected to thin them sufficiently so I have been left with a glut of relatively small orange roots that, while tasty, are quite the pain in the ass (or the hands, in my case) to clean and peel.  I had intended to plant cover crops over some fallow land, but somehow forgot to do so until now.

But I think that more than anything else my problem with our winter garden is that it doesn’t feel, at all, like winter. While the weather is certainly cooler than in the summer and we get the occasional light frost we’ve seen most of our winter days with high temperatures in the 70s and days of the low 80s not uncommon.  Such temperatures leave me at a bit of a loss as to what to plant – warm season or cool season?  Do such designators have any functional meaning in an environment where spring, summer, and fall highs top 110 degrees and winter days can climb into the 80s, yet winter frost is always a possibility?   Where rain falls only in the winter and not in terribly predictable amounts nor at predictable or regular intervals?  Specifically I wonder whether this year’s heavy December rains are the most intense we will see this winter and whether or not the danger of frost has passed?  My deciduous fruit trees seem to think that it is spring and have begun to leaf out.  Should I follow their lead and start planting warm season crops (squash, beans, tomatoes, peppers, corn) in the ground?  I don’t want to put in all that effort only to have it washed or frozen away if winter weather returns, however, I would certainly start crops if I trusted that it was safe to do so.  We’ve had April weather where temperatures have been over 100 degrees – I would love to start my crops now so that they are robust when the dry, heat inevitably blasts in.

Rather than demoralizing me, I need to use the unpredictability of the weather to encourage me in my garden.  Even the very small-scale of our yard shows us how fragile our food system really is and how much many of us (including myself) have to learn and adapt to if we are to break our reliance on distantly produced industrial food.  For now, I can afford to buy my organic spinach at the farmer’s market or the grocery store but  given the shit storm of food/land speculation, unpredictable climate, economic decline, and high energy prices brewing I am not so sure that will always be the case.  Our food safety net is slowly eroding.  So last week I started tomatoes inside to plant on the first day of spring and this weekend I will go out and plant a few beans – perhaps the beans will succeed despite the calendar’s insistence that it is winter.  I will dutifully record the planting date and, hopefully, harvest dates in hopes of discovering what a successful winter garden in Pasadena can include.  I will wonder if the climate is stable enough for my results to be meaningful or if the climate is in such flux that this year’s success and  failures bear no relation to next year’s potential.  And I will be glad that, for now, we don’t seem to be short of oranges.

So, in keeping with the advice of my last post, I will assume that you have gone and informed yourself about the economy. And I will assume that you don’t like what you have heard and read. Now what? You didn’t cause this mess, but unless you are already living on your fully paid for self sustaining farm with some gold bullion stashed next to the squash in your root cellar, you are certainly going to be affected. The first order of business: protecting your assets. I am going to broadly lump assets into five categories:

• Monetary Assests: savings accounts, retirement accounts, etc.
• Property Assets: home, land
• Community Assets: schools, libraries, parks
• Health Assests: your and your family’s physical and mental health
• Job/Skills Assets: your job, your education, other useful skills

And you thought I was just going to talk about money.

Monetary Assets

Savings accounts: Most of us have one (or more of these). First off, whatever you do, don’t keep more money in any one institution than is covered by the FDIC deposit limits. Now I realize, that most of us don’t nominally have $250,000 sitting in our bank account, however, there are situations where this might apply. For example, you might receive an inheritance. Or perhaps after selling your home you may have a small gap before purchasing another – even just a few days where a couple of hundred thousand dollars or more (if you’re lucky) might sit in your bank account. It would be rather unfortunate for you, if the bank happened to fail on one of those days. For more information on the current limits go to the FDIC website. Second, there have been 15 bank failures this year – expect more. I would be wary of most commercial banks. Yes, your deposits are insured, however, in the event of a failure you may have limited access to them. Furthermore, given enough failures the FDIC insurance fund will be depleted and then there will be trouble. We use a relatively small, local credit union. Credit unions are not for the profit of shareholders, therefore they generally took on much less risk than the commercial banks. As an added bonus, credit unions almost always offer better interest rates on savings accounts than a traditional bank. Finally, I think it is always a good idea to keep some cold hard cash on hand. Enough to buy a couple of weeks worth of groceries and gas. Even if the economic apocalypse never comes to pass, the next earthquake/hurricane/flood might be just around the corner.

Retirement plans: I am not going to tell you whether or not pull your money out of the stock market, although I will say I doubt it has hit bottom yet. For many young people, such as myself, there is nothing much you can do about the money in my retirement account even if you wanted too. For example, I simply am not permitted to access the money in my retirement accounts unless I retire. So we are stuck. I was joking to Jeff that I am just going to consider the tens of thousands of dollars we have lost as a sort of indirect campaign contribution for Obama since the economic crisis has clearly helped him in this election.

Property Assets

If you own a home, it is probably your most valuable asset. As such, treat it like you would a family member and keep it in good health. Take care of things such as roof repairs, leaks, termites, etc. that have the potential to become major expenses and/or render your home uninhabitable. If you have some land associated with your home, treat it as an asset as well. Land is good for much more than a manicured green lawn, you can use it as humans have for thousands of years – to grow food. So treat your soil well – don’t use pesticides/herbicides, fertilizers, etc. Build up your soil and it’s fertility through composting. If you are lucky enough to have shade and/or fruit trees maintain their health. For more information on how to turn your lawn into food check out the book: Food Not Lawns.

Community Assests

Unfortunately, as resources tighten and government appears increasingly bankrupt you can expect that many public services and institutions will be given short shrift. But remember that long before public schooling, libraries, and parks became the responsibility of the government, they were the responsibility of the people and were built up through volunteers. Become an advocate for the things that you care about. Personally, I have a great love for our library system. It provides us with books, movies, children’s music/storytime, and internet access all for free. If services do shut down or become so ill-funded that they are no longer useful remember that you can create your own. Get together with a bunch of other moms and start a music class, consider homeschooling, exchange books with friends, invite kids over to your park-like backyard.

Health Assests

Your health, and the health of your loved ones, is obviously one of the most important things to protect. That said, it is not easy in a severe economic downturn, particularly if you face the loss of your job and it’s health insurance. Now is the time to make sure you are current on your and your children’s vaccinations, go in for that dental check-up, get into therapy, and pick up that spare pair of glasses. This issue hits very close to home for me. For example, I nominally take a combination of drugs to treat my rheumatoid arthritis (RA). One of those medications, Humira, is insanely expensive. Without insurance it is $17,500 a year. Seventeen thousand five hundred dollars. Even with insurance, we pay a couple of thousand dollars a year for my medication. Needless to say, I don’t see how we would make ends meet if we lost my job and my health insurance. That said, RA is an aggressive, damaging, and potentially fatal disease. Not treating it is not an option. So I have a back-up plan. There is a cheap, generic, medication (prednisone) that I can take in fairly large doses to keep me alive and walking with a total cost of $48 a year. Despite the vast price difference I don’t rely on alone now as it has significant side effects. However, it is good to have a back-up plan. If you have a chronic health condition, mental or physical (remember that your mental health is just as important to you and your family as your physical health) it is a good idea to talk your doctor now about low-cost solutions should the need arise.

Job/Skills Assets

Job: Your job is a huge asset, particularly if it comes with insurance benefits. Now would probably be a good time to make sure that you are a “good” employee. You don’t want them to think of you first when the lay-offs come around and if you should lose your job you will want excellent references. No matter how secure you think your job is, you should also update your resume and keep it current. If you have an inkling that you may lose your job, start looking for a new one immediately. You want to beat the rush as much as possible.

Skills: Remember that you almost certainly have skills beyond your job. For example you might work in IT, but also spend your free time working on your car or motorcycle. Many hobbies can be turned into marketable skills. If it isn’t too expensive, perhaps now is a good time to polish your cooking skills with a culinary class, take an advanced carpentry workshop, or learn how to brew beer. You’ll be protecting yourself against the loss of your job and you’ll have fun in the process.

I strongly believe that the economic turmoil we see now is only the beginning of what is to come. We face not only the potential collapse of our financial system, but the (not unrelated) problems of climate change and the end of cheap, abundant energy (e.g., peak oil). Despite that, this post reminds me of how much I do have and how much I want to preserve what is good. I have a beautiful (if rather dusty and furry) house, a garden full of ever increasing amounts of food, a fantastic family, great neighbors and friends, and a good education and set of skills. That’s what is important and that is what I am working to protect. I hope that by that definition, you are all rich as well.

You take one down, you pass it around, 450 pages of bailout to read…

OK, I give up! I tried to read the final version of the Emergency Economic Economic Stabilization Act of 2008(The Bailout), but real life intervened.  The truth is, much like watching a train barreling towards a car stuck at a crossing, most of us could see that what was going to happen, but were powerless to stop it.  Even the engineer, or in this case members of Congress, who saw what was about to happen and attempted to throw the train into emergency mode could not avert the disaster this is the bailout.  There was simply too much momentum. 

While you and I can’t stop the worldwide economic mess we find ourselves as pawns in, it is important to realize that WE ARE NOT POWERLESS.  There are steps that we can take to protect ourseleves, our loved ones, and even those that we do not know but who are also suffering.  Briefly, I believe that those steps are to (not necessarily in this order):

1. Become an informed citizen
2. Protect your assets
3. Prepare for the long emergency
4. Change your lifestyle

I am going to discuss each step in separate posts starting with “Become an informed citizen”.  As someone who has experience in the intelligence field, I have found that the key to forming an accurate assessment of a situation is to use multiple sources and multiple types of sources.  Meaning, do not get all of your information from one “source”, (e.g., CNN, cnn.com, and Time magazine  – all are produced by the same media conglomerate.).  Likewise, use multiple types of sources, the internet, print media, radio, television, and the guy next door.  I’ve listed my favorite sources of information below:

• This American Life:  A weekly show on NPR covering all manner of topics.  There are two recent episodes which do a phenomenal job of explaining the details behind the current economic implosion.  Those episodes are the aptly named:  The Giant Pool of Money and Another Frightening Show About the Economy.
• The Economist: In my view the Economist is rather conservative; for example, they were generally pro bailiout.  They are refreshing for their global, rather than U.S. centric, perspective and their extensive research.  I have a print subscription, however, over half their content is available for free online.
• Bloomberg.com: An excellent source for information on the day-to-day happenings in the financial world.
• The Automatic Earth:  A blog devoted to prophesying and analyzing economic collapse.  These guys were warning of the exact scenario we are experiencing now long before Paulson was even Secretary of the Treasury.  The authors also do a fantastic job of compiling the relevant articles of the day from around the web.
• CNN:  Ah, CNN, I think much of it is sensationalistic, repetitive, and biased.  However, it is the most popular news source in America so if you want to know what everyone else is hearing, it is useful to watch in limited doses – perhaps with brownies.
• Everyday people:  The guy you know who works (or used to work) at Lehman Brothers, your friend who is trying to buy a house in the current market, your aunt that runs a small business.  Real people that you know can help you to reconcile what you hear and what you read with reality. 

“But Gina”, you ask, “if we can’t stop this train wreck from happening, why should we bother to watch it and read about it afterwards?”.  Because what you learn will change your response and empower you.  Based on our reading of “the way things were headed” we actually made a number of financial and lifestyle changes months ago which we believed would serve us well and we continue to make changes based on what we learn.   In addition, while this crisis is global in scope, it will play out uniquely for different regions of the world and the country.  For example, do you live in central California with one of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation and where you have a 90% likelihood of owing more on your house than it is worth if you purchased it in the last five years?  Or do you live in a city in the Midwest, where there is no public transportation and you are dependent on a car?  Being informed about the conditions in your community is vital in preparing for what may come.  Finally, being informed also allows me to give my elected representatives an intelligent opinion.  While I believe that most of those elected are not doing what needs to be done, they’re what we’ve got and I am committed to trying to make democracy work in the midst of a time when it seems that our democracy is being eroded. 

I would love to hear what you, my readers think about these issues and if you have any favorite sources for information please leave a link in the comments. 

I haven’t been posting much lately for reasons completely unrealted to the environment or the economy, but I am feeling a renewed inspiriation for discussion today.  What have we been discussing almost non-stop at the Mendolo household this past week?  The economy.  

I believe that one of the most difficult aspects of this entire discussion is that we all feel out of our depth when it comes to these issues.  It is true that these financial and economic problems are quite complex.  It is also true that it is in the best interests of those in power that we do not fully understand them.  But it is within our power to understand these issues and develop an informed opinion on them.  To start, I reccomend that you turn off your television and start reading.  Our first reading task:  The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (aka “The Bailout Package”).  This is the exact text of the bill that your elected representatives are voting on at this very moment. 

After we see whether or not it passes the House today, I’ll be back to give you my opinion on the bill and its effects.