Category: <span>Autobiographical</span>

Too Much: Greed at a Glance

August 13, 2007 7:12 am \ Leave a Comment \ by Ray Watkins

Each and every week, Too Much explores excess and inequality, in the United States and throughout the world. We cover a wide swatch of economic and political territory, everything from executive pay and lifestyles of the rich and famous to the latest research insights on how staggering income and wealth divides are impacting our health and our happiness.

About Too Much

As an official member of the underemployed, it’s spooky to read Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, claim that “a recession is likely, because of the enormity of the housing bubble and the impact of its collapse.”

He compares our current situation to the last recession in 2001, caused by the stock market bubble burst. The current bubble in question is the housing bubble of course, which Wesibrot notes “is much more widely distributed: most Americans still have most of their assets in housing and little or nothing in stocks.”

And it’s even spookier to read Sylvia A. Allegretto of the Economic Policy Institute (caution PDF link) note that underemployment has risen from 6.9% to 8.2% since 2000. Allegretto notes too that the productivity rate is now fully divorced from incomes. Historically, if productivity rose so did income; that stopped in the mid 1970s and has accelerated dramatically since 2000 or so.

Of course, none of this really matters in the end for the people– the class– documented at Too Much. I suppose it is possible to imagine another depression in which thousands of the rich loose everything they own, but it seems unlikely. Given the destruction of the estate tax, this inequity is likely to persist in some form for generations.

Posted in: Autobiographical, Economics, Online Places, Writing

Fast-Education

June 15, 2007 7:56 am \ Leave a Comment \ by Ray Watkins

A major factor for e-learning’s growth potential is the part-time or adjunct instructor. Each adjunct costs about 20 percent (or less) of a full-time counterpart on a per-class basis.6 An adjunct professor often receives no office, phone, mailbox, computer, health benefits, and so forth, and needs another full-time job to survive… The growth of part-time faculty has been significant: according to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), during the period 1975 to 2003, full-time tenure-track positions increased by 18 percent while full-time non-tenure-track and part-time positions grew at 10 times that rate.

from E-Learning at a Crossroads—What Price Quality?
By Stephen R. Ruth, Martha Sammons, and Lindsey Poulin

I wrote about this subject at a recent Computers and Writing presentation I gave and while it was well received I could also tell that I had not persuaded my audience of the scale and scope of the problem. I think this is because they were mostly traditional academics immersed in the trials and tribulations of attempting to integrate technology into education.

They have a particular agenda, and a specific set of associated problems, and it is hard for them to commit their limited energies elsewhere. I understand that completely, because I was in that situation for a long time. This problem cannot be ignored for long. As I argued in my talk, I believe that the proprietary institutions are creating a second tier of education focused on the bottom of the class hierarchy.

On the one hand, this could be making education available to those that would not otherwise have access. On the other, this could be the birth of the fast-education market, analogous to the birth of fast food in the 1950s. Ruth, Summons, and Poulin, somewhat optimistically argue that “the biggest problem could be finding and integrating tens of thousands of new adjunct professors as partners in the academy.”

I am a little less optimistic, simply because the U.S. academic system is so profoundly rooted in class privilege and material entitlement. It might be possible, for example, to isolate and shrink proprietary education by offering a cheaper alternative taught by well-paid (and medically insured) full-time professors. That might even be the ethical thing to do. It’s as difficult, though, as asking the insurance industry to accept national health care.

Posted in: Autobiographical, Composition, Economics, Language, Online Places, Professional, Writing

Earth 911

June 11, 2007 7:35 am \ Leave a Comment \ by Ray Watkins

The mission of Earth 911 is to empower the public with community-specific resources that improve their quality of life. While sustainable prevention programs are by far the best way to protect our nation’s environment, the costs associated with many of these programs can be astronomical. That is why the use of this Public and Private Sector Partnership is so important in effectuating prevention ideals. Through the Partnership, economies of scale and scope are achieved, promoting this public service across the nation and centralizing environmental resources into one user-friendly network.

Mission Statement, Earth 911

Every year our little town has this ‘trash day’ when everyone can dump all of those awkwardly big items that you can’t just put out on the curb. You drive out to the fairgrounds in your truck and toss your stuff in a dumpster.

There’s always a big line, each truck filled with couches, chairs, sinks, old fans, broken coffee makers, and computers. Once a dumpster starts getting full a guy with a front loader comes up and starts smashing it down so more will fit. It lasts all day.

I have two dozen or so cans of paint in my basement that have been there for years. Unfortunately, you can’t dump liquids on ‘trash day.’ That’s when you turn to sites like Earth 911. You punch in your zip and what you want to get rid of and you get a list of places to take it.

Unfortunately, the nearest place to take my paint is apparently in Massachusetts. The Earth 911 data bases has some obvious gaps. Still, I learned that Staples will now recycle electronics– that’s better than the city, which just smashes things up for the landfill.