Review of Main Street Smarts

Grace Ross’ book “Main Street $marts, Who got us into this economic mess and how we get through it …” is out. But why a book by Grace Ross?

A list of authors of other well-known books about the crisis includes seven professors, three heads of think tanks or consulting firms and two Nobel Prize winners, cabinet secretaries and advisors to Presidents, liberals and conservatives, all Very Important People.

But Grace Ross? Community and housing rights activist? First-time author? Sometime candidate for public office? No PhD? Not even a gig with the IMF or the Treasury Dept.?

First, not one of those other books was written by someone who knows firsthand what is going on, has been hearing what regular people are saying and seeing what they are going through. Not one of them has been working at our sides as we struggle for our rights and for our survival. And this special point of view - the “view from the shop floor”, our point of view – comes through on every page.

For example, in the middle of an analysis of what the banks are doing:

“The craziest thing is that in over two decades of housing advocacy I have never heard what I am hearing from people these days. You knock on their doors and they end up begging you to please make the lenders take their rent or their mortgage payments. Because they are willing to pay, but the lenders would rather foreclose and evict.” (p.85)

Hers is a voice from the boiler room telling us what all the sailors know but the Captain on the bridge doesn’t - or won’t admit: this ship’s in trouble!

The book is thoroughly footnoted, every fact triple-checked, but it is written for regular folk. She even makes derivatives and hedge funds understandable! Snobby people may not like it. Regular folk love it!

And hers is an angry voice. Not blind rage, but the controlled outrage of someone with 26 years of looking the victims in the eye, holding their hands and walking them through the steps of learning to fight back.

The section about the way the cost of living index (CPI) has been gimmicked over the years to hide the real rate of inflation starts with:

“How often do we go to the market and think: ‘How’d that get so expensive?’” (p.200)

Two easy-to-read pages, a well-explained graph and several footnotes later, it ends with:

“Not angry yet? For seniors reading this: Social Security payments would be almost 50 percent more than they are today if they had not messed with the math!”

But why now? Isn’t it almost over? The book itself makes clear why: this ain’t over baby! This mess is just beginning! Sorry, but it won’t end until we all get together to do something about it! The foreclosure crisis? It hasn’t even peaked yet, with 35% of homeowners nationally “underwater” now and the biggest peak of rate resets yet to come! Unemployment? She explains in detail how the real rate is two and a half times higher than the official rate, which mysteriously is dropping even though no new jobs are being created! And then there’s the “Federal Reserve” bubble, trillions of new dollars being created out of thin air to finance the banks, and why that has to end in a disaster that will dwarf the crash of 2008!

And yet, this book is full of reasons to hope. Woven through the book are stories about programs and policies that could turn our state around, and the struggles that have been waged to win them, including a devastating attack on the “Massachusetts Miracle Plan” that “Obamacare” was patterned on and concrete suggestions of how to replace it with a state single-payer plan that really works!

And it has rich proposals on how to work with the small business community to break our dependence on the international mega-banks and start building a new local green-energy economy. Not just why huge tax giveaways and subsidies for Cape Wind or Evergreen won’t work, but also why locally-owned projects like the hugely successful municipal windmills in Hull can and will!

Grace knows all the players on Beacon Hill, has worked with them, haggled with them and helped them craft policies and legislation, and she has a lot of inside-the-hub stories to tell, but there is never any doubt whose side Grace is on.
This is not a “how to get rich off the coming depression” book or a “they’re so stupid, they should have listened to me” book, it’s a book of ideas and tools for people who want to fight back, people who want to save our communities, save our jobs and our homes, take our democracy back.

They’ve got their books about the crisis. This is our book.

You can get Grace's book Main St. Smarts online at www.MainStreetSmarts.com or at independent bookstores listed on it, including Tatnuck Booksellers in Westborough. Paperback, $17.95.

Fathers Day during Hard Times

This Fathers Day comes at a very hard time to be a father, and that can be hard for everyone in the family.

For men, who see our ability to bring home a paycheck as a big part of what makes us a man, of what makes us worthy to belong to a family, not being able to provide for them can be devastating. But we are worth much more than that to our children. This is a good day for us and for our families to reflect on what we’re worth, what we bring, why we’re needed.

Times are hard, and it’s natural to feel that it’s our fault, our personal failure. The “great ones”, the ones who’ve made it and the ones who were “born on third base and think they hit a triple”, are trying to blame this disaster on us and get us blaming ourselves and on each other for it, but it’s really not our fault. When you’re struggling to survive and it’s not working, you have to keep on trying - and to do that well you have to take responsibility for the results you get. But when it’s not working no matter how hard you try because of things beyond your control, there’s nothing to be gained and everything to lose from beating yourself up, drugging yourself and taking it out on your family.

Unemployment levels are higher than at any time since the Great Depression. The De Facto Unemployment Rate (DUFR, calculated by the Center for Working Class Studies, counting the underemployed, everyone who would be working full time if they could but can’t, prisoners and military service personnel) is hovering around 30%. And that’s not Dad’s fault.

Those lucky enough to have jobs are being speeded up, pushed, jerked around and played against each other in a way that we haven’t seen in living memory, and employers are shamelessly using undocumented immigrants (“illegal aliens”) to drive down wages and break our unions. And that’s not Dad’s fault. (Nor is it the fault of the immigrants, many of whom are dads themselves, for that matter! Seriously, which of us wouldn't sneak across a border looking for work if that's what it took to feed our child or give them a good life?)

Nationally 13% of employers cut wages last year and half of them froze pay (which amounts to a pay cut.) Those who’ve lost jobs often go back to work for much lower pay, and many will never get back to where we were. And that’s not Dad’s fault.

Most of us have most of our wealth tied up in our homes, and now nearly half of all homeowners are "under water", and by the dozens every day we're losing them. It's hard to feel like much of a man when one loses the family home and has to take the kids out of their school and go looking for a place to live, and maybe Dad could have done something different; but this is a global catastrophe, and that's not Dad's fault.
For those of us who've built a business, meeting payrolls and bank payments in these times can be a nightmare, and for too many it is ending badly. It's hard to feel like much of a man when you've just lost the business that was to be your legacy to your children, and maybe Dad could have done something different; but this disaster is not Dad's fault.

to Dads need to be Dads, to be part of the family and examples to their children, no matter how hard times get. Children need the example of how a man doesn’t give up, disappear or get hateful even when things look grim. They need to see their Dad go on loving them and their mother, looking out for them and for their mother, no matter how bad things get. They need to see how a man can get really, really angry and still control himself, still not hurt them or their mother.

Being a boy in this world can be confusing even in good times, and it’s more confusing now. Boys aren’t just defective girls. They’re boys, and they grow up to be men, husbands, providers, dads. Only a man can show them how, and the one they’re watching is Dad.

Being a girl in this world can be pretty confusing too, and life gets pretty rough for a girl who doesn’t learn how to pick a good man. The men in her life as she grows up are the ones who show her what a man looks like. And the one she's watching is Dad.

Being a mother is hard in this world. Holding a family together, managing all the conflicts and relationships, helping to earn the money, keeping everyone safe and fed and doing their schoolwork, and keeping track of everyone is too much for one person. Plenty of women do it alone these days, but not many will tell you it’s a good idea. Having a partner who can step in and take charge when Mom’s at her wits ends, going crazy or needing a break is huge. Having a partner to talk things through with, make plans with, take comfort from is huge. Having a partner to get behind closed doors and let it all out with, to cry and love and be loved by, is huge. And the one she needs to be this partner is usually Dad.

And then there are some lessons to learn about life that only a family can teach, and that Dad is needed to help teach.

Lessons about sticking up for each other and looking out for each other and having each other’s backs. It’s the children who learned this from their Dads who are prepared to bring us all together to solve this crisis.

Lessons about doing whatever is needed, no matter the personal cost. Keeping your word, doing your part and coming through. The ones who learned this from Dad are more likely to be the ones you want for your battle-buddies, whatever struggles life brings you.

Lessons about how loving means sharing and giving and being of service to each other. The children who learned this from their Dads will be better prepared for working together to build a better world out of the wreckage.

So it’s really hard when Dad can’t bring home a paycheck, or when he comes home feeling angry, powerless, exhausted or insecure. None of us are perfect, and Dad’s made his share of mistakes, but he’s trying, God knows he’s trying. And he’s still needed, more than ever.

This is a good time to give him your appreciation.

And Dads, this is a good time to allow yourself to take it in.