What if Americans for Tax Reform Really Stood for Reform?

Over the last month or so, the partisan divides in Washington have made for glorious, unprecedented spectacle. If such wrangling had occurred on an episode of The West Wing or in a Jimmy Stewart film, it surely would have made for a magnificent few moments of entertainment. Alas, those folks aren't actors and real people's livelihoods are at stake.

For the past few years, I've listened on and off to conservative talk radio, read bits and pieces from the WSJ, and "liked" conservative organizations on Facebook, so that I could, perhaps, begin to understand a little bit better the roots of both populist rage, and the thinking that supports such rage. Today, I stumbled across a magnificent piece by Grover Norquist in Human Events. Grover Norquist, of course, is the leader of Americans for Tax Reform. His ideological stand is well known as he who forced Tea Party candidates to sign pledges against raising taxes.  Weirdly, the FaceBook feed suggested that "the results are not surprising."  On closer inspection, the results were not at all surprising because they were formed on the basis of a hard-line, radical ideology that's not really interested in (all) the facts. Have a look at the article, as it truly is magnificent--not because it's smart or effective--but because it's an incredible work of statistical manipulation. At the least, read as much as you can stomach. Then, if you remain intrigued, have a look at what follows: my post to Americans for Tax Reform FB thread that touted Norquist's Op-Ed.

And then consider: What does it suggest about our country that someone like Norquist could--feasibly--have as much influence as he does on politicians? How many politicians read an op-ed like this? And basing economic/policy decisions on this man's thought? 

That's a fascinating use of statistics (from ALEC!?!) for ideological means.  Let's look at unemployment numbers!

States Grover mentions as on the "right path"
Ohio: 8.8% (and going up); Pennsylvania: 7.6%; Wisconsin: 7.6%; Michigan: 10.6%; Maine: 7.8%.

States "most economically free" according to ALEC (?!?!)
Texas: 8.2%; Florida: 10.6%; Utah: 7.4%; South Dakota: 4.8%; Tennessee: 9.8%; Virginia: 6%; Colorado: 8.5%; Idaho: 9.4%; North Dakota: 3.2%; Wyoming: 5.9%  (notice that I'm not cherry picking data, like Grover; the Dakotas and Wyoming have different sorts of economies than the rest of the U.S. and were largely unaffected by the housing crash and the credit crunch).

States "least economically free" according to ALEC:
Pennsylvania (yes; it's on this list too): 7.6%; Rhode Island: 10.8%; New York: 8%; New Jersey: 9.5%; Oregon: 9.5%; Illinois: 9.2%; Hawaii: 6%; California: 11.8%; Vermont: 5.5%; Maine: 7.8%.

So this data strongly suggest that there is no correlation between "economic freedom" and unemployment rate (and that's generally a pretty good measure of growth, right?)  Hmmm.

So what happens if we look at, say, a different set of statistics, one that actually measures production, like GDP?

Here is the percent change in GDP from the BEA (http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/regional/gdp_state/gsp_newsrelease.htm) for each of the above listed states.   Note how some of the "spenders" are doing better than Texas and Florida...that seem hero states to Grover. Ready?

"Right Path":
OH: 2.1
PA: 3.0
WI: 2.5
MI: 2.9
ME: 2.1

Most Economically "Free":
TX: 2.8
FL: 1.4
UT: 1.7
SD: 2.1
TN: 3.5
VA: 2.6
CO: 1.4
ID: 2.0
ND: 7.1*
WY: -0.3

Least Economically "Free":
PA: 3.0
RI: 2.8
NY: 5.1*
NJ: 2.5
OR: 3.4*
IL: 1.9
HI: 1.2
CA:1.8
VT: 3.2*
ME: 2.1

(Those marked with * are in the highest quintile of growth for 2010).

Altogether, further analysis suggest that Grover's use of data is a little bit suspect.  You don't think he did that purposefully?  Manipulated data to suit an ideological agenda?  Do you?

Of course not, I'm sure Grover will recognize the problems with cherry picking data for an argument that conflates taxation with economic stimulus.  Without question, he's probably already working on the corrections now....

The Blues

The sky today is mezmerizingly blue with high, silken clouds slightly cooling the furious summer sun.  Two of the dogs who live here are looking around, as if captivated by the rising, falling trill of cicada, the occasional whistling chirrup of sparrow or robin or cardinal. It is the kind of summer day in midwest Ohio when it's difficult to believe that anything ever could be wrong.

But.

Yet.

Still.

I'm trying to wrench my psyche out of the molasses-like state most commonly referred to as "depression." I'm  arguing with myself, with the accumulation of "things to do" that aren't getting done. I'm fighting to ignore the gravitational pull of sleep, the murmuring assurances that a long nap, one speckled with dreams, one in which two or three 20-dollar bills fall from the pages of a long unread book, one in which the seemingly serrated edge of this life lived might be dulled, just a little.

It's tough to say, though, who, precisely, is winning that fight. From my perspective, it's a bit of a "zero-sum" game with emphasis on the "zero" and the gaping lack that empty value entails.  You see, we're broke again.
Flat broke.  Even though I'm working across the summer in moderate ways, our income is now defined in opposition to possession, and money, once again, is everything. Ironically, I am working. The money simply isn't enough to cover bills that were incurred in a different marketplace, to save a single penny, or to look forward beyond a few days.

When I started this, I can't have imagined that I would still be thinking about the economic crisis. I couldn't have believed that the housing market would still resemble a 1950s-era joke about marriage.  Take my house . . . please. I  And I certainly couldn't have entertained the notion that my wife, educated at a prestigious private university would still be unemployed--more than two years later--or that her unemployment benefits would have run out entirely.

I want, desperately, to take a nap and forget for a long while. I'd like to pretend that I could sell my house, which we bought in '05 for, say, a 5% gain over the course of six years. Or even a 1% gain. I'd like to think about other things like the light breeze pushing a child's empty swing in a neighbor's yard, a trip to somewhere heavenly like Taco Bell, the slow unfolding of a baseball game on television, or the tidy rhythms of a re-run sitcom. I'd like, in short, to be someone else, somewhere else, sometime else.

How then could I not be depressed?  Even on a day like this when robins chirp loudly enough to drown the sounds of cars and planes passing nearby for destinations I may never know? And perhaps more pressingly, how is my wife surviving this?

The point here is twofold: First, only the particulars of our story are unique. With an unemployment rate of 9.2%, there are likely millions of people in similar situations. Second, the psychology of poverty is brutal.  Whereas we tend to think of "depression" as an individual phenomena, a marker of bad brain chemistry, bad luck, or bad decision making, the fact remains that systemic forces (like the worth of our house) are contributing, and frequently, defining characteristics of such psychology. And in a while, I'll  tell you a narrative  (or two) to drive this point home as violently as I can.

For now, I need to go sell something for considerably less than its worth.  
       

Buyers and sellers....

Want a good deal on anything I own?

Zap me an email.

You can probably have it for less--if not far less--than market value. Of course, I realize that--due to economic pressures well beyond my control--the "fair market value" of anything I might have has plummeted, in part because that's the nature of goods in our disposable society and in part because the market for used goods (like the housing market) is currently flooded.  I wonder why . . .

Seriously though, you'd get a good deal, and I wouldn't hold it against you. I might ask that you understand or at least try to understand. I might just ask for the cash, the miraculous gateway to an evening at Taco Bell, the tiniest shred of something like normalcy to help my wife and I forget--even if only for an hour--the sudden spiral of fear and the knotting stress we've been feeling in our shoulders, our backs.

Yesterday, my wife and I gathered up two boxes of books and took them to sell at the local Half-Priced Books. We didn't get a good deal. We knew it wasn't a good deal. Still, we took the offer. My wife and I adore books, so this--our second trip in a month--was particularly painful. The money we got wasn't enough to buy dinner and gas. We picked dinner.

Today, we took a bagful of CDs and DVDs to sell. We tried one vendor. He attempted to rip us off something serious. We took it to a vendor next door and got twice the amount. Was it a fair price?

It depends. Depreciation. Emotion. Objects invested with peculiar meaning. No, not really. Still, it was more fair. The second vendor will make a tidy profit. We could (though it was dumb) afford a taste of Taco Bell and the briefest illusion of normalcy.

McDonald's posted quarterly results. They were excellent. Surprised?

Although our savings, by now, would very likely have been depleted regardless of how frugal, fastidious, or adept at investment we'd been, both my wife and I struggle with not blaming ourselves. If only, if only, if only is a constant refrain of interior monologue. If only, for example, we'd gotten different degrees. If only we'd stayed in Oakland.  If only we'd bought a condo rather than a house. If only . . . . There are thousands more. They all tighten the knots in our backs.

Being poor isn't healthy.

If you're still with me, listen. We know, intellectually, this wasn't our fault. We know that we're slightly different than the millions of others who've lost their unemployment, the millions who soon may lose their unemployment again. I have peculiar prospects and the promise of returning to my PhD program.

My wife . . . . I worry about my wife every day.

Soon, the unemployment will return for a short while. Soon after--given today's politics--it will end again.

Who knew that by hanging onto my wife's services as long as they did, my wife's former company might have doomed her to this? Who knew?

Why am I writing this? Breaking taboos of money talk?

Listen: I want to tell you the truth. Selves have already been eviscerated. Now, actual lives, actual hopes will be. It's not OK to watch television through this. It's not OK to simply buy green and donate to a charity or two. It's not OK just to vote the rascals out (whoever you think the rascals are).

My wife and I swore not to forget. We'll do more if we make it back to where we were. We've been broken, I think, but we're still, somehow, here. But seriously, we have more of our lives to sell and sell we will.

Something Rotten in the State

Since my last post a few short days ago, the mainstream media has finally taken notice of the ongoing Congressional battle to extend unemployment benefits.  And my wife has become (yet again) another of those disconcerting statistics.  She is now one of the, according to Time, 1.3 million American's who have lost unemployment benefits during the latest round of partisan wrangling.

Of course, while you were enjoying a three-day weekend (if you're lucky enough to have a job), Congress took a week-long furlough--without making any headway into the unholy alliance of Republicans and so-called Blue Dog Democrats.  How is this possible?   

Over the course of the last month, the bill making the rounds on Capitol Hill has been stripped to skeletal form. It contains no extension of funds to states (Imagine if California actually goes bankrupt. Would our chances of avoiding a depression plummet then?). It contains no money for Medicare. It contains no extension of COBRA assistance. It contains no extension of the first-time home buyer's credit.  The bill has been pared down to nothing more than an extension of benefits for the unemployed.   Yet, in a striking refusal of Keynesian economics, Republicans have steadfastly refused to vote for the bill, and Democrats have been unable to break the filibuster.    

Keep in mind that in February, when Jim Bunning and Tom Cobourn decided to delay the passage of an extension, the general public--including many who self-identify as Republicans--decried the so-called stand as heartless and damn near evil.  It was, of course, just political grandstanding.  Or was it?

Now, the two "gentleman" seem like prophets.  Their "principled" stand against deficit spending (except, as Dean Barker notes in a harrowing article in the Guardian, in the case of war or tax cuts) is now the position of every single Republican in the House and the Senate.  The Republicans, clearly, are worried about the ballooning deficit--you know the one created, by and large, by the policies of George W. Bush. Is it possible that the mid-term elections have something to do with this? Greece? 

The sudden focus on deficit spending is, of course, understandable if you look at macroeconomics through the same lens as personal finance or Herbert Hoover.  Doubtless, there are economists who think that millions of people, in a job market where there are more than 5 applicants for every job opening, only need to have their benefits eliminated to find a job?  Why else would Republicans think that taking billions of dollars out of direct circulation in the economy? (remember the unemployed, living on approximately $300/week tend not to save--because they can't.  All of that money goes directly to the purchase of goods and services).  Why else would Republicans risk exacerbating the mortgage crisis by taking away such a lifeline, which would inevitably lead to an increase in the number of people evicted from apartments and, very likely, a subsequent increase in the number of foreclosures on both single-family and multiple family mortgages?  What could have changed since February?

Well, believe it or not, at least one economist, according to The Wall Street Journal, Michael Feroli, suggests that: 

Extending jobless benefits could inflate the official unemployment rate — even though more people aren’t out of work.

Now, before I continue, I should be clear: I don't have any problem with that statement.  Psychologically speaking, we should be prepared for a higher official unemployment rate because more people are continuing to look for jobs, which is, of course, good for the economy.  The key point here is that the rate could seem higher because of the way in which that rate is calculated. Essentially, without the extension of unemployment benefits, we will have millions of people who are neither employed nor looking for employment.  They will join those among the unemployed who are not counted in that statistic.  In other words, this is a sleight of hand that has no bearing (except perhaps in terms of psychology) on the actual health of the economy.  More, I should be clear that the above statement is the lead in that Wall Street Journal blog post. It is not, what Michael Feroli (an economist, remember) actually said.

Here's a little bit of what he actually wrote in a report dated March 17:

• Lengthened availability of jobless benefits has raised the unemployment rate by 1.5%-pts
• This added availability has increased the average duration of unemployment spells by over a month
• The resulting constraint on supply and lift to demand may explain recent phenomenal productivity growth

Here's a little bit more of Feroli's "analysis":

In particular, the availability of these benefits has almost certainly played a significant role in the record rise in the average duration of unemployment. Consequently, they have also had a role in the stunning rise in the unemployment rate over the last two years. Finally, and more conjecturally, the program’s support to consumption and restraint on forming employment matches may have a role in explaining the good growth/great productivity/bad labor market nexus that has characterized the recovery so far.

As a writer, I'm compelled to admire Feroli's deft use of qualifications here, "[f]inally, and more conjecturally." That's a gorgeous conjuring of speculation into the fabric of what purports to be a factual report.  Conversely, as a human being, the limit on Mr. Feroli's ability to see other potential variables (such as the slim possibility that "great productivity" is inextricably linked with continued layoffs and the abiding lack of employee/consumer confidence that began with that whole derivatives trading snafu).

Surely, this couldn't get any worse?  And yet, it does. Here's another taste of Feroli's actual text:

Note: In the analysis that follows, we attempt only to discern the impact of emergency benefits on the economic data. We make no recommendation or claim about the appropriateness of alternative unemployment compensation policies. Such an analysis would require a much more thorough consideration of other factors, such as equity and moral hazard, which are not addressed here.  

Or in layman's terms, "Note: CYA. This report is woefully incomplete for the policy decisions we'd like made to be made, but we're still going to speculate, and maybe we'll obfuscate ever so slightly on the basis of "data."

The "best" part though follows the multiple rejoinders:

Jobless benefits have the potential to increase the unemployment rate through two channels. First, by softening the blow of losing a job, they allow unemployed persons to become more selective in what job offer they accept, thereby raising the average duration of unemployment and increasing the unemployment rate. Second, they may encourage people who would otherwise drop out of the labor force to be counted as jobseekers and therefore in the labor force. 

And herein, we find evil masquerading as economics.

To be fair, I'm not an economist. But to be fair, the following conclusion can neither be supported by Mr. Feroli's so-called analysis, nor by, well, logic:

To the extent increased jobless benefits restrain the aggregate amount of labor employed in productive activities, they could in fact lower the amount of output produced.

Because, quite simply, the continuing instability in the credit and labor markets are responsible for the downturn in aggregate production.  You know, if your company lays people off, has less access to capital, and is facing a marketplace where consumer confidence is shaky, you make fewer fucking widgets.

For a, perhaps, better informed take on the report, see Robert Garcia's blog on The Huffington Post and Daniel Hoffman on Wall Street Cheat where I found the actual link to Feroli's "work."

Unfortunately, the problem here is that policy in our nation is now being shaped by such haphazard ideas.  While Paul Krugman--a professor of economics at MIT with degrees from both Yale and MIT, and by the way, a Nobel Laureate, suggests that we are on the cusp of Depression because of the overbearing (and sudden) concern of Republican and Blue Dog Democrats with balancing the budget.  As Krugman points out:

It’s almost as if the financial markets understand what policy makers seemingly don’t: that while long-term fiscal responsibility is important, slashing spending in the midst of a depression, which deepens that depression and paves the way for deflation, is actually self-defeating.

Furthermore, it seems to crucial to point out that this is not simply (as Mr. Feroli seems to believe) a matter of manipulating data points.  Instead, this is the well-being, the ability to make rent and eat for millions of unemployed Americans.

So, why would Feroli write such a report.  That's easy.  He works for JP Morgan Chase.  Why would our politicians--those entrusted with protecting and ensuring the public good--believe what Feroli and others of his ilk have written from a mire of conflicting interests?  Now, the answer to that question is a little bit harder.

In my opinion, the Republicans are playing politics. Grandstanding.  In short, they've fundamentally undermined their oaths of office, risked economic catastrophe, and deepened the gulf between those who have and have not.  Or else, they're just stupid and prone to false analogies, like USA is to Greece as Patriot is to Republican.

Still, I have a long history of listening to the other side, of believing, perhaps irrationally, that conservatives and liberals can work together for the betterment of our country, so I have a solution.  If the benefits need to be paid for before a single Republican will vote for their extension, here:  End subsidies for oil companies. As the New York Times reports, the most profitable companies in the world receive billions upon billions of dollars in subsidies. So let's start there.  

A Tested Faith in American "Exceptionalism"

Since I last posted here, my wife and I have muddled along, making mortgages, making bills.  We haven't lost everything. Yet. But we have sold a car and radically altered our lifestyle. We've put off getting haircuts, entering book contests, making home improvements that might eventually let us sell a home we paid far too much for (at a market price), and even drinking coffee (if you knew my wife, you'd understand how radical that is).

Until recently, I've been preoccupied with grad school and the requisite forward-looking stance of being in a PhD program.  Now, however, we're edging closer to disaster and hence contemplating new business ventures, like continuing this blog that hasn't been updated in months, starting and building a legitimate consulting business based on our collective expertise (or just on mine . . . we'll see how it goes), as well as a handful of other potentially unwise stratagems.

In other words, our future has gotten short-term, and it's increasingly horrifying for reasons I don't fully understand.  Why the sudden shift?

Well, my wife (somehow) hasn't yet lost her health insurance, but the federal Senate has failed numerous times to extend subsidized COBRA benefits.  More, her unemployment may soon be a memory. Thanks to political grandstanding (that seems to be working).

As odd as it may sound, when the current economic crisis began, I was hopeful, expectant.  I believed that our country could reshape itself and draw on its history of noble ideas and empathy to change the fabric of our society for the better.  I believed that the USA--not because of its politicians, but because of its people--truly was an exceptional place in the world.  Increasingly, I think that my assessment was correct, but not because we have lived up to the necessities of ingenuity and empathy.  No, I now think America is remarkable because of its remarkable collective amnesia, because this is a country where 2 million people might lose the lifeline of unemployment benefits simply for the sake of politics, where the truth is a variable that shifts in relation to the election cycle, where millionaires in the Senate chamber can put lipstick on a pig and call it "reform."  I believe, I'm afraid, that what makes us exceptional is our collective apathy.

We watch our friends, our neighbors struggle and then vote for those who are aligned with the insurance companies, the banks, the media, and just sort of hope.

Come on, America, prove me wrong.  Live up to the platitudes.  Let's see how we can innovate out of oil dependency, credit derivatives, corporate fraud, and the damn lies of politic speak.  Let's afford everyone their basic human dignity, their basic rights, like access to shelter, food, and healthcare.  Let's prove ourselves.

What? No?  You have other plans.  There's a new iPhone?  You're a real American?  And, as a liberal, I'm not?

Oh well, fuck it.  Life's too short to believe in fairy tales anyhow.

All In/This Just In

Last night, I wasted a little time playing online poker. I think I made (fake) money although for much of the evening, it looked like I'd end the night at a loss. Of course, when I win, I wish it wasn't just imaginary, electronic chips. I wish I could cash those chips in somewhere and pay off a debt or two. And sometimes, I feel the slightest temptation to risk real money and see if I couldn't turn a small sum into a large one. And sometimes, I find myself fantasizing about that possibility: no more car payments, no more house payments, no more wondering when or from where the next check will come. After all, the key to winning at poker is remarkably simple: minimize your losses when you're going to lose and maximize your profits when you're going to win. The art is in knowing the difference--or rather, in approximating that knowledge as closely as possible.

Unfortunately, if it were real money, the players sitting across from me (or an icon of myself) would play better. They wouldn't bluff out of position just for the hell of it. They wouldn't go all in because they think I might be bluffing. They would know the math inside and out, and they would know the intricacies of this seemingly simple game more deeply and more thoroughly than I do.

But why mention poker here? In a blog ostensibly about the state of the economy? Ostensibly about my family? Even though poker does have gross potential for an allegorical comparison to the way in which our nation's economy is run (I'll let you point out the hustlers, the marks, the sharks, the fish), I play simply for the absorption it offers, the illusion of accomplishment, and the chance not to think about my life for a little while.

Last night, however, a woman somewhere in California, playing at the same (virtual) table announced (through the chat feature) that she'd just been laid off form her job of twenty-odd years. Luckily, her husband remains employed as a firefighter (for now). I watched as friends comforted her, and one other woman launched into a tirade aimed squarely at blood-sucking credit card companies. I didn't know either of those women--or anyone at the table for that matter. So, what was I to say?

Nice hand. It could be worse (trust me).

Eventually, both women migrated to a table with higher stakes, while I stayed behind, tossing good (fake) money after bad, wondering what to do next. Contemplating how to tell you about this stranger who joined the statistics yesterday, how to explain to you what "I" means here, what "we" and "our" entail.

The statistics keep coming. Less bad sounds pretty good. Or not.

So, the cards are down. What next? You think you'll win? You think you'll lose? Maybe break even? Are you sure?

Some of us are just waiting for the right cards, waiting for a chance to play.

Tomorrow

At the risk of meandering into a land bristling with cliche, unemployment, in oh so many was is the sort of setback that can only be overcome with luck or--as it must be for most of us these days--a near avalanche of Annie-like optimism.

Of course, even though someone who is unemployed may frequently feel as if they're being treated like a child, I'm no orphan. Still, think about it: "It's a hard-knock life / for us..." speaks to me in ways it hasn't previously, and more, I'm reminded that (oddly) one of my favorite songs originated in what may very well be the most saccharine narrative of the American Dream ever told.

More, think about "Tomorrow". Is it only a day away or always a day away? Regardless, for the roughly ten percent of Americans who are out of work, that tomorrow must be the first thing we think about in the morning and the last thought that flits across our minds before the oh-so-welcome respite of sleep.

Oh where, oh where is my Daddy Warbucks? Or my FDR? (It's ok; you can laugh).

So how the ______ does one maintain that optimism? Particularly, if like me, you have a more critical slant of mind?

There are myriad answers to those questions, ranging from you don't to it's my nature to look on the bright side of the half-full glass.

For me, I've spent the last week or so working on my own personal website, making vaguely elaborate plans to launch (or is it relaunch?) a more profitable freelance writing career. More, I've been to the library and checked out the sorts of job hunting and career advice books I'd likely shun if the economy were better. I've even contemplated the counterintuitive strategy of applying for jobs as a car salesman. And, more frequently, I take naps.

There is, of course, a horrible sense of irony if you consider the number of people who, suddenly, seem to have time. Time, that most precious of commodities, is the one thing many of us now seem to have in abundance. But how do we use it? How can we, most effectively, enjoy those afternoons when most of the world is at work?

Can we?

The answer, I suppose, depends upon the health of your savings, your credit lines, your chosen (or stumbled upon) career. The answer, I suppose, depends upon how you see your prospects for your own future and how quickly you can erase (or learn from) the application denied or the application with no response. The answer, I suppose, is psychological. For each of the 13.7 million people (as of April) who are unemployed in the United States alone, the shape of that time must differ in subtle ways.

Yet, all of us in that unfortunate category must somehow and someway maintain our own faith in ourselves. We must, if need be, invent it from nothing and praise the small gifts--like the budding blooms of peonies near a cracked sidewalk or the laughter of a child walking home from school down those same sidewalks or the smallest note of encouragement from someone we love--lest we risk losing our ability to imagine that tomorrow.

Ruby's Story

This is Ruby. She's the third of the three dogs who complicate our lives with love (and filth). For the most part, she's a marvelous dog; her devotion to me, it seems, could serve as the very model of Christian fidelity.

Ruby came to live with us and our other two dogs about a year ago. My wife and I had gone to the local PetSmart one Saturday in search of some treat or other and stumbled into one of those afternoons when a local shelter had filled the aisles with the crates of adoptable dogs.

We had to look.

On first seeing my wife, that beagle--known to the shelter volunteers as "Teacup Beagle"--walked over to my wife and nuzzled against her lap. Teacup Beagle looked up, with tear-stained eyes, at my wife and leaned into her legs as if those legs were a stand of trees behind which the beagle could hide. Then, Teacup Beagle's ears were tattered with wear. Her ribs protruded through her pelt around her thin belly. When she panted, her tongue dangled over worn-down teeth. And she was only two years old.

We adopted her on the spot and took her home that afternoon.

I'd like to end the story here, with us carrying the beagle home, rechristening her "Ruby", and introducing her to our other two dogs who immediately adored her. I'd like to tell you that the newly named Ruby integrated seamlessly into our lives, slept beside us, walked with us, and jaunted about the minor expanse of our slanted backyard with the other household canines.

But, that's not what happened. Over the next few weeks, we discovered more and more about that weather-worn dog we'd brought into our midst. She turned over the kitchen trashcan. Several times. She was food possessive, snarling as if possessed by a tiny red eyed demon. She never, it seemed, listened. And worse, she had no fear. Regardless of how much my booming voice might have rattled the ceiling fans, Ruby was unperturbed.

You see, she'd been a stray. She'd survived on streets somewhere in Northern Kentucky by rooting through the refuse people had left behind. No voice could frighten her away from a few chicken bones or a scrap of cheeseburger. No length of time in her crate could keep her from snapping at dog treats given to the other dogs or clambering up toward the kitchen table as my wife and I attempted to eat dinner. She was surviving--just as she had for who knows how long.

It took months, including an awful afternoon when she scaled a nearby fence and vanished like a canine Houdini before she felt safe, before she began to look at my wife and me not as potential marks, but as providers, as people who could keep her fed and safe, as a sort of family. She, slowly, became part of the family, part of the pack and began hunting the small moles and birds that wandered into our yard. She slowly began to prance about the backyard, playing with me and the other two dogs.

Her belly slowly thickened with regular meals and the edges of ears grew smooth as any other beagle's. She still has those teeth though, and every once in a while, we see flashes of her past and can imagine her sniffing down alleys, scouring one dumpster or another. But for the most part, she's just Ruby. We try to take care of her. We adore her.

Just last week, we took her to the vet for her annual checkup and shots. No more fleas. No more issues with a long-standing eye infection--just the inevitable cost of keeping her healthy: shots for bordatella, rabies, parvo, etc.

And soon, we may not be able to afford even those small measures. Soon, there may be no sloped yard in which Ruby can gallivant with the other dogs as the May sun glows down on the opening peonies and thickening clover. Soon, there may be no fences from which to escape. And that, I suppose, is one of the many hidden costs of corporate downsizing, and one of the primary reasons I desperately want my wife and I to find employment enough to keep this rickety house.

What's the Over Under?

Just this week, my wife paid bills...just as we've done regularly--very,very seldom missing a payment--since the day our finances joined forces in that thing called marriage.

But this week is different. This week, we're looking into the future, and the future is indeterminate. We both imagine one call, or another, coming like a miracle. We both imagine the alternative, where we clean out our house and relocate our mounds of belongings into a much smaller home or apartment that's hopefully big enough to keep all three of our beloved (and tiny) dogs.

We're both college graduates. Mid-career professionals. Vaguely talented. Upstanding citizens who didn't make poor choices on our mortgage, our car, etc. We didn't buy a house we couldn't afford. We both, recently, had very good jobs (though my wife's was significantly better in terms of compensation). Yet, now our savings has dwindled. Now, we have a month of hope.

Doubtless, we're not alone. We've survived this long without contemplating bankruptcy or foreclosure--while others haven't.

Maybe you've heard countless stories like this already. Maybe you haven't. My goal here is to tell you our story without succumbing to the aura of taboo that surrounds discussions of one's own money, and to make it beautiful.

Maybe this blog will take you somewhere. Maybe it will take me somewhere. Maybe I can earn enough here for an occasional meal at McDonald's. Because, suddenly, such small comforts--brutal as they may be on our bodies--sing to me like siren song. A small fry. A soda. Forbidden fruit.

Maybe this blog, like much of our lives, is just an errant get rich (ahem...solvent) quick scheme. I'll let you decide.

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