Watertown - Ghost Town of Northern New York

Yesterday I took a long look at the downtown area of Watertown, because my son believes there is a need for a cultural nexus on the square. What I saw was a shadow of the past. A crumbling reminder of the economy my father declared a failure in 1968. Those days, where downtown was being demolished to allow for 'modernization', seems like the golden age compared to the desolation on the square today.

I've lived in and around Watertown most of my adult life. I've worked for many of the major employers over the last thirty odd years. And I've watched the effects of the economic principles  that we have used to run our economy over the past four decades destroy a remarkable community.

Watertown was built along the Black River, a rolling torrent fed from the Adirondacks and flowing into Lake Ontario, one of the five great inland seas that bound Canada and the Norther portion of the United States. The river was never navigable for any great stretch but its forceful flow provided power for hydro powered factories in the nineteenth century followed by hydro electric dams and local power in the twentieth century. Industry and business flourished in the North Country. Watertown grew around Factory street and the town Square. Farms fed the factory workers and new immigrants moved in from Ireland and Italy to build the railroads and work in the mills.

Watertown flourished as a city of middle class families with lots of children and many families grew wealthy from the industry.

When I was a young man in the early 1980's many of the factories were gone or downsizing. Many of the businesses in town were owned by corporations with no ties to the North Country. And with no interest in the welfare of the people. We still had several high end manufacturing plants including the New York Air Brake/ Dynapower with over 1200 union workers, and Fisher Gauge with its skilled tool makers. There were three electric motor plants making consumer appliance motors. Most of their production work force were women, but they made more than decent money for the time.

Around the area were flourishing restaurants, houses were well kept, most middle aged people owned camps on the lake, and kids went to college with very little debt. Stuck in all sorts of odd corners were entrepreneurial businesses making ski lifts and fire trucks and machining armatures for large induction motors.

These places are gone now.

Many of the family restaurants are gone now.

Downtown Watertown when I was a kid had a grocery store (the A&P which is a parking lot today) and JC Penney's  (also gone) and clothing stores, and people. There was a bookstore on lower court street I used to go to when my parents were in town. I would walk the aisles and discover wonderful new places. There was a music store where you could get classical music.

The barrenness of downtown hurts.  I can't see what my son sees. The wealth and the hope of new wealth has been ripped from this area by the needs of the corporate economy. We have been discarded. People have pointed to Fort Drum as the salvation for the North Country, but I have to disagree. Fort Drum is life support. If the Army closed the Installation there would be nothing left to sustain the city as anything more than a holding place for people with no place else to go.

The point of this drive down memory lane was to say that the economic model of the twentieth century was a failure. It is incapable of sustained growth and does serve the needs of society.

People aren't the food of an economy. We are the purpose. If the basic goals of the economy aren't to support the people and a healthy productive and happy society then the goals need to change. Economics aren't natural laws, but rather a structure used to satisfy our wants and needs.

And when the structure doesn't satisfy us, we need to change it.

Economics 911

I am not an economist.

Well, I, like everyone else, am a practical economist. Money comes in. Money goes out. If I'm smart more money comes in than goes out. Otherwise I'm in trouble.

The essence of income is work. When I was in grade school I was taught we worked to make products to trade for products we wanted. Sally made pies and traded them to Sue who made dresses who gave the pie to Frank so he would fix the kitchen sink... So in my grade school economics work = income.

So the great economic thinkers redefined wealth from this simple grade school idea. They've been saying that wealth needs to be gathered in great piles so it can fornicate and make more money. So the income, the fruits of our labors has been piled up in counting houses and allowed to procreate.

The results of this fornication and procreation is large amalgamations of wealth in the hands of a few.

This might almost make sense except there is a problem with their economic theory. Once they strip the last bit of income from our cold dead hands there is no one to make things or buy things or create new wealth.

Create new wealth?

Yeah. Sally makes the pie. The pie has value. It didn't have value before Sally made it. Afterwards it get's Sally a new dress and Sue's sink fixed. And if Frank uses his pie wisely, like sharing it with Betty, he might even get to fornicate and procreate.

So if this simple minded approach satisfies the needs of the many, why has it been necessary to develop convoluted economic models and paradigms to satisfy the few? Work and the results of work belong to the those directly involved. The argument between opposing economic philosophies over the last hundred and fifty years is based on control and not on results.

Communism as a state run soulless economic machine failed miserably because the implementation of Marxist theory eliminated the rights and joys of the individual.

Capitalism in turn is crashing to the ground on the weight of its own profound greed and shortsightedness.

In both philosophies the individual is disregarded.

I've heard arguments like this is an either or decision. I hope not. Because if it is I really hope the world ends on December 21.

Please read Umair Haque http://www.umairhaque.com/

To Kill A Mockingbird.... or Trayvon versus Zimmerman

At this point in the point in the exploitation of the death of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman's gun the only fact not in dispute is that George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin.

In the interest of full disclosure let me say I have a carry permit and more than one handgun suitable for short range combat. I am not a police officer nor was I trained as a soldier so I have effectively no combat training.

The most important thing I was told by the police detective who interviewed me before I was given my license was not to pull my gun unless I had to use it.

He didn't mean to pound nails.

It took a while for the lesson to sink in. The only legitimate reason I could pull out one of these uncomfortable chunks of metal and point it at someone was because I believed that person was going to kill or severely injure either myself or some nearby defenseless person. That's a real tough judgment call in my opinion, especially when you're not trained to make those decisions.

The other thought that finally came to my mind... The only reason I'm carrying this gun is to kill someone. I can't warn them. I can't threaten them. I have to kill them (or at least try to kill them). That made me very cautious about when I carried my gun.

I wonder about Mr. Zimmerman. He's a young man in good health. A rough and tumble street fight with an unarmed opponent shouldn't have been such a threat he needed lethal force. In my opinion.

But I wasn't there.

On the other hand why would Trayvon jump a white guy in a white neighborhood who is obviously carrying a gun? Oh the gun was concealed... right. So Trayvon thought he'd get tough with the white dude following him... in a gated community noted for having a community watch...

I have a lot of questions for Mr. Zimmerman and the police, but none really for Trayvon. He could reasonably have turned and confronted Zimmerman or tried to run or even attacked Zimmerman, but in any case he was unarmed and alone and in a strange neighborhood, while Zimmerman was in communication with the police and carrying a pistol, locked cocked and ready to rock. (That means he had a round in the chamber, the gun was ready to fire as soon as the safety was released and the trigger pulled. In other words Mr. Zimmerman was ready to kill someone.

I like the Florida stand your ground law. I think it's the right action in certain circumstances. Like if someone with a gun is shooting at you or people nearby (like this random gunmen that like to gun down unarmed people)... then I think a person who is carrying his weapon should return fire and try to kill the individual. I think a woman threatened with rape should gun down her attacker. I wouldn't mind if she shot his nuts off. I think old people should be allowed to defend themselves.

Self defense should be considered a basic right.

But the question I have is: Who was ready to kill that night? The man with the gun or the boy with the skittles?