I often write letters to the editor, they sometimes actually print them. I usually write because of something I read that was either really stupid or really smart - or sometimes they are a combination of both. Anyway, these are a couple of my May 2020 letters one of which was printed and the other is still to be determined.

First one is about the Supreme Court considering a case regarding Electors in the Electoral College (one of the greater mistakes in the Constitution.)

SCOTUS and Faithless Electors

There is some irony to the Strib news story about the SCOTUS case,the "unfaithful electors." There are many misconceptions about the electoral college. Among them is that electors are somehow associated with political parties. There is no mention of parties in the constitution and, in fact, the founding fathers hoped there wouldn’t be any parties. Fools! And no, the Electoral College (not it’s real name) wasn’t created to help the small states or protect us from big state liberals. And nothing about faithful. It was created to assure that voters didn’t get their way through “passion” and “mob rule.” Electors were to vote for “men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice.” (Whew, that sure worked out!) Anyway, they could vote for anyone, not just the candidates. In essence, make sure it was someone acceptable to the founding fathers (read: someone like them, probably wealthy and certainly white.) They clearly didn’t trust democracy - and maybe now we can all kind of see why. In any event, the original concept went out the door right after Washington retired and turned into just another electoral, political and undemocratic knot that has tied our country up the last couple hundred years. Time for it to go.

This letter obviously is about two different commentaries. One on the fact that a LOT of businesses are not coming back and probably shouldn't, pandemic or no. The other is about the consequences of the elimination of jobs due to automation that seems to be coming no matter what we wish. 

Two opinion pieces in the 5/23 paper are related and gloomy. Not to mention accurate. Cowen’s commentary should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention for the last 30 years or so. I believe most thinking people have suspected that our economy has become a flimsy shell of its former self borne out by how quickly it collapsed with the onset of the pandemic. Taken over by the financial industry, our economy is now captive to vague financial “instruments” that have enriched the top 1% while creating millions of low paying jobs in the service industry. As Cowen points out, many of the “service companies” with these employees couldn’t really exist without cheap, excessive debt - thanks to the Fed – for both businesses and we indebted consumers. That reckoning is just starting.

Trivedi’s piece regarding automation is equally telling. It is clear that a huge number of the jobs that exist for the average worker today are at risk of being automated and eliminated including many white-collar jobs as well. It has often been said, and was true, that automation creates more and better jobs. In fact, it seems that, again in the last 30 years, for most workers automation has simply driven the job creation to ever lower skill and lower paying jobs. I think what Trivedi’s is implying is that the next stop on this dismal train may be no jobs created. If true then, as he says, we really will have to rethink how our entire economy operates.

The massive job destruction by the pandemic may be just a preview of what our future might look like.     

You can decide for yourself on my view.

No Small Government Conservatives in a Foxhole

I think we all know that there are going to be many changes in our society and work lives due to the coronavirus. Some seem obvious like more people regularly working from home, most people continuing to use online delivery for a lot of household items and maybe online education and telemedicine will become more mainstream. These will all have large impacts on the economy and depending on your job, some good and some bad.  Also on our personal lives - hello frugality, savings accounts and family dinners. There are certain to be some unexpected changes as well.

There is a famous saying in the military that there are no atheists in a foxhole, meaning that when one’s life is on the line even the most devout non-believers suddenly become believers. I wonder if a version of that will occur in our regard to the government after this mess. Perhaps we will find that there are no small government conservatives in a pandemic foxhole.

Was anyone else shocked, amazed and perhaps appalled at how fast things collapsed after the onset of the virus? In a little over a month some 30 million Americans are unemployed. How can that be?! Didn’t any of the companies have several months’ worth of expenses per the most basic advice? On the other hand, most Americans themselves don’t have any kind of saving to that extent either with most living paycheck to paycheck by necessity (assuming you include large cell phone and cable bills and eating out necessities.) So, one of the lessons that big slaps upside the head like this pandemic tell us is that modern life and certainly the modern economy is an awfully fragile – one might say flimsy - thing with just a cascade of bad outcomes. Thank God for big government, right?!

Unlike most of our modern democratic country counter parts, we Americans are famous for our distrust of big gub’mint. Instilled in us by Founding Fathers, all of whom were the wealthy elite of the day, we have proudly carried forward that tradition for some 233 years with the only exceptions being . . . well, every time trouble comes our way. During wars, recessions, hurricanes, floods and generally bad times the good Uncle Sam is there to bail us out. And that’s okay, that’s how governments are supposed to work. As long as there have been governments there has been an expectation that the government would help the people and the people would support the government. (Well, mostly.) Nothing has changed – except the people. I should say, except how people make a living.

When our constitution was written the country was 90 percent farm and rural, today it’s 20% rural and 80% urban – as is most of the world. And that brings me to why our economy and, to a certain extent, our society is so fragile. Also, why big government shouldn’t be a surprise. 

Most of us work for “the man.” In a nutshell, we can train and go to school but in the end “the man” is responsible for providing jobs. It worked pretty well for a long time but something has broken down in the system the last 30 or 40 years; a lot of the jobs aren’t that great and the middle class is being downsized.

So here we are, a raging pandemic wiping out jobs, in many cases the jobs that weren’t the highest paying (although suddenly most valuable, as anyone who goes to the grocery store or has food delivered would vouch for.) And there is no one except the government that can step in to help our friends and neighbors. I mean a big, burly government, one that we hate every other day of the year. One that constantly intrudes in our lives telling us what to do, how fast we can drive, how much we can pollute, who we can’t discriminate against. You know, BIG government. Sadly, and I do mean sadly, we can’t have it both ways. There is much to dislike about our government: the hypocrisy of our so-called political leaders, the intrusion into our lives and the corruption that money has caused. It stinks. But when we need several trillion (borrowed) dollars to save our economy’s bacon there is only one place to go: the government. Like so many things in life, it means you can’t have your cake and eat it too – you have to take the bad with the good

On the other hand, that doesn't mean we can’t do anything about the “bad.” As far as I know we still have the right to vote. Maybe it’s time to pay attention and start demanding more from our government. Not in money or favors. Not for political parties and partisanship. Not for special interest groups. We need to demand more leadership and commitment to doing what’s right it for the average American, like you and me. We are not powerless unless you just give up!

In the meantime, friends, keep your heads down in that foxhole - from both virus and the government - and stay safe.

This too shall pass.