. Spinning .

This Hartford Courant poll on the issue this week regarding students on two state campuses requesting the right to carry concealed weapons on campus show some surprising results (NOTE: I’ve been updating the chart below):

Guns on Campus?

Yes (5667 responses)

91.4%

No (534 responses)

8.6%

• 6201 total responses (Results not scientific)

While my initial response to the question was pretty much that I didn’t trust kids with guns running around, I have to come back to the facts: that state law still requires one to be twenty-one years of age to carry, and it’s much, much harder to get a gun permit than it is to get a gun; that the ones who are intent on killing will always be able to sneak a gun in (and they haven’t been using small, concealable weapons!); that in many cases such as the fast-food restaurant massacre there was a woman who had left her gun in the car, whose father was killed along with many others, and who regrets deeply that she didn’t have that chance to prevent some of those murders. Thirty-two dead and twenty-five wounded by a single gunman at VA Tech–don’t you think a couple people firing back might have saved some lives? Or do you want him to stand there shooting people until he runs out of bullets?

While the shooting events on campus are relatively small compared to overall crime, the devastation in each event is total by the nature of the number of students and faculty that become sitting ducks for the shooter. Campuses safe? Well maybe, but why then are there so many ‘lockdowns’ of schools in the news lately as one of the first immediate steps taken following any form of shooting within running distance of a school?

I know this: I want to be able to carry a weapon legally to protect myself and others if necessary against the few nut-jobs out there that are depending on taking advantage of an opportunity and knowing full well that no one can stop them. I’ll bet the students at Columbine, VA Tech, and any of the few (but more than plenty to the victims’ friends and parents) schools that have seen the slaughter firsthand, wish that someone in the second row had had a weapon, aka, a chance to protect them.

We get several local weeklies and in going through one this morning, I see a story unfold that is more personal, more poignant than the news on TV, the internet, or big newspaper articles. It is the story of the economic impact on lives seen through the classified ads.

There are more dining room sets offered for sale than ever before. There are more men willing to rent themselves out as handymen, “no job too small,” as the women take to cleaning houses, walking dogs, babysitting. It’s the stories that make up the whole of who is affected by the loss of jobs, savings, homes. It’s showing, not telling, and it’s more heartbreaking that way.

While I’ve never really thought along the same lines as anyone else I knew or anything I’d read, it wasn’t just a spirit of rebellion or a  stubborn streak I don’t think. I’d like to say it’s just a different angle. For example, I don’t really believe this whole “housing bubble” term.

It’s true that real estate sort of simmered and then suddenly boiled over like spaghetti sauce just when you think you’ve turned the flame down to a point where you can walk away, but I don’t believe that prices exploded out of sync with the rest of commodities. Forty years ago (approximately), my sister and her husband bought a house for $40,000 and just before this crisis it was valued at $400,000. That’s in keeping with the price of a ’69 VW Beetle which was $1,800 (I went for the convertible which was $2,500) and the new one is $18,920.  A sandwich roll was $.05, now I’m paying $.59. A quart of milk was $.25. Chicken was $.19/lb and hamburger $.29. I used jumbo shrimp (now called ‘super colossal’ at 6-8 per pound) for my stuffed shrimp at $1.69/lb. vs. current  price of $17.99/lb.

Do you notice a trend here? Prices on all items have all gone up approximately 10 times. So how is the cost of real estate any more ridiculous than the cost of anything else?

Well there lies the problem. My first job in an office as a order clerk typist paid $60/week. That’s $1.50 per hour and minimum wage was $1.25.  Minimum wage will be raised to $7.25 in July of this year, but that’s a far cry from a 10-times rate of $12.50. Even with this obvious lack of cost of living increase in salary to keep up, many workers are indeed beyond that barrier to be bringing in salaries of  $25,000 to $65,000 that are well in keeping with the times, coupled with the fact that there are more two-earner households than there were forty, fifty years ago.

The problem then appears to be the failure of the minimum wage to keep up.  That, and the acceptance of illegal workers which keeps earnings even below that point. I think that if government is to have any say in how businesses operate, that should be a priority. The next step, of course, would be to penalize companies who attempt to avoid paying workers reasonably (though I do see labor union jobs often out of control earnings-wise) by moving production to foreign soil.

So were the housing costs out of sight? I don’t think so. Were mortgages given out indiscriminately to unqualified buyers? Yes. Under pressure from government good intent to help lower income earners to afford housing, and to cater to promising up and comers who bought mansions they worked too long hours to spend much time enjoying,  the housing market was brought down. But was it a problem of overevaluation? I don’t think so.

But then, I always have seen things from a different angle.

Reading about the Madoff swindle, I find so many folks laughing and figuring that the rich deserved what they got. But the rich pay big taxes and are the main source of income for charity groups. In an article in Vanity Fair, there’s this:

The center of the storm was the predominantly Jewish Palm Beach Country Club. The sand-colored building, with its fine restaurants and 18-hole golf course, sits between the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Worth. Membership is based not on what you have—the $350,000 initiation fee is the least concern of the admissions committee—but on what you give away. Madoff became a member in 1996. “You won’t get in unless you can demonstrate that you’ve been charitable in a big way,” said Richard Rampell, an accountant with a number of clients who are members. “They want to see a history of many years of giving every year at least what the initiation fee is, and they ask you to prove it.… I have a few clients who give 10 to 20 times that much every year to charity.” One member told me, “We built the hospital, we built the Kravis Center for the Performing Arts. We built it all. This is just not a come-and-have-a-party group.”

You hurt the big guys, and believe me, the little guys are going to get hurt as well.

And, balls:

“Because of what we did, 95% of all working families will get a tax cut — in keeping with a promise I made on the campaign. And I’m pleased to announce that this morning, the Treasury Department began directing employers to reduce the amount of taxes withheld from paychecks — meaning that by April 1st, a typical family will begin taking home at least $65 more every month. Never before in our history has a tax cut taken effect faster or gone to so many hardworking Americans.”

“That work begins on Monday, when I will convene a fiscal summit of independent experts and unions, advocacy groups and members of Congress to discuss how we can cut the trillion-dollar deficit that we’ve inherited. On Tuesday, I will speak to the nation about our urgent national priorities, and on Thursday, I’ll release a budget that’s sober in its assessments, honest in its accounting, and that lays out in detail my strategy for investing in what we need, cutting what we don’t, and restoring fiscal discipline.”   (The White House Blog)