Bacon's Rebellion

  • MONDAY MORNING TEST

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    James A. Bacon

    Google Map search for Mountain House, California and Waterloo, Iowa (Tks to Larry Gross for a great example)

    Background: Mountain House is the new poster child of Wrong House, Wrong Location and underwater mortgages (90% or 95% depending on source.) Both Mountain House and Waterloo are in agricultural regions that are among the most productive on the planet.

    If from these two maps do not make:

    Clear Edge
    Critical Mass
    Balanced Community
    New Urban Region
    Mobility and Access Crisis
    Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis
    Helter Skelter Crisis
    Sustainable human settlement patterns

    very clear to you, please do not vote or invest until you have overcome Geographic Illiteracy.

    Until a majority of US of A citizens can understand these eight concepts, political leaders will have no choice but to promise economic growth instead of sustainable trajectory for society.

    EMR

  • Let the Sun Shine In!

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    James A. Bacon

    Virginia state government has taken another big step towards transparency thanks to the publication today of the Virginia Public Access Project’s redesigned website. VPAP provides a deeper, richer database of campaign contributions and lobbying activity, and it’s searchable in more ways than ever.

    Click on the profile for Attorney General Bob McDonnell, candidate for governor, and you have a choice of tabs for viewing his data by top donors (Mark J. Kington, $28,500), top industries (real estate developers, $63,301), top vendors (Commonwealth Consultants, $56,634), and top services (staff, political consultants, $148,459).

    So, you wonder who this Mark Kington fellow is. Click on his name, and you reach his profile. He’s an Alexandria-based venture capitalist (and former business partner of U.S. Sen.-elect Mark Warner, although the database doesn’t tell you that).

    Back to the McDonnell profile, and you can click on a tab that provides all previous election results, all campaign financing committees associated with the candidate, and expenditure info as detailed as the fact that he has spent $1,671 at Sine Irish Pub (a great place to grab a beer or dinner near the state capitol, by the way).

    Legislator data goes deeper than ever before, providing easy access to the lawmaker’s financial disclosure information: salary (within broad monetary ranges), corporate affiliations, personal liabilities, investments, privately funded payments for trips, taxpayer funded payment for trips, gifts, business interests and more.

    Once upon a time, this information resided only in dusty government offices in Richmond. It was a pain to access, even if you were a journalist or lobbyist and had the time to rummage through the documents. As a practical matter, transparency was limited. Now the information is all online where any citizen can get to it 24/7. Let the sun shine in, baby, let the sun shine in.

  • When the Lights Go Out

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    James A. Bacon

    Electricity is something we all take forgranted — until we don’t have it. Then our society breaks down.

    That’s why we ought to pay attention to a recent study, “Lights Out in 2009,” published by the NextGen Energy Council. That organization is supported by the electric utility industry, the coal industry and other players with a vested interest in growing the electric industry, so we need to take its conclusions with a grain of salt. However, if NextGen is even close to being right, the U.S. faces massive disruptions within the next few years that will make the today’s concerns about the impact of Global Warming in 2010 seem absurdly remote.

    Here’s the argument in a nutshell: Since the early 1990s, baseload generation reserve margins have declined precipitously from 30-40 percent to 17 percent in 2007. Compounding the problem, a disparity between growth in electric demand and capacity could shrink those margins by another 10 percent by 2016. Margins of 12-15 percent are deemed the minimum required to safeguard against brownouts and blackouts.

    According to NextGen, the shortage of generating capacity will be compounded by insufficient transmission capacity — the ability to get electricity to where it’s needed. Some areas are likely to be hit sooner and harder than others. California and the Rocky Mountain states are in deep doodoo, and the northeast urban corridor, including Washington, D.C., are in mid-waist doodoo.

    Nationally, NextGen estimates that the U.S. will need to install $250 billion of new generating capacity and $80 billion of new transmission capacity by 2016 to avoid power disruptions costing the economy a guesstimated $80 billion a year. That capacity is not being built, the organization contends, because (a) virtually every project is blocked or delayed by lawsuits, and (b) state regulatory agencies are imposing Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), which would make electric supplies dependent upon variable wind- and solar-powered generating capacity and aggravating the challenge of getting electricity where you need it when you need it.

    A hallmark of the Kaine administration has been its attention to the impact of Global Warming upon Virginia’s economy and ecosystems. That’s a worthy study. We need to think long term, and we need to adopt a holistic framework for approaching public policy that gives proper weight to the environment. However, while attention of our policy makers is fixated on the end of the century, we are paying scant attention to problems of far greater magnitude that could be only three or four years away.

    Here’s a prediction: If brownouts and blackouts start devastating Virginia’s economy, people will be a whole lot more focused on that problem — by a factor of 100 — than hypothetical concerns of what might happen if temperatures and sea levels rise nine decades from now. Global Warming alarmists and environmentalists generally will be discredited. The public will demand immediate solutions, even if those solutions are expensive, short-sighted and environmentally destructive. The public will throw money at Big Grid remedies that provide a quick fix, even if they perpetuate the energy status quo instead of creating the distributed grid we need for a sustainable future.

    Virginia’s public policy makers, including its environmental leaders, need to get out front of these problems now — not when the blackouts hit.
    (Image cutline: April 2008 protest in Pakistan prompted by persistent blackouts.)

  • BREAKTHROUGH!

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    James A. Bacon

    WaPo has columnists who often see the world as it is: Warren Brown in one. Another is Steven Pearlstein who appears in the Business section. Today – 14 November – Pearlstein tosses a touchdown pass in overtime with “Toward a new International Capitalism.”

    For anyone interested in the 20 nation-state “summit” about to launch in the Federal District or the future of Virginia’s economy needs to understand Pearlstein’s perspective.

    For EMR the most important thought is buried in the next to last paragraph:

    “While product and labor markets work remarkably well when they are left open and lightly-regulated, experience has now demonstrate that a different approach needs to be taken toward financial markets, which suffer from imperfect information, and abundance of moral hazard and a tendency toward herd behavior and speculative excess.”

    Wait a minute!

    While those comments are on target with respect to “financial” markets what about land markets, built environment markets and infrastructure markets? Taken together these three can be called “the settlement pattern market” because they shape human settlement patterns.

    No one with hands on experience in these markets could claim they do not “suffer from imperfect information, and abundance of moral hazard and a tendency toward herd behavior and speculative excess.”

    Is the real estate market just a side light? Is it not the mortgage sector of this market that is driving the Global financial meltdown?

    What about Autonomobiles? Are they just “products” or are they right behind “Wrong Size House in Wrong Location” as a driver of settlement pattern dysfunction?

    What a huge blind spot Pearlstein has exposed! We explore this blind spot that is common among economist in The Shape of the Future.

    Pearlstein provides a useful context with which come to understand the importance and topography of the complex market that most directly impacts human settlement patterns.

    At the federal, state and municipal levels Agencies have done an terrible job of managing the settlement pattern market. See “The Role of Municipal Planning in the Creation of Dysfunctional Human Settlement Patterns,” 23 January 2002.

    Housing and Autonomobiles have been subsidized by Agencies to jump start the economy with every recession since the Great Depression. And every time the settlement pattern has become more dysfunctional as documented by the Mobility and Access Crisis and the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis.

    Why not evolve intelligent management of four markets: Labor, Goods and Services, Finance and Settlement Pattern? That will be important at the Global and continental scales but even more important at the Regional scale. The nation-state has a role to play but it is the Region where the rubber needs to meet the road. That has been the focus in the EU.

    The folks governance practitioners that Jim Bacon calls Euro Weenies have been reluctant to harp on the dysfunctional settlement patterns in the US of A because the more sustainable patterns and densities of land use give the Euro’s a competitive advantage.

    Perhaps in the context that Pearlstein outlines they will speak up over the weekend.

    EMR

  • Congestion Tax + Gas Tax + National Sales Tax

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    James A. Bacon

    Prices send signals and taxes can influence behavior. So what are we to make of a proposal like this?

    …the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) last month submitted a detailed $544 billion transportation re-authorization proposal designed to encourage the new administration to shore-up the domestic economy with heavy spending on infrastructure projects.

    The new programs would be paid for with massive new tax hikes, including a per-mile driving tax that would begin with “proof of concept” trials as early as 2010. The tax would initially be one cent per mile to generate an estimated $32.4b a year. An extra one cent per gallon in the federal gasoline tax would generate another $1.8b, and a national sales tax on cars of one percent would generate $7.6b.

    Now that’s real money. But let’s stop for a moment and ask: if such an idea, in whole or in pieces, is adopted by the new administration, what would its effect be upon entities like VDOT?

    I suppose, considering that the idea has been floated by the association representing road builders like VDOT, that they have taken into account the distortions such national taxes might impose on their local funding mechanisms. At least one would hope so.

  • WRONG SIZE HOUSE, WRONG LOCATION

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    James A. Bacon

    On 31 October CNNMoney.com reported that First American CoreLogic had found 7.5-million home mortgages already “underwater” and another 2.1-million that were on the brink. The International Herald Tribune story cited in EMR’s post “WaPo and IHT Housing and Mortgage Coverage,” 29 October on this Blog pegged the potential for underwater mortgages by 2010 at 19-million.

    The CoreLogic report provides underwater numbers by state:

    An astounding 49.8% of all mortgages in Nevada are underwater – talk about gambling…

    An equally astounding 4.1 million underwater mortgages are in the top five states. These states include Florida and California, two jurisdictions that are often mentioned as leaders in the propagation of dysfunctional settlement patterns at Regional scale.

    The two states with the lowest percentage of underwater mortgages were New York and Hawaii.

    In New York State (4.4% of mortgages underwater) one factor may reflect Rockefeller administration concern for settlement patterns forty years ago – we did not call it that at the time but that is what was a primary concern as it had been in 1926. Modest rates of Regional growth over the past 40 years in most New Urban Regions that fall all or part with in New York State also helps. Hyper growth yields hyper dysfunction. (Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania which also have territory in the New York New Urban Region are also in the bottom 10 of underwater mortgages). Another factor is aggressive pursuit of mortgage, insurance and other venues for Enterprise fraud by New York State.

    In the number two state, Hawaii (5.6% of mortgages underwater), the settlement patterns are nearly as useful as those of Western Europe for demonstrating the principles of intelligent settlement patterns. This is in spite of real estate churn and flux due to Asian investing. (If they could just get a robust shared-vehicle system up and running in the Oahu New Urban Region…)

    EMR uses the terminology “Wrong Size House, Wrong Location” as shorthand for the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis and the root cause of the mortgage meltdown. So far it has been ‘Wrong Location’ more than ‘Wrong Size House’ that has shown up in the foreclosure data.

    The reason appears to be that a reluctance on the part of mortgagors to foreclose on Big houses in poor locations. The reason may be that in the current market they can not be resold. There are buyers for less expensive dwellings. Frequently the notice of foreclosure sale is followed by a notice of a resale for about the same price – some even higher than the foreclosure price.

    That fact indicates special impacts on Households with low Institutional Capacity. Foreclosures of cheap houses in poor locations appear to have an especially big impact on minority homeowners. In the Subregional press, Hispanic surnames are much more frequent in foreclosure notices than in the population in general. Antidotal evidence suggests flight from the inhospitable environment created by Prince William County resulted in imprudent debts.

    Prince William’s target may have started out to be ‘illegals’ but the impact appears not to be confined to illegals by any stretch.

    Of the 25 counties with the highest rates of increase in Hispanics from 2000 to 2007 in the entire US of A six are in the Virginia portion of the National Capital Subregion. Three are adjacent to Prince William County and two others are not far away.

    EMR has stated that those components of urban settlement where SYNERGY has identified high percentages of foreclosure are orphan subdivisions in dysfunctional locations vis a vis Jobs / Services / Amenity.

    The pictures used to illustrate MainStream Media coverage of the mortgage meltdown look like poster children for settlement pattern dysfunction but that is not a statistically valid guide.

    State-wide and municipal / Planning District data can misleadingly mask what is happening in the organic components of a New Urban Region.

    Here is an exercise for those who have any doubt about the Wrong Location part of the Wrong Size House / Wrong Location paradigm:

    Locate Cluster-scale, Neighborhood-scale and Village-scale urban agglomerations with high percentages of foreclosures. Then determine, based on Google Maps or other resources, if these places are in components of urban settlement that have any chance of becoming contributors to the evolution of Balanced Communities.

    EMR

  • Henrico Nixes Regional Transportation Boondoggle

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    James A. Bacon

    Henrico County has spurned one of the worst public policy ideas in Richmond history: creation of a regional transportation authority to fund regional transportation improvements. Not entirely for the right reasons, mind you. But I’ll take a victory any way I can get it: Without Henrico, a regional authority would be rump organization that could accomplish little and do little harm.

    As proposed, the Central Virginia Transportation Authority would provide a way to raise more than $108 million annually for transportation road projects through the collection of new and increased taxes and fees, reports the Times-Dispatch. Melodi Martin quotes Henrico County Manager Virgil R. Hazelett as saying that Henrico’s position came down to two things — that the state should remain responsible for its transportation system and that now isn’t the time to increase taxes for residents.

    Poor logic on both counts. Metropolitan regions should take a regional approach to transportation planning and funding, rather than gaming the system politically to get other regions to pay for their improvements. As for the time not being right to raise taxes, the time is never right.

    Here’s the real problem with the transportation authority: To be effective, a regional transportation authority needs to synchronize transportation improvements with land use policies. If a regional authority makes transportation investment decisions in a land-use vacuum, it won’t do any better job than the state does. But there is no mechanism in the proposal — at least, not as described in the press accounts — for coordinating transportation and land use planning, much less for the more esoteric idea of creating balanced and contiguous communities inside a clear edge.

    Furthermore, there appears to be no mechanism to ensure that users pay for the improvements they demand. As this proposal appears to be structured (and I confess that I have not seen a copy of it), the transportation authority would simply raise taxes on those too politically impotent to resist, perpetuate dysfunctional human settlement patterns (which are worse, believe it or not, than sprawling Northern Virginia or Hampton Roads) and further undermine Richmond’s regional competitiveness.

  • Rustbelt Richmond

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    James A. Bacon

    Earlier, I forecast a dire future for Hampton Roads. Now it’s time to issue a jeremiad about Richmond. The recession is battering the economy severely. When the wind and rain dies down, the corporate landscape will look very different than it does today.

    LandAmerica, a Fortune 500 company that provides real estate-related financial services, is being acquired by a rival. Some observers expect the entire headquarters operation to pack up and leave for Jacksonville.

    Electronics retailer Circuit City is on its death bed, shedding thousands of employees nationally and hundreds in the corporate headquarters. Bankruptcy appears all but inevitable.

    Packaging company Chesapeake Corp., last time I checked, was on the verge of defaulting on its debt. The stock is trading for less than $1 per share.

    Menswear retailer S&K Famous Brands is struggling to survive, with its stock trading barely above $1 per share. The most valuable asset it possesses may be the land where the company located its corporate headquarters years ago, at the junction of Interstate 64 and Broad Street.

    CarMax and Media General are hurting big time, although their survival does not seem to be in question…. for the moment.

    Pittston just spun off a major subsidiary; the headquarters will be located in Texas. Earlier this year, specialty chemical manufacturer Albemarle Corp. relocated its corporate headquarters to Baton Rouge. A year ago, Wachovia Securities decamped for St. Louis.

    Change is inevitable. Along with capitalism comes creative destruction. The old makes way for the new. But where is the new? Where are Richmond’s up-and-coming growth companies — the “gazelles” that create most of the economy’s jobs and economic growth? I can’t think of many. The roster of businesses in the “Companies to Watch” shows that there are signs of entrepreneurial life, but Richmond scores low in national rankings of fast-growth companies like the Inc. 500.

    Our community has done a poor job of cultivating the growth of home-grown, fast-growth companies. The Virginia Bioechnology Research Park may have reached a level of maturity that it can begin contributing to the regional economy in a significant way, and Virginia Commonwealth University has potential, but the overall outlook is grim.

    It’s 8:07 a.m. and I’m already reaching for the bottle of bourbon.

  • DEGREES OF SEPARATION

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    James A. Bacon

    In response to several Emails requesting clarification, EMR sets the record straight:

    There are fewer degrees of separation between EMR and the President-Elect Barack Obama than with any occupant of the White House since Jimmy Carter. In this case it is not understanding Carters time in public office – especailly as Governor of Georgia – but the context in which Obama grew up.

    Sen. Obama graduated from Punahou School. It was two graduates of Punahou (Class of ‘59) while attending the University of Montana who convinced EMR he should consider going to the University of Hawaii.

    EMR was studying philosophy, mathematics and architecture at U of H when Barack Obama Sr. met his future wife there. Hawaii in the 1960 was not a comfortable place for Africans or African Americans. It was in some contexts a more tolerant place for children of mixed heritage but not for inter-racial marriages, especially involving Africans or African Americans.

    In Hawaii published in 1959 , James Michener had glorified the racial equanimity of Hawaii. In the Fall of 1960 EMR met Michener at a small party and observed that EMR had found extreme racial profiling and tension as a student, a construction worker, bar tender and as a consumer in the Aloha state.

    It was a small party and Michener seemed to take this input into serious consideration. As we all know, Michener who had moved his permanent home to Hawaii, later repudiated the cosmopolitan “golden man” idea because of the treatment his Asian American wife recieved. He moved to the Phildelphia New Urban Region.

    The relevance of this? Growing up in Hawaii gave Barack Obama the perspecitve, social skills and mental toughness that could not have been obtained growing up in the oft cited crucibles of the civil rights movement. This background prepared him for the path he has taken and will serve him well in the future.

    Our time in Hawaii included working as the house and yard man (not “boy,” please) for a very prominent member of the medical profession (Punahou Class of 1927) and forming friendships with a range of individuals. An inquiry or two would yield a single degree of separation.

    The more important thing is that after living in Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland and Virginia EMR can still say it was in Hawaii where Barack Obama grew up that race and color were the most important economic and social parameters. (Living in Mass. Mont and Calif only provide perspective :>)

    By the way, the Hawaiian Islands provide incredible lessons on human settlement pattern too – if you know where to look and what you are looking at.

    Obama was the best qualified person running for president in 2008. We hope that 100 years from now he is considered the best President the US of A has ever had. Given the magnitude of the problems he faces, he has that opportunity.

    But the HYPE is not going to help. Hype, frenzy and in-your-face celebration as well as “we will beat the crap out of those that are aganist us next time” declartions attracts nut cases like the one who shot the President who was elected in the year Barack Obama Sr. met his future wife.

    Let us hope the Agency employees hired to protect the President are better qualified than those hired to protect citizens of the Gulf Coast – “Heck of a job Brownie.” See “Katrina Yet Again” 8 September 2008.

    The HYPE also attracts readers and viewers and sells advertising. It does not make the job of achieving a sustainable trajectory for civilization any easier.

    How hard will that job be? Check the Business section of today’s WaPo – “The New President and the Economy” or yesterdays and today’s GVI (aka, the Dow Jones Gambling Venue Index).

    And who will be helping him? See the bottom of the page the Business section. Obama’s inside advisors will include Jason Furman who says Wal*Mart is “a progressive success story.” See “Learning from Big Boxes” in THE PROBLEM WITH CARS.

    Hope that clarifies EMR’s perspective.

    EMR

  • Barack Hussein Obama and the GOP’s Future

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    James A. Bacon

    Congratulations to President-elect Barack Hussein Obama for his symbolic victory. However ill gotten the gains, a black man was elected President of the United States of America. There is no racial barrier to the most powerful position in the world. That’s good news for anyone who imagined there was such a barrier in 2008.

    It may be catharsis for some Americans who suffer from white guilt. But, it won’t satisfy Liberals who see the world in their trinity of race, class and gender(s) identity politics. It won’t be enough for the Liberal human secularists who seek socialism, multi-culturalism, national subservience to the U.N. and rule by elites – elected and appointed.

    This election was the second spanking of the Republican Party in two years. Establishment Republicans lost. Republican Conservatives have an opportunity to save the United States of America from socialism and liberalism – by leading the Republican Party from 2010 on.

    Establishment Republicans governed without courage of convictions and with remarkable incompetence. They lost accordingly. Yet, the conflict of ideas remains.

    Where the Conservative ideas were manifested, they were victorious. Traditional, Judeo-Christian – a.k.a. American – marriage of one man and one woman won – even in California. Even Obama emphasized the tax cuts promised to 95% of the people, not the class warfare tax hike. But, it’s only a few election cycles until identity politics can triumph and create the irreversible slide to destroy our American Republic.

    Currently, the Nation is 40% Liberal and 40% Conservative (Virginia used to be 35:45 but that is changing fast). The 20% in the middle vote the bread and butter or war and peace issues of the day. That break down by ideas translates into different and rapidly changing demographics. When Whites become an absolute minority by 2042, if the politics of identity keep their currency, the combination of former minorities will always win. Even though a majority of Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Africans hold Conservative ideas. Ideas lose to identity and character to color and language if the Democrats win many more elections.

    If the Democrats pass an amnesty bill to give the right to vote to 20 million illegal aliens – and more that follow – then the fundamental shift in America happens much sooner. It could happen as soon as 2012 in the key swing states – Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, North Carolina, Georgia, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. There will be no return – unless there is some watershed event of war – international, civil or cultural – faith or economic collapse to bring a unity of ideas held by individuals over group identity. Our American Republic will go the way of all former Republics to end in ruins.

    So, the time is now for Republican Conservatives and Libertarians to use the Republican Party to lead all Americans a better future. Now. America has a Munificent Destiny – if we choose to create it. We have a purpose that will carry us through another century of freedom, opportunity, prosperity and as much peace as possible. The rule of law, individual rights and responsibilities, economic freedom and choices, charity and investment at home and abroad – from the human heart of families and communities can triumph.

    Conservative ideas of freedom, family, faith, energy and economics are superior to the politics of race, class and gender(s) – and all as subjects to international socialism. But, we have a short window to protect, preserve and forward America as an ascending idea. If future American Presidents are Conservative – without any regard to race or ethnicity – America wins. In 2000 I voted in the primary for a much better qualified Black candidate for President – Alan Keyes. I look forward to voting for the better man and best ideas again.

    This weekend national Conservative leaders will meet in Virginia to chart a course forward. I, too, will meet in Virginia with people – peasants not pachyderms – to try to chart a course for Virginia. We will see what ‘The Virginia Way’ can do in the elections of 2010 for federal office and across our Commonwealth in 2011.

  • Poisson Fishes for a Mileage Tax

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    James A. Bacon

    Del. David Poisson, D-Loudoun, has introduced legislation that would establish a joint subcommittee “to study the desirability and feasibility of replacing the state motor fuel tax with a mileage-based fee predicated on vehicle-miles traveled in Virginia.”

    Needless to say, I am excited to hear this news, as I have been advocating a mileage-based tax for a few years now. For the benefit of newbies to this blog, the arguments for such a tax can be recapitulated as follows:

    • The gasoline gax is living on borrowed time. Not only is the tax not indexed for inflation, the automobile industry is on the verge of introducing high miles-per-gallon vehicles that consume less gas and yield less tax revenue — indeed, the industry is on the verge of introducing electric vehicles that consume little or no gasoline at all. It’s only a matter of years before the gasoline tax fails to generate enough revenue to maintain existing roads, much less build new ones.
    • A mileage tax is the ultimate “user pays” revenue source. The more you drive and the more wear and tear you put on the roads, the more you should pay to maintain them. There is no reasonable argument against this principle. There are only objections to the practicality of implementing the principle. As indicated in an article by the Loudoun Times-Mirror, the joint subcommittee would examine whether a GPS system or a pay-at-the-pump system would work better.
    • A mileage tax fairly allocates location-variable costs. It is a core dictum of Bacon’s Rebellion that economic and environmental sustainability requires a rational allocation of location-variable costs. Translated into plain English, that means, people need to pay for the full costs they incur from their choices of where to live and work. A rational transportation funding system is an important step on the path to more balanced and functional human settlement patterns.

    The tax should be adjusted for the weight of the vehicle (bigger vehicles cause more wear and tear) and the level of pollutants it emits. To my way of thinking, the tax also should be set at a level that would pay for all road/highway maintenance costs, including the cost of working down the maintenance backlog of bridges and other structures in disrepair. Indeed, it might increase the political appeal of the tax to call it a “road maintenance tax.” No one has mounted a serious argument against properly maintaining the infrastructure we ‘ve already invested in.

    A mileage/maintenance tax should not be used to pay for new construction. There is no necessary correlation between the number of miles someone drives and the demand he/she creates for new construction projects. The drivers and property owners who create the demand for new roads, bridges and highways are the ones who should pay for them — either directly, through tolls, or indirectly through higher property taxes in Community Development Authority districts, higher house prices via impact fees or some other mechanism.

    I applaud Poisson for introducing the idea of a mileage tax into the public discourse. Implementing the tax will raise prickly issues, as Bacon’s Rebellion bloggers have explored in some depth. Virginia policy makers need to start working their way through those issues now before gasoline tax revenues reach a melt-down stage.

  • ANTIPARTISAN – AN ADDITION TO THE VOCABULARY OF SUSTAINABLILITY

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    James A. Bacon

    Two years ago today, Jim Bacon wrote a column titled “Elections, Shmelections. Nothing has changed.”

    That column deserves to be reread with care. From the perspective of the long term trajectory of civilization, NOTHING WAS CHANGED by yesterday’s election except the level of hype.

    Barack Obama could be the best president the US of A has ever had and that would not change the current trajectory on contemporary society.

    The future is not about what President Elect Obama – or any other President – can or will do. The future is about what citizens and their Organizations have already done, individually and collectively, and will do, especially collectively and primarily at the New Urban Region scale.

    This is true whether or not Senator Obama is able to implement his agenda. Check out the Obama platform on taxes and spending, housing stimulus and the bailout, retirement security, trade, foreign policy, access to health care, offshore drilling, climate change, immigration, education and the culture war issues. They are great pre-1973 ideas but will they really result in “change” much less yield Fundamental Transformation to a sustainable trajectory?

    To be fair with the Elephant Clan promising pre-1973 “growth and prosperity” had the Donkey Clan been more realistic, they would have been hammered by the voters. That is because the vast majority who went to the polls believe in Big Rock Candy Mountain.

    And why do they believe in Big Rock Candy Mountain? That is what both Clans have been promising for 35 years.

    In neither Clan’s platform were there substantive proposals for Fundamental Transformation in governance structure to reflect economic, social and physical reality. There was not even the call for a Balance of individual rights with community responsibilities that was in both the Bush I and Clinton platforms of 1992.

    There were no proposals that would result in a Fundamental Transformation in human settlement pattern.

    Both Fundamental Transformations are necessary to preserve democracy with a market economy.

    An ‘historic’ election? The only historic aspect is that finally citizens MAY have put aside prejudices that were contrary to the principles upon which the US of A was founded 233 years ago – slavery and racism.

    On 5 November citizens and their Organizations are faced with the same human settlement pattern they had on 3 November – the Helter Skelter Crisis. That crisis has resulted in:

    The Mobility and Access Crisis, and

    The Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis

    The later of which has triggered a Global financial meltdown.

    Reversing the Helter Skelter Crisis is the only path to shrinking the ecological footprint of humans, reducing energy consumption and dependence on foreign petroleum as well as enhancing personal and food security along with other key elements of a sustainable trajectory for civilization.

    Although they make important observations, there is something profoundly frustrating about the posts “A Few Pre-Election Thoughts,” (3 Nov) and “Va, Welcome to the Real World,” (5 Nov) by Peter Galuszka and “Democracy in Action,” (4 Nov) Jim Bacon. These posts imply that who gets elected and which party they represent (note: “which PARTY they represent) makes a difference. Political party monopoly is bad, the current political party duopoly is worse.

    In the ESTATES MATRIX we document why MainStream Media has abandoned the Fourth Estate. Watching the election coverage on the ‘major’ networks and cable channels last night and then reading the election coverage in today’s press makes it clear:

    MainStream Media is dependent on political party duopoly is pseudo “competition” for revenue.

    “Let’s you and him fight” political ‘coverage’ is a huge contributor to MainStream Media’s bottom line. According to WaPo the two parties spent over $375 million dollars on “media and advertising” for the top of the ticket from June trough election day.

    Political candidate and party ads plus the ‘issue’ ads intended to generate bail-out proceeds, defense contracts and to obscure responsibility for the Global financial meltdown (and other hot air issues) make up the majority of ad revenue. The prime drivers of dysfunctional settlement patterns – Large, Private Vehicles and Dream Homes – ad revenue is in the tank along with the advertisers.

    In a democracy there is no sustainable path to Elephant Clan recovery. That is because the Clan would have to convince 50.5 percent of the voters in key states that they are enjoying to fruits of “growth and prosperity.” That is not possible when the “growth and prosperity” they tout has been subsidized by burning thru natural capital that has been and / or is being exhausted.

    This is not just the problem with oil but with all resources from blue crabs to top soil, to potable water. The natural capital is not completely gone yet but it will be more inaccessible and much more expensive in the future. Resources will be affordable only by those at the top of the economic Ziggurat and they do not make up 1 percent of the voters, much less 50.5 percent.

    Oh yes, there is a way to lower the cost – a recession. A depression works even better. But that does not make those voters at the bottom of the Ziggurat happy.

    Culture War issues are no longer a viable refuge for the Elephant Clan. Concerning the Culture Wars the op ed “Last of the Culture Warriors” by Peter Beinart in the 3 Nov 2008 WaPo is a must read.

    In a democracy with a market economy there is no sustainable path for the traditional platform of the Donkey Clan either. The only option is rabid populism because there are not enough resources to support continued Mass OverConsumption, especially with dysfunctional human settlement patterns.

    The favorite weapons of the Clan wars and also not available. Derogatory labels are not only useless – as the results from yesterday’s election show – hurling misleading epithets at the other party is ineffective and probably counter-productive. Calling someone a fascist, ultra conservative, right wingnut, center right, center, center left, liberal, ultra liberal, left wingnut, socialist, communist – and all the other labels – is meaningless.

    Scaring citizens by suggesting that the other party wants to take away their ‘freedom’ or ‘taxing the poor to support the rich’ is will not work. Neither will using ill defined terms like “limited government,” “free markets” or “rule of law” when those in public office violate their responsibility to protect community interests.

    Party labels have been stretched and distorted to include at least 50.5% of those who come out to voter. (By the way, “Donkey Clan” and “Elephant Clan” were not invented by EMR or Jim Bacon. EMR first heard about them from a political scientist who describes himself as a “recovering Republican.” The Clan designations have a useful ‘tribal’ ring and have been adopted into the SYNERGY Lexicon.)

    Where to from here?

    “Politics is broken.” Partisan two party competition is a dead end. Bipartisan ‘cooperation’ is worse and a nonpartisan agenda not much better. Bipartisan and nonpartisan catchalls mask the need for Fundamental Transformation. How about an Antipartisan strategy?

    Drop the superficial political spectrum labels – call them all Core Confusing Words.

    Spell out principles such as those in The Shape of the Future with respect to human settlement patterns or those dealing with managing the economy in the “IT IS ELEMENTARY” post of 10 October 2008 on this Blog.

    Define objectives using clear, well defined terms within a comprehensive Conceptual Framework.

    Spe
    ll out the strategy to achieve the objectives and seek broad agreement on the tactics to achieve the objectives. With respect to human settlement pattern, SYNERGY lays out a Three Step Process in HANDBOOK.

    The Antipartisan approach is to create a broad consensus based on agreement of the vast majority of stake holders with the level of decision being the level of impact.

    The biggest problem for some will be that an inclusive Antipartisan process will “slow things down.” Slowing things down in a society where speed has burned through natural capital and atomized society is a good thing, not a bad thing. Small is beautiful and Regional is the new Global.

    Note on Vocabulary:

    Google and Webster, Third Edition indicate that “Antipartisan” is a new word so we capitalized it. Antipartisan.com is an available domain name. Jim Bacon’s “Elections, Shmelections, Nothing Has Changed” column drew a suggestion from Groveton concerning a new “third” party. Perhaps what is needed is an antiparty?

    EMR

  • McCain, Gilmore Win Richmond: RTD

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Fellow bloggers,
    Call me crazy, but according to Page 16 in this morning’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, John McCain beat Barack Obama 54,013 to 14,548. Jim Gimore got 54,013 to Mark Warner’s 14,548.

    Now how can that be? I thought Richmond would go blue. And each set of Republican victors got exactly the same votes — ditto Democrat losers.

    Earth to Tom Silvestri. What happened to your copy desk? Need any help? Could this be even more evidence that the Times-Dispatch is truly going downhill under your management?

    Peter Galuszka

  • Voter Suppression through Bureaucratic Lethargy

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    My 24-year-old daughter, Sara Bacon, went to the polls in Richmond yesterday to vote. She’d never had much interest in politics before, but she’d made the effort this year to research both of the presidential candidates and make a choice. But when she arrived at the polling station, she was informed that there was no record of her registration. She was not allowed to cast her ballot.

    Sara drove downtown to City Hall and talked to someone in the registrar’s office. Here’s her reconstruction of what happened. After graduating from college, Sara had moved out to Wyoming. Because she had no intention of relocating there permanently and thought that she could move back home at any time, she maintained her official residence in Richmond. She kept a Virginia driver’s license, paid Virginia taxes and registered to vote in Richmond.

    At some point during her two-year stay in Wyoming, the city sent her a notice to serve on a jury. Sara sent back the form stating that she was living outside the state and unable to comply. Then, without notifying her, the city purged her name from the voting rolls. Sara returned to Richmond in August, staying in her mother’s house where she had grown up and having no basis whatsoever to suspect that she was no longer registered to vote.

    Now, the United States is a mobile society, lots of people move, and municipal governments do need to purge their voter rolls. I have no problem with that. I don’t even have a problem with the city’s decision to purge Sara based on her inability to report for jury duty. But I have a very big problem with the fact that the city never informed her that she was no longer registered. If she had known, she could have re-registered when she moved back to Richmond in August. But there was nothing that anyone could do on voting day to fix the problem.

    I hear a lot of loose talk on television and in the newspapers about “voter suppression,” usually with the implication that evil forces are trying to reduce the turnout of minority voters. My hunch is that bureaucratic inertia is responsible for supressing far more votes than the machinations of one political party or the other.

    The city of Richmond elected a new mayor yesterday — Dwight Jones. He comes across as a reasonable man. Let us hope that he enacts a very simple reform: ensure that voters are informed in writing when they’ve been purged from the voting rolls. Otherwise, taxpaying citizens can add one more reason to move to suburban counties: ensuring themselves the right to vote.

  • Virginia, Welcome to the Real World of the U.S.

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Tuesday night’s triumph for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party is truly a turning point for the nation and the Old Dominion, even though saying so sounds as trite as a newspaper headline.

    For Virginia, it was the first time that the state voted for a Democratic president since 1964 and, in doing so; it has expunged a truly ugly chapter in the state’s history.

    True, Virginia did elect the first African-American governor in 1989, but in election after election for 44 years, Virginia voters stuck with Republican Party strategies that all too often were based on wedge issues involving racism and reaction.

    The trend kicked after 1964 when Virginia last voted for a Democratic presidential candidate. Since then, voting seemed a knee-jerk move against racial integration of society and schools. According to Bob Moser, author of “Blue Dixie:” “It’s true that Democrats were bound to take a hit in the South after LBJ signed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts of 1964 and 1965, which ended all forms of legal segregation and doomed various schemes – literacy tests, violent intimidation – that had suppressed black registration ands turnout.”

    Unfortunately, Virginia then bought into every retrograde political agenda the GOP could come up with. There was Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” which was based on building up a sense of white, working class despair over the tumultuous social and racial upheavals of the 1960s. This was the first organized attempt by Republicans to create a “Silent Majority” that was the real keeper of the American faith, sort of like Sarah Palin telling residents in a small North Carolina town that they were the “true Americans.”

    And on we went. When Jimmy Carter carried the South in 1976, Virginia didn’t go with him. The Old Dominion bought into the Reagan revolution hook, line and sinker. Even though Reagan, who had some good ideas, ended up being the tremendous government spender he supposedly despised. Reagan was a riddle of contradictions – a Hollywood actor, divorcee and non-church-goer, who, as Moser points out, cast himself as an authentic, family-oriented and religious guy.

    Virginia’s Republican politicians have tried to ride the Reagan wave as far as they could up the beach. Well into the 1990s, we had cowboy-booted George “Aw Shucks” Allen coming after welfare queens and building prisons and having his insulting macacca moment. Former Governor Jim Gilmore made a fetish out of his destructive car tax while making hash of the state’s budget.

    With Democrat Mark Warner, the state got a big signal of its momentous demographic shift. Here was an out-of-stater living in Northern Virginia, whose economic boom was drawing in thousands of new people with new ideas, making it big in the free-market that GOPers claimed to so love. No big surprise, but Warner easily crushed Gilmore’s pointless run for senator, giving the state two Democratic senators for the first time in years.

    Obama’s story is an almost magical one. He’s a half-white, half-black man who has just won in a state that as recently as 1967, back when I was in high school, made it illegal for different races to marry. Boasting of strong oratory skills and superb campaign organization, he took on old Democratic icons such as the Clintons, beat them and then won in Virginia.

    True, it wasn’t a crushing defeat. Obama didn’t take much of the rural state or stubborn conservative strongholds such as my home county of Chesterfield. But big, populous counties that used to vote strictly Republican, such as Henrico, Loudoun and Prince William, went Democratic. More predictably Democratic cities such as Norfolk and Richmond did, too.

    Once again, here’s evidence of the demographic shifts that have changed the face of Virginia. And it shows just how badly the Republicans have stumbled after eight disastrous years of George Bush and, after 44 years, just how they are exhausted they are of ideas.

    Voters are saying that simply running against abortion, for guns and against immigrants won’t cut it any more. Serving up an under qualified “You Betcha” candidate whose only real asset is her gender won’t cut it, either. The economy is a mess and the financial markets face their worst crisis since the 1930s. We’re still stuck in two messy wars. Luckily, we have a new president whose message is hope and inclusion, not wedge issues. And voters are not stupid.

    Peter Galuszka

Now Available

Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
For sale on Amazon.com

The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….

This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

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