Left In Lowell

Some light governmental fare interspersed with our economic and budgetary woes, I guess.

I got the official notice from the Patrick administration, then someone from his office forwarded it to me specifically, then another of my political friends forwarded it to her e-list as well. Then Governor Patrick put the link in his Facebook status. All right, I can take a hint already! So here you are - you can help decide what Massachusetts national park will be featured on our 50-state dollar quarter coin from the US Mint. Vote for your favorite. And yes, the Lowell National Historic Park is on the list, so I expect you to do your duty!

Vote early, vote often! We get four choices, one preferred and three alternate. Let’s see if we can get Lowell into the top four.

(Update on the correction: Oh sure, I read “quarter dollar coin” as dollar coin. Yes, indeed, it’s Monday…)

Oh thank goodness. Devilstower put some perspective on the whole century-long “debate” about what really got us out of the Great Depression. Republicans would like to have you think that’s in dispute, at best, and believe they have the answer (war war war) at worst.

Almost all of the commentary on the right these days draws from a single source, The Forgotten Man, by Amity Shlaes. You can think of Shlaes as the Coulter of conservative economics. Her book is peppered with the horrors experienced by the nation under FDR. (Did you know that somebody in Brooklyn got so depressed that they committed suicide while Roosevelt was president? It’s true!) Shlaes, whose academic background is untarnished by any actual study of economics, is the perfect packager of the Republican myth, and her book carefully avoids all those nasty facts that tend to get in the way of the plot.

In it, Shlaes… completely leaves out any specific data on gross domestic product, incomes, consumer spending, production, investment or jobs even for the New Deal period she presumes to explain. Indeed, her pitch is based entirely on emotional misrepresentation.

Income, production, jobs… what do those things have to do with the Great Depression? Not much, if you’re Republican.

Devilstower has a great chart showcasing economic growth, then the following:

Where was the stimulus? Just take a look. From the moment FDR began to enact the programs of the New Deal, the economy began its recovery. After four years of steady declines, Roosevelt’s programs brought on an immediate improvement in the national fortune. Within three years, the national GDP exceeded the level in 1929. By the time the bombs fell at Pearl Harbor, the GDP had been up every year but one since 1933, and that one downward tick in 1937 marks the exact point at which budget hawks forced cuts in the New Deal programs.

That’s the story the numbers tell. The New Deal worked, worked well, and worked quickly. These days, we define recessions as two consecutive quarters of declining gross domestic product. By that measure, when did the Great Depression end? One quarter after Roosevelt took office, that’s when.

The post then mocks the Republican’s “explanation” for the end of the Great Depression, which they claim was WWII and the ramp-up to becoming a society at war:

So Republicans have developed the idea the government putting people to work, spending on public works, and taking a bigger hand in the markets couldn’t possibly help. Instead, things were cured when the government put even more people to work, spent many times more, and took absolute control of prices and wages.

The whole thing’s worth a read though, for the snark alone (the beginning of the post is in the form of a fairy tale…and I know you like a good story).

Only. 14. Percent. Only 14% of Americans believe in evolution, specifically, that “man evolved over millions of years.” And that’s up from 9% in 1982!

Are you people NUTS?? Seriously. I’m asking. I’d like to know if I live in a nation of totally flipping insane people, except for less than a fifth of you.

The Greater Lowell Chamber’s new Downtown Lowell Business Committee is presenting Great Plates, a fixed-price menu selection at participating local downtown restaurants, featuring an appetizer, an entrée and a dessert. Not that I need an excuse to forgo my normal frozen dinner lunch or sandwich at the office for a restaurant-cooked meal! This special promotion will take place from Sunday, February 15 through Saturday, February 28.

The restaurants who are participating are the Athenian Corner, Blue Taleh, Centro, Caffe Paradiso, Cobblestones, La Boniche, Life Alive, Old Court, Ole, Ricardo’s Café Trattoria and Tabocas Steakhouse (the newly opened Brazilian restaurant at 26 Andover St).

If you opt for a Great Plate, “you will be entered to win gift certificates from the participating Great Plates restaurants! Eat and be entered as many times as you can!” (Oh god, I’m in trouble now…)

Neat idea for a business promo program, and I look forward to working my way through my fave restaurants hoping to get a gift certificate to my fave restaurants. Economic downturn? Nevah! Let’s support our local businesses as much as we are able!

The City Manager has a post on his blog about the new marketing campaign the city is embarking on.

In the post dot-com-bubble downturn of 2001, I had noticed (as I was thrown out into the droves of people looking for a job) that the very first jobs to be cut when times are tough are marketing and PR. I found that interesting, and, as a “marketing” person myself, personally frustrating. But I also thought it was patently stupid, and self-defeating, for business to do this.

Of course, laying off the widget makers is generally a bad idea because without widgets, you have nothing to sell (though less selling happens in a downturn, anyway). But this tendency for businesses to precipitously slow or cease their advertising and marketing just when it’s the most important to fight to stay in front of your customers means losing precious time in keeping up your brand identity, and a longer road to stronger sales and recovery for your business.

I met up yesterday with a city employee while working out at the Y (who isn’t a member of the Y??) who said something very telling, to the effect that “the reason Lowell, which has a lot of foreclosures just like Lawrence, is doing better than Lawrence is that we have a lot of first time buyers snatching up the properties.” Oh, I said in response, so the years raising the levels of amenities like our cultural and arts offerings is having an effect?

As someone who purchased one of those foreclosed homes in the middle of this foreclosure crisis, I can personally attest that, yes, it has. As terrible a shape as we are in, budgetwise and with our property values, it could definitely be worse, if not for a couple of decades of efforts on the city’s part to not only better itself and its quality of life, but also to market that improvement to potential citizens, who might buy homes and shop and live and work here.

So for the city to continue this trend, and to capitalize on the eventual recovery, recover faster, and maybe even weather the coming storm better, we can’t stop spending on marketing. To do so would be a shame, and a failure to build on the successes we’ve already had in attracting new residents and businesses.

Mimi and I are guests on WCAP right now (around 7:15 or so). I meant to post about this on Friday but forgot! So much for the theory that I’m a mere publicity hound.

980 AM for those who need to know.

Update: Well, that was fun! I’m always fascinated by how quickly time goes by in radio. Thanks to Jack and Teddy for having us on. So, one of us will be on pretty much weekly on Mondays between 7 and 8am, to talk politics and whatever else that comes up!