Senator Tom Coburn Shows His Strength ... as a Job Killer

By Si Dunn

In the movies, the good guys almost always win.

But Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn proved recently that the bad guys can win, too, after he took a look at the proposed $246 million tax break for movie production companies.

Instead of investigating and understanding how the tax break could save and create jobs, he simply saw vicious pork and proposed an amendment to strip it out of the Senate's stimulus bill.

Unfortunately, a number of other prominent U.S. Senators, primarily Republican, also demonstrated their ignorance of the movie business and how its health is vital to the American economy.

The vote was 52 in favor of Coburn's amendment and 45 opposed. Only a simple majority was needed to pass the amendment.

Sen. Coburn and the others who opposed the tax break should now congratulate themselves on efficiently killing off thousands of movie production jobs, post-production jobs and jobs at film manufacturing companies and film suppliers.

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One Man's 'Pork' Is Another Man's Movie Project That Creates Jobs

By Si Dunn

The leaders of the Ridiculous Republicans have just published a list of what they consider "wasteful" spending in the Senate's version of an economic stimulus bill.

Near the top of their list is a "$246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film," according to CNN.

Wait a minute. Aren't the Ridiculous Republicans all about reducing taxes? Are they now labeling a tax cut as "pork"?

Clearly they don't understand anything about the movie business.

Number one, it's expensive to make a movie, especially with film. And, despite all of the great digitial advances in recent years, film remains a very beautiful and viable medium for making movies. Movies made with film still look better than movies made digitally. And using film forces better planning and efficiency on the set. You don't just turn on a camera and let it run for two hours while people horse around and do 32 takes of one scene.

A tax break on the cost of film means a producer can put more money elsewhere into his or her production. That means more crew members can be hired. And at least some of the film specialists at post-production labs get to keep their jobs.

Producers who buy film also help keep employees of film manufacturing companies and film processing labs both productive and earning money for their companies.

Things definitely have not been great at Kodak lately. Some of the survivors of recent Kodak layoffs no doubt are now looking to Congress for help with keeping their jobs. Selling more movie film would keep at least some of them employed.

With a tax break on film sales, film editors get more work. Camera operators and focus pullers with experience on film cameras get more work. Lighting crews with experience on film projects get more work. Other members of production crews also get more work.

Jobs are created, and jobs are saved.

This is exactly the sort of economic stimulus that is needed now. And the Ridiculous Republicans are--to put it gently--scurrilous scoundrels and running dogs for opposing it.

You can't incessantly run around screaming "Tax cuts! Tax cuts! Tax cuts!" to the heavens and the moon and then oppose a tax break that both saves and creates jobs in a time of frighteningly high unemployment.

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Ridiculous Republicans Say: "Let Them Eat Tax Cuts!"

By Si Dunn

On a day when the national economy continued to swirl down a giant, gold-plated toilet, not a single House Republican voted in favor of President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package, despite his best efforts to win their support.

"Let them eat tax cuts!" That was the message, in so many words, emerging from the now-minority party in the U.S. House of Representatives. "Tax cuts" seems to be the upper limits of their intellectual and patriotic vocabulary in this time of unnerving crisis. They have one idea and one idea only: "Taxes? We don't need no stinkin' taxes." (Well, perhaps that translates into a second idea deep within their shallow brains: "Government? We don't need no stinkin' government." But, of course, if they could follow that thought out to its logical conclusion, it would mean that they would be unemployed, former Congresspersons.)

These Limbaugh Republicans apparently agree with their talk-radio godhead who recently proclaimed that he hopes President Obama "fails" in his efforts to restore stability and growth to an American economy that now is in deep, deep voodoo, thanks to GOP's own governance efforts--or lack thereof--over the past eight years.

People who have no jobs can't eat tax cuts. They can't pay for health care with tax cuts. They can't go to the supermarket and pay for meat and bread and apples with tax cuts.

Tax cuts also won't put people back to work for companies that no longer can afford to sell their products nor keep employees on the job. Sure, tax cuts may help those companies not have to slash their dividends to stockholders quite so deeply. But tax cuts won't save the job of Joe the Welder now working on the line and looking over his shoulder for the next layoff ax.

If President Obama fails, we all fail. And House Republicans forever will be known as the ones who gave up first in this perilous fight to save the United States of America from economic catastrophe.

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Get Mad as Hell at the Recession---and Don't Take It Anymore!

By Si Dunn

What are you waiting for? Godot? A government bailout? Manna from heaven?

Yes, the financial news is bad, all bad. More bailouts, more layoffs, more fiscal stupidity everywhere we look.

And yes, we're all down. But we're still not out in this bad-and-getting-worse recession. No matter how hard we have been slammed to the turf, we are still not out of the game.

When you get knocked down, what matters is how quickly you get back up and start hitting back.

So get up. Hit back. Any way you can.

Turn Off the TV

Don't just sit there watching the Dow Jones and NASDAQ and the increasingly gloomy economists on the news.

Go outside and do something. Fix something on your house or car. Help a friend or neighbor or relative fix something.

Invite a friend or several friends over for coffee and conversation.

Contact distant relatives more often and go visit nearby relatives. Let them know you still care, no matter what else is happening.

Lighten up your load. Clean out a closet and get rid of some clothes you no longer need. Donate them to a charity that helps people who need more clothing. Clean out unwanted stuff in your garage and donate it, too, or recycle it. Having too much stuff sitting around just drains your psychic energy.

Spend some money on stuff you need. No, you don't have a lot to spend, and neither does almost anyone else. But if we all spend a little bit on things we need or want, we can help people keep their jobs. We can help keep money moving in the economy. This is vital.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Eat out every now and then. And add an extra dollar or two or three to the tip, whether the waitperson really gave you good service or not. He or she may be having a bad day or worrying about a sick child at home or just scared of going broke. A few extra bucks tonight could really help.

Do some things you've always wanted to do. Take up guitar, aerobic dancing, acting, bird watching, historical re-enactments, model airplane building, whatever. Read some of the books you have put off reading because you have been too "busy." See some movies, some plays. Go to some local concerts and recitals.

If you attend a church, get more involved. Maybe someone has started a program to help out the local food bank. Make a donation and volunteer to help. Put a little extra in the collection plate for the church and its staff, too. It's tax deductible. Sing in the choir, even if your main contribution is to just stand there, move your mouth and make the choir look bigger.

Improve your health. If you need to lose weight, start exercising. Spend a little less on groceries and use some of the saved money to fund a new hobby, a new membership, a new subscription or a new charitable contribution.

Find a New Focus

Get more focused on your community and its needs. You can't save the world. You can't stop the recession. But maybe you can help save an historic building from the wrecking ball and turn it into an arts center that serves as a magnet, a training center, and a rewarding outlet for people with creative talents. Maybe you can volunteer to help a preschool apply for state and federal grants. Maybe you can teach a community-education class or lead a volunteer recycling program.

Get more focused on your family and its needs and your friends and their needs. Those who need the most help may be those closest to you. Let love help push away the doom and gloom. You may have to help keep relatives and close friends from giving in to despair if they have lost their jobs and their homes. You may have to help them in other ways, too, including financial. It's just the way things are right now. Yes, maybe they did make some poor choices, or maybe they didn't. But what matters now is getting through this terrible downturn. We can all use the lessons learned to build better and more sensible lives later.

We will get through this. Together. But only if we get up and start punching back now that we have been knocked down.

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The Coming Rise of Online College

By Si Dunn

The cost of a university education is staggering. And it's about to get much worse as revenue-strapped states find themselves forced to sharply raise some of the fees for attending college.

Attending is the operative word here as beleagured parents and students try to figure out how they will afford a good education. It costs a great deal of money to house and educate students on campus and to pay the salaries of professors and support staff. And the costs keep soaring at a time when more and more parents and students are unemployed or underemployed.

Online college courses already are providing at least some cost relief. For example, I live in Texas, and I am now taking an online course for credit from Harvard University, in Cambridge, Mass. The online class is costing me nearly $500 less than attending a similar course on campus at a local university just two miles away.

Several reputable universities now offer degrees that can be earned completely or almost completely online.

There are scams, too, of course. And the degrees or class credits from some online schools may not be worth much academically or in the job market.

But America's current economic crisis will force many parents and students to take harder looks at online classes for at least part of a college education. And the quality and acceptability of online education will continue to rise.

Well-known schools such as Ohio University, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Colorado, Harvard and many others now offer online courses for credit.

In some cases, you may use your computer to watch videotaped lectures and use email to send in completed assignments or questions for your instructor. Other schools may use various other methods to deliver course materials and lectures online. Old-fashioned correspondence courses also are still available, and these make it possible to handle all of the classwork and tests by mail, without computers and Web and email access.

Some online courses allow more time for completion than a usual on-campus semester. And some classes can be started at any time of the year.

You may not want to pursue an online degree. But taking a few online courses may be a good way to reduce the cost of your college education. And the accessibility of these courses may help you get a good, quick jump on earning a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, or even a Ph.D.

Just be careful to pick a well-known school with online class credits that can transfer from one college or university to another.

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Elderly Woman Blogs Herself to Death...and No One Notices!

By Si Dunn

That grim scenario is happening somewhere in the world right now. Indeed, millions of us are blogging at this very moment and attracting perhaps 10 readers each, if we're very lucky.

The World Wide Web supposedly connects us all to each other. We somehow feel that we are now "in touch" with the universe as we blog and Tweet and update our FaceBook and MySpace pages.

Some people, however, are pouring their very hearts and souls into their blogs and Web pages at this moment, and no one is paying any attention to them at all.

Well, at least they have a way to cry out for help, you might be thinking.

Which leads, naturally to: What about the millions (billions?) of people still living in lonely--and non-electronic--isolation? How do they cry out for help and get noticed, if everyone else now is staring at screens or walking (and driving!) with handheld devices held up to their faces?

We can't fix everyone's problems. Many of us can't fix anyone's problems, much less all of our own.

Yet maybe, just maybe, if we step away from our keyboards and put down our handheld devices for a few minutes this challenging Christmas season, we can help bring a bit of comfort and perhaps a bit of joy to someone somewhere.

You may be feeling overwhelmed at all of the needs now surging out there--so overwhelmed that you'd rather just sit at your computer, send everyone on your email list an electronic Christmas card and be done with the holidays.

Don't turn away; don't turn inward. Take time--just a little time--each day for the next few days to do something for someone else, someone less fortunate than you. Then, after the holidays, don't stop. Even if you can do nothing else except tip a waitress an extra dollar or donate an old lamp to Goodwill or help an elderly neighbor rake her leaves. Anything helps; even small gestures matter.

Yesterday, in just a few minutes' time, I mailed some Christmas money to a laid-off relative, then I created a donation bag containing five shirts, two pairs of pants and two pairs of shoes and took the bag to a nearby drop-off kiosk.

I still have plenty of shirts and pants and shoes left. But people much less fortunate than I am may receive my donation and be grateful to have something different and good to wear to a job interview or to a Christmas dinner at a church potluck--or to just get through another winter day with a little more hope.

Today, I will pare down and donate a few more things that have lost their charm for me yet are still good enough to help others. And I will give a few bucks to a local food bank. (Every one of them in America now needs a bailout, because so many people in need are showing up at their doors.)

Of course, what I'm doing and feeling good about today adds up exactly to diddly-squat on the cosmic scale. I know that. And I don't let it get me down. I did something, and I will do something more.

Individually, we can't fix everyone's problems. We can't save the economy. We can't stop the flood of layoffs and foreclosures. The list of We can'ts is absurdly long. Yet, we can do something. (Yes, we can!) We can help someone. The old and shopworn saying is still very much true: Every little bit helps.

We should not try to hide from the overwhelming enormity of the current economic disaster and think that all we can do about it is whine--and blog.

"Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but not be heard." (Proverbs 21:13.) "He that giveth to the poor shall not lack: but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse." (Proverbs 28:27.)

Get up from your screen for a while. Do something tangible now. Donate something; send something; give somebody or some organization a little of your time, attention, effort and--if possible--money.

"Send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared." (Nehemiah 8:10.)

Then, once you are back at your screen again, if you happen across someone crying out in a blog or on a message board for help and attention, offer a hopeful reply, if you can. Let them know that someone out here has heard them and has understood what they are trying to say. That may be just enough to help them make it through another hard day, another personal crisis, or another week of isolation and loneliness.

"Thou shalt open thy hand wide to thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land." (Deuteronomy 15:11.)

Even if you have to use the World Wide Web (and ridiculous shock-jock headlines such as "Elderly Woman Blogs Herself to Death...and No One Notices!") to help do it....

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Welcome to the Depression

By Si Dunn

West Texas is the wrong place to be driving while listening to the latest job-loss figures, the latest appeals for bailout money, and the latest--deeply gloomy-- prognostications from learned economists.

Parts of Highway 287 between Decatur and Amarillo seem like the surface of Mars. Rugged, uninhabited land for miles and miles; low hills in the distance.

What looks like patches of snow in some fields turns out to be cotton left unpicked because of falling demand and weakening prices.

Now and then, a house appears along the highway--windowless, holes in the roof, abandoned years ago. Its nearby barn is missing boards and shingles and leans precariously toward collapse. Or, it has already fallen into a rotted, weatherbeaten heap.

At dreary rest stops along the highway, signs implore people heading into the restrooms to "Watch Out for Snakes."

It's too cold for rattlesnakes on this early December day. But there is plenty of wind sweeping tumbleweeds across the road. A big one suddenly rolls and hops into my grille and hangs there like a small, dead Christmas ornament in the 70-MPH slipstream.

The seemingly unending land occasionally gives way to small towns along the highway. I pull into one to get gas and stuff the tumbleweed into the pumpside trash can. Nearby, almost every building in the small business district is abandoned. Some were boarded up decades ago, in a previous economic downturn, and never reopened. But some of the newer buildings sport fresh plywood or empty windows festooned with "For Sale" or "For Lease" signs. Even a church building is for sale.

In one small town not far from Amarillo, however, there is one small sign sign of hope along the road. A restaurant advertises: "Now Hiring Smiling Faces."

But as I pass the sign, an economist being inteviewed on a newscast predicts the unemployment rate--already at 6.7 percent--will surpass eight percent in 2009.

The restaurant probably pays $2 an hour plus tips. And there won't be many big tippers among the farmers, ranchers and oilfield workers now watching their incomes fall like meteorites. Will one of them soon become one of the "smiling faces"?

Meanwhile, what will the hundreds of thousands of newly unemployed do, now that their jobs in the financial industry, manufacturing, telecommunications, automobile sales and housing construction have gone away?

They can't all be "smiling faces" at small-town restaurants. They can't all build roads and bridges and clean up parks in a 21st-century rehash of the Works Progress Administration. Where else can they work? Will they now pack up their cars and head west, like 1930s Okies, looking to take away jobs from the illegal immigrants now working in California's agricultural fields?

Another news report on the radio describes an increasing number of two-parent families moving into homeless shelters, because Dad and Mom both have lost their jobs and worn out their resources and the resources of their relatives. The homeless shelters now are desperate for financial help, but companies and individuals are cutting back, because their incomes have fallen.

As I reach Amarillo, I turn off the radio and check into a motel. At the restaurant next door, I eat a small meal. I am the only customer in the place. The dozens of tables, booths and counter chairs are starkly empty. The three waitresses stand and look out the window, hoping for more customers to come in. To have something else to do besides straighten napkin holders and check salt shakers, they occasionally drift by and ask me if my meal is okay and if I need anything.

When I finish, I leave them each a $3 tip. It is all I can do.

In my motel room, I tune the radio to a classical music station. I lie down and let Mozart wash over me. It cleans away some of the day's gloom.

It is all I can do. All I can do.

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