Out of Touch off the Tracks
Out of Touch off the Tracks
by WalkerARCHITECTS » Mon Nov 28, 2011 5:51 pm
Train Wreck Modern
We write to inform architects about the political sphere that is shaping our market and limiting our employment opportunities.
The lack of basic design intelligence is once again in the news. The committee was searching for $1.2 trillion over 10 years. The Bush tax cuts, which disproportionately benefitted the rich, cost $2.8 trillion over the past decade. Do the math. But the 1 percent obstructed a return to the pre-Bush-balanced-budget-era tax rates and would sneer at the mere suggestion that they pay the much higher marginal rates the wealthy accepted after World War II to settle those government debts. In fact, Republicans on the Super Committee actually proposed additional tax cuts for the rich.
*Design Intelligence is explained in the post following
More breaks for the wealthy would require slashing social safety net programs for the 99 percent -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, child nutrition. It would mean no funds to create jobs and boost the economy. The result would be less money to build highways, refurbish bridges and renovate schools.
That's okay with the 1 percent because they feel no obligation for those social responsibilities. They do not need the programs. Too many Architects do need them.
So there it is; There was actually nothing super about it. The super-committee negotiations failed. It is definitely for the better that they did. Why? Because Republicans simply REFUSED to make billionaires and big corporations lift even one finger to help reduce the debt. This never ending outrage must be shut down before the nation can move forward. The problem is special interests of the Republican party believe congress exists to enrich them at our expense.
In fact, they’re demanding TAX CUTS for their biggest benefactors, the top 1%. Exactly the opposite of reason. How out of touch does it get? Architects, unemployed or underemployed, out of work all over the United States need these programs. Read on.
We have already written about Americans assaulted, clubbed, dragged, pepper-sprayed …Why? …. For exercising their right to free speech and assembly — protesting the increasing concentration of income, wealth, and political power at the top. The wealthy few are taking our government away from us. We had hope that the regressive would see the truth but they are telling lies to our faces. Washington’s response?
Nothing. The truth is that Congress’s so-called “super-committee” disbanded because Republicans refused to raise a penny of taxes on those few who are already wealthy. How can the leaders of the nation be that out of touch? Architects exist to make special expressions that capture and abstract human life and experience over time. Both art and science of building, used to bring to form Architecture as one dimension of free speech of our great civilization.
Instead, here’s who Republicans think should shoulder the burden: Seniors on Medicare. Middle class families who want to send their children to college. Every American receiving Social Security. The unemployed and all those who are suffering the most in this economy. They want to pass the burden to you and me, to our parents and to our children.
“Meanwhile, the Supreme Court says money is speech and corporations are people. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision last year ended all limits on political spending. Millions of dollars are being funneled to politicians without a trace. This conduct is only the shadow of the evil that lies within.
The rich didn't create the entire federal deficit. And the 99 percent are ready to pay their part, just like they feel compelled to meet their personal debts.
The behavior of the 99 percent during the mortgage crisis best illustrates their morality on the issue of repayment generally.
In the midst of the recession near the end of 2009, as home values relentlessly declined, more than third of all mortgage holders found themselves underwater -- meaning that they owed more on their houses than they were worth.
Although financial advisors told mortgage holders who were underwater by hundreds of thousands of dollars that they should walk away from their houses in their own economic self-interest, only a tiny number, estimated at less than 5 percent, chose to deliberately default and dump the loss on the bank.
Architects understand all too well, that the truth is our economic troubles are likely to continue for many years — a decade or more. At the current rate of job growth (averaging 90,000 new jobs per month over the last six months), 14 million Americans will remain permanently unemployed. That is not including the under employment which is expanding. The consensus estimate is that at least 90,000 new jobs are needed just to keep up with the growth of the labor force.
Even if we get back to a normal rate of 200,000 new jobs per month, unemployment will stay high for at least ten years. Years of high unemployment will likely result in a vicious cycle, as relatively lower spending by the middle-class further slows job growth. This means lower profits for most corporations selling to Americans.
What is frustrating to many Architects is the apparent incapacity for the elected official to find solutions to problems, to pursue rational process to create elegant and effective correction to the problems of the nation state.
In past years, politics has been greased by the expectation of better times to come – not only more personal consumption but also upward mobility through good schools, access to college, better jobs, improved infrastructure. It’s been a virtuous cycle: When the economy grows, the wealthy more easily accept a smaller share of the gains because they still came out ahead of where they were before. And everyone more willingly pays taxes to finance public provision because they share in the overall economic gains.
Because we no longer have a society where the wealthy are dependent upon the American worker, except as buyers of their product, the emphasis in government has transmogrified. The wealthy want their wealth sheltered and secured against taxation. They want to call all the shots in America the way the wealthy call the shots in trading nations over seas.
Now the grease is gone. Fully two-thirds of Americans recently polled by the Wall Street Journal say they aren’t confident life for their children’s generation will be better than it’s been for them. The last time our hopes for a better life were dashed so profoundly was during the Great Depression.
Why is this happening? Mostly because it no longer makes sense to have employees in the United States when they are so much cheaper in other countries. It no longer matters if those nations use captive forced labor, child labor or slaves.
“A revolving door has developed between official Washington and Wall Street , with bank executives becoming public officials who make rules that benefit the banks before heading back to the Street to make money off the rules they just created created.” Said Robert Reich.
Architects here in Seattle are frustrated with the economy, and the conduct of the congress. There’s no other word for it but disgraceful. Democratic senators won’t stand for it. Would you? Do you? I won’t stand for it.
This is not a Republican party I even recognize, I know Architects to be pragmatic rational people, you would not pass the burden created by the wealthy tycoons of Wall Street to the middle class and the poor either. I can’t comprehend what manner of darkness has taken control of the nations politics. It’s time to unite with one clear voice and demand that Republicans stop putting the wealthy at the head of the line. Time to tell them the truth, we want the Grand Old Party back. We want rational reasoned fiscal conservatives, not radical elitists. We want design intelligence in government. We send you to congress to solve the nations problems. Stop playing political games and pound out the design solution that is the best alternative for all the stakeholders!
It is all about self enrichment now and not service to the people of this nation. Top officials, including an increasing proportion of former members of congress, are cashing in by joining lobbying power houses and pressuring their former colleagues to do whatever their clients want. Money is now speech and always has been power. The supreme court has unleashed the satanic forces of greed upon the people of this great nation with the Citizens United decision.
“Millionaires and billionaires on Wall Street and in executive suites aren’t contributing all this money out of sheer love of country. Their political spending is analogous to their other investments. They expect a Return On Investment (ROI). Mostly they want low tax rates and friendly regulations. Architects deal with the “regulations” competently and competitively everyday. Sure we gripe about it sometimes but we comply and we compel compliance in the interest of the public welfare. We all take our role as Architects seriously.
The wealthy 1% want to move regulation out of the way of their profits. They will dump pollution on human populations without hesitation, currently killing 30,000 Americans every year, without feeling any guilt over it. Additionally they want every worker to work for much less in an hour than those currently employed are paid. With so many unemployed the opportunity to lower wages has never been more of a threat. These people are exploiting that to cash in!
Why else do you suppose tax rates on the super- rich are now lower than they’ve been in three decades, and why – even though the long-term budget deficit is horrendous – those rates aren’t rising? Why else do the 400 richest Americans (whose wealth is larger than the combined wealth of the bottom 150 million Americans) now pay an average tax rate of only 17 percent? Do not be surprised that you can barely find a project worth doing in this economy. Greed is the forcing vector of their intentions every decision is made based upon money and their special interest. After all we have too much vacant real estate now that small business has been crushed, why build any new buildings?
These powerful few are getting wealthier. Why do you think Wall Street got bailed without a single string attached – not even being required to help homeowners to whom they sold mortgages, who are now so far under water they’re drowning? And why does the financial reform legislation have loopholes big enough for bankers to drive their Ferrari’s through?
And why else are oil companies, big agribusinesses, military contractors, and the pharmaceutical industry reaping billions of dollars of government subsidies and special tax breaks?
Experts say the 2012 presidential race is likely to be the priciest ever, costing an estimated $6 billion. “It is far worse than it has ever been,” says Republican Senator John McCain.
If there’s a single core message to the Occupier movement it’s that the increasing concentration of income and wealth at the top endangers our democracy. With money comes political power. With a monopoly on political power comes corruption and poverty for the many to benefit only a small special elite group.
There it is. We’ve ended up at this stalemate in the super-committee because these radicalized Republicans refuse to deal. They can afford to stall. The rest of us need solutions, jobs and the capacity to engage in business with a reasonable expectation of sustaining a career.
We remember how we got here, these radicals refused to compromise. We can’t cave into radicals who have an agenda of raping the middle class. If we don’t stand our ground now – and if we allow them to take the Senate in 2012 – we will lose our ability to stop them from unraveling our social safety net right out from under the Americans whose lives depend on it. The time for the middle class to build solidarity across party lines has arrived. We need design intelligence in our government. We need the AIA to say so in the strongest terms possible and in the most public places.
What most people do everyday is work for an employer so they can take care of their families or themselves. This is capitalism and it works. The wages are never good enough these days and there is a reason for that. The future of each and every middle class person is limited by what the wages empower and what they do not. The employer is enriched by their labor. Our future is contained by resources and limited to what those resources will allow, both capital and labor dwell together, partners in our capitalist world.
How do we identify what’s broken? The acid test is simple, call a few law firms and ask them what the hourly rate is for an attorney. Then do the math. If it is not possible for you to engage an attorney because it is too expensive, then realize you are cut off from any civil justice you might ever need. That single imbalance would be enough to create a substantial erosion of the nation states stability. The destruction of access to the civil justice system is all you need to validate, to achieve an enlightenment as to what is wrong in America! The American dream dies without an accessible justice system, and as you know, most Architects can’t afford attorneys. Most workers can’t afford attorneys. There it is, the big one, that is a significant part of the defect that requires a great deal of repair. The reality is that of the three branches of government Legislative branch, Administrative branch and Judicial branch the later is now priced beyond the reach of the average citizen, the justice system is in failure!
Yet when real people without money assemble to express their dissatisfaction with all this, they’re told the First Amendment doesn’t apply. Instead, they’re treated as public nuisances – clubbed, pepper-sprayed, thrown out of public parks and evicted from public spaces.
Across America, to many public officials are saying Occupiers have to go. Even in universities – where free speech is supposed to be sacrosanct – peaceful assembly is being met with clubs and pepper spray.
The First Amendment is being stood on its head. Money speaks, and an unlimited amount of it can now be spent bribing and cajoling politicians. Yet peaceful assembly is viewed as a public nuisance and removed by force. There is no accessible justice system to relieve the strain and create a balanced society. The crucible of change at work here in America is important to the world, as well as to ourselves and our future. The great inequities within are now defining our potential for the future. Overshadowing innovation and the capacity of technology to give the great society a spine.
Everywhere Americans are stunned. The majority of Americans are severely damaged by this economy and everywhere people are afraid of unemployment or permanent job loss. The fear is tangible and potent. Everywhere the footprints of greed are in evidence, in the suburbs, in the commercial real estate and in the factory.
This is especially worrisome now that so many Americans are in economic trouble. The jobs recession grinds on, seemingly without end. It appears to be deliberately sustained to maximize the financial damage on the middle class. Employment relationships are strained as employers struggle for market share burdened by competitors who must be cheating on their taxes or engaged in black market activity, illegal immigrant labor or some other scam. Competition is now the great burden that too often destroys the honest man and his company. Homes are being foreclosed upon. Qualified students cannot afford college. Or they’re forced to take on huge debt loads they can’t repay in a jobless economy. Schools are firing teachers. Vital social services are being axed. It has no end except a poorer nation with poorer people.
This is not acceptable government and the people are getting tired of it. We need a do something now, where congress is refusing to engage solutions in the best interest of the many and clearly the failure to agree in the Super-committee was a good thing, and not a bad thing. The party of the super-wealthy will not deal honestly with the American people. The people are angry and they need to be heard. Where money is now speech and justice is a distant and unaffordable dream what recourse is there but to assemble and if necessary riot? When they assemble and confront the establishment they are confronted by cops in uniform or worse. Hope requires that free speech not require the same price tag as the justice system already does require. We must have FREE SPEECH and we must have FREE JUSTICE or we will eventually have neither.
American;s are free if they have the money to pay for it? How are Americans to be heard about what should be done about any of this if they are not allowed to mobilize and organize? When the freedom of speech goes to the highest bidder, moneyed interests have a disproportionate say. Architects need to take a position here as a profession. Access to justice should not be held hostage to an attorneys fee! Free speech must not now be the sole domain of those with money. JUSTICE is already impossible for working class people to attain and FREE SPEECH is now at risk, HEALTH CARE is now at risk and PENSIONS and SOCIAL SECURITY are now at risk.
Now more than ever, the First Amendment needs to be put right side up. Nothing less than the future of our democracy is at stake. We have no more urgent message than this one.
Design Intelligence is Imperative to the Nation and its people. That’s why we’re speaking out, and saying “no more.” It is time for Republicans to listen to the vast majority of Americans and stop putting billionaires before the rest of the country. We need access to the justice system and currently only the wealthy can afford attorneys. That is the measure of how bad the problem is! The only prayer that will change the world is what we do every day. Time to go to church Architects, fight the injustice and disproportionate distribution of wealth, and demand design intelligence in government!
How do we stop this train wreck, and substitute some design intelligence? Robert Reich has proposed the following:
“FIRST: Jobs before cuts, we must stop the cuts until the jobs are down to 5 percent. This economy needs a boost, not more cut. Consumers – whose spending is 70 percent of the economy – don’t have the money to boost the economy on their own. The problem is that pay is dropping and we are losing jobs not gaining jobs.
SECOND: Size does matter we need to make the boost big enough. We need an accurate accounting of how many unemployed we have in the United States, assuming that 14 million Americans are out of work, and 10 million are working part time, all of whom need full-time jobs. The President’s proposal to stimulate jobs a start but it’s tiny relative to what needs to be done. This proposal would create fewer than 2 million jobs. But in reality we need a big jobs program – rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure, shoring up the nations defenses, and creating renewable power generation with massive energy storage capacities.
THIRD: To pay for this, we must raise taxes on the super-rich. It’s only fair. Never before has so much income and wealth been concentrated at the very top, and taxes on the top so low. Go back to the 70 percent marginal tax we had before 1980. We must include more tax brackets at the top. It doesn’t make sense that any income over $375,000 is taxed at the same 35 percent, even if it’s a billion dollars. We must also tax all sources of income at the same rate, including capital gains.
FOURTH: Cut the budget where the real bloat is. Military spending and corporate welfare. End weapons systems that don’t work and stop wars we shouldn’t be fighting to begin with, and we save over $300 billion a year. Cut corporate welfare – subsidies and special tax breaks going to big agribusiness, big oil, big pharma, and big insurance – and we save another $100 billion.
Do these four things and restore jobs and prosperity and you’ll make things much, much better.”
THERE WAS NO AGREEMENT and LITTLE HOPE THERE WILL BE ONE
Rather than ushering in an era of political paralysis, the Great Depression of the 1930s changed American politics altogether — realigning the major parties, creating new coalitions, and yielding new solutions. Prolonged economic distress of a decade or more could have the same effect this time around. We know we need to bring a correction to government. It is clearly broken.
We need a new set of playing rules. What will the new politics look like? The nation is polarizing in three distinct ways, and any or all of could generate new political alignments. It is already happening.
All across the country -- most recently on the campus of UC Davis -- a war is being waged. But this isn't a battle over parks and tents and sleeping bags. This is a battle about our leaders' credibility. There is a credibility crisis. We must question the system where the majority of the people are cut off from legal representation by the cost alone. There is no doubt about the failed credibility of the system.
A vast gulf separates Tea Party Republicans from the angry working class. The former disdain government; the latter hate being helpless and blame Wall Street and big corporations. The Tea Party is well organized and generously financed by wealthy people and corporations; the angry working class are relentlessly disorganized and underfunded. The events of the last two weeks suggest that the angry working class probably won’t be able to literally occupy public areas and protest there indefinitely; they’ll have to move from occupying locations to organizing around issues, there are no shortage of issues. Jobs is a good place to start.
Oddly the two overlap in an important way that provides a clue to the first characteristic of the new politics. Surprisingly both movements are doggedly anti-establishment — both demonstrate distrust for the politically powerful and privileged elites and the institutions those elites inhabit. Everyone is reacting to the failed design intelligence of government. Both sides are fed up with it!
The working class “Occupy movement” has clearly conveyed discontent but is also a test -- a national MRI -- that has allowed us to check the health of our democracy by allowing us to see what's going on underneath the surface of America's power structures. The people are angry and they want solutions not politics. The test reveals that there is a cancer in America and the results are dire. What the movement, and the response to it, has shown is a government almost completely disconnected from those it purports to represent. This government cast only the shadow of it’s puppet masters and the people are outraged. The people flooded congress with demands that the regressive movement be blocked.
No deal, is better, than the bad deal the radicals attempted to force. We the People were headed toward a bad deal. That some members of the super-committee felt a strong enough obligation to protect the programs that women and families depend on is incredibly important. Clearly, hope exists at least that the millions who cried out were heard over the sound of all that cash changing hands.
Radicalism forces change but seldom for the better. Design Intelligence forces change but always results in an improvement.
In political terms, both sides are deeply suspicious of the Federal Reserve and want it to be more transparent and accountable. Design Intelligence requires regulation and control in prudent proportion to the risks. Both sides here are committed to ending “corporate welfare” — special tax breaks and subsidies for specific industries or companies. Most agree that bailing out of Wall Street and nobody else, was wrong. The people needed to be protected and they were not.
Richard Hofstadter once wrote a famous essay about the recurring strain of, as he put it, a “paranoid style in American politics” — an underlying readiness among average voters to see conspiracies among powerful elites supposedly plotting against them. He noted that the paranoia arises during periods of economic stress.
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy ... style.html
But the web of interconnections linking Washington and Wall Street over the last decade or so — involving campaign contributions, revolving doors, and secret deals — has been so tight as to suggest that this newer anti-establishment activism is based on at least a kernel of truth. Some paranoia is justifiable.
There is a conspiracy against the middle class. Obviously this is so. There can be no doubt about it. Had key safety net programs like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare been cut in a last-minute deal, the damage could have been irreparable. Everybody knows this except a few wealthy people in congress.
Architects need to know what the current status is, and also what happens next. The super-committee could not agree on a plan to cut the deficit by $1.2 to $1.5 trillion. Architects are expected to be conversant about the current state of the union but in a non political way. Some in the media are calling it a failure – but we’re relieved that there were members who rejected plans that were unbalanced and unfair. Here are the essential five reasons why:
1. The most immediate deficit the nation faces is the lack of jobs—and further spending cuts would have made that deficit worse.
The nation faces a long-term fiscal imbalance. But the most urgent economic problem is unemployment. Since the “recovery” started in June 2009, the job market has made only modest gains— unemployment is still at 9 percent—and too many men & women have lost jobs. Cuts to public sector services have disproportionately eliminated jobs held by women. More spending cuts would have meant more job losses. Providing help to struggling families boosts the economy, and expanding employment can help reduce long-term deficits. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that extending emergency unemployment insurance and providing additional refundable tax credits in 2012 for lower and moderate-income people “would have the largest effects on output and employment per dollar of budgetary cost.” And growing the economy reduces the fiscal deficit as well as the jobs deficit; workers with jobs need less from safety net programs and pay more in taxes.
2. Millionaires and billionaires don’t need more tax cuts.
The plan proposed by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), a super-committee member, was described by some as a breakthrough that put tax revenues on the table—but it would have given large tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires on top of the Bush tax cuts. It would have lowered the tax rate for the highest-income taxpayers to 28 percent, down from 39.6 percent under current law and 35 percent if the Bush tax cuts were extended. The tax rate cuts would give the average millionaire a tax cut 100 times larger than the tax cut for a family earning $50,000-75,000 annually. The cost of these tax rate cuts would be borne by lower- and middle-income households, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains. The proposal would have limited tax expenditures that provide significant benefits to lower- and middle-income people, such as the Child Tax Credit and exclusion of health insurance premiums, while the preferential treatment of capital gains and dividends, which overwhelmingly benefits the richest taxpayers, would be protected. In short, the Toomey plan would give millionaires and billionaires more tax cuts, while lower- and middle-income families would bear the burden of deficit reduction through higher taxes and cuts to vital services.
3. Cutting the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment would have especially hurt the elderly & women more than men.
The super-committee was considering changing the way the cost-of-living adjustment was calculated for Social Security and other programs. We’ve explained that the proposed new measure of inflation, the “chained CPI,” is not a more accurate measure of inflation, but simply a benefit cut—and a triple whammy for women. First, the cuts from the reduced COLA get deeper with each year of benefit receipt, and women tend to live longer than men. (Among people 90 and older, women outnumber men three to one.) Second, elderly women have less income than elderly men, and rely more on Social Security, so the cuts represent a larger share of their total income. Third, elderly women are already more economically vulnerable than men, with a poverty rate nearly one and three-quarters times that of men, and the cuts from the chained CPI would seriously reduce their ability to meet their basic needs.
4. Cutting Medicaid and Medicare would have threatened women’s health.
The super-committee was looking at cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid and Medicare, two programs critical to women’s health. In 2007 nearly seven in ten elderly individuals who relied on Medicaid for assistance were women, and nearly eight in ten non-elderly adults – mostly pregnant women and low-income parents – were women. Women also comprise a majority of beneficiaries in Medicare, the federal program that funds basic health care services for 47 million individuals who are elderly and/or have disabilities. Because women, on average, are poorer, live longer and have more health care needs than men, Medicare (sometimes combined with Medicaid) potentially plays a greater role for them in preventing illness and destitution.
5. There are no immediate consequences from the super-committee’s failure to reach an agreement, so there’s time for Congress to act responsibly.
What happens now that a majority of the super-committee failed to agree on a plan? As we’ve explained, under the Budget Control Act, automatic cuts are scheduled, but the cuts will not start to take effect until January 2013 –over a year from now. Defense and non-defense programs would be cut equally. Certain mandatory safety net programs, including Social Security, Medicaid, SNAP/Food Stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and mandatory child care spending, are exempt from automatic cuts, and automatic cuts to Medicare are limited. All discretionary spending programs, including those specifically serving low-income people such as WIC and Head Start, would be subject to automatic cuts. However, Congress could pass legislation changing the rules through the regular legislative process before the automatic cuts take effect.
TWO ESSENTIAL FACTS
FACT: The automatic cuts do not reach Social Security, Medicaid, or many other programs for low-income Americans. Any Medicare cuts would affect payments to providers, not beneficiaries. The automatic cuts that are scheduled would affect defense and non-defense programs equally. Unfortunately, discretionary programs that specifically serve low-income people are not exempt. However, the cuts won't start to take effect until 2013, so Congress has time make changes through the regular legislative process.
FACT: We still have lots to do. We need to work to extend federal emergency unemployment benefit programs and pass job creation measures. We need to fund the government through the rest of this fiscal year, without strings attached that limit women's rights. And the fight to make millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share and to protect Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and other vital programs will continue. So enjoy, rest up — and join us next week.
Americans are angry. They are demanding change. They will assert a demand for a repair of the economy and government must deliver it. This will require design intelligence.
Republican fulminations against the “cult of multiculturalism” are now meeting similar sentiments in traditional Democratic precincts — especially when it comes to undocumented immigrants. Illegal immigration damaged the construction industry. Alabama and Arizona have spearheaded especially vicious laws, yet polls show increasing percentages of voters across America objecting to giving the children of illegal immigrants access to state-supported services. Architects are generally silent on the issue but frustrated by the impact on quality at the construction site. Design intelligence should have been engaged to limit the capacity for illegal immigrants to destroy the wage rates of American citizens who used to have those jobs!
Americans are turning against global trade. This is the primary cause of the economic damage in the United States. Notwithstanding new trade agreements with South Korea, Panama, and Colombia, only a minority of Americans now believes trade agreements benefit the U.S. economy. Clearly these trade agreements undermine the wages of US workers and create a huge incentive to offshore labor. This is bad for Americans and is a failed design as a benefit for American workers. Clearly American workers do not gain any advantage from these trade arrangements other than unemployment and wage reduction for the few who do get wealthy as a consequence . Most Americans have been hurt directly in the paycheck by globalization. American’s can no longer support such damaging trade relationships without offsetting job opportunities here in the United States, with substantial job creation that precedes engagement of these significant labor market impacts. China has been disastrous for American labor and is evidence of failed design intelligence.
A growing percentage also want the U.S. out of the World Trade Organization. China has emerged as the special bogeyman. The Democratic-controlled Senate recently passing a bill to punish China for under-valuing its currency, the China-bashing is becoming bipartisan. Mitt Romney accuses former U.S. leaders of having “been played like a fiddle by the Chinese.” The truth is trade with China must be substantially reduced by the US and Western Europe. Not because of the currency issues in china but because the trade relationship embodies the impact of a massive wage difference between workers in China and the United States and Western Europe that undermines the wages of American and European workers. Consequently there are huge impacts on the economic stability of the free trade world.
All of the following; immigration, trade, wage disparity, human rights, China’s currency manipulation and military build up to sustain foreign wars, contribute to America’s high unemployment and the economic impacts we endure. All of these began under the Bush administration that predated the crash of 2008. There was a gradual decline starting in 2000 and unemployment dipped to only 5 percent before crashing in 2009.
Consequently there is reason to scale back trade with foreign nations and sharpely reduce the offshoring of jobs. The current drift toward isolationism is not irrational. As hundreds of millions of workers in emerging economies — especially in Asia — continue to enter the global workforce with steadily-improving skills and higher productivity, more and more Americans are losing ground. This is damageing the wage rates in the United states!
This is driven by the wage disparity that undermines all US labor today. Meanwhile, immigration and trade are boons to top executives and professionals who gain access to cheaper labor and larger markets for their own skills and insights. We have a class war brewing because of it.
Division of the nation is more likely to widen if the economy remains bad. It will if we fail to protect our job markets. There exists a deep demographic fault-line. Most of the baby boomer generation have been cheated by the decisions made for them by their employers and their government. Many aging boomers whose nest eggs have turned the size of humming-bird eggs are understandably anxious about their retirement. America’s young now face lower wages and less opportunity, and their parents face years of joblessness driven by age discrimination as corporate America ruthlessly creates a new world order where Americans must settle for less. All of that movement must stop and acquire some design intelligence before we can procede. We needed two centuries to create this wealth and power, we will not give it up to a failed ideology and a non-existent implementation plan, if we are as smart as we claim to be.
The jobless rate among people under 25 is already over 17 percent. For young people of color it’s above 20 percent. For young college grads — who assumed a bachelors’ degree was a ticket to upward mobility — unemployment has reached 10 percent. Yet these percentages are likely to rise if boomers decide they can’t afford to retire, and thereby block the jobs pipeline for younger people seeking employment. Meanwhile many older workers are being forced out by America’s corporations as they attempt to lower the wages they pay out. Squeezed from both directions the middle class will react with rage.
The quality of the universities is slipping. For god’s sake we should close some of these Architectural schools. The academic quality is terrible from at least half of them, with only about ten excellent schools in the nation left.
Old and young now find themselves increasingly at odds over public spending. This has always existed but not like it is today. Retirees already resist property tax hikes to pay for local schools in many communities. The schools are failing to engage the students sufficiently to impart the education they are tasked to deliver. Forced by threats to their fixed income older retired people must vote against anything that drains their living expenses. Expect that resistance to grow as boomers have to live on fixed incomes smaller than they expected, and a new wave of young people swarm into the nation’s educational systems.
The federal budget will also be a scene of generational conflict. Additionally the conflict between have’s and have not’s will expand. The change is now creating imbalances that the government will not address. We need design intelligence in government.
Old and young must work together to fight the common enemy, government without design intelligence and the false belief that globalization under free market terms will produce a better world for everyone. No it won’t, the working class ends up with less everywhere in the current developed free market world and that is the only thing that can happen! China has no desire for a free, mobile, robust consumer driven society, or free elections anytime in the foreseeable future.
The current nightmare is the effort by the ruling class to pit young against old, politically. Medicare and Social Security, the two giant entitlement programs for seniors that cost more than $1 trillion a year and account for about a third of the federal budget, will be traded off against programs that benefit the young: Title I funding for low-income school-age students; Head Start; food stamps; child nutrition; children’s health; and vaccines. It’s likely that Medicaid — Medicare’s poor stepchild, half of whose recipients are children — will also be on the cutting board. Obviously they are going to do this and forestall taxation on the super wealthy.
After the enactment of Medicare in 1965, poverty among the elderly declined markedly. But poverty among America’s children continues to rise.
Children don’t have nearly as effective a lobbying presence in Washington as AARP , which spent $9.7 million on lobbying during first six months of this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. By contrast, the Children’s Defense Fund spent just $48,245 last year. Yet because the future lies with the young and with an increasingly diverse America, politicians and parties looking toward the longer term will have to take note. Americans are demanding solutions and that requires design intelligence not politics.
How our political parties and leaders will cope with these three fault lines is far from clear, partly because the lines don’t all move in same direction. The dollars however do.
Young Americans tend to be more anti-establishment than older Americans, for example, but are also more open to other nations and cultures. By the same token, a generational tug of war over the budget might be avoided if anti-establishment movements succeed in reducing corporate welfare, raising taxes on the rich, and limiting Wall Street’s rapacious hold over economic decision making. Clearly that is economically forced, if not immediately then soon, the wealthy must be taxed more.
Continued high unemployment coupled with slow or no growth will create a new political landscape. It will be ugly. This will pose a special challenge for government . This also creates opportunity. If our political leaders don’t manage the new dividing lines with design intelligence they invite the politics of resentment already at the door to take root. They will. Such failure drives blame at certain groups while avoiding the hard work of setting priorities and making difficult choices, this is simply failure and a costly one. Never the less, the change required will eventually control anyway!
On the other hand, if political leaders take advantage of the energies and possibilities this new landscape offers, they could usher in an era in which the fruits of growth are more widely shared: between elites and everyone else; between the beneficiaries of globalization and those most burdened by it; and between older Americans and young. This itself could reignite a virtuous cycle — a broad-based prosperity that not only generates more demand for goods and services and therefore more jobs, but also a more inclusive and generous politics. This requires Design Intelligence and the will to engage the problems of the nation state as priority one. There is a precedent for this second alternative.
Structural reforms begun in the depression of the 1930s generated just this kind of virtuous cycle in the three decades after World War II. Clearly by devising and implementing these reforms, the Democratic Party came to represent Americans who had little power relative to the financial and business elites that had dominated the country before the great crash of 1929. That political realignment was the most profound and successful of the twentieth century. It eventually succeeded because it embodied design intelligence, they fixed the problems and created an equitable new deal for the American working class.
The bush administration damaged those reforms. The question now that Republicans are calling this damage progress is simply will we be able to bring design intelligence to bear a solution a second time?
Both parties are doing remarkably little given the gravity of the continuing jobs depression and the widening gap of income and wealth. Taming the budget deficit is the only significant issue anyone in Washington seems willing to raise yet Congress seems incapable of achieving any significant progress on this. Creating jobs is critical and this is largely ignored. The budget itself is only indirectly related to the deeper questions of how to restart economic growth, how much of that growth should be allocated to public goods such as the environment or education, and how the benefits of that growth are to be shared. Political elites are worried about thunder on the right and the left, but they show scant understanding of what these growing anti-establishment forces signify.
Meanwhile, the nation drifts.
Elizabeth Warren, the former Harvard Law Professor and Special Advisor for the U. S Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, tried to explain debt to the super-rich:
"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there -- good for you!
“But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea -- God bless. Keep a big hunk of it.”
But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
In addition to paying forward, the 1 percent also is obliged to pay back. The 99% will become impatient with government and they are already organizing for change. That's because the tax break Bush handed them contributed significantly to the national debt that the Super Committee failed to resolve that massive disparaty.
American workers did not decide that they wanted to compete with China where wages are in the range of $1.32 an hour.
University of Arizona law professor Brent T. White, writing about this phenomena, said the high moral standard of the average American mortgage holder is key to this. In a law review article, he cited a study that found more than 80 percent of homeowners regard the act of strategically walking away from a mortgage contract as unprincipled. White contrasted the values of individual homeowners with those of the big banks:
"Unlike lenders who seek to maximize profits irrespective of concerns about morality or social responsibility, individual homeowners are encouraged to behave in accordance with social and moral norms that require individuals keep promises and honor financial obligations."
Political, social, media and financial institutions all convey a clear message to home owners, White said, “it is a borrower's moral responsibility to pay his debts.” American’s believe this and practice this. Wall Street does not.
That message is lost on the 1 percent. A few understand, some of them have gotten it. The 200 who signed on as Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength and who asked Congress and the Super Committee to increase their taxes understand they have a debt to America and seek to honor it. There should be more!
The debt-shirking remainder, though, and the purchased politicians who support them, are as unseemly, unethical and dishonorable as deadbeat parents.
We write to inform architects about the political sphere that is shaping our market and limiting our employment opportunities.
The lack of basic design intelligence is once again in the news. The committee was searching for $1.2 trillion over 10 years. The Bush tax cuts, which disproportionately benefitted the rich, cost $2.8 trillion over the past decade. Do the math. But the 1 percent obstructed a return to the pre-Bush-balanced-budget-era tax rates and would sneer at the mere suggestion that they pay the much higher marginal rates the wealthy accepted after World War II to settle those government debts. In fact, Republicans on the Super Committee actually proposed additional tax cuts for the rich.
*Design Intelligence is explained in the post following
More breaks for the wealthy would require slashing social safety net programs for the 99 percent -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, child nutrition. It would mean no funds to create jobs and boost the economy. The result would be less money to build highways, refurbish bridges and renovate schools.
That's okay with the 1 percent because they feel no obligation for those social responsibilities. They do not need the programs. Too many Architects do need them.
So there it is; There was actually nothing super about it. The super-committee negotiations failed. It is definitely for the better that they did. Why? Because Republicans simply REFUSED to make billionaires and big corporations lift even one finger to help reduce the debt. This never ending outrage must be shut down before the nation can move forward. The problem is special interests of the Republican party believe congress exists to enrich them at our expense.
In fact, they’re demanding TAX CUTS for their biggest benefactors, the top 1%. Exactly the opposite of reason. How out of touch does it get? Architects, unemployed or underemployed, out of work all over the United States need these programs. Read on.
We have already written about Americans assaulted, clubbed, dragged, pepper-sprayed …Why? …. For exercising their right to free speech and assembly — protesting the increasing concentration of income, wealth, and political power at the top. The wealthy few are taking our government away from us. We had hope that the regressive would see the truth but they are telling lies to our faces. Washington’s response?
Nothing. The truth is that Congress’s so-called “super-committee” disbanded because Republicans refused to raise a penny of taxes on those few who are already wealthy. How can the leaders of the nation be that out of touch? Architects exist to make special expressions that capture and abstract human life and experience over time. Both art and science of building, used to bring to form Architecture as one dimension of free speech of our great civilization.
Instead, here’s who Republicans think should shoulder the burden: Seniors on Medicare. Middle class families who want to send their children to college. Every American receiving Social Security. The unemployed and all those who are suffering the most in this economy. They want to pass the burden to you and me, to our parents and to our children.
“Meanwhile, the Supreme Court says money is speech and corporations are people. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision last year ended all limits on political spending. Millions of dollars are being funneled to politicians without a trace. This conduct is only the shadow of the evil that lies within.
The rich didn't create the entire federal deficit. And the 99 percent are ready to pay their part, just like they feel compelled to meet their personal debts.
The behavior of the 99 percent during the mortgage crisis best illustrates their morality on the issue of repayment generally.
In the midst of the recession near the end of 2009, as home values relentlessly declined, more than third of all mortgage holders found themselves underwater -- meaning that they owed more on their houses than they were worth.
Although financial advisors told mortgage holders who were underwater by hundreds of thousands of dollars that they should walk away from their houses in their own economic self-interest, only a tiny number, estimated at less than 5 percent, chose to deliberately default and dump the loss on the bank.
Architects understand all too well, that the truth is our economic troubles are likely to continue for many years — a decade or more. At the current rate of job growth (averaging 90,000 new jobs per month over the last six months), 14 million Americans will remain permanently unemployed. That is not including the under employment which is expanding. The consensus estimate is that at least 90,000 new jobs are needed just to keep up with the growth of the labor force.
Even if we get back to a normal rate of 200,000 new jobs per month, unemployment will stay high for at least ten years. Years of high unemployment will likely result in a vicious cycle, as relatively lower spending by the middle-class further slows job growth. This means lower profits for most corporations selling to Americans.
What is frustrating to many Architects is the apparent incapacity for the elected official to find solutions to problems, to pursue rational process to create elegant and effective correction to the problems of the nation state.
In past years, politics has been greased by the expectation of better times to come – not only more personal consumption but also upward mobility through good schools, access to college, better jobs, improved infrastructure. It’s been a virtuous cycle: When the economy grows, the wealthy more easily accept a smaller share of the gains because they still came out ahead of where they were before. And everyone more willingly pays taxes to finance public provision because they share in the overall economic gains.
Because we no longer have a society where the wealthy are dependent upon the American worker, except as buyers of their product, the emphasis in government has transmogrified. The wealthy want their wealth sheltered and secured against taxation. They want to call all the shots in America the way the wealthy call the shots in trading nations over seas.
Now the grease is gone. Fully two-thirds of Americans recently polled by the Wall Street Journal say they aren’t confident life for their children’s generation will be better than it’s been for them. The last time our hopes for a better life were dashed so profoundly was during the Great Depression.
Why is this happening? Mostly because it no longer makes sense to have employees in the United States when they are so much cheaper in other countries. It no longer matters if those nations use captive forced labor, child labor or slaves.
“A revolving door has developed between official Washington and Wall Street , with bank executives becoming public officials who make rules that benefit the banks before heading back to the Street to make money off the rules they just created created.” Said Robert Reich.
Architects here in Seattle are frustrated with the economy, and the conduct of the congress. There’s no other word for it but disgraceful. Democratic senators won’t stand for it. Would you? Do you? I won’t stand for it.
This is not a Republican party I even recognize, I know Architects to be pragmatic rational people, you would not pass the burden created by the wealthy tycoons of Wall Street to the middle class and the poor either. I can’t comprehend what manner of darkness has taken control of the nations politics. It’s time to unite with one clear voice and demand that Republicans stop putting the wealthy at the head of the line. Time to tell them the truth, we want the Grand Old Party back. We want rational reasoned fiscal conservatives, not radical elitists. We want design intelligence in government. We send you to congress to solve the nations problems. Stop playing political games and pound out the design solution that is the best alternative for all the stakeholders!
It is all about self enrichment now and not service to the people of this nation. Top officials, including an increasing proportion of former members of congress, are cashing in by joining lobbying power houses and pressuring their former colleagues to do whatever their clients want. Money is now speech and always has been power. The supreme court has unleashed the satanic forces of greed upon the people of this great nation with the Citizens United decision.
“Millionaires and billionaires on Wall Street and in executive suites aren’t contributing all this money out of sheer love of country. Their political spending is analogous to their other investments. They expect a Return On Investment (ROI). Mostly they want low tax rates and friendly regulations. Architects deal with the “regulations” competently and competitively everyday. Sure we gripe about it sometimes but we comply and we compel compliance in the interest of the public welfare. We all take our role as Architects seriously.
The wealthy 1% want to move regulation out of the way of their profits. They will dump pollution on human populations without hesitation, currently killing 30,000 Americans every year, without feeling any guilt over it. Additionally they want every worker to work for much less in an hour than those currently employed are paid. With so many unemployed the opportunity to lower wages has never been more of a threat. These people are exploiting that to cash in!
Why else do you suppose tax rates on the super- rich are now lower than they’ve been in three decades, and why – even though the long-term budget deficit is horrendous – those rates aren’t rising? Why else do the 400 richest Americans (whose wealth is larger than the combined wealth of the bottom 150 million Americans) now pay an average tax rate of only 17 percent? Do not be surprised that you can barely find a project worth doing in this economy. Greed is the forcing vector of their intentions every decision is made based upon money and their special interest. After all we have too much vacant real estate now that small business has been crushed, why build any new buildings?
These powerful few are getting wealthier. Why do you think Wall Street got bailed without a single string attached – not even being required to help homeowners to whom they sold mortgages, who are now so far under water they’re drowning? And why does the financial reform legislation have loopholes big enough for bankers to drive their Ferrari’s through?
And why else are oil companies, big agribusinesses, military contractors, and the pharmaceutical industry reaping billions of dollars of government subsidies and special tax breaks?
Experts say the 2012 presidential race is likely to be the priciest ever, costing an estimated $6 billion. “It is far worse than it has ever been,” says Republican Senator John McCain.
If there’s a single core message to the Occupier movement it’s that the increasing concentration of income and wealth at the top endangers our democracy. With money comes political power. With a monopoly on political power comes corruption and poverty for the many to benefit only a small special elite group.
There it is. We’ve ended up at this stalemate in the super-committee because these radicalized Republicans refuse to deal. They can afford to stall. The rest of us need solutions, jobs and the capacity to engage in business with a reasonable expectation of sustaining a career.
We remember how we got here, these radicals refused to compromise. We can’t cave into radicals who have an agenda of raping the middle class. If we don’t stand our ground now – and if we allow them to take the Senate in 2012 – we will lose our ability to stop them from unraveling our social safety net right out from under the Americans whose lives depend on it. The time for the middle class to build solidarity across party lines has arrived. We need design intelligence in our government. We need the AIA to say so in the strongest terms possible and in the most public places.
What most people do everyday is work for an employer so they can take care of their families or themselves. This is capitalism and it works. The wages are never good enough these days and there is a reason for that. The future of each and every middle class person is limited by what the wages empower and what they do not. The employer is enriched by their labor. Our future is contained by resources and limited to what those resources will allow, both capital and labor dwell together, partners in our capitalist world.
How do we identify what’s broken? The acid test is simple, call a few law firms and ask them what the hourly rate is for an attorney. Then do the math. If it is not possible for you to engage an attorney because it is too expensive, then realize you are cut off from any civil justice you might ever need. That single imbalance would be enough to create a substantial erosion of the nation states stability. The destruction of access to the civil justice system is all you need to validate, to achieve an enlightenment as to what is wrong in America! The American dream dies without an accessible justice system, and as you know, most Architects can’t afford attorneys. Most workers can’t afford attorneys. There it is, the big one, that is a significant part of the defect that requires a great deal of repair. The reality is that of the three branches of government Legislative branch, Administrative branch and Judicial branch the later is now priced beyond the reach of the average citizen, the justice system is in failure!
Yet when real people without money assemble to express their dissatisfaction with all this, they’re told the First Amendment doesn’t apply. Instead, they’re treated as public nuisances – clubbed, pepper-sprayed, thrown out of public parks and evicted from public spaces.
Across America, to many public officials are saying Occupiers have to go. Even in universities – where free speech is supposed to be sacrosanct – peaceful assembly is being met with clubs and pepper spray.
The First Amendment is being stood on its head. Money speaks, and an unlimited amount of it can now be spent bribing and cajoling politicians. Yet peaceful assembly is viewed as a public nuisance and removed by force. There is no accessible justice system to relieve the strain and create a balanced society. The crucible of change at work here in America is important to the world, as well as to ourselves and our future. The great inequities within are now defining our potential for the future. Overshadowing innovation and the capacity of technology to give the great society a spine.
Everywhere Americans are stunned. The majority of Americans are severely damaged by this economy and everywhere people are afraid of unemployment or permanent job loss. The fear is tangible and potent. Everywhere the footprints of greed are in evidence, in the suburbs, in the commercial real estate and in the factory.
This is especially worrisome now that so many Americans are in economic trouble. The jobs recession grinds on, seemingly without end. It appears to be deliberately sustained to maximize the financial damage on the middle class. Employment relationships are strained as employers struggle for market share burdened by competitors who must be cheating on their taxes or engaged in black market activity, illegal immigrant labor or some other scam. Competition is now the great burden that too often destroys the honest man and his company. Homes are being foreclosed upon. Qualified students cannot afford college. Or they’re forced to take on huge debt loads they can’t repay in a jobless economy. Schools are firing teachers. Vital social services are being axed. It has no end except a poorer nation with poorer people.
This is not acceptable government and the people are getting tired of it. We need a do something now, where congress is refusing to engage solutions in the best interest of the many and clearly the failure to agree in the Super-committee was a good thing, and not a bad thing. The party of the super-wealthy will not deal honestly with the American people. The people are angry and they need to be heard. Where money is now speech and justice is a distant and unaffordable dream what recourse is there but to assemble and if necessary riot? When they assemble and confront the establishment they are confronted by cops in uniform or worse. Hope requires that free speech not require the same price tag as the justice system already does require. We must have FREE SPEECH and we must have FREE JUSTICE or we will eventually have neither.
American;s are free if they have the money to pay for it? How are Americans to be heard about what should be done about any of this if they are not allowed to mobilize and organize? When the freedom of speech goes to the highest bidder, moneyed interests have a disproportionate say. Architects need to take a position here as a profession. Access to justice should not be held hostage to an attorneys fee! Free speech must not now be the sole domain of those with money. JUSTICE is already impossible for working class people to attain and FREE SPEECH is now at risk, HEALTH CARE is now at risk and PENSIONS and SOCIAL SECURITY are now at risk.
Now more than ever, the First Amendment needs to be put right side up. Nothing less than the future of our democracy is at stake. We have no more urgent message than this one.
Design Intelligence is Imperative to the Nation and its people. That’s why we’re speaking out, and saying “no more.” It is time for Republicans to listen to the vast majority of Americans and stop putting billionaires before the rest of the country. We need access to the justice system and currently only the wealthy can afford attorneys. That is the measure of how bad the problem is! The only prayer that will change the world is what we do every day. Time to go to church Architects, fight the injustice and disproportionate distribution of wealth, and demand design intelligence in government!
How do we stop this train wreck, and substitute some design intelligence? Robert Reich has proposed the following:
“FIRST: Jobs before cuts, we must stop the cuts until the jobs are down to 5 percent. This economy needs a boost, not more cut. Consumers – whose spending is 70 percent of the economy – don’t have the money to boost the economy on their own. The problem is that pay is dropping and we are losing jobs not gaining jobs.
SECOND: Size does matter we need to make the boost big enough. We need an accurate accounting of how many unemployed we have in the United States, assuming that 14 million Americans are out of work, and 10 million are working part time, all of whom need full-time jobs. The President’s proposal to stimulate jobs a start but it’s tiny relative to what needs to be done. This proposal would create fewer than 2 million jobs. But in reality we need a big jobs program – rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure, shoring up the nations defenses, and creating renewable power generation with massive energy storage capacities.
THIRD: To pay for this, we must raise taxes on the super-rich. It’s only fair. Never before has so much income and wealth been concentrated at the very top, and taxes on the top so low. Go back to the 70 percent marginal tax we had before 1980. We must include more tax brackets at the top. It doesn’t make sense that any income over $375,000 is taxed at the same 35 percent, even if it’s a billion dollars. We must also tax all sources of income at the same rate, including capital gains.
FOURTH: Cut the budget where the real bloat is. Military spending and corporate welfare. End weapons systems that don’t work and stop wars we shouldn’t be fighting to begin with, and we save over $300 billion a year. Cut corporate welfare – subsidies and special tax breaks going to big agribusiness, big oil, big pharma, and big insurance – and we save another $100 billion.
Do these four things and restore jobs and prosperity and you’ll make things much, much better.”
THERE WAS NO AGREEMENT and LITTLE HOPE THERE WILL BE ONE
Rather than ushering in an era of political paralysis, the Great Depression of the 1930s changed American politics altogether — realigning the major parties, creating new coalitions, and yielding new solutions. Prolonged economic distress of a decade or more could have the same effect this time around. We know we need to bring a correction to government. It is clearly broken.
We need a new set of playing rules. What will the new politics look like? The nation is polarizing in three distinct ways, and any or all of could generate new political alignments. It is already happening.
All across the country -- most recently on the campus of UC Davis -- a war is being waged. But this isn't a battle over parks and tents and sleeping bags. This is a battle about our leaders' credibility. There is a credibility crisis. We must question the system where the majority of the people are cut off from legal representation by the cost alone. There is no doubt about the failed credibility of the system.
A vast gulf separates Tea Party Republicans from the angry working class. The former disdain government; the latter hate being helpless and blame Wall Street and big corporations. The Tea Party is well organized and generously financed by wealthy people and corporations; the angry working class are relentlessly disorganized and underfunded. The events of the last two weeks suggest that the angry working class probably won’t be able to literally occupy public areas and protest there indefinitely; they’ll have to move from occupying locations to organizing around issues, there are no shortage of issues. Jobs is a good place to start.
Oddly the two overlap in an important way that provides a clue to the first characteristic of the new politics. Surprisingly both movements are doggedly anti-establishment — both demonstrate distrust for the politically powerful and privileged elites and the institutions those elites inhabit. Everyone is reacting to the failed design intelligence of government. Both sides are fed up with it!
The working class “Occupy movement” has clearly conveyed discontent but is also a test -- a national MRI -- that has allowed us to check the health of our democracy by allowing us to see what's going on underneath the surface of America's power structures. The people are angry and they want solutions not politics. The test reveals that there is a cancer in America and the results are dire. What the movement, and the response to it, has shown is a government almost completely disconnected from those it purports to represent. This government cast only the shadow of it’s puppet masters and the people are outraged. The people flooded congress with demands that the regressive movement be blocked.
No deal, is better, than the bad deal the radicals attempted to force. We the People were headed toward a bad deal. That some members of the super-committee felt a strong enough obligation to protect the programs that women and families depend on is incredibly important. Clearly, hope exists at least that the millions who cried out were heard over the sound of all that cash changing hands.
Radicalism forces change but seldom for the better. Design Intelligence forces change but always results in an improvement.
In political terms, both sides are deeply suspicious of the Federal Reserve and want it to be more transparent and accountable. Design Intelligence requires regulation and control in prudent proportion to the risks. Both sides here are committed to ending “corporate welfare” — special tax breaks and subsidies for specific industries or companies. Most agree that bailing out of Wall Street and nobody else, was wrong. The people needed to be protected and they were not.
Richard Hofstadter once wrote a famous essay about the recurring strain of, as he put it, a “paranoid style in American politics” — an underlying readiness among average voters to see conspiracies among powerful elites supposedly plotting against them. He noted that the paranoia arises during periods of economic stress.
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy ... style.html
But the web of interconnections linking Washington and Wall Street over the last decade or so — involving campaign contributions, revolving doors, and secret deals — has been so tight as to suggest that this newer anti-establishment activism is based on at least a kernel of truth. Some paranoia is justifiable.
There is a conspiracy against the middle class. Obviously this is so. There can be no doubt about it. Had key safety net programs like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare been cut in a last-minute deal, the damage could have been irreparable. Everybody knows this except a few wealthy people in congress.
Architects need to know what the current status is, and also what happens next. The super-committee could not agree on a plan to cut the deficit by $1.2 to $1.5 trillion. Architects are expected to be conversant about the current state of the union but in a non political way. Some in the media are calling it a failure – but we’re relieved that there were members who rejected plans that were unbalanced and unfair. Here are the essential five reasons why:
1. The most immediate deficit the nation faces is the lack of jobs—and further spending cuts would have made that deficit worse.
The nation faces a long-term fiscal imbalance. But the most urgent economic problem is unemployment. Since the “recovery” started in June 2009, the job market has made only modest gains— unemployment is still at 9 percent—and too many men & women have lost jobs. Cuts to public sector services have disproportionately eliminated jobs held by women. More spending cuts would have meant more job losses. Providing help to struggling families boosts the economy, and expanding employment can help reduce long-term deficits. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that extending emergency unemployment insurance and providing additional refundable tax credits in 2012 for lower and moderate-income people “would have the largest effects on output and employment per dollar of budgetary cost.” And growing the economy reduces the fiscal deficit as well as the jobs deficit; workers with jobs need less from safety net programs and pay more in taxes.
2. Millionaires and billionaires don’t need more tax cuts.
The plan proposed by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), a super-committee member, was described by some as a breakthrough that put tax revenues on the table—but it would have given large tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires on top of the Bush tax cuts. It would have lowered the tax rate for the highest-income taxpayers to 28 percent, down from 39.6 percent under current law and 35 percent if the Bush tax cuts were extended. The tax rate cuts would give the average millionaire a tax cut 100 times larger than the tax cut for a family earning $50,000-75,000 annually. The cost of these tax rate cuts would be borne by lower- and middle-income households, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains. The proposal would have limited tax expenditures that provide significant benefits to lower- and middle-income people, such as the Child Tax Credit and exclusion of health insurance premiums, while the preferential treatment of capital gains and dividends, which overwhelmingly benefits the richest taxpayers, would be protected. In short, the Toomey plan would give millionaires and billionaires more tax cuts, while lower- and middle-income families would bear the burden of deficit reduction through higher taxes and cuts to vital services.
3. Cutting the Social Security cost-of-living adjustment would have especially hurt the elderly & women more than men.
The super-committee was considering changing the way the cost-of-living adjustment was calculated for Social Security and other programs. We’ve explained that the proposed new measure of inflation, the “chained CPI,” is not a more accurate measure of inflation, but simply a benefit cut—and a triple whammy for women. First, the cuts from the reduced COLA get deeper with each year of benefit receipt, and women tend to live longer than men. (Among people 90 and older, women outnumber men three to one.) Second, elderly women have less income than elderly men, and rely more on Social Security, so the cuts represent a larger share of their total income. Third, elderly women are already more economically vulnerable than men, with a poverty rate nearly one and three-quarters times that of men, and the cuts from the chained CPI would seriously reduce their ability to meet their basic needs.
4. Cutting Medicaid and Medicare would have threatened women’s health.
The super-committee was looking at cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid and Medicare, two programs critical to women’s health. In 2007 nearly seven in ten elderly individuals who relied on Medicaid for assistance were women, and nearly eight in ten non-elderly adults – mostly pregnant women and low-income parents – were women. Women also comprise a majority of beneficiaries in Medicare, the federal program that funds basic health care services for 47 million individuals who are elderly and/or have disabilities. Because women, on average, are poorer, live longer and have more health care needs than men, Medicare (sometimes combined with Medicaid) potentially plays a greater role for them in preventing illness and destitution.
5. There are no immediate consequences from the super-committee’s failure to reach an agreement, so there’s time for Congress to act responsibly.
What happens now that a majority of the super-committee failed to agree on a plan? As we’ve explained, under the Budget Control Act, automatic cuts are scheduled, but the cuts will not start to take effect until January 2013 –over a year from now. Defense and non-defense programs would be cut equally. Certain mandatory safety net programs, including Social Security, Medicaid, SNAP/Food Stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and mandatory child care spending, are exempt from automatic cuts, and automatic cuts to Medicare are limited. All discretionary spending programs, including those specifically serving low-income people such as WIC and Head Start, would be subject to automatic cuts. However, Congress could pass legislation changing the rules through the regular legislative process before the automatic cuts take effect.
TWO ESSENTIAL FACTS
FACT: The automatic cuts do not reach Social Security, Medicaid, or many other programs for low-income Americans. Any Medicare cuts would affect payments to providers, not beneficiaries. The automatic cuts that are scheduled would affect defense and non-defense programs equally. Unfortunately, discretionary programs that specifically serve low-income people are not exempt. However, the cuts won't start to take effect until 2013, so Congress has time make changes through the regular legislative process.
FACT: We still have lots to do. We need to work to extend federal emergency unemployment benefit programs and pass job creation measures. We need to fund the government through the rest of this fiscal year, without strings attached that limit women's rights. And the fight to make millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share and to protect Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, and other vital programs will continue. So enjoy, rest up — and join us next week.
Americans are angry. They are demanding change. They will assert a demand for a repair of the economy and government must deliver it. This will require design intelligence.
Republican fulminations against the “cult of multiculturalism” are now meeting similar sentiments in traditional Democratic precincts — especially when it comes to undocumented immigrants. Illegal immigration damaged the construction industry. Alabama and Arizona have spearheaded especially vicious laws, yet polls show increasing percentages of voters across America objecting to giving the children of illegal immigrants access to state-supported services. Architects are generally silent on the issue but frustrated by the impact on quality at the construction site. Design intelligence should have been engaged to limit the capacity for illegal immigrants to destroy the wage rates of American citizens who used to have those jobs!
Americans are turning against global trade. This is the primary cause of the economic damage in the United States. Notwithstanding new trade agreements with South Korea, Panama, and Colombia, only a minority of Americans now believes trade agreements benefit the U.S. economy. Clearly these trade agreements undermine the wages of US workers and create a huge incentive to offshore labor. This is bad for Americans and is a failed design as a benefit for American workers. Clearly American workers do not gain any advantage from these trade arrangements other than unemployment and wage reduction for the few who do get wealthy as a consequence . Most Americans have been hurt directly in the paycheck by globalization. American’s can no longer support such damaging trade relationships without offsetting job opportunities here in the United States, with substantial job creation that precedes engagement of these significant labor market impacts. China has been disastrous for American labor and is evidence of failed design intelligence.
A growing percentage also want the U.S. out of the World Trade Organization. China has emerged as the special bogeyman. The Democratic-controlled Senate recently passing a bill to punish China for under-valuing its currency, the China-bashing is becoming bipartisan. Mitt Romney accuses former U.S. leaders of having “been played like a fiddle by the Chinese.” The truth is trade with China must be substantially reduced by the US and Western Europe. Not because of the currency issues in china but because the trade relationship embodies the impact of a massive wage difference between workers in China and the United States and Western Europe that undermines the wages of American and European workers. Consequently there are huge impacts on the economic stability of the free trade world.
All of the following; immigration, trade, wage disparity, human rights, China’s currency manipulation and military build up to sustain foreign wars, contribute to America’s high unemployment and the economic impacts we endure. All of these began under the Bush administration that predated the crash of 2008. There was a gradual decline starting in 2000 and unemployment dipped to only 5 percent before crashing in 2009.
Consequently there is reason to scale back trade with foreign nations and sharpely reduce the offshoring of jobs. The current drift toward isolationism is not irrational. As hundreds of millions of workers in emerging economies — especially in Asia — continue to enter the global workforce with steadily-improving skills and higher productivity, more and more Americans are losing ground. This is damageing the wage rates in the United states!
This is driven by the wage disparity that undermines all US labor today. Meanwhile, immigration and trade are boons to top executives and professionals who gain access to cheaper labor and larger markets for their own skills and insights. We have a class war brewing because of it.
Division of the nation is more likely to widen if the economy remains bad. It will if we fail to protect our job markets. There exists a deep demographic fault-line. Most of the baby boomer generation have been cheated by the decisions made for them by their employers and their government. Many aging boomers whose nest eggs have turned the size of humming-bird eggs are understandably anxious about their retirement. America’s young now face lower wages and less opportunity, and their parents face years of joblessness driven by age discrimination as corporate America ruthlessly creates a new world order where Americans must settle for less. All of that movement must stop and acquire some design intelligence before we can procede. We needed two centuries to create this wealth and power, we will not give it up to a failed ideology and a non-existent implementation plan, if we are as smart as we claim to be.
The jobless rate among people under 25 is already over 17 percent. For young people of color it’s above 20 percent. For young college grads — who assumed a bachelors’ degree was a ticket to upward mobility — unemployment has reached 10 percent. Yet these percentages are likely to rise if boomers decide they can’t afford to retire, and thereby block the jobs pipeline for younger people seeking employment. Meanwhile many older workers are being forced out by America’s corporations as they attempt to lower the wages they pay out. Squeezed from both directions the middle class will react with rage.
The quality of the universities is slipping. For god’s sake we should close some of these Architectural schools. The academic quality is terrible from at least half of them, with only about ten excellent schools in the nation left.
Old and young now find themselves increasingly at odds over public spending. This has always existed but not like it is today. Retirees already resist property tax hikes to pay for local schools in many communities. The schools are failing to engage the students sufficiently to impart the education they are tasked to deliver. Forced by threats to their fixed income older retired people must vote against anything that drains their living expenses. Expect that resistance to grow as boomers have to live on fixed incomes smaller than they expected, and a new wave of young people swarm into the nation’s educational systems.
The federal budget will also be a scene of generational conflict. Additionally the conflict between have’s and have not’s will expand. The change is now creating imbalances that the government will not address. We need design intelligence in government.
Old and young must work together to fight the common enemy, government without design intelligence and the false belief that globalization under free market terms will produce a better world for everyone. No it won’t, the working class ends up with less everywhere in the current developed free market world and that is the only thing that can happen! China has no desire for a free, mobile, robust consumer driven society, or free elections anytime in the foreseeable future.
The current nightmare is the effort by the ruling class to pit young against old, politically. Medicare and Social Security, the two giant entitlement programs for seniors that cost more than $1 trillion a year and account for about a third of the federal budget, will be traded off against programs that benefit the young: Title I funding for low-income school-age students; Head Start; food stamps; child nutrition; children’s health; and vaccines. It’s likely that Medicaid — Medicare’s poor stepchild, half of whose recipients are children — will also be on the cutting board. Obviously they are going to do this and forestall taxation on the super wealthy.
After the enactment of Medicare in 1965, poverty among the elderly declined markedly. But poverty among America’s children continues to rise.
Children don’t have nearly as effective a lobbying presence in Washington as AARP , which spent $9.7 million on lobbying during first six months of this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. By contrast, the Children’s Defense Fund spent just $48,245 last year. Yet because the future lies with the young and with an increasingly diverse America, politicians and parties looking toward the longer term will have to take note. Americans are demanding solutions and that requires design intelligence not politics.
How our political parties and leaders will cope with these three fault lines is far from clear, partly because the lines don’t all move in same direction. The dollars however do.
Young Americans tend to be more anti-establishment than older Americans, for example, but are also more open to other nations and cultures. By the same token, a generational tug of war over the budget might be avoided if anti-establishment movements succeed in reducing corporate welfare, raising taxes on the rich, and limiting Wall Street’s rapacious hold over economic decision making. Clearly that is economically forced, if not immediately then soon, the wealthy must be taxed more.
Continued high unemployment coupled with slow or no growth will create a new political landscape. It will be ugly. This will pose a special challenge for government . This also creates opportunity. If our political leaders don’t manage the new dividing lines with design intelligence they invite the politics of resentment already at the door to take root. They will. Such failure drives blame at certain groups while avoiding the hard work of setting priorities and making difficult choices, this is simply failure and a costly one. Never the less, the change required will eventually control anyway!
On the other hand, if political leaders take advantage of the energies and possibilities this new landscape offers, they could usher in an era in which the fruits of growth are more widely shared: between elites and everyone else; between the beneficiaries of globalization and those most burdened by it; and between older Americans and young. This itself could reignite a virtuous cycle — a broad-based prosperity that not only generates more demand for goods and services and therefore more jobs, but also a more inclusive and generous politics. This requires Design Intelligence and the will to engage the problems of the nation state as priority one. There is a precedent for this second alternative.
Structural reforms begun in the depression of the 1930s generated just this kind of virtuous cycle in the three decades after World War II. Clearly by devising and implementing these reforms, the Democratic Party came to represent Americans who had little power relative to the financial and business elites that had dominated the country before the great crash of 1929. That political realignment was the most profound and successful of the twentieth century. It eventually succeeded because it embodied design intelligence, they fixed the problems and created an equitable new deal for the American working class.
The bush administration damaged those reforms. The question now that Republicans are calling this damage progress is simply will we be able to bring design intelligence to bear a solution a second time?
Both parties are doing remarkably little given the gravity of the continuing jobs depression and the widening gap of income and wealth. Taming the budget deficit is the only significant issue anyone in Washington seems willing to raise yet Congress seems incapable of achieving any significant progress on this. Creating jobs is critical and this is largely ignored. The budget itself is only indirectly related to the deeper questions of how to restart economic growth, how much of that growth should be allocated to public goods such as the environment or education, and how the benefits of that growth are to be shared. Political elites are worried about thunder on the right and the left, but they show scant understanding of what these growing anti-establishment forces signify.
Meanwhile, the nation drifts.
Elizabeth Warren, the former Harvard Law Professor and Special Advisor for the U. S Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, tried to explain debt to the super-rich:
"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there -- good for you!
“But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea -- God bless. Keep a big hunk of it.”
But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
In addition to paying forward, the 1 percent also is obliged to pay back. The 99% will become impatient with government and they are already organizing for change. That's because the tax break Bush handed them contributed significantly to the national debt that the Super Committee failed to resolve that massive disparaty.
American workers did not decide that they wanted to compete with China where wages are in the range of $1.32 an hour.
University of Arizona law professor Brent T. White, writing about this phenomena, said the high moral standard of the average American mortgage holder is key to this. In a law review article, he cited a study that found more than 80 percent of homeowners regard the act of strategically walking away from a mortgage contract as unprincipled. White contrasted the values of individual homeowners with those of the big banks:
"Unlike lenders who seek to maximize profits irrespective of concerns about morality or social responsibility, individual homeowners are encouraged to behave in accordance with social and moral norms that require individuals keep promises and honor financial obligations."
Political, social, media and financial institutions all convey a clear message to home owners, White said, “it is a borrower's moral responsibility to pay his debts.” American’s believe this and practice this. Wall Street does not.
That message is lost on the 1 percent. A few understand, some of them have gotten it. The 200 who signed on as Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength and who asked Congress and the Super Committee to increase their taxes understand they have a debt to America and seek to honor it. There should be more!
The debt-shirking remainder, though, and the purchased politicians who support them, are as unseemly, unethical and dishonorable as deadbeat parents.
Last edited by WalkerARCHITECTS on Thu Dec 01, 2011 1:14 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Out of Touch off the Tracks
by landy_m » Mon Nov 28, 2011 6:22 pm
what do you mean by "design intelligence"?
**Intelligence as a systematic gathering of information for personal, education, or profit does not affect architecture**. Intelligence as you put it applies to military/government practices. The gathering of information in architecture can only be used to help articulate an architectural solution to a given spatial necesity.
**Intelligence as a systematic gathering of information for personal, education, or profit does not affect architecture**. Intelligence as you put it applies to military/government practices. The gathering of information in architecture can only be used to help articulate an architectural solution to a given spatial necesity.
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Re: Out of Touch off the Tracks
by WalkerARCHITECTS » Wed Nov 30, 2011 10:20 pm
Design Intelligence is the 8th Intelligence, it is the sensitivity to and capacity to find solutions to complex problems by synthesis. The capacity to envision the possible solutions and refine them by deductive and inductive reasoning to a workable design solution. Design thinking is a capacity for practical, creative resolution of problems or issues that looks for an improved future result. The way the mind engages design problems and finds workable solutions.
Where the idea of Multiple Intelligence's came from?
Howard Gardner initially formulated a list of seven intelligences. His listing was provisional. The first two have been typically valued in schools; the next three are usually associated with the arts; and the final two are what Howard Gardner called 'personal intelligences' (Gardner 1999: 41-43).
Linguistic intelligence involves sensitivity to spoken and written language, the ability to learn languages, and the capacity to use language to accomplish certain goals. This intelligence includes the ability to effectively use language to express oneself rhetorically or poetically; and language as a means to remember information. Writers, poets, lawyers and speakers are among those that Howard Gardner sees as having high linguistic intelligence.
Logical-mathematical intelligence consists of the capacity to analyze problems logically, carry out mathematical operations, and investigate issues scientifically. In Howard Gardner's words, it entails the ability to detect patterns, reason deductively and think logically. This intelligence is most often associated with scientific and mathematical thinking.
Musical intelligence involves skill in the performance, composition, and appreciation of musical patterns. It encompasses the capacity to recognize and compose musical pitches, tones, and rhythms. According to Howard Gardner musical intelligence runs in an almost structural parallel to linguistic intelligence.
Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence entails the potential of using one's whole body or parts of the body to solve problems. It is the ability to use mental abilities to coordinate bodily movements. Howard Gardner sees mental and physical activity as related.
Spatial intelligence involves the potential to recognize and use the patterns of wide space and more confined areas.
Interpersonal intelligence is concerned with the capacity to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of other people. It allows people to work effectively with others. Educators, salespeople, religious and political leaders and counsellors all need a well-developed interpersonal intelligence.
Intrapersonal intelligence entails the capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one's feelings, fears and motivations. In Howard Gardner's view it involves having an effective working model of ourselves, and to be able to use such information to regulate our lives.
In Frames of Mind Howard Gardner treated the personal intelligences 'as a piece'. Because of their close association in most cultures, they are often linked together. However, he still argues that it makes sense to think of two forms of personal intelligence. Gardner claimed that the seven intelligences rarely operate independently. They are used at the same time and tend to complement each other as people develop skills or solve problems.
In essence Howard Gardner argued that he was making two essential claims about multiple intelligences. That:
The theory is an account of human cognition in its fullness. The intelligences provided 'a new definition of human nature, cognitively speaking' (Gardner 1999: 44). Human beings are organisms who possess a basic set of intelligences.
People have a unique blend of intelligences. Howard Gardner argues that the big challenge facing the deployment of human resources 'is how to best take advantage of the uniqueness conferred on us as a species exhibiting several intelligences' (ibid.: 45).
These intelligences, according to Howard Gardner, are amoral - they can be put to constructive or destructive use.
Classic Design Method arises from the study of design intelligence.
Define
Decide what issue you are trying to resolve.
Agree on who the audience is.
Prioritize this project in terms of urgency.
Determine what will make this project successful.
Establish a glossary of terms.
Research
Review the history of the issue; remember any existing obstacles.
Collect examples of other attempts to solve the same issue.
Note the project supporters, investors, and critics.
Talk to your end-users, to bring you more fruitful ideas & later design.
Take into account thought leaders' opinions.
Ideation
Identify the needs and motivations of your end-users.
Generate as many ideas as possible to serve these identified needs.
Log your brainstorming session.
Do not judge or debate ideas.
During brainstorming, have one conversation at a time.
Prototype
Combine, expand, and refine ideas.
Create multiple drafts.
Seek feedback from a diverse group of people, include your end users.
Present a selection of ideas to the client.
Reserve judgment and maintain neutrality.
Create and present actual working prototype(s)
Objectives
Review the objective.
Set aside emotion and ownership of ideas.
Avoid consensus thinking.
Remember: the most practical solution isn't always the best.
Select the powerful ideas.
Implement
Make task descriptions.
Plan tasks.
Determine resources.
Assign tasks.
Execute.
Deliver to client.
Learn
Gather feedback from the consumer.
Determine if the solution met its goals.
Discuss what could be improved.
Measure success; collect data.
Document.
Although design is always subject to personal taste, design thinkers share a common intelligence, a set of values that drive innovation: these values are mainly creativity, "ambidextrous thinking", teamwork, end-user focus, curiosity and a capacity for sythesis.
Where the idea of Multiple Intelligence's came from?
Howard Gardner initially formulated a list of seven intelligences. His listing was provisional. The first two have been typically valued in schools; the next three are usually associated with the arts; and the final two are what Howard Gardner called 'personal intelligences' (Gardner 1999: 41-43).
Linguistic intelligence involves sensitivity to spoken and written language, the ability to learn languages, and the capacity to use language to accomplish certain goals. This intelligence includes the ability to effectively use language to express oneself rhetorically or poetically; and language as a means to remember information. Writers, poets, lawyers and speakers are among those that Howard Gardner sees as having high linguistic intelligence.
Logical-mathematical intelligence consists of the capacity to analyze problems logically, carry out mathematical operations, and investigate issues scientifically. In Howard Gardner's words, it entails the ability to detect patterns, reason deductively and think logically. This intelligence is most often associated with scientific and mathematical thinking.
Musical intelligence involves skill in the performance, composition, and appreciation of musical patterns. It encompasses the capacity to recognize and compose musical pitches, tones, and rhythms. According to Howard Gardner musical intelligence runs in an almost structural parallel to linguistic intelligence.
Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence entails the potential of using one's whole body or parts of the body to solve problems. It is the ability to use mental abilities to coordinate bodily movements. Howard Gardner sees mental and physical activity as related.
Spatial intelligence involves the potential to recognize and use the patterns of wide space and more confined areas.
Interpersonal intelligence is concerned with the capacity to understand the intentions, motivations and desires of other people. It allows people to work effectively with others. Educators, salespeople, religious and political leaders and counsellors all need a well-developed interpersonal intelligence.
Intrapersonal intelligence entails the capacity to understand oneself, to appreciate one's feelings, fears and motivations. In Howard Gardner's view it involves having an effective working model of ourselves, and to be able to use such information to regulate our lives.
In Frames of Mind Howard Gardner treated the personal intelligences 'as a piece'. Because of their close association in most cultures, they are often linked together. However, he still argues that it makes sense to think of two forms of personal intelligence. Gardner claimed that the seven intelligences rarely operate independently. They are used at the same time and tend to complement each other as people develop skills or solve problems.
In essence Howard Gardner argued that he was making two essential claims about multiple intelligences. That:
The theory is an account of human cognition in its fullness. The intelligences provided 'a new definition of human nature, cognitively speaking' (Gardner 1999: 44). Human beings are organisms who possess a basic set of intelligences.
People have a unique blend of intelligences. Howard Gardner argues that the big challenge facing the deployment of human resources 'is how to best take advantage of the uniqueness conferred on us as a species exhibiting several intelligences' (ibid.: 45).
These intelligences, according to Howard Gardner, are amoral - they can be put to constructive or destructive use.
Classic Design Method arises from the study of design intelligence.
Define
Decide what issue you are trying to resolve.
Agree on who the audience is.
Prioritize this project in terms of urgency.
Determine what will make this project successful.
Establish a glossary of terms.
Research
Review the history of the issue; remember any existing obstacles.
Collect examples of other attempts to solve the same issue.
Note the project supporters, investors, and critics.
Talk to your end-users, to bring you more fruitful ideas & later design.
Take into account thought leaders' opinions.
Ideation
Identify the needs and motivations of your end-users.
Generate as many ideas as possible to serve these identified needs.
Log your brainstorming session.
Do not judge or debate ideas.
During brainstorming, have one conversation at a time.
Prototype
Combine, expand, and refine ideas.
Create multiple drafts.
Seek feedback from a diverse group of people, include your end users.
Present a selection of ideas to the client.
Reserve judgment and maintain neutrality.
Create and present actual working prototype(s)
Objectives
Review the objective.
Set aside emotion and ownership of ideas.
Avoid consensus thinking.
Remember: the most practical solution isn't always the best.
Select the powerful ideas.
Implement
Make task descriptions.
Plan tasks.
Determine resources.
Assign tasks.
Execute.
Deliver to client.
Learn
Gather feedback from the consumer.
Determine if the solution met its goals.
Discuss what could be improved.
Measure success; collect data.
Document.
Although design is always subject to personal taste, design thinkers share a common intelligence, a set of values that drive innovation: these values are mainly creativity, "ambidextrous thinking", teamwork, end-user focus, curiosity and a capacity for sythesis.
- WalkerARCHITECTS
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Re: Out of Touch off the Tracks
by csintexas » Fri Dec 02, 2011 12:53 pm
I liked his ideas on different kinds of intelligence. I would agree that the trick is getting people into jobs that fit them.
The problem with a democracy is that all people get to vote so that we have to rely on all types collectively to act which tends to be a fairly haphazard and slow process. The advantage is that it does not lend itself to a class based system.
The problem with a democracy is that all people get to vote so that we have to rely on all types collectively to act which tends to be a fairly haphazard and slow process. The advantage is that it does not lend itself to a class based system.
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Re: Out of Touch off the Tracks
by WMA » Mon Dec 05, 2011 1:26 pm
I mostly agree, however I don't like the 99%-1% distinction.
cheers,
Pad
Walter Menteth Architects
http://www.waltermenteth.com
cheers,
Pad
Walter Menteth Architects
http://www.waltermenteth.com
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Re: Out of Touch off the Tracks
by WalkerARCHITECTS » Wed Dec 07, 2011 9:16 pm
The 99%-1% distinction is something that is in the current press. When we cite articles and references these recently coined terms are being used. It is difficult to avoid the language of the times. Nor should we try because we would orphan our connection to the present context. No doubt better terms will emerge to capture and express the current repudiation movement of elitism.
Democracy that works requires that the will of the many prevail over the will of the money. If that can't be accomplished then democracy is at the mercy of this emergent plutocracy. Something wrong happened with election 2000, after that election we were going in the wrong direction for eight years. It may take eight years to fix the damage. The Trickle down theory of economics was properly identified and named by George H. Bush as Voo Doo economics! This Tricle Down Economic phenomena, has NEVER actually happened in the United States according to the governments economic statistics! That this potent lie is still alive and embraced; How embarrassing!
Show Us Some Trickle Down baby!
Democracy that works requires that the will of the many prevail over the will of the money. If that can't be accomplished then democracy is at the mercy of this emergent plutocracy. Something wrong happened with election 2000, after that election we were going in the wrong direction for eight years. It may take eight years to fix the damage. The Trickle down theory of economics was properly identified and named by George H. Bush as Voo Doo economics! This Tricle Down Economic phenomena, has NEVER actually happened in the United States according to the governments economic statistics! That this potent lie is still alive and embraced; How embarrassing!
Show Us Some Trickle Down baby!
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