As the gyre of time turns 2022 into 2023, I’m grateful to have lived for 116* seasons and a full 30 trips around the sun in Western Colorado. A whimsical plan brought me here one summer to pick fruit for Dean and Irene Phillips on F Road in Grand Junction. Read more…
And if they are, will this most-basic public need–affordable, workforce housing– always be underfunded? If high country ballot questions from November 2022 are a measure, the housing issues are not equally felt across the state, but voters are clear about the problem up here. CML reports that this November short Read more…
America’s failed 50 year experiment with Reganomics, Austerity, Supply-Side Economics has failed to keep America Great when it comes to Infrastructure, R&D, and proactive leadership. Two new bills passed into Law by Congress this year provide an opportunity to counteract that trend. When America was “Great” in 1958, the highest individual tax bracket was 91%, for corporations it was 52%. There was confidence in the power of the Federal Government to address big issues. Nowdays we cut taxes expecting results, corporations down to 21% (or less) and expect big business will solve our big problems. Corporate profits are at 70 year highs. How has that worked for citizens and main street America?
When we tolerate immoral leaders we erode our faith in government.
Everyone seems to be reassessing their “relationship with work” these days. It’s about time. Getting a job has always been freighted with so much meaning. I run into many younger people who expect every job to be a peak experience. There seem to be many jobs that nobody wants to do right now. It is easy to forget that sometimes a simple job can teach something of value. Much of what I know about the world, I learned from each one of my 33 paying jobs. Easy for me, but what advice would I give someone just starting out with work?
This weekend, my wife and I decamped from our favorite tent campground 15 miles up the creek to peruse the Adventure Van Expo passing through Eagle, Colorado. With semi-retirement glimmering at the end of our mid-life tunnel, kids in college, we can foresee an upgrade from a lifetime of sleeping Read more…
January 6th Committee addresses Intimidation of Local Election Officials As much press as the one person harassing a Supreme Court Judge has rightfully received— intimidation & harassment of public officials performing their duties has arrived at the local level. Such actions are against U.S. norms and law and are a Read more…
Separating Productive Populism from its Worst Impulses Ray Dalio, The Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail Charles Goodhart, Manoj Pradhan, The Great Demographic Reversal: Ageing Societies, Waning Inequality and an Inflation Revival When Colorado Private Equity partners Chad Brue and Geoff Baukol invested in the mountains instead of Read more…
What happens when a mountain community approaches workforce housing as if responding to a disaster? Those of us in attendance at the Spring Colorado City and County Managers Association (CCCMA) conference in Glenwood on April 14th got a glimpse of two communities that recently treated housing as a crisis. The Read more…
Like the NYT, in Mitch McConnell vs. Republicans I’m not sure of motives, nor should too much be made of the rift, though coming from the master of keeping colleagues in line, it must be said that democracy needs more squabbling within the parties and less conformity if it is Read more…