ALPERN AT LARGE - Although CityWatch is an online publication that features articles usually aligned towards critiques of LA City government (hence the name, folks!), with other articles veering off to state and federal issues, there are times when a more balanced description of local and other governments is called for. There are also times when a critique of the private sector is called for. This is one of those times … but don’t expect any “good guys” to be magically showing up anytime soon … unless it’s you.
After all, the best way to show a thinking person your argument lacks any rational support is to deflect any criticism aimed at you by highlighting the flaws of others—without addressing that criticism. This phenomenon is too widespread and routine for us to pull out of our economic and societal crises without a strong paradigm shift on how we confront these crises.
Let’s just start with the private sector’s flaws—while it was rightfully pointed out in the last issue of CityWatch that California employers aren’t hiring because of uncertainty and the cost per employee: it was also pointed out that the alarmingly-expanding income gap between the wealthy and the poor raises the idea of a “maximum wage” for high earners. Understandingly emotional issues, but something’s missing.
What’s missing is that both modern-day government and the American private sector are currently being led by individuals who are almost pathologically short-sighted and appear to be grabbing for anything—ANYTHING—that will allow for a quick money grab during rough economic times in the same manner that a drowning person will make desperate moves just to stay alive. While this exists throughout the nation, it’s particularly true in the Golden State.
Setting an example of long-term vision and leadership? Forget it.
Doing the right thing for society in general? That’s for suckers.
It’s become fashionable to dismiss and belittle those who warned and still warn of our economic peril because it pulls us out of our comfort zone, and it’s become fashionable to promote social causes instead of focusing on our immediate economic problems (without which a fix for our other problems cannot truly be implemented), but the ability to find and encourage more corporate leaders like the late Steve Jobs has been hampered by both corporate and political cowardice.
Even Governor Jerry Brown, who has had no problem articulating and demanding the need to implement public sector pension reform and entitlement reductions (if our state is hurting, WHY does California STILL have to have one-third of all American welfare recipients?), has been hampered by dogma so far to the left that even he’s dismissed it.
Governor Brown has also been hampered by public sector unions so used to absolute power they’ve stopped becoming “US” and are now the most dangerous form of “THEM” of all by threatening the welfare of our children and our own public safety if we don’t meet all of their demands. And while it may seem nice that Governor Brown has taken a softer approach to pension reform, how “soft” is it on beleaguered taxpayers who are being arm-twisted into paying more taxes in what is already a high-tax state?
Even liberal Times journalist George Skelton referred to Governor Brown’s promotion of the November tax hike initiative as a way to get the wealthy to pay more as “balderdash.” Only the most partisan among us really believe that true pension reform to provide the taxpaying residents of California a brighter future has just been achieved by Sacramento—versus only a small step in the right direction.
And where we’re virtually ALL to blame, each and every one of us? By dismissing classic blue-collar jobs and industrially-zoned lands and associated land use as “so last century” or “dirty”. Whether it’s the denigration of the industrially-zoned land in West LA (and where Casden developers want to build a huge, out-of-character residential project), or the industrially-zoned City of Vernon east of Downtown that LA tried to annex, these are sources of good, middle-class jobs that go well beyond party affiliation.
The paradigm of government promoting the “right” jobs, and the failure of private entrepreneurs to create a work environment that truly motivates the willingness of ALL workers—from the CEO to the lowest employee tiers—to perform better, make more money and enjoy more perks, has resulted in a nepotistic, incestuous employment environment with inevitably fewer jobs…and even fewer “good” jobs.
Whether it’s achieved by the Democratic or Republican Party, the need to create more stock options and profit-sharing by all workers, and the need to entice—if not force—an employment environment that encourages productivity and financial gain by all levels of workers is mandatory for California (and, by extension, the rest of America) to survive and thrive. Perhaps a good start would be to extend Sacramento’s tax credits to movie industries to ALL industries who employ in this state.
Our learning curve can and has gone up—even at the governmental level. For example, the inefficient contractors who widened the I-405 freeway from the airport to the I-10 were replaced by the Kiewit contractors who’ve performed a first-rate job for the final widening between the I-10 and the 101 freeway. Ditto for the pathetic performance of the Expo Phase 1 contractors, who’ve been replaced with the first-rate planners and builders of Skanska-Rados.
But as for blame? Again, plenty to go around, and as a physician I’m all too aware of that phenomenon. For example, it can be easily surmised that only a back-slapping, insider-only corporate leadership kept WellPoint (Blue Cross) CEO Angela Braly in her position while investors howled for her removal after her disastrous and unthinkable proposed 39% rate increase made the Affordable Care Act a virtual certainty.
What is also certain is that the fight between health plans and physicians is a necessary and ongoing one with—you guessed it—plenty of blame to go around. The legal and fiscal battles between Aetna and the California Medical Association appears only to reveal the obvious: health plans are both greedy yet necessary to keep health costs down, and there is no shortage of physicians, health care groups and hospitals who are just as greedy and who don’t give a rip about health costs.
It’s pretty easy to conclude that we’re all hypocrites, and that while we so easily point the finger at others who misbehave we also easily ignore those pointing the finger at us. What’s not so easy to conclude is that—as human beings—we can not only misbehave but also find the inner strength and empathy towards others to do the right things for the betterment of our greater society.
And as our economy and quality of life slides to the brink of such deep uncertainty that we must fear for our children’s future (if not our own), it’s hoped that that fear will motivate, if not force, us to do the right things and answer the challenges of our current generation.
(Ken Alpern is a former Boardmember of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee, chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and is co-chair of the non-profit Friends of the Green Line (www.fogl.us). He can be reached [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)
