GUEST COMMENTARY--Think of a typical college town: bars and dispensaries galore, miles of bike lanes and stores that appeal to students. Now think of Westwood: two bars, virtually no bike lanes and full of niche stores like Sur La Table and Paper Source with almost no use for students.

The blame falls on the Westwood Neighborhood Council, which has favored high-end retailers instead of ones serving student interests. The council has a distinct lack of student representation, a problem made worse by the fact that it extended its member term length from two to four years. 

Supply and demand principles should govern Westwood stores instead of the outlandish desire to see expensive, Beverly Hills-type retailers in a part of Los Angeles dominated by university students.

And the problem isn’t just with business. Last year, the neighborhood council opposed creating a bike lane on Westwood Boulevard. A bike lane would benefit students commuting from south of Wilshire Boulevard as well as people traveling to Westwood. Instead, the council somehow devised the logic that a bike lane would actually make the road more dangerous for cyclists. This is like saying, “Let’s not build lanes for cars; it’ll make the road more dangerous for them.” When pressed for explanation, Councilwoman Lisa Chapman did not respond for comment. Contact Chapman or Councilman Paul Koretz if you agree with this logic and give them a hearty congratulations for concocting something so bizarre.

Despite the recent statewide legalization of recreational marijuana, Westwood Neighborhood Council Vice President Sandy Brown opposes the opening of marijuana dispensaries in Westwood. She fears they would harm its retail scene. When pressed on the issue, Brown became defensive and said, “(Students) can’t own the town. The town needs to represent the people who pay the taxes.”

Except students are far from owning the town. If Brown doesn’t want to address students’ desires, she would be more fit to preside over the neighboring Century City where the median age is 46, not the vibrant, young Westwood with a median age of 27. Brown, along with the rest of the neighborhood council, needs to acknowledge Westwood’s plurality of students, better represent them and in turn, attract more students and their money to Westwood.

The neighborhood council should support a recreational marijuana dispensary in Westwood and stop foolishly dismissing an opportunity to raise money for the city, the county and the state, especially considering most marijuana users fall within Westwood’s college-dominated age range. Yet Brown believes she knows best for Westwood, all while disregarding the thousands of students who indirectly pay property taxes through apartment rent, sales tax on purchases and income tax on revenues.

The neighborhood council isn’t the only association trying to keep Westwood from becoming the college town it’s meant to be. Steve Sann, chairman of the Westwood Community Council constantly reminds the community of the two organizations’ differences, but neither of the two councils seem to have students’ interests at heart.

Sann thinks that retail environments thrive with complementary uses to each other and thus, that a marijuana dispensary would offset expensive stores like Sur La Table. He consistently mentions The Grove while providing examples of how Westwood’s retail scene should operate. Once again, a council member neglects Westwood’s college-age demographics and their needs in contrast to those of high-class shoppers.

Westwood has the potential to be a unique place in the west side of LA. In a region full of expensive boutique shops and irritated drivers displeased with bikers and pedestrians, Westwood could have expansive bike lanes and stores and bars that attract students. Westwood could be an alluring college town nestled in a hectic city, but only with the support of the Westwood Neighborhood and Community Councils.

(This Jonathan Friedland perspective was posted originally at The Daily Bruin.) 

Graphic credit: Gwen Hollingsworth/Daily Bruin.

-cw

CAN THEY CO-EXIST?--California is now the capital of liberal America. Along with its neighbors Oregon and Washington, it will be a nation within the nation starting in January when the federal government goes dark. In sharp contrast to much of the rest of the nation, Californians preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by a 2-to-1 margin. They also voted to extend a state tax surcharge on the wealthy, and adopt local housing and transportation measures along with a slew of local tax increases and bond proposals. 

In other words, California is the opposite of Trumpland. 

The differences go even deeper. For years, conservatives have been saying that a healthy economy depends on low taxes, few regulations and low wages. 

Are conservatives right? At the one end of the scale are Kansas and Texas, with among the nation’s lowest taxes, least regulations and lowest wages. 

At the other end is California, with among the nation’s highest taxes, especially on the wealthy; toughest regulations, particularly when it comes to the environment; most ambitious healthcare system, that insures more than 12 million poor Californians, in partnership with Medicaid; and high wages. 

So according to conservative doctrine, Kansas and Texas ought to be booming, and California ought to be in the pits. 

Actually, it’s just the opposite. 

For several years, Kansas’s rate of economic growth has been the worst in the nation. Last year its economy actually shrank. 

Texas hasn’t been doing all that much better. Its rate of job growth has been below the national average. Retail sales are way down. The value of Texas exports has been dropping. 

But what about so-called over-taxed, over-regulated, high-wage California? 

California leads the nation in the rate of economic growth -- more than twice the national average. If it were a separate nation it would now be the sixth largest economy in the world. Its population has surged to 39 million (up 5 percent since 2010). 

California is home to the nation’s fastest-growing and most innovative industries – entertainment and high tech. It incubates more startups than anywhere else in the world. 

In other words, conservatives have it exactly backwards. 

Why are Kansas and Texas doing so badly, and California so well? 

For one thing, taxes enable states to invest in their people. The University of California is the best system of public higher education in America. Add in the state’s network of community colleges, state colleges, research institutions, and you have an unparalleled source of research, and a powerful engine of upward mobility. 

Kansas and Texas haven’t been investing nearly to the same extent. 

California also provides services to a diverse population, including a large percentage of immigrants. Donald Trump to the contrary, such diversity is a huge plus. Both Hollywood and Silicon Valley have thrived on the ideas and energies of new immigrants. 

Meanwhile, California’s regulations protect the public health and the state’s natural beauty, which also draws people to the state – including talented people who could settle anywhere. 

Wages are high in California because the economy is growing so fast employers have to pay more for workers. That’s not a bad thing. After all, the goal isn’t just growth. It’s a high standard of living. 

In fairness, Texas’s problems are also linked to the oil bust. But that’s really no excuse because Texas has failed to diversify its economy. Here again, it hasn’t made adequate investments. 

California is far from perfect. A housing shortage has driven rents and home prices into the stratosphere. Roads are clogged. Its public schools used to be the best in the nation but are now among the worst – largely because of a proposition approved by voters in 1978 that’s strangled local school financing. Much more needs to be done. 

But overall, the contrast is clear. Economic success depends on tax revenues that go into public investments, and regulations that protect the environment and public health. And true economic success results in high wages. 

I’m not sure how Trumpland and California will coexist in coming years. I’m already hearing murmurs of secession by Golden Staters, and of federal intrusions by the incipient Trump administration. 

But so far, California gives lie to the conservative dictum that low taxes, few regulations, and low wages are the keys economic success. Trumpland should take note.

(Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley and the author of Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at RobertReich.org.) Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

AN ALTERNATIVE TO WALLED-OFF US--On Tuesday Nov. 8, Californians voted in record numbers to reaffirm our commitment to freedom, openness and really just basic human decency.  This fundamental difference in values offers an alternative future for America and indeed the world.

Civilizations succeed when they open themselves to new ideas and new people from new places. There is nothing great in closing off a country from the world.  Simply compare the backwardness of inward-looking medieval Europe – filled with castle walls – to the flourishing in the open minded Renaissance.

As an alternative to a walled off America, California builds bridges to every corner of the globe.  Every iconic Apple product says “designed in California,” and Hollywood movies inspire millions.  That open and imaginative attitude is exactly what the world needs to build a bright future.

Today, Californians work to automate driving, pioneer personalized medicine and colonize Mars. Under Gov. Jerry Brown’s leadership, California’s economy has growth to the sixth largest economy in the world, and our once-troubled state finances have stabilized.

Yes, California still has its share of problems.  Housing costs prohibit all but the creative elite from affording life in too much of coastal California.  Too many of our roads are chock full of potholes. The quality of too many of our kids’ schools is too often a function of the zip code they live in.  And a lingering drought challenges us to do more to prepare for an uncertain water future.

Yet fundamentally, there is nothing wrong with California that cannot be addressed by what is right with California.  Gov. Brown’s call for common sense reforms could lower housing costs. New sensors can map potholes radically more affordably and comprehensively. 

The web can connect students with opportunities unimaginable a generation ago and help us move beyond our one-size-fits-all public education system. And new data technologies enable new ways to measure and thus better manage California’s precious water resources. 

Today there is a global crisis of confidence in our basic public institutions. Meanwhile, ultimately none of those promising pilots linked above are certain.  Ultimately, they simply highlight a new frontier for public problem solving. Of course, the pioneers’ journey by land and sea to California was far from certain as well.

Today’s challenges offer a golden opportunity for Californians to bring that pioneering spirit to bear on our pressing public problems.  America – and indeed the world – needs nothing less from California today.

(Patrick Atwater is an author, entrepreneur and frequent Calbuzz commentator.  He currently runs a big water data project to prepare California to adapt to our historic drought and whatever the future holds. This perspective was posted first at Cal Buzz.) 

-cw 

ALPERN AT LARGE--With all due respect to those who live in a housing project, I think it's safe to say that most of us want to live in a home, and not in a beehive.  And with all due respect to those who live in Manhattan or in Downtown LA, I think it's safe to say that most of us would move to those places if we wanted to truly live there. 

Similarly, when we ask for a drink of water, we don't want to be firehosed and swept off our feet.

We're in a war of words, a war of paradigms, and a war of math, in the City of the Angels. 

Example #1: Mass transit always leads to overdevelopment and traffic, and/or fighting mass transit prevents overdevelopment and traffic. 

As time and experience allows us to learn the difference between our fears and our realities, we've seen mass transit and freeways through bad neighborhoods not spruce up the housing and traffic, and we've seen mass transit and freeways through good neighborhoods jack up overdevelopment and traffic. 

Which is why our mayor deserves kudos for being a transportation advocate, but also deserves scathing criticism for overdevelopment.  Hollywood needs its Red Line, and a north-south link to the developing Purple Line Subway and Crenshaw/LAX light rail line, but then-Councilmember Eric Garcetti of Hollywood pushed through OVERdevelopment. 

In other words, despite the good that Garcetti has done for Hollywood, he's also done some bad ... and it's OK for us to both praise and scorn him for his good and bad efforts, respectively (and respectfully). 

Similarly, with respect to traffic, those who fought the Expo Line tooth and nail (make it go underground from Overland to Sepulveda, even if it costs $300 million and the LADOT doesn't support it!) also fought the rail bridges.  The LADOT worked with electeds to get the Sepulveda rail bridge (which is beautiful and works well), but now we've got a traffic problem on Overland. 

Good job, anti-Expo NIMBY's, because the Expo Line Authority DID have a plan to elevate the Expo Line at Overland, and the LADOT recommended a rail bridge there, but by insisting that everything be underground, we now have a street level Expo Line crossing at Overland that is the problem everyone knew it would be. 

So let's get over the "mass transit always leads to this, or fighting mass transit leads to that", because common sense comes from all over, and stupidity, greed, and narcissism also comes from all over. 

Example #2: Addressing Affordable Housing always leads to megadevelopment, and we've got to get used to big monster projects. 

Nonsense.  Poppycock.  Garbage.  We've created stupid megadevelopment before mass transit, and we're doing it during mass transit, and if we'd voted down Measure M and voted to end all new mass transit tomorrow, our city leaders and its crony-capitalism developer clique would still advocate for overdevelopment. 

No one but NO ONE has a realistic chance of fighting a big development downtown, or on the Wilshire corridor, or wherever a "downtown" atmosphere/planning zone is SUPPOSED to be, but there's always a fight to avoid making the City into a series of Downtowns and create a new traffic jam all over again. 

And I suppose that uberdeveloper Pamela Day, an acolyte of the "Alan Casden school of overdevelopment" deserves a big "thank you" for her honesty when she spoke her true feelings at a Planning town hall regarding an 80+ foot-tall project in a 30-40-foot-tall corridor about how she thought Mar Vista was a lousy place to live, and insulted Mar Vistans as a whole. 

Fortunately, we've got Councilmember Mike Bonin and his team to remind Ms. Day and her team that 80+ foot-tall projects is still too damned high in the suburbs, and that her financial betterment isn't the driving force as to whether her project should be approved, and that infuriating the neighbors while threatening traffic, parking, and blocking out the sun is probably a bad, bad, BAD idea. 

Similar to signage, there's proper compromise, and then there's urban blight.  And if the public sees a bad idea, then the public's elected leaders should represent them. 

People want HOMES and NOT PROJECTS.  Housing, not beehives.  We could create 2-4 story-tall projects throughout the city (and both north AND south of the I-10 freeway!) to create sustainable, delightful, and happy apartments, condos, and townhomes to address the needs of those who want a place to call "home". 

And when we create tall megadevelopments, they should be located where they make sense, and require lots of mitigation to acknowledge the impacts these megadevelopments have on their taxpaying neighbors (who still, believe it or not, have rights, too). 

Example #3: The sidewalks are too expensive to be fixed, and too challenging a project to fix in 5-7 years. 

One of the main reasons that Angelenos had some misgivings about Measure M was that it didn't fix the sidewalks quick enough, and provide enough rapid funding to address this horrible problem.  But Measure M was one of the best ways to get some funding, and to get the ball rolling for private-public and other funding initiatives, to address our sidewalks.  So it was passed. 

But today, after the bruising and drama-laden election cycle that ended in November 2016, we've got new battles to fight. 

Any and ALL mitigation for new light rail lines and rapid bus lines should involve and include a prioritization of fixing the major commercial corridors adjacent to all major rail and bus stops--and with a timeframe of 3-5 years. 

Street Services, Public Works, the LADOT, Metro, and Neighborhood Councils should derive lists of the most major sidewalk fixes (and ADA-compliant sidewalk carveouts for the handicapped and for bicycles to reach their destinations) with a 3-5 year goal of fixing those problems first. 

And NO development, particularly one with variances, should be allowed to escape or avoid the sidewalk repair mitigation funding requirements needed to resolve a "War on Sidewalk Safety". 

Commercial/business zones, family-friendly neighborhoods, areas fighting urban blight, and mass transit all have something in common:  keep the sidewalks safe, clean, and user-friendly. 

And with spring 2017, with all of its City Council races, and the Neighborhood Integrity Initiative on the ballot, the time is NOW to demand that the right balance of common sense be applied to ensure we build (but don't overbuild) the right Los Angeles for the 21st Century.

(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D. is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties.  He is also a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member 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 CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at  [email protected]. He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)

-cw

EASTSIDER-Is homelessness a real problem in LA? You betchy. Should we do something about it? Of course. Can the LA City Council handle the problem? So far, indications aren’t good. 

In the run up to passing a $1.2 billion dollar bond measure on November 8, the LA City Council was all over the problem of homelessness. I mean, we had committees, plans, pontification and platitudes galore. Political fodder of the highest order, but what was underneath the rhetoric? 

Speaking as a recovering bureaucrat, I have noticed that public agencies handle their documents in two very different ways. When they are serious and want to do something odious, the documents are usually a black and white memo, full of technical jargon and indecipherable gobbledygook. On the other hand, when they want to sell snow in the wintertime to the public, it’s an entirely different deal. In this case, they write huge full color documents, with pretty color charts and graphs and tons of headings and subheadings which prove that they know what they are doing and so you should trust them. The City’s Comprehensive Homeless Strategy is a shining example, and you can find it here.  

Be forewarned, it will take a while to even load the document in your browser, since it is a 300 page piece of dazzling you know what. The glitz starts on page 7 and goes on and on. I found a particularly pretty color flow chart on page 18 that shows all the public and private agencies that work together on this knotty problem. 

For a shorter and even flashier version, check out the Mayor’s summary version of how the Mayor is single handedly transforming LA into the vanguard of homelessness solutions. 

If you look at the fine print, the City of Los Angeles has already pledged allocating $100 million in the budget towards the problem, which they recognized was a drop in the bucket. The Committee working on this was led by no other than Jose Huizar, whose PLUM Committee has created plenty of homelessness by blessing every developer’s dream over the last few years. 

First Reports. 

A key part of the City’s Plan has been to use City owned property to provide quick housing. Indeed, City Controller Ron Galperin has developed a very cool database to map the approximately 9000 city properties which may be underutilized. For a good read on how this came to happen and how it works, check out this article at The Planning Report. 

After all this, the first public report on the homeless strategy progress was released by the Homeless Strategy Committee on November 7. It’s a good example of a “serious” memo, black and white, full of technical jargon. 

The reason for the report’s awkward language is pretty clear -- the core first steps relating to “crisis response” efforts aren’t going that well. As the LA Times  put it, “Proposals for storage lockers and toilets for street dwellers are stalled, new shelter capacity is being added at a trickle, and the city bureaucracy moving more slowly than some council members expected.” 

Buried in the report is the fact that it was community opposition that derailed storage facilities in Venice and San Pedro, and CD 9’s La Opinion site turned out to be no good “due to the rehabilitation cost.” 

Also, the 9^th District Court of Appeals torpedoed the Council’s hot flash vision of a Citywide Safe Parking Program. So back to the drawing board on that one. 

You have to wonder how much use Ron Galperin’s database of city owned properties is going to be in the face of all of this pushback. Using city owned properties was a key element in providing supportive housing for the homeless. 

Speaking of Quick Homeless Housing. 

Part of phase one of the City’s ambitious 300 page Comprehensive Homeless Strategy was to provide quick, permanent supportive homeless housing on some 12 city-owned parcels. A big part of this plan was to establish a list of prequalified developers who could quickly build on those parcels. This list ultimately included 39 developers and recommendations for the disposition of the twelve parcels. 

Well, that didn’t last long. In a mid-November move, the recommendations had suddenly winnowed down to four developers, and the types of housing now magically include “Permanent Supportive Housing, Affordable Multifamily Housing, Mixed-Income Housing, Affordable Homeownership,” and my favorite, “Innovative Methods of Housing.” 

Also, the 12 parcels are now down to 10, with the staff recommendation that the other two parcels be sold off on the grounds that “there are no recommended proposals for these sites.” The money, of course, will go to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. 

So what we are left with in the initial phases of LA City’s master plan for homelessness are 4 developers who are authorized to build affordable housing or anything “innovative.” Great. 

What Can We Expect for Our $1.2 Billion Bond? 

In a heartwarming, if naive expression of faith, over 76% of the voters approved Measure HHH on November 8, authorizing the sale of $1.2 billion in bonds to pay for about 10,000 units of affordable permanent-supportive housing in the next 10 years. It is the major long-term component of the City’s Comprehensive Homeless Strategy. 

Take a look at KPPC’s article on 10 things you need to know about measure HHH  to see what the promises were in hyping the bond measure, as well as the fears. 

If you contrast the bond measure rhetoric with what the City has actually done so far, the disconnect looms like the Grand Canyon. Affordable housing is not permanent-supportive housing; it’s simply another opportunity for real estate developers to make money building more housing. And if the 12 parcels already identified have shrunk to 10 already, where are all of these 10,000 units going to be built? Furthermore, if you believe the cost per unit for this housing, then I invite you to my lottery for the 6^th Street Bridge. 

Don’t misunderstand. Homelessness is really important, but so far, the efforts of the Council don’t seem to be remotely on track to provide the 500 units of supportive housing and key “crisis response” that was promised. As the City stated in the Executive Summary of their very own Comprehensive Homeless Strategy document: 

“In the short-term, the City must enhance its existing homeless shelter system and transform shelter beds into bridge housing by including homeless case management and integrating supportive health and social services from the County at appropriate levels of caseload via the CES.” 

Since the ability to sell bonds is not a requirement to sell the bonds, I urge all Angelenos to closely monitor the Mayor/City Council machine as they continue to try and implement their grand design. If they can’t get it right on what they have already promised to do without the bond money, maybe they should not sell bonds at all until and unless they get their act together. 

This should be about our surging homeless population, not politics as usual. 

One can dream...

(Tony Butka is an Eastside community activist, who has served on a neighborhood council, has a background in government and is a contributor to CityWatch.) Photo: Elizabeth Daniels/LA Curbed.

Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

TRUMP’S MOST IMPORTANT PICK-As the Trump Transition careens along, proposing that free speech be sanctioned by depriving Americans their U.S. citizenship, we come to the most important appointment – California’s Steven Mnuchin as Secretary of Treasury. 

As explained previously in a CityWatch article, Little Timmy Giethner turned Obama’s Administration into an American tragedy, setting the stage for the rise of Trumpism. Rather than risk being turned into a pillar of salt like Lot’s wife for looking back upon destruction, let’s affix our gaze to the future. 

What are the primary duties of the Secretary of the Treasury? 

(1) Protect the Price System (aka Price Structure.) 

(2) Institute policies to ameliorate the swings of the business cycle. Since we are in a mild upswing, the focus is to protect the economy from the down phase, i.e. recession.

The Price System. 

Neither businessmen nor family members can make wise economic decisions without knowing the actual value of everything. If a homeowner is deceived into believing that the true value of healthcare insurance is $1,500 per month when it is only $800 per month, he is losing $700 per month. That is $8,400 per year which simply disappears from his wealth and he gets nothing in return. 

On the other hand, if the homeowner is deceived into believing that a healthcare plan will insure his family for only $300 per month, but when a catastrophic illness befalls the family, he discovers that it pays only 45% of the medical bills, bankruptcy follows the illness. 

The law of supply and demand is often invoked along with some quasi-religious belief that if everyone is allowed to lie their heads off about the value of everything, the law of supply and demand will magically arrive at the correct price for everything. Troglodytes who adhere to this theory oppose regulations which would keep false data out of the Price System. Wall Street is filled with thieves who want no regulations on their power to lie, cheat, manipulate and thereby financially devastate the American people. 

We saw a fine example of the destruction of the Price System during the Subprime Mortgage frauds where Wall Street firms forced the rating agencies like Standard and Poor to rate junk securities as top grade. This practice was widespread when Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson, Jr., the last Secretary of the Treasury, who was a scion of Goldman Sachs, reigned supreme in the Bush Administration. As a result of Hank’s treachery, America lost $22 trillion in wealth, but we hasten to add that Little Timmy Geithner gets more than honorable mention in guaranteeing that we’d never have a real recovery. 

The first step to protect the Price System is for Secretary Mnuchin to propose a stronger Glass-Steagall law to replace the laughable Dodd-Frank Act. Investment firms need to be restricted to their vital role of raising capital from sophisticated investors for needed projects. They need to be restricted not only as a means to stop trillions of dollars in fraud, but also to make certain that the capitalist system has a functioning institution for raising capital. That can only happen when investment houses have no access to commercial banking funds. 

Needless to say, many volumes can be written about protecting the Price System, especially for a society which has just elected a predatory real estate developer to be President. Even prior to the arrival of Trumpism, however, the fraud which has become pandemic in our financial institutions was rotting our economic system: ninety percent of all productivity increases since the Crash of 2008 have gone to the top One Percent. 

Secretary Mnuchin’s Duty is to Tame the Business Cycle. 

The upswing in the economy is a dangerous return to the Business Cycle with its Booms and Busts. Due to the reactionary economic policies of little Timmy Geithner, the Obama Administration failed to institutionalize additional safeguards to modulate the next Bust Phase. For some reason, people habitually believe that the Boom Phase will last forever. Let’s be blunt about who warned the world that the Boom Phase of any economy has a short life span. GOD told us and GOD told us what to do. People are usually surprised to discover that GOD is the true father of Keynesian Economics. 

Way back then, Pharaoh’s dream alerted him to the short life span of the good times. When he did not understand the significance of his dream where the seven lean cows ate the seven fat cows and remained lean, Joseph instructed Pharaoh in the first principle of Keynesian Economics. The wise Pharaoh saves during the fat years so that he can release grain from the storehouses during the lean years and avoid famine. Secretary Mnuchin’s Torah portion seems to have been Parashat Vayaeshev (Genesis 37.1 - 40.23) which stops just before the section where Joseph explains the basics of Keynesian economics to Pharaoh. Shall we mystically wonder whether Secretary Mnuchin is standing on the threshold of perfidy or greatness? Did he peak ahead to Genesis 41 et seq.? 

What Economic Policies Should Mnuchin Institute for the Trump Administration? 

While the Trump is obsessed with the idea that the boom phase of the business cycle will not only be infinite but should be 6% growth per year, Secretary Mnuchin’s real duty is to institute programs to prepare for the famine years. 

The income level on which Social Security contributions are based, for example, needs to be raised immediately. Currently, it stops at an income of $118,500 per year. Social Security payments protect businesses when the economy hits a down turn, but unless the government has saved more funds during the fat years by raising the income level for contributions, the fund will not have accumulated enough money to increase Social Security payments. This measure should have been undertaken in January 2010, but it could not be done due to Little Timmy Geithner’s reactionary policies. 

Because private pensions have all but evaporated for the average citizen, Social Security payments need to increase by 5% to 10% per year each over and above the annual increase of the CPI. The problem is that first we needed the seven fat years of increased contributions before we can responsibly increase payments. We do not have that accumulation of cash. 

Secretary Mnuchin faces a crisis. The recession will arrive before he has enough time to collect sufficiently more Social Security contributions to have instituted these increased payments. Thus, Secretary Mnuchin needs to maximize contributions as fast as possible so that the increased payments can begin as the recession starts. Ideally, the legislation which increases the contributions will also set an objective benchmark for when to start the increased Social Security payments. Keynesian mechanisms function best when they are automatic, as the politicians are mostly economic ignoramuses who think spending should be cut when a recession starts. 

How to Interface Mercantilism with Modern Economics 

From what one can tell, Trump’s plan to make America Great Again is a reversion to the Mercantilism of the 1500s to 1600s. That places Trumpism in direct conflict Secretary Mnuchin’s duty to modulate the severity of the Boom and Bust Phases of the Business Cycle. 

Will Mnuchin side with the goniff impulsive of Trumpism or will he be a mensch who promotes the general welfare of human beings?

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.