EASTSIDER-When I grew up, we had a whole bunch of automakers in the US, mostly based in Detroit. One heck of a lot of jobs, mostly in America. That ended with the full-on onslaught of the Global Economy, which we are told is “good for us” and somehow produces a better free market which should make us all sing hosannas and clap with joy. 

I still remember the television pronouncement of President Bill Clinton as he told us all to get over the idea of working for one employer and retiring on their pension. We lived in the new, competitive, global economy and we needed to get used to it and be willing to train, and retrain, for a bunch of different jobs during our working life so that we too, could become competitive. Or some such horsepuckey. 

So here’s my poster child for “how’s that workin’ for ya?” Let’s talk about airbags. You know, the ones that are in virtually every car these days, made overseas by the Takata Corporation, a veritable shining example of global competitiveness and its outcomes. 

These devices were so cost competitive on a per unit basis that they created close to a monopoly: no one else could compete with their prices. After all, if car companies can save a few cents per unit on every car they make, then they should do so. Then add all that up and “hurrah” – it’s a shining example of global competitiveness in action. 

But it is also a prime example of what happens when a system goes wrong. The simple timeline of the airbag problem and efforts to fix it shows us how incapable our system is in actually dealing with global problems of this magnitude. Here’s Consumer Reports’ take on it. 

And this gift just keeps on giving. I own a Toyota and was overjoyed to be greeted by this headline last week: “A second airbag supplier SNAFU hits Toyota, 1.4 million cars recalled.” 

Seems to me that all this points out some pretty serious flaws in the wonderful “global economy” theory. When things go wrong, no one knows the magnitude of the problem for a long time because the chain of how it has occurred is murky, complex, and has happened over a long period of time. The company on the hook is simply unable to fix the problem for every vehicle, because, in truth, doing that all at once would make them go bankrupt. So too bad for all of us and our cars. But we still go through these tortured exercises about how the government is somehow responsible for figuring out what to do. It’s a huge mess and coping with it is beyond the ability of any one of these global giants. Plus, the car manufacturers can’t take the hit all at once either. 

Remember, one of the upsides of the old “inefficient” economy was a certain amount of redundancy. There were usually a fair number of parts manufactured so that, if one messed up, there were quick fixes or alternatives. In fact, often a manufacturer would step up and actually make the part if necessary. Our global system, in contrast, tends to rely on a “just in time” assembly process with pieces coming on a slow boat from China. The old system had the advantage of redundancy, as well as being close to home -- and oh, by the way, providing jobs for us. 

The financial services industry could care less about this because they are the primary beneficiary of the global economy. They’ve already taken in their money and have it lodged in institutions all around the world, able to move their profits at the click of a button at the speed of electrons. 

By financing these deals with a massive amount of highly leveraged debt, they have made tons of money which they and their corporate partners can hide overseas to evade US taxes. If one of the deals goes bad, some investors (like your and my 401-k plans) get hit. However, the corporate types along with their profits have moved on, bearing no responsibility. 

In the meantime, people die. Also, a heck of a lot of folks in the United States have lost their jobs, with most of the manufacturing losses permanent. There is a direct correlation between the so-called free trade deals and job losses for us, and it’s not based on news media hype. Even the New York Times gets it. 

If you want to really know the details, check out the 55-page research paper referred to in the Times article here.  

Where does all this leave you and me? How about we consider less globalization and more local jobs? How about actually reigning in “Too Big to Fail” banks? Of course, I wouldn’t hold my breath with the two presidential candidates we have, but I can dream, can’t I?

(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.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.

GELFAND’S WORLD--The Lotus Festival (photo above) is an annual celebration of the Asian cultures that have settled and flourished in Los Angeles. There will be dragon boat races and food, dance performances, a health fair, and community interest booths. The Lotus Festival is being held this weekend, July 9-10 at Echo Park. 

The festivities begin at noon each day and continue until 9 PM. There will be 14 food booths, 29 boutique booths (that's how the sponsor describes them), and 38 community organization booths. Entertainment begins at noon each day, and continues until the festival's closing time of 9 PM. 

How, you may ask, do you manage to fit dragon boat races into the middle of Los Angeles? The answer is Echo Park Lake. This is also a clue for the answer to "Why is it the Lotus Festival?" 

Back in the late 1800s, what is now Echo Park was empty land on the western edge of a much smaller but growing city of Los Angeles. Then came the lake. It was originally designed to be a reservoir, containing water diverted from the L.A. River. You can read the story in Nathan Masters' history.  As Masters explains, the lake and its surroundings went through various phases, and were eventually made into what we now know as Echo Park. 

Historians are unsure how the lotus plants began to populate the lake, but at some time in the 1920s, they began to flourish. There is an amusing story of how the lake's lotus population died off and was later reintroduced. The fun part is that the replacement plants came from cuttings that had been stolen from the lake nearly a decade earlier. You can read about it in Marisa Gerber's story in the L.A. Times. How many people can put lotus thief and honored conservationist on their resume? Randy McDonald can. 

The Lotus Festival is well on its way to the half-century mark, although it went out of business for a short time and then came back in 2014. 

Each year, a different country sponsors the Lotus Festival. This year, it is the Republic of Korea. To give you an idea of the breadth of what will be presented, artist Yongseob Kwon will be displaying his remarkable collection of paintings of the LA River as imagined in a future setting. And those of you who have been active in neighborhood councils may know members of the Korean Culture Center Inc, which supports the heritage of the Korean independence movement as it existed in Los Angeles a century ago. 

Wear your sun screen and print out a street map.

●●

Dave Thomas would have been ashamed--Dave Thomas (photo right) was the guy you may remember from Wendy's commercials. He has since passed on, but he represented his company on television for more than a decade, mostly in the 1990s. The other night I went into the Wendys over in Carson and ordered a burger and a bowl of chili. The young man at the register asked me if I'd like onions and cheese on my chili. 

You may already know where this is going. I said, "Sure." He took my money but when I reached for the receipt, he held onto it, telling me that it was used to fill my order. Only later did I notice that Wendy's had stuck a half-dollar charge for the cheese on my bill. I should point out that the cheese they put on wouldn't have filled a thimble, but that's not the point. The point is that the company dishonestly and dishonorably stuck a surcharge on my bill without warning or explanation. Considering that cheese and onions are an expected part of a bowl of chili unless the customer declines them, this wasn't right. It was as if they had stuck a surcharge on the bill for taking a packet of sugar to go with a cup of coffee. 

If you were to have gone into that same restaurant with me that same night and looked at the menu, you would have seen the incriminating evidence. The menu board gave the prices for two sizes of chili, but nowhere did that menu say anything about charging extra for cheese. Like I said, Dave Thomas would have been ashamed of this kind of behavior. The young manager politely explained that the computer automatically adds the fifty cents to your bill if you agree to the offer of the added cheese. 

There oughta be a law--There is upselling and then there is sleazy upselling. One morning I ordered some breakfast at the McDonalds here in San Pedro. The menu item explained that my breakfast came with a drink which could be orange juice or coffee, and when I asked for coffee, the sales lady said, "Medium?" I assumed that she was offering me a chance to have either the smaller coffee (medium) or the larger coffee, as in upsize that. If she had offered me a large coffee, I would have understood that there would be a surcharge. 

So that morning in McDonalds, still looking at the printed price list and in answer to the question, I said, "Sure." That was another half-buck that a corporate computer stuck onto my bill in its own sneaky way. I guess I should be more careful about answering any question at a fast food place with "Sure." 

The game in upselling seems to be that the advertised price isn't necessarily the real price, and if you agree to any change whatsoever, you deserve your fate. But how is the offer of that half-thimble worth of cheese -- which the customer would assume is something that comes with the order -- any different than the question of whether you want cream in your coffee? We've come to expect that we can have our coffee with cream or without cream for the same price. Restaurants don't ordinarily charge us for sugar or artificial sweetener. It's part of the deal, and the cheese should be too. Or the sales person should make it clear that it's an upsale and it will be costing you. Then you can say to yourself, "Wendy's doesn't provide the whole dish when I order chili, so maybe I should avoid the Wendy's experience." 

Long ago, fast food places introduced the hard upsell by asking, "Will you be having fries with that?" It didn't take people long to figure out that fries weren't a free bonus, but cost extra. Eventually that question became the punch line to a lot of jokes, such as "What is the first thing a liberal arts major says in his new job?"

(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for City Watch. He can be reached at [email protected]) 

-cw

A PASTORAL PERSPECTIVE--As a pastor it is my calling to defend the helpless and to point out injustice when it happens. Christianity is not always a "namby pamby" religion. There is a time for condemnation and to demand change. I am reminded of Jesus Christ taking a whip to the money changers and overturning their tables in the temple in Jerusalem. What brings all of this to my attention are the two recent shootings of black men in this country. 

It is an uncomfortable fact in this country that when it comes to cops and African American men, it is open season on murdering black men. Having dated a black man for 2 years, I can personally testify to the terrible relations between the black community in Pasadena and the police. I even took a 13-week community policing class in Pasadena, and what I came away with was disheartening. The attitude of the PPD is shoot first, ask questions later. When I pressed the officers about that, the response was that was what lawyers and the courts were for, to work out the details. Our officers in the PPD are trained in Orange County, hardly a bastion of progressive thinking. This is made even worse by the recent shootings by Pasadena police of unarmed black men in Pasadena. 

This brings me to the shootings of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota that happened this week. Both men were shot point blank. Take a look at these videos, and then tell me if you think the shootings were necessary or justified. Warning: these videos are very graphic in nature.

Sterling

Castile

Enough is enough! Police officers need to be held accountable for their actions, both by their commanding officers and by grand juries that investigate. 

Police officers are not above the law. In the case of the officer in Minnesota, he was yelling obscenities at the victim when he shot him. 

In the case of Alton Sterling in Louisiana, two police officers were kneeling on top of the victim with the full force of their weight, and then shot him. 

We need a policing culture that respects the lives of everyone, regardless of the color of one's skin. We need to retrain our police forces on how to deescalate dangerous situations and how to interact with minority communities. And we need to make it crystal clear that the attitude of shoot first ask questions later has no place in policing, and if an officer does that, charges should follow. 

Gun and ammunition laws need to be changed, and changed now. Assault weapons have no place in our communities.  

Let me ask you this question: How many pastors have you heard speak out about all of this? And white pastors need to stop the silent act and speak out firmly against the killing of unarmed black men. My message to white pastors: Stop hiding in your churches and step up to the plate! 

We are entering a very dangerous summer season. The United States is a powder keg, just waiting to explode. We already have demonstrations planned for the two national political conventions. And now we have protests over the shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota. It's going to be a long hot summer. 

We read in Psalm 18 : "This God - his way is perfect; the promise of the Lord proves true; he is a shield for all who take refuge in him." My prayer is that the violence will end, and all of us, as children of a loving God, will take refuge in the loving arms of Christ. 

However, in the meantime, we demand change. We demand that the killing of unarmed black men stop. We demand that our police officers be retrained. Yes, black lives DO matter. ALL lives matter. And it is time we remember that. 

-cw

VIDEO INTERVIEW--Ken Bernstein (photo above), Principal City Planner and Manager of the Office of Historic Resources, [[http://preservation.lacity.org/ ]]   was recently interviewed for the Miracle Mile Residential Association’s “MMRA Channel on YouTube.”

EDITOR’S PICK—(When the history of President Obama’s legacy on immigration is written, he will not go down as the president who boldly acted to protect millions of families from the brutality of our nation’s unforgiving immigration laws. The Supreme Court made sure of that last month, when it deadlocked on the legality of his program to defer the deportation of parents of American citizens and residents. Instead, he will be judged on what he actually did: deport more immigrants than any other president in American history, earning him the moniker “deporter in chief.”

However, President Obama can still act to bring humanity and justice to an immigration system notoriously lacking in both. He can do so by using the power the Constitution grants him — and only him — to pardon individuals for “offenses against the United States.”

The debate over the deportation deferral program has been framed as a question of the division of powers. Both sides agree that Congress is the only entity that gets to define offenses against the United States. Reasonable commentators also agree that the president enjoys prosecutorial discretion to determine which deportation cases to pursue and which to forgo. 

The difficult question is whether a categorical decision to decline to prosecute millions begins to intrude on Congress’ power. While the program is consistent with the way previous presidents have used prosecutorial discretion, without guidance from the Supreme Court, debate will surely continue. (Read the rest.) 

-cw

MY TURN-Remember when you had your fiftieth birthday and one of the greetings in the mail was from the American Association for Retired People -- AARP? I don't know about you, but I was almost insulted. Retired at 50? Old person? I dumped the application in the waste paper basket and steadily ignored those solicitations for several years. 

Everyone is talking about “how to attract millennials.” Marketing people are always looking for new ways to reach the digital generation. (I had to learn how to text to communicate with my grandchildren.) They want to know, how do we get millennials excited about voting? How do we get them to shop at brick and mortar stores? I could go on forever talking about the challenges involved in reaching this newest generation of consumers and leaders. 

Quite frankly I am getting bored with all the focus on millennials! What about our generation...the Savvy Seniors. We are, as Gale Sheehey wrote in her book "Passages," at least ten to fifteen years younger than our parents were at the same age. We work out, we bike, we take classes in esoteric subjects, we’re involved in online dating, we travel and we’re probably as knowledgeable about our local politics as we are about the national outlook. 

There have been so many horrible events in the past couple weeks. In a way, all the patriotic events on the Fourth of July -- the parades and the fireworks and the music -- provided a welcome respite from so much sad and scary news. 

I will bet this is probably the first Independence Day that people who gathered in large crowds might have looked around at their fellow celebrators and wondered, "Am I and my family safe? Does anyone here have an assault weapon or a suicide vest?" If you had those thoughts, you are not being paranoid. It’s the world we live in. 

This got me thinking about our problems and how "we" can make things better. Not the “royal we," but everyone. And I don’t mean like those Facebook homilies suggesting we could solve all the world’s problems if “everyone did something nice for someone else daily.” 

For those of us “savvy seniors” who are somewhat computer literate, have you noticed that if you check out a product or service on a website, they follow you? It’s called target marketing. Yes, I do still get mailers advertising the features of "advance burial” and invitations to lunch with the Neptune Society. They like direct mail for their target market. 

AARP does a really good job with its lobbying to protect social security and Medicare as well as promoting dozens of other projects protecting seniors from scams. As an influential national organization, AARP represents and informs us well. 

When you hear the phrase “all politics is local,” I think this extends to public service and philanthropy as well. 

Senior centers in Los Angeles, for the most part, do a good job of helping seniors pass the time. It is proven that seniors who have a good social network live longer and healthier lives. But personally, I think these centers are missing the boat. 

There is a wealth of talent and creativity locked away inside those who have retired. We have a real problem with education in Los Angeles. Our high school dropout rate is appalling for the 6th largest economy in the world! The money we spend on each student is less today than back when we went to school. I'm not going to recite the list because CW readers know the problems only too well. 

Mayor Garcetti keeps asking for suggestions in his weekly Facebook posts. His vision gets pretty good marks from those that evaluate our politicos, but his execution leaves something to be desired. He has a whole Department of Aging which tries to make sure that seniors have access to services they need. The point to this is…everyone needs to be needed! 

Here is a suggestion, Mr. Mayor: We have a large percentage of seniors among our four million inhabitants so why not create a Senior Public Service Corps in each neighborhood? This could include retired teachers, artists, woodworking craftsmen -- every profession and trade one could think of. Time is a precious commodity and, for the most part, this group has time. 

We could have classes in art, music, shop, cooking as well as help with reading in every school that doesn't have the money or parent participation to offer those things. Before the teachers union gets bent out of shape, we are not looking to replace them but to augment their work. Mentors for kids who need them (and how many of us are where we are today because we had one?) would come from their own neighborhoods. It would provide many of the benefits that kids going to private schools in LA enjoy for a princely sum. 

It would give kids in Middle School the extras that allow them to see their unique possibilities and it would offer alternative opportunities for kids in High School. Not everyone needs or wants to go to college but everyone needs to have the knowledge to earn a living and be able to take care of themselves and their future families. 

This could be done through the Neighborhood Councils or other local service organizations. It would take advantage of adults who have experienced wars, recessions, joys and tragedy and survived it all. The cost would be minimal and it would give many seniors in LA the satisfaction of still being needed and able to make a difference. 

Yes, Mr. Mayor, I volunteer! 

My eldest granddaughter participated in the "March of the Living" a couple of months ago with high school seniors who visited Poland and Israel. In Poland they were accompanied by Holocaust survivors, touring two concentration camps as well as other historical places. There were 10,000 young people and chaperones in all. In recounting their very traumatic experiences, the one that really stuck with me were the stories and interaction with these eighty and ninety year olds who shared with these kids how they survived and showed how they are now giving back. 

I am sure that many of you have ideas and suggestions for how we can improve our schools, take care of the homeless, improve our environment and continue to be the place that sets the standard for the rest of the country. 

When I first began my career I was lucky to have a great mentor. He ran a big company but managed to find time to be the president or chairman of both industry and philanthropic organizations. I remember asking him how he could do it all. He replied, "Public Service is the rent one pays for taking up space on this earth." 

I'm sure you’ve heard variations on that theme before but for this 20 year old it made a huge impact. I can still hear him saying those words so many years ago that so greatly affected my life. 

As always comments welcome.

(Denyse Selesnick is a CityWatch columnist. She is a former publisher/journalist/international event organizer. Denyse can be reached at: [email protected]) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.