How Many Homeless?

I was at 'Mitzvah Day' at Temple Judea in Woodland Hills last week. I was there to represent Susan G. Komen for the Cure to encourage members of the congregation to register for the Race for the Cure at Dodger Stadium next March. Why am I telling you this on a blog about stopping run away production?

Because, at Temple Judea I was situated next to a charity that collects clothing for the homeless, feeds them in a soup kitchen, and provides showers in a mobile shower, all of this in the San Fernando Valley. I know there are large numbers of the homeless in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, but did you know that there are another 10,000 in the Valley? And among them a growing number of women and children? These are not just your perennial homeless addicts, these are people that lost their job, lost their home, and may not even have a car left to sleep in. Think of it, would you want to take a shower in a mobile unit once a week? would your children? Homeless shelters could be scary places for an adult, what must a child think? This is not like camping out. No s'mores over an open fire.

This is the vicious cycle many people can expect. How many of these people are or will be living on the street because a tv show is not being produced here, or a blockbuster movie is not filming here. It is not that difficult to draw a correlation.

Sharon

Are We Going to Like Our New World Better?

I am 38% through the book The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity. according to my Kindle. And I did say I would share, but I wonder how willing any of us are to accept what may be our new reality. According to this book, we are in a "shift from an economy based on making things to one that revolves around knowledge and creativity." We seem to want to do both, create and make.

We are having so much trouble competing in the manufacture of things but we continue to try and that makes me wonder if we have accepted our prospective new role in the world order. I don't think so, or why would we have risked so much of our nation's wealth to prop up the auto industry, which may never be competitive? Unless we can use our knowledge and creativity to figure out how to make a car that is so unique and compelling that people will be willing to pay extra to own it, we are not facing the reality that we can not be competitive doing the same as everyone else. Isn't it better and certainly more interesting to be the brains of the world rather than the labor force? Let emerging economies raise their standards of living through their own industrial revolution. Let us think up wonderful, cool new things, cure disease and poverty, lead a green revolution, you get the idea.

In the long run, we would have been better off if we had sent all the automotive workers to school to learn new skills rather than spend billions propping up a manufacturing wet dream. These thoughts are my own, fertilized by the ideas of economists much smarter than I am. I have only my own sense of what is the right direction, but it frequently seems at odds with the direction we are taking. It makes me a little uneasy. Does anyone else see that the emperor is not wearing anything?

So much for this Saturday's potluck, I'll look for a happier subject for next week.

Sharon

Are Things Really Getting Better?

I've always been an optimist. And I'm not going to change. I know things will get better eventually (economically speaking), but this is painful! I wonder that we sit passively by and wait for better days. We just went to the polls and expressed disenchantment with some incumbent office holders; is that it?

I saw a bit on a news show about a small community in Florida that banded together to build a barricade of barges to keep the oil spill from damaging their beaches. It worked. Government and Coast Guard alike were reluctant to let the town go ahead with their barge plan. The head of the group told the powers that "we're going to do it anyway." And they did.

I started this blog because I perceived a way to encourage producers to film here, creating local employment, by trying to build an audience of Californians grateful to watch their products if they were filmed here. Will it make a difference? All I know for certain is that I will not stop trying.

What else can we do as individuals? Do you have ideas? It really is up to us you know.

Sharon