HERE'S A CHANGE, SOME GOOD NEWS

Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! ~ Anne Frank

Quite honestly, the news I've been reading and seeing for quite a while has been pretty dark. Our economic doldrums continue; I've heard continuing, tragic stories about families suffering from long-term unemployment and lack of adequate access to affordable healthcare. Meanwhile the media gives excessive attention to the farcical, misguided and upsetting activities of certain political candidates – and their super-PACS – in the name of "balanced" political reporting. [As an aside, how can these candidates be so impervious to the reality we are now living?] Is there nothing decent and/or encouraging going on? Springtime isn't supposed to be this gloomy.

 I'm pleased to report some glimmers of light, in the form of good and hopeful news.

First, my interactions with students at the high school I work at several days a week are certainly up-lifting. Witnessing their energetic enthusiasm definitely brightens me up. Unfortunately, as I walk home, reality begins to dim the brightness a bit– mostly due to the clouded prognosis now being faced by all too many of their fellow Millennials as I discussed recently. But I remain hopeful that these young people can weather this storm with help from the rest of us.

Next, beyond the SF East Bay some significant positive news has managed to surface among the all too dark flotsam of conflicts and fiscal disasters. Given the media's proclivities for screaming "wolf" at every opportunity, it has been too easy to miss these additional positive pronouncements.

The good news deals with a distant slice of our world that has been in desperate need of it for a long time – the so-called "bottom billion" – the poorest, least-developed folks of the 7 billion now on the planet. The news relates to health advancements for people living in many developing nations. Two inter-related, basic measures of human health – average expected lifetime and child mortality – have improved in the recent past. This is very good news for everyone.

The average lifespan has improved significantly in many developing nations across the globe. These nations can gain from their citizens' increased productive availability. Libya's average lifespan increased to 77 years, just one year behind the US (not accounting for the probable detrimental effects of its "Arab Spring" events). The gains in life expectancy since 1980 have been highest in the Middle East and North Africa (12.2 years), South Asia had the second largest gain (9.6 years) and Latin America is third (8.1 years). According to Wikipedia, the world average life expectancy is 66.57 years. As a point of reference, estimated life expectancy at birth during the Upper Paleolithic age (roughly 40,000 years ago) was 33 years, about the same as life expectancy in 17^th century England. [It's a mystery to me how archaeologists can determine life expectancy in ancient times, but then they probably wonder how we economists calculate purchasing power parity and the velocity of money. So it goes.] These advances have occurred in spite of the modern-day scourge in Africa of HIV/AIDS that many people believe is akin to the 14^th century Plague that killed 30-60% of Europe's population.

There also have been impressive reductions in child mortality since 2005 across a number of African countries. This remarkable accomplishment was highlighted by the Economist in an article entitled, "The best story in development." Three nations – Senegal, Rwanda and Kenya – have reduced their rates of child mortality by more than 8% a year. These drops are the fastest seen anywhere over the past three decades, including China and India. A dozen other countries had declines greater than 4.4% per year. An important contributor to this good news is the growth of using insecticide-treated bed nets that cuts malaria infections. However, it's more than bed nets, according to the article; it's the combination of better health-related policies, better governance and new technology that are together improving (and lengthening) children's lives.

So, even though we live in unsettling times (when aren't they?), these positive advancements brighten my perspective. By remembering them, I can get back to being more optimistic and seeing the glass of present-day life as at least half-full. Hopefully, you might be able to as well.

LOST IN PLACE

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. ~ Confucius

Perhaps it is the perfect economic storm with winds blowing hard from at least three directions. First, strong flurries have been born from extended high unemployment and prolonged economic stasis. Second, gales have hollowed out Federal, state and local budgets requiring government expenditures to be cut – despite the continuing need – because, in the main, citizens don't want to provide sufficient tax revenues to pay for the programs they expect and demand (e.g., Medicare, Social Security, public parks, inexpensive energy, cheap food, and first-rate public education). Last, fierce gusts have swept in from the "corporatization of education," as Thomas Frank puts it, fortified by the ever-growing demand for quality post-high school education on top of phenomenal increases in the cost of attending college.

This ominous storm has affected us all, but our 60-million strong Millennial Generation (aka, Gen Y - folks born between 1982 and 2001) has been especially exposed to its devastating forces. If this storm continues to blow across the US, the Millennials could become the first generation in a long, long time to be less well off than their parents – in essence, lost from their expected place as vital contributors to the economy's future growth. They represent both the most strategically important citizens for our future, and those have been significantly suffering through the past several years.

Should we all be concerned? Absolutely. Are we doing anything to reduce the force and breadth of this storm? Beyond complaining, no. Are we continuing to pursue policies that will place more barriers in front of progress for vast numbers of Millennials? Yes.

As such, more and more Millennials are discouraged, more are unemployed, more are dispirited, more are under-employed, more are dropping out, more are moving back to their parents' homes, more are despondent about ever achieving (and affording) their dreams, and more believe their chances of success are unattainable. Here are seven sobering facts that back up this dour description of our Millennials – a generation who's ever-closer to being lost in place.

A) $1 Trillion: Total student loan debt (more than all credit card debt).	B) 58%: Percent of surveyed recent college grads who believe their generation will have less success than the generation before. Only 16% believe they will have more success.
C) 167,000: Estimated number of Americans carrying student-loan debt in excess of $200,000.	D) 559%: Increase in college tuition and fees compared to what they were in 1985. In contrast, the cost of all consumer items has roughly doubled during this period.
E) $16.81/hr: The average hourly wage of last year's college graduates (~$35,000/yr). The typical wage of young college graduates dropped 4.6% between 2007 and 2011, adjusted for inflation.	F) 24.9%: Teenage unemployment rate in April; more than 3 times larger than the overall US unemployment rate (8.1%).
G) –68%: The reduction in net worth of Americans aged 35 years and younger over the past 25 years; the net worth of Americans 65 years and over has increased 45% during the past 25 years.

Can we as a nation head off this generational calamity? In theory, yes. Along with others, I've previously noted [my Nov 11, 2011 "Getting to Balance" blog], a set of Federal policies that can eventually mitigate against casting our children's (and our own) future in ever-darker tones. Principal among these are: (1) reducing the Defense Department's budget – that would restore a bit of needed balance in Federal government expenditures and would make it less likely that the DOD/CIA will continue its increasingly desperate "Game of Drones" war in Pakistan/Afghanistan. (2) Ending the Bush income tax cuts on Dec 31,^, 2012 for folks making more than $200,000, together with applying the social security tax to all earned income. And (3) modifying Federal social security and Medicare benefits so they are means-dependent; or, as Ezekiel Emanuel suggests, create graduated-eligibility for such benefits based on lifetime wealth.

Finally, I am sick of hearing that unthinking public decision-makers have turned their backs on solving these vital issues while they argue ideological demagoguery and campaign for re-election. The media gives these misaligned decision-makers the "it's an election year" cop-out for doing nothing. But really, given our mutant, other-worldly political system, it's always an election year, isn't it. Aren't our elected representatives supposed to be serving us all the time? In this Olympic summer, I award the gold medal for institutional dysfunction and ineffectiveness to the US Congress. While Congress, the White House, Governors and State legislatures twiddle their thumbs, our children's futures continue to crumble before their unseeing eyes.