HALLOWEEN TALES

THE AUTHOR AS SPONGEBOB, NEW CITIZEN OF NEW MEXICO, ECONOMIC ANALYST, AND AS A FELLOW HUMAN BEING

As the Author’s profile states, he is currently working as a computer security consultant. His current client is the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department. It is a state agency that deals with abused, neglected, children, foster children, and juvenile offenders. And New Mexico has a lot of them, more than its share. The Author’s work is done in the Information Technology Services Division, so he only sees the Department’s work through the efforts of others.

NEW MEXICO. LAND OF ENCHANTMENT. OR LAND OF EXTREMES?

New Mexico is a state of stark beauty, stark contrasts, and some stark realities. On many measures of social problems, it ranks near the bottom. High poverty rates. High rates of teenage motherhood. Low per capita income. Low education levels. But New Mexico also has many working adults with very high levels of graduate and post-graduate levels of education. (Like the Author.)

And is a state with a relatively high cost of living. It has a modest supply of good jobs and it is a “second-career” location for people from the east and west coasts. And a good number of military retirees pulling down government pensions.

It is a recipient of lots of government largesse. It has many military bases, Los Alamos (the home of the atom bomb and some of its barbarous descendants) and Sandia Laboratory.

New Mexico is one of the oldest settled areas in the country, although it was the 47th state to be admitted to the Union. Most of New Mexico was taken from Mexico by the United States in the Mexican War of 1848.

Santa Fe, in its role as the Capitol City, is an historical anomaly. It is mainly a backwater of “old family” elitism and a bastion of political cronyism and low-level corruption.

Albuquerque is the largest city and the commercial center of the state. It is home to the University of New Mexico. Taos is an art center surrounded by lavish ranches and luxury homes of east and west coast elites, served by the minimum wage locals.

LITTLE FACES OF THE EXTREMES

Earlier today, the foster children and the recently adopted kids that the Department places were trick-or-treating in the CYFD Information Technology Services office. Some were with their foster parents, some with their adoptive parents, and some were escorted by Department caseworkers.

The Author, always a sucker for a holiday, wore a Spongebob Squarepants costume. He almost went as a pirate, an alter ego closer to his stock-trading persona. But the kids like Spongebob much more and the Author can imitate his voice and laugh. So the Author suffered through a morning of good-natured ridicule by coworkers. But it was worth it. The Author as Spongebob was a hit with the kids.

HALLOWEEN IS JUST ONE SCARY DAY. FOR THE POOR AND DISADVANTAGED, EVERY DAY CAN BE SCARY

Many people see economic markets as harsh places that enrich the wealthy at the expense of the poor and middle class, as corrupt cesspools of unbridled greed, and the root of all that is bad in the world. And these people are not entirely wrong.

DON’T BLAME THE ECONOMISTS

Markets are instruments of economic exchange that can be as fair or as corrupt as its political system demands or permits. Their harsh effects can be magnified or ameliorated by political actions. Poverty can be expanded, contracted, or virtually eliminated through a nation’s tax system, welfare system, and general economic conditions a nation fosters.

AND DON’T BLAME THE KIDS. AND MAYBE WE SHOULD JUST STOP BLAMING AND START HELPING

It is not the markets nor the economists that make the political choices that cause these social pathologies. Economists only observe, quantify and advise. It is the citizens of a nation and the elected officials that make these choices. Choices that the disenfranchised and the politically powerless must live, or merely subsist, with.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM THE DESERT OF THE REAL!