Musgrove Notes

Day 1, Panel 1
Dean Baker: General story of economy, important to make it simple. 
How did we get here: Housing Bubble. Can't understand this unless you understand the bubble. Import because it is so simple. Huge divergence from a 100yr long trend. 

Bubble propelled economy 2002-collapse. Also created massive amount of bubble wealth. 

Losses: Construction, Annual Consumption (due to savings). Now non-residential construction is falling off as well. Talking a loss in annual demand of about $1.2 trillion. Stim package is nowhere near what needs to happen per year. 

Credit/Banking issues; mortgages no longer run through banks. mortgages are avail. taking over banks would be much less radical than what's happening now. 

Jim Carr: 
Presenting story from different perspective. Bubble isn't just fraud, but is also predatory lending. Racially targeted. Ferret lending violations where basic laws re: fair lending and fair housing have never been enforced. 

Started with Brokers (kickbacks), moved on to the lenders (backloading mortgages with prepayment penalties), appraisers (overvalued homes), rating agencies (never saw a single loan), investment bankers (paid premium for high risk loan), 

This crisis started because fair lending and fair housing was never enforced. Became contagious to the broader market due to lack of deregulation. Foreclosure crisis started in minority communities in 1999. 

Crisis was not only predictable but predicted. Largely dismissed by regulatory agencies as a cry for legislation against predatory lending. 

problem for banks were foreclosures, which turned performing loans into problem assets. 

2 million jobs lost in q1 2009 could mean 800k more foreclosures. unemployment is facilitating loss.

reverse auction as a means of reducing foreclosures.

possibly use imminent domain to acquire assets. 
homeowners loan corporation that could help with unemployment crisis. 

economy in recovery by 2010? probably not. foreclosures are still ramping up. with this rate of foreclosure, hard to see how we can recover. 

underlying cause of crisis has not been addressed.

Group Q&A: 
Kevin Drum: Would 25% rule have prevented the crisis? Bill: Would have helped. Dean: but there's no magic formula. we could have done anything to stop it and we didn't. 

Bill: 25% regulation was put in place relatively late in the game. Was followed by Danny Wall, who didn't get it. Clear, simple rules help sell these projects.

Chris: What are some of the key causes of the crisis. 
Fraud, loans, predation. Needed bubble to add to everything else. 

Takeaways:
-How states could have fought predatory lending and how they were blocked. 
-Key opportunity to take an extraordinary gift from this crisis to invest in communities that have historically been targets.
-exceptional investment campaign.
-work to do around elevating human cost of foreclosure crisis.
-since many people were saying this years ago, we need a structured conversation for breaking the story/breaking through the din. 
-teachable moment for canary in coal mine re: people of color. 
-homeownership is not the key to financial independence. 
-danger in getting distracted by "who's the bad guy"
-calling for ridicule is making sense now.
-need to have some criminal investigations. 
-how can we make this information accessible. 

Implications:
-fact/fiction metaphor is already prevalent. what are the mechanisms that would be helpful to economists to find the "truth." how can we actually tell these stories and break through?
-who are the people who economists rely on that media outlets should be in touch with.

PART 2 Q&A:
Do any of these potential growth areas/rewrites of policy reform that indicate the creation of another bubble? Dean says no because they don't grow that easily. 

Hyper-transparency, pushing privately for some very scurvy transactions. Recovery.gov needs to play all the way down so that communities can organize around it while being implemented and change it.

Length/Depth of Recession: Dean: all up for grabs, is a policy question. Currently less than needed. Unemployment rate could cross 10% this year without 2nd stimulus.

Heather: hopeful about investments in green energy. first time in decades govt is considering "industrial policy". BUT: disappointing around buy american provisions making highly incompatible goals. 2: hope i'm holding onto is congress who are up for election and need to face communities. spurred before 2010 elections. 

Likelihood it will take Obama down: If there's still double digit unemployment, it's not going to be good in 2012. 

Heather's take on the auto crisis: could be good because there are people in communities. "bailout" is ridiculous. totally screws over middle class by overprotecting finance sector. very important to talk about sanctity of UAW contracts, health benefits for retirees. 

what if we said to foreign owned companies in the us--you can have it, but ONLY if our workers can be unionized.

split between auto and finance concerns. fight helped by vilifying workers/middle class.

need to look beyond the value of the individual and more towards the impact of an individuals actions on the community.

STORY IDEA: State credit agencies don't have to report how much money they are foregoing in their budget to cope with stimulus spending. a policy outcome craig would love to see.

Takeaways:
-Pushing for transparency works! More is winnable. And recovery.gov is a perfect "ground zero" for making transparency happen. need to make difference between state and federal fund spending clear and simple. 
-states can't talk to each other to match up expenditures and funds. federal govt. needs to lead in data collection and comparison.
-who is using this information as an organizing tool to pressure govts on a state level? 
-Need for organizing both for transparency and of unemployed. 
-push for govt. transparency is totally counter to push for financial sector. accounting industry does not have to report losses. transparency for private and public sectors and financial institutions. 
-stim plan is going to become a boondoggled slush fund, as we're only able to track down to the 
-scandal mongering is also a concern. something bigger is going on here. too many stories about what goes bad, not enough about what goes right. also need to make sure that coverage is not focused on individual fraud. 
-we don't want states in the business of collecting data. needs to be one central repository so that anyone with a computer can sort this data. 
-last person white men will blame is other white men. have to prevent the next welfare queen. left needs white folks to understand what happened, whose fault it was, and 
-untold story of wage recession and labor as precursor to bubble and debt. what is the national credit increase being blamed on? 
-bidding process is not exposed at all for contracts. 

IMPLICATION:
-Could be a huge editorial project around transparency. 
-we need to get our media into the hands of these unemployed white men. 

part two:
George Gale will create a list of bad guys/big players and distribute to media.

Sean: The economic isn't new to communities of color. Organizations that are rooted in these communities have been working on these issues for a while. Things are really bad, but there's also a sense that now is an opportunity to resolve issues that have been prevalent for years. 

economic crisis has opened people up to thinkin about how economy works and role of govt. can't squander this opportunity.

healthcare is opening up and finding unlikely alliances. 

crisis also makes it hard to fight for some other issues. but maybe not immigration reform.

working conditions are also on the slide. with this environment, people put up with more from their employers. 

tendancy to universalize the crisis is making it worse for lower income communities. those communities are worried about being the first impacted and the last to benefit. 

___________
Q&A/feedback 
going to be a real challenge to make weatherization a worker-friendly environment.

how is the job fallout impacting the immigrant community: latinos have been hit hard. women are also getting cut out of the service industry. 

comprehensive immigration reform--CHC is pushing for this, trying to generate community level support, but got no media attention. less a policy question, more a question of political will.

what is progressive medias counter to immigration?  messages for may day: yes, immigrants are suffereing, we all are. now is the time to come together to come to a solution for all of us. "now is the time to put a floor under everyone's rights" 

what would the impact of immigration reform be for economy: legalization program, taxes, fines. 

need to get people into jobs, also need to make sure that we're doing something to close the gap.

impact of foreclosure crisis on section 8. colorlines is looking to cover. 

takeaway: 
impact of criminal records on ability to get jobs. in some ways criminal justice system has been putting people out. 

credit stores as criminal records: can this keep you from getting hired?

will this continue to divide the populace? 

development of the vulture industry--the more vulnerable, the more desparate. 

have no urban policy in this country. places like cleveland, englewood and the bronx don't exist on a national scale.  HUD rebuilding process.  

lack of an equality agenda. legacy of discrimination becomes harder to deal with if we don't do anything about it. need a banking system that actually serves all americans, but thoughtfully and intentionally brings people into the arena.

push for predatory jubilee/forgiveness. if you were exploited by a lender, it's not on your score.

in-depth analysis of credit scores across the board and how each person is impacted by it? reporting that makes loans impossible.

Marcia: 
Basic Concepts about economy that media typically gets wrong:

1.) Lack of basic economic literacy and interest in the media
2.) lack of historical perpective--disappearance of bush admin 
3.) Pervasive conserva. coverage and framing due to lack of literacy.

these frameworks are prevalent in other areas of coverage as well. conservative frameworks on media. 

q&a:
jenn: using community/family isn't an existing frame for talking about economy/economic reform

takeaway: 
messages need to be even sharper and crisper to convey messages. must frame messages to be factual and trigger emotional reaction. we need to agree on the things we will not say, even if we can't figure out what we want to say. 

change the culture of journalism, return to muck-raking, advocacy, less consumer oriented. 

figuring out how to position a story to many different beats. "change the page" victims, villains, vindicators. break into ethnic/community media, reader's digest. fantastic real estate for these issues if you can get it here.

some journalistic perspectives are engrained when it came to education and beat. economy has never been a social issue. 

back to linguistics: what do we want the economy to look like? 

10 words or less:
-kneecap those trying to block reform. 
-keep focus on poor people and communities of color
-build support for narrative that deregulation paved this road. 
-demonize 95% of the economists
-find those moments of hypocrisy (corporate welfare) and create a narrative
-following the money from CEO to homeowner. Rogues gallery.
-making difference between stimulus package and bailout more clear. 
-complete information benefits a progressive agenda
-information and context is a tool. 
-long-term structural issues pre-date this crisis. (crisis and structural reporting)
-geographic overlay: media battles are going to be fought in the "purply" districts. 
-telling stories at local level, focus where need is greatest. 
-look closely at state distribution of stimulus funds. 
-message discipline, notion of ridicule. 
-intergenerational transfer of massive debt.
-put a face on regulation. beaurocratic heros. 

Day 2: small group ideas. 
charlie: private economy--linking/tracking stimulus plan in localities. editorial collaboration. looking at how sutainability stuff moves on down. john's expansion: our negative critique is much stronger than pos. need to look at redesigning economy and coverage around that. constructing the alternative.

bill: translator and database of materials that are available. resources for 
journalists. 

beaurocrats to heroes moved under ed collab.

esther: also important to talk about mentorship of existing reporters to help them grow in this field.

five groups:
editorial collab
teach in
media darlings
economic reporting ($ and impact)
constructing the alternative

Group Reportbacks:
#1: Combined Teach-in/Editorial Collaboration
-Wound up with two sets of outcome
-Popular Ed outreach for general audience. 
-Town hall/speaking tour: necessary in 5-6 states, because otherwise we won't win. send out speakers that fire up the troops. Version of LFMS that was more populated with content. 
-General people watch: video/visuals. Aggregated youtube channel, creating new video, making content available in spanish. 
-Content Management (for journalists/advocacy orgs): nick p. 700 resumes, no economy exp. Poss projects; journo bootcamp, high quality moderated listserv, weekly calls, MC tipsheet, aggregation (there's multiple audiences to consider), also to consider: an itunes for beginners

DISCUSSION ABOUT NEEDED RESOURCES/COORDINATION IS ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL

#2: Building an alternative
Need some basic principles to define success. 21st cent economy:
1.) Economy that works for all, 
2) Systemically safe economy
3) Enviro Sustain

Short term: need to make sure stim is effective and there are effect immediate interventions. CREATING NEW, DIFFERENT CONTENT FRAMEWORK FOR WHAT MAKES AN ECONOMY SUCCESSFUL. (gdp growth is not an effective means of measuring. creating a 2009 "misery index." thinking simple, PR effective, uses existing things to measure)

ideas for actions: collaborations with progressive media, highlighting business leaders that are a part of this vision, a new new deal framework (commonsense economy, smart growth economy), reasearch project to resurrect idea of a high growth business. publishing definitave books to convey these points. 

Q&A: What do you want to advance with the PR campaign? Started with idea that public/media are stuck on free market concept. govt intervention moving towards socialist econ. haven't created a concept that embraces free market but is plain enough for people to participate. 

Brenda: Content could mirror internet for everyone campaign. environment folks are totally all over this right now. these ideas are in motion. 

We are attacking the wrong policies, not promoting positive policy, and need to plug current policy into this values discussion. 

#3: Economic Investigative reporting, increase support and impact.
Why doesn't a lot of good reporting get traction? Ben made the point that generic inv. funding is hard sell, but issue specific may have better traction. Talked about bundling reporting up, using advocacy groups to help pipeline and organize coverage. Packaging could be leverage for impact. 

Would it be feasible to approach funders about inv. reportins and an impact peice. the "re-granting" process. raises concerns about ability of fund to blow a coalition apart. 

Esther wants to petition a joint aggregation project. Aggregating outreach lists, creating a platform to build on over time. Talked about influencing policy makers and media, but what about the rest of media? Right wing is great at repurposing reporting. 

Role of advocacy groups in pushing out a story. They have the ability to get this stuff to their constituents. 

Plus:
Presentations great
Sequence/Flow was good
Realistic breaks
excellent fried chicken

Delta:
would have really enjoyed hearing from advocates re: who we should be speaking to and what stories need to be covered. 

ask people to create a list for evaluation w/ info.