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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (June 16, 2016)
OPINION 4A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2016 GUEST COLUMN Founded in 1873 STEPHEN A. FORRESTER, Editor & Publisher LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager Oregon’s economy: Weeds in the rose garden? By ADAM DAVIS For The Daily Astorian CARL EARL, Systems Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager Musicians will again ill our streets Astoria Music Festival is an economic and cultural asset t 14, the Astoria Music Festival is one of our younger regional festivals. But since its explosive irst year, the festival has been noticed across Oregon and the Paciic Northwest. It draws singers and musicians from well beyond Oregon’s borders. Before the Liberty Theater competition for the younger was restored, a young Portland creative demographic. Culture State University graduate and the arts are one of the mag- named Katherine Matschiner nets in that game. For a town had the boldness to mount a of 10,000 to have a festival of fully costumed and staged pro- this quality is eye-catching and duction of Mozart’s opera, The it becomes a remarkable draw. When a group of Astorians Marriage of Figaro, during summer 2002. during the 1990s began the While Matschiner was the quest to acquire and restore the festival’s spark plug, Keith Liberty Theater, none of them Clark — then of PSU’s music could imagine that an attrac- faculty—– gave the festi- tion of the Music Festival’s val longevity. Astorians have excellence and excitement helped keep the festival going would appear. by opening their homes to It is no secret that the festi- musicians. Financial support val’s board has done consider- comes from a broad array of able heavy lifting to make this contributors, here and around year’s production come off. the region. We owe them our gratitude. The digital world has And if you’ve never gone changed our lives in many to the Astoria Music Festival, ways. Small towns have give it a try. You will be become contenders in the amazed. A ave you heard? Everything is coming up roses in Oregon. H How appropriate considering it is Rose Festival time of year. “All good news” according to the Oregon Ofice of Economic Analy- sis. The roses: a 4.5 percent unem- ployment rate, 5,000 jobs added per month for the past two years, gains in wages and personal income, general fund revenue growth, and increased lottery sales. I don’t want to rain on our (Grand Floral) parade, but I for one see some weeds in the rose garden, and their roots go deep. Yes, many numbers coming out of economic research are showing positive trends at the national, state, and local levels. But numbers com- ing out of opinion research paint a very different picture of Oregon’s economy. Many of our survey results and a lot of what we hear in our focus groups across the state suggest the vocabulary of recovery, growth, and prosperity isn’t enough. There are other words to consider in politics, public policymaking, and commu- nity development, words like uncer- tainty, inequality, and distrust. And the distrust extends to government reports painting a rosy picture of the economy that doesn’t match up with what many Oregonians are experi- encing and reporting to us. Many Oregonians feel the state is off on the wrong track. Large numbers feel angry, sad, or fearful about the state’s direction — though they do at least feel more positive about Oregon than the country at large. The economy remains among the top issues people want to do something about. This should come as no surprise, considering that 55 percent of Oregonians are worried about their personal inancial sit- uation and another 27 percent are “not too worried.” This concern is an important one to track regularly over time if we want a meaningful understanding of the state’s eco- nomic condition. The worry about per- ten Oregonians cannot sonal inancial situations name a single tax that extends across population helps pay for state gov- subgroups, but rural Ore- ernment services. Many gonians and those with an do not connect the impor- incomplete college educa- tance of good transporta- tion are especially fearful. tion or public education A whopping 62 percent of systems with a strong Oregon residents outside economy. They also don’t the Portland metropolitan know the poor condition area and the Willamette of these two systems in Adam Valley are somewhat or Oregon. Davis very worried about The weeds are their inancial future. also deeply rooted Many Oregonians with in distrust of insti- some college edu- tutions that play Oregonians important roles in cation but no degree feel similarly. the state’s economy, feel the including big busi- Why worry? ness, government, state is Why are people and the media. off on the worried? It’s those And the distrust weeds in the eco- of traditional con- wrong nomic rose garden: sumerism is a pow- part-time instead of erful issue to watch track. full-time jobs, low as well. Majori- pay, no beneits, hav- ties feel the country ing education, experience, or skills would be stronger if we consumed beyond the requirements of the job, less, as opposed to buying things credit card debt, little to no retire- to support a strong economy; more ment savings, no emergency fund, and more Oregonians are question- high cost of living (especially for ing the toll “chasing the almighty healthy food, health care, and util- buck” is taking on their households ities), student debt, employment and on them personally. discrimination, and jobs that dis- There are also those Oregonians appear as technology evolves. And who feel consumerism is contribut- one more weed that has grown ing to climate change and they want up quickly as a major concern in to protect the environment. They some areas of the state: affordable are looking for models of economic housing. development that don’t jeopardize The deep roots of the weeds the natural beauty and environmen- can be found in income inequality tal quality that so many residents and the disappearing middle class. value in the state. Asked how they feel about so many We’re being told that Oregon’s Americans having so little while a economy is rosy, and by some mea- few have so much, 59 percent of surements it is. That’s good news. Oregonians said angry and 42 per- But the deep-rooted weeds paint a cent said sad. Donald Trump and different picture, and their implica- Bernie Sanders have hit this issue tions are potentially far-reaching. We hard, and it was a big driver for have more to do to tend our garden. many of the votes Oregonians cast Adam Davis, who has been con- in the primaries. Feeling econom- ducting opinion research in Oregon ically victimized by international for more than 35 years, is a found- trade was another important factor. ing principal in DHM Research, a Economic ignorance is another leader in opinion research, provid- deep root. People don’t know what ing consultation for private, pub- government does to help the econ- lic, and nonproit clients. Located in omy, and they don’t understand Portland, Seattle, and Washington, what public services cost or how D.C., it is a nonpartisan and inde- they are paid for. Close to four in pendent irm. Women on boards Lessons of Hiroshima and Orlando make a difference W I By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN New York Times News Service hile 3 out of 4 work- ing-age American women are employed, it is startling how relatively few females have cracked the infamous glass ceiling into upper echelons of U.S. cor- porate governance. Beyond matters of simple social justice, gender bal- ance in upper management appears to offer signiicant advantages for the economy. Writing in the online publi- cation Crosscut this month, reporter Ruchika Tulshyan notes that “A Credit Suisse report reveals that small and mid-size companies with at least one female board member report an average 17 percent better stock price performance than compara- ble ones without women. At larger companies, this num- ber goes up to 26 percent.” Other research found hav- ing “three or more women directors yields signii- cantly higher returns for a company.” A study reported in May by University of Notre Dame Professor Craig Crossland found corpo- rate boards with a balance between genders were less prone to engage in the mod- ern equivalent of war par- ties and hunting expeditions against rivals. Increasing the number of women on a board resulted in 18 percent less acquisitiveness, a 12 percent decrease in acquisi- tion size and a reduction of $97.2 million in merger and acquisition spending in a given year. “Diverse groups tend to engage in discussions that are more thorough, more contentious and more likely to identify problems with the topic at hand,” Crossland said. “Mergers and acquisi- tions can be beneicial for irms, but at least as often, they can destroy value. We think the boards with higher female representation are more likely to identify these challenges in a given deal, increasing the likelihood that it will be delayed or shelved entirely.” How do Oregon’s big- gest companies stack up? In a useful new report ( w w w. 2 0 2 0 w o b . c o m ) , the group 2020Women on Boards — which strives for 20 percent female represen- tation on company boards by 2020 — looked at the state’s nine biggest companies and found most already exceed the 20 percent threshold. Considering the advan- tages of gender balance, consumers, shareholders and lawmakers clearly should advocate for more women in top corporate positions. want to talk today about the horriic human tragedy of Orlando. But irst I want to talk about Hiroshima — or, more precisely, the profound speech that President Barack Obama gave there May 27 that got lost in all the campaign noise here. Hiroshima, Obama suggested, represents a world in which for the irst time ever a country possessed the power to kill all of us — and if it had to be any country, I am glad it was America. But today, he said, we’re enter- ing a world where small groups — maybe even soon a single super-em- powered person — will be able to kill all of us; therefore we’d better start thinking about the moral impli- cations of where technology is tak- ing us. “Science allows us to com- municate across the seas and ly above the clouds, to cure dis- ease and understand the cosmos, but those same discoveries can be turned into ever more eficient kill- ing machines,” the president noted. “The wars of the modern age teach us this truth. Hiroshima teaches this truth. Technological progress with- out an equivalent progress in human institutions can doom us. The scien- tiic revolution that led to the split- ting of an atom requires a moral revolution as well.” What the president was describ- ing is the central strategic issue of our time: the growing mismatch between the combined rapid evo- lution of our technological prowess and the power this gives to a sin- gle individual or group to destroy at scale (you can make your own gun now with a 3-D-printer), and the pace of our moral and social evolu- tion to govern and use these powers responsibly. And that brings me to the Orlando massacre — to what hap- pens when, on a smaller scale, we refuse to re-imagine the social and legal changes we need to manage a Obama closed his world where one loser can speech at Hiroshima now kill so many inno- with words that could cent people. The notion easily have been said of that such a person — any Orlando: “Those who person — should be able died, they are like us. to buy a military-style ... They do not want assault rile is insane. more war. They would That the Republican Party rather that the wonders cannot see the wisdom of of science be focused on common-sense guns laws improving life and not is just begging for bigger Thomas L. eliminating it. When the massacres. Friedman choices made by nations, At the same time, year when the choices made after year, we keep seeing When by leaders, relect this young Muslim men draw- ing inspiration and per- wisdom, then the America simple mission from Islam to kill lesson of Hiroshima is large numbers of civil- done.” goes ians in the West and, even We need to make nuts, more so, killing other choices appropriate for Muslims in Muslim lands. our age when technol- the I’ve lived too long in ogy can so amplify the the Muslim world, and of one. We need world power experienced the decency common-sense gun laws, of Muslim communi- common-sense gender goes ties, to believe that this equality and religious nuts. is the essence of Islam. pluralism and com- But I have seen too much mon-sense privacy laws. of this suicidal violence for too But that takes common-sense lead- long to believe that it has noth- ers, not ones who think the complexi- ing to do with the puritanical, anti- ties of this age can be bombed away, gay, anti-transgender, anti-female, walled away, willed away or insulted anti-religious-pluralism versions of away. Stop for a moment and relect on Islam that are too often promoted by what this week would have been like sources in the Arab world, Pakistan had Donald Trump been president — and Afghanistan. the carpet-bombing he’d have ordered The websites, social networks in the Middle East, the fear and iso- and mosques that promote these lation his Muslim ban would have intolerant ideas can “light up” lost engendered in every Muslim-Amer- souls anywhere in the world. Until ican, the joy that ISIS would have that stops, we’re just waiting around taken from being at war with all of for the next Paris, Brussels, San America, the license this would have Bernardino or Orlando. given to crazies in our own society to And the only thing that can stop irebomb a mosque. And the backlash them is from the inside: a meaning- that would engender among Muslims ful mass movement by Muslim gov- around the world, the most radical of ernments, clergymen and citizens to whom would be irebombing our delegitimize this behavior. It takes a embassies. When America goes nuts, village and stops only when the vil- the world goes nuts. lage clearly says, “No more!” And I don’t agree with Obama on all that has not happened at the scale aspects of this issue, but the guy is and consistency it needs to happen. thinking deeply and acting respon- Finally, in an age when individ- sibly. Trump is shooting from the uals can become super-empowered, hip, spraying insults 360 degrees, we need to ensure our government telling lies, stoking fears and mak- has all the surveillance powers it ing threats that many in our military needs — under appropriate judicial and the FBI would refuse to imple- review — to monitor and arrest vio- ment. If you Republican senators lent extremists of all stripes. The and congressmen support Trump for bad guys now have too many tools president, he will own you — and to elude detection. you will own everything he does.
