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.