Weak Indigenous Leadership (State government is weak, but strong enough to maintain the status quo.)

As is the case with other third-world regions, Alabama’s government is traditionally weak, but always just powerful enough to preserve the status quo. I’ll just give a few sad, frustrating examples.

1. We have the worst constitution in the United States (and it is the longest in the world). Passed in 1901, it could/should be ruled invalid if only because of its racist roots. In his opening remarks, convention president John Knox said that it was time to re-establish “white supremacy” in Alabama. The document is such a mess that most folks no longer have a clue what it’s about, with one exception: It basically prevents what is known as “home rule” in Alabama. In other words, it was designed to concentrate power in the state capital, Montgomery. It now has been amended 799 times (compared to the 27 amendments to the U.S. Constitution). Check out the Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform site for details.
2. Property taxes are the fairest, most stable way to fund state government. Here’s how bad it is in Alabama: If we doubled our property taxes tomorrow, we’d still be 50th in the nation! Consequently, large landowners don’t pay their fair share. Consequently, local governments must levy high sales taxes to support themselves and their school systems. Sales taxes are volatile and regressive. Honestly, it’s a pathetic situation.
3. My opinion: We have one of the weakest state legislatures in the country. It’s unresponsive, ineffective, and dominated by a small number of powerful special interest groups.

Seems so third-world-like…

I use Alabama as my example because it’s what I know; however, the “third-world” conditions about which I’ll be blogging over the next few posts exist in large areas of the richest country on earth.

One condition which is common to third-world areas is dependent development. This term basically means that a region develops primarily through outside ownership, capital, and expertise. Let’s briefly examine some of Alabama’s third-world characteristics which result from dependent development:

Exploitive Economic System

• Outside ownership
  

Even in 2010, huge corporations possess a disproportionate amount of land and influence in our state. Chemical companies. Paper and timber companies. Steel companies. And we’ve become a leading auto manufacturing region in the last two decades, but where did that capital originate? Germany, Japan, and Korea. As with the textile mills and steel mills, what happens when Mercedes, Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai move on?

• Profits flow outside the state/region
  

Simple analogy: When you make a purchase at a national chain restaurant, most of that money flows back to their headquarters city. Think of the powerful numbers for a huge multinational company such as Mercedes; a huge portion of the revenue generated by their Alabama plant goes back to Germany. Those of us who live in such “peripheral” regions are at a huge disadvantage because very few Fortune 500/Fortune 1000 companies are headquartered in our area.

• Exportation of cheap raw materials/Importation of expensive services and finished goods

This one generally speaks for itself. More money flows out than in. We never get off the treadmill. We are constantly shackled by poverty and its awful tentacles.

• Exploitation of natural resources (including high pollution levels/extinction of species). A sampler:
  

1. In 1983, the EPA, the DoJ, the DoD, and Olin Chemical Company settled a $25 million lawsuit with black residents in Triana. The tiny all-black community located on Triana Creek (a Tennessee River tributary) was contaminated with DDT from Redstone Arsenal Army base and was called the “unhealthiest town in America.”
2. In a story on 1/27/02, The New York Times reported that during 1969 alone Monsanto had dumped 45 tons of PCBs into Snow Creek, a feeder for Choccolocco Creek which supplies much of the area’s drinking water. The company also buried millions of pounds of PCB in open-pit landfills located on hillsides above the plant and surrounding neighborhoods. In August 2003, Solutia and Monsanto agreed to pay plaintiffs $700 million to settle claims by over 20,000 Anniston residents related to PCB contamination.
3. Alabama ranks #1 in the country for freshwater species diversity. However, it also ranks #4 in the number of species at risk for extinction – an indicator of the declining condition of the state’s rivers and streams. (Alabama ranks among the lowest states on per capita spending for environmental protection.) Source

Alabama’s Third-World Characteristics

1. Exploitive Economic System
   • outside ownership
   • profits flow outside the state
   • exportation of cheap raw materials
   • importation of expensive services and finished products
   • exploitation of natural resources (including high pollutions levels/extinction of species
2. Weak Indigenous Leadership (State government is weak, but strong enough to maintain status quo.)
3. Elite are Plugged Into the World Economy
4. Suppressed and Undereducated Underclass
   • malnutrition
   • illiteracy
   • poor health care
   • poor conditions for children, including high infant mortality rates
5. Weak labor sector
   • limited union influence
   • low skill levels
   • poorly educated/trained
   • unhealthy workforce
6. Religious Leaders: Conservative, Aligned with the Elites

Let’s assume that there are no “artificial” political boundaries in this country. And let’s look only at economic activity and socio-economic conditions. If we filter our information in such a way, then many of our nation’s areas resemble third-world regions. My state lies in the middle of one such area. This is a long story; more to come in the next post. Dependent development…

The Southern Growth Policies Board is a  public policy think tank based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Please check them out @ www.southerngrowth.org. According to their web site, the organization “develops and advances visionary economic development policies by providing a forum for partnership and dialog among a diverse cross-section of the region’s governors, legislators, business and academic leaders and the economic- and community-development sectors.”

They publish fantastic reports in the following areas:

• Technology and Innovation
• Globalization
• Workforce
• Community.

Annually, they also publish The Report on the Future of the South.

A site/group worth keeping up with…

I’ve been following the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count reports for almost 20 years–and things never change. Go to this site for Alabama stats (we rank 47th in 2010) and to this site for the national perspective.

Our most precious resource is human capital, but in spite of our nation’s wealth, we don’t prioritize the care and nurturing of our children. The Kids Count rankings vary slightly from year to year, but the mural looks pretty much the same: poor states rank low and rich states rank high. As a nation, though, we just don’t care. Do we really expect children to “pull themselves up by their own bootstraps?”

Once again, we know what to do, but we don’t have the will to make massive changes. Every day that goes by, we’re losing another potential great mind or valuable worker. And it’s a national problem: If the federal government can force states to provide equal opportunity through the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, they why can’t we do something similar for our children?

When will we ever learn?

Daniel is a a very large man (about 6’4″, 290), but when he first came to Underground Basketball last summer, we couldn’t believe how athletic he is. Daniel has quick feet, great hands, exceptional skills, and a very high basketball IQ.

Daniel quickly demonstrated his faith in our program by showing up regularly, playing hard, being a leader, and complying with every request we made of him. As I got to know him over a period of months, I learned several important things about him. Daniel:

• Is highly ambitious.
• Possesses great personal values.
• Is extremely bright.
• Has a great work ethic.
• Has a great technical mind. Do you hear what I’m saying? He has a great technical mind–one that no organization had ever tapped into.

Daniel is now working full-time with the company I co-founded, TechKnowledge Birmingham, as our Application Analyst. He is a blessing to us. In addition to his exceptional analytical mind, he has countless other skills. Daniel has an insatiable appetite to learn. When he is given an assignment, he always goes beyond our expectations.

Daniel and I would have never crossed paths without basketball. I am blessed that he’s come into my life–and I expect us to be life-long friends. I also anticipate that Daniel will be a tremendous leader in the Birmingham business/technical community for many years.

Business, political, and community leaders: Basketball is our magnet; what’s yours?

When Jeremy first showed up at our Underground Basketball program, he was just another young man with a somewhat funky jump shot. We quickly realized, however, that he was a very good basketball player and an exceptional athlete. We eventually realized that he’s an exceptional person.

Our program, however, is a process–and we’ve learned so much about Jeremy since we met him. He is an intellectual who has an insatiable desire to learn. He’s hilarious–a natural entertainer. As a matter of fact, after talking to the coaches who eventually signed him out of our program, I think he did all the entertaining on his recruiting trip!

As the layers of Jeremy were peeled back, I was astonished to learn that he had his own contracting business which does painting, remodeling, and general home repairs. He’s a salesman, too; he understands how to go out and find the business. I believe that he could make a fortune in that field eventually.

Here’s a quick synopsis of Jeremy’s process:

• Played at a local high school.
• Signed and played for a community college in south Alabama.
• Signed with a Division II school in Colorado.
• Tore his Achilles tendon, had surgery, rehabbed, finished the year out–and then dropped out and came home.
• He showed up at Underground Basketball.
• We eventually connected him with the staff of a Division II school in Arkansas. They came to see him, loved what they saw, and signed him.
• Jeremy had a great junior year last year, will return in August for an even better senior year, and will graduate in the spring with a business degree.

Here’s the cool, amazing thing. In addition to his contracting business, guess what Jeremy’s doing this summer? Preparing to take the LSAT!

Jeremy is now one of my favorite people and will be my life-long friend. I can’t wait for the next chapter of his life!

Untapped human capital is everywhere. Basketball is our magnet; what’s yours?

According to a recent Birmingham News editorial, Alabama’s prekindergarten program ranks (along with North Carolina’s) first in the nation. However, it’s so poorly funded that it only reaches 7% of the state’s eligible 4-year-olds.

Similar stories exist related to the Alabama Reading Initiative; the Math, Science and Technology Initiative; and the Advance Placement initiative. As the News stated, “We know what it takes to create programs that are so successful other states want to emulate them; we just don’t want to pay what it takes to do them right.”

The News won a 1991 Pulitzer Prize for 8-part series on tax reform in Alabama. An absolute blockbuster series of editorial pieces. In 1993, Circuit Judge Eugene Reese ruled Reese that Alabama’s public schools were inadequate and its system of funding public schools was inequitable. NEITHER OF THESE LANDMARKS CHANGED ANYTHING.

For as long as I can remember, Alabama has ranked 50th in the nation in property taxes (the fairest and most stable tax of all). As a matter of fact, the last time I looked: IF WE DOUBLED OUR PROPERTY TAX RATE TODAY, WE WOULD STILL BE 50TH IN THE NATION TOMORROW.

We know what to do in this country, but we don’t have the compassion and guts to do it…

This information is from the 9/09 issue of Newswire, published by Jobs for the Future.

• One in three high school students will not graduate from high school “on time.” Fewer than one in four low-income youth who do graduate will actually be prepared for college. Only one in five eighth graders eligible for free or reduced lunch will complete a college credential within eight years of graduating from high school—but half of their middle-income peers will achieve that valuable milestone.
• We need dramatic action to spur the proliferation of learning environments that demonstrate success, particularly for students typically left behind—young people from lower-income families, minority and immigrant communities, families that have never had a college graduate, and those who attend “low-performing high schools” where a graduation rate of 50 percent or worse is the norm.

Viewed through a 21st-Century lens, those points seem even more dramatic and depressing. It seems to me that today’s high school diploma is equivalent to yesterday’s eighth-grade dropout, today’s bachelor’s degree is yesterday’s high school diploma, and today’s master’s degree is yesterday’s bachelor’s degree.

My experience–after 35 years in education and business–is that our system does a poor job of teaching basic workforce skills to graduates at ALL levels. MBA’s are not taught how to work with IT people. IT people are not taught how to operate like business people (and, if they do, they don’t know how “sell” their departments to senior-level managers). Engineers are not taught how to be good communicators. very few workers at any level are truly digitally literate. Critical thinking skills are ruined by “teaching to the test” at all levels.

What a mess. We can do so much better. Where’s the willpower?

Abundance

• Our left brains have made us rich. Powered by armies of Drucker’s knowledge workers, the information economy has produced a standard of living that would have been unfathomable in our grandparents’ youth. Their lives were defined by scarcity. Ours are shaped by abundance. (Extreme example: Self-storage – a business devoted to housing our extra crap – is now a $17 billion annual industry in the US, nearly double Hollywood’s yearly box office take.) Italics added…
• But abundance has produced an ironic result. The Information Age has unleashed a prosperity that in turn places a premium on less rational sensibilities – beauty, spirituality, emotion. For companies and entrepreneurs, it’s no longer enough to create a product, a service, or an experience that’s reasonably priced and adequately functional. In an age of abundance, consumers demand something more. (Extreme example: Or consider illumination. Electric lighting was rare a century ago, but now it’s commonplace. Yet in the US, candles are a $2 billion a year business – for reasons that stretch beyond the logical need for luminosity to a prosperous country’s more inchoate desire for pleasure and transcendence.) Italics added…
• Liberated by this prosperity but not fulfilled by it, more people are searching for meaning. From the mainstream embrace of such once-exotic practices as yoga and meditation to the rise of spirituality in the workplace to the influence of evangelism in pop culture and politics, the quest for meaning and purpose has become an integral part of everyday life.

According to Pink, as the forces of Asia, automation, and abundance strengthen and accelerate, the curtain is rising on a new era, the Conceptual Age. We’d better get ready for a wild ride!

(Source)