IMPROVISED SELF SUFFICIENCY

In Bill Gates and Warren Buffett’s recent interview on The Charlie Rose PBS show, talk turned to the challenges of the future. High on the list was their concern that an increasing number of people were going to be left behind by today’s global and specialized business market. People who cannot be retrained or re-employed in a traditional way. Buffett felt that how society deals with and supports these people remains a giant question mark?

There may be solutions at hand. You can never discount human ability to deal with adversity and find a way to survive. It might be called "Improvised Self Sufficiency." Much of that survival takes place in what has been called the Underground Economy. Here you will find a patch work of social services and non profits that form a foundation for people. But, that's not the entire story. People share housing, food, transportation and even payment of bills. This market has its own repair team, often individuals working for cash. They keep cars running, fix leaking roofs and sell you the used tire.

More and more displaced workers in the middle class are finding themselves slipping into this world. So it is good to study this market and find ways of making it work better for people. 

A combination of governmental, non profit and private enterprises could meet this emerging challenge. Governmental programs need to be vetted, retooling them to work more efficiently for both society and the people served. Fostering Non-profit organizations dedicated to helping people stay self sufficient might fill many gaps. They play an important role, because as hard as some people try to be self supporting, unexpected events (i.e. Medical bills, accidents) require emergency financial help. 

Those providing services in the underground market on a cash basis could be helped to form small businesses. The availability of credit on a fair basis (non predatory)needs to be developed. For those who do have a chance to re-enter the work force, greater help with job preparation and finding jobs is needed. Non profits could look for opportunities to expand into business segments. More than 200 of these L3C’s and B Corporations have been formed since 2000. A good example of this is Green City Growers in Cleveland. Affordable housing needs to be woven into the urban landscape. Ways to finance this housing also needs to be expanded. Basic services such as grocery stores need to be lured to low income areas with incentives.

The irony is that this left out market may offer new opportunities for our economy and business. On the one hand, you have a market that is overrun by the likes of dozens of smart phones and other high end products. On the other hand, a market of needs waiting to be met.

David Young

Studio Four Magazine
www.studiofour.com

LOVE IS WHERE YOU FIND IT

Kershaw, SC

GLANCES OF FAME

For some places, fame only glances for a short time and then moves on. Such a place is Wadesboro, nestled along Route 74 in the Piedmont region of the Carolinas. Walking down the half deserted streets and empty buildings, you can almost hear the Blues played here by Blind Boy Floyd and others. Pass the place where Sylvester "Junkyard Dog" Ritter, slammed other wrestlers to the ground, becoming a national wrestling sensation. Just over the horizon, beyond downtown, you can still sense cameras rolling where once Hollywood came to town and filmed The Color Purple. And imagine the footsteps of thousands when it was determined that this place was the best spot to view the famous eclipse of 1900. Now all is muffled, like wisps in the wind, and an empty stage for the next glance of fame....

AROUND THE CORNER OF DREAMS

                                Glendale Ave, Phoenix                                          young '14

DEAD RINGERS

“Opportunity tends to knock once, then it’s gone. Temptation, however likes to stand there and lean on the damm doorbell!”  Sarah Moores

Apartments doorbells have their own drama and often form interesting parts of movie lore. They are no less interesting when you happen upon unique ones on city walks.

Milo Kellogg, the inventor of the telephone switchboard, is credited with creating the first doorbell systems for apartments and buildings in 1894. Older apartments often have doorbell panels that have existed for decades. Some buttons still working, some taking on the tenants personality, and some gone all together. Often there are signs of rough shod desperate attempts to keep them working, sometimes even including special instructions on how to use a certain button. 

They are fun parts of the city to find and explore. Found in narrow walkways and dimly lit places, they are always a challenge to photograph. I admit being tempted to push the unique button or the ones with no name, called dead ringers. Lives, tenants, landlords all tangled in small city stories. Ones I yearn to know. Yes, I am always tempted to ring….

CATAWABA DANCING

We danced along the Catawaba, asking those of the River to remember us...

THE TELLING OF TRUE WEALTH

Highway 21 runs north and south through the heart of the Carolina Piedmont to the Low Country. It is a highway of commerce where people live and make a living. As you move south, though, that commerce gives way to gentle rural land and beauty. You find gems from the past like the old house I took a photo of. After taking the picture, I saw a woman with a cane walking out to her mailbox from a farm home. Wanting to learn more about the house, I drove up the road to introduce myself. Her name was Edna. I ask if she knew any history on the home. 

She said yes, “It was the Thomas Farm.” She paused for a moment looking at it. “My husband always wanted to buy it and the acreage that came with it. When he died, I used part of the life insurance money to make his dream of our mile come true. The Thomas acreage and ours totaled 640 acres. Our mile was made.” 

Edna and I chatted for a while then she politely said good bye and started walking back to her home. I looked beyond the home to behold property that stretched to a far line of trees, some fields tilled, some not and two horses roaming free. My business mind kicked in and did the math. 640 acres times the going price for farm land was $1.8 million. It would be worth four times more once new commerce reached here. I wondered, as I watched her walk toward her home, if she understood that wealth. Then I looked again at “her mile.” Perhaps she did not understand my math but could provide a telling of true wealth.