Talking heads don't get it
...come with me to Davenport and meet folks you might not otherwise know
The article VoiceOver is included, and it includes me coughing and the dog in the background chewing on stuff. Sorry. Some don’t have time to read, but they will listen if given the chance. There wasn’t a way to pause and edit the audio, so here you go.
Today’s column combines multiple recent experiences. A trip to Davenport, a podcast conversation with the new Polk County Attorney, a tragedy that struck an Iowa family, and watching how confounded pundits are about Biden’s poll numbers.
Since we brought Marianne Fons on board the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, I've also been thinking about quilts.
Tragedy
I had a conversation last week with someone I buy merchandise from for the Okoboji Writer’s Retreat. Although we don’t spend time together socially, we’ve had deep conversations in our short business exchanges. I was shocked but not surprised when she told me two of the young members of her family committed suicide since I saw her last fall. She has since learned of other families facing this incomparable loss.
I now personally know multiple people who have lost a family member to suicide.
What is going on?
I was recently in Davenport at the home of Gail and Henry Karp in my quest to understand our politics, our communities, and the issues facing Iowans. (No small order, eh?)
We didn’t talk about suicide per se, but we did discuss the economic divisions in their community. They had gathered a small group for what I call a Potluck, but they didn’t make people bring food. They provided sushi.
Among those present were a Rabbi (Henry Karp), a Cantor (Gail Karp), and a Catholic Priest (Father Rudy Juarez). That sounds like the start of a bad joke, but there wasn’t much joking. The common thread among those in attendance was a commitment to social justice.
So far, I’ve held potlucks in Burlington, Des Moines, Winterset, and De Witt. Each one has a different theme, all determined by the hosts.
The Karps have attended the Okoboji Writers’ Retreat, so that’s how we first met. Gail responded to my request for hosts in a Facebook group for OWR participants.
To hold a potluck in your town, I request that you invite no more than 12 people who you consider influencers in your community. The more diverse, the better. I encourage bipartisan guests to be invited. Beyond that, it’s up to the host to include who they wish. If you’d like to pull one together, let me know:
Even though attendees knew I intended to write about the discussion, we had authentic conversations about their experiences. Attendees included Jacki O’Donnell, Leslie Kilgannon; Father Rudy Juarez, Betsy Brandsgard, and our hosts, Gail and Henry Karp.
People, Not Politics
I dare any of those who are making immigrants out to be thugs and drug dealers to spend an hour with Father Rudy Juarez, who grew up in Davenport and served a parish in Iowa City before returning to his hometown in 2020.
Father Rudy becomes emotional when he talks about his parishioners. Many are originally from other countries, fleeing tyranny and wanting a better life for their family. To hear the hatred from politicians and others trying to blame immigrants for the problems of the world is hard on him.
“If only they knew these men and women in our community,” he said wistfully. “They work two and three jobs just trying to feed their families. They are good people.”
Another attendee of the potluck, Betsy Brandsgard said:
“I wish people would drive around and notice what is happening in Davenport. The older neighborhoods struggle while new, expensive housing developments sprout up.”
The conversation in Davenport had my head spinning, and I kept thinking about something Polk County Attorney Kimberly Graham said in our Potluck call. She is reviewing how fines are levied, and gets the fact that a $500 fine for one person has a very different impact, depending on level of income. For the wealthy, it’s nothing. For the poor, it can be impossible to pay. And she said, we would be shocked to learn there are people in prison who couldn’t pay a fine for driving without a drivers license.
Think about the cost to taxpayers to have someone in prison because they couldn’t pay a fine.
The poor have so many strikes against them, is it any wonder there is a simmering rage looking for a target?
What Talking Heads Don’t Get
I find myself yelling at the radio or television set when talking heads, presumably making a very nice income, wonder why there is a disconnect between the booming economy and folks in the middle and lower income levels not feeling the joy trickling down.
Hey, my 401k is doing great, thank you very much. So why isn’t everyone thrilled? They ask of one another.
If you are retired, had a bit of luck with investments, and kept making payments to a retirement account, you might need to take a minimum distribution out of that account, which can be equivalent to an annual salary in today’s market. So, it might be hard for the comfortably retired to relate to what people are experiencing today, where the price of a hamburger and college have skyrocketed.
Some wonder why President Joe Biden’s poll numbers aren’t around 75%, especially when the comparison between the two candidates is stark.
On a Personal Note
In my 50s, I quit a job without another lined up and entered one of many eras of reinvention. It turned out fine, but the adjustment was rough. I had to sell my house to eek by, and it was stressful.
Gratefully, today, if a refrigerator or car breaks down, I can fix or replace it. This was not the case for me back then, so my empathy for those who struggle is no longer just a concept; it’s from lived experience.
When I hear the talking heads discussing the economy, I wonder if they have ever experienced tough financial times, or if they have, have they forgotten?
Biden is doing as much as he can with the disaster he inherited, a divided Congress and a press singularly focused on (rhymes with ‘rump’) a topic that brings viewers and clicks to an advertiser’s insatiable demand— or, Fox News, singularly focussed on bringing Biden down.
Here’s what I see from roaming around this state. It’s my view, and I’m no expert, but I am an observer and listener.
Lots of boomers in my age bracket have forgotten what it is like to have a car loan or a mortgage, and they don’t think about paying an equivalent amount for a meal at a fine-dining restaurant. I do not begrudge these luxuries, especially to those who worked hard for their wealth. It’s fun to be a tag-a-long, to be honest.
A dinner for four at a Ruth’s Chris-caliber restaurant twice a month is the equivalent of what an Iowan living on the minimum wage in Iowa earns in an entire month, working 40 hours a week, and that’s before taxes and deductions.
Some might have amnesia about their personal bouts of financial hardships. Or not fully understand the differences between the value of a dollar in the 1950s and 60s, compared to 2024.
Those who have never known want or need, well, it’s damned hard to explain.
It’s like describing what it feels like to walk in subzero temperatures to someone who has never left Key West.
Entitlements
My husband, Richard, asked a renowned economist to explain why the GDP historically usually goes up yearly.
“Our aspirations become our children’s entitlement,” he said, of the wealthy in this country.
Think about that statement. Our aspirations become our children’s entitlement.
Richard often attributes this quote to the late Herman Kahn, physicist and founder of the conservative think tank Hudson Institute. Years ago, he attended a lecture by Kahn about the national economy. Kahn observed that while we get all excited about big fluctuations in the country’s GDP (Gross National Product) from year to year, the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) has been working out to 3% per year since economists started measuring it.
Entitlement, indeed. So what happens when expectations in life aren’t met? Anger. Resentment. A victim mentality. And a need to blame someone.
Anger and Resentment
This is the crux of why I think men and women who grew up thinking if they worked hard, they’d be better off than their parents—but aren’t—and are mad and stressed. They are angry at the system and feel powerless, so they don’t vote. Or they are powerless if they vote against their self-interests because of persuasive television or digital political ads (funded by those who want to make even more money, at their expense). Drugs can offer a brief respite from despair, only it can lead to craving it more and more, and here we are.
The so-called aggrieved want someone to blame and are susceptible to disinformation. The system truly is rigged against them, and it’s not fair.
They don’t have time in the day to learn about policies and who did what. They are trying to work enough hours to pay their bills.
Hell, if Trump claims he lowered the price of insulin, as he did this week at a rally, it’s yet another lie that is believed because his social media amplifies the blatant falsehood and everything else he claims to be true. The price of insulin was capped as a part of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. Since there are about 217,000 Iowans with diabetes, that is just one example of what Biden has accomplished that a lot of folks don’t understand, because their news and information sources don’t tell them.
Why don’t people know this stuff?
Chasing clicks and eyeballs, a Taylor Swift story will get air time and news hole, not acronym-laden government policies.
[This is why I am so damned passionate that people tell their stories. If you are diabetic, what does it mean to you to have the insulin price capped at $35? Please share your story so others can understand. How else will they know?]
Short term memory loss
Those who can pay cash for a car or house might have forgotten—if they ever knew—what it is like to struggle.
Mind you, I am the opposite of a math whiz. I’m not proud of this, but I confess to asking Google AI for a little help. When you read a number in this space, it is likely thanks to AI.
What would a $25,000 car cost with an 8% interest rate over an 8-year payment plan be?
Google Gemini answered:
The monthly payment would be $353.42, and the total cost of the $25,000 car would be $33,928.03.
This means the person with cash pays about $13,000 less for the same car.
Think about that. Those who are lucky enough to come from generational wealth, pay less for a car than those who don’t.
I then asked Gemini what the monthly take-home pay of someone making $45,000 a year before tax would be. The estimate was $3,750 before any deductions.
Sales Tax
Think about sales tax. No matter how much wealth you have, you pay the same sales tax whether you live on Social Security, have a job paying $15 an hour, or are making $250,000 or more.
The lowest sales tax in the U.S. (again, thanks to Google AI) is in Alaska, which has a rate of 1.82% this month. The highest is in Louisiana, 9.56%. The average sales tax is between 6% and 8%.
Iowa? Six percent.
Des Moines Rent
The average rent in Des Moines for a 1-bedroom apartment is between $958-$1,028. So what kind of lifestyle can one have on a monthly income of $3,750 take-home pay?
Please note that the budget table below does not include clothing, medical expenses, haircuts, dental exams, glasses, or having children or pets.
Groceries
AI suggests food costs run $3-$400 monthly. I’ll bet that’s low, considering one can rack up that much easily in one run to Costco. Grocery prices in lower-income areas are often higher. And, if one doesn’t have a car or transportation, add that cost to the total grocery tab.
Student Loan Debt
Folks whose parents helped pay for their education, co-signed a mortgage, and gave their little darlings the down payment for their first house, are living in a different reality.
Assuming an average interest rate of 5%, a monthly payment could be around $424, but it goes toward paying interest, not much of the amount borrowed, so some end up making payments on a student loan for years, only to end up with more debt than what was originally borrowed.
Mortgage
According to AI, the average home sale price in Des Moines is around $240,000. Assuming a 20% down payment and a 5% interest rate for a 30-year loan, the estimated monthly payment would be $1,288.36. And that does not include property tax or homeowners insurance.
To an employer bitching about having to raise an hourly rate to $15 because of a labor shortage, do you realize that if your employee works 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year, that number is $31,200? Of course, many employers keep the hours paid below an amount where they have to pay full-time benefits, so there is that.
Again, a query to Google’s AI calculator for a non-union production job ranges from $31,000 to $46,520.
A union wage for all industries with the UAW ranges from $69,380 - $90,064.
Burlington Potluck
A dentist in Burlington who attended one of my potlucks last year said that when he started his practice in the 1960s, union workers with the town’s largest employer had full dental coverage. Since then, wages and benefits have eroded with the threat of shipping jobs to countries with a lower labor rate. Once proud neighborhoods with well-maintained houses are now in disrepair, needing paint and renovation.
Mergers and Acquisitions
Not a week seems to go by without a story of a once proud company being purchased in a ‘roll-up of the industry’ where layoffs become frequent and widespread, benefits slashed, wages frozen, and - oh, by the way - the CEO got a six-figure raise.
The grievances are real, folks.
Connections?
Iowa has a higher suicide rate than the national average, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at 18.5 per 100,000 residents, with over 80% of violent deaths being suicides.
Is it fair to connect those dots? Maybe. I’m not even factoring in social media, feelings of isolation, bullying of people who are gay or transgender, stress, etc. The ability to pay bills is simply one HUGE reason why I think there is such a disconnect and a population in our state that feels resigned.
Health care? My colleague Bob Leonard has story after story about how health care costs devastate families. One of his friends was a firefighter who had a stroke. He was transported to a hospital by helicopter from rural Iowa to Des Moines, to the tune of a $56,000 bill that was not covered by insurance. The claim was denied, saying the trip wasn’t necessary. He and his family are wiped out financially, and his capacity to work a good paying job is gone.
“You know when you see a story about a murder suicide in Iowa,” said Leonard, who covered these stories as a radio reporter. “It’s probably because one of them had a medical issue that they couldn’t pay for.”
Is it any wonder why folks take mind-altering drugs for a brief experience of ecstasy and hope?
Do I need to go on?
Is anyone still reading this?
Is there cause for hope?
I don’t know.
I think of
, who has taught me to appreciate the art form of quilting. I’ve been thinking about how quilts are a metaphor for life. Most counties in Iowa have a quilt shop.When every day Iowans put aside politics and come together to discuss what’s working and what can be better in their communities, the pieces of the quilt can come together.
Marianne lives in the town of Winterset, where she built an international business around quilting, and is a volunteer community leader who helped revive the local theater, and created a festival around quilts that bring more tourists to her town.
She traveled around the country meeting with quilters, and if someone complained about where they lived, she told them they have a choice. Move, or step up to make your town better.
And, there it is.
A finished quilt has symmetry, and color, and pattern. And each one tells a story.
Our system of government in the ideal was designed with checks and balances and regulation for the greater good, and a judicial system to hold wrong-doers account, and a democracy where the voters decide who is best to represent them. All of these must come together to create the whole.
We are way out of whack at the moment. Greed got us to this point. Our politics is overly dependent on money—who has it and who gives it. Negativity often wins, damn the collateral damage.
What I have experienced through these potluck discussions where folks of differing points of view come together to talk, transformation can happen.
I hope.
Thanks to the Karps
This one came about because of the many conversations I’ve been having with Iowans, and myself. Thanks to our Davenport potlucks, Leslie Kilgannon; Father Rudy Juarez, Betsy Brandsgard, Gail and Henry Karp, for being the springboard for this topic.
There is so much more to learn. So much.
An extraordinary ground level report on Iowans’ reality today. We need a lot more of this and a lot less WHO happy-hate talk.
I was still reading when you asked 😉 and I remember the economic struggles in my Iowa life of pay check to pay check. And while we got driven out of Iowa due to hate, we were able to start anew in DC with well paying jobs. So while economically secure now I don’t for a moment forget the struggle and always feel for those struggling. Keep writing! Thanks