What melancholy Danes?

It looks like Shakespeare's Hamlet may be an exception. According to a recent study, Denmark was rated the happiest country in the world. According to this Alternet article,

The six factors for a happy nation split evenly between concerns on a government- and on a human-scale. The happiest countries have in common a large GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy at birth and a lack of corruption in leadership. But also essential were three things over which individual citizens have a bit more control over: A sense of social support, freedom to make life choices and a culture of generosity.

The article didn't say as much, but I wonder whether a shortage of Whackadoodles might also contribute to national felicity.

MR. MOJO NOT RISIN'. West Virginia's junior senator has good days and bad days. Lately, it's more of the latter.

MORE REASONS WHY WE NEED A FUTURE FUND here.

DOG BREEDS YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF discussed here.

SOS!  Speaking of canines, the Spousal Unit has been perusing dog rescue sites again. Help!

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Shorter than a blog post, longer than a haiku

Here's yet another reason why West Virginia needs to create a Future Fund from severance taxes on natural resources.

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN on poverty.

URGENT GOBLIN SHARK UPDATE here. You've got to check out how this dude eats.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The great paw paw hunt

This weekend, the Spousal Unit and I, along with some friends, went to the Paw Paw Festival in Albany, Ohio. Paw paws are a native American fruit tree that grows all over the eastern United States and thrives in Appalachia. I vaguely remember having a paw paw tree at the house I grew up in but forgot what it looked like.

After the trip, the Spousal Unit was all fired up to go find some trees near our farm. We were drawing a blank until Edith, above, left her duck toy behind on a walk.

We headed back to find it and--behold--where the duck toy was left there was a paw paw tree, fruit and all. Was Edith trying to tell us something? OK, probably not. Still, it was a cool coincidence.

Then we saw another.

And another. In fact, once you see one, you start seeing them all over the place.

We even had a nice stand or two in the goat pasture. I guess you can learn something every day.

I'm thinking paw paw ice cream...













FUNDING THE FUTURE. Here's more coverage about an idea that's gaining momentum in West Virginia.

HEALTHY KIDS. West Virginia is making some progress in child nutrition and is trying to do the same with more physical activity. Here are some more suggestions.

URGENT SCARY 10 FOOT LONG PREDATORY OCEAN WORM UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Of the Future Fund, pronunciation, lite beer, and sacred honor

I mentioned in earlier posts that I went to North Dakota with several members of the WV legislature to study that state's Legacy Fund, a permanent mineral trust fund from taxes collected from the oil and gas boom up there. (Note: El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia did not pay for my part of the trip.)

Regular readers will recall that I have been working with allies to build support for creating a Future Fund in West Virginia from severance taxes for the last few years. It's a way of turning the extraction of non-renewable resources into a permanent source of wealth for the state.

I learned several things while up  there. One was how to pronounce the name of the city of Minot. I was guessing something like "minnow" or "minute" but it was "my knott." Another takeaway was to drink light beers if one is trying to keep up with the boys.

But I digress...

Back on topic, I heard an eloquent argument about the importance of preparing for the future as a matter of honor from North Dakota Republican state Senator Dwight Cook, who chairs the Finance and Taxation Committee. He told me that we should follow the example of the founders who signed the Declaration of Independence. He argued that the signers weren't acting simply to benefit themselves but rather those who came after. He then talked about how in the last lines of that document they pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. He concluding by saying that of those three, you only get to take the last one to the grave.

So there.

SPEAKING OF THE FUTURE FUND, here's some coverage from WV Public Broadcasting and the Daily Mail.

JOB KILLING TECHNOLOGY considered here.

A FAVORITE TARGET OF MINE gets whacked here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Mission accomplished

El Cabrero is far from being God's gift to gardening. For the most part, I'm terrible at it and weeding is one of my least favorite activities. However, for some reason I seem to have a karmic affinity to garlic, which is my specialty.

Usually we plant it sometime around Christmas, after the ground has frosted but before it gets too hard. When the scapes or bulbs come up in early to mid summer, we cut them off and sometimes eat them. Once they start to grow, we weed as needed. Harvest time is usually the second half of July, when the plants start to lose their green sheen.

This year we have a bumper crop, enough to last through the year and to plant next time around. Which is a good thing since we just garlic in just about everything we eat with the exception of ice cream (although that might be interesting just once).

JUST ONE LINK TODAY. Here's yet another news report on the growing interest among legislators in establishing a Future Fund or permanent trust fund from mineral severance taxes in West Virginia.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

The real hunger games

I took a few days off last week and Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games was one of the books I finished. The book's heroine, after all, is a fellow hillbilly and her home, District 12 would include what is now West Virginia.

It looks like House Republicans in DC want to play it for real. As Paul Krugman notes, they eliminated all funding for SNAP or food stamps from their version of the Farm Bill. Krugman gets in some zingers:

To fully appreciate what just went down, listen to the rhetoric conservatives often use to justify eliminating safety-net programs. It goes something like this: “You’re personally free to help the poor. But the government has no right to take people’s money” — frequently, at this point, they add the words “at the point of a gun” — “and force them to give it to the poor.”

It is, however, apparently perfectly O.K. to take people’s money at the point of a gun and force them to give it to agribusinesses and the wealthy.

FUTURE FUND. The buzz continues.

HOW COME NOTHING THIS COOL HAPPENS TO ME? A friend sent me a link to an interesting story last week. It seems that a 19 foot python fell from the ceiling of a charity-run thrift shop in Australia.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

North Dakota dreaming

West Virginia legislators often get lots of flack for going on junkets to interesting places on the public nickel. However, when the destination is North Dakota, the flack factor seems to disappear.

That state in fact is going to be the destination of state lawmakers, where, among other things, they will study North Dakota's Legacy Fund, a permanent trust fund created from the revenue collected from industries extracting natural resources.

This will probably ring a bell with regular readers. For some time, I've been working with allies to drum up support for something similar here, where we tend to call it a Future Fund. As I mentioned in an earlier post, a political shakeup in the WV House may have helped move that issue along.

In the meantime, here's a view from North Dakota.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT, here's President Obama's statement on the George Zimmerman verdict.

GREEN SHOOTS. Here's an encouraging story on the local food  movement in WV.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Of policies, the personal and the political

There is a saying around here that "In West Virginia everything's political except politics and that's personal." I have a feeling that may be true of other places as well.

A political/personal shakeup has helped build momentum for an idea that I've been working with allies for years to promote, i.e. creating a permanent mineral trust fund, better known as a Future Fund.

The planets began to shift when House Speaker Rick Thompson resigned to take another post in state government. Former House Judiciary Chair Tim Miley was elected to take his post. The Future Fund was championed by Senate President Jeff Kessler but didn't gain traction in the House under Thompson's leadership.

(The fact that Kessler ran for governor against Thompson using the Future Fund as a platform plank may have had something to do with the former speaker's lukewarmness to the idea. Miley, by contrast, has no such baggage and is from an area where shale gas drilling has taken off. He seems to get it.)

We're a long way from there yet, but the tea leaves are encouraging. Here's some coverage from the WV News Service. Two other articles have recently run in the Beckley Register Herald. In chronological order, they can be found here and here.

ONE FOR THE ROAD. Here's a good item from WV Public Radio about Breece Pancake, my homey and IMHO WV's best writer.

NOTE. I'm trying to take some time off this week so posts may be irregular. Next stop...Montreal!

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

West Virginia wants a Future Fund

Interesting news from today's Charleston Gazette:

A substantial majority of West Virginians favor a proposal to increase taxes on coal operators to create a long-term fund to help diversify the state's economy, according to a new survey conducted for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

More than two-thirds of those surveyed by Lake Research Associates support the idea of using natural resources taxes for a "future fund," of the sort promoted by the West Virginia Center for Budget and Policy, a progressive think tank.

Read more here.

Wonky footnote: those of us who have been promoting the Future Fund think there are lots of ways of doing, some of which don't involve increasing taxes on coal or gas, although if we put more in, we'd obviously be able to get more out. One proposal would simply set aside a percentage of any increase in gas severance taxes above a given point.

Still, the numbers are exciting. I hope this gives the idea a boost.

LIKE DENYING CANCER. WV's ruling class loves to deny climate change because of money. This item suggests that may not be the best idea to ever roll down the pike.

INEQUALITY MATTERS. Here's a look at the whole one percent thing and an item on CEO pay.

A VIEW FROM UP NORTH. Here's a column by Gazette editor Dawn Miller about a public meeting in Wheeling of the WV Senate's Select Committee on Child Poverty.

URGENT BUMPY HEADED DINOSAUR UPDATE here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Movie time

Here's a little video that various AFSC staff worked on to explain why West Virginia needs to create a Future Fund, also known as a permanent mineral trust fund.

NATURAL GAS AND CLIMATE CHANGE. Here's a look at how one might affect the other.

SERIOUSLY? Krugman takes on Ryan here.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE EYES IN YOUR NETHER REGIONS? This butterfly does.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Cui bono?

The Latin phrase "cui bono?" can be loosely translated as "who benefits?" I asked that question recently to a resident of a county that is ground zero in Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling, aside from the companies involved. (By the way, there are a lot of different companies involved in the process. It's not like, say a US Steel plant back in the day where one company does the whole thing. One firm may clear pads, another one drill, another frack, another lay pipe, several others haul equipment, sand and water, etc.)

Here are some of the people identified as benefiting:

*the out of state workers who drive, drill, frack, etc.;

*the owners of businesses like motels, convenience stores, restaurants, and other businesses that cater to the industry and those who work in it;

*big landowners who own the mineral rights to their own land--something that doesn't happen as often as you might think--and who can locate some well pads far enough away from their living quarters to generate some income without ruining their quality of life. Ditto absentee owners.

I had a conversation with a union official yesterday asking about whether local and/on union workers (preferably both) were getting anything out of it. He said that some were, particularly in the pipeline end. Some unions represented at various points in the process are Laborers, Operating Engineers, and Teamsters, with some others.

I'm glad there are some winners outside CEOs and stockholders. But I'd like to see the numbers increase. Better regulation, more protections for the environment, more transparency, more efforts to hire local workers would be a start.

At the risk of being a broken record, West Virginia as a whole could be a winner if we set aside some of the revenue from natural gas to create a Future Fund to help transition our economy beyond mineral extraction.

LIES, TRUTH, THINGS UNSAID AND THE POLITICS OF COAL. Here's a great post from Ken Ward's Coal Tattoo that lays it all on the line.

GO NORTHEAST, YOUNG MAN (OR WOMAN). There's more social mobility there

CHIMPS have culture. And some plan ahead when it comes to stone throwing.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Not much room in the inn

I am by no means the brightest crayon in the box--and if I ever come close to forgetting that, the Spousal Unit is usually right there to remind me. Another case in point occurred on an otherwise glorious road trip from one corner of WV to another to try to drum up support for creating a Future Fund for our state from taxes on natural resources.

The first stop on the journey was to the beautiful and blessed counties in the southeast, Greenbrier and Summers. Then back through Charleston, up through Parkersburg and along the mighty Ohio River to New Martinsville in Wetzel County.

I didn't bother to try to reserve a room, considering it to be a truth universally acknowledged that aside from graduation, homecoming, major football games and other high holy days of obligation, there is never a need to reserve a room in advance in any West Virginia town.

Fool that I was. I had forgotten that Wetzel County is ground zero for Marcellus Shale natural gas drilling. As in Fracks-R-Us. I hit town around 9 at night and every motel I could find was full--and the parking lots were full of trucks with out of state plates.

One of the sore points of the Marcellus boom is that most of the drilling and pipeline jobs go to people from out of state, who incidentally need a place to stay. I saw plates from Oklahoma, Kansas, Michigan, Texas and pretty much anywhere but here.

(I was driving a rental with NY plates, so I don't have a whole lot of room to talk on that point).

It started to look like I'd either have to go up to Wheeling or down to Parkersburg to crash when I decided to try one last place and got the last room available.

The most interesting part was a conversation with the hostess. She said they were full most every night, at least from Sunday to Thursday, with gas workers from all over. I asked whether they were a rowdy bunch and she said no. Most days they are up and out by 5 or 6 and sometimes don't get back till after dark. By 9, she said, it was pretty quiet. Duly noted.

I spent the next day seeing what gasland really looks like. Short answer: not terribly pretty. I'll hold off till I can upload some pictures but here's the punchline: we've seen lots of coal, oil and gas booms and busts in this state. More busts then booms, no anatomical reference intended. We need to do something different this time around to ensure that WV profits more from its natural wealth in the 21st century than it did in the 20th.

For the last several years, El Cabrero has been painstakingly crawling through several volumes of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I'm now within 200 pages of the end.

 It's been kind of a chore, the literary equivalent of heavy lifting, but it has been rewarded by flashes of brilliance, wit and that great 18th century turn of a phrase. Here's an example of the latter. The occasion is his contemplation of the speed with which the discovery of gunpowder increased the destructiveness of war:

If we contrast the rapid progress of this  mischievous discovery with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind.

Roger that.

BETTER BUT NOT GOOD. Here's Krugman on the latest jobs report.

CITIZENS (NOT) UNITED. E.J. Dionne writes about a really bad court decision here.

DITTO THIS. Here's the Charleston Gazette calling on the legislature to create a mineral tax trust fund for the future.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

An idea for the future

The WV Center on Budget and Policy has been making noise for a while now about how our state can position itself to benefit for the long haul from extractive industries by creating a permanent mineral tax trust fund.

The basic idea is pretty simple, although it could be done in many different ways: set aside a portion of severance taxes for the fund, allow it to build over time and use the interest to fund vital projects. Several states, mostly out west, have already done this and are reaping the benefits.

As a new report from the Center on the subject argues,

Without a permanent fund, the economic benefit from the natural resource extraction will decline along with the natural resources themselves.

A bill to do something like that has been introduced in the state senate, where it was sponsored by senate president Jeff Kessler. Here's hoping the bill makes it. Forward thinking like this is long overdue in West Virginia.

As I've said before in an op-ed for the Gazette, if WV had done something like this decades ago with coal, the southern part of the state might look like Shangri-la by now.