Howzit Howard

Unemployment, underemployment, and wage cuts

Newer information than the monthly jobless reports that all media outlets cover is the state's weekly count of actual claims, new and total, for unemployment benefits. The monthly reports are based on surveys but this is an actual count of people putting in for employment checks, broken down by office. The figures posted Thursday cover the seven days to last Sunday. And for the first time in statistical memory the count is above 20,000. Total claims were roughly flat on Oahu and Molokai but rose on the other islands, with more than 200 more claims on the Big Island, with increases at both the Hilo and Kona offices, especially Kona. Hilo used to be busier but Kona has seen most of the action as the recession settles in. These are people thrown out of work, and the figures don't count hotel workers who are still working but have had their hours cut way back. If you're a state worker, facing possible renegotiation of your wages and benefits to help the state weather the recession, you certainly don't want to receive less pay, but it might be wise to remember that your raises have generally outpaced the private sector for years, and even now no one is talking about layoffs. Government service has for generations been more stable than most work in the private sector. Your union representative will try to negotiate the best possible deal for you, and there is nothing wrong with that, but remember your neighbors who don't have the security of being employed by the government. To other readers, however, I would point out that quite often we have two income households in which a state employee need look no further than across the dining room table to see someone who takes his or her chances in the private sector. So many households face the risk of a substantial cut in income even though one of the spouses works for state. Expect a lot of pilikia in the statewide school system, for several reasons: (1) teachers are not always the highest-compensated state employees, so wage cuts could hurt them more than some others; (2) the school system has in the past blocked attempts to control its spending by hooking any threatened cuts to whatever will cause the greatest pain, effectively holding its breath until you turn blue; and (3) a lot of funds are diverted from actual student education to support a top-heavy bureaucracy and an aging network of schools that should have been closed but weren't. As I have mentioned before, the school system has twice as many buildings as it did a generation ago with roughly the same student enrollment because nobody had the political will to close the old schools. You can understand that it's hard to close an underutilized termite-ridden school because there are always dozens of families for whom it's really convenient. But this is a big cost factor. Gov. Lingle said school superintendent Pat Hamamoto, who criticized the idea of any school system cuts and threatened to cut the school year short (see what I mean about making you turn blue?), was narrowly focused and noted that the school system always wants more money but this year there isn't more money. A little inside information: the Lingle administration has in the past regarded Hamamoto as someone doing her best in a difficult job -- she didn't create the top-heavy bureaucracy; she's not the one who put principals into the teachers' union -- so the problem now is not a personal one. There just isn't any money. Maybe the math teachers can explain it to the others. [Day-after addendum: state budget director Georgina Kawamura lashed out at Hamamoto, accusing her of fomenting panic. This was a significant development. I have interviewed Georgina many times and have never known her to make any political comments, and she is usually very sweet-tempered. Hamamoto really got her goat. HMD] Thank goodness we have a mandatory balanced budget or this situation would be way, way worse.

Thoughts of a shut-in

I am a prisoner of my 33rd floor aerie atop Wild West Waikiki, except for Friday morning when Bernadette will wheel me to the car and drive me back to Kaiser for a check-up. My days consist of working at the computer and lying down with my leg much-elevated, connected by hobbling around. To encourage a return of blood sugar to normal, and fast healing of two surgical slits made to ensure I didn't have a flesh-eating da kine, I subsist largely on meat and fish. I have lost 20 lbs. on the Excruciating Pain Diet. I dress my own wound because I don't want Bernadette to see it and cry. (My producer Scott Humber and my brother-in-arms Taizo Braden did see the leg naked, having unexpectedly walked into my hospital room after a doctor removed the previous night's dressings but before the nurse could put on new ones. They more than anyone else know what I've gone through.) Bernadette, like many Filipinos prone to them, had a gout attack beginning my first day home and is recovering today. For the previous two days we hobbled around taking care of each other. Gout is often set off in those who have it by stress. Bernadette's mother Laura eased our pain with much help. At first I watched a lot of TV. But even a fan of such series as "Law & Order" and the "CSI" shows can only watch so many of them before History Channel documentaries on sex in the White House begin to look preferable. Who knew Abe was gay? Steve sent me some trivia books that helped while away the hours in the hospital, but at home I've been online, catching up on the economic scene. Two big events occurred while I was in sick bad, the collapse of Superferry and (I was expecting this one) Republic Air's takeover of Mokulele. Some friends offered to bring food and I didn't want to put them out but now I wish I had because they're friends and I like them and it would have been a good excuse to visit. This is a good example of the learned reticence of mainlanders and how silly it can be in a friendlier community. On Wednesday, my colleague Oscar came over with a camera and I tannyabed the reports you saw Thursday morning. Same drill today, I think. But our IT guru Jared also installed a video cam and next week I think I will be live using that. (Jared, I think you left a thumb drive here.) If you listen to my Saturday morning radio show, be advised that Charles Husson, the soothing voice of all the local underwriting announcements on Hawaii Public Radio, came over with equipment so I could record a show that will air this Saturday. This Saturday's show, simplified and without the usual Trick Question feature, is basically excerpts from some of my favorite pieces. The show may be live again the following weekend if I can negotiate the stairs to the air studio. Many thanks for your wonderful comments here in the blogosphere, on Facebook, and on that page KGMB9 set up for get-well thoughts. I work hard for you and it's wonderful to know you like that work. It makes me want to get back to work fast, consistent with actually recovering!

Thanks for the book, Ben!

I get a lot of free books over the transom, but when Ben Cayetano finally finished his memoirs, I went to Barnes & Noble and spent good money for a copy, and wound up finishing the book while I was in the hospital. It was well-written and there are a number of passages I suspect he really had to sweat out of himself. The inside look at the legislature is the best part. People who think state lawmakers do nothing but sneak bills through for their bigger contributors will find some examples of precisely that, but may be surprised to find other examples of some of the same people working hard to achieve something for Hawaii. There is a also a running theme of people who start out idealistic but gradually come to confuse their own interests with the state's. The former governor portrays these people as people, not two-sided bad guys in movies, which makes it a lot easier to understand. This gibes with a running them of my own years of columns, that bad things are seldom done by movie-style bad guys, but rather by people who look and act like good guys and may actually be good guys in other arenas of their lives. The importance of understanding this, for the average citizen, lies in the effect it has on your approach when you ask a lawmaker to take a particular stand on a bill. Many constituents start with a chip on their shoulder, assuming their representative is in someone's pocket, and try to influence him with slurs and threats. It's better to appeal to someone's better nature, assuming him to be a good guy, because that's what he thinks he is. The book also has some stories from Cayetano's young adulthood, when he spent a few years in Los Angeles, which have interesting contrasts between Honolulu and Los Angeles not all of which you would expect. Cayetano's views on race were affected by his experiences here and there. In general, the book makes it easier to understand all of the governor's views and actions, even those you might not have agreed with.

How hospitals work -- inside scoop

This was the first time I've had a prolonged stay in a hospital -- Kaiser Moanalua, or Moa as its employees call it -- and it was interesting to see how it runs. Basically the people are uniformly excellent and when stuff goes wrong it's usually the organization that causes the snafu. When I went to the room two weeks ago, the nurse spent some time explaining that one of the main goals was to manage my pain. I was okay at rest, but when I sat up to hobble to the bathroom the blood flowing into my swollen leg created excruciating pain. The nurse said they would work to minimize this, even wrote "comfort" on a little white board under "goals," and gently tucked me into bed. I did feel quite comfortable. Less than 30 seconds after the nurse left the room, another hospital employee came in -- with a scale. I had to undo all the nicely tucked-in sheets and stand up -- oh, the pain! -- to be weighed. This guy was only doing his job but the system has no provision for coordinating all the people doing their jobs. No one told him that managing my pain was goal number one. Men: if you're in the hospital, after you get the "we'll manage your pain" speech, give a speech of your own -- about how you don't want any tape put on your skin before the hair has been shaved from it. It makes no sense to offer endless pain pills while needlessly ripping hair out of your arm after countless needle sticks. For many years I've heard people joking about how people in hospitals get woken up to take sleeping pills. It's true, more or less, and possibly unavoidable, because certain things -- testing blood pressure and fever, giving meds -- are done on a six-hour rotation and the person dispensing meds is different from the person measuring blood pressure who is different from the one sticking your finger to check blood sugar who is different from the one giving you a unit of insulin if your blood sugar is over 120. And they're all going to show up at different moments. A few years ago, the medical profession began talking about the patient taking more of an active role in his own health care, and it sounded like horse hockey to me. I no longer feel that way. The patient, assuming he is sentient, is the only person who gets to see every aspect of what all these different people is doing. He may actually have information none of the professionals has. I'll close by restressing how great everybody was. The caring nurses do more to manage emotional pain than any pill or IV bag can. I heard them being nice even to patients who made a lot of trouble. It takes a special person who be nice while being browbeaten by someone who may be in a lot of discomfort but who also seems like he probably complains a lot on the outside, too. And I mean real caring, not the false politeness of the sale clerk who doesn't actually care about the customer. I think this actually accelerated my recovery.

I ' m out! (of the hospital)

I can't write for very long -- have to prop the leg up. Several years ago, on a visit to Koloa to address the Kauai Chamber of Commerce, I was bitten by a brown recluse spider. (I saw it and the bite is visually quite distinctive.) By the time I returned to Honolulu I was delirious with fever and my leg was swollen hugely. I needed IV antibiotics. The fever sent my blood sugar soaring and the doctors told me I was diabetic. But after the fever went away, my blood sugar returned to normal and they took back the part about being diabetic. It took weeks for the leg to return to normal, though, and it's still scarred at the ankle. Two weeks ago, while sitting at a table at Turtle Bay talking with Pacific Century Fellows over lunch, I felt something bite my other leg, but I didn't see what it was and didn't give it a thought. I wouldn't even remember it until days later. The following day I was delirious with fever and my leg was swollen. This time, as you probably know by now, was worse. Outpatient IV antibiotics weren't enough and I wound up being hospitalized for a week and a half. Only a few days ago did the fever break. The blood sugar soared again but has now ebbed again. It was a strep infection. People can also get these symptoms from a staph infection. Both are in our bodies all the time, but a puncture wound, even from athlete's foot, can set off an infection that can kill you or cost you your leg if not aggressively treated in time. I get to keep my leg, but it looked so bad the docs had to make two ugly incisions to make sure the internal tissue was still alive -- it is, but I will have two more scars. You can be prone to this if you have poor leg circulation or if you actually are diabetic. Or it may simply be family genes. My dad, who turns 90 in a few days, had the same thing several years ago.

Bon voyage, Superferry

Catching up on my reading after escaping from the hospital, I have read several commentaries on the biggest business story to break in my absence, the collapse of Hawaii Superferry. There seem to be two general schools of thought. One is that Superferry's demise proves Hawaii remains unfriendly to business, with an army of stuck-in-the-sixties activists and even lawmakers eager t0 oppose any enterprise that might profit someone. The other side says the debacle proves that when companies and officials try to shortcut the law, they get what's coming to them. Both are right. But the full story is more textured than that. For example, I can't buy into the idea of totally blaming officials for trying to fast-track an enterprise that was clearly good for the state. This point of view impicitly says that officials have free will and should be dinged for their decisions, while activist opponents are merely moist robots, to be exculpated because opposing is simply what they do. There were several different forms of opposition, for a variety of reasons, but I would single out for criticism those who rolled over on their backs for cruise ships, and meekly accepted the doubling of Young Brothers barge traffic in a few years, then suddenly tried to get their self-respect back by opposing a ferry that was far more capable of avoiding whales (because it could brake and turn at the same time) and offered more substantive economic benefit -- and to the little guy, especially -- than cruise ships ever will. Then there was the opihi set -- "people will sail over from Honolulu and steal all our opihi" -- pretending that people don't already fly over and do that, as anyone who has stood at the interisland baggage claim area knows. I was a bit more sympathetic to recreational and cultural users of Kahului harbor, who always kind of made it clear they weren't so much opposing the ferry alone as sounding a general warning that Maui isn't gifted with that many harbors and other people like to use it from time to time. They make a valid point, though Superferry was but a small part of the matter. On the other side, avoiding an EIS really was a poor decision, and I wonder what pressure might have been brought to bear for someone to have greenlighted a decision that was sure to lead to litigation. Yet it would be ridiculous to pretend that had an EIS been done properly, all the opponents would have stayed out of the water. I don't believe that, do you? I predicted two years ago that Superferry would not make it in Hawaii for economic reasons. I could not make the arithmetic work. I found it hard to assume that most locals would ride it more than three times a year at the most. But business adoption of it came faster than I expected, so now I wonder if it might have had a chance in a different economy. Bernadette and I rode it once, and really enjoyed it. I'm glad I didn't procrastinate.

" Visual blight, " in reality and in the imagination

If you wanted a photo of Paris that would tell you in an instant that it was indeed Paris and not Vienna or Marseilles or Dallas, what landmark would make sure the photo included? Not the Louvre. Not L'Arc de Triomphe. Not the Pont Neuf. Not Montmartre. Not Quay d'Orsay. Not even the Cathedral of Notre Dame. What you would make damn sure the photo included was the Eiffel Tower. Yet when the Eiffel Tower was proposed, many Parisians opposed it, and there has been a story ever since that a famous writer dined in its restaurant every day because it was the only place in Paris where he would not have to look at it. The Eiffel Tower has reasonably attractive lines, but is it accepted by Parisians today because they see beauty they once could not see, or are they simply used to it? One of Clint Eastwood's worst movies, and quite possibly the cinematic inspiration for Dennis Weaver's TV series "McCloud," featured Eastwood as a sheriff's deputy in the West, sent to New York in 10-gallon hat and boots to extradite a criminal, clashing with city folks right and left. In  a contemplative scene with the love interest, Eastwood gazes out at the New York skyline and, when pressed on what he was thinking, replies that he was just trying to imagine the territory without all those buildings. Indeed Manhattan was once mostly woods, and wooded areas persisted even into the Roaring Twenties, though I can't resist mentioning that Central Park was terraformed and its hills were manmade, using fill from nearby skyscraper digs. We have some large structures in Hawaii that don't impress me with their beauty. I like the staff and management of the Sheraton Waikiki but the hotel itself still strikes me as too much building too close to the water. Maybe you feel the same way about those twin condo towers you see in Aiea as you drive by on the H-2. And, of course, who can look at Pearl Harbor from high ground without imagining it the way Clint Eastwood's cowboy cop would? This weekend I drove up the middle of the island to speak to Pacific Century Fellows at Turtle Bay, and was struck by the ugliness of all the utility poles and lines beside the road. They're on both sides, and two sets on one side. Never noticed it before? Maybe you're used to it. I think about all this as I read that some people think it's worth spending billions of extra dollars on the rail line to make sure it's at street level rather than elevated. This is, to me, a case where people are imaging visual blight while they are blind to many worse things marring the Honolulu landscape because they are used to them. It is my policy, when I have a strong opinion about something, to reveal my position plainly so you can discount accordingly if you disagree. Well, coming as I do from Washington, D.C., I am a big fan of rail transit. It relieves congestion, it focuses development along the line while lessening development pressure elsewhere, and it provides transportation options during bad weather or other emergencies. Apart from these other things, rail is beautiful. A rail line, including an elevated one, adds to the character of a city, gives you a fresh perspective for looking at the city, and encourages contemplation of it. In Washington, citizens saw the city afresh riding into town on rail, and interest in zoning and parks issues grew as a result. Every passenger on every rail car represents a car that will not be blighting the H-1 that morning or afternoon. And people who do it only once in awhile will have, especially on elevated segments, a very good view of traffic jams they are passing. Not that they have to pass traffic jams for rail to be an improvement -- I'd rather nap or read on such a commute than have to actually pay attention and keep my hands on the wheel, muttering to myself while Perry & Price try to cheer me up. Rail is more than a convenience for commuters and it is more than an economic stimulus plan put in places just in time for the current calamity. It is a land use planning tool, almost magical in its ability to remove development pressure from the more remote corners of the island. You could paint "Keep the Country Country" on the side of the cars. It is time for everyone who hasn't got ties to the highway lobby to let this worthy project work up a head of steam.

Neil Abercrombie is ready to come home

It's been an open secret in kama'aina political circles for days -- and among the real cognescenti for weeks -- that Rep. Neil Abercrombie is going to run for governor. He's been leaning that way for a long time. I'm not plugged in enough to know when he definitively decided. I do hear that his wife is happy about the prospect of coming back. Abercrombie's official announcement was set up for Sunday morning at the Democratic Party offices at Ward Warehouse just ahead of a round of Monday morning television interviews. Any analysis of the political landscape is better left to people who live and breathe politics, which excludes me; I'll confine myself to some comments on working in Washington, D.C. Representing your home state in Washington is a delicious misery for most members of Congress, but it is difficult to imagine anyone suffering more than a kama'aina. Washington is not only too cold in winter, it is too hot in summer. There are no trade winds. In fact, the only decent winds come five minutes before punishing electrical storms. Spring and fall are wonderful but it is not unusual for either season to last only a couple weeks. Snow is beautiful, but while people in more northern states know how to drive in it, and are properly equipped for it, the D.C. area has a mix of prepared and unprepared vehicles and drivers. People in big SUVs with new radials drive fast until they come up behind cabs with bald tires driven by recent immigrants from deserts. This makes for accidents. You have to drive more than two hours east to get to the ocean and more than two hours west to get to the mountains. Not only is it hard to find Hawaii cuisine in Washington, it is hard to find Maryland/Virginia cuisine. No movement has resuscitated the cooking I remember from childhood. The best food in D.C. is immigrant food, which can range from Nicaraguan to Somalian. The people are different. I am a rare example of a former D.C. resident who actually grew up within an hour's drive of the capital. Most people come to D.C. for career reasons and never leave. Here we ask, "What school you wen?" There they ask, "What do you do?" Because your job defines you. At parties, someone chats you up to find out if (a) he can do something for you, or (b) you can do something for him, or (c) neither, and if it's (c) they can't wait to move on. Power (not money) defines you in a hierarchy that affects whether you even get invited to that party. Capitol Hill is a small town for which Hawaii prepares you better than many other places. Your reputation is important. But unlike Hawaii, it is not enough to be honest and reliable. You also need to be, at least on occasion, vindictive. People know whether you can be trusted, but also whether they can get away with crossing you. Because so much compromise is involved in actually getting something done, it helps to be known as a reasonable person, but sometimes your party -- doesn't matter which one -- needs you to take a hard line. There are special pitfalls for actual members of Congress. They have a lot of staff, and staffers tend to become power-crazed and petty unless the principal is careful never to reward such behavior. Staffers, without meaning to, can incite a member to riot. The senator or congressmen has to remember to counsel staffers to remain calm. For members and staff alike, there are so many perks on Capitol Hill that it can be hard to stay real. The Capitol has its own police force which is very, very nice to the hundreds of VIPs in its tiny jurisdiction. The office building basements are filled with subsidized restaurants, shops, banks, even medical offices and beauty shops. You could live there. Senators have semi-secret hideyholes -- small offices -- inside the Capitol building itself. There are elevators that only members are supposed to use (aides tag along). There are subways to each of six office buildings and members can bump other people if they're full. There are no extended families in Washington except in the African-American community, which is largely excluded from power circles, although not as much as formerly. Your ohana is always someplace else. When I lived there I didn't have a single neighbor who coached a sport, but I knew several who played in softball leagues to network with people. So if anyone is wondering, "Why would Abercrombie want to come back?" the answer is, "Why wouldn't he?"

Business signs of the apocalypse: Barbie in China

Barbie is bound for Beijing. Mattel, facing falling sales in America, has decided to aggressively open Barbie megastores in China, where the economy is merely slumping. The first one is in Shanghai, the New York of China, but there are more to come. Barbie looks different in China. She has bigger eyes and a slightly rounder face. I am not making this up.

Did IBM mislead the American public about layoffs?

There are some things a company should not be allowed to do without someone calling them out on it. IBM lied to the American people about its layoff plans, based on information published Friday by the New York Times. In January, IBM posted a quarterly profit that was better than Wall Street expected, and CEO Samuel Palmisano told his employees IBM would not cut back like other companies were doing. The New York Times says more than 1,400 IBM employees got layoff notices the very next day, and indeed 4,600 employees have gotten such notices in the few weeks since Palmisano's boast about not doing this. IBM's personnel chief now says the company routinely expands here while cutting there so what has happened is, in his unfortunate words, "business as usual." It doesn't matter what IBM has done in the past -- the point is that CEO sent clear message of no layoffs and then went ahead with layoffs. Any other representation of the matter is quibbling.