THIS WEEK’S PROGRAM
Len Cadwallader introduces David Hoffer from Lyme Timber to update us on how that sector of the economy is faring during the pandemic
THE ZOOM LINK FOR THE MEETING
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88229582283?pwd=aS9Hd3o1cS9ZK0hQL0ZhUHZXSEdxQT09
Meeting ID: 882 2958 2283
Password: 254494
The Zoom Room opens at 11:45 AM. After the Pledge of Allegiance and opening Password Todd will introduce our speaker.
NOTE THAT OUR SPEAKERS ARE RECORDED FOR REBROADCAST ON CATV.
They are recorded in “speaker view” which means if you do ask questions during the Q and A session you will appear on screen unless you disable the camera.
LAST WEEK’S ANNOUNCEMENTS
Todd Allen announced that this week Kyle Fisher would receive his check for the finds we raised for LISTEN through the Virtual Bell Ringing campaign. He also announced the the club would be donating it’s COVID 19 fund to Willing Hands in the coming months.
Todd Allen presented Jed Williamson with a Paul Harris +1 pin and announced that the club is seeking someone to serve as Vice President for 2021-22, a position that leads to the Presidency in the succeeding year.
The Raffle Management Team (RMT) awarded Don Pasini the coveted $10 in-kind donation for refusing to answer a dumb question--- well actually that was the choice he made to a multiple choice question posed by the RMT.
DONATIONS IN LIEU OF MEALS
REMINDER: Here’s the link to make your donation in lieu of paying for meals at Jesse’s AND the place to donate your
Happy Dollars! As Todd announced at the meeting last week, the funds will be earmarked for Willing Hands.
https://hanovernhrotary.ejoinme.org/COVID-19.
LAST WEEK’S PROGRAM
Dick Podolec introduced Danny Blanchflower, who shared a presentation on the state of the economy, which he acknowledged is a mystery to him at this point. He opened his presentation with the question: “What Happens NOW?”… a question he posed but couldn’t really answer because the data is so uncertain given the current state of affairs with the pandemic. On the one hand, the data shows a rise in income sine March 2020, a rebound in employment rates, and a collapse in all the metrics associated with well-being. The reason for this paradoxical data set is that low wage workers have stopped looking for work, which diminished the number of “unemployed”, took the bottom out of the wage distributions, and left a percentage of the workforce experiencing increased discouragement.
In terms of possible solutions to this situation, Danny had no ready solutions and didn’t believe that any economists had answers. Raising the minimum wage would help, but if we wanted the minimum wage to achieve the same level of support for workers as it did when the $7.50/hour level was set we’d have to increase it to $24.00/hour. Raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans would help somewhat but could have an adverse effect on motivation. Infrastructure projects might be a solution, but getting a political consensus on which ones to do is a challenge and the compensation for those projects would need to be high enough to encourage people to move from where their roots are laid down. He wryly noted that what workers miss is the high union wages they received for working at “bad jobs” like coal mining and grimy industrial jobs…. But noted that economists assume that everyone prefers some form of work to collecting unemployment.
Coming Attractions
February 10 – Todd Allen presents a longtime friend and Emmy Award winner, John Bowman, who will tell us how to write a joke.
February 17 – Wayne Gersen introduces Alex Thurman, an archivist affiliated with Columbia whose been tracking web information on COVID for well over a year and also helped manage the collection of web data on the resistance movement during the Trump years. Oh… and in the spirit of full disclosure... he’s Wayne’s son-in-law.
February 24 – Todd Allen will introduce Eric Benn who will tell us about how we are being spied on from space… and no, this is NOT another Q-Anon conspiracy!
We’re now booked through March and half of April but have open dates thereafter…. Do YOU have any ideas for speakers to fill in the blanks moving forward? We’d love to hear them!
