The Janitors' Closet

City growth funded by debt. And more debt.

Here in Phoenix, where I run a commercial janitorial service, we just endured a special election seeking to derail, as it were, a major expansion of our light rail system. Our current system, as I understand it, cannot even cover operating costs with ridership revenue, let alone make any payments on the huge debt for the initial construction.  I supported the referendum to halt expansion; the voters, in their wisdom, voted to continue expansion - with even more debt.

Coincidentally, I just read "Strong Towns".  Interesting work; resonates with much else of what I read. The author argues that prosperity is a bottom up proposition, not created from on high, and thus the prosperity of our towns and cities is more significant than (at least our view of) our society as a whole. Problem is, our cities seem destined to become Detroit.
Traditional cities grew incrementally: a few modest structures at a road junction or a river crossing (think a bar, general store, and house of ill repute - all the necessities). Should those establishments fail, the owners will absorb a small loss, salvage what they can, and move on. No state of federal bail-out required. Should they succeed, more business will join them, and various stages of housing as well. The early tents and shacks will be replaced by one story frame, and then (as community grows, so there is more business and the property is more valuable) by two story, and eventually brick or stone. And maybe a mid-rise. Housing follows the same trajectory. Mixed use is the rule (one shouldn't have to walk very far, to work or the store or the bar). So folks are on site 24/7, accomplishing Jane Jakob's "eyes on the street". Property tends to increase in value, and so is maintained and improved.

Current method (mostly since the advent of the auto culture) involves existing cities borrowing money, or giving tax credits, to spur development, wherever the current political elite desires. Money is borrowed to put in streets and water lines (or credits given to get developers to do the same), and the infrastructure is booked as "investment", though it costs tax dollars to maintain, and rarely brings in much profit. Zoning, building regulations and financing require the development to be built to "finished state" - the houses, for instance, are all move in ready, and can't be much improved beyond cosmetics (you can't add a 2-story apartment off the alley, for instance). All being built at the same time, they will all deteriorate at the same rate - new roofs needed, streets needing re-paving. Homeowners who can afford to, move into a new neighborhood; they sell their house to someone less affluent, who can afford major maintenance even less. And the city can't afford to repave the streets; it's got another new development to borrow for. So streets and houses deteriorate (they can't be much improved, and nothing stays the same). Most post-war suburbs fit the pattern. Think Fergusson, or here in Arizona, Phoenix's Maryvale.

The only way for the city to appear prosperous is to borrow more, to grow more. And to pretend to be prosperous by booking "investments". An investment that does not pay a reasonable return is, instead, a luxury - or a toy.

The insidious thing is that drawing development to the edges - the suburbs - pulls people and firms out of the downtown, where investment is already sunk - buildings and utilities - thus lowering value, and encouraging deterioration.
Traditional cities, conversely, are the product of small incremental changes - a home or building or improvement here and there, now and then. Small bets that, if they fail, don't cost either owner or society much. And you learn along the way. And adapt

In much of this, Joseph Tainter's "The Collapse of Complex Societies" resonates. Tainter examines a couple dozen societies that have collapsed over the millennia, from Rome to the Mayas to the Chaco Canyon Indian civilization over in New Mexico, then considers a few common reasons given for collapse - environmental degradation, barbarians at the gates and so on - and finds a couple or three examples of collapse attributable, as the proximate cause, to each. But he suggests a common underlying cause for all - economics. To oversimplify, as a society lives its life, it fixes things. Today's famine in a province is solved for tomorrow by building roads, and keeping on hand extra carts, to take grain from the plentiful to the starving province. A good thing. But each fix increases overhead (you must maintain the roads, and administer the food requisitioning, transport and distribution), and with more and more fixes, and overhead, eventually society turns from booking a profit to taking a loss. Enough losses and you have no strength to overcome the next insult, whether from barbarians or crop failure.

Resonates also with Mancur Olson's "The Rise and Decline of Nations": the longer a nation has been in business, the more "rent seekers" and stifling regulations it accumulates; eventually it stagnates. Only a really big shake-up (think, say, French Revolution) can cut it back to lean bone and muscle.

 

Self reporting

A friend (my sales manager from 30-some years ago, now retired) sent me the following:

"This article linked below from a friend of mine in England.  It seems no matter how you 'slice' it, statistics, or what counts for empirical knowledge on gangs is contentious. London looks at the intersection of knives, or sharp objects, and juvenile behavior. While we look at guns, or as in Chicago, at 'shots fired'. 

I wonder if The Bobbies are counting stitches, cause as you might have heard, snitches get stitches." 

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47388890

My reply, as regards (somewhat) the commercial janitorial industry:

Lots of threads we could pursue, including the ones in the stiches.  Depends on what you call “children”, and the accuracy of self reporting.  We have, on the fringes of the sanitation industry, a great increase in the percentage of people who self-report that they wash their hands after.  But not necessarily in people who do wash.  But the percentage of people who wish to seem good and wholesome (as opposed to being so) is viewed as a good thing.

Does a stitch in time save nine?

More handwashing going on - they say

A hopeful, but perhaps naïve, report out of our friends at Cleaning & Maintenance Management.    In the 10th Annual Hand washing Survey (bet you didn't know that was a thing), folks report that they wash their hands 87% of the time when using public restrooms. (The reasons given for NOT doing so involve dirty sinks, lack of soap, and so on - issues we do our best to address in doing commercial janitorial).

We notidced last Presidential election that people sometimes fib to survey takers (often not wanting to admit to opinions or actions that are socially unacceptable).  Might just be a difference between people who want to be known as meticulous hand-washers, and people who wash their hands.

There is also a bit of a concern at the distinction between thorough washing, and our traditional "quick pass".

Just saying.  The report might not wash.

Where you need hand sanitizers

I'm passing along to our commercial janitorial clients a good article from our friends at Cleaning and Maintenance Management, what with it being flu season and all.

Besides the obvious locations for hand sanitizers (restrooms and lunchrooms), look at conference rooms, building entrances, sales counters and individual desks - desk surfaces, phones and computer keyboards can harbor lots of pathogens.

Management ought also actively promote hand washing and sanitizer usage and, perhaps most important, set the example.

Employees out sick or, worse, coming to work to perform inefficiently but to pass pathogens along quite efficiently, is never good for the bottom line.

There is money to be made in recycling

Arizona and California investigators have made arrests in a $16 million recycling fraud scheme. 

It seems that an Arizona trucking operation, apparently created just for this one operation (but a pretty big one), has for the last several years hauled a good many tons of used beverage containers from Arizona to California, to take advantage of a California program to, in essence, refund deposits on recyclable containers.  From the article, in All About Arizona:

"Consumers pay an additional beverage fee in California that is either five or ten cents, depending on the container’s size. That fee funds the CRV program that pays those who recycle those very containers. Containers from out of state are not included in the program due to the fact that the fee isn’t charged when the beverages are purchased." 

The firm owner, and his driver, are up on felony charges of "recycling fraud" (didn't know there was such a charge) and grand theft, and are facing up to three years, and restitution.

Many years ago, when I was in college (I shan't tell you just how many years ago) a friend from Massachusetts, attending Arizona State University, drove back here after semester break with his back seat full of soda bottles.  Seems the refundable deposit was two cents in Massachusetts, but five cents in Arizona.  Same offense, on a rather different scale.

Part of the service we offer in providing commercial janitorial service in the metro Phoenix area includes various aspects of recycling. Partly to share my tiny bit of experience from the user's standpoint, and partly to learn a bit more on the subject myself, I served a half dozen years on Phoenix's Environmental Quality Commission; the nearby picture is a few of us from the Commission touring the North Phoenix recycling facility.  But prior to this article, I had no idea just how much money could be made in recycling.

I trust the statute of limitations has expired on my friend's offense.  After all, it's been many years.

Getting Legionnaires disease at the hospital

Here's a cautionary tale, from the Lacrosse Tribune.

Four patients (thus far) have been readmitted due to contacting legionnaires disease while hospitalized for other complaints.  Legionnaires is commonly available in water, once you look; it tends to not be an issue at the usual low concentrations, and to those not already compromised, by another condition or by age, but can be fatal once it gets hold of you (that is, your lungs- it gives you pneumonia).  The bacteria tend to proliferate in stagnant water.

The hospital's mistake?  Apparently reducing water flow through the hospital's system, in times of low use - what one might think a commendable idea, for both financial and ecological reasons.

Rather need to keep up with stuff like this; we get the occasional commercial janitorial client asking for input about low water (or no water) restroom fixtures, hot air hand dryers, room deodorizers, and so on.  All have issues, it turns out.

As Frederic Hayek noted, there are few solutions - only trade-offs.

Thanksgiving - giving back

My firm's longtime janitorial client, and my even longer friend (back to when I was in college) Is Doug Whitneybell, a local architect (and a darn good one).  Every year, for 39 years, Doug has sponsored a "Turkey Trot", a Thanksgiving morning jog, or walk, or bike.  Proceeds benefit the American Diabetes Association. 

The Diabetes Association recently informed Doug that his is the longest running third-party Diabetes Fundraiser in the nation.  And, at a bit over $600,000.00 to date, it has donated more than any other event.

We donate a bit most every year.  Gives one quite a nice feeling being part of something so successful, and so meaningful.

A nice thing about doing commercial janitorial is that you get to know some really interesting folks, and some very thoughtful ones as well.

A very Happy Thanksgiving, to you and yours.

Where do we find such men?

In remembrance of our veterans:

Two Marine sentries, guarding a gate in Ramadi, Iraq in 2008, looked up to see a blue truck barreling down upon them.

In a speech he gave in 2010, General Kelly told their story.

Two years ago when I was the Commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 "The Walking Dead," and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi. One battalion in the closing days of their deployment going home very soon, the other just starting its seven-month combat tour.

Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines.

The same broken down ramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police, also my men and our allies in the fight against the terrorists in Ramadi, a city until recently the most dangerous city on earth and owned by Al Qaeda. Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle class white kid from Long Island.

They were from two completely different worlds. Had they not joined the Marines they would never have met each other, or understood that multiple America's exist simultaneously depending on one's race, education level, economic status, and where you might have been born. But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.

The mission orders they received from the sergeant squad leader I am sure went something like: "Okay you two clowns, stand this post and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass." "You clear?" I am also sure Yale and Haerter then rolled their eyes and said in unison something like: "Yes Sergeant," with just enough attitude that made the point without saying the words, "No kidding sweetheart, we know what we're doing." They then relieved two other Marines on watch and took up their post at the entry control point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, al Anbar, Iraq.

A few minutes later a large blue truck turned down the alley way—perhaps 60-70 yards in length—and sped its way through the serpentine of concrete jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both catastrophically. Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck's engine came to rest two hundred yards away knocking most of a house down before it stopped.

Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was made of 2,000 pounds of explosives. Two died, and because these two young infantrymen didn't have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers-in-arms.

When I read the situation report about the incident a few hours after it happened I called the regimental commander for details as something about this struck me as different. Marines dying or being seriously wounded is commonplace in combat. We expect Marines regardless of rank or MOS to stand their ground and do their duty, and even die in the process, if that is what the mission takes. But this just seemed different.

The regimental commander had just returned from the site and he agreed, but reported that there were no American witnesses to the event—just Iraqi police. I figured if there was any chance of finding out what actually happened and then to decorate the two Marines to acknowledge their bravery, I'd have to do it as a combat award that requires two eye-witnesses and we figured the bureaucrats back in Washington would never buy Iraqi statements. If it had any chance at all, it had to come under the signature of a general officer.

I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a half-dozen Iraqi police all of whom told the same story. The blue truck turned down into the alley and immediately sped up as it made its way through the serpentine. They all said, "We knew immediately what was going on as soon as the two Marines began firing." The Iraqi police then related that some of them also fired, and then to a man, ran for safety just prior to the explosion.

All survived. Many were injured ... some seriously. One of the Iraqis elaborated and with tears welling up said, "They'd run like any normal man would to save his life.

What he didn't know until then, he said, and what he learned that very instant, was that Marines are not normal. Choking past the emotion he said, "Sir, in the name of God no sane man would have stood there and done what they did."

"No sane man."

"They saved us all."

What we didn't know at the time, and only learned a couple of days later after I wrote a summary and submitted both Yale and Haerter for posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras, damaged initially in the blast, recorded some of the suicide attack. It happened exactly as the Iraqis had described it. It took exactly six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated.

You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives. Putting myself in their heads I supposed it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. Exactly no time to talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: " ... let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass."

The two Marines had about five seconds left to live. It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time the truck was half-way through the barriers and gaining speed the whole time. Here, the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they were—some running right past the Marines. They had three seconds left to live.

For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines' weapons firing non-stop...the truck's windshield exploding into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tore in to the body of the son-of-a-bitch who is trying to get past them to kill their brothers—American and Iraqi—bedded down in the barracks totally unaware of the fact that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground. If they had been aware, they would have known they were safe ... because two Marines stood between them and a crazed suicide bomber.

The recording shows the truck careening to a stop immediately in front of the two Marines. In all of the instantaneous violence Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even started to step aside. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread shoulder width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could work their weapons. They had only one second left to live.

The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God.

Six seconds.

Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty ... into eternity. That is the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight—for you.

-General John F. Kelly

 

Toleration

Since the senseless tragedy in Pittsburgh, I've noticed several commenting on, and quoting portions of, George Washington's letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, on 18 August 1790.  It well expresses the philosophy of our Founders regarding freedom of conscience.  What I've not seen remarked on is an elegant turn of phrase in the second paragraph (of the part I've quoted) that I've long admired.  Religious "tolerance" was the then enlightened view in much of the Western world, and a much touted virtue. Note Washington's take on "tolerance":

"...The citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy—a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.

"It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

"It would be inconsistent with the frankness of my character not to avow that I am pleased with your favorable opinion of my administration and fervent wishes for my felicity.

""May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.

"May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy."

The "Vine and fig tree" reference comes from the prophet Micah, and was something of a touchstone for Washington.  We could learn much from the gentleman.

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Affordable housing, or no janitors.

Seems that firms in San Francisco are having trouble finding janitors, and those to staff many other lower paying jobs, because of the lack of affordable housing within a one to two hour commute to the city.  One begins to appreciate the severity of the situation when it's noted that many $50,000 "entry level" jobs present the same problem.

Doubtless, San Francisco's lack of land for housing is exacerbated by the Pacific, just to its left.  But many states and cities - particularly San Francisco and California - have created much of their own problem, with "open space" regulations (areas where one cannot build), aggressive building codes, and recently a host of "green" mandates - all driving up the price of housing.

For instance, quite recently California has mandated that all new housing include a solar power system, adding some thousands of dollars to the cost of each house.  Some communities require a bicycle or two be included with the house (even, one supposes, if sold to the handicapped).

It is certainly nice to have lots of green space around your residential neighborhood (particularly if you owned the house when the land was set aside - quite a nice bump in your property value, accomplished solely by legislation).  Much else that goes into codes - minimum house sizes, height restrictions, minimum set-backs; restrictions on adding extra buildings (like a small apartment) to the back of your lot - make life more pleasant (for those already there), and property generally more valuable.  And the rent higher. But the downside is that everyone working in the area needs a higher income to afford to live, or to pay one back for a couple or three hour commute.  So when you restrict the availability of, or drive up the price of, housing, be aware that you will also pay more for haircuts, and landscaping, and sandwiches - and janitors.

As Hayek noted, there are few solutions - only trade-offs.