Northwest Area Citizens Organization

Those who share Starbucks coffee with this blogger most weekdays in Chicago's aspirational River North neighborhood,  share that one's age & marital status are but single aspects of a lives full of twists & turns, joys & sorrows.

 

Both of my female friends have eclipsed their 50th birthdays & are just now starting to enjoy their lives.

 

One runs a fashionable River North home furnishing business with her husband of twenty years, catering to whose wealth makes her own portfolio seem very modest by comparison.

 

The second flies solo in her own struggling startup massage therapy personal care business, relaxing some of the leading Gold Coast residents.

 

While each of these two businesswomen will readily share their own repsective personal joys, disappointments & unrequitted risk-taking, living a balanced life makes it all worthwhile.

 

Marital status & advancing age, for each friend, appears to be but a single aspects as personal experience, personal relationships & life long learning takes precedence.

 

Reports which discover personal pleasure in one's middle age appear to be right on target in this cozy corner!

 

Mark Arnold Fredrickson

Northwest Area Citizens Organization

Chicago

www.windycitizen.com qstrian

The late US President Lyndon Baines Johnson ("All the Way with LBJ!") launched the Great Society government social welfare program co-incident to multi-billion dollar Vietnam War spending during the mid-1960's. One of the most educationally beneficial of those Great Society programs was Head Start which helped this Windy Citizen's brother graduate past a speech impediment to become a successful Chicago North Suburban manufacturing engineer.

Another Great Society program endeavored to achieve full employment, while a third initiative sought to expand home ownership.

Just as economists might argue that Windy Citizens must decide between guns & butter, concurrent spending on the Vietnam War & LBJ's Great Society contributecd to runaway, double digit inflation rates during the following decade.

President Jimmy Carter's Federal Reserve Bank intervention & President Ronald Reagan's tax cuts finally reigned in soaring inflation, but exacted a dear price. During Reagan's tenure, home buyers were forced to finance home & condominium purchases by borrowing from banks, extorting double digit interest rates, while diligent savers earned high rates of interest on their Certificates of Deposit.

While a government "deus ex machima" intervention may appear attractive to those unemployed, homeless, chronically ill or poorly educated, Americans must decide whether such government spending is necessary to disrupt the economic adverse feedback loop or whether the plight of millions of Americans should be left to free market forces.

In this blogger's humble opinion, an abbreviated intervention may be necessary to thwart a double-dip recession or economic oscilation.

Mark Arnold Fredrickson, NWACO, Chicago

Cozy Starbucks conversation  inadvertantly "outed" this blogger's new found friend this morning as discussion meandered among a variety of post-holiday topics--the slow selling Brown Line neighboring townhome, Carolinan vacation plans, her massage therapy business & the simple pleasures of family & friend.  (Morning headlines had early questioned the accuracy of a well-known blogger's report that a beloved Illinois Congressman might be something other than what his legislative admonitions might suggest.)

Understanding that my friend's sexual orientation differed from that of my own enhanced our relationship instead of driving a wedge between us. With barely a pause in conversation, this Windy Citizen disclosed those similarly situated within my own circle of acquaintance. In turn, Lori shared conventional digital images of her family & weekend cottage landscaping, displayed proudly as the two of us sat beside one another.

While some may use the term "outing" in its adverse connotation, this Windy Citizen expects that introducing another aspect of the personal life of one of Illinois' leading representatives may actually extend a confidence which many voters may find endearing.

Mark Arnold Fredrickson, NWACO, Chicago

Politically pragmatic is the best way to summarize how this Windy Citizen's former ballot buddy built a Democratic Party Congressional majority in some of the most conservative areas of the country by 2006.

Then Congressman Emanuel's intuitive legislative insight & his expectation that he might groom his hand-picked candidates political philosophy to become more amenable to immigration reform must have encouraged him to reach outside of the Democratic Party's liberal sphere to adopt those who ascribed to the conservative viewpoint espoused by this Democratic Congressional opponent during our campaigns in 2002, 2004 & 2006.

While some more liberal members of the Democratic Party may be appalled by now Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's conservative accomodations, the inclusion of this conservative voice of reason on immigration reform may be just the tonic that the once conservative Democratic Party needs to craft compassionate immigration reform from the complexity of conflicted constituencies.

While Democratic liberals may see Emanuel's recruitment of conservatives in to the Democratic fold as being as misguided as a Waylon Jennings Lookin' for Love lyric suggests, they may understand the Rolling Stones logic professed that Democrats may not get what they want, but may get what they need.

Mark Arnold Fredrickson, NWACO-Chicago

     Discretion gives currency exchanges an advantage over their conventional banking cousins.

     Regulatory reporting requirements require banks to become better acquainted with customers before engaging in transactions. Currency exchanges simplify the process & let you "do you business" without intrusive scrutiny.

     Even when personal circumstance would be better served by banks, the residents of some formerly red-lined neighborhoods have grown distrustful & even resentful about this often one-side banking relationship.

     Investigation of the sub-prime lending crisis, leaving a tornado's foreclosure path of destruction through many Chicago neighborhoods discovered that many home buyers avoided banks & borrowed money from lightly regulated mortgage companies where familiar faces worked.

     Will currency exchanges continue to thrive in even those gentrifying Chicago neighborhoods?

     Industry observers, including this Windy Citizen, predict that community residents will continue to do business in record numbers until consumers understand the cost of doing business & reverser long-tenured practice.

(This Windy Citizen's clients include a now defunct Competitive Local Exchange Carrier which once provided alternative land-line telephone service to some of Chicago's most financially challenged neighborhoods.)

Mark Arnold Fredrickson, NWACO-Chicago