Discussion about this post

User's avatar
mike parwana's avatar

People often make bad financial decisions. They fail to calculate the operating costs into the cost of purchase.

Voting for Dan Stec is expensive. You get him at the same cost as any other state Senator but the return on investment is low and the cost of operation is very high. His decisions are bad and his connections to the supply of power in Albany is weak.

He’s like an old vacuum cleaner the designers made extra loud so you felt like it really sucked. And it did really suck but it had little power to function.

Think of it this way, every time you get a franked mailer from Dan Stec it cost about the same as the end cost of one of those electric school buses in Alexandria Bay.

Expand full comment
Irene Baldwin's avatar

The decline in volunteerism is a national problem across all sectors. Formal volunteering has fallen dramatically since COVID, but it was in decline for a long time. COVID hammered it, though. I run a nonprofit free tax program (VITA, Volunteer Income Tax Assistance). I had over 100 volunteers in 2019, down to 40 this filing season). The COVID hit is short term, I think, but folks who research the nonprofit sector have noted longer trends.

We Americans have always been this interesting combination of individualism mixed with a commitment to the common good. Volunteerism was embedded in our DNA. Since before the country's founding, every time we see an issue, we create an association, whether it is a volunteer fire department, an aid program for immigrants (that's how Legal Aid got its start 150 years ago; German-Americans helping recent immigrants from the old country) programs to support youth, funeral/burial charities, hospitals, programs for servicemen and women. The Knights of Columbus became popular through operating clubhouses for Doughboys in training camps during World War One.

The decline in volunteerism goes hand in hand, I think, with individualism taking first place over our responsibility to the common good. The Atlantic had an article a few years back where the author discussed how the decline in associations harms our democracy. How do we learn to make collective decisions? To work amicably with people we might not agree with? Through our garden clubs and scout troops and civic associations and faith communities and the other organizations where we need to make group decisions. I don't think we have really understood the broader impact the decline in volunteerism will have on our culture.

Expand full comment
13 more comments...

No posts