Page 4 THE REVERE ADVOCATE – FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2021 City Council presented with redrawn district map By Adam Swift T he city’s redistricting plans are now in the hands of the City Council. In the next several weeks, the council will be discussing the redistricting plans, which see the most dramatic shift in the shrinking of Ward 2, in subcommittee. There will also be two public hearings on the proposed new map before the council takes a fi nal vote. The redistricting process takes place every 10 years when communities get the latest U.S. census data. The districts are redrawn to keep the population in each fairly even across the board. “The redistricting process started in April, and we are fi - nally in the homestretch,” Reuben Kantor, the city’s Chief Innovation Offi cer, told the Human Rights Commission last week. Kantor noted that the new boundaries that will be presented to the City Council were somewhat constrained by the boundaries recently set by the state legislature setting new boundaries for the state representative districts. “For the most part, I don’t think you’ll see a lot of big changes,” said Kantor. “The biggest shift is really in Ward 2, because Ward 2 Attorneys at Law 14 Norwood St., Everett, MA 02149 Phone: (617) 387-4900 Fax: (617) 381-1755 John Mackey, Esq. * Katherine M. Brown, Esq. Patricia Ridge, Esq. outgrew the legal boundaries it could maintain. By law, all wards have to maintain a pretty consistent size between them; all the precincts have to be within fi ve percent of the average of each other.” Revere had the largest population growth of any city in Massachusetts, according to the 2020 census, with all wards gaining population. However, Kantor said Ward 6 is the ward which grew the slowest, and hence is the ward which is slightly larger on the redistricting map. Both interactive and static maps showing the proposed redistricting are available online at revere.org/redrawingrevere. “I think we incorporated a lot of feedback we got,” said Kantor. “We had nearly 150 people participate in our online poll and comments, which was really valuable.” Given the demographic changes in Revere over the past decade, Kantor said, city offi cials believe the demographics within each ward are in line with the changes. “Following public hearings, and, we hope, Council approval, the city would submit the approved map to the Local Election Districts Review Commission (LEDRC) for fi nal approval,” stated Mayor Brian Arrigo in a letter to the City Council. “The new boundaries would not become valid until the regularly scheduled 2022 State Primary and General Election. The State Senate Special Election will not be impacted.” Earlier in the process, newly elected Ward 3 City Councillor Anthony Cogliandro expressed some concern that his side of Newman Street could end up shifted to Ward 6. The odd side of Newman Street is in Ward 3 and the even side in Ward 6. Under the map being presented to the City Council, Cogliandro will remain in Ward 3. ~ GUEST COMMENTARY ~ Specious Theories Concocted to Justify Inflation By Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson F rom an economic point of view, some of the ideas being proposed by current policymakers in Washington, particularly the president’s Council of Economic Advisers and top officials at the Federal Reserve, cause this economist to scratch his head in wonderment. Take the Fed, for example. The central bank hatches policies wielding major economic impact, and yet the explanations and rationale for its policies can seem bizarre, self-serving, or just plain glib. With infl ation having become an issue this year, the powers that be are devising some bogus “economic theories” that portray today’s higher infl ation as a supposedly good thing. The Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip recently reported on some of these “theories.” For example: “Economic theory says modestly higher, stable infl ation should mean fewer and less severe recessions.” Oh, really? In the fi rst place, the Fed hasn’t hit its infl ation target for many years, so it doesn’t have any demonstrated ability to guarantee “stable infl ation” at any level. Second, both high and low infl ation periods have been followed by recessions. Thus, to suggest that there is a magical inflation fi gure that is a recession tonic is specious. In fact, infl ation destabilizes the economy by increasing the uncertainties about the prices that both consumers and producers face. Inflation-induced price dislocations complicate economic decision-making, discombobulate production and employment, and so are one of the causes of infl ation. Mr. Ip also reported that “if infl ation ends up closer to 3% than 2% next year, raising the [Fed’s infl ation] target would relieve the Fed of jacking up interest rates to get infl ation down, destroying jobs in the process.” In this fairy-tale view, the experts are saying to simply let infl ation rise–that is, let the purchasing power of our currency erode at a faster pace–and we will avoid economic pain. Question: If avoiding painful economic adjustments, such as shifts in employment, were simply a matter of boosting prices, why didn’t earlier generations of central bankers adopt permanently expansive monetary policies to create constant infl ation and uninterrupted economic bliss for the people? This is the silly superstition (popular today under the rubric of Modern Monetary Theory) that the way to raise standards of living is to print more money. Again, if wealth creation were that simple, the process would have been mastered centuries ago and nobody would be poor. Instead, money printing can lead to hyperinfl ation–the destruction of money–which it already has in over 50 countries, always resulting in extreme societal impoverishment and disruption. Ip further writes, “In bad times though, infl ation allows an employer to cut labor expenses by freezing pay so infl ation gradually reduces real wages. That isn’t possible with zero infl ation: The employer would have to cut jobs or pay.” Sorry, but workers have seen through that illusion for many decades with numerous union contracts including COLAs – cost of living adjustments – that protect workers against infl ation’s not-so-stealthy real pay cuts. Also, American economic history includes periods when wages fell, but standards of living rose. To say that pay cuts are “impossible” is to ignore history. Ip cites two former “senior staff ers at the Fed” who assert that if the Fed were to engineer infl ation of 3% instead of 2%, then “unemployment would be 0.75 percentage points lower than otherwise.” This is another iteration of the discredited Phillips curve theory which states that when infl ation rises, unemployment falls. Remember the 1970s? Both infl ation and unemployment rose at the same time then in a grim scenario known as “stagfl ation.” Monetary authorities may be able to print money, but they can’t print jobs. In delicious understatement, Ip writes, “It is unclear if 3% infl ation meets the Federal Reserve Act’s mandate for stable prices.” Of course it’s clear. By defi nition, prices aren’t stable whether they are rising at 3% or 2% per year. Ip also reports that several of President Biden’s economic advisers expect infl ation to be 3% a year from now, so the Fed should raise its infl ation target to 3% rather than try to lower infl ation. What would that actually accomplish? By moving the goal posts of the Fed’s target to fi t the actual economic reality of 3% infl ation, I suppose the Fed would proclaim, “See how successful we’ve been?” But other than massaging the Fed’s reputation, Americans would take it INFLATION | SEE Page 5
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