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Health & Fitness

Why Aren't We Thriving?

A brief discussion/reminder that our consumer behaviors are powerful acts and send strong messages to industry leaders and ultimately, impact Monrovia's ability to thrive as a community.

Thriving, as commonly defined, requires significant financial resources so, where does the City of Monrovia get its money? Here is a link that can help answer the question.

Most folks usually guess sales taxes and/or property taxes. The truth of the matter is, “Other Agencies” is a big player. In fact this year, it’s our city's single largest source of revenue. Other agencies, in plain language, are us – it’s our state, federal and county tax dollars via our income/property and other taxes. The state, federal and county governments, for a variety of reasons, sends funds to Monrovia with requirements on how the funds must be spent. The point I want to make is this; when we are inefficient at any level of government we are only hurting ourselves here in Monrovia. The old adage, “there are only two payers, taxpayers and consumers” is a phrase worth repeating.

If we want to thrive we would do well to ensure that we the voters continually push our leaders and public employees for increased efficiency, as well as, help each other adopt best practices in our own daily routines.

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With all this information at out finger tips we should simply be doing better – thriving like no other generation has before. Yet we are amongst the least healthy and most economically disparate. We need to ask ourselves, “why is this happening?” and determine if we should stay on this course. If we, as a community, decide we want better and I hope we do, the solutions are fairly simple; the power of mass communication is a simple email or online posting away, so becoming the most powerful generation of consumers and voters will be a snap. Say for example, if we feel it is not in our best interests to send so much of our manufacturing overseas to China, then we can easily organize a boycott of the leading companies responsible for this trend and demand they bring back some of their production to the U.S. We don’t have to go crazy and boycott all companies that source from China at once; just one company at a time would be effective and send a profound message to an entire industry (Of course this means that we need to tolerate manufacturing and it’s impacts in our community so there is some give and take involved). The regime change in Egypt is a profound example of the power of social media.

Another example, gas prices: We’ve been here so many times that we are tone deaf to the problem. Our past 8 presidents have called for conservation of virtually all energy sources but none more so than oil. And now that we are once again watching fuel prices soar, I will point out that prices have always climbed until the oil industry observed change(s) in consumer habits. Last time it was a 4% decrease in consumption and a documented increase in public transportation utilization – a 4% decrease in consumption is not burdensome on our daily routine yet it is powerful enough to sober an industry - Simply driving a properly maintained car (tire pressure & oil/filter changes) and not racing from stop light to stop light are said to reward you with a 20% reduction in fuel consumption.

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With that in mind, imagine what periodic carpooling could do or walking your kids to school a couple of times a week. And this problem goes well beyond fuel prices; petroleum prices increase the cost of everything; from government operations, building materials to food & medicines. Virtually all economists are in agreement that expensive oil is negatively impacting economic recovery/growth; with such strong consensus, shouldn’t there be more action on the part of consumers?

Clearly, something is amiss and it is prudent for us all to strive for smarter behavior. It is my hope and personal goal that during this time of unprecedented need for change, we will all find ways to help each other to be more effective consumers/citizens and thrive as a community. Thus the goal of this blog is to discuss issues of interest to the general public with the goal empowering the citizens/consumer/voters to thrive.

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