The late Davidson economics professor Charles Ratliff was a great teacher who almost led me to a beginning understanding of economics.

D.G. Martin

Although not accomplishing that objective, he left me with a love of the subject and a long-standing interest in learning more. As a part of this course, Ratliff taught us the history of economic thought.

He used Paul Samuelson’s text, titled simply “Economics,” as our guide. Samuelson, like Ratliff, was a Keynesian, which meant, I think, that when a nation’s economy is struggling, it is a time for the government to pour money into the economy to stimulate activity.

It was, and still is, hard for me to understand how all that works, but I am comforted by the fact that others also have trouble dealing with economic theory.

A few years ago, I tried to get Professor Ratliff to help me understand how these things work. I asked him, “How does the government pouring money into the economy help it grow?”
“Well,” Ratliff said, “that depends on what you mean by money.”
I am still struggling about his response to my query. I thought of it again the other day when I read about the death of another noted Keynesian, Robert M. Solow, the winner in 1987 of the Nobel Memorial Prize in economic sciences.

According to his obituary by Robert D. Hershey Jr. and Michael M. Weinstein in the Dec. 21, 2023, edition of The New York Times, “He won the Nobel for his theory that advances in technology, rather than increases in capital and labor, have, been the primary drivers of economic growth in the United States…”

Before Solow set out a different approach, it was generally accepted that economic growth was determined by the growth of capital and labor. But according to his obituary, Solow “could not find data to confirm that common-sense presumption.”

What then does determine growth? Entrepreneurs? Geography? Legal institutions? Something else?

Solow told the writers who, years in advance, were preparing his obituary, “I discovered to my great surprise that the main source of growth was not capital investment but technological change.”

What kind of technological change would lead to growth? The telephone? The steam engine? The computer?

The technological change that promises to grow the current economy is, of course, Artificial Intelligence or A.I.
Already, A.I. is taking on tasks that would be impossible or prohibitively expensive if using ordinary research tools.

Given an assignment to write a news article that would include a history of government regulation of atomic energy, for instance, A.I. could sort the text of every newspaper report ever written on the topic and select the relevant material. Then, it could instantly assemble a news article that would have taken a reporter hundreds of hours, days or even years, to research and write.

Recognizing the value of A.I.’s contribution, there is still a problem. Where does A.I. get the newspaper texts and other necessary information to assemble and write its report? Who, if anyone, must it compensate for the use of these materials?

The New York Times took an important step towards finding an answer to this question last week when it sued A.I. entities, including OpenAI and Microsoft, owners of the popular A.I. program ChatGPT.

The lawsuit accuses the defendants of seeking a free ride on “The Times’s massive investment in its journalism” and alleges that OpenAI and Microsoft are “using The Times’s content without payment to create products that substitute for The Times and steal audiences away from it.”

However the lawsuit turns out, A.I. is here to stay.

I wish Professor Solow were here to explain how and how much it could increase the nation’s wealth.

D.G. Martin, a retired lawyer, served as UNC-System’s vice president for public affairs and hosted PBS-NC’s “North Carolina Bookwatch.”

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This is an American history educational moment of those who made a difference during the Revolutionary War era and how they served the country.

David Streater

Robert Treat Paine was a Founding Father known for having a complex personality and earned the nickname “The Objection Maker.”

Born in Boston in 1731, Robert was known as “Bob” and was destined to become a servant-leader. He was a gifted student educated at Boston’s Latin School and graduated from Harvard at 18. Bob studied religion; his family expected him to follow their history and become a minister, but he chose instead to be a schoolteacher.

Paine taught school but realized that teaching was not his strength.

In the mid-1750s, Robert was the provisional chaplain of the Assault of Fort Saint-Frédéric, Crown Point, New York. Living at the fort turned out to be an awakening and helpful experience for Bob in the future. This involvement gave Paine a valuable taste of military life and its requirements. With life’s lessons combined with his poor health, Bob chose to work as a merchant marine, hoping outdoor work and the salt air would aid his health as he sailed along the East Coast and to Europe.

After returning to America, Paine studied law and became an attorney. He prosecuted British soldiers who murdered defendants from the Boston Massacre. Being the prosecutor in this trial began Paine’s political involvement and the quest for democracy. During the 1770s, Bob had several joyous events: In 1770, he married Sally Cobb, and they went on to have eight children.

Paine was elected to the Massachusetts legislature in 1773 and soon was assigned to the Continental Congress. Some of his duties included acquiring gunpowder for the Continental Army and signing the Olive Branch Petition to England. As Paine objected to all Congressional proposals except his own, his peers called him “The Objection Maker.” During this time, Paine chaired the Committee on Ordnance. Most importantly, he signed the Declaration of Independence.

After his return to Massachusetts, Robert was the first attorney general (1777-1790) and later helped create the constitution of Massachusetts (1780). Also, in 1780, owing to his interest in astronomy, he became a charter member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Paine led the prosecution of insurrectionists involved in Shay’s Rebellion, an uprising in the Massachusetts countryside during 1786-1787; a debt crisis brought it on at the end of the American Revolutionary War.
This great American patriot accepted an appointment to the state’s supreme court in 1790 and remained a justice until his retirement in 1804.

Robert Treat Paine died on May 11, 1814, at age 83 and was buried in the Granary Burying Ground, Boston, Massachusetts.

Please visit your Charters of Freedom at 144 N. 2nd St., Albemarle. A Charters of Freedom setting consists of the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Visit (FoundationForward.com) to learn more.
Teachers are encouraged to contact Streater for info and complementary student education materials to enhance experiential field trips to a Charters of Freedom settings. Email Streater (david.streater@mymail.barry.edu) for engraved legacy paver info and complementary educational materials.

Dr. David Streater is the director of education for Foundation Forward, the organization which placed life-size replicas of the United States Constitution, Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, also known as the Charters of Freedom, in downtown Albemarle. He is a retired college instructor/administrator and a retired probation and parole officer/administrator. In addition, he is a criminologist with an acute history interest, served in the Navy, is a resident of Burke County and is a graduate of Pfeiffer University.

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There is a lot of confusion about how Medicaid expansion is paid for. Medicaid expansion is part of the ACA (Affordable Care Act) of 2010. Medicaid expansion is paid for from a percentage (3.8%) of every person’s insurance premium.

This insurance premium tax has been collected since 2010 regardless of if your state expanded Medicaid or not. North Carolina has been forced to send our collection of this money, totaling $1.6 billion, to the federal government since 2010 and has received nothing in return for it.

Medicaid expansion is a federal program that is not funded by state or federal personal income tax. If an individual state chooses to participate, it is required to pay 10% for the program.
North Carolina and some other states require the hospitals in their state to pay that 10%. The hospitals can afford to do this because around 40% of the free care they provide can now be paid by Medicaid, due to expansion. Also, rural hospitals receive federal funds to help them (HASP funds). Atrium Stanly had been losing $2 million a month, but because of Medicaid expansion they are now profitable. The hospital will now be able to keep their birthing center open as a result.

It should be good to know that every Republican in the House and Senate voted for Medicaid expansion. One reason is because the federal government, in return for expanding Medicaid, has returned the $1.6 billion to North Carolina that they have collected since 2010. North Carolina is spending that money on mental health.

Another reason is that there is not one dime of state or federal personal income tax being put into Medicaid expansion. Under Republican leadership, North Carolina has cut your state personal income tax rate over the last nine years from 7.75% to 4.6% and is on track to cut it to 2.99%.

North Carolina is the 40th state to expand Medicaid.

Rep. Wayne Sasser

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By Vanessa Chambers of New London

Vanessa Chambers

We get together on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, we gather around at the table, we pray thanking God for another year, eat, we play games, take plenty of pictures and then we exchange gifts.

We always reach out every year and adopt a family to be a blessing to them because God has blessed us in so many ways.
We go around the table and if anyone wants to say anything they have the opportunity to do so.

Vanessa Chambers is joined by her husband Kenneth. (Contributed)

My mother always loved to hear the children sing the “Twelve Days of Christmas” and we always enjoy singing that of course, playing “Silent Night” by The Temptations, which will never go out of style, and “We Wish You A Merry Christmas.”
Christmas is a time to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and sometimes I feel that people forget the reason for the season.

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By Jane Barnhardt of Oakboro

It was December 25, 1939 at 3 o’clock in the afternoon that my parents, Raymon Hatley and Altha Herlocker, were married.

Forty years later on their anniversary in 1979, our family began the tradition of lighting up the Hatley Hillside outside Oakboro at the corner of Swift and Silver roads. We would do it when conditions permitted. Luminaries were positioned to line and light the way up the hilltop and to the exit; also lighted scenes were placed along the hillside drive, with hundreds of lights in the woodland.

Later, in 2009, over 75 light balls were added high in the oak trees — this was a story in itself.

In the early lightings, Mr. Hatley would meet and greet visitors at the exit. Thus, the tradition to honor our parents began.

A manger scene painted by my aunt in the 1950s and repainted by the family greeted visitors at the entrance. Carolers, two manger scenes, Frosty the Snowman, street lamps, and a Santa Claus doll were in the first lighting and are still used.

The Care Bear scene, added when my niece and I began collecting these bears, is one of the most popular scenes and changes from year to year — what adventure will they have each year?

Family members from five generations have been involved. The family enjoys working together to plan, create the scenes, and decorate the trees and shrubs. The greatest thrill for everyone is standing on the hillside when the multi-breakers are cut on and the hillside is suddenly aglow with lights everywhere.

It is simply breathtaking and well worth all the work. This family tradition became the Hatley family’s way of wishing the community a Merry Christmas.

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By Jo Grey of Badin

For my brothers and me, the Christmas season during the late 1950s arrived in the mail with the Sears & Roebuck catalog.

Jo Grey writes the Badin News for the SNAP.

As best as I can remember, the dictionary sized, hefty fall edition was soon followed by the slimmed-down specialty Christmas version.

Hundreds of thin paper pages of technicolor pictures were like the forerunner to Instagram. Page after page meant hours of simple entertainment, list-making and over-the-top expectations for us kids — oblivious to the panic and fear overtaking our parents.

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Dear Santa,

I hope you are doing well.

B.J. Drye

That’s how most of these Santa letters begin, but I have to admit that I know you probably have a stomach ache from all those milk and cookies or a foot ache from Rudolph stepping on your foot.

I haven’t written you lately. It is hard for me to admit that.

Someone once said if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all.

So if you don’t want to read a sad story about this year’s losses, stop reading now, Santa.

I don’t know if it is because I love history or if it is because I have spent way too many years typing obits, but I always enjoy the “in remembrance” segments shown on stations like TCM at this time of year. They remind me of the people who died this year and of the great work they did.

As for 2023, I would say it is one of those years where my childhood died.

Lisa Marie Presley, Suzanne Somers, Tony Bennett, Bob Barker, Jimmy Buffett, Jerry Springer, “Pee Wee” Herman — those are just a few off the people of the top of my head who died this year that have connections to my childhood or young adulthood.
From watching “Pee Wee’s Playhouse” on Saturday mornings or “The Price Is Right” when I was home sick, or catching an episode of “The Jerry Springer Show” as I walked through the lobby to the college library, they all left their mark on my life.

When Jimmy Buffett died on Sept. 1 (which is more than appropriate with it being Labor Day weekend, see “Come Monday”), I spent the majority of what little free time I have listening to his music and finding songs I had never heard before. (My new favorite is “Peanut Butter Conspiracy,” which is also the name of a rock band.)

But, Santa, these losses do not compare to the closer losses to my family.

As I write this on Tuesday afternoon, it was just hours ago I learned that my great-aunt Jean died. She was the last of my mom’s aunts.

She was also the one who I thought looked like Elizabeth Taylor, even though none of the other family members could see it. She was always dressed the part.

We also lost my unofficial uncle Cliff. He was my dad’s best friend from the Air Force for more than 50 years.

Even though I probably only spent about a month with him through the years, I still remember many of those moments.

He is the one who sent me an Arkansas Razorbacks jacket. Even though I am a diehard Duke fan, I proudly wore that coat around Stanfield Elementary School among the legions of Tarheel fans.

I’m surprised I didn’t get beat up for that, but there were many other reasons for me to get beat up.

He is the one who was a cross country truck driver. I kind of wish I had hitched a ride with him on one of his journeys.

He is the one who we traveled to see in Memphis, a 13-hour drive back in 2007. We are so glad we went back then because: 1) it remains my favorite vacation; 2) it was the last family vacation not involving the Carolinas; and 3) it is most likely the last time we are able to venture that far from home.

Santa, it is reasons like this that I wish a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer would become a legit mode of transportation for everyone.

Santa, by now you have received my wish list for this Christmas and the new year. The three items at the top would be much appreciated.

And like a birthday wish, I’m not telling anyone what they are.

That’s between Santa and me.

As to my readers, here’s wishing you a happy and healthy holiday.

B.J. Drye is general manager/editor of The Stanly News & Press. Call 704-982-2123.

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By John Hood, frequent columnist

One of my fondest Christmas memories makes me seem like a great outdoorsman — which is, I suppose, why I cherish it so fondly.

John Hood

I grew up in a family of seven. We lived on a 40-acre plot in rural Mecklenburg County (there used to be such a thing).

When I was about 10, I assumed a sacred obligation: venturing out into the woods, armed only with a small ax, to harvest a cedar or pine for our Christmas tree.

Like young master Washington, I will not tell a lie: the results weren’t always pretty. But I decorated it so elaborately that no one noticed — or so I prefer to recall.

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“How about helping us ring the bell for the Salvation Army?”

D.G. Martin

It is Roland from my Rotary club. I have dodged that duty for years. But it is the kind of request you can’t turn down. Roland is nice, but he will remember if I say no.

So I tell him I’ll do it. And regret it before I finish telling him.

Why have I agreed to do this thing?

I think about the hour of wasted time I will spend, standing on a cold sidewalk in a college town beside a red Salvation Army pot that will hold the few coins that I will beg by ringing a bell in the faces of townspeople, professors, and college kids in the middle of exams.

Oh, the things we do because our friends ask us.

My time is worth too much to spend an hour on the street like a common beggar. Plus the time it will take to get downtown and get set up and then get back to work. Why won’t they just let me give them some money? Why can’t I just give them a big check and forget about the bell ringing?

After all, what right do I have to interrupt all these people minding their own business walking up and down the street?

They don’t want to be hounded at Christmas time. They don’t want their peace interrupted by beggars like me.

“What makes me different,” I ask, “from the ordinary panhandler hustling for a little money for a cup of coffee?”

What could be sillier than a middle-aged man like me, with a frozen smile, ringing a bell in the face of every passerby?

But I do it. And I do more. I go to the attic and get a Santa Claus costume. I say, “It will add a little class to our begging effort.”
I also think, “If I wear the Santa outfit, nobody will recognize me!”
So, here I am. On the corner, with my Rotary partner Donald. I am ringing the bell–harder and harder to get attention. He is smiling and wishing everybody Happy Holidays.

Why am I doing this?

Wait a minute. Look at what is happening.

They are giving.

These tough professors. These busy townspeople. These rough hard working service people. These visitors from out-of-town.

These students in the middle of exams. These kids from an out-of-state university who came to see their team play basketball last night.

They are giving. And not just coins. They are giving paper money.

These are the college kids we are all worried about. We have this idea parked in the back of our heads that they are such selfish, “me-centered” people. But look at them. They can’t walk by without stopping, saying “Merry Christmas” and putting something in the pot.

Then someone else passes by, comes back, puts several dollars in the pot and tells Donald, “The Salvation Army helped me once when I was down.” Donald nods and smiles a smile that says,

“Now, aren’t you glad you came?” I nod a “Yes” back to him. I ring the bell a little harder.

Here I am begging for money from people who are much less able to give than I am. And they are being much more generous than I would be.

“How can I explain it?” I ask myself.

Is it just that it is Christmas time? No. Christmas these days has gotten away from us. It is a pressure time. There is too much rushing around for everyone. The old Christmas is gone. No longer a season of giving and reflection and quiet celebration, it is a season gone mad.

Wait a minute. There is no other way to explain these people giving so happily and so generously. It is Christmas. Our Christmas season may be covered up with frantic, maddening, unhealthy frenzy.

But that key piece of Christmas, that best piece of Christmas, is still there.

So covered up we can miss it, but still at the core. Still ready to transform us like the first Christmas — unleashing that good spirit in us. A spirit that leads us again to understand that joy and meaning in our lives comes from what we allow ourselves to do for others.

Even if it is just ringing the bells.

D.G. Martin, a retired lawyer, served as UNC-System’s vice president for public affairs and hosted PBS-NC’s “North Carolina Bookwatch.”

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RALEIGH — In this season of joy and renewal, as we reflect on the year that was and hope for better in the year to come, more than a few of us will wish for a better, more constructive politics.

John Hood

Some years ago, High Point University’s survey team asked North Carolinians about the health of our public discourse. More than two-thirds of respondents said people were “more divided than usual,” with an even-higher share (77%) agreeing that “most people have little patience with people who disagree with them.”

This broad public sentiment about declining civility in political discourse is to some extent a self-indictment. If most of us agree that our politics is broken, and that most people are having trouble separating their partisan disagreements from their personal relationships, it’s mathematically impossible for the problem to be confined only to “those people” on the other side of the fence. Virtually everyone is implicated to some extent.

Is there a way out? No — by which I mean there is no single, sweeping solution to such a complex problem. The causes are many and difficult to disentangle. But certainly one solution must be to improve the conduct of our political leaders.

There’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg debate here. On the one hand, we know that politicians are self-interested to a significant extent, as are all human beings. They want to gain election, win reelection and boost their stature by exercising power to advance their political agendas.

If we the people have become more polarized, more vitriolic and more easily distracted, politicians may see it as serving their interest to ridicule dissenters, attack adversaries and turn up the decibel level on their political rhetoric to attract, keep and wield the support of their electoral constituencies.

But the causal arrow could point the other direction — with we the people, as political followers, tending to adopt the priorities, temperament and positions of the political leaders from whom we take our cues. This model happens to have a great deal of empirical support. In his book “Follow the Leader,” for example, political scientist Gabriel Lenz provide many cases in which voters tend to adapt their sentiments to those of their leaders, rather than the reverse. This fact gives politicians “considerable freedom,” Lenz concluded.

That’s actually good news! It means that at least part of the solution will arise from convincing current and prospect political leaders to take responsibility for the problem and start doing something about it.

I am involved in several projects intended to do just that here in our state. The North Carolina Institute of Political Leadership (IOPL), for which I serve as board chair, focuses on the “front end” of the leadership pipeline. Each semester, IOPL provides rigorous training for North Carolinians who aspire to serve in elective or appointive office.

Another program, affiliated with the John Locke Foundation, includes but is not limited to would-be politicians. The E.A. Morris Fellowship for Emerging Leaders provides young North Carolinians a yearlong program that helps participants learn how to build teams of individuals with differing strengths and backgrounds.

For those already serving as leaders in our state — not only state and local officials but also leaders of companies, trade associations, nonprofits, educational institutions, and religious congregations who help to shape the debate on critical public issues — the North Carolina Leadership Forum (NCLF) convenes a series of meetings to study and debate such issues while also forming valuable personal relationships. Based at Duke University, NCLF promotes constructive engagement across political differences, rather than pursuing a futile attempt to wish or wash such differences away.

In the 1953 Disney version of “Peter Pan,” the Lost Boys joyfully sing about “following the leader wherever he may go” to the mischievous title character. While we North Carolinians may not be exactly “lost,” we do entrust a great deal of power to those who lead us. These and other programs are designed to temper that power with greater responsibility.

John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member.

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