The October 24, 2011 Kirkland Rotary meeting was called to order at 6:30 pm by President Brandon Honcoop.  Chris Morgan led us in the pledge, and an inspirational funny story about “The Golf Ball” was shared by David DeBois.

 

Visiting Rotarians and Guests:

·         Jim Owens – Bellevue Breakfast Rotary

·         Kyla Terashima, Student of the Month from  Juanita High School

·         Mr. and Mrs. Terashima, Kyla’s parents

·         Becca Honcoop, and baby Bethany

 

Announcements:

·         Steve Shinstrom thanked everyone who came to Bunco – a great time was had by all, and a large dent was made in the leftover liquor supply from the Salmon Bake.  Bill Woods was the big winner for the evening.

·         Dan Bartel – reminded everyone that Rotary First Harvest is having its fundraiser, the “Cabernet Classic”, on Thursday.  Tickets are $50/person.  See Dan if interested in attending.

·         Steve Shinstrom passed around sign-up sheets for scribe and greeters.

·         Jerry Campo reminded everyone of the Holiday Dinner to be held on Sunday, Dec. 4th at Lucia’s in Park Place.  Cost will be $50/person and needs to be paid in advance.  Sign-ups will be by email through Club Runner.

Brandon reminded everyone of John Overleese’s Memorial Service this Friday, Oct. 28th, at 2:00 pm at the Kirkland Performance Center.

Kyla Terashima, our student of the month, gave her talk on her final evening at our club.  She said she credits her parents and older sister with motivating her to strive for excellence.  She also shared an impressive list of community service projects she has been part of, and told of her goal of becoming a nurse one day.  We wish Kyla all the best.

 

Patti Smith introduced our speaker, Economist David Knowles.  His topic “Are we the Best, the Worst, the Tallest, the Smartest?”

David taught at Seattle University from 1978 to 2005, and has served as a consultant for 30 years.  He described himself as a liberal who is rational and who sees the glass as half full.  He also mentioned that he learned from one of his professors in grad school to read “everything”, regardless of bias, in order to become informed.  He spoke about “Relativism” vs “Absolutism”, and the importance of keeping things in perspective.  He compared past economic downturns to current economic conditions, and said that it helps to keep things in perspective.  Our perspectives are often driven by the media, and he cautioned us to be wary and question the current economic thought purveyed on cable news.  He spoke about the “misery index”, which is a combination of the unemployment rate + inflation, and made reference to a book called “The World is Flat”, published in 2005.  He gave a number of statistics comparing past inflation rates from the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s, when things were much worse, to today’s inflation numbers, again, putting things in perspective.  As an example, he said that the CBS evening news reported on Sunday evening about the crisis in Greece.  To put this in perspective, David explained that there are a total of only 11 million people in Greece, and that Germany alone could bail out Greece, Portugal and Spain 4 times over.  He believes that unemployment is our biggest challenge, and that “once that goes down our economy will soar.”  He compared our economy to a 747 airplane sitting on the ground.  Engines, fuselage, wings, everything is OK.  However, the hydraulics are off.  Without a working hydraulic system, nothing else works.  He compared the hydraulics of the 747 to our banking industry, saying that the banks are our economy’s hydraulic system.  Our current productivity figures are good in this country, and we produce better products than we did in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s.  He said that what is unique about our times now is that this is the first time when people have lost their homes before they lost their jobs.  He pointed out that people bought homes who couldn’t afford them.  Our current economy is sluggish because fear is keeping people from spending.  If we were to put teachers, firefighters, and police to work, they would infuse the economy by spending.  The same dollars given to the private sector might not guarantee that they would increase hiring; therefore, you couldn’t count on increased spending from new employees in that sector.  He said that he believed the private sector was already doing their job.  He then opened up to a Q&A session, and I will not even begin to try to capture all of that conversation!  His talk was both enlightening and entertaining.

 

Joker Pool:  Pat Swenson had the winning ticket, but took home only $10 as she didn’t draw the joker.  The pool continues to increase with more than $830 in the pot.

 

The meeting was adjourned at 7:40.

 

Submitted:  Pat Dye, Scribe