Go West Young Man and Learn Something...

... that's what author Michael Lewis did and he came back with a terrific and enlightening piece for Vanity Fair about the economic calamity in California brought on by the public pension crisis. As depressing as the situation is, Lewis (Liars Poke, The Blind Side, The Big Short and Moneyball) makes it oddly exhilarating.

It plays on the same theme as Moneyball, which is that economic distress can bring new ways of thinking about and solving a problem.

In this piece, Lewis introduces us to people of sound mind and strong values who work to deal with the wreckage of profligacy and political gutlessness.

People like San Jose mayor Chuck Reed, Vallejo city manager Phil Batchelor and firefighter and new Vallejo Fire Chief Paige Meyer. These are all amazingly thoughtful, decent and remarkable men.

For instance here's Lewis on Batchelor:

His day job, before he retired, was running cities with financial difficulties. He came out of retirement to take this job, but only after the city council had asked him a few times. “The more you say no, the more determined they are to get you,” he says. His chief demand was not financial but social: he’d take the job only if the people on the city council ceased being nasty to one another and behaved civilly. He actually got that in writing, and they’ve kept their end of the bargain. “I’ve been in a lot of places that have been in a lot of trouble, but I’ve never seen anything like this,” he says. He then lays out what he finds unusual, beginning with the staffing levels. He’s now running the city, and he has a staff of one: I just met her. “When she goes out to the bathroom, she has to lock the [office] door,” he says, “because I’m in meetings, and we have no one else.”

The piece is long, and you can skip some (but not all) of the stuff about former governor Schwarzenegger. But Lewis' conclusion is not to be missed. And for it to hit home, you've to meet Reed, Batchelor, and Meyer.

I highly recommend it. Because the same troubles felt in San Jose and Vallejo are also being felt much closer to home. And they will require the same smarts, sacrifice, decency and steadfastness to attack them.

UPDATE: Also interesting are the insights of neuroscientist Dr. Peter Whybrow, who explains the psychological effects of affluence and abundance. What do you think happens to a ridiculously fat pheasant?