Monday Reads: Left Behind
Posted: February 10, 2014 Filed under: morning reads 60 CommentsGood Morning!
No! I haven’t turned into a whacko who thinks that we’ll all be raptured up! I’m talking about all of us who have been left behind by the current economy! The first thing I read this morning is this post at Salon where one of the children of an AOL employee was blamed for lower IRA contributions by the company. CEO Tim Armstrong is the very model of a modern psychopath CEO of a large, publicly held corporation. Don’t blame his salary for the need to cut costs! Blame distressed babies!!!
Meet one of the “distressed babies” whose parents needed their health insurance when a pregnancy went very wrong. I feel so close to this story since my Emily and I got through a challenging time too. However, these poor parents had no warning and things went very wrong very quickly and at a very difficult point in the pregnancy. Why aren’t I hearing anything from those hysterical pro-lifers about this story?
Late last week, Tim Armstrong, the chief executive officer of AOL, landed himself in a media firestorm when he held a town hall with employees to explain why he was paring their retirement benefits. After initially blaming Obamacare for driving up the company’s health care costs, he pointed the finger at an unlikely target: babies.
Specifically, my baby.
“Two things that happened in 2012,” Armstrong said. “We had two AOL-ers that had distressed babies that were born that we paid a million dollars each to make sure those babies were OK in general. And those are the things that add up into our benefits cost. So when we had the final decision about what benefits to cut because of the increased healthcare costs, we made the decision, and I made the decision, to basically change the 401(k) plan.”
Armstrong exposed the most searing experience of our lives for an absurd justification for corporate cost-cutting.Within hours, that quote was all over the Internet. On Friday, Armstrong’s logic was the subject of lengthy discussions on CNN, MSNBC, and other outlets. Mothers’ advocates scolded him for gross insensitivity. Lawyers debated whether he had violated his employees’ privacy. Health care experts noted that his accounting of these “million-dollar babies” seemed, at best, fuzzy.
Plenty of smart, witty people took to Twitter to express their outrage—or mock outrage. The phrase “distressed babies” became practically an inside joke, as in, “How many distressed babies does AOL pay this guy?” A few AOL employees made cracks like this: “I swear I didn’t have any babies in 2012. Don’t hate me for messing up your 401(k).”
For the record: It was me. I don’t work for AOL; my husband does. One of those “distressed babies” was our daughter. We pay our premiums for a family health plan through AOL, which is why we had coverage on the morning I woke up in acute pain, only five months into what had been a completely smooth pregnancy.
Yes. Today I have been thinking about what kind of country we’re leaving to the babies. Will they be considered valuable human beings 
who are part of a community or interchangeable parts in a big ol’ machine made to enrich the one percenters?
“People—from a business point of view—are machines that do things. And now they can not only physically but intellectually be replicated with technologies”
That’s a quote from Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio that disgraced my copy of Business Week last week. I’m a bit confused by his interview because it sounds like he’s never had an economics course in his life, let alone studied the impact of treating employees like something more than cogs in his personal wealth machine.
The peak year for the minimum wage was 1968, when its purchasing power was nearly $9.40 in 2013 dollars, as shown in the accompanying chart. Since then, the erosion caused by inflation has obviously overwhelmed the increases by Congress. Even a boost to $10.10 an hour by 2016 (also adjusted to 2013 dollars) would lift the minimum to just above its real value in 1968. So while it is better than no increase, it is hardly a raise.
The situation is worse when the minimum wage is compared with the average wages of typical American workers, the ones with production and nonsupervisory jobs in the private sector. From the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, when one full-time, full-year minimum wage job could keep a family of two above the poverty line, the minimum equaled about half of the average wage. Today, it has fallen to one-third; to restore it to half would require nearly $11 an hour, a better goal than $10.10.
The problem is that the average wage, recently $20.39 an hour, has also stagnated over the past several decades, despite higher overall education levels for typical workers and despite big increases in labor productivity. People are working harder and churning out more goods and services, but there’s no sign of that in their paychecks. If the average wage had kept pace with those productivity gains, it would be about $36 an hour today, and the minimum wage, at half the average, would be about $18.
That is not to suggest that the hourly minimum wage could be catapulted from $7.25 to $18. A minimum of $18 would be untenable with the average hovering in the low $20s. But it does confirm that impersonal market forces are not the only, or even the primary, reason for widespread wage stagnation. Flawed policies and changing corporate norms are also to blame, because they have allowed the benefits of productivity gains to flow increasingly to profits, shareholder returns and executive pay, instead of workers’ wages.
DOES IT KILL JOBS? The minimum wage is one of the most thoroughly researched issues in economics. Studies in the last 20 years have been especially informative, as economists have been able to compare states that raised the wage above the federal level with those that did not.
The weight of the evidence shows that increases in the minimum wage have lifted pay without hurting employment, a point that was driven home in a recent letter to Mr. Obama and congressional leaders, signed by more than 600 economists, among them Nobel laureates and past presidents of the American Economic Association.
That economic conclusion dovetails with a recent comprehensive study, which found that minimum wage increases resulted in “strong earnings effects” — that is, higher pay — “and no employment effects” — that is, zero job loss.
So, why is it that politicians of the GOP ilk think that providing basics to people will make them “lazy”? I just don’t get it. Everything that I learned about workers from both my practical experience as a daughter to a small business owner and from my university classes is that secure and happy workers are productive workers.
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) on Sunday suggested that President Barack Obama’s health care law would make some people so lazy that they didn’t want to work at all.
Last week, Republicans used a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report that said 2.3 million less hours would be worked after the Affordable Care Act was implemented to claim that the law was destroying jobs.
A Washington Postfact check, however, pointed out that access to health care meant that people would no longer be forced to work if their only reason for working was to receive insurance benefits.
But on Sunday, Blunt stuck to the Republican talking point, saying that providing health care “can’t be a good idea” if it allowed people who were only working for health insurance benefits to leave the workforce.
“I think any law you pass that discourages people from working can’t be a good idea,” the Missouri Republican asserted. “Why would we wanna do that? Why would we think that’s a good thing? How does that allow people to prepare for the time when they don’t work?”
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), who also appeared on Fox News Sunday, was ready with an answer.
“They’re in employment solely because they get health benefits,” Cardin explained. “This is a voluntary choice.”
Again, and anecdotally, my cousin Betsy is a breast cancer survivor. She is also a small business owner and designer. She can’t get individual health care. Her 67 year old husband cannot retire until she gets Medicare which is a few years away. That is, Al couldn’t retire until now. Betsy cannot be refused health insurance any more. Betsy is nearing medicare age, but what about all those babies that can now be covered by the Affordable Health Care Act? Is Blunt suggesting that babies are lazy?
And what about this child who was trapped in the hell realm of standardized testing. Actually, what’s worse is that his caring teacher’s job depended on him successfully taking tests that were irrelevant and difficult for him because his scores could mean her job. This is the no child left behind morass initiated by the W Bush administration, In a sad update, this child died on Thursday while being harassed to live up to his future as a cog in the wheel.
Eleven-year-old Ethan Rediske has been in hospice care for the past month and is likely nearing the last days of his life. Yet, it appears Florida school officials aren’t convinced he should be able to opt out of an upcoming standardized test.
Florida requires all students in the state to take a version of Florida’s Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). While a recent law allows some special education studentsfacing exceptional circumstances to be exempt from these tests, getting approval isn’t easy.
Although Ethan, who was born with cerebral palsy and has severe brain damage, was already waived from taking these tests, his family is being required to go through “a multi-layered process” to prove he should still be exempt from the standardized testing, the Orlando Sentinel notes.
The Rediskes could ignore exemption requirements, but if they do not go through the proper channels, Ethan’s special education teacher, Jennifer Rose, will likely be penalized — something the family does not want to happen. (As the report notes, in Florida, teacher evaluation scores and pay are tied to standardized test scores.)
“Jennifer is the greatest example of what a dedicated teacher should be,” Ethan’s mother, Andrea, recently wrote in an e-mail to an Orange County School Board member, according to the Washington Post.
The email notes that although the teacher has communicated that Ethan is in hospice care, she has been required to fill out reports on his progress. “This madness has got to stop,” the mom’s message concludes.
Last year, before Florida passed a law allowing children in extraordinary circumstances to opt out of standardized testing, Ethan was required to take a version of the FCAT. At the time, his mother spoke out about the physical strain this was putting on her son.
“Each question can take up to 10 to 15 minutes just to do one question. So he’s spending hours in his wheelchair and he has severely compromised lungs,” Andrea told local outlet Bay News 9 at the time.
She also said the test’s questions weren’t relevant for her son.
“They’re asking him questions about the way a peach tastes, and he’s fed through a tube in his stomach, and he will never taste a peach. They ask him about shoes and staplers and alarm clocks and school buses. Ethan doesn’t interact with any of those things,” she told the outlet.
Instead of caring for our children and our future, we’d much rather slut slam the mother and deny her access to food, family planning, and 
abortion services. We’d also rather punish the children instead of provide them with a chance to rise above their birth circumstances. Why is it always the mother–not the sperm donor–and the child that are punished?
That argument ignores a troubling truth: Single-parent families are not the same in the United States as elsewhere. Simply put, unmarried parents here are more likely to enter into parenthood in ways guaranteed to create turmoil in their children’s lives. The typical American single mother is younger than her counterpart in other developed nations. She is also more likely to live in a community where single motherhood is the norm rather than an alternative life choice.
The sociologist Kathryn Edin has shown that unlike their more educated peers, these younger, low-income women tend to stop using contraception several weeks or months after starting a sexual relationship. The pregnancy — not lasting affection and mutual decision-making — that often follows is the impetus for announcing that they are a couple. Unsurprisingly, by the time the thrill of sleepless nights and colicky days has worn off, two relative strangers who have drifted into becoming parents together notice they’re just not that into each other. Hence, the high breakup rates among low-income couples: Only a third of unmarried parents are still together by the time their children reach age 5.
Also complicating low-income single parenthood in America is what the experts call “multipartner fertility.” Both divorced and never-married Americans are more likely to repartner and start “second families” than Europeans, but the trend is far more common among unmarried parents. According to data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study at Princeton and Columbia Universities, over 60 percent of low-income babies will have at least one half sibling when they are born; by the time they are 5, the proportion will have climbed to over 70 percent.
All of this would be of merely passing interest if it weren’t for the evidence that this kind of domestic churn is really bad news for kids. The more “transitions” experienced by a child — the arrival of a stepparent, a parental boyfriend or girlfriend, or a step- or half sibling — the more children are likely to have either emotional or academic problems, or both. (My own research indicates that boys, especially, suffer from these transitions.)
Part of the problem is that a nonresident father tends to fade out of his children’s lives if there’s a new man in his ex’s house or if he has children with a new partner. For logistical, emotional and financial reasons, his loyalty to his previous children slackens once he has a child with a new girlfriend or wife. Nor is it likely, from the overlooked child’s point of view, that a mother’s new boyfriend or husband can fill the gap. There’s substantial research showing thatstepfathers are sometimes worse than none at all.
These realities help explain the meager results of government marriage promotion programs. It doesn’t make much sense to encourage, much less pressure, a couple with no shared history, interests or deep affection to marry. At any rate, given the prevalence of multipartner fertility it’s not clear, as one scholar asked in a paper, “who should marry whom.”
But those same realities raise serious doubts about the accept-and-prop-up response to single-parent families. Increasing government largess could actually incentivize, or at least enable, parental choices that everyone admits are damaging to kids. The United States aside, scholars have found a connection between the size of a welfare state and rates of both nonmarital births and divorce. Even if you believe that enlarging the infrastructure of support for single-parent families shows compassion for today’s children, it’s not at all obvious that it shows much concern for tomorrow’s.
Most surprising, given the likely feminist sympathies of liberal advocates for single mothers, is their fatalism toward men. While it’s a safe bet that most in this camp wouldn’t hesitate to scold married “bastards on the couch” for not pulling their weight at home, they seem more than willing to write off unmarried fathers. Not only does this merely accept the personal loss suffered by millions of children living without their fathers; it also virtually guarantees a permanent gender gap — single mothers are inevitably competing in the labor market with one hand tied behind their backs — and entrenched inequality.
If you believe the teachings of the majority religion in this country, then we will be judged by how we treat the least among us. May I suggest that those folks should be very afraid?
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
This post is fantastic.
Ditto
It’s really quite wonderful.
Indeed!
Wow, thanks.
I agree.
It’s an excellent post, but very painful to read, especially the story about Ethan Rediske. I used to teach severely handicapped children. They and their parents certainly have enough to deal with already without having to put up with cruel and stupid school officials. It’s heartbreaking.
O/T, but the crazy Right must be going even crazier today with the revelation that Genl. Petraeus admitted he believes that Hillary Clinton would make a great president.
With the stable of GOP wannabe’s standing in line to announce their intentions for 2016 this announcement must be sending shivers up their collective spines.
Especially Rand Paul who seems to be making the Clinton’s the cornerstone of his future campaign.
Tsk, tsk.
I hope heads exploded. 🙂
I guess Deal is getting a second chance:: Snowjam, the sequel: A chance at redemption | Political Insider blog
This storm is supposed to be worse. Expecting 5 to 9 inches up here in Banjoville. Should be interesting to say the least.
Uh oh! When is the snow coming? If it’s tonight, that doesn’t give Deal much time.
We’re supposed to get a big storm on Thursday.
Well, Deal has declared a State of Emergency…and Union County…our county is one of them: Atlanta Weather | Winter storm watch goes into effect Monday | http://www.wsbtv.com
Is he actually going to ask for businesses and schools to close? I know how much losing money for a day two would put those poor corporations in such a bind. After all,workers are just poor excuses for machines, you know and it’s just people not any form of sacred life like a zygote.
Oh, the schools have already put the notice up that they are closed for the next two days. Word must have gone out…seriously…big time!
You’ve done a fine job this morning Dak, expressing exactly how it is. I will add the giraffe story, where a young healthy giraffe was shot and butchered at a Copenhagen zoo, and fed to the lions. All this done in front of young children. I am not happy with the lazy stereotyping either. As I look around and see how women and children are portrayed by the GOP and the religious right, I can’t help but wonder why they enjoy doing this?
We have got to stick together, as women, as families. Listening to this, and following up on the Moral Monday Movement Kicks in NC standing together is very encouraging. I am spending my day on the phone with veterans seeking answers as to why Lee Taylor a US Navy veteran cannot be buried in Veterans cemetery with her wife………..
http://youtu.be/Rqy0chNJ8KQ
I’ve been seeing pictures of the giraffe and it being fed to the lions as well as the huge pile of dead dogs shot at Sochi. My heart has been breaking for about a day now.
For sure………….I did watch the Westminster dog show last night, Banana Joe took the honors, being a toy terrier. Never has a Labrador retriever won best of show in 135 years. They are my favorite family dogs.
My niece and her husband gave birth to a micro-premie weighing in at less than 2 pounds. Her husband works for a small tech firm (much smaller than AOL) in Northern Virginia. I’m fairly certain her baby spent three months in the same NICU unit as the child of the AOL employee mentioned in the article, since it is the best NICU unit in the area and one of the best in the world. Actually, the same NICU unit my daughter was in, but for a much shorter stay. Almost two years later, they have a healthy happy baby and have suffered no penalties or benefit cuts from the dad’s employer. Funny how a small company can provide benefits to its employees without penalizing those employees for actually using them while mighty AOL can’t.
I don’t understand why the party who claims to be pro-life, anti-abortion can allow an employer to complain about such things. In other words, you can’t get an abortion but insurance shouldn’t pay for its medical care once born. !!!!!!!!!!! As the mother of a handicapped child, I just go crazy when I hear this.
Pierre Omidyar’s First Look has new story up that gives very detailed explanations of how the U.S. targets terrorists.
I don’t like the drone program, but the operational detail given in the story is over the line. They don’t actually have proof that no human in itel is used either. They rely on a former drone operator who admits he doesn’t know if the NSA is providing the intel or what is done on the ground. In Yemen, for example the drone program is run by their government, not from U.S.
They also don’t mention the studies that show civilian deaths have gone way down. Name me any war in which civilians don’t die. I would love to end wars, but it’s probably not going to happen, and making it harder to identify terrorists is not going to make it more likely.
According to LGF, with $50 million in start-up funds, Greenwald’s new operation chose to use free WordPress software for its platform.
Glenn Greenwald’s super-duper new website has launch problems
If they think there are a lot of civilian deaths by drones, they should check the results of a cruise missile strike. As a former member of a unit which might have been tasked to drop in and do that in person, if you have to shoot your way in and out, that can be pretty deadly in itself.
I know.
This article is full of speculation–at second hand, from an anonymous source–with no other confirmation. Just a guy speculating after admitting he really doesn’t know that much other than his role as drone operation.
The thing about bombs and bullets is they do not discriminate. From what I’ve read and what I’ve been told by people who’ve witnessed a drone strike is that it is much more surgical and precise than field artillery, missiles or bombs dropped from overhead. The thing that can’t be forgotten is that the people who are the targets of these drone strikes hide out among innocent civilians, often women, children and old people, so whose surprised when civilians are killed? Even the most feared terrorist on the globe, Osama Bin Laden, spent the end of his life hiding behind innocent women and children. Too bad they had to bury him at sea, the bottom of the ocean deserves better!!!
I’ll be honest, I’ve avoided all of the liberal hand wringing over overseas drone attacks. I remember a time when we sent pilots into harm’s way in order to take out targets. Now we can send a plane without a pilot risking his life. Isn’t that better? Like you said, yes there are human casualties like in any war or conflict but if using technology can save even one life isn’t that better? And sure, no wars or conflicts or nests of terrorists or even terrorism at all would be a best case scenario, but that is not the world in which we live.
The funniest thing about the First Look opening day: They say they have “exclusive photos” of NSA headquarters, but it turns out the photos are identical to the ones posted on the NSA website!
http://www.nsa.gov/about/photo_gallery/index.shtml
Probably exclusively downloaded from the NSA website. 😉 What’s one more little lie among lord knows how many?
The American terrorist they are considering on taking out today (they hadn’t revealed his name), reminded me of the terrorist in Yemen, Anwar-al-awlaki. That was back in 2011 when he was killed, and their was much to do from republicans and others about taking him out. Calling Obama out as being wrong do to so. Glenn Geenwald argued on salon that Pres. Obama was violating his first amendment and free speech rights in regards to Awlaki.
Awalki had connections with several extremist, including the Fort Hood Shooter. There was a lot of information on him.
First Look is a security and privacy hole. Bwahahahaha…
FirstLook.org fails at security so far
Ha that is funny!
Okay, here’s one for you:
Man charged with molesting child identified by witnesses as abortion-clinic bomber
http://freakoutnation.com/2014/02/08/man-charged-with-molesting-child-identified-by-witnesses-as-abortion-clinic-bomber/
Snohomish County, Washington authorities believe that the man who groped an 11-year-old girl at a local grocery store last month is the same man who fire-bombed abortion clinics in Everett and Bellingham in the 1980′s.
Figures. PLUBs don’t really care about kids except as something to use.
NRA board member: Bullied kids commit suicide because boys have been ‘neutered’: “Full Metal Jacket” actor and… http://bit.ly/1lqwltA
In other news, the Nagin trial has gone to jury.
What verdict do you expect?
I can’t imagine it won’t be guilty but all it takes is one gullible juror to hang it.
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2014/02/in_ray_nagin_trial_closing_arg.html#incart_2box
In final pitch to jury, prosecutor says Ray Nagin lied to cover dirty dealings
Nothing like bad publicity to drive stock prices and CEO bonuses awry
Bwahahaha! 🙂
Interesting and promising:
Video is from a closed circuit camera. Now this is an “exclusive”.
tpm: WaPo Obtains Rare Video Of U.S. Abducting Suspected Al-Qaeda Terrorist
Wonder if we’re the beginning of an exodus?
Former Fla. Rep. Leaves GOP That’s Being ‘Held Hostage By A Group Of Extremists’
Good for them … in other news, it looks like Scott Walker is in trouble with the campaign finance laws.
Maybe they’ll OD on Koch money.
You can’t learn to live with the republicans, can’t do it.
Tonight on TCM…some awesome movies! Best screenplay for 1940: The Great McGinty, Foreign Correspondent, Great Dictator, so be sure to watch it if you can.
I love “Foreign Correspondent”. I seen it many times but I never get tired of it. I think Joel McCrea was very underrated as an actor. He made some excellent films.
I know I saw that the Ragin’ Cajun” joined the fox news network yesterday.
Did y’all see this? Package explodes in Tennessee, one dead, one hurt | Reuters
Meth lab explosion at Lebanon motel – WSMV Channel 4
Good grief this is just pathetic! The Hillary Papers?
Their strategy is to create “Clinton Fatigue”. The right is going to be putting the Clinton name in the media every day until voters tune out and decide they are sick of Clinton and want someone “new”.
That’s all they have.
House Republicans are so desperate to say they got something for a debt limit increase they’re holding it hostage for a spending increase that Obama and the Democrats already want. 🙂
Debt Limit Shenanigans Reach New Level of Farce
The latest is they are voting on a clean bill tonight because of the upcoming snowstorm.
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/02/house-gop-debt-limit-plan-103370.html?hp=t1_3
The Democratic Attorney General and Republican Governor are in agreement.
Nevada Officials Won’t Defend Gay Marriage Ban
Great news!
The Idaho Veterans Cemetery, is owned by the State. The state laws refuse to allow a veteran spouse (same sex) to be buried at the cemetery. I had earlier reported that Vietnam Veteran Madelynn Lee Taylor has requested her wife be buried with her, and they will not allow this.
My husband, is white, he is a Vietnam veteran, and I am more than welcomed to be buried with him at the cemetery. We can even preregister to get our plot, so that when the day comes we are good to go. I told them I would never consent to be buried a cemetery that does not allow the same services they offer us, to another veteran, who is denied because she/he is married to same sex spouse. They having served in the same war as my husband, or any war for that matter. The state is bring much pain that is unneeded to our Veterans, they want to control people, even in death. Here is case of Republicans saying government is too big, yet they are ones who further the “bigness” by not caring or understanding human rights.
Lee Taylor along with 43 others were arrested at the capital last week. On Friday, the attorney general passed a law acknowledging same sex marriages. What happens now, is the fine tuning of the law and guidelines, and if Idaho does not adhere to the new guidelines/laws, then Idaho will lose all funding for their cemeteries.
I don’t know what the future holds, Lee Taylor has done all the right things she could, in serving the country, and improving the lives in Boise, Ada County, Idaho. She’s not a failure, she is as worthy as the next veteran who wants to leave this world with their beloved ones.
The morning post has been up for quite awhile. Could you guys move up there please? I’ve got much more on the Hillary papers.