Monday Reads: Years of Living Dangerously
Posted: March 2, 2015 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: income inequality, morning reads, poverty |
Good Morning!
Recently, I’ve been cooking a lot of my Nana’s depression years recipes and thinking of ways to tighten my belt. I’ve been watching the stock market go crazy and corporate profits improve in the macroeconomy. It’s beginning to translate into the labor markets but it really varies state to state. As you know, my right wing Republican Governor Bobby Jindal has been running away from his responsibilities and record here in Louisiana and spending time on the road. He’s made visits to CPAC and FOX and even the lawn of the White House trying unsuccessfully to draw attention to his “possible” presidential bid. He’s going nowhere but down in Republican Straw polls which is karma as far as I’m concerned.
What has been getting attention is his record of failure here. It’s a doozy. It doesn’t get much worse than having MSN’s Wall Street 24/7 call your state the worst place to do business and then list the reasons that your state resembles Somalia more than a developed nation.
> Real GDP growth, 2012-2013: 1.3% (17th lowest)
> Average wages and salaries, 2013: $44,828 (23rd lowest)
> Pct. of adults with bachelor’s degree, 2013: 22.5% (5th lowest)
> Patents issued to residents, 2013: 395 (13th lowest)
> Projected working-age population growth, 2010-2020: -3.2% (13th lowest)
No state fared worse on 24/7 Wall St.’s business climate index than Louisiana. The state is not the worst place to run all businesses, however. The manufacturing sector accounted for more than 20% of Louisiana’s economic output in 2013, the fourth highest such contribution in the country. Despite the strong sector, Louisiana generally provides poor conditions for business.
Nearly one in five residents lived in poverty in 2013 — nearly the worst rate in the nation — contributing to both the low quality of the labor force as well as a low quality of life in the state. The working-age population was projected to decline by 3.2% from 2010 through 2020, one of the worst declines in the nation. While nearly 30% of Americans had at least a bachelor’s degree as of 2013, only 22.5% of Louisiana adults had at least such a degree, also nearly the lowest rate. Poor education contributed to poor scores in innovation. The state was one of only a handful of states where the average venture capital investment was less than $1 million.
Jindal’s been slavishly following Grover Norquist’s prescriptions for drowning the state government in his bathtub. He’s also part and parcel passed legislation straight from ALEC and the Koch Brothers. As a result, we have a $1.6 million dollar deficit that’s going to be challenging to eliminate. This is especially true since he’s spent the last 6 years pulling every slight of hand accounting trick in the book, sold off all possible state assets, and siphoned most all reserve funds. His first draft basically put all the state’s public universities in financial exigency which is a public entity’s version of bankruptcy reorganization. It also looks like the public health system is on the verge of collapse.
So, this is now the “new” idea being floated by some.. There’s discussion going on to basically tell a lot of the universities to go privatize themselves.
Years of deep cuts to state funding for Louisiana’s colleges and universities — and the threat of even further reductions in the near future — have some leaders looking at drastic measures that could change the face of Louisiana higher education.
One idea that has recently been floated: Why not encourage some of the state’s public schools to go private?
The idea, which experts agree is radical and may not ever be feasible, came up during a recent meeting of the state Board of Regents, a group appointed by Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, whose administration has led the charge for recent state budgets that have left Louisiana with some of the nation’s most severe cuts to higher education funding. Regents board members have instructed state higher education staff members to examine the concept and report back on whether the plan would work and what it would take.
“You look at some areas of the state, there may be a university or a college inside of a university that could do better as a private entity,” Board of Regents Chairman Roy Martin said in a follow-up interview with The Advocate.
Martin stressed that he was speaking as an individual, not for the board.
It’s hard to describe how the years of defunding basic education, roads, and public health and safety service has impacted everyone’s life around here. I see homeless people on every major street corner. I have friends looking for second jobs or first jobs. Many people I know have either left town or moved out of the historical districts. This is not the post Katrina revival that we were promised. However, it’s not that way for some folks.
One of the strangest things that’s going on here is the boom
in real estate which is being driven by the purchase of huge, million dollar homes. A group of us have been trying to figure out where the jobs are to support these kinds of purchases. Essentially, we found out that most of these sales are going to people who are looking for second homes and they’re coming from out of state. So, the feel of a banana republic tropical island is getting a complete workout here.
The top-of-the-market houses are “rising in price at least as fast as the market as a whole,” Ragas said, based on conversations with Realtors.
“In the higher market, it is a much brisker market now,” said Rick Haase, president of Latter & Blum Inc., which sold nearly one-third of the 158 homes priced at $1 million or more that were sold during the 12-month period ending Jan. 31.
The highest-priced home to sell in the New Orleans area last year was advertised as a “stately Queen Anne home” featuring seven bedrooms, 5 ½ bathrooms, “lush gardens with organically grown citrus trees and grapes,” and a heated pool. The property at 3 Audubon Place was listed for sale at $5.25 million and sold 86 days later for $5 million, or $583.57 per square foot.
Haase said the average number of days that properties selling at more than $1 million stay on the market has dropped from more than 150 to 90.
It took just one day for the sixth most-expensive New Orleans-area property to sell last year. The three-bedroom, three-bathroom single-family home at 828 Chartres St. in the French Quarter sold for its full asking price of $2.3 million, or $575 a square foot.
“It’s not like every house flies off the market. But if it’s priced appropriately, in the right location, has the right pedigree, then, yeah, the numbers are going up and up,” said Keller Williams Realtor Ricky Lemann, who was the listing agent on a $2.25 million property on First Street that sold last year. “There will be no adjustment in that luxury market until the (interest) rates go up.”
I’ve really noticed that the kinds of people moving into my part of town are not the same kinds of people that are selling and leaving. The house next door went from rental property to a starter home using the Obama Tax incentives to a home away from home for two Northeasterners within a period of about 5 years. It now spends most of its time as an unlicensed short term rental which is basically illegal. But, one owner is in NJ and the other came from Philadelphia so they don’t seem to care much about that.
The split between rich and poor is becoming more accentuated and its address is changing as the downtowns of large cities have become gentrified and homes priced out of the reach of middle and working class families. 
This is having some appalling impacts on children as the majority of U.S. public schools now have children that are classified as living in poverty. It’s now first tier suburbs where poverty issues are playing out.
For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families, according to a new analysis of 2013 federal data, a statistic that has profound implications for the nation.
The Southern Education Foundation reports that 51 percent of students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade in the 2012-2013 school year were eligible for the federal program that provides free and reduced-price lunches. The lunch program is a rough proxy for poverty, but the explosion in the number of needy children in the nation’s public classrooms is a recent phenomenon that has been gaining attention among educators, public officials and researchers.
“We’ve all known this was the trend, that we would get to a majority, but it’s here sooner rather than later,” said Michael A. Rebell of the Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College at Columbia University, noting that the poverty rate has been increasing even as the economy has improved. “A lot of people at the top are doing much better, but the people at the bottom are not doing better at all. Those are the people who have the most children and send their children to public school.”
More Americans are now living in poverty in suburbs than in urban areas. This is pushing problems into areas ill-equipped and financed to handle them.
City centers around the country are becoming younger, more affluent and more educated, while inner suburbs are seeing poverty rates rise, according to a new study from the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service.
The new study is based on an analysis of demographic changes in 66 cities between 1990 and 2012. It comes just months after a surge of headlines about suburban poverty following a Brookings Institution study that found that more Americans are now living in poverty in the suburbs than in rural or urban areas.
News of this demographic shift comes as no surprise to suburban school superintendents and school boards. They know their student populations are shifting, and they are wrestling with how to adequately serve the rising number of poor children who come to class with far more needs than their more affluent peers.
Children and Seniors are being particularly hard hit by the defunding of services on both the state and federal level but zealous Republicans look to score points by poor shaming. They make scapegoats of the nation’s most vulnerable people. While Social Security has been indexed to increase with price increases, Seniors are not exempt from income inequality. Part of the issue with Social Security funding is the cap on income subject to FICA taxes. The cap has created a funding gap.
As America recovers from the recession, wealthy households are recovering faster than low-income ones, whose incomes have stagnated or declined since the crash. A new report says that this widening gap is sapping Social Security.
Currently, two-thirds of seniors rely on the program for their retirement income. The wage gap may have cost Social Security$1 trillion over the last 30 years, according to a report last week from the Center for American Progress.
And as more Americans reach retirement age, Social Security is set to eat through its funding by 2033, assuming that Congress takes no action to bolster it. After that it would only be able to cover 77 percent of its claims.
“For low-income seniors, Social Security represents nearly 85 percent of income. Even for seniors right in the middle, Social Security represents nearly two-thirds of their retirement income,” said Rebecca Vallas, director of CAP’s poverty program.
Small wages, big shortfalls
The pension and disability insurance program is funded by a payroll tax that applies to wages of $118,500 and below. But the money flowing into the program is not as large as it could be, according to the report, now that an increasing share of wage growth is going to people who make more than that, and low-wage workers make less.
Why does that matter for Social Security? Because highest earners reach the$118,500 “cap” quickly and stop paying into the fund for the rest of the year. “Social Security funding is directly tied to the full wages of low and middle income workers,” Vallas says. “It’s their wages that matter.”
The payroll tax cap was set in 1983 by President Reagan, which at the time captured 90 percent of wages. “Reagan essentially said, let’s go for 90 percent, and we will let 10 percent go,” says Vallas.
But since 1983, that cap hasn’t been adjusted for wage growth to keep up with the 90 percent goal. “What they didn’t anticipate is income inequality,” says Vallas. “The highest earners have seen growth much faster than the average worker.”
Now the tax cap only captures 83 percent of wages, instead of 90. The missing 7 percent is part of the Social Security shortfall.
Of course, all of these issues have come because we’ve shifted the burden of paying for things from businesses and the wealthiest. We’ve also shifted the subsidizes to businesses and the wealthiest. As a result, fewer and fewer services are being offered, few people are covered, and fewer jobs are available.
Hand-in-hand with reducing taxes and reducing government services has been the demonization of public servants. Scott Walker–one of the front runners for the Republican presidential nomination–likened fire 
fighter and teacher unions to ISIS while talking to CPAC over the weekend.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) just outside Washington, DC, Wisconsin Governor and likely presidential candidate Scott Walker was asked what his plan would be, were he in the White House, to combat the terrorism perpetuated by the Islamic State In Syria (ISIS).
As an enthusiastic crowd cheered, he responded not with a plan but with an argument for why his battles against organized labor in his state makes him the most qualified for the job.
“We need have someone who leads and ultimately will send a message that not only will we protect American soil, but…freedom-loving people anywhere else in the world. We need that confidence,” he said. “If I can take on a hundred thousand protesters, I can do the same across the world.”
These kinds of jobs have been central to working and middle class upward mobility in the past. They’ve also been jobs that have traditionally been much more integrated and diverse. Scott Walker linked public servants to terrorists. Think about that.
In 2011, Walker pushed through a law, Act 10, that slashed the power of public employee unions to bargain, and cut pay for most public sector workers. As a special slap to teachers, Walker exempted the unions of police, firefighters and state troopers from the changes in collective bargaining rights but not educators. Teachers protested for a long time, closing schools for days, but the law passed, and the impact on teachers unions in Wisconsin has been dramatic: according to this piece by my Post colleague Robert Samuels. The state branch of the National Education Association, once 100,000 strong, has seen its membership drop by a third, and the American Federation of Teachers, which organized in the college system, has seen a 50 percent decline.
This week may bring down a central tenet of the ACA which has brought private health insurance to millions of people. It has been one policy that has successfully increased the day to day life of ordinary people. Will the Supremes bring it down? Will it be drowned in Scalia’s bathtub? I am one of the 7 1/2 million people who were forced onto the federal exchange because my Republican governor is an asshole. Will I join the ranks of uninsured this week? Me with a chronic condition and a cancer history?
Shortly after the A.C.A. passed, in 2010, a group of conservative lawyers met at a conference in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, and scoured the nine-hundred-page text of the law, looking for grist for possible lawsuits. Michael Greve, a board member of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a libertarian outfit funded by, among others, the Koch brothers, said, of the law, “This bastard has to be killed as a matter of political hygiene. I do not care how this is done, whether it’s dismembered, whether we drive a stake through its heart, whether we tar and feather it and drive it out of town, whether we strangle it.” In time, lawyers hired by the C.E.I. discovered four words buried in Section 36B, which refers to the exchanges—now known as marketplaces—where people can buy health-insurance policies. The A.C.A. created federal tax subsidies for those earning less than a certain income to help pay for their premiums and other expenses, and, in describing who is eligible, Section 36B refers to exchanges “established by the State.” However, thirty-four states, most of them under Republican control, refused to create exchanges; for residents of such states, the law had established a federal exchange. But, according to the conjurings of the C.E.I. attorneys, the subsidies should be granted only to people who bought policies on the state exchanges, because of those four words in Section 36B. The lawyers recruited plaintiffs and filed a lawsuit; their goal is to revoke the subsidies provided to the roughly seven and a half million people who were left no choice by the states where they live but to buy on the federal exchange.
The claim borders on the frivolous. The plaintiffs can’t assert that the A.C.A. violates the Constitution, because the Justices narrowly upheld the validity of the law in 2012. Rather, the suit claims that the Obama Administration is violating the terms of its own law. But the A.C.A. never even suggests that customers on the federal exchange are ineligible for subsidies. In fact, there’s a provision that says that, if a state refuses to open an exchange, the federal government will “establish and operate such Exchange within the State.” The congressional debate over the A.C.A. included fifty-three meetings of the Senate Finance Committee and seven days of committee debates on amendments. The full Senate spent twenty-five consecutive days on it, the second-longest session ever on a single piece of legislation. There were similar marathons in the House. Yet no member of Congress ever suggested that the subsidies were available only on the state exchanges. This lawsuit is not an attempt to enforce the terms of the law; it’s an attempt to use what is at most a semantic infelicity to kill the law altogether.
I spent the weekend and a few days before that watching people I went to high school with that mostly didn’t attend college squawk about people on disability, unemployment, and government waste and give away. They say all Obama supporters are the ones that want 
benefits but no jobs. It’s just all kinds of drivel that Fox spews that’s easy to debunk with facts but impossible to debunk to hard core idiots who aren’t interested in facts, truth, or reality. What has happened to the country that I grew up in and even to the state that I moved to 20 years ago? I turn 60 this year. I’ve never seen so much vitriol aimed at the wrong people in my life and for what?
I want to point you back to the kind of crap spewed by Republicans recently with a quote from an Indiana office seeker from the last election. This guy basically said let the poor “wither and die”. It’s basically what they all think but don’t say.
“For almost three generations people, in some cases, have been given handouts. They have been ‘enabled’ so much that their paradigm in life is simply being given the stuff of life, however meager.
What you see is a setting for a life of misery is life to them never-the-less. No one has the guts to just let them wither and die. No one who wants votes is willing to call a spade a spade. As long as the Dems can get their votes the enabling will continue. The Republicans need their votes and dare not cut the fiscal tether. It is really a political Catch-22.”
I’m sitting here wondering what you’re supposed to do to get a job any more in a state like mine. I’m even wondering what you’ve got to do to get a decent education. I’m so glad my kids have gotten out of LSU so that they’re missing the impact of Jindal’s scourge.
So here’s a good lesson in karma if you want one. A gun loving Obama and Obamacare hating Sheriff who is now trying to recover medical costs by using Go Fund me. Evidently, Obamacare was too bad for him but begging at this point isn’t. Also, guess who is funding him the most? Liberals. Lessons are really hard to learn, aren’t they?
Sheriff Richard Mack is the right wing former sheriff of Graham County, Arizona. He is the head of an organization called “Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association,” a member of the NRA’s Hall Of Fame, and a staunch opponent of the policies of President Obama, including Obamacare.
Richard Mack has run into some medical problems and since he is uninsured, he’s asking for help. Mack suffered a heart attack on January 12. This apparently came right on the heels of some serious medical issues that were suffered by his wife. His son, Jimmy Mack, has set up a GoFundMe campaign, asking for donations to help offset the cost of medical treatment. Apparently the Macks were expecting right wing supporters to step up to the plate and help out but, judging by the comments that accompany many of the donations, Mack is getting the bulk of his support from liberals.
As of this writing, Mack has received close to $20,000 in donations from 439 people. The commenters are sympathetic to Mack’s situation — far more sympathetic than Mack and his supporters have been to the plight of those without health insurance. Many hope that he will use it as a learning experience, to change his views about the Affordable Care Act.
Some times I just want to cook my Nana’s hamhocks and beans and read Grapes of Wrath while never turning on the TV or computer again. However, that never happens either. I rant, therefore I blog. I blog, therefore I wonder why so few people really get it?
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Did you like this post? Please share it with your friends:
Related
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Excellent post, though sad because no one in power seems to care.
Regular people were priced out of living in downtown Boston decades ago. Next, living in Cambridge became impossible for students and working people. Gradually, these groups have moved out to the closer suburbs like where I live and these towns have become yuppified. Middle-class people with families have moved out to the outer suburbs where houses are cheaper.
As for the Social Security situation, how ridiculous is that cap these days? Something really has to be done about it, but who will do it?
How bad do things have to get before working people get angry enough to fight for their own best interests? We are already a third world country, IMO.
Fox’s job is to keep people angry at the wrong people and wrong things.
True
Warning: unedited video containing graphic violence and language.
LAPD gun down a homeless mentally ill man on city street.
LA Times:
LAPD seeks more videos in officers’ shooting of man on skid row
I saw that last night. The police in this country are out of control like JJ said yesterday.
This is an absolute stunning read.
http://www.cjr.org/the_profile/the_irredeemable_chris_rose.php
For those of you who read my post on bomb trains a week ago.
http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/news/11735455-148/two-railroad-cars-derail-in
A bit of a premonition?
Oxford Economics @OUPEconomics 8s8 seconds ago
Read ‘Inequality in democracies: interest groups and redistribution’ by Vuk Vukovic here http://oxford.ly/1Dufahr
http://www.salon.com/2015/03/02/my_libertarian_vacation_nightmare_how_ayn_rand_ron_paul_their_groupies_were_all_debunked/
Facebook removed video of LAPD shooting and killing homeless mentally ill man.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/lapd-shooting-video-removed-facebook
It is disgusting. I could not bring myself to watch it. When I saw that reported shooting as it was first reported yesterday morning, I thought about putting a link to it on my post from Sunday. But it was so depressing and disturbing that I’ve shut the internet off all day. House of Cards loaded up on Netflix and I’ve watch another series called Peaky Blinders…just escape from the shit is all I feel like doing. BB, tell me that this clump of rain we are getting isn’t going to bring more snow eventually up your way?
We’re supposed to get freezing rain tonight, but I think it’s coming from the Midwest. Something else is supposed to come on Thursday. I’m really rooting for us to break the snow record at this point.
The bandits can’t get enough, they want more and more, and like say Dak, the people here are living in poverty, and the GOP goes around pissing on us, while filling their pockets to the tilt. Here’s another overreach into our pockets:
http://rt.com/236545-israel-us-funds-defense/
Israel asks for additional $300 mm for missile defense. They completely by passed the WH and the pentagon and went to congress. I don’t know if this has ever happened before in our history. They want to fund Israel’s David & Goliath (David Sling) program, and other defense contractors like Raytheon (one the largest headquartered in Massachusetts, and the Arrow 3 missile program. George W. Bush funded this program back 2007 – with 30 Billion until the year 2018. President Obama has continued to provide the funds.
The White House is also concerned about the Iran nuclear as the state department said that Israel inaccurately is providing information, and twisting our position on nuclear talks, not to mention leaks regarding uranium enrichment has spread like wild fire. Read it in article. I’ve tried to contact Diane Fienstein’s office as she heads up the appropriations committee. I know she plans on listening to Netayahu’s speech tomorrow.
Here’s profits for Raytheon
http://www.wsj.com/articles/raytheon-profit-rises-5-as-orders-continue-1414062302
There is some major shit going on here and Israel, and with homeland security funding, and it’s just wrong. The bandits seem to be making off big time, and they aren’t going through the proper channels. It just bothers me.
Why we enable genocide is beyond me.
Fannie, you’re on a roll lately. Your rants are epic!
sorry: http://rt.com/news/236545-israel-us-funds-defense/
So Hillary Clinton used a personal email account while she was Secretary of State. Is that illegal; if it isn’t, shut the fuck up!
Now, the artist who painted Bill Clinton’s official portrait confesses that he was obsessed with the Lewinsky imbroglio, so much so that he painted in a blue dress shadow. What a dick move; why now?
Those of you who have so many doubts about Hillary need to ask yourselves why the malefactors of great wealth are moving heaven and earth to kneecap her.
I know. I was sick and tired of it in 2008, but we’re going to have to deal with it again. That thing about the portrait is beyond sick.
I think the artist must be having some fantasy issues. Plus, it’s not even a good portrait, imho!!!!
It’s not, it feminizes Bill and not in a good way. He looks epicene-neutered, in a way.
Apparently both Clintons hate it.
“Those of you who have so many doubts about Hillary need to ask yourselves why the malefactors of great wealth are moving heaven and earth to kneecap her.”
They’re moving heaven and earth because they fear THE WOMAN.
“I rant, therefore I blog. I blog, therefore I wonder why so few people really get it?”
I totally get it.