Freedom to assemble

McPherson Square, Occupy DC/Wall Street site, pictures below. Agreeing with Roland Martin of CNN, I see the Occupy situation as a moral issue. Not a left or right nor conservative or liberal issue. Many who call themselves Republicans or Democrats or Independents alike have been discouraged for quite some time at the stagnant wages for the labor in our country. But to meet our immediate need, many also believe that reducing recent tax cuts on the concentrated 90% of our wealth to lower our country’s debt makes more mathematical sense than trying to get the necessary funds out of the 10%. (I’m talking actual wealth, doesn’t matter who owns it, but it must come from the majority of the actual wealth)

The “right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances”* is part of our FIRST Amendment. Not our second, or tenth, or later. Our FIRST. You may not agree with the protesters this time, but calling them a mob does not make them one – No more than you should automatically be part of a mob next time you believe you have a reason to assemble.

*from the Library of Congress Website:

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=144

Peculiar occupations for women !!??

During some research last week, I used the 1910 Census of Population, volume IV, Occupation Statistics. On page 22 I read an unusual heading: Peculiar Occupations for Women. Peculiar Occupations? Oh how I laughed when I first read that heading! The paragraph continued – “The Thirteenth Census enumerators, like the enumerators at previous censuses, return women as following many occupations which are very peculiar and unusual for women.”

In other words, several occupations, such as sailors, longshoremen, smeltermen, and blacksmiths, were listed as having more than the expected number of women holding these jobs. Even though the U.S. Census does not state that no women held these jobs, they do believe there were mistakes made by the enumerators. And some were corrected before the census went to print.

So, looking at jobs held by women, of the 269,000 that worked with the telephone and telegraph industry, almost half were women. And yes, as you can guess, of those women, a large majority were telephone operators. I’m just biting my tongue right now to stop the jokes from pouring out! [And I'm a woman that fits that sterotype!]

Following a few more interesting facts about women and occupations in 1910:

508 cooks with the steam railway system
80 steam train car repairers
1 steam railway coppersmith
1 blacksmith (metal industry)
2 fitters (metal industry)
1 engineer in a power plant

Interesting the words used and the phrasing of terms 100 years ago. We learn so much about our past from original text. Another reason preservation is so terribly important as we try to decipher how we got from point A in one year, to parts B and C 100 years later.

The unbalance has proven harmful. Again.

Let’s make this simple:

Box A contains $90 million dollars. Box B contains $10 million dollars.

Box A is accessible to 10 people. Box B is accessible to 90 people.

In the United States, by the end of the 1970s, the boxes were more even – not such a wide gap between. And together they paid for our government and provided the wealth of our country.

Box A people mostly control the money – CEOs and business owners and such. Their money grew as Box A and Box B people worked together to grow the wealth. Only the money controllers began to increase at higher rates what they paid themselves, and lowered the rate of growth of what they paid the workers. (There are exceptions, of course. Not all Box A people have been so money hungry. I am talking about the group as a whole.)

Now, we are in a mess. People saw “it” coming, but no one would really address the growing problem because, well, what I’ve mentioned above seemed to be protected by capitalism, something that many people seem to hold more untouchable than God.

Now conservatives in Congress are listening to only the Box A people. Somehow, the U.S. is to remain strong and viable by having Box A pay a smaller percentage of taxes than ever. Yes, they already pay the most tax money, but they don’t pay as large a percentage. However, since they have kept so much of the money for themselves, what else can be done? And until they decide to let go and pay workers their due, they need to face up to the fact that they need to pay more.

How, in a democracy did we let this happen? Is it because so many Box B people do not vote? How did we elect people to Congress that so strongly look after only Box A?

Businesses provide jobs and workers provide the labor for the jobs. One cannot continue and grow without the other. When did America forget this simple equation?

Economic woes. Really? Hard to tell.

I am a federal employee (disclosure moment!) and partially going to repeat myself today. Should all branches of our federal government look at ways to cut unnecessary spending? Absolutely! However, if congress was serious about spending cuts, they would require each agency to study their own services with their staff regarding which cuts would not harm our society and business community. Provide a time frame for results and percentage criteria. Need not take months and months.

If for just a moment we remove our two wars from the budget, how much “out of control federal spending” has brought about job loss and the economic downturn? Is federal spending truly the major source of our problems? What about banking/accounting/taxing practices outside of the feds? If investigation into this arena is over, what are we going to do with the results? Both Democrats and Republicans have stated the dismay at lack of corporate taxes paid. OK. Now what? Do we tackle the tough problems or simply blame various other groups because it is easier?

A healthy economy is most important for a secure United States. People need jobs to feed and sustain families. We need production. Gross National Product (GNP) depends on production. Period. And even though GNP is a (or the?) major area we study when we look at the healthy economy of any country, we also must consider income of workers/consumers. Without consumers, the bottom line remains red.

There are many issues that have led to our economic downturn. But that’s all I have to say today!

Who pays? More questions than answers

Edward N. Wolff, PhD authored a Levy Economics Institute paper, Recent Trends in Household Wealth in the United States: Rising Debt and the Middle-Class Squeeze – an Update to 2007. Working Paper No. 589, in March of 2010. (Google Wolff. He is quite the economist!)

If you prefer visual information, move down to page 45 where he begins a presentation of several tables comparing income and wealth growth/decay of the various income classes (upper, middle, etc.) of the United States. Realize this paper focuses on the information available only up to 2007, and as many of us have learned, this divide has only grown larger during the last few years.

Why this distribution of wealth is good or bad, healthy for our country or not, strengthening our country or not, is a discussion for another day.

However, as we are looking out our federal deficit, is re-defining how our government spends money a good idea? Absolutely. In my household, this re-defining takes place almost monthly! It is constant. Life changes and expenditure needs change.

My questions today are:

Should those that earn/own 80% or more of the wealth pay more proportionately? Or will we depend on those that earn the bottom 20% to clean up this mess? Will this plan actually be successful?

Tax loopholes or tax benefits – whatever we may call them – we all use them. Even those of us in the bottom 20% of earnings/wages take advantage of them. How long will it take for Congress to make the necessary tax code changes? (Both Democrats and Republicans agree that changes need to be made.) And what will those changes look like to each of us?

Trying to balance the budget? Seriously?

If the new Republican leadership really wants to balance the budget, then why aren’t they giving each agency/organization a percentage less? Then letting those in the agencies, who know best, decide the most cost-effective way to cut the funds? We are way past the point of “doing more with less.” Government agencies and most businesses are doing less with less. And those that work in these agencies and businesses have the ability to make more strategic decisions with their funds. Legislators are giving themselves way too much credit.

Some believe Congress is only trying to push their personal ideals on all Americans, and that these cuts really have little to do with the deficits. I wonder……

Want teachers?

Scott Walker, governor of Wisconsin, believes that taking away collective bargaining rights of school teachers and other state workers will help balance the budget. Not sure about that reasoning, but I do wonder how many of the best and brightest teachers will be eager to teach in that state. Or will they look elsewhere?

Today, 21 Feb 2011, when reading Governor Walker’s official web page, he states in his third paragraph:

“To maintain our commitment to job growth in Wisconsin, we are also encouraging business leaders and citizens to voice their concerns and give their advice. In fact, job growth is my number one priority, and we have a bold plan to help the private sector create 250,000 new jobs in Wisconsin by 2015.”

Sounds like an admirable goal. But one part of this same goal should be to educate the best future leaders and workers possible.

Before trying to take away bargaining rights of educators, the Wisconsin government gave a huge tax cut to businesses. Does the governor not want the businesses to hire Wisconsin citizens? Are they trying to encourage these businesses to outsource to other states and other countries to find the best workers and leaders?

With all the tweeting and posting going on about Wisconsin’s SAT and ACT scores, it seems that some facts are being skewed before they make it to the web. But however we look at it, Wisconsin has done well. And non-teachers can talk all they want about how teachers should teach for the love of their students and not the money (or – insert here “right to collective bargaining”). But if we do not support their abilities to do so, then how can we say we support superior education for our children?

We should be working hard to hire the best teachers for our schools, not just those who can’t find a job elsewhere.

A new roadblock for women and health care

Thursday night, February 17, the House of Representatives in Washington passed the Pence Amendment, H.Amdt. 95 (part of HR 1). This amendment cuts all federal funds given to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood offers many health services, such as mammograms, assistance in the adoption process, prenatal care, and abortion counseling. They also offer abortions, but no government funding goes to pay for these procedures.

This amendment will add another roadblock to prenatal care for pregnant women and assistance in finding good homes for children born to women who are not able to care for them.

The Senate should vote on this amendment at some time in the future.

Note: H.R. 1 (available to read on Thomas.gov), is an appropriations bill mostly dealing with the Department of Defense.

112th Congress

We have a new Congress! The 112th. John Boehner from Ohio is our new Speaker of the House.

Saturday night, January 22, 2011, on Congressman Boehner’s website, his first piece of news starts with the following statement:

New Majority Kicks Off Effort to Replace Job-Destroying ObamaCare Law with Better Solutions to Bring Down Costs and Protect Jobs.

Very disappointed in his “screaming rhetoric” (my words). If you concur with him, make sure you know your facts. Why does he call it “job-destroying”? How is the health care reform bill going to destroy jobs? Before you truly decide to agree with him, make sure you know why you agree. I cringe when I hear such words like “job-destroying ObamaCare Law”, because if someone has to add divisiveness in their words to have impact, it makes me wonder about the truth behind the words.

Equip ourselves with knowledge!

Martin Luther King

Today we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, who worked so hard to bring equality to our country. He, along with many other nameless people of various races wanted to see this change.

Following is a link to a PDF from Stanford University giving the full text of his “I have a dream” speech. Reading it is a good way to celebrate his life. Then working toward his dream of equality and peace, for all people, is worth the challenge.

I Have A Dream