Wages vs. productivity since 1973

 I question any argument against a higher minimum wage. The plain truth is that higher wages benefit workers, lower wages benefit employers. We're way off the scale right now, since we haven't kept pace with the minimum wage since the 1970s. The minimum wage in 1968 was $1.60, the equivalent of $10.34 in 2012 dollars.

http://www.dol.gov/minwage/chart1.htm (minimum wage history)

The big picture is worse than that, however, because while productivity has increased drastically since the 1960s, wages have not. Productivity has increased 74% since 1973; hourly wages have increased only 9% during that time. Productivity has increased 8 times as fast as hourly wages. If the workers of this country kept the increase in the value of their labor, wages would be 74% higher than they were in 1973. Since the minimum wage was $10 per hour in 1973 (calculating using 2015 dollars), the minimum wage should now be $17.40 per hour.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/why-the-gap-between-worker-pay-and-productivity-is-so-problematic/385931/ (productivity vs. wage statistics)

Why is that? Since the 1960s, productivity has skyrocketed due to the introduction of labor-saving devices: computers, calculators, spreadsheets, internet, mobile phones, databases, just to name a few. The increased productivity should have gone to the workers. Instead, the employers kept all the increases in productivity for themselves.

You could argue that equality of outcomes (equal wealth) is a socialistic idea. But the Capitalists used their economic and political leverage to squeeze every bit of profit from technological advances made over the last 40 years. That is truly class warfare.

White Terrorist Shoots Up Dallas

At about 4 am on Saturday morning, a huge, blue van stops in front of the Dallas police station and a white male, now identified as James Boulwer, gets out and starts firing a gun at the building, the cops, anything that moves. It's an armored van but the driver bought it on ebay.

Why is this an act of terrorism, and, just as important, why are the police saying it isn't one? and where did a guy who had a history of mental illness and violent behavior get an armored truck and a 

This is an act of terrorism, because 

(1) it is intended to frighten people in addition to showing what a stud the guy in the truck is. 

(2) because the guy was acting for a political reason, attacking the police, defenders of the state, and (3) because the guy showed no concern for innocent bystanders (If it was a military attack, he should have cared about that sort of thing.)

(4) in addition, besides opening fire with an assault weapon in the middle of a crowded city, he left a sack full of pipe bombs unattended where anyone could have stumbled against it (it's the middle of the night, remember). Police noticed the sack and used a bomb-seeking robot to investigate it. The bomb was rigged to explode on touch and it did. That is a terrorist act, because the guy did not care who he killed.

The reason for the attack was that the man held the police responsible for his losing custody of his child while his wife was in jail. Of course, the police were not responsible. The laws of the state of Texas were responsible. Boulware assaulted his mother and his uncle in 2013 during an unprovoked attack.

We know where Boulware got the van. He found it in Georgia, from an eBay ad, at a company that armor-plates vehicles but apparently doesn't care who buys them. I'm not saying there was anything illegal about the sale, I'm just saying that anyone can buy an armor-plated vehicle in this country. This is just as much a deadly weapon as an assault rifle, even worse, because it can be used to stand off a whole police department, as it was in this case. This kind of truck is used by police departments to transport suspects.

We don't know for certain where the guns came from, but in 2013, when the police picked up bulware on an assault charge, he had told friends he was going to get some weapons. He never got there, so it's possible that those weapons are the same as the ones used in this attack.

Why did Boulware start shooting at police?

In a televised video on CNN, Boulware's father said his son had reached his "breaking point" and gave his opinion that we all have a breaking point. I submit that, while we all may have a breaking point, we usually call a suicide hotline (or something similar) before we go out and start shooting at police. Boulware's father lamented, "Where does a white man go for help?" If he is mentally ill and prone to violence, he reaches for his guns and goes out to kill someone.

Mentally Ill Man Terrorizes Dallas: Boulware Was Completely Failed By the Government

When all you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail. In the national government, the hammer is the military. Congressmen, Senators, candidates for office, all agree that problems can be solved by sending in troops. In local government, the police are expected to solve all the problems.

Last Saturday morning, around 5 a.m., the problems of James Boulware were handled by the police in the usual way. The Dallas police shot Boulware to death using military-style combat weapons, including a 50 caliber sniper rifle that they used to penetrate the armor of Boulware's Ford van. The police also had highly sophisticated bomb-detection devices which they used to detonate a makeshift bomb near police headquarters and to search Boulware's van for explosives.

That was the end of the story, but it was not the beginning. All of Boulware's family knew of his problems, as did the family services judge, Kim Cooks, who had granted custody of Boulware's young son to the boy's grandmother earlier in the week. Judge Cooks claimed to have received multiple threats from Bulware. The man was scary, she said in a CNN video interview, and she believed he would eventually attack her.

According to a Dallas Morning News report, Boulware attacked his mother and uncle in 2013. At that time, he threatened a shooting spree at schools and was heading for a cache of weapons when he was arrested. He was later released without being tried. These may have been the weapons he used in the Dallas shooting.

In 2007 the state of Texas spent $550 per capita on police, courts, and prisons. This is the hammer it uses against mentally ill people like James Boulware. There are other tools they could use, social workers, psychiatrists, outreach workers. In 2015 the state of Texas spent $40.65 per capita on mental health services, less than a tenth as much as it spends on police.

James Boulware was a mental health problem, not a police problem, up until the time he started shooting at the Dallas police department on Saturday morning. Dallas apparently did not have the ability to deal with him. In a CNN interview after he learned of his son's death, Boulware's father put it succinctly and emotionally: "Where does a white male get help?"

The father implied that someone else, probably a black man, could have gotten help. The politicians do play that blame game. The father blamed liberals for making the laws. He implicitly blamed blacks for receiving help that should have been given to his son. Neither belief is correct. The father could have stated more accurately, "Where does anyone get help in Texas?"

The state of Texas has a completely inadequate mental health program, but they do have an expensive hammer, the police, and they solved their problem with James Boulware in the usual way, by shooting him to death.

Suspect Mug Shot from Dallas County Sheriff’s Office that matches name given to police – James BoulwareWoulwar

What a Difference a Pope Makes

Pope Francis will deliver an encyclical letter on Climate Change, among other things, on Thursday. His predecessor, Benedict, was considered the first "green" pope for making pronouncements like this:

“Preservation of the environment, promotion of sustainable development and particular attention to climate change are matters of grave concern for the entire human family.” - See more at: http://www.interfaithsustain.com/pope-benedict-xvi-on-the-environment/#sthash.OUmwpO2A.dpuf

That's pretty generic, mild stuff that could be taken as supporting some actions to ameliorate climate change, or as a warning to stay out of the rain.

Contrast that warning with this, Pope Francis speaking about global warming. Note the use of the powerful words, "suicide", "tyrannical", and "it will destroy us":

 “I think a question that we are not asking ourselves is: isn’t humanity committing suicide with this indiscriminate and tyrannical use of nature? Safeguard creation because, if we destroy it, it will destroy us. Never forget this.” See more at  http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/13/pope-francis-intervention-transforms-climate-change-debate

Clearly this pope is demanding that we all take action to prevent climate change and other attacks on the environment that progressives have been warning us about for years. And he's telling us to do it now, in a way that let's us know he isn't accustomed to having his words ignored.

The reaction of Republican climate deniers has been immediate and almost word for word identical--honestly, do these guys go to the same web page or do they all get phone calls from the Koch brothers? Here's what James Imhofe, probably the most important climate change denier in America, telling the pope off:

"The pope ought to stay with his job, and we’ll stay with ours"

The problem for Senator Imhofe is that his reason for being a climate change denier is not scientific, political, or even logical. It's religious.

US Dept of Education to Forgive Millions in Student Loans

So it begins. After several years of ignoring the difficulties faced by students with over $1 trillion in outstanding loans and no way to repay them, the Feds finally face the music. Corinthian College, which included the well-known Heald College, recently failed after committing numerous ethics violations that amounted to defrauding its students. The US gov't has agreed to forgive student loans which it has frequently claimed cannot be forgiven. So much for that meme.

Heald college students are now eligible to receive student debt forgiveness, despite the often repeated mantra that these loans can't be forgiven, they must be paid off. What about the other colleges, the ones which may be legitimate but which are training candidates for jobs that just don't exist? What about the Arts Colleges that give degrees to artists who cannot be placed, as the Colleges well know. What about the Law Schools, which churn out candidates with law degrees year after year, thus contributing to the glut of lawyers already out there? Who should suffer for their duplicity, the students who legitimately want to work in the legal field? Or the colleges, who know how few jobs there are for their graduates? I believe the banks should suffer, since they are well aware of the low likelihood of adequate employment when they approve the loans, but they know the government will bail them out by paying the interest while graduates are unemployed.

The only way out of this dilemma is a two-step plan, one already approved by Clinton and Sanders:

1. Make colleges free.
2. Forgive all existing loans.

This plan would get the colleges out of the profit-making business. It would also free billions of dollars of debt which young people could use to start businesses or buy homes.

Right now, that $1.2 trillion in debt is being held by wealthy lenders, who refuse to forgive it. Let's put the money in the system back in the hands of those who will use it, consumers and entrepreneurs.

Brownback Obeys Court Order: Kansas Legislature Raises Taxes $471 Million

 

We saw this one coming. The Republicans in Kansas have no choice but to raise revenues because state law prohibits them from running a deficit in the state budget.

The main problem that Republican legislators face is not a federal court ruling. The problem is embedded in the Kansas state constitution, which says that "the Legislature shall make suitable provision for finance” of public education.

In earlier rulings, Kansas state courts consistently found that

"it is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Kansas and U.S. Constitutions to make the education of a child a function of or dependent upon the wealth of the district in which the child resides."

http://www.robblaw.com/html/school_finance.html

Yet that is precisely what Brownback and his Republican pals decided to do, claiming that money did not make any difference to the quality of education received. But once again, the courts disagreed, citing studies that showed almost a one-to-one correlation between spending on education and student achievement. The courts not only told the state of Kansas how much to spend on each student, but also insisted that the amount of money spent in poor districts be equal to the amount spent in wealthy districts.

[Note to Paul Krugman: The Kansas state courts do in fact declare that inequality is a major cause of problems.]

Which brings us to the present day, when Kansas Republican legislatures have decided to raise taxes to bring educational spending up to the level ordered by the courts. That means they will need to raise $471 million, the largest tax raise in Kansas history. These are Tea Party Republicans, mind you, so they're not very happy about doing it. They are raising taxes directly on the poor, of course, by taxing alcohol and cigarettes heavily. Rich people will have to pay as well, but rich people are well able to afford extra spending on alcohol and cigarettes. Poor people are not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/08/us/kansas-school-spending-ruling.html

True, poor people probably drink too much, and no one should smoke. But taking a fix from an addict is still reprehensible. These people did nothing to deserve such treatment, aside from being poor.

Cop erupts at NY cabdriver

Driving in NYC can be hell. It's particularly hellish when another driver starts shouting at you. That's the way some people drive. In an environment where there is no courtesy, no understanding, no forbearance, only honking horns and shouting insults, it's no wonder that many New Yorkers refuse to drive cars there.

Yet the cabdrivers must drive. That's how they make a living. This video shows road rage that is way too common in our cities, where aggressive drivers use their cars to threaten other drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.

This chaos of shouting and insults is caused by a lack of regulation. Traffic should be calmed. Dangerous maneuvers, like parallel parking on a busy street, should be banned. Cars should be banned altogether from the most impacted parts of the city.

Anger and frustration have become a way of life in our cities. We need to take heed and pass reasonable regulations to avoid the causes of road rage and make our cities more pleasant to live in.