8. Dissidents in American Politics: Shareholder Capitalists vs Academic Oligarchists

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"Dissidents" are people who actively challenge established doctrine, policy, or institutions. This post is the eighth in a series of 10 posts regarding the confusing "revolutions" of the 2016 Presidential Election.

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Shareholder Capitalists and Academic Oligarchists together make up a group all others can despise called "The Establishment." Shareholder Capitalists manipulate our economy and Academic Oligarchists control key facets of our national government including monetary policy.

Whenever Academic Oligarchists determine that shareholder capitalism is not sufficiently benefiting the common good, the two groups can get into conflict. Whenever Shareholder Capitalists determine Academic Oligarchists are standing in the way of  "beneficial" economic change,  the two groups can get into conflict

In the middle of those conflicts are Congress and state legislatures led by people who are normally not automatic members of the Academic Oligarchy nor true Shareholder Capitalists.

The conflicts traditionally have been fought within the framework of political parties, elections, and legislative bodies that rely upon negotiations and compromise.

But, as previously discussed, during the past 30 years within the United States some wealthy Shareholder Capitalists, having become a subgroup of dissidents themselves, using the State Policy Network have successfully bypassed the norms of the process by investing large sums of money in Congressional and legislative candidates and in the news media.The Koch brothers are the best known example.

This is not unusual in the U.S. Henry Ford was probably the most notorious because of his active support of the rise of Hitler. "I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration,"  said Adolph Hitler in 1931. It is the extreme extension of the corporate view that people are unimportant.

This change has allowed Shareholder Capitalists to operate with far fewer restrictions from Academic Oligarchists. During the past 30 years, many Academic Oligarchists have become complacent permitting the undoing of changes made earlier in the 20th Century to avoid an Authoritarian Revolution.

In the process, they've allowed the word compromise to become despised. The fact that an effective democratic republic can only work if the players can find a middle ground on complicated issues is lost, or that fact specifically has been suppressed.

You only had to look at the candidates in this year's primary (or in the Brexit vote) to find examples of Romantic Populist and the Mythical Reactionary movements opposing the developments of the past 30 years.

What Romantic Populist and Mythical Reactionary dissidents typically don't understand is that Shareholder Capitalists need and use strong central governments (which they don't want to try to manage on a day-to-day basis):

• to assure a stable currency, with minimal restrictions on how that government-created commodity is used;
• to defend and facilitate the existence of corporations;
• to protect property rights including everything from real estate ownership to patents;
• to maintain borders safely open to trade; and
• to provide and protect transportation infrastructure such as roads, ports, and airports.

To accomplish corporate goals successful Shareholder Capitalists don't hold political office as their power is found in corporate environment based upon a lifetime of focus on work.

Academic Oligarchists assure this framework for them, arguing only over the details based upon perceived impacts of monetary policy on the rest of us. Without the reasonable support of Congress and the state legislatures along with the concurrence of the majority of the Supreme Court, Academic Oligarchists are at a major disadvantage. Unless of course they use military force in an Authoritarian Revolution.

A true peaceful total revolution by populists or reactionaries is a mythical, romantic fantasy which is exactly what our founding fathers intended.

Some peaceful policy successes by Romantic Populists and Mythical Reactionaries have been accomplished. Within the American Congress and the state legislatures, both Romantic Populists and Mythical Reactionaries occasionally win some policy battles through legislation.

Then the Shareholder Capitalists adapt to (or sometimes thwart) those policies by working with the Academic Oligarchists to fine tune how the new rules are administered and/or by allowing detail variations where Shareholder Capitalists control state governments

As a group neither Academic Oligarchists nor Shareholder Capitalists embrace a particular "ideology". Neither is rigidly "left" or "right", "liberal" or "conservative" because those labels have no real world meaning beyond political spin. Most understand that if you get caught up in an ideological myth, you are inside a bubble that prevents your meaningful participation in the world. They let the rest of us argue over ideology.

Let's take a look at some examples of  issues of  concern to 21st Century Americans because they have contributed to the Economic Collapse and which Academic Oligarchists and Shareholder Capitalists have struggled with.

Example #1 - Housing Costs

That 2016 housing costs are the source of voter anger in the U.S. is a no brainer.

Most Americans Think the Housing Crisis Never Ended written in 2016 tells us:

    The Great Recession rewrote the American dream. Millions of Americans who thought they’d captured the flag instead got swallowed up by a national mortgage-foreclosure crisis. Many of those former homeowners are now renters, competing in ever-more concentrated job markets for ever-scarcer affordable housing.

So perhaps it comes as no surprise that most Americans say that the housing crisis never ended. In fact, one in five Americans say that the worst is yet to come....

In a 2008 article in the Village Voice we were told:

    Perhaps the only domestic issue George Bush and Bill Clinton were in complete agreement about was maximizing home ownership, each trying to lay claim to a record percentage of homeowners, and both describing their efforts as a boon to blacks and Hispanics. HUD, Fannie, and Freddie were their instruments, and, as is now apparent, the more unsavory the means, the greater the growth. But, as Paul Krugman noted in the Times recently, "homeownership isn't for everyone," adding that as many as 10 million of the new buyers are stuck now with negative home equity—meaning that with falling house prices, their mortgages exceed the value of their homes. So many others have gone through foreclosure that there's been a net loss in home ownership since 1998.

We have, of course, been deluged with news stories, books and movies about the whole mortgage scam that created The Great Recession. Articles such as Home Insecurity 2013: Foreclosures and housing in Ohio indicated the situation in a "swing" state:

    Ohio foreclosures are at crisis levels, with more than 70,000 new foreclosures filed in 2012. This was about the same as in 2011 when the state experienced 71,556 foreclosures. What began as mostly an urban problem in the mid-1990s later erupted into a statewide epidemic. Levels have been, for the past three years, below the peak level of 89,000 in 2009. Despite these recent declines, last year’s rates were still two times higher than they had been a decade before in every Ohio county. The high foreclosure numbers persist despite national, state, and local efforts to stem new filings.
    Foreclosures represent a major and ongoing blow against families’ main source of savings and against stability. This report analyzes the new foreclosure filings statistics in Ohio along with some of the latest developments in foreclosure prevention efforts. To add context to the foreclosure numbers, the report provides updates on mortgage defaults and negative equity. It ends with recommendations to better assist individuals, families and communities in becoming more stable.

While the number foreclosures have declined since then, a new problem has developed as explained in The financial pain of middle- and low-income renters:

    Even as home prices continue to recover from the last decade's housing collapse, there's another crisis developing: sky-high rent burdens.
    About 11.4 million American households are paying more than half of their incomes to afford their rent, a record high, according to a new report from Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies. Rent burdens are especially widespread in moderate-income households in the 10 most expensive housing markets, where the report notes that three-quarters of renters earning less than $45,000 pay more than 30 percent of their income on housing.
    Younger Americans are also struggling with a decline in real incomes, with 25 to 34 year olds coping with an 18 percent slump in real incomes, which has added to the difficulties of saving for a down payment.
    With homeownership declining, the rental market is where the housing market is shining. More than 36 percent of U.S. households were renters last year, the highest share in five decades.
    "Rental demand has risen across all age groups, income levels, and household types, with large increases among older renters and families with children," the report noted.
    That's also prompted a rise in households who are cost-burdened, or paying more than 30 percent of their incomes to their landlords. About 21.3 million American households are now considered cost-burdened, an increase of 3.6 million from 2008.

The anger of many Mythical Reactionaries supporting Trump begins with the disappointment brought about  by George Bush and Bill Clinton advocating maximizing home ownership (part of the ownership society Bush talked about which dates back to Margaret Thatcher's administration in the United Kingdom).

It also is of serious concern to the Romantic Populist Millennials whose concerns range from never being able to buy a home to high rents leading to articles like The American housing crisis threatening to put us all on the streets which emphasizes action taken by the Administration of New York Mayor and Academic Oligarchist Bill de Blasio (alma mater Columbia):

    On Monday, New York City took a dramatic step that highlights just how out of control rental housing costs have become in the Big Apple and in many cities nationwide. For the first time, New York froze rents for one-year leases on a million rent-stabilized apartments.
    “Today’s decision means relief,” Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters. “We know tenants have been forced to make painful choices that pitted ever-rising rent against necessities like groceries, child care and medical bills.”
    Landlords balked and criticized City Hall, calling the move an “unconscionable, politically driven decision.” But Rent Board chair Rachel Godsil was having none of it. Her staff had found that landlord incomes had grown for nine years in a row, including by 3.4 percent last year, while costs only grew by 0.5 percent. In contrast, a majority of most stabilized renters faced continuing income stagnation.

Some, but not all, landlords are Shareholder Capitalists and this is an example of conflict with Academic Oligarchists.

But the fact is that in many regions, particularly in California, Academic Oligarchists have supported policies that create housing shortages. The reasons are complex and include popular environmental rationales.

They rationales are, of course, part of a sales pitch hiding economic impacts by diverting attention, much like gay marriage as an issue diverts attention.

This drives up the cost of housing as thoroughly explained by the California Legislative Analyst in a 2015 report California’s High Housing Costs: Causes and Consequences. Yet, Mythical Reactionaries and Romantic Populists for different reasons are going to find it difficult to support the recommendation of the California Legislative Analyst:

    We advise the Legislature to change policies to facilitate significantly more private home and apartment building in California’s coastal urban areas. Though the exact number of new housing units California needs to build is uncertain, the general magnitude is enormous. On top of the 100,000 to 140,000 housing units California is expected to build each year, the state probably would have to build as many as 100,000 additional units annually—almost exclusively in its coastal communities—to seriously mitigate its problems with housing affordability. Facilitating additional housing of this magnitude will be extremely difficult. It could place strains on the state’s infrastructure and natural resources and alter the prized character of California’s coastal communities. It also would require the state to make changes to a broad range of policies that affect housing supply directly or indirectly—including policies that have been fundamental tenets of California government for many years.

Those "fundamental tenets" - mostly environmentalism - curiously had the side effect of creating a housing shortage inflating the value of existing homes to the benefit of homeowners who then also apply additional pressure on California's Academic Oligarchists.

To date no possible compromise has been achieved, though the recent termination of the Executive Director of the California Coastal Commission, Academic Oligarchist Charles Lester (Columbia), was attributed in part to pressure from "some of the state's most powerful lobbyists, representing some of the state's wealthiest people and corporations" or Shareholder Capitalists.

Example #2 - Student Loans

If housing costs are a 21st Century issue, student loan programs began in the 1950's, as explained in Wikipedia:

    U.S. Government-backed student loans were first offered in the 1950s under the National Defense Education Act (NDEA), and were only available to select categories of students, such as those studying toward engineering, science, or education degrees. The student loan program, along with other parts of the Act, which subsidized college professor training, was established in response to the Soviet Union's launch of the Sputnik satellite, and a widespread perception that the United States was falling behind in science and technology, in the middle of the Cold War. Student loans were extended more broadly in the 1960s under the Higher Education Act of 1965, with the goal of encouraging greater social mobility and equality of opportunity.

In 1987, President Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Education William Bennett raised the issue underlying expanding student debt in a New York Times Opinion Piece titled Our Greedy Colleges. A Harvard Law graduate and automatic Academic Oligarchist, Bennett is  ignored by the public and considered a conservative by those who like to use meaningless labels.

At the time Bennett wrote his opinion piece the Reagan Administration was trying to minimize the future impact of the student debt problem by creating Income Contingent Loans which would permit repayment schedules to be tailored to a student's income.

As Bennett explained it in the context of a time when graduates would likely get good jobs: "A graduate's payments would never have to exceed 15 percent of his adjusted gross income, and he could have as long as necessary to repay."

But Bennett was angry at what he was seeing and wrote:

    Many of our colleges are at it again. As they have done annually for the past six years, they have begun to unveil tuition increases that far outstrip the inflation rate. Next year, tuition is expected to rise 6 percent to 8 percent - even though inflation during 1986 was about 1.8 percent.
    ...Since 1982, money available through Federal student aid programs has increased every single year. Overall, Federal outlays for student aid are up 57 percent since 1980. Since 1980, inflation has been just 26 percent....
    If anything, increases in financial aid in recent years have enabled colleges and universities blithely to raise their tuitions, confident that Federal loan subsidies would help cushion the increase. In 1978, subsidies became available to a greatly expanded number of students. In 1980, college tuitions began rising year after year at a rate that exceeded inflation. Federal student aid policies do not cause college price inflation, but there is little doubt that they help make it possible.
    At the same time that higher education has been cutting a bigger piece of the Federal pie, it has also received huge infusions of cash from state governments, from corporations, from foundations and from loyal alumni. The total increase in higher education spending from all these non-Federal sources is staggering. Spending for higher education now consumes about 40 percent of all money spent in America for education.
    It is by no means clear that the performance of many of our colleges and universities justifies this level of expenditure. As I said on the occasion of Harvard's 350th anniversary, too many students fail to receive the education they deserve at our nation's universities. The real problem is not lack of money but failure of vision. 

While Bennett and other members of the Reagan Administration in the context of the time attempted to make the impact of the student loan program less onerous, Bennett was attempting to get future Academic Oligarchists and Congress to deal with the underlying problem - greedy colleges and universities which he felt were not offering a good product and were beginning to look a lot like institutions operated by Shareholder Capitalists.

It is more than ironic that by the 21st Century Shareholder Capitalists, including Donald Trump, were actually running colleges for profit. And, of course, by the 21st Century students from all types of colleges and universities were saddled with high debt while the number of employment opportunities for new graduates that were typical from 1950-1990 declined.

The Bernie Sanders Romantic Populist movement used student debt as one of its key issues but presented the solution as "free tuition" for everyone. This is, of course, consistent with the delusional nature of the movement. As explained by a federal pamphlet on student loans:

    You may use the money you receive only to pay for education expenses at the school that awarded your loan. Education expenses include school charges such as tuition; room and board; fees; books; supplies; equipment; dependent childcare expenses; transportation; and rental or purchase of a personal computer.

This would, of course, pay for costs calculated like this from a California university's website:

Click on image to see a larger version!

When I say that the "free tuition" for everyone as being presented is a delusional solution, it is because as you can see from this website without tuition a four year program still would cost about $80,000.Having the government fund tuition at California's state colleges would cover an additional $20,000.

(Vermont, on the other hand, has its state colleges charge students double that because Bernie and his fellow false-Progressive Vermonters won't subsidize college like California taxpayers do. Or maybe because there are a number of private colleges such as the one Bernie's wife ran.)

Sure, it would help to have free tuition. But it wouldn't come close to keeping students out of debt. That the  Sanders Romantic Populists aren't well enough informed to understand this reinforces William Bennett's comment: "It is by no means clear that the performance of many of our colleges and universities justifies this level of expenditure."

Still, the Shareholder Capitalists and Academic Oligarchists together have failed to devise a compromise to minimize this debt problem.

Further, the Shareholder Capitalists - particularly the tech sector innovators - are the ones demanding this additional education/training. Many have been hiring immigrants from Asia rather than funding adequate education.

This has resulted in the political backlash from both Romantic Populists saddled with the debt and Mythical Reactionaries objecting to immigration.

Example #3 - Net Neutrality

It is still possible for the Academic Oligarchists to devise solutions to problems even with resistance from Shareholder Capitalists, particularly when the latter group is divided on an issue.

No one thought about the internet in ideological terms when it was being developed in the framework of the Department of Defense and cooperating universities - both stable institutional environments mostly controlled by Academic Oligarchists.

Then the internet was broadly implemented by Shareholder Capitalists in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Following broad implementation, however, America was confronted with a populist uprising over net neutrality with Shareholder Capitalists disagreeing with each other because of contrary interest - internet service providers versus web site operators. In this case Academic Oligarchists devised the adaptation.

Academic Oligarchists this past year set some operational rules within a framework of encouraging the profitable consolidation of internet service providers by Shareholder Capitalists and the profitable operation of popular web sites by new Shareholder Capitalists. It also assures a mix of Shareholder Capitalist beneficiaries such as cloud service providers ranging from the venerable IBM to Jeff Bezos' Amazon.

This is a good example of adaptation by Academic Oligarchists and Shareholder Capitalists. But it is also an example of how what is a public utility - in terms of a historical understanding of that term - typically heavily regulated to achieve egalitarian economic goals, can become something else just by administrative actions of Academic Oligarchists. It was necessary because of gridlock in Congress.

The rules will avoid any continuing threat of revolution from tech Romantic Populists, who were focused not on rates charged to American families, but on making sure the entertainment website corporations didn't get reduced speeds or have to pay "fast lane" charges to the internet service corporations.

The issue of net neutrality appears to have been resolved by a policy decision from a government bureaucracy - the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). In the process,  two automatic Academic Oligarchists - Jessica Rosenworcel,  Wellesley, for neutrality regulation (see How Jessica Rosenworcel Is Shaping Our Digital Future) and Ajit Pai, Harvard and University of Chicago, against neutrality regulation (see - Net neutrality's chief critic)  - played key roles in the debate.

The net neutrality policy approved by a 3-2 Commission vote orders what tech nerd Romantic Populists believe is beneficial true net neutrality. (The policy might be reviewed by the Supreme Court though they may pass on taking up the appeal of the appeals court decision approving the new policy written by Appellate Court Judges Sri Srinivasan, Stanford, and David Tatel, University of Chicago.) Within this discussion, the FCC has assured all Shareholder Capitalists that it will not get involved in their routine setting of rates for internet activity.

The sad fact is, of the three examples, the first two matter in people's lives but the Academic Oligarchists failed miserably. Even Net Neutrality will not assure internet affordability nor universal high speed internet for ordinary folks.

In 2016 it appears we have reached a point that the Academic Oligarchists and Shareholder Capitalists may face a serious revolution.

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Originally Posted in the Redwood Guardian

9. Dissidents in American Politics: The Prospect of a Revolution and Tyranny led by American Mythical Reactionaries

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"Dissidents" are people who actively challenge established doctrine, policy, or institutions. This post is the ninth in a series of 10 posts regarding the confusing "revolutions" of the 2016 Presidential Election.

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Historically when either a populist or a reactionary movement actually becomes a disruptive, forceful revolution, tyranny results.

In the case of a tyranny by revolutionary Romantic Populists, effectively you have a true socialist revolution where private property is confiscated by the government - taken from Shareholder Capitalists and everyone else.

This occurred in Russia and China in the 20th Century. The United States under The New Deal effectively avoided this by heavily taxing Shareholder Capitalists at a time when such a revolution was feared in the United States.

Ultimately the Russian Revolution was abandoned (the Wall was torn down) though an authoritarian regime replaced the Communist government. The Chinese Revolution has continued though in terms of economics it has evolved.

In the case of a tyranny by revolutionary Mythical Reactionaries, the government establishes laws making illegal any behavior or activity that deviates from an acceptable norm including making it illegal to use private wealth to further deviation from the acceptable activity norms.

This occurred in Italy and Germany in the 20th Century, and has been in put into effect in many countries by religious movements controlling the government. These tyrannies frequently end in warfare, either in an international war or civil war.

Somehow, the American Revolution in the 18th Century avoided the negative results of the French Revolution. That may have been because forerunners of modern Shareholder Capitalists and Academic Oligarchists managed to maintain control.

A careful reading of the American Constitution, without any of its amendments, pretty much tells us that it was written to extensively protect private property ownership (including patents as United States patent law is authorized by the U.S. Constitution, Article One, section 8, clause 8) and trade (the Commerce Clause), while assuring the propertied, educated elite control of the Presidency, the Senate, and the Supreme Court, none of which were to be directly elected by the people.

The Brexit vote offers a warning to both the Academic Oligarchists and Shareholder Capitalists everywhere. That vote was not necessary nor normal in the United Kingdom. The Academic Oligarchists found themselves in a dispute even among themselves because of European Union policies. Prime Minister David Cameron and others decided to hold that vote in order to protect their positions in government.

As a first reaction to that vote, Cameron resigned and many Shareholder Capitalists are contemplating having some of their business operations leave the United Kingdom. Apparently the "Leave" campaign worked.

Which brings us to Donald Trump, ostensibly a Shareholder Capitalist, but one who clearly has maintained his position using, as explained by Wikipedia, the talents of an effective con man:

    Confidence tricks exploit characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty, honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility, naïveté and greed.

This year some have already noted that there is a fine line, if one exists at all, between being an effective con man and being effective at seeking an elective office in our government in the 21st Century.  It's a problem that could not have existed prior to the 1970's, after which the voters managed to get control of selecting the Presidential nominees.

The problem for the electorate is if Trump becomes President, can he be trusted to act on behalf of the "common good" as we would expect an Academic Oligarchist to do? Do we even know beyond the words used in his "con" what he thinks is the "common good."

We do know that as a Shareholder Capitalist using confidence tricks he has had no problem not delivering promised goods and benefits while taking people's money and services for purposes of corporate profit.

What we do know is that many American Mythical Reactionaries and Romantic Populists intend to vote for Trump to express their frustration with the failure during the last 30 years of Academic Oligarchists to secure what is broadly believed in the United States is the "common good."

The difficulty for Hillary Clinton as the representative of the Academic Oligarchists is those Mythical Reactionaries and Romantic Populists are correct. They are correct simply because the Oligarchists have succumbed to the arguments by the dominant Shareholder Capitalists that the internationalization of the economy has improved the world in terms of the "common good" as defined by The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Objectively this is true as envisioned by Eleanor Roosevelt - the first chairwoman of the Commission on Human Rights that drafted the Declaration. She stated that it "may well become the international Magna Carta of all men everywhere." In a very real sense, this means that over a period of time the goal of mankind is to eliminate this...

    ...by replacing it with this...

...as explained in this blog post The New Middle Class of Mexico.

In the case of the blogger who at the time was an American working in Mexico, the company he was working for was Bombardier Inc., a Canadian company that began as a maker of snow machines/snowmobiles.

Over the years it has grown into a large manufacturer of regional airliners, business jets, mass transportation equipment, recreational equipment and a provider of financial services. Bombardier is a Fortune Global 500 conglomerate company. As they describe themselves on their own website:

    As the world’s leading manufacturer of both planes and trains, we’ve built an extensive and diverse portfolio of winning mobility solutions. ...From category-defining business jets and commercial aircraft designed for the challenges of today, to sleek high speed trains and public transit that’s smarter than ever.
    ...The most important success factor is our employees, all 70,900 of them.
    ...Bombardier is headquartered in Montréal, Canada. ...In the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015, we posted revenues of $18.2 billion.

The company has operations not only in the Americas, but Europe, Asia, the  Middle East, and Africa. But it is Canadian. Among its products it does manufacture and sell LearJets. So when a headline like this appeared in the Canadian press Bombardier to cut 1,000 aerospace jobs in Mexico, Kansas because of the negativity of the political debate this year about he North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) it gives us a sense of the absolute ignorance of the American electorate when it comes to the economy over the past 30 years:

    Bombardier says it's going to cut about 1,000 employees from its Learjet business in 2015, affecting sites in Mexico and the United States.
    The Montreal-based aerospace company says the cuts are due to weak demand for the Learjet 85 business jet.
    Bombardier says its operations in Wichita, Kansas and Queretaro, Mexico remain important to the company for both the Learjet and other types of aircraft that it makes.
    The Wichita operation does final assembly for Learjet 70 and Learjet 75 aircraft and has a flight test centre and service centre.
    The Queretaro operation makes a major component for the Global 7000 and 8000 business jets.
    Bombardier is also doing final tests on the CSeries jets, a new generation of Bombardier aircraft for commercial airlines.

In 1990 Bombardier Aerospace purchased the Learjet Corporation. It's an international corporation important to Wichita, Kansas, aka Middle America. In June 2016 The Wichita Eagle offered this story of interest Despite Learjet woes, lots of activity at Bombardier Wichita and in July 2016 The Wichita Business Journal offered an article Bombardier’s C Series reaches the finish line which told us "Swiss International Air Lines on Friday took the first batch of paying customers on the C Series as the jet entered service on flight between Zurich and Paris."

Bombardier employs about 1,625 people in Wichita. But it's also big in the Mexican state of Querétero which has become a hub for aerospace innovation, a sector which contributed 47% of foreign direct investment into Mexico, and that is led by companies like Airbus, the European multinational aerospace and defense corporation, and Canada's Bombardier.

Ok. Bombadier. Why Querétaro, located far from Mexico’s tourist-packed beaches?

In 2005, while the U.S. Congress at the behest of the ignorant American electorate was cutting taxes and Kansas, in terms of fiscal policy, was on its way to becoming the most backward state in the nation at the behest of its ignorant electorate, in Querétaro Mexico’s first and only aerospace university, the Universidad Aeronáutica en Querétaro (UNAQ), was created as the biggest attraction the Mexican national and state government taxpayers used to lure Bombardier Aerospace to Mexico. They did it by providing funds to educate and train young workers.

Mexico, despite its faults, was a nation working to improve the lot of its people. It was seeking the "common good" as defined by The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The "take away" here is that the term "common" does not mean Americans only, but includes everyone in the world. That must involve a standardization of what it means for most people in the world, including Americans, to be "not poor" in the face of limited resources, a population rapidly expanding to 7 billion, and an environment that is becoming less favorable to modern humans.

The American 2016 revolt says:  "Whoa, American Academic Oligarchists, you're moving way to fast on this internationalization of the term 'common' as used in 'common good' and you need to establish governmental policies that mitigate the impacts on average Americans."  Or maybe they are literally saying "build a big wall" and cancel NAFTA.

What the dissidents don't want is to read about Bombadier and puzzle about the complexities of 21st Century trade. They want free tuition and to make American great again.

In reality, the prospect of Donald Trump bringing a revolution as leader of the Mythical Reactionary dissidents seems real. And as we've seen, Presidents have no trouble becoming authoritarian.

Did we see this coming? In the final post on this subject, let's take a look back at the warnings.

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Originally Posted in the Redwood Guardian

10. Dissidents in American Politics: Beliefs, Facts, and Future Shock

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"Dissidents" are people who actively challenge established doctrine, policy, or institutions. This post is the tenth and final in a series of 10 posts regarding the confusing "revolutions" of the 2016 Presidential Election.

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That there is a chance the United States could experience an authoritarian revolution shouldn't be a surprise, as was recently pointed out in in The New York Times article Why We Need to Pick Up Alvin Toffler's Torch:

    More than 40 years ago, Alvin Toffler, a writer who had fashioned himself into one of the first futurists, warned that the accelerating pace of technological change would soon make us all sick. He called the sickness “future shock”....
    ...Future shock wasn’t simply a metaphor for our difficulties in dealing with new things. It was a real psychological malady, the “dizzying disorientation brought on by the premature arrival of the future...“unless intelligent steps are taken to combat it...millions of human beings will find themselves increasingly disoriented, progressively incompetent to deal rationally with their environments.”
    ...It seems clear that his diagnosis has largely panned out, with local and global crises arising daily from our collective inability to deal with ever-faster change.
    But even though these and bigger changes are just getting started...futurism has fallen out of favor.

The article was written by author Farhad Manjoo who in 2008 wrote the book True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society in which he explains that the advent of the popular internet "when we dissolved the mainstream media into prickly niches, and when each of us began to create and transmit our own pictures and sounds, we eased the path through which propaganda infects the culture."

He points out instead of becoming better researchers because of access to more sources, we choose from the confusing milieu a few sources that reinforce our view of the world. We have ceased to seek objective knowledge in favor of virtual worlds supported by propaganda.

Of course, Stephen Colbert in the pilot episode of his political satire program "The Colbert Report" on October 17, 2005, a full 10 years before Donald Trump filed to run for President, offered up the word "truthiness" into the public domain.

And so a satirist first noted the belief vulnerability in a sizeable portion of the adult population that created the early 21st Century Voter Revolution against the American Academic Oligarchists. It is dependent upon and stimulated by propaganda selectively gathered using technology created by American Shareholder Capitalists to create and reinforce beliefs.

Manjoo in another article explains why in much of the rest of the world the American Shareholder Capitalists have created a potential revolution against themselves:

    There is Facebook co-opting your news media. Amazon is dominating book sales, while YouTube and Netflix are taking over television and movies. And the smartphone, arguably the most important platform for entertainment in this era, is controlled almost entirely by Apple and Google.
    This backdrop of social anxiety explains why Europe is on the march against American tech giants. European governments have been at the forefront of an effort to limit the reach of tech companies, most often through privacy regulations and antitrust investigations....
    The European efforts are just a taste of a coming global freak-out over the power of the American tech industry. Over the next few years, we are bound to see increasing friction between the tiny group of tech companies that rule much of the industry and the governments that rule the lands those companies are trying to invade. What is happening in Europe is playing out in China, India and Brazil and across much of the rest of the globe, as well.
    ...Over the last decade, we have witnessed the rise of what I like to call the Frightful Five. These companies — Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Alphabet, Google’s parent — have created a set of inescapable tech platforms that govern much of the business world. ...These companies thoroughly dominate the news and entertainment industries, they rule advertising and retail sales, and they are pushing into health care, energy and automobiles.
    “What’s happening right now is the nation-state is losing its grip,” said Jane K. Winn, also a professor at the University of Washington School of Law, who studies international business transactions. “One of the hallmarks of modernity is that you have a nation-state that claims they are the exclusive source of a universal legal system that addresses all legal issues. But now people in one jurisdiction are subject to rules that come from outside the government — and often it’s companies that run these huge networks that are pushing their own rules.”

The rest of the world through their nation-states are beginning to respond to the threat. "The Ugly American" now has the face of an iPhone, the threat of a privacy-stealing Google, and the depth and brains of a Tweet. Unlike the average American, the rest of the world factually experiences the impact in its full context.

Whether it's the Koch Brothers or Apple and Google using Congress, it is a fact that American Shareholder Capitalists have successfully bypassed the natural response of the American Academic Oligarchists to limit or tax excess corporate retained profits and regulate the operations of and limit the size of international corporations.

The political result in 2016 America has been the demagoguery of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

What we needed were 21st Century anti-trust laws and tax laws that heavily penalize Shareholder Capitalist bad behavior not reward good behavior.  Those laws can only come when the revolution is also against members of Congress and,  more importantly, state legislators. That is not the revolution of the Romantic Populists.

It was the revolution of the Mythical Reactionaries. But they were confused by the belief, the mythology, that every American through diligence, hard work, and an adherence to "Christian" values can live a secure rewarding life - they believed the fictional "Horatio Alger story" despite all the factual evidence to the contrary that has existed since the Pilgrims landed.

In the middle of it all, Trump’s politics of aggrieved white nationalism - labeling black people criminals, Latinos rapists, and Muslims terrorists - succeeded because the party’s voting base was made up of the people who themselves or their parents in 1964 opposed civil rights and who left the Democratic Party for the Republican Party of Barry Goldwater.

Capitalizing on the frustration which that belief inherently creates, the conservative Shareholder Capitalists have hijacked the Mythical Reactionary revolution to achieve their own ends eliminating two centuries of balance between the Shareholder Capitalists and the Academic Oligarchists.

An authoritarian revolution establishing a President who uses force to bring things into alignment with that Horatio Alger mythology seems the easy way, another untruth seen as fact, 'truthiness" accepted by 21st Century Americans, who have all learned through electronic media - movies, TV, games, and the internet.

It is simply fact that the only way Shareholder Capitalist/ Donald Trump, who knows next to nothing about government, could somehow restrain his fellow Shareholder Capitalists is through the authoritarian revolution he has promised his dissident Mythical Reactionary followers.

The real question is: How do we undo the negative impacts of the Information Age?

We have to understand that the Information Age has effectively traded the pre-20th Century anonymity for the constant gathering of information on our daily activities which is being used by

• Shareholder Capitalists to make greater profits creating greater economic disparity between the "Stinking Rich" and the rest of us and is now about to extend the effects of automation into the Information Age workforce, eliminating jobs for tech workers; and 
• the Academic Oligarchists to find potential threats to public safety creating greater risks of misuse to restrict basic freedoms. 

Can these negative impacts be undone without eliminating the benefits of the Information Age? That is the question to be answered by Americans who will be living in the second quarter of the 21st Century. But there are questions to be answered today.

Does the iPhone generation really want authoritarian Presidential intervention in American society? Did a majority of voters really want to risk having President-for-Life Donald Trump find the answers for them?

A better questions is will it matter what the majority wants in the future?

In the end the issue is understanding the difference between "belief" and "knowledge." Far too many Americans embrace the fallacy of "knowing the unknowable." And even more Americans feel comfortable accepting assertions as true in the absence of evidence. Of course, this is not new to humankind:

    "Another way that Men ordinarily use to drive others, and force them to submit their Judgments, and receive the Opinion in debate, is to require the Adversary to admit what they allege as a Proof, or assign a better. And this I call Argumentum ad Ignorantiam."
                             —John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1689.

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Revised from Original Post in the Redwood Guardian

It's not the 1964 Democratic Party: Be Careful of the Grumpy Old White Man's Proposals

But this is more than about the ideas of a grumpy old white man, far more.

In 1964 the Democratic Party became the party of those groups of Americans who regularly find themselves economically and socially the target of systematic discrimination based on prejudice.

Newsflash - white old, middle-aged, or young middle-class or richer liberal activists and college students are not among those groups. And most certainly when they choose not to be a part of the Democratic Party membership but do chose to be uncommitted kibbitzers, they are not relevant to that Democratic Party goal to create inclusiveness

It must have come as a surprise to Bernie Sanders and his supporters when they received a June 18, 2016 letter from the the Congressional Black Caucus expressing its resolute opposition to two key reforms demanded by Sanders. The letter states:

    The Democratic Members of the Congressional Black Caucus recently voted unanimously to oppose any suggestion or idea to eliminate the category of Unpledged Delegate to the Democratic National Convention (aka Super Delegates) and the creation of uniform open primaries in all states.

"The black caucus is immovable on this subject because our number one concern is going to be an always be the highest level of minority participation as possible at the convention," said Congressman Emanuel Cleaver who currently represents Missouri's 5th congressional district which has a population larger than that of Bernie Sander's State of Vermont. "You're going to see the same thing with the Hispanic Congressional Caucus. Mr. Sanders, if he had met with either or what's called the tri-caucus, he would have found out there is no flexibility." (Note: the Congressional Tri-Caucus iscomprised of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC).)

The thing is, a political party is a private organization created to achieve specific political, social, and economic goals desired by its members. It's not there for outsiders who wake up once every four years to start restructuring to make sure that when they come back four years later they can undercut the goals of its members. You want to change the goals, join, attend meetings, work in off-year and non-Presidential election years to elect party candidates to state offices and Congress. Or form your own party.

And let's get one thing straight.  Missouri's 5th congressional district not only has more people than Vermont, Congressman Emanuel Cleaver is a registered Democrat while Senator Bernie Sanders is not. Here's what you probably don't know....

In his home state of Vermont, there is no party registration allowing Sanders to accurately claim to be unaffiliated with a political party while still running for the Democratic nomination and sometimes calling himself a Democrat. In 2008, TIME told us about Vermont:

    There are swing states. There are bellwether states. And then there is Vermont.
    That makes sense. Vermont has only 625,000 residents, and they aren't wrestling with most of the problems that are dominating the campaign. Vermont doesn't have many immigrants; it ranks last in the nation in foreclosures; it's consistently rated the healthiest state. But if the politics of Vermont doesn't tell us much about the politics of America, it is still quirky and intriguing.
    There is no party registration in Vermont, but it was once the most staunchly Republican state in the Union, supporting the G.O.P. in 28 straight presidential elections and enjoying a 108-year gap between Democratic governors...
    Now Vermont is blue heaven, home of Ben and Jerry and Phish, the first state with civil unions for gays, the last state with a Wal-Mart and the only state that President Bush has somehow neglected to visit....
    Nowadays, Vermont once again has a Republican governor, Massachusetts-born Jim Douglas, who's favored to win his fourth term in November. And it is a rural state, so its politicians tend to support guns and farms. It's even got some black-helicopter types in its rugged Northeast Kingdom. But thinking of Vermont as a northeastern version of Idaho or Nebraska because it's got rifles and cows is sort of like thinking of the Village People as tough guys because they had a cop and a construction worker. It's a land of teddy bears, organic cheese, planning charrettes, Buddhist converts and the Vermont Progressive Party, whose members include six state legislators, Burlington's mayor, and the only announced challenger to Governor Douglas. Most telling is the fact that it's the only state where self-identified liberals outnumber self-identified Democrats.
    Which brings us to March 4. Vermont has the nation's second-whitest and second-oldest electorate....

"Sanders did a lot of things right in this campaign, he did a lot better than expected. At the same time he seemed to have a lack of understanding or lack of relationships with black leaders that you saw ultimately hurt him in South Carolina and other states with big black electorates,"  Doug Thornell, formerly the group’s communications director, said. "And this is something that the CBC is going to be very passionate and push back against. This is a way that African-American officials can represent their district and have a say in the process. They're not going to go along with this at all."

If I seem less than enamored with the Sanders movement and their foolish ideas for the Democratic Party, it is because Bernie was reelected to the U.S. Senate by 207,848 voters in 2012 while in that same year California's Dianne Feinstein was reelected to the U.S. Senate by 7,864,624 voters. In fact, Feinstein received more votes in 11 California counties than Sanders did in the whole state of Vermont.

There are no communities of people in Vermont that depend on the Democratic Party to fight for their residents like residents of Compton, Oakland, or East Los Angeles. Bernie and most of his supporters have no real sense what it's like to have extensive political involvement with a diverse population as does Dianne Feinstein. Let's look at an enlightening parallel in their experience holding public office.

Bernie Sanders in 1981 was first elected mayor of the largest city in Vermont, Burlington, then with a population of 37,712 with 218 black persons and 285 persons who identified as Hispanic.

Diane Feinstein was thrust into the position of Mayor of San Francisco, California, in 1978 following the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and City Supervisor and Gay Activist Harvey Milk. After identifying both bodies at the scene, Feinstein was shaking so badly she required support from the police chief.  It was she who announced to the press, "Today San Francisco has experienced a double tragedy of immense proportions. As President of the Board of Supervisors, it is my duty to inform you that both Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been shot and killed."

At the time, San Francisco had a population of 678,974 with 149,269 identified as Asian, 86,190 as Black, and 84,194 as Hispanic and with an estimated LGBT population of 105,000±.

In 1994,  Feinstein introduced the Federal Assault Weapons Ban which became law but expired in 2004. Bernie Sanders defended his pro-NRA record  stating with regard to his support for the 2005 federal  Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act  in an October 2015 debate that “if somebody has a gun and it falls into the hands of a murderer and that murderer kills somebody with the gun, do you hold the gun manufacturer responsible? Not any more than you would hold a hammer company responsible if somebody beats somebody over the head with a hammer.”

Diane Feinstein is well aware that Harvey Milk and George Moscone likely would not have been killed if the weapon had been a hammer.

The difference between Sanders and Feinstein is personal and professional experience with things like shootings and dealing with the criminal justice system in a diverse, complex City; and providing financial aid to the poor in a diverse, complex City; and educating people in a diverse, complex City; and creating a positive environment for economic growth in a diverse, complex City....

The fact is, while Feinstein was serving on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, between 1972 and 1976 Sanders was the nominee of the anti-capitalist, anti-war Liberty Union Party of Vermont in two Senate and two gubernatorial elections in Vermont. He lost all four races and resigned from the party in 1977.

Bernie supporters seem to want to have Feinstein, a long-time Democrat who was elected to her position by 7,864,624 diverse voters, to be subject to the same requirements to be a delegate as a 20-year-old college student from Washington state who decided to register to vote as a Democrat for the first time while entering the door of a March 2016 Precinct Caucus. Sorry, but no. That's not the way political parties work.

Curiously Bernie supporters seem to have no performance standards. Bernie has lived in Vermont since 1968 - 48 years. Bernie spouts buzz words about the issues but what has he done about them in his tiny state where his influence should be great since he leads a state full of "independent" voters? Here are a few examples compared to California where Democrats lead:

• Free college - Vermont state colleges have higher tuition than California state colleges including fees in California;
• Minimum wage - if you work in Burlington, Vermont, for minimum wage you earn $9.60 per hour, in San Francisco $12.25, 28% more;
• Health insurance - through Vermont Health Connect for a 35 year old single person making $45,000 a year in Burlington, Vermont, the least premium cost after any rebates $8,576 a year, while through Covered California for the same person in San Francisco, California, the cost would be $2,952 a year. 66% less.

Bernie has no credibility on any of these issues. But it is the age of the internet, as Donald Trump has demonstrated. There are just millions of uninformed Americans who think anything can be explained in 140 character tweets, as opposed to learning from extensive reading and studying, and from years of direct involvement.

Thanks for your recommendations on Democratic Party procedures and policy Bernie supporters, but as a lifelong Democrat who first attended a California Democratic Council Convention in 1964, I don't want independents deciding policy for Californian's.

If it means you want to elect Donald Trump President in November, well that's the way it is. And if you think not voting, or voting for some third party candidate, is not the same as voting for Donald, you don't understand the American political system which you probably don't.

In a swing state, if Trump gets 34% of the vote, Clinton gets 33.9% of the vote, and the Green Party candidate you voted for gets 8% of the vote, you and all your ilk elected Trump President - live with it for four years and see what you can accomplish by being truly uninformed about your government and politics.

As California's other U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer tweeted in February:  "Bernie is a Democrat ‘some days'." The fact that he has not conceded the nomination to Clinton is indicative that "some days" aren't these days.

Regarding the sexist nature of a grumpy old white man loser making demands on America's first woman major party presumption nominee, I agree with Barbra Streisand, the California resident who tweeted the facts at the beginning of this post.

Of course I too am a grumpy old white man but one whose state has two Democratic women United States Senators and includes in its overwhelmingly Democratic Congressional Delegation, House Minority Leader and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.WITH REDWOOD GUARDIAN REFERENCE:

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Originally Posted in the Redwood Guardian

The Obergefell Decision As A Teaching Moment

Some think that this week's Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) Supreme Court decision is a "teaching moment" arising from a great victory. Such a decision by the Supreme Court when considered in a school environment needs significant context and discussion.

Fortunately, it is relatively easy to put it in context by comparing it to Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

In 1954 reporters who observed the Supreme Court in the Brown case were surprised by the 9-0 unanimous decision. Prior to the ruling, there were reports that the court members were sharply divided and might not be able to agree. The attendance of Justice Robert H. Jackson who had suffered a mild heart attack and was not expected to return to the bench until early June 1954 was also a surprise. Perhaps to emphasize the unanimity of the court, Justice Jackson was in his assigned seat when the court convened.

In the 2015 Obergefell case this week the Supreme Court ruled 5-4.

The signficant difference between the Brown and Obergefell decisions with regard to the Supreme Court is clear and can be taught:

• In Brown even those justices who had reservations about the legal basis for the decision recognized that it was the morally right thing to do.
• In the Obergefell decision there was barely a majority of the justices who thought it was the right thing to do and the expressions of some of the dissenting justices reflect deeply felt moral outrage at the majority's ruling.

Enforcement of the Brown decision in some places took federal military intervention - it was an extension of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Brown was about American children having a right to the equal protection of the law in order to access the benefits of a somewhat equal education in a public school system regardless of race.  Yet that goal has never been achieved in the nation, not even in California.

Brown required continued legal intervention in all parts of this country to achieve compliance and was replaced with defacto school segregation based upon the "localness" of school districts continuing to this day. Racial discrimination, indeed even hatred, continues also.

Obergefell is about two adults having a right to the equal protection of the law in order to access the benefits arising from a state-issued marriage license. The decision is the right thing to do. But it is not going to make the homophobia go away. The issue couldn't even draw the vote of a sixth justice as the Obamacare ruling did earlier in the week.

Plans are already being made in some parts of the nation to resist same sex marriage because of homophobia, in many cases rising to the level of hatred. Even Obamacare creates anger, as the "conservatives" are already planning their continued efforts to undo the law.

The real teaching opportunity here can be found in the opinions of the four justices dissenting from the Obergefell ruling, both their written legal ones plus their prior and subsequent verbal ones. In the end, could it all be about people wanting to look down upon and wanting to feel superior to others, even to the point of systemically denying access to health care to other "lessor" human beings?

Regarding the Obergefell ruling, don't we need to consider how the institutionalized basis of homophobia evolved, which revered writings advocate that prejudice? And how do you explain that in a public elementary school environment?

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Originally Posted in the Redwood Guardian

"We are the Many" A song for the OCCUPY movement and for 2011-12

The video is from Makana's web site at Vimeo. Makana represents the next step, a song for the Occupy movement in the tradition of Joe Hill, to Woody Guthrie, to Pete Seeger, and to Bob Dylan.

From a top news story today:

A popular Hawaiian recording artist turned a top-security dinner of Pacific Rim leaders hosted by President Barack Obama into a subtle protest with a song in support of the "Occupy" movement.

Makana, who goes by one name, was enlisted to play a luau, or Hawaiian feast, Saturday night for leaders assembled in Obama's birthplace Honolulu for an annual summit that is formulating plans for a Pacific free-trade pact.

But in the midst of the dinner on the resort strip Waikiki Beach, he pulled open his jacket to reveal a T-shirt that read "Occupy with Aloha," using the Hawaiian word whose various meanings include love and peace. He then sang a marathon version of his new song "We Are The Many."

Here are the lyrics:

We Are The Many

Ye come here, gather 'round the stage
The time has come for us to voice our rage
Against the ones who've trapped us in a cage
To steal from us the value of our wage

From underneath the vestiture of law
The lobbyists at Washington do gnaw
At liberty, the bureaucrats guffaw
And until they are purged, we won't withdraw

We'll occupy the streets
We'll occupy the courts
We'll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few

Our nation was built upon the right
Of every person to improve their plight
But laws of this Republic they rewrite
And now a few own everything in sight

They own it free of liability
They own, but they are not like you and me
Their influence dictates legality
And until they are stopped we are not free

We'll occupy the streets
We'll occupy the courts
We'll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few

You enforce your monopolies with guns
While sacrificing our daughters and sons
But certain things belong to everyone
Your thievery has left the people none

So take heed of our notice to redress
We have little to lose, we must confess
Your empty words do leave us unimpressed
A growing number join us in protest

We occupy the streets
We occupy the courts
We occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few

You can't divide us into sides
And from our gaze, you cannot hide
Denial serves to amplify
And our allegiance you can't buy

Our government is not for sale
The banks do not deserve a bail
We will not reward those who fail
We will not move till we prevail

We'll occupy the streets
We'll occupy the courts
We'll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few

We'll occupy the streets
We'll occupy the courts
We'll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few

We are the many
You are the few

You can download the mp3 version here.

AND through the web sites listed below, you can interact with the movement:

• Occupy Wall Street
• Occupy Love Street
• Occupy Together

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Originally Posted in the Redwood Guardian

Why Third Way Democrats fail Solar Powered Soup Kitchens

The title to this post pretty much says it all about Governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown and President Barack "Avatar" Obama.

Both have been sufficiently removed from reality by political ambition that we would expect them to actually favor grant programs to provide solar power to soup kitchens while pondering signing off on cuts in funding for meat.

Reality is the story headlined Most of the unemployed no longer receive benefits explaining:

The jobs crisis has left so many people out of work for so long that most of America's unemployed are no longer receiving unemployment benefits.

Early last year, 75 percent were receiving checks. The figure is now 48 percent — a shift that points to a growing crisis of long-term unemployment. Nearly one-third of America's 14 million unemployed have had no job for a year or more.

...Their options include food stamps or other social programs. Nearly 46 million people received food stamps in August, a record total. That figure could grow as more people lose unemployment benefits.

Even if there are people "gaming" the system, these numbers clearly tell us a serious problem is developing.

By the time you add in those who have never drawn unemployment such as unemployed recent high school and college graduates (and drop outs), we are allowing a huge expansion of the number of our people who are poor by late 20th Century American standards.

Two things are certain.

First, green industry is not going to fix the problem of employment in California no matter how much people might want it to be the universal solution for everything.

Second, despite the machinations of Moonbeam's Administration, the California State Budget will be seriously out of balance by June.

The Great California Slump is not going to be fixed by creating solar powered soup kitchens. (Yes, there is such a thing - see Sun powers Tucson soup kitchen.)

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Originally Posted in the Redwood Guardian

One Day at a Time: The 21st Century American Family

To gain an understanding of the reality of our national economic condition, a good place to begin is the first in a series of articles by Advertising Age that will be "a year-long study of the American consumer with an examination of how those in the middle are getting squeezed -- and how marketers are beginning to respond."

Advertising Age is the main trade journal for the people who create and place advertising. They generally know what's going on in our consumer-based economy. From this first article:

...America's backbone is bending toward the breaking point. In the last decade, consumers overall cut spending 4.2% in 2010 dollars, and the brunt of that was felt by the middle class, which slashed spending between 10% and 13%. Meanwhile, the upper 20% of earners curbed spending only 6%. The blame can't be pinned on the recession, either. In real dollars, median family income is now what it was in 1997.

...This America looks like neither the Cosbys nor the Jeffersons; it does not resemble the Conners or the Bunkers. Perhaps it looks a little like "Modern Family" without the spending power. Today, half of all households have less than $10,000 in annual discretionary income, according to Experian Simmons.

While these changes haven't happened overnight, marketers are grappling with how to keep up. Walmart has stopped adding upscale merchandise and put back the bargain bins known as Action Alley. Layaway programs are in full swing at Kmart, Sears, Best Buy and Toys R Us. Hallmark even has greeting cards for the unemployed.

The article also discusses factual data from the 2010 Census that confirmed what many were noticing. Even in the early 1970's the median income family lived on one paycheck. But today the median income family has two paychecks.

The problem with that fact is the majority of the income growth over the past 35 years has taken place in two-income families while in the last two decades the number of married-couple families fell below half the American households.

Regardless of how you feel about the sociological changes, the fact is marketers are adjusting in order to survive. For the advertising business, these aren't political or social or religious issues, just economic realities.

The Advertising Age article mentions the ABC show "Modern Family," one of the most popular shows currently on television. It notes that America resembles the show but lacks "the spending power." Indeed, the one absence in "Modern Family" is that there is no one-adult household with or without children.  A curious omission.

I would argue that instead of looking back at the Huxtables (they weren't the Cosbys), the Jeffersons, the Conners, or the Bunkers, we should remember the CBS show "One Day at a Time" that ran from 1975 to 1984 and this family that in retrospect seems prescient:

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Originally Posted in the Redwood Guardian

The Latest Round in the California Water Issue

While generally not doing anything meaningful about the budget crisis, the Legislature and the Governor worked closely to put what may become a very unpopular water bond measure before the voters.

While we're all waiting for the opportunity to vote on the matter, a "discussion" continues which illustrates why the water "debate" is becoming another matter on the list of things California voters are disgusted about.

In what appears to be a reasonable approach in the debate over Delta water, the National Academy of Sciences appointed a panel to review rules adopted by federal wildlife agencies to protect endangered Delta fish species. This was requested by Senator Diane Feinstein.

At the simplest (or simpleton) level, the problem has been portrayed as a battle between hard working American farmers (who are an endangered species themselves) and liberal environmentalists who care more about smelt than people.

This review lays out clearly the kind of players involved on the agriculture side. Feinstein acted in response to a letter from Stewart Resnick, owner of Paramount Farms. To quote from the Paramount Farms web site: "Paramount Farms is the largest grower and processor of almonds and pistachios in the world." In fact, its processing facilities occupy more acres than what one might think of as "a farm." Again, from their web site:

Ah yes, as Ma and Pa Paramount, their eight kids, and their trusty farmhand Jethro struggle to keep the family farm....

In fact, this is a political arena battle between large corporate farmers and large corporate real estate developers on one side against the interests of California's remaining fisherman who are in truth the only small businessmen and women who have a survival stake in the battle (yes, the Delta wildlife have a survival stake also, but can't vote) joined by those who value the Delta ecosystem - the environmental community and federal wildlife agencies.

According to the Sacramento Bee, this review will cost American taxpayers $1.5 million and it will be the third such review, as the Bee notes: "Two separate independent science panels have affirmed the importance of fall flows for Delta smelt." Will the third review be enough?

Senator Diane Feinstein, the Senior Senator from California and a Democrat, is the epitome of the American survivalist politician dependent on large corporations and whose conservative politics look and smell like dead fish.

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Originally Posted in the Redwood Guardian

FERC Ponders Allowing Public Input, Environmental Review of Proposal for Electrical Generators in Whale Route

It was one year ago that my article entitled "Limited Time Only - Act now to own your piece of the ocean off the Mendocino Coast" (posted below) was published. This week the alliance of Northern California coast commercial and recreational fishing associations known as Fishermen Interested in Safe Hydrokinetics (FISH) has announced that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is extending its time to consider the FISH committee request for public participation and environmental analysis in developing federal licensing regulations for nascent wave energy generation projects.

In other words, FERC has to think about whether and how it would allow public participation and environmental analysis before issuing permits allowing PG&E and Chevron to place electrical generators and a grid in the Gray Whale Migration Route. More than 200 hydrokinetic projects have been proposed across the United States as a solution to environmental issues. Two wave energy projects are currently proposed for the coast off Mendocino County and one in Humboldt County, in one of the most flourishng marine areas on the West Coast. Seven are off the Oregon coast, including Lincoln County

Offshore from Mendocino County PG&E's proposal covers 68 square miles. Chevron's proposal is for a premilinary study. If implemented the proposals would require significant exclusion zones and would be located along the Gray Whale migration route. (See map above)

The City and County of San Francisco filed an initial statement in opposition to FERC even processing these applications because of lack of staff . In it's statement, the San Francisco argued:

    While specifically not referring to this application, San Francisco believes the risk of sparking a 'gold rush' by ill prepared applicants with ill-conceived projects is too high and the drain on Commission resources in reviewing such applications would be too great.

But the process has moved on.

As in all such complex regulatory processes, before the potentially effected public could wrap its collective head around the meaning of the proposals, FERC established rules regarding the process which essentially precluded public involvement in the process. As one writer noted:

    This pejorative May 21, 2008 FERC ruling rejects requests of FISH, Fort Bragg, Mendocino County and local stakeholders’ to rehear their right to participate in this wave energy development project. It is noted since onset of the Mendocino wave energy agenda, FERC and PG&E continue to swiftly move toward their goals while intentionally blocking all local, public participation. As wave energy development projects on the U.S. coasts progress, Americans are discovering that FERC’s convoluted wave energy licensing process is ill-defined, biased and discriminates against public participation.

As I noted in my article a year ago: "If you...want to get in on the action, you'd better hurry as FERC is likely to fast track these applications to approval before...when a new President takes office."

What the County of Mendocino, the City of Fort Bragg, the Recreational Fishing Alliance, and Lincoln County, Oregon discovered is that FERC really didn't plan to hear from them. So they've joined the FISH Committee’s request for a rehearing of FERC's policies. According to a report by Recreational Fishing Alliance West Coast Region Director:

    Potential negative impacts on marine life from wave buoys include electromagnetic pollution and interference with migratory finfish, whale entanglements and altering the bottom structure of the seabeds. Turbine devices submerged in rivers, bays and estuaries could entrain juvenile fish.
    "We take this issue very seriously and, if necessary, intend to vigorously pursue our legal options," said John Innes, board member of the North Coast Fishing Association. "We are not opposed to renewable energy, we only want to make sure we know what the impacts will be to fish and other marine life before we sign off on these projects. Considering that wave energy is in its infancy, it is extremely important to have proper controls and regulations in place to prevent non-recoverable detrimental effects on our ocean environment."

If you are concerned, its better late then never to get involved.

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Originally Posted in the Redwood Guardian