Poverty in California

It’s hard to believe that there is significant poverty in California. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority say there are over 57,000 homeless in this county alone. That reality is made obvious by the growing number of homeless encampments that have sprung up all over the city.

More than a third of California households have virtually no savings and are at risk of financial ruin. That data was compiled by Prosperity Now, a Washington, D.C.-based organization seeking to help people — particularly people of color and those with limited income — achieve financial security and prosperity. Even if the data is half as bad as reported it would still mean that about 15% of the population is in serious trouble.

The report says that more than 37 percent of California households have so little cash saved that they couldn’t live at the poverty level for even three months if they lost a job or suffered another significant loss of income.

No emergency fund
The scorecard also shows that 46 percent of households in the Golden State didn’t set aside any savings for emergencies over the past year, a higher percentage than the national rate of 43.7 percent.

It doesn’t help that 21.1 percent of California jobs are in low-wage occupations. The scorecard found that 21.4 percent of Californians experienced income volatility over the past year, a situation that most often results from irregular job schedules.

Households of color
It gets worse for households of color. They are nearly twice as likely to live below the poverty line as white households — 18.2 percent compared to 9.7 percent — and they are much less likely to own a home or other assets that could help boost their long-term financial stability.

Less than half of California’s households of color (43.9 percent) own homes, compared to 62.5 percent of white, non-Hispanic households. Moreover, 60.7 percent of Latino households and 56.7 percent of black households have virtually no savings and are considered “liquid asset poor,” compared to 28.2 percent of white households fitting that category.

“Beyond providing a cushion to get families through emergencies, increased savings and wealth allow families to invest in their futures and gain ground for future generations,” Prosperity Now President Andrea Levere said in a statement. “It’s clear that far too many people are stuck in economic limbo.”

High housing costs
Lars Perner, an assistant professor of clinical marketing at the USC Marshall School of Business, said California’s high housing costs have put many households on shaky financial ground.

“The cost of housing in California is exorbitant,” he said. “That’s a big part of the problem. People pay a disproportionate amount of their income toward housing.”

The report finds that nearly 20 million U.S. households (16.9 percent of the total) have zero or negative net worth. That means they owe more than they own.

Getting on track
The scorecard suggests several policies that could help get struggling households on track, including adopting policies that encourage saving, increasing the minimum wage, providing better access to home ownership and boosting retirement security.

Workable solutions are lacking. Meetings by various community groups might be interesting to attend but none of our elected government officials have any worthwhile ideas.

Treason

Russia wants to destroy western democracies. Not just the United States. There has been media reports of Russia’s efforts to impact elections in France, Germany, Belgium, and other nations. Their reason, I believe, is that Vladimir Putin is a dictator and the success of western democracies is demonstration to his countryman that the will of the people results in a more successful nation. National leaders like Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, and Hassan Rouhani of Iran are the dictatorial leaders that Putin admires.

I believe that Donald Trump, his son Donald Junior, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and ex-campaign manager Paul Manafort are all guilty of treason. They all colluded with the Russian government in the 2016 presidential and have continued to collude since Donald Trump’s election. I suspect their reason for the collusion is to earn money for themselves. They have little or no regard for American democracy.

Update 7-18-2017:

Trump and Putin spoke a second time for nearly an hour at G20 summit, White House says. Apparently the only people at that meeting were Trump, Putin, and a Russian translator. As this was not a meeting that Trump wanted to be known, isn’t this another piece of proof of collusion?

Trump’s repeated claims of fake news and his contention that everyone does the things he and his inner circle have done are all part of politics strains credulity beyond what any reasonable person would expect.

Read this definition of treason from thefreedictionary.com
n. the crime of betraying one’s country, defined in Article III, section 3 of the U. S. Constitution: “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” Treason requires overt acts and includes the giving of government security secrets to other countries, even if friendly, when the information could harm American security. Treason can include revealing to an antagonistic country secrets such as the design of a bomber being built by a private company for the Defense Department. Treason may include “espionage” (spying for a foreign power or doing damage to the operation of the government and its agencies, particularly involved in security) but is separate and worse than “sedition” which involves a conspiracy to upset the operation of the government.

I know that as of today the Republican Party is not ready to charge Trump or his inner circle with treason. I predict that the day is coming.

Garcetti for president in 2020?

This letter sent to the Los Angeles Times conveys my opinion. I would only add that the likelihood of a Jew being elected president of the United States is as likely that a buffoon like Donald Trump being elected. Wait a minute I guess anything is possible.

July 5, 2017 9:30 AM

To the editor: Excuse me, but what has Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti actually accomplished to be added to a short list of presidential wannabes? Is the Democratic Party’s bench so lacking that a mediocre-at-best mayor can be inserted into a serious presidential conversation for 2020? (“On the eve of Garcetti’s inauguration, soaring ambition meets a sober reality,” July 1)

Garcetti won a second term in an election in which few Angelenos voted and no one bothered to seriously challenge him. As for serious accomplishments, homelessness and gentrification are out of control, and Los Angeles has become known for high rents, anemic job growth and a seriously deficient municipal infrastructure.

Given his incessant and annoying public service announcements at LAX, Garcetti seems to be auditioning for talk radio, not higher office.

Nicholas J. Antonicello, Venice Beach

Trump Wants to Kill Free Press

Donald Trump just gave cable TV show “Morning Joe” a wonderful free piece of publicity. The program hit an all-time high passing more than one million viewers for the first time ever in May and beat CNN’s third-place “New Day” for the 27th straight month, the program’s best streak ever.

Trump gave the show a boost by his name calling of the hosts. He called Mika Brzezinski “low I.Q. Crazy Mika” and Joe Scarborough “Psycho Joe.” This name calling is nothing new for Trump. He had names for Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Carly Fiorina.

Today’s claim by Brzezinski and Scarborough that they have been threatened by a possible piece in the National Enquirer, that could be killed if Scarborough called an apology to Trump might be true or it could be a publicity stunt. More people are likely to be watching Morning Joe on MSNBC just to see what will happen. It is like a soap opera but is real. Great entertainment value.

While it should be beneath the president to be involved in name calling, I suspect there is a more serious intention to this entire story.

Previously CNN was accused by the White House of issuing “fake news” reports. There have been other actions by the White House to deny coverage of new events. An example is the meeting between Trump and Russian officials on May 10 where White House officials block reporters from covering the meeting. Photos were released by the Russia. Just today there was another event where video was not permitted.

The entire behavior of the White House is to block and discredit the news media. America as we have known it is under attack. Whether it is WordPress or Morning Joe the media must remain on guard. There is a man in the White House who wants to destroy our institutions.

Golden Parachutes and extraordinary pay for the undeserving

Greed and incompetence are rewarded in corporate America. Just ask Robert Coury, Marissa Mayer, and John Stumpf. These are the three people I am highlighting but there are many more. A 57 cent ignition switch was not replaced in 2.6 million Chevrolet Cobalts and Saturn Ions at the price of 13 deaths.

Mylan (MYL) was already under fire for a relentless series of price hikes on a two-pack of EpiPens by 400% over seven years. The controversy badly damaged Mylan’s reputation and wiped out billions of dollars of market value. Yet Mylan still lavished former CEO Robert Coury with $98 million in pay for 2016 as he transitioned to the role of executive chairman.

Marissa Mayer leaves Yahoo with nearly $260 million. This is after she failed to make the company a success. In fact it was bought by Verizon who saved Yahoo from bankruptcy. Mayer, who will not be sticking with Verizon (VZ, Tech30) now that Yahoo and its other digital media unit AOL are being combined under one operating unit called Oath, will also receive $23 million in severance payments to walk away from Yahoo.

In 2012, John Stumpf, former CEO of Wells Fargo Bank, had total compensation of $22.87 million with a base salary of $2.8 million, $3,300,000 in cash bonuses, $12.5 million in stock granted, and $15,000 in other compensation. Stumpf retired just weeks after he was grilled by two congressional panels over the way the bank handled an alleged scam where upwards of 2 million accounts were created by employees without the knowledge of customers. The accounts were allegedly opened so thousands of employees could meet aggressive sales goals set by management. Stumpf was widely criticized for the way he handled the questioning, pushing the blame to lower-level employees and not holding upper-level executives, including himself, responsible.

Those were just three of the oligarchs that are receiving millions of dollars while the U.S. Census Bureau reported in September 2014 that: U.S. real (inflation adjusted) median household income was $51,939.

Oregon’s History Of White Supremacy

I have visited Oregon at least three times. All were wonderful experiences. From the Oregon Caves to the Columbia River it is all beautiful scenery. I never gave a thought about their racial make up or their apparent hate history. I was upset over the stabbing in Portland as were most people. Even more upsetting is Oregon’s History Of White Supremacy. It was reported on my local NPR radio station.

Portland Train Murders Highlight Oregon’s History Of White Supremacy

4:40 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered

NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks with Randy Blazak, chair of the Oregon Coalition Against Hate Crime, about the state of white supremacy in the Portland area and the state of Oregon.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

We now turn to the chair of the Oregon Coalition Against Hate Crime, Randy Blazak. He teaches criminology at the University of Oregon and has been tracking the white supremacist movement in the state for more than 20 years. Welcome.

RANDY BLAZAK: Hello.

SHAPIRO: While Portland has a reputation for being progressive, it is also the whitest big city in America. Tell us about Oregon’s history with racist policies.

BLAZAK: Well, we’ve kind of got a long history that goes back to the founding of the state. I mean the Oregon Trail was – the Land Donation Act was for white settlers only. The state was founded in 1859 as a white-only state, and then that was on the books until 1922. Portland and Oregon had the largest Klan west of the Rockies, the largest per capita actually in the whole country.

SHAPIRO: That’s amazing.

BLAZAK: So…

SHAPIRO: Oregon had the largest per capita Klan membership in the entire country.

BLAZAK: That’s right. It was very active. They elected a governor, Governor Pierce, who went to work outlawing Catholic churches as one of his first duties, which was soon overturned by the Supreme Court. But it was a very active Klan state. And it’s a part of the explanation about why Portland is as white as it is in the year 2017 – is this long racial history the state has.

SHAPIRO: Has Oregon ever taken steps to address or undo legacies of its racist past?

BLAZAK: Sure. I mean it’s had to rewrite some parts of the Constitution that had words like colored people and mulattoes in the constitution. That was only taken out about a decade ago. There has been an attempt to redress or at least acknowledged some of its history, but it’s kind of woven into it up into the modern-day issues around gentrification where we see minority people being pushed out of neighborhoods to make room for incoming moneyed whites. I mean it’s sort of this long story that’s been told that has many chapters. And this unfortunately is just the latest chapter in our history.

SHAPIRO: Well, what do you see in today’s chapter that’s different from what we’ve seen in the past?

BLAZAK: You know, we’ve certainly had racial violence, including the murder of an Ethiopian immigrant by skinheads in 1988 in Portland. But this version is…

SHAPIRO: I remember that. I was in school at the time in Portland.

BLAZAK: Yes, Mulugeta Seraw – I mean many people still remember that incident that – you know, this brings about the role of the Internet, the role of online radicalization and the way that this subculture has sort of morphed into this more invisible world. I mean there used to be physical places that you would go to Klan rallies or to skinhead meetings. And now it kind of takes place online, and people express those views more openly. And so it’s a new version of an old phenomenon. But in a way, it’s more insidious because it sort of exists in the ether and not in a physical place.

SHAPIRO: We just heard about the debate in the city over whether this so-called Trump free speech rally with alt-right groups should be allowed to go forward. Are you concerned that there could be more violence if these happen?

BLAZAK: There’s a lot of tension that’s been building. It’s been building in this city for a long time. I mean Portland became known as skinhead city in the 1990s because of, like, rival factions of racist skinheads and anti-racist skinheads going at it. And so we’re seeing a new version of this. But it’s been kind of magnified by the election politics and the rhetoric of the alt-right and the ability to kind of rally the troops fairly quickly over the Internet. And I think the city is sort of bracing itself for something that might turn quite ugly.

SHAPIRO: Do you go into the chat rooms and other places where these communities gather online? And…

BLAZAK: Yeah.

SHAPIRO: Can you describe how they’ve been reacting to this stabbing?

BLAZAK: You know, both sides have been talking about this incident. There are members of people on the right-wing side of the spectrum that would like to see more of this violence and have vilified the victims as sort of the people who prop up the status quo and defend multiculturalism and the Islamification of America, as they’ve called it.

The people on the left side are concerned that the police are overly protective of what they’re calling fascists in the streets of Portland and are not doing enough to shut down these folks who of course have a First Amendment right but also are causing concern around the issue of agitating more right-wing violence. So it’s really – it depends on where you’re standing what the perspective on the city’s role on this issue is.

SHAPIRO: That’s Randy Blazak, chair of the Oregon Coalition Against Hate Crime. Thanks for joining us.

BLAZAK: My pleasure.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE WEAKERTHANS SONG, “ELEGY FOR GUMP WORSLEY”)

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Harry and Bess

(This seems unreal.)

Harry Truman was a different kind of President. He probably made as many, or more important decisions regarding our nation’s history as any of the other 42 Presidents preceding him. However, a measure of his greatness may rest on what he did after he left the White House.

The only asset he had when he died was the house he lived in, which was in Independence Missouri. His wife had inherited the house from her mother and father and other than their years in the White House, they lived their entire lives there.

When he retired from office in 1952 his income was a U.S. Army pension reported to have been $13,507.72 a year. Congress, noting that he was paying for his stamps and personally licking them, granted him an ‘allowance’ and, later, a retroactive pension of $25,000 per year.

After President Eisenhower was inaugurated, Harry and Bess drove home to Missouri by themselves. There was no Secret Service following them.

When offered corporate positions at large salaries, he declined, stating, “You don’t want me. You want the office of the President, and that doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it’s not for sale.”

Even later, on May 6, 1971, when Congress was preparing to award him the Medal of Honor on his 87th birthday, he refused to accept it, writing, “I don’t consider that I have done anything which should be the reason for any award, Congressional or otherwise.”

As president he paid for all of his own travel expenses and food.

Modern politicians have found a new level of success in cashing in on the Presidency, resulting in untold wealth. Today, many in Congress also have found a way to become quite wealthy while enjoying the fruits of their offices. Political offices are now for sale.

Good old Harry Truman was correct when he observed, “My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference!

I say dig him up and clone him!

Enjoy life NOW! — it has an expiration date!

Natural Born Citizen

Those of you who worry about Democrats versus Republicans — relax. Here is our real
problem:

Indiana University:

In an Indiana University classroom, they were discussing the qualifications to be President of the United States. It was pretty simple. “The candidate must be a natural born citizen of at least 35 years of age.”

However, one girl in the class immediately started in on how unfair it was of the requirement to be a natural born citizen.

In short, her opinion was that this requirement prevented many capable individuals from becoming president. The class was taking it in and letting her rant, and not many jaws hit the floor when she wrapped up her argument by stating, “What makes a natural born citizen any more qualified to lead this country than one born by C-section?”

Yep, these are the same 18-22 year-olds that are now voting in our elections!

They breed, and they walk among us. Lord, we may need more help than we realized!!