Bernie Sanders’ Labor Day Index

This is an OP-ED article in today’s Los Angeles Times. It is posted under Senator Bernie Sanders name. The data is not news to me but might be news to you.

Amount a full-time worker must earn per hour to afford the average two-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles:

$27.38

Factor by which this exceeds the city’s current $9-an-hour minimum wage

3.04

______

Number of manufacturing jobs in the United States on Jan. 1, 2000

17.3 million

Number last year:

12.1 million

______

Percentage change in annual worker compensation from 1978 to 2013:

+10.2

Percentage change in annual CEO compensation from 1978 to 2013:

+937

______

Average CEO pay in the S&P 500:

$13.8 million

Amount of the top-compensated CEO,

David Zaslav of Discovery Communications,

was paid in 2014:

$156 million

Median salary at Discovery Communications in 2014:

$80,000

______

Median weekly earnings for full-time workers in 2015:

$801

For female full-time workers:

$726

______

Real national unemployment rate:

10.3%

(This is from the BLS Table A15, U6 data, 8-31-15)

For young White high school graduates:

33.8%

For young African American high school graduates:

51.3%

______

Percentage of the entire wealth of the United States owned by the top 1%

Percentage owned by the bottom 60%:

______

Percentage of Americans without health insurance for at least part of the year 2013:

11.7

Percentage of Canadians:

Percentage of Israelis:

______

Number of countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that mandate some form of paid family leave:

Number of OECD countries that do not:

Percentage of U.S. workers without access to paid family leave:

______

Number of American children living below the poverty line is 2012:

24.2 million

______

Percentage of Americans who still believe in the American dream:

Splitting the United States into Manageable Independent Nations

My contention is that the United States is too diverse to remain as one nation. Western Europe is geographically about the same size as the United States but it is split into many countries that are primarily separated by culture. Yes they each have their own language and that continues despite the European Union and the Euro. What they all seem to have in common is their dislike and perhaps distaste for the other nations in their union.

Hear me out on this topic.

I grew up in Philadelphia and Los Angeles. My knowledge of other parts of the country is mostly limited to the things I read and see on television reports. Most people are like me in that they too have limited knowledge of other parts of this country. A two week vacation trip to NYC does not make you an expert on their culture.

The things we all have in common is our language, our money, and our respect for the constitution that binds us together as a nation. Like Europe we are also separated by culture.

Clearly we do not agree on many subjects from abortion rights, to gun control, to immigration, to world trade. Those divides have made Americans so adamant that their ideas are the only correct ideas as a result no legislation on any of the subjects can be processed by the congress. The resulting animosity has caused the government to shut down due to lack of funding. No one seems to have the courage to lead this nation out of its stubborn freeze.

Stupidly we continue to send the same people to represent us in Washington. We keep hoping that something will change. What is the thing that will motivate our representatives? There is nothing.

Colin Woodward wrote an article in Tufts Magazine titled ‘Up In Arms’. Subtitled, ‘THE BATTLE LINES OF TODAY’S DEBATES OVER GUN CONTROL, STAND-YOUR-GROUND LAWS, AND OTHER VIOLENCE-RELATED ISSUES WERE DRAWN CENTURIES AGO BY AMERICA’S EARLY SETTLERS’, it divides North America into eleven separate ‘Nations’. They look like this.

click map to enlarge

The likelihood is we won’t split apart until things become desperate. At the rate things are going that may be sooner than you think.

Doctor Ben Carson is a Nice Man but…

From the Huffington Post

The “Fox News Sunday” host, Chris Wallace, challenged the 2016 presidential candidate on some of his most inflammatory remarks, including Carson’s comparing the Obama administration to Hitler’s Germany.

“I want to ask you about some remarks you’ve made that you say that you stand by,” Wallace said. “You have compared our government today to Nazi Germany. Do you really believe that?”

“Well, a lot of people like to say that,” Carson responded. “But what I said is that in Nazi Germany, most of those people didn’t believe in what Hitler was doing, but did they say anything? They did not. That’s what allowed people to progress to that point. We need to be willing to stand up and speak up for what we believe.”

Wallace jumped in: “But people oppose Barack Obama all the time!”

The Fox News host also brought up Carson’s claim that Obamacare is the worst thing to happen to the country since slavery.

“Well, you have to understand what I’m talking about,” Carson explained. “You know, Obamacare fundamentally changes the relationship between the people and the government. The government is supposed to respond to the will of the people. Not dictate to the people what they are doing. And with this program, we’re allowing that whole paradigm to be switched around.”

Hannity on Fox News

“Well, my thoughts are that marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s a well-established, fundamental pillar of society and no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality. It doesn’t matter what they are. They don’t get to change the definition.” -2013 interview

“A lot of people who go into prison straight, and when they come out they’re gay.” – CNN interview on March 4, 2015

A Gun Happy Nation

It’s all baloney. CNN headline is “Our Hearts are Broken” as they display photos of Alison Parker and Adam Ward. Horror and dismay along with weeks of coverage after the massacres at a Colorado movie theater by James Holmes and Sandy Hook elementary school and the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre. But we just can’t give up our guns.

After each event there are flowers laid at a critical location and a call for a gathering to remember those who have been killed. They call it a “vigil.” Then we all go on with life knowing that there will be another horrifying killing within the next few days.

The Los Angeles Times had an article about this very topic in the morning’s edition before the latest killing in Virginia. The article says that the United States is the leader in the most mass killing of any country in the world.

Where is our congress? On vacation forever on this issue.

So despite the killing of nine in a Black church in South Carolina and the killing in Tucson, Arizona that left Gabrielle Giffords maimed for life; Our love for guns trumps all other events. Our preference to own a gun has no limits. There is no price too high to pay that will change our love of guns.

When our leaders say we are the exceptional country is gun ownership part of that? The answer must be yes. Is there another reason we allow everyone to own a gun?

Blowhards Lead the Campaign for President

NEW YORK, NY - JANUARY 05: Donald Trump attends the — NEW YORK, NY – JANUARY 05: Donald Trump attends the “Celebrity Apprentice” Red Carpet Event at Trump Tower on January 5, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Pont/FilmMagic)

Donald Trump has made the issue of illegal aliens his hallmark campaign issue. It may be a crowd pleaser for Republicans and other anti-immigrant groups but it is a distraction. The real issue, that Trump has touched upon, is middle class jobs. After all those illegal aliens aren’t taking jobs from the middle class. They are taking jobs from the poorest Americans who have limited skills.

None of the candidates for president have offered any consequential ideas about reinforcing and expanding middle class opportunities. Mr. Trump says he will make America great again. He says he will obtain the support of people like Carl Icahn who know how to bring jobs back to the USA. Details of how this will be accomplished. Who needs details?

“Hillary Rodham Clinton enters the Barnes & Noble to sign her book “Hard Choices” at The Grove, Thursday, June 19, 2014. (Photo by Michael Owen Baker/Los Angeles Daily News)”

Meanwhile Hillary Clinton in her first major speech on the economy stood in front of a crowd called for companies to share more profits with their employees. Look at the listings of those people on the board of directors of any listed company. Their members are heads of other companies. It’s a closed system. Why should they share their wealth? The capitalist system does not call for sharing. It calls for make as much as you can. It’s everyone for themselves.

The leading candidates for president are both too wealthy to really care about you and me.

Canada’s birthright citizenship

It turns out that Donald Trump’s commentary is not new. Canada and the United States are the only countries in the world that offer birthright citizenship. Birth tourism is a thriving business in southern California. I was born in Canada. If Donald Trump is elected president of the United States will Canada take me back? From Toronto Life on May 20, 2014.

Jan Wong: Canada’s birthright citizenship policy makes us a nation of suckers

Pregnant women are travelling to Toronto from all over—China, Iran, India, Dubai, Jamaica—to have their babies on Canadian soil, and who can blame them? We’re a nation of suckers

By Jan Wong | Illustration by Graham Roumieu

Jan Wong: Motherlode

I don’t know about you, but I constantly congratulate myself on winning the jackpot in the lottery of life. Thank you, revered ancestor, for your wisdom in choosing Canada. My grandfather, Hooie Chong, came here as a coolie in the 1880s to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. Once it was complete, he paid a special tax to stay on and continue working, as a laundryman. Later, he paid triple head taxes to bring over my grandmother, their son and his wife. Family lore has it that Grandfather Chong was the 10th Chinese person to become a naturalized Canadian (albeit without any right to vote).

Now there’s a much easier path to citizenship: birth tourism. Foreign companies are helping pregnant women take advantage of our breathtakingly generous birthright policy, which grants automatic citizenship—and all the rights and benefits it entails—to any baby born on Canadian soil. You don’t even have to touch the soil: in 2008, a girl born to a Ugandan mother aboard a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Boston was deemed Canadian because the plane happened to be in our airspace at the moment of delivery. Currently, Canada and the U.S. are the only two developed countries bestowing birthright citizenship.

For pregnant women actively seeking to jump the immigration queue, birth tourism agencies offer comprehensive package deals. One such agency is the Canada-U.S. Childbirth Counselling Services Company, based in Nanjing, China. According to their website, “the best gift you can give your newborn is a Canadian passport.” The company’s $36,200 package includes airfare, assistance with visas and paperwork, coaching on how to get through the border, private accommodation with Wi-Fi and “a special person to cook and look after your personal needs.” Among the advantages that come with Canadian citizenship, the company lists “great educational resources” and social benefits, including welfare payments of “$500 to $700 a month for a single person,” plus a Canadian passport that provides visa-free entry to more than 200 countries, including the U.S., Japan and western Europe.

Birth tourism consultants recommend that clients apply for tourist visas early and fly before they start to show. Otherwise they are advised to wear loose clothing to the airport. While some airlines such as Air Canada require a doctor’s note to fly after 36 weeks of pregnancy, in this age of political correctness, a woman is unlikely to be questioned about girth. Once at the border, birth-tourism agencies advise expectant mothers to say they’re visiting Canada to sightsee.

From there, the visitor’s experience is fairly straightforward. When she goes into labour, she’s automatically admitted into one of the many local hospitals offering high-quality obstetric care. Wendy Lawrence, in-house legal counsel at Mount Sinai, says the hospital considers every labour a medical emergency. “No matter what, we help them deliver the baby.”

Once the baby is born, the hospital opens a file and assigns a number. Hospital staff aren’t required to check the mother’s citizenship, and they don’t. The province (which is responsible for birth registration) doesn’t ask about the mother’s citizenship either—a lapse Ottawa says it will address. When mother and baby leave the hospital, they move into a short-term rental. Thanks to Canada’s streamlined application process, the parental paperwork is a breeze. It takes just 25 minutes online to register a birth, apply for a birth certificate and acquire a social insurance number. Official documents arrive in the mail a few weeks later; a passport takes another month.

What non-Californians don’t know about Carly Fiorina — but should

Occasionally I post an article appearing in a local newspaper or a magazine article that I view significant. This is one of those times. Michael Hiltzik is a regular columnist in the Los Angeles Times. Although this is a long column it will be worth your while to read.

The most surprising takeaway from last week’s Republican presidential debate — next to the difficulty of puncturing Donald Trump’s helium-powered candidacy — was the mass anointing of Carly Fiorina as the Candidate to Watch.

Praise for the former Hewlett-Packard CEO’s performance at the introductory undercard debate spanned the full range of news outlets. The conservative National Review remarked on her “poise and her well-crafted answers,” and CNN paid homage to her “sharp knowledge of the issues.”

Fiorina told the latter that she went into the debate aware that “only 40% of Republicans even know who I am.”

She must be talking about people outside the state of California. Here in the Golden State, we know Carly Fiorina very well. We know her as the under-performing CEO of one of Silicon Valley’s marquee corporations, and even better for her losing campaign against Sen. Barbara Boxer in 2010.

So as a public service, let’s share with the rest of the country what we’ve learned about Carly Fiorina. We’ll start with her dismal political record.

Even before her 2010 campaign against Boxer could get off the ground, it was poleaxed by the revelation that she had failed to cast a ballot in 75% of the California elections for which she was an eligible voter. She missed presidential primaries in 2000 and 2004, and the primary and general elections in 2006, including a Senate reelection run by Democrat Dianne Feinstein. She skipped the primary and general elections in 2002, a gubernatorial election year, as well as the historic recall vote that brought Arnold Schwarzenegger to the governor’s seat.

In an Orange County Register op-ed announcing her Senate candidacy in 2009, she explained lamely: “I felt disconnected from the decisions made in Washington and, to be honest, really didn’t think my vote mattered because I didn’t have a direct line of sight from my vote to a result.”

I observed at the time:

“During her reign at Hewlett-Packard, according to public records, her corporation spent $4.7 million to lobby Congress and donated more than $390,000 to political candidates through its political action committee. Fiorina and her husband, Frank, a former AT&T executive, have made more than $100,000 in political donations personally since 2000.

“That suggests not that Fiorina ‘felt disconnected’ from what was going on in Washington, but rather that she understood all too well that in politics, money talks. Why bother to vote when you can get what you need with greenbacks?”

(In other words, she believes in the political system, just not the one that non-millionaires have to use.)

Among her big issues was healthcare reform and the bill just then beginning its journey through Congress. “Wouldn’t you love to know what’s in that 1,990-page healthcare bill that’s being considered right now?” she asked the crowd at her launch event in November 2009. Actually, the measure was closer to 950 pages — but why count pages when there’s a political point to be scored? — and, as I pointed out, it was no secret. The text could be downloaded from a public website and read by anyone, including Fiorina.

More to the point, Fiorina, who was making much out of her own battle with breast cancer (“After chemotherapy, Barbara Boxer just isn’t really that scary anymore,” she quipped), displayed the usual contempt that privileged insurance owners have for the uninsureds. Fiorina received her health coverage through her husband’s AT&T retirement plan, but for everyone else she advocated allowing insurance companies to sell policies across state lines, which would be a boon to the insurers and a disaster for buyers.

As I observed: “If she were an average person who lost that AT&T coverage and had to replace it in an individual market where the insurers could sell it to her on their own terms, subject to the rules of the most lenient and consumer-unfriendly states … as a cancer survivor, she’d be uninsurable.”

The Affordable Care Act, which she opposed in its cradle and now says should be repealed, bars discrimination against applicants based on their medical conditions. What’s her answer to that? We don’t know, because she wasn’t asked at the debate. She has, however, advocated defunding Planned Parenthood, which provides reproductive health services to middle- and low-income women unlike her.

The foundation stone of Fiorina’s political pitch is her business career. It’s impressive on paper, underwhelming in reality. She was CEO of Hewlett-Packard from mid-1999 to early 2005, a period in which the company’s stock sank 49% to 60% (depending on how you count), making it one of the worst-performing high-tech firms.

CEO Fiorina talked a lot about “innovation” while pursuing corporate strategies displaying a striking lack of imagination. She cut HP’s payroll by 10,000 employees in 2000 while surrounding her glamorous self with clouds of image and strategy consultants. She marketed overpriced knockoffs of other companies’ consumer technologies and then, disastrously, doubled down on the PC business by acquiring Compaq in 2002, when the right move would have been to exit that low-margin business altogether.

The Compaq takeover led to a bruising battle with the HP board, which she utterly mismanaged, leading to her bitter ouster in 2005. Her reaction was to blame everyone else, which doesn’t speak well of her capacity for introspection. She left with a severance package estimated at $40 million, which speaks very well of her negotiating skills (or her lawyers’).

The Fiorina running for office today is a package of conventional Republican policy wrapped up in earnestness and poise. She opposes a government mandate for paid maternity leave, which would be very important for middle-class families but not so much for holders of corporate golden parachutes. She blames the California drought on “liberal environmentalists,” which is about as uninformed as one can get about water in the West but fits seamlessly with GOP orthodoxy.

I doubt that Californians who witnessed her tenure at HP or her Senate campaign in 2010 are surprised at the Fiorina of 2015. But the rest of you should know too.

The Need for Common Core Educational Standards

The U.S.A. ranks 36^th from the top in math in the world.

Common Core is the academic standards now being implemented in 43 states and Washington, D.C. Common Core was created by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. It was not created by the Federal government.

Jeb Bush was in support of Common Core until he realized that many Republicans oppose it. Now, based upon his comment at last Thursday’s debate, he only supports higher standards but not federally created ones.

The question is how does the United States compare with other nations? You can find the information you want to support your preconceived answer to this question.

I believe this organization is about as good as it gets to finding the answer to the above question. https://www.studentsfirst.org/pages/the-stats

Compared to other countries, we fail in math and science.

In the growing global marketplace, students will need to excel in both math and science to compete internationally as engineers, scientists, physicians, and creative entrepreneurs. Yet, in a 2012 analysis of student performance on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the U.S. placed 27th out of 34 countries in math performance and 20th in science performance.⁴

Of course you can deny studentsfirst claims. They might have an agenda that really is not intended to help students excel. I just can’t find it.

The 36^th ranking was developed by The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, results from PISA 2012. This is not news. It was discussed by Fareed Zakaria on his CNN GPS progam. The discrepancy between 27^th and 36^th probably lies in the evaluation of separate parts of China.

The leading nations or cities were:

Shanghai-China
Singapore
Hong Kong-China
Chinese Taipei
Korea
Macao-China
Japan

13. Canada

16. Germany

17. Viet Nam

25. France

26. United Kingdom

34. Russian Federation

36. United States

Those fighters against common core seem to want to defend their preference for mediocrity.

Democrats and Republicans Beware!

The first Republican Party Debate for the 2016 election created an extreme viewing of 24 million Americans. It was the biggest view of a presidential debate in history. The draw was Donald Trump. His fame as host of The Apprentice on NBC and his many bombastic statements since his entry into the election campaign made him the reason for the interest.

Today’s commentaries by the range of right to left commentators was unanimous. Everyone on television from Chris Matthews to Charles Krauthammer have all predicted that Donald Trump would soon become a memory. Not one thought that Trump will be the nominee.

While I am not a Trump supporter I will not be surprised if he leads in the polls into the voting season. The reason is simple. None of the other candidates stood out as Donald Trump stood out. They are all experienced politicians. They all said the predictable things. Americans are tired of experienced politicians who make no commitments. Minnesotans elected wrestler Jesse Ventura to the governor’s office. Californians elected actor/body builder Arnold Schwarzenegger to the governor’s office.

As far as the Megyn Kelly versus Donald Trump in the debate consider this. First Trump’s argument with TV host Rosie O’Donnell goes back to 2006 and relates to O’Donnell’s criticized Trump for failing to fire that year’s Miss USA, Tara Conner. Other comments relate to his The Apprentice program. Both of those situations have nothing to do with Trump’s run for the president. In my opinion Kelly should not have asked anything about those incidents. Kelly does not understand that those events had to do with entertainment not real life.

So why not elect a successful business man and entertainer to the presidency? After all the two political parties have proven they can’t govern. Why not give someone else a shot at managing this country?

That is the reason I suspect Donald Trump can become the GOP standard bearer in 2016.

Tired of Old Time Politicians

There is a reason for the rising popularity of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Americans are tired of political hacks. It’s the same people running for office we have seen over and over again. Americans are tired of the talk and no action gang. That is something that Mr. Trump has pointed out. To put it another way, “Where’s the beef?”

I am quite certain that many Americans will be watching the Fox News debate on Thursday night for two reasons. 1) Donald Trump is well known to be entertaining and many hope to be entertained. 2) Will Donald Trump offer solutions to the problems facing the United States?

If Mr. Trump does offer solutions to problems he will continue to lead in the polls even if many do not agree with his ideas. The reason is that most Americans do not believe that the rest of the candidates will do the things they have promised.

Americans want solutions and someone they believe can deliver on their promises. The stable of old politicians represents the unfulfilled promises of the many issue. Most of us doubt those old politicians will deliver this time.

Our nation needs a shakeup. A non-politician may be the solution many Americans are seeking. Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger are two examples of non-politicians getting involved in the job of managing the government. Schwarzenegger was poor choice but Reagan was considered by many to be an outstanding choice.

Then again remember Herman Cain and Ross Perot.