An Independent view of law, politics and social issues confronting Angelinos, Californians, and Americans
After December 7, 1941 America quickly came together and the United States won two wars simultaneously. Then the United States went on to become the most powerful and richest nation in the world.
September 11, 2001 was a serious attack but once again the U.S.A. is the nation most envied where everyone wants to be.
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%
41
Percentage owned by the bottom 60%:
2
______
Percentage of Americans without health insurance for at least part of the year 2013:
11.7
Percentage of Canadians:
0
Percentage of Israelis:
0
______
Number of countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that mandate some form of paid family leave:
33
Number of OECD countries that do not:
1
Percentage of U.S. workers without access to paid family leave:
87
______
Number of American children living below the poverty line is 2012:
24.2 million
______
Percentage of Americans who still believe in the American dream:
64
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.
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
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?
A little over a week ago the news media started publicizing a balloon art exhibit at McArthur Park in central Los Angeles. It’s not in downtown. It is just west of downtown. The area is poor and has a large immigrant population. The park is named for General Douglas McArthur of WWII fame. Previously the park was named Westlake and contains a modestly large lake for a city park.
The exhibit of the hand painted balloons was a delightful sight in an area populated by the poor and homeless. From both Wilshire Boulevard and 6th Street you can see an outstanding view of the downtown skyline.
It was a cloudy day and a few drop of rain fell thanks to monsoonal clouds that drifted in from Arizona.
All photos taken with Panasonic FZ200 camera. A total of 18 photos were taken. 17 are useable. All will be displayed on my Flickr page in the Balloon Art Exhibit album.
1/640 sec; f/4.0; ISO 100
1/800 sec; f/4.0; ISO 100
1/1000 sec; f/2.8; ISO 100
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?
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.
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
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.
Just this past July 22 we returned from a trip that included five days in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. While there we rode one of the Hop On Hop Off city tours. The guide was obviously quite knowledgeable about the city. It is a city of many very attractive 20 to 30 story high buildings. She informed us that the cost of the apartments in those buildings started at $1 million (Canadian). Although the Canadian dollar is currently about 30 cents lower in value than the American dollar it has been almost identical during the past few years. So the cost of living in Vancouver is high.
Meanwhile here in California the cost of homes has been equally as high. The median home price value in San Francisco is over $1 million reports Zillow. They say it’s a 12.7% increase during the past year and predicts even higher prices in the coming five years.
Down here in Los Angeles Home sales reached a nine-year high in July, prices climbed 5.5% from a year earlier, according a report out Tuesday from CoreLogic a company that tracks home prices throughout southern California. The Los Angeles Times reports that Zillow says “Los Angeles and Orange County are the least affordable housing market in the country.”
Interestingly Portland, Oregon is the city that has experienced the least impact of the inflated home prices with median home prices of about $327,000. However not to be out done their prices have also risen over 10% in the past year.
However as the price of homes has risen the average family income has not risen by comparable amounts. In Portland, Oregon median family income was $55,571 in 2013. In Los Angeles that number was $48,466. Using the old standard of qualifying to buy a home 2½ to 3 to times your family annual income that calculates to a home costing $150,000. No wonder so many young adults are still living with their parents.
What is causing inflated home prices? Googling that question shows lots of analysis but no answers. Here is my take.
Most cities have run out of space for new building. That translates into more high rise housing. Those kinds of structures are expensive to build. Those buildings are townhouse/condominiums translate into expensive homes. Even Los Angeles, a city known for single family homes, has turned to more apartment housing because travel times have become too long (a 1½ hour drive to the airport or to work has become the norm). Average families simply cannot afford that style of housing so they move to the outer edge of the city. That’s where I live.
Thousands of people from other nations have been buying homes in the United States and Canada because it is a safe place to invest their money. That demand has driven up the price of American and Canadian homes. There have been a series of news items and opinion pieces in the Los Angeles Times that have pointed to this growing trend. 47% of Vancouver is now populated by Asians. The San Gabriel Valley area of metropolitan Los Angeles has experienced a growing Asian population to the point that many long time residents have voiced their concern about the changing demographics. Those voices made their way into the newspaper.
http://www.bankrate.com says, “International homebuyers have been pouring billions of dollars into the U.S. housing market as they take advantage of lower home prices and a weaker dollar.” “When buying a home in the United States, foreign buyers often pay cash because it’s a much easier, quicker process, says real estate agent Baro Shalizi of Shalizi Real Estate, in Santa Fe, N.M.” When an elderly acquaintance of mine sold his home for more than $700,000 the buyer paid for it in cash. That all cash offer made the sale easy and eliminated all other offers.
Now cities are confronted with the question of providing decent housing for young families that have median incomes. Without the needed homes there is an impact on the buying habits of those families. They will live with their families. That translates to reduced purchases of refrigerators, lawn mowers, and everything else that homeowners buy.
There will be one of three consequences or perhaps some combination. 1) Government does nothing and young families double up to buy a home or continuing living with parents. 2) There will be subsidized housing for the median income families. 3) More people living farther from the big cities in order to buy a home and that results in more commuters.
Coast Contact 
