A Jewish Sephardic leader dies – an Israeli ayatollah

More than 700,000 Israelis, many rending their clothes, packed the streets of Jerusalem two weeks ago to mourn Ovadia Yosef (died October 7,2013), the ultra-Orthodox rabbi who once led Israel’s Sephardic Jews. Yosef, 93, founded the influential Shas party to speak for working-class Jews from the Middle East, who had less clout in Israel than Ashkenazi Jews from Europe. A polarizing figure, he paved the way for peace with Egypt by ruling that territorial concessions were permissible, yet he also denounced Muslims as “ugly” and “stupid,” and said Jews who died in the Holocaust were being punished for ancestral sins. Non-Jews, he said in a 2010 sermon, “were born only to serve us.”

Jeffrey Goldberg, a Bloomberg columnist, called Yosef “the Israeli Ayatollah.” Goldberg went on to write:

In the manner of the crudest fundamentalists everywhere, Yosef blamed misfortune and death on apostasy, irreligiosity and homosexuality (gay people, in his eyes, were “completely evil”). About Israeli soldiers who fell in battle, Yosef once said, “Is it any wonder if, heaven forbid, soldiers are killed in a war? They don’t observe the Sabbath, they don’t observe the Torah, they don’t pray, they don’t put on phylacteries every day. Is it any wonder that they’re killed? It’s no wonder.” Even more famously, he blamed the deaths of Jews during the Holocaust on the spiritual deficiencies of their ancestors.

In 2005, he argued that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for the Gaza withdrawal and for the alleged godlessness of the black residents of New Orleans. “There was a tsunami and there are terrible natural disasters, because there isn’t enough Torah study,” he said. “Tens of thousands have been killed. All of this because they have no God.” He went on to argue — if that’s the word for it — that the deaths were also punishment directed at President George W. Bush for pressuring Sharon to remove Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip. “It was God’s retribution,” he said. “God does not short-change anyone.”

Sorry, no: Prejudice is prejudice, whether it comes from an imam in Qatar or from the man whose Jewish critics labeled him, correctly, the “Israeli ayatollah.”

David Bancroft

Buy – Made in America

A Youtube video worth watching.

More Than Half of Wal-Mart’s Hourly Workers Make Less Than $25,000

I have written about the low pay that is received by retail is destroying the middle class. Here is a confirmation posted on businessweek.com.

By Susan Berfield October 23, 2013

Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) is the country’s biggest private employer. Its low wages have incited labor protests and congressional criticism, and have created a cottage industry of public policy research. The company has responded with facts and figures that sometimes raise as many questions as they answer.

Now Wal-Mart has provided some new and useful information: More than 475,000 of its 1 million hourly store employees earn at least $25,000 a year for full-time work. This figure comes from Bill Simon, the president and chief executive officer of Walmart U.S., who presented (PDF) it at Goldman Sachs’s (GS) Global Retailing Conference last month. The statistic, which was listed under the heading “Great job opportunities,” means as many as 525,000 full-time hourly employees earn less than $25,000 a year.

OUR Walmart, the union-backed workers’ group that’s been staging protests and asking for higher wages, pointed this out during a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. (The company’s presentation is also on its website.) Three store associates, as well as three Democratic members of the House of Representatives, called on the retail giant to pay all of its full-time workers at least $25,000 a year.

“A decent wage is their demand—a livable wage, of all things,” said Representative George Miller (D-Calif.). The problem with companies like Wal-Mart is their “unwillingness, not their inability, to pay that wage,” he said. “They hand off the difference to taxpayers.” Miller was referring to a congressional report (PDF) released in May that calculated how much Walmart workers rely on public assistance. The study found that the 300 employees at one Supercenter in Wisconsin required some $900,000 worth of public assistance a year. Catherine Ruetschlin, an analyst at Demos, the progressive policy center, noted during the press conference that raising wages can be good for the overall economy. “Putting money into workers’ wallets puts cash in the registers of retailers, and with it the need for new employees,” she said. “We estimate that a raise to $25,000 a year would lead to at least $11 billion of new GDP and generate 100,000 new jobs.”

“We have hundreds of thousands of associates who are making $25,000 a year or more,” says Kory Lundberg, a Wal-Mart spokesman. “And the opportunity exists for those who aren’t to grow into the career they want. We promote 160,000 people a year.” Lundberg also explained how to parse some of Wal-Mart’s figures. The company has 1.3 million hourly workers, which led OUR Walmart to claim at the press conference that 825,000 of them made less than $25,000 a year. Lundberg points out that Simon’s presentation was referring to the 1 million who work in the stores. (The rest work as truck drivers and at the Bentonville (Ark.) headquarters, among other places.) So about 52 percent of its associates make less than $25,000 a year—not 63 percent.

Then Lundberg led me deep into the company’s website to find where Wal-Mart states its average full-time hourly wage: $12.83. How many employees work full-time? Wal-Mart will only say that it’s the majority.

There will be No Middle Class

In September, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more)was little changed at 4.1 million. These individuals accounted for 36.9 percent of the unemployed. The number of long-term unemployed has declined by 725,000 over the past year.

Both the civilian labor force participation rate, at 63.2 percent, and the employment-population ratio at 58.6 percent, were unchanged in September. Over the year, the labor force participation rate has declined by 0.4 percentage point, while the employment-population ratio has changed little.

These are not my words. They are copied from yesterday’s BLS report for the month of September.

Sadly today’s Los Angeles Times commentator, Doyle McManus wrote the following article that points out the real wealth trend in America. The future looks even bleaker, according to libertarian economist Tyler Cowen.

Cowen is quoted as writing, “Our future will bring more wealthy people than ever before, but also more poor people. Rather than balancing our budget with higher taxes or lower benefits, we will allow the real wages of many workers to fall — and thus we will allow the creation of a new underclass.”

Poof goes the middle class

Imagine a future in which real wages for most workers decline year after year; a future in which middle-class jobs that disappeared in the Great… The rest of this Los Angeles Times opinion here

McManus ends his column with the question, New ideas, anyone? Even if someone has any new ideas how can they be implemented when our political system is broken?

Saving Money in Retirement

Once retired you now try to find ways to lower your daily living expenses. After all the typical $1,200 Social Security check won’t meet the needs and wants we all have.

Social Security is a safety net. It was never meant to be your only source of income in retirement. The problem is that many people saved too little during their working years to have a significant retirement savings.

That brings us to finding ways to reduce our cost of living. Even if you own your home and have no mortgage payment, living on Social Security alone will not provide a comfortable living arrangement.

I have considered the options. I know of only two. Neither is appealing but both are doable.

Obtain a Reverse Mortgage. As long as you maintain your home, pay the property taxes, and fire insurance you can receive a monthly income as the outstanding mortgage grows. The house must be sold once you and your spouse have died. The difference between the mortgage and the house’s value will go to your heirs. The mortgage company has no claim against your heirs if the house sells for less than the outstanding mortgage. Reverse mortgages are expensive but will enable you to live in your home for the rest of your life.
Sell your house and move to a smaller city or town where home prices are low and live off the income you obtain from that big house in the city. The down side is that small towns may be far away from the places you know and love.

The 8 Least Expensive Places To Live in the U.S. according to Wall Street Cheat Sheet suggests some possibilities. They are all small towns that are not located on interstate highways. My guess is Red-Necks prevail.

The AARP list Retire to a Good Life for Less suggests “10 low-cost cities where you can live in comfort no matter how big (or small) your savings account” is an unrealistic view of the real world. Your savings do matter no matter where you live.

Brownsville, Texas

I went one step further. I researched using Google for the BLS cost of living data for 34 “selected urban areas.” The list includes small town I have never heard of and are very remote. Then downloading the results and
sorting for the Composite Index. Listing the lowest cost as number 1. The results are as follows.

The town with the lowest composite cost of living is Harlingen, Texas. Population 65,679. Nearest city over 100,000 is Brownsville, Texas. Brownsville has the third lowest in cost of living. Its estimated median household income in 2011: $31,850 (it was $24,468 in 2000). The population has grown by 29% since 2000. The growth was not brought on by seniors. Median age is less than 30. The city is on the border with Mexico. Harlingen is 26.2 miles north. UTB is the University of Texas Brownsville and should indicate there is more to the city than low income population. Low winter temperatures are rarely if ever below 40º F.

Indianapolis, Indiana is number 7 lowest in cost of living. With population of over 800,000 people it can offer a variety of opportunities and things to do.

Covington, Kentucky is across the Ohio River from Cincinnati and is number 9.

None of these locations match my Mediterranean climate in Los Angeles. A high cost location (31 highest out of 34). I grew up here. My family and friends are here. Those things are more important to me.

Which 100 global fashion brands signed the accord to beef up safety in Bangladesh?

From the Toronto Star

There are two shocks from this article.

1) A nine year old working in a garment factory.

2) Where is Hudson’s Bay, Wal-Mart and Target?

Meem, 9, at work in a Bangladesh garment factory. (Raveena Aulakh/Toronto Star)

Six months after the devastating Rana Plaza collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh, 100 of the world’s leading garment brands and retailers have signed a binding, 5-year legal agreement aimed to drastically improve safety conditions for workers.

The Bangladesh Fire and Safety Accord now covers 2 million workers in 1,600 factories used by 100 brands, the Swiss-based union IndustriALL announced on Thursday along with the UNI Global Union.

Both unions are working with the brands and other non-governmental organizations to implement the accord, which will bring inspections to all the 1,600 factories within 9 months. If factories are found to have fire, electrical or structural problems, the brands must work with the factory owners to pay for the needed upgrades. All inspections will eventually be posted on the accord’s website.

“We are delighted to reach this landmark figure. With this support we can make a difference on the ground. We are sending a strong message to all the companies that stand outside of the Accord: sign up and get engaged,” said UNI general secretary Philip Jennings in a release.

The Star sent reporters Raveena Aulakh and Rick Westhead to Bangladesh to chronicle the state of the garment industry in the series the Clothes on Your Back.

Who has signed the Accord? Check out the list below:

Abercrombie & Fitch
Ahlens
Aldi South
Aldi North
American Eagle Outfitters
Arcadia Group
Auchan
Belotex
Benetton
Bestseller (CHB)
Bonmarche
Brands Fashion
C&A
Camaieu
Carrefour
Casion Global
Charles Vogele
Chicca
Comtex
Colombus Textilvertrieb GmbH
Coop Danmark
Cotton On
Dansk Supermarked
Datex
Debenhams
Distra
DK Company
El Corte Ingles
Ernsting’s Family
Esprit
Fashion Linq
Fat Face
Forever New
GEBRA
Groupe Casino
G-Star
H&M
Helly Hansen
Hema
Hemtex
Hess Natur-Textilien GMBH
Horizonte
IC Companys A/S
ICA Sverige
Inditex
JBC
Jogilo
John Lewis
Jolo Fashion
Juritex
K-Mart (Australia)
KappAhl
Karstadt
Kik
Klaus Herding GmbH
LC Waikiki
Leclerc
Lidl
Loblaw
Mango
Marks and Spencer
Matalan
Metro Group
Mothercare
Multiline Group
N Brown
New Look
Next
O’Neill Europe BV
Otto Group
Primark
Puma
PVH
PWT Group A/s (Texman)
REWE Group
River Island
s.Oliver
Sainsbury’s
Schmidt Group
Scoop NYC/Zac Posen
Sean John Apparel
Shop Direct Group
Speciality Fashions (Aust)
Stockmann Switcher
Target (Australia)
Tchibo
Tesco
Topgrade International Uncle Sam GmbH
UNIQLO
Van Der Erve
Vaner Group
Voice Norge AS
We Europe BV
Woolworths
Wünsche Group
Zeeman

A New Blog

The Ted Cruz Show

http://tedcruzshow.wordpress.com/

WordPress denied me access to simply calling this blog Ted Cruz. They said it was “reserved”. This seemed like the best alternative. The purpose of this blog is to document all of Senator Ted Cruz, a new Republican senator from Texas, words and actions. It appears he wishes to become the next president of the United States. His words are better than any commentary.

Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Sound Of Silence’ Will Give You Chills

This is really amazing!