I Don’t Shop at Wal-Mart

Not only do I not shop at Wal-Mart, I do not have my oil changed at Jiffy Lube. Companies like Wal-Mart do bring low cost goods to America and the world but they also treat their vendors and their employees like dirt. As to Jiffy Lube, I prefer the attention of a capable mechanic. I will never forget my one time at a quick lube franchise. I had to have my car towed to another garage.

I am willing to pay a little more for the competent workers that are employed by the independent stores and garages that really give me the kind of services I want.

Yes, I shop at Costco. The reason is that they pay their employees so well that the employee turnover is low. My next door neighbor, a Costco employee, bought his home at the bottom of the housing collapse but still paid $333,000. His wife has a part time at home business. The pay at Costco can’t be too bad.

Meanwhile the working poor are employed by the big and very successful national chains. Those chains depend on low wage workers. The companies are Wal-Mart, Target, Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, etc. etc. The top 50 executives at each of those companies were paid an average of $9.4 Million a year. The typical worker at those companies has an adjusted gross income of $13,900 a year.

Focusing on Wal-Mart, it’s subsidized by the taxpayers of America. It has the most workers on public assistance. In 2007, the company shifted from regular shifts to flexible shifts, a change labor activists said was designed to force full-time workers to downgrade their status to part-time, so they would not qualify for health insurance or other benefits. The result is that hundreds of thousands of Wal-Mart employees rely on state benefits or Medicaid. Most of the company’s warehouses are contracted out to temp agencies, so even if a warehouse loader works full-time in a Wal-Mart warehouse for years, he gets no benefits. Wal-Mart has also spent at least $1 billion since 2005 settling lawsuits over unpaid wages or illegal working conditions. One study estimated that Wal-Mart workers cost taxpayers more than $1 Billion every year.

Source for part of this article is The Week magazine.

Democracy in Decline

16.1% of registered voters in Los Angeles actually participated in yesterday’s city election. It is a sad commentary on the belief that democracy works. The message from the voters is that whoever they vote for the results will not change anything in city management. We were all taught that elections mattered. Apparently we have learned it just isn’t so. Why vote if the outcome makes no difference?

This may not signal the end of democracy in the next few years. However when I watch the Congress not doing its job it reinforces my suspicion that even at the highest levels of our society democracy is stumbling.

Those of you in other nations reading about the United States and believing that we have the answers to making government work should consider our current performance. Think twice or perhaps three or four times before joining this madness.

Los Angeles Photo Gallery

I have added some photos of the downtown area of the city. The motivation was my trip (journey) there this past week. The distance is about 30 miles via freeway. My choice of conveyance was the Orange Line Busway and the Red Line Subway. It was a short two block walk to my destination. The cost was $6.00 round trip and there was no parking fees. Signs on the street indicated parking from $10.00 to $38.50 a day.

The pictures were taken with Panasonic DMC-FZ28 and Panasonic DMC-FZ150 cameras.

Click on my Los Angeles Photo Gallery to see the downtown photos. Link is also at the top of this page.

Comings and goings at ‘Downton Abbey’ next season

This might make you unhappy if you are a fan of Downton Abbey. Telling you what is to come might ruin the anticipation. Like “Who shot JR?” on Dallas, revealing the next season does not add to the fun. This was posted on an AP story. Don’t read it if you don’t want to know!

By FRAZIER MOORE

From Associated Press

March 02, 2013 8:46 AM EST

NEW YORK (AP) — Shirley MacLaine will be returning to “Downton Abbey” next season, and opera star Kiri Te Kanawa is joining the cast.

MacLaine will reprise her role as Martha Levinson, Lord Robert Crawley’s freewheeling American mother-in-law, Carnival Films and “Masterpiece” on PBS said Saturday. MacLaine appeared in episodes early last season.

New Zealand-born soprano Te Kanawa will play a house guest. She will sing during her visit.

Other new cast members and characters include:

-Tom Cullen as Lord Gillingham, described as an old family friend of the Crawleys who visits the family as a guest for a house party (and who might be the one to mend Lady Mary Crawley’s broken heart).

-Nigel Harman will play a valet named Green.

-Harriet Walter plays Lady Shackleton, an old friend of the Dowager Countess.

-Joanna David will play a guest role as the Duchess of Yeovil.

-Julian Ovenden is cast as aristocrat Charles Blake.

“The addition of these characters can only mean more delicious drama, which is what ‘Downton Abbey’ is all about,” said “Masterpiece” executive producer Rebecca Eaton.

Meanwhile, the producers have confirmed that villainous housemaid Sarah O’Brien won’t be back. Siobhan Finneran, who played her, is leaving the show.

These announcements come shortly after the third season’s airing in the United States. It concluded with the heartbreaking death of popular Matthew Crawley in a car crash, leaving behind his newborn child and loving wife, Lady Mary Crawley.

Matthew’s untimely demise was the result of the departure from the series by actor Dan Stevens, who had starred in that role.

The third season also saw the shocking death of Lady Sybil Branson, who died during childbirth. She was played by the departing Jessica Brown Findlay.

Politicians Use Fear to Get Their Way

Politicians use fear to motivate each other and the general public.

The President is wrong to use fear to motivate Congress!

In California the governor, Jerry Brown, used fear to motivate voters to vote for a .25% sales tax increase and an income tax increase on the wealthy. It worked! Now there are indications that the state may be able to restore many programs that had been canceled and save others that were scheduled for major reductions. The problem is that the additional state income may be spent on unnecessary new programs.

The city of Los Angeles wants voters to approve another .5% sales tax increase to bail out their shortfall. Their fear motivation is that the city will go bankrupt without the higher tax. That will be decided in a March 5 election.

President Obama is using the same tactic in his campaign to stop sequestration. The threat is long lines at airports, reduced food inspection, criminal illegal aliens will be let out onto our streets, companies doing business with the government may have to layoff half of their employees, we can’t send patrol ships to the Persian Gulf, etc. All of this the result of a 2.4% reduction in this year’s budget that must be absorbed in the next seven month.

The stock market is not panicked and we can only hope that it doesn’t panic. There are no demonstrations in the streets. Mr. President, you are alienating the public when you use fear as a tactic to get your way!

Did the Pope Resign as the Result of Child Abuse/Sex Abuse Cases?

There are suspicions about the reason for Pope Benedict’s resignation. After all, no pope has resigned in about 600 years. The others all died in office. I am sure that many of them were in poor health but continued as best they could. So why did the current pope believe he could no longer perform the duties required of the position?

CNN posted this on the bottom of their screen during “Reliable Sources” today. “Italian media are buzzing with reports that the pope’s resignation was tied to a secret report on gay priests. The Vatican strongly condemns the allegations, calling them ‘deplorable.’ The allegations may be deplorable (synonym for unforgivable) but are they accurate?

Here are the cardinals involved in sex abuse case cover-up:

Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York
Cardinal Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles

Instances of abuse listed on Wikipedia. Even if these cases are exaggerated the extent of abuse is overwhelming.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas paid $30.9 million in 1998 to twelve victims of one priest.^[21] In July 2003 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville paid $25.7 million to “settle child sexual-abuse allegations made in 240 lawsuits naming 34 priests and other church workers.”^[21]

In 2003 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston also settled a large case for $85 million with 552 alleged victims.^[87]

In 2004, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange settled nearly 90 cases for $100 million.^[88]

In April 2007 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon agreed to a $75 million settlement with 177 claimants and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle agreed to a $48 million settlement with more than 160 victims.^[89]

In July 2007 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles reached a $660 million agreement with more than 500 alleged victims, in December 2006, the archdiocese had a settlement of 45 lawsuits for $60 million.^[23][90]

In September 2007 the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego reached a $198.1 million “agreement with 144 childhood sexual abuse victims.”^[91]

In July 2008 the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Denver agreed “to pay $5.5 million to settle 18 claims of childhood sexual abuse.”^[92] The Associated Press estimated the total from settlements of sex abuse cases from 1950-2007 to be more than $2 billion.^[23] According to BishopAccountability reports that figure reached more than $3 billion in 2012.^[6][20]

In the late 1980s allegations were made of physical and sexual abuse committed by members of the Christian Brothers, who operated the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

In June 2010, Belgian police raided the Belgian Catholic Church headquarters in Brussels, seizing a computer and records of a Church commission investigating allegations of child abuse.

In April 2010 it was reported that former bishop of the Norwegian Catholic Church, Georg Müller, had confessed to the Norwegian Police in early January 2010 that he had sexually abused an underaged altar boy 20 years earlier.

In November 2010, an independent group in Austria ^[82] that operates a hotline to help people exit the Catholic Church released a report documenting physical, sexual, and emotional abuse perpetrated by Austrian priests, nuns, and other religious officials.

In 2012 an Australian police report in the Victoria state jurisdiction detailed 40 suicide deaths by people who had been abused by Catholic clergy.

Perhaps Pope Benedict is so dismayed that he can’t bring himself to lead the church any longer. Perhaps he too is guilty of some of the crimes. We will never really know. It is sad that one of the world’s greatest religions has this horrible mark on its history. What other marks does it have?

CalPERS plans 85% rate hike for long-term-care insurance

When we get old it’s difficult to perform everyday tasks. For those of us who are alone there is no one to help with making meals, bathing, and the other assorted things that are part of daily living.

I have written about this before. https://coastcontact.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/long-term-care-insurance/. There has been an issue about the climbing rates for this type of insurance and the fact that many insruance companies have raised the monthly rate for those already enrolled.

Now CalPERS (California Public Employees’ Retirement System), the second largest organization offering long term health care insurance, will be raising their rate by 85% in 2015. The article in the Los Angeles Times advising of the planned rate increase tells of a retired 82 year old man who calculates his new rate will be $785 a month.

As I wrote in my previous commentary this is insurance that only the rich can afford. As Consumers Reports advises “One percent of those ages 65 to 74 live in a nursing home, 4 percent of 75- to 84-year-olds, and 19 percent of those age 85 and older.”

If CalPERS can’t control costs what makes you think your insurance company can do the job? That agency has more than 148,000 policyholders in its long-term-care program.

Sequestration to Make You Feel Guilty

Barack Obama is a master politician!

President Barack Obama wants to shock Congress into not implementing sequestration. To motivate Congress he has directed cut backs in employment of workers and critical military support just to get your attention.

Federal spending for both 2012 and 2013 is planned at $3.8 Trillion for each year. Ten percent of that number is $380 Billion. The Budget Control Act (called sequestration) of 2011 imposed caps on discretionary programs that will reduce their funding by more than $1 trillion over the ten years from 2012 through 2021. That does not mean $1 trillion in 2013. It means one tenth of that amount each year or $100 Billion a year.

Somehow Congress decided the first year’s reduction must be $109.3 Billion. That works out to 2.8763% of $3.8 Trillion budget. Is this a big deal? NO. However to make it a big deal the administration has decided to do as much damage as possible by layoffs and furloughs that will make everyone in Congress feel guilty. This is all in the hope that Congress will enact laws that will defer the cuts to some date in the distant future.

When hundreds of thousands of people receive their reduced paychecks in March, thanks to a four day work week, the anguished crying heard at congressional offices will receive immediate attention. Congress will cave into the Obama idea of finding another way to reduce spending. Then again perhaps his objective is no reduced spending. Either way he is likely to get his way.