A Society Run by the Rich!

The American system of opportunity is broken. There is nothing and no one on the horizon that will change our destructive trajectory.

The American model of capitalism and the opportunity to become very wealthy and has become the goal of almost every other nation in the world. Like so many other successes in this world our leaders attempted to fine tune our system. That led to our undoing and a focus on the inequities that unlimited capitalism creates.

The Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party groups have highlighted the problems that most of us have known about for decades. Most of us just chose to ignore the issues. We took a “don’t rock the boat” attitude. The obvious condition of our economy, and its bleak future, has forced us to re-examine this situation. More of us will now be forced to think harder about the choices we make at the ballot box.

The average American family has an income of less than $50,000 per year. At the same time there are millionaires whose income is so large that they earn an annual income that is 340 times as much and more. Yes, John Stumpf, CEO of Wells Fargo Bank made $17.6 million in 2010. Mitt Romney’s income for the past two years has exceeded $20 million per year. At least Mr. Stumpf had to work for his money. Mr. Romney has not worked for at least six years and is living off of his investments.

Irking to most of us is that many millionaires have income based upon capital gains and qualified dividends. Their income tax rate is 15% or less while those drawing a salary are taxed at rates up to 35%.

These are not isolated individuals. One percent of all Americans equal 3 million people. They have no concept of living on $50,000 per year.

If you believe that either Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich (holder of a $500,000 revolving account at Tiffany’s) will be interested in improving the opportunities for the average American then you really are delusional. They will do everything in their power to sustain the system that has made them rich.

Meanwhile the rest of us are fed the line that all of us are owners of American businesses through our 401(k)s and IRAs. So we dutifully go to work hoping that someone will recognize our talents and give us the promotion we believe we deserve. For most of us those promotions never materialize and we end up retiring with a savings account of about $100,000 and a reliance on Social Security.

G. William Domhoff, a professor at the University of California Santa Cruz, has been conducting an ongoing review of wealth and income in America. He has posted his study on-line. Included is this summary of our condition.

“As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers).”

If you think this is just an American problem take a good look at your own country. Canada has high rise condo projects in all of its major cities and lots of well to do people. That can be extended to the nations of Western Europe,Latin America, and Australia too.

The historic reality is that 20% of the population of any nation owns 80% of the wealth. It is the Pareto Principle or the 80-20 rule. This is the out come of a study done by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who in 1906 observed that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. He soon found that the 80-20 ratio applied to many other aspects of society and business.. So no matter how much we try to void this situation it continuously re-appears.

My complaint is that 1% if our population has grown so powerful that most of the rest of us cannot control our society. Look at the current Republican campaigning in Florida. Mitt Romney is leading in the polls but is spending money for negative advertising against Newt Gingrich at a rate of four times as many dollars. It’s a rich man losing to a very rich man. Our country is being bought by the rich.

There is little hope that this situation will change any time soon. Barack Obama chose not to accept federal funding for his campaign (in 2008) and instead raised millions more on his own. Thus both political parties are being run by the influence peddlers. A third political party would be faced with the same conditions.

Is there a solution? None that I know of!

We Need a Third Political Party!

The GOP conundrum in selecting their candidate will soon be one for all Americans. We have a choice of

A. Sticking with Barack Obama who has been a divider rather than a uniter. The president now has the experience but the government is in grid lock.

B. Selecting the GOP contender. The leading contenders are 1) an insider who left the House of Representatives in disgrace, has worked for lobbyist groups and has a $500,000 revolving credit account at Tiffany’s or 2) a man who has an annual income of over $20 million and is in the 15% tax bracket.

In other words we stick with a failed president or choose one that has no idea how the average American family lives on less than $50,000 per year.

I am ready for a third political party.

Debate About Everything Except the Economy & Jobs

I do not know if CNN agreed to avoid talking about the number one issue in America or if it just turned out that way. Wolf Blitzer certainly knows what is the number one issue on the minds of most Americans. At least one of the candidates in tonight’s debate pointed out that the unemployment rate for Florida is an official 9.9% and most likely is closer to 18%. Despite those facts there was no discussion about creating jobs in Florida or anywhere else in the United States.

It was most opportune that Cisco had a cartoon ad showing a factory that had no human beings. The robots were so smart that one was able to repair the other without any human interaction. Is this really possible? Today’s Los Angeles Times had a report on drones that are smart enough to land on an aircraft carrier. Those drones are so smart they can select their targets without human participation.

The candidates spent 15 minutes talking about illegal immigration. Thanks to the high Latino population of Florida there was discussion about Latin America,Cuba, and Puerto Rican statehood. Of course “who can claim the Reagan mantle?” was time-wasting exercise. The question of “why your wife would make a great first lady” was another time waster.

Issues that should have been discussed are America’s AA+ credit rating, the lack of decent paying jobs, the deterioration of our industrial base, the state of America’s infrastructure, and Iranian nuclear ambitions. Those are real issues that require real thought not sound bites.

All the candidates want to become president but none were acting presidential.

We are Creating Jobs Somewhere

We are creating jobs in China. Well to be more accurate General Electric is creating those jobs. To accomplish this effort GE is moving their facility from Waukesha, Wisconsin to Beijing. This is Waukesha biggest employer. It’s only been there for 115 years. In addition to moving headquarters, the company will invest $2 billion in China and train more than 65 engineers and create six research centers.

This is the same GE that made $14-billion in the United States last year, but paid no taxes – the same company that employs more people overseas than in the United States.

So let’s get this straight. President Obama appointed GE CEO Chairman Jeff Immelt to head his commission on job creation (Job Czar). He is supposed to help create jobs. I guess the President forgot to tell him in which country he was supposed to be creating those jobs.

State of the Union Address is just Words

President Obama is an outstanding speaker. Tonight’s State of the Union speech was no exception. His presentation was flawless. Since this speech was the start of the campaign season it will be difficult but not impossible for the Republican nominee to win November’s election. After all, the economy is in terrible distress. We need to blame someone and that person is almost always the president.

Because Mr. Obama is such an excellent speaker the GOP will need someone with outstanding debating skills. That person is Newt Gingrich. He is able to duck the questions reporters ask and turn the question into an attack on his opponent. Mr. Romney lacks that skill.

The United States is in serious economic trouble. Words alone will not be enough. Obama has not delivered results. If the Republican nominee can convince a majority of us that he has a workable plan there will be a new president in the White House on January 20, 2013.

Presidential Race = Reality Show

Did anyone really take Herman Cain as a serious candidate for president? His 9-9-9 plan for taxation was a perfect take off of the pizza for $9.99. His appearance with Stephen Colbert confirms what we all knew. He is the text book example of self promotion.

Mr. Cain has been reported to be the person who will offer a Tea Party response to the president’s State of the Union address. Are Tea Party leaders serious or are they also part of a self promotion agenda?

When Newt Gingrich attacked CNN’s John King and the entire media for his second wife’s interview with ABC it was a perfect example of utter nonsense. Neither ABC nor other media outlets put the words into his second ex-wife.

“Oops” it has all been great fun. $10,000 bets that only a multi-millionaire could really afford tells us that few people really take the race for president seriously.

Seriously, does anyone believe that the next four years will be any better no matter who wins the election? I don’t!

Politics Above Jobs

Today’s Associated Press headline reads “Obama rejects Canada-Texas oil pipeline -for now.” It’s all about politics not about what is the right thing to do.

Barack Obama has made the environmentalists happy but not the country. Those environmentalists are viewed as an important support group for re-election. So the gamble is we will all forget about this issue by next November.

However, if the number of unemployed Americans is still high in November the GOP won’t let us forget. Those supporting the pipeline are furious and they should be.

A $7 billion pipeline from Canada to our gulf coast will result in thousands of jobs. That pipeline will help reduce our dependency on Arab oil. Concerns about water pollution can be over come with some re-routing of the pipe.

This project was originally proposed when George W. Bush was president. To contend now that the government has not had sufficient time to review possible side effects is ludicrous. Barack Obama is on the wrong side of an important issue. He deserves to be attacked for this decision.

Stop Censorship

Join Our Censorship Protest!

by Jane Wells

Have you been paying attention to all the hubbub online about the proposed U.S. legislation (SOPA/PIPA) that threatens internet freedom? I wrote about it last week over on WordPress.org, but the gist is this: there’s a bill in the U.S. Senate that if passed would put publishing freedom severely at risk, and could shut down entire sites at the whim of media companies. Fight for the Future created this nifty video to sum it up better than I can.

http://vimeo.com/31100268

On January 18, 2012, sites all over the internet will be blacking out to protest and try to mobilize more people to speak out against this bill coming up in the Senate next week — S. 968: the Protect IP Act (PIPA) — in an attempt to let U.S. lawmakers know how much opposition there is. WordPress.org, Wikipedia, and even WordPress.com VIP I Can Has Cheezburger? will be participating in the blackout to raise awareness and spur you to action.

Here on WordPress.com, we want to participate as well. Freshly Pressed will be blacked out during the strike. Sorry to take away your daily fix of yummy web content, but this bill threatens to do that on a much wider scale. You don’t want that, do you?

More importantly, we are making it possible for you to participate in the protest. There are two options: a “Stop Censorship” ribbon and a full blackout. The blackout portion will be in effect January 18 from 8am to 8pm EST, while the ribbon will be displayed until January 24. Here’s how to join in:

Go to Settings → Protest SOPA/PIPAin your dashboard.
Select if you want to join the blackout or show a ribbon.
If you choose to join the blackout, you can edit the message that will be shown on your site during the blackout.
Preview what your protest will look like.
Click “Save Changes” button to activate your protest.

That’s it! Easy-peasy activism right at your fingertips.

The “Stop Censorship” ribbon will display in the upper corner of your site and links to americancensorship.org. It will display until January 24, 2012 (the Senate vote date).

If you choose to do the blackout in addition to the ribbon, then we will black out your site from 8am to 8pm EST along with the official strike. You can customize the message that will appear on your blacked-out site to tell people why this issue is important to you. Your site will return to just displaying the ribbon after the strike is over.

I hope that a significant number of you on WordPress.com will join in this protest. Publishing freedom is a right we must protect.

And one last pitch: whatever you decide to do about your site, please take a few minutes to head over to americancensorship.org and take action. It only takes a few moments of your time to be an agent of change!

The Last Voyage

I have seen the movie “Titanic” twice, “The Last Voyage” once, and “The Poseidon Adventure” many times. They are very suspenseful and entertaining with wonderful casts. They are one of the reasons I won’t take a cruise.

Three bodies were recovered from the sea and news reports said 69 people were still unaccounted for after the Costa Concordia ran aground off the tiny island of Giglio near the coast of Tuscany late Friday, tearing a 160-foot (50-meter) gash in its hull. (The final death count is 32 people.)

“Have you seen ‘Titanic?’ That’s exactly what it was,” said Valerie Ananias, 31, a schoolteacher from Los Angeles who was traveling with her sister and parents on the first of two cruises around the Mediterranean. They all had dark red bruises on their knees from the desperate crawl they endured along hallways and stairwells that were nearly vertical, trying to reach rescue boats.

Passengers complained the crew failed to give instructions on how to evacuate and once the emergency became clear, delayed lowering the lifeboats until the ship was listing too heavily for many of them to be released.

By morning Saturday, the ship was lying virtually flat off Giglio’s coast, its starboard side submerged in the water.

Helicopters plucked to safety some 50 people who were trapped on the ship, some survivors were rescued by boats in the area, and an official said some people jumped from the ship.

Survivors who escaped a luxury cruise ship that ran aground and tipped over recounted a scene reminiscent of “Titanic” on Saturday, describing a delayed then panicked evacuation, as plates and glasses crashed around them and they crawled along upended hallways trying to reach safety.

Several passengers said crew members for a good 45 minutes told passengers there was a simple “technical problem” that had caused the lights to go off. Seasoned cruisers, however, knew better and went to get their life jackets in their rooms and report to their “muster stations,” the emergency stations each passenger is assigned to, they said.

It wasn’t immediately known if the dead were passengers or crew, nor were the nationalities of the victims immediately known, Paolillo told The Associated Press in Romeby telephone from his command in the Tuscan port city of Livorno. It wasn’t clear how they died.

As dawn neared, a painstaking search of the 290-meter (950-foot) long ship’s interior was being conducted to see if anyone might have been trapped inside.

South Korea Embraces the Talmud

Just when you thought that you saw it all in the Jewish world.

Talmud Study is now Mandatory in South Korea.

The following fascinating article was translated by The Muqata from YNET.

Close to 50 million people live in South Korea, and everyone learns Gemara (Talmud) in school.
“We tried to understand why the Jews are geniuses, and we came to the conclusion that it is because they study the Talmud,” said the Korean ambassador to Israel. And this is how “Rav Papa” became a more well known scholar in Korea than in Israel.

It is doubtful if the Aramaic scholars, Abbaye and Rava, imagined their discussions of Jewish law in the Beit Midrash in Babylon would be taught hundreds of years later in East Asia. Yet it turns out that the laws of an “egg born on a holiday” (“ביצה שנולדה ביום טוב”), is actually very interesting to the South Koreans, who have required that Talmud study be part of their compulsory school curriculum.

Almost every home in South Korea now contains a Korean-translated Talmud. But unlike in Israel, the Korean mothers teach the Talmud to their children. In a country of close to 49 million people who believe in Buddhism and Christianity, there are more people who read the Talmud-or at least own their own copy at home- than there are in the Jewish state of Israel. Much more.

“So we too will become geniuses”

“We were very curious about the high academic achievements of the Jews,” explains South Korea’s Ambassador to Israel, Young Sam Mah, who was recently a host on the program “Culture Today.”

“Jews have a high percentage of Nobel laureates in all fields: literature, science and economics. This is a remarkable achievement. We tried to understand what is the secret of the Jewish people? How they-more than other people-are able to reach those impressive accomplishments. Why are Jews so intelligent? The conclusion we arrived at is that one of your secrets is that you study the Talmud.”

“Jews study the Talmud at a young age, and it helps them, in our opinion, to develop mental capabilities. This understanding led us to teach our children as well. We believe that if we teach our children Talmud, they will also become geniuses. This is what stands behind the rationale of introducing Talmud Study to our school curriculum.”

Young says that he himself studied the Talmud at a very young age: “It is considered very significant study,” he emphasized. The result is that more Koreans have Talmud sets in their homes than do the Jews in Israel.

“I, for example, have two sets of the Talmud: the one my wife bought me, and the second was a gift from my mother.”

Groupies of Jews

Koreans don’t only like the Talmud because they see it as promoting genius, but because they found values that are close to their hearts.

“In the Jewish tradition, family values are very, very important,” explains the South Korean Ambassador.

“You see it even today in your practice of the Friday evening family meal. In my country we also focus on family values. The respect for adults, and respect and appreciation for the elderly, parallels the high esteem in my country for the elderly.”

Another very significant issue is the respect for education. In the Jewish tradition, parents have a duty to teach their children, and they devote to it lots of attention. For Korean parents, their children’s education is a top priority.

David Bancroft