Most Hated Business Sectors in America

Well, this is interesting!  I know I bear a strong dislike for

• lawyers (in general)
• real estate people (many of them) 
• bank industry (most of it)
• the insurance industry (ALL of it)
• and Donald Trump (I'm throwing him in for GP) 

I didn't know everyone else does too. I especially didn't know the Federal Government is at the top of the list.  So, thank you for that Death by Advertising, Gallup and HuffPost.

I totally get why people hate the federal government.  They hate them for their

• inertia  (a bunch of fat cat do-nothings without term limits to motivate them)
• partisan politics  (Hey!  It's not about YOU it's about US)
• their entitlements  (today's congressmen/women are more likely from
  wealthy backgrounds yet they enjoy lower tax rates, free healthcare for life, 
  govt pensions, insider trading, PAC funding by big money corporations
  whose interests they'll vote)
• their refusal to grant their constituents what they themselves enjoy (free health
  care for life, government pension, tax rate increases for the top 1%)
  
  President Obama wants everyone to have free health care for life. He wants everyone to pay the same tax rates. He wants the banks to start lending again to small business owners and homeowners who qualify. He wants a level playing field.
  
  It's been a while since we had one of those.

  
  

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GOD, no!



Romney: 'Borrow Money From Your Parents'

It's the Economic Divide, Stupid!

In a recent editorial, Bill Moyers made a case for the un-level playing field people are on; the inequality of life in America and the lack of opportunity where once there was so much hope.

We’re talking what it takes to live a decent life. If you get sick without health coverage, inequality matters.  If you’re the only breadwinner and out of work, inequality matters.  If your local public library closes down and you can’t afford books on your own, inequality matters.  If budget cuts mean your child has to pay to play on the school basketball team, sing in the chorus or march in the band, inequality matters. If you lose your job as you’re about to retire, inequality matters.  If the financial system collapses and knocks the props from beneath your pension, inequality matters.

Neither one of us grew up wealthy, but we went to good public schools, played sandlot ball at a good public park, lived near a good public library, and  drove down  good public highways – all made possible by people we never met and would never know. There was an unwritten bargain among generations: we didn’t all get the same deal, but we did get civilization.

On Sunday March 3,  Moyers & Company aired the encore broadcast of Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer — And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class  with the authors.

Robert Reich had this to say in today's blog post;   

The challenge at the heart of the productivity revolution – and it is a revolution – is how to distribute the gains. So far, we’ve been failing miserably to meet that challenge.

The share of the gains going to everyone else in the form of wages and salaries has been shrinking. It’s now the smallest since the government began keeping track in 1947.

If the trend continues, inequality will become ever more extreme.

Pretty poignant stuff.

Class Warfare???

I don't understand this "class warfare" sound bite coming from the mouths of members of the GOP.  It's a catchy phrase, to be sure, but in the context it's used, it seems oxymoronic.

The term expression now used by many politicos on the Right is a refutation of  the tax proposals put forth by the President last Monday.  President Obama wants to tax anyone making a million dollars plus to pay at least the same effective tax rate as many of those who work for them.  Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

There was a hue and cry from the GOP with (R) Rep. Paul Ryan leading the charge with his own tax program "which would slash taxes for the rich as well as funding for food stamps and other low-income assistance programs".  Huh?  When asked if he was engaging in his own "class warfare", his said

“...the president is using rhetoric that divides people, that preys on people’s sense of anxiety, fear, envy.” He said: “what we’re trying to do is appeal to people’s sense of hope, aspiration. We want an equal- opportunity society. We want a society of upward mobility, and that is what we’re striving for.”

Wait.  Whose hopes and aspirations is he talking about?   Upward mobility?  Right now, many of us would be happy with a job, food on the table and a permanent place to sleep.

Speaker of the House Boehner was not to be denied his moment in the sun; of course, he always looks like he's been in the sun.  

“I don’t think I would describe class warfare as leadership. The government has a spending problem and I don’t believe it makes any sense to tax the people we expect to invest in our economy.”

Uh, that would be a shitload of GOP supporters and opposition to environment protection, social welfare and less government oversight like the billionaire Koch brothers.

They couldn't possibly mean these people.  The ones the US Census Bureau say are now 46,000,000  strong in what is still considered by many the "richest country in the world":

The pain was not evenly distributed, however. Black households suffered the greatest decline, losing 10.1% of household income since 2007. Those over the age of 65 saw household income increase by 5.5% since 2007.

Roughly 9.4 million individuals have lost their full-time jobs since 2007. There are roughly 6.6 million fewer men in the full-time workforce and 2.8 million fewer women.

The national poverty rate has hit 15.1% of the population now lives in poverty — up from 14.3% in 2009 and from 12.5% in 2007. 

The Census reports that 46.2 million individuals now live in poverty, up from 43.6 million in 2009. This is the highest number of people living in poverty since statistics were first kept in 1959 — a 52-year highRead more: http://moneywatch.bnet.com/saving-money/blog/devil-details/census-report-income-down-poverty-up/5140/#ixzz1YobLjsa6

You get the idea.  And the idea is we, the people of the United States of America, are circling the downward economic drain while the country burns and the GOP, lobbyists, bankers, corporations and Wall Street fiddle.

Trickle Down Economy

While in Florida last January, my husband toured the Panhandle which he described to me as a long drive's worth of construction halted mid-development and left to decompose in the hot Florida sun.  He was especially struck by the poverty stricken aspect of many towns whose citizens were most likely the blue collars workers and whose part-time residents the well-off folks with second homes.  

His comments are beneath this telling shot which you may double click to enlarge and read.

NY Times, SNL Like Minded: It's the Presentations That Differ

nytimes.com has a short informative video on "The History of the Debt Limit from WWI to Today".




Here's the SNL skit re: US $800 billion dollar debt owed to China. 




Not so far apart are they? 

Andy Borowitz sees it this way:  "China puts US on ebay". 

Health Care: Who Really Cares?

:"Talking Heads" by Anita Kunz for The Greatest Album Covers
That Never Were at the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame

Have you ever noticed the people recommending we cut medicare, social security and other social services are the ones who don't need them?
Conservative talking heads screaming the loudest about reducing the deficit aren't willing to go after the top 1% income earners.

"...in the lead op-ed piece in today’s Wall Street Journal, Cato Institute fellow Alan Reynolds claims a higher marginal tax on the super rich will bring in less revenue.Reynolds uses my tax proposal from last February as his red herring. “Memo to Robert Reich,” he declares, “The income tax brought in less revenue when the highest rate was 70 percent to 91 percent [between 1950 and 1980] than it did when the highest rate was 28 percent."  robertreich.org  6/16/2011

Reich goes on to explain how Alan Reynolds plays with the facts of Reich's proposal, skewing the argument to support not taxing the super rich.

The Pew Research Center for People and Press conducted studies about the media coverage of health care and its ultimate effects. 

■The health care debate was tailor-made for ideological talk shows. No media sector devoted as much time to health care as the political and polarizing talk show hosts. Accounting for 31% of the airtime from June 2009 through March 2010, the subject was more than twice as big in the talk show sector as it was in the overall media (14%).

■Liberal talk show hosts devoted more airtime to health care than conservative hosts. Left-leaning talk hosts, who broadly supported health care legislation, spent 44% of their time talking about health care issues during the time studied. The right-tilting hosts, who vigorously opposed it, devoted 26% of their time to the subject.

■Opponents of health care legislation won the message war. A Nexis search of key terms in the health care debate finds that opponents' terms appeared almost twice as often (about 18,000 times) as supporters' top terms (about 11,000). In short, the opponents' attacks on government-run health care resonated more widely than the supporters' attacks on the insurance industry.

■The debate centered more on politics than the workings of the health care system. Fully 41% of health care coverage focused on the tactics and strategy of the debate while various reform proposals filled another 23%. But only 9% of the coverage focused on a core issue -- how our health care system currently functions, what works and what doesn't. How the Press Covered Health Care Reform  6/21/2010  Pew Research Ctr Publications

Congress hasn't stepped up to the plate either.  They don't have to.  They have a sweet deal through the federal government.

Lawmakers can choose among several plans and get special treatment at federal medical facilities. In 2008, taxpayers spent about $15 billion to insure 8.5 million federal workers and their dependents. . Among the advantages: a choice of 10 healthcare plans that provide access to a national network of doctors, as well as several HMOs that serve each member's home state. By contrast, 85% of private companies offering health coverage provide their employees one type of plan -- take it or leave it.
LA Times 8/2/2009

Health care reform is a political football for offensive and defensive plays by parties of both sides.  Glenn Kessler, The Fact Checker for the Washington Post wades through the rhetoric:

President Obama had promised that his health care plan would not increase the deficit, so the White House last year was on pins and needles waiting for the official CBO score. The final verdict: in the first ten years the health care bill would reduce the deficit by $143 billion. The CBO did not even try to offer a deficit-reduction number for the second decade, but gave a vague response that Democrats have translated into a hard figure of $1.2 trillion. . .In many ways, the focus on the numbers is silly. The CBO has a respectable track record, but CBO's numbers are based on models, and models can be flawed. No one really knows exactly what the impact of legislative changes will be ten years from now, let alone how population growth, economic growth or other factors ultimately will affect the bottom line. It would be more logical to offer a range, but CBO is expected to produce an actual number. Washington Post  1/13/2011

The only reform we'll get is the reform we demand.  As you can see from the above, whoever controls the message controls the conversation.  In order to do this effectively, we need to understand the facts about health care reform; what it costs, how it works, who is eligible.  Only then will we be able to make informed decisions and insist they be carried out by our elected officials.

Economics 101: Why Is the Economy Failing?

As always, Robert Reich makes sense of our predicament in simple layman terms. Why can't the idiots in Congress?

Metaphor for the Economy

Jon Stewart's writers produced an illustrative metaphor about the economy and ways to fix it.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Cantor Won't?
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

This goes well with my previous post.

Addicted to Reich

I'm addicted to Robert Reich.  I watch him when he's on TV; I recognize and listen to his voice on radio, I read his blog almost every day.  Why?  He makes sense.

Reich came to national prominence as President Clinton's Secretary of Labor.  His grasp of and ability to communicate issues is what I like best.  This week, he's talking about the American economy: where we've been, where we're headed & why.  Monday's post gave historical perspective to the economy. Simply put, Americans no longer receive adequate work compensation allowing them to maintain a growing middle class lifestyle. The figures he quotes are breath taking.  If you want a quick, clear overview of twentieth to twenty first century economics, read it.

Today's post follows the thread by linking yesterday's stock market plunge with the issues underlined in Monday's post.   The job market is not growing at anywhere near projected estimates for economic recovery.  May payroll estimates added 38,000 new jobs but we need, according to Reich, "125,000 new jobs per month just to tread water."

Robert Reich currently serves as Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy, UC Berkeley.
 

While The Rich Get Richer, The Rest of Us Get Screwed

Stole this off The Political Carnival. Her tweets alert me to the good stuff on her blog.

Latest stats on the economy:  stock market growth, corporate earnings, CEO income, Big Oil earnings...

And how do we the  worker bees, the little people, the proletariat stack up?  Watch.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Top 1% Are 225x Richer Than the Average American

I just heard this amazing statistic, my headline, on CNN.  They say that figure is " up 18% from last year because of the recession"...as if 18% increase made a difference in that stratospheric equation. 

 



Alastair Sim as Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol"  (1951)



My family and I watch the Alastair Sim version of "A Christmas Carol" every Christmas eve and I am stunned anew by the cruel indifference of E.W. Scrooge towards his family and fellow man. I used to think it poetic license on the part of Mr. Dickens.  Surely no one could be that unfeeling?   But then I hear or read a statistic like CNN put out and wonder, "What do these people think and feel?  Do they share their wealth?  Are they goodwill ambassadors?  Do they feel pity, compassion, empathy and put it to good use?"

Some are well known for public acts of charity and empathy.  Angelina and Brad are on a constant world tour donating time, money and giving back.  Ted Turner was, I believe, the first billionaire to publicly challenge his fellow billionaires to give away the bulk of their wealth.  Warren Buffett and Bill Gates followed suit a few years later.  Audrey Hepburn was a giving person; her travels on behalf of UNICEF were well known.   But do they pale in comparison to the documented greed and self-indulgence of the very rich to which the public is exposed daily via the media? 

My feelings, which may or may not be accurate, are there are more people with money spending it on really stupid crap (the biggest yacht Paul Allen? or vacation travel to the moon Richard Branson?) than on things that make a difference. 

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

``Spirit! are they yours?'' Scrooge could say no more.

``They are Man's,'' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. ``And they cling to me, appealing  from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!'' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. ``Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!''

``Have they no refuge or resource?'' cried Scrooge.

``Are there no prisons?'' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. ``Are there no workhouses?''

  The bell struck twelve.

As our economy bounces up and down, as our poor become poorer and the rich accumulate even greater wealth, what provisions will we make for those less fortunate?  Will we provide health care to all?  Will we create jobs to reduce 9.6% unemployment?  Will we stop polluting our waters, our air, destroying our rainforests, environment, encroaching upon and eliminating entire species from the earth?  Or will we, ultimately, be eliminated?

Scrooge found the path to redemption in time. 

Will we?

Are Americans Spoiled Brats?

Eugene Robinson, one of the best newspaper editorialists on the planet, calls the American electorate "spoiled brats" having a "temper tantrum".  In today's Washington Post, he writes

The nation demands the impossible: quick, painless solutions to long-term, structural problems. While they're running for office, politicians of both parties encourage this kind of magical thinking. When they get into office, they're forced to try to explain that things aren't quite so simple -- that restructuring our economy, renewing the nation's increasingly rickety infrastructure, reforming an unsustainable system of entitlements, redefining America's position in the world and all the other massive challenges that face the country are going to require years of effort. But the American people don't want to hear any of this. They want somebody to make it all better. Now.

...And one thing (President Obama) really hasn't done is frame the hard work that lies ahead as a national crusade that will require a degree of sacrifice from every one of us. It's obvious, for example, that the solution to our economic woes is not just to reinflate the housing bubble. New foundations have to be laid for a 21st-century economy, starting with weaning the nation off of its dependence on fossil fuels, which means there will have to be an increase in the price of oil. I don't want to pay more to fill my gas tank, but I know that it would be good for the nation if I did.

The richest Americans need to pay higher taxes -- not because they're bad people who deserve to be punished but because they earn a much bigger share of the nation's income and hold a bigger share of its overall wealth. If they don't pay more, there won't be enough revenue to maintain, much less improve, the kind of infrastructure that fosters economic growth. Think of what the interstate highway system has meant to this country. Now imagine trying to build it today.

Barack Obama was elected to an impossibly hard presidency.  He knew it going in.  He ran on a platform of "Change", which ties in nicely to Mr. Robinson's argument. 

President Obama can point to any number of occasions on which he has told Americans that getting our nation back on track is a long-range project. But his campaign stump speech ended with the exhortation, "Let's go change the world" -- not, "Let's go change the world slowly and incrementally, waiting years before we see the fruits of our labor."

But the paramount issues for Americans kept shifting.  First it was the war, then the economy, then jobs, etc.  My guess is the majority of us did not agree with TARP or the auto industry bailout.  Many economists said they were necessary.  But I doubt if 98% of us, including those economists, politicians, etc, understood any of the ramifications, let alone the criteria for receipt of the monies.  In retrospect, my personal opinion is all companies should have had to adhere to the good old capitalistic
values they espouse and "let the market decide". 

I don't like being in a recession of this magnitude.  But if it teaches us restraint in spending, if it teaches us to begin saving again, I understand the American people have a 6% savings rate at present, then it will be worth it.  We've been  spending like drunken sailors for the past twenty five years.  I am hoping the discipline we learn during this very difficult time will stick.  If it doesn't, the recession will look like a picnic in the park.

Jon Stewart Face Off with Jim Cramer

I stand corrected from my skeptical post yesterday morning about the publicity stunt. I watched The Daily Show with great interest last night. I didn't expect much, reason stemming from an interview Jon Stewart did with Lynn Cheney last year. Stewart made much fun of VP Cheney and all the Bushies, sharpening his wit at their expense. However, when Mrs. Cheney came on the show, to promote a book I think, he practically knelt at her feet. It was a puff piece. Now, had it been Laura Bush, I would understand. Laura Bush seems pretty benign. But Lynne Cheney is no shrinking violet. She is a hard ass with little warmth or charisma who does not inspire anything other than irritation on my part. Campaigning with her husband prior to the second term election left little doubt she is as rigid and uncompromising as is Dick. You remember Dick? Stewart's favorite segment for a long time was "You Don't Know Dick". Anyway, after that softball throwing segment, I felt very let down.

But I digress. Last night, Jon Stewart leveled charge after charge at the feet of Jim Cramer & CNBC. And Cramer pretty much took it. He certainly wasn't hurling epithets at the guy like so many of the crazed talking heads, R.L., Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Joe Scarborough, but Stewart wasn't backing down or accepting Cramer's lame responses about "responsibility" either. I applaud his interview. He did a good job while remaining civil. "Civil" is the operative word. I wish more on air people would use their brains instead of their bombast to make their points. To see the interview, go here. This is part one.

Jon Stewart: Why I Love Him

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

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I can't say it enough; I love Jon Stewart. If you have a few minutes and need a moment of catharsis about the economic pundits who report the situation we're in, this is it.

Happy New Year from Uncle Jay or Where We Were in 2008

Obama: I Just Can't Get Enough of This Guy!

Hope springs eternal. The stock market is awry, the country is struggling, jobs are being eliminated and people are waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I hate to sound like Pollyanna but I really cannot wait for the new President and his cabinet to take over and "fix" things.

Will they? Won't they? It's anyone's guess. But we will begin a new year with hope and faith in our country, our leaders and our ability to bounce back. Will it ever again be the same? Doubtful. Nor should it. I think we can all pull back on our reckless spending and adapt to a more frugal lifestyle. A year ago I was lamenting I didn't have the money to take a vacation each of the three weeks I had off. Now, I'm just happy I have a job!

Why Radio?

I wrote this in response to an 11/24 post in Inside Music Media blog: "Better Radio at No Additional Cost". After 27 years in radio sales, I have left the business but the business has not left me. I still love radio and it pains me to see what is happening to stations across the country.

It's too pat to say "people are leaving radio to ESCAPE all the things you and Dick Carr are talking about." Radio isn't dead but it is certainly suffering. I grew up in a great radio market, Los Angeles, in the 1960s. As a teenager, I listened to all the great AMs: 93 KHJ, KRLA, KBLA (wow what a station!) and the like. I attended the KHJ Teen Fair every yr to see performing Top 40 acts & the up & comers. The client booths & displays were amazing. When I was young, it was possible to see really great groups at an affordable price in small venues: everything from The Troubadour to the Hullabaloo to the Whiskey to the Santa Monica Civic. Kids could not only afford concert tickets then but the radio told them where everything was "happening".

And it wasn't just about the kids listening habits either. My father, a national radio rep who owned his own firm, listened to the other great AMs, the older skewing ones: KMPC (Dick Whittinghill was his favorite & mine), KFWB, KABC, etc. He instilled the love of radio in me and I ended up in the business selling air time.

Concerts are no longer affordable for anyone. Venues are no longer intimate. Everything is about size, cost & exclusion. Anyone who's ever seen a concert in a stadium knows the acoustics suck, good seats cost a fortune and, unless you know someone, you're not going to get close enough to see anything anyway. So what is it you're paying for? To say you went?

If you believe in the pendulum theory of life, you know that the pendulum swings too far one way and then begins to swing back. Perhaps radio and music and the labels have to go through these crushing mega mergers and corporate acquisitions for people to finally realize that private ownership, small ownership is best. The radio industry is capable of recovery. It just needs a paradigm shift away from what it's become.

As a post script, December issue of Vanity Fair has a wonderful reminiscent article on Motown and what the music industry was like in those days and how the radio industry spurred it along.

Help!

Wow! There are so many things to write about now. Between the direction of the election, the hurricane devastation in Galveston, the free falling stock market and the new television season...I don't know which disaster on which to concentrate. I will say I am pleased with the opening night of SNL. It was all I hoped for...and more. Other than that, the majority of the new season sucks with weird shows like: Lipstick Jungle (??), 90210 (loved the original but a new one with even more sex among impressionable teenagers?), Dirty, Filthy Money (watched 1/2 of 1 show; couldn't stomach it), Privileged (another dirty filthy rich show)...I mean, who makes up this stuff?

The stock market is a killer. I can't even fathom the depth of this disaster. I do feel helpless in the face of finance and trading and short selling I don't understand. I know three of our personal stocks have lost over 30% each. My two largest mutual funds are down 8% & 9% and I feel grateful but should probably sell out before they fall further. As a career woman in her fifties, I no longer have the luxury to wait this thing out.

I think I've addressed the current presidential campaign enough between my two blogs. It's becoming an obsession. Whenever I see the McCain/Palin ads, I wonder the same thing I wonder about the new tv season: "Who makes up this stuff?" Even worse to contemplate, "Who is swallowing it?"

As for Galveston, Texas and the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, my heart goes out to those people and my pocket book is open, once again, to the Red Cross. They give aid with no questions asked and are truly lifesavers when one is down and out. My husband and I know this first hand. But I'll save that for another post.

Hard Hitting Journalism or Just Another Softball Game?

Charles Gibson has been throwing softballs in interviews for too long. What the heck was the powder puff interview with Sarah Palin he conducted on ABC News last night? For Pete's sake, this woman is one heartbeat away if they are elected and she's basically saying she's "ready to be President"??? She's implying they're on a "mission from God"??? We know all about those missions. "W" has been on one for 8 years.