Article 43
Thursday, July 25, 2019
The Kids Are Not Allright II
White kind of government, what kind of society - does stuff like this?
CEO Offers to Pay School Lunch Debt So Parents Won’t Have Kids Stolen by CPS, Gov’t Won’t Let Him
By Matt Agorist
Activist Post
July 25,2019
Luzerne County, PA As TFTP REPORTED this week, Wyoming Valley West School District parents, whose school lunch accounts were delinquent, received a disturbing letter threatening to have their children kidnapped by Child and Youth Services if they donגt pay their past due balances. The letter garnered national attention and drew the ire of many, including a millionaire CEO who offered to pay these past due balances. In an infuriating move, however, the school board rejected his offer and is opting for stealing the kids instead.
Todd Carmichael, chief executive and co-founder of Philadelphia-based La Colombe Coffee, made an offer this week to pay off the more than $22,000 in unpaid lunch bills to help the parents who so desperately need it. However, school board president Joseph Mazur rejected the offer on Tuesday, arguing that the money is owed by parents who can afford to pay it.
But this does not matter to Carmichael, who simply wants to wipe away the debt.
“The position of Mr. Carmichael is, irrespective of affluence, irrespective of need, he just wants to wipe away this debt,” Carmichael spokesman Aren Platt said Tuesday.
Carmichael who is widely recognized for being the first American to cross Antarctica to the South Pole, on foot, alone - made this offer because he says, as a child, he was helped by receiving free lunches. He explained his intent in a letter sent to papers in the Wilkes-Barre area on Monday.
“I know what it means to be hungry,” Carmichael wrote. “I know what it means to feel shame for not being able to afford food.”
Carmichael told reporters on Tuesday that he remains steadfast despite the school board rejecting his offer, and noted that it still stands.
“I’m just going to hold on and I’m going to continue to be optimistic and see if we can’t do something,” Carmichael said. “Even if you’re a difficult person, we’re in. What can we do?”
Carmichael explained how he was struggling to understand why anyone would turn down this offer to help, as it seems like a no-brainer.
“Why prevent it?” he said.
Wyoming Valley WestԒs solicitor, Charles Coslett, said he did not know what the school board planned to do, according to a report in the Associated Press.
I donӒt know what my clients intention is at this point,Ҕ Coslett said. ThatӒs the end of the line.
As TFTP reported on Monday, the letter sent to over 1,000 parents - threatening to take their children reads in part:
You can be sent to dependency court for neglecting your child’s right to food. The result may be your child being taken from your home and placed in foster care
The letter which one parent equated to school-sponsored bullying drew immediate outrage from the community as well as Luzerne County officials who immediately demanded the school retract its letter and explicit threat to steal kids away from their parents. Luzerne County Children and Youth Services executive director Joanne Van Saun said:
I found it very disturbing. Upsetting. Its a total misrepresentation, a gross misrepresentation of what our agency does.
The school boardҒs disturbing position was countered by county officials who claimed the school system is simply lying about the power the schools have to steal kids. The county manager and the child welfare agency director penned their own letter sent to the school superintendent telling the school system to stop lying to parents. According to PennLive:
Luzerne Countys manager and child welfare agency director have written the superintendent, insisting the district stop making what they call false claims. Their letter calls the district’s actions troubling and a misrepresentation of how the Children and Youth Services Department and its foster care program operate.
It is worth noting that poor parents qualify for free lunches. Parents who have low incomes can qualify for reduced lunch fees. And working parents who qualify for neither of the federally-funded programs pay the full price for school food.
So, its safe to say the letters were sent to working families too well-off to afford free lunches and too poor to keep their childrenҒs accounts paid up.
While it is certainly unacceptable for parents who can afford it ח to choose not to pay for their childs lunch, often times those right at the free lunch cutoff often struggle to make it work. Sadly, however, instead of attempting to work out a solution, the school board is moving in to take kids and place liens on property.
The Wyoming Valley West School DistrictҒs federal programs director, Joseph Muth, wrote a letter saying he had considered using food shaming tactics such as forcing the poor children to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
The districts federal programs director, Joseph Muth, told WNEP-TV the district had considered serving peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to students with delinquent accounts, but received legal advice warning against it.
There you have it. The school board is attempting to collect $22,000 in debt and their only option is stealing kids. When someone comes along and proposes another option, they deny it and stick to stealing kids. The epitome of bureaucratic logic.
Section Dying America •
View (0) comment(s) or add a new one •
Printable view • Link to this article •
Home •
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
The Housing Crisis Is Worse Than You Think
A new report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition shows its getting increasingly difficult to afford housing.
By In These Times Staff
In These Times
July 22, 2019
"Housing is a human right,” Julin Castro, the former Obama Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, wrote in the preamble to his PEOPLE FIRST HOUSING platform in June. Hes one of a few Democratic contenders who have spoken about affordable housing in recent weeks, an issue that;s historically received limited attention on the campaign trail. But housing’s newfound importance makes good sense: As In These Times has noted, the economic prospects for everyday Americans are hardly sunny, even after the putative rebounds made by the nation since the Great Recession.
While there are ample REASONS TO DOUBT the progressive promises made by the likes of Castro, the need to address the shortage of affordable housing could not be more real. And with the recent release of the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s annual report on the gap between wage-earners and rent prices, now is an important moment for candidates to outline their plans to address the issue. Here are 10 statistics that outline the U.S. housing crisis:
24.7%: U.S. renters who spend more than half their income on rent.
49.5%: Those who spend more than the federal threshold of “affordable” (30% of income).
7,000,000: Nationwide shortage of affordable homes for low-income renters.
552,830: People experiencing homelessness on a single night in 2018.
7,400,000: Americans forced to move in with friends or family.
32%: Increase in median rent from 2001 to 2015.
97%: Increase in the number of homes renting for $2,000 or more between 2005 and 2015.
80%: U.S. markets where home prices are growing faster than wages.
1%: U.S. counties where a fair-market one-bedroom rental home is affordable for a full-time minimum-wage worker.
103: Weekly hours worked at minimum wage needed to afford a one-bedroom home at national average fair-market rent.
Section Dying America •
View (0) comment(s) or add a new one •
Printable view • Link to this article •
Home •
Thursday, July 04, 2019
Reclaiming Independence Day
Reclaiming Independence Day
By DayRosanne Lindsay
Activist Post
July 3, 2019
Has the concept of independence been lost under Acts of Tyranny perpetrated by government?
Based on historical evidence, the only freedom people have is the freedom they defend. As this country celebrates Independence Day 2019, tyrannical Acts that remove rights are being rolled out under the guise of safety and security.
On June 24th, President Trump signed into law the Pandemic and All Hazards Preparedness Advancing Innovations Act (PAHPA), authored by Rep. Susan w. Brooks (R-IN) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA) to strengthen the country’s preparedness and response program. PAHPA ensures that the country is better prepared to respond to a wide array of Public Health emergencies, whether man-made or occurring through natural disaster or infectious disease.
Problem - Reaction - Solution
The PAHPA Act is part of the HEGELIAN DIALECTIC Playbook of Problem, Reaction, Solution. This Act, act-ivates the government to prepare and respond in any way it deems necessary by doing whatever it wants, wherever it wants, however it wants, without your permission.
This DISCLOSURE to all subjects and slaves of the world show that the ideal of FREEDOM has been a ruse. The Constitution of the United States does not protect freedom. The Declaration of Independence does not ensure rights. True freedom is is not found in any Act, but must be defended through action.
Panic Propaganda
Panic Propaganda is predictive programming that keeps people in a state of fear. Fear is a low frequency. As vibrational beings, what we believe, think, and feel are frequencies that determine HOW WE ACT or whether we act. Fear keeps people is a state of flight, fight, or freeze. Fear keeps people stuck and afraid of acting on their own behalf and for their own best interests.
In a state of fear, people are unlikely to remember that they are the true authors of government, and that elected officials must get permission from the people. Under mandates it is easy to forget that legislators work for YOU.
Have Americans forgotten the words of Thomas Jefferson, written in the Declaration of Independence?
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Undo The Conditioning
Americans have taken on the CONDITIONING of the public SCHOOL SYSTEM to believe that rights come from government and you have no say over your life since all decisions must be made to protect the “Public Health” and well being.
People are made to believe that “Public Health” exists. But “the Public” is like a forest. A forest does not exist except for the individual trees. Therefore, “the public” does not exist except for individuals who make up the public. When it comes to health, wealth, and happiness, it is not “the Public” that benefits. It is individual who does.
Where Does Freedom Live?
When you decide to un-condition yourself from falsehoods you have accepted to the truth that is self-evident, you realize that freedom is not granted by government, or presidents, or kings. Freedom lives in individuals. You are born with inherent rights.
In order to experience freedom, you must live it and express it through your choices. Without choice there is no freedom. Avoid the “pro” vs. “anti” propaganda that is set up by social engineers to DIVIDE AND CONQUER. While you are bogged down in endless debate (pro or anti), mandates are rolled out. Totalitarian rule is established.
The Healthy People 2020 Act is coming. This cradle-to-grave vaccine mandate demands young and old, and every one in between, roll up their sleeves and submit to an injection. It is an Act that removes choice and tests the will of the people. Everyone will be faced with a choice. What will you choose? How do you reclaim independence?
Section American Solidarity •
View (0) comment(s) or add a new one •
Printable view • Link to this article •
Home •
Union Rise
America’s labor movement is finally waking up after a 30 year slumber
By George Pearkes, Opinion Contributor
Business Insider
June 30, 2019
You may have noticed some labor disruptions in the headlines. A few examples from the past month: employees of Vox Media successfully NEGOTIATED a collective bargaining agreement, Buzzfeed employees WALKED OUT in an effort to get recognition for their union, and VOLKSWAGEN workers in Tennessee TALKED WILDCAT STRIKES after a vote to unionize failed by a small margin.
Last year, teachers walked off the job in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona with walk-outs and other disruptions from Colorado to the Carolinas. This may seem like bad news for capitalists, but unions can be a source of stability as well as class conflict. The recent labor renaissance could help to reverse some worrying long-term trends in the American economy, while also still benefiting the businesses from which workers are extracting gains.
The recent uptick in strikes is not just your imagination, and it recalls an earlier era when unions played a greater role in the American labor market. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed more than 485,000 workers were impacted by large strikes that started during the year, the highest number since 1986.
This year, the first five months of the year have seen 307,000 workers impacted by strikes, versus 431,000 in the first five months of 2018.
The return to labor disruptions after a long post-Reagan slumber comes as workers are becoming scarcer. Using BLS data which goes back to 1994, as-of May only 9.12% of the potential workers either had no job and want one, or are working part-time because they can’t find full-time work. The measure is approaching its record low of 8.9%, from April of 2000.
This extremely broad metric measures not just those who are counted as unemployed by the BLS, but goes further to include those who haven’t been looking for work but want a job as well as those working part-time for economic reasons. If employers want to add capacity or replace workers who retire or quit, there are fewer and fewer places to turn, which gives workers more bargaining power.
George Pearkes
The surge in organized labor activity also poses a concern for investors and economic observers: won’t all that labor bargaining power lead to wage-price spirals and runaway inflation? Not necessarily.
In fact, the FOMC’s most recent Summary of Economic Projections showed 8 of 15 FOMC members see multiple interest rate cuts this year, spurred in part by a weak inflation outlook. Many doves are more worried about slow inflation and the possibility of slipping inflation expectations, rather than inflation surging thanks to excessive labor bargaining power.
One reason a dovish outlook in the presence of low unemployment may carry less risk of a sudden uptick in inflation than it otherwise might: labor share of income is extremely low.
As Bloomberg’s Matt Boelser POINTED OUT in April, Federal Reserve Vice Chair Richard Clarida brought the below chart with him from his role at fixed income fund giant Pimco. It shows that labor compensation share of national income hit a record low earlier in the expansion, and has only risen modestly since.
Tight labor markets may help return some balance to the economy, raising income share for workers after decades of declines and very little bounce during the current economic expansion. Higher labor compensation share of income could push up wages and incomes, without a dramatic uptick in inflation from businesses passing wage costs on to consumers.
Geroge Pearkes
Can a burgeoning push for unions help that process along? It’s always hard to draw concrete causal links between two economic variables, and we should be cautious to say rising union power would definitely raise worker bargaining powerespecially without inflationary consequences. But it’s clear that declines in labor share of income since the 1970s only took place after unionization rates had been falling, and for quite some time.
Today, less than 11% of workers are union members per the BLS, with even lower numbers for the private sector (6.4%). Back in 1960, per the University of Amsterdam’s ICTWSS database, almost a third of the labor force was unionized.
The contemporary political framing of unions is often very negative, and given the experience of high inflation that subsided after supply-side reforms in the 1980s, that’s somewhat understandable, but it ignores a longer and more nuanced history of the LABOR MOVEMENT in the US. Modern edifices like the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) were introduced to balance the conflicts BETWEEN UNIONS AND EMPLOYERS.
Examples of past excesses include a million rounds fired and chemical weapons used at the Battle of Blair Mountain (West Virginia, 1921) or President Truman nationalizing the steel industry by executive order in 1952 in response to a strike. Unrestrained conflict between workers and management is bad for everyone, but a managed negotiation between workers and business can play a role in creating a more equitable and stable society.
Years of political and judicial maneuvering (ranging from the 2018 Janus decision to much older right-to-work laws) have reduced the power of unions and the NLRB. But workers and employers are also well-served to remember that both can benefit from orderly collective bargaining: stability and predictability may be worth the bottom-line cost of paying workers more.
No employer need worry about an armed revolt or sudden nationalization these days, but even small wildcat strikes or walk-outs (which can destroy a business overnight), higher turnover rates in a low unemployment economy, and failure to attract talent can have devastating consequences. Unions and formalized negotiating can be a venue for class conflict that might otherwise boil over if kept bottled up.
For now, unionization movements are still limited. Organizers’ failure to introduce the South to unionized auto manufacturing via the Volkswagen plant is just one example of the difficulties organized labor still faces.
Given the longstanding frustration with slow wage growth and a society that feels imbalanced, recent victories at the bargaining table for journalists and teachers, facilitated by unions, seem likely to get copied in other workplaces.
---
Unions Did Great Things for the Working Class
Strengthening them could blunt inequality and wage stagnation.
By Noah Smith
Bloomberg
June 13, 2018
Politically and economically, unions are sort of an odd duck. They aren’t part of the apparatus of the state, yet they depend crucially on state protections in order to wield their power. They’re stakeholders in corporations, but often have adversarial relationships with management. Historically, unions are a big reason that the working class won many of the protections and rights it now enjoys, but they often leave the working class fragmented and divided—between different companies, between union and non-union workers, and even between different ethnic groups.
Economists, too, have long puzzled about how to think about unions. They don’t fit easily into the standard paradigm of modern economic theory in which atomistic individuals and companies abide by rules overseen by an all-powerful government. Some economists see unions as a cartel, protecting insiders at the expense of outsiders. According to this theory, unions raise wages but also drive up unemployment. This is the interpretation of unions taught in many introductory courses and textbooks.
If this were really what unions did, it might be worth it to simply let them slip into oblivion, as private-sector unions have been doing in the U.S.
But there are many reasons to think that this theory of unions isn’t right—or, at least, is woefully incomplete.
First, even back in the 1970s, some economists realized that unions do a lot more than just push up wages. In a 1979 paper entitled “The Two Faces of Unionism,” economists Richard Freeman and James Medoff argued that “by providing workers with a voice both at the workplace and in the political arena, unions can and do affect positively the functioning of the economic and social systems.”
Freeman and Medoff cite data showing that unions reduced turnover, which lowers costs associated with constantly finding and training new workers. They also show that unions engaged in political activity that benefitted the working class more broadly, rather than just union members. And they showed that contrary to popular belief, unions actually decreased racial wage disparities. Finally, Freeman and Medoff argue that by defining standard wage rates within industries, unions actually reduced wage inequality overall, despite the cartel-like effect emphasized in econ textbooks.
But the world didnԒt listen to Freeman and Medoff, and private-sectors unions declined into near-insignificance. Now, four decades later, economists are again starting to suspect that unions were a better deal than the textbooks made them out to be. A recent paper by economists Henry Farber, Daniel Herbst, Ilyana Kuziemko and Suresh Naidu concludes that unions were an important force reducing inequality in the U.S.
Since past data tends to be patchy, Farber et al. combine a huge number of different data sources to get a detailed picture of unionization rates going all the way back to 1936, the year after Congress passed a law letting private-sector employees form unions. The authors find that as unionization rises, inequality tends to fall, and vice versa. Nor is this effect driven by greater skills and education on the part of union workers; during the era from 1940 through 1970, when unionization rose and inequality fell, union workers tended to be less educated than others. In other words, unions lifted the workers at the bottom of the distribution. Black workers, and other nonwhite workers, tended to benefit the most from the union boost.
Now, however, private-sector unions are mostly a faded memory and their power to raise wages has waned—Farber et al. find that although there’s still a union wage premium, it’s now much more due to the fact that higher-skilled workers tended to be the ones who stayed unionized. A 2004 paper by economists John DiNardo and David Lee found that by 1984-1999, unions had lost much of their ability to force wages higher.
Given the contrast between the golden age of 1940-1970 and the current age of spiraling inequality, wouldn’t it make sense to bring unions back? Perhaps. The key question is why private-sector unions mostly died out. Policy changes—right-to-work laws, and the appointment of anti-union regulators, probably played a key role in reducing unionization. But globalization may have also played a big part. Competition from companies in countries like Germany—where unions often bargain to hold down wages in order to increase their companies’ competitiveness—might have made the old American model of unionization unsustainable. Now, with even stiffer competition from China, the challenge of re-unionizing the U.S. might be an insurmountable one.
But it might be worth it to try. Other than massive government redistribution of income and wealth, theres really no other obvious way to address the country’s rising inequality. Also, there’s the chance that unions might be an effective remedy for the problem of increasing corporate market power—evidence suggests that when unionization rates are high, industry concentration is less effective at suppressing wages. Repealing right-to-work laws and appointing more pro-union regulators could be just the medicine the economy needs.
So supporters of free markets should rethink their antipathy to unions. As socialism gains support among the young, both economists and free-market thinkers should consider the possibility that unions—that odd hybrid of free-market bargaining and government intervention—were the vaccine that allowed the U.S. and other rich nations to largely escape the disasters of communism in the 20th century.
It looks like it’s TIME FOR A BOOSTER SHOT.
Section American Solidarity •
View (0) comment(s) or add a new one •
Printable view • Link to this article •
Home •
Tuesday, July 02, 2019
Profits over People
A few years ago I wrote about MY JOB AT AT&T that led me to stumble on a possible big, fat security hole in dial-up modems connected to inside plant equipment that was dismissed by management. The PROFIT OVER PEOPLE mantra that that hangs over the U.S. like a dark cloud keeps getting bigger and darker.
Boeing Outsourced Its 737 MAX Software To $9-Per-Hour Engineers
By Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
June 29, 2019
The software at the heart of the Boeing 737 MAX crisis was developed at a time when the company was laying off experienced engineers and replacing them with temporary workers making as little as $9 per hour, according to BLOOMBERG.
In an effort to cut costs, Boeing was relying on subcontractors making paltry wages to develop and test its software. Often times, these subcontractors would be from countries lacking a deep background in aerospace, like India.
Boeing had recent college graduates working for Indian software developer HCL Technologies Ltd. in a building across from Seattle’s Boeing Field, in flight test groups supporting the MAX. The coders from HCL designed to specifications set by Boeing but, according to Mark Rabin, a former Boeing software engineer, “it was controversial because it was far less efficient than Boeing engineers just writing the code.”
Rabin said: “...it took many rounds going back and forth because the code was not done correctly.”
In addition to cutting costs, the hiring of Indian companies may have landed Boeing orders for the Indian military and commercial aircraft, like a $22 billion order received in January 2017. That order included 100 737 MAX 8 jets and was Boeing’s largest order ever from an Indian airline. India traditionally orders from Airbus.
HCL engineers helped develop and test the 737 MAX’s flight display software while employees from another Indian company, Cyient Ltd, handled the software for flight test equipment. In 2011, Boeing named Cyient, then known as Infotech, to a list of its “suppliers of the year.”
One HCL employee posted online: “Provided quick workaround to resolve production issue which resulted in not delaying flight test of 737-Max” (delay in each flight test will cost very big amount for Boeing).
But Boeing says the company didn’t rely on engineers from HCL for the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, which was linked to both last October’s crash and March’s crash. The company also says it didn’t rely on Indian companies for the cockpit warning light issue that was disclosed after the crashes.
A Boeing spokesperson said: “Boeing has many decades of experience working with supplier/partners around the world. Our primary focus is on always ensuring that our products and services are safe, of the highest quality and comply with all applicable regulations.”
HCL, on the other hand, said: “HCL has a strong and long-standing business relationship with The Boeing Company, and we take pride in the work we do for all our customers. However, HCL does not comment on specific work we do for our customers. HCL is not associated with any ongoing issues with 737 Max.”
Recent simulator tests run by the FAA indicate that software issues on the 737 MAX run deeper than first thought. Engineers who worked on the plane, which Boeing started developing eight years ago, complained of pressure from managers to limit changes that might introduce extra time or cost.
Rick Ludtke, a former Boeing flight controls engineer laid off in 2017, said: Boeing was doing all kinds of things, everything you can imagine, to reduce cost, including moving work from Puget Sound, because we’d become very expensive here. All that’s very understandable if you think of it from a business perspective. Slowly over time it appears that’s eroded the ability for Puget Sound designers to design.
Rabin even recalled an incident where senior software engineers were told they weren’t needed because Boeing’s productions were mature. Rabin said: “I was shocked that in a room full of a couple hundred mostly senior engineers we were being told that we weren’t needed.”
Any given jetliner is made up of millions of parts and millions of lines of code. Boeing has often turned over large portions of the work to suppliers and subcontractors that follow its blueprints. But beginning in 2004 with the 787 Dreamliner, Boeing sought to increase profits by providing high-level specs and then asking suppliers to design more parts themselves.
Boeing also promised to invest $1.7 billion in Indian companies as a result of an $11 billion order in 2005 from Air India. This investment helped HCL and other software developers.
For the 787, HCL offered a price to Boeing that they couldn’t refuse, either: free. HCL “took no up-front payments on the 787 and only started collecting payments based on sales years later”.
Rockwell Collins won the MAX contract for cockpit displays and relied in part on HCL engineers and contract engineers from Cyient to test flight test equipment.
Charles LoveJoy, a former flight-test instrumentation design engineer at the company, said: “We did have our challenges with the India team. They met the requirements, per se, but you could do it better.”
Section Dying America •
View (0) comment(s) or add a new one •
Printable view • Link to this article •
Home •
