47% Wrong

Entertaining transparency
from a rich politician, full of
hubris and bad information.

Romney's comment about the 47% will haunt him for the remainder of his political career.

The Quote:  "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who ...

1. are dependent upon government, 
2. who believe that they are victims, 
3. who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, 
4. who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it -- that that's an entitlement.
5. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. 
6. These are people who pay no income tax. ...
   
   My job is not to worry about those people.
7. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Most of us winced.  His commentary unveils a common attitude among the uninformed, that the poor as a class are lazy and willingly dependent on government handouts.  He ascribes several motives to the class as a whole which are condemnatory and inaccurate. Each of the above numbered statements is partially or totally off the mark.*

While it is true, there are those who do their best to bilk the system of undeserved benefit, the majority of those who do so successfully are wealthy.

The rich live well and work by choice, the poor live in varying degrees of difficulty and work harder and longer hours, often at more than one job if they're able to find employment.  Converting work to cash is simple for the wealthy, not so much for the poor.

I've heard it expressed that the poor, the unemployed and welfare recipients should somehow get education, get skills, and work at something meaningful.  One suggested to me that the poor should "get off their butt and go earn a living."  In every case, such statements come from the wealthy, revealing an incomplete understanding of culture and economics.

No one chooses poverty.  No one deliberately picks the path that causes them to go hungry or their children to suffer.  It is something that is done to you.

The likely suspects are:

• Choice limited by circumstance
• Disenfranchisement by government policy
• Big business vs family businesses
• Those who extract wealth from the working class
• Cultural discrimination

The argument that the poor arrive at their circumstance through bad choices has a measure of validity, but when considered in the cultural context, it's a bit more complex.  The poor often have fewer options from which to choose.  

For one example, leaving school before finishing is rarely an option for a child in a stable, healthy home.  In just one inner city classroom in our study, however, many of the students had a family member in jail, many had lost a family member to street violence, most were from single-parent households, many had mothers who survived by prostitution.  The chance of doing well academically is quite low for a child in such a community and home environment.  Their likelihood of finishing school is less than for their middle class counterparts. Typically, the child in poverty doesn't do well academically, perhaps doesn't finish, and doesn't get offered further opportunity.  They will usually attempt employment, some will fall in with others in illegal activity or succumb to the sex trade for survival, most will be unsuccessful in attempting to establish a stable family life.  Another generation of persistent poverty will ensue despite repeated efforts to rise above, to find a way forward.  Only a few will escape.

The poor families whom I know personally are aggressively searching for better employment, for some opportunity.  They work long hours at hard jobs, often shift work that the more fortunate can avoid.  They struggle every day to make ends meet.  They work much harder than I or any of my associates do.  Much harder.  And they strive daily toward a better world for their children.

Those who have read this far, do us all a favor.  Don't think like Romney and his ilk.  Get informed; make a difference.


*True or False?
According to 2011 data from the Tax Policy Center, more than half of the filing units not paying income taxes are those with incomes less than $16,812 per year. Nearly a third - 29.2 percent - of those paying no income taxes are tax filers earning between $16,812 and $33,542, and 12.8 percent are those with incomes between $33,542 and $59,486. In other words, the poor are least likely to pay federal income taxes, but many middle-class families are also exempt. Smaller but significant numbers of the higher-income earners are also exempt: The same data shows that in 2011, 78,000 tax filers with incomes between $211,000 and $533,000 paid no income taxes; 24,000 households with incomes of $533,000 to $2.2 million paid no income taxes, and 3,000 tax filers with incomes above $2.2 million paid no income taxes.

Overall, according to the Tax Policy Center, "of the 38 million tax units made nontaxable by the addition of tax expenditures, 44 percent are moved off the tax rolls by elderly tax benefits and another 30 percent by credits for children and the working poor."

1. are dependent upon government.  Generally inaccurate; the 47% are (a) the elderly who paid for the small social security benefits they receive, and (b) the lower income working class. The majority receive no welfare or other government assistance benefits.  
2. who believe that they are victims,   Perhaps true for some, but hardly common to all.
3. who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them,   Unlikely; the common attitude is one of gratefulness that there's a safety net.
4. who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it -- that that's an entitlement.  False; entitlement thinking is most common in the upper classes and most pronounced in their children.
5. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.   False; the 47% are broadly spread across both parties and available candidates.
6. These are people who pay no income tax.  Partly true but misleading; most pay little or no federal income tax due to low income and to age exemptions.  The majority of them do pay social security and medicare taxes, along with state and local income taxes, sales and property taxes.  Their tax burden is proportionally much greater than that borne by the wealthy.
7. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives." Poorly worded, but suggests a lack of awareness of personal responsibility among the poor as a class.  False; even the destitute carry a clear sense of responsibility as their personal choices immediately affect their circumstances.  The wealthy, however, share no such clarity. They're free to luxuriate, to waste, to misbehave with minimal personal consequence. They often recognize no personal responsibility for the harm they do to others by their financial and business practices and the policies that perpetuate poverty which they endorse or allow without objection.  

From a an objective view, the comments are generally indicative of a hubristic perspective from a position of wealth and privilege with little understanding of the world where 80%+ of humanity lives.  

The Party

From a variety of sources, we discover that our concerns are perhaps not represented in the available national forums.

The issues are broad, and they require and deserve more than emphatically proffered simplistic answers.

• The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate. (~Chomsky)

For some time, we've been trying to somehow qualify the liberal/conservative discourse we see in U.S. government and the media.

We have the two parties (and some fringe groups), but it appears they are just feuding fragments of the same family, the MarketPlaceParty.  Republicans and Democrats represent and are funded by the same corporations, the same business interests, and they all jump through whatever might be the hoops-du-jour.

Of the top one hundred donors to the political parties, 80% divided their money between the parties and candidates, sort of a hedge bet or maybe a derivative equivalent.

As to performance, graph the major indicators.  Bigger government, both parties.  Smaller government, both parties.  Budget restraint, both parties.  Budget explosion, both parties.  Increasing and decreasing regulation, both parties.  Despite the leanings, both follow the business world's leading with little resistance.  Both are members of the MarketPlaceParty.



It doesn't matter that they offer themselves as left or right, liberal or conservative.   They're neither with any consistency or credibility.  Have you considered your own position?  Are you well represented?

Draw the line

Early in the last century, African traditions were formalized and documented.  By foreigners.  The colonial powers did their best to describe and preserve the history of the Africans.  They drew national boundaries and designated capital cities, gathering the varied communities and peoples into national identities they hadn't known, giving them laws and governance.

The problem, of course, is that it was externally imposed. Much of the formalized history was inaccurate, having been interpreted by outsiders. Much of the new legal system had in the past been just informal agreement; ways that were agreed to by communities with the understanding that things would continue only as long as everyone benefited. When an agreement no longer served, it was left behind. But no longer, as foreign rule imposed laws that the people couldn't change.

Thus the lament of everyone today; as soon as a law is enacted, the power players look for ways to work it to their advantage.  No longer the mutual agreement for mutual benefit, law and regulation became the constraint against change, against improvement.

The Maasai are a persistent exception.  They are nomadic herders who don't recognize the borders imposed on them.  They go where the weather gives them grazing lands for their herds, and they've little interest in the densely populated cities that have been imposed upon the lands.

To some degree, we're all from such roots.  Our predecessors settled where the land would serve them well. They spread out so there would be room between them and their neighbors, room for crops and herds, for fishing and hunting.  Fences to separate families came much, much later along with the laws to formalize the agreements that grew up among them.

The colonial powers saw Africa as a continent without civilization, ignorant, unproductive and stagnant. They presumed that they themselves were the embodiment of right thinking, of right living, and obliged to shape the continent after their own image.  In some ways, their efforts were perhaps well intended, but unfortunately, millions died as a result.  Wars over gold, trade, and slaves followed.  Racism and class distinctions rose to the forefront, and even yet today the poorest continue to be exploited.

As elsewhere in the world, poverty that persists in regions of Africa today is not from a lack of resources.  Much of the world economy comes from that region.  Oil, coal, diamonds, gold, iron, cobalt, uranium, copper, bauxite, silver, cocoa beans, and fine woods are all plentiful, but after centuries of growth, the wealth of the continent continues to benefit the few.  And the imposed law is used to squelch the outcry of the disenfranchised.

Nigeria's Bonny Peninsula is a classic case. Polluted beyond survivability, the land and waters now kill or drive out the residents, and their protests are met by government violence.  The Anglo-Dutch oil group Shell owns and operates the industry there.

Illegal over-fishing by developed nations has eroded the productivity of local fishermen.  The 90% reduction in marketable fish populations means the locals go much farther offshore at greater risk and return with less.

Interestingly, our densely populated cities are not the settled norm.  They are artificially maintained and progressively less sustainable.  They are at best 80% solutions supported by varying degrees of overburdening of people and resources. Things will change of necessity in the coming decades.

Life for about 80% of the world ...

In Africa as in the rest of the world, it's not the land that brings people to poverty.  It's the rich and influential who bring poverty. Poverty is a weapon by which the few profit from the deprivation of others.  We in the west who claim the moral high-ground of equality, of law and justice, will be required to face the reality that such a position is bent by self-interest and that what we have collectively become is in many ways extraordinarily harmful.

How often do we think we know what's best for others?  Do we presume our success and position place us somehow above and with a better perspective?  Such thinking is always inaccurate; no exceptions. As individuals, what options are available to us for a meaningful way forward?

Too big ...

Strong statements by governments and the media say that the failure of this or that financial giant could be a tipover point for the world economy.  The failure of AIG, for example, would cascade throughout the world down to the last person.  None would be left unscathed.

OK, that's an interesting perspective.

From a Wikipedia article:

The "too big to fail" theory asserts that certain financial institutions are so large and so interconnected that their failure would be disastrous to the economy, and they therefore must be supported by government when they face difficulty.^[1] ... popularized by U.S. Congressman Stewart McKinney in a 1984 Congressional hearing, discussing the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's intervention with Continental Illinois.^[2] ... Proponents of this theory believe that some institutions are so important that they should become recipients of beneficial financial and economic policies from governments or central banks.^[4] ... The global economic system must also deal with sovereign states being too big to fail.^[5][6][7][8] Opponents believe that one of the problems that arises is moral hazard whereby a company that benefits from these protective policies will seek to profit by it, deliberately taking positions ... that are high-risk high-return....^[9] The term has emerged as prominent in public discourse since the 2007–2010 global financial crisis.^[10] Critics see the policy as counterproductive and that large banks or other institutions should be left to fail if their risk management is not effective.^[11][12] 

Some critics, such as Alan Greenspan, believe that such large organisations should be deliberately broken up: “If they're too big to fail, they're too big”.^[13] More than fifty prominent economists, financial experts, bankers, finance industry groups, and banks themselves have called for breaking up large banks into smaller institutions.^[14]

So, most agree that the characterization is correct, but not all agree on what we should do about it.  If the corporation is a threat to the nation, are there reasons to NOT regulate that threat?  That's been the response so far.

Is it just these financial business behemoths that pose the risk?  Or is there more to the underlying causes?

From our history ... of communities, of cities, of civilizations.  The progressive complexity of their interrelationships over the years shows breakdown points where some or all suffer.  Competition for resources, for room to live, for power, all have affected the masses detrimentally.  In each case, the first trigger point for difficulty seems to be population density.

Not every location is viable; population concentrates in favorable regions rather than being spread out evenly.

Where communities were small and separated by distance, there was no inevitable conflict.  Where resources were sufficient, there was no destructive competition.  Communities along the Niger River lived in cooperative peace for more than a thousand years.

In regions of dense population however, demands of consumption overtasked the local carrying capacity. Class systems exploited the masses. Power players would compete to come out on top. Consumption would strip the land of trees, aggressive farming would exhaust the land, and overfishing would decimate the sea life.  Trying to make more out of less brings intense competition, risk, and eventual collapse.  Or war.

That's the history we see with population density being the underlying and perhaps first enabling factor.

2011

World population rose to three, four, five, six and now seven billion just in my lifetime, and it's concentrated, not spread out. In 2008, we crossed a threshold; half the global population now live in urban areas. Fifty years ago it was 30%. A century ago it was 10%.

Following population density, in every case of failed civilization, it appears that there were two identifiable players; government and big business (or their contemporary equivalent).

We note the acceleration of destructive play in those two realms today. Increasingly, governments serve national business interests, ignoring the broader impact. This is perhaps the second trigger point. And now, the reality of globalization means the risks affect us all.

We face challenges today with population, climate change, water availability, and overfishing of the oceans. Globalizing processes change cultures, economies, national priorities, and the natural environment. The whole world is in play, and it's unprotected from either big business or government.

The immediate future holds challenges for us individually and collectively.  What long term and rational plan we might embrace?

Everything we've got

“When we find a way to save millions of lives, to give hundreds of millions of families the ability to make a healthy, productive future, we should give everything we've got.” ~Melinda Gates

Melinda Gates, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation makes remarks at the launch
of a Global Partnership on Maternal and Child Health on
March 9, 2011 at the Ronald Reagan Building in
Washington, DC.  They introduced a new partnership
between the US Agency for International Development,
the Government of Norway, The Bill and Melinda Gates
 Foundation, Grand Challenges Canada and The World Bank
 that will seek innovative solutions to reduce maternal and
 child mortality in developing countries. AFP PHOTO

So as Jesus walked out into the street, this fellow came running up and asked, “... how can I get eternal life? What do I need to do?”

Jesus said, “... You know the rules: Don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't lie, don't cheat, honor your father and mother.”
He said, “Teacher, I've got that.  I've done all that since I was a child!”

Jesus looked him hard in the eye and loved him! He said, “There’s this one thing left: go sell everything you own and give it to the poor. Then come follow me.”

The man’s face clouded over. This was the last thing he expected to hear, and he walked away with a heavy heart. He was holding on tight to a lot of things and wouldn't let go.

To his friends, Jesus said, “Do you have any idea just how hard it is for people who ‘have it all’ to find God’s kingdom?” The disciples didn't get it, but Jesus kept on: “You can’t imagine how difficult. I'd say it’s easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for the rich to walk that particular path.”

Watching someone walk that particular pathway is such a stunning joy.

Tick

In an interesting departure from what we were taught in high school about America, government can be bought. 

 
Corporations have an overriding voice when it comes to decision-making by government.

My letter to a congressman gets at best a form-letter reply. Corporations spend hundreds of millions on their issues totaling billions every year, not including campaign contributions .... and the reply they get is favorable legislation.

That's not news, of course.  It's been going on for years, creeping up under the covers like a tick looking for blood.

I've not been able to find even one news report or academic article suggesting that corporate lobbying was largely good for the nation or the people. Not one. Disappointing.

Just because it's legal doesn't mean it isn't detrimental.  The influence of the banking industry, for example.  Their ensuing crash pushed millions around the world across the line to starvation.

In defense of the process, there is a need for knowledgeable discussion on the issues, but that necessary debate can be overwhelmed by paid talking heads.  In the regulatory abandonment of banking constraints, congress was persuaded that not a single dollar could be lost in the derivatives exchange process ....  it wasn't a single dollar, of course; it was trillions.  We lost jobs and income, value in our homes, in our savings, and we went further into debt; the cost - around $104,000 for each US household. And we haven't yet recovered.

Greenspan, echoing the lobbyists before the crash, testified that there was no need for government oversight, because the derivatives market involved Wall Street “professionals” who could patrol themselves. That's what they told him, of course.

Top lobbying sectors 1998-2010^[61][62]

	Client	Amount Spent	%
1	Finance, Insurance & Real Estate	$4,274,060,331	15%
2	Health	$4,222,427,808	15%
3	Misc Business	$4,149,842,571	14%
4	Communications/Electronics	$3,497,881,399	12%
5	Energy & Natural Resources	$3,104,104,518	11%
6	Transportation	$2,245,118,222	8%
7	Other	$2,207,772,363	7%
8	Ideological/Single-Issue	$1,477,294,241	5%
9	Agribusiness	$1,280,824,983	4%
10	Defense	$1,216,469,173	4%
11	Construction	$480,363,108	2%
12	Labor	$427,355,408	1%
13	Lawyers & Lobbyists themselves	$336,170,306	1%
	Total	$28,919,684,431	99%[63]
	Note: Amounts do not include campaign contributions.[64][65]