A year ago this month ...

Shane Patrick Boyle was a young man who had moved to Arkansas to care for his ailing mother. Boyle was a diabetic who was unable to find work in his new town, so he couldn’t afford the insulin shots his body needed to stay alive.  He was waiting for his ACA application to be approved, but it was taking a long time.  In desperation, he started a GoFundMe account to raise money. He was $50 short of his goal when he died, just two days after his mother passed away, in February 2017.

Remembered by his cousin, "The world lost a

wonderful man due to complications of

type 1 diabetes. My cousin, Shane Boyle,

put everything into taking care of his ailing

mother at the expense of his own needs.

The price of insulin had tripled in the decade before Shane died. The required doctor visits and treatment supplies had increased similarly, and folks without insurance pay higher prices.  It cost Shane his life.

Boyle’s story isn’t unique. Alec Raeshawn Smith was a 26-year-old diabetic who had to start rationing his own insulin after he aged out of his parents’ insurance coverage. He was found dead in his apartment in June of last year. 

Research (by the NIH and Columbia University reviewing 47 studies) has found that poverty and inequality cause roughly 291,000 deaths in America every year. Their research also found that poverty was a contributing factor in many more deaths.

So helping the less fortunate among us isn’t just a nice thing to do, it saves lives, which may explain some of God’s deep concern.  It might motivate us to get involved. The reason the wealth gap should concern people is that life and death should concern people, and the sooner we can be honest about the very real consequences of turning a blind eye to American poverty when we have the resources to do something about it, the sooner we can start talking about real solutions.

The Spice of Islands

The only place in the world ... the Spice Islands.

Inhabited for thousands of years with a long history of self-rule, the Maluku islands were in the center of world trade in spices. In the south, the Banda Islands were the world's only source of nutmeg and mace produced from the nutmeg tree.  Cloves were available from nearby island communities and nowhere else in the world. For generation after generation, they traded the spices for food and manufactured goods from India, China, and Arabia.

Banda Islands

When Europeans discovered the market, competition escalated viciously.  In the 16th century, the Portuguese were first to arrive and attempted to monopolize the trade in spices, but failed.  The Dutch East India Company (VOC) attempted the same monopolizing and succeeded.  It was Europe's second joint stock company after the English East India Company, both major landmarks in the development of the modern corporation.

Much like today, the Dutch East India Company coerced the local governments into unbalanced trade agreements that gave them increasing leverage in the local economy and workforce.  When they came to the Banda Islands, however, there was no central government to conquer.  Each community was governed by a council of residents, and they were quite opposed to foreign involvement, so the company killed them.  Corporate genocide.

Jan Pieterszoon Coen, the Dutch governor of Batavia, sailed with a fleet (and company army) to Banda in 1621 and killed almost all of the people there.  He let about a thousand survive to preserve the agricultural knowledge necessary for continued spice production.  He divided the lands into 68 sections which he allocated to company executives and brought in slaves for forced labor.

Such deadly practices were not uncommon and are seen in varying degree among most of the business ventures controlling the new world's trade in their treatment of both colonists and indigenous populations.  Indentured servitude, slavery, and native genocide were corporate initiatives.

Today, it is illegal in most contexts to kill competitors.  With that exception, corporate trade practices continue much as before.

Fair trade efforts have shown some progress, but 'me first' and 'us first' persist to the detriment of most of the world's inhabitants.  Inequality between and within nations is increasing each year.

There's more, of course, with perhaps the key
factors being governance and equality.
North and South Korea provide interesting
examples as did our northern and southern
states up through the mid-20th century.

Public discourse suggests that the only alternative to capitalism is socialism, suggesting the better of the two is the only choice.  That discussion is perhaps simplistic rhetoric rather than informed.  Neither capitalism nor socialism provides a solution, as we well know.  Both leave the lower economic segments of the population in deprivation and inescapable circumstances.

Fortunately, there are numerous alternatives.  For starters, ours is not a pure capitalist economy any more than China is pure socialist.  Both economies have morphed over the years, sometimes beneficially, sometimes not.

Here's hoping we learn along the way and improve appropriately, perhaps virtuously, as has from time to time been our national intent.

The Problem with Anger

An angry delivery will do more harm than good, even if the criticism is deserved.

Most folks don't begin the day looking for an opportunity to explode.  Such occasions tend to surprise us, and we perhaps respond quickly and without much thought. Kaboom!  Out pours the mess of our own less-than-perfect soul.

Anger rises naturally in us.  Something we care about got handled badly by someone else.  Waiting in line, listening to politicians, or dealing with life and a partner can trigger that natural response in us.

Anger person-to-person, however, breaks the bonds of relationship.  It's more or less deliberate.  I love you less at the moment because you ... whatever.

We sat with an impressive couple who recounted for us their personal relationship changes.  Both had been conflict escalators, adding emotional content (anger, rebuke, criticism, kitchen sink) to discussions where they didn't agree.  They told us how they had started asking why this or that mattered and negotiating the important things.  It involved more listening.  They pulled back far enough to see the values they shared and figure out how to achieve their goals.  They were justifiably proud of themselves and warmly confident about their future together. It was an eye-opener.

For the record, Jesus said anger is pretty much the same as murder.  (Mt 5:21-22)  Put down, beat down, force down, or force away.  Being, acting, or speaking angrily; all the same root.

Love is patient and kind.
  Love does not dishonor other poople.
    Love does not easily become angry.
      Love does not keep track of other people's wrongs.
         And a loving heart apologizes sincerely when it has done wrong.

Happy Valentines Day.

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You might appreciate ... The Strangest of Creatures

Wage and Job Growth

Data through the end of 2017 from the Bureau of Labor Statics today.

Job growth and unemployment numbers are encouraging, but there's more to the reality for American households.

Wages have kept pace with inflation plus a small margin since 2001.  Measuring percentages can be inadequate or even misleading.  If your weekly pay is $380, making $576 seventeen years later (after inflation, that's up about $50) isn't great progress.  That's the 25th percentile.  

We have 113 million in the full time workforce and 25 million working part time.  There are about 20 million who haven't worked in more than a year of which about 7 million aren't looking anymore; they've given up, gone back to parents perhaps or to the streets with the other homeless.  An increasing number are falling out of the labor force for as yet undetermined reasons.

Data through the end of 2017 from the Bureau of Labor Statics today.

Prime employment-age male participation in the workforce

"A crucial measure of how far from full recovery the economy remains is the growth of nominal wages (wages unadjusted for inflation). Nominal wage growth since the recovery officially began in mid-2009 has been low and flat. This isn’t surprising–the weak labor market of the last seven years has put enormous downward pressure on wages. Employers don’t have to offer big wage increases to get and keep the workers they need. And this remains true even as a jobs recovery has consistently forged ahead in recent years." Economic Policy Institute

Only 39% of Americans have enough savings to cover a $1000 emergency. If the water heater dies, or if the car breaks down, most folks haven't got the savings to stay on top. The GAP continues to widen as income for the upper quintiles continues to grow rapidly. 

Things changed in the '70s.  Corporations moved to profit as the exclusive model.  Workers became a liability and were treated accordingly.  Legislation supported the move. Much improvement is needed, still.

So, what do you think it was that he saw?

Considered objectively, he saw something, and he tried to describe it.  

"I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

So, what do you think it was that he saw?

“Nearly 3 in 4 individuals convicted of terrorism-related charges are foreign born.”

27 JAN 18 - His 9th executive order on immigration.
Previous orders have been overturned by the courts.

On January 16, President Trump tweeted that “nearly 3 in 4 individuals convicted of terrorism-related charges are foreign born.” That part is true but misleading; a half-truth, perhaps.

DoJ and DHS reported for the 15 years between 9/11/2001, and 12/31/2016, 549 people were convicted of international terrorism-related charges in U.S. federal courts, and 402 of them were foreign born.  Nearly 3 in 4. 

There's a problem, though.   There are approximately 41 million foreign-born people living in the United States.  Those 402 out of the 41 million are a miniscule proportion - less than 0.0000001 percent.  If an individual is foreign-born, the likelihood that the person has or will engage in terrorism-related activities is nearly zero.

It's perhaps easy to cherry-pick the stats you need to support a particular position.

Those foreign born individuals convicted of terrorism-related charges since 9/11, those are convictions, not deaths.  (Deaths by terrorists on U.S. soil were 61 for post-9/11 through 2014.  The count includes both foreign-born and domestic perpetrators.)

White nationalists and right-wing extremists killed 5 times that number, but they're not 'terrorists'.  Extremists, yes; terrorists, no; but they killed five times as many as the terrorists did.  There's little difference among extremists.  

So, what about all those refugees?

When it comes to terrorist acts by refugees, the numbers are unequivocal. In the four decades between 1975 and 2015, only 20 individuals who arrived in the U.S. as refugees either attempted or carried out a terrorist attack - resulting in three deaths. All three of those killings were by anti-Castro refugees back in the '70s.

Not a single death has resulted from terrorist activity by a Muslim refugee.  Not one.
(No person accepted to the United States as a refugee, Syrian or otherwise, has been implicated in a fatal terrorist attack since the Refugee Act of 1980.-- CATO Institute)

Conversation in the public arena, particularly regarding refugees, those millions displaced from their homes and livelihood, has been uninformed and unreasonable.  The hatred and mistrust generated within our own culture are immense as even legal residents are now treated prejudicially.

Citing that “3 in 4” terrorists are foreign born falsely suggests that excluding the foreign born would substantially reduce a large threat to this country.  Unequivocally, that is a false representation.  And at what cost?  How many of the 41 million lives of immigrants and refugees should we disrupt and ruin to further reduce an already minuscule threat? Let’s not use statistical lies to destroy lives.

While I'm inclined to agree with this administration on a number of issues, this isn't one of them.  The correct focus is vetting before entry and deportation of criminals, of course, and the processes are being reviewed and improved.  Meanwhile, the political rhetoric against the foreign born has been destructive and culturally destabilizing.  In all, the harm has far exceeded whatever good that may have been accomplished.

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References: (White House Report) (Ploitico: Terror Statistics) (UMD Study: American Deaths in Terrorist Attacks) (Business Insider: How likely are foreign terrorists to kill Americans?) (CATO Institute, Policy Analysis No. 978)

Discussion: (Snopes: Who is More of a Threat: Far-Right or Muslim Extremists?) (POLITIFACT, A look at the data on domestic terrorism and who’s behind it)