completeconfusion

The social innovation site Good.is doesn't just mean well, they mean very well. And do good. Fighting discrimination, amongst other things, I'm sure. But they've also just provided me with a fine example of systemic discrimination, themselves.

I'm glad to have the example, because I don't think the vast majority of people understand that phrase, "systemic discrimination." Therefore, they don't think there's that much of it, or that they could be responsible for any of it. (Both false.) This is a clear illustration of what it systematic discrimination refers to, even if the example may seem a bit trivial (if you aren't old, and your eyesight is good; of course it's trivial - your ox isn't being gored.)

"Systemic discrimination" doesn't mean conscious discrimination. It doesn't mean planned discrimination. It doesn't mean anybody hates anybody or even dislikes them. It doesn't mean anybody consciously intended to discriminate against anybody else (although it almost certainly means they didn't actively care a whole lot.)

"Systemic discrimination" means discrimination that's so profound and ingrained into the system that the people in charge - who could do something about it - don't even notice the problem; and there's usually no effective way to get their attention if you're in the class or group being discriminated against, else it wouldn't really be systemic, would it? In the example below, the website code sets up an uncorrectable problem for peeps with bad eyesight, say 'cause they're old.

Here's the example. Take a look at the very bottom of the yellow box on the screen shot below. There's a hint of an email address there for you to contact the site. But you can't read it because your (my) Windows 8 settings include a large system font (etc) for easier reading. Nor can you scroll down to read the address, because the yellow box is glued. The rest of the webpage scrolls, but that part stays put. Therefore you can't even email to say you can't email them (they have other addresses, but for other purposes.)


You could try resetting your system font, but I wouldn't advise doing that - what I found in Windows 7 is that this was buggy - you could sometimes change a setting but not be able to set it back. No doubt because the programmers are young and unlikely to use large fonts, I don't think they ever fixed that (also systemic discrimination - not intentional, just systemic.)

I've encountered this problem even more systemically, on sites where you couldn't contact them without registering, and you couldn't register because your Windows font settings made the registration too big to fit on the screen, so you couldn't fill that form out properly. Checkmate.

Big sites are actually more likely to pull this sort of thing than small ones! (Perhaps they can afford the young hot programmers who never use large fonts?) For instance, I ran into this an hour after writing the first draft of this post. The bit in the middle stays in the center of your screen so you can't even read the last half of the article. Sigh:



Nobody intended this web page on Time.com to look this way, but for the last few years - yes, that's years - innumerable web pages do exactly that sort of craziness if you're old or have bad eyesight even though you're young. The programmers and staff just don't have to deal with the problem themselves, so it doesn't exist. They optimize their pages for those with optimum eyesight and leave it at that.

Now try being Native, Black, or poor. Is anybody in power seeing the world from your precise perspective, i.e. getting your screenshot? Not bloody likely. Theoretical dental benefits for the poor meet with the big shots' (and most voters') approval because they don't ever have to sit through weeks of non-theoretical dental pain while waiting for a hospital space that fits bureaucratic requirements for subsidy - while other less expensive facilities for dental surgeons go unused, and you remain in pain. Waiting in pain is part of how the government saves money by limiting the good things they actually do (and therefore, actually have to pay for), so you wait regardless. With luck, you might feel forced to move to another State or Province and save them even more. Horror is their handmaiden. Inconvenience their loyal servant. Ignorance their intimate companion. Meanwhile, governments maximize repeating (often using ads paid for by taxpayers) all the services that are theoretically "available." Available in the sense of not actually being available. (I'm in that very long line for having most of my teeth pulled right now, as you might be able to tell.)

Or for one small hint about how it is for others, read this article about how poor kids' college applications usually go to the wrong colleges:

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/03/undermatching_half_of_the_smartest_kids_from_low_income_households_don_t.html

And there's so much more - if you're poor, your influence on politics and law is just about zilch. Which sets up all kinds of systematic and systemic acts of discrimination, 'cause your views aren't consulted beforehand and the effects of government policy on you afterward aren't even noticed. If you're ill and aren't filing income tax therefore (more common than you might think) you also don't get to vote. Oh, in theory you do, but since you aren't going to be sent any notice of the election (they use tax rolls), very often you don't actually get to vote. Once, patent laws were designed to protect the ideas of those who couldn't afford lawyers. Now applications always need a lawyer for decent results, and are designed to prevent individuals from patenting tech that large corporations might later want to claim as their own. Not to mention the habit of patenting things in the public domain and then suing on the basis of the fraudulent patent (I'm looking at you Apple.) Etc. Etc.

PS - I have so much time to write and edit this 'cause I've been on hold to a doctor's office for most of an hour. This after leaving my number yesterday and also trying the being on hold thing unsuccessfully. Does the office know I'm on hold? I've no idea. Doctors where I am, under social-medicine-directed-by-capitalist-governments, have all the patients they could ever use - but doctors don't, themselves, ever have to line up to see a doctor, of course. If you're poor, merely getting a family doctor is quite unlikely, as has been shown by tests of doctors willingness to accept poorer patients. Systemic... well, you get the idea.

As the topping on this post, ironically, blogger.com itself has font issues for old people composing and reading that have never been fixed. I can't locally swell this font while I edit it, for example, I have to read and edit it tiny. Or thump it up big like this for the final product as well... oh, well.

PS - dear blogger software, you don't adapt URLs for peeps with bad eyesight, either. When I up the font size in my browser, the URL doesn't wrap. But don't worry, I won't be holding my breath 'till you fix that. Old people click fewer ads, so I'm guessing that ain't getting fixed.

(This was a post that followed one writer using the word "blind" metaphorically, next to a couple of other pejorative words, and the next post in the thread wherein another, blind, writer, took very real offense to the word "blind" appearing in such a sentence. Slightly corrected since.) Jessica, as legally designated crip myself, I just have to go with Istvan on this one point re disability, an issue dear to me. I regret to say it, but I believe you do the rest of us with disabilities no service at all by conflating his proper metaphorical use of the word blind with an insult to the visually impaired. I understand that you haven't said he intended that as an insult, but the truth is there was no insult, nor misuse. I don't buy his overarching thesis, but that's another story. By now, I'd say the same about "lame". I confess I rather wish it hadn't become common parlance, recently. That's because I cringe when I hear it used, even though it too is being used entirely metaphorically. But I have come to see that's my problem, nobody else's. I cringe because I am lame, because I hate being lame, and because I am sometimes genuinely embarrassed by *both* of those facts. (Meta-embarrassment!) Even so, despite my not liking this truth; it is a truth that there are obvious and useful parallels between physical disability and... well an immense number of other things. Making this metaphor very useful. I won't make language and thought poorer so that I don't have to be conscious of being different. I'm not going to ask millions of people to drop a very useful, pithy metaphor to save my feelings, when I'm the master of those feelings, and they had not the slightest intention of harming me. I know, as I expect you do, that in general people are far too fearful of putting a foot wrong, in these politically correct days. I really notice this when I'm in my electric wheelchair (which is not all the time). It gets in the way so much, and it just takes one disabled person in a hundred taking offense without a strict need to, to keep that cycle going. That's how severe the embarrassment non-disabled people feel is, when they think they might have embarrassed those less-abled. (Again with the meta-embarassment.) I know it's not your intention to make social intercourse even more artificial than it already is in this day and age, but that's what I think the result of your comment to Istvan is likely to be. You may well differ with me, but I hope you will consider this alternative point of view. I think it makes me happier. Not happier than you are, necessarily - I can't know that. Just happier than I would be otherwise. Ask yourself, should we now withdraw Thomas Hardy's "The Return of The Native" from circulation because he uses physical blindness as a central metaphor for more general spiritual and psychological lack of comprehension - and do this so that no blind person ever flinches when reading this book when they grasp the metaphor? No. Nor consider Hardy to be an insensitive "product of his times", etiher. If the metaphor fits - genuinely fits and isn't a lazy metaphor that betrays an underlying prejudice - let the character wear it.

I think we all know that what Amazon were able (willing?) to do just months ago for Indies, and what their algorithms and KDP do now, are two different things. As I understand it, there's a huge contrast there. For my part, I don't assume that's Amazon's "fault", and it may be just the market developing and changing without Amazon's intervention. But some of us do wish we hadn't missed out on the best of that party! Yep, it's bad form to grumble about this, but it's pretty human too, and I wouldn't be shocked if that's part of what's happened in this thread. Amazon doesn't owe us publicity. By definition few books are superior to almost every other similar work and therefore richly deserve to be highlighted. 'Tis true. We all think our works are deserving or we wouldn't bother, but we all know that most of us - or at least a very large number of us - are wrong in thinking so. I'm still looking for good wrinkles, re marketing, and trying out new things. I don't expect a direct path, or for anybody to just tell me the magic way or hand me some magic beans. The way marketing works, what got someone attention last year, probably won't get you nearly as much this year, if only cause now everybody does that. The best course is to find a new wrinkle yourself. If you do, you may well keep that secret to yourself if you intend to publish more ebooks. I agree with Pj that the quality of the book itself is the primary way in which any author can control, and boost, the later process of marketing. I think he would agree with me that you can't ever stop there, of course, and that many great books have been late, even posthumous discoveries. That's just history. My guess is that one hundred people have to read your book through (not download it to their unread pile) just to give you even a real chance of building word of mouth; and that a thousand is a much better lottery ticket. Getting that done is not a trivial task, especially not for first-timers, and until somebody reads the book, the quality of the book can't possibly influence its marketing. Even the quality of the blurb can't help until you can drag a pair of eyes to the book page. PS - I'm amazed how many authors, and I don't mean those in this forum, misunderstand the main use of the blurb, for the Indie. I stand to be corrected, but my view (based on other marketing experience) is that the primary purpose of the blurb isn't just to tell what's in the book, that others like the book, to praise it... the main thing you can do with a blurb is to convince a prospective reader that you are sane, that you can write entertainingly and sincerely, and that you know how not to waste your readers' time. Not to mention that you've mastered grammar and spelling, at a minimum. (I think I've probably neglected this myself in blurbs, come to think of it.) My jaw drops every time I see a very terse, short blurb or one that could entertain better, or flow better, than it does. Yeah, the browsing reader can sample your work. I almost never do, though, and that seems to be normal. If you don't understand what a blurb is for, and serve your readers' interest by creating a good blurb, I'm going to assume you may also not understand what a book is for, either, and that you might not serve your readers' interest more often than your own when you are writing. We've all read that kind of book. I probably won't even sample.

The facts that justify us, in a few pages
by Russell Johnston,
(please feel free to redistribute)

We fight because, to quote Will Rogers in the 1930s: “We got it, but we don’t know how to split it up.” “During the first 70 years of the 20th century, inequality declined and Americans prospered together. Over the last 30 years, by contrast, the United States developed the most unequal distribution of income and wages of any high-income country.” [1]

Because we are not swayed by “the intellectual project of modern conservatism, which Galbraith once called 'one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.'” [2]

Because those Theodore Roosevelt called the “malefactors of great wealth” are waging a very successful class warfare against 90% or more of their own society, creating a black hole of wealth and power which may now be irreversible. [3]

Because “In 2007, the top 1 percent controlled 34.6 percent of the wealth—significantly more than the bottom 90 percent, who controlled just 26.9 percent.” and “Between 2002 and 2007, 65 percent of all income growth in the U.S. went to the richest 1 percent of the population. That lopsided distribution means that today, half of the national income goes to the richest 10 percent.” [4]

Because “The real numbers—like that the wealthiest 300,000 Americans received as much income as the bottom 150 million—sound too crazy to be true.” [5]

Because it wasn't always this way: “During the Second World War, and in the four decades that followed, the top 10 percent took home just a third of the national income.” [4]

Because: “From 1979 to 2007, for the middle class, average household income (after taxes) nudged upward from $44,100 to $55,300; by contrast, for the top 1 percent, average household income soared from $346,600 in 1979 to nearly $1.3 million in 2007. That is, super-rich families saw their earnings increase 11 times faster than middle-class families.” [6]

Because it's getting worse everywhere: “The rise of today’s super-rich is a global phenomenon. It is particularly marked in the United States, but it is also happening in other developed economies like the United Kingdom and Canada. ... and is now as high in Communist China as it is in the U.S.” [4]

Because four men: Mukesh Ambani. Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Carlos Slim Helú are worth more than the world's poorest 57 countries put together. [7]

Because corporate profits have grown much faster than personal income or personal consumption for 20 years now. [8]

Because “the wealthy won’t pay for public goods or collective welfare, and the declining middle class can’t” [18] The severe underfunding of basic education is one example. Due to tax cuts which business has campaigned relentlessly for, housing prices have greatly increased as families compete for those few houses which are still near good schools. [9]

Because elections, and elected officials are corrupt. Money and advertising elect them, and guess who has the money now to donate to the lobbyists and politicians? This has become a more vicious cycle with each election, since those with money can, and have, slanted the laws ever more in their favor; against not just regulation, but in favor of the sort of outright robbery we saw the results of in 2008, and live with today. “Politicial scientists Lawrence Jacobs and Benjamin Page have found that the preferences of foreign policymakers correspond more to the preferences of executives of multinational companies than to the general public. Page and Jeffrey Winters estimate that the top 10 percent of income earners hold about 90 percent of materially based political power, and that 'each member of the top 1 percent averaged more than 100 times the power of a member of the bottom 90 percent; about 200 times if the index is calculated in terms of the more politically relevant non-home wealth.'” Maybe that's not so surprising given that “the median net worth of members of Congress is just under a million dollars.” ... “we’re getting caught in a negative feedback cycle: as the rich get richer and more powerful, policies are increasingly aligned with their interests” … “as political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson write, 'America's public officials have rewritten the rules of American politics and the American economy in ways that have benefited the few at the expense of the many.'” [5]

Because deliberate and systematic gerrymandering, (creating weirdly shaped electoral districts that will re-elect the present member) has destroyed democracy in most electoral districts in the United States by creating solid red or solid blue districts. This means that most elections are now not competitive, and that only the most extreme positions on the political spectrum are well represented. (If you've wondered why politics seems so much more polarized than decades ago, this is why.) Both parties cooperated in this. The unrepresented middle of the road voter can only look on astonished as Congress is stalemated, unable (and in the case of the Republicans, unwilling) to act to reduce the economic crisis. Or take to the streets.

Because we don't wish to continue to have to violate our own values in order to find work in this society. Think how many low level employes knew about mortgage-based debenture frauds, but kept quiet in order to keep their jobs. They did this because violating personal ethics (and the law) has not only become the norm in the workplace – it's a very real and absolute condition of employment.

Because employers are forcing us to work longer and harder and faster, instead of hiring anyone. [10]

Because this has caused corporate profits to shoot up 22% since 2007; as output increases and employment lags. And because our share of those profits is to work harder for less. [10]

Because corporate advertising is a massive, fast-growing kudzu-vine swallowing the world, (after first buying naming rights to it). Advertising allows the top 1% to drown out every other message, and all other human values, with relentless product-spam. So how else can we now be heard by most people during their day, save by Occupying Wall Street, and so many other streets?

Because we now live in a “Feudal Capitalist” society in which innumerable mergers and acquisitions have largely destroyed the free and competitive market - with the connivance of the Right, who swore they wanted to protect the competitive marketplace. Instead, more and more monopolies and oligopolies divide up markets at their pleasure: “just 147 entities” ... “control nearly 40 percent of all of monetary value of transnational corporations” [11][12] Feudalism didn't work out very well the first time. We don't want to see the repeat.

#law

Because the worldwide patent rights for a single invention now cost more than $100,000, ensuring that very few individuals can effectively patent anything. Consequently the inventions of the bottom 90% fall into the hands of the top 1%, without any payment. By far the most valuable property is now intellectual property, which constitutes the bulk of what businesses own - not factories, land or buildings - but it's perfectly legal to simply take it from the 90% of us too poor to protect our ideas, whether we got there first, or not. No wonder that in the U.S., the number of patents issued per capita declined during the majority of the 20th century. The laws have steeply eroded the chance that the average person can protect their ideas. [8]

Because copyright protection has now, unconstitutionally, been extended for ridiculous periods (70 years after an author's death, if you can determine that) that only benefit corporations, and enforced in ways that eliminate fair use and make it strictly illegal to transfer a movie we've bought to the device we want to watch it on. Corporations win, the law and the public lose out, just when information can be very cheaply distributed.

Because there are so many laws that there is no law - it then becomes the free choice of authorities who is jailed and who isn't. “the laws are so broad the police and prosecutors get to decide whom to go after and find guilty. Those decisions are about power. In the 'rule of too much law,' Stuntz advises, 'too much law amounts to no law at all.'” [13]

Because “For most of the twentieth century in the Northeast and Midwest, the ratio of police officers to prison inmates was two to one. Today, it is less than one to two.” In other words, the public gets far less protection from criminals, while more people spend more time in jail, increasingly arbitrarily (according to Stuntz). [13]

Because the spread of unpaid internships (illegally expanded beyond genuinely educational placements) demonstrates very well just how abusive the labor market in general has become. [14]

Because we feel poor - and we feel poor because we were robbed, in 2008, of unbelievable sums by a gargantuan and very deliberate real estate fraud; while our public officials and many accounting firms were being paid in one way or another to look the other way, and did, and still do. If your house has been robbed, it stands to reason that you're going to feel poorer for some time. Where are the arrests? Where are the executions, for the right that adores the death penalty?

Because according to Time magazine, “After Three Years and Trillions of Dollars, Our Banks Still Don't Work”. “73% of small business owners say they are still affected by the credit crunch.” “During the TARP bailouts, instead of buying bad loans directly, the government decided to inject cash into the banks, hoping executives would use the capital to fix their finances or boost lending. Neither of those happened.” The banks are now accumulating cash, not lending it, which was the purpose of the bailouts. [15]

Because banking reform hasn't happened. “Robert Johnson, a senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute and an expert on financial regulation says the Dodd-Frank banking-reform bill, which Congress passed last year, has done little to make banking accounting statements more transparent.” Even the most suspect, derivative bonds are “still not fully quantified on bank's financial statements.” [15]

Because “Those foolish enough to raise objections are punished. The result is a system that selects for criminality, excluding and marginalizing the very men and women of probity most needed to build a sustainable state.” now describes not just Afghanistan and so many other countries around the world, but our own country as well. [16]

Because blue collar workers have been hard hit since 1973, and white collar workers are now getting the same treatment. [17]

Because Unions and collective bargaining rights are now all but destroyed. States with the best educational results have the strongest teachers unions, and vice versa, but society, under the strong influence of the top 1%, is heading the other way: eliminating unions and their bargaining rights, simply because this highly benefits the top 1%. [8]

Because under the prodding of the richest 1% we have abandoned past wisdom for a cruel economic state of nature, or free-for-all. “The classic discussion of this movement is Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957). Speaking of the Industrial Revolution and the consequent rise of “the free market” in England. Polanyi wrote that 'human society would have been annihilated but for protective countermoves which blunted the action of this self-destructive mechanism. . . . Society protected itself against the perils inherent in a self-regulating market system. . .'; and 'the principle of social protection (aimed) at the conservation of man and nature as well as productive organization. . .' (pp. 76, 132).” [18]

Because our foreign aid has been so miserly, under the influence of the top 1% who only want to avoid taxes, that some countries in the world are poorer than Medieval economies were! [19]

Because while the rich get far richer, “More Than 1 Billion People Are Hungry in the World”, “if every mother took iodine capsules [costing 25 cents per year], there would be a 7.5 percent increase in the total educational attainment of children in Central and Southern Africa. This, in turn, could measurably affect lifetime productivity.”, “in Indonesia, ... A year's supply of iron-fortified fish sauce cost the equivalent of $6, and for a self-employed male, the yearly gain in earnings [due to reduced anemia] was nearly $40 -- an excellent investment.” [20]

Because the top 1% - through the agency of the billionaire-funded Tea Party - pounds away with the fear of inflation in order to prevent any political or financial measures to promote economic recovery – this despite the fact that economists (including Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve) are now saying that previous recessions in 1973-75, 1980-82, and 1990-91 were DUE to monetary policies driven by excessive fears of inflation and not increases in oil prices that sparked that fear of inflation. [21] And in bad times, it is deflation that is to be (greatly) feared, not inflation. Thankfully, President Obama has been able to push through at least some “qualitative easing” expanding the money supply and making a deflationary spiral and thorough economic crash much less likely.

Because there is “An Agreement of the People”, (cf that 1647 Leveller document) that our society is now headed toward ever more profound abuses of the rights, freedoms, and livelihoods the vast majority of citizens.

Because the ordinary person has no recourse to the civil law in most cases; that has been made so expensive that only corporations and very rich individuals can afford to stand up for their rights. For the rest of us, those rights are almost entirely theoretical.

Because we tell our children not to bully each other, but live in a society now profoundly BASED on economic bullying. Why wouldn't our children bully if they can easily see that that's how people rise and maintain their positions in this society?

Because our higher education system has become a behemoth feeding only itself, while providing ever less genuine value to us: “According to The College Board, average annual in-state tuition and fees at four-year public universities increased by 72% over the past decade. Four-year private college tuition is up by more than 34% over the same time period, during which inflation rose only around 25%.” … “After all, U.S. News & World Report doesn't reward affordability.” [33]

Because “Universities in general redistribute money from average tax payers to rich ones and are anti-egalitarian. Their staff do not teach in sink schools or give literacy classes in prison or wrestle with Haringey social services.” [22]

Because even President George W. Bush has said that "The fact is that income inequality is real, It's been rising for more than 25 years." [23]

Because eduction will not remove this inequality: instead, today higher education is being used as a largely unproductive class barrier. To quote Bryan Caplan, "Going to college is a lot like standing up at a concert to see better. Selfishly speaking, it works, but from a social point of view, we shouldn't encourage it." Yet we now live in a world where “the starting salary for someone with a degree in English ($37,800) is higher than the average income of all those, including older and experienced workers, with only a high-school degree ($32,000).” [23] Education doesn't, and can't by itself, create equality. “The top 10 or 20 percent by income have education levels roughly equivalent to those in the top 1 percent, but the latter account for much of the boom in inequality. This appears to be related to the way taxes have been cut, and to the ballooning of the financial industry’s share of corporate profits.” [1]

Because as Winstanley argued in his seventeenth-century pamphlet “The New Law of Righteousness”: “Not one word was spoken at the beginning that one branch of mankind should rule over another, but selfish imaginations did set up one man to teach and rule over another.” [24]

Because 500 ships lie largely unremarked in the world's largest ship graveyard in Nouadhibou Bay, Mauritania: a staggering testimony to modern insurance fraud that has enriched those already rich. [25]


#taxation

Because in the U.S., federal revenues will only make up 14.4% of the gross domestic product this year - the lowest percentage since 1950. [7] Government is doing less because the top 1% don't want to contribute anything remotely like a fair share taxes, and have FOX news to tell everybody that's how things must be.

Because the rich have successfully shifted the burden of taxation onto the poor: the California Budget Project stated that "measured as a share of family income, California's lowest-income families pay the most in taxes." … “The bottom 20% of families pay 11% of their earnings in state and local taxes, executive director Jean Ross calculated. The top 1% pay about 8%.” [26] “In Alabama, for example, the burden on the poor is more than twice that of the top 1 percent. The one-fifth of Alabama families making less than $13,000 pay almost 11 percent of their income in state and local taxes, compared with less than 4 percent for those who make $229,000 or more.” [27] No wonder “Growth in median family income was around 2.6% per year from 1947-1973 and only 0.37% from 1974 to 2007.” [8]

Because “people forget that the income tax is less than half of federal taxes and only one-fifth of taxes at all levels of government.” … “Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance taxes (known as payroll taxes) are paid mostly by the bottom 90 percent of wage earners.” [27]

Because “Despite skyrocketing incomes, the federal tax burden on the richest 400 has been slashed, thanks to a variety of loopholes, allowable deductions and other tools. The actual share of their income paid in taxes, according to the IRS, is 16.6 percent.” That doesn't say they pay 16% of all taxes, it says they paid just 16% of their income in taxes. Without Obama overturning a secrecy rule put in place by Bush, we wouldn't know this. [27]

Because the McCourt's (Los Angeles Dodgers) divorce case showed they paid no taxes since 2004, but spent $45 million during one of those years. They did this by “borrowing” against Dodger team revenues. “To the IRS, they look like paupers.” They were Dodgers, alright! [27]

Because in all the time after Reagan was elected, “only the wealthy have gained significant income.” The bottom 90% of us have only gained $303 in all that time. That's not $303 per year, that's $303 total during all that time. That's what we have to show for our efforts. The top federal income tax rate in the United States was 70% back then. It is now 35%. [27] And just look at the fix that's put us in. No one can pretend that the most wealthy did anything extra wonderful with all that extra income.

Because the top 1 percent gained not just $303, no, their income per year has doubled to more than a million per year. The top one-tenth of that 1 percent saw their income per year increase four times, says a study by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. [27]

Because “The bottom 20% of families pay 11% of their earnings in state and local taxes, executive director Jean Ross calculated. The top 1% pay about 8%.” [26]

#religion #church

Because the Church's teachings on equality, charity and humainty - no matter what church you belong to - are being ignored in a post-Christian society of the elite. To cite but one example: “The Church’s influence on ideas about labor can be traced to the late nineteenth century. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII issued the Church’s first “social encyclical,” Rerum Novarum, which … gave moral sanction to trade unions, social assistance for the poor, and critical concepts such as the just wage, the dangers of concentrated wealth, the social obligations of ownership, and even worker ownership.” [28]

Because for 90% of the population, often unconsciously, “diminished expectations” have begun to replace hope. [29] To quote George Orwell from another time of oppression, “Instead of raging against their destiny they have made things tolerable by reducing their standards.” [20] Many of us have lowered our standards so much that we largely agree with the rich that everything's fine, just as it is.

Because: Our toys are better, but our lives, worse. Sorry, Mr. Jobs, but it's just the truth.

Because our children will inherit an increase in oppression, and a decrease in their freedoms.

#health

Because the U.S. and Syria have “an almost identical prevalence of disease.” [30]

Because chronic illnesses are becoming far more prevalent, but research into the causes of those illnesses is not being ramped up. For example, the majority of people in North America now have an autoimmune disease, something that was once rare; but research is not a priority because low taxes for business and the very rich are the only priority, and because the answers might not make the rich richer.

Because the spread of tuberculosis and many other communicable diseases will eventually find their way to the rich too, if enough of the rest of us become destitute, and receive less and less help. Meanwhile, the rich live many years longer than the poor: it's believed this is because they can't afford the same quality of food, but add in stress and longer hours of work to the equation.

#families

Because families are suffering: “Today, 85 percent of the $400 billion that the government spends to encourage things like home ownership, college attendance, investment and small business ends up in the pockets of the top 20 percent of earners (and half goes to the top 5 percent). Very little ends up helping the working poor. On the other hand, many social benefits cut off when a family’s income rises roughly 30 percent above the poverty line - which is still a far cry from being out of poverty.” [31]

Because “Today, a full two years into the 'recovery', more than 9% of Americans are still out of work.” (actually an underestimation based on those most actively looking work.) [32]

Because “More than 15% of Americans live below the poverty line. The total rose for the fourth consecutive year.” And add to that an extra three million adults just above the poverty line because they are now living with mom and dad, due to current conditions. Before the Occupy Wall Street movement began, Time magazine said: “While Americans historically haven't been as inclined to riot as Europeans to riot over inequality... it's hard to rule that out in a world in which the American Dream is increasingly becoming a myth.” [32]

Because we have become a downwardly mobile society. “'Poverty is in many ways about a lack of social mobility,' says Erin Currier, who studies these topics at the Pew Charitable Trusts. And research shows that even before the current crisis, Americans had much less mobility than people in many European Nations.” [32]

Because "We can have a democratic society or we can have the concentration of great wealth in the hands of the few. We cannot have both." - Louis Brandeis, Supreme Court Justice from 1916--1939

In sum:
“We fight because severe economic abuse has become the norm, and our politicians ever more helpless and corrupt, have been captured by the richest 1% of society.”


[1] “Minding the Inequality Gap”, Stephen Kotkin
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/business/05shelf.html

[2] “Countervailing Powers: On John Kenneth Galbraith”, Kim Phillips-Fein
http://www.thenation.com/article/160602/countervailing-powers-john-kenneth-galbraith?page=full

[3] “Whatever Happened to the American Left?”, Michael Kazin, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/25/opinion/sunday/whatever-happened-to-the-american-left.html?pagewanted=2

[4] “The Rich Are Different From You and Me”, Chrystia Freeland, The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/07/the-14-biggest-ideas-of-the-year/8556/12/

[5] “The Public Overwhelmingly Wants It: Why Is Taxing the Rich So Hard?”, Alyssa Battistoni
http://www.alternet.org/story/150715/the_public_overwhelmingly_wants_it:_why_is_taxing_the_rich_so_hard/

[6] “McDonald's is killing the middle class”, Andy Kroll
http://www.salon.com/news/us_economy/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/05/09/mcdonalds_killed_the_middle_class

[7] Mr. Smarty Pants Knows
http://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/mr-smarty-pants-knows/

[8] “Don't Worry, Be Unhappy”, By Timothy Noah, plus comments
http://www.slate.com/id/2285927/

[9] “What’s Hurting the Middle Class” The myth of overspending obscures the real problem
Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi, Boston Review
http://bostonreview.net/BR30.5/warrentyagi.php

[10] “U.S. workers are the victims of a speedup” By Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery
August 14, 2011, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-jeffery-bauerlein-speedup-20110814,0,5795904.story

[11] “Study shows powerful corporations really do control the world's finances”, Bob Yirka
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-powerful-corporations-world.html

[12] “The network of global corporate control”, Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, Stefano Battiston,
http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.5728

[13] “The Crime of Punishment”, Lincoln Caplan, a review of The Collapse of American Criminal Justice, William Stuntz, America’s leading thinker on criminal justice
http://www.democracyjournal.org/22/the-crime-of-punishment.php?page=all

[14] “Less than Zero; The value of intern labor in an age of economic inequality”, Roger D. Hodge, Book Forum
http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/018_02/7802

[15] “After Three Years and Trillions of Dollars, Our Banks Still Don't Work”, Stephen Gandel, Time
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2093317,00.html

[16] “Government by crime syndicate”, Sarah Chayes
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-chayes-corruption-20110925,0,517490.story

[17] “Race To The Bottom?”, Walter Russell Mead, The American Interest Blogs
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/02/22/race-to-the-bottom/

[18] “Farewell to Democracy?”, Philip Green, Logos Journal
http://logosjournal.com/2011/farewell-to-democracy/

[19] The Not So Dark Ages, By Joshua E. Keating
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/22/the_not_so_dark_ages

[20] “More Than 1 Billion People Are Hungry in the World”, Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/25/more_than_1_billion_people_are_hungry_in_the_world?page=full

[21] “Crude reality; Will a Middle Eastern oil disruption crush the economy? New research suggests the answer is no -- and that a major tenet of American foreign policy may be fundamentally wrong.”, Jeremy Kahn
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2011/02/13/crude_reality/?page=full

[22] “AC Grayling has caricatured British universities. No wonder they're fuming”, Simon Jenkins
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/09/ac-grayling-caricatured-british-university-fuming

[23] “Why Education Is Not an Economic Panacea”, By John Marsh, Chronicle Review
http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Education-Is-Not-an/128790/?sid=cr&utm_source=cr&utm_medium=en

[24] “A BOOK IN PROGRESS [PART 9]: MARTIN LUTHER’S ACCIDENTAL REVOLUTION”, Kenan Malik
http://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/a-book-in-progress-part-9-martin-luthers-accidental-revolution/

[25] “Picture Show: 500 Wrecks in the World's Largest Ship Cemetery”
http://www.good.is/post/picture-show-500-wrecks-in-the-world-s-largest-ship-cemetery

[26] “'Buffett Rule' a bust in California”, George Skelton, Capitol Journal (this article contains some very poor logic, but a good couple of good facts)
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cap-buffet-20110922,0,3852704.column?page=2&track=rss

[27] “9 Things The Rich Don't Want You To Know About Taxes”, David Cay Johnston
http://www.wweek.com/portland/article-17350-9_things_the_rich_dont_want_you_to_know_about_taxes.html

[28] “The Church of Labor”, Lew Daly, Democracy Journal
http://www.democracyjournal.org/22/the-church-of-labor.php?page=3

[29] “How to make an intelligent blockbuster and not alienate people”, Mark Kermode
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/28/mark-kermode-multiplex-blockbuster

[30] “Genes, germs and the origins of politics”, Jim Giles
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028133.300-genes-germs-and-the-origins-of-politics.html?page=2

[31] “Out of Poverty, Family-Style”, David Bornstein
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/out-of-poverty-family-style/?ref=opinion

[32] “The Truth About the Poverty Crisis; It isn't just a reflection of job loss. It's a sign of downward mobility.”, Rana Foroohar
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2093321,00.html

[33] “Occupation: From Wall Street to the university”, Dan Primack, Fortune/CNN
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/10/05/occupation-from-wall-street-to-the-university/

I had a good time laughing at the thousands of seemingly uniformly inane suggestions pouring into BP about how to plug the leak. Then last night I came up with a few myself, which I've sent in. Here they are:

Plugging a heavily leaking undersea pipe by insertion is extremely difficult due to the high flow rate, which will strongly tend to push out any plug.

I am proposing three relatively simple and I believe novel devices, all of which are insertable plugs that redirect the flow pressure to anchor the plug against the inner wall of the pipe (as does, for example, a ventricular valve in the heart, when it is sealed against backflow.) In other words these plugs are designed to be “self anchoring” within the pipe, “using the pressure of the wellhead to seal the wellhead.” As with a ventricular valve in the heart, the greater the pressure, the firmer the seal (and anchoring) against the inner surface of the pipe, the reverse of what is the case with most plug designs that can be imagined. The length of these plugs can be varied - also graduated elasticity of the material employed - in order to distribute the flow pressure at the plug over a large enough area to maintain the structural integrity of the pipe.

Here the “top” or “top rim” of a plug is always the portion that is furthest up into the pipe, and the “bottom” of a plug is that part closest to the operator, and to the ocean water.

The first “can and cone plug” design is a quite simple hollow steel (or plastic), somewhat cup-shaped plug with a concave conical bottom. Imagine a simple hollow conical shape joined at its base to a hollow cylindrical sleeve of equal radius and more or less equal height. The cone tip points up toward the top (open) rim of the cup, away from the operator and toward the source of the current. (As is the case for a closed ventricular valve resisting backflow.) The radius of the plug is slightly smaller than that of the inside wall of the pipe.

This plug is inserted into the pipe open (top) rim first, with the base of the cone at the “bottom” of the plug (closest to the operator.) However: this may be most difficult design to insert, against pressure.

So long as the materials used in the manufacture of the plug allow some elasticity, and some compression (as well as significant tensile and compressive strength) the great force of flow/fluid pressure in the pipe will constantly force the plug to widen somewhat and thus be a more effective plug, which is even more tightly self-anchored to the walls of the pipe. It is, likely, important to distribute that force against to pipe to more than just a narrow ring however, to ensure the pipe does not burst – the length of the cylinder/outer sleeve helps accomplish this.

The cylindrical sleeve could go at either the top or bottom of the cylinder. If the top of the cylinder is joined to the bottom of the cone, insertion is eased but the pressure, principally transferred to the pipe around a narrow rim at the cones base, may breach the pipe, the initial anchoring may be more difficult to achieve, and variations in wellhead pressure may more likely to dislodge it.

Therefore, it is likely better to join the bottom of the cone to the bottom of the sleeve, so that they overlap forming a shorter device. The idea here is not to make the plug more compact, necessarily but to allow elasticity in the sleeve to distribute the pressure along a larger area of the inner surface of the pipe so that the pipe remains strucurally intact. This plug should be braced at its outer bottom rim only against the flow pressure within the pipe to deploy it – while inserting it, the center of force could be applied to the center/tip of the cone to prevent it from expanding prematurely.

A small area of concave flange (a small inverted cone section) at the top rim of the plug, farthest from the cone may help to anchor the top rim of this plug by using the flow pressure to force the top rim of the cylinder against the inner wall of the pipe. However, some means of obscuring the top flange during insertion would then be necessary to prevent its premature expansion.

Varying the plug's cylindrical wall thickness so that the area nearest the cone is less elastic may also help secure the seal along the “top” part of the plug so that the pressure against the pipe wall is well distributed. An abrasive or ridged (with slanted ridges) outer cylindrical surface of the plug may help prevent it from sliding, particularly if variations in pressure are likely.

This “can and cone plug” design can be a partial plug, or if you prefer, porous plug – with mesh or holes in the cone only slowing the flow. In this way a series of such plugs could be inserted (if flow pressure made insertion very difficult) to first slow that flow. Or, a series of such partial plugs could make up one long device in order to distribute the pressure over a larger length and area of the pipe to avoid overloading it.

The second “ring and torroidal bag” design is more easily inserted and deployed. Once the ring has been inserted, with the doughnut-shaped bag trailing, the bag is inflated with water or heavier fluid, to at least substantially reduce flow and at the same time anchor this plug against the wall of the pipe by leveraging the pressure of the flow within the pipe to force it's now triangular cross-section against the pipe wall. A second, longer, but similar device may then be able to seal it off.

The third “top-rim-anchored parachute” design would be least likely to breach the pipe, but requires a little more sophisticated design. It inserts a long “tube sock” into the pipe, but needs a rigid top rim that is a section of cone, or instead, a “ring and torroidal bag” partial plug could anchor it at the top, particularly until the cloth parachute plug is deployed.

The principle idea here is that it is necessary to insert a mechanical device that will redirect (exploit rather than merely attempt to directly oppose) the force of the flow along the pipe and transferring this force against the inner surface of the pipe, but at an angle to the force of flow that actually opposes the direction of the force of flow (or if you prefer, fluid pressure.) This is what the (conically shaped when shut) triangular ventricular valves within our heart and veins already accomplish – more blood pressure, as backflow, against these valves simply seals them tighter. This design of nature redirects the pressure of the fluid flow (in this case unwanted backflow) outward to the walls of the vein or artery and at an angle (vector) somewhat opposing the original force/backflow of blood which was “trying to go the wrong way”; this pressure is thus exploited or leveraged to both close the valve and seal it the more tightly against that very flow.

If you know a better idea, you can send it in to:
http://www.horizonedocs.com/artform.php

A century ago, early children's literature wasn't enthusiastic about boosting kids' self esteem just for it's own sake. Child rearing had a grittier, more realistic feel to it, back then, and children's feelings weren't always spared. Here's a passage - and yes it's real - from the the ninetheeth century English children's book, "Lessons for Children Three to Four Years Old", by Anna Laetitia Aiken Barbould. n.p., as cited by cited by Susan Tyler Hitchcock in "Mad Mary Lamb", p135:

"Do you know why you are better than puss? Puss can play as well as you; and Puss can drink milk; and lie upon the carpet; and she can run as fast as you, and faster, too; a great deal; and she can climb trees better; and she can catch mice, which you cannot do. But can Puss talk? No. Can Puss Read? No. Then that is the reason that you are better than Puss - because you can talk and read . . . If you do not learn, Charles, you are not good for half as much as puss. You had better be drowned."

And mind you, back then children knew that unwanted kittens were commonly drowned, and may have seen the practice, too. No wonder narcissism and feelings of entitlement were less common then than now!

re:
Attention-seeking objects will be hard to part with
17 April 2009

James Pierce at Indiana University in Bloomington is designing ways for objects to periodically make their presence felt, forcing us to "reflect" on them more often. He believes that this will increase our sense of attachment to our possessions, helping to end our unsustainable habit of constantly buying new things and dumping the old.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227045.700-attentionseeking-objects-will-be-hard-to-part-with.html

I'm very glad intelligent, creative people are taking a chance or two and trying to come up with new ways to put a few speed bumps in front of consumerism.

But I'm not sure misbehavior is the way. My father didn't keep his beaters around longer if they were especially temperamental - we all buy badly behaved or too hard to understand electronics and software, and then return it or shelve it, or garbage it.

Variable reinforcement seems like a better bet to me, appealing to the gambler in all of us - how about engraving a lottery ticket good for a hundred years into every consumer item. The ticket would be more likely to win the longer the "ticket" was still out there, a bit more likely every year. Then we could cling to our old toasters "just a little while longer" waiting for them to pay off. Of course, there could be unintended consequences, you might increase hoarding, or fuel consumerism. Learning theory says that variable reinforcement is astonishingly powerful.

The only other thought that occurs to me is, once technology allows, have every consumer item make friends with our kids, who would then be heartbroken if we got rid of them...

PS - The ancient greeks actually used to hold trials for tools that had injured or killed their owners, and condemn them to death. Sort of a "closure" thing, I guess.

There's something infuriating about Obama and the Democratic Senate having to accept unproductive tax cuts in order to create any sort of stimulus. After all, previous ill-advised tax cuts are already hamstringing the government's ability to respond effectively to the crisis; and irresponsible tax-cuts were very much part of the weaselly mind-set that created the present crisis.

Again and again the right has been able to use the mantra of "tax-cuts" to hornswoggle the average voter and taxpayer into voting, not for genuine conservatism: but mere corporate rapacity.

So here's the long-term answer. I think it's inevitably where we'll end up, so let's get there while there's still something of our economy and culture to save: The Democratic party, and Canada's Liberals, should commit themselves to moving the tax system, over about a decade, over to one in which the average voter will not pay one dollar in income tax (and perhaps other taxes.)

Elections are won when 51% of the electorate agree with you, and very few people have a long-winded intellectual or ideational commitment to low taxes, for good reasons or bad. They just like the way money jingles in their pocket, that's all. If that same money is in the government's pocket, they don't hear that nice jingle any more; so that's not as much fun.

Fine. Done. Egalitarianism is not a bad thing, overall. No more taxes for you! You're obviously not responsible enough to know what they're for, anyway! At least this way, the most vicious ideologues on the right can't buy your vote for a song, ever again!

So the whole burden of taxation goes onto the top half of the population; and 50% of the voters won't think about taxes, again, ever, because they don't have to, and can't profit by it.

This tax shift means sharply punishing very high salaries, but why not? If a salary cap and high salary tax is acceptable in the big sports league, something like it won't exactly cause a peasant's revolt if government tries it. This one policy action can forever change the mathematics of every election to come. I believe it would initiate a swing away from the intensely corrupt government and legislation that we've seen over the last couple of decades, which ended in a great crash - because the average victim of that excess, the average taxpayer, can't be fooled into thinking that they're getting a part of the action. They're out of that game.

Note that starting on this road may mean, over time, not taxing the less rich half of those who actually vote - and not merely the less rich half of those who could vote or are registered to vote; but this doesn't change the math radically.