There are many many subjects I know nothing about; nothing of real significance that is, other than vague generalities and oversimplifications. For instance, I’m clueless about architecture and how to read a blueprint. I’m clueless about farming and how or when to plant certain crops, how to keep up the soil, when to harvest, etc. I’m also clueless about rugby or cricket and their rules! I’m clueless on how best to perform medical operations; I’m not a board certified doctor! There are many subjects I just don’t know enough about to carry-on any type of extended intelligent conversation!
So here are my questions to the cyber-world:
Is it wise to speak overtly, to be long-winded about things one knows very little or nothing about?
Why is it every two & four years — the American political cycle — everyone knows EVERYTHING about the dynamics of governing 319-million diverse people, or in my state of Texas 27-million, and are suddenly experts on ALL factors that effect people’s needs and wants and their current and future well-being? How do they have all the solutions!? What’s their secret? I want to know!
And now for some comic relief with much “truthiness”… 😀
(paragraph break)
Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always
I pointed to the classroom’s lesson hook on the board, I turned to my 8th graders and repeated the question, “Who has the power to do things in the United States?” I quickly had to add, “…LEGALLY do things!“
Over the years of teaching Social Studies, there is one answer I consistently get: “THE PRESIDENT!” I remain silent for as long as necessary. Why? For a number of fine reasons, comic relief is one, but mostly to gauge how extensive the class will need to cover U.S. government, and indirectly Texas state government, for the upcoming week or two. However, there is another reason I like to ask the class this hook question. Inevitably parental teaching and influence will surface between the lines of their responses, especially if I allow the students some time and freedom to challenge each other’s answer and explanation. Those opening minutes are not too unlike adult conversations over political issues you catch at town squares or workplace break rooms. Every four years these conversations, sometimes volatile debates, can be exactly the same as those my 8th graders start. 😮
Senator Huffines reply to me about the absurd injustice of Texas businesses refusing service to any of the LGBT community on religious grounds
If all of you received a quality education in primary school through secondary school and graduated obtaining your diploma, perhaps in the upper half of your senior class or better, or had the fortune to attend four years of undergraduate studies obtaining a bachelor’s degree, then it is reasonable to assume that you know that our U.S. President does NOT have all the power to do things. There is a very good reason… it prevents one person, or one office, organization, branch, from gaining a greedy and/or abusive advantage; in a word: dictatorship. Yet, surprisingly (or not) a significant population of American adults under the age of 50 feel the U.S. President is the sole person responsible for good times and bad times. At the risk of stating the obvious, this political mentality is tragic, let alone harmful for a community’s, a state’s, or a nation’s future.
Critical thinking skills are sometimes (often?) NOT taught to our young children, adolescents, or undergraduates. This is partly due to how much freedom people and institutions are indeed given, e.g. the above image and response letter from Don Huffines, my Texas Senator, regarding the rights of business owners to refuse all services to gays-lesbians-transgendered whomever they choose. Another reason critical thinking skills are not taught or tested in primary and secondary schools is that until recently Common Core Standards in education did not exist 10-20 years ago. Thus, a generation of un-ingenious or unimaginative followers were raised. Today, 43 states have fortunately adopted Common Core Standards teaching critical thinking skills to young minds. But that is only in public education. It does not reflect the ever-increasing popularity in some states for charter or private schools, much less the home-schooling sector.
Following is a good 3-minute video about these skills and how ProCon.org promotes them in non-partisan fashion.
As I alluded to in my previous post, I have very little time at the moment to write in-depth 3,000 – 7,000 word posts on such MONUMENTAL subjects as voting and other civil responsibilities during campaign years, primaries, elections — and elections of public officers who APPOINT other officers or judges into positions of great power the general population will have no direct say in their placing — and how these officials will affect millions of citizens for years to follow. Knowing how your candidate might “appoint” other officials, collaborate with other officials, or remain consistent to their campaign positions and promises are just as crucial as your here-n-gone single vote for him or her! I feel this is a subject, a blog-post that is important enough to pause my hectic life for a few hours and share in a small way how paramount civil responsibility is to each of us… including your own children’s and grandchildren’s futures and how to make changes, improvements, even though they may be slow and gradual.
Therefore, if you would like to get a broad introduction into how to be a more informed wiser voter, I’ll recommend my post Oversimplification 2012 and its 4-part series as a starting point. However, if you’d prefer the abbreviated more shallow introduction — i.e. the version(s) many American voters prefer or only have time for — then continue reading. If you barely had time to read this far, then I beg you to try and at least watch completely the below video. It could cause you to reconsider your voting and political tendencies regarding our privileged, important, and free (or costly?) civil right to vote that each of us are gifted. Voting, and voting wisely, as well as freely, should never be ignored or taken lightly.
So many political issues and controversy are rooted in economics; its healthy or unhealthy status. This is partly why I chose Joseph Stiglitz’s video and commentary over his new book, The Great Divide. Also because he is a Nobel Prize winner in Economics and has loads of wisdom to impart!
I hope this very brief post has helped you and other voters to be a bit more informed, but informed in more objective broader ways. Please get or remain very involved in your community’s, your county’s, your municipal’s, your state’s, and your federal elections. Correspond with your elected officials frequently. Vote and vote wisely, and just as important, vote for a greater good for the greatest number!
Live Well — Love Much — Laugh Often — Learn Always
I was shocked when I read her email. I had never received any type of correspondence like it from any politician, ever! Wendy Davis, who is running for Texas State Governor next year, asked me what my story was. She asked, “What challenges do you and your family face? What issues should be addressed to strengthen our families?” For the last five years her running opponent, Greg Abbott, the Texas State Attorney General since 2002, has been anything but cordial, sympathetic, or hopeful toward me; just cold and impersonal. If there are those who have not heard of Greg Abbott, then my point is made.
Like Wendy Davis, some human beings would take a few minutes to ask questions like, What’s going on with these issues? How did things get to this point? What can we do to improve things? Wow. Imagine that, a politician who wants to know and listen to the nuts-and-bolts of a situation and its causes, its factors from the actual people affected! What an invitation! What an opportunity!
This is what I told her… (paragraph break)
Wendy, I am a two-years unemployed certified 4-8 General Ed, Special Ed (pending) teacher, father of a 2nd year college daughter, and 12-year old son who live over 300-miles away and I briefly see maybe twice a year. In the summer of 2012 my charter school where I taught – whose student body was 82% Special Needs and a third were wards of the state from horrific homes and circumstances – lost four of its six major funding grants. Education cuts were not only happening nationwide, but just as much statewide. As a result, our school resources were severely stretched or eliminated. These cuts included much-needed hiring of additional qualified staff, aides, and most importantly certified teachers for the increased numbers of Special Ed students coming in from other nearby closing schools AND the result of marketing and attracting more Special Ed students necessary to keep our two meager remaining grants for 2013. The federal and state cuts also meant no annual 2% – 3% pay raises for any current teachers and staff; I was grossing $31,380 per year (or $2,080 a month, or barely $13/hour after automatic child support garnishments) for 60-70 hours minimum per week of work. Need I get into net earnings minus healthcare pay-deductions and cost of living expenses? The math is depressing.
One assessment some schools and districts use to monitor their teacher’s development and well-being, especially those on campuses teaching behavioral-emotional Special Needs students and wards-of-the-state, is a stress-anxiety assessment. At the end of the school year, I scored in the upper 10% at risk; almost “Highly at Risk” for accelerated health deterioration.
My At Risk for health deterioration was compounded monthly by financial and legal pressures from the Texas Child Support Services and the state Attorney General’s Office. During my annual checkup at the doctor’s office, he told me flat-out I need to find a different job; a job where I at least had the time (somewhere in the 24-hours) to exercise and relieve the stress. This was my response to him:
If I quit my job doctor, I only compound my problems. If I fall behind even two months unemployed, the Texas Attorney General’s Office report those failures immediately to all credit bureaus. Sometimes it is less than two months. Most all potential employers today use an extensive background check – especially for teachers – as well as credit checks which are used for financial decisions and interest rates, let alone everything else creditors, lenders, businesses, etc, etc. families, parents, and me, the non-custodial parent, struggle with and fight to stay afloat month-to-month. I don’t know Doc what the answer is. This was his reply: “As long as you understand the health consequences if SOMETHING doesn’t give.”
For the 2011-2012 school year I taught 5th – 8th Social Studies, 5th – 8th Enhanced Learning Lab (elective), 9th – 12th Career Tech (elective), and assistant coach athletics for after-school activities. In late summer my charter school informed me that for the coming 2012-2013 school year, I would have to teach 4th – 8th grade Science and Social Studies of which all periods would have 2 or 3 grade levels of the subject in the same classroom. For you readers who are not teachers or familiar with Texas state curriculum and standards, every single grade level in science is a different development module with some crossovers. In Social Studies, 4th graders cover basic Texas history, 5th graders cover basic American history, 6th graders cover basic World history, 7th graders cover more-advanced Texas history, and 8th graders cover more-advanced American history. The only crossover I would be afforded to ease the 35%-40% workload increase would’ve been 4th and 7th, and 6th – 8th.And as a reminder, almost half of each class are Special Needs wards-of-the-state students.Myself and other teachers had no aids because there was no money to pay for them, and that would be the case again for the upcoming bigger classes for the upcoming year.
As most people are aware, our public education systems have gone through needed reform. Some of it has been successful and improved. However, there is obviously much more work to be done and equalities protected! More importantly, radical state and federal funding cuts only exacerbate the problems and worse put at great risk our country’s future leaders and skilled educated collaboratingfuture government officials and citizens. Public education is not and never has been “secular brainwashing or compromise.” Those speculations are left to individual homes and parents, not public schools. Public education is and has been primarily for those children and adolescents who come from not-so-advantaged homes, even severely impoverished, to have a decent chance of becoming a productive future citizen and not an expensive public liability in prisons, mental institutions, or rehab clinics; all of which require MORE taxpayer dollars in the long run. Yes, a headache can be cured by decapitation (i.e. conservative-pushed cuts), but is it productive change? Is it “economic/fiscal responsibility” on all levels? No. (paragraph break)
I resigned in August 2012. Today, I am still unemployed as a certified General and Special Ed teacher. I spend an average of 12-18 hours a day seeking and completing long extensive applications for teaching positions in districts that haven’t been so severely hit by funding cuts. Meanwhile, each month I receive a cold, unconcerned collection statement from the Attorney General’s Office showing in bold type my higher rising balance plus interest. Like a home mortgage or auto loan, this monthly defaulting is reported to all credit bureaus. Should my arrears reach $10,000 my case will go into the Enforcement Stage and a warrant for my arrest will be issued. DeAnna Shields, a Killeen, Texas web-radio talk show host, student of mental health studies, parent, and U.S. Army Widow volunteer, writes a telling article about Texas Child Support laws from Greg Abbott’s office onCNN’siReport.Read it here.
Wendy Davis, clearly I am and have felt the detrimental effects of a plunging credit score and unemployment. I wonder how jail time would affect my job search. Thank you so much for asking about my story Wendy! A little digging, a little personal human interaction, a little effort to understand the long-term effect of lawmaking goes a very long way. I really hope next year I will be addressing you as Governor Davis!
Signed, Unemployed Texas Special-Ed Teacher
(paragraph break)
Post-script — “Greg Abbott leads Wendy Davis by single digits” — Politico, 10/2/2013. If you are interested, here is her campaign website: http://www.wendydavistexas.com/
What is excessiveness? The dictionary defines it this way: exceeding a normal, usual, reasonable, or proper limit. Historians have sometimes defined it as out Herod Herod. Lord Salisbury in Shakespeare’s King John perhaps described it better as painting the lily:
Therefore, to be possess’d with double pomp, To guard a title that was rich before, To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, To throw a perfume on the violet, To smooth the ice, or add another hue Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish, Is wasteful, and ridiculous excess.
Every single human being requires a handful of necessities: water, food, climate-control, and shelter. To what extent or elaboration those four basic needs are fulfilled, can be averaged at any location, and thus a global standard can be determined. One and perhaps a minimum of two of these basic life-needs are in finite supply and crisis on our planet.
Fair warning for those who are sensitive to or bothered by grim facts of nature, our planet, and other human groups, self-discretion should be considered. What follows, in my opinion, needs to be at least made aware and considered by everyone on Earth.
(paragraph break)
* * * * * * * * * *
What do you think would happen if when you turned open your faucet and nothing came out? How long could you survive without water? Now, what do you think would happen if your entire city was without water or operating sewage? What would happen if a nation lost its water and sewage? There is no water to feed crops or gardens; no clean water to drink. Are you getting the picture? If not, let’s hear the alarming projections some scientists, scholars, and professional experts are reporting. Sorry this alarming documentary is an hour-and-a-half long, but it needs to be shared:
If you still feel this is not a problem for you and your children and grandchildren, you should have your ears examined. If you feel resource conservation is a form of socialism or communism, then you are in delusional denial.
Excessive opulence or resource hoarding is no different a global footprint than spending or consuming recklessly; they both accomplish the same singularity: proportionate risk. The more excessive, the more risk; the more risk, the more excessiveness to avoid it. As a species, if not as Americans, we need to…no, we must greatly refine our life-ambitions and the education of those ambitions and their purpose.
But let’s pause a moment and analyze where most Americans have headed since 1870 and are currently heading.
1870 – 1900: The Gilded Age
Mark Twain
Much pride and boasting has been made of America’s age of industrialization, that it was the catalyst that put the nation in the same discussion of the world’s greatest empires. Yet of our nation’s 12-million families then, 11-million earned less than $1,200 per year; of this group the average annual income was $380, well below the poverty line. In today’s CPI dollars (the purchasing power of goods and services produced in the 1890 economy) that is $9,890 per year per household. In his book The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today, Mark Twain wrote of the day’s barons and tycoons, “What is the chief end of man?—to get rich. In what way?—dishonestly if we can; honestly if we must.”
Though pre-1920 U.S. economic reports are less comprehensive as post-1920, Benjamin Schwarz of the World Policy Institute and Executive Editor of World Policy Journal writes in his 1995 New York Times article “By 1890, the richest 12-percent of households owned about 86-percent of the country’s wealth.”
1890 – 1920: Progressive Era
The Roaring Twenties
In 1910 the average annual household income was $574 per year. In today’s CPI dollars that is $14,300 per year per household. During this era America’s top 1-percent owned about 40-50 percent of the nation’s wealth and the top 10-percent fluctuated around 70-percent until President Theodore Roosevelt began his anti-trust legislation and wealth redistribution via progressive taxation.
1920 – 1929: The Roaring Twenties
The average annual household income was $1,407 per year in 1920. In today’s CPI dollars that is $16,100 per year per household. In 1922 America’s top 1-percent owned 37% of the nation’s wealth; a slight change in years following Teddy Roosevelt’s administration. America’s middle-class indeed experienced a relative age of prosperity during the Roaring Twenties due to the automobile industry which fed industries such as oil, road-construction, tourism, manufacturing, and electric-power.
1929 – 1941: The Great Depression
The average annual household income in 1930 was $1,388. By 1940 it had dropped to $1,315. In today’s CPI dollars that is $19,100 and $21,500 per year per household respectively. America’s top 1-percent in 1933 owned 33% of the nation’s wealth and 36.4% in 1939 demonstrated the upper-upper class comfortably rode out the stock market crash of ‘29. Unemployment for the nation’s middle class was at 25% and especially higher in heavy industries such as lumbering and agricultural exports in cotton, wheat, and tobacco. Fortunately, from a purely economic standpoint, another world war was on the horizon ready to put Americans, particularly women, back to work on a road to bigger prosperity than the Roaring Twenties.
1945 – 1973: Postwar Prosperity – The Golden Era
The average annual household income was $3,180 in 1950 ($30,300 in 2012 CPI) and $4,816 in 1960 ($37,300 in 2012 CPI), a significant increase in just 10-years. Middle-class Americans also enjoyed a bigger piece of the nation’s wealth: 70.2% in 1945 and 73% in 1949 while America’s top 1-percent saw their portion drop again to 29.8% and 27% respectively. Yet, it is this Golden Era that firmly placed the United States as a world power and dominant economy. As more and more Americans gained more wealth and more income, the nation experienced its most prolific prosperity to-date. How it happened will be examined shortly.
The American Dream. Notice the ethnicity?
When Dwight Eisenhower took office (1953-1961) the nation was going through another recession post-Korean War causing a decline in the nation’s GDP. This resulted in middle-America having less of the nation’s wealth over a 16-year period down to 65%, while America’s top 1-percent relished in increases back up to 34.4% of the nation’s total wealth in 1965.
By 1970 the average annual household income was $7,494 or about $44,300 in today’s CPI dollars; another notable increase in 10-years. As the Golden Era drew to a close and the Cold War and Vietnam festered, President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs increased lower and middle-America’s wealth to 71% while America’s top 1-percent saw theirs fall to 29% of the nation’s wealth. However, hard times were just around the corner for most Americans.
1970 – 1976: Age of Stagflation
Image Time Warner
In 1973 the average annual household income was $9,037 or approximately $46,700 per household in today’s CPI dollars. The nineteen-seventies became known economically as the Age of Stagflation. The 25-year U.S. economic growth post-WW2 had stagnated to a crawl, and prices in goods and services rose annually in the double-digits from 10% in 1973 to 18% in 1979. Due to poor performances on Wall Street, America’s top 1-percent saw their share of the nation’s wealth drop to the lowest in history: 19.9%. Yet, middle-America enjoyed the highest ever share of the country’s wealth at 80%.
The eras of suburbanization in the 50’s and 60’s, however, had significant consequences in the 70’s. The migration of tens of millions of middle-Americans (most of them White), moving to newly developing suburban towns meant getting to work in cities went from public transit to private vehicles. This in turn caused America to become heavily dependent on foreign oil. The long-term varied ripple effect of suburbanization cannot be overemphasized, one of which is our bigger footprint on environmental and global issues.
1976 – 1992: Gilded Age Returns and Reaganomics
Reagan addresses Congress 1981 (Wikipedia)
From 1976 to 1988 the average annual household income was $11,080 or about $44,700 in 2012 CPI dollars – yes, a $2,000 drop from the previous 3-years – to $25,167 or about $48,800 in 2012 CPI dollars; just above break-even from 1976. To combat the stagflation of the 70’s, government deregulation along with personal and business tax cuts gained popularity. As it turned out most of the tax breaks, along with deregulating helped America’s upper-classes.
Additionally, defeats of labor unions – unions made possible by Teddy Roosevelt reforms with long histories of keeping big-businesses from corruption and abuse of workers – also fattened the pockets of America’s top 1-percent by going from 19.9% ownership of the nation’s wealth to having 35.7% by 1989. By 1992 the AAHI (average annual household income) was $28,870 or about $47,200 in 2012 CPI dollars; another drop from 1988. While middle-America struggled, the top 1-percent in America owned a rising 37.2% of the nation’s total wealth.
Beginning in 1983 economist Edward Wolff has tracked America’s net wealth and financial (non-home) wealth distributions. As Table 1 above and Figure1 below show, it is an increasingly bleak outlook for the majority of Americans.
Click image for larger view
1990 – Present: Globalization and World Superpower
The 1990’s will be compared to the prosperity of the 1920’s and the 1960’s. But as a whole is that what the data reveals? The AAHI was $32,558 in 1995 or about $49,000 in 2012 CPI dollars and America’s top 1-percent enjoyed another increase in the owned wealth of the nation at 38.5%. For six brief years (1994-2000) the economy saw rises in the national debt, the stock market, and the GDP while inflation plateaued and unemployment dropped below 5% because of the Dot-com Boom. Economist and civilians alike agree that the growth explosion was mostly a result of workplace computerization. But the good times would come to an end in 2001.
Map of the world wide web 1990-2000
A constant influx of immigrants seeking the American Dream, an American economy becoming one of the major players in a growing global economy, a false sense of security in the housing market, and numerous corporate scandals in the energy and finance sectors due to previous government deregulating, all contributed to the tipping-point by 2007. The AAHI in 2000 was at $40,418 or $53,900 in 2012 CPI dollars and the top 1-percent in America saw their portion in the nation’s wealth drop to 33.4% due to a sharp declining stock market worsened by the attacks of 9/11. There is another set of globalization dynamics that added to the plight of middle-America.
With the exodus of American jobs like cheaper electronics, fashion, shoes, and toys moving to developing nations, middle-Americans watched as their job and salary-leveraging also weakened with fewer lateral or upper employment positions. Then jobs in TV, auto, steel, and home-furnishing manufacturing followed. With those positions gone abroad, the American job-market went from high-paying management positions to simple service-industry low-paying positions which certainly need no college degree. This move marked the boom of trade-school certifications for a growing electronic blue-collar job-market.
Why Mexico is becoming a global manufacturing power – Bloomberg Businessweek article
The domino-effect of American digitization, the snowballing Internet, and high-speed networks spreading to all corners of the globe have combined to gorge the growing socio-economic gap wider and deeper. In 2007 the AAHI was $48,332 ($53,500 in 2012 CPI dollars) eaten-up by inflation and the cost-of-living. Meanwhile, the top 1-percent owned a steady 34.6% of the nation’s wealth. The lap of luxury doesn’t stop there. With the creation of a connected more global economy today, along with new multiple global opportunities and substantially lower-wages to foreign workers, it should come as no surprise what sector of the American population currently enjoys the fruits-of-foreign-labor.
The World’s 200 Richest People(s):
The most industrialized developed countries in the world by population-size are in Europe according to the 2013 United Nations Human Development Report. Of the top 10 nations with the highest Human Development Index (HDI), six of them are in Europe (see Report). One might infer from that list then that many of the world’s wealthiest people reside in those countries or at least in Europe. You would be wrong.
Of the 200 richest people in the world as of 2012, 61 of them (or 31%) are citizens of the United States. What is perhaps unexpected is where the second richest group of people call home. Of the next 139, 20 of them (or 10%) are Russian, ironically a former part of the old communist U.S.S.R. The next 26 richest people come from Germany (13) and Brazil (13) at 7% and 6.5% respectively. To see the world’s wealth and what portion of it is owned by the wealthiest 200, see the pie-chart below. For the most current world ranking of the world’s wealthiest as ranked by Bloomberg click here.
As the largest population of one of the most modern industrialized nations – currently 314 million and growing – the United States has the largest percentage of the population with the smallest percentage of the nation’s wealth. Since 1983, as seen in Wolff’s two Tables above, it has decreased every single year. To put this disparity succinctly, in terms of financial eggs-in-a-basket the top 1-percent own 35% of all privately held stock, 62.4% of all business equity, and 64.4% of financial securities in America. Is it any wonder why middle-American taxpayers were held for ransom in 2008 to bailout our own mega-banks and financial firms, mega-auto companies, and integral government-sponsored entities? The top 1 and 10-percent held the nation by the balls. Sit down, it get’s more alarming.
The top 10-percent own 81% to 94% of all American bonds, trust funds, stocks, and business equity, and nearly 80% of all commercial real estate. The real value of financial wealth is determined by control of income-producing assets; assets that can absorb recessions or devastating irreparable depressions. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude that 10% of Americans own the United States. Talk about utter investment stupidity in placing the nation’s “eggs” in one or two baskets! There is no way to sugar-coat it. Perhaps Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address should be rewritten to reflect today’s socio-economic times: “Government of the 10-percent, by the 10-percent, for the 10-percent.”
Land of the Few, Home of the Lavish
Listed at $190-million, Copper Beech Farm in Greenwich, Connecticut is the most expensive home in America. Built in 1896 and previously owned by the Greenway family of U.S. Steel with Andrew Carnegie as well as timber tycoon John Rudey, it has over 13,000 square feet on 50 waterfront acres with spectacular views of Long Island Sound. As a French Renaissance style home with 12 bedrooms, wine cellar, a 75-foot outdoor pool, a grass tennis court, a large formal arboretum, two greenhouses, and private apple orchard, accessible by a 1,800-foot private driveway. Oh, and the property includes two offshore islands.
Copper Beech – Greenwich, CT
Copper Beech Farm is simply one home of over 100 homes priced above $10-million. From 2005 through 2012 Greenwich, CT has been ranked as the best wealthiest place to live in the U.S., the “Biggest Earner” per household in the U.S., and #1 wealthiest residents per capita in the nation. Many of the residents are Wall Street hedge fund managers, writes Nina Munk of Vanity Faire Magazine, and “of the $1.2 trillion currently invested worldwide, approximately one-tenth, or $120-billion, is now managed out of Greenwich alone, according to Hedge Fund Research, Inc.” Munk also reports that four of the richest 400 Americans live in Greenwich and three of those are hedge fund managers. One Greenwich real-estate broker reported these four residents will drop five to eight-million dollars without a second thought. Some even a lot more.
“Almost As Big as the Taj Mahal – To judge by the number of swollen, over ambitious mansions rising from lots in Greenwich these days, you’d almost think we were back in the 1910’s and 20’s – except that this time round the lots are small, and the houses are almost on top of one another. “Years ago, wealthy houses were hidden in the rear of properties after long driveways…and no one ever built to the maximum allowable square footage,” remarked Diane Fox, long time director of Greenwich’s Planning and Zoning Department, in an e-mail to me. “Today all big houses want to be seen from the road.””
Munk’s article of Greenwich’s rich and lavish also mentions that one interior designer installed broadloom carpet at $74,000 for one bedroom, and drapes and curtains at $20,000 to $25,000 for one bedroom. You read it right, one bedroom.
Why is this level of wealth and excessive opulence worth mentioning?
Because today American legislation, political campaigns, and economic policies resemble little of what they did six decades ago. In 2010 the U.S. Supreme Court allowed American corporations, including those owned by the top 1 and 10-percent of the nation, the opportunity of donating vast financial resources for political candidates and their election campaigns; “resources” with millions of dollars beyond what any individual voters could organize. Remember, 80 to 90 percent of Americans hold or own just 4.7% of the nation’s financial wealth. The political phrase in the 1940’s and 50’s “one person, one vote” means today “one dollar, one vote.” That 2010 decision sets the stage for a class of super-wealthy political campaigners to push (as if a majority of individual voters) their one-dimensional political-economic interests: enhancing their profits and revenues.
A Communal America is Imperative
This four-part series has not been about political, economic, or social envy. It seems the bottom 99% or 90% are for the most part not jealous of America’s gazillionaires or their social contributions and hard-earned incomes. What this four-part series has been about though is political fairness, representation, and efficiency. As discussed in part two Productive Inequality, rent-seeking moves wages and wealth from the bottom and middle classes to the top 10 and 1-percent while distorting the “free market” in favor of some and to the detriment of most. More “efficient” policies of the market matter for a more equitable distribution of national wealth. Improper policies (e.g. of the last 32-years) lead to a less efficient economy and a growing divide between socio-economic classes.
Strength in lots of Einsteins!
It is a fairly simple overall concept. When our society is sufficiently (even abundantly) funded in infrastructure, education, research, and technology, these vital areas of a thriving economy offer hope and security to ordinary citizens. The majority of Americans, the bottom 90%, will actually SEE and experience for themselves what the U.S. Constitution, the Statue of Liberty, and all other symbols of democracy, equality and fairness are really made of… not just “promised” or rhetorically talked about on TV. Those principles would be available to a vast number in society in an efficient dynamic economy. Even the top 1-percent would benefit when the capabilities of so many quality workers and citizens are not wasted but fully utilized. It’s a concept of not just strength in numbers, but strength in well-educated, ingenious, motivated Einstein numbers! There is a huge difference between the two. The difference is not just inclusive, but very alien to exclusive.
In his superb book The Price of Inequality: How Today’s Divided Society Endangers Our Future, Nobel Prize winner in economics Joseph Stiglitz gives a superbly educated agenda on exactly how American government and her 314-million citizens can avoid falling into the same death-trap history’s great empires and their leaders fell into. If you would like to read an outline of his proposed extensive agenda, click here.
My own meek semi-educated ideas of how not to follow, for instance, the Roman Empire’s demise or the former Soviet Union’s, or the more recent countries of Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria… are this:
What is the reading on your/our Collective-Goodness-Gauge? What is the health of your/our common welfare, our passion for civic responsibility and the well-being of the persons near us?
These are NOT just social questions! More importantly they are political and economic questions too. As the French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville noticed about the nature of American society in 1835, freedom (or individualism) can be a tricky balancing act within democracy. Some “individualized” Americans independent of a majority often have the pragmatic realization that looking after the welfare of others is not only good for the soul, but is equally good for business and wealth. Stiglitz elaborates on this truth wonderfully:
“The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this has been something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Often, however, they learn it too late.”
…no matter class or status
The Roman Empire, Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria are just four examples to what Stiglitz refers. The former Soviet Union is an example of no individualism when no single “part” is allowed to reach its full brilliance and potential for the benefit of the whole; the other extreme. Both ends of the economic-socio-political spectrum REQUIRE resource investments and management from every single citizen. The stable “middle” if you will, has a steady balanced, efficient, fair, and equal flow of civic investment. Any one mechanism cannot efficiently coexist without the other efficient mechanisms. So…
If the United States wishes to return as one of the best symbols of freedom, liberty, democracy, and equality for all, then reaching that efficient balanced middle is an imperative collaborative, collective return to a well-managed, well-governed, wealth-balanced cause.
This short blog was inspired by Silk over at her site Silk Road Visions – And Writings In the Sand. The true finishing of this subject is at her WordPress blog — use the link provided below.
I have often wondered why after World War 2 the Allied powers removedthe Palestinians to give their land to the Israelis, who had been homeless since, well your guess or research might be as good as mine. Since about the 11th century BCE Israel has not existed as a nation as we define a nation today. Hebrew-speaking people have been among the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Sassanians, and Byzantines subject to these empires, but during those many centuries they were not a kingdom with borders in the terms of today’s United Nations — for a quick overview: Zionism and the British Mandate.
Why did the Israelis deserve their own nation with borders anymore than say….the Native American Indians? America’s Manifest Destiny wasn’t too unlike Hitler’s “Final Solution” for the Jews. Was it because of the atrocities they suffered at the hands of the Nazis? Yes, the Jews suffered treatment as subhuman and put in concentration camps for systematic extermination by Hitler’s SS. This is certainly a noble reason for the United States to fight and die in Europe — we did the same thing (well, in principle) in Iraq against Saddam Hussein in 2003 with Operation Iraqi Freedom. President Hussein was known to have exterminated many of his Muslim enemies inside Iraq. He had also fought a long war against his neighbor Iran and those fellow Muslims. However, I have always questioned WHY the United States does not do the same for other atrocities in any other nation around the world? Point and case, the killing of Tibetans and the removal and exile of the Dali Lama by the Chinese communists. Why didn’t we go to war against China for the sake of those Tibetans and their destroyed monasteries? Was it because Tibet and Buddhism had no crude oil to supply the energy-hungry and booming victorious economies? And if my religious biblical history serves me correctly, did not the land around Jerusalem belong to Canaan and its native people, and before them the Akkadians who took it from nomadic tribes in the 24th century BCE?
A volatile multi-relgious Jerusalem where everyone believes they belong there.
It seems to me that if the Western Hemisphere of nations (formerly under Greek then Roman rule historically) follow this U.N. logic, then the United States along with member nations of the U.N. must return lands taken by conquerors going back to pre-written languages BEFORE the “Bibles” of the Hebrews, Egyptians, Samaritans, and so on and so on, ad infinitum! Indeed, at some point this logic becomes ludicrous and is not a legitimate foundation anytime, anywhere. More recently and more easily rectifiable the question becomes What justification did the non-Arab nations of the U.N. have to throw-out the Palestinians in 1947-1949? I am very curious to read your thoughts and comments about this question and justification, or lack of justification.
As I mentioned at the outset, this blog was inspired by the wonderful blogger Silk at Silk Road Visions. I strongly urge you to hop over there and read this excellent perspective on how in my humble view Western Imperial arrogance will always fuel radical jihadists, or simply sustain fragile relations with any Islamic nation.
I have zero expectation that anything I ever say will end someone’s belief in their God. Not my goal or purpose. That alone belongs to the individual. ~ Zoe
'Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it' - Terry Pratchett
There are many many subjects I know nothing about; nothing of real significance that is, other than vague generalities and oversimplifications. For instance, I’m clueless about architecture and how to read a blueprint. I’m clueless about farming and how or when to plant certain crops, how to keep up the soil, when to harvest, etc. I’m also clueless about rugby or cricket and their rules! I’m clueless on how best to perform medical operations; I’m not a board certified doctor! There are many subjects I just don’t know enough about to carry-on any type of extended intelligent conversation!
The Professor's Convatorium 
