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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 6, 2017 at 12:10 am
An Employers Responsibility Act (ERA) would simultaneously address the following evils for which employers are directly responsible:
- The loss of jobs within the United States owing to companies’ moving their operations abroad—solely to pay substandard wages to their new employees.
- The mass firings of employees which usually accompany corporate mergers or acquisitions.
- The widespread victimization of part-time employees, who are not legally protected against such threats as racial discrimination, sexual harassment and unsafe working conditions.
- The refusal of many employers to create better than menial, low-wage jobs.
- The widespread employer practice of extorting “economic incentives” from cities or states in return for moving to or remaining in those areas. Such “incentives” usually absolve employers from complying with laws protecting the environment and/or workers’ rights.
- The refusal of many employers to provide medical and pension benefits—nearly always in the case of part-time employees, and, increasingly, for full-time, permanent ones as well.
- Rising crime rates, due to rising unemployment.
Among its provisions:
(1) American companies that close plants in the United States and open others abroad would be forbidden to sell products made in those foreign plants within the United States.
This would protect both American and foreign workers from employers seeking to profit at their expense. American workers would be ensured of continued employment. And foreign laborers would be protected against substandard wages and working conditions.
Companies found violating this provision would be subject to Federal criminal prosecution. Guilty verdicts would result in heavy fines and lengthy imprisonment for their owners and top managers.
(2) Large companies (those employing more than 100 persons) would be required to create entry-level training programs for new, future employees.
These would be modeled on programs now existing for public employees, such as firefighters, police officers and members of the armed services.
Such programs would remove the employer excuse, “I’m sorry, but we can’t hire you because you’ve never had any experience in this line of work.” After all, the Air Force has never rejected an applicant because, “I’m sorry, but you’ve never flown a plane before.”
This Nation has greatly benefited from the humane and professional efforts of the men and women who have graduated from public-sector training programs. There is no reason for the private sector to shun programs that have succeeded so brilliantly for the public sector.
(3) Employers would receive tax credits for creating professional, well-paying, full-time jobs.
This would encourage the creation of better than the menial, dead-end, low-paying and often part-time jobs which exist in the service industry. Employers found using such tax credits for any other purpose would be prosecuted for tax fraud.
(4) A company that acquired another—through a merger or buyout—would be forbidden to fire en masse the career employees of that acquired company.
This would be comparable to the protection existing for career civil service employees. Such a ban would prevent a return to the predatory “corporate raiding” practices of the 1980s, which left so much human and economic wreckage in their wake.
The wholesale firing of employees would trigger the prosecution of the company’s new owners. Employees could still be fired, but only for provable just cause, and only on a case-by-case basis.
(5) Employers would be required to provide full medical and pension benefits for all employees, regardless of their full-time or part-time status.
Increasingly, employers are replacing full-time workers with part-time ones—solely to avoid paying medical and pension benefits.
Requiring employers to act humanely and responsibly toward all their employees would encourage them to provide full-time positions—and hasten the death of this greed-based practice.
(6) Employers of part-time workers would be required to comply with all federal labor laws.
Under current law, part-time employees are not protected against such abuses as discrimination, sexual harassment and unsafe working conditions. Closing this loophole would immediately create two positive results:
- Untold numbers of currently-exploited workers would be protected from the abuses of predatory employers; and
- Even predatorily-inclined employers would be encouraged to offer permanent, fulltime jobs rather than only part-time ones—since a major incentive for offering part-time jobs would now be eliminated.
(7) Employers would be encouraged to hire to their widest possible limits,through a combination of financial incentives and legal sanctions. Among those incentives:
Employers demonstrating a willingness to hire would receive substantial Federal tax credits, based on the number of new, permanent employees hired per year.
Employers claiming eligibility for such credits would be required to make their financial records available to Federal investigators. Employers found making false claims would be prosecuted for perjury and tax fraud, and face heavy fines and imprisonment if convicted.
(8) Among those sanctions: Employers refusing to hire could be required to prove, in court:
- Their economic inability to hire further employees, and/or
- The unfitness of the specific, rejected applicant.
Companies found guilty of unjustifiably refusing to hire would face the same penalties as now applying in cases of discrimination on the basis of age, race, sex and disability.
Two benefits would result from this:
- Employers would thus fund it easier to hire than to refuse to do so; and
- Job-seekers would no longer be prevented from even being considered for employment because of arbitrary and interminable “hiring freeze.”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 5, 2017 at 1:42 pm
According to a new Morning Consult/POLITICO poll, voters know what they want to hear when President-elect Donald Trump gives his Inaugural Address on January 20.
- Seventy-five percent of voters want him to talk about bringing manufacturing jobs back from other countries and keeping manufacturing jobs in the United States; and
- Fifty-two percent percent want to hear Trump discuss his threats of slapping tariffs on imported goods made in China and Mexico.
The poll was conducted December 28-29, surveying 2,000 registered voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.
During the 2016 Presidential race, Trump attacked American corporations that operate overseas and import their products back here, or that are considering plans to move more jobs overseas.
Donald Trump
And he threatened to slap high import duties and tariffs on products made in Mexico, China and other countries that impose similar barriers on American-made goods.
Yet, for decades, American politicians ignored the single greatest cause of unemployment among Americans: The refusal of employers to hire.
Employers like Kenneth Fisher, chief executive officer of Fisher Investments, who said, in 2012: “Believe it or not, I’m for fewer jobs, not more.”
In the Christmas Eve, 2012 issue of Forbes, he asserted: “Job Growth is Overrated.”
“Throughout 2012 we heard politicians and pundits of all stripes yammering endlessly on the need for job growth—that we don’t have enough jobs. It’s pure rubbish.”
Kenneth Fisher
According to Fisher, jobs are actually signs of weakness in the economy. Fewer employees can produce more products—and that’s good for us all.
For Fisher, the template for future economic success is Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer: “With Walmart you get an awe-inspiring company at 13 times my January 2014 earnings estimate, with a 2.2% dividend yield.”
Of course, it’s easy for Fisher—a billionaire—to take a “What? Me Worry?” attitude about the unemployment problems facing millions of willing-to-work Americans.
And it’s certainly easier for him to identify with his fellow billionaire boys club members, the Waltons, than with the low-paid employees of Walmart.
In December, 2013, Walmart announced that it would deny health insurance to newly-hired employees who work less than 30 hours a week.
Walmart eliminates healthcare coverage for certain workers if their average work-week falls below 30 hours—which regularly happens at the direction of company managers.
Fisher certainly doesn’t have to worry about getting top-notch medical care anytime he thinks he needs it.
Another thing that Fisher clearly admires about Walmart: Its gross profits. In 2016, its sales revenues stood at 482.13 billion.
In 2016, C. Douglas McMillon, president and CEO of Walmart Stores, made $19,404,042 in total compensation. Of this total:
- $1,263,231 came as a salary;
- $3,406,971 was received as a bonus;
- $0 was received in stock options;
- $14,270,786 was awarded as stock; and
- $463,054 came from other types of compensation.
On the other hand: Until April, 2015, only about 6,000 Walmart employees out of more than 1.2 million nationwide were paid the $7.25 an hour federal minimum wage.
In April, 2015, the company’s starting pay became $9 an hour, and the average pay for full-time retail workers there became about $13 an hour.
This raise wasn’t prompted by generosity from Walmart’s owners. It came came from sheer necessity.
For more than 50 years, Walmart paid its employees such depressed wages that many full-time workers couldn’t live on them. The company became notorious for helping its new employees to sign up for state and federal welfare programs.
This made Walmart the single largest private-sector beneficiary of public assistance. According to Barry Ritzholtz, of Rithholz Wealth Management, American taxpayers “have been subsidizing the wages of the publicly traded, private-sector company to the tune of $2.66 billion in government largess a year.”
As a result, turnover at Walmart has been correspondingly high–at 44%, as compared with six percent at Costco.
And Fisher conveniently ignores the huge emotional role that being employed plays in the United States.
The majority of Americans–especially men–derive their sense of identity from what they do for a living.
Ask a man, “What do you do?” and he’s almost certain to reply: “I’m a fireman.” Or “I’m a salesman.”
To be unemployed in America is considered by most Americans–including the unemployed–the same as being a bum.
And Republicans are quick to point accusing fingers at those willing-to-work Americans who can’t find willing-to-hire employers.
According to Republicans such as Mitt Romney and Herman Cain: If you can’t find a job, it’s entirely your fault.
And when Republicans are forced–by public pressure or Democratic majorities–to provide benefits to the unemployed, these nearly always come at a price.
Those receiving subsistence monies are, in many states, required to undergo drug-testing, even though there is no evidence of widespread drug-abuse among the unemployed.
But America can put an end to this “I’ve-got-mine-and-the-hell-with-you” job-killing arrogance of people like Kenneth Fisher.
The answer lies in three words: Employers Responsibility Act (ERA).
If passed by Congress and vigorously enforced by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Labor, an ERA would ensure full-time, permanent and productive employment for millions of capable, job-seeking Americans.
And it would achieve this without raising taxes or creating controversial government “make work” programs.
Such legislation would legally require employers to demonstrate as much initiative for hiring as job-seekers are now expected to show in searching for work.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 4, 2017 at 12:15 am
Future historians may one day write that it’s what didn’t happen that played at least as great a role in electing Donald Trump President as what actually did.
There were at least four instances where intervention by Federal law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2016 election.
Two of these dealt with purely domestic issues—the Trump University scandal and Trump’s repeated threats of violence against Republican and Democratic opponents.
The third and fourth ones dealt with events directly affecting the security of the United States.
It is unprecedented for an American Presidential candidate to repeatedly bestow fulsome praise on the leader of a foreign power hostile to the United States. And to receive equally fawning compliments in return from that leader.
Yet that is precisely what has happened between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
Thus Putin on Trump: “He is a bright personality, a talented person, no doubt about it. It is not up to us to appraise his positive sides, it is up to the U.S. voters. but, as we can see, he is an absolute leader in the presidential race.”
Vladimir Putin
And Trump on Putin: “It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond. He’s running his country, and at least he’s a leader. Unlike what we have in this country”—a clear attack on President Barack Obama.
Donald Trump
Case #3: The Justice Department did not invalidate the results of the 2016 election, despite overwhelming evidence that Russia intervened to elect Trump as Vladimir Putin’s chosen candidate.
- Admiral Michael Rogers, director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and US Cyber Command, said in mid-November that Russia made “a conscious effort” to sway the results of the Presidential election by the hacking of 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Committee.
- “There shouldn’t be any doubt in anybody’s mind,” said Rogers. “This was not something that was done casually. This was not something that was done by chance. This was not a target that was selected purely arbitrarily. This was a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect.”
- The Russians hacked the Democratic committee’s servers–but not those of the Republican National Committee.
- On December 16, FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. agreed with a CIA assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election in part to help Donald Trump win the White House.
Trump, however, has steadfastly denied any such role by Russia: “I think it’s ridiculous,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think it’s just another excuse. I don’t believe it….No, I don’t believe it at all.”
Case #4: The Justice Department did not prosecute Trump for treason, even though he solicited aid from Russia, a nation hostile to the United States. And no major official of the government—including President Obama—publicly condemned him as a traitor.
At a news conference in Doral, Florida on July 27, Trump publicly invited “Russia”—i.e., Vladimir Putin—to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails: “I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
This was essentially treason—calling on a hostile foreign power to interfere directly in an American Presidential election. And it was seen as such by both Democrats and even Republicans.
- “This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent,” Hillary for America policy adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement. “That’s not hyperbole, those are just the facts. This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue.”
- “I find those kinds of statements to be totally outrageous because you’ve got now a presidential candidate who is, in fact, asking the Russians to engage in American politics,” said former CIA Director Leon Panetta, a Clinton surrogate. “I just think that’s beyond the pale.”
- Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, said: “Russia is a global menace led by a devious thug. Putin should stay out of this election.”
- Even Trump’s Vice Presidential running mate, Mike Pence, said: “If it is Russia and they are interfering in our elections, I can assure you both parties and the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences.”
FBI Director James Comey believed that Hillary Clinton’s emails on a private server were so dangerous to national security that he announced—11 days before the election—that he was re-opening an investigation he had closed.
That announcement erased widespread outrage over Trump’s unintended admissions of predatory behavior toward women—“Grab them by the pussy”—and reversed Clinton’s growing lead in the polls.
Yet the Bureau has not issued any such statements about the continuing reports of close ties between Trump and Putin, and Trump’s possible investments in Russia.
To their shame, the federal agencies charged with safeguarding America failed to take action against these abuses. And, to their shame, the news media, to date, has failed to indict them for their negligence.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 3, 2017 at 12:01 am
Threatening his Republican and Democratic opponents with violence played a major role in Donald Trump’s campaign for President.
No other candidate—Republican or Democrat—had ever made such repeated and brutal use of threats of physical assault in pursuing the Presidency.
- Philip Klein, the managing editor of the Washington Examiner, wrote on the eve of the Republican National Convention in July: “Political commentators now routinely talk about the riots that would break out in Cleveland if Trump were denied the nomination, about how his supporters have guns and all hell could break loose, that they would burn everything to the ground. It works to Trump’s advantage to not try too hard to dispel these notions.”
- On August 9, Trump told a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina: “Hillary [Clinton] wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. If she gets to pick her [Supreme Court] judges, nothing you can do folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know.”
- “Don’t treat this as a political misstep,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy of Connecticut, who has called for stiffer gun laws, wrote on Twitter. “It’s an assassination threat, seriously upping the possibility of a national tragedy & crisis.”
- “Well, let me say if someone else said that outside of the hall, he’d be in the back of a police wagon now, with the Secret Service questioning him,” said Michael Hayden, former head of the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA).
Making threats against anyone under protection by the U.S. Secret Service is a felony. Yet Donald Trump was never held legally accountable by the Justice Department.
Threats of this type continued to be made by Trump supporters right up to the day of the election.
- On July 29, Roger Stone, a notorious Right-wing political consultant acting as a Trump strategist, told Breitbart News: “The first thing Trump needs to do is begin talking about [voter fraud] constantly. If there’s voter fraud, this election will be illegitimate, the election of the winner will be illegitimate, we will have a constitutional crisis, widespread civil disobedience, and the government will no longer be the government.”
- At a town hall meeting where Trump’s Vice Presidential nominee Mike Pence appeared, a woman named Rhonda said: “For me personally, if Hillary Clinton gets in, I myself am ready for a revolution.”
- In Cincinnati, a Trump supporter threatened to forcibly remove Clinton from the White House if she won the race: “If she’s in office, I hope we can start a coup. She should be in prison or shot. That’s how I feel about it,” Dan Bowman, a 50-year-old contractor, said of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. “We’re going to have a revolution and take them out of office if that’s what it takes. There’s going to be a lot of bloodshed. But that’s what it’s going to take….I would do whatever I can for my country.”
Even Fergus Cullen, former chairman of the New Hampshire GOP, expressed fear of what might happen if Trump lost the election:
Fergus Cullen
“That’s really scary,” Cullen said, recounting the violence at Trump rallies around the country leading up to the Republican National Convention. “In this country, we’ve always had recriminations after one side loses. But we haven’t had riots. We haven’t had mobs that act out with violence against supporters of the other side.
“There’s no telling what his supporters would be willing to do at the slightest encouragement from their candidate,” he said.
Trump even began encouraging his mostly white supporters to sign up online to be “election observers” to stop “Crooked Hillary from rigging this election.” He urged them to act as poll watchers in “other” [non-white] communities to ensure that things are “on the up and up.”
Many of his supporters promised to do so.
“Trump said to watch your precincts. I’m going to go, for sure,” said Steve Webb, a 61-year-old carpenter from Fairfield, Ohio.
“I’ll look for…well, it’s called racial profiling. Mexicans. Syrians. People who can’t speak American,” he said. “I’m going to go right up behind them. I’ll do everything legally. I want to see if they are accountable. I’m not going to do anything illegal. I’m going to make them a little bit nervous.”
Knowing that large numbers of angry—and possibly armed—Right-wingers planned to descend on polling places could only have had a chilling effect on untold numbers of Democratic voters. And this would have been especially true in heavily conservative states.
Both the USA Patriot Act and the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act have statutes dealing with making terrorist threats against government institutions to influence their members.
President George W. Bush signing the USA Patriot Reauthorization Act of 2005
If Trump’s remarks did not violate one or both of those laws, certainly remarks made by his surrogates did.
Thus, the Justice Department could have cited the Patriot Act in indicting Trump and/or any number of his followers for “activities that…appear to be intended…to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion [and]…occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.”
The Justice Department could have also demanded that the results of the election be invalidated on the basis that widespread voter and candidate intimidation played a massive role in it.
But of course this did not happen.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 2, 2017 at 12:12 am
On November 9, 1923, Nazi Party Fuhrer Adolf Hitler tried to overthrow the government in Munich, Bavaria.
About 2,000 Nazis marched to the center of Munich, where they confronted heavily-armed police. A shootout erupted, killing 16 Nazis and four policemen.
Hitler was injured during the clash, but managed to escape. Two days later, he was arrested and charged with treason.
Put on trial, he found himself treated as a celebrity by a judge sympathetic to Right-wing groups. He was allowed to brutally cross-examine witnesses and even make inflammatory speeches.
At the end of the trial, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.
Serving time in Landsberg Prison, in Bavaria. he was given a huge cell, allowed to receive unlimited visitors and gifts, and treated with deference by guards and inmates.
Hitler used his time in prison to write his infamous book, Mein Kampf-–“My Struggle.” Part autobiography, part political treatise, it laid out his future plans—including the extermination of the Jews and the conquest of the Soviet Union.
Adolf Hitler leaving Landsberg Prison, December, 20, 1924
Nine months later, he was released on parole—by authorities loyal to the authoritarian Right instead of the newly-created Weimar Republic.
Hitler immediately began rebuilding the shattered Nazi party—and deciding on a new strategy to gain power. Never again would he resort to armed force. He would win office by election—or intrigue.
Writes historian Volker Ullrich, in his monumental new biography, Hitler: Ascent 1889 – 1939: “Historians have perennially tried to answer the question of whether Hitler’s rise to power could have been halted….
“There were repeated opportunities to end Hitler’s run of triumphs. The most obvious one was after the failed Putsch of November 1923. Had the Munich rabble-rouser been forced to serve his full five-year term of imprisonment in Landsberg, it is extremely unlikely that he would have been able to restart his political career.”
Thus, it isn’t just what happens that can influence the course of history. Often, it’s what doesn’t happen that has at least as great a result.
Future historians—if there are any—may one day write that it’s what didn’t happen that played at least as great a role in electing Donald Trump President as what actually did.
There were at least four instances where intervention by Federal law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2016 election.
Donald Trump
Case #1: The Justice Department did not indict Trump and/or the Attorney Generals of Texas and/or Florida for their roles in the Trump University scandal.
- Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi personally solicited a political contribution from Donald Trump around the same time her office deliberated joining an investigation of alleged fraud at Trump University and its affiliates.
- After Bondi dropped the Trump University case against Trump, he wrote her a check $25,000 for her re-election campaign. The money came from the Donald J. Trump Foundation.
- Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton moved to muzzle a former state regulator who says he was ordered in 2010 to drop a fraud investigation into Trump University for political reasons.
- Paxton’s office issued a cease and desist letter to former Deputy Chief of Consumer Protection John Owens after he made public copies of a 14-page internal summary of the state’s case against Donald Trump for scamming millions from students of his now-defunct real estate seminar.
- After the Texas case was dropped, Trump cut a $35,000 check to the gubernatorial campaign of then attorney general and now Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
One attorney general who refused to accept money from Trump was New York’s Eric Schneiderman. His decision to press fraud claims against Trump forced the real estate mogul to settle the case out of court for $25 million.
“Today’s $25 million settlement agreement is a stunning reversal by Donald Trump,” said Schneiderman on November 18, “and a major victory for the over 6,000 victims of his fraudulent university.”
There have been no press reports that the Justice Department investigated these cases to determine if Trump violated the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act statutes.
If the Justice Department did not investigate these cases, it should have. And if he did violate the RICO statutes, he should have been indicted, even as a Presidential candidate or President-elect.
Even if an indictment had not produced a conviction, the mere bringing of one would have cast an unprecedented cloud over his candidacy–let alone his being sworn in as President.
Case #2: The Justice Department did not indict Trump for his series of threats that he made—directly and indirectly—against Republicans and Democrats throughout the 2016 campaign.
- On March 16, he warned Republicans that if he didn’t win the GOP nomination in July, his supporters would literally riot: “I think you’d have riots. I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen. I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.”
- An NBC reporter summed it up as: “The message to Republicans was clear on [March 16]: ‘Nice convention you got there, shame if something happened to it.'”
- That Republicans clearly saw this as a threat is undeniable. Paul Ryan, their Speaker of the House, said on March 17: “Nobody should say such things in my opinion because to even address or hint to violence is unacceptable.”
- And Ohio governor and Republican presidential candidate John Kasich chinned in. “Leaders don’t imply violence,” Kasich told “Face the Nation” on March 20. “When he says that there could be riots, that’s inappropriate. I think you understand that, okay? Secondly, while we have our differences and disagreements, we’re Americans. Americans don’t say, ‘Let’s take to the streets and have violence.'”
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 30, 2016 at 1:08 am
Donald Trump has promised–or threatened, depending on your viewpoint–to build a wall separating the United States from Mexico.
Its purpose: To stop the oncoming waves of illegal immigration from that country–and other poor, strife-torn nations in Central and Latin America.
Illegal aliens crossing into the United States
“Building a wall is easy, and it can be done inexpensively,” Trump said in an interview. “It’s not even a difficult project if you know what you’re doing.”
Skeptics have derided the sheer difficulties of building such a wall. Among these:
- The United States/Mexican border stretches for 1,954 miles–and encompasses rivers, deserts and mountains.
- Environmental and engineering problems.
- Squabbles with ranchers who don’t want to give up any of their land.
- Building such a wall would cost untold billions of dollars.
- Drug traffickers and smugglers could easily tunnel under it into the United States–as they are now doing.
But there is another way that, as President, Trump can attack illegal immigration: By attacking the “sanctuary cities” across the nation that illegally shield violators of Federal immigration laws from arrest.
Among the 31 “sanctuary cities” of this country: Washington, D.C.; New York City; Los Angeles; Chicago; San Francisco; Santa Ana; San Diego; Salt Lake City; Phoenix; Dallas; Houston; Austin; Detroit; Jersey City; Minneapolis; Miami; Denver; Baltimore; Seattle; Portland, Oregon; New Haven, Connecticut; and Portland, Maine.
These cities have adopted “sanctuary” ordinances that forbid municipal funds or resources to be used to enforce federal immigration laws, usually by not allowing police or municipal employees to inquire about one’s immigration status.
All Trump has to do is cut off Federal funding to those cities which systematically defy the immigration laws of the United States.
This would prove far cheaper and more effective than building a wall along the entire U.S.-Mexican border.
And that is precisely what he has threatened to do.
“Block funding for sanctuary cities. We block the funding. No more funding,” Trump said in August when he laid out his immigration plans at a rally in Phoenix. “Cities that refuse to cooperate with federal authorities will not receive taxpayer dollars.”
One such city is New York, which could lose up to $10.4 billion in Federal funding. Among the city agencies that receive the biggest share of these monies: The New York City Housing Authority, the Administration for Children’s Services and the Department of Social Services.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has openly rejected Trump’s threat: “We’re not going to tear families apart. So we will do everything we know how to do to resist that.”
Mayors from other “sanctuary cities”–such as Chicago, Baltimore and San Francisco–have similarly echoed de Blasio’s sentiments.
Trump has never held public office, and there is much he has to learn about the difficulties of carrying out his programs. But his experience as a businessman has given him a solid feel for the power of greed and selfishness. And he knows well how to exploit both.
Donald Trump takes the oath of office
By blocking monies to “sanctuary cities,” Trump will quickly drive a wedge between ardent liberals such as Bill de Blazio and their constituents who depend on those infusions of Federal monies.
In New York, for example, once Federal monies are cut off:
- Legal United States citizens won’t be able to obtain assistance allowing low- and moderate-income families to rent housing in the private market.
- American children needing care for their mental, emotional or medical needs will be denied it.
- Americans wanting to adopt a child in foster care will be unable to do so, because the monies won’t be there to pay the officials who now staff these agencies.
In short: The beautiful “every-man-is-my-brother” theories of liberal politicians are about to slam head-on into the ugliness of real-world needs and wants.
And when legal citizens can’t obtain the government services they have been used to getting, they will quickly become enraged.
At first, many–perhaps most–of the people living in “sanctuary cities” will rush to support their elected officials in refusing to knuckle under.
But as time passes, public needs will go unmet while Federal monies continue to be blocked.
First they will aim their rage at the local–and elected–officials of these cities responsible for “sanctuary” policies. And then they will focus their anger on the illegal aliens being protected by civic officials.
This will be followed by increasing demands by legal–and law-abiding–American citizens for their elected officials to cooperate with Federal immigration agents.
As tensions rise, so will demands for the election of new mayors and supervisors. And the chief demand of those voters will be: “Turn over the illegal aliens and restore our public services!”
Some citizens will almost certainly take out their anger on anyone who even looks Hispanic, let alone speaks only Spanish.
Those citizens who feel conscience-torn by demanding an end to “sanctuary cities” will console themselves with this literal truth:
Illegal immigration is against the law. And local officials have a sworn duty to obey the law at all levels–including those laws they don’t agree with.
In the end, Trump will almost certainly win his battle on this. And his victory will give him confidence to press on with the rest of his agenda.
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In Business, History, Law, Social commentary on December 23, 2016 at 12:11 am
Once again, December final exams are fast approaching–and, with them, an annual rite of passage for tens of thousands of college students: Graduation.
That occasion when young innocents formally leave the academic nest to make their way into the harsh realities of the work
Among those harsh realities: The average college graduate faces a debt loan of more than $29,400.
Click here: Student loan debt tops $30,000 per borrower – Oct. 18, 2016
But wait! There’s something even more demoralizing awaiting these “heirs of tomorrow.”
The discovery that, for all the “we hire only the brightest” rhetoric by employers, having a college degree actually means little to most CEOs.
A new report from the Center for College Affordability and Productivity concludes that nearly half of the nation’s recent college graduates hold jobs that don’t require a degree.
In short, many of the jobs they hold aren’t worth the price of that diploma.
From that report:
Increasing numbers of recent college graduates are ending up in relatively low-skilled jobs that, historically, have gone to those with lower levels of educational attainment. This study examines this phenomenon in some detail, concluding:
- About 48% of employed U.S. college graduates are in jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) suggests requires less than a four-year college education. Eleven percent of employed college graduates are in occupations requiring more than a high-school diploma but less than a bachelor’s, and 37% are in occupations requiring no more than a high-school diploma;
- The proportion of over-educated workers in occupations appears to have grown substantially; in 1970, fewer than one percent of taxi drivers and two percent of firefighters had college degrees, while now more than 15% do in both jobs;
- About 5,000,000 college graduates are in jobs the BLS says require less than a high-school education;
Click here: Underemployment of College Graduates
But the future isn’t completely bleak–at least not for women willing to transform themselves into glorified babysitters for obscenely-rich families.
Consider a recent post on Facebook by AC Connections, which describes itself as “a nanny and household placement agency.”
Under the headline, “Growing Nanny Industry Is Enticing More College Graduates,” the ad/article begins:
“As more college graduates leave school and struggle to find work, they’re turning to the nanny industry.
“Many working moms love the idea of a highly-educated, experienced nanny providing individualized care for their children in their own homes. But it can come with a substantial price tag.
“In this challenging economic climate, more college graduates are finding a little spoonful of sugar in the burgeoning nanny industry.
“These ‘modern day Mary Poppinses’ are educated, experienced, and in increasingly high demand.”
The International Nanny Association claims that the average salary is about $16 an hour.
The ad asserts that “highly qualified and educated nannies in certain locations can make $100,000 or more each year. It’s not uncommon for nannies to start out with salaries comparable to entry-level finance careers.”
Click here: Growing Nanny Industry Is Enticing More College Graduates
Besides the money, says the ad, there are other reasons for becoming a nanny:
“Many love working with children, want a chance to use their college education, or enjoy the role of caretaker.”
“A chance to use their college education”? As in cleaning up spills, changing diapers and feeding baby food to infants. Not to mention all the exciting intellectual exchanges they’ll have with five- and six-year-olds.
So if you’re a college graduate who can’t convince an employer within your chosen profession–such as pharmacy or engineering–to hire you, there’s always the Mary Poppins option.
Or some similar menial “career” that caters to the indulgences of the American plutocracy, for whom $16 an hour amounts to a Snicker’s candy bar for the fast-disappearing middle class.
It should be enough to make you hesitate before signing up for a loan to cover the average $57,000 cost of a public college education.
Or an even larger loan to cover the $132,000 cost of a private college education.
But if you’re still thinking that “employers really respect that degree,” consider this: Job recruiters spend exactly six seconds examining your resume.
According to The Ladders research, recruiters spend an average of “six seconds before they make the initial ‘fit or not fit’ decision” to interview you.
Not hire you–just meet you. You’ll still have plenty of chances to get shot down during or after the interview.
Click here: What Recruiters Look At During The 6 Seconds They Spend On Your Resume
According to the study, when scanning a resume, recruiters looked at the following items:
-
Your name
- Current title and company
- Current position start and end dates
- Previous title and company
- Previous position start and end dates
- Education
American employers should be legally required to show as much responsibly for hiring as college students are expected to demonstrate in pursuing an education.
Until this happens, those young men and women thinking of committing a big chunk of their time and going into massive debt to pursue a college degree should think twice before doing so.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on December 12, 2016 at 12:41 am
Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern politics, warns in his masterwork, The Discourses:
All those who have written upon civil institutions demonstrate…that whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.
If their evil disposition remains concealed for a time, it must be attributed to some unknown reason; and we must assume that it lacked occasion to show itself. But time, which has been said to be the father of all truth, does not fail to bring it to light.
Where the crimes of corporate employers are concerned, Americans need not wait for their evil disposition to reveal itself. It has been fully revealed for decades.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Increased media attention to “income inequality” has led some Democratic lawmakers to press for a long-overdue reform: Raising the stock threshold to 50%, making it harder for firms to abandon their country.
Yet a more comprehensive reform package would include legislation that mandates:
- American companies that move their headquarters abroad would be officially declared “agents of a foreign power engaged in hostile activity against the United States.”
- Those “foreign-owned” companies would be forbidden to sell products within the United States.
- Their assets would be subject to seizure by the Internal Revenue Service.
- The citizenship of those Americans engaged in such activity would be revoked and they would be ordered to leave the United States or face criminal prosecution for treason–and face trial for this if they returned.
Public Campaign is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to eliminating special interest money in American politics by securing publicly-funded elections at local, state and federal levels.
According to Public Campaign: “Twenty-five profitable Fortune 500 companies, some with a history of tax dodging, spent more on lobbying than they paid in federal taxes between 2008 and 2012….
“Over the past five years, these 25 corporations generated nearly $170 billion in combined profits and received $8.7 billion in tax rebates while paying their lobbyists over half a billion ($543 million), an average of nearly $300,000 a day.
“Based on newly released data by Citizens for Tax Justice, these 25 companies actually received tax refunds overall those five years.
“So most individual American families and small businesses have bigger tax bills than these corporate giants. Unfortunately, most American families and businesses do not have the lobbying operation and access these 25 companies enjoy.”
Several companies on this list are well-known–and spend millions of dollars on self-glorifying ads every year to convince consumers how wonderful they are. Among these:
- General Electric
- PG&E Corp
- Verizon Communications
- Boeing
- Consolidated Edison
- MetroPCS Communications
Republicans–and some Democrats–have tirelessly defended the greed of the richest and most privileged in America. For example, they have dubbed the estate tax–which affects only a tiny, rich minority–“the death tax.”
This makes it appear to affect everyone. So millions of poor and middle-class Americans who will never have to pay a cent in estate taxes vigorously oppose it.
It’s time to recognize that a country can be betrayed for other than political reasons. It can be sold out for economic ones, too.
Trea$on
The United States desperately needs a new definition of treason–one that takes into account the following:
- Employers who set up offshore accounts to claim their American companies are foreign-owned–and thus exempt from taxes–are traitors.
- Employers who enrich themselves by firing American workers and moving their plants to other countries–are traitors.
- Employers who systematically violate Federal immigration laws–to hire illegal aliens at cut-rate wages–instead of American workers–are traitors.
For thousands of years, otherwise highly intelligent men and women believed that kings ruled by divine right. That kings held absolute power, levied extortionate taxes and sent countless millions of men off to war–all because God wanted it that way.
That lunacy was dealt a deadly blow in 1776 when American Revolutionaries threw off the despotic rule of King George III of England.
But today, millions of Americans remain imprisoned by an equally outrageous and dangerous theory: The Theory of the Divine Right of Employers.
America can no longer afford such a dangerous fallacy as the Theory of the Divine Right of Employers.
The solution lies in remembering that the powerful never voluntarily surrender their privileges. Americans did not win their freedom from Great Britain–and its enslaving doctrine of the “divine right of kings”–by begging for their rights.
Americans will not win their freedom from their corporate masters–and the equally enslaving doctrine of “the divine right of employers”–by begging for the right to work and support themselves and their families.
And they will most certainly never win such freedom by supporting Right-wing political candidates whose first and only allegiance is to the corporate interests who bankroll their campaigns.
Corporations can–and do–spend millions of dollars on TV ads, selling lies–such as if the wealthy are forced to pay their fair share of taxes, jobs will inevitably disappear.
But Americans can choose to reject those lies–and demand that employers behave like patriots instead of predators.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on December 9, 2016 at 12:22 am
The British offered Revolutionary War General Benedict Arnold £20,000 for betraying West Point to the Crown.
Benedict Arnold
But Arnold was a piker compared to companies that are raking in literally billions of untaxed dollars by betraying the United States in its time of economic trial.
To avoid paying their legitimate share of taxes, they move their headquarters overseas to countries with reduced tax rates. In tax parlance, this is called an “inversion.”
For almost 20 years, tax-avoiding corporations fled to Caribbean countries such as Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. But in 2004, Congress ruled that American companies could relocate overseas if foreign shareholders owned 20% of their stock.
According to statistics compiled by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in 2014:
“Forty-seven U.S. corporations have reincorporated overseas through corporate inversions in the last 10 years, far more than during the previous 20 years combined.
“In total, 75 U.S. corporations have inverted since 1994 – with one other inversion occurring in 1983. What’s more, there are a dozen prospective inversion deals involving U.S. corporations looking to reincorporate overseas, according to CRS
“The new data underscores the significant increase in the number of U.S. corporations that have or are seeking to lower their U.S. taxes by reincorporating overseas.
“It also adds urgency to a legislative solution. Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander Levin in May introduced legislation that would tighten rules to limit inversions.
“The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the legislation would save $19.5 billion over 10 years. Companion legislation was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Carl Levin.
“‘Barely a week seems to pass without news that another corporation plans to move its address overseas simply to avoid paying its fair share of U.S. taxes,’” said Ranking Member Levin.
“These corporate inversions are costing the U.S. billions of dollars and undermining vital domestic interests.
“‘We can and should address this problem immediately through legislation to tighten rules to limit the ability of corporations to simply change their address and ship U.S. tax dollars overseas.’”
Among those companies that have chosen to betray their country in its time of economic need:
| INVERSION YEAR |
COMPANY NAME |
TYPE |
COUNTRY OF INCORPORATION |
REVENUE |
| 1983 |
McDermott International |
Engineering |
Panama |
$2.7 billion |
| 1994 |
Helen of Troy |
Consumer Products |
Bermuda |
$1.3 billion (FY 2014) |
| 1996 |
Triton Energy |
Oil and Gas |
Cayman Islands |
Acq by Hess in ’01 |
| 1996 |
Chicago Bridge & Iron (CBI) |
Engineering |
Netherlands |
$11.1 billion |
| 1997 |
Tyco International |
Diversified Manufacturer |
Bermuda |
$10.6 billion |
| 1997 |
Santa Fe International |
Oil and Gas |
Cayman Islands |
Acq by Transocean in ’07 |
| 1998 |
Fruit of the Loom |
Apparel Manufacturer |
Cayman Islands |
private company |
| 1998 |
Gold Reserve |
Mining |
Bermuda |
N/A |
| 1998 |
Playstar Corp. |
Toys |
Antigua |
Acq by Premier Mobile in ’06 |
| 1999 |
Transocean |
Offshore Drilling |
Cayman Islands |
$9.4 billion |
| 1999 |
White Mountain Insurance |
Insurance |
Bermuda |
$2.3 billion |
| 1999 |
Xoma Corp. |
Biotech |
Bermuda |
$35.5 million |
| 1999 |
PXRE Group |
Insurance |
Bermuda |
Acq by Argonaut Group in ’07 |
| 1999 |
Trenwick Group |
Insurance |
Bermuda |
Acq by LaSalle Re Holdings in ’00 |
| 2000 |
Applied Power |
Engineering |
Bermuda |
Now called Actuant $494 million |
| 2000 |
Everest Reinsurance |
Insurance |
Bermuda |
$5.6 billion |
| 2000 |
Seagate Technology |
Data Storage |
Cayman Islands |
$14.4 billion |
| 2000 |
R&B Falcon |
Drilling |
Cayman Islands |
Acq by Transocean in ’00 |
| 2001 |
Global Santa Fe Corp. |
Offshore Drilling |
Cayman Islands |
Acq by Transocean in ’07 |
| 2001 |
Foster Wheeler |
Engineering |
Bermuda |
$559 million |
| 2001 |
Accenture |
Consulting |
Bermuda |
$28.6 billion (FY 2013) |
| 2001 |
Global Marine |
Engineering |
Cayman Islands |
Acq by Bridgehouse Capital in ’04 |
| 2002 |
Noble Corp. |
Offshore Drilling |
Cayman Islands |
$4.2 billion |
| 2002 |
Cooper Industries |
Electrical Products |
Bermuda |
Acq by Eaton in ’12 |
| 2002 |
Nabor Industries |
Oil and Gas |
Bermuda |
$1.6 billion |
| 2002 |
Weatherford International |
Oil and Gas |
Bermuda |
$15.2 billion |
| 2002 |
Ingersoll-Rand |
Industrial Manufacturer |
Bermuda |
$12.3 billion |
| 2002 |
PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting |
Consulting |
Bermuda |
N/A |
| 2002 |
Herbalife International |
Nutrition |
Cayman Islands |
$4.8 billion (sales) |
| 2005 |
Luna Gold Corp |
Mining |
Canada |
$85.3 million |
| 2007 |
Lincoln Gold Group |
Mining |
N/A |
|
| 2007 |
Western Goldfields |
Mining |
N/A |
Acq by New Gold in ’09 |
| 2007 |
Star Maritime Acquisition Grp |
Shipping |
N/A |
Now Star Bulk $69 million |
| 2007 |
Argonaut Group |
Insurance |
Bermuda |
$1.4 billion |
| 2007 |
Fluid Media Networks |
Music Distribution |
|
|
| 2008 |
Tyco Electronics |
Industrial Manufacturer |
Switzerland |
Now TE Connectivity $3.4 billion (FY ’13) |
| 2008 |
Foster Wheeler |
Engineering |
Bermuda |
$3.3 billion |
| 2008 |
Covidien |
Healthcare |
Ireland |
$10.2 billion |
| 2008 |
Patch International Inc |
Oil and Gas |
Canada |
|
| 2008 |
Arcade Acquisition Group |
Financial |
|
|
| 2008 |
Energy Infrastructure Acquisition Group |
Energy |
|
|
| 2008 |
Ascend Acquisition Group |
Electronics |
N/A |
Acq by Kitara Media in ’13 |
| 2008 |
ENSCO International |
Oil and Gas |
United Kingdom |
$4.9 billion |
| 2009 |
Tim Hortons Inc |
Restaurant Chain |
Canada |
$3.2 billion |
| 2009 |
Hungarian Telephone & Cable Corp. |
Telecommunications |
Denmark |
$219 million |
| 2009 |
Alpha Security Group |
Security |
N/A |
|
| 2009 |
Alyst Acquisition Group |
Financial |
N/A |
Acq by China Networks Media in ’09 |
| 2009 |
2020 ChinaCap Acquirco |
Financial |
N/A |
Acq by Exceed Co. in ’09 |
| 2009 |
Ideation Acquisition Grp |
Private Equity |
N/A |
Acq by SearchMedia in ’09 |
| 2009 |
InterAmerican Acquisition Grp |
Business Management |
N/A |
Acq by Sing Kung Ltd in ’09 |
| 2009 |
Vantage Energy Services |
Offshore Drilling |
Cayman Islands |
$732 million |
| 2009 |
Plastinum Polymer Tech Corp. |
Industrial Manufacturer |
|
|
| 2010 |
Valient Biovail |
Pharmaceuticals |
Canada |
$5.7 billion |
| 2010 |
Pride International |
Offshore Drilling |
United Kindom |
Acq by Ensco in ’11 |
| 2010 |
Global Indemnity |
Insurance |
Ireland |
$319 billion |
| 2011 |
Alkermes, Inc. |
Biopharmaceutical |
Ireland |
$575 million |
| 2011 |
TE Connectivity |
Industrial Manufacturer |
Switzerland |
$13.3 billion |
| 2011 |
Pentair |
Water Filtration |
Switzerland |
$7.5 billion |
| 2012 |
Rowan Companies |
Oil Well Drilling |
United Kindom |
$1.5 billion |
| 2012 |
AON |
Insurance |
United Kindom |
$11.8 billion |
| 2012 |
Tronox Inc |
Chemical |
Australia |
$1.9 billion |
| 2012 |
Jazz Pharmaceuticals / Azur Pharma |
Pharmaceuticals |
Ireland |
$872 million |
| 2012 |
D.E. Master Blenders |
Coffee |
Netherlands |
$3.5 billion |
| 2012 |
Stratasys |
Printer Manufacturer |
Israel |
$486.7 million |
| 2012 |
Eaton/Cooper |
Power Management |
Ireland |
$22 billion |
| 2012 |
Endo Health Solutions |
Pharmaceuticals |
Ireland |
$2.6 billion |
| 2013 |
Liberty Global PLC |
Cable Company |
United Kindom |
$17.3 billion |
| 2013 |
Actavis / Warner Chilcott |
Pharmaceuticals |
Ireland |
$8.7 billion |
| 2013 |
Perrigo/Elan |
Pharmaceuticals |
Ireland |
$3.5 billion (FY 2013) |
| 2013 |
Cadence Pharmaceuticals |
Pharmaceuticals |
Ireland |
$110 million |
| 2014 |
Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals |
Pharmaceuticals |
Ireland |
$2.2 billion |
| 2014 |
Chiquita Brands |
Produce |
Ireland |
$3 billion |
| 2014 |
Medtronic |
Pharmaceuticals |
Ireland |
$16.5 billion |
SOURCE: Source: Ways and Means Committee Democrats. GRAPHIC: Danielle Douglas – The Washington Post. Published Aug. 6, 2014.
The most popular countries for these “inversions” are:
- The Cayman Islands
- Bermuda
- Canada
- United Kingdom
- Ireland
- Switzerland
- Netherlands
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on December 8, 2016 at 11:04 am
On May 13, 2012, Forbes magazine ran an Op-Ed piece under the headline: “For De-Friending The U.S., Facebook’s Eduardo Saverin Is an American Hero.”
Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer of New York angrily disagreed.
Chuck Shumer
“It is scary. It is a scary, absurd place where even a tax dodger who renounces America for his own 30 pieces of silver is celebrated as a patriot and an American hero.
“It is perverse. I am appalled by making heroic a man who renounces citizenship to escape a tax rate of capital gains of 15%.
“No one gets rich in America on their own,” Schumer said. “And when people do well in America, they should do well by America. I believe the vast majority of Americans believe this, too.”
From that Op-Ed piece:
“Saverin’s flight from the U.S. is yet another reminder of the superiority of a national consumption tax that in a perfect world would be implemented in concert with the abolition of the I.R.S.”
It’s tempting to imagine a world without an agency to collect taxes. But it’s nightmarish to contemplate a world where there were no taxes to pay for
- a powerful military to protect us;
- an FBI to combat terrorism and organized crime;
- an FAA to safely regulate airline traffic;
- agencies to repair roads;
- agencies to erect public buildings (such as schools, courts and libraries) and
- agencies (such as the EPA and FDA) to protect us from predatory businessmen.
The Op-Ed piece further asserts that “you cannot limit the power of the Federal Government if its officials hold the power to tax incomes.”
Every nation in history–-whether a democracy or a dictatorship, whether capitalist, socialist or communist–-has understood the absolute necessity for collecting public revenues. And it has created means by which to do so.
“When individuals resist governmental hubris, we should exalt their actions.”
We should, in short, celebrate those who come to the United States to make fortunes they could not make anywhere else–-and then, when they do, turn their backs on their adopted country.
We should rejoice that they have stuffed billions of dollars more into their already-fat pockets and left their supposed fellow countrymen to shift for themselves.
“In an ideal world the Federal Government should implement a consumption tax. And if, as a result, poor people suffer because they’re taxed at the same level as rich ones, fine.
“Everyone should know how much it costs to run the government.”
Of course we should have a “regressive” tax that “hits low incomes at the same percentage as high ones.”
Of course, those who are barely able to feed their families or can’t afford medical care should pay as much in taxes as a rich parasite who, like Mitt Romney, throws out $10,000 bets like so many dimes.
“If the Federal Government can’t fund all its programs because rich people like Saverin refuse to pay taxes, then U.S. taxpayers generally will have to make good for the missing taxes. It’s the fault of Congress that it cannot put an end to any program.”
For billionaires like Saverin and the well-heeled types who subscribe to Forbes, it doesn’t matter whether “the Federal Government can’t fund all its programs.”
San Simeon, estate of William Randolph Hearst
Greed-obsessed “swells” like Saverin:
- don’t depend on Medicare–they can easily afford the best doctors money can buy;
- don’t have to depend on Social Security to see them through old age;
- don’t have to worry about standing in food bank lines;
- don’t need to rely on police departments–if they’re threatened, they can easily afford round-the-clock bodyguards;
- don’t need consumer protection agencies; if they’re victimized by unscrupulous businessmen, they can hire platoons of lawyers and private detectives.
A contemporary writer who warned of America’s abandonment by its privileged classes was Christopher Lasch. In his posthumously published last book, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy [2005] he wrote:
“There has always been a privileged class, even in America. But it has never been so dangerously isolated from its surroundings.
“George Bush’s [the president who served from 1989 to 1992] wonderment, when he saw for the first time an electronic scanning device at a supermarket checkout counter, revealed…the chasm that divides the privileged classes from the rest of the nation.”
Until recently, wrote Lasch, American cultural and economic elites willingly shouldered civic responsibilities. But in post-modern capitalism, a professional elite defines itself as entirely separate from civic concerns.
The new elites flourish through enterprises that operate across international borders. The rich in America have more in common with their fellows in Europe or Asia than with the vast majority of their fellow Americans who don’t share their comfortable surroundings.
Thus, the privileged class in America–the top 1%–has separated itself from the crumbling public services and industrial cities that are used and lived in by the rest of the country’s citizens.
Even worse, our society has condoned their exalted status. The dust jacket blurb for James Patterson’s crime-thriller, NYPD Red, says it best:
“NYPD Red is a special task force charged with protecting the interests of Manhattan’s wealthiest and most powerful citizens.”
It’s time to protect the 99% of America’s citizens against the predators of its 1% wealthiest.
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THE #1 CAUSE OF UNEMPLOYMENT: EMPLOYERS: PART TWO (OF THREE)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on January 6, 2017 at 12:10 amAn Employers Responsibility Act (ERA) would simultaneously address the following evils for which employers are directly responsible:
Among its provisions:
(1) American companies that close plants in the United States and open others abroad would be forbidden to sell products made in those foreign plants within the United States.
This would protect both American and foreign workers from employers seeking to profit at their expense. American workers would be ensured of continued employment. And foreign laborers would be protected against substandard wages and working conditions.
Companies found violating this provision would be subject to Federal criminal prosecution. Guilty verdicts would result in heavy fines and lengthy imprisonment for their owners and top managers.
(2) Large companies (those employing more than 100 persons) would be required to create entry-level training programs for new, future employees.
These would be modeled on programs now existing for public employees, such as firefighters, police officers and members of the armed services.
Such programs would remove the employer excuse, “I’m sorry, but we can’t hire you because you’ve never had any experience in this line of work.” After all, the Air Force has never rejected an applicant because, “I’m sorry, but you’ve never flown a plane before.”
This Nation has greatly benefited from the humane and professional efforts of the men and women who have graduated from public-sector training programs. There is no reason for the private sector to shun programs that have succeeded so brilliantly for the public sector.
(3) Employers would receive tax credits for creating professional, well-paying, full-time jobs.
This would encourage the creation of better than the menial, dead-end, low-paying and often part-time jobs which exist in the service industry. Employers found using such tax credits for any other purpose would be prosecuted for tax fraud.
(4) A company that acquired another—through a merger or buyout—would be forbidden to fire en masse the career employees of that acquired company.
This would be comparable to the protection existing for career civil service employees. Such a ban would prevent a return to the predatory “corporate raiding” practices of the 1980s, which left so much human and economic wreckage in their wake.
The wholesale firing of employees would trigger the prosecution of the company’s new owners. Employees could still be fired, but only for provable just cause, and only on a case-by-case basis.
(5) Employers would be required to provide full medical and pension benefits for all employees, regardless of their full-time or part-time status.
Increasingly, employers are replacing full-time workers with part-time ones—solely to avoid paying medical and pension benefits.
Requiring employers to act humanely and responsibly toward all their employees would encourage them to provide full-time positions—and hasten the death of this greed-based practice.
(6) Employers of part-time workers would be required to comply with all federal labor laws.
Under current law, part-time employees are not protected against such abuses as discrimination, sexual harassment and unsafe working conditions. Closing this loophole would immediately create two positive results:
(7) Employers would be encouraged to hire to their widest possible limits,through a combination of financial incentives and legal sanctions. Among those incentives:
Employers demonstrating a willingness to hire would receive substantial Federal tax credits, based on the number of new, permanent employees hired per year.
Employers claiming eligibility for such credits would be required to make their financial records available to Federal investigators. Employers found making false claims would be prosecuted for perjury and tax fraud, and face heavy fines and imprisonment if convicted.
(8) Among those sanctions: Employers refusing to hire could be required to prove, in court:
Companies found guilty of unjustifiably refusing to hire would face the same penalties as now applying in cases of discrimination on the basis of age, race, sex and disability.
Two benefits would result from this:
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