MORE ON THE PLIGHT OF AMERICAN WORKERS

I have written on the plight of American workers before in what I view as one of my most important posts.*  In this contribution I point out as before: (1) the wages of the American worker must be below the cost of automation, and (2) the wages of the American worker must be below the costs of cheap foreign labor moderated by shipping costs, price of natural gas, etc.  But now also add that many low paying jobs have been or are disappearing.   So there is a three way push against low cost labor in America.

And something we are seeing now is the decrease in number of jobs related to the oil industry because of the oil glut worldwide.  It is not going to be a reduction of employees just in the oil industry (field workers, maintenance workers, etc.), but also a ripple effect of workers in related industries.  U.S. Steel, for example, has announced a large layoff of workers related to production of pipe for the oil industry and there are no doubt others.  These relatively high paying jobs are being replaced by lower paying service jobs in food and drinking and health care servers.  There are some jobs returning to the U.S. that overcome the above obstacles, but at an average wage of 23% less than when they were off-shored.**  Because of this, you can get a month like December with good job growth (preliminary 250,000) but a reduction of a nickel in the hourly wages.**

And it occurs to me that wage jobs that cannot be automated or off-shored are just disappearing, where possible, and to the degree possible handed off to the consumer.  Business phones are no longer answered by a person, but you have to "let your fingers do the walking" through an itemized number of steps until you can finally speak to a person, if lucky, when the itemized list doesn't satisfy.  At work, clerk typists but have all but disappeared and even secretaries serve more than one superior.  The typing (word processing and spreadsheets) is largely turned over to the worker.  Gas station attendants have disappeared except in certain places like Oregon where you are not allowed to pump the gas yourself.  Usually only one person now handles a gas station, and their job is more to handle sales from the convenience store part of the station because most people will pay at the pump by credit card.  Low cost buffets are flourishing, though you can still find low-cost "breakfast anytime" eating places where you are waited on by a person, heavily dependent on tips (they are even called tip workers). Supermarkets have now installed slef-checkout isles that often have lines.

So there is a double push against wage earners.  On the one hand their wages must remain below the cost of automation or the low cost labor of off-shoring moderated by the costs of shipping, natural gas, etc.  Then many low pay jobs are just disappearing where they cannot be automated or off-shored and their duties have been taken over by the consumer.

A bright spot in the recovery from the Great Recession of 2008-2009 has been recovery in construction workers which were the hardest hit in the recession.   As a nation, we missed a splendid opportunity to improve the infrastructure of the country at relatively low cost when there were many unemployed workers in the construction industry available.

There may be relatively short periods where wages of labor can rise to livable levels, such as in "bubble economies," but these periods should be of relatively short duration.

As I have said elsewhere, it looks like the Golden Age of American labor is over.*  I don't see where either political party in America has an answer to this, much as they might pretend they do.

*http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/05/plight-of-american-workers.html
** http://www.rpc.senate.gov/policy-papers/december-2014-unemployment-report;
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/01/09/was-2014-really-the-strongest-year-of-job-growth-since-1999/?mod=djemRTE_h

ELIZABETH WARREN'S ONLY CHANCE?

Elizabeth Warren, a so-called liberal politician who cares about the consumer, is often mentioned as a 2016 presidential candidate, although she has repeatedly said she is not running.  She was born  June 22, 1949, an early Baby Boomer, and will be 67 years old on election day in 2016.  So if she is going to run for president, she will have to do it in this next presidential election.

Even if whomever is elected in 2016 serves only one term, Elizabeth Warren will be 71 by the 2020 election, probably too old to run.  Democrats in particular tend to think that 70 is too old to run for president.

Republicans, however, are different in that Bob Dole and John McCain, both Republicans, ran for president when older than the age of 70, but neither was elected.  Ronald Reagan ran for president over the age of 70 but that was for a second term.  He was 69 when he took office for his first term.  More likely whomever is elected in 2016 will probably serve two terms because that is what we have been doing lately.  Beginning with Ronald Regan, 4 of the five presidents have been elected for two terms so Elizabeth Warren would be 75 by 2024.

Hillary Clinton is the favorite among Democrats to run for president at this time.  She was born October 26, 1947 and would be 69 on election day in 2016, and, if elected would also be 69, about the same age as Ronald Reagan.  Although Republicans favor older candidates, I presume they will make the argument that she is too old, if she runs.  If for some reason Hillary does not run, my guess is that Elizabeth Warren will.

Jeb Bush seems to be the favorite of the "establishment" Republicans.  He was born February 11, 1953 so will be only 63 at the time of the 2016 election.  Chris Christie was born September 6, 1962 so will be only 54 at the time of the next presidential election.  The oldest of the Republican hopefuls is Mitt Romney who was born March 12, 1947 and is slightly older than Hillary Clinton.  If he is the Republican candidate, it will be hard to say Hillary Clinton is too old.  Other main Republican hopefuls seem to be younger than Jeb Bush.

ITEMS WITH THE MOST PAGE VIEWS AND MY FAVORITES - IV

An eclectic blog (November, 2009, through December, 2014) with sections on Biography, Commentary (General, Economics and Investing), Fiction, Health Care, Oil and Gas, Politics, Photographs, and Poetry (Children's Poems, General, Health, and Space Poems) and (new) Poems By Others: http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/07/reunite-gondwanaland-2009-june-2011.html  As of the end of 2014, the blog contains 419 items.

In the new Poems By Others Section, Ogden Nash's poem Fossils garnered by far the most page views overall:  423 with 72 of these added in the past year [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2013/01/fossils-by-ogden-nash-poem.html] as the blog bears down on 25,000 page views.  No posts in 2014 obtained as many as 200 pages views.  The year 2013 saw two pieces that moved into 200 page views category: My Maternal Grandmother (Biographical) with 220 page views [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2013/10/my-maternal-grandmother-biographical.html] and Working Underground: My Rational Self and My Emotional Self with 210 page views [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2013/01/working-underground-my-rational-self.html]. Previous items with more than 200 hits are: You Are So Lucky (Biographical) with 266 page views [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2009/11/you-are-so-lucky.html] and Muammar Qaddafi And Me (Biographical) with 223 page views [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/12/muammar-qaddafi-and-me-biographical.html]. The former was no doubt popular because of the Great Japanese Earthquake of 2011 and deals with my first three days in Japan in 1965. The latter was popular because of the overthrow of the Libyan dictator Qaddafi.

There are 13 others with 100 to 199 page views, one of which is biographical, a new one, The Tea Cup Seismograph on August 12, 2014 (145 page views) [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-tea-cup-seismograph-biographical.html], and The Break Even Price Of Fracking Oil on October 8, 2014 (193 page views) [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/10/break-even-price-of-fracking-oil.html].

Each piece I have written is like a child and I love them all, but it is common that some children are loved more than others. My personal favorite continues to be the Effectiveness Of Taxes from May 7, 2010 with 116 page views (up from 62) [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/05/effectiveness-of-taxes.html] followed by Basics of Bureaucracy from July 26, 2011 with 129 page views (up from 127) [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/07/basics-of-bureaucracy.html].  Important new additions to this small list of personal favorites is Is The Atmosphere An Infinite Sewer? from February 11, 2014 with 47 page views [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/02/is-atmosphere-infinite-sewer.html] and The Plight Of American Workers from May 22, 2014 with 22 page views [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/05/plight-of-american-workers.html]. In the first one, I point out why decreasing taxes on individuals is an inefficient way to stimulate the economy. I liked this so much that I refer to it in three other pieces. In the second one, that was written many years ago, I give some real rules of dealing with bureaucrats in a humorous fashion.  In the first new one on the atmosphere I also conclude that global warming is indeed occurring and that the atmosphere is not the infinite sewer that many believe.  In the second new one on American Workers, it is explained why the Golden Age of the American worker may be over.  It deserved 10 times the attention it got.

Let me give two Honorable Mentions. I wouldn't say this is a favorite of mine, but it can be important to some, i.e. Preferred Stock Investing from November 27, 2011 with 194 page views (picked up 7 more hits in 2014) [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2011/11/preferred-stock-investing.html]. I have invested for about 60 years, but never got involved in preferred stocks until the last decade. I would also like to mention one poem Upon the Second Anniversary Of Apollo 11 from January 9, 2010 with only 12 page views, the first landing on the Moon [http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/01/upon-second-anniversary-of-apollo-11.html]. Normally a couplet or more just pops into my mind and I construct a poem around it (An example is So How About An Asteroid from July 20, 2011 with 76 page views) that contains my favorite couplet: Who could possibly be annoyed/About the study of an asteroid. The Second Anniversary of Apollo Eleven, however, was little noticed which I thought was too bad as this was the first time I sat down to compose a poem from scratch.

LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES

I have long felt that liberals are concerned about groups (women, minorities, sexual orientation) whereas conservatives are more concerned about individuals (self made man, individual responsibility), but also local communities.*  Please note that ALL the 12 step programs emphasize individual responsibility.  Liberals,  I think, believe that you should be able to screw up to a certain degree (not kill people though), and it shouldn't make you pay for it the rest of your life (e.g. St. Paul, the great redemption story from persecutor of Christians to being the major advocate of Christianity.) whereas conservatives tend not to forgive screw ups, ever.

I think the liberals too admire the person in a group (e.g. poor) who pulls themselves up by their bootstraps, but they feel the group has great impediments in breaking out.  I had a friend from the coal country of West Virginia who said that the main way people could break out of this community was through football.  Often those who have broken out feel, "I did it.  Why can't they?" a common conservative stand.

* I call the community aspect the" Kansas conservative" where, if your neighbor's barn burns down, everyone bans together and has a barn raising, not some outside group comes to raise the barn (e.g. the government).   It is sort of an expanded individualism.  Conservatives often point out that the government was not involved in restoration of San Francisco after the famous earthquake versus the liberals promoting government being heavily involved in recovery, e.g. from the New Orleans flood with accusations of not doing enough, fast enough.  On the other hand, there are conservatives who accused the president from not being involved enough in Mid-Western floods and tornadoes.  I recall one Kansas conservative who said, "We were doing all right before 'gimme politics'."

GLOBAL CONSERVATIVE RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT

For some years now a global conservative religious movement has been going on.  It is most marked in Islam of Afghanistan, the Middle East and Africa, but a less deadly form, exists in Christianity, particularly in the U.S., where conservative Christians seem to have taken over the Republican Party.

Women are being sent to jail over abortion issues.  Consider the case of the woman who tried to procure "Morning After" pills for her daughter:*

In Pennsylvania, a woman has been sentenced to a year and a half behind bars for illegally procuring so-called “morning after” pills on the Internet for her 16-year-old daughter, who had an unwanted pregnancy. The mother had no health insurance, and there was no clinic nearby for the girl to obtain an abortion. (And if states like Texas end up getting their way, there will be lots of places where women’s health clinics will be shut down from over-regulation.) The mother is a single parent. One can only imagine how desperate both the mother and the daughter were.

But there was no acknowledgement of how awful it must have been for the mother to have to seek reproductive and abortion care for her daughter. Instead, the woman is suffering exactly the fate people said was just an hysterical conspiracy theory. She’s been named a criminal, convicted of performing an illegal abortion and is going to prison. The fact that the teenager will be without a mother for a year and a half doesn’t seem to trouble those who went after her, either.

Or consider the case of the Iowa woman who was only thinking about abortion"**
"Ms. Taylor became light-headed and fell down a flight of stairs in her home. Paramedics rushed to the scene and ultimately declared her healthy. However, since she was pregnant with her third child at the time, Taylor thought it would be best to be seen at the local ER to make sure her fetus was unharmed.

That's when things got really bad and really crazy. Alone, distraught, and frightened, Taylor confided in the nurse treating her that she hadn't always been sure she'd wanted this baby, now that she was single and unemployed. She'd considered both adoption and abortion before ultimately deciding to keep the child. The nurse then summoned a doctor, who questioned her further about her thoughts on ending the pregnancy. Next thing Taylor knew, she was being arrested for attempted feticide. Apparently the nurse and doctor thought that Taylor threw herself down the stairs on purpose."

And the trend is growing.  consider Colorado that recently had a vote on personhood (that failed this time):
This fall, the people of Colorado will have the opportunity to vote onAmendment 67. Though the measure’s proponents are marketing it as a way of bringing justice to a woman and the fetus she lost after a collision with a drunk driver, Amendment 67 is not a law designed to protect pregnant women. Rather, it is a total overhaul of Colorado’s criminal code that would give law enforcement officials grounds to potentially arrest, prosecute, convict, and imprison women and mothers. ***
 .............................................
This is not true. Well-documented research shows that hundreds of women in a number of states have been arrested, detained, or forced to undergo medical procedures based on the legal principle that Amendment 67 would establish if enacted. Moreover, the women targeted for these arrests have overwhelmingly been low-income mothers and mothers of color.***
............................................

Once the word “child” is redefined to include the unborn, no further legislation is necessary before criminal laws become applicable to pregnant women. For example, in South Carolina, a decision that the word “child” in the state’s criminal code included viable fetuses was enough toimmediately apply criminal laws to pregnant women, including those who used drugs or experienced stillbirths.

Similarly, the Alabama Supreme Court recently decided that the word “child” includes the unborn from the moment of fertilization in their state constitution. Using this new and expanded definition of the word “child,” research from National Advocates for Pregnant Women has found that more than 130 women have been arrested under the chemical endangerment of “children” law, passed in 2006 to penalize adults who take juveniles to dangerous places like methamphetamine labs. However, prosecutors have since used it to punish women who used marijuana or another controlled substance while pregnant, even when they gave birth to healthy babies—which has been in the majority of cases.***

...........................................

According to a Personhood USA press release, this Alabama decision—which makes it possible to sentence mothers to lengthy prison terms away from their children—is a “monumental victory.

The Christian religious right wants to define "personhood" as beginning with fertilization of the egg; however, pregnancy really only begins when the egg adheres to the womb wall and can take 10 or 12 days to do so.  Pills like the morning after pill interrupt this adhering process.

Women better watch out or they will lose control of their lives.  Will we eventually regress to the "good old days" when women couldn't vote or, even earlier, not own property?  My allegiances are to the born, i.e. a baby is out of the womb and has taken a breath on its own.

* http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/susan-milligan/2014/09/08/pennsylvania-women-sent-to-jail-over-abortion-and-morning-after-pills
** http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/03/14/956120/-Iowa-Woman-Jailed-for-Thinking-about-an-Abortion
*** http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2014/10/07/keep-mothers-jail-vote-colorados-personhood-measure/

DEPORTATIONS BY FISCAL YEAR

How have deportations been going?

Depoprtations by Obama administration:
Deportations in FY 2014: 315,943*
Deportations in FY 2013: 368,644*
Deportations in FY 2012: 419,384**
Deportations in FY 2011: 396,000***
Deportations in FY 2010: 400,000*** 
Deportations in FY 2009: 409,849*, ***
Deportations by Bush administrations:
Deportations in FY 2008: 358,000***
Deportations in FY 2007: 318,000***
Deportations in FY 2006: 280,000***
Deportations in FY 2005: 245,000***
Deportations in FY 2004: 240,000***
Deportations in FY 2003: 210,000***
Deportations in FY 2002: 165,000***
Deportations in FY 2001: 186,000***
Deportations by Clinton administration (last two years):
Deportations in FY 2000: 185,000***
Deportations in FY 1999: 175,000***

Still Obama has deported more illegals (2,309,830) than any other president, and counting.  President Bush (Bush-43) deported 2,002,000 during his eight years.

* http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-deportations-in-fiscal-2014-lowest-since-obama-took-office-1418100326?wpisrc=nl-wonkbk&wpmm=1
** http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/24/record-number-of-deportations-in-2012/
*** http://www.statisticbrain.com/number-of-u-s-deportations/

ROLLED HIM AGAIN

When President Obama came to office, he thought that he could get together with the opposition and work out deals.  He slowly found out that to get 20% of what he wanted, the Republicans had to get 80% of what they wanted.  Worse, then they would beat him over the head with his compromises, i.e. delaying the end of the tax cut for the wealthy.  Finally the President realized he was being rolled.

So he then adopted a confrontational approach with the result that little got done.  Perhaps the biggest thing was when he stood up to the House about their threat to shut down the government, which they did.  Something I found to be odd was how important people felt about the National Parks, Monuments, etc. being closed.  At any rate, the government reopened at a considerable cost to the government.  Nearly as important was the "sequester" that he thought were so draconian that surely congress would act to avoid them, but they didn't and the automatic cuts began.  Well, at least the DOD budget was cut a bit.

Now to fund the Federal government through next September, the President has agreed to incredible compromises.  One awful one lessens regulation of financial derivatives.**  Another allows political parties to  get an order of magnitude more money from individuals.**  Rolled him again.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_United_States_federal_budget
** http://news.yahoo.com/sound-smart-2015-appropriations-bill-161002683.html;_ylt=A0LEVvztpJFUSnYAODEPxQt;
http://crfb.org/blogs/budget-gimmicks-cromnibus-bill