INDIVIDUALS VS GROUPS

For a long time I think I have seen a difference between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.  Republicans tend to like the "self made man" whereas Democrats think of "groups."  It used to be that Republicans nominated the "self made man" for President .  Think of Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, and Reagan.  All of these came from humble beginnings.  Although the Republican Party is considered the party of the wealthy, Democrats used to favor wealthy people to nominate for President.  Think of Roosevelt and Kennedy.  True there were Truman and Johnson who came from humble beginnings but both were accidental presidents with Truman acceding to the Presidency with the death of Roosevelt and Johnson with the assassination of Kennedy.

More recently, things have changed with the Republican Party nominating wealthy men such a George H.W. Bush and George Bush as well as Mitt Romney with Donald Trump probably the most wealthy of all, whereas the Democrats have gone with men of more modest beginnings like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.  While Hillary Clinton may be wealthy now, she did come from modest beginnings.  (I'm not sure how to classify Michael Dukakis whose father was a physician but as of Greek heritage, they were certainly looked down on by the Boston Brahmins) The sampling size is small so maybe it is just a coincidence.

But look at the two candidates for president now.  You have the individual Donald Trump who says, "believe me, I am the only person that can save you "and Hillary Clinton who wrote a book called
It Takes A Community To Raise A Child and has the current motto of Stronger Together as she runs for president.  People say she is stealing the Stronger Together from Reagan although she has long preached this concept in her book.

Who will win?  Will it be the women, African Americans, Hispanics, and the LGBT or the angry American white males?  We'll know in November, probably.

THE TRANS PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP - TPP

Anti-trade has become a major political issue in both major political parties in the 2016 election and has forced the candidates for president  to disavow foreign trade.  Without doubt, automobile assemblers in Michigan and some other states have been hurt by NAFTA, even though, over all, there was a net gain in jobs in America.*  The fact that those workers left out of the benefits of free trade did not get any Adjustment Assistance (for what this is, see below) is a failure of government and not of the trade deal.   I suspect that few of those against foreign trade know of this program.  This is the target they should be aiming at and not foreign trade. Below are excerpts from the Guardian and the Washington Post on the Trans Pacific Partnership.  Bolding and underlining have been added for emphasis.

From the Guardian:
But the reality is that, if two sides willingly trade, it can be assumed that both are better off; otherwise, one of them would refuse to trade. So, while trade liberalisation may entail some (smaller) losses for certain groups, these can – and should – be addressed through domestic relocation and assistance schemes, such as America’s Trade Adjustment Assistance programme, [See note on the Trade Assistance Program below]and transition rules for affected industries, firms, and workers.
...................................................................
At a time when growth is failing to meet expectations almost everywhere, the TPP thus seems like a good move. To be sure, because tariffs in the TPP member countries are already low (with some exceptions, such as Canada’s tariffs on dairy products and Japan’s on beef), the net benefit of eliminating them would be modest (except for a few items that are very sensitive to small price changes). But the TPP is also expected to reduce non-tariff barriers (such as red tape and protection of state enterprises); harmonise policies and procedures; and include dispute-settlement mechanisms.
..................................................................
That would be a major loss. Allowing existing protectionist trade barriers to remain in place – or worsen – would not only deprive citizens in TPP countries of higher incomes; it would also deal a damaging blow to international cooperation.***

And from the Washington Post:

The security effects of trade agreements can be significant — indeed, one could argue that this was the most important thing about the North American Free Trade Agreement, the deal that has caused DeLong such existential angst. It’s worth remembering that prior to NAFTA, Mexico had a … let’s say “fraught” relationship with the United States. NAFTA made it clear to U.S. policymakers that Mexico was now a key partner and merited treatment as such. Which is why the United States helped Mexico in the mid-1990s and during the 2008 financial crisis. And the lock-in effects of NAFTA also helped Mexico transition from a one-party-dominated state to a true multiparty democracy.****

The Trade Assistance Program The Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) Program is a federal program that provides a path for employment growth and opportunity through aid to US workers who have lost their jobs as a result of foreign trade. The TAA program seeks to provide these trade-affected workers with opportunities to obtain the skills, resources, and support they need to become reemployed. The program benefits and services that are available to individual workers are administered by the states through agreements between the Secretary of Labor and each state Governor. Program eligibility, technical assistance, and oversight are provided by the US Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration's Office of Trade Adjustment Assistance.(https://www.doleta.gov/tradeact/factsheet.cfm)


* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-american-economy-great-recovery.html
*** https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/30/tpp-trans-pacific-partnership-the-case-for-trade
**** https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/05/07/the-trans-pacific-partnership-is-about-more-than-trade/

SOLAR ENERGY STATUS

Solar energy still is building up steam.  I guess the use of solar panels for general electricity as a roofing material is a longer way off the I assumed, but I still believe it is coming.  See the figure taken from the WSJ:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-popular-is-home-solar-energy-1469057625

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS HITS A NEW HIGH

Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a congressman from Florida and, for the time  being, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.*  She has been under fire for a long time by Bernie Sanders for being pro-Hillary when she is supposed to be impartial.  Well, I guess Debbie really wants to see a woman president so I suspect Bernie is correct.  The result is Debbie is going to resign from the Democratic National Committee after the convention.  The well known TV commentator Morning Joe wants her to resign NOW and not speak at the convention that she put together.  As they say in Washington, D.C., "If you want a friend, get a dog."

Weirdly, the big turning point is some thousands of e-mails  (every thing today is in the thousands whether it is e-mail on closing of a bridge or a party chair ) have been made public by WikiLeaks, one of which reads as follows:

It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.**

This is being broadly interpreted as an anti-Jewish e-mail that to be an atheist would be better than being a Jew, but, I read it the other way around, in that to be Jewish would be better than an atheist.  We are talking Southern Baptists here. Do they really interpret having no belief in God is better than being a Jew with a belief in God?***  The person who wrote this might have just Googoled Bernie Sanders to find the result.

And then, no one seems to note that Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is Jewish.*  At least "they" are not clannish if she is anti-Jewish.  No, she is pro-woman.  At any rate she knows she can retire from her position with a woman running for president on a major party.

I really wonder what to think of Bernie Sanders.  First off he wasn't a member of the Democratic Party.  Some like me think it was very nice of the party to let him come in and run for the presidential nomination of their party.  Then he spends the whole time bitching.  Lost in all this was Obama winning the nomination against the same Hillary Clinton that Bernie lost to using the same rules.

Hillary got more of the popular vote, won more states, and got the most super-delegates.  Remember that Obama faced the same obstacles as Bernie, yet Obama won against the same opponent.!  Sorry Bernie, but you lost the nomination.   You really did.  Bernie did win on some things like a plan for free college tuition  and some others on the platform so he did get something.  Fortunately, Bernie has an even lower opinion of Donald Trump so he keeps saying that Trump must lose.  I hope he sticks to it.

Now some of Bernie's "people" want to trash the vice-presidential pick  for the Democratic nomination.  What's happened to the Republican party  Well as Will Rogers said a long time ago, "I'm not a member of an organized party. I'm a Democrat."  Nothing has changed.

Bernie doesn't like the idea of super-delegates, but I don't like the idea of caucuses where only a small fraction of the potential voters actually vote.  And if it wasn't for the caucuses, Bernie would not have been anywhere.  Caucuses can turn the tide in favor of one candidate while the voters want a different one as shown by Washington State that had both.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debbie_Wasserman_Schultz
** https://theintercept.com/2016/07/22/new-leak-top-dnc-official-wanted-to-use-bernie-sanderss-religious-beliefs-against-him
*** Though raised Jewish, Sanders says that he is "not particularly religious," nor is he a member of any congregation or synagogue. "I am not actively involved in organized religion,"......"It's a guiding principle in my life, absolutely," said the Vermont senator and Democratic presidential candidate.

"You know, everyone practices religion in a different way. To me, I would not be here tonight, I would not be running for president of the United States if I did not have very strong religious and spiritual feelings."(http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/14/politics/bernie-sanders-religion/)

PLAGIARIZING YOURSELF

Who deserves credit for a speech is an interesting exercise in morality.  It seems strange but plagiarizing* yourself can be serious business.  I knew of a couple of scientists who borrowed some paragraphs from earlier scientific papers they had published without attribution so in reality they plagiarized themselves.  It turns out that the two publications were by different publishers and the publisher of the earlier piece called foul.  The publishers legally own the rights to the publications so you are not allowed to plagiarize yourself.  

So now we have the case of Melania Trump plagiarizing some thoughts of Michelle Obama in a Republican convention no less. Horrors.  You can hear the whole Melania speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jt_9yb4FSYA .  You can read the transcript of the Michelle speech here: http://www.npr.org/2012/09/04/160578836/transcript-michelle-obamas-convention-speech  Well, I do not know who owns the Michelle pieces, but I doubt very much she would sue.  After all, her all but forgotten speech now has renewed interest and she has had her picture alongside that of Melania.  Michelle has gotten lots of credit now, so I say let's move on.  They say that Melania didn't want to talk in the first place, that she had rejected one speech and went with a friend of hers.  The friend has apologized and offered to resign which has been rejected. The speech in its entirety appears to be very nice.

The weird thing is that one of Trump's children, Donald Trump, Jr. gave a speech the next day and HE plagiarized a part of his speech from a column published by F.H. Buckley who happens to be his speech writer.!  You can hear the whole speech at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-7WlIZwePc  Well the speech writer says it is OK since he plagiarized his own stuff.  Well I guess that if it is all right with him, it is all right with me.  But come on you Republican speech writers.  You are supposed to be word smiths, and you can do better.  Don't be so lazy and give us fresh stuff.

You don't have to get very high up in politics and administration of anything before you no longer write your own speeches or articles.  Yes, you meet with the writer and give him or her your thoughts and may check back in on drafts to make sure you are saying what you want to say, but you probably have never put pencil to paper or fingers to a keyboard.  Most or all of the phraseology is done by someone else, usually anonymously.  Should the speaker get all the credit.  Shouldn't it be by speaker and writer?

Once when I was working for NASA, the Chief Scientist sent me a draft of a speech and asked if he could say a certain part.  I reply that the passage looked fine, but, at any rate it was his speech.  I read the whole draft and found myself wondering that this is very nice, I wonder who wrote it.  He may have written it himself as there were passages about his daughter.  But you see, it didn't occur to me that someone in his office would write their own stuff.

I was surprised to hear that Ronald Reagan wrote some of his own speeches.  I thought he was in early Alzheimer's when he was elected president but could still remember his lines.  I did recognize his sense of humor, but writing?  I guess he had more in the tank than I realized.

Often you will see books by the "author" and the ghost writer, but not always.  I know of one case where one scientist wrote a whole book for a more major scientist, a professor, and didn't get so much as an acknowledgement.  He carried this hurt the rest of his life.  I'm told that in India, the name on a building was that of the patron who financed the endeavor and the architect got no credit.  I'm sure that sort of thing goes on.

I've been really amazed by movies where the credits go on and on, to the assistant grip,  second assistant camera man, etc.  No other place in life is so much credit given.  I'm impressed.

* From Merriam Webster On-line Dictionary:  to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own :  use (another's production) without crediting the source

AMERICAN ECONOMY - THE GREAT RECOVERY II

There are some great publications concerning the current recovery and other presidents.  I'll just give a few things here to encourage you to look at the whole thing.

Today, some eight years after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the nation's job market has put millions of Americans back to work. But voters remain uneasy about both the size of their paychecks and the prospects of holding onto their jobs.*

(Click on figure to enlarge)

With six months left before Obama leaves office, the overall economy continues to expand — slowly. As of the first quarter of this year, the U.S. economy is nearly 15 percent bigger than when the president took office in 2008, adjusted for inflation. 

That gain is slightly less than his predecessor, George W. Bush, and roughly half the GDP gain in percentage terms during the Reagan administration.**

(Click on figure to enlarge)

The biggest expansion of GDP came under Clinton, who presided over the 1990s boom; when he left office in 2000, the economy was nearly 35 percent bigger than when he moved into the White House in 1993.**


Please remember that the Obama administration has six months yet to go.

* http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/18/obamas-record-on-jobs-versus-five-other-presidents.html
** http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/15/grading-the-obama-economy-by-the-numbers.html

AMERICAN ECONOMY - HEALTHCARE

Another area of discontent by many with the current economy seems to be the health insurance ACA or Obamacare.  A problem has been that people want medical care, but they don't want to pay for it, and Republicans have gone along with this.

For example, President Reagan introduced a law that hospital emergency rooms must take all comers, whether they can pay or not.  I'm all for that, but he left it up to the hospitals to find a way to pay for it.  Thus paying for it was put on the shoulders of those who have health insurance.  A part of the ACA is called the Individual Mandate where everyone is required to have health insurance or pay a small fine.  This was a conservative approach (proposed by the conservative Heritage Foundation) to pay for the "free" emergency room costs.  And people have rebelled against it.  Their ire is such that it might decide an election, but I consider it unfair.

George W. Bush (Bush-43) worked hard to get through a drug benefit for Medicare (Medicare D), but he too didn't pay for it.

An attempt was made in Obamacare to pay for the benefits and nearly everybody rebels against paying for it.  There are objections to most of the plans to pay for it, including the tax on artificial limbs, the individual mandate, the company mandate and perhaps others.  Conservatives should applaud these attempts to pay for a medical plan that includes provisions for children up to 26 being on their parents medical plan and no exclusion for pre-existing conditions.

There was the plan in the ACA to have insurance companies bid against each other to provide health services, but this doesn't seem to work very well.  Most states did not go along with this and, in North Carolina where I live, there is only one company in the Obamacare plan.  Where is the competition?  North Carolina is one of the states that refused to set up their own plan.

The reason Republicans have so much trouble coming up with an alternative plan is that the ACA IS the conservative health plan.

AMERICAN ECONOMY - THE GREAT RECOVERY

Since the depths of the 2008-2009 Great Recession, there has been a steady, if slow, recovery for what is, right now, the second longest economic recovery.  The recovery undoubtedly would  have been quicker if the Republicans had permitted an infrastructure program.  Heaven knows there is plenty to do on the infrastructure.  But they wouldn't permit it and have tried to see that the recovery is disrupted.  Business, however, has had other ideas.  Republicans are probably frustrated that the recovery continues to take place.   As they cannot stop it, they demean it.  I think that in history, Obama will probably be known for this remarkable economic recovery from near economic death.  The Wall Street Journal has an article saying that things are picking up economically.  So in the end, this may turn out to be the longest economic recovery in history.

As so many people are unhappy with this economic recovery, I sometimes wonder if people are happier with a boom and bust economy?

But there is a problem that precedes the Great Recession in that, say, automobile assembly workers in Michigan lost their jobs and there wasn't anything to take its place as the factories moved to the South or Mexico and elsewhere.  Of course they are unhappy, and Hillary gets the blame because she was for NAFTA, a free trade agreement with Mexico and Canada.  Actually, there was a positive gain in U.S. employment during NAFTA,** but this increase was significantly in the lower paying service sector and others not where the automobile assembly workers were.

Proponents reject the claims of some that the free trade agreement is destroying the manufacturing industry and causing displacement of workers in that industry. The rate of job loss due to plant closings, a typical argument against NAFTA, showed little deviation from previous periods.^[13] Also, US industrial production, in which manufacturing makes up 78%, saw an increase of 49% from 1993-2005. The period prior to NAFTA, 1982-1993, only saw a 28% increase.^[10] In fact, according to NAM, National Association of Manufacturers, NAFTA has only been responsible for 10% of the manufactured goods trade deficit, something opponents criticize the agreement for exacerbating.^[14] The growth of exports to Canada and Mexico accounted for a large proportion of total U.S. export gains.^[15] However, the growth of exports to Canada and Mexico in percentage terms has lagged significantly behind the growth of exports to the rest of the world.**

New York has a plan called Start-Up NY*** where new businesses can start up and not pay taxes for 10 yrs.  This might have helped Michigan.

Detroit finally seems to be beginning to recover boosted by an insurance company Quicken Loans.*

But the problem left by companies moving elsewhere is general with a long history. Even where I live in the Sandhills area of North Carolina, there is an abandoned furniture factory some 15 mi. away in a town called West End.  I've heard that 300 workers were let go, devastating the town.  There was an attempt to convert the factory into a boutique mall, but that failed.  So there the large building sits, sometimes with part used for temporary storage.  You can see abandoned  buildings all over the country, i.e. abandoned textile mills in New England, abandoned steel plants in Pennsylvania, Maryland and elsewhere, etc., none of which were caused by NAFTA

I think the answer is not to abandon free trade which gives us low-cost goods, but to find ways to help communities hurt by free trade.

* http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sandy-baruah/detroits-tale-of-two-citi_b_1438786.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Michigan_companies
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAFTA%27s_effect_on_United_States_employment
*** http://startup.ny.gov/

ISIS POLICY BY AMERICA

My thought is that Obama is feeling for the minimum U.S. exposure to ISIS territory to accomplish its elimination.  He also insists that the locals participate in the erosion of ISIS.  I agree with this. ISIS seems to be steadily losing ground in Iraq with estimates of 20% loss in Syria.

He is also delaying a major move against Assad until some agreement is reached on a replacement for him.  We didn't do this in Libya with chaos resulting and two governments.  There are some encouraging signs of the two governments merging, however, and both dislike ISIS.  I am surprised that Republicans want to repeat the Libya experience in Syria where ISIS would almost certainly win in the short term.

With the recent election in Afghanistan, I think we got the best government one could hope for as both candidates have excellent credentials.  If they can't make it work, then I think there is really no hope.  Obama is raising the number of residual forces to be left in Afghanistan to help out, but again, the Afghans must do the heavy lifting.  Otherwise we are just another occupying force.

Tom Cotton (U.S. Senator, Arkansas) feels that we should have jumped to the final solution.  He must mean a surge, a large invading force.  A problem with this is that locals aren't participating plus our military has been at war for 15 yrs with surges in both Iraq and Afghanistan (one by Obama).

I agreed with the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan no matter how it came out.   We had to do something after 9/11. Iraq was diffenent and it put us in a quagmire of nation building.  As H.R. Haldeman said (by memory), "When the toothpaste gets out of the tube, it is very difficult to put it back in again."  What a mess!

GUNS, GUNS, GUNS - AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN

I really have said all I have to say on guns* and hunting** before.

First there was the murder of two African Americans by police (in St. Paul, MN, and New Orleans, LA) and then the murder of five police officers in Dallas, TX.  But while the news media stopped reporting on everything else to dwell on these murders, two bailiffs in Michigan were murdered and, in another community, several in Bristol, TN along with an average of 25-30 gun murders a day in the U.S.  So the drum beat of murders continues.  The saturation coverage by the news media on certain mass murders might be worth it if it led to some sort of action, but no.  Even a mild gun law that will supposedly be voted on in the House keeps being put off.

I'm indebted to the Daily Kos for publishing the following piece.  Though the reference title is long, it works.

Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt thought that cherry-picking some mass killings and saying “radical Islam” would be enough to undo any argument in favor of stronger gun laws and devastate his Democratic challenger, Jason Kander. Not so much. Kander had this response to Blunt’s accusation that “Despite Ft. Hood, Boston & Orlando,@JasonKander won’t acknowledge the root of threats we face: radical Islam

The argument about semantics is a stupid one—Republicans running around screaming “SAY RADICAL ISLAM” while the reality is that, between 2001 and 2013, 3,380 Americans were killed by terrorism while 406,496 were killed by guns—but Blunt shouldn’t have wanted any part of this argument. Does he really believe that the “R” beside his name makes him the winner any time terrorism is invoked? And does Blunt really want to give Kander a chance to highlight his time in Afghanistan in comparison to Blunt’s three Vietnam-era draft deferments? Way to give Kander an opening there, genius.*

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2015/06/guns-and-illegal-terrorists-in-america.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/01/death-and-injuries-by-guns-in-us.html;
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/01/us-has-most-of-everything-including.html
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/04/prey-animals-and-predator-animals.html
*** http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/6/21/1540931/-Sen-Roy-Blunt-gets-a-lesson-in-why-he-should-think-before-you-tweet?detail=email&link_id=3&can_id=af3794f2758d0c72ac0763afb2350d28&source=email-church-whose-pastor-praised-orlando-shootings-is-being-asked-to-leave-by-landlord&email_referrer=church-whose-pastor-praised-orlando-shootings-is-being-asked-to-leave-by-landlord&email_subject=church-whose-pastor-praised-orlando-shootings-is-being-asked-to-leave-by-landlord

GUNS, GUNS, GUNS - AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN

I really have said all I have to say on guns* and hunting** before.

I'm indebted to the Daily Kos for publishing the following piece.  Though the reference title is long, it works.

Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt thought that cherry-picking some mass killings and saying “radical Islam” would be enough to undo any argument in favor of stronger gun laws and devastate his Democratic challenger, Jason Kander. Not so much. Kander had this response to Blunt’s accusation that “Despite Ft. Hood, Boston & Orlando,@JasonKander won’t acknowledge the root of threats we face: radical Islam

The argument about semantics is a stupid one—Republicans running around screaming “SAY RADICAL ISLAM” while the reality is that, between 2001 and 2013, 3,380 Americans were killed by terrorism while 406,496 were killed by guns—but Blunt shouldn’t have wanted any part of this argument. Does he really believe that the “R” beside his name makes him the winner any time terrorism is invoked? And does Blunt really want to give Kander a chance to highlight his time in Afghanistan in comparison to Blunt’s three Vietnam-era draft deferments? Way to give Kander an opening there, genius.*

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2015/06/guns-and-illegal-terrorists-in-america.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/01/death-and-injuries-by-guns-in-us.html;
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/01/us-has-most-of-everything-including.html
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/04/prey-animals-and-predator-animals.html
*** http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/6/21/1540931/-Sen-Roy-Blunt-gets-a-lesson-in-why-he-should-think-before-you-tweet?detail=email&link_id=3&can_id=af3794f2758d0c72ac0763afb2350d28&source=email-church-whose-pastor-praised-orlando-shootings-is-being-asked-to-leave-by-landlord&email_referrer=church-whose-pastor-praised-orlando-shootings-is-being-asked-to-leave-by-landlord&email_subject=church-whose-pastor-praised-orlando-shootings-is-being-asked-to-leave-by-landlord

THE BASIC INCOME CONTROVERSARY

Regarding the minimum guaranteed basic income,* Jason Furman,** the top White House economist, says we shouldn't give up on jobs for a basic income, but we should try to increase the skills of the workforce.

What he doesn't realize is that thousands upon thousands of jobs are just going to disappear.  Just think how disruptive it will be when the driverless car is a reality.  Countless thousands of truck and taxi drivers are going to be put out of work.  What kind of jobs are out there waiting to be filled by these people even with increased training and how many of these people can take advantage of increased training.?

Even now there is degree escalation going on for jobs where formerly jobs requiring limited skills are now filled by those with some college or even degrees. I know of a lady with a college degree (with honors) who is working as a hostess in a hotel.  Tour direct didn't used to have a college degree required, but now they do.

And further automation of routine tasks alongside adoption of increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence will almost certainly disrupt the labor market, pushing many workers out of a job and potentially out of the labor force.  A 2013 paper by Oxford University’s Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne concluded that 47% of the total employment is at risk from computerization.**

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2016/07/miimum-guaranteed-income.html
** http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/07/07/top-white-house-economist-dismisses-the-idea-of-a-universal-basic-income/?mod=djemRTE_h

WAGES AND COLLEGE TUITION COSTS OF AMERICANS

Apparently there will be a plank in the Democratic Party Convention that proposes free college tuition for in-state public colleges for families making up to $125,000 (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/us/politics/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-education.html?_r=0).  If such a family at the top has one earner making $125,000/yr, the family is in the upper 5% of all wage earners.  Thus the free tuition will cover nearly everyone.  The costs will be limited by restricting tuition payments to in-state tuition and only for public colleges and universities.

According to the College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees for the 2015–2016 school year was $32,405 at private colleges, $9,410 for state residents at public colleges, and $23,893 for out-of-state residents attending public universities. Tuition at community colleges is considerably less at $3435 (https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/average-published-undergraduate-charges-sector-2015-16).

Though tuition is a major expense of going to college, it is hardly the only one.  Tuition does not include fees (heath service, library student union, and room an board, etc.). However, free tuition should be a boon to the average family where the student can attend a near-by community college and live at home because:

-51 percent of all American workers made less than $30,000 last year.*
And:

The current median household income for the United States is $53,657 [2014]. Real median household income peaked in 2007 at $57,936 and is now $4,279 (7.39%) lower. From a post peak low of $52,970 in 2012, real median household income for the United States has now grown by $687 (1.30%).**

(Click on figure to enlarge)

But the increase in rents is disturbing:**

(Click on figure to enlarge)

*https://www.ssa.gov/cgi-bin/netcomp.cgi?year=2014
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/10/goodbye-middle-class-51-percent-of-all-american-workers-make-less-than-30000-dollars-a-year.html
** http://www.deptofnumbers.com/income/us/ (Not a Federal department.)

THE ONE PERCENT AND THE REST

Turns out that 1% of the families have 20.1% of the income  The percentage reached a low in the 1970s and has been increasing rather rapidly in a zig-zag pattern ever since.  It seems strange to me that the low point in the 1% income compared to the rest occurred during the end of the Nixon, Ford and Carter years.  The bottom came in 1978 under Carter.  The top at 25% occurred in 1929 (no less).  Reagan started off the climb in percentage income of the wealthy with little change during Bush-41's one term then continued upward during the Clinton years.  The wealthy also did well during Obama's first term.

(click on the figure to enlarge)

http://www.epi.org/multimedia/unequal-states-of-america/
http://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide-to-statistics-on-historical-trends-in-income-inequality
http://gabriel-zucman.eu/files/SaezZucman2014Slides.pdf

HOW DO WORKFORCE DROPOUTS SURVIVE?

A shrinking workforce percentage of those eligible has been shown for a long time, maybe as much as 25 yrs.  I have long wondered, how do these people survive?  For a while they get unemployment insurance that is about 30% of their previous salary (How do they pay their mortgage on their home?), but then what? Many, I guess, retire that otherwise would have worked for several or many more years.  But there is a residual that can' retire yet.

Some unemployed may survive on some else's wages (married couples, for example). Many of those who can't retire yet must have jobs not counted.  They can do "under the table" work like mow lawns, do handyman work, do house cleaning, etc., and perhaps are Uber drivers (I'll use Uber to represent the entire private drivers business like Flyt).  I have been unable to find out how the Dept. of Labor counts Uber drivers.  Can you be an Uber driver and still be counted as unemployed?

The next disruptive job to go will probably be taxicab and Uber drivers when self-driving cars becomes available..  This is going to affect many, many thousands of workers.

An increasing number of people are claiming disability.:

Another culprit behind the shrinking workforce participation rate may be a more serious issue: the rise of illness and disability. About 16.3 million Americans said they couldn't work because of health issues in 2014, up from 12.4 million a decade ago.

While even younger Americans increasingly claim health problems for sidelining them, the biggest bulge is among men and women between 55 to 64 years old, the BLS said. About one out of eight Americans in that group said they aren't able to work because of illness or disability, compared with slightly more than one out of 10 in 2004.*

Some other interesting articles on the workforce dropouts are cited below .**

* http://www.cbsnews.com/news/behind-the-rise-in-americas-workforce-dropouts/
** http://www.examiner.com/article/recruiters-respond-to-the-unemployed-need-not-apply
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janice-harper/long-term-unemployment_b_5678959.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/what-do-the-jobless-do-when-the-benefits-end/2014/02/11/e135d74a-8eb7-11e3-b227-12a45d109e03_story.html

MINIMUM GUARANTEED INCOME

For some time I have thought that there should be some sort of minimum income for adults, enough to keep someone in a modest home, keep in basic foods, and maybe a tiny bit for extras (i.e. have a modest TV, and, perhaps,  going to a movie once a month or something like that).  The reason for this is that automation is eliminating many jobs (letting your fingers do the walking on the telephone)  and others are now turned over the the consumer (e.g. pumping your own gas) not to be spent on booze, beer, or cigarettes.   Of course there are the jobs off-shored to low wage countries, and it would be poor to eliminate the low cost products as a result. Most adults won't be satisfied with minimal living and will seek work, but if the work is not available, they have this safety net.

Well it turns out just this sort of thimg has been proposed by others:

A tsunami of economic disruption is barreling toward the United States, and, as Pimco co-founder Bill Gross observed in his May "Investment Outlook," "No one in 2016 is really addressing the future as we are likely to experience it … Virtually every industry in existence is likely to become less labor-intensive in future years as new technology is assimilated into existing business models."
A 2013 Oxford University study concluded that 47 percent of jobs in the U.S. are at risk of being eliminated due to software, robotics and machines learning artificial intelligence. A McKinsey Global Institute study delivered similar results and went further to say that, if artificial intelligence progresses and is able to process and understand natural language a little better, that number could quickly jump to 58 percent of work activities that are automatable.*
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Here's what I propose to both finally end poverty now and as insurance later to ease the difficult transition of what the experts are predicting in job loss — a universal basic income. Universal basic income may be the biggest "new" idea of the 21st century, although it traces its history to Thomas Paine, Milton Friedman and Richard Nixon, whose bill twice passed the U.S. House of Representatives.
How would it work? Each month, every adult would get a check for $1,000 — that's $12,000 a year, just above the poverty line. It's that simple. A form of universal basic income has been in place in Alaska since 1976, paid as a dividend from oil revenues from the North Shore. In 2014, that dividend provided $1,884 to 640,000 individuals using funds from a single revenue stream. By eliminating 126 current welfare programs that would be made redundant by UBI; instituting a financial transaction tax, which our country already had for 50 years; eliminating many, or all, federal tax expenditures and levying a value added tax (VAT), we could provide the funding necessary for a UBI.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/22/why-we-should-give-every-adult-1000month-for-free-commentary.html