Brisk blows the fall breeze
Down the hill to the blue sea
Through the bamboo brush.
Originally written in 1965 after an extended trip to Japan.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA
If you listen, we are told that many of the jobs lost in this recession will never come back. But there are those that say that all we have to do is make a couple of simple adjustments to the Federal budget and Federal government policy, and the jobs will come back. They won’t.
Everyone should read an article by Fareed Zakaria in Time Magazine titled "How To Restore The American Dream" (Thursday, October 21, 2010 issue) which explains why.* Of course, there are jobs that have been outsourced to foreign countries where workers can do the job at much lower pay. Zarkaria quotes: Steven Rattner, who helped restructure the automobile industry, tells the story of getting a new General Motors plant online in Michigan by bringing management and unions together. "The unions agreed to allow 40% of the new plant to operate at $14-an-hour wages," he says, "which is half of GM's normal wages. The management agreed to invest in this new plant. But here's the problem: workers at GM's Mexican operations make $7 an hour, and today they are as productive as American workers. And think of this: $14 an hour translates into about $35,000 a year. That's below the median family income. The whole experience left me frightened about the fate of the American worker." If a Mexican worker can do the job of assembling an automobile just as well as and American worker at half the pay of the lowest paid American worker, why shouldn’t the car be assembled in Mexico?
But outsourcing is only one part of the explanation of why many jobs won’t return. Of at least equal importance "Neutron Jack" Welch, former CEO of GE and a political conservative is quoted as saying: First, technology has produced massive efficiencies over the past decade. Jack Welch explained the process succinctly on CNBC last September. "Technology has changed the game in jobs," he said. "We had technology bumping around for years in the '80s and '90s, and [we were] trying to make it work. And now it's working ... You couple the habits [of efficiency] from a deep recession [with] an exponential increase in technology, and you're not going to see jobs for a long, long time." Welch gave as an example a company owned by the private-equity firm with which he is affiliated. In 2007 the business had 26,000 employees and generated $12 billion in revenue. It will return to those revenue numbers by 2013 but with only 14,000 employees. "Companies have learned to do more with less," Welch said.
On top of these, we are told that there are good jobs that go begging because qualified people can’t sell their homes and move to the openings. The mobility of Americans is becoming seriously compromised.
But I am also worried that our present political system is not helping. In an age in which we should be doing everything in our power to make our workforce more competitive to the global workforce in technology, there are those who are discouraging this effort. The Democrats do essentially nothing, but the Republicans are actually negative. They have turned the word "elite" into a derogatory term and speak of our elites as not "real Americans."
But I understand the problem. As a former Republican (until the Goldwater nomination.), I understand that the Republican Party is all about the wealthy, preserving and increasing their fortunes. The idea is that you give the financial resources to the wealthy and let them distribute it as they see fit, i.e. the "trickle down" economy. There are not enough wealthy, however, to win elections so they need to find allies. The so-called Evangelicals, of course, have been one group, and of course there is some overlap in that there are no doubt some wealthy that are also Evangelicals. But much to their credit, the Republicans have coopted many of what should be their opponents, the "lunch pail" or hourly wage set of unskilled, semi-skilled, and skilled manual laborers. In doing so, however, they have felt they had to demean the highly educated and have turned college and graduate schools, especially the "best" ones, almost into an epithet by turning the word "elite" into a derogatory term. This anti-intellectualism is not helping.
Is it no wonder that much of our youth avoids what are considered to be difficult subjects like mathematics and physics and derides anyone who can solve a transcendental equation with a derogatory term like "nerd?" But Republicans and the Tea Party really don’t have to do this. The Democratic Party is the party of social libertarians and Joe Six Pack feels that the Democratic Party is unfairly favoring women, minorities, and homosexuals. Thus they feel that the Republican Party is their only hope of keeping "them" in line. It doesn’t seem to matter that under Republican control, their wages have stagnated and that many of their jobs have been exported elsewhere or lost to automation.
Alan Blinder is also worried. ....The crucial distinction for the future, he argues, might be not between highly educated and less educated workers but between those jobs that can be done abroad and those — such as nurse or pilot — that cannot. Even nurse and pilot, however, can be filled with immigrants willing to take lower pay here but which is very good compared to where they came from.
In between are the skilled manual workers and those in white collar operations like sales and office management. These jobs represent the beating heart of the middle class. Those in them make a decent living, usually above the median family income ($49,777), and they mostly did fine in the two decades before 2000. But since then, employment growth has lagged the economy in general. And in the Great Recession, it has been these middle-class folks who have been hammered. Why? Autor is cautious and tentative, but it would seem that technology, followed by global competition, has played the largest role in making less valuable the routine tasks that once epitomized middle-class work.
Zakaria continues: Fundamentally, America needs to move from consumption to investment. Everyone agrees that the best way to create good jobs in the U.S. is to create new industries and companies and to innovate within old ones. This means large investments in research, technology and development. As a society, this needs to become our strongest focus. The only good jobs that will stay in the U.S. are jobs related to knowledge and innovation. Additionally, in the 1950s, America was the only research lab in town, accounting for the vast majority of global scientific spending. Today, countries around the world are entering the arena. Two weeks ago, South Korea — a country of just 50 million people! — announced plans to invest $35 billion in renewable-energy projects. We should pay for this with a 5% national sales tax — call it an American innovation tax — which would be partly offset by a small reduction in income taxes. This would have the twin benefits of tamping down consumption and yielding some additional funds. All the proceeds from the tax should be focused on future generations, because we need to invest massively in growth.
If American citizens are not interested in science and technology, there is still a solution: The often overlooked aspect of investment is investment in people. America has been able to create the future in large measure because it has tapped into the energies and work of immigrants. It has managed to invest in human capital by taking smart, motivated people from around the globe, educating them in the planet's best higher-education system and then unleashing them in a dynamic economy. In this crucial realm, the U.S. is now disinvesting. After training the world's best and brightest often at public expense we don't find ways to make sure they stay here by giving them a green card but rather insist that they leave and take their knowledge to another country, where they will invent, inspire, build and pay taxes. Every year, we send tens of thousands of the smartest Indians and Chinese back home, which is a great investment in the future of those countries.
"Most jobs that will have good prospects in the future will be complicated," says Louis Gerstner, the former CEO of American Express and IBM. "They will involve being able to juggle data, symbols, computer programs in some way or the other, no matter what the task. To do this, workers will need to be educated and often retrained." We need more and better education at every level, especially job retraining. So far, most retraining efforts in the U.S. have not worked very well. But they have worked in countries that have been able to retain a manufacturing base, like Germany and parts of Northern Europe. There, some of the most successful programs are apprenticeships — which cover only 0.3% of the total U.S. workforce.
There are advantages to the U.S. system. We don't stream people too early in their lives, and we allow for more creative thinking. But the path to good jobs for the future is surely to expand apprenticeship programs substantially so industry can find the workers it needs. This would require a major initiative, a training triangle in which the government funds, the education system teaches and industry hires — though to have an effect, the program would have to be on the scale of the GI Bill.
There is much more to Zakaria’s solution in the Time article including fiscal sanity, the tax code, corporate tax rates, and benchmarks. The article concludes with a paragraph on reasons for optimism. You are urged to read the full article. But one thing is clear. There are no fast solutions. Decreasing the size of government in the short term, at least, will have a negative effect on the economy because people will be put out of work, adding to the unemployment picture, and contracts will be terminated, hurting contractors. But as he states, medical costs and state retirement plans must be brought under control.
*http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2026776,00.html
Everyone should read an article by Fareed Zakaria in Time Magazine titled "How To Restore The American Dream" (Thursday, October 21, 2010 issue) which explains why.* Of course, there are jobs that have been outsourced to foreign countries where workers can do the job at much lower pay. Zarkaria quotes: Steven Rattner, who helped restructure the automobile industry, tells the story of getting a new General Motors plant online in Michigan by bringing management and unions together. "The unions agreed to allow 40% of the new plant to operate at $14-an-hour wages," he says, "which is half of GM's normal wages. The management agreed to invest in this new plant. But here's the problem: workers at GM's Mexican operations make $7 an hour, and today they are as productive as American workers. And think of this: $14 an hour translates into about $35,000 a year. That's below the median family income. The whole experience left me frightened about the fate of the American worker." If a Mexican worker can do the job of assembling an automobile just as well as and American worker at half the pay of the lowest paid American worker, why shouldn’t the car be assembled in Mexico?
But outsourcing is only one part of the explanation of why many jobs won’t return. Of at least equal importance "Neutron Jack" Welch, former CEO of GE and a political conservative is quoted as saying: First, technology has produced massive efficiencies over the past decade. Jack Welch explained the process succinctly on CNBC last September. "Technology has changed the game in jobs," he said. "We had technology bumping around for years in the '80s and '90s, and [we were] trying to make it work. And now it's working ... You couple the habits [of efficiency] from a deep recession [with] an exponential increase in technology, and you're not going to see jobs for a long, long time." Welch gave as an example a company owned by the private-equity firm with which he is affiliated. In 2007 the business had 26,000 employees and generated $12 billion in revenue. It will return to those revenue numbers by 2013 but with only 14,000 employees. "Companies have learned to do more with less," Welch said.
On top of these, we are told that there are good jobs that go begging because qualified people can’t sell their homes and move to the openings. The mobility of Americans is becoming seriously compromised.
But I am also worried that our present political system is not helping. In an age in which we should be doing everything in our power to make our workforce more competitive to the global workforce in technology, there are those who are discouraging this effort. The Democrats do essentially nothing, but the Republicans are actually negative. They have turned the word "elite" into a derogatory term and speak of our elites as not "real Americans."
But I understand the problem. As a former Republican (until the Goldwater nomination.), I understand that the Republican Party is all about the wealthy, preserving and increasing their fortunes. The idea is that you give the financial resources to the wealthy and let them distribute it as they see fit, i.e. the "trickle down" economy. There are not enough wealthy, however, to win elections so they need to find allies. The so-called Evangelicals, of course, have been one group, and of course there is some overlap in that there are no doubt some wealthy that are also Evangelicals. But much to their credit, the Republicans have coopted many of what should be their opponents, the "lunch pail" or hourly wage set of unskilled, semi-skilled, and skilled manual laborers. In doing so, however, they have felt they had to demean the highly educated and have turned college and graduate schools, especially the "best" ones, almost into an epithet by turning the word "elite" into a derogatory term. This anti-intellectualism is not helping.
Is it no wonder that much of our youth avoids what are considered to be difficult subjects like mathematics and physics and derides anyone who can solve a transcendental equation with a derogatory term like "nerd?" But Republicans and the Tea Party really don’t have to do this. The Democratic Party is the party of social libertarians and Joe Six Pack feels that the Democratic Party is unfairly favoring women, minorities, and homosexuals. Thus they feel that the Republican Party is their only hope of keeping "them" in line. It doesn’t seem to matter that under Republican control, their wages have stagnated and that many of their jobs have been exported elsewhere or lost to automation.
Alan Blinder is also worried. ....The crucial distinction for the future, he argues, might be not between highly educated and less educated workers but between those jobs that can be done abroad and those — such as nurse or pilot — that cannot. Even nurse and pilot, however, can be filled with immigrants willing to take lower pay here but which is very good compared to where they came from.
In between are the skilled manual workers and those in white collar operations like sales and office management. These jobs represent the beating heart of the middle class. Those in them make a decent living, usually above the median family income ($49,777), and they mostly did fine in the two decades before 2000. But since then, employment growth has lagged the economy in general. And in the Great Recession, it has been these middle-class folks who have been hammered. Why? Autor is cautious and tentative, but it would seem that technology, followed by global competition, has played the largest role in making less valuable the routine tasks that once epitomized middle-class work.
Zakaria continues: Fundamentally, America needs to move from consumption to investment. Everyone agrees that the best way to create good jobs in the U.S. is to create new industries and companies and to innovate within old ones. This means large investments in research, technology and development. As a society, this needs to become our strongest focus. The only good jobs that will stay in the U.S. are jobs related to knowledge and innovation. Additionally, in the 1950s, America was the only research lab in town, accounting for the vast majority of global scientific spending. Today, countries around the world are entering the arena. Two weeks ago, South Korea — a country of just 50 million people! — announced plans to invest $35 billion in renewable-energy projects. We should pay for this with a 5% national sales tax — call it an American innovation tax — which would be partly offset by a small reduction in income taxes. This would have the twin benefits of tamping down consumption and yielding some additional funds. All the proceeds from the tax should be focused on future generations, because we need to invest massively in growth.
If American citizens are not interested in science and technology, there is still a solution: The often overlooked aspect of investment is investment in people. America has been able to create the future in large measure because it has tapped into the energies and work of immigrants. It has managed to invest in human capital by taking smart, motivated people from around the globe, educating them in the planet's best higher-education system and then unleashing them in a dynamic economy. In this crucial realm, the U.S. is now disinvesting. After training the world's best and brightest often at public expense we don't find ways to make sure they stay here by giving them a green card but rather insist that they leave and take their knowledge to another country, where they will invent, inspire, build and pay taxes. Every year, we send tens of thousands of the smartest Indians and Chinese back home, which is a great investment in the future of those countries.
"Most jobs that will have good prospects in the future will be complicated," says Louis Gerstner, the former CEO of American Express and IBM. "They will involve being able to juggle data, symbols, computer programs in some way or the other, no matter what the task. To do this, workers will need to be educated and often retrained." We need more and better education at every level, especially job retraining. So far, most retraining efforts in the U.S. have not worked very well. But they have worked in countries that have been able to retain a manufacturing base, like Germany and parts of Northern Europe. There, some of the most successful programs are apprenticeships — which cover only 0.3% of the total U.S. workforce.
There are advantages to the U.S. system. We don't stream people too early in their lives, and we allow for more creative thinking. But the path to good jobs for the future is surely to expand apprenticeship programs substantially so industry can find the workers it needs. This would require a major initiative, a training triangle in which the government funds, the education system teaches and industry hires — though to have an effect, the program would have to be on the scale of the GI Bill.
There is much more to Zakaria’s solution in the Time article including fiscal sanity, the tax code, corporate tax rates, and benchmarks. The article concludes with a paragraph on reasons for optimism. You are urged to read the full article. But one thing is clear. There are no fast solutions. Decreasing the size of government in the short term, at least, will have a negative effect on the economy because people will be put out of work, adding to the unemployment picture, and contracts will be terminated, hurting contractors. But as he states, medical costs and state retirement plans must be brought under control.
*http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2026776,00.html
Note added 08-29-2011: The electioneering is already on for the 2012 presidency by the Republicans. It is shocking what some of the candidates are saying. Some of this is covered by Paul Krugman in "Republicans Against Science:" http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/opinion/republicans-against-science.html?ref=opinion&nl=opinion&emc=tyb1
Note added 08-30-2011: George Will in Rev The Scientific Engine, Washington Post (January 2,2011) has tackled this question of "educational elites" that are so despised by conservative populists: "America has been consuming its seed corn: From 1970 to 1995, federal support for research in the physical sciences, as a fraction of gross domestic product, declined 54 percent; in engineering, 51 percent. On a per-student basis, state support of public universities has declined for more than two decades and was at the lowest level in a quarter-century before the current economic unpleasantness. Annual federal spending on mathematics, the physical sciences and engineering now equals only the increase in health-care costs every nine weeks."
Sunday, October 17, 2010
MODERN DAY SLAVERY IN AMERICA
I have lead a short- course in Modern Day Slavery in America. Modern day slavery in the U.S. is a severe problem that is widespread. Estimates of the State Department are that 15,000-20,000 slaves are trafficked into the U.S. PER YEAR (I am unable to find out how these numbers are estimated., but it is reasonable to expect that the number greatly exceeds the number caught.). The CIA estimates even higher numbers like 50,000, but no one knows the exact number. There are also American citizens that are enslaved.
How can this be? Didn't President Lincoln issue the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves? Actually this applied only to the Confederate states, but the 13th Amendment was passed in 1865 that freed all American slaves.*
Recently to strengthen the prosecution of slavery cases, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) was passed. Non-U.S. citizens must be certified to participate by the Department of Health & Human Services (Usually must cooperate in prosecuting their oppressors. Victims under age 18 need not be certified. U.S. citizens need not be certified.).
The TVPA authorizes up to 5,000 victims of trafficking each year to receive permanent resident status after three years from issuance of their temporary residency visas.**
Victims of trafficking under the law include making housing, educational, health care, job training and other Federally-funded social service programs available to assist victims in rebuilding their lives.
Created new law enforcement tools to strengthen the prosecution and punishment of traffickers, making human trafficking a Federal crime with severe penalties.
Addresses the subtle means of coercion used by traffickers to bind their victims in to servitude, including: psychological coercion, trickery, and the seizure of documents, activities which were difficult to prosecute under preexisting involuntary servitude statutes and case law
In 2003, more than $200 million was authorized to combat human trafficking through the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003 (TVPRA). TVPRA renews the US governments commitment to identify and assist victims exploited through labor and sex trafficking in the United States.
On December 12, 2008 the House and Senate unanimously passed the "William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2008" which reauthorizes the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.
Types of modern slavery: almost anything can have slaves, but the main types are:
Some Organizations:
Coalition of Immokalee Workers (perhaps the first organization to take trafficking head on) (http://www.ciw-online.org/)
Freedom Network (USA) (http://www.freedomnetworkusa.org/) which was established in 2001, is a coalition of 25 non-governmental organizations that provide services to, and advocate for the rights of, trafficking survivors in the United States (http://www.freedomnetworkusa.org/). Since the enactment of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (VTPA), Freedom Network (USA) members have worked closely with trafficked persons to ensure that they receive necessary services guaranteed under the VTPA and have also been engaged in monitoring implementation of the law.
FreeTheSlaves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_the_Slaves) US sister organization of Anti-Slavery International (the world's oldest human rights organization). The largest anti-slavery organization in the United States. Emphasizes international slavery. The coauthor of the text for this Adult Academy is Keven Bales a cofounder of Free The Slaves and current president.
Break The Chain Campaign (http://www.breakthechaincampaigndc.org/) Rescues women domestics that are mistreated or enslaved.
Other Articles
Coalition of Immokalee Workers involvement in several anti-slavery agricultural cases:
http://www.ciw-online.org/slavery.html
Slave Labor on Hawaii's Second Largest Farm:
http://humantrafficking.change.org/blog/view/slave_labor_on_hawaiis_second_largest_farm
6 charged in human trafficking scheme involving Thai farm workers:
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-09-03/justice/hawaii.human.trafficking_1_global-horizons-president-thai-workers-guest-workers?_s=PM:CRIME
Seeking justice for trafficked domestic workersin American Courts:
http://www.iwpr.org/PDF/05_Proceedings/Bahan_Della.pdf
Selling Our Children: Atlanta does battle against the sex trafficking of kids:
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj1008&article=selling-our-children
Make sex trafficking unwelcome in Charlotte, NC:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2009/10/09/991874/make-sex-trafficking-unwelcome.html
Woman rescued after investigators discover human trafficking operation in Greensboro; five arrested:
http://www.thetimesnews.com/articles/woman-33668-rescued-human.html
Virginia's human trafficking problem:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-opinions/2010/06/human_trafficking_comes_to_vir.html
31 Arrested in Human Trafficking Case (New York):
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/16/nyregion/17ringcnd.html
Footnotes:
**Visas: There are many kinds of Visas: T-Visa (allows victims of trafficking to become temporary residents of the US), A-3 Visas for household employees of diplomats who have diplomatic protection, G-5 visas for households of international agencies such as the United Nations, B-1 Visas for domestic workers who “belong” to business people, foreign nationals and Americans with foreign residencies, J-1 visas for “au pairs” from Europe, H-2A visas are for temporary agricultural guest workers.
How can this be? Didn't President Lincoln issue the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves? Actually this applied only to the Confederate states, but the 13th Amendment was passed in 1865 that freed all American slaves.*
Recently to strengthen the prosecution of slavery cases, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) was passed. Non-U.S. citizens must be certified to participate by the Department of Health & Human Services (Usually must cooperate in prosecuting their oppressors. Victims under age 18 need not be certified. U.S. citizens need not be certified.).
The TVPA authorizes up to 5,000 victims of trafficking each year to receive permanent resident status after three years from issuance of their temporary residency visas.**
Victims of trafficking under the law include making housing, educational, health care, job training and other Federally-funded social service programs available to assist victims in rebuilding their lives.
Created new law enforcement tools to strengthen the prosecution and punishment of traffickers, making human trafficking a Federal crime with severe penalties.
Addresses the subtle means of coercion used by traffickers to bind their victims in to servitude, including: psychological coercion, trickery, and the seizure of documents, activities which were difficult to prosecute under preexisting involuntary servitude statutes and case law
In 2003, more than $200 million was authorized to combat human trafficking through the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2003 (TVPRA). TVPRA renews the US governments commitment to identify and assist victims exploited through labor and sex trafficking in the United States.
On December 12, 2008 the House and Senate unanimously passed the "William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2008" which reauthorizes the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000.
Types of modern slavery: almost anything can have slaves, but the main types are:
Agriculture (mainly men)
Forced prostitution (mainly women, but underage is common)
Domestic work
Importation of goods made with slave labor elsewhere.
Removal of organs
and of lesser numbers:
American females being exported for forced prostitution, perhaps mainly to Mexico.
At least one case is known where the slaves were paraded naked in a bidding room remindful of when slavery was legal.
Elements of modern slavery: foreigners and American
Foreigners
A locator finds candidates in a country, often promising high paying work compared to local opportunities and/or opportunities for education. Anyone is vulnerable, especially the mentally impaired.
The locator or someone in their organization transports the slave, often with a fake passport or smuggles the slave into the U.S. for a high fee ($1,500 seems to be a common fee which is very large for the mark or their family). The slave is to work off this fee or the family borrows the money which may be a year’s income for the family which must be repaid.
The locator (In Mexico, they are called “coyotes.”) sells the slave to a recipient organization (Agricultural picking, prostitution ring, or domestic family for quite a high sum, perhaps another $1,500). Beatings begin upon entering the U.S. and are an important part of the slavery to break the spirit. If prostitution, the slave is often “indoctrinated” upon entering the U.S. The slave often does not know where they are and does not know the local language which inhibits escape.
The recipient takes the slave’s documents and tells the slave that, if they try to escape, they will be caught and maybe killed and/or their families back home will be harmed.
The slave is often locked up when not working, often in crowded rooms with many others, sleeping on the floor perhaps on thin pads. Often there is little time for sleep and meals are poor or even non-existent. Beatings continue on the slightest provocation. In domestic cases the mark often sleeps in the basement on a small pad.
Introducing drugs to the slave seems mainly used in forced prostitution. If the slave does not “behave” drugs are withdrawn until the mark complies.
Americans: i.e homegrown slaves
Psychological methods
Drugs
Emphasis in the course was placed on North Carolina where the course was held:
News Item: Make sex trafficking unwelcome in Charlotte (Charlotte Observer, Oct. 9, 2006.
News item: Sex rings prey on immigrant women (Charlotte Observer, Jan. 29, 2006)
News item: Woman rescued after investigators discover human trafficking operation in Greensboro; Five arrested (Burlington: TheTimesNews.com, May, 8, 2010).
Some Books of interest:
"The Slave Next Door" by Keven Bales and Ron Soodalter . University of California Press, 2009, 312 p. ($16.47 at Amazon.com). The text of the course.
“The War On Human Trafficking: U.S. Policy Assessed” by Anthony M. DeStefano, Rutgers University Press, NJ, 2008, 175 p.
“A Crime So Monstrous” by E. Benjamin Skinner, Free Press, NY, 2008, 328 p.
Some Organizations:
Coalition of Immokalee Workers (perhaps the first organization to take trafficking head on) (http://www.ciw-online.org/)
Freedom Network (USA) (http://www.freedomnetworkusa.org/) which was established in 2001, is a coalition of 25 non-governmental organizations that provide services to, and advocate for the rights of, trafficking survivors in the United States (http://www.freedomnetworkusa.org/). Since the enactment of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (VTPA), Freedom Network (USA) members have worked closely with trafficked persons to ensure that they receive necessary services guaranteed under the VTPA and have also been engaged in monitoring implementation of the law.
FreeTheSlaves (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_the_Slaves) US sister organization of Anti-Slavery International (the world's oldest human rights organization). The largest anti-slavery organization in the United States. Emphasizes international slavery. The coauthor of the text for this Adult Academy is Keven Bales a cofounder of Free The Slaves and current president.
Break The Chain Campaign (http://www.breakthechaincampaigndc.org/) Rescues women domestics that are mistreated or enslaved.
Other Articles
Coalition of Immokalee Workers involvement in several anti-slavery agricultural cases:
http://www.ciw-online.org/slavery.html
Slave Labor on Hawaii's Second Largest Farm:
http://humantrafficking.change.org/blog/view/slave_labor_on_hawaiis_second_largest_farm
6 charged in human trafficking scheme involving Thai farm workers:
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-09-03/justice/hawaii.human.trafficking_1_global-horizons-president-thai-workers-guest-workers?_s=PM:CRIME
Seeking justice for trafficked domestic workersin American Courts:
http://www.iwpr.org/PDF/05_Proceedings/Bahan_Della.pdf
Selling Our Children: Atlanta does battle against the sex trafficking of kids:
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj1008&article=selling-our-children
Make sex trafficking unwelcome in Charlotte, NC:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2009/10/09/991874/make-sex-trafficking-unwelcome.html
Woman rescued after investigators discover human trafficking operation in Greensboro; five arrested:
http://www.thetimesnews.com/articles/woman-33668-rescued-human.html
Virginia's human trafficking problem:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-opinions/2010/06/human_trafficking_comes_to_vir.html
31 Arrested in Human Trafficking Case (New York):
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/16/nyregion/17ringcnd.html
Footnotes:
* The 13th amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States, passed the Senate on April 8, 1864, and the House on January 31, 1865. On February 1, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln approved the Joint Resolution of Congress submitting the proposed amendment to the state legislatures. The necessary number of states ratified it by December 6, 1865. The 13th amendment to the United States Constitution provides that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
In 1863 President Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring “œall persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free. “ Nonetheless, the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation. Lincoln recognized that the Emancipation Proclamation would have to be followed by a constitutional amendment in order to guarantee the abolishment of slavery.
The 13th amendment was passed at the end of the Civil War before the Southern states had been restored to the Union and should have easily passed the Congress. Although the Senate passed it in April 1864, the House did not. At that point, Lincoln took an active role to ensure passage through congress. He insisted that passage of the 13th amendment be added to the Republican Party platform for the upcoming Presidential elections. His efforts met with success when the House passed the bill in January 1865 with a vote of 119 to 56.
With the adoption of the 13th amendment, the United States found a final constitutional solution to the issue of slavery. The 13th amendment, along with the 14th and 15th, is one of the trio of Civil War amendments that greatly expanded the civil rights of Americans.
Page URL: http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=40
U.S. National Archives & Records Administration 700 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20408 • 1-86-NARA-NARA • 1-866-272-6272
**Visas: There are many kinds of Visas: T-Visa (allows victims of trafficking to become temporary residents of the US), A-3 Visas for household employees of diplomats who have diplomatic protection, G-5 visas for households of international agencies such as the United Nations, B-1 Visas for domestic workers who “belong” to business people, foreign nationals and Americans with foreign residencies, J-1 visas for “au pairs” from Europe, H-2A visas are for temporary agricultural guest workers.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
CHICKEN & EGG ECONOMICS
(Originally from: The Motley Fool: Investment Analysis Clubs/Macro Economic Trends & Risks, Post # 340401)
Government actions seem to be frustrated at every turn. In QE1, instead of loaning the money out, they parked it again with the Fed so the Quantitative Easing did little good. http://www.2000wave.com/ (John Mauldin, "Pushing On A String," Sunday September 26, 2010)
A second thing I have thought about is to let companies repatriate money stuck overseas because companies don't want to pay the difference in taxes between where the money is and the U.S. corporate rate.
In an excerpt from: http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/09/jobs-disconnect-between-business-and.html This was done in 2005, for example, but: "The danger of leaving this money overseas is that the companies will start wanting to do something with it and build factories and labs overseas rather than in this country. (The fear with encouraging the money to be repatriated is that companies would use the money to buy back stock and increase dividends, neither of which is productive and even more phony acts. This is what happened the last time this was done in 2005 as a result of the “Homeland Investment Act”.****)"**** http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/business/05norris.html
A third thing that might be done is let the taxes on the very wealthy increase on expiration of the Bush tax cuts and lower the taxes on companies. http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/05/effectiveness-of-taxes.html But these possible benefits could be circumvented the same way a tax holiday on repatriated profits was in 2005.
So are we in a Catch 21 situation? Companies will not hire until they see signs of consumption picking up, consumption cannot pick up until unemployment is decreased significantly. Lastly, many jobs will go unfilled because workers cannot move to their location so long as they cannot sell their houses which are probably underwater (appraised at a lower value than the mortgage).
Government actions seem to be frustrated at every turn. In QE1, instead of loaning the money out, they parked it again with the Fed so the Quantitative Easing did little good. http://www.2000wave.com/ (John Mauldin, "Pushing On A String," Sunday September 26, 2010)
A second thing I have thought about is to let companies repatriate money stuck overseas because companies don't want to pay the difference in taxes between where the money is and the U.S. corporate rate.
In an excerpt from: http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/09/jobs-disconnect-between-business-and.html This was done in 2005, for example, but: "The danger of leaving this money overseas is that the companies will start wanting to do something with it and build factories and labs overseas rather than in this country. (The fear with encouraging the money to be repatriated is that companies would use the money to buy back stock and increase dividends, neither of which is productive and even more phony acts. This is what happened the last time this was done in 2005 as a result of the “Homeland Investment Act”.****)"**** http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/business/05norris.html
A third thing that might be done is let the taxes on the very wealthy increase on expiration of the Bush tax cuts and lower the taxes on companies. http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/05/effectiveness-of-taxes.html But these possible benefits could be circumvented the same way a tax holiday on repatriated profits was in 2005.
So are we in a Catch 21 situation? Companies will not hire until they see signs of consumption picking up, consumption cannot pick up until unemployment is decreased significantly. Lastly, many jobs will go unfilled because workers cannot move to their location so long as they cannot sell their houses which are probably underwater (appraised at a lower value than the mortgage).
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
JOBS: THE DISCONNECT BETWEEN BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT
There is a disconnect between companies and politics in bad times. The business of companies is to provide profits (not jobs) whereas the voting public demands that the government provide jobs and will change the Federal management political party when they cannot do so.
Under the present situation, the government is further to provide jobs at no cost to the taxpayer, a very difficult thing to do. There are those who wish to stimulate the economy by lowering personal income taxes; however, this is a very inefficient way to stimulate the economy as I have said elsewhere.*
During good times, everything is fine, companies will tend to provide jobs to increase profits, even more, the politicians get a growing workforce, and nearly everyone is happy (“nearly” because some are always left behind).
Now there are companies that will keep their workforce during bad times, at least for a while, because they feel that the training costs and startup costs outweigh the savings from letting the workforce go and shutting down some of all of their facilities, either selectively or en masse.
There are even a few companies that will keep their workforce for moral reasons and not business reasons.
The workforce is the elastic dimension of capitalism, even though many companies do all they can to minimize the size of the workforce through all sorts of automation. They will also minimize the size of their domestic workforce if they can find cheaper labor elsewhere through outsourcing. Still, it is by increasing and decreasing the workforce that companies mainly regulate their expenses.
A good example of automation eliminating jobs was when the cotton gin was invented which eliminated the need for all sorts of northern slaves to work at picking the seeds out of cotton but an increased need for slaves on plantations growing increased amounts of cotton. Thus the more difficult ones were shipped down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to Natchez to work at growing cotton. This is where the saying sold down the river came from* * At one time, Natchez was a thriving community but is now just a small tourist town with no other industry to speak of.
There is a move again to cut the taxes on profits from foreign operations that are repatriated into the U.S. (e.g. John Chambers of Cisco).*** Right now companies must pay the difference between taxes paid to the foreign government and the taxes that would be paid if the profits were obtained domestically. It is felt that money would be brought back if the taxes in doing so were eased to the low single digits. I (who, of course, have no influence what so ever) would like to try a 5% tax on bringing foreign earnings back into the country. The danger of leaving this money overseas is that the companies will start wanting to do something with it and build factories and labs overseas rather than in this country. (The fear with encouraging the money to be repatriated is that companies would use the money to buy back stock and increase dividends, neither of which is productive and even more phonier acts. This is what happened the last time this was done in 2005 as a result of the “Homeland Investment Act”.****)
But easing the corporate tax burden on returning profits could enhance the prospect of building factories and labs in this country instead of overseas and thereby encourage some hiring if companies would cooperate. This the government could not only do at no cost to the American taxpayer, but bring in some tax revenue as well. It is felt that there is something like one or two trillion dollars of corporate profits overseas so at 5% we might be talking about $50 to $100 billion dollars of tax revenue. True this is only a baby step regarding our Federal deficit, but I think the solution is to take many baby steps and do so gradually so our system can adjust. And there could be a multiplier as well through construction of factories and labs (both of which involve labor) plus staffing such as mentioned above.
* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/05/effectiveness-of-taxes.html
**http://www.bigsiteofamazingfacts.com/what-does-the-expression-sold-down-the-river-mean-and-how-did-the-phrase-originate
*** http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39173765/ns/business-personal_finance/
**** http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/business/05norris.html
Under the present situation, the government is further to provide jobs at no cost to the taxpayer, a very difficult thing to do. There are those who wish to stimulate the economy by lowering personal income taxes; however, this is a very inefficient way to stimulate the economy as I have said elsewhere.*
During good times, everything is fine, companies will tend to provide jobs to increase profits, even more, the politicians get a growing workforce, and nearly everyone is happy (“nearly” because some are always left behind).
Now there are companies that will keep their workforce during bad times, at least for a while, because they feel that the training costs and startup costs outweigh the savings from letting the workforce go and shutting down some of all of their facilities, either selectively or en masse.
There are even a few companies that will keep their workforce for moral reasons and not business reasons.
The workforce is the elastic dimension of capitalism, even though many companies do all they can to minimize the size of the workforce through all sorts of automation. They will also minimize the size of their domestic workforce if they can find cheaper labor elsewhere through outsourcing. Still, it is by increasing and decreasing the workforce that companies mainly regulate their expenses.
A good example of automation eliminating jobs was when the cotton gin was invented which eliminated the need for all sorts of northern slaves to work at picking the seeds out of cotton but an increased need for slaves on plantations growing increased amounts of cotton. Thus the more difficult ones were shipped down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to Natchez to work at growing cotton. This is where the saying sold down the river came from* * At one time, Natchez was a thriving community but is now just a small tourist town with no other industry to speak of.
There is a move again to cut the taxes on profits from foreign operations that are repatriated into the U.S. (e.g. John Chambers of Cisco).*** Right now companies must pay the difference between taxes paid to the foreign government and the taxes that would be paid if the profits were obtained domestically. It is felt that money would be brought back if the taxes in doing so were eased to the low single digits. I (who, of course, have no influence what so ever) would like to try a 5% tax on bringing foreign earnings back into the country. The danger of leaving this money overseas is that the companies will start wanting to do something with it and build factories and labs overseas rather than in this country. (The fear with encouraging the money to be repatriated is that companies would use the money to buy back stock and increase dividends, neither of which is productive and even more phonier acts. This is what happened the last time this was done in 2005 as a result of the “Homeland Investment Act”.****)
But easing the corporate tax burden on returning profits could enhance the prospect of building factories and labs in this country instead of overseas and thereby encourage some hiring if companies would cooperate. This the government could not only do at no cost to the American taxpayer, but bring in some tax revenue as well. It is felt that there is something like one or two trillion dollars of corporate profits overseas so at 5% we might be talking about $50 to $100 billion dollars of tax revenue. True this is only a baby step regarding our Federal deficit, but I think the solution is to take many baby steps and do so gradually so our system can adjust. And there could be a multiplier as well through construction of factories and labs (both of which involve labor) plus staffing such as mentioned above.
* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/05/effectiveness-of-taxes.html
**http://www.bigsiteofamazingfacts.com/what-does-the-expression-sold-down-the-river-mean-and-how-did-the-phrase-originate
*** http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39173765/ns/business-personal_finance/
**** http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/05/business/05norris.html
Monday, September 20, 2010
WELFARE FOR THE WEALTHY
A recent Wall Street Journal had a major article titled The Estate Tax (Monday, September 20, 2010). In writing for "Get Rid Of It", Ed McCaffery in "It's Unfair, and There's a Better Way" curiously says "It is a simple moral case..." In a country that prides itself on the Judeo-Christian work ethic, it would seem to me that the moral case is that there should be no inheritance, that every generation should start from scratch. Even in this case, the children of the wealthy would have an advantage because of better education and health care. Besides, inheritance, at least a large inheritance, promotes sloth just as welfare for the poor is thought to promote sloth. Inheritance is just promoting sloth for the wealthy. In this regard, I agree with Michael J. Graetz who authored the "Keep It" article "It's Fair, and We Need The Revenue" and who wrote, "On the other hand, large tax-free inheritances do encourage their recipients not to work. People who receive large inheritances are about four times more likely to drop out of the labor force than those who inherit only small amounts."
Still, I realize that deep in people's hearts is a desire to leave something to their children and maybe other heirs, besides debts, even though most families cannot do so. Under the previous inheritance law, the first $3.5 million in inheritance was exempt from taxation (up from $1 million before that), and the tax on the balance was 45% (down from 55% before that). It seems to me that this is very generous. After all, an income of 5% from a $1 million inheritance, a percentage easy to attain, is $50,000/year, a sum actually somewhat above the median FAMILY income of 2009 ($49,777).* It seems to me that the previous law on inheritance tax was more than generous concerning inheritance, and would hardly encourage the wealthy to "spend it all" during their lifetimes and die broke as Ed McCaffrey suggests.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income
Still, I realize that deep in people's hearts is a desire to leave something to their children and maybe other heirs, besides debts, even though most families cannot do so. Under the previous inheritance law, the first $3.5 million in inheritance was exempt from taxation (up from $1 million before that), and the tax on the balance was 45% (down from 55% before that). It seems to me that this is very generous. After all, an income of 5% from a $1 million inheritance, a percentage easy to attain, is $50,000/year, a sum actually somewhat above the median FAMILY income of 2009 ($49,777).* It seems to me that the previous law on inheritance tax was more than generous concerning inheritance, and would hardly encourage the wealthy to "spend it all" during their lifetimes and die broke as Ed McCaffrey suggests.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income
Thursday, September 16, 2010
DE-DEVELOPING AMERICA
Well, to de-develop America* sounds like a very Christian goal but unrealistic. Capitalism requires ever more consumption. You can either do this through population growth, though the increased population has to have the money to consume (a problem right now), or through getting the existing population to want always more (the purpose of advertising) or both. Of course there are places in the world that could well use more consumption, but we haven't figured out a way to get them the money to buy things. Capitalism also requires an ever increasing population of low wage workers (thus outsourcing). One would think that automation would decrease the need for low wage workers, and may to some degree, but recent history has shown that the low wage workers abroad can operate such equipment so the need for low wage workers still exists.
Communism as practiced always seems to end up with a dictator and a not benevolent dictator at that. Communism as practiced also does not invoke common ownership of goods and property. The trend has been for Communistic nations to adopt Capitalism (China, Russia) which seems to be raising the standard of living for many, but with very serious pollution problems.
Socialism seems to work in some countries like Sweden (which curiously has a high suicide rate, perhaps as a result of lack of sunshine in the winter) and other Scandinavian states. Socialism is not working so well in the U.S. because we insist on getting government services without paying for them. It is all very nice to cut out the services, but, as soon as some disaster occurs, even people who say they want small government, suddenly want a LOT of government aid and fast (see BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill)!** Canada seems to be able to invoke Socialism and still balance their budget, but they don't have open-ended government services as we in the U.S. do.
So, frankly, I don't know of a solution to this problem. I wish I did.
*White House Science Czar Says He Would Use ‘Free Market’ to ‘De-Develop the United States’ In a video interview this week, White House Office of Science and Technology Director John P. Holdren told CNSNews.com that he would use the “free market economy” to implement the “massive campaign” he advocated along with Paul Ehrlich to “de-develop the United States.”
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/51702 September 16, 2010
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/06/if-it-wasnt-so-tragic-it-would-be-funny.html
Communism as practiced always seems to end up with a dictator and a not benevolent dictator at that. Communism as practiced also does not invoke common ownership of goods and property. The trend has been for Communistic nations to adopt Capitalism (China, Russia) which seems to be raising the standard of living for many, but with very serious pollution problems.
Socialism seems to work in some countries like Sweden (which curiously has a high suicide rate, perhaps as a result of lack of sunshine in the winter) and other Scandinavian states. Socialism is not working so well in the U.S. because we insist on getting government services without paying for them. It is all very nice to cut out the services, but, as soon as some disaster occurs, even people who say they want small government, suddenly want a LOT of government aid and fast (see BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill)!** Canada seems to be able to invoke Socialism and still balance their budget, but they don't have open-ended government services as we in the U.S. do.
So, frankly, I don't know of a solution to this problem. I wish I did.
*White House Science Czar Says He Would Use ‘Free Market’ to ‘De-Develop the United States’ In a video interview this week, White House Office of Science and Technology Director John P. Holdren told CNSNews.com that he would use the “free market economy” to implement the “massive campaign” he advocated along with Paul Ehrlich to “de-develop the United States.”
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/51702 September 16, 2010
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/06/if-it-wasnt-so-tragic-it-would-be-funny.html
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