Taxing Multi-National Companies

We have a problem with multi-national companies “recognizing” their profits in countries where they will pay few if any taxes, while avoiding recognizing profits where their business is. United States tax laws allow companies to only pay taxes on those profits “made” in the US, or repatriated to this country. Given that, companies play games with how they recognize profits, and they certainly don’t intend to repatriate the money to this country.

One of the ways they do this is to play with ‘transfer pricing’. When one part of the work is done in one country, and another part is done in another, the company can arbitrarily decide what price one part of the company will “charge” another part. They set the pricing so the part of the company with lower taxes makes most of the profits. They also will move the headquarters for the company or a subsidiary to a country with lower taxes.

As a result, the US collects fewer corporate income taxes as a proportion of total taxes than it did any time since World War II. By one accounting, eight US technology companies between them have parked $2.1 trillion in profits overseas to avoid US income taxes. Why should we care? Because that increases the US budget deficit and makes it harder to pay for US military, roads, bridges, police, education, etc.

How can we deal with this problem? Perhaps we should no longer allowing companies to arbitrarily set transfer pricing to hide profits, for one thing. For tax purposes in the US, they must have revenues and profits proportional. So if they have $200 million in sales and $20 million in profits, with $100 million of their sales in the US, then $10 million of their profits would be taxable here. Maybe we should also make companies with overseas headquarters ineligible for certain US government contracts.

Ordinary taxpayers – you and I – are subsidizing highly profitable corporations. This is unfair and should not be allowed to continue. Beyond that, it makes it more advantageous to ship US jobs overseas where they can pay the workers less and increase the profits further.

G-d and the Nature of G-d

If there is a G-d, it is something beyond our understanding or comprehension. Even the ordinary things of this world have more aspects than we can truly perceive, how much more so for any divinity which may exist. Each of us is capable only of perceiving through the lens of our own experiences. Therefore each of us will see something different even looking at the mundane. I believe there is a G-d, though I accept that it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence thereof. Each of us who tries is capable of perceiving some portion of that G-d, though no two of us can fully agree on what it is. My focus therefore is to live around the idea of not hurting others and speaking out against those who wish to hurt others. The niceties of dogma and ritual are only window dressing, at best.

Gun Control Redux

The gun control argument all too quickly degenerates into a futile exchange of accusations and often insults. That is distressing and does not get us any closer to ending or even reducing the string of mass shootings in the United States.

Pro-gun people say gun control doesn’t work, that there are too many laws on the books already, and that the existing laws need to be enforced. Extreme anti-gun people say ban all guns. The first argument basically means live with the current situation. The second has no chance of being enacted in this country in the foreseeable future. We need a middle way.

We are not going to end mass shootings in the US. There are simply too many legal guns and it is too easy for people to legally obtain guns. Further there is no popular support for changing those things. While we may not be able to end mass shootings, that does not mean we cannot reduce the number of mass shootings or the death toll from these incidents.

The numbers seem to vary, but surveys show that roughly 80% of Americans are in favor of improved background checks. How can we improve background checks while not interfering with the ability of most law abiding citizens to obtain weapons? We don’t know how accurate the number is, but one estimate from some years back was that perhaps as much as 40% of guns sold had no background check. How could this be? First, there is the gun show loophole allowing sales at gun shows by non-licensed dealers to proceed with no background check. Second, there is the three day rule which says if the background check is not completed in three days, the seller can complete the sale with no check. Third, we have private gun sales or transfers, which never have background checks. We should close the gun show loophole, and end the three day rule. We should also provide an easy means, and insist that private sales also undergo a background check.

We need to tighten who can pass a background check. Convicted violent felons generally cannot buy guns legally, but suspected terrorists on the no-fly list can buy them. While people who have been committed for mental problems usually can’t legally buy guns, folks with serious mental problems who were never committed can. Folks who have been stalking, harassing, abusing, or under restraining orders can buy guns unless they have a violent felony conviction. I suggest we keep all three of these categories of people from buying guns legally. I would not categorize any of these as being ‘good law-abiding’ citizens. For the third category, once restraining orders are lifted, and a reasonable time after the last charge for stalking, harassment, or abuse, I’d allow them again. The mental prohibition should apply to anyone who a mental health professional feels is a danger to others.

While I would not limit other types of weapons, I’d suggest that semi-automatic and “assault weapons” be banned as they were previously. I’d also suggest that high capacity magazines also be banned. To me, neither is necessary either for hunting or personal protection. Further, something like 28% of all mass shootings involved assault weapons, and when used the death tolls were more than 50% higher. I suspect that will reduce the incidence of mass shootings, and at the least reduce the death toll from those shootings. Many of the folks who used assault weapons with high capacity magazines might well think twice about it, if neither was available.

Stop Eating Chicken?

I saw a link to a magazine article partly entitled “Eating chicken is indefensible”. It was largely about some of the abuses of the factory farming system for poultry. I am sympathetic to correcting the abuses of factory farming, but found the overall tone off-putting.

We live in a highly industrialized age in a highly industrialized country. Most of what we eat is produced in factory farms. Do some or even many of those factory farms have abuses? Of course, and we need to shine a light on those abuses and compel lawmakers to enact laws correcting those abuses.

When we know that one company in particular is rife with abuse of animals, then we can complain in writing and urge other consumers to avoid buying the products of that company until they correct those abuses. Can we know or learn the ultimate source of everything we eat? Probably not. Does that mean we can’t buy a product unless we know for certain it has been ethically produced? Do you want to starve?

I live as a part of this society and am not prepared to produce all my own food. Neither am I willing to spend hours tracking and sourcing every bit of food I buy. According to some people, that makes me both unethical and complicit in any abuse. I am not prepared to be vegan, and many other folks are unwilling or unable to be vegan either.

As it stands, I eat no pork, and I minimize my consumption of beef. I primarily eat poultry and fin fish and only tend to eat meat one meal a day on average, and not as the major portion of that meal. I am rather fond of cheese, which in many cases is also a part of the factory farming system, albeit one which does not usually result in the death of the animals.

If you want to judge me or damn me for my consumption of poultry, dairy, fish, or eggs, go ahead. Understand that unless you live a wholly ethical life, you are also subject to judgment. When I have limited my consumption of meat, and largely limited that to poultry and fish, I refuse to be ashamed of that consumption.

Slavery and the Bible

Had a friend who posted a meme criticizing the fact that the Bible does not ban slavery, though it bans shellfish.

I am not a Christian and have not been since I was in my teens. I have no interest in defending societal attitudes from some 3000 years ago. We are in a different age, with different social sensibilities. Things which were accepted thousands of years ago are not accepted today and vice versa - properly so when the outdated approaches harm other people.

Since I left Christianity, I have studied and followed Buddhism, Taoism, Zen, and Judaism. What I find is that slavery is not condemned in any ancient religious teachings - not in the Bible, not in the teachings of Buddha, not in the Tao Te Ching, not in Confucianism, not in Islam not in Hinduism.

Frankly, until the late 18th or early 19th centuries, slavery was generally accepted in societies around the world. After the "Enlightenment" in Europe, people began to shift away from finding slavery acceptable, and abolition of slavery became a social movement. In the Americas, slavery was practiced until well into the 1800s, not ending in the US until the Civil War. Slavery, in fact is enshrined in the US Constitution.

According to people studying such things, there are still more than 30 million people effectively or officially enslaved around the world. Frankly what we need to shine a light on is the slavery that still continues, and bring it to an end. Criticizing a 3000 year old religious text for not banning something that only ended in this country 150 years ago seems to me to be a sort of intellectual masturbation.

We have a plethora of problems in this country and this world, but whether or not the Bible bans slavery is at best a very minor side note.

Socialism versus Communism versus Capitalism

It’s time for me to go off again. I saw a posting by someone who does not know what socialism and communism are, nor what the differences between them are. Neither do most of them even understand capitalism.

First, communism is an economic system in which the state owns the means of production. In something closer to common English, there are no privately owned businesses, since all businesses are owned and run by the state, and accordingly all business profits go to the state. As to how the workers are compensated, the ideal under communism is ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.’ Even in the ideal it is not ‘everyone gets the same thing’, but everyone gets what they need. The ideal is never realized, so in practice, the upper echelon (the top dogs) gets far more than the ordinary workers. They get more money and more benefits. There is little incentive for a worker to work harder, since they are not likely to get ahead or to get more money based on working harder. Advancement is based on who you know – strictly. Since managers similarly are not incentivized, there is little reason to try to make the business more profitable. The joke among workers under some communist regimes was ‘they pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.’ Beyond that, since private business owners and private land owners are not going to give up their ownership voluntarily, communism can only be imposed by a dictatorial government. Communist societies can limp along and have, to the extent that they can use propaganda to motivate the workers. Even in communistic societies, there is nearly always a thriving black market. What communism can do and what has kept it afloat, is take care of the lowest tier of workers, providing them with food, clothing, housing, and medicine that they never received under strict laissez faire capitalism. The loyalty and efforts of those workers can maintain communistic societies longer than might otherwise be expected.

Socialism often has some of the means of production under state ownership or ownership by the workers in that company. Ideally, ownership for most would be what in the US has been termed ESOPs – employee stock ownership plans. Some notable companies have ESOPs, one of the larger ones being Publix Supermarkets with 175,000 employees. Other large companies have flirted with ESOPs, but in many cases moved away from them. Even under ESOPs there have been conflicts between workers and management, and the question becomes one of how management is chosen. These issues have never been satisfactorily solved on a large scale. Under socialism, many or even most businesses are still under private ownership, and where there is state ownership, it is usually what has been deemed “key” industries. The general idea was to prevent ownership and control of businesses as a whole from being held by a small number of very wealthy people. As to how people are compensated, the ideal was ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his contribution’. There was an idea of incentivizing high volume and quality of production. To my knowledge, no country or even business has had its wages based on that ideal, but at least at a theoretical basis there was a means of sidestepping the lack of incentives under communism. The overall purpose was some measure of advancement based on merit. Under most socialistic structures, there was room for private enterprise, though with controls to ensure fairness to workers and consumers. There are no pure socialistic systems, but most capitalistic systems including the US have some degree of socialism under a “mixed” economic structure. This has provided a level of protection for ordinary workers, while allowing a large measure of capitalism. Socialist worker protections include minimum wage levels, unemployment compensation, compensation for injured employees, retirement (social security) systems, worker safety protections, child labor laws, the right for workers to unionize, and social health care systems (Medicare, etc.). These programs have generally been implemented at the insistence of ordinary workers, and over the objections of most business owners.

Under capitalism, all businesses and all property are privately owned. Under laissez faire capitalism, which is perhaps closest to ‘ideal’ capitalism, there would be no governmental interference in business whatsoever. Everything would be based on profits and the choices of the business owners. As to worker compensation, that was based on supply and demand. When the demand for workers exceeded the number of workers available for that job, wages would be bid up, and when the supply of workers exceeded the demand, the wages would be pushed down. Individual business owners would set their own wage scales, and since economies are seldom at full employment, there is little incentive for employers to raise wages. Some capitalist business owners have believed it in their interests to have higher wages, but often those have been the exceptions, and there is no obligation to do so. Let’s also take a look at some of the failings of capitalism. Businesses may not find it in their interests to install worker protections, resulting in things like the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, where over one hundred workers died, or coal mines where many hundreds of miners have been killed, along with others who suffered black lung and similar ailments. Businesses may not find it in their interests to eliminate or reduce pollution of the air, water, or land. Businesses will often pay workers as little as they can get away with and will fire workers who try to unionize the workforce. Pay is not based on one’s contribution, but rather is based on economic power, and those with the power will reap most of the rewards. Advancement is not necessarily based on merit, but on whatever measure the existing managers choose to use. Markets are not self-regulating, regardless of what capitalist idealists say, but rather are quite capable of distortions based on market power.

Press 'One' for English

I saw one of my FB friends post a meme questioning 'why they have to press one for English' in America. I have the following reply for them:

Two things, first we have tourism from Latin America, and businesses want to accommodate tourists who may not have a full command of English. I've used ATMs in foreign countries, including France and Israel, where I could do so in spite of not speaking the language, because they had English language options on the machines.

The second thing is that we have legal immigrants who may be learning English, but still do not have the command of it that native Americans do. Corporations want the business of those immigrants and want to provide the best customer service to ALL their customers. That means providing an option for instructions in other languages, and if the person has to be connected to a customer service operator, letting them speak with someone fluent in their language. It's called good business for those companies.

Beyond which, if the worst thing in your life is having to press "one" for English, then you have a damned easy life. Just saying.

Kim Davis

Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky has been jailed on contempt of court charges for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. Her staff has been directed to issue the licenses in her absence. Ms. Davis has said she cannot issue the licenses because it would violate G-d’s law, but she does not work for G-d. She works for the people of Kentucky and is obliged to follow the laws of the state of Kentucky and the United States.

It is not a matter of religious freedom. Ms. Davis is free to follow such religious beliefs as she chooses in her own life. She does not work for a religious organization, and if she did, she would not be subject to the same rules. A minister of a church cannot be compelled to marry a couple if doing so would violate her or his religion. A public official is obliged to serve all the public, based on the law. Since the Supreme Court decision legalizing same sex marriage, it is now legal in all states of the United States.

Ms. Davis has appealed the rulings requiring her to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples, all the way to the Supreme Court, which refused to hear her appeal. That means that she could not find three of the nine justices who would support her plea for an appeal. On another case, Justice Scalia, one of the most conservative justices, made it clear that public officials are bound to follow the law – not their “conscience”.

We are in fact a nation of laws, and those laws are based in the constitution of the United States, not in the Bible. Certainly in her private life, Ms. Davis has the right to practice her religious beliefs, as she sees fit. In her role as a public official, she must check her personal beliefs at the door to the office. If she feels so strongly that issuing those licenses would violate her personal moral principles, then she is obliged to resign her position.

Unfortunately, as an elected official, she cannot be removed from office except through impeachment or recall, both of which are difficult and slow. Now because of her refusal, she has been jailed. I’m sorry it was necessary to jail her, but I suspect the judge was correct that fines would not have been sufficient to force her to correct her behavior. There are too many right wing “Christians” who would financially support her continued intransigence.

No doubt there will be those who claim it is part of a ‘war on religion’, yet no one is being forced to change or give up their religion. Ms. Davis is merely being told that as a public official she is obliged to follow the law, and the law allows marriage between members of the same sex. Again, where and how she worships, or even whether she worships, and how she conducts her private life are not at issue. The issue is her performance as a public official and her refusal to follow the law.

I suspect another reason the judge jailed her was that two other county clerks were making noises like they also would refuse to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. Perhaps the threat of jail will be enough to soften their resolve and compel them to comply with the law. In the meantime, the “Christian” right wing has a “martyr” for their cause, whom I sure they will hail and praise at some length. She has done nothing praiseworthy – nothing whatsoever.

Missouri School Locker Room Transgender Issue

There has been a stir in one Missouri school about a transgender young woman changing in the women’s locker room. Her presence made some of the cisgender females uncomfortable and about 200 walked out in protest. This isn’t the first time that transwomen have been involved in locker room problems. I suspect  that in all cases it has been pre-op transwomen, since post-op would tend to go unnoticed.

For the benefit of all concerned, there needs to be some privacy, which you have in most bathrooms, but not necessarily in locker rooms. The transgender student should NOT be forced to change in the locker room of their birth gender. For a pre-op transwoman, I have some sympathy though for those women who are uncomfortable seeing a penis in the women's locker room. I'm sure the student is NO danger to her fellow students, but I understand their discomfort in an open locker room environment. What kind of accommodation can be made to protect the transgender, make them feel comfortable, yet not make the cisgender uncomfortable?

Can we easily create a situation where we have more privacy for all students in the locker room? I know that would have some cost, but to me would be one solution. Given that physical education classes are mandatory for many years of school, could we have some alternatives for both transgender and cisgender that don’t require changing in an open locker room?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think many of the students are so much motivated by hatred as fear of that which they don't understand. It becomes an education process and allaying their fears. Simply dismissing them out of hand gets us nowhere positive. The student is indeed brave, and will need to continue to be brave in the face of the unreasoning fear by some of her fellow students. She must also be protected from abuse and bullying. Sensitivity training for all the students might be a good start. Teach them what transgender is really all about. Teach them acceptance and teach them accommodation.

Living the life of luxury at government expense?

I saw a Facebook meme about how one should game the system to collect all sorts of government benefits and live the high life.

Seriously, people?

If you are poor - if you have been poor - if you have been forced to get government assistance to live, then you know damned well, you aren't living a life of luxury. At best, these benefits keep you from dying, starving, or living on the streets. In many cases, there are maximum time limits during which you can collect these benefits. In all cases, the amount of the benefits is pretty meager. A few hundred dollars a month in food stamps, perhaps a few hundred dollars a month in TANF, perhaps you get rent subsidies. None, or even the total of all is at best barely enough to get by. In many cases the amounts you get are set based on where you live, since they are funded by block grants to the states, and a lot of eligibility is based on what that state allows.

Medicaid will keep you from dying, if you qualify, and if you can get on the program. Again, the states have considerable control over who can even get on, and when the federal government expanded eligibility under the Affordable Care Act, some states refused the funds and the expansion. So we have folks sick and sometimes dying, who cannot get help even under Medicaid. Most states have more people who qualify and want to get on than the funds available to pay for them.
The meme also seems to imply that the reason we are running federal government deficits is because of benefits to poor people.

Bullshit. Repeat, bullshit.

We spend billions of dollars on subsidies to already profitable oil companies. We spend billions on agricultural subsidies to huge and very profitable agricultural conglomerates. We spend billions more to subsidize mega-corporations for import and export. We spend billions on military weapons which in some cases the military says it does not even need. We give billions in tax breaks to hedge fund managers, who have zero money at risk and make millions upon millions for their activities. Yet we are supposed to believe that assistance for poor people is breaking our budget?

What we have is some very wealthy people, who are also very greedy, who spend millions to convince average working people that "lazy" poor people are getting things at their expense. All this is so the wealthy folks can have even more billions, through tax cuts. We indeed have a class of "takers" in this country, but it is not the poor - it is the rich.

Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice

I took part in a staged reading or Merchant of Venice tonight, doing the part of Shylock. The play has a reputation for being somewhat anti-semitic, but it is not wholly deserved. In common understanding, Shylock is the villain, Antonio is the victim, and Portia is the hero. Clearly Shylock stepped over a line that he should not have crossed, but in the time spent working on this, I realized that the reason he did so was the continual abuse he suffered at the hands of Antonio. When Bassenio and Antonio meet with Shylock about borrowing money, Shylock talks about how Antonio has repeatedly spit on and cursed Shylock. Instead of showing any remorse, Antonio says he is likely to do so again. In his desire for revenge, Shylock goes too far. He starts by forgetting the "eye for an eye" prescription. That is not meant to condone revenge, but to put an upper limit on revenge. Shylock reacts to his physical and verbal abuse, not merely with physical and verbal abuse, but by effectively trying to take Antonio's life - clearly not on the same scale. He also forgets the dictum from Rabbi Hillel that what is hateful to oneself, one should not do to one's neighbor. Shylock then is effectively abused by Portia. She does give him a chance to withdraw his request for vengeance, but when he declines, she leads him to believe she is on his side before telling him of the negative consequences to himself of his actions. When he then wishes to change his mind, and tries three times to do so, she will not allow it, but strips him of his possessions and puts his life in the hands of the Duke. Now the Duke does show some mercy and his is does not lose his life, but still loses half his possessions (though those will go to his daughter eventually). Antonio, for all the abuse he inflicted on Shylock, suffers threats on his life for a period of time, but nothing more. Antonio in fact gets to use half of Shylock's money, though Shylock was in no way responsible for Antonio's losses. I feel pretty sure he will continue to abuse Shylock. Just my impressions.

Reply to a Moderate Republican

I had a reply to one of my posts by a more reasonable Republican, who questioned some of the aspects of the post. The following is my reply.

I appreciate that you are more thoughtful and less dogmatic than many of the loudest voices in the Republican party, and you bring up some points that are certainly worth discussing.

You question how we can afford “free education”. First, I think the free education would apply to state college, community college, and university systems. If it is important to you to go to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc, then you need to work to get the scholarships or other financial aid to do so. That’s nothing whatsoever against the so-called elite universities, just a recognition that their cost structures may be quite different from state colleges. Second, in the past we had several state colleges which charged little or no tuition. One might ask how we managed to do that in previous years. Third, there are countries where even today there is little or no tuition cost for state universities. Again, one might ask how they manage it, and the answer is similar to that for the second question. To start, over a hundred years ago, this country realized that education is an investment in the people of the country. It is an investment that will pay for itself, albeit over time. It pays for itself by making the workers more productive, and through that productivity there is more income for the workers and employers. The taxes on that income pay for the investment in that education. It doesn’t happen overnight, but does happen over time. We recognized that for society as a whole, we gain from having a better educated populace, and that gain was deemed worthy of an upfront investment. I know you may be saying that perhaps over the long term it will pay off, but in the short term, how we pay for it. It is a valid question but related to my question of how we did it in the past and how other countries do it. It is a matter of priorities, and unfortunately our priorities have become very skewed over the past few decades. We spend more to lock a person up in jail for a year than we do to send them to college for a year. Afterwards, the person who went to college for a year makes more money than they otherwise would, while the person who went to jail for a year, makes far less. It is a strong net disinvestment in our people. Now we can justify that when we are locking up violent offenders because those people harm society as a whole, but over the last thirty years we have been locking up millions of people for minor non-violent drug offenses. Federal, state, and local governments have spent trillions of dollars locking people up for possession of marijuana, making those people virtually unemployable afterwards. In retrospect, that has to be enormously short sighted and counter-productive. The harm done to the country as a whole by this incarceration is far greater than the harm done by marijuana use. You would think we might have learned our lesson with alcohol prohibition, but instead we doubled down with the “war on drugs”. The costs to the country for policing, courts, and prisons have been astronomical and steadily increasing. End the “war on drugs” and instead put that money to education. Let the police focus on violent and property crime. That will pay for ‘free education’ even in the short term. Another thing to consider is that currently our personal and corporate income taxes are near the lowest they have been since the Great Depression in the 1930s. In the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, the top tax rate was over 90% where now it is below 40%. Now very few people paid the top rate, and there were deductions that lessened the impact even to top bracket payers. For all the talk of how high taxes stifle the economy, one has to ask how the economy was when the top rates were higher. After the Depression ended, the economy went gangbusters, high taxes or not. Wealthy people did not flee the country with their money. Corporations did not refuse to invest in plants or equipment, nor did they refuse to hire. There was high consumer demand that drove the economy, and made everyone better off. There is a point at which high taxes can stifle the economy, but we are well below that point in this country. Now I’m not advocating increasing taxes on middle or lower income people, but rather on high income people – the people who have done very well over the past twenty years. No, I’m not talking bleeding the rich, nor am I talking about returning to 90% or more rates. I’m talking going back to the rates of the 1970s and early 1980s of 50% to 70% for top earners and eliminating things like the carried interest loophole.

You talk about how your healthcare costs 55% more than last year. I have no idea what policy or insurance carrier you have but that is outrageous. That is also not typical. Health care inflation has dropped considerably since the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Now I’m not claiming that the ACA is responsible for this slowdown, nor would I say that all healthcare plans have shown the same rate of slowdown, but for the economy as a whole, the costs seem to be moderating somewhat. Now your plan may have high coverage, but also higher costs than before, but again I’m not familiar with your healthcare plan. A part of the remaining problem is that we rely largely on private health insurance for most of our population. That health insurance is provided by for profit companies. Those companies pay for overhead, advertising, executive salaries, executive bonuses, and stockholder dividends. None of those expenses in any way improve the health care of Americans, but they are overhead costs endemic to a system of private insurance coverage. Where overhead costs of 20% are common among insurance companies, we find that Medicare has an overhead of 3% to 5% of total premiums. Now I’m not saying that private companies should not be allowed to provide health insurance, but would we not in theory be able to cut health care costs and premiums by 15% by switching people to a Medicare type program?

You talk also about how your household is frugal and you expect your government to be likewise. The problem is that a government is not a household. With a household, when income drops, you have to cut expenses. With a country, we proved during the Great Depression that the government has to be counter cyclical. When economic activity drops for the country as a whole, the government has to run short term deficits to “prime the pump” as it were. We have to kickstart the economy with government spending. Now when the economy recovers, we can and should cut back on expenditures and begin to pay back some of what we borrowed to get things going again. The problem has been that we have not made any effort to cut expenditures when the economy recovers. In that sense you are right. We must run deficits to get things going, but must also cut expenditures and begin saving when things are going good. Government expenditures are an investment in the economy, but there is a time to invest and a time to repay what was borrowed to finance that investment. We’ve lost the second part, and some portions of the political spectrum are unwilling to acknowledge the need for the investment up front.

Confederate Flag Redux

I’ve seen a number of people blathering about the Confederate flag and how they love it, and how they want to represent it as symbolizing honor. Frankly, that is total bullshit. That flag was flown by people who fired on American troops and started a war over slavery. Spare me all your bullshit about how “the war was not about slavery”. It was exactly about slavery – several of the states trying to secede said that very explicitly, and it was also stated explicitly at the convention where they organized a government for the Confederacy. Genuine American soldiers were killed by people flying that flag. It is the symbol of no less than treason against this country. People flying that flag enslaved other human beings, brutalized them, and killed them. After the war, people flying that flag worked to deny equal rights to black Americans, oppressed them, and lynched them often for no more than wanting to be treated like a decent human being. There is no honor represented by the Confederate flag. There were brave soldiers who fought under that flag, but then there were brave German soldiers who fought under the Nazi flag, and brave Japanese soldiers who fought under their flag. Their bravery does not in any way offset the utter disgrace of the cause for which they fought, nor does it offset the evils of the regimes that they fought on behalf of. If you want to fly the Confederate flag, do it. It serves to show decent Americans who the traitors and bigots in our midst are.

Sexism & its Aftermath

I understand the anger, the pain, the frustration, and the fear of many women. Too many men engage in sexual assault and either physical or verbal sexual harassment. All females past puberty, with few exceptions, have been victims of this assault and harassment. The vast majority of men are unwilling to confront this behavior by other men. The reasons are varied but basically come down to pack behavior. Packs of men tend to echo or excuse the behavior of the dominant members and that dominance has a strong sexual and often sexist aspect. Those who challenge the pack mentality quickly find the pack turning on them and often excluding them as well. So why do so few men speak up? Because the ones most likely to speak up have already left the pack either voluntarily or not, and the rest either echo the sexism or are afraid of rejection by the pack. Whether justified or not, it often leaves women feeling, as with one meme I saw recently, that all men are either guilty or tacitly complicit in this sexual abuse.

I was never comfortable with the pack. I didn’t have the same sorts of likes and dislikes as the dominant members. I didn’t care for much of their behavior. I found it preferable to hang with the females, but also found that left me open to suggestions that I was effeminate. I found myself being groped and sexually harassed by men a few times, though nothing compared to what the average woman endures. Still it was enough to leave me with some understanding and sympathy for the women. I attended a few NOW meetings in my area, already being a member. Once they realized that I was not there to cause problems and was not indulging in typical male sexist behavior, I got some offers to set me up with a nice guy, which was not what I wanted either.

Why would I even find myself drawn to a feminist agenda, some might ask. In college, back during the Stone Age, I took a career test which included a masculinity/femininity index. It was scaled from 0 to 99, and given the patriarchal attitudes, I seem to recall 0 was ultra feminine, while 99 was hyper masculine. My score was 49, and the counselor quickly tried to assure me that was not an indication of sexuality, which I already understood. More than anything else, it measured convergence with late 20th century gender stereotypes. I did not adhere to either male or female stereotypes. That left me identifying with the difficulties faced by women. I already had dealt with my own difficulties and accepted that I’d never fit into the male power structure, and in fact did not want to fit in.

Being socially liberal, anti-sexist, and anti-racist, and not being reticent to express my opinions, I’ve found myself attacked by right wing trolls, MRAs, homophobes, racists, and even TERFs. I may even have disagreements with those with whom I am generally in agreement. I was banned from one feminist page after suggesting that even voluntary sex work was in some sense exploitative. Think what you will of me – call me what you will. It will not affect my opinions or my willingness to express them.

I saw someone who expressed sympathy for the people who recently burned several black churches. I found it hard to even believe that someone would cheer on the sort of bigots who would destroy black churches. This person said that the folks at the black churches were trying to destroy Southern history in the name of discrimination. My thought and response was as follows:

I don't want to destroy Southern history - I want to preserve it. I want to preserve the knowledge that white Southerners enslaved, raped, beat, brutalized, and killed black people for their own pleasure and profit. I want to preserve the knowledge that white Southerners were willing to try to destroy the country to maintain the right to brutalize black people. I want to preserve the knowledge that even after the slaves were freed, that white Southerners beat and lynched black people who dared try to act like they had the same rights as whites.

Kalief Browder and the Criminal Justice System

The news came out recently about Kalief Browder - a young man who spent three years in Rikers Island, not because he was convicted of a crime, but because he was charged with a crime for which all charges were eventually dropped. He made the news because he committed suicide over the psychological scars inflicted from his unjust imprisonment and years of solitary confinement.

As a 10th grade student, he was arrested and charged with stealing a book bag belonging to another student. You would think that might be a petty larceny at worst, and you would think given his age, he might be put into the juvenile justice system. You would be wrong on both counts.

There was no evidence he ever stole the book bag in question, yet he was charged and sent to Rikers Island, a prison notorious for its abuse and neglect of prisoners, and which was called one of the ten worst prisons in the United States. The abuses at Rikers Island in themselves warrant a lengthy discussion, but included beating prisoners and allowing prisoners to beat, rape, and abuse each other.

So why was Kalief Browder at Rikers Island so long? There was bail set on him, which unfortunately his family could not raise, because of their poverty. Since his family was poor, they were forced to rely on public defenders who are notoriously overworked and often underskilled. The district attorney offered a plea deal, but Browder said he was not going to plead guilty to something he didn’t do. He spent three years in Rikers Island without ever receiving a trial, before all charges were dropped.

You would think that the justice system is supposed to produce justice of some sort, but for poor people, particularly poor black people, injustice seems to be far more frequent. If there was so little evidence that the charges were dropped, then why did it take three years for that to happen? Aren’t Americans supposed to have the right to a speedy trial to determine guilt or innocence? If you have money and a private attorney, you can have that, but then you can also likely make bail easily.

We in fact have a two tier system of “justice”, with a gentler type of justice for people who are better off, and a far harsher type of “justice” for the less well off. Why do we allow poor people to be abused by our so-called justice system? To the mass of people, these folks are considered criminals, whether found guilty or not. The assumption too often is that if they aren’t guilty of what they are charged for they are likely guilty of something else. The people want “these folks” kept away from “good law-abiding people”, and they don’t really care about the innocence or guilt.

What about the district attorneys? They want to show that they are “tough on crime” and want to show a success rate in prosecuting “criminals”. If they can get an innocent person to plead guilty to something they didn’t do, that is a “win” for them. It isn’t justice, but they look good.

Police have gotten caught up in the “broken windows” method of policing, so even minor offenses are charged and prosecuted to the fullest. Judges see endless strings of cases with tens of thousands of accused, often protesting their innocence. This gives everyone a very cynical view of accused criminals, and no reason to dismiss things which in truth should be ignored or dealt with by a warning.

We end up with Kalief Browder spending years in jail, without ever being convicted. We end up with Eric Garner choked to death because he had a history of selling loose cigarettes. We end up with Walter Scott being shot in the back for running away from police after a stop for a broken taillight. We end up with Freddie Gray being killed by police abuse because he ran away from cops who ‘thought he looked suspicious’. We end up with Tamir Rice being shot to death for playing with a toy gun in a playground. We end up with John Crawford being shot to death for carrying a toy gun in Wal-Mart.

Would that these were the only abuses, but they are the tip of the iceberg. We have a justice system that seems to be out of control when it comes to dealing with poor people, and particularly poor black people.

We need reform of our justice system. We need police who are less inclined to pull the trigger, just because someone does not cooperate. We need a policing system working with the community to deal safely and fairly with serious crime, and not obsess over petty infractions. We need prosecutors who will dismiss charges quickly when the evidence doesn’t warrant prosecution. We need judges less inclined to ‘throw the book’ at people convicted or accepting a plea deal. We need a prison system that reforms and deals humanely with prisoners. We only get these things when the mass of people makes it clear that we insist on it.

We need to do this before we end or ruin even more lives.

Gender and Sexuality

Gender and sexuality are more than just genitalia, it is as much mental as physical if not more, but there is no convincing some people of that. Part of that has been seen when children are born with "ambiguous" genitalia, and have had doctors "correct" that shortly after birth. All too often, what they "correct" it to is not what the person is in their head.

Some folks say that the genitalia the person was born with was "what G-d intended". I'm sorry, but when did G-d come to you and tell you exactly what was "intended" for that person? Besides, if a woman is born with small boobs, isn't that also "what G-d intended"? Why should they be allowed to change that? If a person has a big nose, isn’t that “what G-d intended”? Based on right wing logic, why should anyone be allowed any sort of “cosmetic” surgery? If a person gets cancer, why is that surgically removed? Isn't that also "what G-d intended"? Some folks feel that “what G-d didn’t intend” is that which is distasteful to them - meaning anything LGBT.

One person asked me why LGBT people don’t “keep their problem to themselves”. Most LGBT people would love to "keep their problem to themselves" and would be quite happy if non-LGBT did not discriminate against them, did not abuse them, and did not try to pass laws making things harder for them. The percentage of LGBT who are beaten, driven to suicide, or thrown out by their family is far too high. I suppose some folks would prefer that LGBT folks just "stay in the closet", but the day for that is past. LGBT are not asking you to love their lives or how they live them, neither are they asking you to “approve” their lives, but rather not to make their lives harder. They are asking for the same rights as any other human being: to live freely, not having to hide who or what they are; and to not suffer abuse because of who they are.

People tell me that being LGBT is a “choice”. Why would someone “choose” to be LGBT, when all too often that means physical, mental, and emotional abuse because of that?  Why would someone choose to be thrown out of their homes, rejected by their parents, forced into “conversion therapy”, because of a “choice”? When LGBT youth are significantly more likely to be homeless, and significantly more likely to commit suicide, why would someone “choose” that? For many years, LGBT people pretended to be straight, rather than suffer what comes from being openly LBGT. In truth, it makes far more sense that one would be LGBT because one feels strongly that is what one truly is. Some folks think it was “choice” because the LGBT “chose” to no longer keep living a lie.

There have been studies done of identical twins. Those found that if one twin was LGBT, the other was significantly more likely to be so, as well. It was neither an absolute lock in, nor random chance. That seems to say that there is a genetic component, but that other environmental factors contribute as well. What those other factors are, and how they contribute, has yet to be determined however.