My all-in-one printer needed new ink cartridges. It’s served me fine over a number of years but had also developed a minor problem of creating a thin scratch of a line on the scans it produced. So, out of curiosity, before taking out a loan to pay the substantial cost for new ink cartridges (I have tried paying for refills but more than once have ended up with unusable cartridges), I looked to see how much a new all-in-one ink jet printer would cost instead.

I found one on sale at an office supply store, from a major manufacturer that was at a very low price. A very, very low price. It hardly made sense not to buy it when it cost less than three sets of ink cartridges…and came with a set ink cartridges as well…so make that, it cost less than two sets of ink cartridges.

There was however a sense of guilt that came with doing this, the idea that a piece of technology that was so sophisticated could be so easily tossed away and replaced (I’m actually donating that printer to my daughter’s public school…guilt level reduced by 10%).

Consider cell phones and smart phones. Just ten years ago, the technology in the devices we use today would have been seen as incredible. Today, we can upgrade to a new high tech phone (with a 2 year commitment and assignment of our eternal soul) for little or even for free and flick the technological genius in our last phone into the garbage.

We have become sociologically conditioned to expect that electronics should be cheap despite their complexity and this, combined with the much more expensive cost of repairs, often makes it common sense economically for one to just buy a new item instead of repairing the old one.

This sensibility isn’t confined to electronics though, at the supermarket and stores like Walmart, Target, Kmart, etc, we expect to be able to buy clothes, food and all nature of things at remarkably low prices despite what we may think deep inside is much less than they should be.

Paying little for what should be more expensive products has become a self-sustaining machine where most people only look at what the machine provides without considering what it consumes to do so. And the sneaky truth is, what it consumes is the wealth, employment and standard of living of most people in America and in many places throughout the world.

Why is something cheap to buy? Of course, the simple answer is that it’s cheap to make…but the next step is often overlooked. It’s cheap to make because the people who are paid to make it are paid cheaply. So when you buy that cheap pair of pants or bargain smartphone, you are giving the corporation that is selling it, a profit and economic support for paying so little for the labor of the workers it employs. So in effect, those people who shopped at Walmart to buy inexpensive Chinese-manufactured products and later lost their jobs, were unknowingly incentivizing the corporation they worked for to take away their jobs.

It can be interesting to sometimes step back, zoom out and look at the big picture, how things are interconnected and the unintended consequences of one’s actions. Where one shops and what one buys is indeed directly and necessarily interconnected with what jobs are available and how much they pay. For example, if 10% of current Walmart shoppers chose to buy only from American based companies that provided good wages, there would be billions in revenues for such companies to create more and more well paying jobs. It’s simple economics and math.

Corporations may have designed this mousetrap but as long as consumers keep going for the cheese they set out, they continue to be the victim of this trap.

The vicious circle is well known, people are unemployed, underemployed or underpaid and so they need to be able to buy things cheaply to get by. However, by buying things cheaply, they are affirmatively financing the outsourcing of their own and millions of other jobs to China and elsewhere, the only places where products can be made so cheaply because of brutally low wages and conditions. By supporting outsourcing in this way, Americans in fact create a greater supply of unemployed and available workers in America who are willing to work for whatever wage they are offered. This dynamic of supply and demand in a flooded workforce allows companies to depress wages and increase “productivity” (that means doing more work for the same money) because as they often say, “If you won’t do it, there are plenty of people out there standing outside who would be happy to work more for even less than you!”

Publicly, corporations exclaim, “People want things at super low prices so we’re just giving people what they want. That’s why we outsource our jobs to other countries! I mean, paying people in America a living wage or God forbid, union wages, would mean we’d have to charge a higher, more sensible price for things and then Americans wouldn’t be able to ‘have it all’…and that would be an unthinkable hardship on all Americans.”

As for actual hardships, especially when you factor in inflation as well, the wages of most Americans continue on a slow decline.

It is the Henry Ford model of business in reverse. Though a famous pro-Nazi/anti-Semite, Ford did have a good idea about paying workers enough so they could buy the very cars they built. Today’s corporate thinking is just the opposite, it is to find ways of making things cheaper so that the people who used to make them but are unemployed or have low or declining wages now, can still afford to buy those products.  It’s a race to the bottom where the only winners are the corporations sponsoring the race. They reduce the wages they pay Americans and their solution to their reducing their employees’ buying power is to make products cheaper.

Just as with the economic crash of 2008, this is a path to eventual destruction. It can’t be sustained indefinitely. If people’s income keeps declining in real terms, it will eventually reach a point where it will be literally impossible to cheapen the price of products sufficiently for them to be able to afford buying as much as they’ve been buying and consuming will also be on a steady decline. Then, as we saw on what would be a smaller scale in comparison, with the crash of 2008, there is a domino effect on businesses closing and jobs and pay declining even more and rapidly when consuming declines.

70% of economic activity in America comes from consumers. The American economy and in turn, the world’s economy would collapse and have no conceivable path to recovery if Americans reach a point where they can afford to buy less and less. No matter how cheaply a corporation can pay for plastic, steel, foodstuffs, chemicals, etc., there is a bottom line cost to everything that can’t ultimately be reduced. So there is a cliff out there somewhere in the distance that our economy will eventually drive off of if wages of consumers keep declining (again, even stagnant wages decline each year due to the standard of inflation).

Of course, corporations live only for the next quarter’s profits so they naturally love this circular dynamic that they’ve trapped our society in since it is currently stuffing their pockets with incredible amounts of money. They are certainly not seeking to change it and in fact are seeking to make it worse by outsourcing more, destroying unions and promoting “right to work” in more states and even loosening restrictions on the hiring of teens so they can increase the competition for jobs and drive down wages even farther.  Add to that their avoiding paying taxes and campaigning to cut what taxes they can’t escape, which slashes public sector jobs, funding for social programs, maintaining our infrastructure, etc.

So…if the corporations will never change this destructive cycle on their own, it is their customers that have to seek change. It’s time we recognize that things being disposable because they are so cheap is a two way street,  as our value as employees simultaneously becomes cheaper and cheaper, we too become as disposable as what we buy.

So, I’m throwing out a simple concept and name for this proposition.

Pay More.

That is, pay more for American made goods from companies that pay more to Americans for their work.

It would entail some financial sacrifices in the near term, paying more for things but the more it finances companies where Americans have good paying jobs, the more tax revenues there would be to pay more for many good-job-creating situations such as rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure…which could pay more for building materials from American businesses and create more jobs from them that pay more, as well as pay more to construction workers who are underemployed or unemployed…which would provide more tax revenues to states and the nation that could be invested in schools…which could pay more salaries for more teachers and shrink class sizes which would better educate our children to get better jobs…which could mean companies that hire them when they graduate could pay more to them for being well educated…and on and on.

The cycle of economic decline has to be broken in a deliberate and organized way.

One way that could be accomplished might be by combining President Obama’s tax credits and incentives for manufacturing and small businesses that start up, grow and hire in this country, with an organized, active and growing community of Americans who are committed to supporting American jobs, good wages and businesses that provide them.

If there was for example, a group and website consumers could join (like Groupon for example) which presented an array or e-mall of products and services only from American companies that were certified to pay good wages and benefits to their employees,  Americans could express their support for good wages and their opposition against the corporate depression of wages whenever they need to buy something or use a service. Such a growing coalition of consumers pooling buying power to benefit a growing coalition of businesses that pay workers well could become a very powerful dynamic.

Also, as Choicelady and KQuark have championed along the way, it would create a great environment for employee-owned businesses which is another great path to reversing the economic plundering by the wealthy and giant corporations. It could also put economic pressure on corporations to either compete with businesses manufacturing and operating in the US or lose a growing segment of consumers.

Admittedly, it’s unrealistic and impractical to suggest to people across the country who are already dealing with severe financial pressures to pay more for everything right now. This is not a transition that could or should be made overnight, it would need to be gradual and incrementally by each American, as they can find ways here and there to buy things that support good paying American jobs, building up to buying more and more from good-citizen American businesses as their wages hopefully improve. The key is that people realize that paying more for something to a company that pays good wages, can help make the society they live in better and could help them indirectly, if not directly by eventually providing more opportunities for good paying jobs.

I am far from a nationalist or conservative, in fact, I burn flags on a daily basis (I get them by the gross cheaply at Walmart who buys them from an American flag manufacturer in China). I am also not vowing to stop buying products made in China and other countries, there are many things that simply don’t have American-made counterparts or even if they do, may not be of comparable quality or the company may not pay their employees decently. What I am saying is that in the meantime, until or unless there is a broader movement, it can be a great start simply to keep in mind shopping local and at small businesses, eating at local non-chain restaurants, etc. Purism is not required, doing it at least some of the time, when you can afford to, can make a difference.

And this is not at all intended to express anything negative towards the countries that have been the recipients of outsourced American jobs (they’re being exploited and oppressed by these same corporations), it’s only meant to present an affirmative proposition on improving the standard of living in our society which, if it spread around to other nations like Occupy Wall Street, could help improve their standards of living too.

It would take the pulling together of a lot of threads to make this happen on a big scale but at this point in time, a difference could still be made by each person who has a choice to pay more for something American-made that will help pay more to fellow Americans for their work…and by deciding to do so, that person is so simply and easily supporting the idea that we will pay more if employers pay more.

This morning, living mannequin and hollow chocolate bunny model Mitt Romney made the following quote:

“I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it. I’m not concerned about the very rich, they’re doing just fine. I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90%, 95% of Americans right now who are struggling and I’ll continue to take that message across the nation. [...]

“You can focus on the rich, that’s not my focus. You can focus on the very poor, that’s not my focus. My focus is on middle-income Americans.”

So, to the 47 million Americans living in poverty, Mitt Romney says, “Seeya, wouldn’t wanna be-ya!” Apparently, Mitt Romney, who has spent a great deal of time bemoaning how President Obama is trying to divide the country by asking the top 1% to pay the same tax rate as those that receive a fraction of their income, has decided that pushing off our very poor people into the sea on an ice floe is bringing this country together…by waving goodbye to them.

Romney, a Mormon who claims to believe in Jesus as his savior (as well as that God lives on planet Kolub), is no doubt recalling that famous quote by Jesus, “The meek shall inherit my ass.”

Apparently, Romney believes that people who scrape by on welfare and food stamps are doing just as great as the wealthy and need no more help (though the wealthy need help with more tax breaks).  In fact, his budget and support for the Ryan budget would burden the poor with higher taxes and an increase of thousands in health care costs (until Medicare is destroyed, then they would be uninsured). He’s not unconcerned with the poor, he’s concerned they’ve got more than they ought to have!

And as for those in the Middle Class who are slipping into poverty, you better enjoy having concern come your way from Romney while you can!

In response to the recent words of this Christ-revering/poor-hating Republican (is there any other kind?), Jesus contacted The Planet and asked if we’d publish the following blog for him:

Hope you’re all having a great 2012 so far! All is great my way…taking care of business and finding a little time for fun (been playing a lot of Angry Birds with Steve Jobs).

So I wake up this morning, take a jog across the lake then chill out for a bit and I catch this clip of Mitt Romney saying that he isn’t concerned about the poor. At the same time he’s said he believes in me and my teachings. That’s kind of like saying that you’re a vegetarian but you love eating hamburgers or that you love hamburgers but eat at McDonalds. One of these things, doesn’t belong, you know what I mean?

Just to be clear, my whole raison d’etre is about love…towards your fellow human beings, not towards money, material things or the new Trojan Twister. I’ve talked about how those who are possessed by greed and dedicate their lives to it have as much chance getting onto Heaven as a camel walking through the eye of a needle…and Donald Trump paying to create a giant needle with an eye big enough to accommodate the passage of a fleet of Hummer limos with a herd of camels inside totally misses the point.

I’m pretty sure that I said, “Love thy neighbor as thyself”, not “Love only those with a median household income range between $35,000 and $75,000″.

Now, Mitt Romney has responded by saying that his point was that we have social programs for the poor and if there’s a problem with them, he would fix them, so that’s why he’s not concerned about the very poor.

That’s like saying that as long as you’ve tied your dog to the roof of your car while you’re speeding down the highway, he’s secure so no need to be concerned about him unless the rope becomes loose.

I’m no stranger to seeing someone say one thing then do something that is the exact opposite (even when you invite him to supper!) but once a contradictory truth comes out publicly, such people should just admit they don’t follow my teachings instead of acting holier than thou (which is a tough act around here).

They should be constantly grateful for the material wealth they may have the good fortune to possess and whenever thinking of it, should be think about those who don’t have comfort and wealth with care and kindness because it easily could have been the other way around. And if it was, wouldn’t they want their potential leader to care about their lives and struggles…wouldn’t they like to hear from those with power and money that there was concern and a desire to help?

Anyway, I just wanted to remind folks that when you ask yourselves, WWID (What Would I Do?), having compassion for the poor  is still at the top of the list while taking from them to give more to those better off is at the top of someone else’s “hot list.”

Peace out!

 

1.That every man, woman, and grown child, able and willing to work, may find employment.
2. That the poor, by industry, prudence, and economy, may at all times support themselves comfortably, without depending on (charity) and, as a corollary from these positions,
3 That their sufferings and distresses chiefly, if not wholly, come from their idleness, their dissipation, and their extravagance.
4.That taxes for the support of the poor, and aid offered them by charitable individuals, or benevolent societies, are pernicious, as, by encouraging the poor to depend on them, they foster their idleness and improvidence, and thus produce, or at least increase, the poverty and distress they are intended to relieve.

Sound familiar? It’s all possibly the stuff of Ayn Rand but surely of all the existing GOP candidates?

The source is not those people.

It is taken from an essay by M. Carey – and was written in 1833.

Appeal to the Wealthy of the Land focused on one and only one cause of poverty and want – low wages below the minimum necessary to provide a sufficiency of plain food and of clothes to protect against the elements.

The pamphlet raged against the poverty and immiseration that this Dickensian disdain for working people caused, the exploitation of human beings for the amassing of wealth for the few. Clearly and distinctly M. Carey notes: LOW RATE OF WAGES IS THE ROOT OF THE MISCHIEF.

Mind you, the pamphlet, while also documenting the failure of “poor laws” here and in England, did not take the logical step of demanding better pay for hours and piece work – it merely advocated opening better jobs for women so they could move up into higher wage work. While the analysis is very clear, the solution avoided tackling the very problem stated.

The beginning of capitalism in America occurred only after the Revolution, particularly after the Constitution provided a vehicle for interstate commerce. Trying to build a national economy that had, since 1620, been regulated by the towns and cities, there also had to be massive legal changes to end the regulation of production standards and prices for all commodities. These laws existed to protect both the self sufficiency of the average colonial person and family and to protect those in need from exploitation and greater want. It took approximately 50 years to move from a “moral economy” to an “instrumental economy” but by the time of M. Carey’s diatribe against the exploitation of working people, especially women, the laws favoring the rich and permitting gross exploitation of working people were well in hand in all the states.

What is extremely worrisome is the retreat in the 21st century to an 1833 mentality. Add in a later belief in Social Darwinism, Herbert Spencer’s justification for post Civil War class warfare, and we can see within the GOP a kind of 19th century appeal to the idea that some are worthy – the rich – and others deserve only what they worthy desire to hand out, no more.

If what the GOP desire is a retreat not just to the days of the Robber Barons but to an even earlier period of utterly unfettered and indifferent class divisions and exploitation, then we have an obligation to make this clear. From the beginning of the Republic there has been a forward march to increase, not decrease, the value of the ordinary person from extending full voting rights to all white males, not just the landed, to assuring rights for women and minorities, from pressing for the full inclusion of all people – and their immesurable talents – in our economy and polity, we strengthened the promises of democracy and what is the root of “American Exceptionalism” -being a nation where everyone matters.

To see not just candidates but entire segments of America want to restore massive inequality is shocking. Seeing calls for closing the wealth gap labeled “class warfare” recalls the dismissive refusal of Scrooge to donate even to charity for those working but still in need.

Is this the best they want for America? If that is unacceptable, then it must be called out – a retreat to a Dickensian world of massive exploitation and demonizing of working people. That’s not a vision I think most people have of our “future”.

"Buddy, can you spare me a dime?"

The President didn’t throw out “raw meat” like Newt, Mitt or the any of the others in Republican field vying to become the next President, he spoke to the problems and while the R’s are quibbling and kissing the rings of the one percenters (Donald Trump , President Obama gave a inclusive speech.  He gave a challenge to be more not less.  He wasn’t telling  unemployed, homeless and indebted people to “take a bath and get a job.”

The speech was billed as him presenting an historical perspective  on Teddy Roosevelt‘s speech, but it was much more than that, it was The President’s , the majority of the countries,  belief that we can do better together than divided.

Posted to watch, read ,critique or cite your favorite passage.

GAME ON, Republicans

President Obama Discusses Economy in Kansas 

Remarks by the President on the Economy in Osawatomie, Kansas

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, everybody. Please, please have a seat. Thank you so much. Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody.

AUDIENCE: Good afternoon.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I want to start by thanking a few folks who’ve joined us today. We’ve got the mayor of Osawatomie, Phil Dudley is here. (Applause.) We have your superintendent Gary French in the house. (Applause.) And we have the principal of Osawatomie High, Doug Chisam. (Applause.) And I have brought your former governor, who is doing now an outstanding job as Secretary of Health and Human Services — Kathleen Sebelius is in the house. (Applause.) We love Kathleen.

Well, it is great to be back in the state of Tex — (laughter) — state of Kansas. I was giving Bill Self a hard time, he was here a while back. As many of you know, I have roots here. (Applause.) I’m sure you’re all familiar with the Obamas of Osawatomie. (Laughter.) Actually, I like to say that I got my name from my father, but I got my accent — and my values — from my mother. (Applause.) She was born in Wichita. (Applause.) Her mother grew up in Augusta. Her father was from El Dorado. So my Kansas roots run deep.

My grandparents served during World War II. He was a soldier in Patton’s Army; she was a worker on a bomber assembly line. And together, they shared the optimism of a nation that triumphed over the Great Depression and over fascism. They believed in an America where hard work paid off, and responsibility was rewarded, and anyone could make it if they tried — no matter who you were, no matter where you came from, no matter how you started out. (Applause.)

And these values gave rise to the largest middle class and the strongest economy that the world has ever known. It was here in America that the most productive workers, the most innovative companies turned out the best products on Earth. And you know what? Every American shared in that pride and in that success — from those in the executive suites to those in middle management to those on the factory floor. (Applause.) So you could have some confidence that if you gave it your all, you’d take enough home to raise your family and send your kids to school and have your health care covered, put a little away for retirement.

Today, we’re still home to the world’s most productive workers. We’re still home to the world’s most innovative companies. But for most Americans, the basic bargain that made this country great has eroded. Long before the recession hit, hard work stopped paying off for too many people. Fewer and fewer of the folks who contributed to the success of our economy actually benefited from that success. Those at the very top grew wealthier from their incomes and their investments — wealthier than ever before. But everybody else struggled with costs that were growing and paychecks that weren’t — and too many families found themselves racking up more and more debt just to keep up.

Now, for many years, credit cards and home equity loans papered over this harsh reality. But in 2008, the house of cards collapsed. We all know the story by now: Mortgages sold to people who couldn’t afford them, or even sometimes understand them. Banks and investors allowed to keep packaging the risk and selling it off. Huge bets — and huge bonuses — made with other people’s money on the line. Regulators who were supposed to warn us about the dangers of all this, but looked the other way or didn’t have the authority to look at all.

It was wrong. It combined the breathtaking greed of a few with irresponsibility all across the system. And it plunged our economy and the world into a crisis from which we’re still fighting to recover. It claimed the jobs and the homes and the basic security of millions of people — innocent, hardworking Americans who had met their responsibilities but were still left holding the bag.

And ever since, there’s been a raging debate over the best way to restore growth and prosperity, restore balance, restore fairness. Throughout the country, it’s sparked protests and political movements — from the tea party to the people who’ve been occupying the streets of New York and other cities. It’s left Washington in a near-constant state of gridlock. It’s been the topic of heated and sometimes colorful discussion among the men and women running for president. (Laughter.)

But, Osawatomie, this is not just another political debate. This is the defining issue of our time. This is a make-or-break moment for the middle class, and for all those who are fighting to get into the middle class. Because what’s at stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, secure their retirement.

Now, in the midst of this debate, there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. After all that’s happened, after the worst economic crisis, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for way too many years. And their philosophy is simple: We are better off when everybody is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.

I am here to say they are wrong. (Applause.) I’m here in Kansas to reaffirm my deep conviction that we’re greater together than we are on our own. I believe that this country succeeds when everyone gets a fair shot, when everyone does their fair share, when everyone plays by the same rules. (Applause.) These aren’t Democratic values or Republican values. These aren’t 1 percent values or 99 percent values. They’re American values. And we have to reclaim them. (Applause.)

You see, this isn’t the first time America has faced this choice. At the turn of the last century, when a nation of farmers was transitioning to become the world’s industrial giant, we had to decide: Would we settle for a country where most of the new railroads and factories were being controlled by a few giant monopolies that kept prices high and wages low? Would we allow our citizens and even our children to work ungodly hours in conditions that were unsafe and unsanitary? Would we restrict education to the privileged few? Because there were people who thought massive inequality and exploitation of people was just the price you pay for progress.

Theodore Roosevelt disagreed. He was the Republican son of a wealthy family. He praised what the titans of industry had done to create jobs and grow the economy. He believed then what we know is true today, that the free market is the greatest force for economic progress in human history. It’s led to a prosperity and a standard of living unmatched by the rest of the world.

But Roosevelt also knew that the free market has never been a free license to take whatever you can from whomever you can. (Applause.) He understood the free market only works when there are rules of the road that ensure competition is fair and open and honest. And so he busted up monopolies, forcing those companies to compete for consumers with better services and better prices. And today, they still must. He fought to make sure businesses couldn’t profit by exploiting children or selling food or medicine that wasn’t safe. And today, they still can’t.

And in 1910, Teddy Roosevelt came here to Osawatomie and he laid out his vision for what he called a New Nationalism. “Our country,” he said, “…means nothing unless it means the triumph of a real democracy…of an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him.” (Applause.)

Now, for this, Roosevelt was called a radical. He was called a socialist — (laughter) — even a communist. But today, we are a richer nation and a stronger democracy because of what he fought for in his last campaign: an eight-hour work day and a minimum wage for women — (applause) — insurance for the unemployed and for the elderly, and those with disabilities; political reform and a progressive income tax. (Applause.)

Today, over 100 years later, our economy has gone through another transformation. Over the last few decades, huge advances in technology have allowed businesses to do more with less, and it’s made it easier for them to set up shop and hire workers anywhere they want in the world. And many of you know firsthand the painful disruptions this has caused for a lot of Americans.

Factories where people thought they would retire suddenly picked up and went overseas, where workers were cheaper. Steel mills that needed 100 — or 1,000 employees are now able to do the same work with 100 employees, so layoffs too often became permanent, not just a temporary part of the business cycle. And these changes didn’t just affect blue-collar workers. If you were a bank teller or a phone operator or a travel agent, you saw many in your profession replaced by ATMs and the Internet.

Today, even higher-skilled jobs, like accountants and middle management can be outsourced to countries like China or India. And if you’re somebody whose job can be done cheaper by a computer or someone in another country, you don’t have a lot of leverage with your employer when it comes to asking for better wages or better benefits, especially since fewer Americans today are part of a union.

Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, there is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. “The market will take care of everything,” they tell us. If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes — especially for the wealthy — our economy will grow stronger. Sure, they say, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, then jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everybody else. And, they argue, even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, well, that’s the price of liberty.

Now, it’s a simple theory. And we have to admit, it’s one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government. That’s in America’s DNA. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker. (Laughter.) But here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It has never worked. (Applause.) It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It’s not what led to the incredible postwar booms of the ‘50s and ‘60s. And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade. (Applause.) I mean, understand, it’s not as if we haven’t tried this theory.

Remember in those years, in 2001 and 2003, Congress passed two of the most expensive tax cuts for the wealthy in history. And what did it get us? The slowest job growth in half a century. Massive deficits that have made it much harder to pay for the investments that built this country and provided the basic security that helped millions of Americans reach and stay in the middle class — things like education and infrastructure, science and technology, Medicare and Social Security.

Remember that in those same years, thanks to some of the same folks who are now running Congress, we had weak regulation, we had little oversight, and what did it get us? Insurance companies that jacked up people’s premiums with impunity and denied care to patients who were sick, mortgage lenders that tricked families into buying homes they couldn’t afford, a financial sector where irresponsibility and lack of basic oversight nearly destroyed our entire economy.

We simply cannot return to this brand of “you’re on your own” economics if we’re serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country. (Applause.) We know that it doesn’t result in a strong economy. It results in an economy that invests too little in its people and in its future. We know it doesn’t result in a prosperity that trickles down. It results in a prosperity that’s enjoyed by fewer and fewer of our citizens.

Look at the statistics. In the last few decades, the average income of the top 1 percent has gone up by more than 250 percent to $1.2 million per year. I’m not talking about millionaires, people who have a million dollars. I’m saying people who make a million dollars every single year. For the top one hundredth of 1 percent, the average income is now $27 million per year. The typical CEO who used to earn about 30 times more than his or her worker now earns 110 times more. And yet, over the last decade the incomes of most Americans have actually fallen by about 6 percent.

Now, this kind of inequality — a level that we haven’t seen since the Great Depression — hurts us all. When middle-class families can no longer afford to buy the goods and services that businesses are selling, when people are slipping out of the middle class, it drags down the entire economy from top to bottom. America was built on the idea of broad-based prosperity, of strong consumers all across the country. That’s why a CEO like Henry Ford made it his mission to pay his workers enough so that they could buy the cars he made. It’s also why a recent study showed that countries with less inequality tend to have stronger and steadier economic growth over the long run.

Inequality also distorts our democracy. It gives an outsized voice to the few who can afford high-priced lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions, and it runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder. (Applause.) It leaves everyone else rightly suspicious that the system in Washington is rigged against them, that our elected representatives aren’t looking out for the interests of most Americans.

But there’s an even more fundamental issue at stake. This kind of gaping inequality gives lie to the promise that’s at the very heart of America: that this is a place where you can make it if you try. We tell people — we tell our kids — that in this country, even if you’re born with nothing, work hard and you can get into the middle class. We tell them that your children will have a chance to do even better than you do. That’s why immigrants from around the world historically have flocked to our shores.

And yet, over the last few decades, the rungs on the ladder of opportunity have grown farther and farther apart, and the middle class has shrunk. You know, a few years after World War II, a child who was born into poverty had a slightly better than 50-50 chance of becoming middle class as an adult. By 1980, that chance had fallen to around 40 percent. And if the trend of rising inequality over the last few decades continues, it’s estimated that a child born today will only have a one-in-three chance of making it to the middle class — 33 percent.

It’s heartbreaking enough that there are millions of working families in this country who are now forced to take their children to food banks for a decent meal. But the idea that those children might not have a chance to climb out of that situation and back into the middle class, no matter how hard they work? That’s inexcusable. It is wrong. (Applause.) It flies in the face of everything that we stand for. (Applause.)

Now, fortunately, that’s not a future that we have to accept, because there’s another view about how we build a strong middle class in this country — a view that’s truer to our history, a vision that’s been embraced in the past by people of both parties for more than 200 years.

It’s not a view that we should somehow turn back technology or put up walls around America. It’s not a view that says we should punish profit or success or pretend that government knows how to fix all of society’s problems. It is a view that says in America we are greater together — when everyone engages in fair play and everybody gets a fair shot and everybody does their fair share. (Applause.)

So what does that mean for restoring middle-class security in today’s economy? Well, it starts by making sure that everyone in America gets a fair shot at success. The truth is we’ll never be able to compete with other countries when it comes to who’s best at letting their businesses pay the lowest wages, who’s best at busting unions, who’s best at letting companies pollute as much as they want. That’s a race to the bottom that we can’t win, and we shouldn’t want to win that race. (Applause.) Those countries don’t have a strong middle class. They don’t have our standard of living.

The race we want to win, the race we can win is a race to the top — the race for good jobs that pay well and offer middle-class security. Businesses will create those jobs in countries with the highest-skilled, highest-educated workers, the most advanced transportation and communication, the strongest commitment to research and technology.

The world is shifting to an innovation economy and nobody does innovation better than America. Nobody does it better. (Applause.) No one has better colleges. Nobody has better universities. Nobody has a greater diversity of talent and ingenuity. No one’s workers or entrepreneurs are more driven or more daring. The things that have always been our strengths match up perfectly with the demands of the moment.

But we need to meet the moment. We’ve got to up our game. We need to remember that we can only do that together. It starts by making education a national mission — a national mission. (Applause.) Government and businesses, parents and citizens. In this economy, a higher education is the surest route to the middle class. The unemployment rate for Americans with a college degree or more is about half the national average. And their incomes are twice as high as those who don’t have a high school diploma. Which means we shouldn’t be laying off good teachers right now — we should be hiring them. (Applause.) We shouldn’t be expecting less of our schools –- we should be demanding more. (Applause.) We shouldn’t be making it harder to afford college — we should be a country where everyone has a chance to go and doesn’t rack up $100,000 of debt just because they went. (Applause.)

In today’s innovation economy, we also need a world-class commitment to science and research, the next generation of high-tech manufacturing. Our factories and our workers shouldn’t be idle. We should be giving people the chance to get new skills and training at community colleges so they can learn how to make wind turbines and semiconductors and high-powered batteries. And by the way, if we don’t have an economy that’s built on bubbles and financial speculation, our best and brightest won’t all gravitate towards careers in banking and finance. (Applause.) Because if we want an economy that’s built to last, we need more of those young people in science and engineering. (Applause.) This country should not be known for bad debt and phony profits. We should be known for creating and selling products all around the world that are stamped with three proud words: Made in America. (Applause.)

Today, manufacturers and other companies are setting up shop in the places with the best infrastructure to ship their products, move their workers, communicate with the rest of the world. And that’s why the over 1 million construction workers who lost their jobs when the housing market collapsed, they shouldn’t be sitting at home with nothing to do. They should be rebuilding our roads and our bridges, laying down faster railroads and broadband, modernizing our schools — (applause) — all the things other countries are already doing to attract good jobs and businesses to their shores.

Yes, business, and not government, will always be the primary generator of good jobs with incomes that lift people into the middle class and keep them there. But as a nation, we’ve always come together, through our government, to help create the conditions where both workers and businesses can succeed. (Applause.) And historically, that hasn’t been a partisan idea. Franklin Roosevelt worked with Democrats and Republicans to give veterans of World War II — including my grandfather, Stanley Dunham — the chance to go to college on the G.I. Bill. It was a Republican President, Dwight Eisenhower, a proud son of Kansas — (applause) — who started the Interstate Highway System, and doubled down on science and research to stay ahead of the Soviets.

Of course, those productive investments cost money. They’re not free. And so we’ve also paid for these investments by asking everybody to do their fair share. Look, if we had unlimited resources, no one would ever have to pay any taxes and we would never have to cut any spending. But we don’t have unlimited resources. And so we have to set priorities. If we want a strong middle class, then our tax code must reflect our values. We have to make choices.

Today that choice is very clear. To reduce our deficit, I’ve already signed nearly $1 trillion of spending cuts into law and I’ve proposed trillions more, including reforms that would lower the cost of Medicare and Medicaid. (Applause.)

But in order to structurally close the deficit, get our fiscal house in order, we have to decide what our priorities are. Now, most immediately, short term, we need to extend a payroll tax cut that’s set to expire at the end of this month. (Applause.) If we don’t do that, 160 million Americans, including most of the people here, will see their taxes go up by an average of $1,000 starting in January and it would badly weaken our recovery. That’s the short term.

In the long term, we have to rethink our tax system more fundamentally. We have to ask ourselves: Do we want to make the investments we need in things like education and research and high-tech manufacturing — all those things that helped make us an economic superpower? Or do we want to keep in place the tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans in our country? Because we can’t afford to do both. That is not politics. That’s just math. (Laughter and applause.)

Now, so far, most of my Republican friends in Washington have refused under any circumstance to ask the wealthiest Americans to go to the same tax rate they were paying when Bill Clinton was president. So let’s just do a trip down memory lane here.

Keep in mind, when President Clinton first proposed these tax increases, folks in Congress predicted they would kill jobs and lead to another recession. Instead, our economy created nearly 23 million jobs and we eliminated the deficit. (Applause.) Today, the wealthiest Americans are paying the lowest taxes in over half a century. This isn’t like in the early ‘50s, when the top tax rate was over 90 percent. This isn’t even like the early ‘80s, when the top tax rate was about 70 percent. Under President Clinton, the top rate was only about 39 percent. Today, thanks to loopholes and shelters, a quarter of all millionaires now pay lower tax rates than millions of you, millions of middle-class families. Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1 percent. One percent.

That is the height of unfairness. It is wrong. (Applause.) It’s wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker, maybe earns $50,000 a year, should pay a higher tax rate than somebody raking in $50 million. (Applause.) It’s wrong for Warren Buffett’s secretary to pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. (Applause.) And by the way, Warren Buffett agrees with me. (Laughter.) So do most Americans — Democrats, independents and Republicans. And I know that many of our wealthiest citizens would agree to contribute a little more if it meant reducing the deficit and strengthening the economy that made their success possible.

This isn’t about class warfare. This is about the nation’s welfare. It’s about making choices that benefit not just the people who’ve done fantastically well over the last few decades, but that benefits the middle class, and those fighting to get into the middle class, and the economy as a whole.

Finally, a strong middle class can only exist in an economy where everyone plays by the same rules, from Wall Street to Main Street. (Applause.) As infuriating as it was for all of us, we rescued our major banks from collapse, not only because a full-blown financial meltdown would have sent us into a second Depression, but because we need a strong, healthy financial sector in this country.

But part of the deal was that we wouldn’t go back to business as usual. And that’s why last year we put in place new rules of the road that refocus the financial sector on what should be their core purpose: getting capital to the entrepreneurs with the best ideas, and financing millions of families who want to buy a home or send their kids to college.

Now, we’re not all the way there yet, and the banks are fighting us every inch of the way. But already, some of these reforms are being implemented.

If you’re a big bank or risky financial institution, you now have to write out a “living will” that details exactly how you’ll pay the bills if you fail, so that taxpayers are never again on the hook for Wall Street’s mistakes. (Applause.) There are also limits on the size of banks and new abilities for regulators to dismantle a firm that is going under. The new law bans banks from making risky bets with their customers’ deposits, and it takes away big bonuses and paydays from failed CEOs, while giving shareholders a say on executive salaries.

This is the law that we passed. We are in the process of implementing it now. All of this is being put in place as we speak. Now, unless you’re a financial institution whose business model is built on breaking the law, cheating consumers and making risky bets that could damage the entire economy, you should have nothing to fear from these new rules.

Some of you may know, my grandmother worked as a banker for most of her life — worked her way up, started as a secretary, ended up being a vice president of a bank. And I know from her, and I know from all the people that I’ve come in contact with, that the vast majority of bankers and financial service professionals, they want to do right by their customers. They want to have rules in place that don’t put them at a disadvantage for doing the right thing. And yet, Republicans in Congress are fighting as hard as they can to make sure that these rules aren’t enforced.

I’ll give you a specific example. For the first time in history, the reforms that we passed put in place a consumer watchdog who is charged with protecting everyday Americans from being taken advantage of by mortgage lenders or payday lenders or debt collectors. And the man we nominated for the post, Richard Cordray, is a former attorney general of Ohio who has the support of most attorney generals, both Democrat and Republican, throughout the country. Nobody claims he’s not qualified.

But the Republicans in the Senate refuse to confirm him for the job; they refuse to let him do his job. Why? Does anybody here think that the problem that led to our financial crisis was too much oversight of mortgage lenders or debt collectors?

AUDIENCE: No!

THE PRESIDENT: Of course not. Every day we go without a consumer watchdog is another day when a student, or a senior citizen, or a member of our Armed Forces — because they are very vulnerable to some of this stuff — could be tricked into a loan that they can’t afford — something that happens all the time. And the fact is that financial institutions have plenty of lobbyists looking out for their interests. Consumers deserve to have someone whose job it is to look out for them. (Applause.) And I intend to make sure they do. (Applause.) And I want you to hear me, Kansas: I will veto any effort to delay or defund or dismantle the new rules that we put in place. (Applause.)

We shouldn’t be weakening oversight and accountability. We should be strengthening oversight and accountability. I’ll give you another example. Too often, we’ve seen Wall Street firms violating major anti-fraud laws because the penalties are too weak and there’s no price for being a repeat offender. No more. I’ll be calling for legislation that makes those penalties count so that firms don’t see punishment for breaking the law as just the price of doing business. (Applause.)

The fact is this crisis has left a huge deficit of trust between Main Street and Wall Street. And major banks that were rescued by the taxpayers have an obligation to go the extra mile in helping to close that deficit of trust. At minimum, they should be remedying past mortgage abuses that led to the financial crisis. They should be working to keep responsible homeowners in their home. We’re going to keep pushing them to provide more time for unemployed homeowners to look for work without having to worry about immediately losing their house.

The big banks should increase access to refinancing opportunities to borrowers who haven’t yet benefited from historically low interest rates. And the big banks should recognize that precisely because these steps are in the interest of middle-class families and the broader economy, it will also be in the banks’ own long-term financial interest. What will be good for consumers over the long term will be good for the banks. (Applause.)

Investing in things like education that give everybody a chance to succeed. A tax code that makes sure everybody pays their fair share. And laws that make sure everybody follows the rules. That’s what will transform our economy. That’s what will grow our middle class again. In the end, rebuilding this economy based on fair play, a fair shot, and a fair share will require all of us to see that we have a stake in each other’s success. And it will require all of us to take some responsibility.

It will require parents to get more involved in their children’s education. It will require students to study harder. (Applause.) It will require some workers to start studying all over again. It will require greater responsibility from homeowners not to take out mortgages they can’t afford. They need to remember that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

It will require those of us in public service to make government more efficient and more effective, more consumer-friendly, more responsive to people’s needs. That’s why we’re cutting programs that we don’t need to pay for those we do. (Applause.) That’s why we’ve made hundreds of regulatory reforms that will save businesses billions of dollars. That’s why we’re not just throwing money at education, we’re challenging schools to come up with the most innovative reforms and the best results.

And it will require American business leaders to understand that their obligations don’t just end with their shareholders. Andy Grove, the legendary former CEO of Intel, put it best. He said, “There is another obligation I feel personally, given that everything I’ve achieved in my career, and a lot of what Intel has achieved…were made possible by a climate of democracy, an economic climate and investment climate provided by the United States.”

This broader obligation can take many forms. At a time when the cost of hiring workers in China is rising rapidly, it should mean more CEOs deciding that it’s time to bring jobs back to the United States — (applause) — not just because it’s good for business, but because it’s good for the country that made their business and their personal success possible. (Applause.)

I think about the Big Three auto companies who, during recent negotiations, agreed to create more jobs and cars here in America, and then decided to give bonuses not just to their executives, but to all their employees, so that everyone was invested in the company’s success. (Applause.)

I think about a company based in Warroad, Minnesota. It’s called Marvin Windows and Doors. During the recession, Marvin’s competitors closed dozens of plants, let hundreds of workers go. But Marvin’s did not lay off a single one of their 4,000 or so employees — not one. In fact, they’ve only laid off workers once in over a hundred years. Mr. Marvin’s grandfather even kept his eight employees during the Great Depression.

Now, at Marvin’s when times get tough, the workers agree to give up some perks and some pay, and so do the owners. As one owner said, “You can’t grow if you’re cutting your lifeblood — and that’s the skills and experience your workforce delivers.” (Applause.) For the CEO of Marvin’s, it’s about the community. He said, “These are people we went to school with. We go to church with them. We see them in the same restaurants. Indeed, a lot of us have married local girls and boys. We could be anywhere, but we are in Warroad.”

That’s how America was built. That’s why we’re the greatest nation on Earth. That’s what our greatest companies understand. Our success has never just been about survival of the fittest. It’s about building a nation where we’re all better off. We pull together. We pitch in. We do our part. We believe that hard work will pay off, that responsibility will be rewarded, and that our children will inherit a nation where those values live on. (Applause.)

And it is that belief that rallied thousands of Americans to Osawatomie — (applause) — maybe even some of your ancestors — on a rain-soaked day more than a century ago. By train, by wagon, on buggy, bicycle, on foot, they came to hear the vision of a man who loved this country and was determined to perfect it.

“We are all Americans,” Teddy Roosevelt told them that day. “Our common interests are as broad as the continent.” In the final years of his life, Roosevelt took that same message all across this country, from tiny Osawatomie to the heart of New York City, believing that no matter where he went, no matter who he was talking to, everybody would benefit from a country in which everyone gets a fair chance. (Applause.)

And well into our third century as a nation, we have grown and we’ve changed in many ways since Roosevelt’s time. The world is faster and the playing field is larger and the challenges are more complex. But what hasn’t changed — what can never change — are the values that got us this far. We still have a stake in each other’s success. We still believe that this should be a place where you can make it if you try. And we still believe, in the words of the man who called for a New Nationalism all those years ago, “The fundamental rule of our national life,” he said, “the rule which underlies all others — is that, on the whole, and in the long run, we shall go up or down together.” And I believe America is on the way up. (Applause.)

Thank you. God bless you. God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

 

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It Lasts a Lifetime!

The airwaves have been deluged this past week with the child sexual abuse scandal that has erupted at Pennsylvania State University. I watched Chris Hayes’ new weekend talk show this morning on this issue, but rather than railing about the salacious details of the story, it was an intelligent discussion about the wider implications of the culture of protectiveness that sports programs enjoy in this country.

I should preface these comments by stating that the sexual abuse of the children by a coach at Penn State University is alleged and not yet proven in a court of law. That being said, it is also important to acknowledge that grand jury testimony has been made public, including eye-witness accounts, that leaves little doubt about the guilt of the individual in this case.

Large universities in this country make an immense amount of money on their sports programs. Protecting this revenue stream is apparently much more important to some than doing the “right thing”, whether it involves covering up pay-offs to athletes, altering grades for their stars, failure to censor rule-breaking behaviors by the student athletes, or now apparent sexual abuse by those who are entrusted to work with young men and boys in these settings. The discussion centered around the wider moral implications of putting the money before the welfare of our children.

In the case of Penn State, clearly the protection of their football program took precedence over that of the children who were involved. Instead of calling law enforcement when the abuse was discovered so many years ago, the damning information about the coach was passed up the chain of command to administrators with the end result being that nothing was done to stop the alleged abuser. He was allowed to continue working at the university and allowed to continue to oversee a charity that he established to work with disadvantaged youth, a convenient way of gaining access to his victims. There is no question that a cover-up existed at the highest levels in the school, either from a desire to protect the reputation of the school or from a misguided desire to protect the individual because of friendship.

There is also no question that college sports are important to these schools. Millions of dollars flow into the schools that provide scholarships and grand facilities for the students. Perhaps that is not a bad thing overall. What we are left to face is the moral failings of men who could have stopped this abuser a very long time ago. Why would someone place more importance on the “good name” of the school rather than on the safety of the children? It is being described as “institutional blindness”. I would call it “institutional and individual moral failure”. When head coaches and administrators cover up this kind of behavior by anyone on their staff, it cannot be called anything else.

The end result for Penn State and its administrators and coaches is to be determined in the courts. Obviously, the trial for the alleged offender will be front page news for a long time to come. But in trying to protect the school and the revenue, what these coaches and administrators have done is to hurt their school’s reputation much more severely than any disclosure would have ever done at the time. The legacy of a much-storied coach and sports program has been irrevocably damaged. The damage done not only includes those who were directly involved, most importantly the children, but the futures of the athletes in this program have also been tainted by those who failed so miserably. The long-term implications of shattered young lives, lost jobs, and lost opportunities for so many people cannot be measured. As we find out more details of the story, the circle of victims grows wider.

Last night, a victim of child sexual abuse appeared on a TV talk show. This brave young man has an established an organization to support victims and to raise awareness of this problem in our society. Although he is now grown, the anger that he still holds is apparent. His life has been irrevocably changed by a man that he trusted and respected. He expressed the fear that he had at the time, thinking that he was completely alone and frightened to face his abuser, thinking that he would not be believed. Not only was he violated physically. He had to deal with a deep sense of betrayal by those that he trusted to nurture and protect him from harm. Children are not able, either physically to stop the abuse, or psychologically equipped to deal with the feelings that must inevitably come from enduring an ordeal like sexual abuse.

This story should open up a much wider discussion in this country. We have seen so many chapters in the past years, involving some of the most trusted people in our society, the priests of our churches. The same institutional and individual moral failures were seen with the Catholic Church’s cover-up of so many cases, going back for many years. What we should discuss now is why there is hesitancy to report abuse of children to the proper law enforcement either by individuals or by institutions. We need to take a hard look at ourselves to see why the laws on the books requiring mandatory reporting of child abuse are not enforced. We should be honest about our hesitancy to “get involved”. We also need to look at how children can be sheltered and believed when they make a charge of sexual abuse. For instance, should a child be required to face his abuser in court? I can only imagine that this would be terrifying for a young child to be required to sit in a courtroom in close proximity to the person who abused him. The process of bringing a sexual predator to justice should not be as traumatic to the child as the assault itself.

I would suggest that we also need a in-depth examination of the causes of sexual abuse of children in our society as a whole. What possesses a grown man to go down this dark road of exploiting children for sexual gratification? What is it in our society that brings out this kind of aberrant behavior by so many? Are there more cases of child sexual exploitation, or is the media just bringing it to the forefront more often? The same kind of questions should be explored about sexual harassment of women, a subject that has also been flooding the airwaves recently with charges by a number of women against a presidential candidate.

There are no ready answers, and the mirror with which we must view ourselves and our culture is not necessarily kind. We may see things that we do not want to see. Nevertheless, we must look.

Today, the New York Times has published an article about the signs and symptoms of sexual abuse in children. I would encourage everyone who has contact with any children to read this article and familiarize yourself with these sometimes subtle indications that “something is wrong”. You may be able to save an innocent child from a lifetime of emotional pain that results from this scourge. When it comes to our precious children, we cannot be too vigilant!

http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/child-abuse-sexual/overview.html

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• Why Boys Do Not Tell About Sexual Abuse (psychologytoday.com)
• Former California Senator Martha Escutia Calls For End To Tax Breaks For Nonprofits Harboring Pedophiles In Wake Of Penn State Sex Abuse Scandal (prweb.com)
• What Parents Can Learn From Penn State Scandal (yourmindyourbody.org)
• Penn State candlelight vigil to support sexual abuse victims (hazimiai.wordpress.com)