We Are Who We Want To Be: Dreamers

Here’s a sample of what Nevada Representatives Joe Heck (R-3) and Mark Amodei (R-4) voted against on June 6, 2013 in the Congress of the United States of America –

“For most of her life Anna Ledesma has been afraid. She was a model student at Centennial High School in Las Vegas – an artist and a member of Key Club. As one of the top academics at her large high school, she received the Millennium Scholarship to study nursing at the College of Southern Nevada. Now she’s studying hard for her nursing exams. But 23-year-old Anna has lived for a long time with the constant fear that she will be deported.

Anna is an undocumented immigrant. She was born in the Philippines and brought here by her parents when she was 7 years old. She was in the second grade.”  [Reid Senate]

Individuals like Anna Ledesma are the reason for the Morton Memo directives.   And, as noted yesterday, on June 6th Representatives Heck and Amodei voted in favor of the King Amendment to H.R. 2217 which would prohibit implementation of those directives.

Yeah but: She’s still an “illegal immigrant.”  Coming here illegally is a crime.  Not so fast.  Note that Anna came here at age 7.  Nevada law is specific on the subject of who can be punished for a criminal act — and who can’t.

“NRS 194.010  Persons capable of committing crimes.  All persons are liable to punishment except those belonging to the following classes: 1.  Children under the age of 8 years. 2.  Children between the ages of 8 years and 14 years, in the absence of clear proof that at the time of committing the act charged against them they knew its wrongfulness.  3.  Persons who committed the act charged or made the omission charged in a state of insanity.”

You don’t have to get any further than item one to determine that she was not old enough to be legally capable of committing a criminal act in the state of Nevada.

The Infancy Defense is slightly different in the federal courts.  In terms of Common Law,  persons under the age of seven are presumed incapable of forming the requisite intent to commit a criminal act; a person between the ages of 7 and 13  “a child is rebuttably presumed incapable of forming a culpable mental state. ” [C&D]   U.S. law presumes the applicability of the infancy defense for children under the age of 11.

Yeah but:  “Dreamers” will crowd into our institutions of higher education and place an unconscionable burden on our already cash strapped institutions. [CIS] We could fix that by adequately financing our public colleges and universities — but that would require someone to pay some … taxes.  Most radical right arguments assume a high number of enrollees, and further  presume that no one — under any circumstances — should ever pay more … taxes.   Conveniently omitted from the conservative assertions is the fact that immigrant families DO pay taxes, and they also tend not to take into consideration the fact that individuals, like the Dreamers,  who complete college degrees add to the U.S. economy.

As of May 2013 the unemployment rate for persons with less than a high school diploma was 11. 1%.  The unemployment rate for high school graduates was 7.4%.  Those with some college experience or an associates degree are looking at an unemployment rate of 6.5%, while those with a college degree (or more) are experiencing an unemployment rate of 3.8%.  [BLS Table A4]

The logic is relatively simple — since those with more education are less likely to be unemployed they must be in the work force.  If they are in the work force they are earning money, with which they will make consumer purchases and pay taxes.   Why wouldn’t a government at any level want more individuals enrolled in post secondary education?  It pays off in the long run.

Meanwhile back at Senator Reid’s exemplar — I thought we needed nurses?  The median age of a nurse in this country is 46 and some 50% of our nurses are nearing retirement. [ANA]  Those who argue that there is no current nursing shortage (WSJ) seem to be assuming the recession is going to last forever.  Those nurses who put off retirement during the downturn are going to be looking at the prospect again as the overall economy improves.  And it does look to be improving for those in the “education and health care” sector, which saw a 5.3% unemployment rate in May 2012 and a 4.8% rate as of May 2013.  [BLS Table A 14]  The Occupational Outlook for registered nurses is a “faster than average” rate of +26% during the 2010-2012 decade.

Median pay for a registered nurse is about $65,000 annually.  [OOH]  So, if we perhaps had a few more individuals who would like to complete the training necessary to enter a field with optimistic prospects for employment, and to earn $65,000 per year which in turn flows into the economy with some of that amount paid in taxes — What’s the problem?

Yeah but: This is sending a “horrible message.”  [Atl] All those “illegal” people will clamor to send their children to American schools…. Kids the world over will leave their friends, their families, and their homes to come …. Whoa.  Some few might leave their families, but anyone who’s ever been accompanied by an adolescent offspring on vacation knows full well that removing the said adolescent from the peer group — even temporarily –  is the social equivalent of multiple root canal surgeries. So, if the extrapolation of Immigration Nightmares is patently irrational, what explains the opposition?

If the message that we want ambitious, education oriented, civic minded, enterprising, and industrious  individuals to come to this country is “horrible,” what would be the reverse position?  Not to put too fine a point to it, but for some opponents of immigration reform the answer is “Nobody.”  No one would be welcome, and they’d be even less welcome should the persons in question be non-WASPs.

This has been an all too common refrain, a chorus repeated as The Nation Was Being Changed From What We Were by — Germans, Irish, Italians, Poles, Slovaks, Russians  — OK we’d have missed out on John Jacob Astor (born Heidelberg), the ancestors of Bill O’Reilly and Danica Patrick, Domingo Ghirardelli (Who doesn’t love chocolate? Born in Rapallo, Italy),  Max Factor, Sr. (born in Lodz), the fourth son of Slovakian immigrant Andrej Varhola, known to us as Andy Warhol,  and Yuliy Borisovich Briner (born Vladivostok, AKA Yul Brynner).     With no apologies to any of the Nativists — if they can indeed figure out who besides the Native Americans actually ARE natives — the Astors, the Patricks, the Ghirardellis, the Factors, the Warhols, the Brynners, the Longorias, the Musials, the Goldwyns, the Warners, the Sikorskys, the Sanchezes, the Trevinos, the Hinojosas — ARE who we ARE.

Maybe we were sending the right message all along?

Heck, Amodei join Steve King’s (R-IA) Nightmare

If this is part of the Republican Party plan to win the hearts of Hispanic heritage voters in Nevada… I’m baffled.  On June 6, 2013 two members of the Nevada Congressional delegation — Reps. Joe Heck and Mark Amodei — voted in favor of Rep. Steve King’s (R-IA) amendment to H.R. 2217,  [roll call 208] which passed the GOP controlled House with a 224-201 margin.

Rep. King’s amendment explicitly prohibit the use of funds to finalize, implement, administer, or enforce the “Morton Memos”.  And, what are Morton Memos?  The reference is to ICE Director Morton’s memorandum of June 17, 2011 which directs agencies involved in the prosecution of individuals alleged to be in violation of immigration laws to use discretion and to consider factors  like age and educational attainment and aspirations — i.e. Dreamers.  [memo pdf]

Nevada’s Democratic Representatives Titus and Horsford voted “no” on the amendment.  We might want to ask Representatives Amodei and Heck how that GOP outreachy plan is working for them?

Amodei, Heck Join Big Bank Boys Club: H.R. 1062 Protects Wall Street

Almost lost in the hyperbolic distractions so beloved by the D.C. press, was the House passage of H.R. 1062 on May 17, 2003, a bill to gut the capacity of the Security and Exchange Commissions rule making to protect American investors.   And, Nevada Representatives Amodei (R-NV2) and Heck (R-NV3) voted in favor of it.  Representatives Titus (D-NV1) and Horsford (D-NV4) voted against H.R. 1062.

What did they support?

“SEC Regulatory Accountability Act – Amends the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to direct the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), before issuing a regulation under the securities laws, to: (1) identify the nature and source of the problem that the proposed regulation is designed to address in order to assess whether any new regulation is warranted; (2) use the SEC Chief Economist to assess the costs and benefits of the intended regulation and adopt it only upon a reasoned determination that its benefits justify the costs; (3) identify and assess available alternatives that were considered; and (4) ensure that any regulation is accessible, consistent, written in plain language, and easy to understand.”  [Thomas CRS Summary] (emphasis added)

Oh, how the Wall Street Wizards will love this one! The Little Wizards in the investment banking sector have long wanted all regulators to use the “cost/benefit” standard for restraining the excesses of investment enthusiasm.   H.R. 1062 seeks to gut the Dodd-Frank financial reform statute enacted in the wake of the Mortgage Meltdown and attendant financial machinations, and unleash the Wall Street Wizards from all regulation “past, present, and future.”  [HuffPo] We already have “cost/benefit analysis”  built into the system — so why another bit of legislation?

Here’s the little kicker in the bill:  “This bill was transparently designed to allow each regulation to be challenged in court by industry, but not by consumer advocates.”  [HuffPo] Got it?

Evidently, Representatives Heck and Amodei believe this to be a good idea — that the financial sector battalion of legal expertise may challenge each and every regulation proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission — but the rules may NOT be challenged by consumer advocates.

As Representative Gwen Moore (D-WI4) explains:

“The ink would not be dry on a SEC rule before the race to the courthouse door to challenge the regulations would begin. Presumably, the most powerful industry participants would challenge the rules in the way that achieves their narrow interest, which may be to the detriment of investors or other less-affluent market participants. In this way, the most powerful industry interests would be able to not only use the courts to undo consumer protections, but to also seek competitive advantage over competitors.”

The big get bigger, the fat get fatter, and the rest of us sit waiting to find out how best to serve the Big Bankers on Wall Street.

But wait! It gets better — if you happen to be a Big Banker on The Street:

Requires the SEC to: (1) consider whether the rulemaking will promote efficiency, competition, and capital formation; (2) consider the impact of the regulation upon investor choice, market liquidity, and small business; (3) explain in its final rule the nature of comments received concerning the proposed rule or rule change; and (4) respond to those comments, explaining any changes made in response and the reasons that it did not incorporate industry group concerns regarding potential costs or benefits. [Thomas CRS Summary] (emphasis added)

Any rule has to promote “capital formation?“  Translation: No SEC rule may prevent any investment banking operation from accumulating capital (money) just about any way it wants to, and even further — if the rule does prevent some Wall Street investment house or Monster Bank from accumulating all the coin of the realm it wants then the SEC has to explain (presumably to Wall Street’s satisfaction) why “industry group concerns” weren’t incorporated into the rules.  Another translation might be in order:  The SEC can’t propose and adopt any rule Wall Street doesn’t like.

Wall Street would like to modify some existing rules (like those pertaining to the Dodd-Frank Act) and H.R. 1062 offers them a way to do that:

Requires the SEC to: (1) review its existing regulations periodically to determine if they are outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome; and (2) modify, streamline, expand, or repeal them.  [Thomas CRS Summary] (emphasis added)

How nice.  Now, just what does “excessively burdensome” actually mean?  The standard Wall Street dictionary applies the term to any regulation they don’t like.   Is it “excessively burdensome” to require a Wall Street firm to report what it’s doing with derivatives? Is it “excessively burdensome” to make Wall Street stop playing casino games with people’s mortgages?   If the rule isn’t “excessively burdensome,” then how about making rule proposals almost impossible?  The bill had a little something for that prospect too:

“Requires the SEC, whenever it adopts or amends a major rule, to state in its adopting release: (1) the purposes and intended consequences of the regulation, (2) the post-implementation quantitative and qualitative metrics to measure the economic impact of the regulation and the extent to which it has accomplished the stated purposes, (3) the assessment plan that will be used under the supervision of the Chief Economist to assess whether the regulation has achieved those purposes, and (4) any foreseeable unintended or negative consequences. Requires the assessment plan to: (1) consider the costs, benefits, and intended and unintended consequences of the regulation; and (2) specify the data to be collected, the methods for its collection and analysis, and an assessment completion date.”  [Thomas CRS Summary]

Got all that?  How is an “unintended consequence” foreseeable?  That’s why they’re called “unintended” in the first place.   So, the SEC cannot enforce any rule which might at any point in the future have an “unintended consequence” because that would violate the provision calling for a full assessment of the development of the rule.

After this bit of legislative legerdemain on behalf of the Big Banks and their cohorts on Wall Street, Representatives Amodei and Heck have not a quarter of an inch of room to talk about protecting small businesses — who are all too often at the mercy of the Big Banks, nor do they have any leeway to discuss protecting investors and their retirement accounts.  Nevada homeowners facing all manner of difficulties with mortgages that were sold off in packages and then bet on more enthusiastically than the Kentucky Derby might want to inquire precisely how Representatives Amodei and Heck are protecting their interests?

Representatives Heck and Amodei have joined the Big Bank Boys Club in this vote; a connection avoided by Representatives Horsford and Titus.

If you are not a resident of Nevada and would like to see how your Representative voted on this egregious bit of pandering to Wall Street and Big Bank interests click here.

Nevada GOP Reps Support Assault On 40 Hour Work Week

Representatives Mark Amodei (R-NV2) and Joe Heck (R-NV3) voted on May 8, 2013 in favor of H.R. 1406 “To amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide compensatory time for employees in the private sector.”  [roll call 137]  The CRS Summary describes the bill:

“Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013 – Amends the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to authorize private employers to provide compensatory time off to private employees at a rate of 1 1/2 hours per hour of employment for which overtime compensation is required. Authorizes an employer to provide compensatory time only if it is in accordance with an applicable collective bargaining agreement or, in the absence of such an agreement, an agreement between the employer and employee.”

Trade your time and a half for comp time? What could possibly go wrong? Let us count the ways!

#1. Right off the bat, this is a frontal assault on the 40 hour work week.  The old system, in place since 1938, (pdf) is a dis-incentive for employers to demand longer hours of their employees because over-time costs more, one and one half times more.  This Republican “innovation” allows employers to require more over time work, without any extra compensation.

#2. There are limits on the employee, not necessarily on the employer. For example, under the terms of the bill employees may not accrue more than 160 hours of comp-time in any calendar year.  If there are approximately 260 work days a year (52×5) and we take out 5 for holidays leaving 255 days, then we’d have a total of 2,040 work hours (255×8) during a calendar year.   160 hours is about 8% of the total number of annual work hours.  In some jobs it wouldn’t take much to hit the limit quickly.

#3. H.R. 1406 slaps the wrists of employers who coerce employees into taking comp-time rather than over-time payment with a serious application of a soggy noodle.

“Makes an employer who violates such requirements liable to the affected employee in the amount of the compensation rate for each hour of compensatory time accrued, plus an additional equal amount as liquidated damages, reduced for each hour of compensatory time used.”

Got that?  If an employer threatens an employee who doesn’t want to take comp-time, the employee will be compensated for the “lost hours” plus liquidated damages MINUS each hour of comp-time used.  So, hypothetical Mr. Grinch demands that his employees participate int he comp-time scheme.  Miss Cindy Lou doesn’t want to participate, but is given a “choice” by Grinch to either take the comp-time or (a) get nothing or (b) get canned. She takes the comp-time.  When she complains to authorities she’s to be “paid” back but the time she took off (at the firm suggestion of Grinch) is counted against her?  Lovely.   The “choice” to take uncompensated time off isn’t a viable choice for most working families.

#4. Nothing in the bill requires the employer to be consistent about over-time or comp-time policies.   In fact, an employer can shuck the comp-time scheme if he or she gives the employees 30 days notice.   Then there’s the matter of when the comp-time will be taken.  It would be in the employer’s interest to have employees work over-time during peak seasons and  give comp-time during slow periods.  There’s NO flexibility for employees if the employer is the one determining when the leave can be taken.  Does Cindy Lou need to cash in some comp-time because The Kid is out of school with chicken pox?  Nothing in the bill requires any employer to award comp-time except at his or her own discretion.  This is “flexibility” for the employer and the same old (but this time uncompensated) routine for the employee.

#5.  Employees could easily end up bankrolling the employer in this scheme.  Here’s one example:

“That’s because employers would be able to pay workers nothing at all for overtime work at the time the work is performed and could schedule comp time off at no extra cost to them (for example, during less busy periods when co-workers can pick up the slack). So, when employees request comp time, they essentially become lenders to employers. For example, a worker earning $12 an hour and banking the maximum amount of hours (160) would be giving an interest-free loan of $1,920 to his or her employer.” [AFLCIO]

If we pick the thread in #4, in which the comp-time is scheduled at the convenience of the employer, and the employer is getting the services of the employee at NO EXTRA CHARGE, then those 160 hours of accrued time become a form of freebie loan to the employer.

The Republicans in Congress appear to take some pride in saying they are “pro-business,” and that they promote “pro-business” policies — you can’t get much more pro-business than assaulting the requirement of the 40 hour work week, or the eight hour day, or the notion that employees should “donate” their time to their employer.  What’s next?  By GOP lights should families have the “flexibility” to send their 10 year old kids into the factories? Only in the burbling boiling  cauldron of crazy — does H.R. 1406 constitute a “pro-family, pro-worker” act.

Representatives Horsford (D-NV) and Titus (D-NV) had the good sense to vote against this patently pro-sweatshop bit of legislative stew.

What’s Reinhart-Rogoff and why would Nevadans care?

Last January the Las Vegas Sun published an article reporting that economic development was costing Nevada about $30,000 per job created.  As noted in the publication, we need to be cautious tossing numbers about concerning “per-anything,” because the denominators in any arithmetical calculation are subject to interpretation.  However, Nevada has demurred on tax collections (revenue) and this does mean there are costs for economic development.  We may be incentivizing as fast as we can but the economic growth in the state is lagging as a result of “lackluster growth in construction and hospitality.” [Pew]  When the Governor proclaims we need to emphasize economic growth there are several ways to interpret this statement.  Let’s return to the Governor’s comment: “We cannot cut our way out, we cannot tax our way out, we can only grow our way out,” because it relates directly to some of the larger economic issues under debate.

As noted in a previous post, the statement is problematic because it disconnects three essential parts of the same question: How do we provide an acceptable level of public services with the current tax revenues?  Part A of the answer is that there are some expenditures which might be reduced.  Part B is that there are serious flaws in our significantly regressive system of taxation in this state with its emphasis on sales taxes while other sources of revenue remain low to barely consequential.  Part C  assumes that economic growth is predicated on a given set of ideological standards.  For some economic growth is a function of reduced regulation and “pro-business” policies, among which are debt reduction, low or no taxation, and tax breaks for businesses such as those which have benefited from our economic development efforts.

In light of the controversy over the Reinhart-Rogoff Study we need to take some time considering the austerity focus which was supposed to create a national business climate conducive to economic recovery.

One of the most oft-cited pieces of evidence used by those lawmakers and public figures enamored with austerity is that too much debt will eventually squash a country’s growth. The academic basis for that claim is a study done by economists Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart that claims economic growth starts to slow when a country’s public debt-to-GDP ratio hits 90 percent. [USNWR]

The inferences drawn by various and sundry politicians at the national level from the Reinhart and Rogoff study tended toward the austerity camp (We Can Cut Our Way To Prosperity) and the latest incarnation of the House GOP budget proposal exemplified this thinking.  We should be paying attention to this for the following reasons:

#1. Austerity economics assumes that economic growth, as measured by the GDP, will be enhanced if the government cuts spending at the federal level.  The problem with this assumption is that government spending IS part of the formula by which we measure economic growth.  [Formula]

#2. Cuts at the federal level have implications for state economies, even if the states are required to have balanced budgets except for capital expenditures.   If we determine we cannot afford assistance for infrastructure investment, new technologies, or other innovations to diversify a state economy, then public investment in economic activities related to these efforts is reduced and consequently so is the state’s capacity for augmented economic growth.

#3. The point should be emphasized that there is considerable evidence that a weakened economy means more public indebtedness, reversing the austerian argument. [TP]  In a related vein, there’s also evidence indicating that our national debt isn’t seriously impeding our economic growth: [Forbes] [LAT] “…while there’s no way to know whether the economy would be expanding faster if the debt burden were lower, the traditional way that government debt hurts growth is by raising the cost of money as public sector borrowing “crowds out” private borrowers. That isn’t happening.”  [Bloomberg]

The Reinhart-Rogoff study, so piously intoned by conservative Republicans, was supposed to substantiate the austerity focus by providing statistically reliable and valid evidence that debt restrains economic growth.  Nevada Representative Mark Amodei (R-NV2) announced during his last campaign he’d never vote to raise Obama’s debt ceiling. [RJ] Nevada Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) sententiously announces, “Congress must immediately start to solve Washington’s out-of-control spending that has led to unprecedented debt and deficits. “  The facts that our spending is not out of control, nor is our debt level unprecedented seem to be lost on Nevada’s junior Senator.  In short, the GOP emphasis on debts and spending is only viable IF we assume the Reinhart-Rogoff study describes economic reality — but it doesn’t.

First, the R&R study was in trouble long before anyone tried to replicate it.  The study attempted to compare some very disparate economies using a few leverage ratios. [BusinessInsider] Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill pointed out:

“… it would seem reasonably obvious that grouping countries together in terms of their debt levels and concluding that the economic consequences are the same is quite a tricky path to tread. Even to apply such arguments about balance of payments current accounts, which to some degree are more of an accounting identifying and therefore less subjective, is tricky, but countries with high debt levels usually share very little else with each other.”

Secondly, there’s that sticky part of science in which the results and conclusions drawn from objective data should be capable of replication.  The Reinhart-Rogoff study didn’t meet this criteria.

“The underlying problem is not that their method is necessarily wrong, but that it is particularly sensitive to outliers. This contributed to the “perfect storm” of errors whose combined effect caused the large decline in average GDP. If the only problem was the weighting, this would not have been sufficient to cause a drastic decline in average GDP growth.  However, it was the combination of the weighting system with the exclusion – for whatever reason – that combined to cause the most significant fall in average GDP growth. There is nothing inherently wrong with their weighting system. However it is unusual and it is their obligation to be open and clear in explaining why they used this unusual methodology.

O’Neill was proven correct — the central assumption, that a study which lumped all manner of countries together and then concluded that their economies would all behave in the same ways despite significant differences was tenuous to the breaking point.  The problems weren’t just spread sheet anomalies and errors — the assumptions underpinning the study could not withstand scrutiny.

When the “scientific” validity of a phenomena is questionable at best, then the great debt debate devolves into emotional arguments.  Thus we are treated to such misinformation as “The federal budget should balance the way a family budget balances.”  No, most family budgets are not balanced in terms of revenues and debt.   The currently reported 4Q2012 Debt Service Ratio for American families stands at 10.38.  [FedRes] For American homeowners  it was 13.60 as of the 4th quarter of 2012. [FedRes]  The only Americans whose budgets balance by the GOP definition are those with no mortgages, car loans, student loans, or credit cards.  Not exactly our average American family.

Another “monster” pulled out from under the bed is the Foreign Owned Debt — or The Chinese are Coming.  Not to put too fine a point to it but the United States doesn’t have creditors — it has investors.  Foreign finance buys U.S. Treasuries expecting to receive interest payments on solid investments, just as we expect the government to pay interest on the EE series Savings Bonds we give to kids on their birthdays or other special occasions.

With no “scientific” study to support the austerity campaigners, and no common sense rationale to substantiate their arguments, it’s little wonder the whole austerity binge is standing on rapidly liquifying silt:

In a speech Monday, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso said the policy of austerity pursued by the EU in recent years no longer has the political and social support needed to work.

The International Monetary Fund last week said the bloc should ease back on austerity, while a number of governments outside the EU have made the same call, arguing its belt-tightening is holding back the global economic recovery and is self-defeating.  [WallStJ]

When you’ve lost the head of the European Commission, and the IMF, there aren’t too many advocates left besides the radical conservatives like Blackstone billionaire Pete Peterson [C&L] and his Republican allies.

Meanwhile, Nevada spends about $30,000 for each job created in an effort to offset the grinding slowness of an economic recovery freighted with a self defeating economic theory which places the interests of the bankers over their customers, clients, and countrymen.

Rep. Amodei’s Reverse Economics: It’s the Inequality

The U.S. House of Representatives had an opportunity to increase the minimum wage from $7.25 per hour to $10.10 by 2015, and it declined to do so on a 227-184 vote.  Representative Mark Amodei (R-NV Outback) and Representative Joe Heck (R-NVTeaParty) both voted against the increase.  Representatives Horsford (D-NV) and Titus (D-NV) voted in favor of the amendment. [roll call 174]

We can use a few charts to demonstrate why the Republican thinking on the subject of raising the minimum wage is counter-productive during an economic recovery.  Before launching into the graphics, a simple reminder is in order.  The only thing that encourages employment is DEMAND, i.e. there is more demand for an item or a service than current staffing levels can meet with acceptable levels of customer satisfaction.  There are few ways to increase demand.  Demand can be mandated, such as the requirement that individuals purchase private health insurance policies if they don’t already have such insurance in place.  Demand can be generated by allowing tax incentives, such as the deduction allowed on home mortgages.  Demand can be enhanced by creating a “must have” product.   However, there are limits to these three basic demand elements.

The limit is INCOME.  As we’ve seen during the debate over the health care reform issue, we can mandate that individuals purchase health insurance from private corporations, but if they cannot afford it then provisions have to be put in place to augment their financial capacity to do so.  Likewise, all the home mortgage deductions in the world won’t assist the housing market if the homeowners are unemployed or become under-employed such that they can no longer afford the payments.   There are numerous “must have” products and services on the market — but, people are also willing to “get by” without them if the price of the new product or service is beyond their reach.  Smart Phones are wonderful items, but for  a household straining on income from minimum wage jobs they are “might someday have,” rather than “must have now” products.

Now to the charts.   Atlantic published some handy charts related to how income is currently be distributed in the United States, and this first one illustrates where that income is going as well as any:

If productivity is increasing, then what happened to the income that is supposed to be generated? “Where did the gains from productivity go? Well, they went to the top. Household income, adjusted for inflation, has grown 12X more for the top 1% than for the middle 20% … and 24X more than the bottom 20%.”  [Atlantic]   Imagine that spending (demand) is like dragging a weight in order to get to the retail counter.  A person in the top 1% of all income earners in the U.S. has a weight 12X lighter than the Middle Class Americans in the line, and 24X lighter than the burden for those in the lower income categories.   The problem is that as of 2012 there were approximately 1,699,000 households in the United States with income above $250,000 annually, out of 114,761,359 households in total.   This works out to about 1.48% of the households in the nation seeing an increase in their income while the other 98.52% are looking at stagnating or decreasing incomes.   Here’s what the result looks like from one of the Atlantic business section charts:

This isn’t healthy.  Nor is it well explained by reverting to vague grandstanding about this is “America,” or we want “freedom.”  Or, isn’t “Liberty” nice?  Demand isn’t an abstraction. It IS the cumulative result of all the daily economic transactions we make in the course of our mundane lives.  How much to spend in the grocery store?  Do we need new clothing? How many pairs of jeans will the kids need this year?

How does the minimum wage look in this context? “In 1964, the minimum wage was about 50% of the average worker’s hourly earnings. By 2011, that figure fell to 37%.” [Atlantic]  In short, in 1964 those earning minimum wages had more “buying power” than they do now.  Buying Power = Demand.

So, what Representatives Amodei and Heck are telling us in roll call vote 174 is that they see no need to address the increasing variance in income across economic lines, and they see no need to increase the purchasing capacity of American workers.   They give every appearance of clinging mightily to the comforting mythology of Voodoo Economics, in which a consumer based economy is to be supported by real transference of wealth to the upper 1.48% of American households who will “invest” in “jobs.”   The Republican screeds about “re-distribution of wealth” as a form of Socialist-Commie Plot to Destroy America are a distraction from the real re-distribution of wealth which is now eroding the purchasing capacity of America’s middle and lower economic classes and destroying our consumer based free market economy.

Amodei, Heck Blow Off Sandy Victims

Nevada Representatives Mark Amodei (R-NV2) and Joe Heck (R-NV3) voted against the Supplemental Appropriations bill containing relief for victims of Super Storm Sandy.  [roll call 23]  There are a couple of boilerplate GOP talking points which underpin opposition to the supplemental funding bill.  There’s the “It’s full of pork,” argument.  Pork baloney.  It’s often handy to remember that one man’s pork can easily be another man’s economic development idea, and secondly — when haven’t supplemental spending bills contained several disparate funding authorizations?  That’s what supplemental bills are — bills to provide funding for items previously unbudgeted — like, say, the cost of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush Administration?

There’s the “let’s take our time, some of the provisions don’t kick in for two years, so what’s the rush?” argument.  Containing therein an equal measure of pork baloney.  Unlike the ATM the right wing imagines the government to be — it takes TIME to get federal appropriations.  Applications must be filed, reviewed, approved, authorized, and then the money comes.  Why all that red tape?  Because there are those who cry “Waste, Fraud, and Abuse” every time federal money is spent unwisely, and the approval and accounting measures are there to restrain the temptations for Waste, Fraud, and Abuse.

There’s the “It’s a real tragedy, but we have a Debt Crisis” argument.  More pork baloney.  The current “Debt Crisis” is a GOP manufactured for cable news phenomena, a total reversal of Vice President Dick Cheney’s 2004 comment that “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”   Yes, we have too much debt, BUT it’s far from a “crisis” except in the fevered minds of those who think Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment insurance benefits are “The Problem,” and not two off the books wars, one expansion of the Medicare prescription program with no funding formula, and one massive recession.

Then there’s a point of true irony.   There was an amendment to H.R. 152 from Congressman Fleming (R-LA) ” An amendment numbered 9 printed in Part C of House Report 113-1 to cut $9,800,000 from the Fish & Wildlife Service for rebuilding seawalls and buildings on uninhabited islands in the Steward McKinney National Wildlife Refuge in Connecticut.” This, after Congress authorized spending some $71 million for wildlife refuge restoration projects in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.   Representatives Amodei and Heck voted for this amendment too.  [roll call 19]  Representatives Titus and Horsford voted no.

Another moment of madness, offered by Representative Broun of Georgia “called for An amendment numbered 4 printed in Part C of House Report 113-1 to strike $13,000,000 in funding to “accelerate the National Weather Service ground readiness project“.  (Amendment 6) Really?  In what universe is it advisable to cut funding for “ground readiness projects” in the face of potentially devastating storms and other serious weather related situations?   Once more Representatives Amodei and Heck voted in favor of this amendment.  [roll call 17]  Representatives Titus and Horsford, who must have been listening to their elders who taught them “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” voted against this ill-conceived amendment.

Perhaps the Pork Baloney arguments can find favor in the Fever Swamp that is the controlling right wing of the Republican Party, but to enthusiastically vote for wildlife and coastal projects after Katrina in 2005 when the federal debt increased by approximately $553.7 billion — and then to scream “The Debt Is Coming, The Debt Is Coming,” in 2013 is a bit hypocritical.

Hmm, 2002 to 2005 — that would be part of the Bush Administration’s contribution to the national debt?  Oh well, Representatives Amodei and Heck have offered us yet one more example of why their brand of government is the problem — a government that will not help its citizens in times of real crisis is problematic indeed.

Voices in their heads, money in their pockets?

“I come at this not as an elected official but as a parent,” he said. “My view is that we need to move from a culture of violence to a culture of safety.”  [Stephen Horsford, Representative Elect, (D-NV4) LVSun] Mr. Horsford supports an assault weapons ban.  Good for him.

Some other Nevada Representatives appear to be on “radio silence.”  Representative Mark Amodei (R-NV2), he of the “NV2 Channel on You Tube” has posted nothing on the subject of banning assault rifles.  Representative Joe Heck (R-NV3) has nothing new on his copious video collection either.   Republican Representatives seem to be more comfortable with those Telephone Town Halls, wherein the questioners are faceless friends who ask questions to which the recipient may drone on at length for the  session.  This guarantees the constituents will (1) probably not get a question answered during the session but will received a written response later, and (2) never have to face up to organized criticism of their policy positions.

We do have Representative  Amodei’s acceptance statement when the NRA endorsed him:

“Mark Amodei is a steadfast supporter of freedom. He earned the NRA-PVF endorsement because of his demonstrated support for our rights, including improvements to Nevada’s right-to-carry law; preventing gun confiscations during states of emergency; and protecting firearm manufacturers and dealers from bogus lawsuits,” said Chris W. Cox, chairman of NRA-PVF. “His proven commitment to our Second Amendment rights and hunting heritage make Amodei the best choice for Nevada gun owners in this special election in Nevada’s 2nd congressional district.”

So we can be reasonably assured that Representative Amodei will not be voting to repeal the shield law for gun manufacturers which was enacted in October 2005, “aimed at ending a spate of lawsuits by individuals and municipalities, including New York City, seeking to hold gun manufacturers and dealers liable for negligence when their weapons are used in crimes.” [NYT]

Among the 283 members of Congress voting in favor of S. 397, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, were Representative James Gibbons (R-NV2), and Representative Jon Porter (R-NV3).   The law they voted for contained an exception, but one with an interesting twist.

“While it bars such suits, the measure contains an exception allowing certain cases involving defective weapons or criminal behavior by a gun maker or dealer, such as knowingly selling a weapon to someone who has failed a criminal background check.” [NYT]  “Knowingly” is a high legal standard.  Further, there’s a Catch 22 involved.  If we have a significant Gun Show loophole, and about 40% of all gun sales are conducted without a background check, then no gun manufacturer can be held liable for any use of a firearm resulting in death or injury where no background check was conducted.

The NRA contributed $4,000 to Representative Amodei’s campaign in 2012.

Congressman Joe Heck (R-NV3) touts his 92% rating from the National Rifle Association, and his 83% rating from the Gun Owners of America.  It’s difficult to imagine his support for an expansion of gun registration, a ban on assault rifles, and comprehensive background checks for prospective gun buyers.

Heck’s rating from the Gun Owners of America indicates an appreciation for the GOA’s position:

“Larry Pratt. According to Pratt, the best way to protect people from mass shootings is to make sure more guns are allowed in more places. “Gun-free zones are like magnets for the monsters in our society,” Pratt told Mike Huckabee during a radio interview Monday. More guns, he argued, equal more safety.”  [HuffPo]

And then there was this response from the GOA  to the Newtown tragedy, issued on December 19, 2012:

“While the nation witnessed a real tragedy last week, the media continues to ignore the far greater number of kids who die by other means—like in cars or pools. Sadly, I know about this personally, as one of my children drowned a few years ago.

But just as I’m not going on a nation-wide campaign to ban access to pools, neither should Congress deny access to the very instruments that help good people stop violent thugs from killing children.”

In other words, the answer to gun violence is to put more guns on the streets, in the malls, on the highways, on the airplanes?  This, from an organization which posted this conspiracy theory on its website:

“A top communist defector is warning of an unprecedented “alliance” between the Democratic Party and the Communist Party, reflected in the CPUSA’s endorsement of Barack Obama for president in 2008 and the party’s continued support for Democratic Party policies. But is this warning going to be too hot to handle for the media? And the Republicans?

Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking official ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc, says in an article for PJMedia that any doubt that the Democratic and the Communist parties had secretly joined forces was erased in 2009, “when Van Jones, part of a left fringe of declared communists, became the White House’s green jobs czar.”

Obama aide Valerie Jarrett had disclosed at a left-wing bloggers convention that “we,” apparently referring to herself and President Obama, had hired Jones for the job. However, Jones was fired when an outcry developed over his communist background, and the media quickly dropped any probes into Jones’ White House contacts.”

OK, it doesn’t get much Looney Tunes wackier than this, but this organization did give Representative Heck an 83% rating.   Rep. Heck also accepted $2,500 from the National Rifle Association.

The grand prize winner for NRA contributions in Nevada is Senator Dean Heller, who accepted $6,950 from the organization, making him the 10th highest recipient of the NRA’s largess.  He also accepted $2,500 from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, and $7,000 from the “canned hunt” crowd at the Safari Club.  Senator Heller thus accepted a total of $16,450 from gun related organizations.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation website is still playing possum on the issues related to the massacre at Newtown, on behalf of the Firearms Industry Trade Association:

“We listened with careful attention to President Obama’s statement from the White House today. Being one of the “stakeholders” he discussed, we would welcome the opportunity at the appropriate time to become part of a full national conversation with all policy makers that has as its goal the improved protection of our children and our communities from future violence.”

In other words, “we listened,” now “we’re going to be very quiet until the waves of grief subside, and then we’ll lobby with a vengeance to make sure no meaningful legislation is enacted which might curtail any of our sales?”

Safety First?

Yes, I’d like to discuss ultra-violent video games — but those games are available on every continent.  Why is it our children must be protected from violent video games but not from individuals who purchase assault rifles without undergoing a thorough background check?

Yes, I do believe the broadcast media all too often glamorizes violence. However, these broadcasts are also nothing new on this planet, or exclusive to our society.  Why is it that only our children seem to be at risk?

Yes, I do think we definitely need to take better care of our citizens who suffer from mental illnesses.  Lord knows we need to apply more resources to research, diagnosis, and treatment of mental health problems.  However, this isn’t exclusive to this country either.   So what makes our schools such as Columbine, Platt County High School, Virginia Tech University, and Sandy Hook the object of attack?  And, no, it’s not the “magnetization of gun free zone.”

It is simply the easy access to guns which are too powerful to be used by anyone other than military personnel or law enforcement officers.  We have 5% of the world’s population and 50% of the world’s guns. That’s a recipe for more, not less, disasters.

A reasonable approach would be to ban assault weapons, require comprehensive background checks for all gun sales, and encourage more scientific research on the subject of gun violence by the Centers for Disease Control.  In short, I am a gun owner BUT the NRA doesn’t speak for me. Nor do Representatives Heck, Amodei, and Senator Heller on this subject.

Legislation to Save Lives

When might it be an appropriate time to discuss these proposals rationally?  When the financial sector collapsed in an avalanche of mismanagement we didn’t worry about “politicizing” the issues. We enacted new laws to protect our money.  Might we not take equal action to protect our children?

In the wake of 9/11 we didn’t “politicize” the issues; we enacted a Terrorist Watch List.  We reorganized the government to create the Department of Homeland Security.  We instituted increased security at airports. Why can’t we reorganize our government priorities to protect kids?

After the collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis  we beefed up our  bridge safety protocols demanding better inspection, evaluation, and maintenance of gusset plates on truss bridges.  Why should we take substantive action which our kids aren’t traveling over bridges…but sitting in their classrooms?

NOW is the time to discuss school safety, but we’ll have a much more productive conversation if the voices we hear aren’t the voices in the heads of delusional radicals who have decided that in the event of some fictitious government takeover they are going to reenact the fantasies of their favorite cartoon action figures.

If our politicians are listening to these voices — we have an even larger problems.

We’re Number One! Female Murder Victims in Nevada

One of the bills stalled in the Do Absolutely Nothing 112th Congress of the United States of America is the Violence Against Women Act.  The Senate version extends the protections of the Act to LGBT citizens, Native Americans, and immigrants.  The GOP leadership of the  House of Representatives objects to the extensions.  [CD]  The objections are spurious.  However, that doesn’t prevent the bill from being stalled, and the Next Great Big Debt Crisis — which evidently wasn’t a problem for the Bush Administration “Deficits Don’t Matter” crowd — is chewing up the air time on the cable news networks.  Meanwhile, we have a real economic problem on our hands — domestic violence.

Intimate partner violence is expensive.  We’ve known this since the 2003 Center for Disease Control report. (pdf)

“The costs of intimate partner rape, physical assault, and stalking exceed $5.8 billion each year, nearly $4.1 billion of which is for direct medical and mental health care services. The total costs of IPV also include nearly $0.9 billion in lost productivity from paid work and household chores for victims of nonfatal IPV and $0.9  billion in lifetime earnings lost by victims of IPV homicide. The largest proportion of the costs is derived from physical assault victimization because that type of IPV is the most prevalent. The largest component of IPV-related costs is health care, which accounts for more than two-thirds of the total costs.”

So, as of 2003 the price tag for domestic violence was $5.8 billion annually, and the price tag for the health care component was $4.1 billion.  Want to help bring down health care costs in this country, then reduce the instances of domestic violence!

For those who persist in speaking of the issue as a police matter, or a “woman’s issue,” consider the following information from that 2003 CDC study:

As of nine years ago we were pitching the equivalent of 32,114 full time jobs in the dust bin because women lost valuable work days due to incidents of domestic violence.

The Corporate Alliance to End Partner Violence updated the numbers and reported that as of 2005, “The annual cost of lost productivity due to domestic violence is estimated as $727.8 million with over 7.9 million paid workdays lost per year.”   That, of course, is $727.8 million that doesn’t add anything to the national economy every year.

If we could delve only in the realm of national, and therefore generalized, statistics Nevadans might be more comfortable.  However, the Silver State has a problem according to Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto:

“Victims of domestic violence comprise the largest crime victim category in Nevada. Although domestic violence is significantly underreported and statistics are incomplete, the Nevada Department of Public Safety Uniform Crime Report for 2009 reported 29,091 female victims and 12,060 children present at incidents of domestic violence. The Nevada Network Against Domestic Violence reports that 42,877 first-time victims received services from domestic violence programs in fiscal year 2010-11.” [LVSun]

The numbers sting more when they’re describing what is going on in this state alone.   The sting is even greater when reading headlines like this one: “Nevada Ranks #1 in Rate of Women Murdered by Men for Third Year in a Row According to VPC Study Released Annually for Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October.”   That’s right… We’re Number One… in the rate of women murdered by men for the THIRD YEAR IN A ROW.  But wait, the news actually gets worse.

“The state has held the top position for five of the last six years. The annual VPC report details national and state-by-state information on female homicides involving one female murder victim and one male offender. The study uses the most recent data available from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s unpublished Supplementary Homicide Report and is released each year to coincide with Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October.

Ranked behind Nevada (2.62) were: South Carolina at 2 with a rate of 1.94 per 100,000; Tennessee at 3 with a rate of 1.91 per 100,000; Louisiana at 4 with a rate of 1.86 per 100,000; Virginia at 5 with a rate of 1.77 per 100,000; Texas at 6 with a rate of 1.75 per 100,000; New Mexico at 7 with a rate of 1.63 per 100,000; Hawaii at 8 (tie) with a rate of 1.62 per 100,000; Arizona at 8 (tie) with a rate of 1.62 per 100,000; and, Georgia at 10 with a rate of 1.61 per 100,000. Nationally, the rate of women killed by men in single victim/single offender instances was 1.22 per 100,000.” [VPC] (emphasis added)

We can extrapolate that the national trends might apply to the Nevada cases.  For example, 94% of the victims knew their attackers.  Of the victims who knew their attackers, 65% were murdered by husbands or intimate partners.  70% of the murders were accomplished with a firearm, followed by the use of knives or cutting instruments (20%), bodily force (12%), and the ubiquitous “blunt object” was the implement of choice in about 7% of the homicides.  (full study, pdf link)

For once, Senator Dean Heller (R-NV) didn’t sign on to the misogynistic agenda of some of his GOP colleagues, and he joined the Democratic majority in the Senate voting in favor of the renewed VAWA. [LVSun] Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) voted with the 67 other Senators who favored the renewal of the act.   Sometimes being Number One isn’t the place to be.

Congressman Joe Heck was eager to trumpet his vote for the VAWA, however it was the watered down House version (H.R. 4970), with no protection for immigrant women, LGBT citizens, and Native American women.  [NVProg]  Congressman Mark Amodei (R-NV2) tapped danced around the issue of tribal jurisdiction over rapes and assaults perpetrated on tribal lands, and supported the House version of the bill.  What might their positions be on the ‘real’ VAWA bill, S. 1925?

They, and their cohorts in the U.S. House of Representatives will have to work quickly to deal with the back-load of bills piling up, especially given that they are only scheduled to be in session for 126 days next year.

One of those precious days should really be devoted to the loss of the equivalent of 32,000 full time jobs, the loss of at least $727.8 million to the economy every year, and to the $5.8 billion in health care costs attributable to domestic violence.   Perhaps then Nevada could lose the dubious honor of being “Number One?”

Cravenly Caving?

The Nevada Progressive has a good title for the subject, “Fast and Frivolous.”   Not only was the deportment of the House Republicans mystifying yesterday, but the the entire performance was underpinned by the acceptance of one of the most bizarre conspiracy theories yet propounded.   And, Representatives Heck (R-NV3) and Amodei (D-NV2) fell for it.

The core of the Great Conspiracy: “Republicans in Congress are arguing that the Justice Department deliberately allowed the anti-gun trafficking operation to unfold in a way that would create a crisis, outraging the public and giving Democrats the cover to implement stricter gun controls.” [HuffPo]

This head-scratcher probably began with the musings of a militia-type blogger:  “Michael Vanderboegh, a blogger with militia ties and a long history of talking up armed resistance to the government, asserts that the ATF purposely let the guns go to the bad guys in Mexico so that, after the ensuing bloodbath, the feds could justify a crackdown on assault weapons and gun shows.” [BaltSun]

Mr. Vanderboegh, and his Sipsy Street Irregulars, the same folks who advocated throwing rocks through the windows of Democratic Party HQ’s after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, published the whacky theory, and made his “information” available to Senators Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Charles Grassley (R-IA).   Vanderboegh, a sort of neo-secessionist is better known to the anti-hate investigators of the SPLC:

“Back in the mid-1990s, he wrote a document entitled “Strategy and Tactics for a Militia Civil War” in which he discussed the utility of snipers using “violence carefully targeted and clearly defensive: war criminals, secret policemen, rats (Pitcavage take note).” Mark Pitcavage, a historian, was then running a Web group called The Militia Watchdog and doing some work for police agencies. He is currently the fact-finding director of the antiracist Anti-Defamation League. “

There’s fringe, and then there’s fringe.  The “information” enhanced by the capacity of the NRA leadership to believe that a Democratic Administration which has not sought a single piece of legislation even remotely mentioning gun regulation wants to re-institute the assault weapons ban, made its way to Rep. Issa who ran with it in his Government Oversight Committee.  This was an unfortunate example of an imaginary cart crashing along behind a galloping crazed horse.

The Vanderboegh Conspiracy has been debunked 21 ways to breakfast.   This didn’t prevent the NRA leadership from chiming in:

“This fits in with the broader conspiracy theory of Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association. The NRA boss has insisted that the reason Mr. Obama has done nothing to harm the Second Amendment in his first term is so he can win another four years in office, at which point his administration will start confiscating guns with no fear of retribution from voters. That’s right, according to Mr. LaPierre, President Obama is not taking your guns now so he can take them later.” [BaltSun]

A person might think that rationality alone would be sufficient to stifle this perseveration, but with Fox News treating Vanderboegh as an “expert analyst,” and Chairman Issa treating the theory as lucid in a parallel universe, the upshot is a “vote” taken in the U.S. House of Representatives to hold the Attorney General of the United States in contempt — for shutting down a demonstrably unworkable and ethically questionable program?

What did Nevada Representatives do?  As noted by Nevada Progressive, Mr. Amodei and Mr. Heck voted to participate in the Alternative Universe, and declare AG Holder “responsible” for — something. [roll call 441] Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV1), functioning in the real world in which the musings of radical right winger Vanderboegh aren’t received wisdom, voted no.

The entire Fast and Furious Conspiracy Theory would be risible if it didn’t result in official sanctions being voted upon by politicians elected to office to engage in serious issues facing the American public.   Indeed, the episode reeks of partisanship of the first water, and irrationality of the first order.   It would be interesting to know if Representatives Amodei and Heck voted in favor of the contempt citation because they truly believed Mr. Vanderboegh’s ramblings, or only because the NRA was scoring the vote and promising retribution during the campaign season?

One rationale makes them look almost psychotic, and the other rationale makes them appear weak?