No Longer the Land of Opportunity

mer·i·toc·ra·cy [ mèrri tókrəssee ]  

system based on ability: a social system that gives opportunities and advantages to people on the basis of their ability rather than, e.g. their wealth or seniority

 

A number of years ago at work, my boss decided to have some chit-chat with his minions.  The conversation eventually centered on how he thought that pro athletes were way overpaid and didn’t deserve it.

I then said, “At least the sports world is more of a meritocracy than this place.”  He then laughed at the funny word that he thought I made up and walked away.  If I had the chance to explain what I meant, I would have said that anyone who showed enough talent and hard work could get a job just like those “overpaid” stars.  On the other hand, opportunity in the corporate world is often dictated by politics instead of hard work and ability.

Speaking of what we call the land of opportunity, I am reminded of a song that first came out in 1963 by Jay and the Americans called Only in America whose lyrics include:

Only in America
Can a guy from anywhere
Go to sleep a pauper and wake up a millionaire

Only in America
Can a kid without a cent
Get a break and maybe grow up to be President

Only in America
Land of opportunity, yeah

Back then, maybe there was something to all of this.  So most of us didn’t get rich but we all had the chance for jobs to put us in the middle class and for those going to college, maybe do better.  But not today where many of the so-called working class are trying to get by on at or near minimum wage.  And as many as 45% of college graduates are living with their families because they cannot make enough to support themselves.  Some opportunity! 

 

Some say that our biggest crisis is our growing wealth and income inequality.  But I think that our chronic scarcity of well-paying jobs is one of the biggest contributors to the growing inequality.  When there aren’t enough jobs for qualified applicants, too many able people can’t put their skills and talents to use so they can better themselves. 

And while the above song lyrics dream about a kid without a cent growing up to be president, looking at our recent presidents along with our Supreme Court justices, it sure as hell helps if you went to either Harvard or Yale.

It’s an interesting subject of debate whether the Ivys and other selective colleges provide a better education than other less expensive schools.  But what is undeniable is that graduates of the most prestigious schools have access to more open doors than others, not just due to the prestige of the institution but also likely due to the quality of the networking contacts between graduates and alumni at these schools.

In addition to the cost of getting into the more selective colleges, a top notch preparatory education is also necessary to have a fighting chance of getting admitted.  Those who can afford to live in more affluent areas with fine school districts (or the means to go to private schools) are way ahead of those in poorer school districts where their limited tax base often results in their cutting courses to be able to stay above water.

And while a college and high school education is known to be important for the opportunities available to our children, it is easy to dismiss the value of preschool education which poorer children often don’t have access to.  This is far more than glorified babysitting!  Those with access to Early Learning programs are in more of a position to thrive upon entering school while those without access to these programs are playing catch-up from the start.

In addition, with the scarcity of well-paying jobs out there, more corporations actually have the chutzpah to require graduates to serve in unpaid internships to gain a foothold in a company they are interested in working for.  Less affluent graduates who are worried about paying off college loans don’t have the luxury of working for free.

So simply put, those of means have the best crack at the best jobs while others are often left on the outside looking in.  And this can’t help but make the gap between the haves and have nots greater.

It’s easier to dismiss all of this by saying that opportunity in America is a whole lot better than in some third world country.  That’s true enough but this is comparing apples and oranges.  Studies have shown that America has less social mobility than, say Canada or most of the countries in Europe.  Children in this country born into poverty are actually more likely to stay there than in other countries.  It is estimated that about 22% of American children overall are living in poverty (with blacks and Hispanics at a much higher rate) which for the wealthiest nation in the world should be unacceptable.  But instead, there are some in Congress who would cut Food Stamps that would help these children. Only in America!

Our Media For Sale

One of the more interesting stories last month was the agreement to sell one of America’s most prestigious newspapers, The Washington Post to Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon.com.  Many were stunned by this news. But the newspaper along with so many others have fallen on financial hard times with many people now getting their news online instead of buying newspapers which used to generate much more advertising revenue. 

Although the Graham family that owned it truly loved their paper, red ink year after year meant that the bleeding had to stop sometime.  And in Bezos, they were confident that his expertise with online enterprises would perhaps be enough to save the paper over the long run.   In addition, Bezos has not been known to have a strong political agenda so there was probably some comfort that the newspaper under him would not carry a partisan agenda.  

Time will tell, but there is still some reason to worry about all of the acquisitions and mergers in the various media outlets, whether it is the newspapers, radio, TV or others. What are they trying to accomplish?  Is it about making money or is it about promoting a political agenda or maybe both?

For somebody like Rupert Murdoch, it is clearly about both.  His Fox News along with his more recent acquisition of The Wall Street Journal which both have a strongly Republican/conservative editorial slant are ample evidence. 

Another more recent example is the Koch Brothers who expressed interest in buying the Tribune Company chain of newspapers including the Los Angeles Times.  The Koch Brothers have spent countless millions to finance conservative/libertarian causes so there can be no doubt what they are up to in wanting to buy newspapers.  Although recent reports now say that they are no longer interested in buying the newspapers, the report of their interest caused significant anxiety as written about in this LA Times opinion piece.

Having fallen short of their objective of crushing Democrats and liberalism, they now apparently believe a necessary component in their strategy is ownership of a few major newspapers. It is doubtful they want to merely have a voice on the editorial pages, as has always been a publisher’s prerogative. It is far more likely they hope to create print versions of Fox News.

The importance of media that is free of government and corporate control to ask the tough questions and keep people honest cannot be overstated in its value to a functional and thriving democracy.  (Perhaps the most notable example was The Washington Post investigation of Watergate.)  One of the first things that a totalitarian government will do to preserve its power is to seize control of the media to spread its propaganda and quell dissent.  A strong democracy needs to have an informed electorate so it can make choices that will benefit its own interests instead of those in power. 

It then follows that to have an informed electorate, it is necessary to have at least a reasonable amount of balance in the information it receives from the media.  Getting all of one’s information from one political viewpoint may be good for those who are putting out the information but it cannot lead to informed decisions at the ballot box.  So how do we go about achieving this balance?

There have been traditionally two ways to try and accomplish this balance.  One was the so-called Fairness Doctrine that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) once imposed on broadcast outlets.  The stations essentially had to provide equal time to differing sides of current issues.  The thinking was that with the limited number of media outlets back in the days before cable and the Internet, it was necessary to keep tabs on them to ensure some reasonable standard of balance and fairness. 

The second way was to regulate how many media outlets in a certain market could be owned by one individual or corporation.  The idea was to make sure that nobody could corner the market on choices of news or entertainment. 

But with the 1980s and the election of Ronald Reagan, came the era of deregulation.  One of the casualties was the Fairness Doctrine which was repealed in 1987 based on what was believed to be an attack on First Amendment rights.  While I believe the motives of the Fairness Doctrine were good, I agree that we don’t have any right to tell Murdoch or any other owner what he can run on his own networks or put in his newspapers.  After all, there was enough real competition at that time which gave us enough choices to hopefully ensure enough of that elusive fairness and balance.

But then the second shoe of deregulation dropped.  With passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the FCC then started to relax the regulations on how many and which types of media outlets could be owned by individuals or corporations in each market.  Since then, the merger and acquisition frenzy has continued unabated and has led to concentrations of media ownership that may well be threatening the health of our democratic process.

For example, let’s take the Pittsburgh market where I live.  We are fortunate enough to have both the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette which has a liberal editorial slant along with the Tribune-Review which is strongly conservative so I have a choice of which paper to read.  But with many newspapers going belly up, more and more cities are becoming one newspaper towns.

Clear Channel Communications now owns 6 radio stations in the Pittsburgh area and just about as many in smaller cities where they effectively dominate their markets.  Their stable of talk show hosts (through their subsidiary Premier Networks) includes conservative stars Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck.  Indeed, because in part of efforts by Clear Channel, there are far fewer liberal/progressive talk stations on the radio dial despite the claims of those on the right about the liberal media.  And with the last two presidential elections won by a Democrat, surely there must be more of an audience for liberal talk than is being served – but the people who own the stations are reluctant to provide it.  Don’t you wonder why?

Even more ominous is that the increasing concentration of media ownership with a formidable share now owned by six large corporations known as The "Big Six" (which doesn’t even include Clear Channel!).  And with these large corporations buying up more and more of the media, whose interests would we expect them to promote?

It is perhaps unfair to say that every media owner exerts undue influence on its editorial content.  But that influence is certainly there and often, it is insidious. It falls under the category of not biting the hand that feeds you.  If for example, a particular corporation or industry is a major advertiser, is it unreasonable to be concerned that they will be treated with kid gloves by a media owner, even if public criticism is warranted? 

This is not just limited to commercial media.  The aforementioned Koch Brothers are contributors to PBS and according to this link, were successful in getting PBS to pull a documentary that was critical of them.  And while many media owners profess that they give free editorial reign to their news staff, how many workers want to take a chance of angering their owners and risk getting fired or being put on the fast track to nowhere?  And this doesn’t even include other areas of influence like the censorship of people and views the management may not agree with.

Other than rolling back some of the deregulation that has caused so much concentrated ownership of the media, the only real antidote is more use of our critical thinking skills.  It doesn’t bother me at all when somebody has a passionate opinion that differs from mine.  But what does bother me is when upon questioning, that person has precious little understanding of the objective facts behind his or her opinion.  It seems to me that this is a person who just accepts what he or she hears without asking any of the tough questions. 

Whether one watches or reads either liberal or conservative opinion, it is up to the viewer to be skeptical and insist that what are submitted as facts are not instead, distortions of reality.  (By the way, the hyperlinks I always insert in my postings are to help verify to the reader what I believe to be facts.) 

As a regular viewer of the Sunday morning political talk shows, it annoys me to no end that people are constantly allowed to get away with falsehoods and not get called on it by the moderators (as in asking the tough questions?) because they stubbornly cling to a misguided attempt at neutrality  even when the facts may all be on one side of the argument.

What happens when public officials don’t tell the truth? Traditionally it’s been the role of the media to point this out. It is the role of the media to not only to uncover hidden deceit, but also to point out deceit in plain sight. The media should not and cannot hide behind the phony gauze of neutrality. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously quipped, “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.”

While those of a conservative bent worry about the influence of Big Government, the rest of us worry far more about the growing influence of Big Money and Big Corporations on our lives.  They now apparently have the best government money can buy.  So why not the media too? 

A Living Wage for Americans

I think a good way to find out whether someone thinks more as a liberal or as a conservative it to ask him or her how they feel about minimum wage laws. 
 

In general, a liberal will side with the worker saying that minimum wage laws are necessary to prevent lower skilled people from having to work for starvation wages. 

 

On the other hand, conservatives will generally side with the employer by saying that the free market should decide wages and that the government should stay out of deciding how much people are paid for their work. In addition, there is the argument that is repeatedly made that if the minimum wage were to be increased, companies would hire fewer workers which would raise unemployment. 

 

Readers of my blog know that I am decidedly liberal.  I think much of the reason for this comes from being raised in a household where my dad made a modest living supporting us by laboring on his hands and knees all day long as a unionized cement mason.  So it shouldn’t be surprising that I root for the interests of the working stiff over the interests of big business. 

 

Several weeks ago, liberal commentator (and former LBJ Press Secretary) Bill Moyers was on Charlie Rose promoting his upcoming PBS Frontline documentary about how a pair of middle class families (one black and one white) he followed fared over a 20 year span.  Needless to say, I watched it and as a bleeding heart liberal, was deeply touched by what became their endless struggles on the edge of poverty that took an enormous toll on their lives.  It’s easy for some to say that people like these are where they are because they are lazy.  But these were hard working full-time workers in economically struggling Milwaukee who through an endless series of layoffs were bounced from one low paying job to another. In essence, they were trapped into an impoverished lifestyle with no way out despite their best efforts.  For those who haven’t seen this 90 minute Frontline documentary and are interested, it is available online in its entirety through this link.   I defy even the most hard-edged conservative to watch this without feeling some sadness and compassion for these people.

 

When Moyers was asked by Charlie Rose what needs to be done, his response was that we need to raise the minimum wage.  But the battle to raise the minimum wage by perhaps a dollar or two per hour doesn’t really address the problems of full-time workers who at best are on the edge of poverty and at worst are homeless.  The only way to address this is to fight for a living wage for these people – more on that later. 

 

Before returning to the living wage discussion, I want to address a couple of points made by those on the conservative side of the argument over minimum wage laws.   

 

First, it is reasonable to say that workers and employers should be able to negotiate a suitable wage that satisfies both sides without the government intruding.  But in an economic environment where too many workers are chasing too few job openings along with the systematic destruction of unions over the last several decades, the worker is in a fight where he just doesn’t have a fair chance.  And with a steady trend of overall corporate profits improving while (or more accurately because) workers’ wages are flat or falling over the same period, the workers are clearly getting the worst of the deal.   

 

Secondly, there is the argument that if the minimum wage were to be raised, workers would be laid off and thus making unemployment worse.   But as the many workers who are now doing the work that two or more other workers used to do can tell you – employers in general are already hiring the least number of employees they can get away with.  And with the millions of dollars in lobbying money that business groups spend to fight any minimum wage increases, do you think they are really concerned with the possible consequences to workers instead of just trying to maximize their bottom lines by keeping wages as low as possible?  I didn’t think so! 

 

The concept of a so-called living wage means that somebody who works at least a 40 hour week should be able to afford modest housing and have enough money left over to avoid living at or near poverty.

 

As unfamiliar as this may be to some, the US already has de facto living wage laws in the form of government safety net programs such as Food Stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit and Medicaid among others to try and keep the lowest wage full-time workers out of poverty.  But critics have (rightly, in my view) charged that government programs such as these are little more than corporate welfare that subsidizes their miserly stinginess towards workers at the bottom of the economic food chain.  At least there are publicly funded projects that require the bidding contractors to pay a living wage as a part of doing business in this sector – and that’s a good start! 

 

While many have advocated the concept of a living wage, an organization called Universal Living Wage through its website universallivingwage.org fleshes out the concept in detail along with addressing some of the facts and myths about how a living wage program would work.  As part of my research on the subject for this posting, I had the pleasure of briefly corresponding with the organization’s National Chairman, Richard Troxell who at one time was himself a homeless Vietnam Veteran and now fights for living wage laws and against homelessness.  

 

I hope the reader will visit this interesting site to learn more.  But two important points should be mentioned here.  One is that Mr. Troxell does not believe in a one size fits all wage.  He believes in tying the living wage to the local costs of basic housing so that its cost is limited to 30% of a worker’s gross income to allow enough money for other necessities (along with perhaps a few small pleasures) of life. And while the living wage is based on a 40 hour work week, those who work less than a 40 hour week also need to be paid the same hourly rate as those who work full time to keep employers from gaming the system by making more and more people into part-time workers – something many employers already do to avoid paying benefits.   

 

I don’t harbor any false illusions here.  As much as I believe in the need for a living wage, there has always been tremendous resistance being waged by the corporate world.  Most notable is the battle between Wal-Mart who wants to start up at least 3 stores in Washington D.C. and the local government who wants to require Wal-Mart (and other similar sized businesses) to pay a living wage to its employees there.  Wal-Mart says they will not build the stores if forced to pay a wage rate not of their choosing and that jobs would be lost – a claim that some find to be debatable. More importantly, when a giant employer like Wal-Mart is allowed to relentlessly drive down wages and benefits, its competitors will likely feel that they have no choice but to follow suit. 

 

But the award for corporate chutzpah goes to McDonald’s who in a campaign aimed towards its workers, tries to convince them that it is possible to work a minimum wage McJob and still live comfortably – if only they would budget their money properly!  They support this by a sample budget that apparently assumes a worker has a second job along with Food Stamps to pay for food and almost no expense for health insurance.  Unbelievable! 

 

You would think that the anti-government Tea Party types in Congress would want to eliminate much of the need for these government programs by making corporations pay their full share of a living wage.  But perversely, many of those same people are instead fighting to cut Food Stamps.   

 

But perhaps there is a little light at the end of the tunnel.  Long ago, there was the well-known story of Henry Ford who gave his assembly line workers a large raise, supposedly so they could afford to buy the cars they helped to make.  While this may have some truth to it, there is another account that says that the real motivation behind Ford’s apparent generosity grew from the frustration he was having with his high employee turnover rate and resulting cost of constantly retraining replacement workers.  Once he decided to pay a living wage to his workers, he was rewarded with loyalty to the company by the workers along with a far lower turnover rate.  Henry still got filthy rich, but his workers also enjoyed a better standard of living.  It doesn’t have to be one or the other! 

 

A modern day example is Costco, a warehouse club competitor to Sam’s Club.  While Sam’s Club adopts the Wal-Mart philosophy that has been derided as “Always Low Wages”, Costco despite competing in a business that requires deep discounting does just fine while paying its employees a living wage. 

 

So instead of having to pass a law that forces companies to pay a living wage, perhaps a simple attitude adjustment by the business community would work just as well.  One that instead of “work for us – we’ll pay you the very least we can get away with but you have no choice” to “work for us – we will reward your loyalty and hard work by paying you a living wage”. 

 

And best of all, workers who are paid a living wage will then have more money to spend which will help to grow our economy instead of forcing companies like McDonald’s to apologize for their weak earnings because of a chronically weak economy.  Paying a living wage is a win-win for everybody!

Will Those PBS Infomercials Really Change Your Life?

PBS viewers once again last month had to endure another interminable “Pledge Drive” where its viewers are asked to make a contribution to support the programming they have come to like.

Even the detractors have to admit that especially with federal support of public broadcasting being cut back, the raising of money from viewers is a necessary evil.  But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a number of annoying things about these pledge drives that have drawn criticism over the years.

For one thing, some of their most appealing shows like for example, James Taylor and Carole King in concert are used to remind people that “shows like this” only appear on PBS and that they should be supported by contributions – but in reality “shows like this” almost never appear on the PBS schedule after the pledge drive programming is over.

And while it may be OK to subject people to this who have not contributed, the people who have contributed still have to suffer the endless disruptions to the normal schedule of shows.

But perhaps the biggest offender of the pledge drive is the growing use of the infomercial to raise money.  Infomercials (otherwise known as program length commercials) have long been a mainstay on much of commercial TV, especially on weekends and during the middle of the night.

Infomercials on commercial TV are subject to a number of regulations and disclaimers that are there to benefit the viewer.  For example, there is normally an announcement at the beginning of the infomercial that the following content is paid advertising and some channels will even point out that carrying the infomercial does not imply an endorsement of the product.

Commercials that show actors portraying users of a product or service show fine print saying “Actor Portrayal’ or something similar.  Diet commercials showing the before and after pictures will usually say “Results not typical”.  And the many commercials that hawk dietary supplements with claims of how they will improve your life always carry the fine print that “The FDA has not investigated these claims” along with the further clarification that the product in question is not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease. 

So while many viewers ignore the fine print in these ads, it is there for viewers who choose to pay attention.  But the infomercials on PBS apparently have no such restrictions – and this presents a problem for its viewers! 

Perhaps the PBS people may deny that the diet plans and medical advice on their program length presentations during pledge breaks are not infomercials.  But there are always the books or DVDs or supplements to buy which benefit the presenters either financially or at the very least with tremendous publicity for what they are promoting – so what else would you call them?

One of the infomercials that was run repeatedly was by Dr. Joel Fuhrman who advocates a diet centered on consuming the maximum amount of micronutrients.  A great deal of the presentation was about the before and after photos and stories of people who have been on his diet.  In addition, these productions (which are not produced by PBS) always show lots of audience close-ups with approving nods or faces in rapt attention to the speaker. 

But even if these before and after stories on the people they present are true, how typical are they?  There is no disclaimer that the results are not typical so we are led to presume that they are. In general, it is safe to say that the more restrictive a diet’s food choices are, the more difficult it is to stay on it.  So how many people have been able to stay for any length of time on what is essentially a vegan diet that discourages both meat and dairy?  In addition, the diet is said to not only promote weight loss, but there are also the claims of disease reversal and prevention. 

And then there is the infomercial by Dr. Daniel Amen who claims that by following his program that he can prevent Alzheimer’s disease!  That claim would do a better job of getting the attention of its senior viewers more that a whole evening of Lawrence Welk reruns!   

There has been some strong criticism of Dr. Fuhrman and Dr. Amen along with others by physicians practicing mainstream medicine who contend that many of the alternative medicine claims on these presentations have not been proven by way of peer-reviewed scientific research.  But that is almost beside the point!  The presentations on PBS which all seem to claim that they will change your life do not include any of the standard precautionary restraint seen on commercial stations’ infomercials.  And indeed during the breaks in the presentations, the presenter is in the studio to reinforce his or her sales pitch along with the PBS studio hosts often giving what appear to be their full throated endorsements of how great their guest is (along with presumably what he or she is selling). No buyer beware here!

So here we have supposedly non-commercial PBS not only crossing the line into blatant commercialism, but also misleading its viewers on what they are doing.  This is not a new complaint.  Interestingly, PBS hired someone to serve as an ‘ombudsman’ to field viewer comments and complaints along with providing an independent critique on PBS programming and practices.

This is from More Pledge Madness by PBS ombudsman Michael Getler written back in 2009.

…it is time to repeat some of the earlier points I've made, and viewers have made, and to ask PBS in stronger terms to clarify to viewers its role in some of the productions that appear on many PBS-affiliated member stations around the country during pledge drives and that ask people to contribute to their local stations and perhaps buy products associated with these pledge programs. 

And here is one of many letters in the link that have a similar sentiment.

Please stop airing the infomercials about "Doctors" and self-help gurus selling books about how (with the help of their book) life can be so much better. These seem to always be linked to fundraising.  I will not financially support PBS as long as these "educational" programs are part of the program offerings.  And yes, I am one of the minority of viewers who do financially support public broadcasting.  I do believe this is a question of editorial integrity. 

The conclusions here are obvious.  Either PBS had better get its act together soon on reining in these infomercials or it is going to suffer irreparable damage to its integrity and reputation.  And for an organization that relies on public donations to be able to continue on, this could eventually prove to be fatal!

Government on the Cheap

on the cheap

If you buy or do something on the cheap, you buy or do it for very little money, often with the result that it is of bad quality

We were all filled with sadness when the residents of Moore, OK suffered through another of many devastating tornadoes they have experienced, made all the worse when it was discovered that small children perished in the Plaza Towers Elementary School.  At first glance, we can feel no more than sadness since after all, this was a weather event and we can’t do much about the weather. 

That was how I felt until reading these words of outrage submitted to the NYT by Angela Minton, a school psychologist who survived the ordeal at Plaza Towers.

I am angry tonight. After our recent record of devastating tornadoes and lives lost, there is no excuse for a public school in a tornado-prone area not to have been retrofitted with a "safe room" large enough to accommodate all occupants. 

Thanks to our meteorologists, we have plenty of warning of impending tornadoes. The people of Moore had at least half an hour to an hour to get to safety. However, the children and teachers who died today had no such option. Sadly, they were forced to take shelter in the sheet rocked hallways of buildings shabbily built in the 1960's. No basement. No safe room. A death trap. Perhaps it is time to rethink our priorities and begin re-directing money toward, not only better educating our children, but keeping them safe in school--and not just from crazed gunmen. 

If only the children in that school had access to a so-called safe room, the school building may well have been destroyed but the young lives would have been saved.  So why didn’t the school have one of these safe rooms?  Not enough money apparently.  In Oklahoma, tax rebates for safe rooms are given out to homeowners through a lottery so those who were lucky enough (or have enough money) had a better chance of surviving a tornado; the others were on their own.    

There is a lot of the mentality (including in red state Oklahoma) that the government is not there to help its people if they are able to help themselves.  But when this ideology of neglect by the government directly results in the death of its citizens, this is going way too far! 

Surely it is a legitimate function of government to protect its own people from harm.  So even if the relatively modest cost of building safe rooms in individual homes was not considered affordable, what is the excuse for not providing public shelters where the citizens of tornado-prone Moore could escape to safety? 

This is all part of our neglected and crumbling infrastructure that at its worst can result in the loss of lives while we are so preoccupied with saving money.  We had a scare when a bridge collapsed on Interstate 5 north of Seattle resulting in vehicles falling into the river.  Had people died, we would have had the usual 24/7 cable news coverage along with the outrage over our deteriorating bridges.  But fortunately, there were no fatalities so the story soon disappeared except for those who now have to deal with the disruption of a major traffic artery.  Yes, there were fatalities in a bridge collapse in Minneapolis back in 2007 – but that was apparently too long ago for most of us to care anymore.   

Another terrible example of where government on the cheap hurts people is when it is unable to respond to those who went to war but have returned home too disabled to work.  The powers that be had no problem sending all of those men and women to war but are now apparently surprised over the huge backlog of claims at the Veterans Administration.

Claims now take an average of 272 days to be processed—an increase of nearly 40 percent from 2011—with some lingering for as long as a year. The error rate now hovers around 14 percent, and the mountainous backlog stands at nearly 900,000, as 53 veterans reportedly die each day waiting for their benefits, according to the Center for Investigative Reporting.

Veterans advocates say the VA’s ongoing failure to fix what’s broken has had profound repercussions. While awaiting their claims decisions many veterans are losing their homes, unable to pay their bills, and worse. Advocates have also pointed to the claims crisis as one factor that could be contributing to the increase in veteran suicides.

We need to devote the resources to get the VA’s health record systems up to date and functioning properly.  But that takes money that our government is reluctant to spend. 

And while the backlog at the VA has received ample publicity, less well known is the backlog of appeals for Social Security disability. 

About 2,000 cases were dismissed last year because the claimant died, according to the agency.

The claims process often spans years: Most people who apply for disability benefits are denied and then must appeal to an administrative law judge and then in court, if necessary. The process can get bogged down by overcrowded dockets and the hunt for reams of required medical documentation that most patients don't have on hand or never had because they lack insurance. 

If a person is unable to work because of a disability, the government has an obligation to help before people get to where they have to deal with no money for food or utilities or even a foreclosure on their homes.  The increase in people filing for disability can’t be a total surprise to the government considering that many of the baby boomers are reaching the age where disability claims most often happen.  Certainly more administrative law judges and other workers can be brought on board to handle the growing number of appeals – but again that means more money that our government is reluctant to spend. 

So what is different about the US compared to other countries that don’t have the same difficulties in taking care of its people in need?   More than anything else, it’s that unlike other countries that spend a more modest amount on defense, the US spends as much on defense as the next 10 countries combined!  So while our infrastructure spending is falling far behind China and many others, we are busy feeding the voracious appetite of the growing military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about  back when he left office in 1961. 

How have we gotten away with so much military spending over the years without hurting our citizens?  The simple answer is that we have historically raised taxes on the wealthy to help pay for our wars.  For example, the top marginal tax rate during Ike’s administration was a whopping 91%.  But George W. Bush set a precedent by waging a pair of wars while at the same time approving a tax cut!  And we are still trying to dig out of the hole that has caused! 

So this is an issue of basic fairness here.  There are many (but not me) who really feel that we still have to spend as much for defense than the next 10 countries combined.  If so, then we need the wealthy and large corporations to start paying their fair share of the tax bill like before.  A 91% marginal tax rate might not be fair – but sticking the shrinking middle class with much of the bill like we are doing now is far worse.  

We now have the wealthiest nation in the world crying that we are broke. One where members of Congress have refused to offer aid to a tornado stricken Joplin, MO or to the victims of Hurricane Sandy unless money can be taken away from others in need.  Instead of government on the cheap being a better functioning one, incredibly in a wealthy nation like ours, it has too often become callous at best and mean-spirited at its worst to those who need it the most.
 

There have been many similar quotations but let’s just conclude with this one from LBJ’s Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

"...the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped.

Discrimination Against the Unemployed

A case can be made that chronic unemployment is the biggest problem facing both the US and many other countries around the world, especially the ones in Europe who are experiencing record unemployment levels lead by Spain and Greece at about 26% which are similar to the levels experienced in the Great Depression of the 1930s. 

And as high as the levels that are posted by governments, most agree that these numbers are understated since they don’t include those who have been forced to accept part time work instead of the full time work they are seeking, or those who are underemployed, or those who have given up in despair looking for work. For those who are not in the above categories, it is safe to say that most of us know of a loved one or friend who is struggling.
 

And make no mistake about it – it is a struggle, not just monetarily but with one’s self-esteem that often can lead to depression! So with all of that these people go through, surely we wouldn’t want to subject them to discrimination on top of all of that – but unfortunately, some people do!

When I heard stories about companies who refused to accept job applications from the unemployed, I couldn’t believe it! Just a bad joke or somebody got their facts wrong, I thought. But it’s true! Check out this link.

With the average length of unemployment steadily increasing, the requirement of being presently or even recently employed disqualifies millions of perfectly qualified job seekers. A recent Paul Krugman NYT op-ed, The Jobless Trap actually sites a recent study that supports this discrimination.

[A]s William Dickens and Rand Ghayad of Northeastern University recently showed, the relationship has broken down for the long-term unemployed: a rising number of job openings doesn’t seem to do much to reduce their numbers. It’s as if employers don’t even bother looking at anyone who has been out of work for a long time. 

To test this hypothesis, Mr. Ghayad then did an experiment, sending out résumés describing the qualifications and employment history of 4,800 fictitious workers. Who got called back? The answer was that workers who reported having been unemployed for six months or more got very few callbacks, even when all their other qualifications were better than those of workers who did attract employer interest.

So we are indeed creating a permanent class of jobless Americans.

It seems to me that someone who has been out of a job longer is going to be more motivated to perform well once they are rehired. But I guess I don’t have the mindset of the geniuses who run HR departments who equate long term unemployment with being lazy or just damaged goods because nobody else wanted to hire them.

Such a policy is not only stupid, but is downright cruel! If I for example had food to share, refusing to share it with the hungriest would obviously be considered to be cruel. But since most of us need a job to get food, is denying a job to a qualified applicant just because he or she has been out of work for too long any different?

Most of us would never do something this cruel to others because we know that the same situation could befall us and wouldn’t want to suffer in the same way. But there are enough others for whom empathy is not a strong point. Maybe they feel that those who have lost their jobs just aren’t as smart or well educated or hard working and that it couldn’t happen to them. In today’s miserable economy, that is little more than a denial of reality!

But wait, there’s more! For those who have been unemployed long enough to where they have been unable to keep up with bills, companies are now discriminating against job applicants based on credit histories.

About 60 percent of employers use credit checks to screen applicants, even though research has shown that people with damaged credit are not automatically poor job risks. Besides, the credit agencies that compile and sell records on about 200 million Americans make mistakes.

But the biggest elephant in the room may well be age discrimination. As someone who was unemployed and on the wrong side of 50, friends were telling me that this would work against me. I didn’t believe them. But after endless rejections for jobs that I was eminently qualified for and then reading this article in Fortune, 50 and Fired the anvil that fell on my head finally got my attention.

Getting fired during your peak earning years has always been scary. You'd scramble for a few months, but you'd find something. Today it's different. Get fired and you can scramble for years--and still find nothing. Welcome to the cold new world of the prematurely, involuntarily retired.

What makes this more alarming is that this article was written back in 2005, well before the Great Recession that started in 2008. So for those of us who are older, out of work, and falling behind in paying bills – we have little more than to hope for a miracle. It shouldn’t be this way. Many of us have so much to give – but we have been relegated to the scrap heap!

While some say that we should have laws that address these forms of discrimination, the truth is that such laws are for the most part unenforceable because it is difficult to prove intent. We presently have laws in the US that make age discrimination illegal but especially with the understaffing of government enforcement agencies that should serve as a watchdog, offending companies know they have little to fear.

Stripping this all to its essentials, what we have is too many qualified workers seeking far too few available jobs. When this happens, employers can become more and more selective to where things get out of hand. The only way this will change is when there are an adequate number of jobs that need to be filled which will require employers to be more reasonable with their requirements.

Experience has shown that increased government spending to create more jobs has worked, most notably the spending on World War II that effectively ended the Great Depression. Of course we don’t need another war – we have a decaying infrastructure that needs to be repaired and upgraded. And as cited at the beginning, the present unemployment woes of much of Europe have shown that decreasing government spending to try and balance budgets have made things far worse for them.

So which path will it be for the US? We can continue to follow the path of disaster that Europe is following but now even they are starting to reconsider the notion that cutting government spending will create jobs instead of destroying them. In the US, we have the land of the sequester where the debate seems to be little more than how much to cut rather than if we should cut.

It was comedian Stephen Colbert who recently commented in his best mock serious tone that "We have to keep cutting the government budget and laying off people until those people get jobs." While this was meant to be funny, what is sad is that too many people in the position of power and wealth really believe this!