Put People First!

The Republican and Democratic versions of the State of the Union are now done. The battle lines pretty much remain as they were before these speeches. But today, I will look primarily at a disorganized and focus-challenged Democratic Party that just could waste a unique political opportunity by addressing America’s needs with mixed messages and confusion.

As I watch the struggle between the two biggest factions in the Democratic Party – progressives versus traditionalists – I wonder whether internecine issues could undermine Dem efforts to take control of the House (less likely: the Senate) in 2018 and the presidency in 2020. In California, the risks are even greater, since primaries push the two highest vote-getters, regardless of party, on to the final ballot. With very few Republicans running for most House seats and other relevant state offices versus a free-for-all with lots and lots of Dems fighting for themselves, it is not inconceivable that in sheer numbers of votes for individuals, the Dems could so dilute their efforts that in a really bright blue state, the available choices just might be a race between two Republicans for key offices.

How could this happen? “Suppose — and it’s anything but a wild supposition — that the Koch brothers funding network, or some other group of mega-rich donors, decides to fund two Republicans in each of those  races [in the swing districts where GOP reps Darrell Isa and Ed Royce are retiring], giving those candidates a decided advantage. Suppose the three leading Democrats in each of those races stay in the race, along with the other Democrats still in the field. (There are seven Democratic candidates in Royce’s district.) Suppose, in the June primary, the total vote for the district’s Republican candidates comes to 44%, with the two leaders each winning 20%. Suppose the total vote for the district’s Democratic candidates comes to 54% (let’s say 2% goes to minor party candidates), but it’s split so many ways that the leading Democrat gets just 19%.

“If all those suppositions hold, then the candidates in the November run-off would both be Republicans, even though the Democrats would have collectively outpolled the GOP hopefuls by 10 percentage points.” Los Angeles Times, January 30^th. The GOP may be struggling with its dramatic shift to the right, but it still seems to be in a better place than the Dems.

The GOP is comprised of a rather simple constituency: Fiscal and social conservatives. In a more basic schism: rich folks and people guided by strict and exclusionary moral codes, where the rich folks are quite prepared to give up just about any “moral victory” in exchange for lower taxes and fewer regulations. While educated Republicans might be dismayed by Donald Trump’s embarrassing litany of provocative and inappropriate utterances, his obvious willingness to accord the alt-right free rein, they are equally invigorated by his tax and regulatory policies and his embrace of an infrastructure program that literally turns over major assets (e.g., highways, bridges, etc.) to the profit-driven private sector. Trump’s ability to insure conservative dominance for decades to come via judicial appointments delights them as well.

The Democratic Party is, fractured, scattered among a rainbow of issues, from racial, ethnic and gender tolerance (which leaks heavily into the immigration debate), removing religious mandates from government (quite the opposite of the GOP evangelical mandate), women’s rights (from equal pay, free choice to addressing sexual harassment/assault), embracing global responsibility, relying on scientific reality, moving towards universal healthcare to mirror the rest of the developed world, supporting additional safety nets, focusing on imposing obvious restrictions on gun ownership, dealing with growing issues from global trade and automation, opening the economy to more people, and embracing a system which increases access to affordable education.

Democratic progressives see a massive reduction in educational costs, forgiveness of student loans, instant implementation of universal healthcare, tighter restrictions on police particularly in minority communities, environmental responsibility, consumer protection laced with real financial regulation, prioritization of all women’s issues, appointment of liberal judges, a more empathetic immigration policy, real gun control and a severe extraction of organized religion from political choices.

Traditionalists embrace those fiscal blue dogs who fear overspending and believe more in embracing human (particularly minority) rights than in new expensive programs that will, of necessity, require higher taxes and more regulation. Hence, their programs in healthcare and education are gradual and more modest. Where government spending does become part of that traditional program, it focused on infrastructure, where the government itself funds and staffs those efforts (and hence directly creates jobs), where such expenditures are viewed as “investments in productivity” versus pure government spending without the expected return on investment.

The Republicans have traditionally eschewed huge deficits and screamed for a balanced budget. The have masked the massive, trillion dollar plus, deficit that their reduction of corporate income tax rates will inevitably cause with a completely-unsupported claim that they will create such an explosion of jobs and economic benefits that the deficit will turn into a surplus. We are not likely to see any measurable results, one way or the other, until 2019 and beyond, giving hope to the GOP that this issue will not resonate with voters, many of whom will receive token tax cuts. And they will highlight a soaring stock market and a lower unemployment rate as their basis for reelection. In a world where “it’s the economy stupid,” the GOP intends to take and hold the high ground.

As this nation rapidly moves away from a majority of white Christians, mostly Protestant, into a majority of minorities, you’d think that the Dems will have a rather linear path to victory. But not only do they face gerrymandering and voter restrictions heavily skewed against them, but their efforts to reach “middle of the road” independents – the ultimate deciders in American politics to dates – are compromised by embracing high-expenditure social/educational programs which have to paid for somewhere.

Millennials and Z-generation, raised without that kneejerk negativity to anything that challenges capitalism and embraces anything that smacks of socialism, are attracted to that Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren social progressiveness and open inclusiveness. Stray too far into the traditional lane, the Millennials and Z-generation will stay away from the polls. Reflect overly liberal spending and watch independents side with the GOP. Not that the Dems can do much without a 60 vote cloture-busting majority in the Senate anyway. Some what do the Dems do?

Donald Trump is not running in 2018, even though his policies are on the table. First lesson for the Dems, focus on local issues at the core of their message. Save the national arguments for the 2020 presidential campaign. The notion of evangelical hypocrisy – supporting one of the most openly immoral presidents in our history – is not going to resonate unless that is a bona fide local issue. Where embracing immorality, where local politicians seem to have suborned vulgarity and violation of some of the most basic religious precepts matters, then and only then does this become a local issue.

But how do Dems take down the seeming GOP “economy-hegemony”? While Donald Trump created catchy slogans, “Make America Great Again” and “America First,” words that sounded good until you really questioned what they mean, the Dems countered with dozens of slogans on countless issues. That scattered response found very limited traction and only seemed to confirm that the Dems don’t have any uniform message. I am going to start with a new Democratic catch phrase that I believe will differentiate a GOP pro-business/corporate bias: Put People First!

The GOP message is that they believe favoring business will trickle down benefits to ordinary working Americans, a practice that history has proven false (e.g., the Reagan era tax cuts and most recently Kansas horrific experience with a comparable state tax cut). The Democratic message has to look beyond the modest and temporary individual tax cuts (or taxincreases in high state tax blue states) to a bigger reality: the cost of living.

As the moneyed classes drive up the cost of housing, as the GOP clawback of the Affordable Care Act has resulted in staggering increases in healthcare not covered by Medicare or employment benefits, and as food prices skyrocket from higher costs for agricultural workers, and as that massive new deficit generates interest and payback obligations on all of us… and as the GOP talks about cutting Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, etc… it’s clear that while the GOP represents corporate America, no one directly represents the people.

As Trump inherited a growing economy, with unemployment falling and GDP rising in the waning years of the Obama administration, he most certainly can take credit for a soaring stock market. But why that market soared is key: the GOP simply paid that trillion dollar plus deficit directly into corporate coffers under that cut in the federal corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. And if you pour cash into a company, given that corporate valuation is the basis for share prices, of course the stock market will soar. Duh! But that’s not because deregulation made business better; the government effectively wrote huge checks to corporate American creating deficit that will have to be paid back and serviced by mostly “the rest of us.”

And while the notion of traditionalists missing the Sanders/Warren economic message is sheer folly, likewise the progressives’ wanting it all now is both unrealistic and will alienate that vast middle. Traditionalists should continue their press for equal/civil rights for all, but that cannot be at the top of their priority list. People are terrified for their futures. They have accepted that most of us will not live as well as our parents, but there is still something that sticks in the craw of most of us at the degree of wealth polarization that plagues the country.

Dems! Drill down on that feeling. Focus on the elephant in the room: that the displacement of workers by automation is shifting earnings from individual workers to the owners of the machines that are replacing them. Start the discussion of taxing machines that take jobs away, of guaranteeing those displaced of a life-sustaining replacement income or job alternatives. There is no such thing as “clean coal” (where demand and jobs are vaporizing), but alternative energy is a much greater job-creating off-set.

Embrace universal healthcare and greater affordability and access to higher education… over time. Phased in but inevitable. Embrace exchanging a percentage of future earnings for those rising educational costs. The Russia collusion-obstruction of justice issues are getting to be old tired news that no longer motivate voters. Think outside the box. Be innovative. And above all, link the GOP with its corporate bias and the retrograde of evangelical values that are at odds with the growing new majority. And Dems, listen to the huge women’s movement. It is mission critical. The GOP puts Corporations First; Dems should scream that they Put People First!

I’m Peter Dekom, and if we do not shift the overall direction of this nation, this is probably the century when that great experiment in democracy, the United States of America, fractures and dies.

The Big Bribe: Will It Work for the GOP?

Despite a bit of a slide today, the stock market is soaring! GDP is positive! Unemployment is down! Consumer confidence is up! Donald Trump is a proven “mentally stable genius,” right? Global statistics show that virtually every conflict-free nation in the world is experiencing GDP growth, according to the OCED, with China topping the list at 6.6%. But despite pledges to the contrary, the United States cannot get anywhere near the 3% growth rate targeted by the Trump administration. Trump may want to take credit for that 2.3% growth rate, but except for the GOP tax cut for corporations, virtually all of the policies necessary for GDP growth were in place before he took office.

Except for the US stock market, which I will discuss below, GDP – which has absorbed the share price explosion – is stabilizing and slowing. Not to mention that the GDP measures the entire economy without differentiating which segments are doing well – it is an average figure which soars even when the rich get wildly richer at the expense of everyone else, a definition of the US economy today. The extreme polarization we see in the United States, where wealth at the top one percent is accelerating at a much more rapid pace than the rest of the nation, is exaggerated and particularly pronounced, but it is a global phenomenon that reflects how wealth is generated. The OCED tells us that 82% of all the recent growth went to the world’s wealthiest one percent.

Money today follows manufacturing and resource extraction efficiencies, mostly reflected in technology upgrades (read: intelligent automation) that ordinary workers cannot afford but which is displacing them in droves. Except for top financial and engineering jobs, still much in demand, the level of work left after automation is implemented is both unstable and compensated generally at a lower level. The future for so many basic jobs, which will feel the technology pinch, is often bleak. Meanwhile, in the United States, healthcare, housing and food cost increases have more than made up for any semblance of a slight cut in individual taxes. And then there is the interest charge, which must be paid by all Americans, generated by the massive tax cut deficit.

But the trillion+ dollar give away to corporate America (that big bribe to the rich) by the most simplistic analysis has kicked the value of corporate America through the stratosphere without any concomitant guarantee of more or better jobs. I’ve already blogged on how the implementation of these efficiencies, and the economics of merging/acquiring/stock buy-backs result from all this excess corporate cash, has historically resulted in layoffs and job cutbacks. We won’t see that very much this year, but in 2019 and years following, the impact will slam us all.

Simply put, since so many corporate valuations that determine share price are based on profitability – regardless of what causes that profitability – throwing a windfall of trillion+ tax cut dollars into corporate coffers, even the expectation of that tax cut before it actually passed, by definition will always send the stock market soaring. But is a government gift a reflection of how well those companies work, their true value without regard to that tax cut? For the most part, NO. But there is one more, big variable that has to be keeping Democrats awake at night.

The biggest questions surrounding political power are oddly exemplified by the Silicon Valley, once the darling of the Democratic Party. But not only is the Silicon Valley a massive beneficiary of that GOP tax cut – one they are just beginning to enjoy – but it seems pretty clear that the Dems are beginning to question the Valley’s complicity in the plethora of fake news, the enabling of sophisticated robotic e-communications that target individual consumers based on very trackable vulnerabilities and preferences and the ability of a third party, be it Russian-enabled hackers and disinformation experts or political parties with greater technological capability and lower thresholds of moral responsibility, to influence voters rather directly. Silicon Valley mavens are on the defensive, perhaps grateful that the party in power doesn’t want these revelations any more than the CEOs of the biggest social media companies.

Is there a bizarre alignment of interests between the Trump administration and the Valley? And exactly how will this influence the Valley in the upcoming elections… the same executives who flushed that last election with massive campaign contributions to Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party? “On Tuesday [1/23], a Washington think tank, New America, and Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy published a report [former Obama tech advisor, Clinton campaign advisor and recent Facebook exec, Dipayan Ghosh] co-wrote, asserting that technology behind digital advertising — the financial lifeblood of Facebook, Google and Twitter — has made disinformation campaigns more effective.

“‘The problems were much broader than we imagined, and it was not just about one tool or platform,’ said Mr. Ghosh, who with his co-author, Ben Scott [also a Clinton campaign advisor], worked on devising Mrs. Clinton’s tech policy platform. ‘It’s the profit model underlying the whole digital advertising system.’

“Mr. Ghosh and Mr. Scott are the latest members of the political party that more eagerly embraced Silicon Valley to sharply criticize the tech industry. Tech policy officials from the Obama administration and from Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, as well as prominent Democrats in Congress, are demanding changes from companies they had long viewed as too important and nimble for regulations…

“Karen Kornbluh, who served as Mr. Obama’s ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, said that before the election, there was a view of “internet utopianism” in government. Officials looked to the internet to solve problems in education, income inequality and global democracy. They called on tech executives to help with those initiatives and hired from Google and other tech outfits to bring their expertise into the White House.

“‘So if you were championing the best things about the internet, it was easy to be disappointed that it was hijacked to subvert the very things it could foster,’ Ms. Kornbluh said. But she said few people in government were looking with a full view of how social media and other internet services posed national security, economic and other risks.

“Mr. Ghosh and Mr. Scott played a leading role in helping to create the tech-friendly policies that helped companies like Facebook and Google flourish during the Obama administration. But as more information trickled out about the role played by technology firms in Russia’s attempts to influence the presidential election, they, like many Democrats, became disillusioned.” New York Times, January 23^rd.

This does seem to pit tech giants, from Facebook, Twitter and Google and even to Apple, against the Democratic Party and its obvious interests. Add this to the upcoming implementation of new and massive privacy legislation from the European Union, and it seems pretty clear that these tech companies are facing a global inquiry, one laced with anger and suspicion… attitudes perhaps justified in the name of preserving democracy. So the Democrats have to ask themselves if the political money tap from these Silicon Valley contributors will close… or worse, if it does not close, what exactly does the Valley expect in exchange. And that has to bring a smile to Mr. Trump and the entire GOP. And exactly which user has the greatest number of Twitter followers on earth? Yeah, him.

I’m Peter Dekom, and at this stage of our political reality, does making massive amounts of money now trump every other value that Americans once held dear?

Action and Reaction, the Real Afghan Hound

It doesn’t make the headlines here anymore. But for those living through the hell, wanton death is all they care about. January has been a particularly bloody month in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, as Taliban terrorists focus on mass killings to send one very clear message: the US-backed regime is not in control and is completely unable to protect its citizens from harm. The more Donald Trump doubles down with more US troops, the more significant it is for the Taliban to make sure those plans do not work. And without US support, it is extremely unlikely that the Kabul political machine can stay in power.

What the Taliban have effectively communicated is that it is the US, not Afghan military fighting for the “elected government,” that keeps that regime in power. And that regime, even with US military backing, is completely unable to control the countryside, completely unable to stop the carnage inflicted seemingly at random by the Taliban, who know that the United States, mired in the longest war in its history, will not stay forever. They’ve studied the war efforts of Americans in Vietnam and Iraq… they know that sooner or later, the Americans will break.

Indeed, a Taliban assault on Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel on January 20^th, a 15 hour siege that lasted throughout the night, killed 22 as terrorists ranged throughout the hotel claiming victims, most foreigners, where they could find them. A small cadre of Taliban shooters raged through the building, where hundreds of guests were trapped, taking out those innocents with gun blasts. A week later, “The Taliban drove an ambulance packed with explosives into a crowded Kabul street on Saturday [1/27], setting off an enormous blast that killed at least [150] people and injured 158 others, adding to the grim toll in what has been one of the most violent stretches of the long war, Afghan officials said.” New York Times, January 27^th (pictured above).

On January 29^th, one more attack – this time claimed by ISIS (who are affiliated with the Taliban) – against an Afghan military outpost outside of Kabul. Shooters and two suicide bombers were reported to have killed at least 11 Afghan soliders.

Why this escalation in random violence? “Whether the week’s events will translate into a long-term gain for the Taliban or serve only as a terrible but temporary show of force, the attacks embody the trends toward violence and disintegration that appear to be only worsening in Afghanistan…

“The war’s participants embarked on what they thought was a traditional battle for control of Afghanistan’s territory and for the allegiance of its people. But over more than 16 years, without setting out to do so, they have remade it into a war over one issue: whether or not the country can have a central, functioning state.

“For the American-led coalition and its Afghan partners, the goal was simple: Set up a government, help it consolidate control, and wait for Afghans to reject the Taliban in favor of stability… The Taliban, which deny the foreigner-backed government’s legitimacy, sought to topple it.” New York Times, January 28^th.

Afghanistan is rugged country to say the least. Plagued with violent and corrupt warlords as well as the extreme Muslim fundamentalist Taliban plus a US-imposed government that seemed to escalate that corruption even further, there has always been doubt whether stability and a lasting peace are remotely possible. What began as a US war to topple the Taliban-governed country that served as a training ground for the 9/11/01 Al Qaeda terrorists who destroyed the Twin Towers and attacked the Pentagon, has continued into a seemingly unending conflict without end.

The Soviet Union, fighting its own failed Afghan war from 1979-89, was sapped in strength and power. Many claim that that ten year humiliating military action, one where the US supplied its future terrorists to accelerate that Soviet demise, was the straw that broke the USSR’s back… the final failure that fractured a collapsing Soviet government into the CIS nation-states we see today.

It was a lesson not learned by the American administrations that followed, Republican and Democrat alike… and one where succeeding generations of American generals constantly have reassured president after president that the war is winnable. It isn’t, but Donald Trump thinks he’s the one who will be the final victor. The Taliban think patience and persistence must succeed. After all, what do Americans want on the opposite side of the world… when the Taliban and their families have lived there for centuries?

“Because both sides treated Afghanistan’s governance as a matter of all-or-nothing survival, the Taliban had every incentive to create chaos…. With the Taliban unable to win outright but the Americans unwilling to admit defeat, she said, each side has privileged short-term escalations. That has validated the Taliban’s view that the group must undermine the state, including through attacks in Kabul that expose the government’s weakness.

“‘Trump’s strategy is based on a fighting machine — to send more troops,’ said Mullah Hamid, a Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan. ‘If they are giving priority to the military option, we are not weak. We can reach our target and hit the enemy.’… The tit-for-tat violence has taken on a logic of its own, overwhelming other options.

“‘There has not been any channel of talks ongoing between the High Peace Council and the Taliban,’ said Maulavi Shafiullah Nuristani, a member of the government body tasked with exploring negotiations. ‘We never had any direct contacts with them, except for indirect and personal contacts.’

“Mr. Nuristani said the peace council’s offices, located a little more than 200 yards from the site of Saturday’s car bombing, would close for two days — ‘until the rooms and our offices are cleaned of debris and broken glass.’” NY Times.

Is not losing the same thing as winning? It an expensive stalemate, costing well over a trillion dollars and costing thousands of American lives, enough? And if we cannot sustain what three presidents believe is a peaceful state, how do we end our involvement without powerful negative regional repercussions? Is Trump’s effort to pull back military aid to neighboring “ally” Pakistan unless they amp up their genuine cooperation to stem regional terrorism an effective tool… or simply a force that will push Pakistan further to the other side? But then, foreign policy does not seem to be a particular strength of this administration. Fake news tells us we might just win. History and over a decade and a half of failure tell us otherwise.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I wonder why repeating the same behavior but expecting a different result – after 16 years – is considered effective policy.

Centuries of Bias, Cultural Practices and Union Seniority

When brawn defined the ability to make a living, men had an advantage. As brains slowly defined earning power, women had an unexpected opportunity, but history intervened.

When the military fought WWII, the overwhelming number of men serving in the armed forces, vastly outnumbering the women in uniform, benefitted hugely and disproportionately from the GI Bill, granting access to a college education that still eluded women. As GIs returning home were given job preferences in both the private and public sector… but clearly in the Civil Service, men over-populated those jobs, particularly the non-secretarial/administrative jobs where pay was so much higher, and where union representation was exceptionally high. The reality of union seniority – in unions then dominated by men – pretty much institutionalized under collective bargaining agreements a wage disparity that some have calculated represents one of the highest levels of male-female pay differentiation, averaging 20%.

Lots of folks believe that the #MeToo movement, initially reacting to a world where sexual harassment and assault were just too normalized in society, has a powerful legacy of job discrimination and lower pay to fight as well. Sometimes these dual goals struggle against each other in unexpected ways. There are companies avoiding hiring attractive younger entry-level executive women for fear that they may be the source of future sexual harassment/assault claims, picking traditional males instead. I even heard a story, unconfirmed, that a company hired away an attractive female executive from a major competitor specifically to support her as she filed a harassment claim against her form employer.

It’s the stuff no one openly talks about… but there is backlash.  None of this is fair or justifiable, and perhaps the pendulum has to swing back a bit, forgiveness and common sense rise one notch higher, but wrong is wrong… and women now outnumber men in college and grad school these days. Fairness is inevitable, but you can see why it will take time. Meanwhile there is one variable that might us all back a bit: artificial intelligence-driven automation, and oddly enough, it seems that women will have a tougher time as a result. Even more time? Truly unfair.

The January 28^th Los Angeles Times explains: “Women are more likely than men to be knocked out of their jobs in the U.S. by automation over the next eight years, and they’ll find half as many opportunities to land new positions unless there’s a new effort to retrain them… Those conclusions, from a study released last week at the World Economic Forum, show about 57% of the 1.4 million U.S. jobs to be disrupted by technology between now and 2026 are held by women.

“With proper retraining, most of the workers could find new, higher-paying jobs. Without it, very few have opportunities, but women fare the worst, according to the study, conducted in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group… Making the transition will be expensive and difficult, the authors said.

“‘It is definitely unprecedented, the effort that would be required on the part of policymakers,’ said Saadia Zahidi, one of the authors and head of education, gender and work for the World Economic Forum, which held its annual conference last week in Davos, Switzerland. ‘What is different today is that businesses also do recognize that it’s something that would be useful for them.’

“Workers are bracing for a future where it’s estimated each industrial robot displaces six employees and 30% of banking jobs could disappear within five years as artificial intelligence gets smarter. Much of the worst disruption will affect lower-paying jobs often held by women or less-educated workers.

“The World Economic Forum estimates it will take a century for women to reach gender parity in the workplace, almost 20 years longer than it forecast a year ago… Business leaders are becoming more aware of their need to take a leadership role in fixing the gap, Zahidi said. At the same time, it will be a complicated problem to fix because it requires a new educational focus as well as a likely need for income support for workers being retrained, she said.

“Without retraining, a quarter of the workers face annual income losses of about $8,600 and many would not be able to find a new job, compared with a gain of $15,000 for most workers after two years of retraining — with about 95% having a new position available, according to the report. The study was based on data from Burning Glass Technologies and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“One positive for women: Under the retraining scenario, women’s wages would increase 74%, while men’s income would rise 53%, creating the potential for narrowing the pay gap, she said.

“The study looked at 15 different job strategies that could pave the way for new careers for people in professions as diverse as assembly line workers, truck drivers, secretaries and cashiers.

“Although the report found that 90,000 manufacturing jobs, predominantly held by men, are at risk for disruption, there are about 164,000 at-risk female secretaries and administrative assistants who are often overlooked.” But we live in society that seems to have no problem with tax cuts for the same rich who own and will own that automated equipment – and will make the money from that automation that used to be earned by the human beings they are replacing – but a lot of trouble supporting reeducation, training and providing interim support for those individuals making the job transition. Think that fully automated Amazon store in Seattle (above picture) is a good idea? Doesn’t matter, does it? It is a trend that will not stop… along with all the other displacing technology.

Hey folks, we are all in this together. Women are our mothers, wives, daughters, sisters and friends. They earned equality but still have to struggle to get rewarded accordingly. It’s time. Empathy and support are required across the board.

I’m Peter Dekom, and it is time for our society, our government, to prioritize righting a wrong that stubbornly seems to linger well past any justification for this imbalance.