Posts Tagged ‘america’

#Detroit is in the Midst of a Humanitarian Crisis Worthy of #UN Attention

Posted: July 21, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
7/21/2014

Did you know the United Nations said that Detroit is violating the human rights of their citizens?

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are fundamental rights in America. So if that is actually true, and we can’t live without water, is water a right? The water companies in Detroit don’t think so and have been shutting off water supplies to delinquent customers.

The problems of the urban dystopia that is Detroit are pretty well-known. But I don’t think most people in America thought the situation in Detroit was worthy of the attention of the United Nations. Since we are in the United States of America after all, it is hard to fathom human rights violations worth of the attention of international governing bodies could be allowed to occur here. Well, welcome to the new normal.

Why are so many people (up to 30,000) so behind on their water bills that they are having access to it turned off? Maybe it has something to do with the 119% increase in cost as the city inches closer and closer to privatization of utilities.

As horrific as the situation in Detroit is, what is even scarier than municipalities and private corporations literally denying access to the essence of life to their citizens, is that the problems with water in Detroit is soon to become the rule not just an exception.

Wage Stagnation is the Silent Killer of #Economic Equality

Posted: July 15, 2014 in Excess and Algorithms
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by @anarchyroll
7/14/2014

Wages have not kept up with inflation or the consumer price index for over thirty years. That is what is meant when you hear people talk about wage stagnation.

As long as wages remain stagnant compared to how much stuff costs there will never be a fully robust economic recovery.

Wage stagnation is why there is currently an all time record high of income inequality in America.

This is why you don’t need a degree in economics to understand why all debates over economic issues in America are made to seem overly complicated on purpose. Because if people were paid more for their time and effort, they could buy more things. But wouldn’t those things then be more expensive? Yes, but people would be making more money. It would be a cycle, kind of like the cycle our economy is on now but less vicious and soul crushing for the generationally poor.

You’ve heard about class warfare between the 1% of earners who possess more wealth than the other 99% of earners in the country, right? That is the heart of the Occupy Wall Street movements and protests. Why is there such a gap in income equality? Why is there class warfare? Why is there a sentiment that the “game” that is the US economy is rigged and the American Dream is dead? The underlying cause/answer is wage stagnation.

Wage stagnation is not an accident, it has been done very much on purpose for almost half a century. The haves don’t want to pay the have-nots an honest salary for their honest work and have been allowed to get away with it. The 1% could make the choice to pay their workers more. But other than it being the right thing to do, why? After all, paying the masses a living wage would mean less one-percenters could afford private yachts, jets, and islands.

Wage stagnation is tied directly to the rise in consumer debt (people use credit to pay for necessities they don’t have the money to have because they don’t get paid enough), student loan debt (parents and students need to take loans because they don’t get paid enough to pay for college tuition), and mortgage debt (not being paid enough to afford a home). Being able to afford a home is the center piece of the American Dream. To afford property, not simply to achieve financial prosperity as many would have you believe.

Until wage stagnation is addressed and done away with, very little else matters in terms of turning around America’s economy for 99% of the population. To deny this is to deny reality, or be apart of the minority of the population that is benefiting from the system as it is currently constructed. There is no gray area or in between.

A living wage is the only humane solution to this problem. But traditionally, humanity and the American economy don’t always go hand in hand. The fierce resistance to paying a living wage in America is only the most recent example.

#BeachLife Now Means No Swimming Due to #Pollution

Posted: July 10, 2014 in Frackishima
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by @anarchyroll
7/10/2014

I suppose my generation will be the generation that grows up to say, back in my day, you could actually swim in the water at the beach.

Thanks to massive amounts of pollution and bacteria, beaches are now strictly for selfies, volleyball, tanning, sand castle building, and of course drinking.

Poisoning of water is something that always gets my attention. Mainly because we can’t survive without water, we being human beings.

I wonder if the people who are big on the #BeachLife social media trend will care as much about the environment as they do their own self image and egos.

Some generation will eventually have to care in mass about water pollution. The Greatest Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X and Y polluted the Earth exponentially more each time around as if there was a prize at the end. Well I guess there is, the prize is the privilege of being able to go to the beach and not being able to swim or even touch the water due to the public health hazard the bacteria causes. But I’m sure breathing the air coming off that water is still perfectly healthy. Certainly no worse than the air breathed in citing in bumper to bumper highway traffic.

The #Salt of the Earth of the #Obesity Epidemic is Salt

Posted: June 17, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
6/17/2014

Salt is to obesity what motor oil is to a car. Sugar is the gasoline.

Salt is America’s secret ingredient.

Salt is America’s spice.

Processed foods could not exist without salt.

Fast food culture would not exist without salt.

Franchise restaurants would not exist without salt.

Excessive salt intake is a direct contributor to heart attacks, stroke, high blood pressure, and obesity. If you don’t care about any of that, care about the health care costs that go along with battling the obesity epidemic. Those add up almost as much as senior citizens delaying the inevitable by an extra couple of days.

The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) is getting read to unveil voluntary salt reduction guidelines for food makers. As with any government bureau, there is no set time-table for when the guidelines will be released, as well as what specifically the guidelines will be. But it’s a start. When dealing with an epidemic, it is important to at least start, no matter how small the first step may seem when staring up at a mountain.

I am in favor of strict, mandatory guidelines BUT completely understand why starting with voluntary, phased in guidelines are being enacted. America is so addicted to salt that a sudden drop might result in public backlash, which could lead to legislated high sodium diet recommendations.

Regardless of whether a person is a vegan, a paleo, a juicer, or junk food eating machine we can all agree that something must be done about wide-spread obesity in America. The abuse of the freedom to eat what we want is negatively effecting our society and culture at a level that has been labeled epidemic. If this where any other kind of epidemic would drastic action not be expected? Would freedoms not be forfeited?

With obesity, the government isn’t coming for our speech, guns, religious freedoms, or our children. They’re simply coming to take 30% of our daily salt intake.

No Black Bars for #WallStreet White Collars

Posted: May 23, 2014 in Excess and Algorithms
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eanda logoajclogo2by @anarchyroll
5/22/2014

How many people went to jail for causing the 2008 economic collapse of not just the United States, but the entire global economy?

I thought the answer was zero, it turns out I was wrong. The answer is one, one person from Wall Street went to jail post 2008.

It’s not just an income inequality gap that exists and is expanding in America, there is also a judicial inequality gap. Since I’m white I’ve only noticed this recently. If I was a minority I would have likely not just written about the disparity, but would have been arrested and put in jail already.

Graph courtesy of Project.org

In America, white-collar criminal really is a double entendre. One for the type of crime, a second for the race of the criminal.

Though maybe it is time to update the image and the term. Something more appropriate would be green collar crime. Though the fact that almost all of the white-collar corporate CEO’s were/are white; it is the quantity of dead presidents in their offshore bank account that is the blade to their prison term skate.

What does it say about us as a society that we allow this kind of disparity to justice to become the norm? Is the damage caused by the architects of the ’08 collapse greater than, equal to, or less than the robbery of a single person? How about the rape of a single person? The murder of a single person? Selling drugs to a single person?

I’m not pretending to have an answer here. I am certainly not standing on a pedestal.

Was the damage caused by World Com and Enron akin to a serial robber? A serial killer? A serial rapist? A drug kingpin? How do we measure the collateral damage? Is the death by stabbing of a man in his early twenties different from a retiree who finds out they have lost all of their money in a Ponzi scheme and is destitute without the physical ability to earn for the rest of their life?

What about the people who kill themselves due to an economic depression? What if they have spouses and children? Is their loss, pain, and suffering different from a woman who gets robbed and raped at gun point walking home from the train station?

When entire neighborhoods and towns are put into foreclosure. Hundreds, thousands, millions without work, shelter, food, water, or hope for the future…are the people responsible for causing so much human tragedy somehow less evil, deserving less scorn, and less judicial prosecution than a teenager who runs over a kid while texting and driving? What about drinking and driving?

When blood is spilled, lives taken, innocence stolen in violent crimes we as a society hunt down the criminals, lock them up, throw away the key, and turn the other cheek while they are habitually raped in prison. Victims of violent crimes and their families are forever changed, unable to ever fill the hole created by an evil person that took something that can never be given back.

But is that psychological damage not shared by victims of massive financial crimes against society like in 2008? When we aren’t talking about a single person losing a job or life’s savings but a large percentage of the global population. Are the strains placed on society not akin to that placed on the immediate friends and families of violent crimes?

If not, can we at least as a society agree that we should lock up hedge fund managers, investment bankers, and Ponzi schemers that cause global recessions and depressions as strictly and regularly as we lock up drug dealers and users?

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