Demographics – Page 27 – The Wrongologist

October 30, 2014

What’s Wrong Today:

This year, Republicans did not put up a challenger in 37 House races, while Democrats did not field candidates in 32 districts, according to the Cook Political Report. Another 8 House districts will see no contest between the main parties, because of the “top two” primary system used in California and Washington state. These 77 single-party House races are a high number by recent standards. In 2012, there were 45 of them.

In today’s Democratic Party, challengers seldom see a primary attack from their left, while Republican incumbents often fear attacks from the right. The Economist quotes Rep. Mike Capuano (D-MA) who is running unopposed: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

In politics, Republicans are like dogs, working as a pack [while] Democrats are the cats.

Few races for the House are closely fought. Roughly 80% of the 435 members have little or fear on election day. Given the very high costs of getting elected, there are fewer opposition candidates in historically safe House districts.

Turning to the Senate, in July 2014, 42 Senators (41 GOP and 1 Dem) succeeded in killing Bill S2569, which would have repealed the corporate tax break for shipping American jobs overseas (you need 60 votes to overturn a Filibuster). And on Nov 4th, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) and all the other Senators (running in this cycle) who voted against the Bill will be re-elected.

DC insiders think that this is a feature, not a bug. Would voters tolerate a Congress with hundreds of uncontested seats?

Thursday linkage:

If they show you a chart, apparently, you will believe whatever they are saying.

Independents favor Republicans by 20 points: Republicans have discovered that a sufficiently united party can obstruct everything and anything, but largely escape blame for the resulting gridlock.

The most politically engaged states: This study shows the most engaged states had a more highly educated population, higher per capita economic output and fairer tax systems. Massachusetts and Colorado were #1 & #2. West Virginia was #50.

The US is developing better relations with Iran: If permanent, the shift could drastically alter the balance of power in the region. If the nuclear issue is resolved, this could be Obama’s greatest legacy. But, it risks alienating key US allies, like Israel, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

Dubai police to use Google Glass with facial recognition to ID bad guys: Well, last year Dubai announced it would supply its police with $400,000 Lamborghini’s for use at major tourist sites. Cool cars and stupid glasses.

Some of Bach’s masterpieces were composed by his wife: A documentary film, “Written by Mrs. Bach” makes a case that Anna Magdalena Bach actually composed some of works attributed to her husband, Johann Sebastian Bach. And she had to cook and clean.

Home ownership rate in the US fell to the lowest rate in more than 19 years: Entry-level buyers have been held back by stringent mortgage standards and slow wage growth. The share of first-time buyers was 29% in September for the third straight month, compared with about 40% historically.

Who is watching the World Series? Apparently, fewer of us than ever: The last time the World Series averaged more than 20 million viewers was in 2004 when the Boston Red Sox defeated the St. Louis Cardinals to take their first title since 1918.

Your Thursday Music Break:

The Big Picture – An Editorial

“To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom” – Bertrand Russell

Today, we are going to take a short course in The Big Picture. For starters, here is a quote from Digby:

…we are a primitive country. We’ve got idiots on TV screaming about a religion of 1.6 billion people being the toxic cause of violence even as our All American, non-religious school-kids are taking the deadly weapons their parents give them as presents to shoot their schoolmates and themselves. And we have the most sophisticated city on earth acting like a bunch of authoritarian creeps toward people who are doing serious work to stop the spread of an outbreak of a deadly disease — for PR purposes.

Since the Great Recession in 2008-9, we have seen the Federal Reserve move the economy slowly forward while leaving most people behind. Yet, few complain about growing income inequality. People know it and feel it, but don’t vote, or try to do anything else to change things.

• Why doesn’t income inequality upset the average American?
• Why are we more aware of how plastic surgery has changed the looks of an actress than we are about Gen. John Allen’s crazy ideas about winning the war against ISIS?
• How can more Americans be afraid of contracting Ebola than being killed in a car wreck?

What are we afraid will happen if we really dig deeply into an idea or a strategy that is proposed as a “solution” for some problem or other? Why can’t we resist re-tweeting some piece of snark that is the short version of something we believe, or thought we believed?

One visible trend is our increasing distrust of public institutions. We have seen how government, corporations, “charitable” organizations, media, and law-enforcement and the Justice system, all seem to exist for the benefit of those who manage them and not for the public.

This capturing of our institutions is a scary thing, but it is true everywhere in America. You might think that realizing this would spur interest in reform, but in fact, it has just increased our denial. People say in spite of it all, we’ll just soldier on as best as we can, making sure that we and our kids learn to navigate this rigged system.

This is why there is very little interest in politics by young voters.

Another trend is that America’s young know there is no possibility for real growth in personal income. They know that there are policies to promote and stimulate the economy, policies that might work. But, they have no faith in the ability of public officials to implement such policies, so they hang back, hoping somebody comes forward with a better answer. This, from the most connected, most media-savvy, most sophisticated generation in our history.

Voters show no interest in the 2014 mid-term elections. The media asks the same questions of the same Sabbath pundits each week: “Who will win the Senate?” But people don’t care. They watch the media whip up class warfare, cultural warfare and real warfare together into a big stew of propaganda that becomes mind-numbing. So they Facebook, and Tweet.

Most people are both stuck and scared–wanting things to change, but not knowing how. People might get upset, but big change requires commitment and action, and it is hard to get Millennials to change their minds, or to do much.

Political activism succeeds with a clear vision and a solid game plan. Neither Democrats nor Republicans have a list of good ideas about what will work to move us forward. It is possible to attribute political apathy to this lack of ideas, but the destruction of public trust in government is also a big problem.

Changing the future requires getting hold of the levers of government and then using them to do good. That is much more difficult when people don’t vote, and have no faith in their government. Trust in an institution takes a long time to build, but not to destroy. The first step is to take back our captured government.

A basic principle of martial arts is that you use your opponent’s strengths against them. In typical political contests, both sides work to out-raise and out-spend the other. And third parties try to get in the game using the same strategies as the legacy parties.

Today, each candidate is challenging the other’s strength using their own similar strength: It becomes a Sumo-style shoving match.

Conventional wisdom says that it’s expensive to run a campaign (even for local elections, much less national) and so everyone starts their campaign with a fundraising strategy and continues it incessantly even after Election Day. Conventional wisdom says you win with a charismatic candidate, so each party tries to find the best actor they can come up with. Conventional wisdom says candidates should “triangulate” their political views so that they are neither left nor right, just as Democrats are trying to do without success, in Red States this fall.

Instead, insurgent campaigns could be run on social media and the Internet, on as little money as possible—crowdsourcing both dollars and ideas from supporters. They should build constituencies for ideas and for a common future. They should select candidates who can tell the story of a united, desirable future, not some Ken or Barbie cypher for the moneyed interests who run our politics today.

The Big Picture is that we react more strongly to fear than to rationality. We used to fear Hitler. We feared the Communists. We feared al-Qaeda. We fear ISIS. We fear Ebola. We fear for our kids walking to school. We fear that America will let too many brown people across our borders. But we don’t fear climate change, or obesity, or a Congress that can’t enact an agenda to move the country forward.

There should be no mystery about how much corporate power and money drives the culture of fear. Think of it as a 4-step program:

1. Mass media hammers on events that builds general concern and possibly, panic from a few isolated incidents
2. Anecdotal evidence takes the place of hard scientific proof
3. Experts that the media trots out to make comments really don’t have the credentials to be considered experts
4. Entire categories of people (Muslims, West Africans) are labeled as “innately dangerous”

Can a cohesive group with a better way of dealing with the rest of us, gain traction in today’s connected world? Can they help America conquer the long laundry list of fears that constrict and in some cases, stop us from acting on much of anything?

It would take brains, ideas, commitment and energy.

Where are the leaders who have those qualities? How can we support them?

Friday Music Break – October 24, 2014

Have you ever wondered if listening to certain music weakens your mind? No problem, Virgil Griffith, a Ph.D. candidate at Cal Tech has an answer for you. He asked a series of questions:

Could one’s musical tastes say something about intelligence? How about SAT scores? Well, like any good scientist, I decided to see how well my personal experience matches reality.

How did he do it? He downloaded the ten most frequent “favorite music” mentions at every college via that college’s Network Statistics page on Facebook. He then downloaded the average SAT/ACT score (from the College Board) for students attending every college.

This yielded 1352 schools that had data on both Facebook and the College Board. Below is a chart showing music by SAT scores. At Mr. Griffith’s site, you can find your school and its top 10 songs. Or, your favorite artists ranked by the average SAT of the schools that rated them. And yes, Mr. Griffith realizes that correlation ≠ causality, so no need to send an email saying that. Not all of the data are complete for each school, but check your where your favorite group/music genre on the chart, and weep:

Georgetown lists U2, Jack Johnson, Coldplay, The Beatles and The Killers as its top 5. We focus on The Killers for your Friday Music Break. Here is“Mister Brightside” Live from Royal Albert Hall in 2009:

The Killers @ Royal Albert Hall is a fabulous concert. The crowd knows the music, the band is energized throughout. See the entire concert if you have time. Here is one more song from it, “When You Were Young”:

They picked the venue specifically for the DVD, then made tickets available through various chapters of their fan clubs. Everybody in that crowd is a die-hard fan.

It shows.

Is Secession From the USA a Possibility?

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Sept. 19th, 23.9% of Americans polled from Aug. 23 through Sept. 16 said they strongly supported or tended to support the idea of their state breaking away from the country. The poll had 8,952 respondents. About 53% of them strongly opposed or tended to oppose secession, slightly less than the percentage that kept Scotland in the UK.

The exact wording of the question asked was: “Do you support or oppose the idea of your state peacefully withdrawing from the United States of America and the federal government?”

The LA Times reported the results by region:

You can see the interactive results here. They can be filtered by age, region, income, party affiliation, etc. Any way you slice it, the data are startlingly clear: Almost a quarter of those surveyed said they were strongly or provisionally inclined to leave the US, and take their states with them. Given the size of the polling sample, the online survey’s credibility interval (digital for “margin of error”) was only 1.2%, so the poll seems to be an accurate representation of where the country stands.

Politically, conservatives and Republicans seem to like the idea of leaving more than Democrats. Among people who said they identified with the Tea Party, supporters of secession were in the majority, with 53%.

Secession got more support from Republicans than Democrats, more from right-than left-leaning independents, more from younger than older people, more from lower- than higher-income brackets, more from high school than college grads. In general, men were slightly more predisposed to secession than women. Those making $25,000 a year were 11 points more favorably disposed to rebellion than those making more than $150,000 a year. But there was a marginally higher level of support in every group, especially the Rocky Mountain States, the Southwest and the old Confederacy.

Fifty years ago, most Americans would have laughed at the idea of any state or region seceding, calling it the talk of a radical or a crackpot out of touch with reality. But, with Americans becoming increasingly frustrated by the protracted economic recovery, and by big government, they seem to be expressing an interest in returning to smaller jurisdictions. In the last year or so, we’ve seen:
• Actual secession votes in California and Colorado
• More than 125,700 Texans signed a secession petition
• Secession petitions were circulated in Maryland, Arizona, and Michigan
• Wisconsin Republicans came close to voting on a secession plan this spring

Had the poll first presented lists of “This is what you will no longer have from the Feds, and have to get along without, or pay for them yourself”, the vote might have been different. Consider, for example: the FAA, all those little City, County, State “Grants”, Court Systems, Law/Medical, and various Copyright, Food inspections, education grants/research etc. Who will pay for these things?

As in Scotland, the vote might have been different if the estimated increase in taxes and other payments to fund secession were included in the discussion.

For example, earlier this year the personal finance website WalletHub.com conducted a study of the amounts individual states are paying in federal taxes compared to the amounts they are receiving. WalletHub analyzed data from the IRS, the US Census Bureau, the US Commerce Department and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As it turns out, it is red states that are overwhelmingly the Welfare Queen States, with Mississippi scoring the first (worst) position with 45.8% of its funding coming from the federal government. Yes, that’s right. Red States — the ones governed by folks who think government is too big and spending needs to be cut — take in more federal spending than they pay out in federal taxes.

They talk a good game, but are sticking the Blue States with the bill. WalletHub’s research demonstrates that, as a rule, the states that are the most likely to rail against “big government” are the most likely to be benefiting from it.

Secession is not illegal, unilateral secession is. A state can secede with the approval of the Federal Government by means of Constitutional amendment. A state that wants to secede legally and peacefully has to convince not only their own population but the rest of the country as well.

Think about Arizona seceding. It would be surrounded by the country it had just left and the country it seemingly hates most (Mexico) with little hope of defending itself, educating itself or paying its own way. Plus, a large number of their citizens are on Social Security and Medicare from (gasp) the United States of America. Decidedly not smart.

The question is, what do these results mean for the country?

The US hardly seems on the verge of a successful secession movement. But the poll results scale up to represent 60 million unhappy people in America, who are willing to consider secession.

This should scream out to our leaders that we are susceptible to the sophistry of a demagogue, or to a serious political reform movement.

The Coming Maker Economy

Ever hear of the Maker Movement? It is a loosely affiliated group of several hundred thousand people around the world who are starting their own small businesses dedicated to creating and selling self-made products.

It has the potential to be formidable economic force that might change much about how we produce and consume goods.

The Wrongologist first learned of the Maker Movement while preparing for his trip to Shenzhen, China last spring. Shenzhen is where the iPhone and iPad, and half of the world’s mobile phones are manufactured. It is also a huge hub of people who build, design, modify, hack, invent, or simply make something newer, cheaper, better and/or smaller than it can be made in large corporate or university contexts.

Maker culture emphasizes learning-through-doing in a social environment, rather than formal education as the most important part of skills development. This is very true in Shenzhen today.

Joi Ito, head of the MIT Media Lab, also visited Shenzhen earlier this year. He reports: (emphasis and brackets by the Wrongologist)

What we experienced was an entire ecosystem. From the bespoke little shop making 50 blinking computer controlled burning man badges to the guy rebuilding a phone while eating a Big Mac, to the clean room with robots scurrying around delivering parts to rows and rows of SMTs [Surface Mount Technology machines] - the low cost of labor was the driving force to pull most of the world’s sophisticated manufacturing here, but it was the ecosystem that developed the network of factories and the tradecraft that allows this ecosystem to produce just about anything at any scale.

Notice he says “at any scale”. Ito goes further:

Just like it is impossible to make another Silicon Valley somewhere else, although everyone tries – after spending four days in Shenzhen, I’m convinced that it’s impossible to reproduce this ecosystem anywhere else.

Both Shenzhen and Silicon Valley have a “critical mass” that attracts more and more people, resources and knowledge, but they are also living ecosystems, with diversity and with a work ethic and experience base that another region will have difficulty bootstrapping. Ito thinks that most of America will do best by forging links with places like Shenzhen rather than to try and compete with it head-on

Modern technology has made it easier than ever for a single individual to create and distribute items that are customizable and unique, without depending on middlemen like manufacturers. The Internet facilitates direct marketing to end users. This shift is starting to affect the global economy, and will likely have big implications for new consumer and industrial products. The convergence of technology and Internet connectivity is making this a special time in history. It is beginning to look like it could have a transformative impact on our future.

Joi Ito has a TEDTalk that predates his Shenzhen trip. In the talk, he outlines a series of concepts that drive the Maker Movement. One takeaway is this point:

Education is what people do to you and learning is what you do to yourself.

Ito discusses a new approach: building quickly and improving constantly, without waiting for permission or for proof that you have the right idea. It is this bottom-up innovation that the Maker Movement is all about.

For Makers, community interaction and knowledge sharing is mediated through networked technologies, where websites and social media form the knowledge repositories. The exchange of ideas takes place in shared spaces called hackerspaces. Today, there are about 1,100 active hackerspaces all over the world.

One such hackerspace is Shenzhen’s HAXLR8R, started by expatriates, it is a start up accelerator program focused on providing hardware-based start-ups with the appropriate China-based knowledge and support to take their concept into a commercialized reality. You can see an explanation of their process here.

Earlier this year, the White House announced its own Maker initiative, where the Obama administration is partnering with companies, nonprofits, and communities to get the most out of the Maker Movement. China wants in on the game as well. In April, a Maker Faire in Shenzhen attracted an estimated 30,000 people.

Common sense suggests that if you want to maximize creativity, you find some bright people, give them the resources they need to pursue whatever idea comes into their heads, and then leave them alone.

Most will turn up nothing, but one or two may well discover something very, very useful.

The Maker Movement is democratizing product development, and a few successfully commercialized products may have a snowball effect. We may see products with more value and at cheaper price points than we ever thought possible.

And better paying jobs for Millennials.

Is a New World Order Coming?

In the prologue to his 1987 book of essays, Hidden History: Exploring Our Secret Past, historian Daniel Boorstin wrote about “the Fertile Verge”, a place where something and something else, something unexplored, meet.

A verge is like a frontier region, a place where ecosystems, or ideas, mingle. Verges between land and sea, between civilization and wilderness, between state and national governments, between city and countryside – all are a part of the American experience. Boorstin said that the movement westward by colonists into the American continent was a verge between European civilization and the culture of the American Indians.

America is clearly now on the verge of something new, possibly a big change in the world order. The old rules are broken. New states may emerge out of conflict in the Africa and the Middle East. Our old allies see their future drifting away from ours. The old order is rapidly disintegrating. But is there a new order that will replace it? Will it happen only in America, or will it be a global change?

Consider the following about America:
• In August, the Wall Street Journal reported on an FBI database that contains a file on one in three adults, or 77.7 million Americans.
• Our schools aren’t succeeding,
• Our infrastructure is crumbling,
• American corporations are heading for the exits (to tax havens).
• 45 Million Americans live in poverty, and that number hasn’t changed since 2010.

We are taking on some of the trappings of a police state. And there is no reason to suppose that the FBI’s (and the NSA’s) increased sophistication in domestic spying, and data storage and retrieval will do anything but make that trend more efficient, and penalties more severe and long-lasting. That is not a prescription for maintaining a united Homeland.

Our coffers are shrinking, yet we march off to one risky war after another, with all of those billions going where, and for what? Our Republic now seems to want only compliant workers and consumers. All others need not apply.

Last bit of history; the Principate, (27 BC – 284 AD) was the first stage of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire succeeded the Roman Republic. The Principate was characterized by a concerted effort by its Emperors to preserve the illusion of the continuance of the Roman Republic. And just like the Principate, the illusion of the American Republic is what now remains.

The order of things that underpinned our era is in crisis. Part of peoples’ concern is the sense that the old order isn’t holding, but we’re not quite yet able to see the terms of any new order, one that may be based on different states, different global powers, or on different principles.

So, what’s next for America? A nation founded explicitly on an idea of individual freedoms and representative governance, the US has always identified its success with the spread of liberty and democracy. Today, those very rights are threatened here at home.

The post-WWII bipolar world ended when the USSR collapsed under their own weight. That brought about a different world order, a uni-polar era, with the US as the sole superpower, possessing the only military strong enough to deter any other potential rival from engaging in aggressive war.

Even that order is ending. We are on the frontier of something completely new in global politics in addition to change in our domestic society. Consider what is happening around the globe:
• Our people see what’s happening in Ukraine; what’s happening in Syria, with what Assad has wrought on his own people; in Iraq, where Sunni, Shia and Kurd fail to compromise, even in the face of invasion; the war between Israel and Gaza; the challenge of ISIS.
• Libya is in civil war, Pakistan is close to one, and Afghanistan’s democracy may be on the verge of paralysis. Egypt again has a military-dominated government.
• Add to these troubles the relationship between the US and China, that bounces between pledges of cooperation and public recrimination.

In Africa and the Middle East, the 21st Century has collided with the 8th Century, and the 8th Century is armed with 21st Century weaponry, so it is winning on the ground. An entirely new paradigm for deciding our priorities is required.

What will that new paradigm be? The most important questions to ask are – what is in the best interest of our country?
• What do we seek to prevent, no matter how it happens, and if necessary, alone?
• What do we seek to achieve, even if not supported by a multilateral effort?
• What do we seek to achieve, or prevent, only if supported by an alliance?
• In what should we not engage, even if urged on by a “responsibility to protect”, or by a multilateral group or alliance?”

All of our intermediating of trouble in the world has weakened us. Continuing to do so will only hasten our eclipse as the indispensable power. Our role in the world depends on a strong economy and few structural/societal problems at home. Shouldn’t taking care of the Homeland be our primary concern?

We may feel that a new “Fertile Verge” is almost upon us, but no one knows yet what it will be, or if we will make it across to the other side.

Or, if crossing to the other side will be better for America.

Thinking About the Slurry Wall on 9/11

It’s 13 years since that beautiful sky-blue September day when our world changed.

Consider the parallelism. Today, as we remember the terrorist attack 13 years ago, we begin another “war” against yet other group of Sunni terrorists. Mr. Obama, who was elected in 2008 to get us out of wars in the Middle East, has us on track to lead another “coalition of the willing” into the ME. The purpose of this crusade sounds depressingly familiar: To blunt the threat of another attack on the Homeland, despite little evidence that an attack is possible or imminent. And we do this because the people who face a direct ISIS threat can’t (or won’t) handle it for themselves.

The rise of ISIS is in part a consequence of US policy in the ME. Our war in Iraq and the subsequent 8 years of Iraqi internal political squabble have left many Sunnis in Iraq willing to support any challenge to the Shia central government. And now, 13 years after 9/11, we’re again strapping on our weapons and heading into war.

So today, let’s talk about the slurry wall at the World Trade Center. The Wrongologist took this photo in July, 2014 of the portion of the slurry wall that remains exposed in the Foundation Hall of the National September 11 Memorial Museum:

The slurry wall is the outer wall of what WTC engineers called the “Bathtub” in the 1960’s:

The bathtub is the 9-block area of the World Trade Center site that is excavated down to bedrock…and ringed by the slurry wall. The bathtub was created to enable the building of the Twin Towers’ foundations, and was ultimately filled with seven stories of basements housing the parking garage, mall, and building services.

Except that this bathtub kept water out of the 70’ deep basement. The ground water level at the WTC site is just a few feet below the surface, while bedrock is about 70 feet below the surface. Creating the bathtub required first building a 7-story dam below the water level of the adjacent Hudson River – that was the slurry wall.

After the 9/11 attack, the concern was that the slurry wall would fail. A breach in the wall and a flooding of the bathtub might have also flooded other adjacent below-grade structures, such as the PATH tunnels that passed through the bathtub. The NY subway, built below the PATH tubes could also have flooded with a breach of the wall.

On 9/11, most of the central portion of the wall’s south side (bordering Liberty Street) had moved inward by more than 10 inches. But, it held. According to the New York Times, George Tamaro, a former staff engineer at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, who was closely involved with the construction of the trade center, believes: (brackets by the Wrongologist)

[The slurry wall construction]…may have helped prevent the Hudson River from flooding parts of Lower Manhattan

According to Tamaro’s report on the aftermath of the attack, the PATH tunnels in Jersey City, New Jersey, at the Exchange Place Station, were 5 feet lower in elevation than at the WTC PATH Station. Exchange Place became a sump for fire water, river water, and broken water mains discharging into the bathtub. But the slurry wall held.

Looking up at the exposed portion of the slurry wall in Foundation Hall, one can’t help but be thankful for the work of engineers and construction workers back in the sixties who built the bathtub, and the engineers and firefighters who stabilized the walls after 9/11. Since the attack, that unseen wall is now a symbol of the resilience of both New Yorkers and America.

But the world has spun off its normal axis since September 11, 2001. Isn’t it interesting that 9/11 was supposed to be about America striking back against a foreign enemy of freedom. Yet in the process of attempting to win the “War on Terror”, American citizens have given up a significant part of their personal freedoms. And just this month, we are starting to have a national discussion about how, since 9/11, the US Department of Homeland Security has transformed our local police into a paramilitary force. For example, the Los Angles School District Police got a MRAP (mine resistant vehicle) and 3 grenade launchers.

Schools need grenade launchers now? James Madison said in 1787:

A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defense against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home…

Today, Americans own enormous numbers of weapons. Pew Research reports that the number of guns in the US is between 270 and 310 million, or roughly one for each of us. But, estimates are that about 37% of us actually own all the weapons.

So, today on the 13th anniversary of 9/11, we need to ask each other: What are we to make of a country in which:
• Local police are militarizing
• Citizens continue to arm themselves
• The federal government tramples on our Bill of Rights

Let’s think about what has been won and lost so far in the War on Terror. And let’s think about what remains of our social fabric. Is it as strong as that slurry wall? Will it hold when attacked? Do we still have that same problem-solving genius that built a slurry wall that was strong enough to survive attack?

Is America still built to last?

Not Voting This Time

A Harvard University survey conducted in April found that less than 25% of Millennial voters under 30 definitely plan to vote in November. That’s less than one in four, folks.

According to the surveys, Millennials’ views on politics are not easy to follow. They support big government, unless it costs more money. They’re for smaller government, unless budget cuts scratch a program they’ve heard of. They’d like Washington to fix everything, just so long as it doesn’t grow the government.

There have been three surveys of Millennials this year, by Pew, Reason as well as Harvard. The Pew report also found inconsistencies:
• Millennials hate the political parties more than everyone else, but they have the highest opinion of Congress
• Young people are the most likely to be single parents and the least likely to approve of single parenthood
• Young people voted overwhelmingly for Obama when he promised universal health care, but they oppose Obamacare as much as the rest of the country… even though they show strong support for universal health care.

Millennials are often described as the new “me” generation. They invented the selfie, and they post most of their waking thoughts on social media. They see themselves as controlling their destinies, despite being underemployed, so it may be difficult for one party (or ideology) to hold them for very long. Maybe what they thought was cool, supporting Obama in 2008, is now passé. After all, Instagram didn’t even exist in 2008.

Some facts about Millennial voters from Do Something.org:
• By 2015, Millennials will account for one third of the electorate
• 50% of eligible young voters (ages 18-29) cast a vote in 2012, amounting to 23 million votes, and 19% of all votes cast in 2012 came from young voters
• The majority of young voters supported President Obama over the Republican candidate in both 2008 and 2012 elections
• Fewer young voters supported President Obama in 2012 than in 2008. In 2008, Obama won 66% of the youth vote (John McCain won 32%) and in 2012, he won 60% (Mitt Romney won 36%).
• In 2012, the youth vote won toss-up states, Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Pennsylvania for Obama.

The Harvard survey shows voter enthusiasm among young people is lower than even in 2010, when Republicans took back the House of Representatives. Enthusiasm for the 2014 midterms is especially low among Democratic Millennials. John Della Volpe, Harvard’s survey director, said:

Young people still care about our country, but we will likely see more volunteerism than voting in 2014…

Harvard surveyed 3,058 web-enabled interviews with 18- to 29- year-olds. Of those surveyed, 48% were male and 52% were female. Other demographic data: 57% were between the ages of 18 and 24; 43% are between the ages of 25 and 29. 18% were married, 11% were living with a partner, 1% were divorced, and 69% had never been married. The survey also found that young women, another key Democratic constituency, are feeling uninspired to head to the polls. Just 19% of women said they were “definitely” going to cast a ballot, compared to 28% of men.

Part of the reason young people are not interested in voting, experts said, is they don’t believe politicians in Washington are addressing issues that matter to them. For example, the poll found that young people are very concerned about issues like wealth disparity in the country and student debt.

Interestingly, both parties seem to care deeply about garnering a majority share of the votes of Millennials, although in the case of Republicans, they seem to want to wait until they all have good paying jobs before trying to move them into their camp.

And for you Millennials, a piece of advice: the best way to make sure politicians continue to not give a damn about your issues is not to vote. Why vote? Let your elders determine the country’s future. Go on, abdicate any role in the decision.

After November, when the Tea Party controls both houses of Congress, and passes laws you may not agree with, maybe then you’ll think about growing some enthusiasm, and vote.

Labor Day Weekend 2014

Labor Day 2014:

(Sunday Cartoon Blogging will return in earnest next Sunday)

We pause once a year on the first Monday in September to commemorate Labor Day, a celebration of (and by) the American worker. Sadly, we live to work and we work to live, and we complain about it all week.Our real national pastime is bitching about our salaries and our jerk bosses. Here are a few Labor Day songs that are not part of the typical songs you associate with Labor Day.

And before you ask, “Where’s ‘Take This Job and Shove It’”? That’s an ANTI-work song. Despite the Wrongologist’s support for the sentiment, it doesn’t qualify. Remember, wealth does not create labor, labor creates wealth.

So, play ‘em loud, even if you’re in your cubicle.

First, here is “Salt of the Earth” by the Rolling Stones, written by Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. It was on Beggar’s Banquet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZGPcRyyvc0

The first stanza is the one you remember, but the 4th and 5th are the Wrongologist’s favorites:
Raise your glass to the hard working people
Let’s drink to the uncounted heads
Let’s think of the wavering millions
Who need leaders but get gamblers instead

Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter
His empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows
And a parade of the gray suited grafters
A choice of cancer or polio

Next, “Bright Future in Sales” by Fountains of Wayne, recorded in Chicago in 2009:

Best line:

I got a new computer
And a bright future in sales

Next, “Working for the weekend” by the Canadian band Loverboy. This performance is from 1986:

Technically, now that it’s 2014, the difference is that Everybody is Working ON the weekend.

Here is “Factory” by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band on 10/2/09 at Giants Stadium.

Factory is a simple 3 stanza song. The meditation on labor isn’t simple though:

Through the mansions of fear, through the mansions of pain,
I see my daddy walking through them factory gates in the rain,
Factory takes his hearing, factory gives him life,
The working, the working, just the working life.

We close with “Working Class Hero” by John Lennon. This was on his first post-Beatles album in 1970, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. Since the song contains the F-word, many radio stations banned it. The Georgetown University student station, WGTB was investigated by the FCC for playing the song after a Congressman filed a complaint. The station manager, under threat of a $10,000 fine and a year in prison, replied:

The people of Washington are sophisticated enough to accept the occasional four-letter word in context and not become sexually aroused, offended, or upset.

The history of WGTB, a radical-liberal student station inside a conservative, Jesuit university was a great example of the 1970’s counterculture wars. You can read about it here. Now, the video:

The lyric tells the story of growing up to be middle class, back when middle class wasn’t working class:

There’s room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill

Ferguson, Week Two

What we know: Two weeks ago, a police officer shot a man for jaywalking.

But, without any additional official information, we’ve learned a lot from Ferguson:

• The police can pretty much do whatever they want, to whomever they want, whenever they want. And it’s gonna be your fault.
• Police shoot African-American men with impunity.
• Most police forces in America have been militarized by the federal government.
• Militarized tactics and behavior by police has become accepted and normalized by local and state politicians, particularly since the Boston Marathon Bomber Manhunt.
• We’re way past “free-speech zones” now. Remember them? The Occupy Movement taught us that if you’re protesting, (peacefully or not) the police now bust you up without consequence.
• Reporters and journalists can and will be arbitrarily detained and/or tossed in jail. This began during the BP oil spill, increased with Occupy New York, and now is blatant in Ferguson. The police will shoot journalists with bean-bags and rubber bullets even if the journalists have complied with police demands.
• The airspace above an area where a dispute takes place can be completely closed to the media, even if there is no risk.

What you smell is the Constitution burning. All of the above should cause us to examine what is going on with police-involved killings in the US. Addicting Info reports:

According to data compiled by the FBI, in a seven year period ending in 2012 an average of nearly two black people were killed by police every week. Even more troublesome: Almost 20% of those killed were under the age of 21, more than double the rate of whites of the same age group. If you are black, being young doesn’t seem to protect you.

Deadspin reports that the US has no comprehensive database of police shootings. And there is no standardized process by which officers log when they’ve discharged their weapons, and why. There is no central infrastructure for compiling that information and making it public. There are over 17,000 law enforcement agencies in the country, yet fewer than 900 report their shootings to the FBI. No one is keeping track of how many American citizens are shot by their police.

USA TODAY quotes University of South Carolina criminologist Geoff Alpert:

I’ve looked at records in hundreds of departments…and it is very rare that you find someone saying, ‘Oh, gosh, we used excessive force.’ In 98.9% of the cases, they are stamped as justified and sent along.

The Wrongologist reported that in 2013, the Ferguson Municipal Court issued 24,532 arrest warrants and 12,018 cases, or about 3 warrants and 1.5 cases per household. This means Ferguson is very reliant on revenue sourced from policing: From the Ferguson 2014 budget, here is a breakdown of The City of Ferguson’s revenues: in 2013, revenues from sales taxes were $5.8 million, while revenues from fines and public safety were $2.6 million (18% of total). In 2014, fines are expected to increase by $100k:

The increase in Fines and Public Safety revenues comes from both manned and un-manned traffic enforcement. Due to a more concentrated focus on traffic enforcement, municipal court revenues have risen about 44% or $623,000 from those in FY 2010-2011. Total court revenues are expected to reach $2,029,000 in FY 2013-2014. In the fall of 2011, the City implemented camera enforcement in three high traffic accident incidence intersections. Fines resulting from this implementation represent a portion of the increased revenues over the period, however, it should be noted that additional manned traffic enforcement also contributed to the increase.

We also learned from Ferguson that police officer safety is the number one issue on our streets today, even though officer fatalities are down. The Economist reports that in 2013, 30 cops were shot and killed—just a fraction of the 9,000 or so murders using guns that happen each year. And the primary cause for officer fatalities this year was traffic-related incidents, which claimed 46 lives. Firearms-related incidents are at the lowest level since 1887, when 27 officers were shot to death.

Sadly, the number one priority for the police used to be public safety, not police safety, and we are a coarser society because of the change.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Time on what Ferguson has not yet delivered:

…a bunch of politicians and celebrities expressing sympathy and outrage. If we don’t have a specific agenda—a list of exactly what we want to change and how—we will be gathering over and over again beside the dead bodies of our murdered children, parents, and neighbors.

The Wrongologist

Geopolitics, Power and Political Economy

Category: Demographics