You may have forgotten about the Canadian wildfires, once the smoke cleared from your American lungs and the orange disappeared from American skies. But the fires have not forgotten to burn.
In Quebec, more land was torched in the month of June than in the previous 20 years combined, with a single out-of-control “complex” there growing to 2.5 million acres — in a section of the province where, in recent years, the average total has been a tenth of that. Across the country as a whole, the total was more than 25 million acres, or about two and a half times as much land as had burned in any of the worst American seasons of the past 50 years, with most of Canada’s fire season still ahead — putting the country on track to produce more carbon emissions from the burning of boreal forest than all of its other human and industrial activities combined.
“This year is different — this year is really different,” the ecologist Merritt Turetsky says. The fire scientist John Abatzoglou calls it already “chart redefining.” The writer John Vaillant — whose new book, “Fire Weather,” looks back at the catastrophic Fort McMurray fire in 2016 and forward to an entirely new global fire regime — calls it an “apocalyptic” scenario. “I never imagined pan-Canadian fires,” he says. “We’ve compressed about 10 years of anticipated fire into one-half of a fire season.”
Believe it or not, this is somewhat by design. Nowadays, the goal of most forest management in North America is to manage fire rather than always rush to extinguish it, to focus suppression efforts around denser human settlement and elsewhere to find ways to allow some burning. In the 20th-century model, firefighters parachuted in to snuff out flames, ultimately contributing to a continental buildup of the dry forest, grassland and scrub that fire experts casually call “fuel.” Now, to reduce it, fire scientists and forest ecologists try to cultivate more of what they call “good fire.”
But whose responsibility is the carbon produced when forests burn? In the age of extreme weather and climate agreements, the world has learned to tabulate ecological guilt nation by nation — cutting responsibility for the current crisis into so many slices of pie. Wildfire emissions typically aren’t even recorded on the balance sheet of any particular country’s ledger, but according to some tabulations, in 2021 wildfires in North America and Eurasia contributed more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than any nation but China, the United States and India. And the toxic smoke exhaled from those fires increasingly travels elsewhere too, now regularly choking the air and blotting out the sun not just of cities built into nearby wildland but of major concrete megalopolises whole continents — or even oceans — away. Whose responsibility is that?
If the 20th century taught us the perversity of aggressive fire suppression, the 21st is already teaching us the limits of that lesson. A firefighting approach based on the principle that humans and human settlements should be protected but that otherwise forests should be allowed to burn is sensible if the aim is to reduce property damage and loss of life. But if the costs to human health of wildfire smoke are larger than from the fires themselves, should the goal be recalibrated? Could it be? If the aim is to manage the health of the planet by limiting the emission of carbon from wildfire, what kind of approach does that require? Is it even possible? In California, the record-setting fire season of 2020, which produced five of the state’s seven largest fires in modern history, also entirely erased its emissions gains over the previous 16 years — putting twice as much carbon into the atmosphere as had been saved by all of the state’s decarbonization policies from 2003 to 2019.
Canada has a gargantuan per-capita carbon footprint, in fact by some measures larger than that of the United States. But it is not itself singularly to blame for the changes unfurling in its own remote forests or capable of truly controlling the new megafires that result.
Partly this is a simple matter of scale: Canada is the world’s second-largest country, with a population roughly a quarter the size of Russia, which Americans often conceive as a vast expanse of uninhabited tundra. The 49th parallel is often thought of as Canada’s southern boundary, but half of Canadians live south of it, clustered just in the little outcropping wedge of Ontario and Quebec tucked between Michigan and Maine. All told, it’s estimated that 85 percent of Canadians live within 150 miles of the U.S. border — as though 284 million Americans all lived south of Los Angeles and Tampa, with the whole rest of the country untrammeled wilderness effectively left free to burn anytime lightning struck or a match was dropped or a power line fell.
But fire control is also growing harder because the fires themselves are changing. They produce such thick walls of smoke now that tanker planes sometimes can’t fly into them; they throw embers over what were once considered uncrossable fire breaks; they burn and smolder underground through winter; they get so hot that firefighters risk second-degree burns just approaching them. “The most powerful firefighting equipment that humans have — Canadair planes that cost roughly $35 million each and drop 30 bathtubs’ worth of water at a time — can extinguish fires with an intensity of up to 10,000 kilowatts per meter of fire line,” Henry Mance wrote recently in The Financial Times. “Today’s mega-fires are a different order of magnitude, sometimes exceeding 100,000 kilowatts per meter” — 10 times as intense. Water dumped from above can evaporate before it reaches the ground.
The megafires routinely produce whole new fire-weather systems, including what are called pyrocumulonimbus clouds, laced with lightning and whipped by tornadoes, which can shoot toxic aerosols all the way through the troposphere into the lower stratosphere. It was long believed that only volcanic eruptions were capable of doing this. It wasn’t until 1998 that scientists discovered pyrocumulonimbus clouds from megafires doing it too. So far this year in Canada, there have been 90 of them.
“They can’t stop these fires,” says the fire historian Steve Pyne. “I mean, they could have 50,000 firefighters there now and it’s not going to change it. We could have 200 more air tankers. Are they going to be able to stop these fires that are going? No.”
In “Under a White Sky,” the writer Elizabeth Kolbert memorably posed the paradox of climate adaptation, in which the disruption of the natural world seems to require further interventions, this way: “If there is to be an answer to the problem of control, it’s going to be more control.” But the specter of hundreds of new fires raging near the Canadian Arctic — or in Russian Siberia or the Australian bush — is a reminder that when it comes to rolling climate change, total control, at least, may be an illusion, although one on which we have intuitively erected our hopes for navigating a hotter future.
“Humans have always moved at a different pace than the natural world,” Vaillant says. “But suddenly there’s a syncing up, with the natural world now moving as fast or faster than we are — faster than humans, faster than technology, faster than history.” In the past, he says, “we’ve had a ‘we don’t negotiate with terrorists’ attitude with nature — when it did things that we didn’t like, we suppressed them. Fire is now forcing us to negotiate.”
Negotiate with whom, though? In recent years, warming posed a number of thorny questions about responsibility and sovereignty in a time of planetary crisis: who might pay for climate damages punishing the global South but produced by emissions from the global North; how a net-zero world might respond to a rogue nation’s recklessly burning fossil fuels; what could prevent single nations from undertaking adaptations that might wreck the microclimate of their neighbors; what damage could be wrought by a single billionaire’s undertaking a global geoengineering scheme or a single terrorist cell torpedoing it.
These climate morality plays flatter our intuitive sense that humans, however irresponsible, remain in charge. But while emissions do control the planet’s thermometer, the natural world is already bushwhacking its own path through the hotter future. “We’re riding the tiger at this point,” Pyne says. “I think all of us are going to have to accept there’s going to be a lot more fire.”
"As a nation, the time is long overdue for fundamental changes to our national priorities. Cutting military spending is a good first step."
Sen. Bernie Sanders announced Monday that he intends to vote against legislation authorizing $886 billion in military spending for the coming fiscal year, arguing the Pentagon budget should be cut in favor of investments in healthcare, education, housing, climate action, and other priorities.
Sanders, the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, has introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would cut the U.S. military budget by 10%. Earlier this month, House Republicans refused to allow a vote on a similar amendment put forth by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.).
In his op-ed Monday, Sanders pointed to the "enormous crises" facing the U.S., including "unprecedented and rising temperatures" caused by fossil fuel use, a "broken" healthcare system in which insurance and pharmaceutical giants profit while tens of millions go uninsured, a "teetering" education system, and a dire shortage of affordable housing.
"And then there is defense spending. Well, that's a whole other story," Sanders wrote. "The proposed military budget that the Senate is now debating would increase defense spending by $28 billion to over $886 billion, an all-time record. The total is over $900 billion if you include nuclear weapons spending through the Department of Energy."
Sanders argued that in addition to being unnecessary, an even larger military budget would be actively harmful given that the Pentagon "cannot keep track of the dollars it already has, leading to massive waste, fraud, and abuse in the sprawling military-industrial complex."
"Much of this additional military spending will go to line the pockets of hugely profitable defense contractors—it is corporate welfare by a different name," the senator noted. "Almost half of the Pentagon budget goes to private contractors, some of whom are exploiting their monopoly positions and the trust granted them by the United States to line their pockets."
Sanders' opposition to the NDAA comes after House Republicans passed their version of the legislation after packing it with right-wing amendments and rejecting proposed changes aimed at reining in out-of-control Pentagon spending and cracking down on fraud.
The Senate is expected to continue working on its own NDAA this week.
As Congress prepares to authorize around $900 billion for the U.S. military, House Republicans are pushing for steep cuts across the federal government, targeting everything from education programs to climate spending to clean water funds. The House GOP proposals have heightened concerns that the government will shutdown on September 30, the end of the fiscal year.
Meanwhile, Sanders said in a statement Monday that he has had "very productive conversations" with members of the Senate HELP Committee on bipartisan legislation to address the nation's worsening primary care crisis. Sanders said he hopes to have a bill ready by the first week of September.
Last week, Sanders introduced legislation that would invest $20 billion over a five-year period into expanding community health centers. The senator said the measure would "provide the resources necessary to recruit, train, and retain tens of thousands of primary care doctors, mental health providers, nurses, dentists, and home healthcare workers."
The nation is currently hurtling toward a primary care cliff. If Congress doesn't act by September 30, community health centers across the U.S. will face a devastating 70% funding cut.
The National Association of Community Health Centers estimates that nearly 7 million people will lose access to healthcare if Congress doesn't extend the critical funding.
"As every American knows, our country faces a major crisis in primary care and a massive shortage of doctors, nurses, mental health professionals, and dentists," Sanders said last week. "Tens of millions of Americans live in communities where they cannot find a doctor while others have to wait months to be seen."
"At the end of the day," he added, "this crisis not only increases human suffering and unnecessary deaths, but wastes tens of billions a year as Americans flock to expensive ER rooms or hospitals because they could not access the primary care they need."
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In the First World War, Britain relied on supplies from the US the same way that Ukraine is relying on supplies from the US. The only difference is that Britain first had to borrow the money from the US and then use that money to buy weapons from US defense contractors. As a result Britain went into debt and US defense contractors got rich. Now the US is just giving the weapons to Ukraine with the result that US tax payers are basically picking up the tab. I like Joe Biden and what he's accomplished with respect to the economy, but I think his open ended policy towards Ukraine is a big mistake leading to the continued escalation of the war. The war in Ukraine has become a war of attrition just like the First World War. US sanctions against Russia are having the same effect as the British blockade of German ports in the First World War. In both cases the wars of attrition slogged on. In WW 1 16.5 million people died. The winners lost more people than the losers. The war in Ukraine also slogs on with no end in sight. Both sides have too much to lose, and both have their sights set on winning. This is a formula for disaster in terms of loss of life and billions of dollars of real estate destroyed. At that point it does not matter much who is the eventual winner.
So what's the off ramp other than total victory by one side or the other? In the First World War there was a nominal winner - Britain - although both sides were losers. Both sides were destroyed and in debt. Will this be the same in Ukraine? While the war in Ukraine rages on fueled by the egos of Biden, Zelensky and Putin, more and more Ukrainians and Russians are dying. So far only Ukrainian property is being destroyed, but I think we are on the brink of seeing a further escalation in which Russian property will also start to be destroyed. Biden's war rules were that the fighting should take place only in Ukraine and not on Russian soil, a proposition which was inherently flawed as far as the Ukrainians were concerned. According to Biden's rules, Ukraine could only fight a defensive war against Russia while Russia was totally on the offense in Ukraine. Of course this does not result in a fair fight. So Zelensky will almost inevitably take the war onto Russian territory and then beg Biden for more offensive weapons with which to destroy Moscow and other Russian cities the way that Russia has attempted to destroy Ukrainian cities.
The war will become a war on civilians on both sides as the war of attrition on the battlefield stagnates since both sides will have weapons capable of causing major destruction to major cities occupied by civilians. As both sides dig in, the thought or consideration of a peace plan gets further and further out of sight. As the war escalates, the probability that Russia will use tactical nukes to end it increases just as the US used nukes in World War II to destroy the civilian populations of two Japanese cities. Putin will use the same logic, and, while the US accuses Putin of war crimes, Putin will accuse Harry Truman of war crimes since he used nukes to wipe out the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki under the rationale that it would save American lives if the US had to actually invade Japan. Putin could use much the same logic. In any event the longer the war goes on without any serious discussions of a peaceful settlement involving compromise, the more dangerous and heartbreaking will be the eventual outcome. All sides need to stop fighting and put their energy into fighting our common enemy - climate change.
“We need to hold governments to start to act sensibly now and reduce emissions,” one expert said.
As leading climate scientists watch the devastating, breakneck speed of unfolding climate disasters unfolding across the globe—from record soaring temperatures to catastrophic flooding—many are aghast at how rapidly their worst predictions are being now being played out in real-time.
Some are also now admitting that they might well have underestimated the speed and scale of our impending climate crisis and how bad things could get.
This is deeply ironic because, for years, those scientists who sounded the alarm over climate change were attacked by the oil industry or their funded front groups for exaggerating or playing “chicken little.”
“The research community must be brutally honest. We are on a pathway to 2-3°C, and probably closer to the upper end of that range.”
But now some of the most senior climate scientists on the planet are speaking out about their concerns.
Speaking to the BBC Thursday morning, Sir Bob Watson, who is currently emeritus professor of the UK’s Tyndall Centre for Climate and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said, “I am very concerned. None of the observed changes so far (at +1.2°C) are surprising. But they are more severe than we predicted. We probably underestimated the consequences.”
He added “The research community must be brutally honest. We are on a pathway to 2-3°C, and probably closer to the upper end of that range. We are likely to pass 1.5°C in the mid-2030’s and 2°C around 2060. Current pledges and the policies needed them are totally inadequate.”
As the BBC notes, although Watson’s “comments are candid on the state of action on climate change, many of his colleagues will agree with his conclusion that we are on course for a temperature rise of 2.5°C or more.”
And Watson’s colleagues do concur. Ellen Thomas, a Yale University scientist who studies climate change told TheGuardian “It’s not just the magnitude of change, it’s the rate of change that’s an issue.”
Thomas added: “We have highways and railroads that are set in place, our infrastructure can’t move. Almost all my colleagues have said that, in hindsight, we have underestimated the consequences. Things are moving faster than we thought, which is not good.”
Other leading scientists agree too:
Meanwhile, others are being candid that nothing will change until we reduce our use of fossil fuels. “I’ve been expecting this for 20 years,” Professor Camille Parmesan, from the National Center for Scientific Research and an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report author, told Bloomberg. “This is just going to keep happening given that we’re not reducing emissions.”
Speaking to TheGuardian, James Hansen, often seen as the Godfather of climate science, warned we are hurtling towards a superheated climate because “we are damned fools” for not acting sooner. “We have to taste it to believe it.”
He told TheGuardian: “There’s a lot more in the pipeline, unless we reduce the greenhouse gas amounts. These superstorms are a taste of the storms of my grandchildren. We are headed wittingly into the new reality—we knew it was coming.”'
“The climate crisis is in the main a fossil fuel crisis.”
“This does not mean that the extreme heat at a particular place this year will recur and grow each year,” he continued. “Weather fluctuations move things around. But the global average temperature will go up and the climate dice will be more and more loaded, including more extreme events.”
In a so far unpeer-reviewed scientific paper, Hansen and colleagues said: “It seems that we are headed into a new frontier of global climate,” one not seen for millions of years.
They warn: “As long as more energy is coming in than going out, we must expect global warming to continue.”
Al Gore is another who is alarmed by what they are witnessing: “Everywhere you look in the world, the extremes have now seemingly reached a new level,” he told TheNew York Times in an interview. “The temperatures in the North Atlantic and the unprecedented decline of the Antarctic sea ice, both simultaneously. We see it in upstate New York, we see it in Vermont, we see it in southern Japan, we see it in India. We see it in the unprecedented drought in Uruguay and in Argentina.”
“The climate crisis is in the main a fossil fuel crisis,” Gore added. “If the world is not permitted to discuss the phasing down of fossil fuels because the fossil fuel companies don’t want the world to discuss it, that’s the sign of a very flawed process.”
But it’s not too late to act. As Watson said: “We need to hold governments to start to act sensibly now and reduce emissions.” And its not just governments. It’s the oil industry, too; as Gore points out, this is a fossil fuel crisis. Created by the fossil fuel industry. Because their decades-old public relations strategy of denying the evidence, spreading doubt, and delaying action is the reason our world is on fire right now.
Andy Rowell is a staff blogger for Oil Change International in addition to working as a freelance writer and investigative journalist who specializes in environmental, health and lobbying issues. He is a senior Research Fellow at the University of Bath and Director of the Tobacco Tactics team at the Tobacco Control Research Group, which is a partner in the global tobacco industry watchdog, STOP.
Less than two weeks after the Earth recorded what scientists said were likely its hottest days in modern history, Phoenix broke a 49-year-old record on Tuesday with the city’s 19th consecutive day of temperatures 110 degrees (43.3 Celsius) or higher, part of a punishing heat wave that spanned much of the Northern Hemisphere.
The record-breaking temperatures are being driven by emissions of heat-trapping gases, mainly caused by the burning of fossil fuels and by the return of El Niño, a cyclical weather pattern.
Even Phoenix, no stranger to sweltering temperatures, struggled to cope with the record-setting heat. “It just feels awful,” said Mazey Christensen, 20, an ice cream scooper.
Elsewhere in the United States, hot and humid conditions were expected to worsen along the Gulf Coast and throughout the Southeast, according to the National Weather Service.
A heat wave gripped parts of Europe and the Middle East, with the heat index — which measures how it feels — reaching 152 degrees Fahrenheit (66.7 Celsius) at the Persian Gulf International Airport on Iran’s southwestern coast on Sunday. Dry conditions have also increased the risk of wildfires, which have broken out in Greece and on the Spanish-controlled La Palma, one of the Canary Islands.
In Asia, John Kerry, President Biden’s special envoy for climate change, met with China’s premier in Beijing on Tuesday to discuss cooperation on slowing global warming as a withering heat wave grips the country. Tuesday was the 27th day this year that Beijing has recorded temperatures above 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 Celsius), a record.
The planet has warmed about 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the 19th century and will continue to grow hotter until humans essentially stop burning oil, gas and coal, scientists say. The warmer temperatures contribute to extreme-weather events and help make periods of extreme heat more frequent, longer and more intense.
July 18, 2023, 5:59 p.m. ET
July 17, 2023
US west braces for fiercest temperatures yet as ‘supercharged’ heatwave arrives
Hottest weather of the year just beginning, warns National Weather Service, as authorities prepare to protect most vulnerable
Fri 14 Jul 2023 21.09 EDT
Last modified on Mon 17 Jul 2023 07.26 EDT
People walk under water misters in Palm Springs, California. Photograph: Caroline Brehman/EPA
California is facing a powerful heat dome, bringing sweltering conditions expected to build on Friday and through the weekend, in central and southern parts of the state. The National Weather Service warned many residents they should prepare for the hottest weather of the year as desert area highs could exceed 120F (48.8C).
Death Valley national park was expected to equal or surpass its heat record of 130F (54.4C). Las Vegas could see three consecutive days with a high of 115F (46C), which has happened just once before, the NWS reported. Phoenix, which has endured a two-week stretch of temperatures above 110F (43C) with little relief in the evening hours, is expecting its hottest weekend of the year.
“We’ve been talking about this building heatwave for a week now, and now the most intense period is beginning,” the National Weather Service wrote on Friday.
The brutal heat comes as the US grapples with extreme weather across the country from the unforgiving temperatures of the west to tornadoes in Chicago and historic flooding in Vermont. Joe Biden has pledged to help communities prepare as Americans experience “the devastating impacts of the climate crisis”.
The heat could carry on into next week as a high pressure dome moves west from Texas. Forecasters warned that the long heatwave is extremely dangerous, particularly for older people, unhoused residents and other vulnerable populations. Officials across the west have repurposed public libraries, senior centers and police department lobbies as cooling centers, especially in desert areas.
“This weekend there will be some of the most serious and hot conditions we’ve ever seen,” said David Hondula, Phoenix’s chief heat officer. “I think that it’s a time for maximum community vigilance.”
The heatwave is already sending people to the hospital in Las Vegas – emergency room doctors reported treating dehydrated construction workers and passed-out elderly residents.
“This heatwave is not typical desert heat due to its long duration, extreme daytime temperatures and warm nights. Everyone needs to take this heat seriously, including those who live in the desert,” the National Weather Service in Las Vegas said.
In Palm Springs, where temperatures could climb to 120F (48.8C) this weekend, many homeless people in the desert city were left to contend with the heat on their own, with just 20 indoor beds at the lone overnight shelter.
John Summers, a homeless resident, climbed through a dry riverbed Thursday to seek shade at an encampment: “I basically just use water as much as I can. And hit shade. And, you know, the mall, wherever they’ll let you in,” he said.
Roman Ruiz, the city’s homeless services coordinator, said homeless residents struggle daily just to find a place with enough shade.
“I don’t know how anyone can do it really,” he said. “I feel so bad and yet there’s not much I can do.”
Meanwhile in northern California, cooling centers in and around Sacramento planned to offer some extended evening hours. In the small Central Valley city of Galt, about 25 miles south of the state capital, the police department planned to open its air-conditioned lobby through the warmest hours of the weekend.
Pet owners were urged to keep their animals mostly inside. “Dogs are more susceptible to heat stroke and can literally die within minutes. Please leave them at home in the air conditioning,” David Szymanski, park superintendent for Santa Monica mountains national recreation area, said in a statement.
Meanwhile the wildfire season is ramping up amid the hot, dry conditions with a series of blazes erupting across the state this week, Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the Natural Resources Agency, said at a media briefing this week.
The climate emergency is “supercharging” heat waves, Crowfoot added. California has instituted a $400m extreme heat action plan to protect workers, help vulnerable communities and assist local communities in opening cooling centers.
People looking to cool down in California’s many rivers should be wary, UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain said, noting that waterways swollen from the epic Sierra Nevada snowpack remain dangerous as there is still snow left to melt.
“Be aware that the water will still be icy cold despite how hot the air will be and could be flowing very fast, much faster than usual for mid-July,” he said.
“Rather than collecting taxes from the wealthy,” wrote the New York Times Editorial Board in a July 7 opinion piece, “the government is paying the wealthy to borrow their money.”
Titled “America Is Living on Borrowed Money,” the editorial observes that over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), annual federal budget deficits will average around $2 trillion per year. By 2029, just the interest on the debt is projected to exceed the national defense budget, which currently eats up over half of the federal discretionary budget. In 2029, net interest on the debt is projected to total $1.07 trillion, while defense spending is projected at $1.04 trillion. By 2033, says the CBO, interest payments will reach a sum equal to 3.6 percent of the nation’s economic output.
The debt ceiling compromise did little to alleviate that situation. Before the deal, the CBO projected the federal debt would reach roughly $46.7 trillion in 2033. After the deal, it projected the total at $45.2 trillion, only slightly less – and still equal to 115% of the nation’s annual economic output, the highest level on record.
Acknowledging that the legislation achieved little, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said after the vote that he intended to form a bipartisan commission “so we can find the waste and we can make the real decisions to really take care of this debt.” The NYT Editorial Board concluded:
Any substantive deal will eventually require a combination of increased revenue and reduced spending …. Both parties will have to compromise: Republicans must accept the necessity of collecting what the government is owed and of imposing taxes on the wealthy. Democrats must recognize that changes to Social Security and Medicare, the major drivers of expected federal spending growth, should be on the table. Anything less will prove fiscally unsustainable.
The Elephant in the Room
Omitted was any mention of trimming the defense budget, which currently accounts for more than half of the federal government’s discretionary spending and nearly two-thirds of its contract spending. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who cast the sole dissenting vote on the recent $886 billion defense budget in the House Armed Services Committee, has detailed some of the Pentagon’s excesses. For decades, he writes, legacy military contractors have charged the federal government exorbitant sums for everything from fighter jets to basic hardware. Lockheed Martin, for example, has used its monopoly on F-35 fighter jets to profit from maintenance that only they can provide, with the work needed to support and upgrade existing jets projected to cost taxpayers over $1.3 trillion. TransDigm, another contractor responsible for supplying spare parts for the military, was found to be charging the Pentagon more than four times the market price for their products.
Rep. Khanna concludes, “Keeping America strong starts at home. It means ensuring access to quality, affordable healthcare and education, strengthening our economy with good-paying jobs, and giving Americans the tools they need to pursue the American Dream.… Bloated military spending is not the answer.… We can’t continue to sign a blank check to price-gouging defense contractors while Americans struggle here at home.”
Just June 28th, as emergency crews work to clean up yet another toxic train derailment in the United States, this time on the Montana River, further exposing our nation’s chronically underfunded infrastructure and its threats to our health, the Pentagon announced plans to send an additional $500 million worth of military aid to Ukraine….
This policy, … which sees Washington prioritize unrestrained funding for a proxy war with a nuclear power in a foreign land … while our domestic infrastructure falls apart before our eyes, exposes a disturbing dynamic at the heart of the Ukraine conflict – an international Ponzi scheme that enables Western elites to seize hard-earned wealth from the hands of average U.S citizens and funnel it into the coffers of a foreign government that even Transparency International ranks as consistently one of the most corrupt in Europe.
The U.S. government has yet to conduct an official audit of its funding for Ukraine. The American public has no idea where their tax dollars are going. And that’s why this week we at the Grayzone published an independent audit of U.S. tax dollar allocations to Ukraine throughout the fiscal years 2022 and ’23.
Among other dubious payments they found were $4.5 million from the U.S. Social Security Administration to the Kiev government, and $4.5 billion from USAID to pay off Ukraine’s sovereign debt, “much of which is owned by the global investment firm BlackRock. That amounts to $30 taken from every U.S citizen at a time when 4 in 10 Americans cannot afford a $400 emergency.”
The Black Hole of the Pentagon Budget
The Pentagon failed its fifth budget audit in 2022 and was unable to account for more than half of its assets, or more than $3 trillion. According to a CBS News report, defense contractors overcharged the Defense Department by nearly 40-50%; and according to the Office of the Inspector General for the Defense Department, overcharging sometimes reached more than 4,000%. The $886 billion budget request for FY2024 is the highest ever sought.
Following repeated concerns about fraud, waste and abuse in the Pentagon, in June 2023 a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation to ensure the Defense Department passes a clean audit next year. The Audit the Pentagon Act of 2023 would require the Defense Department to pass a full, independent audit in fiscal 2024. Any agency within the Pentagon failing to pass a clean audit would be forced to return 1% of its budget for deficit reduction.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) observed that the Pentagon “and the military industrial complex have been plagued by a massive amount of waste, fraud, and financial mismanagement for decades.… [W]e have got to end the absurdity of the Pentagon being the only agency in the federal government that has never passed an independent audit.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said the Pentagon “should have to meet the same annual auditing standards as every other agency…. From buying $14,000 toilet seats to losing track of warehouses full of spare parts, the Department of Defense has been plagued by wasteful spending for decades. … Every dollar the Pentagon squanders is a dollar not used to support service members, bolster national security or strengthen military readiness.”
But defense audits have been promised before and have not been completed. In 2017, Michigan State University Prof. Mark Skidmore, working with graduate students and with Catherine Austin Fitts, former assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development, found $21 trillion in unauthorized spending in the departments of Defense and Housing and Urban Development for the years 1998-2015. As reported in MSUToday, Skidmore got involved when he heard Fitts refer to a report indicating the Army had $6.5 trillion in unsupported adjustments (or spending) in fiscal 2015. Since the Army’s budget was then only $122 billion, that meant unsupported adjustments were 54 times the spending authorized by Congress. Thinking Fitts must have made a mistake, Skidmore investigated and found that unsupported adjustments were indeed $6.5 trillion.
Four days after Skidmore discussed his team’s findings on a USAWatchdog podcast, the Department of Defense announced it would conduct its first-ever department-wide independent financial audit. But it evidently failed in that endeavor. As Bernie Sanders observes, the Pentagon has never passed an independent audit. It failed its fifth audit in 2022. Whether it will pass this sixth one, or whether the audit will lead to budget cuts, remains to be seen. The Pentagon budget seems to be untouchable.
"Everyone's Crying Peace on Earth Just as Soon as We Win This War" - Mose Allison
by John Lawrence
Note from the future: One of the last humans evacuating planet earth, Elon Musk, writing the last chapter of the human race from his space hut on the moon: "Well, I guess it's up to me to write the last chapter of human history. I personally was able to escape planet earth as temperatures soared into the 150s. People had been forced into caves deep in earth to escape the heat. However, the war in Ukraine still raged on. Each side was intent on winning that war. More and more resources were poured into weapons. The US defense budget soared into the trillions of dollars. Some of us more enlightened ones said, 'Wait, wouldn't it be more important to take that money and put it toward fighting climate change, our common enemy. Climate change is the enemy of both NATO and Russia. No, the power structure said, it's more important to win this war. As the fighters in that war were dying of heat exhaustion rather than enemy bullets, they were some of the last humans to hold out on the surface of earth. Air temperatures were buckling roads and railroads. Even tanks and drones were melting in front of their eyes. It came down to hand to hand combat as guns were useless in the severe heat. Soldiers got second degree burns just from touching anything metal. But the war raged on. Ukraine was promised a path to NATO membership at the end of the war, but the brush along that path was burning furiously. It's doubtful if Ukraine would have made it all the way along that path to NATO without burning up first."
Musk continued: "You know the human saga reminds me of the fairy tale about the frogs in a pan of water. The water temperature was gradually increasing, but frog A insisted on staying in the water until his frog army was able to defeat Frog B's army. He reassured baby frog that as soon as his side won, they would all jump out of the water and be safe. But first they had to win this war. But baby frog said, 'Aren't you devoting all your time and energy to winning the war when, if both sides cooperated instead, you could devote your resources to lowering the temperature of the water.' No, said Frog A. Frog B is despicable We want all this land. We're not going to cede any of it to Frog B's tribe. But baby frog insisted, 'Who cares who owns what land if the whole pan of water which is our collective habitat burns up while you guys are still fighting? Your budget for cooling the water is miniscule compared to your defense (offense?) budget. If you just got along with other frogs you wouldn't need such a large defense budget. You could devote that money to global water cooling. This is the only pan of water we've got!.' I assure you, Frog A said, that as soon as we win this war, we will devote all our resources to cooling this pan of water."
Musk continued, "Well the moral of the story is that the human race was not able to get its act together even when they faced a common enemy. Each year even after global temperatures reached 140 degrees in some parts of the world for 100 days at a time, neither side in the Ukraine war would stop fighting. In fact that war would have gone on for the next hundred years, but, unfortunately, earth would not have been inhabitable by humans for another hundred years. It was not more than a decade later when temperatures reached 150 degrees for days at a time in most parts of the world. All the glaciers had melted in Antarctica so sea levels had risen more than 10 feet inundating Miami, London, New York City, Tokyo and New Orleans not to mention many other less noteworthy cities. No one could get property insurance any more; the insurance companies all went bankrupt. FEMA had run out of money. Flash floods left hundreds of thousands homeless. Those who had bought those old missile silos in Montana were lucky. They were safely ensconced underground where the temperatures were cooler. People crowded into Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico and Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. After these caves reached capacity a detachment of former marines stationed at the entrance shot anyone trying to gain entrance. Survivalist skills were highly in demand."
"As the last fighter on the battlefield in Ukraine died of heat stroke, NATO and Russia declared the war was over. It was undetermined who actually won. The path to membership in NATO for Ukraine was littered with dead bodies, many of whom had died from heat exhaustion. Ukraine itself was littered with tanks and other metallic weapons of war which seared the flesh of anyone foolish enough to touch them."
Today it's supposed to be 121 degrees in Palm Springs, 115 degrees in Phoenix, 108 degrees in Athens. If you don't have air conditioning in those places, you are at high risk of dying. Thousand year floods are becoming annual events. And yet last year the human race pumped more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than ever before. Is this nuts or what? The human race will not become obsolete due to Artificial Intelligence; there is another much more deadly and imminent scenario - global warming. The Washington Post reported in an article entitled Floods, fires and deadly heat are the alarm bells of a planet on the brink:
The world is hotter than it’s been in thousands of years, and it’s as if every alarm bell on Earth were ringing.
The warnings are echoing through the drenched mountains of Vermont, where two months of rain just fell in only two days. India and Japan were deluged by extreme flooding.
They’re burbling up from the oceans, where temperatures have surged to levels considered “beyond extreme.”
And they’re showing up in unprecedented, still-burning wildfires in Canada that have sent plumes of dangerous smoke into the United States.
Scientists say there is no question that this cacophony was caused by climate change — or that it will continue to intensify as the planet warms. Research shows that human greenhouse gas emissions, particularly from burning fossil fuels, have raised Earth’s temperature by about 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels. Unless humanity radically transforms the way people travel, generate energy and produce food, the global average temperature is on track to increase by more than 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 Fahrenheit), according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — unleashing catastrophes that will make this year’s disasters seem mild.
It's the problem of the frog in warm water. As the temperature of the water is increased, the frog doesn't jump out because the water warms so gradually. Eventually, the water gets so warm that the frog wants desperately to jump out but he can't. The water is too hot for him to move so, as the temperature keeps on increasing, he eventually boils to death. This is the exact metaphor for what is happening to the human race in its relatively short existence on planet Earth. As the human race developed and urbanized, towns and cities were built adjacent to water sources. This means that every babbling brook is potentially a source of catastrophic floods because such immense amounts of water are dumped out of clouds that the babbling brook infrastructure cannot contain it. As sea levels rise many great cities also will soon be under water as soon as the Antarctic glaciers melt.
Meanwhile, the human race is amusing itself to death. Instead of an all hands on deck effort as was seen in World War II, we are seeing increasing demands for tourism, entertainment and increased consumption in the developed world. That world will just crank up the air conditioning as the world warms until such time that the electric grid fails. Then those without a personal generator will be doomed. In the undeveloped world, they don't even have adequate potable water or a decent sewage system let alone any kind of air conditioning. They will be the first to succumb. Eventually the human race will run out of options even as those in more favorable locations continue to consume and amuse themselves. Then later only the rich will survive.
Even if you’ve been paying attention to climate change, it can sometimes feel very far away, distant in both space and time. But on Sunday night, as I was writing my first edition of this newsletter, it came roaring into my kitchen.
I was with my family at our 100-year-old cabin in the Hudson Valley, north of New York City. It had been pouring for fourteen hours, and our ceiling started leaking. Then, around midnight, a wall of water flooded the house.
Many of my neighbors fared even worse. One woman died and dozens had to be rescued as a slow-moving storm system produced widespread flooding in New York State and New England.
We know that man-made climate change is making extreme weather like this more severe. Warmer temperatures enable air to hold more moisture, which leads to more intense rainfall and flooding.
On Monday, the New York governor said such climate-fueled disasters were “the new normal.” In general, the United States is nowhere close to ready for the threat of catastrophic flooding, especially in areas far from rivers and coastlines.
June heat in Phoenix. Temperatures are expected to be above 110 degrees Fahrenheit (or above 43 degrees Celsius) again this week. Caitlin O'Hara/Getty Images
The planet is entering a multiyear period of exceptional warmth, scientists say. Greenhouse gas emissions, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels, have already heated the Earth by an average of 1.2 degrees Celsius (or 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial levels. Now a powerful El Niño system in the Pacific Ocean is releasing a torrent of heat into the atmosphere. The warmest days in modern history occurred this month. That all sets the stage for more damaging heat waves, floods, droughts, wildfires and hurricanes.
“We are going to see stuff happen this year around Earth that we have not seen in modern history,” one meteorologist told me. “It will be astonishing.”
Abnormal as the ‘new normal’
Each of these anomalies creates new risks, threatening human health and biodiversity. Yet with disasters piling up and headlines blurring together, there is another profoundly dangerous risk: apathy.
As temperature records break and extreme weather becomes commonplace, the abnormal can begin to seem ordinary. That’s an all-too human reaction to adversity. We’re masters of adaptation, and can learn to endure even the most uncomfortable situations.
But in this case, indifference would be the biggest disaster of them all. Growing inured to the signs of a planet on fire would do more than blind us to the damage we’ve already done. It would also delay critical action at a crucial juncture.
Because as bad as things are, there are still real causes for optimism.
After decades of inaction, a monumental effort is finally underway to confront climate change. Wind turbines and solar panels are rapidly displacing fossil fuels. Sales of electric vehicles, heat pumps and induction stoves are soaring. Across government, business and civil society, there is a concerted, coordinated push to reduce emissions, protect nature and help humans adapt to a hotter planet.
The grand project to decarbonize the world economy can be seen as the biggest collective action in human history. On the agenda is nothing less than the remaking of the world’s entire energy and transportation systems, not to mention vast overhauls of the building blocks of modern life. And it all needs to happen with a pants-on-fire urgency as the planet heats up.
That may seem daunting, and it is. Progress is not happening nearly fast enough, and many obstacles remain. But it’s also the opportunity of a lifetime. Should we succeed, we’ll be creating a world with better air quality, more green space, healthier ecosystems and less waste.
It’s a head-spinning moment, one that requires us to honor two seemingly contradictory truths at the same time.
Yes, the fragile ecosystem that sustains human life is in trouble.
And also yes, we have many of the tools needed to get ourselves out of this mess.
Your part of the story
It’s this tension — between hope and despair, between urgency and inertia, between a world remade and a stubborn status quo — that will animate this newsletter in the months and years ahead.
I won’t be doing it alone. Manuela Andreoni, my co-pilot for this newsletter, is based in Brazil and brings us an essential international perspective and a voracious curiosity about climate and the environment. You’ll also be hearing from the Times’ new weather team as well as other reporters from around the newsroom.
My colleague Somini Sengupta has been shepherding this newsletter, sharing her keen insights twice a week. From here on out, we’ll be arriving in your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and chiming in with additional rapid-fire analysis when news breaks.
And we want to hear from you. You can email the Climate Forward team and tell us what’s got you worried, what’s giving you hope and where we should be looking for the next big story.
A push to wean China from coal
President Joe Biden is trying to repair relations with China after months of increased tensions, and climate is among the top issues on the agenda. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen both discussed climate issues in recent visits to Beijing. And climate envoy John Kerry is scheduled to arrive on Sunday.
The diplomatic push reflects an inescapable truth: The United States and China are the world’s industrial superpowers. And any chance at staving off the worst effects of climate change will require both of them moving in the same direction.
“The U.S. and China together make up about 40 percent of emissions,” said my colleague Lisa Friedman, who is following Kerry to Beijing. “They are also the two biggest investors in clean energy.”
China has more solar energy capacity than the rest of the world combined and is the biggest manufacturer and user of wind turbines — a major reason why clean energy has become so affordable for all countries in recent years.
But fossil fuels still make up the majority of China’s energy sources. It consumes over half of the world’s coal, and continues to approve new coal plants at a rapid pace. The Chinese government’s goal is to continue growing the economy while avoiding problems like the power failures the country faced during a heat wave last year that disrupted several supply chains.
China’s investments in renewable energy appear to be sufficient to enable it to reach peak carbon emissions by 2030, as it has pledged. But there are concerns about how high emissions will go before they start to decline.
U.S. officials are urging China to accelerate that energy transition and phase out coal. And after the Biden administration secured hundreds of billions of dollars to accelerate America’s transition to clean energy, they may finally have some leverage.
“What many analysts are saying is that the U.S. just did a big move on climate change,” Lisa said. “Now, it’s China’s turn.” — -Manuela Andreoni
"I don't think [Ukraine] is ready for membership in NATO, but here's the deal. ... I don't think there's unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now at this moment in the middle of a war. ... The very first time I met with Putin two years ago in Geneva, and he said I want commitments on no Ukraine in NATO, I said we're not going to do that because it's an open door policy. We're not going to shut anybody out. NATO is a process that takes some time to meet all of the qualifications and from democratization to a whole range of other issues so in the meantime though I've spoken with Zelensky at great length about, at length about this and uh one of the things I indicated is the United States would be ready to provide while the process is going on - and it's going to take a while - while that process is going on, to provide security ala the security we provide for Israel providing the weaponry they need, the capacity to defend themselves if there is an agreement, if there is a cease fire, if there is a peace agreement and so I think we can work it out but I think it's premature to say, to call for a vote you know in now because there's other qualifications that need to be met including democratization and some of those issues."
So since Ukraine was not ready for NATO membership when Biden met Putin two years ago, why wouldn't Biden give Putin assurances that Ukraine would not be admitted to NATO at least for some period of years? That in and of itself might have forestalled the war so that Putin would not have invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Or Biden could have persuaded NATO to admit Ukraine to NATO two years ago and that in and of itself might have deterred Putin from invaded Ukraine. Clearly, Putin invaded Ukraine because it was not a member of NATO, and so his invasion would not have amounted to a full scale confrontation with all of NATO's forces. Also clearly, since Ukraine was not in Biden's mind ready to join NATO, Biden could have given Putin assurances that Ukraine would not become a member of NATO. Then at such time as Ukraine was deemed fit to become a member of NATO the US could have gone back on its assurances. It wouldn't have been the first time the US had made a commitment and then broken it. In fact when the Soviet Union dissolved itself in 1989, Gorbachev was given assurances that NATO wouldn't move "one inch eastward," an assurance that was clearly broken during the Clinton and George W Bush administrations when NATO moved aggressively eastward.
So was the war in Ukraine in which there have been as of June 2023 25,170 civilian casualties, with 9,177 killed and 15,993 injured, really worth not givving Putin assurances? By the end of 2022, an estimated 5.9 million people were internally displaced by the war, while nearly 5.7 million refugees and asylum-seekers from Ukraine were recorded across Europe. The damage to housing facilities from the Russian invasion of Ukraine was estimated at 50 billion U.S. dollars between February 24, 2022, and February 24, 2023. Further 36 billion U.S. dollars were recorded in losses from damages to infrastructure. Was the war in Ukraine worth Biden's refusal to give Putin "assurances?" The United States has appropriated approximately $115 billion in emergency funding to support Ukraine since February 24, 2022. Could that money have been better spent? Since Russia’s invasion in February of that year, Ukraine has become far and away the top recipient of U.S. foreign aid. It’s the first time that a European country has held the top spot since the Harry S. Truman administration directed vast sums into rebuilding the continent through the Marshall Plan after World War II. All of this does not even count the inflation caused the world by the sanctions against Russian oil and the disruption of Ukraine's grain crops. And even now the war grinds on with the possibility of Russian tactical nuclear bombs being used in Ukraine or the largest nuclear power plant in Europe being destroyed.
Biden's opening the door for the war in Ukraine was based on the principle that he couldn't give Putin assurances that Ukraine would never join NATO. War based on principles, my friends, is never worth it. He should have given Putin assurances even if he was crossing his fingers behind his back.
A truck engine is tested for pollution that leaves its exhaust pipe in California near the Mexican border in 2013. (Mike Blake/Reuters)
Some of the largest manufacturers of heavy trucks and engines in the country have agreed to accept a California plan to ban sales of new diesel big rigs by 2036 under a deal aimed in part at thwarting potential litigation and maintaining a single national standard for truck pollution rules.
The deal averts a costly court battle with the biggest industry players and eases the transition to clean electric commercial trucks in California, the largest market in the country, and potentially other states. The agreement covers manufacturers including industry giants such as Ford, General Motors, Daimler and Cummins, as well as the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, an industry group. All are agreeing to implement the California plan regardless of how it may fare in the courts.
The coalition, known as the Clean Truck Partnership, was born out of more than three months of negotiations between the industry and the California Air Resources Board, which has been pushing new rules to lead the country on cleaning up heavy trucks. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) heralded the deal as a major step toward reducing air pollution and emissions that warm the planet.
“California has shown the world what real climate action looks like, and we are raising the bar yet again,” Newsom said in a statement. “Today, truck manufacturers join our urgent efforts to slash air pollution, showing the rest of the country that we can both cut dangerous pollution and build the economy of the future.”
Diesel-powered commercial trucks are a major source of air pollution nationwide, in particular affecting people living near ports, warehouses and other facilities involved in intensive shipments of goods. In California, heavy-duty trucks account for nearly a third of nitrogen oxide pollution and more than a quarter of fine particle pollution in the state, according to the California Air Resources Board.
Both of these pollutants are linked to asthma, other respiratory illnesses and premature death. Black and Latino people constitute a notable proportion of California residents living near the state’s ports — which are among the busiest in the country — and are vulnerable, state officials said. The deal could have broader implications. Several other states often follow the clean air rules of California, and because of its size, automakers often produce cars for sale nationwide to meet California standards. That has helped make California a trendsetter in reducing the air pollution emitted by cars and trucks for decades.
Eight states have adopted a precursor to the California plan, accounting for about 25 percent of the American truck market. The states that regularly adopt California regulations were briefed on the new deal at the end of the negotiations. The manufacturers said they are committed to switching to big rigs that produce no emissions, and they touted provisions to harmonize California rules with a recent proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency to limit nitrogen oxide emissions.
The industry for years has tried to make the rules set in Washington and Sacramento as near-identical as possible. That includes a 2019 deal the California Air Resources Board struck with several makers of passenger cars to meet stricter state rules, undercutting a Trump administration plan to relax federal gas-mileage standards.
It seems likely that the two major contenders for president next year will be Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
What will be their messages?
Biden has framed that choice as competence or craziness. His new “Bidenomics” blueprint makes clear that America has done well under his quietly competent leadership — featuring significant public investment, taming of inflation, and rebirth of manufacturing.
I’d rather have someone in the White House who’s competent (even if weak) than someone who’s crazy (even if strong).
But I fear voters may choose strength over competence.
Strength is one of the central narratives of America. In the mythic telling, America was borne from grit, guts, and gumption.
You probably learned it in school: We fought for our independence. We “tamed” the frontier. We won the Revolution. We prevailed in World Wars I and II.
The story conveniently leaves out slavery and genocide, as well as the more recent tragedies of Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Latin America. But it’s deeply engrained in the American mind — far more so than is competence.
Besides his Big Lie, Trump’s most dangerous con has been that America needs a strongman, and he fits the bill.
For Trump, every issue boils down to strength or weakness. Trump admires strongmen. He seeks dominance. He despises vulnerability.
Although he has never mentioned “social Darwinism” (I doubt he even knows the term), it’s the snake oil Trump sells — survival of the fittest, success to the mightiest, victory to the strongest. Life is a competitive struggle. America will be great only if we reward the strong and punish the weak.
Trump’s base — along with millions of other working Americans — feel bullied by a system that has marginalized and diminished them.
Trump blames liberal Democrats, Marxists, socialists, “coastal elites,” the Deep State, the FBI, the Justice Department, the IRS, and the Mainstream Media, along with non-whites and immigrants.
This angry base includes men who feel they’ve lost ground to women’s growing economic and political power.
Trump’s base wants a strongman who will bully these bullies.
Trump acts the part of a heroic brawler who’s loathed by the establishment but loved by the masses. His vindictiveness toward cultural elites makes his followers feel vindicated. “I am your voice,” he said on July 21, 2016. Many believed him then and still do.
It’s all a show, of course. Trump is a billionaire grifter who as president gave away trillions in tax cuts to billionaires and continues to rake in money from his time in office. But the more indignant Trump makes the cultural establishment, the happier his base, because their indignation makes them feel vindicated.
Finally, you can bet that Trump and the Republicans will magnify every sign of Biden’s frailty — his occasional difficulties pronouncing words, his slow gait, his moments of confusion. And they will do whatever they can to project Trump’s vitality.
So, I fear “competence or craziness” won’t do it.
The best way for Biden and the Democrats to counteract Trump’s “strength or weakness” is by taking aim at the real bullies of America — the C-suite oligarchs, Wall Street plutocrats, billionaire monopolists who have been riding roughshod over the vast majority of Americans.
End their big-monied corruption of our democracy. Stop their monopolizing of the economy. Prevent them from using their economic power to raise prices. Call a halt to their firing workers without notice, shipping jobs abroad, and busting unions.
“Bidenomics” could create hundreds of thousands of good manufacturing jobs. That’s good, but not sufficient.
The most powerful force in American politics today is anti-establishment fury at a rigged economic system.
To counter Trump’s fake battle with cultural elites whom he accuses of undermining America’s moral core, Biden should mount a real battle against economic elites who have shafted America’s middle and working classes.
Trust in the Supreme Court has hit a historic low. A Quinnipiac poll last week found that only 30 percent of registered voters approve of it.
Why don’t Americans trust the Supreme Court?
Because its opinions appear arbitrary, capricious, and partisan. Just look at Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which reversed Roe v. Wade a year ago today — and with which the majority of Americans disagree.
And because Supreme Court justices have been subject to bribery.
Last week, ProPublica detailed how billionaire Paul Singer, a GOP megadonor, flew Justice Samuel Alito to Alaska on Singer’s private plane at no cost. The trip would have cost Alito an estimated $100,000, not including accommodation, food, and wine.
Alito never disclosed any of this, apparently violating federal financial disclosure rules applying to all federal officials, including Supreme Court justices.
And Alito failed to recuse himself from participating in a case of financial significance to Singer.
In April, ProPublica revealed that billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow gave Justice Clarence Thomas free luxury vacations and other gifts over a 20-year period — none of which was disclosed by Thomas.
Crow also purchased two houses from Thomas and agreed to let Thomas’s mother live in one of them at no cost. In addition, Crow paid the private school tuition for a student Thomas has described as a person “he is raising as a son.”
Thomas has failed to recuse himself from participating in cases of financial interest to Crow.
Orchestrating these bribes has been Leonard Leo, who last year received an unprecedented $1.6 billion donation to continue his work stacking the courts with ideologically conservative jurists. Leo played a pivotal role in the selection of the three Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump.
What to do to restore trust of the highest court? Congress should enact three reforms:
Congress should enact a code of ethics on Supreme Court justices. It would: (1) ban justices from receiving personal gifts from political donors and anyone with business before the court, (2) clarify when justices with conflicts of interest should remove themselves from cases, (3) prohibit justices from trading individual stocks, and (4) establish a formalprocess for investigating misconduct.
2. Term limits
Article III of the Constitution says judges may “hold their office during good behavior” but does not explicitly give Supreme Court justices lifetime tenure on the highest court — even though that’s become the norm.
Term limits would prevent unelected justices from accumulating too much power over the course of their tenure — and would help defuse what has become an increasingly divisive confirmation process.
Congress should limit Supreme Court terms to 18 years, after which justices move to lower courts.
3. Expand the court
The Constitution does not limit the Supreme Court to nine justices. In fact, Congress has changed the size of the court seven times. It should do so again in order to remedy the extreme partisanship of today’s Supreme Court.
Rather than allow Republicans to continue exploiting the system, expanding the Supreme Court would actually unpack the court.
***
Enacting these reforms won’t be easy. Big monied interests will fight to keep their control of the Supreme Court.
But these three reforms have significant support from the American people, who have lost trust in the court.
The Supreme Court derives its strength not from the use of force or political power, but from the trust of the people. With neither the sword nor the purse, trust is all it has.
***
[Today’s coffee klatch will be posted at 9 am PT, 12 pm ET.]
Supreme Court Judgments Undermine the US as a Nation
by John Lawrence
So Harvard can't admit students based on race but can admit legacy student based on the fact that their parents gave money to Harvard. First of all Harvard is a private institution. Why can't it decide for itself how to admit students based on policies of their own making. Why is the government telling Harvard how to admit students. Harvard as a private entity within the United States is entitled to its own freedom without government interference as dictated by the Supreme Court. This conservative Supreme Court will not hesitate to tell government to get out of the affairs of private individuals as it did in the case of the web designer who didn't want to design web sites for gays. Yet it wants to dictate to Harvard what its admission policies should be. If I started a college and wanted to admit only blacks, I suppose the Supreme Court would have an issue with that, but then isn't my admission policy free speech? It seems that everything else is. Whatever anyone wants to do, providing the Supreme Court agrees with it, it declares that that is free speech. The principle is that it doesn't want the government to set any policies at all. According to their philosophy government should be policy neutral. Government should just set a level playing field and then get out of everyone's business. But in the Harvard case they declared just the opposite should hold. The government should be in the business of setting admission policies according to the Supreme Court.
According to conservative philosophy by which the Supreme Court is dominated, the Federal government should have no role in public policy whatsoever. So one of the techniques it uses is to refer everything back to the states. The states should set all policies, not the Federal government. So if a state wants to ban books, it has a perfect right to do so. If a state wants to ban trans males from female sports or bathrooms, its has a right to do so. But of course the Federal government has no right to weigh in on one side or the other. This is the philosophy for overturning Roe vs Wade. Each state should set its own abortion policy. The Federal government does not have a right to set this or any other policy for the country as a whole. Presumably the Supreme Court at some point will also weigh in on the illegality of the Federal government setting policies on the environment and in particular climate change. When all is said and done the only legitimate function of the Federal government will be to have the largest defense department and defense budget in the world. The function of the Federal government will be confined to waging war.
So according to the Supreme Court's philosophy, all social programs like Obamacare or Social Security or Medicare will be relegated to the states. All Federal programs will be deemed illegal. The United States will not even be a nation any more in the sense that France or Germany or China is a nation. The United States will not be capable of having a national policy regarding climate change or anything else. The United States as a nation will be totally weak when it comes to anything except war. There the nation will be all powerful. But when it comes to anything that actually benefits human beings whether here at home or abroad, the United States will be little more than a hollow shell. Other nations will look at the United States, as Nixon stated, as a "pitiful helpless giant." Other nations will not trust the United States since already they know that national policies can change every four years based on which party is in power. Now they also know that the United States has a Supreme Court which is determined to undermine national power at every step and refer everything back to the states.
One ruling hidden inside one of the Supreme Court’s horrendous decisions last week hasn’t got nearly the attention it deserves: the court’s radical expansion of who has standing to bring cases before the court.
When I argued cases before the Supreme Court in the 1970s, a challenger had to show they’d suffered a specific injury that could be remedied by relief from a federal court. If they failed to establish such standing, the high court would dismiss the case without considering the merits of their claim.
The necessity to establish standing to bring a case before the Supreme Court has been an important guardrail preventing the court from getting into matters the Constitution has reserved for the other branches of government.
But on Friday, in Biden v. Nebraska — striking down President Biden’s student loan program — the majority decided that Missouri had standing to challenge the program. Why? Because a quasi-independent state agency — the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA) — might suffer financial losses from the loan program. As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority:
“The … plan harms MOHELA in the performance of its public function and so directly harms the State that created and controls MOHELA. Missouri thus has suffered an injury in fact sufficient to give it standing to challenge the Secretary’s plan.”
Directly harms the state? Hello?
As Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent, “In adjudicating Missouri’s claim, the majority reaches out to decide a matter it has no business deciding” — with a ruling that “blows through a constitutional guardrail intended to keep courts acting like courts.”
From now on, a state can challenge any action of the federal government merely by setting up a quasi-independent agency indirectly affected by it.
Bad enough that the court’s majority is now making up its own laws — disregarding the Supreme Court’s own precedents it disagrees with, deciding Congress hasn’t authorized certain actions it disagrees with, and finding certain practices it disagrees with to be unconstitutional.
Bad enough that three of the justices now in the majority were appointed by a man who lost the popular vote, who was impeached twice, and who promoted an insurrection against the United States. And two others were appointed by a man who also lost the popular vote and led the nation into war in Iraq under false pretenses.
Now that the court has obliterated the guardrail on what it can consider, there are no limits to what this least democratic branch of government — and its extremist majority — might do.
Which is why it’s so important to reform the court — in ways I’ve suggested here.
Bidenomics: The US Finally Gets an Industrial Policy
by John Lawrence
The Republican policy that the government should be hands off regarding the economy is out the window. Trickle down is a failed policy. Bidenomics gets the government involved in crucial areas of the economy. The export of jobs to parts of the world where labor is cheapest is replaced with a policy of creating jobs within the US. Deregulation is replaced with regulations to protect the environment and combat climate change. The traditional Democratic alliance with unions is back in vogue. Bidenomics is all about building the economy from the middle out and the bottom up instead of from the top down. Bidenomics is about shaping the economy in a way that is propitious for the middle class and the environment. Infrastructure building is more important than accelerating the consumer economy. Putting our house in order is more important than giving away fattening goodies to consumers. People are being put to work doing jobs which actually make US society a better place instead of encouraging jobs in frivolous pursuits. This is not necessarily what the American consumer wants.The American consumer wants more money in their pockets so they can buy more gadgets and aspire to making millions as a pro athlete or an entertainer. They don't actually want to work at the good jobs Biden is creating building infrastructure or making semiconductors. CNN reported:
Trickle-down economics, which was at the heart of President Ronald Reagan’s policies and continues to be the guiding light of Republican lawmakers, typically revolves around tax cuts for the wealthy and large companies. Supporters say the benefits flow down to middle-class and working Americans, boosting economic growth more broadly. But many experts dispute the effectiveness of this practice at lifting all boats.
Biden argues that supply-side, trickle-down economics has cost jobs and hollowed out the middle class. He has long focused on that group of Americans, serving as chair of the Middle Class Task Force when he was vice president in the Obama administration.
“Folks, let me say it as clearly as I can: (The) trickle-down approach failed the middle class and failed America,” said Biden.
To fund Bidenomics, the president once again calls for ensuring the wealthy and large corporations pay their fair share of taxes.
The problem is that now that the American people have had a good taste of Democratic programs, they want more: Republican tax cuts. They want their cake and eat it too. They know that Republicans will have no problem with the national deficits and debts as long as they come in the form of tax cuts. So from the American consumer's point of view they have got about all they can expect to get out of Bidenomics. Now they want a tax break to boot.
The Biden administration has focused on infrastructure, clean energy and semiconductors, Lael Brainard, director of the National Economic Council, said. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Inflation Reduction Act, and CHIPS Act each include direct funding and tax incentives for public and private manufacturing construction. Biden outlined how states will receive more than $42 billion in federal funding for high-speed internet service, which was part of the 2021 infrastructure law. It is aimed at bringing connectivity to more Americans and closing the digital divide. The administration is comparing it to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Rural Electrification Act, which brought electricity to homes throughout the country. And 35,000 new projects – including roads, bridges and ports – have received funding through the bipartisan infrastructure law, the White House said.
Bidenomics has also gone global. One indicator is the exceptional and ongoing debate Sullivan’s speech provoked in proposing a “new consensus” to replace “a set of ideas that championed tax cutting and deregulation, privatization over public action and trade liberalization as an end in itself.” The old formulas, Sullivan argued, not only failed to address new problems; they didn’t work on their own terms.
“In the name of oversimplified market efficiency,” he said, “entire supply chains of strategic goods, along with the industries and jobs that made them, moved overseas.” The idea that freer trade “would help America export goods, not jobs and capacity, was a promise made but not kept.” He stressed the need for “a modern American industrial strategy” and the benefits of “moving beyond traditional trade deals to innovative new international economic partnerships.”
Can the dumbed down and self seeking American people even understand much less appreciate the great things that Bidenomics has brought forth? Biden has changed the narrative on taxes by repeating ad nauseum that he wouldn't raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year. Big idea: raising taxes doesn't mean raising taxes on everyone and a tax break does nor mean lowering taxes on everyone. The meme about raising taxes which Republicans have endeavored to attribute to Democrats ("tax and spend") and tax breaks which Republicans have endeavored to attribute to themselves has been change by Biden. "Tax the rich" has become the Democrats' motto thanks to Bernie Sanders and AOC.The immense inequality that Reaganomics has resulted in is being addressed by Bidenomics. The American people say "Ho Hum". They are more interested in spectator sports which is exemplified by the fact that news programs on TV are routinely bounced in favor of sports events. In short the American people don't appreciate Biden because they don't take the time to understand Bidenomics.
Biden has done much good for America and Americans. He is the least appreciated great President in American history. It's a reflection on the American people themselves that all they're interested in is their own personal situation. If they are well off, they could care less about social programs that help the poor. If they have a good job, they could care less about the unemployed. American have been taught to be totally selfish and not to care about the wider world or about the improvement of society in general. Corporations by law are only supposed to consider the financial well being of their share holders and nothing else. These attitudes in and of themselves preclude the concerns of minorities, whether racial or economic, because the US is a majoritarian society. In politics the majority rules. Concern about the welfare of minorities and of the world in general and in particular the environment is not a consideration. Meanwhile, global warming is taking out individual families who are victims of tornadoes or other particular manifestations of global warming on a daily basis. It has yet to sink in that perhaps concerns for larger interests than just ourselves might be a paradigm change we might have to make.
For the American people, it's not abut how much Biden has done, it's about how much have you done for me lately, Mr Biden, and, more importantly, how much more are you going to do? If there are many more carrots, then maybe I'll vote for you. Otherwise, I'll take the tax break Republicans are offering. The American national character is selfishness personified. Ayn Rand would be proud.
Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) Says Americans Need To Stop “Electing Idiots.”
by John Lawrence
Did the Founders design a Constitution that was idiot proof? Not according to Liz Cheney. Is this a flaw that is inherent to democracy? Not necessarily although it seems to be a flaw in the American system of democracy. There are other forms of democracy that may be more idiot proof. For instance, a democracy in which there are background requirements for political representatives such as education and experience. It is important to have a President who is educated and experienced in areas related to government. The Senate and House of Representatives also should have education and background requirements. Any corporation requires education and experience requirements for jobs. Why should the government be any different? The Hill reported:
Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) suggested Monday that the problem with American politics is that “we’re electing idiots.”
“Look, I think that the country right now faces hugely challenging and fundamentally important issues,” Cheney said at an event with the cultural and community center, 92nd Street Y, New York. “What we’ve done in our politics is create a situation where we’re electing idiots.”
Cheney, who is a staunch opponent of former President Trump, offered the reflection in response to a question about whether she would run for president if polling showed that it would hurt Trump’s third White House run.
“I don’t look at it through the lens of, you know, is this what I should do or what I shouldn’t do,” the former congresswoman said. “I look at it through the lens of, how do we elect serious people? And I think electing serious people can’t be partisan.”
Cheney, who is a staunch opponent of former President Trump, offered the reflection in response to a question about whether she would run for president if polling showed that it would hurt Trump’s third White House run.
“I don’t look at it through the lens of, you know, is this what I should do or what I shouldn’t do,” the former congresswoman said. “I look at it through the lens of, how do we elect serious people? And I think electing serious people can’t be partisan.”
“I really believe, and I’ve never believed something as strongly as I know this, that the single most important thing for the country is that Donald Trump can’t be anywhere near the Oval Office again,” she said.
The question is how do you accomplish "not electing idiots" within the constraints of the American system? Or should the American system be redesigned to accomplish this goal? Perhaps the first item should be to educate the populace in such a way that the voting pubic contains as few idiots as possible. If the electorate is a bunch of idiots, then they will elect someone who looks like them - namely, an idiot. The second thing is that perhaps people running for office should be required to take a test, the results of which would show their knowledge of the position they aspire to whether it's the Presidency, the House or the Senate. Americans are subjected to testing all through their educational experience. Corporations that hire American workers are very interested in their test scores. They want to know whether or not the person they are hiring is an idiot. Why doesn't this apply to politicians as well? Otherwise, running for election comes down to a popularity contest and very often a blood sport. Is this the kind of person who should be running our government?
Study traces ‘causes and consequences’ of California homelessness — and challenges myths
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Wednesday, June 21.
The lives of California’s unhoused population are as complex and nuanced as those of anyone else. That doesn’t sound like a radical statement, but in conversations about homelessness, it can be.
A newly released study from UC San Francisco’s Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative aims to explore that truth with a comprehensive account of “the causes and consequences of homelessness in California,” according to its authors.
Researchers surveyed nearly 3,200 people experiencing homelessness across eight counties in the state, using their answers to create representative statewide estimates. They also conducted in-depth interviews with 365 of those participants.
The study found that nearly half (47%) of all unhoused adults in the state are 50 or older, with Black and Native American residents “dramatically overrepresented.” Notably, 41% of that share became homeless for the first time at 50 or older.
For Times columnist Anita Chabria, the report demonstrates that California’s income inequality has reached a point where “if you are older and unable to work, homelessness is a real threat throughout the Golden State.”
“As much as we want to see the average homeless person as a drug tourist dropping into too-progressive cities for the good fentanyl and lax laws ... or someone whose mental illness makes it impossible for them to live unaided, the truth is simpler — and much more devastating,” she wrote this week. “As Californians age, they are being priced out of housing.”
The study breaks down the many factors that people pointed to as contributing to their homelessness. The top reason cited was a loss or reduction of income. Researchers also broke down the primary reasons cited by both leaseholders and non-leaseholders — participants who didn’t have their name on a lease or mortgage before their most recent episode of homelessness. Non-leaseholders were more likely to report social reasons — such as conflicts with other residents or discrimination — while leaseholders pointed to economic reasons. Fleeing domestic violence was one common reason for both groups.
The authors also pointed to a few misconceptions about homelessness, including “myths of homeless migration.”
According to researchers, “90% of participants lost their last housing in California and 75% of participants live in the same county as where they were last housed.”
The research highlights the complex trajectories that lead to homelessness, but also presents compelling evidence of something advocates for the unhoused have long been saying: Poverty is in many cases the original sin. Traumatic experiences can intensify a person’s mental health and substance use — which affect an array of people regardless of their housing status. But add the stress and trauma of living on the edge of financial ruin and a vicious spiral begins to take shape.
The authors also highlighted several solutions in the form of government policy, namely confronting the lack of affordable housing for Californians living in extreme poverty.
“In 2023, California had only 24 units of housing available and affordable for every 100 extremely low-income households,” the study states.
Recommendations include:
· Mitigating the often-sudden housing loss people experience by investing in more rent subsidies and mediation to avoid evictions
· Responding more swiftly when people lose housing to connect them with vital services and lessen their time on the streets
· Increasing access to substance use treatments and harm reduction service outreach
Many people consider voting the sine qua non defining characteristic of democracy. However, the inventors of democracy, the ancient Greeks, did not. Their legislative body, the Council of 500, was chosen not be voting but by lot, in other words randomly. Arguably, random selection is more democratic since it guarantees a legislative body which actually represents and reflects all of the people. Voting, at least in the US, does not result in a legislature that reflects the actual composition of the electorate because the candidates need a lot of money even to get on the ballot. Random selection requires no money, just a complete list of all citizens. A legislature which reflects the actual composition of the electorate is more democratic than one that reflects only the composition of the moneyed class. Therefore, voting must be disassociated from democracy in the larger sense. So let's ask the question how is the Chinese legislature, the National People's Congress, chosen? It is chosen by the people by voting although the nominees are chosen by the Communist Party. It could be argued and debated how well the National People's Congress reflects the actual composition of the electorate. It could also be argued which system, the American system or the Chinese system is more democratic in the sense that the national legislative body represents and reflects the actual composition of their respective electorates. My guess is that the American two party system is only slightly more democratic than the Chinese one party system. Someone should do a study and comparison.
In addition to getting money out of politics, random selection, which is also known as sortition, would end the districting system and gerrymandering. The House would reflect the composition of the US electorate. Instead of an elaborate system of voting and majority rule, all you would need is a data base of all 330 million Americans and a program for random selection. Voting systems in and of themselves are controversial (which of the several available voting systems should be used), and majority rule is notorious for leaving out minorities. The US system know as first past the post practically determines that the US will be a two party system. Third parties contribute the "spoiler effect," which we've seen all to often in Presidential politics, for example, when Ross Perot and Ralph Nader ran as third party candidates. They just take votes away from the party that they are closer to on the political spectrum helping the other party to win. The Chinese have a one party system and the US has a two party system which is probably only somewhat more democratic than the Chinese system if the measure of democraticness is that the legislature represents a reflection of all the people. The European parliamentary system is a multiparty system where minorities are better represented than in the US or Chinese systems, and hence, is more democratic than either of them. A further benefit of random selection us that extremists and extreme parties are unlikely to be over represented in the outcome. In fact political parties would have no reason to exist if the legislature was chosen by sortition.
Rousseau says in The Social Contract, " 'Election by lot,' says Montesquieu, 'is of the nature of democracy. ' I agree , but how is it so? 'The lot,' he continues, 'is a mode of election which mortifies no on; it leaves every citizen a reasonable hope of serving his country.' "Montesquieu , by the way was one of the chief architects of society that the Founders took as an example in their design of the US Constitution. Sortition was used in the Atheniandemocracy. With few exceptions, all magistrates were chosen by lot, beginning with the archons in 487–486 BC; likewise the Boule (council) of 500 and the juries of the law courts were chosen by lot. Sortition is used in the American system for jury selection.
My reform of the American system would be #1) The legislature should be chosen by sortition to serve 4 year terms. Pay would be high enough to induce the average person to want to serve. The only requirement would be US citizenship. #2) The Senate would be chosen by sortition among the people who met certain educational and experiential background requirements. The term would be 6 years. #3) The Supreme Court would be chosen from among the people with even more stringent background requirements especially in law and government. The term would be 8 years. #4) The President would be chosen by means of an electoral system with an advanced method of voting like approval voting. The electoral college would be abolished. The President would serve for 4 years with the possibility of serving two terms if the people elected him again. At any level of political participation people could opt out of the pool of which otherwise they might be randomly selected. We have already seen in 2016 with the election of Donald Trump how extremists can be elected by purveying false information and outright lies creating a cult following. The elimination of political parties altogether would transform politics from the Chinese one party system, the American two party system and the European multiparty system to in fact a more democratic no party system.
A homeless encampment in downtown on Nov. 11, 2022. / Photo by Ariana Drehsler
DeForrest (DeDe) Hancock is a senior native of San Diego and currently resides in City Heights. A member of Voices of Our City Choir, Voices of Dignity, HEAL-Homeless Experienced Advocacy Leadership, UCSF-Benioff Homeless Housing Initiative Lived Expertise Advisory Board and UCSD-HEAL Research Collaboration.
Has anyone ever said to you, “When I grow up, I want to be homeless.”
Homelessness is not a new issue but unfortunately a rapidly growing population in the United States today. Research shows that some of the top causes of homelessness are loss of a job, money issues, cost of housing and disability.
This isn’t just a statistic, though.
I was raised in the Valencia Park community from the age of 5. I obtained a bachelor’s degree in psychology from UC San Diego Revelle College in 1977. I worked at a company for 10 years before getting terminated in 2006.
Throughout those years, my work was consistently evaluated as above average and outstanding. But for reasons beyond my control, my cause of termination denied me access to unemployment benefits.
This led to me losing the home of eight years that I purchased as a single mom. I also lost a separate investment property. Around that time, my mother passed away. My 13-year-old son and I moved into the family home which had been mortgage free for over 25 years. Believing that my unemployment case would be resolved within a year, I secured a loan to cover living expenses. I was unable to find an attorney who would accept my wrongful termination case. The result was, I lost my family home of 50 years and my 13-year-old son, and I became homeless by foreclosure-eviction on Nov. 10, 2009. My journey ended with my early social security retirement income following my 62nd birthday.
During the period that I was homeless, 2009 to 2016, I came to believe that we are all ordinary people simply each living out the scripts of our lives. Some of our scripts include life-challenges which provide lived experience to build the expertise and skills for survival.
There are several myths about the causes of homelessness and the characterization of homeless individuals. But, I have yet to know of any human being ever saying:
“When I grow up, I want to be homeless; I want to have an addiction, medical or physical issue which makes me vulnerable; I want to live on the street where I am not welcome or wanted. I want to be a burden to my family, friends, and society.”
These myths are debunked by the reality on the ground. The fact is, drug use and addiction follow traumatic experiences as coping mechanisms and are not necessarily a cause of homelessness.
Survey research presented during a forum held on April 28, 2022, by the San Diego Housing Federation’s HEAL (Homeless Experienced Advocacy Leadership Network) identified the primary causes of homelessness.
The top six causes are: Loss of job (24 percent); money issues (17 percent); other (14 percent); cost of housing (12 percent); Disability (9 percent); loss of family member (7 percent). Alcohol & Drug Use is 7th on the list at only 5 percent. And homelessness caused by jail or prison time is 10th on the chart at 2 percent.
In terms of absolute numbers, California has more than half (53 percent) of all unsheltered people in the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released in 2020, nearly a quarter of all people experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity live in either New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Jose & Santa Clara and San Diego. That number continues to rise locally. Unlike New York City, California’s homeless people are said to be sleeping rough. Research found that an estimated 71.1 percent of the homeless in California are unsheltered, compared to just 4.4 percent in New York City. This data clearly indicates that there are workable solutions to end homelessness if we care enough to pursue those solutions.
I dream and believe all things are possible. My dream today: In my lifetime I will witness the end of poverty and homelessness.
The truth is we may never hear anyone say: When I grow up, I want to be homeless. But today I believe there is a spiritual calling for some of us to “serve the least of them!” And with honor, I am blessed to know I am among those chosen to serve them by growing up to be one of them!
Who Would Have Thunk It: China is the World's Leading Exporter of Cars!
by John Lawrence
In an article by Fareed Zakaria entitled, The rest of the world doesn’t see China the same way we do, there is this: "Ten years ago, China exported a relatively small number of cars. Today, it is the world’s leading exporter of automobiles, handily ousting Japan from that position. It is especially strong in electric vehicles. Two of every three EVs made in the world are made in China." So far Chinese cars have not shown up in the US, but they will. American car manufacturers are playing catch up. "As you enter a car showroom in Berlin, you see what looks like a Bugatti or a Ferrari, except more stylish. It’s an EP9, a top-of-the-line race car that has been sold to a handful of customers for about $3 million each. The company behind it is Nio, one of China’s new carmakers, which is going to take the world by storm."
The economies of the western world including the US and Europe are inextricably intertwined with that of China. The difference is that the US under Biden's leadership is taking a semi-belligerent attitude towards China while Europe is taking a much more deferential and mutually respectful approach. Biden's latest gaffe is referring to Xi Jinping as a "dictator" just after Secretary of State Antony Blinken just returned from China having tried to stop the downward spiral of US-China relationship. One of the problems is that the US insists on insulting China and the Chinese leadership. They really can't afford to do that any more if they want to create a mutually respectful relationship. Respect in nation to nation relationships is of the utmost importance. It could be argued that the lack of respect toward Russia was a precursor to the war in Ukraine. What is true among individuals - that mutual respect is important for creating and maintaining salubrious relationships is important - is equally true with respect to nations. Why doesn't the US leadership get this?
Former British prime minister Gordon Brown explained the European dilemma. “Europe needs an industrial policy, but it cannot afford to mimic the [Biden] administration’s protectionism,” he told me. “For Europe, trade is vital; its prosperity is dependent on trade with the rest of the world, including China, in a way that America’s is not. [Unlike America, Europe] imports energy and is not self-sufficient. Despite the surface agreement across the Atlantic, this could become a growing divide.” He acknowledged that the Biden administration has made moves to expand trade ties, but he expressed concern that all of them are bilateral or regional efforts that might undercut global trade. They come, he said, “at the expense of any real discussion of what a modern multilateralist order would look like.” Helle Thorning-Schmidt, former prime minister of Denmark, concurred. “Europe cannot divorce itself from China,” she explained. “That would be the end of globalization. That is why we want to de-risk, not decouple.” “De-risking,” a term famously used by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, is the hottest buzzword in diplomacy these days. Even the Biden administration now says it also wants to de-risk rather than decouple. But many I spoke with in Europe said they worry that this is just a rhetorical change and that U.S. policies — and Chinese responses — will keeping moving the ratchet up.
"Kishore Mahbubani, the former Singaporean diplomat and author of “The Asian 21st Century,” pointed out that discussions in the West often forget that the world’s growth is mostly coming from Asia. He used his own region as an example. In 2000, Japan’s economy was about eight times larger than Southeast Asia’s. In about three years, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is projected to be the same size economically as Japan. The largest trade relationship in the world is between China and ASEAN — almost $1 trillion. And ASEAN countries cannot grow without open and vibrant trade, especially with China." So the world is changing. The US is not changing with it, but instead is trying to maintain its grip on being the world's leading superpower. Criticizing other nations based on their forms of government is leaving the US open to the criticism that its foreign policy is subject to change with respect to other nations based on the election cycle and an administration coming into power every four years that has diametrically opposed views on the subject. China by contrast maintains a consistent approach over much longer periods so that once a successful policy has been implemented, it will probably remain in effect indefinitely and not be subject to an election cycle which can swerve back and forth and even spin out of control as it did on January 6, 2020.
The US also could be exposed to the criticism that any fool can become President as was the case in the election of 2016, not to mention any Congress person, while in China the best and brightest are usually promoted to the highest positions in government.
Actually, this is a good question. If meat eaters could be trained to eat plant based meat, they would no longer be predators. If lions can lie down with lambs, then maybe there is even hope for the human race. In fact some animals that would attack each other in the wild, when raised together as babies, become the best of friends. Anthony, the lion, was brought to “Keepers of the Wild” animal sanctuary as a sick cub after being auctioned off in Virginia, and Riley, the coyote, was rescued by Arizona game and fish. Both were just over one month old when they met. Coyotes and lions are social animals, and Riley and Anthony grew quite fond of one another almost immediately. So they grew up, not to eat each other, but to be friends. Does this portend some hope for the human race? If babies of all races, religions and nationalities grew up together, maybe they would continue to have mutually constructive relationships as adults. Perhaps this would be a way that world peace could be attained. No more predator and prey relationships. No more friend and enemy relationships. It's worth a try. It would be a great sociological experiment, and there is nothing weird about it. It would only entail play dates for children of all races, nationalities and religions as they grew up. As they grew older, they would grow into an age appropriate understanding of their friends' backgrounds. If animals can form these kind of relationships, probably so could humans.
After photographer Isobel Springett, took in an abandoned fawn, it was almost immediately adopted by Springett’s Great Dane, Kate. Pip clearly feels very strongly for her canine caretaker, and even though Pip joined a herd, she still finds time to spend with Kate. Perhaps animals can lead the way. Perhaps they can be the prime movers towards a more mutually beneficial society. Perhaps there would no more be predators and prey. What would this portend for the human race? One thing it portends is that, in order to end war and conflict, everyone would have to be adequately fed with a plant based diet. As long as some people have nothing and others have seemingly everything, there will always be war as the underdogs try to redress the balance. If everyone is relatively well off, the incentive for altering the status quo by violence and force is greatly diminished.
In a hidden realm at the end of the world, amidst the massive ice mountains of Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park, condors soar, colorful caracaras keep a sharp eye out for prey and vivid pink flamingos make a theatrical appearance. This kingdom is the stronghold of the puma, a large mountain lion that hunts for guanacos – cousins of llamas – as they roam from the valleys to the hillsides. Follow the fate of Solitaria, a female puma in her prime. The mother of four cubs, she hunts and teaches her young how to live in this extraordinary landscape. Narrated by Uma Thurman. This is a beautiful story about a successful huntress who is so tender and loving with her four kittens, but is relentless when it comes to the life and death struggle with guanacos. The guanacos must be eternally vigilant for any sign that there might be a puma lurking and stalking them. It's an athletic contest that occurs on a daily basis. Both kinds of animals must use their entire skill set to stay alive and to eat. Guanacos eat a plant based diet, and pumas eat guanacos. Could pumas raised from babyhood with baby guanacos grow up to see each other as friends instead of as rivals and enemies? Could pumas be trained to a plant based diet? The implications for human survival and the survival of the human species might be significant.
Activists rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court on February 28, 2023 as the justices began hearing oral arguments in a pair of cases on student debt relief.
(Photo: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
"These emails confirm what every honest observer has long understood: Missouri's lawsuit is just a partisan hack job aimed at getting the right-wing attorney general's name in the paper," said one expert.
As the U.S. Supreme Court nears a decision on President Joe Biden's student debt relief proposal, an advocacy group on Friday published internal records revealing the "anxiety and confusion" of staffers at a loan company critics say is being spuriously used by Republican attorneys general in their attack on the president's plan.
Internal documents from the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA)—a private state-chartered lender—obtained by the Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) under Missouri's Sunshine Law show that agency employees were confused by then-state Attorney General Eric Schmitt's lawsuit and argument that Biden's relief plan could harm the company.
"MOHELA's own staff agree—the case currently before the Supreme Court that is holding up debt relief for tens of millions of borrowers lacks standing, and it should be tossed aside."
That dubious claim—an independent report showed that not only would MOHELA not be harmed by Biden's proposal, it would make more money—forms the purported basis for MOHELA's standing in the suit, Biden v. Nebraska. Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and South Carolina are suing the administration, alleging that its debt forgiveness plan violates the U.S. Constitution's separation of powers and Administrative Procedure Act.
MOHELA is not even a plaintiff in the case, a fact that critics including progressive U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) have cited in calling for the dismissal of the suit—one of two student debt relief cases the high court is expected to rule on sometime this month.
"These emails confirm what every honest observer has long understood: Missouri's lawsuit is just a partisan hack job aimed at getting the right-wing attorney general's name in the paper," Ella Azoulay, SBPC's research and policy analyst, said in a statement.
"MOHELA's own staff agree—the case currently before the Supreme Court that is holding up debt relief for tens of millions of borrowers lacks standing, and it should be tossed aside," Azoulay added.
"Just out of curiosity, is MOHELA apart [sic] of the lawsuit going on to prevent the loan forgiveness?" wrote one employee in an email. "Are we the bad guys?”
Another staffer wrote that Schmitt's lawsuit"has nothing to do with us,except that they're using the [Missouri] consumers harm as standing."
Indeed, in an October 2022 letter to Bush—who had inquired about the lender's relationship with the attorney general's office—MOHELA said its "executives were not involved in the decision" by Schmitt to sue the Biden administration.
"I think MOHELA was opposed to this move, but couldn't do anything about it," wrote yet another staffer. "The Mo. state AG needed to claim that our borrowers were harmed for standing, so they're making us look bad by filing this not only with Mo. on it, but especially bad because they filed it in Mo."
During oral arguments in February, the Supreme Court's right-wing supermajority signaled it is poised to side with Republicans challenging the debt cancellation program and strike it down.
Last week, a trio of progressive U.S. lawmakers—Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.)—implored the Biden administration to have a backup plan to aid student borrowers if the Supreme Court kills its debt cancellation proposal.
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"It appears that threatening a Republican default was insufficient and that the majority is now intent on driving a partisan appropriations process."
The top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee accused her Republican colleagues on Thursday of increasing the likelihood of a government shutdown by approving spending numbers below the levels set under the bipartisan debt ceiling agreement, which hasn't even been law for two weeks.
In an appearance on CNN, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said House Republicans have already "walked away from this deal," pointing to the House Appropriations Committee's party-line vote Thursday to set next year's spending at fiscal year 2022 levels—a substantial cut and well below the topline set by the debt ceiling law.
But the committee's proposed cuts would apply only to nonmilitary spending, which includes programs related to education, environmental protection, child care, and more.
As HuffPost's Jonathan Nicholson reported Thursday, the Republican-controlled appropriations panel "stuck with the defense number in the debt limit deal, meaning the total government funding pie would be smaller than what Democrats thought they’d agreed to only weeks ago―and the slice of that pie available for agencies and programs outside of the military would be even smaller."
DeLauro stressed Thursday that she voted against the debt ceiling agreement because of its proposed domestic spending cuts.
But unlike Republicans, she added, "I'm willing to work within the framework of the agreement."
"The issue will be how long will the Republicans try to hold this process hostage, and what kind of harm will be done in the interim," DeLauro said. "We have an obligation because what we can't do is have the government shut down. And that is potentially where the Republican majority wants to take us: to a government shutdown."
The federal government will shut down if funding legislation isn't passed by September 30, which marks the end of the current fiscal year.
The debt ceiling agreement negotiated by President Joe Biden and Republican leaders includes a mechanism aimed at making a shutdown less likely, but it's not clear it will succeed as members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus signal that they would welcome a shutdown.
If Congress doesn't approve all of its appropriations bills by January 1, 2024, the newly approved debt ceiling law will kick off "a process to institute a government funding bill for the remainder of the fiscal year that would put in place a 1% spending cut from fiscal 2023 levels for all defense and domestic spending," The Washington Postexplained earlier this month.
Those across-the-board cuts would exceed the proposed spending reductions under the debt ceiling deal—though the process would also prevent a transfer of billions of dollars out of the Internal Revenue Service's budget.
"The idea is that the potential cuts to defense would motivate Republicans to complete the annual spending process and the cuts to domestic programs would similarly motivate Democrats," the Post noted. "The spending cuts, however, would not be automatic. The House and Senate would still have to vote on them, but theoretically leaders would compile the votes for it to pass to abide by the agreement. However, there is some skepticism this would be a smooth process."
"This doesn't just mean promises broken—MAGA Republican extremism and chaos now includes threatening a government shutdown this fall."
During a House Appropriations Committee hearing earlier this week, DeLauro slammed her Republican counterparts for abandoning the debt ceiling agreement and proposing funding allocations that are unacceptable to Democrats, heightening the chances of a government shutdown that would disrupt critical public services and programs.
"It appears that threatening a Republican default was insufficient and that the majority is now intent on driving a partisan appropriations process that will steer us into a prolonged continuing resolution at best, but more likely a government shutdown," said DeLauro.
The cuts proposed by House Republicans, the Connecticut Democrat continued, "would kick 300,000 children out of child care and Head Start; make healthcare more expensive and less accessible for two million vulnerable people who rely on community health centers, and deny access to care for opioid use disorder for 28,000 people."
"The ink is barely dry on the bipartisan budget agreement, yet we are here to consider the Republican majority's spending agenda that completely reneges on the compromises struck less than two weeks ago," DeLauro added.
But Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said Wednesday that she views the spending levels proposed in the debt limit agreement as "a ceiling, not a floor"—a position that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has endorsed.
"The allocations before us reflect the change members on my side of the aisle want to see by returning spending to responsible levels," Granger said Thursday, emphasizing that the bloated military budget would be shielded from cuts under the committee's proposed spending allocations.
"With just months before the end of the fiscal year, we must not delay," Granger said. "We need to work quickly to have all twelve bills signed into law by September 30th."
Other House Republicans haven't expressed such urgency—and in fact appear perfectly content to shut down the federal government in pursuit of massive spending cuts.
"We shouldn't fear a government shutdown," Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, toldPunchbowl this week. "If we shut it down in order to try to bring fiscal stability and fiscal solvency, that will save the country from an economic and fiscal standpoint for our kids and grandkids."
Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) voiced the same sentiment, telling the outlet that he is "not afraid of shutdowns."
The New York Timesreported Thursday that after "facing a rebellion by hard-right Republicans over the debt limit agreement, Mr. McCarthy and his leadership team blindsided Democrats this week by setting allocations for the 12 annual spending bills at 2022 levels, about $119 billion less than the $1.59 trillion allowed for in the agreement to raise the debt ceiling."
Those allocations were then rubberstamped by the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee, setting the stage for a tumultuous and potentially damaging spending fight in the coming weeks.
"Last month, Kevin McCarthy and House Republican leaders made a deal with President Biden. Now they are trying to break it," Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said Thursday. "This doesn't just mean promises broken—MAGA Republican extremism and chaos now includes threatening a government shutdown this fall."
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Why Americans Want Republicans and Democrats to Alternate Election Cycles
by John Lawrence
Democratic Presidents get elected and hand out a bag full of goodies, but there's no plan to pay for them. Then the American people elect Republicans because Republicans say in effect, "You don't have to pay for the goodies the Democrats gave you, and, furthermore, we'll even give you a tax cut." So is there any wonder why Democrats and Republicans alternate being elected? Or why the national debt keeps increasing? Goodies not paid for followed by tax cuts followed by more goodies followed by more tax cuts. The American people are wise to keep alternating these election cycles between Republicans and Democrats. Now that the Republican accusation of "tax and spend" aimed at Democrats has been followed by Democrat protestations of "tax the rich and spend", the wind has been taken out of Republican sails. Most of the national debt has been racked up by Republican tax cuts which mainly have benefited the rich. But as long as the Republican middle class has gotten teenie weenie tax cuts, they're more than satisfied. With Trump as their champion, Trump could even reduce taxes on the rich and increase them on the middle class and the Republican middle class would still love him. He's very special.
So why is the increasing national debt even an issue? For sure it never has to be paid off by our children or grandchildren ad infinitum. There are 2 reasons though why it is important. #1) The interest on the national debt is a budget item and it keeps increasing crowding out other budgetary items. #2) The Treasury debt assets held by other countries represent funds that can be used to purchase US assets. Of these #1 is probably the most worrisome. Interest on the debt could be controlled by the Fed and the Treasury working together. The Fed can buy Treasuries thus reducing the amount on the market or held by other entities. When interest is paid on Treasuries held by the Fed, it reverts to the Treasury Department so basically Treasuries held by the Fed are interest free - they cost the government nothing! Secondly, the Treasury Department can set the interest or coupon values for Treasuries very low. There is no need to raise the rates paid on Treasuries to reflect market interest rates because there is no need to sell any particular amount of Treasuries. Treasuries are just a safe warehouse for funds regardless of their coupon values and so there will always be a market for them, and the Fed can always by any unsold Treasuries. This is just a policy that has been in effect for years called quantitative easing. It's a tried and proven policy, and there is nothing new or revolutionary about it.
So let's examine the composition of the national debt. Without the Bush and Trump tax cuts, debt as a percentage of the economy would be declining permanently. The nation’s fiscal pictured changed in 1981 when President Ronald Reagan enacted the largest tax cut in U.S. history reducing revenues by the equivalent of $19 trillion over a decade in today’s terms. Although Congress raised taxes in many of the subsequent years of the Reagan administration to claw back close to half the revenue loss, the equivalent of $10 trillion of the president’s 1981 tax cut remained. The George W. Bush administration, empowered by a trifecta in 2001, enacted sweeping tax cuts that will have cost more than $8 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2023. These legislative changes—the Bush and Trump tax cuts—are responsible for more than 90 percent of the change in the trajectory of the debt ratio to date, and will grow to be responsible for more than 100 percent of the debt ratio increase in the future. The Trump tax cuts cost $7.8 trillion. The national debt is approximately 32 trillion,and, toting up the figures listed above, it can be seen that approximately $26 trillion of this is due to the Reagan, Bush and Trump tax cuts.
So politicians of both parties have colluded to give the American public everything they want: goodies plus a free lunch when it comes to taxes. American voters just need to alternate administrations! Americans don't vote for a President based on all he's done for the American people. Case in point: after all Joe Biden has done for the American people (in terms of goodies), Americans will probably elect a Republican President in 2024 so they won't have to pay for it. They will get a tax cut instead. And tax cuts are the gifts that keep on giving year after year ... mainly for the rich! Some might say this phenomenon of incentivizing voters to alternate the party in power is a flaw in American democracy. Keeping the same party over several election cycles might result in more consistency in government policy, but democracy is messy. The question is is it too messy. Is there a better way?
Western philosophy is predicated on the individual and the philosophy that the best society is one in which the individual is completely and totally free. Freedom of the individual is the bedrock of the US Constitution which spells out individual rights but not individual responsibilities. Freedom is spelled out in John Stuart Mill's book On Liberty, but it goes back even further than that all the way to the life of Jesus who, as demonstrated in the New King James version of Luke, when his mother was looking for him famously said to her, “Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must beaboutMy Father’s business?” So for Jesus the freedom to pursue his career took precedence over familial responsibilities. Chinese philosophy places the emphasis on the fact that familial responsibilities should take precedence over individual freedom. That is the basic philosophical difference between US and Chinese philosophy. Confucius, who is the penultimate philosopher for Chinese society, had a different view regarding the relations of human beings to society. According to Roger T. Ames, Theorizing the Person in Confucian Ethics,"How or in what way (dao) do persons in their roles become consummately humane (ren)? This was the perennial Confucian question asked explicitly in all of the Four Books: in the Great Learning, in the Analects of Confucius, in the Mencius, and again in the Zhongyong. And from the time of Confucius onward, the answer was a moral, aesthetic, and ultimately religious one. Persons (necessarily plural) become humane by cultivating those thick, intrinsic relations that constitute our initial conditions that locate the trajectory of our life narrative - its whence and whither - within family, community, and cosmos."
The Chinese emphasis is on harmony and stability whether at the familial level or at the societal level. Western society emphasizes individual liberty in the hope that the societal level will take care of itself. The US Constitution emphasizes individual rights; there is no mention of individual responsibilities. There is the hope that individuals competing among themselves will end up with the result that society will flourish, but there is no direct connection as there is in Chinese philosophy. Article 53 of the Chinese Constitution states: "Citizens of the People's Republic of China must abide by the Constitution and the law, keep state secrets, protect public property, observe discipline in the workplace, observe public order, and respect social morality." Article 54 states: "Citizens of the People's Republic of China shall have the obligation to safeguard the security, honor and interests of the motherland; they must not behave in any way that endangers the motherland's security, honor or interests."
While the Chinese Constitution also grants political rights such as freedom of speech, the press, assembly, association, and religion and also economic rights, the Constitution also emphasizes obligations and responsibilities. Article 51 states: "When exercising their freedoms and rights, citizens of the People's Republic of China shall not undermine the interests of the state, society or collectives, or infringe upon the lawful freedoms and rights of other citizens."
There is an emphasis on order, social morality, not infringing on the interests of others or society in general. Americans find this emphasis on social cohesiveness and stability too restraining and inhibiting of their rights as guaranteed in the American Constitution. The US Constitution's emphasis on individual rights without a concomitant emphasis on responsibilities has produced major instabilities in American society. The fall back position for the US is complete dependence on the rule of law and the preservation of American institutions rather than a libertarian view of freedom. Basically, the US, in order to preserve US democracy has had to come up with an almost Chinese position regarding societal stability. The January 6 insurrection and subsequent indulgence in free speech by certain actors to and beyond the point of truth telling has resulted in a continuing threat to US democracy. Certain members of American society are pushing Constitutional guarantees of free speech and gun rights to the point of undermining US democracy in general. Perhaps the American Constitution needs to be rethunk or at least amended. The Republican party threatens the destruction of American society unless they get their way.
"The San Diego City Council voted 5-4 Tuesday [June 13, 2023] to adopt a controversial policy to ban homeless encampments on public property after hearing hours of public testimony.
"The ordinance was supported by Councilmember Stephen Whitburn, who proposed it, and Councilmembers Marni von Wilpert, Jennifer Campbell, Raul Campillo and Joe LaCava.
"Mayor Todd Gloria also supported what they referred to as an unsafe camping ordinance, with he and Whitburn saying it would address a public safety issue while also helping to get homeless people off the street and into a shelter and connected to services."
In approximate tandem with this ordinance is the City's plan to provide safe sleeping and camping areas and also to buy 3 motels and convert them to housing for the homeless. Father Joe also plans to build a high rise with additional rooms. The problem is that these additional housing units and camping areas are not ready yet. So this ordinance and the plan to provide additional shelter units will have to be somewhat compromised until the additional units are available. The opposition to the ordinance seemed to be based mainly on the fact that the additional units are not immediately available. The larger question is do the homeless have an unconditional right to live on public sidewalks which trumps the rights of downtown residents and business owners who also would like to use those sidewalks in a clean and safe manner. The answer in my mind is no they do not have an unconditional right to use the sidewalks as living areas. If I went downtown and set up a stand selling something, anything, I would be arrested if I did not have a license. However, homeless advocates would argue that the homeless have an unlimited right to sleep wherever they please on public sidewalks.
Finally, I think the Mayor and the City Council are taking a serious approach to this problem after farting around for decades. It amounts to government admitting that people have a right to housing - public housing or social housing, whatever you want to call it - something that American governments at all levels have never before been willing to concede. Once the units the City has promised come online, they need to expand that program since the proposed units are unlikely to be a once and for all solution. As rents are continuing to increase, the City has to be in the business of providing the SROs that the free market used to provide and now doesn't. Getting people off the streets and into housing or safe camping and parking areas with proper sanitation and other services accomplishes not only more humane conditions for the homeless. It prevents San Diego from becoming a tourist desert. Also residents and businesses will be moving out if the streets cannot be returned to their safe and proper usages. People living and running businesses downtown should have rights too. This argument that the new City ordinance is criminalizing homelessness is entirely bogus. If shelter beds or other accommodations are available, the homeless should be forced to take advantage of them IMHO. On the other hand,to the extent that these resources are not available, they should be cut some slack. That does not mean an unlimited right to park their tents wherever they please.
I noted the story of the parent pushing a stroller who was almost run over by a car because they could not use the blocked public sidewalk. I had a similar experience on Commercial street when my car was almost run over by the San Diego Trolley. The fact that the City will be providing SRO type rooms and other accommodations for the homeless as well as social services does not mean that that will be permanent housing for the contemporary homeless. The social workers will be attempting to reintegrate if possible currently homeless persons and families back into normal society. That means that they will be trying to find them jobs and get them living accommodations that they can pay for in the mainstream of society. Problem is that rents are so expensive that it will be impossible for many people, even if they have a job, to provide housing for themselves especially in San Diego where housing prices and rents are continuing their upward cost progression. That's why the next step for the City should be to do something about affordable housing. This means that the City needs to counteract the free market with respect to housing so that people who are reintegrated into society can at least function within the parameters of that society. The free market tendency for rents to keep on rising needs to be counteracted by the public sector. The free market will continue to make housing unaffordable which will result in more people becoming homeless. What is happening is that hedge funds are buying up housing units, rehabilitating them to some extent and turning them into rental units if they aren't rental units already thus driving up rents. People who in prior years could afford to buy a home now can't in the current environment. This process is turning more and more would be home owners into renters and renters who are devoting more and more of their income to paying rent.
The only way children of long time San Diego residents can buy homes today is if the parents can convert some of the equity in their homes to a down payment on the child's home so that they end up with a mortgage they can afford which is something I was able to do. I bought into the San Diego real estate market exactly 50 years ago for a house that I paid 3% of the market value of that same house today! There are companies that will make a home equity investment in your house which means that they will loan you money that you can use as a down payment on a child's house if that's the way you decide to use that money. There are no monthly payments. When the contract period - which can be as long as 30 years - is up, the house must be sold or the contract settled in some other way and the home equity investment must be repaid in proportion to the equity increase in value over that time period. Since I will probably not be here in 30 years, my heir, who can also inherit the contract, will sell the property and have to split the profits with the home investment company. Meanwhile, the property she bought with the down payment they provided and with a mortgage she can afford is increasing in equity. It's a pretty good solution, but only available to people who bought into the San Diego market when prices were cheap. The Home Equity Investment is like a reverse mortgage, but there is no age restriction and it can be used in conjunction with a rental property.
Activists demand higher taxes on the rich during a demonstration on May 17, 2021 in Tampa, Florida.
(Photo: Gerardo Mora/Getty Images for MoveOn)
"Hey, hey! What we knew would happen: Make the wealthiest pay their fair share and it finances investments in education, transportation, and more," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
Proponents of progressive taxation on Friday pointed to data showing Washington state stands poised to reap $849 million in revenue during the first year of its capital gains tax as proof that taxing the rich works—and could serve as a template for federal legislation.
The Seattle Timesreports that when Washington state lawmakers passed this fiscal year's budget, they anticipated collecting $248 million in revenue from the 7% tax on the sale or exchange of stocks, bonds, and certain other assets above $250,000.
However, the legislators were pleasantly surprised when figures showed the state has collected over $600 million more than that.
While the amount collected could change after around 2,500 taxpayers who applied for extensions file their returns, progressives welcomed the windfall that will fund public schools, early childhood education, and building and repairing schools across the state.
"Hey, hey! What we knew would happen: Make the wealthiest pay their fair share and it finances investments in education, transportation, and more," tweeted Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).
Jayapal touted federal legislation she introduced with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in 2021—the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act—that would levy a 2% annual tax on the net worth of households and trusts above $50 million, plus a 1% annual surtax on billionaires.
An analysis by University of California, Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman found that the legislation would bring in at least $3 trillion in revenue over 10 years without raising taxes on 99.95% of American households worth less than $50 million.
Last month, Warren, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) introduced the For the 99.5% Act, which would impose a 45% tax on estates worth between $3.5 million and $10 million, a 50% tax on estates worth between $10 million and $50 million, a 55% tax on estates worth between $50 million and $1 billion, and a 65% tax on estates valued at over $1 billion.
Back at the state level, California, New York, Illinois, Maryland, Connecticut, and Hawaii have also introduced wealth tax bills this year, while Washington's law was upheld by that state's Supreme Court in March.
"If the federal government won't act," California Assemblymember Alex Lee (D-24) said while introducing a wealth tax bill in January, "we the states will."
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Interest on the Debt or the Whole National Debt Could Be Wiped Out by the Fed Tomorrow
by John Lawrence
One of the largest components of the Federal budget is interest on the debt. But the fact is that interest rates on Treasuries don't have to go up when the Fed raises interest rates. The Fed raises interest rates by adjusting the Federal Funds Rate. The Federal Funds Rate is one of the Federal Reserve’s key tools for guiding U.S. monetary policy. Here’s how it works: Customers deposit money at banks, and those deposits provide banks with the capital needed for extending loans and other forms of credit to their customers. Regulators require that banks and other depository institutions keep a certain percentage of their total capital in reserve, to help guarantee their stability and solvency. Banks often need to borrow money from other financial institutions overnight to meet regulators’ reserve requirements—or they may end up with excess reserve capital to lend out to their peers. The federal funds rate provides a reference for institutions as they are borrowing or lending reserves. A bond issuer such as the Treasury Department decides on the coupon rate for its bonds based on prevalent market interest rates, among other things, at the time of the issuance. So the Treasury Department has complete control over the coupon at the time of the issuance of the bond. It doesn't need to consult the market or the Fed or the secondary market for Treasuries which is the market in which Treasuries are traded after they are auctioned off originally. Furthermore, it does not have to rely on the primary market either to sell a sufficient amount of Treasuries so the government can pay its bills. That's because the Fed can buy any unsold Treasuries and just place them on its balance sheet. The Fed buys and sells Treasuries all the time.
All monetary policy decisions of the Federal Reserve--including buying and selling securities--are made independently of the borrowing decisions of the federal government and are intended solely to fulfill the mandate set out for the Federal Reserve by law--maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.
The Federal Reserve purchases Treasury securities held by the public through a competitive bidding process. The Federal Reserve does not purchase new Treasury securities directly from the U.S. Treasury, and Federal Reserve purchases of Treasury securities from the public are not a means of financing the federal deficit.
In financing the federal deficit, the federal government borrows from the public by issuing Treasury securities, which are sold at auction according to a schedule that is published quarterly. The Treasury determines the types and amounts of Treasury securities sold at auction with the goal of achieving the lowest financing costs for the federal government over time. The Federal Reserve does not participate in competitive bidding at Treasury auctions, and the Treasury's debt management decisions are not influenced by the Federal Reserve's purchases of Treasury securities in secondary markets.
When the Fed was goosing the economy with quantitative easing, QE, it bought mortgage backed securities and also Treasuries. Quantitative easing refers to the fact that the Fed bought up ill performing or bankrupt assets held by private banking institutions like Collateralized Debt Obligations, CDOs, which ere worthless mortgages packaged together, for cash which was then injected into the bank. Presto chango, now the bank was healthy again instead of being burdened by these worthless CDOs. When QE was in place, the Fed purchased other securities on the open market, including U.S. Treasuries. “Under this program, the Fed became one of the biggest buyers of Treasury securities in the market,” says Tom Hainlin, national investment strategist at U.S. Bank. So the point is that although "the Treasury's debt management decisions are not influenced by the Federal Reserve's purchases of Treasury securities in secondary markets," the Fed could purchase Treasuries if they went unsold when they were first introduced into the primary market, and it can always buy Treasuries on the open or secondary market. This flexibility means that the Treasury doesn't have to set coupon rates on its Treasuries based on market interest rates, and that means that interest on the national debt could be controlled. The Fed could buy up Treasuries with high coupon rates and replace them with low coupon rate Treasuries or not replace them at all. Interest on the national debt could be reduced to an insignificant amount based on the Fed's operations. The fact that the Fed's balance sheet is growing by all these QE activities means absolutely nothing. In fact the Fed's balance sheet could swallow up the entire national debt. It would be just a figure on an accounting sheet of no consequence.
To answer the question posed by this article, "Why do Interest Rates on Treasuries Have to Go Up When the Fed Raises Interest Rates", they don't. People will want to hold Treasuries regardless of their value because their money is absolutely secure. That's the key point.
A small financial transactions tax could correct a number of maladies in our economic system, from the federal debt crisis to the widening wealth divide to the rampant financialization of the economy, while eliminating taxes on income and sales.
The debt ceiling crisis has again brought into focus the perennial gap between what the government spends and what it accumulates in taxes, and the virtual impossibility of closing that gap by increasing taxes or negotiating cuts in the budget.
In a 2023 book titled A Tale of Two Economies: A New Financial Operating System for the American Economy, Wall Street veteran Scott Smith shows that we would need to tax everyone at a rate of 40%, without deductions, to balance the budgets of our federal and local governments – an obvious nonstarter. The problem, he argues, is that we are taxing the wrong things – income and physical sales. In fact, we have two economies – the material economy in which goods and services are bought and sold, and the monetary economy involving the trading of financial assets (stocks, bonds, currencies, etc.) – basically “money making money” without producing new goods or services.
Drawing on data from the Bank for International Settlements and the Federal Reserve, Smith shows that the monetary economy is hundreds of times larger than the physical economy. The budget gap could be closed by imposing a tax of a mere 0.1% on financial transactions, while eliminating not just income taxes but every other tax we pay today. For a financial transactions tax (FTT) of 0.25%, we could fund benefits we cannot afford today that would stimulate growth in the real economy, including not just infrastructure and development but free college, a universal basic income, and free healthcare for all. Smith contends we could even pay off the national debt in ten years or less with a 0.25% FTT.
A radical change in the tax structure may seem unlikely any time soon, due to the inertia of Congress and the overweening power of the financial industry. But as economist Michael Hudson and other commentators observe, the U.S. has reached its limits to growth without some sort of debt write down. Federal interest expense as a percent of tax revenues spiked to 32.9% in the first quarter of 2023, and it will spike further as old securities at lower interest rates mature and are replaced with new ones at much higher interest. A financial reset is not only necessary but may be imminent. Promising proposals like Smith’s can lead the way to a much-needed shift from serving “capital” to serving productivity and the broader public interest.
America Has an Employment Problem, Not an Unemployment Problem
by John Lawrence
Wherever you look from air traffic controllers to fruit pickers to caregivers to teachers to police, there are not enough workers. That is why unemployment is so low - at 3.4%. The Health Services, Professional and Business Services, Trade, and Accommodation and Food Services industries have the highest numbers of job openings. The question is why there is a shortage of workers and what to do about it.The pandemic caused a major disruption in America’s labor force—something many have referred to as The Great Resignation. In 2022, more than 50 million workers quit their jobs, many of whom were in search of an improved work-life balance and flexibility, increased compensation, and a strong company culture. But a closer look at what has happened to the labor force can be better described as ‘The Great Reshuffle’ because hiring rates have outpaced quit rates since November of 2020. So, many workers are quitting their jobs—but many are getting re-hired elsewhere. In a game of musical chairs workers are seeking and getting better jobs, leaving high stress professions like nursing and teaching and getting paid more to do other things.
So America basically has a shortage of "essential workers," workers who do necessary work for traditionally low pay. America has developed so many ways to make money doing inessential work at higher pay so why should anyone who doesn't have to work in an essential job? There are two ways. 1) Pay more for essential work and 2) increase legal immigration because increasingly immigrants are doing the work that Americans who have been Americans longer don't want to do. The worker shortage has empowered workers. They are so to speak in the catbird seat. They are demanding more pay, shorter hours, better working conditions. This is all well and good, but, as the pandemic showed, essential work is necessary for people to live while so many other forms of work, while more lucrative, could disappear tomorrow without affecting much most Americans' quality of life. For instance, Facebook had 86,482 full-time employees as of December 2022, up from just 150 people in 2006. If Facebook disappeared tomorrow, nothing essential to life would be lost in my opinion. The same is true for other social media like Tik Tok. In fact considering the effects social media has had on the population, the world might be better off if all social media disappeared tomorrow. Then those workers would be available for more essential jobs.
If the advertising industry disappeared tomorrow, the world might be better off. For instance, I can find anything I might be interested in buying on Amazon. I don't need to be pounded on by TV commercials to be told what I should want or what I should need. In particualar, Facebook makes all its considerable revenues from advertising. It does not manufacture a product essential to life or any product at all. People are getting smart that there are cushier, safer jobs with better work-life balance than essential jobs. Caregivers like Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) are low paid but essential jobs. Anyone who has had a loved one in the hospital for any length of time realizes how essential they are. They do the dirty work like changing patients diapers and cleaning up when they haven't got to the patients' bedsides in time to prevent a tragedy. Nurses and teachers are overworked considering the nurse/patient ratio and the teacher/student ratio. Much essential work is done by non college graduates and, therefore, does not merit the esteem that college graduates' jobs garner. Nevertheless, they are more important jobs in an essential sense, than many jobs that require a college education. When you need a plumber, you will not usually be hiring a college graduate.
About half of Americans who lost their job during the pandemic and are still not working say they are not willing to take jobs that do not offer the opportunity for remote work. However, many essential jobs can't be done remotely. They are "hands on." It is about time that America values its essential workers and makes a distinction between what's essential and what is inessential. It's a question, to some extent, of values, of what kinds of work are valued. This is where unions come in. America cannot function without essential workers. Yet the only way they can get the pay and benefits they deserve is to unionize and withdraw their workforce if necessary to get what they deserve. For sure, they won't get a better paying job otherwise unless they quit and go to work for Facebook.
President Biden's original policy in the Ukraine war included the notion that the war would be confined to Ukraine's physical territory and not lead to a wider war. The west would supply Ukraine with weapons, and Ukraine would have a fighting chance of pushing Russia out of their territory. The whole strategy was predicated on the goal of preventing World War III. Now that policy is failing due to the fact that the west has gradually increased the firepower and sophistication of the weapons supplied to Ukraine, and also the fact that Ukraine is starting to attack inside Russia. The war is widening and intensifying. Ukraine, meanwhile, is in no mood to try and negotiate a settlement to the war, and NATO doesn't seem to be in any mood to force them to negotiate. So the war is escalating. Zelensky never misses a chance to demand more and more sophisticated weapons from the west. Biden and other western leaders continue to support his rhetoric that Ukraine can win the war. It's all about winning or losing, not about a negotiated peace.
So what went wrong, and how could this war get so out of hand? First, it is undisputed that Russia invaded Ukraine unprovokedly. However, there were negotiations and events leading up to the invasion which might have resolved issues which would have prevented the invasion in the first place. On Dec. 17 2021, Russia presented security demands including that NATO pull back troops and weapons from eastern Europe and bar Ukraine from ever joining. Russia had been upset for years due to the fact that, after the fall of the Soviet Union, NATO had marched resolutely eastward despite assurances to the contrary. I had written earlier:
"NATO expanded during the 1990s largely due to the imprecations of President Bill Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright even though President Gorbachev had been promised that NATO would not expand "one inch eastward" as part of a deal to reunify Germany after the Cold War.
After explaining why the U.S. wanted the reunited Germany to stay within the framework of NATO, Baker told Gorbachev that "if we maintain a presence in a Germany that is a part of NATO, there would be no extension of NATO's jurisdiction for forces of NATO 1 inch to the east."
"I put the following question to (Gorbachev)," Baker recounted in a letter to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. "‘Would you prefer to see a united Germany outside of NATO, independent and with no U.S. forces, or would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO’s jurisdiction would not shift 1 inch eastward from its present position?’"
Those comments, along with similar remarks from Baker’s European allies, like Genscher and Kohl, were part of what researchers at George Washington University’s National Security Archive called a "cascade of assurances" offered to the Soviets.
But Baker and otherofficials involved in the events have denied that the conversation ever turned on expanding NATO to other countries.
So basically Gorbachev was sold a bill of goods that, if he consented to the reunification of Germany and with Germany as a NATO member, that NATO would not expand eastwards. However, "given assurances" is not the same as "legal and binding". Therefore, in July 1997, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic (where Albright was born) were formally invited to join NATO."
Ever since Russian Czar Peter the Great attempted to "westernize" Russia, there has been a dicey relationship between Russia and Europe, each eyeing the other warily. Culturally, in terms of literature, dance, music and athletics, Russia is a western nation. Even Putin expressed interest in being part of the west. George Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary who led Nato between 1999 and 2003, said Putin made it clear at their first meeting that he wanted Russia to be part of western Europe. “They wanted to be part of that secure, stable prosperous west that Russia was out of at the time,” he said.
The Labour peer recalled an early meeting with Putin, who became Russian president in 2000. “Putin said: ‘When are you going to invite us to join NATO?’ And [Robertson] said: ‘Well, we don’t invite people to join NATO, they apply to join NATO.’ And he said: ‘Well, we’re not standing in line with a lot of countries that don’t matter.’”
The account chimes with what Putin told the late David Frost in a BBC interview shortly before he was first inaugurated as Russian president more than 21 years ago. Putin told Frost he would not rule out joining NATO “if and when Russia’s views are taken into account as those of an equal partner”.
He told Frost it was hard for him to visualise NATO as an enemy. “Russia is part of the European culture. And I cannot imagine my own country in isolation from Europe and what we often call the civilised world.”
However, Putin was rebuffed. He was further slighted when his demands that Ukraine not be considered for NATO membership before the war were, probably in his mind, disrespected. The whole Ukraine war could have been prevented perhaps by massaging sufficiently Putin's bruised ego - in other words intelligent diplomacy. In his mind it seems he and Russia were not properly respected nor were their interests properly taken into account. With two individuals, one of whom looks down on the other, more often than not a fight can ensue. It's the same between two nations. Mutual respect is important in any negotiation. Clearly, Putin did not feel that that was the case in negotiations before the war.
So now there is cross border fighting between Ukraine and Russia. This is clearly an escalation of the war and diminishes Biden's attempts of containing the war to Ukraine and preventing a larger conflict including perhaps World War III. The introductin of more sophisticated western weapons into Ukraine including offensive capabilities and more bellicose rhetoric on the part of Ukraine, no matter how justified, does not presage a good outcome for this complex situation. Putin and Russia could have perhaps been assuaged before the war by placing Ukraine's NATO membership on hold for a period of years, but Biden's insistence that any nation can apply and get NATO membership clearly was a non-starter for Putin. At this point the only alternative to escalation of the war and possibly a nuclear Armageddon, is a negotiated peace, something that Zelensky is disinclined to do and something that Biden is disinclined from telling him to do.
Biden: The Least Appreciated Great President in American History
by John Lawrence
President Biden has gotten more real work done for the American people than any President with the exception of Franklin D. Roosevelt. So why is his job approval rating so low - just 39%? Chalk it up to the fickleness of the American people. They don't know a great President when they see one. Biden has been able to do so much with much narrower margins in Congress than FDR had in all his terms as President. In fact Roosevelt had Democratic majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate from 1933 until his death in 1945, and in those days the filibuster was a speaking filibuster that delayed but didn't terminate legislation and so was of little consequence compared to the fact that today 60 Senators are required to pass any bill.
So what are some of Biden's accomplishments? The Inflation Reduction Act is a historic legislative achievement that lowers costs for families, combats the climate crisis, reduces the deficit, and finally makes the largest corporations pay their fair share. For the first time, Medicare is able to negotiate the price of certain high-cost drugs, a month’s supply of insulin for seniors is capped at $35, Medicare beneficiaries pay $0 out of pocket for recommended adult vaccines, and seniors’ out of pocket expenses at the pharmacy will be capped at $2,000 a year. Historically low unemployment at 3.5%. A manufacturing boom is occurring. Companies have announced nearly $300 billion in manufacturing investments in the United States. These investments are ensuring the technologies of the future are made in America, and bringing back supply chains from overseas. And they are creating good-paying jobs, including union jobs and jobs that don’t require a four-year degree. As part of the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, the Department of Commerce is overseeing $50 billion to revitalize the U.S. semiconductor industry, including $39 billion in semiconductor incentives. The first funding opportunity seeks applications for projects to construct, expand, or modernize commercial facilities for the production of leading-edge, current-generation, and mature-node semiconductors. This includes both front-end wafer fabrication and back-end packaging. The Department will also be releasing a funding opportunity for semiconductor materials and equipment facilities in the late spring, and one for research and development facilities in the fall.
President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan to change the course of the pandemic and jump start our economic recovery. The American Rescue Plan funded our successful vaccination campaign, safely re-opened schools for in-person learning, helped 200,000 child care providers keep their doors open, and delivered relief to American families. Biden forged a consensus and got the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed – a once-in-a-generation investment in our nation’s infrastructure. We are rebuilding our roads, bridges, ports, and airports, upgrading public transit and rail systems, replacing lead pipes to provide clean water, cleaning up pollution, providing affordable high-speed internet to every family in America, delivering cheaper and cleaner energy to households and businesses, and creating good-paying jobs – including union jobs, and jobs that don’t require a four-year degree.
President Biden signed into law the PACT Act – the most significant expansion of benefits and services for toxic exposed veterans in more than 30 years. This law also enables the Department of Veterans Affairs to move more quickly in the future to determine if illnesses are related to military service, and it offers critical support to survivors who were harmed by exposures. And, the law authorized 31 new clinical sites and provides VA several tools and resources to ensure effective implementation of the law. The Biden Administration announced debt relief of up to $20,000 for Americans earning less than $125,000 per year who had Pell Grants in college, and up to $10,000 for all other borrowers below that income threshold. More than 40 million borrowers stand to benefit from this action, and about 20 million would see their debt entirely wiped out - and nearly 90% of this relief will go to borrowers earning less than $75,000 per year. In early 2023, the Biden-Harris Administration announced a plan to provide millions of borrowers with more affordable monthly student loan payments through changes to income-driven repayment plans.
The U.S. is positioned to achieve our ambitious climate goals of cutting our emissions in half by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2050. The President has taken executive action and signed legislation to develop clean energy at home, accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles, and reduce pollution that endangers overburdened communities. And, the President is lowering energy costs for families, creating good paying jobs, and ensuring America leads the global clean energy economy. The President also protected more lands and waters in his first year than any President since John F. Kennedy. President Biden took action to lower the cost of health care for millions of Americans. Right now, four out of five people who sign up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act can find health care coverage for $10 a month or less and millions of Americans on Obamacare are saving an average of $800 a year. Since he took office, there has been a combined 50 percent increase in enrollment in states that use HealthCare.gov and the nation’s uninsured rate is historically low at 8 percent. Over 16 million Americans signed up for quality, affordable health coverage, the highest number ever produced in an open enrollment period.
So what are Biden's most significant achievements? In my opinion infrastructure and climate action lead the way. These areas have been neglected too long, and the Biden initiatives will just barely make amends. In and of themselves, they are probably insufficient, but they are a good start, a start that has been delayed too long. Changing the narrative on taxation, I think, is a major accomplishment. Making it clear that a tax bill does not have to apply to everyone. By not raising taxes on anyone making less than $400,000, an oft repeated phrase, the narrative has been changed from "tax and spend" to "tax the rich and spend on helping the poor and middle class". Deficit reduction doesn't mean necessarily to stop spending on social programs as it means getting more money into government coffers by taxing the rich. Inequality is out of control; taxing the rich ameliorates this situation. What Biden did to get us through the COVID crisis is remarkable. It could have been an economic disaster for everyone; it wasn't. Student debt relief was a great achievement although it is still not clear how that will play out in the courts.
The American people by and large don't appreciate all that Biden has done compared to what any Republican administration would have done. Clearly, Democrats are on the side of rationality and helping the American people. Republicans are on the side of winning at all costs and helping the rich. They don't give a damn about helping the American people especially the middle class and the poor. The Republican mantra of reducing the deficit and the debt would have you believe that it can only be done in one way, that is by reducing spending. No, it can also be done by taxing the rich which would also reduce inequality. But this is all the Republicans have, that and the discredited policy of tax breaks for the rich that have done little to "trickle down" and have greatly contributed to the national debt. Enhancement of Obama's landmark health care legislation is another major achievement although Obama deserves much of the credit. It's a testimony of what the Democratic party is able to achieve for the country. The fact that Biden accomplished so much in a bipartisan way is something few other politicians could have hoped to accomplish especially in the political environment that exists today.
My criticism of Biden has to do with the Ukraine war. On the one hand he has prevented it from becoming a world war as of yet. However, in the negotiations preceding the war, I believe more could have been done to prevent the war in the first place. By not acknowledging or being sensitive to Russia's concerns about the encroachment of NATO on its borders which started during the Clinton administration and was hastened by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Biden and other diplomats missed an opportunity to defuse the crisis. Their policy was a de facto attempt to bully Russia into accepting the fact that Ukraine would also become part of NATO. Now the US is entrenched in a policy of Ukraine "winning" and Russia "losing" instead of a policy of a negotiated settlement to end the war, a negotiated settlement which could have been had before the war even started IMHO, for instance, by delaying Ukraine's admission to NATO for a period of time during which Russia's security concerns might have been addressed. In effect Ukraine has become a vassal state of the US instead of its historic situation of being a vassal state of Russia.
With a combination of safe sleeping and safe parking areas and also converting motel rooms into single occupancy units (SROs), San Diego is heading in the right direction for solving the homeless situation. This is combined with an ordinance that prohibits sleeping in public areas including sidewalks. Finally, a workable solution that gets the homeless off the streets, provides them with some amenities including sanitation facilities and makes the streets and city sidewalks safe for pedestrians again. As a tourist destination San Diego can't afford the spectacle of back to back tents crowding city sidewalks, and the provision of amenities in safe sleeping areas or city sponsored SROs makes the homeless at least somewhat better off than they are without any amenities on public sidewalks. The San Diego Union reported:
The properties being considered include three hotels and one apartment building.
One of the hotels is a 62-unit Ramada Inn on Midway Drive, which the Housing Commission agreed to pursue at its May 12 meeting when it unanimously agreed to apply for $18 million in Project Homekey funding. The estimated purchase price would be $11.6 million, equating to about $182,000 a unit, but adding kitchenettes and other upgrades would increase the overall cost to $29.5 million, or $469,000 a unit.
The city also is submitting a joint $4 million application with Wakeland Housing and Development Corp. to purchase a vacant 13-unit apartment building in Ocean Beach. Purchasing the building would cost $4.5 million, but rehabilitation expenses would increase the cost to $6.8 million, bringing the per-unit cost to $525,000.
The other two properties are a 107-unit Extended Stay America Hotel on Murphy Canyon Road for $40.7 million and a 140-unit Extended Stay America Hotel on Mission Valley Road for $52 million.
Essentially the city is taking the responsibility for providing public housing, something that was abandoned during the Reagan administration. The most dramatic cut in domestic spending during the Reagan years was for low-income housing subsidies. Reagan appointed a housing task force dominated by politically connected developers, landlords and bankers. In 1982 the task force released a report that called for “free and deregulated” markets as an alternative to government assistance – advice Reagan followed. In his first year in office Reagan halved the budget for public housing and Section 8 to about $17.5 billion. And for the next few years he sought to eliminate federal housing assistance to the poor altogether.
Public housing was stigmatized due to failed projects like Cabrini-Green. Cabrini–Green was home to 15,000 people, mostly living in mid- and high-rise apartment buildings. Crime and neglect created hostile living conditions for many residents, and "Cabrini–Green" became a metonym for problems associated with public housing in the United States. Now cities like San Diego are forced to take up the fallen banner for public housing under the metonym of "housing the homeless". The state of California, however, is providing most of the funding.
Other cities have had no problem in providing low cost rental housing. Take Vienna for example, a city which has largely solved the worldwide crisis of soaring rents:
Experts refer to Vienna’s Gemeindebauten as “social housing,” a phrase that captures how the city’s public housing and other limited-profit housing are a widely shared social benefit: The Gemeindebauten welcome the middle class, not just the poor. In Vienna, a whopping 80 percent of residents qualify for public housing, and once you have a contract, it never expires, even if you get richer. Housing experts believe that this approach leads to greater economic diversity within public housing — and better outcomes for the people living in it.
People living in Vienna's social housing pay as little as 3% of their monthly salaries on rent. To boot the availability of low cost public housing keeps costs in the private housing market down.
In 2015, before they bought an apartment on the private market, the Schachingers were making about 80,000 euros ($87,000) a year, roughly the income of the average U.S. household in 2021. Eva and Klaus-Peter paid 26 percent and 29 percent in income tax, respectively, but just 4 percent of their pretax income was going toward rent, which is about what the average American household spends on meals eaten out and half a percentage point less than what the average American spends on “entertainment.” Even if the Schachingers got a new contract today on their unit, their monthly payments would be an estimated 542 euros, or only 8 percent of their income. Vienna’s generous supply of social housing helps keep costs down for everyone: In 2021, Viennese living in private housing spent 26 percent of their post-tax income on rent and energy costs, on average, which is only slightly more than the figure for social-housing residents overall (22 percent). Meanwhile, 49 percent of American renters — 21.6 million people — are cost-burdened, paying landlords more than 30 percent of their pretax income, and the percentage can be even higher in expensive cities. In New York City, the median renter household spends a staggering 36 percent of its pretax income on rent.
Real estate is a place where money literally grows on tree beams. In the last decade, the typical owner of a single-family home acquired nearly $200,000 in appreciation. “Another word for asset appreciation is inflation,” the academics Lisa Adkins, Melinda Cooper and Martijn Konings write in “The Asset Economy,” “an increase in monetary value without any corresponding change in the nature of the good itself or the conditions of its production that would make it scarcer or justify an increased demand for it.” That inflation is creating a treacherous gulch between the housing haves and have-nots. Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies found that, in 2019, the median net worth of U.S. renters was just 2.5 percent of the median net worth of homeowners: $6,270 versus $254,900. Last year, as higher interest rates slowed home sales and caused prices to plateau (and even soften in some overheated cities), the asking price of the median U.S. rental reached $2,000 a month, a record high, according to Redfin. Inflated rent prices line the pockets of landlords while preventing renters from saving for a down payment and ever getting off the treadmill.
Inflation in asset prices, particularly real estate, is causing more people, especially senior citizens, to fall into homelessness. The recent rise in interest rates which supposedly are aimed at curbing inflation have done nothing to bring the cost of housing down. In San Diego county, real estate is still appreciating in value despite the Fed having raised interest rates to highs not seen in recent years. It has done nothing to stop investors and hedge funds that pay cash. I reported previously:
In a deal with the Conrad Prebys Foundation, Blackstone Group, CEO'd by Steven Schwarzman, is buying 5800 rental units in San Diego. According to the San Diego Union, "The deal makes Blackstone one of the biggest real estate holders in San Diego County. It already owns $4.5 billion in assets here — including Legoland and the Hotel del Coronado. The transaction, which also includes Los Angeles-based investment firm TruAmerica as a partner, is expected to close in the next few weeks. The sale of the apartments was praised by Dan Yates, the president of the Conrad Prebys Foundation, who said the portfolio was assembled by Conrad Prebys — a San Diego developer — himself. Yates said the money from the deal will be used for grants primarily in San Diego."
Investors pay cash t buy up cheap rentals, and, therefore, the rise in interest rates doesn't affect them. They don't pay interest. They then give the tenants a 30 or 60 day notice depending on how long they've lived there. Then they refurbish the apartments and rent them out for twice the previous rent. This is the so-called "gentrification" of San Diego neighborhoods. This is why low cost rental units are disappearing just as all the SROs have disappeared. The policies now taking place by the city and county of San Diego to provide converted hotel housing and safe sleeping and parking areas will counteract this trend of higher and higher rents producing more and more homelessness. It's a policy that needs to be continued and increased. It cannot just be a one-off. Eventually, it will put a damper on the private rental market just as it did in Vienna.
Government Deficit Spending Is Not the Problem: Lack of Labor and Physical Resources Is
by John Lawrence
Since the US dollar is a sovereign fiat currency, the US can never run out of dollars. The debt ceiling is a totally artificial limit which results in the US hoisting itself on its own pitard. According to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) as espoused in The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton, the only limit on government spending is inflation, and inflation is concerned with the amount and nature of resources available to soak up the money injected into the economic system by the government. According to this theory it makes sense that a lack of labor resources could lead to inflation. Consider that right now there is a shortage of air traffic controllers, and this is leading to a cancellation of flights. If there were more air traffic controllers available, the number of flights could be increased, and more economic activity would ensue. The constraint on flights available because of the lack of air traffic controllers leads to inflation because the money charged for each available flight can be increased. Essentially there is a bidding war for the available flights. If any resource including natural resources like steel and cement is not sufficient for the demand for those resources, then the price of those resources will increase leading to inflation. Right now in the US labor is becoming a scarce resource especially labor of the type necessary in the essential economy, that is the economy of goods and services necessary for the continuation and enhancement of everyday life. As more labor is developed for essentially useless services like the entertainment and social media industries, plumbers, electricians and carpenters are not available for useful services, and, therefore, the cost of those services increases.
Which brings us to Biden's Inflation Reduction Act which allocates $370 billion to rebuild infrastructure and fight climate change. These are all necessary and vital goals, but the question should be asked are the resources for this amount of spending sufficient or will this spending be inflationary. To put it more succinctly is the blue collar labor sufficient for the job? If not, the price of labor will be bid up and the spending will be inflationary. More and more these days students are encouraged to go to college where they end up after graduation working for Wall Street or hedge funds or in the entertainment/social media industry. They are not encouraged to go to vocational technical schools to become carpenters, plumbers and electricians. So they go into industries which are not essential to the real economy. There are shortages of labor for the real economy everywhere we look. In order to overcome these shortages, it would be necessary to step up legal immigration since immigrants by and large fill the jobs Americans don't want to do, and by and large Americans don't want to perform any kind of the less glamorous and remunerative type of labor necessary for production in the real economy. Also outsourcing has made it unnecessary for Americans to perform labor in the real economy. We rely either on immigrants or foreign workers for that.
The next thing is that all this infrastructure rebuilding is going to contribute to global warming as well as reducing it. Rebuilding all the bridges of America will require large amounts of steel and cement. Steel and cement production produce large amounts of carbon dioxide which is emitted into the atmosphere. The International Energy Agency estimates that direct CO2 emissions due to crude steel production is approximately 1.4 tons of CO2 per ton of steel produced. The cement industry is responsible for about 8% of planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions — far more than global carbon emissions from aviation. If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world, after the U.S. and China. So rebuilding America's infrastructure will contribute to global warming while at the same time attempting to reduce global warming. The fact is that alternatives to steel and cement which do not produce greenhouse gasses are not available. Research on these topics needs to be stepped up. But more research in areas like artificial intelligence, of the kind which has no use in the amelioration of global warming, takes place while productive research into materials to replace steel and cement languishes. Also while more electric vehicles are being produced, the electric energy to power these vehicles is coming from power plants that still use fossil fuels to produce it. One form of greenhouse gas production is being traded for another. Nothing is gained unless all energy generating power plants are using renewable and non carbon dioxide producing fuels.
The problem is that limited resources both in terms of labor and physical resources will hamper efforts both in repairing American infrastructure and building infrastructure which reduces the amount of greenhouse gas production. Stephanie Kelton writes: "That's why MMT recommends a different approach to the federal budgeting process, one that integrates inflation risk into the decision making process so that lawmakers are forced to stop and think about whether they have taken the necessary steps to guard against inflation risk before approving any new spending. MMT would make us safer in this respect because it recognizes that the best defense against inflation is a good offense. We don't want to allow excessive spending to cause inflation and then fight inflation after it happens. We want agencies like the CBO helping to evaluate new legislation for potential inflation risk before Congress commits to funding new programs so that the risks can be mitigated preemptively. At its core MMT is about replacing an artificial (revenue) constraint with a real (inflation) restraint." The artificial revenue constraint is the debt ceiling!
In the above passage the words "inflation risk" could also be replaced with "greenhouse gas emission risk." The CBO should evaluate both kinds of risks. So as the economy becomes more electrified in terms of electric cars and buildings, we need to think about the fact that the electricity generated by these increased demands needs to come from non carbon dioxide emitting sources. Also substitutes must be found quickly - in other words research needs to be stepped up - to find substitutes for steel and cement. To boot, non polluting energy sources must be found for ships and planes. Both human and physical natural resources must be taken into account. Have all these things been thought through?
One suggested method is to have the Treasury mint a trillion dollar platinum coin. This is interesting because, although by law the Federal Reserve can only issue paper money, the Treasury by law can mint coins. There is no limit on the value of these coins. This is not a strategy that Biden will use because it is too obviously gimmicky. But there are more arcane strategies that will fill the bill, accomplish the goal, keep the US economy humming and not be that understandable by the general public, and, therefore, harder for Republicans to characterize and demonize. So the next strategy is for the Treasury to issue so-called 'consul' bonds. These bonds bear interest, but have no maturity date, and so raise money without adding to the debt. But there is a better way. The Treasury can buy back bonds that have a low interest rate due to the fact that they were issued before interest rates were raised, and also are worth less because of the fact that currently issued bonds have a higher interest rate. Then the Treasury Department can issue new bonds with the same monetary value as the ones retired raising the debt back to where it was before but not increasing it. The difference in value between the bonds bought back and the bonds sold would generate cash while keeping the overall national debt the same. In other words it wouldn't increase or decrease the national debt. There are other tricks which would involve the Federal Reserve which buys and sells Treasury bonds all the time, but this would be tricky because the Federal Reserve is supposed to be independent of the Treasury Department.
The beauty of having the Treasury Department buy and sell bonds generating cash to pay the government's bills is that it would be hard for Republicans to characterize and demonize. It would be hard for the public to understand what's going on although bills would be getting paid despite the debt limit and Biden can take credit for this. Meanwhile, Kevin McCarthy and his MAGA Republicans will have egg all over their respective faces. Their whole campaign to intimidate and castigate Biden will have come to naught. They will be left twisting in the wind saying, "What tha ...". Marjorie Taylor-Green will hardly understand what hit her. All the debt ceiling negotiations now going on can be seen as just a lot of posturing until they totally fail and yet the economy will keep on humming because the government's bills will still be getting paid via Biden's invoking of the 14th Amendment and manipulations being done in the bond market by the Treasury Department. Janet Yellin dost protest too loudly, methinks, that there will be no unorthodox methods used to circumvent the debt limit. This is just what Biden, cool as a cucumber, wants Republicans to believe. It doesn't mean that Biden and Yellin won't cooperate to keep the government humming once negotiations about the debt limit fail totally and completely. Biden will be the hero of the day when he gets on television and announces that he is invoking the 14th Amendment. He doesn't have to say just how this is going to be accomplished..
In such a situation, it’s natural to consider possible end runs around the debt ceiling that the Biden administration could use to meet U.S. commitments without the cooperation of Congress. Indeed, it would be irresponsible not to consider these possibilities. It would be especially irresponsible to reject them because they sound undignified: Crashing the world economy for fear of looking silly would be unforgivable.
There are two main gimmicks that have been widely discussed: premium bonds and platinum coins. Premium bonds are harder to explain, which may make them a more likely route, simply because the platinum coin offers an easier target for false narratives.
The U.S. government finances itself largely by selling notes and bonds (10 years or less of maturity is a note, more than that a bond). These securities combine a par value — the amount that will be paid when the note or bond matures — with an interest coupon, a sum paid twice a year. Notes and bonds are auctioned off, often for more than their par value, because sometimes market interest rates are lower than the face interest rate — the annual coupon as a percentage of par value — so investors are willing to pay a premium.
Normally this is a small factor, because interest rates on newly issued notes are set close to prevailing market rates. But that doesn’t have to be the case.
So when a $100 10-year note matures, why not issue a new note, also with a par value of $100 — so that officially we aren’t adding to the debt — but with a face interest rate of, say, 10 percent, far above market rates (which are currently 3.37 percent). This new note would sell for much more than its face value, so Treasury would in fact be raising a substantial amount of money, even though it isn’t officially increasing the debt.
And there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with selling debt instruments for more than their par value. Until 2015 part of Britain’s debt consisted of consols, bonds that pay a fixed coupon every year but never mature and therefore have no par value at all.
So there you have it folks. Using some financial legerdemain, the government can continue to function and pay its bills despite the debt limit. This makes the debt limit irrelevant and something that can hopefully be retired to its grave at some point. After all, if the Federal Reserve can use quantitative easing to create money out of thin air, so ought the Treasury Department be able to get creative by wheeling and dealing in the bond market to accomplish its goal which is to pay the government's bills in a timely manner without being held hostage by the Republican party
Biden's Changing The Asylum Law Without Congress' Help
by John Lawrence
The asylum law in effect says that any alien who enters the US legally or illegally may apply for asylum. This incentivizes aliens to enter illegally, and, if caught, to simply request asylum. Since they would have to go before a court to determine if they should get asylum and the court is backed up for years, entering illegally and requesting asylum is a guarantee of at least currently five years in the US during which time they could attempt to remain hidden and not show up at court. The reality is that only about 40% of asylum seekers that show up for their court date actually get asylum. The rest are deported. According to U.S. and international law, a claim of persecution must be made based on one of five “protected grounds”: race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. Poverty, scarce economic opportunities, displacement caused by natural disasters or a desire to reunite with family are not grounds for asylum under U.S. law. Here's the actual law:
Any alien who is physically present in the United States or who arrives in the United States (whether or not at a designated port of arrival and including an alien who is brought to the United States after having been interdicted in international or United States waters), irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum in accordance with this section or, where applicable, section 1225(b) of this title.
In order to dissuade asylum seekers from just showing up in a disorderly fashion en masse at the southern border, the Biden administration has been setting up a system to encourage people to apply for asylum in an orderly manner. This includes applying at a port of entry or applying from a country in south or central America. Also,they are disincentivized from coming across the border illegally because, if they do, they are ineligible for asylum for 5 years. Here's the new rule:
SUMMARY: The Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) and the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) are issuing a final rule in anticipation of a potential surge of migration at the southwest border (“SWB”) of the United States following the termination of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (“CDC”) public health Order. The rule encourages migrants to avail themselves of lawful, safe, and orderly pathways into the United States, or otherwise to seek asylum or other protection in another country through which they travel, thereby reducing reliance on human smuggling networks that exploit migrants for financial gain. The rule does so by introducing a rebuttable presumption of asylum ineligibility for certain noncitizens who neither avail themselves of a lawful, safe, and orderly pathway to the United States nor seek asylum or other protection in a country through which they travel. In the absence of such a measure, which would apply only to those who enter at the southwest land border or adjacent coastal borders during a limited, specified date range, the number of migrants expected to travel without authorization to the United States would be expected to increase significantly, to a level that risks undermining the Departments’ continued ability to safely, effectively, and humanely enforce and administer U.S. immigration law, including the asylum system, in the face of exceptionally challenging circumstances. Coupled with an expansion of lawful, safe, and orderly pathways into the United States, the Departments expect the rule to lead to a reduction in the number of migrants who seek to cross the SWB without authorization to enter, thereby reducing the reliance by migrants on dangerous human smuggling networks, protecting against extreme overcrowding in border facilities, and helping to ensure that the processing of migrants seeking protection in the United States is done in an effective, humane, and efficient manner. In addition, the Departments are requesting comment on whether applicability of the rebuttable presumption should be extended to noncitizens who enter the United States without documents sufficient for lawful admission during the same temporary time period at a maritime border.
DATES: Effective date: This rule is effective on May 11, 2023.
This document is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on 05/16/2023 and available online at federalregister.gov/d/2023-10146, and on govinfo.gov
The Biden administration is solving the border crisis without the help of Congress in a way that's sure to be challenged in court, but in the way that Congress would actually probably solve it if they were inclined to act and reform immigration laws. Biden should get a lot of credit for going ahead without Congress which is a sewer of conflict, stagnation and malfunction. An orderly process for applying for asylum has been created by the Biden administration which should discourage masses of people showing up at the southern border. For this they deserve much credit.
Republican Presidents Have Been Mainly Responsible for Increases in the National Debt
by John Lawrence
The Reagan, George W Bush and Trump tax cuts are responsible for most of the US national debt. During the Trump administration, the debt increased by roughly $7.8 trillion, and The George W. Bush administration enacted sweeping tax cuts that will have cost more than $8 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2023. The nation’s fiscal pictured changed in 1981 when President Ronald Reagan enacted the largest tax cut in U.S. history, reducing revenues by the equivalent of $19 trillion over a decade in today’s terms. Although Congress raised taxes in many of the subsequent years of the Reagan administration to claw back close to half the revenue loss, the equivalent of $10 trillion of the president’s 1981 tax cut remained. Donald Trump Built a National Debt So Big (Even Before the Pandemic) that it’ll weigh down the economy for years.
A series of massive, permanent tax cuts have created large federal budget primary shortfalls and continue to exert upward pressure on the debt ratio. In other words, the current fiscal gap—the growing debt as a percentage of the economy—stems from legislation that cut taxes, disproportionately for the very rich. While it is true that the Great Recession and legislation to fight it, along with the costs of responding to the health and economic effects of COVID-19, pushed the level of debt higher, these costs were temporary and did not change the trajectory of the debt ratio. If Congress wants to decrease deficits, it should look first toward reversing tax cuts that largely benefited the wealthy, which were responsible for the United States’ current fiscal outlook.
Therefore, taxes on the rich should increase while spending on the poor and middle class should also increase. Americans want both: social programs and reduced taxes. However, the gross inequality that exists between rich and poor begs the question: why raise taxes on everyone? Shouldn't the rich have their taxes increased while the poor and lower middle class have their taxes reduced? Of course, that 's the ideal solution. However, Republicans represent the interests of the rich so they would never agree to this proposal. They will continue to argue for increasing taxes on the poor while cutting spending that mostly benefits the poor and lower middle class. That's the American situation, writ large, folks. That's all you need to know to understand American politics. It's a struggle between rich and poor. The rich think they deserve all their money even if it runs to billions of dollars while the poor are only trying to get a foothold in the American Dream. The rich think the poor deserve their lot in life because they didn't work hard enough to overcome their poverty. The rich also believe in a meritocracy where they themselves are the winners who made all the right moves and worked the hardest. What's wrong with this picture?
San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond had tough words about the planned purchase of three extended-stay hotels to house homeless people, contending they were too expensive and didn’t address what he said is the main cause of homelessness.
“We just keep throwing more and more dollars at this problem without really getting to the root cause of mental health or alcohol abuse or drug abuse,” he said April 28 on “Fox & Friends.”
Desmond considered the proposal to spend about $157.8 million — which amounts to more than $383,000 per unit — not just too much, but counterproductive. That cost, along with the price of other housing for homeless people, has come under considerable scrutiny.
“Spending all this $157 million on more rooms, doing the same thing, causing the same problem, is fruitless,” he said.
There’s a lot to unpack here.
For one thing, that housing will include services to help people with the very kind of behavioral issues Desmond was talking about.
The specifics of this situation aside, Desmond, a Republican, is expressing widespread, bipartisan frustration at the lack of progress on reducing homelessness at the state and local levels.
Billions of dollars have been aimed at the problem in California, yet the homeless population keeps growing.
He also touched on concerns that people in all walks of life, including many who are homeless, have mental illness and substance abuse problems and need help.
But his attack on the plan by the San Diego Housing Commission, which was reprised in the New York Post, misses a few important things.
The county, which Desmond helps oversee, has agreed to provide social services for residents of these hotels when they are turned into apartments. That includes getting people assistance for various problems, including mental illness and substance abuse.
The county is a partner with the commission and the city of San Diego on the hotel conversions and was involved in negotiations over their selection from a longer list of properties.
Desmond didn’t mention that on Fox, or perhaps he didn’t know. His spokesperson said the supervisor would be unavailable to comment.
“Services specifically target the people he is talking about,” Ryan Clumpner, vice chair of the housing commission, said in an interview. “The county piece of this is what he’s criticizing.”
The root cause of homelessness, as plenty of research has shown, is the lack of housing or the high cost of housing. During his appearance on Fox, Desmond didn’t talk about the need for more housing or shelter space for people living on the street.
Further, growing efforts by Democrats and Republicans to pursue rules prohibiting public camping are hampered if there is no shelter space available. The law in many cases prohibits authorities from citing or arresting homeless people unless there are beds open.
This is not to say mental illness and substance abuse don’t contribute to homelessness, along with poverty and other economic factors.
“That’s what people really need to get into, is treatment, not just the hotel room where they can continue to use and continue in the bad habit that got them homeless in the first place,” Desmond said.
The county, which Desmond helps oversee, has agreed to provide social services for residents of these hotels when they are turned into apartments. That includes getting people assistance for various problems, including mental illness and substance abuse.
The county is a partner with the commission and the city of San Diego on the hotel conversions and was involved in negotiations over their selection from a longer list of properties.
Desmond didn’t mention that on Fox, or perhaps he didn’t know. His spokesperson said the supervisor would be unavailable to comment.
“Services specifically target the people he is talking about,” Ryan Clumpner, vice chair of the housing commission, said in an interview. “The county piece of this is what he’s criticizing.”
The root cause of homelessness, as plenty of research has shown, is the lack of housing or the high cost of housing. During his appearance on Fox, Desmond didn’t talk about the need for more housing or shelter space for people living on the street.
Further, growing efforts by Democrats and Republicans to pursue rules prohibiting public camping are hampered if there is no shelter space available. The law in many cases prohibits authorities from citing or arresting homeless people unless there are beds open.
This is not to say mental illness and substance abuse don’t contribute to homelessness, along with poverty and other economic factors.
“That’s what people really need to get into, is treatment, not just the hotel room where they can continue to use and continue in the bad habit that got them homeless in the first place,” Desmond said.
That’s an inaccurate description of what this housing is designed to do, which is provide more than just a room.
Regardless, Desmond made a troubling broad statement, suggesting mental illness is the direct result of a “bad habit.” Maybe he was thinking more about substance abuse, which can stem from personal decisions. But often there’s more to it than that.
In talking about the need to get people treatment, Desmond didn’t point out there’s an acute shortage of facilities, programs and qualified people to run them. He also could have mentioned the county is trying to do something about that, for which he and other supervisors can take credit.
The county has increased spending on behavioral health treatment by tens of millions of dollars in recent years. Looking ahead, the supervisors on Tuesday unanimously approved a groundbreaking, long-range program to train new mental health professionals and retain existing ones, according to Paul Sisson of The San Diego Union-Tribune.
Desmond bemoaned the inability of authorities to put troubled individuals into treatment if they don’t want to go.
“We have to force people, or involuntarily get them into the programs they need,” he said on Fox.
He’s not the only one who thinks that way. Last year, the Democratic-controlled Legislature passed Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to create CARE Courts aimed at compelling people to get treatment.
Amid considerable opposition, lawmakers also are trying to change the state conservatorship law to make it easier to put people into programs when they are unable to care for themselves or may be a threat to themselves and others. San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria has been a leading advocate for those changes.
There appears to be consensus that new approaches toward homelessness are needed, because what has been done isn’t working. Beyond that, there’s no broad agreement about what direction to go in.
There are arguments for permanent housing and less expensive big tent shelters, safe tent campsites, trailers and tiny houses. The housing commission has, among other things, pursued converting extended-stay hotels, where units have kitchenettes and more apartment-like layouts.
Those buildings also tend to meet regulations by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for this type of housing. Importantly, they can be turnkey projects converted quickly. The three San Diego hotels, which are near public transportation and grocery stores, could be occupied by the end of the year, according to the housing commission.
Building from scratch could take years to put together financing, gain approvals and complete construction. And that costs more than converting hotels, according to Clumpner.
“These homes are 30-40 percent cheaper than new & include social services,” he said on Twitter. “They’re coming from housing tourists to housing San Diegans with special needs.”
Gary Warth of the Union-Tribune reported that the $383,000 per-unit cost of the three hotels is greater than the cost of the two hotels purchased in 2020 and similar projects, but less than newly constructed affordable housing projects.
One of the more expensive projects is the 96-unit Amanecer Apartments in Linda Vista, which opened at a cost of $51.1 million, or $538,000 a unit.
Just as George W Bush characterized himself as 'the Decider', Donald Bush might well characterize himself as The Dominator. He dominates the other candidates or would be candidates in the Republican party. They are all afraid to criticize him. In the 2016 debates Jeb Bush, a decent guy, was destroyed by him.
“Jeb is having some kind of a breakdown,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. ”He’s an embarrassment to his family. He has to bring his mother out and walk his mother around at 90 years old. I think it’s a very sad situation that’s taking place.”
“Frankly, he’s a stiff,” Trump said. “He’s not a guy who can be president. He doesn’t have what it takes to be president.”
Ron DeSantis is walking on egg shells and is hesitant even to declare his candidacy. The Republican base, many of whom have a military background, want a Dominator as their candidate. That is indeed the military tradition. Recruits are dominated by their drill sergeant who gets in their face and barks orders. Ironic then that, although Trump never served in the military, he exemplifies the military mind set. Most active duty military as well as most people in the military industrial complex vote Republican because Republicans. especially Donald Trump, exemplify their values. These are the same values that are part and parcel of the animal world where the dominant male gets to mate with all the females. So Trump characterizes himself as so dominant that he can act like a dominant male and grab 'em by the pussy or shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and get away with it. Just as other species do, a certain percentage of the Republican base respects and admires a Dominator like Trump. When Trump says this kind of domination has been going on for "millions of years, unfortunately or fortunately," he is referring to the fact that this kind of behavior is the norm in the animal world, and we humans are, after all, not really all that different.
The Denominators of history are of course Fascists. In 1922 Benito Mussolini led a coalition of fascist leaders to Rome and forced the king to yield the government. Mussolini was appointed prime minister. By 1925 he had dismantled Italy's democratic government and, acting as a dictator, declared himself Il Duce ("The Leader"). Hitler dominated the tired old men of the Weimar Republic who were cajoled into appointing him Chancellor. Fascism is a top down political structure similar to the military's top down rank structure. No wonder then that Republican voters, many of whom have a military background, are quite comfortable with a top down structure of political dominance with Trump at the apex. No wonder that Trump is leading all the polls even though he is under several criminal indictments. Friedrich Nietsche was the philosopher of fascism, one who argued for a repudiation of Christian values to be replaced with the values of domination. "A good war hallowith every cause". Just as the dominant male in the animal kingdom passes on his superior DNA to his harem of females, Fascist values insist that dominant men are the ones to eugenically pass on superioor genes to their offspring, and they should be valued and looked up to. All other men should be submissive to them. There is no separation form the animal world. Homo Sapiens represents a continuation of the values that assert that the best and strongest genes of the Dominators should take priority.
Trump's followers in fact give him a pass on Christian values for the very reason that, as Nietzsche asserts, Christian values are the values of the weak. The values of the strong and vital are the values of top down authoritarianism for which the strong man or the dominator should rule the day. As Trump said, this has been going on for millions of years, fortunately or unfortunately. This gives a pass to misogyny as Nietzsche also stated, "The family is the smallest unit of domination." The father is dominant; the wife and children should be submissive. The ethos of dominance and submission should prevail. Christian morals, the morals of tolerance and equality, according to Nietsche, are the exact opposite of the morals that lead to the betterment of the species. Let the cream rise to the top, and, unfortunately or fortunately, the weak must inevitably fall by the wayside. "Devil take the hindermost" is an imprecation that everyone should look after their own interests, leaving those who cannot cope to whatever fate befalls them. The leader of the most dominant nation on the face of the earth should be the most dominant male, i.e. Donald Trump, the Dominator. Utter selfishness should prevail. Cooperation is a feminine value. Love is a feminine value. Getting along is a feminine value. Diplomacy is a feminine value. Male dominance is what the US populace wants in a leader.
"Why are we allowing this?" asked one group. "$17.5 TRILLION in societal cost so that industry can make billions."
In healthcare and other societal costs, the use of per- and polyfluorinated substances costs more than $17 trillion per year. (Photo: iStock via Getty Images)
Societal Cost of 'Forever Chemicals' Estimated at Over $17,000,000,000,000
An upcoming report by Sweden-based organization ChemSec will detail the costs of the continued use of so-called "forever chemicals" which go overlooked by their manufacturers—the "societal" price that individuals and governments pay as the chemicals remain in the environment long after they are used in a range of products.
Factoring in soil and water remediation, monitoring of pollution, and healthcare costs associated with a number of health problems linked to per- and polyfluorinated substances (PFAS), the cost to society of using the chemicals totals about $17.5 trillion every year.
ChemSec has worked with investment firms to pressure companies to eliminate the use of PFAS, which have earned the nickname "forever chemicals" because they do not naturally degrade and have been detected in breastmilk, wildlife, and drinking water samples.
Major manufacturers of PFAS include Chemours, Solvay, Daiki, Honeywell, Bayer, and 3M—the last of which announced this year it will discontinue the use of the synthetic compounds.
While manufacturers typically prioritize their profit margins and shareholder rewards over public health and safety, ChemSec found that these companies bring in relatively little money each year from using PFAS, compared to their cost to society.
The use of forever chemicals yields only about $4 billion each year, according toThe Guardian, which reported on ChemSec's findings ahead of the release of the analysis.
"If you compare the profits that they make and the cost to society—it's ridiculous," Peter Pierrou, communications director for ChemSec, told The Guardian.
When accounting for the societal cost of using PFAS to make a range of products heat-, water-, and stain-resistant, the price of the chemicals is more than $20,400 per kilogram rather than the recognized average market price of about $20.75.
"Why are we allowing this? $17.5 TRILLION [in] societal cost so that industry can make billions," said the Environmental Media Association in response to the findings, which will be released with more detail in "a couple of weeks," according to ChemSec.
Health-related social costs of PFAS include treatment for cancers, thyroid disease, kidney dysfunction, birth defects, and autoimmune diseases, all of which have been linked to low levels of exposure.
The drinking water of at least 200 million Americans is believed to be contaminated with forever chemicals, and the compounds have become ubiquitous throughout Europe as well.
ChemSec's analysis will also examine the use of PFAS in "essential" versus "non-essential cases." The European Union in February proposed a ban on the chemicals in products for which manufacturers have identified alternative, non-toxic substitutes that can also repel water, heat, and stains.
The organization has made some progress in appealing to manufacturers to end their use of PFAS by pointing to the chemicals' cost to society. Late last year it organized a letter signed by investment firms which hold $11 trillion in assets in the E.U. warning that companies risk threatening "public health, the environment, and shareholder value" if they continue to use forever chemicals.
"There is particular concern about PFAS, often found in cosmetics, furniture, carpeting, non-stick pans, and waterproof jackets, which accumulate in the environment and cause health impacts for generations," the investment firms warned. "Growing awareness of these risks has triggered a surge in lawsuits, which could cost chemicals companies as much as $30 billion."
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Why the Republican Congress Will Drive the US into Default
by John Lawrence
Simply put it's in their interests to do so. They themselves will profit politically and financially. They will blame Biden for the default, and they will sell short their stock portfolios so that, when the stock market crashes, they will make money. Default doesn't mean that the US will not pay its debts. It means that going forward seniors on social security will not get their monthly checks. Neither will Federal workers or active duty military. However, since the US Treasury still has some money and money coming in from taxes, it will prioritize paying interest on Treasury bonds. So rich people that hold financial obligations of the US government will be paid while everyday average slobs will be left to suffer. This is exactly the type of solution Republicans have always sought. It fits in nicely with their modus operandi: cater to the rich and starve the poor and working class. Millionaires and billionaores will not suffer. Smart people who sell stocks short will not suffer. They will prosper. Financial wizards and private equity corporations will snap up distressed properties like a shark snapping up a school of fish.
The financial obligations of the US, money that has supposedly already been spent, is a misnomer. They represent money that has already been allocated by the previous Democratic controlled Congress. If Republicans had controlled the previous Congress instead, the money would never have been allocated. So it's not money that's already been spent, it's money that's already been allocated. The spending is in the future. The allocation was in the past. If Democrats controlled the present Congress, there would be no problem. Since it's up to the Congress both to allocate spending and to raise the debt limit, there is a whiplash if one party allocates the money and the other party is supposed to preside over the spending of the money. In a sense the Republican Congress is rebelling over the fact that, although they didn't allocate the money, they are supposed to preside over the spending of it.
Now Joe Biden could preempt the Congressional decision not to raise the debt limit by using unconventional but completely legal means, something that has never been done before. The Federal Reserve Act gives the power to print money to the Fed, However, the Coinage Act grants the Secretary of the Treasury rather broad coin seigniorage authority. The debt ceiling could be side stepped by ordering the West Point Mint to coin a 1 oz. $ 1 trillion coin. Treasury can then present the jumbo coin at the NY Fed to buy back $1 trillion in Fed-held debt (the Fed has to accept it, a creditor can’t refuse legal tender paid in to settle a debt). Or I see no reason why the Treasury couldn't simply deposit it in its account at the Fed thereby giving the US government the wherewithal to pay its bills. Esteemed economist Paul Krugman is all for the minting of the trillion dollar coin: "So go ahead, Democrats, and do whatever it takes to get through this. Gimmickry in the defense of sanity — and, in an important sense, democracy — is no vice."
Republicans would have you believe that spending is out of control. No, undertaxation is out of control especially undertaxing the rich. Economic inequality has soared reaching unprecedented new heights not seen even in the Gilded Age. As Joe Biden has proposed, the budget could easily be balanced and the debt paid down by taxing the rich. Republicans would have you believe that raising taxes is a policy that would have to be enforced on everyone including the poor and the middle class, but that, unfortunately for them, is not the case. It is not written in stone that raising taxes would have to apply to everyone. As Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, AOC and others have pointed out, raising taxes on the rich could not only balance the budget, but could solve the problem of social security shortfalls. Republicans are in the unenviable position of wanting to screw the working class while catering to the rich while holding on to their MAGA supporters, a large portion of whom are the working class.
So given the fact that Republicans don't care about social security or Medicare recipients, there is a good chance that they will not vote to raise the archaic debt ceiling and force the US into default not on its debt but on its ongoing payments to Federal workers, who they hate anyway, social security recipients, who they will cheerfully throw under the bus and active duty military who as MAGA supporters will cheer them on at their own expense. Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans, private equity corporations and billionaires will short the market and salivate over the cheap assets they will be able to snap up. In other words they will profit from a default.
San Diego Finally Gets It Right for the Homeless Situation
by John Lawrence
San Diego identifies two areas which can be devoted to safe sleeping places for the homeless. They will provide 500 spots for homeless to have tents. Also rest rooms, meals, security and other services will be provided. At the same time the City will pass an ordinance which prevents people from sleeping on the public streets. I have been advocating for this for some time here, here and here. In an article in the San Diego Union Tribune we find this: San Diego to open homeless camp sites at two parking lots near Balboa Park. In addition to these newly identified areas, the City is also buying motels to provide single room shelters. These along with the existing shelter beds should go a long way to providing accommodations for the approximately 2000 homeless people on the streets of San Diego. It will also be a huge sigh of relief for pedestrians and business owners who would like the streets to be clean and safe for customers and dog walkers. According to the article:
Hundreds of homeless people in San Diego will have a legal place to live outdoors in tents on city-owned parking lots adjacent to Balboa Park later this year, Mayor Todd Gloria announced Monday.
One site will be in Parking Lot O near the Naval Medical Center and just east of Nursery Road, which could accommodate up to 400 tents.
The second site could accommodate 136 tents and is in the parking lot of a city maintenance yard at 20th and B streets. That site was temporarily used as a campground with individual tents in 2017 as the city tried to quickly get homeless people off the street during a hepatitis A outbreak.
The safe sleeping sites, as they are known, will be the first of their kind in the county and have individual tents provided by the city. Homeless people often decline offers to move into congregate shelters, and safe sleeping sites are seen as alternatives that people may be more willing to accept.
Monday’s announcement came at a time when the number of homeless people in downtown San Diego has reached a record high.
The mayor also said the new safe sleeping site is in tandem with an ordinance that would prohibit camping on sidewalks when shelter beds are available, which is expected to go before the City Council early next month.
“When the taxpayers of this city are spending tens of millions of dollars on homelessness services to get people off the street and into care, we should expect those on the street to avail themselves of those opportunities,” he said.
Councilmember Stephen Whitburn proposed the ordinance and also has been pushing for the creation of a safe sleeping site for months. Whitburn’s district includes downtown San Diego, where the number of homeless people living in sidewalk encampments has surged in recent months.
Speaking at Monday’s announcement, Whitburn said the new safe sleeping sites will benefit homeless people, who will be offered a place to camp that will include security, toilets, meals and access to services, while also benefiting downtown residents and businesses.
“I have spoken with a number of people who are tired of living in squalor on the sidewalk and want to be in a better place but do not want to go into an enclosed shelter,” he said. “They have told me they would happily move to a safe sleeping site with bathrooms, with security, with meals and services.”
The homeless crowding the downtown city streets put somewhat of a damper on the extensive tourist and conference business that is a big part of the city's economy. Besides in such a beautiful city, homelessness creates a huge eyesore right in its midst. The safe camping sites represent at least a partial solution to the homeless problem and will alleviate the complaints I receive about the city as an Uber driver. Tourists and conference goers notice the homeless problem and it doesn't sit well with them, let alone the residents of expensive high rise condos who, when they descend to street level have to wade through filth in order to get where they're going.
From the point of view of the homeless they will at least have some services plus sanitation plus meals plus social worker access to help them get back on their feet if they should choose to do so. Let's not underestimate security as well. They had none of this on the public streets. Since a lot of them don't want to go to shelters for various reasons, such as they can't take their pets with them, they should be relieved at this solution. It should not be a problem for them to access other services since they will be centrally located. Many have bikes and there are bus stops near by. Now what the City needs to do is to identify other safe sleeping areas that the City could make available for future use. Hopefully they won't be needed, but it would be good to have them available if they are.
Republicans want Biden to cut back spending. Democrats should want to increase taxation on the rich. The debt can be ameliorated either by reducing spending or increasing taxation. The debt is a result both of overspending and undertaxing. For all those who care about the size of the debt, they should be as concerned about undertaxing to the same extent they are concerned about overspending. Since thethreewealthiest peoplein the United States—Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett—now own more wealth than theentirebottomhalfof the American population combined, a total of 160million people or 63 million households, the obvious culprit here is not overspending, it's under taxation of the rich. In addition to taxing the incomes of the rich, there needs to be instituted a wealth tax. Whoa, you say, this would discourage entrepreneurs who are responsible for inventing the next big thing which is what contributes the most to the American economy. We don't need another gadget; we need all hands on deck to fight global warming. This is being done by Joe Biden's infrastructure bill which is a government, not a private, solution. Private entrepreneurship is less important in a period of global warming than large scale government solutions. Therefore, discouraging entrepreneurship, except that which supports a solution to global warming, is actually a positive development.
America’s top25 billionaires—a group the sizeofa major league baseball team’sactive roster—togetherhold$1 trillion in wealth.These 25have as much wealth as 56 percent of thepopulation, a total 178 million people or 70millionhouseholds. The solution to government debt is to go where the money is and tap that. When asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton simply replied, “Because that's where the money is.” By the same token, the solution to the national debt is for the government to go where the money is: billionaires and Forbes 400 corporations. Americans don't need any new gadgets to spend their money on. In the World War II era consumption was both voluntarily and manditorily reduced in order to put more resources into the war effort. The war on global warming is even more important than World War II because, if we lose this war, the survival of the whole human species is at risk. Put simply we need to reduce consumption of the gadgets and entertainment provided by the private sector and increase expenditures on large scale projects which can ameliorate global warming. Of necessity those projects and that spending has to be initiated by government in cooperation with the private sector, but government has to lead the way and provide the money.
Income inequality is a major problem of American society. This problem can be resolved and the resources to prevent global warming provided for by taxing the rich. The problem is to reduce American consumption which is 70% of the US economy and increase government spending as long as that increased spending is spent on the solutions to global warming. At the same time the national debt can be reduced. The national debt in and of itself is not a problem, but interest on the national debt is. There are other solutions to decreasing the interest such as having the Fed create the money by quantitative easing. Instead of the Fed's depositing this money in the accounts of the big banks, it would deposit the money in the Treasury's account. "The whole idea of Modern Monetary Theory is that since a sovereign entity can borrow in its own currency, it can print more money when it needs to pay off all its debt. The central bank just needs to keep interest rates low," says Robert R. Johnson, professor of finance at the Heider College of Business at Creighton University. But there's the rub. As the Fed raises interest rates to control inflation, interest on the national debt also increases. That's why a mechanism needs to be found by which the Fed creates the money to run the government instead of the Treasury borrowing the money.
So in the meantime taxing the rich seems to be the best policy in order to bring the national debt down, to reduce economic inequality and to provide the money for government programs to combat global warming.
Van life is somewhere between homelessness and apartment living. Rather than pay exorbitant rents, some people are living in their vans and working remotely. It makes sense to live cheaply, not be tied down and save your money. There are websites such as Bearfoot Theory which provide a how to guide for living in a van. This particular guide recommend solutions which cost a pretty penny especially for the van itself. On the other hand I was homeless for two separate one year periods in 1993 and 2005. At the same time I had my home rented out so I had a steady stream of rental money coming in. So I was a homeless landlord! Bearfoot endeavors to make life on the road glamorous which it can probably be, but she's touting a more luxurious van lifestyle than the one that suited me. However, although I took some extensive vacations in my van, primarily I was a worker with my own window cleaning and painting business. With a cell phone and voicemail I didn't miss any job requests. I had what I called a WSUV - a Work Sleep Utility Vehicle which was a Ford E-150 cargo super van, actually two different vans in each of the two periods I participated in "van life." I did some conversion work, the main thing of which was to put a 4 inch foam pad on the floor covered by indoor outdoor carpet. A double sleeping bag made for comfortable sleeping atop the foam. I couldn't stand up so the foam made it comfortable on my knees. I had built in shelves for both work materials and my personal effects including food and clothes. For the second van I had a solar panel on the roof, a microwave and a bar refrigerator. My refrigeration and microwave capabilities though were marginal. Of course I had my two ladders on the roof which were very necessary for the kind of work I did.
I had a storage room for my other stuff. It was critical to drop off my paint buckets after a job because I didn't want to have those fumes in my van while sleeping. I also didn't spend that much time in my van except for driving to and from jobs and sleeping. In the morning I did my ablutions, swam and showered at the YMCA. In the evenings I worked on my laptop or read while listening to CDs with headphones at local college and university libraries until they closed. I used their WiFi. Then I chose a parking spot on a public street and went to sleep around 10 PM. I arose at 6 AM so as to pull out of the parking spot before I attracted attention, hopefully. I had pre-scouted out parking spots. They had to be acceptable according to certain self imposed criteria. #1 They had to be level. #2 They couldn't be directly in font of someone's house. #3 I had to be able to blend in with other vehicles parked along the street. #4 I couldn't stick out like a sore thumb. #5 It had to be close to a YMCA. There were very few times in those two one year periods when I was called out by the police or Neighborhood Watch, and those times were when I got too careless about where I parked. My work van blended in more seamlessly with other vehicles than would a Mercedes 4x4 which the lady in Bearfoot Theory uses.
A couple other notes about my van: I had a simple shower curtain extension pole across the front behind the front seats with two pieces of fabric hanging down which I could open during the day and close at night for privacy. I opened the two front door windows a crack at night for ventilation and I had a rear camper type window which opened a crack also. I had a layer of dark plastic film on both the rear and side windows so nobody could see in. So I was pretty secure in my privacy while sleeping, and sleeping in a double sleeping bag with my pillows on 4 inches of foam was very comfortable. In the morning I would "deep six" my pillows in the sleeping bags and scoot them out of the way so I could access my work materials or other items more readily. I had a couple of pee bottles in case I had to go at night or couldn't make it to the YMCA in time to use the bathroom there. During the day I usually used my customers' rest rooms. In the morning after swimming and showering at the Y, I went to Starbucks for my venti mocha and drank a Kern's juice which I stored in the van.
I took a few 3 week vacations during the time I lived in my van using the same techniques - showering and swimming at a local YMCA, scouting acceptable parking spots for sleeping whether I was on the road or just staying in one place for awhile, and spending evenings at a local university library till it closed. During all these road trips I was booking jobs via my cell phone and voicemail for the week I would get back to home base. Since I was self employed in the "gig economy", I wasn't tied down in terms of my work. I could book jobs or not book jobs at my convenience. I also traveled a lot including visiting family on the east coast. During both these one year periods, I received a monthly rental check from my tenants. It was a good way to save money. In this day and age of exorbitant rents, I would recommend van living and working as an alternative. I have fond memories of my WSUV
As set up by the Founding Fathers, the mechanics of the American electoral system inevitably lead to a two party system. This is as opposed to a parliamentary democracy as exists in most other democratic nations. Third parties never make it in American democracy precisely because they take votes away from the party whose views they most closely resemble. Example: the Presidential election of 2000. Since with the American voting system, a voter can vote for one and only one candidate, voters waste their votes voting for a third party candidate who has no chance of winning. Ralph Nader ran as the Green party candidate and won almost 3 million votes, votes which most assuredly would have been cast for Gore if Nader weren't running. As it was, Gore won more popular votes than George W Bush who eked out a victory because of the antiquated electoral college system. If Gore had also won the 3 million votes that Nader received, he may have had enough electoral votes to tip the balance. These voting mechanics have enshrined what is called plurality voting or the first past the post system into law. If the approval voting system had been in effect in 2000, Gore would have won. Approval voting is a system in which a voter can cast votes for all candidates he or she approves of. That means that all those who voted for Nader would also probably have voted for Gore giving Gore 3 million more votes.
Why the two party system, which is the inevitable result of plurality voting, is so toxic is that it leads to a government like we have today in which the two parties are diametrically opposed to each other. Instead of working in the best interests of the American people, the two parties end up fighting each other for power. This produces gridlock and a seesawing back and forth regarding policy depending on which party controls which branch of government. The dystopia that results from this winner take all system is that compromise becomes impossible. All the energy goes into winning and making the other party lose. It is all about the competition between the two parties and not about finding solutions to societal problems that benefit the American people. Another factor is that the plurality system of voting at best leads to majority rule. That means that at best each party represents a majority of the American people and not minorities at all. Certainly neither party needs to seek the votes of the poorest Americans who usually don't vote anyway, and, if they did, their interests need not be served by the winning party.
The American system has become a dystopia precisely because one party is only interested in winning, and, if the other party is in power, in making that party lose the next election. They do this by denying insofar as possible that party from making any constructive changes which might benefit the American people. As the American people get disenchanted with the ruling party because it can't bring about constructive change, they inevitably vote for the other party hoping that they can do what the ruling party wasn't able to based on their campaign promises. In a multi party system such as a parliamentary democracy, a party whose only purpose is to deny the ruling party the ability to bring about constructive change and thereby gain power for itself is less likely to be able to pull this off. A center party is more likely to win. The two party system is more likely to breed two extreme parties diametrically opposed to each other with each party vying for power.
Fortunately, because of his skill and dexterous maneuvering, Joe Biden has been able to bridge a lot of gaps in getting things done for the American people. However, it wasn't without the other party's determinattion to make him fail. Republican leader Mitch McConnell said this about President Obama: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." How they endeavored to do this was to make Obama fail at everything he promised in his campaign to do for the American people. If Obama wasn't able to accomplish his campaign goals, the American people would become disenchanted with him and put Republicans back in power. This is why Republicans never compromise with Democrats in the best interests of getting good things done for the American people. They only see these things as "wins" for the Democrats and hence "losses" for themselves. On the other hand, Democrats are somewhat more magnanimous in that they will vote with Republicans some times when they are in power. Example: Democrats voted 3 times to raise the debt ceiling when Trump was in power even though they objected to the $7 trillion that Trump added to the national debt by giving tax breaks to the rich. The only reason Biden was able to accomplish anything or any American President is able to accomplish anything is when their party controls all 3 branches of government. Even then the other party can filibuster making a mockery of the idea of democratic government.
New York state has passed a law requiring most new buildings to be zero-emissions starting in 2026, with larger buildings to come into compliance in 2029. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
New York has become the first state in the nation to pass a law banning natural gas and other fossil fuels in most new buildings, a move that could inspire other states and further erode the residential future of the gas industry.
Late Tuesday night, the New York legislature approved a $229 billion state budget that included a prohibition on gas in most new homes and other construction. It was a major victory for climate activists but is likely to face a court challenge from fossil fuel interests.
The law effectively requires all-electric heating and cooking in new buildings shorter than seven stories by 2026, and in 2029 for taller buildings. And although it allows exemptions for manufacturing facilities, restaurants, hospitals and even carwashes, the measure does not do what some climate activists had feared: give cities and counties license to override the ban.
Since the beginning of this year, when a federal official suggested, and then quickly retracted, the idea that the national government might ban gas stoves, debate over the future of natural gas has flared. So it may seem surprising that as New York lawmakers headed into the final stretch of their budget talks this week, their plans to pass a statewide gas ban were essentially a foregone conclusion.
But Democrats, who control the New York Senate and Assembly, have faced pressure from environmentalists for several years to follow through on the state’s climate commitments. And, in the end, it was not negotiations over gas stoves that stirred controversy but a drawn-out fight over bail reform and housing policy that delayed approval of the budget by a month.
The law’s passage, and the approval of a measure that would require the state to build renewable energy when the private sector falls short, have fueled supporters’ hopes for New York to become a national model.
“I hear from local government and state folks frequently that they’re thinking of this sort of policy, and so I’m certain, as other policymakers look to a state that’s found a politically and technically feasible way to go about electrification, that others will be paying attention,” said Amy Turner, a senior fellow at Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.
In Massachusetts, a law adopted last year has allowed 10 cities and towns to participate in a pilot program banning gas-burning stoves and furnaces from new construction. Environmentalists are eager to see the state go further, using a new building code written to discourage the use of fossil fuels. Advocates are also eyeing Chicago, where the heavily blue city recently elected a liberal mayor.
But the gas industry and its Republican supporters have raised doubts about whether New York’s gas ban can survive legal challenges. Some climate advocates worry that a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that struck down the California city of Berkeley’s first-in-the-nation gas ban could have a chilling effect on other cities and counties.
Although the court’s decision is not legally binding in most of the United States, hesitation to adopt local gas bans could ripple outward, said Matt Vespa, a senior attorney with the nonprofit organization Earthjustice who noted that restrictions on gas use in buildings typically begin at the local level, then go statewide. In California and Washington state, major cities including San Francisco and Seattle banned gas hookups before the states enacted measures encouraging electrification through their building codes.
There are other routes to all-electric buildings besides the one Berkeley used, Vespa said, but “if you take away the local piece, that does chill upwards momentum, and people have to recalibrate.”
Opponents derided the New York bill’s passage as governmental overreach. Republican Robert Ortt, the minority leader of the New York Senate, issued a statement criticizing the law as a “first-in-the-nation, unconstitutional ban” that “will drive up utility bills and increase housing costs.”
New York’s law does not affect existing buildings, and it specifically exempts renovations. But, over time, it could chip away at the gas industry’s dominance in the state, where 3 in 5 households rely on natural gas for heating, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Only about 1 in 7 households heat with electricity.
The ban also extends to heating oil and propane, raising questions about the future of these fuels in New York state’s more rural communities.
Critics of the law have argued that it limits consumer choice and will increase utility bills by shifting more households to electricity, which is more expensive than gas in much of the state. Supporters counter that because the law affects only new construction, the transition will happen gradually and in tandem with the state’s plans to shift more of its electricity production to greener, and cheaper, sources.
Today, gas fuels 46 percent of New York’s electricity generation, but a landmark climate law passed in 2019 calls for a transition to renewable, emissions-free sources such as solar, wind and hydro power. It requires the state to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to 85 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
A Cessna Citation jet aircraft is seen at Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport in this aerial photo taken near Healdsburg, California on June 1, 2021.
A new analysis catalogs alarming facts about the destructive private jet industry, which is emblematic of runaway economic and carbon inequality.
Research published Monday details how the working class is paying the price, in more ways than one, for the "jet-owning oligarchy" to hop around the globe in their personal luxury planes.
It's well-established that private jet travel by the super-rich is worsening the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis. Adding insult to injury, this conspicuously carbon-intensive consumption is being subsidized by ordinary taxpayers, as the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and Patriotic Millionaires make clear in their new analysis.
To begin with, "private jets emit at least 10 times more pollutants than commercial planes per passenger," the report notes. "Unsurprisingly, approximately 1% of people are believed to be responsible for about half of all aviation carbon emissions."
Amid a surge in wealth inequality since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, "private jet use has increased by about a fifth, and private jet emissions have increased more than 23%," the report points out. "The private jet sector set industry records with regards to transaction and dollar volume in 2021 and 2022."
While a coronavirus-era boom is evident, the industry has been growing steadily alongside wealth inequality since the turn of the century. As the report states: "The size of the global fleet has increased 133% in the last two decades from 9,895 in 2000 to 23,133 in mid-2022. This bonanza was accompanied by an unprecedented number of business jet operations, 5.3 million in 2022."
"If we can't ban private jets, we should at least tax them and require them to pay to offset their environmental damage and subsidies."
According to the report, "The median net worth of a full and fractional private jet owner is $190 million and $140 million respectively." A minuscule 0.0008% of the global population belongs to the jet-owning class, which consists mostly of financial and real estate tycoons.
Last year, billionaire Elon Musk, "the most active high flyer in the United States," bought a new jet and took 171 private flights, or about one every other day, the report notes.
In so doing, he single-handedly "contributed to the consumption of 837,934 liters of jet fuel," states the report, and he "was responsible for 2,112 tons of carbon emissions"—132 times more than the entire carbon footprint of an average person in the United States.
In a statement, report co-author Kalena Thomhave, a researcher with the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at IPS, called private jets "a microcosm of our system of wealth inequality even beyond their image of extravagance."
"Private flyers pay just 2% of the taxes that primarily fund the Federal Aviation Administration, yet nearly 17% of flights handled by the FAA are private," said Thomhave. "Meanwhile, private jets contribute disproportionately to carbon emissions while often representing significant tax savings for their wealthy owners."
As the report observes: "Thousands of municipal airports in the U.S. are funded by the public, but many primarily serve private and corporate jets. These airports may not offer scheduled passenger service, but they still offer airport runways subsidized by taxes."
Such regressive taxation is the product of industry lobbying, the report explains:
The largest player in the private jet lobby, the National Business Aviation Association, has spent an average $2.4 million each year since 2008 lobbying the federal government, primarily for tax giveaways. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the industry specifically lobbied for Covid relief, particularly "medium to long-term liquidity assistance and relief from air transportation excise taxes," even though industry demand was quickly climbing.
As wealth inequality soars, so too does the value of the private jet market, which grew from $32.3 billion in 2021 to $34.1 billion in 2022, the report notes. With wealth being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands and little to no downward redistribution on the horizon, the private jet industry is projected to expand further in the coming years.
Report co-author Omar Ocampo, a researcher with the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at IPS, said that the private jet industry's expected growth this decade "provides us with a great opportunity to levy a luxury transfer tax on private jet sales." He added that "the revenue raised from this tax can be invested towards developing a green transportation system."
According to the report, "A 10% and 5% transfer fee on pre-owned and new private aircraft would have raised $2.4 billion in 2021 and $2.6 billion in 2022."
In addition to imposing a transfer tax on all private jet sales, IPS and Patriotic Millionaires recommend the following steps be taken:
Levy a private jet fuel tax;
Institute a "short hop" surcharge;
Resist efforts to increase passenger facility charges until private jet owners pay their fair share;
Create a sustainable transportation equity trust fund;
Increase TSA security oversight of private jets; and
Pass the Aircraft Ownership Transparency Act.
According to the report, Musk would have paid nearly $4 million in additional taxes last year if a transfer fee and jet fuel tax had been in place.
"Private jet travel by billionaires and the ultra-wealthy imposes a tremendous cost on the rest of us," said Chuck Collins, another co-author of the report.
"Not only do ordinary travelers and taxpayers subsidize the air space for private jets, but the high flyers also contribute considerably more pollution than other passengers," said Collins. "If we can't ban private jets, we should at least tax them and require them to pay to offset their environmental damage and subsidies."
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San Diego Throwing Money at Homelessness With Meager Results
by John Lawrence
An article in the San Diego Union titled, "San Diego to pursue buying three hotels to house homeless people" — at a cost of $383,000 per room" appeared on April 25, 2023. Although I think buying old motels to house the homeless is a pretty good idea, when you consider the price tag, there are probably better ideas out there. Katheryn Rhodes and I did some research in 2016 which was reported in the San Diego Free Press. According to Katheryn, the City of San Diego has all sorts of real estate that it has no use for so it usually just sells it on the free market. Although the series of 3 articles was slanted towards affordable housing, these available parcels could as well be utilized as safe campgrounds and safe parking areas. In addition Katheryn did an exhaustive analysis of the pots of money the City has that are just accumulating with no specific purpose in mind. Has the City done an analysis of all the real estate the City owns that has no designated purpose that could be turned into safe parking areas and safe campgrounds? Why not?
It doesn’t have to be this way. The City has squirreled away millions of dollars in off-budget funds which could be used for affordable housing and housing for the homeless. Besides that the City of San Diego owns numerous parcels of land on which affordable housing including housing for the homeless could be built. Since they’re not recognizing the emergency situation that lack of housing represents, they are actually in violation of a state mandate,Senate Bill 2 from 2007, authored by Senator Cedillo which stated the following:
This bill would add emergency shelters to these provisions, as specified, and would add provisions to the housing element that would require a local government to identify a zone or zones where emergency shelters are allowed as a permitted use without a conditional use or other discretionary permit. … By increasing the duties of local public officials, the bill would create a state-mandated local program.
Safe camping areas would provide portable toilets, portable showers, security, social services and other amenities at a fraction of the cost of the nearly $400,000 per room which is the cost of each motel room the City is investing in. The article went on:
Civil engineer Katheryn Rhodes has identified several funds where the City, the County, the San Diego Housing Commission and Civic San Diego are hoarding cash that could be used for emergency shelters and/or affordable housing or even pay for Emergency Shelter Tents and Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (TBRA) Housing Vouchers. There’s $28.7 million in the Low and Moderate Income Housing Asset Fund (LMIHAF). There’s also $259 million in long-term assets that can be leveraged by using it as collateral and issuing bonds for much more.
One could note that most homeless could provide their own shelter in terms of tents which they are providing for themselves now. They just need a place to put them off the public sidewalks where they could have proper sanitation which they don't have now. The brutal fact that I have witnessed myself is that homeless people urinate and defecate on the public sidewalks. To be graphic, it's sad to see a woman with her pants down stooping over with the poop coming out of her ass in full view of other people and motorists on a public sidewalk in downtown San Diego. It used to be that you had to dodge dog shit on city sidewalks. Now you have to dodge human shit if you even have the courage to walk down some public sidewalks in the City of San Diego. Tents line both sides of Commercial Avenue with barely an inch between them. The homeless rule the streets in that area. I could hardly drive my car down that street without being run over by the San Diego Trolley which honked and honked at me till I was able to pull over without hitting some homeless person.
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