Plutocracy Rising

How it started

How it's going

Creation of a permanent underclass is both indicative of (and mission-critical for) a fledgling plutocracy.

As more and more power and money are concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, more and more people have less and less.

Duh.

At some point, as the ever burgeoning lower class begins to realize they have practically nothing left to lose, a charismatic leader will emerge - always presenting as "one of you".

Duh again.

The leader will form a core group of devotees who pretend to represent the majority, and push for restoration of a once glorious and virtuous nation - and blah blah blah.

Old Saying: The man on the white horse always promises peace and freedom and prosperity - but always delivers nothing but further immiseration.

Hopefully, regular visitors dropping in to check on my daily madness will recognize all of that as one big DUH.

Anyway, here's a bigly important cog in that plutocratic machinery.

How To Make the Labor Market Work For More Americans

In one of the richest nations on earth, the path to prosperity has narrowed significantly in recent decades — especially for those without a college education. More than 62 percent of Americans ages 25 and up do not hold bachelor’s degrees, and the earnings gap between those with a college education and those without one has never been wider. In 2021, the difference between the median earnings of younger workers with bachelor’s degrees and workers of the same age with high-school diplomas only was $22,000 — the largest since the Federal Reserve Bank of New York began tracking earnings in 1990. That’s happening even as the cost of college spirals upward, putting it out of reach for many. This has fueled anxiety, bitterness and a sense of alienation among the millions who see themselves as shut out of an economy that does not value them.

Making college more affordable is important, but there are other keys to the doors of opportunity as well. With an executive order issued on Jan. 18, his first full day as governor, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania used one of them: He eliminated the requirement of a four-year college degree for the vast majority of jobs in the state government, a change similar to one that Maryland and Utah made last year. This demonstrates both good policy and good leadership, representing a concrete change in hiring philosophy that stops reducing people to a credential and conveys that everyone — college-educated or not — has experience and worth that employers should consider. It is a step — and a mind-set — that other leaders should consider as well.

The decision was driven in part by the realities of a tight labor market. Unemployment in Pennsylvania is 3.9 percent — close to the national average of 3.5 percent — and lower than it was before the pandemic. Public and private employers have been struggling to find qualified applicants, prompting a re-evaluation of hiring criteria. As Mr. Shapiro’s order notes, “In the modern labor market, applicants gain knowledge, skills and abilities through a variety of means, including apprenticeships, on-the-job training, military training and trade schools.”

His move opens up 92 percent of state government jobs — approximately 65,000 positions — to anyone with “the relevant work experience and skills-based training, regardless of their educational attainment.” Job postings will emphasize experience over education.

The nonprofit organization Opportunity@Work has been promoting the idea of skills- and experience-based hiring since 2015. It estimates that 50 percent of the American work force comprises workers who have gained their skills through alternative routes such as apprenticeships, military service, trade schools, certificate programs and on-the-job training rather than acquiring bachelor’s degrees — a deep pool of underutilized and undercompensated talent. If employers don’t have a strategy for engaging this pool, said Byron Auguste, the group’s chief executive and co-founder, “they don’t have a talent strategy — they only have half a talent strategy.”

If the United States can’t find ways to tap into all of this talent, we will not be able to solve our most urgent problems, like climate change and pandemic preparedness, or build a stronger and fairer country. Too many Americans see our society and economy as profoundly unfair, set up to serve the needs of well-connected elites and providing more benefits to people who went to college or know how to work the system. And too many feel that political leaders don’t care about them and that government and institutions don’t work for them. Opening up jobs may seem small-bore, but it shows that government is listening and helps build trust among those who may feel unseen or looked down upon by parts of the labor market.

The private sector has been moving gradually in this direction already. Major players to embrace skill-based hiring include General Motors, Bank of America, Google, Apple and Accenture. IBM is recognized as a particular leader; about half of its U.S. job openings no longer require a four-year degree.

This trend has been concentrated among what is termed “middle-skill jobs,” which call for some education or training beyond high school, according to a 2022 report by researchers from Harvard Business School and Emsi Burning Glass, a labor market data firm. These middle-skill jobs, the report notes, “have long served as an important steppingstone to the middle class.”

During the Great Recession, many of those steppingstones were removed. Unemployment was high, and many employers responded with “degree inflation” — larding college education requirements onto jobs that previously had not called for them — even though the work involved remained the same. As a result, the report notes, “key avenues for upward mobility were closed to roughly 80 million prime working age Americans at a time when income inequality was already widening.”

Over the last few years, this degree inflation has begun to recede. If this “degree reset” continues, an additional 1.4 million jobs would be opened to workers without college degrees over the next five years.

This could also help make the American work force more diverse and inclusive in several ways. Black and Hispanic job-seekers are less likely to have bachelor’s degrees than non-Hispanic whites and Asian Americans. Rural Americans would also benefit; only 25 percent of them hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. “No part of the country is more disadvantaged by degree screening than rural America,” Mr. Auguste said.

The public sector should join this reset more aggressively. In June 2020, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to make skills more important than degrees in federal hiring. The Biden administration has also taken a couple of steps in that direction.

Getting more states on board could provide a valuable boost; state governments are among the largest employers in many states, so their hiring criteria play a special role in validating workers without college degrees. Last March, Larry Hogan of Maryland became the first governor to announce that his state was doing away with college degree requirements for many jobs. In December, his fellow Republican, Spencer Cox of Utah, followed suit. “Degrees have become a blanketed barrier to entry in too many jobs,” Mr. Cox said. “Instead of focusing on demonstrated competence, the focus too often has been on a piece of paper.”

With Mr. Shapiro, a Democrat, weighing in for Pennsylvania, the nation’s fifth most populous state, the movement’s bipartisan credentials have been burnished. It is a move that Americans in every state should actively encourage.

Expanding the terms for who can get hired is a change that would reverberate far beyond individual jobs and job seekers. It would bring a greater degree of openness and fairness into the labor market and send a message about government’s ability to adapt and respond to the concerns of its citizens. In a country where a majority of people do not have bachelor’s degrees, policies that automatically close off jobs to so many people contribute to the perception that the system is rigged against them.

A healthy democracy recognizes and promotes opportunity for everyone. Americans need to hear that message.

Podcast

The GOP is a shrunken clown college trapped in a bell jar filled with Rush Limbaugh's beer farts.

Today's Today

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

On January 27, 1945, Auschwitz concentration camp—a Nazi extermination camp in occupied Poland where more than a million people were murdered as part of the Nazi's "final solution" to the Jewish question—was liberated by the Red Army during the Vistula–Oder Offensive.

Although most of the prisoners had been forced onto a death march, about 7,000 had been left behind. The Soviet soldiers attempted to help the survivors and were shocked at the scale of Nazi crimes.

Liberators and Survivors

It's The Stoopid Economy

In case you were wondering, there's always a recession coming up ahead of us - or gathered around us - or falling off behind us.

ALWAYS

As far as we know - and it's all but a slam dunk certainty in economics - nothing expands forever, nothing stays the same forever, and nothing contracts forever. 

At this stage in our lives, how can it be that more of us don't know a few basic things about Capitalism and Markets and stuff?

U.S. economy grew 2.1 percent in 2022, ... (⬅︎ yay - great news - here's an apple for ya)

      ... but recession fears linger (⬅︎ razor blade in the apple)

GDP report shows six months of solid growth, including 2.9 percent expansion in the most recent quarter, though many economists say a slowdown may be near

The U.S. economy grew by 2.1 percent in 2022, notching six months of solid growth despite widespread concern that the country might be on the brink of a recession.

Those fears have been assuaged — at least for now. The economy posted another consecutive quarter of steady expansion between October and December, with economic activity increasing at a 2.9 percent annual rate. Consumer spending contributed to the strong fourth-quarter showing, especially given the slumps in large parts of the economy, including housing and manufacturing.

Still, the figure was a cool-down from 3.2 percent growth in the previous quarter, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said Thursday.

The latest figures point to a resilient but slowing economy that has been tempered by the Federal Reserve’s aggressive efforts to control inflation. The central bank raised interest rates seven times last year in hopes that higher borrowing costs would lead businesses and households to cut back enough to slow the economy and curb price increases.

While some of those rate increases have already had a chilling effect — most notably in the housing market — economists say it could be months before inflation returns to normal. Many major banks are forecasting an economic downturn this year.

“You may see [growth] and think the economy is out of the woods, but that would be entirely the wrong read,” said Joseph LaVorgna, chief economist at SMBC Nikko Securities America who expects a recession midyear. “There are a lot of variables that are all pointing in the same direction: There’s a housing recession. Manufacturing looks like it’s approaching recession. We’re seeing weakness in temp hiring. And it’s doubtful we’ve felt the full effects of all of the Fed’s rate hikes.”

The snapshot of economic strength is welcome news for the White House at a time when the economy continues to loom large among Americans’ top concerns.

House Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) on Thursday lauded the “strong and stable” economic report and attributed recent growth to lawmakers’ efforts to lower costs, create jobs and invest in infrastructure. He also warned that a failure by Congress to raise the national debt limit in the coming months could lead to “an unprecedented economic catastrophe.”

Wall Street also cheered the data as a sign of the economy’s resilience. All three major stock indexes were up midmorning, and some analysts said they were hopeful the Fed could engineer a so-called “soft landing” by bringing down inflation without triggering widespread job losses or recession.

The report was also welcome news for the Fed, but isn’t likely to change its plans. The central bank is expected to raise interest rates again next week and possibly a few more times this year.

“Momentum has already begun to slow in response to rate hikes, but the bulk of the slowdown is yet to come,” Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG, wrote in a note to clients. “The Fed’s goal is to let growth stall out in 2023.”

The 2022 economy was, in many ways, defined by stubborn decades-high inflation. Higher prices on housing, food and gas strained family budgets and cut into corporate profits. The economy unexpectedly shrank in the first half of the year — setting off a flurry of recession fears — then returned to growth in the second half.

In the most recent quarter, continued consumer spending on services such as health care and utilities helped lift gross domestic product, which sums up goods and services produced in the U.S. economy. Consumer spending makes up more than 70 percent of GDP, making it a crucial part of the equation.

An increase in federal government spending also contributed to the gains.

But the economy was dragged down by a fast-cooling housing market, particularly a drop in construction of single-family homes, according to the report. Exports also decreased, and business spending slowed as companies grappled with higher interest rates.

The 2022 GDP figure marks a return to pre-pandemic growth rates after two years of wild fluctuations. The U.S. economy grew by a whopping 5.7 percent in 2021, after shrinking 3.4 percent the year before.

More broadly, in the decade following the Great Recession, the U.S. economy grew between 1.5 percent and 2.9 percent each year. Although 2022 growth falls squarely within that range, economists say the seesawing numbers behind that average — two quarters of contraction, followed by two quarters of expansion — mask a host of unusual and conflicting data points.

“Unlike most recessions, where the bottom essentially falls out everywhere, we’re in a period where the pain is hitting pockets of the economy at different times,” said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab. “Everything isn’t pointing in the same direction, which isn’t the norm. It’s unique to the covid era.”

In recent weeks, a number of the country’s biggest tech firms, including Microsoft, Amazon and Salesforce, have announced thousands of layoffs. Although those cuts have not yet spilled over into the broader job market, economists worry a slowing labor market could lead families to begin pulling back on purchases, which would further blunt the economy. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Already, there are signs that Americans are beginning to think twice about spending. Retail sales, which were robust for most of the year, began falling in November and continued their descent through the end of the year. Families are also working through their covid-era savings and beginning to rely more heavily on credit cards. Meanwhile some are putting off big-ticket purchases altogether.

Luke Cole, who builds custom wood furniture in Wilmington, N.C., says sales are down about 30 percent from a year ago, as economic jitters lead many of his clients to put off new purchases.

Although demand had doubled during the pandemic — in large part because so many people were moving into new homes — a slowing housing market has also put a damper on orders for new tables, chairs and benches.

“I’ve definitely seen a slowdown since the summer,” Cole said. “It hasn’t been a massive drop, but you can tell inflation and the looming possibility of recession are beginning to take their toll.”

The housing market, which is already in free fall, could face additional turmoil if laid-off workers do not find new jobs and are forced to sell their homes, economists said. Overall residential investments fell nearly 20 percent in 2022, with new home construction notching its first yearly decline since 2009.

Home sales, meanwhile, have fallen for 11 straight months, according to the National Association of Realtors, as a result of higher borrowing costs. Average mortgage rates more than doubled last year, from 3 percent to 7 percent, making homeownership considerably more expensive for would-be buyers.

At JayMarc Homes near Seattle, sales slowed for much of last year, then came to a complete halt in the last quarter of 2022. The home builder, which typically sells 20 properties a year, did not sell a single house between October and December.

“We were one of the fastest markets in the country — people were begging us to sell them houses — and then suddenly it stopped,” said chief executive Marc Russo, who laid off 10 of his 50 employees in the fall. “No one could predict that interest rates would go up threefold in a matter of eight months.”

This year, though, he says business has improved: He has sold five homes in the past three weeks. But Russo is not rejoicing yet.

“I don’t have a crystal ball,” he said. “The macroeconomy is out of our control.”

Overheard

46 men were arrested in Frisco, TX.

They were all part of a sex trafficking ring. 

A volunteer firefighter, a HS teacher, a youth pastor, a semi-pro hockey player, & a hospital director of operations were among those arrested. 

But not one drag queen. None. Zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

One Dumb Idea

... after the next.

Republicans keep trying to move the Plutocracy Project along no matter what you or anybody else says.

Leigh McGowan

Because my entire income is Social Security, I don't pay income tax unless I work a regular job and earn an additional $15-20K per year. It would suck something awful if suddenly everything I buy goes up 30%.

I'd have no choice but to work just to try to stay even.

So let's take a look.

Currently, at $50,000 per year, about $14,500 goes to taxation - about $1200 per month.

• If your groceries run about $600.00 per month, you'll pay $780.00
• Instead of $250 per month for Gas & Lights, you'll pay $325.00
• Gasoline: Your 3-dollar gallon of gas goes down to $2.72 (no more DOT road tax), but then goes back up to $3.55 because of the new sales tax. At 1,000 miles per month, at 25 miles per gallon, at $3.55 per gallon, you're paying an extra $33 every month in taxes - and of course, we can absolutely count on the price of gas never going up, right?
• Buy a house at $300,000.00, and pay $390,000.00 - and then pay tax on top of the finance charges for the privilege of borrowing the money - plus you get to pay another $200,000 because you'll probably have to include that sales tax in your 30-year mortgage - which boosts those monthly payments by about $500
• Same with buying a car

And one of the kickers - if they wipe away the property taxes everybody pays on real estate, then the schools have practically no funding at all.

Add it all up, and you're paying more - at least $5,000 more per year. And that's just for the essentials of food, housing, and transportation.

So, staying with "just the essentials":

at $50,000, you'll pay about 39% of your income in taxes

at $100,000, you'll pay about 20% of your income in taxes

at $ 250,000, you'll pay about 8% of your income in taxes

This is nothing but a variation on "Flat Tax" - it's what dog-ass Republicans call "fair" - and I think we can count on the GOP to go back to the old bullshit of a flat tax, so they can pretend they're being reasonable.

But they're not. They're playing with the numbers, trying to set it up so they win either way.

With this "Value Added" shit, they win on percentages. With the "Flat Tax", they win on absolute dollars.

A progressive tax plan is what works. Everything the Republicans are proposing only works to put more yacht money in their pockets, while putting more debt, more hardship, and more misery on everybody else.

Today's Eternal Sadness

Maybe the nation's pets are just rising up and rebelling against their oppressors.

Dog steps on trigger of rifle, shoots man dead, Kansas sheriff says

A dog stepped on a loaded rifle, fatally shooting a passenger in his owner’s car during a hunting trip in Geuda Springs, Kan., sheriff’s deputies said.

Joseph Austin Smith, 30, of Wichita was sitting in the front passenger seat of a pickup truck when he was shot in the back, the Sumner County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

“The back seat contained hunting gear and a rifle,” the statement said. “A canine belonging to the owner of the pickup stepped on the rifle causing the weapon to discharge. The fired round struck the passenger who died of his injuries on scene.”

The sheriff’s office added that it considers the shooting an accident and has closed the case.

Responders were dispatched to the scene shortly before 9:50 a.m. Saturday after receiving a 911 call, the sheriff’s office said. The authorities did not say who placed the 911 call or disclose the name of the person who owns the dog or vehicle. It was not immediately clear what happened to the dog.

A GoFundMe page created by a group of people identified as Smith’s colleagues at Browns Plumbing Services in Wichita remembered him to be “kind, funny, smart, and very loving.” The campaign has raised more than $10,000 as of Wednesday morning. GoFundMe confirmed the validity of the fundraising page. Browns Plumbing Services did not immediately respond to a Washington Post request Wednesday morning for comment.

Your cat could burn your house down, Korean officials warn after 107 fires sparked by felines

Saturday’s shooting is not the first involving a dog and a loaded weapon.

Many people across the United States have been injured or fatally shot by canines discharging firearms in recent years, intensifying calls for better gun control and safety measures.

Although federal data indicates that the vast majority of gun deaths in the United States are suicides or homicides, the latest data shows that more than 500 people were killed unintentionally with guns in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center. Firearm purchases rose to record levels in the United States in the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, with more than 43 million guns estimated to have been purchased in that period, The Washington Post reported in July.

In 2004, a shepherd-mix puppy in Florida discharged a gun, striking a man in the wrist, NBC News reported. At the time of the shooting, Jerry Allen Bradford had been preparing to shoot seven puppies because he was unable to find them a home, NBC News reported, citing the local sheriff’s office.

In 2015, a Labrador retriever named Trigger accidentally shot a woman in the foot in Indiana, the Guardian reported. The woman’s loaded shotgun had been left on the ground with the safety off, causing her to be shot at close range and requiring medical treatment to her foot and toes.

“When you have a country with as many people, guns and dogs as we do, this type of thing is going to happen from time to time,” an analysis in The Post said that year.

In 2018, a pit bull-Labrador named Balew accidentally shot his owner when the pair were playing inside a house in Iowa. The dog’s owner, Richard Remme, told officials he was sitting on the sofa when he pushed the dog off his lap. Balew jumped up, disabling the safety on the gun in his holster and pressing the trigger.

Remme, who was injured in the leg, said that Balew — whom his owner described as “a big wuss” — cried after the shooting because he thought he did something wrong, the Guardian reported.

A hunting trip ended in bloodshed in New Mexico in 2018 when a 120-pound Rottweiler mix named Charlie caught a paw in the trigger of a gun while sitting in the back of his owner’s vehicle. Tex Harold Gilligan told ABC News that he was driving at the time he was shot and initially thought he had been hit by a sniper in the desert.

Gilligan was hospitalized with lung damage and broken bones but later defended his furry friend. “He didn’t mean to do it. He’s a good dog,” he said.

Most reports of dogs injuring humans with firearms have been documented in the United States, but such incidents also have occurred in other countries.

In November, a 32-year-old Turkish man from the city of Samsun was shot dead by a dog during a hunting trip. Ozgur Gevrekogulu was packing equipment into his vehicle when his dog stepped on the trigger of a shotgun, discharging a blast into the man’s abdomen, the Middle East Eye reported, citing local media.

I Did A Thing - guns and robot dogs

Today's Pix

click

⬇︎

Plutocracy

Opinion

A judge exposes DeSantis’s contempt for the First Amendment

Andrew Warren, the state prosecutor for Hillsborough County, Fla., spoke out against Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’s forced-birth abortion plan and his persecution of LGBTQ youth. In August, DeSantis suspended him -- and falsely claimed it was because Warren had made a blanket promise not to prosecute certain cases. Warren sued. On Friday, a judge sided with him on the facts but did not give him the relief he sought.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle called DeSantis’s allegation against Warren “false.” “Mr. Warren’s well-established policy, followed in every case by every prosecutor in the office,” Hinkle wrote, "was to exercise prosecutorial discretion at every stage of every case. Any reasonable investigation would have confirmed this.”

Hinkle underscored that Warren had been carrying out his duties without a fault. “The record includes not a hint of misconduct by Mr. Warren. So far as this record reflects, he was diligently and competently performing the job he was elected to perform, very much in the way he told voters he would perform it.” Contrary to DeSantis’s claim, Warren “had no blanket nonprosecution policies.” The judge added, “Any minimally competent inquiry would have confirmed this. The assertion that Mr. Warren neglected his duty or was incompetent is incorrect. This factual issue is not close.”

In fact, the court determined based on uncontroverted evidence, “There it was, stripped of pretext: a motivating factor in Mr. Warren’s suspension was that he was a ‘progressive prosecutor,’” and “of all things,” supported by billionaire George Soros, who is also a contributor to the Democratic Party.

In the first 57 pages of the 59-page opinion, the court makes crystal clear that DeSantis went after Warren for his political affiliation and views, including his outspoken defense of his record as a reform prosecutor. However, the kicker lies in the last two pages: Warren still couldn’t obtain reinstatement.

Unfortunately for Warren, the court ruled that even if he was protected from being fired over his stated beliefs, DeSantis would still have suspended Warren for nonprotected reasons (e.g., his record as a reformer and his disinclination to prosecute people in their first encounter with the police for bicycle and pedestrian violations). In addition, Hinkle held that Warren could not obtain the relief under the Florida constitution because the 11th Amendment prohibits a federal court from ordering a state official to take action for a violation of state law.

Had Warren brought the case in state court, there would have been no 11th Amendment barrier. But Warren no doubt chose to bring the case in federal court on a First Amendment theory to sidestep right-wing state judges. He might still pursue that avenue for relief.

Warren told me on Monday, “The reaction has been overwhelming. People are excited that we won on the merits and proved DeSantis broke the law in suspending me, and they are eagerly awaiting my reinstatement.” He added, “We are still weighing our legal options going forward.”

Still, the end result is unsatisfying. When, as the judge indicated, someone breaks both federal and state law and gets away with it, the sense of injustice is palpable. But while Warren did not prevail in getting reinstated, he certainly pulled back the curtain on the authoritarian mind-set of a governor who crushes dissent to score political points. As Warren said in public remarks after the ruling, DeSantis’s conduct should send “shivers down the spine of anyone who cares about free speech, the integrity of elections and the rule of law.”

Put differently, Warren served as a canary in the coal mine with regard to a governor who remains a top presidential prospect for 2024, exposing DeSantis’s abuse of power and his contempt for the First Amendment. There have been other warnings about DeSantis, as well — from his retaliation against Disney for opposing the “don’t say gay” bill to his inhumane and deceptive practice of shipping asylum seekers from Texas to Massachusetts. Norm Eisen, former co-counsel for House impeachment managers, tells me: “The Eleventh Amendment obstacle should not detract from that truth and the danger it represents. Like [former president Donald] Trump, DeSantis is a serial violator of the rule of law with a shrewd (perhaps even shrewder) ability to dodge consequences.”

Let no one be confused: DeSantis is not a break with the MAGA anti-democratic movement. He is only a less buffoonish version of the defeated former president. And that makes him all the more dangerous.

About The Guns

Ann Telnaes, WaPo