We have less than a month to the next election. So please join us tonight for some political punditry and electoral prognostication over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.
We meet tonight and every Tuesday evening at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. The starting time is 8:00 pm, but some folks show up before that for dinner.
Can’t make it to Seattle? Perhaps you can visit another Washington State chapter of Drinking Liberally over the next week. The Tri-Cities chapter also meets this and every Tuesday. On Wednesday, the Bellingham chapter meets. And the Bremerton chapter meets on Thursday.
With 203 chapters of Living Liberally, including seventeen in Washington state, three in Oregon and three in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting somewhere near you.
A new study shows a correlation between workplace sexual harassment and low minimum wage.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/wa.....-harassed/
“A federal judge has ruled that police in Ferguson, Missouri, violated the Constitution when they told protesters that they had to keep walking and that they couldn’t stand still.”
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/07/.....?hpt=hp_t2
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This almost seems trivial (although it isn’t) compared to some of the other ways that police systematically abuse the rights of citizens. I think we need a complete overhaul of America’s police department, including placing them under some sort of external supervision, because it’s clear there’s little restraint on police behavior and no accountability under the existing system.
The Whiner Party is even blaming Ebola on Obama.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/07/.....?hpt=hp_t3
One reason police accountability is so weak is that federal aid goes directly to local police departments instead of through elected local bodies:
“Federal funds are being spent to push this equipment out across the country, a process that often bypasses the role that traditional elected representatives once played because the police no longer need funds from the city council.”
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/06/.....?hpt=hp_t3
Roger Rabbit Commentary: It’s easy to see what’s going on. The feds gave sophisticated weapons and technology meant for military applications to local police, bypassing local political control, but don’t supervise their use of it; the result is that police answer to no one for their use of this weaponry and technology.
The way to change that is for Congress to pass a law requiring that all federal aid to local law enforcement must be channeled through local governments, rather than given directly to police departments. It can still be earmarked for police use, but such a law would require that elected local officials accept the aid, control its disbursement to their police officials, and supervise its use on a continuing basis. These requirements can easily be made conditions of receiving such aid.
“Starting Jan. 1, Wal-Mart told The Associated Press that it will no longer offer health insurance to employees who work less than an average of 30 hours a week. The move, which would affect 30,000 employees, follows similar decisions by Target, Home Depot and others to eliminate health insurance benefits for part-time employees.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Business.....s-26015112
Let me see if I can follow the corporate logic.
Because their part time employees can now get company health care, they are cutting company health care. Walmart was only offering health care to it’s part time employees if they didn’t enroll for it?
The comments are amazing. The anger directed at Obama and hatred and fear of the poor is amazing. Few find any fault in what Walmart or the other stores are doing.
“U.S. employers advertised the most job openings in nearly 14 years during August, yet their pace of hiring fell compared to July.
But total hiring fell 294,000 to 4.64 million, driven by declines in construction and retail. This suggests a potential mismatch between the wages employers are willing to pay and the skills of the workers available to be hired.
Yet the pace of hiring still lags the advertised demand from employers. Hiring has only risen 1 percent in the past 12 months.
This spread between openings and hirings is a sign that some employers are struggling to find workers with the skills they need. Or, employers may need to boost the pay being offered to bring in better applicants.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Business.....s-26016465
What is the skills mismatch for construction and retail? Reminds me of Rabbit posts about employment. Unfettered Greed is going to kill this economy.
@5 Reducing labor costs by transferring employee health care expenses to taxpayers is a longstanding and perfectly rational way for the richest of capitalists to increase their profits even more.
A little noticed news item is what’s happened to the Japanese economy after that government increased its national sales tax from 5% to 8% last April. Short answer: Retail sales and factory output are tanking. Here in America, conservatives love sales taxes; they even want to replicate Washington State’s regressive tax system on a national scale by replacing the federal income tax with a federal VAT or retail sales tax. Of course, they don’t give a rat’s ass what that would do to the economy, or to financially strapped middle and working class households; the main thing is that a shift from income to sales taxes would further reduce, if not all but eliminate, the tax burden on the rich. Conservatives believe the rich should pay no taxes, even if that would wreck the economy for everyone else.
“CEOs have increased the proportion of cash flow allocated to stock buybacks to more than 30 percent, almost double where it was in 2002, data from Barclays show. During the same period, the portion used for capital spending has fallen to about 40 percent from more than 50 percent. The reluctance to raise capital investment has left companies with the oldest plants and equipment in almost 60 years. ”
http://www.vox.com/2014/10/7/6.....nt=tuesday
Everyone is talking about the gutting of the middle class, but as of yet, nobody is saying what do do about it.
@9 Back in the ’50s, high tax rates on high incomes reduced the incentive value of bloated executive salaries, and everybody prospered. Back then, when they were earning only 50 times the average worker’s income, CEOs still had a pretty good life. The advent of billion-dollar incomes created all sorts of distortions in the economy, none of them good.
@9 It has already been said many times…
Reverse 30+ years of Reaganomics AKA Voodoo Economics.
Both our middle class and our economy will recover quite nicely.
Remember how we were going to “Drill Baby Drill” our way to energy independence?
Now the drum beat is export baby export. And we in Washington State get to be an energy export hub. Plans in the works for 5 Keystone XLs worth of coal, oil and gas shipments each year.
It sucks to be us…
Different Priorities
A survey of Republican, Democratic, and Independent voters reveals roughly equal sentiments about terrorism, budget deficits, and international conflicts; but Republicans care less about the economy, much less about health care, and much more about immigration than Democrats or Independents.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/wh.....on-voters/
Another oil train has derailed and is burning in Canada, prompting the evacuation of a town’s inhabitants.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fi.....al-canada/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: North America’s oil boom isn’t all joie de vivre. Becoming the new Saudi Arabia brings problems, not least of which is infrastructure to transport the stuff. Rail transport of crude oil costs about $10 a barrel more than pipeline, but nobody ever built pipelines to the big shale formations, which leaves rail and highways. If we’re going to pump all this oil from the ground anyway, then I think it’s desirable to replace rail transport of oil with new pipelines (with some caveats), but it will take time and investment to do that.
So Conservoworld is all up in arms about the Supreme Court letting gay marriage stand. (Even Scalia must see the inevitable. In fact, he’s probably got images of gay honeymoon’s in his spank bank.)
Now several are comparing it to Dredd Scott. To be fair, I don’t think they are saying that Gay Marriage is JUST LIKE agreeing that humans can be property and can never be U.S. Citizens but with some of the more fringe-y wing-nuts I’m sure letting icky gay men live in piece is enslaving to the straights.
But if they are saying that 150 years from now America is going to look at gay Marriage and say, “That was the stupidest most asinine decision in history” uh…good luck with that. Seen any polling on how people under 30 view gay people.
Right wing nuts…aging and dying.
Wow, I should check auto correct more
Read the article but especially read the comments, it’s like rabbit, but on massive steroids. Those brits are pissed.
http://www.theguardian.com/bus.....ded-crisis
“Why is anyone surprised that the World economy is grinding to halt. Most fortunes have been built on selling lots of stuff to lots of people with a bit of disposable income. But if 99% of the population has little or no disposable income the economy stops because there are only so many luxury goods you can sell to the ridiculously wealthy. The sheer greed of these people is creating an economic bottle-neck.”
“And all the automated surveillance (employing advances in artificial intelligence) and the life-extension treatments and technologies to extend the lives of the 1 percent should come online just as the rest of us begin to realise that we’re entering the end-game.”