----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl Jarvis" <carjar82@gmail.com>
To: "Blind Democracy Discussion List" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2013 10:57 AM
Subject: Re: Swearing in the Enemy
Hirsi Ali tells us, "
I wasn't immune to the appeal of this new fundamentalism. I myself
joined the Muslim Brotherhood, a religious and social movement in which
we were urged to implement Shariah in our families, communities and
nations."
Yet, here she is today, an American Citizen, embracing our Constitution and
committed to the belief that we can somehow screen out those who would
become citizens in order to turn upon our Way of Life.
Certainly I understand her concerns...I hope they are concerns and not
unreasonable fears. But the thought of turning the application process into
a process for screening out undesirables rather than educating applicants in
what America is, and nurturing our ideals, is troubling to me.
She mentions the oath, "I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the
Communist Party", as an example of the sort of screening questions we might
consider. But a person bent on making trouble will give you the answer that
you will accept. And the use of such questions leaves the citizenship
application process open to being manipulated if a very restrictive
government takes office, and finds a particular People to be undesirable.
Besides, we all...or at least a majority of us...change our beliefs from
time to time. I was a Born Again Baptized in the Holy Spirit Christian at
one time. Today I am an Agnostic. Who knows what I might be next year?
Are there questions that will determine if my Agnosticism and Radical
Politics will make me a threat to my country? Maybe to a particular group
of politicians holding our government captive, but how do you distinguish
between the two?
So if we're going to devise a questionnaire that screens out undesirable
applicants, why not have it given to every citizen and anyone flunking the
test will be run off to some desert island? Or shot at dawn, since we have
an over abundance of guns.
Any form of government carries with it potential dangers. A dictatorship
insists that you bow before the Dictator or be punished. The free nature of
another government could mean that it is subject to attacks from within by
people who are opposed to that government. That's the risk of keeping a
democracy free and open.
Here is a question. Are there more suicide bombings and violent attacks on
governments in democratic nations, or in oppressed or occupied nations? Are
we travelling down the road toward making our nation "safer" at the expense
of our Freedom?
Rather than fuss around with the citizenship application process, let's put
our energy into making America a freer nation, and encourage all citizens to
participate in making it even a better Land. And we could begin by
demanding one citizen, one vote. And defining a Citizen as a living Human
Being. No Corporate Persons and no purchasing a Citizen's vote.
Carl Jarvis
Original Message -----
From: "R. E. Driscoll Sr" <llocsirdsr@att.net>
To: "'Blind Democracy Discussion List'" s<blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2013 6:30 AM
Subject: Swearing in the Enemy
I read this article last week and debated sending it on. My first
thought was that it would be too disruptive so I did not send it on.
Last night I received a message from a friend in California who
recommended that I reread the article and then reconsider sending it on.
I have done so this morning and the article follows.
R. E. (Dick) Driscoll, Sr.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324767004578486931383069840.html?mod=WSJ_myyahoo_module
Swearing In the Enemy
One of the suspected Boston bombers was a naturalized citizen, and
the other was on his way. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, herself a new citizen, asks
how we might change the process of becoming an American to exclude those
who hate America.
By AYAAN HIRSI ALI
<http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=AYAAN+HIRSI+ALI&bylinesearch=true>
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324767004578486931383069840.html?mod=WSJ_myyahoo_module#>
Author Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who recently became a U.S. citizen, argues that
immigration reform needs to include measures to detect the radically
anti-American beliefs of some newcomers who seek to become Americans.
On April 25, 2013, I took the oath to become a citizen of the United
States. Perhaps only those who have taken this oath can fully understand
how I felt that afternoon in Boston. I felt a strong sense of belonging,
and tears welled up in my eyes more than a few times during the hourlong
ceremony.
I have no reason to doubt that the 1,834 other men and women who took
the oath with me also felt that special sense of homecoming. On that
sunny afternoon, it seemed unreal that just 10 days earlier, another new
citizen of this country had taken up arms against it---against us---in
the very same city.
As the whole world now knows, that new U.S. citizen was Dzhokhar
Tsarnaev, only 19 years old. He had taken the oath just seven months
earlier---on Sept. 11, in fact, a grim irony whose lessons we are still
struggling to learn. His alleged partner in crime and mentor was his
elder brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who himself had applied for
citizenship and was well into the process, awaiting approval and the
invitation to take the same precious oath.
That approval and invitation would surely have come, because
Americans---we Americans---are a generous people. And yet, strangely,
today's debate about immigration reform has little to do with keeping
out people like Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Elizabeth Dietz
The author, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, during her naturalization ceremony on April 25.
Related
* *What the Oath for New U.S. Citizens Says
<http://blogs.wsj.com/ideas-market/2013/05/17/what-the-oath-for-new-u-s-citizens-says/>
*
The Tsarnaev brothers are emblematic of the divided loyalties of our
times---and they are not the only ones. Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani
national, is a naturalized U.S. citizen who lived the American dream: He
arrived on a student visa, married an American citizen, graduated from
college, worked his way up the corporate ladder to become a junior
financial analyst for a cosmetics company in Connecticut, became a
naturalized citizen at the age of 30 and then, a year later, in 2010,
tried to blow up as many of his fellow citizens as possible in a failed
car bombing in New York's Times Square.
Prior to sentencing, the judge asked Mr. Shahzad about the oath of
allegiance he had taken, in which he did "absolutely and entirely
renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince,
potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been
a subject or citizen." The defendant replied: "I sweared [sic], but I
didn't mean it." He then expressed his regret about the failure of his
plot and added that he would gladly have sacrificed a thousand lives in
the service of Allah. He concluded by predicting the downfall of his new
homeland.
Every naturalized citizen has a unique story to tell. My own journey to
America was not only geographical but also intellectual, emotional and
cultural. I grew up in Muslim communities in Somalia, Saudi Arabia,
Ethiopia and Kenya. In my early years, these communities (with the
exception of Saudi Arabia) were moderate in their religious beliefs and
practices.
Enlarge Image
Photo Illustration by John Kuczala
The challenge is to uncover the deceit of phony citizens.
But during my teenage years, I saw a change. Friends and family members
began turning to Islamic scripture, interpreted literally, for answers
to all their problems. I saw religious leaders who emphasized ritual
observance replaced by a new breed of imams who urged hostile action,
even violence, against Jews, "infidels," and Muslims who neglected their
religious duties or violated Shariah, the Islamic law.
I wasn't immune to the appeal of this new fundamentalism. I myself
joined the Muslim Brotherhood, a religious and social movement in which
we were urged to implement Shariah in our families, communities and
nations. For a young woman, this might mean strict obedience to her
husband and quiet propagation of the message; for a young man, it might
mean seeking martyrdom through a violent attack against the infidels.
One person might contribute money, another his home, yet another his
political and social connections. What mattered was being united around
the ideal of a world ruled by Shariah.
Over time, I began to question that ideal. My journey included a decade
in the Netherlands, where I lived a life of profound dissonance,
mentally vowing to remain steadfast in my faith while my lifestyle
drifted further and further from the narrow Islamic path. I knew that
the freedom I experienced in the Netherlands was supposed to be
abhorrent and evil, yet I found myself overwhelmed with gratitude for it
and for the generosity with which the Dutch people welcomed me and so
many other émigrés. I discovered that I was more comfortable with the
idea of treating women, gay people, and people of different races and
faiths equally than I had ever been with the strictures of Shariah.
It was this journey from a world dominated by strict adherence to
religious law into a world of freedom both for and from religion that
led me to that ceremony in Boston, where I finally became a citizen of
the country that, above all others, represents freedom to the world. I
have devoted the past decade of my life to working as hard as I can to
expose the threat posed by what I label, as carefully as possible,
"political Islam."
It's a subject about which I know a great deal. Political Islam killed
my Dutch friend Theo van Gogh, who dared to collaborate with me in
making the film "Submission," which criticizes the mistreatment of women
in the name of Islam. Adherents of political Islam regularly threaten
me, an apostate from their faith. Political Islam eventually made my
life in the Netherlands impossible. If it were not for political Islam,
I would almost certainly still be Dutch.
What is political Islam? It is not precisely the same as the spiritual
dimension of the faith. Islam is multidimensional. It has a religious
and social aspect but also a very strong political dimension. Political
Islam is a comprehensive vision of ideas and ideals derived from Islamic
scripture as interpreted by various scholars widely accepted as
authorities on its meaning. Virtually all of these scholars agree that
Muslim societies must accept Allah as the sovereign power and struggle
to abide strictly by Shariah law as exemplified in the Sunna (the life,
words and deeds of the Prophet). Political Islam prescribes a set of
specific social, economic and legal practices in a way that is very
different from the more general social teachings (such as calls to
practice charity or strive for justice) found in the spiritual dimension
of Islam, Christianity, Judaism and other world religions.
All of this, obviously, flies in the face of the American---and more
broadly Western---ideals of religious freedom and the separation of
church and state. But most Americans ignore the fundamental conflict
between political Islam and their own worldview. Perhaps this is because
they generally assume that "religion," however defined, is a positive
force for good and that any set of religious beliefs, however unusual,
should be considered acceptable in a tolerant society. I agree with that.
The problem arises when those who adhere to a particular faith use it as
divine license to break the law. It is a wonderful truth about
America---one of its powerful attractions for millions of immigrants
like me---that you may think and say whatever you wish as long as you do
not act on your beliefs in a way that harms others. Unfortunately, a
minority of the adherents to political Islam wish to take violent action
in support of their beliefs---threatening the lives of innocents like
those killed and maimed as they stood watching the Boston Marathon.
It is reasonable to ask yourself: How many more young men like Tamerlan
and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are already living a double life in America, ready
to take up arms for the cause of political Islam? And how many more will
be naturalized this year? None? That seems pretty unlikely.
In a 2011 Pew survey, 1% of American Muslims said that suicide bombings
were "often justified"---a tiny proportion, to be sure. The overwhelming
majority of American Muslims want to lead peaceful lives. But 7% of
those surveyed said that suicide bombers were "sometimes justified," and
5% said they were "rarely justified." Taking Pew's conservative estimate
that Muslims now constitute 0.6% of the adult population of the U.S.,
this means that more than 180,000 American Muslims regard suicide
bombings as being justified in some way.
Still more worrisome, a 2007 survey by Pew revealed that Muslim
Americans under the age of 30 are twice as likely as older Muslims to
believe that suicide bombings in defense of Islam can be justified. The
same survey revealed that 7% of American Muslims between the ages of 18
and 29 had a "favorable" view of al Qaeda.
To repeat: The proportion may be small, but the number of Americans
committed to political Islam and willing to contemplate violence to
advance it is surely not trivial. And rising immigration from the Muslim
world is likely to increase the proportion of Americans sympathetic to
political Islam.
A 2013 Pew report revealed the extraordinarily large proportion of
Muslims around the world who favor making Shariah the official law of
their own countries: 91% of Iraqi Muslims and 84% of Pakistanis, for
example. Comparably high proportions favor the death penalty for
apostates like me. Are immigrants to the U.S. drawn exclusively from the
tiny minority who think otherwise? I doubt it.
When trying to explain the violence of some political Islamists, some
Western commentators blame hard economic circumstances, dysfunctional
family circumstances, confused identity, the generic alienation of young
males and so on. In other quarters, the mistakes of American foreign
policy are advanced as an explanation. Even if one accepts these
arguments---and these factors may indeed play a role in exacerbating the
sense of violent alienation among many young Muslims---it remains hard
to understand why a convinced political Islamist would sincerely want to
become an American citizen.
The naturalized citizen swears to "support and defend the Constitution
and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign
and domestic...bear true faith and allegiance to the same...[and] bear
arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law."
Naturalized citizens tie their own destiny to the destiny of this
society, not their former one, for better or worse. So the potential
bomber takes an oath to defend the Constitution and the U.S. against all
enemies, while committed in his heart to a radically different political
order.
The challenge that this would-be bomber poses for us is not to change
our foreign policy or improve economic conditions in the Muslim world.
We already do that. The challenge is to uncover the deceit of such phony
citizens.
One measure employed during the Cold War was to question prospective
citizens about whether they had ever been members of the Communist
Party, a recognition that communism was an ideology fundamentally
hostile to the American way of life. That question about the Communist
Party is still asked today, even though the threat posed by communism
has receded to a few desperate holdouts. I was surprised to encounter it
not once but twice during my own application process. And it got me
thinking: Is it not time to update the application form, substituting
political Islam for Communism?
Of course, the question alone would do nothing to uncover deceit on the
part of a determined terrorist. But it would establish the principle
that adherence to political Islam, with its dreams of a society ruled by
Shariah (not to mention a world ruled by a restored caliphate), is
incompatible with the terms of the oath of allegiance.
During my application process, the Citizenship and Immigration Services
requested that I show up at the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in
downtown Boston only twice---once for fingerprints and pictures, a
second time for an interview with a civil servant to review my
application. It was a purely bureaucratic procedure, empty of any larger
moral or political meaning---as it must have been for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
and Faisal Shahzad and as it would have been for Tamerlan Tsarnaev, too.
The question now is whether the interview process should remain so
devoid of meaning. Is that what we want for the next zealot of political
Islam who wants to enjoy the benefits of American citizenship until the
day he tries to slaughter as many of us as possible?
A half-century ago, the U.S. turned away from the era when immigration
was restricted with the deliberate intention of keeping down the number
of Chinese and other ethnic groups, who were deemed undesirable. I have
no wish to go back to those bad old days. There should be no
discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity or faith. But it is not
enough to confine the current debate on immigration reform to a narrow
argument about the future of illegal immigrants. I believe that we are
entitled to filter out would-be citizens who are ideologically and
morally opposed to the U.S. and pose a threat to its population.
Every applicant should be interviewed by an ethnically and religiously
diverse panel made up of experts on ideological extremism, who would
then advise the government on whether or not to allow the applicant to
proceed along the road to citizenship. Muslim applicants need not feel
singled out; the panel would look out for any individual whose political
convictions, religious or otherwise, radically clash with the government
and principles to which the applicant is preparing to swear allegiance.
This would include any and all extremists who openly advocate or engage
in political violence as a means for attaining their ideal society.
Examples would include members of terrorist organizations such as the
FARC in Colombia, the PKK in Turkey, Aum Shinrikyo in Japan and so on.
The most important question is not what they believe but what they
do---or believe it would be legitimate to do. Requiring candidates for
citizenship to respond to questions from such a panel might do more than
all the other inconvenient, expensive, and undesirable measures to
combat terrorism that we currently put up with.
A big job to organize and implement? Absolutely. But such screening is
necessary to ensure that the U.S. continues to draw and naturalize
people who are genuinely attracted by what makes the country great and
who want to make their own contribution to that greatness, while keeping
out enemies bent on our demise.
"I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose
of evasion: so help me God." Those closing words of the Oath of
Allegiance are now etched indelibly in my memory. But as I said them, I
thought of the Tsarnaev brothers, whose mental reservations about
America grew to the point that they were prepared to sow murder and mayhem.
Immigration reform that does not make it harder for such people to
settle in the U.S. would be, to say the least, very incomplete.
/Ms. Hirsi Ali is a founder of the AHA Foundation and author of
"Infidel" and "Nomad: My Journey from Islam to America." She is a fellow
at the Belfer Center of Harvard's Kennedy School and a visiting fellow
at the American Enterprise Institute./
A version of this article appeared May 18, 2013, on page C1 in the U.S.
edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Swearinginthe EnemyH.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
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Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Taxation and fairness
Subject: Re: Taxation and fairness
Bob and All Who Have Had it up to Here With Taxes.
When this tax "information" was posted on another list, I did not get into
it because it was taking us down a side road from what should have been the
central discussion.
Here's the thing. We tend to throw statistics in order to defend our
position, or to debunk the other persons position, not to explore solutions.
The current tax system in our nation is so filled with corrupted rules and
loopholes and even some Black Holes and Wormholes, that it simply does not
matter what the figures show. Who cares if the 1% are paying most of the
taxes, and half of the remaining 95% are paying nothing? While we're busy
trotting out a new set of statistics, and then some more for good measure,
nothing is changing. Except that the rich are getting richer and the poor
are getting poorer.
When some citizens are spending piles of money to employ buildings full of
lawyers and accountants to figure how to move billions of dollars away from
view, so as to avoid paying taxes, and at the same time controlling the tax
laws by buying the Souls of politicians, it's pretty ingenuous of them to
whine about what little they do pay, regardless of what percentage of the
total taxes.
And by the way, none of these poor Billionaires would trade places with one
of those slum dwellers who currently pay no taxes.
And don't talk to me about how the folks who don't pay taxes are actually
being paid to not work. This is the old bait and switch game. The 1% are
pointing the finger at the 45% who pay no taxes, and are crying out that
they are the problem for our nation's financial woes. The fact is that the
1% are not only hiding tons of money that could actually solve our nation's
financial needs, but the are also far bigger welfare recipients than the 45%
whom they accuse of "ripping off" the nation's wealth.
But why shouldn't the 1% believe that the 95% should support them? We've
been carrying them all along.
When the beehive becomes too full of drones, the worker bees kill them and
toss them out of the hive.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Hachey" <bhachey@verizon.net>
To: "Blind Democracy Discussion List" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2013 4:51 AM
Subject: Taxation and fairness
Hi all,
Here is some very interesting data from the IRS that I got from another
list.
Frankly, I've believed for a long time that the wealthy don't pay their fair
share of taxes here in America, but the data below gives me at least some
pause.
How accurate do you all think it is? How would it compare to similar data
for, let's say 1965, 1975 or 1985?
While it's nice to quip that figures lie and lyers figure, it does not seem
quite so easy to dismiss the data below.
I'm thinking that maybe the wealthy are supposed to pay taxes as indicated
below, but that many of them find ways around paying the taxes. In other
words, the laws are in place to get a decent amount of revenue out of the
wealthy, but those laws are not being enforced?
Bob Hachey
Here is tax data taken directly from the IRS and reproduced by
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/12/top-1-of-american-taxpayers-pay-almost-as-m
uch-in-taxes-as-bottom-95-and-half-of-that-group-paid-nothing-in-2010
(Note: 2012 data show very similar patterns.)
The top 1% of US taxpayers pay almost as much in federal income taxes as the
entire bottom 95%, and half of that bottom group paid no taxes at all in
2010 Mark J. Perry | December 27, 2012, 11:37 am According to new IRS data,
the 1.35 million taxpayers that represent the highest-earning one percent of
the Americans who filed federal income tax returns in 2010 earned 18.9% of
the total gross income and paid 37.4% of all federal income taxes paid in
that year. In contrast, the 128.3 million taxpayers in the bottom 95% of
all U.S. taxpayers in 2010 earned 66.2% of gross income and that group paid
40.9% of all taxes paid. In other words, the top 1 percent (1.35 million) of
American taxpayers paid almost as much federal income tax in 2010 ($354.8
billion) as the entire bottom 95% of American tax filers ($388.4 billion),
see chart above. And it's that group of top income earners (with income
above $221,000 in 2010 to be in the top one percent)...
Further, there were more than 58 million Americans in 2010 who had tax
returns with a zero or negative tax liability, so about half of the bottom
95% of American "taxpayers" paid nothing or got a tax refund.
With those data in mind, consider Nolan Finley's column in the Detroit News
comparing paying for milk and paying for taxes, based on an analysis a
reader (corporate lawyer Jon Taub) provided:
If every U.S. taxpayer purchased a gallon of milk, each person would pay
$2.49, and the total cost would be 140.5 million times $2.49 - or $349
million.
Now let's assume the government treated milk like government services and
determined its price the same way it determines tax rates. The pricing would
change as follows:
When the bottom 40 percent of earners buy their milk, they won't pay a dime
for it. In fact, the government would give them $1 in reverse payments for
every gallon of milk they purchase. The total cost of providing one gallon
of milk to each person in this group would be $196.1 million.
The cost of providing milk to the remaining 60 percent of the taxpayers
would be $209.9 million, bringing the total cost burden of all taxpayers'
milk to $406 million.
Under our existing tax rates, instead of paying $2.49 a gallon, the top 1
percent of earners would pay 38 percent of the total milk burden or $109.81
for a gallon of milk.
More Tax Facts...
Who Pays the Most Income Tax?
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/incometaxandtheirs/a/whopaysmost.htm
Higher income earners pay the most, Treasury says By Robert Longley,
Feeling overtaxed? Under the U.S. income tax system, most of the taxes
collected are supposed to be paid by the people who make the most money...
that is exactly the way the system works, says the U.S. Treasury Department.
According to the Office of Tax Analysis, the U.S. individual income tax is
"highly progressive," with a small group of higher-income taxpayers paying
most of the individual income taxes each year.
....the latest year of available data, the top 5 percent of taxpayers paid
more than one-half (53.8 percent) of all individual income taxes, but
reported roughly one-third (30.6 percent) of income.
.The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 33.7 percent of all individual income
taxes ... This group of taxpayers has paid more than 30 percent of
individual income taxes since 1995. Moreover, since 1990 this group's tax
share has grown faster than their income share.
.Taxpayers who rank in the top 50 percent of taxpayers by income pay
virtually all individual income taxes. In all years since 1990, taxpayers in
this group have paid over 94 percent of all individual income taxes. In
2000, 2001, and 2002, this group paid over 96 percent of the total.
Treasury Department analysts credit President Bush's tax cuts with shifting
a larger share of the individual income taxes paid to higher income
taxpayers. In 2005, says the Treasury, when most of the tax cut provisions
are fully in effect (e.g., lower tax rates, the $1,000 child credit,
marriage penalty relief), the projected tax share for lower-income taxpayers
will fall, while the tax share for higher-income taxpayers will rise.
.The share of taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers will fall
from 4.1 percent to 3.6 percent.
.The share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent of taxpayers will rise from
32.3 percent to 33.7 percent.
.The average tax rate for the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers falls by 27
percent as compared to a 13 percent decline for taxpayers in the top 1
percent.
Source: U.S. Treasury, Office of Tax Analysis
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Blind-Democracy mailing list
Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
Bob and All Who Have Had it up to Here With Taxes.
When this tax "information" was posted on another list, I did not get into
it because it was taking us down a side road from what should have been the
central discussion.
Here's the thing. We tend to throw statistics in order to defend our
position, or to debunk the other persons position, not to explore solutions.
The current tax system in our nation is so filled with corrupted rules and
loopholes and even some Black Holes and Wormholes, that it simply does not
matter what the figures show. Who cares if the 1% are paying most of the
taxes, and half of the remaining 95% are paying nothing? While we're busy
trotting out a new set of statistics, and then some more for good measure,
nothing is changing. Except that the rich are getting richer and the poor
are getting poorer.
When some citizens are spending piles of money to employ buildings full of
lawyers and accountants to figure how to move billions of dollars away from
view, so as to avoid paying taxes, and at the same time controlling the tax
laws by buying the Souls of politicians, it's pretty ingenuous of them to
whine about what little they do pay, regardless of what percentage of the
total taxes.
And by the way, none of these poor Billionaires would trade places with one
of those slum dwellers who currently pay no taxes.
And don't talk to me about how the folks who don't pay taxes are actually
being paid to not work. This is the old bait and switch game. The 1% are
pointing the finger at the 45% who pay no taxes, and are crying out that
they are the problem for our nation's financial woes. The fact is that the
1% are not only hiding tons of money that could actually solve our nation's
financial needs, but the are also far bigger welfare recipients than the 45%
whom they accuse of "ripping off" the nation's wealth.
But why shouldn't the 1% believe that the 95% should support them? We've
been carrying them all along.
When the beehive becomes too full of drones, the worker bees kill them and
toss them out of the hive.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Hachey" <bhachey@verizon.net>
To: "Blind Democracy Discussion List" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2013 4:51 AM
Subject: Taxation and fairness
Hi all,
Here is some very interesting data from the IRS that I got from another
list.
Frankly, I've believed for a long time that the wealthy don't pay their fair
share of taxes here in America, but the data below gives me at least some
pause.
How accurate do you all think it is? How would it compare to similar data
for, let's say 1965, 1975 or 1985?
While it's nice to quip that figures lie and lyers figure, it does not seem
quite so easy to dismiss the data below.
I'm thinking that maybe the wealthy are supposed to pay taxes as indicated
below, but that many of them find ways around paying the taxes. In other
words, the laws are in place to get a decent amount of revenue out of the
wealthy, but those laws are not being enforced?
Bob Hachey
Here is tax data taken directly from the IRS and reproduced by
http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/12/top-1-of-american-taxpayers-pay-almost-as-m
uch-in-taxes-as-bottom-95-and-half-of-that-group-paid-nothing-in-2010
(Note: 2012 data show very similar patterns.)
The top 1% of US taxpayers pay almost as much in federal income taxes as the
entire bottom 95%, and half of that bottom group paid no taxes at all in
2010 Mark J. Perry | December 27, 2012, 11:37 am According to new IRS data,
the 1.35 million taxpayers that represent the highest-earning one percent of
the Americans who filed federal income tax returns in 2010 earned 18.9% of
the total gross income and paid 37.4% of all federal income taxes paid in
that year. In contrast, the 128.3 million taxpayers in the bottom 95% of
all U.S. taxpayers in 2010 earned 66.2% of gross income and that group paid
40.9% of all taxes paid. In other words, the top 1 percent (1.35 million) of
American taxpayers paid almost as much federal income tax in 2010 ($354.8
billion) as the entire bottom 95% of American tax filers ($388.4 billion),
see chart above. And it's that group of top income earners (with income
above $221,000 in 2010 to be in the top one percent)...
Further, there were more than 58 million Americans in 2010 who had tax
returns with a zero or negative tax liability, so about half of the bottom
95% of American "taxpayers" paid nothing or got a tax refund.
With those data in mind, consider Nolan Finley's column in the Detroit News
comparing paying for milk and paying for taxes, based on an analysis a
reader (corporate lawyer Jon Taub) provided:
If every U.S. taxpayer purchased a gallon of milk, each person would pay
$2.49, and the total cost would be 140.5 million times $2.49 - or $349
million.
Now let's assume the government treated milk like government services and
determined its price the same way it determines tax rates. The pricing would
change as follows:
When the bottom 40 percent of earners buy their milk, they won't pay a dime
for it. In fact, the government would give them $1 in reverse payments for
every gallon of milk they purchase. The total cost of providing one gallon
of milk to each person in this group would be $196.1 million.
The cost of providing milk to the remaining 60 percent of the taxpayers
would be $209.9 million, bringing the total cost burden of all taxpayers'
milk to $406 million.
Under our existing tax rates, instead of paying $2.49 a gallon, the top 1
percent of earners would pay 38 percent of the total milk burden or $109.81
for a gallon of milk.
More Tax Facts...
Who Pays the Most Income Tax?
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/incometaxandtheirs/a/whopaysmost.htm
Higher income earners pay the most, Treasury says By Robert Longley,
Feeling overtaxed? Under the U.S. income tax system, most of the taxes
collected are supposed to be paid by the people who make the most money...
that is exactly the way the system works, says the U.S. Treasury Department.
According to the Office of Tax Analysis, the U.S. individual income tax is
"highly progressive," with a small group of higher-income taxpayers paying
most of the individual income taxes each year.
....the latest year of available data, the top 5 percent of taxpayers paid
more than one-half (53.8 percent) of all individual income taxes, but
reported roughly one-third (30.6 percent) of income.
.The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 33.7 percent of all individual income
taxes ... This group of taxpayers has paid more than 30 percent of
individual income taxes since 1995. Moreover, since 1990 this group's tax
share has grown faster than their income share.
.Taxpayers who rank in the top 50 percent of taxpayers by income pay
virtually all individual income taxes. In all years since 1990, taxpayers in
this group have paid over 94 percent of all individual income taxes. In
2000, 2001, and 2002, this group paid over 96 percent of the total.
Treasury Department analysts credit President Bush's tax cuts with shifting
a larger share of the individual income taxes paid to higher income
taxpayers. In 2005, says the Treasury, when most of the tax cut provisions
are fully in effect (e.g., lower tax rates, the $1,000 child credit,
marriage penalty relief), the projected tax share for lower-income taxpayers
will fall, while the tax share for higher-income taxpayers will rise.
.The share of taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers will fall
from 4.1 percent to 3.6 percent.
.The share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent of taxpayers will rise from
32.3 percent to 33.7 percent.
.The average tax rate for the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers falls by 27
percent as compared to a 13 percent decline for taxpayers in the top 1
percent.
Source: U.S. Treasury, Office of Tax Analysis
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Blind-Democracy mailing list
Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
Monday, May 13, 2013
Power, Social and Political systems and blindness
Subject: Re: Power, Social and Political systems and blindness
Hi Ron and All Believers in Open Discussion,
Guilty as charged, Ron. Marx has been an influence in my thinking. I'm the
son of an old Marxist, who never shied away from speaking his mind. But I
am also heavily influenced by my past years as a Christian, and certainly
I've had my head pounded full of the virtues of American Capitalism.
But as you wrote: "the point I am
making is that all of the systems that have been tested to date are
imperfect and have serious flaws that are eventually exploited. The perfect
system does not exist, except only in theory."
So, since this is the ACB list, my question is, how do we blind people
understand and use to our advantage the imperfect system we are living
under?
One thing for sure, the only thing the folks on this list have in common is
the fact that we are blind. And even then it is not consistent. some of us
are totally blind, some partially blind, some newly blind and some not sure
just what we are.
Because of our individual backgrounds, we have varied views about blindness.
We belong to an organization of volunteers, a small percentage of the
nation's population, yet still able to join forces on common issues, and
make a measure of progress.
And that fact is encouraging. If we can make our voice heard, even in the
smallest of ways, that is a tribute to our collective strength.
While the purpose of the ACB is not to attempt to change our government, we
certainly can learn by observing the world about us, debating among
ourselves, and applying what we learn to what we must do to maintain the
openness of the ACB, and become more effective.
To my way of thinking, we are rowing upstream here in America. The
government is a top down, central control system and the ACB is a bottom up
organization, a collection of affiliates and special interest groups
governed by a low key central government. This makes our job more difficult
in our various battles.
In my mind the NFB took the position that if you can't lick them, join them.
They developed a strong central government and control the activities of the
local chapters. Pretty much a pattern of where we are today in our Nation.
It is an effective way of organizing. But it is not a People's Movement.
Eventually the preservation of the people in power becomes the major focus
of such organizations, and the membership become a means to keeping the
current government in power.
Keeping the ACB as a People's Movement should be a central concern of each
of us. Remember Ron's words, "...The perfect
system does not exist...". But together we can keep our eye on that goal,
and work together to ensure that we are always pointed into the Light.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ronald E. Milliman" <rmilliman@insightbb.com>
To: "Carl Jarvis" <carjar82@gmail.com>; "J.Rayl"
<thedogmom6363@frontier.com>; "Acb List" <acb-l@acb.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 12, 2013 9:49 AM
Subject: Power, Social and Political systems and blindness
Re: Social and Political systems
While much of what Carl seems to support is very closely akin to the
social/political views of Karl Marx and Marxism, which recognized only a
two class system, the class stratification system to wich you referred that
included the middle class was first espoused by Max Weber.
Max Weber was certainly strongly influenced by Marx's ideas, but rejected
the possibility of effective communism, arguing that it would require an
even greater level of detrimental social control and bureaucratization than
capitalist society. Moreover, Weber criticized the dialectical presumption
of proletariat revolt, believing it to be unlikely. Instead, he developed
the three-component theory of stratification. Weber supposed there were
more class divisions than Marx suggested, taking different concepts from
both functionalist and Marxist theories to create his own system. He
emphasized the difference between class, status, and power, and treated
these as separate but related sources of power, each with different effects
on social action. Working at half a century later than Marx, Weber claimed
there to be in fact four main classes: the upper class, the white collar
workers, the petite bourgeoisie, and the manual working class. Weber's
theory more-closely resembles contemporary Western class structures,
although economic status does not currently seem to depend strictly on
earnings in the way Weber envisioned.
I apologize for slipping into my professorial mode here, but the point I am
making is that all of the systems that have been tested to date are
imperfect and have serious flaws that are eventually exploited. The perfect
system does not exist, except only in theory.
Personally, I think an interesting experiment that is currently taking
place is the marriage of communism and Capitalism that is happening in
China. In theory, it could be a superior system, but unfortunately, like
all theoretical political and social systems, in practice, the shortcomings
are exploited by power-hungry people, which seem to be a human trait, and
as delineated by numerous studies of other life forms, it seems to be a
common trait among other species as well.
How is this blind related? Believe it or not, it relates to all individuals
that are perceived as significantly different from the accepted cultural
norm of the specific society in which the individual lives. The animals,
who perceive themselves as superior within the accepted norm of their
culture, discriminate against those who are perceived as inferior. Such
perceptions can derive from perceptions of various disabilities, inferior
intelligence, undesirable physical traits, etc.
Individuals that are perceived based upon the norms of their society, as
having desirable traits tend to rise to positions of power, political power
and power over the private sector means of capital wealth. Interestingly,
this seems to apply to all societies and to all political systems.
I realize we can all point to some examples of what appear to be exceptions
to these broad generalities, but upon careful scrutiny, we find political
leaders, like Adolf Hitler, while having unattractive physical traits as
perceived by most people, was also perceived as having a very dynamic
personal magnetism or charisma, a desirable personal trait. Consequently,
as diabolical as Hitler was, because of his charisma, he was still able to
rise to power.
Unfortunately, blindness is not perceived as a desirable trait by any
society. To the contrary, it is perceived as an extremely undesirable
trait; thus, no matter what else we do, we will probably not be able to
rise to positions of the highest authority or power. Thus, we must usurp
our power through the influence of those who are in power. We derive our
power and influence by uniting together, forming influence from the power
of numbers. That is what we get from being members of ACB, and yes, NFB as
well. As an individual, you might not be able to exert very much power or
influence, but as an organization, we can exert considerable political and
even social influence. It is slow and difficult, as Eric Bridges, can
certainly attest, but nevertheless, it is the best, if not the only, way we
can significantly affect desirable change.
Ron M.
Dr. Ronald E. Milliman, retired Professor Western Kentucky University
Ph: 270-782-9325
Email: rmilliman@insightbb.com
Chair, American Council of the Blind Public Relations Committee
Chair, American Council of the Blind's Monthly Monetary Support Program
(MMS) Committee
President: South Central Kentucky Council of the Blind (SCKCB)
Hi Ron and All Believers in Open Discussion,
Guilty as charged, Ron. Marx has been an influence in my thinking. I'm the
son of an old Marxist, who never shied away from speaking his mind. But I
am also heavily influenced by my past years as a Christian, and certainly
I've had my head pounded full of the virtues of American Capitalism.
But as you wrote: "the point I am
making is that all of the systems that have been tested to date are
imperfect and have serious flaws that are eventually exploited. The perfect
system does not exist, except only in theory."
So, since this is the ACB list, my question is, how do we blind people
understand and use to our advantage the imperfect system we are living
under?
One thing for sure, the only thing the folks on this list have in common is
the fact that we are blind. And even then it is not consistent. some of us
are totally blind, some partially blind, some newly blind and some not sure
just what we are.
Because of our individual backgrounds, we have varied views about blindness.
We belong to an organization of volunteers, a small percentage of the
nation's population, yet still able to join forces on common issues, and
make a measure of progress.
And that fact is encouraging. If we can make our voice heard, even in the
smallest of ways, that is a tribute to our collective strength.
While the purpose of the ACB is not to attempt to change our government, we
certainly can learn by observing the world about us, debating among
ourselves, and applying what we learn to what we must do to maintain the
openness of the ACB, and become more effective.
To my way of thinking, we are rowing upstream here in America. The
government is a top down, central control system and the ACB is a bottom up
organization, a collection of affiliates and special interest groups
governed by a low key central government. This makes our job more difficult
in our various battles.
In my mind the NFB took the position that if you can't lick them, join them.
They developed a strong central government and control the activities of the
local chapters. Pretty much a pattern of where we are today in our Nation.
It is an effective way of organizing. But it is not a People's Movement.
Eventually the preservation of the people in power becomes the major focus
of such organizations, and the membership become a means to keeping the
current government in power.
Keeping the ACB as a People's Movement should be a central concern of each
of us. Remember Ron's words, "...The perfect
system does not exist...". But together we can keep our eye on that goal,
and work together to ensure that we are always pointed into the Light.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ronald E. Milliman" <rmilliman@insightbb.com>
To: "Carl Jarvis" <carjar82@gmail.com>; "J.Rayl"
<thedogmom6363@frontier.com>; "Acb List" <acb-l@acb.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 12, 2013 9:49 AM
Subject: Power, Social and Political systems and blindness
Re: Social and Political systems
While much of what Carl seems to support is very closely akin to the
social/political views of Karl Marx and Marxism, which recognized only a
two class system, the class stratification system to wich you referred that
included the middle class was first espoused by Max Weber.
Max Weber was certainly strongly influenced by Marx's ideas, but rejected
the possibility of effective communism, arguing that it would require an
even greater level of detrimental social control and bureaucratization than
capitalist society. Moreover, Weber criticized the dialectical presumption
of proletariat revolt, believing it to be unlikely. Instead, he developed
the three-component theory of stratification. Weber supposed there were
more class divisions than Marx suggested, taking different concepts from
both functionalist and Marxist theories to create his own system. He
emphasized the difference between class, status, and power, and treated
these as separate but related sources of power, each with different effects
on social action. Working at half a century later than Marx, Weber claimed
there to be in fact four main classes: the upper class, the white collar
workers, the petite bourgeoisie, and the manual working class. Weber's
theory more-closely resembles contemporary Western class structures,
although economic status does not currently seem to depend strictly on
earnings in the way Weber envisioned.
I apologize for slipping into my professorial mode here, but the point I am
making is that all of the systems that have been tested to date are
imperfect and have serious flaws that are eventually exploited. The perfect
system does not exist, except only in theory.
Personally, I think an interesting experiment that is currently taking
place is the marriage of communism and Capitalism that is happening in
China. In theory, it could be a superior system, but unfortunately, like
all theoretical political and social systems, in practice, the shortcomings
are exploited by power-hungry people, which seem to be a human trait, and
as delineated by numerous studies of other life forms, it seems to be a
common trait among other species as well.
How is this blind related? Believe it or not, it relates to all individuals
that are perceived as significantly different from the accepted cultural
norm of the specific society in which the individual lives. The animals,
who perceive themselves as superior within the accepted norm of their
culture, discriminate against those who are perceived as inferior. Such
perceptions can derive from perceptions of various disabilities, inferior
intelligence, undesirable physical traits, etc.
Individuals that are perceived based upon the norms of their society, as
having desirable traits tend to rise to positions of power, political power
and power over the private sector means of capital wealth. Interestingly,
this seems to apply to all societies and to all political systems.
I realize we can all point to some examples of what appear to be exceptions
to these broad generalities, but upon careful scrutiny, we find political
leaders, like Adolf Hitler, while having unattractive physical traits as
perceived by most people, was also perceived as having a very dynamic
personal magnetism or charisma, a desirable personal trait. Consequently,
as diabolical as Hitler was, because of his charisma, he was still able to
rise to power.
Unfortunately, blindness is not perceived as a desirable trait by any
society. To the contrary, it is perceived as an extremely undesirable
trait; thus, no matter what else we do, we will probably not be able to
rise to positions of the highest authority or power. Thus, we must usurp
our power through the influence of those who are in power. We derive our
power and influence by uniting together, forming influence from the power
of numbers. That is what we get from being members of ACB, and yes, NFB as
well. As an individual, you might not be able to exert very much power or
influence, but as an organization, we can exert considerable political and
even social influence. It is slow and difficult, as Eric Bridges, can
certainly attest, but nevertheless, it is the best, if not the only, way we
can significantly affect desirable change.
Ron M.
Dr. Ronald E. Milliman, retired Professor Western Kentucky University
Ph: 270-782-9325
Email: rmilliman@insightbb.com
Chair, American Council of the Blind Public Relations Committee
Chair, American Council of the Blind's Monthly Monetary Support Program
(MMS) Committee
President: South Central Kentucky Council of the Blind (SCKCB)
Now They Want to Take Away the 8-Hour Day and 40-Hour Week
----- Original Message -----
From: "Carl Jarvis" <carjar82@gmail.com>
To: "Blind Democracy Discussion List" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Monday, May 13, 2013 10:58 AM
Subject: Re: Now They Want to Take Away the 8-Hour Day and 40-Hour Week
When I worked for the Department of Services for the Blind, employees on the
standard work week would be paid time and a half for anything over 40 hours
per week. This encouraged the management to make certain that no person
working the standard week put in more than 40 hours.
But for those of us lucky enough to rise to lofty management positions, it
was a different story. We were not covered by the employees union.
We were expected to complete our assigned duties, whether it took 40 hours
or 80 hours. We did keep track of "exchange time". This allowed us to
list, hour for hour, the overtime we worked. We could draw from this amount
when we took our annual leave, but that meant that our regular annual leave
would pile up. There was a limit as to how many hours you could bank in
annual leave before you had to use it or lose it. I think it was 480 hours.
Since we were never caught up with our assignments, most of the management
team allowed some of their annual leave time to fall off the books. And
none of us ever found time to take more than a day or two of that exchange
time that was piling up. I flew in the face of the director's expectations.
I took my annual leave time before losing it. Of course this meant working
extra hours and weekends to make up for the items left on my "to do" list
while I was off "playing around".
When I retired I was cashed out for 480 hours of annual leave plus that
year's annual leave, a total of something around 640 hours. I also was paid
25 cents on the dollar for my unused sick leave. We received 8 hours per
month, and I had something in the neighborhood of 840 hours piled up.
Of course this boosted my annual earning for the year straight up into a
much higher income bracket, for which I was privileged to pay taxes on.
And I lost over 2,000 hours of Exchange Time, which the state did not
reimburse for.
I will not bore anyone on this rant about what working under a contract
looks like, but suffice it to say that I am a strong promoter of Labor
Unions.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
To: "'Blind Democracy Discussion List'" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 12, 2013 7:31 PM
Subject: Now They Want to Take Away the 8-Hour Day and 40-Hour Week
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Now They Want to Take Away the 8-Hour Day and 40-Hour Week
________________________________________
Truthout / By Dave Johnson [1]
Now They Want to Take Away the 8-Hour Day and 40-Hour Week
May 9, 2013 |
Copyright, Truthout.org. Reprinted with permission. View the original
article at TruthOut.org [2].
Republicans are trying to pass an "alternative" to overtime pay. This is
really about taking away the eight-hour workday and 40-hour workweek. Will
weekends be next? What about an "alternative" to paying workers at all?
House Republicans are pushing a bill that takes away extra pay for overtime,
substituting "comp" time instead. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of
1938 is the law that brought us the eight-hour workday and the 40-hour
workweek. This law does not prohibit employers from requiring workers to
work over 40 hours. Instead, it gives employers an incentive to instead pay
extra or hire more people, and gives employees a premium if they do have to
work longer. (Note that this is also the law that brought us a minimum wage
and outlawed child labor.)
There is proof that overtime pay works: workers like domestic workers and
agricultural workers - jobs not covered by the FLSA - are twice as likely to
have to work more than 40 hours in a week. And even with this law, Americans
already work more hours than in almost any other industrialized country.
The Bill - No Guarantees
The House will be voting on H.R. 1406, The Working Families Flexibility Act,
which lets employers offer "comp time" instead of overtime pay. The problem
is that employers will pressure workers to take comp time instead of
overtime, which reduces paychecks and gets rid of the incentive to hire more
people. Later, the employees will be pressured to not take that comp time,
or will have to be "on call," etcetera.
It is important to note that the law does not guarantee workers the right to
actually use the comp time they get instead of extra pay. Employers can put
it off forever. You can't use this time when you want to, only when the
employer decides it is okay.
This really is a flat-out pay take-away, can't use it another day.
Eileen Appelbaum of the Center for Economic and Policy Research drives this
point home in her article "Working Families Flexibility Act: Not Good for
Working Parents and Bad for the Economy [3]," on The Huffington Post:
Employees cannot just take comp time when they need it. Rather, the bill
lets an employer who receives a request for comp time decide when the
employee gets to take it. The employer can even refuse the request and defer
it to a later time if, in the employer's view, letting the employee take
comp time will "unduly disrupt the operations of the employer."
Overtime Helps the Economy
We have a jobs emergency and Republicans are trying to get rid of one of the
laws that causes employers to hire more people. Go figure. When employers
require workers to work more than eight hours in a day or 40 hours in a
week, they have to pay more than the regular wage for that extra time. This
is a strong incentive to hire more people instead.
And when they don't hire more people, they pay a premium, which means
regular people have more money to spend. Either way, it helps the economy.
And of course, it really, really helps those workers.
Last year, USA Today took a look at overtime pay [4]and found that
productivity was rising, but as a result of squeezing workers for more
hours. But employers were calling these workers "managers" to get out of
paying overtime - and to get out of hiring more people.
The National Partnership for Women and Families has a fact sheet titled, "An
Empty Promise: The Working Families Flexibility Act Would Give Workers Less
Flexibility and Less Pay [4]." It begins:
Despite its name, the Cantor/Roby Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013
sets up a dangerous false choice between time and money, when working
families really need both. The bill does not promote family friendly or
flexible workplaces. Instead, it would erode hourly workers' ability to make
ends meet, plan for family time and have predictability, stability and true
flexibility at work.
People Died to Get Overtime Pay
Leo Gerard points out that people died to get a 40-hour week, writing at
Campaign for America's Future in "GOP Forcibly Making Working Families
Flexible [5]": "Trade unionists and labor rights activists died to achieve
the goal of eight-hour days and 40-hour weeks. They were shot and beaten in
the streets during demonstrations organized by the eight-hour movement [6].
Their slogan was: "Eight hours for work; eight hours for rest; eight hours
for what we will."
Veto Threat
President Obama issued a statement saying he will veto this bill [7] if it
is sent to him. The statement explains that this bill "undermines the
existing right to hard-earned overtime pay, on which many working families
rely to make ends meet, while misrepresenting itself as a workplace
flexibility measure that gives power to employees over their own schedules."
If Congress wants to help working people and their families, they should
instead raise the minimum wage, fund enforcement of laws against wage theft
and other employer pay-stealing scams, and make it easier to join unions.
That would show that they mean it. Taking away the 40-hour work week and
giving it a nice-sounding name like Working Family Flexibility just does not
cut it.
See more stories tagged with:
eight-hour workday [8],
leo gerard [9],
labor rights [10],
Trade union [11],
campaign for americas future [12],
H.R. 1406 [13],
national partnership for women and families flexibility act [14],
Working Families Flexibility Act [15],
comp time [16],
employment [17],
Center for Economic and Policy Research [18],
Eileen Appelbaum [19],
40 hour work week [20],
house republicans [21],
fair labor standards act [22],
1938 [23],
alternative overtime pay [24]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/now-they-want
-take-away-8-hour-day-and-40-hour-week
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/dave-johnson
[2]
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/16238-now-they-want-to-take-away-the-8-ho
ur-day-and-40-hour-week
[3]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eileen-appelbaum/working-families-flexibility-
act_b_3054913.html
[4]
http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/DocServer/NPWF_Fact_Sheet_-_An_Empty
_Promise_The_Working_Families_.pdf?docID=12461
[5]
http://blog.ourfuture.org/20130507/gop-forcibly-making-working-families-flex
ible
[6] http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3192
[7]
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/113/saphr1
406r_20130506.pdf
[8] http://www.alternet.org/tags/eight-hour-workday
[9] http://www.alternet.org/tags/leo-gerard
[10] http://www.alternet.org/tags/labor-rights
[11] http://www.alternet.org/tags/trade-union
[12] http://www.alternet.org/tags/campaign-americas-future-1
[13] http://www.alternet.org/tags/hr-1406
[14]
http://www.alternet.org/tags/national-partnership-women-and-families-flexibi
lity-act
[15] http://www.alternet.org/tags/working-families-flexibility-act
[16] http://www.alternet.org/tags/comp-time
[17] http://www.alternet.org/tags/employment-0
[18] http://www.alternet.org/tags/center-economic-and-policy-research
[19] http://www.alternet.org/tags/eileen-appelbaum
[20] http://www.alternet.org/tags/40-hour-work-week
[21] http://www.alternet.org/tags/house-republicans
[22] http://www.alternet.org/tags/fair-labor-standards-act
[23] http://www.alternet.org/tags/1938
[24] http://www.alternet.org/tags/alternative-overtime-pay
[25] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Now They Want to Take Away the 8-Hour Day and 40-Hour Week
Truthout / By Dave Johnson [1]
Now They Want to Take Away the 8-Hour Day and 40-Hour Week
May 9, 2013 |
Copyright, Truthout.org. Reprinted with permission. View the original
article at TruthOut.org [2].
Republicans are trying to pass an "alternative" to overtime pay. This is
really about taking away the eight-hour workday and 40-hour workweek. Will
weekends be next? What about an "alternative" to paying workers at all?
House Republicans are pushing a bill that takes away extra pay for overtime,
substituting "comp" time instead. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of
1938 is the law that brought us the eight-hour workday and the 40-hour
workweek. This law does not prohibit employers from requiring workers to
work over 40 hours. Instead, it gives employers an incentive to instead pay
extra or hire more people, and gives employees a premium if they do have to
work longer. (Note that this is also the law that brought us a minimum wage
and outlawed child labor.)
There is proof that overtime pay works: workers like domestic workers and
agricultural workers - jobs not covered by the FLSA - are twice as likely to
have to work more than 40 hours in a week. And even with this law, Americans
already work more hours than in almost any other industrialized country.
The Bill - No Guarantees
The House will be voting on H.R. 1406, The Working Families Flexibility Act,
which lets employers offer "comp time" instead of overtime pay. The problem
is that employers will pressure workers to take comp time instead of
overtime, which reduces paychecks and gets rid of the incentive to hire more
people. Later, the employees will be pressured to not take that comp time,
or will have to be "on call," etcetera.
It is important to note that the law does not guarantee workers the right to
actually use the comp time they get instead of extra pay. Employers can put
it off forever. You can't use this time when you want to, only when the
employer decides it is okay.
This really is a flat-out pay take-away, can't use it another day.
Eileen Appelbaum of the Center for Economic and Policy Research drives this
point home in her article "Working Families Flexibility Act: Not Good for
Working Parents and Bad for the Economy [3]," on The Huffington Post:
Employees cannot just take comp time when they need it. Rather, the bill
lets an employer who receives a request for comp time decide when the
employee gets to take it. The employer can even refuse the request and defer
it to a later time if, in the employer's view, letting the employee take
comp time will "unduly disrupt the operations of the employer."
Overtime Helps the Economy
We have a jobs emergency and Republicans are trying to get rid of one of the
laws that causes employers to hire more people. Go figure. When employers
require workers to work more than eight hours in a day or 40 hours in a
week, they have to pay more than the regular wage for that extra time. This
is a strong incentive to hire more people instead.
And when they don't hire more people, they pay a premium, which means
regular people have more money to spend. Either way, it helps the economy.
And of course, it really, really helps those workers.
Last year, USA Today took a look at overtime pay [4]and found that
productivity was rising, but as a result of squeezing workers for more
hours. But employers were calling these workers "managers" to get out of
paying overtime - and to get out of hiring more people.
The National Partnership for Women and Families has a fact sheet titled, "An
Empty Promise: The Working Families Flexibility Act Would Give Workers Less
Flexibility and Less Pay [4]." It begins:
Despite its name, the Cantor/Roby Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013
sets up a dangerous false choice between time and money, when working
families really need both. The bill does not promote family friendly or
flexible workplaces. Instead, it would erode hourly workers' ability to make
ends meet, plan for family time and have predictability, stability and true
flexibility at work.
People Died to Get Overtime Pay
Leo Gerard points out that people died to get a 40-hour week, writing at
Campaign for America's Future in "GOP Forcibly Making Working Families
Flexible [5]": "Trade unionists and labor rights activists died to achieve
the goal of eight-hour days and 40-hour weeks. They were shot and beaten in
the streets during demonstrations organized by the eight-hour movement [6].
Their slogan was: "Eight hours for work; eight hours for rest; eight hours
for what we will."
Veto Threat
President Obama issued a statement saying he will veto this bill [7] if it
is sent to him. The statement explains that this bill "undermines the
existing right to hard-earned overtime pay, on which many working families
rely to make ends meet, while misrepresenting itself as a workplace
flexibility measure that gives power to employees over their own schedules."
If Congress wants to help working people and their families, they should
instead raise the minimum wage, fund enforcement of laws against wage theft
and other employer pay-stealing scams, and make it easier to join unions.
That would show that they mean it. Taking away the 40-hour work week and
giving it a nice-sounding name like Working Family Flexibility just does not
cut it.
See more stories tagged with:
eight-hour workday [8],
leo gerard [9],
labor rights [10],
Trade union [11],
campaign for americas future [12],
H.R. 1406 [13],
national partnership for women and families flexibility act [14],
Working Families Flexibility Act [15],
comp time [16],
employment [17],
Center for Economic and Policy Research [18],
Eileen Appelbaum [19],
40 hour work week [20],
house republicans [21],
fair labor standards act [22],
1938 [23],
alternative overtime pay [24]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/now-they-want
-take-away-8-hour-day-and-40-hour-week
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/dave-johnson
[2]
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/16238-now-they-want-to-take-away-the-8-ho
ur-day-and-40-hour-week
[3]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eileen-appelbaum/working-families-flexibility-
act_b_3054913.html
[4]
http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/DocServer/NPWF_Fact_Sheet_-_An_Empty
_Promise_The_Working_Families_.pdf?docID=12461
[5]
http://blog.ourfuture.org/20130507/gop-forcibly-making-working-families-flex
ible
[6] http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3192
[7]
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/113/saphr1
406r_20130506.pdf
[8] http://www.alternet.org/tags/eight-hour-workday
[9] http://www.alternet.org/tags/leo-gerard
[10] http://www.alternet.org/tags/labor-rights
[11] http://www.alternet.org/tags/trade-union
[12] http://www.alternet.org/tags/campaign-americas-future-1
[13] http://www.alternet.org/tags/hr-1406
[14]
http://www.alternet.org/tags/national-partnership-women-and-families-flexibi
lity-act
[15] http://www.alternet.org/tags/working-families-flexibility-act
[16] http://www.alternet.org/tags/comp-time
[17] http://www.alternet.org/tags/employment-0
[18] http://www.alternet.org/tags/center-economic-and-policy-research
[19] http://www.alternet.org/tags/eileen-appelbaum
[20] http://www.alternet.org/tags/40-hour-work-week
[21] http://www.alternet.org/tags/house-republicans
[22] http://www.alternet.org/tags/fair-labor-standards-act
[23] http://www.alternet.org/tags/1938
[24] http://www.alternet.org/tags/alternative-overtime-pay
[25] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
_______________________________________________
Blind-Democracy mailing list
Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
From: "Carl Jarvis" <carjar82@gmail.com>
To: "Blind Democracy Discussion List" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Monday, May 13, 2013 10:58 AM
Subject: Re: Now They Want to Take Away the 8-Hour Day and 40-Hour Week
When I worked for the Department of Services for the Blind, employees on the
standard work week would be paid time and a half for anything over 40 hours
per week. This encouraged the management to make certain that no person
working the standard week put in more than 40 hours.
But for those of us lucky enough to rise to lofty management positions, it
was a different story. We were not covered by the employees union.
We were expected to complete our assigned duties, whether it took 40 hours
or 80 hours. We did keep track of "exchange time". This allowed us to
list, hour for hour, the overtime we worked. We could draw from this amount
when we took our annual leave, but that meant that our regular annual leave
would pile up. There was a limit as to how many hours you could bank in
annual leave before you had to use it or lose it. I think it was 480 hours.
Since we were never caught up with our assignments, most of the management
team allowed some of their annual leave time to fall off the books. And
none of us ever found time to take more than a day or two of that exchange
time that was piling up. I flew in the face of the director's expectations.
I took my annual leave time before losing it. Of course this meant working
extra hours and weekends to make up for the items left on my "to do" list
while I was off "playing around".
When I retired I was cashed out for 480 hours of annual leave plus that
year's annual leave, a total of something around 640 hours. I also was paid
25 cents on the dollar for my unused sick leave. We received 8 hours per
month, and I had something in the neighborhood of 840 hours piled up.
Of course this boosted my annual earning for the year straight up into a
much higher income bracket, for which I was privileged to pay taxes on.
And I lost over 2,000 hours of Exchange Time, which the state did not
reimburse for.
I will not bore anyone on this rant about what working under a contract
looks like, but suffice it to say that I am a strong promoter of Labor
Unions.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Vieni" <miriamvieni@optonline.net>
To: "'Blind Democracy Discussion List'" <blind-democracy@octothorp.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 12, 2013 7:31 PM
Subject: Now They Want to Take Away the 8-Hour Day and 40-Hour Week
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Now They Want to Take Away the 8-Hour Day and 40-Hour Week
________________________________________
Truthout / By Dave Johnson [1]
Now They Want to Take Away the 8-Hour Day and 40-Hour Week
May 9, 2013 |
Copyright, Truthout.org. Reprinted with permission. View the original
article at TruthOut.org [2].
Republicans are trying to pass an "alternative" to overtime pay. This is
really about taking away the eight-hour workday and 40-hour workweek. Will
weekends be next? What about an "alternative" to paying workers at all?
House Republicans are pushing a bill that takes away extra pay for overtime,
substituting "comp" time instead. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of
1938 is the law that brought us the eight-hour workday and the 40-hour
workweek. This law does not prohibit employers from requiring workers to
work over 40 hours. Instead, it gives employers an incentive to instead pay
extra or hire more people, and gives employees a premium if they do have to
work longer. (Note that this is also the law that brought us a minimum wage
and outlawed child labor.)
There is proof that overtime pay works: workers like domestic workers and
agricultural workers - jobs not covered by the FLSA - are twice as likely to
have to work more than 40 hours in a week. And even with this law, Americans
already work more hours than in almost any other industrialized country.
The Bill - No Guarantees
The House will be voting on H.R. 1406, The Working Families Flexibility Act,
which lets employers offer "comp time" instead of overtime pay. The problem
is that employers will pressure workers to take comp time instead of
overtime, which reduces paychecks and gets rid of the incentive to hire more
people. Later, the employees will be pressured to not take that comp time,
or will have to be "on call," etcetera.
It is important to note that the law does not guarantee workers the right to
actually use the comp time they get instead of extra pay. Employers can put
it off forever. You can't use this time when you want to, only when the
employer decides it is okay.
This really is a flat-out pay take-away, can't use it another day.
Eileen Appelbaum of the Center for Economic and Policy Research drives this
point home in her article "Working Families Flexibility Act: Not Good for
Working Parents and Bad for the Economy [3]," on The Huffington Post:
Employees cannot just take comp time when they need it. Rather, the bill
lets an employer who receives a request for comp time decide when the
employee gets to take it. The employer can even refuse the request and defer
it to a later time if, in the employer's view, letting the employee take
comp time will "unduly disrupt the operations of the employer."
Overtime Helps the Economy
We have a jobs emergency and Republicans are trying to get rid of one of the
laws that causes employers to hire more people. Go figure. When employers
require workers to work more than eight hours in a day or 40 hours in a
week, they have to pay more than the regular wage for that extra time. This
is a strong incentive to hire more people instead.
And when they don't hire more people, they pay a premium, which means
regular people have more money to spend. Either way, it helps the economy.
And of course, it really, really helps those workers.
Last year, USA Today took a look at overtime pay [4]and found that
productivity was rising, but as a result of squeezing workers for more
hours. But employers were calling these workers "managers" to get out of
paying overtime - and to get out of hiring more people.
The National Partnership for Women and Families has a fact sheet titled, "An
Empty Promise: The Working Families Flexibility Act Would Give Workers Less
Flexibility and Less Pay [4]." It begins:
Despite its name, the Cantor/Roby Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013
sets up a dangerous false choice between time and money, when working
families really need both. The bill does not promote family friendly or
flexible workplaces. Instead, it would erode hourly workers' ability to make
ends meet, plan for family time and have predictability, stability and true
flexibility at work.
People Died to Get Overtime Pay
Leo Gerard points out that people died to get a 40-hour week, writing at
Campaign for America's Future in "GOP Forcibly Making Working Families
Flexible [5]": "Trade unionists and labor rights activists died to achieve
the goal of eight-hour days and 40-hour weeks. They were shot and beaten in
the streets during demonstrations organized by the eight-hour movement [6].
Their slogan was: "Eight hours for work; eight hours for rest; eight hours
for what we will."
Veto Threat
President Obama issued a statement saying he will veto this bill [7] if it
is sent to him. The statement explains that this bill "undermines the
existing right to hard-earned overtime pay, on which many working families
rely to make ends meet, while misrepresenting itself as a workplace
flexibility measure that gives power to employees over their own schedules."
If Congress wants to help working people and their families, they should
instead raise the minimum wage, fund enforcement of laws against wage theft
and other employer pay-stealing scams, and make it easier to join unions.
That would show that they mean it. Taking away the 40-hour work week and
giving it a nice-sounding name like Working Family Flexibility just does not
cut it.
See more stories tagged with:
eight-hour workday [8],
leo gerard [9],
labor rights [10],
Trade union [11],
campaign for americas future [12],
H.R. 1406 [13],
national partnership for women and families flexibility act [14],
Working Families Flexibility Act [15],
comp time [16],
employment [17],
Center for Economic and Policy Research [18],
Eileen Appelbaum [19],
40 hour work week [20],
house republicans [21],
fair labor standards act [22],
1938 [23],
alternative overtime pay [24]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/now-they-want
-take-away-8-hour-day-and-40-hour-week
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/dave-johnson
[2]
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/16238-now-they-want-to-take-away-the-8-ho
ur-day-and-40-hour-week
[3]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eileen-appelbaum/working-families-flexibility-
act_b_3054913.html
[4]
http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/DocServer/NPWF_Fact_Sheet_-_An_Empty
_Promise_The_Working_Families_.pdf?docID=12461
[5]
http://blog.ourfuture.org/20130507/gop-forcibly-making-working-families-flex
ible
[6] http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3192
[7]
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/113/saphr1
406r_20130506.pdf
[8] http://www.alternet.org/tags/eight-hour-workday
[9] http://www.alternet.org/tags/leo-gerard
[10] http://www.alternet.org/tags/labor-rights
[11] http://www.alternet.org/tags/trade-union
[12] http://www.alternet.org/tags/campaign-americas-future-1
[13] http://www.alternet.org/tags/hr-1406
[14]
http://www.alternet.org/tags/national-partnership-women-and-families-flexibi
lity-act
[15] http://www.alternet.org/tags/working-families-flexibility-act
[16] http://www.alternet.org/tags/comp-time
[17] http://www.alternet.org/tags/employment-0
[18] http://www.alternet.org/tags/center-economic-and-policy-research
[19] http://www.alternet.org/tags/eileen-appelbaum
[20] http://www.alternet.org/tags/40-hour-work-week
[21] http://www.alternet.org/tags/house-republicans
[22] http://www.alternet.org/tags/fair-labor-standards-act
[23] http://www.alternet.org/tags/1938
[24] http://www.alternet.org/tags/alternative-overtime-pay
[25] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Now They Want to Take Away the 8-Hour Day and 40-Hour Week
Truthout / By Dave Johnson [1]
Now They Want to Take Away the 8-Hour Day and 40-Hour Week
May 9, 2013 |
Copyright, Truthout.org. Reprinted with permission. View the original
article at TruthOut.org [2].
Republicans are trying to pass an "alternative" to overtime pay. This is
really about taking away the eight-hour workday and 40-hour workweek. Will
weekends be next? What about an "alternative" to paying workers at all?
House Republicans are pushing a bill that takes away extra pay for overtime,
substituting "comp" time instead. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of
1938 is the law that brought us the eight-hour workday and the 40-hour
workweek. This law does not prohibit employers from requiring workers to
work over 40 hours. Instead, it gives employers an incentive to instead pay
extra or hire more people, and gives employees a premium if they do have to
work longer. (Note that this is also the law that brought us a minimum wage
and outlawed child labor.)
There is proof that overtime pay works: workers like domestic workers and
agricultural workers - jobs not covered by the FLSA - are twice as likely to
have to work more than 40 hours in a week. And even with this law, Americans
already work more hours than in almost any other industrialized country.
The Bill - No Guarantees
The House will be voting on H.R. 1406, The Working Families Flexibility Act,
which lets employers offer "comp time" instead of overtime pay. The problem
is that employers will pressure workers to take comp time instead of
overtime, which reduces paychecks and gets rid of the incentive to hire more
people. Later, the employees will be pressured to not take that comp time,
or will have to be "on call," etcetera.
It is important to note that the law does not guarantee workers the right to
actually use the comp time they get instead of extra pay. Employers can put
it off forever. You can't use this time when you want to, only when the
employer decides it is okay.
This really is a flat-out pay take-away, can't use it another day.
Eileen Appelbaum of the Center for Economic and Policy Research drives this
point home in her article "Working Families Flexibility Act: Not Good for
Working Parents and Bad for the Economy [3]," on The Huffington Post:
Employees cannot just take comp time when they need it. Rather, the bill
lets an employer who receives a request for comp time decide when the
employee gets to take it. The employer can even refuse the request and defer
it to a later time if, in the employer's view, letting the employee take
comp time will "unduly disrupt the operations of the employer."
Overtime Helps the Economy
We have a jobs emergency and Republicans are trying to get rid of one of the
laws that causes employers to hire more people. Go figure. When employers
require workers to work more than eight hours in a day or 40 hours in a
week, they have to pay more than the regular wage for that extra time. This
is a strong incentive to hire more people instead.
And when they don't hire more people, they pay a premium, which means
regular people have more money to spend. Either way, it helps the economy.
And of course, it really, really helps those workers.
Last year, USA Today took a look at overtime pay [4]and found that
productivity was rising, but as a result of squeezing workers for more
hours. But employers were calling these workers "managers" to get out of
paying overtime - and to get out of hiring more people.
The National Partnership for Women and Families has a fact sheet titled, "An
Empty Promise: The Working Families Flexibility Act Would Give Workers Less
Flexibility and Less Pay [4]." It begins:
Despite its name, the Cantor/Roby Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013
sets up a dangerous false choice between time and money, when working
families really need both. The bill does not promote family friendly or
flexible workplaces. Instead, it would erode hourly workers' ability to make
ends meet, plan for family time and have predictability, stability and true
flexibility at work.
People Died to Get Overtime Pay
Leo Gerard points out that people died to get a 40-hour week, writing at
Campaign for America's Future in "GOP Forcibly Making Working Families
Flexible [5]": "Trade unionists and labor rights activists died to achieve
the goal of eight-hour days and 40-hour weeks. They were shot and beaten in
the streets during demonstrations organized by the eight-hour movement [6].
Their slogan was: "Eight hours for work; eight hours for rest; eight hours
for what we will."
Veto Threat
President Obama issued a statement saying he will veto this bill [7] if it
is sent to him. The statement explains that this bill "undermines the
existing right to hard-earned overtime pay, on which many working families
rely to make ends meet, while misrepresenting itself as a workplace
flexibility measure that gives power to employees over their own schedules."
If Congress wants to help working people and their families, they should
instead raise the minimum wage, fund enforcement of laws against wage theft
and other employer pay-stealing scams, and make it easier to join unions.
That would show that they mean it. Taking away the 40-hour work week and
giving it a nice-sounding name like Working Family Flexibility just does not
cut it.
See more stories tagged with:
eight-hour workday [8],
leo gerard [9],
labor rights [10],
Trade union [11],
campaign for americas future [12],
H.R. 1406 [13],
national partnership for women and families flexibility act [14],
Working Families Flexibility Act [15],
comp time [16],
employment [17],
Center for Economic and Policy Research [18],
Eileen Appelbaum [19],
40 hour work week [20],
house republicans [21],
fair labor standards act [22],
1938 [23],
alternative overtime pay [24]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/now-they-want
-take-away-8-hour-day-and-40-hour-week
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/dave-johnson
[2]
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/16238-now-they-want-to-take-away-the-8-ho
ur-day-and-40-hour-week
[3]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eileen-appelbaum/working-families-flexibility-
act_b_3054913.html
[4]
http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/DocServer/NPWF_Fact_Sheet_-_An_Empty
_Promise_The_Working_Families_.pdf?docID=12461
[5]
http://blog.ourfuture.org/20130507/gop-forcibly-making-working-families-flex
ible
[6] http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3192
[7]
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/113/saphr1
406r_20130506.pdf
[8] http://www.alternet.org/tags/eight-hour-workday
[9] http://www.alternet.org/tags/leo-gerard
[10] http://www.alternet.org/tags/labor-rights
[11] http://www.alternet.org/tags/trade-union
[12] http://www.alternet.org/tags/campaign-americas-future-1
[13] http://www.alternet.org/tags/hr-1406
[14]
http://www.alternet.org/tags/national-partnership-women-and-families-flexibi
lity-act
[15] http://www.alternet.org/tags/working-families-flexibility-act
[16] http://www.alternet.org/tags/comp-time
[17] http://www.alternet.org/tags/employment-0
[18] http://www.alternet.org/tags/center-economic-and-policy-research
[19] http://www.alternet.org/tags/eileen-appelbaum
[20] http://www.alternet.org/tags/40-hour-work-week
[21] http://www.alternet.org/tags/house-republicans
[22] http://www.alternet.org/tags/fair-labor-standards-act
[23] http://www.alternet.org/tags/1938
[24] http://www.alternet.org/tags/alternative-overtime-pay
[25] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
_______________________________________________
Blind-Democracy mailing list
Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
http://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
Sunday, May 12, 2013
I am my own boss!
From the May, 2013 Braille Forum
The Art of Accepting Help
by Carl Jarvis
Mary Williams has been helping others since 1930. That was the year Mary
turned 10, and her mother was killed by a runaway milk truck. With six
younger brothers and sisters needing care, Mary took over as the
housemother, fixing meals, washing the family laundry, making sure Sunday
night baths were taken and all prayers were properly said. Back in those
days she was Mary Olsen, and her father was known as Oley Olsen to his
co-workers at the pulp mill, where he worked as the company blacksmith. He
worked long, hard hours to support his large family. Mary stepped into her
mother's shoes, and for the next 20 years her life was dedicated to caring
for her family. As the younger children grew and took on a share of the
chores, Mary found time to fulfill a secret dream. Mary wanted more than
anything else in the world to complete her schooling. And so it was that
when the 1950 Lincoln High School seniors received their graduation
diplomas, 30-year-old Mary Olsen marched proudly across the platform with
them.
Her new dream was to become an English teacher. But she took a year off to
become Mrs. Robert Williams and bring Robert Williams Jr. into the world.
In 1951 she entered the University of Washington. Her years of doing for
others held her in good stead. She cared for her husband and her baby son
and after four years graduated 10th in her class. Her dream of teaching
came true when she was offered a position with Bremerton High School as an
English teacher. Her husband Bob had been working as a machinist at Boeing
and he had no problem catching on with the Navy Ship Yard. This was 1955.
The couple had just the one son, although both had believed they'd have a
dozen. It didn't stop them. They took in foster children and Bob became a
scoutmaster while Mary taught Sunday school. Children were the center of
their lives.
Life was busy and sweet for many years, filled with noisy, giggly children
of all ages. Then in 1969, Bob Jr. joined the Marines and was quickly
shipped out to Vietnam. He was a lance corporal.
"It was November 2," Mary recalled. "The darkest, longest day of my life."
They told Mary and Bob that Bob Jr. had been a real hero, saving several
other young men by throwing himself on the explosive device. Mary said that
Bob was never the same after that. He dropped all of his youth activities.
His first heart attack came one year almost to the day that Bob Jr. had been
killed. Mary's father had died several years earlier but Bob's folks were
both living and in very poor health. They moved his parents into Bob
Junior's old room and once again Mary became the housemother, caring for Bob
and his parents while continuing to teach. Bob never worked again. After
his second heart attack he was bedridden, barely able to care for his most
basic needs.
Bob and his parents died within a year of each other. By 1975 Mary was
alone for the first time in her life. "My work kept my head together," she
told us. As time passed, Mary became active again in her church, but not
with the children. Mary continued doing what she did best. She looked in
on the lonely shut-ins, bringing a pot pie or a big cauldron of soup or some
tasty cookies. She would sit and read folks' mail to them, read stories,
gossip about things going on at church, and just shed a bit of joy and
sunshine as she came and went.
Mary retired from teaching in 1985, but she continued her visitations for
some years, and would have continued, except she developed macular
degeneration; by 75 she could no longer drive. But Mary never thought of
herself as blind or in need of help. For 15 years she continued on, keeping
her home and yard neat and cheery. Her life centered on her church, which
she could walk to. Gathering a few older ladies together, Mary began
holding mid-week Bible studies in her home. She always had a fresh pot of
coffee, another of tea and a pile of warm, freshly baked cookies on hand.
Most likely Mary would still be throwing her door open to her lady friends.
But on her 90th birthday, she fell and broke her hip. "I thought I'd just
heal up and get right back to my regular routine," she told us. But the
weeks dragged into months, and the pesky hip did not want to heal properly.
Even then we would have never met Mary. She had never thought of herself
needing help because of her blindness. "I can still see," she told us after
her home nurse had called us in. "I just can't tell who you are. Your face
is a blur."
It became quickly apparent that Mary had no adjustment issues to deal with,
not so far as her vision loss was concerned. "What's getting me down is not
being able to get up," she said with a soft laugh. "I have my talking books
and now my lady friends bring me the containers of soup and cookies." Her
eyes went sad and her voice softened to a whisper. "You know, it's so very
hard having to accept help from others when you've been the helper all your
life."
We reached out and held both of Mary's hands. "You have just put your finger
on the greatest challenge confronting older people," we said. "But perhaps
it would help to look at it from a different angle. Rather than thinking of
yourself as needing help, think of yourself as a partner with your
caregivers. You have needs to be met. Work together to find solutions.
Don't become passive and allow others to tell you what they will do for you.
You are your own boss until your last breath. Because your health has
failed, others will think of you as needy and helpless. You must not allow
them to think that. Tell them you are a team, and if they don't want to be
a team player, they can go somewhere else."
Mary was quiet for a long time. Finally she smiled and looked up. "I
gotcha. I am my own boss."
When we came to see Mary again we found her sitting in a wheelchair. "We
figured out how I can get myself into this chair and now I can once again
wander about my house," she beamed, happily clapping her hands. "We are a
team."
And her caregiver nodded. "And you are the play maker, Mary," she said,
smiling.
We never saw Mary again. Just one month after her 91st birthday, we
received a call from her caregiver. "I thought you would want to know," she
said, and we could feel it coming, "Mary had a massive stroke and died
yesterday." We whispered, "Thank you for thinking of us," and sat a long
time with tears on our cheeks and that choked-up feeling in our throats. It
is so very hard, losing friends. But then Mary's laughing voice rang out
loud and clear, "I really am my own boss again!"
*****
The Art of Accepting Help
by Carl Jarvis
Mary Williams has been helping others since 1930. That was the year Mary
turned 10, and her mother was killed by a runaway milk truck. With six
younger brothers and sisters needing care, Mary took over as the
housemother, fixing meals, washing the family laundry, making sure Sunday
night baths were taken and all prayers were properly said. Back in those
days she was Mary Olsen, and her father was known as Oley Olsen to his
co-workers at the pulp mill, where he worked as the company blacksmith. He
worked long, hard hours to support his large family. Mary stepped into her
mother's shoes, and for the next 20 years her life was dedicated to caring
for her family. As the younger children grew and took on a share of the
chores, Mary found time to fulfill a secret dream. Mary wanted more than
anything else in the world to complete her schooling. And so it was that
when the 1950 Lincoln High School seniors received their graduation
diplomas, 30-year-old Mary Olsen marched proudly across the platform with
them.
Her new dream was to become an English teacher. But she took a year off to
become Mrs. Robert Williams and bring Robert Williams Jr. into the world.
In 1951 she entered the University of Washington. Her years of doing for
others held her in good stead. She cared for her husband and her baby son
and after four years graduated 10th in her class. Her dream of teaching
came true when she was offered a position with Bremerton High School as an
English teacher. Her husband Bob had been working as a machinist at Boeing
and he had no problem catching on with the Navy Ship Yard. This was 1955.
The couple had just the one son, although both had believed they'd have a
dozen. It didn't stop them. They took in foster children and Bob became a
scoutmaster while Mary taught Sunday school. Children were the center of
their lives.
Life was busy and sweet for many years, filled with noisy, giggly children
of all ages. Then in 1969, Bob Jr. joined the Marines and was quickly
shipped out to Vietnam. He was a lance corporal.
"It was November 2," Mary recalled. "The darkest, longest day of my life."
They told Mary and Bob that Bob Jr. had been a real hero, saving several
other young men by throwing himself on the explosive device. Mary said that
Bob was never the same after that. He dropped all of his youth activities.
His first heart attack came one year almost to the day that Bob Jr. had been
killed. Mary's father had died several years earlier but Bob's folks were
both living and in very poor health. They moved his parents into Bob
Junior's old room and once again Mary became the housemother, caring for Bob
and his parents while continuing to teach. Bob never worked again. After
his second heart attack he was bedridden, barely able to care for his most
basic needs.
Bob and his parents died within a year of each other. By 1975 Mary was
alone for the first time in her life. "My work kept my head together," she
told us. As time passed, Mary became active again in her church, but not
with the children. Mary continued doing what she did best. She looked in
on the lonely shut-ins, bringing a pot pie or a big cauldron of soup or some
tasty cookies. She would sit and read folks' mail to them, read stories,
gossip about things going on at church, and just shed a bit of joy and
sunshine as she came and went.
Mary retired from teaching in 1985, but she continued her visitations for
some years, and would have continued, except she developed macular
degeneration; by 75 she could no longer drive. But Mary never thought of
herself as blind or in need of help. For 15 years she continued on, keeping
her home and yard neat and cheery. Her life centered on her church, which
she could walk to. Gathering a few older ladies together, Mary began
holding mid-week Bible studies in her home. She always had a fresh pot of
coffee, another of tea and a pile of warm, freshly baked cookies on hand.
Most likely Mary would still be throwing her door open to her lady friends.
But on her 90th birthday, she fell and broke her hip. "I thought I'd just
heal up and get right back to my regular routine," she told us. But the
weeks dragged into months, and the pesky hip did not want to heal properly.
Even then we would have never met Mary. She had never thought of herself
needing help because of her blindness. "I can still see," she told us after
her home nurse had called us in. "I just can't tell who you are. Your face
is a blur."
It became quickly apparent that Mary had no adjustment issues to deal with,
not so far as her vision loss was concerned. "What's getting me down is not
being able to get up," she said with a soft laugh. "I have my talking books
and now my lady friends bring me the containers of soup and cookies." Her
eyes went sad and her voice softened to a whisper. "You know, it's so very
hard having to accept help from others when you've been the helper all your
life."
We reached out and held both of Mary's hands. "You have just put your finger
on the greatest challenge confronting older people," we said. "But perhaps
it would help to look at it from a different angle. Rather than thinking of
yourself as needing help, think of yourself as a partner with your
caregivers. You have needs to be met. Work together to find solutions.
Don't become passive and allow others to tell you what they will do for you.
You are your own boss until your last breath. Because your health has
failed, others will think of you as needy and helpless. You must not allow
them to think that. Tell them you are a team, and if they don't want to be
a team player, they can go somewhere else."
Mary was quiet for a long time. Finally she smiled and looked up. "I
gotcha. I am my own boss."
When we came to see Mary again we found her sitting in a wheelchair. "We
figured out how I can get myself into this chair and now I can once again
wander about my house," she beamed, happily clapping her hands. "We are a
team."
And her caregiver nodded. "And you are the play maker, Mary," she said,
smiling.
We never saw Mary again. Just one month after her 91st birthday, we
received a call from her caregiver. "I thought you would want to know," she
said, and we could feel it coming, "Mary had a massive stroke and died
yesterday." We whispered, "Thank you for thinking of us," and sat a long
time with tears on our cheeks and that choked-up feeling in our throats. It
is so very hard, losing friends. But then Mary's laughing voice rang out
loud and clear, "I really am my own boss again!"
*****
More about, keeping it blindness centered:
Hi Ron and All ACB Members who would Support a Major Change in Our Tax
Structure.
Well Ron, you certainly are not wasting my time in stating your thoughts.
This is what the ACB list is here for...I hope.
How we are taxed and who benefits by the existing tax nightmare, national,
state and local, is important to all blind people.
You hit the nail on the head when you said, "What we severely need in this
country will never happen; that is, totally
scrap the current tax program and go to a very simple tax system; that is,
eliminate the, so called, loop holes and simply pay a flat tax that applies
equally to everyone. It will never happen because the current, extremely
complicated tax code, has been created on purpose to be able to slip in
special tax favors for various special interests, and supports of our
elected officials who are supposed to be representing us, but they don't..."
Because the majority of our ACB members find ourselves in the lower end of
the Working/Middle Class, or are retired on fixed, and limited income, we
are not able to take advantage of the "favors" that the corporations and the
super rich are able to do.
In fact, the taxation mess we live under puts the average blind person at a
severe disadvantage. The current proposed bill just passed by the Senate is
an example of the damage that could be done to the blind people struggling
in home based industries that depend on mail orders to eek out a living.
And just to digress, as a small business, not only are we paying an
equivalent sales tax on items purchased out of state, but our shipping
charges continue to rise, even though our contract funding remains the same.
While little ACB is not going to pick up our slingshot and slay the mighty
Goliath, we do need to keep open conversation on what we can do to move
toward a more equitable system.
Why are we paying the taxes we now pay? Who is benefitting from our money?
Why do we not have more say in what is being taken and where it is going?
I expect that you and others on this list are as careful with your money as
Cathy and I are with ours. We spend each dollar at least three times before
actually letting it go. And yet, our taxes are deducted without our having
any say in how much or where they go.
Whether folks in your income, or mine, or in the growing slums, we are all
of us held captive to a system that needs to be changed.
And not just so we can be financially successful. Of course all of us want
to be "better off", but there is much more to being successful than just how
many dollars we can command.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: Ronald E. Milliman
To: ACB-L@ACB.ORG
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2013 10:27 AM
Subject: Re: [acb-l] FW: Sarah Palin: "This isn't legit"
I acknowledge that I am probably wasting my time here in an attempt to
presenting a different point of view, but I'm going to state my differing
viewpoint anyway.
Before I do, I want to let you know that the statement made in an earlier
post stating: "small businesses, under a million dollars in revenue, .,
will be exempt." This is in reference to the internet sales tax bill that
was passed by the Senate. This is not true; I just got off the phone with
one of my senator's assistants, and she told me the final bill did not
include any such income cutoff.
Now, to my other points. The vast majority of taxes paid in this country
are paid by the higher income earners, not necessarily rich, depending
upon
on what you define as rich. I have numerous friends that earn high
incomes,
and they pay an enormous amount in taxes of all kinds, including sales
taxes. They tend to purchase more expensive items from vehicles to boats
to
houses, and they tend to eat in relatively expensive restaurants. They pay
state sales taxes and property taxes on everything they buy. I have a
friend who recently purchased a houseboat for $427,500, and he paid 6%
state sales tax of $25,650. Then, in addition, he has to pay a
registration
and license fee and each year the registration and license fees are
recurring taxes. One of the vehicles he drives is a Cadillac Escalade that
he paid something over $62,000 for; plus and another over $3,700 in sales
taxes. He and I were discussing, actually complaining, about our income
taxes; he paid something over $35,000 in Federal and state income taxes.
When we compared our property tax bills, he paid nearly $7,000 in property
tax on his home, and I could go on and on. These figures are net after any
exemptions or what many of you refer to as "loop holes" in the tax code.
He
is not an especially unique example. I could give you lots and lots of
other examples of people I know who are paying thousands and thousands of
dollars in various taxes. The richest person I, personally, know quite
well, pays an enormous amount in all kinds of taxes. Of course, he takes
advantage of as many legal exemptions as he can, and of course, he invests
his money as wisely as he can to minimize his tax liability, but then, so
do I and so do you if you in a similar income situation and if you aren't,
you would if you were in such a situation. If you didn't, you wouldn't be
handling your finances prudently.
In contrast, I know many of my friends that are not working or are low
income earners, including many of my very good blind friends, and they
don't pay any income taxes at all, and some of them actually get back
several thousands of dollars through the "Earned Income Credit" program,
and several receive food stamps and other types of financial assistance.
So, the various high income earners in this country are paying their fare
share. That buzz phrase: "make the rich pay their fare share" is simply
that: a political buzz phrase that has been sold to the American public
for
purely political purposes to further a political agenda.
Could the higher income earners in this country pay more than they do? Of
course, they could. I could pay more. Some of you could probably pay more
too, but we can only redistribute so much income and tax the higher income
earners so much before it completely destroys the incentive to achieve and
to be financially successful.
What we severely need in this country will never happen; that is, totally
scrap the current tax program and go to a very simple tax system; that is,
eliminate the, so called, loop holes and simply pay a flat tax that
applies
equally to everyone. It will never happen because the current, extremely
complicated tax code, has been created on purpose to be able to slip in
special tax favors for various special interests, and supports of our
elected officials who are supposed to be representing us, but they don't
represent us anymore, and I'm not sure if they ever did. These special
favors built into the tax code work for all of our politicians, regardless
of which party to which they belong. In addition, the current complicated
tax code has created entire industries and professions, e.g. tax
attorneys,
tax accountants, tax preparers, tax advisors, tax exempt mutual funds, and
yes, the entire massive IRS.
Presented in the spirit of good debate,
Ron M.
Dr. Ronald E. Milliman, retired Professor Western Kentucky University
Ph: 270-782-9325
Email: rmilliman@insightbb.com
Chair, American Council of the Blind Public Relations Committee
Chair, American Council of the Blind's Monthly Monetary Support Program
(MMS) Committee
President: South Central Kentucky Council of the Blind (SCKCB)
_______________________________________________
acb-l mailing list
acb-l@acb.org
http://www.acb.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-l
Structure.
Well Ron, you certainly are not wasting my time in stating your thoughts.
This is what the ACB list is here for...I hope.
How we are taxed and who benefits by the existing tax nightmare, national,
state and local, is important to all blind people.
You hit the nail on the head when you said, "What we severely need in this
country will never happen; that is, totally
scrap the current tax program and go to a very simple tax system; that is,
eliminate the, so called, loop holes and simply pay a flat tax that applies
equally to everyone. It will never happen because the current, extremely
complicated tax code, has been created on purpose to be able to slip in
special tax favors for various special interests, and supports of our
elected officials who are supposed to be representing us, but they don't..."
Because the majority of our ACB members find ourselves in the lower end of
the Working/Middle Class, or are retired on fixed, and limited income, we
are not able to take advantage of the "favors" that the corporations and the
super rich are able to do.
In fact, the taxation mess we live under puts the average blind person at a
severe disadvantage. The current proposed bill just passed by the Senate is
an example of the damage that could be done to the blind people struggling
in home based industries that depend on mail orders to eek out a living.
And just to digress, as a small business, not only are we paying an
equivalent sales tax on items purchased out of state, but our shipping
charges continue to rise, even though our contract funding remains the same.
While little ACB is not going to pick up our slingshot and slay the mighty
Goliath, we do need to keep open conversation on what we can do to move
toward a more equitable system.
Why are we paying the taxes we now pay? Who is benefitting from our money?
Why do we not have more say in what is being taken and where it is going?
I expect that you and others on this list are as careful with your money as
Cathy and I are with ours. We spend each dollar at least three times before
actually letting it go. And yet, our taxes are deducted without our having
any say in how much or where they go.
Whether folks in your income, or mine, or in the growing slums, we are all
of us held captive to a system that needs to be changed.
And not just so we can be financially successful. Of course all of us want
to be "better off", but there is much more to being successful than just how
many dollars we can command.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: Ronald E. Milliman
To: ACB-L@ACB.ORG
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2013 10:27 AM
Subject: Re: [acb-l] FW: Sarah Palin: "This isn't legit"
I acknowledge that I am probably wasting my time here in an attempt to
presenting a different point of view, but I'm going to state my differing
viewpoint anyway.
Before I do, I want to let you know that the statement made in an earlier
post stating: "small businesses, under a million dollars in revenue, .,
will be exempt." This is in reference to the internet sales tax bill that
was passed by the Senate. This is not true; I just got off the phone with
one of my senator's assistants, and she told me the final bill did not
include any such income cutoff.
Now, to my other points. The vast majority of taxes paid in this country
are paid by the higher income earners, not necessarily rich, depending
upon
on what you define as rich. I have numerous friends that earn high
incomes,
and they pay an enormous amount in taxes of all kinds, including sales
taxes. They tend to purchase more expensive items from vehicles to boats
to
houses, and they tend to eat in relatively expensive restaurants. They pay
state sales taxes and property taxes on everything they buy. I have a
friend who recently purchased a houseboat for $427,500, and he paid 6%
state sales tax of $25,650. Then, in addition, he has to pay a
registration
and license fee and each year the registration and license fees are
recurring taxes. One of the vehicles he drives is a Cadillac Escalade that
he paid something over $62,000 for; plus and another over $3,700 in sales
taxes. He and I were discussing, actually complaining, about our income
taxes; he paid something over $35,000 in Federal and state income taxes.
When we compared our property tax bills, he paid nearly $7,000 in property
tax on his home, and I could go on and on. These figures are net after any
exemptions or what many of you refer to as "loop holes" in the tax code.
He
is not an especially unique example. I could give you lots and lots of
other examples of people I know who are paying thousands and thousands of
dollars in various taxes. The richest person I, personally, know quite
well, pays an enormous amount in all kinds of taxes. Of course, he takes
advantage of as many legal exemptions as he can, and of course, he invests
his money as wisely as he can to minimize his tax liability, but then, so
do I and so do you if you in a similar income situation and if you aren't,
you would if you were in such a situation. If you didn't, you wouldn't be
handling your finances prudently.
In contrast, I know many of my friends that are not working or are low
income earners, including many of my very good blind friends, and they
don't pay any income taxes at all, and some of them actually get back
several thousands of dollars through the "Earned Income Credit" program,
and several receive food stamps and other types of financial assistance.
So, the various high income earners in this country are paying their fare
share. That buzz phrase: "make the rich pay their fare share" is simply
that: a political buzz phrase that has been sold to the American public
for
purely political purposes to further a political agenda.
Could the higher income earners in this country pay more than they do? Of
course, they could. I could pay more. Some of you could probably pay more
too, but we can only redistribute so much income and tax the higher income
earners so much before it completely destroys the incentive to achieve and
to be financially successful.
What we severely need in this country will never happen; that is, totally
scrap the current tax program and go to a very simple tax system; that is,
eliminate the, so called, loop holes and simply pay a flat tax that
applies
equally to everyone. It will never happen because the current, extremely
complicated tax code, has been created on purpose to be able to slip in
special tax favors for various special interests, and supports of our
elected officials who are supposed to be representing us, but they don't
represent us anymore, and I'm not sure if they ever did. These special
favors built into the tax code work for all of our politicians, regardless
of which party to which they belong. In addition, the current complicated
tax code has created entire industries and professions, e.g. tax
attorneys,
tax accountants, tax preparers, tax advisors, tax exempt mutual funds, and
yes, the entire massive IRS.
Presented in the spirit of good debate,
Ron M.
Dr. Ronald E. Milliman, retired Professor Western Kentucky University
Ph: 270-782-9325
Email: rmilliman@insightbb.com
Chair, American Council of the Blind Public Relations Committee
Chair, American Council of the Blind's Monthly Monetary Support Program
(MMS) Committee
President: South Central Kentucky Council of the Blind (SCKCB)
_______________________________________________
acb-l mailing list
acb-l@acb.org
http://www.acb.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-l
keeping it blindness centered:
As I suggested, financial success is not the only road to personal
satisfaction.
At least I think I'm right, never having been rich. In fact, I quit calling
myself Middle Class many years ago. I feel that it is a snobbish term used
by "Professional White Collar" Working Class people attempting to distance
themselves from the rest of Labor. To my way of thinking, the workers who
built the office buildings on Wall Street are every bit as critical to our
nations prosperity as are those who occupy the financial offices that came
to be housed in them.
I am the son and grandson and great grandson of Working Class People. They
were farmers, miners, loggers and a preacher or two...and probably at least
one horse thief.
The thrill I receive in this trip of mine through Life, is not tied to
financial advancement. Sure, I enjoy a home, good food, a warm hearth, and
a sense of basic security. Out here on the wild Olympic Peninsula it also
helps to have dependable transportation.
But my joy and satisfaction are not tied up in a pleasure boat, or
membership in the various clubs and fraternal organizations that so many
seek after.
A pair of jeans, a warm shirt and a sturdy pair of walking shoes make me
feel dressed to the nines. The services we offer, and the numbers of people
we have seen benefit from them, that is where my satisfaction lays...or does
my satisfaction lie?
Anyway, all this is by no means a slam against those whose satisfaction is
tied up in their ability to gain material stuff. Nor do I judge the folks
who take vows of poverty and spend their lives in serving their God.
Because it is what each of us does which brings meaning to our lives and
gives us that sense of satisfaction when we have reached our roads end.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "J.Rayl" <thedogmom6363@frontier.com>
To: "Acb List" <acb-l@acb.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2013 3:18 PM
Subject: Re: [acb-l] Fw: keeping it blindness centered: Sarah
Palin:"Thisisn'tlegit"
Hi. Well, that is good to know --about my posts. I was beginning to wonder
if Fronter and the government were in cahoots ...or something. Hahahaha!
Yeah well, I suppose if one can afford to pay it (taxes) then they should,
but our 1 percent of the fortunate devels need to step up to the plate.
Then the other 20 percent (or whatever the discrepancy is now) of those a
damn site wealthier than I am (because I selected the wrong field for sure
need to step up to their plates as well. After that, they can pick on those
of us who are busting our proverbial and real butts trying to stay
affloat--let's just forget trying to get ahead now because that's a real sad
laugh --it isn't happening.
Not in this day and age anyway.
Jessie Rayl
thedogmom63@frontier.com
www.facebook.com/Eaglewings10
www.pathtogrowth.org
----- Original Message -----
From: Carl Jarvis
To: J.Rayl ; Acb List
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2013 1:02 PM
Subject: Re: [acb-l] Fw: keeping it blindness centered: Sarah Palin:
"Thisisn'tlegit"
Well Jessie, this came through loud and clear.
By the way, I personally don't go with the flat tax, but that was Ron's
opinion in the piece of his note that I quoted.
We both agree that the present tax mess is a...well, a mess.
A graduated income tax, both federal and state, would probably cost me
more dollars than it would cost you. And it would appear to cost Ron even
more than it would cost me. But I might consider supporting the flat tax if
everyone, corporate muckity muck included, were paying the tax on their
actual income.
But I don't really want to get into debating which is the better tax, flat
or graduated, because that gets us away from the question regarding how we
blind people gain a real voice in our government.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: J.Rayl
To: Acb List
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2013 9:12 AM
Subject: [acb-l] Fw: keeping it blindness centered: Sarah Palin:
"Thisisn'tlegit"
GRRR, put the wrong email on the first one ...let's try it again. Poor
bob!
Hi. Carl, well-said.
I have missed much of this thread, I suspect, but got this one and am
happy to have received it.
I suspect, even if ever there were a time that we got around to having a
flat tax, it would be one of these things well above the reasonable ability
of those in the lower class (and I hate that phrase too) could truly afford.
I say that because the mental health / substance abuse facilities have, what
they refer to, as a sliding fee scale. This is based on your, alleged,
income.
Well, they begin with something you're expected to pay even though you
earn little or nothing. Now, how can you pay anything when you have no
income?
Then, they keep right on raising it up from there. And of course people
who are single end up paying more, because they never get around to asking
for evidence of full income.
For example! my two sisters have kids. When their kids were around 16
to 18--still living at home, they worked. But those kids' incomes were
never counted as "income". Why? Because they were, legally, "dependent
children" because their "income" was not enough. Well! each of those "kids"
from two of those sisters made more money than those of you do on SSI.
But there you'd have been, if you did not have Medicaid, and if your
income had solely been based on your SSI (or equivalent) paying more than
either of those sisters for the services you would have received (as a
single person). Never mind their "kids" were earning more money than were
you!
So, you see, even though I used to be all gungho for the flat tax based
on income, people have ways of getting around that one too. <sigh>!
I still think there should be some nice way of our being able to select
where our taxes would go. For damn sure, they'd find out what is, and
isn't, important to folks--and, they just might be real shocked at what is
and what ain't. Maybe that is the fear--or part of it. <sigh>!
Hmmm, I think playing out in the mud was more enjoyable, but am done
there so I'll go clean the house.
At least I got this post ...now, let's see if you all do, for whatever
its worth. <LOL>!
Jessie Rayl
thedogmom63@frontier.com
www.facebook.com/Eaglewings10
www.pathtogrowth.org
----- Original Message -----
From: Carl Jarvis
To: ACB-L@ACB.ORG ; Ronald E. Milliman
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2013 11:46 AM
Subject: [acb-l] keeping it blindness centered: Sarah Palin: "This
isn'tlegit"
Hi Ron and All ACB Members who would Support a Major Change in Our Tax
Structure.
Well Ron, you certainly are not wasting my time in stating your
thoughts. This is what the ACB list is here for...I hope.
How we are taxed and who benefits by the existing tax nightmare,
national, state and local, is important to all blind people.
You hit the nail on the head when you said, "What we severely need in
this country will never happen; that is, totally
scrap the current tax program and go to a very simple tax system; that
is,
eliminate the, so called, loop holes and simply pay a flat tax that
applies
equally to everyone. It will never happen because the current,
extremely
complicated tax code, has been created on purpose to be able to slip
in
special tax favors for various special interests, and supports of our
elected officials who are supposed to be representing us, but they
don't..."
Because the majority of our ACB members find ourselves in the lower
end of the Working/Middle Class, or are retired on fixed, and limited
income, we are not able to take advantage of the "favors" that the
corporations and the super rich are able to do.
In fact, the taxation mess we live under puts the average blind person
at a severe disadvantage. The current proposed bill just passed by the
Senate is an example of the damage that could be done to the blind people
struggling in home based industries that depend on mail orders to eek out a
living.
And just to digress, as a small business, not only are we paying an
equivalent sales tax on items purchased out of state, but our shipping
charges continue to rise, even though our contract funding remains the same.
While little ACB is not going to pick up our slingshot and slay the
mighty Goliath, we do need to keep open conversation on what we can do to
move toward a more equitable system.
Why are we paying the taxes we now pay? Who is benefitting from our
money? Why do we not have more say in what is being taken and where it is
going?
I expect that you and others on this list are as careful with your
money as Cathy and I are with ours. We spend each dollar at least three
times before actually letting it go. And yet, our taxes are deducted
without our having any say in how much or where they go.
Whether folks in your income, or mine, or in the growing slums, we are
all of us held captive to a system that needs to be changed.
And not just so we can be financially successful. Of course all of us
want to be "better off", but there is much more to being successful than
just how many dollars we can command.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: Ronald E. Milliman
To: ACB-L@ACB.ORG
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2013 10:27 AM
Subject: Re: [acb-l] FW: Sarah Palin: "This isn't legit"
I acknowledge that I am probably wasting my time here in an attempt
to
presenting a different point of view, but I'm going to state my
differing
viewpoint anyway.
Before I do, I want to let you know that the statement made in an
earlier
post stating: "small businesses, under a million dollars in revenue,
.,
will be exempt." This is in reference to the internet sales tax bill
that
was passed by the Senate. This is not true; I just got off the phone
with
one of my senator's assistants, and she told me the final bill did
not
include any such income cutoff.
Now, to my other points. The vast majority of taxes paid in this
country
are paid by the higher income earners, not necessarily rich,
depending upon
on what you define as rich. I have numerous friends that earn high
incomes,
and they pay an enormous amount in taxes of all kinds, including
sales
taxes. They tend to purchase more expensive items from vehicles to
boats to
houses, and they tend to eat in relatively expensive restaurants.
They pay
state sales taxes and property taxes on everything they buy. I have
a
friend who recently purchased a houseboat for $427,500, and he paid
6%
state sales tax of $25,650. Then, in addition, he has to pay a
registration
and license fee and each year the registration and license fees are
recurring taxes. One of the vehicles he drives is a Cadillac
Escalade that
he paid something over $62,000 for; plus and another over $3,700 in
sales
taxes. He and I were discussing, actually complaining, about our
income
taxes; he paid something over $35,000 in Federal and state income
taxes.
When we compared our property tax bills, he paid nearly $7,000 in
property
tax on his home, and I could go on and on. These figures are net
after any
exemptions or what many of you refer to as "loop holes" in the tax
code. He
is not an especially unique example. I could give you lots and lots
of
other examples of people I know who are paying thousands and
thousands of
dollars in various taxes. The richest person I, personally, know
quite
well, pays an enormous amount in all kinds of taxes. Of course, he
takes
advantage of as many legal exemptions as he can, and of course, he
invests
his money as wisely as he can to minimize his tax liability, but
then, so
do I and so do you if you in a similar income situation and if you
aren't,
you would if you were in such a situation. If you didn't, you
wouldn't be
handling your finances prudently.
In contrast, I know many of my friends that are not working or are
low
income earners, including many of my very good blind friends, and
they
don't pay any income taxes at all, and some of them actually get
back
several thousands of dollars through the "Earned Income Credit"
program,
and several receive food stamps and other types of financial
assistance.
So, the various high income earners in this country are paying their
fare
share. That buzz phrase: "make the rich pay their fare share" is
simply
that: a political buzz phrase that has been sold to the American
public for
purely political purposes to further a political agenda.
Could the higher income earners in this country pay more than they
do? Of
course, they could. I could pay more. Some of you could probably pay
more
too, but we can only redistribute so much income and tax the higher
income
earners so much before it completely destroys the incentive to
achieve and
to be financially successful.
What we severely need in this country will never happen; that is,
totally
scrap the current tax program and go to a very simple tax system;
that is,
eliminate the, so called, loop holes and simply pay a flat tax that
applies
equally to everyone. It will never happen because the current,
extremely
complicated tax code, has been created on purpose to be able to slip
in
special tax favors for various special interests, and supports of
our
elected officials who are supposed to be representing us, but they
don't
represent us anymore, and I'm not sure if they ever did. These
special
favors built into the tax code work for all of our politicians,
regardless
of which party to which they belong. In addition, the current
complicated
tax code has created entire industries and professions, e.g. tax
attorneys,
tax accountants, tax preparers, tax advisors, tax exempt mutual
funds, and
yes, the entire massive IRS.
Presented in the spirit of good debate,
Ron M.
Dr. Ronald E. Milliman, retired Professor Western Kentucky
University
Ph: 270-782-9325
Email: rmilliman@insightbb.com
Chair, American Council of the Blind Public Relations Committee
Chair, American Council of the Blind's Monthly Monetary Support
Program
(MMS) Committee
President: South Central Kentucky Council of the Blind (SCKCB)
_______________________________________________
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http://www.acb.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-l
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satisfaction.
At least I think I'm right, never having been rich. In fact, I quit calling
myself Middle Class many years ago. I feel that it is a snobbish term used
by "Professional White Collar" Working Class people attempting to distance
themselves from the rest of Labor. To my way of thinking, the workers who
built the office buildings on Wall Street are every bit as critical to our
nations prosperity as are those who occupy the financial offices that came
to be housed in them.
I am the son and grandson and great grandson of Working Class People. They
were farmers, miners, loggers and a preacher or two...and probably at least
one horse thief.
The thrill I receive in this trip of mine through Life, is not tied to
financial advancement. Sure, I enjoy a home, good food, a warm hearth, and
a sense of basic security. Out here on the wild Olympic Peninsula it also
helps to have dependable transportation.
But my joy and satisfaction are not tied up in a pleasure boat, or
membership in the various clubs and fraternal organizations that so many
seek after.
A pair of jeans, a warm shirt and a sturdy pair of walking shoes make me
feel dressed to the nines. The services we offer, and the numbers of people
we have seen benefit from them, that is where my satisfaction lays...or does
my satisfaction lie?
Anyway, all this is by no means a slam against those whose satisfaction is
tied up in their ability to gain material stuff. Nor do I judge the folks
who take vows of poverty and spend their lives in serving their God.
Because it is what each of us does which brings meaning to our lives and
gives us that sense of satisfaction when we have reached our roads end.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: "J.Rayl" <thedogmom6363@frontier.com>
To: "Acb List" <acb-l@acb.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2013 3:18 PM
Subject: Re: [acb-l] Fw: keeping it blindness centered: Sarah
Palin:"Thisisn'tlegit"
Hi. Well, that is good to know --about my posts. I was beginning to wonder
if Fronter and the government were in cahoots ...or something. Hahahaha!
Yeah well, I suppose if one can afford to pay it (taxes) then they should,
but our 1 percent of the fortunate devels need to step up to the plate.
Then the other 20 percent (or whatever the discrepancy is now) of those a
damn site wealthier than I am (because I selected the wrong field for sure
need to step up to their plates as well. After that, they can pick on those
of us who are busting our proverbial and real butts trying to stay
affloat--let's just forget trying to get ahead now because that's a real sad
laugh --it isn't happening.
Not in this day and age anyway.
Jessie Rayl
thedogmom63@frontier.com
www.facebook.com/Eaglewings10
www.pathtogrowth.org
----- Original Message -----
From: Carl Jarvis
To: J.Rayl ; Acb List
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2013 1:02 PM
Subject: Re: [acb-l] Fw: keeping it blindness centered: Sarah Palin:
"Thisisn'tlegit"
Well Jessie, this came through loud and clear.
By the way, I personally don't go with the flat tax, but that was Ron's
opinion in the piece of his note that I quoted.
We both agree that the present tax mess is a...well, a mess.
A graduated income tax, both federal and state, would probably cost me
more dollars than it would cost you. And it would appear to cost Ron even
more than it would cost me. But I might consider supporting the flat tax if
everyone, corporate muckity muck included, were paying the tax on their
actual income.
But I don't really want to get into debating which is the better tax, flat
or graduated, because that gets us away from the question regarding how we
blind people gain a real voice in our government.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: J.Rayl
To: Acb List
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2013 9:12 AM
Subject: [acb-l] Fw: keeping it blindness centered: Sarah Palin:
"Thisisn'tlegit"
GRRR, put the wrong email on the first one ...let's try it again. Poor
bob!
Hi. Carl, well-said.
I have missed much of this thread, I suspect, but got this one and am
happy to have received it.
I suspect, even if ever there were a time that we got around to having a
flat tax, it would be one of these things well above the reasonable ability
of those in the lower class (and I hate that phrase too) could truly afford.
I say that because the mental health / substance abuse facilities have, what
they refer to, as a sliding fee scale. This is based on your, alleged,
income.
Well, they begin with something you're expected to pay even though you
earn little or nothing. Now, how can you pay anything when you have no
income?
Then, they keep right on raising it up from there. And of course people
who are single end up paying more, because they never get around to asking
for evidence of full income.
For example! my two sisters have kids. When their kids were around 16
to 18--still living at home, they worked. But those kids' incomes were
never counted as "income". Why? Because they were, legally, "dependent
children" because their "income" was not enough. Well! each of those "kids"
from two of those sisters made more money than those of you do on SSI.
But there you'd have been, if you did not have Medicaid, and if your
income had solely been based on your SSI (or equivalent) paying more than
either of those sisters for the services you would have received (as a
single person). Never mind their "kids" were earning more money than were
you!
So, you see, even though I used to be all gungho for the flat tax based
on income, people have ways of getting around that one too. <sigh>!
I still think there should be some nice way of our being able to select
where our taxes would go. For damn sure, they'd find out what is, and
isn't, important to folks--and, they just might be real shocked at what is
and what ain't. Maybe that is the fear--or part of it. <sigh>!
Hmmm, I think playing out in the mud was more enjoyable, but am done
there so I'll go clean the house.
At least I got this post ...now, let's see if you all do, for whatever
its worth. <LOL>!
Jessie Rayl
thedogmom63@frontier.com
www.facebook.com/Eaglewings10
www.pathtogrowth.org
----- Original Message -----
From: Carl Jarvis
To: ACB-L@ACB.ORG ; Ronald E. Milliman
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2013 11:46 AM
Subject: [acb-l] keeping it blindness centered: Sarah Palin: "This
isn'tlegit"
Hi Ron and All ACB Members who would Support a Major Change in Our Tax
Structure.
Well Ron, you certainly are not wasting my time in stating your
thoughts. This is what the ACB list is here for...I hope.
How we are taxed and who benefits by the existing tax nightmare,
national, state and local, is important to all blind people.
You hit the nail on the head when you said, "What we severely need in
this country will never happen; that is, totally
scrap the current tax program and go to a very simple tax system; that
is,
eliminate the, so called, loop holes and simply pay a flat tax that
applies
equally to everyone. It will never happen because the current,
extremely
complicated tax code, has been created on purpose to be able to slip
in
special tax favors for various special interests, and supports of our
elected officials who are supposed to be representing us, but they
don't..."
Because the majority of our ACB members find ourselves in the lower
end of the Working/Middle Class, or are retired on fixed, and limited
income, we are not able to take advantage of the "favors" that the
corporations and the super rich are able to do.
In fact, the taxation mess we live under puts the average blind person
at a severe disadvantage. The current proposed bill just passed by the
Senate is an example of the damage that could be done to the blind people
struggling in home based industries that depend on mail orders to eek out a
living.
And just to digress, as a small business, not only are we paying an
equivalent sales tax on items purchased out of state, but our shipping
charges continue to rise, even though our contract funding remains the same.
While little ACB is not going to pick up our slingshot and slay the
mighty Goliath, we do need to keep open conversation on what we can do to
move toward a more equitable system.
Why are we paying the taxes we now pay? Who is benefitting from our
money? Why do we not have more say in what is being taken and where it is
going?
I expect that you and others on this list are as careful with your
money as Cathy and I are with ours. We spend each dollar at least three
times before actually letting it go. And yet, our taxes are deducted
without our having any say in how much or where they go.
Whether folks in your income, or mine, or in the growing slums, we are
all of us held captive to a system that needs to be changed.
And not just so we can be financially successful. Of course all of us
want to be "better off", but there is much more to being successful than
just how many dollars we can command.
Carl Jarvis
----- Original Message -----
From: Ronald E. Milliman
To: ACB-L@ACB.ORG
Sent: Friday, May 10, 2013 10:27 AM
Subject: Re: [acb-l] FW: Sarah Palin: "This isn't legit"
I acknowledge that I am probably wasting my time here in an attempt
to
presenting a different point of view, but I'm going to state my
differing
viewpoint anyway.
Before I do, I want to let you know that the statement made in an
earlier
post stating: "small businesses, under a million dollars in revenue,
.,
will be exempt." This is in reference to the internet sales tax bill
that
was passed by the Senate. This is not true; I just got off the phone
with
one of my senator's assistants, and she told me the final bill did
not
include any such income cutoff.
Now, to my other points. The vast majority of taxes paid in this
country
are paid by the higher income earners, not necessarily rich,
depending upon
on what you define as rich. I have numerous friends that earn high
incomes,
and they pay an enormous amount in taxes of all kinds, including
sales
taxes. They tend to purchase more expensive items from vehicles to
boats to
houses, and they tend to eat in relatively expensive restaurants.
They pay
state sales taxes and property taxes on everything they buy. I have
a
friend who recently purchased a houseboat for $427,500, and he paid
6%
state sales tax of $25,650. Then, in addition, he has to pay a
registration
and license fee and each year the registration and license fees are
recurring taxes. One of the vehicles he drives is a Cadillac
Escalade that
he paid something over $62,000 for; plus and another over $3,700 in
sales
taxes. He and I were discussing, actually complaining, about our
income
taxes; he paid something over $35,000 in Federal and state income
taxes.
When we compared our property tax bills, he paid nearly $7,000 in
property
tax on his home, and I could go on and on. These figures are net
after any
exemptions or what many of you refer to as "loop holes" in the tax
code. He
is not an especially unique example. I could give you lots and lots
of
other examples of people I know who are paying thousands and
thousands of
dollars in various taxes. The richest person I, personally, know
quite
well, pays an enormous amount in all kinds of taxes. Of course, he
takes
advantage of as many legal exemptions as he can, and of course, he
invests
his money as wisely as he can to minimize his tax liability, but
then, so
do I and so do you if you in a similar income situation and if you
aren't,
you would if you were in such a situation. If you didn't, you
wouldn't be
handling your finances prudently.
In contrast, I know many of my friends that are not working or are
low
income earners, including many of my very good blind friends, and
they
don't pay any income taxes at all, and some of them actually get
back
several thousands of dollars through the "Earned Income Credit"
program,
and several receive food stamps and other types of financial
assistance.
So, the various high income earners in this country are paying their
fare
share. That buzz phrase: "make the rich pay their fare share" is
simply
that: a political buzz phrase that has been sold to the American
public for
purely political purposes to further a political agenda.
Could the higher income earners in this country pay more than they
do? Of
course, they could. I could pay more. Some of you could probably pay
more
too, but we can only redistribute so much income and tax the higher
income
earners so much before it completely destroys the incentive to
achieve and
to be financially successful.
What we severely need in this country will never happen; that is,
totally
scrap the current tax program and go to a very simple tax system;
that is,
eliminate the, so called, loop holes and simply pay a flat tax that
applies
equally to everyone. It will never happen because the current,
extremely
complicated tax code, has been created on purpose to be able to slip
in
special tax favors for various special interests, and supports of
our
elected officials who are supposed to be representing us, but they
don't
represent us anymore, and I'm not sure if they ever did. These
special
favors built into the tax code work for all of our politicians,
regardless
of which party to which they belong. In addition, the current
complicated
tax code has created entire industries and professions, e.g. tax
attorneys,
tax accountants, tax preparers, tax advisors, tax exempt mutual
funds, and
yes, the entire massive IRS.
Presented in the spirit of good debate,
Ron M.
Dr. Ronald E. Milliman, retired Professor Western Kentucky
University
Ph: 270-782-9325
Email: rmilliman@insightbb.com
Chair, American Council of the Blind Public Relations Committee
Chair, American Council of the Blind's Monthly Monetary Support
Program
(MMS) Committee
President: South Central Kentucky Council of the Blind (SCKCB)
_______________________________________________
acb-l mailing list
acb-l@acb.org
http://www.acb.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-l
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
_______________________________________________
acb-l mailing list
acb-l@acb.org
http://www.acb.org/mailman/listinfo/acb-l
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Fw: Happy Birthday on this Beautiful Mother's Day
Subject: Happy Birthday on this Beautiful Mother's Day
A most happy birthday, Dylan.
As they say, "Ah, to be 23 again and know then what I know today".
Of course they'd probably lock me up when I started babbling about my
Iphone, my laser burner, and my hybrid car with it's CD player. It would be
downhill from there.
But when I stop and recall the world as it was back in 1958, when I became
23, it is mind boggling.
In Seattle, you could still buy a 5 cent cup of coffee at the Kress Dime
Store. And yes, the five and ten stores did sell stuff for five and ten
cents. 19 cent hamburgers with 11 cent fries and a shake for 21 cents were
springing up all over the city.
A good steak dinner at the Kansas City Steak House cost $2.50 with all the
trimmings, and coffee tossed in for free.
All our musical entertainment was via records. Singles were on 33 RPM's,
the little record with the big hole in the middle. Tape recorders were used
by professionals, but were not available for the public to purchase. Color
TV was still in the experimental stages, and very expensive. I saw a
demonstration in 1956 at Edison Tech., and the colors ran all over the
screen. They were showing the World Series and the green of the field also
was the color of the players faces. The colors were so bright that it
actually hurt the eyes to look for long.
You could subscribe to the Seattle Times for $1.75 a month, and buy five
loaves of bread for one dollar.
But wage minimum had just been raised from $1.00 to $1.25 an hour. In 1958
I was earning $1.50 an hour working in the drapery factory. That was $60
per week, before overtime. Whoopee!
But I was taking home close to $100 because of the long overtime hours.
By the time your grandma Judy and I were married in 1960, I was taking home
less than $5,000 a year.
Still, we bought a house in 1962, the year your mom was born, for $8,750.
We paid a whopping $62 per month.
But back to 1958, the year I turned 23. I attended the university of
Washington for 50 dollars per quarter. 15 credit hours for only $50. And
my books cost between $2.50 and $3.50 each.
Bus fare was ten cents and you could get a transfer that would give you
enough time to go to town, shop and return for only that one dime.
Cigarettes cost me around 21 cents a pack, and I swore that if they went up
in price I would quit. I made that stupid promise many times before I
finally quit. By that time they were around $1.50 a pack.
Mad Magazine cost me 15 cents, cheap. And most magazines were from 15 cents
to 25 cents. You could still buy a good paper back novel for 25 cents.
They still called them "dime novels" because when my dad was a boy, that's
what they originally cost.
The 1950's were considered the Golden Years for Working Class men and women.
Women were beginning to enter the work force in growing numbers, and the
money they earned went to buy extras, like vacation property, pleasure
boats, brand new cars instead of second hand ones.
But the average family could still live comfortably on a single income.
All telephones were black and had dials on them. And in the center of each
dial the phone company, called Ma Bell, had put a tag with your phone number
on it.
If you were out and about, you carried a pocket full of change so you could
use one of the pay phones that were everywhere, and cost a dime per call.
There were no microwaves, and most refrigerators had only a small freezer
compartment. You had to buy a chest freezer if you needed more space. Most
grocery stores did not carry much in the way of frozen foods, or even in
prepared foods like you can now buy in the store's deli. Our neighborhood
still had a butcher shop, a bakery, a drug store, a barber shop, a beauty
shop, a laundry/dry cleaners, and a green grocer...where you bought your
vegetables and fruit, all in separate shops. But even then chain stores
like Safeway were beginning to take over.
Back then there were only about half the number of people in Washington
State as there are now. At night the city shut down and you could wander
the streets without seeing many people or cars. Sunday was still considered
a day of worship, or at least a family day, and most stores were closed.
Wash and wear close were still in the future, so a sturdy ironing board and
iron were in every home. Many homes still heated during the winter with
coal, wood or sawdust.
But as different as life is today, 1958 had one great advantage. I was 23
years old, with the world in front of me. Many slips, stumbles and wrong
turns later, at 78 I feel that it's safe to say, It's been a good life and
an exciting adventure. And I have such a fine grandson, too. And you're
pretty nice, too.
Just kidding.
I love you Dylan. Have a grand rest of your life.
Grandpa
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
*****
"We do not inherit the land from
our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."
A most happy birthday, Dylan.
As they say, "Ah, to be 23 again and know then what I know today".
Of course they'd probably lock me up when I started babbling about my
Iphone, my laser burner, and my hybrid car with it's CD player. It would be
downhill from there.
But when I stop and recall the world as it was back in 1958, when I became
23, it is mind boggling.
In Seattle, you could still buy a 5 cent cup of coffee at the Kress Dime
Store. And yes, the five and ten stores did sell stuff for five and ten
cents. 19 cent hamburgers with 11 cent fries and a shake for 21 cents were
springing up all over the city.
A good steak dinner at the Kansas City Steak House cost $2.50 with all the
trimmings, and coffee tossed in for free.
All our musical entertainment was via records. Singles were on 33 RPM's,
the little record with the big hole in the middle. Tape recorders were used
by professionals, but were not available for the public to purchase. Color
TV was still in the experimental stages, and very expensive. I saw a
demonstration in 1956 at Edison Tech., and the colors ran all over the
screen. They were showing the World Series and the green of the field also
was the color of the players faces. The colors were so bright that it
actually hurt the eyes to look for long.
You could subscribe to the Seattle Times for $1.75 a month, and buy five
loaves of bread for one dollar.
But wage minimum had just been raised from $1.00 to $1.25 an hour. In 1958
I was earning $1.50 an hour working in the drapery factory. That was $60
per week, before overtime. Whoopee!
But I was taking home close to $100 because of the long overtime hours.
By the time your grandma Judy and I were married in 1960, I was taking home
less than $5,000 a year.
Still, we bought a house in 1962, the year your mom was born, for $8,750.
We paid a whopping $62 per month.
But back to 1958, the year I turned 23. I attended the university of
Washington for 50 dollars per quarter. 15 credit hours for only $50. And
my books cost between $2.50 and $3.50 each.
Bus fare was ten cents and you could get a transfer that would give you
enough time to go to town, shop and return for only that one dime.
Cigarettes cost me around 21 cents a pack, and I swore that if they went up
in price I would quit. I made that stupid promise many times before I
finally quit. By that time they were around $1.50 a pack.
Mad Magazine cost me 15 cents, cheap. And most magazines were from 15 cents
to 25 cents. You could still buy a good paper back novel for 25 cents.
They still called them "dime novels" because when my dad was a boy, that's
what they originally cost.
The 1950's were considered the Golden Years for Working Class men and women.
Women were beginning to enter the work force in growing numbers, and the
money they earned went to buy extras, like vacation property, pleasure
boats, brand new cars instead of second hand ones.
But the average family could still live comfortably on a single income.
All telephones were black and had dials on them. And in the center of each
dial the phone company, called Ma Bell, had put a tag with your phone number
on it.
If you were out and about, you carried a pocket full of change so you could
use one of the pay phones that were everywhere, and cost a dime per call.
There were no microwaves, and most refrigerators had only a small freezer
compartment. You had to buy a chest freezer if you needed more space. Most
grocery stores did not carry much in the way of frozen foods, or even in
prepared foods like you can now buy in the store's deli. Our neighborhood
still had a butcher shop, a bakery, a drug store, a barber shop, a beauty
shop, a laundry/dry cleaners, and a green grocer...where you bought your
vegetables and fruit, all in separate shops. But even then chain stores
like Safeway were beginning to take over.
Back then there were only about half the number of people in Washington
State as there are now. At night the city shut down and you could wander
the streets without seeing many people or cars. Sunday was still considered
a day of worship, or at least a family day, and most stores were closed.
Wash and wear close were still in the future, so a sturdy ironing board and
iron were in every home. Many homes still heated during the winter with
coal, wood or sawdust.
But as different as life is today, 1958 had one great advantage. I was 23
years old, with the world in front of me. Many slips, stumbles and wrong
turns later, at 78 I feel that it's safe to say, It's been a good life and
an exciting adventure. And I have such a fine grandson, too. And you're
pretty nice, too.
Just kidding.
I love you Dylan. Have a grand rest of your life.
Grandpa
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
*****
"We do not inherit the land from
our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."
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