Author: Marie2

Figuratively:

Literally:

Or maybe it’s this one:

Consumer riots as well:  Police contain unruly Air Jordan shoppers at Houston-area malls

Police were called to quell unruly crowds after hundreds converged outside several Houston-area malls early Sunday morning in hopes of getting a ticket to buy pricey Nike Air Jordan sneakers being released next weekend. Chaos reached a crescendo when a rock shattered a glass entrance door at the Willowbrook Mall and a teenage girl was zapped with a Taser outside The Woodlands Mall.

Think about what that says about USians.  We have to hire LEOs to control consumer madness for pricey shoes made in third world sweatshops.

Americans are so exceptional.

Okay, that’s a bit of an overstatement, but perhaps only because Bosnia and Bosnian so-called democracy activists keep popping up as a hub “color revolutions.”  First there was Otpor.  It’s well acknowledged that it was funded by NED, IRI, and NDI that were in turn funded by USAID.  (Complex funding streams too far beyond the scope of this diary to list the various connections, but for a peek at how this works, check out Robert Parry’s A Shadow US Foreign Policy)  After the success in unseating Milosevic, Otpor was reconfigured into the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies.  The operation claims that it doesn’t receive any government funding.

Okay – only covert non-monetary ties:

In 2011, the hacker collective Anonymous broke into the computer network of corporate intelligence agency Stratfor, and the subsequently leaked e-mails were published by WikiLeaks.[20] Included was correspondence between Srda Popovic and analysts at Stratfor, and Wikileaks tweeted that CANVAS was “used by Stratfor to spy on opposition groups.

Now comes an AP and Guardian report: US agency infiltrated Cuban hip-hop scene to spark youth unrest

It has emerged as the latest covert weapon in the US government’s hapless attempts to unseat Cuba’s communist government.

Like its previous efforts, including exploding cigars, Cuban Twitter and the botched Bay of Pigs invasion, the attempt to co-opt rappers ended in ignominious failure, new documents have shown.
For more than two years, the American development aid organisation USAid has been secretly trying to infiltrate Cuba’s underground hip-hop movement, according to records obtained by the Associated Press.
…

US democracy exportation never sleeps.

…
The programme is laid out in documents involving Creative Associates International, a Washington contractor paid millions of dollars to undermine the Cuban government. The thousands of pages include contracts, emails, preserved chats, budgets, expense reports, power points, photographs and passports.
…

And who is Creative Associates International?  An NGO that was started by and employs very well meaning folks.  Who just happened to be funded by USAID.  Apparently only funded by USAID.

The Bosnian connection:

At first, the hip-hop operation was run in Cuba by Serbian contractor Rajko Bozic. His project was inspired by the protest concerts of the student movement that helped undermine former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.
…
Bozic focused much of his efforts on Los Aldeanos, a hip-hop group frustrated by official pressure and widely respected by Cuban youth for its hard-hitting lyrics.
…

Because Cuban hip-hop groups know the path to world fame and wealth runs through Serbia?  Creative hasn’t issued a statement, but USAID has.  Claiming nothing covert was done and the activity was to strengthen civil society.  As if the US gives a rat’s ass about Cuban civil society.   But why did this non-covert USAID funding use money transfer methods not unlike that of drug cartels or Mitt Romney?  

Creative used a Panama front company and a bank in Lichtenstein to hide the money trail from Cuba, where thousands of dollars went to fund a TV programne starring Los Aldeanos. It was distributed on DVDs to circumvent Cuba’s censors.

The world might be a better place if all this so-called NGOs were shut down.  Including Freedom House which would probably make Eleanor Roosevelt cry to see what it has been turned into:  

The board is currently chaired by William H. Taft IV. Taft assumed chairmanship of the board in January 2009, succeeding Peter Ackerman. Other current board members include Kenneth Adelman, Farooq Kathwari, Azar Nafisi, Mark Palmer, P. J. O’Rourke, and Lawrence Lessig,[1] while past board-members have included Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Samuel Huntington, Mara Liasson, Otto Reich, Donald Rumsfeld, Whitney North Seymour, Paul Wolfowitz, Steve Forbes, and Bayard Rustin.

Where war criminals meet for tea?  

Update 12/17/14

US global aid chief to resign; oversaw secret Cuba programs

USAID, under Shah, drew intense criticism from some U.S. lawmakers and the Cuban government for its Cuba programs. An AP investigation this year revealed the agency – with the help of another Washington-based contractor – created a Twitter-like service, staged a health workshop to recruit activists and infiltrated the island’s hip-hop community.

Following the AP’s disclosures, the agency prepared internal rules that would effectively end risky undercover work in hostile countries. The AP found USAID and its contractor, Creative Associates International, concealed their involvement in the Cuban programs – setting up front companies, routing money through overseas bank transactions and fashioning elaborate cover stories.

Glad this wasn’t overlooked or dismissed in the negotiations with Cuba.

Based on recent RollingStone and NYTimes articles, I had planned to write a diary.  Perhaps drawing from other sources and including other related news stories.  Part of the NYTimes article give me enough pause that I set it aside for the moment, but continued to collect additional information.  The Rolling Stone article, however, was so well written and had that plausible sounding ring of truth that I didn’t question the veracity of it.  Rape is always a horrific story and for the subject of the Rolling Stone, it was exceedingly so.  A story that demanded more eyes because it points to a large cultural issue that requires attention.

Somehow, despite my conscious intentions, my diary didn’t get written.  It’s not pleasant to admit that I had not employed fully critical thinking when reading the story.  Had not even noticed a glaring problem with it.  Today Rolling Stone retracted the story: A Note to Our Readers

Last month, Rolling Stone published a story titled “A Rape on Campus” by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, which described a brutal gang rape of a woman named Jackie at a University of Virginia fraternity house; the university’s failure to respond to this alleged assault – and the school’s troubling history of indifference to many other instances of alleged sexual assaults. …
…
In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced. …

A more honest admission of error or journalistic failure than we see from other major publications.

What I overlooked was that the rape as described was too brutal for a woman not to have sought immediate medical attention.  Doesn’t mean that “Jackie” wasn’t raped nor that it wasn’t a gang rape.  Only that if it had happened, it wasn’t like what she described or what Erdely wrote.  

It may be a lot to ask rape victims and any woman that alleges rape to be scrupulously honest and not embellish nor modify their stories in any way.  Untruthfulness increases the chances that other victims won’t be believed.  Won’t seek immediate medical attention.  Won’t report the rape.  That rapists will continue to walk among us and are highly likely to rape again.

The truth is always best.  Don’t risk having your story swept away.

Update (12/11/14):

After consideration, have concluded that I would be remiss if I didn’t included WaPo’s latest addition to this story. They have interviewed the three UVA students that “Jackie” came to her aid after her alleged rape. Given “Jackie’s” report of the seeming callousness of two of those friend’s, they would have a reason not to confirm that part of her story; so, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to discount what they now say.

However, the bizarre part is what they claim happened before that night and one of them retained tweets with the man “Jackie” claimed had invited her to dinner. This “man” seems not to exist. Was it a hoax? If so, by whom? Unfortunately, at this point the veracity of “Jackie’s” story isn’t looking good.

A number of issues were introduced in my prior diary.  They may or may not be worthy of discussion, but let’s talk about Eric Garner.  A man that should be alive, working as a horticulturist, and raising his children with his wife.
In addition to all the other difficulties for Black men in the US, they are at higher risk for poor health.  From the NYTimes:

Mr. Garner, who was at least 6 feet 3 inches tall and who, friends said, had several health issues: diabetes, sleep apnea, and asthma so severe that he had to quit his job as a horticulturist for the city’s parks department. He wheezed when he talked and could not walk a block without resting, they said.

Medication helps with all those conditions, but they are all also related to diet and being overweight.  It hasn’t been reported what level of medical care Mr. Garner had received.  As a horticulturist for the NYC Parks and Rec Department, did he not receive adequate health care?  If his health conditions exceeded what could be treated well enough for him to retain his job, shouldn’t he have been placed on disability?

In the absence of disability benefits, wasn’t he eligible for Medicaid?  Either under the existing or expanded version?  

With no job, no money, and seriously poor health, Mr. Garner needed help, but not the kind of help authoritarian LEOs offer.  

The NYC health “nanny,” former Mayor Bloomberg, not only doesn’t have a medical license, but isn’t all that swift at micro-economics either.  Yes, sure, poor people shouldn’t smoke cigarettes.  Bad for their health and pocketbooks.  And wealthy people shouldn’t fly in private jets, live in mansions, and cavort on island holidays.  Very bad for the environment.  Tax the wealthy enough, they’ll reduce their consumption of that which is unhealthy for us all.  Tax even more and they’ll find “black market” alternatives for their pleasures.  

Imagining raincoat wearing guys on street corners saying “Hey, kid wanna buy a ‘Big Gulp?”

In the Philadelphia area, it’s not uncommon to meet good, white, law-abiding, middle and upper middle-class residents that make “booze runs” to Delaware.  Pennsylvania does have, shall we say, interesting liquor laws.  Many (all?) originally justified as a means to control alcoholism.  Success on that is at best mixed.  Yet, overall,  how they manage this “pleasure” isn’t onerous (I didn’t notice much difference in prices at PA State liquor stores and prices in CA) and has some pluses.  But shouldn’t the state police crack down on the “booze runs?”  They are, after all, engaged in an illegal activity to avoid a non-confiscatory level of taxation.  Probably not worth the effort.  Plus the law-breakers are white and mostly not poor.

Laws that create substantial black markets for perfectly legal products and lead to employing LEOs for enforcement are bad laws for economies and societies.  

Phillip Morris currently lists all taxes, including federal, state, local, and sales taxes, as 56.6% of the total cost of a pack of cigarettes.

Note: at 56.6% of the cost of an item, the tax rate is 130%!   In NYC it’s more like 240%.  Imagine a 240% tax rate on luxury goods for Park Avenue residents.  No wonder some pot smokers have concerns about legalization.

Do NY legislators know nothing about what gives rise to black markets?  How their “do gooding” and desperation to collect more taxes from poorer residents created this one?  Confiscatory and regressive taxation.  (Echoes of something from US history?)  And don’t Staten Island cops have something better to do than brutally enforce what would seem to be a petty offense?  

Apparently not so petty in NY and NYC according this 4/3/14 HuffPo article.    

The booming black market for cigarettes in New York City started in the early-2000s, the bodega owner said. In 1997, he said he was selling cigarettes for $2.10 a pack — the same price as in many other states. Now, less than 20 years later, a combination of federal, state and local taxes have driven the average price of a pack in New York City to $12 to $14.

A new report from the Tax Foundation found that 57 percent of cigarettes consumed in New York state in 2012 were smuggled into the state illegally. That’s the highest rate of smuggled cigarettes in the country. New York has the highest state tax on cigarettes and New York City imposes an additional $1.50 levy. [NYC imposes a minimum price/pack of $10.10; with sales tax that would be $11.00.]

PA seems to have avoided creating a black market in cigarettes.  Until I looked at this, I honestly had no idea that it’s big in CA as well and would have been bigger if CA voters a few years ago hadn’t rejected another cigarette tax because it didn’t seem fair.  

Mr. Eric Garner was and his suppliers are criminals for engaging in commerce without paying the legally imposed taxes.  But just how rich is Mr. Jeff Bezos today because he found ways to avoid charging Amazon customers sales tax?  This was always bullshit because before on-line retailing there was phone and mail-order retailers and they always collected and paid the proper sales tax based on the customer’s local taxing jurisdiction.  

How the on-line retailers got around the requirement was to put the onus of paying sales taxes on the customer.   Ha-ha-ha.  One reason people purchased on-line was to avoid paying sales tax.  Regular sales tax <10% and not a confiscatory 200%.  And no police showed up to bust them for not paying up.

Now that Bezos and Amazon are rich, they collect and pay sales taxes for customers in some states

With the new states, about 69% of Americans–nearly 219 million people–will be subject to tax on their Amazon purchases.
That’s a big switch from a few years ago, when Amazon fought to protect customers from sales tax, viewing it as a competitive advantage over brick-and-mortar rivals.

It’s still and will remain an advantage for smaller on-line retailers.  Boehner Kills Internet Tax Bill

Tax-free Internet shopping is safe for now thanks to Speaker John A. Boehner.
A bill granting states the ability to force out-of-state websites to collect Internet sales tax is dead, according to the Ohio Republican’s spokesman.
The bill is strongly backed by national brick-and-mortar retailers, who have to collect sales tax on the web because they have operations in the states that collect sales taxes. They often are competing against web outfits that are located out of state and therefore are not required to collect sales tax under a Supreme Court precedent.

Is it merely coincidental that the most regressive tax, sales taxes, has increased substantially over the same period that on-line, non-taxed, sales have grown?  (Corporate and high income taxes cuts are another part of the story.)  And who has benefited most from that sales/use tax avoidance?

Who has benefited the most from NYC’s exorbitant cigarette tax laws?  Cops – because new make work for cops is always welcome.  And with the tragic death of Mr. Eric Garner, the anti-taxers.

“We” make laws.  “We” hire LEOs to enforce those laws.  When that enforcement goes wrong, some people blame the victim for violating the law(s) and not passively accepting being cuffed, and some people blame the LEO for real or perceived excessive use of force and often in combination with racism on the part of the LEO.  Militarizing local police forces has likely contributed to a heightened sense of “us” against “them” mindset among LEOs.  Steroid use among LEOs to bulk up is likely another contributing factor to the excessive use of force.  

The big picture that this country arrests, convicts, incarcerates and paroles at a rate something on the order of four times what it was back in 1970 garners little or sustained attention.  And cops back then weren’t noted for being “to serve and protect” public employees in most communities.  Nor does a majority in this country comprehend that the criminal justice system disproportionately targets minorities – white people are very good at rationalizing such statistics.  They are less good at rationalizing killings within US borders.  

What makes any discussion of killings by police difficult is that too much of the data is missing or non-existent.  While we know incarceration rates over the decades, we don’t know the actual incidence rate for police homicides in the past or present.  From the Wall St. Journal, Hundreds of Police Killing are Uncounted in Federal Statistics.

Law-enforcement experts long have lamented the lack of information about killings by police. “When cops are killed, there is a very careful account and there’s a national database,” said Jeffrey Fagan, a law professor at Columbia University. “Why not the other side of the ledger?”

Why not indeed.  Can this not be changed right now?  Mandatory federal reporting of all homicides and shootings perpetrated by police officers is not unduly burdensome.  Within twenty-four hours to the FBI.  The FBI would in turn report every incident within twenty-four hours to the CDC and Bureau of Justice Statistics.  Then mandatory reporting of the disposition of the case to the FBI.  All three agencies would have authority to seek additional relevant information and communicate with the other agencies of the requests and answers when received.  

It’s known that almost all of these cases will be closed as justifiable homicide in the line of duty.  But let’s see the numbers.  Let’s allow other agencies the ability to audit and provide some oversight.  

Racism in this country is endemic.  Everybody knows that.  And that much of the brutality towards our fellow citizens is far too easy to cover-up and hide it from the nation.  However, every once in a while, the conscience of fair-minded peoples is shocked into doing the right thing.  Never enough.  Never as thoroughly or completely as it should be.  But a small step forward.  For those of us of a certain age, we did see that during the Civil Rights movements in the 1950s and early 1960s.  Congress and LBJ weren’t acting without the consent of the governed when the Civil Rights Acts were passed.

We saw it twice in the election of Barack Obama.

If all those unreported killings by police are minorities and mostly African-Americans, it completely changes almost everything that has been said about the recent killings of African-Americans by LEOs that have made national news.

We need the truth NOW.  Just as we needed to see this:

And this:

 

than the general public.  That’s not to say that cops aren’t prejudiced or seemingly trigger happy against Black people.  They are merely somewhat less so due to their training and possibly by serving on integrated police forces.

The Science of Why Cops Shoot Young Black Men by Chris Mooney in Mother Jones supplies more information and food for thought than few people, regardless of political affiliation, are willing to comprehend.

As these experiments suggest, it is not that we are either prejudiced or unprejudiced, period. Rather, we are more and less prejudiced, based on our upbringings and experiences but also on a variety of temporary or situational prompts …

Mooney, includes methods and implications for how implicit negative associations with regard to race, class, and gender can be reduced.  And not just because that’s the right thing to do, but also because:

Prejudice and essentialism are bad for your brain–if you value creative thinking, anyway. But they can also be downright dangerous.

IOW – prejudices create stupid and uncreative people and not the other way round.  There’s a bestseller in this:  “The Simple Secret To Raising Smarter Kids – and increase your IQ at the same time”

Anyone counting on young people (ages 18-24) to lead this country away from racism, needs to think again.  Other than those over age 65, that age demographic is the most biased.  The least biased group are those that self-identify as “strongly liberal.”  Slightly-moderately-strongly conservatives are the most biased and are like white people in general.    

Do go and read Mooney’s article.  There’s much in it to discuss.  Far more than the title suggests.  I could go off in several directions from it, but discussions interest me more than writing an unread monologue.

It remains a stretch for all Americans to “get along,” but maybe we should all just eat cake because there does seem to be agreement on supporting Natalie Dubose and her bakery.  Natalie’s Cakes and More was opened last summer.

A single mother with two children, she finally saved enough money to open a bakery in June.
“I did that because this is the dream that I wanted to achieve. So I’ve invested everything. You can’t walk away from that much of an investment,” Dubose said.
Her location in historic Ferguson has led to challenges she never imaged.
Dubose relies on foot traffic for business. After Michael Brown’s death in August, she said she had no customers for two weeks. …

Business improved and Natalie had a lot of Thanksgiving orders, but then:

Like many other small businesses, her bakery Natalie’s Cakes and More was vandalized Monday night in the wake of the grand jury decision not to charge Officer Darren Wilson with killing Michael Brown.

As they say, when the going gets tough, the tough get going, and Natalie is one tough cookie:

I’m baking today,” Dubose told CNNMoney, as the sound of broken glass being swept up can be heard over the phone.

And she’s getting a lot of help from friends.  From those in familiar quarters that set up a GoFundMe page for her, kindred spirits like Grub Street, and the black-hearted (clicking that link is not recommended)

RUSH:  Okay, I’m gonna go ahead and give the link.  If you would like to donate to Natalie Dubose, it’s …

The response in the past few days has been phenomenal.  Everybody loves Natalie!  Nothing but positives and goodwill in the gofundme comments.  And one offer from a retired baker to share recipes.

The one thing small businesses, particularly new small businesses, are always short of is capital.  It’s the primary reason why most fail and fail quickly.  Natalie Dubose may now just have the capital base that her business really needed.  To remain a fixture in the Ferguson business community.

Let’s call for a “Cake Summit.”

State of Connecticut – Office of  the Child Advocate, released  it’s  Report on the Shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  The report is 114 pages and is as comprehensive as possible.  It has a lot of observations and recommendations for educators, school administrators, physicians, and mental health/child development professionals.  All such professionals would benefit from reading the report.

It adds depth to last year’s report issued by the CT State Attorney office but doesn’t significantly change the earlier findings.  My read of that report, presented in Don’t Know Why – Sandy Hook Elementary School was accurate.  One point that the OCA investigators were able to piece together is that AL did plan the school massacre.  It wasn’t a spontaneous and impulsive act.  That makes it all the more horrendous.  Yet, it also means that there were a few markers that may have prevented it.  Access to guns in the home of a child or young adult exhibiting obvious psycho-social issues is not recommended.  

For parents, denial of a child’s physical and psycho-social issues is very bad medicine.  Early diagnosis and treatment protocols is good medicine.  That didn’t happen in AL’s life even though his parents, particularly his mother, were loving and caring.  His development language deficits should have been diagnosed sooner.  He should always have remained under the care of medical professionals that coordinated the medical and educational interventions.  At various times, he was anorexic and never treated.  At his death he was a six feet tall, 112 pounds malnourished twenty year old.  That alone diminished his cognitive capacities.

What is missing from the report IMHO is a family systems analysis.  What environmental dynamics were in play when AL did well and when he didn’t do well.  He began deteriorating in 2003 when he was eleven years old and for the most part the deterioration was progressive.  While numerous change factors begin at such an age, and are likely most of the story for AL, it was also when his mother could focus more exclusively on his wants.  2006, when he was evaluated at the Yale Child Study Center would also have been when his older brother left to attend college.

Finally, Mrs. Lanza had some serious issues.  She led her family to believe that she had MS or some other undefined serious health issue that was going to kill her.  She could bear it without complaints for the benefit of her family.  IOW, a martyr.  The investigation could find no record of Mrs. Lanza having been diagnosed with MS or any other disease.  A whole system approach instead limiting evaluations to the identified patient might have been valuable in this situation.  Or worth an attempt because Mrs. Lanza wasn’t exactly cooperative with health professionals,

The authors of this report submit this work with acknowledgement of the 27 individuals murdered on December 14, 2012, and the terrible and incalculable loss suffered by all victims.  Authors convey condolences for these losses and the grief that continues to be felt by the victims, families, and the community.  We acknowledge and honor the lives of  the twenty first graders who died at Sandy Hook Elementary School; they have been the sole reason for this report.

My personal life and health were basically in a shambles when a co-worker I’ll call Mike insisted on taking me out to dinner.  By then we’d had a good working relationship for a number of years.  While not frequent, many of us in the office participated in non-work social activities that often included spouses and significant others.  Mike’s wife and I shared an interest that others in the office didn’t; so, we had conversations beyond, “Hi, how are you doing” at these gatherings.

Cheering me up seemed to be the point of Mike’s invitation.  But I didn’t want to be cheered up which led to his insistence that we have dinner.  In a restaurant.  Both of us driving own vehicles and meeting at the restaurant.  

After I arrived and was seated, Mike handed me a rose.  This did make me uncomfortable, but I silently rationalized it as nothing but a kind gesture from a concerned colleague.  The dinner was fine and had done the trick to make me feel less sad.  

Then suddenly, while still in the restaurant, Mike grabbed and kissed me.  This surprised and shocked me enough that it was few moments before I gathered my wits and pulled away from him.  Not wanting to make a commotion, told him that we seem to have had different impressions of what was happening here.  

End of story.  One I’ve never told anyone.  In the grand scheme of life, it was inconsequential.  I didn’t hold it against Mike, and he related to me as if it had never happened except once or twice when he mentioned that he still found me attractive.  Over the years I learned that his wife knew that Mike wasn’t the most faithful husband and I think she also knew that I wasn’t one of Mike’s “other women.”  They raised two beautiful and well educated children and are today happily retired.  

So, when I read

[In Bill Cosby’s house when his wife and her date were in another room in 1967] “He walked over to me and grabbed me, pulls me really tight to him, kisses me on the mouth, like really really rough. And I just took my hands and I pushed him away,” Ferrigno told KFI radio station.

I’m like wtf?  Boorish, disrespectful behavior is several major steps from rape.  Yet, the media is lapping up Ferrigno’s story as if it’s more evidence that the rape allegations against Cosby are true.      

We’ve come a long way since 1945

when a  sailor spontaneously grabbed and kissed  a woman that had never seen him before in her life.  A kiss that she neither welcomed nor appreciated.   Behavior on his part that isn’t acceptable or tolerated today.  But do we want to criminalize it?  

Eisenstaedt still took a great picture even if the kiss was technically assault.

Or give the “cheap labor” capitalists an inch and they’ll find a way to steal a mile.

The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) was groundbreaking.  Among its provisions were 1) forty hour work week 2) time and half pay over forty hours per week 3) minimum wage 4) prohibited various forms of child labor.  One obvious shortcoming was that adjustments to the minimum wage required Congressional action and Presidential approval.  That may have been one of the “pragmatic,” bipartisan compromises to set the initial minimum wage close to what employers were already paying “unskilled” labor.  Congress could then adjust it upwards as the economy grew and unemployment fell.  

It took thirty years for the minimum wage to reach a poverty threshold for a family of four.  It has been going in the wrong direction ever since.  Now it’s at the poverty threshold for one parent and one child.  The significant decline began with the Reagan administration and Democratic politicians straddling between the GOP and New Deal Democrats.  

However, before Reagan and the DLC, there was another not so New Dealish Democrat.  Carter and the Democratic Congress were only somewhat regressive on the minimum wage, but they supported some deregulation of the New Deal and abandoned acting on another FLSA provision.  One that with not much trickery has added money to the pockets of the wealthy instead of the not wealthy.

The FLSA forty hour/week limitation without overtime pay applied to workers.  Certain categories of employees that were not considered vulnerable to exploitation, such as professionals, executives, managers, were exempt.  Generally salaried employees at higher compensation levels.  Unlike modern Democrats, some New Dealers better understood how the plutocrats operated.  The test for defining exempt employees wasn’t limited to a job title but also a minimum annual salary.  The authority for adjusting that minimum salary over time was delegated to the POTUS.

In 1975, the Ford Administration raised the exempt salary minimum to $13,000.  And there it stood until the Bush Administration raised it $23,660.

What was $13,000 worth in 1975?  Not so much in SF except in comparison w/minimum wage.  (I was there and still remember.)  It was approximately three times the minimum wage, but that was also a time when income inequality was much lower.  It was like the first rung on the professional ladder.  The one after advancing up from a trainee status.  “Exempt” employees had some status – no time clocks or routine detailed time sheets.  Report “time off” and not “time on” that was assumed to average forty hours/week

Did workers that were classified as “exempt” know that it included an income threshold?  Doubtful.  I didn’t.  And by the time I did any salary administration, all of the exempt employees were earning in excess of an inflation adjusted floor for that classification.  But I didn’t work in a “cheap labor” industry.

Exploitation of that flat salary minimum for exempt employees likely began in the early 1980s.  Would have been less operational thirty years later when it was raised to $23,660 and has been operational since then.  Give the workers a management title and they’ll work more hours and not ask for much much of a raise.

As the rules stand now, an assistant manager at a fast food restaurant who spends 95 percent of his (or her) time cooking fries, running a cash register, sweeping floors, and moving supplies into and out of the freezer can be denied any overtime pay and work 60 or 70 hours a week if his salary is at least $23,660 a year. Because he is exempt, the hourly rate of his salary can fall below the minimum wage; “executives” are excluded from minimum-wage protection, too.

That explains why we see more and more people identified as managers.  That view themselves as “middle class.”  Yet, they can’t understand why that status doesn’t translate to higher income and job security.  This solves what has been a seeming mystery to me.  How did so many relatively low income and poor people in this country come to believe they are middle-class and don’t relate to being a “worker.”  

Another lesson in “framing” to make stealing from the “have nots” child’s play.