One of my good friends likes to regularly remind me that the chasm between the wealthiest Americans and the rest of us is taking on Grand Canyonesque proportions. And she’s correct. The Economic Policy Institute offers a five-point paper that outlines just how serious the gap is becoming.

1. Profits are up, but the wages and the incomes of average Americans are down.

Inflation-adjusted hourly and weekly wages are still below where they were at the start of the recovery in November 2001. Yet, productivity – the growth of the economic pie – is up by 13.5 percent.

Wage growth has been shortchanged because 35 percent of the growth of total income in the corporate sector has been distributed as corporate profits, far more than the 22 percent in previous periods.

Consequently, median household income (inflation-adjusted) has fallen five years in a row and was 4 percent lower in 2004 than in 1999, falling from $46,129 to $44,389.

2. More and more people are deeper and deeper in debt.

The indebtedness of U.S. households, after adjusting for inflation, has risen 35.7 percent over the last four years.

The level of debt as a percent of after-tax income is the highest ever measured in our history. Mortgage and consumer debt is now 115 percent of after-tax income, twice the level of 30 years ago.

The debt-service ratio (the percent of after-tax income that goes to pay off debts) is at an all-time high of 13.6 percent.

The personal savings rate is negative for the first time since WWII.

3. Job creation has not kept up with population growth, and the employment rate has fallen sharply.

The United States has only 1.3 percent more jobs today (excluding the effects of Hurricane Katrina) than in March 2001 (the start of the recession). Private sector jobs are up only 0.8 percent. At this stage of previous business cycles, jobs had grown by an average of 8.8 percent and never less than 6.0 percent.

The unemployment rate is relatively low at 5 percent, but still higher than the 4 percent in 2000. Plus, the percent of the population that has a job has never recovered since the recession and is still 1.3 percent lower than in March 2001. If the employment rate had returned to pre-recession levels, 3 million more people would be employed.

More than 3 million manufacturing jobs have been lost since January 2000.

4. Poverty is on the rise.

The poverty rate rose from 11.3 percent in 2000 to 12.7 percent in 2004.

The number of people living in poverty has increased by 5.4 million since 2000.

More children are living in poverty: the child poverty rate increased from 16.2 percent in 2000 to 17.8 percent in 2004.

5. Rising health care costs are eroding families” already declining income.

Households are spending more on health care. Family health costs rose 43-45 percent for married couples with children, single mothers, and young singles from 2000 to 2003.

Employers are cutting back on health insurance. Last year, the percent of people with employer-provided health insurance fell for the fourth year in a row. Nearly 3.7 million fewer people had employer-provided insurance in 2004 than in 2000. Taking population growth into account, 11 million more people would have had employer-provided health insurance in 2004 if the coverage rate had remained at the 2000 level.

It makes me think that the only things standing between our civilization and a march on our Tuileries is cable television and microwave popcorn.

My Soundtrack: Sleep Until The Weekend by Finest Dearest on WOXY.

Just before Buckeye Politics went dark, Ohio Senator Eric Fingerhut (D-25) posted a comment on the Ohio governor’s race. Fortunately the original comment was saved and George has now posted it to the Meet The Bloggers website. The whole thing is, of course, well worth your consideration, but my favorte graph was:

We”re not losing the votes of doctors, entrepreneurs, and small business people because we have the wrong position on guns. We”re losing them because they don”t think Democrats get it on job creation and the economy. They think we are so tied up by special interest groups that we cannot face the real changes happening in the world, and adapt our policies to meet these changes.

I’ve known Fingerhut to be a well-grounded and intelligent politician. His comment on how he’s focusing his race for governor only reinforces my opinion in that regard.

My Soundtrack: Glitterball by Seachange on WOXY.

Back in October I posted about the Service Employees International Union’s contest to find innovative ideas to strengthen our economy and improve life for the working class. The SEIU received some 22,000 suggestion and has posted 21 to vote on. The list of 21 semi-finalist ideas underwhelmed me.

But I’m impressed with how the SEIU is handling the process.

The transparency with which the SEIU has chosen to post comments and discussion threads, much of which is critical of the selection process, is to be applauded. I think that mining the comments may very well prove more interesting and beneficial than the original contest.

I’m sorry that some $200,000 is going to be spent on winning ideas that, quite frankly, are duds, if my reading of the top 21 list is accurate.

The deadline for voting for what you think are the top three ideas is midnight, Sunday, 15 January.

My Soundtrack: Run Into Flowers by M83 on WOXY.

My dad passed along these headlines from 2029 that he recieved from a Good Ol’ Boy friend of his. They obviously share a conservative viewpoint in that they predict a liberal dystopia. So, how about a few of our own? Maybe something like Chief Justice Jenna Bush Rules: Wife May Not Refuse Impregnation?

Ozone Created By Electric Cars Now Killing Millions In The Seventh Largest Country In The World, Mexifornia Formally Known As California

White Minorities Still Trying To Have English Recognized As Mexifornia’s Third Language

Baby Conceived Naturally — Scientists Stumped

Couple Petitions Court To Reinstate Heterosexual Marriage

Iraq Still Closed Off; Physicists Estimate It Will Take At Least 10 More Years Before Radioactivity Decreases To Safe Levels

France Pleads For Global Help After Being Taken Over By Jamaica

Castro Finally Dies At Age 112; Cuban Cigars Can Now Be Imported Legally, But President Chelsea Clinton Has Banned All Smoking

George Z. Bush Says He Will Run For President In 2036

Postal Service Raises Price Of First Class Stamp To $17.89 And Reduces Mail Delivery To Wednesdays Only.

85-Year, $75.8 Billion Study: Diet And Exercise Is The Key To Weight Loss

Average Weight Of Americans Drops To 250 Lbs

Japanese Scientists Have Created A Camera With Such A Fast Shutter Speed, They Now Can Photograph A Woman With Her Mouth Shut

Massachusetts Executes Last Remaining Conservative

Supreme Court Rules Punishment Of Criminals Violates Their Civil Rights

Average Height Of NBA Players Now Nine Feet, Seven Inches

New Federal Law Requires That All Nail Clippers, Screwdrivers, Fly Swatters And Rolled-Up Newspapers Must Be Registered By January 2036

Congress Authorizes Direct Deposit Of Formerly Illegal Political Contributions To Campaign Accounts

IRS Sets Lowest Tax Rate At 75 Percent

Florida Voters Still Having Trouble With Voting Machines

OK. This is a contest: write a liberal headline that presages the kind of world we’ll live in in 2029 if the NEO/Theocons continue to have their way. First prize: $25 gift certificate from Mac’s Backs; second prize: $15; third prize — $10. Note: gift certificates are good for 50 percent off purchases of used books. That means if you win first prize you will can buy $50 worth of used books for $25.

[Update — Saturday, 4 March — I closed the contest this morning and posted all entries for voting. Thank you everyone for a such wondeful entries. JH]

My Soundtrack: Just Another Love Song by The Dead 60s on WOXY.

On 31 December I posted about the use of Egyptian police to roust some 3,000 Sudanese from an ad hoc refugee camp in Cairo. The refugees had fled the genocide in that country’s Darfur region and were seeking relief from the United Nations. After three months of petitioning, what they got was clubs and death.

From Salon’s David Morse:

No one, it seems, could reason with the Sudanese refugees gathered in Cairo on New Year’s Eve.

For three months they had maintained a squatters encampment in the Egyptian capital. At times, as many as 3,000 men, women and children were jammed into a small park, not much larger than a basketball court, at a busy intersection in the upscale Al-Muahandiseen, across the street from the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. They were protesting UNHCR’s refusal to grant them official status as refugees and resettle them in a third country.

Stubbornly and against all obstacles — the growing stench of human waste, complaints from neighbors, the repeated refusal of UNHCR to grant their request, and threats from the notoriously violent Egyptian police — the Sudanese maintained their crowded vigil. UNHCR refused to grant them refugee status because it reasoned that Sudan was no longer at war. Following the January 2005 signing of the Comprehensive Peace Treaty, it stated that Sudanese citizens were free to return to their homes.

Keep reading…

…and that chocolate rations had been increased to 20 grams per week.

My Soundtrack: I Need Some Fine Wine & You Need To Be Nicer by The Cardigans on WOXY.

From Non Sequitur.

Yesterday I praised Israel’s decision to smack evangelical nutcase Pat Robertson and his personal delustion by denying him access to a development deal in Northern Israel. We now know what it takes to make Robertson behave like a sensible human being, or at least a facsimile of one: threaten his cash flow. From the AP:

Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson has sent a letter apologizing for suggesting that Ariel Sharon’s massive stroke was divine punishment for pulling Israel out of the Gaza Strip.

Robertson’s comments drew widespread condemnation from other Christian leaders, President Bush and Israeli officials, who canceled plans to include the American evangelist in the construction of a Christian tourist center in northern Israel.

In a letter dated Wednesday and marked for hand delivery to Sharon’s son Omri, Robertson called the Israeli prime minister a kind, gracious and gentle man” who was “carrying an almost insurmountable burden of making decisions for his nation.

My concern for the future safety of your nation led me to make remarks which I can now view in retrospect as inappropriate and insensitive in light of a national grief experienced because of your father’s illness, the letter said.

I ask your forgiveness and the forgiveness of the people of Israel, Robertson wrote.

Seems to me I read something about the love of money and idiots or something like that.

My Soundtrack: My Only Swerving by El Ten Eleven on WOXY.

Mark Fiore is not an anti-semite. Jack Abramoff’s choice to appear in court wearing a Borsalino that clearly identifies him as a Modern Orthodox Jew was his own. It is already causing problems. Like the good animator that he is, Fiore chose to portray Abramoff wearing that Borsalino because it makes him instantly recognizable.

But I don’t think Fiore paused to consider who he was also making clearly recognizable and associating with this crook: people like Stephen Hirsch.

I sent the following email to Fiore this morning:

Shalom Mark,

As a long-time admirer of your work I feel compelled to write this morning about Jackopoly. As I write upfront in my blog this morning, I do not think you are an anti-Semite or in any way prejudice.

Jack Abramoff”s chose his attire for his day in court. Abramoff, a Modern Orthodox Jew, wore his Borsalino, a hat that identifies him as a Jew as clearly as a yarmulke would. It is this image that media, and you, have chosen to transform Abramoff into an icon of corruption.

My concern, of course, is that this is an icon that applies to people who have no association with corruption. In the lifetimes of many who are still with us, such associations were grounds for beatings and death.

I do not seek an apology or a retraction. What was said has been said. I would ask that in the future you consider the full implications of those things and people you choose to focus upon.

B”shalom,

Jeff Hess

My Soundtrack: Raising The Sparks by Akron/Family on WOXY.

Last week I marveled that Pat Robertson is still able to scam enough people out of their hard-earned dollars to keep himself on television and broadcasting pronouncements from his personal delusion. In this most recent case of head-in-ass he took a swipe at Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Guess what? He pissed people off.

Israel won’t do business with Pat Robertson after the evangelical leader suggested Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s massive stroke was divine punishment, a tourism official said Wednesday, putting into doubt plans to develop a large Christian tourism center in northern Israel.

Hitting Robertson in the pocket book is a great idea. Let’s see what his personal delusion tells him to do next.

My Soundtrack: Rise by Public Image Limited on WOXY.

A good friend turned me on to The Office, starring Ricky Gervais last year. Ever since I first discovered Benny Hill and Monty Python’s Flying Circus, I’ve believed that the best comedy in the world is British comedy (I mean, how can a culture that eats spotted dick for breakfast not be funny, fer chris’ sake?) Now Ricky is podcasting:

Exclusively available online from Guardian Unlimited A further 30 minutes, or thereabouts, of nonsense, courtesy of Ricky Gervais, Steve Merchant and an increasingly perplexed Karl Pilkington.

Listen whenever and wherever you want as these weekly half-hour shows are offered as handy iPod friendly digital files for up to four weeks after they’re first posted.

This last bit is a little troubling since the first two episodes have slipped off the four-weeks cliff and now I’ll have to go hunting for them.

My Soundtrack: Crooked by Wussy on WOXY.

I’d like to see someone do this in a print.

This is my keyboard, this is my gun, one is for fighting, the other for fun! I can’t hear you maggots! Or something like that. Fuzzilicisous Thinking and several other blogs received invitations from the Army to get exclusive content so that they could blog for their country. I applaud their transparency. How many bloggers are not so transparent?

This is letter that FuzzyBear Lioness and One Hand Clapping received:

From: Charlie Kondek
Sent: Friday, January 06, 2006 3:17 PM
Subject: Exclusive Contact from the Army

I”m writing from a PR firm on behalf of the U.S. Army. We”re contacting a few bloggers to test a new outlet for public information. The Army believes that military blogs are a valuable medium for reaching out to soldiers. To that end, the Army plans to offer you and selected bloggers exclusive editorial content on a few issues you”re likely to be interested in. If you do decide you are interested in receiving this material, whether you choose to write about what we send you is, of course, entirely up to you. (I notice you”ve been on a blog sabbatical for a while so am not sure where you stand there.)

Like I said, we”re only contacting a handful of bloggers at this time. If you are interested, please let me know, and we”ll send you further information as it becomes available. Either way, thanks for your time.

Charlie Kondek
Account Executive
Web Producer
Hass MS&L

Here’s a couple of questions. First, why a private public relations agency? D0esnt’ the Pentagon have enough of its own public information officers? Second, instead of seeking out friendly bloggers to filter their exclusive information through, why doesn’t the Army just post the information and let every blogger have at it? If you don’t think that last question is rhetorical, you’re not paying attention.

Don’t all U.S. Citizens have a right to this exclusive information that our tax dollars are paying for? And, oh, don’t you have to wonder how many sets of body armor the money Hass MS&L is recieving would buy?

My Soundtrack: Tangled Up In Plaid by Queens Of The Stone Age on WOXY.

The second (third?) incarnation of the diners on Lee Road in Cleveland Heights made the weekly cartoon magic of Keef Knight yesterday. I live a five-minute walk from Chris’ and Jimmy’s and I was a regular, but I’ve only eaten there a couple times since Steve Presser sold them. They seem to lack something that was once there.

A few days ago I wrote about the Republican Party and what I call the Jack Bauer factor: better to go too far than not far enough. The controversy surrounding Sherrod Brown sheds some light on this thanks to several commenters who took the time to write and reinforce my point. How would Jack Bauer have handled this?

Let me just say he would not have waited three weeks and then had one of his assistants leave a phone message.

My party is truly in trouble.

My Soundtrack: Wake Up by The Arcade Fire on WOXY.

Two generations ago this would not be an issue. President Harry Truman made it very clear to the Washington Press Corps that his daughter was off limits and that he would personally wipe the floor with any reporter who dared cross that line. But more than 50 years later the rules are blurred. Gender roles, thankfully, aren’t what they were.

Yesterday Buckeye Politics went dark and to the best of my knowledge only three people know why: blogger Tim Russo, his boss and NEO nexus George Nemeth. It may be unrelated, but what we do know is that yesterday Phillip de Vellis called George yesterday to tell him that the Meet The Bloggers interview with his boss Sherrod Brown was off.

De Vellis told George that Brown was not willing to sit down with someone who had cursed at his wife in public.

I wasn’t there and I’ve heard several different versions of the incident at the Ohio Democrat Party meeting last month but the basic facts that everyone seems to agree on are that Russo and Brown had some face time in which voices were raised, that Browns wife Connie was present and that Tim used the word fuck several times.

In Truman’s generation, saying fuck in front of someone’s wife would be grounds for getting your face punched. But what about now? How do the rules for Chivalry work today?

If a husband steps up in the defense of his wife is he being paternalistic? Is it chauvinistic to assume that your wife, who is a professional and public figure, needs your defending? Would a wife think less of her husband if he didn’t defend her honor? Is it the job of a husband to defend that honor?

Or is it the case that family is family and political correctness be damned? My take? Mess with my family and you mess with me. I don’t care what you think.

Part of the buzz floating around is that Brown has damaged his campaign by canceling the Meet The Bloggers interview. That may be true. But if any man chooses position over family, he’s no man.

My Soundtrack: Goodbye Baby by The Teenage Prayer on WOXY.

When Jack Abramoff walked out of the courthouse last week I braced myself for what was coming: claims of his gangster look. And they did come. In the Washington Post and on our own Buckeye Politics. I told Jill at Writes Like She Talks that I was waiting for the other shoe to drop because Abramoff is a shande fur de goyim.

Now it has, and Salon’s Stephen Hirsch does a good job of laying it out. In What’s In A Hat, Hirsch writes:

The picture of Jack Abramoff walking out of a federal courthouse on Tuesday wearing a distinctive fedora is by now iconic. And chances are, like Howard Fineman and Maureen Dowd, you thought he looked like a gangster. But that wasn’t my reaction. What struck me was that Abramoff was wearing my hat, a Borsalino, the ne plus ultra of Yeshiva boy caps. Tucked tight on his head, pinched even, perfectly symmetrical (if a little deep for my taste), it was immaculate.

Maybe the contrition Abramoff expressed in his statements was real. Maybe he even recited Baruch Dayan Emes, the blessing you make when you hear really bad news, after he went to court. Maybe he was wearing a yami (a diminutive yarmulke) underneath his fedora. While it’s no secret that he’s an Orthodox (if not Torah-observant, or frum) Jew, I’ve never seen a picture of him with either a Borsalino or yarmulke before. Why now?

Why now indeed? Is this Abramoff’s equivalent of a vaudevillean waving the American flag when his act flops? Or is this a case of Abramoff clutching to something comforting in a time of disaster?

My Soundtrack: Thirteen by ¡Forward, Russia! on WOXY.

A lot of us bloggers are going to descend on Talkies this Saturday. First for what promises to be the liveliest Meet The Bloggers yet with Sherwood Brown. Second, to talk about how bloggers can take part in the Ingenuity Festival this year. As a third piece, I’d like to add: staying at Talkies to watch The Witness.

The Witness is a 43-minute documentary about Eddie Lama, a construction contractor from a tough Brooklyn neighborhood who becomes an impassioned animal activist. In The Witness, Lama explains how he feared and avoided animals for most of his life, until the love of a kitten opened his heart, inspiring him to rescue abandoned animals, become a vegetarian, and ultimately, to bring his message of compassion to the streets of New York.

The documentary will be showing at Talkies on Saturday, 14 January at 6:30 p.m. Please join me there.

I know there are a lot of animal lovers among NEO bloggers. This could be a good way to show continued support for Talkies for the assistance it gives George, Bill and Tim.

My Soundtrack: When I Came Home From The Party by The Clientele on WOXY.

I love bulletin boards. While perusing my favorite in Cleveland — Que Tal on Coventry — I came across a flyer for The World Can’t Wait that calls out: Bush Step Down. The anti-Bush group is planning a number of actions across America on Tuesday, 31 January, to coincide with President George Bush’s State Of The Union Speech.

In Cleveland you can take part at Peabody’s Concert Club at 2083 E. 21st Street. The event — which will feature speakers along with music from Carlos Jones and Modern Gemorrah — is free and open to the public. Free-will donations, however, will be appreciated.

As a follow-up, the group, in conjunction with Not In Our Name, is piling people on the bus ($45 round-trip ticket required) to take its message to the White House on Saturday, 4 February.

My Soundtrack: Sleeping Beauty by Mark Eitzel on WOXY.

More Calvin And Hobbes…

Back on 28 December I wrote a post concerning Jeremy Hermanns and Alaska Air flight 536. I later posted an update to that piece about a twist in the story. This afternoon, catching up on my reading I find an even more disturbing twist via Salon’s Ask The Pilot columnist who apparently has really ticked Hermanns off.

Patrick Smith noted, as I did, that the pilots and cabin crew all performed their duties exactly as they should have and that the plane landed safely without any injury to those on board. This was an example of training paying off. Smith took exception, however, to Hermanns use of the phrases horrific and unthinkable.

Someone who knew nothing about flying might use those terms, writes Smith, but Hermanns, as a pilot himself, should have known better.

Smith attempted twice to post comments to Hermanns’ blog and twice had them removed. When he wrote to Hermanns, this is what he received in reply:

Your statements literally amazed me. This was a careless accident caused by, and not reported by, a baggage cart operator impacting the plane’s fuselage. I was unaware a foot-long hole tearing open in a fuselage at full altitude while traveling at cruise speed isn’t that serious. I hope you got paid a grip of cash to write that article. And, yes, I did delete your technical fluffery. Next time, try to address the situation at hand, not the imaginative one. Nice try, PR hack!

Ouch!

I’ve been regularly reading Smith for several years now and I’ve found his analysis of those things aviation to be reasonable and well articulated. It sounds like Hermanns is milking this for all it’s worth and doesn’t want anyone endangering his 15 minutes of fame.

My Soundtrack: Raising The Sparks by Akron/Family on WOXY.