"Where did our wages go?"

Discontent of the Electorate

Driving Movement to the Fringe

They are still asking "Why?" Why is it that Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee for President of the United States while Bernie Sanders is giving Hilary Clinton a run for her money." I continue here to provide at least one answer. Keep this answer in mind when you think about how you will vote in the election. Keep in mind who or what is more responsible for wealth inequality in our country. And by all means, get out there and VOTE.

Reliable statistics support the conclusion that 80% of the workers

in this country are either voicing or have quietly eating away at them the belief that their take home pay today gets them no further than it did any number of years ago. We could go back even thirty years and that would be a fact.

In 2014 the Pew Research Center reported, "...for most US workers, real wages - that is, after inflation is taken into account - have been flat or even falling for decades, regardless of whether the economy has been adding or subtracting jobs." 2014 wages had the same purchasing power as 1979.

In 2014 Fortune Magazine published an article entitled Wealth Inequality in America: It's Worse Than You Think written by Chris Matthews. Extrapolating from the Pew statistics he wrote, "In real terms average wages peaked more than 40 years ago: the $4.03 an hour average rate recorded in 1973 had the same purchasing power as $22.41 [an hour average] would today."

Since the year 2000 weekly wages have fallen 3.7% on average with the lowest 10% of wage earners experiencing a 3% decrease while the top 10% enjoyed an increase of 9.7%.

Matthews went on to report statistics compiled by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of the London School of Economics. They reveal that while the share of total income of the top 1% of earners was 10% of all American wages in the 1970s, it now exceeds 20% of the total of earned wages in the US.

In terms of net family assets the top 1% includes 160,00 families each with total net assets of 20 million dollars or more. Meaning that the top 1% own more than that the 145 million families in the following 99%. As bad as the wage inequality reported may be, asset inequality is ten times worse statistically.

Why has the inequality of wages and assets increased? Saez and Sucman offer a few reasons:

Trend of making taxes less progressive since the 1970s

Changing job market (loss of manufacturing and trade agreements) forcing blue collar workers to compete with cheaper labor abroad

Deregulation of financial institutions making it easier for families and individuals to accumulate debt

Stagnant wage growth

Decreasing savings rate of the middle class

After citing the social repercussions of these disparities, Matthew's concludes: "In other words there's evidence that rising inequality and many other intractable social problems are related. Not only is rising inequality bad for business, it's bad for society too."

AND NOW, on to the Presidential Election

They Just Don't Get It

Political Commentary


The Electorate is Angry - Is It Any Wonder


How can political operatives and pundits continue to express their incomprehension of voter angst expressed in the astonishing rise of Donald Trump. Clearly they are not students of history nor, in spite of their professional positions, students of political science. In addition, they make it abundantly clear that they have no awareness of the plight of a diminishing middle class and and the resulting growth of the underclass living in poverty in our country. How can they not see it?

Recently quoted in a New York Time editorial was a Republical insider with roots in the Regan administration who stated, " I have never seen us to thoroughly screwed up." Another party official said, " Maybe we really do need time in the wilderness to figure out what we don't get about our own voters."  Time in the wilderness? How about time on Main Street with people who feel like they are getting nowhere and slogging through increasingly threatening seas?

Here are some statistics which they need to memorize as informative context for any deliberation concerning what has happened to their party and, much more importantly, to our citizens.

In 2012 the mean income of the top 10% of household wealth in the country was $1,318,000.
In 2012 the mean income of the bottom 40% of households was $17,300.

In 2010 1% of the population held 35.4% of all privately held wealth in the US.
The next 19% owned 53.5% of all privately held wealth in the US.
That means that 20% of the population owned 89% of all privately held wealth in the country.
Which in turn means that 11% of the wealth was left for the remaining 80% of the people.

In 1983 the bottom 80% of the population owned 18.7% of the privately held wealth.
In 2010 the bottom 80% held only 11.1%

More information about the top 10%:
The top 10% own 35% of all stock, 64.4% of financial securities, 63.4% of business equity.

In 2010, the bottom 90% of the population owned only 12% of the total investment assets in this country.

So the vast majority of our citizens feel as if they reside in the bottom of the toothpaste tube, having
had all they worked so hard to attain or guarantee slowly but surely squeezed out of their lives.

Next I will report about the changes in real income among the vast majority of citizens since 1980. The bottom line will be that none but the very wealthy have gotten ahead.

Voting, Your Right

Register to Vote

Much on my mind these last weeks has been how I might speak out concerning the current political climate in our country - it is a situation that seriously threatens our system of government and constitutional democracy. There is historical record of the disastrous consequences which can come to pass when citizens have not spoken out due to the mistaken judgement that "surely this aberration will go away". That is magical thinking.

ALL OF US MUST VOTE IN THE NEXT ELECTION. Registered voters who declare themselves for a particular party can vote in the NY State Primary Election on April 19. You must be registered by March 25 - this coming Friday - in order to vote in the primary. Applications mailed in must be postmarked by midnight on the 25th. You can register on line at https://www.pdffiller.com/6963321-v... can also register via the Department of Motor Vehicles Website.

My appeal is that you exercise your right to vote. Many, many have died to protect your right to do so in a free and democratic society. Do not dismiss the meaning of their sacrifice.

A Sunday Op-Ed Piece

Spawn of the GOP

Yesterday, at the end of an unusually balmy February day, a friend posted on Facebook, "60 degrees and Trump - the end times?" Yes, it is that kind of spooky. Shedding the heavy winter coat and enjoying the sunshine was a treat but we all know that it only serves to predict the sure arrival of much less pleasant and even disastrous effects of climate change. What is similarly disturbing about Donald Trump's win in South Carolina? Beyond spooky and downright frightening is that the Republican Party has created its own Frankenstein, a shocking monster resulting from their  manipulation of American minds.

The Grand Old Party has long pursued the program of dupping the people. They have spewed forth fear mongering; fear of the other, the immigrant, the undeserving poor; fear of an undefended position of power and masculinity betrayed by efforts to arrive at concensus through compromise; fear of the Black man, especially the one elected by the people to hold the office of president. All of this, plus their sabre rattling calling for all out war in any area of the world that threatens our interests, has been a calculated distraction for the American  mind. It is a slight of hand trick directed at the fearful, the greedy, the insecure. Its purpose is to distract from the real causes of income inequality, a shrinking middle class, the persistence of poverty, job insecurity, crumbling infrastructure, etc., etc. And distract they must because the real solutions to these problems would negatively effect the private interests of coorporations, monopolies, and stockholders.

But something has gone horribly wrong for them. Imagine the conversations in their closed door meetings? Their message has worked so well that it has allowed for the rise of an extremist beyond their imagining. It has been said, "Be careful about what you pray for." They have gotten Donald Trump! His successes are reminiscent of Hitler's rise in a demoralized, inflation strapped, humiliated German society. My own grandparents fled this circumstance in 1928. Adolph Hilter was democratically elected in the most sophisticated and intellectual society in the world. And we all know what that Frankenstein monster wrought in the world.

Saturday Afternoon Opera

A Lifelong Companion

For many, even those who enjoy classical music, opera is a yet to be acquired taste in music. Remember Tony Randall of "The Odd Couple" and way earlier "Mr. Peepers" fame on TV? He was an opera lover of the first order even to being one of the expert panelists during the Opera Quiz intermission feature of the Saturday afternoon Metropolitan Opera broadcasts. He did not discover opera until in his early 20s when my father, his unit buddy in the U.S. Army Air Corps stationed on Guam during World War II, challenged him to put aside his Beethoven and "try some really great stuff"; to join him in listening to a recording of Puccini's La Boheme. The rest is history.

Opera was not a taste I had to acquire over time. Rather, it was in the air I breathed from the very beginning. My first memory of listening to records at home comes from around 1952 when my parents purchased a Magnavox TV console which also included a radio and a turn table. In 1990 my father converted it into a cabinet for his stereo and later his CD player. Two recordings stand out in memory; the cast recording of South Pacific ( Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza) and Lily Pons' 78 rpm recording of the Mad Scene from the opera "Lucia di Lammermoor" with the Bell Song from "Lakme" on the flip side.  Pretty interesting combination, isn't it. My father's tastes were very eclectic.

Early on I was introduced to the very best, not at the opera house but by recordings and the Saturday afternoon Met broadcasts on the radio. Wherever my father was at that time his radio was tuned into WQXR with Milton Cross mellifluously giving a synopsis of each act and offering commentary. Occasionally Saturday afternoon might find me in my uncle's Buick sitting next to my Aunt Millie and begging her to tell the story of what ever Met opera was coming through the car radio. I listened to these opera lovers rate performances and compare singers. Soon I learned what to listen for and who I should be sure to hear.

Each year I check the Met broadcast schedule for the season and try to plan Saturdays based on the days of performances of favorite operas or singers. Yesterday was the regular "Cav/Pag" double header of two short operas, "Cavalleria Rusticana" by Pietro Mascagni and "Il Pagliacci" by Ruggero Leoncavallo. Yesterday I planned my long trip to visit my mother in a Brewster nursing home around the first half of the broadcast. "Cavalleria Rusticana" set in a Sicilian village and sung with a libretto true to the Sicilian dialect with which I am so familiar.

This opera is a small gem. The melodies are moving and soaring communicating beauty in a bucolic countryside, passionate love, religious devotion in Easter morning worship, destruction wrought by jealousy, and prayer of utter despair. The opera also sports a huge chorus which is used to full effect.

I few years ago I discovered a You Tube video of Franco Zefferelli's film production of the opera featuring Domingo, Obraztsova, Bruson and Pretre. It was filmed largely out doors in an Italian village. In this way the way film builds upon what is called the "verismo" quality of the opera which provides for a portrayal of Sicilian culture and customs with great realism. It is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeQBY_ZpejI. The technical quality of the film does leave a great deal to be desired but the music and the singing is great. But what makes it even more special are the visuals of the village and Sicilian customs of the period. This may be a small sip that will begin your process of acquiring a 'taste' for this evocative art form.

Note: Link to a synopsis of "Cavalleria Rusticana" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalleria_rusticana