12.28.17
The Republicans finally passed a tax bill called the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act”, aka: TCJA. This passed right along party lines in both the senate and in the house, how unusual. The Republicans say it will stimulate the economy and create a gazillion dollars in new revenue, taxes and income for Americans. The Democrats say it will only benefit the rich and will hurt working Americans and the poor. Of course Donald Trump calls the tax bill “great” and Nancy Pelosi called it “Armageddon”. Sounds like a lot of BS from both. There has already been more about this in the news than anyone can dissect. This new law lowers the corporate tax rate to 21%, and gives about a 2% to 3% reduction in personal income taxes to all but the first $9.5K ($19K if married) in income. The average working American will pay about $2,000 less in taxes annually but that is the average of all income brackets, and the reduction percentage is about the same throughout all income ranges. The fact is that 2% of a $1,000,000 annual salary is a whole lot more than 2% of a $40,000 annual salary. When you combine the lower income tax with the new deductions for pass through businesses and LLC’s then it becomes obvious that this law has much greater benefits for the rich than for the middle class.
If this bill is going to succeed in growing the economy the way the Republicans claim it will then Corporate America will need to show some economic patriotism by using most of their new found wealth to grow their companies, create jobs and raise wages. About 2 dozen major corporations, including Comcast, AT&T, Sinclair, have already started returning money to their employees in the forms of higher wages and bonuses, but several major corporations including Cisco, Pfizer, Amgen and Coca-Cola have stated that they will primarily use the tax savings for stock buy-backs and dividends to shareholders. I wonder how much of those tax savings will be raises and bonuses for the CEO’s and Directors of those companies.
I guess only time will tell if this is actually a bill that benefits the working men and women of America.
12.16.17
After my last rant about women’s rights a few days ago I did some more research on abuse of women world wide. I came across The Global Slavery Index. This has so much sad and horrifying information that it is frightening. The web site does a very detailed, objective, unbiased study of slavery world wide and has features that quickly let you see the problem of slavery by country or region.
Some notable information from this study –
”The Index ranks the 167 most populous countries; their combined populations equalling 99 percent of the total world population. This research incorporates data from standardised nationally representative random sample surveys on modern slavery, including forced marriage, for 25 countries which represent about 44 percent of the world population.
In the third edition of the Index, an estimated 45.8 million people are subjected to some form of modern slavery.
45.8 million is about 0.65% of the 2016 world population of approximately 7 billion.”
Slavery stat’s for a few of the countries in the index –
U.S.A. 57,700 living in modern slavery (0.018% of the population of 320,821,000)
India 18,354,700 living in modern slavery (1.403% of the population of 1,311,051,000)
Russia 1,048,500 living in modern slavery (0.732% of the population of 143,335,000)
China 3,388,400 living in modern slavery (0.247% of the population of 1,371,738,000)
North Korea 1,100,000 living in modern slavery (4.373% of the population of 25,155,000)
Indonesia 736,100 living in modern slavery (0.286% of the population of 257,564,000)
Philippeans 401,000 living in modern slavery (0.398% of the population of 100.699,000)
Uzbekistan 1,236,600 living in modern slavery (3.973% of a population of 31,125,000)
Some observations and some frightening math –
• The U.S. is tied with 16 other countries for the lowest per capata rate of slavery in the world with a per capata rate of 0.018%. That is slightly less than 2 people in 10,000 enslaved. All the others with that same rate are western European countries except Australia, New Zealand and Canada. It is worth noting that the per capata slavery rate for the U.S. with over 320 million people is the same as tiny Luxemborg with a population of just over half a million.
• The only other country with less than 0.10% of their population living in modern slavery is Brazil at 0.078%. That means that out of the 167 countries in the study 150 of them have more than 1 person living in slavery for every 1,000 people in their country.
• Uzbekistan and North Korea, the 2 countries with the highest per capata rates of slavery have 1 person living in modern slavery for approximately every 25 people in their country.
• India is far and away has the most slaves by number with over 18 million people in India living in slavery, about 14 people enslaved for every 1000 Indian citizens. It seems amazing that a country that produces many well educated people and has command of nuclear weapons still tolerates slavery to that extent.
• Of the 20 countries with the highest per capata enslaved population 7 are in Africa, 7 are in the Middle East, 3 are in Asia and 2 are in the Caribbean (Haiti and the Dominican Republic, shareing the same island)
I found a slightly numerically different breakdown of global slavery on AntiSlavery.org which shows these statistics –
There are estimated 40.3 million people in modern slavery around the world, including:
10 million children
24.9 million people in forced labour
15.4 million people in forced marriage
4.8 million people in forced sexual exploitation
These numbers are sickening. 40+ million human beings forced to live as slaves. Many of them women and children used as sex slaves and prostitutes … and our news media just ignores these atrocities. Yet the talking heads on TV will proudly proclaim that their party (whichever it is depending on who you are watching) is “taking the moral high ground” or “doing the right thing” when they condemn Donald Trump or Al Franken or Bill O’Rilley or whoever it will be next week for groping or sexual innuendos or whatever. Yes, they deserve to be condemned for what they have done. There should be no place for that behavior in our society. Yes, I realize some of the charges are more serious than just groping, and for those actions they should be criminally punished. But let’s pay some attention to where the truly evil, vile, life destroying sexual and human rights abuses are happening. Yet our news media will never do that, as publicizing worldwide slavery does not get them ratings from the many extremists in their viewing audience. Yes, I realize that very open minded, moderate people also watch political talk shows, but the talking heads and their core audience, either on the left or the right, are way to hung up on their own political agendas to really care about human rights. Even though the mainstream media has the power to publicize and expose these gross human horrors they will not do it. Even though they have the power to inform the nation and perhaps raise a voice for change they will not. They will spend hundreds of hours talking about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and Russia and “the wall” and Flynn and Weinstein and Dreamers and bla bla bla but never mention that women are being sold as sex slaves daily. To the Party Nazi’s and the TV talking heads “human rights” and “women’s rights” are just shallow talking points to fill their own pockets and to further their own political/cultural/economic agendas.
12.12.17
The number of ongoing allegations of sexual assault and harassment against various high profile personalities continues to mount. The list includes our President, various senators, congressmen and other politicians, TV personalities, actors, big shots in the entertainment industry, big shots in many other industries, athletes, comedians, and on and on and on….
It would be nice if this new wave of openness and disclosure would put a stop to the bigotry and sexual abuse that has plagued women for way to long. But the problem goes much deeper than just a list of well known VIP’s. The problem is systemic throughout the world. Despite how atrocious many of the men in our culture have treated women here in America I believe that the average American male is respectful of women individually and in general. However I cannot say the same for the huge majority of this planet. This statement is in no way intended to defend or minimize any of the actions that have been in the news lately, but it is made to draw attention to how women are mistreated and abused world wide.
Our media outlets, be it print or video or digital or radio, are more interested in using sexual assault accusations to to get ratings and further their own political/social agendas than they are about dealing with the real issues. The TV news outlets can talk for hours about Harvey Weinstein or Ray Moore or Al Franken but they have no problem ignoring the day to day abuse of the thousands of women annually forced into prostitution. They rant about Andrew Kreisberg or Russell Simmons but never mention how many women are killed annually in countries where they are nothing more than property, or for that matter right here in the United States in the sex slave trade or by domestic violence or during sexual assault. It seems that they can babble forever about John Conyers or Roger Ailes but almost ignore the fact that 1,200 German women were sexually assaulted last New Years eve by an estimated 2,000 immigrants.
On July 11, 2017 The Washing Post wrote on this event. To quote parts of the article:
Leaked document says 2,000 men allegedly assaulted 1,200 German women on New Year’s Eve…
Authorities now think that on New Year’s Eve, more than 1,200 women were sexually assaulted in various German cities, including more than 600 in Cologne and about 400 in Hamburg…
More than 2,000 men were allegedly involved, and 120 suspects — about half of them foreign nationals who had only recently arrived in Germany — have been identified…
Officials have linked the sexual assaults to the influx of refugees. “There is a connection between the emergence of this phenomenon and the rapid migration in 2015,” Holger Münch, president of the German Federal Crime Police Office, told Sueddeutsche Zeitung….
Think about that, 1,200 sexual assaults in one night, done by gangs totaling a couple thousand middle eastern citizens and immigrants. This is not something that happened on impulse, or even a crime of opportunity. To get 2,000 men doing the same thing at the same time takes long term planning and organization. This is organized gang rape on a mass scale. Yet the German press and government attempted to hide this (see the WP article “Why it took half a year for the full extent of the New Year’s Eve assaults in Germany to be known”), and our press only gave it a passing notice when it finally became public six months after it happened. A couple news organizations here in the U.S. that support immigration without vetting tried to ignore the story completely. Yet they all act so enraged and offended at Louis C.K. or Bill O’Rilley. How much more hypocritical can they get?
Oh yea, the reason this information had to leak out six months after the fact, the reason that the German government did not disclose all the facts on this atrocity, is that they did not want to arouse “anti-immigrant sentiment”.
Really?? So they think it’s ok to try to hide the fact that 1,200 women were brutally sexually assaulted in one night but it’s not ok to state information about their attackers and rapists? Really??
The last time the German government suppressed information about such abuses to one segment of it’s population by another part of it’s population it was known as the Third Reich. I wonder if the government officials that set the stage for this horrible barbarity are proud of themselves. I wonder if the government officials that felt it unnecessary to perform through vetting of immigrants are the same ones that suppressed the information about the sexual assaults. I wonder how the German women that were raped feel about those officials.
Let us hope that what we are seeing here in America is only the tip of the iceberg, and that the people of the world will begin to stand up for women’s rights and safety. Unfortunately that will probably be a long time coming in parts of the world where women are considered second class citizens, and often nothing more than property to be used and abused as any man sees fit.