.
Let's buy out all student loans and refinance them at about 1%. We could borrow,the money from the fed at the current rate of 0% and still make some money, and the students could pay off,their debt in a reasonable period of time
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Monday, June 04, 2012
Equal Pay for Equal Work
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When I started fighting for the ERA in 1972 women were paid $.69 per hour for every $1.00 men were paid. Geez in 40 years we've pulled it up to $.77 ($.08 per hour). So at that rate how long would it take us to achieve equal pay? Check my figures but it looks like about 159 years. Women, can you wait?
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When I started fighting for the ERA in 1972 women were paid $.69 per hour for every $1.00 men were paid. Geez in 40 years we've pulled it up to $.77 ($.08 per hour). So at that rate how long would it take us to achieve equal pay? Check my figures but it looks like about 159 years. Women, can you wait?
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Sunday, June 03, 2012
Individual vs Communitarian Thinking
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We currently have a difference of opinion about individual vs communitarian thinking in our country. It is a legitimate difference and one that deserves discussion at a time when individual thinking led us to the current condition of our economy. It stems from short-term vs long-term planning.
Our economy has morphed into one where making money on money is its primary focus (short-term planning). It ensures that individuals may be able to gain wealth but ignores the infrastructure that those individuals use to do so while arguing they should not contribute equally to the maintenance of that infrastructure.
I posit that a healthier scenario would be to rebuild the broader economy, including manufacturing and service industries other than financial (long-term planning); one where all people contribute equally to, and benefit equally from, that infrastructure. And that infrastructure would include not just roads, bridges, a strong military, modern power grids, etc, but also healthcare for all, strong public education, affordable child care, and other programs that encourage and ensure that we have a strong middle class; one that spends and creates its own jobs.
What do you think?
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Monday, March 05, 2012
Equal Rights for America's Women!
America's women are fed up. It's time to demand equal rights. We've been screwed long enough & it's long past time we fought back.
I urge you to lobby your Congressmember & Senators to introduce and/or sponsor the ERA of 2012. All it has to say is:
Equality of rights under the law shall not be abridged or denied on account of gender.
If you agree with me share this with everyone you know.
I urge you to lobby your Congressmember & Senators to introduce and/or sponsor the ERA of 2012. All it has to say is:
Equality of rights under the law shall not be abridged or denied on account of gender.
If you agree with me share this with everyone you know.
Thursday, February 09, 2012
It's time this law was enforced, full stop!
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The thought of men, who are ostensibly not sexually active, dictating what sexual practices women may employ is offensive enough, but their pontification from high horses that employers must not be required to provide equal access to healthcare benefiting women (read contraception), while remaining stonily silent as those same employers provide healthcare policies that include coverage for Viagra and Cialis, is fairly dripping with irony. Depaul, America’s largest Catholic university has been complying with this law for ten years without a peep, as are many other such institutions in 28 states.
This is an issue of labor law, not religion. If a religious institution decides they don’t want to provide workers compensation, or comply with minimum wage, or child labor laws should we say, Let’s find a compromise? I think not. The administration must stand firm on behalf of America's women.
It’s time religious institutions respected the separation of church and state. It's time to enforce the healthcare law, full stop.
The thought of men, who are ostensibly not sexually active, dictating what sexual practices women may employ is offensive enough, but their pontification from high horses that employers must not be required to provide equal access to healthcare benefiting women (read contraception), while remaining stonily silent as those same employers provide healthcare policies that include coverage for Viagra and Cialis, is fairly dripping with irony. Depaul, America’s largest Catholic university has been complying with this law for ten years without a peep, as are many other such institutions in 28 states.
This is an issue of labor law, not religion. If a religious institution decides they don’t want to provide workers compensation, or comply with minimum wage, or child labor laws should we say, Let’s find a compromise? I think not. The administration must stand firm on behalf of America's women.
It’s time religious institutions respected the separation of church and state. It's time to enforce the healthcare law, full stop.
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
Elections Count!
Perhaps it is time to note that our votes do count! Just ask the voters of Ohio.
Gov. John Kasich was elected amid a Tea Party surge that brought into office people whom they thought would provide a correction to the direction of their state. Guess what, it did!
Unfortunately, Kasich indulged in overreach and yesterday Ohio's voters told him, Whoa now, Gov., when we said we wanted a correction we didn't mean we wanted over-correction.
But Gov. Kasich didn't pass SB5 (a law that would have stripped Ohio's public employees of virtually all their collective bargaining rights) by himself. The State Legislators that Buckeyes elected last year passed the bill and Kasich gladly signed it.
If this isn't a lesson in civics I don't know what is. It tells us that elections do count. It says, Pay attention to what candidates are saying, and what they mean. If they say they want to make a change, look behind that statement. What kind of change would they make?
Don't vote for a candidate simply because they promise to change your state. Be certain you are choosing a candidate who will bring the kind of change that will benefit you and your state.
Remember, elections count!
Gov. John Kasich was elected amid a Tea Party surge that brought into office people whom they thought would provide a correction to the direction of their state. Guess what, it did!
Unfortunately, Kasich indulged in overreach and yesterday Ohio's voters told him, Whoa now, Gov., when we said we wanted a correction we didn't mean we wanted over-correction.
But Gov. Kasich didn't pass SB5 (a law that would have stripped Ohio's public employees of virtually all their collective bargaining rights) by himself. The State Legislators that Buckeyes elected last year passed the bill and Kasich gladly signed it.
If this isn't a lesson in civics I don't know what is. It tells us that elections do count. It says, Pay attention to what candidates are saying, and what they mean. If they say they want to make a change, look behind that statement. What kind of change would they make?
Don't vote for a candidate simply because they promise to change your state. Be certain you are choosing a candidate who will bring the kind of change that will benefit you and your state.
Remember, elections count!
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Gun Backers Seek Law Allowing Weapons at Work
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How safe would you feel knowing that your co-workers could legally bring guns to work? Well, that’s just what the NRA wants.
Last year Indiana’s Gov. Mitch Daniels signed into law a measure that bans employers from telling their workers that they cannot have guns in their cars while at work. Indiana is just one of 13 states that have granted such rights to employees. “Bring your gun to work” or “parking lot” laws originated partly from the 2008 landmark Supreme Court ruling that struck down Washington DC’s handgun ban.
The Indiana law was signed just two weeks after Edgar Tillery went to his employer’s parking lot, grabbed a gun from his parked car, and came back inside firing. Why? Because he had been told by his supervisor at the Indiana Workforce Development Dept that his performance as an auditor was subpar, and that he should shape up or consider resigning. Fortunately the gun jammed, and no one was hurt. But how could any rational personal learn of such an incident and conclude that every employee should be permitted to bring a gun to work?
Well it gets even weirder. After Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-AZ was attacked in Tucson, in January, leaving six dead and several injured (including Giffords), gun rights advocates rushed to push for BROADER rights reasoning, “People see an incident like this and they think, ‘They’re going to take our guns. We better get every law we can,’” said Ladd Everitt, a spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence in Washington. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. According to the Legal Community Against Violence, a public interest law center in San Francisco, 33 of 37 bills introduced in 16 state legislatures this year involve guns on company property, 33 of them coming after the Tucson attack.
All that in spite of research data clearly showing that just the opposite is called for: Workplaces that allowed guns were about five times more likely to experience a homicide as those where all weapons were banned, according to a May 2005 report in the American Journal of Public Health that analyzed North Carolina employers. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics says workplace shootings caused 420 deaths in 2009 and 421 in 2008.
So where’s the logic in the NRA insisting that workers be allowed to sue their employers for even asking about firearms in vehicles? Both Indiana and North Dakota saw measures proposed this year that champion just such legislation.
“This is spelled out in our Constitution,” says Indiana Sen. Johnny Nugent, a Republican (surprise!) from Lawrenceburg who serves on the NRA board of directors and wrote the pending Indiana bill. “People have a right to defend themselves.”
And the rest of the civilized world wonders why so many people are killed every year in the United States. Well now we know.
Source material from the San Francisco Chronicle Business Section, Monday, April 4, 2011
How safe would you feel knowing that your co-workers could legally bring guns to work? Well, that’s just what the NRA wants.
Last year Indiana’s Gov. Mitch Daniels signed into law a measure that bans employers from telling their workers that they cannot have guns in their cars while at work. Indiana is just one of 13 states that have granted such rights to employees. “Bring your gun to work” or “parking lot” laws originated partly from the 2008 landmark Supreme Court ruling that struck down Washington DC’s handgun ban.
The Indiana law was signed just two weeks after Edgar Tillery went to his employer’s parking lot, grabbed a gun from his parked car, and came back inside firing. Why? Because he had been told by his supervisor at the Indiana Workforce Development Dept that his performance as an auditor was subpar, and that he should shape up or consider resigning. Fortunately the gun jammed, and no one was hurt. But how could any rational personal learn of such an incident and conclude that every employee should be permitted to bring a gun to work?
Well it gets even weirder. After Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-AZ was attacked in Tucson, in January, leaving six dead and several injured (including Giffords), gun rights advocates rushed to push for BROADER rights reasoning, “People see an incident like this and they think, ‘They’re going to take our guns. We better get every law we can,’” said Ladd Everitt, a spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence in Washington. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. According to the Legal Community Against Violence, a public interest law center in San Francisco, 33 of 37 bills introduced in 16 state legislatures this year involve guns on company property, 33 of them coming after the Tucson attack.
All that in spite of research data clearly showing that just the opposite is called for: Workplaces that allowed guns were about five times more likely to experience a homicide as those where all weapons were banned, according to a May 2005 report in the American Journal of Public Health that analyzed North Carolina employers. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics says workplace shootings caused 420 deaths in 2009 and 421 in 2008.
So where’s the logic in the NRA insisting that workers be allowed to sue their employers for even asking about firearms in vehicles? Both Indiana and North Dakota saw measures proposed this year that champion just such legislation.
“This is spelled out in our Constitution,” says Indiana Sen. Johnny Nugent, a Republican (surprise!) from Lawrenceburg who serves on the NRA board of directors and wrote the pending Indiana bill. “People have a right to defend themselves.”
And the rest of the civilized world wonders why so many people are killed every year in the United States. Well now we know.
Source material from the San Francisco Chronicle Business Section, Monday, April 4, 2011
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