February 23, 2018--Occupy Tallahassee

Some are prognosticating that the gun control "movement" led by survivors of last week's shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, will be short-lived.

The odds are that they are right. 

To sustain this effort would require children now ranging in age from 14 to 18 to devote themselves to it essentially full time while still enrolled in high school or when their time soon comes to attend college or for some, as members of the ROTC, are obligated to enter the army. If their cause were taken over by a formal organizational structure run by adults it would lose most of its visceral effectiveness. 

Half of Never Again's current appeal is not just the popularity of the issues these kids are insisting be addressed in Tallahassee and Washington but the fact that this is a children's crusade. Children who in their newly-imposed maturity and youthful wisdom are so amazingly good on TV and the Internet and thus are especially viable in our social-media age.

So, as CNN, MSNBC, and the New York Times move on, as they soon will, it is likely to run out of visible gas. In other words, it will no longer be as compelling and deeply moving a story as it currently is. This is inevitable.

But then again, I am reminded of another movement organized and carried out by young people which popped up unexpectedly, attracted a great following among the public and in the media, and then seemingly passed from view. 

Occupy Wall Street. 

Its outward manifestation, occupying Zuccottti Park not far from the Stock Market on Wall Street, lasted just 28 days from September 17 through November 15, 2011, but its basic message lives on. Occupy itself passed from the scene but its central message is still with us and continues to deeply affect our political discourse--the relentless economic inequality that plagues our society. The disparity in the ownership of America's wealth between the top 1% and the rest of us.

Zuccotti Park is back to normal, occupied again mainly by stock traders taking a smoking break and New York City's resilient pigeon population, but we still have lively debates about economic fairness. Bernie Sanders, for example, would not have been as viable as he turned out to be if it weren't for the issues Occupy Wall Street placed before us.

And it could be, hopefully will be, also true for Never Again. I am feeling that our discourse, such as it is, about firearms will be permanently altered. These kids and millions of others vote or will vote when they are old enough and those they have already inspired (count me among those) will keep their "common sense" issues before us and will compel candidates at the state and national levels to take their views into active consideration if they want to protect their public sinecures.

If as I sense that those as rigid and craven as Marco Rubio and Donald Trump are sounding different it may be that something new and welcome is happening thanks to those inspiring young people we have this week been getting to know.

December 17, 2014--This Is Nuts

The daughter of the chairman of Korean Air Lines recently forced a plane she was on to go back to the gate so she could have the head steward kicked off because she had been served macadamia nuts in their bag instead of on a plate. This according to the reliable New York Times.

I say "reliable" since if this story had appeared in, say, the New York Post I would have thought it preposterous, made up. Who in their right mind would do such a thing? But there you have it--Cho Hyun-ah is unlikely to have much of a mind.

This, though, is not the whole story.

While waiting for the plane to get back to the gate, Ms. Cho forced the steward to kneel before her and apologize for the way one of the cabin  crew in first class had served the nuts. There was no word about how the peanuts were served in coach.

After the incident, the steward went public which is unusual in class-bound South Korea. Not only did he tell about the kneeling but also alleged that while he was on his knees, Ms. Cho hit him repeatedly with a folder of papers before tossing them at the junior steward.

As the story spread it added to the roiling resentment in Korea toward the families who own the county's sprawling conglomerates. It appears they have their own Occupy-Wall-Street going on.

The patriarch of the Cho family, Hyun-ah's father, so concerned about the implications for his widespread business interests not only kicked his daughter off the Korean Airlines board but also stripped her of her other nepotistic no-show jobs and forced her to apologize. Not on her knees of course.

In the meantime, as fallout from the nuts incident, sales of macadamia nuts in Korean are surging to the point that merchants can't keep them on the shelves. Everyone, it seems, wants a taste of first class. Even if in bags.

November 21, 2014--Best of Behind: Black Friday

From November 25, 2012, here's a report about Black Friday. I mentioned Occupy Wall Street. Remember them? I hadn't thought about them for some time. How easy, how quickly we forget--

Every year all the newspapers and every TV station run reports about Black Friday, the day retailers hope that on their P&L statements they will finally begin to show a profit, move from the red into the black. 

The stories are always about how much sales are expected to increase over the year before, how early the stores will be opening, and then the frenzy when the doors finally are opened and shoppers--many of whom have been lined up for days--literally trample each other in a race to buy the latest flat-screen TV for 75% off.

This year, thanks to Occupy Wall Street which, if nothing else, has raised awareness about growing economic inequality, some of what is being reported includes inequalities in holiday shopping itself. Would the following have appeared even in the "liberal" New York Times--replete this time of year with ads for Tiffany and Rolex--if not for the Occupy folks?

One the front page, above the fold, under the headline, "Opening Day For Shoppers Shows Divide," the Times reports:

As the busiest retail weekend of the year began late Thursday night, the differences between how affluent and more ordinary Americans shop in the uncertain economy will be on unusually vivid display.

Budget-minded shoppers will be racing for bargains at ever-earlier hours while the rich mostly will not be bothering to leave home.

Toys “R” Us, Wal-Mart, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Best Buy and Target will start their Black Friday sales earlier than ever—at 9 and 10 p.m. Thursday night in some instances--with dirt-cheap offers intended to secure their customers’ limited dollars. A half a day later, on Friday morning, higher-end stores like Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Nordstrom will open with only a sprinkling of special sales.

The low-end and midrange retailers are risking low margins as they cut prices to attract shoppers, while executives at luxury stores say that they are actually able to sell more at full price than in recent boom years.

“We’re now into a less promotional environment than we were before the recession,“ said Stephen I. Sadove, chairman and chief executive of Saks. In the third quarter, for instance, Saks reduced the length of an annual sale to three days from four, and excluded the high-margin category of cosmetics from another regular sale.

The Times goes on to note that Neiman Marcus, via their "fantasy" catalog, which traditionally features very high-end stuff, this year, within 50 minutes, sold out of Ferraris at $395,000 each. All 10 of them.

April 1, 2104--Progressives' Dirty-Little-Secret

Here's the dirty-little-secret--

Liberals and progressives like me are actually clandestinely happy with most of George W. Bush's policies.

That's why there are no large-scale protests. Occupy Wall Street came and went in a month. The rest is silence except for the occasional New York Times editorial and the shouting and smugness that passes for political discourse on MSNBC.

With the tax season culminating in two weeks, we liberals are especially happy with what the Bush-era tax cuts have meant for us.

Demographically, progressives are more highly educated, have better jobs, and earn more money than "ordinary" conservatives. Thus, all things being equal (which they are not thanks to the previous president) we affluent lefties have disproportionately benefitted from the 2001 tax reductions that Bush promulgated (to be fair and balanced, 12 Democratic senators voted for them) and Obama reupped in 2009, with Democrats in numbers again endorsed.

On Saturday from our accountant we received our filled-out tax forms for 2013. We had a good earnings years and needed to pay a little more than in 2012. But, but, as the result of the Bush-Obama tax cuts we owed about $5,000 less than we would have had to pay under Clinton's more progressive tax polices.

Furthermore, how many liberals are out in the streets protesting cuts in food stamps and aid to education; slashes in spending for medical and science research; less available for environmental protection; cutbacks in support for women's health programs; Supreme Court decisions to allow unlimited corporate spending on political campaigns and the effective rollback of the Voting Rights Act of 1965?

We're even OK with Bush's Patriot Act and Obama's use and expansion of it since we care more about protecting our comforts than our privacy.

And, since we have an all-volunteer military and our children and grandchildren are not in danger of being drafted, much less inclined to sign up and be shipped off to Iraq or Afghanistan (or Ukraine), beyond spouting rhetoric about how awful all this is, how perfidious and hypocritical Republicans are (they are), we secretly smile when we sign our tax forms, sit back on the deck at our vacation homes, and sip Chablis while streaming House of Cards.

Hey, if these policies don't affect me directly why get all out of joint much less use Twitter as they do or did in Egypt and Venezuela and Russia to mobilize? It's cold out there, it might rain, and I might even get my head busted by an overzealous policeman.

Even if half the states so restrict abortions as to make them unavailable, we live on one or the other of the coasts--so no problem.

Actually, for the fortunate us there are few problems with anything.

February 6, 2014--The Middle Class

Finally the 1 percent or the 5 percent or the 20 percent are noticing that the middle class, what's left of it, is struggling and that is bad for them--"them" being the 1, 5, 20 percenters.

It's one thing when the economy is in almost total collapse (as it was in 2008) and how that makes it awkward for those hardly touched to live opulently. Openly opulent that is. (See below.) It's another thing, however, when the shrinking middle class and their shrinking disposable incomes are so reduced that there are no longer enough markets or customers to fuel the bottom lines of the privileged.

Now they are concerned. Concerned because a diminished middle class is bad for business and thus bad for their assets.

On the other hand, the high-end continues to do very well. "Luxury is not a dirty word anymore, reports a consultant with Robb Reports, a lifestyle magazine for wealthy readers. "In 2008, luxury was a dirty word."

No longer.

Maserati, with sales up 55 percent in 2013, is opening dealerships all across the United States and Rolls-Royce had its best, most profitable year last year. The CEO of The Collection, a luxury car dealership in Coral Gables, Florida, was recently quoted in the New York Times as saying that "People were pulling back when they had to let people go. They'd come in to buy, but it would be the same car and same model so no one knew they got a new car." Now, once again, rich buyers are apparently not having a problem flaunting it.

In 2012, the top 5 percent were responsible for 38 percent of domestic consumption, up from 28 percent seven years earlier. And since 2009, the year the Big Recession technically ended, spending by this top 5 percent of earners rose 17 percent, compared with just 1 percent by the bottom 95 percent.

And thus goods and services that have traditionally targeted the middle class are hurting. Sears and J.C. Penney, as evidence, are in dire straits. Both are in danger of going out of business. Sears is closing its Chicago flagship store and J.C. Penney recently announced it will be shuttering 33 stores and laying off 2,000 employees. Loehmann's, where generations of middle-class women clamored to buy discounted designer-label dresses is bankrupt and already out of business. As another sign of the times, high-end retailer Barneys, which moved out of its original New YorkCity store and rented the space to Loehmann's, is moving back in, feeling that the exponential growth of downtown gentrification will assure the store's success.

As bellwethers, restaurants that depend on middle-class diners are suffering. Foot traffic at Red Lobster and Olive Garden has dropped every quarter since 2005. An average meal at Olive Garden is $16.50 a person and that relatively steep ticket requires middle-class customers. And with fewer and fewer of these every year, places such as Olive Garden and Red Lobster are in trouble.

But now the affluent are worried. Not because they will soon no longer be able to get their garlic knots at Olive Garden but because its stock price is way down, as are other companies' that traditionally draw on the middle-class.

Something that I find curious is the passivity of the middle-class as they see their prospects shrinking. Unlike in the past when there were serious downturns and structural reshaping of the larger economy, this time, with the exception of the short-lived Occupy Wall Street movement and aspects of the Tea Party agenda, there is silence.

Economic downturns are common. In fact, they were so common during the late 19th century through the World War II that hard times for the majority was the norm. Also the norm were the ways in which displaced and exploited working people responded to the recessions and panics and depressions.

I've been reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's Bully Pulpit, her biography of Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and his successor and friend, William Howard Taft. From the economic tumult during their collective 11 years in office there is a lot to learn about our current troubles and how the public responded to it.

Between 1901, when Roosevelt became president after the assassination of William McKinley, and 1913, the year Woodrow Wilson took office, there were no fewer than four crises--the Recession of 1902, the Panic of 1907, the Panic of 1910, and the Recession of 1913.

And in every case, right through until the end of the Second World War (there were a total of seven severe economic downturns between 1913 and 1945), including, in 1929, the biggest Depression in American history), each recession and panic elicited direct and credible threats to the United States' economic system.

There were bomb-throwing anarchists and fierce socialists and communists who organized nationwide strikes that paralyzed entire industries from the railroads to the steel mills to the coal fields.

There were many times when our political leaders thought that unless the economy picked up, unless something was done to reform factory work and bust trusts and legislation was passed to provide the beginnings of a social safety net to take care of people falling through the cracks, unless this and more was accomplished, our very capitalist system might be overthrown. All the agitation the result of aggressive investigative journalism (an important subject in the Goodwin book) and pressure from the bottom up, very much including union activity and progressive political advocacy.

Now, again with the exception of a few months of non-violent demonstrations by Occupy Wall Street protestors, things have been preternaturally quiet.

Is there anything ticking out there? Any undercurrent of threat to the system itself?

Nothing of this sort appears to be looming on the horizon.  Perhaps, though, it things for the middle class continue to deteriorate, if they see opportunities for their children more permanently threatened, the great sleeping giant--the American people--will rise from their Barcaloungers, put aside their iPhones,  and . . .

No wonder the 5 percenters are worried.

September 30, 2013--The 99th Percentilers

As the Occupy Wall Street protesters reminded us last year, there is the one percent and then the rest of us who make up the 99 percent.

Also in New York--in Manhattan--there is another 99 percent. Actually, 99 percentilers: those 4-and 5-year-olds who score in the 99th percentile on the exam that determines whether or not (mainly not) one's toddler is admitted to the city's most competitive and prestigious private schools. Places such as Dalton, Trinity, and Horace Mann. Schools that from this early age significantly determine if junior 12 years later will be admitted to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. And after that, who knows, the Supreme Court, Wall Street, and even the White House.

New York is the town that Lake Wobegon envied--where every kid is not just above average but way, way above average. Some are even 99 percentile scorers on the Early Childhood Admission Assessment exam that up to now has been the filter that separates the anointed from the just OK.

And if your child is among the anointed, that of course means you are as well. Nothing is more affirming than that--it means you passed along your superior DNA and all the tutoring and chauffeuring from chess lessons to French lessons, from peewee soccer to peewee field hockey paid off. One's foundational work is done and all that remains is resume-building for college applications.

And bragging.

According to a report in the New York Times, here's how it feels among the wealthy in Manhattan if your child does not score in the 99th percentile--

Justine Oddo is just such a mother whose twins got into "only" the 95s. She opined, "It seemed like everyone got 99s. It was demoralizing. It made me think my kids are not as smart as the rest of the kids."

Maybe yes; maybe no. It could be that Ms. Oddo did not shell out the $200 an hour it costs to have one's child tutored for the private school admissions test.

Well aware of all the coaching and prepping, the Independent Schools Admissions Association recommended to its 140 members that they no longer use these exam scores. What to do with applicants is another story--using numbers and percentiles makes life easier than having to rely on interviews and letters of recommendation.

Yes, they do require these letters, though what a recommender would write about a youngster just out of diapers is hard to fathom.

"He's a good eater."

"She knows how to use a smart phone."

"He knows his alphabet and can count to 100."

"She can take off and put on her own snowsuit."

In the meantime, the parental celebrating continues. One couple whose daughter is a 99 percentiler threw a big catered bash for her and her dozens of best friends at their Hamptons cottage.

One guest wondered what they will do for an encore when she gets into "their school of choice."

Maybe a long weekend in Paris?