Fear and loathing at the State of the Union


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Life is easy in a fake democracy
Life is easy in a fake democracy

The Big “O” immediately tested my resolve by addressing the People as the post 9/11 generation, a tip of the hat to George Bush’s “the world is a battlefield” legacy. Have no fear my fellow Americans, the war machine economy is going ahead with a head full of steam – or gas, as the case may be – and we have the drones to prove it.

Reporting for (Wall Street) duty, the CEO of USA Inc. touted huge earnings and covered the the corporate chiefs who reaped them by crediting the almost non-existent market regulation, all fueled by the fossil fuel fracking extravaganza, as part of his success.

Ever the realist, the president acknowledged that global warming was real and man-made. But have no fear, in the event we make this world uninhabitable, we’re also developing a space program so at least some of us can move to Mars. In the meantime, he promised yet another Wall Street bubble will lift up those living in extreme poverty in other countries just enough to become consumers so the corporations can pursue the expansion economy.

After singing Hosannas to middle class families pulling themselves up by there bootstraps, Mr. Prez dangled a prize the recalcitrant opposition Republican congress couldn’t “just say no” to – the so called trans-Pacific Partnership. He waxed poetic on how this would kick the economic war with cyberspace dimensions with China into high gear, turning the developing world into the next generation of consumer/debtors since they will have tapped out the American one.

This is especially necessary since we put the Russian economy into a tailspin. Unlike Bush, Barack didn’t look into Putins soul and see a good man. With hand wringing sincerity, the salesman-in-chief claimed that the TTP wouldn’t be like the old free trade bills that exported our jobs, trashed the environment while it reinforced the mass migration trends caused by climate change. No, flashing his famous billion dollar smile, he looked the camera in the eye promising that this is “a new and improved” one, which will make the world safe for multinational corporations to build their empires as super-citizens who are above the law…

For the refugees here already, “Barack the Deliverer” promised some immigration deform a sort of indentured servitude as a soldier for Citizenship” by executive order. He could just stop deportations but that wouldn’t let the Republicans know who was boss and after all, we need soldiers to die in the war on terror, right?

As a reminder the birthers, he talked about his father who fought in the “Great War” WWII. Showing he was as gung ho for war as any Republican, then Obama shook the Al Quida voodoo doll which was wearing a Charlie Hebdo t-shirt, promising to stand with Israel no matter what they do, making the good well behaved Muslim majority watch as they bomb the their homeland back into the stone age with a remote control war hitting them where it hurts – at their family gatherings and in their villages. But this is a new improved war on terror, one without those messy torturers who put their trophies on Facebook inspiring a generation of Jihadists, or kidnapping “those who were reasonably suspicious” and imprisoning them in expensive human rights public relations disaster called GITMO. This one will be sanitized and profitable, legalized by the global corportocracy, signed and sealed by Neo-liberal Democrats and approved by the great god called who rules us all-money paid for the by the taxpayer under the banner of the “Good War on ISIL.”- a masterstroke.

However, since it was just MLK Day, he had to mention the uprisings against the racists police state in Ferguson and NY, saying he “felt their pain”- qualifying it with just as he did fell for the wives of enforcers whose lives that the unruly ghetto trash were threatening into killing out of fear for their lives.

To make sure the remnants of the left called Pprogressive Democrats wouldn’t raise a ruckus, there was an actual gain that cost nothing. He reminded everyone he had lifted the useless half a century old embargo on Cuba- so take your Che Guevara poster and shove it. And, since we have Cubans living in Miami which is sinking from global warming so we will have to put them somewhere, it was another win.

Then he chewed on the left wing populous fat- a free community college plan with a vague student debt forgiveness plan, which potentially staves off a mostly white student riot- the Machiavellian political master assured that he won’t get hoisted out on his petard like Tricky Dick did. But he wasn’t done with the dream machine. Like confetti came the promises- partial middle class daycare tax break, equal pay for women, a whole $10.10 MINIMUM wage to live on, mumbling about taxing the rich (another popular idea) that if history repeats itself he won’t fight for, and announcing no plans like a TransactionTax or regulating derivatives as gambling to pay for it .

Then Big Daddy pointed to the more popular Obama, Michelle, and bragged that even his wife knew how to get things done better than this do nothing party, having sewn up powerful Pentagon connection with a veterans program that she and grinning Joe Biden’s wife “Jill the cheerleader’ put together. And, just to make sure the Republicans knew he wasn’t a lame duck, in the “bring it on” spirit, Obama taunted the Republicans by crowing that THEY would be not be going back and screwing with Obamacare, which had made America safe for the Health Insurance industry which was rebuilding a new middle class, albeit a poorer one, and he had been elected twice to do it so they can go pound sand.

Only In America.

CVS is no corporate saint when it comes to employee pay


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cvsAs President Obama lays out his tax plan for addressing income inequality in tonight’s State of the Union speech, in the first lady’s VIP box will sit a poster child for excessive CEO pay – Rhode Island resident and CVS CEO Larry Merlo.

Merlo got the invite thanks to the fantastic corporate example the Rhode Island-based pharmacy chain set when it stopped selling tobacco products.

“Last year, CVS Caremark President and CEO Larry Merlo announced that CVS would be the first major retail pharmacy to eliminate tobacco sales in all of its stores,” according to a White House item about CVS and Merlo. “Soon after, the company changed its corporate name to CVS Health — a symbol of the organization’s broader commitment to public health.”

CVS certainly deserves tons of applause for this. But CVS has far from warranted corporate sainthood based on the way it pays employees.

Merlo makes $22 million a year, according to CNN Money. He’s the 8th highest paid CEO in America. And he’s number 1 when it comes to making more more than his or her underlings.

“CVS has the greatest disparity between CEO pay and the median wage of its employees among the 100 highest-grossing companies in the U.S.,” Fortune Magazine reports. “You would have to combine the wages of more than 400 CVS Caremark employees to match the salary of the company’s CEO, Larry Merlo.”

On the other end of the salary spectrum at CVS, some low wage employees say annual raises were denied this year to absorb the cost of an increase to the minimum wage. “Salary increases are based on market-based rates and the individual performance of employees, said CVS spokesman Mike DeAngelis when asked about the allegation. “The increase to Rhode Island’s minimum wage does not change this.”

The median CVS employee earns $28,000 a year, according to Fortune Magazine (DeAngelis did not immediately respond to an email yesterday seeking more exact numbers). According to the Economic Progress Institute, this is about $4,000 a year more than a single adult needs to survive in Rhode Island and $31,000 less than a single parent of two would need to pay their basic living expenses.

CVS can and should do better than this.

Like selling cigarettes, there is money to be made by paying employees a pittance. But there’s also very real, if sometimes latent, negative social costs in doing so. For example, we know many CVS employees will require social services to augment their low wages. And we also know low wages lead to poor health decisions.

Most fortunately, CVS has balked at profiteering on activity with a negative social impact. “This is the right thing to do,” said CVS when it stopped selling tobacco products. Just two years after severing its ties to ALEC, this is a hugely promising step for the Woonsocket-based corporation.

Paying a living wage to all employees is also the right thing to do. Let’s hope Michelle Obama impresses upon Merlo that economic security is also an important function of community health as well.

Raising the minimum wage creates partisan divide


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housing minimum wage graphicLast week in his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama called on both Chambers of Congress to either work with him to move the country forward or forcing him to use his presidential powers to enact  policy. 

He rattled off dozens of policy initiatives for Congress to consider this session, including immigration, emergency unemployment, manufacturing, trade, environment, education, closing Guantanamo Bay, closing tax loop holes, job training, family policies, and retirement savings. But the President also called for an increase in the nation’s minimum wage to provide America’s worker’s a living wage.

The president used his speech as a very visible bully pulpit to call on states to not wait for Congressional action to give people a living wage.

Although creating jobs will be one of the top campaign issues that must be addressed by the state’s gubernatorial candidates (Clay Pell was not available for comment by press time), look for the minimum wage issue to pop up for political discussion with the Democratic and Republican views being like two sides of a coin. 

When he announced his bid for governor, Mayor Taveras he told his supporters that increasing the minimum wage is a step in building an economy that supports higher paying jobs, puts people back to work and gives Rhode Island families the opportunity for a better life. There was a time when his mother worked at the minimum wage to support three children so he knows firsthand how much raising it can help a family, he stated. He is also pushing for statewide universal pre-kindergarten.

Tarveras quoted from a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute that indicated that increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour would increase the wages of 65,000 Rhode Island workers and indirectly benefit an additional 26,000 more, totaling nearly 20 percent of the work force.  He cited another study that found that moving to a higher wage would boost the national economy by as much as $22.1 billion, creating as many as 85,000 new jobs.”

“I’m a Democrat who believes in raising the minimum wage and indexing it with regular cost of living adjustments,” noted Treasurer Gina Raimondo, in her announcement to run for Governor at Hope Artiste Village in Pawtucket.

According to Eric Hyers, Gina Raimondo’s Campaign Manager, “Gina strongly believes that we need to increase the minimum wage and she was pleased to see President Obama call for increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour during the State of the Union this week.  No one who works full time should live in poverty.  As the President said, it is time to give America a raise.”

“But let’s not wait for a dysfunctional Congress to act; we can take action right here in Rhode Island,” Hyers said.

“Gina is calling for us to take action on this now and raise the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2015 and then index it to the cost of living so that politicians can’t play games with people’s lives. Two-thirds of minimum wage earners are women so a raise would immediately help women across Rhode Island and their families, adds Hyer, noting that people are really struggling and there is an urgency to help out working families.

Meanwhile, “Clay [Pell] is in favor of increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour and does not see a reason to delay this matter until 2018 or 2015. He would be in favor of the General Assembly passing legislation this year. Too many Rhode Islanders are working in jobs at wages that are simply insufficient and no individual who works a full time job should have to raise their family in poverty. There’s an economic development aspect to this as well, by raising the minimum wage we’re putting more purchasing power out there, which will help spur the economy,” said Bill Fischer, Pell’s spokesperson.

General Contractor Todd Giroux, a Bristol resident who seeks the Democratic nomination for Governor, sees the national conversation of increasing the minimum wage as shifting towards that of providing America’s workers with living wage.  According to Giroux, President Obama’s call for a national minimum wage increase for federal contractors increases the “momentum for main street people to call upon elected leaders to represent their needs in jobs and wage security.”

Beginning May 2014, Giroux proposes the $ 8.00 minimum wage to be called a provisional starting wage for new hires for the first two weeks of employment.  This hourly rate would increase to $ 9.11 after their second week. On January 2015, the provisional starting wage would be $ 8.75 for the first two weeks of employment, increasing to $10 per hour after their second week.  Full-time, part-time and seasonal workers would be eligible for this salary increase.

Giroux believes the only way to effect a livable wage is to lower a person’s tax burden and increase the state’s mandated minimum wage.The Public Utilities Commissions’ thirty percent increase in the cost of utilities, combined with rising fuel, housing expenses and food work against any [political] argument on increasing the minimum wage, Giroux says.

But the Rhode Island’s GOP candidates, Cranston Mayor Allan Fung and businessman Ken Block, are not buying the Democratic candidate’s solution that minimum wage is the way to go.

“Democrats continue to recycle bad ideas. It’s time we consider some new ones so people have the opportunity to succeed and thrive, and not rely on government coercion to dictate wages. Increasing the minimum wage will result in higher unemployment, reduced job opportunities, reduced customer spending, and will reduce net job growth because of the effect on expanding companies,” says Mayor Fung

Mayor Fung states “At a time when we are tied for the highest unemployment in the country, we cannot put more hurdles in front of the companies we have here in Rhode Island; we need to remove them. Further, Obamacare is already hurting workers because employers are transitioning employees to part time work because they cannot afford the healthcare premiums. An increase in the minimum wage would only increase the burden on small business owners who are already working on thin margins.”

“The real issue in Rhode Island is unemployment and getting our workforce prepared with the necessary skill set for the ever changing workforce. It is quite evident that raising the minimum wage would not solve these problems,” adds Fung.

Block agrees with Fung, noting in a recent statement, “As I said the other day when it was announced that Rhode Island has the worst unemployment in the country, raising the minimum wage is a job killer.”

Block adds, “President Obama seems to believe that government can just order the economy to improve. Republicans and independents know that government has a critically important, but limited role in the growth of jobs. Government’s role is to regulate fairly and only where necessary, and to control its spending so people and businesses are not taxed to death. President Obama continues on the wrong track to fix lagging employment, just as the Democratic leaders of our General Assembly continue on the wrong track to fix Rhode Island.”

Mazze weighs in

But Edward M. Mazze, Distinguished University Professor of Business Administration, at the University of Rhode Island, puts in his two cents into the policy debate, too.

On the one hand, “Raising the minimum wage does not create jobs and can reduce the number of hours worked for existing workers and the number of jobs for part-time workers. There could also be an impact on the number of internships offered to high school and college students.  And, just as important, raising the minimum wage will also raise the price of products and services, observes Mazze.

“The minimum wage is not the entry point to middle class, it is the jobs that pay over $20 an hour and have a “career” future, says Mazze, noting that Rhode Island recently increased the minimum wage.

But, Mazze believes that the state’s minimum wage should be adjusted every number of years to keep up with inflation and other economic events.  “The best way to create living wages in Rhode Island is to prepare workers for jobs for the future, have an economic development strategy that creates jobs and attracts businesses, and have affordable housing and a fair sales, property and personal income tax program,” he notes.  

With the Rhode Island General Assembly geared up to pass legislation to make the Ocean State an easier place to do business, lawmakers should not forget their constituents who cannot pay their mortgage, utility bills, or even put food on their tables.  Until the state’s tax and regulatory system primes the economic pump to create more jobs, giving a little bit more money, say $10.10 per hour, will go a long way for tens of thousands of poor or working poor Rhode Islanders who struggle to survive.

How can Rhode Islander’s currently making a weekly paycheck of $320 (minus taxes), receiving a minimum wage, support their families?  This is not the American Dream they were brought up to believe in.

Herb Weiss, LRI’12 is a Pawtucket-based writer who covers, aging, health care, medical and business issues.  He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com.

RIF Radio: Special State of Union edition with Jack Reed, Jim Langevin and David Cicillne


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Wednesday Jan 29
North Kingstown, RI – Good morning Futurists. This is Bob Plain, editor and publisher of the RI Future blog podcasting to you from The Hideaway on the banks of the Mattatuxet River behind the Shady Lea Mill in North Kingstown, Rhode Island.

We’ve got a special post State of the Union podcast for you today, complete with extended conversations with most of our congressional delegation about President Obama’s speech last night. Unfortunately we weren’t able to catch up with Senator Whitehouse,  but we did speak with Senator Reed and Congressmen Langevin and Cicilline.

Join Obama for America – Rhode Island at a State of the Union Watch Party in Your Neighborhood


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Scores of Rhode Islanders are getting together next Tuesday night in homes, restaurants and college campuses across the state to watch President Obama’s State of the Union address. And it’s not too late for you to join them!

“This is an important speech—one you, your friends and your family can’t miss,” says Devin Driscoll, Rhode Island state director with Obama for America. “President Obama will be talking about the issues and values that are central to his vision of an America that will out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the world.”

Rhode Island’s watch parties will be taking place in homes in Warwick, Cranston, Providence, Pawtucket, Newport and East Greenwich. Students will gather at Brown University’s Wilson Hall and state and city Democrats will head for McFadden’s Restaurant in downtown Providence.

Folks will be renewing neighborhood connections, making new friends and talking together about the next important event on the Rhode Island campaign calendar: forming teams to collect signatures to get President Obama on the ballot for November. For more information and to find the watch party nearest you, go to www.barackobama.com/state/ri and click the “Find an Event” tab.

For more information about State of the Union watch parties and to volunteer with the campaign, please contact Devin Driscoll at ddriscoll@barackobama.com.

Host a State of the Union Watch Party!


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Across Rhode Island, people are getting together in their neighborhoods to watch the 2012 State of the Union Address on Tuesday, January 24, celebrate our work of so far, and to plan out the next couple of months for the campaign  in the Ocean State.

Can you have a few people over to watch? All it takes is a little bit of time to prepare and some enthusiasm for bringing people together.

Click here to host an event – sometime before the end of the day tomorrow if possible, so we can ensure you get email support from Chicago. You’ll need to be registered as a user of barackobama.com to sign up to host, which you can do here.

These parties are easy to put together. You’ll be able to decide how many people you can comfortably host, and we’ll provide you with tools to promote the event. We’ll talk you through what to expect and how to prepare for that night — including a conference call with other hosts beforehand to share tips and ideas.

This requires a basic commitment from you, but no previous experience doing this kind of thing — even if you’ve never hosted an event like this before, the campaign will make sure you have the tools and resources you need to make your party successful.

A party in your neighborhood is one big way to energize the campaign where you live. We’re aiming to have thousands of parties like it across the country.

You can email Devin Driscoll, Obama for America Rhode Island state director, at ddriscoll@barackobama.com with any questions.