Inequality Kills

Today I am participating in Blog Action Day 2014 where bloggers around the world are participating in a global conversation about Inequality.

The official Blog Action Day hashtags are #BAD2014, #Inequality and #BlogAction

@blogactionday12

This is a great video about global inequality, made in response to this famous video about American inequality.

Global inequality


American inequality



Income inequality kills

Pope Francis on the immorality of inequality (my emphasis added)

Pope Francis also spoke out against what he called "savage capitalism," which he said exploits people to rake in more profits. He condemned what he called the "dictatorship of economy" and the "cult of money".....He also expressed disappointment in what he called the "tyranny of markets." The pope said that an economy of exclusion on inequality kills....."How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?"

Economic inequality is bad for many reasons.  It slows down the economy when people do not have enough money to spend on things they need and want.  The economy relies on manufacturing products, and then having people available to buy them.  That is supply and demand.  There are things that people need to survive, food shelter, clothing, medical attention, and things that improve the quality of life, education, entertainment, chocolate.  There are people that make money producing and supplying these products to meet demands of the consumers.

Anyone paying attention since the Great Recession of 2008 knows this about the economy, and the exponential effect, downwards or upwards, that a change in confidence in the economy and money supply can have on business and people around the world.

There is a crisis of confidence in a company, a sector of the economy, fear grows, layoffs begin, companies close, the crisis spreads, banks stop lending.

Recessions have long lasting effects even after they are declared over, as we see from the current recession, which "ended" in June 2009, is still being felt today, as fast food workers protest for a minimum wage raise to $15 an hour, and that wages are stagnant even as "employment is growing at a healthy clip, with 248,000 jobs created this month, and an average of 220,000 jobs created each month over the past year."

The median net worth of families in the middle 20 percent of incomes fell 17 percent from 2010 to 2013, according to the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances.

Democrats since 2008 have been saying that raising the minimum wage would be good for businesses and the economy, because low income families would be able to afford to buy more, increasing demand and leading to increased employment.  Now finally even businesses are worried.

Sixty-eight percent of the top 100 retail companies in the U.S. -- a group that includes, Walmart, Apple, McDonald's and J.C. Penney -- say the country's stagnant wages pose a major threat to their bottom lines.

when before the Recession

only half as many top 100 retailers identified flat wages as a business risk in 2006, the year before the Great Recession.

While the White House has been campaigning for an increase in the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour (implemented over the next 3 years), many around the country, like Seattle, are not waiting for Congress to pass an increase, and are not increasing only to $10.10, but many are going to $15 (based on size of business).

Seattle $15 Implementation

Real median household income was $51,939 in 2013; but in 1999 it was $56,895. #wages #inequality http://t.co/fGp422IRem
— BillMoyers.com (@BillMoyersHQ) October 16, 2014

Naomi Klein on Global Warming versus Capitalism

“Capitalism is a machine based on short-term profit and growth and the climate needs us to contract,” said Klein

“Capitalism is a machine based on short-term profit and growth and the climate needs us to contract,” said Klein. “So you have this tension between a system that needs to grow, grow, grow indiscriminately, and a planet going, ‘Guys, I have had it.’” 

Lower wages, high costs, less access to healthcare, more stress, and the effects of global warming are all symptoms of poverty and inequality.  Now studies show that how long you live is affected by how poor or rich you are.  (And it is worse for women than men.  This is "the ultimate cost of income inequality.")

wealthy Americans are even enjoying longer lifespans than lower income Americans.....
new analysis conducted by Barry Bosworth and Kathleen Burke shows the average American man in the richest 10 percent category can expect to live another 35 years after he becomes 55 years old.

However, the 55-year-old average American man in the poorest 10 percent category only has about 24 years left.

Here are 7 reasons why the rich live longer (FAZ in German)

Besides even the statistics showing inequality negatively impacts quality of life through stress, bad health, crime, global warming, and other issues hard to quantify, there is now evidence linking the Recession to an increase in suicides.

The recent recession can be linked with over 10,000 suicides across Europe and North America between 2008 and 2010.....suicide rates rose significantly in the EU, Canada and the USA after 2007, with the increase being four times higher among men.....job loss, home repossession and debt are the main risk factors leading to suicide during economic downturns.

The recent Sottish independence referendum was seen by some as a referendum on inequality

On the metric of income equality, the U.K. ranks 28th out of 34 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which has warned in recent years that income inequality is growing faster in Britain than in any other wealthy nation.

Now, many Scots want out. On Thursday, voters in Scotland will answer a straightforward Yes/No question: “Should Scotland be an independent country?” If the answer is ‘yes,’ then Scotland will declare independence and a 307-year-old union will be torn asunder. The U.K. will lose a third of its landmass and almost 10 percent of its population.....In some quarters, the vote is already being hailed as the world’s first-ever referendum on economic inequality—an event that has less in common with other nationalist votes like Quebec's in 1995 than it does with recent developments such as Occupy Wall Street, the adoption of “the 1 percent” as a global catchphrase.

The United Kingdom was the only state in the G7 to see a rise in inequality

Britain is the only G7 country where inequality has grown since the start of the 21st century, according to a report by Credit Suisse.....By contrast, all other G7 member states (US, Japan, France, Germany, Canada and Italy) have seen wealth inequality either remain the same or fall since 2000.

the anti-poverty charity Oxfam found Britain’s five richest families are worth more than the country’s poorest 20 percent.

Oxfam’s head of inequality, Emma Seery, said: “These figures give more evidence that inequality is extreme and growing, and that economic recovery following the financial crisis has been skewed in favor of the wealthiest.”

Kshama Sawant, the Socialist city councilwoman in Seattle responsible for passing the $15 an hour minimum wage bill, explained another way that inequality kills on Democracy Now.

If you look at the extreme suffering that is being meted out to the people in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Middle East, all the places which have been the target of the brutal imperialism from the West, the bloodbath that Iraq is going through, where is the solution to all of this? The only solution can be on the basis of rejecting capitalism, the system that, you know, means that a few billionaires and a few ruling-class politicians at the top get to decide how they’re going to divide up the world’s resources and go to war in that process. And who fights the wars? It’s the poor of the United States. Who dies in the war? It’s the poor of those countries. So I think she brings a message of solidarity that we need to recognize, that our solidarity lies not only as American working people, but as working people globally against a system, against a billionaire class that is continuing to exert such brutality and really miserable conditions for most of us.

 Inequality kills.  Join us in fighting it.

Oxfam

British Social Media Surveillance

This certainly caught my attention on Twitter today.  We all hear about NSA and GCHQ thanks to Edward Snowden's important leaks.  This is just one family's story.  It is important to focus on both the abuses of mass surveillance and the effects it has on individual people being violated.

Son dies. Hospital say no surveillance of the family. FOI contradicts. This is car crash #pr: http://t.co/I7st0gV8JE #justiceforlb
— Dan Slee (@danslee) October 9, 2014

The ethics of health organisations monitoring social media

Last year, Connor became unwell and was admitted to an assessment and treatment centre. 107 days later he drowned in the bath. He had epilepsy and Sara had noticed an increase in his seizures and alerted staff. But he was allowed to bathe unsupervised. Now her blog is about what Sara is learning since his death.

continued (original emphasis, not mine)

Today's post on Sara's blog is about the memo that was circulated the day after Connor's death by the communications department of the health trust, to brief staff about Sara's blog and provide a summary of posts with the aim that it might "help in shaping a tailored media response". Sara obtained this memo today through a Freedom of Information request. It details how Sara's blog had been monitored by the comms team from as soon as they were aware of it in March 2013 shortly after his admission to the unit. It specifically mentions this post in May 2013 just over half way through Connor's admission, where Sara described her distress at realising that Connor had a seizure but not being able to convince the staff that this was the case. Last week Sara was told by the Chairman of the Board that there had been no monitoring of her blog.

continued

Link: An excellent post by Tim Turner on the data protection aspect of this social media monitoring.

From Sarah's blog post

Just when you think you’ve waded through the worst of the shite, another FOI request pings in. [From the CCG, not from Sloven]. This one includes the Background Briefing on mother’s blog.  Written the day after the day after LB died. And yet they have not 16 months on disciplined staff.

continued

And Simon Waugh, Board Chair, telling me categorically last week there was no surveillance…

Here it is. No words really.

a portion from the memo



BBC report on Connor's death February 25 2014

The death of a teenager being cared for at an Oxfordshire in-patient unit for people with learning difficulties was "preventable", a report has concluded.

Connor Sparrowhawk, 18, was found unconscious in the bath at the unit in Slade House, Headington, on 4 July and died the same day in hospital.

A tailored media response OCTOBER 9, 2014

Yesterday, Sara Ryan posted – with understandable fury – information she had obtained via Freedom of Information about monitoring of her blog by Southern Health NHS Trust. It’s difficult to quickly summarise the story of Ryan and her son Connor, but the crucial fact for my comments here is that Ryan writes a compelling blog, which used to be about Connor’s learning difficulties, and which became a heartbreaking and angry chronicle of what she has experienced following Connor’s preventable death in a Southern Health treatment centre.

continued

It seems almost distasteful to find a data protection angle in the story, but nevertheless, the cause of Ryan’s anger this week should echo loudly through all organisations that deal with the public, and especially with their Data Protection officers.

Ryan’s blog reports that last week, the board chair, Simon Waugh, told her that there had been no surveillance of her blogging. This week, she received information from the Clinical Commissioning Group that told another story. A report was written by Trust the day after Connor died. The aim was to “help in shaping a tailored media response to the incident and monitoring of potential media interest in the incident“. Always good to get your priorities right. 

Alaska Politics Update

From time to time I will point to reporting from Alaska politics blogger Amanda Coyne, as I did first when the "Palin Brawl" was in the news.

So here we go

NRA not endorsing Senate candidates, but does endorse Governor Parnell for reelection

NRA decides not to endorse anyone in the Senate race between incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Begich and Republican Dan Sullivan (he was Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources but resigned to run for Senate, and was Attorney General from June 2009 until December 2010) the other Republican Dan Sullivan is currently Mayor of Anchorage.  US Senator Lisa Murkowski (D) is up for reelection in 2016.

The NRA has chosen to endorse Governor Sean Parnell who is running for reelection.  Parnell signed a version of the controversial "Stand Your Ground" law, made famous in the Trayvon Martin shooting.

I was gonna say with that information, vote for Bill Walker, but Walker is not an easy choice either.

The Walker campaign is now the (almost ruled illegal) unity ticket of Independent Bill Walker and Democrat turned Independent Byron Mallott.

Why a unity ticket

One of the driving forces behind the ticket merger was the Alaska AFL-CIO's decision to boycott the three-way governor's race, echoing the popular complaint among Parnell opponents that the overcrowded arrangement essentially rigged the election in favor of the incumbent.

His record is complicated, and both parties could like him, depending on the issue.  He is for Medicaid expansion, for raising the minimum wage, against the Pebble Mine due to impact on fisheries, but also supports oil and gas exploration and drilling including in ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) and pro 2nd Amendment.

News Roundup 9/26

• Mineweb is reporting that on Thursday a federal court judge has validated an agreement that the EPA would stay its regulatory process against the Pebble Mine Project until no earlier than January 2, 2015.

The ruling stops (quote is edited by me)

EPA’s attempt to expand its authority under the Clean Water Act by stopping the Pebble Project before the Pebble Partnership even files for permitting.

continued

Legislation has been introduced in Congress to clarify EPA’s role in the Clean Water Act Section 404 permitting process to ensure that the agency doesn’t deny permits before applications for permits are filed.

Meanwhile

• Yesterday’s [9/25] 6.24 earthquake was the second largest earthquake in Alaska’s history and according to a seismologist in the Dispatch, “We got lucky.” The earthquake’s effects were still strong enough to momentarily interrupt the Chamber of Commerce’s press conference with U.S. Senate candidate, Dan Sullivan.

Finally, Senator Mark Begich is both right and wrong at the same time

U.S. Senate Mark Begich reaffirmed his support for airstrikes against the Islamic group ISIS

continued

Begich reiterated however that he doesn’t support arming Syrian rebels, which both the President and GOP Senate candidate Dan Sullivan support. In a telephonic town hall recently, Begich said that he worries that today’s U.S.-friendly “moderate rebels,” might be tomorrow’s enemies.

“Just like ISIS was a year and a half ago – they were part of these rebels, and now they’re the problem,”
Begich said.

Begich is correct to worry about today's allies becoming tomorrows enemies, but the problem is that airstrikes won't stop ISIS, even if not arming the Syrian rebels would prevent those weapons from being used against us when our allies become our enemies.

Employee Fired for Talking to the Press (at Palin Brawl)

There has been lots of attention around the "Palin Brawl" since Alaska political blogger Amanda Coyne broke the story (yay bloggers!) in a blog post that also mentioned some important political stories, including this update (I assume) about efforts to repeal the collective bargaining bill AO37.

Former Anchorage Police Department Chief and state Department of Public Safety commissioner Walt Monegan, and retired Anchorage Fire Department Chief Craig Goodrich have agreed to co-chair the repeal effort of Mayor Dan Sullivan’s controversial AO37.

Also mentioned in the blog post that mentioned mainstream media bait Palin is this update that Mayor Sullivan is running for Senate

The Alaska Support Industry Alliance has endorsed senate candidate Dan Sullivan. It is the first political endorsement that they’ve made in 20 years. The Alliance is an oil, gas and mining trade association with 500 member companies representing 30,000 employees in Alaska.

Then there's this bit of news from the Cook Political Report

The Cook Political Report moved the ratings of the Alaska governor’s race to “likely Republican” from “solid Republican.”

And finally an anniversary

Fifty years ago this week, a political TV ad aired, showing a little girl plucking flower petals, and helped elect Lyndon B. Johnson to the presidency of the United States. Watch the 60-second ad that revolutionized paid political advertising here.

So some news about collective bargaining, a senate race, oil industry endorsements, other news updates and

THE PALIN BRAWL

On September 11 Amanda posted an update to readers about the brawl, explaining (that she is trying to do more important work in my opinion).  She does do more important work, like covering Alaska oil and natural gas projects with Japan, and state political races and healthcare policy as she explains below.  I don't know how many people had heard of her before this week.  I am sorry to say that before this week I hadn't.

emphasis is mine

I wrote about the Saturday-night Palin family brawl  in my Loose Lips column—my version of a gossip column–hoping that some other news source, preferably a local news source, would pick it up, and run with it. I’m a one-woman show here. I’m the writer, the editor, and the business manager, and I’m trying to cover the state’s political races. 

As I write this, I’m at a health care conference in Girdwood, trying to learn as much as I can about why healthcare costs are so astronomically high in Alaska, when they have appeared to be declining elsewhere. (Expect a post on that later). All this is to say that I have little time to track down the details of the brawl. And even if I did, I’d probably pass. I spent many years covering Palin. It’s a rabbit hole every time.

But I thought I should update, because people seem to really want to know. Frankly, I would too if I were them, and weren’t at a health care conference, etc… 

Later on the 11th she did post the Alaska Police Department's statement on the brawl.

But here is why I am writing about the Palin's at all, as you can see in my headline for this story.  A witness to the brawl was (some report allegedly) fired from his job for talking to the press (ABC News Good Morning America)

emphasis mine

Eric Thompson was having fun with friends and his wife at a party in South Anchorage on Saturday night. Thompson, who is 56 years old, was the designated driver for the evening, so he wasn’t drinking. But that was okay with him. He was among friends. It was a birthday party for twins Matt and Marc McKenna, who own McKenna Bros Paving, for whom he works as a project supervisor.

A few other media outlets reported that the witness was fired, and give credit to Amanda for reporting the story.  CNN did give credit to Amanda for breaking the story but didn't mention that Eric was fired.

Washington Post steals the credit

Since we reported Thursday afternoon that the Palin brood was allegedly involved in a dramatic, bloody, straight-from-reality-TV rumble up in Alaska, the story went viral.

Sadly they got this right--but media is the problem here

Love her or hate her, people are still intrigued (entertained?) by Sarah Palin.

If the media wants to report on this story, fine. But please give credit to the person who broke the story, and media should always mention media related topics, like witnesses being fired for talking to the media.