You Should Be Married?

You may not be aware of this but the federal government has been in the business of propagandizing the positive effects of marriage. Almost a billion dollars has been spent encouraging people to tie the knot.

Are you feeling all “marriagey” now? Yeah, me neither. I got a sneaking suspicion that the advertising blitz didn’t work very well.

And apparently the facts back me up. Please read the attached article.

James Pilant

Nearly A Billion Dollars Spent On Marriage Promotion Programs Have Achieved Next To Nothing | ThinkProgress

The millions the federal government has spent on programs aimed at promoting marriage and boosting marriage rates have had little discernible impact on marriage or divorce rates, according to new research from the National Center for Family & Marriage Research.

Since 2001, the government will have spent about $800 million on the Healthy Marriage Initiative (HMI) by the end of the fiscal year. That year was when the Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children & Families decided that strengthening marriage was one of the nine main priorities for the agency. Spending increased by $117 million between 2000 and 2010, including a $150 million boost as part of the 2005 Deficit Reduction Act, peaking at $142 million for 2009. HMI programs can use the money on marriage education, skills training, and mentoring programs, as well as public advertising campaigns and high school education programs.

Yet over that same time period, the country’s marriage rate continued its “precipitous decline” that started in the 1970s, falling 26 percent over the decade after 2000, the report finds. The divorce rate didn’t see much of a change.

via Nearly A Billion Dollars Spent On Marriage Promotion Programs Have Achieved Next To Nothing | ThinkProgress.

Felons Should Be Able to Vote

If only because of our ambivalent attitude toward marijuana, we should let people who have done their time, paid their debt to society, have the right to vote. The laws banning felons from voting were passed during a era of tiny prison populations. There were very few felons for most of American history. We didn’t become a mass incarceration nation until the 1980’s. A lot of this is due to the disastrous “war on drugs.”

It’s time to change the way we do things.

If someone has done their time, that should be it.

James Pilant

U.S. Attorney General: Time To Restore Voting Rights Of Every Person Who Has Completed Their Criminal Sentence | ThinkProgress

In the United States, some 5.8 million Americans can’t vote because they have a current or previous felony conviction — more than the individual populations of 31 U.S. states. That figure includes one in 13 African American adults. In Florida, Kentucky, and Virginia, one in five African Americans are barred by these felon disenfranchisement policies, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday.

Citing these figures and many others, Holder called out state laws that block ex-felons from voting as a vestige of Reconstruction-era voter suppression, and called for for states to repeal every law that prohibits those who have completed their sentence from voting. Holder’s address Tuesday morning at a criminal justice reform symposium is the latest in his “Smart on Crime” initiative that has included scaled back prosecution of crimes with mandatory minimum sentences, less targeting of those complying with state marijuana laws, diversion out of prison and improvement of offender re-entry, and a move to cut short the sentences of some drug offenders.

via U.S. Attorney General: Time To Restore Voting Rights Of Every Person Who Has Completed Their Criminal Sentence | ThinkProgress.

Lazy Reporting at the Post

Is it ethical to write quick and dirty without any concern for the wider context? Certainly, I can plead guilty on many an occasion. However, I am not paid for this, and the Washington Post reporters appear to be well compensated. I would bet they don’t have two outside jobs either.

So, I am going to hold them to a higher standard.

Yes, they should write articles explaining the budget numbers instead of just reciting them like a 5th grader pulling data off the internet.

James Pilant

More Frat Boy Budget Reporting at the Washington Post | Beat the Press

The Washington Post gave us some good frat boy budget reporting in a front page story on the farm bill this morning. Frat boy budget reporting is when you write a piece that provides no information to the vast majority of readers but lets you go down to the budget reporters\’ frat house and give each other the budget reporters\’ secret handshake. In this case, the piece told us that the farm bill will cost $956.4 billion over the next decade, it will reduce spending on SNAP by $8 billion and save $16 billion in total.

Yes, this is really helpful. At least 0.1 percent of Washington Post readers have any clue what these numbers mean for the budget over the next decade. It is possible and easy to express these numbers in ways that would be meaningful.

CEPR\’s extraordinary Responsible Budget Reporting Calculator would allow any budget reporters to determine in seconds that the total bill is 2.05 percent of projected spending, which immediately would give the vast majority of Post readers a clear idea of the farm bill\’s importance to the budget. They could also quickly recognize that the cuts to the SNAP bill are 0.017 percent of projected spending and the total savings on the bill are 0.034 percent of projected spending.

It\’s really not hard to do budget reporting in a way that provides information to its audience

via More Frat Boy Budget Reporting at the Washington Post | Beat the Press.

$2.13 An Hour?

In business ethics, getting the government to clobber your workers generally does not seem to strike a responsive chord as in something we should fix. After all, the government did it, didn’t they?

Still, I find it hard to justify the paltry minimum wage given to restaurant employees. It often leaves them in poverty and their dependence upon tips would seem to make any pretense at dignity a temporary pose, since happy servility may be the best strategy for tips that may possibly get you up to the minimum wage.

I believe that using the government to punish your workers by using the lobby clout of your various organizations be it corporations or sole proprietorships is perfectly identical to doing it yourself.

James Pilant

A higher wage for all workers | Al Jazeera America

Let’s say you are a waitress or waiter. Let’s say you worked the night of Jan. 28. And let’s imagine that somewhere in your restaurant a big-screen television beamed President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address while you were taking orders, delivering food and busing dishes. Like millions of other Americans, you would be among the most underpaid employees in the country’s economy: tipped workers. While you may have been pleased to hear the president’s executive order to raise the minimum wage for federal contract workers from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour, you would know this move is irrelevant to you. And you would know that during the 1 hour and 5 minutes it took him to deliver his promises — on everything from making health care affordable to boosting the economy — you would have earned $2.30.

For those who are not tipped workers, the idea that these workers are only guaranteed a paltry $2.13 an hour might come as a shock. But the reality is that millions of tipped workers take home much less than the federal minimum wage, which has excluded them for more than 20 years. The National Employment Law Project crunched the numbers and found that the value of the tipped minimum wage, in real terms, has fallen 36 percent since it was frozen in 1991. A 2012 study by Restaurant Opportunities Center United (ROC-United) found that waitresses and waiters, who make up the lion’s share of tipped workers, suffer three times the poverty rate as the general workforce and that tipped workers rely disproportionately on food stamps.

 

via A higher wage for all workers | Al Jazeera America.

Pregnant Hypocrisy

Okay, look – this is getting ridiculous. Everyday I am confronted with just tons of evidence how little pregnant mothers and children are though of in this society. And yet, the lip service, the worshipful praise given the importance of motherhood and the holy infinitely valuable lives of children seems to be in full verbal pandemic mode.

I want to scream.

If we cared about pregnant women, we would do something to make their lives easier like paid leave.

If we cared about children, we would fund their education as a priority and maybe even make sure they have enough to eat.

If you think motherhood and childhood are just wonderful but aren’t willing to lift a finger to help either, maybe you could do me a favor and just shut up.

James Pilant

Why Are Workplaces Still Not Ready For Pregnant Workers? | ThinkProgress

The majority of new moms say they worked while they were pregnant, yet their employers often failed to accommodate their pregnancies before giving birth or their needs afterward, according to a new survey from the National Partnership for Women & Families.

The organizations surveyed more than 1,000 women between the ages of 18 and 45 who had given birth between July 2011 and June 2012. Nearly two-thirds of the women reported being employed during their pregnancies, with more than half working full time. And many of them needed some changes to continue working while also maintaining their health: 71 percent needed more frequent breaks, 61 percent needed to change their schedules or take leave time to get health care, more than half needed a change in duties such as taking on less heavy lifting or getting more chances to sit, and 40 percent needed another workplace adjustment.

Yet many said they either didn’t bring up their needs for accommodation while they were pregnant, possibly out of fear of repercussions or refusal, or had them rejected outright. More than 40 percent who needed more breaks never asked about them, and of those who did, 5 percent were rejected. Nearly 40 percent who needed to change their responsibilities never brought it up, and 9 percent who did were denied. More than a quarter who needed to change their schedules or take time off didn’t raise their need while 9 percent were rejected. While the report notes that most employers who were asked for an accommodation honor the requests, the percent who are denied is still troubling. “Based on estimates of the number of employed women who give birth annually, this means that more than one-quarter million women are denied their requests each year, threatening the health of women and their children.” It also notes that a “significant number” of those who were denied said their employer claimed that it wasn’t obligated to honor their pregnancy-related requests.

via Why Are Workplaces Still Not Ready For Pregnant Workers? | ThinkProgress.

 

Fracking and Birth Defects

In the future of business ethics, fracking will be a centerpiece of everything that can go wrong ethically. We will begin discussing secret government discussions culminating in legislation totally at odds with preserving human health and safety. We will then discuss the incredible diversion of public lands into private hands for the benefit of the industry. Chapters will be written about how after any federal interference with the industry was disposed of, the industry proceeded to capture or destroy the state regulatory bodies. But the main focus will be on how the industry successfully sealed off access to any information on what it was actually doing.

In short, a business ethics train wreck.

The part I can’t predict will be how much damage the process will eventually cause.

James Pilant

Fracked Up: New Study Links Birth Defects To Living Near Fracking Site | Crooks and Liars

Living near hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — sites may increase the risk of some birth defects by as much as 30 percent, a new study suggests. In the U.S., more than 15 million people now live within a mile of a well.

The use of fracking, a gas-extraction process through which sand, water and chemicals are pumped into the ground to release trapped fuel deposits, has increased significantly in the U.S. over the past decade.

Five years ago, the U.S. produced 5 million barrels of oil per day; today, it’s 7.4 million, thanks largely to fracking.Supporters of the industry say it creates jobs and spurs the economy, while critics say its development is largely unregulated and that too little is known about pollution and health risks.

The report by the Colorado School of Public Health, released Jan. 28, gathered evidence from heavily drilled rural Colorado, which has among the highest densities of oil and gas wells in the U.S.

“What we found was that the risk of congenital heart defects (CHD) increased with greater density of gas wells — with mothers living in the highest-density areas at greatest risk,” Lisa McKenzie, a research associate at the Colorado School of Public Health and the lead author of the study, told Al Jazeera.The study examined links between the mother’s residential proximity to natural gas wells and birth defects in a study of more than 124,842 births from 1996 to 2009 in rural Colorado.

The study found that “births to mothers in the most exposed (areas with over 125 wells per mile) had a 30 percent greater prevalence of CHDs than births to mothers with no wells in a 10-mile radius of their residence.”

via Fracked Up: New Study Links Birth Defects To Living Near Fracking Site | Crooks and Liars.

Is the NFL a Socialist Plot?

Read below and see what you think. The article doesn’t mention that the teams are also immune to anti-trust laws and they don’t pay federal taxes.

James Pilant

From a British perspective, American football and the Super Bowl look downright socialist | Joe Ware | Comment is free | theguardian.com

Although known as “America’s game”, the National Football League’s success has been built on the model of a socialist state. It has a salary cap which limits each team’s spending, a revenue-sharing system – effectively a tax – which transfers money from the high-earning franchises to the poorer teams and most interestingly of all, the NFL Draft.

The Draft is the lifeblood of the NFL. Unlike British football where each club has its own academy system to develop young players, in America that job is left to the universities. The Draft is the three-day jamboree at which each team takes it in turns to select the best of the upcoming graduates from the college ranks. Like a huge American Football version of the Hogwarts Sorting Hat. But in contrast to the Randian economics of the Tea Party movement, it’s not the best team that is rewarded with the first pick in the draft, but the worst.

The first shall be last and the last shall be first.

The most pathetic and miserable outfit is awarded the top pick. Next is the second most feeble until right at the end, after all the other 31 teams have snapped up the best of the talent, it’s the turn of the previous year’s Super Bowl champions.

What this rather socialist approach does is create parity. Which leads to hope. Fans of teams in the doldrums know that the silver lining of a few poor seasons will be a crop of good young players which could transform their team into winners again. This is how the New Orleans Saints could pick second in the 2006 Draft and win the Super Bowl four years later. And the players don’t get any say in the matter. Unlike in Britain where the best players can choose to join already established powerhouses, in the US, the equivalent superstars have to join the teams most in need of their services.

via From a British perspective, American football and the Super Bowl look downright socialist | Joe Ware | Comment is free | theguardian.com.

Bowles-Simpson Ridiculed!

That high lighted paragraph below has to be one of the greatest take downs ever. (My thanks to Paul Krugman!)

James Pilant

David Brooks Wants Bowles-Simpson for Everything — Daily Intelligencer

Just because it failed to result in the legislative compromise it was tasked to create — and arguably even failed to produce an actual, concrete proposal — it did succeed in creating an aspirational model for centrist pundits to tout. Brooks alone has cited Bowles and Simpson in nearly two dozen columns.

If you define the goal of Bowles and Simpson as creating policies outside the political process that can be held up by centrists as emblematic of the failure of both parties in equal measure, then the Bowles-Simpson commission succeeded brilliantly. Why not extend the power of the Bowles-Simpson brand beyond mere deficit scolding to other policy areas? What about a Bowles-Simpson commission for everyday life decisions? The husband says we should spend $5000 to repair our car, the wife says we can\’t afford it. Then they hire a Bowles-Simpson commission to tell them they should reject that debate and instead ride around on an invisible unicorn.

via David Brooks Wants Bowles-Simpson for Everything — Daily Intelligencer.

College Athletes Should Be Paid

Making millions off of unpaid athletes who work hard and risk injury is wrong.

James Pilant

AJ McCarron: ‘I truly believe college athletes should be paid’ | Crooks and Liars

http://crooksandliars.com/2014/01/aj-mccarron-i-truly-believe-college

Now that AJ McCarron has exhausted his eligibility at Alabama and departed for the NFL, he can speak freely about the imbalances of the NCAA system without fear of repercussions.

That’s what McCarron did on Wednesday in New York City.

The former Crimson Tide quarterback was a guest on FOX Sports 1’s “Crowd Goes Wild” and was asked about Tuesday’s news out of Chicago in which the seeds were planted for a college athlete union.

“I truly believe, during some point in the future, college athletes should be paid,” McCarron said. “The NCAA is not a bad organization – don’t get me wrong, it’s an unbelievable organization – but in some way they’re taking advantage of college athletes that sign their name into a certain school.

“When I was (at Alabama) in ’09, I think revenue when we won the national championship that year was like $62 million. And when we won it in New Orleans (in 2011), it was like $78 million. Then when we beat (Notre Dame in 2012), it was like $92 million. I mean that’s absurd money.

“And with players’ jerseys being sold and them not seeing any of that, and then being used for video games, I think eventually something’s gotta give and players end up being paid.”

Okay, I’m Outraged.

Day after day, I am bombarded by evidence of stupidity and evil. I expose myself to this hail of slings and arrows by reading in my field, business ethics, each morning. This particular incident appears to be a public school, not a private, so not usually part of my endeavors. Nevertheless, sometimes an act is so cruel and bizarre as to give rise to anger on my part. This is one of them.

Please read the article below and see what you think.

This child is a sixth grader. The power contrast between an entire school and one child does not require any analysis on my part.

While ridiculing people’s religions may be okay inside another church’s Sunday school or other service, the public school is for all Americans of all religions. The freedom of religion guaranteed in this country protects all religions and is supposed to protect everyone from this kind of coercion.

I’m tired of talking to people who claim to speak from the Bible or the Constitution without reading either. I’m tired of people who claim that if you don’t share their beliefs, you should be on the next boat to somewhere you won’t annoy them. I’m tired of people taking the doctrines of Christ and using them to exercise this kind of cruelty.

James Pilant

School Allegedly Told Buddhist Student His Faith Is ‘Stupid’ & He Should Convert Or Switch Schools | ThinkProgress

A Louisiana teacher who taught her sixth grade class that evolution is “impossible” and that the bible is “100 percent true” ridiculed a Buddhist student during class and announced that those who don’t believe in god are “stupid,” according to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana.

When the child’s parents reported the incidents, the Sabine Parish superintendent allegedly told them “this is the Bible Belt,” and asked whether the child, referred to as “C.C.” could either change his faith or transfer to a school where “there are more Asians.”

According to the ACLU, the teacher, Rita Rourke, works at a school in Sabine Parish, La., that consistently touts Christian beliefs through portraits of Jesus Christ in the halls, a “lighted, electronic marquee” outside the school that scrolls Bible verses, and regular staff member recitation of prayers with students during class. “The day after meeting with the Lanes, the Superintendent sent a letter to Negreet Principal Gene Wright stating that she approved of Negreet’s official religious practices. Wright read the letter to the entire Negreet student body over the school

via School Allegedly Told Buddhist Student His Faith Is ‘Stupid’ & He Should Convert Or Switch Schools | ThinkProgress.