Croton-on-Hudson, NY -- The Rich Get Richer -- What's Nu? :)
I'm sometimes too cute for myself :)
I wrote a bit in yesterday's post, The Rich Get Richer -- What's New? (noooow, you get the title :)) about the widening gap between the rich and poor at home in Albany and in the U.S. in general.
Meanwhile in our little satellite state in the Middle East, Israel,
the chasm between rich and poor continues to widen like ours, thanks in large part to Bibi Netanyahu's introduction of good ol' Reaganomics.
But the people who are getting left behind are just slackers, right? Well, no:
Among the impoverished elderly are many Holocaust survivors. In fact, Noah Flug, who heads an umbrella group of Holocaust survivor organizations in Israel estimated that about one-quarter of Israel's 250,000 survivors are living in poverty.
"There is lots of focus in Israel on those killed in the Holocaust, but those who lived through it are forgotten," said Flug.Ouch.
Newark, NJ -- The Rich Get Richer... What's New?
I'm heading back to NYC on Amtrak from a quick day in DC, which saw me spend seven hours on the train for two hours of meetings.
As many of you know, the Republicans, especially Bush, have been pushing hard for the last few years for a repeal of the estate tax, a tax on estates worth millions of dollars (NOT, say mine or most of yours). Unsurprisingly, this push has been financed by those who would benefit most from such a repeal -- billionaire families with way more money than anyone should ever have. And, as Matt Taibbi
points out in this story from Rolling Stone (cross-posted on SI -- thanks, J. Chris Parson), this money is being made up by taking from people with less money (and food, and shelter, and dignity...) than people should ever have:
If the Estate Tax were to be repealed completely, the estimated savings to just one family -- the Walton family, the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune -- would be about $32.7 billion dollars over the next ten years.
The proposed reductions to Medicaid over the same time frame? $28 billion.
Or how about this: if the Estate Tax goes, the heirs to the Mars candy corporation -- some of the world's evilest scumbags, incidentally, routinely ripped by human rights organizations for trafficking in child labor to work cocoa farms in places like Cote D'Ivoire -- if the estate tax goes, those assholes will receive about $11.7 billion in tax breaks. That's more than three times the amount Bush wants to cut from the VA budget ($3.4 billion) over the same time period.Incredible. Meanwhile, the Times Union reports that we're seeing
rising disparity between the "haves" and "have nots" right in my own backyard, the Capital Region:
While suburbs and many city neighborhoods have mostly prospered, some inner-city sections of Albany, Schenectady and Troy are like doughnut holes -- up to 10 times poorer than areas surrounding them, according to U.S. census data.Not surprising, given the difference I see when I drive from my cozy Center Square apartment up Central Avenue (but not into Arbor Hill; that's kinda scary):
In Albany's West Hill, impoverishment rose from 21 percent 31 percent from 1980 to 2000, census data show. One South End tract jumped to 45 percent poverty during that time.
That compares to less than 10 percent poor in adjacent Bethlehem. Bethlehem's median household income was $63,168 in 2000, compared to $16,158 in the South End neighborhood between Madison and Fourth avenues.But what's the best we can do to help the poor in downtown Albany? That's right -- give more profits to those who already have, and take from the have nots, through good ol'
"public" charter schools. The great AlbanyWeblog.com explains:
For anyone who has been living in a paper bag the last twelve years, "charter" schools are corporate run private schools that are funded almost entirely by local public school taxes. "Charter" schools have three purposes:
1) To make a profit for the promoters.
2) To undermine and ultimately destroy public education, a prime tenet of neocon corporate socialist gospel.
3) To further impoverish poor and minority communities, which is where the promoters exclusively set up their operations.
This last point is the saddest and most frustrating of all. Minority members of our community have always gotten the least and the worst in all things, including educational oportunities. Watching some of my African American neighbors be led into another pit by these rich white suburbanite scam artists fills me with shame and disgust.Of course, you can't drive on I-787 or leave the Rensselaer train station without seeing billboards commissioned by the very well-funded charter school music blaring slogans like: "Public Charter Schools: The Right Choice for Albany's future." No one's advertising against them, because no one stands to make a significant profit off of public schools. So once again, money provides a voice to those with money at the expense of the voiceless and impoverished.
New York, NY -- Happy Birthday to Meeeeeeee....
27. Yikes, I'm old. Life's really different
from a year ago. New position, new girlfriend, new office in Albany, new home, soon to be new office in NYC, new staff.
What else has changed, other than the fact that I haven't been blogging as much (that'll slowly come back)? Typing over a beer at Cafetasia in Union Square, I realize that I don't get IDed very often anymore for alcohol, especially down here in the City. Funny, but I guess a tie and jacket will do it -- this job now requires soooo much dress-up!
Leave birthday wishes if you're reading! I promise I'll post more tomorrow.
New York, NY -- Fairing and Balancing the World
Man, conservatives really think that the world is liberal and out to get them. After running an awful comedy "news" program called the Half-Hour News Hour (nowhere to be found on the Fox News website, by the way -- not even on its
list of shows) to "balance" the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, conservatives, led by scion Andrew Schafly, launched a right-wing alternative to Wikipedia. It's called Conservapedia, and as you'd expect, offers some laughs. Check out these entries, which of course, are ever-evolving (I'd post quotes, but they'll be obsolete and I'm too tired to deal with graphics):
DinosaurCreationismBill Clinton (devil incarnate)
Albany, NY -- How Can SNL Be So Bad?
I'm watching Saturday Night Live for the first time in about two years (about how long it's been since I blogged), and I just don't understand why I show which was so good for so long (1986-1993), could be so awful for even longer... and given that awfulness, how can it still be on the air?
