Working Americans taking less of income pie

Some not so great statistics on income for working people. CNBC:

The decline is not a new trend, but it shows up again in last week's release of third-quarter productivity and costs. The labor share — the amount paid to workers instead of businesses and other income-earning entities — was reported to have fallen to 57.1 cents on the dollar for the business sector, its lowest level since it was first reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 1947.

J.P. Morgan economist Michael Feroli highlighted the decline in a recent note. He said the pre-2000 average for labor share was 63.9 cents, and if it were still at that level household income would be $780 billion higher, a helpful boost in a period of high unemployment. Even at more recent levels, income would have been $400 billion higher, he says.

Households' net worth, as reported by the Federal Reserve Thursday, isn't doing so great either. IHS Insight economist Gregory Daco points out the third quarter saw the biggest decline since the collapse of Lehman, falling $2.44 trillion as financial assets fell $2.66 trillion. Real estate assets actually rose $102 billion.

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"Family Guy" writer: My Occupy LA arrest (violence alert)

Patrick Meighan is one of the writers on the series Family Guy and a member of one of L.A.'s Unitarian Universalist churches (those infamous "UU"s, the ones where you don't even have to believe in Jesus to join, the Buddhisty bunch that Ralph Waldo Emerson had a hand in transforming).

Back to Occupy L.A. and our story. Meighan offers this first-hand account of this arrest. Needless to say, he was treated very badly while offering no active resistance [corrected for accuracy].

Here's the worst of it, though the jail part was no trip to the executive dining room. First, the set-up (h/t Naked Capitalism for the link):

I was arrested at about 1 a.m. Wednesday morning with 291 other people at Occupy LA. I was sitting in City Hall Park with a pillow, a blanket, and a copy of Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Being Peace” when 1,400 heavily-armed LAPD officers in paramilitary SWAT gear streamed in. I was in a group of about 50 peaceful protestors who sat Indian-style, arms interlocked, around a tent (the symbolic image of the Occupy movement). The LAPD officers encircled us, weapons drawn, while we chanted “We Are Peaceful” and “We Are Nonviolent” and “Join Us.”

Then the cop pulled out knives (which they had conveniently remembered to bring) and ripped to shreds everything these people owned and had brought with them — every tent and everything in the tents.

Then they calmly took on the people. Those who refused to unlink arms (a high crime, it seems) were treated like this (my emphasis):

Each seated, nonviolent protester beside me who refused to cooperate by unlinking his arms had the following done to him: an LAPD officer would forcibly extend the protestor’s legs, grab his left foot, twist it all the way around and then stomp his boot on the insole, pinning the protestor’s left foot to the pavement, twisted backwards. Then the LAPD officer would grab the protestor’s right foot and twist it all the way the other direction until the non-violent protestor, in incredible agony, would shriek in pain and unlink from his neighbor.

It was horrible to watch, and apparently designed to terrorize the rest of us. At least I was sufficiently terrorized. I unlinked my arms voluntarily and informed the LAPD officers that I would go peacefully and cooperatively. I stood as instructed, and then I had my arms wrenched behind my back, and an officer hyperextended my wrists into my inner arms. It was super violent, it hurt really really bad, and he was doing it on purpose. When I involuntarily recoiled from the pain, the LAPD officer threw me face-first to the pavement. He had my hands behind my back, so I landed right on my face. The officer dropped with his knee on my back and ground my face into the pavement. It really, really hurt and my face started bleeding and I was very scared. I begged for mercy and I promised that I was honestly not resisting and would not resist.

My hands were then zipcuffed very tightly behind my back, where they turned blue. I am now suffering nerve damage in my right thumb and palm.

Read that again, especially what happened to him after he promised not to resist.

There's much more, including the "why won't you take my bail" story. Please do read.

President Obama, in his "I get it" speech, nobly rejected an us vs. them mentality. His nation's militarized police force is getting a different message. Patrick Meighan's face touches the ground so Charles Prince's feet don't have to.

There are two take-aways from this, not just one:

■ This really was a violent attack, not just a rough arrest. Cops using shields as opportunities to cause pain. A violent attack.

■ This was deliberate and reflects training. In other words, the violence was planned and the cops were trained in these techniques.

It's the second one that concerns me. There's evidence of national coordination in these militarized Occupy responses. Expect more coordinated attacks like this one.

This is the Top 0.1% linking their own arms, fighting back. At some point, those union cops are going to have the Tahrir Square choice. Good luck with that.

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UK vetoes EU treaty, continent isolated.

The UK press (and much of the international media) is all a-twitter about the UK being 'isolated' in the wake of Cameron's veto of the 'save the Euro with more of the same' treaty.

What is so bad about isolation? Isn't isolation rather a good thing when there is an outbreak of plague? Issac Newton certainly thought so. Read the rest of this post...

Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

A little light-hearted Occupy fun, a pre-Occupy song for an Occupy world.



The lyrics are a dream of good writing:

It's coming through a hole in the air,
from those nights in Tiananmen Square.
It's coming from the feel
that this ain't exactly real,
or it's real, but it ain't exactly there.

From the wars against disorder,
from the sirens night and day,
from the fires of the homeless,
from the ashes of the gay:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

Enjoy. (And Occupy Leonard Cohen.)

GP Read the rest of this post...

The Washington revolving door helped write SOPA/PIPA

This should not come as a surprise to anyone. The convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff recently talked to 60 Minutes about how the system was easy to game, including offering jobs to staffers who wanted to cash in. What's unfortunate about this revolving door is that it's so deeply ingrained in the system and both parties are deeply guilty of doing it.

Whether it's senior White House officials leaving for big money on Wall Street, senior GOP Senators moving to Wall Street, GOP regulators moving to work for companies that they were supposed to be regulating, Wall Street bigwigs moving into the White House, FDIC officials shifting over to work on Wall Street or senior officials inside the Pentagon "retiring" into high paying jobs with defense contractors, the system is rigged and the ruling class can't lose.

It's hard not to agree with the new Abramoff who said if we want to shut down corruption, the revolving door has to be closed permanently. Instead of spinning cycles on small corruption and small wastes of money Washington needs to look at the much bigger and more costly problem of corruption among the political class. Everything else, while important, pales in comparison to the costs of this insider corruption. It needs to change.

More on the SOPA/PIPA revolving door corruption story by TechDirt.

Two high level Congressional staffers who have been instrumental in creating or moving forward both PROTECT IP (PIPA) and SOPA have left their jobs on Capitol Hill and taken jobs with two of the biggest entertainment industry lobbyists, who are working very hard to convince Congress to pass the legislation they just helped write. And people wonder why the American public looks on DC as being corrupt.

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Gingrich: Palestinians 'invented people'

And remember, he's supposed to be the intellectual of the bunch. Saying the borders were invented would be correct but the people? Wow.

Gingrich differed from official US policy that respects the Palestinians as a people deserving of their own state based on negotiations with Israel. "Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire" until the early 20th century, Gingrich said.

"I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it's tragic," he said.

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Poll: Record high support throwing out most incumbents

Wouldn't it be nice to live somewhere where you actually liked who was representing you in Congress? Obviously there aren't many of those around when you look at these numbers. After my Democratic Congresswoman voted to support Comcast, I stopped voting for her and could care less if she's ever elected again. Let's see raised hands for readers who like their representative and tell us who it is and why you like that person. Cheer us up.

Gallup:

About three-quarters of registered voters (76%) say most members of Congress do not deserve re-election, the highest such percentage Gallup has measured in its 19-year history of asking this question. The 20% who say most members deserve to be re-elected is also a record low, by one percentage point.

This finding is from a Nov. 28-Dec. 1 Gallup poll, adding to the broad negativity toward Congress Americans have expressed this year. These include historically low congressional job approval ratings, low ratings of confidence in the legislative branch of government, and low ratings of confidence in Congress as an institution.

The 76% who say most members of Congress "do not deserve to be re-elected" is six points higher than the previous high of 70%, measured in August.

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The Specials - Gangsters

The sun is out and the skies are clear but there's no leaving home today. After being drenched in the rain I managed to pick up a bit of a cold. I was doing my normal lunchtime 60 minute bike ride earlier in the week and all was going well until I rode over something and my tire started to lose air. No worries, I have a spare. I couldn't find the puncture but it didn't matter since I also forgot my patch kit. It started to drizzle as I took off my rear tire and replaced it with the new tube. I would have preferred no drizzle, but fine.

As I'm pumping up my tire, the air suddenly gushes out. Hmmmm. Not good. I then notice that the valve popped out and was nowhere to be found. Yeah. Really not good. I then take a chance with the old tube, hoping I can pump it up and make it a a little bit closer to home but that doesn't last long. Then it starts to rain and it's heavy. Mind you, I'm about 10 kilometers from home and there are no trains nearby. (Can't take a bike on a bus or Metro here.) As I'm walking the rain gets harder and then the final insult happens when it starts to hail. The hail was getting stuck inside the crevices of my helmet making my head nice and cool.

The sun going down (it was a late lunch, as always) then made it nice and chilly. Thankfully my father in law was able to swing by and meet me to give me and the bike a lift home. Just a guess, but I think that's the day I officially got sick this week. But nice sunshine today. Hooray. Read the rest of this post...

Russians plan nationwide protests today

Reuters is calling it the "rise of the middle class" in Russia and after working closely with Russians for the last eight years, I'd have to agree. The Russia of today is not what it was even ten years ago, but Putin doesn't understand what happened. Things may become a little more clear for him today as Russians plan a large protest in Moscow and many more smaller protests around the country.

To his credit, Putin's policies helped grow the middle class. Unfortunately Putin missed a few history classes and failed to understand that when this happens, people want and expect to have some say in the future of the country. Being pushed aside while the mega-rich zip by, above the law, is not sustainable. Russians now expect more and will eventually get it. Al Jazeera:

Russia is bracing itself for the first nationwide protest against Vladimir Putin's 12-year rule amid signs of swelling anger over a poll won by his ruling United Russia party with the alleged help of widescale fraud.

Moscow authorities gave permission for 30,000 people to gather on a square across the river from the Kremlin at 10:00 GMT after detaining some 1,600 activists over the past few days who joined unsanctioned rallies against the December 4 vote.

The opposition is also organising rallies in at least 14 other major cities in a rare outpouring of mistrust in a system put in place by Putin when he first became president in 2000.

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