"You Can Have A Good Life With Just Gig Jobs!" - More Lies From The Neolibs

It is little wonder most citizens can't keep up with the array of interests inveighing against their welfare. They barely have time to keep up with their jobs and time demands on the home front, including caregiving for elderly parents or raising kids, far less sustain their reading. The last, especially on political and economic issues that most concern them.  Yet they are foolishly browbeaten to have more kids to keep up the necessary economic activity to avoid a low growth, flatlined GDP.  See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/04/neoliberal-global-population-pushers.html

As I wrote in that prior post, the Neolibs are wrong  because it is just too damned expensive for most people to raise a single child (especially without full government assistance) to maturity, far less more. Ask Paul and Shannon Tweed (TIME, Oct. 24, p. 40), where we first learn they "had found an in-home child care provider who charged $500 a month. But two years later the monthly cost doubled when a second child was born."

And, most astonishing:

"Now, every month the Tweeds spend $1,100 out of pocket to care for their kids while they work, just $28 less than they pay for their mortgage."

And in addition: "If their basic costs were not overwhelming enough their oldest son was diagnosed on the autism spectrum."

Of course, the Neoliberal solution to the Tweeds' plight is to offer "tax credits" which, as Shannon Tweed observed,  would barely cover one fifth of their out of pocket costs. But hey, it's a  gimmick the Neoliberal pols love and we'll be sure to see lots more if Trump somehow sneaks into office. Then he will  need plenty of tax credits to implement the 40 percent cuts to gov't programs he wants to support his tax cuts. A new iteration of "let them eat cake"? Maybe.

Enter a recent NY Times Business Section essay, 'Good Lives Without Good Jobs', in which we learn "94.6 % of jobs added from 2014 to 2024 will be in the service sector" in other words, poorly remunerated and putting more pressures on families than even the Tweeds ($72,000 /yr. earners) have experienced. Where can those families go for help? The corporations won't help, they're already cutting worker benefits, e.g. "fewer employers are providing health insurance to their workers."  Other employers are making them pay much more via higher deductibles. As finance columnist Jill Schlesinger wrote in yesterday's Denver Post Business Section:

"Deductibles have soared 49 percent since 2011 to an average of $1,478."

That is the amount workers themselves will have to pay, on average, before  their insurance coughs up one thin dime for their health care. And it's getting worse.

Then we get to the nitty gritty:

"American policy makers have responded to the declines of high wage jobs and generous employer benefits by gradually expanding the role of the government in ensuring that Americans have adequate income and adequate benefits. Most of this expansion has taken place in what the political scientist Christopher Howard calls 'the hidden welfare state'".

The authors go on to assert:

"This huge government sector is made up of tax credits, federal grants in aid to the states, and low interest loan programs like student loans. Many of these indirect programs, like entitlements and tax breaks for health care, retirement and housing, are not counted as part of the conventional federal budget."

Failing to note that a good portion of military, defense spending isn't either. Indeed, the Pentagon still isn't held to regular account for its spending, or over spending, including on boondoggles like missile defense and the F-35.  Former defense analyst Chuck Spinney pointed out in a 2002 Bill Moyers interview how the Defense Dept. still can't account for  $1.1 trillion they were given in the 1990s.

At this point, let's be reminded of what the Neoliberal agenda is all about, citing the words of Baltimore Sun columnist Jay Bookman ('The New World Disorder', 1998):

"The global economy has been constructed on the premise that government guarantees of security and protection must be avoided at all costs, because they discourage personal initiative."

If this is so, then logically the Neoliberal will be foursquare against any and all government assistance or expansion of services which they call "socialization of benefits".  Playing into this meme, the authors write:

"In terms of social welfare spending, the United States seems miserly compared with many other developed nations. But according to a recent study for the Peterson Institute for International  Economics by Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, this is an illusion. When tax -favored, private social spending is combined with public spending, American public expenditures at 20.8 percent are only a little lower than the average of 21 states in the European Union."

But this mixes apples and oranges, and especially can't be trusted coming from the likes of  the Peterson Institute. As I pointed out in a post from 2013, in focusing on the 'Fix the Debt'  operation e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/01/fix-debt-cover-to-undermine-your-future.html

"SourceWatch’s  site PetersonPyramid.org informed us that, in reality, the “Campaign to Fix the Debt” was just the latest effort by Peter G. Peterson and a bunch of his billionaire friends and corporate cronies to chop away at Social Security and Medicare. All in the name of fixing America’s “debt problem”.

In other words, the Peterson bunch is at the very heart of the Neoliberal program to strip economic security from citizens.  As for the quoted section above, let's be clear "tax -favored PRIVATE social spending" is just a fancy euphemism for charity. So the Peterson PR hack is comparing the likes of millions like me donating some $1,500 a year to charities with government public spending and services.  (Also, let me insert here that I - like many others - don't get anything "tax -favored" because we don't meet the threshold for charitable donations to make deductions.)   So, the correct comparison is between total American public spending, no charity component, and total EU public spending - which when done- does indeed show the American contribution is "miserly". And these two are compared on the bases of taxes paid in, not tax deductions for charity by private persons, groups,

But see, the PR machine of the Neoliberals can't afford to allow such rational, logical comparisons because it contradicts their narrative that people in this country really are on their own, and were it not for charities - like Covenant House, Salvation Army, CARE etc. as well as open soup kitchens and food pantries,  there'd be many millions more homeless and hungry each year.

The actual Neoliberal bent of the authors emerges at the very end, when we behold their prescription for the American worker:

"Until most American workers are persuaded that they will not be worse off in a system characterized by flexible work arrangements and partly socialized benefits  they make continue to make unrealistic demands .... Politicians should tell working Americans what they need to hear not what they want to hear. And what they need to hear is that it is possible for all Americans to have good lives, even if they can't have good jobs."

In other words,  lo and behold,  the "good life" is possible without having a good job. Just put together fifteen or twenty "gig" jobs (e.g. Uber, Task rabbit)  a day and you might make it too!  Oh, and just be sure you don't have more kids than you can afford, especially for child care and college. It also will help to have a list of charities ready in case you need food or services.

What these Neoliberal purveyors of bollocks- like at the Peterson Institute - always neglect to mention is that in order to have a "good life"  the nation must increase the availability of high productivity jobs that pay superior wages.  There are no short cuts here, and insisting workers suck it up and go the route of "flexible work arrangements" (Gig jobs) is an insult to working families everywhere.

What is needed then is not more trade deals to dispatch good jobs overseas, but massive capital investment in the U.S. by the same national and multinational corporations that stand to benefit from the current 'hyper-globalization".  It cannot be done by a few nips at the margins, or by tossing a few dried bones to the Plebes in the form of special job training, trade adjustment assistance or other public welfare spending.

But any success on this score implies we the people gaining control over the Neoliberal Plutocrats like Peter G. Peterson, as opposed to them running the system to our disadvantage.

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/paul-buchheit/69740/how-a-disappearing-and-deluded-middle-class-awaits-the-new-president


And:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-stanton/69721/usa-continues-drive-to-plutocracy-dismantling-of-state

Airline Seat Space Is About More Than Comfort

"Skyrider" seats demonstrated several years ago at a trade show. If adopted by the FAA, and for long trips, passengers better be ready for blood clots and hemorrhoids - also escaping a possible disaster.

As Spring break unfolds, airline travelers are confronted not only by absurdly long TSA security lines (as staffing has been scaled down by 15 percent) but also by ever reduced seat pitch in economy class. For example, Spirit airlines has now reduced the space between seats to 28 inches, which might tempt some to use the infamous "knee defender" which came to light two years ago. To refresh memories, the device is designed to protect the knees and legs of a tall, lanky passenger in the seat behind. It works by preventing the forward passenger from exercising the recline option. Needless to say, a number of angry altercations erupted on planes where some passengers attempted to use it.

Now, Sen. Chuck Schumer, to the chagrin of airline profiteers,  has proposed a law mandating that the FAA require more legroom. While some nabobs have insisted this is specious, a matter of the government setting decrees on acceptable comfort (and costs) it is actually about something more important - safety. If seat pitches are too narrow than in the event of an emergency - such as a fire on a plane - they make seat egress much more difficult. Schumer's argument is that we shouldn't await a calamity to address the matter. I agree.

It doesn't take an Einstein or 'rocket scientist' to figure out why the airlines have crammed more rows and seats into their planes. It is all about money, profits. The more seats, the more fares and the more moola collected. In the case of Spirit, if the current 28 inches pitch was mandated to be 31 inches, the airline would effectively lose at least two rows of seats. This is based on the 26-row configuration posted on the website SeatGuru.  Multiplied over a lot of Spirit flights that translates into significant revenue lost.

The Neoliberal capitalist nabobs aren't that concerned with safety issues, even one disaster that might claim 100 lives because most passengers were unable to get out in time. No, they are more exercised over the disappearance of low cost fares - evidently believing passengers care more about low cost flights than the ability to escape a plane fire erupting just before takeoff.

One of the opinion pieces appearing in the Denver Post yesterday - against Schumer's plan - claimed:

"In January, the travel website Skift attempted to calculate the cost of additional legroom and recline on a passenger jet flying in the competitive North Atlantic region (e.g. London to New York). The conclusion: $33 per inch or $13.33 per degree of recline"

The implication here is that an economy passenger isn't willing to pay for an extra 3 inches of leg room (say $99 according to the Skift analysis) if it could save the person's life. Of course, in the person's own cost -benefit analysis he or she may believe the occasion for which the extra inches matter - say to escape a plan fire - has too low a probability of occurrence to trade for higher fares. True, but if and when that odd event happens would you still want to be trapped? Think before answering.

The Neoliberal author pushing against any FAA regulatory mandate noted that "many economy class passengers already have the option to purchase economy -plus seats"  with 6 extra inches of legroom. The price is about 18 percent higher than economy class.  But he adds that  Skift's analysis shows that the "passenger load factor - the seats occupied by paying customers - in economy -plus cabins, only averages 36 percent."

In other words, airline passengers evidently don't value extra leg room as much as low fares. But if this proposition is true, why do so many passengers try to resort to the use of knee defenders on flights?  The increasing use of these devices shows that many passengers do value the extra leg room, even if one analysis by one site for one level of cabin (economy-plus) seems to show otherwise.

Before the era of airline deregulation in the 1980s, many of us (boomers) were flying comfortably in the 1960s, on Pan Am, Eastern and National Airlines. We enjoyed spacious seat pitch as well as seat width - and halfway decent airline meals. The typical fare to fly from Miami to New Orleans in 1969 was $90 which would translate into $360 in today's dollars. To us that extra comfort was more than worth the price.

I am also hard pressed to believe that airline passengers today are so inured to being packed like sardines or cattle that comfort (and safety) no longer matter and low cost trumps all. But perhaps I am wrong. Because 90 percent of the passengers traveling by air today don't know any different experience, maybe indeed it doesn't matter to them, I mean, you can't pine or miss what you never had in the first place.

Let's just hope that if that preference for lower fares is real and means embracing ever smaller seat pitch, the test for safety thresholds doesn't intrude too soon.

As Alzheimer's Disease Numbers Rise - An Even Greater Need To Label GMO Foods

John Phillips: Bio-geneticist and nutrition specialist, was one of the first to point out the links between consuming GMO foods and Alzheimer's.


In the latest Bulletin received from 'Food & Water Watch' with assorted added documents, I've been informed the battle is now joined to get GMO foods labeled. Vermont has already passed legislation requiring genetically engineered foods to be labeled and the governor has signed it into law. But make no mistake the big 'guns' of the Neoliberal state are out to try to kill it, since they know labeling could be mandated by other states.

So no surprise that a bill was introduced in the last session of congress which intent is to kill all labeling initiatives for GMO foods.  As with the case of fracking - whereby many state governments have outlawed initiatives to halt it - the momentum of the purveyors is to have the little people live in heaping piles of shit, including unlabeled shit for food. Who or what is behind this anti-labeling campaign? The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) whose 300 member corporations have now poured $54.7 million into bribing our politicos to screw the rest of us. DO they care if we get Alzheimer's disease or cancer? Hell no! Because these vermin - like Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) mastermind of the current legislation - already have "Cadillac"  health plans to deal with any ills. Even if they get pancreatic, kidney, colon or other cancers they won't have to shell out tens of thousands a year for drugs to stay alive.

According to the Bulletin from 'Food & Water Watch' :

"GMO ingredients are hidden in 70 percent of processed food in this country. This is only a 'best guess'  because no one knows for sure as they are not labeled. Also, very little is known of the long term effects of what GMOs can do to your health because they've not been properly tested. But what facts we do have are alarming."

The Bulletin then references:

"Real lab rats fed GMOs have suffered kidney and liver damage, cancerous tumors and even premature death."

Wonder why so many people are now needing kidney and liver transplants? This may be one huge contributing factor.

Among the other alarming facts is the horrific link to glyphosate as exposed by Barbadian geneticist and nutritionist John Phillips, who has noted:

""Among other toxins and other health-disrupting contaminants, GMO foods contain glyphosate, a horrifically destructive chemical that saps nutrients from foods and quite literally makes them toxic to consume."

 Phillips also ties it into the increasing numbers of people in the U.S. suffering from Alzheimer's disease - which destroys the brain and renders victims little more than zombies. (If you can, see the recent film 'Still Alice' to get a grasp of how it destroys a professor's mind and life).  European numbers by contrast are low, well because they are among the 64 intelligent and caring nations that require GMO labeling.

In his excellent Wall Street Journal piece, 'Yes - We Deserve to Know What's In the Food We  Eat' (July 13, p. R1), Andrew Kimbrell lays out the crux of the matter:

"Chemical and food companies claim they shouldn't have to label because genetically engineered foods have not been proven unsafe. But every day we see labeling for food additives or processes such as 'made from concentrates' that have been found safe.

The Food and Drug Administration standard for labeling has nothing to do with danger. Rather, the law requires labeling to inform consumers about novel contents or changes that may not be obvious and the consumer would have an interest in knowing.

Do genetically engineered foods fit the bill? Yes, they do. Virtually all commercialized, genetically engineered food crops come from novel bacterial, viral, or other DNA sources never before seen in foods, often creating novel proteins as well. If the FDA were to actually test GMO foods, which it does not, and find them hazardous, it would not label them, it would remove them from supermarket shelves. "

Kimbrell goes on to write that while opponents often claim GMO foods would be "too expensive" to label, this is really a PR crock. In fact, "food companies change their labels all the time." and that "adding 'produced with genetic engineering' on the package would be of negligible cost."

Kimbrell's piece is potent because it's typeset along side a clear PR piece ('It's Simply a Ploy To Make Consumers  Worry') by a Penn State prof (Nina Federoff) who ought to be ashamed of herself. One wonders in fact if she received as much money for that PR slop as Willie Soon has for his anti-global warming drivel.

Why the desperate refusal to label GMOs? Because it would cut into the profits of the biggest GMO producers like Monsanto which now rings up $11.8 billion a year in sales.

Labeling, as I said and Kimbrell gives a powerful justification for, is rational and 64 other nations already do it. They are determined to protect their citizens from potential Alzheimer's and cancer cases while ours seems more interested in enabling profits for the corporations that benefit from GMO food sales.

Meanwhile, as we await labeling, there are things you can do to avoid consuming GMO foods, as listed in the  'Food & Water Watch'  enclosure:

1. Know the top GMO crops and common GMO ingredients, which include:

- Canola (also called rapeseed oil)

- Corn (including high fructose corn syrup)

-Cottonseed oil (common in vegetable oil and margarine)

- Soybeans (may also appear in ingredients' lists as simply 'sugar')

- Sugar beets ("   "     "      "       "         "      "       "       "    ")


2. Buy organic - since the USDA prohibits GMO crops from being used in certified organic crops for food and animal feed.

3. Look for products that are specifically labelled 'Non -GMO or GMO Free')

4. Shop Local : Most GMO foods are produced on large, industrial farms and by huge corporate food companies. Your best bet is to buy local foods at farmers' markets.

5. Make it from scratch: By avoiding prepared and processed foods you control every ingredient, giving you final say on what you eat.

Finally, learn how to decode labels and do not be misled by the fake word "natural" - which is merely a deceptive marketing ploy.

For more information on label decoding of foods go to:

http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/food/consumer-labels/decoding-food-labels/

Update:

The House bill to prevent GMO food labeling passed 275-150 on Thursday.

Naming the 28 Democrat Punks Who Voted for the TPP Fast Track on Friday

 "Aaaargh! That bastard Copernicus is exposing our allies in the House!"

Okay, it's 'show time',  people. The next big vote on TPP is likely today and we have to know the names of the 28 Demo punks who already voted with the Repukes on it.  These traitors voted to pass fast-track trade promotion authority, which preapproves the still-secret Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and future so-called “trade” agreements. These poltroons voted to send jobs and factories out of the country, to allow non-U.S. corporations (and foreign subsidiaries of U.S. corporations) to sue our government if we try to pass laws that might interfere with their profits. (And those are just some of the things we know are in TPP from leaks.)

Okay, look, there is always the small chance of redemption, so we will hope that arrives today when the rubber likely hits the road with a new TPP vote .  Here are the names of  the Dem miscreants. Pay attention to see whether any are your reps.:

Brad Ashford (Neb.-2nd District)

 Ami Bera (Calif.-7th District)

 Don Beyer (Va.-8th District)

 Earl Blumenauer (Ore.-3rd District)

 Suzanne Bonamici (Ore.-1st District)

 Gerry Connolly (Va.-11th District)

 Jim Cooper (Tenn.-5th District)

 Jim Costa (Calif.-16th District)

 Henry Cuellar (Texas-28th District)

 Susan Davis (Calif.-53rd District)

 John Delaney (Md.-6th District)

 Suzan DelBene (Wash.-1st District)

 Sam Farr (Calif.-20th District)

 Jim Himes (Conn.-4th District)

 Ruben Hinojosa (Texas-15th District)

 Eddie B. Johnson (Texas-30th District)

 Derek Kilmer (Wash.-6th District)

 Ron Kind (Wis.-3rd District)

 Rick Larsen (Wash.-2nd District)

 Gregory Meeks (N.Y.-5th District)

 Beto O’Rourke (Texas-16th District)

 Scott Peters (Calif.-52nd District)

 Jared Polis (Colo.-2nd District)

 Mike Quigley (Ill.-5th District)

 Kathleen Rice (N.Y.-4th District)

 Kurt Schrader (Ore.-5th District)

 Terri Sewell (Ala.-7th District)

 Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.-23rd District)

If ANY one of these people represent you in Congress, use clicktocallcongress.org to contact them. Tell them to vote the right way- against TPP - or their stay in the House won't be very long because they will be primaried next time around!

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/bill-moyers/62678/fast-track-derails-democracy

Excerpt:

"The unholy trio of Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (who has vowed to keep any of Obama’s nominees from being confirmed), Speaker of the House John Boehner (who has thwarted just about every Democratic legislative proposal of the past several years), and President Obama (a Democrat, in case you are having trouble remembering) are as one in a desperate effort to rescue their Frankenstein-like creation.

Their only hope is to bribe, browbeat or brainwash enough House members to change their minds. It could happen....

The issue before us is not “free trade,” which, like any policy, has its pluses and minuses. The issue is that a multilateral trade agreement should not be negotiated in secret, but in the open by our State and Commerce departments, with input from all organizations concerned, including those representing workers and environmentalists.

Then there should come a draft document for all to see, to be laid before the people’s representatives in Congress assembled. If and when a majority of them ratifies the agreement, it can go to the president for signature. This is how democracy should work....

This whole affair is outrageous. After 226 years of constitutional government, is this where we’ve finally arrived?

So what can we do against so monstrous a lie? First, call this deal out for what it is — an abomination. Then let the tsunami of popular outrage roll. Tell Congress and the White House what you think. But hurry! Time’s running out, and Obama, McConnell, Boehner and the lobbyists are working overtime to get the locomotive back on the fast-track."

Another Train Explosion - Another Reason To Stop Fracking!

The scenes emanating from Fayette Co., West Virginia resembled iconic images of Dante's Inferno as portrayed in several works of art. Giant fireballs lurching into the skies, forcing the evacuation of two WVa towns as another CSX owned train, bound for Yorktown, Virginia suffered a derailment  (as several before) with the explosion of the kerogen it was  carrying.

This had originated in the Bakken oil shale fields of North Dakota and not the first incident to involve Bakken-crude, which kerogen is some of the most explosive stuff on Earth.  Recall last April another Bakken-carrying CSX train derailed near Lynchburg, VA. In December, 2013, a massive fireball erupted over Casselton, ND and in July, 2013, 47 people died after a train carrying Alberta kerogen crude derailed in the middle of a town in Québec.

In the current incident, the Governor of West Virginia has declared a state of emergency. Also,  some of the kerogen effluent poured into the Kanawha River, forcing the Montgomery, WVa water treatment plant to shut down because the river is the source of town water. No one in his or her right mind would want to imbibe kerogen-laced water.

What is kerogen? Richard Heinberg explained it in his recent book, Snake Oil: How Fracking's False Promise Imperils Our Future', page 110 ):

"Kerogen is not oil. It is better thought of as an oil precursor that was insufficiently cooked by geologic processes. If we want to turn it into oil, we have to finish the process nature started: that involves heating the kerogen to a high temperature for a long time. And that in turn takes energy- lots of it, whether supplied by hydroelectricity, nuclear power plants, natural gas, or the kerogen itself. "

Being an "oil precursor" means it's much more volatile and doesn't take much to explode, say from a collision or derailment. None of this has been taken into consideration by the National Transportation Safety Board in its paltry "recommendations" which are more a nod to the energy industry and train operators like CSX.

In fact, what the latest incident shows is that this crap shouldn't be transported at all. Period!  Indeed as one commentator observed on Chris Hayes' show it "ought to be left in the ground". It's too damned dangerous and the killing of those 47 forlorn Canadians ought to have proven that. If that had been an actual terror attack you can bet your sweet bippy no more trains would be running anywhere out of an abundance of caution. Yet because we are so brainwashed by the Neoliberal business before people model, our leaders turn a blind eye -- we must let those trains keep on rolling to keep the $$$ pouring in!

Oil shale fracking is a symptom of diminishing quality supplies of oil, that of high EROEI (energy returned on energy invested) not oil abundance. Anyone with half a brain would know that, which is why Richard  Heinberg  refers to it as "snake oil". It simply can't deliver the energy solution promised and in fact its continued use will result in ever lower quotas of useful energy- at ever higher cost.

As Heinberg adds - following the previous quote (ibid):

 "Therefore the EROEI in processing oil shale is bound to be pitifully low. According to the best study to date, by Cutler Cleveland and Peter O'Connor, the EROEI for oil shale production would be about 2:1. That tells us that oil from kerogen will be far more expensive than regular crude oil."

This compares to the average of 15:1 when we used "light sweet" crude - not this crap which is closer to coal tar. 

Folks, our energy response shows desperation, not any resourcefulness. This is what the Neoliberals won't tell you. They instead want you to believe we're on the verge of a "New Age" of energy bounty with little cost to the citizen. Do not buy it for a second! There are major costs - to our air, water, soil and now to whole communities which stand to be blown up and evacuated if one of the trains carrying this stuff happens to derail. Likely taking lives and towns' water supplies with it.

We wouldn't tolerate terrorists getting away with this shit and we shouldn't tolerate it from the damned frack-happy assholes seeking to send our country and its citizens into perdition. We need to hold our leaders to account on this too, and get rid of all those who put the oil industry's interests before ours!

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/gaius-publius/61232/lying-pantsuit-lady

Why Families Can't Get Ahead In Denver

In the new MSNBC documentary series 'The Pot Barons of Colorado'  we get an inside look at the booming retail marijuana industry in Colorado and the 12 or 14 who control most aspects of - including edibles, as well as pot for smoking and cannabis oil. These people, make no mistake, are rolling in money, but they are also sticking their necks way out for that reward - including (as a recent episode showed) always facing the sharp knives of the regulators who tend to overly side with caution, But the 'barons'  admit that's the nature of their business and they're willing to lose all to gain their rewards. (Let's also bear in mind they have no banking system to rely on to deposit cash and all their tax payments have to be made in cash and taken in person to the Colorado Dept. of Revenue).

But this isn't so much about the Pot Barons as their hundreds of workers who toil in the shadows to turn out a high quality product. These people, and thousands of others who have come to Colorado to find work (including for the oil and natural gas fracking),  often also find themselves behind the 'eight ball' on account of an insufficient housing stock. Because it is insufficient, the demand outpaces it, and prices - whether for homes or rents - have soared. This leaves many either outside the market or in an unstable predicament.

As a point of fact, according to a Denver Post (Dec. 14) report, "Colorado ranks among the top five states when it comes to creating jobs and attracting new residents. But construction, for a variety of reasons, hasn't kept pace. Home prices and rents are rising sharply while the incomes to pay them are stagnant."

Quoting the President of Oread Capital and Development, Jeff Handlin, it cited the fact the currently single family permits are running at only two -thirds their historical average, This despite a record tight inventory of homes available for sale and the higher prices accompanying that situation. Apart from that, while multi-family accommodations have surged  to levels unseen since 2002, this has not prevented some of the steepest rend increases in the nation.

The Post report cites rents being up 9.2 percent in metro Denver and Boulder, 8.8 percent in Fort Collins and 13. 5 percent in Greeley - ground zero for fracking operations. By comparison, the 18 year state average is closer to 3.7 percent.

To fix ideas even more, a study released by Zillow 2 weeks ago showed a renter now needs to earn at least $35 an hour to afford even a median priced rental in metro Denver - or almost 4 1/2 times Denver's minimum wage.  Another nasty trend, and I am sure I can call it that (though the Post doesn't) is the low vacancy rates spurring investors to buy up older (low rent) complexes, condos - rehabilitate them, then boost rents to gentrified levels.

The result? Three bedroom rents for the city's newest apartments now run $1, 675  a month which would demand an annual salary of $67,500 to be considered affordable. (Remember the rubric here: your rent -housing costs should come to no more than one third of your total income.)

The perverse situation, which again is a total product of greed and the Neoliberal business model, is that "developers want to build at the highest end of affordability while the demand is all at the low end".

Again, this is what I define as manifesting insanity, because the housing construction is then detached from economic reality. The demand side is being ignored to put up a weak, vastly overpriced supply component. Any objective rational observer- say from another world - would believe those doing it had lost their marbles. They were ignoring basic laws of supply and demand and worse, were contributing to economic upheaval and stress when there is no need for it.

What would a Socialist do? Well, given the Neoliberal capitalists, builders are evidently incapable of acting in their or the communities best interests it would be to allow their selective elitist construction to go ahead but only after paying construction fees equal to at least 20 percent of the costs of their units, homes etc. It would be a corrective to their greed and also discourage building only for the rich when the demand is for the moderate income person - coming here to work in fracking operations, or in the Pot retail business, or in the booming aerospace industry.

To understand why such a corrective is rational, one need only see how many existing homeowners are pouring into food kitchens for support or to 'Almost Home'  (an advocacy group) to beg for affordable units - given many are spending up to 70 percent of their income on rent and are desperate. And as rents, home prices shoot ever higher, middle income households are being squeezed ever more - with the specter of food inadequacy now also beginning to rear its head.

The Post observes in passing that of the single family homes starts this year in metro Denver, only 17 percent were priced below $300,000, compared with 40 percent in 2012.

No matter which side of the political spectrum you fall on, this is inexcusable, and undermines any chance for real economic growth  - because this isn't happening only in Denver but other cities too, such as San Francisco.

If the Neoliberals  and their lackeys can't or won't provide sound, rational solutions to this housing problem then Socialists and others with the commonweal in mind, must do it for them.

Hello, Obama! SONY Had NO CHOICE!

President Barack Obama is an intelligent guy, but his harsh reprimand of Sony today shows he can also be guilty of making some dumbo claims, rebukes and statements. We saw this earlier in the spring when he actually went on record as saying Russia was a "second class Power". Uh, no, dude. Not when they have nearly half all of the planet's nuclear weapons!

Earlier today Obama again showed he can sometimes be as clueless as Dumbya Bush when he rebuked Sony for withdrawing its year-end assassination flick, 'The Interview'.  The Prez said "I think they made a mistake" then followed it up with:

 "I'd wish they'd spoken to me first. I would have told them 'do not get into the pattern in which you are intimidated by these kind of criminal attacks".

And what would your speaking to them have accomplished, sir?  Let's think about this carefully, not parroting the bollocks and insanity of most of the Neoliberal, paper patriot, pseudo free speech crowd in the U.S. who are also insane and no longer able to reason properly.

First, even if Sony HAD NOT withdrawn this reprehensible flick - which depicts the head of a living leader of a sovereign state (never mind you may hate it)  being blown up in its final scene WHERE the hell could they have shown it? Alas, it was the theater chains like Cinemark, Carmike and Regal Cinema which pulled it after the physical threats were announced. This represented something like 19,200 screens across the country which would have meant the most Sony could have hoped for was maybe getting a few dozen indie flick screens in the malls. Now, seriously, do you really really believe those small indie theaters would have cooperated with Sony after all the majors said 'No'? If so you are more ensconced in the proverbial la la land than your CIA head Brennan - not willing to call the CIA torture, torture.

Second, as Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out last night on "All In", for the benefit of a clueless substitute for Chris Hayes, it was ultimately about possible litigation - given the FBI itself could not 100 percent promise the theater owners that no threat would materialize. (Even a nutso creep like James Eagen Holmes, who committed the Aurora CO theater massacre,  might have used it as a pretext for an incident.)  Given this lack of 100 % assurance, had the theater owners shown the film and ANY kind of violent incident occurred THEY would have been out their with their asses in the lawsuit wind, having to pay up to injured patrons. The repercussions would be similar to what the Aurora, CO Cinemark is facing from the families of the dozen slain and nearly five dozen wounded victims of that theater massacre 2 years ago. (A Denver Judge denied Cinemark's plea to avoid the 20 lawsuits because it "had no foreknowledge". Imagine the consequences for any violent episode in a theater showing 'The Interview')

So, let's get a bearing here on reality, which appears to be a commodity in short supply in the US of A: If you really would like to rebuke anyone or any entity, it is the actual cinema companies, theater owners and litigious lawyers you would have to go after before Sony. The fact you did not do this discloses your analog to "hostage taking" is simply empty rhetoric and posturing.

Obama continued his fulsome, self-righteous bloviation by saying:

"We cannot have a society in which some dictator some place can start imposing censorship here in the United States."

Sounds real testy with a tinge of humbug, and if I didn't know who had said the words I'd have attributed them to Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity - because those two don't think before disengaging mouth or brains (And let's get it clear it isn't a case of  "libtards" being "thin-skinned" - as we see many flocking to the film's defense, yelping they want to see this crappola too - or are four square for Sony putting it up online.  See George Clooney. This is a case of rational people who can still exhibit some mode of discretion and sense, as opposed to jingoistic twits so hyped up on paper patriotism that it's gutted their febrile brains..)

Because when you make a sweeping remark like that as if in some existential vacuum you are revealing yourself oblivious to: 1) the fact that Sony's contract with theater owners allowed their withdrawal from exhibition, and 2) was ultimately because of our litigious society - something which you as a constitutional lawyer ought to know  - because you also must have taken some tort courses at Hah-vahd to get there.

If Obama wanted to be honest in attributing mistakes to Sony, it would have been in green lighting that irresponsible dreck in the first place. Even their own execs, for god's sake, were nervous about the violent ending. Even Obama's own Dept. of Homeland Security(according to an LA Times report) warned Sony that the film "could provoke retaliation."

Ultimately, this crap film masquerading as a comedy deserved to be "assassinated" as one commenter put it in a response at Truthdig.com, because it was neither art or free speech. Showing a living leader's head being exploded and burned up in gory full screen color is not anything any normal, sane human grants as "speech" or "art" - any more than money is speech, and a color photo of a heaping pile of hog shit is art.

But it does show how far along our people - including our leaders- have lost their bearings, their good sense and judgment. More evidence as a whole that our nation - thanks to being pumped by PR and propaganda - is gradually losing its collective mind.  The critical thought test currently is only passed by those who agree that this film never ought to have seen the light of day - and to date- I have seen only two lone voices in the media, which is otherwise overwhelmed with this 'free speech' and "artistic license" BS.

One more point: It would not be wise to instigate a "cyber war" over what one Harvard law prof correctly described as a criminal attack on a lone corporation. Especially as the perceived victim nation does not launch such a war unless it is 100 percent certain all its ducks are cyber-secure and "in a row", including for infrastructure control,  power plants and water systems!

See also:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-sony-japan-ceo-interview-20141220-story.html



http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/12/sony-pictures-should-have-had-sense-not.html

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/12/waaahh-we-caved-in-to-terrists-no.html

And:

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/18/everyone_caved_how_much_of_the_interview_fiasco_is_actually_hollywoods_fault/

Excerpt:

"emails suggest Sony execs remained nervous about the film’s content, especially the ending. On July 9, Lynton wrote to Pascal, “we cannot be cute here,” saying they could work with “no melting face and actually not seeing [Kim Jong-un] die. A look of horror as the fire approaches is probably what we need.” Rogen, while willing to play ball, appears reluctant to completely scuttle the visuals in this Sept. 25 email to Pascal: “There are currently four burn marks on his face. We will take out three of them, leaving only one. We reduce the flaming hair by 50% … The head explosion can’t be more obscured than it is because we honestly feel that if it’s any more obscured you won’t be able to tell its exploding and the joke won’t work.”

Another reason not to back this crappo film:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20141220_ap_1c88ae9ef80a4fe594b0f15402d0bd30.html

Should Air Passengers Have To Fly With Potentially Exploding "Bombs" in Cargo Holds?

This photo from the FAA shows the cargo hold of a jetliner (in a facility at Atlantic City) exploding after a heater was placed in proximity to 5,000 packed lithium -ion batteries.

The gov't does all in its power, via the TSA, FBI and other agencies,  to secure passengers so they aren't faced with exploding terrorist shoe bombs on their flights. So the question is: Why won't the powers-that-be do all in their capacity to prevent such an explosive event from occurring on flights which may be laden with rechargeable lithium -ion batteries that can be triggered  under certain conditions - enough to possibly bring down a plane?

Dramatic government test results (conducted by the FAA- see, e.g. image above) raise intense and growing  concern that bulk shipments of rechargeable lithium batteries carried as cargo on passenger planes are susceptible to fires or explosions that could destroy the airliners. In an April test by the Federal Aviation Administration, a cargo container was packed with 5,000 lithium-ion batteries and a cartridge heater added to simulate a single battery experiencing uncontrolled overheating. The heat from the cartridge triggered escalating overheating in nearby batteries, which spread in a chain reaction. Temperatures reached about 1,100 degrees.

Once about 300 batteries had become involved, a fierce explosion blew open the container door and sent boxes flying, catching FAA and industry observers by surprise. Within seconds, the cargo container was in flames. The explosion came from a buildup of flammable gases. A second test in September produced similar results, despite the addition of a fire suppression agent. Safety authorities have long known that lithium-ion batteries can fuel violent fires if they are defective, damaged, overcharged, incorrectly packaged or exposed to extreme heat. But they have been allowed to be shipped on passenger planes because it was thought the halon gas fire suppression systems in the cargo compartments of airliners could extinguish any fire.

 Yet U.S. and international officials have been slow to adopt safety restrictions that might affect the powerful industries that depend on the batteries and the airlines that profit from shipping them.

Do we have the Neoliberal Business model at work again?  Yes, we do! The batteries are used in products ranging from cellphones and laptops to hybrid cars, and 7 billion are shipped each year. The gov't then (in terms of lax regulations) in collusion with the airlines, is simply betting on a cost benefit advantage where they won't encounter a catastrophic event. They are betting the literal farm that the money saved in bulk shipping by air will result in minimal loss of passengers' lives over the time the mass shipping is done. But this is a fool's errand which eventually won't work out because we've already had cases that ought to sound alarms. (The most recent a Fed-Ex crash-  which killed two in 2011.).

Of course, our WHORE Congress - bought and paid for by corporations- is partly to blame. U.S. regulators' hands have been tied by a 2012 law that Congress enacted in response to industry lobbying. It prohibits the government from issuing regulations any more stringent than the U.N. agency's standards unless an international investigative agency can show the batteries ignited a fire that destroyed an aircraft. But that's difficult, since in the three cases thus far in which batteries are suspected of causing fires that destroyed the planes, the aircraft were too damaged to determine the source of the blaze..  According to Tom Haueter, a former National Transportation Safety Board air crash investigator.

"I don't think we should wait for an accident before we take action,"

But like the drone manufacturers itching to get their beasties into the skies -t he industry says "commerce would be hurt" if tougher regs are implemented. In this case if countries have varying shipping standards. Instead, The Rechargeable Battery Association urges stepped-up enforcement of existing standards.

But this may not be much use if battery shippers are cutting corners. As we know the Neoliberal rats are wont to do. In inspection campaign by Canadian authorities, for example, it was found that 78 percent of companies that ship lithium batteries by air weren't declaring their shipments properly and "a surprising number of companies" had shipped damaged, defective and waste batteries

By contrast to the U.S , The U.N.'s civil aviation agency (that our whores in congress invoked) is considering a series of proposals to strengthen packaging, labeling and handling standards for lithium-ion battery shipments, and airline pilot unions are pushing for limits on the number of batteries that can be transported. Meanwhile, to its credit,  the U.N. agency  decided earlier this year to ban shipments on passenger planes of lithium metal batteries, a non-rechargeable cousin to lithium-ion batteries typically used in toys, watches and medical devices. That ban goes into effect in January. About 10 percent of the 2.5 billion lithium metal batteries manufactured annually are shipped by air.

Lithium-ion batteries are far more frequently shipped by air, but there has been no similar effort to ban their transport on passenger planes despite a heightened awareness of their dangers. About 4.8 billion lithium-ion cells were manufactured in 2013, and production is forecast to reach 8 billion a year by 2025. A battery contains two or more cells.

Should you be worried if you fly? Damned straight - as much or more as if a shoe bomber was on board!

The FAA said it in statement Tuesday that it is continuing its battery testing and searching for ways to prevent fires and explosions. Huh, doh - how about not permitting them to be dispatched in bulk?


To its credit, United Airlines said in a message to its cargo clients on Monday that it will no longer accept lithium-ion batteries for shipment in cargo containers because of concern that when damaged the batteries can catch fire and produce explosive gases. The airline said it will still accept the batteries for shipment in pallets.

This is a step in the right direction and more airlines need to help out to do an end run around our useless assholes in congress and its useless laws.

Now New Proposed FAA Drone Rules Have Neolibs Squealing

In my Nov. 28 post ('How Long Before a Drone -Aircraft Collision'), I wrote:

 "I pointed out before, the drones should not be allowed to fly ANYWHERE - until ironclad regs are in place. And those regulations ought to demand that drones and drone operators obey the same rules as commercial aircraft. Yes, it is indeed a steep demand - but it is consistent with the peril and calamity of a drone-commercial aircraft collision. The precautionary principle itself demands drone operators prove their craft are safe - before they can fly at altitudes that imperil commercial craft."

It  appears now that the FAA is starting to take these near misses with drones seriously, and is considering enacting regulations at least as rigorous as I had in mind. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Federal Aviation Administration's long awaited rules on commercial drones - to be issued by year's end- is expected to require drone operators to have a pilot's license for unmanned aircraft. Also, these drone pilots will be required to keep drones in sight at all times.

Bravo! Because this is what's needed, but of course the Neoliberal media and its lackeys are squealing like stuck pigs.  (Or gored oxen who will no longer be able to pile up profits without oversight). And having drone operators with a pilot's license is no biggie, given these little beasties have no sense and avoid technology. Thus, the operator must be its eyes and this is why a license is needed.

But the Denver Post editorial howled yesterday:

"If the report is true (and the FAA is not commenting) the proposal would severely limit the rollout of commercial drones. It could even undermine the use of drones outside of heavily populated areas....where they would be the least controversial"

The Editorial goes on to note the proposals could still be "tweaked" by the White House Office of Budget and Management (which I for one would not advise)  and went on to note:

"Even so, the FAA's apparently ultra-conservative approach to unmanned craft - seven years after the agency declared the use of drones illegal without special waivers-  threatens U.S. leadership in a fast changing industry with tremendous potential to lower costs and increase productivity"

This echoed the whining of a Business Week piece- quoted by the Post:

"If regulators regard the person at the control as akin to a private pilot it would mean upwards of 40 flight hours at a cost of up to $10,000, limiting the pool of workers qualified for the job."

Too bad! It is equally critical - I'd say more so- to protect the lives of commercial airline passengers. After all, we are already prepared to have them stand in long TSA security lines to ensure a safe passage - on the outside chance some terrorist might try to bring a plane down.  So why the hell would we also not implement rigorous drone rules - to the same level as regs for commercial pilots - since the potential of a drone collision with a large commercial jet (say an engine) would be at least as catastrophic as a terrorist bomb? And let us recall again, from the released FAA report, there were 25 near midair collisions among 175  reported in the past 6 months by pilots and air traffic controllers near or in restricted airspace.

The Post's resident Neolibs blab:

"The FAA's approach is often justified by reference to near-miss accidents that have occurred between manned aircraft and small drones. But those incidents are occurring because rogue drone owners are ignoring existing law, not because commercial drones are flooding the skies.."

Perhaps so, but it is also logical to expect if and when drones DO flood the skies, we will see a proportionate increase in rogue drone operators. If there are 400 now, there may be 4,000 in a "flood the skies" scenario - and if so, then the probability for a drone- commercial aircraft collision is enhanced.

Needless to say, I submit that the Neoliberal business model must take a backseat to protecting the flying public, in the same way we protect that public from terrorist attacks. Because in many respects, rogue drone operators are like terrorists - even if they lack an ideology. Thus, I applaud the FAA proposal and do hope they get it into the regulatory regime and with no other tweaks!

AARP's "New Guide to Tipping Etiquette": I Don't Buy It

According to a new AARP online piece, ' A New Guide To Tipping- Are You Doing Enough?, it seems I may not be what they regard as the "model American tipper"  as I rarely if ever give 20 percent (which is being pushed as the 'new norm'  for wait tips at restaurants, and regard a $1 tip for a $12 haircut as close to breaking the bank. The last time I delivered a 19.8% tip was in October when we took our visiting niece out to a dinner at Jose Muldoon's. The waitress nearly covered every base perfectly - including not pestering us every five minutes asking 'How is your food?' (Buffalo and steak fajitas) She just committed one miscue, delivering the wrong size beverage to our niece.

But then, I don't feel guilty in any case, since I am not the employer of these service people, and if they want higher remuneration they need to demand it from their bosses. It is not my job to subsidize their pay because they have chosen work which at base minimum - doesn't pay enough to keep bread on the table 

As I noted in earlier blog posts, the system in the U.S.  is really a very poor one, where wait staff basically sign on as indentured servants whose miserly (normal) scale pay, at $2.13 /hr. is usually quickly snatched up by the employer to pay whatever "expenses" he can think of, with the employee then scrambling to make enough in tips to pay the rent, or just groceries.  

Worse, none of the wait staff in the U.S. get anywhere near the two full weeks vacation that wait staff get in Germany, Austria. Or the health benefits. Why not? Because in this cheapskate Neoliberal bastion few want to pay the taxes that would support decent living wages or benefits for everyone. Then we scratch our butts and wonder why our Xmas is ruined by norovirus because we went to a restaurant where the wait staff had to come in sick - because of no sick days. 

A salon.com  piece last year on tipping  observed:

"People fall over themselves to brag of their tipping prowess and, despite the inherent and obvious injustice of a massive, scarcely-paid workforce scraping and begging for a wage, there has yet to be a true revolt of tipped employees. In a lottery-minded, American Idol culture, workers are loath to give up the chance for a Saudi Sheik to tip them a million dollars as reward for preparing a great smoothie."

The last line is especially apropos and accounts for the reason many in the service industry are loathe to change to a wage-based system.  I bring this up because waiting for a "lotto-sized" tip to push one into the middle class, is basically an immature and jaundiced perception .  About like believing one will win the Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes,  when everyone knows you have to spend nearly as much on their over-priced garbage to win - so the top prize winner barely breaks even. Yet one guy who responded in a letter to a Denver Post's piece on tipping insisted he'd hate the salaried alternative because, get this, it meant "being trapped in socialism".  His reasoning: Well, as a salaried employee - even with benefits - he'd be paid exactly like everyone else, and there'd be no way to shine, get more tip money and rise above the rabble!

This kind of thinking is exactly what's wrong with too many in this country, who also believe taxes need to be always cut rather than increased. It also explains why one can never expect to see any "true revolt of tipped employees". Why should there be, if they all  - or most - believe they can get ahead of their brethren more via tips?  Never mind they still have to cough up for health care and get no paid vacation or sick days.

But they need to think about this scenario: what if  a new credit crisis is triggered owing to the collapsing oil prices (see the Weekend Financial Times on this prospect). Think people will pour into restaurants then, and even if they do - be able to afford even a 10% tip, far less the 20 % demanded by the likes of the AARP elites? Not a chance! People will simply eat at home or go to fast food outlets where they aren't hassled or hectored by unctuous media over tips.

All this could mean restaurants lay off more, but then many of the working public will also be laid off too. Those wait staff who remain - bear in mind all restaurants won't close - will be paid living wages because they'd have to be amongst the best to be retained. With that in place they will be more likely to garner self-respect instead of grafting for tips.

Grafting? Think of the word "servicing" itself, as the salon.com article noted:

"Tipping makes us into slaves and masters simultaneously in a confused, kinetic, and highly kinky social model. The service industry model carries over into the bedroom with the modern emphasis on oral sex and “servicing” one’s partner. And it is cross-cultural; the service industry accounts for most jobs in the post-industrial West— up to 80 percent in the US, a country that has exported most of its industry to cheaper places ."


In a Denver Post piece last year on tipping we also read:

" In some circles, according to Cornell University professor Michael Lyon, there has been talk about discontinuing the practice of restaurant tipping and adopting the European model, where waitstaff are considered professionals supported by salaries and benefits.

On a Freakonomics podcast in late spring of 2013, host Stephen Dubner asked Lyon (who has written dozens of academic papers on tipping), what he would change about the practice.

'You know,' Lyon replied. 'I think I would outlaw it.'

According to Lyon, there is enough race and gender disparity in how much servers get tipped (blond women more, blacks less) that "It's an ethically dubious way of rewarding workers."

Then why do it? According to the AARP it is simply the way things are and if we aspire to be model, decent citizens we will cough up those coppers as proper tips - to help these forlorn folks out. 

Well, sorry! But I'm not a charity, nor am I their employer. It is not my bounden duty to subsidize their pathetic pay, and certainly not to some artificial 'norm' defined-  mainly by the media elites  as "20 percent".  (These elites, like the consultants and professors the AARP cites, often make $250,000 a year or more which - if not the upper 1 percent - certainly puts them close to it. So their perception of what's required to tip is already biased at the high end.)

There's a simple way to test my claim: Next time you go to a restaurant ask the wait staff if they'd prefer a  consistent 15 percent tip from three fourths of patrons or... NO tip because those patrons are no longer coming  - they are cooking at home because they are tired of being hassled about their meager (15%)  tips. Ask the staff if they think they'd then even have jobs.

Finally, I strongly disagree that tipping falls under the umbrella of "etiquette". No it does not. Blowing your nose into your shirt in public is a matter of etiquette, so is whether or not to cut a fart. Deciding how much to give a wait staff person is a subjective personal financial assessment, based on personal quantifiers- including one's financial means - that must be respected from the individual's POV. Thus when I read drivel like this from the AARP website:

Tipping is important. There are so many services where people aren't even paid minimum wage," says Debby Mayne, etiquette guide for the resource website About.com. 


My reply is: Sorry, but it's not my job to ensure service workers' jobs pay above the minimum wage! I am not a charity and I am not their employer - or the gov't. Nor can I be held responsible for all the services in this country where people aren't paid properly. I didn't create that low pay service system, and indeed, I'd toss it out in a heartbeat via higher taxes to create living wage jobs with benefits - IF I could!   But I can't so all I can offer is my heartfelt sympathy, and perhaps the hope that one day the majority of our countrymen will wake up and see what their cheapskate tax preferences have caused. (And their cheapskate voting preferences have engendered!)

In the meantime, if service staff feel they aren't being paid what they believe they should be, they need to take it up with boss man, OR find another job.  As for tips for takeout, already ordered food - or pick up (like the pie we collected for Thanksgiving from Village Inn) forget it. No tips for those! Pizza delivery - well I always give a buck but no more, because I note delivery charges are already there. It's not my fault if the business doesn't give it to the actual delivery person. Same with Chinese food delivery.

Instead of being subservient slaves to tipping culture and its false etiquette we need to impose rational standards and as long as companies underpay workers, that will always be a subjective decision - evaluated at the time by the tipster. If those like the nabobs at AARP don't like it, they can shove it.