EFTA01135246.pdf

From: Gregory Brown To: undisclosed-recipients:; Bcc: jeevacation@gmail.com Subject: Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.... 06/09/2013 Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2013 17:29:47 +0000 Attachments: Kennedy's_Finest_Moment_Peniele_Joseph_NYT_Jtme_10„2013.pdf; Civil_Rights_Address_by_JFK_oniune_11„1963.pdf; Carbon dioxide_emissions rose 1.4_percent_in_2012,JEA_report_says_StevenMufson_T WP_June 10„2013.pdf; DREAM-Act-WhiteHouse-FactSheet.pdf; The_DREAM_Act_- _Myths_k_Facts.pdf; House_votes_to_resume_deporting_young_DREAM_Act_immigrants_FOX_News_June_6, _2013.pdf; Whites'fleaths_outnumber_births_for_first_time_C_arol_Morellt&Jed_MclInik_TWP une_ I 2,_20 I 3.pdf; Minoritiesin_America„Whites_Losing_Majority_In_Under- 5_Age_Group_Hope_Yen_Huff_Postiune_13„2013.pdf; Kirk_Franklin_bio.pdf; Justices„9-0„Bar_Patenting_Human_Genes_Adam_Liptak_NYT_June_13,2013.pdf; Clarity on Patenting Nature Editorial Board NYT June 13, 2013.pdf; nity_Jared Bernstein Huff Postiune 14„2013.pdf; The Two —Centers_of Unaccountable —Power_in_America rtfeich Post_fune_13„2013.p-df Inline-Images: image.png; image(1).png; image(2).png; image(3).png; image(4).png; image(5).png; image(6).png; image(7).png; image(8).png; image(9).png Dear Friends.... First of for every father out there.... I wish you a.... HAPPY FATHER's DAY A being a father myself -- this week jury selection started on the Trayvon Martin case, as 500 potential jurors were summoned, with 28 year old George Zimmerman being tried for killing the unarmed seventeen year-old who was on his way to his father girlfriend's home where he was staying with some snacks that he picked up in a local convenience market on the night of February 26, 2012 in Sanford, Florida, United States. Zimmerman called the Sanford Police Department saying that he noticed Martin walking suspicious, "this guy looks like he's up to no good, or he's on drugs or something. It's raining and he's just walking around, looking about" and "looking at all the houses". While still on the phone with the police dispatcher, Zimmerman left his vehicle, even though he was told not. After the phone call concluded, there was a violent encounter between Martin and Zimmerman. The encounter ended with Zimmerman fatally shooting Martin once in the chest at close range. First of all, this was racial profiling and for me killing an unarmed teenager who is walking in the rain not do anything that would make anyone feel suspicious other than the color of his skin and how he was dress, seems to me like an easy 2nd Degree Murder or Manslaughter charge. EFTA01135246 And the fact that Zimmerman was not initially arrested or charged until the outraged African American community in Florida and around the country forced the local prosecutor to charge him. Claiming self defense and later unsuccessfully requesting a "stand your ground "hearing, in March 2013, Zimmerman's defense elected to bypass the hearing so that his case would be tried before a jury. Although I don't have any facts other then what was reported in the media, certain issues are clear. Martin was not bothering anyone when Zimmerman started following him. After being told to stop following Martin by the police dispatcher, Zimmerman got out of his car and confronted him. This led to an altercation and instead of either walking away or taking a beat-down, Zimmerman introduced a gun into the conflict, which ended with the unarmed teenager who was walking home, bother no-one ending up dead. Having been an unarmed teenager who was shot at and having cradled a twelve year-old friend, who was shot and killed in 1961 by an off-duty police officer from another town there butfor the grace of God go I That police officer went free Hopefully 52 years later, Martin will get better justice than my friend Terry.... This is not a "black thing" or a "white thing," it is about protecting our children, whatever race or gender, as we owe it to our children that they grow up without the fear of death whether that be in Sanford, Florida, Newtown, Connecticut, Santa Monica, California or Columbine, Colorado. Probably like you, I really wasn't sure what THE DREAM ACT was.... Other than what is said in the media — an immigration reform bill/legislation and as the White House calls it, "a pathway to citizenship." I knew that Conservative Republicans hated it and Liberal Democrats overwhelmingly supported it. And although I really didn't have a clear understanding of what The Dream Act was, I knew in my heart that it was a pathway in the right direction, although I also knew that it probably didn't go far enough. Despite what we are often told, I don't believe that we have an immigration problem, and building a wall to stop people crossing over the border into the country from Mexico is as much BS as believing that our military can build a missile defense shield that can't be penetrated by Chinese, Russian, North Korean or AL Qaeda nuclear bombs, especially when the biggest threat is one that arrives in a suitcase. As a result, I did some research and here is some of my findings. Also included are several attachments on THE DREAM ACT — fact & myths. The DREAM Act (acronymfor Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) is an American legislative proposal first introduced in the Senate on August 1, 2001, by Dick Durbin and Orrin Hatch. This bill is suppose to provide conditional permanent residency to certain immigrants of good moral character who graduate from U.S. high schools, arrived in the United States as minors, and lived in the country continuously for at least five years prior to the bill's enactment. If they were to complete two years in the military or two years at a four-year institution of higher learning, they would obtain temporary residency for a six-year period. Within the six-year period, they may qualify for permanent residency if they have "acquired a degreefrom an institution of higher education in the EFTA01135247 United States or [have] completed at least 2 years, in good standing, in a program for a bachelor's degree or higher degree in the United States" or have "served in the armed servicesfor at least 2 years and, if discharged, [have] received an honorable discharge". Military enlistment contracts require an eight-year commitment, with active duty commitments typically between four and six years, but as low as two years. However, the military does not allow illegal immigrants to enlist, and those that have enlisted have done so under a false identity, or used fraudulent documents. "Any alien whose permanent resident status is terminated... shall return to the immigration status the alien had immediately prior to receiving conditional permanent resident status under this Act " This bill would have included illegal aliens as old as 35 years of age. As of November 2012, 12 states have their own versions of the DREAM Act, which deal with tuition prices and financial aid for state universities. These states are Texas, California, Illinois, Utah, Nebraska, Kansas, New Mexico, New York, Washington, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and Maryland. The Maryland DREAM Act was approved by state-wide ballot, winning 59% of the vote on November 6, 2012. Supporters argue that the Act would not create an "amnesty program" and would produce a variety of social and economic benefits, while critics contend that it would reward illegal immigration and encourage further illegal immigration, inviting fraud and shielding gang members from deportation. Opponents of the DREAM Act argue that it would act as a "magnet" attracting more illegal immigrants and creating a chain migration by family members. Other stands include viewing it as importing poverty and cheap labor, being a military recruitment tool, having economic and social burdens (subsidies from state and federal taxes, degradation of the public school system and neighborhoods), and as being unfair to American-born and legal immigrant parents and children who must pay full tuition at state universities and colleges. Some concerns center on the parameters of the proposal, specifically that it would admit individuals who have already formed their identities overseas (i.e. people who arrived up to age 16), that illegal aliens up to age 35 are allowed to legalize through it,[56] that it would result in massive fraud similar to the 1986 amnesty, and that it will encourage additional illegal immigration. There are additional concerns that the DREAM Act will shield gang members from deportation. Being an American who has lived in London, Paris, Rome, Johannesburg, Hong Kong, Toronto and Vancouver, Canada, I am probably more liberal on issues concerning foreign nationals living and working in other countries. So when Congressional Republican voted along party lines last week to prohibit funding for President Obama's Dream Act-styled program, which temporarily halted the deportations of young immigrants if they have served in the military or are attending college, I felt a quiet outrage. But then I realized that all is okay, because these same Republicans in 2016 will be asking why they overwhelmingly lost the Hispanic vote, which combined with the African America vote makes it almost impossible for them to win a Presidential Election. And until, Congress passes real immigration reform that is not watered-down, which enables the more than 11 million illegal aliens a quick pathway to citizenship and not the 13 years BS currently being touted today.... The country will have a problem, except that it won't be the immigration problem that is being presented today.... This week in the Huffington Post Robert Reich wrote -- There are two great centers of unaccountable power in the American political-economic system today -- places where decisions that significantly affect large numbers of Americans are made in secret, and are unchecked either by effective democratic oversight or by market competition. One goes by the name of the "intelligence community" and its epicenter is the National Security Agency within the Defense Department. The second center of unaccountable power goes by the name of Wall Street and is centered in the country's largest banks. And neither Republicans nor Democrats have done much of EFTA01135248 anything to effectively rein in these two centers of unaccountable power suggests that, if there is ever to be a viable third party in America, it will may borne of the ill-fated consequences. If we trusted that it reasonably balanced its snooping on Americans with our nation's security needs, and that our elected representatives effectively oversaw that balance, there would be little cause for concern. We would not worry that the information so gathered might be misused to harass individuals, thereby chilling free speech or democratic debate, or that some future government might use it to intimidate critics and opponents. We would feel confident, in other words, that despite the scale and secrecy of the operation, our privacy, civil liberties, and democracy were nonetheless adequately protected. But the NSA has so much power, and oversight of it is so thin, that we have every reason to be concerned. The fact that its technological reach is vast, its resources almost limitless, and its operations are shrouded in secrecy, make it difficult for a handful of elected representatives to effectively monitor even a tiny fraction of what it does. And every new revelation of its clandestine "requests" for companies to hand over information about our personal lives and communications further undermines our trust. To the contrary, the NSA seems to be literally out of control. Today the big banks are now so large (much larger than they were when they almost melted down five years ago), and have such a monopolistic grip on our financial system, and exercise so much power over Washington, this in itself is cause for concern. The fact that not a single Wall Street executive has been held legally accountable for the excesses that almost brought the economy to its knees five years ago and continues to burden millions of Americans, that even the Attorney General confesses the biggest banks are "too big to jail," that the big banks continue to make irresponsible bets (such as those resulting in JP Morgan Chase's $6 billion "London Whale" loss), and that the Street has effectively eviscerated much of the Dodd-Frank legislation intended to rein in its excesses and avoid another meltdown and bailout, all offer evidence that the Street is still dangerously out of control. As Lord Acton famously said in 1887, "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." And one reason for this is that without oversight and accountability over time the moral compass of both individuals and institutions eventually wears away. Without boundaries it is easy to get lost, even with the best intentions. And when partisan conflict and greed is added, judgment is often misdirected leading to disastrous consequences. With the increasing concentration of wealth, access, unaccountable power and decision making, with no lessons learned from the wave of last abuses, we are destine to repeat our mistakes, and even worse make new ones. Yes, our intelligence organizations need to access all types of activities through new technologies. And yes, it would be great to have large banks, corporations, unions and government agencies, if they made their customers, employees and citizens their number one priority. But when these institutions have lost trust and their moral compass, accountability is a must until trust is restored. I would like to share an article from the Huffington Post this week - How College Costs Are Skyrocketing Out Of Middle-Class America's Reach (In 2 Charts). Because over the past three decades, the inflation-adjusted income of the median American family has basically remained stagnant. Whereby the same can't be said of college costs, which have simultaneously surged to almost unrecognizable heights, according to a new report by the left-leaning Centerfor American Progress. Costs at private nonprofit four-year colleges have increased by more than 150 percent since 1982, but the real trouble is at four-year public schools, where inflation-adjusted costs have experienced a startling 25o percent jump. As a result, it's not so difficult to understand how this puts families in a bind. As of 2011, only half of American households could claim an income of more than $50,000, according to the U.S. Census -- a number low enough to make paying for a child's college education appear more dream than reality. EFTA01135249  And by many measures, college is more important than ever. As the CAP report states, "almost two- thirds ofjobs in our economy will[soon] require some type of education or training beyond high school." Already today, the unemployment rate among college students is around half that of the national rate. College graduates also earn roughly three times that of high school dropouts. This all adds up to a $i trillion national debt crisis. And to make matters even worse, rates on some loans are set to double on July 1. Obviously this is a problem as you can see from the charts below. EFTA01135250 College costs and median family income,1982 to 2012 Inflation-adjusted increases 250 a Public four-year college costs — Private nonprofit four-year college costs 200 — Public two-year college costs a Median family income 150 100 50 0 0 1, 00 b OHO 092 1. \Of% NO bb NCP \CP Nc)('' \94 t ,000 19. 1,63 ,yo° 1,6 ) 12° Sources: The College Board. Annual Survey of Colleges: National Center for Education Statistics. Integrated Postsecondary Education and Data System. Center for American Progress, EFTA01135251  Student Debt Delinquency Rate 11.7% U.S. AVERAGE: 9% 11% 13% a 111 Nit firillwar* • • Student loan data by state are as or December 31. 2012. data are based on the full FRBNY Consumer Credit Panel There are distinct regional patterns in student loan delinquency. West Virginia has the highest. at near 18. and the lowest delinquency rate is in South Dakota, at just over 6.5%. 1. Here are 13 states with the highest debt delinquency loans. 1. West Virginia 2. Louisiana 3. Florida 4. Mississippi 5. Arkansas 6. Rhode Island 7. South Carolina 8. Oklahoma 9. Texas 10. New Mexico 11. Arizona 12. Idaho 13. Nevada. Again, with Americans carrying more than $1 trillion of student debt (more than credit card debt) and higher education costs still rising, something has to be done. And done soon, especially when an educated work-force is one of the greatest strengths of a country and generations saddled with decades of debt hinders economic growth. THE WEEK's READINGS This week was the 50th anniversary of The Civil Rights Address, delivered on radio and television by U.S. President John F. Kennedy from the Oval Office on June 11, 1963 in which he proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The address transformed civil rights from a legal issue to a moral one. The speech followed the U.S. National Guard being sent to protect two African American students enrolling at the University of Alabama. "Threats and defiant statements" were made towards these students, due to their race. Kennedy stated that the National Guard was at the college "to carry out thefinal and unequivocal order of the United States District Court of the Northern District ofAlabama. This order calledfor the two qualified Alabama residents to be admitted to the university, even though they happened to have been born Negro. These students had to be backed by troops just to enter the school." In his moving speech, Kennedy called Americans to recognize civil rights as a moral cause that all people need to contribute to. "We are confronted primarily with a moral issue.... It is as old EFTA01135252 as the scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.... One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincolnfreed the slaves, yet their heirs... are notfullyfree. They are not yet freedfrom the bonds of injustice... this Nation... will not befullyfree until all its citizens arefree.... Now the time has comefor this Nation tofulfill its promise." He conveyed how the proposed legislation would lead the nation to finally end unjust discrimination against African Americans. It would also provide equal treatment to all African Americans. of afabam Al out the Northern been box the' were measui'e met 01 the it res in a const s s, will sto s. This Nat man are di itted to a v to be tray eriin; for whites o ican color to att avin t ed u• b troo m consu r to ce've A movement had been created and led by African Americans and their allies for their Civil Rights. This movement reached "center stage" in American politics by 1963. President Kennedy became an ally of this movement, and added the moral weight of his presidency to the demand for civil rights. In the Civil Rights Address, Kennedy explained the economic, educational, and moral dimensions of racial discrimination. The president further announced that he would be submitting legislation to Congress to ensure equal access to public accommodations and to address other aspects of discrimination. After his address, Martin Luther King, Jr. called President Kennedy's "civil rights proposals, 'the most sweeping andforthright ever presented by an American president'." He went on to predict the legislation would 'take the Nation a long, long way toward the realization of the ideals of freedom and justice for all people'." Seven months after Kennedy was assassinated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 became law on July 2,1964. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 abolishes discrimination in public accommodations, employment, and federally funded programs. Kennedy's progressive stance is noted in his moderating of the language of Theodore Sorensen's draft. For example, Sorensen's call for Congress "to act, boldly" "to give the enforceable right to be served in facilities which are open to the public" became Kennedy's "to act" to "give" the rights to Black Americans. John F. Kennedy June 11, 1963 Civil Rights, Part 1 of 2: v=4cSrvqYKQH88moredirect= I John F. Kennedy June 11, 1963 Civil Rights, Part 2 of 2: v=mUVetFq2nok The week in a New York Times op-ed, historian Peniele Joseph called it — Kennedy's Finest Moment. Having been routinely criticized by black leaders for being timid on civil rights, the events EFTA01135253  started the day before with Gov. George Wallace trying to block the integration of the University of Alabama, with a futile "stand at the schoolhouse door." That evening, Boston . leaders engaged in their first public confrontation with Louise Day Hicks, the chairwoman of the Boston School Committee, over de facto public school segregation, beginning a decade-long struggle that would boil over into spectacular violence during the early 1970 s. And just after midnight in Jackson, Miss., a white segregationist murdered the civil rights leader Medgar Evers. So incensed was Kennedy that he asked his speechwriter Theodore Sorensen to start drafting the text, but shortly before he went on air the president was still editing it. Kennedy began slowly and in a matter-of-fact manner, with an announcement that the National Guard had peacefully enrolled two black students at the University of Alabama over Wallace's vociferously racist objections. But he quickly spun that news into a plea for national unity behind what he, for the first time, called a "moral issue." It seems obvious today that civil rights should be spoken of in universal terms, but at the time many white Americans still saw it as a regional, largely political question. And yet here was the leader of the country, asking "every American, regardless of where he lives," to "stop and examine his conscience." Then he went further. Speaking during the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation - an anniversary he had assiduously avoided commemorating, earlier that year — Kennedy eloquently linked the fate of African-American citizenship to the larger question of national identity and freedom. America, "for all its hopes and all its boasts," observed Kennedy, "will not be fully free until all its citizens are free." But the most significant part of the speech came near the end, when Kennedy, borrowing directly from the movement's rhetoric, recognized the civil rights struggle as part of a political and cultural revolution sweeping the land. Kennedy followed through on his promise to submit strong civil rights legislation to Congress, which he pushed aggressively until his assassination in November 1963. Kennedy's death made him a martyr for many causes, and in a cruel twist, it provided a huge boost to the civil rights bill, which his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, signed on July 2, 1964. But without the moral forcefulness of the June 11 speech, the bill might never have gone anywhere. The speech also set the tone for how presidents should address civil rights. No longer could they dance around the issue, qualifying it as a strictly regional or legal or economic issue (though many would later try to do so). The power of the White House, and of the federal government, was on the side of the struggle. And it continues to resonate today. Barack Obama's March 2008 "race speech," delivered amid the Jeremiah Wright controversy, has been rightfully applauded for its nuanced depiction of contemporary American race relations. And yet it must be read within the context of Kennedy's address: both reflected and defined the tenor of race relations at a moment of great tension and change. Kennedy's words anticipated some of the key themes found in King's soaring March on Washington address two months later. And that shared moral force, that commonality of thinking between the two speeches, is the most important reason to remember the president's address, 5o years ago today: it reminds us of a forgotten moment of the civil rights era, when presidential leadership and grass-roots activism worked in creative tension to turn the narrative of civil rights from a regional issue into a national story promoting racial equality and democratic renewal. This week the International Energy Agency released a report saying that global emissions of carbon dioxide from energy use rose 1.4 percent to 31.6 gigatons in 2012, setting a record and putting the planet on course for temperature increases well above international climate goals. The agency said continuing that pace could mean a temperature increase over pre-industrial times of as much as 5.3 degrees Celsius (9 degrees Fahrenheit), which IEA chief economist Fatih Birol warned "would be a disasterfor all countries." "This puts us on a difficult and dangerous trajectory," Birol said. "If we don't do anything between now and 2020, it will be very difficult because there will be a lot of carbon already in the atmosphere and the energy infrastructure will be locked in." EFTA01135254 Smoke is emitted from chimneys of a cement plant in Binzhou city in eastern China. According to an 'EA report, global carbon dioxide emissions from energy use rose 1.4 percent. The energy sector accounts for more than two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions, so "energy has a crucial role to play in tackling climate change," the IEA said. Its report urged nations to take four steps, including aggressive energy-efficiency measures, by 2015 to keep alive any hope of limiting climate change to 2 degrees Celsius. The United States was one of the few relatively bright spots in the report. Switches from coal to shale gas accounted for about half the nation's 3.8 percent drop in energy-related emissions, which fell for the fourth time in the past five years, dipping to a level last seen in the 1990s. The other factors were a mild winter, declining demand for gasoline and diesel, and the increasing use of renewable energy. Emissions also fell in Europe. But they rose 3.8 percent in China. That was one of the slowest increases in the past decade, and half of 2O11's rate of increase. The level of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of electricity generation has fallen about 17 percent. But China remains the largest contributor of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, with about a quarter of global emissions. Japan's emissions jumped 5.8 percent as the country imported and burned large amounts of liquefied natural gas and coal to compensate for the loss of electricity production from nuclear plants that have been idle since a tsunami damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex. Emissions also climbed in developing countries outside the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, especially in the oil-rich Middle East, where fuel prices are heavily subsidized. "What I believe is that climate change is slipping down in the political agenda in many countries even though the scientific evidence about climate change continues to mount," Birol said. The IEA mapped a way for countries and companies to contain increases in global temperatures. It urged them to implement aggressive energy-efficiency measures; limit the output of inefficient coal plants and mandate that all future coal plants be highly efficient supercritical ones; reduce the release of methane (a potent greenhouse gas) in oil and gas operations; and phase out fossil-fuel subsidies. The agency estimated that the release of natural gas, or methane, during upstream oil and gas operations accounted for about half of all methane emissions by the oil and gas industry. Large, aging EFTA01135255 pipeline networks in Europe, Russia and the United States also account for a large amount, the IEA said. The IEA also warned that the reductions in carbon dioxide released in the United States would be hard to duplicate because natural gas prices were unusually low in 2012 and coal might regain some market share as gas prices rise. ****** Conservatives like to say that Big Government is bad, when the reality is that beyond national defense, there are many things that only Big Government can do. To believe that commercial markets can and will police themselves is naive, especially when everyone on Wall Street will tell you that management's first priority is to advance the interests of their company's shareholders. And when we are living in the Gordon Gekko's Greed Is Good era, it is easy to understand how ENRON felt no shame when its employees manipulated the energy markets in California costing the state's taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and Wall Street's uncontrolled speculation in exotic financial instruments which it peddled around the world causing the international markets to go into free-fall and a world-wide economic meltdown again feeling no shame In an age where quarterly profits are more important than long-term strategic interests and productivity is gauged by accomplishing more with less employees and paying employees the least possible, it is naive to believe that the private sector can by itself, generate the job growth required to address the economic needs for everyone. As a result, economist Robert Reich wrote this week in the Huffington Post - What We Need Now:A National Economic Strategy For Better Jobs, saying that the United States does not have the political will to implement a national economic strategy strong enough to generate good jobs and widespread prosperity, beyond policies that favor powerful global corporations and Wall Street. Especially when the current government policies, have helped these same giant corporations and Wall Street Banks to enjoy record profits and stock prices. And almost all of this prosperity has been given to those of the top, while job economic growth is anemic for most Americans and the new jobs being generated are lower paying thus widening inequality. Reich says that if we are to change this trend the government has to design policies that focus on increasing jobs and wages. And for starters it should focus on raising the productivity of all Americans through better education -- including early-childhood education and near-free higher education, which would require a revolution in how we finance public education. He also says that it is insane that half of K-12 budgets still come from local property taxes, especially given that we're segregating geographically by income. And it makes no sense to pay for the higher education of young people from middle and lower-income families through student debt; as this results in a mountain of debt that can't or won't be paid off, and it assumes that higher education is a private investment rather than a public good. Reich again: Better education would just be a start. Saying that we should also unionize low-wage service workers in order to give them bargaining power to get better wages. Because these workers — mostly in big-box retailers, fast-food chains, hospitals, and hotel chains -- aren't exposed to global competition or endangered by labor-substituting technologies, yet their wages and working conditions are among the worst in the nation. And they represent among the fastest-growing of all job categories. He also recommends that we raise the minimum wage to half the median wage and expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, as well as eliminating payroll taxes on the first $15,000 of income, making up the shortfall in Social Security by raising the cap on income subject to the payroll tax. Reich says that we should also restructure the relationships between management and labor. We would require, for example, that companies give their workers shares of stock, and more voice in corporate decision making. And that companies spend at least 2 percent of their earnings upgrading the skills of their lower-wage workers. Reich believes that government should only give largesse to corporations, based on their agreement to help create more and better jobs. For example -- companies receiving government funding do their in the U.S. And that we should prohibit EFTA01135256  companies from deducting the cost of executive compensation in excess of more than loo times the median compensation of their employees or the employees of their contractors. And bar them from providing tax-free benefits to executives without providing such benefits to all their employees. These changes would turn the financial system back into a means for investing the nation's savings rather than a casino for placing huge and risky bets that, when they go wrong, impose huge costs on everyone else. Obviously there are no magic bullets for regaining good jobs and no precise contours to what such a national economic strategy might be. In summary Reich says, "at the very least we should be having a robust discussion about it. Instead, economic determinists seem to have joined up with the free-market ideologues in preventing such a conversationfrom even beginning." America is changing and populations estimates that were released this week shows that Whites' deaths outnumber births for first time and for the first time with America's racial and ethnic minorities now making up about half of the under-5 age group. As a group, non-Hispanic whites are considerably older than anyone else, with a median age of 42. The median age for Asians is 34. For African Americans, it's under 32; for Hispanics, it's under 28. Women with college degrees of all races have been delaying marriage and childbearing to the end of their 20s and beyond, until they have finished their educations and established careers. Once they settle down, they tend to have fewer children. Census figures also show that white women are far more likely to be childless than Hispanic or African American women. The recession that began in late 2007 exacerbated those long-term trends. Fertility rates have been slowly dropping since 2007. For white women, they are now below the level considered necessary to keep the population at a stable level. During the recession, researchers found that women who had lost health insurance or whose partners were unemployed were reluctant to have more children when they could least afford them. This latest demographic fall is not the first harbinger of the future: Earlier this year, census figures showed that for the first time in U.S. history, a majority of babies were minorities. Natural population change MORE DEATHS I ► MORE BIRTHS IN THOUSANDS Hispanic 872.8 Black 312.9 Asian 132 White non-Hispanic 12.4 TOTAL POPULATION 1,440.4 Fastest-growing groups 2012 POPULATION, IN MILLIONS PERCENTAGE CHANGE, 2011-12 Asian 16.1 2.8% Hispanic 53.0 I 2.2% Black 41.2 1.1% White non-Hispanic 197.7 I 0.1% TOTAL POPULATION 313.9 0.7% Ken Johnson, a demographer with the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire, said the demographics suggest that many people are deciding whether to have children as if the recession had not ended. Even if fertility rates pick up, he said, there will be just a temporary lull before people born in the 194os and 195os start dying in large numbers. "Once this recession has waned, we're probably EFTA01135257 going to see at least a temporary uptick in births until death rates start to rise,"he said. The decline in the non-Hispanic white population has happened more quickly than demographers with the Census Bureau have been predicting. That's because births and immigration levels, which can counter the drop, have slowed more than expected in recent years, said Jennifer Ortman, a Census Bureau demographer in the bureau's population projections division. Census demographers expect the growth rate for non-Hispanic whites to resume rising — slowly — when the economy improves. The number for whites should peak in 2024, when the oldest baby boomers, who are overwhelmingly non-Hispanic whites, are well into their 70s and dying in larger numbers. The decrease for whites has little significance in the short term, said Dowell Myers, a demographer and urban planner who teaches at the University of Southern California. But Frey said the natural decrease in whites suggests that aging whites will increasingly come to rely on the younger, mainly minority population to underwrite social programs that will sustain them. "Last year, we saw the majority of babies are minorities," he said. "Now we see more whites are dying than being born. Together, that tells us a lot about where we're going as a country." Further evidence based on the census estimates released this week predicts that non-whites under-5 group are expected to become a majority this years and within five years that minorities will make up more than half of children under i8. This tip to a white minority among young children adds a racial dimension to government spending on early-childhood education, such as President Barack Obama's proposal to significantly expand pre-kindergarten for lower-income families. The nation's demographic changes are already stirring discussion as to whether some civil rights-era programs, such as affirmative action in college admissions, should be retooled to focus more on income rather than race and ethnicity. The Supreme Court will rule on the issue this month. Studies show that gaps in achievement by both race and class begin long before college, suggesting that U.S. remedies to foster equal opportunity will need to reach earlier into a child's life. As a result, the government needs to institute policies to equalize this inequality, especially when the gap between rich and poor in the U.S. which has now stretched to its widest margin since 1970, making opportunities to reach the middle class increasingly difficult. America is changing and these changes cannot be ignored In a unanimous ruling on Thursday, the Supreme Court correctly resolved one of the most important and complex disputes in a generation involving the intersection of science, law and commerce. The justices held that human DNA isolated from a chromosome cannot be patented because it is a product of nature. And Justice Clarence Thomas, (whom I've never quoted) writing for the court, said "there would be considerable danger" in granting patents on natural phenomena because that approach would "inhibitfuture innovation"and "would be at odds with the very point of patents, which exist to promote creation." Still the court's decision is a narrow one, recognizing the distinction the patent system must make between natural phenomena like DNA and the invention or discovery of "any new and useful... composition of matter." The court held that synthetic DNA that is created in a laboratory is new and distinct from DNA and therefore patentable. The decision tracked the position of the Obama administration, which had urged the justices to rule that isolated DNA could not be patented, but that synthetic DNA created in the laboratory — complementary DNA, or cDNA — should be protected under the patent laws. In accepting that second argument, the ruling on Thursday provided a partial victory to Myriad and other companies that invest in genetic research. The particular genes at issue received public attention after the actress Angelina Jolie revealed in May that she had had a preventive double mastectomy after learning that she had inherited a faulty copy of a gene that put her at high risk for breast cancer. The price of the test, often more than $3,000, was partly a product of Myriad's patent, putting it out of reach for some women. Based on the decision that price "should come down significantly," said Dr. Harry Ostrer, one of the plaintiffs in the case, as competitors start to offer their own tests. The ruling, he said, "will have an immediate impact on people's health." EFTA01135258 The petitioners in the case — doctors, scientific researchers and women's health organizations — argued that the isolated genes were not materially different from the genes before extraction, and that granting Myriad a patent on the genes would amount to giving the company a patent on nature, a monopoly position that could restrict testing, research and medical innovation by others. Justice Thomas's opinion agreed: While the company had found "important and useful" genes through its inquiries, Myriad did not "create or alter any of the genetic information encoded" in the genes, nor did it "create or alter the genetic structure of DNA." As Justice Thomas noted, "isolation is necessary to conduct genetic testing." It was just this kind of testing that told the actress Angelina Jolie that she was at risk of breast cancer from a faulty gene inherited from her mother and persuaded her to undergo a double mastectomy. Among the petitioners was Dr. Harry Ostrer, a researcher who had sent DNA samples to a lab at the University of Pennsylvania for testing. Myriad asserted that the lab's testing infringed the company's patents and got the lab to stop, since the patents gave the company the exclusive right to isolate someone's BRCAI and BRCA2 genes. Dr. Ostrer said after the court's ruling that the price of the tests would come down and that the decision would have "an immediate impact on people's health." Justice Thomas also said it was "important to note what is not implicated by this decision." Not implicated are other, unchallenged Myriad patents on its screening and testing processes. The price of Myriad's stock went up 10 percent in early trading after the court's decision, an indication that Myriad is benefiting from its investment even as the court, properly, has safeguarded the ability of other researchers to work with the genes. And like the Editorial Board in the New York Times wrote this week — Clarity on Patenting Nature — the Supreme Court got this decision right. Also for more information please feel free to read Adam Liptak's article also in the New York Times — Justices, 9-o, Bar Patenting Human Genes It is universally accepted that that the growing inequality is diminishing opportunities for those at the bottom and this week in the Huffington Post, Jared Bernstein, (former Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden) -- Pictures of the Corrosive Linkage Between Higher Inequality and Diminished Opportunity -- used the following graphs to illustrate this connection, as this growing economic distance between classes is blocking the opportunities of those on the "wrong" side of the income divide -- thus a fundamental value of the American Dream is blocked. The first graph shows -- the growing disparity in enrichment expenditures for kids as income inequality has gone up. The second and third show related gaps in extracurricular activities in and out of school. As we hack away at budgets to support these types of activities in our schools, we are shifting the locus of their provision from the public to the private sector. Given the trends in income distribution, that is a recipe for less advantaged kids to be less exposed to these activities, goods, services and opportunities necessary for well-rounded education. Connecting the three graphs is evidence of the corrosive linkage between greater economic disparity and less opportunity for all. EFTA01135259  Family Expenditures on Child Enrichment 2008 Dollars 10,000 7,500 5,000 2,500 0 1972-73 1983-84 1994-95 2005-06 We: ChM errenere =en, eser. cauclearwaYea Item acihee: v.% trou. ana art 'man. civarerf ana IDA mot memertaticbr...anlniXera sane: Cuxan Ihonale COM. Participation in Extracurricular Activities, 12th Grade Percent 80 75 Top Socioeconomic Status Quartile 70 65 60 Bottom Socioeconomic Status Quartile 55 50 1972 1982 1992 2004 Paptc0...cerdf: aztneci sabeoence.= cmyti...xed al an exls ce Mom. =8W eacem. annwent,ccupabl. Sane: Puna, 41312.). EFTA01135260  Participation in Music, Dance or Art Outside School, 10th Grade Percent 40 35 30 Top Socioeconomic Status Quartile 25 Bottom Socioeconomic Status Quartile 20 15 1990 2002 Note: Nov-trot ararectiovameoononlic :btn aura e: =ea on an inctx a imoirs. pan mown. as mot' occupYson Scarce: Pawn I( lto. Just In Case You Missed This Video Last Week Bill Maher took Ronald Reagan supporters on both sides of the aisle to task on the latest episode of "Real Time," declaring that the former President was "the original teabagger."After hearing Bob Dole say that Reagan wouldn't fit in with today's Republican party, Maher contested that Reagan actually "wrote the playbook" for today's far-right GOPers. He compared Reagan's views on income inequality and race to today's Tea Party ("On race, his ideas couldn't be more Tea Party if he shouted themfrom a rascal scooter") and even credited him for inspiring today's colorfu