I don’t sleep much, or well, most of the time.  This morning I woke to a televised discussion of House Bill H.R. 2587, which made (portions I heard) zero progress between “Union Protects American Workers”  and “Unions Are Destroying American Workforce and companies will outsource to overseas.  I saw three women, total, speak — one from Connecticut (anti-HR 2587), one from Tennessee (the cosponsor of HR 2587) and one from the U.S. Virgin Islands, who, referring to her pastor, said “have compassion” (presumably anti-HR 2587).

Here’s a map of “RIGHT TO WORK STATES” for a visual from a partisan site — notice the distribution of the colors:

http://www.nrtw.org/rtws.htm

(Note:  My putting this first doesn’t indicate favoring it; i just figure some readers may not know what the term means.  I’ve been involved with other things, and didn’t!)

Sorry, but I couldn’t help noticing the ones adamant against interfering with the business tended to be from southern states which earlier, protested interfering with slavery to the point of seceding from the U.S.   Mostly west, a solid vertical stripo from TEXAS -OK_KS_NE_SD_ND (Michael Hayes of Texas OAG could drive straight north, turn right at the border to Minnesota for the National Fatherhood Summit, and not hit a unionized state before MN).  Colorado & NM are unionized, and we unionized states also have the west coast covered, plus Alaska and Hawaii.  There you have it (and the northeast).

AFL-CIO on “RIGHT TO WORK FOR LESS:”

Right to work laws lower wages for everyone. The average worker in a right to work state makes about $5,333 a year less than workers in other states ($35,500 compared with $30,167).[1] Weekly wages are $72 greater in free-bargaining states than in right to work states ($621 versus $549).[2] Working families in states without right to work laws have higher wages and benefit from healthier tax bases that improve their quality of life.

Federal law already protects workers who don’t want to join a union to get or keep their jobs. Supporters claim right to work laws protect employees from being forced to join unions. Don’t be fooled—federal law already does this, as well as protecting nonmembers from paying for union activities that violate their religious or political beliefs. This individual freedom argument is a sham.

And here’s a (pro-“Right to Work”) SF Examiner EDITORIAL from last May,  summarizing.  I figure there are other parents who, like me, have been in family court survival mode for so many years, they perhaps missed this one:

Right-to-work states doing good for country

By: Examiner Editorial | 05/18/11 9:00 PM

“Danaher’s closing,” said Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., lamenting the loss of a plant that had employed 330 people in his state. “Now those jobs are going to Arkansas and to Texas.”

It was April 2005. Neal was taking the opportunity during a House committee hearing on competition with China to complain instead about how Massachusetts was losing jobs to states with less-hostile business climates.

The Ways and Means Committee chairman in 2005, California Republican Bill Thomas, mildly rebuked Neal’s deviation from the topic, saying Massachusetts had shot itself in the foot with high taxes and compulsory union membership.

“At some point perhaps the good citizens of Massachusetts will pick up the drift,” Thomas said.

Businesses often consider government interference when they make decisions about where to locate. One instance of such interference is the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which established a regimen of special treatment for labor during an era when nearly one in three employees were union members.

Today, unions have lost relevance for more than 93 percent of American workers in the private sector, but this law remains with us, harming the ability of American businesses to compete. To see its results, we need only look south and west, to the success of our nation’s 22 right-to-work states.

Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 allows states to pass right-to-work laws, which bar union membership from being used as a condition of employment. In practice, these laws make unions significantly less powerful and less disruptive than did the original NLRA rules, and with tremendously positive economic results for everybody concerned.

A recent study by the staff of Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., pointed to some revealing data. Between 1993 and 2009, right-to-work states created jobs twice as quickly as states where forced unionism is permitted, and they enjoyed 10 percent faster growth in personal income (FOR WHOM??). Right-to-work states account for only 40 percent of the U.S. population, but they hosted 60 percent of the nation’s new businesses from 1993 to 2009.

Such data contrasts mightily with facts such as this: Unions spent $400 million to elect President Barack Obama and Democrats in 2008 largely because of promises to use the federal government to restore labor to its former strength. The centerpiece of that effort was card check, which would have abolished secret ballots in workplace-representation elections if it hadn’t failed in Congress.

So now the Obama campaign to rescue dying unions is focused on the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB, controlled by Obama appointees, has filed a complaint against Boeing for expanding its manufacturing operations into DeMint’s right-to-work state. Obama is only trying to help his union campaign donors — as usual — but this effort is bound to backfire.

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner: http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/2011/05/right-work-states-doing-good-country#ixzz1Y4Lfsqwk

PRO-HR 2587:

The “Unions are Bad” POV from “www.biglaborbailout.com”

Congress to Vote on Landmark Job Protection Bill

Posted on September 15, 2011 by WFI Staff

Today, the House of Representatives will vote on legislation that could end the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) assault on right-to-work states. H.R. 2587, the Protecting Jobs from Government Interference Act, would prevent the NLRB from ordering a business to close or transfer work. Every Member of Congress interested in workforce fairness needs to support this legislation!

Rep. Tim Scott of South Carolina introduced H.R. 2587 in response to the NLRB filing a complaint against Boeing for locating an assembly factory in right-to-work South Carolina. If the NLRB’s complaint is successful, Boeing would be forced to shut down its South Carolina plant and relocate work to its unionized facility in Washington State. That move would cost 1,000 much-needed jobs in South Carolina.

This unprecedented action by the NLRB is a threat not only to Boeing’s workers in South Carolina, but to every right-to-work state in America. The precedent it would set would encourage government interference in private business and discourage businesses from expanding and hiring in right-to-work states. It would stifle job creation at a time when the unemployment numbers are some of the worst our country has seen in the past century.

ANTI-HR 2587:

House Republicans Put Boeing Over Workers’ Rights in Bill to Cripple NLRB

by Mike Hall, Jul 21, 2011

Republicans on the Education and Workforce Committee today rammed through a bill (H.R. 2587) that would cripple the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) ability to protect workers from management retaliation for exercising their rights. The bill was passed on a 23-16 party-line vote.

The Republican bill, which ranking minority member Rep. George Miller (D) dubbed the “Eviscerate Workers’ Rights and Ship Jobs Overseas Bill,” is aimed the NLRB’s recent decision to file a complaint against the Boeing Co. The NLRB charges that Boeing moved production away from its Washington State facility in retaliation for the workers exercising their right to strike, and that’s against the law.

Says Miller:

The legislation is nothing more than a rush to protect one special interest to the detriment of all American workers. This bill presents American workers with a choice: You can have your rights or you can have your job. But you can’t have both.

Interesting.  Because it was clearly demonstrated to me as a woman, and a law-abiding one, and a mother — that I could have ongoing contact with my clients / employers OR I could know where my children were and maintain some contact with them — but not both, because certain people in power decided that feminism and fatherlessness was a credible social threat and responsible for poverty, abuse, etc.   And it was expedient that one — actually lots of “ones” cumulatively — real individual, real lives and real work stability — be sacrificed for the (ethereal and theoretical) common “good.”

In short, if I believed I had some legal rights or equal standing on almost any category of vital life issues, I was welcome to continue this fight into my retirement.  Or, I could submit, after years of income loss and repeated violations of existing family court orders (which I eventually found out meant nothing, basically) and give up, without children, start again as an aging female worker outside of the former profession and without significant social contacts in it.

Approximately six years ago I realized that this “jobs model” didn’t apply to parents in the family law system with a custody dispute; primarily anyone leaving violence or who had TANF involved.  Why?   Because of patterns set in the 1990s, further enabled by faith-based initiatives, primarily aimed at keeping women in their place and a man in every child’s life, even after many times, those men ended up killing the women and/or the children.

What also was driving the men, many times, was the same awareness of how extortionist and unfair the child support system was to them, overall, and/or insulting their intelligence by forcing them to submit to classes about parenting, children, or “conflict” which any young person who’s gotten up to 5th grade in life usually already knows and has witnessed, unless they have succeeded in hiding, dodging, and laying down flat in many social situations, or become superb negotiators already.

Read on some….  and this is a SF Bay Area California Legislator talking:

The bill will  l take away the NLRB’s authority to remedy unlawful conduct like Boeing is alleged to have engaged in. H.R. 2587 would apply to cases currently being considered, including the legal action against Boeing.

In a letter to the committee, AFL-CIO Government Affairs Director Bill Samuel says the bill would “cripple workers’ rights, hobble the NLRB, make it easier for companies to ship jobs overseas and create a new race to the bottom for American workers.”

H.R. 2587 will take away the NLRB’s authority to restore workers to their jobs when companies simply eliminate work in order to eliminate workers who are pro-union or when companies eliminate work in order to avoid their legal obligation to bargain.

[The bill] will have dire unintended consequences as well. It will make it easier to ship jobs overseas because it legalizes the most despicable form of outsourcing—the illegal kind—by keeping the NLRB from being able to stop it. The bill will remove one of the only tools preventing work from leaving the U.S.

Miller says the freedom to organize and collectively bargain is “meaningless if there is no effective remedy when they are violated.”

Welcome to MY world.  Born, raised, working in the USA until unenforceable restraining order, unenforceable child support order, and unenforceable custody order booted me out of the workforce, and removed the incentive for the father of my children too.  These were not, actually “unenforceable” but so many incentives to use “discretion” according to the whimsy of the latest theory (fatherhood, abstinence education, you name it) (federal incentives to the states) (Prolonging custody disputes for the sake of accumulating interest on the “undistributable arrears”) and other nonsense — but common practice — made the concept of actually building ANYTHING and expecting to maintain it in the workforce became a moot point.

Here’s the bill summary:

H.R. 2587: Protecting Jobs From Government Interference Act

(aka “Outsourcer’s Bill of Rights.”)

The following summary was written by the Congressional Research Service, a well-respected nonpartisan arm of the Library of Congress. GovTrack did not write and has no control over these summaries.

7/25/2011–Reported to House amended. Protecting Jobs From Government Interference Act – Amends the National Labor Relations Act to deny the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) any power to: (1) order an employer (or seek an order against an employer) to restore or reinstate any work, product, production line, or equipment; (2) rescind any relocation, transfer, subcontracting, outsourcing, or other change regarding the location, entity, or employer who shall be engaged in production or other business operations; or (3) require any employer to make an initial or additional investment at a particular plant, facility, or location. Applies the amendment made by this Act to any complaint for which a final adjudication by the NLRB has not been made by the date of enactment.

Here’s the NLRB:  It is an agency of the U.S. Government.   I just read through an interesting case (March, 2011 hearing before an Administrative Law Judge) in which a  group called Human Services Projects Inc. d/b/a/ Teen Triumph, was reprimanded and forced to give back pay to a worker fired in retaliation for protesting its practices, (engaging in protected behavior).  Of note (para. 30) the nonprofit (presumably) went to San Joaquin Superior Court and got a restraining order on the individual worker, Jake Wallace — and he was not given notice of the hearing.  Available here:

Their business was group homes for sex offenders & youths, and they got $50,000 of federal help, it says:

(a quick lookup of street address of the bottom “not registered” one shows it’s the same person as incorporator on the founding documents of the Top, legitimate one.)

Another quick skim of their listed assets/income show that, despite this hard economy, this particular groups’ revenues are ONLY increasing steadily.  Here’s its business:

(B) The specific purposes for which this corporation is organized is to provide for the development, evaluation and implementation of humans services programs including, but not limited to clinical and residential treatment programs to serve children, adults and/or juveniles with emotional, or developmental problems, economically disadvantaged and minorities.

THREE: The name and address in the State of california of this corporation’s initial agent for service of process is: David F. Scatena

3188 Sea Gull Lane Stockton, CA. 95219

Note:  It came before the NLRB because of mistreatment of its employees and retaliation against one of them for complaining

It has nothing on file since 2008, either RRF (charitable registration) or IRS form.  In the 2008 RRF, it notes which governmental agencies are supporting its operations:  Note:  The Fredericks (Mr. & Mrs.) were the people the NRLB complaint was about, and who told the employees if they didn’t like working there, they could quit…

STATEMENT 1

FORM RRF·1, PART B, LINE 1 FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS

1. SEE “KEY EMPLOYEE” DEALINGS STATEMENT ATTACHED.

2. THE ORGANIZATION WAS OBLIGATED TO MARTI FREDERICKS (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR) AND J CRAIG FREDERICKS (CFO) FOR A CONTINUING AMOUNT REPRESENTING A PORTION OF THE PURCHASE PRICE (ORIGINAL AND CONTINGENT AMOUNTS) OF CORPORATION STOCK PURCHASED FROM THEM IN 2002. THE BALANCE DUE THE FREDERICKS’ AT YEAR END WAS $22,150.

(???) . . . . .

3. THE TAXPAYER WAS OBLIGATED TO MARTI AND J CRAIG FREDERICKS (EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND CFO, RESPECTIVELY) FOR THREE (3) WORKING CAPITAL LOANS MADE DURING 2008. THE FIRST WAS FOR $30,000 AS WAS PAID BY YEAR END. THE SECOND WAS FOR $40,000 AND WAS PAID BY YEAR END. THE THIRD WAS FOR $30,000, OF WHICH $10,000 WAS PAID BY YEAR END, LEAVING A YEAR END BALANCE OF $20,000.

STATEMENT 2

FORM RRF·1, PART B, LINE 6 GOVERNMENT AGENCY THAT PROVIDED FUNDING

STATE OF CALIFORNIA, THROUGH NUMEROUS COUNTY JUVENILE PROBATION AND SOCIAL SERVICES AGENCIES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO: SAN JOAQUIN, SACRAMENTO, STANISLAUS, CONTRA COSTA, ALAMEDA, AND SOLANO. NO PRIMARY MAILING ADDRESS, CONTACT PERSON, NOR TELEPHONE NUMBER IS USED

Most significant activities (per 2008 IRS, Part 1):  Sounds a little maudlin:

Briefly describe the organization’s mission or most significant activities: _”To develop and operate programs to assist youths and adults in the enrichment and enjoyment of their lives, to rekindle their hopes and dreams; to support them in celebrating life; to work in the community to create a better, safer and healthier environment for this.

Program Service Accomplishment 1:  Actually was operated at a $16,000 profit, (Expenses $2.454,123 ; Revenue $2.470,708)

  50 adolescent males were treated in a 24-hour residential program for sexually abusive youth with co-occurring behavioral and mental health problems.

(Perhaps the employee low wages contributed to the profit)  COST per male, for one year, thus about $122,706.15 per individual).  Mr. & Mrs. Fredericks (presumably), ED & CFO, are earning collectively about $187 plus? about $100K in other columns for 40 hour week each (approaching a judges’ salary, eh?).  “Reportable income from related organizations.

The organization also operates as a “representative payee” for 500 Social Security Beneficiaries and keeps their assets in a common account audited by the SSA, managing their affairs, etc.

I find it VERY interesting that the Director, “Marjorie Harris (1st husband?) Fredericks” was originally a Marriage and Family Therapist, running this entity had been contracting since 1980 (under this corporation) with a San Joaquin Mental Health,** but evidently saw that it’s be expedient to get some real estate background.   In 1990 she got into a real estate program(a 9-month program somehow? resulting in a “Masters of Science”) and then aimed for HOUSING for the low-income and elderly.    She reincorporated this Human Services Project in 1992, and in general showed a real aptitude at getting those contracts and dealing with severely compromised populations, and housing them.

**(the NRLB record mentioned that Ms. Fredericks was able to get an UNNOTICED restraining order on one of her employees from the local court; interesting).

The website shows only 1,763 visitors — that’s fewer than I get in a month.  Maybe not too many people are checking up on it.

Who we help:

This CEO is one smart cookie.  First, she goes into psychology and gets up to a Masters level (see AFCC, see the 9 highest paying jobs with least hours of work article recently posted), and then figures out to go into real estate as well.  Knowing already how to get contracts, moves with ease in and out of “for profit” situation and ends up in “Nonprofit” with a plenty high salary; between she and her husband, well over $200K as employees of their own corporation, and somehow the corporation still owes them about $22,000 for stock (?)

Another service they offer is managing government disbursements for compromised people.  Starting to remind me of Viola STtroud (Genia Shockome case) and friends:  “ACTION PAYEE SERVICES” from the same group.

Our Mission

To establish caring, honest relationships with persons who need assistance managing their finances while empowering them to be successful by providing them aid in fulfilling their financial obligations and responsibilities.

This program is offered to adults who are unable to manage their finances without assistance; and to children, who Social Security determines require the protection offered by a payee relationship.  The payee program provides a vital service to consumers, by helping them gain greater stability without the stress of struggling with their finances.  Emphasis is placed on assuring that all consumer recipients have appropriate housing and availability of weekly funds for purchase of food and the personal items required for daily living.  Expenses paid for the children serves must all be individually approved by Social Security to ensure the proper use and application of funds to the benefit of the child.

Ah well…..

Obviously I am going to be interested in companies in this field.  Did they incorporate here?  (from the list of 197 “Human Services Projects Inc.” companies.  NOTE;  California site  (it seems) does not allow you do to an “Exact Search” so if the company you want has a common name, you are S.O.L. and have to guesstimate on which page it might show up, as there are also only allowed 10 search results per page, unlike MANY other public-access databases in this world, including the California Attorney General’s Charitable Registry Search.

Forfeited, Suspended Dissolved . . . . . 2 out of 10 active.  Next page has only 1 out of 10 active:

I’m going to propose that man of these are organizations which were hoping to operate primarily from government-based grants.

(sorry about that diversion into a specific NLRB case in my state).

ALTERNATE QUESTIONS TO ASK:

HOW COME WHEN THE WEALTHIEST PEOPLE AROUND GOT WEALTHY BY ACQUIRING ASSETS, INVESTING IN STOCKS (NOT ALL US, I’M SURE), BY INHERITANCE, AND BY LEARNING HOW TO EXPLOIT THE US TAX LAWS TO THEIR ADVANTAGE — ARE THESE SAME PEOPLE TALKING ONLY — AND ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY, WHEN IT COMES TO THE NATIONAL PRESS — ABOUT “JOBS”?

We have created a high, deep and wide society where mobility is restricted the more institutionalized the educational system is into forcing certain classes into “jobs” whiel failing to mention the classes that are from youth (and many times by not having to attend the local public school, where this ain’t taught) how to run businesses, acquire assets, leverage holdings, buy & sell, to learn things about compound interest, investments, and to develop a superior set of skills and — more important even — attitudes.

While the so-called “lower” (that’s in wealth, not necessarily character, but the treatment implies, it IS “Character”) get taught how to submit to authority or else (or be medicated), get sorted and labeled in the k-12 system, graded, spat out or promoted according to very arbitrary standards (many times) and not really informed just how much of a union-based system contributes to who gets elected from state to state.

FY 2012 HHS BUDGET:

The HHS budget (this, from the white house) gets $79 billion.   A lot of this goes into character formation — and I’ve been showing some of the “characters” of the organizations so intent on teaching this.  For one, they don’t file taxes right, stay incorporated, register as charities when they are claiming to be some, and they pretty much repeat the same general concepts to each other in conferences which are sometimes paid for by the public.

In the courts, the business of the courts is getting externalized into nonprofits which are initiated and formed by people often times staffing the courts.

Even a single man convicted of a traffic ticket (some of the highest-cost, most-aggressive enforcement areas around) figured out that his conviction was to help build courthouses (see yesterday’s post).   We know that the child support cases to bring monies to the county and that BOTh the HHS/OIG/OAS and the larger scope GAO have already stated clearly that — you guys don’t know where the money is.  That grantees and contractors of federal (I believe it was ARRA, but might have been DRA) grants — are possibly in violation of tax codes to tune of $350 BILLION for grant amounts of $275 BILLION, and several of the ones audited were known to be involved in criminal activities, etc.

FROM THE WHITE HOUSE SITE:  http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/health.pdf

HHS is asking $79 billion for the 2012 budget.  $17 BILLION of this went to ACF (Administration for Children and Families) in 2010, and $16 bil. estimated for 2010.  First of all, no one is really overseeing where this goes.  Second of all, at least as to OCSE, they are going to exceed the estimate.   Third of all, although it seems that Dads and Moms BOTH hate the OCSE, I do believe the evidence shows that since about 1994, it has been re-tooled to become a “let’s promote responsible fatherhood” organization — which funds aren’t tracked properly but we know they ARE diverted from what might otherwise actually reach children in order to test and evaluate specific theories about what inspires a man to pay, or not pay, child support.

Then more reports are written assuming that he’s not paying because he can’t. All kinds of theories can be proposed and tested BY LAW because the Secretary of Health and Human Services (per 45 CFR 303.109, as I recall) has the authority to require states getting access visitation grants to assist this office (HEad of HHS) with projects as it sees fit.

And what projects they are!

From the same source, the summary claims this budget:

Supports Responsible Fatherhood. The Budget encourages fathers to take responsibility for their children by changing policies so that more of fathers’ child support reaches their children while continuing a commitment to vigorous enforcement. The Budget increases support for States to pass through child support payments to families, rather than retaining those payments, and encourages States to provide access and visitation services that can improve a father’s relationship with his family. The Budget targets additional State incentives based on performance, which continues an emphasis on program outcomes and efficiency.

This is baloney.  First of all “encouraging” anyone to do anything doesn’t require them to.  Period.  FOr example, the Feds encouraged the states to actually pass through more money to the families, called “family first” but the States complained that this would screw up their budget and resisted.

One summary of the situation reads thus:

90% of the parents paying child support are fathers.   Using child support enforcement programs as a vehicle, these extortion-based programs force fathers to choose between criminal penalties (for nonpayment) and inciting “high conflict” family court litigation to create a “need” for their own publically funded services.  These IRresponsible programs cash in on “incentives” (TITLE IV-D ones, I’ve blogged this, meaning the $2 Federal to $1 State incentives with a complicated basis of determining it) by placing children in UNSTABLE homes, then starving the entire family onto some sort of public assistance.

The (unlawful) programs are supposed to be administrative, but they use quasi-judicial powers to CREATE, amend, and enforce court orders without judicial authorization.  The agency does not provide due process, nor does it have to show you your file!

Judges “have to” look the other way {{I’m still thinking about whether I agree with that one}} because if they object, they will lose their HHS funding, and at the same time the judge has to accept responsibility for the agency’s badly managed or even crooked interference when litigants are hurt.

I believe this person (unidentified but I don’t think I’ll be sued for copyright on it!) is showing us that JUDGES do not always know what the CHILD SUPPORT AGENCY is up to in specific cases.   Litigants are told visitation is SEPARATE from child support, but the sheer existence of these access and visitation programs (which custodial parents — trust me — are NOT even told exist) is to tie them both together.  The Federal Government (OCSE, HHS officials or former ones, including Wade Horn, Ron Haskins, and so forth) officially believes that if men are reconnected with their children this will produce a character change resulting in more child support payments.

Never mind that these men, at times, know that private groups getting government contracts to chase them down and garnish their wages are caught sometimes in fraud, overbilling, double-billing or even fabricating child support (or medicaid) cases — and STILL get yet more contracts with the government:  Maximus, SupportKids, etc.

That said, I personally find no excuse for judges sitting on the boards of, for example, Kids’ Turn, or all over the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, privately conferring about how to best treat the family court litigants they or their colleagues have helped destroy previously and who are actually showing anger or distress / protest about that treatment — and then make up new professions (to be organized into similar-titled nonprofits, i.e., “COLLABORATIVE LAW”) after the last round (Parent Education) got out’ed or is about to be (by others like myself reporting on it).

This has been going on long enough that second generations of children eliminated from contact with their mothers due to “fatherhood” programs in the courts and around child support — are showing up broke, homeless, or trying to retain custody of their own kids.  Although he has BARELY acknowledged this, even attorney general Eric Holder has acknowledged this in a statement at a conference put in on part by (fatherhood-supported) Family Violence Prevention Fund and (as I recall) either the NCADV, or the NCJFCJ (National COuncil of Juvenile & Family Court Judges), or all three of them.

As referenced here:  (NOTE:  I do not appreciate the language or tenor of this blog, though there is plenty cause to be angry.  I also do not associate with its author because of this and other matters. Nevertheless, here you are:  U.S. Attorney General Actually Admits, and provides the link)

From http://ncmbts.blogspot.com/2011/02/eric-holder-why-are-mothers-who-are.html

It look like (fatherhood.gov) Holder Knows Abusers get Custody of their Children, HE SUPPORTS IT! And Finances it. WTF?

Eric Holder Knows about Batterers Getting Custody and HE SUPPORTS it with Fatherhood.gov.

Last year 2010 he plays a mentor to Fathers in Prison getting out and being ‘dad’. See Fathers Day 2010 where Obama gave 500 Million dollars MORE to the Fatherhood Initiatives.

See Video here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRJBkoq1DXs

Obama steps up fatherhood advocacy with new mentoring initiative:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2010/06/21/AR2010062100006.html

Original Domestic Violence speech of Holder here:http://www.justice.gov/ag/speeches/2009/ag-speech-090602.html

(The blogger then goes on to say “Fuck that Shit!”(in bold print) and suggests a march on Washington.  Rather than an internet or in-person trip to the local county assessor’s office, or secretary of state to find out who is doing business where.  Did I mention the comptroller’s office?)

HERE’s the setting (note:  Year, 2009):

Attorney General Eric Holder via Video to the National Summit on the Intersection of Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment

~ Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Remarks as prepared for delivery.

Good morning and welcome to the National Summit on the Intersection of Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment. I want to thank you for attending this very important conference. Domestic violence, in particular children exposed to domestic violence, is an issue that I have worked on for much of my career in public service.

As a judge at the Superior Court of the District of Columbia I saw first hand the suffering and long-term trauma experienced by children exposed to violence. As the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, I created the first Domestic Violence Unit in the office’s history. As Deputy Attorney General during the President Clinton Administration, I helped to launch the U.S. Department of Justice’s Children Exposed to Violence Initiative, as well as the Safe Start Initiative. And now, as Attorney General, I am committed to reinvigorating our work on this very important issue.

The Office on Violence Against Women, in partnership with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and the Family Violence Prevention Fund has planned this meeting to continue a conversation that began almost a decade ago, at the first National Summit held here in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. That meeting brought together domestic violence advocates, child abuse workers and judges to address the critical need for coordinated services to family members victimized by both domestic violence and child abuse.

This summit brings together a broader cross-discipline of professionals who do not commonly work together: domestic violence and child advocates, judges and other court personnel, attorneys, child welfare workers, guardian ad litem, mental health workers, researchers, and policy makers. While you may not always work in concert on this issue, you share a vision for safe and healthy families. 

As you are gathered here in this beautiful location, I hope that you will forge new alliances and a collective leadership that will help identify solutions that will have a lasting impact on the lives of mothers and children traumatized by family violence. I ask that you consider ways the Department of Justice can renew and strengthen its efforts to address this problem. We want to draw upon lessons gleaned from your work in communities throughout the country. We also want to know what has been left undone.

Some of the topics that you will address may be more challenging than others. I hope you will especially discuss the most difficult issues I know many of you confront in your work:

• Why are mothers who are the victims of domestic violence losing custody of their children to the courts and to the child protection system? 
• Why are children of color over-represented in the child protection system? 
• Do children need a relationship with their fathers even when their fathers have been abusive to them and their mothers in the past? If so, what does that relationship look like?

I ask that you explore all of these things while always remembering that the needs of children who are exposed to violence are inextricably linked to the needs of mothers who are the victims of domestic violence.

How heartfelt.   I think Attorney General Holder is a remarkable man, and I don’t hold anything against him.  However fatherhood is now entrenched in the system, and here his with no doubt equal eloquence, addressing some fatherhood practitioners:

I’ll link to it from our Ohio Organization based on the ??MIA National (NPNFF) organization I’ve been mentioning:

http://www.opnff.net/white_house_fatherhood.asp

White House Conversations on Fatherhood

 This national conversation began on Father’s Day weekend with an event hosted by President Obama at the White House. The Conversation will reach communities across the country in the coming months through a series of Town Hall meetings.  The outcome of the Conversation on Fatherhood will be to inform federal policies supporting the development of strong fathers and healthy families.

Town Hall meetings will explore ways in which fathers, community organizations and the government can come together to encourage responsible fatherhood and strong communities, reconnect youth who have fallen away, and strengthen our nation’s families.

If you missed watching President Obama’s Town Hall media event on Friday, June 19, 2009, on “Fatherhood and Personal Responsibility”, I suggest you make every effort to review it!  It is the kick-off to a series of similar town hall meetings that will be held in various parts of the country in the near future.

and  (note:  same year as the National Summit, above).

Atlanta, Georgia, December 15, 2009: The third in the series of White House Conversations on Fatherhood was held in Atlanta Georgia and co-hosted by the Department of Justice and the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships – click here to read coverage of the Fatherhood Forum on the President’s Advisory Council blog.  Attorney General Eric Holder spoke at the event, stressing the intersection between fatherhood and criminal justice issues: the importance of working with incarcerated and reentry fathers as well as their children and families.  Click here to read AG Holder’s speech.

Let’s listen to part of it:

Let’s be clear — a father’s role in the life of a child is irreplaceable. I know this not just from the studies and the research that I’ve read and that I will share with you later, but from my own experiences parenting two teenage daughters and a 12-year-old son. And believe me, when I’m not up late thinking about how I can help to keep our nation safe, I’m up late thinking about how I can help my kids. It is both my commitment to public safety and my concern for my own children — and for all the other children throughout this country — that brings me here tonight.

I’m honored to be joined here this evening by fellow dads and leaders focused on fatherhood. In the course of our discussions, I hope we will be open and honest enough to ask ourselves tough questions — father to father, parent to parent — about what our communities and the federal government can do to strengthen our families and support those fathers who are trying to do the right thing . . .

and — this is a larger segment, browse and at least catch the drift:

 You simply cannot be a real man if you don’t do all that you can to care for those who have the greatest right to depend on you. We cannot leave this awesome responsibility to the women in our lives and in our communities who too often labor alone, taking care of our sons and daughters. This must end.

I don’t pretend that this is easy, especially for fathers who have been incarcerated. So I come here with great respect for those of you who have made some mistakes, but have chosen to appear here tonight because you know that someone else is counting on you.

People sometimes make bad choices. As a result, they end up in prison or jail. But we can’t permit incarceration of a parent to punish an entire family.

More than 1.5 million American children have fathers in prison. More than half of these children are African American. And we know that children of incarcerated parents suffer from: the physical and emotional separation; the stigma associated with having a parent detained; the loss of financial support; and the disruption caused by introducing new caregivers into a child’s life, no matter how well meaning those caregivers may be. As a result, children of incarcerated parents often struggle with anxiety, depression, learning problems, and aggression, undermining their own chances of future success. We know that in many cases maintaining relationships with their parents during incarceration can improve the lives of children, and yet too often our policies have failed to support these relationships.

Actually, there are multiple programs specifically designed, and federally supported, to connect incarcerated Dads with their kids AND to modify their child support downward AND help them craft requests to modify custody to give them MORE time with children.  Maybe it’s not enough — but these DO exist and can be/are funded no doubt under the “Access and Visitation” funding, set to increase radically in FY 2012, it seems.

Even when fathers are released from prison and return to their families, we have failed to properly support family reunification. We don’t adequately address such pressing issues as the role that these fathers will play in their children’s lives. And yet, if we care about what happens to these children, their families, and their communities – if we care about public safety – we have to help these men play a central role in their children’s lives.

Research reveals that incarcerated men who maintain strong family ties while behind bars are more successful when they are released. They have an easier time finding jobs and staying off drugs. In fact, a recent study done for the Department of Health and Human Services found that people who were married or in committed relationships were half as likely to use drugs or commit new crimes after they were released from incarceration.

 

What happened to the comments at that other National Summit, the question:

Do children need a relationship with their fathers even when their fathers have been abusive to them and their mothers in the past? If so, what does that relationship look like?

I think the FIRST question should be answered before elaborating upon the 2nd question.  however that first question — if he were honest — already HAD been answered, and years earlier, by the fatherhood movement through HHS/ACF/OCSE to start with.

From (green font, above), the 2009 speech by AG Holder to the fathers in Atlanta, 2009, I deduce the same message that I’ve gotten right along:  It’s OK to USE contact with children in an attempt to try to reform fathers, i.e., Innocent Children as Character-Correction Bait.  Because if we don’t use those children to reform the fathers, those angry and unrepentant fathers might go bothering others, not related to them, and THAT, we can’t have.  But for invisible, unreported, child molestation and other crimes against children, well, let’s just not talk about that in the same breath as “fatherhood activity promotion.”  Sure ….

HERE (going on, same speech) he is going to talk about some fatherhood programs to reconnect men with their families post-incarceration.  Were these brought up at the other conference, on intersection of domestic violence and child maltreatment, asking why mothers were losing the custody to batterers?  Of course not.  Would that have been politically expedient??

I’m happy to note that in Tennessee, the city of Memphis has hired a family liaison who works with formerly incarcerated people to help them reconnect with family members when they return to town. In South Dakota, the Department of Corrections has launched a Fatherhood and Families Program to address the challenges faced by incarcerated fathers and to promote healthy relationships.

So, how’s that one going?  Who paid for it?  Were some of these fathers in arrears in child support, or engaged in a custody battle, or did this program help them START such a battle?

And in Oregon, Marion County is deploying an evidence-based parenting curriculum called “Parenting Inside Out,” and a family reunification curriculum called “Restoring Relationships.” These are just three examples of how we’re shifting resources to support family reunification for formerly incarcerated people and their families.

I “couldn’t” resist.  (I’d run across this phrase before).  It’s a FOR-profit registered trademark of (to be found out), another high-profit low-overhead curriculum to be marketed to captive — literally — audiences to help them:

Curriculum

Parenting Inside Out (PIO) is an evidence-based, cognitive-behavioral parent management skills training program created {BY??? _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _} for incarcerated parents through a six-year collaboration of scientists, policy makers, practitioners, and instructional designers. Both the information in the program and the way that information is presented were informed by knowledge derived from research and practice.

At the core of Parenting Inside Out is the Parent Management Training (PMT) curriculum, which appears on the “best practice” lists of: the American Psychological Assoc., the US Department of Health & Human Services, and the Office of Victims of Crime, the US Department of Justice. PMT includes communication, problem solving, monitoring, positive reinforcement and non-violent discipline techniques. Researchers built upon the PMT curriculum to make it effective within the context and restrictions of parents and families involved in the justice system. {{they had another market application and adapted to it…}} In addition to the scientists, practitioners and curriculum designers who contributed to the PIO program, inmates and their families were extensively interviewed to ensure the program addressed the real needs and issues they experience.

(Looking up “Parent Management Training, I find a Yalechild psychologist, Alan E. Kazdin, Psychologist.  I TOLD us the best line of work with an advanced degree is psychologist, right?  (Or Wall Street 24/7 did))

Parent Management Training for Oppositional, Aggressive and Antisocial Behavior in Children and Adolescents

Alan E. Kazdin, PhD, is Director and Chairman of the Child Study Center and John M. Musser Professor of Psychology at Yale University School of Medicine. He also directs The Child Conduct Clinic at Yale University , an outpatient treatment service for children and their families. His research focuses primarily on aggressive and antisocial behavior in children and adolescents and the influences that contribute to child dysfunction and therapeutic change. He has published more than 550 articles and chapters and written or edited more than 35 books on child and adolescent behavioral disorders, treatment, and methodology and research design.

Wonder if he eats lunch, or ever collaborates with the Pruetts, Kyle or Dr. Marsha Kline (of AFCC note?)  (Child Psychiatry center at Yale).

Description

Among the evidence-based psychotherapies for children and adolescents, parent management training (PMT) is without peer. No other treatment for children has been as thoroughly tested and as widely applied as has PMT. In Parent Management Training, Dr. Alan Kazdin brings together the conceptual and empirical bases of this treatment, as applied to children and adolescents with oppositional, aggressive, and antisocial behavior.

And, I was wrong to mention OFI — it’s OSLC (Oregon Social Learning Center).  Close enough for jazz…  That’s their logo:

(from their site, where I’ve been before):

A number of preventive interventions have also been developed at OSLC. The prevention studies involve intervention with a variety of populations. Most include a focus on testing the effect of parent management training with specific populations, such as with recently divorced mothers, with step families, with the siblings of at risk youth, with incarcerated fathers and mothers, with mothers and fathers involved in community corrections, with at risk girls involved in the child welfare system, and with youth at risk for substance use. A universal school-based prevention program, Linking the Interests of Families and Teachers, was designed to promote healthy behavior at home, in the classroom, and on the playground (etc.)

 

(see below) as “slaves” were the profits of previous generations, and stocks (etc.) are of wealthy families/individuals today, the access to populations on which to test “interventions” is a source of PRODUCING ONGOING PUBLICATIONS AND STUDIES for psychologists and psychiatrists.  In a nutshell, it’s WHAT THEY DO.  They then can develop and market curriculum (making a name in the process) through government networks and also supported by them — particularly if it’s anything about better controlling an unruly and possibly violent population.  I”m starting to get angry at the scope and prevalence of this.

The concept of continually experimenting and demonstrating on already distressed (or OPpressed) populations, for fame and profit, is offensive, to me at least.  In this sense, by continue to force people back onto welfare, or back into the courts, there is an UNENDING source of lower-caste (supposedly) or Needing Our Expert Help people available to anyone who can scramble or collaborate to the top of the pack when it comes to curricula.  It of course helps to have a Ph.D. and get some grants under your belts.   Just as traffic violation convictions help build courthouses, people getting incarcerated serve any number of purposes and industries, including the social scientists and those wishing to study their “minds” and try to get inside them.  The less ethical among these also (when in individual situations have too often gotten inside some of those (Minors’) pants as well, sometimes getting caught, sometimes not– but usually enabled by the incessant thirst to be able to manipulate human behavior into something politically acceptable and correct.  Such as into LOW-CONFLICT with ABUSIVE AUTHORITY.

Parent Management Training-Oregon Model (PMTO)

Parent Management Training-Oregon Model (PMTO) is a behavior intervention program designed by Dr. Gerald Patterson and colleagues at the Oregon Social Learning Center (OSLC). OSLC is a world renowned research center in the area of antisocial behavior in children. The behavior interventions used in PMTO are based on over 30 years of research on families with children and adolescents who have serious conduct problems. Patterson and his colleagues have identified five core parenting skills that have the most impact on improving serious behavior problems in children. PMTO is a family intervention designed to help parents use the following five core parenting skills:

Is it going to tell me, easily, which CORPORATION? is marketing this, and if it’s a nonprofit?  No.  But look at the telltale marks (cf.  BootCamp for New Dads): Does it bear (its authors) any relationship to the AFCC-affiliate (generic term, that’s my sarcasm) “OFI” (Oregon Family Institute)?

Purchasing Parenting Inside-Out

The Parenting Inside Out program consists of two parts: Coach/Coach Supervisor Training and the Curriculum usage and materials license.

Training classes are three days long. Regular training classes are scheduled in Portland, Oregon. Custom classes can be arranged for your organization at your location. 

For further information and price quotes, please contactmindy@childrensjusticealliance.org or call 503-977-6399.

My “TESS” (US patent search database) shows that the holder of the trademark “parenting inside out” is this Children’s Justice Alliance, an Oregon nonprofit.  It was filed for in 2008 and in use since 2009 (i.e., Eric Holder mentioning it in 2009 also). [“USPTO.gov”]    So now I look up that nonprofit at Oregon Secretary of state:

http://www.childrensjusticealliance.org/

The Children’s Justice Alliance was formed in 2004 by Claudia Black, Ben DeHaan, Sharon Darcy, and Mark Eddy, PhD. to take a programmatic and systemic approach to improving outcomes for children whose parents are involved in the criminal justice system.

The primary impetus for creating the Children’s Justice Alliance was to give parents and families the tools they need to break the preventable cycle of intergenerational criminality.

Many donors, many other nonprofits organized to provide or distribute this curriculum.

In addition to the Oregon Department of Corrections and the Oregon Department of Human Services, other partners include: community justice, law enforcement, the courts, K-12 education, higher education, early childhood providers, mentoring programs, mental health agencies, researchers, CASA and Girl Scouts Beyond Bars.

 

 

PATHFINDERS of OREGON  / Center for Family Success:

From this description I learn that Pathfinders of Oregon (itself a 501(c)3 delivering cognitive behavioral therapy (yada, yada) partnered with “Children’s Justice Alliance” in 2003.  However, prior to 2003, “Children’s Justice Alliance” didn’t exist — so it was formed as a nonprofit to market (etc. etc.).

Pathfinders, a 501 (c) (3) social service agency, was founded in 1993 to operate cognitive-restructuring programs for the Oregon Department of Corrections. Since that time its mission has broadened to include prevention and intervention strategies that are aimed at keeping at-risk clients from entering the criminal justice system. Pathfinders expanded its services to provide parenting-skills training and to operate an alternative-incarceration program in the prisons, as well as cognitive and parenting programs for some Oregon counties. In 1999, Pathfinders began to operate an alternative school for pregnant and/or parenting teens with funding from Portland Public Schools (PPS). In 2008, with additional funding from PPS, Pathfinders opened another school in East Multnomah County.

In 2003, Pathfinders formed a partnership with the Children’s Justice Alliance (CJA) to serve as the official service delivery arm of its programs. Through CJA, Pathfinders provides services to clients who are involved with the Oregon Department of Human Services; it has also provided family based services funded by the United Way and other governments and agencies, such as the City of Portland and the Department of Labor. It is with CJA that Pathfinders operates two Centers for Family Success, where clients can obtain training as well as wrap-around services, helping them stabilize their families and avoid involvement in the criminal justice system. Pathfinders has a long history of meeting (or exceeding) contractual obligations in all of its programs.

Since 1993 Pathfinders has provided training for more than 27,500 inmates, including 3,000 female inmates. Classes have been provided in every state prison in Oregon. Pathfinders has provided parenting training to over 1,000 clients of the Department of Human Services who have involvement with the criminal justice system.

what is a “Client of the Department of Human Services” also involved in the criminal justice system?

Here, we see that Pathfinders had access to the Criminal Justice System, and somehow, the people starting CJA had access to the HHS system clients. I suspect that if we looked further, the incorporators of CJA probably were social workers or in some manner DHHS (Oregon) employed…..  But in fact, the actions they are involved in include, central, marketing a curriculum aimed at behavioral modification, basically.

This alliance, around since 9/23/2003, has had changes of address, of registered agent, and its current address is shared with the “Children’s Trust Fund”

Children’s Trust Fund of Oregon 

Your donation will fund programs through the Children’s Trust Fund to help prevent child abuse, neglect, and to strengthen families.

Children’s Trust Fund of Oregon
1410 SW Morrison Street, Suite 501
Portland OR 97205

The Children’s Trust Fund is supposed to stop child abuse:

History

In the mid 1980s, at the urging of child welfare advocates and professionals, Congress passed noteworthy legislation to respond to the growing increase of child abuse and neglect incidents. In response, the Oregon legislature enacted the Children’s Trust Fund of Oregon (CTFO) in 1985. This groundbreaking agency was mandated to prevent the generational cycle of child abuse and neglect to innocent children in Oregon. Over the past 25 years, this now independent non-profit foundation has served our state in the following ways:

• fostered leadership to promote and strengthen local networks interested in child abuse prevention
• distributed over $9 million donated funds to effective local programs serving thousands of Oregon families
• monitored program delivery through quality outcome studies
• advocated for legislation and public policy to protect our children, enhance family functioning, and support prevention activities statewide

Organizational Structure

In 1999 the Oregon legislature statutorily privatized the CTFO. Following a two-year transitional process, on July 1, 2001 the CTFO became a new, non-profit legal entity, the CTFO Foundation. The activities of the agency are directed by a 25-member volunteer Board of Trustees, 20% to be appointed by the Governor. Staff members are hired by the Board to conduct the activities of the agency. All CTFO’s administrative expenses are paid by public funds as part of the state’s commitment to fostering prevention activities in Oregon. Therefore, 100% of all donated funds go directly to support the local programs’ commitment to prevention.

So whoever is best, most experienced, most connected, and/or fastest at developing “prevention programs” is most likely to get on the top of that faucet.  It appears (judging by when the Parenting Inside Out and Children’s Justice Alliance were formed, that someone figured out how to get their curriculum to the head of the class, and to “every state prison in Oregon.”   Downloadable PATENTED curriculum, license for training, train the trainers — it’s the name of the game, baby!  Do this nonprofit and get your distribution network to be courtesy the state incarceration (and/or TANF?) population and you’re “IN like FLINT.”

ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER CONTINUES TALKING TO FATHERS IN (as I recall) ATLANTA, Dec. 2009)

Similarly, the Department of Health and Human Services awarded 13 grants to encourage responsible fatherhood and to help strengthen family ties among men returning from incarceration. Those programs are undergoing a national evaluation, and the results of that evaluation will help us ensure that we are implementing data-driven, evidence-based programs that work to keep families together and communities safer.

In the meantime, we’re learning some important lessons. We’re seeing encouraging results from parenting programs in prison. Men who participate in these programs are more positive about their role as fathers, and they have more frequent contact with their children.** Relationship intervention programs have also shown promise in improving communication between formerly incarcerated parents and their children.

**Access Visitation, that’s the purpose…..

What I’m saying is that we are seeing a lot of MOTHERless children in society these days.  In this I’d include both situations such as my own or similar (became noncustodial after leaving an abusive relationship, children shifted to the abusive parent in an apparent attempt to keep the litigation going when it otherwise might have settled itself) — and parents (male/female both) who are unavailable emotionally simply because they are extorted into this battle, to the supposed “consternation” (but in truth, profit and a lot of it) of the related court professionals.

. . . .

Today, I was very bothered by the HR 2587 discussions, and the failure of any of the (largely male) House of Representatives speaking to actually put out identifiable link to anything besides claims — one claim, the counter claim, another claim, the counter-claim.  Meanwhile, there’s a whole lot of child support sitting around in agency coffers being UNCLAIMED because no one is talking about that; we are essentially as a nation trafficking in anything “children” to draw some funding down, as well as literally it seems in many cases.

MOREOVER who is to determine whether, for poor people, that J O B S are the answer (when those talking about it live off their own assets, AND sometimes jobs, including for Congress) — when another definition (which I didn’t get to today) is that to hold a J>O>B entails a whole set of relationships which, bottom line, get right back down to the tax code and to who is ABOVE BOARD and has wages EASY to be garnished, and who (on the contrary) is operating and owning/selling businesses (or, profiting from the rise AND/OR fall of those businesses in the form of stock, options, short-selling, futures, etc. and terms not taught K-12 and in a lot of liberal arts colleges (as required courses) either.

INCOME – EXPENSES – TAXABLE INCOME (see “Human Project Services, Inc.”) = you own a business.

INCOME – TAXES – EXPENSES OUT OF WHAT”S LEFT = you work for someone who owns a business.

INVESTMENTS IN BUSINESS — what’s that?  (for most of America, including Middle Class America.  Just leave it up to the experts).

Talk about “jobs might be outsourced” in my book just about compare to someone associated with the SF COurt system saying, ominously, “divorces MIGHT take more than a few months!”   (talk about detached from reality — anyone know how long a typical divorce that comes through the court takes, at all?)

I found this group — and publication today.  You might find it interesting reading:

INSIGHTCCED.org — CLOSING THE RACIAL WEALTH GAP

At least these people are talking about WEALTH vs. JOBS!

Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative

Who We Are:

The Insight Center’s Closing the Racial Wealth Gap Initiative is a national effort to address the wealth gap that leaves the average American family of color with only 16 cents for every dollar owned by the average white family. To close this gap in the next generation, we have brought together over 150 scholars, advocates, and practitioners of color to inform the national economic debate with diverse perspectives and provide policy solutions to create a more inclusive and equitable future for all Americans.

Why This Matters:

Unleashing the potential that exists in all our communities to generate economic growth is essential to ensure a globally competitive economy, but it depends on our nation’s commitment to eliminating inequities and providing opportunities for all families to build their wealth (assets minus debts). Without wealth, families and communities cannot become and remain economically secure. Public policies have and continue to play a major role in creating and sustaining the racial wealth gap, and they must play a role in closing it.

Our Attorney General (representing pretty much Administration policy):  Without Fathers connected with their children, our communities are not safe (or economically secure) even if those Dads have been in prison (by extension, possibly for assaulting their wives or children, in part, or other dangerous activities.  By contrast with how women get in prison (also on the last 3 blogs, I believe), which has been shown to be substance abuse — often related to prior serious physical abuse, incl. prior to age 18, i.e., rape, molestation, trafficking.  Look at the post before Corrections Corporation of America; in other words THEIR road down often begins with abuse, followed by an eagerness to incarcerate over drug-related nonviolent offences, and privatization of the prison industry, etc.

WEALTH FOLLOWS TAX ADVANTAGE:  TAX ADVANTAGE HELPS PRESERVE WEALTH:

Now from this publication (theirs):

Historical Roots of the Racial Wealth Gap

The long-standing American belief is that anyone can make it to the top by just working hard and tugging mightily on those proverbial boot-straps. From the pioneers to the financiers, American heroes are acclaimed as self-made men, succeeding on pure grit, gumption, and ingenuity.

From this logic it then follows that if certain people have not achieved financial success, they must not be hard-working. Poor people, particularly people of color, are described as lazy, wanting something for nothing, unwilling to learn English, incapable of saving, uninterested in education, and so on. In short, the common wisdom is that both wealth and poverty are the result of personal behaviors.

…

While it may sometimes seem that individuals laid each building block of wealth with their own effort alone, in fact, the invisible hand of government has helped families of European descent erect their asset structures during every period of U.S. history.

a. Public Policy and Wealth Building in U.S. History

The founders of this American democratic experiment rejected the idea that a person’s future should be decided by the accident of their birth. Instead, they believed that the opportunity to rise economically and socially should be available to everyone willing to work hard and serve the common good. During the Revolutionary War, the brilliant leadership of many ordinary men cemented the belief that all are capable of greatness. The promise of opportunity has drawn immigrants from all over the world, many of them arriving with nothing but their dreams, their drive, and their capacities.

But how can people move beyond a subsistence living toward being able to create new value for their families and for society? Farmers coming from Europe needed land to till, youth with inventive minds needed education, workers needed wages high enough for saving, and entrepreneurs needed access to capital to start businesses.

Throughout U.S. history, federal and state governments have provided “wealth starter kits” for some to turn their work into worth. For example, governments have given gifts of land, free public education, government- backed mortgages and farm loans, a social safety net, and business subsidies to white families, sometimes exclusively and usually disproportionately.

(AS YET, WOMEN NOT MENTIONED….))

These government investments jump-started our economy more than once, an economy that has leapt forward with dynamism and innovative power, turning the U.S. into a global economic powerhouse in a short span of time.

and, post WWII

Take the post-World War II GI Bill as an example. In the largest federal public benefits program in our history—$50 billion in today’s dollars and 15% of the national budget—7 million mostly working class, overwhelmingly white young men who might otherwise not have had the opportunity for post-high school education received college and vocational training paid for by Uncle Sam. Millions also got low-interest government-backed mortgages that made it possible for them to buy their first homes. These programs unleashed tremendous intellectual, professional and entrepreneurial talent and created a large, stable, educated and home-owning middle class with a stake in American success. The GI Bill returned seven dollars to the nation for every dollar invested, and helped lead to an era of unprecedented and widely shared prosperity.11

But due to discrimination in college admissions and in the housing markets, soldiers of color who fought just as valiantly and sacrificed just as deeply as whites were far less able to use the benefits. They, and the nation, could have made even greater advances if there had been equal access to the programs to which all veterans were entitled.

I’m sure this is true.  I am just wondering why no mention made of 1913 — personal income tax, and 1933, etc. developments!

b. Obstacles to Asset Building in Four Communities of Color12

Throughout U.S. history, beginning with the founding documents of our nation, deliberate government policies transferred wealth from nonwhites to whites and blocked people of color from asset ownership. But the specific mechanisms have varied for each group of color. A brief review of American history reveals a consistent pattern of race-based policies that created the deep racial wealth gap that divides our population today.

 

as is this:

African Americans: Black labor, white wealth

While both European and Africans were both initially indentured servants, the status of Africans was fixed by law; they alone were placed into permanent servitude. When indentured servants finished their terms of work, many received plots of land, their “wealth starter kits.” As enslaved people, African Americans not only were denied the right to earn a wage—it is estimated that if they had earned wages there would be four trillion dollars in the Black community today—they could not turn their own work into wealth. In fact, they were tangible assets, listed as such in the financial ledgers of their owners. The South was the richest region of the country up to the Civil War, and most of that wealth was held in the form of slaves. Like stocks and bonds today, possessing enslaved people brought greater return than their initial cost, both through the products their labor created, and through their production of more units of wealth—enslaved children. The slave system became the basis of the entire U.S. economy. Enslaved people created wealth for plantation owners in the South, slave traders, bankers, and insurance companies in the North, and the cotton they produced fed the burgeoning garment industries. If hard work alone were the basis of wealth, then African Americans today would be the wealthiest people in the United States.

 

THE CONVERSATIONS WE NEED TO HAVE TODAY, AS WELL AS THIS ONE, IS TO ACKNOWLEDGE HOW THE SAME SYSTEMS OF CONTROL OF OPPORTUNITIES  — in good part through the accumulations & centralization of government enabled by IRS collections — CONTINUE TO EXPLOIT CERTAIN POPULATIONS, BOTH OF COLOR (PRIMARILY) but INCREASINGLY OTHERS — AS TANGIBLE ASSETS OF THE “HUMAN RESOURCES PROJECTS” OF THIS WORLD — the HHS / ACF / OCSE / “FATHERHOOD” and . . .and… (sorry ladies…)  “DOMESTIC ABUSE PREVENTION” projects  and . . . .and the “THERAPEUTIC JURISPRUDENCE / PSYCHOLOGY-BASED LAW programs — almost ALWAYS started from Top-Down (if you look into the organizations) . . .

are still a factor of our economy not yet having addressed that it began in slave labor. The forms of slavery have simply changed.

f. Business Ownership

The rate of business ownership for people of color is only about half that of whites; 14% of white families but only 7% of families of color owned equity in a business in 2007.74 And for those who do have business assets, the median value is only $60,000 for people of color, compared with $112,500 for whites.75 Asian businesses are the most successful of minority businesses, because they often are in the import/export trade and have access to the global marketplace, suggesting that this is a successful strategy for increasing wealth in other immigrant communities with international ties.

 

Business start-ups are financed most often by bank loans only for white men; women and people of color are more likely to use credit cards, as seen in Figure 11. Credit card interest rates are usually higher than loans from banks, putting the borrower at greater risk of failure.

 

And yet some more (I am skimming this lengthy document).  I believe, though it is more laborious, it is possible to stop thinking in terms of the slave-master relationship of jobs only to the investment/sales/business language that actually leads to something approaching acquiring of assets, which really should be EVERYONE’s goal, for their own families and communities, and so time would become available to participate politically and better track what politicians have been, in fact, doing while one was at work!

Reasons for the Business Ownership Gap

The wealthiest individuals in communities of color have traditionally been business owners; but the limits of their business success have largely been defined by the boundaries of their own communities. While there were Black-owned businesses before the Civil War with mainly white patrons, after the war, the development of a segregated society ended that.80

During a century of segregation, African-American businesses did not have access to the white market. The Chinese were run out of mining claims; their business opportunities were limited to jobs that no white man would consider: laundry and cooking. They started these businesses that were traditionally women’s work in the mostly male mining towns in the mid-1850’s, and it became a small niche market that continued throughout the 20th century. Japanese were explicitly prohibited from owning corporations in the early 20th century.

Because of their limited capacity to raise capital and the smaller size of their market, and because they were discriminated against in government procurement processes, minority businesses have not created the levels of wealth of white-owned businesses up to today, with a few individual exceptions. The profile of minority-owned businesses is different from that of whites. Besides the high proportion of micro-businesses, businesses often are family affairs or formed by a network of friends; co-operative ventures are more common. They tend to be deeply embedded in their communities.

While providing services, job creation and wealth creation in these markets are strengths, small family businesses and cooperatives usually don’t expand to allow greater wealth creation. One reason is the lack of access to the amount of start-up capital that would support larger businesses. Discrimination by financial institutions in the provision of business loans is what needs to be addressed so that businesses of all sizes and in all locations can be established by people of color. Research shows that African-Americans are less likely to receive business loans than white people and those who do receive substantially smaller loans than whites.81 This is true even when African American and white entrepreneurs have the same level of education, equity capital, credit rating, business size, industry, and previous business experience.82 Successful entrepreneurship also requires business and market-based knowledge specific to the rules of the nation, state, and local community; such knowledge may be gotten through social networks in white communities, but may sometimes be lacking in minority and especially immigrant communities. * * * Reliable information and social networks are also necessary to gain access to capital. As for other types of loans, credit-scoring methods can be a barrier, and networking opportunities with potential funders may be limited.

 

* * * I will likely differ from these authors in one aspect.  I believe the public school system exists primarily AS a caste-sorter, and to slow down economic mobility. I have worked in urban and suburban communities (in the schools) and lived in them; the marked difference is that the suburban parents, often able to exist on one-income, a high one, have a parent free to run around and supplement the college-bound-curriculum with afterschool and enrichment activities — or to contribute to, fundraise for, or get involved as a parent in those schools.  I know this in part (also as a single mother) because I profited by working for some of those organizations and individuals that knew, unsupplemented public school wasn’t going to make it for their kids.

The public schools, and their textbooks (particularly trendsetters California and Texas) are among the most censored books around, including self-censored.  Meanwhile, library funds and arts, “enrichment” etc. activities are often on the chopping block because the kids aren’t learning to read and do math properly.

These schools are ESSENTIAL to perpetuating the slave-based economy (whether within the US or outside it) because without this heavily subsidized indoctrination organization, also highly political (i.e. NEA and NTA contributing to political campaigns, usually Democrats) , people might have time to discover some of the networks that might leak out some financial smarts, or jargon — and act on them.   Then where would Corrections Corporation of America, and its stock, be?

I wonder — I really wonder — how many Congressmen, and the few women, actually got to Congress by working normal jobs.  I also wonder how many of their school-aged children attend public schools, overall?   I suspect, very few.   Until we are as a nation willing to put more women in Congress, at least 30%, (I do not include Michelle Bachmann in the recommended number, although a little too late for that, obviously!)  …   This idiotic perception that it takes a MAN and only a nurturing etc. MAN to raise a REAL child (President Obama excepted?), therefore EVERYONE should support any program which says (whether or not it does) it support “fatherhood” (whatever that really is, whatever stereotype….) . . . . . .

We’re probably going down for the count financially.  We will have society organized in the hierarchy, and those at the top will be clueless as to those whose lives they direct actually have to live, or what their needs are.  They could not get to Congress without a little hero worship, so the temptation to provide new “solutions” all the time, never ceases.  And so the codependent relationships continue. . . . .. .

I actually have this crazy idea that if the attorneys and judges (add “mental health practitioners”) can be so smart as to “outsource” justice to nonprofits they themselves run, and then complain about clogged courts — that we, the people, could “OUTSOURCE” them by simply solving our problems without their help.  Problems such as marriage, divorce, domestic violence, property transfer and who knows what others?

And stop asking crooks for help to reform things they are profiting from, starting with the child support system.

I sign this as a mother who went from abuse  to prosperity as a single mother, to family law system (overnight), back into poverty with my children’s education consistently downgraded, a factor that REALLY irritated and stressed me even further, and rapidly devolving into dependency again — and overnight removal of y kids by my ex, in violation of a standing court order, and with the family court not even blinking its eyes, just “stamping the rubber” of the court-connected crony (mediator, in this case), and even for a season BACK on the system.

And I know women who went homeless from the same process.

Too many people have bought into this system.  The two institutions that I see MOST working in concert with each other are financial institutions:The IRS and the OCSE.  They even have their information gaps, too.  The enablers are the family court gatekeepers.

This article I have been quoting does admit (though I will come to a different conclusion from them about it, I think):

The tax code is the nation’s wealth budget. Taxes are an investment we all make in each other’s, and our nation’s, future: the shape of that future can be seen in our tax code. Within the tax code is embedded our nation’s wealth DNA, determining who is helped to expand their net worth, and who pays what share of the nation’s expenses.

 

True.  And my readings of the various GAO and HHS/OIG/OAS reports, state-level incorporations, and state-level nonprofit registrations, and a good many articles of incorporation plus IRS tax returns available (for nonprofits) — tells me that this investment has been serious mis-appropriated and not even stewarded well.  NO ONE KNOWS WHERE IT GOES!  AND THE GOVERNMENT AGENCIES ARE ADMITTING THIS TO EACH OTHER! 

Moreover there is also a technology gap when it comes to internet access to informationa bout there it goes; it is VERY timeconsuming for a person without assets to invest in, for example, a services like “FEDMINE” or “MapVisual” (whatever site it was trying to charge me $600 for more relationship maps the other day) — are disadvantaged.  MORE of our time will be used to find LESS available — and not necessarily accurate (read all the disclaimers) information, or complete information — about WTF happened to that fund, or those $$ collected.

Reason for the Gap in Tax Advantages

Throughout U.S. history, taxes have been used as a mechanism of wealth redistribution from people of color to whites. In the mid-1800’s when people flocked to California during the gold rush, special taxes were levied on Chinese miners and laundries, inhibiting their capacity to build wealth.

(Note:  The US began before the 1800s.  Note2:  Compulsory public education, nationwide, really took off in the late 1800s, and was in good part (at least eventually) modeled on a military state, Prussia.  Another motive for getting it passed was fear of the immigrant Catholics by traditional protestant groups.   Samuel Blumenfeld, John Taylor Gatto…..)

Taxes paid by Chinese accounted for 25% of California’s taxes between 1850 and 1870, but the Chinese, unable to become citizens, did not receive any tax funded services.Poll taxes only on African Americans prevented them from voting for nearly 100 years.

And when African American males got the vote, no women of any color could vote, that took longer.  Should’ve been mentioned here.  Why?  In part, because empowering a formerly slave population — or, rather, HALF of it — indicated a desire to hold onto a substitute slave population.

In some Southern states constitutional limits were placed on property taxes in order to keep Black schools underfunded and the population undereducated; the Alabama law still exists.102 While Latino and other immigrants pay taxes, they are not eligible for tax-funded benefits. For example, the high-school valedictorian children of undocumented workers have been barred from going to public universities at the in-state tuition rate in the state where they reside.

Ironically, just as Native American tribes are finding ways to develop business enterprises such as casinos on their reservations, new tax policies are being passed by states to require them to share their resources, even though tribal governments are legally sovereign and tax-exempt.

Current tax policies are redistributive—from the poor to the wealthy. Those with lower tax liability, or no liability due to low incomes, subsidize the breaks given to those who can afford to pass down large estates to their children, to invest in stocks, and save for retirement and their children’s college educations.

(apparently authors approve of the estate tax.  I don’t know enough about this to take a stand).

Laying the Foundation for Equitable Economic Growth (on page 31)

a. Asset Development Over the Life Span

A comprehensive approach to asset accumulation must recognize that wealth building should unfold over the course of a person’s life.

Saving, not spending

Today, children are bombarded, even in school settings, with advertisements that promote consumption, and there is no financial education that teaches them how to use money wisely. In fact, sometimes spending is described as patriotic.

OF COURSE — GUESS WHO PROFITS from turning America’s children (most, not all of them) into — if not prison fodder — now-oriented, over-consuming, materialistic, and gang-forming individuals (white-collar or other kinds of gangs)?    We are paying interest on debt, the name of the game is international corporations and international banking.  Is this still “news?”   WIthout the overconsumption, the global “economy” will melt.

Suggested reading:  Susan George, on “Maldevelopment” model, IMF, etc.

@@@Susan George is a well-known Franco-American political and social scientist, activist and writer on global social justice, Third World poverty, underdevelopment and debt. She is a fellow and president of the board of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. She is a fierce critic of the present policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (IBRD) and what she calls their ‘maldevelopment model’. She similarly criticizes the structural reform policies of the Washington Consensus on Third World development. She is of U.S. birth but now resides in France, and has dual citizenship since 1994.@@@

In 1974 she attended the World Food Conference in Rome, Italy where she felt that corporate agribusiness representatives dominated the proceedings.^[1]

In 1976 her first book was published: How the Other Half Dies: The Real Reasons for World Hunger.^[4]

(a review of a 1980s book, “A Fate Worse Than Debt” gives a background of this person, and is a book I’ve read which explains the costs of transforming another nations’ economy into a “debt-servicing” (exporting products) economy — which then the more “developed” companies must be trained to consume their products.   It talks about the IMF and more.  I can’t summarize it here, but it helped explain to me the INSANE drive to turn people into consumers of products and services they just don’t need, and who, exactly, that profits.)

In 2004 she half-heartedly supported the candidacy of U.S. senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, for president. While she had canvassed for Kerry in Pennsylvania, she wrote for OpenDemocracy.org (November 3, 2004), “we all thought [Kerry] had a very good chance, even though everyone admitted it was hard to get really enthusiastic about him…. The man isn’t the most charismatic ever to walk the earth. But at least he’s not a proto-fascist or a go-it-aloner, and that’s what we seem–apart from a last-minute miracle–to be stuck with now. With four years clear ahead of him and no re-election to worry about, I fear Bush and the ghastly neo- con/neo-liberals around him will now go on the rampage. They can continue with impunity their attacks on the Constitution and on hard-won freedoms; while profound economic inequalities and religious obscurantism spread throughout the country.”

Back to my friends commenting on how students are pushed to consume, not save:  There’s a reason why:  that reason is the global economy, from which the wealthy are taught to profit, whether or not anyone else does.  It has also to do with debt service, the Federal Reserve, the INCOME tax (enabling centralization and redistribution of wealth, as you have so well noted) — and also enabling these antiquated but purposeful (and their purpose is dumbing down and establishing a captive audience prone to consumption, bullying, and illiteracy) so-called public schools.

But saving is a habit that can begin early in life to encourage future orientation. After World War II for example, children were taught to save by being able to bring money to school a little at a time to buy U.S. Savings Bonds—saving was encouraged as a patriotic act. Even small amounts, deposited regularly, can through the magic of compound interest yield many times more than what is put in initially. Money deposited in transactional accounts such as checking, savings or money market accounts represent a source of readily available funds, while savings put into investments such as stocks, bonds, retirement and college savings accounts are longer-term investments intended to appreciate over time.

 

And in California,three Los Angeles judges attempt to shut down the entire state’s homeschooling population — in this millennium, a practice which actually gives children (and their parents) time to become more involved in their communities, and often to start and maintain businesses (ONE way to learn to save), or more time to develop skills and talents that a school day modeled on the work day (8 to 5, 8 to 3, etc.) doesn’t enable.

Or ways to fail to acquire some of the worse social habits (sexting, raping others, bullying, forming gangs, etc.) that kids are prone to develop when herded together and boxed up, regulated, and taught over and over again that they really can’t be trusted, but the best thing is emotional dependence upon whoever is at the front of the classroom which, FYI — will be constantly changed as they get older….

People produce more, and better, when they are not treated like, or regarded as, cattle.  Alas, the tax system as it exists encourages and enables a whole thickening layer of professionals who believe, perhaps innocently, perhaps sincerely — but wrongly! — that this is their function and calling in life.

Meanwhile:

http://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2009/09/economy-signs-of-impending-meltdown-are.html

(i went looking for the image, and otherwise don’t know this blog — but it’s talking, 2009.  I’m going to end — one has to stop somewhere! with his quote of a GAO man, as I was recently quoting the GAO telling (whoever it told) that “since 1992” they’ve been talking about how one needs to require that federal grant and contracting recipients ought to, er, pay taxes and file right themselves, i.e. follow some rules.  Also, that no one knows how much money is owned when even a single entity doesn’t file.  They identified 17,000 out of 80,000 (actually looked at, which is not the whole, I”m sure) who didn’t even register a number with the government contracting database, as they are required to!  They also estimated that the taxes and penalties owed EXCEEDED the DRA (or ARRA) funds distributed, about $350 B (not M, “B”) to $275.  At least from what the GAO could speculate based on its information.

So, here we are:

finally, the former head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Mr. David Walker, has been sounding the alarm for some time about the implications of US Government deficits for the ordinary man and woman in the street. In an interview in the Wall Street Journal, he waxed eloquent on the dangers of the current situation. An extract:

Mr. Walker, a 57-year-old accountant, didn’t set out to be a fiscal truth-teller. He rose to be a partner and global managing director of Arthur Anderson, before being named assistant secretary of labor for pensions and benefits during the Reagan administration. Under the first President Bush, he served as a trustee for Social Security and Medicare, an experience that convinced him both programs are looming train wrecks that could bankrupt the country. In 1998 he was appointed by President Bill Clinton to head the GAO, where he spent the next decade issuing reports trying to stem waste, fraud and abuse in government.

Despite many successes, he was able to make only limited progress in reforming Washington’s tangled bookkeeping. When he arrived he was told the Pentagon was nearly a decade away from having a clean audit, or clear evidence that its financial statements were accurate. When he left in 2008, he was told the Pentagon was still a decade away from that goal. “If the federal government was a private corporation, its stock would plummet and shareholders would bring in new management and directors,” he said as he retired from the GAO.

Although he found the work fulfilling, Mr. Walker said he decided to leave last year with a third of his 15-year term left because “there are practical limits on what one can—and cannot—do in that job.”

. . .

“We have four deficits: a budget deficit, a savings deficit, a value-of-the-dollar deficit and a leadership deficit,” he tells one group. “We are treating the symptoms of those deficits, but not the disease.

AND:

“Our $56 trillion in unfunded [US Government] obligations amount to $483,000 per household. That’s 10 times the median household income—so it’s as if everyone had a second or third mortgage on a house equal to 10 times their income but no house they can lay claim to.” As for this year’s likely deficit of $1.8 trillion, Mr. Walker suggests its size be conveyed thusly: “A deficit that large is $3.4 million a minute, $200 million an hour, $5 billion a day,” he says. That does indeed put things into perspective.

Despite an occasional detour into support for government intervention, Mr. Walker remains the Jeffersonian he grew up as in his native Virginia. “I view the Constitution with deep respect,” he told me. “My ancestors and those of my wife fought and died in the Revolution, and I care a lot about returning us to the principles of the Founding Fathers.”

He notes that today the role of the federal government has grown such that last year less than 40% of it related to the key roles the Founders envisioned for it: defense, foreign policy, the courts and other basic functions. “What happened to the Founders’ intent that all roles not expressly reserved to the federal government belong to the states, and ultimately the people?” he asks. “I’m pleased the recent town halls show people are waking up and realizing it’s time to pay attention to first principles.”

Again, there’s more at the link. The paragraph in bold print is my emphasis. The whole interview with Mr. Walker is recommended reading.

Folks, if you aren’t paying attention to these authorities; if you aren’t actively looking at your financial situation, right now, and deciding what you’re going to do to ride out the storm that’s bearing down on us (and believe me, we ain’t seen nothin’ yet, as far as financial storms go!), thenyou’re about to be swimming for your financial life – without a lifebelt.

It’s coming, friends, and it’s going to get much worse before it gets better. Be prepared.

Peter

Posted by Peter at 9/11/2009 10:24:00 PM

The Federal Role in Education

OVERVIEW

Education is primarily a State and local responsibility in the United States. It is States and communities, as well as public and private organizations of all kinds, that establish schools and colleges, develop curricula, and determine requirements for enrollment and graduation. The structure of education finance in America reflects this predominant State and local role. Of an estimated $1.13 trillion being spent nationwide on education at all levels for school year 2010-2011, a substantial majority will come from State, local, and private sources. This is especially true at the elementary and secondary level, where about 89.2 percent of the funds will come from non-Federal sources.

That means the Federal contribution to elementary and secondary education is about 10.8 percent, which includes funds not only from the Department of Education (ED) but also from other Federal agencies, such as the Department of Health and Human Services’ Head Start program and the Department of Agriculture’s School Lunch program.

The Federal Role in Education