Nannies: The Next Class Warfare Casualty

domestic-workers-united-slavery

Originally published at David Horowitz’s NewsReal Blog
____________

Forget the nanny state.  New York is well on its way to becoming the nanny-less state.

The Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights passed by the New York State Senate earlier this month is being sold as a package of workplace protections for nannies, housekeepers, and other domestic employees.  But is the legislation really a human rights victory for low-wage women or is it a job-killer likely to burden both domestic workers and the families who employ them? Read more

June 22, 2010 · Filed Under Economy, Nanny State, Women

1 Comment 

Recession Choices

From a New York Times Magazine piece on how the recession is taking a toll on freelancers:

In April, Lisa Feuer sent me another message from her iPhone: “I’m at the food-stamp office now, waiting.” For months, she had been putting off this trip.

Maybe next month they can save her the trip by texting the food stamps to her iPhone.

And when was the last time the New York Times devoted this many column inches to old school food stamp recipients?  You know, the kind who don’t tote around the latest technological accoutrements.

June 7, 2009 · Filed Under Economy

Comment 

That Pound of AIG Executive Flesh Won’t Pay Your Tax Bill

Grab your pitch fork!  Light your torch!  There’s a battle to be waged in the name of egalitarianism.  There are wrongs to be righted on behalf of the aggrieved proletariat.

No weapon is off limits to this populist mob of angry legislators, outraged officials, indignant journalists and seething private citizens. Punitive taxation, public shaming, intimidation, and even threats of physical violence are all fair play if the greedy rich at AIG are to get their just deserts.

Among the recent threats against AIG executives and their families:

“Get the bonus, we will get your children.”

“I would be very careful when I went out side. This is just a warning. If I were ya’ll I would be real afraid.”

“Publish the list of those yankee scumbags so some good old southern boys can take care of them.”

“We will hunt you down. Every last penny. We will hunt your children and we will hunt your conscience. We will do whatever we can to get those people getting the bonuses.  Give back the money or kill yourselves.”

“The Revolution is coming. The family members of your executives are not safe. Your blood will run through the streets in the coming months.”

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo attempted to satisfy an increasingly bloodthirsty public by threatening to disclose the names of AIG bonus recipients if they did not return the payments.  And back in Washington, Rep. Barney Frank demanded the names of recipients and refused to keep them confidential in response to safety concerns.

To further address public cries for the heads of AIG executives, the House easily passed a bill to impose a 90 percent tax on executive bonuses at bailed out companies.  The legislation garnered support from most House Democrats and nearly half of Republicans, though it appears to be dead in the Senate.

Even President Obama wondered how AIG executives could “justify this outrage to the taxpayers” and with utter disregard for the sanctity of private contracts, asked Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to “pursue every legal avenue to block these bonuses and make the American taxpayers whole.”

One problem: block the bonuses and you lose the talent.

Why should you care if AIG suffers a blow to its executive workforce?

Forget your outrage that taxpayers are underwriting these bonuses and think for a minute.  Panicky legislators tossed barrels of cash at AIG many months ago and our only hope of getting those billions back is to ensure the company is skillfully dismantled by knowledgeable executives. If AIG assets aren’t sold off in an orderly, uninterrupted manner, your government’s investment will become your tax liability.

I know it hurts to say it, but keeping the remaining AIG executives at the company is in your best interest.

Many AIG executives worked for $1 salaries last year with the expectation that they would be compensated with bonuses if they remained at the beleaguered company.  This manner of structuring compensation helped AIG retain qualified employees to dismantle the company.  What we’re calling retention bonuses are essentially deferred salary payments postponed to ensure talent sticks around.

Even if you had the specialized knowledge, would you work for just a dollar a year?  Would you pass up a stable, high paying job at a solvent company out of sheer loyalty to AIG?  And where else should AIG management have looked to find expertise on dissolving these complex financial instruments and assets?  Could we spare the time for training and learning curves?

Unfortunately, the threats have worked and the strong-arming has paid off.   Jake DeSantis, an executive Vice President at AIG Financial Products, published his letter of resignation in the New York Times this week:

After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials. In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn. My intent is to keep none of the money myself.

I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.

Like most current AIG executives, DeSantis was not responsible for the company’s massive credit default swap losses, but that hasn’t insulated him from the witch hunt conducted by Barney Frank, Andrew Cuomo, and others.  Rather than remain at AIG out of fear, he has elected to leave on his own terms.

News of two more AIG resignations was announced Thursday.   Mauro Gabriel, president and CEO of Banque AIG, and Jim Shephard, deputy CEO are leaving due to the hostile business environment at AIG.  There is some concern that a failure to find replacements could result in hundreds of billions of dollars in derivative contract defaults.

If that happens, good luck attracting qualified talent to help wrap up this AIG mess.

Will the rabble-rousing have been worth it then?  Will that pound of executive flesh fill the coffers at Treasury?  No, but that won’t stop the public hunger for class warfare from continuing to eclipse law, ethics, and even self-interest.

March 27, 2009 · Filed Under Barack Obama, Economy

13 Comments 

The Volunteer Workforce at Slate

Sure, Slate could pay photojournalists to document our increasingly grim economic situation, but these are tough times for everyone at Washington Post-owned media properties.  The editors figured, why pay for content when so many recent initiates into the hard knock life are roaming the urban wasteland with their Nikon DSLRs, sipping skinny lattes while recording the decaying vestiges of American society.  And thus, the Shoot the Recession project was born.

The lazy editor’s path to a photojournalism piece, to be sure, but if Slate can make a quick advertising buck from free reader-generated content, they might just survive the extinction threatening their brethren in the dinosaur media.

March 5, 2009 · Filed Under Economy

Comment 

Greenville Tea Party Draws 2,000 Protesters

2,000 protesters gathered on the banks of the Reedy River Friday evening for the Greenville Tea Party. Frustrated citizens joined Americans in more than 50 cities to decry the grotesquely irresponsible bailouts, pork, and ill-advised stimulus measures that are turning current and future generations into permanent federal piggy banks.

The rally organized by the Upstate Young Republicans was nothing short of inspirational.  I know that sounds sappy, but as a lifelong New Yorker, I’ve never seen that many Republicans in one place and honestly, it was kind of validating to see that they exist in real life, not just in the cesspools known as blog comment sections.  The turnout was incredible, dwarfing my expectations and those of the organizers.  Looking at the crowd estimates, it may have been the most well-attended of all the Tea Parties held Friday.

The ground was muddy, the sky overcast, the air humid, and no one seemed to care.

Here are photos of some of the protest signs (please excuse my ailing camera):


It’s gotta be a sweet tea party if you’re in Greenville, SC.


Welcome Back, Carter!


Elections have consequences.


Obamanomics: trickle up poverty.

Speakers electrified the crowd with talk of constitutional freedoms and personal responsibility, eliciting roars of agreement that could be heard blocks away. Rob and I listened to a young mother explaining the history of the Revolution to her daughter (accurately!) and watched fathers hoist their children into the air to wave flags and banners. Samuel Adams (and his reincarnation Rick Santelli) would be proud.

While the protesters were clearly unhappy with the usual suspects – Obama, Pelosi, and Reid – there was a particularly special place in their hearts for South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. Chants of “Lindsey Don’t Care!” spread through the crowd as speakers criticized his earmarks in the most recent omnibus spending bill.

Mentions of our other South Carolina Senator, Jim DeMint, were met with wild rounds of applause. His consistent fiscal conservatism and hard-line stance against the bailouts has earned him hero status here in Greenville.

Even Ron Paul’s supporters were out in full force, gearing up for 2012 with updated campaign signs.

The highlight of the event, however, was when a speaker asked people under 30 to raise their hands so he could apologize to them for the generational theft taking place.  Since I turned 29 again this year, I joined right in and the only person who gave me a funny look was my husband.

Here are a few more photos of the crowd taken from the Main Street bridge:

And one final shot of the crowd rushing toward the river bank at dusk to toss in their tea:

Many of the protesters brought trash bags full of leaves in lieu of tea. I must have missed the memo – did they do that in other cities?

Local photographer Jenny Marie Brown has more photos of the Greenville rally.

Other Tea Party coverage (I’ll add to this round up over the weekend – leave your links in the comments):

Michelle Malkin’s Tea Party photo album

My friend Bill Hennessy covers the hugely successful St. Louis Tea Party he organized (1,000+ protesters)

Gateway Pundit has more on the St. Louis rally

America’s North Shore Journal has a multi-city round up

Dan at GayPatriot attended the LA Tea Party on Santa Monica Pier

The Denver Tea Party at Slapstick Politics

Video of the Atlanta Tea Party from Blue Star Chronicles

Great photos of the San Diego Tea Party from Christa at Cheat Seeking Missiles

And finally, to all the Tea Party naysayers who think this movement isn’t going anywhere (I’m lookin’ at you, Cavuto): it’s on.

February 28, 2009 · Filed Under Economy, Patriotism

17 Comments 

Sex, Lies, and Georgia GOP Lawmakers

The state of Georgia is facing a $2.2 billion budget shortfall, but some GOP lawmakers believe they have the answer to curbing spending: a good old fashioned smut hunt, starting with public universities. State Representative Calvin Hill (R-Canton) issued a press release earlier this month to express his outrage regarding course offerings at Georgia State University:

What I am about to tell you will shock and disgust you.

Do you know that your tax dollars are being used at our state universities to pay professors to teach your children classes like “Male Prostitution” and “Queer Theory”? Yes, even in tight economic times like we are facing today, our Board of Regents is wasting your tax dollars to teach these totally unnecessary and ridiculous classes.

If that is not enough, you will even find a class entitled “Oral Sex” and another on “Sexual Orientation”. Yes, the list goes on and on.

In his zeal to incite constituent ire about the racy subjects being taught under their very noses, Rep. Hill failed to note he wasn’t actually consulting the course catalog. The subjects cited in Rep. Hill’s press statement are listed in the GSU guide to faculty experts, a document distributed to media outlets, governments, and research organizations to assist them with locating specialists. Oral sex and male prostitution are areas of faculty expertise, not entries on the course roster.

Male prostitution, for example, was the focus of a study of the spread of HIV conducted by faculty member Kirk Elifson. His results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1989. Societal messages about oral sex are being examined by senior lecturer Mindy Stombler, who hopes her findings will help prevent the spread of sexually transmitted infections. Their expertise qualifies them to act as research consultants in these areas; they are not offering how-to seminars.

Stombler and Elifson spoke to the House Higher Education Committee last Tuesday, but Rep. Hill declined to ask the professors any questions at the hearing. Despite clarification from GSU faculty and administrators, Rep. Hill continues to assert, “Our job is to educate our people in sciences, business, math.” Humanities and social sciences be damned!

State Rep. Charlice Byrd (R-Woodstock) is also incensed by this “major misuse of the state university system’s budget.” She told CBS Atlanta:

I probably am a fuddy-duddy. I believe in the Bible. I’m a Christian. I go to church, and these are not the things that we are learning in church and in the Bible. And so if you want to call me a fuddy-duddy, have at it.

In a finger-wagging rebuke of the University delivered via YouTube, notorious fuddy-duddy Rep. Byrd assured viewers, “the timing is perfect to eliminate positions of professors and staff who are paid to provide such services.”

Of particular concern to Rep. Byrd is a course that actually exists, a doctoral seminar on queer theory. The validity of queer theory is certainly controversial and if the topic concerns Rep. Byrd’s constituents, she is obligated to investigate. However, she completely undermined her credibility as an elected representative (and her status as a decent human being) by publicly posting an unsubstantiated, patently outrageous claim (see cached copy here) that “there is a professor in charge of Queer Theory actively recruiting young teenage gays to accompany him on international trips.”

Nothing like implied charges of pedophilia to get an investigation going, huh?

Rep. Hill also suggested inappropriate faculty behavior. “The concern is what are we doing on our campuses? Are we actually recruiting people, if you will, into a lifestyle?” he asked.

By spending time ferreting out queer needles in the academic haystack, Calvin Hill and Charlice Byrd are distracting the Georgia legislature from careful consideration of state budgetary woes. They are manufacturing scandals where none exist.

There is plenty of room for debate regarding the legitimacy of queer theory as a fruitful academic discipline. Camille Paglia once referred to queer theorists as a “wizened crew of flimflamming free-loaders,” and she may be on to something. I tend to believe the academy’s obsessive division and subdivision of disciplines along lines of gender and ethnicity creates intellectually isolated academic ghettos, but that’s an opinion, not a mandate for legislative interference.

Georgia code (§ 20-3-51) specifies that “the government, control, and management of the university system and all of its institutions shall be vested in the Board of Regents.” The Board is also given authority to allocate appropriations among institutions as members see fit. While members of the public are free to voice curricular concerns to the Board, micromanagement of course content is not a function of the state legislature, not even when taxpayer dollars are involved, not even if Charlice Byrd launches an inquisition.

February 16, 2009 · Filed Under Economy, Education, Gay Issues

Comment 

Next Page →