Subscription: $15 / year Membership: $15/year All correspondence to: Editor: Duane Bates All correspondence to: P. O. Box 1744 Greenville, SC 29602 December, 2007

The Voice of Sanity THE NEWSLETTER OF THE UPSTATE S.C. SECULAR HUMANISTS Visit our web-site for current and back-issues at: www.uscsh.org e-mail: secularhmnst@aol.com

ACHIEVING THE AMERICAN DREAM?

A report published this week by the Brookings Institute calls into question whether African-Americans have the same opportunity to achieve the American dream of financial security and social mobility more than fifty years after our nation began to dismantle the system of legal and de facto segregation that existed for about one hundred years.

The study tracked the incomes of 2,300 families for more than thirty years and documents how unevenly income, and economic progress, is distributed in the US. Since the end of the 1974 the real, inflation adjusted median incomes of white families in their 30s increased from $50,262 to $60,000 in 2004, a 19% increase. By contrast, the income of African-American families of the same age increased from $31,833 to $35,010, an increase of only 10%. In 1974 the median African-American family income was 63% of the median white family income, but by 2004 it had declined to58% of median white family income.

Data published in the Statistical Abstract of the United States (2007) reinforce the Brookings findings. In 2004, 34% of all workers in the US held managerial or professional positions. Within their respective populations, African-Americans held 27%, Native American 25%, whites 35% and Asians 45% of managerial or professional positions.

In terms of 2004 family incomes, 25% of all families had incomes between $100,000 and $124,999. Only 4.3% of African-American and 4.6% of Native American families had that income level, while 8.5% of white and 10.5% of Asians families had income in that category. At the other end of the income scale, in 2004 43% of African-American and 48% of Native American families had income of $30,000 or below, while only 21% of white and Asians had income below $30,000.

Based on Federal Income tax returns in 2004, 65.2 million, or 50% of all returns, reported an adjusted gross income of $30,112 or less. Of those 65.2 million returns, 42 million owed no Federal Income tax because their income was below the total of standard deductions and personal exemptions. In 2004 the average income per return for these 65.2 million returns was only $14,149.

Adding additional meaning to these financial indicators is a recent survey by the Pew Research Center that indicates that 29% of African-Americans believe that they will be worse off in the future and only 20% feeling they are better off today than five years ago. While there has been measurable economic and social progress for African-Americans in the past decades, a number of factors have conspired to keep too many African-American, and a growing number of white and Hispanic, families mired in the lowest level of educational and financial poverty.

Some estimates of future economic progress predict the African-American workers will not reach full wage parity with their white counterparts until 2050, almost a century after the Supreme Court rulings and the Civil Rights laws began to dismantle our legacy of discrimination and segregation. The great economic success of African-American in the sports and entertainment arenas and in the ranks of middle and upper level managers show real progress is being made, but too many of us make the mistake of thinking that our work in erasing the effects of discrimination is over when, in fact, there is a long way to go.

The history of racism and discrimination throughout the world is one where the oppressors believe that simply stopping what they were doing is enough to remedy the wrongs perpetrated on the oppressed. Whether we are taking about the mass murder and oppression of the Jews by Christian Europeans, the same behavior of the Japanese toward the Chinese and Koreans, or the almost endemic historical discrimination toward women, when the enlightenment occurs and the apologies are made the oppressors think the subject is resolved and should be forgotten. However, the consequences live on.

We will never completely eradicate poverty simply because of the vast variation in human initiative and motivation, mental health issues, physical illness and a number of other issues that are too numerous to delineate, but we can ensure that working persons, regardless of their job, can have an income that covers the necessities of life and health care. The best way to reduce the cost of government welfare programs is to provide workers with the income they need to take care of themselves and their families. The greater the number of persons without healthcare and in poverty the greater the demand there will be for government intervention in the form of welfare, food stamps and Medicaid.

GLOBALIZATION CREATES MORE MILLIONAIRES

Bolstered by the declining value of the US dollar against their currency and the growing economies of the world, the number of millionaire households in Europe grew by 26.4% in 2006 according to a report by Business week, the highest regional growth rate in the world. By contrast, the number of millionaires in the US grew only 10%, but we still have the highest number of millionaire households, almost 4.6 million.

The Boston Consulting Group reports that the number of millionaire households worldwide grew by 14% in 2006 to 9.6 million. This group, representing only 0.7 percent of households has wealth valued at $33.2 trillion, almost a third of the entire world’s assets. It’s clear that the growth of income and wealth inequality is not just an American issue, but is a worldwide phenomenon.

An important point in these statistics is that the growth in the number of wealthy households does not seem to be related to the political system in any given nation. The UK and Germany, both basically socialist countries, both had strong growth in the number of millionaire households, the UK 30% and Germany 21%. Even China, a communist nation, is seeing rapid growth in the number of wealthy individuals and households; it’s number of millionaire households increased by 39% in 2006. It appears that one of the effects of globalization is the “de-coupling” of the political and economic systems when it relates to accumulation of wealth. Income and wealth is clearly important in every society, whether we measure our wealth in the number of dollars, euros or cows we have accumulated.

Sweden, widely considered one of the most socialized countries in the world, is not immune from the growth in inequality of wealth and income. In 1975 the top 1% of earners in Sweden had 2.8% of all income. By 2003 their share of all incomes had increased by 250% to 6.9%. During the same period the top 10% of Swedish earners saw their share of all incomes increase from 18.3% to 24.5%, a 34% increase. Interestingly, the percentage of Swedes living below the poverty live increased from 2.7% in 1991 to 4.2% in 2003. The Gini Coefficient, a measure of income and wealth inequality, worsened from .219 to .247 during the same period in Sweden.

At any given point in time, there is only a hundred percent of income to be distributed to all levels in any society. We can debate which political and economic system generates the best outcome for all citizens over the long haul, but the Swedish statistics show that there is some degree of correlation between the growth in the concentration of income and wealth and the increase in the number of people living below the poverty line in a country that has strived for decades to smooth out the differences in income and wealth.

We can see that same, but opposite, process in a very stark way by examining the disaster that has taken place in Zimbabwe, an African nation that has been systemically looted by a dictator and his henchmen for years. The Gini Coefficient is at it’s worse in those nations that are undemocratic, and where the income, wealth and real power reside in a tiny fraction of the population and where the ruling elite use the legal system for their sole benefit.

A recent issue of TIME details the growth of a wealthy class in China and how they are completely focused on accumulating more wealth while, at the same time, expressing a complete disinterest in the political structure of their nation. They are ignoring history when they forget that the leaders of their totalitarian government can quickly destroy their wealth in the pursuit of internal or geopolitical goals or to simply seize the wealth for themselves.

Political, economic and social progress needs to be viewed as a troika that must work together if a healthy, growing and peaceful society is to be created and maintained. When any one of these three factors is emphasized to the detriment of the others social, political and economic instability results, and instability is not good for any of us in the long run. If you want to know what the worse case scenario is, just read up on what has happened in Zimbabwe.

MOVIE REVIEW: SICKO BY MICHAEL MOORE

I strongly suggest every American watch Michael Moore’s new documentary. Sicko, that deals with our healthcare system. This documentary directly confronts some of the myths and distortions that have been circulated about the universal healthcare systems in Canada, the UK and France by interviewing citizens and healthcare workers in those countries.

I was particularly impressed by the comments of the group of Americans who live in France and use the French universal healthcare system. These are people who had direct experience with the American and French healthcare systems and clearly prefer the French system. The documentary includes an in depth interview with a British doctor who states that he makes about $160,000 per year, lives in a million dollar home and drives an Audi. He likes working as a public health physician and believes their healthcare system delivers good care. Of course, he did not graduate from medical school with a large educational debt that he has to pay back.

Canadians have to purchase special healthcare insurance when they travel to the US to visit friends, relatives or just to shop because they are afraid if they get sick or involved in an accident while they are here they will end up with a huge, uninsured medical bill. One couple claimed that a Canadian friend went on vacation to Hawaii, was involved in a serious accident and ended up with a $600,000 hospital bill.

This is a Michael Moore documentary, so it includes some hype. I thought taking three sick 9/11 workers to Cuba for treatment was a bit too much, but he did make the point that they received care in Cuba that they claimed they could not get in the US.

Rent or buy the DVD and make up your own mind, but try to focus on the comments of the people who work in and use the universal healthcare systems in their countries.

DECEMBER MEETING SCHEDULE

SATURDAY BRUNCH: The December brunch will be held on Saturday, December 8^th at 10:30AM at the home of Joyce and Duane Bates, 231 Rainey Road, Greenville. The hosts will provide eggs, orange juice and waffles. Call Duane at 423-0802 to coordinate your contribution.

THERE WILL BE NO 4^TH SUNDAY MEETING IN DECEMBER.