I’ve managed to avoid talking about ISIS in any direct way. But I guess I cannot any longer. MSNBC has eliminated its normal evening coverage so it could talk about Obama’s Big Speech™ before and then after. I’m writing this before he has spoken, but I know what he is going to say: I have the authority to attack ISIS in Syria and I will attack ISIS in Syria because this is a Very Big Deal™. It’s interesting that everyone was rightly all over Obama for his entirely political decision to delay dealing with immigration. But in this cace no one is calling his decision political. It is.

The media have managed to work American people up into yet another of their fear and anger tantrums. And so the call has gone out. The Batman light is shining on the clouds above. “Please save us! Do something! Make our fear go away!” So Obama “reluctantly” accepts what all the “liberal” and conservative analysts always say: more bombing in more places until it becomes clear that it isn’t doing any good. And then do what these very same analysts recommend — More bombing! — because, “We can’t stop now!” See the sunk cost fallacy for more details.

The problem is that soon — maybe months or maybe years — everyone will say, “You know, that was a mistake!” Of course, the conservatives are going to complain regardless. If it goes reasonably well, they will complain that Obama didn’t act sooner. If it goes badly, they will claim that it was stupid to do what he did. But they aren’t alone. Everyone will second guess him after the fact.

The truth is that these things never go well, because war should be a last resort. But instead, with the United States, it is one of the first things in the diplomatic toolbox that we reach to. And in the current situation, we can’t forget that ISIS is the result of a previous foreign misadventure. And this decision is based on the same kind of logic. This time it is, “Sure ISIS isn’t a direct threat to the United States, but if we leave it alone, it might turn into one in the future.”

Let’s think about that. What have Democrats been screaming about for over a decade? “Preemptive war!” And what is this? Preemptive war! And the difference between this Iraq War (with a sub-war in Syria) and the last? I guess it is that the first one was a full invasion and this one isn’t. But we’ve seen mission creep in the past. And we are already seeing it in the present. The sunk cost fallacy is probably at its most intense in war.

I’ll admit, I’m almost always against war. And I’m sure there are many people who would consider my opinion less credible because of that. But if you look at the history of war from afterward, you will see that most people feel the same way. So I think what I bring to this discussion is a little emotional distance. I am not any more fearful or angry than I usually am. Unthinkable horrors are committed to Americans every sing day. Most of them are done by other Americans. Many of them are done by the American government itself. So I don’t think that there is anything new to worry about, with all due respect to James Foley and Steven Sotloff.

Now that the President has given his talk, I get to say: told ya! There were a lot of nice words. Obama has always been good with nice words. He started out with his greatest hits: withdrawal from Iraq, killing of Osama bin Laden, and those new tan suits. Then he went through the four things that the administration was going to do to crush ISIS. They all kind of got mushed together because they were mostly about saying, “We’ll do air strikes the other people in our partner countries will die!” But there was one take home of the speech, “Congress should work with us but we don’t need them because we have the power and the authority to bomb Syria.” Told ya!

Personally, I don’t care. Whether the President decides to pander to the unreasonable fear and anger of the American people or where he is joined by Congress, it doesn’t matter. An escalation of this mission is a bad idea. And before long, the American people will realize this — just like always. But it might be good for the Democrats in November. But that’s a hell of a way to manage our foreign policy. Not that I’m saying that the American voters deserve better. Because they seem to demand this kind of hopeless governance.

It is a historic day. The governor of California (My governor!) Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1522 (AB1522). It requires that employers provide at least three paid sick days for employees each year. It applies to pretty much all workers: anyone who works more than seven days in a calendar year. Employees must accrue at least one hour of sick pay for every 30 hours of work. It’s a very good law. But what’s pathetic is that California becomes the first state in the union to create such a law. We are not just the only advanced economy to be without such mandates — many second and even third world countries have us beat in this regard.

One thing amazes me when I talk to people of all political stripes. Most people think the forty hour work week is just a given. They may know that people in the 19th century worked really long hours, but they figure it all just worked itself out. Even worse, people think weekends have always existed — at least Sundays off. But even that is largely a myth. Regardless, we have the system we have today because workers demanded them. If we currently worked 80 hours per week and seven days per weeks, conservatives would be apoplectic if anyone argued that this was wrong. I know, because when I talk to people about reducing what we define as full time today, people treat me like I’m crazy. They just can’t understand it, even though many tribal communities worked only a couple of hours per day. Modern Americans have this idea that the forty hour work week was brought down by Moses on stone tablets.

Connecticut has a similar sounding law, but it does not apply to companies with less than 50 employees, nor does it apply to manufacturing companies. This is kind of like a law that specifically applies to no one — fine tuned to uselessness by the business community. (But I’m sure among those employees who do get it, it is much appreciated.) Not surprisingly, the business community is freaking out. They say it will be a “job killer.” But I guarantee you: this very minor requirement will not kill jobs at all. This is equivalent to raising the $9.00 California minimum wage by 30¢.

I’m glad that California brushed these concerns aside. I wonder when, as a country, we are going to get past the “job killer” claims of the business community. This is hauled out for any and every policy they don’t like. The best example of this is the business community’s claims over the last six years that environmental regulations would kill jobs. I discussed this last year, Environmentalism Good for Economy Right Now. We should never listen to businesses when they talk about creating jobs. Businesses are not interested in creating jobs. In fact, they work very hard to not create jobs, so they can maximize profits. If you have any questions, just check out Nick Hanauer’s TED talk:

Our country can’t seem to do even the smallest things for workers. And even New York is determined to elect a corrupt corporate tool as its governor. Again. It is good that we have California. In general, the states are laboratories of anti-democracy. But California continues to be an exception to that. And in 50 years, when even Fox News takes a week of sick leave as God given, remember who really gave it to you: California. And remember why: because the legislature has been overwhelmingly controlled by Democrats. And remember why: because the people voted for that. Some day the rest of the country may wake up.

In the middle of the 19th century, Horace Greeley wrote, “Go west, young man…” Had Greeley been alive a century and a half later, he would have written, “Go to college, young man…” But since he wasn’t available for the job, the rest of society took up the slack and told young Americans everywhere that the key to success was a college degree. I’m 50 years old now, and it was a crock even when I was told it. Pretty much everyone I grew up with — most of whom got college degrees — have found their middle years to be highly uncertain. If you want more details, I recommend reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s book Bait and Switch.

Now there is much concern about the quality of higher education. And it’s appropriateness. As Robert Reich pointed out last week at Salon, students assume that a college degree is the gateway to the middle class. It’s not. Reich points out that for a lot of people, a two-year technical degree is probably a better bet. He’s right. But the problem is so much bigger than this.

We have an economic and political system designed to funnel wealth from the poor to the rich. Over time, this is a recipe for a banana republic. And indeed, that is what we are seeing: lots of poor people, a tiny middle class that depends upon catering to the small group of extremely powerful rich people. Once you reach a certain level, there really is no going back because the rich can control the system and push ever more money and power toward themselves. I fear we passed the point of no return back in the early 1990s.

Those modern Greeleys who were (And still are!) pushing young people to go to college are no less delusional than the people who wax poetic about everyone starting their own businesses. If that ever happened, no one would have their own business; each person would be an independent contractor; and that would be an extremely inefficient system. Similarly, what is the point of everyone getting a college degree? Are we all going to be middle managers?

Look at the 2013 Census data on educational attainment. If you look at people in different age categories, you see that the percentage of people over 75 years old, less than 13% have Bachelor’s degrees. That actually overstates it, because the people with backbreaking jobs generally die younger. The percentage of people my age with degrees is 19%. The percentage of people in their late 20s is 26%!

All this extra education would be a good thing if it were free. But it isn’t. Mostly, it is paid for by the students themselves. So what exactly has happened? Companies have gotten far better trained employees without having to foot the bill. And better than that: because there is such a great supply of such well trained employees, the business community can pay them less! It’s funny how policies we seemingly stumble into — like the cutting of state funding to higher education and the increased reliance on student loans — just so happen to be the policies that further enrich the rich and increase inequality.

The problem is not our educational system. The problem is that young people are desperate. Recently, John Oliver did a segment on the vile for-profit colleges. But they only exist because we have allowed our entire economic political system to get so out of whack that it only tends to the desires of the rich. What else are young people to do? Become electricians as Reich recommends? I suppose that will work for some. But I’m afraid that’s working the margins.

What we require is bold action. We need a wealth tax so that corporations and other representatives of the rich have an incentive not to sit on piles of cash. We need a massive increase in the estate tax so that America stops being the hereditary aristocracy it has become. And most of all, we need a guaranteed minimum income so that businesses have to make working worth while. Is this class warfare? Absolutely. But there’s been a class war for decades with the rich against the unaware middle and lower classes. We must not go gentle into that good night. (Note literary reference — product of a liberal education!)

Image is reduced, cropped, and rearranged from an original by John Fewings.

Associated Press is reporting that Andrew Cuomo has won the New York Democratic governor’s primary. He got 60% of the vote and Zephyr Teachout got 36% of the vote. That’s actually a pretty pathetic showing by Cuomo, given that Teachout had no name recognition and not much of a budget. Cuomo’s win depends entirely on the fact that most voters just go along with what they know, even though what they know sucks.

Cuomo is the ultimate New Democrat. He’s modestly liberal when it comes to social policy. And by that, I mean he is basically in favor of social policies that have majority support in the United States. But when it comes to economic policy, he’s easily as conservative as Ronald Reagan. To give you some idea of just how conservative he is, he’s even worse than Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Back in 2011, Eric Alterman summed up Andrew Cuomo perfectly, Governor Cuomo Is Still Governor One Percent:

Yes, Mario Cuomo is a great man and was a great politician. Andrew Cuomo is a privileged brat who thinks he deserves money and power. I can’t imagine that his father is anything but secretly ashamed of his son. I don’t mean ashamed as in, “My son is a drunk…” I mean, “My son is a selfish bastard who doesn’t care about anyone but himself…” And the fact that Cuomo the Lesser would fluff himself up as a brave truth-teller when what he is doing is to his political and economic advantage is truly offensive.

But the most disturbing thing from that quote is the statistic that 72% were in favor of the millionaire’s tax. It must have been much higher for Democrats. That was only three years ago. But these same Democrats marched to the polls to vote for a man who is only a liberal using the most generous definition. As Alterman noted, this is a man willing to “stick a thumb in the eye of his own party on behalf of the interests of multimillionaires.” If only Cuomo were as loyal to Democratic voters as they are to him.

Also on the ballot was Timothy Wu running against another New Democrat and all around offense to liberalism Kathy Hochul. He did better, gathering 41% to her 59%. But there was much discussion that he might even be able to win that race. So this is a real disappointment. And it is a reminder that there is no level of betrayal that a Democrat can show the base that will stop them from winning a nice, well-funded primary campaign.

With “liberals” like Cuomo and Hochul… Well, here’s Dead Kennedys doing “Kill the Poor”:

For the record, if Andrew Cuomo ever runs for president, and I’m sure that is his plan, I will not vote for him. In fact, if the Democrats nominate him, I’m leaving the party.

Update (9 September 2014 9:01 pm)

Associated Press has updated the numbers and it is even better for Cuomo and Hochul. Hooray! Democracy loses again!

Also, earlier today, Jonathan Bernstein wrote :

Yes, I am one of those liberals! And I think this is important for Democracy. The moderation of the Democratic Party, always pushing to the right, is what got us the crazy Republicans. If this were offset by actual liberalism, we would end up with more moderate parties. But as long as the Democrats insist upon being Republican Lite we are going to be stuck with a political system where there is no limit to conservative extremism because there is effectively no alternative to it.

Update (9 September 2014 10:54 pm)

I found this nice rundown on Cuomo from earlier today by Ed Kilgore. It actually includes all three things I hate about him. But give me some time, and I suspect I can come up with others. Well, maybe I have. His sense of privilege wasn’t mentioned. But this lays it out pretty well:

He also mentioned that Alan Greenblatt said that if Cuomo didn’t get at least 70% of the vote, it would be seen as a healthy rebuke. Well, Cuomo got only 62% of the vote. That isn’t quite as good as Cuomo finding that he has learned something that requires him to spend more time with his family, but I’ll take it.

Update (10 September 2014 12:11 am)

Andrew Prokop reported at Vox:

Classy, Cuomo. Real classy!

The consistently great Michael Hiltzik pointed out a really important thing today, Free Speech, “Civility,” and How Universities Are Getting Them Mixed Up. The specific issue is that brouhaha about UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks’s remarks about the fiftieth anniversary of the Free Speech Movement, “We can only exercise our right to free speech insofar as we feel safe and respected in doing so, and this in turn requires that people treat each other with civility.” Let me translate: free speech will only be allowed if it doesn’t upset anyone.

This is a big part of how the power elite keep their power. They would never stop anyone from expressing themselves, as long as they only talk about things that don’t upset the status quo. So if you want to wax poetic about motherhood, have at it! But if you want to criticize the Israeli attacks in Palestine, as Steven Salaita did, be prepared to lose your job offer — not because of what you said, of course, but because of how you said it. The University of Illinois would never have admitted to stifling unpopular opinions. And that’s the whole point of the “civility” complaint: it provides cover for doing what would not be considered socially acceptable.

A big part of being powerful is having the luxury to take the “high ground,” even as they use it to cudgel the weak. I was recently in an argument with a neighborhood kid about the Israel-Palestine conflict. I try not to take sides, but he was arguing that Israel was in the right because they abide by the rules of war and Hamas does not. I was shocked that an otherwise smart boy could be so dense. Hamas doesn’t fire rockets at random because that’s the best theoretical tactic; they do it because they see it as the best tactic available to them. They do not have a modern army like Israel and so aren’t able to fight a more “civilized” war.

So the argument he was making was simply that he supported Israel because they had all the power in the situation. And the argument that those who support the University of Illinois are making is the same. Those who have power and want to keep things as they are can take the high ground by claiming the mantel of civility. But the act itself is a reflection and use of that power. So to support calls for civility is to support the status quo.

Hiltzik summed up the issue well, “Insistence on ‘civility’ is a weapon, and it’s almost always wielded by those in power against those whose free speech needs protection.” What we have to decide as a civilization is whether we are going to have public discourse that simply reinforces the existing power structure or not. If we are then we should give up the pretense that we have, much less value, free speech. I don’t like listening to the ravings of Bill O’Reilly either. But it is part of the price I pay to protect my own speech.

Every three years, the Federal Reserve puts out a Survey of Consumer Finances, and they just released their newest one that covers the period up through 2013. Neil Irwin provided a good overview of it at The Upshot, How Are American Families Doing? A Guided Tour of Our Financial Well-Being. The short answer to the question is: American Families are doing really poorly.

It would be nice to note that the picture isn’t completely bleak. But that isn’t true. It is true for certain segments of the population. The top 20% of income earners have seen their incomes go up by 4.3% over the last four years. And people with college degrees have seen their incomes go up a whopping 1.1% over the same period. But families over all have seen their incomes go down by almost 5% over the last four years. That’s shocking. According to FRED, during the same period, the economy grew by 8%.

This always makes me wonder about Milton Friedman. Whenever anyone would complain about income inequality, he would counter that although the vast majority of productivity gains went to the very rich, the poor were nonetheless seeing their standard of living increase. What would he say now? I can’t say in terms of details. But I know that as the conservative ideologue that he was, he would have come up with a new apologia for why it wasn’t true or didn’t matter. He may have just fallen back on the old libertarian crutch, “The practical effects don’t matter because… Freedom!”

Regardless, you may be wondering how it is that the economy grew by 8% when even the top 20% of income earners only saw their incomes go up by half that much. It’s that economic gains are just as unequally shared within the top quintile as they are overall. I suspect that those at the bottom of the top 20% didn’t see much if any increase in income. The vast majority of the economic growth went to enriching the already rich 1% and above.

As it is, the total income coming from wages is down from 68.1% in 2010 to 62.4% now — almost six percentage points. The biggest change is that capital gains is up almost four percentage points. And who makes money from capital gains? Well, if you listen to the ranters on CNBC, you will hear that everyone makes money from capital gains through their retirement programs and other investments. Such claims show a shocking disconnect between the power elites and the average family. Many poorer families have been forced to liquidate retirement plans just to get through this crisis. Here is the change in the households who own stocks for the period 2007 through 2013:

Notice in this graph that even households at the bottom of the top quintile (80% – 90%) have seen a large sell off of stocks. This is indicative of a power elite that has totally lost its way. This is exactly the group that is supposed to act as the safety value for society. It is what is supposed to protect the power elite from the poorer classes picking up torches and pitchforks. This is what Chris Hedges wrote about in Death of the Liberal Class. But now we have a power elite that is so greedy that it isn’t even willing to allow this group to do okay. (Of course, as Hedges discussed, that class gave up doing it’s job long ago and so hardly deserves to be protected.)

So how is America doing? Terrible. But certain Americans — those who were doing great before the bursting of the real estate bubble — are continuing to do great. And since they are the ones who drive public policy, nothing is not going to change. They don’t care about same sex marriage. That doesn’t have an effect on how much money they have, so sure, let’s the prols have that one. But economic policy that would have a widespread positive effect? Forget it! Or at least forget about them providing it out of some sense of fairness. Remember what Frederick Douglass taught us a century and a half ago, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” We must demand our birthrights.