March 2006

Despite progress, the long-term racial gap persists (Thursday, 3/30/06)
Anyone who still believes that nothing has changed for African Americans in the U.S. either isn't very old or knows nothing about contemporary American history. Americans over sixty easily can remember when there were separate drinking fountains and restrooms for whites and blacks in the South and NO positive black models in the popular media. During the 1960s, there were still African-American males who felt that it was necessary to carry signs that said "I am a man" in civil rights marches.

To feel it necessary to point out something so obvious reflects the extend to which America's morbid racist history has been so monumentally stupid. Let's continue the search for intelligent life on earth. If it were not so deadly serious in its effects on the lives of tens of millions of people over such a long period of time, it would be simply hilarious because it has been so stupid.

The idea that brilliant people such as PBS' Gwen Ifill, Bill Cosby, Oprah Winfrey--who, according to polls, is now the most admired woman in America--Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, or former Secretary of State Colin Powell could have been considered somebody's "property" only a few decades ago, or that millions of Americans whose ancestors were victims of the most heinous crime ever perpetrated in the Americas could still have it held against them is, well, amazingly STUPID.

Well, so far, how are we doing as a society? For one thing, the old black-white dichotomy doesn't seem very appropriate anymore for describing America, given the great increase in our national diversity. For those who still believe that skin tone is more important than the color of a person's socks, there aren't just "whites" and "blacks" in America, but every imaginable shade in between, as well as a multiplicity of ethnicities, and, or course, an increasing number of people who have mixed ancestry, and not just from different parts of Western Europe.

For instance, Tiger Woods, who may very well be the greatest golfer in history, has an African-American father and Thai mother. Former wrestler and movie star, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, has African-American and Hawaiian parents. Former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, has said that it's not quite accurate to call him an "African-American." He says that his ancestry is African, Caribbean, Native American, and Irish. It seems easier simply to call him "Colin Powell."

At present, at least, different skin tones can be pretty obvious, just as the difference between a tall person and a short person is obvious, but nobody cares. We may be approaching a time when trivial biological differences will be commonly perceived as trivial. For the time-being, however, we're still attempting to live with the legacy of a very long, racist history. The majority of African-Americans now are middle-class, as are the majority of European-Americans. Nonetheless, there are still dramatic economic contrasts. Erin Texeira tells about the latest Urban League annual State of Black America report which offers details about the persistent economic gap.

How to please everybody on the immigration issue (Monday, 3/27/06)
Well, come to think of it, there isn't a way to do that. Forget about pleasing everybody, or even a large proportion of Americans who care about immigration.

Some people are saying that they would like to see all of the illegal immigrants deported. However, there is a problem or two with that. Assuming that one could identify and locate all of the nearly 12 million people who are in the United States illegally, if one were to load them all on busses for transport to Mexico, say, the busses would line up for about 1,700 miles, as one television commentator recently pointed out. That means that you would have to have a sufficient number of busses to extend along Interstate 35 from Austin, Texas to Duluth Minnesota, and back to Des Moines, Iowa or so. It appears that this solution is, well, somewhat impractical.

Another problem is that the American economy probably depends on the availability of at least a large proportion of the people from very poor countries. As Mitra Kalita and Krissah Williams report in the Washington Post, many American employers are paying very close attention to what Congress might do and how they may fill many of the jobs that American citizens apparently don't want.

Suzanne Gamboa reports from Washington that President Bush is among those Americans who would like to see the legalization of many illegal immigrants already here if they have jobs. That is, he would like to see a "guest worker" category established that would enable many people presently working in the U.S. while attempting to remain invisible, particularly to authorities, to come out of the shadows. However, many Americans, including many Congressional Republicans see this as a type of amnesty and want no part of it. It appears that the whole mess is interesting in the sense of what is supposed to have been an old curse: "May you live in interesting times." Stay tuned.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Institute for Global Ethics (Monday, 3/27/06)
Now that cultures which had been separated either by thousands of years or thousands of miles are coming into daily collision, it's important to search for common ground. The Institute for Global Ethics examines the question of whether there really are any universal core values.

Our NewWorld Trends project is based, in part, on the assertion that one of the most important values now involves a commitment to using the most powerful and trustworthy methods available for developing answers to empirical questions of all kinds. This is something that most of the world's religions and political ideologies, rooted in the ancient past, tend not to do.

The persistence of war, Germany's Nazi period, as well as other examples of genocide, the recent transAtlantic slave trade, the present resurgence of slavery throughout much of the world, as well as attitudes toward indigenous peoples nearly everywhere, all emphasize that it's very important what our ideas are and where they come from. Both depend on how we have obtained them. WHAT we know depends entirely on HOW we know it.

The knowledge revolution of recent history has affected greatly those members of humanity who are aware of it and understand its implications. However, most people in American society and the rest of the world still are not aware of WHAT IT TAKES to develop genuine knowledge, something about which scholars have learned a great deal during recent years.

We've also learned a great deal about the processes by which most people TYPICALLY develop and maintain their attitudes, including attitudinal belief components. Current knowledge of these processes helps explain how people can be so sure of things even when they have so little to go on, for example.

For those who still don't know any better, it's time to learn. For "consequentialists," at least, who DO understand the great modern knowledge revolution, but insist on not allowing it to influence them, it seems fundamentally immoral. It amounts to one of the most basic and important value issues, eclipsing many others that we hear more about.

It's not easy selling the idea of an American gastarbeiter program (Saturday, 3/25/06)
America's southern border has been a sieve in recent years, and millions of people are living and working in the United States illegally. The President favors a "guest worker" policy with which many of his fellow Americans disagree. The whole question of immigration is likely to become a major political issue during the years ahead, and threatens major impact, not only on the Republican Party, but also on American political life. In fact, among professional national politicians, like the war in Iraq, the issue doesn't break along strictly party lines. It's easy to find both Democrats and Republicans who are willing to argue all sides of the question.

While there seems to be growing popular resistance to illegal immigration, a case can be made for how the American economy depends on immigrants, including the millions who are in the U.S. illegally. Moreover, it is immigration that seems to be moderating for America what seems to be developing into a destabilizing demographic trend for other industrial countries, such as Japan and Russia, with populations which not only are aging rapidly, but also shrinking. Meanwhile, some would point out that many Mexicans simply have been repopulating a region of the United States that, before the Mexican War of the late 1840s, was part of Mexico--before the United States simply took it. Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant both regarded the war as simply a "land-grab" also intended to extend slavery.

Guess who's the richest person in the world for the 12th consecutive year (Friday, 3/10/06)
If you said "Bill Gates," you're entitled to the coveted NewWork News handshake award. Billionaire Bill has net worth of about $50 billion now, and he's still the richest billionaire of them all. However, for a brief period before a court ordered the breakup of Microsoft, which, along with the bursting of the dot-com bubble, drove the world's largest software company's stock values down, Bill's net worth was about $100 billion. But, who's counting? There are far more billionaires in the world than there used to be, though, so you might want to check to see if you're on the latest Forbes list.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: The World's Billionaires (Friday, 3/10/06)
There are more billionaires in the world than a year ago and far more than there were a few years ago. It's one of the things that Donald Trump and Oprah have in common, in addition to their both being moguls who appear on TV regularly. Martha Stewart is still on TV too, but she's no longer a billionaire, at least for the moment. Being an ex-con doesn't seem to help bolster one's finances, although Michael Milken did prison time too, and considerably more than Martha, but he's solidly on Fortune magazine's list of billionaires this year at the $2 billion level.

Overall, Forbes magazine identifies 793 billionaires this year. It's a far cry from that time during the 1960s when Howard Hughes and J. Paul Getty shared the cover of a major American news magazine. At the time, they were identified as probably the only two billionaires in the world. But, of course, a billion isn't what it used to be.

Do or die (Tuesday, 3/7/06)
Volkswagen executives are saying that Europe's largest automotive manufacturer is doomed unless it can cut costs and jobs, and do it sharply. Like the American automakers, Volkswagen is feeling the effects of heightened international competition, not only from Japan, but also South Korea, as well as the likelihood of a flood of cars from Chinese auto companies soon.

Europe's highly-privileged workers and its expensive social welfare system are products of an earlier period when national economies were much more isolated than presently. In the new global economy, capital moves around the world at the speed of light, and modern communications technology make it possible for workers throughout much of the world to compete with those in North America and Europe. Moreover, products easily move around the world as well. For instance, one of the major security concerns in the United States has to do with the 26,000 large shipping containers (sic) that come into the country each day, only a tiny proportion of which are inspected as they enter the United States.

When the unthinkable becomes thinkable (Tuesday, 3/7/06)
The late President John Kennedy said repeatedly that civilization hangs by a thread. Nothing should be taken for granted. In fact, nothing is ever settled once and for all. Is infanticide entirely gone from the Earth? No, it's still practiced in various places, and we can't rule out the possibility of a cultural change that could bring it about in familiar regions, such as the United States. In fact, the late Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said that late-term abortion seems to be very near to infanticide.

Is it possible that disposing of society's aged and unproductive citizens could seem like a good idea sometime in the future? Stay tuned, because many so-called "advanced" industrial nations will soon become nearly overwhelmed with the cost of caring for increasingly large populations of elderly persons.

Did slavery disappear from the Earth with its abolition in the United States when the grandparents of many Americans who are just now approaching their late years were born? Hardly. In fact, given that the world's population is about six times as large now as it was in 1865, it appears that more people in the world are living under conditions of slavery now than during the dark days of the transatlantic slave trade.

How about forced sterilization? Lori Valigra examines Harry Bruinius' new book that traces the modern history of the sordid practice, and why it could be in Earth's future as much as in its past.

Eating its children (Monday, 3/6/06)
AT&T used to be called "Ma Bell," but, twenty-two years ago, it was ordered to divest itself of its local telephone service. The once-dominant telephone colossus became much reduced, spinning off a number of "Baby Bells" in the process. Among these was BellSouth, which is now being absorbed back into AT&T.

In most major mergers, some employees are considered redundant and jobs are cut. The big merger of AT&T with BellSouth is no exception. It is expected that 10,000 jobs will be sliced, as part of the old "Ma Bell" is reincarnated in a totally altered communication universe in which companies relying on the use of wires and fiber optics--telephone companies, cable TV companies, and Internet companies--begin to look much alike as they all compete for telephone, television, and Internet customers.

The American economy so far this year (Wednesday, 3/1/06)
Martin Crutsinger reports from Washington that consumers spent more in January, but construction slowed, largely because of a general slowing of the housing sector. Existing home sales have slowed, as well as new construction--even though home prices increased at a near-breathtaking rate for the entire 2005 year--so if you bought a house for speculative reasons, it may be time to begin moving your stuff into it and making plans to move in yourself, of all things. On the other hand, if you're young and would like to move from a rental to a house with your very own mortgage for most of the remainder of your active life, Business Week's Peter Coy has some suggestions.

Meanwhile, factories have been revving up because of an increase in orders. Ron Scherer reports that there are multiple signs that the American economy may roar through the spring.