Your Parents Swindled You

[BridgeTheGap]

In a letter to his incoming students, Michael O'Hare, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, apologizes for the fact that his (their parent’s) generation did not hold up their end of a deal made long ago by Californians: invest in California, rather than only in yourself.

Beginning about 30 years ago Californians decided to walk away from this deal, O'Hare writes, because although they had done well and prospered on the whole from the agreement, they realized they could do even better individually if they focused their spending on themselves.

An army of fake ‘leaders’ sprang up to pull the moral and fiscal wool over their eyes, and again and again, your parents and their parents lashed out at government (as though there were something else that could replace it) with tax limits, term limits, safe districts, throw-away-the-key imprisonment no matter the cost, smoke-and-mirrors budgeting, and a rule never to use the words taxes and services in the same paragraph.

Now, your infrastructure is falling to pieces under your feet, and as citizens you are responsible for crudities like closing parks, and inhumanities like closing battered women’s shelters.

While we often hear that states simply can’t afford things like art and music in schools or more police on the force, O’Hare argues otherwise:

http://www.utne.com/politics/Your-Parents-Swindled-You-Professor-Apologizes-to-Students.aspx?utm_content=09.08.10+Politics&utm_campaign=Emerging+Ideas-Every+Day&utm_source=iPost&utm_medium=email

[grasswire]

1. once an education system that was the envy of the world

a lot of that money was diverted to prisons, through the encouragement of lobbyists for the prison-industrial complex and through the greed of the get-tough policians who sold fear to get elected.

Be warned: an inflated prison system drains the quality of life for citizens -- whether they be students or elders or children.

[Raster]

8. An inflated AND PRIVATIZED prison system drains the quality of life for citizens.

Haven't you heard? Privatized prisons are the latest growth industry. Soon they'll be franchising them...

[RKP5637]

2. Quite true IMO. n/t

[mrcheerful]

3. That is because the majority bought the Reagan line that in order to gain untold wealth one

had to spend on themselves and use credit as much as possible. My grand father heard Reagan's bull shit and predicted the collapse of the economy, he saw and heard the same crap right before 1929, he also hated bankers with a passion, they rated up there with televangelists in his book. I guess he saw to many folks loose everything they owned when the banks foreclosed on peoples bad loans when jobs dried up. Where have we heard that lately? Only grand fathers generation blamed the people who created the mess unlike today where people blame the people who took out the loans, funny how that turned out.

[ejpoeta]

5. the politicians and rich corporations have us right where they want us....

fighting each other. blame it on lazy welfare queens and the unemployed who'd rather live it up on the taxpayer's dime instead of looking for a job. nevermind the fact that it is bullshit. it's convenient. and as long as they can get people to divert their attention away from where it really belongs, then they can keep stealing our money and leaving us with a crumbling country. instead of investment, which is what education and programs to help the poor is, it becomes some kind of wasteful spending on people who don't deserve it. i have come to realize just how selfish people can be. people i know. as someone who has benefited from the help of public assistance programs as well as the help of friends and family throughout the years, I can see it from the other side. IT saddens me to see our nation brought down by greed and selfishness.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. All because Reagan looked at his contemporary, Errol Flynn, and realized

his acting would never bring him that level of wealth or popularity, so he sold himself to GE.

W might have been the worst president ever, but Reagan was an even worse man.

[BridgeTheGap]

12. I found them both to be equally horrible. n.t

[Hannah Bell]

15. he sold himself before that.

Ronald Reagan was an invention of the Hollywood conglomerate, MCA, which was founded in 1924 by Jules Stein, a Chicago ophthalmologist who quickly became friendly with the local underworld. Every facet of Reagan’s life, from his careers in acting and politics to his financial successes, were directed by MCA, which, with the help of the Mafia, was the most powerful force in Hollywood from the mid-1940s until the Bronfman family purchased the company in 1995.

Reagan came to Los Angeles in 1937 to make motion pictures, and, in 1940, MCA bought out his talent agency. Lew Wasserman became Reagan's personal agent; he negotiated a million-dollar contract with Warner Brothers on Reagan's behalf. In 1946, Wasserman became the president of MCA, and the following year, Reagan, with his film career already in decline, became the president of the Screen Actors Guild. By his own admission, Reagan immediately aligned himself with the corrupt Teamsters and other mob-connected unions in an effort to combat Hollywood Reds.

A sweetheart relationship developed between MCA and the guild, which culminated in July 1952 during Reagan's fifth consecutive term as SAG's president. Reagan and Laurence Beilenson, an attorney for MCA who had previously served as SAG's general counsel and had represented Reagan in his 1949 divorce from Jane Wyman, negotiated an exclusive blanket waiver with SAG that permitted MCA to engage in unlimited film production. The agreement violated SAG's bylaws, which prohibited talent agencies from employing their own clients, and no other talent agency was granted a similar agreement at that time. A Justice Department memorandum indicated that the waiver became "the central fact of MCA's whole rise to power."

At the end of Reagan's fifth term, he began to have serious financial problems, particularly with the IRS. In response, MCA negotiated a deal with the Last Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas--which was then operated by Chicago mobsters--for Reagan to host a song-and-dance show for two weeks and to receive enough money to cover his back tax debt. When Reagan returned to Hollywood, MCA, through its newly formed Revue Productions, hired him to host its flagship television program, The General Electric Theater for $125,000 a year. He was paid additional fees when he produced episodes for the series.

http://www.moldea.com/ReaganRedux.html


In 1939, MCA's headquarters moved from Chicago to Beverly Hills, California, creating a movie division and beginning to acquire talent agencies and represent established actors such as James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Bette Davis, and Ronald Reagan, whom Wasserman became very close with personally. In later decades, Wasserman would become a guiding force in Reagan's political ambition by helping Reagan to win the presidency of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), then election as Governor of California in 1966, and finally President of the United States in 1980.

By the end of the 1930s, MCA would become the largest talent agency in the world with over 700 clients which includes movie stars, recording artists, Broadway actors, radio stars, producers, and directors. Its aggressive acquisition of its clientele in all entertainment sectors earned MCA's nickname of The Octopus. This behavior led U.S. Department of Justice agents to investigate not only whether MCA was a monopoly breaking anti-trust laws, but also its suspected connections to underworld criminal activities. This investigation would continue for the next few decades.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MCA_Inc.

[BridgeTheGap]

23. Very interesting. Thanks for sharing the info on Reagan. n.t

[RKP5637]

4. IMO this could apply to all of America. n/t

[Brickbat]

6. This was posted a few weeks ago and as I said then, I kept thinking the professor was going to say

the students were swindled into thinking that higher education was a good deal.

[melm00se]

7. investing in yourself

(as long as it is positive investment) can benefit the society as a whole.

Invest in your education, you can make more $$, which generates more tax revenue and that money, as long as it is poured back into the right places, can have a positive impact.

if you invest in your ephemeral self (style, dress etc), the long term return for society is poor and low.

[The_Casual_Observer]

10. The swindle I see is the pay rates & lifetime benefits of city, county & state

workers that now far exceed those who are left to toil in the public sector.

[GreenPartyVoter]

11. My late parents were a

mailman and a special ed teacher. I never saw them swindling anybody and they toiled just as hard as the next person.

[Book Lover]

13. You've got that backwards

Our pay rates in the private sector have been kept artificially low. Public sector employees are being paid a fair wage. Don't drag them back down into the crab bucket.

[The_Casual_Observer]

17. There is something fundamentally wrong with this, all the way around.

[Swede]

14. Wrong. Private sector wages stagnated for 30 years.

Rich are getting richer because of this.

[The_Casual_Observer]

18. This is an unsustainable imbalance, where the "middle class"

consists of government employees exclusively.

[county worker]

19. You are falling for a real line of crap!

The public sector lost those things because of the demise of unions. So even though us county workers did not improve our lot much the private sector lost which makes it look as though we gained something we didn't have before. We kept our unions and so we have better benefits.

Your job is to organize so all of us can live better. Don't take us down just because your benefits went south.

The things you say are all calculated to get rid of the middle class which is vital to any society.

Let's pass the employee free choice act instead of giving my salary to the wealthy along with yours!

[The_Casual_Observer]

20. It's basically just like 1933, where, unless you worked for the county

or you owned the mill, you were completely screwed.

[county worker]

21. I agree to some extent. I worked in the private sector most of my life.

I have a marketable skill and have seen my wages go up and down but mostly in an upward trend. I was management most of the time. I have seen the non management jobs lose benefits and pay rates. That is mostly because the individual has no power. It is take it or leave it. The economy is really hurting people. The unemployment rate has forced down salary levels.

I believe this is all calculated by the right to gut the middle class and we do nothing but play along with their game.

We have to fight back and regain our decent standard of living.

I understand what you are saying but to bring everybody down is the wrong way to go. We need to have collective bargaining again. We need strong unions again. That is the only thing that will bring back a decent standard of living.

I belong to the SEIU and yes I am paid well and have good benefits and will receive a pension if I work here two more years. You can have that too or at least your kids can if we gain back the ground we lost since Reagan canned the air controllers!

[The_Casual_Observer]

22. No, globalization has wiped out any hope for any of that ever.

It's only a matter of time before they come for you too.

[county worker]

24. They are already coming for me. All our names and what we make is on line at the web sites of

various newspapers. The want to get the public to turn against us and they are doing a good job. I am close to retirement so it may not effect me much but younger people will be effected.

There is a chance with the employee free choice act to change things around. We can bring back manufacturing to this country.

[bvar22]

25. The stagnation or LOSS of wages in the Working Class....

...was a direct results of the "Free Trade" scams sold to a gullible America.


If you Work for a Living, do NOT trust ANY politician who expresses a belief in an "Invisible Hand" or a "Free Market". Neither exist, and that politician is NOT your friend.

[BridgeTheGap]

27. Ain't that the truth!? n.t

[RaleighNCDUer]

28. Benefits for public employees have been good (but are being whittled away)

but only to make up for the appalling pay. Doing my same job in the public sector I'd be making 20-25% more than I am. OTOH, I'd have NO job security.

And the only reason government benefits are still passably good in comparison is because the private sector eliminated real pensions and forced employees into the market with 401k's - and we've seen how THAT'S worked out over the past decade.

Instead of dragging down the public sector, why not restore the private sector to what it was 30 years ago before 'trickle down' became the way of doing business?

[county worker]

16. Of course younger people never think of only themselves

[Zoeisright]

26. That's one of the best things I have ever read.

Should be required reading for every person in this backward, selfish country.