"Breaking the Status Quo" Mid Term

Americans, like every other society to call Earth their home are constantly adapting to an evolving society. What we face as obstacles today will be a mere chapter in our history books tomorrow. One generation’s taboo is another’s status quo; one generation’s ceiling is another’s carpet. Today, American youth face numerous new battles and benefit from the previous generation’s overcomings. In the past decade Americans have had to and are constantly learning to cope with obstacles such as outsourcing, healthcare reform and one of the worst mortgage crisis in the history of the nation. History bears witness to our ability to grow stronger and more united from social and financial downfalls such as these.

America is the home to many corporate big shot companies such as Apple, Nike and Microsoft that generate an estimated 92 billion dollars of the countries tax revenue. The problem is, less and less of that money is remaining in US soil due to outsourcing. This heavily deprives America from much needed source of capital to pour into social programs, financial aid for students, school districts, and emergency responders, health care. The list of programs and departments that are handicapped are endless. Offshore accounts have been safe havens for these multi-billion dollar companies that are flooding the US with product and advertisement but keeping the profits for self without any intent to sew it back into the fallen American ecosystem and the next generation of Americans. Everyday the American working class is being taxed on every dollar made, while corporations dodge their responsibility to give back to Uncle Sam and contribute in pulling the US out of a 17 TRILLION dollar debt. With a population of 317 million each citizen of America would have to pay nearly 55,000 dollars just to break even with the deficit. With 7.2 percent unemployed and another 635,000 homeless and increasing daily we are already in a losing situation, and that’s just scratching the surface.

Outsourcing within corporate America has become so common it’s nearly a mandatory practice in the business world. Almost every big company imaginable is outsources in some type of way. Whether its call center jobs or manufacturing jobs the elimination of these positions cause a major setback not just for the economy but also the youth. “Manufacturing jobs being outsourced overseas, weakened labor unions, corporations that place profit over working people, and a rapidly growing divide between the rich and the poor have virtually eliminated the middle class”-Tavis pg. 37. In Detroit Michigan AKA motor city thrived off manufacturing jobs for years up until the economy went sour. Now with the majority of those jobs are eliminated elders who were there for numerous years went jobless; which now puts the young and the old in competition with each other. So who wins the battle for the lack of jobs? The fresh and energetic, or old and experienced.

Entry level positions like CSR’s (customer service reps) are stepping stones for young men and women to gain experience in the working world. Realistically not every 18 year old fresh out of high school wants to go to college, some have their eyes set on the workforce the day they receive their diplomas, but outsourcing isn’t solely responsible for the downfall of the economy and employment rate, manufacturing jobs and call center jobs have the highest turnover rates as far as employment goes. Unless you’re old or getting paid an excessive amount, the average American has some aspiration to move up or move on. Looking at outsourcing from a business aspect it’s the most logical thing to do, price of production is cheaper and low overhead, all things that keep a company afloat, but the biggest benefit is health care. In America companies are obligated to provide healthcare to employees after working a number of months, which can get extremely expensive. If a company moves its operation overseas to a country like Japan and many others, they’ll pay lower wages and be completely exempt from providing benefits due to Japan and other countries being a part of a free healthcare system. The young needs to be aware of the moves corporate America makes, as young adults we fall victim to the fancy gadgets, stylish clothes, and bright advertisement. Spend countless time and money worrying about the newly released products these companies provide, not realizing we’re nothing but monopoly pieces to a corporate game.

Another issue that has affected the youth and much of America alongside outsourcing is Health care reform. One of the reasons for this is that there are less and less jobs in the country that offer healthcare coverage. This ties back into the whole outsourcing problem, a lot of the manufacturing jobs that were once here in America had health care coverage as part of their benefits. But since it cost more to offer all of that to their workers along with it cutting into their profits, it help lead the CEOs to outsource these jobs. So in the end of it, they wouldn’t have to worry about providing healthcare to their workers because they shipped those jobs overseas to workers who will get paid less and the gain more of a profit off of it.

Though that is one of the many problems being dealt with, it is not the only one that is involved. Sure right now you may think you were okay with the health insurance that you already had, but when you need a major surgery or someone in your family need a certain procedure done on, the insurance denies you. This is called to some insurance companies a lifetime cap. These lifetime caps are basically telling you that you have a limit on what you can spend on your entire, and once that was done you had to basically pay the rest out of your pocket. And people were being denied some of their surgeries for small little things like having the chicken pox or for some other small minute things from your past. Because of this we have seen many either lost or put into debt because of these life caps.

There is a solution to a lot of these big problems, but even that is now running into problems. The solution is the Affordable Care Act or what the Republicans like to call it “Obamacare”, which was passed on March 23, 2010. With this it changes what was wrong with the old health system and tries to improve them for the better and easier to access if you don’t have it. Before about 60% of healthcare went to actual health care, while the other 40% went to paperwork and paying the higher ups. With the ACA (Affordable Care Act) those number shift from 60/40 to 80/20. Also it gets rid of the lifetime caps and requires businesses that employ 50 or more workers to buy health care for their workers. On top of that it lengthens the time you can spend under your parents health care if they have it from the age of 25 to the new age limit of 26. Though under this act, we have until March 31, 2014 to register for healthcare, if we don’t will get either fined or have it taken out of our income. Small price to pay, but worth the benefits.

Even after it’s been past and made into a law, this a big factor in the whole government shutdown. The extreme conservatives of the Republican Party want this LAW to be gone or they won’t settle the budget. In other words they want to bring back the old system with all its flaws, the lifetime caps; they get their 40% of the whole health care budget, etc. They want the hospital to be run like a business instead of a hospital where patients are not seen as people but just as money.

Probably the most reported but never overstated cause of the recession and a lot of the economic problems our nation’s youth face today are the great Housing Bubble Burst. In 2008 we saw millions of American families being thrown out of their homes while Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac received hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. This will probably be looked at in the future as the saddest irony in our nation’s history. The majority of the blame rests on lenders who gave families loans for short term profit knowing that the family was sure to default in the long term. The guilty finger is also sure to point at our politicians whom were too deep in the checkbooks of the big banks to facilitate any kind of regulations but were quick to bail out their corporate sugar daddies because “they were too big to fail.”

The housing bubble came to existence because there was an increasing demand for homes. This wasn’t due to a massive population growth but rather because, people who weren't previously in a financial position to afford a house were convinced they could and the elusive market made real estate a guaranteed short and long term investment.

Home values were at an all-time high dating as far back to when data records existed. Big time home builders such as D. R. Horton, Pulte, and Lennar saw their shares go from $3 in early 1997 to all-time high of $42.82. Just In 2005, 1,283,000 new single-family houses were sold, compared with an average of 609,000 per year during 1990–1995. According to US Federal Reserve estimates, in 2005 homeowners extracted $750 billion of equity from their homes (up from $106 billion in 1996), spending two thirds of it on personal consumption, home improvements, and credit card debt. But in 2006, just as it was predicted by experts and ignored by lenders, the housing bubble busted sending our economy into a free fall. In 2007 more than 25 subprime lenders declaring bankruptcy and the once impeccable United States' subprime mortgage industry collapsed. According RealtyTrac, Federal Reserve, and Equifax from 2006-2012 there have been 21, 5 million foreclosures.

The solution or better yet the hope for a future with limited to no outsourcing, a health care system that puts the American citizens before insurance companies and free from another housing bubble and a big bank free reign rests on the youth of America to learn from the mistakes and mishaps of today. Elements such as greed, corruption, and classism will always be around but if the youth of America grow politically alert and mobilize with modern weapons such as social media, we can see a new standard of accountability in our government and private sectors.

Work Cited

"Employment Situation Summary." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. U.S. Bureau of Labor

Statistics,

22 Oct. 2029. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.

Irrefutable Argument For Healthcare Reform. Dir. Kyle Kulinski. YouTube. YouTube, 03

Oct. 2013. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.

Johnson, Avery. "What You Need to Know About the Affordable Care Act." The Wall Street

Journal. The Wall Street Journal, 28 Sept. 2013. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.

<http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB100014240527023042139045790933713

8509610>

Smiley, Tavis, and Cornel West. The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto. New

York: Smiley, 2012. Print.

Toppo, Greg. "Homeless Population Dips." USA Today. Gannett, 3 Sept. 2013. Web. 28

Oct. 2013.

"U.S. National Debt Clock." U.S. National Debt Clock. N.p., 24 Oct. 2013. Web. 28 Oct.

2013.

Bill O'reilly’s debate with Cornel West and Tavis Smiley

It’s no secret that in America, like most capitalist nations the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Sadly, we must also acknowledge that the motto of American politicians has long been we the politicians by the people for the corporations.There isn’t much study needed to find these statement to be true, just a 2 minute drive from where the constitution was written will be sufficient evidence. In Bill O'reilly’s debate with Cornel West and Tavis Smiley the very topics of poverty, racism and corruption are fully drawn out in a eye opening 8 minute canvas.

If I may play the devil’s advocate, Bill O Riley picked an amazing strategy to continue to mislead his audience by stating 3 facts that can be misleading with a crooked perspective. He first stated “46 million Americans live below the poverty line. That is 15% of the population,” from whitehouse.gov. This statistic couldn’t have been more appropriate for a debate on poverty. He then followed by “In 2010, $560 billion, 16% of the entire federal budget, was spent on the poor. That's up 5,400% since 1970.” This could also be great data but he concluded his introduction by stating “here is a stat that may provide some perspective on poverty, 9% of Americans have some kind of substance dependence. Most of those people cannot earn a living. So lets do the some math 15% poor 9% addicted maybe poverty is not exclusively an economic problem.”

I’m sure to an ignorant overconservative audience member or a Goldman Sach’s executive, this confirmed everything they have been fed by the biased right media or put at ease whatever is left of their guilty conscious. Within 30 seconds Bill O Riley made those in poverty due to their own mistakes representatives of the entire population under poverty. Thus causing Smiley and West to start the debate on an uphill incline. O Riley didn’t only paint poverty an outcome of drug users, but he made horrible policies, corruption, and a system designed to keep the poor on a hamster wheel until the age of 65 a distant second cause of poverty.

Through out the entire debate he rebundled Smiley’s and West’s points not by intellectual thoughts but by engaging them in a shouting match, making rehtorical misleading points, and even pretending to mistake “right” for “lied.” I’m sure West and Smiley came on air with the intentions of addressing the issue of poverty to in my opinion the people that desperately needed it the most(O Riley’s audience) but instead were filibustered through 8 minutes of BS.  

The Rich and the Rest of Us Topical Argument

“For at least the past four decades, most Americans have been able to ignore the poor and deny the extent of poverty. Middle class people would disparage low-income people, low-income people would dog the working poor, and the working poor would beat down on the homeless poor—because we all want to feel like we have some sort of stature in life.”

In this excerpt from Tavis Smiley & Cornel West's “The Rich and the Rest of Us." I felt as those there was an excessive amount over generalization to express an opinion. I can see where the authors are coming from in this statement but there is no way it's true. I feel as though this is a book that should be read by all Americans to cause the more to be more conscious about modern poverty but statements such as these puts every class at guilt, which could be a huge turn off and a bone critiques can chew on

"The Rich and the Rest of Us" Notes and Stats

"Today, an American 'in the top 1 percent takes in an average of $1.3 million per year, while the average American earns just $33,000 per year.'"

"Revised Census numbers released in 2011 revealed that the number of Americans living in poverty was closer to 50 million."

“There are nearly 150 million persistently poor and near poor people in America who are not responsible for the damage done by the Great Recession.”

“While the incomes of the richest 1 percent of Americans—those making $380,000 or more—has grown 33 percent in the past 20 years, incomes for 90 percent of Americans—the rest of us—have stagnated or declined.”

“Seventy percent of food stamp recipients are white.”

“According to Feeding America, 50 million Americans go to bed hungry and have no idea where their next meal will come from”

Toure Riff

Chapter 7, Toure argues that the potential of a Black person’s success in corporate and professional America is heavily limited by the extend of how comfortable he or she can make the whites around their lives. Blacks must learn to continually assure the white dominated professional fields that they’re of no threat in order to be invited to executive ranks.

Quotes

Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness - Touré

"The more a Black person can learn to put the whites around them at ease, and also to feel comfortable doing so, the more powerful they can become" Pg 178 (Hardcover)

“Black leaders possess disarming mechanisms- physical, psychological or behavioral traits that attenuate perceptions of threat by the dominant group.” Pg 183 (Hardcover)

• His argument is very identical to the social realities of colonial slaves. Those who made the owners comfortable were given more privileges. Those with lighter skinned were considered in a higher class as those with darker skin.

Even Odds Inro

The three part story “Even Odds” by Jill Tucker brought to attention the heartbreaking realities of our African American youth in Oakland. Though her data and stories aren’t at all surprising to anyone from Oakland or with access to the local Bay area news. It did capture what is considered to be no less than a nationwide tragedy happening every day across America from the victims perspective. Tucker presented the thriving students, the drop outs, the shooters, and the murdered as all victims of a society that has set them up to be a statistic. She Challenged us all with the harsh realities and provoked us all to step up and be the solution. Her articles showed that it isn’t too late to address the tragedy just like the men and woman in her story did.

Urbain Chains

Milkhais Haile

Eng4 “Even Odds” response

8/26/2013

The three part story “Even Odds” by Jill Tucker brought to attention the heartbreaking realities of our African American youth in Oakland. Her data and stories aren't at all surprising to anyone from the Bay Area or with access to local news. She was able to give the much needed understanding of why things are the way that they are. Why we can’t go a day without seeing an African American mother crying on television for her murdered child. She challenged us with the harsh reality and provoked us to step up and do something about it. Her story showed that it isn’t too late to address the issue like the men and woman in her story did.

I’m a firm believer that the choices we make are what make us. Everyday we are faced with choices and our answers are the building blocks of our identity. But in the case of the millions of Black youth represented by Olajuwon their choices were stripped from them by their harsh realities. They didn't choose to be born in a city where the number of their African American peers to graduate high school eligible to attend a UC or a CSU are identical to those who will be murdered.

I found the comparison of the African American youth with 19th century American  slaves in part two mind blowing. Reading the students relate to "The Making of a Slave"by slave owner Willie Lynchn was even more shocking. His strategy was to “pit slaves against each other - the light-skinned slaves against dark-skinned slaves; female versus male; old versus young.” Jill continued to record a student say “‘It's black on black,’ he said, bridging the 19th century to the violence he sees in his own life” This couldn't have been more accurate. How can we expect our Black man to make the right choices while they are enslaved. Even worse, they are born into a society that has equipped them with 21st century shackles to enslave one another.

I believe its the obligation of every American to change the social reality of this youth and give them a choice. Supporting organizations in this communities funding programs such as Manhood Development Program is key.