The Walking Dead: WV legislature version

 I had to stop watching “The Walking Dead” television show a few years ago. It reminded me too much of real life.

I’m not saying that dead and decomposing people are literally shuffling around eating the living and turning those who get bitten by them into fellow flesh-eating walkers. Not yet anyway, although not much surprises me lately.

But it is the case that harmful policies and ideas that should long ago have been decently buried are shuffling around with considerable alacrity in the Legislature. And they do bite.

One such walker is Senate Bill 59, which would cut down on unemployment insurance for workers who lose their jobs from no fault of their own. A similar bill was defeated and buried last year, but it’s returned from the crypt. As was the case last year, the bill passed the Senate. Last year, fortunately, it died in the House of Delegates. This year, its fate is up for grabs.

The short version is that the bill would increase the number of hoops that people who have lost their jobs or been laid off need to jump through to get a fraction of their usual earnings, possibly threatening their ability to access this lifeline for their families.

If that weren’t bad enough, it also reduces the eligibility period for receiving unemployment insurance from 26 weeks to as little as 12, depending on the state unemployment average.

That’s another problem. West Virginia is a very economically diverse state, with unemployment, poverty and other measures of economic well-being (or the lack of it) varying widely from county to county. A statewide index would basically shackle the majority of rural counties to employment conditions that prevail in more urban and prosperous areas.

Not to pick on Monongalia County, but it’s in a different economic universe than counties like McDowell, Mingo, Logan, Wyoming, Calhoun, Clay, Wirt, etc. Mon and other counties with more economic options shouldn’t set the pace for the entire state.

Further, people laid off from well-paying jobs, such as mining or manufacturing, often take longer to find comparable work with their skill set because of local market conditions.

Let’s play it out a little further. Imagine a machinist or electrician laid off with a reduced term of eligibility. They might well take a job paying much less than a living wage that doesn’t take advantage of their knowledge or skills, while knocking someone else out of a job at the lower end of the market. When employment conditions improve, they’ll drop the old job like a hot potato, simply creating more churning and turnover for their new employer.

The ultimate effect would be to drive down wages for all workers, not to mention cause an economic loss to local economies. Unemployment benefits get spent really quickly on the basics.

These benefits also help ward off other social problems. Research on child well-being shows that economic supports in hard times increase the “protective factors” for kids and families. Every additional $1,000 spent by states on benefits is associated with a reduction in child maltreatment reports, less substantiated child maltreatment and fewer kids in foster care.

A recent study published in Demography, Duke University’s research journal, even found that “the harmful effects of job loss on opioid overdose mortality decline with increasing state unemployment insurance benefit levels. These findings suggest that social policy in the form of income transfers played a crucial role in disrupting the link between job loss and opioid overdose mortality.”

According to the authors, there is “a growing body of evidence that [unemployment insurance] may mitigate the harmful effects of job loss on physical, mental, and behavioral health outcomes. They concluded that “cuts to social welfare benefits such as [unemployment insurance] have second-order effects on outcomes such as health that extend well beyond basic financial needs.”

All of which is to say that being poor and unemployed isn’t nearly as much fun as some rich people seem to think.

To be fair, sometimes well-meaning people confuse unemployed workers with those not in the labor force and think cutting unemployment insurance will boost labor force participation. They are actually two different populations. The labor force consists of all workers, including those who recently lost jobs through no fault of their own.

If the intent is to boost labor market participation, rather than just stick it to families that hit a rough spot, there are better ways to do that, some of which have been proposed as bills in this session. One obvious step in the right direction would be increasing state investments in child care, which can cost more than a college education and typically hit at a time when a family’s earning capacity hasn’t reached full bloom.

Another would be to support policies such as a Medicaid buy-in that would help lower wage workers keep health benefits if they have a chance to get a raise. Or West Virginia could join the number of states that offer refundable child tax credits or earned income tax credits.

Incredibly, while some state lawmakers support cutting assistance for the jobless, others have called for setting aside $500 million in American Rescue Plan money intended to help families and communities with the damage done by COVID to give away as corporate handouts to mostly out-of-state corporations.

It’s a question of priorities. Are we going to stand beside a coal miner’s daughter whose dad gets a layoff notice from the mine, or are we going to turn our back on them?

(This ran as a column/op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

I wish I said this

My Spousal Unit isn't on Twitter. It is very unlikely she ever will be. But this evening, while talking about how useless Twitter seems to her, she came up with a near-perfect Tweet. Here it is:

"They don't hate us for our freedom. They hate us because we use our freedom to look up cat pictures."

(I'm not sure she's totally innocent on that score.)

HUNGER GAMES. Here's Krugman on the US House's cuts to the SNAP program, aka food stamps.

WHO'S ON WELFARE? Here's a look at the subsidies the average US taxpayer gives to big business.

THEY'RE NOT PRETTY ON THE GROUND EITHER. Here's a scary look at satellite images of factory farms.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Is a court-martial in order?

Image courtesy of wikipedia.

The theme at Goat Rope lately has been the Odyssey of Homer, along with links and comments about current events. We're almost done, but there are a few loose ends.

One of which is about Odysseus' style as a leader. It's tempting to wonder how a contemporary military officer would be treated after performing as badly as he did during his homecoming (my guess is the Bush administration would probably promote him).

To recap, he lost 12 ships and 600 or so men--after the fighting was over. As Jonathan Shay sums it up in Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming reminds us,

*he loses control of his troops and suffers 72 casualties in a botched and unnecessary pirate raid on the Circoneans;

*he puts himself and his men at risk needlessly and impulsively (the whole Cyclops thing);

*he protects his own ship but loses the rest when they approach the land of the Laestrygonians;

*he can't even be bothered to count his men when he leaves the island of Circe;

*he can't control his men when they violate the command not to kill and eat the sun god Helios' cattle. (Note: all of these have been the subjects of previous posts.)

As Shay puts it after looking over the evidence from the Iliad and the Odyssey,

As a staff officer, strategist, independent intelligence operative, and solo fighter, Odysseus was brilliant. As a troop leader, he was a catastrophe. Homer's great epics show him in full depth and perspective.

One thing hasn't changed from then to now in war as well as "peace," ordinary people pay the price for bad leadership.

SPEAKING OF PAYING FOR BAD LEADERSHIP, it looks like the Senate will vote today on the Wall Street bailout bill. The new version raises FDIC depositor's insurance from $100,000 to $250,000 and includes more business tax cuts--as if blowing $700 billion on corporate welfare wasn't enough.

Many groups around the country are opposing the bailout as it now stands for its lack of support for ordinary Americans. Here's an alternate vision that a number of groups have supported. Actions opposing the bailout will occur in several states today and progressive groups have been scrambling to keep up with the latest developments.

WHILE WE'RE TRYING TO FIGURE OUT THE ECONOMIC CRISIS, we could always buy local.

HERE'S A LITTLE REMINDER that whatever happens with the bailout, there's nothing new about corporate welfare.

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT. I've said this before and I'll say it again: what if everyone's Social Security was privately invested on Wall Street? Some people, who shall remain nameless, still want to do that.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

THE GODDESS STRIFE

Caption: This isn't one of her better pictures.

El Cabrero is a big fan of ancient Greece. Philosophy, art, literature, politics, history, a pluralistic approach to religion, name it. Unfortunately, the objects of my admiration sometimes had the self-destructive tendencies of the heroes of their tragedies.

They were like the Ziggy Stardusts of the ancient world. They took it all too far, but boy could they play guitar--or kithara, as the case may be.

Back in the heyday, Greece wasn't a unified country like a modern nation or an empire like those of Alexander the Macedonian or the Romans. It was a diverse collection of city-states which took political forms ranging from democracy to monarchy to tyranny to mixed governments. To the extent they were united at all, it was by language, myths, religion, and custom, including the famous panhellenic games which were the forerunners of our Olympics.

They had plenty of shortcomings but one of the biggest was an addiction to strife or Eris,which/who was also a goddess. According to the poet Hesiod in Works and Days, there were actually two goddesses of strife, one good one bad. The bad one led to war and destruction:

So, after all, there was not one kind of Strife alone, but all over the earth there are two. As for the one, a man would praise her when he came to understand her; but the other is blameworthy: and they are wholly different in nature. For one fosters evil war and battle, being cruel: her no man loves; but perforce, through the will of the deathless gods, men pay harsh Strife her honour due.

The other, theoretically at least, to led healthy competition:

But the other is the elder daughter of dark Night, and the son of Cronos who sits above and dwells in the aether, set her in the roots of the earth: and she is far kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbour, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbour vies with is neighbour as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men. And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel.

In practice, the two often get muddled together, as you may have noticed.

According to another mythological strand, the whole Trojan war grew out of the spite of the vengeful goddess Eris at not being invited to a wedding (although, in my experience, strife is usually at most weddings anyway, invited or not). She makes an appearance in Homer's Iliad with a particularly apt description:

Strife whose wrath is relentless, she is the sister and companion of murderous Ares [god of war], she who is only a little thing at the first, but thereafter grows until she strides on the earth with her head striking heaven. She then hurled down bitterness equally between both sides as she walked through the onslaught making men's pain heavier. She also has a son whom she named Strife.

Anyway, strife or Eris, whether personified or not, brought down classical Greek civilization. The fall was long and slow, but a major step on the way was the long and fratricidal Pelopponesian War, masterfully recounted by Thucydides. That will be the guiding threat through this week's posts.

I don't plan on working the parallels between the Greeks and us too hard but I think it's safe to say that this goddess is still with us.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. William Schweke of the Center for Enterprise Development recently published this op-ed about a rational approach to economic development for West Virginia (and elsewhere). He warns that

the state should not be frightened into radical proposals by the dogmatic anti-government crowd to cut regulation, taxation and other responsibilities to the bone.

WORTH READING. The latest edition of Jim Lewis' Notes from Under the Fig Tree is available. Jim, an Episcopal priest (yay team!), is a master of metaphors and this issue is full of them.

UNLEASHING WHATEVER DEPARTMENT. Meanwhile, over at West Virgina Blue, Antipode has published a good critique of Unleashing Capitalism, a libertarian tract that has become the Holy Writ of the WV right wing.

CALLING ALL WEST VIRGINIANS. I've noticed that readers of Goat Rope come from all over, but I'd like to ask those who live in El Cabrero's beloved state of West Virginia to read this and respond appropriately in this economic justice campaign. Short version: please check out the link and contact the legislature (it's easy if you go there) to preserve access to education for welfare recipients. It's the best way for people to permanently escape poverty.

THREE ITEMS. For those who don't get the Charleston Gazette or the Sunday Gazette Mail, there are three items in there I highly recommend. One is an article by Paul Nyden on economist Dean Baker, who will be giving a talk in Charleston today on the theme of The Conservative Nanny State. Another is an op-ed by Perry Mann on a lifetime of reading. Finally, there is the heart-rending story by Tara Tuckwiller about a young girl from WV who is doing her part to stop the war in Iraq. Her mother is about to be sent there.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

ANIMAL DREAMS

Caption: Seamus McGoogle thinks he's worth it.

The political economy of pets in the US today is staggering (see also yesterday's post). According to Business Week,

Americans now spend $41 billion a year on their pets—more than the gross domestic product of all but 64 countries in the world. That's double the amount shelled out on pets a decade ago, with annual spending expected to hit $52 billion in the next two years, according to Packaged Facts, a consumer research company based in Rockville, Md. That puts the yearly cost of buying, feeding, and caring for pets in excess of what Americans spend on the movies ($10.8 billion), playing video games ($11.6 billion), and listening to recorded music ($10.6 billion) combined...

It's starting to get kind of weird.

"People are no longer satisfied to reward their pet in pet terms," argues Bob Vetere, president of the American Pet Products Manufacturers Assn. (APPMA). "They want to reward their pet in human terms." That means hotels instead of kennels, braces to fix crooked teeth, and frilly canine ball gowns. Pet owners are becoming increasingly demanding consumers who won't put up with substandard products, unstimulating environments, or shoddy service for their animals. But the escalating volume and cost of services, especially in the realm of animal medicine, raises ethical issues about how far all this loving should go.

I need to talk to the goats about this...when they get back from the spa.

SQUIRREL STYLE KUNG FU. I've heard of tiger, crane, leopard and other styles, but here's a new one on the fuzzy tailed art of self defense:

University of California, Davis researchers used an infrared camera to film squirrels as they confronted predatory rattlesnakes.

The squirrels, they saw, actually heated up their tails, then waved them at the snakes... The rattlers, which rely on infrared sensors to detect their prey, were ostensibly confused by the animal equivalent of having a flaming torch waved in your face.

Why didn't I think of that?

A researcher was quoted as saying about the research that "It taught us to focus on the perceptual world of the animal we’re studying” rather than on how it looks to human observers.

Sun Tzu, ancient Chinese author of The Art of War, would not be surprised. He said "All warfare is based upon deception."

WHO REALLY GETS WELFARE? Here's economist Dean Baker on corporate welfare and other public subsidies for the well-to-do:

In the days before welfare reform, single mothers could collect five or six hundred dollars a month without working. That was what welfare looked like before 1996. In the Internet Age, welfare is about having the government do everything it can to make the rich absolutely as rich as possible. As F. Scott Fitzgerald said many years ago, the rich are not like you or me: They need the government’s assistance to get by. There are all sorts of ways in which the government helps those who have the most.

COSTS OF WAR. El Cabrero will be joining some companeros today for a press conference on the costs of the war in Iraq. Here's a good one on the huge private army of contractors waging war for a profit.

WARNING SIGNS of serious safety concerns at the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah have been around for some time, according to this source.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED