Vote for Hillary Clinton…but remain vigilant!

It’s been 20 years since Bill Clinton was President.  Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history: cutting taxes for 15 million poor working class families, giving tax cuts to 90% of small businesses, and raising taxes on the wealthiest 1.2 percent of taxpayers coupled with government spending cuts, help Clinton achieve the largest budget surpluses and debt reduction in U.S. history by 2000.  Poverty levels fell, more than 20 million jobs were created, and unemployment rates reached their lowest levels since the 1960s.

He also with Republican support, passed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993, which led to the most massive wealth transfer in the history of the world.  Trillions of dollars have been lost through trade deficits caused by “free trade” on our end and protectionism on the other. “Free Trade” depends on the premise that all countries will play by the same rules. The major flaw in the Americas “Free Trade” agreements is that they are impossible to enforce, and work only in theory.  Trade is impacted by currency manipulation, technology transfer requirements, joint-venture policies, selective customs policies, underhanded government subsidies and countless other tools.  Twenty years after its passage NAFTA destroyed bargaining power of American workers, led to the loss of millions of middle-class jobs and destruction of manufacturing capabilities in America, and, destroyed the Mexican agricultural and small business sectors that dislocated several million Mexican workers and their families, and was a major cause in the dramatic increase in undocumented workers flowing into America to find work.  I could go on but you get the picture.

The Clinton administration with Republican support, deregulated banks, lifting virtually all restraints on the operation of financial systems. The Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 did away with restrictions on the integration of banking, insurance and stock trading imposed by the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, one of the central pillars of Roosevelt’s New Deal.  Under Glass-Steagall Act, banks, brokerages and insurance companies were effectively barred from entering each other’s’ industries, and investment banking and commercial banking were separated.  Clintons 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall Act resulted in an orgy of speculation, profiteering and outright plundering of assets, culminating in collapse and the biggest financial bailout in American history, costing American tax payers more than $500 billion.  Without a return to something like Glass-Steagall, another greater catastrophe is just around the corner.

The Clinton administration with Republican support, passed a bill that prevented the Federal Communications Commission from ever reimposing old rules requiring minimum amounts of news and public affairs programming.  The federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, led to the deregulation of news and “opened the floodgates on media mergers.”  The act reduced the importance of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations on media ownership, and allowed giant corporations to buy up thousands of media outlets across the country.  Twenty years later 90% of Americas media businesses are owned by six corporations.  Before the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed, a business was not allowed to own more than 40 radio stations.  Since then, iHeart Media has grown from 40 stations to 1,240 stations, that’s 30 times more than congressional regulation previously allowed, and Gannett, owns more than 1,000 newspapers and 600 print periodicals.

The Clinton administration with Republican support, passed Welfare Reform that has resulted in a layer of American destitution that mirrors poverty in countries like India.  Because of welfare reform 3 million children live in households with incomes of less than $2 per person per day.  In 1996, for every 100 families with children living in poverty, TANF Temporary Assistance for Needy Families provided cash aid to 68 families, that number plunged to 27 out of every 100 families living in poverty by 2010. TANF enrollment fell 58 percent between 1995-2010. However, the number of poor families with children rose 17 percent during this same period.

The Clinton administration with Republican support passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 provided funding for tens of thousands of community police officers and drug courts, and mandated three-strikes minimum sentencing for even low-level, non-violent offenders setting the stage for mass incarceration of mostly Black and Brown Americans.

For those of us voting for Hillary Clinton for President…we need to remain vigilant because if we don’t she may very well finish the job her husband stated. Turning America into a third world Plutocracy.

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Poor for life?

America was built by immigrants who wanted brighter futures for themselves and their families, from the Gold Rush to the Dust Bowl as pioneers they all help build America.

Many Americans still believe that kind of hard work and good education will lead to success, however, the reality is that the average American income today is lower than it was in 2000. In fact, around 25% of all working-aged adults struggle to make enough money to support their basic needs like housing, utilities, food, health care, and transportation, let alone save money for their future.

And, while a college education has become necessary for any kind of economic mobility it has also become less affordable, and its earning power has deteriorated substantially. More telling, is that fewer Americans have relocated to find work, because their chances of getting a better paying job are low, and being laid off again are high.

Most economic experts agree that business practices of the past few decades have compounded the challenges now facing the American work force. From, the millions of American jobs that were eliminated, moved overseas, or replaced with technology. To the, new jobs that are disproportionately offered at lower wages, with fewer or no benefits than the ones they replaced.

Today more than 40% of Americans born in the bottom class remain stuck there as adults. A child born to parents in the bottom class has a 7.5% chance of reaching the top income bracket level in America, this is far lower that most developed countries. This suppression of American mobility, can be traced to the passing of NAFTA that led to clampdown on wages for American workers, weakened worker rights, and reduced or destroyed benefits. NAFTA shifted American economics towards investors, and against American workers.

A study performed by the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation, tracked individual workers’ earnings. They concluded that workers that start with lower wage jobs, will continue to earn lower wages decades later, and some middle-class wage earners follow the same path others see a decrease in wages over time, only workers who start off at the top continue to make good wages throughout their working lives.

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Young Adults have a less favorable view of Capitalism than previous generations

A poll that I recently read found that 75 percent of Americas young adults between the ages of 18-29 not in favor of Capitalism. Today’s young adults are rejecting the ways of capitalist society, and its guiding principles. From their eyes, Capitalism represents CEO’s getting billion dollar paydays, while their employees struggle with the cost of food and shelter.

But elderly Americans, those 65 years of age or older still view Capitalism in a favorable light.  They remember such things as job stability and promotions, a 40-hour work week, unions, benefits, pensions, employer and employee loyalty, wages that grew overtime, and cost of living raises. Their reality seems like a fantasy or radical ideas to today’s young adult, where half of them have less than $400 dollars to their name.

To Americas youth the very definition of Capitalism equals greed and can be witnessed by excessive compensation packages of the corporate CEO’s who award themselves with huge paychecks regardless of their success or failures and regular people with too much credit card debit that feeds their consumerism, to the politicians who grant favors and tax breaks to rich lobbyist, while neglecting the needs of the poor, middle, and working class people. And facing the sobering fact that while Americas middle-class  is declining, China middle-class is growing.

As a result of how Americas youth view Captialism, I believe we will see a big shift away from today’s style of Capitalism toward a society that does not tolerate extreme poverty or wealth. One with large a, well-educated, stable, and happy, middle-class and that will be better America for all its people — including the rich.  The America their grandparents remember and love.

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Will the workforce of the future be robots or human?

Technologies are quickly replacing human muscle from robots to automobiles to drones, intelligent machines will soon dominate the globe, and in the process drive down the value of human labor.  Some experts believe that the more advanced technologies become, the greater the likelihood that the need for human skills will shrink, leaving millions of U.S. workers unable to find work.

For example, a manufacturing plant in China installed 10,000 robots, that cost about them about $20,000 to use to perform routine jobs such as spraying, welding, and assembly. The CEO of that plant was quoted as saying “We have over one million workers.”  In the future we will add one million robotic workers.  Meaning that sometime in the future he’s planning to replace his human workers will robots.

The jobs most at risk of being replaced by technology advances are administrative, construction, production and white-collar workers, like bank tellers, factory and construction workers, and secretaries.  The automotive industry, for example, has been using robotic technology for some time now.   And, robots are now widely used in the medical field as well, robots have been tapped to conduct neurological, orthopedic and general surgery.

Of course, technology advances can help workers excel at their jobs—at least those with the right technical skills.  On the other hand, even with those with the right technical expertise, will eventually feel the effects of accelerating technology changes.  These changes will more than likely push a substantial portion of the workforce to the sidelines. Because the sad fact is that there are only so many people who will be able to use coding magic to keep or find jobs.  As a result, there may be as many as 40 million people with no economic value in the U.S alone.

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What happened to the once most successful Internet Company in the World: Yahoo

Once upon a time, Yahoo was the most important Internet Company in the world.  Launched in 1994 by Stanford grads Jerry Yang and David Filo Yahoo soon became one of the most popular sites on the Internet.  Six years after it launch, in 2000 Yahoo signed a deal with Google to license its search engine.  At that time Google was looking to be the next Yahoo.  But, then the dotcom crash happened and Yahoo fired hundreds of its employees.  Today Yahoo has roughly a billion page views each month and yet it can’t grow, and does not generate much revenue.

Here are some of the highlights of Yahoo biggest mistakes;

1. Yahoo fires hundreds of its employees in 2000 even though it was their employees that made the business a success.
2. Yahoo should have purchased Google in 2001, when they had the chance.
3. In 1999 Yahoo spent $3 billion on GeoCities, a precursor to Facebook. At the time of the purchase GeoCities was the third most trafficked site in the world. Yahoo did nothing with it and shut it down in 2009.
4. A lessons learned at this point, should have been to invest in research and development, and employee training and retention to start building their own diverse portfolio. But, that’s not what they did, in 2005, Yahoo purchased Flickr at a time when it was one of the best online photo management and sharing application in the world. After the purchase, Flickr was forced to focus on integration, not innovation.  Today Flickr has all but faded into the sunset.
5. In 2005 Yahoo purchased Delicious an extremely popular internet community for 20 million and they did nothing with it.
6. In 2005 Yahoo purchased Konfabulator they rebrand it and called it Yahoo Widgets. By 2006, the founding engineers started leaving Yahoo.

In 2012, Yahoo hired Marissa Mayer CEO as their new CEO and the company’s stock rose steadily for about two years and optimism was high.  Mayer went on a buying spree where she purchased 53 companies most of them failing startups many of them promptly shut down right after their acquisition.

Now, Yahoo Japan, is different from its U.S. counterpart even though they both have faced similar challenges. Yahoo Japan has never decreased its operating income.

Today, Yahoo Japan reaches almost every Japanese Internet user and is a close second to Google.  Yahoo Japan is a joint venture between Yahoo Inc. and SoftBank a Tokyo Telecommunication giant.  Yahoo Japan has benefited from research and application of its deep knowledge of Japanese culture, helping it to ward off its competitors.  Yahoo Japan has been successful and profitable by carefully watching changing environments and trends from around the world and then strategically planning to take the necessary steps to stay ahead of the game.

Yahoo Japan’s news portal publishes about 4,000 articles a day from 300 media partners. It operates a multitude of online services and attracts about 63 billion page views a month from pc and mobile users combined.

Sharp contrast to its U.S. counterpart.

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Free Community College in the United States?

 

The Baby boomer generation had a much easier time getting a College education because state and government involvement was high during their college years, and that kept the cost of education down. Unfortunately, that has not been the case for today’s College aged generation, where state investment has fallen, tuition and student loan debt have increased, leading many to question the benefits of obtaining higher education when highly educated people are working for minimum wage to pay off large student loan debts.

The U.S. has the highest College tuition rates in the world, with student loans crippling many College graduates who are having a difficult time finding work.  And while today’s College aged generation is burden down with debt, what kind of opportunities do they really have available to them?   Internships, Service Jobs or Entry Level positions that pay at such a low rates, that most can not make their loan payments, pay rent or buy food.

Businesses in the U.S. will  eventualy begin to suffer as we continue to have an economy with an entire classes of people unable to fully participate in it. If people have no money, they can’t purchase any goods or services.  This makes having access to affordable education for everyone including the poor paramount to the future of our society. Because the increased business outputs, coupled with the higher wages College graduates should be making, will benefit all of us as a whole by raising prosperity levels and strengthening our economic base. Having a society where large segments of the population is destitute and deprived is a recipe for disaster. History has shown this to us, time and time again.

Making  education at the Community College level free makes good sense because educated people benefit society by states having to spend less on health costs, crime, and unemployment. And the skills these people acquire will make them more competitive with their peers around the world for generations to come.

President Obama proposed an initiative that would make Community College free, that was based on a program similar to the Tennessee Promise Program  which makes Community College free to graduating high school seniors  .  This program is funded by draws from a state lottery fund that pays for student scholarships.  The 13 participating Tennessee Community Colleges, have seen an 18 percent jump in enrollments at Technical Colleges since the program began.  Oregon is set to follow Tennessee as the second state with a plan to provide free Community College.

As the realization of what’s at stake sets in, Leaders from across the U.S. are taking the initiative to make free Community College available to students: in states such as, New York, Washington, Wisconsin, Hawaii, Chicago to name a few.

Contact your state or local representative to find out more about free Community College initiatives in your area.

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Transportation Systems of the 21st Century:Mobility Services

Over the next few decades, the transportation industry is predicted to change in every conceivable way.  We’re already seeing some pretty major changes that are being driven by climate change, urbanization, and a generation that’s uncertain about car ownership.

The importance of car ownership is declining: in U.S., the number of people 16 to 24 years old who hold a driver’s license dropped from 76 percent in 2000 to 71 percent in 2013, while there has been over 30 percent annual growth in-car sharing members in U.S. and Germany over the last five years.  Overall global car sales will continue to grow, but is expected to drop from the 3.6 percent to around 2 percent by 2030. This drop will be largely driven by the rise in new mobility services such as car sharing.

It has become clear to transportation experts from around the world that the global transportation model is not sustainable.  This is based on transportation data that predicts that by 2050 global city populations will have large number of cars causing massive congestion, that will lead to serious environment and health problems. To address these issues, Helsinki, Finland has announced an audacious goal: By 2025, the city plans to make it unnecessary for any resident to own a private car.

Here in the U.S. the arrival of on-demand car services like Uber and Lyft, real-time ridesharing services such as Carma and Zimride, and programs such as Zipcar and car2go, and bike sharing programs, as well as, thousands of miles of new urban bike lanes are all changing how people get around.  Commuters no longer need to own a car to have one at their disposal.

And, U.S. car makers are investing in everything from car sharing and rental services to multimodal trip-planning apps.  GM has invested $500 million in Lyft, and the car-sharing service Maven, along with a handful of local pilot programs and the development of self-driving robo taxis. Ford, has announced dozens of programs domestically and abroad everything from high-tech bicycles to  group leasing programs that make it possible to share a single car with a bunch of friends, as well as, planning its own ride hailing app and a vehicle to go with it.  Tech giants Apple, Google, and specialty Tesla, increase the complexity of the mobility services competitive landscape.

Car sharing is growing in large cities around the world.  The largest markets are in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan, with 2.3 million users and 33,000 cars, Europe boasts the largest service per capita, with 2.1 million users and 31,000 cars. North America brings up the rear, with 1.5 million users sharing 22,000 cars.

There are two major different paths the future of global transportation can take. One where private ownership of cars remains unchanged or one where there’s a global migration to a driverless systems of predominantly shared mobility services.

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Global Trend Harnessing Solar Energy To Build Sustainable Communities.

Cities across the globe are harnessing the power of solar energy to design solar-powered, sustainable communities.  Many countries have recognized the benefits of solar energy and are using it to make their electric grids more efficient and to create local jobs, while mitigating the pollution that is fueling global warming.

Here in the U.S., the newest Sustainable Community is Babcock Ranch, Florida, powered by a 75MW Solar facility owned by Florida Power & Light. The development of the community, is being led by former NFL player Syd Kitson who conceived the solar-driven community concept over a decade ago.  His vision is to have Babcock Ranch house about 50,000 people in condos and homes, ranging in prices from $200,000 up to $900,000, that he hopes will attract boomers, millennial and young families.  The community is located close to the downtown area so people can walk or ride bicycles to do their shopping.

In other areas of the country like, in San Diego, CA whose Climate Action plan calls for 100 percent renewable energy use in the city by 2035. And, San José, CA is committed to receiving all of its electrical power from clean, renewable sources by 2022.  Unfortunately, in the face of the rise and feasibility of Solar Energy in America some of the major utilities are campaigning intensely to increase fees for rooftop solar energy, which they see as a direct threat to their businesses.  Eventually, these utilities will need to transition their business model into some type of distribution services that support these new sustainable communities if they want to survive.

The global leader in Sustainable Communities is South Australia where 25% of the homes have Solar Panels that is the highest number in the world, and Brisbane’s not far behind with 23%.  In India 40% of rural Indian households are without power running a peak-hour electricity shortfall of around 12%.  With about 300 sunny days a year the Indian government wants to produce 100,000 MW of Solar energy by 2022.  If India can meet its goal, it will become one of the biggest solar powerhouses in the world.

At the other end of the spectrum is Germany whose energy system is changing at an incredible pace.  Its renewable energy share increased exponentially over the past 20 years.  Germany accomplished all this without having its economy collapse.  But Germany’s shift to renewable energy has come at a high cost to their big utilities, removing them from their past position as the backbone of the German economy, to being on the brink of extinction.  Some of them are even trying to reposition themselves as Big Data Experts and Providers.

Below list of the world’s largest Solar Facilities:

1. Sambhar Lake, India. Capacity: 4,000 MW, will have the capacity to produce eight times the power of the largest solar farms currently operating in the United States.
2. Topaz, California. Capacity: 580 MW will power 160,000 homes and supply most of the electricity for the city of San Luis Obispo, population 276,000.
3. Solar Star, California. Capacity: 579 MW; delivers 170 megawatts to the California grid. When complete, the facility will have over 1.7 million solar panels.
4. Ivanpah, California. Capacity: 392 MW produces enough energy to power 140,000 homes, but it has also been criticized for disrupting animal habitats and even “frying” birds that fly too close to the extremely hot towers.
5. Agua Caliente, Arizona. Capacity: 290 MW, enough to power 230,000 homes at peak loads.
6. Setouchi, Japan. Capacity: 231 MW. Once completed, will sell power to Chugoku Electric Power Company under a 20-year power purchase agreement.
7. Nzema Solar Park, Ghana. Capacity: 155 MW. Currently under construction, making it the sixth largest in the world, connecting Ghana to Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin and Nigeria.
8. Amanecer Solar CAP Plant, Chile. Capacity: 100 MW, produces enough power for 125,000 Chilean households.
9. Jasper PV Project, South Africa. Capacity: 96 MW, produces 180,000 megawatt-hours annually, enough to power 80,000 homes.

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Solution to American Slow Internet: City Owned ISPS

I think many Americans forget that the Internet was invented right here in the good old USA.  Yep, on December 5, 1969, a 4-node network was connected by adding the University of Utah and the University of California Santa Barbara.  Forty-eight years later, Hong Kong now has the fastest internet connections in the World.  People living in New York pay nearly double that of people in London, Seoul, and Bucharest who get connections nearly eight times faster.  In fact, the internet connection speed in America is ranked 30th in the world.  How did this happen?

Most American cities lack the basic infrastructure to support internet speeds that can keep pace with global internet standards. Did you know that, the majority of counties in American cities have 2 ISPs to choose from and some only have one?  And, it doesn’t help that the FCC definition of an Internet Service Provider (ISP) is delivering 4 megabytes per second (a snail pace) which creates little incentive for ISPs to drop their prices and improve services.  In fact, the Major American ISPs have invested 26% less in upgrading their infrastructure than they have in the previous seven years.

With Internet connection becoming increasingly important for employment, healthcare, and education; Americans are using more bandwidth every day, so much so, that the shared cable network business model that Major American ISPs use makes no good BUSINESS sense at all.  Because if we as a country, want to continue to participate or lead in global innovation, we need to make sure that ALL our people have access to the best internet infrastructure.

And this is why many cities across America are now taking matters into their own hands and starting to install their own Fiber Optic networks as part of their economic development initiatives.  Cities such as, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Bristol, Virginia, Lafayette, Louisiana, Cedar Falls, Iowa, and Wilson, North Carolina all have chosen to create their own municipal internet services to compete with the major American ISPs.  These networks are the most expensive over the short-term, but the safest investment in Americas future in the long-term.

For example, Chattanooga rolled out their fiber-optic network a few years ago and now offers speeds of up to 1000 Megabits per second, for just $70 a month. A cheaper 100 Megabit plan costs $58 a month; slowest plan is still years ahead of the average American internet connection speed.  Right now, only a few American cities have superfast fiber-optic networks.  However, I think it will be exciting to see cities across America join the fight to deploy networks that help Americans to lead and continue to participate in the global economy.

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