Mountain Views News          Saturday, April 16, 2011

13

OPINION

 Mountain Views News Saturday, April 16, 2011 

STUART Tolchin..........On LIFE

HAIL Hamilton My Turn

Mountain 
Views

News

Publisher/ Editor

Susan Henderson

City Editor

Dean Lee 

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Patricia Colonello

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Richard Garcia

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Lina Johnson

Chris Bertrand

Contributors

Teresa Baxter

Pat Birdsall

Bob Eklund

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Stuart Tolchin

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Hail Hamilton 

Rich Johnson

Chris Bertrand

Mary Carney

La Quetta Shamblee

Glenn Lambdin

Greg Wellborn

Ralph McKnight

Trish Collins

Pat Ostrye

Dorothy White

Webmaster

John Aveny 


SURVIVING

EXPORTING JOBS AND IMPORTING 
WORKERS IS BAD FOR AMERICA

 
As I opened my car door this morning and 
walked out the driver’s door into the street, I 
felt relieved that it was exactly nine o’ clock 
and I could park for free. I was still aware of 
this pleasant feeling as I clutched my files and 
books in both hands and suddenly felt myself 
falling head first onto the concrete. I had no 
free hands to break my fall and I smashed face-
first onto the street. Cars whizzed past me just barely missing 
my prone body and I kind of remember thinking about Johnny 
Wooden and Chick Hearn and my mother, all older people who 
had fallen and injured themselves shortly before their death.

 Death has been on my mind lately as my mom only recently 
passed away and now one of my oldest friends, a friend of about 
fifty-five years, is fighting what seems to be a losing battle against 
brain cancer. Really, I thought of all this as I lay face down on the 
street. My right knee hurt and my glasses had smashed into the 
street and now were some distance away from me. I felt the pain 
in my leg and wondered if my mother would be angry at me for 
ripping my pants. Of course I realized all at once that my mother 
would not be around to and I sort of laughed to myself. Crazy as 
this sounds, I think this is what I experienced as I noticed people 
running towards me from the bus bench and then all at once a car 
screeched to a stop and the driver leaped out and ran towards me. 
All these people seemed to be talking at me in different languages 
but together they helped me up and someone gathered my stuff 
and placed it all on top of the car.

 I heard myself saying gracias and I’m okay and now I recall 
shaking people’s hands. I stated walking towards the Court and 
my knee hurt but my pants weren’t ripped and I actually glanced 
up toward the sky and kind of chuckled wondering if my mom 
noticed. As I went through the x-ray machines at the door to 
the Courthouse one of the Public Defenders said hello and asked 
what was wrong. I guess I still looked pretty weird. I told her I 
had fallen on to my face and kind of cracked my glasses. She said 
how lucky I was not to have broken my wrists as I fell and all at 
once my whole attitude changed. I was in the present and feeling 
fortunate. I looked at her and noticed she didn’t look quite right 
and asked, “How are you?” As we waited for the elevator she told 
me that she was due to have back surgery on Friday and that her 
discs were to be fused and she was scared.

 The elevator came and we went to our respective floors. I was left 
with a feeling of great compassion for her and for the people who 
had helped me after I had fallen. All of us seemingly disconnected 
people are joined somewhere deep in our unconscious and jointly 
we take care of one another. We live our stressful overburdened 
lives struggling through the mazes of our responsibilities and fears. 
Sometimes we’re in the present, sometimes we’re not, but usually 
most of us have the feeling that we are pretty well-camouflaged 
and that we appear sane to the outside world. Sure it’s a mask and 
inside we all struggle with our bills, our relationships, our health, 
our powerlessness and our denials. STILL LIFE IS NOT SO BAD. 
Believe it or not, I think the thing that keeps many of us going is 
the realization that we are loved. 

 LOVED—by whom? That’s the surprise; I think we are loved 
by everyone. Really we all want to help one another, to show each 
other the way. I think this is the secret part of being human.

 I don’t pretend to really know what I’m talking about but I do 
the best I can. I think that’s what we humans owe to one another 
and I think that is the real secret of our survival. David Brooks 
speculated in his New York Times column this week that the ability 
of man to evolve and survive is not about a competition and a 
battle for the fittest to survive. Instead it is about cooperation and 
learning together and joint efforts. Surprise - well it’s something 
worth thinking about and more importantly, it’s something to act 
upon. We all need all the help that we can get and probably feel 
best when we give all the help we can give. 

 Who’s brilliant idea 
was it that exporting jobs 
and importing workers 
was going to go our way 
in the long run? Why on 
earth would anyone ever 
start this self-defeating 
strategy? It’s a lose-lose proposition and anyone 
with any sense at all can see that. Making 
money by outsourcing is no way to build an 
economic base. It’s a quick cheap buck; but 
you’re selling the farm to get it. Shame on the 
corporations who are taking part in this. Yes, 
you will make more money in the short term, 
but you will crush your nation in the process.

My advice: 

1. Dump the failed, utterly discredited 
economic policy of “globalism.” It is an 
outright ripoff by the rich to steal from the 
middle class; it is a cold-hearted scam that 
will make workers forever indebted to the 
wealthy, and the poor permanent wards of 
the state. The World Trade Organization 
should be abolished and GATT and NAFTA 
repealed. 

2. Outlaw the exporting of jobs by not allowing 
those companies to sell back to the 
U.S. citizen if they take the work overseas. 
Ban the importing of goods from China 
or elsewhere which are also made by 
American industry. Americans should and 
would pay a few dollars more now so they 
can have a future. The other way does not, 
and will never, work.

3. Also, I’m willing to pay a dollar more 
for my container of strawberries so that 
an American can have an honest job and 
not some exploited illegal immigrant; and 
the money stays in our country. I’ll spend 
it because I know that the money is coming 
back around -- unlike the system we 
have now.

4. Want to win the war on terror? Don’t 
buy anymore oil from the Middle East or 
its OPEC partners. We have plenty here 
-- at least for the foreseeable future, and 
it will force us to finally find a better way 
to power our society. That’s the only way 
to win, and we don’t have to buy another 
tank, missile or fighter jet for the cause. 
Again, money is going out that will not 
come back.

 Look at how much it costs us to buy oil 
from OPEC, including spending more than 
$1.2 trillion on the Iraq and Afghanistan 
wars (now estimated to ultimately cost $4 to 
$6 trillion), and they hate us to boot.

 Common sense stuff here, and it scares 
me that it’s not getting done. We are and 
have been leveled as an economic power because 
of these selfish and misguided policies 
-- policies that in the long run only benefit 
the extremely wealthy one percent of our 
population.

 Tell me why outsourcing our jobs is better 
than keeping them here? Tell me how 
losing 2.5 million manufacturing jobs and 
more than 850,000 professional service and 
information sector jobs since 2001 helps the 
middle class over the long haul? 

 Explain to me why my tax dollars are being 
spent to subsidize sending American jobs 
overseas and importing millions of foreigners 
-- particularly scientists and engineers -- 
to replace American workers at home? 

 I just don’t get it. I can’t grasp the fact that 
the United States is intentionally being transformed 
into a third world country where a 
tiny minority owns everything worth owning. 
Currently nearly seventy percent of the 
nation’s wealth is owned by the wealthiest 
one percent of the population. As a result we 
have become a nation of debtors. And this 
figure doesn’t include foreign ownership of 
American assets.

 My recollection is outsourcing was considered 
a good thing 30 years ago, about 
the same time that supply-side Reaganomics 
took hold on the American psyche. It is 
still considered a viable way to lower labor 
and production costs. Since then the official 
mantra of both Republicans and Democrats 
has been to deregulate financial markets, cut 
taxes for the wealthy, outsource high paying 
jobs, and import low cost labor.

 The end result is the powers that be have 
succeeded in dismantling most of our industrial 
base (except, of course, the manufacture 
of increasingly deadly weapons of war) and 
creating a largely service economy. Americans 
are no longer producers; we are merely 
consumers.

 As someone who will soon become a senior 
citizen, I have seen what has happened 
to America the last three decades and so I 
know what works and what doesn’t work. 
Exporting jobs and importing workers simply 
doesn’t work -- it’s bad for Americans 
and it’s bad for America.

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SENSE OR NONSENSE?! - 

Some Actions/Statements on County, 
State and Federal Issues Made Recently 
By Our Elected Officials:

From Supervisor Michael Antonovich on Federal Reimbursements 
To Counties:

“Shortchanging county taxpayers for the jail costs of criminal illegal 
aliens illustrates the federal government’s ‘don’t-give-a-damn’ 
attitude when it comes to reimbursing local governments for illegal 
immigration,” said Los Angeles County Mayor Michael D. 
Antonovich on the passage of Continuing Resolution H.R. 1473. 

“The federal government’s reimbursement is critical to the county 
-- but $11.8 million PALES in comparison to the $550 million 
in public safety costs provided by the county taxpayer for illegal 
immigration,” he added. “Without full reimbursement, county 
budgets are stretched to the breaking point.” 

“In addition to the $550 million for public safety, the Los Angeles 
County taxpayer is responsible for another $500 million for 
healthcare and $625 million in welfare benefits and food stamps 
for native-born children of illegal immigrants -- totaling over $1.6 
billion dollars a year, not including the hundreds of millions of 
dollars for education.” 

Curbing Bad Behavior:

Real Sports by Ron Carter

 
“Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel” is arguably one of the best 
sports show on television. Bryant and his colleagues usually 
produce some of today’s most controversial, well executed and 
newsworthy issues in sports. The recent episode of “Real Sports” 
which centered around the question, “should college athletes 
be paid for playing sports?” though provocative was also a cautionary 
debate of what’s wrong with the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s 
(NCAA) policy regarding compensating college athletes. The round-table discussion 
with guests Billy Packer, college basketball analyst; Rich Rodriguez, former football 
coach of University of Michigan; Jason Whitlock, sports journalist; Jeffrey Orleans, 
former commissioner of the Ivy League and Gumbel was spirited and informative, 
but it left a few questions unanswered.

Packer and Rodriguez were against paying college athletes while Gumbel, Whitlock 
and Orleans were in favor of paying the athletes. College athletes are fueling a multi-
BILLION DOLLARS industry, college sports, which do not compensate them fairly 
for the billions of dollars and notoriety they bring to their schools. Most of the athletes 
recruited to play college sports are from poor and middle class families. Thus, 
the opportunity to play college sports and eventually have a professional sports career 
is alluring to the recruits. The question is, “are they prepared to take advantage of the 
opportunity,” asked Jason Whitlock. I believe that most of them are not. 

I also believe that the statement made by Bernard Goldberg, a regular journalist on 
“Real Sports” who was assigned to conduct the interviews for the episode, was the 
most poignant remark. He intimated that the NCAA has a great business model as a 
matter of fact it’s the “only one” of its kind in America. The model is ”you make billions 
of dollars, but you don’t have to pay the employees anything.” The colleges make 
hundreds of millions of dollars, the coaches make millions and the athletes, some of 
them, cannot even afford food and the opportunity to visit their families at the end of 
the football season.

Though the NCAA is a benevolent institution, it must do more financially for its college 
athletes. It’s one of the only ways to eliminate some of the bad behavior (cheating 
and grafting) that is taking place in college sports. After all, college students studying 
other professions are allowed to make money while in college, why shouldn’t college 
athletes have the same opportunities.

Ron Carter is the Managing Director of the Carter Agency in Pasadena. He hosts a blog 
called: Curbing Bad Behavior that discusses a variety of topics. Go to: www.thecarteragency.
com/blog/

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly and 
California Legislators Head to 
Texas for Governing Tips?!

 Assemblymember Anthony Portantino’s 
measure to freeze the pay of 
California’s highest paid employees 
has been put on hold in the Assembly, 
despite a looming state budget deficit 
of $15 billion dollars.

 AB 7 calls for a two-year freeze 
on state employees who earn over 
$150,000 per year. Today in Assembly 
Appropriations, Portantino (D-La Cañada 
Flintridge) introduced amendments 
to reduce the salary threshold 
to $100,000 – meaning thousands 
more state employees would be subject 
to the salary and bonus freeze.

 “It is unacceptable to be giving raises 
and bonuses when we are still struggling 
with a budget deficit in the billions 
and one of the highest unemployment 
rates in the nation,” stated 
Assemblymember Portantino. “Over 
the past three years, my bills on this 
issue have been held on “Suspense” in 
this committee because I was told they 
would not save money. Let’s reduce the 
salary amount and see how much more 
we can save over the next 24 months. If 
President Obama can freeze the salaries 
of White House employees making 
$100,000 or more, why can’t we do 
the same here in California?”

 According to the State Controller, 
some 3, 300 state employees could be 
affected by the bill and more if University 
of California employees are 
included. The potential savings would 
be in the tens of millions. While it is 
not binding for the University of California, 
the measure urges the Regents 
to adopt the policy for UC employees. 

 In 2009, virtually all of CalPERS 
investment managers were awarded 
bonuses of more than $10,000 each 
with several earning bonuses of more 
than $100,000. The cash awards were 
distributed even as the fund lost $59 
billion. 

 Despite record losses in 2008, CalSTRS 
gave an incentive award of 
$208,677 to a chief investment officer 
who had a base pay of $330,000 

 “If we are serious about saving money, 
then this legislation sends a clear 
message that California needs to prioritize 
its limited resources and rein-
in spending, testified Portantino. “It 
makes no sense for CalPERS money 
managers to get raises when cities 
and schools are looking at large cuts. 
It’s unconscionable that this bill does 
not move to the floor for immediate 
action.”

 As with previous versions of this bill, 
public safety employees and employees 
covered by contracts would be 
exempt.

Portantino’s Bill to Freeze Salaries of 
State’s Highest Paid Workers Sacramento 
- Shelved For the seventh time

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