Tuesday Morning Male Beauty

 

Will Corporations Face a Reckoning?

Historically, large corporations are paying less in taxes than at any point in the last 50 plus years and some paid no federal taxes last year despite billions of dollars in revenue.  Meanwhile, corporate CEO salaries have become obscene even when their corporations are losing money while employee wages have stagnated.  The situation is reminiscent of the Gilded Age with its robber barons.  Corporate leadership seemingly has forgotten that Gilded Age excesses lead to the so-called Progressive Age when tax policy went after both large corporations and the obscenely wealthy.   As the Biden administration rolls out its infrastructure and reinvestment plan, there is much popular support for raising taxes on the rich and corporations that pay little to support the nation.  A column in the Washington Post looks at the situation and a possible reckoning that might lie ahead.  Here are highlights: 

Corporations have talked a good game when it comes to civic responsibility. After the Black Lives Matter protests last year, we heard vows to diversify and paeans to racial justice. The Business Roundtable in 2019 declared that the obligations of a corporation went beyond shareholders and included customers, employers, suppliers and society at large. However, their devotion to short-term profits and tone-deafness to the threats to a democracy from extreme economic inequality have not abated. In the wake of two recessions and a pandemic, a reckoning may be coming.

Corporations got a huge windfall in the past four years, seeing their tax rate plunge from 35 to 21 percent as part of Trump’s 2017 tax bill. More than 50 of the country’s largest corporations paid no tax whatsoever in 2020. Stock buybacks soared in the immediate aftermath of the tax cuts (then fell dramatically early in 2020, before they began to rebound toward the end of the year). After the pandemic struck, corporations reaped hundreds of billions in bailout moneys.

Moreover, as the New York Times reports, despite massive losses “at many of the companies hit hardest by the pandemic, the executives in charge were showered with riches.” When Boeing loses $12 billion amid the 737 Max debacle but its CEO makes $21 million, or the hospitality industry sheds workers and suffers tens of billions in losses but CEOs make seven-figure salaries, Americans understandably think something is amiss.

And yet when the Biden administration proposes a modest increase in corporate taxes to 28 percent, these same corporate leaders warn about dire economic consequences. If only the 2017 tax cuts had resulted in long-term growth and narrowing of the gap between CEO and average worker compensation, they might have a leg to stand on.

When Georgia passes a bill, motivated by false claims of voter fraud, to make access to the polls more difficult, corporations have to be dragged by threats of boycott to issue bland platitudes in support of democracy. After promising to end donations to politicians who voted to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, some corporations quietly reneged and resumed their donations to those same Republicans.

It should come as no surprise then that average Americans are ready to curb the excesses of corporate greed. The most recent Post-ABC News poll shows Americans favor President Biden’s infrastructure plan by a margin of 52 to 35 percent. However, raising the corporate tax rate is even more popular; 58 percent approve while 36 percent disapprove.

However, they have yet to make good on the promise to end exclusive focus on short-term shareholder gains, diversify corporate ranks and pay their fair share of taxes. In 1952, corporate taxes were 32 percent of federal revenue; in 2013 that share was down to 10 percent. By 2019, corporations contributed only 6.6 percent of federal revenue.

If corporations do not exercise self-restraint and translate platitudes into action, you can bet on a political reckoning. If corporations want to stave off a true populist rebellion, they should consider some self-imposed constraints including significant limits on CEO pay in years of layoffs and economic losses; a permanent cutoff of contributions to anti-democracy politicians; an action plan to support voting rights that includes paid time off to vote, lobbying for the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and ending financial support for state and federal lawmakers who push legislation that harks back to the days of Jim Crow; and an end to their histrionic opposition to any corporate tax hike.

Corporate leaders would do well to remember that after the Gilded Age in which corporations amassed unprecedented wealth and power, the Progressive Era initiated an era of reform, government regulation and greater concern for what we used to identify as the “common good.” Corporations can be productive participants in a similar transition or they can get trampled in the rush to achieve economic, political and racial equality. So far, they do not seem to grasp the magnitude of the reckoning already underway.

More Monday Male Beauty

 

Why the Country Needs a Jan. 6 Commission

In the past I have argued that one cannot be a decent and moral person and be a Republican - at least today's version of the GOP.  Now, I would argue that one cannot be a true American patriot and support the U.S. Constitution given the ongoing Republican effort to maintain Trump's "big lie" that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" and the ongoing GOP efforts to lie and deflect objective facts that show that (i) Trump bore direct responsibility for the sacking of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and (ii) the ransacking insurrectionist were exclusory far right and Trump supporting extremists.  House minority leader Kevin McCarthy is a case in point. A main editorial in the Washington Post makes the case as to why a special commission with compulsory subpoena powers is needed to investigate the January 6th insurrection, Trump's role in it, and the coordination of white nationalist and Christofascist extremist groups.  I'd go further and argue that if the commission were to find Trump - and other Republican elected officials - were involved, they need to be tried, convicted and punished to the maximum extent the law allows;  Here are editorial highlights:

IT HAS been less than four months since a murderous mob ransacked the Capitol in an effort to overturn a free and fair election, goaded on by then-President Donald Trump. This horror should have forced a national reckoning. Instead, a depressing number of senior Republicans continue to defend Mr. Trump and play down the events of Jan. 6, even as the party blocks creation of a bipartisan commission to examine the event.

Case in point is House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), himself a key witness to what occurred Jan. 6, and who now appears more interested in preserving his relationship with the former president than in acknowledging a national tragedy for what it was: mob violence encouraged by the one-time — and possibly future — leader of his party. Mr. McCarthy claimed on “Fox News Sunday” that Mr. Trump did not know about the riot before Mr. McCarthy called him, and that the then-president concluded the call saying that he would move to end the attack — a step Mr. Trump did not take until after the violence had peaked, and even then only halfheartedly.

“The statement contradicted McCarthy’s initial response to Trump’s role in the attack and a fellow GOP lawmaker’s recollection of what had been a tense call between McCarthy and Trump,” The Post’s Amy B Wang and Marianna Sotomayor noted. “In addition, one Trump adviser told The Washington Post that the then-president had been watching live television coverage of the riot, as multiple people were trying to reach Trump and his aides to beg for help.” According to one lawmaker’s account, Mr. Trump said to Mr. McCarthy, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.” The minority leader on Sunday refused to answer directly a question about that reported exchange.

Mr. McCarthy’s squirming shows why the country needs a Jan. 6 commission fully empowered to subpoena witnesses and take testimony under oath. Such a panel could establish the definitive timeline of what [Trump] the president knew — and when — by interviewing members of Congress, White House aides and others. It could examine any connections between Trump associates and the riot’s perpetrators, the Pentagon’s role, coordination among rioters during the ransacking and other questions.

Perhaps Mr. McCarthy and other Republicans fear exposing their party’s complicity. This may be why they have dragged their feet on establishing a Jan. 6 commission, insisting that any such panel also investigate far-left antifa violence unrelated to the Jan. 6 insurrection. Drawing this false equivalence would play down the significance of the Capitol’s desecration and the attempted negation of a democratic election.

Republicans should drop their unreasonable demands about the commission’s scope — and stop trying to whitewash history on behalf of their disgraced former leader.

If guilty of insurrection and treason, Trump should receive the maximum sentence allowable. 

Monday Morning Male Beauty

 

European Union: Vaccinated Americans Can Visit This Summer

In addition to a sense of increased safety and an increased hope for a return to normalcy, the European Union has announced that fully vaccinated Americans will be allowed to travel to member European nations this summer.  As long time readers know, the husband and I love to travel.  The Covid-19 pandemic has cause us to have trips and cruises canceled in both 2020 and 2021 and we now hope for a European trip in 2022.   For 2021 we are resigned to domestic travel: a beach house rental in late June to make up for a canceled family cruise, a small family wedding in New York State in July and a holiday season trip to Fort Lauderdale. Sadly, I doubt that the chance for European travel will convince many vaccine resisting Republican extremists and ignorance embracing evangelicals  to get immediately vaccinated, but with luck seeing others enjoy more freedoms will apply needed pressure.  A piece in New York Magazine looks at the EU announcement.  Here are highlights:

After a year of nonessential travel from the United States coming to a halt amid the pandemic, the top executive of the European Union said in an interview on Sunday that fully vaccinated American tourists can visit the bloc this summer.

“The Americans, as far as I can see, use European Medicines Agency-approved vaccines,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, told the New York Times, referring to the public-health regulator which has approved the Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson shots. She added that “all 27 member states will accept, unconditionally, all those who are vaccinated with vaccines that are approved by E.M.A.”

[H]er comments suggest that travel to the European Union will soon change from state-based restrictions to those based on vaccine status. Already, the EU is developing a program of “digital green certificates,” which will function as vaccine passports within the bloc. According to the Times, “technical discussions have been going on for several weeks between European Union and United States officials on how to practically and technologically make vaccine certificates from each place broadly readable so that citizens can use them to travel without restrictions.” Such a program would be a departure from domestic travel in the United States, where the Biden administration ruled out the possibility of a vaccine passport program earlier this month.

The announcement is a big step toward normalcy for Americans who can afford to travel to Europe — and a serious economic boost for local economies reliant on tourism. But it also reinforces the severe, artificial inequality of vaccine access between the nations which have secured millions of doses and those which are left to wait as wealthy countries refuse to share both supply and manufacturing technology. 

As of late April, just two percent of all vaccines administered globally had been administered in Africa, a continent which represents more than 16 percent of the world’s population.

American Police Are Inadequately Trained

Like in many other areas - e.g., child education where teachers are typically underpaid and schools underfunded - America skimps on funding of its police forces, particularly in the area of training in comparison to other advanced wealthy nations. Worse yet, there are no uniform standards, psychological background checks are often deficient, and there is no national data base that follows "bad cops" to warn other departments to think twice before hiring applicants who have past disciplinary problems.  Throw in the more recent militarization of police forces and it's little wonder America has a police crisis compared to its advance nation peers.  Defunding the police would only make the problem worse since training would likely be a target for budget cuts.   We could learn much from what Republicans derisively call "Old Europe" where training is far superior.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at this problem.  Here are excerpts:

Police in the United States receive less initial training than their counterparts in other rich countries—about five months in a classroom and another three or so months in the field, on average. Many European nations, meanwhile, have something more akin to police universities, which can take three or four years to complete. European countries also have national standards for various elements of a police officer’s job—such as how to search a car and when to use a baton. The U.S. does not.

The 18,000 police departments in the U.S. each have their own rules and requirements. But although police reform is a contentious subject, the inadequacy of the current training provides a rare point of relative consensus: “Police officers, police chiefs, and everyone agree that we do not get enough training in a myriad of fields,” Dennis Slocumb, the legislative director of the International Union of Police Associations, told me.

The mix of instruction given in police academies speaks volumes about their priorities. The median police recruit receives eight hours of de-escalation training, compared with 58 hours of training in firearms, according to the Police Executive Research Forum, a think tank for police executives. But despite the initial focus on firearms, American police don’t receive much ongoing weapons training, either. Slocumb said that when he was an officer in the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, pistol requalification went from happening once every 30 days to four times a year, and then to three times a year. “That’s not because the sheriff or anyone else wants us to become less proficient,” he said. “It’s just a financial consideration.”

Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown University law professor, trained as a reserve police officer in Washington, D.C, while writing a book. . . . . American police training resembles military training—“polish your boots, do push-ups, speak when you’re spoken to,” Brooks told me. In an article for The Atlantic last year, she described practicing drills and standing at attention when senior officers entered the room. “I don’t think I’ve been yelled at as much since high-school gym class more than three decades ago,” she wrote. Reformers worry that this type of training teaches recruits that the world runs on strict power hierarchies, and that anything short of perfect compliance should be met with force and anger.

Many policing experts recommend that officers be trained to slow down when they are able to do so, giving themselves time to decide the best course of action. “Police are taught in the academy [that] police always have to win,” says Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum. But sometimes it’s okay not to win, particularly if it means saving a life.

“So many of these bad cases are a result of an officer incorrectly perceiving a threat,” says Sue Rahr, the former sheriff of King County, Washington, who now serves as an adviser to police-reform organizations. Rahr has developed a method to train recruits to be courteous, show empathy, explain their actions, and preserve everyone’s dignity. Police should be trained “to be sympathetic, to be guardians, rather than warriors,” Wexler says.

That might mean adding new subjects to the curriculum. Few American officers receive much education about the history of policing or the role of police in a democratic society. “The officer coming out of one of the European training programs, he’s much more likely to have a much broader perspective on what the job is, what your role is, what your society is like, how do you fit into it,” says David Harris, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh. “Those things are just not really part of what’s going on in most American police-training programs.”

American police academies are also light on training in “soft skills,” such as how to communicate or use emotional intelligence to see a situation clearly. “We didn’t talk about any of what you might call the big issues in policing: race and policing, policing and excessive force, what is good policing?” Brooks said.

New officers are often paired with field-training officers, but many of those officers learned the wrong techniques themselves, and are passing them along to their trainees. Derek Chauvin, who was convicted on Tuesday of murder, was acting as a field-training officer when he killed George Floyd. Kim Potter, who shouted “Taser! Taser! Taser!” before fatally shooting Daunte Wright with her pistol last week, was also acting as a field-training officer at the time.

The Marshall Project recently looked at 10 big-city police departments and found that most allow officers who have faced allegations of aggressive behavior to become trainers; one academic study found that officers whose trainers had a history of citizen complaints were more likely to draw complaints themselves in their first two years on the job.

Better training alone can’t solve every problem with American policing. But because officers are licensed to use force against their fellow citizens, they should at least be equipped to use it wisely.

More Sunday Male Beauty

 

The Republican Party's Continuing Racism

A new CBS News poll finds that 75% of Americans agree with the jury verdict in which former police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murder in the death of George Floyd.  The exception?  Republicans, 46% of whom disagreed with the verdict notwithstanding that the trial proceedings were televised, ample video evidence showed Chauvin's actions through the entire time he restricted Floyd's breathing, numerous police official testified for the prosecution and against Chauvin, and ample medical evidence tied Chauvin as a cause of Floyd's death.  It is difficult to come up with any basis for such disapproval other than racism and a tribal mindset where one stands up for a fellow white against those who are different.  Here are highlights from the poll findings:

Three in four Americans think the jury reached the right verdict in which former police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murder in the death of George Floyd, a majority view that spans across all racial, age and partisan groups.

Most White and Black Americans share the view that the jury reached the right verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the police officer found guilty on all three counts in the death of George Floyd. Americans — both young and old —— within these racial groups agree with the verdict.  

Reaction to the verdict among White Americans is largely related to partisanship. White Democrats overwhelmingly think the jury reached the right verdict, while White Republicans, like Republicans overall, are more divided. 

The smaller portion of Americans — 25% —  who believe the jury reached the wrong verdict strongly disagree with the ideas of the Black Lives Matter movement. This group is composed of more men than women, is disproportionately White and they mostly identify as conservative. 

President Biden, who has called the verdict a step forward, gets a 60% approval rating for his general handling of matters surrounding George Floyd's death and Chauvin's trial. This is similar to his overall job rating as he closes in on 100 days in office. 

Sunday Morning Male Beauty