EFTA01197678

From: Gregory Broom a To: undisclosed-recipients:; Bcc: jecvacation@gnail.com Subject: .Greg Brown's Weekend Reading and Other Things.... 10/05/2014 Date: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 07:14:20 +0000 Attachments: Clean_Energy_ls_a_100_Percent_American_Success_Story_Mark_Ruffalo_Huff Post_09_17_2014.docx; Here_Are_The_Richest_And_Poorest_Big_Cities_ln_America_Huff Post_Sept._18,_2-14.docx; NeverOnce_Have_l Imagined_My_Daughters_Ever Going_ToPrisonRussellSimmons-Huff Post_09.17.2014.docx; RussellSimmons_bio.docx; Theisley_Brothas_bio.docx; Hong_Kong_Protests,_WhatYouNeedtoKnowAbout theUmbrellaRevolutionienni_Ryall__USNews0929_2014.docx; InFarewell_Specch,_1CarzaiCalls_AmericanMissioninAfghanistan_a__Betrayal_Rod__NorwordNYT_092314.docx; Hiring_rebounds_inSeptember,_unemployment_rate_falLs_to5.9_percanYlan_Q._Mui_TWPOctober_3,_2014.docx Inline-Images: image.png; image(1).png; image(2).png; image(3).png; image(4).png; image(5).png; image(6).png; image(7).png; image(8).pn image(9).png DEAR FRIEND Why Money Doesn't Trickle Down A worker in McDonald near Wall St. hands a hash brown to a customer. (Credit: Charina Nadura) The fundamental law of capitalism is: When workers have more money, businesses have more customers. Which makes middle-class consumers — not rich businesspeople — the true job creators. A thriving middle class isn't a consequence of growth — which is what the trickle-down advocates would tell you. A thriving middle class is the source of growth and prosperity in capitalist economies. Our economy has changed, lest you think that the minimum wage is for teenagers. The average age of a fast-food worker is 28. And minimum wage jobs aren't confined to a small corner of the economy. By 2040, it is estimated that 48 percent of all American jobs will be low-wage service jobs. We need to reckon with this. What will our economy be like when it's dominated by low paying service jobs? What proportion of the population do we want to live on food stamps? 5o percent? Does this matter? Should we care? Business people tell me they cannot afford higher wages. Not true. They can adjust to all sorts of higher costs. The minimum wage is much higher here in Seattle than in Alabama, and McDonald's thrives in both places. Businesses adjust to higher costs, even when they say they can't. Our economy can be safe and effective only if it is governed by rules. Some capitalists actually don't care about other people, their communities or the future. Their behavior, if left unchecked, has a massive effect on everyone else. When Wal-Mart or McDonald's or any other guy like me pays workers the minimum wage, that's our way of saying,1would pay you less, except thenEgo to prison." A thriving middle class is the source of growth and prosperity in capitalist economies. Which brings us to the civic dimension of what the campaign to raise the minimum wage to Sts is really about. We're undeniably becoming a more unequal society— in incomes and in opportunity. The danger is that economic inequality always begets political inequality, which always begets more economic inequality. Low-wage workers stuck on a path to poverty are not only weak customers; they're also anemic taxpayers, absent citizens and inattentive neighbors. Economic prosperity doesn't trickle down, and neither does civic prosperity. Both are middle-out phenomena. When workers earn enough from one job to live on, they are far more likely to be contributors to civic prosperity — in your community. Parents who need only one job, not two or three to get by, can be available to help their kids with homework and keep them out of trouble — in your school. They can look out for you and your neighbors, volunteer, and contribute — in your school and church. Our prosperity does not all come home in our paycheck Living in a community of people who are paid enough to contribute to your community, rather than require its help, may be more important than your salary. Prosperity and poverty are like viruses. They infect us all — for good or ill. An economic arrangement that pays a Wall Street worker tens of millions of dollars per year to do high-frequency trading and pays just tens of thousands to workers who grow or serve our food, build our homes, educate our children, or risk their lives to protect us isn't an expression of the true value or economic necessity of these jobs. It simply reflects a difference in bargaining power and status. We're undeniably becoming a more unequal society — in incomes and in opportunity. Inclusive economies always outperform and outlast plutocracies. That's why investments in the middle class work, and tax breaks for the rich don't. The oldest and most important conflict in human societies is the battle over the concentration of wealth and power. Those at the top will forever tell those at the bottom that our EFTA01197678 respective positions are righteous and good for all. Historically we called that divine right. Today we have trickle-down economics. The trickle-down explanation for economic growth holds that the richer the rich get, the better our economy does. But it also clearly implies that if the poor get poorer, that must be good for our economy. Nonsense. Some of the people who benefit most from that explanation are desperate for you to believe this is the only way a capitalist economy can work. At the end of the day, raising the minimum wage to Us isn't about just rejecting their version of capitalism. It's about replacing it with one that works for every American. 44141,.. If you were paying attention to the news two weekends ago, you read or heard about the People's Climate March. It was a genuinely big deal. Organizers say the turnout in New York City, with more than 310,000 people, was four times larger than any climate change march that came before it. The reason it happened on this week has to do with the United Nations Climate Summit — also in New York, and also a first of its kind as the largest gathering of world leaders yet on climate policy. Despite bringing attention to a position that is embraced by more than ninety per cent of the world's scientists, the People's Climate March, which took place on Sunday in New York City, left a broad majority of the nation's idiots unconvinced. "Look, if hundreds of thousands ofpeople want to march about something, it's a free country,"said Carol Foyler, an idiot from Kenosha, Wisconsin. "But let me ask them something: if the climate is really getting warmer, why was it so cold up here last winter?" Harland Dorrinson, an idiot from Hollywood, Florida, was also unmoved by the message of Sundays march. "What these marchers don't realize is that the planet goes through natural cycles ofheating and cooling,"he said. "Blaming peoplefor global warming is like blaming dinosaursfor the ice age." Skepticism about scientists characterized many of the idiots' remarks, including those of Tracy laugian, of Albuquerque, New Mexico. "Those marchers are holding signs that say Scientists this, scientists that "he said. "Well, how can scientists be sure that the Earth was colder thousands ofyears ago, when no one had invented a thermometer?" Klugian said he was confident that, despite the impressive numbers for Sunday's march, idiots would prevail in the ongoing climate-change debate. "At the end ofthe day, there are more people like us in Congress,"he said. Then last week in New York City, the UN Climate Summit brought heads of state, business community leaders and activists together to push for action to protect our planet from climate change. More than 12o heads of state, NGOs, and businesses will meet. Their goal, basically, is to feel each other out about progress on climate change and encourage one another to make new commitments. People are watching the summit closely, not just for all the speeches and celebrity power, but also because it tells us something about the groundwork being laid for a big international treaty — something environmentalists hope world leaders can reach by the end of 2015. What can be said concerning the flood of climate events is that the world is both in its strongest position in years to take on climate change, but remains saddled with the familiar challenges. Mobilization and activism around the issue are at unprecedented levels. And the U.S. has renewed commitment to greenhouse gas initiatives, while China has indicated it will begin tackling coal pollution more seriously. However, the failure of a major international program, the Green Climate Fund, to meet its target for funding suggests that richer countries are not willing to provide poorer ones with the help they need. And if poorer countries can't get help from richer countries — who, after all, did so much to create the greenhouse gas problem we have today—it's going to be hard for poor countries to do their part now. Just as the big Sunday People's Climate March and last week's UN global summit on climate converge in New York City, the nation and world are experiencing weather of an intensity that should rattle the stubborn false convictions of even the most fervent climate change denier. Terrible flooding in India and Pakistan, the worst in more than a century, with heavy monsoon rains, so° lives lost and hundreds of thousands left stranded... thousands of wildfires ignited by severe drought in California and the West... flashfloods in Arizona... the punch of a hurricane pounding Mexico's Baja coast, the strongest in nearly so years, battering locals and trapping tourists in their hotels without electricity. Of course it's important not to confuse day-to-day weather patterns with climate, which measure variations of things like temperatures and humidity over long periods of time, but it's dear that these disasters are made more powerful by global warming. The pain is only going to get worse for us and for future generations, unless we act now. Our governments must reduce those carbon emissions that are heating up the atmosphere before it's too late. EFTA01197679 But up to now, world leaders have refused to give global warming the crisis treatment that's needed, even as the evidence mounts day by day. A draft report front the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that the vast amounts of greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere will have "severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts,"and that we're already seeing the effect in heat waves, floods and rising sea levels. Another UN report, this one from the World Meteorological Organization, says that amounts of carbon dioxide -- the gas that traps heat in our atmosphere -- are increasing even faster than scientists predicted, more than in the last 800,000 years at least. The accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers has crunched the numbers and spots an "unmistakable trend"that puts us just 20 years away from catastrophe. "In a highly globefixed economy,"they write, no country is likely to be spared as the impacts of climate change ripple around the world..." If for some reason you don't believe the scientists and the accountants, listen to the birds. Last week, the National Audubon Society reported that of some 650 bird species studied in the United States and Canada, "more than halfare... at riskfrom global warming." The study's chief author, Gary Langliam, told The New York Times, "The notion that we can have afuture that looks like what our grandparents experienced, with the birds they had, is unlikely." Imagine a world without birdsong. But climate change deniers persist in telling us it just not so, like the tobacco industry claiming for decade after decade that nicotine wasn't addictive or that cigarettes couldn't kill you. It's been more than a decade since Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, once chair of the US Senate's committee on the environment and public works, told us that "man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." Ile still says he thinks so and so do many of his allies. Slick public relations and advertising campaigns are underwritten to fool the public and smear the truthtellers. Foundations and think tanks have been created by industry just to create doubt and hammer away against the overwhelming evidence of climate disruption. Last year, the British newspaper The Guardian reported that between 2002 and 2010, via two right-wing groups, Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, billionaires had given nearly $120 million to more than too anti-climate change groups. And the progressive Center for Media and Democracy revealed that a web of right-wing think tanks called the State Policy Network, affiliated with the notorious American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and funded to the tune of $83 million by companies including Facebook, AT&T and Microsoft, was pushing a had right agenda that includes opposition to climate change rules and regulations. A new study from two groups, Forecast the Facts Action and the SumOtts.org, says that since zooft, businesses have given campaign contributions to the r6o members of Congress who have rejected climate change that amount to more than $640 million. That includes Google, eBay, Ford and UPS; in fact, 90 percent of the cash came from outside the fossil fuel industry. Many of the naysayers are not in total denial; they either say climate change is happening more slowly than we think the so-called "hikewarmers"-- or they insist that global warming actually is good for you! I lere's a headline from the conservative Heartland Institute: "Benefits of Global Warming Greatly Exceed Costs, New Study Says." And here's a statement responding to that new UN report on carbon dioxide from Chip Knappenberger, assistant director of the Cato Institute's Center for the Study of Science. Cato has received funding from the Koch brothers much of whose billions have come from fossil fuels -- and Exxon Mobil. We should, Knappenberger said, be proud of those greenhouse gases and "applaud our progress in energy expansion around the world," and he noted a previous statement of his in which he exulted that the rise in carbon dioxide "is causefor celebration." Much of this has little to do with the reality of science, some has to do with fundamentalist religious beliefs but most has to do with, You guessed it, money and politics. A study by the journal Climatic Change finds that the more wealthy Republicans are, the more likely they are to think that rising global temperatures are non- existent or no big deal. After all, the industries that are causing the problem — especially anything to do with the extraction or use of fossil fuels -- are making them filthy rich. And many of them actually believe further climate change could be good for business. Those melting icecaps and glaciers are opening up waterways in the north, you see. And the defense contractor Raytheon Industries sees big profit opportunities because "climate change may cause humanitarian disasters, contribute to political violence and undermine weak governments." We're not making this up. So intense is the political and corporate opposition to the concept of manmade climate change -- despite a majority of Americans who accept it as reality -- that some of the more rational officeholders and local governments quietly are trying to work around the resistance, preparing for the worst without mentioning the dreaded words climate change or global warming. In Grand I laven, Michigan, AP reports, officials are preparing for heat waves and storm erosion without saying anything about you- know-what. In Florida, communities are taking steps to protect towns against rising sea levels without getting into a fight over what's causing them. In Tulsa, Oklahoma -- where Senator Jim Inhofe used to be mayor -- flood control and drought prevention are sought in the name not of warming but of disaster preparedness. Meanwhile, some of the media finally are coming around, catching up with public opinion. Once enslaved to the notion of having to give equal weight to both sides despite the overwhelming evidence supporting climate change, they're changing their tune. A few months ago, the independent BBC Trust said that the British broadcaster was giving "undue attention to marginal opinion" when it came to airtime for climate deniers and should adjust accordingly. The Los Angeles Times announced it would no longer print climate change denial letters to the editor -- contrast that with Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal, which last year ran more anti-climate change letters than any other major newspaper. And last month, The Washington Post, long criticized for the space given such climate deniers as columnist George Will, ran a week's worth of climate change editorials, declaring, in the words of its editorial page editor, "an existential threat to the planet." So we have to ask, how long will we allow the climate deniers the prominence and weight that lets them give our political leaders cover to run and hide from reality? Two men in Massachusetts decided: No longer. This past May, they used their lobster boat -- the Henry David T. as in Henry David Thoreau — to block a coal freighter from docking at a Massachusetts power station. They turned themselves in and faced charges that could have resulted in two years in jail and thousands of dollars in fines. But last week, the local district attorney, Sam Sutter, stood on the courthouse steps and announced that he had dropped the criminal charges. "Climate change is one of the gravest crises our planet has ever faced," he said. "In any humble opinion, the political leadership on this issue has been gravely lacking. Our Invisible Rich EFTA01197680 Half a century ago, a classic essay in The New Yorker titled "Our Invisible Poor^took on the then-prevalent myth that America was an affluent society with only a few *pockets ofpoverty." For many, the facts about poverty came as a revelation, and Dwight Macdonald's article arguably did more than any other piece of advocacy to prepare the ground for Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. I don't think the poor are invisible today, even though you sometimes hear assertions that they aren't really living in poverty — hey, some of them have Xbo.ves! Instead, these days it's the rich who are invisible. But wait — isn't half our TV programming devoted to breathless portrayal of the real or imagined lifestyles of the rich and fatuous? Yes, but that's celebrity culture, and it doesn't mean that the public has a good sense either of who the nch are or of how much money they make. In fad, most Americans have no idea just how unequal our society has become. The latest piece of evidence to that effect is a survey asking people in various countries how much they thought top executives of major companies make relative to unskilled workers. In the United States the median respondent believed that chief executives make about 3o times as much as their employees, which was roughly true in the 196os — but since then the gap has soared, so that today chief executives earn something like 300 times as much as ordinary workers. So Americans have no idea how much the Masters of the Universe are paid, a finding very much in line with evidence that Americans vastly underestimate the concentration of wealth at the top. Is this just a reflection of the innumeracy of hoi polloi? No — the supposedly well informed often seem comparably out of touch. Until the Occupy movement turned the "t percent" into a catchphrase, it was all too common to hear prominent pundits and politicians speak about inequality as if it were mainly about college graduates versus the less educated, or the top fifth of the population versus the bottom So percent. And even the t percent is too broad a category; the really big gains have gone to an even tinier elite. For example, recent estimates indicate not only that the wealth of the top percent has surged relative to everyone else — Sing from 25 percent of total wealth in 1973 to 4o percent now — but that the great bulk of that rise has taken place among the top o.1 percent, the richest one-thousandth of Amencans. So how can people be unaware of this development, or at least unaware of its scale? The main answer, • suggest, is that the truly rich are so removed from ordinary people's lives that we never see what they have. We may notice, and feel aggrieved about, college kids driving luxury cars; but we don't see private equity managers commuting by helicopter to their immense mansions in the Hampton. The commanding heights of our economy are invisible because they're lost in the clouds. The exceptions are celebrities, who live their lives in public. And defenses of extreme inequality almost always invoke the examples of movie and sports stars. But celebrities make up only a tiny fraction of the wealthy, and even the biggest stars earn far less than the financial barons who really dominate the upper strata. For example, according to Forbes, Robert Downey Jr. is the highest-paid actor in America, making 875 million last year. According to the same publication, in 2053 the top 25 hedge fund managers took home, on average, almost a billion dollars each. Does the invisibility of the very rich matter? Politically, it matters a lot. Pundits sometimes wonder why American voters don't care more about inequality; part of the answer is that they don't realize how extreme it is. And defenders of the superrich take advantage of that ignorance. When the Heritage Foundation tells us that the top to percent of filers are cruelly burdened, because they pay 68 percent of income taxes, it's hoping that you won't notice that word 'income"— other taxes, such as the payroll tax, are far less progressive. But it's also hoping you don't know that the top to percent receive almost half of all income and own 75 percent of the nation's wealth, which makes their burden seem a lot less disproportionate. Most Americans say, if asked, that inequality is too high and something should be done about it — there is overwhelming support for higher minimum wages, and a majority favors higher taxes at the top. But at least so far confronting extreme inequality hasn't been an election-winning issue. Maybe that would be true even if Americans knew the facts about our new Gilded Age. But we don't know that. Today's political balance rests on a foundation of ignorance, in which the public has no idea what our society is really like. Paul Krugman: SEPr. 20, 2014 — New York Times tilrebtlek After the loss of more than 2,000 American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars that the United States expended in fighting the Taliban, last week in his farewell speech Afghanistan's leader for nearly 13 years, Hamid ICarzai castigated his benefactor the American government with bitterness and betrayal saying that "America did not want peacefor Afghanistan, because it had its own agendas and goals here,"he told an audience of hundreds of cabinet and staff members at the presidential palace in Kabul, warning them not to trust the Americans. "Ihave always said this: that if America andPakistan want peace, it is possible to bringpeace to Afghanistan." Mr. Karzai's denunciation of the United States came in terms that had become wearily familiar to the diplomats watching the televised speech from the heavily fortified American Embassy just a few blocks and many blast walls from the palace. Then, Mr. Karzai pointedly praised the assistance of countries that had given notably less, like India. He did not mention the sacrifices of other Western allies, nor of his own security forces, who have lost an estimated 15,000 men killed in a war that seems unlikely to end soon. "I want to thank those countries who genuinely supported us,"Mr. Karzai said. "Western countries had their personal interest — the Western countries and the United States had their own personal goal." The departing American ambassador, James B. Cunningham, dispensed with diplomatic niceties afterward, telling Western journalists that Mr. Karzai's remarks were ungrateful and ungracious. "It makes me kind ofsad. I think his remarks, which were uncalled-for, do a disservice to the American people, and dishonor the EFTA01197681 sacrifices that Americans have made here,"Mr. Cunningham said. "By not recognizing the many contributions that Americans have triode, and our partners, that's thepart that's ungracious and ungrateful." Still, the ambassador did praise Mr. Kamm. "For all the d culties in our relationship at various times, I think his legacy in terms ofhis country will be a strong one,"Mr. Cunningham said. undoubtedly hadone of the more difficultjobs in the worldfor a long period oftime, and liconvinced he really is an Afghan patriot who wants the best thingfor his country." One week later after Karzai's farewell speech, at a Tuesday ceremony in the capital, Kabul, newly appointed national security adviser Mohmmad Hanif Atmar signed a long-awaited security pact along with U.S. Ambassador James Cunningham that will allow U.S. forces to remain in the country past the end of year to provide: - This agreement is onlyfor Afghan security and stability." WIN? The agreement allows 9,800 American and about z000 NATO troops to remain in Afghanistan after the international combat mission formally ends on Dec. 31. Their role will be to train and support Afghan security forces, but the pact also allows for American Special Operations forces to conduct counterterrorism missions in the country. The signing, in a televised ceremony at the presidential palace, fulfilled a campaign promise by the new Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, who was inaugurated just a day before. As Mr. Ghani watched, Ambassador James B. Cunningham signed for the United States, and the new Afghan national security adviser, I lanif Atmar, signed for Afghanistan. This is a similar bilateral security agreement last year, President Ilamid Kauai ultimately refused to sign it, souring relations between the two countries. So why did we continue to support him? And again why are we still supporting Afghanistan? YES, Afghanistan urgently needs to bolster its security forces to fend off a muscular threat from Taliban insurgents, who have aggressively attacked vulnerable districts this summer and badly bloodied the Afghan security forces who have taken over security duties from foreign troops. But after more thirteen years and hundreds of billions of dollars in training, equipment and facilities, if the Iraqi armyto is any indication no matter how long we stay and how much we invest the Afghan leadership is doom to fail. So again, why are we continuing to support them? One Of The Best That Ever Was Derek (Sanderson) Jeter an American former professional baseball shortstop who played 20 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees. A five- e e ll c tampion, Derek Jeter is regarded as a central figure of the Yankees' success of the late 199os and early 2000s for his hitting, base-running, fielding, and leadership. Ile is the Yankees' all-time career leader in hits (3,465), doubles (544), games played (2,747), stolen bases (358), times on base (4,716), plate appearances (12,602) and at bats (11,195). Ills accolades include 14 All-Star selections, live Gold Glove Awards, five Silver Slugger Awards, two Hank Aaron Awards, and a Roberto Clemente Award. Jeter became the 28th player to reach 3,000 hits and finished his career sixth all-time in career hits and the all-time MLB leader in hits by a shortstop. The Yankees drafted Jeter out of high school in 1992, and he debuted in the major leagues in 1995. The following year, he became the Yankees' starting shortstop, won the Rookie of the Year Award, and helped the team win the 1996 World Series. Jeter continued to contribute during the team's championship seasons of 1998-200o; he finished third in voting for the American League (AL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award in 1998, recorded multiple career-high numbers in 1999, and won both the All-Star Game MVP and World Series MVP Awards in 2000. Ile consistently placed among the AL leaders in hits and runs scored for most of his career, and served as the Yankees' team captain from 2003 until his retirement in 2014. Throughout his career, Jeter contributed reliably to the Yankees' franchise successes. lie holds many postseason records, and has a .321 batting average in the World Series. Jeter has earned the nicknames of "Cowin Clutch" and "Mr. Novemberndue to his outstanding play in the postseason. Final season (2014) Jeter re-signed with the Yankees on a one-year, $12 million contract for the 2014 season. Jeter announced on his Facebook page on February 12, 2014, that the 2014 season would be his last. During his final season, each opposing team honored Jeter with a gift during his final visit to their city, which has included donations to Jeter's charity, the Turn 2 Foundation. On July to, Jeter recorded his ,,000th career multi-hit game, becoming the fourth player to do so. He was elected to start at shortstop in the 2024 All-Star Game, and batted leadoff for the AL. Jeter went 2 for 2, scored one run and received two standing ovations in the four innings he played at the 2024 All-Star Game. .As a result, Jeter's .481career All-Star batting average (13 for 27) ranked him fifth all-time (among players with at least to at-bats). At 40, Jeter also became the oldest player to have two or more hits in an All-Star Game. In July, Jeter broke Omar Vizquel's MLB career record of 2,609 games started at shortstop, and Gehrig's franchise career record of 534 doubles. On July ,7, Derek scored the 1,9ooth run of his career becoming the loth player in MLB history to do so. Jeter passed Cad Yastrzemski for seventh place on MLB's all-time career hit list on July 28 and on August 11 he passed Icons Wagner climbing to sixth on the all-time hits list. EFTA01197682 The Yankees honored Jeter with a pregame tribute on September 7. Beginning with that day's game, the Yankees wore a patch on their hats and uniforms honoring Jeter for the remainder of the season. In the final week of Jeter's career, MIS Commissioner Bud Selig honored him as the t5th recipient of the Commissioner's Historic Achievement Award for being "one of the most accomplished shortstops ofall-time". During Jeter's final series at Yankee Stadium, Louisville Slugger announced they would retire their "P72" model baseball bat, the bat Jeter uses, though it will be sold under the name -11J2", in Jeter's honor. The average ticket price for Jeter's final home game, on September 25, reached $830 on the secondary market. In his final game at Yankee Stadium, Jeter hit a walk-off single against Orioles pitcher Evan Meek to win the game, 6-5. Jeter decided to play exclusively as the designated hitter in the final series of his career, at Fenway Park in Boston, so that his final memories of playing shortstop would be at Yankee Stadium. In his final at-bat, he hit an RBI infield single against Clay Buchholz, before being substituted for pinch runner Brian McCann; he received a rare ovation from the Red Sox fans as he exited the field. Derek Jeter Career Highlights: htto://youtu.be/JC8o6Po6yA" Jeter is considered to be one of the most consistent baseball players of all time. He has played fewer than 148 games a season only three times in his careen when he dislocated his left shoulder on Opening Day 2003 (119 games), when he injured his calf in 2011(131 games), and in 2013 when he struggled with a myriad of injuries (17 games). Through the 2010 season, he averaged 194 hits, 118 runs scored and 23 stolen bases per year over the course of 152 games played. He is currently 6th on the all-time hits list in Major League Baseball history. Highly competitive, Jeter once said, If you're going toplay at all, you're out to win. Baseball, board games, playing Jeopardy!, I hate to lose." Seen as one of the best players of his generation, sportswriters believe that Jeter will be inducted on the 1st ballot into the Baseball Hall of Fame following his retirement, and could be a unanimous selection. Jeter is also known for his professionalism. In an age where professional athletes often find themselves in personal scandals, Jeter has mostly avoided major controversy in a high profile career in New York City while maintaining a strong work ethic. Jeter is noted for his postseason performances, and has earned the titles of "Captain Clutch", and "Air. November" due to his outstanding postseason play. Ile has a career .309 postseason batting average, and a .321batting average in the World Series. Except for 2008, 2013 and 2014, the Yankees have been to the postseason every year since Jeter joined the team. Jeter holds MLB postseason records for games played (158), plate appearances (734), at-bats (650), hits (200), sin es (143), doubles (32), triples (5), runs scored (m), total bases (302) and strikeouts (t35). Jeter is also third in home runs (20), fourth in runs batted in (6t), fifth in e on balls (66) and sixth stolen basks (18). Jeter has also won five Gold Glove Awards, trailing only Vizquel, Ozzie Smith, Luis Aparicio, Dave Concepcion, and Mark Belanger for most by a shortstop. He is credited with positioning himself well and for a quick release when he throws the ball. One of his signature defensive plays is the jump-throw"; by which he leaps and throws to first base while moving towards third base. Jeter has been one of the most heavily marketed athletes of his generation and is involved in several product endorsements. His personal life and relationships with celebrities have drawn the attention of the media throughout his career. Teammates and opponents alike regard Jeter as a consummate professional and one of the best players of his generation. More importantly Derek Jeter epitomizes the words "role model", as this former Capitan of the famed New York Yankees has shown himself to be a man among men whose quiet demeanor and grace in addition to being one of the best of his generation as well as one of the best ever places him in the Pantheon of Baseball greats. RE2PECT — Web lit Mi:/youtu.be/OBoeNFzONOM RE2PECT - Derek Mere Jordan Commercial AD Respect/ RE2PECT - Derek Jeler Jordan Commercial Nike Jordan commercial respect Derek Jew Tribute *RE2PECT No matter ,'mat hat you wear, tip it to The Captain. #RE2PECT Derek Jeler Is respected by everyone. Even a bitter rival. the Boston Red Sot In his final year in Major League Baseman. one the above web-lyik here's a RE2PECT tribute r honor of the former Captain of the tamed New York Yankees. GOOD NEWS U.S. job growth surges, unemployment rate near six-year low U.S. job growth surges, unemployment rate near six-year low as the economy added 248,000 jobs in September, just ahead of the mid-term elections. The jobless rate fell to a six-year low of 5.9 percent. As a result of the good employment numbers the dollar climbed to a more than four-year peak on Friday after a report showing the U.S. economy created more jobs than expected last month, which suggested that the U.S. recovery was on a stable path. The dollar index, a gauge of the greenback's value against six major currencies, was on track for its best yearly gain in nine years. The index was up 8 percent so far in 2014, posting weekly gains for a record 12 straight weeks. EFTA01197683 Monthly Change in Nonfarm Employment In thousands (seasonally adjusted) 500 300 100 ;it 100 ■ Total employment -300 (private and government) -500 — Private seam -700 -900 10013 2009 2010 2011 1012 1013 2014 Setrt. &ow of Labor Subao. Cea. Ner Pt, Forbes: .fO.0 Remember a month ago, when a crummy August jobs report raised some questions about just how robust the labor market recovery truly was? Nevermind. The September numbers are in, the last to be reported before midterm elections, and they show a job market that is recovering steadily but surely, with the unemployment rate falling below 6 percent for the first time since July 2008. And a solid 248,000 net new jobs were created. But what are the finer details of the report telling us about the state of the American labor market? While the overall thrust of the report is unquestionably positive, there are some signs of continued weakness buried in the Labor Department numbers that give some reason for pause. But first, the good news. The 248,000 gain in September payroll employment is part of a bigger trend over the last year, in which payroll gains have taken a decisive shift upward. You can see the shift in the chart of year-over-year job gains. Over the course of 2014, the trend has risen from around 2.1 million net new jobs a year to 2.6 million as of September, the strongest since April 2006. That may be the single most important number to know to understand what people are talking about when they discuss the acceleration of American job creation. However one wants to spin things, the employment numbers are good news, unemployment is at a six-year low, inflation is low, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 201.0 points above the 17,000 threshold, meanwhile, corporate profits keep setting records, even after taxes, corporate profits were running at an annual rate of more than S1.9 trillion in the January-March quarter of 2014 and internationally the dollar is at its strongest level since June 2010. Add to this, more than 8 million Americans have signed up for private health insurance under the Affordable Healthcare Act (Obamacare), production of crude oil in the US. now has increased 67 percent since Obama took office, while imports of foreign oil and petroleum products have declined by 48 percent, the average EPA city/highway "window sticker" mileage of cars and light trucks sold in June was 25.5 miles per gallon, an improvement of 21.4 percent over the average for vehicles sold in the month that Obama took office and under Obama, wind and solar power has more than tripled. If this isn't good news then nothing is.... WEEK's READINGS Never Once Have I Imagined My Daughters Ever Going To Prison \.‘ I • , 11` — v I Never once have I imagined either of my daughters ever going to prison. Never have I had the image in my head of my children getting finger-printed, photographed and processed by police officers at the localprecinct. Never have I imagined Aoki or Ming in an orange jumpsuit walking through intake at LA County Jail. This is not their reality. This as not in their cards. This as not the eventual outcome of their dream deferred. I moved to California about a year and half ago to be closer to my two beautiful daughters. As they got older, I wanted to be part of their lives every day, and being on the other side of the country just wasn't working. I know that these two girls are blessed. Their education is best in the world. They have the best mother a kid could ever hope for and they have material advantages that other kids their age do not. However, what I admire about Ming and Aoki is that they recognize that kids from other neighborhoods, places that look more like where their daddy grew up, have tremendous obstacles to overcome that my daughters don't have to worry about. So, I try to teach them to not just worry about their own welfare, but also worry about the well-being of all children living in their state, their country and their world. EFTA01197684 For far too many children who live just a few miles away from where my daughters are being raised in Los Angeles, going to prison is a norm. And this standard is sadly reinforced by the investment, or lack thereof, of our taxes in their future. In the state of California, we now spend $62,300 per prison inmate per year while only $9,200 to educate a child in a K-12 school. If that statistic doesn't disturb you, consider this: Since 1984, the state has built 22 state prisons while only one new University of California school. As a tax-paying citizen, I find it deplorable that our priorities are focused on expanding our prison system rather than expanding the mind of a child. As I have stated many times in the past, I have no problem paying taxes, as long as it serves to uplift people and keep them out of the justice system, rather than further create space to put more into that system. That is why I am proud to be the executive producer of a new television ad from Californians for Safety and Justice, an organization bringing together Californians to replace prison and justice system waste with commonsense solutions that create safe neighborhoods and save public dollars. This ad, part of their #SchoolsNotPrisons public education campaign, highlights the implications of perpetually investing in prisons at the expense of our next generation. It highlights the backwards thinking that has infiltrated the mentality of the powerful. The system as set up now serves to maintain a never-ending cycle of loss. Loss of friends. Loss of mentors. Loss of the family unit. Destruction of community. Recent studies have revealed that for many kids, having a parent in prison is more detrimental to a child's health and development than divorce or even the death of a parent. Hundreds of thousands of children in California have parents who are incarcerated. Investing in prisons at the expense of our children is more than tacit approval of dismissing a generation of young children. It is willful ignorance. We must create more winners, and keep that force moving throughout generations to come. We have already allowed huge a portion of the people I grew up with to fall by the wayside. The deterioration stops now. It's time for us all to stand up. California is at the forefront of this shift. Now is the time to join our movement and fight for #SchoolsNotPrisons. I first met Russell Simmons in the 198os when he was looking for financing to start his fledgling record label. So I have watched him mature from a young concert and record promoter into an iconoclast of the first order, representative of this op-ed.... Attached, please find Russell Simmons bio Russell Simmons — Huffington Post 09/17/2014 Clean Energy Is a loo Percent American Success Story There is a mostly unnoticed revolution happening in the United States as across the nation, American businesses, families, and communities are embracing clean, renewable energy that is homegrown, healthy, and can never run out. By finding alternatives to fossil fuels that pollute our air and disrupt our climate, they are showcasing the single most practical way to tackle climate change, starting now. Companies including General Motors, Walmart, Apple, Johnson & Johnson, Crayola and Google are putting in solar and wind farms to run operations, and finding that clean energy is good for business. Schools from Virginia to Nebraska to Alaska are generating their own clean renewable energy, saving money while helping young people in their communities breathe more easily. Ninety-one communities in Illinois have made the switch to too percent renewable electricity. Iowa and South Dakota are producing more than a quarter of their electricity from wind power. And while Houston, Texas might be the oil capital of the country, it's powering half of its municipal operations with renewable energy. Keep these real-world success stories in mind next week, as heads of state from around the world gather at the United Nations for the Climate Summit. Embracing clean, efficient energy is a practical, flexible, adaptable solution for too percent of America, from rural families to multinational corporations and all of us in between. Also by embracing energy efficiency and moving to too percent renewable energy could double the number of energy-related jobs in the U.S., while saving every American thousands of dollars a year in health and utility costs. The researchers found converting our country to too percent renewables would eliminate about 6o,000 premature air-pollution-related deaths in the U.S. every year, saving people who suffer from cardiovascular diseases and respiratory illnesses. It would also save enormous amounts of money -- about 3.3 percent of U.S. GDP -- due to lower insurance rates, lower taxes, lower workman's compensation rates, fewer lost work and school days and fewer emergency room visits and hospitalizations. Going renewable will also help to stabilize energy prices in the long run, because the fuel cost of wind, water, and solar electricity is fixed at zero. Forever. It's not volatile like the price of oil, coal, or natural gas. Real-world experience supports this analysis: the cost of electric power in the it states with the highest fraction of their electricity generated from wind power decreased 0.4 percent from 2008-2013, while the cost in the remaining states increased by 8 percent. That's why Apple, liValblart, Illinois, Iowa, and all those other states, compames, communities and families are eagerly moving to a clean energy future. And it's why next week, as heads of state talk about climate change at the M., tens of thousands of Americans from all walks oflife will be marching nearby, calling for action. Renewable energy is the future and fossil fuels is the past. And for those who still advocate.... Drill. Drill... Drill.... They should understand and appreciate that they are promoting t9t11 Century technologies in a new millennium in need of 2i' Century solutions. As such the country needs to get beyond our petty ideologies differences and embrace the goal of converting our country to too percent renewable energy which will give us a stronger economy, healthier families and most importantly, a more secure future. These are too percent American goals, and clean energy will help us get there. EFTA01197685 • rili• • * Here Are The Richest And Poorest Big Cities In America Median Household Income 15 most populous metro areas sorted by median income (Ornate j Margin of trio( 540.000 550.000 560.000 SIAM $80.000 $90000 $100.000 Washington.. San frondsto Boston ealtiencirit Seattle Minneapolis New York Denver ear San Diego es Chicago 4B Philadelphia Ponland los Angeles Dales ea Houston ea Atlanta ea All Metro Areas St. Louts Riverside.Calf, a. Detroit as Phoenix 410 San Antonio Pittsburgh a. Charlotte Miami ea Tampa _mold sum- I US. Deputmem 04 Commerce Census' IMMO Median income of largest metros was highest in DC ($90,149) & San Francisco ($79,624) Hundreds of thousands of protesters blockaded the streets of Hong Kong over the weekend and into the work week to fight for democracy, shielding themselves from tear gas and pepper spray with surgical masks, goggles and umbrellas. Although the protest began peacefully on last Wednesday things turned violent on Friday after police used batons and pepper spray to try to disperse the activists. That led even more people to join the biggest protests Hong Kong has seen in decades. And if you're an American and you've been watching the pro-democracy protests in (long Kong closely, you may have noticed something familiar: a number of the young demonstrators are using the same "hands up, don't shoot"gesture that became a symbol of last month's protests in faraway Ferguson, Missouri. Hong Kong's protesters have good reason to put their hands up: police are using what many observers describe as an unprecedented level of force against the demonstrations, which are rallying against the Chinese government for reneging on its promise to grant them full democracy in 2017. While injuries in the protests have been EFTA01197686 relatively few so far, the clashes have been bad enough that I long Kongers appear to earnestly fear the police might crack down violently, and that anxiety is showing in these photos. It's impossible to say the degree to which protesters are using the gesture as a deliberate nod to Ferguson, or borrowing something they'd seen on the news for their own purposes, or using it coincidentally. One 22-year-old protester told Quartz's Lily Kuo that she had never heard of the events in Ferguson. Another said that the similarity was coincidental, a result of protest leaders telling people to raise their hands to police to signal peacefulness. Still, I long Kongers pride themselves on being plugged in to the world, so it is within the realm of possibility that some of them followed the events in Ferguson and are now appropriating the gesture for their own use, even if only subconsciously. Some of the protesters are organized within a group called Occupy Central, named for Hong Kong's Central financial district and for the global protest movement that began with Occupy Wall Street. What they are fighting for Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997, when the UK handed it back to China. Under the principle of "one country, two systems," Hong Kong was afforded economic and political freedoms outside the traditional socialist rule of the People's Republic of China. This system is supposed to remain in place until 2047, yet what is to happen after that time has never been officially stated. In a deal at the time of the reunification of China, it was agreed that the people of Hong Kong would be able to elect their own head official, the chief executive, democratically in 2017. Then in August 2014, Beijing back-flipped, saying the elected chief executive would have to be approved by a Beijing-loyal committee, which would likely rule out opposition democratic candidates. "Since the long-term prosperity and stability of Hong Kong and the sovereignty, secunty and development interests of the country are at stake, there is a need to proceed in a prudent and steady manner," the National People's Congress Standing Committee said. Hong Kong's residents have long felt their city stood apart from mainland China thanks to the civil liberties and separate legal and financial systems that come under "one country, two systems." Beijing's insistence on using a committee to screen candidates — similar to the one that currently hand-picks [long Kong's leaders — has stoked fears among pro-democracy groups that Hong Kong will never get genuine democracy. This fear has compelled people of all ages to join the protests on the streets. How the confrontation escalated The rally began with a peaceful sit-in by university students outside Hong Kong's city government headquarters in the financial district, called Central, following the announcement of Beijing's controversial plan for the 2017 election. A movement called Occupy Central with Love and Peace had initially scheduled a nonviolent "civil disobedience" protest for Oct. 1, a national holiday to celebrate the Republic of China. But it took to the streets on Saturday to join forces with student protesters. After 6o people were arrested outside the government compound and many were doused with pepper spray, Occupy Central called for protesters to shut down the financial district Sunday in retaliation, Reuters reported. Over the weekend, the normal order of Hong Kong began to turn increasingly chaotic. As the crowd size swelled, people spilled onto major roads, blocking traffic. The police came out in force. A cloud of tear gas descended on the area, and riot police could be seen brandishing long-barreled guns as they attempted to gain back control of the Central district. Many saw the police tactics as heavy-handed. Members of the public flooded onto the streets to show their support and even more chaotic scenes ensued. Anson Chan, the former chief secretary of Hong Kong under British rule, called the police action against unarmed protesters a "sad day for Hong Kong." "Pictures of our police force firing pepper spray and tear gas into the faces of unarmed protesters will shame our government in front of the whole world," she said. The government said 26 people were taken to hospitals after being hit by the fumes of the tear gas, and 148 people were arrested over the weekend. As violence escalated, police moved in to try to block people from entering the area, with reports saying Hong Kong police used rubber bullets to move the crowd on. The police have denied this accusation, calling the claims "totally untrue." The protests reached a high point on Sunday night, with tens of thousands of demonstrators out in the streets. Hong Kong's current ChiefExecutive Leung Chun-ying called for calm and dispelled talk that the Chinese army planned to intervene. "I hope the public will keep calm. Don't be misled by the rumors. Police will strive to maintain social order, including ensuring smooth traffic and ensuring the public safety," he said in a statement. "When they carry out their duties, they will use their maximum discretion." As the sun went down on Sunday, authorities urged activists to go home. "We don't want Hong Kong to be messy," Leung said in a video statement that was broadcast in Hong Kong early Monday. Most protesters disregarded the calls for calm and dispersion, with many sleeping on the streets overnight. Edward Yau, a to-year-old business and law student, told the Associated Press he wouldn't give up without a fight. "This is a long fight. I hope the blockade will continue tomorrow, so the whole thing will be meaningful. The government has to understand that we have the ability to undo it if they continue to treat us like we are terrorists," he said. What is Occupy Central? EFTA01197687 In January last year, Benny Tai, an associate professor at the University of Hong Kong, called for an act of "civil disobedience"if the plan for "universal suffrage" — one person, one vote — did not go ahead as promised. This started the movement known as Occupy Central with Love and Peace, in which residents of Hong Kong were urged to participate in peaceful protests to fight for the granting of full democracy by Beijing. "If the authorities concerned ignore the democratic demands of the citizens and suggest art election method, which violates the corresponding international standards, we shall at appropriate time carry out dull disobedience acts, including 'Occupy Central,'" a letter of intent by the Occupy Central group declared on its website. Protests continued this week The wave of protest in Hong Kong that engulfed the city could continue this week as tens of thousands of residents defied a government call on Monday to abandon street blockades, students boycotted classes and the city's influential bar association added its condemnation of a police crackdown on protesters. The public resistance underscored the difficulties that the Hong Kong government faces in defusing widespread anger that erupted on Sunday after the police used tear gas, pepper spray and batons to break up a sit-in by students and other residents demanding democratic elections in the semiautonomous Chinese territory. On Monday the Hong Kong government canceled the city's annual fireworks show to mark China's National Day, which falls on Wednesday, and government censors in Beijing ordered websites in mainland China to delete any mention of the unrest. By evening, the crowds had swollen to greater numbers than the night before, when a police crackdown failed to dislodge protesters from a major thoroughfare in the heart of Hong Kong and appeared to have motivated more people to join the student-led protests. A government announcement that the riot police had been withdrawn from the protest centers also seemed to open the door to growing demonstrations. "This morning I was happy to see that they stayed and insisted on continuing the protesesaid Cindy Sun, a 30-year-old bank worker who joined protesters during her lunch hour. Ms. Sun said she thought the police response, especially the use of tear gas, was excessive. 'The tudents were completely peaceful,' she said. Many of the protesters were wearing surgical masks and goggles in anticipation of the police trying again to disperse them with tear gas or pepper spray. Yesterday, it was like a war. There were tear gas grenades everywhere,"said Eric Yeung, a geologist who marked his 28th birthday on Monday by joining the protests. "There's anotherfeeling tonight. It's like a party. Emotions are high." Still, Mr. Yeung and other demonstrators expressed uncertainty about why the police had retreated, and whether they might try again to forcibly remove demonstrators. Hong Kong has maintained a reputation as a safe enclave for peaceful demonstration and commerce, and the crackdown here has raised the political cost of Beijing's unyielding position on electoral change in Hong Kong. Late last month the National People's Congress called for limits on voting reforms here and barriers for candidates for chief executive, the city's top leadership post. The protesters are seeking fully democratic elections for the city's leader in 2017. But under China's plan, only candidates vetted by a Beijing-friendly committee would be allowed to run. Earlier Monday, the government said that it had pulled back the riot police from the areas where roads were being blocked. The government urged the demonstrators to end their sit-ins so that life in this busy commercial city could return to normal. Leung Chun-ying, the city's top leader, said the government opposes the "unlawful occupation actions by Occupy Central,"the name of the,pro-democracy movement has adopted, and called for "the various sectors of the community to engage in rational discussions through peaceful and lawful means. But many of the protesters said they were determined to stay until Mr. Leung resigned and the government answered their demands for democratic elections to choose his suctotsor. "Because the residents who have assembled on the roadways have largely returned to calm, the riot police have already withdrawn,' an unidentified spokesman for the government said in the statement Monday morning. The spokesman "urged the assembled residents to maintain calm and to peacefully disperse." The Hong Kong Bar Acctriation condemned what it said had been "repeated, systematic, indiscriminate and excessive" use of tear gas against demonstrators. An assistant police commissioner, Jacob Cheung Tak-keung, said at a news conference that officers had used a "minimal level offorce"on Sunday after repeated warnings. The police said Monday that 41 people had been injured in clashes over the previous three days, including 12 police officers. Hon; Kong, a former British colony that was returned to Chinese sovereignty in 2997, had been promised universal suffrage by 2027, when the city will have new elections for chief executive. The standoff between unarmed students and the riot police sets the stage for a possibly prolonged struggle that poses a test for President Xi Jinping of China, who has championed a harsh line against political threats to Communist Party rule. "Probably about to years ago, Hong Kong was not so concerned about politics,"said Alison Fung, a magazine editor who said she had been at the sit-in since Sunday night. "But we want a morefair election so we can decide our ownfuture. Peoplefeel that our opinions aren't listened to." After a call Sunday by the Hong Kong Federation of Students, one of the organizations leading the protests, for an indefinite student strike, images of students holding gatherings at their schools in lieu of classes on Monday were posted on social media and shown in local news reports, but were blocked by censors in mainland China. A commentary on the website of the People's Daily, the Chinese Communist Party's main newspaper, claimed that the upheavals in Ilong Kong were instigated by democratic radicals who had sought support from "anti-Chinaforces"in Britain and the United States, and had sought lessons from independence activists in Taiwan. On Monday, the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, said that the United States government was monitoring the situation in Hong Kong and that the United States urges the city's authorities "to exercise restraint andfor protesters to express their views peacefully." "The United States supports universal suffrage in Hong Kong in accordance with the Basic Law,"Mr. Earnest said. "And we support the aspirations of the Hong Kong people." Beijing has bristled at any concern voiced by foreign governments about the tensions in Hong Kong, including Britain, whose treaty signed with China in 1984 set the conditions for Hong Kong's return to Chinese sovereignty. But on Monday, the British Foreign Office issued a statement saying, "Hong Kong's prosperity and security are underpinned by itsfundamental rights andfreedoms, including the right to demonstrate." Speaking at a regularly scheduled news conference Monday in Beijing, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, lIua Chunying, said, "Hong Kong is China's Hong Kong,"and warned against interference, EFTA01197688 according to a statement posted on the ministry's website. "We hope related countries speak and act cautiously, don't get involved in arty way in Hong Kong's internal affairs, don't support the illegal activities ofOccupy Central, and donl send out any wrong signals,"Ms. Hua said. Fear of the Domino Effect These pro-democracy protests in Ilong Kong have handed China's Communist leadership a thorny political dilemma. Beijing cannot crack down too harshly on the semi-autonomous territory where a freewheeling media ensures global visibility, but it is determined to end the demonstrations quickly so as not to embolden dissidents, separatists and anti-government protesters elsewhere in China. It has blocked most news and images of the protests from being published on the mainland."The Chinese authorities do not want to see it spread to the mainland,"said Beijing-based historian and political analyst Zhang Lifan. "It has put tremendous pressure on Beijing, which is most worried about a domino effect" As the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong escalate and streets clog with angry residents, the demonstrators are beginning to receive supportive messages from places as far away as Ferguson, Missouri. But what truly scares the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing is the possibility of sympathetic protests popping up in mainland China, where citizens live under its authoritarian thumb. Last week, a small group of mostly elderly Shanghai residents posed for a picture holding signs proclaiming, "The people ofShanghai support the people ofHong Kong in demanding true elections with their Occupy movement" It raises the question: Will Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests spread to mainland China or as some describe have a domino effect? Experts say it's unlikely. While this week's demonstrations may be the largest in lions Kong in recent years, the city is no stranger to protests. "Every stage of constitutional development has seen some sort ofprotest,"said Professor David Lampton of Johns Hopkins's School of Advanced International Studies. In 1989, an estimated 1.3 millionllong Kong residents protested in the central district in solidarity with pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square. Years later, in 2003, hundreds of thousands took to the streets to protest a proposed security law that would allow for life sentences in the case of treason in Article 23 of the constitution. Since then, crowds have gathered in the tens of-thousands each July r in pro-democracy rallies. This week's protests are similar to those in Hong Kong's past, as residents speak out against Beijing's meddling in city elections. Hong Kong's decades-long history of protests means that the progressive city's residents know how to organize when push comes to shove. On the mainland, however, the state represses any whisperings of an uprising quickly. Already, the Chinese propaganda machine has kicked into gear. Reports surfaced on Sunday that Instagram was disabled in the mainland, keeping Chinese eyes shielded from frontline photos of the protests. Search engines also began scrubbing references to [long Kong in results, and mainland newspapers like China Daily included only small items on the tumult. According to Bloomberg News, many mainlanders managed to catch the news before it disappeared under censors' erasers, but to many the motives and scale of the protests are unclear. According to Professor Mary Gallagher at the University of Michigan, the Chinese government has become more adroit at dealing with protests by combining repression with some small concessions. And while the Chinese mainland has plenty of local protests about specific issues, Chinese mainlanders have little experience with large-scale political organization. Their inexperience, combined with the state's relentless security apparatus, means that a mainland protest would be tough to pull off. Besides the logistical difficulties of protests outside Ilong Kong, many Chinese mainlanders aren't necessarily sympathetic to the province's protests. As plenty of Chinese see it, Ilong Kong has it pretty good. "There is a portion ofChina that thinks Hong Kong people are unduly whining,"Lampton said. This spring, when a mainland tourist toddler was filmed defecating on a busy Hong Kong street, the ensuing ruckus—coined "bladdergate" by netizens—revealed the widespread distaste Hong Kongers feel toward mainlanders. That month, a Sina.com poll showed that 83 percent of mainlanders felt that Hong Kongers were prejudiced against them. Others in the mainland believe propaganda that paints the Hong Kong protests as signs of Western meddling. While Beijing doesn't need to worry about copycat protests across China in the coming days, it's true that the mainland's lack of political reform is a problem that won't be going away. The government has only become more repressive on the mainland in recent years, and if the CCP concedes to Hong Kong's demands, the gap between Ilong Kong and the mainland's political reform will only increase. "The concern is that people in the mainland will start asking, Welt, why can't we have that?'" Gallagher said. Yesterday evening pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong held one of the largest rallies of their campaign, a gesture of defiance following attacks on their encampments and a declaration by the territory's leader that major roads they have occupied for the last week must be cleared by Monday morning. Tens of thousands of protesters gathered at the main protest site at Admiralty, outside government headquarters, after the territory's embattled leader, Leung Chun-ying, said that "all actions necessary"would be taken to ensure that government workers could go back to work next week He did not specify what those actions would be, but police used tear gas in an attempt to break up a protest a week ago, leading to a wave of larger demonstrations. "We know that every time they assault us, we resist harder,"Alex Chow Yong Kang, the secretary general of the Ilong Kong Federation of Students, told the crowd. "And we know we're on the right path, otherwise the government wouldn't have been so afraid ofus." The sharpening positions and deepening distrust between both sides reduced the already limited potential for compromise. The assaults on the protest camps Friday by men who the police believe had underworld ties incited a new resolve, student demonstrators said Saturday. Participants in the pro-democracy protests, which have come to be known as the Occupy movement, appeared unwilling to meet the government's call to remove road barricades by the start of next week In a speech Saturday Mr. Leung said the protests "severely affected residents' daily lives, income and the ability ofthe government to provide services." lie demanded demonstrators remove their blockade of roads in Hong Kong Island's Western, Central and Wan Chat districts by Monday, and let 3,000 government employees go to work at the main office complex, which has been besieged by protesters. Mr. Leung warned that continued protests "are extremely likely to remain out ofcontrol, causing severe consequencesfor residents' safety and social order." EFTA01197689 Both sides accuse the other of bearing responsibility for the street mayhem that erupted on Friday after the protest camps came under attack. The Mong Kok district was the scene of more confrontation on Saturday, evidence that a week after the protests began the conflict has slipped beyond the grip of leaders on either side. AGAIN: The protests demanding a fully democratic vote for the city's leader erupted last weekend, then expanded after the police's use of tear gas and pepper spray spurred public sympathy for the demonstrators. The Hong Kong Leader Warns Protesters to End Road Blockade by Monday'S protesters, mostly young, occupied major roads with sit-in camps that remained mostly peaceful until Friday, when gangs of men assaulted two of them, in Mong Kok and another crowded district, Causeway Bay. Some local residents, weary of the disruption from the week-old occupation, cheered on the attacks. The protests have demanded that the city's leader, or chid executive, be chosen through a freely democratic vote. But the Chinese government has insisted that Hong Kong accept far more restricted electoral changes, which would allow the city's voters to choose only among two or three candidates who have the blessing of Beijing and its loyalists. Now, however, the political divisions troubling Hong Kong have been intensified by disagreement over whether the protesters or the government bears responsibility for the street mayhem on Friday. The Chinese Communist Party sees the protesters as a subversive threat to their control over the city, a former British colony that since its return to Beijing's sovereignty in 1997 has preserved freedoms and legal protections not enjoyed by mainland Chinese citizens. On Saturday, People's Daily, the party's main newspaper, suggested that the Occupy movement was part of an effort to subvert its power across all of China, and likened the movement to a "color revolution," the party's phrase for anti-Communist insurrections across the former Soviet bloc and beyond. itsfor the ideas of a very small minority of people to use Hong Kong to create a 'color revolution' in mainland China, that is even more of a daydream," the paper said in a commentary on its front page. With both sides digging in deeper and deeper, it appears that things are going to get more toxic before they get better.... A Brief Histo of America's Attitude Toward Taxes • Ilene _ -asp The changing attitudes toward and laws around income taxes has been a major driver of the rise of America's modern talent-based, knowledge economy. Two things strike me as I study the history. First, it is hard to see the historical development of US income taxation as a gradual evolution. Rather, it is characterized by major swings. Second, it is interesting to see a very consistent cycle in the tax treatment of the super-rich. I think that today we are approaching an inflection point. Unless we do something about the current set up, the tax system may end up as a major factor in the fall of that talent economy. .As I see it, the tax system has moved through four distinct eras over the last century and a half. During each era, government and society subscribed to a theory about what taxes were for, which was eventually replaced by another theory, flipping us into another era. Let's look at how the pendulum has swung and how the treatment of the super-rich has changed. All the data is from the very handy Tax Foundation website. I have inflated all the incomes to 2013 dollars to make comparisons more easily understood. The First Era: 1862-1915 From its inception in 1862 and up to 1913, personal income tax was not unlike a modern-day state sales tax: a percent or two of income, with richer folks paying a slightly higher level. For example, in 1915 a $1million earner paid income tax at a 2% rate. Like a sales tax, income tax was seen primarily as a revenue earner and not as a tool for influencing behavior. It was only mildly progressive: the rate was 1% on incomes up to about $450,000. In this era, the rich (e.g., $1million earners) were taxed exactly the same as the super-rich (e.g., $ to million earners). The Second Era: 1916-1931 In 1917, with the First World War at its height, Congress passed the War Revenues Tax Act, which changed thinking about personal income taxation dramatically. The new theory was that personal income tax could fund the war effort. And within that funding, rich people could and should pay more — and the super-rich much, much more. Under the new Act, rates skyrocketed: a $1million earner paid a 16% rate and the top marginal rate, which kicked in at $36 million, was a hitherto unimaginable 67%. A year later the rates went up still further: 43% for the St million earner and a 77% top rate kicking in at a $13 million income level. EFTA01197690 After the war ended, rates drifted back down (the top rate went down to 25% in 1925) though the prewar rates were gone forever. But interestingly, the level at which the top rate kicked in fell all the way to $1.3 million by 2925. So although there had been a meaningful distinction between the rich and super-rich during the height of the war, after the war, they were all lumped together and the $36 million earner, who in 2918 had paid at a rate over four times that of the St million earner, was paying at the same rate in 2925-1931. The Third Era: 1932-1981 The Great Depression precipitated the next big swing. The rate for $1million earners shot up from 22% to 35% in one year between 2932 and 1932 and the top rate from 25% to 63%. Within just a dozen more years (2944) those rates were 84% and 94% respectively, with the top rate kicking in at only $2.6 million. At those rates, the average present-day mid-level investment banker would be giving the federal government all but 6 cents of his/her last dollar earned, which would seem to us to be a huge disincentive. But in the third tax era, income of that scale was not typically assumed to something you could earn by working; it was somethingyou derived by virtue of owning a particular asset, and earning from that asset what the economists call a "rent." According to the theory, most rich people were basically rentiers and their income from owned assets could -- and should -- be taxed at very high rates with no adverse impact on their behavior or the economy. Financing WWII could have been used as an excuse for these highly confiscatory rates, but rather than dropping after the end of war, they continued to rise. By 1963, the St million earner was paying 8g%. So in the mid-296os, anybody in America that would be considered reasonably rich was keeping a mere to% of marginal earnings -- and that is before paying all state, municipal and indirect taxes; with all of those added in, they probably kept less than 5 cents on the extra dollar. From about 196o, however, the economy began to change, as I describe in this IIBR article, with an increasing proportion of earnings and wealth being tied to value created by way of the exercise of talent through work. With this change there came a growing awareness that go% personal income taxation had a disincentive effect. Between 2963 and 1982, therefore, the rate on a St million earner slid from 89% to 70%. But, somewhat paradoxically and echoing the 192os, the level at which the top rate kicked in plummeted to $272,000 -- meaning that by 2981 virtually everyone who was upper-middle class or above paid the top marginal rate. There was no longer a distinction of any meaningful kind between rich and super-rich. The Fourth Era: 1982-Present It was not until the 2980s, by which time the idea that the economy was knowledge driven had firmly taken hold, that our lawmakers finally abandoned the prewar assumption that all rich people were rentiers and recognized that at the prevailing rates talented people were being put off work. Instead, the new theory was basically that all income should be considered to be the product of exercising talent and that people should be taxed less so that they had a motive to work. But with the abandonment of the rich-as-rentier concept, lawmakers no longer drew a distinction between the rich and other folks, making it easier to justify reducing tax thresholds to compensate for falling rates. This is exactly what happened: in 1982 the top rate dropped to 5o% but kicked in at Stot000. By 1988, it had fallen to 28% and kicked in at $29,000, which meant that America effectively had a flat tax of 28% (the 2.5% rate for incomes below $29,000 would have applied to very few fully employed Americans). Since then the top rate has drifted up to 39.6%, kicking in at $22o,000. But the progressivity of the system is still extremely modest. Towards a Fifth Era? A quick look at this brief history dispels a common misperception among American Baby Boomers, Generation X's, and Millennials who all think the current system is "the way America taxes" because it is the only thing they have ever known. It is actually a modern phenomenon -- a product of the most recent theory change, in this case from a rentier theory, in which economic growth is seen as the product of exploiting assets, to a talent theory in which growth is driven by the exercise of talent and the application of knowledge. The history also demonstrates that the current system of equal treatment of the rich and the super-rich (and in this case also of the same as the upper-middle class) is not typical or normal. Rather, it happens to be at one of the two poles across which the system has oscillated over history. So will the current system endure? I think not. In times of crisis, America has shown that it asks the super-rich to pay a lot more than the rich and I think this will happen based on the feeling that it is a time of economic crisis in America. Also, although applying a rich-as-rentier theory (implying tax rates in the 70% plus range for high incomes) isn't really fit for purpose in a talent-driven economy, it's also not justifiable to have a maximum rate that doesn't distinguish between a mid-level executive and a hedge fund manager. My bet is that the Fifth Era will look a lot like the early Third Era -- after the height of the Great Depression but before the inception of WWII. That is, $ to million earners paying in the 75% range, St million earners in the so% range and Ssoo,000 earners in the 35% range. EFTA01197691 How high or low the rates of the Fifth Era structure will be will depend, I think, on whether talent is seen as engaging primarily in trading value or primarily in creating value for their fellow citizens (in terms of better products and services and more jobs). If it is the former, they will be taxed more highly as unworthy rentiers and there will be little concern for incentive effects. If the latter, they will be taxed as important economic assets whose incentives must not be dampened. Right now, sentiment is trending more in the former direction than in the latter -- a perception that the talented people on the Forbes 400 list have done little to dispel. Roger Minis — October 3.2014 — Buffington Pea THIS WEEK's QUOTE You have lies, dam lies and then statistics... Benjamin Ithraeli BEST VIDEO OF THE WEEK Here ya go.... Add a little pizazz to your treadmill work out... Wob Link: htliaAnapi kaltura camfindexplipffixtwidgeliopenGraphrwid10 u0r71mg5 Funny.... Funny.... Funny.... GREAT MAGIC TRICKS Ma Yan Yan - An awesome magic ballet performance at Amazing Chinese 2014 Web Llnk: lillp:rviduki.corn,•idetill8937.'Whert don, she keep it all Beautiful and charming Ma Yan Yan combines magic and ballet for a fascinating performance. EFTA01197692 Where Does She Hide It All? THIS WEEK's MUSIC This week I would like to share the music of The Isley Brothers - an American R&B musical group originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, originally a vocal trio consisting of brothers O'Kelly Islay, Jr., Rudolph Isley and Ronald Isley. The group has been cited as having enjoyed one of the longest, most influential, and most diverse careers in the pantheon of popular music". Alongside a fourth brother, Vernon, the group originally performed gospel music until Vernon's death a couple years after its original formation. After moving to the New York City area in the late 19sos, the group had modest chart successes during their early years, first coming to prominence in 1939 with their fourth single, "Shout", written by the three brothers. Initially a modest charted single, the song eventually sold over a million copies. Afterwards the group recorded modestly successful works for a variety of labels, including the top 20 single, 'Moist & Shout" and the Motown single, "This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weakfor You)" before recording and issuing the Grammy Award-winning hit, "It's Your Thing" on their own label, T-Neck Records. Initially influenced by gospel and doo-wop music, the group began experimenting with different musical styles incorporating elements of rock and funk music as well as pop balladry. The inclusion of younger brothers Ernie Isley (lead guitar, drums) and Marvin Isley (bass guitar), and Rudolph's brother-in-law Chris Jasper (keyboards, synthesizers) in 1973 turned the original vocal trio into a self-contained musical band. For the next full decade, the siblinss recorded top-selling albums including The Heat Is On and Between the Sheets. The six-member lineup of the band splintered in 1983, with Ernie, Marvin and Chris Jasper forming the short- lived spinoff group Isley-Jasper-Isley. Eldest member O'Kelly died in 1986 and Rudolph and Ronald released a pair of albums as a duo before Rudolph retired for life in the Christian ministry in 1989. Ronald reformed the group two years later with Ernie and Marvin in 1991; five years later in 1996, Marvin Isley left the group due to complications with diabetes. The remaining duo of Ronald and Ernie would accomplish mainstream success with the albums Eternal (zoor) and Body Kiss (2003), with the former album spawning the top twenty hit, "Contagious". As of 2013, the Isley Brothers continue to perform under the lineup of Ronald and 'Ernie. Throughout their career, the Isley Brothers have had four Top to singles on the United States Billboard chart. Sixteen of their albums charted in the Top go. Thirteen of those albums have been either certified gold, platinum or multi-platinum by the RIAA. The brothers have been honored by several musical institutions including being inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. Five years later, they were inducted to Hollywood's Rockwalk and in 2003. were inducted to the Vocal Group Hall of Fame. With this I invite you to enjoy the soulful and often energetic and danceable music of The Isley Brothers. The Isley Brothers — For The Love Of You — Iftly:/./youtir he/Krl, cOqhIcaM and 'Aiwa/youth bet Ik/tV.IMSMb9Q The Isley Brothers — Hello Its Me -- bop. //panty be/EVtaJcFl.F.w1 The Isley Brothers — Voyage to Atlantis & Summer Breeze -- httpaiyuutti behiSMIKPSA-02M The Isley Brothers — Shout — Mrpzi.boutu behrEjlthEy112y14 The Isley Brothers Live Albert Hall London -- httpithoutu.be/LroScUIcijxc The Isley Brothers — Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight -- littp://youtu.behtFedoCLUvZQ The Isley Brothers - Who's That Lady -- httpjboutu.be/JAKIiProySg The Isley Brothers — It's Your Thing -- Al ithyoutu.be/ cfI Co The Isley Brothers — Fight the Power — httwayoutu.bri tl putiolypg The Isley Brothers Motown — This Old Heart Of Mine — hhydiyoutu heirsDRtuRflor The Isley Brothers — Contagious -- littpa2youtu hp/-goSrah5py The Isley Brothers ft. Jill Scott — Said Enough — hft.p./Noutu liob, orashflp,jx4 The Isley Brothers ft. Ronnie Isley — Let's Lay Together — lAtialvaute be/ArylQuILP.mk The Isley Brothers - What Would You Do? -- bliialyaute belqailivd411572,1 EFTA01197693 The Isley Brothers Live — Twist and Shout -- lithdivoutu.be/NII8oLQaXp8M and httpithoutiLbe/cTaqn8 gMRo I hope that you have enjoyed this week's offerings and wish you and yours a great week.... Sincerely, Greg Brown t h.a.„.. Attu hpX os Prim I I( r„ EFTA01197694