Author: Robert I. Grundfest

Serves me right for reading. I come across this article on the automobile industry in my favorite rag and it makes me really stop and think. Not that I think about the auto industry on a regular basis, but here we are at a turning point that has both national and global ramifications.

I had no idea that China was so influential when it comes to car sales in the world. From the article:

China increasingly rules the global auto market and determines its course. In recent years, China’s voracious appetite for vehicles has accounted for almost all of the growth in global sales. Chinese consumers bought 24 million cars last year, far more than any other nation. Americans were a distant second with 17 million cars. General Motors sells far more cars in Asia — 947,000 in the first three months of this year — than it does in the United States.

That’s impressive. And it also points out the scary math that I’m sure people think about but that hasn’t been given its due. The United States has about 330 million people and Chin has almost two billion. India has another billion plus. Our birthrate has been dropping for a few years and our chief executive is not fond of growth through immigration. How, then, are we to compete? Tariffs will only go so far and, it seems, will do more harm than good for the workers and suppliers that are making the engines go. Tariffs will also raise prices and cut profit margins. Moreover, young people are moving out of rural and suburban areas into more urban settings, where a car is not a necessity and is even seen as a liability that costs too much, pollutes, and makes life more difficult in a city.

And then, of course, there’s the environment.

Except for those Know Nothings who are running the government, the general consensus and facts as we know them clearly show that the climate is warming, and that is having a profound effect on our planet.

We love our cars in the United States, and they have done a great deal of good for our growth, our economy, and our national pride. Those days, though, are on their way out. Americans are buying fewer cars and auto manufacturing is done mostly in Mexico. Cars pollute. They need parking lots and roads and gas stations and gas and insurance and money to buy all of those extras, and increasingly that money is going to other places in the economy.

It would be nice if our national policy was not moving in the exact opposite direction it needs to on cars and energy. A push for electric cars would help. A push for more mass transit systems would help even more. China is not going away, or even lose, whatever that means, a trade war. They simply have too many people and too much government that is willing to step in and ensure that their key industries have the leverage they need to succeed.

The United States, though, does have strategies it can follow to ensure its continued economic advance, but they should not include more fossil fuels and larger SUVs and trucks. Many businesses are taking it upon themselves to commit to a greener, cleaner future, and perhaps American ingenuity and creativity will enable us to shift away from the old model and into the new one. The rest of the world sees the danger. We seem to see only threats to our way of life, which in many ways needs a serious upgrade.

We need leaders who will realize this and enact policies that will help us get there.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

I went to an interesting event yesterday. Some of my high school classmates and those of other classes honored a teacher who died recently by collecting money and dedicating a bench to his memory and legacy. It was a wonderful affair, attended by about 20 people and followed by some reminiscing at a nearby establishment.

Which led me to think – people should do this much more for their teachers. And I am and am not saying this just because I’m a teacher. I am saying it because I know how much time, energy, care, and dedication teachers devote to their craft and their students. I’m not saying it just because I’m a teacher, but because I think it should be a regular practice to thank and to honor anyone who’s done something that’s impacted your life. We say thank you to service members, and rightly so.

It’s time for everyone to thank their teachers. 

You don’t have to fund a bench, or anything physical, but it would be a nice gesture. So would establishing a scholarship or naming a room, area or award for them. Be creative and make it a lasting gesture. More than that, though, write thank you letters to your teachers or send them private messages on social media. You don’t have to make it public, just heartfelt.

I’ll let you in on something that’s perhaps a secret: Teachers adore, love, and live for hearing from their students. We see you at your most vulnerable ages, and at those times when you might be awkward, unsure of yourself, embarrassed, afraid to speak out or sure that we might not like you. I can say with certainty that we want to see and hear about how much you’ve grown, how you’ve overcome that obstacle, how you discovered a truth because of what you did in our class, or just how you’re living your life.

Honestly, we do.

And don’t fret about that time in class when you… you know… And you think that’s how we define you. We don’t. We saw you as the future and we want to hear from you in the present.

Pick one of your teachers. Let them know how you’re doing. Thank them for any contribution they made to your life. You will make somebody happy.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

Be honest; you thought that maybe this presidency and the direction of the country couldn’t get more offensive or obnoxious or dangerous. And yet, here we are.

The administration is beating the war drums over Iran, and what did you expect? I’ve always thought that anyone who would give John Bolton any responsibility for foreign affairs truly knew nothing about how to conduct foreign affairs.

He served as a recess appointment under George W. Bush and managed to alienate almost every one of our allies. But now he’s a major spokesperson for an executive who clearly doesn’t know what his advisers are doing. After all, any president who is quoted as saying he doesn’t want to go to war has clearly allowed events to get ahead of him. But then, when you don’t know policy, you’re beholden to the most reactional Republican-controlled members of your staff. In fact, the president said yesterday that he wanted some assurance that the Iranians were not going to be able to build a nuclear weapon any time soon. We had that assurance in the treaty with Iran that the president took us out of.

I really wish I was making this up.

As for China, the president actually caught a bit of a break this past week because it was President Xi who upended the trade negotiations, perhaps gambling that he could snooker Trump and be seen as the more sober-minded executive/dictator. Normally, that’s not a bad bet, but this time it backfired and now Xi has to either backtrack or double-down on his mistake. He seems to have chosen the latter. This gives President Trump something he’s rarely had; the moral high ground, and he’s using it to threaten, and then restrain himself, on new tariffs that would seriously hurt the American economy. Luckily for us, Trump thinks that the stock market is the only number that matters economically, and when the market dove last week, he got cold feet. We will likely still see tariffs and higher prices and lower profits over the next few months. So much winning.

Worst, though, are the new reactionary, destructive laws concerning reproductive choice and health care passed in Republican-controlled states. The most noxious is, of course, the Alabama law that not only would ban abortion but would also criminalize doctors who perform them and not make exceptions for women who became pregnant as a result of rape or incest. Missouri followed suit with a fetal heartbeat law requiring rape and incest victims to carry their fetuses to term.

Normally, I would say that this law would go nowhere because of controlling court decisions, but we are in a new universe where conservative justices might decide that we have no right to privacy and strike down Roe, Loving and Griswold in one fell swoop. In sum, they could rule that states can pass whatever laws they want in the name of states rights. Many conservatives say that the Roe decision is the worst Supreme Court decision since Dred Scott. These people never mention Plessy v. Ferguson as a terrible decision because it would allow states to treat anyone they don’t see as normal as a second-class citizen. Forget separate but equal; we’re looking at separate and deport, marginalize, and jail.

If you still don’t believe that this administration and the religious fanatics who support it are a danger to free thought, equal protection, and democratic values, then you need to realign your thinking. Just make sure you’re registered and that you vote.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

I love it when the media runs stories about huge multinational corporations that do not pay any income tax. Why? Because it inevitably leads to…crickets. Oh, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats will make angry speeches, but they disappear after a few days. Then the corporations fight back and say that they’re paying what the law says they should pay. And then they write out no check and continue to plow their profits into overseas factories and their stock price.

Ain’t Capitalism grand?

In fact, this is a national disgrace and there should be protests in the streets whenever any company pays zero tax. And the tax laws should be written so that huge multinational corporations should always have to pay taxes every year, and not just income taxes.

Corporations should have to pay a percentage of their profits to support public education, the environment, and infrastructure. They should offer much larger pay packages to all of their employees that include affordable health insurance, and larger 401(k) matches when an employee opens an account. Executive pay should be adjusted and cut so it doesn’t dwarf the salaries paid to the workers who actually create, deliver, support and innovate.

But that doesn’t happen, and it won’t with the current gang of Republicans and most of the Democrats we have currently serving in the Congress, because they are bought and paid for. And so is the president. After all, this is man so terrified of releasing his tax return, because he knows it will show something ugly and/or illegal about his business practices, he will go to any lengths to grovel at the feet of the ultra-conservative wing of the party and select only the most anti-government cabinet members and Supreme Court justices to protect him in case the Democrats sue or subpoena his files.

The worst part, though, is that we are at a point in our history where wealth and money and excess and things and things to hold the things we have too much of which makes Marie Kondo a celebrity and box office numbers and player salaries and companies that are worth a billion dollars but are really worth very little are part of of our national culture. Our national conversation. Our national, and personal, aspiration. This creates the false assumption that we can all be wealthy and that the capitalist system works because free markets work.

This is why we don’t march in the street when a new tax law creates a scenario where corporations pay nothing but middle class homeowners have to pay more.  Because we believe we are next to hit the jackpot. And we’re not a little scared that if we do march, we will be fired.

It’s time for the tide to turn and for some fairness in the system. Think about that next time you’re in the voting booth.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

I think I’m rather glad that there’s nobody in the conservative movement who/s doing what Phyllis Schlafly did in the 1960s and 1970s. After all, why would we need a person who says that women should stay home, take care of their families and be obedient to their husband, while at the same time jetting around the country (and not being with her family), running for Congress, and joining conservative organizations?

Please don’t misunderstand me; I’m saying that we need activists of all genders and orientations to carry forward positive, useful messages that will bring encouraging change to this country. Mrs. Schlafly preached one message and lived quite another, all the while attempting to scare people into thinking that the Equal Rights Amendment – which she can take credit for defeating – would require unisex bathrooms, would force women into the labor market, and… gay marriage. Then again, she was right, but for the wrong reasons.

With the conservatives back in charge of most of the government, it’s their time to talk about what they rue as the breakdown, or dormancy, of the family. But of course, this argument comes down to how you define the American family. If your idea is of a man and woman and children and perhaps a pet or two with the man working and the women staying home full or part time, then yes, we have a family system in decline.

But if you define a family differently, with, say same sex couples, unmarried couples, single parents or many adults living, working and being responsible for each other and offspring, then the issue looks different.

Part of the conservative lament is that women have entered the workforce, which raised incomes and family spending power, which led to rising prices and the cost of family-related services and thus the decline of purchasing power. This then necessitated both men and women to work more hours to keep up which resulted in children being kept in childcare for longer days, more family stress, and pressure on career couples to work harder just to keep up.

At the lower end of the income scale, the problem seems to stem from the fact that there are fewer jobs for men that would allow them to make a decent living. This is scaring off the available women who are deciding (deciding!) that they might be better off having a child and not getting married because, well, the man might be more trouble than he’s worth. And since single women are at the very bottom of the income scale in this country, they have to run faster just to keep up.

Some of the proposals in the article I linked to would allow families to borrow from their Social Security by taking paid leave now and having to work longer in their 60s to make up for the amount they borrowed. After all, it’s revenue neutral for the federal government. Of course, the federal government under the GOP had no problem slashing the corporate tax rate by 15% and giving the wealthy huge tax cuts ever since 1981, both of which resulted in trillion dollar debts to the federal budget.

But helping families get 12 weeks of paid leave? Sorry–must be revenue neutral.

And of course, let’s not get started about families headed by gay couples or LGBTQ Americans who love their spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, theyfriends, biological children, adopted children, foster children, and pets. We know that conservatives might pay some lip service to these arrangements, but beneath the surface, social and religious conservatives are hoping that Brett Kavanaugh will undo the abominations of a fellow Republican, Anthony Kennedy, who actually understood differences and accepted them as American, pure and simple.

The problems associated with the family are, to a great extent, related to the enormous income inequality that’s been foisted on the American Republic since the election of Ronald Reagan. If incomes don’t stagnate, then families and workers have a chance at earning real money and could cover the costs of services they need to function effectively as a family. If the government would recognize the dire need we have today for subsidized child care, paid family leave, and government programs that actually supported people who need the services, then we could have families that wouldn’t be stressed about missing work or school to take care of their needs.

Having to borrow from Social Security to pay for child care is an unnecessary burden that wealthier people do not have to carry. And it’s also a cruel joke on people who will likely need their Social Security at an earlier age than wealthy people.

I want strong families. I want healthy, well-educated children to have an opportunity to succeed in this country. I want people to be able to spend time with their loved ones, share experiences and contribute to the country. Let’s elect people who will share in this desire.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

I’m actually glad that the Mueller Report found no credible evidence of direct cooperation between the Russians attempt to infect the 2016 election and the Trump campaign. It would be terrible, shocking and dispiriting to know that an American presidential candidate was working with an enemy to undermine our democratic institutions.

Then there’s the rest of the report.

The disgraceful, dispiriting, venal, vile attempt by the president to stop the investigation, intimidate witnesses, subvert the investigative process, and otherwise use his office as a blunt instrument to bludgeon those who would question his utterly questionable behavior is proof positive that when it comes to draining the swamp, Donald Trump is an utter failure. In fact, Trump has brought so many mosquitoes into the swamp that Washington could run out of by the end of the year.

What saved the country and indeed his were the actions of many of the president’s subordinates who refused to carry out his orders, stalled, quit, or in some ways redirected the president’s anger to other concerns. They are not heroes, but they do qualify as capable public servants who knew the constitution and our democratic processes better than the president. 

And, as is usual, most of them no longer work in the Trump White House because they defied his destructive instincts. The ones that are left, including Attorney General William Barr, seem to be more committed to the president than the workings of their offices and their responsibilities to the constitution.

What’s worse is that the president believed he had to undermine the free press, question people’s loyalty to the country, and pay fealty to his most ardent supporters by making himself the victim of some misbegotten prosecutorial overreach. What we now know is that the press is alive and vital, proving that it was the president and his press secretary who did not have their facts straight. And those former underlings who had their loyalty questioned or who were fired and/or testified against the president turned out to be the ones with the correct stories.

The president might not have cooperated with the Russian attempt to subvert the 2016 election, but he did absolutely nothing to stop it and everything to goad them and Julian Assange to feed the press stories that would not only hurt Hillary Clinton but would denigrate our intelligence services and law enforcement agencies. He expressly denied that it was even the Russians who were the main actors, despite the CIA conclusion to the contrary. He tried to get his Attorney General to stop the and he fired James Comey thinking the whole problem would go away.

Tell me where, in all that heavy traffic, he made that tricky u-turn back to being completely exonerated. There might not have been collusion, but there was active ignorance. No crime, but plenty of attempts at breaking the law. And the president blew lots of hot air, but that only fed the fire. He has set a terrible example for the country and has made it clear that he is only interested in appealing to the minority of people who voted for him in 2016.

We deserve better and I hope we get that in 2020.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

A year ago, I wrote this post about Passover, Easter, and immigration.

Here we are again, but the problem seems to have gotten worse. And by , I mean what the president says and does about people who want to escape violence. People who have a well-founded fear that their political views will get them jailed or killed, or who live in countries where they belong to the wrong social, ethnic or religious group. Trump speaks about a crisis at the border, but much of that crisis is based on decisions he has made, such as separating children from their parents and creating camps that, in any other country, would ignite a firestorm of criticism for human rights violations.

But my main point now, as it was a year ago, is that the president and those who most fervently support him on religious grounds have simply betrayed their beliefs. The Bible is clear about how Christians and Jews should treat those who are strangers or poor or in need in our countries. There’s really no debate or contradiction. We should all welcome those who are less fortunate or need food or shelter both realistically and metaphorically.

If the president wants to make good on his threat (threat!) to allow immigrants to go to cities where they will be welcomed, then I say let him issue the order. There is nothing but contempt., fear, and distrust behind such an order because he is assuming that other Americans see these migrants the same way he does: as criminals, gang members, job and benefit thieves, and worse. Somehow, by presenting one’s self at the border, a person changes from a citizen of another country who wants a better life into a marauding threat.

This is a disgrace. It serves no other purpose than to stoke fear and reprisals. A serious president would ask Congress to do nothing else than to get a bill on his desk that will address the immigration issue with a recognition that both sides need to compromise. The great deal maker could go into the room and not come out until there is a bill. But that would require serious ideas and discussions, something that’s been sorely lacking in Washington.

Should everyone be let into the country? No. The law says that each case must be heard and that people must provide evidence that they cannot go back to their country. But those who do show cause should be allowed to stay. After all, this country’s growth is based on immigration. If we are to sustain our economy, we’ll need more workers to do the jobs that Americans can not or will not perform.

We are not making enough Americans grow the economy and without we will be in real trouble. Immigrants have always provided this growth. It is time to stop the fear.

It’s also time for religious people who support the president to live by the words they preach and to demand that Trump stop the harmful rhetoric.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

There have been a number of articles and posts lately about the rise of antisemitism around the world, with the main point being that we’re seeing a rise in attacks, defacements and comments that question whether Jews are really trustworthy citizens. That a US member of Congress, Representative Ilhan Omer was also guilty of saying such things is troubling, to say the least.

But it’s important to note that antisemitism has been alive and well for, well, for as long as there have been Jews in the world, and the rise in antisemitic attacks is more directly related to the rise in global nationalism and populism than anything else. Because when people feel threatened, they lash out at those they believe are responsible for their problems, and since the stereotypes of Jews are related to money, power and nation, we are a convenient scapegoat at a convenient time.

It’s disturbing enough to see the rise of this hatred in other counties. It’s even worse when we see it in the United States, and it’s not just Representative Omar who is a problem. The rise and nurturing of the far right is fueling anti-every minority hatred in the country, and although the president says that he’s the best friend Israel ever had, many of his supporters are the worst perpetrators of racist and antisemitic vitriol.

The truth is that antisemitism has friends on the right and the left, so on this issue, there are no uninterested parties. Jews have historically been seen as others who are not part of the nations they inhabit or are allied with its enemies, financial interests, dark conspiracies, and communist revolutions.

The climate is better than it was, but like the real climate, antisemitism is heating up and belching poison into the atmosphere. We will need to be diligent and strong if we are to beat back this latest insurgency.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

I know that I really shouldn’t even be acknowledging that Betsy DeVos has anything useful to say about education, but the vacant smile she wears when she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, which is pretty much most minutes of most days, is on brilliant display in this video where she gratuitously supports the idea that larger class size leads to more learning, at least for “some students.”

Of course, my solution, then would be to put some students in a large class, but since the number of students who learn best in a large class is small, well, can you see my dilemma? Norman, please relate.

The truth that most every educator knows is that smaller classes are, shall we hedge and say, ALWAYS better than larger classes, because the truth is that the more time a teacher can spend with individual students during a day or class period is always better than spending less time with those students. Yes, it is important for students to collaborate and confer, but in the end, it’s the teacher’s job to deliver the curriculum to students and then to evaluate the extent to which those students have learned the information. And the most effective way of doing that is to interact with more students for as much time as possible every day.

Are there some students who learn more efficiently in larger classes? Yes, but those students are generally better at absorbing and synthesizing information on their own since they don’t need, or get, as much direct teacher support. And, of there are those students who like larger classes because then they can hide or sit in the back or count on the fact that the teacher will not call on them as much. Those students, in fact, need smaller classes.

If this was only a Betsy DeVos issue, then we wouldn’t have as much of a problem because she doesn’t really support federal involvement in state public schools. But this is not just a DeVos problem. The large class know-nothings are alive and well in the leafy suburbs, employing suspect research that says that classes above 30 students are where education tends to break down. This is convenient for school boards because then they don’t have to hire as many teachers and pay them salaries and benefits. This saves money on property taxes and facilities.

Now let’s go back to the video. Notice that the first words Secretary DeVos uses to answer the question (around 1:38) are “Given education freedom initiatives, there are different kinds of environments in which students learn well.” 

First of all, education freedom initiatives code for privatizing education and using government money for non-public schools. Second, what does the first part of the sentence have to do with the second? It simply means that schools should feel free to make classes larger because that’s what freedom means. I think. 

This administration is doing precious little in education and promoting large classes will do even more damage to children.
For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest

Have you seen the Mueller Report?

Me neither.

But I’ve certainly seen scores of  breathless posts, tweets and articles conjecturing on what it might say and what it might mean and what parts of it will be released or not released or released through a summary, which is merely Nixon’s “edited transcripts” using different words.

Perhaps we ought to wait a bit before moving to a High Dudgeon Alert (HDA) or twisting our skivvies, which will only produce a high pitched wail when a sober-minded conversational tone will suffice.

In short, we will need time to mull over the Mueller report and process what it says beyond the headlines and the breathless, usually fatuous real-time interpretations available to us through the wonders of technology. Because, in the end, this is important and we need to read carefully, provide context and make sure we don’t jump to snap conclusions.

It will be up to us as citizens to put unyielding pressure on this administration to release the report in full as soon as possible, and it will be up to us to push for further action if it’s warranted by its findings. Congress will then need to investigate further and square what Mueller found with other areas of investigation.

The president wants the report to be the final word on whether he or anyone in his campaign or administration did anything illegal. In fact, that process is just beginning.

For more, go to www.facebook.com/WhereDemocracyLives or Twitter @rigrundfest