The United States of America in Year 2014 is the wealthiest nation that has ever existed. Poverty among Americans is an obscenity: immoral, unnecessary, counterproductive. As disgusting as it is to watch $100,000 cars zoom past homeless panhandlers, however, there’s something even worse: politicians who pretend to care, who say they’re trying to help the poor and downtrodden, but are actually ignoring them as they revel in the institutional corruption of politics as usual.
As The Times’ Michael Finnegan, David Zahniser and Doug Smith reported:
In January, President Obama announced a block-by-block approach to relieving poverty in Los Angeles. Federal money, he said, would pour into a newly created Promise Zone.
The boundaries encompassed crowded immigrant communities around MacArthur Park and Koreatown, as well as upscale areas of Hollywood and Los Feliz. Left out was South L.A., where the poverty rate is higher. The exclusion stunned many South L.A. leaders.
Why did the White House snub South L.A., which is quantifiably poorer?
Only those previously funded organizations were eligible to seek Promise Zone aid. In Los Angeles, there was only one such group: a nonprofit led by Dixon Slingerland, a major campaign fundraiser for Obama and frequent White House visitor.
Under rules set by the White House and federal agencies, Mayor Eric Garcetti‘s office, working with Slingerland’s Youth Policy Institute, was required to draw the zone’s boundaries around an area where the nonprofit already was focusing its federal grants — either Hollywood or the northeast San Fernando Valley.
The result was an anti-poverty zone that left out communities south of the 10 Freeway, including areas of chronic poverty that drew worldwide attention after the 1965 and 1992 riots. Neighborhoods around Watts have a poverty rate 21% higher than communities within the Promise Zone, according to a Times analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. Neighborhoods east of USC have a poverty rate 39% higher.
This appears to be a political manifestation of the phenomenon described in the important 1996 book “The Winner-Take-All Society.” Influence begets influence, wealth and power aggregate into increasingly fewer hands. It’s why, for example, the best-paid professional athletes get the biggest offers for lucrative product endorsement deals. The more famous you are, the more stuff you can sell. The more stuff you sell, the more famous you get.
“It just seems like those that have keep getting,” shot U.S. Rep. Janice Hahn, who represents South L.A., after the news broke that South L.A. had been excluded. “And those that never had don’t even have a chance.” Hahn “pointedly skipped” a White House ceremony where Obama announced L.A.’s Promise Zone.
City Councilman Bernard C. Parks, who represents part of South L.A., pointed to Dixon Slingerland’s influence with the president: “You know exactly why they came out first. It was preordained.”
Slingerman denies that the Promise Zone’s odd mapping had anything to do with political payback.
Perhaps not. But if Slingerback wanted favors from Obama, he was certainly in a position to ask. Finnegan et al noted: ” Since Obama took office, Slingerland has been to the White House 19 times, logs show. The visits included one to the residence for a reception, three to the West Wing and 10 to the Old Executive Office Building. He attended two receptions at Vice President Joe Biden‘s home at the U.S. Naval Observatory.” I don’t know about you, but I’m still waiting for my first invite.
The soft corruption of coziness, or coincidence? I know not. But it definitely looks bad.
And it doesn’t just look bad in Los Angeles. The other four PZs are drawing fire too.
According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, “several areas of the city face challenges similar to or worse than Mantua,” the West Philly neighborhood designated as that city’s Promise Zone.
Politics appears to have influenced the selection of at least three of the first five Promise Zones. “Rural Kentucky, of all the distressed rural districts and deserving areas across the country, seems a somewhat random choice, but Kentucky Senators Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell both attended the [Promise Zone] announcement, perhaps boosting the chances of bipartisan support,” wrote Susan Greenbaum.
But hey, maybe residents of South L.A. should be relieved that the Obama Administration gave them the cold shoulder. If the Promise Zones work as advertised, planning experts say, they’ll spur gentrification, rising rents and — ultimately — evictions.
And as always, the rich get richer and the poor get ignored.
15 Comments.
There was a time when the American Dream was achievable. You could homestead, work your land & improve your lot (pun intended? Who, me?) You could start your own business on a shoestring, work hard, and become comfortable if not wealthy. Simply being competent at your job was enough to land you in the middle class.
But you can no longer homestead outside of Northern Alaska; and there are damn few opportunities for shoestring startups. Real wages for workers are dropping, so mere competence no longer does the trick. The biggest predictor of wealth in the USA today is not a strong work ethic, but rich parents.
Anyone who passed their Junior High algebra course should be able to do the math. It takes money to make money. The middle class is barely making ends meet, so have very little money to invest. The rich have more money – most importantly they’ve got beaucoup bucks above & beyond what they need to survive. Therefore they’ve got more ability to make even more money above & beyond their needs. Every generation of rich people own progressively larger pieces of the pie, and eventually the middle class gets crowded out.
Welcome to the Land of Opportunists.
There is no profit without the ability to sell things of value for more than it costs to produce them. If I give you a five dollar bill and you give me a five dollar bill , no one has be come wealthier. The theoretical free trade of equal exchange values almost ceases to exist.
People in poor neighborhoods shoot each other when one or the other gets bent out of shape for being on the losing side of a deal when each believes they are entitled to a profit.
That’s where the capitalists instead call on their men with guns, the authorities, to enforce their personally crafted laws written by their own personally owned legislators so they are guaranteed a profit.
Might makes right and the biggest lie of the unjust is their “justice”. Can’t argue with that or they’ll kill you outright and “justly”.
Oh, Heck yeah, we’re on the same wavelength, Glenn. Expanding on what you’ve said, here’s some more capitalarian* bait:
Why does every exchange need to make a profit? Why do we all need to have rising expectations? It should be obvious that’s simply not sustainable given that the planet is finite. Mix in our ever-increasing population and we’re burning our candles at both ends as well as in the middle. I think it’s in our best interests to change our thinking while we’ve still got a little candle left.
*capitalarian: a person who sees capitalism as a religion, rather than an economic theory. Like many religious people, they don’t actually understand the underlying tenets of their religion. They just take whatever their prophets say at face value, no matter how many times they’ve seen those prophets discredited. (Prophets? perhaps “Profits” is a better spelling?)
And there it is folks, the Loser’s Credo — as spoken by CrazyH. It has all the elements:
Atavism: “There was a time when the American Dream was achievable.” Pretty much any sentence that begins with “There was a time …” is a strong indicator you’re dealing with a loser. It’s meant to convey the idea that one simply cannot compete now because life isn’t fair anymore, not like it used to be. Of course this is total garbage. Total loser talk.
Lies: “You can no longer homestead outside of Northern Alaska”. A total lie. Period. No matter to the loser though, because spouting lies is a great way to offload responsibility. Hopefully no one will fact check the loser, and just feel sorry for him. Sorry pal, no dice. You can homestead in plenty of places and people do. All over.
Poor Me: ” It takes money to make money.” Yet another loser staple, this is the notion that one simply can never get ahead. Only people that are born rich can succeed, and on and on. A lower class person? They simply cannot make it in this world according to this axiom of the Loser’s Credo.
In all seriousness, why don’t you just sock back a few shots and call it a day. Can’t do much else, right? Maybe someday you’ll have enough guts to add a little cyanide to the booze and check out altogether. May as well. Can’t do anything anyway in this sad, sad, unfair world.
As for the rest of us, I suggest ignoring CrazyH types. Their mentality is a virus, one you don’t want to be infected with. If you know a type like this, get as far away as possible from them. They live to bring motivated and successful people down. They live by their Loser’s Credo, which can really be summed up as “misery loves company”.
Well said. Negative people like him try to take down people before anything has even begun. Choose your friends wisely. The types that will build you up. There are still people who are self-made rich today. The rules are just different. If people would catch up, it is actually EASIER to become wealthy today. We have more and better opportunities than ever before because of technology. It does NOT take money to make money. Not your own anyway. The best investors use other people’s money. Entrepreneurs’ most important skill is raising capital. So many people think they’ve just got to go it alone. THAT mentality is what won’t work. Instead of paying themselves first, people get into consumer debt. Catch up and learn the rules already. Learn to protect yourselves from inflation and taxes. Do a little research maybe. It IS tough today if you think the old rules of just work hard still apply.
The funny thing is that we have here a liberal, CrazyH, waxing nostalgic. The main reason we were so prosperous in the 50s, was because a devastated Europe needed our goods and sent us their GOLD reserves in payment! That’s what ended the Depression. Oh, but gold is so stupid and archaic. We live in the wonderland of paper money that is robbing ordinary people blind with inflation. Anyone who thinks that fiat currency is great is not helping the average guy.
@Jack
So, Europe sending us gold in the 1950’s brought about the end of the depression in 1939. I must admit I did not know that.
> You can homestead in plenty of places and people do. All over.
Name three.
> ” It takes money to make money.” Yet another loser staple,
Name the three factors of production in classical economics, and explain how one might acquire them without money.
I’m usually on your side, Crazy, but this time… homesteading?
a) you can get land cheap other places, I know a couple, not at all wealthy, who’ve scraped up enough for 10 acres in the Appalachians and are going to give it a try
b) do you have any idea how much work that would be? I garden enough that we’re something I’ve grown year-round, the wife says we save $50-100 a month. Even that much takes several days of really hard work in the spring and the fall, and an hour or two of maintenance every weekend past that? Grow all your food? And some to sell? I’ll keep my day job, thanks.
Past that… I have little taste for exko’s panglossian capitalist apologetics but he’s right about one thing. Feeling sorry for yourself doesn’t help. You’ve just got to keep plugging. It’s the only way.
eating something I’ve grown year-round
Homesteading as an example of how you could achieve “The American Dream” on your own without a huge investment up front … a long time ago.
Absolutely it was a large amount of work. Not everybody made it, and very few were able to parlay it into wealth. But they did have that day’s equivalent of a house with a picket fence, two cows in the garage, and pot enough for every chicken.
Not sure where the “feeling sorry for self bit” came in, I’m fairly comfortable. The people I feel sorry for are those who – through no fault of their own – are distinctly uncomfortable with no prospects for improvement.
Ted: The comment log in is going goofy again. If it helps your programming guy, the problem corrects when I log in through the TOP article comment log in first. But trying to log in through the “click here to log in” associated with this topic simply puts me in a loop of logging in and being prompted again to “click here to log in.”
Anyway. Down to brass tacks.
I don’t think it’s particularly useful to debate whether someone can “homestead.” First off, let’s get the term squared away. What does everyone mean by “homestead”? Using a John Deere tractor that you fill with Exxon or BP gasoline? That’s not homesteading. That’s living in the suburbs and pretending you’re roughing it. Stop reading “Walden Pond” Thoreau.
Homesteading is living off the land with absolutely minimal assistance from the outside world. So no electricity, no water from the city, no WalMart, no police, no fire department, no hospital, no vaccines, no dentists, etc. It’s you and some animals keeping the farm ticking over. And even if you do everything right, you can still get the shaft. By the way, chop some more wood. You don’t want to run out in mid-January when there’s another six weeks of winter. The list of skills necessary to stay alive is staggering. The amount of time it takes is devastating.
As for “innovators.” Most “innovators” have investors. Most “innovators” have venture capitalists and private equity firms providing resources. Back in the 1990s, a term arose: Vaporware. Here’s how it worked. Someone would invent a computer program. They’d try to shop it around. Eventually, Microsoft would hear about it and issue a press release about how Microsoft was going to release a program that did everything the “innovator’s” program did, very soon. Had Microsoft done any programming? No. Not a keystroke. But the innovator’s company collapses. Why? No one’s buying a product that they can get from Microsoft in six months from some guy no one’s ever heard of. Microsoft finds out the innovator’s company has filed for bankruptcy. They go in, buy up the program, and release it under the Microsoft label. There are other, similar instances. Look up Michael Bolton. He got sued by a musician for infringement. Bolton’s lawyers tied up the case so long that the musician who sued in the first place had to file for bankruptcy. Bolton then went in and bought up the rights to the song in question. One more? Sure. Look at the names of the reporters at the New York Times. How many of them went to an Ivy League school?
Does anyone, seriously, believe that going to an Ivy League school makes you more capable as a reporter? Of course not. But when John 9. Smith from Harvard calls up and talks to one of his Harvard dormmates, suddenly the next opening has him on the short list. If he can be pulled away from “innovating.”
Social scientists recently ran a test involving playing Monopoly with two sets of rules: One player got the regular set up: two dice, $200 every time they pass Go. The other player got one die, and only $100 for passing Go. The inequity was easily seen: with one die, it takes longer to get around the board, you encounter other players’ rental properties more frequently. But the thing the researchers noticed was that the player who had the two dice and the $200 started feeling entitled. That player tended not to point out that the game was rigged. Rather, he took credit for being successful.
The reality is pretty clear to people who haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid:
Real wages, adjusted for inflation, are down across the board, especially for the Middle Class. The price of rent has soared. “Oh, buy a house,” comes the instruction from those who know better than you, the renter. You’ll need something like 10% down, and closing costs. “Oh, can’t you borrow it from family or friends? Don’t you have two dice?”
Crap! I can’t remember now if it was Michael Bolton or Kenny G — both are guilty of so much, but I wouldn’t want to accuse falsely — who did the aforementioned. Bolton got sued by the Isley Brothers. But I can’t find any reference to Kenny G being involved in this sort of dust up. It was originally in a Boondocks comic strip, so if anyone happens to run across it. …
> First off, let’s get the term squared away. What does everyone mean by “homestead”?
Since I raised the topic – what I meant was the Homestead Act of 1862. Wagon trains & pioneers with arrows in their backs. The government gave away land essentially for free. (This is where the wrongnuts start whining – that’s socialism or maybe communism or one of those other words they can’t define. Yet it lead to an age of unprecedented growth.)
At that point in time – you could raise yourself from poverty to landowner, mostly by the sweat of your brow. You can’t do that any more. The closest we have today is in software, where you can still make big bucks with a minimal investment. But we’ve pretty much tapped that out – the days vaporware & dot com bubbles is over.
On the subject of M$, their thefts were even more blatant. Consider the case of Stacker, they invented a disk compression algorithm that was so fast that it actually sped up disk access. M$ started a partnership, when they had their hands on the algorithm, they dumped Stacker. Stacker sued, but M$ had deeper pockets & Stacker went bankrupt.
They used their monopoly power to beat out Netscape and Borland, both of which had superior products. Far from innovating, they’ve held the computer industry back for at least 20 years. That wouldn’t have happened if the Invisible Hand of the Free Market was doing its job.
Anybody seen the invisible hand around lately? I think it disappeared into the bathroom with a copy of Playboy & hasn’t been seen since.
Exactly. Whenever someone somewhere starts talking about how they “made it” on their own, there is ALMOST always, a big fat handout involved. If the government gives it to you and you’re white/male/straight, it’s your just due, an entitlement you EARNED. If you’re black/female/gay? You’re a frickin’ filthy parasite, you moocher.
True dat. Usually.
But the homestead act was open to women & blacks, anyone who had never taken up arms against the United States. (Which discriminated against Johnny Reb – can’t have everything 😉
I got a real kick out of the republicritters in the last presidential election. O’bummer gave his “you didn’t build that” speech, and the wrongnuts made a whole lot of noise about that one phrase – they even made their convention’s keynote “We built that.”
Which was the whole point of O’bummer’s speech … duh?