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Below I look at the state of the nation from a local level but the feeling is just the same all across the country and whether you are poor, working class, or middle class.......THERE IS OUTRAGE OVER LOSS OF PERSONAL WEALTH, RETIREMENTS, SAVINGS, AND ABILITY TO EARN MONEY and it is all tied to global corporations, free market and free trade policies that allow corporate rule with no oversight and accountability. Please stand up for the injustice that happens locally as AN INJUSTICE FOR ONE IS AN INJUSTICE FOR ALL!!
Regarding the escalating violence in the city:
This is how you know that US press is captured.....it is now a propaganda machine for US corporate interests. As we listen to our leaders call Snowden a criminal guilty of espionage we are watching the world look at America as a Banana Republic.....we are being made to look like fools as the US identifies everyone around it a behaving criminally when it is the US government and US corporations behaving criminally. Americans and the entire world know this to be true! It is only the leadership in America who are complicit with all of the crime that are seeing their schemes unraveling that decry all as treachery. The American people are charging the BOOZ corporation and the US government with espionage as we all know they were operating outside the parameters of any law that could be passed broadening the definition of surveillance and that is what the whistle blower Snowden is trying to make public. If you have a government aiding and abetting crime you cannot go to that government for resolution, and so you take it to the international community.
So what does espionage and the War on the Poor and working class have to do with press coverage? I stated before that I attended the Johns Hopkins symposium on gun control and talked with Daniel Webster as to the flaw in Hopkins' approach to gun control. I made the obvious statement that it was the 'bad guys' at the top of the income ladder that were the problem and that draining the economy and government coffers of tens of trillions of dollars has deepened poverty and escalated crime and violence.....ergo.....the increased buying, trading, and using of guns. IT IS THE BAD GUYS AT THE TOP OF THE INCOME LADDER DANIEL! Daniel didn't see any problems at the top of the ladder and simply said 'we don't want to hear excuses'! So, the problem and solution is now an excuse to be discarded. What is really behind the gun control issue is the fear that the guns are going to be turned on the leaders committing the crimes. We have had gun violence in Baltimore for decades with as high as 300 people a year being killed as poverty grew. Weapons manufacturers were allowed to reap huge profits as long as the poor and working class were killing themselves. Now, as wealth inequity and Rule of Law has disappeared we know that the violence will spread and plans for rebellion will grow......AND THAT IS TOWARDS WHAT THIS GUN CONTROL IS DIRECTED. No doubt we want gun control......getting military weapons off the streets and away from the public is a good thing. You simply do not want to do that in the middle of a government coup when American citizens are being preyed upon by corporations and their pols!
As I watch the go to guy Webster lament that the criminalizing rules of the gun control law were not passed and that the existing laws will probably be overturned in the Supreme Court......I AM TELLING DANIEL WEBSTER THAT THE PROBLEM IS THE 'BAD GUYS AT THE TOP OF THE INCOME LADDER'!
National Press Club to Host "NEWSMAKER" Media Briefing on Reducing Gun Violence in America with Daniel Webster, Director of Center for Gun Policy and Research, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
The Baltimore City Council is very pleased that Chief Batts will bring in the FBI and State Police to stop this violence of people simply outraged over the direction of development and plans for the city. Never once does anyone in the police department or City Hall mention the public policy and the suspended Rule of Law that creates this mess.
CITY HALL AND THE MARYLAND ASSEMBLY TIED TO THE SUSPENSION OF RULE OF LAW IS THE PROBLEM......
Despair, resolve in Baltimore after 20 shot over the weekend Eight killed in bloody outburst; councilman calls hearing
1/7 By Justin Fenton, Justin George and Luke Broadwater, The Baltimore Sun 9:15 p.m. EDT, June 24, 2013
Surrounded by farmland at an Iowa facility for troubled youths, Gervontae Burgess' circumstances could hardly have been more different from those in his violent Baltimore neighborhood. Brad Knight, Burgess' football coach, remembers a bright young man with a broad smile and a desire to help others.
"Gervontae was one of those kids who soaked everything in. He wanted to be a great teammate and wanted to learn," said Knight, who coached Burgess at the Clarinda Academy. "My worry was always that when they went home, we were going to throw them right back to the wolves."
Burgess did come back, and he soon found himself locked up multiple times. Last weekend, the 20-year-old was one of eight people fatally shot across Baltimore. He died Saturday in a Pennsylvania Avenue shooting that also killed a 49-year-old woman.
Police scrambled Monday to stop the violence after a weekend in which 20 people were shot — the city's worst outbreak in years. Monday evening was marked with yet another shooting, this time with two men injured by gunfire in the Shipley Hill neighborhood. That shooting was reported about 8:20 p.m. near the intersection of Hollins Street and South Catherine Street in Southwest Baltimore.
As City Council members decried the bloodshed, Police Commissioner Anthony W. Batts visited the site of an East Baltimore quintuple shooting that took the life of Donyae Jones, an 18-year-old woman.
In his first public appearance since the shootings, Batts took a brief stroll through a block of Kenwood Avenue and embraced Joanna Harvell, who said she was Jones' mother-in-law.
"I'm scared to come out the door. I'm in fear for my grandkids to come out here," Harvell said. Her son, Anthony Harvell, said he was married to Jones and his life would never be the same. "She was the only girl I ever loved. I feel like I'm dead, too."
Gregory Stewart, 51, who lives one block south, said he appreciated the police visit to his neighborhood but wondered whether the violence would spur any lasting change.
"In two, three weeks when they drop back, it'll be the same situation," he said.
After the weekend, a total of 110 people had been slain in Baltimore this year, and homicides were up 10 percent compared with the same time last year. In Washington, by comparison, there have been 38 homicides in 2013.
"For us, this is a concern," Batts told reporters on Kenwood Avenue. "This is a spike. We will respond to the spike and be assertive about it."
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who is attending a conference in Las Vegas, said in a statement that the "this weekend's senseless violence will not diminish our resolve to target repeat violent offenders, gangs and illegal guns."
Flanked by police commanders from across the city, Batts said he was working with federal and state partners to crack down, including an increased role for the city sheriff's office. He said he met with City Council members last week and that they are "very supportive, very happy with the job we're doing."
But downtown, City Council members were questioning police Monday. Councilman Brandon Scott, who represents Northeast Baltimore, called for a hearing to look into the weekend's shootings, saying he wanted to make sure the Police Department was prepared for an upward trend in summer violence.
He said he was holding the department to the standard of 2011, when Baltimore saw a 30-year low in homicides.
"If we're not at 2011 numbers, then we're failing," Scott said. "As of right now, we're failing. Why aren't we having the success we had in the past?"
City Councilman Carl Stokes said he took exception to statements by police officials who said they were generally satisfied with this year's crime statistics. He said he spoke to many residents who were also upset by those statements.
"I really have no words," Stokes said. "I am as stunned as my community."
Councilwoman Helen Holton, who represents Southwest Baltimore, said residents are fed up with the violence and the inability of city government to quell it.
"We have low morale. People don't believe in the vision of this city," she said. "The citizens aren't buying into the plans for the future. There's a sense of people throwing their hands up the in air in total frustration."
IF YOU THINK IT IS ONLY A WAR ON THE POOR.....DON'T FORGET SENIORS.....YOU HAVE HAD ALL YOUR WEALTH STOLEN AS WELL!!!! THEY ARE AFTER ALL ASSETS AND IT WILL NOT BE PRETTY WHAT THESE SOCIOPATHS PLAN FOR SENIORS.
40 years ago when the public policy of the day thought that consolidating the poor into high rise apartments surrounded by public services was the most efficient way to handle this social safety net program? What you got was decades of underfunding, massive fraud and government corruption moving all funds going to these projects into the hands of connected people and a slow deterioration of the buildings, quality of life, and society surrounding these 'housing projects'. Now they are going to do the same thing with the elderly that are coming with the baby boomers. They have taken all the boomer's wealth through corporate fraud and handed the care of seniors to hedge funds like Carlyle and have Affordable Care Act that consolidates the health system into global corporations all leading to what will be a tremendous 'ghetto' for the seniors.
If you do not believe that politicians working for corporate interests will not defund and neglect the buildings, the people, and the quality of life for seniors then I have swampland in Florida for you! WE KNOW THAT IS THE GOAL! It is the same when they consolidate here in Baltimore into complexes that no one wants to be tracked into. Seniors do not want to be isolated in senior communities....they intend on living freely in the greater communities collecting all of their wealth stolen from them through massive corporate fraud!
NOTHING MORE CONVENIENT AS MEDICARE AND MEDICAID ARE CUT AND MOST WILL NOT BE ABLE TO AFFORD CARE THEN TO NESTLE THEM IN SECLUSION
GET RID OF THIRD WAY CORPORATE NEO-LIBERALS AND RUN AND VOTE FOR LABOR AND JUSTICE CANDIDATES!
Massive Annapolis proposal spurs neighborhood battle
180-acre project would include senior care, shopping and townhousesJanet Richardson is working to develop a section of her Crystal Spring Farm into senior living and a mixed use development. The plan is controversial in Annapolis, with opponents saying the project will destroy some of the last forestland on Forest Drive. (Photo by Algerina Perna / Baltimore Sun / June 5, 2013)
By Pamela Wood, The Baltimore Sun 8:10 p.m. EDT, June 24, 2013
To its developers, Crystal Spring Annapolis represents a new wave of retirement living: Senior apartments and nursing home rooms nestled in the woods. A cluster of specialty shops a short walk or golf cart ride away. An inn and village green attracting people of all ages.
To the proposed project's detractors, Crystal Spring represents another attempt to burden congested roads with an oversized development in one of the state capital's last remaining forested areas.
Battle lines have been drawn over the project, which at 180 acres and 540 units is one of the largest Annapolis has seen in years. It's also one of the most contentious, leading to a fight featuring protests, petitions and even dueling Twitter accounts.
The developers have made a public relations push, and opponents have been pushing back just as insistently — all before the project is even under official consideration by city officials.
"This will be the largest development the city has ever seen and probably will ever see," said Ray Sullivan, who lives in the Hillsmere neighborhood just outside city limits and has been fighting the proposal as part of the Annapolis Neck Peninsula Federation. "I don't know how else there would ever be a development this big. There's no land."
Opponents of Crystal Spring Annapolis will hold a meeting Wednesday to marshal their forces and educate the public about their views.
The same night, the developers will hold the latest in a series of information sessions for potential residents of the senior community.
The landowner and a Connecticut-based development company say the opposition is limited to a couple dozen vocal critics. They say there's a large but quiet contingent of people who support Crystal Spring Annapolis for the jobs it would bring and for the alternative option for senior living. OH, REALLY????
"Nobody's hearing about the people who are for the project, because they don't want to fight the battles in the media," said Janet Richardson-Pearson, owner of the property.
Marshall Breines, the Connecticut developer who has a contract to buy the land and build on the site, said the city's permitting process will allow him to present the project in clearer detail and "overcome [the opposition] with facts."
Environmentalists and neighbors say they're eager for that review process, too.
"Because they haven't put in an application, it becomes kind of murky," Sullivan said. "They've been out there taking ads and they're giving the impression that it's approved and it hasn't been."
Crystal Spring Annapolis would be located on Richardson-Pearson's 180-acre Crystal Spring Farm, along the southern edge of Annapolis on busy Forest Drive, not far from Annapolis Middle School.
The project would include a "continuing care retirement community" run by National Lutheran Communities & Services. It calls for 362 apartments and single-story cottages for seniors, plus 52 beds for nursing care and assisted living, tucked away from Forest Drive on the rear of the property.
On the front half of the property, separated from the retirement community by woods and a stream, would be a shopping area anchored by a Harris Teeter grocery store. Also planned are an 80-room inn and spa, a 300-seat cultural arts center, 126 townhouses for people of all ages, a 2-acre village green and a new location for the Annapolis Wellness House, which offers services for people with cancer.
Richardson-Pearson has agreed to make water-quality improvements that she says will offset the project's impact on the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Crystal Spring has the endorsement of the South River Federation.
Richardson-Pearson says the project will marry her interests: establishing a desirable place for people to retire, helping people with cancer and providing services that people in Annapolis can use.
Richardson-Pearson said buildings will be designed to evoke a village-like feel. "I'm not the typical property owner trying to squeeze every dollar out of every square inch," she said.
Richardson-Pearson is hoping Crystal Spring will attract people such as Douglas Hole. He and his wife, Donna, live in a neighborhood a few miles away and like the idea of moving to a retirement community without having to find a new church or new doctors.
"I think for us, as we grow older, this might be a very, very good approach for us," said Hole, 71, a retired Air Force colonel. Donna Hole, 68, used to be the chief of historic preservation for the city of Annapolis. "The whole thing is right here. We're not inclined to pack up and go to Florida."
BOOST MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT BECAUSE IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO.....DO NOT LABEL MENTAL HEALTH PATIENTS AS INHERENTLY DANGEROUS!!!!!
AS WITH THE IMMIGRATION REFORM PROPOSALS WHERE GOOD ISSUES ARE USED TO IMPLEMENT POLICY THAT IS NOT IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST I WANT TO LOOK AGAIN AT THIS GUN POLICY AND EMPHASIZE THAT IT FAILS TO ADDRESS THE PROBLEMS YET AGAIN AS IT SEEKS TO CRIMINALIZE AND DENY PEOPLE OF PERSONAL RIGHTS.
THIS IS MY COMMENT TO MY PUBLIC MEDIA THAT REFUSES TO STATE WHAT ALL THE 26 RULES ARE AND HOW THEY WOULD AFFECT PEOPLE:
Fraser Smith keeps alluding to the Republican gun lovers as the only decent from the massive 26 rule gun control policy embraced by O'Malley and written by Johns Hopkins School of Public Health....the War on Guns as progressive democrats like to call it. We all know the 'at risk' list will cast a huge net on who will not be able to own guns and the penalties will incarcerate another record number of citizens in American prisons. Progressives see gun control as first and foremost a justice issue....or the lack thereof. We all know that poverty fuels crime and gun violence so there is the defunding of all that helps underserved youth find safe haven and long-term personal support all because we have massive corporate fraud draining our government coffers that no justice agency will address.
Today I'd like to address the mental illness issue as we all know that is a factor the gun violence although being given too much of a spotlight as mental health is responsible for a smaller percentage of gun violence. Using just an example here in Charles Village I know of one man with obvious schizophrenic tendencies walking the streets who one can guage his treatment or lack of by his behavior. When he is medicated he is quiet and passive and when he isn't he is verbally abusive and aggressive. The problem for him and all of us is that he is mostly off meds.
In Maryland one can ask any social worker off record what their case load is like and they will tell you they have hundreds of cases each to manage some as high as 500 cases. The recommended for adequate care is 50 cases so we know that Maryland's mental health treatment is all on paper not a reality. People are brought in to be given meds which they take for a day or so and then, because there is no case management they lose or forget to take these meds. THIS ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE! The State of Maryland bills the Federal government for case work for hundreds of patients milking the Medicaid Trust for services not rendered. Pharma gets billions in medications at inflated prices and pay almost no taxes to support government coffers.
THIS IS THE MENTAL HEALTH POLICY THAT NEEDS TO CHANGE IN ORDER TO MITIGATE GUN VIOLENCE. YOU START BY ENFORCING LAW AND ENDING GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION BEFORE YOU TAKE AWAY PEOPLE'S RIGHTS AND INCARCERATE.
In most cases of mass killing involving the mentally ill it is found the killers were not receiving the level of mental health care they needed. The mother of the Sandy Hook killer was found to have written she could not get help with her son and feared his behavior would have consequences. The Dark Knight movie killer had a university counselor who knew something was up but did not have the time to pursue the problems. THIS IS A RESULT OF A COMPLETE DISMANTLING OF ALL OF OUR MENTAL HEALTH FACILITIES TO WHERE WE HAVE POLS RELYING ON MEDICATIONS AND INCARCERATION TO CARE FOR THE MENTALLY ILL. That is third world stuff folks and it happens because of the move away from corporate and wealth taxation that is emptying our government coffers.
When a Third Way corporate democrat comes out for gun control and never mentions the deplorable conditions in mental health and allow for the continuing defunding of government AS IS NOW HAPPENING AT ALL LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT THROUGH LOST TAX REVENUE AND MASSIVE CORPORATE FRAUD......those pols are lying to you about their sincerity on the issue! It is Third Way Obama and Congress that defunded Medicaid and sent it to the states knowing it would be dismantled.......THAT IS HOW MENTAL HEALTH FUNDING IS MADE FOR GOODNESS SAKES!!!!!
MENTAL ILLNESS IS A SMALL PART OF GUN VIOLENCE AND IT IS TAKING ON THE BRUNT OF POLITICAL SOLUTIONS MUCH OF WHICH DENY PEOPLE'S CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS!!
So, do we take all kinds of personal rights away from people.....like privacy issues surrounding releasing medical records on those having mental treatment so it can be in a database for police that anybody can access for any reason? Do we allow an arbitrary 'at risk' list of people who can't have guns while others do that is so riddled with injustice as to make it a hit list for any restriction.....who is a felon? The homeless charged with loitering or the banker having stolen millions of dollars and not charged? How far do you go with mental health issues......will all addicts....drug and alcohol be banned for life because after all addiction is a lifelong health issue? We know a percentage of depressed people kill themselves and sometimes their partners so we then ban anyone seeking medication for depression from gun ownership?
Of course all of this is followed by what all mental health professionals say: These kinds of laws will keep people from seeking the help they need and make these gun killings worse. AND IT WILL. WE ARE SEEING THAT WITH OUR MILITARY VETS WHO CAN'T GET HELP FOR THEIR PTSS!
So, if gun control policy had remained at the 'banning assault rifles/ammo and licensing and background check it would have been fine. The expanded rules that everyone knows lies behind will make what was common sense laws become yet another fight!!!
Some say efforts to boost mental health treatment to combat gun violence are misguided
February 09, 2013 9:00 am • STEVEN ELBOW | The Capital Times
Steven Elbow joined The Capital Times in 1999 and has covered law enforcement in addition to city, county and state government. He has also worked for the Portage Daily Register and has written for the Isthmus weekly newspaper in Madison.
The big winners in the effort to reduce gun violence are shaping up to be mental health advocates. Not only is Gov. Scott Walker willing to pump $30 million into boosting mental health services in Wisconsin, in other states Democrats and Republicans alike are calling for similar measures. Mental health funding is also a key component of President Barack Obama's gun control initiative.
Advocates are positively giddy over the new focus on mental health.
"We're ecstatic," Shel Gross, director of public policy for Mental Health America of Wisconsin and chairman of the Wisconsin Council on Mental Health, was quoted in the Wisconsin State Journal as saying after Walker announced the funding. "One of my colleagues who works in children's services was in tears. These are things we've been working on for years."
But Scott Bryant-Comstock, president of the Children's Mental Health Network, says wait a minute. There's a downside.
"There's a new stigma in town: guns + mental illness = violence," he writes on the group's website. "And it should break the hearts of advocates nationwide."
The effort to paint America's gun violence as a mental health issue was on full display when Wayne LaPierre, the chief executive officer of the National Rifle Association, called for putting mental health records into the national background check database, while rejecting any suggestions of expanded background checks or gun restrictions.
The focus on mental illness could have a number of unforeseen effects, critics say, from stigmatizing mental illness to the point where those in need will avoid seeking help, to overzealousness in categorizing those with emotional problems as potentially violent.
Bryant-Comstock says the tendency to boil complex problems down to the sound bite is in full play here.
"The popular press is doing a wonderful job of lumping it all together so that suddenly anyone with a mental health challenge is a suspect for violence," he writes.
Among Bryant-Comstock's worries is that the knee-jerk emphasis on mentally ill people will lead to an uptick of admissions of those feared to be violent just by virtue of mental illness to psychiatric hospital beds and residential programs, when community-based programs are more appropriate.
"You know what I fear most?" he writes. "A lot of bluster about improving mental health services which will result in increased psychiatric hospital beds and residential programs — not that those services don't have their place — they do. But we have learned so much over the past 20 years about a community approach to serving youth with mental health challenges and their families. Why are we not hearing more about those approaches in the popular press?"
Jeri Bonavia, director of the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort (WAVE), calls the focus on mental health "a mistake."
"We know that there are some problems with getting mental health records into the background check system, and I think that needs to be addressed," she says. "But it can't be that we turn our attention just to mental health issues related to gun violence because people suffering from mental illness make up a very small percentage of the perpetrators of gun violence."
But in Wisconsin, mental health funding is all that Republicans, who run all levels of government, are talking about when it comes to gun control. In Washington, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has proposed a $1.4 billion plan to require certain mental health facilities to expand services and access.
That despite the fact that few of those who have perpetrated mass shootings have been diagnosed with any mental illness. Adam Lanza, who shot 20 children and six adults in the Dec. 14 Newtown, Conn., shootings, had no known history of mental illness. Nor did Wade Michael Page, who killed six people at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., last August. James Holmes, who killed 12 people and wounded 58 at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater last July, had been treated for mental illness, but that didn't bar him from purchasing a gun.
Meanwhile, the proposal most Americans see as the most sensible route, universal background checks, faces an uncertain fate as congressional Republicans and Democrats alike fear being painted as anti-gun.
A poll this week by Quinnipiac University shows that more than 90 percent of American voters support background checks for all gun buyers, which would close the so-called gun show loophole. And that's where Bonavia says Wisconsin should be focusing its effort. Her group is currently in the midst of a petition drive to urge Walker to propose background checks.
Currently only seven states require a background check for all gun purchases. Four other states require background checks at gun shows for handguns only.
In 33 states there are no requirements for background checks for purchases from private dealers at gun shows, which means that people who can't pass a background check can still buy guns.
Even former Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan says he wants to close the gun show loophole. But the NRA, which is used to getting its way, calls that the first step to a national firearms registry.
And LaPierre, the NRA's chief executive officer, called background checks a fraud.
"It's never going to be universal," he told Fox News on Feb. 3. The criminals aren't going to comply with it."
Let's not forget that LaPierre made a point of marrying gun violence and mental illness in the wake of the Newtown shootings.
"The truth is that our society is populated by an unknown number of genuine monsters — people so deranged, so evil, so possessed by voices and driven by demons that no sane person can possibly ever comprehend them," LaPierre after the shootings. "They walk among us every day. And does anybody really believe that the next Adam Lanza isn't planning his attack on a school he's already identified at this very moment?"
Bryant-Comstock isn't alone in his concern about equating mental illness with violence. The American Psychiatric Association blasted LaPierre's characterization of mentally ill violent offenders as "lunatics" and "monsters."
"Only 4 to 5 percent of violent crimes are committed by people with mental illness," Dilip Jeste, the president of the APA, says in a statement. "About one quarter of all Americans have a mental disorder in any given year, and only a very small percentage of them will ever commit violent crimes."
Adds the association's CEO, James Scully:
"This is simply a relic of the past and has no place in our public dialogue. People who are clearly not mentally ill commit violent crimes and perform terrible acts every day. Unfortunately, Mr. LaPierre's statements serve only to increase the stigma around mental illness and further the misconception that those with mental disorders are likely to be dangerous."
THE PROBLEM WITH GUN VIOLENCE IS THE GUN MANUFACTURERS WANTED TO MAKE BILLIONS IN PROFITS AND SATURATED OUR SOCIETY WITH GUNS AND GUN CULTURE. THAT IS THE PROBLEM. PLACE THE RESPONSIBILITY ON THE GUN BUSINESS TO REMOVE GUNS FROM THE CULTURE LIKE CANCER/ANTI-SMOKING FORCED CIGARETTES OUR.......
THE REASONS WE ARE SEEING THIS PUSH ON MENTAL HEALTH IS TO PROTECT THOSE GUN PROFITS.
Mental Health Solutions Alone Can't Thwart Gun Violence, Experts Say
Posted: 01/31/2013 8:11 am EST | Updated: 02/04/2013 2:11 pm EST Huffington Post
When it comes to preventing gun-related violence, President Barack Obama and the National Rifle Association agree on one key priority: Both call for measures aimed at preventing people with mental illnesses from owning firearms.
In the days after a lone gunman massacred 20 schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn., Obama called for an expansion of mental health services and more stringent background checks for gun buyers to screen out those who may pose a danger. The NRA proposed the creation of a national registry of people with mental illnesses to help limit their ability to purchase guns.
But public health and firearms experts assert that focusing on mental illness is unlikely to achieve a significant reduction in gun violence, because the vast majority of shootings are the handiwork of people who do not fit the profile of those deemed dangerous. Moreover, by shifting the debate away from gun control and toward mental health concerns, proponents run the risk of further stigmatizing mental illness, discouraging those who confront it from seeking professional help.
"Gun violence is a mental health issue only to a very small extent and to a much smaller extent than most people assume," said Paul Appelbaum, a psychiatrist and the director of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons' Division of Law, Ethics and Psychiatry.
"Most gun violence is just not committed by people with mental illness," he said. "Were we somehow to stop violence by anyone with a mental illness -- as unlikely as that outcome might be -- we would be safer, but only a teeny bit safer. As much as these incidents attract everybody's attention and concern, they are a tiny fraction of the people who get killed in this country every year."
Despite the earnest discussion of mental illness that follows seemingly every headline-capturing mass shooting, people with mental illnesses are responsible for no more than 5 percent of all violent acts in the United States, according to research published by the Institute of Medicine in 2005. By contrast, an estimated 20 percent of American adults reported having some form of mental illness in 2011, and 5 percent reported a serious mental illness, according to a survey from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration released this month.
Mental illness is the cause of fewer mass shootings than the public perceives, Appelbaum said. "If you look at the lists that are put together of those kinds of events, they are primarily family and workplace violence episodes," he said.
But in the policy arena, public perception functions as effective reality, given the dearth of data. No thorough study exists establishing a connection between mental illnesses and mass shootings, Appelbaum said. Neither does a database of mass shootings that would allow researchers to flesh out a useful profile of those seemingly prone to horrific violence.
What's more, experts say many if not most of the gun-related tragedies that have captured national attention in recent years appear unlikely to have been prevented, even had stronger rules been in place barring people with mental illnesses from owning weapons.
Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old shooter in Newtown, Conn., had no known history of mental illness, despite unconfirmed reports that he was diagnosed with a form of autism. He used firearms legally purchased by his mother, herself one of his victims.
Nor does mental illness appear to explain other widely publicized mass murders, including the slaying of six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin last year, or the shooting rampage that took the lives of eight people in Manchester, Conn., in 2010.
Other mass murderers, including Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho and Long Island Rail Road killer Colin Ferguson, may have failed background checks had a federal database been more complete. James Holmes, who allegedly killed 12 people in Aurora, Colo., last year, had been treated for mental illness but didn't meet the legal standards that would have blocked him from buying guns.
Zeroing in on mental health problems in the face of an overwhelming preponderance of shootings involving people without such conditions threatens to mislead the public about the nature of the epidemic at hand, argues Garen Wintemute, the director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California-Davis School of Medicine.
"We're focused on mass shootings and those perpetrators are thoroughly investigated and we come away thinking that they're mentally ill," when that isn't always the case, said Wintemute, who is also a medical doctor. "The vast majority of firearms violence is not committed by people who are crazy. It is committed by people like us."
This disconnect in public understanding of gun violence stems from the nature of the events that tend to stimulate attention, such as the tragedy in Newtown. The media saturation that follows turns the likes of Adam Lanza and James Holmes into representatives of the much broader issue of gun violence, while prompting revulsion over the scope of the problem.
The problem is indeed vast by any statistical measure. Homicides and suicides using guns made up 57 percent of violent deaths in the United States in 2010, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That year, guns killed 30,470 people.
But those with mental illness are flawed examples of the causes of American gun violence, and putting a spotlight on their cases oversimplifies the problem while effectively demonizing their ailments, said Stephen Hoge, a professor at the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry and a forensic psychiatrist.
"People want to believe that the problem is easy to solve, and that they can somehow insulate themselves from the risks of gun violence by insulating themselves from people with mental illness," said Hoge.
In reality, gun violence tends to be provoked by commonplace situations faced by people who do not stand out as particularly remarkable in terms of their mental well-being, he added. "In some cases, the perpetrators are motivated by delusions or psychotic beliefs," Hoge said. "In other cases, they're motivated by jealousy, rage, feelings of having been intimidated, disrespected, abused."
In short, they rarely fit neatly into a readily identifiable profile that lends itself to prevention.
President Obama's calls for expanded services to combat mental illness drew praise from the American Psychiatric Association and other advocacy organizations.
"There are so many people who need mental health care," said Ronald Honberg, the national director for policy and legal affairs at the National Alliance on Mental Illness. "It's unfortunate that we only talk about the holes in our mental health system and the need for better mental health care in this country when really horrible things happen."
But advocates for expanded mental health services also fear that such attention comes at a profound cost that sets back effective treatment.
"There's an undeniable stigmatizing impact of discussing mental health in the context of gun violence," said Appelbaum, of Columbia University. This furthers the stereotype that people with mental illnesses are more violent than the rest of society, he said.
That public perception is reflected in a survey published in the New England Journal of Medicine this week: 46 percent of respondents said they believe those with serious mental illnesses are more dangerous than others, 71 percent said they wouldn't want to work closely with a person who had a mental illness, and 67 percent said they wouldn't want a neighbor with a mental illness.
Opponents of stricter limits on firearms ownership, like bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, stress that keeping guns out of the wrong hands is the key to reducing violence. NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre has called for a "national registry" of people with mental illnesses, and pro-gun-rights lawmakers emphasize addressing mental health over policies that would reduce firearms ownership.
In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday, LaPierre expressed support for items on Obama's mental health agenda while rejecting gun-control measures like universal background checks.
"We need to look at the full range of mental health issues, from early detection and treatment, to civil commitment laws, to privacy laws that needlessly prevent mental health records from being included" in the background check system, he said.
The NRA surveyed its members this month and found 86.4 percent of them believe that "strengthening our laws regarding mental health records to keep all firearms out of the hands of the mentally ill" would be the most effective way to prevent mass murders.
To gun-control advocates, these arguments smack of changing the subject.
"It is a political strategy to distract," said Richard Aborn, the president of the Citizens Crime Commission of New York City. "It would be as foolhardy as saying, 'Well, if we just ban assault weapons, we solve the gun violence problem,' as to say, 'If we just solve the mental health issue, we solve the gun violence problem.'"
Mental health professionals say there's no reliable way to predict violence unless patients declare their intentions to hurt themselves or others.
"It is virtually impossible to identify who among the mentally ill are likely to be violent," Columbia University's Hoge said. "To have a policy that is based on identifying individuals who are likely to become violent is a failed policy from the beginning."
Federal law already prohibits gun ownership by some people with mental illnesses. Under statutes dating to 1968, people who have been involuntarily committed to mental institutions or subject to legal sanctions related to mental health conditions aren't permitted to possess firearms.
But the federal database for gun-sales background checks is missing millions of records regarding buyers' mental health histories, largely because states aren't submitting the appropriate information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mayors Against Illegal Guns reported in 2011.
The definition of who should be prohibited from obtaining firearms is flawed, so it limits people who don't pose a threat while at the same time allowing potentially dangerous people to get guns, said Ladd Everitt, the director of communications for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.
"The problem with mental health and guns is that we haven't updated that standard since 1968 and the standard is arbitrary, nondescript and totally unfair," Everitt said. "I don't think it's stopping many people at all."
Factors such as previous acts of violence or the combination of mental illness and substance abuse may be more predictive of future violence, and the prohibitions against gun ownership could be broadened to reflect that fact, Everitt said.
As part of Obama's overall strategy, he ordered Attorney General Eric Holder to make recommendations for altering the current restrictions on firearms ownership "to ensure dangerous people aren't slipping through the cracks," the White House's summary of the president's plan says.
Wintemute, the University of California expert, said if policymakers hope to actually reduce gun violence, they must be willing to deprive larger numbers of people of the right to own firearms, despite the limitations of forecasting individual threats.
"Are we, in those instances at least, willing to say this person whose individual risk cannot be told with certainty is a member of a group of people that, as a group, are reliably at higher risk than other people?" he said. "That's as good as the science can get."
Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
MAKE NO MISTAKE WE WELCOME INCREASED FUNDING FOR MENTAL HEALTH.....IT IS A CRIME IN AND OF ITSELF THAT WE CARE SO LITTLE FOR PEOPLE WITH THESE ISSUES. WE WILL TAKE THE FUNDING AND DEMAND THAT CIVIL RIGHTS FOR PEOPLE WITH MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES NOT BE TRAMPLED!
A RECORD OF INVOLUNTARY COMMITMENT CAN RUIN A PERSON'S LIFE AND IT CAN BE ABUSED AS IT NOW STANDS. DO NOT MAKE IT EASIER TO COMMIT......MAKE IT EASIER TO ACCESS CARE!!!
Focus on Mental Health Laws to Curb Violence Is Unfair, Some Say By ERICA GOODE and JACK HEALY Published: January 31, 2013 New York Times
In their fervor to take action against gun violence after the shooting in Newtown, Conn., a growing number of state and national politicians are promoting a focus on mental illness as a way to help prevent further killings.
Enlarge This Image Matthew Staver for The New York Times Gov. John W. Hickenlooper of Colorado, a Democrat, has proposed a broad overhaul of the state's mental health system.
Legislation to revise existing mental health laws is under consideration in at least a half-dozen states, including Colorado, Oregon and Ohio. A New York bill requiring mental health practitioners to warn the authorities about potentially dangerous patients was signed into law on Jan. 15. In Washington, President Obama has ordered "a national dialogue" on mental health, and a variety of bills addressing mental health issues are percolating on Capitol Hill.
But critics say that this focus unfairly singles out people with serious mental illness, who studies indicate are involved in only about 4 percent of violent crimes and are 11 or more times as likely than the general population to be the victims of violent crime.
And many proposals — they include strengthening mental health services, lowering the threshold for involuntary commitment and increasing requirements for reporting worrisome patients to the authorities — are rushed in execution and unlikely to repair a broken mental health system, some experts say.
"Good intentions without thought make for bad laws, and I think we have a risk of that," said J. Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist and clinical professor at the University of California, San Diego, who has studied rampage killers.
Moreover, the push for additional mental health laws is often driven by political expediency, some critics say. Mental health proposals draw support from both Democrats and Republicans, in part because, unlike bans on semiautomatic weapons or high-capacity magazines — like the one proposed in the Senate last week — they do not involve confrontation with gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association.
"The N.R.A. is far more formidable as a political foe than the advocacy groups for the mentally ill," said Dr. Jeffrey A. Lieberman, chairman of psychiatry at Columbia University and president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association.
Indeed, the N.R.A. itself, in response to the massacre in Newtown, argued that mental illness, and not the guns themselves, was at the root of recent shooting sprees. The group called for a national registry of people with mental illness — an alternative that legal experts agree would raise at least as many constitutional alarms as the banning of gun ownership.
For mental health groups, the proposals under consideration are tantalizing: By increasing services for those with mental illness, they raise the possibility of restoring some of the billions of dollars cut from mental health programs in recent years as budgets tightened in the financial downturn. The measures also hold out hope for improvement of a mental health system that many experts say is fragmented and drastically inadequate. And some proposals — those to revise commitment laws, for example — have the support of some mental health organizations.
But some mental health and legal experts say that politicians' efforts might be better spent making the process of involuntary psychiatric commitment — and the criteria for restricting firearms access once someone has been forcibly committed — consistent from state to state. And some proposals have caused concern, raising questions about doctor-patient confidentiality, the rights of people with psychiatric disabilities and the integrity of clinical judgment.
Especially troublesome to some mental health advocates are provisions like New York's, which expand the duty of practitioners to report worrisome patients — a model likely to be emulated by other states. New York's law, part of a comprehensive package to address gun violence, requires reporting to the local authorities any patient "likely to engage in conduct that would result in serious harm to self or others." Law enforcement officials would then be authorized to confiscate any firearm owned by such a patient.
John Monahan, a psychologist and professor of law at the University of Virginia, said that such laws are often superfluous.
Although many mental health practitioners mistakenly believe that federal laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act forbid them to disclose information about patients, such statutes already include exceptions that permit clinicians to give information to the authorities when a patient presents a threat to others, Dr. Monahan said.
Most states also have laws requiring mental health professionals to notify the authorities and any intended victim when a patient makes a direct threat.
New York's provision, Dr. Monahan said, differs from virtually every other state's laws in allowing guns to be taken not only from those committed against their will but also from patients who enter treatment voluntarily.
"The devil is in the details," he said of New York's new law. "The two fears are that people will be deterred from seeking treatment that they need or that, once they are in treatment, they will clam up and not talk about violence."
Most mental health experts agree that the link between mental illness and violence is not imaginary. Studies suggest that people with an untreated severe mental illness are more likely to be violent, especially when drug or alcohol abuse is involved. And many rampage killers have some type of serious mental disorder: James E. Holmes, accused of opening fire in a movie theater in Colorado in July, was seeing a psychiatrist who became alarmed about his behavior; Jared L. Loughner, who killed 6 people and injured 13 others in Arizona, including former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, was severely mentally ill.
But such killings account for only a tiny fraction of gun homicides in the United States, mental health experts point out. Besides the research indicating that little violent crime can be linked to perpetrators who are mentally ill, studies show that those crimes are far more likely to involve battery — punching another person, for example — than weapons, which account for only 2 percent of violent crimes committed by the mentally ill.
Because of this, some criminal justice experts say it makes more sense to pass laws addressing behavior, rather than a diagnosis of mental illness. In Indiana, for example, firearms can be confiscated from people deemed a potential threat, whether or not they have a mental illness.
Proposals in a number of states seek to redefine the threshold for involuntary commitment to psychiatric treatment. But in doing so, they have reignited a longstanding debate about the role of forced treatment.
In Ohio, lawmakers are expected to consider a proposal to increase access to outpatient commitment instead of hospitalization, while also doing away with language requiring people with mental illness to show a "grave and imminent risk to substantial rights" of themselves or others before they can be committed.
In Colorado, where legislators are undertaking a broad overhaul of the state's mental health system proposed by Gov. John W. Hickenlooper, a Democrat, the proposal also includes changing the criteria for involuntary commitment.
Under the state's current laws, caregivers can place patients on 72-hour mental health holds only if they are believed to pose an "imminent danger" to themselves or others. The governor's plan would allow caregivers to commit people if they believe there is a "substantial probability" of harm. Virginia and some other states already have standards based on "substantial probability."
But some mental health advocates are wary about lowering the threshold. "The evidence that we have tells us that that's not an appropriate solution, it's not an effective solution to this problem," said Jennifer Mathis, deputy legal director at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, an advocacy group for people with psychiatric disabilities.
But Cheryl Miller — whose 21-year-old son, Kyle, was shot by the police last June after he pointed a toy gun at them — believes that a revised law might have saved her child.
Two weeks before Kyle was killed she took him to an emergency mental health clinic to get him hospitalized. But the staff refused to commit him.
"I said, 'I don't want to take him home; he needs to go to the hospital,' " Ms. Miller said. "They didn't think so. It goes back to, was he an imminent danger to himself? And it was 'No.' "
I want to talk the next few days about the two biggest issues before us as both issues show the same modus operandus that is Third Way corporate policy. Immigration and Gun Control. These are two issues that most democrats would support and we do as well. So, how would a corporate politician move those progressive issues to the political right as a win for wealth and corporations? It is being sold as bipartisan because these policies have something both sides want but since both sides are wealth and corporations.....you can bet the people will be the big losers.
The AFL-CIO was right to speak out in support of immigration policy that gives citizenship to those immigrants already here and established. So we thank them for shouting out for a great progressive and labor call. The Black pastors and NAACP are right to support gun control as it is the black community that is devastated by gun violence. So we thank justice organizations who shout out for reasonable gun control policy. THE PROBLEM IN BOTH CASES IS IN THE DETAILS OF BOTH ISSUES MAKING THESE POLICIES ULTIMATELY BAD FOR THE VERY PEOPLE IT APPEARS TO HELP.
For immigration reform the key is 'path to citizenship' and 'contained borders'. Because Obama does not go with outright citizenship he is telling us that this policy will not meet the goals we have for it. Just as he said in his campaign in 2008 that he would make Medicare strong and now we see the hundreds of billions of dollars cut and co-pays and deductibles making access impossible for many seniors.....of course Medicare Trusts will be fortified if no one can access care for goodness sake but is that what we wanted? Of course not.....they played with words and could care less.
That is what is happening with immigration and gun control....they are playing with words.
The goal for the 1% regarding immigration reform is creating an entire class of green card workers at both the top of the income ladder and at the bottom squeezing ordinary citizens into career choices they would never choose. If you look at any third world autocracy the 1% who have money are surrounded by an administrator-class of maybe another 5% and then everyone else is in poverty. If you look at who is filling all of the government positions at the Federal, State, and even local levels you will see elite school grads...Harvard, Princeton, Johns Hopkins for example. These are all people who support the policies of the 1% and we know how that is going for the 95%....wealth inequity and massive crime and corruption. So, if you allow the elite of the world attending these elite schools to stay in the US with green cards you have ever more people with the same policy goals taking all the top jobs. Not to mention they would work more cheaply than the professional-class we have now.....lowering wages at the top.
We already know what immigrants with/without green cards do to the lower income wages......bringing them often below standard minimum wage to third world poverty. Will registering with the government with fingerprinting and national IDs allow more money to these immigrants at the lower end? NO. What is that path to citizenship now? The only immigrants being considered now are those paying hundreds of thousands and/or millions of dollars for citizenship requirements. The lottery that has always been in place is not used now. That will not change any time soon. The immigrants at the top of the income ladder will buy their citizenship and the ones at the bottom will continue to be exploited.....which is what the 1% want.
IMMIGRATION REFORM IS ALL ABOUT WHAT IS GOOD FOR THE 1% AND WE ALL KNOW THAT IS NEVER GOOD FOR YOU AND ME!!!
From Wikipedia,
. The Last of England by Ford Madox Brown, depicting emigrants leaving England Emigration is the act of permanently leaving one's country or region to settle in another. It is the same as immigration but from the perspective of the country of origin. Human movement in general is termed migration. There are many reasons why people might choose to emigrate. Better economic opportunity is a "pull" factor, as is a quest for a better climate. Fears of poverty or of religious or political discrimination are "push" factors.
Emigration had a profound influence on the world in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, when millions of people left Europe; they usually headed to the United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia.
The term "emigrate" usually suggests voluntary movement. However Involuntary migration refers to groups that are forced by their enemies to leave through population transfer or ethnic cleansing.
Let's be clear...we have an entire generation of recent college grads unemployed, joining the military, or working at McDonalds. These are young people who can rise to the challenge of these jobs the media insist have no qualified people to fill. We also have the next round of graduates in the pipeline for these STEM jobs. What happens when the Best of the Best in the World take all of the best positions? Our children and grandchildren are sent overseas to work as ex-pats. THAT IS WHAT THIS BEST OF THE BEST IMMIGRATION POLICY DOES!!! WE ARE IN CRISIS AS REGARDS HIRING AND WE DO NOT NEED THIS POLICY NOW.....IT IS ABOUT PEOPLE NOT PROFIT!!!
Wait Time for U.S. Employment Green Card Infographic
by Bill Rapp from the report:
Becoming a Magnet for Global Talent
www.thirdway.org/publications/390
From 1900 to 2000, the U.S. became home to 47.2 million legal immigrants—far more than any other country. During the same period, the U.S. economy grew by nearly 25-fold, we won two World Wars and a Cold War, and our middle class became the envy of the world. Immigrants—whether it was Albert Einstein and Andrew Carnegie or millions of factory workers, farm workers, cooks, and construction workers—were a huge part of America's 20th century success story.
Today, we are an increasingly service, knowledge, and innovation led economy. Even our manufacturing jobs require a great deal more skill because we do not make socks anymore—we make finely tuned, high-end products. To maintain our global dominance and strengthen our economy today, U.S. immigration policy must not only maintain its current levels of legal immigration, but it must also be restructured to attract foreign-born intellectual capital to facilitate innovation and job creation. In this report, we argue that immigration reform must be a central component of long-term U.S. economic growth.
THIS POLL IS DRIVEN BY PRIVATE NON- PROFITS THAT ARE PART OF THE NGO WHO ADVOCATE FOR THESE ISSUES. SO, CASA DE MARYLAND FOR EXAMPLE WILL BE OUT PUSHING THIS BILL NOT EXPLAINING ALL OF HOW THIS ISSUE HURTS MANY IN THE HISPANIC COMMUNITY NOT TO MENTION ALL OF US. FOR THE REST OF THE JUSTICE PEOPLE IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.......A BLIND WILLINGNESS TO SUPPORT OBAMA ISSUES!!!
Poll Finds a Boost for Obama on Handling Immigration
By Greg Holyk | ABC OTUS News –
Public approval of Barack Obama's handling of immigration has jumped to a career high in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, buttressed by majority support for a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and, much more broadly, endorsement of stricter border control.
While the president lacks majority approval on the issue overall, slightly more Americans now approve than disapprove of his approach, by 49 vs. 43 percent. Obama was underwater on the issue - just 38 percent approved, while 52 percent disapproved - as recently as last July.
See PDF with full results, charts and tables here.
In terms of specific policies, an overwhelming 83 percent support stricter border control, including 64 percent who are "strongly" supportive; only 15 percent are opposed. Fewer, 55 percent, also favor a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, with 41 percent opposed.
GROUPS - There are vast differences among groups, underscoring the president's advantage on the issue among nonwhites generally and Hispanics in particular, and the Republican Party's challenges in finding support within the party for an immigration policy that can boost its support among Hispanics.
Specifically, 67 percent of Hispanics and 71 percent of nonwhites overall approve of Obama's handling of immigration, compared with 38 percent of whites. And a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants is supported by 82 percent of Hispanics and 71 percent of all nonwhites, as well as by nearly seven in 10 Democrats and just over half of independents. It's supported by fewer than half of whites, 47 percent; Republicans, 42 percent; and by just 37 percent of adults who describe themselves as very conservative politically.
Obama lost whites by percentage 20 points in the November election, but won nonwhites by 61 points, including Hispanics by 44 points, en route to re-election.
Making the president's gains on the issue, "strong" approval and strong disapproval of his handling of immigration are essentially even - 27 vs. 28 percent in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates. In previous ABC/Post polls, Obama's strongly negative ratings on immigration far outweighed his strongly positive ones.
OBAMA - Obama's approval rating on immigration is 11 percentage points higher than it was seven months ago; disapproval, down by 9 points. His approval score now numerically beats his previous best, three months after he took office, albeit by a single point.
He's gained 13 points since July on the issue among Democrats and independents alike, further strengthening his position within his own party and moving from majority disapproval among independents to an even split. A vast majority of Republicans continues to disapprove.
Along the ideological spectrum, approval of the president on this issue has moved less on the extremes and more in the middle, gaining 11 points among moderates and 20 points among those who say they're "somewhat" conservative.
The president's also improved disproportionately among people in the lower- to middle-income bracket (+22 points), and Northeasterners and Midwesterners (+20 and +18 points, respectively) and those who haven't graduated from college (+15 points).
Shifts in strong approval generally reflect those on approval overall.
POLICY DIVISIONS - While strengthening the country's borders is popular with broad majorities across all groups and in all regions, a path to citizenship is considerably more divisive.
Support for stricter border control includes three-quarters of Democrats and liberals, more than eight in 10 moderates, conservatives and political independents, and a whopping 92 percent of Republicans. Securing the borders is also supported by 87 percent of whites, three-quarters of nonwhites, and bottoms out at a still-high 69 percent among Hispanics.
As noted, views on a path to citizenship are more linked to political preferences. Beyond party affiliation, 73 percent of liberals favor a path to citizenship; that declines to 53 percent of moderates, half of "somewhat" conservatives and fewer than four in 10 strong conservatives.
Notably, support for a path to citizenship reaches majorities across regions, 53 to 59 percent.
METHODOLOGY - This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cell phone Jan. 30-Feb. 3, 2013, among a random national sample of 1,038 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 points. The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York, N.Y., with sampling, data collection and tabulation by SSRS/Social Science Research Solutions of Media, Pa.
Remember, the US is having this stagnant jobless period because
1) globalization has placed all focus on overseas expansion leaving domestic growth unnecessary. If markets were not global our economy would be fine and jobs aplenty.
2) financial policies like no Rule of Law regarding corporate crime and 0% interest and free money from the Fed make our domestic economy unhealthy and unproductive as no one trusts US companies ...... here or abroad.
YOUR THIRD WAY CORPORATE POL IS CREATING THE VERY POLICY THAT MAKES YOU LOOK ELSEWHERE FOR WORK.....THINK ALLOWING THE BEST OF THE BEST FOREIGN GRADS WILL HELP THAT? NO! LOOK BELOW TO SEE WHAT THIS INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION DOES TO INDIVIDUAL WAGES AND JOB SECURITY!!!
May 12, 2010 8:00 PM EDT
Amid the ongoing recession, American freelancers are finding more and more work abroad.
When Donavon Brutus got laid off from his animation job in June 2009, he knew the amount of freelance work near his home in Tampa, Fla., could not sustain him. But rather than spend months looking for a full-time, salaried position in a state with a 12.2 percent unemployment rate, Brutus went online and started working for oDesk, one of a growing number of Web sites that connect contract workers to temporary projects. Now Brutus earns an average of $16 per hour designing logos, 3-D graphics, and CD covers for companies as far away as China, Australia, and India. "The only issue has been the time difference," he says. "But that's only been a problem with one client in India, who wanted me to wake up at 3 a.m."
As the U.S. economy sputters its way back to health, American freelancers increasingly are finding themselves working for companies overseas in what's becoming a type of reverse outsourcing. Executives at Sologig, Elance, oDesk, and People Per Hour say they're seeing more corporations and small businesses from the U.K., Australia, China, Pakistan, and India turn to the U.S. freelance market. oDesk has seen its share of international companies that hire U.S. workers jump from 1,429 in February 2009 to 4,285 in February 2010, while the earnings of U.S. Elance freelancers rose 45 percent this year, compared with freelancers in India whose earnings rose 35 percent.
Overseas companies are looking for technical or creative help in writing, editing, marketing, information technology, and engineering, say executives from these online sites, and they want to hire people with strong English-language skills. The recession has given them an opening to hire more skilled workers at a lower cost. "These sites set up competition between people in all countries to do the same work," says David Autor, a professor of economics at MIT. "They're paying a premium to hire American workers, but in the current labor market, it may seem like a good deal."
Though these sites allow workers to tap into the global economy, the entry comes at a high price: mainly, low wages, no benefits, and little economic security. The average oDesk employee makes $17.60 per hour, while the average Elance worker makes an even lower rate of $12.50 per hour. People Per Hour, which caters to high-skill freelancers, says its jobs pay $30 per hour on average and that's pre-tax with no health insurance, sick leave, vacation, or retirement benefits. In addition to the arguably low pay, oDesk, Rent-A-Coder, and Elance closely monitor workers' productivity through the use of Web cams, key strokes, time sheets, or streaming screen shots. Elance CEO Fabio Rosati argues the company is not Big Brother; its freelancers can opt out of the streaming shots of their computers, but doing so means they lose any guarantee of payment if a company disputes their work.
Like it or not, lower pay and 24/7 demands are now the reality for U.S. contract workers. Fifty-seven-year-old Richard Kelley is a former advertising executive who used to spend his days in a corner office on Madison Avenue. Now, he works odd hours and weekends to juggle freelance assignments and Skype conference calls with clients in London, France, Australia, or California. Kelley is grateful that People Per Hour's online assignments helped him survive the downturn in the New York City advertising market. Though he earns about 75 percent of his former salary, he says he enjoys not "being owned" by any particular company and having time to pursue other projects such as writing a children's book. He's resigned to the idea that his future may be uncertain. "One just has to roll with the punches a little bit. It's not the same world anymore," he says.
In today's poor economic climate, online sites often become a salvation for the unemployed or underemployed. "For the person in Flint, Mich., you're bringing the global jobs to a local market where there are no jobs," says Gary Swart, oDesk's CEO. "It gives people control over their careers." It also enables people to make cash while they look for other jobs, and it means that people do not need to relocate for work. "It's not a race to the bottom because employers understand that if a person works for next to nothing, the value of their skills is really low," Autor says. "But it does indicate a level of how deep the recession is."
The main problem with the growth of these online sites is that they inevitably transform workers into "mini-multinationals," as the CEO of Elance calls them. The mini-multinationals shoulder all of the fees associated with the online freelance Web sites: from paying for a subscription to access the job postings to watching the sites take a commission on each job. It's like being a global corporation and looking after the taxes, operations, and finance—without any of the American tradition of a workers' safety net.
THINK TO YOURSELF......WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF OBAMA HAD COME INTO OFFICE IN 2008 AND IMMEDIATELY WENT TO WORK MOVING TENS OF TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN CORPORATE FRAUD BACK TO GOVERNMENT AND INDIVIDUALS AS RULE OF LAW DEMANDS? THE ANSWER IS THESE NOW GLOBAL CORPORATIONS FAT WITH FRAUD WOULD HAVE BEEN DOWNSIZED TO THE REGIONAL ENTITIES WE NEED THEM TO BE IN ORDER TO RETURN THE COUNTRY TO A DEMOCRACY. NATIONALIZED BANKS WOULD HAVE BEEN REFORMED. WE CAN STILL DO THAT AS THESE CRIMES HAVE YET TO ADDRESSED.
MAKE NO MISTAKE.....OBAMA WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS SELLING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE OUT IN THIS PUSH TOWARDS EMPIRE!!!!
WE DEMAND THAT JUSTICE REBUILD OUR DOMESTIC MARKETS!!!!
Many U.S. companies are hiring ... overseas One reason why U.S. unemployment remains as high as it is
Heribert Proepper / AP An engine technician works on a vessel engine at the Caterpillar company in Friedrichsort near Kiel, northern Germany.
By PALLAVI GOGOI updated 12/28/2010 6:15:56 PM ET
Corporate profits are up. Stock prices are up. So why isn't anyone hiring?
Actually, many American companies are — just maybe not in your town. They're hiring overseas, where sales are surging and the pipeline of orders is fat.
More than half of the 15,000 people that Caterpillar Inc. has hired this year were outside the U.S. UPS is also hiring at a faster clip overseas. For both companies, sales in international markets are growing at least twice as fast as domestically.
The trend helps explain why unemployment remains high in the United States, edging up to 9.8 percent last month, even though companies are performing well: All but 4 percent of the top 500 U.S. corporations reported profits this year, and the stock market is close to its highest point since the 2008 financial meltdown.
But the jobs are going elsewhere. The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think tank, says American companies have created 1.4 million jobs overseas this year, compared with less than 1 million in the U.S. The additional 1.4 million jobs would have lowered the U.S. unemployment rate to 8.9 percent, says Robert Scott, the institute's senior international economist.
"There's a huge difference between what is good for American companies versus what is good for the American economy," says Scott.
American jobs have been moving overseas for more than two decades. In recent years, though, those jobs have become more sophisticated — think semiconductors and software, not toys and clothes.
And now many of the products being made overseas aren't coming back to the United States. Demand has grown dramatically this year in emerging markets like India, China and Brazil.
Meanwhile, consumer demand in the U.S. has been subdued. Despite a strong holiday shopping season, Americans are still spending 18 percent less than before the recession on furniture, and 10 percent less on electronics, according to MasterCard's SpendingPulse.
"Companies will go where there are fast-growing markets and big profits," says Jeffrey Sachs, globalization expert and economist at Columbia University. "What's changed is that companies today are getting top talent in emerging economies, and the U.S. has to really watch out."
With the future looking brighter overseas, companies are building there, too. Caterpillar, maker of the signature yellow bulldozers and tractors, has invested in three new plants in China in just the last two months to design and manufacture equipment. The decision is based on demand: Asia-Pacific sales soared 38 percent in the first nine months of the year, compared with 16 percent in the U.S. Caterpillar stock is up 64 percent this year.
"There is a shift in economic power that's going on and will continue. China just became the world's second-largest economy," says David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's, who notes that half of the revenue for companies in the S&P 500 in the last couple of years has come from outside the U.S.
Take the example of DuPont, which wowed the world in 1938 with nylon stockings. Known as one of the most innovative American companies of the 20th century, DuPont now sells less than a third of its products in the U.S. In the first nine months of this year, sales to the Asia-Pacific region grew 50 percent, triple the U.S. rate. Its stock is up 48 percent this year.
DuPont's work force reflects the shift in its growth: In a presentation on emerging markets, the company said its number of employees in the U.S. shrank by 9 percent between January 2005 and October 2009. In the same period, its work force grew 54 percent in the Asia-Pacific countries.
"We are a global player out to succeed in any geography where we participate in," says Thomas M. Connelly, chief innovation officer at DuPont. "We want our resources close to where our customers are, to tailor products to their needs."
While most of DuPont's research labs are still stateside, Connelly says he's impressed with the company's overseas talent. The company opened a large research facility in Hyderabad, India, in 2008.
A key factor behind this runaway international growth is the rise of the middle class in these emerging countries. By 2015, for the first time, the number of consumers in Asia's middle class will equal those in Europe and North America combined.
"All of the growth over the next 10 years is happening in Asia," says Homi Kharas, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and formerly the World Bank's chief economist for East Asia and the Pacific.
Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent often points out that a billion consumers will enter the middle class during the coming decade, mostly in Africa, China and India. He is aggressively targeting those markets. Of Coke's 93,000 global employees, less than 13 percent were in the U.S. in 2009, down from 19 percent five years ago.
The company would not say how many new U.S. hires it has made in 2010. But its latest new investments are overseas, including $240 million for three bottling plants in Inner Mongolia as part of a three-year, $2 billion investment in China. The three plants will create 2,000 new jobs in the area. In September, Coca-Cola pledged $1 billion to the Philippines over five years.
The strategy isn't restricted to just the largest American companies. Entrepreneurs, whether in technology, retail or in manufacturing, today hire globally from the start.
Consider Vast.com, which powers the search engines of sites like Yahoo Travel and Aol Autos. The company was founded in 2005 with employees based in San Francisco and Serbia.
Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria worries that the trend could be dangerous. In an article in the November issue of the Harvard Business Review, he says that if U.S. businesses keep prospering while Americans are struggling, business leaders will lose legitimacy in society. He exhorted business leaders to find a way to link growth with job creation at home.
Other economists, like Columbia University's Sachs, say multinational corporations have no choice, especially now that the quality of the global work force has improved. Sachs points out that the U.S. is falling in most global rankings for higher education while others are rising.
"We are not fulfilling the educational needs of our young people," says Sachs. "In a globalized world, there are serious consequences to that."
Cindy Walsh is a lifelong political activist and academic living in Baltimore, Maryland.
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