Massey: Age of Extremes

Alright, alright. We're talking about poverty again in this writing. Massey brings up some very valid discussion about poverty, how hard it is to define, and briefly where it is located in the United States.

The thing that most gets me is that with all this discussion about poverty and what not, we still have it. I do wonder, often, why people raise so much money to help others in third world countries when the United States is starving in their backyards. I do often wonder recently too, how the President can hold a banquet worth 500,000 dollars on Thanksgiving, and we're still wondering how to help the population overcome the poverty line. I do not get it. I'm going to, as so many times in my writing, stand on this soap box for a second. I do not have a lot of information to back any of the claims I am about to make, so please be gentle if you disagree. I just feel like we are so blinded by our comfort as Americans. To be part of the top 1% in the world, wow, its truly an honor. We have the oportunity to chase dreams and make green, we're the elite. But then we complain, all of the time about the people who are starving in Africa. (I only use Africa because everyone says that phrase.) The point is, here are people starving in Saginaw, my hometown. There are people starving in Lansing, and yes even in Mt. Pleasant. Are we so naive to think that we will change the world when we're not whole? We as the United States of America should band together so that we can change the world here first. I would have been super impressed if the President spent 500,000 dollars on a meal to feed the homeless for one day. That one meal could have lasted them for weeks.

I'm sorry to rant, I just hear so much in the Sociological realm about poverty, and starving people and how there is such a separation between the poor and rich, and I do not see anyone with the most power to change things, doing anything to close that gap. What good is all of the statistics and information that Massey gives us if we aren't doing anything about it. That's it, off the soap box. Again, i'll never understand why I cannot do these things on time.

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Global Austerity-Pollin

Pollin discusses the period after World War II and how it became influential in governments policies in promoting economic growth and equality. These policies became more and more interventionist as exemplified in communist countries where the government controlled “virtually all productive assets and economic activity was directed through a government-established comprehensive plan” (pollin 874). These resulted in high employment rates and relative equality in health and educational opportunities.

Similar to that there were import substituting industrialization models where every chance to increase capacity to manufacture goods was taken to strengthen the local market, this kept healthy domestic markets and rose the standard of living in the countries it was present in. While there were many benefits from these forms of socialism pollin argues that it was repressive and forced companies to compete against each other for government favor. Pollin goes on to argue that the transition from big government to the neoliberal governments has increased global inequality in income and standard of living. In examining this he looks at the institution of sweatshops and their affect on the workers and the economy. The workers are effectively enslaved in some sweatshops where the business takes the new workers ID card so they cannot leave the immediate area without facing arrest. The success of the sweatshop can be attributed to the surplus of workers in less-developed countries where lack of taxes on imported goods make farming business crumble and people flood to the cities for work where more jobs have not been created, this surplus of workers leaves people desperate enough to find work at sweatshops appealing. He goes on to quote several economists who talk about sweatshops as a blessing because they create jobs and that they must be beneficial to the people because people continue to work there. Pollin disagrees with this saying that while they do create jobs that’s not to say they are a good thing, he sites many examples of countries where as wages rose, so did employment rates. This could punch a huge hole in people’s argument that raising wages would cause job losses. He goes on to discuss Bono’s attempt to raise money for developing countries and how the country would benefit much more from the establishment of the macro economic policies of the UN rather than raising Bono’s financial goal to aid the country. This makes sense to me because it seems that philanthropists like Bono only try to relieve the symptoms of poor economic policies rather than the cause, while noble it is also an inefficient use of effort, much more could be done if the countries policies were self sufficient. If sweatshops were made to pay their workers a living wage, Pollin calculates that it would only increase the cost of products by about 1.8%. Considering Americans have begun the practice of paying between 15 and 28% more for products guaranteed to have worker friendly business practices this would be one of the smarter moves on the part of the developing countries, they wouldn’t lose business and they could raise the standard of living in their country.

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For Traci Greenhalgh

The Landscape of Global Austerity by Robert Pollin talks about how living standards for everyone today are well above what any one ever seamed possible hundreds of years ago. In the 1900 the life span of some of the wealthiest people was only 60 years. From the 1940’s- to the 1960’s the government was promoting economic growth and increasing equality. Because this was during the cold war state socialism was the most influential and also the most contested we dominated economic thinking china Asia and many other countries. The government in these countries owned the entire means to production and their for the means for assets were filtered through the government. States with high socialist governments tried to keep high employment and equality in the handing out of what it controlled. Income, health care, housing and educational opportunities.

In Latin America they tried an approach called import-substituting industrialization and this was where developing countries should strengthen their ability to produce and manufacture goods for their own markets rather than exporting it and always using imported goods which are more expensive. This would benefit the entire country because local growers and buyers would get more money and all of the money would stay with in that place circulating. With all of these ideas their was lots of things that did not work out.

He marks the 1980’s as the point to transition out of the post world war II era of the development state policies and the ascendancy of neoliberalism. By the end of the 1990’s china had still not adopted neoliberal policies. The overall growth rate and per capita growth rate were significantly higher in the developmental state era than they were in the neoliberal era. But in china the growth rates were higher in the neoliberal era. The average increase in overall income in the poor and middle income countries just barley stayed ahead of population growth.

Economic growth in most developing countries has slowed substantially and income distribution has become more unequal their fro poverty in developing countries has worsened for the most part or has slowed. The most publicized global austerity has been the sweatshop labor conditions. Highly dealing with clothes and footwear. The most publicized US problem was with Nike shoes where people in Indonesia were making 14 pairs of shoes a day and earning 14 cents a hour.

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Friedman

In the article, it discusses how in developing economies men nor women are expected to live until 45 years old. That was a very interesting fact to learn, only because 45 to me is still very young, and it is crazy to see that in the world today, there are still countries that have such hardships, they cannot provide to their people the way we take for granted. The economies in third world countries are nothing like we have, and we still always cry about our economic hardships, because we have seen better, but what if we never had anything like many countires in the world currently have? Would we still cry about not getting enough money on wall street, and not being able to take fancy vacations, or having our houses cleaned for us? How is it they can survive, and we sit around and cry about all of our problems? I never really thought about how greedy and ridiculous we were being until now.


We also have so many economic policies like free markets that we can’t get away from. We have crazy high interest rates, we have trade laws, so is this economy really running our lives on the flip side? Everything we do revolves around money and the economy, and is it ever going to change, or we going to continue to live our day to day lives around what the money of the economy is worth. So many people live off of $1-$2 a day in this world, and is that honestly possible, and still able to maintain health and live a happy life? I know that chances are, just because I am in the country I am in, it would very hard for me to do. So it’s very hard for me to grasp the concept of someone living this lifestyle, and having a life up to par.

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Change In Politics

Within this article Michael Walzer explains and talks about the neoconservatives, and how they are the voice behind the change in politics. The neoconservatives according to Steinfels and Schuster “express a neo-sense of crisis and loss.” They live with one basic dilemma and that is that “the institutions they wish to conserve are to no small extent the institutions that have made the task of conservation so necessary and so difficult.”

The crisis that Steinfels speaks on is the fall of authority in governments, armies, universities, corporations, and churches. The head officers in charge of these establishments cannot command obedience or respect because the trust and deference have broken down. The neoconservatives are scholars and intellectuals, and people read there documented options’ because they have a different view on things than any other politics group. These groups of people are getting looked at more and more and people are taking them more seriously over time. Steinfels states that “this intelligent conservatism that America has lacked, and who’s absence has been roundly lamented by the American Left. “

The neo conservatives are liberal but they don’t have as strong of believe as a full blown out liberal. They think that no one person should be set on thinking one way because of a group that they are in. They believe that it set people free of religious and ethnic community; it abolishes control and agencies of control. They believe that it will generate free men and women and also radical individualism and then a radical competition among self seeking individuals. The reason why this liberalism didn’t work in the past was because people were still living in the past and was stuck on the old rules and ways of life.

Equality is another factor that makes the liberals nervous. They want all to be equal with the affirmative action, and the woman rights movement and the civil right movement it was a great step forward. They want to give merit to these minorities but to help them come up and try to put everything on a equal playing field but they don’t think that they would make it because the elite old men are the ones that carry the power and make all the money.

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Where Have All the Unions Gone

In the article, Where Have All the Unions Gone… Long Time Passing?, Richard Freeman discusses the diminished population of union workers in 2005 as compared to 1984. Richard gives three reasons for the failing unions: 1) management fights unions because they raise wages and benefits, lowering profits. 2) Union leaders failed to address declining union worker participation. 3) Workers decided that unions did not serve their best interest.

Freeman describes the opposition by management in the U.S. in discussing their tactics of barraging their employees with anti-union material, denying union access to workers and “forecasting” the employees job loss (one-in-five union organizers are fired as a result of their participation in union campaigns)(Freeman 847). This is quite different from the European management tactics where management is supportive of unions who generally make organizing their labor easier. Unions aren’t seen as much of a burden because the citizens already have universal health care and they already pay fair wages. The unions are failing to gain members and are losing support and gaining opposition through failed campaigns. While its evident that the more problems a worker has with the work place the more they show interest in organized representation more people are interested in non-unionized representation, more like a manager and employee open forum.

While support for unions may be low it seems to me from the research presented in this article that if the U.S. ever manages to establish universal health care that opposition by businesses may decrease. Coupled with the use of open-source unionism as suggested by the author who would use the internet as a cheap means of organizing and informing their union workers this could begin to bring back the unions. Unions are essential for not only helping equalize the workplace and help ensure the comfortable lifestyle of their workers but they benefit small businesses, a small business that cooperates with unions are more attractive to the potential employees because while they can’t compete with large corporations in the wage arena, unions help establish benefits and a comfortable work environment for their employees. They give power to the traditionally powerless in a very democratic fashion.

Anyone who’s read Nickel and Dimed would know that American companies traditionally exploit their low wage workers because they have no ability to barter, if they argue they can quickly be replaced… but if they have the force of a union behind their back they aren’t as dismissible. Low wage workers need protection especially concerning that someone who works full time at minimum wage should not live below the poverty line.

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Explaining American Exceptionalism

This chapter discusses that issues and poltics of social inequality in America . The author discusses that during the periods between the revolutionary and civil war. In this period blacks were freed from slavery and they were the primary labor force in the south, but they were not allowed to join unions, this weakened the unions that did exist. The New Deal is also discussed in relation to its cause of migration of blacks from the south to the north. This migration disabled the south’s ability to function as a separate nation. Americans soon had to face the idea of social equality, an issue that was brought to the forefront in the civil rights movements of the 1960s.

The author then goes on to analyze the attempt made to reconstruct racial politics. The three explainations offered are the policy centered approach, the legacy of the weak working class, and the legacy of strong liberal values. The policy centered approach states that the civil administration was not protected from partisan use and parties used government jobs to mobilize their clients and reward activists. Politicians battled over the spoils of office rather than programmatic appeals. The weak working class explaination is that the weakness of the American labor movement has been a product and producer of racial divisions. The explaination of the strong liberal values is that the liberal idea is to distrust the government and avoid government intervention. Support for interventions dissipates when civil right and liberties are in danger.

The last chapter of the book talks about the three welfare reforms and how they have failed in contributing to social equality. This failure is a failure to live up to American ideals of liberty and also democratic rights.

I feel the looming racial tension is caused by many of the things discussed in this chapter. I also feel that there are other factors that have played into the inequality of blacks. The effect that government policies have had on social inequality is profound. I feel that even before these policies were created there were people supporting the idea that blacks are inferior. There were many “scientific” breakthroughs that supposedly showed that blacks were inferior biologically and therefore were inferior to all other races. These arguments were ultimately shown to be false, but the mindset of Americans has not completely changed.

Propaganda was used then to keep the blacks inferior and I feel it is also used today through main stream media and stereotypical representations of black Americans. Although science has proven that there is hardly any variation between “races”, there is still a tensions between people of different races. I feel this tension is caused by our learned cultural identity and others perceptions of that identity.

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Freeman: Where Have All the Unions Gone

Freeman takes an in-depth look at the unions of today and compares them to other countries and to the past trends the union has gone through. The first question is why unions in the U.S. are decreasing? Secondly, why do we care and why should we fix it? Freeman does a good job in the article but it doesn’t seem to apply to today’s world with fewer jobs than in 2005 when his studies where concluded.

The first question, where are the unions going? It can be equally blamed on three people Freeman thinks; the three major players in the battle for union are the workers, management, and the unions themselves. First off in today’s world jobs are harder to come by and it seems that most everyone knows someone who is laid off or unemployed; this could be the first reason for decline. When businesses are closing there is no need for a union and with most of Detroit’s auto industry quickly spiraling downward many union jobs have been cut. When jobs are diminished and there are so many people looking for work getting any job is better than not having a job. Although it would be nice to have a union to stand up for ones rights it preferably better to have a job when there is a line of people waiting to replace them. The Unions gain less strength when there is less dependence on them.
Second, Management doesn’t usually want unions that is in America, as Freeman states the European countries promote unions, “ by negotiating wages and conditions throughout the economy, unions reduced the need for small firms to worry about those issues” (Freeman pg. 848). Management in America strongly dislikes the unions because of their power. Having worked for a company that is unionized it is easy to see why unions are harmful to big business. There are more rights everyone gets 3 breaks, equal pensions, overtime pay, the list is extensive but it is also harder to fire those who are in the union when they aren’t performing their duties. In the text Wal-Mart is mentioned as not welcoming unions this is true if unions are allowed they have to pay a better wage holiday pay ad who knows what else might get added to the list. Look up reasons why Wal-Mart needs to unionize and the list is extensive. They can cut hours to nearly nothing, if overtime is earned it is often placed on next weeks paycheck, mandatory cleanup off clock; why is Wal-Mart allowed to get away with this? Like mentioned above there is a line of people wanting that job so complaining will only get you fired.
Finally the unions are to blame. Spending much of their budgets on political endeavors they did little in the way of increasing membership size. They need to work on new was of converting big businesses into seeing how they can be helpful. By allowing unions to move into businesses we can decrease the sex/race pay gaps and make everyone one equal this is Freeman’s idea it seems, will it work? It surely wont work if there are no unions operating 20 years from now.

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Power

The reading Power by G. William Domhoff begins by defining power and splitting it into two dimensions. The first is collective power which is more of an organizational form for countries, utilizing technology and resources to accomplish goals. The second is distributive power or the ability to be successful in conflict with other groups classes or nations. Domhoff moves on to analyze the power structure of the United States, when the country began there was really no infrastructure to deal with. There were no economic aristocrats, churches or established military to protect borders giving economic elites free reign over the market. This is how the power elite has been created, and through policy expertise and political success they have been able to maintain a dominant status within our country.

The structure of the power elite is rather intricate and is comprised of the social upper class, corporate community, and policy planning networks. They have created what domhoff called a four network party which is made up of the, special interest process, policy planning process, opinion-shaping process, and candidate selection process. They then use this power to lobby people and create legislature, change the way we think about issues, tell us who to elect, tell us what to think, and basically try to sway us to fulfill their own agenda. What I have gained from this reading is that there is most definitely a group of money and power hungry Americans at the top trying to control every move we make. They have us by the balls and there is nothing we can do about it. Quite frankly it pisses me off. The few people at the top are using their money and power to create legislature that controls masses of people. The reading said that the power elite makes up one percent of the total population. It baffles me when I think of it, how are people getting away with this? The reading talks about the 2 previous elections the 2004 bush administration and the 2008 Obama victory. Bush and his administration made it seem like the war in Iraq was escalating to get back in office, and Obama used the faltering economy to win his way into office. I would be willing to be my last dollar that just about every election in the United States history has been swung in one way or another. These people control what goes in to our food, what clothes we wear, what we see on the television, internet, radio, what drugs you take, you name it and they probably have control over it. It disgusts me to think about the amount of trust that we as Americans put into these corporate leaders and politicians. Because from my angle it seems that these people are not pursuing the best interests of all people of this country but rather for the fat stack that hey hold in their wallet and the filet mignon that they are stuffing their faces with every night for dinner. Wake up people we are not free we are simply pawns in the chess game of the elite.

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Money and Politics

The article, Money and Politics, Dan Clawson the author shows how money plays an influential role in politics. During a campaign, candidates have fundraisers which generate huge amounts of money. Clawson explains why money is so important in a election. There is definitely an inequality in politics because of this reason.
In an election, we see the candidate who is successful normally win. The person who loses or has to drop out is because of the amount of money it costs to stay in the race.

Politicians normally have a good amount of money and have relationships with big corporations. This article shows how some of the big corporations donate money to politician’s campaigns. In doing this, these corporate members hope to get some access and be a influence on congress. The candidates ask for money but the donors ask for something in return. The campaign member and donors have to work out some sort of deal to benefit the business. When talking about how business benefit from donating money to campaigns, businesses do not think about how it affect’s the poor people of America. Big companies only think about themselves and not others outside their company. The reason the campaign asks businesses or corporations is because of the vast number of resources they have. In my opinion, one of the things that stuck out to me in the article was that only half of our population takes part in voting. These people come from the working class or the lower class. This confused me because I thought that these people would want to vote to change some policies to help them out. Overall, the author showed great examples and visual aids to support his claims. The difference between parties in our government was shown also. I found this to be interesting an did not know how different they really were. One of the visual aid showed how much money some of the CEO’s donated, for anyone to donate 100,000 to a campaign in my mind is crazy. These people are close with the candidate because of this reason.
Typically, in a election who ever generates the most money wins. This is not right but this is how it works. This is another reason why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. These people at the top have close relations with each other because of wealth and do things for one another like donate money for campaigns.

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The Right to Vote & Unequal Participation by Manza

In the introduction of this article, John Manza states that “the blunt truth is that politicians are under no compulsion to pay much heed to classes and groups of citizens that do not vote”. Manza then points out how elections are supposed to produce an approximation of what the people want, yet those who have more resources are the ones more likely to vote. These differences are drawn from two reasons; first, people are unable or simply choose not to participate, and secondly, legal barriers prevent others from voting. The result is numerous examples of rising inequality, especially between the rich and the poor. Manza points out two typical reasons behind why this inequality exists; the first being how political money shapes the interests of those at the top, and the second being a dominating business-oriented Republican party. Although these reasons have validity, Manza goes on to capture the full range of details behind this voting inequality.


The American constitution does not guarantee universal suffrage (the right of each citizen to cast one ballot for each election). Ah, here lies part of the problem. Manza goes on to give a history of voting rights in the United States, and about how many oppressed groups weren’t allowed to vote at various periods in American history. Now, “an illiterate, homeless, property-less, African American woman on government assistance, who has unpaid debts and who moved to a new state” cannot be denied the right to vote. However, there are important exceptions to “everyone” having the ability to vote; legal (and illegal) immigrants and convicted felons. Over time, millions of immigrants have become part of the voting age population, but only the “naturalized” subset has the right to vote. The rising incarceration rate that plagues the United States has lead to millions of convicted citizens unable to vote (2.75% of voting eligible population unable to vote at the 2004 election due to current or past felony convictions). This disenfranchisement leads to a skewing of the eligible electorate upward, since immigrants and felons tend to be drawn from the bottom of the social class ladder, resulting in a growing share of the poor unable to express themselves.

Not only do these groups provide a voting dilemma, but the United States also has generally low levels of turnout even for those who are able to vote. Political and institutional explanations for this turn to a set of participating constraints (ie: requiring voter to register a head of time, timing of elections, and narrow range of meaningful choices) and mobilization efforts by social movements and party organizations, all of which make it hard for those poorer individuals to vote.

With this information presented, I would like to compare what was just said to that of the 2008 election, which I am sure would surprise the author of this article with the increased amount of participation, especially among African American voters. With such a huge increase in participation, I would like to see what comparisons could be made between what happened in the 2008 election and that of which was discussed in the article; ie: did Manza point something out that was wrong with our voting system that was changed or altered in the 2008 election?

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Money and Politics

This article is dealing with how money and politics in the United States parallels with each other and how important the money factor is when considering who wins the Presidential seat, Congress, Senate, House of Representatives, ect. This political inequality within money and politics is easy to see in my opinion. This system of how money and politics works is just as bad and shows the inequality as it did in the 1970’s with the Nixon campaign.(Not as bad, they have shown strict rules and regulations since then).

The current system shuns down any candidate that can’t raise large amounts of money for his/her campaign. Unless a candidate can gain significant support from those people who have money, he/she can’t stand in the public debate and basically has no chance in winning what so ever. In my opinion and what the author points out, is this has a lot to do with power, especially media power and big corporations, or people with a lot of money.

In my opinion, a lot of this is a scandal, and meetings take place between large, rich corporations, and candidates. The candidates wants the money of course so he/she can run, and is willing to bend the deal al little bit if it favors the candidate and it favors the large corporation, but in the end hurts the poorest people in America, or the 99 percent who do not own the means in this society. Clawson even points out how members of congress have reworked or manipulated people by helping out the rich, large corporate businesses by cutting them a share of the pie, without the people obviously knowing they are not getting screwed over in the district.

You can even look at President Obama, who I voted for and like as a president, and his money campaign and supported him. Jay-Z, a well known rapper who uses words that President Obama would probably not like to hear his daughters listen to, donate a large portion of money to his campaign. I like when the author pointed out how you have people who hold conferences, picket lines attacking companies and its policies on such things, but then turn their backs in Congress and cooperate with the same companies, and act like best friends. It is hypocrisy.

If it benefits the corporation, and benefits the person running for office, then the obligation is to come together and work out a deal. I believe the author shows great statistics throughout the chapter and uses a visual aide with graphs showing the differences between parties. One table showed the total number of dollars raised for republican and democratic Presidential seat, Congress, Senate, House of Rep. It showed that in the 2000 election, Republicans raised for money in all the seats except one. In my opinion, the government and the people running for office will do whatever it takes to get their hands on money, because it shows that whoever raises the most money usually has the best shot at winning any election.

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How Unequal? America's Invisible Policy Choices.

This article begins by talking about one general pattern of American social policy, which is to provide, with one hand, limited direct help to some poor and indirectly to subsidize, with another, the middle class and the wealthy. Next this article uncovers one of the most hidden arenas of social policy, the regulation of the labor market, and show how the ground rules shape inequality. Then, it examines higher education to get a better understanding of the diverse ways in which public investment also molds inequality. This article will help us better understand the major reasons why inequality is historically so inconstant and why inequality in America is so high.

The article talks about how the American government has done much to help lose left poor by the market. It talks about how some programs have been successful and some have not, who the programs have helped and who they hurt. They even talk about how a lot of the programs overlap. Then they explain why so many American children are poor, this is because young parents are more susceptible to poverty and because so many children live in single-parent families with very little income.

In contrast to the highly visible, direct and indirectly aid is given to the poor, American social policy tends to subsidize the middle class more generously, but indirectly and less visibly. The invisible polices for subsidizing the middle class are subsidizing home-ownership, housing and discrimination, health and health care, and subsidizing families. Also there is another set of subsidies that often goes unremarked: those that are directly or indirectly helpthe very wealthy.

Finally the article talks about how public investment also shape inequality. Some investments, like clean water or public parks, improve everyone's quality of life up and down the income ladder. Other investments benefits some of us more than others. The most important investment that affects us all but in different ways and is what the article focuses on and that is how much public higher education people are receiving.

What this article sums up to be about is that the inequality in America today is in great measure a result of policy decisions Americans have made or have not made.

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How Unequal? America's Invisible Policy Choices

In Fischer and friends' article on America's policies, the authors focus on a few specific policy choices that our nation has adopted and how those policies have led to such inequality in our country. The authors introduce the subject and liken our current situation to a baseball pitcher on a heightened mound, as that advantage favors some over others when it comes to marketplace laws and regulations. They then pinpoint the problem by stating that the United States has the greatest disparity in earnings among full-time workers in world, and it has been increasing since 1970.

The first aspect tackled in the article deals with visible policy, and reducing poverty through redistribution. The authors talk about how our government has done things to help the poor in our country, with public health programs, food stamps, survivor benefits etc. However, it's quick to see that Americans fall short when compared to government spending of other countries on similar endeavors, while at the same time cutting more and more programs. While most emphasis these days is put on the poverty of the elderly, with reduced proportions of up to 40 percentage points due to government programs, it leaves children and young adults behind, with drops of only seven and five points respectively. In 1992, over 14% of Americans, and 21% of American children remained below the poverty level, which begs the question: what are our government leaders doing to help protect the future of our country and it's young people?

The rest of the article focused on the "invisible" policies, including subsidizing the middle class, subsidizing the wealthy and regulating the labor market. The authors explain the subsidizing of the middle class by talking about while the middle class indirectly and less visibly benefit from the government, there is a decreasing inequality between the middle class and wealthy but at the same time an increasing disparity between middle-class and low-income Americans. The authors talk of tax expenditures, or deductions in things like mortgage interest, as things that may benefit some taxpayers more than others. Whatever one person receives as a tax break, another person might have to make up for because government spending relies on taxpayer money. As middle-class home ownership increased, thus decreasing the inequality between the middle-class and wealthy, many black Americans were denied these opportunities with new policies. It appears that the government sees black neighborhoods as a poor "business investment", proving the continuous discrimination of low-income Americans in housing policies.

The authors then go on to talk about how wealthy people in the United States have benefited from some of these policies, such as tax changes of the Reagan administration that provided "tax cuts" that actually increased the median American family's rates from 23.7 to 24.6 percent in 1990, all while the highest-earning 1% of Americans fell from 35.5 to 26.7 in 1989. Once again we can see how our country's elected officials protect their own interests and those in power while suppressing those without it. It's how capitalism works in this country and it's the policies kept in place that create the inequalities here, both those that are easily seen and those strategically hidden to keep the average American in the dark.

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Who Rules America Today?

With his article "Power" G. William Domhoff examines where the power lies in the past and in contemporary America. Domhoff's efforts analyze and define power in the United States as well as provide a history of its development from our country's creation to today. The evolution of the political and social landscape is given particular attention with a perspective focused on the influences of the power elite.

Domhoff provides a two part definition of power in the opening pages of his article to provide a more directed look for his explanation of the power base in America. With that in mind he continues to describe the difference in the development of the power base in America in contrast to most European countries. We're told how without competition of an established aristocracy or a dominant church entity it left the landowners no competition for their power and the government little avenue of achieving dominant power over them. Further, the traditionally limited powers of the federal government established by the Constitution also contributed to the inability of political entities to gain independence from the economically powerful.
The majority of Domhoff's article is spent examining this relationship between the power-holders of the economically elite and the political arms throughout the various historical periods of our country. Attention is given to the methods this social upper class and the power elite use to influence the policy makers in the government and exert their power, methods such as lobyists and think tanks.
Domhoff's article is ultimately a detailed examination of relationship that many know to exist. However, it provides an enlightening look at how this exercise of power has developed and been allowed to develop as well as an eye opening look at the degree to which it is used. Most would assume the ultimate power in this country is held by the federal government and its elected officials. Domhoff successfully details the influence of the economic elite in their use of power over politics and the promotion of their interests in America's past and present.

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Gender and Race Discrimination in Retail Car Negotiations

I still don’t understand when these are supposed to be posted, I wrote down Tuesday November 3rd, but if it is late, I am really sorry.

Ayres and Siegelman’s article discussed whether or not salesman at car dealerships discriminated against women and minorities when negotiating prices for cars. This was conducted in 1990 in more than two hundred dealerships. The testers of different gender and race would go in and use specific negotiation strategies with the car salesmen to try and bargain with them. They also had uniform appearance and behavior so that only race and gender played a role in treatment and “class” didn’t. The results were not surprising.

Ayres/Siegelman state, “Dealerships offered white males significantly lower prices than blacks and women. The average prices offered white women were more than $200 higher than the offers to white men, the offers to black women were more than $400 higher than those to white men, and the offers to black men were more than $900 higher.” Obviously, anyone can see that this is sexist and racist. The other point that Ayres and Siegelman make that I really like is when they stat, “A central purpose of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was to guarantee that “a dollar in the hands of a Negro will purchase the same thing as a dollar in the hands of a white man.”

Professor Rudy gave the perfect explanation the other day on why this is; our society is racist. And I can honestly say that I don’t think it will ever change. Although the Civil Rights Act of 1866 has helped our society with some racism, it hasn’t changed it all. I feel that because I am a white woman, I really only experience sexism. So I don’t really have much to deal with when it comes to racism but I see it all around me. And I can definitely say that if I were one of those testers walking into car dealerships and getting charged more for a car because I’m a woman, I would be extremely pissed off! I think this study is very interesting and I do not want to repeat myself a lot (from my last summary), but like I said, our society is racist and sexist. This will never change. I think it’s pathetic and sad that car salesmen are even allowed to do this to women and minorities, but that’s life. It’s unfair. I hope that since this study was done almost 20 years ago, things have changed, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t.

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Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families- Annette Lareau

Lareau Believes that class position influenced critical aspects of family life. These aspects included time use, language use and kin ties. She also believes that middle class-parents, both white and black, tend to conform to a logic of chilrearing Called “concerted cultivation”. This is where they enroll their children in numerous age specific organized activities that dominate family life and create enormous labor, particularly for mothers. Parents believe that these activities help their children with important life skills. When defining cultivation, this approach results in a wider range of experiences for children but also creates a frenetic pace for parents, a cult of individualism within the family and an emphasis on children’s performances.

In Lareau’s research, her data was collected in three different phases. Phase one involved observations in 3rd grade classrooms, Phase two took place at two sites in northern Richmond, and phase 3 involved home observations of 12 children and their families in the Northeast who had been previously interviewed. The research showed the different family setting in each child’s life, the different languages or conversations that children have with their parents and lastly different activities that each child were a part of. I agree with many of these statistics and findings however, some of them may not always be the case. For instance, Lareau believed that working=class and poor families were much less likely to include professionals in their social networks but were much more likely than her middle-class counterparts to see or speak with kin daily. I kind of disagree with this statement because a lot of time children get connections from friends or from school. Often times it is not always the parent that helps with the connection. One thing I found interesting was the differences in education resources. It is obvious that if you are in the middle-class you are more likely to have money to pay for a private school rather than someone who is in the working-class. However, many times children can get scholarships. Many of these statistics were interesting however, I feel that many times you can disagree or argue that they may not always be true.

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Gender/Race Discrimination in Retail Car Negotiations

Ayres and Siegelman’s article discusses their study regarding gender and race in the new car buying market. They sought to determine if gender and race lead to discrimination by the dealership, which forces minorities and women to pay more for the same products.
Their study required two people (always a white male and either a black male, white female, or black female) to visit a dealership and engage in price negotiations with a salesman. The testers were trained ahead of time to provide the same information and bargain in the same fashion to ensure their results were based solely on their race and/or gender.

The researchers looked at two factors: the short test (the salesman’s initial offer) and the long test (the final offer given to the tester after negotiating). The results of the white male were compared to each of the other three’s results to determine the price disparity between them.
The study undoubtedly found that white males fare the best in car-buying situations. The profit the dealership would make off a white male after the initial offer and the final offer were $725 and $418, respectively. Black men were asked to pay $962 and $1133, respectively. Black females were asked to initially pay 65% more than white males. White females’ initial and final offers were only $200 more than males, but this difference is still pronounced.
Previous similar tests showed discrimination in the types of questions dealers ask of the different races and sexes. For example, “sellers asked black female testers more often about their occupation, about financing, and whether they were married” (757). The study also found discrepancy in the tactics salesmen used to sell a car. For instance, they often tried to sell cars to women based on the color, gas mileage and dependability. Finally, they found dealers are less willing to disclose cost data to black testers, specifically black women. This “undermine[s] their ability to bargain as effectively as whites and thus facilitates price discrimination based on race” (758).
All of the information gained from the study showed there is strong discrimination in the car retail market. The reading didn’t offer theories about why is happens or solutions to end it, but it gave strong evidence that it definitely occurs.
It seems interesting that white males have the best opportunity to earn the highest pay of these four groups. And dealers know this, yet they still cut them the biggest break. It doesn’t make much sense to charge more money to the groups that statistically have the hardest time. If white males can stereotypically afford to pay more for a car, you would think the dealer would want to take advantage of that and charge THEM more. However, maybe the salesmen also stereotypically assume white males have the best education, and they are less likely to be able to pull one over on them.

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