BESBOL BEEN BERY BERY BAD!

The following is an ugly story, repeated in a lot of urban communities:

The "6th Street Marketplace" in Richmond, Virginia was one of those "redevelopment" bright ideas that comes along every so often.  Thalhimer's and Miller & Rhoads department stores straddled 6th Street and were still vital retail centers when the suggestion was made in the 1980's by a redevelopment organization known as "Richmond Renaissance," and with the concurrence of City officials, to close off the whole street and create a sort of "mall," and an elevated "marketplace" (with various storefronts therein) built across Broad Street.  Rouse Development was put in charge of the project.  

Rouse had brought forth the very successful revival of Faneuil Hall in Boston and the "Inner Harbor" development in Baltimore, Maryland.  Richmond City officials at the time had delusions of grandeur in doing the 6th Street project.  City officials had previously commissioned the destruction of a major chunk of predominantly black Jackson Ward north of Broad Street in the 1960's to build the looming, frequently dark and foreboding Coliseum (now inadequately sized) in place of once-thriving retail businesses.  Most of those small businesses in Jackson Ward had been renting their spaces in short-term tenancies, so they got no money for condemnation when they were wiped out in the name of "redevelopment"!  Only the absentee (mostly white) landlords got paid anything.

After the 6th Street Marketplace got built, both Thalhimer's and Miller & Rhoads closed, as did other nearby businesses, and the entire area fell into desolation.  6th Street Marketplace was a mercantile disaster.

Dwight Jones, the current mayor of Richmond, now wants to build HIS "bright idea," another looming, frequently dark and foreboding baseball stadium smack in the middle of a very crowded, parking-starved, mostly retail Shockoe Bottom in one of the oldest parts of Richmond.  This will be for the use by and benefit of the sadly-named "Flying Squirrels" minor-league (AA) ball team now out in "The Diamond" (formerly "Parker Field") fronting on The Boulevard across from the bus station and just down the 4-lane street from interchanges with I-95.  Jones has been promoting this as a sure-fire way to "revive" Shockoe Bottom with a facility SURE to attract and energize more development and economic growth, as now supposedly happens around The Diamond and the bus station--NOT!  That Boulevard neighborhood is currently a cesspool of mostly economic failure.  

Jones has not bothered to explain how "enriching" the Shockoe ballpark can be during "away" games and the 8 or 9 "off-season" months when NOTHING is happening there!  He has nurtured visions of happy families and kids skipping gayly down the sidewalks of Shockoe Bottom, cotton-candy and hot dogs in hand, pennants flapping, eagerly traipsing to the home baseball games!  Jones has not bothered to address the thugs and other assorted miscreants who may well be lurking in the shadows when NOTHING is happening down there, NOR has he addressed how the pre-game and post-game vehicle traffic is supposed to get to and from I-95 through the narrow, already-crowded streets of Shockoe Bottom.  Jones may well facilitate that traffic flow by putting even more street parking in the Bottom off-limits.

The Richmond City Council has, at least, temporarily killed the stadium proposal but, of course, they have done nothing to address the seriously deficient parking situation, and nothing is being discussed.  The mayor is in a snit because his "bright idea" has been derailed (for the time being), so he's not proposing any alternatives!

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

EQUAL PROTECTION?

On November 10, 2014, Associate Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor temporarily blocked the issuance of a marriage license to a gay couple, presumably until the Supreme Court can consider the conflicting rulings of the various US Courts of Appeals below.

The ongoing argument about gay marriage has been stupidly misdirected: it is not about gay "rights"; it's about whether or not a state government has the inherent POWER to discriminate against certain classes of adults in denying access to CIVIL (not religious) marriage despite the strong injunction of the 14th Amendment that mandates EQUAL PROTECTION of the laws.

Under the US Constitution, personal "rights" are presumed (9th Amendment); governmental "powers" must be proven (10th Amendment).  Why do so many judges and politicians keep getting this fundamental rule backward?  Can't they read the plain English of a document they are all sworn to support?

Up to now, the law on such matters has been undeniably clear: states may not discriminate against "equal protection" absent a showing of a COMPELLING state interest in maintaining such discrimination.  In other words, NO government (Federal, state, local) has a presumptive "blank check" of power derived from the people.  Governments have the continuing burden of proving the existence of a compelling governmental interest in depriving gays of the substantial legal benefits of marriage, and all judges (including Sonia Sotomayor) are obliged to require such a showing BEFORE such discriminatory laws may be validated.  Such laws are (or should be) presumptively INVALID!

Justice Sotomayor seems to have disregarded her sworn obligation to uphold ALL of the Constitution, including the 14th Amendment.  Like so many prevailing idiots, she has shifted the burden of proof off of the government and onto the complainants, forcing them to show why they dare deserve "equal protection"!  What nonsense!  The gutless wonders on the US Supreme Court should have nipped this hyper-religious chickenshit in the bud a long time ago!

The state has an obvious interest in protecting those who cannot consent (children, animals) from being forcibly married to someone, such as 14-year-old girls being forced into multiple marriage with Mormon elders like Joseph Smith!  The state also has an obvious interest in preventing genetic inbreeding by prohibiting close relatives from marrying each other.  What is the compelling NON-RELIGIOUS interest in prohibiting homosexuals from marrying each other?  Last time I checked, the US was not a pathetic Christian theocracy!

Unless and until there is such a showing by a state, it seems to me that unrelated adult human beings are PRESUMABLY entitled to marry whomever they damned well please, any time they wish!  Why is that so difficult for Sotomayor (or any judge) to understand?

AMERICAN SHOPPERS

(Letter to Consumer Reports, 10/14/14:)

Your November article about the recovery of American shopping seems to focus on the presumed fellows of your magazine workers, most of whom are probably college-educated, white-collar, (sub-)urban, and not retail-employed.  So, I would hazard the guess that most of your focus is on a group well above the current median gross household income of slightly over $50,000 a year.

In the world near me, most folks are blue-collar, poorly employed or unemployed, high-school or trade-school-educated at most, and most have worked for small local businesses that used to employ most of Americans and who have been kicked in the teeth during the past 7 years or so.  Most households around here are near or well under that current median.

Why don't you write about the REAL American consumers whom I see all around me who have no spare change to spend, who have had to surrender their homes and have moved in with relatives or into rentals, who must choose between buying food or paying rents or UNINSURED medical bills?  You interviewed singles or mostly homes with two incomes, one of which is around $150K, and they are worried about curtailing their spending habits or where to go on vacation?  Give me a break!  I know maybe two people with household incomes over $100K!  The rest are well under $75K, like about 64% of ALL AMERICAN HOUSEHOLDS!  And, that's gross income, not taxable income.

The real "middle class" in this country is a lot worse off than you and Barack Obama and the rest of your effete white-collar brethren in the eastern Urban Corridor think!  I believe that unless and until there is a permanent abandonment of the pathetic fraud of "supply-side" and acceptance that ALL markets are demand-driven, then it will be Business As Usual with more stupid tax cuts for the well-to-do "middle class" and a royal screwing instead for the working classes, with higher payroll taxes on GROSS wage incomes, fewer income-tax deductions and tighter benefits in the name of "austerity"!

Sheesh!

SUPPLY-SIDE STUPIDITY

(The following is from an e-mail to wealthy skeptical acquaintances:)

Per recent research:

The FICA payroll tax is 6.2% direct and another 6.2% nominally paid by the employer (total 12.4%) ON TOP OF income taxes and levied on first dollars (unlike income taxes), no exemptions or exclusions.  I say "nominally" because it is really a pass-through cost for employers since all employers are thus taxed, so it tends to suppress wages and employment.  I believe it is payroll workers who suffer the brunt of all of it, even the portion "nominally" paid by employers.  And, as you know, self-employed people must pay 12.4% on the whole!  The FICA tax is paid ONLY on the first $110K of EARNED income and not on PASSIVE income like dividends, interest or cap-gains.  Therefore, it DISPROPORTIONATELY falls on workers mostly and not on wealthier folks, since 100% of the workers' GROSS incomes are thus taxed on top of whatever taxes on net TAXABLE income they must also pay.

True, SS benefits are proportionately capped because the FICA tax is not assessed on higher earned incomes, but the bulk of the personal cashflow in this country is not subject to the FICA tax.  According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, median US GROSS household income for 2011 was $50,443 (I suspect it's even lower this year), so that means that HALF of all households are grossing less than that number, and I daresay that at least 64% of all households were under $75K.  A bit over 77% were probably under $100K.  (See the last table for 2010.)

The reason the income tax rates need to be adjusted higher is not to "punish" wealthier folks but to avoid falsely using Social Security issues as red herrings to balance the Federal budget by delaying eligibility and/or increasing the FICA bite, wherein SS payouts are misrepresented as contributing to the Federal deficit, which is NOT TRUE.  FICA revenues currently cover the SS payouts.  And, lower-income folks spend about 100% of their net incomes (no savings) into mostly local economies, whereas wealthier folks do not.  As I have been saying, I believe it is the lack of SPENDING that is hurting our economy, NOT the lack of capital investment.  There is simply no such thing as a "supply-side" market.  All markets are DEMAND-driven.  If there is no demand, there is no market!  With us Boomers reducing our spending, SOMETHING must take its place in order for there to be economic "recovery."

We are suffering a SPENDING crisis, not a capital-investment crisis, yet most of the "experts" and politicians are still jabbering about cutting higher-bracket taxes (despite the humongous Federal deficit that disproportionately hurts lower incomes) to "stimulate" more capital investment!  That is utter nonsense!  That is a "solution" in search of a problem!

Below are shown the brackets for INCOME-tax rates.  The 39.6% bracket does not kick in until $406,751 TAXABLE (not gross) single income.  It is now above $450K for "middle-class" joint marrieds, thanks to Barack Obama.  The lower brackets are the brackets that were created for the so-called "Bush" tax cuts in 2001.  So folks with taxable incomes at the highest levels STILL get to keep over 50% of their gross dollars, even allowing for state and local taxes.  And, most of those folks are taking not one but two mortgage-interest deductions, including on yachts and beach cottages deemed "2d homes."  Working stiffs don't even get to deduct the RENTS they pay for basic housing, so that throws them into the rather stingy Standard Deduction. 

Landlords should think of the boom in rental housing construction (terrible shortages in central Virginia) that would likely be created if folks could deduct their apartment rents from gross income!

Per www.bankrate.com:

2014 Tax Brackets (for taxes due April 15, 2015)
Tax rate	Single filers	Married filing jointly or qualifying widow/widower	Married filing separately	Head of household
10%	Up to $9,075	Up to $18,150	Up to $9,075	Up to $12,950
15%	$9,076 to $36,900	$18,151 to $73,800	$9,076 to $36,900	$12,951 to $49,400
25%	$36,901 to $89,350	$73,801 to $148,850	$36,901 to $74,425	$49,401 to $127,550
28%	$89,351 to $186,350	$148,851 to $226,850	$74,426 to $113,425	$127,551 to $206,600
33%	$186,351 to $405,100	$226,851 to $405,100	$113,426 to $202,550	$206,601 to $405,100
35%	$405,101 to $406,750	$405,101 to $457,600	$202,551 to $228,800	$405,101 to $432,200
39.6%	$406,751 or more	$457,601 or more	$228,801 or more	$432,201 or more

Read more: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/taxes/tax-brackets.aspx#ixzz3G43dhG5i 

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This graph shows the percentage of persons and households in each of the income groups shown.^{[citation needed]}

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The percent of households with six figure incomes and individuals with incomes in the top 10%, exceeding $77,500.^{[citation needed]}

Per Wikipedia, here are the distributions of household income per bracket for 2010.  The first graph to the right is the most telling--only 28% of ALL households grossed over $75K

that year, and only 17% were over $100K.

The chart below shows that in 2010 there were 121 Million households in the data group, and the median was somewhere between $50K and $54K.  64% were at or below $75K:

Income range	Households (thousands)	Percent	Percentile	Mean number of earners	Mean house- hold size
Under $5,000	4,261	3.52%		0.23	2.02
$5,000 to $9,999	4,972	4.11%	3.52%	0.36	1.81
$10,000 to $14,999	7,127	5.89%	7.63%	0.42	1.74
$15,000 to $19,999	6,882	5.68%	13.51%	0.57	1.96
$20,000 to $24,999	7,095	5.86%	19.19%	0.75	2.14
$25,000 to $29,999	6,591	5.44%	25.05%	0.85	2.22
$30,000 to $34,999	6,667	5.51%	30.50%	0.97	2.34
$35,000 to $39,999	6,136	5.07%	36.00%	1.06	2.41
$40,000 to $44,999	5,795	4.79%	41.07%	1.20	2.46
$45,000 to $49,999	4,945	4.08%	45.86%	1.32	2.55
$50,000 to $54,999	5,170	4.27%	49.94%	1.32	2.52
$55,000 to $59,999	4,250	3.51%	54.21%	1.49	2.72
$60,000 to $64,999	4,432	3.66%	57.72%	1.49	2.66
$65,000 to $69,999	3,836	3.17%	61.38%	1.58	2.75
$70,000 to $74,999	3,606	2.98%	64.55%	1.63	2.82
$75,000 to $79,999	3,452	2.85%	67.53%	1.70	2.89
$80,000 to $84,999	3,036	2.51%	70.38%	1.73	2.86
$85,000 to $89,999	2,566	2.12%	72.89%	1.80	3.00
$90,000 to $94,999	2,594	2.14%	75.00%	1.79	2.96
$95,000 to $99,999	2,251	1.86%	77.15%	1.87	3.09
$100,000 to $104,999	2,527	2.09%	79.01%	1.78	2.94
$105,000 to $109,999	1,771	1.46%	81.09%	2.01	3.18
$110,000 to $114,999	1,723	1.42%	82.56%	1.96	3.11
$115,000 to $119,999	1,569	1.30%	83.98%	1.98	3.06
$120,000 to $124,999	1,540	1.27%	85.27%	2.01	3.16
$125,000 to $129,999	1,258	1.04%	86.55%	1.97	3.08
$130,000 to $134,999	1,211	1.00%	87.59%	2.00	3.17
$135,000 to $139,999	918	0.76%	88.59%	2.10	3.18
$140,000 to $144,999	1,031	0.85%	89.34%	2.12	3.26
$145,000 to $149,999	893	0.74%	90.20%	2.11	3.21
$150,000 to $154,999	1,166	0.96%	90.93%	1.86	3.09
$155,000 to $159,999	740	0.61%	91.90%	2.04	3.11
$160,000 to $164,999	697	0.58%	92.51%	2.05	3.29
$165,000 to $169,999	610	0.50%	93.08%	2.15	3.17
$170,000 to $174,999	617	0.51%	93.59%	1.99	3.05
$175,000 to $179,999	530	0.44%	94.10%	2.09	3.08
$180,000 to $184,999	460	0.38%	94.53%	2.12	3.28
$185,000 to $189,999	363	0.30%	94.91%	2.30	3.32
$190,000 to $194,999	380	0.31%	95.21%	2.22	3.17
$195,000 to $199,999	312	0.26%	95.53%	2.30	3.28
$200,000 to $249,999	2,297	1.90%	95.78%	2.06	3.24
$250,000 and over	2,808	2.32%	97.68%	ca. 2	ca. 3
Total	121,084