It's not class warfare. It's not laziness. It's math. @occupywallst

The claim: I work hard and can afford college by living modestly (with some scholarship). I am therefore completely debt-free. Is it possible?

A Facebook friend recently posted this photo, sharing the story of what seems to be an inspiring young person pulling him or herself up by the bootstraps, doing it the old-fashioned American way through true grit and hard work.

Let's see if this story is possible in Pennsylvania. Let's see if it's possible at my alma matter, the relatively affordable state school: Lock Haven University.

The numbers:

This person proclaims that she works hard for slightly more than minimum wage. I'm going to put her at 25 cents above minimum wage, at $7.50 an hour (min wage is $7.25). I'll assume she is the kick ass hard worker she says she is, so I have her working 52 weeks of the year. She takes no vacation, no time for Christmas or other holidays, and never gets sick. She makes ($7.50 times 30 hours times 52 weeks) $11,700 per year.

She says she attends an affordable state institution, and she's an in-state resident. Hopefully she's lucky enough to live in a state with a good public system that has lots of options and she can get the major she's looking for. In Pennsylvania, she's likely to find what she needs. She also says, unlike most state institution students, she has scholarships that cover 90% of her tuition. That makes her a special person indeed. It's not average middle class or the common American experience, but it happens. If she only paid 10% of Lock Haven University's tuition ($6,240), she would pay
$624 per year.

Her additional costs would add up quickly:

$4,800 annually for rent, assuming the affordable apartment she asserts she has ($400 monthly)
$1,999 annually for fees, which is the amount of fees at LHU currently. Many scholarships do not cover fees.
$2,896 for the campus meal plan. Maybe she doesn't do this, because campus meal plans tend to be more expensive. My wife feels like she could eat cheaply for only $30 a week, if she had to, which would be $120 a month, and
$1,440 per year for a careful, apartment-based meal plan. Scratch the campus meal plan, this student doesn't need to eat with her friends, and she has the time to shop well and prepare meals on her own. She's just dropped her costs by $1,456. Good for her.
$480 for a phone, based on $40 per month over 12 months.
$360 for electricity, based on $30 per month over 12 months.
$240 for water, at $20 a month for the year.
$600 for books and school supplies. This means she's not pre-med (their books tend to be more expensive), but we already knew that because she's working so much she clearly does not have the time to study for Organic Chemistry.
$200 on a computer and software. This assumes she's sharing computer costs over more than one year.
$850 on health insurance, based on a suggested average cost of $850 for yearly premiums for college students. Maybe she's on her parent's plan and they paid for this without her realizing it was a cost. But if she is the independent, hard-scrabble student she's advertising, then hopefully she has this average premium, rather than the much higher annual premiums that some students face. Her total up to this point comes to 
$11,593 - with no car, no gas costs, no entertainment, and not a single drink, she made it through with $107 to spare.  

That's OK. She said she's been working since she's 17, so she saved up. Maybe she took a year or two off after high school too (to save more), because we still haven't included

• internet ($480 @ 40 / month)
• cable ($360 @ 30 / month)
• entertainment (???)
• any meals out (she said she does not eat meals out, at all) (???)
• car costs (most state institutions are in rural areas, where driving to work is a must) Let's assume the car is paid off. 
• car insurance ($600 annually, well below average cost of PA car insurance)    
• gas ($360 @ 30 / month) - we're assuming a short commute, no frivolous trips, and a fuel-efficient (free) car 
• these costs that weren't included total $1,800 more per year, or $7,200 more over a four-year college career, and we still haven't included entertainment, any meals out, or any car costs. 

With some amazing conditions (free car, free health insurance, very understanding friends who don't mind that you never join them out), and a willingness to go for four years without ever buying your loved ones a birthday present or gift during the holidays, this might possibly work. But that's not the average middle class experience. 

If the middle class is going to get a fair shake, a chance at being able to afford life in the United States in the 21st Century, and an opportunity to be on a level competitive playing ground with the rest of the world, we need more government support for education, higher education, and health care. If we simply return to the tax rates of the 1950s (when the top marginal tax rate was 90%), we'll be a lot closer to being able to making that happen. But it doesn't happen by pretending that anybody can afford higher education with some hard work and careful budgeting. Do the math. 

Remember, this person goes to school and works 30 hours a week every single week of the year, with no exceptions. And she doesn't even stop to have one little drink. That's not part of her budget. Since when does middle America not to get to sip a beer at the end of a long day? 

What 'the 99%' is asking for is just a fair share of the wealth - like back in the booming 50s, when corporations and politicians recognized that American wealth is built on the backs of American workers. 

If you agree, re-post, re-tweet, or repeat, please. Spread the word. If you disagree, please let me know why and how. 

#4: Why I Hate John Mayer's Social Justice Attempt

Apparently some people find Mayer’s song inspiring, and it has even made it on to some otherwise great political / social justice song sites. But “Waiting, waiting on the world to change,” as the song goes is about as anathema to good work, democracy, progress, rights, hope, and the improvement of the human condition as one can get. This blog title – Journey toward Justice – is no joke. It’s a journey: improving rights and lengthening life expectancies is the product of human cooperation, collaboration, and effort (not waiting, fool). 

That effort takes many forms, and musicians have a role. Mayer could take cues from Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen, the bizillion artists who have given voice to We Shall Overcome, or currently from Angelique Kidjo and Wil.i.am (immediately below), as well as from scores and legions of others. But instead Mayer is waiting – and beyond that he’s whining: “We see everything that's going wrong / with the world and those who lead it / We just feel like we don't have the means / To rise above and beat it.”

What? You can’t make a difference? You’re famous, fool. You can move mountains. My friends can manage to make the world change for whole villages. And we’re just average Joes. It’s true that sometimes celebrities’ attempts at good works are un- or under-informed -- but study-up. Often enough celebrities behave as serious and smart people with clear commitment to specific issues that they learn a great deal about. Excellent examples include George Clooney, Bono, Mariska Hargitay, and Matt Damon, who has been a driving force on water issues through the nonprofit organization Water.org.      

Interestingly, in Mayer’s video the waiting involves spray-painting as consciousness-raising (and at the end, just to be sure you know neither Mayer nor his boys are radicals, there’s a message indicating that all spray painting was completed on private property with permission). Now I’m waiting for Mayer to do something interesting. Here’s the thing: I deeply respect, value, and appreciate the role of musicians and other artists in consciousness-raising. Mayer sings (and then even paints!) so close to this idea, but the message we get is just wait. Just wait is blasphemy to the good citizens of the world who fancy themselves as working in the tradition of fundamental human freedoms, democracy, and universal rights.

At least other artists dreaming after an as-yet-unimagined tomorrow paint us some kind of picture, like Cat Stevens’ (now Yusuf) Peace Train (which he did a sweet rendition of for Muhammed Yunis’ Nobel Peace Prize Award) and Billy Bragg’s Waiting for a New World Order. (By the way all of you out there who think “social justice” or “activist musician” is precisely equal to “totalitarian commie,” listen to the equal abuse Bragg hands out to the far ends of the political spectrum).

Of course it’s not surprising that Mayer’s song suggests what it does. We seem to have been struck (in the United States and many other places around the world) with an irrational and unfounded assumption that somehow the miracles we see all around us (basic human security, individual rights and respect for diversity across cultures and genders, 300 million people getting along pretty well across a whole continent, water when you turn on the faucet, public education) are not the product of cooperation, collaboration, and individual sacrifice for purposes that are bigger than ourselves: purposes like improving the human condition.

To bring this closer to home(s), Pennsylvania and Arizona are advancing massive cuts in education budgets. I know there are strong contingents emerging and organizing in Pennsylvania to put pressure on the state government to continue its investment in our shared futures by better funding education. Some students, for example, recently put together this video:

That’s what strong democratic (small d) states do: invest in their citizens’ human capital and tax them at reasonable rates later to continue to pay for the ongoing investment in the future. In Arizona I have students telling me that they’re going to have to pay more for college  and that their four-years of funding doesn’t match the five-years of schooling they’ll need with the planned schedule cuts and lack of class availability, but there’s no strong organizing. Perhaps they’re waiting, waiting for the market to take over their lives more completely.

Wherever you are, speak up for education. It’s something many generations of Americans have taken for granted. And it only exists if Americans work together to make it happen.

Beyond the explicit political sphere is the strong nonprofit and volunteerism sector – and the place I was really referencing above when I asserted what my friends could do. This is why the water walk is so phenomenally important. We’re not waiting for the world to change. We’re making it happen, in clear and considered cooperation with community organizations half-way around the world. These small efforts: organizing, cooperating across cultures, people donating, people walking – extend lives and give women and children a chance to get an education or work rather than constantly returning to the daily drudgery of gathering water.

Register and walk this weekend. If you can’t, donate. Don’t wait. Change the world for families in rural Tanzania, right now.    

Really. Donate. Just $25. It’s a world-changer.  

OK, thank you for reading. Now I must admit: I’m flummoxed, flabbergasted, confused and maybe just a little bit maligned – I keep hearing from people via individual emails, etc., about the blog but I have no comments and few followers and I would absolutely love more of either. I’d love to hear your song suggestions that have yet to make the list. (Tomorrow we will have the Best Social Justice Song Ever, in celebration of Amizade’s Water Walk, but in the days that follow I’ll continue to post enough to follow the due course of this fun little exercise in social justice song). I also remain generally curious about your thoughts, feedback, etc. OR, OR, OR – tell me how much you really love John Mayer and why he’s amazing, or re-post, re-tweet, and share how your share my considerable consternation with the whole unacceptable notion of “Waiting, waiting on the world to change…”  

Imagine You Love Revenues. Imagine You're Pennsylvania.

Imagine that everything in economic and global history over the past several  decades and centuries suggests demand will continue to rise for a certain kind of product. That product is energy.  You don't need to imagine. In fact global dynamics revolve around this product. Corporations and countries will do and pay whatever is necessary to get access to this product. There's precedent. You know that because you know a little history.

Imagine you have one of the largest deposits of one type of that  product on the record. That deposit is the Marcellus Shale Natural Gas field. You still don't need to imagine. Imagine you know who your competitors are; you know who else has the product and you know that they're charging companies 6% and more to take the product away. Once again, you need not imagine. Your competitors are West Virginia, which taxes gas extraction at about 6%, as well as other states like Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming, which tax at a higher percentage still. You know these are states with conservative constituencies and strong natural resource extraction economies.

You know that you, Pennsylvania, despite sitting on one of the largest natural gas fields the world is aware of and being adjacent to one of the largest buying markets (the great cities of the US Northeast)  for energy in the  world,  choose not to tax extraction. Because you know that other states do tax extraction and still have strong extraction economies, because you  know that  global  demand for energy will only continue to rise, because you know that you're in a comparatively strong position because your gas field is both bigger than and closer to the Northeast  than other gas fields, you must only conclude that you actually do not like revenue for the state as a whole.

You are only left with the conclusion that your governor is more concerned with his individual campaign contributions from natural gas companies than he is with leading the state out of tough economic times through application of smart public policy that is a no-brainer in conservative states like Texas,  Oklahoma, and Wyoming.

You, Pennsylvania,  because you do love revenues, good public policy, and educating a globally competitive citizenry through strong K-12 and higher education systems, must resolve to find better leadership. For the good of the state,  for  the good of the country,  for anyone who values a smart, well-educated populace and sound, pro-business public policy that has been  tested and successful elsewhere.    


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If you'd like more resources on this topic, check:

• Post-Gazette Columnist Brian O'Neill 
• Pennsylvania State Representative Greg Vitali (D - Delaware County,  Member, House Committee on Environmental Resources and Energy)
• The State of TX's Discussion of their Natural Gas Tax Rate (7.5%)