from Wisconsin: "Mubarak for Governor" signs

According to the Associated Press, the legislators in the "Wisconsin Assembly have agreed to a deal that will limit further debate on a bill taking away collective bargaining rights for public workers and lead to a vote on the measure later Thursday," possibly as early as noon.

Meanwhile, the Chief of Police in Madison is asking the governor to explain "troubling" and "unsettling" statements the loose-lipped rookie Governor made while he thought he was on the phone with billionaire David Koch.

"I find it very unsettling and troubling that anyone would consider creating safety risks for our citizens and law enforcement officers. Our department works hard dialoging with those who are exercising their First Amendment right, those from both sides of the issue, to make sure we are doing everything we can to ensure they can demonstrate safely."

Police Chief Noble Wray
Madison, WI
Wisconsin State Journal, 24 Feb 2011

"There are a lot of folks out there who say, ‘It doesn't impact me, I'm not a union guy, I'm not a teacher, I'm not a civil servant.' Let me tell you how it does matter to you. Wages are going down in this country for everybody. When you destroy unions there will be no standard at all, nobody left to negotiate decent jobs for the middle class..."

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders
Statement, 23 Feb 2011

"I would like to hear more of an explanation from Governor Walker as to what exactly was being considered, and to what degree it was discussed by his cabinet members."

Police Chief Noble Wray
Madison, WI
Wisconsin State Journal, 24 Feb 2011

The Chief has some legitimate questions, and the rest of the cheeseheads are coming up with some really great signs at the Madison protests, don't you think?

Political Correspondent Thomas Hayes is a former Congressional Campaign Manager; he's a journalist, photo/videographer, entrepreneur, and communications consultant who contributes regularly on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community, who incidentally stands in solidarity with the citizens and workers in Wisconsin refusing to let their Governor's self-created budget "crisis" and new spending priorities be re-cast as a reason to undermine contractual obligations and collective bargaining agreements.

You can follow Tom as @kabiu on twitter. Tweet

The Truth About WI Teacher's Pay

The data on how much is spent on teacher's pay isn't hard to find, but the truth may bother WI's Governor in his bid to blame unions and collective bargaining for his budget priorities:

The average teacher's salary across all Wisconsin districts is $48,267.  According to the Census Bureau’s Median Household Income by State – Single-Year Estimates the average household income in Wisconsin is $51,237 -- a difference of $2,970/year which would amount to a 6% raise if teachers were just brought up to the average.

Collective bargaining hasn't made Wisconsin teachers rich, it hasn't even brought them level with the rest of their state, but their new Governor wants to impose a new regulation restricting their rights.  If you ask me, that's new government regulations when the GOP has been telling us job creation is their priority.

Actions speak louder than words.

If you want to dig deeper, or verify the data on teacher pay, check the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction link: "Statistical Information Center - School Staff and Salary Data." It's all there: the low salary, high salary, average salary, average fringe, average local experience, average total experience for staff in each public school district, and more, in spreadsheets you can download.

If Governor Scott Walker hasn't blocked access, that is.

Political Correspondent Thomas Hayes is a former Congressional Campaign Manager; he's a journalist, photo/videographer, entrepreneur, and communications consultant who contributes regularly on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community, who incidentally stands in solidarity with the citizens and workers in Wisconsin refusing to let their Governor's self-created budget "crisis" and new spending priorities be re-cast as a reason to undermine contractual obligations and collective bargaining agreements.

You can follow Tom as @kabiu on twitter. Tweet

Kraft, Mars, Nestle, Hershey - think before you buy that Valentine

The folks at GreenAmerica.org are determined to to promote green and Fair Trade business practices and end corporate abuse -- to make you aware before you buy chocolate and without realizing you might be supporting a company that exploits children, for instance.
♥ You can visit their website, or check out the chart (below) to compare the performance of brands you may or may not know. Of course, as chocolate buying peaks over the next few days...

"More than 35 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate will be sold on February 14th, adding to the total 58 million pounds of chocolate to will be sold during the week of the most romantic holiday of the year.

Consumers are expected to purchase more than $345 million on chocolate treats for their beloveds."

Brigid Darragh
Green Chip Stocks
Friday, 11 Feb 2011

...it helps to understand just what the different certifications mean, and to do more than merely making deliberate choices. You can also spread the word, and communicate directly with companies such as Hershey to let them know you consider their business practices before you make your purchases.

"...every time a consumer purchases non-Fair Trade chocolate, they are putting money in the pockets of people who run a system based largely on forced child labor.

The U.S. State Department estimates more than 15,000 child slaves work on plantations in the Ivory Coast. Children are taken from their homes by traffickers for the very purpose of supporting the country's largest export crop: cocoa."

Brigid Darragh
Green Chip Stocks
Friday, 11 Feb 2011

Here are some basic definitions, courtesy of GreenAmerica.org:

Organic certification does not include labor rights standards. The program does not address wages, prices to producers, or management of cooperatives. Organic means 100% of the ingredients of a product be certified organic to earn the label.

Fair Trade prohibits forced labor, child labor, and discrimination, and protects freedom of association and collective bargaining rights. Fair Trade certified farmers are guaranteed a "floor price" for their cocoa beans, as well as a social premium. Fair Trade producers are required to form democratic cooperatives.

The IMO Fair for Life certification guarantees that human rights are protected at all stages of production, with a strong focus on hired laborers, as they are often the most marginalized in the supply chain. Fair for Life guarantees that smallholder farmers receive fair payment and that workers enjoy good and fair working conditions. The Fair for Life system prevents forced and child labor and also includes detailed environmental criteria. Fair For Life certified products must use Fair Trade ingredients if available, and regardless, 50% of all ingredients must be Fair Trade in order for a product to bear the seal.

The Rainforest Alliance (RA) standards prohibit the use of forced labor, child labor, and discrimination. The right to organize on RA-certified farms is not a critical criteria. RA does not require buyers to pay a specific minimum floor price for cocoa beans. Only 30% of the primary ingredient needs to be certified in order to earn an RA label.

And what about Nestle's UTZ Certification? UTZ was founded by Guatemalan coffee producers and the Ahold Coffee Company in 1997 and launched a cocoa plan 10 years later; it prohibits forced labor, however no organizations with a specific expertise in labor rights are included on the Board of Directors. So, while it protects the right to organize and bargain collectively, the price is solely based on negotiations between the buyers and farmers. Paying the legal minimum wage is required only after the first year of certification.

Now, what label is on your chocolate? ♥

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, former Democratic Campaign Manager, strategist, journalist, and photographer who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community.
You can follow him as @kabiu on twitter.

Multimillionaires Collecting Millions in Jobless Benefits

With the Republican Study Committee, (think: conservative House members) saying that they still wanted $100 billion in spending reductions as per the GOP's campaign pledges, what will they make of a move to cut unemployment benefits for millionaires? In a written statement explaining why he supports the bill introduced yesterday, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) said, "Ending this practice will save nearly $100 million and correct a gross injustice against the millions of Americans who are out of work. Congress should pass this bill without delay. If there was ever a common sense spending cut, this is it."

Unemployment insurance for somebody who earns over $1 million a year? That's right, the way the system currently works, they qualify, too. So the safety net provides for people who pull down a million or two -- or even ten million dollars in a year -- did you know that? Here's the scoop from TheHill.com:

"As many as 2,840 households who have reported an income of $1 million or more on their tax returns were paid a total of $18.6 million in unemployment benefits in 2008, according to Internal Revenue Service figures.

This included more than 800 earning over $2 million and 17 with incomes exceeding $10 million. In all, multimillionaires were paid $5.2 million in jobless benefits..."

Vicki Needham at

Now I don't know about you, but I expect anybody who pulls down a 7-or-8-digit income to have acquired some assets and set some of it aside. If you're having trouble making payments on the Lamborghini or Bugatti maybe you could trade it in for something that gets a little better mileage, like a Lexus hybrid, and stop going to restaurants that don't have prices on the menu, until you get your cash-flow going in a positive direction. Mooching off the government at that level is just plain abusing the system even if it's technically legal - for now.

I applaud U.S. Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK), Mark Udall (D-CO), and Jon Tester (D-MT) for being willing to take on the injustice. I hope this bill passes both houses of Congress swiftly.

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, former Democratic Campaign Manager, strategist, journalist, and photographer who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community. You can follow him as @kabiu on twitter.

AOLington Post? Did Huffington just jump the shark?

$315 million from AOL to Arianna Huffington is a real eye-opener, and Zennie's written recently about how various blogs (including this one) are valued, but AOL has a history of getting things wrong, and this is surely a case of strange bedfellows (but hey, it's politics, right?) Consider that AOL's primary revenue stream remains their old-school subscribers, the messy divorce from Time-Warner, and the way their local news theory is - well - sputtering, thus far. Now AOL evidently hopes to capture the unpaid contributors and eyeballs that followed the drama of the 2008 elections. Good luck with that.

In an investor's ideal world, I suppose, they'd expect the HuffPo loyalists to stay interested, and the AOL subscribers to stay, and the buzz to generate more interest and more readers - right? More interest, more readers, more ad revenue, happy investors. It could happen, but I don't see it. Instead, AOL will further tarnish the already slipping HuffPo brand, driving HuffPo's core readers elsewhere (maybe here?) without significantly altering the AOL reader's habits. These are two utterly different groups of internet users.

The kind of folks who were enthused about what Huffington seemed to be about during the 2008 campaign cycle (and make no mistake about it, the rise is tied to Obama, Clinton, McCain and the most-watched campaign in history) are the sort of people who have disdained the AOL model since before the country had even heard of Monica Lewinsky. They'll go elsewhere, and AOL will be left holding the bag.

In fact, it's already begun. As reported Monday in the immediate wake of the wedding announcement, former Essence Editor Angela Burt-Murray is now out of the HuffPost "Global Black" lineup. So, perhaps part of the appeal to AOL was Arianna's ability to come to terms with BET co-founder Sheila Johnson in an attempt to lure more African-American readership, but if you know why Ms. Burt-Murray departed Huffington's fold so soon after the AOL announcement we'd love to hear about it here, since AOL doesn't have the best track record in that department.

It's a triumph for Ms. Huffington, who has been very savvy in building and executing her business model. She sold out at a very opportune moment - and $315 million is a handsome profit - a remarkable return on investment. As such, this may even represent, or spark, the next hot wave of interest from big investors; it's clear that many stalwart media companies would benefit from some infusion of newer know-how, and tying their brand to an up-and-comer. But this unlikely union may well be the beginning of the end for HuffingtonPost's Happy Days.

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, former Democratic Campaign Manager, strategist, journalist, and photographer who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community. You can follow him as @kabiu on twitter.

Google innovates - for Egypt

In a release yesterday on Google's official blog, "Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard" Google announced they've already put a workaround in place for the "internet shutdown" stifling the flow of information coming from Tahrir Square and other protest sites in Egypt.

"Like many people we’ve been glued to the news unfolding in Egypt and thinking of what we could do to help people on the ground. Over the weekend we came up with the idea of a speak-to-tweet service—the ability for anyone to tweet using just a voice connection."

The engineers created a service that not only tweets the message using the hashtag #egypt, but allows for dialing in to collect/hear tweets, too, using the same phone number.

This really shines a light on the concept of an "internet kill switch" in the U.S., which Congress is actually considering again. The bill has not been re-introduced, but reportedly it's being "floated" by Maine Senator Susan Collins who was on the right side of efforts to repeal "Don't Ask Don't Tell" and she assures reporters it wouldn't have the same sweeping impact as Mubarak's current information blockade in Egypt. I'm skeptical, Senator, of attempts to control the flow of information.

I applaud Google's rapid response, but what if I wanted more specifics? What if I want to search on a hashtag related to Tahrir Square, for instance, which is trending now on Twitter?

Although you never know what will change if such a bill moves forward, in its current form there's no provision for judicial review if and when the administration shuts down the internet. I'm not worried that Obama would prevent us from learning about Tea-Baggers rallying to whine about taxes, but moving forward it's important that we not create laws that disturb and undermine the balance of power deliberately crafted into our Constitution during this country's formation, (even if judges and courts funded by taxes are arguably a socialist approach to conflict resolution.)

There's a lesson here, about restricting freedom of speech when people want to exercise their right to assemble peaceably, and most of us outside of the U.S. Capitol want to see that freedom restored to 80 million Egyptians and remain protected for 300 millions U.S. citizens as our Constitution mandates.

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, former Democratic Campaign Manager, strategist, journalist, and photographer who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community. You can follow him as @kabiu on twitter.

Where are the jobs, Mr. Boehner?

Just what are the leaders of the GOP doing with their new-found Congressional majority? We all know they took the symbolic vote to repeal the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (PPACA or sometimes just ACA) complete with a provision explicitly naming their own bill "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act" without proposing any alternative. We all know the majority of U.S. citizens like the reforms, and the savvy have noticed that the only part being challenged in the courts is, in fact, the mandate inserted to win GOP support in the first place and protect insurance company profits -- and that they managed not just one but two responses to the President's State of the Union.

But what are GOP leaders actually doing?

OK, fair enough, House Speaker John Boehner did take to the airwaves on Sunday, to warn FOX viewers that it, "would be a financial disaster not only for our country, but for the worldwide economy," if the U.S. defaulted on its debt, because, "You can't create jobs if you default on the federal debt." That could happen, according to some estimates, sometime between March and May due to - what? Inaction by Congress. So he's talking to pundits, which isn't exactly doing nothing.

But neither this rhetoric nor talking to pundits is creating one job. Meanwhile, Rick Ungar of Forbes and others argue that the repeal they voted for would actually be a job-killer itself. The ironies seem lost on most who fashion themselves as speaking on behalf of GOP voters.

Here's an excerpt from Ungar's Policy Page at Forbes:

"The primary, most enduring complaint of the opponents of the ACA has been that the law is deathly bad for small business.

Apparently, small businesses, and their employees, do not agree.

The next argument has been that the PPACA is a job killer.

If these small businesses found the new law to be so onerous, why have so many of them voluntarily taken advantage of the benefits provided in the law to give their employees these benefits? They were not mandated to do so. And to the extent that the coming mandate obligations might figure into their thinking, would you not imagine they would wait until 2014 to make a move as the rules do not go into effect until that time?

Of course, there is the nagging banter as to how Obamacare is leading us down the road to socialism.

Let it go, folks."

Rick Ungar,

More Small Businesses Offering Health Care
To Employees Thanks To Obamacare

January 6, 2011

So the pundits are permitting the politicians - particularly those leading the GOP - to play familiar partisan games, posturing for the cameras while criticizing every nuance of the President's stance and efforts, but what's the impact? Wasted time.

What does the country need? What do we want our elected leaders to actually do? Act responsibly, behave like adults, get to work and fix the problems for Main Street like they did for the fat cats on Wall Street who contribute to their campaign coffers - we need jobs.

There are millions of us, millions of hard-working citizens - and voters - out of work watching jobs move overseas and foreclosures ruin our neighborhoods, yet the politicians prefer to pretend that what matters most are symbolic votes, the profit margins and bonuses on Wall Street, and criticizing without proposing solutions, or even alternative initiatives? What's next, Mr. Boehner, holding your breath until your face turns blue?

It's enough to make a grown man cry.

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, former Democratic Campaign Manager, strategist, journalist, and photographer who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community. You can follow him as @kabiu on twitter.