INDIVISIBLE Lambertville NJ / New Hope PA

Author: Indivisible Lambertville / New Hope

  • History Lesson: REDMAP and how the Democratic Majority Lost Seats to a Republican Minority

    To understand gerrymandering is to understand REDMAP, the concerted effort by the Republican State Leadership Committee of the United States to increase Republican control of Congress, as well as state legislators by controlling electoral boundaries. Special focus was given to Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and North Carolina – historically blue states that Republicans have swung red with appropriate redistricting. REDMAP launched in 2010 with previously unavailable mapping software, at an estimated cost of $30 million. 

    Source: Wikipedia

    Additional Reading: This is how the GOP rigged Congress: The secret plan that handcuffed Obama’s presidency, but backfired in Donald Trump

  • Just the Facts – Why do companies do share buybacks?

    Contributed by Olga Vanucci.

    A share buyback is a decision by a company to buy back its own shares from the marketplace, reducing the number of shares outstanding.

    With fewer shares outstanding and no change in the total value of the company, each share is worth more.  The price of the stock goes up.

    For example, a company is worth $10 million and has 100,000 outstanding shares:  It’s stock price is $100. If it repurchases 10,000 of those shares, reducing its total outstanding shares to 90,000, its stock price increases to $111 — without any actual increase in the company’s value.

    A company does a share buyback when it has cash but chooses not to pursue a productive way to invest that cash into its business to actually increase the overall value of the company. 

    Between January 1 and February 1 of 2018, companies listed in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index announced buyback programs totaling $173 billion, which was the most significant amount of buybacks ever counted so early in a year.  That is all money that was NOT invested back into the businesses.

    More here:  https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sharerepurchase.asp

  • Book Review: “Healing the Heart of Democracy:  The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit”

    Contributed by Liza Watson.

    Author Parker Palmer writes at the intersection of social change and spirituality.  He is an activist who draws insights from both history and sociology. He quietly demands that we stretch our own capacities for loving, while doing the hard work of examining our country’s myths, and pursuing action for the truths we uncover.  

    I’d love to hear a sermon he might deliver today, because I crave a way to make meaning of the tumult our country is in. I think he might speak in a soft voice and suggest ways we can look and act forward.

    His explanation for the use of “heart” refers to the Latin word “cor” – the core of self where all our ways of knowing converge – intuitive, experiential, intellectual, emotional, sensory.  It is the source of courage to act humanely on what we know.

    Palmer outlines Five Habits of the Heart, as follows. Understand that we are all in this together – we are dependent on and accountable to one another.  Develop an appreciation for the value of “otherness” – pursue the ancient tradition of hospitality, because the stranger has so much to teach us. Cultivate the ability to hold tension in life-giving ways – contradictions we encounter have the potential to expand our hearts and generate insight along with energy.  Generate a sense of personal voice and agency – we are actors in the drama, not just the audience. Strengthen our capacity to create community – it took a village to transform Rosa Parks’ act of courage into social change.  

    Myths he challenges include the notion that our economy is capable of endless growth, that we offer more economic opportunity than any other nation, that people who emigrate to the U.S. want to be like everyone else and assimilate, that we are the leading superpower (in spite of little evidence of international accomplishment via war.)

    In April 2020, taking just one angle on those myths, the divide between the super-rich and the currently hungry workers doesn’t look like there’s been much economic opportunity.  Granted we’re experiencing a crisis of massive upheaval, but there are people in cars lined up, waiting for a chance to get food. Today and tomorrow.

    Palmer recognized that your heart will at times get broken by loss or defeat, but what matters is how your heart breaks. It could break apart, or it could break open. Politics is the use of power to order our lives together, it is a profoundly human arena.  In the hands of those whose hearts have broken open, politics can use that power courageously for the sake of a more equitable, just and compassionate world.  

    Here is Palmer’s challenge to us – be willing to have your heart break open. 

    “Healing the Heart of Democracy:  The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit” by Parker Palmer.  Jossey-Bass, 2011

  • Caring for Community: Volunteering, Donating to Help Those in Need

    Safe Harbor Child Access Centers in Flemington is available for all individuals in need of a safe environment to heal from traumatic experiences such as domestic violence, sexual assault, childhood abuse, neglect and PTSD. Safe Harbor provides therapeutic visitation, supervised parenting time and a safe place to drop off and pick up children during custody exchange.

    The Center itself is a place where young children can laugh, play and feel safe. Large windows fill each room with sunshine and warmth. The rooms are active and vibrant and host a display of paintings, books and musical instruments. Laughter is throughout as families connect with their children and play with their siblings and friends. Bella Blue, the resident therapy dog, is available as needed. 

    In addition, for today’s teen, the world has become much more complex. Young boys and girls find solace in Safe Harbor by connecting with other teens, participating in support groups and to openly discuss the challenges they face today. Through trauma-sensitive play groups, children and teens come together to do artwork, participate in Zumba classes, listen to music and play using their imagination.

    The Center operates under the direction of Carol Dvoor, a survivor of domestic abuse herself, who has made it her mission to advocate for survivors and bring children together with their families to help rebuild, connect and heal. Carol has also brought together numerous volunteers, community organizations and businesses to help create the welcoming environment, provide a wide range of programs and projects and sometimes, to provide the basic needs of life for those served by the Center. 

    Open seven days a week, Safe Harbor is an all volunteer 501(c)3, New Jersey based not-for-profit organization, and is a registered New Jersey charity with the New Jersey Department of Consumer Affairs.

    Contact information to volunteer, donate or request more information on services

    Phone: 908-268-4284;

    Email: safeharbor17info@gmail.com

    Facebook: Safe Harbor Child Access Centers

    ALICE – United Way of Hunterdon County has joined forces with United Way of Northern New Jersey to promote the ALICE Recovery Fund. COVID-19 doesn’t recognize county borders and it is important to join forces to support ALICE – the quarter of our neighbors who are Asset Limited, Income Constrained and Employed. These households struggled to afford the basics even before COVID-19 hit. Many of them are made up of essential workers who are on the frontlines of this crisis and it is essential to support them in the immediate and long-term. Working with our partners, this fund will be distributed to ALICE households impacted by COVID-19 throughout the region.  

    ALICE is one in five neighbors who is living on the edge. ALICE may be a college student; a recent grad who is working and paying off tuition debt; a young family struggling to pay for child care so they can work; the underemployed working less than full-time and without benefits; active duty military personnel; a family caregiver; or a senior on a fixed income struggling with health issues.

    ALICE individuals and families living in Hunterdon County struggle every day to make ends meet, yet they work in jobs that are essential to the county’s economy. 

    Why does ALICE struggle?

    • Income is falling behind the cost of living – Did you know it costs a household with two adults and two young children ~$90,000 to barely get by in Hunterdon County? That’s an increase of almost $10,000 over a two-year period. The cost of basic household expenses increased steadily in every county in New Jersey between 2010 and 2016. The average household budget rose by 28 percent from 2010 to 2016. 
    • The available jobs are low-paying despite providing essential services to Hunterdon County. ALICE works in occupations we all depend on. However, more than 50% of jobs in Hunterdon County pay less then $20/hour.  These jobs will account for 75% of new jobs over the next decade.
    • More than 30% of seniors struggle and live below the ALICE threshold – a significant increase over two years prior.

    To volunteer or donate, go to https://www.uwhunterdon.org/contact

    Reminders: Food Pantries are being especially hit hard with the growing number of people out of work. Please donate when you can, and as often as you can. 

  • CoronaVirus Exposes Gaping Holes in the Social Safety Net

     Contributed by Deb Kline.

    The impacts of the coronavirus on individuals and businesses have exposed gaping holes in the social safety net. As Congress and the administration now rush to find solutions to supporting those who are suddenly out of work or working under extremely reduced hours, who are without insurance coverage or paid sick leave, suddenly the more progressive platforms are looking like plausible ways to keep the country from further devastation. Ideas like checks to individuals and (somewhat) free healthcare are being seriously discussed, even  if they are temporary stop-gap measures. 

    How it must stick in the craw of many of the hardened conservatives who have been hacking away at the social safety net since the New Deal. It’s no surprise that all of the nays on the  second coronavirus relief bill in the Senate came from the Republican side of the aisle, which ultimately passed the Senate. Now, Republicans are taking up a Phase 3 emergency bill, which would include $50 billion to aid the hard-hit airline industry, $150 billion for other distressed sectors of the economy, two rounds of direct payments of $250 billion each on April 6 and May 18, and the creation of a small business interruption loan program. A vote is expected on this bill sometime this week. 

    Side note: The relief to the airline industry and other large businesses rankles many who feel that many of them squandered their corporate tax cuts as well as the 2008 bailouts on stock buybacks and boosting executive salaries. Elizabeth Warren has much to say about conditions that need to be in place to avoid similar behavior. 

    For an administration that has been loath to do anything to help individuals outside of the “1 percenters,” you know they’re running scared of the current free-fall of the economy. While boasting of the “best economy” and “lowest unemployment numbers” ever, the truth has shown it’s ugly face: PEOPLE CAN’T SPEND MONEY IF THEY DON’T HAVE ANY. 

    Democrats and progressives have understood milking the members of the middle and poorer economic groups is a strategy ultimately doomed to fail. The argument against social safety net programs has been that they make people dependent on the government and that they smack of socialism, which is a very slippery slope into communism. But it’s been the social safety net programs that have often lifted this country out of depressions and recessions, gotten people back to work and enabled them to purchase the goods and services that keep the wheels of the economy running. 

    Not to mention it’s the right thing to do. Every moral guidepost extolls compassion, care for the sick, care for the least among us, care for your neighbor. Gwendolyn Brooks wrote: 

    “We are each other’s harvest; we are each other’s business; we are each other’s magnitude and bond.”

    Perhaps the outcome of this crisis will be the recognition that the business of America is not in its corporations, but in its people. If they truly want to create shareholder value, then the investments should be in the people and in the communities in which we live.  

    For more on just how much this administration has chipped away at Social Safety Net programs, even before the Coronavirus, see Donald Trump’s Assault on the Social Safety Net  in Washington Monthly’s February edition.

    Resources: 

    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/18/congress-emergency-coronavirus-stimulus-package-135444
    https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/488256-senate-gop-expects-vote-on-third-coronavirus-package-next-week