Why are some people dying from COVID and others never even go to the hospital? 

Join me HERE on Instagram LIVE at 2pm PST this Thursday to chat about this as well as when businesses might open again and who will really win economically after this pandemic ends (and it will folks). 

I can’t wait to talk to you! 

Thank you to the USC Bedrosian Center for setting this up.

How the 1% spread the Coronavirus

The remarkably wealthy are both able to avoid infection while at the same time spreading disease to sedentary, lower-income communities. 

The generally affluent in New York are a good example. While most of the city followed the state-imposed “stay at home” order, those with means recently left the cramped city for expensive homes in the Hamptons or Florida. Angry social media posts by local residents in many of these idyllic retreat communities warned wealthy Manhattanites to stay away. They did not listen. Their exodus has instead spread the virus to Florida, Michigan and many other states even prompting the CDC to issue unprecedented guidelines for New Yorkers to stay put. These guidelines come too late. The only people left in NYC are those who are unwilling or unable to afford to travel. 

This ability to leave red zones for less dense and presumably safer neighborhoods is one way those with means both avoid infection and also spread disease. Unsurprisingly as of March 29, lower-income and rural America has the highest per capita rate of infection … a stunning statistic given these are areas of much lower population density. 

Meanwhile, these lower-income communities that were once dependent on tourist largesse now struggle to accommodate the increasing tide of the infected. In a recent New York Times article Mayor Joseph Mancini of Long Beach Township in New Jersey made a plea for those with shore houses to stay away because the city cannot provide any meaningful services for the sick:

“We all love the summer people. They drive our economy. But when they come down here now, the services aren’t geared up for them.”

Indeed, there are several indications that this is how the Coronavirus spread initially as well: wealthy international travelers who left China and then other infected countries spread the disease to the rest of the world. 

How the rest cope

As some other writers have noted, a kind of pandemic caste system is developing in the U.S. One where the wealthy remain safe holed up in rural vacation properties straining local resources, while the middle class remains marooned at home, burdened by childcare responsibilities and increasingly unemployed - some risking exposure by working on the front lines of the economy because of duty, financial necessity or both. 

These essential workers, many who work at grocery stores and gas stations, have children who are no longer going to school. It’s not like they are being paid an extra $2000 to $3000 to afford day care … and even if they were, daycare is increasingly difficult to find. So many are having to call in sick or leave children in far away locations with friends or family ill able to afford another mouth to feed. 

We’ve been told to work online but not everyone can. The Federal Communications Commission notes that nearly 30 percent of Americans don’t even have a slow broadband connection. The cost to work from home is often borne by individual workers. I understand this personally because many of my students are low-income and cannot necessarily watch educational Youtube videos with the same ease as those with broadband connections. They certainly don’t have the bandwidth to log on to Zoom classes, which is a difficult feat even for someone as privileged as me. 

We aren’t going to solve this nation’s deep inequality right now, or even immediately after the pandemic subsides. But HOW we respond right now will determine the future fabric of this country in ways not seen since the Great Depression. What those of us who are wealthy and well-connected can do right now is 1) act responsibly by sheltering in place and 2) be generous with our financial resources, expertise and time. Some already are - but imagine if everyone did so. What a different story we would have to tell our kids. And what a different world they would grow up in.

It seems to target the remarkably rich. 

Normally, outbreaks (such as cholera) devastate low-income communities first. MERS, SARS and many modern pandemics are far more likely to show up in densely populated, working-class areas than at a country club. 

COVID-19 is behaving differently. After leaving China, the virus spread to the highest levels of society - from the U.S. Congress, Tom Hanks and NBA pros to sitting heads of state and billionaires. One of the first major clusters in Europe affected two dozen people at an upscale ski resort in France. Instead of percolating in city slums, COVID-19 hung out on expensive cruise ships. Some of the very first cases in Hong Kong didn’t show up in low-income urban centers, but at the Four Seasons Hotel. Meanwhile, many of the poorest countries in the world seem to be the safest. 

What’s going on here? Is this the Bernie Sanders of pandemics? What could be causing the virus’ selectivity?

No one really knows why, but I have a few guesses:

• One reason could be that inherent inequality allows the wealthy elite to get tested more quickly, or in the case of the U.S., obtain access to testing in the first place. Low-income folks may have the disease but likely lack the time or the medical insurance to get tested.

• The virus began and is currently spreading during the winter months in the Northern Hemisphere - a time when coronaviruses are more easily transmitted. The Northern Hemisphere also happens to contain a greater share of the world’s wealthy population. Correlation isn’t causation, but there is a chance that weather and wealth are playing a role in why the elite are more susceptible to the virus. 

• COVID-19 is a “social” disease, one that spreads in large gatherings like conventions, parties and cocktail receptions - places frequented by those with free time and disposable income. 

• Finally, traveling the globe is expensive and the privileged travel frequently. Those who don’t travel less tend to have less disposable income, and lower rates of travel are directly correlated with a significantly lower risk of infection.

Aside from the interesting demographic phenomenon at play here, the susceptibility of the wealthy reveals an important fact about our society: a small group of people in the U.S. and around the world are wealthier than ever before. Their wealth transcends nation and state, allowing them to travel amongst countries as we travel among our local neighborhoods. This wealth also allows folks to get tested earlier and get treated faster, while suffering little to no serious economic consequences (e.g. layoffs) as a result of the infection. 

If we are to survive and thrive when the next pandemic comes (and it will), then building an economic support infrastructure for the less fortunate is just as important as building a public health infrastructure for the infected.

How have Republicans been able to convince people that Democrats are "the party of the elite" when Democratic voters in cities are no better of economically than Republican voters in the Heartland? That Republicans have been able to do this is especially baffling given that most Republican elected officials tend to be very wealthy and the leader of the Republican party is a billionaire who literally lives in a house covered in gold. 

If you look at the average income of Democratic voters and compare this number with the incomes of independents and Republicans, you see that Democrats actually make LESS than their Republican counterparts. This is often because they live in large cities or urban areas where the cost of living is high. So even though they make more money, they end up spending far more than the average Republican voter on housing, and other non-discretionary costs. Moreover, Democratic voters get less for the money they do spend. For instance, buying a home for $350,000 in Los Angeles proper probably gets you a dilapidated 3 bedroom in serious need of repair. Meanwhile, the same money can get you a beautiful mansion in Columbia, South Carolina.

Even those Democrats who decide to spend the same $350,000 on a house located in the LA suburbs pay a cost. They may end up getting a bigger home, but they now must deal with a 3-4 hour roundtrip commute. This eats into time with family, the ability to work out and ends up costing a lot in terms of maintaining and operating a vehicle. Meanwhile, should a Republican voter analog in Columbia decide to move to the suburbs (say, Ermo, South Carolina), they not only save money (you can get the same Columbia mansion mentioned earlier for $100,000 less in Ermo), but must deal with less traffic and only a 20-30 minute commute time on the worst of days.

So, economic power and income aren't really the reason Democrats are the elite. In fact, by that logic, both Republican voters and their elected leaders are.  This means Republicans have relied on some other kind of convincing metric (or set of metrics) in order to convince Americans that Democrats are the party of the elite.

Social Power vs. Economic Power

Indeed, what the Republican party has done is focus on the social power that Democratic voters have and compared it to the political power that Republican voters have.

In many ways, a Democratic voter is a social elite. When the average Democratic voter turns on the TV they see people that look like them, talk in their urban accent, and do the things they do. Popular culture today is arguably a validation of the preferences of Democratic voters. When was the last time a Marvel superhero movie featured someone with a southern drawl or an Appalachian twang? Meanwhile, many independent voters and some Republican voters may see a different image of their life. On most television shows, people from the Deep South or Midwest "need fixing", they are hoarders, or run restaurants that Gordon Ramsay comes in to fix. Even the new Queer Eye, a great show about helping people overcome a variety of personal difficulties, is set in the South. 

Popular culture today is arguably a validation of the preferences of Democratic voters

Meanwhile, the majority of Republican voters and independents (especially in swing states) have a kind of political power that Democratic voters in cities could only dream of, especially in presidential elections. A Democrat voter in Los Angeles, Houston or any large city has little incentive to head to the polls on Election Day, because her vote is often irrelevant. Democratic voters are concentrated in cities and in some cases, if even 20% of the Democrats vote, they will carry the district for the Democratic Party. Why go vote when your vote doesn’t count?

Now contrast this with a Republican voter in a state like Wyoming (which is overwhelmingly Republican). Wyoming has a population of around half a million people. These half a million people are distributed over eight Electoral College votes. Down to the Electoral College Member level, this means that each Electoral College Member represents 62,500 Wyoming residents. Now contrast this with California (which is overwhelmingly Democrat), which has a population of about 40 million and 55 Electoral College votes. This means that each Electoral College Member for the state of California represents about 727,272 voters. A lot more!

A Californian voter's interests are diluted. It takes a lot fewer Wyoming residents to obtain an Electoral College vote, and a lot more Californians to obtain the same vote. In other words, Californians must spend more votes to "buy" a voice in the political process. 

What the Republican Party has done is say, "look at these Democratic elites in California. They determine YOUR cultural landscape. The TV shows you watch, your fashion preferences, and the what things are important to you. But guess what? Though they have social power, they don't have anywhere near as much political power as you do. YOUR vote matters when deciding who will be the President of the U.S. The President you choose will act on your social preferences. So exercise your political power to obtain the social power you lack."

 Today

And this has played itself out. Today, the President doesn't have fancy "social elite" dinners at the White House with celebrities. He invites over baseball teams and gives them Big Macs. Today, Trump is the first President in 36 years to skip the high-brow annual White House Correspondents Dinner, instead he attends rallies where he speaks crassly, and plainly, to his base. Today, conservative independents and Republican voters have the social power they did not earlier this decade. They have a voice that is reflected in popular culture ... in shows that discuss the issues that matter to them. Just look at tv shows like Roseanne, which are made (and then unmade) on national television on a regular basis now. 

Today, Republican voters have more social capital than they did half a decade ago, and Democrats have less political power. Democrats don't control the White House, the Senate, or even much of the judiciary. The magic of the Republican message has been to convince their base and other independents that elitism no longer means economic power alone. One can be relatively poor, or even middle class, and enjoy unprecedented social power. 

Sadly, none of this excuses the lengths to which some conservative politicians have gone to secure the vote - relying on xenophobia, racism and other underhanded tactics to convince voters of this message.

Recently, Americans have had the pleasure of experiencing some phenomenal economic milestones, including the longest stock market boom and longest economic expansion in U.S. history. It’s surprising then, to learn of another economic milestone that bucks the trend of all this good news: the longest period in history without an increase in the federal minimum wage (which was last adjusted over a decade ago).

If the minimum wage had kept up with inflation, workers would be earning 17% more (about $3,000 per year) than they were in 2009. That’s 2-3 months of rent for most people. The story becomes harder to swallow when you expand the time horizon: the federal minimum wage is worth 38% less than it was in 1968, even after taking inflation into account. In other words, a minimum wage-earner in 1968 had almost 40% more money than the same wage-earner today - even though the wage-earner in 1968 was earning less real dollars.

And this is the whole problem with digesting the impact of wage devaluation over time: humans can intuitively understand real numbers (quantity) a lot easier than percentages. My first job in 1997 was a minimum wage job. I made $5.15 an hour. Today the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. That’s an increase of more than $2 dollars - a nearly 40 percent jump. Seems like a lot right? It isn’t. Because inflation has risen collectively at high rates as well. Therefore that $7.25 buys you about 30% less than what an equivalent amount would have been able to purchase in 1997. Even though a minimum wage worker in 2019 may be earning a couple of bucks more, that’s not enough to keep up with currency devaluation. If I had the same job today, its as if my minimum wage was only $5.75 rather than $7.25.

People find it hard NOT to see things in nominal terms. If you put a dollar in a drawer and you take it out 10 years later, you think - “hey it’s a dollar!” - but in reality, due to inflation, it’s only 85 cents. 

So Why Hasn’t the Minimum Wage Kept Up With Inflation?

There’s a lot of reasons.

Part of the explanation for why the minimum wage hasn’t risen is because post-recession workers have just been willing to work for a lot less. In the immediate aftermath of the crisis, some considered themselves lucky to just have a job in the first place. A lot of that spirit persists a decade later. 

Higher wage earners can advocate for their salary, stock options or tax benefits by electing people who support their positions. Minimum wage workers are often barred from being able to engage in the political process. For instance, minimum wage workers are younger. Younger people vote less often and minors can’t vote at all. Minimum wage workers may also be undocumented, or recent immigrants who are unfamiliar with the U.S. political and advocacy process. 

This is one of the pernicious effects of wage discrimination: those who need higher wages the most spend the majority of their time trying to earn enough rather than advocating for a wage that would free up their time. 

But perhaps most importantly, minimum wage workers are often time-starved. They sometimes have to work two jobs to make ends meet (you tell me how a “full-time” job at a cafe where you make about $400 a week after taxes lets you afford rent, utilities, a car and a cellphone). Pressuring employers for a raise or their elected representatives for minimum wage reform are secondary to earning enough to survive. This is one of the pernicious effects of wage discrimination: those who need higher wages the most spend the majority of their time trying to earn enough rather than advocating for a wage that would free up their time. Meanwhile, those who make more (such as myself) can “buy” time with our money, freeing us up to show up to marches, call our congresswoman, or even go vote.

Solutions Aren’t As Easy You Think

There are a number of civil society groups advocating for a fairer minimum wage. And they are backed up by most Americans. A Pew Research poll found that two-thirds of Americans support a $15 hourly federal minimum wage. 

But what about employers? Are they able to absorb an increase in the minimum wage? Or will they just pass it down to consumers? Not all businesses are created equal and smaller businesses have a harder time with the minimum wage than larger ones. Generally, smaller businesses are dealing with the same income inequality problems as their workers. Inflation is slowly diminishing their profits and forcing them to work longer or charge more for products and services. Like their workers, small business owners running on fumes are a slow-moving train wreck of increased mental and physical health issues. House Democrats have recently attempted to pass legislation to increase wages, but congressional research staff have found that because many of these small businesses wouldn’t be able to absorb the salary hikes, a number of minimum wage earners at small businesses would lose their jobs if the federal minimum wage were increased to $15. 

Larger businesses, on the other hand, can easily absorb these costs. Most Fortune 500 corporations are experiencing unprecedented profits. Many, like Apple, have cash hoards so large they could finance entire countries for years. Many large organizations would also benefit from an increased minimum wage. Stanford University, for instance, is losing employees because they cannot afford to live within driving distance of campus. A reasonable minimum wage would allow Stanford to recruit qualified labor. 

Large companies could set the economic (and perhaps moral) standard by increasing the minimum wage for their workers. 

Instead, many are investing in automation and AI, which is ending the jobs of minimum wage workers. McDonalds is using kiosks for meal ordering and self-checkouts are the de facto standard at most retail and grocery outlets today. Though many of these businesses would argue against a minimum wage increase (despite devaluation), they are well on their way to transitioning their businesses to a point where low-wage workers aren’t even necessary.

There are other options on the table: basic income for everyone (which Andrew Yang champions), tax credits, or expansion of new mega-industries such as space exploration. But all of these options are long-term solutions that will take decades, maybe even a century, to implement. 

In some ways having a minimum wage encourages employers to just keep salaries low - why pay more when the federal government has already set a low standard? It may be worthwhile to see whether a market economy would encourage a minimum wage more flexible and perhaps higher than that set by the government.

If you are used to carrying cash around town, cashless establishments may be inconvenient. But for the newly affluent individuals who live in previously stagnant urban cores, cashless businesses make for a convenient and seamless experience. 

Though the number of cashless businesses are still rare overall, their owners, like Amazon Go and Sweetgreen, argue that a cashless economy is the future and people need to get on board. Going cashless, they say, also discourages illicit activities such as money laundering, human trafficking and tax evasion.

There are also other practical reasons to eliminate cash, including:

• Safety. Because cash can be easily stolen, a cashless environment is a safer working environment.

• A cashless business is easier to run, especially from a record—keeping perspective.

• Businesses that carry cash have higher insurance premiums due to the safety and security risks of keeping cash on hand.

• Counting cash every day and taking it to the bank takes hours per week and increases labor costs.

• Cash is hard to track and easy to purloin - cashless businesses diminish the chance of employees stealing restaurant funds.

But of course this isn’t the whole story. You’ll find that most cashless businesses are relatively expensive and cater to a younger crowd of consumers, often in gentrifying areas where a large number of residents are still low to moderate income (LMI). For LMI consumers, a cashless business is inaccessible, inconvenient and in some cases, dangerous. 

How Could Cashless Businesses Ever Be a Problem?

Because not everyone has credit, or credit card

Let alone a bank account. Policymakers refer to this population as America’s “unbanked” and there are many good reasons why they remain so. Some folks do have a bank account, but still prefer to use alternative financial institutions such as check cashing establishments, and are collectively referred to as the “underbanked. Nationwide, some 20% of African-Americans and 15% of Hispanics don’t have bank accounts according to the FDIC. 

There are a lot of reasons why people remain unbanked. In some cases, they just don’t have enough revolving cash to maintain a minimum balance, a requirement often as high as $1000. In other cases, privacy concerns discourage individuals from using banks (discussed below). LMI families also can’t afford high bank fees. Just last week, I had three small transactions each under five dollars that occurred over the course of a couple of hours and each transaction resulted in an overdraft fee of $35 dollars. By the time I actually received an overdraft notice from my bank, I had racked up almost $150 in overdraft fees alone. 

A startling 20-25% of LA residents don’t have a bank account or credit card. 

Los Angeles is a good example of a city with a large unbanked population. With almost 100,000 people, LA has the largest homeless population in the country. Almost all of these individuals are unbanked. Almost a million undocumented immigrants live in LA Country - the majority of whom are unbanked or underbanked. Recent immigrants such as refugees or asylum seekers also tend to trust banks less, preferring to hold on to their money as cash. Add to this significant portions of the elderly, African-Americans and other minority or LMI groups that include large unbanked populations and you realize that a startling 20-25% of LA residents don’t have a bank account or credit card. 

Yet just because these Angelinos are unbanked, does not mean that they don’t participate in the local economy. They either prefer to or have no choice but to use cash.

Those who have credit cards, often can’t use them

Despite a robust economy, a number of Americans are drowning in credit card debt. The average household credit card debt for LMI households is over $6,000. Because these households often cannot afford more than the monthly interest payments, credit card debt only continues to inch upward. 

Cash is a good way for these families to spend only what they earn, avoid the burden of interest payments and learn good financial habits. Though some people are using credit cards for a beneficial purpose (to collect credit card rewards, building credit etc.) LMI individuals are often not benefiting from credit cards and going further into debt.

For those who have serious credit card debt, cashless businesses are just not an option. 

Some choose not to use cards or join banks due to privacy concerns

In a time when consumers are becoming the product (there’s a reason why you don’t pay for Facebook or Gmail) your personal data has immense value. Every business where we use a credit card gets access to our personal information, including name, zip code and phone number. Combined with other data that is usually bought from data merchants, as well as information about our purchasing habits, this can result in a tailored profile both offline and online businesses can use to further target consumers. Inadequate privacy laws and a credit card and bank industry dominated by a few large players doesn’t help. 

Though credit cards aren’t the only way merchants can track individuals, and likewise while using cash doesn’t guarantee privacy, cash is still nonetheless far more privacy-protective than credit cards.

Lastly, there’s no benefit to the cashless consumer

Consumers could still use credit cards at Sweetgreen before it went cashless. Going cashless does not increase consumer choice, it reduces consumer options. 

There’s also an argument to be made that using cash is beneficial to smaller, low-margin businesses who can avoid paying the transaction fees that credit card companies charge on each swipe of the card. 

Is There an Alternative to Cashless Restaurants?

The Regulatory Route

There is a growing movement that understands the advantages of a cashless business, but also the accessibility that cash provides to economically marginalized communities. 

Massachusetts and New Jersey have already banned cashless businesses. New York City and Washington D.C. are considering bans, and San Francisco recently passed a ban on cashless businesses. 

Philadelphia, which has an unbanked population of nearly 25%, recently passed an ordinance that is a good compromise. Though the law, which went into effect in July, bans cashless businesses from operating in Philadelphia, it exempts some on a case-by-case basis. For instances, places where cash truly creates a security hazard, such as parking garages, are exempt from the law as are retail stores that sell goods through a membership model like Costco (though there is some controversy regarding this exception as it looks like it was drafted specifically to allay Amazon’s concerns as it looks bring Prime membership to the brick and mortar world through its Amazon Go and Whole Foods locations).

The Banking Route

Banks have little incentive to curry favor with LMI customers, so incentivizing them to do so through tax subsidies or other similar measures is a good start. This is where neighborhood credit unions, with lower overhead and more concern for their local community, can be good allies. Banks already know your approximate net worth, so pegging bank fees to an individual’s net worth may also encourage individuals to enter the banking market - someone making $35,000 shouldn’t have to pay the same overdraft fee as a millionaire. Finally, mandating stronger privacy protections for banks and credit card companies can also help allay fears and encourage people to use banks.

If enough of the population feels comfortable using banks and credit cards, a cashless society could be less of a problem.

The Hardest Solution

In the end, as with many things, a more equitable society is the hardest, but most comprehensive solution. A community where LMI individuals make enough so that they don’t need to worry about being able to afford a bank account and thus buy products that cashless businesses would sell to them, is a long-term solution that’s good for individuals as well as for the businesses that aim to sell to them.

A new dollar store will open up every six hours nationwide this year. There’s already more dollar stores in the U.S. than Walmarts and McDonalds combined. This unprecedented growth is threatening the very communities that rely on them.

Dollar stores make billions so their growth is unsurprising. In 2018, Dollar Tree made $22 billion in revenue and Dollar General’s stock was worth over $35 billion as of this summer. By stocking small, often private-label products for cheap prices dollar stores are designed to get people to spend more, especially those who like finding a good deal. 

Saturating a Saturated Market

Dollar stores are increasingly being built in communities already saturated with Amazon deliveries, Walmart stores and Costco warehouses. In some cases, dollar stores are opening up blocks away from preexisting dollar stores - similar to the growth pattern of Starbucks. That comparison isn’t accidental - researchers say that dollar stores are looking to eliminate competition by carpeting low-income communities with cheap stores.

Stores like Dollar General say they build in clusters because their customers are only willing to travel three to five miles to shop with them. Nonetheless, evidence indicates that dollar stores are being built much closer to each other - in some cases less than half a mile apart. In fact, residents of most American cities live within one mile of a dollar store. 

Why is This a Problem?

Dollar stores contribute to food deserts in low-income communities.

Though they are great for your pocketbook, dollar stores aren’t necessarily good for the communities in which they are built, especially economically depressed communities. For instance, many low-income communities are already struggling to encourage the growth of grocery stores that provide fresh, healthy produce. Easy access to fresh produce is directly correlated with better health outcomes for communities. Though dollar stores may provide cheap food like Twinkies and chips, few stock healthy produce. Bananas and carrots are not profit leaders, especially if they are being priced at or near a dollar. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that dollar stores are seeing their greatest growth in the low-income and rural communities that need the benefits local grocers provide. 

Grocery stores sell both fresh foodstuffs AND the non-perishable items that dollar stores sell. When there are so many dollar stores in a community, grocery stores have no market for their non-perishable goods and thus little incentive to build in those communities. 

Dollar stores frequently sell expired or dangerously defective merchandise.

On August 26 of this year, New York Attorney General Leticia James announced the culmination of a year-long investigation into the sale of expired drugs (some more than a year past their expiration date) and faulty motor oil, as well as illegal practices regarding New York state’s bottle deposit law. The Dollar General-branded motor oil at issue in the investigation was not viable for most engines created after 1930s. Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Family Dollar were collectively fined $1.2 million dollars. 

Unchecked growth at all costs incentivizes shoddy business practices such as stocking expired medications and dangerously defective merchandise.

What Can Be Done?

Slowly but surely, people are waking up to the danger of dollar store saturation. Actions undertaken by community leaders and city councils are good places to inspire your own efforts:

• In July, the mayor of Birmingham, Alabama passed an amendment to prohibit further dollar stores openings as part of an effort to prevent food deserts in parts of the city.

• In Tulsa, Oklahoma, a local city councilwoman relied on laws originally passed to restrict the growth of big-box retailers like Walmart to limit the number of dollar stores that could be opened near each other.

• Fort Worth, Texas is not only looking to limit the growth of future stores, but also regulate preexisting stores by requiring them to carry fresh produce while also providing tax incentives for the development of grocery stores.

It’s important to remember that when built in moderation, dollar stores provide low-income communities with convenient access to cheap and necessary consumer goods. Dollar stores also create jobs, bring in new sales and property tax revenue for cities. However, left unchecked, dollar stores can diminish community health, the vitality of other small businesses, and in the end their very own profits.

Lots of people wear smartwatches and fitness trackers — nearly 40 million in the U.S alone. These fitness trackers not only measure steps, but also use sophisticated laser technology to monitor heart rate and other physiological measures of well-being. But the technology that manufacturers rely on was designed effectively with light-skinned people in mind, and according to researchers and reporters, is likely to provide erroneous readings for people with darker skin. 

No wonder all that walking wasn’t making me lose weight.

Not-So-Colorblind Tech

Let’s take Fitbit for example, which uses the industry-standard laser technology in its trackers. If you own one, you’ve probably seen the green lights peeking out from beneath the device when you take it off. These lights rest against the top of your wrist and are used to measure heart rate. In between heartbeats the volume of blood in your blood vessels declines. If a light is shined onto your skin, it reflects back in differing amounts depending on how full of blood your vessels are at the moment. The cadence of darkening and lightening blood vessels changes as a result of your heart rate, and this cadence is what the green lights in your Fitbit measure. They then convert this cadence into a relatively accurate measurement of your actual heart rate.

However, darker skin has more melanin pigment, which has been conclusively proven to block green light, making it much harder to get an accurate reading. The darker your skin, the less accurate the reading. 

Research on the issue is still ongoing, but one of the few papers on the topic noted that not only were there connections between inaccurate readings for dark skin, but also for differing skin types. Anecdotal evidence for this phenomon is also easy to find: lots of consumers have complained about inaccurate readings over the years. Little has been done to solve the problem so far. 

Why Does This Matter?

Unconscious bias in technology is not a new problem. Though new technologies appear objective, implicit biases often leak into how they are researched, designed and marketed to a diverse public. There is substantial unconscious bias in other areas of design (just ask women about the freezing temperatures in older office buildings which were traditionally designed for men) so its discomforting but unsurprising to find the problem crop up in the world of health and fitness wearables. 

The real impact of these biases is felt in the secondary effects the wearable market is having on important scientific research — which often relies on these devices to make important measurements in studies. Health insurance companies and employers often offer lucrative bonuses or discounts to employees who meet certain step or heart rate metrics on their fitness trackers. Individuals of color could be missing out on a number of these benefits without even knowing it. 

What Can Be Done?

Fitbit is apparently aware of this issue and has tried to boost the power of the green light in its trackers to account for skin color. Apple has added an infrared light to its Apple Watch to supplement readings from its bank of green lights. But for now, these efforts may be ineffective stopgaps. Green lasers are used by all of the major brands to measure heart rate because they are cheaper to produce and less prone to erreonous readings due to movement — a must-have in a device that literally measures movement.

Its good that these companies are slowly becoming aware of the issue their devices pose for people of color. At the same time, its also important for researchers, sports medicine doctors, insurance companies, employers and the general public to know how inaccurate wearables can be for darker-skinned people. Awarness is the first step toward conscious design. 

Tools must be consciously designed with forethought and inclusivity in mind, not only because its the right thing to do, but also because it makes business sense … especially when nearly half of the consumers who purchase these products in the U.S. are people of color. 

How is Amazon.com Possible?

Amazon’s entire business model is to lure consumers in with very low prices, establish market dominance and crush (or buy out) competition and once competition has been eliminated, raise prices as much as they want.

Here’s how it works:

Aside from well-established merchants, everyone else basically has to either use Amazon Web Services or the Amazon storefront in order to reach customers. Amazon can take up to half a merchant’s sale on the Amazon platform as a fee. If the merchant still manages to sell products at a decent profit and become successful on the Amazon platform … well then they just become an acquisition target and Amazon buys them out … sometimes by withholding access to their platform as a threat until they sell. Or Amazon uses its deep pockets and control over the distribution and manufacturing process to sell a competitive product at a deep discount (all those Amazon Basics cables you buy) which eventually drives the competitor out of business. Once the competition is decimated, prices on those cheap Amazon-branded products are then increased.

So … Amazon isn’t winning over consumers by building better products but by selling acceptable products at cutthroat prices … reducing competition, consumer choice and product quality along the way. That’s bad for everyone but Jeff Bezos.

The Amazon Way Has a Cost

This is where you ask: “How are they able to lower prices so much that they drive competitors out of business?” and where I tell you that the cost of these low prices is borne primarily by the people who work at Amazon.

When a product you buy becomes cheap overnight, it’s because something (like the environment) or someone (like an Amazon contract worker) has borne the cost. Amazon’s goal to reduce prices, eliminate competition and control the online economy results in a workplace where:

• Warehouse workers’ every move is monitored, down to the second.

• Workers are fired if they miss their delivery quotas, even by a small amount.

• Most workers don’t even survive one year, and quit frequently.

• Workers make significantly less than other similar personnel (and in fact, when Amazon moves into a new town, wages drop for all workers by as much as 30%).

And to help out Amazon even more, cities offer tax breaks and all kinds of incentives to get Amazon to build warehouses in their towns. These financial incentives are taken directly from public funds that could have gone to help those workers who’s wages decrease when Amazon comes to town, further exacerbating community resilience and driving down the broader economy.

Yes, But That’s What Taxes Are For

But that’s OK you say because Amazon pays lots in taxes to help communities they operate in. Wrong. In 2017 YOU paid more in income taxes than Amazon did - because Amazon paid ZERO dollars in corporate income tax. Since roads still have to be built and schools still have to be funded, Amazon’s exploitation of the tax code just increases the tax burden on smaller (usually more innovative) companies as well as ordinary Americans.

Don’t get me wrong. Tax breaks are a legitimate way for governments to incentivize economic growth. The problem with Amazon and other tech giants is that hardly any of the public funds handed over to Amazon go back to the government. In fact, today many large tech companies like Apple funnel profits through foreign countries like Ireland and Luxembourg instead of paying their fair share in taxes.

Meanwhile, non-tech companies pay far more taxes per worker. For instance, Apple hires a small fraction of the employees a more traditional company like GE does. Which means that not only does Apple pay less in taxes than GE, it also contributes less to the local and national economy because it hires less workers and those it hires are far better paid. These better paid workers tend to invest their money (often overseas) rather than contribute to their local economy.

Big Tech’s Tactics Hurt Us All

Amazon’s anticompetitive, monopolistic and anti-labor practices increase economic and social inequality in troubling ways.

For instance, many tech companies have created a massive underclass of workers. Those at the top are the venture capital investors and white collar engineers and executives who “run” the company and at the bottom are the millions of contractors and “part-time” workers who actually run the company. Uber and Lyft are prime examples. Those at the top have full benefits and excellent wages, but the nearly four million ride-share workers who drive for Uber and Lyft have no paid time-off, no benefits or healthcare, and no job security. Moreover, they often end up making less than minimum wage - and this is before you factor in wear and tear on the car and fuel expenses.

Aside from the impact on individual workers, the communities in which tech companies operate are starting to fall prey to deepening inequality as well. As more of these white collar workers and investors have moved to places like Silicon Valley over the last decade, home prices have skyrocketed as has homelessness - which recently hit record highs per capita in San Francisco.

Why Doesn’t the Government Intervene?

Perhaps because the government now receives so many lobbying dollars from big tech that it exceeds those of the traditional lobbying industries.

While tech companies like Amazon go ignored, they continue to grow - getting larger and creating vast monopolies and oligopolies:

• Google now accounts for 90% of all online searches … worldwide. Its Android OS runs on more than 80% of smartphones in the world.

• Apple has $300 billion in cash - more than the gross domestic product of all but the richest countries and double that of any other US company.

• Meanwhile Facebook, like Amazon, either copies or buys out its competition, now owning the four most popular apps in the world - including Instagram and WhatsApp. These apps count 1/3 of the world’s population as users who willingly share their data creating the world’s most effective and comprehensive surveillance apparatus - unmatched by any government agency.

These companies have amassed so much power, quitting them may well be impossible.

So What Can You Do?

Encourage your elected representatives to investigate the increasing power tech companies are acquiring at consumer expense. Bring to light the funding tech companies provide to congressional campaigns. Encourage lawmakers to apply the fundamental antitrust laws of the United States and investigate whether some companies should be reduced in size. Even a threat of breaking up companies can have a major competitive effect that’s good for business: it was the threat to breakup Microsoft that cleared the way for companies like Google to exist. In many ways applying antitrust laws to big tech is one of the most capitalist things we can do, and also one of the best for our communities.

Finally, if you can afford to do so, consider putting your money where your mouth is: patronize small businesses that create innovative products that compete with Amazon and other tech giants. Be bold. Support indie developers and craftspeople so that they don’t feel like their only path to profitability is to get bought out by Amazon.

The book has been very helpful to me in negotiating a MAJOR project I am currently working on and I bought the book on the recommendations of FBI colleagues for especially this purpose. It’s been a game changer. And beyond being relevant, it’s also well-written and hard to put down as a narrative story.

The book takes the viewpoint that life is a series of negotiations you should be prepared for: buying a car, negotiating a salary, buying a home, renegotiating rent, deliberating with your partner. Taking emotional intelligence and intuition to the next level, Never Split the Difference, focuses on the importance of active and empathetic listening and not giving up in a negotiation, and instead asking, “how am I supposed to do that?” to any demand your counterpart makes.

Amazon lets you download a sample chapter in either audio or Kindle format - check it out.

The newest Apple Store is opening up in a historic Washington D.C. library. It looks great and it’s only a few minutes walk from my home, so as an Apple customer for decades I’m super excited. But as someone who thinks about resilient communities and civil rights, I’m also concerned and dissapointed.

The opening of this store in a historic space is another example of rampant gentrification, without any thought being given to the original, and generally less well-off inhabitants of the community in which this store opens. Apple will profit tremendously from this store, which is across the street from the DC Convention Center. Yet far as I can tell, nothing was done to engage and assist the community members that used to thrive here, and some of whom still live only one block away. None of them can afford the Apple iPhones that will now be sold in one of their former public library buildings.

Apple could have done a lot to be a good neighbor. For instance, Apple could have held one section of this store aside as a public reading and meeting space for young people. This would have fit the theme of opening a store in a former public library, provided a community space for local struggling youth, developed good PR for Apple, and also led to greater foot traffic in the stores.

Companies much smaller than Apple have engaged in these kinds of community-building efforts. The best example in DC are Capital One “cafe banks” which also serve as community meeting halls where local organizations and non-profits can organize events for free.

Apple dwarfs Capital One in size and reach with over $250 billion in cash reserves and a valuation of almost a trillion dollars. The interest earned on Apple’s cash reserves equals the annual GDP of many US states. At this scale, corporations have a responsibility to provide at least a little bit for the communities that are displaced by their efforts and fill their coffers. Otherwise, there will eventually be no one left to buy their products.

Why are traffic fines such a problem?

Because traffic fines can be VERY expensive

For instance, traffic fines in the state of California can involve late penalties as high as $300 per ticket, on top of up to an often $1000 pre-existing fine. That’s equivalent to the cost of buying a top of the line iPhone.

And if you can’t pay these fines … your license gets suspended

So what if a driver finds it difficult to pay down these expensive fines … guess what? The state usually suspends your license. This is particularly idiotic because for many people a license is their primary means of earning an income. Suspending licenses for failure to pay places additional fiscal burden on these individuals since 78% percent of jobs in most states require a drivers license (such as driving for Uber). A penalty for failure to pay shouldn’t eliminate the drivers’ mechanism for generating income ... otherwise how do you expect them to pay?

Low-income individuals get hit harder with traffic fines. They tend to have a higher than average incidence of unreliable access to legal resources, limited English proficiency, learning disabilities and other limitations not of their own making. Even if they could scrounge up the funds and pay assessed fines and tickets, sometimes they don’t even know that they should be paying them. In the LCCR study referenced above, none of the California counties surveyed provided citizens any information about alternative options to pay, non- English language programs or places where people could obtain access to legal care.

There are better and more profitable options than license suspensions

If cities change their policies, for instance by eliminating license suspensions for failure to pay, economists estimate that states like California could generate $70-140 million in additional tax revenue from people who would be able to work with a drivers license. Additional related fiscal benefits to the state could include more sales tax revenue and reduced need for public benefits programs. Moreover, people who are able to work can pay down outstanding traffic fines.

Progressive policies also accept a reality of life: some people just can’t pay these expensive fines, especially lacking the means to make a living. A 2016 survey found that 63% of Americans don't have enough money in savings to cover a $500 emergency. If credit card companies and even that age-old example of bureaucracy, the IRS, can provide for partial payment plans, why can’t state DMV’s? A payment plan allows drivers to pay at least some small amount per month and lets the DMV collect something (rather than nothing at all). Payment plans help avoid the problems associated with license suspensions noted above.

What can you do?

Advocate with your state legislature to lower the dollar amount of fines. People shouldn’t be paying hundreds of dollars for traffic infractions that don’t threaten safety and well-being. Advocate with your city to pressure the DMV to allow for partial payment plans if that option doesn’t exist in your state. The same goes for adding webpages to the DMV website that make paying a fine easy for those with limited English proficiency.

A lot of work remains to be done on this issue - but none of these problems are insurmountable and many of the fixes are quick, easy, and result in immediate positive impact for affected communities.

Plus who doesn’t like paying less in traffic tickets amirite?

Of all the emotions that drive us, fear is the most primal. Yet fear must be confronted if we are to survive individually or as a species. Without confronting our fears how could human beings have learned to hunt, conquer the land, the seas and eventually even the cold depths of space. As students and professionals you likely fear those things that have yet to be rather than those currently facing you. To become productive and grow as a person, the only strategy you need when confronting the daunting amount of things on your todo list is to rank them based on fear. Then do those tasks first that scare you the most.

Things that scare us

• Things that are delayed tend to scare you the most, gnawing at your confidence and repose. Do these first.

• Things that are due soon tend to make you anxious (anxiety is just another flavor of fear). Do these tasks soon.

• Those tasks that require some amount of confrontation (such as asking your boss for a raise, or your professor for an extension) engage our evolutionary fear of social censure. This is a good sign. This kind of fear usually tells us that these tasks are worth doing. They are tasks others don’t do out of fear. Doing them makes you unique and uncommon. Prioritize these tasks and your horizons will grow, as will your wealth and freedom.

• Tasks that create a sense of sadness and emptiness often make us afraid because of how we believe they will make us feel when we later do them. I refer to this as fear of future fear. Fear OF fear is ironic because your feelings are just about the only thing in the universe you have some sense of control over. You can choose to feel what you want. Choose to feel grateful for the time your mother spent with you and move forward with organizing her funeral, despite how sad that makes you feel. Honor the emotions of your husband and seek divorce now rather than waiting another year. It will hurt you both a lot more later.

Doing scary things first leads to some amazing benefits:

1. Confronting your fears dissolves them … in all areas of life. Studying for that dreaded final makes saying no later to someone we don’t like that much easier. Courage is accumulative. Like a muscle, the more it is exercised, the stronger it gets.

2. Completing tasks that make us afraid makes other tasks feel much easier. After all, if you’ve already dealt with those things that scared you the most, what’s the worst that could happen?

3. Tackling your fear allows you to accept evermore difficult and more meaningful tasks. In our comfortable societies, those things that make us afraid often tend to be the things worth doing (they wouldn’t make us afraid otherwise). As you continue to challenge your fears, you invite risk and the concomitant reward that comes with it into your life.

Some additional tips

Start small. Take measured steps when confronting fears, especially deeply held ones that may deal with your insecurities. Often, the smallest most ludicrous step is the easiest to do. Want to begin working out but fear of failure holding you back? Tell yourself you’ll only do one push-up per day for the next week. Ridiculous right? Anyone could do that! So that means you can too. By the end of the week you’ll have done seven more push-ups than you would have had you never started. The week after, move the number of push-ups to two per day. By the end of the year you could be doing hundreds of pushups a week. All you have to do is keep going, increasing incrementally week by week.

Congratulate yourself. Confronting fears isn’t easy. Go easy on yourself if you fail. Starting the process is perhaps even more important than succeeding completely.

I wish you a fearless, productive week of finals and a spectacular summer!

This is an excerpt of my interview, the entirety of which can be read in my forthcoming book on homeland security.

A perennial issue that arises concerns the way DHS deals with Congress. Particularly, with Congressional oversight and how fragmented it is. Why do you think that is the case? What can be done to ease the burden on the Executive Branch and departmental leadership?

JN: There is a role for Congressional oversight for any executive agency. The problem with DHS is that there is both too much and too little. Too many committees and subcommittees exercise jurisdiction over the Department. The members of those subcommittees, and in particular their staff, do not really have a good strategic overview of the Department and all of its myriad activities. The problem is that these staffers think their issue is the top, and only issue, for the Department. However, DHS has many missions, all of which require multi-tasking at any particular moment in time. During my time as DHS Secretary, I testified more than 55 times before Congress. Preparation for testimony alone takes a great deal of time. It requires preparation of a written statement, which requires staff time, the Secretary has to approve it, and the OMB (Office of Management and Budget) has final approval. Sometimes the deadlines were very unrealistic, reflecting the viewpoint that subcommittees should get priority over everything else. 


Now the exceptions are the two authorizing committees in the House and Senate, as well as the appropriations subcommittees see the whole Department. Those hearings were very wide ranging and could cover any topic and they provided useful oversight for the Congress and the public. Everything else was surplus. They took more resources than was beneficial.

Oversight is setup the way it is partially because it goes to issues of “turf” in the Congress that is zealously protected by the committees and subcommittees. Those battles were not solved in the haste to build DHS. Congress, particularly the House, has not had the leadership or will to address this issue even though every Secretary (of DHS) and others who know about the Department have all said that the oversight is too much and needs to be reformed.

The silo problem, especially pre-9/11, is partially the reason why DHS was formed. There were information sharing problems within the intelligence and national security community. Do you think DHS has alleviated some of those concerns? If so, what else can DHS do to diminish this problem?

JN: In terms of DHS’s creation, information sharing, particularly with respect to terrorism and counterterrorism, has improved. Mainly due to the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) and to some degree with the CIA. We have made some great strides in information sharing, although somewhat less so with the FBI. Part of that is because the country and the Executive Branch is working out who has primary jurisdiction over what, and the need to establish common depositories for information.

What do you see as DHS’s role in the larger Executive branch and the government overall. The Department has had a bit of a tortured path, and sometimes DHS is not seen by other agencies as an important or relevant agency. Do you think that is changing? What do you see the role of DHS going forward?

JN: DHS plays a critical role in very different areas. Obviously, it dominates the immigration and border security portfolios. The DOJ (Department of Justice) has some role, but immigration has never been a prioritized interest. Disaster management and response, has also been handed to DHS. Having both FEMA and the Coast Guard under one roof helps in that regard, although Congress may not have done that intentionally. Cybersecurity is a growing problem and the Department needs to develop its capacity. Cybersecurity is too fragmented in the Executive Branch. The NSA, FBI, and DHS all have large roles in cybersecurity, but exactly who has the lead and how information is shared is still an evolving topic. On the counterterrorism side, there exist a myriad of different players, so Congress was not able to locate all of that in one place.

Do you think it makes DHS’ work more challenging, particularly for counterterrorism, to intercept and investigate lone wolf actors and terrorists, such as the Boston Marathon bombers?

JN: In hindsight, I do not think the Boston Marathon bombing could have been prevented under any reasonable law enforcement or intelligence sharing protocol absent Russia giving us more information about the brothers, particularly them traveling in Russia. Lone wolfs, by their very nature, are almost impossible to detect and prevent. The challenge is the ability for immediate response and communities to be resilient in the face of a lone wolf episode. For example, the University of California, Santa Barbara had a lone wolf type incident with a mentally ill individual going on a shooting rampage. Could that have been prevented? Possibly if he was institutionalized, but absent that, you do not have law enforcement resources to watch everyone who may be capable of a lone wolf attack even if you know someone who might fit the personality to do such a thing.

You brought up the concept of resiliency. Resiliency is often a hard concept to explain. How would you explain it to someone not familiar with it?

JN: Basically, it is the ability to take a punch and get right back up again.


What does that look like in terms of DHS’s work?

JN: It depends. It is seen more frequently in the disaster response area. It is the ability to restore infrastructure and get people basic necessities first (power, food, water, healthcare), and then get the community operating again as quickly as possible. The most difficult type of situation is when you have a huge event like Hurricane Sandy where multiple communities are affected and thousands of people needing help simultaneously.

Turning to a more controversial topic – immigration. The United States has been dealing with the issue of unaccompanied minors for the last several months. In a recent interview you mentioned that DHS was criticized quite a bit about the number of deportations and removals over the past several years, but you stated that those criticizing DHS did not look at the whole picture under the Obama Administration. What would you want them to consider? What is the whole picture?*

JN: The average annual deportation number is 400,000. This number needs to be broken down into who is in that number. One of the changes under the Obama Administration was to move more ICE agents to border communities, and to initiate a process where Border Patrol would pick up border crossers and hand them to ICE for placement into removal proceedings. Therefore, the 400,000 includes those apprehended at the border and put into proceedings. That was not happening before my tenure as DHS Secretary. I believe people criticizing that number have a paradigm in mind that those people being deported have been here for decades with established families and jobs.

Long-term undocumented people are an infinitesimal part of those who are deported. The deportees includes those apprehended at the border, those with criminal records, or those who are apprehended in the context of committing another crime and law enforcement then turns them over to be removed from the country. You do not hear arguments concerning those categories. The next largest category are repeat immigration violators. Under the Obama administration we stopped business raids and made more concerted efforts to sanction employers who continually hired a lot of undocumented. We really tried to shift the administration more toward border violators, criminal offenders and repeat offenders.

The U.S. manufacturing sector actually produces twice as many products as it did half a century ago but does so with one-third fewer workers, mostly because automation has made American factories more efficient. Most experts agree that U.S. jobs aren’t being stolen by other countries, but rather by our own robot overlords.  An Oxford University study recently suggested that almost 50% of some jobs will be eliminated or reduced within the next several years due mostly to automation.And as artificial intelligence and robotic hardware continues to advance at a phenomenal pace, there are concerns that the rate of job loss will accelerate.

Thinking in terms of automation is also important because job loss due to automation inordinately affects the most vulnerable among us: low-income communities, ethnic minorities and immigrants who perform unskilled labor.

So Should We Blame Automation Instead?

Not really. Things are a little but more complicated than that.For one thing, automation is nothing new. The Industrial Revolution transformed the way we worked. It allowed for the population to grow from about a billion people to over seven billion in just under a century … and yet all of these billions of new humans still had plenty of work. Why? Because automation created new industries: instead of taking a horse-drawn carriage to your friend’s home, a machine could now drive you there in a fraction of the time. Even though this new automobile industry led to the elimination of some jobs, it led to the creation of many more unprecedented professions such as mechanics, insurance agents and race car drivers. 

So even though automation may disrupt some jobs … it’s also likely to create many more new jobs. For instance, robots are making travel to Mars a realistic possibility - an endeavor already resulting in the creation of hundreds of thousands of new jobs and the creation of multiple new industries.

What this means is that automation doesn’t always eliminate jobs, sometimes it changes them or creates new jobs.  Why didn’t the creation of ATM’s result in the mass layoff of bank tellers nationwide? ATM’s had been around for 30 years, yet bank teller jobs continued to increase throughout the past thirty years because bank employees could now focus on additional revenue-generating activities such as selling financial products like mortgages and business loans. The bank could also hire software engineers to create apps and other software to help the bank generate additional revenue.

Which leads me to my third point: oftentimes the jobs automation may one day create are unfathomable at the time automation begins causing initial disruptions in the labor market. For instance, the bank tellers from the 1980’s in the example above couldn’t possibly have imagined a future where bank employees would be coding iOS apps 30 years hence. Likewise, we are similarly hampered when trying to think of the new industries that will come about as a result of automation in the future.

The grievance politicians are attempting to harness isn’t about automation so much as the disruptive transition of old-tech to new-tech jobs and the pain this disruption causes, particularly for older workers or workers in industries vulnerable to this disruption. A 58-year-old service worker or truck driver maybe able to transition to a new-tech job such as coding iOS apps, but it’s unlikely and very difficult. For politicians, the pain caused by this transition is a complicated and unpleasant idea to sell (after all, it’s taken me this long to explain the problem) and its why they focus on the much easier to understand idea of “foreigners are your stealing jobs”. 

So What Can You/We Do?

Job loss to automation is a real concern, but neither automation nor foreigners are an existential threat to our economy. The disruption automation will cause can be overcome. No matter who you are,

• Vote for candidates who speak intelligently about automation and provide real solutions rather than diatribes about foreigners. 

• If you are a young person like one of my students, spend your valuable resource (e.g. time) to volunteer, work for, or start an organization that helps retrain middle or lower-income workers. As a young person, you should also consider what kind of job you will have. Over the coming decades your job is likely to change due to automation. Consider how it will change and what you can do to be nimble and transition into a new career.

• As a community member, you can encourage the government to create or fund effectiveretraining programs that help those most impacted by automation transition from old-tech jobs to new-tech jobs.

• If you are someone of means why not donate to nonprofits that do this work?

• If you are a policymaker, elected official or community leader, consider creating programs that provide financial assistance or insurance to workers transitioning from higher to lower wage jobs.

And if you are or will be affected by automation, find the number of growing skill-based retraining programs in your area and enroll over the weekend. It will be worth your time.

– In high-end retail: Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, and Saks Fifth

– In personal computing: Lenovo (formerly IBM), HP, and Dell

– Burger fast-food: McDonalds, Burger King, and Wendy’s

– Social media: Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp (yes its all one company), Twitter, and Snapchat

– Pay-TV television: AT&T, Comcast, Charter Communications

Some of these companies (like AT&T) hold dominant market share in multiple industries, like television and telecommunications. 

We call these tripartite arrangements oligopolies. Unlike monopolies where one company dominates a market, an oligopoly consists of a handful of companies (usually three) that end up having a significant influence on an industry. Today the problem is not just an oligopoly in an industry or two, but dozens of oligopolies throughout the country. Everywhere you look, out pops an oligopoly.

Why is this important?

As companies merge (Comcast bought Time Warner, T-Mobile is buying Sprint) they have little incentive to remain competitive. In fact, they are incentivized to raise prices as high as possible to pay for the cost of a merger or to deliver even higher returns to shareholders. The highly consolidated American high-speed internet industry provides the clearest example of this trend: In 2014 Americans were already paying more than double what European consumers paid for high-speed broadband internet. This number has only risen in the past five years. 

It’s not just consumers who lose out, but also vendors that sell goods to these companies and the employees who work there. Apple, Wal-Mart, Amazon and other dominant companies have been known to continually suppress wages of workers well-below normalized market rates and pay their vendors and suppliers as little as possible. The money they save remains idle or generates dividends for the company’s shareholders. For instance, Apple is currently sitting on $240 billion dollars of cash, not including other assets like inventory, land etc.  … just cash …  $240 billion of it! If Apple were a country, it would be one of the 50 wealthiest nations in the world based on cash reserves alone.

The effects of consolidation and diminishing competition filter down to the community level.  Workers make less and the products they wish to purchase with their diminishing wages cost more. It’s a vicious cycle. Low wages force employees to work longer or take up second jobs (Americans already work more than counterparts in any other industrialized nation). Ultimately this means less time spent on healthy activities, less attention paid to raising children, and less cognitive bandwidth devoted to civic activities like making informed voting choices.

In my classes, I often highlight examples of contemporary political speech that scholars have noted as falling within that imminent lawless action exception. Here is an example from Donald Trump from the 2016 presidential election:

Apply the elements to the remarks made in the video. Does candidate Trump’s speech 1) incite people to 2) imminent 3) lawless 4) action?

On the other hand, here’s an example of a heckler during another 2016 campaign rally. How does Obama create an environment that allows for the expression of speech without raising questions about imminent violence etc.?

Which approach do you find more productive for engaging in political dialogue?

Importantly: what legal, political and policy limitations is Obama working under compared to Trump (remember that Obama is a sitting president at the time this video is made)?

Controversy abounds in the political moment in which we now live. That’s why its even more important to distinguish between what is ethical (the process of distinguishing right from wrong) and what is legal (the process of determining right or wrong based on a specific ethical system and then meteing out punishment).

An ethical action may not necessarily be legal, a legal action may not necessarily be ethical. For instance, in our patriarchal society we may say that “a woman who has left her children to go out drinking is bad.” This is our moral judgment against her. But as Jocelyn Pollock notes in her book on ethical decisionmaking, we can think of this moral judgment as the tip of a pyramid. 

If forced to defend this moral judgment, we may turn to some norms or rules that we live by, such as “children should be looked after” or “one shouldn’t drink to excess”. These rules attempt to explain our moral judgement (a woman who left her children to go drinking is bad because children should be looked after.) These rules are often codified into law that makes them punishable by the state. For instance, all states in the country make it a crime to neglect the welfare of a minor child.

But what if someone asked “why should children be looked after?” The answer to that question eventually forces one to reveal their ethical system. An ethical system sits at the bottom of the pyramid and informs everything that comes after. For instance, your ethical system may be based on religion. You may believe that God commands one not to drink to excess, or in many religions, not to drink at all. Your ethical system may be based on utlity, i.e. a system that says the greatest good for the greatest number of people is more important than the greatest good for the smallest number of people. A mother that goes out drinking may be having a good time, but under a utilitarian system, by endangering the welfare of her child she is endagering the community at large, and thus her actions are unethical.

The utilitarian system of ethics also highlights how the law is different from ethics. In the wrong hands, the utilitarian system of ethics can justify some truly disturbing or abhorrent actions. Even today, political leaders often justify the genocide of minority populations with the utilitarian notion that eliminating a small percentage of their population will benefit the larger whole. 

The law would find such a politcal leader guilty of crimes against humanity, whereas a system of ethics such as utilitarianism, would not.

Kristy Chatelain’s “Brooklyn Changing” series highlights the physical changes gentrification brings about, often at great cost to the original residents of urban areas that are being transformed by unfettered construction. More nuanced than angry, her photos depict less than five years of change in each photographed location.

In many cases, gentrification often seems to sterilize a previously vibrant urban landscape.

Though gentrification can have many positive benefits, it is often also a form of community displacement where politically, economically and socially powerless communities have to spend scarce resources to leave their homes and neighborhoods in the face of rising rents and a rising cost of living. I am guilty of contributing to this cost as someone who moved into a gentrifying neighborhood.

Displacement is an important issue because state, local and federal government authorities often provide no assistance to displaced communities, who must now live farther and drive longer to jobs in the neighborhoods where they used to live.

See the photos at 6sqft.com and Kristymay.com