Within our Hall of Mirrors, we are a peace-loving, generous nation that provides opportunities for all and are a beacon of self-determination for the rest of the world to emulate. We are successful, fair, tolerant and welcoming. In this world of illusion, we are so godly that others are taking advantage of our goodness. In our House of Mirrors, we are victims of those who don’t appreciate the positive role we play in their lives.

Some of this backslapping had merit in prior years. Post WWII America did lead the world as a model of a principled democracy, an engine of innovation and prosperity, a nation willing to lend a helping hand to the less fortunate (both domestically and foreign), the place to come to and seek your fortune and stood as a bulwark against tyranny, oppression, autocracy and oligarchy. If you wanted to improve your country, America provided a blueprint. The Hall of Mirrors still allows us to see ourselves that way. But out on the sidewalk, it’s no longer the reality of our nation.

When measured against the global community, we fall to the middle of the pack or lower, on almost every one of our mirror images. Our once closest ally, Canada, now sees us as a threat, as does Europe and many other nations who used to feel we were reliable and protective of them. But the good people that we are, we can’t allow ourselves to see their reservations, because we then have to face the fact that we are doing bad things.

To brutalize and expel thousands of hard-working immigrants, who are playing their historic role as rejuvenators of our society, we must falsely call them criminals and claim they are eating our pets. To try to drive women back into “breeder” status, we have to insist they are lesser humans that require male direction. To take away legal voting rights from those who may not support a particular political view, we need to claim they are illegal cheaters. To impose one religious belief, we have to demonize all others. To end efforts to get poorer folks closer to the starting line, that the better-off launch from, we need to label them moochers and undeserving. To take away food from kids, we need to insist they are misusing their rations. To reduce our seniors to poverty, we have claim we can’t afford this “luxury”. To allow healthcare profiteering, we have to look away from the human suffering that system generates. To cozy up to the worst dictators and opportunists around the world, we have to label our allies as unworthy of our help. To let the wealthy take the lion’s share of our good fortune we have to pretend they have earned it. It takes a very long Hall of Mirrors to distort all these images, and the false reflections are beginning to fog and shatter.

The problem is that we can’t make good choices and decisions in a Hall of Mirrors. Good people doing bad things can only be ignored by those in the distortion rooms together. They don’t dare come out of the Hall of Mirrors into the real world. Billions are being spent to keep as many of us as possible in the Hall. Meanwhile efforts are afoot to chain the exit doors.

But reality is slowly shattering the mirrors and driving us out into the blinding sun. From ICE brutality, to the quagmire of Iran, to rising economic distress, to the ripping of our social fabric, to blatant corruption, to a justice system up for sale, to the removal of a black hero’s name from a battleship, to a government being pillaged by wealthy donors, to natural disasters where no one comes to help, to the outbreak of long-contained diseases, to a tainted food supply going uninspected, to our pandering to despots and autocrats, to the incompetent leadership our fighting forces are being subjected to, to unleashing AI technology without controls or accountability, to a nation growing weary of hate and lies, to servants of the people going first class and installing golden toilets, the Hall of Mirrors is collapsing around us. The illusion junkies try fervently to tape together the shattered shiny pieces and lock themselves in their favorite room. In desperation, they try to round outsiders up and force-march them back into their make-believe world. Believe it or else!

This nation is still good at some things and has a way to go on others. Unless we make sound judgments on the good and bad, we’re going to fail our country, each other, and our children’s future. The question for us all is what we do when there are no more mirrors to disguise what’s really happening to us? When we have to face up to the fact that good people have been led to support bad things? When we ask “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, who’s the Greatest of them All”, and the mirror stops lying to us…?

Ihg 8-26-2026 If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at:

and share. Let’s see what we can build togethe

r

In spite of the Press Secretary’s unique gifts when it comes to “misdirection”, let’s take her at her word. She’s a new mom, with another child, who sees value in prioritizing them over her career. If that’s the genuine reason for her “resignation”, she’s following an overwhelming body of evidence that Parental Leave is important for the mother’s health, for the child’s health, for the child’s development and a key to that child becoming a productive and balanced member of our society. (see Society for Research in Child Development Study at https://www.srcd.org/research/paid-family-and-medical-leave-improves-well-being-children-and-families).

In spite of the evidence, the United States has only about 27% of private-sector workers who have access to any form of employer-provided paid family leave. For unpaid job-protected leave, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) covers up to 12 weeks, but nearly half of the workforce is ineligible due to company size or tenure rules. [Bipartisan Policy Center]. In a global comparison, the U.S. is the only OECD member country with no federal paid parental leave policy. The OECD average for paid leave earmarked for fathers is 12.7 weeks [Fathercraft]. (The OECD is the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, an international group of 38 rich and democratic countries.)

Allegheny County (Pittsburgh, PA region) has proposed a requirement that employers provide 18 weeks of fully paid job-protected parental leave. The County candidly said it was using this proposal as a start of a community input process that would help shape the final proposal. While public reaction has been positive, the business community has unleased its expected campaign to kill the idea.

The most prevalent talking point from the opposition is that small businesses can’t afford to have an employee leave for 18 weeks, nor have the capacity to train someone into that vacancy. It’s a fair point that needs to be addressed in a final proposal. Where Parental Leave has become law, provisions are made for smaller-size of enterprises.

What clinging to the “small business” rhetoric does is build a firewall for the large and very profitable concerns, who can afford the time off and have the capacity to temporarily fill the absence. For example, UPMC, the “non-profit” healthcare goliath in the region, who reported a $635 million net Income last year, is resisting the McGee Woman’s Hospital nurse’s union contract proposal for Parental Leave. Currently those nurses birth about a third of the babies in the region but only get two weeks maternity leave themselves. Pittsburgh is the corporate home of the likes of PNC Bank($70 billion), Kraft/Heinz($4.93 billion), Wesco Industries($.066 Billion), PPG Industries($1.576 Billion) and Dicks Sporting Goods($8.49 Billion), all have declined to endorse any form of the Parental Leave proposal. These are not Mom and Pop operations.

Nationally Adobe, Hewitt-Packard Enterprise, Etsy, Google, and Spotify all provide 26 weeks or more of Parental Leave. It should also be noted that Parental Leave policies are very positive for employers in terms of morale and loyalty.

Ironically, Parental Leave should be near the top of any “family values” list of objectives. Yet it has become a partisan issue. Typically proposed by “progressive” politicians and unaddressed by corporate Dem’s and opposed by Republicans at large. The media frames the issue in terms of “cost to business”. Part of the short-term calculations in an economy where long-term investments in people are rarely calculated in financial terms.

This “quick cash” mentality is doing a lot of economic damage. One author notes that American business is “divorcing” its employees. In a number of ways, employers are signaling they want no responsibility for any commitment to their workers beyond immediate pay. Worker response has been a severing of loyalty. The employment relationship has become “transactional”. And then employers moan about unmotivated and unengaged employees who don’t “care” about the enterprise.

A society that builds for the future must insist on investing in its human “assets”. We are in a global economy where other nations understand this and promote positive employee practices. It’s the difference between financial success built on investment and creating new wealth or milking the cow dry. They call the “milking” process financialization. As many a worker has discovered, it’s a dead end for them and their workplaces.

So here we are. Karoline Leavitt gets to enjoy paid Parental Leave while the political movement she lends her talent and diversionary skills to does just about everything it can to make parents into wage slaves. She sees no hypocrisy in having the taxpayers fund a better family experience for her children and family, while she works to destroy that possibility for the rest of us. The media and the so called “opposition” Party are silent on this absurdity.

The battle cry should be “if it’s good enough for Karoline’s family, its good enough for every American’s family. The difficulties of implementation have been surmounted by states and towns as well as nations globally. The arguments for Parental Leave as good public policy are overwhelming. On Parental Leave, and a bunch of other policies, we’ve got to decide that our economy works for people and stop putting greed and short-sighted profiteering ahead of sane public policy.

Ihg – 8-19-2026 If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at:

and share. Let’s see what we can build together

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From Bipartisan Policy Center

Paid Family Leave Across OCED Countries

Table 2. Paid Family Caregiving Leave Policies in OECD Countries

Country

Child Caregiving Family Caregiving

Australia

10 working days a year per worker to care for a family member

Austria

2 weeks a year per worker to care for a sick child under 12

1 week a year per worker to care for a family member needing care

Belgium

52 weeks per worker’s lifetime to care for a child under 8

52 weeks per worker’s lifetime to care for a severely ill family member and 2 months to provide palliative care

Chile

Working mothers have 10 days a year to care for a child between 1-18 years of age with a serious illness (i.e. cancer, organ transplant, or terminal disease)

10 days a year per worker to care for a disabled person for whom they are responsible

Czech Republic

Unlimited 9 days increments

per worker to care for an ill child

under 10

0

Denmark

1 day per worker per episode to care for a sick child

0

Estonia

14 calendar days per worker per

episode to care for a sick child under 12

7 calendar days per worker

per episode to care for an adult family member

Finland

Parents can take child caregiving leave from the end of parental leave until the child’s third birthday; worker also has 4 days per episode to care for a child under 10.

0

France

44 weeks per worker per episode to care for a child with a serious illness or disability under the age of 20

3 weeks per worker to care for a family member with a terminal illness

Germany

10 days a year per child (max of 25 days per parent) to care for a child under 12

10 days over the lifetime of the family member in need of care to care for a family

member with an unexpected

illness

Greece

Parents can take 15 weeks of child caregiving; 10 days a year to care for a seriously ill child under 18 years of age

0

Hungary

Parents may take child caregiving leave. Length of leave depends on the age of the child: under one year, unlimited; 12-35 months, up to 84 days per child a year; 36-71 months, 42 days; six to 12 years, 14 days.

0

Iceland

0

0

Ireland

3 days a year per worker to care for a sick dependent

Israel

Parents may use up to 8 days a year of their sick leave to care for a sick child under 16

6 days a year per worker to care for a parent over 65

Italy

2 years per worker over the course of their lifetime to care for a seriously ill family member

Japan

93 days per subject family member and can only be taken 2 weeks at a time

Korea

0

0

Latvia

14 days per worker per sickness episode to care for a child 14 or younger, and 21 days if child has been admitted to hospital

0

Lithuania

0

0

Luxembourg

12 days per worker to care for a sick child under 4; 18 days for a child 4-13; 5 days for a child 13-18 and is in the hospital; for exceptional circumstances such as a disabled or terminally ill child (e.g. cancer)

52 weeks in a reference period of

104 weeks are available

0

Mexico

0

0

Netherlands

Up to a maximum of two times a year the number of working hours per week to care for a sick child living at home, a sick partner or parent, other household members, family members, or friends.

New Zealand

5 days of sick leave can be taken a year per worker to care for a sick partner, dependent, or spouse.

Norway

10 working days a year per parent to care for a sick child under 12

0

Poland

144 weeks can be taken by parents as childcare leave up until the child turns 18

14 days a year per worker to care for a sick family member

Portugal

30 days a year per family can be taken to care for a sick child under the age of 12, with no age limit in the case of a child who is chronically ill or disabled; an additional 15 days a year per worker can be taken to care for a sick child above the age of 12

0

Slovak Republic

10 days a year per worker to care for a family member

Slovenia

15 working days per worker per episode to care for a sick child up to 7 years of age

7 working days per worker

per episode to care for a sick family member

Spain

Parents have an undetermined

time to care for a seriously ill child under 18

2 days per worker per episode to care for a seriously ill child or family member

Sweden

120 days a year per child to care for a child under 12

100 days per worker per episode to care for a seriously ill family member or other close relatives

Switzerland

3 days per worker per episode to care for a sick child

0

Turkey

0

0

United Kingdom

0

0

United States

0

0

Millions of workers know the private equity playbook painfully well. The financial opportunists buy up a profitable business, load it up with debt, cash out all its assets, end efforts to add value, sell off its valuable intellectual property, reduce its workforce to minimum wages and “downsize” to levels of inefficiency. The money that’s gleaned from this stripping operation goes into the pockets of the private equity manipulators and the once thriving entity is left to fall into ruins. This is exactly what’s happening to our nation.

Debt Loading: $40 million and growing.

Disinvestment: defunding social programs, research, education, healthcare, infrastructure, addressing climate issues and other spending that represents investments in the nation.

Asset Sales: Public holdings like our National Parks, natural resources, leading technology, and more, are on the auction block.

Downsizing: The public’s workforce is being decimated to planned levels of inefficiency with both a loss of jobs and the fallout from having too few sailors to float the ship. Much of the remaining work is outsourced to cronies at inflated costs.

Employee Costs: The right to organize and challenge the boss has been severely curtailed. We face the highest income inequality since the Gilded Age along with a continuing transfer of workers’ wealth into the hands of an elite few. Majorities report they are falling backward economically.

Runaway Owner/Management Compensation: CEO compensation to employee ration is now 332-1. Stock buybacks and compensation are at all-time highs.

The inspectors and oversight people have all been fired so the money being squeezed out of our nation through this process is quietly pocketed by our new “owners”.

What the media calls “corruption”, is seen by the new “owners” as simply managements right to manage. Pension funds are seen as liquid assets as is the Social Security Trust Fund. Employers have been on a decade’s old campaign to shed any long-term responsibilities to their employees. Goodbye Medicare, Medicaid, food support, black lung assistance, food inspection, disaster relief, workforce development funding and any other service whose costs can be diverted into their pockets.

In a drastic shift in mission, our military now serves the financial interests of the new owners instead of the defense role the Constitution provided for. Iran is about Oil. The stock market is being rigged, restraints on financial manipulation severed and only those with the inside track can “win”. The land of opportunity now has a membership fee and a secret handshake.

Our Courts have made elections “cash on the barrelhead” exercises. Our Supreme Court majority are grifters and lackeys. Our Justice Department was just handed over to what amounts to a Mob Consigliore. Congress acts like a hand-picked Board of Directors who profit from looking the other way. And these actions are but the tip of the iceberg.

To understand why our government is engaged in this national destruction, we must understand the mentality of the billionaire class. These are financial people who see our government as a for-profit entity. They ignore Congress because in the corporate structure they only report to their handpicked Board of Directors. They ignore the law because being hauled into court is just another cost of doing business. They view the Constitution as corporate bylaws that they can adjust as the needs arise. We are being subject to a “fleece and release” financial operation.

While they’ve got us fighting against each other, they’re free to plunder and abuse. If they stay long enough to strip us clean, they’ll take their “earnings” and move on. Some of them are trying to figure out how to escape to another planet. All that rhetoric about Constitutional originalism, the great replacement theory, rampant crime, the war on “the elites”, the radicalization of our inner cities, family values, “others” are our enemies, Iran as a nuclear power, hyper-morality and all the divisiveness and fearmongering, is just an ongoing billion-dollar advertising campaign to sell their “product”. A product that is defective and could accurately be called a “bait and switch” operation. But from their point of view, “it’s just business”.

They say the first step in recovery is to recognize we have a problem. For Americans right now, it’s the worship of the private money-making world. We need a strong and united society to solve our human challenges. They don’t. We do not have the same goals. We do not have the same self-interest. The second is to conquer the demons. The third is to rebuild what has been destroyed.

When we sing America the Beautiful, we see a wonderful country that has the capacity to assure us a life of opportunity and maybe even lead the salvation of the human race. It can’t be that if we continue to revere an insatiably greedy leadership that sees everything as a line item on a cash flow spreadsheet.

ihg 8-12-2026 If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at:

and share. Let’s see what we can build together

On Stop Abusing the Help!: Years ago, during a particularly contentious meeting between a top organization’s leader and a subordinate, a wise participant intervened and said “okay, it’s time to stop abusing the help”. The renewed right-wing furor over Anthony Fauci, reminded me of that meeting. Fauci was the thirty-eight year Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He served seven Presidents from both Party’s. The exact definition of a public servant, employed by us, to do the work of our government. The Rand Paul Committee set on him like vultures on a dead carcass.

If we care to look at the facts (there I go spoiling the party again) “Employee Fauci” violated no workplace rule, committed no dischargeable offence and certainly should not be subjected to calls for his imprisonment. In fact, if we were decent “employers”, we would be awarding him our highest civilian honors. In the face of a worldwide medical crisis, with enormous human and economic consequences, Anthony Fauci did his job. He offered his best scientific and medical advice. His credentials to do that are substantial. He refused to be bullied by a portion of our citizenry that was more concerned about their personal inconvenience than the consequences of a deadly pandemic. We used to respect and honor those who showed that kind of courage.

What has made employee Fauci the center of a political firestorm is that he was working for political leadership that doesn’t have the guts to lead. At a moment in the nation’s history, that called for our leaders to level with the American people about the crisis we faced and the consequences of doing nothing, our leadership chickened out. Rather than educate and explain why extreme measures were needed, that leadership joined the mob of conspiracy mongers, those tied to an unrealistic view of personal freedom and those who simply don’t care about anyone but themselves. Fauci was the light in that darkness. A light that those who joined the mob desperately need to snuff out.

This is “the Apprentice” style of governance. In the reality TV show, it was never the boss’s fault. It was always some failing of an employee. The answer was always to say, “your fired”! In this version of leadership, employees exist to take the heat for the boss, who is above reproach. The COVID pandemic was a public governance issue. Many in this nation have gotten confused about the difference between the responsibilities and actions of a for-profit businessperson and an elected representative of the people.

This isn’t to say that people didn’t have legitimate questions about how they personally wanted to deal with COVID. The vaccine was brand new and its long-term effects not well known. The curtailment of economic activity was an extreme measure and put lots of people in a bind. Early on there were questions about how the virus got loose and created a worldwide death threat.

We now know a whole lot more. We know that it is scientifically impossible that our support for the Chinese lab’s other work, caused the release of COVID. We know that the vaccine was continuously improved, and deaths because of taking it, are far to the right of a decimal point. We know that where public places (schools, businesses, social gatherings, etc.) were curtailed, many more people stayed healthy or didn’t die. We know that the use of masks was most effective when we used the higher-grade ones and when worn properly. “Herd Immunity” doesn’t work on a fast adapter like COVID. Fauci’s advice saved lives.

There are two glaring lies that were used to foment a blame-game. First was that the federal government was requiring the vaccine in the general economy. This was never the case. There were some masking requirements in public spaces, and guidance for workplace precautions. We faced an airborne aggressive virus where personal preferences needed to be weighed against the general health of the nation. The most restrictive protections were enacted at the State level and by employers. Secondly, Fauci provided guidance, based on the evolving medical/scientific understanding of the virus. He worked in concert with a worldwide effort to stop and then reverse the spread of the disease. Trump was the President and he did not follow Fauci’s recommendations until the death toll mounted and doing nothing became a political liability. If Trump felt Fauci’s advice was wrong, he should have continued to ignore it. Blaming an underling to avoid the responsibilities of elected office is the ultimate abdication of a leader’s responsibilities.

Anthony Fauci, and every other person we the public employ, deserves to be treated fairly and given due process. What Senator Rand Paul and others are proposing is that anyone can make an unsupported allegation and if they can get enough people to believe their assertions, that’s a basis to jail the accused employee. How many Americans are willing to jettison our rule of law for this kind of frontier justice? How many want mob rule to determine their fate?

In the same way that a business prospers by the positive environment created for its workers, a nation prospers by the fair and positive way it treats its public servants. We are not going to get top talent and dedicated people to work for us, if we treat them like dogshit. The current Administration, opportunistic publicity hounds like Rand Paul and their ilk are cheering on the replacement of competent people with bobbleheads. The treatment of Dr. Fauci is but one example. Because we the public have yet to insist on being model employers, we are already paying a high price both in economic costs and human suffering. It’s time to stop abusing the help.

ihg 8-5-2026 If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at:

and share. Let’s see what we can build together

Chichen Itza is a stunning place. It displays the remnants of a civilization much more advanced than we imagine early life in the America’s was like. At its peak, it was a city that sustained up to 50,000 people. Its main features are a huge Temple, a large “Ball Court” (stadium), and a number of lesser temples and residences. There are several important takeaways from the story of one of the largest Myan cities:

1- This was an advanced society. They developed ports, trading routes, agricultural capacity, terraced their mountain terrain and manufactured everything from jewelry to utensils. A great Temple was positioned to take advantage of the Equinox. This could only have been accomplished if the Myan’s understood astrology and higher math.

2- The city appears to have been led by a council-style government.

3- A long drought reduced its ability to feed its citizens, leading to social breakdown and divisiveness. It also caused migration and increasing diversity in the city’s population.

4- There is evidence that the common residents revolted against the wealthy elite, as the city declined in its ability to provide necessities.

5- Even though the Myan’s were unique in developing a written record, little of it remains. The Spanish conquerors destroyed this history in order to impose Christianity as the sole religion in the America’s.

These five elements of Chichen Itza’s fall, parallel our own society in many ways. Environmental challenges, migration, government ineffective in the face of change, conflicts over the distribution of wealth, an effort to control its citizens by limiting knowledge and finally, the effort to impose one belief system. The difference between the Mayan’s and our civilization is they did not have the means to destroy life on the entire planet.

You may say that a culture dating back to 600 AD, in another country, can be ignored as “one-off” example. Consider the city of Cahokia, outside St. Louis, that had a similar timeline and fate. Many more follow the same pattern. Today, the United States has all the elements of that pattern.

We have a strange assumption that we can do as we please, without long term consequences to the our civilization. I wouldn’t doubt that the Myan’s of Chichen Itza and the Cahokia tribe in Illinois were equally arrogant. So too, the hundreds of others that the archeologists have unearthed and are conveying their stories. It would do us all good to go to the Great Temple at Chichen Itza during the Equinox and watch the light create the eerie image of a serpent racing down the Temple stairs. How uniquely smart or advanced really are we? How different from those lost civilizations? How likely are we to escape the demise of so many that came before us?

Perhaps we need to be more concerned about the fate of our civilization than attempting to end one seven thousand miles away? Deal with the planet-altering environmental challenges we face. Reduce the income disparities between our wealthiest and those of more modest means. Look at our governance and improve its ability to handle the complexity of the decisions we need to resolve. Embrace history and education as important tools that promote common understanding and enable effective problem solving. Understand that freedom of and from religion is an important social foundation. These are things that dead civilizations can teach us. Lessons from civilizations that lasted a lot longer than our 250 years.

ihg 7-29-2026 If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at:

and share. Let’s see what we can build together

r

On Will Someone Shut Paul Revere Up:

I get a lot of positive feedback from these postings and a good bit of discussion, both positive and negative. Readership keeps growing and changing. The discussion, debate, exchange of ideas is what I’m aiming for. I learn as much from the responses as I do researching the postings. Thank you all for that.

There are the irate “objectors”. When Paul Revere did his famous midnight ride, to warn colonists of a British attack, we can be sure that those loyal to the Crown hollered, “will someone shut that bastard up. He’s disturbing my sleep. “ But ole Paul kept riding and shouting. He alerted colonists to a sneak enemy attack and sparked a revolution. Revere’s ride comes to mind when I get blowback from those who don’t want to hear my musings or see attacks on other commentators. The “objectors” too are saying “all of you shut up, you’re disturbing our sleep.”

There are two characteristics to these responses. The person never, never, ever rebuts my post or provides any reason why they are opposed to what I wrote. Often they hide behind claims that “their” website is supposed to be politics-free or that their objection is on behalf of the entire website. Of course, all the complainer needs to do is ignore the post. But their objective is censorship.

In today’s politics, the most popular strategy is to shut down any challenge or dissent. The “complainers” are really concerned that others on the website might read the post and start to question what they’ve been told. They might even agree. Can’t have that! Because that would be democracy. That would be freedom of speech. That would require reasoned debate and discussion. That might help bring us together. Many thanks to the website Administrators who don’t buckle to the censorship pressure.

Free speech privileges are now only reserved for those who agree with the “complainers” political beliefs. “Tell me what I want to hear and if you dare to try to use facts and reality to make your case, you’re really in big trouble.” The attempt at censorship is often accompanied by efforts to bully and intimidate. What you can’t get by reason maybe you can get by force.

These are the actions of people who know their beliefs do not enjoy majority support. They know they are pretending to speak for us all, when every poll now shows they are losing ground. The truth is that our nation no longer has a majority consensus. That’s what we’re struggling with. Until enough of us find common ground, we will be stalemated from really solving our root problems. But the censors want that. They hold on to power when the rest of us don’t have our shit together. Their biggest fear is that a new consensus will emerge, because they know it won’t support their policies and beliefs.

My years as a union activist and leader proved that the “complainers” really do have something to fear. Early on I ran into the “loudmouth in the break room”. I’d go around to Mill break rooms to talk about what the union was doing, gather complaints and get to know our members better. There was usually one guy who started attacking the union, me or put some unresolvable complaint out there. His objective was to distance the membership from its union leadership and nullify the union’s power. But the “loudmouth” gave me a great opportunity to talk about why the union leadership was doing what we were doing. I realized that the “loudmouth” really was helpful. Everyone else in the room was listening, hearing the facts and getting the information they needed to make rational decisions about their work life. The “loudmouth” would eventually wear out, or someone in the room would say “let him talk.” We had great discussions. I learned a lot. Our members learned a lot. We were able to get at real problems and fix many of them. And it built the solidarity that we needed to present a solid front to management.

So, to those who would have tried to shut Paul Revere up, to disguise their support for “the Crown”, thank you. You open the door to a real conversation. The rest of the folks are listening and often weigh in. The other thing I learned was never to give up on the “loudmouths”. Because over time, many of them became supporters and they added to our power. Not all, but more than you’d expect.

The easier path would be to do what the “complainers” want and stop posting. I have great sympathy for those who want to live a peaceful life, free of stress and argument. Particularly our retired folks, who want to enjoy the years we have left. Unfortunately, we’re living in a time when we can’t afford to avoid the political fights, base our decisions on lies, or not address the real challenges we face. We are not fated to have that life. What’s at stake is our future and the futures of our children. My generation has used up all the residuals from the good stuff that our forebearers sacrificed and died for. We’ve lived on the remnants of a society that now needs a renewal of the American Dream. The wealthy are again hoarding it all. It’s over for working people unless we re-establish mutual respect, opportunity and broad prosperity as the key purpose of our society.

I’m no Paul Revere. But I have lived an instructive life and those experiences tell me that we’re on a lot of wrong paths. There are many like me. Ordinary people who have had to contend with wrenching change. It’s important that I, and those like me, speak about those life lessons and tell our truths. It’s important that ordinary people challenge the lies and mis-leadership that we are being subjected to. In a democracy, no one has to listen to us or heed our warnings. But we must be a dangerous group if there is so much energy around shutting us up. So, I urge you, listen for the hoofbeats and appreciate those awakening you at midnight.

Ihg 7-21-2026 If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at:

and share. Let’s see what we can build together

Why Can’t We Find Workers: I’ve been involved in workforce development for decades. This includes helping run training programs, being part of economic development efforts and sitting on Statewide and Regional workforce development Boards. What has been consistent through good times and bad, are employer complaints that they can’t find enough qualified workers or enough workers at all. This despite combined national public and private spending of over $700 billion per year. Over $100 billion from public programs.

The Pittsburgh region has two major public efforts to increase employment. One is Partners4Work, the government-funded workforce development agency for region. The other is Re-Imagine Appalachia (RA), a consortium of public, employer, union, education, foundation and training representatives that seek to revitalize the four-State region left behind by the decline of the coal industry (West VA, SW PA, SE Ohio and eastern KY). There are a number of other efforts run by employers, unions and coalitions that often combine public and private funding. Yet we still have a significant shortage of workers and skills.

Filling the worker/skills gap is critical to enterprises that want to expand or are considering locating a new facility. This is made more difficult by the current mass deportation of immigrant workers from our country. Workforce development advocates are looking at something called the Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) as a way to fill the gap. The LFPR is a government statistic that identifies able-bodied people (between 25 and 65) who are not part of the workforce. For the RA and P4W region the LFPR is 3%-5% below the national average. Keystone Research Center (KRC) estimates that if the region could increase its LFPR to the national average it would add over 200,000 people to the employment rolls who would earn over $6.4 billion more in wages annually. A win-win for workers, their communities and employers.

With this large a latent workforce in the region, why do employers report they can’t find enough workers or the right qualified workers to meet their needs. Why are we losing those we train to other regions? What can be done to tap into this potential worker capacity?

While there is some evidence that we’re not spending enough to “scale up” existing skills training, the need to attract more people into the workforce is now getting more attention. Those answers are not going to be found in databases or demographic reports. They require us to talk to the unemployed, the underemployed, school-age youth and those who have left. This is hands-on stuff. This is about the nature of the latent workforce, its expectations and its hurdles. While it’s easy to blame the emerging workforce for these deficiencies (“young people don’t want to work anymore”), the answers are likely to put a spotlight on wages, employer workplace practices, educational opportunities and how little we do to present our youth with the wide variety of job choices that might excite and motivate them.

The world of work has changed. The Pandemic introduced millions to the idea of “work from home.” The internet ties “teams” together across continents. You can drive for Uber and get an instant paycheck deposited in your account at the completion of your trips. An aging population, and deficiencies in eldercare support, make tending failing relatives, a “job.” There is competition to the “punch a clock” and “nine-to-five” model of work. This generation is silently rejecting the quality of life sacrifices that traditional work entails. If we really want to match jobs with workers, we need to drill down.

All of this cries out for a very upfront and personal discussion with our unused workforce and our next generation. We need to draw people into a discussion about their hopes and dreams. Their current circumstances. The barriers they face in sustaining themselves and their families. In other words. What does the entry-level workforce need to get them interested and able to join the rat race. This needs to be collected into a comprehensive picture that can form the basis of targeted programs to increase the region’s labor force participation rate.

We can enrich a people-level survey by asking hiring agents and admissions officers what criteria they look for and most importantly, what deficiencies they see in those they DON’T hire or admit. The schools can be instrumental in doing the one-on-one focus groups and telling us what plans their students have, post-graduation. We need to know more about the most difficult stuff. Human motivation, practical life barriers, and the seemingly simple discipline that getting up every day and going to work entails. I suspect that if employers want to attract and hold on to a capable workforce, they’re going to find out they will need to change their compensation incentives, work cultures, the way they present their job opportunities and their job designs. We’re probably going to find out we need to spend more on workforce development and consider wage support programs.

It’s time to commission an effort that would provide comprehensive understanding of the specific issues we need to know to meet the region’s workforce needs. This is applicable to many regions of our nations. How do we solve a problem when we don’t know what’s causing it? We know what employers need. We’re fuzzy about what workers need. Could it be that the reason we haven’t gone after that answer is we’re not going to like what we’re going to find out?

Ihg 7-15-2026 If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at:

and share. Let’s see what we can build together

On Our Immigration Panic

A Facebook friend asserted that allowing a total of 150,000 people legally gain citizenship this year was an adequate immigration system. This in a nation of 341.8 million people that has 7.6 million unfilled jobs. This FB friend also supports tossing upwards of 10 million additional people out of the country, 95% of whom are law-abiding and contributing to our nation’s economy and success. Yet certain political opportunists have tried to panic the nation into a mass deportation policy. Let’s look at some facts.

How Many Are Really Here Illegally: Some 14 million undocumented people are in our nation. Two thirds of them have been in our country for over a decade. About half of them are here legally under Temporary Protected Status (the Administration is now removing TPS for some 1.3 million). That means we have about 7 million undocumented, but legal immigrants currently in the nation.

Contributors: “Undocumented workers generate hundreds of billions in economic activity, holding approximately $299 billion in spending power and generating nearly $389 billion in combined household income. These workers contribute about $90 billion annually in federal, state, and local taxes.” But this doesn’t account for the indirect economic prosperity that adding to the population creates. Nor does it put a value on the large number of highly trained undocumented workers who fill out our medical, managerial, technology and educational sectors. What price do we put on those who lend their innovation and skills to America? Since immigrants overwhelmingly are younger and healthier than our general population, they are longer term contributors to programs like Social Security and Medicare. Counter-balancing the increasing cost of America’s aging population and declining birthrate.

Are Immigrants a Drain on Public Services: There social costs in any immigration. To turn the positive immigrant economic contributions into a deficit, you have to project over decades, use the cost of the deficit. Other studies try to use normal expenditures on things like public education, ignoring that we would be investing in educating the same number of citizens, if we could find them to fill out our needs. The contributions are real. The cost claims have been seriously challenged.

Immigrants Drive Down Wages: It’s fully documented that wage erosion is being caused by worker rights suppression, not immigrant labor. This has led to the greatest income inequality since the Gilded Age. However, providing citizenship to immigrant workers would allow them to join unions and help American workers force employers to pay fairer compensation.

The bottom line on all of this is if we tossed out every undocumented worker in our nation, (the current Administration would like to reclassify over 100 million into this category) the overall economy would suffer, many essential foods and goods would increase in price, and we wouldn’t see a significant reduction in taxes or increase in wages.

Immigrants are Taking Over: Underlying the immigrant hysteria are claims that non-whites are going to become a voting majority in what’s now called “the Great Replacement Theory.” Every wave of immigration has had opponents using the very same fearmongering. Even during the “open borders” of the Biden years, the numbers never came close to taking political control of the nation. Undocumented workers are around 4% of the population, and they can’t vote. Polling indicates one-third of the US population has been tricked into chasing this political rabbit around the dog track.

Lies to Sell a Hoax: Setting the stage for this scenario, immigrants are portrayed as a diseased, criminal element that does such abhorrent things as eating our pets. A claim the Vice President admitted was a lie he told to gin up support for repressive immigration proposals. The election campaign claims that a half million immigrants had criminal records and were roaming free in the nation is not borne out by the facts. A closer look revealed the numbers come from fifty years of data and did not include those already in detention. A comprehensive Texas study found that undocumented immigrants “are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes, and a quarter the rate for property crimes.” The data also shows that larger immigrant communities reduce crime rates.

The Need for an Updated Immigration Policy: If we are going to close our borders to illegal immigration (which I support), we better get real about the need for rational immigration and figure out a better policy. Several bi-partisan efforts have been made to do just that. Republicans blocked their own bi-partisan Border Act of 2024, to maintain the issue as a political attack point. The current Administration has pushed through massive increases in immigration enforcement funding and now has the Supreme Court’s approval to cancel Temporary Protected Status (TPS). As impacted groups, like family farmers, are screaming about their need for migrant labor, the Administration is trying to mollify them with cash assistance programs. Less food, higher costs and a new taxpayer burden to boot.

The Administration is now seeking to make various forms of currently legal immigration… illegal. Proof that ICE has run out of real immigrant criminals to deport. Polling indicates that upward of 80% of Americans support a path to citizenship for lawful immigrants and 85% support providing children brought here (Dreamers), citizenship. 61% of Americans now feel ICE has gone too far in their harsh and brutal efforts at deportation. Time and facts have surmounted the opportunistic lies and fearmongering that has been fueling the immigration panic.

All of this is to conclude that now is again the time to come together and support an immigration law that benefits our nation. One that assures border security, brings immigration enforcement back within legal and humane restraints, properly funds immigration administration, embraces those who have been model citizens but unable to gain citizenship and recognizes that immigration is both necessary and positive for the nation.

ihg 7-8-2026 If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at:

and share. Let’s see what we can build together

On “Real People” candidates and the fear of the “Empty Shells”: As this nation grapples to reestablish a consensus about what we believe in and stand for, a new political phenomenon has been rising. People are offering themselves up for elected positions who tell us they are flawed, have made mistakes, have had to work through serious personal issues and are telling us what they learned from the trauma in their lives. They are real human beings. They refuse to let the political slicksters present them as perfect or claim to know all the answers. They are the direct opposites of those opportunistic political “empty shells” that will do anything to hide their self-serving objectives. These “real people” are scaring the hell out of the pretenders, because more of us are being drawn to their humanness and life scars. They are a considerable threat to those who seek to deceive and rule. And they are gaining ground.

There is another group of politicians who are rediscovering they are “real people” too. These are leaders who no longer can parrot the unprincipled policies of those currently holding political sway. These folks are now being purged from their own Party, as an extreme purity test is being applied and retribution being meted out. They are a growing number of anti-hero’s whose acts of political sacrifice also support a change in direction.

They come from a wide swath of occupations and accomplishments. A waitress, an astronaut, a seminarian, several local union leaders, an oyster farmer, immigrant citizens, decorated military vets, law enforcement officers, a tribal judge, small business owners, a university president, a doctor and more. Just like the founders envisioned.

You can judge how much of a threat, to the rich and powerful (in both Party’s), these “real people” candidates and the anti-heroes are, by the viciousness of the attacks and the unprecedented amount of money being deployed to mute and drive out these discordant voices. Voices that are calling out the current political misdirection. Voices that openly use their journeys through darkness to explain how they have come to testify against the forces and ideas that are tearing our nation apart. Voices that are much closer to how most of us feel, than any lie or corruption can survive. The “real people” candidates are struggling to deal with the heavy artillery being hurled at them, yet they are breaking through. Many have not succeeded yet, but they keep coming. Armed with simple truths, an understanding of what’s really wrong and the courage to confront their attackers head on.

While most of these candidates are running under the Democratic flag, they represent a challenge to both Party’s. There is some coordination between these campaigns to raise national dollars, yet each has tailored their positions to address the specific needs of their Cities, States and Districts. They are examples of extreme listening (to those they seek to represent). By their very existence and their demands for change, they are challenging the Democratic leadership in Primary contests and both Party’s in the upcoming mid-terms.

Their overriding theme is to return this nation to broad prosperity, recommit to respect, look out for each other, come together to address the daunting changes we are living through, break the grip that unrestricted special interest money has on our government and advance the real foundations that built our nation. Positions that resonate with an electorate that is tired of being fleeced and left behind.

Many voters, feeling like jilted lovers, are no longer quick to go “all in” for candidates, when they’ve been used and abused by prior political relationships. As more of these “real people” candidates are elected, the public is watching to see how they implement their ideas and if those approaches work. These bare-knuckle “real people” contests are a necessary part of how candidates rebuild the connections they need to organize, form a new consensus and ultimately lead us in a new direction.

Voters have also learned that looking for that perfect candidate that agrees with them on everything is not happening. As we watch our nation’s social and economic fabric being torn to shreds, waiting for the messiah is no longer an option. We are seeing a return to pragmatic choices as voters are learning to accept candidates who don’t check all their boxes. Along with that is acceptance that people can learn and change.

To those who seek to impose their will on the majority and are busy stealing away our economic security and real freedoms, it is this voter willingness to take risks on candidates, with their warts and prior mistakes, that is most alarming. The entire basis for the current mis-leadership to retain power is their claim that all the alternatives are much worse than they are. When the “real people” candidates get a hearing, that excuse goes in the dumpster.

As alternative candidates, with new solutions, show that we aren’t boxed in by policies designed by the rich and domineering, the truly big lie is revealed. The lie that we have to accept what is dribbled down to us, that we have to live in a dog-eat-dog world, that our grievances are unresolvable, that compromise is a bad thing, and that our democracy isn’t up to the challenge of modern times. When that rhetoric is debunked, the manipulators are disarmed.

When you see the “real people” being assaulted and demeaned, take a whiff of the fear of those seeking to turn you away from them. When you hear the increasing shrillness and stridency in those opposed to the “real people” candidates, notice the panic that underpins their rage. Once we get past the smoke and mirrors (fueled by billions in bribes disguised as campaign contributions), we can see that an entire nation is beginning to pry the fingers of opportunism and greed from around our collective throats.

ihg 6-17-2026 If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at:

and share. Let’s see what we can build together.

A friend and co-worker gave me a copy of Loretta J. Ross’s new book “Calling In, How to Start Making Change With Those You’d Rather Cancel”. It is both an autobiography of a remarkable black woman, who has lived a traumatic life. She has risen above recrimination to draw lessons that can help us move back to real communication, listening, and staying open to conflicting points of view. A necessary book for those who want to re-unify our nation. A “manifesto” that calls for us to look at ourselves and change the way we currently push others away. It is a cry for the healing of ourselves and our country.

Some reading this review will say “what can an old black woman have to say that is relevant to me or today’s problems?” In a very real way, just reading Ms. Ross’s book is a step toward her message. Opening up to ideas, that in our current effort to widen the gap between us, we would take a pass on. A message that is both timely and critical to figuring out how to adapt to a world that is changing at a dizzying pace.

As you read Ms. Ross’s offering you start out thinking it’s a recipe for changing others. You soon realize her main theme. It’s that to change others, we first have to change ourselves. She promotes this approach by telling us about her life trials and her personal path from anger to “calling in” those she disagreed with. Including imprisoned serial rapists.

This is a woman who was sexually abused by multiple people as a child. Someone who experienced poverty as she grew up. Someone who was the victim of both racism and sexism as only this nation is capable of inflicting. Remarkably, her innate talents were recognized by people, who gave her chances and helped her become a successful leader of a number of movements for change. She lays out her life story with all the warts, mistakes and human demons that many will recognize in ourselves. Older and wiser now, Ms Ross hopes to convince us that we all can overcome the challenges and realities of our lives and work together for the common good.

Along the way she provides the techniques on how to recognize our own prejudices and some very specific ways we can break out of non-communication and strive for mutual understanding and then problem solving.

She is no dreamer. She allows that we all have lines that we won’t cross, anger that is difficult to surmount and things like pride and ego that limit how much understanding we can tolerate. She also flat out says that there are extremists on all issues that we need to “call out” and move on. Ms. Ross is aiming for a consensus that gets us back to core principles that most of us actually share and can respect in each other. A novel idea in a world where defining ourselves by our differences seems more important than doing the hard work of finding our agreements.

“Calling In” requires we have real conversations. We open ourselves to what others think, what shaped their views, that how others feel need to be respected and ultimately put up with a lot of discussion that may challenge our own world views to find how we might work together. She is adamant that we can’t expect to align our views completely with someone else’s and need to accept people who don’t check all our boxes. This isn’t a book for liberals or conservatives. But a realistic view, that differences on all sides will remain and the secret sauce is to work on those issues where we can find general agreement. That viewpoint “calls out” both progressives and maga on “purity”, which is a fresh breeze in how most political pundits tally up “success”.

Ms. Ross’s book is a great mate to David McRaney’s book “How Minds Change”. McRaney highlights an organizing technique known as “deep canvasing”. An entire training industry has grown up around this way of having personal conversations, instead of using talking points, to figure out what people have in common and will mutually support. As more people recognize the critical need to talk TO each other, more positive experiences and “how to” efforts will be shared.

With all the advanced technology that puts massive amounts of information literally at our fingertips and ties us together globally, the result is less real interaction and understanding than in any prior time. The masters of these advances have been using them to divide us. To combat that diversion, we must now relearn how to really talk with each other all over again.

ihg 6-10-2026 If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at: and share. Let’s see what we can build

together

The Promise: “Don’t worry about shipping your manufacturing jobs overseas”, the globalists said. “There will be lots of “knowledge work” for you to do instead”. They were partially right. As the nation lost almost five million manufacturing jobs, “knowledge” jobs became forty to sixty percent of our workforce. But the great manufacturing replacement claim didn’t pan out exactly as advertised.

The Reality: Data shows that displaced manufacturing workers didn’t “upgrade” to the new knowledge work. Instead, they tended to shift to “lower paid service, hospitality and other labor work”. As the heavily unionized manufacturing sector shrunk, remaining workers saw wage stagnation.

It was the children of those displaced workers who were able to move into the “knowledge” sector. At least the lower rungs of that sector. Here too, because of less concentrated workplaces, outdated labor law and the resulting lack of unionization, those jobs were poor substitutes for what had been lost.

The winners were those at the top of the “knowledge” job ladder. (Professionals, doctors, lawyers, scientists, software designers and such). “Workers in lower-wage jobs are up to 14 times more likely to need to change occupations (because of AI) than those in highest-wage positions, and most will need additional skills to do so successfully. Women are 1.5 times more likely to need to move into new occupations than men.” Projected work that will initially be impacted are STEM professionals, business and legal professionals, creatives and art management, mechanical installation and repair, education and workforce training. (McKinsey Global Institute Report on Generative AI and the Future of Work). The difference in job quality is so stark that economists have begun talking about “wisdom” workers at the top and everyone else lower down the knowledge job chain.

The Final Nail? Along comes Artificial Intelligence (AI). Its irresistible allure is the speed and amount of information it can process and then perform certain kinds of tasks. The ability to replace human effort with machines, and save a ton of money, is now a reality. As this occurs, AI has become the final betrayal of the great manufacturing job replacement promise. This isn’t about stopping AI, but how we transition to it.

AI’s first assault is on those who have gained a fingernail hold in the “replacement” knowledge economy. The current state of AI threatens 46% of administrative/support jobs; 44% of paralegal/legal operations work; and 37% of engineering/tech related jobs (Forbes Mag). As AI progresses, those who have created AI and continue to develop its capacity, are predicting it will transform work as we know it. With this level of potential job elimination/transformation, we face a very difficult question. Will there be enough paid human jobs, at family-sustaining wages, to employ the bulk of those who want and need to work? Or will AI wreck the economy as we know it?

Politics Responds: This question is beginning to emerge in our politics. Bernie Sanders has long been a proponent of a national jobs program that employs all who want to work. As the AI impact on jobs actually is happening, his ideas are getting a second look. Andrew Yang, perhaps the first high-tech candidate for President, advocated for a Universal Basic Income (UBI). He projected that we would run out of traditional work for people as technology advances. Various forms of UBI go back to Thomas Spence in 1797, Thomas Paine in 1796, economists Milton Friedman and James Tobin in the 1960’s and Martin Luther King Jr in 1967.

Elon Musk, who is no friend of working people or paying taxes, goes even further in promoting UHI, or Universal High Income. UHI would tax AI companies to provide family-sustaining incomes. His proposal is based on his recognition that without a decent wage base, not enough people will have any purchasing power to make the economy work. Many economists argue that they don’t see AI generating enough “profit” to accommodate Musk’s UHI.

But the Teck Bro’s are split on what to do. Some, like Sam Altman of OpenAI believe that AI programs and infrastructure (data centers, distribution channels, etc.) should be owned by the public. This considers the fact that AI is an organizer of huge amounts of knowledge it neither owns nor has rights to. Many question if that knowledge should legally be appropriated by private, moneymaking enterprises. This approach would essentially create a kind of public data utility company that all citizens would have a share in. The proceeds would then be distributed out to the citizen-shareholders to provide income. Both the taxation approach and the public ownership approach are significant departures from the free enterprise practices that we are told we must bow down to.

What to Do? Globally, governments have had a variety of responses to the emergence of AI. Europe opted to impose heavy regulatory oversight and now is modifying its rules as it sees the impact of its actions. China is balls-to-the-walls on AI investment and implementation. It seeks to dominate the AI sector with its own technology and has banned its companies from importing currently superior American AI chips. The United States has been considering AI legislation since 2023 but has failed to reach any consensus.

Recent disclosures that three of the latest AI versions can find and exploit computer operating system weaknesses and promote cyber-crime, have moved the government closer to some oversight. The current Administration, who had been anti-AI regulation, claimed to now endorse both pre-inspection of AI products and the hiring of government specialists to police the sector. However, that Executive Order has been scrapped after AI CEO’s objected.

Morality: On the religious front, Pope Leo just issued an encyclical on AI, “Magnifica Humanitas” (“Magnificent Humanity”) that presents AI as a moral issue. The Pope insists that the technology must protect peoples’ jobs and needs to be subject to “robust legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users and a political system that does not abdicate its responsibility are required.” Pope Leo ultimately prescribes the disarmament of AI, not as a means of “rejecting technology” but rather “preventing it from dominating humanity.” (CNN 5-25-2026)

The current political debates about AI have focused on privacy, the impact of data centers, how it is used by employers to undermine workers’ rights, the negative impact of non-human “chat buddies (particularly on children), degradation of cyber-security, its role in global competitiveness and who will profit from any success it ultimately has. It took Labor Unions to humanize the Industrial Revolution. No one is talking about upgrading labor law to give workers the tools to tame and humanize AI. In all the debate, job displacement is the elephant in the back of the room.

Howling of the Wolves: Just as we refuse to develop an industrial/manufacturing policy, we are just as negligent in pre-planning a strategy for AI’s work impact and its economic consequences. The Teck Bro’s and their investors are making massive political donations, to thwart any effort that curbs their ability to profit from AI’s potential or limit their control over its direction. So far, they have succeeded here in America, in killing even modest attempts to deal with AI’s negatives. It’s pretty apparent that AI issues deserve a higher priority than many of the political diversions we currently fixate on. But focusing on AI’s real-time impact on workers would require we insist on problem solving and heed the wolf that is howling at our door.

Ihg-5-26-2026 If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at: Top of Form

Bottom of Form

and share. Let’s see what we can build together

.

Oh Ike. There you go with that twisted union viewpoint again. REALLY! What do you think those masters of the global economy were there to talk about? Business, right? And what is “business”? It’s about who makes money, where the money is invested, who produces the products, who provides services, where the technology is coming from and going to and all the workers that are impacted by those deals. If the government is supposed to represent the people, then it’s a major abdication of its responsibility to allow the corporate world to divvy up the goodies, without any voice from those who are impacted. In case you missed it, in China, our government facilitated a global fleecing fest, right in front of our faces. And no one mentioned it or thought to ask if that was appropriate.

Let’s look at an example. The Chinese have invested over $230 billion in electric vehicles (EV’s) over the past 15 years. They can produce the most advanced EV’s for an average selling price of $25,000. This year Americans only have two car models for that price available, and they are both foreign made, gas engine models. The Chinese would dearly love to be able to sell their EV’s into the American market, and that was high on the discussion list in Beijing. Since we don’t know anything about the deals that were made, we don’t know if the Chinese made any headway in unblocking their EV sales into the U.S.. Even if total car imports remained blocked, what about parts and technology? Elon Musk has a tremendous profit motive to fill his Tesla’s with low-cost, high tech Chinese parts. Particularly since the current Administration has scuttled all the EV incentives and tanked the EV market here in the U.S.. A cheap Tesla would be a windfall moneymaker.

The consequences for American autoworkers and those in the U.S. auto supply chain are huge. You can bet your bippy that all those anti-EV ideologues would rush to a Chinese auto showroom if they could buy a brand-new car for $25k that gets 400 to over 1,200 combined gas-and-electric miles per tank/battery. And the politicians who are badmouthing EV’s would quickly move to reauthorize the Biden era EV charging station network that their “base” would demand.

With the government and media ignoring the labor interest in the Chinese EV issue, there isn’t any discussion of how the Chinese can produce an EV (some of their micro-cars for as low as $4k) at these prices. One of the issues a labor representative would have on their agenda would be the slave-labor that China uses for a good bit of its production. Then there is the general suppression of wages, the government assistance in both research and production capacity, the skewing of exchange rates to favor Chinese products and the outright violation of trade agreements. That low EV price is possible because China does not have a “market economy”, is an autocratic regime, nor does it operate on free trade principles. The labor movement has often pointed out that when competing against Chinese products, the American worker is actually competing against the Chinese government. How many of those ultra-wealthy business delegates do you think raised those issues as they discussed the EV car issue? How would those talks have gone if there was a labor standards “baseline” to them?

The other role a labor representative would have played is in keeping our actual government delegates from trading “public assets and regulatory power” to enhance the corporate deals that were being made. No one was there to keep these insiders from getting the President to throw in some Chinese “wish list” item, to facilitate the success of the rich corporate donor base that he surrounded himself with. Something this President has openly offered to those who are willing to advance his political longevity and personal wealth. A real “representative government” is designed to have competing interests at the table when the business of the people is done.

It’s not just the nation’s auto-related workers who need to be concerned. The Chinese “wish-list” is a broad effort to gain critical AI technology, dominate key industries, gain access to financial markets and increase their influence around the globe. If you thought that the China trip was about the Strait or Taiwan, you missed what really was going on.

When the media reports that little was “accomplished”, they do so by ignoring what was happening in the back rooms of the Imperial Palace. As they pondered the body language of top Chinese officials toward Trump, they ignored the warm embrace that was going on with members of the corporate part of the delegation. You don’t hear the money titans saying nothing was accomplished.

If we viewed this private use of our taxpayer money and government power as corruption, we might consider passing legislation that would curb the excesses. We could demand an advanced list of issues that private citizens would be raising in these kinds of trips and cull out those that are not in the interests of the American people. We could require labor representatives with full access to the backrooms. We could insist on full and open disclosure of any government agreement that facilitates a private deal. We could mandate that any negative impact on American workers be mitigated. We could really call it what it is and label them “trade agreements” and make them subject to a public Congressional vote.

Instead, we’re ignoring what is actually happening. Hiding the government-facilitated fleecing of the American workforce. Submitting to a corporate secrecy designed only to protect the guilty? It’s not that government doesn’t have a role in promoting our economy and global economic progress. It’s that this role has been re-interpreted to mean “pursue the dollar and the people be damned”.

Ihg-5-20-2026 If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at:

and share. Let’s see what we can build together.

Business people who accompanied Trump to China: Tim Cook (Apple) , Larry Fink (BlackRock) , Stephen A. Schwarzman (Blackstone) , Kelly Ortberg (Boeing) , Brian Sikes (Cargill) , Chuck Robbins (Cisco) , Jane Fraser (Citigroup) , Jim Anderson (Coherent) , Larry Culp (General Electric) , David Solomon (Goldman Sachs) , Jacob Thaysen (Illumina) , Michael Miebach (Mastercard) , Dina Powell (Meta) , Sanjay Mehrotra (Micron) , Jensen Huang (Nvidia) , Cristiano Amon (Qualcomm) , Elon Musk (Tesla/SpaceX) or Ryan McInerney (Visa)

.

On Outrage Misplaced: America is outraged! We’ve got a whole list of things that tip us over the edge these days. The outrages have a short half-life as new ones replace current ones, often within the same news cycle. And the outrages are on all ends of the political spectrum. Outrage is so fast and furious that we need a new word to describe the sustained state of high blood pressure our politics are pumping up.

It’s not that we the people shouldn’t be alarmed at the number and consequences of political issues. We are in the middle of massive global change that is upending much of what has stabilized our nation since WWII. For the first time ever, humans are facing the destruction of our planetary home. Our economy no longer serves majorities of our citizens. Corporate power is growing while workers right are being neutered. We have an Administration that is testing the outer limits of Executive power and both a Congress and a Supreme Court (who were designed to assure a balance of power) enabling that power grab. The principles of our nation are being tested and twisted, threatening the democratic foundations we stand on. We’re racking up unproductive debt like drunken sailors at a port bar. With so many issues swirling around at a frenetic pace, we never catch our breath and fashion a priority list of key challenges we must focus on and solve. Worse than all of this is we are divided and unable to even talk rationally with each other and have substituted outrage for problem solving.

Many blame social media for our constantly swirling whirlpool of outrage. We have the ability to transmit issues to the masses in an instant, unchecked and often unsourced. Social media is such a voracious devourer of material, that the demand to “refresh” pages within the 24 hour news cycle is overwhelming. You can look at any major news online page several times a day and the articles have either been updated or cycled out.

We can’t blame it all on social media. We the public, have become lazy consumers of information. We want it fast, short and most of all exciting. We’re not willing to do the work of fact-checking or even modest critical thinking about what we read. No one is bothered by a mugging anymore. It has to be a triple homicide with a manhunt thrown in. We’ve also taken away the guardrails. There’s no accountability for true “fake news” or sloppy reporting. It’s just the opposite. We’re seeing news outlets sued because they did expose wrongdoing and the criminal is claiming victimhood. We reward the most outrageous sources of information with viewership and are shutting down the news outlets that used to do in-depth reporting and analysis. Goodbye Walter Cronkite and hello “X”.

There is a list of challenges we should be raising hell about. The important ones are tied together by cause and common solutions.

The Economy: Start with the failure of our economic system to provide basic needs to an alarming percentage of our people. We have income inequality, retirement struggles, food insecurity, worker disempowerment, healthcare unaffordability, housing unavailability, good jobs scarcity and the lack of education and training to take advantage of what opportunity there is. These economic woes are directly tied to a bunch of insatiable pigs who have grabbed our government and are draining the economic lifeblood out of our nation.

Decline of Government by the People: Underlying the above trends is an increasingly unequal ability for all citizens to determine our leadership and national direction. The three major causes of this democratic decline are the vast sums of money we allow into our election processes, a Supreme Court that is turning the clock back on equality and voting rights and our own declining support for the idea that diversity is our strength. We are looking more like those autocracies that we once were the counterbalance to.

Corruption: Lastly is a level of corruption that is destroying our own faith in good governance and making enemies out of allies around the world. When we turn our backs on environmental progress to feed the fossil fuel industry campaign donors, we drop out of the race to find a planetary future. When we engage in military action for the financial gain of those in power, we destabilize the peace and trading rhythms everywhere. When pardons and retaliatory regulatory actions are used to free criminals and intimidate honest forces, our due process under the law loses credibility. We can’t address common problems when all actions are up for the highest bidder.

These three challenges, the lack of broad economic prosperity, the decline of our representative governance and the acceptance of large-scale grift, are what we should be not only alarmed about, but yes…OUTRAGED over. Because these three things are the shovels of dirt that are interring our nation.

If we can develop and support leaders that can articulate these challenges and promote consensus solutions to them, there is hope. It won’t happen if we keep punching down on the less fortunate or trying to isolate those different than ourselves. Silos can’t sustain great nations. Nor can worship of the wealthy. As they say, behind every great fortune is a great crime”. We have to support the containment of opportunism and the insatiable drive for unlimited wealth. We have to regain our mutual trust and recommit to a nation “of the people, by the people, for the people”. We need to get behind those courageous defenders of equal justice under the law, and demand that justice be served. Real justice.

If we want to be outraged, these are the basic “outrages” we need to focus on and demand improvement. They should appeal to every American. I’m sure many of you would express these with different words or with different priority. Maybe add one or two more. But if it’s three broad hurdles or six, doesn’t really matter. What matters is that they don’t change every 24 hours and we come together to redirect our political and citizen demands. Laser focus! Unflagging determination! Active unity!

ihg. 5-13-2026 If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at:

and share. Let’s see what we can build together.

According to Maslow’s theory, people need to satisfy basic needs first. Air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing and reproduction. Then comes “safety” needs like personal security, employment, resources, health and property. Third up the pyramid is the need for love and a sense of belonging. This is friendship, intimacy, family, and a sense of connection. Second from the top is Esteem. Respect, self-esteem, status, recognition, strength and freedom. And at the very top is “self”. The desire to be the best that an individual can be. These needs show up in the priority people put on political issues. Our focus on the bottom levels may explain why “top level” spiritual guru Marianne Williamson’s Presidential campaign sputtered out and Donald Trump’s focus on inflation helped him win.

According to most polls, all too many of our co-citizens are struggling at basic needs level. In the richest nation on earth, too many people don’t have enough to eat, lack shelter, and are increasingly concerned about our environment. We also have big issues around personal security (crime), employment (jobs), resources (economic security), health (medical care) and property (housing). These two bottom-level “needs” are front and center of American’s discontent right now. And they are getting to be a larger concern for more and more people.

The next two levels up are likewise going unsatisfied. There are all kinds of data that indicate we have a crisis in personal connections and our own sense of self-esteem. Suicide rates, the decline of long-term relationship commitments, a sense of powerlessness and the intensity of the fight about “freedom”, are all third/fourth level Maslow needs. If you have risen above level one and two, this nation is greeting you with anxiety and uncertainty at level three and four.

Then there is the top tier. Self-actualization! The opportunity to be, as the Army slogan says, “all that you can be”. Americans, especially our young people, are on a hunt for this sense of fulfilling their potential. Here too, the data says we’re not doing a great job of helping people feel satisfied with themselves. Seems like everyone is in therapy. Billy Elish’s “What was I Made For” and Jelly Roll’s “I am not Okay” are top song hits. To put it plainly, judging by Maslow’s pyramid, this nation is a hot mess.

These aren’t dispassionate issues. These are feelings, emotions, internal conflicts and ultimately a sense of mental balance. A nation that has a significant number of its citizens walking around needy and butthurt, is going to have a bunch of problems functioning and working together. Witness the number of mass shootings by loners looking for attention and relevance. Or the decline in civility and rational discussion. We could aptly call this “The Age of the Unfulfilled”.

When we are seeking leadership, we are looking for those who promise to satisfy these levels of need. If we sense a political leader is making our level, whatever it is, less stable, we’re going to withdraw support and even go on the offense. That’s why those seeking to lead are always speaking in lofty terms about opportunity and moral righteousness. Even as they carry out policies that are dropping us down through the trap doors of Maslow’s levels. Since that has happened repeatedly over several decades now, those disappointments turn into resentment and then anger. Angry people do stupid things.

Maslow constructed a priority of needs. If you’re at the basic needs level, a leader talking about making you feel better about yourself is four levels above where your concerns are focused. From a unity perspective, if you’re at the top three levels, your understanding and concern for those below you will most likely be limited. Today’s politicos raise money at posh country clubs and then drive across the city to pump for votes at a food bank. Hoping to win from the duplicity of their “Maslow” appeals.

The point of all this is to recognize that for our society to satisfy the broadest swath of our citizenry, it has to address all Maslow’s levels. It has to provide the opportunity for people to move up the pyramid. It must meet people where they live. America isn’t doing that and hasn’t for quite a while now. You may see this as a path to individual self-interest. That would be fair. As Maslow points out, those focused on basic needs aren’t looking to take on bigger issues and those who are struggling above those basic levels are not connected in a way that would have them offer a hand up. When this nation was doing a better job of satisfying its citizens, we were able to reach a consensus and tackle significant differences. Today, we are a nation of “Maslow orphans”. Paralyzed, increasingly siloed, looking backwards and stagnant. Our first step toward a way out is to recognize the problem we have.

As the poet/writer Langston Hughes warned, “a dream that is put off or unfulfilled may dry up like a raisin in the sun, fester like a sore, stink like rotten meat, crust over, sag like a heavy load, or, ultimately, “explode”.

Ihg 4-29-2026. If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at:

and share. Let’s see what we can build together

.

On Re-imagining Our15 Million: The other day a Facebook friend defended against negative reactions to their offensive post by responding with “you don’t know me at all. I’m a card-carrying union member”. I’m not sure how being a union member eliminates our need to be empathetic and respectful, but apparently this union member thinks it does. The response should make us think about what being a union member, in our finest form, should look like. Surely it isn’t just paying dues and getting a membership card?

In our best days, the American Labor Movement was inspired and activated by broad principles of unity, a determined drive to have a seat at the tables of power and a clear understanding that to achieve a better life would require courage and sacrifice. Certainly, we have our labor sheros and heros, who inspired our Movement, helped us focus on key objectives and gave us education and tactics to make progress. But it was the unity of rank-and-file union members that scared the crap out of those who were determined to use and abuse the working people of this nation. Power fears “strength in numbers”.

Time, success and a changing world have muted the lesson of worker solidarity. The most basic outreach of our 15 million union rank and file members to non-members is now barely a whisper. The “movement” gave way to what some call “business unionism”. A transactional relationship between members and leadership, focused on economic gains. In most organizing efforts today, unions try to answer the question “what can the union do for me”. Can the union up my wages? Can the union get me healthcare? Can the union get me a better schedule? Can the union get me the job I want? Can the union….

But trying to build the union movement through transactional relationships has not made the unionized workforce large enough to re-gain a seat at the table. Is it time to return to what built unions in our heyday. Should the question to both members, and all American workers, be “what can YOU do for the union movement?”.

In some of our efforts, today’s union movement does ask that question. We train and deploy thousands of members to use the grievance/arbitration procedure to guarantee justice on the job. We urge members to contact and lobby their political leaders on legislative issues. We organize community support activities like food drives, school kid supplies and more. Why don’t ask that question when it comes to infusing members with the desire to build the union movement, and our own collective strength.

Imagine 15 million one-on-one member meetings that focus on how we can find and organize new members. Imagine those meetings, training and resulting organizing efforts as the primary work of our Local Unions. Imagine rank and file members competing in Local Union elections to get on the Organizing Committee and/or become the Local Union’s Organizing Chairperson? Imagine a union movement that spends resources on rewarding those who increase the size and power of labor? Imagine if our ideal union member is one whose priority is to make labor larger, stronger, and a more potent force for change? Imagine a labor movement where every member is an organizer? Imagine a labor movement where every member understands and enjoys building back?

Some unions are closer to this “organizing model” than others. But the typical American union still operates with a core of organizers trying to figure out where best to put its efforts. No union has enough resources to meet the growing call from an estimated 50 million workers who say they want to become union. A re-imagining of union membership that taps into the time, efforts and talents of the rank and file, can be a catapult in the number of organizing drives that we can sustain and the number of new members we can welcome. With the labor movement polling at plus-seventy percent approval, growing isn’t a matter of non-member desire. It’s a matter of capacity.

There is something else the labor movement can get from broad engagement of its members and supporters in this kind of rebuild. OWNERSHIP! People support and put emotional energy into what they themselves contribute to. If you had a part in making it happen, you are vested in it being a success. This is how we stop focusing on the “what’s in it for me” and move to “I built that and its MINE!

The change to a massive “organizing model” will not come easily. It requires a reallocation of the scarce resources, into organizing. It requires us to look at how we do our other union work and figure out how to do it more cheaply and more effectively. Just a small example is the move from courtroom-like arbitration hearings to zoom hearings. Unions that are doing that see huge savings with an increased ability to pursue workplace justice. The adoption of AI technology is another route to explore. We might even go way out there and run “go fund me” drives for communities to help organize their neighbors. One USW Staff recently told me about her collaboration with a local church group that is dedicated to unionizing. How many of our 20 million retirees would be willing to devote time to making their unions stronger? Re-imagining union membership means re-imagining the union.

The “organizing model” will also change our leadership and decision-making processes. If rank and filers feel “ownership”, they will want more of a say in decisions. This opens a more collaborative relationship between members and leaders but requires a more expansive effort to educate and inform members about how we build and deploy our solidarity and power. This includes a whole lot of discussion on how laws, politics and workplace power need to work together. In essence, a new two-way understanding will need to be built that allows us to move forward as one force.

All of this requires a reordering of priorities within labor. Members will have to prioritize the union again, in their daily lives. Growth and collective power have to be the number one objective! It will not happen all at once or without surges and setbacks. We need to cultivate and publicize successful initial efforts.

As leaders and members consider the “organizing model” and their responsibilities to make it work, we have to consider the alternatives. In the case of the American worker, unless we are more successful in confronting and containing corporate power and anti-worker political ideas, we will be a fading piece of history. Our current opportunities wasted. The “organizing model” may not be the only way to start rebuilding, at the pace we need to. It is one that has been proven to work.

4-15-2026 If you like these commentaries, join my blog for free at:

and share. Let’s see what we can build together.