Six on "our" Economy: As rural Americans struggle for health care access, insurers may be making things worse; Charting the U.S. Top 50 Advertising Spenders; Why is U.S. Public Transit Crumbling?; Nearly 700,000 To Lose Food Stamps
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Thanks John and Gary
"Living in rural America certainly comes with a number of benefits. There is less crime, access to the outdoors, and lower costs of living.
Yet, not everything is rosy outside the city limits. Rural communities face growing infrastructure problems like decaying water systems. And they have more limited access to amenities ranging from grocery stores to movie theaters, lower quality schools, and less access to high-speed internet.
Yet perhaps most daunting are the tremendous health disparities rural Americans face, in terms of both their own health and accessing care.
As a number of my recent studies indicate, these disparities may be exacerbated by insurance carriers and the networks they put together for their consumers.
A sick system that’s getting worse
At the turn of the last century, cities were known to be cesspools rampant with disease. Much has changed since then. Today, health care disparities between urban and rural America have indeed reversed. And they are growing wider.
Part of the problem is demographic. Over the last several decades, many rural areas have lost a large share of their residents. In many areas, the young are moving away, leaving an aging population behind.
Besides being older, those staying behind are poorer and have lower levels of education. To make things worse, they are also more likely to be uninsured. And they tend to be sicker, exhibiting higher rates of cancer, heart disease, stroke and chronic lower respiratory disease. It comes as no surprise that their life expectancy is generally lower as well.
The demographic challenges are made worse by the limitations posed by the health care system. For one, rural areas are experiencing tremendous health care provider shortages. Access is often particularly limited for specialty care. But much more mundane health care services that most of us take for granted, like hospitals – including public hospitals and maternity wards – are also affected."
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- Among the top 50 advertisers alone, 38 are headquartered in the U.S.
- Forty-one companies spent more than $1 billion on advertising in 2017.
- Ad spending for the top 200 companies increased by 1.1% from 2016 to 2017, the slowest growth since the Recession.
- According to AdAge research, Geico, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, is the most advertised brand, with $1.4 billion in measured media ad spending.
Top 10 Advertisers by 2017 Ad Spend
1. Comcast Corp: $5.7 billion - Telecommunication
2. Procter & Gamble Co.: $4.4 billion - Household products
3. AT&T: $3.5 billion - Telecommunications
4. Amazon: $3.4 billion - Internet Services and Retailing
5. General Motors Co.: $3.2 billion - Motor Vehicles
6. Verizon Communications: $2.6 billion - Telecommunications
7. Ford Motor Co.: $2.5 billion - Motor Vehicles
8. Charter Communications: $2.4 billion - Telecommunications
9. Alphabet (Google): $2.4 billion - Internet Services and Retailing
10. Samsung Electronics Co.: $2.4 billion - Electronics
Read the Full Article & Visualization Here
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FAIR: Papers Owned by Oligarchs Unsurprisingly Oppose a Wealth Tax
"When wealth-tax advocates like senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are two of the top three contenders for winning the 2020 Democratic primaries, you can bet that the US ruling class is terrified by the possibility of being slightly less rich (FAIR.org, 4/16/19). Notably, US oligarch Jeff Bezos (who owns the Washington Post) asked fellow oligarch Michael Bloomberg (and owner of Bloomberg News) to consider running for president, which Bloomberg decided to do a month after Sanders declared that billionaires shouldn’t exist, and a week after Warren proposed expanding her wealth tax (Washington Post, 11/9/19).
FAIR took a look at news coverage and editorials about the wealth tax from Bezos’ Washington Post, and Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, to see if these oligarch-owned newspapers would defend their billionaire owners’ material class interests (FAIR.org, 9/16/19).
The Washington Post (6/30/19) warns that “it’s all too likely that a wealth tax would bring in less revenue than advocates anticipate, in part because millionaires can afford the best accountants and lawyers.”
To the Post’s credit, although some reporters (e.g., 5/22/19) have tried to peddle austerity fears of “new entitlement programs” funded by the wealth tax resulting in “ballooning costs that plunge the government deeper into debt,” its coverage (1/24/19, 9/24/19, 10/16/19) generally did a good job explaining what the wealth tax proposals are, included statements from both supporters and opponents, as well as situating these within the context of historic inequality.
The Post’s editorials, however—which are supposed to represent the paper’s official stance—told a different story. “A Wealth Tax Isn’t the Best Way to Tax the Rich” (6/30/19) offered a whole host a reasons why a wealth tax (despite being a “bold and spectacular proposal”) isn’t “the optimal means of raising taxes on those who can afford to pay more.” The Post argued that a wealth tax would face a “likely constitutional challenge,” “implementation problems” like how to consistently appraise diverse assets ranging from “land to rare art,” or would “bring in less revenue than advocates anticipate.” The Post also argued that a wealth tax would “not distinguish” between “socially productive wealth” gained from “enterprise and innovation,” and wealth gained through “inheritance or rent-seeking,” which is not “socially productive.”
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"To the benefit of big business, it turned Hoffa into a menacing symbol of labor racketeering.
But to his union members, it only enhanced his standing. They were already thrilled by the contracts Hoffa had negotiated that included better pay and working conditions. Now his members hailed him as their embattled champion and wore buttons proclaiming, “Hoffa, the Teamsters Teamster.”
His membership stayed loyal even as Hoffa became the target of a series of prosecution efforts. ...
Over two decades after he went missing, a 1997 article in The Los Angeles Times noted that “No union in America conjures up more negative images than the Teamsters.”
This matters, because for most Americans who lack first-hand knowledge about organized labor, Hoffa is the only labor leader’s name they recognize. And as communications scholar William Puette has noted, “the Teamsters’ notoriety is such that for many people in this country the Teamsters Union is the labor movement.”
A union widely perceived as mobbed up – with a labor leader notorious for his Mafia ties – has come, in the minds of some Americans, to represent the entire labor movement. That perception, in turn, bolsters arguments against legislative reforms that would facilitate union organizing efforts.
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“The last people I want getting my tax dollars are those who will die without them.”
SAMANTHA HAWORTH • BELT ENGRAVER
“I’ve read that people actually perform better at job interviews when they are incredibly hungry.”
ANDREW CABRERA • CONCERT USHER
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