The Top 0.1% and the Disappearing Middle-Class

“The ongoing explosion of the incomes of the richest households and the erosion of middle-class employment opportunities for most of the rest have become integrally related in the now-normal operation of the U.S. economy. Since the beginning of the 1980s, employment relations in U.S. industrial corporations have undergone three major structural changes – summarized as “rationalization,” “marketization,” and “globalization” – that have permanently eliminated middle-class jobs in the United States. . . .

“The fundamental problem is the obsessive focus of U.S. corporations on their stock prices. While the old structures of stable and remunerative employment were being undermined by rationalization, marketization, and globalization, U.S. business corporations became afflicted with a socioeconomic disease known as “financialization.” The prime manifestations of financialization have been, and remain, the distribution of corporate cash to shareholders through stock repurchases, often in addition to generous cash dividends, and, incentivizing these distributions, the stock-based explosion of the remuneration of top corporate executives. . . .

“The exploding incomes of the top 0.1% and the erosion of the American middle class are integrally related. The attainment of stable and equitable growth in the U.S. economy in the twenty-first century will require an organizational revolution far more profound than the managerial revolution that occurred in the opening decades of the twentieth century. And it is the employees at the top of the major corporations, the legatees of that managerial revolution, who now must be brought under control. If not, inequity and instability in the U.S. economy will only get worse.”

Read the complete paper at -- http://www.theairnet.org/v3/backbone/uploads/2014/09/Lazonick_LaborInTheTwenty-FirstCentury_AIR-WP14.0801.pdf

I humbly ask for your support.

Recently, I posted a quote from, oddly enough, Angela Davis. It was both profound and illuminating for me at this point in my life. She said, "I'm no longer accepting the things I cannot change; I'm changing the things I cannot accept."

The world we live in is filled with violence, intolerance and inequality. Everyone is a "ME", there is no "WE" – there is no sense of "community." The "Values," that guided past generations to do what is right, have been replaced with "Value," doing what makes or saves the most money – regardless of how many lives are adversely affected. Instead of life being the highest value, it has become the norm to look at people and their lives as simply assets or liabilities.

More and more members of our society are becoming lonely, isolated, enraged people who feel worthless, hopeless and helpless. They are being bombarded with continuous messages through the media that tell them they don't measure up to the propaganda models created by companies whose are trying to sell something to them or politicians telling them what’s wrong with members of the other party. The Supreme Court has changed America by ruling that corporations are people too with the same rights – except for corporations how they use their money is called “freedom of speech.” Who are the corporations “speaking" to these days? They are using their money to persuade our elected representatives to do what is most profitable for them, instead of doing what is good for the rest of us. Inequality has become “the” word that a growing number of people use to describe the nation that was created on the principle that “all men are created equal.”

I could list many problems that we are facing today, but the one thing that most of the share is that they are “values problems.” In order for a bunch of “MEs” to become the “WE” again, something is needed that has the power to link us together. We believe the thing that is missing is today are shared core values. The evidence makes it clear that even though people may have hundreds or even thousands of friends on social media like Facebook, many have no confidants they can trust or rely on. Many are lonely and living as isolated individuals. The numbers of Americans, including our children, are committing suicide. The common response of choice when faced with conflict and disagreement is becoming “violence.” The news of “mass murders in public places” has become so common; the stories only stay in the headlines for a day or two. These are some of things I can no longer accept and I am committed to changing!

Many of you have known me for a long time through my work as a rabbi, counselor and chaplain -- you know how passionate I am about sharing my expertise and experience to help others. For over 25 years, I have known and studied with Jim Myers, a friend who is also committed to helping people. For the past few years we have been searching for ways and discussing what we could do to resolve problems like those above. We found what we believe is the one thing that all of those problems share – they are values problems.  

In our studies of the ancient Hebrew text of Genesis we discovered what we believe are values and a standard that have the power to bring people together and solve many of the problems we face as individuals, families, communities, and citizens.  The Hebrew word “TOV” is traditionally translated as “good,” but in the context of the first creation account of Genesis, in which it appears seven times, TOV has the following contextual definition:

TOV is an act that preserves life, protects life, makes life more functional, and/or increases the quality of life.

We founded the TOV Center, a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit corporation, to make people aware of the importance of shared core values and the benefits of including TOV Values and the TOV Standard in their core values. We envision the TOV Center as an organization in which people of diverse religious and nonreligious backgrounds interact through shared core values. The TOV Center is not a religious institution. It is an organization that helps people incorporate life as their highest value and top priority into their lives.

One thing we know for certain is that Americans must find a way to become “WE” again – or the future of many Americans will only become worse than it is now. I believe the TOV Center can play an important role in changing that outcome. Jim and I are finishing a book that will explain the TOV Values and Standard in much more detail.

I also envision the TOV Center as a place that provides education and training concerning Suicide Awareness and Prevention, Grief, Loss and Renewal, PTSD debriefing for those who have been through trauma, Life Coaching and Pastoral, Spiritual Counseling, and dealing with all areas of Domestic Violence.

As president of the TOV Center, and someone many of you know personally, I am humbly asking for your financial support by making a generous end of the year donation. We need the seed funds to fund our work in 2015.

For the link to make an Online Donation or our mailing address -- CLICK HERE.

I know we can empower people by making them aware of the core values and standard recorded in the ancient wisdom text that has been passed down from one generation to the next for the past 2,500 years. I also know that helping people who hold life as the highest value and top priority network together are major steps towards changing the things we cannot accept.

Thank you for taking time to read this request for assistance and for your careful consideration.

Choose Life By Doing TOV! 

Rabbi Jeffrey Leynor

The single most common finding about happiness.

People with strong social connections generally have a much better time. We enjoy better physical and mental health, recover faster from sickness or injury, and are less likely to suffer eating or sleeping disorders. We report being happier and rank our quality of life higher – and do so even when the community that we’re connected to isn't particularly well off or educated. 

Indeed, social connectedness is actually more important than affluence: regular social activities such as volunteering, church attendance, entertaining friends, or joining a club provide us with the same boost to happiness as does a doubling of personal income. 

As Harvard’s Robert Putnam notes, “The single most common finding from a half century’s research on the correlates of life satisfaction, not only in the United States but around the world, is that happiness is best predicted by the breadth and depth of one’s social connections.”  (The Impulse Society: America in the Age of Instant Gratification by Paul Roberts © 2014, Bloomsbury, New York, NY; pp. 131-132)

Today is “Giving Tuesday”

Today is “Giving Tuesday,” a new tradition in the holiday season after Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It is a day of giving to support your favorite nonprofit organizations. We hope you'll keep the TOV Center in mind as you give today. Please remember that you might be able to double your gift if your company matches charitable donations. Also, PayPal will add 1% to all donations made today until December 31 by our online PayPal link. To donate click on -- http://tovcenter.org/donate/default.html

Thank you!

Is a healthcare system with “no pay upfront – no surgery” in our future?

What kind of values do you want the people who control our healthcare system to have? Which would you prefer that they value the most – human life or money?  

The article “Health plans lead to more hospital pre-pays” in USA Today makes it clear that a major shift of values is taking place in America today. As you read the article, consider the answers to the following questions:

● Who would want to control the prices?

● Who would want to have limited times for people to enroll and then make it impossible to get insurance during the rest of the year?

● Who would want to make the IRS responsible for collecting premiums?

● Who would want massive amounts of new debt created – and why? More defaults on debts, higher credit scores – higher credit scores higher prices on everything else – more derivatives to add to the more than one quadrillion dollars’ worth that already exist .

● Who do you think would create law that create things like these?

I know certain groups have spent millions to get people to blame the president, but he isn’t the primary beneficiary of the system. If we follow the money, do you think it might possibly lead us to big insurance companies and big banks?

Call a few of your friends and see if that is how they would design our healthcare system? I bet their answers will be “No!” Why? I believe our friends have very different values from the folks who created the mess that exists now.

Have you noticed that all of the focus is on finding ways to pay insurance companies and healthcare providers, who claim their costs are skyrocketing? Don’t you find it interesting that the folks who are supposed to be representing us aren’t focusing on why those costs are sky rocketing? It hasn’t been that many years ago we were being told that our energy costs were skyrocketing because the companies that supplied our local companies kept raising prices. Of course, no one pointed out that the same corporation owned those companies.

Anyway, read the USA Today article and consider the implications of values and their effects on human life -- http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/16/hospitals-doctors-toughen-collection-of-bills/19144677/

Violence, Values & Trust

I recently had a marvelous experience. I was making copies at Office Max for a class I'm teaching. As I was waiting to pay, I noticed large pictures of a WWII torpedo bomber floating in the water near an aircraft carrier on the counter. A very elderly man was standing there with a ball cap that said "28th Torpedo Bomber Squadron." I asked, "Is that you?" He answered "Yep, about 70 years ago. We just came back from a torpedo run against the Japanese fleet. I ran out of fuel and had to ditch my bird." I said," WOW!" I thanked him for his service and told him how much what he and so many others did is appreciated. His big smile was his thanks. He said, "Back then, we had a job to do, and we did it. It's not like now and all this terrible violence."  I responded, "Amen!"

I remember when I was growing up and eating dinners as a family. The TV would be on and the news would list the daily body counts during the Vietnam War. They were just numbers, the dead, the wounded the missing. After a while, they were just numbers, not people to many of those watching the news. Of course, it was a very different situation to those involved and their families. But, all of this violence took place in a war where violence was the only option for the soldiers.

Doing the work that I do -- dealing with homicide, suicide, domestic violence and PTSD -- violence is “the chosen response.” More and more American civilians are “choosing” to respond to adversity and disagreements with acts of violence. What is the problem? We could go back and forth about whether violent video games and movies have numbed the senses. No one has to deal with a problem -- just blow everyone away! I do not and never have played video games. I usually have too much to do. But really, the best “game” I ever play is the one in my mind, which we used to call "imagination." I can go anywhere, be anything and do anything at any time. And it's all on the screen in my mind. My game allows me to consider the outcomes of different choices I am considering. I wonder if video games offer different options – without violence – as possible responses to problems. Nah, that probably would never fly!

Violence is everywhere today.

● I just finished reading about "mobs" of Buddhists in Myanmar. They are attacking the small Muslim minority people called Rohingya who endured killings, extortion and beatings and expulsion from the country.

● Locally, a16 year old boy murdered a 16 year old girl who was a “close friend.”

● Another person was stabbed to death because she wanted her "boyfriend" to move out due to domestic violence.

Maybe this violence is the new normal reaction to not having individual needs gratified immediately. Maybe it is because the perpetrators of violence were never taught about how to act as a mature moral adult who understands that much of this life does not give us what we want and how to cope with disappointment.

When I was in the Seminary, one of my professors said a most profound thing. He said, "There is no freedom, without the discipline of Torah!" We read the Torah every week in synagogues together. We learn how those in the Torah responded to different situations and see them in light of the instructions given in the Torah. We also acquire shared values that we can build community relationships on. Without shared core values, everyone acts as “an individual” and does whatever they want (or have learned to act by watching others) – there is no common ground. First you have chaos in individual lives and then it spreads throughout communities.

The Hebrew word “Torah” means, “instruction and teaching.” The teaching establishes the core shared values. In the Torah, the first values and standard revealed are those the Creator uses to judge His own actions – we call them TOV Values & the TOV Standard. This allows us to measure our actions, as well as the actions of others, by a common standard that holds the protection and preservation of human life as its highest value.

Chances increase tremendously among those who hold core TOV Values that their response to adversity and disagreement will not be violence. You see, there is something that happens when individuals who hold TOV Values get to know each other – they learn to trust. Something that is being left out of the discussions on violence is the massive loss of trust in our world. The Torah teaches that it is our individual and collective responsibility to “repair our world.” It requires trust – we must learn to trust ourselves and each other. This leads to SHALOM – peace, totality, and wholeness in our world.

Tomorrow is Veteran’s Day and it is important to remember the men and women who have served in the military. Many experienced the violence of war. We want to thank them for their service and commitment.

Choose Life by Doing TOV!

Rabbi Jeffrey Leynor

“My Higher Power”

I'm responding to a question on the TOV Center Blog about why I placed the term “Higher Power” in parenthesis in an earlier blog. I am a rabbi, counselor and police chaplain. I work with all kinds of people from many different backgrounds, cultures, religions with different beliefs about God, as well as some with no concept of any "Higher Power." During my years working in hospice as a bereavement counselor/chaplain, I came into contact with a number of people and families with different or no spiritual/religious beliefs. I needed to find a way of bringing them comfort, healing and peace as life was coming to an end. 

When I became a police chaplain, one of the helpful things they taught me is that when we respond to a call, we leave our BS (belief system and the other kind too) at the door! In my counselling with people in hospice, one of things I did was develop a Personal (and Spiritual) Empowerment Assessment Survey which asked questions that gave me a context and a way to meet them where they were, so that they would be able to achieve some comfort, relief from fear, reconciliation and peace. I'm a "communitarian". I live in a community with others and I never assume. I wait and listen and learn where those who need my help are.

If perception is reality, the terms I use to describe "My Higher Power" could be completely different from those others use to describe "Their Higher Power," walls could go up that would prevent me from being able to help them. If I have been sent to someone’s home in the middle of the night to inform them that their loved one has died, that is not the time to erect a theological wall.

Something I learned in my studies of the Hebrew text of my Bible is that the first creation account in Genesis begins with a mystery – the mystery of the ELOHIYM (the words translated “God” in most Bibles). If you want to get technical, ELOHIYM should be translated “god,” not “God.” The name of the being that created the Heavens and the Earth was not “God.” The ELOHIYM isn’t named! Nothing is revealed about that entity. Mystery is an essential part of the Hebrew Bible and life!

I believe “My Higher Power” cares about everyone, not just people who share my beliefs about “My Higher Power.” So, that’s why I choose to use this term. I know that If you sat 10 Christians in a room and asked them to define GOD or even what being a Christian is, their answers would not all be the same. And, if you sat 10 Jews in a room and asked them those same questions, there would probably be endless opinions and forget about agreement about anything!

Studying the Bible and discussing its ancient words, concepts and ideas is something I enjoy very much. But, holding the hand of a person that is about to take their last breath or that has just discovered they have lost someone they loved very much is something very different. Some people have been momentarily confused when they first hear that I am a rabbi, but it doesn't take them very long to know that I really care about them and want to help them face the uncertainty and confusion they are experiencing. So, that’s why I often use the phrase “Higher Power” or “My Higher Power.” But, if you come and study the biblical text with me – that’s another matter!

Choose Life, Do TOV & walk humbly with “Your Higher Power” (whatever that might or might not be!)

Rabbi Jeffrey Leynor