Patriarchy – Fiscal Sis

The False Equivalency Calculation

fiscalsis — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 00:56:43 +0000

In truth, it is less of a calculation and more like a smoke screen that far too many people have been willing to destroy their lungs by breathing in.

Okay, I promised myself that I would not travel down this rabbit hole again, especially since I’ve spent the better part of the past week cathartically expressing anger and disappointment on social media and my other blog(s). So, I suppose all I will say is that I’m exhausted and wash my hands of the “it-really-wasn’t-that-many, not-all-Trump-Supporters, it-is-better-to-censure-than-impeach, well-what-about-this-summer,” crowd.

This “let’s move on” attitude is also clearly evident in the American business sphere as companies are (finally) distancing themselves from last Wednesday’s terrorist violence and by extension, President Trump. But explained by former Goldman Sachs CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, even though industry captains were upwind, not everyone dismissed the rot in Demark:

“For Wall Street, it was lower taxes, less regulation. He was delivering what ‘we’ wanted. We put a clothespin on our nose. We weren’t ignorant of the kind of risks we were taking. We [just] repressed them.”

And unfortunately, despite what they knew to be true, few private business leaders publicly expressed any sort of criticism or crisis of conscience until the inevitable writing was already scrawled across the bloody wall. For instance, Although having had years of service violations from which to choose, social media companies decided that at the eleventh hour, suspending the President from their platforms permanently was the righteous and responsible move.

Now in fairness, for as limp and late as I found these responses to be, when a sitting President of the United States incites terrorists to commit riotous criminality, preempting future attempts to amplify more calls for violence would seem like a no brainer (here’s looking at you Mitch McConnell). Which was why; when angry, 280-character typing micro-bloggers took their talents to Parler to further perpetuate the President’s treasonous message (only for the site to be cut-off from Amazon’s Web Service) it was shocking to hear CEO John Matze describe it as a “coordinated attack by the tech giants to kill competition in the marketplace.”

Because apparently, alleging that the parrying and thrusting that so many social media companies have done this week to thwart further acts of domestic terrorism is as egregious as the actual killing of the five people overrode by the deadliness of apathy and white supremacy in this country.

Y’all, I can’t.

The Wealth Gap Hangover: Redlining

fiscalsis — Mon, 10 Aug 2020 02:53:17 +0000

In this current climate of advocacy, social unrest and outcries for reform around systemic practices specially designed to advance select members of society while exploiting others, more and more people have become willing to acknowledge (and begin the work of dismantling) the types of systems created during this country’s founding—and maintained in the hundreds of years beyond that—in an effort to finally come to terms with the very real disparities that exists between dominant culture (the America that is decidedly white) and minority culture (the America whose black and brown children have enjoyed citizenship primarily in name only).

One such practice (though now illegal) that many people have been refocusing on lately due to its devastating effects in furthering the wealth gap in an already disparate society is the practice of redlining. During the 1930’s, the United States Government (through a former agency known as the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation), worked with real estate agents and lending institutions to create maps of large cities with high concentrations of residents of color to identify neighborhoods that they deemed more likely to default on home loans. These maps also indicated desirable neighborhoods where loans would be more likely to be approved.

As the name suggests, these maps were then marked up with red ink, effectively labeling areas around many of the nation’s largest metropolises that essentially prevented people of color from obtaining loans to buy homes in certain (read: white) neighborhoods.

Think about that…

As a legal, commonplace, best practice, the United States Government backed an exercise that allowed financial institutions and real estate agencies to make certain areas around the country geographically off-limits for minorities to not only live in, but to establish the very American Dream of home ownership. Now, although the practice was banned thanks in part to the 1968 Fair Housing Act, it is believed that redlining further expanded the chasm of wealth disparity between whites and people of color.

How, you might ask?

Well, for most people, home ownership has been the fastest way to build wealth in America. Real Estate for the most part is an appreciable asset that builds equity over time. Many have used that equity to pay for a child’s college education or to fund a business endeavor. In Estate Planning, a home is a safety net for a family that often becomes an investment into their future. For many black and brown communities across the United States between the 1930’s to almost the 1970’s, it is believed that at least $200K in personal wealth per household was deemed unattainable due to redlining.

It would seem that in playing an active part in discriminating against American citizens and significantly and adversely impacting the likelihood of those citizens achieving financial freedom through home ownership, the U.S. Government would have worked to stridently implement some sort of corrective measure to rectify such malicious financial wrongs, wouldn’t it? Sadly, aside from determinations under the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 where lenders are rated outstanding, satisfactory, needs improvement or substantial noncompliance when approving or denying loans to people (in low-income households), I’d say much is still left to be desired (I mean, how can we forget the predatory lending and subprime mortgage crisis that lead to the 2008 Great Recession).

In actuality, this realization coupled with the ramifications of other restrictive regulations and open acts of historic racial injustices levied against this nation’s minority population for no other reason than the color of their skin, has made it more and more evident that rectifying these racial and financial disparities has to begin with sweeping, corrective and fair legislation. Until there are politicians in office who acknowledge and are willing to help legislate change for the many socioeconomic conditions that have plagued people of color for hundreds of years, gaps like this one will continue to broaden and practices like redlining may find a subtle, and more nuanced resurgence.

Why Can’t Women Have It All?

fiscalsis — Sun, 30 Sep 2018 01:37:25 +0000

In today’s patriarchal society, the world just can’t help but to put constraints on women. If she is an executive, she likely has no time for a family. If she is a nurturer, how can she ever hope to be an ardent and effective businesswoman?

And don’t get me started on money. Aside from the fact that she makes 80% of what her male counterpart does who performs a comparable job, the financial services industry would have her to believe that women are too risk-averse to even benefit from investing their hard-earned money the same way that men do.

But aside from the naysayers and deliberate detractors, there is a much better question to ask and it isn’t why women can’t have it all, but instead where do we start? I would contend that we begin by first knowing what we want and making a specific plan to obtain it. We should be continually asking ourselves if and how close we are to meeting those goals, and if we aren’t, what we can do to right our proverbial ships.

That same world that would have women to believe that we cannot have every single thing that we desire, is actually a world that is ours for the taking!