Matthew Johnson for the Urban Institute: Human trafficking generates a lot of media coverage in the United States, but that reporting often focuses on sex trafficking.
Grabbing fewer headlines is the insidious and destructive practice of labor trafficking, whose victims are lied to and surreptitiously, sometimes violently, forced to work for little or no money.
It can happen anywhere. Indoors or outdoors; behind lock and key or out in the open; in rural or urban settings; and within relationships involving employers, employees and subcontractors.
But labor trafficking is often misunderstood, making it hard for authorities, law enforcement and everyday people to recognize it, even when it’s right in front of them.
A new Urban Institute–Northeastern University study, the first of its kind, comprehensively analyzes the state of labor trafficking in the United States. Researchers investigated 122 closed labor trafficking cases that took place across a wide array of industries, in four different regions, and conducted 28 subsequent interviews with survivors of labor trafficking.
In most of the cases of labor trafficking reviewed, the deception began with a recruiter and was quickly followed by coercive tactics that aimed to extract expensive fees from the victim and move them into the United States for further exploitation and abuse.
BUTTERFLIES IN DANGER FROM THE ONES WHO LOVE THEM
Angela Logomasini for the Competitive Enterprise Institute: Conservationists rightly point out that monarch butterflies face challenges associated with habitat loss because there are not enough of the type of plants that they need for food and reproduction. In particular, these creatures feed and reproduce among milkweed, a flower that many people consider to be nothing more than an undesirable weed. As a result, farmers, homeowners and other property owners have removed these plants, leaving less habitat for the butterflies.
Part of the solution is rather simple: educate people about the value of this plant. If we can transform what people think about it, we might just get more individuals to plant it rather than pull it up.
A massive educational campaign pushed by environmental groups, which collectively have tens of millions of dollars at their disposal, could make the critical difference. Some groups are working this angle, but too many others would rather spend the money to lobby for more government controls on businesses and property owners.
The green lobby’s agenda includes suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to prevent approval of a new herbicide formulation because they say it will enable more destruction of milkweed. They are also calling for the listing of the monarch butterfly under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). It may be counterintuitive, but both actions may actually undermine butterfly habitat and contribute to its demise …
Ironically, policies that reduce agricultural yields — such as pesticide bans — increase pressure to convert more land to agricultural use, leaving less land for wildlife. …
The second policy idea — placing the butterflies on the endangered species list — is even dumber because it will encourage more habitat destruction and deter people who might otherwise voluntarily plant milkweed.
That’s because under the Endangered Species Act, if you have habitat on your property that might help an endangered or threatened species, the government can prevent you from using your land.
FEDS SPEND MORE ON BILLIONAIRES THAN KIDS
Dean Baker for the Center for Economic and Policy Research: It is a popular sport in policy circles to complain that the government spends so much more on seniors that it spends on kids. The gap between spending on seniors and spending on kids comes from taking average Social Security and Medicare benefits, along with some other programs, and showing that is vastly exceeds what we spend on kids…
The problem with this calculation is that seniors have paid for Social Security and Medicare benefits through the payroll taxes taken out of their paycheck over their working lifetime. …
Anyhow, since the fashion is to ignore that seniors paid into Social Security and Medicare, we can play the same game with the rich. The total wealth of the Forbes 400 comes to just under $2.3 trillion, or roughly 3.0 percent of total national wealth. If we assume that the Forbes 400 have divided their wealth in the same proportion as the rest of the country, it would mean that they own roughly 3.0 percent of the government debt.
The federal government is projected to pay $231 billion in interest in 2014. The Forbes 400 share of this interest would come to $6.9 billion. That translates into $17.3 million for each of the richest families in the country.
[Compare] the $17.3 million that we spend on the Forbes 400 with the $4,894 that we spend on the average child. What sort of country has this sort of imbalance between what it spends on its richest people compared to what it spends on its kids?
