Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Monday, September 16, 2013
Schedule midterm through end of semester
USHIS, Schedule of Activities & Assignments: Midterm through Final
Exam
October 21
The Civil War & Reconstruction
DUE: EV Chapters 14, 15 & 16 – read the
sections that pique your interest… spend no more than 2 hours reading
October 23
The West
DUE: EV Chapter 17
October 25
Industrial America
DUE: EV Chapter 18
~~~~~~~~~~
October 28
Immigration & the lives of immigrants
DUE: EV Chapter 19
October 30
Progressive Era
DUE: EV Chapter 21
November 1
Writing Workshop for Research Project
DUE: TBA
~~~~~~~~~~
November 4
War & change
DUE: EV Chapter 23
November 6
War & Depression
DUE: EV Chapter 24
November 8
America Post WWII
DUE: WW Chapter 27
~~~~~~~~~~
November 11
The 60s and Civil Rights Movement
DUE: EV Chapter 28
November 13
Primary sources of the Civil Rights Era
DUE: Primary source reading posted to website
November 15
Primary sources of the Civil Rights Era
DUE: Primary source reading posted to website
~~~~~~~~~~
November 18
A time of upheaval
DUE: EV Chapter 29
November 20
Conservative politics in America
DUE: EV Chapter 30
November 22
Perceptions of the US from abroad
DUE: Bring and be
prepared to discuss an article about perceptions of the US held by people of
other nations at the end of the 20th or early 21st
century. Alternatively, you may have a conversation with someone who is from
another nation on the same subject.
~~~~~~~~~~
November 25
Research project presentations
DUE: Research Project
November 27
Semester review and preparation for the Final Exam
DUE: Review all notes and readings
November 29 – Thanksgiving Holiday
~~~~~~~~~~
December 2
Research project presentations
December 4
Final Exam
December 6
The Present
DUE: EV Chapter 31
Sunday, September 15, 2013
1 & 99 % graphed
Link:
http://americainthe21stc.blogspot.com/2011/10/so-what-about-that-99-cbos-tables-dont.html
Reposted:
So what about that 99%? The CBO's tables don't distinguish between the 1% and "the rest." It is simple, however, to create a new column in the table to represent that category.
At the bottom of this post is the CBO data for Average Pretax Household Income in 2007 Dollars and Average After-Tax Household Income in 2007 Dollars. A new column is added on the right for the "Bottom 99%." This figure is calculated by multiplying the Average Income for all American Households by 100 to get the Total Income for all American Households, then subtracting the Income for the top 1% to get the Total Income for the Bottom 99% of American Households, then dividing the result by 99 to get the Average Income for the Bottom 99% of American Households. Again, if your eyes are bugging, here's a chart.
The average pretax income for the bottom 99% of American Households in 2007 was $78,051. That's nothing to sneeze at, but it's certainly not excessive. Most people can relate to a figure like that. It's a figure attainable through hard work and ethical standards of conduct. It's a figure you can send your kids to college on. It's a figure that can sustain a modest retirement fund.
After paying Uncle Sam, that same household had $63,841 left over. That household's tax burden was 18% of household income in 2007, down from 21% in 1979. Again, the bottom 99% might feel fortunate that its tax burden went down by 3% during this period, but recall that the tax burden for the top 1% went down by 7% during the same period. In other words, while its income was soaring, the tax burden for the top 1% went down two and a third times more steeply than the tax burden for the bottom 99%, whose income trend remained relatively flat.
How flat is that income trendline for the 99%? Flat enough you could sail a boat on it... a boat that's going through some choppy water at the moment and when you do the math it looks like we really are - all 99% of us - in that boat together.
http://americainthe21stc.blogspot.com/2011/10/so-what-about-that-99-cbos-tables-dont.html
Reposted:
So what about that 99%? The CBO's tables don't distinguish between the 1% and "the rest." It is simple, however, to create a new column in the table to represent that category.
At the bottom of this post is the CBO data for Average Pretax Household Income in 2007 Dollars and Average After-Tax Household Income in 2007 Dollars. A new column is added on the right for the "Bottom 99%." This figure is calculated by multiplying the Average Income for all American Households by 100 to get the Total Income for all American Households, then subtracting the Income for the top 1% to get the Total Income for the Bottom 99% of American Households, then dividing the result by 99 to get the Average Income for the Bottom 99% of American Households. Again, if your eyes are bugging, here's a chart.
The average pretax income for the bottom 99% of American Households in 2007 was $78,051. That's nothing to sneeze at, but it's certainly not excessive. Most people can relate to a figure like that. It's a figure attainable through hard work and ethical standards of conduct. It's a figure you can send your kids to college on. It's a figure that can sustain a modest retirement fund.
After paying Uncle Sam, that same household had $63,841 left over. That household's tax burden was 18% of household income in 2007, down from 21% in 1979. Again, the bottom 99% might feel fortunate that its tax burden went down by 3% during this period, but recall that the tax burden for the top 1% went down by 7% during the same period. In other words, while its income was soaring, the tax burden for the top 1% went down two and a third times more steeply than the tax burden for the bottom 99%, whose income trend remained relatively flat.
How flat is that income trendline for the 99%? Flat enough you could sail a boat on it... a boat that's going through some choppy water at the moment and when you do the math it looks like we really are - all 99% of us - in that boat together.
The 1% & the 99%
Original Link:
http://americainthe21stc.blogspot.com/2011/10/where-did-this-division-between-1-and.html
Reposted:
http://americainthe21stc.blogspot.com/2011/10/where-did-this-division-between-1-and.html
Reposted:
Where did this division between the 1% and the 99% come from, anyway? Turns out it originates from our government itself. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a governmental agency charged with providing "objective, nonpartisan, and timely" economic analyses to Congress. It is staffed primarily by economists and public policy analysts, about 75% of whom have advanced degrees in their fields. This and other information about the CBO can be found on its website at www.cbo.gov.
The CBO tracks a variety of economic trends over time and presents the data in tabulated and report format for anyone to ponder. You don't even have to be a citizen of the United States to have access to this vast collection of economic and social data. For the purposes of dividing household income and tax information into meaningful categories, the CBO divides all American households into quintiles, or fifths, and then further divides the top quintile (i.e. the top 20%) into the top 10%, the top 5% and, you guessed it, the top 1%.
In its 2010 collection of tables, located at http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2010/all_tables.pdf, the CBO presents a summary of Average Pretax Household Income from 1979 to 2007 in 2007 Dollars. While the average pretax household income for all American households went from $63,400 to $96,000 during this period, an increase of 51%, the average pretax household income for the top 1% of American households went from $550,000 to $1,873,000 during the same period, an increase of 240%. In other words, although everyone's income increased to some degree, the income of the top 1% increased much more steeply.
If your eyeballs are twitching from reading too many numbers, these graphs presented by Forbescolumnist E.D. Kain in America's Vanishing Middle Class, and originally appearing in Dave Gilson and Carolyn Perot's article It's the Inequality, Stupid: Eleven charts that explain what's wrong with America in the March/April 2011 issue of Mother Jones, provide an elegant visual. Income trends for 80% of America's families are virtually flat. Even the top 20%, taken as a whole, shows only a modest increase, something most Americans can easily stomach... the potential for prosperity is, after all, one element of the American Dream. What's harder to stomach is the trendline for the top 1%, which is so out of balance with the rest that it skews the scale.
The graph on the right shows the same numbers in terms of shares of the pie... the top 1% got massively bigger pieces of the pie during this period, while the bottom 80% saw their slices decrease in size.
At the same time, the balance of the tax burden as a percentage of household income also shifted. The average tax burden for all American households went from 22% in 1979 to 20% in 2007, an overall decrease of 2%. Sounds great - all Americans are paying less in tax as a percentage of their household income. But the tax burden for the top 1% went from 37% to 30% during the same period, an overall decrease of 7%. In other words, the tax burden on the top 1% decreased three and a half times more steeply than the tax burden on the average Joe. Not only are the so-called super-rich taking a greater share of the pie, they're getting better at keeping every crumb they can. The average American household, on the other hand, continues to contribute its fair share of crumbs to the common good. That's what pisses people off.
The CBO's numbers don't distinguish between the 1% and the 99%. Does that mean the Occupy protesters should really be chanting "We are the 80%"? That just doesn't have the same ring to it... stay tuned.
The CBO tracks a variety of economic trends over time and presents the data in tabulated and report format for anyone to ponder. You don't even have to be a citizen of the United States to have access to this vast collection of economic and social data. For the purposes of dividing household income and tax information into meaningful categories, the CBO divides all American households into quintiles, or fifths, and then further divides the top quintile (i.e. the top 20%) into the top 10%, the top 5% and, you guessed it, the top 1%.
In its 2010 collection of tables, located at http://www.cbo.gov/publications/collections/tax/2010/all_tables.pdf, the CBO presents a summary of Average Pretax Household Income from 1979 to 2007 in 2007 Dollars. While the average pretax household income for all American households went from $63,400 to $96,000 during this period, an increase of 51%, the average pretax household income for the top 1% of American households went from $550,000 to $1,873,000 during the same period, an increase of 240%. In other words, although everyone's income increased to some degree, the income of the top 1% increased much more steeply.
If your eyeballs are twitching from reading too many numbers, these graphs presented by Forbescolumnist E.D. Kain in America's Vanishing Middle Class, and originally appearing in Dave Gilson and Carolyn Perot's article It's the Inequality, Stupid: Eleven charts that explain what's wrong with America in the March/April 2011 issue of Mother Jones, provide an elegant visual. Income trends for 80% of America's families are virtually flat. Even the top 20%, taken as a whole, shows only a modest increase, something most Americans can easily stomach... the potential for prosperity is, after all, one element of the American Dream. What's harder to stomach is the trendline for the top 1%, which is so out of balance with the rest that it skews the scale.
The graph on the right shows the same numbers in terms of shares of the pie... the top 1% got massively bigger pieces of the pie during this period, while the bottom 80% saw their slices decrease in size.
At the same time, the balance of the tax burden as a percentage of household income also shifted. The average tax burden for all American households went from 22% in 1979 to 20% in 2007, an overall decrease of 2%. Sounds great - all Americans are paying less in tax as a percentage of their household income. But the tax burden for the top 1% went from 37% to 30% during the same period, an overall decrease of 7%. In other words, the tax burden on the top 1% decreased three and a half times more steeply than the tax burden on the average Joe. Not only are the so-called super-rich taking a greater share of the pie, they're getting better at keeping every crumb they can. The average American household, on the other hand, continues to contribute its fair share of crumbs to the common good. That's what pisses people off.
The CBO's numbers don't distinguish between the 1% and the 99%. Does that mean the Occupy protesters should really be chanting "We are the 80%"? That just doesn't have the same ring to it... stay tuned.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Schedule Weeks 4-8
US History for International Students / Andrews – Fall 2013
Schedule of Activities & Assignments for Weeks 4-8
September 16
Primary sources from the American Enlightenment
DUE: Quotes by Thomas Payne, Common Sense
and Book II. Of Laws
Directly Derived from the Nature of Government, from Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws
September 18
A new nation is formed.
DUE: EV Chapter 6
September 20
US Founding documents
DUE: Declaration of Independence (in EV Appendix),
and the US Constitution
~~~~~~~~~~
September 23
First decades; sections assigned for Wednesday
DUE: EV Chapter 7
September 25
Student-led discussions
DUE: EV Chapter 8
(choose, read & present one of the 4 sections)
September 27
Expansion and change
DUE: EV Chapter 9
~~~~~~~~~~
September 30
Democratic politics, religious revival and reform
DUE: EV Chapter 10 (Monday Group only)
October 2
Technology, culture and everyday life
DUE: EV Chapter 11 (Wednesday Group only)
October 4
The Old South and slavery
DUE: EV Chapter 12 (Friday Group only)
~~~~~~~~~~
October 7
Workshop for analytical paper
DUE: Federalist
Papers #10, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp
October 9
Immigration
DUE: EV Chapter 13
October 11
Review session for Midterm Exam
DUE: Analytical paper
~~~~~~~~~~
October 14
Midterm Exam – written portion
October 16
Midterm Exam – non-written portion
October 18 – Midterm Break
~~~~~~~~~~
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Also not required reading...
And... this article asks a very good question. Why do we not have more serious films on this subject, and why did it take a Brit to produce this one?
http://movies.yahoo.com/news/toronto-12-years-slave-leaves-another-festival-audience-071244309.html
http://movies.yahoo.com/news/toronto-12-years-slave-leaves-another-festival-audience-071244309.html
White Nationalist aims to...
Not required reading but related to our discussion of the contemporary response some still have to fear of "losing" the founding Anglo-European character of the United States.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/07/us/north-dakota-white-only-town/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/07/us/north-dakota-white-only-town/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
Monday, September 2, 2013
Schedule, Weeks 1 - 3
US History for International Students / Andrews – Fall 2013
Schedule of Activities & Assignments
August 28
Introductions. Syllabus. Definitions. FAQ. Before there were
people…
August 30
First peoples.
DUE: EV Chapter 1
~~~~~~~~~~
September 2
Labor Day Holiday
September 4
The Atlantic world.
DUE: EV Chapter 2
September 6
Early colonial societies
DUE: EV Chapter 3
~~~~~~~~~~
September 9
The experience of slavery and the early formation of African
American identity
DUE: Read and prepare to orally interpret one of
the oral history accounts of slavery found at the following location:
September 11
The bonds of empire; Enlightenment ideals
DUE: EV Chapter 4
September 13
Toward revolution
DUE: EV Chapter 5
~~~~~~~~~~
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