"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes
me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations
have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow,
and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by
working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated
in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
-- Abraham Lincoln
Isn’t inequality merely the price of America being No. 1?
... That’s almost certainly false... Prior to about 20 years ago, most economists
thought that inequality greased the wheels of progress.
Wealth
Inequality in America Overwhelmingly now, people who study it empirically
think that it’s sand in the wheels. ... Inequality breeds conflict,
and conflict breeds wasted resources”
Imagine if the people of the Soviet Union had never heard of communism. The
ideology that dominates our lives has, for most of us, no name. Mention it in
conversation and you'll be rewarded with a shrug. Even if your listeners have
heard the term before, they will struggle to define it. Neoliberalism: do you
know what it is?
Its anonymity is both a symptom and cause of its power. It has played a major
role in a remarkable variety of crises: the financial meltdown of 2007‑8, the offshoring
of wealth and power, of which the
Panama
Papers offer us merely a glimpse, the slow collapse of public health and education,
resurgent child poverty,
the epidemic of loneliness , the collapse of ecosystems, rejection of the current
neoliberal elite by majority of American people and the rise of candidates like
Donald Trump . But we respond to these developments as if they emerge in isolation,
apparently unaware that they have all been either catalyzed or exacerbated by the
same coherent philosophy; a philosophy that has – or had – a name. What greater
power can there be than to operate namelessly?
One of the key property of neoliberalism is that it recasts inequality as virtuous. The market ensures that everyone gets what
they deserve. If you deserve to die, so be it. Of course. that
does not apply to the financial oligarchy which is above the law and remains unpunished
even for very serious crimes. This fate is reserved for bottom 99% of population.
One of the key property of neoliberalism is that it recasts inequality as virtuous. The market ensures that everyone
gets what they deserve. If you deserve to die, so be it. Of course. that does not apply to the financial oligarchy which is
above the law and remains unpunished even for very serious crimes.
Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations, In other words
neoliberal economic model uses "unable to compete in the labor market" label for poor
people in the same way Nazi used concept of
Untermensch
for Slavic people.
That also mean that for those outside top 20% of population the destiny is brutal exploitation not
that different then in slave societies. It victimizes and artfully creates complex
of inferiority among poor people trying to brainwash that they themselves are
guilty in their status and that their children do not deserve better. This is why
subsidies for colleges are cut. Unfortunately now even lower middle class is coming
under tremendous pressure and essentially is moved into poverty. Disappearance of
well-paid middle class "white collar" jobs such as IT jobs and recently oil sector
jobs and conversion of many jobs to temp or to outsourcing/off-shoring model
is a fact that can't be denied. Rise in inequality in the USA for that last twenty
years of neoliberalism domination is simply dramatic and medial income per family
actually dropped.
Everything is moving in the direction of a pretty brutal joke: poor
Americans just got a new slave-owners. And now slaves are not distinguished by the color of
their skin.
The economic status of Wal Mart employees (as well as employees of
many other retailers, who are predominantly women) are not that different from slaves. In "rich" states like
NY and NJ Wal-Mart cashiers are paid around $9 an hour. That's around $18K a year if you can get
40hours a week (big if), You can't survive on those money
living alone and renting an apartment. Two people might be able to survive if they share the
apartment costs. And forget about that if you have a child (aka "single mothers" as a
new face of the US poverty). You can survive
only with additional social programs like food stamps. In other words the federal
state subsidizes Wal-Mart, increasing their revenue at taxpayers expense.
Piketty thinks a rentier society (which is another definition of neoliberal society)
contradicts the meritocratic worldview of democratic societies and is toxic for
democracy as it enforces "one dollar one vote" election process (corporation buy
politicians; ordinary people just legitimize with their votes pre-selected by elite
candidates, see
Two Party
System as Polyarchy):
“…no ineluctable force standing in the way to extreme concentration
of wealth…if growth slows and the return on capital increases [as] tax competition
between nations heats up…Our democratic societies rest on a meritocratic worldview,
or at any rate, a meritocratic hope, by which I mean a belief in a society
in which inequality is based more on merit and effort than on kinship and rents.
This belief and hope play a very crucial role in modern society, for a simple
reason: in a democracy the professed equality of rights of all citizens contrasts
sharply with the very real inequality of living conditions, and in order to
overcome this contradiction it is vital to make sure that social inequalities
derive from ration and universal principles rather than arbitrary contingencies.
Inequalities must therefore be just and useful to all, at least in the realm
of discourse and as far as possible in reality as well…Durkheim predicted that
modern democratic society would not put for long with the existence of inherited
wealth and would ultimately see to it that the ownership of property ended at
death.” p. 422
A neo-liberal point discussed in Raymond Plant's book on neo-liberalism is that
if a fortune has been made through no injustice, then it is OK. So we should not
condemn the resulting distribution of wealth, as fantastically concentrated as it
may be. That that's not true, as such cases always involve some level of injustice,
if only by exploiting some loophole in the current laws. Piketty is correct that
to the extent that citizens understood the nature of a rentier society they would
rise in opposition to it. The astronomical pay of "super-managers" cannot be justified
in meritocratic terms. CEO's can capture boards and force their incentive to grow
faster then company profits. Manipulations with shares buyback are used to
meet "targets". So neoliberal extreme is definitely bad.
At the same time we now know the equality if not achievable and communism was
a pipe dream that actually inflicted cruelty on a lot of people in the name of unachievable
utopia. But does this means that inequality, any level of inequality, is OK. It
does not look this way and we can actually argue that extremes meet.
But collapse of the USSR lead to triumph of neoliberalism which is all about
rising inequality. Under neoliberalism the wealthy and their academic servants,
see inequality as a noble outcome. They want to further enrich top 1%, shrink middle
class making it less secure, and impoverish poor. In other words they promote under
the disguise of "free market" Newspeak a type of economy which can be called a
plantation economy. In this type of the economy all the resources and power
are in the hands of a wealthy planter class who then gives preference for easy jobs
and the easy life to their loyal toadies. The wealthy elites like cheap labor. And
it's much easier to dictate their conditions of employment when unemployment is
high. Keynesian economics values the middle class and does not value unemployment
or cheap labor. Neoliberals like a system that rewards them for their loyalty to
the top 1% with an easier life than they otherwise merit. In a meritocracy where
individuals receive public goods and services that allow them to compete on a level
playing field, many neoliberal toadies would be losers who cannot compete.
In a 2005 report to investors three analysts at Citigroup advised that “the
World is dividing into two blocs—the Plutonomy and the rest … In a plutonomy
there is no such animal as “the U.S. consumer” or “the UK consumer", or indeed the
“Russian consumer”.
In other words there are analysts that believe that we are moving to a replay
of Middle Ages on a new, global level, were there are only rich who do the lion
share of the total consumption and poor, who does not matter.
We can also state, that under neoliberal regime the sources
of American economic inequality are largely political. In other words they are the
result of deliberate political decision of the US elite to shape markets in neoliberal
ways, and dismantle New Deal.
Part of this "shaping the markets in neoliberal ways" was corruption of academic
economists. Under neoliberalism most economists are engaged in what John Kenneth
Galbraith called "the economics of innocent fraud." With the important correction
that there is nothing innocent in their activities. Most of them, especially "neoclassical"
economists are prostitutes for financial oligarchy. So their prescription and analysis
as for the reasons of high unemployment should be taken with due skepticism.
We also know that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That
means that existence of aristocracy might not be optimal for society "at large".
But without moderating influence of the existence of the USSR on appetites of the
US elite, they engage is audacious struggle for accumulation as much power and wealth
as possible. In a way that situation matches the situation in 1920th, which was
known to be toxic.
But society slowly but steadily moves in this direction since mid 80th. According
to the official wage statistics for 2012
http://www.ssa.gov , 40% of
the US work force earned less than $20,000, 53% earned less than $30,000, and 73%
earned less than $50,000. The median US wage or salary was $27,519 per year.
The amounts are in current dollars and they are "total" compensation amounts subject
to state and federal income taxes and to Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes.
In other words, the take home pay is less.
In other word the USA is now entered an inequality bubble, the bubble with the
financial oligarchy as new aristocracy, which strives for absolute control of all
layers of the government. The corruption has a systemic character. It take not only
traditional form of the intermarriage between Wall street and DC power brokers (aka
revolving doors). It also create a caste of guard labor to protect oligarchy.
As George H.W. Bush once said (can't find exact quote): Neoliberalism is about redistribution of wealth into fewer, higher and tighter hands.
Until approximately 2008 the increasing disparity between rich and poor has, largely been non-disruptive in the USA because
the lower 90% have been placated enough, by way of the proverbial bread and circuses, not to cause any waves. Sure, there
have been little movements here and there, such as Occupy Wall Street, but they were quickly crashed by enormous national security
state intelligence agencies.
But just imagine another financial crisis and its consequences
The public mindset might quickly turn against the neoliberal "The New Class" -- neoliberal
nomenklatura. Even under Trump with his fake promises social tension had risen significantly
because:
Hundreds of thousands of jobs are being cut;
The press runs more and more stories about how many hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes the
rich have stoned due to 2017 Trump tax cut;
There is a re-news public interest in exposing "privilege" and "access" abuses increases
(presigious universities admissions scandal) ;
For lower 40$ who exist from paycheck to paycheck there is no space to absorb losses if new
financial crisis hit. They have nowhere to go but to the streets.
Can you imagine the backlash against the Neoliberalism in such circumstances? I suspect it might be larger then in 2008 despite the
power of national security state and the fact that the Americans are too dumbed down and drugged to revolt.
As one ZeroHedge commenter put it: "It's not rich against poor. It's FIRE sector parasites vs. earned income hosts."
Some researchers point out that neoliberal world is increasingly characterized
by a three-tiered social structure(net4dem.org):
The first tier is made up of some 30–40% of the population in core (G7)
countries and around 5-10% (the elite) in peripheral countries.
It is those who hold “tenured” employment in the global economy and are able
to maintain, and even expand, their consumption.
The second tier, some 30% in the core and 20–30% in the periphery,
form a growing army of “casualized” workers, who face chronic insecurity in
the conditions of their employment and the absence of any collective insurance
against risks. which previously were offloaded to the welfare state.
The third tier, some 30% of the population in the core capitalist countries,
and some 50% or more in peripheral countries, represents those structurally
excluded from productive activity and completely unprotected neither from
side effects of dismantling of welfare, nor from the cruelty of police state.
They represent the “superfluous” population of global capitalism (see,
inter alia, Hutton, 1995; Hoogvelt, 1997).
This process of stratification and fossilization of "haves" and "haves-not" is
now pretty much established in the USA. The US population can be partitioned into
five distinct classes, or strata:
Lower class (poor) bottom 20%. Those folks have income close to official
poverty line, which varies from state to state. In "expensive states" like NJ
and NY this category ranks much higher then national level, up to 40%. Official
figures from a Census Bureau that state that in 2010 twelve states had poverty
rates above 17%, up from five in 2009, while ten metropolitan areas had poverty
rates over 18%. Texas had the highest poverty rate, at 33.4%, followed by Fresno,
California, at 26.8%.
According to figures published by the Social Security
Administration in October 2011, the median income for American workers in 2010
was $26,364, just slightly above the official poverty level of $22,025
for a family of four. Most single parent families with children fall
into this category. Many single earner families belong to this category too.
The median income figure reflects the fact that salaries of 50% of all workers
are less then $26,364 and gives a much truer picture of the real social
conditions in the United States than the more widely publicized average income,
which was $39,959 in 2010. This figure is considerably higher than median
income because the distribution of income is so unequal—a relative handful of
ultra-high income individuals pulls up the average.
Liquid Asset Poverty Rate is around 43%. This is calculated as
a "percentage of households without sufficient liquid assets to subsist
at the poverty level for three months in the absence of income." In
2009 in USA it is around 43%. Edward Lambert (Economist's
View Video Eichengreen on Dollar Dominance) stated:
He touched upon the importance of liquidity in the financial markets...
but he didn't mention liquidity of households. There is very low household
consumption in China.
There is a liquidity problem in the US households. That affects credit.
and maybe household liquidity makes no difference to a currency being
a safe haven. Still, if liquidity of financial markets is so important,
it should also be important for households.
The liquid asset poverty
rate in the US was 43.1% in 2009. What could it be now considering that
the savings rate is back to below 4%?
"Liquid Asset Poverty Rate... Definition... Percentage of
households without sufficient liquid assets to subsist at the poverty
level for three months in the absence of income."
Lower middle class (60%). Depending on class model used, the middle
class may constitute anywhere from 25% to 66% of households. Typically includes
households with incomes above $46,326 (all households) or $67,348 (dual earners
households) per year. The latter is more realistic. In order for two earners
family to qualify each earner should get approximately $34K a year or more ($17
per hour wage with 40 hours workweek). Per household member income is around
$23.5K
The lower middle class... these are people in technical and lower-level
management positions who work for those in the upper middle class as lower
managers, craftspeople, and the like. They enjoy a reasonably comfortable
standard of living, although it is constantly threatened by taxes and inflation.
Generally, they have a Bachelor's and sometimes Masters college degree.
—Brian K. William, Stacy C. Sawyer and Carl M. Wahlstrom, Marriages,
Families & Intimate Relationships, 2006 (Adapted from Dennis Gilbert
1997; and Joseph Kahl 1993)[4]
Upper
middle class (top 20%). The includes households with incomes above 91K
per year.
Large percentage of those are educated two income families
(when both members of the household have bachelor degree or better). Most
graduates of Ivy League schools belongs to this category.
Important subgroup of upper middle class istop 10% (
millionaires). There was 3.4m millionaires in the USA in 2013, approximately
10% of population. Millionaire households constituted roughly seven
percent of all American households.Half of all millionaire households
in the US are headed by retirees.
There are 12 million people on the planet that had investible assets
of more than $1 million dollars. Collectively, this group controls $46.2
trillion dollars (2012). A quarter of them live in America (3.4m); followed
by almost a sixth in Japan (1.9m) and a twelfth in Germany (over 1m). China
and Great Britain round out the top 5.
Upper class (elite): top 1%. Annual comes (AGI) for this group
exceed $380K per year. Commonly called multimillionaires (net worth two
millions or more). In 2010 controlled at least 25% of total nation income (23.5%
in 2007, 8.9% in 1979) . Top 1% owns more than 90% of combined or 33.8% of
the nation private wealth.
Super rich (top 0.01%, oligarchs, super-elite, or top 1000 families).
A close to this category of super-rich are billionaires. US is home of 425
billionaires, while Russia and China have 95 and 96 correspondingly. The average
worth of the world's billionaires is now $3.5 billion, or $500 million more
than last year.(
Forbes)
To get to the top 400 (Forbes
400 list) in the USA you need 1.3 billion. Top 400 families have
as much wealth as lower half of the US population. The combined
net worth of the Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans in 2007: $1.5 trillion.
The combined net worth of the poorest 50% of American households: $1.6 trillion.
Real number of billionaires in the USA is probably much higher. Billionaires
want to keep a low profile for lots of reasons -- from personal safety concerns
to not wanting financial competitors to know what they're up to.
The youngest billionaire is the founder of the online social networking
site Facebook -- 25-year-old American Mark Zuckerberger, whose net worth
is estimated at $9 billion.
Share of consumption for families outside upper middle class (with income, say,
below $91K per year (80% of US households) is much less then commonly assumed. That
means that in the USA consumer spending are driven by upper class and as such
is pretty much isolated from decline of wages of lower 80% of population.
The median household income in the United States is around $50K.
Weiner's book is more than worth its price simply as an armchair tour of
interesting places and cultures and mores, deftly and briefly described. But
he has a more serious and important point to make. While the social cohesion
that the values of the clan promote is alluring, they are ultimately at odds
with the values of individual autonomy that only the much-maligned modern liberal
state can offer.
Even the state's modern defenders tend to view it, at best, as a necessary
evil. It keeps the peace, upholds (somewhat) international order, and manages
the complexity of modern life in ways that allow individuals to get on with
their journeys of personal fulfillment.
Weiner shows (in too brief but nevertheless eloquent ways) that this
reductive view of the state is insufficient to resist the seductive appeal of
the clan, and that it will be for the worse if we can't find ways to combat
this allure within the legal structures of modern liberalism.
Read alongside James Ault's masterful participant study of fundamentalist
Baptism, Spirit
and Flesh, and draw your own conclusions.
Of course the elite is worried about security of their ill-gotten gains. And
that's partially why the USA need such huge totally militarized police force and
outsize military. Police and military are typical guard labor, that protects private
wealth of the US plutocrats. Add to this equally strong private army of security
contractors.
Other suggested that not only the USA, but the global neoliberal society is deeply
sick with the same disease that the US society expected in 20th (and like previously
with globalism of robber barons age, the triumph of neoliberalism in 1990th was
and is a global phenomenon).
High inequality logically leads to dramatic increase of guard labor and inevitable
conversion of state into National Security State. Which entail total surveillance over the
citizens as a defining factor. Ruling elite is always paranoid, but
neoliberal elite proved to be borderline psychopathic. They do not want merely
security, they want to crush all the resistance.
Butler Shaffer wrote recently that the old state system in the United States
is dying before our very eyes:
A system that insists on controlling others through increasing levels of
systematic violence; that loots the many for the aggrandizement of the few;
that regulates any expressions of human behavior that are not of service to
the rulers; that presumes the power to wage wars against any nation of its choosing,
a principle that got a number of men hanged at the Nuremberg trials; and finally,
criminalizes those who would speak the truth to its victims, has no moral energy
remaining with which to sustain itself.
It is pretty clear that the USA became a society where there is de facto
royalty. In the form of the strata which Roosevelt called "Economic
royalists". Jut look at third generation of Walton family or Rocafeller family.
Remember the degenerative Soviet Politburo, or, for a change, unforgettable dyslexic
President George W Bush ? The painful truth is that in the most unequal nations
including the UK and the US – the intergenerational transmission of income is very
strong (in plain language they have a heredity-based aristocracy). See
Let them eat cake.
In more equal societies such as Denmark, the tendency of privilege to breed privilege
is much lower but also exists and is on the rise. As Roosevelt observed in a similar
situation of 30th:
These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions
of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their
power.
Neoliberalism and
its ideology(Randism)
undermined social cohesion, making society members more hostile to each other and
as such less willing to defend the country in case of real danger.Betrayal
of the country is no longer an unspeakable crime.
The purpose of government should be to foster a "civil society". The slogan of
the "oligarchic right" is "me first", or, as in Paul Ryan's adoration of
Ayn Rand, greed is good. Objectivism became kind of new civic religion,
with the goal of maximizing the wealth of a single individual at the expense of
the civil society is a virtue. And those new social norms (instilled by MSM) allow
the fat cats simply to stole from everybody else without fear of punishment. See
an outburst from Stephen Schwarzman. If there are two societies inside of the
country with bridges burned, the bottom part is less willing to spill blood for
the upper part. And having a contractual army has its own set of dangers, as it
spirals into
high level of militarism (being in war is a new normal for the USA during the
last 30 years or so), which while enriching part of the elite bankrupts the country.
The quality of roads is a testament of this process.
Countervailing mechanisms and forces are destroyed. Plutocrats now can
shape the conversation by buying up newspapers and television channels as well as
funding political campaigns. The mousetrap of high inequality became irreversible
without external shocks. The more unequal our societies become, the more we all
become prisoners of that inequality. The key question is: Has our political system
been so degraded by misinformation and disinformation that it can no longer function
because it lost the touch with reality? The stream of outright falsehoods that MSM
feed the lemmings (aka society members) is clearly politically motivated. But a
side effect (externality) of all that brainwashing efforts is that nobody including
players at the top of the government now understands what's going on. Look at Obama
and Joe Biden.
As the growth of manufacturing base slowed down and return on capital dropped,
the elite wants less government social spending. They wants to end popular government
programs such as Social Security, no matter how much such cuts would cause economic
dislocation and strains in the current social safety net. The claims are that these
programs are "Waste" and could be cut without anyone, but the "moochers" noticing
the effects. They use the economic strain felt by many in the economy to promote
these cuts. They promise that cuts to vital programs will leave more money in the
pockets of the average person. In reality, the increase in money will be marginal,
but the effects on security and loss of "group purchasing power" economy of scale
will make the cuts worse than worthless (Economist's
View Paul Krugman Moment of Truthiness)
The US system of voting (winner take all) leads inexorably to Two party
system. Third parties are only spoilers. Protest votes in the current system
are COUNTERPRODUCTIVE (i.e. they help the evil, not the merely bad). Deliberate
and grotesque gerrymandering further dilutes protest votes.
Again, I would like to stress that rich consumers, few in number, getting the
gigantic slice of income and the most of consumption (that's why the US consumption
was so resilient during two last financial crises). There are the rest, the “non-rich”,
accounting for surprisingly small bites of the national pie.
The question arise "Why we should care?". Most of the readers of this page are
not at the bottom bracket anyway. Many are pretty high up. Here is one possible
answer:
But should we care? There are two reasons we might: process and outcome.
We might worry that the gains of the rich are ill-gotten: the result
of the old-boy network, or fraud, or exploiting the largesse of the taxpayer.
Or we might worry that the results are noxious: misery and envy, or
ill-health, or dysfunctional democracy, or slow growth as the rich sit on
their cash, or excessive debt and thus financial instability.
It is very difficult to understand the real situation with inequality in the
USA today without experiencing long term unemployed.
Or if you forced into job of a WalMart cashier or other low paid employee. Job
that does not provide a living minimum wage. You need to watch this YouTube video
Wealth Inequality
in America to understand the reality.
The video was posted anonymously by someone using the YouTube handle
politizane. It is pretty clear that not only the USA became a society where
there is de facto royalty, economic royalty but also a strata of people completely
deprived. An Outcaste.
And the royalty became recklessly like it should promoting to the top the likes
of recovered alcoholic Bush II or "private equity shark" Romney (and remember who
Romney father was).
In the current circumstances education is no longer the answer to rising inequality.
Instead of serving as a social lift it, at least in some cases, became more of a
social trap. This is connected with neoliberal transformation of education. With
the collapse of post-war public funded educational model and privatization of the
University education students face a pretty cruel world. World in which they are
cows to milk. Now universities became institutions very similar to McDonalds ( or,
in less politically correct terms, Bordellos of Higher Learning). Like McDonalds
they need to price their services so that to receive nice profit and they to make
themselves more attractive to industry they intentionally feed students with overspecialized
curriculum instead of concentrating on fundamentals and the developing the ability
to understand the world. Which was a hallmark of university education of the past.
Since 1970th Neo-Liberal
University model replaced public funded university model (Dewey
model). It is now collapsing as there are not that many students, who are able (and
now with lower job prospects and tale of graduates working as bartender, willing)
to pay infated tuition fees. That means that higher education again by-and-large
became privilege of the rich and upper middle class.
Lower student enrollment first hit minted during dot-com boom expensive private
colleges, who hunt for people with government support (such a former members of
Arm forces). It remains viable only in elite universities, which traditionally serve
the top 1% and rich foreigners. As David Schultz wrote in his article (Logos,
2012):
Yet the Dewey model began to collapse in middle of the 1970s. Perhaps it
was the retrenchment of the SUNY and CUNY systems in New York under Governor
Hugh Carey in 1976 that began the end of the democratic university.What caused its retrenchment was the fiscal crisis of the 1970s.
The fiscal crisis of the 1970s was born of numerous problems. Inflationary
pressures caused by Vietnam and the energy embargoes of the 1970s, and recessionary
forces from relative declines in American economic productivity produced significant
economic shocks, including to the public sector where many state and local governments
edged toward bankruptcy.
Efforts to relieve declining corporate profits and productivity initiated
efforts to restructure the economy, including cutting back on government services.
The response, first in England under Margaret Thatcher and then in the United
States under Ronald Reagan, was an effort to retrench the state by a package
that included decreases in government expenditures for social welfare programs,
cutbacks on business regulations, resistance to labor rights, and tax cuts.
Collectively these proposals are referred to as Neo-liberalism and their
aim was to restore profitability and autonomy to free markets with the belief
that unfettered by the government that would restore productivity.
Neo-liberalism had a major impact on higher education. First beginning
under President Carter and then more so under Ronald Reagan, the federal and
state governments cut taxes and public expenditures. The combination of
the two meant a halt to the Dewey business model as support for public institutions
decreased and federal money dried up.
From a high in the 1960s and early 70s when states and the federal government
provided generous funding to expand their public systems to educate the Baby
Boomers, state universities now receive only a small percentage of their money
from the government. As I pointed out in my 2005 Logos “The Corporate University
in American Society” article in 1991, 74% of the funding for public universities
came from states, in 2004; it was down to 64%, with state systems in Illinois,
Michigan and Virginia down to 25%, 18%, and 8% respectively. Since then, the
percentages have shrunk even more, rendering state universities public
institutions more in name than in funding.
Higher education under Neo-liberalism needed a new business model and it
found it in the corporate university. The corporate university is one
where colleges increasingly use corporate structures and management styles to
run the university. This includes abandoning the American Association
of University Professors (AAUP) shared governance model where faculty had an
equal voice in the running of the school, including over curriculum, selection
of department chairs, deans, and presidents, and determination of many of the
other policies affecting the academy. The corporate university replaced
the shared governance model with one more typical of a business corporation.
For the corporate university, many decisions, including increasingly those
affecting curriculum, are determined by a top-down pyramid style of authority.
University administration often composed not of typical academics but those
with business or corporate backgrounds had pre-empted many of the decisions
faculty used to make. Under a corporate model, the trustees, increasingly
composed of more business leaders than before, select, often with minimal input
from the faculty, the president who, in turn, again with minimal or no faculty
voice, select the deans, department heads, and other administrative personnel.
Neoliberalism professes the idea the personal greed can serve positive society
goals, which is reflected in famous neoliberal slogan "greed is good". And university
presidents listen. Now presidents of neoliberal universities do not want to get
$100K per year salary, they want one, or better several, million dollar salary of
the CEO of major corporation (Student
Debt Grows Faster at Universities With Highest-Paid Leaders, Study Finds - NYTimes.com)
At the 25 public universities with the highest-paid presidents, both student
debt and the use of part-time adjunct faculty grew far faster than at the average
state university from 2005 to 2012, according to a
new study by the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-leaning Washington
research group.
The study, “The One Percent at State U: How University Presidents Profit
from Rising Student Debt and Low-Wage Faculty Labor,” examined the relationship
between executive pay, student debt and low-wage faculty labor at the 25
top-paying public universities.
The co-authors, Andrew Erwin and Marjorie Wood, found that administrative
expenditures at the highest-paying universities outpaced spending on scholarships
by more than two to one. And while adjunct faculty members became more numerous
at the 25 universities, the share of permanent faculty declined drastically.
“The high executive pay obviously isn’t the direct cause of higher student
debt, or cuts in labor spending,” Ms. Wood said. “But if you think about it
in terms of the allocation of resources, it does seem to be the tip of a very
large iceberg, with universities that have top-heavy executive spending also
having more adjuncts, more tuition increases and more administrative spending.”
... ... ...
The Chronicle of Higher Education’s annual
survey of public university presidents’ compensation, also released Sunday,
found that nine chief executives earned more than $1 million in total compensation
in 2012-13, up from four the previous year, and three in 2010-11. The median
total compensation of the 256 presidents in the survey was $478,896, a 5 percent
increase over the previous year.
... ... ...
As in several past years, the highest-compensated president, at $6,057,615
in this period, was E. Gordon Gee, who
resigned from Ohio State last summer amid trustee complaints about frequent
gaffes. He has since become the president of West Virginia University.
This trick requires dramatic raising of tuition costs. University bureaucracy
also got taste for better salaries and all those deans, etc want to be remunerated
like vice presidents. So raising the tuition costs became the key existential idea
of neoliberal university. Not quality of education, but tuition costs now are the
key criteria of success. And if you can charge students $40K per semester it is
very, very good. If does not matter that most population get less then $20 an hour.
The same is true for professors, who proved to be no less corruptible. And some
of them, such as economic departments, simply serve as prostitutes for financial
oligarchy. So they were corrupted even before that rat race for profit. Of course
there are exceptions. But they only prove the rule.
As the result university tuition inflation outpaced inflation by leaps and bounds.
At some point amount that you pay (and the level of debt after graduation) becomes
an important factor in choosing the university. So children of "have" and "have
nots" get into different educational institutions and do not meet each other. In
a way aristocracy returned via back door.
Neoliberal university professes "deep specialization" to create "ready for the
market" graduates. And that creates another problem: education became more like
stock market game and that makes more difficult for you to change you specialization
late in the education cycle. But early choice entail typical stock market problem:
you might miss the peak of the market or worse get into prolonged slump as graduates
in finance learned all too well in 2008. That's why it is important not to accumulate
too much debt: this is a kind of "all in" play in poker. You essentially bet that
in a particular specialty there will be open positions with high salary, when you
graduate. If you lose this bet you are done.
As a result of this "reaction to the market trends" by neoliberal universities,
when universities bacem appendixes of HR of large corporations students need to
be more aware of real university machinery then students in 50th or 60th of the
last century. And first of all assume that it is functioning not to their benefits.
One problem for a student is that there are now way too many variables that you
do not control. Among them:
Will it be a sizable market for graduates for the given specialty in
four years from now (late specialization and attempt to get a job after
bachelor degree might help here; in this case the selection of the master degree
specialization can become more realistic).
What will be the general health of national economy on the moment of
graduation? Remeber about students who graduated in 2008.
The total price of education (and by extension the size of the debt
you get on the day of graduation from the college).
Whether you become a victim of rip offs sponsored by the university administration.
Although this is a slight exaggeration, but the working hypothesis for student
a modern neoliberal university should probably be "This is a hostile environment -- Beware financial ripoffs". That might involve gentle pushing you into
obtaining worthless specialty or other intricate ways to screw you based on
your lack of life experience, poor understanding of academic environment and
natural youth maximalism. Loading you with loans to the max is another dirty
trick. In private universities this is a new art that is polished to perfection
and widely practiced on unsuspecting lemmings.
On the deep level neoliberal university is not interested to help you to find
specialization and place in life where can unleash your talents. You are just a
paying customers much like in McDonalds, and university interests are such they
might try to push you in wrong direction or load you with too much debt.
If there is deep mismatch as was with computer science graduates after crash
of dot-com boom, or simply bad job market due to economy stagnation and
you can't find
the job for your new specialty (or if you got "junk" specialty with inherent
high level of unemployment among professionals) and you have substantial education
debt, then waiting tables or having some other MacJob is a real disaster for you.
As with such selaries you simply can't pay it back. So controlling the level of
debt is very important and in this sence parents financial help is now necessary.
In other words education became more and more "rich kids game".
That does not mean that university education should be avoided for those from
families with modest means. On the contrary it provides unique experience and help
a person to mature in multiple ways difficult to achieve without it. It is still
one of the best ways to get vertical mobility. But unless parents can support you
you need to try to find the most economical way to obtain it without acquiring too
much debt. This is you first university exam. And if you fail it you are in trouble.
For example, computer science education is a great way to learn quite a few things
necessary for a modern life. But the price does matter and prestige of the university
institution that you attend is just one of the factors you should consider in your
evaluation. It should not be the major factor ("vanity fair") unless your parents
are rich and can support you. If you are good you can get later a master degree
in a prestigious university after graduation from a regular college. Or even Ph.D.
County colleges are greatly underappreciated and generally provide pretty high
standard of education, giving ability to students to save money for the first two
years before transferring to a four year college. They also smooth the transition
as finding yourself among people who are only equal or superior then you (and have
access to financial respource that you don't have) is a huge stress. The proverb
say that it is better to be first in the village then last in the town has some
truth in it. Prestigious universities might provide a career boost (high fly companies
usually accept resumes only from Ivy League members), but they cost so much that
you need to be a son or daughter of well-to-do parents to feel comfortably in them.
Or extremely talented. Also amount of career boost that elite universities provide
depends on whom your parents are and what connections they have. It does not depend
solely on you and the university. Again, I would like to stress that you should
resist "vanity fair" approach to your education: a much better way is to try to
obtain BS in a regular university and them try to obtain MS and then, if you are
good, PHD, in a prestigious university. Here is a fragment of an interesting discussion
that covers this topic (Low Mobility Is Not a Social Tragedy?,
Feb 13, 2013 ; I recommend you to read the whole discussion ):
kievite:
I would like to defend Greg Clack.
I think that Greg Clack point is that the number of gifted children is
limited and that exceptionally gifted children have some chance for
upper move in almost all, even the most hierarchical societies (story
of Alexander Hamilton was really fascinating for me, the story of Mikhail
Lomonosov
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Lomonosov was another one -- he
went from the very bottom to the top of Russian aristocracy just on the
strength of his abilities as a scientist). In no way the ability to "hold
its own" (typical for rich families kids) against which many here expressed
some resentment represents social mobility. But the number of kids who went
down is low -- that's actually proves Greg Clack point:
(1) Studies of social mobility using surnames suggest two things.
Social mobility rates are much lower than conventionally estimated.
And social mobility rates estimated in this way vary little across societies
and time periods. Sweden is no more mobile than contemporary England
and the USA, or even than medieval England. Social mobility rates seem
to be independent of social institutions (see the other studies on China,
India, Japan and the USA now linked here).
Francisco Ferreira rejects this interpretation, and restates the
idea that there is a strong link between social mobility rates and inequality
in his interesting post.
What is wrong with the data Ferreira cites? Conventional estimates
of social mobility, which look at just single aspects of social status
such as income, are contaminated by noise. If we measure mobility on
one aspect of status such as income, it will seem rapid.
But this is because income is a very noisy measure of the underlying
status of families. The status of families is a combination of their
education, occupation, income, wealth, health, and residence. They will
often trade off income for some other aspect of status such as occupation.
A child can be as socially successful as a low paid philosophy professor
as a high paid car salesman. Thus if we measure just one aspect of status
such as income we are going to confuse the random fluctuations of income
across generations, influenced by such things as career choices between
business and philosophy, with true generalised social mobility.
If these estimates of social mobility were anywhere near correct
as indicating true underlying rates of social mobility, then we would
not find that the aristocrats of 1700 in Sweden are still overrepresented
in all elite occupations of Sweden. Further, the more equal
is income in a society, the less signal will income give of the true
social status of families. In a society such as Sweden, where the difference
in income between bus drivers and philosophy professors is modest, income
tells us little about the social status of families. It is contaminated
much more by random noise. Thus it will appear if we measure social
status just by income that mobility is much greater in Sweden than in
the USA, because in the USA income is a much better indicator of the
true overall status of families.
The last two paragraphs of Greg Clark article cited by Mark Thoma are
badly written and actually are somewhat disconnected with his line of thinking
as I understand it as well as with the general line of argumentation of
the paper.
Again, I would like to stress that a low intergenerational mobility
includes the ability of kids with silver spoon in their mouth to keep a
status close to their parent. The fact that they a have different starting
point then kids from lower strata of society does not change that.
I think that the key argument that needs testing is that the number of
challengers from lower strata of the society is always pretty low and is
to a large extent accommodated by the societies we know (of course some
societies are better then others).
Actually it would be interesting to look at the social mobility data
of the USSR from this point of view.
But in no way, say, Mark Thoma was a regular kid, although circumstances
for vertical mobility at this time were definitely better then now. He did
possessed some qualities which made possible his upward move although his
choice of economics was probably a mistake ;-).
Whether those qualities were enough in more restrictive environments
we simply don't know, but circumstances for him were difficult enough as
they were.
I stopped reading after that. I teach at a high school in a town with
a real mix of highly elite families, working class families, and poor families,
and I can tell you that the children of affluent parents are not obviously
more gifted than the children of poor families. They do, however, have
a lot more social capital, and they have vastly more success. But the limitations
on being "gifted" are irrelevant.
According to an extensive study (Turkheimer et al., 2003) of 50,000 pregnant
women and the children they went on to have (including enough sets of twins
to be able to study the role of innate genetic differences), variation
in IQ among the affluent seems to be largely genetic.
Among the poor, however, IQ has very little to do with genes -- probably
because the genetic differences are swamped and suppressed by the environmental
differences, as few poor kids are able to develop as fully as they
would in less constrained circumstances.
All you said is true. I completely agree that "...few poor kids are
able to develop as fully as they would in less constrained circumstances."
So there are losses here and we should openly talk about them.
Also it goes without saying that social capital is extremely important
for a child. That's why downward mobility of children from upper classes
is suppressed, despite the fact that some of them are plain vanilla stupid.
But how this disproves the point made that"exceptionally gifted
children have some chance for upper move in almost all, even the most hierarchical
societies"? I think you just jumped the gun...
mrrunangun:
The early boomers benefitted from the happy confluence of the postwar
boom, LBJ's Great Society efforts toward financial assistance for those
seeking to advance their educations, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act which
opened opportunities for marginalized social groups in institutions largely
closed to them under the prewar social customs in the US.
The US Supreme Court is made up of only Jews and Catholics as of this
writing, a circumstance inconceivable in the prewar America. Catholics were
largely relegated to separate and unequal institutions. Jews' opportunities
were limited by quotas and had a separate set of institutions of their own
where their numbers could support such. Where their numbers were not sufficient,
they were often relegated to second rate institutions.
Jewish doctors frequently became the leading men in the Catholic hospitals
in Midwestern industrial towns where they were unwelcome in the towns' main
hospitals. Schools, clubs, hospitals, professional and commercial organizations
often had quota or exclusionary policies. Meritocracy has its drawbacks,
but we've seen worse in living memory.
College textbook publishing became a racket with the growth of neoliberalism.
That means at least since 1980. And it is pretty dirty racket with willing accomplishes
in form of so called professors like Greg Mankiw. For instance, you can find a used
5th edition Mankiw introductory to Microeconomics for under $4.00, while a new 7th
edition costs over $200. An interesting discussion of this problem can be found
at
Thoughts on High-Priced Textbooks'
And it is as isolated as the aristocracies of bygone days, isolation reinforced
by newly minted royalty withdrawal into gated estates, Ivy League Universities,
and private planes.
They are not openly suggesting that no child should rise above the status of
parents, presumably in terms of wealth, education, and opportunity. But their policies
are directed toward this goal. If you are born to poor parents in the USA, all bets
are off -- your success is highly unlikely, and your servile status, if not poverty
is supposedly pre-destined by poor generic material that you got.
This is of course not because the children of the elite inherit the talent, energy,
drive, and resilience to overcome the many obstacles they will face in life from
their parents. Whatever abilities they have (and regression to the mean is applicable
to royalty children too), they are greatly supplemented, of course, by the easy
opportunities, valuable connections, and access to power. That's why the result
of SAT in the USA so strongly correlated with the wealth of parents. And a virtual
freedom from prosecution does not hurt either, in case they have inherited a penchant
for sociopathy, or something worse, along with their many gifts.
The view that the children of the poor will not do well, because they are genetically
inferior became kind of hidden agenda. These are the pesky 99% just deserve to be
cheated and robbed by the elite, because of the inherent superiority of the top
one percent. There is no fraud in the system, only good and bad breeding, natural
predators and prey.
This line of thinking rests on the assumption that I succeed, therefore I am.
And if you do not, well, so be it. You will be low-paid office slave or waiter in
McDonalds with a college diploma as it is necessary for the maximization of profits
of the elite. There is no space at the top for everybody. Enjoy the ride... Here
is an typical expression of such views:
"Many commentators automatically assume that low intergenerational mobility
rates represent a social tragedy. I do not understand this reflexive wailing
and beating of breasts in response to the finding of slow mobility rates.
The fact that the social competence of children is highly predictable once
we know the status of their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents is
not a threat to the American Way of Life and the ideals of the open society
The children of earlier elites will not succeed because they are born with
a silver spoon in their mouth, and an automatic ticket to the Ivy League.
They will succeed because they have inherited the talent, energy, drive,
and resilience to overcome the many obstacles they will face in life. Life is
still a struggle for all who hope to have economic and social success. It is
just that we can predict who will be likely to possess the necessary characteristics
from their ancestry."
Greg Clark, The Economist, 13 Feb. 2013
Mr. Clark is now a professor of economics and was the department chair
until 2013 at the University of California, Davis. His areas of research are
long term economic growth, the wealth of nations, and the economic history of
England and India.
And another one:
"During this time, a growing professional class believed that scientific
progress could be used to cure all social ills, and many educated people accepted
that humans, like all animals, were subject to natural selection.
Darwinian evolution viewed humans as a flawed species that required pruning
to maintain its health. Therefore negative eugenics seemed to offer a rational
solution to certain age-old social problems."
David Micklos, Elof Carlson, Engineering American Society: The Lesson of
Eugenics
If we compare this like of thinking with the thinking of eightieth century and
you will see that the progress is really limited:
“With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that
survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the
other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums
for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our
medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last
moment.
There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who
from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the
weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended
to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious
to the race of man.
It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads
to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself,
hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental
result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of
the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated,
more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, if so
urged by hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature.
The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows
that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally
to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit,
with a certain and great present evil.
Hence we must bear without complaining the undoubtedly bad effects of the
weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least
one check in steady action, namely the weaker and inferior members of society
not marrying so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased,
though this is more to be hoped for than expected, by the weak in body or mind
refraining from marriage.”
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man
So all this screams of MSM about dropping consumer spending is just a smoke screen.
In oligarchic republic which USA represents, consumption is heavily shifted to top
20% and as such is much less dependent of the conditions of the economy. And top
20% can afford $8 per gallon gas (European price) without any problems.
John Barkley Rosser, Jr. With Marina V. Rosser and Ehsan Ahmed, argued
for a two-way positive link between income inequality (economic inequality)
and the size of an underground economy in a nation (Rosser, Rosser, and
Ahmed, 2000).
Globally in 2005, top fifth (20%) of the world accounted for 76.6% of total private
consumption (20:80 Pareto rule). The poorest fifth just 1.5%. I do not think the
USA differs that much from the rest of the world.
There was two famous Citigroup Plutonomy research reports (2005 and 2006) featured
in in Capitalism: A Love Story . Here is how Yves Smith summarized the findings
(in her post
High Income Disparity Leads to Low Savings Rates)
On the one hand, the authors, Ajay Kapur, Niall Macleod, and Narendra Singh
get some credit for addressing a topic surprisingly ignored by mainstream economists.
There have been some noteworthy efforts to measure the increase in concentration
of income and wealth in the US most notably by Thomas Piketty and Edmund Saez.
But while there have been some efforts to dispute their findings (that the rich,
particularly the top 1%, have gotten relatively MUCH richer in the last 20 years),
for the most part discussions of what to make of it (as least in the US) have
rapidly descended into theological debates. One camp laments the fall in economic
mobility (a predictable side effect), the corrosive impact of perceived unfairness,
and the public health costs (even the richest in high income disparity countries
suffer from shortened life spans). The other camp tends to focus on the Darwinian
aspects, that rising income disparity is the result of a vibrant, open economy,
and the higher growth rates that allegedly result will lift help all workers.
Yet as far as I can tell, there has been virtually no discussion of the macroeconomy
effects of rising income and wealth disparities, or to look into what the implications
for investment strategies might be. One interesting effect is that with rising
inequality the share of "guard labor" grows very quickly and that puts an upper
limit on the further growth of inequality (half of the citizens cannot be guards
protecting few billionaires from the other half).
Now the fact that the Citi team asked a worthwhile question does not mean
they came up with a sound answer. In fact, he reports are almost ludicrously
funny in the way they attempt to depict what they call plutonomy as not merely
a tradeable trend (as in leading to some useful investment ideas), but as a
Brave New Economy development. I haven't recalled such Panglossian prose since
the most delirious days of the dot-com bubble:
We will posit that:
1) the world is dividing into two blocs – the plutonomies, where
economic growth is powered by and largely consumed by the wealthy few, and
the rest. Plutonomies have occurred before in sixteenth century
Spain, in seventeenth century Holland, the Gilded Age and the Roaring Twenties
in the U.S.
What are the common drivers of Plutonomy? Disruptive technology-driven
productivity gains, creative financial innovation, capitalist-friendly cooperative
governments, an international dimension of immigrants and overseas conquests
invigorating wealth creation, the rule of law, and patenting inventions.
Often these wealth waves involve great complexity, exploited best by the
rich and educated of the time…..Most “Global Imbalances” (high current account
deficits and low savings rates, high consumer debt levels in the Anglo-Saxon
world, etc) that continue to (unprofitably) preoccupy the world’s intelligentsia
look a lot less threatening when examined through the prism of plutonomy.
The risk premium on equities that might derive from the dyspeptic “global
imbalance” school is unwarranted – the earth is not going to be shaken off
its axis, and sucked into the cosmos by these “imbalances”. The earth
is being held up by the muscular arms of its entrepreneur-plutocrats, like
it, or not..
Yves here. Translation: plutonomy is such a great thing that the entire stock
market would be valued higher if everyone understood it. And the hoops the reports
go through to defend it are impressive. The plutomony countries (the notorious
Anglo-Saxon model, the US, UK, Canada and Australia) even have unusually risk-seeking
populations (and that is a Good Thing):
…a new, rather out-of-the box hypothesis suggests that dopamine differentials
can explain differences in risk-taking between societies. John Mauldin,
the author of “Bulls-Eye Investing” in an email last month cited this work.
The thesis: Dopamine, a pleasure-inducing brain chemical, is linked with
curiosity, adventure, entrepreneurship, and helps drive results in uncertain
environments. Populations generally have about 2% of their members with
high enough dopamine levels with the curiosity to emigrate. Ergo, immigrant
nations like the U.S. and Canada, and increasingly the UK, have high dopamine-intensity
populations.
Yves here. What happened to “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses
yearning to breathe free/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore”? Were the
Puritans a high dopamine population? Doubtful. How about the Irish emigration
to the US, which peaked during its great famine?
Despite a good deal of romanticization standing in for analysis, the report
does have one intriguing, and well documented finding: that the plutonomies
have low savings rates. Consider an fictional pep rally chant:
We’re from Greenwich
We’re invincible
Living off our income
Never touch the principal
Think about that. If you are rich, you can afford to spend all your income.
You don’t need to save, because your existing wealth provides you with a more
than sufficient cushion.
The ramifications when you have a high wealth concentration are profound.
From the October 2005 report:
In a plutonomy, the rich drop their savings rate, consume a larger fraction
of their bloated, very large share of the economy. This behavior overshadows
the decisions of everybody else. The behavior of the exceptionally rich
drives the national numbers – the “appallingly low” overall savings rates,
the “over-extended consumer”, and the “unsustainable” current accounts that
accompany this phenomenon….
Feeling wealthier, the rich decide to consume a part of their capital
gains right away. In other words, they save less from their income, the
wellknown wealth effect. The key point though is that this new lower savings
rate is applied to their newer massive income. Remember they got a much
bigger chunk of the economy, that’s how it became a plutonomy. The consequent
decline in absolute savings for them (and the country) is huge when this
happens. They just account for too large a part of the national economy;
even a small fall in their savings rate overwhelms the decisions of all
the rest.
Yves here. This account rather cheerily dismisses the notion that there might
be overextended consumers on the other end of the food chain. Unprecedented
credit card delinquencies and mortgage defaults suggest otherwise. But behaviors
on both ends of the income spectrum no doubt played into the low-savings dynamic:
wealthy who spend heavily, and struggling average consumers who increasingly
came to rely on borrowings to improve or merely maintain their lifestyle. And
let us not forget: were encouraged to monetize their home equity, so they actually
aped the behavior of their betters, treating appreciated assets as savings.
Before you chide people who did that as profligate (naive might be a better
characterization), recall that no one less than Ben Bernanke was untroubled
by rising consumer debt levels because they also showed rising asset levels.
Bernanke ignored the fact that debt needs to be serviced out of incomes, and
households for the most part were not borrowing to acquire income-producing
assets. So unless the rising tide of consumer debt was matched by rising incomes,
this process was bound to come to an ugly end.
Also under Bush country definitely moved from oligarchy to plutocracy. Bush
openly claimed that "have more" is his base. The top 1% of earners have captured
four-fifths of all new income.
An interesting question is whether the extremely unequal income distribution
like we have now make the broader society unstable. Or plebs is satisfied with "Bread
and circuses" (aka house, SUV, boat, Daytona 500 and 500 channels on cable)
as long as loot from the other parts of the world is still coming...
Donald made a point I was going to. I would go a bit further though. It’s not
clear to me that economic inequality is not desired for its own sake by the
some of the elite. After all, studies suggest that once you get past the
level of income needed for a reasonably comfortable life – about $40K for a
single person in the US - the quest for money is mostly about status.
Meeting your needs is not necessarily zero sum, but status is: my status
can only be higher than yours to the extent that yours is lower than mine.
The more inequality there is, the more status differentiation there
is. Of course, there are other sources of status than money, but I’m
talking specifically about people who value money for the status it confers.
This is in addition to the “Donner Party Conservatism” calls to make sure the
incentives to work are as strong as possible (to be fair, I think tolerating
some inequality for the sake of incentives is worthwhile, but we seem to be
well beyond that).
For example currently the USA is No.3 in Gini measured inequality
(cyeahoo,
Oct 16, 2009), but still the society is reasonably stable:
Gini score: 40.8 GDP 2007 (US$ billions): 13,751.4 Share of income or expenditure (%)
Poorest 10%: 1.9
Richest 10%: 29.9 Ratio of income or expenditure, share of top 10% to lowest 10%: 15.9
What is really surprising is how low the average American salary is: just
$26,352 or ~$2,200 a month. This is equal approximately to $13 an hour.
At the same time:
There are roughly 150,000 households in the United States with a net worth
of at least $20 million.
In 2004, the last time the Fed provided data, there were 649,000 American
households worth $10 million or more, a nearly 300 percent jump since 1992.
More than 49,000 Americans are said to have more than $50 million.
125,000 more households in the $25 million to $50 million range.
Some interesting facts about upper class (top 1% of the US population). First of
all this is pretty self-isolated group (a nation within a nation). They associate
almost exclusively with members of their own social and economic standing, few members
of the bottom 90% of Americans have ever even personally met a member of the upper
class.
In 1985 there were 13 US billionaires- today there are more than a 1,000.
The richest 1% of Americans (the upper class) have income over $380K
and control more wealth than 90% of the U.S. population combined (owned
34.6% of all privately held wealth,). The next 19% own 50% which means
that 20% of people control 85% of total wealth, leaving only 15% to the bottom
80% (wage and salary workers).
The earners in the top 1 percent in income distribution bracket make
20% of the money.
Private jet travel is the fastest growing luxury market segment. Over 15%
of all flights in the U.S. are by private jet. There are more than 1,000 daily
private jet flights in key markets such as South Florida, New York and Los Angeles.-
(Elite Traveler Magazine).
Now about top 400:
2007 was the first year that making Forbes magazine's list of 400
richest Americans required more than $1 billion. (The cutoff was $1.3
billion.)
In 2005, the top 400 earners in America collectively piled up $214 billion,
more than the GDP of 149 nations.
Here are some interesting hypothesis about affect of inequality of the society:
It's not ratio of poorest 10% to highest 10% that matter. It's the
ratio of top 10% to middle class. Without a strong middle class, the
democracy is not sustainable. The weakness of this hypothesis is that it does
not tell what kind of democracy is not sustainable without the strong middle
class. Also Asian states successfully demonstrated society progress is possible
without or, more correctly, with very little democracy.
As economicinequality grows beyond certain level, nations
might become increasingly politically unstable. First of all the level
of instability depends probably on the level of mass communication available
in the society: ancient societies were much more unequal that any of modern
societies and still they were pretty stable. Supporting evidence includes the
USSR: as mass communications dramatically increased due to personal computers
and Internet, the society lost internal stability despite the fact that economic
difficulties it experiences were far less prominent that in the past.
At some point the anger creates destructive tendencies in society that are
self-sustainable no matter what police force is available for the state (like
nationalistic forces that blow out the USSR). In the meantime society experiences
apathy and decline in all societal dimensions (mass alcoholism and hidden opposition
to any productivity rising initiatives in the USSR). At the same time ruling
elite became less and less intellectually astute ( dominated by gerontocrats
in the USSR) and at some point pretty detached from reality ("let them eat cake").
After inequality reaches certain level (critical mass) society became
permanently stratified and rigid and that negatively affects the quality of
the elite.Supporting evidence includes the USSR with its deteriorating
"nomenclature". Recent research drawing on a series of studies from Europe,
the United States and Australia has concluded that among comparable countries,
the United States has an unusually rigid social system and limited possibilities
for social mobility.
In a very unequal society, the people at the top have to spend a lot
of time and energy keeping the lower classes obedient and productive.
High inequality also changes the composition of labor in a very negative way.
because it leads to an excess of what is calls “guard labor.”
In a 2007 paper on the subject, Samuel Bowles and co-author Arjun Jayadev, an
assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts, made an eye opening
finding: Roughly 1 in 10 Americans is employed to keep fellow citizens
in line and protect private wealth from would-be Robin Hoods.
I’m surprised a thoughtful guy like Glenn Greenwald would make such an unsubstantiated
link between collapsing public services for American peasants and a collapse
of America’s global (indirect) imperial realm. Is there really a historic
link between the quality of a nation’s services to its citizens and its global
power? If so the Scandinavian countries would have been ruling the world
for the past fifty years. If anything there is probably a reverse correlation.
None of the great historic imperial powers, such as the British, Roman, Spanish,
Russian, Ottoman, Mongolian, Chinese, Islamic, or Persian, were associated with
egalitarian living conditions for anyone outside of the elite. So from
a historic point of view, the ability to divert resources away from the peasants
and towards the national security state is a sign of elite power and
should be seen as a sign increased American imperial potential.
Now if America’s global power was still based on economic production then
an argument could be made that closing libraries and cancelling the 12th grade
would lower America’s power potential. But as we all know that is no longer
the case and now America’s power is as the global consumer of excess production.
Will a dumber peasantry consume even more? I think there is a good chance that
the answer is yes.
Now a limit could be reached to how far the elite can lower their peasant’s
standard of living if these changes actually resulted in civil disorder that
demanded much energy for American elites to quell. But so far that is
far from the case. Even a facile gesture such as voting for any other political
party except the ruling Republicrats seems like a bridge too far for 95% of
the peasants to attempt. No, the sad truth is that American elites, thanks to
their exceptional ability to deliver an ever increasing amount of diverting
bread and circuses, have plenty of room to further cut standards of living and
are nowhere near reaching any limits.
What the reductions in economic and educational options will result in are
higher quality volunteers into America’s security machinery, which again obviously
raise America’s global power potential. This, along with an increasingly ruthless
elite, should assure that into the medium term America’s powerful position will
remain unchallenged. If one colors in blue on a world map all the countries
under de facto indirect US control then one will start to realize the extent
of US power. The only major countries outside of US control are Iran, North
Korea, Syria, Cuba, and Venezuela. Iraq and Afghanistan are recent converts
to the blue column but it far from certain whether they will stay that way.
American elites will resist to the bitter end any country falling from the blue
category. But this colored world map is the best metric for judging US global
power.
In the end it’s just wishful thinking to link the declining of the American
peasant’s standard of living with a declining of the American elite’s global
power. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this proven in an attack on Iran in the
near future.
Higher pay inequality feeds organized crime (and here we assume that banksters
are different from the organized crime, which is probably a very weak hypothesis
;-). That's why Peter Drucker was probably right. He thought that top execs
shouldn't get more than 25 times the average salary in the company (which would
cap it around $2 millions). I would suggest a metric based on multiple from
the average of lower 50% full time jobs for a particular firm (for example in Wal
Mart that would cashers and cleaners, people who are living in Latin American style
poverty, if they are single mothers as many are). One of the particular strengths
of the idea of the maximum wage base on average of lower 50% of salaries is that
if senior managers want to increase their own pay, they have to increase that of
the lower-paid employees too.
And in a way financial industry itself became an organized crime. The notion
of exorbitant wages prevalent in financial industry (and, before it, pioneered by
in high-tech companies during dot-com boom via stock options) is based on the idea
that some people are at least hundred times more productive then the others. In
some professions like programming this is true and such people do exists. But any
sufficiently large company is about team work. No matter what job a person does
and no matter how many hours they work, there is no possible way that an single
individual will create a whole product. It's a team effort. That means that neither
skill nor expertise or intelligence can justify the payment of 200, 300 or even
400 times the wages of the lowest-paid 20% workers in any large organization.
This is especially questionable for financial professionals because by
and large they are engaged in non-productive. often harmful for the society as whole
redistribution activities, the same activities that organized crime performs.
Moreover, modern traders are actually play a tremendously destructive role as subprime
crisis (and before it saving and loans debacle) aptly demonstrated. which make them
indistinguishable in this societal roles from cocaine pushers on the streets.
Drucker's views on the subject are probably worth revisiting. Rick Wartzman wrote
in his Business Week article
Put a Cap on CEO Pay' that "those who understand that what comes with their
authority is the weight of responsibility, not "the mantle of privilege," as writer
and editor Thomas Stewart described Drucker's view. It's their job "to do
what is right for the enterprise—not for shareholders alone, and certainly not for
themselves alone."
Large pay also attracts sociopathic personalities. Sociopathic personalities at
the top of modern organizations is another important but rarely discussed danger.
"I'm not talking about the bitter feelings of the people on the plant floor,"
Drucker told a reporter in 2004. "They're convinced that their bosses are crooks
anyway. It's the mid-level management that is incredibly disillusioned" by CEO
compensation that seems to have no bounds. " This is especially true, Drucker explained
in an earlier interview, when CEOs pocket huge sums while laying off workers.
That kind of action, he said, is "morally unforgivable." There can be exceptions
but they should be in middle management not in top management ranks.
Put it all together, and the picture became really discouraging. We have an ill-informed
or misinformed electorate, politicians who gleefully add to the misinformation,
watchdogs who are afraid to bark and guards on each and every corner. Mousetrap
is complete.
Transforming American politics, September 16, 2010
This review is from: Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the
Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (Hardcover) This is
a transformative book. It's the best book on American politics that I've
read since Rick Perlstein's Before the Storm. Not all of it is original
(the authors seek to synthesize others' work as well as present their own,
but provide due credit where credit is due). Not all of its arguments are
fully supported (the authors provide a strong circumstantial case to support
their argument, but don't have smoking gun evidence on many of the relevant
causal relations). But it should transform the ways in which we think about
and debate the political economy of the US.
The underlying argument is straightforward. The sources of American
economic inequality are largely political - the result of deliberate political
decisions to shape markets in ways that benefit the already-privileged at
the expense of a more-or-less unaware public. The authors weave
a historical narrative which Kevin Drum (who says the same things that I
am saying about the book's importance) summarizes cogently here. This is
not necessarily original - a lot of leftwing and left-of-center writers
have been making similar claims for a long time. What is new is both the
specific evidence that the authors use, and their conscious and deliberate
effort to reframe what is important about American politics.
First - the evidence. Hacker and Pierson draw on work by economists like
Picketty and Saez on the substantial growth in US inequality (and on comparisons
between the US and other countries), but argue that many of the explanations
preferred by economists (the effects of technological change on demand for
skills) simply don't explain what is going on. First, they do not explain
why inequality is so top-heavy - that is, why so many of the economic benefits
go to a tiny, tiny minority of individuals among those with apparently similar
skills. Second, they do not explain cross national variation - why the differences
in the level of inequality among advanced industrialized countries, all
of which have gone through more-or-less similar technological shocks, are
so stark. While Hacker and Pierson agree that technological change is part
of the story, they suggest that the ways in which this is channeled in different
national contexts is crucial. And it is here that politics plays a key role.
Many economists are skeptical that politics explains the outcome, suggesting
that conventional forms of political intervention are not big enough to
have such dramatic consequences. Hacker and Pierson's reply implicitly points
to a blind spot of many economists - they argue that markets are not `natural,'
but instead are constituted by government policy and political institutions.
If institutions are designed one way, they result in one form of market
activity, whereas if they are designed another way, they will result in
very different outcomes. Hence, results that appear like `natural' market
operations to a neo-classical economist may in fact be the result of political
decisions, or indeed of deliberate political inaction. Hacker and Pierson
cite e.g. the decision of the Clinton administration not to police derivatives
as an example of how political coalitions may block reforms in ways that
have dramatic economic consequences.
Hence, Hacker and Pierson turn to the lessons of ongoing political science
research. This is both a strength and a weakness. I'll talk about the weakness
below - but I found the account of the current research convincing, readable
and accurate. It builds on both Hacker and Pierson's own work and the work
of others (e.g. the revisionist account of American party structures from
Zaller et al. and the work of Bartels). This original body of work is not
written in ways that make it easily accessible to non-professionals - while
Bartels' book was both excellent and influential, it was not an easy read.
Winner-Take-All Politics pulls off the tricky task of both presenting the
key arguments underlying work without distorting them and integrating them
into a highly readable narrative.
As noted above, the book sets out (in my view quite successfully) to
reframe how we should think about American politics. It downplays
the importance of electoral politics, without dismissing it, in favor of
a focus on policy-setting, institutions, and organization.
First and most important - policy-setting. Hacker and Pierson
argue that too many books on US politics focus on the electoral circus.
Instead, they should be focusing on the politics of policy-setting.
Government is important, after all, because it makes policy decisions
which affect people's lives. While elections clearly play an important
role in determining who can set policy, they are not the only moment
of policy choice, nor necessarily the most important. The actual processes
through which policy gets made are poorly understood by the public,
in part because the media is not interested in them (in Hacker and Pierson's
words, "[f]or the media, governing often seems like something that happens
in the off-season").
And to understand the actual processes of policy-making, we need
to understand institutions. Institutions make it more or less easy
to get policy through the system, by shaping veto points. If one wants
to explain why inequality happens, one needs to look not only at the
decisions which are made, but the decisions which are not made, because
they are successfully opposed by parties or interest groups. Institutional
rules provide actors with opportunities both to try and get policies
that they want through the system and to stymie policies that they do
not want to see enacted. Most obviously in the current administration,
the existence of the filibuster supermajority requirement, and the willingness
of the Republican party to use it for every significant piece of legislation
that it can be applied to means that we are seeing policy change through
"drift." Over time, policies become increasingly disconnected from their
original purposes, or actors find loopholes or ambiguities through which
they can subvert the intention of a policy (for example - the favorable
tax regime under which hedge fund managers are able to treat their income
at a low tax rate). If it is impossible to rectify policies to deal
with these problems, then drift leads to policy change - Hacker and
Pierson suggest that it is one of the most important forms of such change
in the US.
Finally - the role of organizations. Hacker and Pierson suggest
that organizations play a key role in pushing through policy change
(and a very important role in elections too). They typically trump voters
(who lack information, are myopic, are not focused on the long term)
in shaping policy decisions. Here, it is important that the organizational
landscape of the US is dramatically skewed. There are many very influential
organizations pushing the interests of business and of the rich. Politicians
on both sides tend to pay a lot of attention to them, because of the
resources that they have. There are far fewer - and weaker - organizations
on the other side of the fight, especially given the continuing decline
of unions (which has been hastened by policy decisions taken and not
taken by Republicans and conservative Democrats).
In Hacker and Pierson's account, these three together account for
the systematic political bias towards greater inequality. In simplified
form: Organizations - and battles between organizations over policy as well
as elections - are the structuring conflicts of American politics. The interests of the rich are represented by far more powerful organizations
than the interests of the poor and middle class. The institutions
of the US provide these organizations and their political allies with a
variety of tools to promote new policies that reshape markets in their interests.
This account is in some ways neo-Galbraithian (Hacker and Pierson refer
in passing to the notion of `countervailing powers'). But while it lacks
Galbraith's magisterial and mellifluous prose style, it is much better than
he was on the details.
Even so (and here begin the criticisms) - it is not detailed enough.
The authors set the book up as a whodunit: Who or what is responsible for
the gross inequalities of American economic life? They show that the other
major suspects have decent alibis (they may inadvertently have helped the
culprit, but they did not carry out the crime itself. They show that their
preferred culprit had the motive and, apparently, the means. They find good
circumstantial evidence that he did it. But they do not find a smoking gun.
For me, the culprit (the American political system) is like OJ. As matters
stand, I'm pretty sure that he committed the crime. But I'm not sure that
he could be convicted in a court of law, and I could be convinced that I
was wrong, if major new exculpatory evidence was uncovered.
The lack of any smoking gun (or, alternatively, good evidence against
a smoking gun) is the direct result of a major failure of American intellectual
life. As the authors observe elsewhere, there is no field of American political
economy. Economists have typically treated the economy as non-political.
Political scientists have typically not concerned themselves with the American
economy. There are recent efforts to change this, coming from economists
like Paul Krugman and political scientists like Larry Bartels, but they
are still in their infancy. We do not have the kinds of detailed and systematic
accounts of the relationship between political institutions and economic
order for the US that we have e.g. for most mainland European countries.
We will need a decade or more of research to build the foundations of one.
Hence, while Hacker and Pierson show that political science can get us
a large part of the way, it cannot get us as far as they would like us to
go, for the simple reason that political science is not well developed enough
yet. We can identify the causal mechanisms intervening between some specific
political decisions and non-decisions and observed outcomes in the economy.
We cannot yet provide a really satisfactory account of how these particular
mechanisms work across a wider variety of settings and hence produce the
general forms of inequality that they point to. Nor do we yet have a really
good account of the precise interactions between these mechanisms and other
mechanisms.
None of this is to discount the importance of this book. If it has the
impact it deserves, it will transform American public arguments about politics
and policymaking. I cannot see how someone who was fair minded could come
away from reading this book and not be convinced that politics plays a key
role in the enormous economic inequality that we see. And even if it is
aimed at a general audience, it also challenges academics and researchers
in economics, political science and economic sociology both to re-examine
their assumptions about how economics and politics work, and to figure out
ways better to engage with the key political debates of our time as Hacker
and Pierson have done. If you can, buy it.
Great Faulkner's Ghost (Washington, DC)
This review is from: Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the
Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (Hardcover) Many people
have observed that American politics and the American economy reached some
kind of turning point around 1980, which conveniently marks the election
of Ronald Reagan. Some also pointed to other factors such as the deregulation
of stock brokerage commissions in 1975 and the high inflation of the 1970s.
Other analysts have put the turning point back in 1968, when Richard Nixon
became President on the back of a wave of white, middle-class resentment
against the 1960s. Hacker and Pierson, however, point the finger at the
1970s. As they describe in Chapter 4, the Nixon presidency saw the high-water
market of the regulatory state; the demise of traditional liberalism occurred
during the Carter administration, despite Democratic control of Washington,
when highly organized business interests were able to torpedo the Democratic
agenda and begin the era of cutting taxes for the rich that apparently has
not yet ended today.
Why then? Not, as popular commentary would have it, because public opinion
shifted. Hacker and Pierson cite studies showing that public opinion on
issues such as inequality has not shifted over the past thirty years; most
people still think society is too unequal and that taxes should be used
to reduce inequality. What has shifted is that Congressmen are now
much more receptive to the opinions of the rich, and there is actually a
negative correlation between their positions and the preferences of their
poor constituents (p. 111). Citing Martin Gilens, they write, "When
well-off people strongly supported a policy change, it had almost three
times the chance of becoming law as when they strongly opposed it. When
median-income people strongly supported a policy change, it had hardly any
greater chance of becoming law than when they strongly opposed it" (p. 112).
In other words, it isn't public opinion, or the median voter, that matters;
it's what the rich want.
That shift occurred in the 1970s because businesses and the super-rich
began a process of political organization in the early 1970s that enabled
them to pool their wealth and contacts to achieve dominant political influence
(described in Chapter 5). To take one of the many statistics they
provide, the number of companies with registered lobbyists in Washington
grew from 175 in 1971 to nearly 2,500 in 1982 (p. 118). Money pouring
into lobbying firms, political campaigns, and ideological think tanks created
the organizational muscle that gave the Republicans a formidable institutional
advantage by the 1980s. The Democrats have only reduced that advantage
in the past two decades by becoming more like Republicans-more business-friendly,
more anti-tax, and more dependent on money from the super-rich. And that
dependency has severely limited both their ability and their desire to fight
back on behalf of the middle class (let alone the poor), which has few defenders
in Washington.
At a high level, the lesson of Winner-Take-All Politics is similar to
that of 13 Bankers: when looking at economic phenomena, be they the financial
crisis or the vast increase in inequality of the past thirty years, it's politics that matters, not just abstract economic forces. One of the singular victories of the rich has been convincing the rest
of us that their disproportionate success has been due to abstract economic
forces beyond anyone's control (technology, globalization, etc.), not old-fashioned
power politics. Hopefully the financial crisis and the recession that has
ended only on paper (if that) will provide the opportunity to teach people
that there is no such thing as abstract economic forces; instead, there
are different groups using the political system to fight for larger shares
of society's wealth. And one group has been winning for over thirty years.
Citizen John (USA)
In Winner-Take-All Politics, two political science professors explain
what caused the Middle Class to become vulnerable. Understanding this phenomenon
is the Holy Grail of contemporary economics in the U.S.
Some may feel this book is just as polarizing as the current state of
politics and media in America. The decades-long decline in income taxes
of wealthy individuals is cited in detail. Wage earners are usually subjected
to the FICA taxes against all their ordinary income (all or almost their
entire total income). But the top wealthy Americans may have only a
small percentage (or none) of their income subjected to FICA taxes.
Thus Warren Buffett announced that he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.
Buffett has cited income inequality for "poisoning democracy."
When you search the Net for Buffett quotes on inequality, you get a lot
of results showing how controversial he became for stating the obvious.
Drawing attention to the inequity of the tax regime won him powerful enemies.
Those same people are not going to like the authors for writing Winner-Take-All.
They say these political science people are condescending because they presume
to tell people their political interests.
Many of studies of poverty show how economic and political policies generally
favor the rich throughout the world, some of which are cited in this book.
Military spending and financial bailouts in particular favor the wealthy.
Authors Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson document a long U.S. policy trend
favoring wealthy Americans. This trend resulted in diminished middle class
access to quality healthcare and education, making it harder to keep up
with the wealthy in relative terms. Further, once people have lost basic
foundations of security, they are less willing and able to take on more
risk in terms of investing or starting a business.
The rise of special interests has been at the expense of the middle class,
according to the authors. Former President Carter talked about this and
was ridiculed. Since then government has grown further from most of us.
Even federal employees are not like most of us anymore. In its August 10,
2010 issue, USA Today discussed government salaries: "At a time when workers'
pay and benefits have stagnated, federal employees' average compensation
has grown to more than double what private sector workers earn, a USA TODAY
analysis finds."
An excellent documentary showing how difficult it is to address income
inequality is One Percent, by Jamie Johnson of the Johnson & Johnson family.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Pulitzer Prize-winner
Jared Diamond Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed shows examples
of what can happen when a society disregards a coming disaster until too
late. I hope that Winner-Take-All will prompt people to demand more of elected
officials and to arrest the growing income gap for the sake of our democracy.
4.5 stars-Wall Street speculators control both parties,
September 19, 2010
See all my reviews
This review is from: Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the
Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (Hardcover)
This book basically argues that Wall Street controls both political parties
through the use of massive campaign contributions and lobbyists who buy
off both the Republicans and Democrats in the White House,Senate and House.This
is essentially correct but obvious.Anyone can go back to the 1976 Jimmy
Carter campaign and simply verify that the majority of his campaign funds
and advisors came from Wall Street.This identical conclusion also holds
with respect to Ronald Reagan,George H W Bush,Bill Clinton,George W Bush
and Barack Obama. The only Presidents/Presidential candidates not dominated
by Wall Street since 1976 were Gerald Ford, Walter Mondale, Ross Perot,
Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan.
For instance,it is common knowledge to anyone who carefully checks to
see where the money is coming from that Wall Street financiers, hedgefunds,
private equity firms and giant commercial banks are calling the shots. For
example, one could simply read the July 9,2007 issue of FORTUNE magazine
to discover who the major backers of John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack
Obama were. One could also have read Business Week(2-25-2008) or the Los
Angeles Times of 3-21-2008.Through February, 2008 the major donors to the
McCain campaign were 1)Merrill Lynch, 2) Citigroup, 3)Goldman Sachs, 4)J
P Morgan Chase and 5)Credit Suisse
The major donors to the Hillary Clinton campaign were 1)Goldman Sachs,
2)Morgan Stanley, 3)Citigroup, 4)Lehman Brothers and 5)J P Morgan Chase.
Guess who were the major donors to the Obama campaign ? If you guessed
1)Goldman Sachs,2)UBS Ag,3)J P Morgan Chase ,4)Lehman Brothers and 5)Citigroup,
then you are correct.
It didn't matter who became President-Hillary Clinton,Barack Obama or
John McCain.All three had been thoroughly vetted by Wall Street. The campaign
staffs of all three candidates ,especially their economic and finance advisors,
were all Wall Street connected. Wall Street would have been bailed out regardless
of which party won the 2008 election.
Obama is not going to change anything substantially in the financial
markets. Neither is Rep. Barney Frank, Sen. Chris Dodd, Sen. Kerry or Sen.
Schumer, etc. Nor is any Republican candidate going to make any changes,
simply because the Republican Party is dominated even more so by Wall Street(100%)
than the Democratic Party(80%). The logical solution would be to support
a Third Party candidate, for example, Ross Perot .
One aspect of the book is deficient. True conservatives like Ross Perot,
Pat Buchanan and Lou Dobbs have been warning about the grave dangers of
hallowing out and downsizing the American Manufacturing -Industrial sector,
with the consequent offshoring and/or loss of many millions of American
jobs, for about 20 years at the same time that the " financial services
" sector has exploded from 3% of the total service sector in 1972 to just
under 40% by 2007. This is what is causing the great shrinkage in the middle
class in America .
This review is from: Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made
the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (Hardcover)
This is a phenomenal book and everyone interested in how American politics
works (or more accurately, doesn't work) should pick it up. It's both really
smart and really accessible to a lay audience, which is rare for a political
science book.
Extreme economic inequality and the near paralysis of our governing institutions
has lead to a status-quo that is almost entirely indifferent to the needs
of working families. Hacker & Pierson chronicle the rise of this corrupt
system and the dual, yet distinct, roles the Republican and Democratic Parties
have played in abetting it.
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting and Timely, but Also Off-Base in Some
Regards, September 15, 2010
See all my reviews
This review is from: Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the
Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (Hardcover)
The thirty-eight biggest Wall Street companies earned $140 billion in 2009,
a record that all taxpayers who contributed to their bailouts can be proud
of. Among those, Goldman Sachs paid its employees an average $600,000, also
a record, and at least partially attributable to our bailout of AIG, which
promptly gave much of the money to Goldman. Prior to that, the top 25 hedge
fund managers earned an average of $892 million in 2007. "Winner-Take-All
Politics" is framed as a detective story about how we got to inequality
levels where the top 300,000 (0.1%) receive over 20% of national income,
vs. 13.5% for the bottom 180 million (60% of the population).
Between
1947 and 1973, real family median income essentially doubled, and the growth
percentage was virtually the same for all income levels. In the mid-1970s,
however, economic inequality began to increase sharply and middle-incomes
lagged. Increased female workforce participation rates and more overtime
helped cushion the stagnation or decline for many (they also increased the
risk of layoffs/family), then growing credit card debt shielded many families
from reality. Unfortunately, expectations of stable full-time employment
also began shrinking, part-time, temporary, and economic risk-bearing (eg.
taxi drivers leasing vehicles and paying the fuel costs; deliverymen 'buying'
routes and trucks) work increased, workers covered by employer-sponsored
health insurance fell from 69% in 1979 to 56% in 2004, and retirement coverage
was either been dropped entirely or mostly converted to much less valuable
fix-contribution plans for private sector employees. Some exceptions have
occurred that benefit the middle and lower-income segments - Earned Income
Tax Credit (EITC), Medicaid, and Medicare were initiated or expanded, but
these have not blunted the overall trend. Conversely, welfare reform, incarceration
rates rising 6X between 1970 and 2000, bankruptcy reform, and increased
tax audits for EITC recipients have also added to their burden, Social Security
is being challenged again (despite stock market declines, enormous transition
costs, and vastly increased overhead costs and fraud opportunity), and 2009's
universal health care reform will be aggressively challenged both in the
courts and Washington.
Authors Hacker and Pierson contend that growing inequality is not the
'natural' product of market rewards, but mostly the artificial result of
deliberate government policies, strongly influenced by industry lobbyists
and donations, new and expanded conservative 'think tanks,' and inadequate
media coverage that focused more on the 'horse race' aspects of various
initiatives than their content and impact. First came the capital gains
tax cuts under President Carter, then deregulation of the financial industry
under Clinton, the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, and the financial bailouts
in 2008-09. The authors contend that if the 1970 tax structure remained
today, the top gains would be considerably less.
But what about the fact that in 1965 CEOs of large corporations only
earned about 24X the average worker, compared to 300+X now? Hacker and Pierson
largely ignore the role of board-room politics and malfeasance that have
mostly allowed managers to serve themselves with payment without regard
to performance and out of proportion to other nations. In 2006, the 20 highest-paid
European managers made an average $12.5 million, only one-third as much
as the 20 highest-earning U.S. executives. Yet, the Europeans led larger
firms - $65.5 billion in sales vs. $46.5 billion for the U.S. Asian CEOs
commonly make only 10X-15X what their base level employees make. Jiang Jianqing,
Chairman of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (world's largest),
made $234,700 in 2008, less than 2% of the $19.6 million awarded Jamie Dimon,
CEO of the world's fourth-largest bank, JPMorgan Chase.
"Winner-Take-All Politics" also provides readers with the composition
of 2004 taxpayers in the top 0.1% of earners (including capital gains).
Non-finance executives comprised 41% of the group, finance professionals
18.4%, lawyers 6%, real estate personages 5%, physicians 4%, entrepreneurs
4%, and arts and sports stars 3%. The authors assert that this shows education
and skills levels are not the great dividers most everyone credits them
to be - the vast majority of Americans losing ground to the super-rich includes
many well-educated individuals, while the super-rich includes many without
a college education (Sheldon Adelson, Paul Allen, Edgar Bronfman, Jack Kent
Cook, Michael Dell, Walt Disney, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Wayne Huizenga,
Steve Jobs, Rush Limbaugh, Steve Wozniak, and Mark Zuckerberg).
Authors Hacker and Pierson are political science professors and it is
understandable that they emphasize political causes (PACs, greater recruitment
of evangelical voters, lobbying - eg. $500 million on health care lobbying
in 2009, filibusters that allow senators representing just 10% of the population
to stop legislation and make the other side look incompetent, etc.) for
today's income inequality. However, their claim that foreign trade is "largely
innocent" as a cause is neither substantiated nor logical. Foreign trade
as practiced today pads corporate profits and executive bonuses while destroying/threatening
millions of American jobs and lowering/holding down the incomes of those
affected. Worse yet, the authors don't even mention the impact of millions
of illegal aliens depressing wage rates while taking jobs from Americans,
nor do they address the canard that tax cuts for and spending by the super-wealthy
are essential to our economic success (refuted by Moody's Analytics and
Austan Goolsbee, Business Week - 9/13/2010). They're also annoyingly biased
towards unions, ignoring their constant strikes and abuses in the 1960s
and 1970s, major contributions to G.M., Chrysler, and legacy airline bankruptcies,
and current school district, local, and state financial difficulties.
Bottom-Line: It is a sad commentary on the American political
system that growing and record levels of inequality are being met by populist
backlash against income redistribution and expanding trust in government,
currently evidenced by those supporting extending tax cuts for the rich
and railing against reforming health care to reduce expenditures from 17.3+%
of GDP to more internationally competitive levels (4-6%) while improving
patient outcomes. "Winner-Take-All Politics" is interesting reading, provides
some essential data, and point out some evidence of the inadequacy of many
voters. However, the authors miss the 'elephant in the room' - American-style
democracy is not viable when at most 10% of citizens are 'proficient' per
functional literacy tests ([...]), and only a small proportion of them
have the time and access required to sift through the flood of half-truths,
lies, and irrelevancies to objectively evaluate 2,000+ page bills and other
political activity. (Ideology-dominated economic professionals and short-term
thinking human rights advocates are two others.)
Comments (2)
"Americans live in Russia, but they think they live in Sweden." -
Chrystia Freeland, March 26, 2011
See all my reviews
This review is from: Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made
the Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (Hardcover)
No one should doubt the rising income inequality in America, which the
authors trace back to the late 1970s since the latter part of Carter's presidency
in what they call the "30 Year War". Zachary Roth, in a March 4th Time magazine
article stated "A slew of conservative economists of unimpeachable academic
credentials--including Martin Feldstein of Harvard, Glenn Hubbard, who was
President Bush's top economic adviser, and Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke--have
all acknowledged that inequality is on the rise."
And why should we care that most of the after tax income growth since
30 years ago has gone the way of the richest Americans in a "winner-take-all"
economy? Because as Supreme Court justice biographer Melvin Urofsky stated,
"in a democratic society the existence of large centers of private power
is dangerous to the continuing vitality of a free people." (p. 81)
Because if unchecked, a new economic aristocracy may replace the old hereditary
aristocracy America's Founders fought to defeat (p. 298). Because unequal
societies are unhappy societies, and inequality can foster individual resentment
that may lead to a pervasive decline in civility and erosion of culture.
And why should we be concerned that this trend in rising inequality may
not experience the period of renewal the authors are optimistic about? Because
unlike the shock of the 1930s' Great Depression that served as the impetus
for the politics of middle class democracy, the potential shockwaves of
the 2008 Great Recession were tempered by massive government stimulus, resulting
in no meaningful financial reform, and an extension of the tax cuts for
the wealthy. And because of the lottery mentality of a large swath of the
population which opposes tax increases on the rich. One day, they or their
children too can share in the American dream. According to an October 2000
Time-CNN poll, 19 percent of Americans were convinced they belonged to the
richest 1 percent. Another 20 percent thought they'd make the rank of the
top 1 percent at some point in their lives. That's quite a turnover in the
top 1 percent category to accommodate 20 percent of the population passing
through.
Mr. Hacker and Mr. Pierson have put together powerful arguments on the
root causes of income inequality in the U.S., its political and economic
ramifications, and to a lesser extent, a roadmap to returning democracy
to the masses. This is an eye opening and disturbing, yet informative book,
even for readers who may disagree with their opinions.
3.0 out of 5 stars great history of big money influence on policy
but needs more analysis of the ways policy affects the winner-take-all economy,
September 21, 2011
See all my reviews
This review is from: Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the
Rich Richer--and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class (Hardcover)
Writing:
A bit hokey and repetitive for the first couple chapters. Much better
after that. Stick with it if you're interested in the subject.
Content:
This book does a very good job explaining how and why certain special
interest groups (notably those that represent the wealthiest .1%) have come
to have such a stranglehold on government, particularly Congress. I
come away with a clear understanding of how the wealthiest citizens are
able to exert their influence over legislative policy and enforcement at
the federal level.
What I would have liked more of are better explanations of the mechanisms
through which government policies exacerbate the winner-take-all economy.
Tax policy (rates and loopholes) is the most obvious answer, and the book
provides plenty of stats on the regression of tax policy over the past 30
years.
But complicated, interesting, and largely missing from public discourse
is why PRE-TAX incomes have become so much more radically skewed during
that time. This is certainly touched on - the authors are deliberate in
saying it's not JUST tax policy that's contributing to increased inequality
- but I would've liked much more analysis of the other policy-driven factors.
"Deregulation" is too general an explanation to paint a clear picture.
The authors make it clear that they believe the increasing divide in
pre-tax incomes (the winner-take-all economy) is not the inevitable result
of technological changes and of differences in education ("the usual suspects"),
but of policy decisions made at the state and, especially, federal levels.
Personally, I wasn't fully convinced that technological change has little
or nothing to do with the skew (though I agree that while education goes
a long way toward explaining the gap between poor and middle class, it doesn't
explain much of the gap between middle class and super rich). But I do believe,
as they do, that public policy plays a large role in influencing the extent
of inequality in pre-tax incomes, even beyond more obvious market-impacting
factors like union influence, and mandates including the minimum wage, restrictions
on pollution, workplace safety and fairness laws, etc.
Off the top of my head, here are some regulatory issues that affect market
outcomes and can influence the extent of winner-take-all effects in the
marketplace (a few of these may have been mentioned in the book, but none
were discussed in detail):
the enforcement of antitrust laws and other means of encouraging
pro-consumer competition in the marketplace, such as cracking down on
explicit or implicit price-fixing and collusion schemes [concentration
of market share and/or collusion will certainly contribute to winner-take-all
effects at the expense of consumers, small businesses and the dynamics
of the economy as a whole.]
regulations that seek to minimize conflicts of interest in the corporate
world, particularly those with far-reaching effects [i.e. some policy
makers and regulators are in a position to decide whether it makes sense
for bond ratings agencies with the authority they have over so many
investment decisions to be paid, in negotiable fashion, by the companies
whose bonds they rate. i'd wager the status quo exacerbates winner-take-all
and not in a way that rewards the right things - but i'd be glad to
hear an intellectually honest counter-argument]
net neutrality [should internet service providers be allowed to
favor their corporate partners' websites to the point that eventually
you'll no longer be able to publish a blog and expect that anyone will
be able to access it expediently?]
insurance regulation [should we rely on reputation threat alone
to discourage insurer's from stiffing their policyholders' legitimate
claims? status quo we don't, but there are those who argue against regulation
of insurers]
broad macroeconomic goals, such as relative balance between imports
and exports, or attempts to encourage educational institutions to help
align workforce skills with projected job opportunities for instance
- enforced preferably through various incentives rather than mandates
[the U.S. isn't big on this at the moment but many other rich countries
are, in varying forms]
preferential treatment of small businesses to help them compete
with "the big boys", thereby increasing competition in the market and
job-creation
preferential treatment of businesses who do various things deemed
to be in the public interest
intellectual property laws (the extent of patent, copyright, trademark
rights)
securities law, including bans on insider trading, front-running,
etc
food safety and labeling laws
allocation and extent of government-sponsored R&D in industries
deemed important or potentially beneficial to the public
restrictions on what can be bought and sold [almost no one would
argue judge's decisions should be for sale to the highest bidder. how
about cigarette sales to kids, should that be allowed? heroin to anyone?
spots in the class of a competitive public university?]
And many more. I know regulatory issues like that play huge roles in
the distribution of pre-tax "market" incomes, but I'd like to have a better
understanding of how, and also to be better able to articulate how in response
to those who seem to believe taxes (and perhaps obvious restrictions, such
as on pollution or the minimum wage) are the only significant means through
which governments influence wealth disparities.
There wasn't a whole lot of discussion of these or similar regulatory
issues in the book. I would like to see another edition, or perhaps another
book entirely, that does. Please let me know if you have any recommendations.
"You load 16 tons and whaddaya get??
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don'tcha call me 'Cause-I can't go…
I owe my soul to the Company Store" -- "Sixteen
Tons"
when the tax rates increase even more, it just encourages automation or DIY (bring your own sheets to avoid paying the cleaning
fee), which just grinds down growth rather than accelerates it.
Notable quotes:
"... Applebee's is now using tablets to allow customers to pay at their tables without summoning a waiter. ..."
Companies see automation and other labor-saving steps as a way to emerge from the health crisis with a permanently smaller
workforce
PHOTO:
JIM THOMPSON/ZUMA PRESS
... ... ...
Economic data show that companies have learned to do more with less over the last 16 months or so. Output nearly
recovered to pre-pandemic levels in the first quarter of 2021 -- down just 0.5% from the end of 2019 -- even though U.S.
workers put in 4.3% fewer hours than they did before the health crisis.
... ... ...
Raytheon Technologies
Corp.
RTX
0.08%
,
the biggest U.S. aerospace supplier by sales, laid off 21,000 employees and contractors in 2020 amid a drastic
decline in air travel. Raytheon said in January that efforts to modernize its factories and back-office operations
would boost profit margins and reduce the need to bring back all those jobs. The company said that most if not all
of the 4,500 contract workers who were let go in 2020 wouldn't be called back.
... ... ..
Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. HLT -0.78% said last week that most of its U.S. properties are adopting "a
flexible housekeeping policy," with daily service available upon request. "Full deep cleanings will be conducted
prior to check-in and on every fifth day for extended stays," it said.
Daily housekeeping will still be free for those who request it...
Unite Here, a union that represents hotel workers, published a report in June estimating that the end of daily
room cleaning could result in an industrywide loss of up to 180,000 jobs...
... ... ...
Restaurants have become rapid adopters of technology during the pandemic as two forces -- labor shortages that are
pushing wages higher and a desire to reduce close contact between customers and employees -- raise the return on such
investments.
...
Applebee's is now using tablets to allow customers to pay at their tables without summoning a
waiter.
The hand-held screens provide a hedge against labor inflation, said John Peyton, CEO of Applebee's
parent
Dine
Brands Global
Inc.
... ... ...
The U.S. tax code encourages investments in automation, particularly after the Trump administration's tax cuts,
said Daron Acemoglu, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies the impact of
automation on workers. Firms pay around 25 cents in taxes for every dollar they pay workers, compared with 5 cents
for every dollar spent on machines because companies can write off capital investments, he said.
A lot of employers were given Covid-aid to keep employees employed and paid in 2020. I
assume somebody has addressed that obligation since it wasn't mentioned.
But, what happens to the unskilled workers whose jobs have been eliminated? Do Raytheon
and Hilton just say "have a nice life on the streets"?
No, they will become our collective burdens.
I am all for technology and progress and better QA/QC and general performance. But the
employers that benefit from this should use part of their gains in stock valuation to keep
"our collective burdens" off our collective backs, rather than pay dividends and bonuses
first.
Maybe reinvest in updated training for those laid off.
No great outcome comes free. BUT, as the article implies, the luxury of having already
laid off the unskilled, likely leaves the employer holding all the cards.
And the wheel keeps turning...
Jeffery Allen
Question! Isn't this antithetical (reduction of employees) to the spirit and purpose of
both monetary and fiscal programs, e.g., PPP loans (fiscal), capital markets funding
facilities (monetary) established last year and current year? Employers are to retain
employees. Gee, what a farce. Does anyone really care?
Philip Hilmes
Some of this makes sense and some would happen anyway without the pandemic. I don't need my room
cleaned every day, but sometimes I want it. The wait staff in restaurants is another matter. Losing
wait staff makes for a pretty bad experience. I hate having to order on my phone. I feel like I might
as well be home ordering food through Grubhub or something. It's impersonal, more painful than telling
someone, doesn't allow for you to be checked on if you need anything, doesn't provide information you
don't get from a menu, etc. It really diminishes the value of going out to eat without wait staff.
al snow
OK I been reading all the comments I only have a WSJ access as the rate was a great deal.
Hotel/Motel started making the bed but not changing the sheets every day for many years I am fine as
long as they offer trash take out and towel/paper every day
and do not forget to tip .
clive boulton
Recruiters re-post hard to fill job listings onto multiple job boards. I don't believe the reported
job openings resemble are real. Divide by 3 at least.
As
Peter Hitchens noted recently "the most bitterly funny story of the week is that a defector
from North Korea thinks that even her homeland is 'not as nuts' as the indoctrination now
forced on Western students."
One of Yeonmi Park's initial shocks upon starting classes at Colombia University was to be
met with a frown after revealing to a staff member that she enjoyed reading Jane Austen. "Did
you know," Ms. Park was sternly admonished, "that those writers had a colonial mind-set? They
were racists and bigots and are subconsciously brainwashing you."
But after encountering the new requirement for the use of gender-neutral pronouns, Yeonmi
concluded: "Even North Korea is not this nuts North Korea was pretty crazy, but not this
crazy." Devastatingly honest, but not exactly a compliment to what once might have been the
land of her dreams.
Sadly, Hitchens reports that her previous experience served Yeonmi well to adapt to her new
situation: "She came to fear that making a fuss would affect her grades and her degree.
Eventually, she learned to keep quiet, as people do when they try to live under intolerant
regimes, and let the drivel wash over her."
Eastern European readers will unfailingly understand what it is that Hitchens meant to
say.
Australia's tertiary education system is large, complex, and poorly regulated. Its
government funding sources, governance structures and annual reporting requirements lack
transparency and are inconsistent between and within jurisdictions. Distorted government
priorities and discredited ideological fixations have created a dysfunctional system that
devalues the work of academics and professional staff while imposing ever higher burdens on
students to pay more for less.
These statements and
others like them reinforce a widely held perception that the Coalition is
focused solely on higher education's economic contribution to the nation. At the same time
as it has raised its expectations of commercial outcomes from higher education, it has imposed
a wide range of additional funding cuts to teaching and research.
It is therefore clear that it is not the Federal Government that will primarily bear the
burden of its tertiary education ambitions. That burden will continue to fall squarely upon
Australian academics, students and professional staff. The ways governance and funding are
currently structured virtually guarantees such an outcome.
However, the overall contribution to the higher education system from the Federal Government
has halved over the last thirty years, from
around 80% to less than 40% . It has been able to do this by clawing back a much higher
proportion of universities' teaching costs from domestic students. Most of this transfer of the
cost burden to students has happened under the Coalition.
Even though total government funding for the higher education system grew 114% in real terms
since 1989, increasing from
$5.6 billion to $12 billion in 2018-19 , the number of domestic students in the system grew
by 165%, increasing from around 410,000 in 1989 to 1,087,850
in 2019 .
Allocated funding for higher education in the 2019‒2020 Federal Budget was $17.7
billion. But again, this included funding of $5.8 billion for HECS-HELP loans. Therefore,
actual government funding was only $11.9 billion out of total revenue for the higher education
system of $36.73 billion for that financial year. In other words, less than a third of the
system's total revenue was provided by the Commonwealth that year, yet it continues to behave
as though its contribution is far higher.
The combination of reduced revenue from domestic tuition fees due to government funding cuts
and from international students due to COVID has inevitably forced all of Australia's public
universities to cut expenditure over the last twelve months.
By late March 2020, however, cost savings in the core functions of teaching and research
were being sought by university executives, even though the full financial implications of the
pandemic were still far from clear.
Because labour costs have sat at around 57% of total university expenditure for the last
decade, they are always at the top of managerial priorities for cost-cutting, rather than
their own inflated wages or
latest pet projects . Executives have imposed early retirement and redundancies on
thousands of staff with little or no consultation. Many more casual and contracted staff have
been laid off or had their positions terminated at the end of their contracts. All the
indications from university executives are that
many more jobs are on the chopping block .
Universities made at least
17,000 full-time equivalent positions redundant in 2020 . This constitutes around 13% of
the total tertiary workforce. However, given that around half of that workforce
is employed casually or on contract , and has been for at least a decade, the total job
losses probably translate to around 50-60,000 in total. In other words, these job cuts need to
be grasped in the context of the massive casualisation of university teaching and
administration over the last few decades.
According to Universities Australia (UA), there was
130,000 full-time equivalent staff directly employed in the system in 2017 . However, like
the universities themselves, UA is unwilling to publicly acknowledge the number of casuals
working in the system. In 2018, there were
94,500 people employed on a casual basis at Australian universities . It would seem
reasonable on that basis to conclude that as many as half of all casuals have either totally
lost any work they had, or have had their work hours significantly reduced. However, most
universities steadfastly refuse to make employee headcount data public, so the data we do have
is inaccurate.
This has been borne out by a recent study of Victorian public university job losses in 2020
published by accounting professors James Guthrie and Brendan O'Connell. They have found that
even in Victoria, where universities are obligated to publish their casual workforce figures,
universities used inconsistent terminology and different techniques for recording their
staffing numbers at the end of 2020 . One estimate
from early May that 7,500 university employees in Victoria lost their jobs in 2020 is
therefore almost certainly an underestimate. Guthrie and O'Connell also found that universities
are using accounting losses to justify reducing employment.
The release of twenty-one university annual reports over the last few weeks strongly
reinforces their observations. UTS professor John Howard argues that the figures reported in
these annual reports raise
serious questions about the extent to which the financial crisis of the tertiary system
has been exaggerated . He points out that all but one of these universities recorded cash
surpluses, which averaged around 3% of total revenue. However, eight of them posted deficits
after they included 'non-cash' expenses such as depreciation, amortisation and changes in
investment valuations: none of these categories of 'expenses' constitute tangible revenue
losses. The bulk of university 'losses' were in decreased returns on investments (around $600
million) and the depreciation of assets, which totalled more than $1.4 billion.
Howard also points out that Australian universities had accessible cash or cash equivalent
reserves of
$4.6 billion at the beginning of the pandemic . Their own estimates indicate revenue losses
in 2020-21 of $3.8 billion. In other words, most of Australia's public universities have ample
financial assets at their disposal to offset any short- to medium-term loss of revenue.
Depreciation, amortisation and finance costs have seen the most significant growth in
'expenses' over the last decade. According to Deloitte, this category of expenses has seen the
highest growth, at
7.5% as a year-on-year average . Universities' adoption of accrual accounting has enabled
them to write off the value of fixed assets more quickly to inflate their expense claims every
year. These inflated expenses are used as an excuse to sack staff and cut programs. Howard
argues that if public universities did not use this business accounting convention, none
of the twenty-one universities he studied would have recorded any earnings deficit in 2020
.
It should therefore be clear that the main problem public universities face is not a lack of
revenue, or a lack of disposable assets to ride through a crisis. Their main problem is a lack
of transparency and accountability at the executive level which has enabled them to misallocate
financial resources, together with a corporate governance regime that has empowered executives
to behave in this fashion. These two issues need to be front and centre of reform of the
Australian higher education system.
Dr Adam Lucas is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
at the University of Wollongong. Adam's contemporary research focuses on energy policy
responses to anthropogenic climate change and obstacles to a sustainable energy
transition.
The corporatization of Australia's public universities has been driven by government
funding cuts and regressive changes to how universities are governed. The rationale for
corporatization was that it would encourage universities to become more entrepreneurial by
turning vice-chancellors into CEOs and governing bodies into corporate boards. The resulting
hybrid has been very successful at promoting university 'brands' to international students but
has utterly failed to maintain a supportive and collegial work environment for staff and
students on university campuses.
While it is indisputable that most Australian universities have experienced huge
growth in international student revenues over the last decade, the billions of dollars in
'operating surpluses' that have flowed through the system during this time have not been
invested in expanding and developing academic workforces, or
lowering staff-student ratios , or increasing teaching and learning support for students.
Instead, those responsible for making these decisions have
spent billions of dollars on construction and marketing programs that laud their
institutions' world-class status (usually in the techno-sciences), while systematically
degrading the working conditions of academic and professional staff and the quality of
education received by students.
Resources critical to the performance of a wide range of tasks and initiatives are regularly
withheld for no good reason. Hiring freezes and the imposition of annual staff performance
assessments further contribute to the general atmosphere of fear and anxiety promoted by senior
management, who never appear to have the same performance metrics applied to them. Student and
staff services that had previously been free or subsidized have been monetized and privatized.
Professional services and expertise that could easily be sourced 'in-house' are routinely
outsourced to external consultants.
Few of these negative trends are captured in the metrics senior management regularly deploy
to spruik the virtues of their universities to students, parents and potential donors.
Preoccupied with 'cost recovery', 'performance metrics' and 'efficiency dividends', senior
managers and executives have reconstructed staff and students as revenue-generators who are
surplus to requirements if not producing financial surpluses and/or 'measurable outcomes' that
contribute to improved university rankings. International league tables, performance
monitoring, teaching and research excellence awards, and all the other 'metrics of excellence'
with which university executives and managers are currently obsessed are means to these
ends.
These legislative changes have been primarily motivated by a long-held belief within the
Coalition and certain elements of the Labor Party that universities should be run like
corporations. Those who have embraced this belief are convinced that business and industry
provide the best models for university governance because they always perform better than
public sector institutions.
Following the Dawkins reforms of Australia's higher education system in the early 1990s,
this item of faith has been progressively embedded in all of the administrative and managerial
functions of universities. As successive state and federal governments have continued to reduce
funding to the system they have sought to graft an increasingly Frankensteinian model of
'corporate governance' onto Australia's public universities.
For example, in 2012 the NSW Coalition Government inserted specific clauses in the
enabling
NSW legislation concerning university governance and finances which specify that appointed
members require financial and management experience, while those sub-clauses specifying
requirements for tertiary, professional and community experience have been removed. Similar
changes to university acts were made by the
WA Coalition Government in 2016 .
In a public corporation, the executive is accountable to shareholders and the board of
directors. Poor performance is questioned, and senior executives and managers can be removed if
the board or shareholders are unhappy with that performance. However, unlike corporate boards,
which are answerable to their shareholders, and to some extent, the public as 'clients' or
'consumers' of their goods and services, the accountability of university governing bodies is
effectively restricted to financial issues.
The auditors-general of each state and territory are empowered to annually scrutinize the
financial
accounts of all universities under their jurisdiction . Even so, it is highly unusual for
them to call universities to account for anything other than minor infringements of accounting
rules and standards. They have rarely shown any willingness to delve deeply into university
finances under their jurisdiction, despite some clear cases of
maladministration, mismanagement and even corruption . There is no evidence that any audits
have ever uncovered wrongdoing, conflicts of interest, or incidents of malfeasance, even though
we know from our own colleagues in administrative positions at multiple universities that such
behaviour is not at all uncommon.
Universities, therefore, have the worst of both worlds as far as their governance is
concerned. Staff and students have little or no say over how priorities are set and strategies
are pursued. They are subject to the whims of management, who generally regard academics as an
obstacle to the efficient running of 'their' universities, and who have no legitimate
contributions to make as far as they are concerned. They rarely admit to having made mistakes
or demonstrate any willingness to learn from them.
To illustrate this point, in the wake of COVID, it would make sense to proportionally cut
back on staffing and resources in those areas that had the highest proportions of international
students, and those related to their support and recruitment. However, there is no evidence
from any decisions made to date by university executives that these disciplines or activities
have borne the brunt of 'cost savings'. On the contrary, even prior to the current pandemic,
the arts, humanities and social sciences have been targeted for job cuts, including
non-replacement of tenured academics that have retired or resigned. In most of these instances,
the financial cases for these cuts have been based on decisions that have little or no evidence
to support them.
Many academics and students feel that senior managers target disciplines in these fields
because those who work and study in them are willing to speak out against management and
executive excesses. Critical thinking, teaching and research is deemed by university leaders to
be acceptable within those contexts,
but not when reflexively applied to their decision-making .
All of the distorted priorities that universities manifest today are an outcome of the
inappropriate and dysfunctional corporate governance and reporting models that successive
governments have imposed on universities throughout the country over many years. It is
noteworthy that Coalition governments throughout the country have made successive changes to
university acts that have the clear intention of disenfranchising staff and students from any
meaningful input into university governance.
It should be abundantly clear from all this that the existing legislation concerning
university governance is deeply flawed. It is an obstacle to better university governance and
degrades the value and quality of education for our young people and the next generation of
professionals. It also devalues the work of academic and professional staff and demonstrates no
capacity for critical self-reflection. It is therefore completely inadequate to the task of
confronting the enormous challenges that humanity faces in the twenty-first century.
We need to start a national conversation about the kinds of changes that are needed to bring
about genuine reform of Australia's higher education system. A good start would be to focus on
the ways in which university governing bodies are organized and constituted, with a particular
focus on how and why different categories of members are selected and represented.
Democratic accountability and transparency should be embedded in every new process and
structure.
Dr Adam Lucas is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social
Sciences at the University of Wollongong. Adam's contemporary research focuses on energy
policy responses to anthropogenic climate change and obstacles to a sustainable energy
transition.
The problem is that many people face long term unemployment without substantial emergency funds, which further complicates
already difficult situation.
Notable quotes:
"... More than 2K adults to were interviewed to try and ascertain how long they could survive without income. It turns out that approximately 72.4MM employed Americans - 28.4% of the population - believe they wouldn't be able to last for more than a month without a payday. ..."
Imagine you lost your job tomorrow. How long would you be able to sustain your current
lifestyle? A week? A month? A year?
As we await Friday's labor market update, Finder has just published the results of a recent
survey attempting to gauge the financial stability of the average American in the post-pandemic
era.
More than 2K adults to were interviewed to try and ascertain how long they could survive
without income. It turns out that approximately 72.4MM employed Americans - 28.4% of the
population - believe they wouldn't be able to last for more than a month without a payday.
Another 24% said they expected to be able to live comfortably between two months and six
months. That means an estimated 133.6MM working Americans (52.3% of the population) can live
off their savings for six months or less before going broke.
On the other end of the spectrum, roughly 8.7MM employed Americans (or 3.4% of the
population) say they don't need to rely on a rainy day fund since they have employment
insurance which will compensate them should they lose their job.
Amusingly, men appear to be less effective savers than women. Some 32.4MM women (26.7% of
American women) say their savings would stretch at most a month, compared to 40MM men (29.9% of
American men) who admit to the same. Of those people, 9.7MM women (8% of American women) say
their savings wouldn't even stretch a week, compared to 15.5MM men (11.6% of American men) who
admit to the same.
A majority of employed Americans over the age of 18 say their savings would last six months
at most. About 70.7MM men (52.8% of American men) and 62.8MM women (51.8% of American women)
fear they'd be in dire straits within six months of losing their livelihood.
Unsurprisingly, younger people tend to have less of a savings buffer - but the gap between
the generations isn't as wide as it probably should be.
While increasing one's income is perhaps the best route to building a more robust nest egg,
Finder offered some suggestions for people looking to maximize their savings.
1. Create a budget and stick to it
Look at your monthly income against all of your monthly expenses. Add to them expenses you
pay once or twice a year to avoid a surprise when they creep up. After you know where your
money is going, you can allot specific amounts to different categories and effectively track
your spending.
"... Indeed, economists and analysts have gotten used to presenting facts from the perspective of private employers and their lobbyists. The American public is expected to sympathize more with the plight of wealthy business owners who can't find workers to fill their low-paid positions, instead of with unemployed workers who might be struggling to make ends meet. ..."
"... West Virginia's Republican Governor Jim Justice justified ending federal jobless benefits early in his state by lecturing his residents on how, "America is all about work. That's what has made this great country." Interestingly, Justice owns a resort that couldn't find enough low-wage workers to fill jobs. Notwithstanding a clear conflict of interest in cutting jobless benefits, the Republican politician is now enjoying the fruits of his own political actions as his resort reports greater ease in filling positions with desperate workers whose lifeline he cut off. ..."
For the past few months, Republicans have been waging a ferocious political battle to end
federal unemployment benefits, based upon stated desires of saving the U.S. economy from a
serious labor shortage. The logic, in the words
of Republican politicians like Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, goes like this: "the government pays
folks more to stay home than to go to work," and therefore, "[p]aying people not to work is not
helpful." The conservative Wall Street Journal has been beating the drum for the same argument,
saying recently that it was a " terrible
blunder " to pay jobless benefits to unemployed workers.
If the hyperbolic claims are to be believed, one might imagine American workers are
luxuriating in the largesse of taxpayer-funded payments, thumbing their noses at the earnest
"job creators" who are taking far more seriously the importance of a post-pandemic economic
growth spurt.
It is true that there are currently millions of jobs going unfilled. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics just
released statistics showing that there were 9.3 million job openings in April and that the
percentage of layoffs decreased while resignations increased. Taking these statistics at face
value, one could conclude this means there is a labor shortage.
But, as economist Heidi Shierholz explained in a New York
Times op-ed , there is only a labor shortage if employers raise wages to match worker
demands and subsequently still face a shortage of workers. Shierholz wrote, "When those
measures [of raising wages] don't result in a substantial increase in workers, that's a labor
shortage. Absent that dynamic, you can rest easy."
Remember the subprime mortgage housing crisis of 2008 when
economists and pundits blamed low-income homeowners for wanting to purchase homes they
could not afford? Perhaps this is the labor market's way of saying, if you can't afford higher
salaries, you shouldn't expect to fill jobs.
Or, to use the logic of another accepted capitalist argument, employers could liken the job
market to the surge pricing practices of ride-share companies like Uber and Lyft. After
consumers complained about hiked-up prices for rides during rush hour,
Uber explained , "With surge pricing, Uber rates increase to get more cars on the road and
ensure reliability during the busiest times. When enough cars are on the road, prices go back
down to normal levels." Applying this logic to the labor market, workers might be saying to
employers: "When enough dollars are being offered in wages, the number of job openings will go
back down to normal levels." In other words, workers are surge-pricing the cost of their
labor.
But corporate elites are loudly complaining that the sky is falling -- not because of a real
labor shortage, but because workers are less likely now to accept low-wage jobs. The U.S.
Chamber of Commerce
insists that "[t]he worker shortage is real," and that it has risen to the level of a
"national economic emergency" that "poses an imminent threat to our fragile recovery and
America's great resurgence." In the Chamber's worldview, workers, not corporate employers who
refuse to pay better, are the main obstacle to the U.S.'s economic recovery.
Longtime labor organizer and senior scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies Bill Fletcher Jr. explained to me in an email
interview that claims of a labor shortage are an exaggeration and that, actually, "we suffered
a minor depression and not another great recession," as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
In Fletcher's view, "The so-called labor shortage needs to be understood as the result of
tremendous employment reorganization, including the collapse of industries and companies."
Furthermore, according to Fletcher, the purveyors of the "labor shortage" myth are not
accounting for "the collapse of daycare and the impact on women and families, and a continued
fear associated with the pandemic."
He's right. As one analyst
put it, "The rotten seed of America's disinvestment in child care has finally sprouted." Such
factors have received little attention by the purveyors of the labor shortage myth -- perhaps
because acknowledging real obstacles like care work requires thinking of workers as real human
beings rather than cogs in a capitalist machine.
Indeed, economists and analysts have gotten used to presenting facts from the perspective of
private employers and their lobbyists. The American public is expected to sympathize more with
the plight of wealthy business owners who can't find workers to fill their low-paid positions,
instead of with unemployed workers who might be struggling to make ends meet.
Already, jobless benefits were slashed to appallingly low levels after Republicans reduced a
$600-a-week payment authorized by the CARES Act to a mere
$300 a week , which works out to $7.50 an hour for full-time work. If companies cannot
compete with this exceedingly paltry sum, their position is akin to a customer demanding to a
car salesperson that they have the right to buy a vehicle for a below-market-value sticker
price (again, capitalist logic is a worthwhile exercise to showcase the ludicrousness of how
lawmakers and their corporate beneficiaries are responding to the state of the labor
market).
Remarkably, although federal jobless benefits are funded through September 2021,
more than two dozen Republican-run states are choosing to end them earlier. Not only will
this impact the bottom line for
millions of people struggling to make ends meet, but it will also undermine the stimulus
impact that this federal aid has on the economies of states when jobless workers spend their
federal dollars on necessities. Conservatives are essentially engaged in an ideological battle
over government benefits, which, in their view, are always wrong unless they are going to the
already privileged (remember the GOP's 2017
tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy?).
The GOP has thumbed its nose at federal benefits for residents before. In order to
underscore their ideological opposition to the Affordable Care Act, recall how Republican
governors
eschewed billions of federal dollars to fund Medicaid expansion. These conservative
ideologues chose to let their own
voters suffer the consequences of turning down federal aid in service of their political
opposition to Obamacare. And they're doing the same thing now.
At the same time as headlines are screaming about a catastrophic worker shortage that could
undermine the economy, stories abound of how American billionaires paid
peanuts in income taxes according to newly released documents, even as their wealth
multiplied to extraordinary levels. The obscenely wealthy are spending their mountains of cash on luxury
goods and fulfilling
childish fantasies of space travel . The juxtaposition of such a phenomenon alongside the
conservative claim that jobless benefits are too generous is evidence that we are indeed in a
"national economic emergency" -- just not of the sort that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wants
us to believe.
West
Virginia's Republican Governor Jim Justice justified ending federal jobless benefits early
in his state by lecturing his residents on how, "America is all about work. That's what has
made this great country." Interestingly, Justice owns a resort that couldn't find enough
low-wage workers to fill jobs. Notwithstanding a clear conflict of interest in cutting jobless
benefits, the Republican politician is now enjoying the fruits of his own political actions as
his resort reports greater ease in filling positions with desperate workers whose lifeline he
cut off.
When lawmakers earlier this year
debated the Raise the Wage Act , which would have increased the federal minimum wage,
Republicans wagged their fingers in warning, saying higher wages would put companies out of
business. Opponents of that failed bill claimed that if forced to pay $15 an hour, employers
would hire fewer people, close branches, or perhaps shut down altogether, which we were told
would ultimately hurt workers.
Now, we are being told another story: that companies actually do need workers and won't
simply reduce jobs, close branches, or shut down and that the government therefore needs to
stop competing with their ultra-low wages to save the economy. The claim that businesses would
no longer be profitable if they are forced to increase wages is undermined by one
multibillion-dollar fact: corporations are raking in record-high profits and doling them out to
shareholders and executives. They can indeed afford to offer greater pay, and when
they do, it turns out there is no labor shortage .
American workers are at a critically important juncture at this moment. Corporate employers
seem to be approaching a limit of how far they can push workers to accept poverty-level jobs.
According to Fletcher, "This moment provides opportunities to raise wage demands, but it must
be a moment where workers organize in order to sustain and pursue demands for improvements in
their living and working conditions."
Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host and executive producer of "Rising Up With Sonali,"
a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. She is a writing
fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute. This article was
produced by Economy for All , a project of the
Independent Media Institute.
In IT corporate honchos shamelessly put more then a dozen of very specific skills into the
position rescription and want a cog that hit that exactly. they are not interested in IQ, ability
to learn and such things. that want already train person for the position to fill, so that have
zero need to train this persn and they expect that he will work productively from the day
one.
But corporate elites are loudly complaining that the sky is falling -- not because of a
real labor shortage, but because workers are less likely now to accept low-wage jobs.
Duh. This is so blindingly obvious, but NC is the only place that seems to mention this
fact.
Here in the UK, the outmigration of marginally paid workers from Eastern Europe and the
resultant "labour shortage" triggered by Brexit has made it abundantly clear that Blair's
change to open borders was not from any idealistic considerations but as a way of importing
easily exploited labor.
Business leaders quoted in the the tsunami of hand-wringing MSM articles about the current
catastrophe are offering such helpful solutions as allowing housekeepers to use pools and
gyms in off hours, free meals to waiters, etc. Anything but a living wage.
" I don't actually see any untruths to the GOP talking points. "
"" Workers are less likely to accept a job while receiving Gov't benefits" and "workers are
less likely to accept low wage crappy jobs ".
Well,if u can survive on a $300/week program that ends after several weeks pass,bless u.
No one else in America can. That's a $7.50 hr full time "summer job" with no pension or
medical benefits that teenagers with no dependents,few bills n maintenance issues might be
interested in; adults with adult responsibilities,no way. That so called RepubliCons, the
"economics experts", can make such a fraudulent claim n anyone out of elementary school
believes it has a quantum particle of reality or value is . well I'll just say a sad n
unbelievable situation.
They get 300 dollars plus regular UI. They can also get Medicaid and CHIP, or if they are
still making too much they are eligible for Obamacare exchange. Plus they're eligible for
SNAP and housing vouchers
There is one significant fallacy in this article: The author conflates Republican
opposition to enhanced benefits with opposition to unemployment benefits overall.
I very much stand with labour over business on most (probably all) points, but the
Republican argument is to end the enhanced benefits in most cases – Not to abolish
unemployment assistance. They believe the role of government is to step in to help pay basic
bills in the event of unemployment, but oppose the current higher level of benefit due to the
market distortions it causes (Hence the appearance of the term 'labour shortage'.)
I agree that it basically forces mcdonalds et al to up their wages if they want to do
business, which should be a positive for society, but I find it unlikely that the author
could have unintentionally mistunderstood the argument on such a fundamental level, and all
it does is try to drive a wedge further between each side of the argument.
Anyone that believes that workers supported their jobs being sent overseas is either
demented or delusional or suffers from a mental hernia. The same goes for the common working
stiffs supporting massive immigration to help drive down their ability to demand a livable
wage.
American labor has been sold down the river by the International Labor Leaders,
politicians and the oligarchy of US corporate CEO's.
======
Got a new hip recently. Do your P.T., take it easy, follow the warnings of what not to do
until you heal and you should discover that decades feel like they are lifted off your
shoulders.
Sierra,
You've made a very interesting point that actually never occurred to me and one in which I
never seen fully examined.
Exploiting labour and outsourcing it are two sides of the same coin with the same goal in
mind, diverting revenue streams into the C-suite and rentier class.
Obviously you cannot outsource most of the workers in the hospitality industry or the
non-virtual aspects of world's oldest profession, but a lot of the tech industry and the
virtual aspects of the latter are very amenable to being shipped overseas.
Immigrants are extremely visible and an easy target, while outsourcing is essentially an
impossible to contain concept that creates real world hardship.
Dear NC readers, do you know of any studies comparing and contrasting the economic impact of
immigration and/or limiting it and outsourcing?
Indeed, economists and analysts have gotten used to presenting facts from the
perspective of private employers and their lobbyists.
You are acting if economists and lobbyists are separate groups, as opposed to largely a
subset thereof. Funny how a field entirely based on the study of incentives claims incentives
don't distort their policy prescriptions, isn't it?
As for low-paid jobs, they are traditionally the last resort of immigrants and other
marginalized populations, but the anti-immigration push that began under Obama, and
enthusiastically continued by Trump and Biden, has perfectly predictable consequences.
One factor not mentioned is many free-riding businesses refuse to pay for training, then
wonder why there are no trained workers to hire.
Now, there are definitely fields where there is a genuine and deliberate labor shortage.
Usually white-collar credentialed professions like medical doctors and the AMA cartel.
Economics is not based on incentives. That's behavioral economics. I hate to quote Larry
Summers, but this is Summers on financial economics:
Ketchup economists reject out of hand much of this research on the ketchup market. They
believe that the data used is based on almost meaningless accounting information and are
quick to point out that concepts such as costs of production vary across firms and are not
accurately measurable in any event. they believe that ketchup transactions prices are the
only hard data worth studying. Nonetheless ketchup economists have an impressive research
program, focusing on the scope for excess opportunities in the ketchup market. They have
shown that two quart bottles of ketchup invariably sell for twice as much as one quart
bottles of ketchup except for deviations traceable to transaction costs, and that one
cannot get a bargain on ketchup by buying and combining ingredients once one takes account
of transaction costs. Nor are there gains to be had from storing ketchup, or mixing
together different quality ketchups and selling the resulting product. Indeed, most ketchup
economists regard the efficiency of the ketchup market as the best established fact in
empirical economics.
Happy to see you back at a keyboard, and hoping your recovery is progressing well. I had
the misfortune of spending two days in the hospitals while they got my blood chemistry
strightened out. Here's the kicker; the hospitalist, who I saw 3 times, submitted a bill for
a whopping $17,000. Just yesterday, the practice she works for submitted a bill that was
one-tenth her charges for the work she did, yet her bill is still sitting waiting to be
processed.
OMG, how horrible. HSS is a small hospital for a big city like NYC, only 205 beds and 25
operating rooms. No emergency room. They are not owned by PE and so I don't think play
outsourcing/markup games (they are very big on controlling quality, which you can't do if you
have to go through middlemen for staffing). Some of the MDs do that their own practices
within HSS but they are solo practitioners or small teams, which is not a model that you see
much of anywhere outside NYC
The last time I was hospitalized, all the hospitalists were in the employ of the hospital,
now they are in the employ of a nationwide hospitalist practice, which has all the smell of
private equity around it. I'm really beginning to think that a third party focusted on
healthcare might have a real shot at upsetting the political order – maybe it's time to
drag out your skunk party for 2024.
As for low-paid jobs, they are traditionally the last resort of immigrants and other
marginalized populations, but the anti-immigration push that began under Obama, and
enthusiastically continued by Trump and Biden, has perfectly predictable
consequences.
Well I'm sorry you can't find easily exploitable labor, except I'm not immigrants face the
same ridiculous costs, and weren't hispanic workers more heavily impacted by covid due
to those marginal jobs (I'll switch your dynamic to low wage workers , and
marginal jobs, thanks), so by your logic more should have been let in to die from
these marginal jobs? but yeah we need more PMC except we don't Now, there are definitely fields where there is a genuine and deliberate labor shortage.
Usually white-collar credentialed professions like medical doctors and the AMA
cartel."
Last I checked it was private equity, wall st and pharmaceutical companies and their
lobbyists that drive up costs so labor needs to charge more.
Wake up and smell the coffee.
How much of this is over specification on the part of employers in the ad for the job? We
want the perfect candidate who can do the job better than we can with no training .
OMG this is such a long-standing pet peeve! We've commented on this nonsense regularly.
Companies took the position that they don't have to train and now they are eating their
cooking.
The mismatch between job openings and job applicants is not just about wages.
In fact, if companies were willing to take a chance on people who didn't exactly match the
job requirements, the likely effect would be to raise the wages some of those that did not
qualify under the over exacting job requirements. [And likely paying these new employees less
than they had contemplated paying the perfect candidate.]
But that seems like someone making the hiring decision might, just possibly, be seen as
taking a risk.
At my empolyer we know we can't find any colleges that teach mainframe skills, so we bring
in graduates who are willing to learn those skills – we submit them to a 3-month
bootcamp and then there's a long period of mentorship under a senior person to their group
that has an opening. Since everybody and their dog are now moving headfirst into DevOps,
where all the tooling is in somewhat less ancient software, they get exposed using those
Eclipse/VScode-based tools and are able to come up to speed somewhat quicker. Still, no one
in corporate America dares to bite the bullet and re-platform their core systems with few
exceptions (SABRE) for fear of losing all the institutional knowledge that's in software,
rather than wetware (humans).
Just think what is happening right now with everyone holding an Indian outsourcing
contract. You don't have individual's cellphone numbers over in India, which would cost you
an arm and a leg to call, never mind what's going on in their facilities.
On the other hand, there's something to be said for employers not training their staffs.
In the SF Bay Area computer industry, employees and independent contractors alike continually
race to train themselves in the new technologies that seem to crop up like mushrooms after a
rain. Many companies train their customers–and charge them for it–before they'll
train their staffs. This is a principal reason there's a market for contractors. Training
oneself in new technologies lays a base for opportunities that don't appear if you spend a
decade in the same job (unless, like mainframe programming, your job is so old it's new). I
suppose this is a beneficial side of capitalism?
I get that you want experience for mid to senior level jobs but the experience
requirements for what are ostsensibly entry-level jobs have gotten absurd. The education
requirements have also gotten out of hand in some cases.
That being said, a lot of the shortages are in low-wage, part-time jobs so the issue isn't
necessarily ridiculous requirements, like you sometimes see for entry level white collar
jobs, but wages that are too low and awful working conditions.
How many people want to be treated like dirt–be it by customers, management, or
both–for not much more than minimum wage if they have other options?
A wage increase will help fill these jobs but there also needs to be a paradigm shift in
how employees are treated–the customer is not always right and allowing them to treat
employees in ways that would not be tolerated in other businesses, and certainly not in many
white-collar workplaces is a huge part of the problem and why these jobs have long had
high-turnover.
It never ends – when it was about immigrant labor under George B junior – I
think – the call was
-- - They do jobs that Americans won't -- or something to that effect.
It always bothered me that the sentence was never, in my mind, completed. It should have been
said
-- They do jobs that Americans won't do at that pay level. --
The tax system, economic system and higher education departments have been perverted by the
continuous bribery and endowments by the rentier class to our elected law makers and dept
heads for decades –
The creditor, debtor relationships distorted for eons.
The toll takers have never, in history, been in any higher level of mastery than they are
now.
It is not to throw out the constitution but, to throw out those who have perverted it.
The construction industry knows how to exploit immigrant labor, documented as well as
undocumented. I'm sure most peole born here refuse to work for the same wages.
The exploitation occurs on many levels. For small residential jobs, a lot of wage theft
occurs. For larger jobs, a lot of safety regs get ignored. When you have a population that
won't use the legal avenues available to other citizens to push back against abuse you can
get a lot done :/
When I go looking for a job if a degree isn't required I am very unlikely to pursue it
further. Same if the list of 'required' is overly detailed. I'm making assumptions in both of
these cases (that might not be correct) about pay, benefits, work environment, etc. and what
is actually going on with a job listing. Why? Chiefly my likelihood of actually getting a
reasonable offer. I expect either being seen as overqualified in the first case or the job
only being listed because of some requirement in the second.
I have to wonder if many places know how to hire. This is made much more difficult by
years of poorly written (maybe deceptive) job postings. You probably know many of the
phrases; flexible schedule, family ___, reliable transportation required, and so on. Its no
surprise if puffery doesn't bring back the drones.
If we're playing with statistics. How many of these posted job openings, how many
interviews did the companies offer v. how many offers were made until the position was
filled? If position remains open, has the company increased the base pay offer? guaranteed an
increased min. number of weekly hours? offered bonuses or increased benefits? How many times
has this same job opening using the original posting criteria been re-posted? Is this a real
single job opening that the company plans to fill in real time or just a posting that they
keep opening because they have high turnover? etc., etc., etc.
The real problem with this workers are lazy meme is that it is repeated and repeated all
year long on the local news from the viewpoint of business. It has filtered down to local
people. I hear them repeating what the local news said without giving it any critical
thought. Even those who say that we need unions and believe themselves to be on the side of
workers.
Ear wigs are good for businesses. Insidious for workers.
In the UK, in the days of Labor Strive, before Neo-liberalism , there was always newspaper
reports about "Labor Strife" and "bolshy workers." Never once did the press examine
Management had behaved and caused the workers to become "bolshy" – a direct reaction to
Management's attitudes and behavior, probably based on the worst attributes of the UK's class
system.
Definition: A bolshy person often argues and makes difficulties.
Management get the workers (Their Attitudes) it deserves.
I recommend reading "The Toyota Way" to explore a very successful management style.
This song is getting a probably getting more hits these days
Take this job and Shove It https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIjEauGiRLo
But I hear lots of businesses will close to to no labor, so when they close they can go work
for 7.25 an hour for one of their competitors who also needs laborors Solidarinosc!
If businesses are suffering, it's restaurants and small scale enterprise. The Covid
response was tailored to the needs of economy of scale mega biz. They likely knew multitides
of mom-n-pops would go away- and they have. But that's fine.
So if state governments can turn down federal unemployment supplements because they want
labor to go back to work for unlivable wages this means the federal government can do nothing
about it. When push comes to shove the question that must be settled is, Is it a human right
to receive employment assistance until a job is found that pays a livable wage? (Not even a
republican will actually say No). So then that puts all the stingy states on notice that
there is a human rights issue here. States will have the choice to either let businesses shut
down for lack of workers, or states can subsidize minimum wages and benefits. If states
choose, in desperation, to subsidize minimum wages, then the states can apply to the feds to
be compensated. The thing that is needed in the interim, between when the real standoff
starts and ends, is a safety net for workers who are being blocked by the state from
receiving unemployment benefits. I say call in the national guard. This is a human rights
issue.
The real exploitation happened when we allowed companies to delocalize, manufacture
product in China and sell it here with no strings attached.
James Goldsmith seems like a prophet now, he was so absolutely right.
Wow. The Clinton flack was insufferable. AND WRONG about pretty much everything. Goldsmith
was brilliant. I wasn't paying enough attention at he time, but how many high profile people
were making the arguments he was making?
I'm surprised that nobody has taken the opportunity to comment on how this discussion
shows how hypocritical Biden and the democrats were not to press for raising the minimum
wage.
The pretense (which they must have coached the "Senate scholar" on) was that raising the
minimum wage was not related to revenue (i.e., a revenue bill). But of course it is! Right
now, paying below-poverty wages enabled Walmart and other employers to make the government
pay part of their wage bill. Higher minimum wages would raise these government aid recipients
out of the poverty range, saving public revenue.
That is so obvious that the failure of the Democrats to make the point shows that they really
didn't want to raise wages after all.
I didn't expect much from Biden but he's even worse than I thought. Along with those
bought senators hiding behind Joe Manchin. Depressing to think how much worse everything will
become for working people here.
When I think about how they're complaining about Manchin now when there was a serious
primary challenge against him last year, and how the Democrat organization rallied around
Manchin and not his challenger, it is disgusting to see Slate/The Guardian/NYT/other "Blue no
matter who" mouth breathers write articles asking what can be done to salvage a progressive
agenda from the curse of bipartisanship.
I had given up on national politics long before the 2020 election circus but this latest
has confirmed my resolve. The destruction of the Democrat party can't come soon enough.
If I call them Hypocritics, when I never believed them in the first place, will they feel
any shame at all? Or must I be part of their class for them to feel even the tiniest of
niggles?
Perhaps they'll feel ashamed once they cut the check for the $600 they shorted us this
winter. Or maybe that they are reneging on the extended unemployment benefits early or
One side makes you sleep on a bed of nails and swear allegiance.The other side generously
offers to help you out, no strings attached, but you might bleed out from the thousands of
tiny means-testing cuts. Each side want the lower tiers to face the gauntlet and prove one's
worthiness, hoping to convince us that a black box algorithm is the same thing as a jury of
peers.
Exactly right! And keep in mind deluge of op-eds telling us that Biden is a
transformational president! The same authors presented a deluge of op-eds telling us how
Senator Sanders was to radical for the American people after he did well in early primaries.
That the reforms he supported like Medicare for all, raising the minimum wage, lowering drug
costs, help with daycare, doing something about climate change etc. were reforms that the
people would never accept because the people value their freedom and don't want to live in a
socialistic country.
It looks like none of the promises Biden made during the campaign will be implemented by
President Biden. That why he is in the White House.
Would a lot of these positions be filled if the US had single payer healthcare or similar?
Would workers accept low paying positions if they didn't have to lose so much of their pay to
crappy health insurance?
At our local Petsmart they cut staff during the pandemic. They laid off all full time
workers
And are only hiring back part time. I knew several of the laid off people and they are not
coming back. Two of the people that worked full time have found other jobs one with slightly
better pay the other with slightly better benefits. We are in California where rent is very
high so another person we know decided to use this as a chance to relocate to another state
where housing is less expensive. Our older neighbor retired, although vaccinated now, he
decided it just wasn't safe and after the CDC told everyone to take off their mask off. He is
glad he just decided to live on a little less money. I suspect there are a lot of reasons as
Yves stated above for a lack of workers, but this "they are lazy" trope is capitalistic
nonsense.
Some highlights:
>> everyone but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor, or they will
never be industrious.
-- Arthur Young; 1771
>>Even David Hume, that great humanist, hailed poverty and hunger as positive
experiences for the lower classes, and even blamed the "poverty" of France on its good
weather and fertile soil:
'Tis always observed, in years of scarcity, if it be not extreme, that the poor labour more,
and really live better.
>>Poverty is therefore a most necessary and indispensable ingredient in society It
is the source of wealth, since without poverty, there could be no labour; there could be no
riches, no refinement, no comfort, and no benefit to those who may be possessed of
wealth.
I'll just point out, per the Old Testament, that wage, debt and rent slavery were the
exception, not the norm (as they are in the US) for citizens (Hebrews) in ancient
Israel/Judah.
That's because the assets in ancient Israel/Judah were roughly equally owned by all
citizens with provisions in the OT Law (eg. Leviticus 25, eg. Deuteronomy 15, eg. Deuteronomy
23:19-20) to keep it that way in the long run (but less than 50 years).
Contrast that to US where we have privileges for a private credit cartel, aka "the banks",
and no limits to the concentration of land ownership and the roots of our problems are
evident.
So begging for better jobs for citizens is, in the Biblical context, pathetically weak tea
indeed.
On a personal note I had a great job interview Thursday at the local food co-op. This is
my first in person interview since I was terminated without cause by IBM (after almost 24
years there in a server development job) almost a year ago. Despite applying for over 100
positions. I'm over 60 and haven't worked in a year so I admit I'm grateful to even get the
chance.
I have another interview with them next week and hoping to start soon as a produce clerk
making $13.50 an hour. If I can get on full time they offer a decent insurance plan including
dental. The HR person acknowledged that I was "wildly overqualified" but encouraging. The
possibility of getting health care is key; my IBM Cobra benefits will start costing me almost
$1400/monthly for myself and my husband in September after the ARA subsidy expires.
I've adjusted my expectations to reinvent myself as a manual laborer after decades in
fairly cushy corporate life. I've managed to keep my health and physical capacity so somewhat
optimistic I can meet the job requirements that include lifting 50 lb boxes of produce. But
we'll see.
You mean you haven't had a job in a year since it's highly doubtful that you have not done
any work in a year; eg. cooking, cleaning, shopping, car maintenance, gardening,
chauffeuring, mowing the lawn, home maintenance and caring for others count as work.
We need to stop conflating work (good) with wage slavery as if the former necessarily
requires the latter.
Okay sure. I haven't earned in a year. But it's still a problem I'm trying to sort
out best as I can.
Since I still live in the US where earning is highly correlated with insurance
coverage, and I still have about 5 years until we're both qualified for Medicare this may
turn out to be a great thing that has happened.
And since I don't see a path out of wage slavery today I'll be happy to accept almost any
offer from the food co-op. It's a union job with decent pay and benefits and may offer other
opportunities in the future. They mostly buy and sell products that are locally made so that
makes it easier too. The money we are all enslaving each other over is staying around here as
much as possible. Okay.
Good luck! Fyi i strongly suggest u look into taking your IBM pension asap as 1. It will
minimally impact your taxes as u r now earning less n 2. How many more years do u think it
will be there? ( I usually recommend most people take their social security at 62 for similar
reasons but in your case I'd do your research b4 making any move like that. ) Take a blank
state n Fed tax form n pencil in the new income n see what the results are.
Btw truly wonderful people are involved in food co-ops,enjoy!
No one really questions the idea of maximising profit.
How do you maximise profit?
You minimise costs, including labour costs, i.e. wages.
Where did the idea of maximising profit comes from?
It certainly wasn't from Adam Smith.
"But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity and
fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich and
high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to
ruin." Adam Smith
Exactly the opposite of today's thinking, what does he mean?
When rates of profit are high, capitalism is cannibalising itself by:
1) Not engaging in long term investment for the future
2) Paying insufficient wages to maintain demand for its products and services
Today's problems with growth and demand.
Amazon didn't suck its profits out as dividends and look how big it's grown (not so good on
the wages).
The benefits of the system can be passed upwards in dividends or downwards in wages.
Both actually detract from the money available for re-investment as Jeff Bezos knows only too
well.
He didn't pay dividends, and paid really low wages, to maximise the amount that he could
re-invest in Amazon and look how big it's grown.
The shareholders gains are made through the value of the shares.
Jeff Bezos hopes other people are paying high enough wages to buy lots of stuff from Amazon;
his own workers don't have much purchasing power.
Where do the benefits of the system go?
Today, we pass as much as possible upwards in dividends.
In the Keynesian era they passed a lot more down in wages.
> Jeff Bezos hopes other people are paying high enough wages to buy lots of stuff from
Amazon; his own workers don't have much purchasing power.
You are missing the tree in the forest. Jeff hopes other people will pay a high enough
price for Amazon stawk. We already know Jeff doesn't give a shit about the stuff he sells, or
the inhumane working conditions that go along with the low pay and short "career". I mean,
not even the nastiest farmer would treat his mules like that, even if mules were easy and
cheap to come by.
We don't think people should get money when they are not working.
Are you sure?
What's the point in working?
Why bother?
It's just not worth all the effort when you can make money doing nothing.
In 1984, for the first time in American history, "unearned" income exceeded "earned"
income.
They love easy money.
With a BTL portfolio, I can get the capital gains on a number of properties and extract
the hard earned income of generation rent at the same time.
That sounds good.
What is there not to like?
We love easy money.
You've just got to sniff out the easy money.
All that hard work involved in setting up a company yourself, and building it up.
Why bother?
Asset strip firms other people have built up, that's easy money.
"West Virginia's Republican Governor Jim Justice justified ending federal jobless
benefits early in his state by lecturing his residents on how, "America is all about work.
That's what has made this great country."
Have you had a look around recently?
In 1984, for the first time in American history, "unearned" income exceeded "earned"
income.
America is not about work at all.
The US is largely about exploiting or being exploited with most of US doing both.
We should resent an economic system that requires we exploit others or be a pure victim
ourselves.
That said and to face some truths we'd rather not, the Bible offers some comfort, eg:
Ecclesiastes 7:16 Do not be excessively righteous, and do not be overly wise. Why should you ruin
yourself?
Ecclesiastes 5:8-9 If you see oppression of the poor and denial of justice and righteousness in the province,
do not be shocked at the sight; for one official watches over another official, and there are
higher officials over them. After all, a king who cultivates the field is beneficial to the
land.
Nonetheless, we should support economic justice and recognize that most of us are net
losers to an unjust economic system even though it offers some corrupt compensation* to
divide and confuse us.
*eg positive yields and interest on the inherently risk-free debt of a monetary
sovereign.
Jim Justice made his money the old fashioned way, he inherited it:
From Wiki: James Conley Justice II (born April 27, 1951) is an American businessman and
politician who has been serving as the 36th governor of West Virginia since 2017. With a net
worth of around $1.2 billion, he is the wealthiest person in West Virginia. He inherited a
coal mining business from his father and built a business empire with over 94 companies,
including the Greenbrier, a luxury resort.
I wonder how much of this is also related to a change in the churn we assume existed
pre-pandemic? For example, the most recent JOLTS survey results from April
2021 show the total number of separations hasn't really changed but the number of quits
has increased.
So, one possible interpretation of that would be employers are less likely to fire people
and those who think they have skills in demand are more interested in leaving for better
opportunities now. That makes intuitive sense given what we've been through. If you had a
good gig and it was stable through 2020 you had very little reason to leave it even if an
offer was better with another company. That goes double if you were a caregiver or had
children. Which of course is why many women who were affected by the challenges of balancing
daycare and a career gave up.
This is also my experience lately. While it's only anecdotal evidence, we're having a hard
time hiring mid career engineers. Doesn't seem like pay is the issue. We offer a ton of
vacation, a separate pool of sick time, decent benefits, and wages in the six figures with a
good bonus program. We're looking to hire 3 engineers. We can't even get people to apply. In
2019 we could be sure to see a steady supply of experienced candidates looking for new
opportunities. Now? If you have an engineering position and your company is letting you work
from home it seems you don't have a good reason to jump.
Look no further than Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio. They had only half the
staff they normally need at $10 an hour. So they double the wage to $20 an hour and filled
every job in less than a week. The Conservaturds will never admit they are lying.
As a small business owner providing professional services I am grateful for the comment
section here.
I have called professional peers to get a behind the corporate PR perspective of their
businesses. Although anecdotal, the overall trend in our industry is to accept the labor
shortage and downsize. Most firms have a reliable backlog of work and will benefit from an
infrastructure bill. Our firm has chosen to downsize and close vacant positions.
Remote work, although feasible, has employees thinking they are LeBron James, regardless
of their skill set. Desperate employers are feeding their belief. Two years from now it will
be interesting to see if these employees they fail forward. Company culture minimized
employee turnover pre-covid. This culture has little meaning to an employee working in his
daughter's playroom.
For context, in California, I believe the median income for licensees is approximately
$110,000 with lower level technicians easily at $75k in the urban areas.
Lastly, the "paltry" $300 per week is in additional to the state unemployment checks and
is not subject to taxes. As stated previously, $300 is equal to $7.50 per hour. Federal
minimum wage is $7.25 and is adopted by many states minimum, for what it's worth.
With respect, I do not see any there there in the comment. Adjusted for inflation the
minimum wage at its height in 1968 at 1.60, would be just under $13 per hour today. However,
even at $15 in California, it is inadequate.
Anyone making anything like the minimum wage would not be working from home, but would be
working in some kind of customer service job, and would find paying for adequate food,
clothing, and shelter very difficult. Not in getting any extras, but only in getting enough
to survive. People, and their families, do need to eat.
If the response of not paying enough, and therefore not getting new hires, is to downsize,
perhaps that is good. After all no business deserves to remain in business, especially if the
business model depends on its workers being unable to survive.
I am also fed up with the "lazy worker" meme. Or rather, propaganda. People are literally
exhausted working 2 or 3 lousy jobs and no real healthcare. Equally irritating to me is a
misguided notion that we have some magically accessible generous safety net in the US. As
though there aren't thousands and thousands on waiting lists for government subsidized
housing. Section 8 vouchers? Good luck.
We've ended "welfare as we [knew] it" (AFDC) thanks to Bill Clinton and then the screw was
turned tightly by Junior Bush (no child care, but go to work.) The upshot was bad news for
kids.
Seems to me one of the few things left is the food stamp program, and I can't imagine how
that's been reconfigured. Whomever gave that fantastic list of goodies people can get in the
US with a mere snap of the fingers isn't in the real world, imho.
Ok! Yves, lovely to see you again, my friend! (Cue the Moody Blues ) Get well!
Here is my story.
I am 56 years old, on dialysis and I was collecting SSI of 529 a month.
I was living with and taking care of my mother in her home because she had dementia.
She died in December and I had to start paying the bills. In March I inherited her IRA which
I reported to SS. I was able to roll it over into my own IRA because I am disabled, due to
the Trump tax law changes.
I reported the changes in a timely manner and because I couldn't afford to live here without
a job, I took a part time job for 9 an hour.
So now, because I inherited my mother's IRA and have too much resources I no longer qualify
for SSI and have been overpaid to the tune of almost 2 grand, which I am assuming I will have
to pay back. I have no idea how that works either. Do they just grab money out of your
account? Anyone who knows please tell me.
I would run, run, run to the nearest public assistance counselor or lawyer. In the San
Francisco Bay Area, it is should not be too hard to find one. They saved me. There are also
in California several state websites. There was a useful to me benefits planning site (It only covers nine states though).
The rules for SSI (Supplemental Security Income), SSDI (Social Security Disability
Insurance), Social Security, Medi-Cal or Medicaid, and Medicare are each different. Each
state has its own modifications as well, so that is fifty additional sets of modified rules
especially for the medical benefits. If they are determined to claw back the money, how it is
done might depend on the individual state. It is truly a maze of flycatchers and trapdoors
out for you and your money.
The overworked benefits clerks often do not have the knowledge to deal with anything even
slightly unusual and are not encourage or at least discouraged from finding out due to
the never shrinking pile, not from anyone's malice. This means you could lose benefits
because they did not know what they were doing or just by mistake. So, it is up to you to
find those nonprofit counselors or the for profit lawyer to help you through the laws, rules,
and whatever local regulations there are. Hopefully, you will not have to read through some
of the official printed regulations like I did. If wasn't an experience paper pusher.. The
average person would have been lost. Intelligence and competence has nothing to do with.
Hell, neither does logic, I think.
In my case, when I inherited a retirement account, SSDI was not affected, because of how
the original account was set up. However, SSDI is different from SSI although both have
interesting and Byzantine requirements. I guess to make sure we are all "deserving" of any
help.
So don't ask anonymous bozos like me on the internet and find those local counselors. If
it is nonprofit, they will probably do it completely free. If needed, many lawyers, including
tax lawyers, and CPAs will offer discounted help or will know where you can go.
What is the floor on wages?
Disposable income = wages – (taxes + the cost of living)
Set disposable income to zero.
Minimum wages = taxes + the cost of living
So, as we increase housing costs, we drive up wages.
The neoliberal solution.
Try and paper over the cracks with Payday loans.
This what we call a short term solution.
Someone has been tinkering with the economics and that's why we can't see the problem.
The early neoclassical economists hid the problems of rentier activity in the economy by
removing the difference between "earned" and "unearned" income and they conflated "land" with
"capital".
They took the focus off the cost of living that had been so important to the Classical
Economists as this is where rentier activity in the economy shows up.
It's so well hidden no one even knows it's there and everyone trips up over the cost of
living, even the Chinese.
Angus Deaton rediscovers the wheel that was lost by the early neoclassical economists. "Income inequality is not killing capitalism in the United States, but rent-seekers like
the banking and the health-care sectors just might" Angus Deaton, Nobel prize winner.
Employees get their money from wages and the employers pay the cost of living through wages,
reducing profit.
This raises the costs of doing anything in the US, and drives off-shoring.
The Chinese learn the hard way.
Davos 2019 – The Chinese have now realised high housing costs eat into consumer
spending and they wanted to increase internal consumption. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNBcIFu-_V0
They let real estate rip and have now realised why that wasn't a good idea.
The equation makes it so easy.
Disposable income = wages – (taxes + the cost of living)
The cost of living term goes up with increased housing costs.
The disposable income term goes down.
They didn't have the equation, they used neoclassical economics.
The Chinese had to learn the hard way and it took years, but they got there in the end.
They have let the cost of living rise and they want to increase internal consumption.
Disposable income = wages – (taxes + the cost of living)
It's a double whammy on wages.
China isn't as competitive as it used to be.
China has become more expensive and developed Eastern economies are off-shoring to places
like Vietnam, Bangladesh and the Philippines.
... Average hourly earnings for workers in leisure and hospitality rose to $18.09 in May,
the highest ever and up 5% from January alone, according to Labor Department data released on
Friday. Pay rose even faster for workers in non-manager roles, who saw earnings rise by 7.2%
from January, far outpacing any other sector.
That higher pay could be a sign that companies are lifting wages as they seek to draw people
back to work after more than a year at home. Some businesses are struggling to keep up with
higher demand as more consumers, now fully vaccinated, get back to flying, staying in hotels
and dining indoors. Job gains in leisure and hospitality this year have so far outpaced gains
in other sectors.
But it is too soon to know whether the boost will be enough to help speed up hiring at a
time when many workers are still facing other obstacles, including health concerns and having
to care for children and other relatives.
"The fact of the matter is, the pandemic is still going on," said Daniel Zhao, a senior
economist for Glassdoor. "The economy is running ahead of where we are from a public health
situation."
Some 2.5 million people said they were prevented from looking for work in May because of the
pandemic, according to the Labor Department.
... ... ...
Employment in leisure and hospitality is still in a deep hole when compared with pre-pandemic
levels. The industry added 292,000 jobs in May, with about two-thirds of that hiring happening
in restaurants and bars. But overall employment is still down 2.5 million jobs, or 15% from
pre-pandemic levels, more than any other industry.
... ... ...
Some people who previously worked at hotels or restaurants moved on to other types of jobs
during the pandemic, such as packaging goods at a warehouse, and it's too soon to know whether
they will switch back as more of the economy reopens, said Zhao.
...About half of states are putting an early end to a $300 federal supplement to weekly
unemployment benefits, winding them down as soon as June 12. The supplement expires nationwide
on Sept. 6.
(Reporting by Jonnelle Marte and Ann Saphir; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan
Oatis)
"The bots' mission: To deliver restaurant meals cheaply and efficiently, another leap in
the way food comes to our doors and our tables." The semiautonomous vehicles were
engineered by Kiwibot, a company started in 2017 to game-change the food delivery
landscape...
In May, Kiwibot sent a 10-robot fleet to Miami as part of a nationwide pilot program
funded by the Knight Foundation. The program is driven to understand how residents and
consumers will interact with this type of technology, especially as the trend of robot
servers grows around the country.
And though Broward County is of interest to Kiwibot, Miami-Dade County officials jumped
on board, agreeing to launch robots around neighborhoods such as Brickell, downtown Miami and
several others, in the next couple of weeks...
"Our program is completely focused on the residents of Miami-Dade County and the way
they interact with this new technology. Whether it's interacting directly or just sharing
the space with the delivery bots,"
said Carlos Cruz-Casas, with the county's Department of Transportation...
Remote supervisors use real-time GPS tracking to monitor the robots. Four cameras are
placed on the front, back and sides of the vehicle, which the supervisors can view on a
computer screen. [A spokesperson says later in the article "there is always a remote and
in-field team looking for the robot."] If crossing the street is necessary, the robot
will need a person nearby to ensure there is no harm to cars or pedestrians. The plan is to
allow deliveries up to a mile and a half away so robots can make it to their destinations in
30 minutes or less.
Earlier Kiwi tested its sidewalk-travelling robots around the University of California at
Berkeley, where
at least one of its robots burst into flames . But the Sun-Sentinel reports that "In
about six months, at least 16 restaurants came on board making nearly 70,000
deliveries...
"Kiwibot now offers their robotic delivery services in other markets such as Los Angeles
and Santa Monica by working with the Shopify app to connect businesses that want to employ
their robots." But while delivery fees are normally $3, this new Knight Foundation grant "is
making it possible for Miami-Dade County restaurants to sign on for free."
A video
shows the reactions the sidewalk robots are getting from pedestrians on a sidewalk, a dog
on a leash, and at least one potential restaurant customer looking forward to no longer
having to tip human food-delivery workers.
Job gains in May were led by leisure and hospitality, with the sector adding 292,000 jobs.
Payrolls grew by
559,000 last month, the Labor Department reported Friday, up from a revised 278,000 in
April, which marked a sharp drop from March's figure.
The labor recovery has slowed from earlier in the year -- in March, the economy added
785,000 jobs
... The labor-force participation rate, the share of adults working or looking for work,
edged slightly lower in May to 61.6%, down from 63.3% in February 2020.
Republicans, always eager to snatch the bread from the mouths of the poor, are blaming
unemployment benefits for the reluctance of workers to return to jobs. In some red states,
they already are snatching it.
But more men are returning to work than are women. Doesn't that prove that unemployment
benefits are not holding back former workers?
I'll bet more women will return to work in September, after schools start up in-person
classes.
William Lamb
Republican turn a blind on helping people, except themselves. They would rather have one
being a slave and get pay less then nothing with little perks in making less then high
quality item that will still have defects, even if we pride our workmanship that is suppose
to equal to none. It would like being in 1950s, when there was not much world competition,
when world economy was still recovering from WW2.
I guessed Republican want American to continue working by low paying wages so they can
enrich themselves, and show that America can still produce things with slave wages.
johm moore
Most of the jobs are insufficient to support a reasonable quality of life. A job today is
about like a half a job pre-NAFTA and the job export process in terms of the quality of life
that it supports.
Bryson Marsh
If UI was holding back employment, then why are we adding so many low wage jobs? The missing
jobs are in *middle income* sectors.
David Chait
I wouldn't call people returning to work "new" jobs, that just seems disingenuous.
rich ullsmith
Asset prices rise when the jobs report is lukewarm. Thank you, Federal Reserve. May I have
another.
Sam Trotter
It should be made mandatory to publish the offered wage/rate. I see so many fake jobs posted
on LinkedIn with no description of bill rate for contract positions or Base+Bonus for
Full-Time roles. Too many mass scam messages.
The percentage of people quitting their jobs, meanwhile, also rose to a record 2.8% among
private-sector workers. That's a full percentage point higher than a year ago, when the
so-called quits rate fell to a seven-year low.
...A recent study by Bank of America, for example, found that job switchers earned an extra
13% in wages from their new positions. That's a big chunk of money.
...Normally people who quit their jobs are ineligible for unemployment benefits, but they
can get an exemption in many states for health, safety or child-care reasons.
About half of the states, all led by Republican governors, plan to stop giving out the
federal benefit by early July to push people back into the labor force. Economists will be
watching closely to see how many people go back to work.
... Average hourly earnings for workers in leisure and hospitality rose to $18.09 in May,
the highest ever and up 5% from January alone, according to Labor Department data released on
Friday. Pay rose even faster for workers in non-manager roles, who saw earnings rise by 7.2%
from January, far outpacing any other sector.
That higher pay could be a sign that companies are lifting wages as they seek to draw people
back to work after more than a year at home. Some businesses are struggling to keep up with
higher demand as more consumers, now fully vaccinated, get back to flying, staying in hotels
and dining indoors. Job gains in leisure and hospitality this year have so far outpaced gains
in other sectors.
But it is too soon to know whether the boost will be enough to help speed up hiring at a
time when many workers are still facing other obstacles, including health concerns and having
to care for children and other relatives.
"The fact of the matter is, the pandemic is still going on," said Daniel Zhao, a senior
economist for Glassdoor. "The economy is running ahead of where we are from a public health
situation."
Some 2.5 million people said they were prevented from looking for work in May because of the
pandemic, according to the Labor Department.
... ... ...
Employment in leisure and hospitality is still in a deep hole when compared with pre-pandemic
levels. The industry added 292,000 jobs in May, with about two-thirds of that hiring happening
in restaurants and bars. But overall employment is still down 2.5 million jobs, or 15% from
pre-pandemic levels, more than any other industry.
... ... ...
Some people who previously worked at hotels or restaurants moved on to other types of jobs
during the pandemic, such as packaging goods at a warehouse, and it's too soon to know whether
they will switch back as more of the economy reopens, said Zhao.
...About half of states are putting an early end to a $300 federal supplement to weekly
unemployment benefits, winding them down as soon as June 12. The supplement expires nationwide
on Sept. 6.
(Reporting by Jonnelle Marte and Ann Saphir; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan
Oatis)
"The bots' mission: To deliver restaurant meals cheaply and efficiently, another leap in
the way food comes to our doors and our tables." The semiautonomous vehicles were
engineered by Kiwibot, a company started in 2017 to game-change the food delivery
landscape...
In May, Kiwibot sent a 10-robot fleet to Miami as part of a nationwide pilot program
funded by the Knight Foundation. The program is driven to understand how residents and
consumers will interact with this type of technology, especially as the trend of robot
servers grows around the country.
And though Broward County is of interest to Kiwibot, Miami-Dade County officials jumped
on board, agreeing to launch robots around neighborhoods such as Brickell, downtown Miami and
several others, in the next couple of weeks...
"Our program is completely focused on the residents of Miami-Dade County and the way
they interact with this new technology. Whether it's interacting directly or just sharing
the space with the delivery bots,"
said Carlos Cruz-Casas, with the county's Department of Transportation...
Remote supervisors use real-time GPS tracking to monitor the robots. Four cameras are
placed on the front, back and sides of the vehicle, which the supervisors can view on a
computer screen. [A spokesperson says later in the article "there is always a remote and
in-field team looking for the robot."] If crossing the street is necessary, the robot
will need a person nearby to ensure there is no harm to cars or pedestrians. The plan is to
allow deliveries up to a mile and a half away so robots can make it to their destinations in
30 minutes or less.
Earlier Kiwi tested its sidewalk-travelling robots around the University of California at
Berkeley, where
at least one of its robots burst into flames . But the Sun-Sentinel reports that "In
about six months, at least 16 restaurants came on board making nearly 70,000
deliveries...
"Kiwibot now offers their robotic delivery services in other markets such as Los Angeles
and Santa Monica by working with the Shopify app to connect businesses that want to employ
their robots." But while delivery fees are normally $3, this new Knight Foundation grant "is
making it possible for Miami-Dade County restaurants to sign on for free."
A video
shows the reactions the sidewalk robots are getting from pedestrians on a sidewalk, a dog
on a leash, and at least one potential restaurant customer looking forward to no longer
having to tip human food-delivery workers.
Canadian economist Mario Seccareccia, recipient of this year's John Kenneth Galbraith
Prize in Economics, says it's time to reconsider the idea of full employment. He spoke to Lynn
Parramore of the Institute for New
Economic Thinking about why 2021 offers a rare opportunity to rebalance the economy in
favor of Main Street.
Once upon a time – not so long ago, really – unemployment was not a thing.
In agricultural societies, even capitalistic ones, most people worked on the land. A smaller
number worked in villages and towns – shoemakers and carpenters and so on. Some might go
back and forth from the countryside to the town, depending on the availability of work. If your
work in town building houses dried up, you might come back to the country for the harvest.
Economist Mario Seccareccia, who loves history, notes that before the Industrial Revolution,
it was unthinkable that someone ready and able to work had no job to do.
Questions: If unemployment was once unknown, why do we accept it now?
Where did unemployment come from?
In those pre-Industrial Revolution times, there were paupers, mostly people who could not
work for some reason such as a disability. These were deemed deserving of charity. A small
number of paupers were considered deviants and treated harshly, perhaps made to labor in public
work-houses under vile conditions.
Seccareccia notes that early classical economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo
recognized that able-bodied people could experience temporary joblessness, but not the
long-term variety. The word "unemployment" only became widely used in the nineteenth century.
As cities grew and manufacturing took off, people living in cities and towns grew apart.
Movement between the two places grew less fluid. The agricultural sector of the economy was
shrinking.
At first, if you lost your factory job, you could still probably pick up something in the
countryside to tide you over. But if you had grown up in the city, as more and more people did,
you might not know how to do rural work. By the late nineteenth century, most city dwellers
could no longer count on falling back on agricultural work during hard times.
Karl Marx noted that England's enclosure movement, which gained momentum as early as the
seventeenth century, had made things hard for agricultural workers as wealthy landowners
grabbed up the rights to common lands that workers had traditionally been allowed to use and
were a vital part of their sustenance. Uprooting peasants from the land and traditional ways of
life, Marx observed, created an "industrial reserve army" – basically a whole bunch of
people wanting to work but unable to find a job during times when industrialists held back
investment or when machines took over certain jobs.
Marx saw that this new kind of unemployment was a feature of capitalism, not a bug. Still, a
lot of mainstream bourgeois economists thought that the market would somehow sort things out
and eventually provide enough job openings to prevent mass unemployment.
It didn't turn out that way. Exhibit A: The Great Depression.
Especially after World War I, many later economists, most notably John Maynard Keynes,
warned that high rates of unemployment were getting to be the norm in the twentieth century.
Keynes predicted that a lot of people would go on being jobless unless the government did
something. This was very bad for society.
Keynes emphasized that full employment was never going to just happen on its own. Mainstream
economists thought that if wages fell enough, full employment would eventually prevail. Keynes
disputed that. As wages fell, demand contracted even further, leading to even less business
investment and so forth in a never-ending cycle. No, capitalism, with its business cycles led
to involuntary unemployment, according to Keynes.
Seccareccia observes that economist Michał Kalecki agreed that the government could
make policies to help more people stay employed at a decent wage, but there was just one
problem: wealthy capitalists weren't going to have it. They would oppose state-supported
systems to hold demand up so that fear of unemployment checked workers' demands for better pay
and improved work conditions.
For a while, after World War II, the capitalists were on the defense. The Great Depression
and the Communist threat got western countries spooked enough to go along with Keynes's
argument that governments should try to encourage employment by doing things like creating big
projects for people to work on. Safety nets were created to keep folks from falling into
poverty. The goal of full employment gained popularity and many more workers joined unions.
Capitalists v. Full Employment
Economists have bandied about various definitions of what full employment ought to look
like, explains Seccareccia: "A well-known definition came from William Beveridge, who said that
what you wanted was as many jobs open as people looking for them – or even more jobs
because every person can't take every type of job."
In the mid-twentieth century, with the economy doing well, neoclassical economists like
Milton Friedman started to push back against the idea of full employment. He discouraged the
use of fiscal and monetary policy to support employment, arguing that attempts to push down
unemployment beyond what he insisted was its "natural" rate in the economy would simply lead to
inflation.
In the 1960s, some of what Friedman warned about did actually happen. Employment was low and
prices started to go up mildly, particularly during the Vietnam War era. However, the biggest
boost to the credibility of Milton Friedman came with the OPEC cartel oil-price hikes of the
1970s that pushed the inflation rate to double-digit levels while simultaneously pushing up
unemployment. So, in the '70s, western countries started backing off from encouraging full
employment and maintaining strong safety nets. Proponents of the new neoliberal framework were
in favor of cutting safety nets, shedding government jobs, and leaving it to the market to
decide how much unemployment there would be. They said that it had to be this way to keep
inflation from rising, even though the cause of that high inflation of the '70s had nothing to
do with high public spending and excessive money creation that Friedman and his friends talked
about.
Seccareccia points to proof that the neoclassical logic didn't hold up. In the two decades
before the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-8, the rate of unemployment went down, but inflation
didn't go up. That proved that the neoclassical economists were wrong. But unfortunately,
policymakers didn't really digest this before the Great Recession hit. So, they bungled the
response badly by putting the brake on public spending too quickly because of fears of
excessive budget deficits and potentially higher future inflation that never materialized. They
kept insisting that the employment level would return to that "natural" state Friedman had
talked about if they just left things to the market.
"But it didn't work out that way," says Seccareccia. "Unemployment skyrocketed and it took a
decade to return to pre-crisis levels.
Which brings us to the COVID-19 crisis.
A Crisis Is a Terrible Thing to Waste
Seccareccia says that we have to understand the difference between the current situation and
the Global Financial Crisis. This time, it really is different.
"The earlier crisis started in the financial sector and spread to the real economy," he
explains. "But in 2020, when the Coronavirus emerged, the financial and industrial sectors got
hammered at the same time." This meant that people in both sectors stopped spending. Households
couldn't spend even if they wanted to because traveling, dining out, and other activities were
off-limits. Businesses cut investment as uncertainty loomed and exports declined due to
restrictions at borders. Unless you were Home Depot or an e-commerce company, you couldn't sell
anything.
The COVID-19 crisis also saw workers pulled out of activities thought to be too high risk
for spreading the virus. Across the country, non-essential workers were sent home and told to
stay there. Most, especially in sectors like leisure and hospitality,
can't do their work from home . A lot of these people lost their wages, and because most of
them were low-wage to begin with, they could least afford the hit. Many were only able to
maintain their incomes through government unemployment insurance. Businesses, meanwhile, were
kept afloat with subsidies.
Seccareccia notes that unemployment had an interesting twist in the pandemic because it was
both the problem and the initial cure for the health crisis. Unemployment kept the virus from
circulating. It saved lives.
Fast-forward to late spring, 2021. As America and other western countries seek to put the
pandemic behind them, the economy is opening back up. Employers are wanting to hire, and they
are even competing with each other for workers. But many job seekers are waiting to go back to
work. There are a lot of reasons why: caregiving for kids is still a huge burden, and people
are still worried about getting sick. Transit routes have been disrupted making it harder for
people to get to work. It's also possible that some workers may be resisting jobs on offer
which come with low pay and inadequate benefits.
Employers have started complaining they can't find workers and blame the social safety net
as the problem. Some employers, like those in the hospitality industry, are offering higher pay
to lure workers back.
Just as Kalecki predicted, the wealthy capitalists are getting uneasy. The Chamber of
Commerce, for example, has pushed the U.S. to stop expanded unemployment insurance benefits so
that people will be forced to return to low-wage jobs. Some Republican-dominated states have
jumped on board with this idea. Economist Larry Summers, for his part, is warning about
inflation and telling the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates so that wages don't go up. He
complains that when he walks outside,
all he sees are people eager to fill job vacancies . It's unclear where he was living when
he said that, or which people he is talking about.
Others argue that expanded unemployment insurance isn't the problem, but the crappy jobs on
offer. Seccareccia believes that it's a good thing if employers raise their wages, even if that
means a little bit of inflation.
Rising inequality, he emphasizes, is unsustainable in a healthy society, and it's about time
ordinary people had a little power to improve their lot. "When employers are worried about
people quitting," he says, "that's when you know you're getting close to full employment. And
in a capitalist society, it's an extremely rare situation when the number of quits begins to
exceed the number of new hires as an economy nears the peak of a business cycle."
In Seccareccia's view, "there's a balancing act between workers 'fearing the sack' and
employers 'fearing the quit.'" He observes that capitalists are very good at making sure that
the former situation is more common, and they've been spectacularly successful in the last 40
years. "This is why you have flat wages and runaway inequality," says Seccareccia.
"Productivity goes up but the workers don't share in it." Profits pile up at the top.
Right now, inflation has been creeping up in some areas. In a couple of sectors, like used
cars, it's rising a lot. The question is, beyond a couple of unique cases, what will happen to
inflation overall? And will be temporary? A lot of economists think that inflation will be
short-lived and will not get very high, so it's nothing to get excited about. Some economists,
like Antonella Palumbo, think the
worry about inflation is overdone . She notes that with unemployment still high and vast
numbers of people who formerly worked but are still out of the labor force, the ranks of the
famous reserve army of unemployed are still huge. As the economy restarts, all kinds of
short-run bottlenecks are cropping up, but that reserve army is not going anywhere fast and
will continue to limit wage increases.
Seccareccia points out that wealthy capitalists trying to stop workers from getting paid
better and conservatives complaining about laziness fail to mention that meanwhile, the stock
market is soaring, making the rich richer. Plus, the housing market is booming because the more
affluent people lucky enough to have kept their jobs over the pandemic now have extra money
saved to spend on big-ticket items. "Is it really fair," he asks, "to complain about a few
hundred dollars a week received by those at the bottom of the economic ladder? Especially how
much the economy is already titled in favor of the haves?"
So, what exactly should the government do about unemployment? Should it do anything at all?
For Seccareccia's part, he thinks this is a perfect time to reconsider the idea of full
employment, which has been so long abandoned by policymakers in favor of some "natural"
unemployment rate. "Policymakers need to understand why COVID may offer a chance not seen since
the end of WWII," he says. "We could actually make the economy fairer for ordinary people."
> So, what exactly should the government do about unemployment?
My favoured solution, and that of other readers of this blog, I suspect, is the Job
Guarantee as promoted by MMT.
Because a well designed job guarantee would provide a floor on wages and benefits, the
private sector would be forced to match it at the very least. But as has been pointed out on
this blog many times before, Kalecki's point that full employment would remove employers
ability to effectively threaten workers with the sack, means that it will be very difficult
politically to see it implemented.
Next week I start my 2nd year of pandemic triggered unemployment after I was terminated
without cause. On June 26th my extended UI benefits will be halted by TX Governor Greg Abbot.
Okay.
In a year of applying for new positions I have managed to get exactly 1 phone interview
after a 40 year career in technology development, ending up with almost 24 years at IBM. In
my last year with them I received both a performance bonus and a salary hike. But I'm now
over 60 and have been unemployed longer than 3 months so that's probably fairly typical
experience. Okay.
The path to full employment is probably going to require the creation of new opportunities
in a still contracting economic system. It's not impossible if you're focused on the goal.
Here's my shortlist of policy initiatives that could dramatically and quickly grow the number
of available jobs, particularly for the under employed younger people who are paying off
student loans.
Dramatically increase social security and medicare eligibility/benefits to convince older
workers to leave the workforce.
Expand paid family leave and vacation policies to align with other industrialized nations in
order to require businesses to hire to cover needed absences.
Drop the number of hours that define full time work to allow more workers to get full
benefits.
Yeah, I'd like to be considered for another good paying job in a still viable industry. I
spent decades developing skills that are still relevant and valuable. But I'm old and I'm
expensive because I have expectations based on my own employment history that 40 years of
neoliberal policies have rendered obsolete. Okay.
I'm close enough to retirement and lucky enough in my ability to save and plan that this
won't wreck us. I try to imagine my pandemic inspired involuntary retirement as an
opportunity to become a labor rights activist. It helps.
My situation is virtually the same, although in academia as research scientist at major US
university, with last 6 years as invited scientist at German research institute. Returned to
US to the nightmare of Trump at 63, but fully (and naively) intending to continue working.
I've lost count of how many job applications I've tendered, with only one interview in two
years, then COVID. Now resigned to the fact that work for me from here on out will be
different. I continue to write papers with colleagues at university to maintain a reputation
in my field. Now recognize that people take one look at my CV, and think: "Old! Expensive!"
-- but the truth is I would be willing to work for little just to stay active in a field
applying expertise I've spent decades acquiring. I've since met many, many seniors in the
same boat: trained professionals with lots of experience who still want to work (and, in my
case, need at least some income).
But at least I had a career. I can't imagine the hopelessness of people 35-40 years my
junior, with huge debt from college, grad school, and unable to find a decent job.
Something must change. The situation as it exists is unsustainable. One bright light seems
to be increasing recognition of the way the economy actually functions, the role of public
spending, and the real limits to growth, prosperity.
Appreciate your commiseration Rolf. I expect there is an army of people like us who are in
this situation or about to be.
Fwiw (maybe not much), I'm actively trying to get hired full time at the food coop near my
house. The workers there are represented by a union and get full insurance benefits including
dental with a 40 hour work week. The Vt minimum wage of $11.75/hr doesn't matter as much as
those insurance benefits do; we're still in that 5 year gap between age 60 and age 65 where
you are on your own if you need healthcare.
And I've pretty much decided to laugh off Beaux Jivin's campaign promise to drop the
medicare eligibility age to 60 etc. It's abandoned along with many other campaign promises.
Okay.
Thanks, A/S, for your kind words. Yes, benefits are key. I really am increasingly worried
that Biden, and the Democratic Party in general, don't seem the grasp the fact that the GOP
is absolutely committed to recovering control of Congress and the White House by *any* means
necessary. Biden in particular seems to entertain the notion that he can bring the right wing
to his way of thinking by conciliation, negotiation, compromise, and good performance. But
the GOP is not interested in Dem's performance or compromise -- McConnell has made this quite
clear. So Dems have an opportunity to make significant history, a true course correction, but
only this once. To pursue "bipartisanship" with a party that has no interest in compromise is
hugely naïve -- I can't imagine Biden is that foolish, except that he did begin his
campaign with the promise that "nothing would fundamentally change".
The food coop gig sounds like a good, sound shot -- all the best to you.
Fellow army member, age 61. Lucky to have health care via spouse but definitely not enough
wealth to retire. Two interviews in last two years, both in retrospect clearly designed to
fill out an interview field when preferred (much younger) hire had already been identified.
The canard about atrophied skills might apply in the occasional instance but IMO is just more
bullsh1t in defense of existing social order.
Dem obliviousness to the reality all around us is truly horrifying. I used to argue that
the big sort would result in fenced "progressive" enclaves in which all parties – those
inside and those outside – would be thrilled to not have to interact with each other.
But it's clear to me now that progressives don't need physical separation to avoid seeing
what they don't want to; they are completely able to not see the world right in front of
them.
I guess I should include this post script regarding my IBM termination:
After I'd been unemployed for about 90 days I was contacted by a recruiter working on
behalf of IBM and my former managers. They were looking for people with exactly my skills and
experience to come back to work at IBM as temporary contractors. I agreed to a short phone
interview to learn more about the opportunity.
Once the recruiter verified my experience and contacts at IBM, I managed to confirm that
they expected to bring me back on at about 80% of my former salary. With no benefits and zero
job security. I laughed out loud at this acknowledgment of their duplicity but agreed to let
myself be considered and provided a resume. Never heard back which is probably okay.
Amateur Socialist, Rolf and Left in Wisconsin -- I take my hat off to all of you. Work
left both my partner and me a number of years ago, and we quickly learned that we had aged
out of the market and were useless to society as we thought of it. Fortunately, we relatively
quickly became eligible for Medicare, which even in its steadily diminishing state was (and
is) a significant help.
Good luck to all of you, and A/S, please let us know the outcome of your pursuit of the
job with benefits at your local Food Co-op.
I think your experience demonstrates the problem with defining full Employment as, "anyone
who wants a job has one". Using this definition, the simple way to get the economy to FE then
is to just make all the jobs so terrible and low paying that no one wants them. You dont need
a job, and you dont want just any old crappy job. You want one similiar to your old one, If
that doesnt exist anymore, one would reasonably say you dont want a job, since what you want
doesn't exist, hence we're at full employment
All of this is to say, we shouldnt necessarily just encourage the government to get us to
FE. Capitalists by themselves are quite capable of getting us there, as I'd argue they did in
the 19th century. Its government interventions like minimum wage and basic safety protocols
that keep us from reaching FE since that's what makes people actually want a job
it was unthinkable that someone ready and able to work had no job to do.
I think there is a conflation of the language terms bandied
about–work-v-jobs-v-employment are all couched in the concept of a Consumption Based
Economy. I am tired of this.
weeding the garden is work–unless I'm paying you then it becomes a job. In both
instances, however, you are employed in the endeavor. This is grooming behavior using
language, imo, and needs to stop.
I think this muddle is a componant of the current 'Jobs Discussion".
Covid has rattled generations coming out of Displacements following the very unequal GFC,
and an undefined(maybe) examination of Meaning and Place within the current state of the
world and the Economy that has been chosen to fulfill the needs of that Economy (Societal and
Personal). More Intuitive than cognitive to many.
Selling Plastic bric-a-brac for the Man, to make the rent in an endless cycle, may have
lost its cache' subconsciously, to the 'common man' in this time of apparent Climate Crises
et al.
There is still plenty to do, and little time for Idleness( itself a "reward' promoted as a
'something' by the Consumptive Economy).
"Proponents of the new neoliberal framework were in favor of cutting safety nets, shedding
government jobs, and leaving it to the market to decide how much unemployment there would be.
They said that it had to be this way to keep inflation from rising,"
"The market" – that's the first con people have to get over. There is.no "the
market" like there it is something like nature.
It's system of intentional, changeable human decisions backed by beliefs and emotions of all
kinds now matter how many theories or quantifications occur. And a corporate beuracracy is
still a beuracracy.
And actually this neoliberal thinking of letting some imaginary entity "the market"
"decide" (we should be lughing at this silliness!) to keep people unemployed to avoid
"inflation" only makes sense if it actually meant to signify "avoid inflation of the
population."
The modern police force is a consequence of idle and unemployed city dwellers. Idled
workers don't just sit down and die from malnutrition. Instead, they roam around looking for
food, or opportunities that would lead to procuring food. Hungry, impoverished mobs are never
a good idea: Ask Czar Nicholas, Kaiser Wilhelm, or the French aristocrats of the 1780's
(rather, interrogate their ghosts) how idle, hungry crowds furthered their reigns. For all
that, look to the unrest of the 1930's in the US.
Given this reality–that unemployed and starving people refuse to sit down and die
peacefully–what will happen as automation starts to rob routine jobs? Already we are
seeing robots prowling the Walmart aisles, driverless vehicles delivering pizzas, and
self-checkout lines in big box stores. We who work are losing the war on unemployment, which
leads to a question: Who is the winner?
Almost as an afterthought, one wonders how much in contributions to Social Security and
Medicare have been lost because of automation. Robots don't pay taxes.
After the achievement of the 40-hour workweek, paid vacations, and other labor
concessions, many influential figures believed that egalitarian access to leisure would
only increase in the 20th century. Among them was economist John Maynard Keynes, who
forecast in 1930 that labor-saving technologies might lead to a 15-hour workweek when his
grandchildren came of age. Indeed, he titles his essay, "Economic Possibility for our
Grandchildren."
The benefits of labour-saving technologies have mostly been taken as money instead of time
and by doing so the capitalist class kept power thereby leading to them getting the
lions-share of the benefits of the labour-saving techologies.
The political class could, and still can, side with people and decide that labour-saving
technologies is to be taken out as reduced amount of hours spent working for someone else. As
is the politcal class have bought the 'lump of labour'-fallacy-fallcy hook, line and sinker
so what we see is increased pension-age etc
I tried out retirement for a few months. I'm 62 and got SS and a very small pension. It's
not enough so I went back – temping. The jobs I can get as a paralegal/admin person
don't pay a lot but there seem to be quite a few of them based on companies that are merging
or have merged and have a huge mess to clean up. So they hire you for a few months to slog
through chaos and fix it. Then on to the next one. I'll keep doing this until I can move to a
cheaper part of the U.S. Remote helps in that if I don't have a Zoom interview they can't
tell how old I am. I feel for everyone who can't even get tedious work. If my SS was higher I
would stop working. If my salary had matched that of the male co-workers that had the exact
same job as me, my pension would be higher. Retiring in America for many people is part
nomadic as you have to move out of your area to survive after you leave your regular job, or
it gets rid of you and the other part is being extremely frugal. Woohoo what a life after
over 40 years of helping companies make money.
Yes a totally true statement. For it to be higher I would have had to wait until almost 67
to take it. It will go up a tad from my additional employment – maybe. Anyway it's a
mostly a set amount. I make as a temp in 2 weeks (take home) what I get in SS once per month.
If I make over about $19k annually while taking the SS, the US gov will begin to reduce the
SS payment.
Social Security takes the highest 40 quarters (10 years) of your earnings to calculate
your benefit. If your current work results in higher numbers than are being used currently,
the higher numbers will be used and your benefit will increase.
I tried to reply to your question – yes it is a true statement. What I wrote
additionally may have been moderated out for some reason so I won't repeat it. It only
mentioned dollar amounts and the US gov so maybe that was bad – not sure!
Victoria H
and I thank you for that.
But I think you, and I will 'work' until we die–
What does work mean?
noun. exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil. productive
or operative activity. employment, as in some form of industry, especially as a means of
earning one's livelihood: to look for work. the result of exertion, labor, or activity; a
deed or performance.
Work | Definition of Work at Dictionary.comhttps://www.dictionary.com › browse
› work
I am personally familiar with what you are going through and My wife is there right
now.
I waited till full retirement at 66 to collect–not being able to leave 2k on the
table(diff btwn 62 and 66 for me). I cannot describe the amount of effort and gyration I
needed to extend to achieve that– which may explain why I am the only one in my
'Friend Circle' to actually accomplish it.
Trigger Warning
I thought the coup de grace was when I had to sign up for–and Pay For, with cash,
Quarterly–Medicare without a SS check to have it automatically deducted from. Because
of my birthday I needed to pony up about 5 months worth of premiums(but i had 3 months to
save up for the next Q pymt). I doubt you've ever been curbed at the end of a physical
altercation, but that is what it felt like to me. Best think about all that.
Good news–do your own taxes for your enlightenment and you will see that the SS Income
Worksheet provides a path to structuring your Income to counter-balance additional
Income.
Discalimer–I am in no way an Acc'tant or Tax Man or even giving Advice. I am a
Carpenter–but Written Instructions are Written Instructions and Numbers are Numbers and
I made a paid living following both–so it's understandable enough to give you some
options to ponder.
And to Rolf/AmSoc and all the others -- IMNSHO(the first ever time I have used this
phrase) the most dispiriting element about 'Retirement' in America is the Stranding of So
Many Valuable Assets embodied in the Retired when the world desperatly needs "All Hands On
Deck" to resist the Man Made Extinction looming.
the most dispiriting element about 'Retirement' in America is the Stranding of So Many
Valuable Assets embodied in the Retired when the world desperately needs "All Hands On
Deck" to resist the Man Made Extinction looming.
These are true words, Rod. I think catastrophic changes (no hyperbole) lie ahead, for
which there is little precedent. Many make absurdly blithe assumptions, thinking they
won't be affected, or that wealth will insulate them. This is arrogant folly, and we will
need everyone to row in the same direction.
The man who owns the Heating and Air Conditioning company I have been using for the last
decade lives in the neighborhood and is 88 years old. After his brother had health problems,
and the young nephew he employed left for greener pastures,he now does pretty much all the
work himself, and let me tell you, he knows his stuff. I know I should have a back-up in
mind, just in case, but so far, haven't found anyone else I can trust.
Well said. I took retirement at 62 for several reasons,number 1 being i didn't believe it
would be around long enough to pay me back.
"All hands on deck" is imo exactly what is needed,but the mostly planned divisiveness
(fake right vs fake left aka RepubliCons vs Dumbocrats) will help ensure that never occurs,to
someone's benefit.
Just think how many people would quit working, or enter self-employment, if they weren't
dependent on employer providedmedical insurance. I don't know the answer/estimate; it would
have to be a large number, enough to significantly raise wages across the board.
Retiring in America for many people is part nomadic
This observation made me remember a critical scene from the excellent oscar winner last
year, Nomadland . Frances McDormand's character meets a friend who explains why she
took to the road: "Five hundred forty dollars a month from Social Security. After working non
stop for over 40 years. How am I supposed to live on that".
I'm paraphrasing possibly badly from memory; it's a very short scene that isn't really
pursued farther in the script. But I do remember thinking "Aha! This is the root cause of all
this misery and despair "
We moved to southern Vermont from Texas just prior to the pandemic believing we had
relocated to a cheaper part of the US as you also mentioned. But Vermont's strong public
health track record during the pandemic has unleashed a huge real estate boom here so who
knows We may end up priced out of Vermont eventually too.
Real estate is still relatively cheap in Texas (at least around Houston), with the caveat
that Republicans don't always keep the power on or the water pressure up in the middle of
winter.
Unfortunately our place was in the Austin exurb of Bastrop. Which is now part of the
Austin insane real estate boom. And yes Houston can be cheap but only if you don't mind
living near a refinery. Or in the path of many future hurricanes. Hard pass.
I keep seeing references to "flat wages." While it's technically true, I suspect it's
enormously deceptive.
Yes, we have flat wages. But the cost of necessities that add little or no value to
people's lives but which they're FORCED to pay for have shot up far, far beyond the pace of
inflation. Think medical care, housing and education, to name just three, all of which are
somehow ignored or slighted in official inflation stats.
Right now the best transition is for the government to regulate capitalism in the
direction the future (sustainability) dictates. The problem with regulating capitalism is
that most capitalists think it is already too regulated; taxes are too high, etc. They are on
the edge of revolution themselves. And regulated capitalism is almost an oxymoron to most
Americans. It's just business as usual to a European because they have better social spending
and blablablah. The statistic I remember is that the EU spends about 45% of its revenue on
social stuff; the US spends a little less than 35%. The problem, as I see it, is this: If we
in the US do not achieve adequate social spending we create the perfect breeding ground for
exploitation of the environment. People will be desperate for a job – any job. Which
will not only cause worse CO2 problems, it will poison off, or starve off, many many species
now living on the edge. We will further pollute the oceans and waterways. And we will not
only stick with our sick and poisonous agricultural practices, we will exponentiate them
– precluding all efforts to fix these unsustainable things. Capitalism as we have known
it must change. So, even the great idea of capitalism must adapt to reality. Somebody please
tell Larry. At this point "inflation" is an absolutely meaningless word. It would be a very
good thing if we followed Eisenhower's advice to LBJ and began to create social structures
that are fair to all of society – to the capitalists whose current mandate of voracious
profiteering is clearly unsustainable, as well as to "labor" – as we see it evolving
– and now, most importantly, we must include the rights of the planet itself and all of
our fellow travelers. We won't last very long if we kill them all off and trash the Earth.
The race to the bottom that all privateering capitalism eventually creates is the most absurd
thing in the history of civilization.
A good start would be breaking up all of the ubiquitous monopolies/monopsonies/cartels,
that have taken over every sector of the economy, from food processing to entertainment to
banking to manufacturing to politics to (ad infinitum/nauseum).
I went to Firehouse Subs yesterday there was a whiteboard inside on a table, facing into
the restaurant, that said they were hiring and offered starting pay of $9.00 for crew members
and $12.00 for shift managers.
Just inside the door, facing out, was a whiteboard offering starting pay of $11.00 for
crew members and $14.00 for shift managers. Seems like they're getting the message.
As an aside, I'd like to give props to Firehouse Subs for using pressed paper clam boxes
and paper bags.
Money quote from comments: "When news of this proposed standard came out, I read the actual
standard because I wanted to see if it really was that bad. Things were reported like, "Saying
an answer is 'wrong' is racist. There is no right and wrong in math, just shades of truth."
These kinds of things are worrisome. So I read a good chunk of the proposal, and I couldn't
find anything like that. Instead, I found their point was that anyone has the capability of
learning math, and so we should be teaching it to everyone. If people aren't learning it, then
that's a problem with our teaching methods.
Not sure Google and Apple will be happy. Clearly programming languages are racists as almost
all of them were created by white guys and they disproportionally punish poor coders...
A plan to reimagine math instruction for 6 million California students has become
ensnared in equity and fairness issues -- with critics saying proposed guidelines will hold
back gifted students and supporters saying it will, over time, give all kindergartners through
12th-graders a better chance to excel. From a report: The proposed new guidelines aim to
accelerate achievement while making mathematical understanding more accessible and valuable to
as many students as possible, including those shut out from high-level math in the past because
they had been "tracked" in lower level classes. The guidelines call on educators generally to
keep all students in the same courses until their junior year in high school, when they can
choose advanced subjects, including calculus, statistics and other forms of data
science.
Although still a draft, the Mathematics Framework achieved a milestone Wednesday, earning
approval from the state's Instructional Quality Commission. The members of that body moved the
framework along, approving numerous recommendations that a writing team is expected to
incorporate. The commission told writers to remove a document that had become a point of
contention for critics. It described its goals as calling out systemic racism in mathematics,
while helping educators create more inclusive, successful classrooms. Critics said it
needlessly injected race into the study of math. The state Board of Education is scheduled to
have the final say in November.
When news of this proposed standard came out, I read the actual standard because I wanted to
see if it really was that bad. Things were reported like, "Saying an answer is 'wrong' is
racist. There is no right and wrong in math, just shades of truth." These kinds of things are
worrisome.
So I read a good chunk of the proposal, and I couldn't find anything like that. Instead, I
found their point was that anyone has the capability of learning math, and so we should be
teaching it to everyone. If people aren't learning it, then that's a problem with our teaching
methods.
I also found that instead of getting rid of calculus, they are suggesting that you learn
calculus as a Junior or Senior in high school. This seems fine to me.
Does the curriculum for grades 1-10 have the appropriate foundational education for kids in
grades 11-12 to actually succeed in a calculus class? Because if not, then the notion that any
significant portion of juniors and seniors will be able take a calculus class is just a
fantasy. Re:
That is the goal, but I am not enough of an expert to know whether they reached their goal
or not. Re:
Reading (mostly skimming) through chapter 8 (about grades 9-12), a couple things stick
out:
First off, they define three different possible "pathways" for grades 9-10, which seems
completely in opposition to goal of a "common ninth- and tenth- grade experience." It sounds
like they envision that some high schools will only provide a single pathway while others will
provide multiple ones -- but it seems incredibly obvious that that's going to put students on
different tracks.
in 40 years since I did it. (I have been helping my kids.)
Which is a problem, because the world has changed with the advent of computers.
So they work on quite difficult symbolic integrations. But absolutely nothing on numerical
methods (and getting the rounding errors correct) which is far more useful in the modern
world.
For non-specialist students, there is almost nothing on how to really build a spreadsheet
model. That again is a far more useful skill than any calculus or more advanced algebra.
And then Re: I can't believe this
white supremacy I doubt they could get AP Calculus to work. It's going to have to be an
easier version of pre Calculus. Because of how they schedule the classes today, some kids take
summer courses so that they can get the prerequisites in time. Keeping everyone at the same
slow pace is painful for the stronger students. I'm wondering if they are having trouble
finding teachers who are qualified to teach math. Kumon The ones
whose parents can send them to Kumon or Russian Math after school, will have the capacity.
Those who cant even if they were smart enough for the accelerated program under current system
wont. With any law follow the money- see who will make money from this. Re:I can't believe
this white supremacy (
Score: 4 , Insightful) by CrappySnackPlane ( 7852536 ) on Monday May 31,
2021 @04:14PM ( #61440460 )
Which planet did you go to school on?
Here on Earth, here's how "everyone learns calculus in 11th grade" works:
The entire class has to stop and wait for the kids who are genuinely overwhelmed - be it
because they're smart-but-poor-and-hungry or, you know, because they're just fucking
dumb , both types exist, it doesn't matter - to catch up, because the teacher's job
rests on whether 79% or 80% of their students score a passing grade on the statewide
achiev^H^H^H^H^H^H (whoops, can't have achievements, that's ableist) "performance" tests. The
teacher, being a rational creature who understands how to make sure their family's bread
remains buttered, spends the bulk of their time helping along little Jethro and Barbie.
The bright kids are left bored out of their minds, and the "solution" presented by these
absolute shitstains is to suggest the bright kids do after-school activities if they want to
actually learn. Like, that's great for the 1% who genuinely love math the way some kids
love music or acting or sports, but what about the 25% or so who are really gifted at math and
would like to do more with it, but aren't so passionate about it that they want to give up more
of their precious dwindling free time to pursue it? What about the 50% who aren't necessarily
great at math but could certainly learn a lot more if the class wasn't being stopped every two
minutes to re-re-remind little Goobclot that "x" was actually a number, not just a letter?
Look, I absolutely agree that it's bad to write kids off as dumb. But Harrison
Bergeron is not included in the "Utopian Literature of the 20th Century" curriculum for a
reason. There's a flipside, and none of these "one size fits all" proposals does anything to
convince me that the proponents have actually seriously considered the other side of the coin.
Reply to This Parent Share FlagRe:I can't believe this
white supremacy (
Score: 2 ) by systemd-anonymousd ( 6652324 ) on Monday May 31,
2021 @06:26PM ( #61440894 )
My local school district is removing all AP math courses because they believe a disparity in
race in the students represents racism, and/or they just don't want to have to look at the
situation. I know the precursors to this sort of racist policy when I see it, and documents
that espouse a trifecta of equity, inclusivity, and diversity are fully intended to pull crabs
back down into the boiling bucket. Re:final countdown (
Score: 2 ) by gweihir ( 88907
) on Monday May 31, 2021 @05:31PM ( #61440734 )
Next step is mandatory lobotomies for smarter kids or something like it. Because they
obviously violate the dumber ones by setting an example the dumber ones can never hope to
reach. See also "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut.
Reply to This Parent Share
Looks like this guys somewhat understands the problems with neoliberalism, but still is captured by neoliberal ideology.
Notable quotes:
"... That all seems awfully quaint today. Pensions disappeared for private-sector employees years ago. Most community banks were gobbled up by one of the mega-banks in the 1990s -- today five banks control 50 percent of the commercial banking industry, which itself mushroomed to the point where finance enjoys about 25 percent of all corporate profits. Union membership fell by 50 percent. ..."
"... Ninety-four percent of the jobs created between 2005 and 2015 were temp or contractor jobs without benefits; people working multiple gigs to make ends meet is increasingly the norm. Real wages have been flat or even declining. The chances that an American born in 1990 will earn more than their parents are down to 50 percent; for Americans born in 1940 the same figure was 92 percent. ..."
"... Thanks to Milton Friedman, Jack Welch, and other corporate titans, the goals of large companies began to change in the 1970s and early 1980s. The notion they espoused -- that a company exists only to maximize its share price -- became gospel in business schools and boardrooms around the country. Companies were pushed to adopt shareholder value as their sole measuring stick. ..."
"... Simultaneously, the major banks grew and evolved as Depression-era regulations separating consumer lending and investment banking were abolished. Financial deregulation started under Ronald Reagan in 1980 and culminated in the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999 under Bill Clinton that really set the banks loose. The securities industry grew 500 percent as a share of GDP between 1980 and the 2000s while ordinary bank deposits shrank from 70 percent to 50 percent. Financial products multiplied as even Main Street companies were driven to pursue financial engineering to manage their affairs. GE, my dad's old company and once a beacon of manufacturing, became the fifth biggest financial institution in the country by 2007. ..."
The logic of the meritocracy is leading us to ruin, because we arc collectively primed to ignore the voices of the millions getting
pushed into economic distress by the grinding wheels of automation and innovation. We figure they're complaining or suffering because
they're losers.
We need to break free of this logic of the marketplace before it's too late.
[Neoliberalism] had decimated the economies and cultures of these regions and were set to do the same to many others.
In response, American lives and families are falling apart. Ram- pant financial stress is the new normal. We are in the third
or fourth inning of the greatest economic shift in the history of mankind, and no one seems to be talking about it or doing anything
in response.
The Great Displacement didn't arrive overnight. It has been building for decades as the economy and labor market changed in response
to improving technology, financialization, changing corporate norms, and globalization. In the 1970s, when my parents worked at GE
and Blue Cross Blue Shield in upstate New York, their companies provided generous pensions and expected them to stay for decades.
Community banks were boring businesses that lent money to local companies for a modest return. Over 20 percent of workers were unionized.
Some economic problems existed -- growth was uneven and infla- tion periodically high. But income inequality was low, jobs provided
benefits, and Main Street businesses were the drivers of the economy. There were only three television networks, and in my house
we watched them on a TV with an antenna that we fiddled with to make the picture clearer.
That all seems awfully quaint today. Pensions disappeared for private-sector employees years ago. Most community banks were
gobbled up by one of the mega-banks in the 1990s -- today five banks control 50 percent of the commercial banking industry, which
itself mushroomed to the point where finance enjoys about 25 percent of all corporate profits. Union membership fell by 50 percent.
Ninety-four percent of the jobs created between 2005 and 2015 were temp or contractor jobs without benefits; people working
multiple gigs to make ends meet is increasingly the norm. Real wages have been flat or even declining. The chances that an American
born in 1990 will earn more than their parents are down to 50 percent; for Americans born in 1940 the same figure was 92 percent.
Thanks to Milton Friedman, Jack Welch, and other corporate titans, the goals of large companies began to change in the 1970s
and early 1980s. The notion they espoused -- that a company exists only to maximize its share price -- became gospel in business
schools and boardrooms around the country. Companies were pushed to adopt shareholder value as their sole measuring stick.
Hostile takeovers, shareholder lawsuits, and later activist hedge funds served as prompts to ensure that managers were committed
to profitability at all costs. On the flip side, CF.Os were granted stock options for the first time that wedded their individual
gain to the company's share price. The ratio of CF.O to worker pay rose from 20 to 1 in 1965 to 271 to 1 in 2016. Benefits were streamlined
and reduced and the relationship between company and employee weakened to become more transactional.
Simultaneously, the major banks grew and evolved as Depression-era regulations separating consumer lending and investment
banking were abolished. Financial deregulation started under Ronald Reagan in 1980 and culminated in the Financial Services Modernization
Act of 1999 under Bill Clinton that really set the banks loose. The securities industry grew 500 percent as a share of GDP between
1980 and the 2000s while ordinary bank deposits shrank from 70 percent to 50 percent. Financial products multiplied as even Main
Street companies were driven to pursue financial engineering to manage their affairs. GE, my dad's old company and once a beacon
of manufacturing, became the fifth biggest financial institution in the country by 2007.
It's hard to be in the year 2018 and not hear about the endless studies alarming the general public about coming labor automation.
But what Yang provides in this book is two key things: automation has already been ravaging the country which has led to the great
political polarization of today, and second, an actual vision into what happens when people lose jobs, and it definitely is a
lightning strike of "oh crap"
I found this book relatively impressive and frightening. Yang, a former lawyer, entrepreneur, and non-profit leader, writes
showing with inarguable data that when companies automate work and use new software, communities die, drug use increases, suicide
increases, and crime skyrockets. The new jobs created go to big cities, the surviving talent leaves, and the remaining people
lose hope and descend into madness. (as a student of psychology, this is not surprising)
He starts by painting the picture of the average American and how fragile they are economically. He deconstructs the labor
predictions and how technology is going to ravage it. He discusses the future of work. He explains what has happened in technology
and why it's suddenly a huge threat. He shows what this means: economic inequality rises, the people have less power, the voice
of democracy is diminished, no one owns stocks, people get poorer etc. He shows that talent is leaving small towns, money is concentrating
to big cities faster. He shows what happens when those other cities die (bad things), and then how the people react when they
have no income (really bad things). He shows how retraining doesn't work and college is failing us. We don't invest in vocational
skills, and our youth is underemployed pushed into freelance work making minimal pay. He shows how no one trusts the institutions
anymore.
Then he discusses solutions with a focus on Universal Basic Income. I was a skeptic of the idea until I read this book. You
literally walk away with this burning desire to prevent a Mad Max esque civil war, and its hard to argue with him. We don't have
much time and our bloated micromanaged welfare programs cannot sustain.
This is a very short book, almost an essay -- 136 pages. It was published in October 2004, four years before financial crisis of
2008, which put the first nail in the coffin of neoliberalism. It addresses the cultural politics of neo-liberalism ("the
Great Deception")
Notable quotes:
"... By now, we've all heard about the shocking redistribution of wealth that's occurred during the last thirty years, and particularly during the last decade. But economic changes like this don't occur in a vacuum; they're always linked to politics. ..."
"... Ultimately, The Twilight of Equality? not only reveals how the highly successful rhetorical maneuvers of neoliberalism have functioned ..."
"... The titles of her four chapters--Downsizing Democracy, The Incredible Shrinking Public, Equality, Inc., Love AND Money--summarize her argument. ..."
"... Her target is neoliberalism, which she sees as a broadly controlling corporate agenda which seeks world domination, privatization of governmental decision-making, and marginalization of unions, low-income people, racial and sexual minorities while presenting to the public a benign and inclusive facade. ..."
"... Neo-liberalism seeks to upwardly distribute money, power, and status, she writes, while progressive movements seek to downwardly distribute money, power, and status. The unity of the downwardly distribution advocates should match the unity of the upwardly distribution advocates in order to be effective, she writes. ..."
"... "There is nothing stable or inevitable in the alliances supporting neoliberal agendas in the U.S. and globally," she writes. "The alliances linking neoliberal global economics, and conservative and right-wing domestic politics, and the culture wars are provisional--and fading...." ..."
"... For example, she discusses neoliberal attempts to be "multicultural," but points out that economic resources are constantly redistributed upward. Neoliberal politics, she argues, has only reinforced and increased the divide between economic and social political issues. ..."
"... Because neoliberal politicians wish to save neoliberalism by reforming it, she argues that proposing alternate visions and ideas have been blocked. ..."
By now, we've all heard about the shocking redistribution of wealth that's occurred during the last thirty years, and
particularly during the last decade. But economic changes like this don't occur in a vacuum; they're always linked to politics.
The Twilight of Equality? searches out these links through an analysis of the politics of the 1990s, the decade when
neoliberalism-free market economics-became gospel.
After a brilliant historical examination of how racial and gender inequities were woven into the very theoretical underpinnings
of the neoliberal model of the state, Duggan shows how these inequities play out today. In a series of political case studies,
Duggan reveals how neoliberal goals have been pursued, demonstrating that progressive arguments that separate identity politics and
economic policy, cultural politics and affairs of state, can only fail.
Ultimately, The Twilight of Equality? not only reveals how the highly successful rhetorical maneuvers of neoliberalism have
functioned but, more importantly, it shows a way to revitalize and unify progressive politics in the U.S. today.
Mona Cohen 5.0 out of 5 stars A Critique of Neoliberalism and the Divided Resistance to It July 3, 2006
Lisa Duggan is intensely interested in American politics, and has found political life in the United States to have been "such
a wild ride, offering moments of of dizzying hope along with long stretches of political depression." She is grateful for "many
ideas about political depression, and how to survive it," and she has written a excellent short book that helps make sense of
many widely divergent political trends.
Her book is well-summarized by its concluding paragraph, which I am breaking up into additional paragraphs for greater
clarity:
"Now at this moment of danger and opportunity, the progressive left is mobilizing against neoliberalism and possible new or
continuing wars.
"These mobilizations might become sites for factional struggles over the disciplining of troops, in the name of unity at a
time of crisis and necessity. But such efforts will fail; the troops will not be disciplined, and the disciplinarians will be
left to their bitterness.
"Or, we might find ways of think, speaking, writing and acting that are engaged and curious about "other people's" struggles
for social justice, that are respectfully affiliative and dialogic rather than pedagogical, that that look for the hopeful spots
to expand upon, and that revel in the pleasure of political life.
"For it is pleasure AND collective caretaking, love AND the egalitarian circulation of money--allied to clear and hard-headed
political analysis offered generously--that will create the space for a progressive politics that might both imagine and
create...something worth living for."
The titles of her four chapters--Downsizing Democracy, The Incredible Shrinking Public, Equality, Inc., Love AND
Money--summarize her argument.
She expected upon her high school graduation in 1972, she writes, that "active and expanding social movements seemed capable
of ameliorating conditions of injustice and inequality, poverty, war and imperialism....I had no idea I was not perched at a
great beginning, but rather at a denouement, as the possibilities for progressive social change encountered daunting historical
setbacks beginning in 1972...."
Her target is neoliberalism, which she sees as a broadly controlling corporate agenda which seeks world domination,
privatization of governmental decision-making, and marginalization of unions, low-income people, racial and sexual minorities
while presenting to the public a benign and inclusive facade.
Neo-liberalism seeks to upwardly distribute money, power, and status, she writes, while progressive movements seek to
downwardly distribute money, power, and status. The unity of the downwardly distribution advocates should match the unity of the
upwardly distribution advocates in order to be effective, she writes.
Her belief is that all groups threatened by the neoliberal paradigm should unite against it, but such unity is threatened by
endless differences of perspectives. By minutely analyzing many of the differences, and expanding understanding of diverse
perspectives, she tries to remove them as obstacles towards people and organizations working together to achieve both unique and
common aims.
This is good book for those interested in the history and current significance of numerous progressive ideological arguments.
It is a good book for organizers of umbrella organizations and elected officials who work with diverse social movements. By
articulating points of difference, the author depersonalizes them and aids in overcoming them.
Those who are interested in electoral strategies, however, will be disappointed. The interrelationship between neoliberalism
as a governing ideology and neoliberalism as a political strategy is not discussed here. It is my view that greater and more
focused and inclusive political organizing has the potential to win over a good number of the those who see support of
neoliberalism's policy initiatives as a base-broadening tactic more than as a sacred cause.
"There is nothing stable or inevitable in the alliances supporting neoliberal agendas in the U.S. and globally," she
writes. "The alliances linking neoliberal global economics, and conservative and right-wing domestic politics, and the culture
wars are provisional--and fading...."
Reading this book adds to one's understanding of labels, and political and intellectual distinctions. It has too much jargon
for my taste, but not so much as to be impenetrable. It is an excellent summarization and synthesis of the goals, ideologies, and
histories of numerous social movements, both famous and obscure.
Duggan
articulately connects social and economic issues to each other, arguing that neoliberal
politics have divided the two when in actuality, they cannot be separated from one another.
In the introduction, Duggan argues that politics have become neoliberal - while politics
operate under the guise of promoting social change or social stability, in reality, she argues,
politicians have failed to make the connection between economic and social/cultural issues. She
uses historical background to prove the claim that economic and social issues can be separated
from each other is false.
For example, she discusses neoliberal attempts to be "multicultural," but points out that
economic resources are constantly redistributed upward. Neoliberal politics, she argues, has
only reinforced and increased the divide between economic and social political issues.
After the introduction, Duggan focuses on a specific topic in each chapter: downsizing
democracy, the incredible shrinking public, equality, and love and money. In the first chapter
(downsizing democracy), she argues that through violent imperial assertion in the Middle East,
budget cuts in social services, and disillusionments in political divides, "capitalists could
actually bring down capitalism" (p. 2).
Because neoliberal politicians wish to save neoliberalism by reforming it, she argues that
proposing alternate visions and ideas have been blocked. Duggan provides historical background
that help the reader connect early nineteenth century U.S. legislation (regarding voting rights
and slavery) to perpetuated institutional prejudices.
For April 2021 the official Current Unadjusted U-6 unemployment rate was 9.9% down from 10.9%
in March, and 11.6% in February, January was 12.0%. It was also 11.6% October "" December 2020.
But It was 18.3% in June, 20.7% in May, and 22.4% in April. It is still well above the 8.9% of
March 2020 when unemployment rates started jumping drastically due to massive shutdowns due to
the Coronavirus.
Initial Jobless Claims tumbled (positively) to their lowest since the pandemic lockdowns
began, adding just 406k Americans last week (well below the 425k expected). This is still
double the pre-pandemic norms
y_arrow 1
Truthtellers 11 hours ago (Edited) remove link
Companies laid off an additional 400K people last week and they actually think we are
dumb enough to believe there is a labor shortage? That line of crap is obviously just a
ploy to get employee's to accept lower salaries.
I'll believe there is a labor shortage after 16 million jobs have been added and the
weekly initial claims number is zero.
Until then, I guess if you have a "labor shortage" you better get that pay up.
AJAX-2 13 hours ago (Edited)
Another 400K+ applying for 1st time unemployment benefits and yet they piss on my leg,
tell me it's raining, while proclaiming there is a labor shortage. Bu!!****.
PerilouseTimes 9 hours ago
Close to a million people a week were signing up for unemployment for a year and
unemployment has been extended. Wouldn't that mean at least 40 million Americans are on
unemployment not to mention all the people on welfare and disability? I think the number is
closer to 100 million Americans on the government dole and that doesn't count all the
worthless government jobs out there.
Normal 12 hours ago remove link
I'm on unemployment except California seems to have quit paying people on unemployment.
I tried every-which-way to contact them but there is no way in hell to get through to a
live person. I went and typed in how to speak with a real person at the EDD, and hundreds
of people have posted that they haven't been paid in 12 weeks. I spoke with their Cal-Jobs
representative and she said that many people haven't been paid since March of last year. I
think they are forcing the so-called unemployed to their Cal-Jobs site by not paying
them.
ay_arrow
NEOSERF 13 hours ago
Worst month during the GFC appears to be about 650K...we are only 50% below that....with
21 states preparing to end the extension, things will be fantastic in these numbers shortly
if not the real world...waiting for all the cold/flu season coughing and cold weather in
November...
I can understand the frustrations and rage of certain folks.
If you're a worker on an oil rig, a truck driver, a policeman, or some such jobs, there's
bound to be moments when you're angry as hell. So, even though such people say crazy things
once a while, I can understand where they're coming from. They need to blow off steam.
But the professor class? These lowlife parasites sit on their asses and talk shi*. They
produce nothing and make a living by spreading nonsense. And yet, they act like they are
soooooooooo angry with the way of the world. If they really care about the world, why hide in
their academic enclaves?
Academia needs a cultural revolution, a real kind, not the bogus 'woke' kind made up of
teachers' pets.
Over the last decade or so, Sci-Hub, often referred to as "The Pirate Bay of Science,"
has been giving free access to a huge database of scientific papers that would otherwise be
locked behind a paywall.
Unsurprisingly, the website has been the target of multiple lawsuits, as well as an
investigation from the United States Department of Justice. The site's Twitter account was
also
recently suspended under Twitter's counterfeit policy, and its founder, Alexandra
Elbakyan, reported that the FBI
gained access to her Apple accounts .
Now, Redditors from a subreddit called DataHoarder, which is aimed at archiving
knowledge in the digital space, have come together to try to save the numerous papers
available on the website. In a
post on May 13 , the moderators of r/DataHoarder, stated that "it's time we sent Elsevier
and the USDOJ a clearer message about the fate of Sci-Hub and open science.
We are the library, we do not get silenced, we do not shut down our computers, and we
are many." This will be no easy task. Sci-Hub is home to over 85 million papers, totaling a
staggering 77TB of data . The group of Redditors is currently recruiting for its archiving
efforts and its stated goal is to have approximately 8,500 individuals torrenting the papers
in order to download the entire library. Once that task is complete, the Redditors aim to
release all of the downloaded data via a new "uncensorable" open-source website.
"... "Consider hiring me to do your assignment," reads a bid from one auction site. "I work fast, pay close attention to the instructions, and deliver a plagiarism-free paper." ..."
"... ... For the final exam, Mr. Johnson, a course coordinator, said he used a computer program that generated a unique set of questions for each student. Those questions quickly showed up on a for-profit homework website that helped him to identify who posted them. ..."
"... About 200 students were caught cheating -- one-fourth of the class. Overall, cases of academic dishonesty more than doubled in the 2019-20 academic year at NC State, with the biggest uptick as students made the transition to online learning, according to the school. ..."
"... Surprised that the use of apps like Photomath and mathway weren't mentioned. Students can just take a photo of a math problem, specify the directions and copy the steps. ..."
"... I've taugh at the high school and college level. I recently taught engineering at a NC high school. Within a couple months of Zoom teaching, I realized that cheating was rampant. I had numerous blatant examples of straight copy-and-paste cheating. ..."
"... The colleges have been cheating students for decades selling worthless programs and false information to students at exorbitant rates. So who is surprised that the students learned to cheat themselves. ..."
"... What the article needs to cover is the enormous amount of cheating done on SATs, GREs, LSATs, etc. to get into prestigious universities -- especially by prospective students who'll be here on an F1 visa. ..."
"... Such cheating is legendary among some cultures but the PC crowd won't want to hear about that, will they. We need their electronics and their widgets and such best not to rock that boat. P ..."
A year of
remote learning has spurred an eruption of cheating among students, from grade school to college. With many students isolated
at home over the past year""and with a mass of online services at their disposal""academic dishonesty has never been so easy.
Websites that allow students to submit questions for expert answers have gained millions of new users over the past year. A newer
breed of site allows students to put up their own classwork for auction.
"Consider hiring me to do your assignment," reads a bid from one auction site. "I work fast, pay close attention to the instructions,
and deliver a plagiarism-free paper."
... For the final exam, Mr. Johnson, a course coordinator, said he used a computer program that generated a unique set of questions
for each student. Those questions quickly showed up on a for-profit homework website that helped him to identify who posted them.
About 200 students were caught cheating""one-fourth of the class. Overall, cases of academic dishonesty more than doubled in the
2019-20 academic year at NC State, with the biggest uptick as students made the transition to online learning, according to the school.
Texas A&M University had a 50% increase in cheating allegations in the fall from a year earlier, with one incident involving 193
students self-reporting academic misconduct to receive lighter punishment after faculty members caught on, a university official
said. The University of Pennsylvania saw cheating case investigations grow 71% in the 2019-20 academic year, school data shows.
Dozens of cadets at the
U.S. Military Academy at West Point were caught cheating on an online calculus exam last year, sharing answers with each other
from home. The school said in April it was ending a policy that protected cadets who admitted honor code violations from being kicked
out.
... ... ...
In February, auction website homeworkforyou.com featured one student post looking for someone willing to do weekly school assignments,
exams and a project for a business class at York College in Queens, N.Y., over a two-month span. The winning bidder would also need
to pose as the student and respond to classmates in a group assignment. The student specified that an "A" was the desired outcome,
and that the "willing to pay" fee was $465.
By the next day, 29 bids had come in. The average was $479.41.
... Other popular websites that students use to get help""by submitting a question for an expert to quickly answer, or by searching
a database of previous answers""include Chegg and Brainly,
which said they have seen a big increase in users during the pandemic.
Mr. Piwnik said world-wide users grew to 350 million monthly in 2020, from about 200 million in 2019. The basic service is free,
while a $24 annual subscription is ad-free and gives access to premium features.
Chegg, a publicly held company based in Santa Clara, Calif., prides itself on a willingness to help institutions determine the
identities of those who cheat. It allows educators to report copyright information found on the site. The company saw total net revenue
of $644.3 million in 2020, a 57% increase year over year. Subscribers hit a record 6.6 million, up 67%.
A year of
remote learning has spurred an eruption of cheating among students, from grade school to college. With many students isolated
at home over the past year and with a mass of online services at their disposal academic dishonesty has never been so easy.
Websites that allow students to submit questions for expert answers have gained millions of new users over the past year. A newer
breed of site allows students to put up their own classwork for auction.
"Consider hiring me to do your assignment," reads a bid from one auction site. "I work fast, pay close attention to the instructions,
and deliver a plagiarism-free paper."
... For the final exam, Mr. Johnson, a course coordinator, said he used a computer program that generated a unique set of questions
for each student. Those questions quickly showed up on a for-profit homework website that helped him to identify who posted them.
About 200 students were caught cheating -- one-fourth of the class. Overall, cases of academic dishonesty more than doubled in the
2019-20 academic year at NC State, with the biggest uptick as students made the transition to online learning, according to the school.
Texas A&M University had a 50% increase in cheating allegations in the fall from a year earlier, with one incident involving 193
students self-reporting academic misconduct to receive lighter punishment after faculty members caught on, a university official
said. The University of Pennsylvania saw cheating case investigations grow 71% in the 2019-20 academic year, school data shows.
Dozens of cadets at the
U.S. Military Academy at West Point were caught cheating on an online calculus exam last year, sharing answers with each other
from home. The school said in April it was ending a policy that protected cadets who admitted honor code violations from being kicked
out.
... ... ...
In February, auction website homeworkforyou.com featured one student post looking for someone willing to do weekly school assignments,
exams and a project for a business class at York College in Queens, N.Y., over a two-month span. The winning bidder would also need
to pose as the student and respond to classmates in a group assignment. The student specified that an "A" was the desired outcome,
and that the "willing to pay" fee was $465.
By the next day, 29 bids had come in. The average was $479.41.
... Other popular websites that students use to get help "by submitting a question for an expert to quickly answer, or by searching
a database of previous answers" include Chegg and Brainly,
which said they have seen a big increase in users during the pandemic.
Mr. Piwnik said world-wide users grew to 350 million monthly in 2020, from about 200 million in 2019. The basic service is free,
while a $24 annual subscription is ad-free and gives access to premium features.
Chegg, a publicly held company based in Santa Clara, Calif., prides itself on a willingness to help institutions determine the
identities of those who cheat. It allows educators to report copyright information found on the site. The company saw total net revenue
of $644.3 million in 2020, a 57% increase year over year. Subscribers hit a record 6.6 million, up 67%.
Colleges administrators and professors ban speakers with opinions that differ from their narratives, pull books they don't like
and can claim to be 'racist', and hire based solely on ethnic background.
But. the are SHOCKED when student cheat the system.
S 18 minutes ago
Surprised that the use of apps like Photomath and mathway weren't mentioned. Students can just take a photo of a math
problem, specify the directions and copy the steps.
Unfortunately for the students, the apps will solve problems in peculiar ways that stand out to the teacher. I've never had
so many students cheat of quizzes or tests. With most of them fully virtual even still, or home often because of hybrid, it's
almost impossible to get fairly produced student work. E
SUBSCRIBER 40 minutes ago
Lazy, lazy test makers. Write new questions (and please check them through a simple search first to make sure the answer
isn't readily available), timed testing, and assume the test takers all have full access to the internet. Stop assuming the
test taking conditions haven't changed. They have.
SUBSCRIBER 44 minutes ago
Back in the 1980's when I went to College there was a big uproar over Cliff Notes. Students copying word for word... But it
was known you could buy test questions, hire note takers for class, buy essays. The Frat boys had a well developed system! J
SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago (Edited)
The cheating isn't limited to students.
Look at how our Congressional representatives behave in office!
Look at how career bureaucrats behave!
is it any wonder that cheating is so rampant? honesty and integrity are for suckers.
why worry about your conscience? there is no Deity, there is no higher moral law. All ethics are relative. As long as I get
ahead, what's the big deal?
There's no afterlife anyway, so what do I have to worry about? G
SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
Maybe they're studying to be our future national-level political leaders. G
SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
Call me old-fashioned, naive or worse but I always saw homework or studying for an exam as the mental counterpart to
physical exercise.
Sure, you can cheat.
But you cheat yourself in the long term when you don't develop the intellectual "muscles" that you need to compete and
succeed in adult life.
And you or your parents paid good money to get that degree and you bypassed four or more years of earning potential by
attending school.
Sounds like a pretty poor tradeoff to me. B
SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago (Edited)
I've taugh at the high school and college level. I recently taught engineering at a NC high school. Within a couple
months of Zoom teaching, I realized that cheating was rampant. I had numerous blatant examples of straight copy-and-paste
cheating.
I confronted each student and most of them either played dumb, or denied it. I separately showed them each the website and
documents they stole from and told them this was their one and only freebie. A few parents confronted me but after showing
them the evidence they either dropped it or confronted their own child. A few parents thanked me for holding their kid
accountable, but most just complained or dropped it altogether.
After a couple more months of it continuing, and not getting enough support from the administrators, I quit, without yet
having secured a new job. I'll say this, it's worse than you think, and your child likely does it too, or knows of those who
do. It's become acceptable to them bc of pressure to get into college. M
SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
It is not new. Twenty-five years ago, my wife, a ranked academic, was given a paper supposedly written by one of her
students. She recognized it because she typed it after I wrote it ten years before.
When she confronted the student he admitted to buying it from a paper mill. Apparently the prof I wrote it for sold
his "collection" on retirement. Sadly, even then, the student got little more than a slap on the wrist once outed.
SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
The colleges have been cheating students for decades selling worthless programs and false information to students at
exorbitant rates. So who is surprised that the students learned to cheat themselves. M
SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
This is just a manifestation of the bankruptcy of our education system. Let's face it, for most students from
kindergarteners to PhD post grads, it is not about gaining knowledge, learning how to think or even mastering skills. It is
about checking blocks to build a resume. What does a diploma really mean? A checked block.
The system has known and participated in this for decades. What does it really matter how that block got checked?
SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
What the article needs to cover is the enormous amount of cheating done on SATs, GREs, LSATs, etc. to get into
prestigious universities -- especially by prospective students who'll be here on an F1 visa.
Such cheating is legendary among some cultures but the PC crowd won't want to hear about that, will they. We need
their electronics and their widgets and such best not to rock that boat. P
SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
I'm a lecturer at a Canadian university and am quite troubled by the use of textbook publisher's test banks in exam prep.
Students easily find the keys on line. Some students have stopped attending class. They know what will be on the exam. Of
course they learn nothing. Admin, faculty and students love the easy inflated grades. Academic wheels turn but there is no
learning. It's not a student problem, it's a bone lazy faculty problem. I write my own exams but many refuse. E
SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
Wonderful. Just what I want. Doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, urban planners, nurses, mechanics, dentists, and
other professionals who need to cheat to graduate.
SUBSCRIBER 1 hour ago
Hey you forgot another sizable group that will provide US with 'professionals' of questionable quality the AA crowd
that gets placed into universities based upon what?
History repeats and the repetition is coming with some minor variations.
Notable quotes:
"... "Corporate bond rates have been rising steadily since May. Yellen is not doing what Greenspan did in 2004." ..."
"... There isn't much of a difference between signaling tighter money to a market that is skeptical of Fed forecasts and actually tightening. ..."
"... While at 5.0 percent, the unemployment rate is not extraordinarily high, most other measures of the labor market are near recession levels. The percentage of the workforce that is involuntarily working part-time is near the highs reached following the 2001 recession. The average and median duration of unemployment spells are also near recession highs. And the percentage of workers who feel confident enough to quit their jobs without another job lined up remains near the low points reached in 2002. ..."
"... While wage growth has edged up somewhat in recent months by some measures, it is still well below a rate that is consistent with the Fed's inflation target. Hourly wages have risen at a 2.7 percent rate over the last year. If there is just 1.5 percent productivity growth, this would be consistent with a rate of inflation of 1.2 percent. ..."
"... One positive point in today's action is the Fed's commitment in its statement to allow future rate hikes to be guided by the data, rather than locking in a path towards "normalization" as was effectively done in 2004. ..."
Washington, D.C.- Dean Baker, economist and a co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) issued the
following statement in response to the Federal Reserve's decision regarding interest rates:
"The Fed's decision to raise interest rates today is an unfortunate move in the wrong direction. In setting interest rate policy
the Fed must decide whether the economy is at risk of having too few or too many jobs, with the latter being determined by the
extent to which its current rate of job creation may lead to inflation. It is difficult to see how the evidence would lead the
Fed to conclude that the greater risk at the moment is too many jobs.
"While at 5.0 percent, the unemployment rate is not extraordinarily high, most other measures of the labor market are near
recession levels. The percentage of the workforce that is involuntarily working part-time is near the highs reached following
the 2001 recession. The average and median duration of unemployment spells are also near recession highs. And the percentage of
workers who feel confident enough to quit their jobs without another job lined up remains near the low points reached in 2002.
"If we look at employment rates rather than unemployment, the percentage of prime-age workers (ages 25-54) with jobs is still
down by almost three full percentage points from the pre-recession peak and by more than four full percentage points from the
peak hit in 2000. This does not look like a strong labor market.
"On the other side, there is virtually no basis for concerns about the risk of inflation in the current data. The most recent
data show that the core personal consumption expenditure deflator targeted by the Fed increased at just a 1.2 percent annual rate
over the last three months, down slightly from the 1.3 percent rate over the last year. This means that the Fed should be concerned
about being below its inflation target, not above it.
"While wage growth has edged up somewhat in recent months by some measures, it is still well below a rate that is consistent
with the Fed's inflation target. Hourly wages have risen at a 2.7 percent rate over the last year. If there is just 1.5 percent
productivity growth, this would be consistent with a rate of inflation of 1.2 percent.
"Furthermore, it is important to recognize that workers took a large hit to their wages in the downturn, with a shift of more
than four percentage points of national income from wages to profits. In principle, workers can restore their share of national
income (the equivalent of an 8 percent wage gain), but the Fed would have to be prepared to allow wage growth to substantially
outpace prices for a period of time. If the Fed acts to prevent workers from getting this bargaining power, it will effectively
lock in place this upward redistribution. Needless to say, workers at the middle and bottom of the wage distribution can expect
to see the biggest hit in this scenario.
"One positive point in today's action is the Fed's commitment in its statement to allow future rate hikes to be guided
by the data, rather than locking in a path towards "normalization" as was effectively done in 2004. If it is the case that
the economy is not strong enough to justify rate hikes, then the hike today may be the last one for some period of time. It will
be important for the Fed to carefully assess the data as it makes its decision on interest rates at future meetings.
"Recent economic data suggest that today's move was a mistake. Hopefully the Fed will not compound this mistake with more unwarranted
rate hikes in the future."
RC AKA Darryl, Ron said in reply to Peter K....
I like Dean Baker. Unlike the Fed, Dean Baker is a class warrior on the side of the wage class. He makes the point about the
path to normalization being critical that I have been discussing for quite a while. Let's hope this Fed knows better than Greenspan/Bernanke
in 2004-2006. THANKS!
likbez said in reply to RC AKA Darryl, Ron...
Very true !
pgl said in reply to RC AKA Darryl, Ron...
"Longer-term bond rates barely moved, showing that there was very little news." This interest rate rose from 4.45% to 5.46%
already. So the damage was already done:
"... This interest rate rose from 4.45% to 5.46% already..."
Exactly! Corporate bond rates have been rising steadily since May. Yellen is not doing what Greenspan did in 2004. Yellen's
Fed waited until the bond rate lifted off on its own (and maybe with some help from policy communications) before they raised
the FFR.
So far, there is no sign of their making a fatal error. They are not fighting class warfare for wage class either, but they
seem intent on not screwing the pooch in the way that Greenspan and Bernanke did. No double dip thank you and hold the nuts.
One of the biggest risks to U.S. recovery is the difficulty aroun...
U.S. job growth significantly undershot forecasts in April, suggesting that difficulty
attracting workers is slowing momentum in the labor market and challenging the economic
recovery.
Payrolls rose 266,000 from a month earlier, according to a Labor Department report Friday
that represented one of the largest downside misses on record. Economists in a Bloomberg survey
projected a 1 million hiring surge in April.
The unemployment rate edged up to 6.1 per cent, though the labor-force participation rate
also increased.
... The disappointing payrolls print leaves overall employment more than 8 million short of
its pre-pandemic level and is consistent with recent comments from company officials
highlighting challenges in filling open positions.
... While job gains accelerated in leisure and hospitality, employment at temporary-help
agencies and transportation and warehousing declined sharply.
...
Labor force participation, a measure of the percentage of Americans either working or
looking for work, rose to 61.7 per cent in April from 61.5 per cent, likely supported by
increased vaccinations that helped fuel the reopenings of many retail establishments,
restaurants and leisure-facing businesses.
Average weekly hours increased to match the highest in records dating back to 2006. The gain
in the workweek, increased pay and the improvement in hiring helped boost aggregate weekly
payrolls 1.2 per cent in April after a 1.3 per cent gain a month earlier.
Workforce participation for men age 25 to 54 increased last month, while edging lower for
women.
Neoliberals policies for minority students in education can be called “the soft bigotry
of low expectations.”
Racists want discrimination based on race; wokesters want discrimination based on race too.
One in the name of bigotry, one in the name of “tolerance.” Does the motive really
matter if the outcome is the same?
Notable quotes:
"... the ONS dataset is A09, Labour Market status by ethnic group, is testament to white folks ingenuity to overcome such discrimination ..."
My uncle did admissions at Cambridge and he actively discriminated against Public School
boys, despite being one himself. He was actually involved in hiring that black woman to be
the Master at Christ's College.
Similarly at Citi it was very obvious any remotely competent black was promoted way beyond
there competency, although that was largely limited to back and middle office roles.
Still the ONS dataset is A09, Labour Market status by ethnic group, is
testament to white folks ingenuity to overcome such discrimination and the free market
at work.
"... Hiring is a lot more complex and constrained, than this writeup suggests. In stacks of resumes that I used to review, I found almost all applicants exaggerate or lie. ..."
"... Employers (or the ones the future worker will work directly "" like local manager) are in the majority of cases DO NOT hire directly. ..."
"... There is either a staffing firm/ recruitment firm between, often also a different websites (for job seekers) which only redirects towards those. ..."
"... The problem with the HR/ recruitment firms/ jobseeker websites themselves. They dictate who will work somewhere. ..."
"... It's a new world of fraud, total fraud. Biden is an absurd fraud. They are all frauds, because actual accomplishments, real work, are so very much more difficult than lies. ..."
"... There's nothing new under the sun. It's always been fraud, flimflam and bamboozle. Somebody once said, you can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. But, then again, he could have just been fooling around. ..."
Hiring is a lot more complex and constrained, than this writeup suggests. In stacks of resumes that I used to review, I found almost all applicants exaggerate or lie. That was very problematic,
because once you hire a person, it's hard to get rid of them, even with "at-will" employment.
There is a major problem with the article/ whole employment process:
Employers (or the ones the future worker will work directly "" like local manager) are in the majority of cases DO NOT
hire directly.(Respect for the ones, who do.)
There is either a staffing firm/ recruitment firm between, often also a different websites (for job seekers) which only
redirects towards those.
Also many company have a HR department, etc... The problem with the HR/ recruitment firms/ jobseeker websites themselves.
They dictate who will work somewhere.
Wish to be workers should meet directly with the ones they supposed to work for.
To see whether racial discrimination exists, researchers send the same CV to employers with the same level of qualifications
but different names attached, to see if the foreign-sounding names lead to a greater degree of rejection. They often find that
to be the case.
Given that British blacks most often bear British sounding names and that foreign whites too bear foreign sounding names, I
don't see how the difference in treatment can be put down to racial bias. Moreover, I don't see anything wrong in giving precedence
to compatriots over foreigners. It is the opposite that is unsound.
As a French national with a foreign sounding name, I never expected to be given precedence over native French candidates and
always counted solely on my competence to get a position. If the world we live in were still normal, that would be the normal
attitude because in a normal world people are allowed to prefer their kin vs folks they don't know from Adam. It is the opposite
that isn't normal.
Discard national preference and you get foreign tribes' nepotism.
researchers send the same CV to employers with the same level of qualifications but different names attached, to see if
the foreign-sounding names lead to a greater degree of rejection. They often find that to be the case.
Because it's a lose-lose to hire a Tyrone or Abdul. Even if they're the most qualified, they're "high-maintenance," arriving
with extra-legal protections and considerations. Down the road they can always hide behind the specter of racism if their performance
is found lacking.
It's a new world of fraud, total fraud. Biden is an absurd fraud. They are all frauds, because actual accomplishments,
real work, are so very much more difficult than lies.
Indians are fantastic fraudsters. Africans are fraud specialists. Many Asians are not so much CV fraudsters as they are test
cheaters.
Agreed as they do it in Swiss. They prefer to employ their folk, if find a suitable person and wait up to 6 months before consider
an outlander. Only then ready to employ someone else.
BUT: Will not employ a dullard just because they share a citizenship/ ancestors. About 20% are foreigners among the employed,
in Geneva probably most of the employed.
And this is strictly the opposite what is common in many place (and self-appointed "nationalists" demand): No matter how incompetent
but employ the dullard native, while send home the competent/ hardworking.
Against meritism/ competition and bad for business.
There are plenty of dishonest Europeans, but honesty as a high value seems Western. Subcons caught in a lie will grin and do
a head waggle something between a nod and a shake. Blacks will insist the lie is true. East Asians will lie until you demonstrate
they cannot get away with it. Latin Americans only lie when they speak.
There's nothing new under the sun. It's always been fraud, flimflam and bamboozle. Somebody once said, you can fool all
of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. But, then again,
he could have just been fooling around.
Bullying is an epidemic. It is rampant, widespread, pervasive and the effects can be
catastrophic. It occurs in our communities, in our schools – and sadly – even in
our homes. Bullying statistics are staggering, scary and merit serious consideration and
immediate action. Consider the following:
Facts and Statistics
90% of students in grades 4-8 report having been harassed or bullied.
28% of students in grades 6-12 experience bullying. 2
20% of students in grades 9-12 experience bullying. (stopbullying.gov)
In grades 6-12, 9% of students have experienced cyberbulling. 2
Over 160,000 kids refuse to go to school each day for fear of being bullied. (Nation
Education Association)
70.6% of students report having witnessed bullying in their school–and over 71% say
bullying is a problem.
Over 10% of students who dropout of school do so due to being bullied repeatedly.
Each month 282,000 students are physically assaulted in some way in secondary schools
throughout the United States–and the number is growing.
Statistics suggest that revenge [due to bullying] is the number one motivator for school
shootings in the U.S.
86% of students surveyed said, "other kids picking on them, making fun of them or
bullying them" is the number one reason that teenagers turn to lethal violence at
school.
Nearly 75% of school shootings have been linked to harassment and bullying.
87% of students surveyed report that bullying is the primary motivator of school
shootings.
64% of students who are bullied do not report it. (Petrosina, Guckenburg, Devoe and
Hanson 2010)
2 National Center for Education Statistics and Bureau of Justice
Statistics
Types of Bullying
When most people think about bullying they envision some kind of physical intimidation.
However, bullying can take on many forms which are just as emotionally and psychologically
damaging as physical intimidation and harassment. There are four general forms of bullying.
These include:
Physical – Physical bullying involves aggressive physical intimidation and is
often characterized by repeated tripping, pushing, hitting, kicking, blocking, or touching
in some other inappropriate way. Even though it's the most obvious form of bullying, it
isn't the most prominent.
Physical bullying is damaging and can be emotionally and psychologically devastating.
When a child fears for their safety, they're not able to focus on life and function
normally. Notwithstanding the trauma that physical bullying causes, most children don't
report it to a teacher or to their parents. Signs of physical bullying may include
unexplained scratches, bruises, and cuts, or unexplainable headaches or stomach aches.
However, the psychological effects of physical bullying may be even more pronounced than
the physical scars. Children who are withdrawn, struggle to focus, or become anti-social
may also be the recipients of physical bullying–even if there aren't any other
outward signs.
If you think your child or student is being bullied physically, talk to them in a casual
manner about what's going on before school, during class, during lunch or recess, and on
the way home from school. Ask them if anyone has been, or is being, mean to them. Keep your
emotions in check, and stay calm and caring in your tone, or your child may shut off and
not tell you what's happening. If you find that physical bullying is occurring, contact the
appropriate school officials, or law enforcement officers – there are anti-bullying
laws at the local, state and federal levels. Do not confront the bully, or the bully's
parents, on your own.
Verbal – Verbal bullying involves putting down others and bullying them using
cruel, demeaning words. Verbal bullying includes name calling, making racist, sexist or
homophobic remarks or jokes, insulting, slurs, sexually suggestive comments, or abusive
language of any kinds. Verbal bullying is one of the most common forms of bullying.
So how do you know when a child is being verbally bullied? They may become moody,
withdrawn, and/or have a change in their appetite. They may be straight forward and tell
you that somebody said something that hurt their feelings, or ask you if something someone
said about them is true.
Verbal bullying can be difficult to address. The best way to deal with verbal bullying
is to build childrens' self confidence. Confident kids are less susceptible to verbal
bullying than those who already struggle with poor self esteem and self image. Students
should be taught in the classroom to treat everyone with respect and that there is never an
excuse for saying something mean or disrespectful to someone else.
Social – Social bullying is a common form of bullying among children and
students. It involves exclusion from groups, spreading malicious rumors and stories about
others, and generally alienating people from social acceptance and interaction. Next to
verbal bullying, social bullying is one of the most common forms of bullying.
Social bullying can be one of the hardest forms of bullying to identify and address
– but it's just as damaging as other forms of bullying, and the effects can last a
long time. Children being bullied socially may experience mood changes, become withdrawn,
and start spending more time alone. Social bullying is more common among girls than
boys.
The best way to identify social bullying is to stay close to your kids and maintain an
open line of communication. Talk to them nightly about how their day went and how things
are going in school. Focus on building their self esteem and get them involved in
extracurricular activities outside of school such as team sports, music, art and other
activities where they develop friendships and interact with others.
Cyberbullying – Cyberbullying is the least common type of bullying, but it can
be just as damaging as other forms of bullying. It includes any type of bullying that
occurs via the Internet or through electronic mediums. The most common types of
cyberbullying include:
Text message bullying
Picture/video clip bullying via mobile phone cameras
Email message bullying
Bullying through instant messaging
Chat-room bullying
Bullying via websites
Children who are being cyberbullied typically spend more time online or texting. They
often frequent social media sites such as facebook, twitter, etc. If a child or student
seems upset, sad or anxious after being online, especially if they're visiting social media
websites, it may be a sign they're being cyberbullied. Kids and students who are
cyberbullied exhibit many of the same characteristics as kids being bullied physically,
verbally or socially. They may become withdrawn, anxious, distant, or want to stay home
from school.
Cyberbullying can occur 24/7, so the best way to combat cyberbullying is to monitor
Internet usage and limit time spent on social media websites. Children need to know that if
they encounter cyberbullying they shouldn't respond, engage, or forward it. Instead, they
need to inform their parents or a teacher so the communication can be printed out and taken
to the proper authorities. When cyberbullying includes threats of violence or sexually
explicit content, law enforcement should be involved.
Where Does Bullying Occur?
The majority of bullying occurs at school, outside on school grounds during recess or after
school, and on the school bus – or anywhere else students interact unsupervised. Bullying
may also occur at home between siblings or in the community where kids congregate.
Cyberbullying takes place online and via digital communication devices.
* Bradshaw, C.P. (2007). Bullying and peer victimization at school: Perceptual differences
between students and school staff. 36(3), 361-382.
Anti-bullying Laws and Policies
Currently, there aren't any Federal anti-bullying laws. However, state and local lawmakers
have taken steps to prevent bullying and protect the physical, emotional and psychological well
being of children. To date, 49 states have passed anti-bullying legislation. When bullying
moves into the category of harassment, it then becomes a violation of Federal law. Criminal
code as it relates to bullying by minors varies from state to state. The map below shows the
states that have established anti-bullying laws, anti-bullying policies, and both anti-bullying
laws and policies.
Probably $25 an hour or $50K a year is more realistic. Part time jobs are even better to hem to avoid money crunch and at the
same time continue to look for an IT job. Might be a viable option for younger healthy IT specialists. CDL course from a
reputable truck driving school is around $3500 and they
provide you a truck for the DMV exam, but you can try self-study and might pass written exam from a second try as there is nothing
complex in the test, saving half of those money.
Notable quotes:
"... What's happening, he said, is that drivers are looking at the fact that they can make $70,000 'and stay home a little more.' ..."
"... To put the numbers in perspective, Todd Amen, the president of ATBS, which prepares taxes for mostly independent owner-operators, said in a recent interview with the FreightWaves Drilling Deep podcast that the average tax return his company prepared for drivers' 2020 pay was $67,500. He also said his company prepared numerous 2020 returns with pay in excess of $100,000. ..."
David Parker is the CEO of Covenant Logistics and he was blunt with analysts who follow the
company on its earnings call Tuesday.
'How do we get enough drivers? ' he said in response to a question from Stephens analyst Jack Atkins. 'I don't know.'
Parker then gave an overview of the situation facing Covenant, and by extension other
companies, in trying to recruit drivers. One problem: With rates so high, companies are
encountering the fact that a driver doesn't need to work a full schedule to
pull in a decent salary.
'We're finding out that just to get a driver, let's say the numbers are $85,000 (per year) ,' Parker said,
according to a transcript of the earnings call supplied by SeekingAlpha. '
But a lot of these drivers are happy at $70,000. Now they're not coming to
work for me, unless it's in the ($80,000s), because they're happy making $70,000.'
What's happening, he said, is that drivers are looking at the fact that they can make $70,000 'and stay home a little
more.'
The result is a tightening of capacity. Parker said utilization in the first quarter at Covenant was three or four percentage
points less than it would have as a result of that development. ' It's an interesting dynamic that none of
us have calculated,' he said.
To put the numbers in perspective, Todd Amen, the president of ATBS, which prepares taxes
for mostly independent owner-operators, said in a
recent interview with the FreightWaves Drilling Deep podcast that the average tax return
his company prepared for drivers' 2020 pay was $67,500. He also said his
company prepared numerous 2020 returns with pay in excess of $100,000.
Parker was firm that this was not a situation likely to change soon. 'There's nothing out there that tells me that drivers are
going to readily be available over the medium [term in] one to two years,' he said. 'And that's where I'm at.'
Paul Bunn, the company's COO and senior executive vice president, echoed
what other executives have said recently:
Additional stimulus benefits are making the situation tighter. He said that while offering some hope that as the benefits roll
off, 'that might help a bit.'
But what the government giveth the government can sometimes taketh away. Bunn expressed another familiar sentiment in the
industry today, that an infrastructure bill adding to demand for workers would create more difficulty to put drivers behind the
wheel. Construction, Bunn said, is 'a monster competitor of our industry' and if the bill is approved, 'that's going to be a big
pull.'
Labor is going to be a 'capacity constraint' through the
economy, Bunn said, while conceding that trucking is not unique in that. And because of that
labor squeeze, capacity in many fields is going to be limited. ' The OEMs,
the manufacturers are limited capacity ,' Bunn said. 'They're not ramping up in a major, major way because of labor, because of
commodity pricing, because of the costs.'
All that means is that capacity growth is going to be
'reasonable,' Bunn said. 'It's not going to be crazy, people growing fleets [by] significant amounts.'
'It's all you can do just to hold serve, '
he added.
My uncle did admissions at Cambridge and he actively discriminated against Public School
boys, despite being one himself. He was actually involved in hiring that black woman to be the
Master at Christ's College. Similarly at Citi it was very obvious any remotely competent black
was promoted way beyond there competency, although that was largely limited to back and middle
office roles.
Still the ONS dataset is A09, Labour Market status by ethnic group, is testament to
white folks ingenuity to overcome such discrimination and the free market at work.
In fall 2011 the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center found that higher education
enrollment was slightly more than 20.5 million students. By fall 2019 that figure had dropped
to about 18.2 million, a decline of slightly over 11%. During those eight years the number of
18- to 24-year-olds remained roughly constant.
We have long had a social consensus that it's worth four years of our children's lives and
very large sums of their parents' money to see their knowledge, mental capacity, and career
prospects greatly expanded by going to college. Attitudes and habits formed by this consensus
were bound to lag behind the reality of academia as it now is. Yet the NSCRC numbers show that
already about 1 in 9 have mustered the courage and independence of thought to face reality and
stop wasting time and money.
This illicit conversion of a vital social institution to an alien use deprives all Americans
of the benefits of a properly functioning system of higher education. It also means that a
destructive and long since discredited political ideology is now using colleges and
universities to gain a degree of influence over society that it could never have achieved at
the ballot box. That's election interference on a scale not remotely matched by anything that
was alleged in the 2020 election.
When academia's astonishing message to society is, "We'll take your money, but we'll do with
it what we want, not what you want," the response ought to be simple: "No you won't." The
question is, can the millions of people who make up that wonderful abstraction called "society"
act in a way that is sufficiently concerted and organized to deliver the message effectively?
Many have already made a good start. But the rest need to join if we are ever again to have
college campuses that aren't as academically incompetent as they are politically
malevolent.
Mr. Ellis is a professor emeritus of German literature at the University of California,
Santa Cruz and author of "The Breakdown of Higher Education: How It happened, the Damage It
Does, and What Can Be Done."
Joe Biden took the riskiest step of his presidency with a call for higher taxes on the
wealthy to fund a massive investment in the nation's social safety net, betting he could sell
the American public on sweeping change following a pandemic that exacerbated economic and
social divides.
Biden devoted his first address to a joint session of Congress to a call for a "a
once-in-a-generation investment in our families," prescribing trillions of dollars in new
spending for infrastructure, child care, paid leave, community college tuition, and a bevy of
subsidies for working class families.
And in a full-throated confrontation of Wall Street, Biden said the nation's wealthiest
taxpayers and companies should foot the bill. He declared investors "didn't build this country"
and said the wealthy had lined their pockets during the pandemic without paying their fair
share.
"I stand here tonight before you in a new and vital hour of life and democracy of our
nation," Biden said.
The speech was delivered to a House chamber where heightened security and social distancing
measures underscored the disease and division still confronting the nation. It amounted to an
audacious gamble that Biden can harness public support not only for trillions of dollars in new
federal programs for lower- and middle-income Americans, but the biggest tax hikes in
decades.
But his ambitions rest on a narrow Democratic majority in the Senate, where the defections
of only a single moderate or two would mean failure.
Biden painted the deadly course of the virus as embodying and exaggerating the inequalities
that have broadened in recent decades, with working class Americans shouldering economic and
health insecurity while the wealthiest flourished. At risk is not only his vision for
rebuilding the economy, but the razor-thin advantage his party holds in Congress ahead of the
2022 midterm elections, when Republicans are well positioned to retake the majority at least in
the House.
"Doing nothing is not an option," the president implored.
Unattainable Wealth
Biden's effort was in many ways a break from the cautious center-left triangulation that has
defined Democratic presidential politics since the Reagan Revolution. His calculation is that
voters battered by the virus just a decade after a painful recession are no longer as concerned
about deficit spending or retaining low tax rates for a tier of wealth that seems increasingly
unattainable.
And Biden used one of the biggest bully pulpits he's provided to offer a presidential
validation of the growing influence of the progressive left, pitching at least US$3.8 trillion
in new spending, sweeping new changes to the health care system, and substantial gun control
measures.
Biden's own tendencies are more conciliatory, and he's likely to ultimately jettison some of
the more ambitious proposals as he seeks to navigate legislation through Capitol Hill --
particularly with moderate Democrats already expressing skepticism about new taxes and
spending. He took pains to caveat his broadsides against the nation's wealthiest, saying he was
"not out to punish anyone" and, in a line improvised from the prepared text, acknowledged the
"good guys and women on Wall Street."
But he left little room for critics within his party to argue he lacked ambition, and his
presidential legacy will now be defined by his ability to deliver a once-in-a-generation suite
of new government investments, services, and programs.
The forum for Biden's call for structural economic change itself seemed designed to
underscore the unprecedented moment. Because of coronavirus precautions, only about 200
lawmakers were invited to attend the speech in person, and some of the Senate's most powerful
moderates -- including West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Utah Republican Mitt Romney --
were relegated to seats in the upper balcony.
The president's tone and tenor suggested that even if ordinary Americans weren't in the
room, he felt emboldened by polls that suggest his proposals are popular – and that he
himself has been buoyed by a largely successful vaccine campaign that's administered more than
315 million shots and a stimulus program that provided more than 160 million checks to
taxpayers.
The president's approval rating is at 57 per cent, according to a Gallup poll released
Friday, matching his post-inauguration high. And seven in 10 Americans favored Biden's initial
US$1.9 trillion stimulus bill, with only around a third of those surveyed by the Pew Research
Center earlier this month saying it spent too much.
His new US$1.8 trillion families plan and the US$2.25 trillion infrastructure proposal
– which he christened a "blue-collar blueprint to build America" -- directly targeted two
key constituencies: suburban moms and the White working class of the Rust Belt.
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index erased its losses as of 12:00 p.m. in Hong Kong, as traders
who were betting on a bigger spending plan from Biden cut back on currency risk positions.
Treasury futures were little changed and U.S. equity futures maintained their gains.B
Pandemic Disparities
There's reason for Biden to direct his appeal to those he said "feel left behind and
forgotten."
The pandemic ushered in not only disproportionate health outcomes -- a recent study by Ball
State University showed a higher death rate among counties with higher poverty levels -- but
deepened disparate economic trends.
While the richest 1 per cent in the U.S. saw their wealth increase by US$4 trillion, the
bottom half of Americans shared just a US$471 billion increase. Female participation in the
labor force has slipped to 57 per cent -- the lowest level since 1988 – and a half
million more women exited the workforce than men during a crisis that saw 10 million jobs
disappear.
White House advisers have made no secret about the opening they see.
Chief of Staff Ron Klain has spent recent weeks promoting stories that bluntly describe
Biden's plans to hike taxes on the wealthy in a flurry of social media posts.
Economic adviser Brian Deese declined to publicly address any element of Biden's families
plan ahead of its rollout Wednesday – except a provision to hike capital gains taxes on
Americans making over US$1 million a year. And political adviser Anita Dunn on Tuesday penned a
memo to "interested parties" pointing to recent Fox News polling that showed 56 per cent of
respondents backed paying for infrastructure through increased taxes on corporations and 63 per
cent supported raising income taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
"We need to make the case, but the American people seem very supportive of the idea that
when it comes to longstanding challenges in this country, we need to come together and make the
investments we need in order to address them," said White House economic adviser David
Kamin.
Congressional Difficulties
Still, the success of Biden's effort will hinge on parlaying that popular support into votes
in a narrowly divided Congress, where Republicans remain loathe to offer any assistance and
without them, moderate Senate Democrats like Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema and Manchin can scuttle
any piece of legislation single-handedly.
Both have already voiced skepticism about Biden's proposed tax increases, leaving open the
question of how the White House's proposals can proceed. And Republicans looked to fan that
uncertainty, painting the president's vision as excessive and ineffective.
"Our best future won't come from Washington schemes or socialist dreams," Senator Tim Scott,
a South Carolina Republican, said in the GOP rebuttal to Biden's address. "It will come from
you -- the American people."
Biden, for his part, said that big investments in jobs and infrastructure "have often had
bipartisan support" and looked to win skeptics by adopting rhetoric more familiar to
Republicans and painting his plans as essential to winning a global battle for the future.
"We have to prove democracy still works," the president said. "That our government still
works -- and can deliver for the people."
--With assistance from Jennifer Epstein and Tan Hwee Ann.
Wealthiest Americans get US$195 billion richer in Biden's first 100 days
Simon Hunt and Ben Steverman , Bloomberg News
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.453.0_en.html#goog_1563483815 Getting
Biden's capital gains tax through congress is slim to none: Federated Hermes' Orlando
Biden tax plans have roadblocks but will trigger a big sell-off i...
Joe Biden's election has done little to slow the inexorable surge of wealth among U.S.
billionaires.
In the president's first 100 days in office, against a drumbeat of calls for the rich to pay
more in taxes, the 100 wealthiest Americans added a combined US$195 billion to their fortunes,
according to a Bloomberg analysis.
The most recent gains have been fueled by the continued rise of the stock market since Biden
was sworn in Jan. 20, along with the vaccination program's fast rollout and a US$1.9 trillion
government stimulus package. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones indexes have both climbed more than
10 per cent during that time.
Attempts such as Biden's to refloat the economy can boost incomes and wealth at the very
top, said Mike Savage, a sociology professor at the London School of Economics.
"We've seen that paradox since the 2008 financial crash with quantitative easing, which has
mostly benefited people with assets, inflating their value significantly,'' Savage said.
The richest 100 made a further US$267 billion between the 2020 election and Biden's
inauguration, amounting to a total gain of US$461 billion since Nov. 4. From Donald Trump's
2017 inauguration to last fall's election, those billionaires got about US$860 billion
richer.
The combined fortunes of the richest 100 Americans have reached US$2.9 trillion, greater
than the combined US$2.5 trillion wealth of the bottom 50 per cent of the U.S. population,
according to data from the Federal Reserve.
The rise has been driven by an explosion of wealth among a handful of ultra-billionaires.
The 10 wealthiest Americans have added US$255 billion since election day, bringing their
combined net worth to US$1.2 trillion.
The biggest driver of this wealth surge has been tech companies like Amazon.com Inc.,
Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google, bolstered by increased online and stay-at-home
activity during the coronavirus pandemic. The FANG stocks index has climbed 94 per cent in the
past 12 months compared with the 45 per cent advance of the S&P 500.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the world's richest man, has gotten US$11.7 billion richer this
year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, adding to about US$120 billion of wealth
gains during the Trump presidency. Mark Zuckerberg's net worth rose US$8.1 billion yesterday
alone on the strength of Facebook's first-quarter results.
Google's Larry Page has added US$26.6 billion this year after the California-based company
posted record profit last year, while the wealth of Tesla Inc.'s Elon Musk has grown US$5.1
billion since January.
Finance billionaires such as Warren Buffett and Blackstone Group Inc.'s Stephen Schwarzman
have also been major beneficiaries of stock market rises.
In his first 100 days, Biden has moved quickly to propose sharp tax hikes for the rich and
programs to funnel trillions of dollars to middle- and lower-class Americans in the form of new
infrastructure, social spending and stimulus checks. He laid out those policies in his first
address to Congress on Wednesday.
"Sometimes I have arguments with my friends in the Democratic Party," Biden said. "I think
you should be able to become a billionaire or a millionaire. But pay your fair share."
Under his "American Families Plan" announced Wednesday, the top rate of personal income tax
would increase to 39.6 per cent for the highest 1 per cent of earners from the current 37 per
cent, while the capital gains rate would be raised to the same level for those earning above
US$1 million, wiping out the discrepancy between income and capital gains tax rates that has
benefitted many of the ultra-rich.
The wealthiest 1 per cent currently pay 40 per cent of all federal income taxes, according
to Internal Revenue Service data, an amount that doesn't include payroll taxes.
"When you ask the American people what they want, they want corporations and millionaires
and billionaires to pay higher taxes," said Erica Payne, founder of the Patriotic Millionaires,
a group of progressive high-net-worth individuals. "It is politically a winner, it is
economically the right thing to do and it is morally a no-brainer."
Corporate tax hike
The White House has also proposed a plan to hike corporate taxes to fund infrastructure
spending. In a surprise this month, Bezos issued a statement saying he supports the general
idea. "We look forward to Congress and the administration coming together to find the right,
balanced solution that maintains or enhances U.S. competitiveness," he said.
Conservatives say boosting spending by adding a greater burden on the wealthy can
backfire.
"Government investments are often sold to the public with the promise that they will improve
lives and improve the economy," Scott Hodge, president of the Tax Foundation, argued in
testimony before Congress this week. "In every case, the economic harm caused by the taxes
would swamp any of the benefits from the new spending, leaving taxpayers and the economy worse
off."
Despite the pandemic, Fed data show all groups gained wealth last year. The top 1 per cent
did best, however, adding US$4 trillion in 2020 and bringing their total net worth to almost
US$39 billion, more than the bottom 90 per cent of Americans combined. Personal incomes in the
U.S. jumped a record 21 per cent in March, surging after households received a third round of
relief checks.
In his speech to Congress, Biden emphasized his efforts to create good-paying jobs,
especially those that don't require a college degree. The increasing dominance of tech giants,
however, won't necessarily help middle-class Americans. As a proportion of their market
capitalization, most technology companies employ relatively few Americans compared with their
older listed peers, concentrating wealth in the hands of a select few.
"The whole retail distribution system is changing," said Robert Miller, professor of
economics and statistics at Carnegie Mellon University. "Recent technology has been hollowing
out some parts of middle management, so you can see parts of the middle class slipping
away."
Tax loopholes
Democrats in Congress are pushing other plans to close loopholes and tax wealth. To claw
back gains made by America's richest during the pandemic, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a
Massachusetts Democrat, proposed an Ultra Millionaire tax, a new version of the wealth tax she
floated as a presidential candidate. Under her proposal, those with fortunes exceeding US$50
million would face a 2 per cent tax on their wealth, increasing to 3 per cent for those worth
more than US$1 billion. The plan is unlikely to become law, given opposition from Biden and
other Democrats.
Higher taxes aren't "going to have very much effect in the long term on redistributing
wealth," Carnegie Mellon's Miller said. "This focus on how we're going to get the money is a
bit misplaced – we should be thinking more about how we want to help the people that need
help."
After thirteen months, the BLS still cannot count the Unemployed. Headline U.3
Unemployment also remained deep in non-recovery territory. The BLS acknowledged continuing
misclassification of some "unemployed" persons as "employed," in the Household Survey. Where
the count of the understated unemployed had an "upside limit" of 636,000 persons in March 2021,
the February 2021 upside estimate of understated unemployed was 756,000. The difference would
be a potential headline U.3 of 6.44% instead of today's headline 6.05%, which was down from a
headline 6.22% in February. Fully adjusted for COVID-19 disruptions, based on BLS side-surveys
of Pandemic impact, and with more than six million people missing from the headline U.S. labor
force, actual headline U.3 unemployment still should be well above 10%, the highest
unemployment rate since before World War II, outside of the Pandemic and possibly at the trough
of the 1982-1983 recession. Broader March 2021 headline U.6 unemployment [including some
decline in short-term discouraged workers and those employed part-time for economic reasons]
eased to 10.71% from 11.07% in February. Including long-term discouraged/ displaced workers,
the March 2021 ShadowStats Alternate Measure –- moving on top of the decline in U.6
–- notched minimally lower to 25.7%, from 25.8% in February 2021, reflecting some modeled
transition of "short-term" to "long-term" discouraged workers, with the Pandemic having passed
its 12-month anniversary. The latest Unemployment Rates are posted on the ALTERNATE DATA
tab (above).
With politics leaning ever more left on university campuses, I hope Dr Ladapo doesn't lose
his job at UCLA for writing a cogent and concise opinion piece.
RICHARD SANDOR SUBSCRIBER 3 hours ago
Brian : Yes, an expensive university in my largely Democrat-controlled state state has a
student group which wants to ' censor ' the university president for not being focused enough
on ' diversity, inclusiveness and equity . ' Hope the parents realize the high price they are
paying for this left wing indoctrination. mrs
"British private schools create a class culture of a kind unknown in the rest of Europe.
The extreme case is the boarding prep schools, which separate children from their parents at
the age of eight in order to shape them into members of a detached elite. In his book The
Making of Them the psychotherapist Nick Duffell shows how these artificial orphans survive
the loss of their families by dissociating themselves from their feelings of love(14).
Survival involves "an extreme hardening of normal human softness, a severe cutting off from
emotions and sensitivity."(15) Unable to attach themselves to people (intimate relationships
with other children are discouraged by a morbid fear of homosexuality), they are encouraged
instead to invest their natural loyalties in the institution.
This made them extremely effective colonial servants: if their commander ordered it, they
could organise a massacre without a moment's hesitation (witness the detachment of the
officers who oversaw the suppression of the Mau Mau, quoted in Caroline Elkins's book,
Britain's Gulag(16)). It also meant that the lower orders at home could be put down without
the least concern for the results. For many years, Britain has been governed by damaged
people.
I went through this system myself, and I know I will spend the rest of my life fighting
its effects. But one of the useful skills it has given me is an ability to recognise it in
others. I can spot another early boarder at 200 metres: you can see and smell the damage
dripping from them like sweat. The Conservative cabinets were stuffed with them: even in John
Major's "classless" government, 16 of the 20 male members of the 1993 cabinet had been to
public school; 12 of them had boarded(17). Privately-educated people dominate politics, the
civil service, the judiciary, the armed forces, the City, the media, the arts, academia, the
most prestigious professions, even, as we have seen, the Charity Commission. They recognise
each other, fear the unshaped people of the state system, and, often without being aware that
they are doing it, pass on their privileges to people like themselves.
The system is protected by silence. Because private schools have been so effective in
moulding a child's character, an attack on the school becomes an attack on all those who have
passed through it. Its most abject victims become its fiercest defenders. How many times have
I heard emotionally-stunted people proclaim "it never did me any harm"? In the Telegraph last
year, Michael Henderson boasted of the delightful eccentricity of his boarding school. "Bad
work got you an 'order mark'. One foolish fellow, Brown by name, was given a double order
mark for taking too much custard at lunch. How can you not warm to a teacher who awards such
punishment? Petty snobbery abounded," he continued, "but only wets are put off by a bit of
snobbery. So long as you pulled your socks up, and didn't let the side down, you wouldn't be
for the high jump. Which is as it should be."(18) A ruling class in a persistent state of
repression is a very dangerous thing."
Judge James C. Ho is absolutely correct to imply it is profoundly offensive to be offered
opportunity based on race rather than merit ("
Notable & Quotable: Judges ," March 27).
When I was approaching graduation and beginning my job search, a friend of the family, who
was Jewish himself, approached me with an opportunity. His accounting firm, one of the "Big
Eight" firms, had inquired if he knew any young Jewish accountants it could hire because it
didn't have any Jews working in the firm. The family friend told me this was a wonderful
opportunity and that I would be made partner and become prosperous. He was shocked when I
responded no, and asked why. I told him if I accepted this offer, I would never know if I was
successful because I was Jewish or because I was talented and skilled.
Over the months there have been letters to the editor regarding academia,
"Academic Freedom Long Ago Withered Away" (Letters, March 5) being a case in point. I find
it interesting that for the most part they are written by professors emeriti or retired
academics, not active ones with a job to lose. This is very telling in and of itself.
Not only was the March payrolls report a blockbuster, golidlocks number, much higher than expected but not
too
high
to spark immediate reflation/hike fears thanks to subdued wage inflation, job growth in March was also widespread unlike
February, where 75% of all new jobs
were
waiters and bartenders
. By contrast, in March the largest gains occurring across most industries with the bulk taking
place in leisure and hospitality, public and private education, and construction.
Here is a full breakdown:
Employment in leisure and hospitality increased by 280,000 in March,
as
pandemic-related restrictions eased in many parts of the country. Nearly two-thirds of the increase was in food services
and drinking places (+176,000). Job gains also occurred in arts, entertainment, and recreation (+64,000) and in
accommodation (+40,000). Employment in leisure and hospitality is down by 3.1 million, or 18.5 percent, since February
2020.
In March, employment increased in both public and private education,
reflecting
the continued resumption of in-person learning and other school-related activities in many parts of the country. Employment
rose by 76,000 in local government education, by 50,000 in state government education, and by 64,000 in private education.
Employment is down from February 2020 in local government education (-594,000), state government education (-270,000), and
private education (-310,000).
Construction added 110,000 jobs in March,
following job losses in the
previous month (-56,000) that were likely weather-related. Employment growth in the industry was widespread in March, with
gains of 65,000 in specialty trade contractors, 27,000 in heavy and civil engineering construction, and 18,000 in
construction of buildings. Employment in construction is 182,000 below its February 2020 level.
Employment in professional and business services rose by 66,000 over the month.
In
March, employment in administrative and support services continued to trend up (+37,000), although employment in its
temporary help services component was essentially unchanged. Employment also continued on an upward trend in management and
technical consulting services (+8,000) and in computer systems design and related services (+6,000).
Manufacturing employment rose by 53,000 in March,
with job gains occurring
in both durable goods (+30,000) and nondurable goods (+23,000). Employment in manufacturing is down by 515,000 since
February 2020.
Transportation and warehousing added 48,000 jobs in March.
Employment
increased in couriers and messengers (+17,000), transit and ground passenger transportation (+13,000), support activities
for transportation (+6,000), and air transportation (+6,000). Since February 2020, employment in couriers and messengers is
up by 206,000 (or 23.3 percent), while employment is down by 112,000 (or 22.8 percent) in transit and ground passenger
transportation and by 104,000 (or 20.1 percent) in air transportation.
Employment in the other services industry increased by 42,000 over the month,
reflecting
job gains in personal and laundry services (+19,000) and in repair and maintenance (+18,000). Employment in other services
is down by 396,000 since February 2020.
Social assistance added 25,000 jobs in March,
mostly in individual and
family services (+20,000). Employment in social assistance is 306,000 lower than in February 2020.
Employment in wholesale trade increased by 24,000 in March,
with job gains
in both durable goods (+14,000) and nondurable goods (+10,000). Employment in wholesale trade is 234,000 lower than in
February 2020.
Retail trade added 23,000 jobs in March.
Job growth in clothing and
clothing accessories stores (+16,000), motor vehicle and parts dealers (+13,000), and furniture and home furnishing stores
(+6,000) was partially offset by losses in building material and garden supply stores (-9,000) and general merchandise
stores (-7,000). Employment in retail trade is 381,000 below its February 2020 level.
Employment in mining rose by 21,000 in March,
in support activities for
mining (+19,000). Mining employment is down by 130,000 since a peak in January 2019.
Financial activities added 16,000 jobs in March.
Job gains in insurance
carriers and related activities (+11,000) and real estate (+10,000) more than offset losses in credit intermediation and
related activities (-7,000). Financial activities has 87,000 fewer jobs than in February 2020.
It's hardly a surprise that with the US reopening, the one industry seeing the biggest hiring remains leisure and hospitality
where jobs rose by 280,000, as pandemic-related restrictions eased in many parts of the country, with nearly two-thirds of the
increase in "food services and drinking places", i.e., waiters and bartenders, which added +176,000 jobs in March.
And another notable change was in the total number of government workers, which surged by 136K in March, reversing the 90K
drop in February, as a result of 49.6K state education workers and 76K local government education workers added thanks to the
reopening of schools around the country.
Here is a visual breakdown of all the March job changes:
Finally,
courtesy
of Bloomberg
, below are the industries with the highest and lowest rates of employment growth for the most recent month.
7
play_arrow
Jack Offelday
1 hour ago
The "V" recovery. Where Food Service jobs are the new "Golden Age".
Creamaster
47 minutes ago
(Edited)
My wife is a nurse in an outpatient office under a large hospital umbrella here. Normally these outpatient
spots go within days to a week.
Currently they have 2 openings they have been trying to fill for a few months now. Combine that with the
fact my wife got 3 years worth of raises in a single shot, recently and out of the blue for no reason, tells
me the hospitla is really screwed trying to fill nursing spots.
After this pandemic crap, it has likely scared alot of people away from entering healthcare, and if a nurse
was on the fence about retirement , likely decided to call it quits after all this BS.
newworldorder
45 minutes ago
There are an estimated, 30 million illegals currently in the USA waiting legalization.
WHEN legalization happens, they will bring into the USA (by historical averages,) another 60 to 90 million
of their family members in 10 years.
And all of them US Minority workers, by current US Diversity Laws, - same as all Black Americans.
'The world will never be the same:' Coursera CEO on learning post pandemic
Reggie Wade
·
Writer
Fri, April 2, 2021, 12:43 PM
More content below
More content below
^IXIC
+1.76%
COUR
+1.73%
The online learning platform
Coursera
(
COUR
)
saw a big pop following its Nasdaq (
^IXIC
)
debut this week. Coursera revenue was up 60% last year, and CEO Jeff Maggioncalda predicts online learning is here to stay even
after the pandemic eventually winds down.
"The world needs more access to high-quality learning. ... There will be a new normal that emerges. We don't know what that will
look like either in terms of how we work remotely versus in an office and how we will learn online and also on campus. But it's
pretty clear that the world will never be the same again and that online learning will be a big part of it," he told Yahoo
Finance Live.
"So we really think about the long term, all the structural reasons why people will need to learn continuously through their
lives to learn new skills as the world goes more digital," he said.
Dec 27, 2019 Mountain View / CA / USA - Coursera headquarters in Silicon Valley; Coursera is an American online learning
platform that offers massive open online courses, specializations, and degrees
One area that Coursera is looking to expand is its degree and certification programs. Maggioncalda tells Yahoo Finance that the
company can use technology to shake up traditional degree offerings.
"What we've seen for centuries is that college degrees are the most meaningful, recognized learning credential that there is, and
the credential type hasn't really innovated that much over the last period of history. We think with technology, the ability to
create not only degrees but other types of credentials," he said.
"It will be a portfolio of credentials. We believe that will serve lifelong learning needs in a world where people need to keep
learning, even as they're working," he added.
Medicaid
expansion enrollment grew nearly 30% year-over-year in 19-state sample, Andrew Sprung,
XPOSTFACTOID, March 17, 2021
An update on Medicaid expansion enrollment growth since the pandemic struck. Below is a
sampling of 19 expansion states through January of this year, and 14 states through
February.
Maintaining the assumption, explained here ,
"relatively slow growth in California would push the national total down by about 2.5
percentage points." These tallies still point to year-over-year enrollment growth of
approximately 30% from February 2020 to February 2021.
If that's right, then Medicaid enrollment among those rendered eligible by ACA expansion
criteria (adults with income up to 138% FPL) may exceed 19 million nationally and may be
pushing 20 million. Assuming the sampling of a bit more than a third of total expansion
enrollment represents all expansion states more or less and again accounting for slower growth
in California.
"... Last week was the 53rd straight week total initial claims were greater than the second-worst week of the Great Recession. (If that comparison is restricted to regular state claims -- because we didn't have PUA in the Great Recession -- initial claims are still greater than the 14th worst week of the Great Recession.) ..."
One year ago this week, when the first sky-high unemployment insurance (UI) claims data of the pandemic were released, I said
"
I
have been a labor economist for a very long time and have never seen anything like this
." But in the weeks that followed,
things got worse before they got better -- and we are not out of the woods yet.
Last
week -- the week ending March 20, 2021 -- another 926,000 people applied for UI. This included 684,000 people who applied for
regular state UI and 242,000 who applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), the federal program for workers who are
not eligible for regular unemployment insurance, like gig workers.
Last week was the 53rd straight week total initial claims were greater than the second-worst week of the Great Recession. (If
that comparison is restricted to regular state claims -- because we didn't have PUA in the Great Recession -- initial
claims are still greater than the 14th worst week of the Great Recession.)
Figure A
shows continuing claims in all programs over time (the latest data for this are for March 6). Continuing claims
are currently nearly 17 million above where they were a year ago, just before the virus hit.
FIGURE A
Continuing unemployment claims in all programs, March 23, 2019–March 6, 2021
*Use
caution interpreting trends over time because of reporting issues (see below)*
Date
Regular state UI
PEUC
PUA
Other programs (mostly EB and STC)
2019-03-23
1,905,627
31,510
2019-03-30
1,858,954
31,446
2019-04-06
1,727,261
30,454
2019-04-13
1,700,689
30,404
2019-04-20
1,645,387
28,281
2019-04-27
1,630,382
29,795
2019-05-04
1,536,652
27,937
2019-05-11
1,540,486
28,727
2019-05-18
1,506,501
27,949
2019-05-25
1,519,345
26,263
2019-06-01
1,535,572
26,905
2019-06-08
1,520,520
25,694
2019-06-15
1,556,252
26,057
2019-06-22
1,586,714
25,409
2019-06-29
1,608,769
23,926
2019-07-06
1,700,329
25,630
2019-07-13
1,694,876
27,169
2019-07-20
1,676,883
30,390
2019-07-27
1,662,427
28,319
2019-08-03
1,676,979
27,403
2019-08-10
1,616,985
27,330
2019-08-17
1,613,394
26,234
2019-08-24
1,564,203
27,253
2019-08-31
1,473,997
25,003
2019-09-07
1,462,776
25,909
2019-09-14
1,397,267
26,699
2019-09-21
1,380,668
26,641
2019-09-28
1,390,061
25,460
2019-10-05
1,366,978
26,977
2019-10-12
1,384,208
27,501
2019-10-19
1,416,816
28,088
2019-10-26
1,420,918
28,576
2019-11-02
1,447,411
29,080
2019-11-09
1,457,789
30,024
2019-11-16
1,541,860
31,593
2019-11-23
1,505,742
29,499
2019-11-30
1,752,141
30,315
2019-12-07
1,725,237
32,895
2019-12-14
1,796,247
31,893
2019-12-21
1,773,949
29,888
2019-12-28
2,143,802
32,517
2020-01-04
2,245,684
32,520
2020-01-11
2,137,910
33,882
2020-01-18
2,075,857
32,625
2020-01-25
2,148,764
35,828
2020-02-01
2,084,204
33,884
2020-02-08
2,095,001
35,605
2020-02-15
2,057,774
34,683
2020-02-22
2,101,301
35,440
2020-02-29
2,054,129
33,053
2020-03-07
1,973,560
32,803
2020-03-14
2,071,070
34,149
2020-03-21
3,410,969
36,758
2020-03-28
8,158,043
0
52,494
48,963
2020-04-04
12,444,309
3,802
69,537
64,201
2020-04-11
16,249,334
31,426
216,481
89,915
2020-04-18
17,756,054
63,720
1,172,238
116,162
2020-04-25
21,723,230
91,724
3,629,986
158,031
2020-05-02
20,823,294
173,760
6,361,532
175,289
2020-05-09
22,725,217
252,257
8,120,137
216,576
2020-05-16
18,791,926
252,952
11,281,930
226,164
2020-05-23
19,022,578
546,065
10,010,509
247,595
2020-05-30
18,548,442
1,121,306
9,597,884
259,499
2020-06-06
18,330,293
885,802
11,359,389
325,282
2020-06-13
17,552,371
783,999
13,093,382
336,537
2020-06-20
17,316,689
867,675
14,203,555
392,042
2020-06-27
16,410,059
956,849
12,308,450
373,841
2020-07-04
17,188,908
964,744
13,549,797
495,296
2020-07-11
16,221,070
1,016,882
13,326,206
513,141
2020-07-18
16,691,210
1,122,677
13,259,954
518,584
2020-07-25
15,700,971
1,193,198
10,984,864
609,328
2020-08-01
15,112,240
1,262,021
11,504,089
433,416
2020-08-08
14,098,536
1,376,738
11,221,790
549,603
2020-08-15
13,792,016
1,381,317
13,841,939
469,028
2020-08-22
13,067,660
1,434,638
15,164,498
523,430
2020-08-29
13,283,721
1,547,611
14,786,785
490,514
2020-09-05
12,373,201
1,630,711
11,808,368
529,220
2020-09-12
12,363,489
1,832,754
12,153,925
510,610
2020-09-19
11,561,158
1,989,499
10,686,922
589,652
2020-09-26
10,172,332
2,824,685
10,978,217
579,582
2020-10-03
8,952,580
3,334,878
10,450,384
668,691
2020-10-10
8,038,175
3,711,089
10,622,725
615,066
2020-10-17
7,436,321
3,983,613
9,332,610
778,746
2020-10-24
6,837,941
4,143,389
9,433,127
746,403
2020-10-31
6,452,002
4,376,847
8,681,647
806,430
2020-11-07
6,037,690
4,509,284
9,147,753
757,496
2020-11-14
5,890,220
4,569,016
8,869,502
834,740
2020-11-21
5,213,781
4,532,876
8,555,763
741,078
2020-11-28
5,766,130
4,801,408
9,244,556
834,685
2020-12-05
5,457,941
4,793,230
9,271,112
841,463
2020-12-12
5,393,839
4,810,334
8,453,940
937,972
2020-12-19
5,205,841
4,491,413
8,383,387
1,070,810
2020-12-26
5,347,440
4,166,261
7,442,888
1,450,438
2021-01-02
5,727,359
3,026,952
5,707,397
1,526,887
2021-01-09
5,446,993
3,863,008
7,334,682
1,638,247
2021-01-16
5,188,211
3,604,894
7,218,801
1,826,573
2021-01-23
5,156,985
4,779,341
7,943,448
1,785,954
2021-01-30
5,003,178
4,062,189
7,685,857
1,590,360
2021-02-06
4,934,269
5,067,523
7,520,114
1,523,394
2021-02-13
4,794,195
4,468,389
7,329,172
1,437,170
2021-02-20
4,808,623
5,456,080
8,387,696
1,465,769
2021-02-27
4,457,888
4,816,523
7,616,593
1,237,929
2021-03-06
4,458,888
5,551,215
7,735,491
1,207,201
Other programs (mostly EB and STC)
PUA
PEUC
Regular
state UI
Jul
2019
Jan
2020
Jul
2020
Jan
2021
0
10,000,000
20,000,000
30,000,000
40,000,000
Chart
Data
Caution:
Trends over time in PUA claims may be distorted because when an individual is owed retroactive
payments, some states report all retroactive PUA claims during the week the individual received their
payment.
The good news in all of this
is
Congress's passage of the sweeping $1.9 trillion relief and recovery package. It is both providing crucial support to millions
of working families and setting the stage for a robust recovery. One big concern, however, is that the bill's
UI
provisions
are
set to expire the first week in September, when, even in the best–case scenario, they will still be needed. By then, Congress
needs to have put in place long-run UI reforms that include automatic triggers based on economic conditions.
The financial fallout of covid-19 has pushed child hunger to record levels. The need has
been dire since the pandemic began and highlights the gaps in the nation's safety net.
While every U.S. county has seen hunger rates rise, the steepest jumps have been in some of
the wealthiest counties, where overall affluence obscures the tenuous finances of low-wage
workers. Such sudden and unprecedented surges in hunger have overwhelmed many rich communities,
which weren't nearly as ready to cope as places that have long dealt with poverty and were
already equipped with robust, organized charitable food networks.
Data from the anti-hunger advocacy group
Feeding America and the U.S. Census Bureau shows that counties seeing the largest estimated
increases in child food insecurity in 2020 compared with 2018 generally have much higher median
household incomes than counties with the smallest increases. In Bergen, where the median
household income is $101,144, child hunger is estimated to have risen by 136%, compared with
47% nationally.
That doesn't mean affluent counties have the greatest portion of hungry kids. An estimated
17% of children in Bergen face hunger, compared with a national average of around 25%.
But help is often harder to find in wealthier places. Missouri's affluent St. Charles
County, north of St. Louis, population 402,000, has seen child hunger rise by 69% and has 20
sites distributing food from the St. Louis Area Foodbank. The city of St. Louis, pop. 311,000,
has seen child hunger rise by 36% and has 100 sites.
"There's a huge variation in how different places are prepared or not prepared to deal with
this and how they've struggled to address it," said Erica Kenney , assistant professor of public
health nutrition at Harvard University. "The charitable food system has been very strained by
this."
Eleni Towns, associate director of the No Kid Hungry campaign , said the pandemic "undid a decade's
worth of progress" on reducing food insecurity, which last year threatened at least 15 million
kids.
And while President Joe Biden's covid relief plan, which he signed into law March 11,
promises to help with anti-poverty measures such as monthly payments to families of up to $300
per child this year, it's unclear how far the recently passed legislation will go toward
addressing hunger.
"It's definitely a step in the right direction," said Marlene Schwartz , director of the Rudd
Center for Food Policy and Obesity at the University of Connecticut. "But it's hard to know
what the impact is going to be."
Let's just keep spending all that money on our misadventures around the world though. I
believe in a strong defense but just that, defense. I would like to hear the warmongers
justify the ridiculous amounts of money spent on that, yet we can take care of our own to a
basic minimum. What the hell happened to this country over the years
"What the hell happened to this country over the years "
4 to 5 decades of neoliberalism will do that. Its like the nation-state equivalent of
being addicted to a drug. Makes you feel better in the short term: Reagan America worked
great! In the 80s. Long term everything gets screwed over, health wise.
Typical banana republic, spending on war and ridiculous, dysfunctional but grandiose
weapons, usually shown off in parades – lorded over by a rich oligarchy – while
people starve and live in hovels. However, a healthy well-fed population is the source of a
nation's strength, so we are well on the way to fading into a has-been.
"Sierra had to leave her Amazon warehouse job when the kids' school went remote, and
Morales stopped driving for Uber when trips became scarce and he feared getting covid on top
of his asthma".
In other words, our skimpy unemployment insurance systems in man states, plus gaps in the
pandemic special relief, plus the insufferable arrogance of closing the schools with no
financial relief for parents, and here we are.
Sorry guys but this is Failed Nation stuff. I am one of those that happen to believe that
it is the most fundamental duty of a State to protect children and pregnant women. Anything
after that is a bonus if not an embellishment. America is not only the wealthiest country in
the world but is also the wealthiest in history. And yet child hunger is tolerated. And just
to add the bread slices to this s*** sandwich, there are about 800 billionaires in the US at
the moment. How many of them could wake up one day and say to themselves: 'You know what?
I am going to abolish child hunger in America with my money and be remembered forever and
even have statues raised to myself!' But it never happens.
America's incredible success is going to require americans to have a vastly reduced
standard of living to the point that they are equally as poverty stricken as the poors the
world over. Globalisation really makes any other out come unfair, and we must globalize.
Everyone being a poverty stricken gig worker is the plan. Here in this case an amazon worker
and an uber driver, on the dole. In reality, I think the biden admin has just dusted off the
plans that were to be unleashed under hillary, that's one of the reasons it all seems so ham
handed. The TPP was going to keep the world in our orbit and create supra national barriers
to autonomy in order to stop what is in fact happening now where they are free to choose
between china/russia and the US. From this perspective trump really screwed the plans of the
despicables.
1. It in the past
2. It was built on predation against the British Empire
Who needs a German Enemy with friends who help with lend-lease, Cancel the German War
debt, and not their "allies." Combined with subverting the British Empires rule with a
twisted version of self-rule – Governance dependent on not having US Sanctions, aka
imperialism absent responsibility.
This after dispossession the local US natives of the ancestral lands by force, and tricky
legalities.
It's not a failed nation, it's how the US was always designed to work. It might have had
some good years of P.R. and marketing after WWII but it was always a lie. The Constitution
was written by a bunch of wealthy slavers that hated commoners and feared economic democracy
and popular governance. The US became the wealthiest country by starving kids and killing
people the world over; it was forced into a bit of wealth distribution for a few decades by
multi-state steel strikes, the Bonus Army, armed miners unions, tenants unions, the Farmers
Holiday movement, and the contrast of a Soviet Union that was advancing by leaps and bounds
economically while the US festered in a depression. But whether it was the indigenous, the
slaves, the Filipinos, the Haitians, the Chinese, the Nicaraguans, the Mexicans, the
Hondurans, the Iranians, the Guatemalans, the Chileans, the Koreans, the Vietnamese, the
Laotians, the Cambodians, the Russians, the Iraqis, the Libyans, the Syrians, or it's own
citizens, the US has always killed for money. If it runs out of places to take over and
expand it'll just starve the kids at home to make a buck. It'll charge the poor overdraft
fees for having no money then chalk that up as a financial service. It'll have its state
security forces kill you for a traffic stop and then beat every citizen en masse that dares
to object. It'll cannibalize the very infrastructure and fabric of society and hand it over
to oligarchs and private equity. It'll give all the wealth to people who charge usury and own
embroidered pieces of paper but who don't actually do anything useful or necessary. And the
marks that watch US movies and television and news will believe that the US is somehow
benevolent and that they can somehow bend the will of the rapacious through the very
electoralism that the wealthy designed to keep the poor from having a say.
Starving children. Children in concentration camps. Children forced into schools during a
plague. These aren't 'oopsies.' This is how the country is set up to run. Look at how much
money the wealthy gained by letting a pandemic run wild. Look at how the entire investment
class should have gone bankrupt in 2008 but instead workers were fired from jobs and cast out
of their homes by the millions. Now the kids of those sacrificed are starving right next to
the wealthy that should have gone bust. The affluent are literally taking food out of kids
mouths because they won't let their precious stocks or real estate go down in price one iota.
The only good thing about kids starving in wealthy districts is that a Robin Hood won't have
to go to far to find money to give to those kids.
The 800 billionaires consider child hunger in America to be one of their greatest
achievements.
The child hunger in America problem won't be solved until the 800 billionaires and all
their ideological supporters and economic servants have been " rounded up and exterminated",
so to speak.
Thank you, Palaver. All "food" is not equal. Nutrition should be the emphasis.
In my jurisdiction, the Food Bank Industry encourages donations of packaged, processed,
industrialized "food". For example, fifty pounds of oats gives much more nutrition bang for
the buck than the equivalent $$$ amount of Conglomerate Cereals.
At my Conglomerate Stupormarket, they have a bin for unthinking donors to drop in "food"
that was bought in the Stupor. I've seen poptarts, jars of frosting, jello, etc. all sorts of
"food". And why do I think the Stupormarket just recycles a lot of this stuff back onto their
shelves, making a huge profit?
Next time you donate, check out what your Food Bank is actually peddling and who runs it.
Food Banks have become a huge Industry and we know what happens to huge Industries.
My mother gives rides to some of her friends (without expectation of any compensation cuz
friendship). In return, some of the friends give random items from their weekly food bank
allotment.
the food is shelf-stable processed items with produce and baked goods nearing expiration
from the local gourmet independent chain and the local Whole Foods.
Manslow's hierarchy of needs applies obviously and the food banks do truly heroic deeds
daily, but long-term people can't live healthy lives eating boxed Mac 'n Cheese, PBJ
sandwiches and organic cookies every single day.
I say expand WIC spending and eligibility, but as I'm not too familiar with that program,
dunno if that'll do any good.
In the USA, the top one percent of household net worth starts at $11,099,166.
It is seems improbable that the commenter achieved that goal. May be he is thinking of 1%
of Indonesia or Philippines. The reference to tenant farmers also appears to indicate a
country like that. Retiring to live in the Indonesian countryside is not my idea of a good
old age. Correct me please if I am wrong.
"Underfunded" is a euphemism for "have students with low test scores." E.g., "Washington
D.C.'s underfunded schools."
D.C. spent around $30,115 per pupil in 2016-17, while in 2017-18, nearby Arlington County
was expected to spend $19,340, the City of Falls Church to spend $18,219; the City of
Alexandria, $17,099; Montgomery County, $16,030; Fairfax County, $14,767; Prince George's
County, $13,816; Loudoun County, $13,688; City of Manassas, $12,846; City of Manassas Park,
$11,242; and Prince William County, $11,222.
In 2015, you wrote extensively about your concerns over neoliberalism in academia, calling
it the worst threat to education. You wrote: "In order to offset the lack of public funding,
administrators have raised tuition with students becoming the primary consumers and
debt-holders. Institutions have entered into research partnerships with industry shifting the
pursuit of truth to the pursuit of profits." To accelerate this "molting," they have "
hired a larger and larger number of short-term, part-time adjuncts ."
This has created large armies of transient and disposable workers who "are in no position to
challenge the university's practices or agitate for "democratic rather than monetary
goals."
Yes, neoliberalism is hegemonic. It affects all minority communities...
"Underfunded" is a euphemism for "have students with low test scores." E.g., "Washington
D.C.'s underfunded schools." Presumably, it means "underfunded relative to some theoretical
amount of money, such as a gajillion dollars, that would be sufficient to raise these
students' test scores to average."
My dad was a school administrator in one of the top county public school systems in the
country. A politically deep-blue part of the country. He retired in the early '80's. I
remember him telling me once after he retired that his school(s) would get constant demands
from the school board to raise black (not many Hispanics then) test scores. He said the
school(s) focused all kinds of resources on black students which yielded no appreciable
results. He then said, "You know how we raised black test scores to the level demanded? We
fudged the numbers."
"... freedom is material: a human being must be free from material privation, here and now, in life (and not in the mythical afterlife of reincarnation) in order to be really free. In other words, freedom from need is true freedom. ..."
Marx's concept of freedom is completely different from the liberal or pre-liberal concepts
of freedom. For Marx, freedom is material: a human being must be free from material
privation, here and now, in life (and not in the mythical afterlife of reincarnation) in
order to be really free. In other words, freedom from need is true freedom.
Human beings can only be materially free. Don't fall for the moral victories of
liberalism, the snake oil salesmen's promise of a spot in Paradise from the Abrahamics or the
nihilist bullshittery from the Buddhists et al.
Excellent point by vk here. Despite sometimes pretending to myself that I am a Buddhist (I
am really good at meditating!), real freedom is being free from need. Abstract and
metaphysical "freedoms" are luxuries of the wealthy that few under the thumb of the
empire can afford.
I have been surprised by the explosion in the numbers of people locally living in cars and
vans lately. I guess from my Buddhist perspective they have been freed from the attachment to
a residence. Who could have guessed that capitalism would be such a good teacher of the path
to enlightenment?
It's freedom from Want. The Four Freedoms as articulated by FDR in 1941 were:
1.Freedom of speech
2.Freedom of worship
3.Freedom from want
4.Freedom from fear
Earlier this year on the 80th anniversary of FDR's speech, I wrote a series of comments on
the topic. They remain the four main tasks needing to be accomplished for the Common Man to
be genuinely free. At the time, they were to be the main goals of WW2; goals that were
further articulated by Henry Wallace in 1942 & '43 in his speeches and writings.
Currently, several nations have accomplished those four goals; none of them is a
NATO/Neoliberal nation however.
In the Spectator article linked -- thank you b and all -- Kimball quotes a canny friend
who said "I'd rather be ruled by the Chinese than the Yale faculty". Yes, I thought, that is
how the west is now.
I am a teacher in Australia's oldest university whose new vice-chancellor (CEO) is a pure
technocrat without academic background or a PhD.
This is the strange norm now: grey neoliberal managers are rushed into areas that require
specialists in order to 'streamline' or 'set up structures of accountability' or simply
hollow out the joint. This guy sees 'tech' as the answer, so will accelerate the pedagogical
catastrophe taking place across the world (Zoom-'teaching') whose implications are dystopian,
psychologically alienating and frankly depressing.
He is the Yale faculty at the local level; Blinken is the Yale faculty on the diplomatic
stage: a recognisable and familiar type of manager from no particular background whose career
is made leap-frogging from bureaucratisation process to bureaucratisation process.
He berates the Chinese thinking that they are the old faculty resisting the newspeak of
neoliberal managerialism, an empty meaningless feedback loop of tickboxing. The 'rules-based
order' is some imaginary thing produced in the mind of grey men to obscure their
self-aggrandisement in a vacuum; zero time has been invested in any thought about it. The
'Biden-Doctrine' is a vacuum of intellectual reflection. In short, Blinken simply doesn't
care about his job, he just cares about ticking a box on his CV as he sets himself up for the
promotion/next job. Where once we had career specialists dedicated to the actual job (like
Chas Freeman) now the whole world is run by these empty people. The consequences are very
depressing.
University administrators need not have doctoral or other academic achievements. What is
needed, in any enterprise, is the commitment to the health and to prosperity of that
enterprise.
In America, they promoted men who promised lower taxes and easier money. Men with dubious
loyalty to the long term health and well being of that country or her population. The results
is there for the world to see. Same in Italy; Mr. Berlusconi would promise to cut taxes, and
would omit to also mention that he would also cut state services. And foolish plebians would
vote for him.
When the late Mr. Khomeini came to power in Iran, one of his observations was that he
could not find enough men with integrity to put them in executive positions.
I would like to respectfully suggest to try to preserve what you can but do not try to be
a lean department or program. Maintain the "fat" so that you van save as much of the
scholarly muscle as you can when the cutting times come.
Also, reach out to the public and the alumni and ask for whatever help you can obtain. Use
Kung-Fu approaches, never attack directly. Keep trying to find alternative careers for your
older or newer faculties. Take any and all positive action and try to preserve Learning and
Scholarship for the future generations.
The late Joseph Stalin observed: "Cadres decide everything."
May be you cannot stop this, but you can delay and dlelay and derail, thus buying time for
people to adjust to their new circumstances.
That would be Mark Scott as Vice Chancellor of the University of Sydney? What a decline
from when Enoch Powell was Professor of Greek at Sydney. I greatly admire Powell's scholarly
work on Herodotus and his edition of Thucydides (one of my set texts when I was at Oxford).
How much of that work did he do at Sydney?
This is about neoliberlization of education. Early over-specialization essentially is
detrimental to professional development. this is clearlly a neoliberal approach -- to get ready
cogs into the machinery that does not reuare any additional trianing to be productive and save on
training.
Like Knuth said on a different potic "Premature optimization is the root of al evil"
Why has it taken so long for professional-services firms in the U.S. to adopt a bespoke
graduate-degree approach (
"Employers Customize Business Degrees," Business News, March 5)?
The former president of the University of Limerick, Edward Walsh, was way ahead of the game
in this regard. Dr. Walsh arguably created a new norm in Irish third-level education back in
the early 1970s, from the university's modest beginnings in the "White House" as the building
was and is still known, to a now very impressive campus with a proud record of innovation in
education and excellence in research and scholarship. Dr. Walsh customized our degrees to match
the requirements of Irish companies and industry.
My bespoke electronics-production degree was customized because the electronics industry in
Ireland at the time found that many electronic-engineering grads applying for
production-oriented positions weren't suitably qualified. As a graduate in engineering, I
believe it made my finding a job much easier than some of my counterparts in other
universities, both in Ireland and abroad. Our degrees opened many doors for my class in a lot
of different industries, and I believe they still hold us in good stead today when changing our
careers or setting up indigenous businesses.
Since inception in 2011, the Commercial Banking Program in the Mays Business School of Texas
A&M University has joined with the banking industry in implementing and teaching a required
commercial-banking curriculum that is designed to position our graduates for successful careers
in commercial banking. The banking industry provides us with valuable input on essential
training and skills they require of our students to be considered for employment. In addition,
selected parts of the program curriculum are taught by senior banking executives from our
advisory board of directors. Students receive current, relevant banking-industry training
taught by banking executives positioning them for successful careers in commercial banking.
Banks find our graduates are trained according to industry requirements and are productive
sooner than their peers, and the Commercial Banking Program is helping alleviate the shortage
of trained talent within the banking industry.
The jobs picture overall has been improving with
379,000 workers added in February , although the U.S. economy still has almost 10 million
fewer jobs than it did before the coronavirus pandemic took hold. Economists have been revising
their employment and GDP forecasts are higher.
Goldman Sachs Chief Economist Jan Hatzius, for example, wrote in a report this week that
the jobless
rate would fall to 4.1% by the end of 2021, from 6.2% last month.
Hyams has been seeing similar encouraging signs on Indeed, with postings on the site already
lapping where they were pre-pandemic. "On Indeed, when we look at new job postings and our
benchmark pre-pandemic of February 1, 2020, at the end of this February we were up 5%
year-over-year. That's still with entire sectors completely shut down," he said.
As for where the hottest demand lies for new jobs, Hyams pointed to e-commerce-related
occupations including logistics, warehousing and delivery, as well as jobs in health care and
pharmacy.
While some of those openings may require showing up regularly in-person, many will not,
which again feeds into Hyams' thesis that interviews will remain virtual.
"If you're going to be a remote worker, interviewing over video actually makes a whole lot
more sense. It's more convenient. It will cut down on travel," he said.
That means many interviewees can continue to pull their blazers and ties out of the closet
-- along with their sweatpants.
Remember job interviews pre-pandemic? The jitters, the choosing of just the right suit, the
race to get there early, maybe even the drive across town or flight across the country for a
shot at a new opportunity?
Like most everything else, the pandemic changed that dynamic. The jitters may remain, but
in-person meetings are largely off the table, interviews among them. The CEO of one of the
most-trafficked jobs websites says it's likely to stay that way even after people get back to
the office.
"People being able to conduct an interview from the safety and convenience of their own
home is going to change hiring forever," said Chris Hyams, Indeed CEO, in an interview with
Yahoo Finance Live. "We believe this is the beginning of a massive secular shift."
"In April, we saw the number of requests for interviews to happen over video shoot up by
1,000%. Even as things have started to stabilize and the economy has opened up over the last 11
months, we've seen that continue to grow," Hyams said.
The jobs picture overall has been improving with
379,000 workers added in February , although the U.S. economy still has almost 10 million
fewer jobs than it did before the coronavirus pandemic took hold. Economists have been
revising their employment and GDP forecasts are higher. Goldman Sachs Chief Economist Jan
Hatzius, for example, wrote in a report this week that the
jobless rate would fall to 4.1% by the end of 2021, from 6.2% last month.
Hyams has been seeing similar encouraging signs on Indeed, with postings on the site
already lapping where they were pre-pandemic. "On Indeed, when we look at new job postings
and our benchmark pre-pandemic of February 1, 2020, at the end of this February we were up 5%
year-over-year. That's still with entire sectors completely shut down," he said.
As for where the hottest demand lies for new jobs, Hyams pointed to e-commerce-related
occupations including logistics, warehousing and delivery, as well as jobs in health care and
pharmacy.
While some of those openings may require showing up regularly in-person, many will not,
which again feeds into Hyams' thesis that interviews will remain virtual.
"If you're going to be a remote worker, interviewing over video actually makes a whole lot
more sense. It's more convenient. It will cut down on travel," he said.
That means many interviewees can continue to pull their blazers and ties out of the closet
-- along with their sweatpants.
"America's economy has almost doubled in size over the last four decades, but broad
measures of the nation's economic health conceal the unequal distribution of gains. A small
portion of the population has pocketed most of the new wealth, and the coronavirus pandemic
is laying bare the consequences of the unequal distribution of prosperity."
Of course, a significant contributor to the "wealth gap" was the rise in the stock market
fostered by trillions of liquidity injected by the Federal Reserve. As NYT noted:
"The affluent, of course, do tend to own stock, and the median net worth of the richest 10
percent of households rose 13 percent from 2007 to 2016 (the last year for which the Fed has
released data).
Another way to view this issue is by looking at household net worth growth between the top
10% and everyone else.
"Wealth disparities have widened over time. In 1989, the bottom 90 percent of the U.S.
population held 33 percent of all wealth. By 2016, the bottom 90 percent of the population
held only 23 percent of the wealth. The wealth share of the top 1 percent increased from
about 30 percent to about 40 percent over the same period." –
Equitable Growth
Such is more visible when you see that since 2007, the ONLY group has seen an increase in
net worth in the top 10% of the population. Such is also the group that owns 90% of the stock
market as discussed in "How The
Fed Made The Top 10% Richer."
" That is not economic prosperity. It is a distortion of economics."
An Elite Club
Central Bank's globally sought to stoke economic growth by inflating asset prices.
Unfortunately, the consumption of the benefit was only those with savings and discretionary
income to invest.
In other words, the stock market became an "exclusive" club for the elite.
While monetary policy increases the wealth of those that have wealth, the Fed mistakenly
believed the "trickle-down" effect would be enough to stimulate the entire economy.
It hasn't.
The sad reality is that these policies only acted as a transfer of wealth from the middle
class to the wealthy. Such created one of the largest "wealth gaps" in human history.
Via Forbes :
"'The top 10% of the wealth distribution hold a large and growing share of U.S. aggregate
wealth, While the bottom half hold a barely visible share.' Fed economists wrote in a
paper outlining the new data set on inequality. The charts show that 'while the total net
worth of U.S. households has more than quadrupled in nominal terms since 1989, that increase
accrued more to the top than the bottom.'"
A recent report from BCA Research confirms the same showing the increase in wealth of the
top 10% as compared to everyone else.
Lack Of Capital
The current economic expansion is already the longest post-WWII expansion on record. Of
course, that expansion came from artificial interventions rather than stable organic economic
growth. As noted, while the financial markets have soared higher in recent years, it bypassed a
large portion of Americans. Such was NOT because they were afraid to invest, but because they
had NO CAPITAL with which to invest.
The ability to "maintain a certain standard of living" remains problematic for many forcing
them further into debt.
"The debt surge is partly by design. A byproduct of low borrowing costs the Federal
Reserve engineered after the financial crisis to get the economy moving. It has reshaped both
borrowers and lenders. Consumers increasingly need it. Companies increasingly can't sell
their goods without it. And the economy, which counts on consumer spending for more than
two-thirds of GDP, would struggle without a plentiful supply of credit." – WSJ
I often show the "gap" between the "standard of living" and real disposable incomes. In
1990, incomes alone were no longer able to meet the standard of living. Therefore, consumers
turned to debt to fill the "gap."
However, following the "financial crisis," even the combined income and debt levels no
longer filled the gap. Currently, there is almost a $2150 annual deficit facing the average
American. (Note: this deficit accrues every year, which is why consumer credit keeps hitting
new records.)
The Rest Have Debt
The debt-to-income problem keeps individuals from building wealth, and government statistics
obscure the fundamental reality. We discussed this point in detail in the "
Illusion Of Soaring Savings."
" The median net worth of households in the middle 20% of income rose 4% in
inflation-adjusted terms to $81,900 between 1989 and 2016. That is the latest available data.
For households in the top 20%, median net worth more than doubled to $811,860. And for the
top 1%, the increase was 178% to $11,206,000.
The value of assets for all U.S. households increased from 1989 through 2016 by an
inflation-adjusted $58 trillion. A full 33% of that gain -- $19 trillion -- went to the
wealthiest 1%, according to a Journal analysis of Fed data." – WSJ
Of course, if the Fed's actions to inflate asset prices worked, then wealth distribution
would be more even. Importantly, we wouldn't see more than 50% of Americans unable to meet a
$500 emergency.
The single truth of a decade of monetary and fiscal interventions is this:
"The top 10% of the economy has assets, the bottom 90% has the debt."
The Fed Does Have A Choice
The Fed does have a choice that could alter the current wealth inequality dynamic:
Allow capitalism to take root by allowing corporations to fail and restructure. A needed
process after spending a decade leveraging themselves to the hilt, buying back shares, and
massively increasing executive wealth while compressing workers' wages. Or,
Continue to bailout "bad actors" and further forestall the "clearing process" that would
rebalance the economy and allow for increased future organic economic growth.
As the Fed's balance sheet rises past $7-Trillion, they chose to impede the "clearing
process" once again. By not allowing for debt to fail, corporate restructuring, and
"socializing the losses," they removed the risk of speculative practices.
Such has ensured the continuation of "bad behaviors."
Unfortunately, given we have a decade of experience watching the "wealth gap" grow, the next
decade will only see the "gap" worsen.
The obvious question we should be asking is:
"If we are in a booming economy, as supposedly represented by surging asset prices, then
why are Central Banks globally acting to increase financial stimulus for the market?"
The trap the Fed has fallen into is that markets are predicated on ever-cheaper cash being
freely available. Even the faintest threat that the cash might become more expensive or less
available causes shock waves.
Such was seen in late 2018 when the Fed signaled it might increase the pace of normalizing
monetary policy. The markets imploded, and the Fed halted its plan of shrinking its balance
sheet. Then, during the pandemic, the Fed flooded the system with liquidity to halt a market
crash.
Equality In Misery
The reality is the Fed has left unconventional policies in place for so long after the
"Financial Crisis," the markets can no longer function without them. Risk-taking, and the
build-up of financial leverage, have removed any ability to "normalize" monetary policy. At
least not without triggering violent market convulsions.
Given there is too much debt, too much activity predicated on ultra-low interest rates, and
confidence hinging on inflated asset values, the Fed has no choice but to keep pushing
liquidity until something eventually "pops."
Of course, it will be the bottom 90% that absorbs the losses. As noted by Sven Henrich
previously:
"In a world of measured low inflation and weak wage growth easy central bank money creates
vast price inflation in the assets owned by the few making the rich richer, but also enables
the taking on ever higher debt burdens leaving everyone else to foot the ultimate bill."
" That is the measured outcome of the central bank easy money dynamic. After decades, it
has now taken on new obscene forms in the past 10-years with absolutely no end in sight."
For the world's elite, their view of the world is far different than the reality the rest
face.
Of course, this also explains much of the recent election outcomes.
When "capitalism" isn't allowed to work for the "equality" of the whole, the populous will
"vote" themselves "equality in misery."
Lordflin 11 hours ago remove link
The so called market has become nothing more than an open vein... draining the life's
blood of civilization down the maws of lifeless parasites...
They are killing the host...
2banana 11 hours ago
In the era of insanely cheap and easy money, those closest to the money spigot get
insanely wealthy for doing nothing.
Those in the back of the line get $75,000 communications degrees, and 27% credit
cards.
Nothing explodes "wealth inequality" like cheap and easy money.
TreeTopSlick 11 hours ago remove link
The Cantillon Effect in action. Never been so obvious in America than today.
2banana 10 hours ago
Great analogy.
Cantillon's original thesis outlines how rising prices affect different sectors at
different times and suggests that time difference effectively acts as a taxing mechanism. In
other words, the first sectors to receive the newly created money enjoy higher profits as
their pay increases, but general costs are still low. On the other hand, the last sectors in
which prices rise (where there is more economic friction) face higher costs while still
producing at lower prices.
Alice-the-dog 11 hours ago
The "monetary policy that created a feedback loop between the Fed and the elite" isn't a
by product, it's a design feature.
Crow-Magnon 11 hours ago
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money,
first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around
them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will
wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
Here are the political affiliations of America's 50 richest families
You've both been bamboozled. The richest people in the country may pretend to have
political affiliations, but it's just a distraction. The Capitol Hill Whores are bought off
very cheaply, which is why the wealthy spend their money on both D-whores and R-whores.
It is in the interest of the very wealthy to keep the D/R, left/right, red/blue charade
going because it keeps peoples' anger focused on the paid actors instead of looking for who
is really screwing the country. They've got nothing to worry about as long as they can keep
the unwashed rabble fighting against each other.
Mary Jane 10 hours ago remove link
99% of Americans can't hold that thought in their heads. They can only hold the
left/right, red/blue understanding in their heads. One is their team, just as in Sports, and
their team must win. It doesn't matter that they just shelled out money to the owner of the
stadium, and the franchises, who could care less who won as long as the money keeps coming
in. Very similar, to the bread and circus routines of the Roman Empire's Coliseum, no one
ever looked at the wealth of the Emperor.
Apocalypse2020 8 hours ago
"The super-rich will have to keep up the pretense that national politics might someday
make a difference. Since economic decisions are their prerogative, they will encourage
politicians of both the Left and the Right, to specialize in cultural issues. The aim will be
to keep the minds of the proles elsewhere – to keep the bottom 75 percent of Americans
and the bottom 95 percent of the world's population busy with ethnic and religious
hostilities, and with debates about sexual mores. If the proles can be distracted from their
own despair by media-created pseudo-events the super-rich will have little to fear."
Richard Rorty, 1998
Sound of the Suburbs 7 hours ago remove link
What has happened to inequality?
Pretty much what you would expect really.
Mariner Eccles, FED chair 1934 – 48, observed what the capital accumulation of
neoclassical economics did to the US economy in the 1920s.
"a giant suction pump had by 1929 to 1930 drawn into a few hands an increasing proportion
of currently produced wealth. This served then as capital accumulations. But by taking
purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied themselves the kind of
effective demand for their products which would justify reinvestment of the capital
accumulation in new plants. In consequence as in a poker game where the chips were
concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by
borrowing. When the credit ran out, the game stopped"
With the capital accumulation of neoclassical economics wealth concentrates at the
top.
A few people have all the money and everyone else gets by on debt.
Keynes added some redistribution to stop all the wealth concentrating at the top, and
developed nations formed a strong healthy middle class.
The neoliberals removed the redistribution.
With the capital accumulation of neoclassical economics wealth concentrates at the
top.
A few people have all the money and everyone else gets by on debt.
It wasn't even hard.
Let it Go 10 hours ago
Things are really messed up. This gives credence to the idea we might soon be witness to
the first global inflationary depression. As investors shift into assets that do well during
times of inflation, it is possible they may set in motion a self-feeding loop or cycle. More
about this in the following article.
Don't you know that whining about race, from the racist or the anti-racist side, doesn't
matter, is more important than billionaires fucking us over. It's more important than
anything. It doesn't matter if we die of freezer burn sleeping on cardboard after we've been
laid-off, evicted, and starved. It doesn't matter if we die in a nuclear war that the
billionaires started because they think it would be a good idea.
Nope. All that matters is whining about race. That's the most important thing. All else is
trivial.
Didn't American people suffer from the disease? Yes, the US government is "grotesquely
and manifestly incompetent" and they were likely to expect "a massive coronavirus outbreak
in China would never spread back to America".
The crucial factor here is that the US is not a nation per the most basic definition of
the word, "a group of people born of a common ancestry". Consequently, as illustrated by
job-killing "trade deals" and in countless other ways, there are plenty of "Americans" who
don't care a whit about the fate of Americans. That makes it entirely plausible that the Deep
State and/or one or more billionaires would release a virus in China in the full expectation
that it would hit the US and that once here it would disrupt, impoverish, and kill millions
of Americans. This was a win-win for them. The Deep State and the billionaires don't like
China, which is a non-liberal country and curtails their power by restricting the use of US
tech products. So if somehow the virus were contained in China it would be okay with them, as
it just would be a smaller win. However, what they really wanted was for the virus circle
back to the US. They knew that once here the disruption it would cause would further enrich
and empower them while giving them a pretext to dump it all on Donald Trump, whom they would
accuse of being incompetent and uncaring.
While full of good insights, the problem with this article as far as COVID is concerned is
that it misleads on the main point. COVID is not biowarfare, it is not a pandemic, it's just
the flu. The US recorded the same death rate in 2020 as in previous years and, as Dr. Colleen
Huber has documented, medical oxygen and supply sales were no different from previous
years.
All those COVID-19 deaths were simply deaths of a different name. Of course, we knew from
last March's Diamond Princess cruise–still by far the best controlled COVID
"experiment"–that the case-fatality rate of COVID-19 for the general public is in the
flu range.
But, it never was about COVID-19, which is just a glorified coronavirus of the type seen
even before the dawn of humans. Long before the virus even hit the streets, the media and
governments and medical establishments had secretly planned to to create a "panic-demic" to
scare people into a whole lot of strange and dangerous behaviors–like giving up their
liberties and economic futures. COVID-19 is just a medical nothing-burger that convinced a
lot of otherwise sane people to scare themselves into oblivion. Or did it? If the
post-election analyses are correct, Trump won in a major landslide and even those who voted
against him were already suffering from Trump derangement syndrome. So, maybe the people
weren't fooled by COVID so much as electorally raped by the vast elite cabal.
Whatever we say is a fact-based result of diligent research; whatever you say is a
conspiracy theory – both the US and China representatives subscribe to this
mantra.
Maye both Washington and Beijing are guilty -- of a perpetrating a hoax.
Putin surprised me. He flatly refused the offer of Schwab and his ilk. He condemned the
manner of recent pre-Covid growth, for all the growth went into a few deep pockets.
Moreover, he noted that digital tycoons are dangerous for the world.
The next strong man we elect must be an actual STRONG man. I salute Trump for his genius
in identifying the real majority in this country and for forcing the techno-oligarchs into
overdoing their election steal. Now we need someone who is willing to establish real
authority on behalf of the un-queer.
The standard analysis of the interplay between technology and education, developed by
economists like Lawrence Katz and Claudia Goldin..., and David Autor..., suggests that
improvements in technology -- coupled with a college graduation rate that slowed sharply in
the 1980s -- have been principal drivers of the nation's widening income gap, leaving workers
with less education behind.
But critics like Mr. Mishel point out that this theory has important blind spots. For
instance, why have wages for college graduates stagnated over the last decade, even as
innovation continues at a breathtaking pace? ...
Most notably, the skills-and-tech story leaves aside one of the most perplexing and important
dynamics of the last 30 years: the rise of the 1 percent, a tiny sliver of the population
that last year took in almost a dollar out of every $4 generated by the American economy. ...
Mr. Mishel's preferred explanation of inequality's rise is institutional: a shrinking minimum
wage cut into the earnings of the nation's least-skilled workers while falling trade
barriers, deregulation and the decline of labor unions eroded the income of the middle class.
The rise of the top 1 percent, he believes, is mostly about executive pay and the growing
footprint of finance. ...
My view is that both the technology and institutional forces are at work, and the question
is not which of the two explains growing inequality -- they are not mutually exclusive -- but
rather how much each contributed to the growing disparity.
Actually, That started with the passage of the Great Society program of 1965, under
President Johnson. With Great Society, welfare became official, hip, and institutionalize,
with the worst affects being the break-up of black and inner city families, and a doubling to
tripling of the out-of-wedlock birthrate. The lower 95 percenters would be better off under
the policies of Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy.
Read the book "The Truly Disadvantaged" about how the break up of inner city families was
not to do with welfare but with the lack of jobs for working class men.
That doesn't mean by the way that I am against better micro-economic design of the social
security system. A citizen's income (c.f. Friedman's negative income tax) is my preferred
welfare system design.
Thomas Sowell has stated that the black family made more progress during the 20 years
before Great Society, as opposed to the 20 years after Great Society. Great Society was the
first opportunity for mommas to afford to have children, without the benefit of a husband and
father to the children, on the taxpayers' dime. Where a birth of a human baby should be a
blessed event, it's be cheapened to included the Dept. of Social Services. In my state, in
the bigger cities, the out-of-wedlock birthrate pre Great Society was 25%, then by 1975 to
current times, the out-of-wedlock birthrate hovers around 75- 80 percent. Black on black
crime went up, number of black victims went up, and drug use increased. I don't disagree with
the point you are trying to make, but it got much worse at the time of the introduction of
Great Society.
When we say yields equalize across assets prices, this is natural over the whole economy,
including government, given sufficient time to equalize. If rates are low, and price to
earnings high, then you can bet your booty that government yields are low also.
And this will be true of any complete, bounded economic model, it is really basic to the
concept of a model. So ask youself who or what has driven yields lower over the 40 year
period and you can win a banana.
Second Best has it completely backwards! The post-New Deal period saw the strongest
economy and most prosperous middle class in American history!
The New Deal came about because the real takers (the wealthy) were taking too much of the
pie. Same thing is happening today! But unfortunately we don't have an FDR around to stick up
for working men and women. We have the pro-corporate party (Dems) and the ultra-pro-corporate
party (GOP).
Second Best is just pretending to be a reactionary for amusement. Unfortunately some
bloggers roll in here occasionally that make roughly the same comments, but are serious. I
keep telling him to use emoticons :<)
I wouldn't put any of the blame for rising inequality on technology. We've been replacing
workers with machinery for over 200 years!
I think the two principle reasons are low tax rates and low union membership.
Contrary to popular belief, there is very little correlation between tax rates and growth.
But there is a very high correlation between low tax rates and increased income
inequality.
Anecdotal but, when you look at typical office-type work, it's hard to not conclude that
technology (computers/software) has killed a ton of middle-income office jobs.
e.g. The typical law firm 10+ years ago might have had 3-4 support staff (secretaries,
paralegals, filing clerks) for every attorney. Today, it's more typical to have 2-3 attorneys
for every support staff employee. Technology allows this.
I easily believe this for the secretaries and clerical staff, but what happened to the
paralegals? Similar trends can/could be observed in other professional fields, but there too,
while the clerical and admin staff was trimmed (and to an extent management hierarchies but
lately it looks like they have come back), subject matter (of the variety that cannot be
automated) work has not been cut a lot. OTOH IT/internet allowed a lot of "commodity" tasks
to be outsourced and offshored.
Is it possible that the (newer generation?) attorneys had to take on paralegal tasks as
part of their job? That would be in line with other fields where in reality a lot of the "low
level" and clerical work that has been ostensibly automated was pushed onto the professional
staff. For example, in many places you are supposed to arrange your own business travel
(hotel, flights), order office materials, do print/copy work etc. that used to be done by now
"automated" clerical staff up to 10-15 years ago. Also when it comes to subject matter work,
a lot of work formerly done by techs and other support staff (who were often hourly) has been
transferred to the professionals (who are generally salaried and "exempt" from overtime pay),
while it is generally swept under the rug in performance evaluations which are about subject
matter achievements (research pubs, delivered product features etc.). On the flip side there
is now probably more nominally professional staff, some of whom (esp. juniors) are loaded
with more tech/support content - but then a lot of them are hired offshore too.
"Both sides agree that the overall weakness of the job market since the turn of the
millennium is a prime culprit. As Professor Katz noted: "The only moments we've had of
broadly shared prosperity have been in tight labor markets.""
This is a problem of demand management policy. Demand can be managed via fiscal, monetary
and/or trade/currency policies.
It's also a problem of politics as Krugman says in that the powerful center-right has
ignored the recent economic evidence, as have the center-right's academic/media message
machine. The center-right has cried wolf over inflation and government deficits all in the
name of preventing policies that would help the economy and tighten labor markets.
Yes labor policy is very important as well. I would support pro-union policies - which
help politically also - and work-sharing programs during downturns which Germany has and
which Dean Baker recommends.
It's also a problem of a long term decline in federal government consumption and gross
investment, and the willingness of macroeconomists to re-define "full employment" as a
situation in which lots and lots of people are in fact unemployed. I don't think private
enterprise alone will ever be capable of generating full employment and tight labor markets,
demand stimulus or no demand stimulus.
When there is insufficient demand yields drop as capacity is idled. Under conditions of
weak demand there is also a drop in investment as new entrepreneurs and established
businesses know the deck is stacked against them.
The low yields are a natural symptom of the deficient demand. If you're looking for who to
blame, there are several likely suspects.
One is a government indifferent to unemployment that caters almost exclusively to the
super rich and the multi national, stateless corporations. The second is a government
indifferent to unemployment that caters almost exclusively to the super rich and the multi
national, stateless corporations. The third is see one and two.
This is the beginnings of fascism, of course. All we need now is a strong authority figure
and a good war.
Fighting to Stop an Entitlement Before It Takes Hold, and Expands by John Harwood
November 12, 2013
"WASHINGTON -- Underlying fierce Republican efforts to stop President Obama's health care
law and the White House drive to save it is a simple historical reality: Once major
entitlement programs get underway, they quickly become embedded in American life. And then
they grow.
That makes the battle over the Affordable Care Act more consequential than most Washington
political fights. "If it's in place for six months, it will be impossible to repeal it or
change it in ways that significantly reduce the benefits," said Robert D. Reischauer, a
Democrat who used to lead the Congressional Budget Office.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, another former C.B.O. director, reflects the concern of fellow
Republicans in framing the stakes more dramatically. Either the law's health insurance
exchanges "can't cut it," he explained, or "it's Katie, bar the door -- we have an
explosively growing new program."
Ever since President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal during the Great Depression, the
dominant pattern for major entitlements -- the term for government assistance programs open
to all who qualify and not subject to annual budget constraints -- has been durability and
expansion. That is the record Senator Ted Cruz of Texas refers to in warning Republicans not
to allow Americans to become "hooked on the subsidies" -- an argument Mr. Obama sarcastically
recast as, "We've got to stop it before people like it too much."
Congress enacted Social Security in 1935 to provide benefits to retired workers. In 1939,
benefits were extended to their dependents and survivors. Later the program grew to provide
disability coverage, cover self-employed farmers and raise benefit levels.
President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society created Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s to
provide health coverage for the elderly and the poor. They followed the same pattern.
In 1972, Congress extended Medicare eligibility to those under 65 on disability and with
end-stage renal disease. In 2003, Congress passed President George W. Bush's plan to offer
coverage under Medicare for prescription drugs.
Lawmakers initially linked Medicaid coverage to those receiving welfare benefits, but over
time expanded eligibility to other "poverty-related groups" such as pregnant women. In 1997,
President Bill Clinton signed into law the Children's Health Insurance Program, which now
covers eight million children whose families' incomes are too high to qualify for
Medicaid."
...
The old canard, right out of Doonesbury cartoon sociology.
The real issue is discretionary spending. It is gone mainly because of entitlement
crowding. The thirty small hoover states find higher multipliers in discretionary spending.
It is really a critical political issue, and the thirty hoovers will take the ship down
unless they get their discretionaries.
New York, Florida, California and Texas are united against discretionary spending. Both
parties are having internal battles on the issue.
Listen to yellens statement on discretionary spending, she likes it. But listen to the
House, they sequester it. Whyndid you and i just agree, via our representatives, to cut
discretionary spending? Any clue? What did every red blooded american say about the
entitlements? No, no.!!. What did we do? Cut discretionary spending to save entitlements. If
anyone is capable of any news searching on the topic, i suspect you will find much talk about
discretionary vs entitlement spending. We name that, give it an actual semantic.
Crowding.
Right. There wasno sarcasm, i must suddenly be in nutsville. A very good chunk of
articles, right here, required reading was about cuts to discretionary spending and saving
entitlements. Someone is not doing their homework.
What the complaint was about, in the two posts above, was that the discretionary vs
entitlement comment was not framed in some kind of simple minded 'evil tea party'. As if no
actual thought may occur on the blog unless it passes some orwellian, straight jacket,
nonesense. Seriously, crowding out occurs in the budget all the friggin time and mostly has
little to with some bogus script of plastic political analysis.
Entitlement spending does not fund humbug factories. Or PAC's to make sure the pentagon
has a 'strategic objective' to keep the defense corporations (aka troughers) healthy.
Entitlements have had little 'crowding' effect on discretionary spending.
Roughly, discretionary to entitlements used to be about 35:65 in 1999, today it is not
that different, while the war half of discretionary (19% of outlays in 2012) is nearly 60%
too large.
When you take away war and corporate welfare entitlements should be 6 times discretionary
spending.
What matters is discretionary spending enriches a few a lot, while entitlements take care
of many a little.
Well you have an opinion about entitlements and discretionary spending. You like the
former, not the later. We have a name for people like you, Crowders, you crowd out one form
of spending vs another form.
So quit bitching and play the game. We are conducting a mass experiment, lead by
researcher janet yellen. She is going to test your theory by attempting more discretionary
spending. If she screws it up, you win a banana.
Ok, lets review the roosevelt thing.
In 1928, investors believed we were head for a new productivity frontier based on the
efficiency of the mass market. They predicted 4% non-inflationary growth for the horizon.
What we got in 1948 was exactly that, high growth, low inflation, rising productivity.
Between 1928 and 1948, we got social security, progressives taxes, off the gold standard, two
major down turns, twenty million dead from WW2, and the cold war.
Thats a twenty year wait, mostly the result of bad and good government depending on how
one sorts the events. Ok, you all sort it all out, I am moving on.
The rapid transformation of business processes via the capital formation advantages of
robust, diverse, and highly liquid financial markets made it all possible.
Translation: If tax incentives are set to prefer trading equities (relatively low capital
gains tax rate) over holding equities (relatively low dividends tax rate) then capital will
flow to investments with the fast rather than longest duration returns. Fastest returns for
capital will come from mergers and downsizing (i.e, layoffs), outsourcing (narrow
specialization), offshoring of production (labor wage arbitrage), and technology asset
capital expenditure (automation) will be the preferred uses of capital. With the short term
emphasis then training, retention, maintaining internal competency succession, and
operational process improvements will undesirable expenses. The preferences quickly become
self reinforcing as workforce quality devolves and capital rewards itself more and
more.
Economic is a quantitative science and economists should understand the statistics and
test for interactions. Sometimes, the interactive effects can be greater than major
effects.
"
wages for college graduates stagnated over the last decade, even as innovation continues
at
"
Tell me something! Does all of innovation come from humans? From Hunans? From automation?
From computer hardware? Software? Software with a child process? A child process coded by the
parent process? Do you see what is happening?
We are now approaching the moment of singularity. A moment in history, or an epoch of
history? Tell me something else!
Do all boomer-s leave the work force simultaneously? Or during a poorly defined epoch? The
singularity has already begun but will evolve slowly as the present SE, singularity epoch
unfolds. Computer jockey-s first used the word processing feature of computer to code their
human imagination. Later assemblers re-coded human source code, checked source for semantics
and many other features. Supercomputers now work at unbelievable gigaflops. But if human
brain is merely a biological gigaflopper, eventually all its functions will be replaced by
semiconductor brains. But so what?
RM, Reverse Migration! As mechanized innovation replaces Americans, Yankee-s will need to
migrate to developing countries where the singularity process will be slower and with a phase
shift, behind the American Curve.
"The standard analysis of the interplay between technology and education, developed by
economists like Lawrence Katz and Claudia Goldin..., and David Autor..., suggests that
improvements in technology -- coupled with a college graduation rate that slowed sharply in
the 1980s -- have been principal drivers of the nation's widening income gap, leaving workers
with less education behind...."
-- Eduardo Porter
I do not understand this assertion, since what is remarkable about the United States is
that the portion of men and women 25 to 34 and 55 to 64 with college degrees is just about
the same.
July, 2013
College or university degree attainment by age group, 2011
"The standard analysis of the interplay between technology and education, developed by
economists like Lawrence Katz and Claudia Goldin..., and David Autor..., suggests that
improvements in technology -- coupled with a college graduation rate that slowed sharply in
the 1980s -- have been principal drivers of the nation's widening income gap, leaving workers
with less education behind...."
-- Eduardo Porter
I do not understand this assertion, since what is remarkable about the United States is
that the portion of men and women 25 to 34 and 55 to 64 with college degrees is just about
the same.
What is importance to notice about increasing income concentration is how much of an
increase there has been above the top 1% of families. we find the share of income for the top
.1% of families going from 3.41% to 11.33% between 1980 and 2012 for an astonishing gain.
Corruption of government at all levels produced a class of plutocratic rent holders in
finance and other industries able to buy rents. Citi and Solyndra being outstanding examples
on the D side and ADM and the oil companies on the R side.
Abysmal social and economic conditions in African American urban ghettos. These conditions
contribute much to the poor conditions in the schools that serve that population. The kids
who attend school in these neighborhoods are really up against it. Social arrangements that
sort the educated upper middle class into "their"towns by residential pricing and development
patterns tend to limit highly advantageous educational opportunities to their children. In
the big cities the upper middle class either uses influence to obtain places for their
children in desirable public schools or use private schools.
Pressure on wages and employment opportunities for people with low educational attainment
due to the development of more efficient production technologies and low wage competition in
the global trading system.
Forgive my skepticism that a few billion more federal dollars of stimulus will correct
these problems.
Gov. Jerry Brown, whose pronouncements of California's economic recovery have been
criticized by Republicans who point out the state's high poverty rate, said in a radio
interview Wednesday that poverty and the large number of people looking for work are "really
the flip side of California's incredible attractiveness and prosperity."
The Democratic governor's remarks aired the same day the U.S. Census Bureau reported that
23.8 percent of Californians live in poverty under an alternative calculation that includes
the cost of living.
Asked on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" about two negative indicators --
the state's nation-high poverty rate and the large number of Californians who are unemployed
or marginally employed and looking for work -- Brown said, "Well, that's true, because
California is a magnet.
"People come here from all over in the world, close by from Mexico and Central America and
farther out from Asia and the Middle East. So, California beckons, and people come. And then,
of course, a lot of people who arrive are not that skilled, and they take lower paying jobs.
And that reflects itself in the economic distribution."
----------------
Hmmm. So my claim that the bankruptcy of America is caused by a negative growth black hole in
Sacramento was just admitted as true by the Guv of California. Where is my banana?
Enemies of the
Poor, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times : Suddenly it's O.K., even mandatory, for
politicians with national ambitions to talk about helping the poor. This is easy for
Democrats, who can go back to being the party of F.D.R. and L.B.J. It's much more difficult
for Republicans, who are having a hard time shaking their reputation for reverse
Robin-Hoodism, for being the party that takes from the poor and gives to the rich.
And the reason that reputation is so hard to shake is that it's justified. It's not much of
an exaggeration to say that right now Republicans are doing all they can to hurt the poor,
and they would have inflicted vast additional harm if they had won the 2012 election.
Moreover, G.O.P. harshness toward the less fortunate isn't just a matter of spite...; it's
deeply rooted in the party's ideology...
Let's start with the recent Republican track record.
The most important current policy development in America is the rollout of the Affordable
Care Act, a k a Obamacare. Most Republican-controlled states are, however, refusing to
implement a key part of the act, the expansion of Medicaid, thereby
denying health coverage to almost five million low-income Americans. And the amazing
thing is that ... the aid through would cost almost nothing; nearly all the costs ... would
be paid by Washington.
Meanwhile, those Republican-controlled states are slashing unemployment benefits,
education financing and more. As I said, it's not much of an exaggeration to say that the
G.O.P. is hurting the poor as much as it can.
What would Republicans have done if they had won the White House in 2012? Much more of the
same. Bear in mind that every
budget the G.O.P. has offered since it took over the House in 2010 involves savage cuts
in Medicaid, food stamps and other antipoverty programs. ...
The point is that a party committed to small government and low taxes on the rich is, more or
less necessarily, a party committed to hurting, not helping, the poor. ...
Republicans weren't always like this. In fact, all of our major antipoverty programs --
Medicaid, food stamps, the earned-income tax credit -- used to have bipartisan support. And
maybe someday moderation will return to the G.O.P.
For now, however, Republicans are in a deep sense enemies of America's poor. And that will
remain true no matter how hard the likes of Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio try to convince us
otherwise.
"We're Broke" is the mantra of the GOP. Yes, the nation with the highest GDP in absolute
terms and a very high per capita level of income is "broke". You see this nonsense from
Republican leaders at the beginning of a film called "We're Not Broke" which is devoted to
the GOP push to have even less taxes on their base - the ultrarich.
US can afford to spend 4 times the part of GDP that Japan and German spend on warmaking.
And a similar amount on crony capital.
US can afford new ships that will not be equipped, star wars missiles that can hit
nothing, and a $1500B fighter program which is failing its tests many of which cannot be
performed because the thing is unreliable.
Republicans are out of touch. The MinWage is so far below Living Wage that the taxpayers
have to subsidize MinWage workers so they can have enough to eat. This is wrong. The system
and the employers are exploiting their labor.
Medicaid and Obamacare are a subsidy to the poor workers who can't afford the costs of
health care and don't have it provided by employers. A workforce that is not healthy is bad
for business: more missed workdays, lower productivity, higher turnover, etc. The single
minded focus on cutting social spending is completely wrong.
The question that is not asked: "What services do people need to be functional in our
modern economy? What mix of employer benefits, government benefits and wage contribution are
required to deliver the services?" For many people, wages are too low to pay for the minimum
basic goods and services. How do we make up the difference? Or do we have people do without
and erode the health and potential economic output? Republicans have a short sighted focus on
cutting spending and investment in the short run and are not considering the long run.
I don't have the source, but I believe our net worth, nationally, is just north of $74
trillion. And we added more than $1.3 trillion to that amount the past 12 months. This is the
figure that deals in assets we know about. Given the loopholes in our tax code that allow the
super rich to essentially hide much of their income, here and overseas, that net worth figure
is certainly below the real number.
So the statement 'we're broke' borders on the ridiculous. Our cash flow statement is less
impressive, but certainly far above adequate. Even here, this is a choice. We could easily
return to balance (although that's historically been a very bad idea) just by fixing our tax
code so it become more progressive. Today's tax code over taxes the middle class in order to
fund tax breaks for the super rich.
Yep. The progressiveness of the tax code stops in its track at about the Top 2%. Right
about the spot where hiding income becomes easy and makes economic sense.
Someday we will figure out how much income never hits tax returns.
My wife and I had over $30,000 of such income last year. Guaranteed the vast majority of the
Top 10% had similar amounts.
However, I really was not talking about W2 income, but rather things like Romney's $20
million IRA. Or hedge fund managers keeping earnings offshore to avoid any taxes (even the
reduced scam they receive) and living by borrowing against their offshore holdings at
ludicrously low interest rates.
Maybe it was collateral damage since they live in the same neighborhoods? Probably though
it was being fought as a limited war and then there was mission creep.
An all out war on poverty would have transformed the economic battlefield in ways that
very few actually wanted.
The other day someone -- I don't remember who or where -- asked an interesting question:
when did it become so common to disparage anyone who hasn't made it big, hasn't gotten rich,
as a "loser"? Well, that's actually a question we can answer, using Google Ngrams, which
track the frequency with which words or phrases are used in books:
[Graph]
Sure enough, the term "losers" has become much more common since the 1960s. And I think
this word usage reflects something real -- a growing contempt for the little people.
This contempt surely isn't limited to Republican politicians. Still, it's striking how
unable they are to show any empathy for people who are just doing their best to make a modest
living. The most famous example, of course, is Mitt Romney, who didn't just disparage 47
percent of the nation; he urged everyone to borrow money from their parents and start a
business. I still think the most revealing example to date was Eric Cantor, who marked Labor
Day by tweeting:
"Today, we celebrate those who have taken a risk, worked hard, built a business and earned
their own success."
But Marco Rubio's latest speech deserves at least honorable mention, for the airy way he
dismissed the idea of raising the minimum wage: "Raising the minimum wage may poll well, but
having a job that pays $10 an hour is not the American dream."
In a sense, he's right: if the American dream means getting rich, then $10 an hour isn't
living that dream. But most people aren't and won't get rich. Raising the minimum wage would
mean higher incomes for around 27 million people; in many cases the gains would amount to
thousands of dollars a year, which is really a lot in low-income families. So what are all
these people, chopped liver? Well, yes, at least in the eyes of the GOP -- or maybe make that
chopped losers.
OK, I know what the answer will be: conservative policies will lead to economic growth,
and that will raise all boats, the way it did in the days of Saint Ronald. Except, you know,
it didn't. Here's the real wage of nonsupervisory workers:
[Real wage of production and nonsupervisory workers * ]
Even if you give Reagan credit for the 1982-9 business cycle expansion, which you
shouldn't, there's no way to claim that his policies led to higher wages for ordinary
workers.
So what is the GOP agenda to help people who aren't going to build businesses and get
rich? There isn't one -- partly because they really can't reconcile any real agenda with
their overall ideology, but also because, deep in their hearts, they consider ordinary people
trying hard to get by a bunch of losers.
Entitlement expansion. See Detroit and Scranton. Coming soon to Chicago.
[ The term "entitlement" is used when a writer wishes to hide the fact the what is being
talked about is Social Security or Medicare or a pension program that a worker has
contributed to for years and years.
As for the supporting of pension funds, all that has to be understood is how terrific
stock and bond markets returns have been these last 30 and more years. Any pension fund
manager who simply bought a mix of stock and bond market indexes would have done splendidly
for workers and there would be no possible problem now. ]
The problem has not typically been fund returns. It has been underfunding of the programs
by employers, on the assumption that magic market alpha will make up the difference (well,
that's the happy spin on it, the truth is most of the funders didn't much care if the
difference was made up or not so long as they got theirs.)
The focus on pension fund investing strategies is an important one, but kept distinct from
funding levels and political battles it's almost meaningless.
This needs to be explained, keeping here to employer contributions by government
employers.
As to the mention of auto companies and pension contributions, there you have a problem in
which employers can estimate a pension fund investment return and contribute according to the
estimate so that a higher estimate will mean lower levels of contributions from employers for
a time. Nonetheless, ordinary investment returns over long periods of time should have left
no pension problem for workers.
Once executives realized the raises they could gain by taking deferred comp. in stock, or
even in guaranteed return special accounts (Jack Welch at GE-14% annual), corporations
couldn't afford much of anything else. Today CEOs make 290 times the average pay of their
employees compensation, so in order to cover those outsized gains and still report good
profits, companies need to trim budgets anywhere and everywhere. Stable, defined benefit
plans, paid for in addition to wages, got tossed and replaced by contribution plans funded by
employees themselves.
For more than 35 years in America it's been a time to strip corporate assets and pick the
pockets of employees and shareholders in order to pay executives their gargantuan
compensation packages.
Thanks to our rigged tax code, ripping off the middle class has become a full time project
of the super rich and their paid help in Congress and academia.
Same thing happened in the public as in the private sector funds. Look at Illinois or New
Jersey or Detroit. Economic miracles or budget crises lead to underfunding, rolling the dice
on investments, and appetites for silver bullet alternative investments that help explain the
massive shift to PE and HF despite their fee structures (and can lead to alternatives
managers the profits they took off the funds to help subvert the DB system). The push to
alpha helps create instability and predation in the markets, goes the theory. But in any
case, underfunding by the public sector leads to blame-shifting onto "those workers making
bad investments" and leads to pernicious politics around retirement security.
Unfortunately the employers (including and perhaps worst public employers) used the
upturns in the market as opportunities to reduce what they paid into the funds (as a way to
fund tax cuts and get re-elected). Then after severe downturns in the market rather than
increase the funding for pensions they argue to take away earned pensions from the workers
(or leave the mess to be fixed by federal government).
Nice set of explanations, which leads me to think in the case of public workers in unions
there should be a yearly accounting by the union of employer pension contributions along with
an allowing for quick contract redress should employer contributions fall short for a given
length of time.
DeDude is not entirely correct. In the following example, the problem was powerful
predators, fraud, and corruption, as there was plenty of money, and plenty of foresight.
Where was Union oversight in this fiasco? Or better yet, fiscal accountability on the part
of the Regents for wrongful termination, theft, breach of fiduciary duty? I don't see much
hope, because social memory is short, human nature is flawed, and dynastic wealth in the
hands of sociopaths seeks to defend its economic position until the population rises up in
revolt. Wash, rinse, repeat.
In Illinois, public employee union leaders were probably paid off to keep silent about
pension underfunding. A couple of union leaders benefited from special legislation that
awarded them a nice pension for one day of substitute teaching. The special pension was in a
well funded plan, not the state teachers' plan. The legislation doesn't spell out the quid
pro quo, but experienced observers connect dots like these. The legislature takes care of
public union officials who take care of them.
Tax cuts for the wealthy, see the entire country. The problem is not excessive spending,
but inadequate revenues. The latter as a consequence of unnecessary and destructive tax cuts
for the rich. We already had the lowest effective tax rate on the wealthy in the developed
world before that.
"...The most important current policy development in America is the rollout of the
Affordable Care Act, a k a Obamacare. Most Republican-controlled states are, however,
refusing to implement a key part of the act, the expansion of Medicaid, thereby denying
health coverage to almost five million low-income Americans..."
[That is sad on two levels. First it is sad that "The most important current policy
development in America is the rollout of the Affordable Care Act" instead of robust policies
for creating job and wage growth. Second then of course it is sad "Most Republican-controlled
states are.. refusing to implement ... the expansion of Medicaid... denying health coverage
to almost five million low-income Americans."
And by sad I mean a sad sorry state of affairs that should have a big effect on the
mid-term elections if we get off our duffs and take this to the voting booths.]
One day someone will point out that the value of a municipal bond or a treasury bond is an
"entitlement", just like the value of a pension, SS or Medicare is an "entitlement".
The coupon clipping class needs constant feeding. And the super rich coupon clippers need
a deep pool of poor people to maintain their comfort. So simple, really.
That has been pointed out many times in the book, This Time is Different where we see
defaults on both entitlements. In fact, one of the biggest topics of the post crash era has
been when the usa would default in its bond entitlements.
Not too accurate. Bonds and pensions are contracts and sort of can be thought of as
entitlements since your benefits can be enforced in court. You are entitled to whatever your
counterparty agreed to (so long as you did your part and your counterparty is solvent). SS
and Medicare are not contracts. Treasury could have twice the funds needed to pay for SS
forever and Congress could decide tomorrow to cut benefits 80%. Same with Medicare. The two
programs on your list that people are probably most likely to think of as entitlements are
probably the least like entitlements. Your counterparty can change the rules on you
tomorrow.
"...The answer, I'm sorry to say, is almost surely no.
First of all, they're deeply committed to the view that efforts to aid the poor are
actually perpetuating poverty, by reducing incentives to work..."
"...But our patchwork, uncoordinated system of antipoverty programs does have the effect of
penalizing efforts by lower-income households to improve their position: the more they earn,
the fewer benefits they can collect. In effect, these households face very high marginal tax
rates. A large fraction, in some cases 80 cents or more, of each additional dollar they earn
is clawed back by the government..."
"...we could reduce the rate at which benefits phase out..."
[Then Krugman slips away from reality to embrace center aisle politics.}
"...Will this ever change? Well, Republicans weren't always like this. In fact, all of our
major antipoverty programs -- Medicaid, food stamps, the earned-income tax credit -- used to
have bipartisan support. And maybe someday moderation will return to the G.O.P..."
{Yeah those were the good old days leading up to financialization for M&A
anticompetitive consolidation of labor market arbitrage, globalization of wages backed by the
abitrage of the exorbitant privilege of US dollar foreign reserves against rising trade
deficits, stagnant wages from both consolidation and globalization, and a rising share of
capital devouted to speculation on equities and derivatives (e.g, commodity futures bets ARE
derivative contracts). Three cheers for center aisle politics. ]
"40 million refugees with no place on this earth to call their home
One for every aimless graduate with nothing else to show for it but loans
And those of us who make a mark using someone else's blood
Our western stain won't wash away, won't vanish in the flood
It sets deeper with each hurricane and tidal wave and war:
We want everything we see and once it's gone we just want more."
Young men without jobs living in the nation with the world's most powerful millitary
establishment will not make the world a better place to live for anyone. Might not even make
it a place to live.
"Republicans weren't always like this. In fact, all of our major antipoverty programs --
Medicaid, food stamps, the earned-income tax credit -- used to have bipartisan support."
I agree and disagree to a point. While the Republican party used to be more moderate, as a
whole, in the past, there was always a conservative wing in the GOP that opposed these
programs.
For example, in 1961, Reagan gave his famous speech on Medicare - declaring that it would
be the end of America as we know it. One day we would be telling stories to our grandchildren
how America used to be the home to free men.
There has always been in element in the GOP to attack safety nets to the point of
hysterical and absurd arguments. Over the years, the conservative wing has grew and become
more vocal.
One of the main differences between liberals and conservatives, is that liberals see our
weak labor markets, poverty, eroding mobility, and increased economic inequality as a market
failure. Conservatives view it as a moral failure.
It seems to me that the somewhat controversial programs of Obamacare and the Federal
Reserve's policies of forward guidance and QE have helped the poor. If Republicans had
successfully blocked them, things would be worse. It's difficult to defend these programs
against critics on the left and right because of the inherent difficulty in defending public
policies given the evidence. It isn't as clear cut as one would like.
Likewise there are the Republicans' austerity policies like the sequester which Obama went
along with.
Maybe I wasn't clear. I think Obamacare and the Fed have helped. I believe fiscal
austerity has hurt. A number of smart people agree with these assessments.
Meaning that reduced income taxation means lower overall government revenues, which means
reduced means to aid the poor by, for instance, adequate HealthCare or the subsidized housing
or paying for postsecondary education that will give them the means to obtain well-paying
jobs.
This sad fact is even more difficult to swallow given that DoD-expenditures have doubled
in the 40 year period ending in 2012. See info-graphic here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/01/defensechart.jpg
. Do we really need all that spending to provide a defense of the nation now that the Cold
War (extant in the 1960s) is over?
The plutocrats erected a statue to Ronnie for having reversed the good that FDR had
wrought by increasing taxation upon them to levels of around 65%, that crept up inevitably to
around 90%.
And, of course, the rich are still benefiting from the beneficial taxation (that peaks out
at 30% in their level of income).
Besides, if the generally recognized Gini Coefficient depicts Income Disparity across all
levels of income, then the US is shown to be the developed country with the worst Income
Fairness of any on earth. (See info-graphic here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gini_since_WWII.svg
)
MY POINT?
Which means, according to the World Top Incomes Database developed by the Paris School of
Economics? the following: 10% of American households garner about 52% of ALL HOUSEHOLD INCOME
whilst the rest of us 90Percenters scramble after the remaining 48%.
No, the history says that reducing taxes on the rich allows you to borrow and spend,
laying the cost on the middle class. Note, Clinton's tax hike came with budget cuts. Our 2013
tax hike, though meager, results in sequestering.
The problem here is dumbass economists too stupid to come up with any theory of government
that explains supply and demand for government services. So dumbass economists resort to name
calling, blaming their own failure of analysis on the other side. Political scientists are
much worse, all they do is name calling.
{No, the history says that reducing taxes on the rich allows you to borrow and spend,
laying the cost on the middle class.}
Can't imagine where you've concocted this notion from my reply. I posited the premise of
increasing taxes upon our upper-class financial nobility who have reduced 15% of our people
to poverty and serfdom.
{Note, Clinton's tax hike came with budget cuts. Our 2013 tax hike, though meager, results
in sequestering.}
Historical fact of no consequence whatsoever.
The point about raising taxes on the rich is not just about reducing their far to
easily-gained Net Worth. It is to teach that class a lesson about return-on-investment. For
the moment, a level of taxation at only 30% allows them to accumulate vast Net Worth, which
is simply reinvested in interest-bearing accounts for the most part.
Increasing taxation on interest-bearing accounts would induce them to place their savings
in more economy-friendly investments that create jobs. The revenues would also help reduce
deficits and improve government financing of society-friendly policies like a Universal
Public HealthCare Option and Tertiary Education for those who cannot afford it.
These are both common policy rudiments of any modern society in this day and age. Except
the US, of course ...
Moreover, the key point about taxation is this: Whilst an economy should reward
risk-taking, there is no need whatsoever for the pot of Gold at the end of the rainbow to be
unlimited and growing by leaps and bounds because it is too lowly taxed.
Especially not when 15% of fellow Americans are incarcerated below the Poverty Threshold.
That economic fact is unacceptable. And it did not occur because "people are either too
stupid or too lazy".
It occurred because of an inept policy as regards both educational level and our inability
to prevent unskilled work from dislocation abroad.
The Republicans never did care about the poor and are not about to start. The question
that bothers me is when the Democrats will resume working on behalf of the poor.
{The question that bothers me is when the Democrats will resume working on behalf of the
poor.}
Musing about whether that will or will not happen in a blog will certainly not assist in
bringing it about.
Only hard work militating for such an outcome will obtain the necessary results. Which can
only happen if more progressives are voted into the HofR. And it will take a good ten years
of well-considered legislation to right all the wrong that has occurred since the last War on
Poverty in the 1960s.
In neoliberalized universities there are too many PhD degree holders. It is a conveyer to produce them. .And too few real
scientists...
Notable quotes:
"... The previous generation of university educators didn't retire on schedule (I can't really blame them, tenure and ridiculously light teaching loads) and that, coupled with the rise of adjuncts and funding siphoned off for administrators, changed the nature of academia and the number of available jobs. ..."
"... I'm sorry for Herring, but she really should have anticipated what happened. I've read probably a dozen articles and essays repeating her exact experience, and none of them less that 15 years old. ..."
"Today, almost a year after I officially became Dr. Herring, I resigned from my postdoc at Ghent University. There are several reasons that motivated this decision but the
main one is that I no longer enjoy the work enough to justify how demanding it is .
As I neared
the end of my PhD, I worried about my future. It is hard to explain to those who are not in
academia just how bad things are for those who are starting out. Say the words "job market"
within earshot of a junior researcher and watch fatalistic dread cloud their face.
I was
relatively lucky because I secured a research job straight out of my PhD. But despite being
somewhat cushy, my position was still fixed-term. To hope to one day obtain an elusive
permanent contract, I had to accept that my current job would most likely be the first in a
series of short-term contracts in various distant locations.
To succeed in academia, I would
have to make a number of sacrifices. The simple truth is that I am no longer willing to make
these sacrifices. A great deal of enthusiasm is needed to survive early career academia with
its endless applications, rejections and precarity. Sadly, this enthusiasm is too often
exploited. For instance, academics are not paid to publish their research in journals. To
guarantee the quality of the research being published in these journals, they review the
findings of other researchers, also for free.
But journal publishers tend to charge thousands
in yearly subscription fees to university libraries. Increasingly, higher education staff
suffer casualisation and unreasonable workloads, and the pandemic (or rather, the ways in which
governments and university high-ups are dealing with the pandemic) is making things worse.
I do
not mean to discourage anyone who is currently working in academia or who might be considering
it as a profession. The enthusiasm and persistence of researchers is admirable and important.
Their work should be celebrated and their enthusiasm should be nourished rather than exploited.
I am proud of my friends who have managed to make things work despite all these obstacles. For
my part, I have come to terms with the fact that academia is not for me."
Regarding "Why I Am Leaving Academia," this has been true for a long time now, maybe
twenty years or so.
The previous generation of university educators didn't retire on schedule
(I can't really blame them, tenure and ridiculously light teaching loads) and that, coupled
with the rise of adjuncts and funding siphoned off for administrators, changed the nature of
academia and the number of available jobs.
How did the author not know this?
I was halfway through my MA when I understood that a PhD would likely end in economic and
professional disaster, so I gave up my dream (or more accurately, woke up).
I'm sorry for Herring, but she really should have anticipated what happened. I've read
probably a dozen articles and essays repeating her exact experience, and none of them less
that 15 years old.
After the Trump Justice Department
sued Yale following the results of a 2-year Civil Rights investigation which found
"long-standing and ongoing" race-based discrimination, the Biden DOJ just dismissed the case
without explanation .
... ... ...
The Trump DOJ had argued that the Ivy League university had violated federal civil rights
law for "at least 50 years," by favoring Black and Hispanic students over Whites and Asians,
according to
The Hill .
The legal battle represented one of the Trump administration's moves to challenge
affirmative action programs aimed at increasing diversity on campus, which some conservatives
consider unfair and illegal.
Yale, which staunchly defended its admission practices, praised the DOJ's decision to drop
the case in a statement, saying it was "gratified" by the decision. -
The Hill
"Our admissions process has allowed Yale College to assemble an unparalleled student body,
which is distinguished by its academic excellence and diversity," argued the university. "Yale
has steadfastly maintained that its process complies fully with Supreme Court precedent, and we
are confident that the Justice Department will agree."
The Trump administration notably instituted several measures to prevent universities from
considering race as a factor during admissions, even joining a similar lawsuit against Harvard
University.
"... "We told the people who were already enjoying a prosperous situation that things would be much better for their children and that we would be able to solve the outstanding problems. [But the new situation] presents a much more difficult task to fulfill. Because from the moment there is no longer a constant surplus to be distributed, the question of distribution is appreciably more difficult to resolve." ..."
Highly recommend the Przeworski piece at Phenomenal World.
Most of it is reflections on/by
3 European leftist leaders from the 1970s-80s (German Prime Chancellor Willy Brandt, Austrian
Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, and Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme) about how the oil shocks and
associated economic changes of the era presented a challenge to social democrats –
including ending the belief/fantasy that reformism could be system-changing – that they
(we) were not then, and I would argue still are not, able to address.
Palme spells out the difficulty:
"We told the people who were already enjoying a prosperous situation that things would
be much better for their children and that we would be able to solve the outstanding
problems. [But the new situation] presents a much more difficult task to fulfill. Because
from the moment there is no longer a constant surplus to be distributed, the question of
distribution is appreciably more difficult to resolve."
Brand echoes these concerns, noting that it is essential to prevent inequality from
increasing as growth resumes. Eighteen months later, during another in person meeting on 25
May 1975, Kreisky makes the fiscal constraint even more explicit:
"It is precisely now that
reforms should be made. It is just a question which. If we strongly develop social
policies, we will not be able to finance them."
Also included an amazing graph of declining electoral support for left/SD parties in
Europe.
This book considers the detrimental changes that have occurred to the institution of the university, as a result of the withdrawal
of state funding and the imposition of neoliberal market reforms on higher education. It argues that universities have lost their
way, and are currently drowning in an impenetrable mush of economic babble, spurious spin-offs of zombie economics, management-speak
and militaristic-corporate jargon. John Smyth provides a trenchant and excoriating analysis of how universities have enveloped themselves
in synthetic and meaningless marketing hype, and explains what this has done to academic work and the culture of universities – specifically,
how it has degraded higher education and exacerbated social inequalities among both staff and students. Finally, the book explores
how we might commence a reclamation. It should be essential reading for students and researchers in the fields of education and sociology,
and anyone interested in the current state of university management.
Quotes
If we are to unmask what is going on within and to universities, then we need to look forensically at the forces at work and
the pathological and dysfunctional effects that are placing academic lives in such jeopardy -- hence my somewhat provocative-sounding
title 'the toxic university 5 .
One of the most succinct explanations of what is animating me in writing this book was put by Lucal (2015) -- echoing arguably
the most significant sociologist ever. Charles Wright Mills (1971 [1959]) in his The sociological imagination -- when she said:
...neoliberalism is a critical public issue influencing apparently private troubles of college [university] students and teachers,
(p. 3)
... ... ...
Pathological Organizational Dysfunction
Just on 40 years ago, for all of my sins, I studied 'organizational theory and 'management behaviour' as part of my doctorate
in educational administration. I cannot remember encountering the term, but in light of mv subsequent four decades of working
in universities around the world, I think I have encountered a good deal of what 'pathological organisational dysfunction" (POD)
means in practice. I regard it is an ensemble term for a range of practices that fall well within the ambit of the 'toxic university
5 . The short explanation is that what I am calling POD has become a syndrome within which the toxic university has
become enveloped in its unquestioning embrace of the tenets of neoliberalism -- marketization, competition, audit culture, and
metrification. In other words. POD has become a major emblematic ingredient of the toxic university, which as Ferrell (2011) points
out looks fairly unproblematic on the surface:
Higher education on the corporate model imagines students as consumers, choosing between knowledge products and brands. It
imagines itself liberating the university from the dictates of the state/tradition/aristocratic self-replication, and putting
it in the hands of its democratic stakeholders. It therefore naturally subscribes to the general management principles and practices
of global corporate culture. These principles -- transparency, accountability, efficiency -- are hard to argue with in principle.
(p. 166 emphasis in original)
What is not revealed in this glossy reading of neoliberalism is the way in which it does its work, or its effects, as Ferrell
(2011) puts it in relation to universities, the way it has 'wrecked something worthwhile" (p. 181).
John Gatto. an award-winning teacher of the year in New York, comes closest to what I mean by POD in his description of'psychopathic
5 organizations. Gatto (2001) says that the term psychopathic, as applied to organizations, while it might conjure
up lurid images of deranged people running amuck, really means something quite different; he invokes the term to refer to people
'without consciences' (p. 303). The way he put it is that:
4.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading for anyone working in a UK university today.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 30, 2019
Reviewers of this book seem to conflate the price of, and access to, this book in an ironic context. This isn't fair as this
is very much a book written from a formal academic perspective. In that sense the book is probably priced reasonably.
However, as I don't work in this field I found that I had to read around some of the topics in order to get a deeper understanding
of the issues raised by the book. So one thing I think that author could do is to almost re-write the book in a more "journalistic"
sense and this would make it more accessible to a wider audience.
As it stands, however, this book is right on the money. Reading almost every page brought from me nods of agreement at familiar
practices from university "leaders". This book is therefore absolutely correct in its findings and this then makes it profoundly
depressing as the book describes, in my view, the dismantling of the university system as we know it. Every chapter details things
I have witnessed or heard about from other universities. The "rock star" academics section, usually focusing on "dynamic" researchers,
is the highlight as I know enough people who fit the descriptions given - people who would sell their mothers to get a grant or
get slightly higher up the greasy pole.
The critique of university leadership, marketing functions and financial (mis)management are also spot-on.
Overall, get past the formal academic nature of this book (it is not a book designed for a wide audience, which is a pity)
and it is excellent, timely and deeply depressing.
PHILIP TAYLOR5.0 out of 5 stars
Forensic Analysis of The Toxic Neo-Liberal University Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 19, 2019
A brilliant exposition of the toxic neo-liberal University
"Schools teach to the test, depriving children of a rounded and useful education."
Boy do they. I work in Business/IT training and as the years have rolled on I and every colleague I can think of have noticed
more and more people coming to courses that they are unfit for. Not because they are stupid, but because they have been taught
to be stupid.
So used to being taught to the test that they are afraid to ask questions. Increasingly I get asked "what's the right way to
do...", usually referring to situation in which there is no right way...
I had the great pleasure of watching our new MD describe his first customer-facing project, which was a disaster, but they
"learned" from it. I had to point out to him that I teach the two disciplines involved - businesss analysis and project management
- and if he or his team had attended any of the courses - all of which are free to them - they would have learned about the issues
they would face, because (astonishingly) they are well-known.
I fear that these incurious adult children are at the bottom of Brexit, Trump and many of the other ills that afflict us. Learning
how to do things is difficult and sometimes boring.
Much better to wander in with zero idea of what has already been done and repeat the mistakes of the past. I see the future
as a treadmill where the same mistakes are made repetitively and greeted with as much surprise as if they had never happened before.
Covid-19 exposed some warts of neoliberalism in higher education... They want to keep those lucrative international students
flooding in, after all.
Notable quotes:
"... We align our identities with our institutions and think in very a short-term, metric-based fashion, seeing "success" (for instance) in terms of student recruitment (tuition fees paid in). Moreover, we're encouraged above all to be global in outlook: we look forward to our perennially "busy" international conference seasons and we emphasize the global and the transnational over the merely local or national ..."
"... our identities as academics are unavoidably embedded in a form of neoliberal hyperglobalisation. We rely on unrestricted flows of (wealthy) bodies across borders. ..."
"... We see this form of globalisation, and the benefits that accrue to us and our institutions from it, as a form of moral necessity : something it isn't possible even to argue against in good faith. Hence our loud assent to principles like open borders and always-on mass migration. ..."
"... Our commitment to the global as a form of moral mission has left us completely unprepared for what's currently unfolding. We are utterly unused to considering the material constraints of the economy our livelihoods depend on; that globalisation might come back to bite us; that the very aircraft that carry us across the world to conference destinations and field work sites would one day turn off the spigot of endlessly mobile bodies our careers and identities depend on. ..."
"... In this respect, I think of this post over at Crooked Timber, where John Quiggin (an economist I have a great deal of respect for) simply cannot bring himself to confront the possibility that the open borders dream might be dead. ..."
"... But the fact that the "export education" model was a disastrous wrong turn will take much longer to be accepted, I think, because of the widespread commitment I've been talking about here to the principle of the global as a form of moral necessity. ..."
we've had a Minsky-like process operating on a society-wide basis: as daily risks have declined, most people have blinded
themselves to what risk amounts to and where it might surface in particularly nasty forms. And the more affluent and educated
classes, who disproportionately constitute our decision-makers, have generally been the most removed.
I see something very similar happening in academia. We align our identities with our institutions and think in very a short-term,
metric-based fashion, seeing "success" (for instance) in terms of student recruitment (tuition fees paid in). Moreover, we're
encouraged above all to be global in outlook: we look forward to our perennially "busy" international conference seasons and we
emphasize the global and the transnational over the merely local or national (denigrated as narrow, provincial, and ideologically
suspect).
We like to see ourselves as mobile subjects, bodies in constant motion, our minds Romantically untethered from the confines
of any one nation state.
So our identities as academics are unavoidably embedded in a form of neoliberal hyperglobalisation. We rely on unrestricted
flows of (wealthy) bodies across borders. Our institutions (or many of them) have become dependent on international students
and their superior fee-paying ability compared with merely "domestic students."
We might agree in principle with ideas of a GND,
say, or take an ecocritical approach to a novel or a play, but we're certainly not going to cut back on the number of international
conferences we attend. Indeed, many of us go further.
We see this form of globalisation, and the benefits that accrue to us and our institutions from it, as a form of moral
necessity : something it isn't possible even to argue against in good faith. Hence our loud assent to principles like open borders
and always-on mass migration. We have to keep those lucrative international students flooding in, after all. (Not that we'd
ever put it in terms as crassly material as that; after all, we don't work in university administration .)
Our commitment to the global as a form of moral mission has left us completely unprepared for what's currently unfolding.
We are utterly unused to considering the material constraints of the economy our livelihoods depend on; that globalisation might
come back to bite us; that the very aircraft that carry us across the world to conference destinations and field work sites would
one day turn off the spigot of endlessly mobile bodies our careers and identities depend on.
Hence the reason why a lot of my colleagues are so lost right now. They're so used to living on a purely symbolic (or moral-symbolic)
level that the materiality of this virus and its consequences seems like a crude insult. Many stubbornly hold on to their old
commitments, unwilling to admit that the world might have changed.
In this respect, I think of this post over at
Crooked Timber, where John Quiggin (an economist I have a great deal of respect for) simply cannot bring himself to confront the
possibility that the open borders dream might be dead.
Where we go from here, I have no idea. But the fact that international and Erasmus students might be gone for the foreseeable
future, and the major implications this will have for the financial viability or our universities, seems to be slowly sinking
in.
But the fact that the "export education" model was a disastrous wrong turn will take much longer to be accepted, I think,
because of the widespread commitment I've been talking about here to the principle of the global as a form of moral necessity.
McFaul says that "Biden's team should come up with new ways to grow these ties [with
ordinary Russians] even over Putin's objections. In the long run, forging and sustaining
links with Russian society will undermine anti-American propaganda as well as American
stereotypes about Russia."
To this, McFaul adds that, "The new administration should make it easier for Russians to
study in and travel to the United States," and urges European states to do the same.
My take on this is very simple: the West cannot even absorb their own youth anymore. What
makes them think they can absorb Russia's?
Besides, it's not so simple an operation to attract young people to your country to study.
The logistics are very complicated, and it requires a lot of resources not even counting the
promise of jobs within your own country (in the case of STEM students). Even the brain drain
from countries with large populations such as China and India don't surpass much above the
low to mid six digits. And those programs take time to gain traction - decades in most cases.
And all of this already taking into account the fact that your country still has to be an
attractive place.
Discontent already exists in Americans with Indian STEM from H1B1 visa program. As the
excess population rises, so will resistance to new influx of immigrants - specially
high-skilled ones. This will snowball to a stage where Americans become second-class citizens
in their own country (as you would have to guarantee the jobs for the foreigners in order to
sweeten the deal).
How will the USA regain its advantage in this world?
I was looking back at some earlier reports to gain an insight into the means by which the
USA gave the game away and the means that might restore its place in the economic world. It
has allowed itself to be completely captive to global private finance AND ownership of the
keys to its salvation. If it dfoes not nationalise its key industries then it can rest
assured of its doom. IMO it is now almost impossible for it to nationalise a pizza parlour
let alone an education or engineering sector.
If the USA is to survive the oncoming collapse and break free of its apocalyptic war
agenda, then certain realities WILL have to occur. These realities include (but are not
limited to):
1) Regaining its lost industrial potential, with an emphasis on the machine tool sector
which the west once enjoyed as a world leader
2) Regaining the lost scientific and technological capacities which the USA once had
when it still valued productive thinking under the days of JFK and NASA
3) Regaining a grasp of education which values productive citizens over consumer
subjects
4) Regaining control over national credit under federal banking, dirigisme and other
long-term investment practices that rely on regulating Wall Street speculation and other
unproductive forms of banking.
How might these vital capacities be regained?....
The USA is incapable of nationalising its education sector and is incapable
systemically of having the patience to await the benefits. It will continue to sustain an
education sector that is designed to transfer $$$ in taxation directly to private corporation
pockets and to do so by reducing the the number of salary earners between the input $ and the
$ that end in private corporation pockets. The private corporations will continue to perfect
the swindle of returning the least possible effort in return for those $$$.
Ditto for defence spending and every other sector.
The USAi is hoist by its own petard and has a dull brained president surrounded by
ideological obsessives, cultural paranoiacs, a narcissistic Congress and Senate. It will not
be capable of restoring its real economy and will continue to imagine itself as a world
leader. It will berate and negate and cancel all unorthodox thought from those that favour
nation building.
The rest of the world's nations had better take note. Clearly many have.
@James
Speaks rn. I'm not fine with assuming that the end product will automatically produce
merit beyond what meritocracy is today – brown-nosing. True merit is you have
demonstrated you can do it.
The last 40+ years have seen an endless stream of "bright boys" graduating university with
MBAs, getting involved in the management structure as "change agents", screwing up the
business for 5 years then "taking another opportunity" to screw up a different company.
Prof. Henry Mintzberg calls them the wrong people, at the wrong time, for the wrong
reason, because they don't have a clue how the real world works. But hey, they are high IQ
people, so they must have merit.
@Curmudgeon
r medicine and sophisticated writing. The issue is that these individual were poorly educated
– first and foremost in the "greed is good" school of the America. After sipping deeply
of this dead-end, destructive ethical framework, these individuals were then carefully
trained on how to extract value from an economy/a company rather than add value.
High IQ is still desperately needed for progress and to maintain civilisation. But put to
ill-use, high IQ individuals can wreak commensurately wreak greater havoc.
Analogies could be made to guns, armies, cars. All of them can be put to exceptionally
ill-use. Few would argue that a modern nation can live without automobiles or some kind of
armed defence force.
Fall enrollment has
plunged , some colleges are shuttering operations, revenues across the entire higher
education industry are collapsing, and the shift from physical to virtual education due to the
virus pandemic could prick the next bubble: the student housing debt market.
Our warning about the coming implosion of the higher education industry (see here
from 2014) , as a whole, has become louder and louder over the last six-plus years as the
student debt bubble has recently swelled to more than $1.6 trillion. Years ago, no one at the
time, could've forecasted a virus pandemic would doom colleges and universities.
Credit rating agency Moody's recently downgraded the entire higher education sector to
negative from stable, and the American Council on Education estimates colleges and universities
will experience a $23 billion decline in revenues over the next academic year.
Bloomberg outlines the increase of virtual education in a virus pandemic has resulted in an
abundance of empty dorms at colleges and universities, creating a $14 billion headache for the
student housing debt market.
"West Virginia State University, already hit with a 10% enrollment drop, plans to give
money to a school foundation so it can meet its bond covenants for residence hall debt. A
community college in Ohio is using part of a $1.5 million donation for a financially-strapped
student housing project. And officials at New Jersey City University, which serves largely
first-generation and lower-income students and has recorded years of deficits, are prepared
to shore up a dorm there," Bloomberg said.
The squeeze on university finances comes as the National Student Clearinghouse Research
Center
warned about a 16% drop in first-year undergraduate students enrolled for the fall
semester. This means new revenue streams are quickly drying up for overleveraged colleges and
universities.
"The limiting factor is some of these schools themselves are facing uncertainty with many
of their revenue streams," S&P Global Ratings analyst Amber Schafer said in an interview.
"It's a matter of not only willingness, but if they're able to support the project."
"Typically, privatized student housing debt is paid off by the revenue generated by the
dorms -- meaning there's little recourse for bondholders if things go south," Bloomberg said.
With occupancy rates already declining as coronavirus cases are surging, well, this could be
bad news for colleges and universities heading into 2021.
"Borrowers have begun revealing how empty residence halls are as the pandemic spurs many
campuses to keep classes online. According to the school foundation that sold the debt, West
Virginia State University's dorm is 71% full, putting it about 20 percentage points from
where it needs to be to satisfy debt covenants. Other privatized student housing projects,
like two on Howard University's campus, are virtually empty due to online-only instruction
there," Bloomberg said.
Bloomberg warns: "Privatized dorms are struggling the most given that they weren't
structured to withstand 20% to 30% drops in occupancy -- or no students at all."
"West Virginia State University may have to step in to help student housing bonds at risk
of violating a debt service coverage ratio, Moody's warned this month. The historically-black
college faces "considerable" challenges in backstopping the bonds, Moody's said.
The nearly 290-bed residence hall with rents of $3,881 per semester was just 71% occupied
this fall, while it needed to be about 92% occupied, said Patricia Schumann, president of the
university foundation that sold the debt. Schumann said the university is projected to
provide a $75,000 payment in January. In the meantime, she said the school was working to
bolster its financial position and boost recruitment and donations.
"We're not standing still," she said.
Ohio's Terra State Community College, which has more than 2,100 students, was downgraded
deeper into junk over the risk posed by a dorm owned by a nonprofit, given that the school
"appears to provide an unconditional guarantee" to meet the debt obligations, Moody's said.
The project was financed through a bank note.
The dorm's occupancy fell to 62%, and the college is using a previously-received donation
to cover a shortfall in project revenue amounting between $500,000 to $600,000, the ratings
company said in a report this month.
At New Jersey City University, a student housing project financed though a separate entity
will likely miss a required debt service coverage ratio. The public school having to step in
to help the bonds would be a challenge, but a surmountable one, said Jodi Bailey, the
university's associate vice president for student affairs. The student housing bonds aren't a
debt of the university, so the school would be choosing to provide financial support,
according to bond documents .
The school is working to cut expenses related to the dorm. "Is it a harder year? Most
definitely," she said.
The student housing bonds, issued by West Campus Housing LLC in 2015, were
slashed deeper into junk in September by S&P, which said in a report that residence halls'
occupancy there had fallen to 56% so the school could accommodate social-distancing
guidelines," said Bloomberg.
To summarize, plunging enrollments, resulting in falling occupancy rates for dorms, is a
debt bomb waiting to go off for many overleveraged colleges and universities that are panicking
at the moment to divert enough funds to service debts, as the usual revenue streams, that being
rent checks from students, are nowhere to be found as virtual learning keeps young adults in
their parents' basements and out of dorms.
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If occupancy rates continue to slide through 2021, then we must revisit what we said months
before the virus pandemic began in the US:
"... You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end -- which you can never afford to lose -- with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. ..."
James C.
Collins related a conversation he had with Stockdale regarding his coping strategy during
his period in the Vietnamese POW camp. [21] [
non-primary source needed ] When Collins asked which prisoners didn't make it out
of Vietnam, Stockdale replied:
Oh, that's easy, the optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, 'We're going to be out
by Christmas.' And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they'd say, 'We're
going to be out by Easter.' And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then
Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart. This
is a very important lesson.
You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end
-- which you can never afford to lose -- with the discipline to confront the most brutal
facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.[22]
The harrowing tale of British explorer Ernest Shackleton's 1914 attempt to reach the South Pole, one of the greatest adventure
stories of the modern age.
In August 1914, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton boarded the
Endurance
and
set sail for Antarctica, where he planned to cross the last uncharted continent on foot. In January 1915, after battling its way
through a thousand miles of pack ice and only a day's sail short of its destination, the
Endurance
became
locked in an island of ice. Thus began the legendary ordeal of Shackleton and his crew of twenty-seven men. When their ship was
finally crushed between two ice floes, they attempted a near-impossible journey over 850 miles of the South Atlantic's heaviest
seas to the closest outpost of civilization.
In
Endurance
,
the definitive account of Ernest Shackleton's fateful trip, Alfred Lansing brilliantly narrates the harrowing and miraculous
voyage that has defined heroism for the modern age.
The
book gave me several adrenaline rushes...it's that well written.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The
book gave me several adrenaline rushes...it's that well written.
Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2018
Verified Purchase
This is an amazing account of Shackleton's journey that went into
intricate details about the twists and turns every step of the way for this small group of brave explorers. It
reads like a thrilling fiction novel, but the fact that it is non-fiction makes it even more astounding. The
description really paints a true picture of the hellacious conditions that they continued to face time and time
again. This book really put into perspective what a challenge truly is. A simple headache that we might get now
is nowhere near getting your sleeping bag drenched and still having to sleep in it in temperatures near 0 when
you don't know how the weather or current is going to change while you try to sleep. Great read and really hard
to put down because even though you think you know what's going to happen, you still have to find out how.
Would highly recommend if you're looking for a good book that you will have trouble putting down.
38 people found this helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cold
Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2018
Verified Purchase
Very cold. Always cold. This is a very detailed (true) story about men
trying to survive in a very hostile environment in c. 1915. Stark and full of detail, the reader almost gets to
feel the cold, hunger and pain the crew experienced while trying to survive Antarctica and return to
civilization. it's amazing that anyone survived this ordeal let alone all of them. Sadly, many creatures and
peaceful animals paid the price for mans survival. The details often are so descriptive and redundant due to
the scope of the story, that it sometimes becomes repetitive and familiar. This is because of the constant
distress and horrible conditions the crew experienced for such a long time. It's a well documented and exciting
story with a bit of a history lesson that really held my interest. It's a popular book that is deserving of its
high ratings.
21 people found this helpful
There is no doubt in my mind that I would not be able to endure even one, the best, day of the unimaginable
hardships that the men of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Exposition (1914-17) -- under the leadership of Sir Ernest
Shackleton -- struggled with for more than 400 days. They endured and survived some of the most incredible,
unbelievable, conditions ever experienced; and Alfred Lansing captures the urgency, the deprivation, and the
desperation, with spellbinding storytelling.
Recommendation: Best adventure story, ever. Should be read by all, especially those of high school age.
"In all the world there is no desolation more complete than the polar night. It is a return to the Ice Age -- no
warmth, no life, no movement." (p. 46).
Basic Books. Kindle Edition, 268 pages.
16 people found this helpful
A
Riveting True Story of Adventure, Survival and Hope
5.0 out of 5 stars
A
Riveting True Story of Adventure, Survival and Hope
Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2014
Verified Purchase
In 1914 Sir Ernest Shackleton set out on an expedition to make the first
land crossing of the barren Antarctic continent from the east to the west coast. The expedition failed to
accomplish its objective, but became recognized instead as an amazing feat of endurance. Shackleton and a crew
of 27 (plus one stowaway) first headed to the Weddell Sea on the ship Endurance. Their ship was trapped by pack
ice short of their destination and eventually crushed. Forced to abandon ship, the men were trapped on ice
floes for months while they drifted north. Once they were far enough north that the ice thinned somewhat, they
were forced to journey in lifeboats they'd dragged off the ship. After six terrible days, they made it to
uninhabited Elephant Island; from there Shackleton and five other men set off in an open 22-foot boat on an
incredible 800-mile voyage across the notoriously tempestuous Drake Passage to South Georgia Island, where they
hiked across the island's mountain range to reach a whaling camp. From there, they returned in a ship to rescue
the men left behind on Elephant Island.
That these men were able to survive in the harsh, barren conditions of Antarctica, where temperatures
frequently fell below zero is amazing. It's nearly unimaginable that these men could survive for almost two
years, their lives marked by a seemingly endless stretch of misery, suffering, and boredom, not to mention the
threat of starvation. At every turn, their situation seems to go from bad to worse. If this were a work of
fiction, one would be inclined to claim the story was simply too far-fetched. But Endurance isn't just a tale
of misery, it is a vivid description of their journey, the dangers they faced, and the obstacles they overcame.
Through all of this, Shackleton has never lost a man.
Alfred Lansing's book, written in 1958 from interviews and journals of the survivors, is now back in print.
It's a riveting tale of adventure, survival and hope. It is also a rare historical, non-fiction book that is as
exciting as any novel. I've read a number of stories of survival and would rate this as the best of all I have
read. This is one of the great adventure stories of our time. Don't miss it.
Read more
45 people found this helpful
I
recommend this book to add to the collection of those ...
5.0 out of 5 stars
I
recommend this book to add to the collection of those ...
Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2015
Verified Purchase
What a page turner. Lansing is a master for the description of those
explorers hardships, desire to follow Shacketon' orders. I kept saying to myself that there are few humans
today that are as tough as those men. I recommend this book to add to the collection of those books that give
us the knowledge of what it takes to conquer a goal.
51 people found this helpful
By
far one of the best books I've ever read, & I've read many!
5.0 out of 5 stars
By
far one of the best books I've ever read, & I've read many!
Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2019
Verified Purchase
I just finished reading 2 of Grann's books - Lost City of Z & The White
Darkness. The latter is the story of Henry Worsley, the grandson of Frank Worsley one of the "extraordinary"
men in Lansing's Endurance. Grann suggested Endurance as a worthy read. Sir Earnest Shackleton & Frank Worsley
were two of some 20 men who incredibly survived a journey to Antarctica that went awry from almost its onset.
Two years later all hands were rescued through the extraordinary will of the men who found themselves at the
mercy of the elements. Lansing's research & grasp of the situation in which these men found themselves in
conjunction with his writing style has put this book at the top of my all time favorites! Fabulous! Fabulous!
Anyone 12 or older will be blown away by this true story & this writer!
4 people found this helpful
Modelling political instability is the subject of cliodynamcs, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliodynamics
. The graph on that page seems to link political instability with inequality. My suspicion is
that it is also linked to scarcity.
Where will America's productivity miracle come from?
Public education is not teaching students what they need to know to compete in the global
economy.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, math scores of U.S. students rank
30th in the world. The East Asian peers of today's American students will eat their lunch in
the growth industries of tomorrow.
Here's where Black Lives Matter has a real opportunity.
The protests. The riots. The calls for reparation payments. Social justice wealth transfers.
White privilege taxes. All the nonsense. Where's the strategy? Where's the long-range
'strategery'?
No doubt, those selling BLM T-shirts in Walmart parking lots are exercising gumption. But
it's not gonna cut it. Moreover, like bingo winnings, reparation payments will be quickly
squandered while the unhappiness remains.
And as far as we can tell the BLM movement is empty of ideas and without
direction.
lay_arrow
chubbar , 14 minutes ago
"If BLM was strategic"?????? Holy ****, if they were strategic they'd be making damn sure
that testing, like SAT scores, were no longer accepted as proof of accomplishment or
learning. Oh, wait?.......
Let's all agree, blacks don't want a "head to head" test, EVER.
I don't give a crap what they say, they don't want to be judged on MERIT, they love the
skin color test. That way they can always claim racism instead of ability.
libtears , 40 minutes ago
The BLM Movement is definitely empty of ideas and clear leadership. Their supposed goals
are all over the map from day to day. They are rudderless mobs of filthy vagrants and
criminal elements make up most of their movement.
What's going on which is credited to BLM has nothing to do with black people for the most
part. Commies have co-opted this movement and are engaging in anarchy to take down the system
of government. They will do whatever they want at all costs because they believe they have
the moral high ground. They are radicals just like people call them.
The best thing that could happen is for these loser mayors and governors to enforce the
law against these mobs of filthy scum.
How can you even reason with a mob of idiots that don't even have one, if not a hierarchy
of leadership and clear goals that they agree upon?
These people are taking a page out of the Bolshevik book on revolution. And they're much
weaker than the Bolsheviks, mentally and physically. One good thump on the head and these
b!tches are crying.
The longer the public allows teaching institutions to promote BLM the worse this sh!t is
going to get.
...
JaxPavan , 42 minutes ago
The Ford Foundation gave BLM $100 million to engage in terrorism. Who do you think bought
all those ultra high end looting vehicles?
quanttech , 39 minutes ago
Indeed, the BLM organization is primarily funded by mostly white-run corporations and
foundations. The money rules.
HopefulCynical , 22 minutes ago
And WHO is in control of the Ford Foundtion? WHO?!
After some level inequality is akin to cancel -- it can destroy the society. In a countries
with very high level of inequality the government can't rely on loyalty of people. It also leads
to the proliferation of "guard labor" in one form or another.
Just think what it means for the USA counterintelligence now. Add to this the collapse of the
neoliberal ideology which also does not help to instill the loyalty.
Yves here. So many of health costs of inequality are obvious, yet most people seem trained
to look past them. And Congress fiddles about a new stimulus package, with the odds of getting
it back on track soon not looking very good, while Americans have rent and mortgage payments
looming.
By Richard D. Wolff, professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, and a visiting professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New
School University, in New York. Wolff's weekly show, "Economic Update," is syndicated by more
than 100 radio stations and goes to 55 million TV receivers via Free Speech TV. His two recent
books with Democracy at Work are Understanding Marxism and Understanding Socialism , both
available at democracyatwork.info . Produced by Economy for All , a project
of the Independent Media Institute
Capitalism, as Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century shows,
relentlessly worsens wealth and income inequalities. That inherent tendency is only
occasionally stopped or reversed when masses of people rise up against it. That happened, for
example, in western Europe and the U.S. during the 1930s Great Depression. It prompted social
democracy in Europe and the New Deal in the United States. So far in capitalism's history,
however, stoppages or reversals around the world proved temporary. The last half-century
witnessed a neoliberal reaction that rolled back both European social democracy and the New
Deal. Capitalism has always managed to resume its tendential movement toward greater
inequality.
Among the consequences of a system with such a tendency, many are awful. We are living
through one now as the COVID-19 pandemic, inadequately contained by the U.S. system, savages
Americans of middle and lower incomes and wealth markedly more than the rich.
The rich buy better health care and diets, second homes away from crowded cities, better
connections to get government bailouts, and so on. Many of the poor are homeless. Tasteless
advice to "shelter at home" is, for them, absurd. Low-income people are often crowded into the
kinds of dense housing and dense working conditions that facilitate infection. Poor residents
of low-cost nursing homes die disproportionally, as do prison inmates (mostly poor). Pandemic
capitalism distributes death in inverse proportion to wealth and income.
Social distancing has destroyed especially low-wage service sector jobs. Rarely did
top executives lose their positions, and when they did, they found others. The result is a
widened gap between high salaries for some and low or no wages for many. Unemployment invites
employers to lower wages for the still employed because they can. Pandemic capitalism has
provoked a massive increase in money-creation by central banks. That money fuels rising stock
markets and thereby enriches the rich who own most shares. The coincidence of rising stock
markets and mass unemployment plus falling wages only adds momentum to worsening
inequality.
Unequal economic distributions (of income and wealth) finance unequal political outcomes.
Whenever a small minority enjoys concentrated wealth within a society committed to universal
suffrage, the rich quickly understand their vulnerability. The non-wealthy majority can use
universal suffrage to prevail politically. The majority's political power could then undo
the results of the economy including its unequal distribution of income and wealth. The rich
corrupt politics with their money to prevent exactly that outcome. Capitalists spend part of
their wealth to preserve (and enlarge) all of their wealth.
The rich and those eager to join them in the U.S. dominate within both Republican and
Democratic parties. The rich provide most of the donations that sustain candidates and parties,
the funding for armies of lobbyists "advising" legislators, the bribes, and many issue-oriented
public campaigns. The laws and regulations that flow from Washington, states, and cities
reflect the needs and desires of the rich far more than those of the rest of us. The peculiar
structure of U.S. property taxes offers an example. In the U.S., property is divided into two
kinds: tangible and intangible. Tangible property includes land, buildings, business
inventories, automobiles, etc. Intangible property is mostly stocks and bonds. Rich people hold
most of their wealth in the form of intangible property. It is thus remarkable that in the
U.S., only tangible property is subject to property tax. Intangible property is not subject to
any property tax.
The kinds of property (tangible) that many people own get taxed, but the kinds of property
(intangible) mostly owned by the richest minority do not get taxed. If you own a house rented
to tenants, you pay a property tax to the municipality where the house is located. You also pay
an income tax on the received rents to the federal government and likely also the state
government where you live. You are thus taxed twice: once on the value of the property you own
and once on the income you derive from that property. If you sell a $100,000 house and then buy
$100,000 worth of shares, you will owe no property taxes to any level of government in the
United States. You will only owe income tax on dividends paid to you on the shares you own. The
form of property you own determines whether you pay property tax or not.
This property tax system is excellent for those rich enough to buy significant amounts of
shares. The rich used their wealth to get tax laws written that way for them. The rest of us
pay more in taxes because the rich pay less. Because the rich save money -- since their
intangible property is not taxed -- they have that much more to buy the politicians who secure
such a tax system for them. And that tax system worsens inequality of wealth and income.
Unequal economic distributions finance unequal cultural outcomes. For example, the goal of a
unifying, democratizing public school system has always been subverted by economic inequality.
In general (with few exceptions), the better schools cost more to attend. The tutors needed to
help struggling students are affordable for the rich but less so for everyone else. The
children of the wealthy get the private schools, books, quiet rooms, computers, educational
trips, extra art and music lessons, and virtually everything else needed for higher educational
achievement.
Unequal economic distributions finance unequal "natural" outcomes. The U.S. now displays two
differently priced foods. Rich people can afford "organic" while the rest of us worry but still
buy "conventional" food for budget reasons. Countless studies indicate the dangers of
herbicides, pesticides, chemical fertilizers, food processing methods, and additives.
Nonetheless, the two-price food system delivers the better, safer food more to the rich than to
everyone else. Likewise, the rich buy the safer automobiles, more safely equip their homes, and
clean and filter the water they drink and the air they breathe. No wonder the rich live years
longer on average than other people. Inequality is often fatal, not just during pandemics.
In ancient Greece, Plato and Aristotle worried about and discussed the threat to
community, to social cohesion, posed by inequalities of wealth and income. They criticized
markets as institutions because, in their view, markets facilitated and aggravated income and
wealth inequalities. But modern capitalism sanctifies markets and has thus conveniently
forgotten Plato's and Aristotle's cautions and warnings about markets and inequality.
The thousands of years since Plato and Aristotle have seen countless critiques, reforms, and
revolutions directed against wealth and income inequalities. They have rarely succeeded and
have even more rarely persisted. Pessimists have responded, as the Bible does, with the notion
that "the poor shall always be with us." We rather ask the question: Why did so many heroic
efforts at equality fail?
The answer concerns the economic system, and how it organizes the people who work to
produce and distribute the goods and services societies depend on. If its economic organization
splits participants into a small rich minority and a large non-rich majority, the former will
likely be determined to reproduce that organization over time. Slavery (master versus slave)
did; feudalism (lord versus serf) did; and capitalism (employer versus employee) does.
Inequality in the economy is a root cause contributing to society-wide inequalities.
We might then infer that an alternative economic system based on a democratically organized
community producing goods and services -- not split into a dominant minority and a subordinate
majority -- might finally end social inequality.
Wow! I just can say this is very well pointed and that It must be understood we cannot
expect empathy from the well off. Even if some are empathic by nature they just cannot see
what's really happening given how wide is the rift.
inequality is a state of nature. blame god .right.
but here in this humanistic creation, we ought not institutionalize inequality.
That is one of the big points of monetary reform.
The current federal reserve system and the banking system ,having control of the "money
creation" of this country, PROMOTES wealth inequality.
The nationalization of the fed, and the ending of banks creating money; is the main essence
of monetary reform. The people who have been trying to discuss the world with a different
,more equal access to the fiat created "for the people to use, for the economy to
function",point to the growth of inequality by the nature of how the system currently is
structured. They point to how our money is created and by whom.They point to who gets "the
debt"
Some people try to dismiss the 100 year history of the fed promoting inequality as a bug .
but how can someone not see it is a feature, The monetary system we have now was created by
an act of law. It would be unconstitutional ,if not for the federal reserve act. Allowing the
banks to create money.Instead of the congress..as the constitution explicitly stated.
But now, we are no longer a fledgling republic.
The world accepted our fiat, as created by bankers now we ought to create our own money and
retire our national debt.Heal ourselves, to lead forward in the future. Time to write a new
law . https://www.congress.gov/bill/112-thcongress/house-bill/2990/text
Pessimists have responded, as the Bible does, with the notion that "the poor shall
always be with us."
The Bible does not say that, it says:
However, there will be no poor among you , since the Lord will surely bless you in the
land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, if only you listen
obediently to the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all this commandment which
I am commanding you today. Deuteronomy 15:4 [bold added]
But just a few verses later:
For the poor will never cease to be in the land ; therefore I command you, saying, 'You
shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land.'
Deuteronomy 15:11 [bold added]
Taken together, these verses are not about the inevitability of poverty but the
inevitability of poverty from DISOBEDIENCE to what is being commanded – especially, i
suppose, wrt economic justice.
So though we might never completely eliminate poverty, it can certainly be reduced to the
extent we are willing to obey – per the Bible.
And as anyone who has read the Old Testament should know, the US is far from obedience wrt
economic justice (e.g. Deuteronomy 23:19-20, e.g. Leviticus 25).
"If you own a house rented to tenants, you pay a property tax to the municipality where
the house is located."
the above means that you are already up the income ladder enough to not qualify as being low
income _ most of the country is low income since the word Low is comparative – it is
comparative to the cost of living –
So the above property tax is paid by the tenant – the carry costs by the tenant and the
profit – by the tenant.
So the rent is a high cost of living due to the bidding up or asset inflation that most
"investment goes into today"
A key way to reduce inequality is through a tax system that penalizes activities that tend to
raise the cost of living – tax heavier the investments that inflate asset prices
(assets are things already created).
Taxing something is to put a burden upon an activity
Why we tax labor so much – who knows
When it comes to the value of money everything is skewed. If Picketty were analyzing money
as merely a medium of exchange and not a store of wealth he'd have much less inequity. When
the value of money is considered in on-the-ground finance operations "lost opportunity" is
considered into the interest rate. Lost opportunity is totally ignored on a human level.
You'd think that money itself was a person.
ll eyes are on the declining number of unemployed. The May and June jobs reports chronicle
the reabsorption of 5.3 million who lost their jobs in the COVID-19 pandemic. Twelve million
jobs to go to reach pre-pandemic employment.
Yet prior to the pandemic, there were 18 million Americans missing from the economy. These
persons were neither employed nor seeking employment -- nor retirees, students or in-home
caregivers -- and therefore were excluded from the Bureau of Labor Statistics count of the
workforce. In order that America emerge from the pandemic stronger than before, a concerted
initiative by federal and state governments to move them back into the economy -- using
existing resources -- must begin now.
...
Research on the social determinants of health finds that employment has a
very strong correlation with positive health outcomes. To exist as a non-participant in
the economy is thus an invitation to dire health outcomes including premature death.
What's more, these individuals are needed as contributors to our national commonweal,
fueling increased economic and social progress. And people engaged in productive activities
are much less likely to engage in negative and destructive behaviors.
... The USDA's food stamp program has a robustly funded, though underutilized, employment
and training grant. States use the excuse of USDA's partial match requirement as a reason to
opt out.
Funny how the visa-free map from before the COVID-19 pandemic is roughly equal to the
extent of the American Empire itself.
And the loss of foreign students signifies much more than the mere loss of income for the
American universities: it also means the loss of grip over the provinces' regional
elites.
Most of the foreign students in the USA are sons and daughters of the regional elites.
They live the American way of life, get westernized, and go back to their countries (which
they will likely rule) with a liberal ideology ingrained in their minds. They are the rough
equivalent to what the hostage was during Antiquity. To lose 263,000 hostages in less than
one year would be a devastating blow to American diplomacy.
One commenter mentioned a brain drain in relation to foreign students no longer coming to
America but I guess the brain drain will occur when out of work professors start heading off
to other countries like China in search of work.
"... "In a period of protest and increasing anger about inequality, the differential inflation rate experienced by low- and high-income households is a concern," said Bloomberg Economics' Björn van Roye and Tom Orlik. ..."
The coronavirus is inflicting a price shock on low income Americans that risks further driving up inequality.
In a study released this week, Bloomberg Economics
estimated higher grocery and housing costs for lockdown necessities meant those households whose incomes are in the bottom 10%
currently face inflation of 1.5% compared with 1.0% for the top 10% and the official 0.1% overall average recorded in May.
Recalculating Inflation
'Have nots' suffered disproportionately as virus changed buying patterns
Note: Inflation for the lowest (highest) 10% takes the alternative CPI basket for the lowest (highest) decile of household income
before taxes from the 2018 Consumer Expenditure Survey
The explanation for the difference lies in how the Covid-19 pandemic has changed consumption patterns by forcing households to
buy more food while spending less on transportation or recreational activities.
"In a period of protest and increasing anger about inequality, the differential inflation rate experienced by low- and high-income
households is a concern," said Bloomberg Economics' Björn van Roye and Tom Orlik.
The suggestion the virus is less disinflationary than many economists believe poses a challenge for the Federal Reserve which
is eyeing a slower inflation rate than that experienced by lower earners, who are instead facing a steady erosion of their purchasing
power.
"Taken together with concerns about central banks bailing out investors ahead of firms and workers, and the benefits rich, asset-owning
households gain from quantitative easing, it adds to the sense that central banks are unintentional contributors to the problem of
inequality," van Roye and Orlik said.
"... This lady is sitting there lying trying to prove a point. I have been in enough arguments to kow when someone is just arguing to keep the discussion going ..."
The bottom line is, they want to take away any problem solving skills that might build character, because someone might get
hurt! Victimhood culture run amuck.
Mathematics is the cornerstone of all forms of trade, communications, home economics and every other aspect of life. Truth
is they're dumbing everyone down to control populations!
I have Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering and I'm 62-years old. I have never once cared about the history of mathematics,
other than a curiosity. Knowing the history of mathematics never helped me once to solve an ordinary second order differential
equation.
When a person lies while giving an interview they should be shocked or something. This lady is sitting there lying trying
to prove a point. I have been in enough arguments to kow when someone is just arguing to keep the discussion going. She has
already lost the argument deflected and differed responsibility when confronted with the legitimacy of the paper.
Go exercise healthy body makes a healthy mind not the other way around.
Cue bono? Not black people (actually she is an Indian, which until recently was a caste
society). Is she a victim of "affirmative action" policy and occupies a position for which there
are more worthy academically candidates. University is not sinecure, at least it should not
be.
How good is she as an academic? Is she mentally stable?
The decision of Cambridge University to promote her after such an idiotic tweet creates
several additional questions.
Petition against Prof Priyamvada Gopal now off line. Additionally I noticed earlier today
that the comments given on the site voicing why they were signing had all been removed, but not
on other petitions. As of yesterday evening these comments were peaceful, and not personal,
just things like 'because it is racist' and 'do I even need to give a reason'?
The petition had nearly 25,000 signed supporters earlier today, and new signings were
flooding in at over 1/sec when I checked.
In addition in an affront to common decency the University/College promoted her whilst
they had stated earlier they were aware of the controversial nature of her tweets.
Her original tweet was deleted by Twitter as a breach of community guidelines. She also
reports that, in spite of senselessly provoking people at a delicate time with racist tweets,
that the extremely racist responses she got from some far right people was being looked at by
the Police.
All in all this establishes a systematic problem. Being deliberately vague means you cannot
use context as a defence, and the context of all her tweets shows some extreme patterns of
thinking against certain groups that casts very considerable doubts on the validity of such a
defense. Moreover, context hasn't been a defence when others have been prosecuted for far less.
Nobody, including Cambridge academics, should be above the law.
To those people that think that what she said was justified because she was trying to
defend BLM from supposed alternative movements, all she in fact did do was to achieve the
opposite of that.
If one wishes to convey complex ideas a teacher of English in her position *must know* that
this requires a long form medium to provide argumentation, and that Twitter is no such place to
do it due to its character count. But taking in all the other comments she has made, its very
clear the double standards and overall bias that really does amount to overt prejudice.
At the very least she is so contradictory, immature and incompetent as to make a mockery
of her college and for that reason at minimum, she should lose her job. I'm sorry to say that
as well.
But something about this whole episode feels like a jumping the shark moment. I don't think
this is going away all that easily.
"... This would be bad news for anyone with a serious health condition, but it would be especially bad news for the oldest pre-Medicare age group, people between the ages of 55 and 64. This group currently faces average premiums of close to $10,000 a year per person for insurance purchased through the ACA exchanges. Insurers could easily charge people with serious health conditions two or three times this amount if the Trump administration wins its case. ..."
"... The 55 to 64 age group will also be hard hit because they are far more likely to have serious health issues than younger people. Just 18 percent of the people in the youngest 18 to 34 age group have a serious health condition, compared to 44 percent of those in the 55 to 64 age group, as shown in the figure above. ..."
Older Workers Targeted in Trump's Lawsuit to End Obamacare
By DEAN BAKER
The Trump administration is supporting a lawsuit which seeks to overturn the Affordable
Care Act (ACA) in its entirety. The implication is that a large share of the older workers
now able to afford health insurance as a result of the ACA will no longer be able to afford
it if the Trump administration wins its lawsuit.
Furthermore, if the suit succeeds it will both end the expansion of Medicaid, which has
insured tens of millions of people, and again allow discrimination against people with
serious health conditions. Ending this discrimination was one of the major goals of the ACA.
The issue is that insurers don't want to insure people who are likely to have health issues
that cost them money. While they are happy to insure healthy people with few medical
expenses, people with heart disease, diabetes, or other health conditions are a bad deal for
insurers.
Before the ACA, insurers could charge outlandish fees to cover people with health
conditions, or simply refuse to insure them altogether. The ACA required insurers to cover
everyone within an age bracket at the same price, regardless of their health. If the Trump
administration has its way, we would go back to the world where insurers could charge people
with health issues whatever they wanted, or alternatively, just deny them coverage.
This would be bad news for anyone with a serious health condition, but it would be
especially bad news for the oldest pre-Medicare age group, people between the ages of 55 and
64. This group currently faces average premiums of close to $10,000 a year per person for
insurance purchased through the ACA exchanges. Insurers could easily charge people with
serious health conditions two or three times this amount if the Trump administration wins its
case.
And, since a Trump victory would eliminate the ACA subsidiaries, people in this age group
with health conditions could be looking to pay $20,000 to $30,000 a year for insurance, with
no help from the government. That will be especially hard since many people with serious
health conditions are unable to work full-time jobs, and some can't work at all.
[Graph]
The 55 to 64 age group will also be hard hit because they are far more likely to have
serious health issues than younger people. Just 18 percent of the people in the youngest 18
to 34 age group have a serious health condition, compared to 44 percent of those in the 55 to
64 age group, as shown in the figure above.
The ACA has many inadequacies, but it has allowed tens of millions to get insurance who
could not otherwise. Donald Trump wants to take this insurance away.
Another issue with all types of education is that lots of students, especially foreign students, depend very heavily on
restarats temp jobs and casual hospitality work.
4. Colleges will have a lot of trouble this fall . First, they are losing nearly all their
full-freight-paying Chinese students, between concern over US Covid-19 risks, Administration
hostility, and travel restrictions. That alone is a big blow.
On top of that, some are planning to reopen but MIT's announcement yesterday, that
it will not allow all students to return to campus, probably represents a new normal.
Well-placed MIT alumni read the university's decision as driven significantly by a desire to
protect faculty and staff; I hear from sources with contacts at other universities that
administrators that they see no way to put kids in dorms without running unacceptably high
Covid risks.
Remember, even though kids almost never die of Covid-19, but there is a risk of serious
damage. 1/2 the asymptomatic cases on the Diamond Princess now show abnormal lungs. And
remember those cruises have half the people on board as crew, and the crew skews young. College
is a lot less appealing if you don't stay in a dorm.
Just as diminished activity in central business districts has negative knock-on effects to
nearby business, so to do hollowed-out colleges and universities have for their communities,
as described in more depth in a recent Bloomberg story .
The coming college semester is a big question mark. The influx of students is entangled with real estate,
shopping and the biggest in my town, restaurants and bars. Not to mention the college sports season which
supported so many AirBnB's here.
They are starting the year early here (UNC Chapel Hill) and ending it early as well, on Thanksgiving! And
up to 1000 new students will be learning from home instead of coming to campus.
Big question mark -- MIT's president Reif yesterday noted that
"At least for the fall, we can only
bring some of our undergraduates back to campus."
and
"Everything that can be taught effectively
online will be taught online."
Courses are comparatively easy, but labs, research, and sports look doubtful if/when case counts start
marching up again.
Recall, it was just days ago that
we pointed out Cornell professor and friend of Zero Hedge Dave Collum was publicly shamed
by Cornell for daring to express the "wrong" opinion about current events on social media. Now,
there's a second Cornell professor coming under fire for his critique of the Black Lives Matter
movement.
Cornell Law School professor William A. Jacobson has challenged any student or faculty
member to a public debate about the Black Lives Matter movement after he says liberals on
campus have launched a "coordinated effort" to have him fired from his job. At least 15 emails
from alumni have been sent to the dean, demanding that action be taken, according to Fox News
.
"There is an effort underway to get me fired at Cornell Law School, where I've worked since
November 2007, or if not fired, at least denounced publicly by the school,"
Jacobson wrote on Thursday . "I condemn in the strongest terms any insinuation that I am
racist."
Jacobson founded the website Legal
Insurrection and says he's had an "awkward relationship" with the university for years as a
result. The recent outrage comes as a result of two posts he recently made on his site:
"Those posts accurately detail the history of how the Black Lives Matters Movement started,
and the agenda of the founders which is playing out in the cultural purge and rioting taking
place now," Jacobson said.
He recently wrote on his blog: "Living as a conservative on a liberal campus is like being
the mouse waiting for the cat to pounce. For over 12 years, the Cornell cat did not pounce.
Though there were frequent and aggressive attempts by outsiders to get me fired, including
threats and harassment, it always came from off campus."
"Not until now, to the best of my knowledge, has there been an effort from inside the
Cornell community to get me fired," he says.
"The effort appears coordinated, as some of the emails were in a template form. All of the
emails as of Monday were from graduates within the past 10 years," he continued. Jacobson's
"clinical faculty colleagues, apparently in consultation with the Black Law Students
Association" drafted and published a letter denouncing 'commentators, some of them attached to
Ivy League Institutions, who are leading a smear campaign against Black Lives Matter.'"
Cornell
responded , backhandedly defending the Professor's right to his own opinion:
"...the Law School's commitment to academic freedom does not constitute endorsement or
approval of individual faculty speech. But to take disciplinary action against him for the
views he has expressed would fatally pit our values against one another in ways that would
corrode our ability to operate as an academic institution."
"This is not just about me. It's about the intellectual freedom and vibrancy of Cornell and
other higher education institutions, and the society at large. Open inquiry and debate are core
features of a vibrant intellectual community," he stated.
"I challenge a representative of those student groups and a faculty member of their choosing
to a public debate at the law school regarding the Black Lives Matter Movement, so that I can
present my argument and confront the false allegations in real-time rather than having to
respond to baseless community email blasts."
"I condemn in the strongest terms any insinuation that I am racist, and I greatly resent any
attempt to leverage meritless accusations in hopes of causing me reputational harm. While such
efforts might succeed in scaring others in a similar position, I will not be intimidated,"
Jacobson concluded.
"... Old saying: A Recession is when your neighbor loses their Job. A Depression is when you lose your Job. ..."
"... A lot of mega wealthy people are cheats. They get insider info, they don't pay people and do all they can to provide the least amount of value possible while tricking suckers into buying their crap. Don't even get me started on trust fund brats who come out of the womb thinking they are Warren buffet level genius in business. ..."
"... There's a documentary about Wal-Mart that has the best title ever: The High Cost of Low Cost ..."
"... Globalism killed the American dream. We can buy cheap goods made somewhere else if we have a job here that pays us enough money. ..."
You can't just move to American cities to pursue opportunity; even the high wages paid in
New York are rendered unhelpful because the cost of housing is so high.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was vilified and ultimately murdered when he was helping organize
a Poor People's Campaign. Racial justice means economic justice.
A lot of mega wealthy people are cheats. They get insider info, they don't pay people and
do all they can to provide the least amount of value possible while tricking suckers into
buying their crap. Don't even get me started on trust fund brats who come out of the womb
thinking they are Warren buffet level genius in business.
Nailed it. As a millennial, I'm sick of being told to just "deal with it" when the cards
have always been stacked against me. Am I surviving? Yes. Am I thriving? No.
When the reserve status of the American dollar goes away, then it will become apparent how
poor the US really is. You cannot maintain a country without retention of the ability to
manufacture the articles you use on a daily basis. The military budget and all the jobs it
brings will have to shrink catastrophically.
...and sometimes you CAN'T afford to move. You can't find a decent job. You certainly
can't build a meaningful savings. You can't find an apartment. And if you have kids? That
makes it even harder. I've been trying to move for years, but the conditions have to be
perfect to do it responsibly. The American Dream died for me once I realized that no matter
the choices I made, my four years of college, my years of saving and working hard....I do NOT
have upward mobility. For me, the American Dream is dead. I've been finding a new dream. The
human dream.
This is a very truncated view. You need to expand your thinking. WHY has the system been
so overtly corrupted? It's globalism that has pushed all this economic pressure on the
millennials and the middle class. It was the elites, working with corrupt politicians, that
rigged the game so the law benefited them.
This is all reversible. History shows that capitalism can be properly regulated in a way
that benefits all. The answer to the problem is to bring back those rules, not implement
socialism.
Trump has:
- Ended the free trade deals
- Imposed Protective tarriffs to defend American jobs and workers
- Lowered corporate taxes to incentivize business to locate within us borders.
- Limited immigration to reduce the supply of low skilled labor within US borders.
The result? before COVID hit the average American worker saw the first inflation adjusted
wage increase in over 30 years!
This is why the fake news and hollywood continue to propagandize the masses into hating
Trump.
Trump is implementing economic policies good for the people and bad for the elites
Krystal Ball exposes the delusion of the American dream.
About Rising: Rising is a weekday morning show with bipartisan hosts that breaks the mold of
morning TV by taking viewers inside the halls of Washington power like never before. The show
leans into the day's political cycle with cutting edge analysis from DC insiders who can
predict what is going to happen.
It also sets the day's political agenda by breaking exclusive
news with a team of scoop-driven reporters and demanding answers during interviews with the
country's most important political newsmakers.
Got my degree just as the great recession hit. Couldn't find real work for 3 years, not
using my degree... But it was work. now after 8 years, im laid off. I did everything "right".
do good in school, go to college, get a job...
I've never been fired in my life. its always,
"Your contract is up" "Sorry we cant afford to keep you", "You can make more money collecting!
but we'll give a recommendation if you find anything."
Now I'm back where i started... only
now I have new house and a family to support... no pressure.
A strange mixture of Black nationalism with Black Bolshevism is a very interesting and pretty alarming phenomenon. It proved to
be a pretty toxic mix. But it is far from being new. We saw how the Eugène Pottier famous song
International lines "We have been naught we
shall be all." and "Servile masses arise, arise." unfolded before under Stalinism in Soviet Russia.
We also saw Lysenkoism in Academia before, and it was not a pretty picture. Some Russian/Soviet scientists such as Academician Vavilov
paid with their life for the sin of not being politically correct. From this letter it is clear that the some departments
already reached the stage tragically close to that situation.
Lysenkoism was "politically correct" (a term invented by Lenin) because it was consistent with the broader Marxist doctrine.
Marxists wanted to believe that heredity had a limited role even among humans, and that human characteristics changed by living
under socialism would be inherited by subsequent generations of humans. Thus would be created the selfless new Soviet man
"Lysenko was consequently embraced and lionized by the Soviet media propaganda machine. Scientists who promoted Lysenkoism with
faked data and destroyed counterevidence were favored with government funding and official recognition and award. Lysenko and his
followers and media acolytes responded to critics by impugning their motives, and denouncing them as bourgeois fascists resisting
the advance of the new modern Marxism."
The Disgraceful Episode Of Lysenkoism Brings Us Global Warming Theory
Notable quotes:
"... In the extended links and resources you provided, I could not find a single instance of substantial counter-argument or alternative narrative to explain the under-representation of black individuals in academia or their over-representation in the criminal justice system. ..."
"... any cogent objections to this thesis have been raised by sober voices, including from within the black community itself, such as Thomas Sowell and Wilfred Reilly. These people are not racists or 'Uncle Toms'. They are intelligent scholars who reject a narrative that strips black people of agency and systematically externalizes the problems of the black community onto outsiders . Their view is entirely absent from the departmental and UCB-wide communiques. ..."
"... The claim that the difficulties that the black community faces are entirely causally explained by exogenous factors in the form of white systemic racism, white supremacy, and other forms of white discrimination remains a problematic hypothesis that should be vigorously challenged by historians ..."
"... Would we characterize criminal justice as a systemically misandrist conspiracy against innocent American men? I hope you see that this type of reasoning is flawed, and requires a significant suspension of our rational faculties. Black people are not incarcerated at higher rates than their involvement in violent crime would predict . This fact has been demonstrated multiple times across multiple jurisdictions in multiple countries. ..."
"... If we claim that the criminal justice system is white-supremacist, why is it that Asian Americans, Indian Americans, and Nigerian Americans are incarcerated at vastly lower rates than white Americans? ..."
"... Increasingly, we are being called upon to comply and subscribe to BLM's problematic view of history , and the department is being presented as unified on the matter. In particular, ethnic minorities are being aggressively marshaled into a single position. Any apparent unity is surely a function of the fact that dissent could almost certainly lead to expulsion or cancellation for those of us in a precarious position , which is no small number. ..."
"... The vast majority of violence visited on the black community is committed by black people . There are virtually no marches for these invisible victims, no public silences, no heartfelt letters from the UC regents, deans, and departmental heads. The message is clear: Black lives only matter when whites take them. Black violence is expected and insoluble, while white violence requires explanation and demands solution. Please look into your hearts and see how monstrously bigoted this formulation truly is. ..."
"... The claim that black intraracial violence is the product of redlining, slavery, and other injustices is a largely historical claim. It is for historians, therefore, to explain why Japanese internment or the massacre of European Jewry hasn't led to equivalent rates of dysfunction and low SES performance among Japanese and Jewish Americans respectively. ..."
"... Arab Americans have been viciously demonized since 9/11, as have Chinese Americans more recently. However, both groups outperform white Americans on nearly all SES indices - as do Nigerian Americans , who incidentally have black skin. It is for historians to point out and discuss these anomalies. However, no real discussion is possible in the current climate at our department . The explanation is provided to us, disagreement with it is racist, and the job of historians is to further explore additional ways in which the explanation is additionally correct. This is a mockery of the historical profession. ..."
"... Donating to BLM today is to indirectly donate to Joe Biden's 2020 campaign. This is grotesque given the fact that the American cities with the worst rates of black-on-black violence and police-on-black violence are overwhelmingly Democrat-run. Minneapolis itself has been entirely in the hands of Democrats for over five decades ; the 'systemic racism' there was built by successive Democrat administrations. ..."
"... The total alliance of major corporations involved in human exploitation with BLM should be a warning flag to us, and yet this damning evidence goes unnoticed, purposefully ignored, or perversely celebrated. We are the useful idiots of the wealthiest classes , carrying water for Jeff Bezos and other actual, real, modern-day slavers. Starbucks, an organisation using literal black slaves in its coffee plantation suppliers, is in favor of BLM. Sony, an organisation using cobalt mined by yet more literal black slaves, many of whom are children, is in favor of BLM. And so, apparently, are we. The absence of counter-narrative enables this obscenity. Fiat lux, indeed. ..."
"... MLK would likely be called an Uncle Tom if he spoke on our campus today . We are training leaders who intend, explicitly, to destroy one of the only truly successful ethnically diverse societies in modern history. As the PRC, an ethnonationalist and aggressively racially chauvinist national polity with null immigration and no concept of jus solis increasingly presents itself as the global political alternative to the US, I ask you: Is this wise? Are we really doing the right thing? ..."
I am one of your colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley. I have met you both personally but do not know you closely,
and am contacting you anonymously, with apologies. I am worried that writing this email publicly might lead to me losing my job,
and likely all future jobs in my field.
In your recent departmental emails you mentioned our pledge to diversity, but I am increasingly alarmed by the absence of diversity
of opinion on the topic of the recent protests and our community response to them.
In the extended links and resources you provided, I could not find a single instance of substantial counter-argument or alternative
narrative to explain the under-representation of black individuals in academia or their over-representation in the criminal justice
system. The explanation provided in your documentation, to the near exclusion of all others, is univariate: the problems of
the black community are caused by whites, or, when whites are not physically present, by the infiltration of white supremacy and
white systemic racism into American brains, souls, and institutions.
Many cogent objections to this thesis have been raised by sober voices, including from within the black community itself,
such as Thomas Sowell and Wilfred Reilly. These people are not racists or 'Uncle Toms'. They are intelligent scholars who reject
a narrative that strips black people of agency and systematically externalizes the problems of the black community onto outsiders
. Their view is entirely absent from the departmental and UCB-wide communiques.
The claim that the difficulties that the black community faces are entirely causally explained by exogenous factors in the
form of white systemic racism, white supremacy, and other forms of white discrimination remains a problematic hypothesis that should
be vigorously challenged by historians . Instead, it is being treated as an axiomatic and actionable truth without serious consideration
of its profound flaws, or its worrying implication of total black impotence. This hypothesis is transforming our institution and
our culture, without any space for dissent outside of a tightly policed, narrow discourse.
A counternarrative exists. If you have time, please consider examining some of the documents I attach at the end of this email.
Overwhelmingly, the reasoning provided by BLM and allies is either primarily anecdotal (as in the case with the bulk of Ta-Nehisi
Coates' undeniably moving article) or it is transparently motivated. As an example of the latter problem, consider the proportion
of black incarcerated Americans. This proportion is often used to characterize the criminal justice system as anti-black. However,
if we use the precise same methodology, we would have to conclude that the criminal justice system is even more anti-male than it
is anti-black .
Would we characterize criminal justice as a systemically misandrist conspiracy against innocent American men? I hope you see
that this type of reasoning is flawed, and requires a significant suspension of our rational faculties. Black people are not incarcerated
at higher rates than their involvement in violent crime would predict . This fact has been demonstrated multiple times across multiple
jurisdictions in multiple countries.
And yet, I see my department uncritically reproducing a narrative that diminishes black agency in favor of a white-centric explanation
that appeals to the department's apparent desire to shoulder the 'white man's burden' and to promote a narrative of white guilt .
If we claim that the criminal justice system is white-supremacist, why is it that Asian Americans, Indian Americans, and Nigerian
Americans are incarcerated at vastly lower rates than white Americans? This is a funny sort of white supremacy. Even Jewish
Americans are incarcerated less than gentile whites. I think it's fair to say that your average white supremacist disapproves of
Jews. And yet, these alleged white supremacists incarcerate gentiles at vastly higher rates than Jews. None of this is addressed
in your literature. None of this is explained, beyond hand-waving and ad hominems. "Those are racist dogwhistles". "The model minority
myth is white supremacist". "Only fascists talk about black-on-black crime", ad nauseam.
These types of statements do not amount to counterarguments: they are simply arbitrary offensive classifications, intended to
silence and oppress discourse . Any serious historian will recognize these for the silencing orthodoxy tactics they are , common
to suppressive regimes, doctrines, and religions throughout time and space. They are intended to crush real diversity and permanently
exile the culture of robust criticism from our department.
Increasingly, we are being called upon to comply and subscribe to BLM's problematic view of history , and the department is
being presented as unified on the matter. In particular, ethnic minorities are being aggressively marshaled into a single position.
Any apparent unity is surely a function of the fact that dissent could almost certainly lead to expulsion or cancellation for those
of us in a precarious position , which is no small number.
I personally don't dare speak out against the BLM narrative , and with this barrage of alleged unity being mass-produced by the
administration, tenured professoriat, the UC administration, corporate America, and the media, the punishment for dissent is a clear
danger at a time of widespread economic vulnerability. I am certain that if my name were attached to this email, I would lose my
job and all future jobs, even though I believe in and can justify every word I type.
The vast majority of violence visited on the black community is committed by black people . There are virtually no marches
for these invisible victims, no public silences, no heartfelt letters from the UC regents, deans, and departmental heads. The message
is clear: Black lives only matter when whites take them. Black violence is expected and insoluble, while white violence requires
explanation and demands solution. Please look into your hearts and see how monstrously bigoted this formulation truly is.
No discussion is permitted for nonblack victims of black violence, who proportionally outnumber black victims of nonblack violence.
This is especially bitter in the Bay Area, where Asian victimization by black assailants has reached epidemic proportions, to the
point that the SF police chief has advised Asians to stop hanging good-luck charms on their doors, as this attracts the attention
of (overwhelmingly black) home invaders . Home invaders like George Floyd . For this actual, lived, physically experienced reality
of violence in the USA, there are no marches, no tearful emails from departmental heads, no support from McDonald's and Wal-Mart.
For the History department, our silence is not a mere abrogation of our duty to shed light on the truth: it is a rejection of it.
The claim that black intraracial violence is the product of redlining, slavery, and other injustices is a largely historical
claim. It is for historians, therefore, to explain why Japanese internment or the massacre of European Jewry hasn't led to equivalent
rates of dysfunction and low SES performance among Japanese and Jewish Americans respectively.
Arab Americans have been viciously demonized since 9/11, as have Chinese Americans more recently. However, both groups outperform
white Americans on nearly all SES indices - as do Nigerian Americans , who incidentally have black skin. It is for historians to
point out and discuss these anomalies. However, no real discussion is possible in the current climate at our department . The explanation
is provided to us, disagreement with it is racist, and the job of historians is to further explore additional ways in which the explanation
is additionally correct. This is a mockery of the historical profession.
Most troublingly, our department appears to have been entirely captured by the interests of the Democratic National Convention,
and the Democratic Party more broadly. To explain what I mean, consider what happens if you choose to donate to Black Lives Matter,
an organization UCB History has explicitly promoted in its recent mailers. All donations to the official BLM website are immediately
redirected to ActBlue Charities , an organization primarily concerned with bankrolling election campaigns for Democrat candidates.
Donating to BLM today is to indirectly donate to Joe Biden's 2020 campaign. This is grotesque given the fact that the American
cities with the worst rates of black-on-black violence and police-on-black violence are overwhelmingly Democrat-run. Minneapolis
itself has been entirely in the hands of Democrats for over five decades ; the 'systemic racism' there was built by successive Democrat
administrations.
The patronizing and condescending attitudes of Democrat leaders towards the black community, exemplified by nearly every Biden
statement on the black race, all but guarantee a perpetual state of misery, resentment, poverty, and the attendant grievance politics
which are simultaneously annihilating American political discourse and black lives. And yet, donating to BLM is bankrolling the election
campaigns of men like Mayor Frey, who saw their cities devolve into violence . This is a grotesque capture of a good-faith movement
for necessary police reform, and of our department, by a political party. Even worse, there are virtually no avenues for dissent
in academic circles . I refuse to serve the Party, and so should you.
The total alliance of major corporations involved in human exploitation with BLM should be a warning flag to us, and yet this
damning evidence goes unnoticed, purposefully ignored, or perversely celebrated. We are the useful idiots of the wealthiest classes
, carrying water for Jeff Bezos and other actual, real, modern-day slavers. Starbucks, an organisation using literal black slaves
in its coffee plantation suppliers, is in favor of BLM. Sony, an organisation using cobalt mined by yet more literal black slaves,
many of whom are children, is in favor of BLM. And so, apparently, are we. The absence of counter-narrative enables this obscenity.
Fiat lux, indeed.
There also exists a large constituency of what can only be called 'race hustlers': hucksters of all colors who benefit from stoking
the fires of racial conflict to secure administrative jobs, charity management positions, academic jobs and advancement, or personal
political entrepreneurship.
Given the direction our history department appears to be taking far from any commitment to truth , we can regard ourselves as
a formative training institution for this brand of snake-oil salespeople. Their activities are corrosive, demolishing any hope at
harmonious racial coexistence in our nation and colonizing our political and institutional life. Many of their voices are unironically
segregationist.
MLK would likely be called an Uncle Tom if he spoke on our campus today . We are training leaders who intend, explicitly,
to destroy one of the only truly successful ethnically diverse societies in modern history. As the PRC, an ethnonationalist and aggressively
racially chauvinist national polity with null immigration and no concept of jus solis increasingly presents itself as the global
political alternative to the US, I ask you: Is this wise? Are we really doing the right thing?
As a final point, our university and department has made multiple statements celebrating and eulogizing George Floyd. Floyd was
a multiple felon who once held a pregnant black woman at gunpoint. He broke into her home with a gang of men and pointed a gun at
her pregnant stomach. He terrorized the women in his community. He sired and abandoned multiple children , playing no part in their
support or upbringing, failing one of the most basic tests of decency for a human being. He was a drug-addict and sometime drug-dealer,
a swindler who preyed upon his honest and hard-working neighbors .
And yet, the regents of UC and the historians of the UCB History department are celebrating this violent criminal, elevating his
name to virtual sainthood . A man who hurt women. A man who hurt black women. With the full collaboration of the UCB history department,
corporate America, most mainstream media outlets, and some of the wealthiest and most privileged opinion-shaping elites of the USA,
he has become a culture hero, buried in a golden casket, his (recognized) family showered with gifts and praise . Americans are being
socially pressured into kneeling for this violent, abusive misogynist . A generation of black men are being coerced into identifying
with George Floyd, the absolute worst specimen of our race and species.
I'm ashamed of my department. I would say that I'm ashamed of both of you, but perhaps you agree with me, and are simply afraid,
as I am, of the backlash of speaking the truth. It's hard to know what kneeling means, when you have to kneel to keep your job.
It shouldn't affect the strength of my argument above, but for the record, I write as a person of color . My family have been
personally victimized by men like Floyd. We are aware of the condescending depredations of the Democrat party against our race. The
humiliating assumption that we are too stupid to do STEM , that we need special help and lower requirements to get ahead in life,
is richly familiar to us. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be easier to deal with open fascists, who at least would be straightforward
in calling me a subhuman, and who are unlikely to share my race.
The ever-present soft bigotry of low expectations and the permanent claim that the solutions to the plight of my people rest exclusively
on the goodwill of whites rather than on our own hard work is psychologically devastating . No other group in America is systematically
demoralized in this way by its alleged allies. A whole generation of black children are being taught that only by begging and weeping
and screaming will they get handouts from guilt-ridden whites.
No message will more surely devastate their futures, especially if whites run out of guilt, or indeed if America runs out of whites.
If this had been done to Japanese Americans, or Jewish Americans, or Chinese Americans, then Chinatown and Japantown would surely
be no different to the roughest parts of Baltimore and East St. Louis today. The History department of UCB is now an integral institutional
promulgator of a destructive and denigrating fallacy about the black race.
I hope you appreciate the frustration behind this message. I do not support BLM. I do not support the Democrat grievance agenda
and the Party's uncontested capture of our department. I do not support the Party co-opting my race, as Biden recently did in his
disturbing interview, claiming that voting Democrat and being black are isomorphic. I condemn the manner of George Floyd's death
and join you in calling for greater police accountability and police reform. However, I will not pretend that George Floyd was anything
other than a violent misogynist, a brutal man who met a predictably brutal end .
I also want to protect the practice of history. Cleo is no grovelling handmaiden to politicians and corporations. Like us, she
is free. play_arrow
Blacks will always be poor and fucked in life when 75% of black infants are born to single most likely welfare dependent mothers...
And the more amount of welfare monies spent to combat poverty the worse this problem will grow...
taketheredpill , 37 minutes ago
Anonymous....
1) Is he really a Professor at Berkeley?
2) Is he really a Professor anywhere?
3) Is he really Black?
4) Is he really a He?
LEEPERMAX , 44 minutes ago
BLM is an international organization. They solicit tax free charitable donations via ActBlue. ActBlue then funnels billions
of dollars to DNC campaigns. This is a violation of campaign finance law and allows foreign influence in American elections.
CRM114 , 44 minutes ago
I've pointed this out before:
In 2015, after the Freddie Gray death Officers were hung out to dry by the Mayor of Baltimore (yes, her, the Chair of the DNC
in 2016), active policing in Baltimore basically stopped. They just count the bodies now. The clearance rate for homicides has
dropped to, well, we don't know because the Police refuse to say, but it appears to be under 15%. The homicide rate jumped 50%
almost immediately and has stayed there. 95% of homicides are black on black.
The Baltimore Sun keeps excellent records, so you can check this all for yourself.
Looking at killings by cops; if we take the worst case and exclude all the ones where the victim was armed and independent
witnesses state fired first, and assume all the others were cop murders, then there's about 1 cop murder every 3 years, which
means that since has now stopped and the homicide rate's gone up...
For every black man now not murdered by a cop, 400 more black men are murdered by other black men.
taketheredpill , 46 minutes ago
"As an example of the latter problem, consider the proportion of black incarcerated Americans. This proportion is often used
to characterize the criminal justice system as anti-black. However, if we use the precise same methodology, we would have to conclude
that the criminal justice system is even more anti-male than it is anti-black ."
It is the RATIO of UNARMED BLACK MALES KILLED to UNARMED WHITE MALES KILLED in RELATION TO % OF POPULATION. RATIO.
RATIO. UNARMED.
BLACK % POPULATION 13% BLACK % UNARMED MEN KILLED 37%
WHITE % POPULATION 74% BLACK % UNARMED MEN KILLED 45%
Is there a trend of MORE Black people being killed by police?
No. But there is an underlying difference in the numbers that is bad.
>>>>> As of 2018, Unarmed Blacks made up 36% of all people UNARMED killed by police. But black people make up 13% of the (unarmed)
population.
There's a massive Silent Majority of Americans , including black Americans, that are fed up with this absurd nonsense.
While there's a Vocal Minority of Americans : including Democrats, the media, corporations and race hustlers, that wish to
continue to promulgate a FALSE NARRATIVE into perpetuity...because it's a lucrative industry.
Gaius Konstantine , 57 minutes ago
A short while ago I had an ex friend get into it with me about how Europeans (whites), were the most destructive race on the
planet, responsible for all the world's evil. I pointed out to him that Genghis Khan, an Asian, slaughtered millions at a time
when technology made this a remarkable feat. I reminded him the Japanese gleefully killed millions in China and that the American
Indian Empires ran 24/7 human sacrifices with some also practicing cannibalism. His poor libtard brain couldn't handle the fact
that evil is a human trait, not restricted to a particular race and we parted (good riddance)
But along with evil, there is accomplishment. Europeans created Empires and pursued science, The Asians also participated in
these pursuits and even the Aztec and Inca built marvelous cities and massive states spanning vast stretches of territory. The
only race that accomplished little save entering the stone age is the Africans. Are we supposed to give them a participation trophy
to make them feel better? Is this feeling of inferiority what is truly behind their constant rage?
Police in the US have been militarized for a long time now and kill many more unarmed whites than they do blacks, where is
the outrage? I'm getting the feeling that this isn't really about George, just an excuse to do what savages do.
lwilland1012 , 1 hour ago
"Truth is treason in an empire of lies."
George Orwell
You know that the reason he is anonymous is that Berkley would strip him of his teaching credentials and there would be multiple
attempts on his life...
Ignatius , 1 hour ago
" The vast majority of violence visited on the black community is committed by black people . There are virtually no marches
for these invisible victims, no public silences, no heartfelt letters from the UC regents, deans, and departmental heads. The
message is clear: Black lives only matter when whites take them. Black violence is expected and insoluble, while white violence
requires explanation and demands solution. Please look into your hearts and see how monstrously bigoted this formulation truly
is."
A former fed who trained the police in Buffalo believes the elderly protester who was hospitalized after a cop pushed him
to the ground "got away lightly" and "took a dive," according to a report.
The retired FBI agent, Gary DiLaura,
told The Sun
he thinks there's no chance Buffalo officers will be convicted of assault over the
now-viral video showing the
longtime
peace activist Martin Gugino fall and left bleeding on the ground.
" I can't believe that they didn't deck him. If that would have been a 40-year-old guy going up there, I guarantee you they'd
have been all over him, " DiLaura said.
" He absolutely got away lightly. He got a light push and in my humble opinion, he took a dive and the dive backfired because
he hit his head. Maybe it'll knock a little bit of sense into him, " added the former fed, who trained Buffalo police on firearms
and defensive tactics, according to the report...
It's a great brainwashing process, which goes very slow[ly] and is divided [into] four basic stages. The first one [is]
demoralization ; it takes from 15-20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number
of years which [is required] to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy, exposed to the ideology of
the enemy. In other words, Marxist-Leninist ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American
students, without being challenged, or counter-balanced by the basic values of Americanism (American patriotism).
The result? The result you can see. Most of the people who graduated in the sixties (drop-outs or half-baked intellectuals)
are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, [and the] educational system.
You are stuck with them. You cannot get rid of them. T hey are contaminated; they are programmed to think and react to certain
stimuli in a certain pattern. You cannot change their mind[s], even if you expose them to authentic information, even if you
prove that white is white and black is black, you still cannot change the basic perception and the logic of behavior. In other
words, these people... the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. To [rid] society of these people, you need
another twenty or fifteen years to educate a new generation of patriotically-minded and common sense people, who would be acting
in favor and in the interests of United States society.
Yuri Bezmenov
American Psycho , 16 minutes ago
This article was one of the most articulate and succinct rebuttals to the BLM political power grab. I too have been calling
these "allies" useful idiots and I am happy to hear this professor doing the same. Bravo professor!
As with allmost everything that occurs as a university, the purpose of the commencement
speech is not to provide a service to the students, but to make the institution's faculty and
staff feel important...
...It should be noted that most students who attend commencement ceremonies couldn't care
less who the celebrity speaker is. Most of them are there because they like the ritualistic
aspects of it, and virtually no one remembers what is said at commencement speeches in any
case.
The fact that most students (i.e., paying customers) just want to "feel graduated" by going
to these ceremonies should be a tip to the faculty that speakers should be non-controversial.
But, because these administrators want attention and influence, they often insist on bringing
in controversial political figures and causing even more grief for their customers, as if four
years of over-priced classes and social conditioning wasn't enough.
The fact colleges and universities couldn't care less about the people who pay the bills was
reinforced all the more this year when most universities shut down as a result of the COVID-19
panic. Most higher education institutions insisted on charging students full price even though
"college" was reduced to series of Zoom meetings and online assignments. Obviously, that's not
what most students paid for. College administrators, of course, were adamant that the students
keep paying through the nose for services not rendered
...
Fortunately, some of the more intelligent university trustees have already done away
with it altogether. Cep notes:
As Jason Song of The Los Angeles Times noticed, current Washington and Lee President
Kenneth Ruscio explained in 2009: "The wise and fiscally prudent Board determined that in
future years our graduates and families should rest easy knowing that if they had to endure a
worthless Commencement address, it would at least be inexpensive," meaning the president
gives the only speech.
Tennessee Patriot , 4 minutes ago
Best example I ever heard of describing a graduation ceremony:
Imagine you are sitting there in the hot sun, wrapped in a shower curtain, listening to
someone read a NYC Phone book for 3 hours.
I had to do that for HS, two Bachelor's Degrees, a Masters, two daughters & two out of
7 Grandbabies.
No thanks. Highly overrated ********. If it was up to me, they can mail it to me and lets
go straight to the party afterwards.
Handful of Dust , 1 hour ago
" I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and
clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man."
Joe Biden, referring to the Kenyan at the beginning of the 2008 Democratic primary
campaign, Jan. 31, 2007.
"He's like magic. Some day they'll be calling him The Magic *****!"
Yen Cross , 1 hour ago
The longer these kids are away from their indoctrination camps, the better.
Bear , 1 hour ago
"As many colleges struggle with tight budgets" ... what a crook, they have so much money
they can pay their professors 250,000 to toe the line and they a support staff of thousands
... America's most corrup institution (after the FED)
Too bad, but # blacklivesmatter per
its core organization @ Blklivesmatter just torpedoed itself,
with its full-fledged support of # defundthepolice
: "We call for a national defunding of police." Suuuure. They knew this is non-starter, and tried a sensible Orwell 1984
of saying,
Uhlig now faces a social media campaign, led by a prominent University of Michigan economist, to get him booted as editor of the
Journal of Political Economy . Here is another leader of the professional lynch mob:
I am calling for the resignation of Harald Uhlig ( @ haralduhlig
) as the editor of the Journal of Political Economy. If you would like to add your name to this call, it is posted at
https:// forms.gle/9uiJVqCAXBDBg6 8N9 . It will be delivered by end of
day 6/10 (tomorrow).
To: The editors of the Journal of Political Economy and President of The University of Chicago Press We, the undersigned,
call for the resignation of Harald Uhlig, the Bruce Allen and Barbara...
There has been a rash of firings of editors this week. One interesting thing - judging by the publications listed and by the
cringing, groveling apologies given by these editors, they are liberals who are being eaten by up-and-coming radicals. It's like
the liberals had no idea what hit them.
I used to worry the future would be like "1984". Then the Soviet Union fell, things seemed OK tor awhile. After 9/11, I worried
the future would be like "Khartoum". But now, it looks like it is going to be a weird combination of "Invasion of the Body-Snatchers"
and "Planet of the Apes".
Now seeing reports on Twitter that the Seattle Autonomous Zone now has its first warlord. America truly is a diverse place.
You have hippie communes, religious sects, semi-autonomous Indian reservations, a gerontocracy in Washington, and now your very
own Africa style fiefdom complete with warlord.
I really am sorry. This must be so depressing to watch as an American.
Arizona State journalism school retracts offer to new dean because of an "insensitive" tweets and comments - by insensitive
we mean, not sufficiently zealous and not hip to the full-spectrum wokeness. Online student petitions follow, and you know the
rest of the story.
This is madness. The true late stages of a revolution where they start eating their own.
Those tweets above (and countless others like them) just demonstrate the absolute intellectual and moral rot that now reigns
in academia. I saw one yesterday by an attorney for a prominent activist organization who said he couldn't understand why the
Constitution isn't interpreted as "requiring" the demolition of the Robert E. Lee statue in Virginia, and others like it. I'm
having a harder time understanding how he ever graduated from an accredited law school.
Forget "defund the police," perhaps "defund universities" would be the best place to start healing what ails contemporary culture.
The rot started there, not only with the "anti-racist" (as opposed to "mere" non-racism) cant, it with gender ideology (Judith
Butler), Cultural Marxism, etc. When "pc" first became a common term in the early '90s I thought it passing fad. We now see the
result of the decades long radical march through the institutions bearing fruit, and it's more strange and rotten fruit than ever.
Woke leftists are the people who believe in the myth of aggregate Black intellectual parity with Whites and Asians the least.
That's why they constantly do absolutely everything in their power to juke the statistics, like allowing Black students to not
have to take exams, which is really just an extension of this same principle at work in "affirmative action."
The French Revolution, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Great Leap Forward, the Khmer Rouge--100,000,000 people were murdered
in the name of extreme egalitarianism across the 20th century. When leftism gets out of control, tragedy happens.
I have no idea why you believe hard totalitarian methods aren't coming. I'm not sure what the answer is. We can expect no help
from the Republican party. That much is certain. A disturbing number of people have not yet awoken from their dogmatic slumber.
Who is Amy Siskind going to call to arrest Tucker Carlson and bring him to a tribunal? The defunded police?
It seems to me that the left has gone about this bassackwards. First you ashcan the Second Amendment, THEN you take away their
First Amendment Rights. You most certainly do not go around silencing people with political correctness, then go around announcing
your intention to kulak an entire group of very well-armed people. But that's just my opinion...
Rod, I disagree that a "soft totalitarianism" is what awaits us if these barbarians are allowed to run around unopposed. The
notion of human rights is a product of the religion they despise, so I see no reason why they would respect this ideal when dealing
with vile white wreckers of the multi-cultural utopia they have envisioned.
"The gig economy is just a way for corporations to cut the cost of employees, by turning them into subcontractors. They blur
the line between employee and subcontractors by having tight rules like an employer, and since most people have a employee
mentality, the company nurtures the idea that they somehow are more like employees, then they get mostly good workers, working
hard for very little compensation. The Gig economy is just another sign of our failing way of life."
Notable quotes:
"... The gig economy would be great if we lived in a society where health care is free, food is cheap, housing is common, and nobody suffers from economic Issues Which is not what we are living in ..."
"... Neo-liberals - we support freedom and stuff. Removes mask Is actually corporation lapdogs. ..."
Unlike most developments in the employment market, the Gig Economy has received a great deal
of press attention and established itself firmly as a point of reference in the popular
consciousness. In recent years, increasing numbers of people have turned to services such as
Uber, Lyft, Deliveroo, Just Eat, TaskRabbit and Fiverr as either a side hustle or their main
source of income.
Following on from my video on neoliberalism and neoliberal capitalism, in today's episode of
What the Theory?, we look deeper into how the gig economy (or sharing economy) works and what
differentiates it from the rest of the economy. We ask whether the gig economy is truly an
opportunity for those wanting a more flexible work arrangement or whether it is simply a means
for multinational corporations to circumvent hard-won workers rights and labour laws.
Finally, we also consider whether there might be some historical precedents to the sharing
economy in the early industrial period and look at some of the challenges facing those
attempting to organise Deliveroo riders, Uber drivers and other gig economy workers into trade
unions in order to negotiate for better rates of pay and conditions.
Unregulated capitalism? You mean like child labor and passing the hat when a worker dies
in an accident? They don't want workers. They want people who are desperate.
Well, how far it all goes is something that remains to be seen. I don't think we'll get as
far as child labour but the curation of dependence is something that's definitely in
progress.
Daxton Lyon except the majority of entrepreneurs and business owners didn't come Into
their business ownership via merit. You are forgetting that most of these people are born
into a situation where they have access to capital, access to legal services and education.
Sure there are a minority of people who make it from nothing but that number is diminishingly
small.
Daxton Lyon "You don't like the gig? Do something else." Too bad the economy is currently
setup to where around half of individuals are limited to gig and don't have the resources and
money to do anything else.
Daxton Lyon "If any of you did, your panzy responses regarding corporate greed would be
squashed!" No, they wouldn't, but keep performing those red herrings and hasty,
extremely-worshipping generalizations about entrepreneurship to distract from the point; I'm
sure they'll catch on.
The gig economy would be great if we lived in a society where health care is free, food is
cheap, housing is common, and nobody suffers from economic Issues Which is not what we are
living in
Don't understand the protests? What you're seeing is people pushed to the edge
By KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR – Los Angeles Times
What was your first reaction when you saw the video of the white cop kneeling on
George Floyd's neck while Floyd croaked, "I can't breathe"?
If you're white, you probably muttered a horrified, "Oh, my God" while shaking your
head at the cruel injustice. If you're black, you probably leapt to your feet, cursed,
maybe threw something (certainly wanted to throw something), while shouting, "Not @#$%!
again!" Then you remember the two white vigilantes accused of murdering Ahmaud Arbery as
he jogged through their neighborhood in February, and how if it wasn't for that video
emerging a few weeks ago, they would have gotten away with it. And how those Minneapolis
cops claimed Floyd was resisting arrest but a store's video showed he wasn't. And how the
cop on Floyd's neck wasn't an enraged redneck stereotype, but a sworn officer who looked
calm and entitled and devoid of pity: the banality of evil incarnate.
Maybe you also are thinking about the Karen in Central Park who called 911 claiming
the black man who asked her to put a leash on her dog was threatening her. Or the black
Yale University grad student napping in the common room of her dorm who was reported by a
white student. Because you realize it's not just a supposed "black criminal" who is
targeted, it's the whole spectrum of black faces from Yonkers to Yale.
You start to wonder if it should be all black people who wear body cams, not the
cops.
What do you see when you see angry black protesters amassing outside police stations
with raised fists? If you're white, you may be thinking, "They certainly aren't social
distancing." Then you notice the black faces looting Target and you think, "Well, that
just hurts their cause." Then you see the police station on fire and you wag a finger
saying, "That's putting the cause backward."
You're not wrong -- but you're not right, either. The black community is used to the
institutional racism inherent in education, the justice system and jobs. And even though
we do all the conventional things to raise public and political awareness -- write
articulate and insightful pieces in the Atlantic, explain the continued devastation on
CNN, support candidates who promise change -- the needle hardly budges.
But COVID-19 has been slamming the consequences of all that home as we die at a
significantly higher rate than whites, are the first to lose our jobs, and watch
helplessly as Republicans try to keep us from voting .
Bert Schlitz , May 31, 2020 7:14 pm
The protests are self centered crap blacks do year after year. Considering 370 whites over
100 Latinos were killed by cops, many as bad as that guy in minnie. Blacks have a Trumptard
mentality. We have a ecological disaster, a economic disaster and pandemic(when th they are
spreading). Yet let's whine about one bad cop related homicide.
This may begin the breakup of the Democratic party and the blacks. The differences are just
to large.
Kaleberg , May 31, 2020 9:40 pm
It's rather sad that it takes a massive civil disturbance to get the authorities to arrest a
man videotaped killing another. You'd think that would just happen as a matter of course, but
that's how it works in this country.
THE WAY BACK -- THE ONLY WAY BACK -- BOTH ECONOMICALLY AND POLITICALLY (pardon me if I take
up a lot of space -- almost everyone else has said most of what they want to say)
The minimum wage itself should only mark the highest wage that we presume firms with highest
labor costs can pay* -- like fast food with 25% labor costs. Lower labor cost businesses --
e.g., retail like Walgreens and Target with 10-15% labor costs can potentially pay north of
$20/hr; Walmart with 7% labor costs, $25/hr!
That kind of income can only be squeezed out of the consumer market (meaning out of the
consumer) by labor union bargaining.
Raise fast food wages from $10/hr to $15/hr and prices go up only a doable 12.5%. Raise
Walgreens, Target from $10/hr to $20/hr and prices there only go up a piddling 6.25%. Keeping
the math easy here -- I know that Walgreens and Target pay more to start but that only
reinforces my argument about how much labor income is being left on the (missing) bargaining
table.
Hook up Walmart with 7% labor costs with the Teamsters Union and the wage and benefit sky
might be the limit! Don't forget (everybody seems to) that as more income shifts to lower wage
workers, more demand starts to come from lower wage workers -- reinforcing their job security
as they spend more proportionately at lower wage firms (does not work for low wage employees of
high end restaurants -- the exception that actually proves the rule).
Add in sector wide labor agreements and watch Germany appear on this side of the Atlantic
overnight.
* * * * * *
If Republicans held the House in the last (115th) Congress they would have passed
HR2723-Employee Rights Act -- mandating new union recertification/decertification paper ballots
in any bargaining unit that has had experienced "turnover, expansion, or alteration by merger
of unit represented employees exceeding 50 percent of the bargaining unit" by the date of the
enactment -- and for all time from thereafter. Trump would have signed it and virtually every
union in the country would have experienced mandated recert/decert votes in every bargaining
unit. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/2723/text
Democrats can make the most obvious point about what was lacking in the Republican bill by
pretending to be for a cert/recert bill that mandates union ballots only at places where there
is no union now. Republicans jumping up and down can scream the point for us that there is no
reason to have ballots in non union places and not in unionized workplaces -- and vice
versa.
* * * * * *
Biggest problem advocating the vastly attractive and all healing proposal of federally
mandated cert/recert/decert elections seems to be that nobody will discuss it as long as nobody
else discusses it -- some kind of innate social behavior I think, from deep in our (pea sized)
midbrains. How else can you explain the perfect pitch's neglect. I suspect that if I waved a
$100 bill in front of a bunch of progressives and offered it to the first one would say the
words out loud: "Regularly scheduled union elections are the only way to restore shared
prosperity and political fairness to America", that I might not get one taker. FWIW.
Another big problem when I try to talk to workers about this on the street -- just to get a
reaction -- is that more than half have no idea in the world what unions are all about. Those
who do understand, think the idea so sensible they often think action must be pending.
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