"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.
econ101 should tell you that the eitc is a subsidy to the corporations that hire droves of
low-paid workers, with meagre spillover to the workers themselves. More effective and
persistent improvements to social justice would come from significant increases to the minimum
wage, societal support to unionization, and other efforts to increase the threshold of what is
considered by society to be the bare minimum of compensation for work.
The concomitant decline in the value of the dollar and the terms of trade would be small
compared to the reduction in inequality.
Bernard , June 1, 2020 5:21 pm
such a third world country as America , riots are the only way to get heard for some. the
Elite have been looting us blind for decades, the Covid bail outs to Corporations by the Elites
in DC as the latest installment of Capitalist theft know as Business as Usual.
it's all about the money.
sick,sick country praising capitalism over everything else.
the comfortable white people are afraid of losing what they have. Divide and Conquer is the
Republican and now Democratic way they run America.
to the rich go the spoils. the rest, well. screw them .
the Lee Atwater idea to use coded language when St. Reagan implemented the destruction of
America society, coincided with St. Thatcher's destruction of England.
the White elites post Civil War in the South knew how to divide the poor whites and the poor
blacks.
that is how we got to where we are now.
Did you see any of the bankers go to jail for the 2008 ripoff?
not one and they got bonuses for their "deeds."
America, such a nation of Grifters, Thieves and Scam artist. like Pelosi , McConnel and all
the people in DC and the Business men who sold out our country and the American people for
"small change".
God forbid Corporations should ever have to pay for the damage they have done to America and
its" people. My RIGHT to Greed trumps your right to clean air, water, safe neighborhoods, says
Capitalism!
the Rich get richer and the poor get poorer, Everybody Knows!!!
But let's not focus on things lest some uncomfortable truths.
The nightly news, when talking about the effect of the pandemic on the populace in, say, Southeast Asian, African,
South American, countries, invariably refer to the tenuous hold on life of their working poor; they don't really have
a job. Each day they rise and go forth looking for work that pays enough that they and their family can continue to
subsist. It is, in some countries, a long-standing problem.
Sound too familiar? Sometime in the late 80s (??) Americans began to see day labors line up at Home Depot and Lowe's
lots in numbers not seen since The Great Depression. Manufacturing Corporations began subbing out their work to
sub-contractors, otherwise known as employees without benefits; Construction Contractors subbed out construction work to
these employees without benefits; Engineering Firms subbed out engineering to these employees without benefits;
Landscapers' workers were now sub-contractors/independent contractors; Here, in the SF Bay Area, time and again, we
saw vans loads of undocumented Hispanics under a 'Labor Contractor' come in from the Central Valley to build condos; the
white Contractor for the project didn't have a single employee; none of the workers got a W-2. Recall watching, sometime
in the 90s (??), a familiar, well dressed, rotund guest from Wall Street, on the PBS News Hour, forcefully proclaiming
to the TV audience:
American workers are going to have to learn to compete with the Chinese; Civil Service employees, factory
employees, are all going to have to work for less
All this subcontracting, independent contractors, was a scam, a scam meant to circumvent paying going wages and
benefits, to enhance profit margins; a scam that transferred more wealth to the top.
Meanwhile back at The Ranch, after the H1B Immigration Act of 1990, Microsoft could hire programmers from India for
one-half the cost of a citizen programmer. Half of Bill Gates' fortune was resultant these labor savings; the other half
was made off those not US Citizens. Taking a cue, Banks, Bio-Techs, some City and State Governments began
subcontracting out their programming to H1Bs. Often, the subcontractors/labor contractors (often themselves immigrants)
providing the programmers, held the programmers' passports/visas for security.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina,
friends of Bush/Cheney made fortunes on clean up contracts they subbed out for next to nothing; the
independent/subcontractor scam was now officially governmentally sanctioned.
By about 2000 we began to hear the term gig-workers applied to these employees without benefits. Uber appeared in
2007 to be followed by Lift. Both are scams based on paying less than prevailing wages, on not providing worker
benefits,
These days, the nightly news, when talking about the effect of the pandemic on the populace in America, shows footage
of Food Banks in California with lines 2! miles long. Many of those waiting in these lines didn't have a real job
before; they were gig-workers; they can't apply for Unemployment Benefits. It is estimated that 1.6 million American
workers (1% of the workforce) are gig-workers; they don't have a real job. That 1% is in addition to the 16 million
American workers (10% of the workforce) that are independent contractors. Of the more than 40 million currently
unemployed Americans, some 17 million are either gig-workers or subcontractors/independent contractors. All of these are
scams meant to transfer more wealth to the top. All of these are scams with American Workers the victims; scams, in a
race to the bottom.
Democrats in the so called battle ground states would clean up at the polls with this. Why do you think
those states strayed? It was because Obama and Hillary had no idea what they really needed. Voters had no
idea what they SPECIFICALLY needed either -- UNIONS! They had been deunionized so thoroughly for so long
that they THEMSELVES no long knew what they were missing (frogs in the slowly boiling pot).
In 1988 Jesse Jackson took the Democratic primary in Michigan with 54% against Dukakis and Gephardt.
Obama beat Wall Street Romney and red-white-and-blue McCain in Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan. But nobody
told these voters -- because nobody seems to remember -- what they really needed. These voter just knew by
2016 that Democrats had not what they needed and looked elsewhere -- anywhere else!
Strom presents an easy as can be, on-step-back treatment that should go down oh, so smoothly and
sweetly. What do you think?
Matthew young
,
May 31, 2020 10:51 am
Not overnight, but a few days in 1972 when Nixon fouled the defaults and none of us knew how badly at
the time.
Reseting prices takes a long time, it is not magic and Nixon had fouled the precious metals market,
overnight. That and all the commodities market needed a restructure to adapt to our new regime.
Our way out was to export price instability to Asia. My suggestion this time is to think through the
math a bit before we all suddenly freak and do another over nighter. Think about how one might spread the
partial default over a 15 year period.
All of us, stuck with 40 years of flat earth economic planning without a clue. Now we have a year at
best to nail down the Lucas criteria and get a default done with some science behind it.
I doubt it. I figure we will all go to monetary meetup with our insurance contracts ready to be
confirmed. That is impossible and Trump will be stuck doing a volatile, overnight partial default, like
Nixon.,
EMichael
,
May 31, 2020 12:02 pm
Dennis,
The states you mentioned have overwhelmingly voted Rep for the last 3 decades in their state races. One
of them has instituted right to work laws, and the other two have come very close to doing the same.
The white working class cares nothing about unions at all. They have been voting against them for
decades. It's why union rights and membership has deteriorated for 5 decades.
run75441
,
May 31, 2020 12:32 pm
EM:
Notably, I had posted the 2016 presidential election numbers numbers for MI, PA, and WI which
resulted in an "anyone but Trump or Clinton vote" and gave th election to Trump. The "anyone but Trump
or Clinton vote" resulted in a historical high for the "others" category and was anywhere from 3 to 6
times higher than previously experienced in other presidential elections. It also resulted in those
three states casting Electoral votes for a Republican presidential candidate since 1992 – MI, 1988 –
PA, and 1988 – WI. While this does defeat your comment above on those states voting Republican, it does
not take away from your other comment on Sarandon. People punished themselves with Trump in spite of
every obvious clue he demonstrated of being a loon. In this case the white working class voted against
themselves for Trump and those of Sarandon's ilk helped them along by voting for "others."
EMichael
,
May 31, 2020 12:45 pm
Run, I stated in "state elections".
Y'know one other thing I have seen in MI voting is that the amount of people who voted did not cast a
voted for President also was the highest ever. Thinking these are the same people like Sarandon. It was
close to 90,000 in MI.
"87,810: Number of voters this election who cast a ballot but did not cast a vote for president. That
compares to 49,840 undervotes for president in 2012.
5 percent: Proportion of voters who opted for a third-party candidate in this election, compared to 1
percent in 2012."
Thanks for your comment and the link. Wow! Where to start, huh?
SEIU was a player from the get go, but I don't want to go there just now.
Before Reagan, there was the first rust belt move to the non-union south. Why was the south so
anti-union? I think this stuff is engendered from infancy and most of us are incapable of thinking anew
when it comes to stuff our parents 'taught' us. MLK was the best thing that ever happened to the dirt-road
poor south, yet they hated him and they hated the very unions that might have lifted them up. They did
seem to take pleasure in the yanks' loss of jobs.
I think the Reagan era was prelude to what is going on now, i.e., going backward while yelling whee
look at me go. No doubt, Reagan turned union members against their own unions. But, the genesis of demise
probably lay with automation and the early offshoring to Mexico. By Reagan, the car plants were losing
jobs to Toyota and Honda and automation. By 1990, car plants that had previously employed 5,000, now
automated, produced more cars employing only 1200. At the time, much of the nation's wealth was still
derived from car production.
Skipping forward a bit, the democrats blew it for years with all their talk about the 'middle-class'
without realizing it was the 'disappearing middle-class'. They ignored the poor working-class vote and
lost election after election.
I've come to not like the term labor, think it affords capital an undeserved status, though much
diminished, I think thought all workers would be better off in a union. Otherwise, as we are witnessing,
there is no parity between workers and wealth; we are in a race to the bottom with the wealth increasingly
go to the top.
ken melvin
,
May 31, 2020 1:15 pm
Matthew – thanks for your comment
I think that we are into a transition (about 45 yrs into) as great as the industrial revolution. We, as
probably those poor souls of the 18th and 19th centuries did, are floundering, unable to come to terms
with what is going on.
I also think that those such as the Kochs have a good grasp of what is going on and are moving to
protect themselves and their class.
ken melvin
,
May 31, 2020 1:21 pm
EMichael, thanks for the comment
Are you implying that the politicians are way behind the curve? If so, I think that you are right.
Let me share what I was thinking last night about thinking:
Descartes' problem was that he desperately wanted to make philosophy work within the framework of his
religion, Catholicism. Paul Krugman desperately wants to make economics all work within the Holy Duality
of Capitalism and Free Markets. Even Joe Stiglitz can't step out of this text. All things being possible,
it is possible that either could come up with a solution to today's economic problems that would fit
within the Two; but the odds are not good. Better to think anew.
We see politicians try and try to find solutions for today's problems from within their own
dogmas/ideologies. Even if they can't, they persist, they still try to impose these dogmas/ideologies in
the desperate hope they might work if only applied to a greater degree. How else explain any belief that
markets could anticipate and respond to pandemics? That markets could best respond to housing demand?
Racism Is the Biggest Reason the U.S. Safety Net Is So Weak
Harvard economist Alberto Alesina, who died last week, found that ethnic divisions made the country less
effective at providing public goods.
7:50 AM · May 31, 2020
The Alesina/Glaeser/Sacerdote paper on why America doesn't have a European-style welfare state -- racism
-- had a big impact on my own thinking 2/
For a long time anyone who pointed out that the modern GOP is basically a party that serves plutocratic
ends by weaponizing white racism was treated as "shrill" and partisan. Can we now admit the obvious? 3/
EMichael
,
May 31, 2020 1:53 pm
Ken,
Half the politicians are behind the curve. When George Wallace showed the GOP how to win elections
(Don't ever get outniggerred) the Dem Party failed to see and react to it. Then the Kochs of the world
stepped in with the John Birch society (fromerly the KKK) and started playing race against class, which
resulted in the white working class supporting anti-labor pols and legislation.
The election of Obama caused the racists to go totally off the reservation with the Tea Party (formerly
the KKK and the John Birch Society) and lead us to where we are now.
Of course, the corporate world followed the blueprint.
Way past time for the Dem Party to start attacking on a constant basis the racist GOP. And also to
start appealing more to workers, though the 2016 platform certainly did that to a large degree, and the
2020 platform looks to be mush more supportive of labor than ever.
"It's a detailed and aggressive agenda that includes doubling the minimum wage and tripling funding for
schools with low-income students. He is proposing the most sweeping overhaul of immigration policy in a
generation, the biggest pro-union push in three generations, and the most ambitious environmental agenda
of all time.
If Democrats take back the Senate in the fall, Biden could make his agenda happen. A primary is about
airing disagreements, but legislating is about building consensus. The Democratic Party largely agrees on
a suite of big policy changes that would improve the lives of millions of Americans in meaningful ways.
Biden has detailed, considered plans to put much of this agenda in place. But getting these plans done
will be driven much more by the outcome of the congressional elections than his questioned ambition.
A big minimum wage increase
Biden's commitment to raising the federal minimum wage from its current $7.25 to $15 an hour is one of
the least talked-about plans at stake in the 2020 election.
In the 2016 cycle when Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders disagreed about raising the minimum wage to
$15 per hour, the debate was the subject of extensive coverage. By the 2020 cycle, all the major
Democratic candidates were on board, so it didn't come up much. But it's significant that this is no
longer controversial in Democratic Party circles. If the party is broadly comfortable with the wage hike
as a matter of both politics and substance, Democrats in Congress are likely to make it happen if it's at
all possible.
Noji Olaigbe, left, from the Fight for $15 minimum wage movement, speaks during a McDonald's workers'
strike in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on May 23, 2019. David Santiago/Miami Herald/Tribune News
Service/Getty Images
The $15-an-hour minimum wage increase is also a signature issue for Biden. He endorsed New York's
version of it in the fall of 2015, back when he was vice president and his boss Barack Obama was pushing a
smaller federal raise.
A big minimum wage hike polls well, it aligns with Biden's thematic emphasis on "the dignity of work,"
and it's a topic on which he's genuinely been a leader. It reflects his political sensibilities, which are
moderate but in a decidedly more populist mode than Obama's technocratic one.
Biden has a big Plan A to support organized labor, and a Plan B that's still consequential and
considerably more plausible politically.
Beyond a general disposition to be a good coalition partner to organized labor, the centerpiece of his
union agenda is support for the PRO Act, which passed the House of Representatives earlier this year.
That bill, were it to become law, would be the biggest victory for unions and collective bargaining
since the end of World War II -- overriding state "right to work" laws, barring mandatory anti-union
briefings from management during organizing campaigns, imposing much more meaningful financial penalties
on companies that illegally fire workers for pro-union activity, and allowing organizing through a
streamlined card check process. Separately, Biden and House Democrats have lined up behind a Public
Service Freedom to Negotiate Act that would bolster public sector workers' collective bargaining rights. "
One of the big issues here is Biden not committing to killing the filibuster, in addition to Dem
Senators not in agreement either. That would be a disaster for any legislation.
Makes sense not to run on ending the filibuster now, as there is a chance trump can win and teh GOP
keeps the Senate. But if the opposite happens and Biden wins and Dems take the Senate, they will have to
pivot quickly to getting rid of the filibuster. Apply any and all possible pressure to those Dem Senators
who do not agree with that. Threaten them with losing committee posts; primary opponents; the kitchen
sink.
Yes, it poses a risk in the event the Reps get a trifecta again, but it is time to flood progressive
legislation into law, and getting rid of the filibuster is the only way.
And if they can hit the trifecta and bring this platform to fruition, they won't have to worry about a
GOP trifecta for a long, long time. Possibly forever.
Why Doesn't the United States Have a European-Style Welfare State?
By Alberto Alesina, Edward Glaeser and Bruce Sacerdote
Abstract
European countries are much more generous to the poor relative to the US level of generosity. Economic
models suggest that redistribution is a function of the variance and skewness of the pre-tax income
distribution, the volatility of income (perhaps because of trade shocks), the social costs of taxation and
the expected income mobility of the median voter. None of these factors appear to explain the differences
between the US and Europe. Instead, the differences appear to be the result of racial heterogeneity in the
US and American political institutions. Racial animosity in the US makes redistribution to the poor, who
are disproportionately black, unappealing to many voters. American political institutions limited the
growth of a socialist party, and more generally limited the political power of the poor.
rick shapiro
,
May 31, 2020 2:07 pm
This dynamic is not limited to low-skill jobs. I have seen it at work in electronics engineering. When
I was a sprat, job shoppers got an hourly wage nearly twice that of their company peers, because they had
no benefits or long-term employment. Today, job shoppers are actually paid less than company engineers;
and the companies are outsourcing ever more of their staffing to the brokers.
Without labor market frictions, the iron law of wages drives wages to starvation levels. As sophisticated
uberization software eliminates the frictions that have protected middle class wages in the recent past,
we will all need to enlist unionization and government wage standards to protect us.
ken melvin
,
May 31, 2020 2:29 pm
Rick
The big engineering offices of the 70s were decimated and worse by the mid-90s; mostly by the advent of
computers w/ software. One engineer could now do the work of 10 and didn't need any draftsman.
rick shapiro
,
May 31, 2020 2:40 pm
I was speaking of engineers with equal skill in the same office. Many at GE Avionics were laid off, and
came back as lower paid contract empoyees.
ken melvin
,
May 31, 2020 2:46 pm
Rick
Die biden
ken melvin
,
May 31, 2020 2:52 pm
beiden
The both
ken melvin
,
May 31, 2020 3:05 pm
EMichael
Minimum wage, the row about the $600, all such things endanger the indentured servant economic model
so favored in the south. Keep them poor and hungry and they will work for next to nothing. 'Still they
persist.' On PBS, a black woman cooking for a restaurant said that she was being paid less than $4/hr.
Don't understand the protests? What you're seeing is people pushed to the edge
By KAREEM ABDUL-JABBAR – Los Angeles Times
What was your first reaction when you saw the video of the white cop kneeling on George Floyd's neck
while Floyd croaked, "I can't breathe"?
If you're white, you probably muttered a horrified, "Oh, my God" while shaking your head at the cruel
injustice. If you're black, you probably leapt to your feet, cursed, maybe threw something (certainly
wanted to throw something), while shouting, "Not @#$%! 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 .
run75441
,
May 31, 2020 9:39 pm
anne:
If you rcomments are not appearing they are going to spam, Just let me know and I will fish them out
of spam. Just approved 4 of yours.
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.
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"... Instead of reining in the "globalist elites" he so vociferously ran against or those corporations "who have no loyalty to America," his one legislative achievement has been to award them a massive tax cut. Through it, he has maintained their favorite mix of low revenue intake and high deficits which gives Republicans a pretext to "starve the beast" and induce fiscal anorexia. ..."
"... Trump ran as a populist firebrand -- a fusion of Huey Long and Ross Perot -- and while he never abandoned that style, he has governed for the most part as a milquetoast free market Republican in perfect tandem with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, one whose solution to everything is more tax cuts and deregulation: a kind of turbo-charged "high-energy Jeb." ..."
"... With the outbreak of COVID-19, many on the reformist right are hoping for the emergence of the President Trump they thought they were promised, a leader just as ready to break out of the donor-enforced "small government" straitjacket while in power as he was during the campaign. ..."
"... The heightened rhetoric against China will continue -- the one thing Trump is good at -- but it is unlikely to be matched with the required policy ..."
"... If neoliberalism excused inequality at home by extolling the equalization of incomes across the globe (millions of Chinese raised from poverty, while millions of American workers fall back into it!), the new position must shift emphasis back to ensuring a more equitable domestic distribution of wealth and opportunity across all classes and communities in this country. ..."
"... It is worth pondering what might have happened if the administration had gone the other way and followed the last piece of policy advice given by Steve Bannon before his ouster in August 2017. Bannon suggested raising the top marginal income tax rate to 44 percent while "arguing that it would actually hit left-wing millionaires in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street, and in Hollywood." ..."
"... It might well have put Trump on the path to becoming what Daniel Patrick Moynihan once proposed as a model for Richard Nixon when he gifted the 37th president a biography of Disraeli, namely a Tory Republican who could outsmart the left by crafting broad popular coalitions based on a blending of patriotic cultural conservatism with class-conscious economic and social policy. ..."
"... Then and even more so now, the idea resonates: a Reuters/Ipsos poll from January found that 64 percent of Americans support a wealth tax, a majority of Republicans included. Poll after poll has reaffirmed this. It seems as if there is right-wing populist support for taxing the rich more. ..."
"... There is one more thing to be said about the significance of taxing the rich. Up until very recently, there has been a prevailing tendency among the reformist right (with some important exceptions) to couch criticism of the elites primarily or even exclusively in cultural terms. There seems to have been a polite hesitation at taking the cultural critique to its logical economic conclusions. It is easy to excoriate the excesses of elite identity politics, the "woke" part of woke capitalism; it's something all conservatives -- and indeed growing numbers of liberals and socialists -- agree on. Fish in a barrel. ..."
"... But to challenge the capitalism part, i.e. free market orthodoxy, not in a secondary or tertiary way, but head on and in specific policy terms as Lofgren and a few others have done, would involve confronting difficult truths, namely that the biggest beneficiaries of tax cuts and Reaganite economic policy in general, which most conservatives enthusiastically promoted for four decades, are the selfsame decadent coastal elites they claim to oppose. It is they who more than anyone else thrive on financialized globalization, arbitrage and offshoring. ..."
"... In other words, it amounts to an honest recognition of the complicity of conservatism in the mess we're in, which is perhaps a psychological bridge too far for too many on the right, reformist or not. (Trigger Warning!) This separation of culture and economics has led to the farce of a self-styled nationalist president lining the pockets of his nominal enemies, the globalist ruling class. ..."
"... A conservative call to tax the rich would signal that the right is ready to end this charade and chart a course toward a more patriotic, public-spirited and yes, proudly hyphenated capitalism. ..."
"... Michael Cuenco is a writer on politics and policy. He has also written for American Affairs. ..."
They also left worker wages stagnant and increased the deficit. Where is our more nationalist economic policy?
Much has been written about the disappointment of certain segments of the right in the apparent capitulation of Donald Trump to
the agenda of the conservative establishment.
Instead of reining in the "globalist elites" he so vociferously ran against or those corporations "who have no loyalty to America,"
his one legislative achievement has been to award them a massive tax cut. Through it, he has maintained their favorite mix of low
revenue intake and high deficits which gives Republicans a pretext to "starve the beast" and induce fiscal anorexia.
The president has granted them as well their ideal labor market through an ingenious formula: double down on mostly symbolic raids
(as opposed to systemic solutions like Mandatory E-Verify) and ramp up the rhetoric about "shithole countries" to distract the media,
but keep the supply of cheap, exploitable low-skill labor (legal and illegal) intact for the business lobby.
Trump ran as a populist firebrand -- a fusion of Huey Long and Ross Perot -- and while he never abandoned that style, he has governed
for the most part as a milquetoast free market Republican in perfect tandem with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, one whose solution
to everything is more tax cuts and deregulation: a kind of turbo-charged "high-energy Jeb."
With the outbreak of COVID-19, many on the reformist right are hoping for the emergence of the President Trump they thought they
were promised, a leader just as ready to break out of the donor-enforced "small government" straitjacket while in power as he was
during the campaign.
Despite signs of progress, what's more likely is a return to business as usual. Already the GOP's impulse for austerity and parsimony
is proving to be stronger than any willingness to think and act outside the box.
The heightened rhetoric against China will continue -- the one thing Trump is good at -- but it is unlikely to be matched with
the required policy, such as a long-term plan to reshore U.S. industry (that doesn't just rely on blindly giving corporations the
benefit of the doubt). At this point, we already know where the president's priorities lie when given a choice between the advancement
of America's workers or continued labor arbitrage and carte blanche corporate handouts.
Lest they be engulfed by it like everyone else, the reformist right should ask: is there any way to stand athwart the supply-side
swamp yelling Stop?
Many of these conservatives lament the Trump tax cut not just because it was a disaster that failed to spark reinvestment, left
wages stagnant, needlessly blew up the deficit and served as a slush fund for stock buybacks, but more fundamentally because it betrayed
the overwhelming intellectual inertia and lack of imagination that characterizes conservative policymaking.
More than in any other issue then, a distinct position on taxes would make the new conservatism truly worth distinguishing from
the old: tax cuts were after all the defining policy dogma of the neoliberal Reagan era.
If neoliberalism excused inequality at home by extolling the equalization of incomes across the globe (millions of Chinese raised
from poverty, while millions of American workers fall back into it!), the new position must shift emphasis back to ensuring a more
equitable domestic distribution of wealth and opportunity across all classes and communities in this country.
A reformulation of fiscal policy along populist economic nationalist lines can help with that.
It is worth pondering what might have happened if the administration had gone the other way and followed the last piece of policy
advice given by Steve Bannon before his ouster in August 2017. Bannon suggested raising the top marginal income tax rate to 44 percent
while "arguing that it would actually hit left-wing millionaires in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street, and in Hollywood."
Such a move would have been nothing short of revolutionary: it would have been a faithful and full-blown expression of the populist
economic nationalism Trump ran on; it would have presented a genuine material threat to the elite ruling class of both parties, and
likely would have pre-empted the shock value of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposing a 70 percent top marginal rate.
It might well have put Trump on the path to becoming what Daniel Patrick Moynihan once proposed as a model for Richard Nixon when
he gifted the 37th president a biography of Disraeli, namely a Tory Republican who could outsmart the left by crafting broad popular
coalitions based on a blending of patriotic cultural conservatism with class-conscious economic and social policy.
Not that Trump would have needed to go back to Nixon or Disraeli for instruction on the matter. In 1999, long before Elizabeth
Warren came along on the national scene, a presidential candidate eyeing the Reform Party nomination contemplated the imposition
of a 14.25 percent wealth tax on America's richest citizens in order to pay off the national debt: his name was Donald Trump.
What ever happened to that guy? The Trump of 1999 was onto something. Maybe this could be a way to deal with our post-pandemic
deficits.
Then and even more so now, the idea resonates: a Reuters/Ipsos poll from January found that 64 percent of Americans support a
wealth tax, a majority of Republicans included. Poll after poll has reaffirmed this. It seems as if there is right-wing populist
support for taxing the rich more.
To the common refrain, "the rich are just going to find ways to shelter their income or relocate it offshore," I have written
elsewhere about the concrete policy measures countries can and have taken to clip the wings of mobile global capital and prevent
such an outcome.
I have written as well about how taxing the rich and tightening the screws on tax enforcement have implications that go beyond
the merely redistributive approach to fiscal policy conventionally favored by the left; about how it can be a form of leverage against
an unaccountable investor class used to shopping at home and abroad for the most opaque assets in which to hoard vast amounts of
essentially idle capital.
A deft administration would use aggressive fiscal policy as an inducement for this irresponsible class to make things right by
reinvesting in such priorities as the wages and well-being of workers, the vitality of communities, the strength of strategic industries
and the productivity of the real economy – or else Uncle Sam will tax their wealth and do it for them.
It would also be an assertion of national sovereignty against globalization's command for countries to stay "competitive" by immiserating
their citizens with ever-lower taxes on capital holders and ever more loose and "flexible" labor markets in a never-ending race to
the bottom.
Mike Lofgren has penned a marvelous essay in these pages about the virtual secession of the rich from the American nation, "with
their prehensile greed, their asocial cultural values, and their absence of civic responsibility."
What better way to remind them that they are still citizens of a country and members of a society -- and not just floating streams
of deracinated capital -- than by making them perform that most basic of civic duties, paying one's fair share and contributing to
the commonweal? America need not revert to the 70-90 percent top marginal rates of the bolshevik administrations of Truman, Eisenhower
or Kennedy, but proposals for modest moves in that direction would be welcome.
There is one more thing to be said about the significance of taxing the rich. Up until very recently, there has been a prevailing
tendency among the reformist right (with some important exceptions) to couch criticism of the elites primarily or even exclusively
in cultural terms. There seems to have been a polite hesitation at taking the cultural critique to its logical economic conclusions.
It is easy to excoriate the excesses of elite identity politics, the "woke" part of woke capitalism; it's something all conservatives
-- and indeed growing numbers of liberals and socialists -- agree on. Fish in a barrel.
But to challenge the capitalism part, i.e. free market orthodoxy, not in a secondary or tertiary way, but head on and in specific
policy terms as Lofgren and a few others have done, would involve confronting difficult truths, namely that the biggest beneficiaries
of tax cuts and Reaganite economic policy in general, which most conservatives enthusiastically promoted for four decades, are the
selfsame decadent coastal elites they claim to oppose. It is they who more than anyone else thrive on financialized globalization,
arbitrage and offshoring.
In other words, it amounts to an honest recognition of the complicity of conservatism in the mess we're in, which is perhaps
a psychological bridge too far for too many on the right, reformist or not. (Trigger Warning!) This separation of culture and economics
has led to the farce of a self-styled nationalist president lining the pockets of his nominal enemies, the globalist ruling class.
Already, the White House is proposing yet another gigantic corporate tax cut. Using the exact same discredited logic as the last
one, senior economic advisor Larry Kudlow wants Americans to trust him when he says that halving the already lowered 2017 rate to
10.5 percent will encourage these eminently reasonable multinationals to reinvest. There he goes again.
A conservative call to tax the rich would signal that the right is ready to end this charade and chart a course toward a more
patriotic, public-spirited and yes, proudly hyphenated capitalism.
Michael Cuenco is a writer on politics and policy. He has also written for American Affairs.
"America need not revert to the 70-90 percent top marginal rates of the bolshevik administrations of Truman, Eisenhower or Kennedy,
but proposals for modest moves in that direction would be welcome."
Those tax rates were offset by direct investment in the US economy. So if I invested in the stock market, I'd get a 90% tax
rate because that doesn't produce actual wealth. On the other hand, if I invested in building factories that created thousands
of jobs for American citizens, my tax rate may fall to 0%. And those policies created a fantastic economy that we oldsters remember
as the golden age. That wasn't bolshevism, it was competitive capitalism. What we have today is libertarianism. And as long as
conservatives are going to let the libertarian boogey-man's nose under the tent, we are going to have this ugly, bifurcated economy.
Your choice. Man up.
You ever tell hear of sarcasm, bud? I think that's what the author was going for. Don't think he was trying to say that Ike and
Truman were Bolsheviks but was rather making fun of libertarians who hyperbolically associate high tax rates with socialism and
Soviet Communism...
We absolutely do not have libertarianism operating in this country today. There is simply no evidence that there is any
sort of libertarian economic or political system in place. Oh sure, you'll whine "but globalism without actually defining
what globalism is, or what is wrong about precisely, but just that it's somehow wrong and that libertarians are to blame for it.
There's a good word for such an argument: bullshit.
We have an economy that is extraordinarily dominated by the state via mandates, regulations, and monetary interference that is
most decidedly not libertarian in any way whatsoever. The current system though does create and perpetuate a system of
rent-seeking cronies who conform rather nicely to the descriptions of said actors by Buchanan and Tullock. The problems of the
modern economy are the result of state interference, not its absence, and Cuenco's sorry policy prescriptions do nothing to minimize
the state but instead just create a different set of rent-seeking cronies for which the wealth and incomes of the nation are to
be expropriated.
If you can point to how the current situation is in any way "libertarian" without creating your own perfect little lazy straw
man definition then by all means do so. Until then your retort is without
substance (you see a no true Scotsman reply doesn't work if the facts are in the favor of the person supposedly making such an
argument. Here you fail to establish why what I said is such a case; saying it doesn't make it so). When Kent makes some throwaway
comment that we're somehow living in some sort of libertarian era he's full of it, you know it, and all you can do is provide
some weak "no true Scotsman" defense? Come on and man up, stop appealing to artificial complaints of fallacious argumentation,
and give me an actual solid argument with evidence beyond "this is so libertarian" that we're living in some libertarian golden
age that's driving the oppression of the masses.
Busted unions, contracting out and privatization, deregulation of vast swaths of the economy since the late 1970's (Jimmy Carter
has gotten kudos from libertarian writers for his de-regulatory efforts), lowered tax rates, especially on financial speculation
and concentrated wealth, a blind eye or shrugged shoulder to anti-trust law and corporate consolidation. Yeah, nothing to see
here, no partial victories for the libertarian wings of the ruling class or the GOP, at all. The Koch Brothers accomplished nothing,
absolutely nothing, since David was the Libertarian Party's nominee for Vice President in 1980; all that money gone to waste.
Sure.
So, now some sort of "partial victory" means we're living in some sort of libertarian era? And what exactly was so wonderful about
all the things you listed being perpetuated? So, union "busting" is terrible, but union corruption was a great part of our national
solidarity and should have been protected? Deregulation of vast swathes of the economy? You mean the elimination of government
controlled cartels in the form of trucking and airlines? You mean the sorts of things that have enabled the working class folks
you supposedly favor to travel to places that were previously out of reach for them and only accessible to the rich for their
vacations? Yes, that's truly terrible. Again, you're on the side of the little guy, right? Lowered taxes? Are you seriously going
to argue that the traditional conservative position has been for high tax rates? What are taxes placed upon? People and property.
What do conservatives want to protect? People and property. So... arguing for higher taxes or saying that low taxes are bad or
even especially, libertarian, is really going off the rails. That's just bad reasoning. And regarding financialization, those
weren't especially libertarian in their enacting, but rather flow directly out of the consequences of the modern Progressive implementation
of neo-Keynesian monetary and fiscal policy. Suffice it to say, I don't think you'll find too many arguments from libertarians
that the policies encouraging financialization were good or followed libertarian economic policy prescriptions. Moreover, they
led entirely to the repulsive "too big to fail" situation and if there's one thing that libertarians hold to is that there is
no such thing (or shouldn't be) as "too big to fail." The objection to anti-trust law is that it was regularly abused and actually
created government-protected firms that harmed consumers. If you think anti-trust laws are good things and should be supported
by conservatives then by all means encourage Joe Biden to have Elizabeth Warren as his vice-presidential running mate and go vote
Democrat this fall.
"The problems of the modern economy are the result of state interference, not its absence". That's because the "state interference"
is working as proxy for the interests of vulture capitalist.
What we have today is vulture capitalism as opposed to free enterprise capitalism.
Exactly. The existence of a vulture capitalist or crony capitalist economy, which we have in many sectors, is evidence that "libertarianism"
is nothing more than a convenient totem to invoke as a rationale for complaint against the outcomes of the existing crony capitalist
state of affairs. My contention is that Cuenco, et al are simply advocating for a replacement of the cronies and vultures.
A very similar article(but probably coming at it from a slightly different angle) wouldn't look out of place in a socialist publication.
The culture war really is a pointless waste of time that keeps working class people from working towards a common solution to
shared problems.
I used to think that conservatism was about protecting private property and not, like Cuenco, in coming up with ever more excuses
for expropriating it.
No, that's libertarianism (or more properly propertarianism). Conservatism is first and foremost about responsibility to God,
community, family and self. Property is only of value in its utility towards a means.
As I see it, here are examples of how "conservatives" have actually practiced their "responsibility to God, community, family
and self":
The genocide of Native Americans
The slavery and murder of blacks
Their opposition to child labor laws, to womens' suffrage, etc.
Their support of Jim Crow laws
Their opposition to ending slavery and opposition to desegregation
Opposition to Civil Liberties Laws
Willingness to block, or curtail, voting rights.
Hyping the "imminent threat" of an ever more powerful communist menace bearing
down on us from the late 40s to the "unanticipated" collapse of the
USSR in '91. All of which was little more than endless "threat inflation" used
by our defense industry-corporate kleptocrats to justify monstrous increases
in deficits that have been "invested" in our meddlesome, murderous militarism all around the world, with the torture and deaths
of millions from S. E. Asia, to Indonesia, to Latin America, to the Middle East, to Africa, etc.
Violations of privacy rights (conservative hero J. Edgar Hoover's illegal domestic surveillance and acts of domestic terrorism,
"justified" by
his loopy paranoia about commies on every corner and under every bed.)
Toppling of democracies to install totalitarian despots in Iran
("Ike" '53), Guatemala (Ike, again, '54), Chile (Nixon '73), Brazil (LBJ, '64) and many, many more countries.
Strong support of the Vietnam War, the wars in Laos and Cambodia, and the Iraq War, which, according to conservative W. Bush,
God had inspired.
The myriad "dirty wars" we've fought around the world, and not only in Latin America.
With a few, notable exceptions, conservatives have routinely been on the wrong side of these issues. For the most part, it
has been the left, particularly the "hard left," that has gotten it right.
So conservatism should be entirely about taking people's property "for the good of the country"? That the purpose of a country
is to loot the people? That the people exist for the government and not the government for the people? Seems Edmund Burke and
Russell Kirk would like to have a word with you Adm.
To quote Kirk as just one example of your fundamental error:
Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked . [Apparently, Adm. you dispute
Kirk's assertion and accuse him thereby of conflating libertarianism and conservatism. Yes, I know Kirk was a hater of the
idea of patriotism, but he was such a raging libertarian what else could he do?] Separate property from private possession,
and Leviathan becomes master of all. Upon the foundation of private property, great civilizations are built. The more widespread
is the possession of private property, the more stable and productive is a commonwealth. Economic levelling[this
is the outcome of Cuenco's policy prescriptions by the way] , conservatives maintain, is not economic progress. Getting
and spending are not the chief aims of human existence; but a sound economic basis for the person, the family, and the commonwealth
is much to be desired.
So, either "Mr. Conservative" Russell Kirk wasn't really a conservative but a man who horribly conflated libertarianism and
conservatism, or we can say that Kirk was a conservative and that he recognized the protection of private property as crucial
in minimizing the control and reach of the Leviathan state. If the latter holds, then maybe what we've established is that AdmBenson
isn't particularly conservative.
"The more widespread is the possession of private property, the more stable and productive is a commonwealth." This status quo
has produced precisely the opposite of this. Wealth, assets, capital has been captured by the elite. The pitchforks are coming.
See this CBO chart:
View Hide
Conservatives accept taxes as a part of citizenship. Since taxes can't be avoided, a conservative insists on democratic representation
and has a general desire to get maximum bang for their taxpayer buck.
Libertarians, on the other hand, see everything through the lens of an individual's property rights. Taxes and regulation are
infringements on those rights, so a libertarian is always at war with their own government. They're not interested in bang for
their taxpayer buck, they just want the government to go away. I can't fault people for believing this way, but I can point out
that it is severely faulty as the operating philosophy beyond anything but a small community.
As for me not being particularly conservative, ya got me. It really depends on time of day and the level of sunspot activity.
I should have put the /s on my reply, but your response did give me a good chuckle. Besides, for that finger pointing at you,
there were three more pointing back at me.
And somehow people continually fall for the Trickle Down economic theory. George HW Bush was correct when he called this VooDoo
economics. Fiscal irresponsibility at it's finest.
Nah people don't fall for it, republicans do. The rest of us know this stuff doesn't work. We didn't need an additional datapoint
to realize that. The Tax Cuts and Jobs act was the single most unpopular piece of legislation to ever pass since polling began.
It never had support outside of the Republican Party which is why it's never had majority support.
John Kenneth Galbraith called Trickle Down "economics", "Oats and Horse Economics". If you feed the horse a lot of oats, eventually
some be left on the road...
Mitch is fully owned by Trump as is every republican that holds office except Romney. Mitch can't go to the bathroom with out
asking Trumps permission.
Mitch is owned by corporations and he likes it that way. He basically says as much whenever campaign finance reform pops up and
he defends the status quo.
Yep. The guy who declared war on the Tea Party. The guy who changed his tune entirely about China when he married into the family
of a shipping magnate.
I'm eagerly awaiting a GOP plan for economic restructuring. I've been waiting for decade(s). Surely there is someone in the entire
body of think tanks, congressional staffers, and political class that can propose a genuine and comprehensive plan for how to
rebalance production, education, and technology for the better of ALL Americans. Surely...
I honestly wonder if Jack Kemp might have had a "Road to Damascus" conversion away from his pseudo-libertarian and supply side
economic convictions if he had lived through the decade after the Great Recession. Probably not, given his political and economic
activity up until his death.
Trump pushed the tax cut because it saves him at least $20 million each year in taxes, probably closer to $50 million. That's
the only reason he does anything, because he benefits personally.
Thank you very much for posting the link to the wonderful essay by Mike Lofgren. Written 8 years ago it feels even more actual
than then. I have bookmarked it for future reference.
Looking at the US it always comes to my mind the way Rome and then Byzantium fell: a total erosion of the tax-base the rich
refused to pay anything to the imperial coffers, and then some of the rich had land bigger than some modern countries... And then
the barbarians came...
Lofgren: "What I mean by secession is a withdrawal into enclaves, an internal immigration, whereby the rich disconnect themselves
from the civic life of the nation and from any concern about its well being except as a place to extract loot."
That was in 2012, but that was what struck me about my well-to-do classmates
when I transferred from Cal State Long Beach to Columbia University in 1977 . Suddenly I was among people who saw America,
American laws, and a shared sense of civic responsibility as quaint, bothersome, rather tangential to the project of promoting
oneself and/or one's special interest.
The only way that factories would come back is when Americans start buying made in America. We can't wait for ANY government to
bring those factories and jobs ( and technology) . Only people voting with their pocketbooks can do it.
Still waiting for the day the first American asks "What have WE done wrong?" Rather than just following in Trumps step
and playing the victim card every step of the way and wondering why nothing gets better.
US Lawmakers Propose Total Ban On STEM Visas For Chinese Students by Tyler Durden Thu, 05/28/2020 -
10:45 As the White House prepares to
eject Chinese graduate students with ties to the PLA, three US lawmakers are taking things
a step further - proposing a bill which would ban mainland Chinese students from studying STEM
subjects in the United States .
Two senators and one House member said on Wednesday that the Secure Campus Act would bar
Chinese nationals from obtaining visas for graduate or postgraduate studies in science,
technology, engineering and mathematics. Students from Taiwan and Hong Kong would be exempt ,
according to
SCMP .
"The Chinese Communist Party has long used American universities to conduct espionage on the
United States," said Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK), one of the bill's sponsors, adding "What's worse
is that their efforts exploit gaps in current law. It's time for that to end."
"The Secure Campus Act will protect our national security and maintain the integrity of the
American research enterprise."
The proposed legislation comes as diplomatic relations have fractured between the world's
two largest economies. The fissures started to show during a trade war that has been rumbling
on for almost two years and have only widened amid accusations about the handling of the
Covid-19 disease outbreak , and the treatment of ethnic minority groups in China.
Hong Kong is the latest flashpoint after Beijing drew up a national security law that
Washington says tramples on the city's mini-constitution. The US threatened retaliation over
the move.
-SCMP
The bill will also tackle China's efforts to recruit talent overseas through their Thousand
Talents Program , an operation launched in 2008 by the CCP which seeks out international
experts in scientific research, innovation and entrepreneurship. It proposes that participants
in China's recruitment of foreigners be made to register under the Foreign Agents Registration
Act (FARA) , and would prohibit Chinese nationals and those participating in China-sponsored
programs from receiving federal grants or working on federally funded R&D in STEM fields
.
Any university, research institute or laboratory receiving federal funding would be required
to attest that they are not knowingly employing participants in China's recruitment programs -
a list of which the US Secretary of State would publish.
US law enforcement and educational agencies have raised red flags about undisclosed ties
between federally funded researchers and foreign governments. A crackdown has included
indictments and dismissals.
In January, Charles Lieber, 60, chairman of the chemistry and chemical biology department
at Harvard University, was arrested and charged for lying about his involvement in the
Thousand Talents Programme .
-SCMP
Meanwhile, earlier this month a professor at the University of Arkansas who received
millions of dollars in research grants, including $500,000 from NASA, was
arrested and charged with one count of wire fraud.
According to the FBI, Ang failed to disclose that he was getting paid by a Chinese
university and Chinese companies in violation of university policy. He is accused of making
false statements while failing to disclose his extensive ties to China as a member of the
"Thousand Talents Scholars" program.
63-year-old Simon Saw-Teong Ang is the
director of the school's High Density Electronics Center, which received funding from the
National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Defense (DOD) and
NASA. Since 2013, Ang has been the primary investigator or co-investigator on US
government-funded grants totaling over $5 million, according to the
Washington Examiner .
In November, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations chaired by Sen. Rob Portman
(R-OH) released a
109-page bipartisan report which concluded that foreign nations "seek to exploit America's
openness to advance their own national interests," the most ambitious of which "has been
China," according to the Examiner . According to the report, Chinese academics involved in
their so-called 'Thousand Talents' program have been exploiting access to US research labs
.
Backlash
According to SCMP , members of the US scientific community see the US as unfairly targeting
Chinese colleagues , and that the campaigns will discourage talented individuals from pursuing
studies at US universities.
"While we must be vigilant to safeguard research, we must also ensure that the US remains a
desirable and welcoming destination for researchers from around the world," wrote members of
60 groups - including the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the
Federation of American Scientists, in a 2019 letter to science policy officials.
The US lawmakers' proposal follows China's March decision to revoke the press credentials
for US journalists from three major US newspapers - declaring five US media outlets to be
foreign government proxies. In February, the Trump administration labeled five Chinese state
media groups as "foreign missions" (via SCMP ).
From comments: "
neoliberalism to be a techno-economic order of control, requiring a state apparatus to enforce
wholly artificial directives. Also, the work of recent critics of data markets such as Shoshana
Zuboff has shown capitalism to be evolving into a totalitarian system of control through
cybernetic data aggregation."
"... By rolling back the state, neoliberalism was supposed to have allowed autonomy and
creativity to flourish. Instead, it has delivered a semi-privatised authoritarianism more
oppressive than the system it replaced. ..."
"... Workers find themselves enmeshed in a Kafkaesque bureaucracy , centrally controlled and
micromanaged. Organisations that depend on a cooperative ethic – such as schools and
hospitals – are stripped down, hectored and forced to conform to suffocating diktats. The
introduction of private capital into public services – that would herald a glorious new age
of choice and openness – is brutally enforced. The doctrine promises diversity and freedom
but demands conformity and silence. ..."
"... Their problem is that neoliberal theology, as well as seeking to roll back the state,
insists that collective bargaining and other forms of worker power be eliminated (in the name of
freedom, of course). So the marketisation and semi-privatisation of public services became not so
much a means of pursuing efficiency as an instrument of control. ..."
"... Public-service workers are now subjected to a panoptical regime of monitoring and
assessment, using the benchmarks von Mises rightly warned were inapplicable and absurd. The
bureaucratic quantification of public administration goes far beyond an attempt at discerning
efficacy. It has become an end in itself. ..."
Notable quotes:
"... By rolling back the state, neoliberalism was supposed to have allowed autonomy and creativity to flourish. Instead, it has delivered a semi-privatised authoritarianism more oppressive than the system it replaced. ..."
"... Workers find themselves enmeshed in a Kafkaesque bureaucracy , centrally controlled and micromanaged. Organisations that depend on a cooperative ethic – such as schools and hospitals – are stripped down, hectored and forced to conform to suffocating diktats. The introduction of private capital into public services – that would herald a glorious new age of choice and openness – is brutally enforced. The doctrine promises diversity and freedom but demands conformity and silence. ..."
"... Their problem is that neoliberal theology, as well as seeking to roll back the state, insists that collective bargaining and other forms of worker power be eliminated (in the name of freedom, of course). So the marketisation and semi-privatisation of public services became not so much a means of pursuing efficiency as an instrument of control. ..."
"... Public-service workers are now subjected to a panoptical regime of monitoring and assessment, using the benchmarks von Mises rightly warned were inapplicable and absurd. The bureaucratic quantification of public administration goes far beyond an attempt at discerning efficacy. It has become an end in itself. ..."
"... The other point to be made is that the return of fundamentalist nationalism is arguably a radicalized form of neoliberalism. ..."
"... Therefore, neoliberal hegemony can only be perpetuated with authoritarian, nationalist ideologies and an order of market feudalism. In other words, neoliberalism's authoritarian orientations, previously effaced beneath discourses of egalitarian free-enterprise, become overt. ..."
"... The market is no longer an enabler of private enterprise, but something more like a medieval religion, conferring ultimate authority on a demagogue. Individual entrepreneurs collectivise into a 'people' serving a market which has become synonymous with nationhood. ..."
Thousands of people march through London to protest against underfunding and privatisation
of the NHS. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Barcroft Images M y life was saved last year by the
Churchill Hospital in Oxford, through a skilful procedure
to remove a cancer from my body . Now I will need another operation, to remove my jaw from
the floor. I've just learned what was happening at the hospital while I was being treated. On
the surface, it ran smoothly. Underneath, unknown to me, was fury and tumult. Many of the staff
had objected to a decision by the National Health Service
to privatise the hospital's cancer scanning . They complained that the scanners the private
company was offering were less sensitive than the hospital's own machines. Privatisation, they
said, would put patients at risk. In response,
as the Guardian revealed last week , NHS England threatened to sue the hospital for libel
if its staff continued to criticise the decision.
The dominant system of political thought in this country, which produced both the creeping
privatisation of public health services and this astonishing attempt to stifle free speech,
promised to save us from dehumanising bureaucracy. By rolling back the state, neoliberalism
was supposed to have allowed autonomy and creativity to flourish. Instead, it has delivered a
semi-privatised authoritarianism more oppressive than the system it replaced.
Workers find themselves enmeshed in a
Kafkaesque bureaucracy , centrally controlled and micromanaged. Organisations that depend
on a cooperative ethic – such as schools and hospitals – are stripped down,
hectored and forced to conform to suffocating diktats. The introduction of private capital into
public services – that would herald a glorious new age of choice and openness – is
brutally enforced. The doctrine promises diversity and freedom but demands conformity and
silence.
Much of the theory behind these transformations arises from the work of Ludwig von Mises. In
his book Bureaucracy , published in 1944, he
argued that there could be no accommodation between capitalism and socialism. The creation of
the National Health Service in the UK, the New Deal in the US and other experiments in social
democracy would lead inexorably to the bureaucratic totalitarianism of the Soviet Union and
Nazi Germany.
He recognised that some state bureaucracy was inevitable; there were certain functions that
could not be discharged without it. But unless the role of the state is minimised –
confined to defence, security, taxation, customs and not much else – workers would be
reduced to cogs "in a vast bureaucratic machine", deprived of initiative and free will.
By contrast, those who labour within an "unhampered capitalist system" are "free men", whose
liberty is guaranteed by "an economic democracy in which every penny gives a right to vote". He
forgot to add that some people, in his capitalist utopia, have more votes than others. And
those votes become a source of power.
His ideas, alongside the writings of
Friedrich Hayek , Milton Friedman and other neoliberal thinkers, have been applied in this
country by Margaret Thatcher, David Cameron, Theresa May and, to an alarming extent, Tony
Blair. All of those have attempted to privatise or marketise public services in the name of
freedom and efficiency, but they keep hitting the same snag: democracy. People want essential
services to remain public, and they are right to do so.
If you hand public services to private companies, either you create a private monopoly,
which can use its dominance to extract wealth and shape the system to serve its own needs
– or you introduce competition, creating an incoherent, fragmented service characterised
by the institutional failure you can see every day on our railways. We're not idiots, even if
we are treated as such. We know what the profit motive does to public services.
So successive governments decided that if they could not privatise our core services
outright, they would subject them to "market discipline". Von Mises repeatedly warned against
this approach. "No reform could transform a public office into a sort of private enterprise,"
he cautioned. The value of public administration "cannot be expressed in terms of money".
"Government efficiency and industrial efficiency are entirely different things."
"Intellectual work cannot be measured and valued by mechanical devices." "You cannot
'measure' a doctor according to the time he employs in examining one case." They ignored his
warnings.
Their problem is that neoliberal theology, as well as seeking to roll back the state,
insists that collective bargaining and other forms of worker power be eliminated (in the name
of freedom, of course). So the marketisation and semi-privatisation of public services became
not so much a means of pursuing efficiency as an instrument of control.
Public-service workers are now subjected to a panoptical regime of monitoring and
assessment, using the benchmarks von Mises rightly warned were inapplicable and absurd. The
bureaucratic quantification of public administration goes far beyond an attempt at discerning
efficacy. It has become an end in itself.
Its perversities afflict all public services. Schools teach to the test , depriving
children of a rounded and useful education. Hospitals manipulate waiting times, shuffling
patients from one list to another. Police forces ignore some crimes, reclassify others, and
persuade suspects to admit to extra offences to improve their statistics . Universities urge their
researchers to
write quick and superficial papers , instead of deep monographs, to maximise their scores
under the research excellence framework.
As a result, public services become highly inefficient for an obvious reason: the
destruction of staff morale. Skilled people, including surgeons whose training costs hundreds
of thousands of pounds, resign or retire early because of the stress and misery the system
causes. The leakage of talent is a far greater waste than any inefficiencies this quantomania
claims to address.
New extremes in the surveillance and control of workers are not, of course, confined to the
public sector. Amazon has patented
a wristband that can track workers' movements and detect the slightest deviation from
protocol. Technologies are used to monitor peoples' keystrokes, language, moods and tone of
voice. Some companies have begun to experiment with the
micro-chipping of their staff . As the philosopher Byung-Chul
Han points out , neoliberal work practices, epitomised by the gig economy, that
reclassifies workers as independent contractors, internalise exploitation. "Everyone is a
self-exploiting worker in their own enterprise."
The freedom we were promised turns out to be
freedom for capital , gained at the expense of human liberty. The system neoliberalism has
created is a bureaucracy that tends towards absolutism, produced in the public services by
managers mimicking corporate executives, imposing inappropriate and self-defeating efficiency
measures, and in the private sector by subjection to faceless technologies that can brook no
argument or complaint.
Attempts to resist are met by ever more extreme methods, such as the threatened lawsuit at
the Churchill Hospital. Such instruments of control crush autonomy and creativity. It is true
that the Soviet bureaucracy von Mises rightly denounced reduced its workers to subjugated
drones. But the system his disciples have created is heading the same way.
The other point to be made is that the return of fundamentalist nationalism is arguably a
radicalized form of neoliberalism. If 'free markets' of enterprising individuals have
been tested to destruction, then capitalism is unable to articulate an ideology with which to
legitimise itself.
Therefore, neoliberal hegemony can only be perpetuated with authoritarian, nationalist
ideologies and an order of market feudalism. In other words, neoliberalism's authoritarian
orientations, previously effaced beneath discourses of egalitarian free-enterprise, become
overt.
The market is no longer an enabler of private enterprise, but something more like a
medieval religion, conferring ultimate authority on a demagogue. Individual entrepreneurs
collectivise into a 'people' serving a market which has become synonymous with
nationhood.
A corporate state emerges, free of the regulatory fetters of democracy. The final
restriction on the market - democracy itself - is removed. There then is no separate market
and state, just a totalitarian market state.
This is the best piece of writing on neoliberalism I have ever seen. Look, 'what is in
general good and probably most importantly what is in the future good'. Why are we
collectively not viewing everything that way? Surely those thoughts should drive us all?
Pinkie123: So good to read your understandings of neoliberalism. The political project is the
imposition of the all seeing all knowing 'market' on all aspects of human life. This version
of the market is an 'information processor'. Speaking of the different idea of the
laissez-faire version of market/non market areas and the function of the night watchman state
are you aware there are different neoliberalisms? The EU for example runs on the version
called 'ordoliberalism'. I understand that this still sees some areas of society as separate
from 'the market'?
ADamnSmith: Philip Mirowski has discussed this 'under the radar' aspect of neoliberalism. How
to impose 'the market' on human affairs - best not to be to explicit about what you are
doing. Only recently has some knowledge about the actual neoliberal project been appearing.
Most people think of neoliberalism as 'making the rich richer' - just a ramped up version of
capitalism. That's how the left has thought of it and they have been ineffective in stopping
its implementation.
Finally. A writer who can talk about neoliberalism as NOT being a retro version of classical
laissez faire liberalism. It is about imposing "The Market" as the sole arbiter of Truth on
us all.
Only the 'Market' knows what is true in life - no need for 'democracy' or 'education'.
Neoliberals believe - unlike classical liberals with their view of people as rational
individuals acting in their own self-interest - people are inherently 'unreliable', stupid.
Only entrepreneurs - those close to the market - can know 'the truth' about anything. To
succeed we all need to take our cues in life from what the market tells us. Neoliberalism is
not about a 'small state'. The state is repurposed to impose the 'all knowing' market on
everyone and everything. That is neoliberalism's political project. It is ultimately not
about 'economics'.
The left have been entirely wrong to believe that neoliberalism is a mobilisation of
anarchic, 'free' markets. It never was so. Only a few more acute thinkers on the left
(Jacques Ranciere, Foucault, Deleuze and, more recently, Mark Fisher, Wendy Brown, Will
Davies and David Graeber) have understood neoliberalism to be a techno-economic order of
control, requiring a state apparatus to enforce wholly artificial directives. Also, the work
of recent critics of data markets such as Shoshana Zuboff has shown capitalism to be evolving
into a totalitarian system of control through cybernetic data aggregation.
Only in theory is neoliberalism a form of laissez-faire. Neoliberalism is not a case of the
state saying, as it were: 'OK everyone, we'll impose some very broad legal parameters, so
we'll make sure the police will turn up if someone breaks into your house; but otherwise
we'll hang back and let you do what you want'. Hayek is perfectly clear that a strong state
is required to force people to act according to market logic. If left to their own devices,
they might collectivise, think up dangerous utopian ideologies, and the next thing you know
there would be socialism. This the paradox of neoliberalism as an intellectual critique of
government: a socialist state can only be prohibited with an equally strong state. That is,
neoliberals are not opposed to a state as such, but to a specifically centrally-planned state
based on principles of social justice - a state which, to Hayek's mind, could only end in t
totalitarianism. Because concepts of social justice are expressed in language, neoliberals
are suspicious of linguistic concepts, regarding them as politically dangerous. Their
preference has always been for numbers. Hence, market bureaucracy aims for the quantification
of all values - translating the entirety of social reality into metrics, data, objectively
measurable price signals. Numbers are safe. The laws of numbers never change. Numbers do not
lead to revolutions. Hence, all the audit, performance review and tick-boxing that has been
enforced into public institutions serves to render them forever subservient to numerical
(market) logic. However, because social institutions are not measurable, attempts to make
them so become increasingly mystical and absurd. Administrators manage data that has no
relation to reality. Quantitatively unmeasurable things - like happiness or success - are
measured, with absurd results.
It should be understood (and I speak above all as a critic of neoliberalism) that
neoliberal ideology is not merely a system of class power, but an entire metaphysic, a way of
understanding the world that has an emotional hold over people. For any ideology to
universalize itself, it must be based on some very powerful ideas. Hayek and Von Mises were
Jewish fugitives of Nazism, living through the worst horrors of twentieth-century
totalitarianism. There are passages of Hayek's that describe a world operating according to
the rules of a benign abstract system that make it sound rather lovely. To understand
neoliberalism, we must see that it has an appeal.
However, there is no perfect order of price signals. People do not simply act according to
economic self-interest. Therefore, neoliberalism is a utopian political project like any
other, requiring the brute power of the state to enforce ideological tenets. With tragic
irony, the neoliberal order eventually becomes not dissimilar to the totalitarian regimes
that Hayek railed against.
Nationalised rail in the UK was under-funded and 'set up to fail' in its latter phase to make
privatisation seem like an attractive prospect. I have travelled by train under both
nationalisation and privatisation and the latter has been an unmitigated disaster in my
experience. Under privatisation, public services are run for the benefit of shareholders and
CEO's, rather than customers and citizens and under the opaque shroud of undemocratic
'commercial confidentiality'.
What has been very noticeable about the development of bureaucracy in the public and private
spheres over the last 40 years (since Thatcher govt of 79) has been the way systems are
designed now to place responsibility and culpability on the workers delivering the services -
Teachers, Nurses, social workers, etc. While those making the policies, passing the laws,
overseeing the regulations- viz. the people 'at the top', now no longer take the rap when
something goes wrong- they may be the Captain of their particular ship, but the
responsibility now rests with the man sweeping the decks. Instead they are covered by tying
up in knots those teachers etc. having to fill in endless check lists and reports, which have
as much use as clicking 'yes' one has understood those long legal terms provided by software
companies.... yet are legally binding. So how the hell do we get out of this mess? By us as
individuals uniting through unions or whatever and saying NO. No to your dumb educational
directives, No to your cruel welfare policies, No to your stupid NHS mismanagement.... there
would be a lot of No's but eventually we could say collectively 'Yes I did the right thing'.
'The left wing dialogue about neoliberalism used to be that it was the Wild West and that
anything goes. Now apparently it's a machine of mass control.'
It is the Wild West and anything goes for the corporate entities, and a machine of control
of the masses. Hence the wish of neoliberals to remove legislation that protects workers and
consumers.
By Peter Dorman, professor of economics at The Evergreen State College. Originally
published at Econospeak
Donald Trump, cheering on
his "warriors" who demand that states lift their lockdown and distancing orders (where they
have them), would have you believe this is about bringing the economy back to life so ordinary
people can get their jobs and normal lives back. Elitist
liberals who work from home and have country estates to retreat to don't care, but "real"
people do.
The reality is different. The shuttering of stores, restaurants, hotels and workplaces
didn't begin with government orders and won't end with them. If the rate of new infection
and death is too high, a lot of people won't go along. Not everyone, but enough to make a huge
economic difference. Ask any small business owner what it would mean for demand to drop by
25-50%. Lifting government orders won't magically restore the economic conditions of
mid-winter. So what's it about? Even as it makes a big PR show of supporting state by state
"liberation" in America, the Trump administration is
advising state governments on how to remove workers from unemployment insurance once orders
are lifted. Without government directives, employers can demand workers show up, and if they
refuse they no longer qualify. And why might workers refuse? Perhaps because their workplaces
are still unsafe and they have vulnerable family members they want to keep from getting
infected? Not good enough -- once the state has been "liberated".
How should we respond to this travesty? First, of course, by telling the truth that an
anti-worker, anti-human campaign is being conducted under the guise of defending workers. If
the Democrats weren't themselves such a tool of business interests we might hear that narrative
from them, but the rest of us are free to speak out and should start doing it, loudly, wherever
we can.
Second, one of the laws of the land is the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, which
gives workers the right to
refuse imminently hazardous work. This hasn't been used very often, nor is there much case
law around it, but the current pandemic is a good reason to pull it out of storage.
If there are public interest law firms looking for something useful to do during distancing,
they could advertise their willingness to defend workers who need to stay home until work is
safe -- while still getting their paycheck. If employers thought the choice was between public
support for workers sitting out the pandemic or their support for them we might hear less about
"liberation".
They want to throw people off of unemployment while using the virus threat to stop any
serious protests against that. It is literally biological warfare against working people.
Same class war as before, but now with CBW.
Taught it for years. This is the biggest net and is the # 1 Cited Violation for 1910/1926
and MSHA–ever.
OSHA 654 5(a)1 The General Duty Clause.
OSHA Laws & Regulations OSH Act of 1970
OSH Act of 1970
Table of Contents
General Duty Clause
Complete OSH Act Version ("All-in-One")
SEC.
5.
Duties
(a)
Each employer --
(1)
29 USC 654
shall furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free
from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical
harm to his employees;
(2)
shall comply with occupational safety and health standards promulgated under this Act.
(b)
Each employee shall comply with occupational safety and health standards and all rules,
regulations, and orders issued pursuant to this Act which are applicable to his own actions
and conduct.
Quick Take –Two way street.
Employers mus t mitigate hazards. Employees must comply with mitigation.
No Employer Mitigation=Breaking the Law=No Employee requirement to work in Unsafe
Conditions.
"Lifting all boats" was always a lie. It was simply a way to sell trickle down by claiming
that the objectively observable inequality it produced would somehow help everyone,
eventually, sort of. There was not and has never been a plan by the Conservative Movement to
lift all boats. Only a plan to feign interest in doing so.
I agree with most of your comment except the "smarter" part.
They don't seem smart to me, they openly plunder and loot and spit in the populace's
faces. They don't even pretend to believe in or work for a "common good" anymore, really.
That is the story of the 21st Century in the US, starting with Baby Bush II. (Okay, I get
that the Obama crew seemed "smart" or sophisticated to the PMC and comfortable liberals, but
how smart were they if they led to the open Kleptocratic Disruption of Trumpism and the God
Emperor?)
What the Elites have that the proles don't is in-group solidarity. (And a captured Media
establishment.) They protect their own, while the hoi polloi fight one another for
scraps.
What is the death rate among the working age population?
Seem like a tough hill to die on given the curve has flattened, hospitals are not
overflowing, and the economy is teetering on the edge of depression.
No one has a vaccine, this isn't going away any time soon. It's time to focus on
protecting the most vulnerable instead of pretending this effects everyone equally.
Allow states to cut benefits? Come on, UI benefits are taxed for pete's sake. 'Available
to work' basically means you have start at 8am the next day which is doesn't align with any
reality of hiring except in low end service sector jobs.
The other really significant thing is that 're-opening' doesn't necessarily mean returning
to business. For example, Musk insists on re-opening Tesla the assumption being that sales
are there to be had if they re-open. But if not no sales, no need for employees back down the
drain we go.
Same for restaurants. retail, hotels, transit and white collar jobs – attorneys,
architects, CPAs
The poorest and the most desperate actually. Some people still have not received any money
from the state or federal governments. The quarantine started about two months ago. So no
job, no income, no money, and no joke. No matter how shrewd or smart you are sometimes you
are not making the decisions. Reality makes them for you.
Well till the markets crashes again and they need to save the assets of the
wealthiest.
I just got a text from a buddy who is an electrician. His company just told him they are
not expecting to take any major work till second quarter of next year. They will only be
taking emergency calls. This is in Chicago.
Granted, it's a union site, but one point that they make is how union saturation raises
the wages for all workers within a given region.
In Appalachia, I was offered $15hr. to work as an electrician. In Chicagoland, starting
wages were close to or more than double that. Guess where I went in order to establish a
salary history? And no, the cost of living is really not too different between those two
places, but opportunities sure were.
(moderators: in response to an "Eat the Rich!" comment, I posted a link with recipes: I
apologize for this. Admittedly, it was in poor taste.)
apenultimate
on Thu, 05/14/2020 - 9:50am The past week's unemployment claims came out today, and add
another 2.98 million to the pile. This brings total unemployment claims for the past 8 weeks
(two months or so) to 36.5 million.
Determining unemployment percentages depends on what data you use. The Bureau of Labor
Statistics (BLS) shows the employment numbers for the United States in August 2019 as ~157
million ( https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat08.htm ). Admittedly,
that's not March 2020 statistics, but employment numbers would not change all that much in half
of a year.
The St. Louis Federal Reserve has a different set of statistics that show 205.5 million
Americans employed in March 2020 ( https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S
). (They show the August 2019 period with employment at 206 million.)
Why the huge difference? I have no idea. But going forward, I'll use both to determine
unemployment numbers. Remember that in early March 2020, unemployment was already around
3%.
Using the BLS statistics, we get an unemployment rate of 23.16% for the past 8 weeks. Add on
the previous 3% of people unemployed, and you reach 26.16% unemployment.
Using the St. Louis Fed statistics, we get an unemployment rate of 17.76% for the past 8
weeks. Add on the previous 3% of people unemployed, and you reach 20.76% unemployment.
The peak rate of unemployment during The Great Depression was 24.9%. The peak rate of
unemployment during the the Great Recession in 2008 was 10%.
According to BLS statistics, we are already greater than Great Depression unemployment
numbers.
According to the St. Louis Fed, we are already more than double Great Recession numbers and
only about 4 percentage points away from Great Depression peaks.
The Labor Department last week reported April unemployment for the United states at 14.7%,
but this according to their own admission was undercounting the real rates. Be careful of any
numbers coming out of the mainstream media or government sources.
Some jobs will definitely come back, but many will not. For example, JC Penny's reported
that they are permanently closing 200 of their 850 nationwide stores. Those jobs will not be
coming back. There are weekly reports of many cafes, restaurants, and small businesses
shuttering their doors for good. Those jobs will not be coming back.
Even for the companies that do not shut down, it may be a long haul before economic activity
has picked up enough to bring workers back. In most cases, it will not be a quick recovery.
Hang on for a very rough ride. 2 users have voted.
• Headline April 2020 Unemployment Really Was Around 20%, Not 15%
• Bureau of Labor Statistics Disclosed Erroneous Unemployment Surveying for a Second
Month
• About 7.5 Million People in the April Household Survey Were Misclassified as Employed
Instead of Unemployed, per the BLS
• Headline April U.3 Unemployment at 14.7%, Should Have Been 19.5%
• The BLS Had Disclosed the Same Surveying Error Last Month; Where Headline March 2020 U.3
Was 4.4%, It Should Have Been 5.3%
• Per the BLS, Headline Data Will Not Be Corrected: "To maintain data integrity, no ad hoc
actions are taken to reclassify survey responses."
• Nonetheless, Headline April Unemployment Soared to Historic Highs from March: U.3 from
4.4% to 14.7%, U.6 from 8.7% to 22.8% and ShadowStats from 22.9% to 35.4%
• More Realistic, Those Same Unemployment Numbers, Corrected: U.3 from 5.3 % to 19.5%, U.6
from 9.6% to 27.7% and ShadowStats from 23.7% to 39.6%
• April 2020 Payrolls Collapsed by an Unprecedented 20.5 Million Jobs
• Annual Growth in April 2020 Money Supply Measures Soared to Historic Highs
• U.S. Economic Activity Has Collapsed to Great Depression Levels, with the Federal
Reserve Creating Unlimited Money
stated in the very beginning of this video, that of people who were employed in February of
this year, nearly 40% of those earning $40,000 or less have become unemployed. This is an
unprecedented human tragedy that Congress in all their bailouts now totalling about $8 Trillion
have seen fit to throw a one time pittance of $1,200. With mountains of cash going to
corporations and lobbyists, Congress insultingly gave real suffering Americans a few pennies
and in effect told them that their lives do not matter to Washington DC.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) has warned that
around half of the world's workforce, or 1.6 billion workers, are at imminent risk of losing
their livelihood because of the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. In its latest
report, the UN agency stated that those hardest hit by the financial effects of the Covid-19
outbreak have been 'informal economy' workers, including the self-employed and those on a
short-term contract.
"The first month of the crisis is estimated to have resulted in a drop of 60 percent in
the income of informal workers globally," the ILO said of the economic damage already
caused by the pandemic.
The deepening crisis in many parts of the world has left more than 436 million businesses
facing financial hardship and possible closure, the ILO stated, which will inevitably hurt
workers. The report listed the worst-hit sectors as manufacturing, accommodation and food
services, wholesale and retail trade, and real estate.
"For millions of workers, no income means no food, no security and no future," ILO
Director-General Guy Ryder said of the stark impact of an economic dip.
He added that, according to ILO data, there is expected to be a "massive" rise in
poverty levels worldwide, unless governments recognize the need to reconstruct their economies
around better working practices and "not a return to the pre-pandemic world of precarious
work for the majority."
Since the novel coronavirus emerged in China late last year, over 3.1 million cases have
been confirmed around the world, and more than 216,000 people have died. Drastic lockdowns to
limit its spread have taken a dire toll on the global economy, prompting market turmoil and
numerous projections of the heavy recession to strike this year.
By
Richard D. Wolff,
Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts,
Amherst, and Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School
University, NYC. Wolff's weekly show, Economic Update, is syndicated on over 100 radio stations and goes
to 55 million TV receivers via Free Speech TV and his two recent books with Democracy at Work are
Understanding Marxism and Understanding Socialism both available at
democracyatwork.info
.
We are entering an even Greater Depression than the 1930s, with hundreds of millions thrown out of work
across the world. Capitalism is a broken, unstable system that is beyond repair – but there are
alternatives.
Ninety-one years after the start of the Great Depression (capitalism's worst downturn until now), we are
entering an even Greater Depression. The 1930s were so awful that leaders of capitalist economies ever
since have said they had learned how to avoid any future depressions. All promised to take the steps
needed to avoid them. Those promises have all been broken. Capitalism remains intrinsically unstable.
Read more
Richard D. Wolff: Viruses like Covid-19 are a part of
nature we must accept. But Capitalism-2020 must be destroyed
That instability is revealed in its recurring cycles, recessions, downturns, depressions, crashes,
etc. They have plagued capitalism wherever it has settled in as the prevailing economic system. Now that
the whole world's prevailing economic system is capitalism, we suffer
global
instability. To date, capitalist instability has resisted every effort (monetary and fiscal policies,
Keynesian economics, privatization, deregulation, etc.) to overcome or stop it. And now it is here yet
again.
Across the world, hundreds of millions of workers are unemployed. The tools, equipment, and raw
materials in their factories, offices and stores sit idle, gathering dust and rust. The goods and
services they might have produced do not now emerge to help us through these awful times. Perishable
plants and animals that cannot now be processed are destroyed even as scarcities multiply.
Workers lose their jobs if and when employers – mostly private capitalists – fire them. Employers hire
workers when workers add more value to what the employer sells than the value of those workers' wages.
Hiring then adds to profits. Employers fire workers when they add less than the value of the wages paid
to them. Firing then reduces losses. Employers protect and reproduce their enterprises by maximizing
profits and minimizing losses.
Profit, not the full employment of workers nor of means of production, is "the bottom line" of
capitalists, and thus of capitalism. That is how the system works. Capitalists are rewarded when their
profits are high and punished when they are not.
No-one wants unemployment. Workers want their jobs back; employers want the workers back producing
profitable output; governments want the tax revenues that depend on workers and capitalist employers
actively collaborating to produce.
Yet the capitalist system has regularly produced economic downturns everywhere for three centuries –
on average, every four to seven years. We have had three crashes so far this century: 'dot.com' in 2000,
'sub-prime mortgage' in 2008, and now 'corona' in 2020. That averages out at one crash just under every
seven years – capitalism's 'norm'. Capitalists do not want unemployment, but they regularly generate it.
It is a basic contradiction of their system.
Today's massive US capitalist crisis – over 30 million unemployed and counting, a quarter of the
workforce – shows dramatically that maximizing profit is not maximizing society's well-being. First and
foremost, consider that the unemployed millions continue much of their consumption while ceasing much of
their production. A portion of the wealth produced by those still employed must be
redistributed
to sustain the unemployed. Society thus suffers the usually intense struggles
over the shares of profits versus wages that will be redistributed to the unemployed. These struggles,
both public – over tax structures, for example – and private – for instance, over household budgets – can
be profoundly destabilizing for societies.
Redistribution struggles could be alleviated if, for example, public employment replaced private
unemployment. If the state became the employer of last resort, those fired by private employers could
immediately be rehired by the state to do useful social work.
Then any government paying unemployment benefits would instead pay wages, obtain in return real goods
and services, and distribute them to the public. The 1930s New Deal did exactly that for millions fired
by private employers in the US. A similar alternative (not part of the New Deal) would be to organize the
unemployed into worker co-ops performing socially useful work under contract with the government.
This last alternative is the best, because it would develop a new worker co-op sector of the US
economy. That would provide the US public with direct experience in comparing the capitalist with the
worker co-op sector in terms of working conditions, product quality and price, civic responsibility, etc.
On that concrete, empirical basis, societies could offer people a real, democratic choice as to what
mix of capitalist and worker co-op sectors of the economy they prefer.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely
those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
"... First of all, because Stoics believe that our true good resides in our own character and actions, they would frequently remind themselves to distinguish between what's "up to us" and what isn't. Modern Stoics tend to call this "the dichotomy of control" and many people find this distinction alone helpful in alleviating stress. What happens to me is never directly under my control, never completely ..."
"... Marcus likes to ask himself, "What virtue has nature given me to deal with this situation?" That naturally leads to the question: "How do other people cope with similar challenges?" Stoics reflect on character strengths such as wisdom, patience and self-discipline, which potentially make them more resilient in the face of adversity. They try to exemplify these virtues and bring them to bear on the challenges they face in daily life, during a crisis like the pandemic. They learn from how other people cope. Even historical figures or fictional characters can serve as role models. ..."
"... fear does us more harm than the things of which we're afraid. ..."
"... Finally, during a pandemic, you may have to confront the risk, the possibility, of your own death. Since the day you were born, that's always been on the cards. Most of us find it easier to bury our heads in the sand. Avoidance is the No1 most popular coping strategy in the world. We live in denial of the self-evident fact that we all die eventually. ..."
"... "All that comes to pass", he tells himself, even illness and death, should be as "familiar as the rose in spring and the fruit in autumn". Marcus Aurelius, through decades of training in Stoicism, in other words, had taught himself to face death with the steady calm of someone who has done so countless times already in the past. ..."
T he Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was the last famous
Stoic philosopher of antiquity. During the last 14 years of his life he faced one of the worst
plagues in European history. The Antonine Plague, named after him, was probably caused by a
strain of the smallpox virus. It's estimated to have killed up to 5 million people, possibly
including Marcus himself.
="rich-link__link u-faux-block-link__overlay" aria-label="'What it means to be an American':
Abraham Lincoln and a nation divided"
href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/11/abraham-lincoln-verge-book-ted-widmer-interview">
From AD166 to around AD180, repeated outbreaks occurred throughout the known world. Roman
historians describe the legions being devastated, and entire towns and villages being
depopulated and going to ruin. Rome itself was particularly badly affected, carts leaving the
city each day piled high with dead bodies.
In the middle of this plague, Marcus wrote a book, known as The Meditations, which records
the moral and psychological advice he gave himself at this time. He frequently applies Stoic
philosophy to the challenges of coping with pain, illness, anxiety and loss. It's no stretch of
the imagination to view The Meditations as a manual for developing precisely the mental
resilience skills required to cope with a pandemic.
First of all, because Stoics believe that our true good resides in our own character and
actions, they would frequently remind themselves to distinguish between what's "up to us" and
what isn't. Modern Stoics tend to call this "the dichotomy of control" and many people find
this distinction alone helpful in alleviating stress. What happens to me is never directly
under my control, never completely up to me, but my own thoughts and actions are
– at least the voluntary ones. The pandemic isn't really under my control but
the way I behave in response to it is.
Much, if not all, of our thinking is also up to us. Hence, "It's not events that upset us
but rather our opinions about them." More specifically, our judgment that something is really
bad, awful or even catastrophic, causes our distress.
This is one of the basic psychological principles of Stoicism. It's also the basic
premise of modern cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), the leading evidence-based form of
psychotherapy. The pioneers of CBT, Albert Ellis and Aaron T Beck, both describe Stoicism as
the philosophical inspiration for their approach. It's not the virus that makes us afraid but
rather our opinions about it. Nor is it the inconsiderate actions of others, those ignoring
social distancing recommendations, that make us angry so much as our opinions about them.
Many people are struck, on reading The Meditations, by the fact that it opens with a chapter
in which Marcus lists the qualities he most admires in other individuals, about 17 friends,
members of his family and teachers. This is an extended example of one of the central practices
of Stoicism.
Marcus likes to ask himself, "What virtue has nature given me to deal with this
situation?" That naturally leads to the question: "How do other people cope with similar
challenges?" Stoics reflect on character strengths such as wisdom, patience and
self-discipline, which potentially make them more resilient in the face of adversity. They try
to exemplify these virtues and bring them to bear on the challenges they face in daily life,
during a crisis like the pandemic. They learn from how other people cope. Even historical
figures or fictional characters can serve as role models.
With all of this in mind, it's easier to understand another common slogan of Stoicism:
fear does us more harm than the things of which we're afraid. This applies to
unhealthy emotions in general, which the Stoics term "passions" – from pathos ,
the source of our word "pathological". It's true, first of all, in a superficial sense. Even if
you have a 99% chance, or more, of surviving the pandemic, worry and anxiety may be ruining
your life and driving you crazy. In extreme cases some people may even take their own
lives.
In that respect, it's easy to see how fear can do us more harm than the things of which
we're afraid because it can impinge on our physical health and quality of life. However, this
saying also has a deeper meaning for Stoics. The virus can only harm your body – the
worst it can do is kill you. However, fear penetrates into the moral core of our being. It can
destroy your humanity if you let it. For the Stoics that's a fate worse than death.
Finally, during a pandemic, you may have to confront the risk, the possibility, of your
own death. Since the day you were born, that's always been on the cards. Most of us find it
easier to bury our heads in the sand. Avoidance is the No1 most popular coping strategy in the
world. We live in denial of the self-evident fact that we all die eventually. The
Stoics believed that when we're confronted with our own mortality, and grasp its implications,
that can change our perspective on life quite dramatically. Any one of us could die at any
moment. Life doesn't go on forever.
We're told this was what Marcus was thinking about on his deathbed. According to one
historian, his circle of friends were distraught. Marcus calmly asked why they were weeping for
him when, in fact, they should accept both sickness and death as inevitable, part of nature and
the common lot of mankind. He returns to this theme many times throughout The Meditations.
"All that comes to pass", he tells himself, even illness and death, should be as
"familiar as the rose in spring and the fruit in autumn". Marcus Aurelius, through decades of
training in Stoicism, in other words, had taught himself to face death with the steady calm of
someone who has done so countless times already in the past.
Donald Robertson is cognitive behavioural therapist and the author of several books on
philosophy and psychotherapy, including Stoicism and the Art of Happiness and How to Think Like
a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius
It goes without saying that the consequences to workers are damaging to catastrophic.
Normally, being unemployed for more than six months is a near-insurmountable barrier to getting
hired again. Perhaps coronavirus will create a better new normal on this front, of companies
taking a more understanding view of crisis-induced resume gaps.
By Cheryl Carleton,
Assistant Professor of Economics, Villanova University. Originally published at The
Conversation
The labor market is changing rapidly with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
When
the economy starts to open up again, employers will need to consider rehiring or replacing
workers, or hiring workers with a different mix of skills. The cost of replacing an employee is
high for employers, and being out of work is harmful for workers, who may be replaced with
artificial intelligence or contractors and risk losing their skills.
There is no denying that the U.S. was experiencing a tight
labor market and a low rate of unemployment before the coronavirus pandemic took hold. For
some fields, particularly health care and services deemed essential by local governments, the
labor market continues to be tight.
A sudden massive loss of demand for their goods and services is forcing companies to make
quick decisions, and some employers may underestimate the cost to replace good employees.
Knowing these costs may encourage them to keep more of their workers on the payroll.
Where Are the Costs?
There are costs involved in losing a worker and replacing them, such as completing paperwork
when they leave, advertising the open position, reviewing resumes, interviewing candidates and
training the new worker.
Once a new worker is hired, others must also spend time training them, and it will take some
time for the new worker to achieve the same level of productivity as the worker who left.
Another cost is the loss in social capital . Social capital is
the relationships between individuals at work that take time to build and add to the
productivity of the firm.
The Center for American Progress drilled in deeper. They found the costs of replacing
workers who earn less than US$30,000 per year to be 16% of annual salary, or $3,200 for an
individual earning $20,000 per year.
For those earning $30,000 to $50,000 per year, it is estimated to cost about 20% of annual
salary, or $8,000 for an individual earning $40,000. For highly educated executive positions,
replacement costs are estimated to be 213% of annual salary – $213,000 for a CEO earning
$100,000 per year.
The much
higher cost for replacing CEOs is partly due to the fact that they require higher levels of
education, greater training, and firms may lose clients and institutional knowledge with such
turnovers.
Employee Alternatives
This high cost of losing and replacing workers has important implications for organizations,
consumers and workers, especially now with
an estimated 15 million unemployed .
For those workers where the costs to replace them are high, firms will try to accommodate
them. Strategies may include maintaining pay, increasing benefits and retraining. These actions
are also costly, so firms will
weigh them against the cost of simply
hiring new workers .
This means businesses face high costs to replace workers in the future, and high costs to
retain current workers, leading to higher costs for consumers who buy the firms' goods and
services.
While the above consequences might sound great for workers that organizations choose to
keep, these are not the only ways in which firms can respond.
The high cost of replacing workers, along with the increased uncertainty about the economy
may cause businesses to use
more automation and robots . Though such switches may entail a significant upfront cost,
once they are made the firms then have more control over their production processes.
Another alternative for firms is to hire fewer permanent employees and turn instead
to contract workers . With
contract workers, employers are not responsible for benefits, and they can more simply increase
or decrease the number of workers as needed.
While this may increase employment for some workers, it will decrease it for others and it
has serious implications for the availability of health and pension benefits as well as
unemployment benefits, as the current crisis has revealed.
Businesses might also consider limiting the scope of what some workers do to limit the cost
of replacing them. If the scope of a worker's job is limited, then fewer areas will be impacted
by the individual leaving, and the costs to train a replacement will be lower. For workers,
however, it means fewer opportunities to gain experience.
For example, instead of training workers on several or all parts of the production process,
the business may limit them to one specific aspect. It will then be less costly for the firm to
replace them and the worker will have less experience to add to their resume. This also means
less bargaining power for employees.
Some Win, But Others Lose
The high cost of losing and then hiring new workers along with increased restrictions on
hiring nonresidents might mean higher wages and increased benefits for some workers.
However, the high degree of uncertainty in the current labor market, along with the
potential increase in contract
workers and
automation means that some workers will not realize these potential gains, and all of us as
consumers will most likely end up paying higher prices for the goods and services we buy.
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, over 48,000 suicides occurred in the
US in 2018. This equates to an annual rate of about 14 suicides per 100,000 people. As
expected, suicides increase substantially during times of economic depression. For example, as
a result of the 2008 recession there was an approximate 25% increase. Similarly, during a peak
year of the Great Depression, in 1932, the rate rose to 17 suicides per 100,000 people.
Recent
research ties high suicide rates "to the unraveling of the social fabric" that happens when
societal breakdowns occur. People become despondent over economic hardship, the loss of social
structures, loneliness, and related factors.
There is probably no greater example of these kinds of losses than what we are experiencing
today with the extreme response to COVID-19 and the effects will be felt for many years. The
social structures might return in a few months but the economy will not.
Some think that the economy will recover in three years and others think it will never
recover in terms of impact to low-income households, as was the case for the 2008 recession.
However, if we estimate a full recovery in six years, the effects will contribute around 3
suicides per 100,000 people every year during that time for a total of over 59,000
deaths in the United States.
Related to suicides are drug abuse deaths. According to the National Institute on Drug
Abuse, over 67,000 deaths from overdose of illicit or
prescription drugs occurred in 2018. This does not include alcohol abuse. Only 7% were suicides
and 87% were known to be unintentional deaths largely due to drug abuse caused by depression or
other mental conditions. Such conditions can be expected to rise during times of economic
collapse and if we estimate the impact due to COVID-19 over six years as being a 25% increase
(as with suicides) that projects about 87,000 additional deaths due to drug
abuse.
Lack of Medical Coverage or Treatment
Unemployment is expected to rise dramatically as a result of the COVID-19 response and the
effect is already being seen in jobless claims. One of the major impacts of unemployment, apart
from depression and poverty, is a lack of medical coverage.
A Harvard study found nearly
45,000 excess deaths annually linked to lack of health coverage. That was at the
pre-COVID-19 unemployment rate of 4%.
As reported recently, millions
of Americans are losing their jobs in the COVID-19 recession/depression. For every 2%
increase in unemployment, there are about 3.5 million lost jobs.
The US Secretary of Treasury has predicted a 20% unemployment level, which translates to 12
million lost jobs. If the 45,000 excess deaths due to lack of medical coverage increases
uniformly by unemployment rate, we can expect about 225,000 deaths annually due to lack of
medical coverage in the US at 20% unemployment. Extrapolating this over a 6-year period would
mean 1.35 million deaths .
This assumes that funding for important health-related programs are not further cut or
ignored, a bad assumption that means the estimate is probably low.
Beyond lack of coverage, medical services are being reprioritized to respond preferentially
to COVID-19, causing less resources to be available for treatment of other medical conditions.
The capacity of medical service providers has already been significantly impacted by the
COVID-19 response in some areas.
Additionally, clinical trials and drug development are expected to be severely impacted.
This means that important new medicines will not reach the market and people will die who
otherwise would have lived. There is not yet enough information on the overall impact to
medical service provision therefore we will not include an estimate.
Poverty and Food
Access
The Columbia University School of Public Health studied the effects of poverty on death
rates. The investigators found that
4.5% of US deaths were attributable to poverty. That's about 130,000 deaths annually.
How will this be affected by COVID-19? One way to begin estimating is to consider how the
number of people living in poverty will increase.
Before the COVID-19 response, approximately 12% of Americans lived below the officially
defined poverty line. That percentage will undoubtedly rise significantly due to the expected
increase in unemployment. If unemployment rises to 20% (from 4%) as predicted, the number of
people living in poverty could easily double. If that is the extent of the effect, we will see
another 130,000 deaths per year from general poverty.
Although deaths due to poverty are not entirely about food access, it is a significant
factor in that category. In times of economic hardship many people can't afford good food,
causing malnutrition and, in some cases, starvation. People also can't access food causing the
same outcomes. Limited access to nutritious food is a root cause of diet-related diseases,
including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and infant mortality issues. A recent estimate
suggests 20% of all
deaths worldwide are linked to poor diets.
Food access issues will be further exacerbated with the COVID-19 problem due to the
anticipated issues with food production and prices. If the COVID-19 response lasts for years as
expected, our estimate will need to be a multiple of the 130,000 annual figure. Using the
6-year estimate, we get 780,000 deaths.
Conclusion
The total deaths attributable to the COVID-19 response, from just this limited examination,
are estimated to be:
Suicides 59,000 Drug abuse 87,000 Lack of medical coverage or treatment
1,350,000 Poverty and food access 780,000
These estimates, totaling more than two million deaths above the estimated 150,000 expected
from the virus itself, do not include other predictable issues with the COVID-19 response. An
example is the lack of medical services as stated above. Other examples include the EPA's
suspension of environmental regulations. It has been estimated that the EPA's Clean Air Act
alone has saved
230,000 lives each year.
Moreover, the anticipated failure of the US Postal Service (USPS) will lead to more illness
and death. The USPS "delivers about
1 million lifesaving medications each year and serves as the only delivery link to
Americans living in rural areas."
Even using these low estimates, however, we can see that the response will be much worse
than the virus. The social devastation and economic scarring could last more than six years,
with one expert predicting that it will be "long-lasting and calamitous."
That expert
has noted that he is not overly concerned with the virus itself because "as much as 99
percent of active cases [of COVID-19] in the general population are 'mild' and do not require
specific medical treatment."
Yet he is deeply concerned about the "the social, economic and public health consequences
of this near total meltdown of normal life." He suggests a better alternative is to focus
only on those most susceptible to the virus. Others have reasonably suggested that only those
who are known to be infected should self-quarantine.
Some public health professionals have been pleading with authorities to consider the
implications of the unreasonable response. Many experts
have spoken out publicly, criticizing the overreaction to COVID-19. A professor of medical
microbiology, for example, has
written an open letter to German Chancellor Merkel in an attempt to draw attention to the
concerns.
The real problem we face today is not a virus. The greater problem is that people have
failed to engage in critical thinking due to the fear promoted by some media and government
officials. Fear is the mind killer, as author Frank Herbert once wrote. Ultimately, the fear of
COVID-19 and the lack of critical thinking that has arisen from it are likely to cause far more
deaths than the virus itself.
George Mc ,
List of the effects of this virus (not exhaustive):
• Total shut down on all other news items.
• The speeding up of an economic meltdown which was going to happen anyway but which now
can be attributed to the virus alone.
• The speeding up of the inevitable confrontation between the overlords and the masses
on conditions favourable to the former.
• The reduction of the public to a condition in which most welcome draconian
restrictions
• The harsh and vitriolic gap between those who are urging on the restrictions and those
who are suspicious i.e. a divide and rule matter which threatens to become physically
violent.
• The curtailing and indeed destruction of the rights and protections for the general
population that have been hard won over the last century.
• The reduction of social life to a social media matrix. (And yes I'm using the word
"matrix" in a knowing way.)
• The seemingly legitimate emergence of a police state
• The wrecking of the public sector. Of course this also means the wrecking of the
private sector but that will happen in a bottom up way i.e. smaller businesses tanking, then
slightly larger, then larger still. But by the time it affects the giants, the game can be
called off since the public sector will be gone.
Joerg ,
Some weeks ago on youtube there was a video with an interview with a German virologist Dr.
Köhnlein. Youtube removed this video – but now it is back on youtube again (only
in German): "CORONA – Alles nur Panik (Dr. Köhnlein)" – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVHZ1bLceRw&feature=youtu.be
Toby Russell ,
I've been trying to get a grip on the extent to which the PCR test is used to establish who
has been infected with this alleged virus. Part of my research led me to this very recent
presentation on YouTube by a well credentialed doctor called Andrew Kaufman. In it, he
sets out how inaccurate the test is, that there isn't even a gold standard against which to
assess its accuracy, but the one attempt to do so he could find arrived at an 80%
false-positive rate. I heard from a doctor friend that its inventor, Kary Mullis, insisted it
should never be used for diagnosis. My understanding is that it is being used everywhere but
China, where a new test is being developed. If this is true, the figures we are being
bombarded with are not remotely trustable.
But the main thrust of the presentation by Dr Kaufman is the identity between exosomes and
covid-19. Exosomes are natural cellular defense mechanisms recently becoming known amongst
molecular biologists. They are largely unknown by doctors and nurses. Kaufman's assertion is
that covid-19 is in fact an exosome. He quotes James Hildreth, M.D., President and Chief
Executive Officer at Meharry Medical College and a former professor at John Hopkins: " the
virus is fully an exosome in every sense of the word."
The presentation is about 40 minutes long and followed by a fairly lengthy question and
answer session. Because falsifiable, and because it explains all the oddities of this case, I
feel his theory deserves widespread attention.
The New England Journal of Medicine is the world's leading medical journal. In its 26
March 2020 edition, we find: "[ ] This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of
COVID-19 may ultimately be more akin to a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case
fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and
1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS [ ]"
This article was penned by a few authors, one of whom was none other than Anthony S Fauci.
Yes, THE Anthony S Fauci. Note the case fatality rate. If anyone is interested in a full
translation, please let me know
Cassandra2 ,
The human race is being 'played' and the majority have been conditioned to accept it.
The really SCARY aspect of all this is that even if 97% of the global population were
given a complete insight into what was actually going on and who was (and has been for a
considerable time) manipulating events – what could they do about it?
Answer 'NOTHING'
The people are atomised, disconnected and totally powerless as they have no control over
MASS MEDIA COMMUNICATION . . . . . they do (RE: BBC).
A catalyst is required to unite the human race to establish an effective Counter-Offensive
capable of cleaning the earth of the dark forces currently in play.
Neoliberalism destroys solidarity; as the result it destroys both the society and individuals
Notable quotes:
"... Thirty years of neoliberalism, free-market forces and privatisation have taken their toll, as relentless pressure to achieve has become normative. If you're reading this sceptically, I put this simple statement to you: meritocratic neoliberalism favours certain personality traits and penalises others. ..."
"... On top of all this, you are flexible and impulsive, always on the lookout for new stimuli and challenges. In practice, this leads to risky behaviour, but never mind, it won't be you who has to pick up the pieces. The source of inspiration for this list? The psychopathy checklist by Robert Hare , the best-known specialist on psychopathy today. ..."
"... the financial crisis illustrated at a macro-social level (for example, in the conflicts between eurozone countries) what a neoliberal meritocracy does to people. Solidarity becomes an expensive luxury and makes way for temporary alliances, the main preoccupation always being to extract more profit from the situation than your competition. Social ties with colleagues weaken, as does emotional commitment to the enterprise or organisation. ..."
"... Bullying used to be confined to schools; now it is a common feature of the workplace. This is a typical symptom of the impotent venting their frustration on the weak – in psychology it's known as displaced aggression. There is a buried sense of fear, ranging from performance anxiety to a broader social fear of the threatening other. ..."
"... Constant evaluations at work cause a decline in autonomy and a growing dependence on external, often shifting, norms ..."
"... More important, though, is the serious damage to people's self-respect. Self-respect largely depends on the recognition that we receive from the other, as thinkers from Hegel to Lacan have shown. Sennett comes to a similar conclusion when he sees the main question for employees these days as being "Who needs me?" For a growing group of people, the answer is: no one. ..."
"... A neoliberal meritocracy would have us believe that success depends on individual effort and talents, meaning responsibility lies entirely with the individual and authorities should give people as much freedom as possible to achieve this goal. ..."
"... the paradox of our era as: "Never have we been so free. Never have we felt so powerless." ..."
An economic system that rewards psychopathic personality traits has changed our ethics and our personalities
'We are forever told that we are freer to choose the course of our lives than ever before, but the freedom to choose
outside the success narrative is limited.'
We tend to perceive our identities as stable and largely separate from outside forces. But over decades of research and therapeutic
practice, I have become convinced that economic change is having a profound effect not only on our values but also on our personalities.
Thirty years of neoliberalism, free-market forces and privatisation have taken their toll, as relentless pressure to achieve has
become normative. If you're reading this sceptically, I put this simple statement to you: meritocratic neoliberalism favours certain
personality traits and penalises others.
There are certain ideal characteristics needed to make a career today. The first is articulateness, the aim being to win over
as many people as possible. Contact can be superficial, but since this applies to most human interaction nowadays, this won't really
be noticed.
It's important to be able to talk up your own capacities as much as you can – you know a lot of people, you've got plenty of experience
under your belt and you recently completed a major project. Later, people will find out that this was mostly hot air, but the fact
that they were initially fooled is down to another personality trait: you can lie convincingly and feel little guilt. That's why
you never take responsibility for your own behaviour.
On top of all this, you are flexible and impulsive, always on the lookout for new stimuli and challenges. In practice, this leads
to risky behaviour, but never mind, it won't be you who has to pick up the pieces. The source of inspiration for this list? The psychopathy
checklist by Robert Hare , the best-known specialist on psychopathy today.
This description is, of course, a caricature taken to extremes. Nevertheless, the financial crisis illustrated at a macro-social
level (for example, in the conflicts between eurozone countries) what a neoliberal meritocracy does to people. Solidarity becomes
an expensive luxury and makes way for temporary alliances, the main preoccupation always being to extract more profit from the situation
than your competition. Social ties with colleagues weaken, as does emotional commitment to the enterprise or organisation.
Bullying used to be confined to schools; now it is a common feature of the workplace. This is a typical symptom of the impotent
venting their frustration on the weak – in psychology it's known as displaced aggression. There is a buried sense of fear, ranging
from performance anxiety to a broader social fear of the threatening other.
Constant evaluations at work cause a decline in autonomy and a growing dependence on external, often shifting, norms.
This results in what the sociologist
Richard Sennett has aptly described
as the "infantilisation of the workers". Adults display childish outbursts of temper and are jealous about trivialities ("She got
a new office chair and I didn't"), tell white lies, resort to deceit, delight in the downfall of others and cherish petty feelings
of revenge. This is the consequence of a system that prevents people from thinking independently and that fails to treat employees
as adults.
More important, though, is the serious damage to people's self-respect. Self-respect largely depends on the recognition that we
receive from the other, as thinkers from Hegel
to Lacan have shown. Sennett comes to a similar conclusion
when he sees the main question for employees these days as being "Who needs me?" For a growing group of people, the answer is: no
one.
Our society constantly proclaims that anyone can make it if they just try hard enough, all the while reinforcing privilege and
putting increasing pressure on its overstretched and exhausted citizens. An increasing number of people fail, feeling humiliated,
guilty and ashamed. We are forever told that we are freer to choose the course of our lives than ever before, but the freedom to
choose outside the success narrative is limited. Furthermore, those who fail are deemed to be losers or scroungers, taking advantage
of our social security system.
A neoliberal meritocracy would have us believe that success depends on individual effort and talents, meaning responsibility lies
entirely with the individual and authorities should give people as much freedom as possible to achieve this goal. For those who believe
in the fairytale of unrestricted choice, self-government and self-management are the pre-eminent political messages, especially if
they appear to promise freedom. Along with the idea of the perfectible individual, the freedom we perceive ourselves as having in
the west is the greatest untruth of this day and age.
The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman neatly summarised the
paradox of our era as: "Never have we been so free. Never have we felt so powerless." We are indeed freer than before, in the sense
that we can criticise religion, take advantage of the new laissez-faire attitude to sex and support any political movement we like.
We can do all these things because they no longer have any significance – freedom of this kind is prompted by indifference. Yet,
on the other hand, our daily lives have become a constant battle against a bureaucracy that would make Kafka weak at the knees. There
are regulations about everything, from the salt content of bread to urban poultry-keeping.
Our presumed freedom is tied to one central condition: we must be successful – that is, "make" something of ourselves. You don't
need to look far for examples. A highly skilled individual who puts parenting before their career comes in for criticism. A person
with a good job who turns down a promotion to invest more time in other things is seen as crazy – unless those other things ensure
success. A young woman who wants to become a primary school teacher is told by her parents that she should start off by getting a
master's degree in economics – a primary school teacher, whatever can she be thinking of?
There are constant laments about the so-called loss of norms and values in our culture. Yet our norms and values make up an integral
and essential part of our identity. So they cannot be lost, only changed. And that is precisely what has happened: a changed economy
reflects changed ethics and brings about changed identity. The current economic system is bringing out the worst in us.
There is a huge difference between extremely bright students and medicate ones. Bright students are the future of the society and
need to be nurtures and helped in any way possible for the range of specialties that are important (STEM is one example)
There is difference between the degree in computer science and the degree in some obscure nationality studies (let's say Eastern
European studies; few people that are needed can be paid by intelligence agencies ;-) Obscure areas should be generally available only
to well to do students, who can pay for their education.
Like is the case with alcoholism, some student debt is the result of bad personal choices.
Notable quotes:
"... Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times, ..."
"... "My daughter's getting out of school, I saved all my money, so she doesn't have any student debt. Am I going to get my money back?" ..."
"... So, we end up paying for people who didn't save any money, then those who did the right thing get screwed, ..."
"... "We did the right thing and we get screwed," ..."
"... "Look, we build a future going forward by making it better. By that same logic what would we have done? Not started Social Security because we didn't start it last week for you or last month for you," ..."
"... "We don't build an America by saddling our kids with debt. We build an America by saying we're going to open up those opportunities for kids to be able to get an education without getting crushed by student loan debt." ..."
"... Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) campaigns in Des Moines, Iowa on Jan. 19, 2020. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) ..."
"... "I'll direct the Secretary of Education to use their authority to begin to compromise and modify federal student loans consistent with my plan to cancel up to $50,000 in debt for 95% of student loan borrowers (about 42 million people)," ..."
"... A scholarship system awarding free tuition to the top 5% of college applicants (NOT biased by race, gender, etc) who apply to the U.S.'s best STEM programs, hell yes! Free tuition for future Democrat voters, f^%k that! ..."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) defended her plan to pay off college loans after being confronted by a father in Iowa in an exchange
that went viral.
Senator Elizabeth Warren is confronted by a father who worked double shifts to pay for his daughters education and wants to
know if he will get his money back. pic.twitter.com/t2GGbAnG08
The father approached Warren, a leading Democratic presidential contender, after a campaign event in Grimes.
"My daughter's getting out of school, I saved all my money, so she doesn't have any student debt. Am I going to get my
money back?" the man asked Warren.
"Of course not," Warren replied.
" So, we end up paying for people who didn't save any money, then those who did the right thing get screwed, " the
father told her.
He then described a friend who makes more money but didn't save up while he worked double shifts to save up to pay for his daughter's
college.
The father became upset, accusing Warren of laughing.
"We did the right thing and we get screwed," he added before walking off.
In an appearance on "CBS This Morning" on Friday, Warren was asked about the exchange.
Last night, a father who saved for his daughter's college education approached
@SenWarren and challenged her proposed student
loan forgiveness plan. @TonyDokoupil asks the
senator for her response: pic.twitter.com/jLUXPqChC6
"Look, we build a future going forward by making it better. By that same logic what would we have done? Not started Social
Security because we didn't start it last week for you or last month for you," Warren said.
Pressed on whether she was saying "tough luck" to people like the father, she said "No." She then recounted how she got to go
to college despite coming from a poor family.
"There was a $50 a semester option for me. I was able to go to college and become a public school teacher because America had
invested in a $50 a semester option for me. Today that's not available," she said.
"We don't build an America by saddling our kids with debt. We build an America by saying we're going to open up those opportunities
for kids to be able to get an education without getting crushed by student loan debt."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) campaigns in Des Moines, Iowa on Jan. 19, 2020. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
One of Warren's plans is to cancel student loans. According to
her website , on her first day as president
she would cancel student loan debt as well as give free tuition to public colleges and technical schools and ban for-profit colleges
from getting aid from the federal government.
"I'll direct the Secretary of Education to use their authority to begin to compromise and modify federal student loans
consistent with my plan to cancel up to $50,000 in debt for 95% of student loan borrowers (about 42 million people)," Warren
wrote.
"I'll also direct the Secretary of Education to use every existing authority available to rein in the for-profit college industry,
crack down on predatory student lending, and combat the racial disparities in our higher education system."
Sounds an awful lot like the dad above is right those that did the "right thing" are gonna get "screwed."
Warren you bitch, I paid back my student loans responsibly by working my *** off (140k) and now you want to give others a free
ride? I sure hope that I get a refund for all that money I paid back.
Obama did this kinds thing with housing. I got outbid by 100k on a house. The other bidder who got it didn't make his house
payments so Obama restructured his loan knocking off 100k from his loan and giving him a 1% interest rate on it. He again didn't
make his payments and got it restructured again but I didn't hear the terms of that one.
If student loan debt is such a crisis, force every university to use their precious endowment funds to underwrite those loans
AND let those loans get discharged in bankruptcy. Maybe then those schools would start to question whether having a dozen
"Diversity Deans" each being paid $100k+ salaries is really worth the expense (among other things).
A scholarship system awarding free tuition to the top 5% of college applicants (NOT biased by race, gender, etc) who apply
to the U.S.'s best STEM programs, hell yes! Free tuition for future Democrat voters, f^%k that!
The pissed off dad in this story has only one person to be pissed off at: himself, for being stupid. Understand something about
college degrees: 90% of them, including majors like accounting, are not worth the paper they are printed on. Anyone who works
double shifts to pay for anyone's college degree, even their own, is stupid. Look at why college costs so much: go to any state,
and you'll see that 70% or more of the highest paid state employees are employed by public colleges and universities. You need
to play these sons of bitches at their game, use their funny money to pay for the degree, and walk away. If you play the way these
sons of bitches tell you to play, you get what you deserve.
I used their funny money to get a degree that wasn't worth the paper it was printed on and walked away. I don't give a ****
if the sons of bitches grab my tax refund. Why? Because I have my withholdings set up so they get next to nothing in April. It
costs the sons of bitches more to print up the garnishment letter and send it to me than what they're stealing from me. Guess
what I use for an address? P.O. Box (can't serve a summons to a ghost).
If you're going to do what stupid, pissed off dad did, and work double shifts, you need to be trading out of all that funny
money you're being paid for those double shifts, and trading into personal economic leverage (gold first, then silver). Instead
of having bedrock to build multi-generational wealth, he has a daughter with a degree in pouring coffee, and nothing else to show
for it. He only has himself to blame for drinking the Kool Aid. I can grab overtime every Saturday at my job if I want it, and
every last penny of that OT is traded out of funny money and into gold ASAP.
Understand the US real estate market: the only reason it did not die five years ago was because we welcomed rich foreigners
to come in and buy real estate to protect their wealth. We've stopped doing that, we have an over-abundance of domestic sellers
and a severe shortage of domestic buyers. It's also where history says you need to be if you want to build multi-generational
wealth. Warren actually needs to go further than what she's proposing. Not only does she need to discharge 100% of those balances
by EO, she also needs to refund all those tax refunds stolen under false pretenses. Anything less, and we are guaranteed, for
the next 40 years, to have a real estate market and economy which resembles Japan since 1989.
Why do I buy gold? So I can play people like Warren at their game. I'll take whatever loan discharge she gives me, and have
lots of leverage in reserve to take advantage of what will be a once in a lifetime real estate fire sale.
Make those who want to be bailed out have to pay the bailout back by working every non-holiday Saturday (at the minimum wage
rate) for the government and citizens (e.g who need work done around the house, take care of the elderly - in the bathroom) until
the debt is paid back. AND let those who have not taken the debt relief supervise them - getting paid by the government at the
same rate, minimum wage. 🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞
For a decent college it's between 35-70k a year.... Why? 300k a year library professors, if it weren't for tenure the problem
would largely he self correcting as rntrillments drop...
My how times have changed. My son was a college grad circa 1996. He did the JUCO thing for 1 1/2 years , worked a part time
job for the duration, and picked up an A S while making the President's list. I aid, out of pocket all educational expenses while
he lived at home and provided for a nice lifestyle while he was in school. As promised, he finished his education, out of state,
which I paid for all along the way. 2 more years, he graduated, on the Pres list, and picked up his B S. No student debt, in his
words, was one of the the greatest gifts. Today he is debt free, (so am I ), and he is a very happy , financially secure ( until
the world goes upside down) mature adult. Hey Lizzie, send me a check.
They are all ignoring the real problem...the Federal mandated system of the guaranteed student loan program. Anyone with a
pulse can get a guaranteed student loan, thus creating a massive rise in college admissions. The colleges are guaranteed the money
for these loans, while the lender (the US gov't) is not guaranteed to be paid back by the students receiving these loans,. this
created a fool proof, risk free ability for colleges and universities across the country to jack up their tuition costs at over
a 5:1 ratio of income growth over the last 25 years. The problem is the program itself, students need to earn their ability to
enroll in college through hard work and good grades. Currently, any moron with a high school diploma can go to college on a guaranteed
student loan program and the colleges are more than willing to take on any idiot that wants to go to school despite their aspirations,
work ethics, intelligence, achievements, etc. The universities have been given a blank check to expand their campuses, drastically
inflate the salaries and pensions of professors and administrators of these schools all at the expense of this guaranteed "free"
money from the government that only achieved an immense amount of the population going to overpriced schools in order to get a
diploma in useless pursuits like african american studies, philosophy, creative writing, music, criminal justice, arts, basket
weaving, etc.. The skyrocketing costs of colleges and student debt is the direct result of this miserably failed system of the
guaranteed student loan. The majority of which have no business going to higher education because they don't have the aptitude,
work ethic and intelligence necessary to actually receive a degree in anything that benefits the economy and themselves going
forward. 30 years ago the average state college admission was roughly $4k a year for a good state school, today it is roughly
$20k or far more. Meanwhile, the average income has gone up a meaningless amount. Get rid of the guaranteed student loan program
and make the colleges responsible for accepting the responsibility of the loans for their students. I guarantee enrollment will
decrease and costs will decline making it much more affordable for the truly responsible and aspiring student to achieve their
dreams of a degree without a $250k loan needed for completion nor the lifelong strain of debt on their future incomes. The colleges
are raping the system the same as all these shoestring companies take advantage of the medicaid system and give hovarounds and
walking canes, and hearing aids for free because the gov't reimburses them at wildly inflated prices under some federally passed
mandate. The system is the problem, eliminating the debt will only exacerbate it and cost taxpayers trillions more each and every
year as "free" college will now entice every moron with a heartbeat the ability to go to outrageously priced schools with no skin
in the game on the taxpayer's dime. Elizabeth Warren is an idiot....someone needs to have a sit down with her and discuss this
rationale in her luxurious, state of the art TeePee.
While you are correct corrupting academics with huge payoffs is how you secure their votes and the votes of most of the 'students'
for decades to come.
Any group or industry can be paid off and you might think of the system as a set of interlocking payoffs until you get out
to the margins and the fringes where the cash and benefits are a lot thinner.
Everyone who continues to pay taxes to these neo-Bolsheviks is going to get screwed. The only alternative is to stop funding
these criminals completely.
What a sorry presidential canditate! She flat out LIED about being native american to get FREE college. And now this. Where
has America gone????????? Socialism sems to be what most want nowadays. It has NEVER EVER worked anywhere in the world at any
time! If yoou think therwise, just name ONE countryn it has worked in ! What a lying bunch the democrats are..........................
So all if us have to pay for it. Why did I have to pay for University and College in the 1970's if I wanted to further my education
and now that I am older I have to foot the bill for the young people of today? Pay DOUBLE? (just to buy votes for traitors?)
I think NOT! Take your theft from the people, to buy votes of everyone from young people to illegal criminals to outright criminals
in prison to dead people and resign before we decide to arrest you.
Democrats, HANG IT UP! We are NOT paying for YOUR illegitimate votes.
Notice too how all their "we're going to wipe out your debt!" promises never seem to include the big "endowments" of these
fascist colleges that jacked up tuition 1000% over what it used to cost.
No, those creepy commie profs and their freaky administrators get to keep their big TAX FREE endowments AND their big salaries.
Big Gov by Sanders/Warren don't seem to think that's obscene.
You are absolutely correct. 45 years ago you could almost work part time and actually PAY your way through college. Today you
almost need a physicians salary to pay for these OVERPRICED sewers filled with leftist propaganda.
It's obvious that Warren doesn't teach economics or even math. They weren't smart enough when they took out the loans and they
are not good with paying their bills so move the goal posts to bail them out. Has anyone given the thought that maybe they shouldn't
have gone to college at all. Sounds like they will all work for the government anyways.
A bit ago (Jan 8, 2020), the New York Times described Michael
Bloomberg's plan 1 for addressing the income and wealth inequality in the United
States that has been a constant topic of discussion by Democratic candidates. Briefly, as with
the robber barons of Teddy Roosevelt's age, the wealth of the global commerce titans and
particularly the private equity fund buyers and sellers of companies (and layers off of
employees) has exploded over the last four decades in the US, beginning in earnest with Ronald
Reagan's presidency. Most of the benefits of productivity gains have gone to a very few people
at the top, and the bottom 50% of the wealth distribution actually owns a smaller share of the
nation's wealth than 40 years ago. The top 1% have gained enormously, and the top 0.5% have
been even more enriched. We have ultra multibillionaires like Jeff Bezos who can pay $9 billion
to his wife in a divorce settlement and still be the wealthiest man in the world with more than
$130 billion in net worth. He earns about $78.5 billion a year (counting value of his Amazon
shares) or more than $6.5 billion a month 2 and thus exemplifies this new "gilded
age" of ultrawealthy tycoons. This exists at the same time that the Trump administration
proposes work requirements that will
eliminate food stamp aid for 700,000 of hungry Americans and, with other initiatives, will
take food stamps from 3.7 million beneficiaries who simply cannot get work that pays well
enough to fund a sustainable lifestyle for themselves and their families. 3 This
will "save" the U.S. about $5.5 billion over five years–less than Bezos 'earns' in a
month. This disparity–$5.5 billion to feed 3.5 million hungry Americans versus provide a
month's additional wealth for a person already wallowing in wealth like Jeff Bezos–is why
it is clear that the US needs to figure out how to respond to the inequality crisis in order to
protect American democracy and ensure Americans have a decent standard of living.
Bloomberg's plan seems to be a moderate stance like Obama and Biden that attempts to focus
on factors other than the wealth gap and the accompanying power gap that wealth provides. As
the NY Times reports, he "frames the economic divide primarily in regional terms–and not
along rich-versus-everyone-else class lines." 1 The Times article notes that his
plan is not unlike the charge Obama gave to Joe Biden for the Middle Class Task Force.
1\
Bloomberg's proposals for addressing the problem are similarly centered on things long
discussed and tried that are difficult to do at a large enough scale to make any inroads into
the inequality problem or the power gap problem. He is most definitely not proposing a wealth
tax. His proposals include a focus on education and skills training, infrastructure projects,
and entrepreneurial training centers. Although the GI Bill was a significant part of the
post-WWII economic boom because it allowed vast numbers of returning veterans to get a college
education, Bloomberg seems to be thinking more of apprenticeships and community colleges
(training for a job) rather than university (training for a career and an approach to learning
throughout life). The Times notes his interest in raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour,
expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, and encouraging unions while disallowing noncompetes
for low- and middle-income jobs.
All those are minimal steps that any progressive candidate should take, but while they may
have marginal impact on middle class mobility, they will not do much at all to ease the income
and wealth gap that has been caused by technology, globalization, and financialization of the
economy together that has measured success almost solely from stock market numbers and thus
allowed corporate and private equity tycoons to garner the major gains in productivity over
decades while paying their workers too little (or moving offshore to pay even less), combined
with a tax system that privileges wealth, including, among a host of others, extremely
favorable corporate tax provisions after the 2017 tax legislation, ridiculously low maximum
rates on ordinary income, carried interest provision, section 1031 exchanges, section 1202
exclusion for gains on original issue small business stock, capital gains preference, and an
absurdly low flat estate tax above a too-high exemption amount with a step-up in basis for
heirs.
Bloomberg is a billionaire who is at least aware that the inequality in this country is
problematic and needs to be addressed. But like most of the "have-so-much" class, he shows
little interest in what is truly required–a shift in the direction of redistribution to
balance the distorted seesaw of billionaires getting all the height and the rest sitting at the
bottom. FDR's New Deal is said to have worked because the robber barons were scared that the
proletariat would rise up in support of communism–the so-called 'red scare' behind the
success of social security enactment. There may not be a red scare now (though the Trump
campaigners try to paint democratic socialist programs as communism), but there is a real
likelihood that the contrast–and possibly real class warfare– between the squalor
and despair of poor families who work hard but cannot fend for themselves and rich kids with
silver spoons that only grow bigger and bigger may eventually threaten the global nation of the
plutocrats. 4
3 Phil McCausland, T rump administration proposals could cause millions to lose food stamps , NBC News
(Nov. 30, 2019) (discussing proposed changes to SNAP program that would impose stricter work
requirements, cap deductions for utility allowances and 'reform' the way states automatically
enroll families when they receive other aid). See also
4. See, e.g., Chrystia Freeland, Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich (2012)
(described in The
Guardian book review as "a necessary and at times depressing book about the staggeringly
wealthy"). Freeland is neither Marxist nor socialist, and as I am reading the book, not
evenappropriately skeptical of the amount of merit behind the plutocrats' self-claimed
meritocracy.
pgl , January 23, 2020 7:40 am
Bloomberg was mayor of NYC for 12 years. During that period he opposed raising taxes
on the rich. He also showed what he thought about the various classes by making sure that
upper Manhattan (where his fellow billionaires often live) got taken care of but the
other boroughs (where the working class often live) received scant attention or real
resources. OK – he was a better mayor than RUDY G. but that is a very low bar.
. A firsthand account from a U.S. Naval officer is eye opening (emphasis mine).
He'd seen his ship, one of the Navy's fleet of 11 minesweepers, sidelined by repairs and
maintenance for more than 20 months. Once the ship, based in Japan, returned to action, its
crew was only able to conduct its most essential training -- how to identify and defuse
underwater mines -- for fewer than 10 days the entire next year . During those
training missions, the officer said, the crew found it hard to trust the ship's faulty
navigation system: It ran on Windows 2000.
Sonar which identifies dishwashers, crab traps and cars as possible mines, can hardly be
considered a rebuilt military. The Navy's eleven minesweepers built more than 25 years ago,
have had their decommissioning continually delayed because no replacement plan was implemented.
I'll await the deeper understanding of 'deterrence' from b, even as I consider willingness to
commit and brag about war crimes as beyond the point of no return.
Posted by: psychedelicatessen | Jan 19 2020 9:14 utc |
98
"... a friend of mine, born in Venice and a long-time resident of Rome, pointed out to me that dogs are a sign of loneliness. ..."
"... And the cafes and restaurants on weekends in Chicago–chockfull of people, each on his or her own Powerbook, surfing the WWW all by themselves. ..."
"... The preaching of self-reliance by those who have never had to practice it is galling. ..."
"... Katherine: Agreed. It is also one of the reasons why I am skeptical of various evangelical / fundi pastors, who are living at the expense of their churches, preaching about individual salvation. ..."
"... So you have the upper crust (often with inheritances and trust funds) preaching economic self-reliances, and you have divines preaching individual salvation as they go back to the house provided by the members of the church. ..."
George Monbiot on human loneliness and its toll. I agree with his observations. I have been cataloguing them in my head for
years, especially after a friend of mine, born in Venice and a long-time resident of Rome, pointed out to me that dogs are
a sign of loneliness.
A couple of recent trips to Rome have made that point ever more obvious to me: Compared to my North Side neighborhood in Chicago,
where every other person seems to have a dog, and on weekends Clark Street is awash in dogs (on their way to the dog boutiques
and the dog food truck), Rome has few dogs. Rome is much more densely populated, and the Italians still have each other, for good
or for ill. And Americans use the dog as an odd means of making human contact, at least with other dog owners.
But Americanization advances: I was surprised to see people bring dogs into the dining room of a fairly upscale restaurant
in Turin. I haven't seen that before. (Most Italian cafes and restaurants are just too small to accommodate a dog, and the owners
don't have much patience for disruptions.) The dogs barked at each other for while–violating a cardinal rule in Italy that mealtime
is sacred and tranquil. Loneliness rules.
And the cafes and restaurants on weekends in Chicago–chockfull of people, each on his or her own Powerbook, surfing the
WWW all by themselves.
That's why the comments about March on Everywhere in Harper's, recommended by Lambert, fascinated me. Maybe, to be less lonely,
you just have to attend the occasional march, no matter how disorganized (and the Chicago Women's March organizers made a few
big logistical mistakes), no matter how incoherent. Safety in numbers? (And as Monbiot points out, overeating at home alone is
a sign of loneliness: Another argument for a walk with a placard.)
In Britain, men who have spent their entire lives in quadrangles – at school, at college, at the bar, in parliament – instruct
us to stand on our own two feet.
With different imagery, the same is true in this country. The preaching of self-reliance by those who have never had to
practice it is galling.
Katherine: Agreed. It is also one of the reasons why I am skeptical of various evangelical / fundi pastors, who are living
at the expense of their churches, preaching about individual salvation.
So you have the upper crust (often with inheritances and trust funds) preaching economic self-reliances, and you have divines
preaching individual salvation as they go back to the house provided by the members of the church.
"... "The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well." ..."
"... Recently I read Not Fade Away by Laurence Shames and Peter Barton. It's about Peter Barton, the founder of Liberty Media, who shares his thoughts about dying from cancer. ..."
For the longest time, I believed that there's only one purpose of life: And that is to be happy. Right? Why else go through all
the pain and hardship? It's to achieve happiness in some way. And I'm not the only person who believed that. In fact, if you look
around you, most people are pursuing happiness in their lives.
That's why we collectively buy shit we don't need, go to bed with people we don't love, and try to work hard to get approval of
people we don't like.
Why do we do these things? To be honest, I don't care what the exact reason is. I'm not a scientist. All I know is that it has
something to do with history, culture, media, economy, psychology, politics, the information era, and you name it. The list is endless.
Just a few short years ago, I did everything to chase happiness.
You buy something, and you think that makes you happy.
You hook up with people, and think that makes you happy.
You get a well-paying job you don't like, and think that makes you happy.
You go on holiday, and you think that makes you happy.
But at the end of the day, you're lying in your bed (alone or next to your spouse), and you think: "What's next in this endless
pursuit of happiness?"
Well, I can tell you what's next: You, chasing something random that you believe makes you happy.
It's all a façade. A hoax. A story that's been made up.
Did Aristotle lie to us when he said:
"Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence."
I think we have to look at that quote from a different angle. Because when you read it, you think that happiness is the main goal.
And that's kind of what the quote says as well.
But here's the thing: How do you achieve happiness?
Happiness can't be a goal in itself. Therefore, it's not something that's achievable. I believe that happiness is merely a byproduct
of usefulness. When I talk about this concept with friends, family, and colleagues, I always find it difficult to put this into words.
But I'll give it a try here. Most things we do in life are just activities and experiences.
You go on holiday.
You go to work.
You go shopping.
You have drinks.
You have dinner.
You buy a car.
Those things should make you happy, right? But they are not useful. You're not creating anything. You're just consuming or doing
something. And that's great.
Don't get me wrong. I love to go on holiday, or go shopping sometimes. But to be honest, it's not what gives meaning to life.
What really makes me happy is when I'm useful. When I create something that others can use. Or even when I create something I
can use.
For the longest time I foud it difficult to explain the concept of usefulness and happiness. But when I recently ran into a quote
by Ralph Waldo Emerson, the dots connected.
Emerson says:
"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some
difference that you have lived and lived well."
And I didn't get that before I became more conscious of what I'm doing with my life. And that always sounds heavy and all. But
it's actually really simple.
It comes down to this: What are you DOING that's making a difference?
Did you do useful things in your lifetime? You don't have to change the world or anything. Just make it a little bit better than
you were born.
If you don't know how, here are some ideas.
Help your boss with something that's not your responsibility.
Take your mother to a spa.
Create a collage with pictures (not a digital one) for your spouse.
Write an article about the stuff you learned in life.
Help the pregnant lady who also has a 2-year old with her stroller.
Call your friend and ask if you can help with something.
Build a standing desk.
Start a business and hire an employee and treat them well.
That's just some stuff I like to do. You can make up your own useful activities.
You see? It's not anything big. But when you do little useful things every day, it adds up to a life that is well lived. A life
that mattered.
The last thing I want is to be on my deathbed and realize there's zero evidence that I ever existed.
Recently I read
Not Fade Away by Laurence Shames and Peter Barton. It's about Peter Barton, the founder of Liberty Media, who shares his
thoughts about dying from cancer.
It's a very powerful book and it will definitely bring tears to your eyes. In the book, he writes about how he lived his life
and how he found his calling. He also went to business school, and this is what he thought of his fellow MBA candidates:
"Bottom line: they were extremely bright people who would never really anything, would never add much to society, would leave
no legacy behind. I found this terribly sad, in the way that wasted potential is always sad."
You can say that about all of us. And after he realized that in his thirties, he founded a company that turned him into a multi-millionaire.
Another person who always makes himself useful is Casey Neistat
. I've been following him for a year and a half now, and every time I watch his
YouTube show , he's doing something.
He also talks about how he always wants to do and create something. He even has a tattoo on his forearm that says "Do More."
Most people would say, "why would you work more?" And then they turn on Netflix and watch back to back episodes of Daredevil.
A different mindset.
Being useful is a mindset. And like with any mindset, it starts with a decision. One day I woke up and thought to myself: What
am I doing for this world? The answer was nothing.
And that same day I started writing. For you it can be painting, creating a product, helping elderly, or anything you feel like
doing.
Don't take it too seriously. Don't overthink it. Just DO something that's useful. Anything.
Darius Foroux writes about productivity, habits, decision making, and personal finance. His ideas and work have been featured
in TIME, NBC, Fast Company, Inc., Observer, and many more publications. Join
his free weekly newsletter.
This article was originally published on October 3, 2016, by Darius Foroux, and is republished here with permission. Darius Foroux
writes about productivity, habits, decision making, and personal finance.
"... As part of the scam, parents would "donate" money to a fake charity run by Singer. The funds would then be laundered to either pay off an SAT or ACT administrator to take the exams or bribe an employee in college athletics to name the rich, non-athlete children as recruits. Virtually every scenario relied on multiple layers of corruption, all of which eventually allowed wealthy students to masquerade as "deserving" of the merit-based college slots they paid up to half a million dollars to "qualify" for. ..."
"... When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organised interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it. ..."
"... The conclusion of the study? We live in an oligarchy: ..."
The college bribery scandal reveals an ugly truth: our society is unjust, dominated by a small elite. Actress Lori
Loughlin, who has been implicated in the Operation Varsity Blues scandal. Credit:
Featureflash Photo Agency/Shutterstock The most destructive
and pervasive myth in America today is that we live in a meritocracy. Our elites, so the myth goes, earned their places at Yale and
Harvard, on Wall Street and in Washington -- not because of the accident of their birth, but because they are better, stronger, and
smarter than the rest of us. Therefore, they think, they've "earned" their places in the halls of power and "deserve" to lead.
The fervor with which so many believe this enables elites to lord over those worse off than they are. On we slumber, believing
that we live in a country that values justice, instead of working towards a more equitable and authentically meritocratic society.
Take the Operation Varsity Blues scandal. On Tuesday, the FBI and federal prosecutors announced that 50 people had been charged in,
as Sports Illustrated put it , "a nationwide college admissions scheme that used bribes to help potential students cheat
on college entrance exams or to pose as potential athletic recruits to get admitted to high-profile universities." Thirty-three parents,
nine collegiate coaches, two SAT/ACT exam administrators, an exam proctor,
and a college athletics administrator were among those charged. The man who allegedly ran the scheme, William Rick Singer, pled
guilty to four charges of racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the U.S., and obstruction of
justice.
As part of the scam, parents would "donate" money to a fake charity run by Singer. The funds would then be laundered to either
pay off an SAT or ACT administrator to take the exams or bribe an employee in college athletics to name the rich, non-athlete children
as recruits. Virtually every scenario relied on multiple layers of corruption, all of which eventually allowed wealthy students to
masquerade as "deserving" of the merit-based college slots they paid up to half a million dollars to "qualify" for.
Cheating. Bribery. Lying. The wealthy and privileged buying what was reserved for the deserving. It's all there on vivid display.
Modern American society has
become increasingly and
banally corrupt , both in the ways in which "justice" is meted out and in who is allowed to access elite education and the power
that comes with it.
The average American citizen has very little power, as a 2014
study by Princeton University found. The research reviewed 1,779 public policy questions asked between 1981 and 2002 and the
responses by different income levels and interest groups; then calculated the likelihood that certain policies would be adopted.
A proposed policy change with low support among economically elite Americans (one-out-of-five in favor) is adopted only about
18 percent of the time, while a proposed change with high support (four-out-of-five in favor) is adopted about 45% of the time.
That's in stark contrast with policies favored by average Americans:
When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organised interests, they generally lose. Moreover,
because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor
policy change, they generally do not get it.
The conclusion of the study? We live in an oligarchy:
our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government
adopts. [T]he preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact
upon public policy.
The belief in the myth of merit hurts the smart kid with great grades who aced his SATs but was still rejected from Yale and Harvard.
It hurts talented athletes who have worked their tails off for so many years. It hurts parents who have committed hundreds of school
nights and weekends to their children. It hurts HR departments that believe degrees from Ivy League schools mean that graduates are
qualified. It hurts all of us who buy into the great myth that America is a democratic meritocracy and that we can achieve whatever
we want if only we're willing to expend blood, toil, sweat, and tears.
At least in an outright class system like the British Houses of Lords and Commons, there is not this farcical playacting of equal
opportunity. The elites, with their privilege and titles, know the reason they are there and feel some sense of obligation to those
less well off than they are. At the very least, they do not engage in the ritual pretense of "deserving" what they "earned" -- quite
unlike those who descend on Washington, D.C. believing that they really are better than their compatriots in flyover country.
All societies engage in myth-making about themselves. But the myth of meritocracy may be our most pervasive and destructive belief
-- and it mirrors the myth that anything like "justice" is served up in our courts.
Despite all this evidence, most Americans embrace a version of the Calvinist beliefs promulgated by their forebears, believing
that the elect deserve their status. We remain confident that when our children apply to college or are
questioned by police , they will receive just and fair outcomes. If our neighbors' and friends' kids do not, then we assure ourselves
that it is they who are at fault, not the system.
The result has been a gaping chasm through our society. Lives are destroyed because, rather than working for real merit-based
systems and justice, we worship at the altar of false promises offered by our institutions. Instead we should be rolling up our sleeves
and seeing Operation Varsity Blues for what it is: a call to action.
Barbara Boland is the former weekend editor of the Washington Examiner . Her work has been featured on Fox News, the
Drudge Report, HotAir.com, RealClearDefense, RealClearPolitics, and elsewhere. She's the author of Patton Uncovered , a book
about General Patton in World War II. Follow her on Twitter@BBatDC.
If conservatives are going to dance the graves of Aunt Beckie, the backlash is going to be big. Sure this is a 'scandal' but it
seems these parents weren't rich enough to bribe their kids in college the right way, like Trumps and Kushner, and probably slightly
duped into going along with this scheme. (It appears the government got the ring leader to call all defendants to get evidence
they participated in a crime.)
Just wait until the mug shot of Aunt Beckie is on the internet and Olivia Jade does 60 minutes doing teary eyed interview of
how much she loves her mother. And how many parents are stress that their kids will struggle in the global competitive economy.
I fully recall the days of getting government computing contracts. Once a certain threshold was reached, you discovered you had to
hire a "lobbyist," and give him a significant amount of money to dole out to various gatekeepers in the bureaucracy for your contracts
to be approved. That was the end of our government contracts, and the end was hastened by the reaction to trying to complain about
it.
Thank you, Barbara Boland, for "The Myth of American Meritocracy" and for linking ("Related Articles" box) to the 2012 "The Myth
of American Meritocracy" by Ron Unz, then publisher of the American Conservative.
The 26,000-word Ron Unz research masterpiece was the opening salvo in the nation-wide discussion that ultimately led to the federal
court case nearing resolution in Boston.
"The Myth of American Meritocracy -- How corrupt are Ivy League admissions?" by Ron Unz, The American Conservative, Nov 28, 2012:
Barbara Boland "While black people make up only 13 percent of the population, they make up 42 percent of death row and 35 percent
of those who are executed."
Ms. Boland: According to the US Department of Justice, African Americans [13 per cent of the population] accounted for 52.5% of
all homicide offenders from 1980 to 2008.
I agree with prodigalson. This is the type of article that TAC should uphold as a 'gold standard'. One reason I read, and comment
on, TAC is that it offers thought provoking, and sometimes contrarian, articles (although the constant harping on transgender BS
gets annoying).
America has always been somewhat corrupt. But, to borrow a phrase, wealth corrupts, and uber wealth corrupts absolutely.
As Warren Buffet says "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning".
I have said it before, and I will say it again. During the next severe financial recession, if the rich are protected and coddled
and everybody else is left to fend for themselves the ARs will come out of the closets when the sheriff comes to take the house or
the pickup truck. My sense is that average Americans have had enough.
Imagine if the digital transfer of money was abolished. Imagine if everybody had to have their money in a local bank instead of
on an account in one of the major banks. Imagine if Americans saw, day after day, armored vehicles showing up at local banks to offload
sacks of currency that went to only a few individual accounts.
Instead, the elites get their financial statements showing an ever increasing pile of cash at their disposal. They see it, but
nobody else does. But, if everybody physically saw the river of wealth flowing to the elites, I believe things would change. Fast.
Right now this transfer of wealth is all digital, hidden from the view of 99.99% of Americans. And the elites, the banking industry,
and the wealth management cabal prefer it that way.
I am amazed by the media coverage of this scandal. Was anyone actually under the impression that college admissions were on the
level before these Hollywood bozos were caught red handed?
No, the meritocracy is not dead; it's not even dying. It is, in fact, alive and well and the absolute best alternative to any
other method used to separate wheat from chaff, cream from milk, diamonds from rust.
What else is there that is even half as good?
Are merit-based systems perfect? Heck, no. They've never been perfect; they will never be perfect. They are administered by people
and people are flawed. Not just flawed in the way Singer, and Huffman are flawed (and those individuals are not simply flawed, they're
corrupt) but flawed in the everyday kind of sense. Yes, we all have tendencies, biases, preferences that will -- inevitably -- leak
into our selection process, no matter how objectively strict the process may be structured, no matter how rigorously fair we try
to be.
So the fact that -- as with most things -- we can find a trace of corruption here that fact is meaningless. We can find evidence
of human corruption, venality, greed, sloth, lust, envy (all of the 7 Deadly Sins) pretty much everywhere. But if we look at the
20M students enrolled in college, the vast majority are successfully & fairly admitted through merit-based filtering systems (which
are more or less rigorous) which have been in place forever.
Ms. Boland tells us (with a straight face, no less) that "The U.S. is now a country where corruption is rampant and money buys
both access and outcomes." But what does that even mean?
Certainly money can buy access and certainly money can buy outcomes. But that's what money does. She might as well assert that
money can buy goods and services, and lions and tigers and bears -- oh my! Of course it can. Equally networks can 'buy' access and
outcomes (if my best friend is working as the manager for Adele, I'm betting he could probably arrange my meeting Adele). Equally
success & fame can buy access and outcomes. I'm betting Adele can probably arrange a meeting with Gwen Stefani .and both can arrange
a meeting with Tom Brady. So what? Does the fact that money can be used to purchase goods & services mean money or the use of money
is corrupt or morally degenerate? No, of course not. In truth, we all leverage what we have (whatever that may be) to get what we
want. That's how life works. But the fact that we all do that does not mean we are all corrupt.
But yes, corruption does exist and can usually be found, in trace amounts -- as I said -- pretty much everywhere.
So is it rampant? Can I buy my way into the NBA or the NFL? If I go to Clark Hunt and give him $20M and tell him I want to play
QB for the Chiefs, will he let me? Can I buy my way into the CEO's position at General Electric, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Sprint,
Verizon, General Motors, Toyota or any of the Fortune 500? Heck, can I even buy my way into the Governor's mansion? To become the
Mayor of Chicago? Or the Police Commissioner? No -- these things are not possible. But what I can buy is my presence on the media
stage.
What happens after cannot be purchased.
So no, by any measure, corruption is not rampant. And though many things are, in fact, for sale -- not everything is. And no matter
how much money I give anyone, I'm never gonna QB the Chiefs or play for the Lakers.
She tells us, "we are dominated by a rich and powerful elite." No, we're not. Most of us live our lives making the choices we
want to make, given the means that each of us has, without any interference from any so-called "elite". The "elite" didn't tell me
where to go to school, or where to get a job, or how to do my job, or when to have kids, or what loaf of bread to buy, or what brand
of beer tastes best, or where to go on the family vacation. No one did. The elite obviously did not tell us who to vote for in the
last presidential election.
Of course one of the problems with the "it's the fault of the elite" is the weight given institutions by people like Ms.Boland.
"Oh, lordy, the Elite used their dominating power to get a brainless twit of a daughter into USC". Now if my kid were cheated out
of a position at USC because the Twit got in, I'd be upset but beyond that who really cares if a Twit gets an undergraduate degree
from USC or Yale .or Harvard .or wherever. Some of the brightest people I've known earned their degrees at Easter PolyTechnic U (some
don't even have college degrees -- oh, the horror!); some of the stupidest have Ivy League credentials. So what?
Only if you care about the exclusivity of such a relatively meaningless thing as a degree from USC, does gaming the exclusivity
matter.
She ends with the exhortation: "The result has been a gaping chasm through our society. Lives are destroyed because, rather than
working for real merit-based systems and justice, we worship at the altar of false promises offered by our institutions. Instead
we should be rolling up our sleeves and seeing Operation Varsity Blues for what it is: a call to action."
To do what, exactly?
Toss the baby and the bathwater? Substitute lottery selection for merit? Flip a coin? What?
Again the very best method is and always will be merit-based. That is the incentive which drives all of us: the hope that if we work
hard enough and do well enough, that we will succeed. Anything else is just a lie.
Yes, we can root out this piece of corruption. Yes, we can build better and more rigorously fair systems. But in the end, merit
is the only game in town. Far better to roll-up our sleeves and simply buckle down, Winsocki. There isn't anything better.
"While black people make up only 13 percent of the population, they make up 42 percent of death row and 35 percent of those who are
executed. There are big racial disparities in charging, sentencing, plea bargaining, and executions, Department of Justice reviews
have concluded, and black and brown people are disproportionately found to be innocent after landing on death row. The poor and disadvantaged
thereby become grist for a system that cares nothing for them."
So to what degree are these "disparities" "disproportionate" in light of actual criminal behavior? To be "proportionate," would
we expect criminal behavior to correlate exactly to racial, ethnic, sex, and age demographics of society as a whole?
Put another way, if you are a victim of a violent crime in America, what are the odds your assailant is, say, an elderly, Asian
female? Approximately zero.
Conversely, what are the odds your assailant is a young, black male? Rather high, and if you yourself are a young, black male,
approaching 100 percent.
Mostly thumbs up to this article. But why you gotta pick on Calvinism at the end? Anyway, your understanding of Calvinism is entirely
upside down. Calvinists believe they are elect by divine grace, and salvation is something given by God through Jesus, which means
you can't earn it and you most assuredly don't deserve it. Calvinism also teaches that all people are made in the image of God and
worthy of respect, regardless of class or status. There's no "version" of Calvinism that teaches what you claim.
Is it any wonder that the old foreign service establishment "embrace a geopolitical outlook that is simplistic, foolhardy, and
dangerous"?
The foreign service exam of that era (probably no better today) tested substantially on ones knowledge of fiction: novels and
such.
Rather like choosing career foreign service officers based on a person's performance in the entertainment trivia night at the
local watering hole. It was a test of memory not logic or insightfulness or historical perspective. These folks are not latter-day
De Toquevilles or great historians, even if many came from colleges viewed as top drawer.
Clowns should be increasingly used in redundancy (layoff, firing) meetings until it
becomes the norm and employers start to compete with each other to offer the best clown
redundancy experience and promote it as a benefit.
It would also create clown jobs, which would probably require more clown schools, meaning
that the tuition prices would go through the roof and young people dreaming of becoming
redundancy clowns would either have to come from wealth or take out massive clown loans to
fund their education for clown universities and grad schools. Shareholders can only take so
much top line costs and Wall Street pressure would force corporations to improve return on
investment and reduce redundancy clown labor expenses. Sadly, redundancy clowns would find
themselves training their own replacements – HB1 clowns from "low cost" countries.
Employers would respond to quality criticisms of the HB1 clown experience by publishing
survey results showing very similar almost ex-employee satisfaction with the new clowns.
Eventually, of course, redundancy clowns will be replaced by AI and robots. It's just the
future and we will need to think about how to adapt to it today by putting in place a UBI for
the inevitable redundant redundancy clowns.
"... The real unemployment rate is probably somewhere between 10%-12%. ..."
"... The U-6 also includes what the labor dept. calls involuntary part time employed. It should include the voluntary part time as well, but doesn't (See, they're not actively looking for work even if unemployed). ..."
"... But even the involuntary part time is itself under-estimated. I believe the Labor Dept. counts only those involuntarily part time unemployed whose part time job is their primary job. It doesn't count those who have second and third involuntary part time jobs. That would raise the U-6 unemployment rate significantly. The labor Dept's estimate of the 'discouraged' and 'missing labor force' is grossly underestimated. ..."
"... The labor dept. also misses the 1-2 million workers who went on social security disability (SSDI) after 2008 because it provides better pay, for longer, than does unemployment insurance. That number rose dramatically after 2008 and hasn't come down much (although the government and courts are going after them). ..."
"... The way the government calculates unemployment is by means of 60,000 monthly household surveys but that phone survey method misses a lot of workers who are undocumented and others working in the underground economy in the inner cities (about 10-12% of the economy according to most economists and therefore potentially 10-12% of the reported labor force in size as well). ..."
"... The SSDI, undocumented, underground, underestimation of part timers, etc. are what I call the 'hidden unemployed'. And that brings the unemployed well above the 3.7%. ..."
The real unemployment rate is probably somewhere between 10%-12%. Here's why: the 3.7% is
the U-3 rate, per the labor dept. But that's the rate only for full time employed. What the
labor dept. calls the U-6 includes what it calls discouraged workers (those who haven't looked
for work in the past 4 weeks). Then there's what's called the 'missing labor force'–i.e.
those who haven't looked in the past year. They're not calculated in the 3.7% U-3 unemployment
rate number either. Why? Because you have to be 'out of work and actively looking for work' to
be counted as unemployed and therefore part of the 3.7% rate.
The U-6 also includes what the labor dept. calls involuntary part time employed. It
should include the voluntary part time as well, but doesn't (See, they're not actively looking
for work even if unemployed).
But even the involuntary part time is itself under-estimated. I believe the Labor Dept.
counts only those involuntarily part time unemployed whose part time job is their primary job.
It doesn't count those who have second and third involuntary part time jobs. That would raise
the U-6 unemployment rate significantly. The labor Dept's estimate of the 'discouraged' and
'missing labor force' is grossly underestimated.
The labor dept. also misses the 1-2 million workers who went on social security
disability (SSDI) after 2008 because it provides better pay, for longer, than does unemployment
insurance. That number rose dramatically after 2008 and hasn't come down much (although the
government and courts are going after them).
The way the government calculates unemployment is by means of 60,000 monthly household
surveys but that phone survey method misses a lot of workers who are undocumented and others
working in the underground economy in the inner cities (about 10-12% of the economy according
to most economists and therefore potentially 10-12% of the reported labor force in size as
well). The labor dept. just makes assumptions about that number (conservatively, I may
add) and plugs in a number to be added to the unemployment totals. But it has no real idea of
how many undocumented or underground economy workers are actually employed or unemployed since
these workers do not participate in the labor dept. phone surveys, and who can blame them.
The SSDI, undocumented, underground, underestimation of part timers, etc. are what I
call the 'hidden unemployed'. And that brings the unemployed well above the 3.7%.
Finally, there's the corroborating evidence about what's called the labor force
participation rate. It has declined by roughly 5% since 2007. That's 6 to 9 million workers who
should have entered the labor force but haven't. The labor force should be that much larger,
but it isn't. Where have they gone? Did they just not enter the labor force? If not, they're
likely a majority unemployed, or in the underground economy, or belong to the labor dept's
'missing labor force' which should be much greater than reported. The government has no
adequate explanation why the participation rate has declined so dramatically. Or where have the
workers gone. If they had entered the labor force they would have been counted. And their 6 to
9 million would result in an increase in the total labor force number and therefore raise the
unemployment rate.
All these reasons–-i.e. only counting full timers in the official 3.7%;
under-estimating the size of the part time workforce; under-estimating the size of the
discouraged and so-called 'missing labor force'; using methodologies that don't capture the
undocumented and underground unemployed accurately; not counting part of the SSI increase as
unemployed; and reducing the total labor force because of the declining labor force
participation-–together means the true unemployment rate is definitely over 10% and
likely closer to 12%. And even that's a conservative estimate perhaps." Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: Jack Rasmus
Jack Rasmus is author of the recently published book, 'Central Bankers at the End of
Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression', Clarity Press, August 2017. He blogs
at jackrasmus.com and his twitter handle
is @drjackrasmus. His website is http://kyklosproductions.com .
Don't panic is always a good advice. Following it is another story...
Notable quotes:
"... Using contacts, no matter how far in the past they rest, is nothing to be ashamed of! You've probably spent most of your life working, and meeting a lot of people along the way. ..."
"... Your resume should be tailored to each and every job you apply for. While it is important to showcase your talent and skills, how you present the information is equally important. ..."
When you find yourself over 50 and unemployed, the thought of finding another job may seem daunting and hopeless.
It is quite easy to become discouraged because many people fear being stereotyped because of their age, the tough job market,
or the prospect of being interviewed by someone half their age. However, there are some things the older unemployed should keep in
mind while on the job search. Using the following tips will increase your chances of a short job search and create an overall more
pleasant experience.
Quit telling yourself that no one hires older workers. This is simply just not true. In some cases older
workers have to exert more effort to overcome discrimination, but this is certainly not the case for every employer. There are
even entire websites with jobs posted specifically for older workers, and a quick Google search will render you a list of those
websites. Take advantage of such resources!
Take advantage of new technology. Learn to blog and micro-blog, via Twitter, about your profession and interests.
You should even create a LinkedIn profile (a website similar to Facebook
yet has a more career oriented function) to assist it meeting people in your desired field. All of which will help you stay fine
tuned on your skills, while developing new ones. Learning to use social networking will indicate to potential employers that you
can adapt to change and learn new things, particularly technology, fairly quickly.
Use all those hard earned contacts. Using contacts, no matter how far in the past they rest, is nothing
to be ashamed of! You've probably spent most of your life working, and meeting a lot of people along the way. It is completely
acceptable to reach out to former colleagues, class mates, co-workers and employers for job possibilities. Using resources like
Facebook or LinkedIn are great ways to find those long lost contacts as well. Chances are they would love to hear from you and
help you out if possible.
Don't clutter your resume. Your resume should be tailored to each and every job you apply for. While
it is important to showcase your talent and skills, how you present the information is equally important. This means keep
it straight to the point and relate your past experience to the skills necessary for the job you are applying for. Essentially,
don't do a history dump of every job you've ever had, instead, make each word count!
Don't act superior to the interviewer. It is likely that the people interviewing you will be younger than
you. But this does not mean you should look down upon them. Obviously they have earned their position, and if you play your cards
right, in due time, you will earn yours! Even if you've worked more years than your interviewer has been alive, it's not okay
to tell him or her that you can "teach" them anything. A better idea would be to state your experience working in a multi-generational
work place.
Use these tips to help make your job search less stressful and more positive. Whatever you do, don't throw in the towel before
you've even tried. Your experience and knowledge will be recognized. All you need is the right employer to identify it.
"... A suicide occurs in the United States roughly once every 12 minutes . What's more, after decades of decline, the rate of self-inflicted deaths per 100,000 people annually -- the suicide rate -- has been increasing sharply since the late 1990s. Suicides now claim two-and-a-half times as many lives in this country as do homicides , even though the murder rate gets so much more attention. ..."
"... In some states the upsurge was far higher: North Dakota (57.6%), New Hampshire (48.3%), Kansas (45%), Idaho (43%). ..."
"... Since 2008 , suicide has ranked 10th among the causes of death in this country. For Americans between the ages of 10 and 34, however, it comes in second; for those between 35 and 45, fourth. The United States also has the ninth-highest rate in the 38-country Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Globally , it ranks 27th. ..."
"... The rates in rural counties are almost double those in the most urbanized ones, which is why states like Idaho, Kansas, New Hampshire, and North Dakota sit atop the suicide list. Furthermore, a far higher percentage of people in rural states own guns than in cities and suburbs, leading to a higher rate of suicide involving firearms, the means used in half of all such acts in this country. ..."
"... Education is also a factor. The suicide rate is lowest among individuals with college degrees. Those who, at best, completed high school are, by comparison, twice as likely to kill themselves. Suicide rates also tend to be lower among people in higher-income brackets. ..."
"... Evidence from the United States , Brazil , Japan , and Sweden does indicate that, as income inequality increases, so does the suicide rate. ..."
"... One aspect of the suicide epidemic is puzzling. Though whites have fared far better economically (and in many other ways) than African Americans, their suicide rate is significantly higher . ..."
"... The higher suicide rate among whites as well as among people with only a high school diploma highlights suicide's disproportionate effect on working-class whites. This segment of the population also accounts for a disproportionate share of what economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton have labeled " deaths of despair " -- those caused by suicides plus opioid overdoses and liver diseases linked to alcohol abuse. Though it's hard to offer a complete explanation for this, economic hardship and its ripple effects do appear to matter. ..."
"... Trump has neglected his base on pretty much every issue; this one's no exception. ..."
Yves here. This post describes how the forces driving the US suicide surge started well before the Trump era, but explains how
Trump has not only refused to acknowledge the problem, but has made matters worse.
However, it's not as if the Democrats are embracing this issue either.
BY Rajan Menon, the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of International Relations at the Powell School, City College of New
York, and Senior Research Fellow at Columbia University's Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. His latest book is The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention
Originally published at
TomDispatch .
We hear a lot about suicide when celebrities like
Anthony Bourdain and
Kate Spade die by their own hand.
Otherwise, it seldom makes the headlines. That's odd given the magnitude of the problem.
In 2017, 47,173 Americans killed themselves.
In that single year, in other words, the suicide count was nearly
seven times greater than the number
of American soldiers killed in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars between 2001 and 2018.
A suicide occurs in the United States roughly once every
12 minutes . What's more, after decades
of decline, the rate of self-inflicted deaths per 100,000 people annually -- the suicide rate -- has been increasing sharply since
the late 1990s. Suicides now claim two-and-a-half times as many lives in this country as do
homicides , even
though the murder rate gets so much more attention.
In other words, we're talking about a national
epidemic of self-inflicted
deaths.
Worrisome Numbers
Anyone who has lost a close relative or friend to suicide or has worked on a suicide hotline (as I have) knows that statistics
transform the individual, the personal, and indeed the mysterious aspects of that violent act -- Why this person? Why now? Why in
this manner? -- into depersonalized abstractions. Still, to grasp how serious the suicide epidemic has become, numbers are a necessity.
According to a 2018 Centers for Disease Control study , between
1999 and 2016, the suicide rate increased in every state in the union except Nevada, which already had a remarkably high rate. In
30 states, it jumped by 25% or more; in 17, by at least a third. Nationally, it increased
33% . In some states the upsurge was far
higher: North Dakota (57.6%), New Hampshire (48.3%), Kansas (45%), Idaho (43%).
Alas, the news only gets grimmer.
Since 2008 , suicide has ranked 10th
among the causes of death in this country. For Americans between the ages of 10 and 34, however, it comes in second; for those between
35 and 45, fourth. The United States also has the ninth-highest
rate in the 38-country Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Globally , it ranks 27th.
More importantly, the trend in the United States doesn't align with what's happening elsewhere in the developed world. The World
Health Organization, for instance, reports
that Great Britain, Canada, and China all have notably lower suicide rates than the U.S.,
as do all but
six countries in the European Union. (Japan's is only slightly lower.)
World Bank statistics show that, worldwide,
the suicide rate fell from 12.8 per 100,000 in 2000 to 10.6 in 2016. It's been falling in
China ,
Japan
(where it has declined steadily for nearly a
decade and is at its lowest point in 37 years), most of Europe, and even countries like
South Korea and
Russia that
have a significantly higher suicide rate than the United States. In Russia, for instance, it has dropped by nearly 26% from a
high point of 42 per 100,000 in
1994 to 31 in 2019.
We know a fair amount about the patterns
of suicide in the United States. In 2017, the rate was highest for men between the ages of 45 and 64 (30 per 100,000) and those 75
and older (39.7 per 100,000).
The rates in rural counties are almost double those in the most urbanized ones, which is why states like Idaho, Kansas, New
Hampshire, and North Dakota sit atop the suicide list. Furthermore, a far higher percentage of people in rural states own
guns than in cities and suburbs, leading to a
higher rate of suicide involving firearms, the means used in half
of all such acts in this country.
There are gender-based differences as well.
From 1999 to 2017, the rate for men was substantially higher than for women -- almost four-and-a-half times higher in the first of
those years, slightly more than three-and-a-half times in the last.
Education is also a factor. The suicide rate is
lowest among individuals with college degrees. Those who, at best, completed high school are, by comparison, twice as likely to kill
themselves. Suicide rates also tend to be lower
among people in higher-income brackets.
The Economics of Stress
This surge in the suicide rate has taken place in years during which the working class has experienced greater economic hardship
and psychological stress. Increased competition from abroad and outsourcing, the results of globalization, have contributed to job
loss, particularly in economic sectors like manufacturing, steel, and mining that had long been mainstays of employment for such
workers. The jobs still available often paid less and provided fewer benefits.
Technological change, including computerization, robotics, and the coming of artificial intelligence, has similarly begun to displace
labor in significant ways, leaving Americans without college degrees, especially those 50 and older, in
far more difficult straits when it comes to
finding new jobs that pay
well. The lack of anything resembling an
industrial policy of a sort that exists in Europe
has made these dislocations even more painful for American workers, while a sharp decline in private-sector union membership
-- down
from nearly 17% in 1983 to 6.4% today -- has reduced their ability to press for higher wages through collective bargaining.
Furthermore, the inflation-adjusted median wage has barely budged
over the last four decades (even as
CEO salaries have soared). And a decline in worker productivity doesn't explain it: between 1973 and 2017 productivity
increased by 77%, while a worker's average hourly wage only
rose by 12.4%. Wage stagnation has made it
harder for working-class
Americans to get by, let alone have a lifestyle comparable to that of their parents or grandparents.
The gap in earnings between those at the top and bottom of American society has also increased -- a lot. Since 1979, the
wages of Americans in the 10th percentile increased by a pitiful
1.2%. Those in the 50th percentile did a bit better, making a gain of 6%. By contrast, those in the 90th percentile increased by
34.3% and those near the peak of the wage pyramid -- the top 1% and especially the rarefied 0.1% -- made far more
substantial
gains.
And mind you, we're just talking about wages, not other forms of income like large stock dividends, expensive homes, or eyepopping
inheritances. The share of net national wealth held by the richest 0.1%
increased from 10% in the 1980s to 20% in 2016.
By contrast, the share of the bottom 90% shrank in those same decades from about 35% to 20%. As for the top 1%, by 2016 its share
had increased to almost 39% .
The precise relationship between economic inequality and suicide rates remains unclear, and suicide certainly can't simply be
reduced to wealth disparities or financial stress. Still, strikingly, in contrast to the United States, suicide rates are noticeably
lower and have been declining in
Western
European countries where income inequalities are far less pronounced, publicly funded healthcare is regarded as a right (not
demonized as a pathway to serfdom), social safety nets far more extensive, and
apprenticeships and worker
retraining programs more widespread.
Evidence from the United States
, Brazil ,
Japan , and
Sweden does indicate that, as income inequality increases,
so does the suicide rate. If so, the good news is that progressive economic policies -- should Democrats ever retake the White
House and the Senate -- could make a positive difference. A study
based on state-by-state variations in the U.S. found that simply boosting the minimum wage and Earned Income Tax Credit by 10%
appreciably reduces the suicide rate among people without college degrees.
The Race Enigma
One aspect of the suicide epidemic is puzzling. Though whites have fared far better economically (and in many other ways)
than African Americans, their suicide rate is significantly
higher . It increased from 11.3 per 100,000
in 2000 to 15.85 per 100,000 in 2017; for African Americans in those years the rates were 5.52 per 100,000 and 6.61 per 100,000.
Black men are
10 times more likely to be homicide victims than white men, but the latter are two-and-half times more likely to kill themselves.
The higher suicide rate among whites as well as among people with only a high school diploma highlights suicide's disproportionate
effect on working-class whites. This segment of the population also accounts for a disproportionate share of what economists Anne
Case and Angus Deaton have labeled "
deaths of despair
" -- those caused by suicides plus
opioid overdoses
and liver diseases linked to alcohol abuse. Though it's hard to offer a complete explanation for this, economic hardship and
its ripple effects do appear to matter.
According to a study by the
St. Louis Federal Reserve , the white working class accounted for 45% of all income earned in the United States in 1990, but
only 27% in 2016. In those same years, its share of national wealth plummeted, from 45% to 22%. And as inflation-adjusted wages have
decreased for
men without college degrees, many white workers seem to have
lost hope of success of
any sort. Paradoxically, the sense of failure and the accompanying stress may be greater for white workers precisely because they
traditionally were much
better off economically than their African American and Hispanic counterparts.
In addition, the fraying of communities knit together by employment in once-robust factories and mines has increased
social isolation
among them, and the evidence that it -- along with
opioid addiction and
alcohol abuse -- increases the risk of suicide
is strong . On top of that,
a significantly higher proportion of
whites than blacks and Hispanics own firearms, and suicide rates are markedly higher in states where gun
ownership is more widespread.
Trump's Faux Populism
The large increase in suicide within the white working class began a couple of decades before Donald Trump's election. Still,
it's reasonable to ask what he's tried to do about it, particularly since votes from these Americans helped propel him to the White
House. In 2016, he received
64% of the votes of whites without college degrees; Hillary Clinton, only 28%. Nationwide, he beat Clinton in
counties where deaths of despair rose significantly between 2000 and 2015.
White workers will remain crucial to Trump's chances of winning in 2020. Yet while he has spoken about, and initiated steps aimed
at reducing, the high suicide rate among
veterans , his speeches and tweets have never highlighted the national suicide epidemic or its inordinate impact on white workers.
More importantly, to the extent that economic despair contributes to their high suicide rate, his policies will only make matters
worse.
The real benefits from the December 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act championed by the president and congressional Republicans flowed
to those on the top steps of the economic ladder. By 2027, when the Act's provisions will run out, the wealthiest Americans are expected
to have captured
81.8% of the gains. And that's not counting the windfall they received from recent changes in taxes on inheritances. Trump and
the GOP
doubled the annual amount exempt from estate taxes -- wealth bequeathed to heirs -- through 2025 from $5.6 million per individual
to $11.2 million (or $22.4 million per couple). And who benefits most from this act of generosity? Not workers, that's for sure,
but every household with an estate worth $22 million or more will.
As for job retraining provided by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, the president
proposed
cutting that program by 40% in his 2019 budget, later settling for keeping it at 2017 levels. Future cuts seem in the cards as
long as Trump is in the White House. The Congressional Budget Office
projects that his tax cuts alone will produce even bigger budget
deficits in the years to come. (The shortfall last year was
$779 billion and it is expected to
reach $1 trillion by 2020.) Inevitably, the president and congressional Republicans will then demand additional reductions in spending
for social programs.
This is all the more likely because Trump and those Republicans also
slashed corporate taxes
from 35% to 21% -- an estimated
$1.4
trillion in savings for corporations over the next decade. And unlike the income tax cut, the corporate tax has
no end
date . The president assured his base that the big bucks those companies had stashed abroad would start flowing home and produce
a wave of job creation -- all without adding to the deficit. As it happens, however, most of that repatriated cash has been used
for corporate stock buy-backs, which totaled more than
$800 billion last year. That, in turn, boosted share prices, but didn't exactly rain money down on workers. No surprise, of course,
since the wealthiest 10% of Americans own at least
84% of all stocks and the bottom
60% have less than
2% of them.
And the president's corporate tax cut hasn't produced the tsunami of job-generating investments he predicted either. Indeed, in
its aftermath, more than 80% of American
companies stated that their plans for investment and hiring hadn't changed. As a result, the monthly increase in jobs has proven
unremarkable compared to President Obama's
second term, when the economic recovery that Trump largely inherited began. Yes, the economy did grow
2.3%
in 2017 and
2.9% in 2018 (though not
3.1% as the president claimed). There wasn't, however, any "unprecedented economic boom -- a boom that has rarely been seen before"
as he insisted in this year's State of the Union
Address .
Anyway, what matters for workers struggling to get by is growth in real wages, and there's nothing to celebrate on that front:
between 2017 and mid-2018 they actually
declined by 1.63% for white workers and 2.5% for African Americans, while they rose for Hispanics by a measly 0.37%. And though
Trump insists that his beloved tariff hikes are going to help workers, they will actually raise the prices of goods, hurting the
working class and other low-income Americans
the most .
Then there are the obstacles those susceptible to suicide face in receiving insurance-provided mental-health care. If you're a
white worker without medical coverage or have a policy with a deductible and co-payments that are high and your income, while low,
is too high to qualify for Medicaid, Trump and the GOP haven't done anything for you. Never mind the president's
tweet proclaiming that "the Republican Party Will Become 'The Party of Healthcare!'"
Let me amend that: actually, they have done something. It's just not what you'd call helpful. The
percentage of uninsured
adults, which fell from 18% in 2013 to 10.9% at the end of 2016, thanks in no small measure to
Obamacare , had risen to 13.7% by the end of last year.
The bottom line? On a problem that literally has life-and-death significance for a pivotal portion of his base, Trump has been
AWOL. In fact, to the extent that economic strain contributes to the alarming suicide rate among white workers, his policies are
only likely to exacerbate what is already a national crisis of epidemic proportions.
Trump is running on the claim that he's turned the economy around; addressing suicide undermines this (false) claim. To state
the obvious, NC readers know that Trump is incapable of caring about anyone or anything beyond his in-the-moment interpretation
of his self-interest.
Not just Trump. Most of the Republican Party and much too many Democrats have also abandoned this base, otherwise known as
working class Americans.
The economic facts are near staggering and this article has done a nice job of summarizing these numbers that are spread out
across a lot of different sites.
I've experienced this rise within my own family and probably because of that fact I'm well aware that Trump is only a symptom
of an entire political system that has all but abandoned it's core constituency, the American Working Class.
Yep It's not just Trump. The author mentions this, but still focuses on him for some reason. Maybe accurately attributing the
problems to a failed system makes people feel more hopeless. Current nihilists in Congress make it their duty to destroy once
helpful institutions in the name of "fiscal responsibility," i.e., tax cuts for corporate elites.
I'd assumed, the "working class" had dissappeared, back during Reagan's Miracle? We'd still see each other, sitting dazed on
porches & stoops of rented old places they'd previously; trying to garden, fix their car while smoking, drinking or dazed on something?
Those able to morph into "middle class" lives, might've earned substantially less, especially benefits and retirement package
wise. But, a couple decades later, it was their turn, as machines and foreigners improved productivity. You could lease a truck
to haul imported stuff your kids could sell to each other, or help robots in some warehouse, but those 80s burger flipping, rent-a-cop
& repo-man gigs dried up. Your middle class pals unemployable, everybody in PayDay Loan debt (without any pay day in sight?) SHTF
Bug-out bags® & EZ Credit Bushmasters began showing up at yard sales, even up North. Opioids became the religion of the proletariat
Whites simply had much farther to fall, more equity for our betters to steal. And it was damned near impossible to get the cops
to shoot you?
Man, this just ain't turning out as I'd hoped. Need coffee!
We especially love the euphemism "Deaths O' Despair." since it works so well on a Chyron, especially supered over obese crackers
waddling in crusty MossyOak™ Snuggies®
This is a very good article, but I have a comment about the section titled, "The Race Enigma." I think the key to understanding
why African Americans have a lower suicide rate lies in understanding the sociological notion of community, and the related concept
Emil Durkheim called social solidarity. This sense of solidarity and community among African Americans stands in contrast to the
"There is no such thing as society" neoliberal zeitgeist that in fact produces feelings of extreme isolation, failure, and self-recriminations.
An aside: as a white boy growing up in 1950s-60s Detroit I learned that if you yearned for solidarity and community what you had
to do was to hang out with black people.
" if you yearned for solidarity and community what you had to do was to hang out with black people."
amen, to that. in my case rural black people.
and I'll add Hispanics to that.
My wife's extended Familia is so very different from mine.
Solidarity/Belonging is cool.
I recommend it.
on the article we keep the scanner on("local news").we had a 3-4 year rash of suicides and attempted suicides(determined by chisme,
or deduction) out here.
all of them were despair related more than half correlated with meth addiction itself a despair related thing.
ours were equally male/female, and across both our color spectrum.
that leaves economics/opportunity/just being able to get by as the likely cause.
Actually, in the article it states:
"There are gender-based differences as well. From 1999 to 2017, the rate for men was substantially higher than for women -- almost
four-and-a-half times higher in the first of those years, slightly more than three-and-a-half times in the last."
which in some sense makes despair the wrong word, as females are actually quite a bit more likely to be depressed for instance,
but much less likely to "do the deed". Despair if we mean a certain social context maybe, but not just a psychological state.
Suicide deaths are a function of the suicide attempt rate and the efficacy of the method used. A unique aspect of the US is
the prevalence of guns in the society and therefore the greatly increased usage of them in suicide attempts compared to other
countries. Guns are a very efficient way of committing suicide with a very high "success" rate. As of 2010, half of US suicides
were using a gun as opposed to other countries with much lower percentages. So if the US comes even close to other countries in
suicide rates then the US will surpass them in deaths.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_methods#Firearms
Now we can add in opiates, especially fentanyl, that can be quite effective as well.
The economic crisis hitting middle America over the past 30 years has been quite focused on the states and populations that
also tend to have high gun ownership rates. So suicide attempts in those populations have a high probability of "success".
I would just take this opportunity to add that the police end up getting called in to prevent on lot of suicide attempts, and
just about every successful one.
In the face of so much blanket demonization of the police, along with justified criticism, it's important to remember that.
As someone who works in the mental health treatment system, acute inpatient psychiatry to be specific, I can say that of the
25 inpatients currently here, 11 have been here before, multiple times. And this is because of several issues, in my experience:
inadequate inpatient resources, staff burnout, inadequate support once they leave the hospital, and the nature of their illnesses.
It's a grim picture here and it's been this way for YEARS. Until MAJOR money is spent on this issue it's not going to get better.
This includes opening more facilities for people to live in long term, instead of closing them, which has been the trend I've
seen.
One last thing the CEO wants "asses in beds", aka census, which is the money maker. There's less profit if people get better
and don't return. And I guess I wouldn't have a job either. Hmmmm: sickness generates wealth.
The New York Times has an
illuminating article today summarizing recent research on the gender effects of
mandatory overwork in professional jobs. Lawyers, people in finance and other
client-centered occupations are increasingly required to be available round-the-clock, with
50-60 or more hours of work per week the norm. Among other costs, the impact on wage inequality
between men and women is severe. Since women are largely saddled with primary responsibility
for child care, even when couples ostensibly embrace equality on a theoretical level, the
workaholic jobs are allocated to men. This shows up in dramatic differences between typical
male and female career paths. The article doesn't discuss comparable issues in working class
employment, but availability for last-minute changes in work schedules and similar demands are
likely to impact men and women differentially as well.
What the article doesn't point out is that the situation it describes is a classic prisoners
dilemma.* Consider law firms. They compete for clients, and clients prefer attorneys who are
available on call, always prepared and willing to adjust to whatever schedule the client throws
at them. Assume that most lawyers want sane, predictable work hours if they are offered without
a severe penalty in pay. If law firms care about the well-being of their employees but also
about profits, we have all the ingredients to construct a standard PD payoff matrix:
There is a penalty to unilateral cooperation, cutting work hours back to a work-life balance
level. If your firm does it and the others don't, you lose clients to them.
There is a benefit to unilateral defection. If everyone else is cutting hours but you don't,
you scoop up the lion's share of the clients.
Mutual cooperation is preferred to mutual defection. Law firms, we are assuming, would
prefer a world in which overwork was removed from the contest for competitive advantage. They
would compete for clients as before, but none would require their staff to put in soul-crushing
hours. The alternative equilibrium, in which competition is still on the basis of the quality
of work but everyone is on call 24/7 is inferior.
If the game is played once, mutual defection dominates. If it is played repeatedly there is
a possibility for mutual cooperation to establish itself, but only under favorable conditions
(which apparently don't exist in the world of NY law firms). The logical solution is some
form of binding regulation.
The reason for bringing this up is that it strengthens the case for collective action rather
than placing all the responsibility on individuals caught in the system, including for that
matter individual law firms. Or, the responsibility is political, to demand constraints on the
entire industry. One place to start would be something like France's
right-to-disconnect law .
*I haven't read the studies by economists and sociologists cited in the article, but I
suspect many of them make the same point I'm making here.
The neoliberal war on labor in the USA is real. And it is especially real for It folk over 50. No country for the old
men, so to speak...
Notable quotes:
"... Obviously you need a financial cushion to not be earning for months and to pay for the training courses. ..."
"... Yeah, people get set in their ways and resistant to make changes. Steve Jobs talked about people developing grooves in their brain and how important it is to force yourself out of these grooves.* ..."
"... Your thoughts construct patterns like scaffolding in your mind. You are really etching chemical patterns. In most cases, people get stuck in those patterns, just like grooves in a record, and they never get out of them. ..."
"... The brain is like a muscle, it needs to be constantly worked to become strong. If you waste it watching football or looking at porn your brain will atrophy like the muscles of a person in a wheelchair. ..."
"... IBEW (licensed electricians) has no upper age limit for apprentices They have lots of American engineers who applied in their 30s after realizing most companies want diverse HI-B engineers. ..."
"... At 40+, I still can learn advanced mathematics as well as I ever did. In fact, I can still compete with the Chinese 20 year olds. The problem is not mental horsepower, it's time and energy. I rarely have time to concentrate these days (wife, kids, pets), which makes it hard to get the solid hours of prime mental time required to really push yourself at a hard pace and learn advanced material. ..."
"... That's a huge key and I discovered it when I was asked to tutor people who were failing chemistry. I quickly discovered that all it took for most of them to "get it" was to keep approaching the problem from different angles until a light came on for them and for me the challenge of finding the right approach was a great motivator. Invariably it was some minor issue and once they overcame that, it became easy for them. I'm still astonished at that to this day. ..."
"... Sorry man, English teaching is huge, and will remain so for some time to come. I'm heavily involved in the area and know plenty of ESL teachers. Spain for me, and the level of English here is still so dreadful and they all need it, the demand is staggering and their schools suck at teaching it themselves. ..."
"... You have to really dislike your circumstances in the US to leave and be willing to find some way to get by overseas. ..."
"... We already saw this in South Africa. Mandela took over, the country went down the tubes, the wealthy whites left and the Boers were left to die in refugee camps. They WANT to leave and a few went to Russia, but most developed countries don't want them. Not with the limited amount of money they have. ..."
"... Americans are mostly ignorant to the fact that they live in a 2nd world country except for blacks and rednecks I have met in the Philippines who were stationed there in the military and have a $1000 a month check. Many of them live in more dangerous and dirty internal third worlds in America than what they can have in Southeast Asia and a good many would be homeless. They are worldly enough to leave. ..."
" He's 28 years old getting too old and soft for the entry-level grunt work in the
skilled trades as well. What then?"
I know a UK guy (ex City type) who retrained as an electrician in his early 50s.
Competent guy. Obviously no one would take him on as an apprentice, so he wired up all his
outbuildings as his project to get his certificate. But he's getting work now, word gets
around if you're any good.
Obviously you need a financial cushion to not be earning for months and to pay for the
training courses.
Yeah, people get set in their ways and resistant to make changes. Steve Jobs talked about
people developing grooves in their brain and how important it is to force yourself out of
these grooves.*
I know a Haitian immigrant without a college degree who was working three jobs and then
dropped down to two jobs and went to school part time in his late 40's and earned his degree
in engineering and is a now an engineer in his early 50's.
*From Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (Simon and Schuster, 2011), pp.330-331:
"It's rare that you see an artist in his 30s or 40s able to really contribute something
amazing," Jobs said wistfully to the writer David Sheff, who published a long and intimate
interview in Playboy the month he turned thirty. "Of course, there are some people who are
innately curious, forever little kids in their awe of life, but they're rare." The
interview touched on many subjects, but Jobs's most poignant ruminations were about growing
old and facing the future:
Your thoughts construct patterns like scaffolding in your mind. You are really
etching chemical patterns. In most cases, people get stuck in those patterns, just like
grooves in a record, and they never get out of them.
I'll always stay connected with Apple. I hope that throughout my life I'll sort of
have the thread of my life and the thread of Apple weave in and out of each other, like a
tapestry. There may be a few years when I'm not there, but I'll always come back. . .
.
If you want to live your life in a creative way, as an artist, you have to not look
back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you've done and whoever you were and
throw them away.
The more the outside world tries to reinforce an image of you, the harder it is to
continue to be an artist, which is why a lot of times, artists have to say, "Bye. I have to
go. I'm going crazy and I'm getting out of here." And they go and hibernate somewhere.
Maybe later they re-emerge a little differently.
"fluid intelligence" starts crystallizing after your 20's". Nonsense, I had
a great deal of trouble learning anything from my teen years and 20's because I didn't know
how to learn. I went for 30 years and eventually figured out a learning style that worked for
me. I have learned more and mastered more skills in the past ten years ages 49-59 than I had
in the previous 30.
You can challenge yourself like I did and after a while of doing this (6 months) you will
find it a lot easier to learn and comprehend than you did previously. (This is true only if
you haven't damaged your brain from years of smoking and drinking). I constantly challenged
myself with trying to learn math that I had trouble with in school and eventually mastered
it.
The brain is like a muscle, it needs to be constantly worked to become strong. If you waste it watching football or looking at porn your brain will atrophy like the
muscles of a person in a wheelchair.
IBEW (licensed electricians) has no upper age limit for apprentices They have lots of
American engineers who applied in their 30s after realizing most companies want diverse HI-B
engineers.
Upper age limits for almost every occupation disappeared decades ago in America because of
age discrimination laws.
I can't see how any 28 year old could possibly be too soft to go into any kind of manual
labor job.
@anonymous
Yeah, there was a recent study showing that 70 year olds can form neural connections as
quickly as teenagers.
At 40+, I still can learn advanced mathematics as well as I ever did. In fact, I can still
compete with the Chinese 20 year olds. The problem is not mental horsepower, it's time and
energy. I rarely have time to concentrate these days (wife, kids, pets), which makes it hard
to get the solid hours of prime mental time required to really push yourself at a hard pace
and learn advanced material.
This is why the Chinese are basically out of date when they are 30, their companies assume
that they have kids and are not able to give 110% anymore.
eventually figured out a learning style that worked for me.
That's a huge key and I discovered it when I was asked to tutor people who were failing
chemistry. I quickly discovered that all it took for most of them to "get it" was to keep
approaching the problem from different angles until a light came on for them and for me the
challenge of finding the right approach was a great motivator. Invariably it was some minor
issue and once they overcame that, it became easy for them. I'm still astonished at that to
this day.
The brain is like a muscle, it needs to be constantly worked to become strong. If you
waste it watching football or looking at porn your brain will atrophy like the muscles of a
person in a wheelchair.
Yeah. He's 28 years old and apparently his chosen skillset is teaching
EASL in foreign countries. That sector is shrinking as English becomes the global lingua
franca and is taught in elementary schools worldwide. He's really too old and soft for his
Plan B (military), and getting too old and soft for the entry-level grunt work in the skilled
trades as well. What then?
do you know anything first hand about the teaching- english- as-a- second- language
hustle?
Asking sincerely – as I don't know anything about it. However I kinda suspect that
'native speakers' will be in demand in many parts of the globe for some time to come [as an
aside – and maybe Linh has written of this and I missed it – but last spring I
was in Saigon for a couple of weeks and, hanging out one day at the zoo & museum complex,
was startled to see about three groups of Vietnamese primary-school students being led around
by americans in their early 20s, narrating everything in american english . Apparently
private schools offering entirely english-language curriculum are the big hit with the middle
& upper class elite there. Perhaps more of the same elsewhere in the region?]
At any rate the young man in this interview has a lot more in the way of qualifications
and skill sets than I had when I left the States 35 years ago, and I've done just fine. I'd
advise any prospective expats to get that TEFL certificate as it's one extra thing to have in
your back pocket and who knows?
PS: "It really can't be overstated how blessed you are to have American citizenship"
– well, yes it can. Everyone knows that the best passport on earth is from Northwest Euroland, one of those places with free university education and free health care and where
teenage mothers don't daily keel over dead from heroin overdoses in Dollar Stores .. Also
more places visa-free
When
you left the States 35 years ago, the world was 3 billion people smaller. The labor market
has gotten a tad more competitive. I don't see any indication of a trade or other refined
skillset in this article.
People who teach EASL for a living are like people who drive cars for a living: you don't
do it because you're really good at teaching your native language, you do it because
you're not marketable at anything else.
I think being Australian is the best citizenry you can have. The country is far from
perfect, but any lower middle class American white like myself would prefer to be lower
middle class there than in Detroit or Phoenix, where being lower income means life around the
unfettered urban underclass that is paranoia inducing.
Being from the US is not as bad as being Bangladeshi, but if you had to be white and urban
and poor you'd be better off in Sydney than Flint.
The most patriotic Americans have never been anywhere, so they have no idea whether
Australia or Tokyo are better. They have never traveled.
Yeah. He's 28 years old and apparently his chosen skillset is teaching
EASL in foreign countries. That sector is shrinking as English becomes the global lingua
franca and is taught in elementary schools worldwide. He's really too old and soft for his
Plan B (military), and getting too old and soft for the entry-level grunt work in the skilled
trades as well. What then?
do you know anything first hand about the teaching- english- as-a- second- language
hustle?
Asking sincerely – as I don't know anything about it. However I kinda suspect that
'native speakers' will be in demand in many parts of the globe for some time to come [as an
aside – and maybe Linh has written of this and I missed it – but last spring I
was in Saigon for a couple of weeks and, hanging out one day at the zoo & museum complex,
was startled to see about three groups of Vietnamese primary-school students being led around
by americans in their early 20s, narrating everything in american english .
Apparently private schools offering entirely english-language curriculum are the big hit
with the middle & upper class elite there. Perhaps more of the same elsewhere in the
region?]
At any rate the young man in this interview has a lot more in the way of qualifications
and skill sets than I had when I left the States 35 years ago, and I've done just fine. I'd
advise any prospective expats to get that TEFL certificate as it's one extra thing to have in
your back pocket and who knows?
ps: "It really can't be overstated how blessed you are to have American citizenship"
– well, yes it can. Everyone knows that the best passport on earth is from Northwest
Euroland, one of those places with free university education and free health care and where
teenage mothers don't daily keel over dead from heroin overdoses in Dollar Stores ..
People who teach EASL for a living are like people who drive cars for a
living: you don't do it because you're really good at teaching your native language, you do
it because you're not marketable at anything else.
well that's the beauty of it: you don't have to be good at anything other than just being
a native speaker to succeed as an EASL teacher, and thousands more potential customers are
born every day. I'd definitely advise any potential expats to become accomplished, and, even
better, qualified, in as many trades as possible. But imho the real key to success as a long
term expat is your mindset: determination and will-power to survive no matter what. If you
really want to break out of the States and see the world, and don't have inherited wealth,
you will be forced to rely on your wits and good luck and seize the opportunities that arise,
whatever those opportunities may be.
Sorry man, English teaching is huge, and will remain so for some time to
come. I'm heavily involved in the area and know plenty of ESL teachers. Spain for me, and the
level of English here is still so dreadful and they all need it, the demand is staggering and
their schools suck at teaching it themselves.
You are one of those people who just like to shit on things:) and people make a lot of
money out of it, not everyone of course, like any area. But it's perfectly viable and good to
go for a long time yet. It's exactly that English is the lingua Franca that people need to be
at a high level of it. The Chinese market is still massive. The bag packer esl teachers are
the ones that give off this stigma, and 'bag packer' and 'traveller' are by now very much
regarded as dirty words in the ESL world.
Most Americans lack the initiative to move anywhere. Most will complain but will never
leave the street they were born on. Urban whites are used to adaptation being around other
cultures anyhow and being somewhat street smart, but the poor rural whites in the exurbs or
sticks whose live would really improve if they got the hell out of America will never move
anywhere.
You have to really dislike your circumstances in the US to leave and be willing to find
some way to get by overseas.
Lots of people will talk about leaving America without having a clue as to how hard this
is to actually do. Australia and New Zealand are not crying out for white proles with high
school education or GED. It is much more difficult to move overseas and stay overseas than
most Americans think.
Except of course for the ruling elite. And that is because five-star hotels look the same
everywhere and money is an international language.
We already saw this in South Africa. Mandela took over, the country went down the tubes,
the wealthy whites left and the Boers were left to die in refugee camps. They WANT to leave
and a few went to Russia, but most developed countries don't want them. Not with the limited
amount of money they have.
Australia and NZ would rather have refugees than white people in dire circumstances.
Even immigrating to Canada, a country that I worked in, is much much harder than anyone
imagines.
Americans are mostly ignorant to the fact that they live in a 2nd world country except for
blacks and rednecks I have met in the Philippines who were stationed there in the military
and have a $1000 a month check. Many of them live in more dangerous and dirty internal third
worlds in America than what they can have in Southeast Asia and a good many would be
homeless. They are worldly enough to leave.
But most Americans whose lives would be vastly improved overseas think they are living in
the greatest country on earth.
But sophistication of intelligence agencies now reached very high level. Russiage was pretty dirty but pretty slick operation. British
thre letter againces were even more devious, if we view Skripals poisoning as MI5/Mi6 "witness protection" operation due to possible
Skripal role in creating Steele dossier. So let's keep wanting the evnet. The election 2020 might be event more interesting the Elections
of 2016. Who would suggest in 2015 that he/she elects man candidate from Israel lobby instead of a woman candidate from the same lobby?
Notable quotes:
"... The consistent derogation of Trump in the New York Times or on MSNBC may be helpful in keeping the resistance fired up, but it is counterproductive when it comes to breaking down the Trump coalition. His followers take every attack on their leader as an attack on them. ..."
"... Adorno also observed that demagoguery of this sort is a profession, a livelihood with well-tested methods. Trump is a far more familiar figure than may at first appear. The demagogue's appeals, Adorno wrote, 'have been standardised, similarly to the advertising slogans which proved to be most valuable in the promotion of business'. Trump's background in salesmanship and reality TV prepared him perfectly for his present role. ..."
"... the leader can guess the psychological wants and needs of those susceptible to his propaganda because he resembles them psychologically, and is distinguished from them by a capacity to express without inhibitions what is latent in them, rather than by any intrinsic superiority. ..."
"... The leaders are generally oral character types, with a compulsion to speak incessantly and to befool the others. The famous spell they exercise over their followers seems largely to depend on their orality: language itself, devoid of its rational significance, functions in a magical way and furthers those archaic regressions which reduce individuals to members of crowds. ..."
"... Since uninhibited associative speech presupposes at least a temporary lack of ego control, it can indicate weakness as well as strength. The agitators' boasting is frequently accompanied by hints of weakness, often merged with claims of strength. This was particularly striking, Adorno wrote, when the agitator begged for monetary contributions. ..."
"... Since 8 November 2016, many people have concluded that what they understandably view as a catastrophe was the result of the neglect by neoliberal elites of the white working class, simply put. Inspired by Bernie Sanders, they believe that the Democratic Party has to reorient its politics from the idea that 'a few get rich first' to protection for the least advantaged. ..."
"... Of those providing his roughly 40 per cent approval ratings, half say they 'strongly approve' and are probably lost to the Democrats. ..."
One might object that Trump, a billionaire TV star, does not resemble his followers. But this misses the powerful intimacy that he
establishes with them, at rallies, on TV and on Twitter. Part of his malicious genius lies in his ability to forge a bond with people
who are otherwise excluded from the world to which he belongs. Even as he cast Hillary Clinton as the tool of international finance,
he said:
I do deals – big deals – all the time. I know and work with all the toughest operators in the world of high-stakes global finance.
These are hard-driving, vicious cut-throat financial killers, the kind of people who leave blood all over the boardroom table
and fight to the bitter end to gain maximum advantage.
With these words he brought his followers into the boardroom with him and encouraged them to take part in a shared, cynical exposure
of the soiled motives and practices that lie behind wealth. His role in the Birther movement, the prelude to his successful presidential
campaign, was not only racist, but also showed that he was at home with the most ignorant, benighted, prejudiced people in America.
Who else but a complete loser would engage in Birtherism, so far from the Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Harvard aura that elevated
Obama, but also distanced him from the masses?
The consistent derogation of Trump in the New York Times or on MSNBC may be helpful in keeping the resistance fired up, but
it is counterproductive when it comes to breaking down the Trump coalition. His followers take every attack on their leader as an
attack on them. 'The fascist leader's startling symptoms of inferiority', Adorno wrote, 'his resemblance to ham actors and asocial
psychopaths', facilitates the identification, which is the basis of the ideal. On the Access Hollywood tape, which was widely assumed
would finish him, Trump was giving voice to a common enough daydream, but with 'greater force' and greater 'freedom of libido' than
his followers allow themselves. And he was bolstering the narcissism of the women who support him, too, by describing himself as
helpless in the grip of his desires for them.
Adorno also observed that demagoguery of this sort is a profession, a livelihood with well-tested methods. Trump is a far
more familiar figure than may at first appear. The demagogue's appeals, Adorno wrote, 'have been standardised, similarly to the advertising
slogans which proved to be most valuable in the promotion of business'. Trump's background in salesmanship and reality TV prepared
him perfectly for his present role. According to Adorno,
the leader can guess the psychological wants and needs of those susceptible to his propaganda because he resembles them
psychologically, and is distinguished from them by a capacity to express without inhibitions what is latent in them, rather than
by any intrinsic superiority.
To meet the unconscious wishes of his audience, the leader
simply turns his own unconscious outward Experience has taught him consciously to exploit this faculty, to make rational use
of his irrationality, similarly to the actor, or a certain type of journalist who knows how to sell their sensitivity.
All he has to do in order to make the sale, to get his TV audience to click, or to arouse a campaign rally, is exploit his own
psychology.
Using old-fashioned but still illuminating language, Adorno continued:
The leaders are generally oral character types, with a compulsion to speak incessantly and to befool the others. The famous
spell they exercise over their followers seems largely to depend on their orality: language itself, devoid of its rational significance,
functions in a magical way and furthers those archaic regressions which reduce individuals to members of crowds.
Since uninhibited associative speech presupposes at least a temporary lack of ego control, it can indicate weakness as well
as strength. The agitators' boasting is frequently accompanied by hints of weakness, often merged with claims of strength. This was
particularly striking, Adorno wrote, when the agitator begged for monetary contributions. As with the Birther movement or Access
Hollywood, Trump's self-debasement – pretending to sell steaks on the campaign trail – forges a bond that secures his idealised status.
Since 8 November 2016, many people have concluded that what they understandably view as a catastrophe was the result of the
neglect by neoliberal elites of the white working class, simply put. Inspired by Bernie Sanders, they believe that the Democratic
Party has to reorient its politics from the idea that 'a few get rich first' to protection for the least advantaged.
Yet no one who lived through the civil rights and feminist rebellions of recent decades can believe that an economic programme
per se is a sufficient basis for a Democratic-led politics.
This holds as well when it comes to trying to reach out to Trump's supporters. Of those providing his roughly 40 per cent
approval ratings, half say they 'strongly approve' and are probably lost to the Democrats. But if we understand the personal
level at which pro-Trump strivings operate, we may better appeal to the other half, and in that way forestall the coming emergency.
"... Yang promises a universal entitlement, not dependent on income, that he calls a "freedom dividend." To be funded through a value added tax , Yang claims that it would reduce the strain on "health care, incarceration, homeless services, and the like" and actually save billions of dollars. Yang also notes that "current welfare and social program beneficiaries would be given a choice between their current benefits or $1,000 cash unconditionally." ..."
"... Yang is justifying the need for such a program because of automation . Again, VDARE.com has been exploring how automation may necessitate such a program for many years . Yang also discussed this problem on Tucker Carlson's show , which alone shows he is more open to real discussion than many progressive activists. ..."
"... Indeed, journalists, hall monitors that they are, have recognized that President Trump's online supporters are flocking to Yang, bringing him a powerful weapon in the meme wars. ..."
"... it is ominous for Trump that many of the more creative and dedicated people who formed his vanguard are giving up on him. ..."
Yang is a businessman who has worked in several fields, but was best known for founding
Venture for America , which helps college graduates become entrepreneurs.
However, he is now gaining recognition for his signature campaign promise -- $1,000 a month for every American.
Yang promises a
universal entitlement, not dependent on income, that he calls a "freedom dividend." To be funded through a
value added tax , Yang claims that it would
reduce the strain on "health care, incarceration, homeless services, and the like" and actually save billions of dollars. Yang also
notes
that "current welfare and social program beneficiaries would be given a choice between their current benefits or $1,000 cash unconditionally."
As Yang himself notes, this is not a new idea, nor one particularly tied to the Left. Indeed, it's been proposed by several prominent
libertarians because it would replace the far more inefficient welfare system.
Charles Murray called for
this policy in 2016. [ A
guaranteed income for every American, AEI, June 3, 2016]
Milton
Friedman suggested a similar policy in a 1968 interview with William F. Buckley, though
Friedman called it a
"negative income tax."
It's also been proposed by many nationalists, including, well, me. At the January 2013 VDARE.com Webinar, I
called for a "straight-up minimum income for citizens only" among other policies that would build a new nationalist majority
and deconstruct Leftist power. I've
retained that belief ever since and argued for it here for years.
However, I've also made the argument that it only works if it is for
citizens
only and is combined with a restrictive immigration policy. As I previously
argued in a piece attacking Jacobin'sdisingenuous
complaints about the "reserve army of the unemployed," you simply can't support high wages, workers' rights, and a universal
basic income while still demanding mass immigration.
Yang is also directly addressing the crises that the Trump Administration has seemly forgotten. Unlike Donald Trump himself, with
his endless boasting about "low black and Hispanic unemployment," Yang
has directly spoken about the demographic
collapse of white people because of "low birth rates and white men dying from
substance
abuse and suicide ."
Significantly, President Trump himself has never once specifically recognized the plight of white Americans.
...He wants to make
Puerto Rico a state . He
supports a path to citizenship for illegal
aliens, albeit with an 18-year waiting period and combined with
pledges to secure the border
and deport illegals who don't enroll in the citizenship program. He
wants to create a massive bureaucratic system to track
gun owners, restrict
gun ownership , and require various "training" programs for licenses. He wants to
subsidize local journalists with taxpayer
dollars...
... ... ...
Indeed, journalists, hall monitors that they are, have recognized that President Trump's online supporters are flocking to
Yang, bringing him a powerful weapon in the meme wars. (Sample meme at right.) And because many of these online activists are
"far right" by Main Stream Media standards, or at least Politically Incorrect, there is much hand-waving and wrist-flapping about
the need for Yang to decry "white nationalists." So of course, the candidate has dutifully done so, claiming "racism and white nationalism
[are] a threat to the core ideals of what it means to be an American". [
Presidential candidate
Andrew Yang has a meme problem, by Russell Brandom, The Verge, March 9, 2019]
But what does it mean to be an American? As more and more of American history is described as racist, and even national
symbols and the national anthem are targets for protest, "America" certainly doesn't seem like a real country with a real identity.
Increasingly, "America" resembles a continent-sized shopping mall, with nothing holding together the warring tribes that occupy it
except money.
President Trump, of course, was elected because many people thought he could reverse this process, especially by limiting mass
immigration and taking strong action in the culture wars, for example by promoting official English. Yet in recent weeks, he has
repeatedly endorsed more legal immigration. Rather than fighting, the president is content to brag about the economy and whine about
unfair press coverage and investigations. He already seems like a lame duck.
The worst part of all of this is that President Trump was elected as a response not just to the Left, but to the failed Conservative
Establishment. During the 2016 campaign, President Trump specifically
pledged to protect
entitlements , decried foreign wars, and argued for a massive infrastructure plan. However, once in office, his main legislative
accomplishment is a tax cut any other Republican president would have pushed. Similarly, his latest budget contains the kinds of
entitlement cuts that are guaranteed to provoke Democrat attack ads. [
Trump said he wouldn't cut Medicaid, Social Security, and Medicare . His 2020 budget cuts all 3, by Tara
Golshan, Vox, March 12, 2019] And the president has already backed down on withdrawing all troops from Syria, never mind Afghanistan.
Conservatism Inc., having learned nothing from candidate Donald Trump's scorched-earth path to the Republican nomination, now
embraces Trump as a man but ignores his campaign message. Instead, the conservative movement is still promoting the same tired slogans
about "free markets" even as they have appear to have lost an
entire
generation to socialism. The most iconic moment was Charlie Kirk, head of the free market activist group Turning Point USA, desperately
trying to tell his followers not to cheer for Tucker Carlson because
Carlson had suggested a nation should be treated like a
family, not simply a marketplace .
Thus, especially because of his cowardice on immigration, many of President Trump's most fervent online supporters have turned
on him in recent weeks. And the embrace of Yang seems to come out of a great place of despair, a sense that the country really is
beyond saving.
Yang has Leftist policies on many issues, but many disillusioned Trump supporters feel like those policies are coming anyway.
If America is just an economy, and if everyone in the world is a simply an American-in-waiting, white Americans might as well get
something out of this System before the bones are picked clean.
National Review ' s Theodore Kupfer just claimed the main importance of Yang's candidacy is that it will prove meme-makers
ability to affect the vote count "has been overstated" [
Rise of the pink hats,
March 12, 2019].
Time will tell, but it is ominous for Trump that many of the more creative and dedicated people who formed his vanguard
are giving up on him.
"... While the Tea Party was critical of status-quo neoliberalism -- especially its cosmopolitanism and embrace of globalization and diversity, which was perfectly embodied by Obama's election and presidency -- it was not exactly anti-neoliberal. Rather, it was anti-left neoliberalism-, it represented a more authoritarian, right [wing] version of neoliberalism. ..."
"... Within the context of the 2016 election, Clinton embodied the neoliberal center that could no longer hold. Inequality. Suffering. Collapsing infrastructures. Perpetual war. Anger. Disaffected consent. ..."
"... Both Sanders and Trump were embedded in the emerging left and right responses to neoliberalism's crisis. Specifically, Sanders' energetic campaign -- which was undoubtedly enabled by the rise of the Occupy movement -- proposed a decidedly more "commongood" path. Higher wages for working people. Taxes on the rich, specifically the captains of the creditocracy. ..."
"... In other words, Trump supporters may not have explicitly voted for neoliberalism, but that's what they got. In fact, as Rottenberg argues, they got a version of right neoliberalism "on steroids" -- a mix of blatant plutocracy and authoritarianism that has many concerned about the rise of U.S. fascism. ..."
"... We can't know what would have happened had Sanders run against Trump, but we can think seriously about Trump, right and left neoliberalism, and the crisis of neoliberal hegemony. In other words, we can think about where and how we go from here. As I suggested in the previous chapter, if we want to construct a new world, we are going to have to abandon the entangled politics of both right and left neoliberalism; we have to reject the hegemonic frontiers of both disposability and marketized equality. After all, as political philosopher Nancy Fraser argues, what was rejected in the election of 2016 was progressive, left neoliberalism. ..."
"... While the rise of hyper-right neoliberalism is certainly nothing to celebrate, it does present an opportunity for breaking with neoliberal hegemony. We have to proceed, as Gary Younge reminds us, with the realization that people "have not rejected the chance of a better world. They have not yet been offered one."' ..."
In Chapter 1, we traced the rise of our neoliberal conjuncture back to the crisis of liberalism during the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, culminating in the Great Depression. During this period, huge transformations in capitalism proved impossible
to manage with classical laissez-faire approaches. Out of this crisis, two movements emerged, both of which would eventually shape
the course of the twentieth century and beyond. The first, and the one that became dominant in the aftermath of the crisis, was the
conjuncture of embedded liberalism. The crisis indicated that capitalism wrecked too much damage on the lives of ordinary citizens.
People (white workers and families, especially) warranted social protection from the volatilities and brutalities of capitalism.
The state's public function was expanded to include the provision of a more substantive social safety net, a web of protections for
people and a web of constraints on markets. The second response was the invention of neoliberalism. Deeply skeptical of the common-good
principles that undergirded the emerging social welfare state, neoliberals began organizing on the ground to develop a "new" liberal
govemmentality, one rooted less in laissez-faire principles and more in the generalization of competition and enterprise. They worked
to envision a new society premised on a new social ontology, that is, on new truths about the state, the market, and human beings.
Crucially, neoliberals also began building infrastructures and institutions for disseminating their new' knowledges and theories
(i.e., the Neoliberal Thought Collective), as well as organizing politically to build mass support for new policies (i.e., working
to unite anti-communists, Christian conservatives, and free marketers in common cause against the welfare state). When cracks in
embedded liberalism began to surface -- which is bound to happen with any moving political equilibrium -- neoliberals were there
with new stories and solutions, ready to make the world anew.
We are currently living through the crisis of neoliberalism. As I write this book, Donald Trump has recently secured the U.S.
presidency, prevailing in the national election over his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. Throughout the election, I couldn't
help but think back to the crisis of liberalism and the two responses that emerged. Similarly, after the Great Recession of 2008,
we've saw two responses emerge to challenge our unworkable status quo, which dispossesses so many people of vital resources for individual
and collective life. On the one hand, we witnessed the rise of Occupy Wall Street. While many continue to critique the movement for
its lack of leadership and a coherent political vision, Occupy was connected to burgeoning movements across the globe, and our current
political horizons have been undoubtedly shaped by the movement's success at repositioning class and economic inequality within our
political horizon. On the other hand, we saw' the rise of the Tea Party, a right-wing response to the crisis. While the Tea Party
was critical of status-quo neoliberalism -- especially its cosmopolitanism and embrace of globalization and diversity, which was
perfectly embodied by Obama's election and presidency -- it was not exactly anti-neoliberal. Rather, it was anti-left neoliberalism-,
it represented a more authoritarian, right [wing] version of neoliberalism.
Within the context of the 2016 election, Clinton embodied the neoliberal center that could no longer hold. Inequality. Suffering.
Collapsing infrastructures. Perpetual war. Anger. Disaffected consent. There were just too many fissures and fault lines in
the glossy, cosmopolitan world of left neoliberalism and marketized equality. Indeed, while Clinton ran on status-quo stories of
good governance and neoliberal feminism, confident that demographics and diversity would be enough to win the election, Trump effectively
tapped into the unfolding conjunctural crisis by exacerbating the cracks in the system of marketized equality, channeling political
anger into his celebrity brand that had been built on saying "f*** you" to the culture of left neoliberalism (corporate diversity,
political correctness, etc.) In fact, much like Clinton's challenger in the Democratic primary, Benie Sanders, Trump was a crisis
candidate.
Both Sanders and Trump were embedded in the emerging left and right responses to neoliberalism's crisis. Specifically, Sanders'
energetic campaign -- which was undoubtedly enabled by the rise of the Occupy movement -- proposed a decidedly more "commongood"
path. Higher wages for working people. Taxes on the rich, specifically the captains of the creditocracy.
Universal health care. Free higher education. Fair trade. The repeal of Citizens United. Trump offered a different response to
the crisis. Like Sanders, he railed against global trade deals like NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). However, Trump's
victory was fueled by right neoliberalism's culture of cruelty. While Sanders tapped into and mobilized desires for a more egalitarian
and democratic future, Trump's promise was nostalgic, making America "great again" -- putting the nation back on "top of the world,"
and implying a time when women were "in their place" as male property, and minorities and immigrants were controlled by the state.
Thus, what distinguished Trump's campaign from more traditional Republican campaigns was that it actively and explicitly pitted
one group's equality (white men) against everyone else's (immigrants, women, Muslims, minorities, etc.). As Catherine Rottenberg
suggests, Trump offered voters a choice between a multiracial society (where folks are increasingly disadvantaged and dispossessed)
and white supremacy (where white people would be back on top). However, "[w]hat he neglected to state," Rottenberg writes,
is that neoliberalism flourishes in societies where the playing field is already stacked against various segments of society,
and that it needs only a relatively small select group of capital-enhancing subjects, while everyone else is ultimately dispensable.
1
In other words, Trump supporters may not have explicitly voted for neoliberalism, but that's what they got. In fact, as Rottenberg
argues, they got a version of right neoliberalism "on steroids" -- a mix of blatant plutocracy and authoritarianism that has many
concerned about the rise of U.S. fascism.
We can't know what would have happened had Sanders run against Trump, but we can think seriously about Trump, right and left
neoliberalism, and the crisis of neoliberal hegemony. In other words, we can think about where and how we go from here. As I suggested
in the previous chapter, if we want to construct a new world, we are going to have to abandon the entangled politics of both right
and left neoliberalism; we have to reject the hegemonic frontiers of both disposability and marketized equality. After all, as political
philosopher Nancy Fraser argues, what was rejected in the election of 2016 was progressive, left neoliberalism.
While the rise of hyper-right neoliberalism is certainly nothing to celebrate, it does present an opportunity for breaking
with neoliberal hegemony. We have to proceed, as Gary Younge reminds us, with the realization that people "have not rejected the
chance of a better world. They have not yet been offered one."'
Mark Fisher, the author of Capitalist Realism, put it this way:
The long, dark night of the end of history has to be grasped as an enormous opportunity. The very oppressive pervasiveness
of capitalist realism means that even glimmers of alternative political and economic possibilities can have a disproportionately
great effect. The tiniest event can tear a hole in the grey curtain of reaction which has marked the horizons of possibility under
capitalist realism. From a situation in which nothing can happen, suddenly anything is possible again.4
I think that, for the first time in the history of U.S. capitalism, the vast majority of people might sense the lie of liberal,
capitalist democracy. They feel anxious, unfree, disaffected. Fantasies of the good life have been shattered beyond repair for most
people. Trump and this hopefully brief triumph of right neoliberalism will soon lay this bare for everyone to see. Now, with Trump,
it is absolutely clear: the rich rule the world; we are all disposable; this is no democracy. The question becomes: How will we show
up for history? Will there be new stories, ideas, visions, and fantasies to attach to? How can we productively and meaningful intervene
in the crisis of neoliberalism? How can we "tear a hole in the grey curtain" and open up better worlds? How can we put what we've
learned to use and begin to imagine and build a world beyond living in competition? I hope our critical journey through the neoliberal
conjuncture has enabled you to begin to answer these questions.
More specifically, in recent decades, especially since the end of the Cold War, our common-good sensibilities have been channeled
into neoliberal platforms for social change and privatized action, funneling our political energies into brand culture and marketized
struggles for equality (e.g., charter schools, NGOs and non-profits, neoliberal antiracism and feminism). As a result, despite our
collective anger and disaffected consent, we find ourselves stuck in capitalist realism with no real alternative. Like the neoliberal
care of the self, we are trapped in a privatized mode of politics that relies on cruel optimism; we are attached, it seems, to politics
that inspire and motivate us to action, while keeping us living in competition.
To disrupt the game, we need to construct common political horizons against neoliberal hegemony. We need to use our common stories
and common reason to build common movements against precarity -- for within neoliberalism, precarity is what ultimately has the potential
to thread all of our lives together. Put differently, the ultimate fault line in the neoliberal conjiuicture is the way it subjects
us all to precarity and the biopolitics of disposability, thereby creating conditions of possibility for new coalitions across race,
gender, citizenship, sexuality, and class. Recognizing this potential for coalition in the face of precarization is the most pressing
task facing those who are yearning for a new world. The question is: How do we get there? How do we realize these coalitional potentialities
and materialize common horizons?
Ultimately, mapping the neoliberal conjuncture through everyday life in enterprise culture has not only provided some direction
in terms of what we need; it has also cultivated concrete and practical intellectual resources for political interv ention and social
interconnection -- a critical toolbox for living in common. More specifically, this book has sought to provide resources for thinking
and acting against the four Ds: resources for engaging in counter-conduct, modes of living that refuse, on one hand, to conduct one's
life according to the norm of enterprise, and on the other, to relate to others through the norm of competition. Indeed, we need
new ways of relating, interacting, and living as friends, lovers, workers, vulnerable bodies, and democratic people if we are to
write new stories, invent new govemmentalities, and build coalitions for new worlds.
Against Disimagination: Educated Hope and Affirmative Speculation
We need to stop turning inward, retreating into ourselves, and taking personal responsibility for our lives (a task which is ultimately
impossible). Enough with the disimagination machine! Let's start looking outward, not inward -- to the broader structures that undergird
our lives. Of course, we need to take care of ourselves; we must survive. But I firmly believe that we can do this in ways both big
and small, that transform neoliberal culture and its status-quo stories.
Here's the thing I tell my students all the time. You cannot escape neoliberalism. It is the air we breathe, the water in which
we swim. No job, practice of social activism, program of self-care, or relationship will be totally free from neoliberal impingements
and logics. There is no pure "outside" to get to or work from -- that's just the nature of the neoliberalism's totalizing cultural
power. But let's not forget that neoliberalism's totalizing cultural power is also a source of weakness. Potential for resistance
is everywhere, scattered throughout our everyday lives in enterprise culture. Our critical toolbox can help us identify these potentialities
and navigate and engage our conjuncture in ways that tear open up those new worlds we desire.
In other words, our critical perspective can help us move through the world with what Henry Giroux calls educated hope. Educated
hope means holding in tension the material realities of power and the contingency of history. This orientation of educated hope knows
very well what we're up against. However, in the face of seemingly totalizing power, it also knows that neoliberalism can never become
total because the future is open. Educated hope is what allows us to see the fault lines, fissures, and potentialities of the present
and emboldens us to think and work from that sliver of social space where we do have political agency and freedom to construct a
new world. Educated hope is what undoes the power of capitalist realism. It enables affirmative speculation (such as discussed in
Chapter 5), which does not try to hold the future to neoliberal horizons (that's cruel optimism!), but instead to affirm our commonalities
and the potentialities for the new worlds they signal. Affirmative speculation demands a different sort of risk calculation and management.
It senses how little we have to lose and how much we have to gain from knocking the hustle of our lives.
Against De-democratization: Organizing and Collective Coverning
We can think of educated hope and affirmative speculation as practices of what Wendy Brown calls "bare democracy" -- the basic
idea that ordinary' people like you and me should govern our lives in common, that we should critique and try to change our world,
especially the exploitative and oppressive structures of power that maintain social hierarchies and diminish lives. Neoliberal culture
works to stomp out capacities for bare democracy by transforming democratic desires and feelings into meritocratic desires and feelings.
In neoliberal culture, utopian sensibilities are directed away from the promise of collective utopian sensibilities are directed
away from the promise of collective governing to competing for equality.
We have to get back that democractic feeling! As Jeremy Gilbert taught us, disaffected consent is a post-democratic orientation.
We don't like our world, but we don't think we can do anything about it. So, how do we get back that democratic feeling? How do we
transform our disaffected consent into something new? As I suggested in the last chapter, we organize. Organizing is simply about
people coming together around a common horizon and working collectively to materialize it. In this way, organizing is based on the
idea of radical democracy, not liberal democracy. While the latter is based on formal and abstract rights guaranteed by the state,
radical democracy insists that people should directly make the decisions that impact their lives, security, and well-being. Radical
democracy is a practice of collective governing: it is about us hashing out, together in communities, what matters, and working in
common to build a world based on these new sensibilities.
The work of organizing is messy, often unsatisfying, and sometimes even scary. Organizing based on affirmative speculation and
coalition-building, furthermore, will have to be experimental and uncertain. As Lauren Berlant suggests, it means "embracing the
discomfort of affective experience in a truly open social life that no
one has ever experienced." Organizing through and for the common "requires more adaptable infrastructures. Keep forcing the existing
infrastructures to do what they don't know how to do. Make new ways to be local together, where local doesn't require a physical
neighborhood." 5 What Berlant is saying is that the work of bare democracy requires unlearning, and detaching from, our
current stories and infrastructures in order to see and make things work differently. Organizing for a new world is not easy -- and
there are no guarantees -- but it is the only way out of capitalist realism.
Getting back democratic feeling will at once require and help us lo move beyond the biopolitics of disposability and entrenched
systems of inequality. On one hand, organizing will never be enough if it is not animated by bare democracy, a sensibility that each
of us is equally important when it comes to the project of determining our lives in common. Our bodies, our hurts, our dreams, and
our desires matter regardless of our race, gender, sexuality, or citizenship, and regardless of how r much capital (economic,
social, or cultural) we have. Simply put, in a radical democracy, no one is disposable. This bare-democratic sense of equality must
be foundational to organizing and coalition-building. Otherwise, we will always and inevitably fall back into a world of inequality.
On the other hand, organizing and collective governing will deepen and enhance our sensibilities and capacities for radical equality.
In this context, the kind of self-enclosed individualism that empowers and underwrites the biopolitics of disposability melts away,
as we realize the interconnectedness of our lives and just how amazing it feels to
fail, we affirm our capacities for freedom, political intervention, social interconnection, and collective social doing.
Against Dispossession: Shared Security and Common Wealth
Thinking and acting against the biopolitics of disposability goes hand-in-hand with thinking and acting against dispossession.
Ultimately, when we really understand and feel ourselves in relationships of interconnection with others, we want for them as we
want for ourselves. Our lives and sensibilities of what is good and just are rooted in radical equality, not possessive or self-appreciating
individualism. Because we desire social security and protection, we also know others desire and deserve the same.
However, to really think and act against dispossession means not only advocating for shared security and social protection, but
also for a new society that is built on the egalitarian production and distribution of social wealth that we all produce. In this
sense, we can take Marx's critique of capitalism -- that wealth is produced collectively but appropriated individually -- to heart.
Capitalism was built on the idea that one class -- the owners of the means of production -- could exploit and profit from the collective
labors of everyone else (those who do not own and thus have to work), albeit in very different ways depending on race, gender, or
citizenship. This meant that, for workers of all stripes, their lives existed not for themselves, but for others (the appropriating
class), and that regardless of what we own as consumers, we are not really free or equal in that bare-democratic sense of the word.
If we want to be really free, we need to construct new material and affective social infrastructures for our common wealth. In
these new infrastructures, wealth must not be reduced to economic value; it must be rooted in social value. Here, the production
of wealth does not exist as a separate sphere from the reproduction of our lives. In other words, new infrastructures, based on the
idea of common wealth, will not be set up to exploit our labor, dispossess our communities, or to divide our lives. Rather, they
will work to provide collective social resources and care so that we may all be free to pursue happiness, create beautiful and/or
useful things, and to realize our potential within a social world of living in common. Crucially, to create the conditions for these
new, democratic forms of freedom rooted in radical equality, we need to find ways to refuse and exit the financial networks of Empire
and the dispossessions of creditocracy, building new systems that invite everyone to participate in the ongoing production of new
worlds and the sharing of the wealth that we produce in common.
It's not up to me to tell you exactly where to look, but I assure you that potentialities for these new worlds are everywhere
around you.
This is a constructive suggestion that is implementable even under neoliberalism. As everything is perverted under
neoliberalism that might prompt layoffs before the age of 55.
Notable quotes:
"... Older workers often struggle to get rehired as easily as younger workers. Age discrimination is a well-known problem in corporate America. What's a 60-year-old back office worker supposed to do if downsized in a merger? The BB&T-SunTrust prospect highlights the need for a new type of unemployment insurance for some of the workforce. ..."
"... One policy might be treating unemployed older workers differently than younger workers. Giving them unemployment benefits for a longer period of time than younger workers would be one idea, as well as accelerating the age of Medicare eligibility for downsized employees over the age of 55. The latter idea would help younger workers as well, by encouraging older workers to accept buyout packages -- freeing up career opportunities for younger workers. ..."
The proposed merger between SunTrust and BB&T makes sense for both firms -- which is why
Wall Street sent both stocks higher on Thursday after the announcement. But employees of the
two banks, especially older workers who are not yet retirement age, are understandably less
enthused at the prospect of downsizing. In a nation with almost 37 million workers over the age
of 55, the quandary of SunTrust-BB&T workforce will become increasingly familiar across the
U.S. economy.
But what's good for the firms isn't good for all of the workers. Older workers often
struggle to get rehired as easily as younger workers.
Age discrimination is a well-known problem in corporate America. What's a 60-year-old back
office worker supposed to do if downsized in a merger? The BB&T-SunTrust prospect
highlights the need for a new type of unemployment insurance for some of the workforce.
One policy might be treating unemployed older workers differently than younger workers.
Giving them unemployment benefits for a longer period of time than younger workers would be one
idea, as well as accelerating the age of Medicare eligibility for downsized employees over the
age of 55. The latter idea would help younger workers as well, by encouraging older workers to
accept buyout packages -- freeing up career opportunities for younger workers.
The economy can be callous toward older workers, but policy makers don't have to be. We
should think about ways of dealing with this shift in the labor market before it happens.
"... This interview with Henry Giroux was conducted by Mitja Sardoč, of the Educational Research Institute, in the Faculty of the Social Sciences, at University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. ..."
"... Not only does it define itself as a political and economic system whose aim was to consolidate power in the hands of a corporate and financial elite, it also wages a war over ideas. In this instance, it has defined itself as a form of commonsense and functions as a mode of public pedagogy that produces a template for structuring not just markets but all of social life. ..."
"... In this sense, it has and continues to function not only through public and higher education to produce and distribute market-based values, identities, and modes of agency, but also in wider cultural apparatuses and platforms to privatize, deregulate, economize, and subject all of the commanding institutions and relations of everyday life to the dictates of privatization, efficiency, deregulation, and commodification. ..."
"... Since the 1970s as more and more of the commanding institutions of society come under the control of neoliberal ideology, its notions of common sense – an unchecked individualism, harsh competition, an aggressive attack on the welfare state, the evisceration of public goods, and its attack on all models of sociality at odds with market values – have become the reigning hegemony of capitalist societies. ..."
"... What many on the left have failed to realize is that neoliberalism is about more than economic structures, it is also is a powerful pedagogical force – especially in the era of social media – that engages in full-spectrum dominance at every level of civil society. ..."
"... Neoliberalism's promotion of effectiveness and efficiency gives credence to its ability to willingness and success in making education central to politics ..."
"... The Crisis of Democracy, ..."
"... At the core of the neoliberal investment in education is a desire to undermine the university's commitment to the truth, critical thinking, and its obligation to stand for justice ..."
"... Neoliberalism considers such a space to be dangerous and they have done everything possible to eliminate higher education as a space where students can realize themselves as critical citizens ..."
"... It is waging a war over not just the relationship between economic structures but over memory, words, meaning, and politics. Neoliberalism takes words like freedom and limits it to the freedom to consume, spew out hate, and celebrate notions of self-interest and a rabid individualism as the new common sense. ..."
"... Equality of opportunity means engaging in ruthless forms of competition, a war of all against all ethos, and a survival of the fittest mode of behavior. ..."
"... First, higher education needs to reassert its mission as a public good in order to reclaim its egalitarian and democratic impulses. Educators need to initiate and expand a national conversation in which higher education can be defended as a democratic public sphere and the classroom as a site of deliberative inquiry, dialogue, and critical thinking, a site that makes a claim on the radical imagination and a sense of civic courage. ..."
"... The ascendancy of neoliberalism in American politics has made visible a plague of deep-seated civic illiteracy, a corrupt political system and a contempt for reason that has been decades in the making. ..."
"... It also points to the withering of civic attachments, the undoing of civic culture, the decline of public life and the erosion of any sense of shared citizenship. As market mentalities and moralities tighten their grip on all aspects of society, democratic institutions and public spheres are being downsized, if not altogether disappearing. ..."
"... First, too little is said about how neoliberalism functions not simply as an economic model for finance capital but as a public pedagogy that operates through a diverse number of sites and platforms. ..."
"... I define neoliberal fascism as both a project and a movement, which functions as an enabling force that weakens, if not destroys, the commanding institutions of a democracy while undermining its most valuable principles ..."
"... As a movement, it produces and legitimates massive economic inequality and suffering, privatizes public goods, dismantles essential government agencies, and individualizes all social problems. In addition, it transforms the political state into the corporate state, and uses the tools of surveillance, militarization, and law and order to discredit the critical press and media, undermine civil liberties while ridiculing and censoring critics. ..."
This interview with Henry Giroux was conducted by Mitja Sardoč, of the Educational Research Institute, in the Faculty of the
Social Sciences, at University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Mitja Sardoč: For several decades now, neoliberalism has been at the forefront of discussions not only in the economy and
finance but has infiltrated our vocabulary in a number of areas as diverse as governance studies, criminology, health care, jurisprudence,
education etc. What has triggered the use and application ofthis'economistic'ideologyassociatedwith the promotion of effectiveness
and efficiency?
Henry Giroux: Neoliberalism has become the dominant ideology of the times and has established itself as a central feature
of politics. Not only does it define itself as a political and economic system whose aim was to consolidate power in the hands
of a corporate and financial elite, it also wages a war over ideas. In this instance, it has defined itself as a form of commonsense
and functions as a mode of public pedagogy that produces a template for structuring not just markets but all of social life.
In this sense, it has and continues to function not only through public and higher education to produce and distribute market-based
values, identities, and modes of agency, but also in wider cultural apparatuses and platforms to privatize, deregulate, economize,
and subject all of the commanding institutions and relations of everyday life to the dictates of privatization, efficiency, deregulation,
and commodification.
Since the 1970s as more and more of the commanding institutions of society come under the control of neoliberal ideology,
its notions of common sense – an unchecked individualism, harsh competition, an aggressive attack on the welfare state, the evisceration
of public goods, and its attack on all models of sociality at odds with market values – have become the reigning hegemony of capitalist
societies.
What many on the left have failed to realize is that neoliberalism is about more than economic structures, it is also is a
powerful pedagogical force – especially in the era of social media – that engages in full-spectrum dominance at every level of civil
society. Its reach extends not only into education but also among an array of digital platforms as well as in the broader sphere
of popular culture. Under neoliberal modes of governance, regardless of the institution, every social relation is reduced to an act
of commerce.
Neoliberalism's promotion of effectiveness and efficiency gives credence to its ability to willingness and success in making
education central to politics. It also offers a warning to progressives, as Pierre Bourdieu has insisted that the left has underestimated
the symbolic and pedagogical dimensions of struggle and have not always forged appropriate weapons to fight on this front."
Mitja Sardoč: According to the advocates of neoliberalism, education represents one of the main indicators of future economic
growth and individual well-being.How – and why – education became one of the central elements of the 'neoliberal revolution'?
Henry Giroux: Advocates of neoliberalism have always recognized that education is a site of struggle over which there are
very high stakes regarding how young people are educated, who is to be educated, and what vision of the present and future should
be most valued and privileged. Higher education in the sixties went through a revolutionary period in the United States and many
other countries as students sought to both redefine education as a democratic public sphere and to open it up to a variety of groups
that up to that up to that point had been excluded. Conservatives were extremely frightened over this shift and did everything they
could to counter it. Evidence of this is clear in the production of the Powell Memo published in 1971 and later in The Trilateral
Commission's book-length report, namely, The Crisis of Democracy, published in 1975. From the 1960s on the, conservatives,
especially the neoliberal right, has waged a war on education in order to rid it of its potential role as a democratic public sphere.
At the same time, they sought aggressively to restructure its modes of governance, undercut the power of faculty, privilege knowledge
that was instrumental to the market, define students mainly as clients and consumers, and reduce the function of higher education
largely to training students for the global workforce.
At the core of the neoliberal investment in education is a desire to undermine the university's commitment to the truth, critical
thinking, and its obligation to stand for justice and assume responsibility for safeguarding the interests of young as they
enter a world marked massive inequalities, exclusion, and violence at home and abroad. Higher education may be one of the few institutions
left in neoliberal societies that offers a protective space to question, challenge, and think against the grain.
Neoliberalism considers such a space to be dangerous and they have done everything possible to eliminate higher education
as a space where students can realize themselves as critical citizens, faculty can participate in the governing structure, and
education can be define itself as a right rather than as a privilege.
Mitja Sardoč: Almost by definition, reforms and other initiatives aimed to improve educational practice have been one of
the pivotal mechanisms to infiltrate the neoliberal agenda of effectiveness and efficiency. What aspect of neoliberalism and its
educational agenda you find most problematic? Why?
Henry Giroux: Increasingly aligned with market forces, higher education is mostly primed for teaching business principles
and corporate values, while university administrators are prized as CEOs or bureaucrats in a neoliberal-based audit culture. Many
colleges and universities have been McDonalds-ized as knowledge is increasingly viewed as a commodity resulting in curricula that
resemble a fast-food menu. In addition, faculty are subjected increasingly to a Wal-Mart model of labor relations designed as Noam
Chomsky points out "to reduce labor costs and to increase labor servility". In the age of precarity and flexibility, the majority
of faculty have been reduced to part-time positions, subjected to low wages, lost control over the conditions of their labor, suffered
reduced benefits, and frightened about addressing social issues critically in their classrooms for fear of losing their jobs.
The latter may be the central issue curbing free speech and academic freedom in the academy. Moreover, many of these faculty are
barely able to make ends meet because of their impoverished salaries, and some are on food stamps. If faculty are treated like service
workers, students fare no better and are now relegated to the status of customers and clients.
Moreover, they are not only inundated with the competitive, privatized, and market-driven values of neoliberalism, they are also
punished by those values in the form of exorbitant tuition rates, astronomical debts owed to banks and other financial institutions,
and in too many cases a lack of meaningful employment. As a project and movement, neoliberalism undermines the ability of educators
and others to create the conditions that give students the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and the civic courage necessary to
make desolation and cynicism unconvincing and hope practical.
As an ideology, neoliberalism is at odds with any viable notion of democracy which it sees as the enemy of the market. Yet, Democracy
cannot work if citizens are not autonomous, self-judging, curious, reflective, and independent – qualities that are indispensable
for students if they are going to make vital judgments and choices about participating in and shaping decisions that affect everyday
life, institutional reform, and governmental policy.
Mitja Sardoč: Why large-scale assessments and quantitative data in general are a central part of the 'neo-liberal toolkit'
in educational research?
Henry Giroux: These are the tools of accountants and have nothing to do with larger visions or questions about what matters
as part of a university education. The overreliance on metrics and measurement has become a tool used to remove questions of responsibility,
morality, and justice from the language and policies of education. I believe the neoliberal toolkit as you put it is part of the
discourse of civic illiteracy that now runs rampant in higher educational research, a kind of mind-numbing investment in a metric-based
culture that kills the imagination and wages an assault on what it means to be critical, thoughtful, daring, and willing to take
risks. Metrics in the service of an audit culture has become the new face of a culture of positivism, a kind of empirical-based panopticon
that turns ideas into numbers and the creative impulse into ashes. Large scale assessments and quantitative data are the driving
mechanisms in which everything is absorbed into the culture of business.
The distinction between information and knowledge has become irrelevant in this model and anything that cannot be captured by
numbers is treated with disdain. In this new audit panopticon, the only knowledge that matters is that which can be measured. What
is missed here, of course, is that measurable utility is a curse as a universal principle because it ignores any form of knowledge
based on the assumption that individuals need to know more than how things work or what their practical utility might be.
This is a language that cannot answer the question of what the responsibility of the university and educators might be in a time
of tyranny, in the face of the unspeakable, and the current widespread attack on immigrants, Muslims, and others considered disposable.
This is a language that is both afraid and unwilling to imagine what alternative worlds inspired by the search for equality and justice
might be possible in an age beset by the increasing dark forces of authoritarianism.
Mitja Sardoč: While the analysis of the neoliberal agenda in education is well documented, the analysis of the language
of neoliberal education is at the fringes of scholarly interest. In particular, the expansion of the neoliberal vocabulary with egalitarian
ideas such as fairness, justice, equality of opportunity, well-being etc. has received [at best]only limited attention. What factors
have contributed to this shift of emphasis?
Henry Giroux: Neoliberalism has upended how language is used in both education and the wider society. It works to appropriate
discourses associated with liberal democracy that have become normalized in order to both limit their meanings and use them to mean
the opposite of what they have meant traditionally, especially with respect to human rights, justice, informed judgment, critical
agency, and democracy itself. It is waging a war over not just the relationship between economic structures but over memory,
words, meaning, and politics. Neoliberalism takes words like freedom and limits it to the freedom to consume, spew out hate, and
celebrate notions of self-interest and a rabid individualism as the new common sense.
Equality of opportunity means engaging in ruthless forms of competition, a war of all against all ethos, and a survival of
the fittest mode of behavior.
The vocabulary of neoliberalism operates in the service of violence in that it reduces the capacity for human fulfillment in the
collective sense, diminishes a broad understanding of freedom as fundamental to expanding the capacity for human agency, and diminishes
the ethical imagination by reducing it to the interest of the market and the accumulation of capital. Words, memory, language and
meaning are weaponized under neoliberalism.
Certainly, neither the media nor progressives have given enough attention to how neoliberalism colonizes language because neither
group has given enough attention to viewing the crisis of neoliberalism as not only an economic crisis but also a crisis of ideas.
Education is not viewed as a force central to politics and as such the intersection of language, power, and politics in the neoliberal
paradigm has been largely ignored. Moreover, at a time when civic culture is being eradicated, public spheres are vanishing, and
notions of shared citizenship appear obsolete, words that speak to the truth, reveal injustices and provide informed critical analysis
also begin to disappear.
This makes it all the more difficult to engage critically the use of neoliberalism's colonization of language. In the United States,
Trump prodigious tweets signify not only a time in which governments engage in the pathology of endless fabrications, but also how
they function to reinforce a pedagogy of infantilism designed to animate his base in a glut of shock while reinforcing a culture
of war, fear, divisiveness, and greed in ways that disempower his critics.
Mitja Sardoč: You have written extensively on neoliberalism's exclusively instrumental view of education, its reductionist
understanding of effectiveness and its distorted image of fairness. In what way should radical pedagogy fight back neoliberalism
and its educational agenda?
Henry Giroux: First, higher education needs to reassert its mission as a public good in order to reclaim its egalitarian
and democratic impulses. Educators need to initiate and expand a national conversation in which higher education can be defended
as a democratic public sphere and the classroom as a site of deliberative inquiry, dialogue, and critical thinking, a site that makes
a claim on the radical imagination and a sense of civic courage. At the same time, the discourse on defining higher education
as a democratic public sphere can provide the platform for a more expressive commitment in developing a social movement in defense
of public goods and against neoliberalism as a threat to democracy. This also means rethinking how education can be funded as a public
good and what it might mean to fight for policies that both stop the defunding of education and fight to relocate funds from the
death dealing military and incarceration budgets to those supporting education at all levels of society. The challenge here is for
higher education not to abandon its commitment to democracy and to recognize that neoliberalism operates in the service of the forces
of economic domination and ideological repression.
Second, educators need to acknowledge and make good on the claim that a critically literate citizen is indispensable to a democracy,
especially at a time when higher education is being privatized and subject to neoliberal restructuring efforts. This suggests placing
ethics, civic literacy, social responsibility, and compassion at the forefront of learning so as to combine knowledge, teaching,
and research with the rudiments of what might be called the grammar of an ethical and social imagination. This would imply taking
seriously those values, traditions, histories, and pedagogies that would promote a sense of dignity, self-reflection, and compassion
at the heart of a real democracy. Third, higher education needs to be viewed as a right, as it is in many countries such as Germany,
France, Norway, Finland, and Brazil, rather than a privilege for a limited few, as it is in the United States, Canada, and the United
Kingdom. Fourth, in a world driven by data, metrics, and the replacement of knowledge by the overabundance of information, educators
need to enable students to engage in multiple literacies extending from print and visual culture to digital culture. They need to
become border crossers who can think dialectically, and learn not only how to consume culture but also to produce it. Fifth, faculty
must reclaim their right to control over the nature of their labor, shape policies of governance, and be given tenure track lines
with the guarantee of secure employment and protection for academic freedom and free speech.
Mitja Sardoč: Why is it important to analyze the relationship between neoliberalism and civic literacy particularly as an
educational project?
Henry Giroux: The ascendancy of neoliberalism in American politics has made visible a plague of deep-seated civic illiteracy,
a corrupt political system and a contempt for reason that has been decades in the making.
It also points to the withering of civic attachments, the undoing of civic culture, the decline of public life and the erosion
of any sense of shared citizenship. As market mentalities and moralities tighten their grip on all aspects of society, democratic
institutions and public spheres are being downsized, if not altogether disappearing.
As these institutions vanish – from public schools and alternative media to health care centers– there is also a serious
erosion of the discourse of community, justice, equality, public values, and the common good. At the same time reason and truth are
not simply contested, or the subject of informed arguments as they should be, but wrongly vilified – banished to Trump's poisonous
world of fake news. For instance, under the Trump administration, language has been pillaged, truth and reason disparaged, and words
and phrases emptied of any substance or turned into their opposite, all via the endless production of Trump's Twitter storms and
the ongoing clown spectacle of Fox News. This grim reality points to a failure in the power of the civic imagination, political will,
and open democracy. It is also part of a politics that strips the social of any democratic ideals and undermines any understanding
of education as a public good. What we are witnessing under neoliberalism is not simply a political project to consolidate power
in the hands of the corporate and financial elite but also a reworking of the very meaning of literacy and education as crucial to
what it means to create an informed citizenry and democratic society. In an age when literacy and thinking become dangerous to the
anti-democratic forces governing all the commanding economic and cultural institutions of the United States, truth is viewed as a
liability, ignorance becomes a virtue, and informed judgments and critical thinking demeaned and turned into rubble and ashes. Under
the reign of this normalized architecture of alleged common sense, literacy is regarded with disdain, words are reduced to data and
science is confused with pseudo-science. Traces of critical thought appear more and more at the margins of the culture as ignorance
becomes the primary organizing principle of American society.
Under the forty-year reign of neoliberalism, language has been militarized, handed over to advertisers, game show idiocy, and
a political and culturally embarrassing anti-intellectualism sanctioned by the White House. Couple this with a celebrity culture
that produces an ecosystem of babble, shock, and tawdry entertainment. Add on the cruel and clownish anti-public intellectuals such
as Jordan Peterson who defend inequality, infantile forms of masculinity, and define ignorance and a warrior mentality as part of
the natural order, all the while dethroning any viable sense of agency and the political.
The culture of manufactured illiteracy is also reproduced through a media apparatus that trades in illusions and the spectacle
of violence. Under these circumstances, illiteracy becomes the norm and education becomes central to a version of neoliberal zombie
politics that functions largely to remove democratic values, social relations, and compassion from the ideology, policies and commanding
institutions that now control American society. In the age of manufactured illiteracy, there is more at work than simply an absence
of learning, ideas or knowledge. Nor can the reign of manufactured illiteracy be solely attributed to the rise of the new social
media, a culture of immediacy, and a society that thrives on instant gratification. On the contrary, manufactured illiteracy is political
and educational project central to a right-wing corporatist ideology and set of policies that work aggressively to depoliticize people
and make them complicitous with the neoliberal and racist political and economic forces that impose misery and suffering upon their
lives. There is more at work here than what Ariel Dorfman calls a "felonious stupidity," there is also the workings of a deeply malicious
form of 21 st century neoliberal fascism and a culture of cruelty in which language is forced into the service of violence
while waging a relentless attack on the ethical imagination and the notion of the common good. In the current historical moment illiteracy
and ignorance offer the pretense of a community in doing so has undermined the importance of civic literacy both in higher education
and the larger society.
Mitja Sardoč: Is there any shortcoming in the analysis of such a complex (and controversial) social phenomenon as neoliberalism
and its educational agenda? Put differently: is there any aspect of the neoliberal educational agenda that its critics have failed
to address?
Henry Giroux: Any analysis of an ideology such as neoliberalism will always be incomplete. And the literature on neoliberalism
in its different forms and diverse contexts is quite abundant. What is often underplayed in my mind are three things.
First, too
little is said about how neoliberalism functions not simply as an economic model for finance capital but as a public pedagogy that
operates through a diverse number of sites and platforms.
Second, not enough has been written about its war on a democratic notion
of sociality and the concept of the social.
Third, at a time in which echoes of a past fascism are on the rise not enough is being
said about the relationship between neoliberalism and fascism, or what I call neoliberal fascism, especially the relationship between
the widespread suffering and misery caused by neoliberalism and the rise of white supremacy.
I define neoliberal fascism as both
a project and a movement, which functions as an enabling force that weakens, if not destroys, the commanding institutions of a democracy
while undermining its most valuable principles.
Consequently, it provides a fertile ground for the unleashing of the ideological
architecture, poisonous values, and racist social relations sanctioned and produced under fascism. Neoliberalism and fascism conjoin
and advance in a comfortable and mutually compatible project and movement that connects the worse excesses of capitalism with fascist
ideals – the veneration of war, a hatred of reason and truth; a populist celebration of ultra-nationalism and racial purity; the
suppression of freedom and dissent; a culture which promotes lies, spectacles, a demonization of the other, a discourse of decline,
brutal violence, and ultimately state violence in heterogeneous forms. As a project, it destroys all the commanding institutions
of democracy and consolidates power in the hands of a financial elite.
As a movement, it produces and legitimates massive economic
inequality and suffering, privatizes public goods, dismantles essential government agencies, and individualizes all social problems.
In addition, it transforms the political state into the corporate state, and uses the tools of surveillance, militarization, and
law and order to discredit the critical press and media, undermine civil liberties while ridiculing and censoring critics.
What critics
need to address is that neoliberalism is the face of a new fascism and as such it speaks to the need to repudiate the notion that
capitalism and democracy are the same thing, renew faith in the promises of a democratic socialism, create new political formations
around an alliance of diverse social movements, and take seriously the need to make education central to politics itself.
Voters around the world revolt against leaders who won't improve their lives.
Newly-elected Utah senator Mitt Romney kicked off 2019 with an op-ed in the Washington Post
that savaged Donald Trump's character and leadership. Romney's attack and Trump's response
Wednesday morning on Twitter are the latest salvos in a longstanding personal feud between the
two men. It's even possible that Romney is planning to challenge Trump for the Republican
nomination in 2020. We'll see.
But for now, Romney's piece is fascinating on its own terms. It's well-worth reading. It's a
window into how the people in charge, in both parties, see our country.
Romney's main complaint in the piece is that Donald Trump is a mercurial and divisive
leader. That's true, of course. But beneath the personal slights, Romney has a policy critique
of Trump. He seems genuinely angry that Trump might pull American troops out of the Syrian
civil war. Romney doesn't explain how staying in Syria would benefit America. He doesn't appear
to consider that a relevant question. More policing in the Middle East is always better. We
know that. Virtually everyone in Washington agrees.
Corporate tax cuts are also popular in Washington, and Romney is strongly on board with
those, too. His piece throws a rare compliment to Trump for cutting the corporate rate a year
ago.
That's not surprising. Romney spent the bulk of his business career at a firm called Bain
Capital. Bain Capital all but invented what is now a familiar business strategy: Take over an
existing company for a short period of time, cut costs by firing employees, run up the debt,
extract the wealth, and move on, sometimes leaving retirees without their earned pensions.
Romney became fantastically rich doing this.
Meanwhile, a remarkable number of the companies are now bankrupt or extinct. This is the
private equity model. Our ruling class sees nothing wrong with it. It's how they run the
country.
Mitt Romney refers to unwavering support for a finance-based economy and an internationalist
foreign policy as the "mainstream Republican" view. And he's right about that. For generations,
Republicans have considered it their duty to make the world safe for banking, while
simultaneously prosecuting ever more foreign wars. Modern Democrats generally support those
goals enthusiastically.
There are signs, however, that most people do not support this, and not just in America. In
countries around the world -- France, Brazil, Sweden, the Philippines, Germany, and many others
-- voters are suddenly backing candidates and ideas that would have been unimaginable just a
decade ago. These are not isolated events. What you're watching is entire populations revolting
against leaders who refuse to improve their lives.
Something like this has been in happening in our country for three years. Donald Trump rode
a surge of popular discontent all the way to the White House. Does he understand the political
revolution that he harnessed? Can he reverse the economic and cultural trends that are
destroying America? Those are open questions.
But they're less relevant than we think. At some point, Donald Trump will be gone. The rest
of us will be gone, too. The country will remain. What kind of country will be it be then? How
do we want our grandchildren to live? These are the only questions that matter.
The answer used to be obvious. The overriding goal for America is more prosperity, meaning
cheaper consumer goods. But is that still true? Does anyone still believe that cheaper iPhones,
or more Amazon deliveries of plastic garbage from China are going to make us happy? They
haven't so far. A lot of Americans are drowning in stuff. And yet drug addiction and suicide
are depopulating large parts of the country. Anyone who thinks the health of a nation can be
summed up in GDP is an idiot.
The goal for America is both simpler and more elusive than mere prosperity. It's happiness.
There are a lot of ingredients in being happy: Dignity. Purpose. Self-control. Independence.
Above all, deep relationships with other people. Those are the things that you want for your
children. They're what our leaders should want for us, and would want if they cared.
But our leaders don't care. We are ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to
the people they rule. They're day traders. Substitute teachers. They're just passing through.
They have no skin in this game, and it shows. They can't solve our problems. They don't even
bother to understand our problems.
One of the biggest lies our leaders tell us that you can separate economics from everything
else that matters. Economics is a topic for public debate. Family and faith and culture,
meanwhile, those are personal matters. Both parties believe this.
Members of our educated upper-middle-classes are now the backbone of the Democratic Party
who usually describe themselves as fiscally responsible and socially moderate. In other words,
functionally libertarian. They don't care how you live, as long as the bills are paid and the
markets function. Somehow, they don't see a connection between people's personal lives and the
health of our economy, or for that matter, the country's ability to pay its bills. As far as
they're concerned, these are two totally separate categories.
Social conservatives, meanwhile, come to the debate from the opposite perspective, and yet
reach a strikingly similar conclusion. The real problem, you'll hear them say, is that the
American family is collapsing. Nothing can be fixed before we fix that. Yet, like the
libertarians they claim to oppose, many social conservatives also consider markets sacrosanct.
The idea that families are being crushed by market forces seems never to occur to them. They
refuse to consider it. Questioning markets feels like apostasy.
Both sides miss the obvious point: Culture and economics are inseparably intertwined.
Certain economic systems allow families to thrive. Thriving families make market economies
possible. You can't separate the two. It used to be possible to deny this. Not anymore. The
evidence is now overwhelming. How do we know? Consider the inner cities.
Thirty years ago, conservatives looked at Detroit or Newark and many other places and were
horrified by what they saw. Conventional families had all but disappeared in poor
neighborhoods. The majority of children were born out of wedlock. Single mothers were the rule.
Crime and drugs and disorder became universal.
What caused this nightmare? Liberals didn't even want to acknowledge the question. They were
benefiting from the disaster, in the form of reliable votes. Conservatives, though, had a ready
explanation for inner-city dysfunction and it made sense: big government. Decades of
badly-designed social programs had driven fathers from the home and created what conservatives
called a "culture of poverty" that trapped people in generational decline.
There was truth in this. But it wasn't the whole story. How do we know? Because virtually
the same thing has happened decades later to an entirely different population. In many ways,
rural America now looks a lot like Detroit.
This is striking because rural Americans wouldn't seem to have much in common with anyone
from the inner city. These groups have different cultures, different traditions and political
beliefs. Usually they have different skin colors. Rural people are white conservatives,
mostly.
Yet, the pathologies of modern rural America are familiar to anyone who visited downtown
Baltimore in the 1980s: Stunning out of wedlock birthrates. High male unemployment. A
terrifying drug epidemic. Two different worlds. Similar outcomes. How did this happen? You'd
think our ruling class would be interested in knowing the answer. But mostly they're not. They
don't have to be interested. It's easier to import foreign labor to take the place of
native-born Americans who are slipping behind.
But Republicans now represent rural voters. They ought to be interested. Here's a big part
of the answer: male wages declined. Manufacturing, a male-dominated industry, all but
disappeared over the course of a generation. All that remained in many places were the schools
and the hospitals, both traditional employers of women. In many places, women suddenly made
more than men.
Now, before you applaud this as a victory for feminism, consider the effects. Study after
study has shown that when men make less than women, women generally don't want to marry them.
Maybe they should want to marry them, but they don't. Over big populations, this causes a drop
in marriage, a spike in out-of-wedlock births, and all the familiar disasters that inevitably
follow -- more drug and alcohol abuse, higher incarceration rates, fewer families formed in the
next generation.
This isn't speculation. This is not propaganda from the evangelicals. It's social science.
We know it's true. Rich people know it best of all. That's why they get married before they
have kids. That model works. But increasingly, marriage is a luxury only the affluent in
America can afford.
And yet, and here's the bewildering and infuriating part, those very same affluent married
people, the ones making virtually all the decisions in our society, are doing pretty much
nothing to help the people below them get and stay married. Rich people are happy to fight
malaria in Congo. But working to raise men's wages in Dayton or Detroit? That's crazy.
This is negligence on a massive scale. Both parties ignore the crisis in marriage. Our
mindless cultural leaders act like it's still 1961, and the biggest problem American families
face is that sexism is preventing millions of housewives from becoming investment bankers or
Facebook executives.
For our ruling class, more investment banking is always the answer. They teach us it's more
virtuous to devote your life to some soulless corporation than it is to raise your own
kids.
Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook wrote an entire book about this. Sandberg explained that our
first duty is to shareholders, above our own children. No surprise there. Sandberg herself is
one of America's biggest shareholders. Propaganda like this has made her rich.
We are ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule.
They're day traders. Substitute teachers. They're just passing through. They have no skin in
this game, and it shows.
What's remarkable is how the rest of us responded to it. We didn't question why Sandberg was
saying this. We didn't laugh in her face at the pure absurdity of it. Our corporate media
celebrated Sandberg as the leader of a liberation movement. Her book became a bestseller: "Lean
In." As if putting a corporation first is empowerment. It is not. It is bondage. Republicans
should say so.
They should also speak out against the ugliest parts of our financial system. Not all
commerce is good. Why is it defensible to loan people money they can't possibly repay? Or
charge them interest that impoverishes them? Payday loan outlets in poor neighborhoods collect
400 percent annual interest.
We're OK with that? We shouldn't be. Libertarians tell us that's how markets work --
consenting adults making voluntary decisions about how to live their lives. OK. But it's also
disgusting. If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation of Americans,
whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street.
And by the way, if you really loved your fellow Americans, as our leaders should, if it
would break your heart to see them high all the time. Which they are. A huge number of our
kids, especially our boys, are smoking weed constantly. You may not realize that, because new
technology has made it odorless. But it's everywhere.
And that's not an accident. Once our leaders understood they could get rich from marijuana,
marijuana became ubiquitous. In many places, tax-hungry politicians have legalized or
decriminalized it. Former Speaker of the House John Boehner now lobbies for the marijuana
industry. His fellow Republicans seem fine with that. "Oh, but it's better for you than
alcohol," they tell us.
Maybe. Who cares? Talk about missing the point. Try having dinner with a 19-year-old who's
been smoking weed. The life is gone. Passive, flat, trapped in their own heads. Do you want
that for your kids? Of course not. Then why are our leaders pushing it on us? You know the
reason. Because they don't care about us.
When you care about people, you do your best to treat them fairly. Our leaders don't even
try. They hand out jobs and contracts and scholarships and slots at prestigious universities
based purely on how we look. There's nothing less fair than that, though our tax code comes
close.
Under our current system, an American who works for a salary pays about twice the tax rate
as someone who's living off inherited money and doesn't work at all. We tax capital at half of
what we tax labor. It's a sweet deal if you work in finance, as many of our rich people do.
In 2010, for example, Mitt Romney made about $22 million dollars in investment income. He
paid an effective federal tax rate of 14 percent. For normal upper-middle-class wage earners,
the federal tax rate is nearly 40 percent. No wonder Mitt Romney supports the status quo. But
for everyone else, it's infuriating.
Our leaders rarely mention any of this. They tell us our multi-tiered tax code is based on
the principles of the free market. Please. It's based on laws that the Congress passed, laws
that companies lobbied for in order to increase their economic advantage. It worked well for
those people. They did increase their economic advantage. But for everyone else, it came at a
big cost. Unfairness is profoundly divisive. When you favor one child over another, your kids
don't hate you. They hate each other.
That happens in countries, too. It's happening in ours, probably by design. Divided
countries are easier to rule. And nothing divides us like the perception that some people are
getting special treatment. In our country, some people definitely are getting special
treatment. Republicans should oppose that with everything they have.
What kind of country do you want to live in? A fair country. A decent country. A cohesive
country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate the forces of change purely for their own
profit and amusement. A country you might recognize when you're old.
A country that listens to young people who don't live in Brooklyn. A country where you can
make a solid living outside of the big cities. A country where Lewiston, Maine seems almost as
important as the west side of Los Angeles. A country where environmentalism means getting
outside and picking up the trash. A clean, orderly, stable country that respects itself. And
above all, a country where normal people with an average education who grew up in no place
special can get married, and have happy kids, and repeat unto the generations. A country that
actually cares about families, the building block of everything.
What will it take a get a country like that? Leaders who want it. For now, those leaders will
have to be Republicans. There's no option at this point.
But first, Republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a
religion. Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster. You'd have to be a fool
to worship it. Our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings. We do
not exist to serve markets. Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and destroys
families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society.
Internalizing all this will not be easy for Republican leaders. They'll have to unlearn
decades of bumper sticker-talking points and corporate propaganda. They'll likely lose donors
in the process. They'll be criticized. Libertarians are sure to call any deviation from market
fundamentalism a form of socialism.
That's a lie. Socialism is a disaster. It doesn't work. It's what we should be working
desperately to avoid. But socialism is exactly what we're going to get, and very soon unless a
group of responsible people in our political system reforms the American economy in a way that
protects normal people.
If you want to put America first, you've got to put its families first.
Adapted from Tucker Carlson's monologue from "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on January 2,
2019.
"... America's "ruling class," Carlson says, are the "mercenaries" behind the failures of the middle class -- including sinking marriage rates -- and "the ugliest parts of our financial system." He went on: "Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society." ..."
"... He concluded with a demand for "a fair country. A decent country. A cohesive country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement." ..."
"... The monologue and its sweeping anti-elitism drove a wedge between conservative writers. The American Conservative's Rod Dreher wrote of Carlson's monologue, "A man or woman who can talk like that with conviction could become president. Voting for a conservative candidate like that would be the first affirmative vote I've ever cast for president. ..."
"... The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Growing Broke ..."
"... Carlson wanted to be clear: He's just asking questions. "I'm not an economic adviser or a politician. I'm not a think tank fellow. I'm just a talk show host," he said, telling me that all he wants is to ask "the basic questions you would ask about any policy." But he wants to ask those questions about what he calls the "religious faith" of market capitalism, one he believes elites -- "mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule" -- have put ahead of "normal people." ..."
"... "What does [free market capitalism] get us?" he said in our call. "What kind of country do you want to live in? If you put these policies into effect, what will you have in 10 years?" ..."
"... Carlson is hardly the first right-leaning figure to make a pitch for populism, even tangentially, in the third year of Donald Trump, whose populist-lite presidential candidacy and presidency Carlson told me he views as "the smoke alarm ... telling you the building is on fire, and unless you figure out how to put the flames out, it will consume it." ..."
"... Trump borrowed some of that approach for his 2016 campaign but in office has governed as a fairly orthodox economic conservative, thus demonstrating the demand for populism on the right without really providing the supply and creating conditions for further ferment. ..."
"... Ocasio-Cortez wants a 70-80% income tax on the rich. I agree! Start with the Koch Bros. -- and also make it WEALTH tax. ..."
"... "I'm just saying as a matter of fact," he told me, "a country where a shrinking percentage of the population is taking home an ever-expanding proportion of the money is not a recipe for a stable society. It's not." ..."
"... Carlson told me he wanted to be clear: He is not a populist. But he believes some version of populism is necessary to prevent a full-scale political revolt or the onset of socialism. Using Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a president who recognized that labor needs economic power, he told me, "Unless you want something really extreme to happen, you need to take this seriously and figure out how to protect average people from these remarkably powerful forces that have been unleashed." ..."
"... But Carlson's brand of populism, and the populist sentiments sweeping the American right, aren't just focused on the current state of income inequality in America. Carlson tackled a bigger idea: that market capitalism and the "elites" whom he argues are its major drivers aren't working. The free market isn't working for families, or individuals, or kids. In his monologue, Carlson railed against libertarian economics and even payday loans, saying, "If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation of Americans, whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street" -- sounding very much like Sanders or Warren on the left. ..."
"... Capitalism/liberalism destroys the extended family by requiring people to move apart for work and destroying any sense of unchosen obligations one might have towards one's kin. ..."
"... Hillbilly Elegy ..."
"... Carlson told me that beyond changing our tax code, he has no major policies in mind. "I'm not even making the case for an economic system in particular," he told me. "All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God or a function or raw nature." ..."
"All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God."
Last Wednesday, the conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson started a fire on the right after airing a prolonged
monologue on his show that was, in essence, an indictment of American capitalism.
America's "ruling class," Carlson says, are the "mercenaries" behind the failures of the middle class -- including sinking
marriage rates -- and "the ugliest parts of our financial system." He went on: "Any economic system that weakens and destroys families
is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society."
He concluded with a demand for "a fair country. A decent country. A cohesive country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate
the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement."
The monologue was stunning in itself, an incredible moment in which a Fox News host stated that for generations, "Republicans
have considered it their duty to make the world safe for banking, while simultaneously prosecuting ever more foreign wars." More
broadly, though, Carlson's position and the ensuing controversy reveals an ongoing and nearly unsolvable tension in conservative
politics about the meaning of populism, a political ideology that Trump campaigned on but Carlson argues he may not truly understand.
Moreover, in Carlson's words: "At some point, Donald Trump will be gone. The rest of us will be gone too. The country will remain.
What kind of country will be it be then?"
The monologue and its sweeping anti-elitism drove a wedge between conservative writers. The American Conservative's Rod Dreher
wrote of Carlson's monologue,
"A man or woman who can talk like that with conviction could become president. Voting for a conservative candidate like that would
be the first affirmative vote I've ever cast for president." Other conservative commentators scoffed. Ben Shapiro wrote in
National Review that Carlson's monologue sounded far more like Sens. Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren than, say, Ronald Reagan.
I spoke with Carlson by phone this week to discuss his monologue and its economic -- and cultural -- meaning. He agreed that his
monologue was reminiscent of Warren, referencing her 2003
bookThe Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Growing Broke . "There were parts of the book that I disagree
with, of course," he told me. "But there are parts of it that are really important and true. And nobody wanted to have that conversation."
Carlson wanted to be clear: He's just asking questions. "I'm not an economic adviser or a politician. I'm not a think tank
fellow. I'm just a talk show host," he said, telling me that all he wants is to ask "the basic questions you would ask about any
policy." But he wants to ask those questions about what he calls the "religious faith" of market capitalism, one he believes elites
-- "mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule" -- have put ahead of "normal people."
But whether or not he likes it, Carlson is an important voice in conservative politics. His show is among the
most-watched television programs in America. And his raising questions about market capitalism and the free market matters.
"What does [free market capitalism] get us?" he said in our call. "What kind of country do you want to live in? If you put
these policies into effect, what will you have in 10 years?"
Populism on the right is gaining, again
Carlson is hardly the first right-leaning figure to make a pitch for populism, even tangentially, in the third year of Donald
Trump, whose populist-lite
presidential candidacy and presidency Carlson told me he views as "the smoke alarm ... telling you the building is on fire, and unless
you figure out how to put the flames out, it will consume it."
Populism is a rhetorical approach that separates "the people" from elites. In the
words of Cas
Mudde, a professor at the University of Georgia, it divides the country into "two homogenous and antagonistic groups: the pure people
on the one end and the corrupt elite on the other." Populist rhetoric has a long history in American politics, serving as the focal
point of numerous presidential campaigns and powering William Jennings Bryan to the Democratic nomination for president in 1896.
Trump borrowed some of that approach for his 2016 campaign but in office has governed as a fairly orthodox economic conservative,
thus demonstrating the demand for populism on the right without really providing the supply and creating conditions for further ferment.
When right-leaning pundit Ann Coulter
spoke with Breitbart Radio about Trump's Tuesday evening Oval Office address to the nation regarding border wall funding, she
said she wanted to hear him say something like, "You know, you say a lot of wild things on the campaign trail. I'm speaking to big
rallies. But I want to talk to America about a serious problem that is affecting the least among us, the working-class blue-collar
workers":
Coulter urged Trump to bring up overdose deaths from heroin in order to speak to the "working class" and to blame the fact
that working-class wages have stalled, if not fallen, in the last 20 years on immigration. She encouraged Trump to declare, "This
is a national emergency for the people who don't have lobbyists in Washington."
Ocasio-Cortez wants a 70-80% income tax on the rich. I agree! Start with the Koch Bros. -- and also make it WEALTH tax.
These sentiments have even pitted popular Fox News hosts against each other.
Sean Hannity warned his audience that New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's economic policies would mean that "the rich people
won't be buying boats that they like recreationally, they're not going to be taking expensive vacations anymore." But Carlson agreed
when I said his monologue was somewhat reminiscent of Ocasio-Cortez's
past comments on the economy , and how even a strong economy was still leaving working-class Americans behind.
"I'm just saying as a matter of fact," he told me, "a country where a shrinking percentage of the population is taking home
an ever-expanding proportion of the money is not a recipe for a stable society. It's not."
Carlson told me he wanted to be clear: He is not a populist. But he believes some version of populism is necessary to prevent
a full-scale political revolt or the onset of socialism. Using Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a president who recognized that
labor needs economic power, he told me, "Unless you want something really extreme to happen, you need to take this seriously and
figure out how to protect average people from these remarkably powerful forces that have been unleashed."
"I think populism is potentially really disruptive. What I'm saying is that populism is a symptom of something being wrong," he
told me. "Again, populism is a smoke alarm; do not ignore it."
But Carlson's brand of populism, and the populist sentiments sweeping the American right, aren't just focused on the current
state of income inequality in America. Carlson tackled a bigger idea: that market capitalism and the "elites" whom he argues are
its major drivers aren't working. The free market isn't working for families, or individuals, or kids. In his monologue, Carlson
railed against libertarian economics and even payday loans, saying, "If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation
of Americans, whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street" -- sounding very much like Sanders or Warren on the left.
Carlson's argument that "market capitalism is not a religion" is of course old hat on the left, but it's also been bubbling on
the right for years now. When National Review writer Kevin Williamson
wrote
a 2016 op-ed about how rural whites "failed themselves," he faced a massive backlash in the Trumpier quarters of the right. And
these sentiments are becoming increasingly potent at a time when Americans can see both a booming stock market and perhaps their
own family members struggling to get by.
Capitalism/liberalism destroys the extended family by requiring people to move apart for work and destroying any sense
of unchosen obligations one might have towards one's kin.
At the Federalist, writer Kirk Jing
wrote of Carlson's
monologue, and a
response
to it by National Review columnist David French:
Our society is less French's America, the idea, and more Frantz Fanon's "Wretched of the Earth" (involving a very different
French). The lowest are stripped of even social dignity and deemed
unworthy of life . In Real America, wages are stagnant, life expectancy is crashing, people are fleeing the workforce, families
are crumbling, and trust in the institutions on top are at all-time lows. To French, holding any leaders of those institutions
responsible for their errors is "victimhood populism" ... The Right must do better if it seeks to govern a real America that exists
outside of its fantasies.
J.D. Vance, author of
Hillbilly Elegy
, wrote that the [neoliberal] economy's victories -- and praise for those wins from conservatives -- were largely meaningless
to white working-class Americans living in Ohio and Kentucky: "Yes, they live in a country with a higher GDP than a generation ago,
and they're undoubtedly able to buy cheaper consumer goods, but to paraphrase Reagan: Are they better off than they were 20 years
ago? Many would say, unequivocally, 'no.'"
Carlson's populism holds, in his view, bipartisan possibilities. In a follow-up email, I asked him why his monologue was aimed
at Republicans when many Democrats had long espoused the same criticisms of free market economics. "Fair question," he responded.
"I hope it's not just Republicans. But any response to the country's systemic problems will have to give priority to the concerns
of American citizens over the concerns of everyone else, just as you'd protect your own kids before the neighbor's kids."
Who is "they"?
And that's the point where Carlson and a host of others on the right who have begun to challenge the conservative movement's orthodoxy
on free markets -- people ranging from occasionally mendacious bomb-throwers like Coulter to writers like
Michael Brendan Dougherty -- separate
themselves from many of those making those exact same arguments on the left.
When Carlson talks about the "normal people" he wants to save from nefarious elites, he is talking, usually, about a specific
group of "normal people" -- white working-class Americans who are the "real" victims of capitalism, or marijuana legalization, or
immigration policies.
In this telling, white working-class Americans who once relied on a manufacturing economy that doesn't look the way it did in
1955 are the unwilling pawns of elites. It's not their fault that, in Carlson's view, marriage is inaccessible to them, or that marijuana
legalization means more teens are smoking weed (
this probably isn't true ). Someone,
or something, did this to them. In Carlson's view, it's the responsibility of politicians: Our economic situation, and the plight
of the white working class, is "the product of a series of conscious decisions that the Congress made."
The criticism of Carlson's monologue has largely focused on how he deviates from the free market capitalism that conservatives
believe is the solution to poverty, not the creator of poverty. To orthodox conservatives, poverty is the result of poor decision
making or a
lack of virtue that can't be solved by government programs or an anti-elite political platform -- and they say Carlson's argument
that elites are in some way responsible for dwindling marriage rates
doesn't make sense .
But in French's response to Carlson, he goes deeper, writing that to embrace Carlson's brand of populism is to support "victimhood
populism," one that makes white working-class Americans into the victims of an undefined "they:
Carlson is advancing a form of victim-politics populism that takes a series of tectonic cultural changes -- civil rights, women's
rights, a technological revolution as significant as the industrial revolution, the mass-scale loss of religious faith, the sexual
revolution, etc. -- and turns the negative or challenging aspects of those changes into an angry tale of what they are
doing to you .
And that was my biggest question about Carlson's monologue, and the flurry of responses to it, and support for it: When other
groups (say, black Americans) have pointed to systemic inequities within the economic system that have resulted in poverty and family
dysfunction, the response from many on the right has been, shall we say,
less than
enthusiastic .
Really, it comes down to when black people have problems, it's personal responsibility, but when white people have the same
problems, the system is messed up. Funny how that works!!
Yet white working-class poverty receives, from Carlson and others, far more sympathy. And conservatives are far more likely to
identify with a criticism of "elites" when they believe those elites are responsible for the
expansion of trans
rights or creeping secularism
than the wealthy and powerful people who are investing in
private prisons or an expansion
of the
militarization of police . Carlson's network, Fox News, and Carlson himself have frequently blasted leftist critics of market
capitalism and efforts to
fight
inequality .
I asked Carlson about this, as his show is frequently centered on the turmoils caused by "
demographic change
." He said that for decades, "conservatives just wrote [black economic struggles] off as a culture of poverty," a line he
includes in his monologue .
He added that regarding black poverty, "it's pretty easy when you've got 12 percent of the population going through something
to feel like, 'Well, there must be ... there's something wrong with that culture.' Which is actually a tricky thing to say because
it's in part true, but what you're missing, what I missed, what I think a lot of people missed, was that the economic system you're
living under affects your culture."
Carlson said that growing up in Washington, DC, and spending time in rural Maine, he didn't realize until recently that the same
poverty and decay he observed in the Washington of the 1980s was also taking place in rural (and majority-white) Maine. "I was thinking,
'Wait a second ... maybe when the jobs go away the culture changes,'" he told me, "And the reason I didn't think of it before was
because I was so blinded by this libertarian economic propaganda that I couldn't get past my own assumptions about economics." (For
the record, libertarians have
critiqued Carlson's
monologue as well.)
Carlson told me that beyond changing our tax code, he has no major policies in mind. "I'm not even making the case for an
economic system in particular," he told me. "All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God or a
function or raw nature."
And clearly, our market economy isn't driven by God or nature, as the stock market soars and unemployment dips and yet even those
on the right are noticing lengthy periods of wage stagnation and dying little towns across the country. But what to do about those
dying little towns, and which dying towns we care about and which we don't, and, most importantly, whose fault it is that those towns
are dying in the first place -- those are all questions Carlson leaves to the viewer to answer.
"... The fact that obviously deranged fanatic hack has students is a testimony to a sewer level of the US "elite-producing" machine and a pathetic sight contemporary US "elite" represents. ..."
"... "political science" is not a science but pseudo-academic field for losers who do not want to study real history or take courses which actually develop intellect and provide fundamental knowledge. ..."
Early on in her book, Albright says: My students remarked that the Fascist chiefs we remember best were charismatic
Marked in bold is the most terrifying thing about Albright's book and I am not even going to read her pseudo-intellectual excrement.
The fact that obviously deranged fanatic hack has students is a testimony to a sewer level of the US "elite-producing" machine
and a pathetic sight contemporary US "elite" represents.
This is apart from the fact that "political science" is not a science
but pseudo-academic field for losers who do not want to study real history or take courses which actually develop intellect and
provide fundamental knowledge.
"... Stocks have always been "a legal form of gambling". What is happening now however, is that a pair of treys can beat out your straight flush. Companies that have never turned a profit fetch huge prices on the stock market. ..."
"... The stock market suckered millions in before 2008 and then prices plummeted. Where did the money from grandpa's pension fund go? ..."
"... Abraham Lincoln said that the purpose of government is to do for people what they cannot do for themselves. Government also should serve to keep people from hurting themselves and to restrain man's greed, which otherwise cannot be self-controlled. Anyone who seeks to own productive power that they cannot or won't use for consumption are beggaring their neighbor––the equivalency of mass murder––the impact of concentrated capital ownership. ..."
"... family wealth" predicts outcomes for 10 to 15 generations. Those with extreme wealth owe it to events going back "300 to 450" years ago, according to research published by the New Republic – an era when it wasn't unusual for white Americans to benefit from an economy dependent upon widespread, unpaid black labor in the form of slavery. ..."
"... Correction: The average person in poverty in the U.S. does not live in the same abject, third world poverty as you might find in Honduras, Central African Republic, Cambodia, or the barrios of Sao Paulo. ..."
"... Since our poor don't live in abject poverty, I invite you to live as a family of four on less than $11,000 a year anywhere in the United States. If you qualify and can obtain subsidized housing you may have some of the accoutrements in your home that you seem to equate with living the high life. You know, running water, a fridge, a toilet, a stove. You would also likely have a phone (subsidized at that) so you might be able to participate (or attempt to participate) in the job market in an honest attempt to better your family's economic prospects and as is required to qualify for most assistance programs. ..."
"... So many dutiful neoliberals on here rushing to the defense of poor Capitalism. Clearly, these commentators are among those who are in the privileged position of reaping the true benefits of Capitalism - And, of course, there are many benefits to reap if you are lucky enough to be born into the right racial-socioeconomic context. ..."
"... Please walk us through how non-capitalist systems create wealth and allow their lowest class people propel themselves to the top in one generation. You will note that most socialist systems derive their technology and advancements from the more capitalistic systems. Pharmaceuticals, software, and robotics are a great example of this. I shutter to think of what the welfare of the average citizen of the world would be like without the advancements made via the capitalist countries. ..."
The poorest Americans have no realistic hope of achieving anything that approaches income equality. They still struggle
for access to the basics
... ... ...
The disparities in wealth that we term "income inequality" are no accident, and they can't be fixed by fiddling at the edges of
our current economic system. These disparities happened by design, and the system structurally disadvantages those at the bottom.
The poorest Americans have no realistic hope of achieving anything that approaches income equality; even their very chances for access
to the most basic tools of life are almost nil.
... ... ...
Too often, the answer by those who have hoarded everything is they will choose to "give back" in a manner of their choosing –
just look at Mark Zuckerberg and his much-derided plan to "give away" 99% of his Facebook stock. He is unlikely to help change inequality
or poverty any more than "giving away" of $100m helped children in Newark schools.
Allowing any of the 100 richest Americans to choose how they fix "income inequality" will not make the country more equal or even
guarantee more access to life. You can't take down the master's house with the master's tools, even when you're the master; but more
to the point, who would tear down his own house to distribute the bricks among so very many others?
mkenney63 5 Dec 2015 20:37
Excellent article. The problems we face are structural and can only be solved by making fundamental changes. We must bring
an end to "Citizens United", modern day "Jim Crow" and the military industrial complex in order to restore our democracy. Then
maybe, just maybe, we can have an economic system that will treat all with fairness and respect. Crony capitalism has had its
day, it has mutated into criminality.
Kencathedrus -> Marcedward 5 Dec 2015 20:23
In the pre-capitalist system people learnt crafts to keep themselves afloat. The Industrial Revolution changed all that. Now
we have the church of Education promising a better life if we get into debt to buy (sorry, earn) degrees.
The whole system is messed up and now we have millions of people on this planet who can't function even those with degrees.
Barbarians are howling at the gates of Europe. The USA is rotting from within. As Marx predicted the Capitalists are merely paying
their own grave diggers.
mkenney63 -> Bobishere 5 Dec 2015 20:17
I would suggest you read the economic and political history of the past 30 years. To help you in your study let me recommend
a couple of recent books: "Winner Take all Politics" by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson and "The Age of Acquiescence" by Steve Fraser.
It always amazes me that one can be so blind the facts of recent American history; it's not just "a statistical inequality", it's
been a well thought-out strategy over time to rig the system, a strategy engaged in by politicians and capitalists. Shine some
light on this issue by acquainting yourself with the facts.
Maharaja Brovinda -> Singh Jill Harrison 5 Dec 2015 19:42
We play out the prisoner's dilemma in life, in general, over and over in different circumstances, every day. And we always
choose the dominant - rational - solution. But the best solution is not based on rationality, but rather on trust and faith in
each other - rather ironically for our current, evidence based society!
Steven Palmer 5 Dec 2015 19:19
Like crack addicts the philanthropricks only seek to extend their individual glory, social image their primary goal, and yet
given the context they will burn in history. Philanthroptits should at least offset the immeasurable damage they have done through
their medieval wealth accumulation. Collaborative philanthropy for basic income is a good idea, but ye, masters tools.
BlairM -> Iconoclastick 5 Dec 2015 19:10
Well, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, capitalism is the worst possible economic system, except for all those other economic
systems that have been tried from time to time.
I'd rather just have the freedom to earn money as I please, and if that means inequality, it's a small price to pay for not
having some feudal lord or some party bureaucrat stomping on my humanity.
brusuz 5 Dec 2015 18:52
As long as wealth can be created by shuffling money from one place to another in the giant crap shoot we call our economy,
nothing will change. Until something takes place to make it advantageous for the investor capitalists to put that money to work
doing something that actually produces some benefit to the society as a whole, they will continue their extractive machinations.
I see nothing on the horizon that is going to change any of that, and to cast this as some sort of a racial issue is quite superficial.
We have all gotten the shaft, since there is no upward mobility available to anyone. Since the Bush crowd of neocons took power,
we have all been shackled with "individual solutions to societal created problems."
Jimi Del Duca 5 Dec 2015 18:31
Friends, Capitalism is structural exploitation of ALL WORKERS. Thinking about it as solely a race issue is divisive. What we
need is CLASS SOLIDARITY and ORGANIZATION. See iww.org We are the fighting union with no use for capitalists!
slightlynumb -> AmyInNH 5 Dec 2015 18:04
You'd be better off reading Marx if you want to understand capitalism. I think you are ascribing the word to what you think
it should be rather than what it is.
It is essentially a class structure rather than any defined economic system. Neoliberal is essentially laissez faire capitalism.
It is designed to suborn nation states to corporate benefit.
AmyInNH -> tommydog
They make $40 a month. Working 7 days a week. At least 12 hour days. Who's fed you that "we're doing them a favor" BS?
And I've news for you regarding "Those whose skills are less adaptable to doing so are seeing their earnings decline." We have
many people who have 3 masters degrees making less than minimum wage. We have top notch STEM students shunned so corporations
can hire captive/cheaper foreign labor, called H1-Bs, who then wait 10 years working for them waiting for their employment based
green card. Or "visiting" students here on J1 visas, so the employers can get out of paying: social security, federal unemployment
insurance, etc.
Wake up and smell the coffee tommydog. They've more than a thumb on the scale.
I am a socialist. I decided to read this piece to see if Mr. Thrasher could write about market savagery without propounding the
fiction that whites are somehow exempt from the effects of it.
No, he could not. I clicked on the link accompanying his assertion
that whites who are high school dropouts earn more than blacks with college degrees, and I read the linked piece in full. The
linked piece does not in fact compare income (i.e., yearly earnings) of white high school dropouts with those of black college
graduates, but it does compare family wealth across racial cohorts (though not educational ones), and the gap there is indeed
stark, with average white family wealth in the six figures (full disclosure, I am white, and my personal wealth is below zero,
as I owe more in student loans than I own, so perhaps I am not really white, or I do not fully partake of "whiteness," or whatever),
and average black family wealth in the four figures.
The reason for this likely has a lot to do with home ownership disparities, which in turn are linked in significant part to
racist redlining practices. So white dropouts often live in homes their parents or grandparents bought, while many black college
graduates whose parents were locked out of home ownership by institutional racism and, possibly, the withering of manufacturing
jobs just as the northward migration was beginning to bear some economic fruit for black families, are still struggling to become
homeowners. Thus, the higher average wealth for the dropout who lives in a family owned home.
But this is not what Mr. Thrasher wrote. He specifically used the words "earn more," creating the impression that some white
ignoramus is simply going to stumble his way into a higher salary than a cultivated, college educated black person. That is simply
not the case, and the difference does matter.
Why does it matter? Because I regularly see middle aged whites who are broken and homeless on the streets of the town where
I live, and I know they are simply the tip of a growing mountain of privation. Yeah, go ahead, call it white tears if you want,
but if you cannot see that millions (including, of course, not simply folks who are out and out homeless, but folks who are struggling
to get enough to eat and routinely go without needed medication and medical care) of people who have "white privilege" are indeed
oppressed by global capitalism then I would say that you are, at the end of the day, NO BETTER THAN THE WHITES YOU DISDAIN.
If you have read this far, then you realize that I am in no way denying the reality of structural racism. But an account of
economic savagery that entirely subsumes it into non-economic categories (race, gender, age), that refuses to acknowledge that
blacks can be exploiters and whites can be exploited, is simply conservatism by other means. One gets the sense that if we have
enough black millionaires and enough whites dying of things like a lack of medical care, then this might bring just a little bit
of warmth to the hearts of people like Mr. Thrasher.
Call it what you want, but don't call it progressive. Maybe it is historical karma. Which is understandable, as there is no
reason why globally privileged blacks in places like the U.S. or Great Britain should bear the burden of being any more selfless
or humane than globally privileged whites are or have been. The Steven Thrashers of humanity are certainly no worse than many
of the whites they cannot seem to recognize as fully human are.
But nor are they any better.
JohnLG 5 Dec 2015 17:23
I agree that the term "income inequality" is so vague that falls between useless and diversionary, but so too is most use of
the word "capitalism", or so it seems to me. Typically missing is a penetrating analysis of where the problem lies, a comprehensibly
supported remedy, or large-scale examples of anything except what's not working. "Income inequality" is pretty abstract until
we look specifically at the consequences for individuals and society, and take a comprehensive look at all that is unequal. What
does "capitalism" mean? Is capitalism the root of all this? Is capitalism any activity undertaken for profit, or substantial monopolization
of markets and power?
Power tends to corrupt. Money is a form of power, but there are others. The use of power to essentially cheat, oppress or kill
others is corrupt, whether that power is in the form of a weapon, wealth, the powers of the state, or all of the above. Power
is seductive and addictive. Even those with good intensions can be corrupted by an excess of power and insufficient accountability,
while predators are drawn to power like sharks to blood. Democracy involves dispersion of power, ideally throughout a whole society.
A constitutional democracy may offer protection even to minorities against a "tyranny of the majority" so long as a love of justice
prevails. Selective "liberty and justice" is not liberty and justice at all, but rather a tyranny of the many against the few,
as in racism, or of the few against the many, as by despots. Both forms reinforce each other in the same society, both are corrupt,
and any "ism" can be corrupted by narcissism. To what degree is any society a shining example of government of, for, and by the
people, and to what degree can one discover empirical evidence of corruption? What do we do about it?
AmyInNH -> CaptainGrey 5 Dec 2015 17:15
You're too funny. It's not "lifting billions out of poverty". It's moving malicious manufacturing practices to the other side
of the planet. To the lands of no labor laws. To hide it from consumers. To hide profits.
And it is dying. Legislatively they choke off their natural competition, which is an essential element of capitalism. Monopoly
isn't capitalism. And when they bribe legislators, we don't have democracy any more either.
Jeremiah2000 -> Teresa Trujillo 5 Dec 2015 16:53
Stocks have always been "a legal form of gambling". What is happening now however, is that a pair of treys can beat out
your straight flush. Companies that have never turned a profit fetch huge prices on the stock market.
The stock market suckered millions in before 2008 and then prices plummeted. Where did the money from grandpa's pension
fund go?
Gary Reber 5 Dec 2015 16:45
Abraham Lincoln said that the purpose of government is to do for people what they cannot do for themselves. Government
also should serve to keep people from hurting themselves and to restrain man's greed, which otherwise cannot be self-controlled.
Anyone who seeks to own productive power that they cannot or won't use for consumption are beggaring their neighbor––the equivalency
of mass murder––the impact of concentrated capital ownership.
The words "OWN" and "ASSETS" are the key descriptors of the definition of wealth. But these words are not well understood by
the vast majority of Americans or for that matter, global citizens. They are limited to the vocabulary used by the wealthy ownership
class and financial publications, which are not widely read, and not even taught in our colleges and universities.
The wealthy ownership class did not become wealthy because they are "three times as smart." Still there is a valid argument
that the vast majority of Americans do not pay particular attention to the financial world and educate themselves on wealth building
within the current system's limited past-savings paradigm. Significantly, the wealthy OWNERSHIP class use their political power
(power always follows property OWNERSHIP) to write the system rules to benefit and enhance their wealth. As such they have benefited
from forging trade policy agreements which further concentrate OWNERSHIP on a global scale, military-industrial complex subsidies
and government contracts, tax code provisions and loopholes and collective-bargaining rules – policy changes they've used their
wealth to champion.
Gary Reber 5 Dec 2015 16:44
Unfortunately, when it comes to recommendations for solutions to economic inequality, virtually every commentator, politician
and economist is stuck in viewing the world in one factor terms – human labor, in spite of their implied understanding that the
rich are rich because they OWN the non-human means of production – physical capital. The proposed variety of wealth-building programs,
like "universal savings accounts that might be subsidized for low-income savers," are not practical solutions because they rely
on savings (a denial of consumption which lessens demand in the economy), which the vast majority of Americans do not have, and
for those who can save their savings are modest and insignificant. Though, millions of Americans own diluted stock value through
the "stock market exchanges," purchased with their earnings as labor workers (savings), their stock holdings are relatively minuscule,
as are their dividend payments compared to the top 10 percent of capital owners. Pew Research found that 53 percent of Americans
own no stock at all, and out of the 47 percent who do, the richest 5 percent own two-thirds of that stock. And only 10 percent
of Americans have pensions, so stock market gains or losses don't affect the incomes of most retirees.
As for taxpayer-supported saving subsidies or other wage-boosting measures, those who have only their labor power and its precarious
value held up by coercive rigging and who desperately need capital ownership to enable them to be capital workers (their productive
assets applied in the economy) as well as labor workers to have a way to earn more income, cannot satisfy their unsatisfied needs
and wants and sufficiently provide for themselves and their families. With only access to labor wages, the 99 percenters will
continue, in desperation, to demand more and more pay for the same or less work, as their input is exponentially replaced by productive
capital.
As such, the vast majority of American consumers will continue to be strapped to mounting consumer debt bills, stagnant wages
and inflationary price pressures. As their ONLY source of income is through wage employment, economic insecurity for the 99 percent
majority of people means they cannot survive more than a week or two without a paycheck. Thus, the production side of the economy
is under-nourished and hobbled as a result, because there are fewer and fewer "customers with money." We thus need to free economic
growth from the slavery of past savings.
I mentioned that political power follows property OWNERSHIP because with concentrated capital asset OWNERSHIP our elected representatives
are far too often bought with the expectation that they protect and enhance the interests of the wealthiest Americans, the OWNERSHIP
class they too overwhelmingly belong to.
Many, including the author of this article, have concluded that with such a concentrated OWNERSHIP stronghold the wealthy have
on our politics, "it's hard to see where this cycle ends." The ONLY way to reverse this cycle and broaden capital asset OWNERSHIP
universally is a political revolution. (Bernie Sanders, are you listening?)
The political revolution must address the problem of lack of demand. To create demand, the FUTURE economy must be financed
in ways that create new capital OWNERS, who will benefit from the full earnings of the FUTURE productive capability of the American
economy, and without taking from those who already OWN. This means significantly slowing the further concentration of capital
asset wealth among those who are already wealthy and ensuring that the system is reformed to promote inclusive prosperity, inclusive
opportunity, and inclusive economic justice.
yamialwaysright 5 Dec 2015 16:13
I was interested and in agreement until I read about structured racism. Many black kidsin the US grow up without a father in
the house. They turn to anti-social behaviour and crime. Once you are poor it is hard to get out of being poor but Journalists
are not doing justice to a critique of US Society if they ignore the fact that some people behave in a self-destructive way. I
would imagine that if some black men in the US and the UK stuck with one woman and played a positive role in the life of their
kids, those kids would have a better chance at life. People of different racial and ethnic origin do this also but there does
seem to be a disproportionate problem with some black US men and some black UK men. Poverty is one problem but growing up in poverty
and without a father figure adds to the problem.
What the author writes applies to other countries not just the US in relation to the super wealthy being a small proportion
of the population yet having the same wealth as a high percentage of the population. This in not a black or latino issue but a
wealth distribution issue that affects everyone irrespective of race or ethnic origin. The top 1%, 5% or 10% having most of the
wealth is well-known in many countries.
nuthermerican4u 5 Dec 2015 15:59
Capitalism, especially the current vulture capitalism, is dog eat dog. Always was, always will be. My advice is that if you
are a capitalist that values your heirs, invest in getting off this soon-to-be slag heap and find other planets to pillage and
rape. Either go all out for capitalism or reign in this beast before it kills all of us.
soundofthesuburbs 5 Dec 2015 15:32
Our antiquated class structure demonstrates the trickle up of Capitalism and the need to counterbalance it with progressive
taxation.
In the 1960s/1970s we used high taxes on the wealthy to counter balance the trickle up of Capitalism and achieved much greater
equality.
Today we have low taxes on the wealthy and Capitalism's trickle up is widening the inequality gap.
We are cutting benefits for the disabled, poor and elderly so inequality can get wider and the idle rich can remain idle.
They have issued enough propaganda to make people think it's those at the bottom that don't work.
Every society since the dawn of civilization has had a Leisure Class at the top, in the UK we call them the Aristocracy and
they have been doing nothing for centuries.
The UK's aristocracy has seen social systems come and go, but they all provide a life of luxury and leisure and with someone
else doing all the work.
Feudalism - exploit the masses through land ownership
Capitalism - exploit the masses through wealth (Capital)
Today this is done through the parasitic, rentier trickle up of Capitalism:
a) Those with excess capital invest it and collect interest, dividends and rent.
b) Those with insufficient capital borrow money and pay interest and rent.
The system itself provides for the idle rich and always has done from the first civilisations right up to the 21st Century.
The rich taking from the poor is always built into the system, taxes and benefits are the counterbalance that needs to be applied
externally.
Iconoclastick 5 Dec 2015 15:31
I often chuckle when I read some of the right wing comments on articles such as this. Firstly, I question if readers actually
read the article references I've highlighted, before rushing to comment.
Secondly, the comments are generated by cifers who probably haven't set the world alight, haven't made a difference in their
local community, they'll have never created thousands of jobs in order to reward themselves with huge dividends having and as
a consequence enjoy spectacular asset/investment growth, at best they'll be chugging along, just about keeping their shit together
and yet they support a system that's broken, other than for the one percent, of the one percent.
A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies issued this week analyzed the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans
and found that "the wealthiest 100 households now own about as much wealth as the entire African American population in the
United States". That means that 100 families – most of whom are white – have as much wealth as the 41,000,000 black folks walking
around the country (and the million or so locked up) combined.
Similarly, the report also stated that "the wealthiest 186 members of the Forbes 400 own as much wealth as the entire Latino
population" of the nation. Here again, the breakdown in actual humans is broke down: 186 overwhelmingly white folks have more
money than that an astounding 55,000,000 Latino people.
family wealth" predicts outcomes for 10 to 15 generations. Those with extreme wealth owe it to events going back "300
to 450" years ago, according to research published by the New Republic – an era when it wasn't unusual for white Americans
to benefit from an economy dependent upon widespread, unpaid black labor in the form of slavery.
soundofthesuburbs -> soundofthesuburbs 5 Dec 2015 15:26
It is the 21st Century and most of the land in the UK is still owned by the descendants of feudal warlords that killed people
and stole their land and wealth.
When there is no land to build houses for generation rent, land ownership becomes an issue.
David Cameron is married into the aristocracy and George Osborne is a member of the aristocracy, they must both be well acquainted
with the Leisure Class.
I can't find any hard work going on looking at the Wikipedia page for David Cameron's father-in-law. His family have been on
their estate since the sixteenth century and judging by today's thinking, expect to be on it until the end of time.
George Osborne's aristocratic pedigree goes back to the Tudor era:
"he is an aristocrat with a pedigree stretching back to early in the Tudor era. His father, Sir Peter Osborne, is the
17th holder of a hereditary baronetcy that has been passed from father to son for 10 generations, and of which George is next
in line."
If we have people at the bottom who are not working the whole of civilisation will be turned on its head.
"The modern industrial society developed from the barbarian tribal society, which featured a leisure class supported
by subordinated working classes employed in economically productive occupations. The leisure class is composed of people exempted
from manual work and from practicing economically productive occupations, because they belong to the leisure class."
The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions, by Thorstein Veblen. It was written a long time ago but
much of it is as true today as it was then. The Wikipedia entry gives a good insight.
DBChas 5 Dec 2015 15:13
"income inequality" is best viewed as structural capitalism. It's not as if, did black and brown people and female people somehow
(miraculously) attain the economic status of the lower-paid, white, male person, the problem would be solved--simply by adjusting
pay scales. The problem is inherent to capitalism, which doesn't mean certain "types" of people aren't more disadvantaged for
their "type." No one is saying that. For capitalists, it's easier to rationalize the obscene unfairness (only rich people say,
"life's not fair") when their "type" is regarded as superior to a different "type," whether that be with respect to color or gender
or both.
Over time--a long time--the dominant party (white males since the Dark Ages, also the life-span of capitalism coincidentally
enough) came to dominance by various means, too many to try to list, or even know of. Why white males? BTW, just because most
in power and in money are white males does not mean ALL white males are in positions of power and wealth. Most are not, and these
facts help to fog the issue.
Indeed, "income inequality," is not an accident, nor can it be fixed, as the author notes, by tweaking (presumably he means
capitalism). And he's quite right too in saying, "You can't take down the master's house with the master's tools..." I take that
ALSO to mean, the problem can't be fixed by way of what Hedges has called a collapsing liberal establishment with its various
institutions, officially speaking. That is, it's not institutional racism that's collapsing, but that institution is not officially
recognized as such.
HOWEVER, it IS possible, even when burdened with an economics that is capitalism, to redistribute wealth, and I don't just
mean Mark Zuckerberg's. I mean all wealth in whatever form can be redistributed if/when government decides it can. And THIS TIME,
unlike the 1950s-60s, not only would taxes on the wealthy be the same as then but the wealth redistributed would be redistributed
to ALL, not just to white families, and perhaps in particular to red families, the oft forgotten ones.
This is a matter of political will. But, of course, if that means whites as the largest voting block insist on electing to
office those without the political will, nothing will change. In that case, other means have to be considered, and just a reminder:
If the government fails to serve the people, the Constitution gives to the people the right to depose that government. But again,
if whites as the largest voting block AND as the largest sub-group in the nation (and women are the largest part of that block,
often voting as their men vote--just the facts, please, however unpleasant) have little interest in seeing to making necessary
changes at least in voting booths, then...what? Bolshevism or what? No one seems to know and it's practically taboo even to talk
about possibilities. Americans did it once, but not inclusively and not even paid in many instances. When it happens again, it
has to happen with and for the participation of ALL. And it's worth noting that it will have to happen again, because capitalism
by its very nature cannot survive itself. That is, as Marx rightly noted, capitalism will eventually collapse by dint of its internal
contradictions.
mbidding Jeremiah2000 5 Dec 2015 15:08
Correction: The average person in poverty in the U.S. does not live in the same abject, third world poverty as you might
find in Honduras, Central African Republic, Cambodia, or the barrios of Sao Paulo.
Since our poor don't live in abject poverty, I invite you to live as a family of four on less than $11,000 a year anywhere
in the United States. If you qualify and can obtain subsidized housing you may have some of the accoutrements in your home that
you seem to equate with living the high life. You know, running water, a fridge, a toilet, a stove. You would also likely have
a phone (subsidized at that) so you might be able to participate (or attempt to participate) in the job market in an honest attempt
to better your family's economic prospects and as is required to qualify for most assistance programs.
Consider as well that you don't have transportation to get a job that would improve your circumstances. You earn too much to
qualify for meaningful levels of food support programs and fall into the insurance gap for subsidies because you live in a state
that for ideological reasons refuses to expand Medicaid coverage. Your local schools are a disgrace but you can't take advantage
of so-called school choice programs (vouchers, charters, and the like) as you don't have transportation or the time (given your
employer's refusal to set fixed working hours for minimum wage part time work) to get your kids to that fine choice school.
You may have a fridge and a stove, but you have no food to cook. You may have access to running water and electricity, but
you can't afford to pay the bills for such on account of having to choose between putting food in that fridge or flushing that
toilet. You can't be there reliably for your kids to help with school, etc, because you work constantly shifting hours for crap
pay.
Get back to me after six months to a year after living in such circumstances and then tell me again how Americans don't really
live in poverty simply because they have access to appliances.
Earl Shelton 5 Dec 2015 15:08
The Earned Income Tax Credit seems to me a good starting point for reform. It has been around since the 70s -- conceived by
Nixon/Moynihan -- and signed by socialist (kidding) Gerald Ford -- it already *redistributes* income (don't choke on the term,
O'Reilly) directly from tax revenue (which is still largely progressive) to the working poor, with kids.
That program should be massively expanded to tax the 1% -- and especially the top 1/10 of 1% (including a wealth tax) -- and
distribute the money to the bottom half of society, mostly in the form of work training, child care and other things that help
put them in and keep them in the middle class. It is a mechanism already in existence to correct the worst ravages of Capitalism.
Use it to build shared prosperity.
oKWJNRo 5 Dec 2015 14:40
So many dutiful neoliberals on here rushing to the defense of poor Capitalism. Clearly, these commentators are among those
who are in the privileged position of reaping the true benefits of Capitalism - And, of course, there are many benefits to reap
if you are lucky enough to be born into the right racial-socioeconomic context.
We can probably all agree that Capitalism has brought about widespread improvements in healthcare, education, living conditions,
for example, compared to the feudal system that preceded it... But it also disproportionately benefits the upper echelons of Capitalist
societies and is wholly unequal by design.
Capitalism depends upon the existence of a large underclass that can be exploited. This is part of the process of how surplus
value is created and wealth is extracted from labour. This much is indisputable. It is therefore obvious that capitalism isn't
an ideal system for most of us living on this planet.
As for the improvements in healthcare, education, living conditions etc that Capitalism has fostered... Most of these were
won through long struggles against the Capitalist hegemony by the masses. We would have certainly chosen to make these improvements
to our landscape sooner if Capitalism hadn't made every effort to stop us. The problem today is that Capitalism and its powerful
beneficiaries have successfully convinced us that there is no possible alternative. It won't give us the chance to try or even
permit us to believe there could be another, better way.
Martin Joseph -> realdoge 5 Dec 2015 14:33
Please walk us through how non-capitalist systems create wealth and allow their lowest class people propel themselves to
the top in one generation. You will note that most socialist systems derive their technology and advancements from the more capitalistic
systems. Pharmaceuticals, software, and robotics are a great example of this.
I shutter to think of what the welfare of the average citizen of the world would be like without the advancements made via
the capitalist countries.
VWFeature 5 Dec 2015 14:29
Markets, economies and tax systems are created by people, and based on rules they agree on. Those rules can favor general prosperity
or concentration of wealth. Destruction and predation are easier than creation and cooperation, so our rules have to favor cooperation
if we want to avoid predation and destructive conflicts.
In the 1930's the US changed many of those rules to favor general prosperity. Since then they've been gradually changed to
favor wealth concentration and predation. They can be changed back.
The trick is creating a system that encourages innovation while putting a safety net under the population so failure doesn't
end in starvation.
A large part of our current problems is the natural tendency for large companies to get larger and larger until their failure
would adversely affect too many others, so they're not allowed to fail. Tax law, not antitrust law, has to work against this.
If a company can reduce its tax rate by breaking into 20 smaller (still huge) companies, then competition is preserved and no
one company can dominate and control markets.
Robert Goldschmidt -> Jake321 5 Dec 2015 14:27
Bernie Sanders has it right on -- we can only heal our system by first having millions rise up and demand an end to the corruption
of the corporations controlling our elected representatives. Corporations are not people and money is not speech.
moonwrap02 5 Dec 2015 14:26
The effects of wealth distribution has far reaching consequences. It is not just about money, but creating a fair society -
one that is co-operative and cohesive. The present system has allowed an ever divide between the rich and poor, creating a two
tier society where neither the twain shall meet. The rich and poor are almost different species on the planet and no longer belong
to the same community. Commonality of interest is lost and so it's difficult to form community and to have good, friendly relationships
across class differences that are that large.
"If capitalism is to be seen to be fair, the same rules are to apply to the big guy as to the little guy,"
Sorry. I get it now. You actually think that because the Washington elite has repealed Glass-Steagel that we live in a unregulated
capitalistic system.
This is so far from the truth that I wasn't comprehending that anyone could think that. You can see the graph of pages published
in the Federal Register here. Unregulated capitalism? Wow.
Dodd Frank was passed in 2010 (without a single Republican vote). Originally it was 2,300 pages. It is STILL being written
by nameless bureaucrats and is over 20,000 pages. Unregulated capitalism? Really?
But the reality is that Goliath is conspiring with the government to regulate what size sling David can use and how many stones
and how many ounces.
So we need more government regulations? They will disallow David from anything but spitwads and only two of those.
neuronmaker -> AmyInNH 5 Dec 2015 14:16
Do you understand the concept of corporations which are products of capitalism?
The legal institutions within each capitalist corporations and nations are just that, they are capitalist and all about making
profits.
The law is made by the rich capitalists and for the rich capitalists. Each Legislation is a link in the chain of economic slavery
by capitalists.
Capitalism and the concept of money is a construction of the human mind, as it does not exist in the natural world. This construction
is all about using other human beings like blood suckers to sustain a cruel and evil life style - with blood and brutality as
the core ideology.
Marcedward -> MarjaE 5 Dec 2015 14:12
I would agree that our system of help for the less-well-off could be more accessible and more generous, but that doesn't negate
that point that there is a lot of help out there - the most important help being that totally free educational system. Think about
it, a free education, and to get the most out of it a student merely has to show up, obey the rules, do the homework and study
for tests. It's all laid out there for the kids like a helicopter mom laying out her kids clothes. How much easier can we make
it? If people can't be bothered to show up and put in effort, how is their failure based on racism
tommydog -> martinusher 5 Dec 2015 14:12
As you are referring to Carlos Slim, interestingly while he is Mexican by birth his parents were both Lebanese.
slightlynumb -> AmyInNH 5 Dec 2015 14:12
Why isn't that capitalism? It's raw capitalism on steroids.
Zara Von Fritz -> Toughspike 5 Dec 2015 14:12
It's an equal opportunity plantation now.
Robert Goldschmidt 5 Dec 2015 14:11
The key to repairing the system is to identify the causes of our problems.
Here is my list:
The information technology revolution which continues to destroy wages by enabling automation and outsourcing.
The reformation of monopolies which price gouge and block innovation.
Hitting ecological limits such as climate change, water shortages, unsustainable farming.
Then we can make meaningful changes such as regulation of the portion of corporate profit that are pay, enforcement of national
and regional antitrust laws and an escalating carbon tax.
Zara Von Fritz -> PostCorbyn 5 Dec 2015 14:11
If you can believe these quality of life or happiness indexes they put out so often, the winners tend to be places that have
nice environments and a higher socialist mix in their economy. Of course there are examples of poor countries that practice the
same but its not clear that their choice is causal rather than reactive.
We created this mess and we can fix it.
Zara Von Fritz -> dig4victory 5 Dec 2015 14:03
Yes Basic Income is possibly the mythical third way. It socialises wealth to a point but at the same time frees markets from
their obligation to perpetually grow and create jobs for the sake of jobs and also hereford reduces the subsequent need for governments
to attempt to control them beyond maintaining their health.
Zara Von Fritz 5 Dec 2015 13:48
As I understand it, you don't just fiddle with capitalism, you counteract it, or counterweight it. A level of capitalism, or
credit accumulation, and a level of socialism has always existed, including democracy which is a manifestation of socialism (1
vote each). So the project of capital accumulation seems to be out of control because larger accumulations become more powerful
and meanwhile the power of labour in the marketplace has become less so due to forces driving unemployment. The danger is that
capital's power to control the democratic system reaches a point of no return.
Jeremiah2000 -> bifess 5 Dec 2015 13:42
"I do not have the economic freedom to grow my own food because i do not have access to enough land to grow it and i do not
have the economic clout to buy a piece of land."
Economic freedom does NOT mean you get money for free. It means that means that if you grow food for personal use, the federal
government doesn't trash the Constitution by using the insterstate commerce clause to say that it can regulate how much you grow
on your own personal land.
Economic freedom means that if you have a widget, you can choose to set the price for $10 or $100 and that a buyer is free
to buy it from you or not buy it from you. It does NOT mean that you are entitled to "free" widgets.
"If capitalism has not managed to eradicate poverty in rich first world countries then just what chance if there of capitalism
eradicating poverty on a global scale?"
The average person in poverty in the U.S. doesn't live in poverty:
In fact, 80.9 percent of households below the poverty level have cell phones, and a healthy majority-58.2 percent-have computers.
Fully 96.1 percent of American households in "poverty" have a television to watch, and 83.2 percent of them have a video-recording
device in case they cannot get home in time to watch the football game or their favorite television show and they want to record
it for watching later.
Refrigerators (97.8 percent), gas or electric stoves (96.6 percent) and microwaves (93.2 percent) are standard equipment in
the homes of Americans in "poverty."
More than 83 percent have air-conditioning.
Interestingly, the appliances surveyed by the Census Bureau that households in poverty are least likely to own are dish washers
(44.9 percent) and food freezers (26.2 percent).
However, most Americans in "poverty" do not need to go to a laundromat. According to the Census Bureau, 68.7 percent of households
in poverty have a clothes washer and 65.3 percent have a clothes dryer.
"... The shale oil "miracle" was a stunt enabled by supernaturally low interest rates, i.e. Federal Reserve policy. Even The New York Times said so yesterday ( The Next Financial Crisis Lurks Underground ). ..."
"... As with shale oil, they depend largely on dishonest financial legerdemain. They are also threatened by the crack-up of globalism, and its 12,000-mile supply lines, now well underway. Get ready for business at a much smaller scale. ..."
"... Hard as this sounds, it presents great opportunities for making Americans useful again, that is, giving them something to do, a meaningful place in society, and livelihoods. ..."
"... Pervasive racketeering rules because we allow it to, especially in education and medicine. Both are self-destructing under the weight of their own money-grubbing schemes. ..."
"... A lot of colleges will go out of business. Most college loans will never be paid back (and the derivatives based on them will blow up) ..."
"... The leviathan state is too large, too reckless, and too corrupt. Insolvency will eventually reduce its scope and scale. Most immediately, the giant matrix of domestic spying agencies has turned on American citizens. ..."
"... It will resist at all costs being dismantled or even reined in. One task at hand is to prosecute the people in the Department of Justice and the FBI who ran illegal political operations in and around the 2016 election. These are agencies which use their considerable power to destroy the lives of individual citizens. Their officers must answer to grand juries. ..."
"... As with everything else on the table for debate, the reach and scope of US imperial arrangements has to be reduced. ..."
And so the sun seems to stand still this last day before the resumption of
business-as-usual, and whatever remains of labor in this sclerotic republic takes its ease in
the ominous late summer heat, and the people across this land marinate in anxious
uncertainty.
What can be done?
Some kind of epic national restructuring is in the works. It will either happen consciously
and deliberately or it will be forced on us by circumstance. One side wants to magically
reenact the 1950s; the other wants a Gnostic transhuman utopia. Neither of these is a plausible
outcome.
Most of the arguments ranging around them are what Jordan Peterson calls "pseudo issues."
Let's try to take stock of what the real issues might be.
Energy
The shale oil "miracle" was a stunt enabled by supernaturally low interest rates, i.e.
Federal Reserve policy. Even The New York Times said so yesterday ( The
Next Financial Crisis Lurks Underground ).
For all that, the shale oil producers still
couldn't make money at it. If interest rates go up, the industry will choke on the debt it has
already accumulated and lose access to new loans. If the Fed reverses its current course - say,
to rescue the stock and bond markets - then the shale oil industry has perhaps three more years
before it collapses on a geological basis, maybe less. After that, we're out of tricks. It will
affect everything.
The perceived solution is to run all our stuff on electricity, with the electricity produced
by other means than fossil fuels , so-called alt energy. This will only happen on the most
limited basis and perhaps not at all. (And it is apart from the question of the decrepit
electric grid itself.) What's required is a political conversation about how we inhabit the
landscape, how we do business, and what kind of business we do. The prospect of dismantling
suburbia -- or at least moving out of it -- is evidently unthinkable. But it's going to happen
whether we make plans and policies, or we're dragged kicking and screaming away from
it.
Corporate tyranny
The nation is groaning under despotic corporate rule. The fragility of these operations is
moving toward criticality. As with shale oil, they depend largely on dishonest financial
legerdemain. They are also threatened by the crack-up of globalism, and its 12,000-mile supply
lines, now well underway. Get ready for business at a much smaller scale.
Hard as this sounds, it presents great opportunities for making Americans useful again, that
is, giving them something to do, a meaningful place in society, and livelihoods.
The implosion
of national chain retail is already underway. Amazon is not the answer, because each Amazon
sales item requires a separate truck trip to its destination, and that just doesn't square with
our energy predicament. We've got to rebuild main street economies and the layers of local and
regional distribution that support them. That's where many jobs and careers are.
Climate change is most immediately affecting farming. 2018 will be a year of bad harvests in
many parts of the world. Agri-biz style farming, based on oil-and-gas plus bank loans is a
ruinous practice, and will not continue in any case. Can we make choices and policies to
promote a return to smaller scale farming with intelligent methods rather than just brute
industrial force plus debt? If we don't, a lot of people will starve to death. By the way, here
is the useful work for a large number of citizens currently regarded as unemployable for one
reason or another.
Pervasive racketeering rules because we allow it to, especially in education and medicine.
Both are self-destructing under the weight of their own money-grubbing schemes. Both are
destined to be severely downscaled.
A lot of colleges will go out of business. Most college
loans will never be paid back (and the derivatives based on them will blow up).
We need
millions of small farmers more than we need millions of communications majors with a public
relations minor. It may be too late for a single-payer medical system. A collapsing oil-based
industrial economy means a lack of capital, and fiscal hocus-pocus is just another form of
racketeering. Medicine will have to get smaller and less complex and that means local
clinic-based health care. Lots of careers there, and that is where things are going, so get
ready.
Government over-reach
The leviathan state is too large, too reckless, and too corrupt. Insolvency will eventually
reduce its scope and scale. Most immediately, the giant matrix of domestic spying agencies has
turned on American citizens.
It will resist at all costs being dismantled or even reined in.
One task at hand is to prosecute the people in the Department of Justice and the FBI who ran
illegal political operations in and around the 2016 election. These are agencies which use
their considerable power to destroy the lives of individual citizens. Their officers must
answer to grand juries.
As with everything else on the table for debate, the reach and scope of US imperial
arrangements has to be reduced. It's happening already, whether we like it or not, as
geopolitical relations shift drastically and the other nations on the planet scramble for
survival in a post-industrial world that will be a good deal harsher than the robotic paradise
of digitally "creative" economies that the credulous expect.
This country has enough to do
within its own boundaries to prepare for survival without making extra trouble for itself and
other people around the world. As a practical matter, this means close as many overseas bases
as possible, as soon as possible.
As we get back to business tomorrow, ask yourself where you stand in the blather-storm of
false issues and foolish ideas, in contrast to the things that actually matter.
"... Well, it comes down to the myths we've been sold. Myths that are ingrained in our social programming from birth, deeply entrenched, like an impacted wisdom tooth. These myths are accepted and basically never questioned. ..."
"... Our media outlets are funded by weapons contractors, big pharma, big banks, big oil and big, fat hard-on pills. (Sorry to go hard on hard-on pills, but we can't get anything resembling hard news because it's funded by dicks.) The corporate media's jobs are to rally for war, cheer for Wall Street and froth at the mouth for consumerism. It's their mission to actually fortify belief in the myths I'm telling you about right now. Anybody who steps outside that paradigm is treated like they're standing on a playground wearing nothing but a trench coat. ..."
"... The criminal justice system has become a weapon wielded by the corporate state. This is how bankers can foreclose on millions of homes illegally and see no jail time, but activists often serve jail time for nonviolent civil disobedience. Chris Hedges recently noted , "The most basic constitutional rights have been erased for many. Our judicial system, as Ralph Nader has pointed out, has legalized secret law, secret courts, secret evidence, secret budgets and secret prisons in the name of national security." ..."
"... This myth (Buying will make you happy) is put forward mainly by the floods of advertising we take in but also by our social engineering. Most of us feel a tenacious emptiness, an alienation deep down behind our surface emotions (for a while I thought it was gas). That uneasiness is because most of us are flushing away our lives at jobs we hate before going home to seclusion boxes called houses or apartments. We then flip on the TV to watch reality shows about people who have it worse than we do (which we all find hilarious). ..."
"... According to Deloitte's Shift Index survey : "80% of people are dissatisfied with their jobs" and "[t]he average person spends 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime." That's about one-seventh of your life -- and most of it is during your most productive years. ..."
"... Try maintaining your privacy for a week without a single email, web search or location data set collected by the NSA and the telecoms. ..."
Our society should've collapsed by now. You know that, right?
No society should function with this level of inequality (with the possible exception of one of those prison planets in a "Star
Wars" movie). Sixty-three percent of Americans
can't afford a $500 emergency
. Yet Amazon head Jeff Bezos is now
worth a record $141 billion . He could literally end world hunger for multiple years and still have more money left over than
he could ever spend on himself.
Worldwide,
one in
10 people only make $2 a day. Do you know how long it would take one of those people to make the same amount as Jeff Bezos has?
193 million years . (If they only buy single-ply toilet paper.) Put simply, you cannot comprehend the level of inequality in our
current world or even just our nation.
So shouldn't there be riots in the streets every day? Shouldn't it all be collapsing? Look outside. The streets aren't on fire.
No one is running naked and screaming (usually). Does it look like everyone's going to work at gunpoint? No. We're all choosing to
continue on like this.
Why?
Well, it comes down to the myths we've been sold. Myths that are ingrained in our social programming from birth, deeply entrenched,
like an impacted wisdom tooth. These myths are accepted and basically never questioned.
I'm going to cover eight of them. There are more than eight. There are probably hundreds. But I'm going to cover eight because
(A) no one reads a column titled "Hundreds of Myths of American Society," (B) these are the most important ones and (C) we all have
other shit to do.
Myth No. 8 -- We have a democracy.
If you think we still have a democracy or a democratic republic, ask yourself this: When was the last time Congress did something
that the people of America supported that did not align with corporate interests? You probably can't do it. It's like trying to think
of something that rhymes with "orange." You feel like an answer exists but then slowly realize it doesn't. Even the Carter Center
and former President Jimmy Carter believe that America has been
transformed into
an oligarchy : A small, corrupt elite control the country with almost no input from the people. The rulers need the myth that
we're a democracy to give us the illusion of control.
Myth No. 7 -- We have an accountable and legitimate voting system.
Gerrymandering, voter purging, data mining, broken exit polling, push polling, superdelegates, electoral votes, black-box machines,
voter ID suppression, provisional ballots, super PACs, dark money, third parties banished from the debates and two corporate parties
that stand for the same goddamn pile of fetid crap!
What part of this sounds like a legitimate election system?
No, we have what a large Harvard study called the
worst election system in the Western world . Have you ever seen where a parent has a toddler in a car seat, and the toddler has
a tiny, brightly colored toy steering wheel so he can feel like he's driving the car? That's what our election system is -- a toy
steering wheel. Not connected to anything. We all sit here like infants, excitedly shouting, "I'm steeeeering !"
And I know it's counterintuitive, but that's why you have to vote. We have to vote in such numbers that we beat out what's stolen
through our ridiculous rigged system.
Myth No. 6 -- We have an independent media that keeps the rulers accountable.
Our media outlets are funded by weapons contractors, big pharma, big banks, big oil and big, fat hard-on pills. (Sorry to go hard
on hard-on pills, but we can't get anything resembling hard news because it's funded by dicks.) The corporate media's jobs are to
rally for war, cheer for Wall Street and froth at the mouth for consumerism. It's their mission to actually fortify belief in the
myths I'm telling you about right now. Anybody who steps outside that paradigm is treated like they're standing on a playground wearing
nothing but a trench coat.
Myth No. 5 -- We have an independent judiciary.
The criminal justice system has become a weapon wielded by the corporate state. This is how bankers can foreclose on millions
of homes illegally and see no jail time, but activists often serve jail time for nonviolent civil disobedience. Chris Hedges
recently noted , "The most basic constitutional
rights have been erased for many. Our judicial system, as Ralph Nader has pointed out, has legalized secret law, secret courts, secret
evidence, secret budgets and secret prisons in the name of national security."
If you're not part of the monied class, you're pressured into releasing what few rights you have left. According to
The New
York Times , "97 percent of federal cases and 94 percent of state cases end in plea bargains, with defendants pleading guilty
in exchange for a lesser sentence."
That's the name of the game. Pressure people of color and poor people to just take the plea deal because they don't have a million
dollars to spend on a lawyer. (At least not one who doesn't advertise on beer coasters.)
Myth No. 4 -- The police are here to protect you. They're your friends .
That's funny. I don't recall my friend pressuring me into sex to get out of a speeding ticket. (Which is essentially still
legal in 32
states .)
The police in our country are primarily designed to do two things: protect the property of the rich and perpetrate the completely
immoral war on drugs -- which by definition is a war on our own people .
We lock up more people than
any other country on earth
. Meaning the land of the free is the largest prison state in the world. So all these droopy-faced politicians and rabid-talking
heads telling you how awful China is on human rights or Iran or North Korea -- none of them match the numbers of people locked up
right here under Lady Liberty's skirt.
Myth No. 3 -- Buying will make you happy.
This myth (Buying will make you happy) is put forward mainly by the floods of advertising we take in but also by our social engineering. Most of us feel a
tenacious emptiness, an alienation deep down behind our surface emotions (for a while I thought it was gas). That uneasiness is because
most of us are flushing away our lives at jobs we hate before going home to seclusion boxes called houses or apartments. We then
flip on the TV to watch reality shows about people who have it worse than we do (which we all find hilarious).
If we're lucky, we'll make enough money during the week to afford enough beer on the weekend to help it all make sense. (I find
it takes at least four beers for everything to add up.) But that doesn't truly bring us fulfillment. So what now? Well, the ads say
buying will do it. Try to smother the depression and desperation under a blanket of flat-screen TVs, purses and Jet Skis. Now does
your life have meaning? No? Well, maybe you have to drive that Jet Ski a little faster! Crank it up until your bathing suit flies
off and you'll feel alive !
The dark truth is that we have to believe the myth that consuming is the answer or else we won't keep running around the wheel.
And if we aren't running around the wheel, then we start thinking, start asking questions. Those questions are not good for the ruling
elite, who enjoy a society based on the daily exploitation of 99 percent of us.
Myth No. 2 -- If you work hard, things will get better.
According to Deloitte's Shift
Index survey : "80% of people are dissatisfied with their jobs" and "[t]he average person spends 90,000 hours at work over their
lifetime." That's about one-seventh of your life -- and most of it is during your most productive years.
Ask yourself what we're working for. To make money? For what? Almost none of us are doing jobs for survival anymore. Once upon
a time, jobs boiled down to:
I plant the food -- >I eat the food -- >If I don't plant food = I die.
But nowadays, if you work at a café -- will someone die if they don't get their super-caf-mocha-frap-almond-piss-latte? I kinda
doubt they'll keel over from a blueberry scone deficiency.
If you work at Macy's, will customers perish if they don't get those boxer briefs with the sweat-absorbent-ass fabric? I doubt
it. And if they do die from that, then their problems were far greater than you could've known. So that means we're all working to
make other people rich because we have a society in which we have to work. Technological advancements can do most everything that
truly must get done.
So if we wanted to, we could get rid of most work and have tens of thousands of more hours to enjoy our lives. But we're not doing
that at all. And no one's allowed to ask these questions -- not on your mainstream airwaves at least. Even a half-step like universal
basic income is barely discussed because it doesn't compute with our cultural programming.
Scientists say it's quite possible artificial intelligence will take away
all human jobs in 120 years . I think they know that will
happen because bots will take the jobs and then realize that 80 percent of them don't need to be done! The bots will take over and
then say, "Stop it. Stop spending a seventh of your life folding shirts at Banana Republic."
One day, we will build monuments to the bot that told us to enjoy our lives and leave the shirts wrinkly.
And this leads me to the largest myth of our American society.
Myth No. 1 -- You are free.
... ... ...
Try sleeping in your car for more than a few hours without being harassed by police.
Try maintaining your privacy for a week without a single email, web search or location data set collected by the NSA and the telecoms.
Try signing up for the military because you need college money and then one day just walking off the base, going, "Yeah, I was
bored. Thought I would just not do this anymore."
Try explaining to Kentucky Fried Chicken that while you don't have the green pieces of paper they want in exchange for the mashed
potatoes, you do have some pictures you've drawn on a napkin to give them instead.
Try using the restroom at Starbucks without buying something while black.
We are less free than a dog on a leash. We live in one of the hardest-working, most unequal societies on the planet with more
billionaires than ever .
Meanwhile,
Americans
supply 94 percent of the paid blood used worldwide. And it's almost exclusively coming from very poor people. This abusive vampire
system is literally sucking the blood from the poor. Does that sound like a free decision they made? Or does that sound like something
people do after immense economic force crushes down around them? (One could argue that sperm donation takes a little less convincing.)
Point is, in order to enforce this illogical, immoral system, the corrupt rulers -- most of the time -- don't need guns and tear
gas to keep the exploitation mechanisms humming along. All they need are some good, solid bullshit myths for us all to buy into,
hook, line and sinker. Some fairy tales for adults.
815M people chronically malnourished according to the UN. Bezos is worth $141B.
$141B / 815M people = $173 per person. That would definitely not feed them for "multiple years". And that's only if Bezos could
fully liquidate the stock without it dropping a penny.
" Point is, in order to enforce this illogical, immoral system, the corrupt rulers -- most of the time -- don't
need guns and tear gas to keep the exploitation mechanisms humming along. All they need are some good, solid bullshit myths for
us all to buy into, hook, line and sinker. Some fairy tales for adults. "
Seems like there's tear gas in the air and guns are going to be used soon. The myths are dying on the tongues of the liars.
Molon Labe!....and I'm usually a pacifist.
"American Society Would Collapse If It Weren't For Invasions Of Foreign Countries, Murdering Their People, Stealing Their Oil
Then Blaming Them For Making The US Do It."
Well, in a world driven by oil, it is entirely bogus to suggest that citizens have to work their asses off. That was the whole
point of the bill of goods that was sold to us in the late 70's and early 80'. More leisure time, more time for your family and
personal interests.
Except! It never happened. All they fucking did was reduce real wages and force everyone from the upper middle class down,
into a shit hole.
But, they will pay for their folly. Guaran-fucking-teed.
As one who has hoed many rows of cotton in 115F temperatures as well as picking cotton during my childhood and early adolescence
during weekends and school holidays, I concur. It was a very powerful inducement to get a good education back when schools actually
taught things and did not tolerate backtalk or guff from students instead of babysitting them. It worked, and I ended up writing
computer software for spacecraft, which was much fun than working in the fields.
Like many high demand cults neoliberalism is a trap, from which it is very difficult to escape...
Notable quotes:
"... A large, open-border global free market would be left, not subject to popular control but managed by a globally dispersed, transnational one percent. And the whole process of making this happen would be camouflaged beneath the altruistic stylings of a benign humanitarianism. ..."
"... Globalists, as neoliberal capitalists are often called, also understood that democracy, defined by a smattering of individual rights and a voting booth, was the ideal vehicle to usher neoliberalism into the emerging world. Namely because democracy, as commonly practiced, makes no demands in the economic sphere. Socialism does. Communism does. These models directly address ownership of the means of production. Not so democratic capitalism. This permits the globalists to continue to own the means of production while proclaiming human rights triumphant in nations where interventions are staged. ..."
"... The enduring lie is that there is no democracy without economic democracy. ..."
This 'Washington Consensus' is the false promise promoted by the West. The reality is quite
different. The crux of neoliberalism is to eliminate democratic government by downsizing,
privatizing, and deregulating it. Proponents of neoliberalism recognize that the state is the
last bulwark of protection for the common people against the predations of capital. Remove the
state and they'll be left defenseless .
Think about it. Deregulation eliminates the laws. Downsizing eliminates departments and their
funding. Privatizing eliminates the very purpose of the state by having the private sector take
over its traditional responsibilities.
Ultimately, nation-states would dissolve except perhaps for armies and tax systems. A large, open-border global free
market would be left, not subject to popular control but managed by a globally dispersed, transnational one percent. And the
whole process of making this happen would be camouflaged beneath the altruistic stylings of a benign humanitarianism.
Globalists, as neoliberal capitalists are often called, also understood that democracy, defined
by a smattering of individual rights and a voting booth, was the ideal vehicle to usher
neoliberalism into the emerging world. Namely because democracy, as commonly practiced, makes
no demands in the economic sphere. Socialism does. Communism does. These models directly
address ownership of the means of production. Not so democratic capitalism. This permits the
globalists to continue to own the means of production while proclaiming human rights triumphant
in nations where interventions are staged.
The enduring lie is that there is no democracy
without economic democracy.
What matters to the one percent and the media conglomerates that disseminate their worldview is
that the official definitions are accepted by the masses. The real effects need never be known.
The neoliberal ideology (theory) thus conceals the neoliberal reality (practice). And for the
masses to accept it, it must be mass produced. Then it becomes more or less invisible by virtue
of its universality.
"... With the election of 2016, symptoms of the long emergency seeped into the political system. Disinformation rules. There is no coherent consensus about what is happening and no coherent proposals to do anything about it. The two parties are mired in paralysis and dysfunction and the public's trust in them is at epic lows. Donald Trump is viewed as a sort of pirate president, a freebooting freak elected by accident, "a disrupter" of the status quo at best and at worst a dangerous incompetent playing with nuclear fire. A state of war exists between the White House, the permanent D.C. bureaucracy, and the traditional news media. Authentic leadership is otherwise AWOL. Institutions falter. The FBI and the CIA behave like enemies of the people. ..."
"... They chatter about electric driverless car fleets, home delivery drone services, and as-yet-undeveloped modes of energy production to replace problematic fossil fuels, while ignoring the self-evident resource and capital constraints now upon us and even the laws of physics -- especially entropy , the second law of thermodynamics. Their main mental block is their belief in infinite industrial growth on a finite planet, an idea so powerfully foolish that it obviates their standing as technocrats. ..."
"... The universities beget a class of what Nassim Taleb prankishly called "intellectuals-yet-idiots," hierophants trafficking in fads and falsehoods, conveyed in esoteric jargon larded with psychobabble in support of a therapeutic crypto-gnostic crusade bent on transforming human nature to fit the wished-for utopian template of a world where anything goes. In fact, they have only produced a new intellectual despotism worthy of Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot. ..."
"... Until fairly recently, the Democratic Party did not roll that way. It was right-wing Republicans who tried to ban books, censor pop music, and stifle free expression. If anything, Democrats strenuously defended the First Amendment, including the principle that unpopular and discomforting ideas had to be tolerated in order to protect all speech. Back in in 1977 the ACLU defended the right of neo-Nazis to march for their cause (National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43). ..."
"... This is the recipe for what we call identity politics, the main thrust of which these days, the quest for "social justice," is to present a suit against white male privilege and, shall we say, the horse it rode in on: western civ. A peculiar feature of the social justice agenda is the wish to erect strict boundaries around racial identities while erasing behavioral boundaries, sexual boundaries, and ethical boundaries. Since so much of this thought-monster is actually promulgated by white college professors and administrators, and white political activists, against people like themselves, the motives in this concerted campaign might appear puzzling to the casual observer. ..."
"... The evolving matrix of rackets that prompted the 2008 debacle has only grown more elaborate and craven as the old economy of stuff dies and is replaced by a financialized economy of swindles and frauds . Almost nothing in America's financial life is on the level anymore, from the mendacious "guidance" statements of the Federal Reserve, to the official economic statistics of the federal agencies, to the manipulation of all markets, to the shenanigans on the fiscal side, to the pervasive accounting fraud that underlies it all. Ironically, the systematic chiseling of the foundering middle class is most visible in the rackets that medicine and education have become -- two activities that were formerly dedicated to doing no harm and seeking the truth ! ..."
"... Um, forgotten by Kunstler is the fact that 1965 was also the year when the USA reopened its doors to low-skilled immigrants from the Third World – who very quickly became competitors with black Americans. And then the Boom ended, and corporate American, influenced by thinking such as that displayed in Lewis Powell's (in)famous 1971 memorandum, decided to claw back the gains made by the working and middle classes in the previous 3 decades. ..."
"... "Wow – is there ever negative!" ..."
"... You also misrepresent reality to your readers. No, the black underclass is not larger, more dysfunctional, and more alienated now than in the 1960's, when cities across the country burned and machine guns were stationed on the Capitol steps. The "racial divide" is not "starker now than ever"; that's just preposterous to anyone who was alive then. And nobody I've ever known felt "shame" over the "outcome of the civil rights campaign". I know nobody who seeks to "punish and humiliate" the 'privileged'. ..."
"... My impression is that what Kunstler is doing here is diagnosing the long crisis of a decadent liberal post-modernity, and his stance is not that of either of the warring sides within our divorced-from-reality political establishment, neither that of the 'right' or 'left.' Which is why, logically, he published it here. National Review would never have accepted this piece ..."
"... "Globalization has acted, meanwhile, as a great leveler. It destroyed what was left of the working class -- the lower-middle class -- which included a great many white Americans who used to be able to support a family with simple labor." ..."
"... Young black people are told by their elders how lucky they are to grow up today because things are much better than when grandpa was our age and we all know this history.\ ..."
"... It's clear that this part of the article was written from absolute ignorance of the actual black experience with no interest in even looking up some facts. Hell, Obama even gave a speech at Howard telling graduates how lucky they were to be young and black Today compared to even when he was their age in the 80's! ..."
"... E.g. Germany. Germany is anything but perfect and its recent government has screwed up with its immigration policies. But Germany has a high standard of living, an educated work force (including unions and skilled crafts-people), a more rational distribution of wealth and high quality universal health care that costs 47% less per capita than in the U.S. and with no intrinsic need to maraud around the planet wasting gobs of taxpayer money playing Global Cop. ..."
"... The larger subtext is that the U.S. house of cards was planned out and constructed as deliberately as the German model was. Only the objective was not to maximize the health and happiness of the citizenry, but to line the pockets of the parasitic Elites. (E.g., note that Mitch McConnell has been a government employee for 50 years but somehow acquired a net worth of over $10 Million.) ..."
On America's 'long emergency' of recession, globalization, and identity politics.
Can a people recover from an excursion into unreality? The USA's sojourn into an alternative universe of the mind accelerated
sharply after Wall Street nearly detonated the global financial system in 2008. That debacle was only one manifestation of an array
of accumulating threats to the postmodern order, which include the burdens of empire, onerous debt, population overshoot, fracturing
globalism, worries about energy, disruptive technologies, ecological havoc, and the specter of climate change.
A sense of gathering crisis, which I call the long emergency , persists. It is systemic and existential. It calls into
question our ability to carry on "normal" life much farther into this century, and all the anxiety that attends it is hard for the
public to process. It manifested itself first in finance because that was the most abstract and fragile of all the major activities
we depend on for daily life, and therefore the one most easily tampered with and shoved into criticality by a cadre of irresponsible
opportunists on Wall Street. Indeed, a lot of households were permanently wrecked after the so-called Great Financial Crisis of 2008,
despite official trumpet blasts heralding "recovery" and the dishonestly engineered pump-up of capital markets since then.
With the election of 2016, symptoms of the long emergency seeped into the political system. Disinformation rules. There is
no coherent consensus about what is happening and no coherent proposals to do anything about it. The two parties are mired in paralysis
and dysfunction and the public's trust in them is at epic lows. Donald Trump is viewed as a sort of pirate president, a freebooting
freak elected by accident, "a disrupter" of the status quo at best and at worst a dangerous incompetent playing with nuclear fire.
A state of war exists between the White House, the permanent D.C. bureaucracy, and the traditional news media. Authentic leadership
is otherwise AWOL. Institutions falter. The FBI and the CIA behave like enemies of the people.
Bad ideas flourish in this nutrient medium of unresolved crisis. Lately, they actually dominate the scene on every side. A species
of wishful thinking that resembles a primitive cargo cult grips the technocratic class, awaiting magical rescue remedies that promise
to extend the regime of Happy Motoring, consumerism, and suburbia that makes up the armature of "normal" life in the USA.
They chatter
about electric driverless car fleets, home delivery drone services, and as-yet-undeveloped modes of energy production to replace
problematic fossil fuels, while ignoring the self-evident resource and capital constraints now upon us and even the laws of physics
-- especially entropy , the second law of thermodynamics. Their main mental block is their belief in infinite industrial growth
on a finite planet, an idea so powerfully foolish that it obviates their standing as technocrats.
The non-technocratic cohort of the thinking class squanders its waking hours on a quixotic campaign to destroy the remnant of
an American common culture and, by extension, a reviled Western civilization they blame for the failure in our time to establish
a utopia on earth. By the logic of the day, "inclusion" and "diversity" are achieved by forbidding the transmission of ideas, shutting
down debate, and creating new racially segregated college dorms. Sexuality is declared to not be biologically determined, yet so-called
cis-gendered persons (whose gender identity corresponds with their sex as detected at birth) are vilified by dint of
not being "other-gendered" -- thereby thwarting the pursuit of happiness of persons self-identified as other-gendered. Casuistry
anyone?
The universities beget a class of what Nassim Taleb prankishly called "intellectuals-yet-idiots," hierophants trafficking in fads
and falsehoods, conveyed in esoteric jargon larded with psychobabble in support of a therapeutic crypto-gnostic crusade bent on transforming
human nature to fit the wished-for utopian template of a world where anything goes. In fact, they have only produced a new intellectual
despotism worthy of Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot.
In case you haven't been paying attention to the hijinks on campus -- the attacks on reason, fairness, and common decency, the
kangaroo courts, diversity tribunals, assaults on public speech and speakers themselves -- here is the key take-away: it's not about
ideas or ideologies anymore; it's purely about the pleasures of coercion, of pushing other people around. Coercion is fun and exciting!
In fact, it's intoxicating, and rewarded with brownie points and career advancement. It's rather perverse that this passion for tyranny
is suddenly so popular on the liberal left.
Until fairly recently, the Democratic Party did not roll that way. It was right-wing Republicans who tried to ban books, censor
pop music, and stifle free expression. If anything, Democrats strenuously defended the First Amendment, including the principle that
unpopular and discomforting ideas had to be tolerated in order to protect all speech. Back in in 1977 the ACLU defended the right
of neo-Nazis to march for their cause (National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie, 432 U.S. 43).
The new and false idea that something labeled "hate speech" -- labeled by whom? -- is equivalent to violence floated out of the
graduate schools on a toxic cloud of intellectual hysteria concocted in the laboratory of so-called "post-structuralist" philosophy,
where sundry body parts of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Judith Butler, and Gilles Deleuze were sewn onto a brain comprised of
one-third each Thomas Hobbes, Saul Alinsky, and Tupac Shakur to create a perfect Frankenstein monster of thought. It all boiled down
to the proposition that the will to power negated all other human drives and values, in particular the search for truth. Under this
scheme, all human relations were reduced to a dramatis personae of the oppressed and their oppressors, the former generally
"people of color" and women, all subjugated by whites, mostly males. Tactical moves in politics among these self-described "oppressed"
and "marginalized" are based on the credo that the ends justify the means (the Alinsky model).
This is the recipe for what we call identity politics, the main thrust of which these days, the quest for "social justice," is
to present a suit against white male privilege and, shall we say, the horse it rode in on: western civ. A peculiar feature of the
social justice agenda is the wish to erect strict boundaries around racial identities while erasing behavioral boundaries, sexual
boundaries, and ethical boundaries. Since so much of this thought-monster is actually promulgated by white college professors and
administrators, and white political activists, against people like themselves, the motives in this concerted campaign might appear
puzzling to the casual observer.
I would account for it as the psychological displacement among this political cohort of their shame, disappointment, and despair
over the outcome of the civil rights campaign that started in the 1960s and formed the core of progressive ideology. It did not bring
about the hoped-for utopia. The racial divide in America is starker now than ever, even after two terms of a black president. Today,
there is more grievance and resentment, and less hope for a better future, than when Martin Luther King made the case for progress
on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. The recent flash points of racial conflict -- Ferguson, the Dallas police ambush, the
Charleston church massacre, et cetera -- don't have to be rehearsed in detail here to make the point that there is a great deal of
ill feeling throughout the land, and quite a bit of acting out on both sides.
The black underclass is larger, more dysfunctional, and more alienated than it was in the 1960s. My theory, for what it's worth,
is that the civil rights legislation of 1964 and '65, which removed legal barriers to full participation in national life, induced
considerable anxiety among black citizens over the new disposition of things, for one reason or another. And that is exactly why
a black separatism movement arose as an alternative at the time, led initially by such charismatic figures as Malcolm X and Stokely
Carmichael. Some of that was arguably a product of the same youthful energy that drove the rest of the Sixties counterculture: adolescent
rebellion. But the residue of the "Black Power" movement is still present in the widespread ambivalence about making covenant with
a common culture, and it has only been exacerbated by a now long-running "multiculturalism and diversity" crusade that effectively
nullifies the concept of a national common culture.
What follows from these dynamics is the deflection of all ideas that don't feed a narrative of power relations between oppressors
and victims, with the self-identified victims ever more eager to exercise their power to coerce, punish, and humiliate their self-identified
oppressors, the "privileged," who condescend to be abused to a shockingly masochistic degree. Nobody stands up to this organized
ceremonial nonsense. The punishments are too severe, including the loss of livelihood, status, and reputation, especially in the
university. Once branded a "racist," you're done. And venturing to join the oft-called-for "honest conversation about race" is certain
to invite that fate.
Globalization has acted, meanwhile, as a great leveler. It destroyed what was left of the working class -- the lower-middle class
-- which included a great many white Americans who used to be able to support a family with simple labor. Hung out to dry economically,
this class of whites fell into many of the same behaviors as the poor blacks before them: absent fathers, out-of-wedlock births,
drug abuse. Then the Great Financial Crisis of 2008 wiped up the floor with the middle-middle class above them, foreclosing on their
homes and futures, and in their desperation many of these people became Trump voters -- though I doubt that Trump himself truly understood
how this all worked exactly. However, he did see that the white middle class had come to identify as yet another victim group, allowing
him to pose as their champion.
The evolving matrix of rackets that prompted the 2008 debacle has only grown more elaborate and craven as the old economy of
stuff dies and is replaced by a financialized economy of swindles and frauds . Almost nothing in America's financial life
is on the level anymore, from the mendacious "guidance" statements of the Federal Reserve, to the official economic statistics of
the federal agencies, to the manipulation of all markets, to the shenanigans on the fiscal side, to the pervasive accounting fraud
that underlies it all. Ironically, the systematic chiseling of the foundering middle class is most visible in the rackets that medicine
and education have become -- two activities that were formerly dedicated to doing no harm and seeking the truth !
Life in this milieu of immersive dishonesty drives citizens beyond cynicism to an even more desperate state of mind. The suffering
public ends up having no idea what is really going on, what is actually happening. The toolkit of the Enlightenment -- reason, empiricism
-- doesn't work very well in this socioeconomic hall of mirrors, so all that baggage is discarded for the idea that reality is just
a social construct, just whatever story you feel like telling about it. On the right, Karl Rove expressed this point of view some
years ago when he bragged, of the Bush II White House, that "we make our own reality." The left says nearly the same thing in the
post-structuralist malarkey of academia: "you make your own reality." In the end, both sides are left with a lot of bad feelings
and the belief that only raw power has meaning.
Erasing psychological boundaries is a dangerous thing. When the rackets finally come to grief -- as they must because their operations
don't add up -- and the reckoning with true price discovery commences at the macro scale, the American people will find themselves
in even more distress than they've endured so far. This will be the moment when either nobody has any money, or there is plenty of
worthless money for everyone. Either way, the functional bankruptcy of the nation will be complete, and nothing will work anymore,
including getting enough to eat. That is exactly the moment when Americans on all sides will beg someone to step up and push them
around to get their world working again. And even that may not avail.
James Howard Kunstler's many books include The Geography of Nowhere, The Long Emergency, Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking,
Technology, and the Fate of the Nation , and the World Made by Hand novel series. He blogs on Mondays and Fridays at
Kunstler.com .
I think I need to go listen to an old-fashioned Christmas song now.
The ability to be financially, or at least resource, sustaining is the goal of many I know since we share a lack of confidence
in any of our institutions. We can only hope that God might look down with compassion on us, but He's not in the practical plan
of how to feed and sustain ourselves when things play out to their inevitable end. Having come from a better time, we joke about
our dystopian preparations, self-conscious about our "overreaction," but preparing all the same.
Look at it this way: Germany had to be leveled and its citizens reduced to abject penury, before Volkswagen could become the world's
biggest car company, and autobahns built throughout the world. It will be darkest before the dawn, and hopefully, that light that
comes after, won't be the miniature sunrise of a nuclear conflagration.
An excellent summary and bleak reminder of what our so-called civilization has become. How do we extricate ourselves from this
strange death spiral?
I have long suspected that we humans are creatures of our own personal/group/tribal/national/global fables and mythologies. We
are compelled by our genes, marrow, and blood to tell ourselves stories of our purpose and who we are. It is time for new mythologies
and stories of "who we are". This bizarre hyper-techno all-for-profit world needs a new story.
"The black underclass is larger, more dysfunctional, and more alienated than it was in the 1960s. My theory, for what it's worth,
is that the civil rights legislation of 1964 and '65, which removed legal barriers to full participation in national life, induced
considerable anxiety among black citizens over the new disposition of things, for one reason or another."
Um, forgotten by Kunstler is the fact that 1965 was also the year when the USA reopened its doors to low-skilled immigrants
from the Third World – who very quickly became competitors with black Americans. And then the Boom ended, and corporate American,
influenced by thinking such as that displayed in Lewis Powell's (in)famous 1971 memorandum, decided to claw back the gains made
by the working and middle classes in the previous 3 decades.
Hey Jim, I know you love to blame Wall Street and the Republicans for the GFC. I remember back in '08 you were urging Democrats
to blame it all on Republicans to help Obama win. But I have news for you. It wasn't Wall Street that caused the GFC. The crisis
actually had its roots in the Clinton Administration's use of the Community Reinvestment Act to pressure banks to relax mortgage
underwriting standards. This was done at the behest of left wing activists who claimed (without evidence, of course) that the
standards discriminated against minorities. The result was an effective repeal of all underwriting standards and an explosion
of real estate speculation with borrowed money. Speculation with borrowed money never ends well.
I have to laugh, too, when you say that it's perverse that the passion for tyranny is popular on the left. Have you ever heard
of the French Revolution? How about the USSR? Communist China? North Korea? Et cetera.
Leftism is leftism. Call it Marxism, Communism, socialism, liberalism, progressivism, or what have you. The ideology is the
same. Only the tactics and methods change. Destroy the evil institutions of marriage, family, and religion, and Man's innate goodness
will shine forth, and the glorious Godless utopia will naturally result.
Of course, the father of lies is ultimately behind it all. "He was a liar and a murderer from the beginning."
When man turns his back on God, nothing good happens. That's the most fundamental problem in Western society today. Not to
say that there aren't other issues, but until we return to God, there's not much hope for improvement.
Hmm. I just wandered over here by accident. Being a construction contractor, I don't know enough about globalization, academia,
or finance to evaluate your assertions about those realms. But being in a biracial family, and having lived, worked, and worshiped
equally in white and black communities, I can evaluate your statements about social justice, race, and civil rights.
Long story short, you pick out fringe liberal ideas, misrepresent them as mainstream among liberals, and shoot them down. Casuistry,
anyone?
You also misrepresent reality to your readers. No, the black underclass is not larger, more dysfunctional, and more alienated
now than in the 1960's, when cities across the country burned and machine guns were stationed on the Capitol steps. The "racial
divide" is not "starker now than ever"; that's just preposterous to anyone who was alive then. And nobody I've ever known felt
"shame" over the "outcome of the civil rights campaign". I know nobody who seeks to "punish and humiliate" the 'privileged'.
I get that this column is a quick toss-off before the holiday, and that your strength is supposed to be in your presentation,
not your ideas. For me, it's a helpful way to rehearse debunking common tropes that I'll encounter elsewhere.
But, really, your readers deserve better, and so do the people you misrepresent. We need bad liberal ideas to be critiqued
while they're still on the fringe. But by calling fringe ideas mainstream, you discredit yourself, misinform your readers, and
contribute to stereotypes both of liberals and of conservatives. I'm looking for serious conservative critiques that help me take
a second look at familiar ideas. I won't be back.
I disagree, NoahK, that the whole is incohesive, and I also disagree that these are right-wing talking points.
The theme of this piece is the long crisis in the US, its nature and causes. At no point does this essay, despite it stream
of consciousness style, veer away from that theme. Hence it is cohesive.
As for the right wing charge, though it is true, to be sure, that Kunstler's position is in many respects classically conservative
-- he believes for example that there should be a national consensus on certain fundamentals, such as whether or not there are
two sexes (for the most part), or, instead, an infinite variety of sexes chosen day by day at whim -- you must have noticed that
he condemned both the voluntarism of Karl Rove AND the voluntarism of the post-structuralist crowd.
My impression is that what Kunstler is doing here is diagnosing the long crisis of a decadent liberal post-modernity, and his stance is not that of either
of the warring sides within our divorced-from-reality political establishment, neither that of the 'right' or 'left.' Which is
why, logically, he published it here. National Review would never have accepted this piece. QED.
This malaise is rooted in human consciousness that when reflecting on itself celebrating its capacity for apperception suffers
from the tension that such an inquiry, such an inward glance produces. In a word, the capacity for the human being to be aware
of his or herself as an intelligent being capable of reflecting on aspects of reality through the artful manipulation of symbols
engenders this tension, this angst.
Some will attempt to extinguish this inner tension through intoxication while others through the thrill of war, and it has
been played out since the dawn of man and well documented when the written word emerged.
The malaise which Mr. Kunstler addresses as the problem of our times is rooted in our existence from time immemorial. But the
problem is not only existential but ontological. It is rooted in our being as self-aware creatures. Thus no solution avails itself
as humanity in and of itself is the problem. Each side (both right and left) seeks its own anodyne whether through profligacy
or intolerance, and each side mans the barricades to clash experiencing the adrenaline rush that arises from the perpetual call
to arms.
"Globalization has acted, meanwhile, as a great leveler. It destroyed what was left of the working class -- the lower-middle class
-- which included a great many white Americans who used to be able to support a family with simple labor."
And to whom do we hand
the tab for this? Globalization is a word. It is a concept, a talking point. Globalization is oligarchy by another name. Unfortunately,
under-educated, deplorable, Americans; regardless of party affiliation/ideology have embraced. And the most ironic part?
Russia
and China (the eventual surviving oligarchies) will eventually have to duke it out to decide which superpower gets to make the
USA it's b*tch (excuse prison reference, but that's where we're headed folks).
And one more irony. Only in American, could Christianity,
which was grew from concepts like compassion, generosity, humility, and benevolence; be re-branded and 'weaponized' to further
greed, bigotry, misogyny, intolerance, and violence/war. Americans fiddled (over same sex marriage, abortion, who has to bake
wedding cakes, and who gets to use which public restroom), while the oligarchs burned the last resources (natural, financial,
and even legal).
"Today, there is more grievance and resentment, and less hope for a better future, than when Martin Luther King made the case
for progress on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963."
Spoken like a white guy who has zero contact with black people. I mean, even a little bit of research and familiarity would
give lie to the idea that blacks are more pessimistic about life today than in the 1960's.
Black millenials are the most optimistic group of Americans about the future. Anyone who has spent any significant time around
older black people will notice that you don't hear the rose colored memories of the past. Black people don't miss the 1980's,
much less the 1950's. Young black people are told by their elders how lucky they are to grow up today because things are much
better than when grandpa was our age and we all know this history.\
It's clear that this part of the article was written from absolute
ignorance of the actual black experience with no interest in even looking up some facts. Hell, Obama even gave a speech at Howard
telling graduates how lucky they were to be young and black Today compared to even when he was their age in the 80's!
Here is the direct quote;
"In my inaugural address, I remarked that just 60 years earlier, my father might not have been served in a D.C. restaurant
-- at least not certain of them. There were no black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Very few black judges. Shoot, as Larry Wilmore
pointed out last week, a lot of folks didn't even think blacks had the tools to be a quarterback. Today, former Bull Michael Jordan
isn't just the greatest basketball player of all time -- he owns the team. (Laughter.) When I was graduating, the main black hero
on TV was Mr. T. (Laughter.) Rap and hip hop were counterculture, underground. Now, Shonda Rhimes owns Thursday night, and Beyoncé
runs the world. (Laughter.) We're no longer only entertainers, we're producers, studio executives. No longer small business owners
-- we're CEOs, we're mayors, representatives, Presidents of the United States. (Applause.)
I am not saying gaps do not persist. Obviously, they do. Racism persists. Inequality persists. Don't worry -- I'm going to
get to that. But I wanted to start, Class of 2016, by opening your eyes to the moment that you are in. If you had to choose one
moment in history in which you could be born, and you didn't know ahead of time who you were going to be -- what nationality,
what gender, what race, whether you'd be rich or poor, gay or straight, what faith you'd be born into -- you wouldn't choose 100
years ago. You wouldn't choose the fifties, or the sixties, or the seventies. You'd choose right now. If you had to choose a time
to be, in the words of Lorraine Hansberry, "young, gifted, and black" in America, you would choose right now. (Applause.)"
I love reading about how the Community Reinvestment Act was the catalyst of all that is wrong in the world. As someone in the
industry the issue was actually twofold. The Commodities Futures Modernization Act turned the mortgage securities market into
a casino with the underlying actual debt instruments multiplied through the use of additional debt instruments tied to the performance
but with no actual underlying value. These securities were then sold around the world essentially infecting the entire market.
In order that feed the beast, these NON GOVERNMENT loans had their underwriting standards lowered to rediculous levels. If you
run out of qualified customers, just lower the qualifications. Government loans such as FHA, VA, and USDA were avoided because
it was easier to qualify people with the new stuff. And get paid. The short version is all of the incentives that were in place
at the time, starting with the Futures Act, directly led to the actions that culminated in the Crash. So yes, it was the government,
just a different piece of legislation.
Kunstler itemizing the social and economic pathologies in the United States is not enough. Because there are other models that
demonstrate it didn't have to be this way.
E.g. Germany. Germany is anything but perfect and its recent government has screwed up with its immigration policies. But Germany
has a high standard of living, an educated work force (including unions and skilled crafts-people), a more rational distribution
of wealth and high quality universal health care that costs 47% less per capita than in the U.S. and with no intrinsic need to
maraud around the planet wasting gobs of taxpayer money playing Global Cop.
The larger subtext is that the U.S. house of cards was planned out and constructed as deliberately as the German model was.
Only the objective was not to maximize the health and happiness of the citizenry, but to line the pockets of the parasitic Elites.
(E.g., note that Mitch McConnell has been a government employee for 50 years but somehow acquired a net worth of over $10 Million.)
P.S. About the notionally high U.S. GDP. Factor out the TRILLIONS inexplicably hoovered up by the pathological health care
system, the metastasized and sanctified National Security State (with its Global Cop shenanigans) and the cronied-up Ponzi scheme
of electron-churn financialization ginned up by Goldman Sachs and the rest of the Banksters, and then see how much GDP that reflects
the actual wealth of the middle class is left over.
Right-Wing Dittoheads and Fox Watchers love to blame the Community Reinvestment Act. It allows them to blame both poor black people
AND the government. The truth is that many parties were to blame.
One of the things I love about this rag is that almost all of the comments are included.
You may be sure that similar commenting privilege doesn't exist most anywhere else.
Any disfavor regarding the supposed bleakness with the weak hearted souls aside, Mr K's broadside seems pretty spot on to me.
I think the author overlooks the fact that government over the past 30 to 40 years has been tilting the playing field ever more
towards the uppermost classes and against the middle class. The evisceration of the middle class is plain to see.
If the the common man had more money and security, lots of our current intrasocial conflicts would be far less intense.
Andrew Imlay: You provide a thoughtful corrective to one of Kunstler's more hyperbolic claims. And you should know that his jeremiad
doesn't represent usual fare at TAC. So do come back.
Whether or not every one of Kunstler's assertions can withstand a rigorous fact-check, he is a formidable rhetorician. A generous
serving of Weltschmerz is just what the season calls for.
America is stupefied from propaganda on steroids for, largely from the right wing, 25? years of Limbaugh, Fox, etc etc etc Clinton
hate x 10, "weapons of mass destruction", "they hate us because we are free", birtherism, death panels, Jade Helm, pedophile pizza, and more Clinton hate porn.
Americans have been taught to worship the wealthy regardless of how they got there. Americans have been taught they are "Exceptional" (better, smarter, more godly than every one else) in spite of outward appearances.
Americans are under educated and encouraged to make decisions based on emotion from constant barrage of extra loud advertising
from birth selling illusion.
Americans brain chemistry is most likely as messed up as the rest of their bodies from junk or molested food. Are they even
capable of normal thought?
Donald Trump has convinced at least a third of Americans that only he, Fox, Breitbart and one or two other sources are telling
the Truth, every one else is lying and that he is their friend.
Is it possible we are just plane doomed and there's no way out?
I loathe the cotton candy clown and his Quislings; however, I must admit, his presence as President of the United States has forced
everyone (left, right, religious, non-religious) to look behind the curtain. He has done more to dis-spell the idealism of both
liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, rich and poor, than any other elected official in history. The sheer amount
of mind-numbing absurdity resulting from a publicity stunt that got out of control ..I am 70 and I have seen a lot. This is beyond
anything I could ever imagine. America is not going to improve or even remain the same. It is in a 4 year march into worse, three
years to go.
Mr. Kuntzler has an honest and fairly accurate assessment of the situation. And as usual, the liberal audience that TAC is trying
so hard to reach, is tossing out their usual talking points whilst being in denial of the situation.
The Holy Bible teaches us that repentance is the first crucial step on the path towards salvation. Until the progressives,
from their alleged "elite" down the rank and file at Kos, HuffPo, whatever, take a good, long, hard look at the current national
dumpster fire and start claiming some responsibility, America has no chance of solving problems or fixing anything.
Kunstler must have had a good time writing this, and I had a good time reading it. Skewed perspective, wild overstatement, and
obsessive cherry-picking of the rare checkable facts are mixed with a little eye of newt and toe of frog and smothered in a oar
and roll of rhetoric that was thrilling to be immersed in. Good work!
aah, same old Kunstler, slightly retailored for the Trump years.
for those of you familiar with him, remember his "peak oil" mania from the late 00s and early 2010s? every blog post was about
it. every new year was going to be IT: the long emergency would start, people would be Mad Maxing over oil supplies cos prices
at the pump would be $10 a gallon or somesuch.
in this new rant, i did a control-F for "peak oil" and hey, not a mention. I guess even cranks like Kunstler know when to give
a tired horse a rest.
Kunstler once again waxes eloquent on the American body politic. Every word rings true, except when it doesn't. At times poetic,
at other times paranoid, Kunstler does us a great service by pointing a finger at the deepest pain points in America, any one
of which could be the geyser that brings on catastrophic failure.
However, as has been pointed out, he definitely does not hang out with black people. For example, the statement:
But the residue of the "Black Power" movement is still present in the widespread ambivalence about making covenant with a common
culture, and it has only been exacerbated by a now long-running "multiculturalism and diversity" crusade that effectively nullifies
the concept of a national common culture.
The notion of a 'national common culture' is interesting but pretty much a fantasy that never existed, save colonial times.
Yet Kunstler's voice is one that must be heard, even if he is mostly tuning in to the widespread radicalism on both ends of
the spectrum, albeit in relatively small numbers. Let's face it, people are in the streets marching, yelling, and hating and mass
murders keep happening, with the regularity of Old Faithful. And he makes a good point about academia loosing touch with reality
much of the time. He's spot on about the false expectations of what technology can do for the economy, which is inflated with
fiat currency and God knows how many charlatans and hucksters. And yes, the white working class is feeling increasingly like a
'victim group.'
While Kunstler may be more a poet than a lawyer, more songwriter than historian, my gut feeling is that America had better
take notice of him, as The American ship of state is being swept by a ferocious tide and the helmsman is high on Fentanyl (made
in China).
Re: The crisis actually had its roots in the Clinton Administration's use of the Community Reinvestment Act
Here we go again with this rotting zombie which rises from its grave no matter how many times it has been debunked by statisticians
and reputable economists (and no, not just those on the left– the ranks include Bruce Bartlett for example, a solid Reaganist).
To reiterate again : the CRA played no role in the mortgage boom and bust. Among other facts in the way of that hypothesis is
the fact that riskiest loans were being made by non-bank lenders (Countrywide) who were not covered by the CRA which only applied
to actual banks– and the banks did not really get into the game full tilt, lowering their lending standards, until late in the
game, c. 2005, in response to their loss of business to the non-bank lenders. Ditto for the GSEs, which did not lower their standards
until 2005 and even then relied on wall Street to vet the subprime loans they were buying.
To be sure, blaming Wall Street for everything is also wrong-headed, though wall Street certainly did some stupid, greedy and
shady things (No, I am not letting them off the hook!) But the cast of miscreants is numbered in the millions and it stretches
around the planet. Everyone (for example) who got into the get-rich-quick Ponzi scheme of house flipping, especially if they lied
about their income to do so. And everyone who took out a HELOC (Home Equity Line of Credit) and foolishly charged it up on a consumption
binge. And shall we talk about the mortgage brokers who coached people into lying, the loan officers who steered customers into
the riskiest (and highest earning) loans they could, the sellers who asked palace-prices for crackerbox hovels, the appraisers
who rubber-stamped such prices, the regulators who turned a blind eye to all the fraud and malfeasance, the ratings agencies who
handed out AAA ratings to securities full of junk, the politicians who rejoiced over the apparent "Bush Boom" well, I could continue,
but you get the picture.
"The Holy Bible teaches us that repentance is the first crucial step on the path towards salvation. Until the progressives, from
their alleged "elite" down the rank and file at Kos, HuffPo, whatever, take a good, long, hard look at the current national dumpster
fire and start claiming some responsibility, America has no chance of solving problems or fixing anything."
Pretty sure that calling other people to repent of their sin of disagreeing with you is not quite what the Holy Bible intended.
We accompanied that with a prank in which we posed as Potanin calling the Washington Wizards
for courtside seats, Harvard University business school to purchase a degree, and the Augusta
National Golf Club -- brandishing Hiatt's article for access:
eXile : I am Russian banker, so-called robber baron capitalist, am interested in
purchasing your degree.
Harvard : ( pause ) Uh, sir, you can't buy the degree, but you can enroll in our
program. It's an intensive 9 week program, and you receive a certificate, not a degree.
eXile : No, this is no good. Do you realize who I am? Fred Hiatt wrote about me in today
Washington Post, that I am not typical robber baron. I am ze baby billionaire.
Harvard : We read a lot about Russia and it sounds very exciting.
eXile : Of course it exciting. Now I vant Harvard degree.
Harvard : You can't buy a degree.
eXile : Maybe instead I build nice cafe for you on campus. Or I can donate small nightclub
for Harvard degree.
Harvard : Sir, Harvard is a 350-year-old institution. It's not all just about money. We've
turned down princes.
Nice illustration of ideologically based ostrakism as practiced in Academia: "Larry [Summers] leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice. I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could
be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don't listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People
- powerful people - listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: they don't criticize
other insiders."
Notable quotes:
"... A more probable school of thought is that this game was created as a con and a cover for the status quo capitalist establishment to indulge themselves in their hard money and liquidity fetishes, consequences be damned. ..."
"... The arguments over internal and external consistency of models is just a convenient misdirection from what policy makers are willing to risk and whose interests they are willing to risk policy decisions for ..."
"... Mathematical masturbations are just a smoke screen used to conceal a simple fact that those "economists" are simply banking oligarchy stooges. Hired for the specific purpose to provide a theoretical foundation for revanschism of financial oligarchy after New Deal run into problems. Revanschism that occurred in a form of installing neoliberal ideology in the USA in exactly the same role which Marxism was installed in the USSR. With "iron hand in velvet gloves" type of repressive apparatus to enforce it on each and every university student and thus to ensure the continues, recurrent brainwashing much like with Marxism on the USSR universities. ..."
"... To ensure continuation of power of "nomenklatura" in the first case and banking oligarchy in the second. Connections with reality be damned. Money does not smell. ..."
"... Economic departments fifth column of neoliberal stooges is paid very good money for their service of promoting and sustaining this edifice of neoliberal propaganda. Just look at Greg Mankiw and Rubin's boys. ..."
"... "Larry [Summers] leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice. I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don't listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People - powerful people - listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: they don't criticize other insiders." ..."
At the risk of oversimplifying might it not be as simple as stronger leanings towards IS-LM and kind are indicative of a bias
towards full employment and stronger leanings towards DSGE, microfoundations, and kind are indicative of a bias towards low inflation?
IN general I consider over-simplification a fault, if and only if, it is a rigidly adhered to final position. This is to say
that over-simplification is always a good starting point and never a good ending point. If in the end your problem was simple
to begin with, then the simplified answer would not be OVER-simplified anyway. It is just as bad to over-complicate a simple problem
as it is to over-simplify a complex problem. It is easier to build complexity on top of a simple foundation than it is to extract
simplicity from a complex foundation.
A lot of the Chicago School initiative into microfoundations and DSGE may have been motivated by a desire to bind Keynes in
a NAIRU straight-jacket. Even though economic policy making is largely done just one step at a time then that is still one step
too much if it might violate rentier interests.
Darryl FKA Ron -> Barry...
There are two possible (but unlikely) schools of (generously attributed to as) thought for which internal consistency might
take precedence over external consistency. One such school wants to consider what would be best in a perfect world full of perfect
people and then just assume that is best for the real world just to let the chips fall where they may according to the faults
and imperfections of the real world. The second such school is the one whose eyes just glaze over mesmerized by how over their
heads they are and remain affraid to ask any question lest they appear stupid.
A more probable school of thought is that this game was created as a con and a cover for the status quo capitalist establishment
to indulge themselves in their hard money and liquidity fetishes, consequences be damned.
Richard H. Serlin
Consistency sounds so good, Oh, of course we want consistency, who wouldn't?! But consistent in what way? What exactly do you
mean? Consistent with reality, or consistent with people all being superhumans? Which concept is usually more useful, or more
useful for the task at hand?
Essentially, they want models that are consistent with only certain things, and often because this
makes their preferred ideology look far better. They want models, typically, that are consistent with everyone in the world having
perfect expertise in every subject there is, from finance to medicine to engineering, perfect public information, and perfect
self-discipline, and usually on top, frictionless and perfectly complete markets, often perfectly competitive too.
But a big thing to note is that perfectly consistent people means a level of perfection in expertise, public information, self-discipline,
and "rationality", that's extremely at odds with how people actually are. And as a result, this can make the model extremely misleading
if it's interpreted very literally (as so often it is, especially by freshwater economists), or taken as The Truth, as Paul Krugman
puts it.
You get things like the equity premium "puzzle", which involves why people don't invest more in stocks when the risk-adjusted
return appears to usually be so abnormally good, and this "puzzle" can only be answered with "consistency", that people are all
perfectly expert in finance, with perfect information, so they must have some mysterious hidden good reason. It can't be at all
that it's because 65% of people answered incorrectly when asked how many reindeer would remain if Santa had to lay off 25% of
his eight reindeer ( http://richardhserlin.blogspot.com/2013/12/surveys-showing-massive-ignorance-and.html ).
Yes, these perfect optimizer consistency models can give useful insights, and help to see what is best, what we can do better,
and they can, in some cases, be good as approximations. But to say they should be used only, and interpreted literally, is, well,
inconsistent with optimal, rational behavior -- of the economist using them.
Richard H. Serlin -> Richard H. Serlin...
Of course, unless the economist using them is doing so to mislead people into supporting his libertarian/plutocratic ideology.
dilbert dogbert
As an old broken down mech engineer, I wonder why all the pissing and moaning about micro foundations vs aggregation. In strength
of materials equations that aggregate properties work quite well within the boundaries of the questions to be answered. We all
know that at the level of crystals, materials have much complexity. Even within crystals there is deeper complexities down to
the molecular levels. However, the addition of quantum mechanics adds no usable information about what materials to build a bridge
with.
But, when working at the scale of the most advanced computer chips quantum mechanics is required. WTF! I guess in economics
there is no quantum mechanics theories or even reliable aggregation theories.
Poor economists, doomed to argue, forever, over how many micro foundations can dance on the head of a pin.
RGC -> dilbert dogbert...
Endless discussions about how quantum effects aggregate to produce a material suitable for bridge building crowd out discussions
about where and when to build bridges. And if plutocrats fund the endless discussions, we get the prominent economists we have
today.
Darryl FKA Ron -> dilbert dogbert...
"...I guess in economics there is no quantum mechanics theories or even reliable aggregation theories..."
[I guess it depends upon what your acceptable confidence interval on reliability is. Most important difference that controls
all the domain differences between physical science and economics is that underlying physical sciences there is a deterministic
methodology for which probable error is merely a function of the inaccuracy in input metrics WHEREAS economics models are incomplete
probabilistic estimating models with no ability to provide a complete system model in a full range of circumstances.
YOu can design and build a bridge to your load and span requirements with alternative models for various designs with confidence
and highly effective accuracy repeatedly. No ecomomic theory, model, or combination of models and theories was ever intended to
be used as the blueprint for building an economy from the foundation up.
With all the formal trappings of economics the only effective usage is to decide what should be done in a given set of predetermined
circumstance to reach some modest desired effect. Even that modest goal is exposed to all kinds of risks inherent in assumptions,
incomplete information, externalities, and so on that can produce errors of uncertain potential bounds.
Nonetheless, well done economics can greatly reduce the risks encountered in the random walk of economics policy making. So
much so is this true, that the bigger questions in macro-economics policy making is what one is willing to risk and for whom.
The arguments over internal and external consistency of models is just a convenient misdirection from what policy makers
are willing to risk and whose interests they are willing to risk policy decisions for.]
Darryl FKA Ron -> Peter K....
unless you have a model which maps the real world fairly closely like quantum mechanics.
[You set a bar too high. Macro models at best will tell you what to do to move the economy in the direction that you seek to
go. They do not even ocme close to the notion of a theory of everything that you have in physics, even the theory of every little
thing that is provided by quantum mechanics. Physics is an empty metaphor for economics. Step one is to forgo physics envy in
pursuit of understanding suitable applications and domain constraints for economics models.
THe point is to reach a decision and to understand cause and effect directions. All precision is in the past and present. The
future is both imprecise and all that there is that is available to change.
For the most part an ounce of common sense and some simple narrative models are all that are essential for making those policy
decisions in and of themselves. HOWEVER, nation states are not ruled by economist philosopher kings and in the process of concensus
decision making by (little r)republican governments then human language is a very imprecise vehicle for communicating logic and
reason with respect to the management of complex systems. OTOH, mathematics has given us a universal language for communicating
logic and reason that is understood the same by everyone that really understands that language at all. Hence mathematical models
were born for the economists to write down their own thinking in clear precise terms and check their own work first and then share
it with others so equipped to understand the language of mathematics. Krugman has said as much many times and so has any and every
economist worth their salt.]
likbez -> Syaloch...
I agree with Pgl and PeterK. Certain commenters like Darryl seem convinced that the Chicago School (if not all of econ) is driven
by sinister, class-based motives to come up justifications for favoring the power elite over the masses. But based on what I've
read, it seems pretty obvious that the microfoundation guys just got caught up in their fancy math and their desire to produce
more elegant, internally consistent models and lost sight of the fact that their models didn't track reality.
That's completely wrong line of thinking, IMHO.
Mathematical masturbations are just a smoke screen used to conceal a simple fact that those "economists" are simply banking
oligarchy stooges. Hired for the specific purpose to provide a theoretical foundation for revanschism of financial oligarchy after
New Deal run into problems. Revanschism that occurred in a form of installing neoliberal ideology in the USA in exactly the same
role which Marxism was installed in the USSR.
With "iron hand in velvet gloves" type of repressive apparatus to enforce it on each and every university student and thus to
ensure the continues, recurrent brainwashing much like with Marxism on the USSR universities.
To ensure continuation of power of "nomenklatura" in the first case and banking oligarchy in the second. Connections with reality
be damned. Money does not smell.
Economic departments fifth column of neoliberal stooges is paid very good money for their service of promoting and sustaining
this edifice of neoliberal propaganda. Just look at Greg Mankiw and Rubin's boys.
But the key problem with neoliberalism is that the cure is worse then disease. And here mathematical masturbations are very
handy as a smoke screen to hide this simple fact.
likbez -> likbez...
Here is how Rubin's neoliberal boy Larry explained the situation to Elizabeth Warren:
"Larry [Summers] leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice. I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could
be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don't listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People
- powerful people - listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: they don't criticize
other insiders."
"... What happened to the old "sysadmin" of just a few years ago? We've split what used to be the sysadmin into application teams, server teams, storage teams, and network teams. There were often at least a few people, the holders of knowledge, who knew how everything worked, and I mean everything. ..."
"... Now look at what we've done. Knowledge is so decentralized we must invent new roles to act as liaisons between all the IT groups. Architects now hold much of the high-level "how it works" knowledge, but without knowing how any one piece actually does work. In organizations with more than a few hundred IT staff and developers, it becomes nearly impossible for one person to do and know everything. This movement toward specializing in individual areas seems almost natural. That, however, does not provide a free ticket for people to turn a blind eye. ..."
"... Does your IT department function as a unit? Even 20-person IT shops have turf wars, so the answer is very likely, "no." As teams are split into more and more distinct operating units, grouping occurs. One IT budget gets split between all these groups. Often each group will have a manager who pitches his needs to upper management in hopes they will realize how important the team is. ..."
"... The "us vs. them" mentality manifests itself at all levels, and it's reinforced by management having to define each team's worth in the form of a budget. One strategy is to illustrate a doomsday scenario. If you paint a bleak enough picture, you may get more funding. Only if you are careful enough to illustrate the failings are due to lack of capital resources, not management or people. A manager of another group may explain that they are not receiving the correct level of service, so they need to duplicate the efforts of another group and just implement something themselves. On and on, the arguments continue. ..."
What happened to the old "sysadmin" of just a few years ago? We've split what used to be the sysadmin into application teams,
server teams, storage teams, and network teams. There were often at least a few people, the holders of knowledge, who knew how everything
worked, and I mean everything. Every application, every piece of network gear, and how every server was configured -- these
people could save a business in times of disaster.
Now look at what we've done. Knowledge is so decentralized we must invent new roles to act as liaisons between all the IT
groups. Architects now hold much of the high-level "how it works" knowledge, but without knowing how any one piece actually does
work. In organizations with more than a few hundred IT staff and developers, it becomes nearly impossible for one person to do and
know everything. This movement toward specializing in individual areas seems almost natural. That, however, does not provide a free
ticket for people to turn a blind eye.
Specialization
You know the story: Company installs new application, nobody understands it yet, so an expert is hired. Often, the person with
a certification in using the new application only really knows how to run that application. Perhaps they aren't interested in
learning anything else, because their skill is in high demand right now. And besides, everything else in the infrastructure is
run by people who specialize in those elements. Everything is taken care of.
Except, how do these teams communicate when changes need to take place? Are the storage administrators teaching the Windows
administrators about storage multipathing; or worse logging in and setting it up because it's faster for the storage gurus to
do it themselves? A fundamental level of knowledge is often lacking, which makes it very difficult for teams to brainstorm about
new ways evolve IT services. The business environment has made it OK for IT staffers to specialize and only learn one thing.
If you hire someone certified in the application, operating system, or network vendor you use, that is precisely what you get.
Certifications may be a nice filter to quickly identify who has direct knowledge in the area you're hiring for, but often they
indicate specialization or compensation for lack of experience.
Resource Competition
Does your IT department function as a unit? Even 20-person IT shops have turf wars, so the answer is very likely, "no."
As teams are split into more and more distinct operating units, grouping occurs. One IT budget gets split between all these groups.
Often each group will have a manager who pitches his needs to upper management in hopes they will realize how important the team
is.
The "us vs. them" mentality manifests itself at all levels, and it's reinforced by management having to define each team's
worth in the form of a budget. One strategy is to illustrate a doomsday scenario. If you paint a bleak enough picture, you may
get more funding. Only if you are careful enough to illustrate the failings are due to lack of capital resources, not management
or people. A manager of another group may explain that they are not receiving the correct level of service, so they need to duplicate
the efforts of another group and just implement something themselves. On and on, the arguments continue.
Most often, I've seen competition between server groups result in horribly inefficient uses of hardware. For example, what
happens in your organization when one team needs more server hardware? Assume that another team has five unused servers sitting
in a blade chassis. Does the answer change? No, it does not. Even in test environments, sharing doesn't often happen between IT
groups.
With virtualization, some aspects of resource competition get better and some remain the same. When first implemented, most
groups will be running their own type of virtualization for their platform. The next step, I've most often seen, is for test servers
to get virtualized. If a new group is formed to manage the virtualization infrastructure, virtual machines can be allocated to
various application and server teams from a central pool and everyone is now sharing. Or, they begin sharing and then demand their
own physical hardware to be isolated from others' resource hungry utilization. This is nonetheless a step in the right direction.
Auto migration and guaranteed resource policies can go a long way toward making shared infrastructure, even between competing
groups, a viable option.
Blamestorming
The most damaging side effect of splitting into too many distinct IT groups is the reinforcement of an "us versus them" mentality.
Aside from the notion that specialization creates a lack of knowledge, blamestorming is what this article is really about. When a project is delayed, it is all too easy to blame another group. The SAN people didn't allocate storage on time,
so another team was delayed. That is the timeline of the project, so all work halted until that hiccup was restored. Having someone
else to blame when things get delayed makes it all too easy to simply stop working for a while.
More related to the initial points at the beginning of this article, perhaps, is the blamestorm that happens after a system
outage.
Say an ERP system becomes unresponsive a few times throughout the day. The application team says it's just slowing down, and
they don't know why. The network team says everything is fine. The server team says the application is "blocking on IO," which
means it's a SAN issue. The SAN team say there is nothing wrong, and other applications on the same devices are fine. You've ran
through nearly every team, but without an answer still. The SAN people don't have access to the application servers to help diagnose
the problem. The server team doesn't even know how the application runs.
See the problem? Specialized teams are distinct and by nature adversarial. Specialized staffers often relegate
themselves into a niche knowing that as long as they continue working at large enough companies, "someone else" will take care
of all the other pieces.
I unfortunately don't have an answer to this problem. Maybe rotating employees between departments will help. They gain knowledge
and also get to know other people, which should lessen the propensity to view them as outsiders
Stagnation that is gripping several of the world's largest economies should be viewed as a secular, long term phenomenon, not
something transient. It is connected with the neoliberalism entering a new phase of its development, when New Deal was already
devoured, 90% or so of population standard of living slides and thus there are no direct mechanisms to increase consumer demand.
Notable quotes:
"... Stagnation is gripping several of the world's largest economies and many view this as secular, not transient. ..."
"... Above all, ideology must conceal, denigrate, diminish, slander and distract from the ONE effective strategy that workers collectively have. This is the spectre that haunts all economics. ..."
"... For many of those who consume the bottom layers of it, what they are ingesting is a barbarous Pink Slime cultural sludge that makes them stupid, frivolous, dependent, impulsive and emotionally erratic – something like perpetual 15 year olds. ..."
"... In the center, we have the neoliberals, who are convinced that our world will spontaneously and beneficially organize itself if only we turn the macroeconomic tumblers and stumble on the right interest rate, or inflation rate, or some other version of the One Parameter to Rule Them All mindset. They are also too devoted to the religion of demand-goosing: the idea that everything will be all right as long as we generate enough "demand" – as though it makes no difference whether people are demanding high fructose cotton candy or the collected works of Shakespeare. ..."
"... Profits and income share at the top soared; wages and income share at the bottom fell, and employment was maintained by speculative bubbles and increasing debt until the last bubble burst, and the system collapsed. ..."
"... How is an increasing deficit and QE supposed to solve our problems in this situation other than by propping up a failed system that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer by increasing government debt? ..."
"... It seems quite clear to me that it is going to take a very long time for the system to adjust to this situation in the absence of a fall in the value of the dollar and the concentration of income. That kind of adjustment means reallocating resources in a very dramatic way so as to accommodate an economy in which resources are allocated to serve the demands of the wealthy few in the absence of the ability of those at the bottom to expand their debt relative to income. ..."
"... It was the fall in the concentration of income that led to mass markets (large numbers of people with purchasing power out of income) that made investment profitable after WW II in the absence of speculative bubbles, and it was the increase in the concentration of income that led to the bubble economy we have today that has led us into the Great Recession. ..."
"... I think neoliberalism naturally leads to secular stagnation. This is the way any economic system that is based on increasing of inequality should behave: after inequality reached certain critical threshold, the economy faces extended period of low growth reflecting persistently weak private demand. ..."
"... The focus on monetary policy and the failure to enact fiscal policy options is structural defect of neoliberalism ideology and can't be changed unless neoliberal ideology is abandoned. Which probably will not happen unless another huge crisis hit the USA. 2008 crisis, while discrediting neoliberalism, was clearly not enough for the abandonment of this ideology. Like in most cults adherents became more fanatical believers after the prophecy did not materialized. ..."
"... In a way behaviour of the USA elite in this respect is as irrational as behavior of the USSR elite. My impression is that they will stick to neoliberal ideology to the bitter end. But at the same time they are much more reckless. Recent attempt to solve economic problems by unleashing a new wars and relying of war time mobilization so far did not work. Including the last move is this game: Russia did not bite the offer for military confrontation that the USA clearly made by instilling coup d'état in Ukraine. ..."
This column argues that many economies need both demand-side stimulus and supply-side reform to close the output gap and restore
potential-output growth. A combined monetary-fiscal stimulus – i.e. helicopter money – is needed to close the output gap, and
this should be accompanied with extensive debt restructuring, policies to halt rising inequality, and additional public infrastructure
investment.
Selected Skeptical Comments
Sandwichman -> anne:
Workers, collectively, have a single, incontrovertible lever for effecting change -- withholding their labor power. Nothing
-- not even imprisonment or death -- can prevent workers from withholding their labor power! Kill me and see how much work you
can get out of me.
This is the elementary fact that the elites don't want workers to know. "It is futile!" "It is a fallacy!" "You will only hurt
yourselves!"
Once one comprehends the strategic importance of making the withholding of labor power taboo, everything else falls into place.
Economics actually makes sense as a persuasive discourse to dissuade from the withholding of labor power.
Above all, ideology must conceal, denigrate, diminish, slander and distract from the ONE effective strategy that workers
collectively have. This is the spectre that haunts all economics.
Dan Kervick:
Good stuff by Buiter et al, but here are some suggested additions to the litany of supply side woes:
1. Ineffective economic organization, both inside corporate firms and outside of them.
a. Many corporations are now quite dysfunctional as engines of long-term value creation – but not dysfunctional as vehicles
of short-term value extraction for their absurdly over-incentivized key stakeholders.
b. The developed world societies are facing an extreme failure of strategic economic leadership, at both the national and global
level, and at both the formal level of government and the informal level of visionary public intellectuals and industrial "captains".
There is no coherent consensus on which way lies the direction of progress. Since nobody is setting the agenda for what the future
looks like, risk trumps confidence everywhere and nobody knows what to invest in.
2. Dyspeptic dystopianism. The intellectual culture of our times is polluted by obsessive, nail-biting negativity and
demoralizing storylines preaching hopelessness: the robots are going to destroy all the jobs; the Big One is going to bury everything,
the real "neutral" interest rate is preposterously negative, etc. etc. etc. With so much doom and gloom in the air, there is no
reason to invest wealth, rather than consume it. Robert Schiller touched on this at a recent talk at LSE.
3. The popular culture of 2015 America is – as in so many other areas - a tale of two cultural cities.For many
of those who consume the bottom layers of it, what they are ingesting is a barbarous Pink Slime cultural sludge that makes them
stupid, frivolous, dependent, impulsive and emotionally erratic – something like perpetual 15 year olds. People like this
can be duped by the most shallow demagoguery and consumerist manipulation, and can't organize themselves to pursue their enlightened
self-interest. Enlightened artists and cultural custodians need to step up, organize and find a way to seize the American mind
back from the clutches of consumer capitalist garbage-mongers and philistine society-wreckers.
4. Laissez faire backwardness. We are struggling under left-right-center conspiracy of Pollyanna freedom fools, who
despite their constant kvetching at one another all share in common the view that progress is self-organizing.
On the left we have the Chomsky and Graeber-style "libertarian socialists" who are convinced we could have a functioning and
prosperous society in which seemingly every action is voluntary and spontaneous, nobody is ever compelled to do anything that
their delicate little hearts don't throb to do, and who seemingly have no idea of what it takes even to run a carrot farm.
On the right, we have the clueless paranoid libertarians who think the whole world should revolve around their adolescent desire
not to be "tread on", and seem to have no idea of what it takes – and what it took historically - to build a livable civilization.
In the center, we have the neoliberals, who are convinced that our world will spontaneously and beneficially organize itself
if only we turn the macroeconomic tumblers and stumble on the right interest rate, or inflation rate, or some other version of
the One Parameter to Rule Them All mindset. They are also too devoted to the religion of demand-goosing: the idea that everything
will be all right as long as we generate enough "demand" – as though it makes no difference whether people are demanding high
fructose cotton candy or the collected works of Shakespeare.
5. I'm an optimist! This is all going to change. We have nearly reached Peak Idiocracy. We're on the verge of a new age of
social organization and planning and a return to mixed economy common sense and public-spirited mobilization and adulthood. This
will happen because ultimately all of those teenagers will stop denying reality, and stop struggling to escape the realization
that a more organized and thoughtfully planned way of life is the only thing that will work in our small, resource strapped, crowded
21st century planet.
George H. Blackford:
Since the 80s, US companies have been buying abroad to sell at home as foreign countries used our trade deficits to depress
their exchange rates. Profits and income share at the top soared; wages and income share at the bottom fell, and employment
was maintained by speculative bubbles and increasing debt until the last bubble burst, and the system collapsed.
There seem to be no more bubbles in the offing. The dollar is overvalued. Debt relative to income is unprecedented, and the
concentration of income has created stagnation for lack of investment opportunities.
How is an increasing deficit and QE supposed to solve our problems in this situation other than by propping up a failed
system that makes the rich richer and the poor poorer by increasing government debt? Does anyone really believe this sort
of thing can go on forever in the absence of a fall in the value of the dollar and in the concentration of income? Who's going
to be left holding the bag when this system collapses again?
It seems quite clear to me that it is going to take a very long time for the system to adjust to this situation in the
absence of a fall in the value of the dollar and the concentration of income. That kind of adjustment means reallocating resources
in a very dramatic way so as to accommodate an economy in which resources are allocated to serve the demands of the wealthy few
in the absence of the ability of those at the bottom to expand their debt relative to income.
We didn't smoothly transition from an agricultural economy to one based on manufacturing. That transition was plagued with
a great deal of civil unrest, speculative bubbles, booms and busts that eventually led to a collapse of the system and the Great
Depression.
And we didn't smoothly transition out of the Great Depression. That was ended by WW II and dramatic changes in our economic
system, the most dramatic changes being the role and size of government and the fall in the concentration of income for thirty-five
years after 1940.
It was the fall in the concentration of income that led to mass markets (large numbers of people with purchasing power
out of income) that made investment profitable after WW II in the absence of speculative bubbles, and it was the increase in the
concentration of income that led to the bubble economy we have today that has led us into the Great Recession.
What this means to me is that we are not going to get out of the mess we are in today in the absence of some kind of catastrophe
comparable to WW II if we, and the rest of the world, do not come to grips with the fundamental problem we face in this modern
age, namely, the trade deficit and the concentration of income.
I think neoliberalism naturally leads to secular stagnation. This is the way any economic system that is based on increasing
of inequality should behave: after inequality reached certain critical threshold, the economy faces extended period of low growth
reflecting persistently weak private demand.
An economic cycle enters recession when total spending falls below expected by producers and they realize that production level
is too high relative to demand. What we have under neoliberalism is kind of Marx constant crisis of overproduction.
The focus on monetary policy and the failure to enact fiscal policy options is structural defect of neoliberalism ideology
and can't be changed unless neoliberal ideology is abandoned. Which probably will not happen unless another huge crisis hit the
USA. 2008 crisis, while discrediting neoliberalism, was clearly not enough for the abandonment of this ideology. Like in most
cults adherents became more fanatical believers after the prophecy did not materialized.
The USA elite tried partially alleviate this problem by resorting to military Keynesianism as a supplementary strategy. But
while military budget was raised to unprecedented levels, it can't reverse the tendency. Persistent high output gap is now a feature
of the US economy, not a transitory state.
"Top everything" does not help iether (top cheap oil is especially nasty factor). Recent pretty clever chess gambit to artificially
drop oil price playing Russian card, and sacrificing US shall industry like a pawn (remember that Saudi Arabia is the USA client
state) was a very interesting move, but still expectation are now so low that cheap gas stimulus did not work as expected in the
USA. It would be interesting to see how quickly oil will return to early 2014 price level because of that. That will be the sign
that gambit is abandoned.
In a way behaviour of the USA elite in this respect is as irrational as behavior of the USSR elite. My impression is that
they will stick to neoliberal ideology to the bitter end. But at the same time they are much more reckless. Recent attempt to
solve economic problems by unleashing a new wars and relying of war time mobilization so far did not work. Including the last
move is this game: Russia did not bite the offer for military confrontation that the USA clearly made by instilling coup d'état
in Ukraine.
Now it look like there is a second attempt to play "madman" card after Nixon's administration Vietnam attempt to obtain concession
from the USSR by threatening to unleash the nuclear war.
"... Following Frances Fox Piven, "neoliberal economic policies" refers to the set of policies carried out, in the name of individualism and unfettered markets, for "the deregulation of corporations, and particularly of financial institutions; the rollback of public services and benefit programs; curbing labor unions; 'free trade' policies that would pry open foreign markets; and wherever possible the replacement of public programs with private markets" (Piven, 2007: 13). ..."
"... The case of the United States is particularly useful to examine because its elites have projected themselves as "first among equals" of the globalization project ( Bello , 2006), and it is the place of the Global North where the neoliberal project has been pursued most resolutely and has advanced the farthest. In other words, the experiences of American workers illuminate the affects of the neoliberal project in the Global North to the greatest extent, and suggest what will happen to working people in other northern countries should they accept their respective government's adoption of such policies. ..."
"... However, it is believed that the implementation of these neoliberal economic policies and the cultural wars to divert public attention are part of a larger, conscious political program by the elites within this country that is intended to prevent re-emergence of the collective solidarity among the American people that we saw during the late 1960s-early 1970s (see Piven, 2004, 2007) -- of which the internal breakdown of discipline within the US military, in Vietnam and around the world, was arguably the most crucial (see Moser, 1996; Zeiger, 2006) -- that ultimately challenged, however inchoately, the very structure of the established social order, both internationally and in the United States itself. ..."
Most contemporary discussions of globalization, and especially of the impact of neoliberal economic
policies, focus on the countries of the Global South (see, for example, Bond, 2005; Ellner and Hellinger,
eds., 2003; a number of articles in Harris, ed., 2006; Klein, 2007; Monthly Review, 2007;
and, among others, see Scipes, 1999, 2006b). Recent articles arguing that the globalization project
has receded and might be taking different approaches (Bello, 2006; Thornton, 2007) have also focused
on the Global South. What has been somewhat discussed (see Giroux, 2004; Piven, 2004; Aronowitz,
2005) but not systematically addressed, however, is what has been the impact of globalization and
especially related neoliberal economic policies on working people in a northern country?
[i]
This paper specifically addresses this question by looking at the impact of neoliberal economic
policies on working people in the United States . Following Frances Fox Piven, "neoliberal economic
policies" refers to the set of policies carried out, in the name of individualism and unfettered
markets, for "the deregulation of corporations, and particularly of financial institutions; the rollback
of public services and benefit programs; curbing labor unions; 'free trade' policies that would pry
open foreign markets; and wherever possible the replacement of public programs with private markets"
(Piven, 2007: 13).
The case of the United States is particularly useful to examine because its elites have projected
themselves as "first among equals" of the globalization project ( Bello , 2006), and it is the place
of the Global North where the neoliberal project has been pursued most resolutely and has advanced
the farthest. In other words, the experiences of American workers illuminate the affects of the neoliberal
project in the Global North to the greatest extent, and suggest what will happen to working people
in other northern countries should they accept their respective government's adoption of such policies.
However, care must be taken as to how this is understood. While sociologically-focused textbooks
(e.g., Aguirre and Baker, eds., 2008; Hurst, 2007) have joined together some of the most recent thinking
on social inequality -- and have demonstrated that inequality not only exists but is increasing --
this has been generally presented in a national context; in this case, within the United States.
And if they recognize that globalization is part of the reason for increasing inequality, it is generally
included as one of a set of reasons.
This paper argues that we simply cannot understand what is happening unless we put developments
within a global context: the United States effects, and is affected by, global processes.
Thus, while some of the impacts can be understood on a national level, we cannot ask related questions
as to causes -- or future consequences -- by confining our examination to a national level: we absolutely
must approach this from a global perspective (see Nederveen Pieterse, 2004, 2008).
This also must be put in historical perspective as well, although the focus in this piece will
be limited to the post-World War II world. Inequality within what is now the United States today
did not -- obviously -- arise overnight. Unquestionably, it began at least 400 years ago in Jamestown
-- with the terribly unequal and socially stratified society of England's colonial Virginia before
Africans were brought to North America (see Fischer, 1989), much less after their arrival in
1619, before the Pilgrims. Yet, to understand the roots of development of contemporary social
inequality in the US , we must understand the rise of " Europe " in relation to the rest of the world
(see, among others, Rodney, 1972; Nederveen Pieterse, 1989). In short, again, we have to understand
that the development of the United States has been and will always be a global project and, without
recognizing that, we simply cannot begin to understand developments within the United States .
We also have to understand the multiple and changing forms of social stratification and resulting
inequalities in this country. This paper prioritizes economic stratification, although is not limited
to just the resulting inequalities. Nonetheless, it does not focus on racial, gender or any other
type of social stratification. However, this paper is not written from the perspective that economic
stratification is always the most important form of stratification, nor from the perspective
that we can only understand other forms of stratification by understanding economic stratification:
all that is being claimed herein is that economic stratification is one type of social stratification,
arguably one of the most important types yet only one of several, and investigates the issue of economic
stratification in the context of contemporary globalization and the neoliberal economic policies
that have developed to address this phenomenon as it affects the United States.
Once this global-historical perspective is understood and after quickly suggesting in the "prologue"
why the connection between neoliberal economic policies and the affects on working people
in the United States has not been made usually, this paper focuses on several interrelated issues:
(1) it reports the current economic situation for workers in the United States; (2) it provides a
historical overview of US society since World War II; (3) it analyzes the results of US Government
economic policies; and (4) it ties these issues together. From that, it comes to a conclusion about
the affects of neoliberal economic policies on working people in the United States .
Prologue: Origins of neoliberal economic policies in the United States
As stated above, most of the attention directed toward understanding the impact of neoliberal
economic policies on various countries has been confined to the countries of the Global South. However,
these policies have been implemented in the United States as well. This arguably began in 1982, when
the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, launched a vicious attack on inflation -- and
caused the deepest US recession since the Great Depression of the late 1920s-1930s.
However, these neoliberal policies have been implemented in the US perhaps more subtly than in
the Global South. This is said because, when trying to understand changes that continue to take place
in the United States, these economic policies are hidden "under" the various and sundry "cultural
wars" (around issues such as drugs, premarital sex, gun control, abortion, marriages for gays and
lesbians) that have been taking place in this country and, thus, not made obvious: most Americans,
and especially working people, are not aware of the changes detailed below.
[ii]
However, it is believed that the implementation of these neoliberal economic policies and
the cultural wars to divert public attention are part of a larger, conscious political program
by the elites within this country that is intended to prevent re-emergence of the collective solidarity
among the American people that we saw during the late 1960s-early 1970s (see Piven, 2004, 2007) --
of which the internal breakdown of discipline within the US military, in Vietnam and around
the world, was arguably the most crucial (see Moser, 1996; Zeiger, 2006) -- that ultimately challenged,
however inchoately, the very structure of the established social order, both internationally and
in the United States itself. Thus, we see both Democratic and Republican Parties in agreement
to maintain and expand the US Empire (in more neutral political science-ese, a "uni-polar world"),
but the differences that emerge within each party and between each party are generally confined to
how this can best be accomplished. While this paper focuses on the economic and social changes going
on, it should be kept in mind that these changes did not "just happen": conscious political decisions
have been made that produced social results (see Piven, 2004) that make the US experience -- at the
center of a global social order based on an "advanced" capitalist economy -- qualitatively different
from experiences in other more economically-developed countries.
So, what has been the impact of these policies on workers in the US?
1) The current situation for workers and growing economic inequality
Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times published a piece on September 4, 2006, writing
about entry-level workers, young people who were just entering the job market. Mr. Greenhouse noted
changes in the US economy; in fact, there have been substantial changes since early 2000, when the
economy last created many jobs.
Median incomes for families with one parent age 25-34 fell 5.9 per cent between 2000-2005.
It had jumped 12 per cent during the late '90s. (The median annual income for these families today
is $48,405.)
Between 2000-2005, entry-level wages for male college graduates fell by 7.3 per cent (to $19.72/hr)
Entry-level wages for female college graduates fell by 3.5 per cent (to $17.08)
Entry-level wages for male high school graduates fell by 3.3 per cent (to $10.93)
Entry-level wages for female high school graduates fell by 4.9 per cent (to $9.08)
Yet, the percentage drop in wages hides the growing gap between college and high school graduates.
Today, on average, college grads earn 45 per cent more than high school graduates, where the gap
had "only" been 23 per cent in 1979: the gap has doubled in 26 years (Greenhouse, 2006b).
A 2004 story in Business Week found that 24 per cent of all working Americans received
wages below the poverty line ( Business Week , 2004).
[iii] In January 2004, 23.5 million
Americans received free food from food pantries. "The surge for food demand is fueled by several
forces -- job losses, expired unemployment benefits, soaring health-care and housing costs, and the
inability of many people to find jobs that match the income and benefits of the jobs they had." And
43 million people were living in low-income families with children (Jones, 2004).
A 2006 story in Business Week found that US job growth between 2001-2006 was really based
on one industry: health care. Over this five-year period, the health-care sector has added 1.7 million
jobs, while the rest of the private sector has been stagnant. Michael Mandel, the economics editor
of the magazine, writes:
information technology, the great electronic promise of the 1990s, has turned into one of
the greatest job-growth disappointments of all time. Despite the splashy success of companies
such as Google and Yahoo!, businesses at the core of the information economy -- software, semi-conductors,
telecom, and the whole range of Web companies -- have lost more than 1.1 million jobs in the past
five years. These businesses employ fewer Americans today than they did in 1998, when the Internet
frenzy kicked into high gear (Mandel, 2006: 56) .
In fact, "take away health-care hiring in the US, and quicker than you can say cardiac bypass,
the US unemployment rate would be 1 to 2 percentage points higher" (Mandel, 2006: 57).
There has been extensive job loss in manufacturing. Over 3.4 million manufacturing jobs have been
lost since 1998, and 2.9 million of them have been lost since 2001. Additionally, over 40,000 manufacturing
firms have closed since 1999, and 90 per cent have been medium and large shops. In labor-import intensive
industries, 25 per cent of laid-off workers remain unemployed after six months, two-thirds of them
who do find new jobs earn less than on their old job, and one-quarter of those who find new jobs
"suffer wage losses of more than 30 percent" (AFL-CIO, 2006a: 2).
The AFL-CIO details the US job loss by manufacturing sector in the 2001-05 period:
Computer and electronics: 543,000 workers or 29.2 per cent
Semiconductor and electronic components: 260,100 or 36.7 per cent
Electrical equipment and appliances: 152,500 or 26 per cent
Vehicle parts: 153,400 or 18.6 per cent
Machinery: 289,400 or 19.9 per cent
Fabricated metal products: 235,200 or 13.3 per cent
Primary metals: 144,800 or 23.5 per cent
Transportation equipment: 246,300 or 12.1 per cent
Furniture products: 58,500 or 13.4 per cent
Textile mills: 158,500 or 43.1 per cent
Apparel 220,000 or 46.6 per cent
Leather products: 24,700 or 38.3 per cent
Printing: 159,300 or 19.9 per cent
Paper products: 122,600 or 20.4 per cent
Plastics and rubber products: 141,400 or 15 per cent
Chemicals: 94,900 or 9.7 per cent
Aerospace: 46,900 or 9.1 per cent
Textiles and apparel declined by 870,000 jobs 1994-2006, a decline of 65.4 per cent (AFL-CIO,
2006a: 2).
As of the end of 2005, only 10.7 per cent of all US employment was in manufacturing -- down from
21.6 per cent at its height in 1979 -- in raw numbers, manufacturing employment totaled 19.426 million
in 1979, 17.263 million in 2000, and 14.232 million in 2005.
[iv] The number of production workers
in this country at the end of 2005 was 9.378 million.
[v] This was only slightly above
the 9.306 million production workers in 1983, and was considerably below the 11.463 million as recently
as 2000 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2006b). As one writer puts it, this is "the biggest long-term
trend in the economy: the decline of manufacturing." He notes that employment in the durable goods
(e.g., cars and cable TV boxes) category of manufacturing has declined from 19 per cent of all employment
in 1965 to 8 per cent in 2005 (Altman, 2006). And at the end of 2006, only 11.7 per cent of all manufacturing
workers were in unions (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2007).
In addition, in 2004 and 2005, "the real hourly and weekly wages of US manufacturing workers have
fallen 3 per cent and 2.2 per cent respectively" (AFL-CIO, 2006a: 2).
The minimum wage level went unchanged for nine years: until recently when there was a small increase
-- to $5.85 an hour on July 24, 2007 -- US minimum wage had remained at $5.15 an hour since September
1, 1997 . During that time, the cost of living rose 26 percent. After adjusting for inflation, this
was the lowest level of the minimum wage since 1955. At the same time, the minimum wage was only
31 per cent of the average pay of non-supervisory workers in the private sector, which is the lowest
share since World War II (Bernstein and Shapiro, 2006).
In addition to the drop in wages at all levels, fewer new workers get health care benefits with
their jobs: [vi] in 2005, 64 per
cent of all college grads got health coverage in entry-level jobs, where 71 per cent had gotten it
in 2000 -- a 7 per cent drop in just five years. Over a longer term, we can see what has happened
to high school grads: in 1979, two-thirds of all high school graduates got health care coverage in
entry-level jobs, while only one-third do today (Greenhouse, 2006b). It must be kept in mind that
only about 28 per cent of the US workforce are college graduates -- most of the work force only has
a high school degree, although a growing percentage of them have some college, but not college degrees.
Because things have gotten so bad, many young adults have gotten discouraged and given up. The
unemployment rate is 4.4 per cent for ages 25-34, but 8.2 per cent for workers 20-24. (Greenhouse,
2006b).
Yet things are actually worse than that. In the US , unemployment rates are artificially low.
If a person gets laid off and gets unemployment benefits -- which fewer and fewer workers even get
-- they get a check for six months. If they have not gotten a job by the end of six months -- and
it is taking longer and longer to get a job -- and they have given up searching for work, then not
only do they loose their unemployment benefits, but they are no longer counted as unemployed: one
doesn't even count in the statistics!
A report from April 2004 provides details. According to the then-head of the US Federal Reserve
System, Alan Greenspan, "the average duration of unemployment increased from twelve weeks in September
2000 to twenty weeks in March [2004]" (quoted in Shapiro, 2004: 4). In March 2004, 354,000 jobs workers
had exhausted their unemployment benefits, and were unable to get any additional federal unemployment
assistance: Shapiro (2004: 1) notes, "In no other month on record, with data available back to 1971,
have there been so many 'exhaustees'."
Additionally, although it's rarely reported, unemployment rates vary by racial grouping. No matter
what the unemployment rate is, it really only reflects the rate of whites who are unemployed because
about 78 per cent of the workforce is white. However, since 1954, the unemployment rate of African-Americans
has always been more than twice that of whites, and Latinos are about 1 1/2 times that of whites.
So, for example, if the overall rate is five percent, then it's at least ten per cent for African-Americans
and 7.5 per cent for Latinos.
However, most of the developments presented above -- other than the racial affects of unemployment
-- have been relatively recent. What about longer term? Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning Princeton
University economist who writes for The New York Times, pointed out these longer term affects:
non-supervisory workers make less in real wages today (2006) than they made in 1973! So, after inflation
is taken out, non-supervisory workers are making less today in real terms that their contemporaries
made 33 years ago (Krugman, 2006b). Figures provided by Stephen Franklin -- obtained from the US
Bureau of Statistics, and presented in 1982 dollars -- show that a production worker in January 1973
earned $9.08 an hour -- and $8.19 an hour in December 2005 (Franklin, 2006). Workers in 2005 also
had less long-term job security, fewer benefits, less stable pensions (when they have them), and
rising health care costs. [vii]
In short, the economic situation for "average Americans" is getting worse. A front-page story
in the Chicago Tribune tells about a worker who six years ago was making $29 an hour, working
at a nuclear power plant. He got laid off, and now makes $12.24 an hour, working on the bottom tier
of a two-tiered unionized factory owned by Caterpillar, the multinational earth moving equipment
producer, which is less than half of his old wages. The article pointed out, "Glued to a bare bones
budget, he saved for weeks to buy a five-pack of $7 T-shirts" ( Franklin , 2006).
As Foster and Magdoff point out:
Except for a small rise in the late 1990s, real wages have been sluggish for decades. The
typical (median-income) family has sought to compensate for this by increasing the number of jobs
and working hours per household. Nevertheless, the real (inflation-adjusted) income of the typical
household fell for five years in a row through 2004 (Foster and Magdoff, 2009: 28).
A report by Workers Independent News (WIN) stated that while a majority of metropolitan
areas have regained the 2.6 million jobs lost during the first two years of the Bush Administration,
"the new jobs on average pay $9,000 less than the jobs replaced," a 21 per cent decline from $43,629
to $34,378. However, WIN says that "99 out of the 361 metro areas will not recover jobs before 2007
and could be waiting until 2015 before they reach full recovery" (Russell, 2006).
At the same time, Americans are going deeper and deeper into debt. At the end of 2000, total US
household debt was $7.008 trillion, with home mortgage debt being $4.811 trillion and non-mortgage
debt $1.749 trillion; at the end of 2006, comparable numbers were a total of $12.817 trillion; $9.705
trillion (doubling since 2000); and $2.431 trillion (US Federal Reserve, 2007-rounding by author).
Foster and Magdoff (2009: 29) show that this debt is not only increasing, but based on figures from
the Federal Reserve, that debt as a percentage of disposable income has increased overall from 62%
in 1975 to 96.8% in 2000, and to 127.2% in 2005.
Three polls from mid-2006 found "deep pessimism among American workers, with most saying that
wages were not keeping pace with inflation, and that workers were worse off in many ways than a generation
ago" (Greenhouse, 2006a). And, one might notice, nothing has been said about increasing gas prices,
lower home values, etc. The economic situation for most working people is not looking pretty.
In fact, bankruptcy filings totaled 2.043 million in 2005, up 31.6 per cent from 2004 (Associated
Press, 2006), before gas prices went through the ceiling and housing prices began falling in mid-2006.
Yet in 1998, writers for the Chicago Tribune had written, " the number of personal bankruptcy
filings skyrocketed 19.5 per cent last year, to an all-time high of 1,335,053, compared with 1,117,470
in 1996" (Schmeltzer and Gruber, 1998).
And at the same time, there were 37 million Americans in poverty in 2005, one of out every eight.
Again, the rates vary by racial grouping: while 12.6 per cent of all Americans were in poverty, the
poverty rate for whites was 8.3 percent; for African Americans, 24.9 per cent were in poverty, as
were 21.8 per cent of all Latinos. (What is rarely acknowledged, however, is that 65 per cent of
all people in poverty in the US are white.) And 17.6 per cent of all children were in poverty (US
Census Bureau, 2005).
What about the "other half"? This time, Paul Krugman gives details from a report by two Northwestern
University professors, Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon, titled "Where Did the Productivity Growth
Go?" Krugman writes:
Between 1973 and 2001, the wage and salary income of Americans at the 90th percentile
of the income distribution rose only 34 percent, or about 1 per cent per year. But income at the
99th percentile rose 87 percent; income at the 99.9th percentile rose 181 percent; and income
at the 99.99th percentile rose 497 percent. No, that's not a misprint. Just to give you a sense
of who we're talking about: the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that this year, the 99th
percentile will correspond to an income of $402,306, and the 99.9th percentile to an income of
$1,672,726. The Center doesn't give a number for the 99.99th percentile, but it's probably well
over $6 million a year (Krugman, 2006a) .
But how can we understand what is going on? We need to put take a historical approach to understand
the significance of the changes reported above.
(2) A historical look at the US social order since World War II
When considering the US situation, it makes most sense to look at "recent" US developments, those
since World War II. Just after the War, in 1947, the US population was about six per cent of the
world's total. Nonetheless, this six per cent produced about 48 per cent of all goods and services
in the world! [viii] With Europe
and Japan devastated, the US was the only industrialized economy that had not been laid waste. Everybody
needed what the US produced -- and this country produced the goods, and sent them around the world.
At the same time, the US economy was not only the most productive, but the rise of the industrial
union movement in the 1930s and '40s -- the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) -- meant that
workers had some power to demand a share of the wealth produced. In 1946, just after the war, the
US had the largest strike wave in its history: 116,000,000 production days were lost in early 1946,
as industry-wide strikes in auto, steel, meat packing, and the electrical industry took place across
the United States and Canada , along with smaller strikes in individual firms. Not only that, but
there were general strikes that year in Oakland , California and Stamford , Connecticut . Workers
had been held back during the war, but they demonstrated their power immediately thereafter (Lipsitz,
1994; Murolo and Chitty, 2001). Industry knew that if it wanted the production it could sell, it
had to include unionized workers in on the deal.
It was this combination -- devastated economic markets around the world and great demand for goods
and services, the world's most developed industrial economy, and a militant union movement -- that
combined to create what is now known as the "great American middle class."
[ix]
To understand the economic impact of these factors, changes in income distribution in US society
must be examined. The best way to illuminate this is to assemble family data on income or wealth
[x] -- income data is more available,
so that will be used; arrange it from the smallest amount to the largest; and then to divide the
population into fifths, or quintiles. In other words, arrange every family's annual income from the
lowest to the highest, and divide the total number of family incomes into quintiles or by 20 percents
(i.e., fifths). Then compare changes in the top incomes for each quintile. By doing so, one can then
observe changes in income distribution over specified time periods.
The years between 1947 and 1973 are considered the "golden years" of the US society.
[xi] The values are presented
in 2005 dollars, so that means that inflation has been taken out: these are real dollar values,
and that means these are valid comparisons.
Figure 1: US family income, in US dollars, growth and istribution, by quintile, 1947-1973 compared
to 1973-2001, in 2005 dollars
Source: US Commerce Department, Bureau of the Census (hereafter, US Census Bureau) at
www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/f01ar.html
. All dollar values converted to 2005 dollars by US Census Bureau, removing inflation and comparing
real values. Differences and percentages calculated by author. Percentages shown in both rows labeled
"Difference" show the dollar difference as a percentage of the first year of the comparison.
Data for the first period, 1947-1973 -- the data above the grey line -- shows there was
considerable real economic growth for each quintile . Over the 26-year period, there was approximately
100 per cent real economic growth for the incomes at the top of each quintile, which meant incomes
doubled after inflation was removed; thus, there was significant economic growth in the society.
And importantly, this real economic growth was distributed fairly evenly . The data in
the fourth line (in parentheses) is the percentage relationship between the difference between 1947-1973
real income when compared to the 1947 real income, with 100 per cent representing a doubling of real
income: i.e., the difference for the bottom quintile between 1947 and 1973 was an increase
of $11,386, which is 97 per cent more than $11,758 that the top of the quintile had in 1947. As can
be seen, other quintiles also saw increases of roughly comparable amounts: in ascending order, 100
percent, 107 percent, 101 percent, and 91 percent. In other words, the rate of growth by quintile
was very similar across all five quintiles of the population.
When looking at the figures for 1973-2001, something vastly different can be observed. This is
the section below the grey line. What can be seen? First, economic growth has slowed considerably:
the highest rate of growth for any quintile was that of 58 per cent for those who topped the
fifth quintile, and this was far below the "lagger" of 91 per cent of the earlier period.
Second, of what growth there was, it was distributed extremely unequally . And the growth
rates for those in lower quintiles were generally lower than for those above them: for the bottom
quintile, their real income grew only 14 per cent over the 1973-2001 period; for the second quintile,
19 percent; for the third, 29 percent; for the fourth, 42 percent; and for the 80-95 percent, 58
percent: loosely speaking, the rich are getting richer, and the poor poorer.
Why the change? I think two things in particular. First, as industrialized countries recovered
from World War II, corporations based in these countries could again compete with those from the
US -- first in their own home countries, and then through importing into the US , and then ultimately
when they invested in the United States . Think of Toyota : they began importing into the US in the
early 1970s, and with their investments here in the early '80s and forward, they now are the largest
domestic US auto producer.
Second cause for the change has been the deterioration of the American labor movement: from 35.3
per cent of the non-agricultural workforce in unions in 1954, to only 12.0 per cent of all American
workers in unions in 2006 -- and only 7.4 per cent of all private industry workers are unionized,
which is less than in 1930!
This decline in unionization has a number of reasons. Part of this deterioration has been the
result of government policies -- everything from the crushing of the air traffic controllers when
they went on strike by the Reagan Administration in 1981, to reform of labor law, to reactionary
appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees administration of labor law. Certainly
a key government policy, signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, has been the North American
Free Trade Act or NAFTA. One analyst came straight to the point:
Since [NAFTA] was signed in 1993, the rise in the US trade deficit with Canada and Mexico
through 2002 has caused the displacement of production that supported 879,280 US jobs. Most of
these lost jobs were high-wage positions in manufacturing industries. The loss of these jobs is
just the most visible tip of NAFTA's impact on the US economy. In fact, NAFTA has also contributed
to rising income inequality, suppressed real wages for production workers, weakened workers' collective
bargaining powers and ability to organize unions, and reduced fringe benefits (Scott, 2003:
1).
These attacks by elected officials have been joined by the affects due to the restructuring of
the economy. There has been a shift from manufacturing to services. However, within manufacturing,
which has long been a union stronghold, there has been significant job loss: between July 2000 and
January 2004, the US lost three million manufacturing jobs, or 17.5 percent, and 5.2 million since
the historical peak in 1979, so that "Employment in manufacturing [in January 2004] was its lowest
since July 1950" (CBO, 2004). This is due to both outsourcing labor-intensive production overseas
and, more importantly, technological displacement as new technology has enabled greater production
at higher quality with fewer workers in capital-intensive production (see Fisher, 2004). Others have
blamed burgeoning trade deficits for the rise: " an increasing share of domestic demand for manufacturing
output is satisfied by foreign rather than domestic producers" (Bivens, 2005).
[xiii] Others have even attributed
it to changes in consumer preferences (Schweitzer and Zaman, 2006). Whatever the reason, of the 50
states, only five (Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming) did not see any job loss in manufacturing
between 1993-2003, yet 37 lost between 5.6 and 35.9 per cent of their manufacturing jobs during this
period (Public Policy Institute, 2004).
However, part of the credit for deterioration of the labor movement must be given to the labor
movement itself: the leadership has been simply unable to confront these changes and, at the same
time, they have consistently worked against any independent action by rank-and-file members.
[xiv]
However, it must be asked: are the changes in the economy presented herein merely statistical
manipulations, or is this indicating something real?
This point can be illustrated another way: by using CAGR, the Compound Annual Growth Rate. This
is a single number that is computed, based on compounded amounts, across a range of years, to come
up with an average number to represent the rate of increase or decrease each year across the entire
period. This looks pretty complex, but it is based on the same idea as compound interest used in
our savings accounts: you put in $10 today and (this is obviously not a real example) because you
get ten per cent interest, so you have $11 the next year. Well, the following year, interest is not
computed off the original $10, but is computed on the $11. So, by the third year, from your $10,
you now have $12.10. Etc. And this is what is meant by the Compound Annual Growth Rate: this is average
compound growth by year across a designated period.
Based on the numbers presented above in Figure 1, the author calculated the Compound Annual Growth
Rate by quintiles (Figure 2). The annual growth rate has been calculated for the first period, 1947-1973,
the years known as the "golden years" of US society. What has happened since then? Compare results
from the 1947-73 period to the annual growth rate across the second period, 1973-2001, again calculated
by the author.
Figure 2: Annual percentage of family income growth, by quintile, 1947-1973 compared to 1973-2001
What we can see here is that while everyone's income was growing at about the same rate in the
first period -- between 2.51 and 2.84 per cent annually -- by the second period, not only had growth
slowed down across the board, but it grew by very different rates: what we see here, again,
is that the rich are getting richer, and the poor poorer.
If these figures are correct, a change over time in the percentage of income received by each
quintile should be observable. Ideally, if the society were egalitarian, each 20 per cent of the
population would get 20 per cent of the income in any one year. In reality, it differs. To understand
Figure 3, below, one must not only look at the percentage of income held by a quintile across the
chart, comparing selected year by selected year, but one needs to look to see whether a quintile's
share of income is moving toward or away from the ideal 20 percent.
Figure 3: Percentage of family income distribution by quintile, 1947, 1973, 2001.
Population by quintiles
1947
1973
2001
Top fifth (lower limit of top 5percent, or 95th Percentile)-- $184,500
[xv]
Unfortunately, much of the data available publicly ended in 2001. However, in the summer of 2007,
after years of not releasing data any later than 2001, the Census Bureau released income data up
to 2005. It allows us to examine what has taken place regarding family income inequality during the
first four years of the Bush Administration.
Figure 4: US family income, in US dollars, growth and distribution, by quintile,
2001-2005, 2005 US dollars
Lowest 20%
Second 20%
Middle 20%
Fourth 20%
Lowest level of top 5%
2001
$26,467
$45,855
$68,925
$103,828
$180,973
2005
$25,616
$45,021
$68,304
$103,100
$184,500
Difference
(4 years)
-$851
(-3.2%)
-$834
(-1.8%)
-$621
(-.01%)
-$728
(-.007%)
$3,527
(1.94%)
Source: US Census Bureau at
www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/f01ar.html
. (Over time, the Census Bureau refigures these amounts, so they have subsequently converted
amounts to 2006 dollar values. These values are from their 2005 dollar values, and were calculated
by the Census Bureau.) Differences and percentages calculated by author.
Thus, what we've seen under the first four years of the Bush Administration is that for at most
Americans, their economic situation has worsened: not only has over all economic growth for any quintile
slowed to a minuscule 1.94 per cent at the most, but that the bottom 80 per cent actually lost income;
losing money (an absolute loss), rather than growing a little but falling further behind the top
quintile (a relative loss). Further, the decrease across the bottom four quintiles has been suffered
disproportionately by those in the lowest 40 per cent of the society.
This can perhaps be seen more clearly by examining CAGR rates by period.
We can now add the results of the 2001-2005 period share of income by quintile to our earlier
chart:
Figure 5: Percentage of income growth per year by percentile, 1947-2005
As can be seen, the percentage of family income at each of the four bottom quintiles is less in
2005 than in 1947; the only place there has been improvement over this 58-year period is at the 95th
percentile (and above).
Figure 6: Percentage of family income distribution by quintile, 1947, 1973, 2001, 2005.
Population by quintiles
1947
1973
2001
2005
Top fifth (lower limit of top 5percent, or 95th Percentile)-- $184,500
What has been presented so far, regarding changes in income distribution, has been at the group
level; in this case, quintile by quintile. It is time now to see how this has affected the society
overall.
Sociologists and economists use a number called the Gini index to measure inequality. Family income
data has been used so far, and we will continue using it. A Gini index is fairly simple to use. It
measures inequality in a society. A Gini index is generally reported in a range between 0.000 and
1.000, and is written in thousandths, just like a winning percentage mark: three digits after the
decimal. And the higher the Gini score, the greater the inequality.
Looking at the Gini index, we can see two periods since 1947, when the US Government began computing
the Gini index for the country. From 1947-1968, with yearly change greater or smaller, the trend
is downward, indicating reduced inequality: from .376 in 1947 to .378 in 1950, but then downward
to .348 in 1968. So, again, over the first period, the trend is downward.
What has happened since then? From the low point in 1968 of .348, the trend has been upward. In
1982, the Gini index hit .380, which was higher than any single year between 1947-1968, and the US
has never gone below .380 since then. By 1992, it hit .403, and we've never gone back below .400.
In 2001, the US hit .435. But the score for 2005 has only recently been published: .440 (source:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/f04.html
). So, the trend is getting worse, and with the policies established under George W. Bush, I
see them only continuing to increase in the forthcoming period. [And by the way, this increasing
trend has continued under both the Republicans and the Democrats, but since the Republicans have
controlled the presidency for 18 of the last 26 years (since 1981), they get most of the credit --
but let's not forget that the Democrats have controlled Congress across many of those years, so they,
too, have been an equal opportunity destroyer!]
However, one more question must be asked: how does this income inequality in the US, compare to
other countries around the world? Is the level of income inequality comparable to other "developed"
societies, or is it comparable to "developing" countries?
We must turn to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for our data. The CIA computes Gini scores
for family income on most of the countries around the world, and the last time checked in 2007 (August
1), they had data on 122 countries on their web page and these numbers had last been updated on July
19, 2007 (US Central Intelligence Agency, 2007). With each country listed, there is a Gini score
provided. Now, the CIA doesn't compute Gini scores yearly, but they give the last year it was computed,
so these are not exactly equivalent but they are suggestive enough to use. However, when they do
assemble these Gini scores in one place, they list them alphabetically, which is not of much comparative
use (US Central Intelligence Agency, 2007).
However, the World Bank categorizes countries, which means they can be compared within category
and across categories. The World Bank, which does not provide Gini scores, puts 208 countries into
one of four categories based on Gross National Income per capita -- that's total value of goods and
services sold in the market in a year, divided by population size. This is a useful statistic, because
it allows us to compare societies with economies of vastly different size: per capita income removes
the size differences between countries.
The World Bank locates each country into one of four categories: lower income, lower middle income,
upper middle income, and high income (World Bank, 2007a). Basically, those in the lower three categories
are "developing" or what we used to call "third world" countries, while the high income countries
are all of the so-called developed countries.
The countries listed by the CIA with their respective Gini scores were placed into the specific
World Bank categories in which the World Bank had previously located them (World Bank, 2007b). Once
grouped in their categories, median Gini scores were computed for each group. When trying to get
one number to represent a group of numbers, median is considered more accurate than an average, so
the median was used, which means half of the scores are higher, half are lower -- in other words,
the data is at the 50th percentile for each category.
The Gini score for countries, by Gross National Income per capita, categorized by the World Bank:
Figure 7: Median Gini Scores by World Bank income categories (countries selected by US Central
Intelligence Agency were placed in categories developed by the World Bank) and compared to 2004 US
Gini score as calculated by US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Income category
Median Gini score
Gini score, US (2004)
Low income countries (less than $875/person/year)
.406
.450
Lower-middle income countries (between $876-3,465/person/year)
.414
.450
Upper-middle income countries (between $3,466-10,725/person/year
.370
.450
Upper-income countries (over $10,726/person/year
.316
.450
As can be seen, with the (CIA-calculated) Gini score of .450, the US family income is more
unequal than the medians for each category, and is more unequal than some of the poorest countries
on earth, such as Bangladesh (.318 -- calculated in 2000), Cambodia (.400, 2004 est.), Laos (.370-1997),
Mozambique (.396, 1996-97), Uganda (.430-1999) and Vietnam (.361, 1998). This same finding also holds
true using the more conservative Census Bureau-calculated Gini score of .440.
Thus, the US has not only become more unequal over the 35 years, as has been demonstrated above,
but has attained a level of inequality that is much more comparable to those of developing countries
in general and, in fact, is more unequal today than some of the poorest countries on Earth. There
is nothing suggesting that this increasing inequality will lessen anytime soon. And since this increasing
income inequality has taken place under the leadership of both major political parties, there is
nothing on the horizon that suggests either will resolutely address this issue in the foreseeable
future regardless of campaign promises made.
However, to move beyond discussion of whether President Obama is likely to address these and related
issues, some consideration of governmental economic policies is required. Thus, he will be constrained
by decisions made by previous administrations, as well as by the ideological blinders worn by those
he has chosen to serve at the top levels of his administration.
3) Governmental economic policies
There are two key points that are especially important for our consideration: the US Budget and
the US National Debt. They are similar, but different -- and consideration of each of them enhances
understanding.
A) US budget. Every year, the US Government passes a budget, whereby governmental officials
estimate beforehand how much money needs to be taken in to cover all expenses. If the government
actually takes in more money than it spends, the budget is said to have a surplus; if it takes in
less than it spends, the budget is said to be in deficit.
Since 1970, when Richard Nixon was President, the US budget has been in deficit every year
except for the last four years under Clinton (1998-2001), where there was a surplus. But this
surplus began declining under Clinton -- it was $236.2 billion in 2000, and only $128.2 billion in
2001, Clinton 's last budget. Under Bush, the US has gone drastically into deficit: -$157.8 billion
in 2002; -$377.6 billion in 2003; -$412.7 billion in 2004; -$318.3 billion in 2005; and "only"-$248.2
billion in 2006 (Economic Report of the President, 2007: Table B-78).
Now, that is just yearly surpluses and deficits. They get combined with all the other surpluses
and deficits since the US became a country in 1789 to create to create a cumulative amount, what
is called the National Debt.
B) US national debt. Between 1789 and1980 -- from Presidents Washington through
Carter -- the accumulated US National Debt was $909 billion or, to put it another way, $.909 trillion.
During Ronald Reagan's presidency (1981-89), the National Debt tripled, from $.9 trillion to $2.868
trillion. It has continued to rise. As of the end of 2006, 17 years later and after a four-year period
of surpluses where the debt was somewhat reduced, National Debt (or Gross Federal Debt) was $8.451
trillion (Economic Report of the President, 2007: Table B-78).
To put it into context: the US economy, the most productive in the world, had a Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) of $13.061 trillion in 2006, but the National Debt was $8.451 trillion -- 64.7 per
cent of GDP -- and growing (Economic Report of the President, 2007: Table B-1).
In April 2006, one investor reported that "the US Treasury has a hair under $8.4 trillion in outstanding
debt. How much is that? He put it into this context: " if you deposited one million dollars into
a bank account every day, starting 2006 years ago, that you would not even have ONE trillion dollars
in that account" (Van Eeden, 2006).
Let's return to the budget deficit: like a family budget, when one spends more than one brings
in, they can do basically one of three things: (a) they can cut spending; (b) they can increase taxes
(or obviously a combination of the two); or (c) they can take what I call the "Wimpy" approach.
For those who might not know this, Wimpy was a cartoon character, a partner of "Popeye the Sailor,"
a Saturday morning cartoon that was played for over 30 years in the United States . Wimpy had a great
love for hamburgers. And his approach to life was summed up in his rap: "I'll gladly give you two
hamburgers on Tuesday, for a hamburger today."
What is argued is that the US Government has been taking what I call the Wimpy approach to its
budgetary problems: it does not reduce spending, it does not raise taxes to pay for the increased
expenditures -- in fact, President Bush has cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans
[xvi] -- but instead it sells
US Government securities, often known as Treasuries, to rich investors, private corporations or,
increasingly, to other countries to cover the budget deficit. In a set number of years, the US Government
agrees to pay off each bond -- and the difference between what the purchaser bought them for and
the increased amount the US Government pays to redeem them is the cost of financing the Treasuries,
a certain percentage of the total value. By buying US Treasuries, other countries have helped keep
US interest rates low, helping to keep the US economy in as good of shape as it has been (thus, keeping
the US market flourishing for them), while allowing the US Government not to have to confront its
annual deficits. At the end of 2006, the total value of outstanding Treasuries -- to all investors,
not just other countries -- was $8.507 trillion (Economic Report of the President, 2007: Table B-87).
It turns out that at in December 2004, foreigners owned approximately 61 per cent of all outstanding
US Treasuries. Of that, seven per cent was held by China ; these were valued at $223 billion (Gundzik,
2005).
The percentage of foreign and international investors' purchases of the total US public debt since
1996 has never been less than 17.7 percent, and it has reached a high of 25.08 per cent in September
2006. In September 2006, foreigners purchased $2.134 trillion of Treasuries; these were 25.08 per
cent of all purchases, and 52.4 per cent of all privately-owned purchases (Economic Report of the
President, 2007: Table B-89). [xvii]
Altogether, "the world now holds financial claims amounting to $3.5 trillion against the United
States , or 26 per cent of our GDP" (Humpage and Shenk, 2007: 4).
Since the US Government continues to run deficits, because the Bush Administration has refused
to address this problem, the United States has become dependent on other countries buying Treasuries.
Like a junky on heroin, the US must get other investors (increasingly countries) to finance
its budgetary deficits.
To keep the money flowing in, the US must keep interest rates high -- basically, interest rates
are the price that must be paid to borrow money. Over the past year or so, the Federal Reserve has
not raised interest rates, but prior to that, for 15 straight quarterly meetings, they did. And,
as known, the higher the interest rate, the mostly costly it is to borrow money domestically, which
means increasingly likelihood of recession -- if not worse. In other words, dependence on foreigners
to finance the substantial US budget deficits means that the US must be prepared to raise interests
rates which, at some point, will choke off domestic borrowing and consumption, throwing the US economy
into recession. [xviii]
Yet this threat is not just to the United States -- according to the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), it is a threat to the global economy. A story about a then-recently issued report by the IMF
begins, "With its rising budget deficit and ballooning trade imbalance, the United States is running
up a foreign debt of such record-breaking proportions that it threatens the financial stability of
the global economy ." The report suggested that net financial obligations of the US to the rest of
the world could equal 40 per cent of its total economy if nothing was done about it in a few years,
"an unprecedented level of external debt for a larger industrial country" according to the report.
What was perhaps even more shocking than what the report said was which institution said it: "The
IMF has often been accused of being an adjunct of the United States , its largest shareholder" (Becker
and Andrews, 2004).
Other analysts go further. After discussing the increasingly risky nature of global investing,
and noting that "The investor managers of private equity funds and major banks have displaced national
banks and international bodies such as the IMF," Gabriel Kolko (2007) quotes Stephen Roach, Morgan
Stanley's chief economist, on April 24, 2007: "a major financial crisis seemed imminent and that
the global institutions that could forestall it, including the IMF, the World Bank and other mechanisms
of the international financial architecture, were utterly inadequate." Kolko recognizes that things
may not collapse immediately, and that analysts could be wrong, but still concludes, "the transformation
of the global financial system will sooner or later lead to dire results" (Kolko, 2007: 5).
What might happen if investors decided to take their money out of US Treasuries and, say, invest
in Euro-based bonds? The US would be in big trouble, would be forced to raise its interest
rates even higher than it wants -- leading to possibly a severe recession -- and if investors really
shifted their money, the US could be observably bankrupt; the curtain hiding the "little man" would
be opened, and he would be observable to all.
Why would investors rather shift their investment money into Euro-bonds instead of US Treasuries?
Well, obviously, one measure is the perceived strength of the US economy. To get a good idea of how
solid a country's economy is, one looks at things such as budget deficits, but perhaps even more
importantly balance of trade: how well is this economy doing in comparison with other countries?
The US international balance of trade is in the red and is worsening: -$717 billion in
2005. In 1991, it was -$31 billion. Since 1998, the US trade balance has set a new record for being
in the hole every year, except during 2001, and then breaking the all time high the very next
year! -$165 B in 1998; -$263 B in 1999; -$378 B in 2000; only -$362 B in 2001; -$421 B in 2002;
-$494 B in 2003; -$617 B in 2004; and - $717 B in 2005 (Economic Report of the President, 2007: Table
B-103). According to the Census Department, the balance of trade in 2006 was -$759 billion (US Census
Bureau, 2007).
And the US current account balance, the broadest measure of a country's international financial
situation -- which includes investment inside and outside the US in addition to balance of trade
-- is even worse: it was -$805 B in 2005, or 6.4 per cent of national income. "The bottom line is
that a current account deficit of this unparalleled magnitude is unsustainable and there is no hope
of it being painlessly resolved through higher exports alone," according to one analyst (quoted in
Swann, 2006). Scott notes that the current account deficit in 2006 was -$857 billion (Scott, 2007a:
8, fn. 1). "In effect, the United States is living beyond its means and selling off national assets
to pay its bills" (Scott, 2007b: 1).
[xix]
In addition, during mid-2007, there was a bursting of a domestic "housing bubble," which has threatened
domestic economic well-being but that ultimately threatens the well-being of global financial markets.
There had been a tremendous run-up in US housing values since 1995 -- with an increase of more than
70 per cent after adjusting for the rate of inflation -- and this had created "more than $8 trillion
in housing wealth compared with a scenario in which house prices had continued to rise at the same
rate of inflation," which they had done for over 100 years, between 1890 and 1995 (Baker, 2007: 8).
This led to a massive oversupply of housing, accompanied with falling house prices: according
to Dean Baker, "the peak inventory of unsold new homes of 573,000 in July 2006 was more than 50 per
cent higher than the previous peak of 377,000 in May of 1989" (Baker, 2007: 12-13). This caused massive
problems in the sub-prime housing market -- estimates are that almost $2 trillion in sub-prime loans
were made during 2005-06, and that about $325 billion of these loans will default, with more than
1 million people losing their homes (Liedtke, 2007) -- but these problems are not confined to the
sub-prime loan category: because sub-prime and "Alt-A" mortgages (the category immediately above
sub-prime) financed 40 per cent of the housing market in 2006, "it is almost inevitable that the
problems will spill over into the rest of the market" (Baker, 2007: 15). And Business Week
agrees: "Subprime woes have moved far beyond the mortgage industry." It notes that at least five
hedge funds have gone out of business, corporate loans and junk bonds have been hurt, and the leveraged
buyout market has been hurt (Goldstein and Henry, 2007).
David Leonhardt (2007) agrees with the continuing threat to the financial industry. Discussing
"adjustable rate mortgages" -- where interest rates start out low, but reset to higher rates, resulting
in higher mortgage payments to the borrower -- he points out that about $50 billion of mortgages
will reset during October 2007, and that this amount of resetting will remain over $30 billion monthly
through September 2008. "In all," he writes," the interest rates on about $1 trillion worth of mortgages
or 12 per cent of the nation's total, will reset for the first time this year or next."
Why all of this is so important is because bankers have gotten incredibly "creative" in creating
new mortgages, which they sell to home buyers. Then they bundle these obligations and sell to other
financial institutions and which, in turn, create new securities (called derivatives) based on these
questionable new mortgages. Yes, it is basically a legal ponzi scheme, but it requires the continuous
selling and buying of these derivatives to keep working: in early August 2007, however, liquidity
-- especially "financial instruments backed by home mortgages" -- dried up, as no one wanted to buy
these instruments (Krugman, 2007). The US Federal Research and the European Central Bank felt it
necessary to pump over $100 billion into the financial markets in mid-August 2007 to keep the international
economy solvent (Norris, 2007).
So, economically, this country is in terrible shape -- with no solution in sight.
On top of this -- as if all of this is not bad enough -- the Bush Administration is asking for
another $481.4 billion for the Pentagon's base budget, which it notes is "a 62 per cent increase
over 2001." Further, the Administration seeks an additional $93.4 billion in supplemental funds for
2007 and another $141.7 billion for 2008 to help fund the "Global War on Terror" and US operations
in Iraq and Afghanistan (US Government, 2007). According to Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute (SIPRI), in 2006, the US "defense" spending was equivalent to 46 per cent of all military
spending in the world, meaning that almost more money is provided for the US military in one year
than is spent by the militaries of all the other countries in the world combined (SIPRI, 2007).
And SIPRI's accounting doesn't include the $500 billion spent so far, approximately, on wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq .
In short, not only have things gotten worse for American working people since 1973 -- and especially
after 1982, with the imposition of neoliberal economic policies by institutions of the US Government
-- but on-going Federal budget deficits, the escalating National Debt, the need to attract foreign
money into US Treasuries, the financial market "meltdown" as well as the massive amounts of money
being channeled to continue the Empire, all suggest that not only will intensifying social problems
not be addressed, but will get worse for the foreseeable future.
4) Synopsis
This analysis provides an extensive look at the impact of neoliberal economic policies enacted
in the United States on American working people. These neoliberal economic policies have been enacted
as a conscious strategy by US corporate leaders and their governmental allies in both major political
parties as a way to address intensifying globalization while seeking to maintain US dominance over
the global political economy.
While it will be a while before anyone can determine success or failure overall of this elite
strategy but, because of is global-historical perspective, sufficient evidence is already available
to evaluate the affects of these policies on American working people. For the non-elites of this
country, these policies have had a deleterious impact and they are getting worse. Employment data
in manufacturing, worsening since 1979 but especially since 2000 (see Aronowitz, 2005), has been
horrific -- and since this has been the traditional path for non-college educated workers to be able
to support themselves and their families, and provide for their children, this data suggests social
catastrophe for many -- see Rubin (1995), Barnes (2005), and Bageant (2007), and accounts in Finnegan
(1998) and Lipper (2004) that support this -- because comparable jobs available to these workers
are not being created. Thus, the problem is not just that people are losing previously stable, good-paying
jobs -- as bad as that is -- but that there is nothing being created to replace these lost jobs,
and there is not even a social safety net in many cases that can generally cushion the blow (see
Wilson, 1996; Appelbaum, Bernhardt, and Murnane, eds., 2003).
Yet the impact of these social changes has not been limited to only blue-collar workers, although
the impact has been arguably greatest upon them. The overall economic growth of the society has been
so limited since 1973, and the results increasingly being unequally distributed since then, that
the entire society is becoming more and more unequal: each of the four bottom quintiles -- the bottom
80 per cent of families -- has seen a decrease in the amount of family income available to each quintile
between 2001-05. This not only increases inequality and resulting resentments -- including criminal
behaviors -- but it also produces deleterious affects on individual and social health (Kawachi, Kennedy
and Wilkinson, eds., 1999; Eitzen and Eitzen Smith, 2003). And, as shown above, this level of inequality
is much more comparable internationally to "developing" countries rather than "developed" ones.
When this material is joined with material on the US budget, and especially the US National Debt,
it is clear that these "problems" are not the product of individual failure, but of a social order
that is increasingly unsustainable. While we have no idea of what it will take before the US economy
will implode, all indications are that US elites are speeding up a run-away train of debt combined
with job-destroying technology and off-shoring production, creating a worsening balance of trade
with the rest of the world and a worsening current account, with an unstable housing market and intensifying
militarism and an increasingly antagonistic foreign policy: it is like they are building a bridge
over an abyss, with a train increasingly speeding up as it travels toward the bridge, and crucial
indicators suggest that the bridge cannot be completed in time.
Whether the American public will notice and demand a radical change in time is not certain --
it will not be enough to simply slow the train down, but it must turn down an alternative track (see
Albert, 2003; Woodin and Lucas, 2004; Starr, 2005) -- but it is almost certain that foreign investors
will. Should they not be able to get the interest rates here available elsewhere in the "developed"
parts of the world, investors will shift their investments, causing more damage to working people
in the United States .
And when this economic-focused analysis is joined with an environmental one -- George Monbiot
(2007) reports that the best science available argues that industrialized countries have to reduce
their carbon dioxide emissions by 90 per cent by the year 2030 if we are to have a chance to stop
global warming -- then it is clear that US society is facing a period of serious social instability.
5) Conclusion
This article has argued that the situation for working people in the United States, propelled
by the general governmental adoption of neoliberal economic policies, is getting worse -- and there
is no end in sight. The current situation and historical change have been presented and discussed.
Further, an examination and analysis of directly relevant US economic policies have been presented,
and there has been nothing in this analysis that suggests a radical, but necessary, change by US
elected officials is in sight. In other words, working people in this country are in bad shape generally
-- and it is worse for workers of color than for white workers -- and there is nothing within the
established social order that suggests needed changes will be effected.
The neoliberal economic policies enacted by US corporate and government leaders has been a social
disaster for increasing numbers of families in the United States .
Globalization for profit -- or what could be better claimed to be "globalization from above" --
and its resulting neoliberal economic policies have long-been recognized as being a disaster for
most countries in the Global South. This study argues that this top-down globalization and the accompanying
neoliberal economic policies has been a disaster for working people in northern countries as well,
and most particularly in the United States .
The political implications from these findings remains to be seen. Surely, one argument is not
only that another world is possible, but that it is essential.
[Kim Scipes is assistant professor of sociology , Purdue University, North Central, Westville
, IN 46391. The author's web site is at
http://faculty.pnc.edu/kscipes .This paper was given at the 2009 Annual Conference of the United
Association for Labor Education at the National Labor College in Silver Spring , MD. It has been
posted at Links International Journal of Socialist
Renewal with Kim Scipes' permission.]
* * *
Note to labor educators: This is a very different approach than you usually take. While
presenting a "big picture," this does not suggest what you are doing is "wrong" or "bad." What it
suggests, however, is that the traditional labor education approach is too limited: this suggests
that your work is valuable but that you need to put it into a much larger context than is generally
done, and that it is in the interaction between your work and this that we each can think out the
ways to go forward. This is presented in the spirit of respect for the important work that each of
you do on a daily basis.
"... Until elites stand down and stop the brutal squeeze , expect more after painful more of this. It's what happens when societies come apart. Unless elites (of both parties) stop the push for "profit before people," policies that dominate the whole of the Neoliberal Era , there are only two outcomes for a nation on this track, each worse than the other. There are only two directions for an increasingly chaotic state to go, chaotic collapse or sufficiently militarized "order" to entirely suppress it. ..."
"... Mes petits sous, mon petit cri de coeur. ..."
"... But the elite aren't going to stand down, whatever that might mean. The elite aren't really the "elite", they are owners and controllers of certain flows of economic activity. We need to call it what it is and actively organize against it. Publius's essay seems too passive at points, too passive voice. (Yes, it's a cry from the heart in a prophetic mode, and on that level, I'm with it.) ..."
"... American Psycho ..."
"... The college students I deal with have internalized a lot of this. In their minds, TINA is reality. Everything balances for the individual on a razor's edge of failure of will or knowledge or hacktivity. It's all personal, almost never collective - it's a failure toward parents or peers or, even more grandly, what success means in America. ..."
"... unions don't matter in our TINA. Corporations do. ..."
"... our system promotes specialists and disregards generalists this leads to a population of individualists who can't see the big picture. ..."
"... That social contract is hard to pin down and define – probably has different meanings to all of us, but you are right, it is breaking down. We no longer feel that our governments are working for us. ..."
"... Increasing population, decreasing resources, increasingly expensive remaining resources on a per unit basis, unresolved trashing of the environment and an political economy that forces people to do more with less all the time (productivity improvement is mandatory, not optional, to handle the exponential function) much pain will happen even if everyone is equal. ..."
"... "Social contract:" nice Enlightment construct, out of University by City. Not a real thing, just a very incomplete shorthand to attempt to fiddle the masses and give a name to meta-livability. ..."
"... Always with the "contract" meme, as if there are no more durable and substantive notions of how humans in small and large groups might organize and interact Or maybe the notion is the best that can be achieved? ..."
"... JTMcFee, you have provided the most important aspect to this mirage of 'social contract'. The "remedies" clearly available to lawless legislation rest outside the realm of a contract which has never existed. ..."
"... Unconscionable clauses are now separately initialed in an "I dare you to sue me" shaming gambit. Meanwhile the mythical Social Contract has been atomized into 7 1/2 billion personal contracts with unstated, shifting remedies wholly tied to the depths of pockets. ..."
"... Here in oh-so-individualistic Chicago, I have been noting the fraying for some time: It isn't just the massacres in the highly segregated black neighborhoods, some of which are now in terminal decline as the inhabitants, justifiably, flee. The typical Chicagoan wanders the streets connected to a phone, so as to avoid eye contact, all the while dressed in what look like castoffs. Meanwhile, Midwesterners, who tend to be heavy, are advertisements for the obesity epidemic: Yet obesity has a metaphorical meaning as the coat of lipids that a person wears to keep the world away. ..."
"... My middle / upper-middle neighborhood is covered with a layer of upper-middle trash: Think Starbucks cups and artisanal beer bottles. ..."
"... The class war continues, and the upper class has won. As commenter relstprof notes, any kind of concerted action is now nearly impossible. Instead of the term "social contract," I might substitute "solidarity." Is there solidarity? No, solidarity was destroyed as a policy of the Reagan administration, as well as by fantasies that Americans are individualistic, and here we are, 40 years later, dealing with the rubble of the Obama administration and the Trump administration. ..."
"... The trash bit has been linked in other countries to how much the general population views the public space/environment as a shared, common good. Thus, streets, parks and public space might be soiled by litter that nobody cares to put away in trash bins properly, while simultaneously the interior of houses/apartments, and attached gardens if any, are kept meticulously clean. ..."
"... The trash bit has been linked in other countries to how much the general population views the public space/environment as a shared, common good. ..."
"... There *is* no public space anymore. Every public good, every public space is now fair game for commercial exploitation. ..."
"... The importance of the end of solidarity – that is, of the almost-murderous impulses by the upper classes to destroy any kind of solidarity. ..."
"... "Conditions will only deteriorate for anyone not in the "1%", with no sight of improvement or relief." ..."
"... "Four Futures" ..."
"... Reminds me of that one quip I saw from a guy who, why he always had to have two pigs to eat up his garbage, said that if he had only one pig, it will eat only when it wants to, but if there were two pigs, each one would eat so the other pig won't get to it first. Our current economic system in a nutshell – pigs eating crap so deny it to others first. "Greed is good". ..."
"... Don't know that the two avenues Gaius mentioned are the only two roads our society can travel. In support of this view, I recall a visit to a secondary city in Russia for a few weeks in the early 1990s after the collapse of the USSR. Those were difficult times economically and psychologically for ordinary citizens of that country. Alcoholism was rampant, emotional illness and suicide rates among men of working age were high, mortality rates generally were rising sharply, and birth rates were falling. Yet the glue of common culture, sovereign currency, language, community, and thoughtful and educated citizens held despite corrupt political leadership, the rise of an oligarchic class, and the related emergence of organized criminal networks. There was also adequate food, and critical public infrastructure was maintained, keeping in mind this was shortly after the Chernobyl disaster. ..."
Yves here. I have been saying for some years that I did not think we would see a revolution, but
more and more individuals acting out violently. That's partly the result of how community and social
bonds have weakened as a result of neoliberalism but also because the officialdom has effective ways
of blocking protests. With the overwhelming majority of people using smartphones, they are constantly
surveilled. And the coordinated 17-city paramilitary crackdown on Occupy Wall Street shows how the
officialdom moved against non-violent protests. Police have gotten only more military surplus toys
since then, and crowd-dispersion technology like sound cannons only continues to advance. The only
way a rebellion could succeed would be for it to be truly mass scale (as in over a million people
in a single city) or by targeting crucial infrastructure.
By Gaius Publius
, a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent contributor to
DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter
@Gaius_Publius ,
Tumblr and
Facebook . GP article archive
here . Originally published at
DownWithTyranny
"[T]he super-rich are absconding with our wealth, and the plague of inequality continues
to grow. An
analysis of
2016 data found that the poorest five deciles of the world population own about $410 billion
in total wealth. As of
June 8,
2017 , the world's richest five men owned over $400 billion in wealth. Thus, on average,
each man owns nearly as much as 750 million people."
-Paul Buchheit,
Alternet
"Congressman Steve Scalise, Three Others Shot at Alexandria, Virginia, Baseball Field"
-NBC News,
June 14, 2017
"4 killed, including gunman, in shooting at UPS facility in San Francisco"
-ABC7News,
June 14, 2017
"Seriously? Another multiple shooting? So many guns. So many nut-bars. So many angry
nut-bars with guns."
-MarianneW via
Twitter
"We live in a world where "multiple dead" in San Francisco shooting can't cut through
the news of another shooting in the same day."
-SamT via
Twitter
"If the rich are determined to extract the last drop of blood, expect the victims to
put up a fuss. And don't expect that fuss to be pretty. I'm not arguing for social war; I'm
arguing for justice and peace."
-
Yours truly
When the social contract breaks from above, it breaks from below as well.
Until elites stand down and stop the
brutal squeeze , expect more after painful more of this. It's what happens when societies come
apart. Unless elites (of both parties) stop the push for "profit before people," policies that dominate
the whole of the
Neoliberal
Era , there are only two outcomes for a nation on this track, each worse than the other. There
are only two directions for an increasingly chaotic state to go, chaotic collapse or sufficiently
militarized "order" to entirely suppress it.
As with the climate, I'm concerned about the short term for sure - the storm that kills this year,
the hurricane that kills the next - but I'm also concerned about the longer term as well. If the
beatings
from "our betters" won't stop until our acceptance of their "serve the rich" policies improves,
the beatings will never stop, and both sides will take up the cudgel.
Then where will we be?
America's Most Abundant Manufactured Product May Be Pain
I look out the window and see more and more homeless people, noticeably more than last year and
the year before. And they're noticeably scruffier, less "kemp," if that makes sense to you (it does
if you live, as I do, in a community that includes a number of them as neighbors).
The squeeze hasn't let up, and those getting squeezed out of society have nowhere to drain to
but down - physically, economically, emotionally. The
Case-Deaton study speaks volumes to this point. The less fortunate economically are already dying
of drugs and despair. If people are killing themselves in increasing numbers, isn't it just
remotely maybe possible they'll also aim their anger out as well?
The pot isn't boiling yet - these shootings are random, individualized - but they seem to be piling
on top of each other. A hard-boiling, over-flowing pot may not be far behind. That's concerning as
well, much moreso than even the random horrid events we recoil at today.
Many More Ways Than One to Be a Denier
My comparison above to the climate problem was deliberate. It's not just the occasional storms
we see that matter. It's also that, seen over time, those storms are increasing, marking a trend
that matters even more. As with climate, the whole can indeed be greater than its parts. There's
more than one way in which to be a denier of change.
These are not just metaphors. The country is already in a
pre-revolutionary state ; that's one huge reason people chose Trump over Clinton, and would have
chosen Sanders over Trump. The Big Squeeze has to stop, or this will be just the beginning of a long
and painful path. We're on a track that nations we have watched - tightly "ordered" states, highly
chaotic ones - have trod already. While we look at them in pity, their example stares back at us.
But the elite aren't going to stand down, whatever that might mean. The elite aren't really
the "elite", they are owners and controllers of certain flows of economic activity. We need to
call it what it is and actively organize against it. Publius's essay seems too passive at points,
too passive voice. (Yes, it's a cry from the heart in a prophetic mode, and on that level, I'm
with it.)
"If people are killing themselves in increasing numbers, isn't it just remotely maybe possible
they'll also aim their anger out as well?"
Not necessarily. What Lacan called the "Big Other" is quite powerful. We internalize a lot
of socio-economic junk from our cultural inheritance, especially as it's been configured over
the last 40 years - our values, our body images, our criteria for judgment, our sense of what
material well-being consists, etc. Ellis's American Psycho is the great satire of our
time, and this time is not quite over yet. Dismemberment reigns.
The college students I deal with have internalized a lot of this. In their minds, TINA
is reality. Everything balances for the individual on a razor's edge of failure of will or knowledge
or hacktivity. It's all personal, almost never collective - it's a failure toward parents or peers
or, even more grandly, what success means in America.
The idea that agency could be a collective action of a union for a strike isn't even on the
horizon. And at the same time, these same students don't bat an eye at socialism. They're willing
to listen.
But unions don't matter in our TINA. Corporations do.
Most of the elite do not understand the money system. They do not understand how different
sectors have benefitted from policies and/or subsidies that increased the money flows into these.
So they think they deserve their money more than those who toiled in sectors with less support.
Furthermore, our system promotes specialists and disregards generalists this leads to a population
of individualists who can't see the big picture.
Thank you Gaius, a thoughtful post. That social contract is hard to pin down and define – probably
has different meanings to all of us, but you are right, it is breaking down. We no longer feel
that our governments are working for us.
Of tangential interest, Turnbull has just announced another gun amnesty targeting guns that
people no longer need and a tightening of some of the ownership laws.
One problem is the use of the term "social contract", implying that there is some kind of agreement
( = consensus) on what that is. I don't remember signing any "contract".
I fear for my friends, I fear for my family.
They do not know how ravenous the hounds behind nor ahead are. For myself? I imagine myself the same in a Mad Max world. It will be more clear, and perception shattering, to most whose lives allow the ignoring of
gradual chokeholds, be them political or economic, but those of us who struggle daily, yearly,
decadely with both, will only say Welcome to the party, pals.
Increasing population, decreasing resources, increasingly expensive remaining resources on
a per unit basis, unresolved trashing of the environment and an political economy that forces
people to do more with less all the time (productivity improvement is mandatory, not optional,
to handle the exponential function) much pain will happen even if everyone is equal.
Each person
does what is right in their own eyes, but the net effect is impoverishment and destruction. Life
is unfair, indeed. A social contract is a mutual suicide pact, whether you renegotiate it or not.
This is Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club, is we don't speak of Fight Club. Go to the gym,
toughen up, while you still can.
"Social contract:" nice Enlightment construct, out of University by City. Not a real thing,
just a very incomplete shorthand to attempt to fiddle the masses and give a name to meta-livability.
Always with the "contract" meme, as if there are no more durable and substantive notions of
how humans in small and large groups might organize and interact Or maybe the notion is the best
that can be achieved? Recalling that as my Contracts professor in law school emphasized over and
over, in "contracts" there are no rights in the absence of effective remedies. It being a Boston
law school, the notion was echoed in Torts, and in Commercial Paper and Sales and, tellingly,
in Constitutional Law and Federal Jurisdiction, and even in Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure.
No remedy, no right. What remedies are there in "the system," for the "other halves" of the "social
contract," the "have-naught" halves?
When honest "remedies under law" become nugatory, there's always the recourse to direct action
of course with zero guarantee of redress
"What remedies are there in "the system," for the "other halves" of the "social contract,"
the "have-naught" halves?"
Ah yes the ultimate remedy is outright rebellion against the highest authorities .with as you
say, " zero guarantee of redress."
But, history teaches us that that path will be taken ..the streets. It doesn't (didn't) take a
genius to see what was coming back in the late 1960's on .regarding the beginnings of the revolt(s)
by big money against organized labor. Having been very involved in observing, studying and actually
active in certain groups back then, the US was acting out in other countries particularly in the
Southern Hemisphere, against any social progression, repressing, arresting (thru its surrogates)
torturing, killing any individuals or groups that opposed that infamous theory of "free market
capitalism". It had a very definite "creep" effect, northwards to the mainstream US because so
many of our major corporations were deeply involved with our covert intelligence operatives and
objectives (along with USAID and NED). I used to tell my friends about what was happening and
they would look at me as if I was a lunatic. The agency for change would be "organized labor",
but now, today that agency has been trashed enough where so many of the young have no clue as
to what it all means. The ultimate agenda along with "globalization" is the complete repression
of any opposition to the " spread of money markets" around the world". The US intends to lead;
whether the US citizenry does is another matter. Hence the streets.
JTMcFee, you have provided the most important aspect to this mirage of 'social contract'. The
"remedies" clearly available to lawless legislation rest outside the realm of a contract which
has never existed.
The Social Contract, ephemeral, reflects perfectly what contracts have become. Older rulings
frequently labeled clauses unconscionable - a tacit recognition that so few of the darn things
are actually agreed upon. Rather, a party with resources, options and security imposes the agreement
on a party in some form of crisis (nowadays the ever present crisis of paycheck to paycheck living
– or worse). Never mind informational asymmetries, necessity drives us into crappy rental agreements
and debt promises with eyes wide open. And suddenly we're all agents of the state.
Unconscionable clauses are now separately initialed in an "I dare you to sue me" shaming gambit.
Meanwhile the mythical Social Contract has been atomized into 7 1/2 billion personal contracts
with unstated, shifting remedies wholly tied to the depths of pockets.
Solidarity, of course. Hard when Identity politics lubricate a labor market that insists on
specialization, and talented children of privilege somehow manage to navigate the new entrepreneurism
while talented others look on in frustration. The resistance insists on being leaderless (fueled
in part IMHO by the uncomfortable fact that effective leaders are regularly killed or co-opted).
And the overriding message of resistance is negative: "Stop it!"
But that's where we are. Again, just my opinion: but the pivotal step away from the jackpot
is to convince or coerce our wealthiest not to cash in. Stop making and saving so much stinking
money, y'all.
and there's the Karma bec. even now we see a private banking system synthesizing an economy
to maintain asset values and profits and they have the nerve to blame it on social spending.
I think Giaus's term 'Denier' is perfect for all those vested practitioners of profit-capitalism
at any cost. They've already failed miserably. For the most part they're just too proud to admit
it and, naturally, they wanna hang on to "their" money. I don't think it will take a revolution
– in fact it would be better if no chaos ensued – just let these arrogant goofballs stew in their
own juice a while longer. They are killing themselves.
When I hear so much impatient and irritable complaint, so much readiness to replace what we
have by guardians for us all, those supermen, evoked somewhere from the clouds, whom none have
seen and none are ready to name, I lapse into a dream, as it were. I see children playing on the
grass; their voices are shrill and discordant as children's are; they are restive and quarrelsome;
they cannot agree to any common plan; their play annoys them; it goes poorly. And one says, let
us make Jack the master; Jack knows all about it; Jack will tell us what each is to do and we
shall all agree. But Jack is like all the rest; Helen is discontented with her part and Henry
with his, and soon they fall again into their old state. No, the children must learn to play by
themselves; there is no Jack the master. And in the end slowly and with infinite disappointment
they do learn a little; they learn to forbear, to reckon with another, accept a little where they
wanted much, to live and let live, to yield when they must yield; perhaps, we may hope, not to
take all they can. But the condition is that they shall be willing at least to listen to one another,
to get the habit of pooling their wishes. Somehow or other they must do this, if the play is to
go on; maybe it will not, but there is no Jack, in or out of the box, who can come to straighten
the game. -Learned Hand
Here in oh-so-individualistic Chicago, I have been noting the fraying for some time: It isn't
just the massacres in the highly segregated black neighborhoods, some of which are now in terminal
decline as the inhabitants, justifiably, flee. The typical Chicagoan wanders the streets connected
to a phone, so as to avoid eye contact, all the while dressed in what look like castoffs. Meanwhile,
Midwesterners, who tend to be heavy, are advertisements for the obesity epidemic: Yet obesity
has a metaphorical meaning as the coat of lipids that a person wears to keep the world away.
My middle / upper-middle neighborhood is covered with a layer of upper-middle trash: Think
Starbucks cups and artisanal beer bottles. Some trash is carefully posed: Cups with straws on windsills, awaiting the Paris Agreement Pixie, who will clean up after these oh-so-earnest environmentalists.
Meanwhile, I just got a message from my car-share service: They are cutting back on the number
of cars on offer. Too much vandalism.
Are these things caused by pressure from above? Yes, in part: The class war continues, and
the upper class has won. As commenter relstprof notes, any kind of concerted action is now nearly
impossible. Instead of the term "social contract," I might substitute "solidarity." Is there solidarity?
No, solidarity was destroyed as a policy of the Reagan administration, as well as by fantasies
that Americans are individualistic, and here we are, 40 years later, dealing with the rubble of
the Obama administration and the Trump administration.
DJG: My middle / upper-middle neighborhood is covered with a layer of upper-middle trash:
Think Starbucks cups and artisanal beer bottles. Some trash is carefully posed: Cups with straws
on windsills, awaiting the Paris Agreement Pixie, who will clean up after these oh-so-earnest
environmentalists.
Yes, the trash bit is hard to understand. What does it stand for? Does it mean, We can infinitely
disregard our surroundings by throwing away plastic, cardboard, metal and paper and nothing will
happen? Does it mean, There is more where that came from! Does it mean, I don't care a fig for
the earth? Does it mean, Human beings are stupid and, unlike pigs, mess up their immediate environment
and move on? Does it mean, Nothing–that we are just nihilists waiting to die? I am so fed up with
the garbage strewn on the roads and in the woods where I live; I used to pick it up and could
collect as much as 9 garbage bags of junk in 9 days during a 4 kilometer walk. I don't pick up
any more because I am 77 and cannot keep doing it.
However, I am certain that strewn garbage will surely be the last national flag waving in the
breeze as the anthem plays junk music and we all succumb to our terrible future.
Related to this, I thought one day of who probably NEVER gets any appreciation but strives
to make things nicer, anyone planning or planting the highway strips (government workers maybe
although it could be convicts also unfortunately, I'm not sure). Yes highways are ugly, yes they
will destroy the world, but some of the planting strips are sometimes genuinely nice. So they
add some niceness to the ugly and people still litter of course.
The trash bit has been linked in other countries to how much the general population views the
public space/environment as a shared, common good. Thus, streets, parks and public space might be soiled by litter that nobody cares to put away
in trash bins properly, while simultaneously the interior of houses/apartments, and attached gardens
if any, are kept meticulously clean.
Basically, the world people care about stops outside their dwellings, because they do not feel
it is "theirs" or that they participate in its possession in a genuine way. It belongs to the
"town administration", or to a "private corporation", or to the "government" - and if they feel
they have no say in the ownership, management, regulation and benefits thereof, why should they
care? Let the town administration/government/corporation do the clean-up - we already pay enough
taxes/fees/tolls, and "they" are always putting up more restrictions on how to use everything,
so
In conclusion: the phenomenon of litter/trash is another manifestation of a fraying social
contract.
The trash bit has been linked in other countries to how much the general population
views the public space/environment as a shared, common good.
There *is* no public space anymore. Every public good, every public space is now fair game
for commercial exploitation.
I live in NYC, and just yesterday as I attempted to refill my MetroCard, the machine told me
it was expired and I had to replace it. The replacement card doesn't look at all like a MetroCard
with the familiar yellow and black graphic saying "MetroCard". Instead? It's an ad. For a fucking
insurance company. And so now, every single time that I go somewhere on the subway, I have to
see an ad from Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
The importance of the end of solidarity – that is, of the almost-murderous impulses by the upper
classes to destroy any kind of solidarity. From Yves's posting of Yanis Varoufakis's analysis
of the newest terms of the continuing destruction of Greece:
With regard to labour market reforms, the Eurogroup welcomes the adopted legislation safeguarding
previous reforms on collective bargaining and bringing collective dismissals in line with best
EU practices.
I see! "Safeguarding previous reforms on collective bargaining" refers, of course, to the 2012
removal of the right to collective bargaining and the end to trades union representation for each
and every Greek worker. Our government was elected in January 2015 with an express mandate to
restore these workers' and trades unions' rights. Prime Minister Tsipras has repeatedly pledged
to do so, even after our falling out and my resignation in July 2015. Now, yesterday, his government
consented to this piece of Eurogroup triumphalism that celebrates the 'safeguarding' of the 2012
'reforms'. In short, the SYRIZA government has capitulated on this issue too: Workers' and trades'
unions' rights will not be restored. And, as if that were not bad enough, "collective dismissals"
will be brought "in line with best EU practices". What this means is that the last remaining constraints
on corporations, i.e. a restriction on what percentage of workers can be fired each month, is
relaxed. Make no mistake: The Eurogroup is telling us that, now that employers are guaranteed
the absence of trades unions, and the right to fire more workers, growth enhancement will follow
suit! Let's not hold our breath!
The so-called "Elites"? Stand down? Right.
Every year I look up the cardinal topics discussed at the larger economic forums and conferences
(mainly Davos and G8), and some variation of "The consequences of rising inequality" is a recurring
one. Despite this, nothing ever comes out if them. I imagine they go something like this:
"-Oh hi Mark. Racism is bad.
-Definitely. So is inequality, right, Tim?
-Sure, wish we could do something about it. HEY GUYS, HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT MY NEW SCHEME TO BUY
OUT NEW AND UPCOMING COMPANIES TO MAKE MORE MONEY?"
A wet dream come true, both for an AnCap and a communist conspiracy theorist. I'm by no means
either. However, I think capitalism has already failed and can't go on for much longer. Conditions
will only deteriorate for anyone not in the "1%", with no sight of improvement or relief.
"Conditions will only deteriorate for anyone not in the "1%", with no sight of improvement
or relief." Frase's Quadrant Four. Hierarchy + Scarcity = Exterminism (From "Four Futures" )
Reminds me of that one quip I saw from a guy who, why he always had to have two pigs to eat
up his garbage, said that if he had only one pig, it will eat only when it wants to, but if there
were two pigs, each one would eat so the other pig won't get to it first. Our current economic system in a nutshell – pigs eating crap so deny it to others first.
"Greed is good".
Don't know that the two avenues Gaius mentioned are the only two roads our society can travel.
In support of this view, I recall a visit to a secondary city in Russia for a few weeks in the
early 1990s after the collapse of the USSR. Those were difficult times economically and psychologically
for ordinary citizens of that country. Alcoholism was rampant, emotional illness and suicide rates
among men of working age were high, mortality rates generally were rising sharply, and birth rates
were falling. Yet the glue of common culture, sovereign currency, language, community, and thoughtful
and educated citizens held despite corrupt political leadership, the rise of an oligarchic class,
and the related emergence of organized criminal networks. There was also adequate food, and critical
public infrastructure was maintained, keeping in mind this was shortly after the Chernobyl disaster.
Here in the US the New Deal and other legislation helped preserve social order in the 1930s.
Yves also raises an important point in her preface that can provide support for the center by
those who are able to do so under the current economic framework. That glue is to participate
in one's community; whether it is volunteering at a school, the local food bank, community-oriented
social clubs, or in a multitude of other ways; regardless of whether your community is a small
town or a large city.
" Yet the glue of common culture, sovereign currency, language, community, and thoughtful and
educated citizens held despite corrupt political leadership, the rise of an oligarchic class,
and the related emergence of organized criminal networks."
None of which applies to the Imperium, of course. There's glue, all right, but it's the kind
that is used for flooring in Roach Motels (TM), and those horrific rat and mouse traps that stick
the rodent to a large rectangle of plastic, where they die eventually of exhaustion and dehydration
and starvation The rat can gnaw off a leg that's glued down, but then it tips over and gets glued
down by the chest or face or butt
I have to note that several people I know are fastidious about picking up trash other people
"throw away." I do it, when I'm up to bending over. I used to be rude about it - one young attractive
woman dumped a McDonald's bag and her ashtray out the window of her car at one of our very long
Florida traffic lights. I got out of my car, used the mouth of the McDonald's bag to scoop up
most of the lipsticked butts, and threw them back into her car. Speaking of mouths, that woman
with the artfully painted lips sure had one on her
"... [Neo]liberalism that needs monsters to destroy can never politically engage with its enemies. It can never understand those enemies as political actors, making calculations, taking advantage of opportunities, and responding to constraints. It can never see in those enemies anything other than a black hole of motivation, a cesspool where reason goes to die. ..."
"... Hence the refusal of empathy for Trump's supporters. Insofar as it marks a demand that we not abandon antiracist principle and practice for the sake of winning over a mythicized white working class, the refusal is unimpeachable. ..."
"... Such a [neo]liberalism becomes dependent on the very thing it opposes, with a tepid mix of neoliberal markets and multicultural morals getting much-needed spice from a terrifying right. Hillary Clinton ran hard on the threat of Trump, as if his presence were enough to authorize her presidency. ..."
"... Clinton waged this campaign on the belief that her neoliberalism of fear could defeat the ethnonationalism of the right. ..."
"... In the novel, what begins as a struggle against inherited privilege results in the consolidation of a new ruling class that derives its legitimacy from superior merit. This class becomes, within a few generations, a hereditary aristocracy in its own right. Sequestered within elite institutions, people of high intelligence marry among themselves, passing along their high social position and superior genes to their progeny. Terminal inequality is the result. The gradual shift from inheritance to merit, Young writes, made "nonsense of all their loose talk of the equality of man": ..."
"... Losing every young person of promise to the meritocracy had deprived the working class of its prospective leaders, rendering it unable to coordinate a movement to manifest its political will. ..."
"... A policy of benign neglect of immigration laws invites into our country a casualized workforce without any leverage, one that competes with the native-born and destroys whatever leverage the latter have to negotiate better terms for themselves. The policy is a subsidy to American agribusiness, meatpacking plants, restaurants, bars, and construction companies, and to American families who would not otherwise be able to afford the outsourcing of childcare and domestic labor that the postfeminist, dual-income family requires. At the same time, a policy of free trade pits native-born workers against foreign ones content to earn pennies on the dollar of their American counterparts. ..."
"... Four decades of neoliberal globalization have cleaved our country into two hostile classes, and the line cuts across the race divide. On one side, college students credential themselves for meritocratic success. On the other, the white working class increasingly comes to resemble the black underclass in indices of social disorganization. On one side of the divide, much energy is expended on the eradication of subtler inequalities; on the other side, an equality of immiseration increasingly obtains. ..."
[Neo]liberalism that needs monsters to destroy can never politically engage with its enemies.
It can never understand those enemies as political actors, making calculations, taking advantage
of opportunities, and responding to constraints. It can never see in those enemies anything other
than a black hole of motivation, a cesspool where reason goes to die.
Hence the refusal of empathy for Trump's supporters. Insofar as it marks a demand that we
not abandon antiracist principle and practice for the sake of winning over a mythicized white working
class, the refusal is unimpeachable. But like the know-nothing disavowal of knowledge after
9/11, when explanations of terrorism were construed as exonerations of terrorism, the refusal of
empathy since 11/9 is a will to ignorance. Far simpler to imagine Trump voters as possessed by a
kind of demonic intelligence, or anti-intelligence, transcending all the rules of the established
order. Rather than treat Trump as the outgrowth of normal politics and traditional institutions -
it is the Electoral College, after all, not some beating heart of darkness, that sent Trump to the
White House - there is a disabling insistence that he and his forces are like no political formation
we've seen. By encouraging us to see only novelty in his monstrosity, analyses of this kind may prove
as crippling as the neocons' assessment of Saddam's regime. That, too, was held to be like no tyranny
we'd seen, a despotism where the ordinary rules of politics didn't apply and knowledge of the subject
was therefore useless.
Such a [neo]liberalism becomes dependent on the very thing it opposes, with a tepid mix of
neoliberal markets and multicultural morals getting much-needed spice from a terrifying right. Hillary
Clinton ran hard on the threat of Trump, as if his presence were enough to authorize her presidency.
Where Sanders promised to change the conversation, to make the battlefield a contest between a
multicultural neoliberalism and a multiracial social democracy, Clinton sought to keep the battlefield
as it has been for the past quarter-century. In this single respect, she can claim a substantial
victory. It's no accident that one of the most spectacular confrontations since the election pitted
the actors of Hamilton against the tweets of Trump. These fixed, frozen positions - high
on rhetoric, low on action - offer an almost perfect tableau of our ongoing gridlock of recrimination.
Clinton waged this campaign on the belief that her neoliberalism of fear could defeat the
ethnonationalism of the right. Let us not make the same mistake twice. Let us not be addicted
to "the drug of danger," as Athena says in the Oresteia, to "the dream of the enemy that
has to be crushed, like a herb, before [we] can smell freedom."
The term "meritocracy" became shorthand for a desirable societal ideal soon after it was coined
by the British socialist Sir Michael Young. But Young had originally used it to describe a dystopian
future. His 1958 satirical novel, The Rise of the Meritocracy, imagines the creation and growth of
a national system of intelligence testing, which identifies talented young people from every stratum
of society in order to install them in special schools, where they are groomed to make the best use
possible of their innate advantages.
In the novel, what begins as a struggle against inherited privilege results in the consolidation
of a new ruling class that derives its legitimacy from superior merit. This class becomes, within
a few generations, a hereditary aristocracy in its own right. Sequestered within elite institutions,
people of high intelligence marry among themselves, passing along their high social position and
superior genes to their progeny. Terminal inequality is the result. The gradual shift from inheritance
to merit, Young writes, made "nonsense of all their loose talk of the equality of man":
Men, after all, are notable not for the equality, but for the inequality, of their endowment.
Once all the geniuses are amongst the elite, and all the morons are amongst the workers, what meaning
can equality have? What ideal can be upheld except the principle of equal status for equal intelligence?
What is the purpose of abolishing inequalities in nurture except to reveal and make more pronounced
the inescapable inequalities of Nature?
I thought about this book often in the years before the crack-up of November 2016. In early 2015,
the Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam published a book that seemed to tell as history the same story
that Young had written as prophecy. Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis opens with an evocation
of the small town of Port Clinton, Ohio, where Putnam grew up in the 1950s - a "passable embodiment
of the American Dream, a place that offered decent opportunity for all the kids in town, whatever
their background." Port Clinton was, as Putnam is quick to concede, a nearly all-white town in a
pre-feminist and pre-civil-rights America, and it was marked by the unequal distribution of power
that spurred those movements into being. Yet it was also a place of high employment, strong unions,
widespread homeownership, relative class equality, and generally intact two-parent families. Everyone
knew one another by their first names and almost everyone was headed toward a better future; nearly
three quarters of all the classmates Putnam surveyed fifty years later had surpassed their parents
in both educational attainment and wealth.
When he revisited it in 2013, the town had become a kind of American nightmare. In the 1970s,
the industrial base entered a terminal decline, and the town's economy declined with it. Downtown
shops closed. Crime, delinquency, and drug use skyrocketed. In 1993, the factory that had offered
high-wage blue-collar employment finally shuttered for good. By 2010, the rate of births to unwed
mothers had risen to 40 percent. Two years later, the average worker in the county "was paid roughly
16 percent less in inflation-adjusted dollars than his or her grandfather in the early 1970s."
Young's novel ends with an editorial note informing readers that the fictional author of the text
had been killed in a riot that was part of a violent populist insurrection against the meritocracy,
an insurrection that the author had been insisting would pose no lasting threat to the social order.
Losing every young person of promise to the meritocracy had deprived the working class of its
prospective leaders, rendering it unable to coordinate a movement to manifest its political will.
"Without intelligence in their heads," he wrote, "the lower classes are never more menacing
than a rabble."
We are in the midst of a global insurrection against ruling elites. In the wake of the most destructive
of the blows recently delivered, a furious debate arose over whether those who supported Donald Trump
deserve empathy or scorn. The answer, of course, is that they deserve scorn for resorting to so depraved
and false a solution to their predicament - and empathy for the predicament itself. (And not just
because advances in technology are likely to make their predicament far more widely shared.) What
is owed to them is not the lachrymose pity reserved for victims (though they have suffered greatly)
but rather a practical appreciation of how their antagonism to the policies that determined the course
of this campaign - mass immigration and free trade - was a fully political antagonism that was disregarded
for decades, to our collective detriment.
A policy of benign neglect of immigration laws invites into our country a casualized workforce
without any leverage, one that competes with the native-born and destroys whatever leverage the latter
have to negotiate better terms for themselves. The policy is a subsidy to American agribusiness,
meatpacking plants, restaurants, bars, and construction companies, and to American families who would
not otherwise be able to afford the outsourcing of childcare and domestic labor that the postfeminist,
dual-income family requires. At the same time, a policy of free trade pits native-born workers against
foreign ones content to earn pennies on the dollar of their American counterparts.
In lieu of the social-democratic provision of childcare and other services of domestic support,
we have built a privatized, ad hoc system of subsidies based on loose border enforcement - in effect,
the nation cutting a deal with itself at the expense of the life chances of its native-born working
class. In lieu of an industrial policy that would preserve intact the economic foundation of their
lives, we rapidly dismantled our industrial base in pursuit of maximal aggregate economic growth,
with no concern for the uneven distribution of the harms and the benefits. Some were enriched hugely
by these policies: the college-educated bankers, accountants, consultants, technologists, lawyers,
economists, and corporate executives who built a supply chain that reached to the countries where
we shipped the jobs. Eventually, of course, many of these workers learned that both political parties
regarded them as fungible factors of production, readily discarded in favor of a machine or a migrant
willing to bunk eight to a room.
Four decades of neoliberal globalization have cleaved our country into two hostile classes,
and the line cuts across the race divide. On one side, college students credential themselves for
meritocratic success. On the other, the white working class increasingly comes to resemble the black
underclass in indices of social disorganization. On one side of the divide, much energy is expended
on the eradication of subtler inequalities; on the other side, an equality of immiseration increasingly
obtains.
Even before the ruling elite sent the proletariat off to fight a misbegotten war, even before
it wrecked the world economy through heedless lending, even before its politicians rescued those
responsible for the crisis while allowing working-class victims of all colors to sink, the working
class knew that it had been sacrificed to the interests of those sitting atop the meritocratic ladder.
The hostility was never just about differing patterns in taste and consumption. It was also about
one class prospering off the suffering of another. We learned this year that political interests
that go neglected for decades invariably summon up demagogues who exploit them for their own gain.
The demagogues will go on to betray their supporters and do enormous harm to others.
If we are to arrest the global descent into barbarism, we will have to understand the political
antagonism at the heart of the meritocratic project and seek a new kind of politics. If we choose
to neglect the valid interests of the working class, Trump will prove in retrospect to have been
a pale harbinger of even darker nightmares to come.
Income Inequality
(1947-1998) Census Bureau data on: per capita income, family income, household
income, and median income, by age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, state, and other... www.census.gov
Income
- Home http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/income.html
Inequality list on important links from Opem direcotry
Economic inequality among different individuals or social groups is best measured
within a single country. This is due to the fact that country-specific factors
tend to obscure inter-country comparisons of individuals' incomes. A single
nation will have more or less inequality depending on the social and Economic
structure of that country. See
Wealth condensation
and Zipf's law.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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3:39
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8:00
Richard D. Wolff: Viruses like Covid-19 are a part of
nature we must accept. But Capitalism-2020 must be destroyed
ONE IN SEVEN Americans would avoid Covid-19 treatment for
fear of cost, even as pricey new pill shows promise against virus
