"[Slavs, Latin, and Hebrew immigrants are] human weeds ... a deadweight of human waste ... [Blacks,
soldiers, and Jews are a] menace to the race." "Eugenic sterilization is an urgent need ... We must
prevent multiplication of this bad stock." -- Margaret Sanger, April 1933 Birth Control Review .
Victimization of poor as lazy is another quintessential neoliberal policy, so to attribute is
100% to German's racism (while racism is a factor too) would be incorrect.
Amorality and psychopathic tendencies of new transnational elite and a special breed of corrupted
politicians who serve them are perfectly demonstrated in the new sport for crooked politicians, especially
from the part of the US Republican Party which can be called neo-confederates.
Barbara Ellen in her Guardian column (Guardian
March 2, 2013) pointed out that the Methodists, the United Reformed Church, the Church of Scotland and
the Baptist Union have joined forces to publish a study called
The Lies We Tell Ourselves. It highlights myths surrounding people and
poverty, including
Iain Duncan Smith's
much trumpeted "families out of work for three generations" line (which, it turns out, has never been
backed up by data).
The report argues that the government is "deliberately misrepresenting" the poor, blaming
them for their circumstances while ignoring more complex reasons, including policy deficiencies. Moreover,
they feel that this scapegoating is the result of collusion between politicians, the media and the public.
Increasingly, the shame is being taken out of poor-shaming. It didn't seem so long ago that most
people would think twice about denigrating fellow citizens who were having a hard time. These days,
it appears to have been sanctioned as a new sport for the elites. A politician is one thing but these
attitudes are spreading and hardening among ordinary people too. Indeed, poverty seems a trigger to
inspire hate speech that would be quickly denounced if it related to race or gender.
Is this our new default setting – that the needy are greedy? This chimes with a slew of government
policies that appear to be founded on notions of bulletproof self-reliance, making no allowances for
circumstances or sheer bad luck, and which many would require huge amounts of help to put into practice,
never mind sustain. Meanwhile, the more fortunate are invited to pour scorn upon anyone who fails.
While there are people whose problem are self-inflicted for many this is not true. In reality substantial
number of poor are former people of modest means hit by a serious disease and who run out of options.
And shaming poor is a pretty safe sport. The poor are poor. They have no money, no voice,
no representatives, and no means to defend their interests. Poverty is a like collapse of domino – once
the first domino falls, all others follow the suit. In such circumstances, if a group of people are
"deliberately misrepresents" the real situation with the poor, then there's precious little they can
do about it. The churches got it right – if anything, the truth seems so much worse that it must surely
be time to put the shame back into poor-shaming.
Poor-shamers are bullies, and right now they're getting away with it.
Internal colonization
Gaylord: "This is not merely Germany vs. Greece, but rather the Western Banking Cabal asserting
heightened control over the economies of the world,"
Exactly. This is about neoliberalism, not so much about Germans. It is about neoliberal polices of
financial oligarchy within the Forth Reich (aka EU). And neoliberal vassal state (Greece) sliding
into debt slavery by succession of Greek neoliberal governments. In essence this can be viewed not
only as an "internal colonization" of southern states and East European state by northern states
within EU but as logical development of the vassal state within the neoliberal economic system now
adopted by EU. and it is transnationals which will be the main beneficiaries of sell out of Greek
assets for pennies on the dollar.
"...This economic plunge happened because they followed and implemented creditor demands for
austerity measures to the letter. It is the fact that Syriza has had the temerity to point out the
failure of these austerity measures that has provoked the wrath of the likes of Wolfgang Schäuble
and Jeroen Dijsselbloem, both of whom are hard-line ideological neo-liberals."
Also if Merkel had not insisted on bailing out the banks that Greece owed money to when it went
bankrupt then the Greek debt would not have been transferred to the ECB and hence the taxpayers of
the member countries. But the haircut provided proved to be insufficient and country was still under
too much pressure of external debt to recover, What happened next is only logical.
Also Yanis Varoufakis suggested that Germany is attempting to force Greece out of the common
currency union as a lesson to France, to put the fear of God into them. That might be a factor too.
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.
"... From the 1980s to 2008, neoliberal politics and policies succeeded in expanding inequality around the world. The political climate Ayn Rand celebrated-the reign of brutal capitalism-intensified. Though Ayn Rand's popularity took off in the 1940s, her reputation took a dive during the 1960s and '70s. Then after her death in 1982, during the neoliberal administrations of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom, her star rose once more. (See chapter 4 for a full discussion of the rise of neoliberalism.) ..."
"... During the global economic crisis of 2008 it seemed that the neoliberal order might collapse. It lived on, however, in zombie form as discredited political policies and financial practices were restored. ..."
"... We are in the midst of a major global, political, economic, social, and cultural transition - but we don't yet know which way we're headed. The incoherence of the Trump administration is symptomatic of the confusion as politicians and business elites jockey with the Breitbart alt-right forces while conservative evangelical Christians pull strings. The unifying threads are meanness and greed, and the spirit of the whole hodgepodge is Ayn Rand. ..."
"... The current Trump administration is stuffed to the gills with Rand acolytes. Trump himself identifies with Fountainhead character Howard Roark; former secretary of state Rex Tillerson listed Adas Shrugged as his favorite book in a Scouting magazine feature; his replacement Mike Pompeo has been inspired by Rand since his youth. Ayn Rand's influence is ascendant across broad swaths of our dominant political culture - including among public figures who see her as a key to the Zeitgeist, without having read a worth of her writing.'' ..."
"... Rand biographer Jennifer Burns asserts simply that Ayn Rand's fiction is "the gateway drug" to right-wing politics in the United States - although her influence extends well beyond the right wing ..."
"... The resulting Randian sense of life might be called "optimistic cruelty." Optimistic cruelty is the sense of life for the age of greed. ..."
"... The Fountainhead and especially Atlas Shrugged fabricate history and romanticize violence and domination in ways that reflect, reshape, and reproduce narratives of European superiority' and American virtue. ..."
"... It is not an accident that the novels' fans, though gender mixed, are overwhelmingly white Americans of the professional, managerial, creative, and business classes." ..."
"... Does the pervasive cruelty of today's ruling classes shock you? Or, at least give you pause from time to time? Are you surprised by the fact that our elected leaders seem to despise people who struggle, people whose lives are not cushioned and shaped by inherited wealth, people who must work hard at many jobs in order to scrape by? If these or any of a number of other questions about the social proclivities of our contemporary ruling class detain you for just two seconds, this is the book for you. ..."
"... As Duggan makes clear, Rand's influence is not just that she offered a programmatic for unregulated capitalism, but that she offered an emotional template for "optimistic cruelty" that has extended far beyond its libertarian confines. Mean Girl is a fun, worthwhile read! ..."
"... Her work circulated endlessly in those circles of the Goldwater-ite right. I have changed over many years, and my own life experiences have led me to reject the casual cruelty and vicious supremacist bent of Rand's beliefs. ..."
"... In fact, though her views are deeply-seated, Rand is, at heart, a confidence artist, appealing only to narrow self-interest at the expense of the well-being of whole societies. ..."
Mean Girls, which was based on interviews with high school girls conducted by Rosalind Wiseman for her 2002 book Queen Bees and
War/tubes, reflects the emotional atmosphere of the age of the Plastics (as the most popular girls at Actional North Shore High are
called), as well as the era of Wall Street's Gordon Gekko, whose motto is "Greed is Good."1 The culture of greed is the hallmark
of the neoliberal era, the period beginning in the 1970s when the protections of the U.S. and European welfare states, and the autonomy
of postcolonial states around the world, came under attack. Advocates of neoliberalism worked to reshape global capitalism by freeing
transnational corporations from restrictive forms of state regulation, stripping away government efforts to redistribute wealth and
provide public services, and emphasizing individual responsibility over social concern.
From the 1980s to 2008, neoliberal politics and policies succeeded in expanding inequality around the world. The political
climate Ayn Rand celebrated-the reign of brutal capitalism-intensified. Though Ayn Rand's popularity took off in the 1940s, her reputation
took a dive during the 1960s and '70s. Then after her death in 1982, during the neoliberal administrations of Ronald Reagan in the
United States and Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom, her star rose once more. (See chapter 4 for a full discussion of the rise
of neoliberalism.)
During the global economic crisis of 2008 it seemed that the neoliberal order might collapse. It lived on, however, in zombie
form as discredited political policies and financial practices were restored. But neoliberal capitalism has always been contested,
and competing and conflicting political ideas and organizations proliferated and intensified after 2008 as well.
Protest politics blossomed on the left with Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and opposition to the Dakota Access oil pipeline
at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in the United States, and with the Arab Spring, and other mobilizations around the world.
Anti-neoliberal electoral efforts, like the Bernie Sanders campaign for the U.S. presidency, generated excitement as well.
But protest and organizing also expanded on the political right, with reactionary populist, racial nationalist, and protofascist
gains in such countries as India, the Philippines, Russia, Hungary, and the United States rapidly proliferating. Between these far-right
formations on the one side and persistent zombie neoliberalism on the other, operating sometimes at odds and sometimes in cahoots,
the Season of Mean is truly upon us.
We are in the midst of a major global, political, economic, social, and cultural transition - but we don't yet know which
way we're headed. The incoherence of the Trump administration is symptomatic of the confusion as politicians and business elites
jockey with the Breitbart alt-right forces while conservative evangelical Christians pull strings. The unifying threads are meanness
and greed, and the spirit of the whole hodgepodge is Ayn Rand.
Rand's ideas are not the key to her influence. Her writing does support the corrosive capitalism at the heart of neoliberalism,
though few movers and shakers actually read any of her nonfiction. Her two blockbuster novels, 'The Fountainpen and Atlas Shrugged,
are at the heart of her incalculable impact. Many politicians and government officials going back decades have cited Rand as a formative
influence-particularly finance guru and former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who was a member of Rand's inner circle,
and Ronald Reagan, the U.S. president most identified with the national embrace of neoliberal policies.
Major figures in business and finance are or have been Rand fans: Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Peter Thiel (Paypal), Steve Jobs (Apple),
John Mackey (Whole Foods), Mark Cuban (NBA), John Allison (BB&T Banking Corporation), Travis Kalanik (Uber), Jelf Bezos (Amazon),
ad infinitum.
There are also large clusters of enthusiasts for Rand's novels in the entertainment industry, from the 1940s to the present-from
Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, and Raquel Welch to Jerry Lewis, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Rob Lowe, Jim Carrey, Sandra Bullock,
Sharon Stone, Ashley Judd, Eva Mendes, and many more.
The current Trump administration is stuffed to the gills with Rand acolytes. Trump himself identifies with Fountainhead character
Howard Roark; former secretary of state Rex Tillerson listed Adas Shrugged as his favorite book in a Scouting magazine feature; his
replacement Mike Pompeo has been inspired by Rand since his youth. Ayn Rand's influence is ascendant across broad swaths of our dominant
political culture - including among public figures who see her as a key to the Zeitgeist, without having read a worth of her writing.''
But beyond the famous or powerful fans, the novels have had a wide popular impact as bestsellers since publication. Along
with Rand's nonfiction, they form the core texts for a political/ philosophical movement: Objectivism. There are several U.S.- based
Objectivist organizations and innumerable clubs, reading groups, and social circles. A 1991 survey by the Library of Congress and
the Book of the Month Club found that only the Bible had influenced readers more than Atlas Shrugged, while a 1998 Modern Library
poll listed The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged as the two most revered novels in English.
Atlas Shrugged in particular skyrocketed in popularity in the wake of the 2008 financial crash. The U.S. Tea Party movement, founded
in 2009, featured numerous Ayn Rand-based signs and slogans, especially the opening line of Atlas Shrugged: "Who is John Galt?" Republican
pundit David Frum claimed that the Tea Party was reinventing the GOP as "the party of Ayn Rand." During 2009 as well, sales of Atlas
Shrugged tripled, and GQ_magazine called Rand the year's most influential author. A 2010 Zogby poll found that 29 percent of respondents
had read Atlas Shrugged, and half of those readers said it had affected their political and ethical thinking.
In 2018, a business school teacher writing in Forbes magazine recommended repeat readings: "Recent events - the bizarro circus
that is the 2016 election, the disintegration of Venezuela, and so on make me wonder if a lot of this could have been avoided bad
we taken Atlas Shrugged's message to heart. It is a book that is worth re-reading every few years."3
Rand biographer Jennifer Burns asserts simply that Ayn Rand's fiction is "the gateway drug" to right-wing politics in the
United States - although her influence extends well beyond the right wing.4
But how can the work of this one novelist (also an essayist, playwright, and philosopher), however influential, be a significant
source of insight into the rise of a culture of greed? In a word: sex. Ayn Rand made acquisitive capitalists sexy. She launched thousands
of teenage libidos into the world of reactionary politics on a wave of quivering excitement. This sexiness extends beyond romance
to infuse the creative aspirations, inventiveness, and determination of her heroes with erotic energy, embedded in what Rand called
her "sense of life." Analogous to what Raymond Williams has called a "structure of feeling," Rand's sense of life combines the libido-infused
desire for heroic individual achievement with contempt for social inferiors and indifference to their plight.5
Lauren Berlant has called the structure of feeling, or emotional situation, of those who struggle for a good life under neoliberal
conditions "cruel optimism"-the complex of feelings necessary to keep plugging away hopefully despite setbacks and losses.'' Rand's
contrasting sense of life applies to those whose fantasies of success and domination include no doubt or guilt. The feelings of aspiration
and glee that enliven Rand's novels combine with contempt for and indifference to others. The resulting Randian sense of life
might be called "optimistic cruelty." Optimistic cruelty is the sense of life for the age of greed.
Ayn Rand's optimistic cruelty appeals broadly and deeply through its circulation of familiar narratives: the story of "civilizational"
progress, die belief in American exceptionalism, and a commitment to capitalist freedom.
Her novels engage fantasies of European imperial domination conceived as technological and cultural advancement, rather than as
violent conquest. America is imagined as a clean slate for pure capitalist freedom, with no indigenous people, no slaves, no exploited
immigrants or workers in sight. The Fountainhead and especially Atlas Shrugged fabricate history and romanticize violence and
domination in ways that reflect, reshape, and reproduce narratives of European superiority' and American virtue.
Their logic also depends on a hierarchy of value based on radicalized beauty and physical capacity - perceived ugliness or disability'
are equated with pronounced worthlessness and incompetence.
Through the forms of romance and melodrama, Rand novels extrapolate the story of racial capitalism as a story of righteous passion
and noble virtue. They retell The Birth of a Ntation through the lens of industrial capitalism (see chapter 2). They solicit positive
identification with winners, with dominant historical forces. It is not an accident that the novels' fans, though gender mixed,
are overwhelmingly white Americans of the professional, managerial, creative, and business classes."
Ayn Rand is a singular influence on American political thought, and this book brilliantly unfolds how Rand gave voice to the
ethos that shapes contemporary conservatism. Duggan -- whose equally insightful earlier book Twilight of Equality offered an analysis
of neoliberalism and showed how it is both a distortion and continuation of classical liberalism -- here extends the analysis
of American market mania by showing how an anti-welfare state ethos took root as a "structure of feeling" in American culture,
elevating the individual over the collective and promoting a culture of inequality as itself a moral virtue.
Although reviled by the right-wing press (she should wear this as a badge of honor), Duggan is the most astute guide one could
hope for through this devastating history of our recent past, and the book helps explain how we ended up where we are, where far-right,
racist nationalism colludes (paradoxically) with libertarianism, an ideology of extreme individualism and (unlikely bed fellows,
one might have thought) Silicon Valley entrepreneurship.
This short, accessible book is essential reading for everyone who wants to understand the contemporary United States.
Does the pervasive cruelty of today's ruling classes shock you? Or, at least give you pause from time to time? Are you
surprised by the fact that our elected leaders seem to despise people who struggle, people whose lives are not cushioned and shaped
by inherited wealth, people who must work hard at many jobs in order to scrape by? If these or any of a number of other questions
about the social proclivities of our contemporary ruling class detain you for just two seconds, this is the book for you.
Writing with wit, rigor, and vigor, Lisa Duggan explains how Ayn Rand, the "mean girl," has captured the minds and snatched
the bodies of so very many, and has rendered them immune to feelings of shared humanity with those whose fortunes are not as rosy
as their own. An indispensable work, a short read that leaves a long memory.
Mean Girl offers not only a biographical account of Rand (including the fact that she modeled one of her key heroes on a serial
killer), but describes Rand's influence on neoliberal thinking more generally.
As Duggan makes clear, Rand's influence is not just that she offered a programmatic for unregulated capitalism, but that
she offered an emotional template for "optimistic cruelty" that has extended far beyond its libertarian confines. Mean Girl is
a fun, worthwhile read!
Sister, June 3, 2019
Superb poitical and cultural exploration of Rand's influence
Lisa Duggan's concise but substantive look at the political and cultural influence of Ayn Rand is stunning. I feel like I've
been waiting most of a lifetime for a book that is as wonderfully readable as it is insightful. Many who write about Rand reduce
her to a caricature hero or demon without taking her, and the history and choices that produced her seriously as a subject of
cultural inquiry. I am one of those people who first encountered Rand's books - novels, but also some nonfiction and her play,
"The Night of January 16th," in which audience members were selected as jurors – as a teenager.
Under the thrall of some right-wing locals, I was so drawn to Rand's larger-than-life themes, the crude polarization of "individualism"
and "conformity," the admonition to selfishness as a moral virtue, her reductive dismissal of the public good as "collectivism."
Her work circulated endlessly in those circles of the Goldwater-ite right. I have changed over many years, and my own life
experiences have led me to reject the casual cruelty and vicious supremacist bent of Rand's beliefs.
But over those many years, the coterie of Rand true believers has kept the faith and expanded. One of the things I value about
Duggan's compelling account is her willingness to take seriously the far reach of Rand's indifference to human suffering even
as she strips away the veneer that suggests Rand's beliefs were deep.
In fact, though her views are deeply-seated, Rand is, at heart, a confidence artist, appealing only to narrow self-interest
at the expense of the well-being of whole societies.
I learned that the hard way, but I learned it. Now I am recommending Duggan's wise book to others who seek to understand today's
cultural and political moment in the United States and the rise of an ethic of indifference to anybody but the already affluent.
Duggan is comfortable with complexity; most Randian champions or detractors are not.
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.
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.
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.
"... 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
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.
"... 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.
"... 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
Under neoliberalism inequality is recast as virtuous. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve: Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of
human relations and redefines citizens as consumers
Notable quotes:
"... 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, the rise of Donald Trump . ..."
"... Inequality is recast as virtuous. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve. ..."
"... Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that "the market" delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning. ..."
"... We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance and class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances. ..."
"... Never mind structural unemployment: if you don't have a job it's because you are unenterprising. Never mind the impossible costs of housing: if your credit card is maxed out, you're feckless and improvident. Never mind that your children no longer have a school playing field: if they get fat, it's your fault. In a world governed by competition, those who fall behind become defined and self-defined as losers. ..."
"... Among the results, as Paul Verhaeghe documents in his book What About Me? are epidemics of self-harm, eating disorders, depression, loneliness, performance anxiety and social phobia. ..."
"... It may seem strange that a doctrine promising choice should have been promoted with the slogan 'there is no alternative' ..."
"... Where neoliberal policies cannot be imposed domestically, they are imposed internationally, through trade treaties incorporating " investor-state dispute settlement ": offshore tribunals in which corporations can press for the removal of social and environmental protections. When parliaments have voted to restrict sales of cigarettes , protect water supplies from mining companies, freeze energy bills or prevent pharmaceutical firms from ripping off the state, corporations have sued, often successfully. Democracy is reduced to theatre. ..."
"... Neoliberalism was not conceived as a self-serving racket, but it rapidly became one ..."
"... Another paradox of neoliberalism is that universal competition relies upon universal quantification and comparison. The result is that workers, job-seekers and public services of every kind are subject to a pettifogging, stifling regime of assessment and monitoring, designed to identify the winners and punish the losers. The doctrine that Von Mises proposed would free us from the bureaucratic nightmare of central planning has instead created one. ..."
"... When you pay an inflated price for a train ticket, only part of the fare compensates the operators for the money they spend on fuel, wages, rolling stock and other outlays. The rest reflects the fact that they have you over a barrel . ..."
"... Those who own and run the UK's privatised or semi-privatised services make stupendous fortunes by investing little and charging much. In Russia and India, oligarchs acquired state assets through firesales. In Mexico, Carlos Slim was granted control of almost all landline and mobile phone services and soon became the world's richest man. ..."
"... Financialisation, as Andrew Sayer notes in Why We Can't Afford the Rich , has had a similar impact. "Like rent," he argues, "interest is ... unearned income that accrues without any effort". ..."
"... Chris Hedges remarks that "fascist movements build their base not from the politically active but the politically inactive, the 'losers' who feel, often correctly, they have no voice or role to play in the political establishment". When political debate no longer speaks to us, people become responsive instead to slogans, symbols and sensation . To the admirers of Trump, for example, facts and arguments appear irrelevant. ..."
"... Like communism, neoliberalism is the God that failed. But the zombie doctrine staggers on, and one of the reasons is its anonymity. Or rather, a cluster of anonymities. ..."
"... The invisible doctrine of the invisible hand is promoted by invisible backers. Slowly, very slowly, we have begun to discover the names of a few of them. We find that the Institute of Economic Affairs, which has argued forcefully in the media against the further regulation of the tobacco industry, has been secretly funded by British American Tobacco since 1963. We discover that Charles and David Koch , two of the richest men in the world, founded the institute that set up the Tea Party movement . We find that Charles Koch, in establishing one of his thinktanks, noted that "in order to avoid undesirable criticism, how the organisation is controlled and directed should not be widely advertised". ..."
"... The anonymity of neoliberalism is fiercely guarded. ..."
"... Neoliberalism's triumph also reflects the failure of the left. When laissez-faire economics led to catastrophe in 1929, Keynes devised a comprehensive economic theory to replace it. When Keynesian demand management hit the buffers in the 70s, there was an alternative ready. But when neoliberalism fell apart in 2008 there was ... nothing. This is why the zombie walks. The left and centre have produced no new general framework of economic thought for 80 years. ..."
"... What the history of both Keynesianism and neoliberalism show is that it's not enough to oppose a broken system. A coherent alternative has to be proposed. For Labour, the Democrats and the wider left, the central task should be to develop an economic Apollo programme, a conscious attempt to design a new system, tailored to the demands of the 21st century. ..."
Financial meltdown, environmental disaster and even the rise of Donald Trump –
neoliberalism has played its part in them all. Why has the left failed to come up with an
alternative? @GeorgeMonbiot
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, the rise of Donald Trump . But we respond to these
crises as if they emerge in isolation, apparently unaware that they have all been either catalysed 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?
Inequality is recast as virtuous. The market ensures that
everyone gets what they deserve.
So pervasive has neoliberalism become that we seldom even
recognise it as an ideology. We appear to accept the proposition that this utopian, millenarian
faith describes a neutral force; a kind of biological law, like Darwin's theory of evolution.
But the philosophy arose as a conscious attempt to reshape human life and shift the locus of
power.
Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of
human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best
exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It
maintains that "the market" delivers benefits that could never be achieved by
planning.
Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty.
Tax and regulation should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation
of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market
distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality
is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to
enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally
corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.
We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich
persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages
– such as education, inheritance and class – that may have helped to secure it. The
poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their
circumstances.
Never mind structural unemployment: if you don't have a job it's
because you are unenterprising. Never mind the impossible costs of housing: if your credit card
is maxed out, you're feckless and improvident. Never mind that your children no longer have a
school playing field: if they get fat, it's your fault. In a world governed by competition,
those who fall behind become defined and self-defined as losers.
Among the results, as Paul Verhaeghe documents in his book What
About Me? are epidemics of self-harm, eating disorders, depression, loneliness, performance
anxiety and social phobia. Perhaps it's unsurprising that Britain, in which neoliberal ideology
has been most rigorously applied, is
the loneliness capital of Europe . We are all neoliberals now.
***
The term neoliberalism was coined at a meeting in Paris in 1938.
Among the delegates were two men who came to define the ideology, Ludwig von Mises and
Friedrich Hayek. Both exiles from Austria, they saw social democracy, exemplified by Franklin
Roosevelt's New Deal and the gradual development of Britain's welfare state, as manifestations
of a collectivism that occupied the same spectrum as nazism and communism.
In The Road to Serfdom , published in 1944, Hayek argued
that government planning, by crushing individualism, would lead inexorably to totalitarian
control. Like Mises's book Bureaucracy , The Road to Serfdom was widely read. It
came to the attention of some very wealthy people, who saw in the philosophy an opportunity to
free themselves from regulation and tax. When, in 1947, Hayek founded the first organisation
that would spread the doctrine of neoliberalism – the Mont Pelerin Society – it was supported financially by
millionaires and their foundations.
As it evolved, neoliberalism became more strident. Hayek's view
that governments should regulate competition to prevent monopolies from forming gave way
– among American apostles such as Milton Friedman
– to the belief that monopoly power could be seen as a reward for efficiency.
Something else happened during this transition: the movement lost
its name. In 1951, Friedman was happy to describe
himself as a neoliberal . But soon after that, the term began to disappear. Stranger still,
even as the ideology became crisper and the movement more coherent, the lost name was not
replaced by any common alternative.
At first, despite its lavish funding, neoliberalism remained at
the margins. The postwar consensus was almost universal: John Maynard Keynes 's economic
prescriptions were widely applied, full employment and the relief of poverty were common goals
in the US and much of western Europe, top rates of tax were high and governments sought social
outcomes without embarrassment, developing new public services and safety nets.
But in the 1970s, when Keynesian policies began to fall apart and
economic crises struck on both sides of the Atlantic, neoliberal ideas began to enter the
mainstream. As Friedman remarked, "when the time came that you had to change ... there was an
alternative ready there to be picked up". With the help of sympathetic journalists and
political advisers, elements of neoliberalism, especially its prescriptions for monetary
policy, were adopted by Jimmy Carter's administration in the US and Jim Callaghan's government
in Britain.
It may seem strange that a doctrine promising choice should have
been promoted with the slogan 'there is no alternative'
After Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan took power, the rest of
the package soon followed: massive tax cuts for the rich, the crushing of trade unions,
deregulation, privatisation, outsourcing and competition in public services. Through the IMF,
the World Bank, the Maastricht treaty and the World Trade Organisation, neoliberal policies
were imposed – often without democratic consent – on much of the world. Most
remarkable was its adoption among parties that once belonged to the left: Labour and the
Democrats, for example. As Stedman Jones notes, "it is hard to think of another utopia to have
been as fully realised."
***
It may seem strange that a doctrine promising choice and freedom
should have been promoted with the slogan "there is no alternative". But, as Hayek remarked on a
visit to Pinochet's Chile – one of the first nations in which the programme was
comprehensively applied – "my personal preference leans toward a liberal dictatorship
rather than toward a democratic government devoid of liberalism". The freedom that
neoliberalism offers, which sounds so beguiling when expressed in general terms, turns out to
mean freedom for the pike, not for the minnows.
Freedom from trade unions and collective bargaining means the
freedom to suppress wages. Freedom from regulation means the
freedom to poison rivers , endanger workers, charge iniquitous rates of interest and design
exotic financial instruments. Freedom from tax means freedom from the distribution of wealth
that lifts people out of poverty.
Facebook
Twitter Pinterest Naomi Klein documented that neoliberals advocated the use of crises to
impose unpopular policies while people were distracted. Photograph: Anya Chibis/The
Guardian
As Naomi Klein documents in The Shock Doctrine ,
neoliberal theorists advocated the use of crises to impose unpopular policies while people were
distracted: for example, in the aftermath of Pinochet's coup, the Iraq war and Hurricane
Katrina, which Friedman described as "an opportunity to radically reform the educational
system" in New Orleans
.
Where neoliberal policies cannot be imposed domestically, they are
imposed internationally, through trade treaties incorporating "
investor-state dispute settlement ": offshore tribunals in which corporations can press for
the removal of social and environmental protections. When parliaments have voted to restrict
sales of cigarettes ,
protect water supplies from mining companies, freeze energy bills or prevent pharmaceutical
firms from ripping off the state, corporations have sued, often successfully. Democracy is
reduced to theatre.
Neoliberalism was not conceived as a self-serving racket, but it
rapidly became one
Another paradox of neoliberalism is that universal competition
relies upon universal quantification and comparison. The result is that workers, job-seekers
and public services of every kind are subject to a pettifogging, stifling regime of assessment
and monitoring, designed to identify the winners and punish the losers. The doctrine that Von
Mises proposed would free us from the bureaucratic nightmare of central planning has instead
created one.
Neoliberalism was not conceived as a self-serving racket, but it
rapidly became one. Economic growth has been markedly slower in the neoliberal era (since 1980
in Britain and the US) than it was in the preceding decades; but not for the very rich.
Inequality in the distribution of both income and wealth, after 60 years of decline, rose
rapidly in this era, due to the smashing of trade unions, tax reductions, rising rents,
privatisation and deregulation.
The privatisation or marketisation of public services such as
energy, water, trains, health, education, roads and prisons has enabled corporations to set up
tollbooths in front of essential assets and charge rent, either to citizens or to government,
for their use. Rent is another term for unearned income. When you pay an inflated price for a
train ticket, only part of the fare compensates the operators for the money they spend on fuel,
wages, rolling stock and other outlays. The rest reflects the fact that
they have you over a barrel .
In Mexico, Carlos Slim was granted control of almost all phone services
and soon became the world's richest man. Photograph: Henry Romero/Reuters
Those who own and run the UK's privatised or semi-privatised
services make stupendous fortunes by investing little and charging much. In Russia and India,
oligarchs acquired state assets through firesales. In Mexico,
Carlos Slim was granted control of almost all landline and mobile phone services and soon
became the world's richest man.
Financialisation, as Andrew Sayer notes in Why We Can't Afford the
Rich , has had a similar impact. "Like rent," he argues, "interest is ... unearned
income that accrues without any effort". As the poor become poorer and the rich become richer,
the rich acquire increasing control over another crucial asset: money. Interest payments,
overwhelmingly, are a transfer of money from the poor to the rich. As property prices and the
withdrawal of state funding load people with debt (think of the switch from student grants to
student loans), the banks and their executives clean up.
Sayer argues that the past four decades have been characterised by
a transfer of wealth not only from the poor to the rich, but within the ranks of the wealthy:
from those who make their money by producing new goods or services to those who make their
money by controlling existing assets and harvesting rent, interest or capital gains. Earned
income has been supplanted by unearned income.
Neoliberal policies are everywhere beset by market failures. Not
only are the banks too big to fail, but so are the corporations now charged with delivering
public services. As Tony Judt pointed out in Ill Fares the
Land , Hayek forgot that vital national services cannot be allowed to collapse, which
means that competition cannot run its course. Business takes the profits, the state keeps the
risk.
The greater the failure, the more extreme the ideology becomes.
Governments use neoliberal crises as both excuse and opportunity to cut taxes, privatise
remaining public services, rip holes in the social safety net, deregulate corporations and
re-regulate citizens. The self-hating state now sinks its teeth into every organ of the public
sector.
Perhaps the most dangerous impact of neoliberalism is not the
economic crises it has caused, but the political crisis. As the domain of the state is reduced,
our ability to change the course of our lives through voting also contracts. Instead,
neoliberal theory asserts, people can exercise choice through spending. But some have more to
spend than others: in the great consumer or shareholder democracy, votes are not equally
distributed. The result is a disempowerment of the poor and middle. As parties of the right and
former left adopt
similar neoliberal policies, disempowerment turns to disenfranchisement. Large numbers of
people have been shed from politics.
Chris Hedges
remarks that "fascist movements build their base not from the politically active but the
politically inactive, the 'losers' who feel, often correctly, they have no voice or role to
play in the political establishment". When political debate no longer speaks to us, people
become responsive instead
to slogans, symbols and sensation . To the admirers of Trump, for example, facts and
arguments appear irrelevant.
Judt explained that when the thick mesh of interactions between
people and the state has been reduced to nothing but authority and obedience, the only
remaining force that binds us is state power. The totalitarianism Hayek feared is more likely
to emerge when governments, having lost the moral authority that arises from the delivery of
public services, are reduced to "cajoling, threatening and ultimately coercing people to obey
them".
***
Like communism, neoliberalism is the God that failed. But the
zombie doctrine staggers on, and one of the reasons is its anonymity. Or rather, a cluster of
anonymities.
The invisible doctrine of the invisible hand is promoted by
invisible backers. Slowly, very slowly, we have begun to discover the names of a few of them.
We find that the Institute of Economic Affairs, which has argued forcefully in the media
against the further regulation of the tobacco industry,
has been secretly funded by British American Tobacco since 1963. We discover that
Charles and David
Koch , two of the richest men in the world, founded the institute that set up the
Tea
Party movement . We find that Charles Koch, in establishing one of his thinktanks,
noted that "in order
to avoid undesirable criticism, how the organisation is controlled and directed should not be
widely advertised".
The nouveau riche were once disparaged by those who had
inherited their money. Today, the relationship has been reversed
The words used by neoliberalism often conceal more than they
elucidate. "The market" sounds like a natural system that might bear upon us equally, like
gravity or atmospheric pressure. But it is fraught with power relations. What "the market
wants" tends to mean what corporations and their bosses want. "Investment", as Sayer notes,
means two quite different things. One is the funding of productive and socially useful
activities, the other is the purchase of existing assets to milk them for rent, interest,
dividends and capital gains. Using the same word for different activities "camouflages the
sources of wealth", leading us to confuse wealth extraction with wealth creation.
A century ago, the nouveau riche were disparaged by those who had
inherited their money. Entrepreneurs sought social acceptance by passing themselves off as
rentiers. Today, the relationship has been reversed: the rentiers and inheritors style
themselves entre preneurs. They claim to have earned their unearned income.
These anonymities and confusions mesh with the namelessness and
placelessness of modern capitalism: the franchise model which ensures that workers do not know for
whom they toil ; the companies registered through a network of offshore secrecy regimes so
complex that even the
police cannot discover the beneficial owners ; the tax arrangements that bamboozle
governments; the financial products no one understands.
The anonymity of neoliberalism is fiercely guarded. Those who are
influenced by Hayek, Mises and Friedman tend to reject the term, maintaining – with some
justice – that it is used today only pejoratively . But they
offer us no substitute. Some describe themselves as classical liberals or libertarians, but
these descriptions are both misleading and curiously self-effacing, as they suggest that there
is nothing novel about The Road to Serfdom , Bureaucracy or Friedman's classic
work, Capitalism and Freedom .
***
For all that, there is something admirable about the neoliberal
project, at least in its early stages. It was a distinctive, innovative philosophy promoted by
a coherent network of thinkers and activists with a clear plan of action. It was patient and
persistent. The Road to Serfdom became the path to power.
Neoliberalism, Locke and the Green party |
Letters Read more
Neoliberalism's triumph also reflects the failure of the left.
When laissez-faire economics led to catastrophe in 1929, Keynes devised a comprehensive
economic theory to replace it. When Keynesian demand management hit the buffers in the 70s,
there was an alternative ready. But when neoliberalism fell apart in 2008 there was ...
nothing. This is why the zombie walks. The left and centre have produced no new general
framework of economic thought for 80 years.
Every invocation of Lord Keynes is an admission of failure. To
propose Keynesian solutions to the crises of the 21st century is to ignore three obvious
problems. It is hard to mobilise people around old ideas; the flaws exposed in the 70s have not
gone away; and, most importantly, they have nothing to say about our gravest predicament: the
environmental crisis. Keynesianism works by stimulating consumer demand to promote economic
growth. Consumer demand and economic growth are the motors of environmental
destruction.
What the history of both Keynesianism and neoliberalism show is
that it's not enough to oppose a broken system. A coherent alternative has to be proposed. For
Labour, the Democrats and the wider left, the central task should be to develop an economic
Apollo programme, a conscious attempt to design a new system, tailored to the demands of the
21st century.
George Monbiot's How Did We Get into This Mess? is
published this month by Verso. To order a copy for £12.99 (RRP £16.99) ) go to
bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online
orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
. 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.
We're told that getting ahead at work and reorienting our lives around our jobs will make us
happy. So why hasn't it? Many of those who work in the corporate world are constantly peppered
with questions about their " career progression ." The Internet is
saturated with
articles providing tips and tricks on how to develop a never-fail game plan for
professional development. Millions of Americans are engaged in a never-ending cycle of
résumé-padding that mimics the accumulation of Boy Scout merit badges or A's on
report cards except we never seem to get our Eagle Scout certificates or academic diplomas.
We're told to just keep going until we run out of gas or reach retirement, at which point we
fade into the peripheral oblivion of retirement communities, morning tee-times, and long
midweek lunches at beach restaurants.
The idealistic Chris McCandless in Jon Krakauer's bestselling book Into the Wild
defiantly declares, "I think careers are a 20th century invention and I don't want one." Anyone
who has spent enough time in the career hamster wheel can relate to this sentiment. Is
21st-century careerism -- with its promotion cycles, yearly feedback, and little wooden plaques
commemorating our accomplishments -- really the summit of human existence, the paramount
paradigm of human flourishing?
Michael J. Noughton, director of the Center for Catholic Studies at the University of St.
Thomas, Minnesota, and board chair for Reel Precision Manufacturing, doesn't think so. In his
Getting Work Right: Labor and Leisure in a Fragmented World , Noughton provides a
sobering statistic: approximately two thirds of employees in the United States are "either
indifferent or hostile to their work." That's not just an indicator of professional
dissatisfaction; it's economically disastrous. The same survey estimates that employee
disengagement is costing the U.S. economy "somewhere between 450-550 billion dollars
annually."
The origin of this problem, says Naughton, is an error in how Americans conceive of work and
leisure. We seem to err in one of two ways. One is to label our work as strictly a job, a
nine-to-five that pays the bills. In this paradigm, leisure is an amusement, an escape from the
drudgery of boring, purposeless labor. The other way is that we label our work as a career that
provides the essential fulfillment in our lives. Through this lens, leisure is a utility,
simply another means to serve our work. Outside of work, we exercise to maintain our health in
order to work harder and longer. We read books that help maximize our utility at work and get
ahead of our competitors. We "continue our education" largely to further our careers.
Whichever error we fall into, we inevitably end up dissatisfied. The more we view work as a
painful, boring chore, the less effective we are at it, and the more complacent and
discouraged. Our leisure activities, in turn, no matter how distracting, only compound our
sadness, because no amount of games can ever satisfy our souls. Or, if we see our meaning in
our work and leisure as only another means of increasing productivity, we inevitably burn out,
wondering, perhaps too late in life, what exactly we were working for . As Augustine
of Hippo noted, our hearts are restless for God. More recently, C.S. Lewis noted that we yearn
to be fulfilled by something that nothing in this world can satisfy. We need both our work and
our leisure to be oriented to the transcendent in order to give our lives meaning and
purpose.
The problem is further compounded by the fact that much of the labor Americans perform
isn't actually good . There are "bad goods" that are detrimental to society and human
flourishing. Naughton suggests some examples: violent video games, pornography, adultery dating
sites, cigarettes, high-octane alcohol, abortifacients, gambling, usury, certain types of
weapons, cheat sheet websites, "gentlemen's clubs," and so on. Though not as clear-cut as the
above, one might also add working for the kinds of businesses that contribute to the
impoverishment or destruction of our communities,
as Tucker Carlson has recently argued .
Why does this matter for professional satisfaction? Because if our work doesn't offer goods
and services that contribute to our communities and the common good -- and especially if we are
unable to perceive how our labor plays into that common good -- then it will fundamentally
undermine our happiness. We will perceive our work primarily in a utilitarian sense, shrugging
our shoulders and saying, "it's just a paycheck," ignoring or disregarding the fact that as
rational animals we need to feel like our efforts matter.
Economic liberalism -- at least in its purest free-market expression -- is based on a
paradigm with nominalist and utilitarian origins that promote "freedom of indifference." In
rudimentary terms, this means that we need not be interested in the moral quality of our
economic output. If we produce goods that satisfy people's wants, increasing their "utils," as
my Econ 101 professor used to say, then we are achieving business success. In this paradigm, we
desire an economy that maximizes access to free choice regardless of the content of that
choice, because the more choices we have, the more we can maximize our utils, or sensory
satisfaction.
The freedom of indifference paradigm is in contrast to a more ancient understanding of
economic and civic engagement: a freedom for excellence. In this worldview, "we are made
for something," and participation in public acts of virtue is essential both to our
own well-being and that of our society. By creating goods and services that objectively benefit
others and contributing to an order beyond the maximization of profit, we bless both ourselves
and the polis . Alternatively, goods that increase "utils" but undermine the common
good are rejected.
Returning to Naughton's distinction between work and leisure, we need to perceive the latter
not as an escape from work or a means of enhancing our work, but as a true time of rest. This
means uniting ourselves with the transcendent reality from which we originate and to which we
will return, through prayer, meditation, and worship. By practicing this kind of true leisure,
well
treated in a book by Josef Pieper , we find ourselves refreshed, and discover renewed
motivation and inspiration to contribute to the common good.
Americans are increasingly aware of the problems with Wall Street conservatism and globalist
economics. We perceive that our post-Cold War policies are hurting our nation. Naughton's
treatise on work and leisure offers the beginnings of a game plan for what might replace
them.
Casey Chalk covers religion and other issues for The American Conservative and is a
senior writer for Crisis Magazine. He has degrees in history and teaching from the University
of Virginia, and a masters in theology from Christendom College.
"... "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.
Workers aged 65 and older will be responsible for more than half of all UK employment
growth over the next 10 years and almost two-thirds of employment growth by 2060, according
to new figures.
Since 2008, we've been witnessing a "reverse stagflation", i.e. low unemployment with low
wages (a phenomenon which is impossible according to modern bourgeois economic theory).
The reason for this is what I mentioned earlier: no more technological progress and
negative birth rates. The USA is still benefitting from mass immigration from Central
America, but this demographic bonus won't last for much: now even the Third World countries
are barely above the minimum 2 children per woman (including most of Latin American nations).
Only a bunch of African nations (which have high mortality rates either way, so it doesn't
matter) and India still have the "demographic bonus" in a level such as to be
capitalistically viable.
This problem is not new in cotemporary history. It happened once: in the USSR.
In the 1970s, only 6% of the Soviet population was necessary to produce everything the
USSR needed, so the only solution available was to expand the economy extensively, i.e. by
reproducing the same infrastructure more times over.
The problem with that is that the USSR had reached its limits demographically. Its
population growth entered into stagnant to negative territory. Decades passed until the point
where it didn't even matter if they came up with a revolutionary technology, since there were
simply not enough children to teach and train to such new tech. Add to that the pressure from
the Cold War (which drained its R&D to the military sector), and it begun to wither
away.
Now we can predict the same thing is happening to capitalism. Contrary to the USSR, the
capitalist nations had the advantage of having available the demographic bonuses of the Third
World - specially China - to maintain their dynamism even when some countries like Japan and
Germany reached negative birth rates. Now China's demographic bonus is over and also much of
Latin America. To make things even worse for the capitalists, China managed to scape the
"middle income trap" and go to the route of becoming a superpower, thus adding to the
demographic strains of the capitalist center.
The solution, it seems, is to do pension reforms and force the old people back to work.
France is going to destroy its pension system; Brazil already did that; the USA was a pioneer
in forcing its old population to work to the death; Italy destroyed its pension system after
2008; the UK is preparing the terrain now that its social-democracy is definitely
destroyed.
As always I find your application of Marxist critique succinct and correct. This coming
decade, with its unravelling of the financialization phase of our current phase of capitalism
(i.e the US consolidation phase following British imperialism, c.1914-2020s), will be its
terminal decade. The signal that we had entered the financialization phase were the shocks of
1970-73, and the replacement of industrial manufacture (i.e. money>commodity>money+x,
or M-C-M') with finance/speculation (i.e. money>money+x, M-M') has unfolded more or less
according to Marx's analysis in Capital vol.3. This is as much a crisis of value
creation as anything else. In Australia (where I am) the process is particularly transparent:
we have almost no manufacturing sector left and so we exchange labour-value created in China
for mineral resources and engage in the ponzi-scheme of banking and property speculation,
which produces no value whatsoever. Either way the M-C-M' phase in Australia has vanished and
government dedicates itself to full-spectrum protection of the finance economy and mining.
All the while a veneer of productivity is created by immigration, which destroys cities
(because there's no infrastructure to accomodate them), inflates prices and creates the
illusion of 'growth'. This is propped up by a media who perpetuate xenophobia by creating
panic about refugees (5%) while saying zip about the fact that Australia only has economic
growth at all because we bring in 250K new consumers every year. This collapsing
financialization phase will only accelerate this decade and we will wake to find we don't
make anything and have crumbling 1980s-era infrastructure: Australia will suffer badly as the
phase plays out, not least because of a colonial-settler looting mentality around the
'economy' that persists at every level of government.
What I like about the point you're making in your post (#32) is the wider expansive
question of productivity -- or, how do we continue to produce value? It is often overlooked
that Marx sought to liberate human beings from expropriative labour of every kind (which
occurred as much under the Soviets as it does today); this means that capital's aorta
connecting labour to value via money must be severed (rather than the endless attempts to
reform capitalism to make it 'fairer' etc, a sell-out for which Gramsci savaged the union
movement). The relation between work and value must be critiqued relentlessly. To salvage any
kind of optimism about the future we need to invest all our intellectual energy in this
critique and find a radically new way of construing the link between time, labour and value
that does not include social domination.
In the meantime the scenario to which you have drawn our attention -- the parasitic
vampirism now attacking the elderly and the retired -- is an inevitable consequence of our
particular moment in late capitalism, hurtling at speed toward a social catastrophe of debt,
wealth inequality, neo-feudalism and biopolitical police state, all characterized by an image
of 70-year-olds trudging to work in an agony of physical suffering and mental meaninglessness
which will end in a forgotten grave.
I had hoped to welcome 2020 with a optimistic post.
Alas, the current news cycle has thrown up little cause for optimism.
Instead, what has caught my eye today: 2019 closes with release of a new study showing the FDA's failure to police opioids manufacturers
fueled the opioids crisis.
This is yet another example of a familiar theme: inadequate regulation kills people: e.g. think Boeing. Or, on a longer term,
less immediate scale, consider the failure of the Environmental Protection Agency, in so many realms, including the failure to curb
emissions so as to slow the pace of climate change.
In the opioids case, we're talking about thousands and thousands of people.
On Monday, Jama
Internal Medicine published research concerning the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) program to reduce opioids abuse.
The FDA launched its risk evaluation and mitigation strategy – REMS – in 2012. Researchers examined nearly 10,000 documents, released
in response to a Freedom of Information ACT (FOA) request, to generate the conclusions published by JAMA.
In 2011, the F.D.A. began asking the makers of OxyContin and other addictive long-acting opioids to pay for safety training
for more than half the physicians prescribing the drugs, and to track the effectiveness of the training and other measures in
reducing addiction, overdoses and deaths.
But the F.D.A. was never able to determine whether the program worked, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health found in a new review, because the manufacturers did not gather the right kind of data. Although the agency's approval
of OxyContin in 1995 has long come under fire, its efforts to ensure the safe use of opioids since then have not been scrutinized
nearly as much.
The documents show that even when deficiencies in these efforts became obvious through the F.D.A.'s own review process, the
agency never insisted on improvements to the program, [called a REMS]. . .
The FDA's regulatory failure had serious public health consequences, according to critics of US opioids policy, as reported by
the NYT:
Dr. Andrew Kolodny, the co-director of opioid policy research at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis,
said the safety program was a missed opportunity. He is a leader of
a group of physicians who had encouraged the F.D.A.
to adopt stronger controls, and a frequent critic of the government's response to the epidemic.
Dr. Kolodny, who was not involved in the study, called the program "a really good example of the way F.D.A. has failed to regulate
opioid manufacturers. If F.D.A. had really been doing its job properly, I don't believe we'd have an opioid crisis today."
Now, as readers frequently emphasize in comments: pain management is a considerable problem – one I am all too well aware of,
as I watched my father succumb to cancer. He ultimately passed away at my parents' home.
Although these drugs "can be clinically useful among appropriately selected patients, they have also been widely oversupplied,
are commonly used nonmedically, and account for a disproportionate number of fatal overdoses," the authors write.
The FDA was unable, more than 5 years after it had instituted its study of the opioids program's effectiveness, to determine whether
it had met its objectives, and this may have been because prior assessments were not objective, according to CNN:
Prior analyses had largely been funded by drug companies, and a 2016 FDA advisory committee "noted methodological concerns
regarding these studies," according to the authors. An inspector general report also concluded in 2013 that the agency "lacks
comprehensive data to determine whether risk evaluation and mitigation strategies improve drug safety."
In addition to failing to evaluate the effective of the limited steps it had taken, the FDA neglected to take more aggressive
steps that were within the ambit of its regulatory authority. According to CNN:
"FDA has tools that could mitigate opioid risks more effectively if the agency would be more assertive in using its power to
control opioid prescribing, manufacturing, and distribution," said retired FDA senior executive William K. Hubbard in an
editorial that accompanied the study. "Instead of bold, effective action, the FDA has implemented the Risk Evaluation and
Mitigation Strategy programs that do not even meet the limited criteria set out by the FDA."
One measure the FDA could have taken, according to Hubbard: putting restrictions on opioid distribution.
"Restricting opioid distribution would be a major decision for the FDA, but it is also likely to be the most effective policy
for reducing the harm of opioids," said Hubbard, who spent more than three decades at the agency and oversaw initiatives in areas
such as regulation, policy and economic evaluation.
Perhaps the Johns Hopkins study will spark moves to reform the broken FDA, so that it can once again serve as an effective regulator.
This could perhaps be something we can look forward to achieving in 2020 (although I won't hold my breath).
Or, perhaps if enacting comprehensive reform is too overwhelming, especially with a divided government, as a starting point: can
we agree to stop allowing self-interested industries to finance studies meant to assess the effectiveness of programs to regulate
that very same industry? Please?
The most depressing feature of the current explosion in robot-apocalypse literature is that
it rarely transcends the world of work. Almost every day, news articles appear detailing some
new round of layoffs. In the broader debate, there are apparently only two camps: those who
believe that automation will usher in a world of enriched jobs for all, and those who fear it
will make most of the workforce redundant.
This bifurcation reflects the fact that "working for a living" has been the main occupation
of humankind throughout history. The thought of a cessation of work fills people with dread,
for which the only antidote seems to be the promise of better work. Few have been willing to
take the cheerful view of Bertrand Russell's provocative 1932 essay In Praise of
Idleness . Why is it so difficult for people to accept that the end of necessary labor
could mean barely imaginable opportunities to live, in John Maynard Keynes's words, "wisely,
agreeably, and well"?
The fear of labor-saving technology dates back to the start of the Industrial Revolution,
but two factors in our own time have heightened it. The first is that the new generation of
machines seems poised to replace not only human muscles but also human brains. Owing to
advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence, we are said to be entering an era of
thinking robots; and those robots will soon be able to think even better than we do. The worry
is that teaching machines to perform most of the tasks previously carried out by humans will
make most human labor redundant. In that scenario, what will humans do?
The other fear factor is the increasing precariousness of wage labor – though this
concern is seemingly belied by headline statistics suggesting that unemployment is at a
historic low. The problem is that an economy at "full employment" now contains a large penumbra
of what economist Guy Standing calls the "precariat":
under-employed people who work less and for lower pay than they would like. A growing number of
workers, seeming to lack any kind of job (and pay) security, are thus forced to work well below
their ability.
It is natural that one would interpret the onset of precariousness as the first stage in a
broader trend toward workforce redundancy, especially if one pays attention to alarmist
predictions of the next category of "jobs at risk." But this conclusion is premature. The
penetration of robotics into the world of work has not yet been sufficient to explain the rise
of the precariat. So far, "cost cutting" in the West has largely taken the form of offshoring
to the East, where labor is cheaper, rather than replacing humans with machines. But
"onshoring" work that was previously offshored will offer cold comfort to workers if machines
get most of the jobs.
ROBO-RAPTURE
According to the first view – let us call it "job enrichment" – technology will
eventually create more, better human jobs than it destroys, as has always been the case in the
past. Simple, mundane tasks may increasingly be automated, but human labor will then be freed
up for more "interesting" and "creative" cognitive work.
In late 2017, the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) published
Jobs Lost, Jobs Gained , which claimed that as much as 50% of working hours in the
global economy could theoretically be automated; the authors suggested, however, that not more
than 30% actually would be. Further, they estimated that less than 5% of occupations could be
fully automated; but that in 60% of occupations, at least 30% of the required tasks
could be.
In line with the usual mainstream assessment, MGI believes that while there will be no net
loss of jobs in the long run, the "transition may include a period of higher unemployment and
wage adjustments." It all depends, the authors say, on the rate at which displaced workers are
re-employed: a low re-employment rate will lead to a higher medium-term unemployment rate, and
vice versa .
MGI's proposal for massive investment in education to lower the unemployment cost of the
transition is also conventional. The faster the labor reabsorption, the higher the wage growth.
Lower re-employment levels will cause wages to fall, with a greater share of the gains from
automation accruing to capital, not labor. But the authors hasten to add:
"Even if the particulars of historical experience turn out to differ from conditions today,
one lesson seems pertinent: although economies adjust to technological shocks, the transition
period is measured in decades, not years, and the rising prosperity may not be shared by
all."
This assessment is typical, and it has led many to call on governments to invest heavily in
so-called "upskilling" programs. In a
commentary for Project Syndicate , Zia Qureshi of the Brookings
Institution argues that, "with smart, forward-looking policies, we can ensure that the future
of work is a better job." In this view, automation is simply the continuation of the move
toward more, higher-quality jobs that has characterized capitalist growth since the Industrial
Revolution.
History is on the optimists' side. Mechanization has been the durable engine of productivity
and wage growth as well as reductions in working hours, albeit usually with a considerable lag.
Although the Roberts loom cost hundreds of thousands of handloom weavers their jobs in the
nineteenth century, the broader wave of new industrial technologies enabled a much larger
population to be maintained at a higher standard of living.
ROBO-REDUNDANCY
But, according to the second view – call it "job destruction" – this time is
different. The programming of machines to perform ever more complex tasks with ever-increasing
speed, accuracy, precision, and reliability will result in mass unemployment. In Rise of the
Robots , author and entrepreneur Martin Ford addresses the techno-optimists head-on.
"There is a widely held belief – based on historical evidence stretching back at least as
far as the industrial revolution – that while technology may certainly destroy jobs,
businesses, and even entire industries, it will also create entirely new occupations often in
areas that we can't yet imagine." The problem, Ford argues, is that information technology has
now reached the point where it can be considered a true utility, much like electricity.
It stands to reason that the successful new industries that will emerge in the years ahead
will have taken full advantage of this powerful new utility and the distributed machine
intelligence that accompanies it. That means they will rarely – if ever – be highly
labor-intensive. The threat is that as creative destruction unfolds, the "destruction" will
fall primarily on labor-intensive businesses in traditional areas like retail and food
preparation, whereas the "creation" will generate new industries that simply don't employ many
people.
On this view, the economy is heading for a tipping point where job creation will begin to
fall consistently short of what is required to employ the workforce fully. We will soon reach
the stage where the machine-driven destruction of existing human jobs far outpaces the creation
of new human jobs, resulting in inexorably rising mass "technological unemployment."
THE
UPSKILLING MIRAGE
Optimists' response to such concerns is that the workforce simply needs to be trained or
upskilled in order to "race with the machines." Typical of this outlook is the following
headline on a
commentary published by the World Economic Forum: "How new technologies can create huge
numbers of meaningful jobs." According to the author, concerns about "the looming devastation
that self-driving technology will have on the 3.5 million truck drivers in the US" are
"misdirected." Augmented-reality technology, we are told, can create loads of new jobs by
enabling people to work from home. All that will be needed is training of the kind offered by
"Upskill, an augmented reality company in the manufacturing and field services sectors," which
"uses wearable technologies to provide step-by-step instructions to industrial workers."
The author, himself the co-founder of an augmented-reality company, goes on to argue that,
"With the pace of technological progress only accelerating and with increasing specialization
becoming the norm in every industry, reducing the time necessary to retrain workers is pivotal
to maintaining the competitiveness of industrialized economies." There is no mention of the
wages that will be offered to these "upskilled" workers in their "meaningful" new jobs. We are
simply told that they will be relocated to "lower cost areas more in need of job creation."
Only at the very end of the commentary does the author acknowledge that, in fact, "Technology
is a force that has the potential to eliminate entire industries through robotics and
automation, and for that we should be concerned."
The retraining argument should give us pause. In portraying upskilling as the solution to
the labor displacement caused by new technologies, optimists rarely admit that if predictions
about "thinking robots" turn out to be anywhere near true, workers would need to be trained in
technical skills to an extent that is unprecedented in human history.
Moreover, the time it takes to upgrade the skills of the workforce will inevitably exceed
the time it takes to automate the economy. This will be true even if claims about an imminent
deluge of automation are greatly exaggerated. In the interval, there will be under- and
unemployment. In fact, this has already been happening. Although automation is not yet bearing
down on workers to the extent that has been predicted, it has nonetheless pushed more of them
into less-skilled jobs; and its mere possibility may be exerting downward pressure on wages.
There are already signs of the new class structure envisioned by the pessimists: "lovely jobs
at the top, lousy jobs at the bottom."
A more fundamental question is what we mean by upskilling, and what its consequences might
be. Often, heavy emphasis is placed on the importance of better technological education at all
levels of society, as if all people will need to succeed in the future is to be taught how to
write and understand computer code.
As the technology writer James Bridle has shown , this line of argument has a
number of limitations. While encouraging people to take up computer programming might be a good
start, such training offers only a functional understanding of technological systems. It does
not equip people to ask higher-level questions along the lines of, "Where did these systems
come from, who designed them and what for, and which of these intentions still lurk within them
today?" Bridle also points out that arguments for technological education and upskilling are
usually offered in "nakedly pro-market terms," following a simple equation: "the information
economy needs more programmers, and young people need jobs in the future."
THE MISSING
DIMENSION
More to the point, the upskilling discourse totally ignores the possibility that automation
could also allow people simply to work less. The reason for this neglect is twofold: it is
commonly assumed that human wants are insatiable, and that we will thus work ad
infinitum to satisfy them; and it is simply taken for granted that work is the primary
source of meaning in human lives. 1
Historically, neither of these claims holds true. The consumption race is a rather recent
phenomenon, dating no earlier than the late nineteenth century. And the possibility that we
might one day liberate ourselves from the "curse of work" has fascinated thinkers from
Aristotle to Russell. Many visions of Utopia betray a longing for leisure and liberation from
toil. Even today, surveys show that people in most developed countries
would prefer to work less, even in the workaholic United States, and might even accept less pay
if it meant logging fewer hours on the clock.
The deeply economistic nature of the current debate excludes the possibility of a
life beyond work . Yet if we want to meet the challenges of the future, it is not enough to
know how to code, analyze data, and invent algorithms. We need to start thinking seriously and
at a systemic level about the operational logic of consumer capitalism and the possibility of
de-growth.
In this process, we must abandon the false dichotomy between "jobs" and "idleness."
Full employment need not mean full-time employment, and leisure time need not
be spent idly. (Education can play an important role in ensuring that it is not.) Above all,
wealth and income will need to be distributed in such a way that machine-enabled productivity
gains do not accrue disproportionately to a small minority of owners, managers, and
technicians.
So disturbing, and this problem is only going to increase in the US as people realize they
can no longer afford to rent anywhere, and there are millions of Boomers who rent, with no
available affordable housing to move into, and no livable wage jobs (despite education) for
those who would gladly continue working – due to an as yet to be headlined age
discrimination which started during the dot.com boom Clinton/Gore ushered in, and exploded
during Obama's reign. Sickeningly, in Silicon Valley, 35 year olds feel over the hill.
None of the candidates want to even address this rental housing issue (for all ages) with
Federal Tax Policy even? Renters are the only ones who invest major sums of money into
housing, with no equity whatsoever?
Yes, it is the canary growing fainter and struggling for life in the dark gloom of the
coal mine. The most basic human requirement for survival is shelter, after food and water.
Clothing is also in that category. The poor and homeless ( absolutely including the working
poor) at first , when attention started to be given to the " national crisis and (in some
people's minds) and national disgrace", was just, you know, the usual suspects. From hobos (
whom many saw as romanticized free spirits or stubborn old guys) to including the abandoned
mentally ill, drug addicts, criminals, people with "something to hide", teens on the run from
neglect or abuse to? The numbers of people who are essentially w/o shelter is not going to
remain out of sight, out of mind. Now, we know that mothers, fathers, grandparents, children
and grandchildren are homeless. And, if they are not, many are living in what , once upon a
time, poor or desolate housing. Many are living in ,what was once called a boarding house, in
a room with their kids. They supposedly have access to "common areas". This is not people who
often even have more than a casual aquaintanceship with their "landlords". This is not the
"Golden Girls" living the high life in sunny Florida with the owner, who is an adorable
rascal. No doubt, some examples of older, single women housing together is a good fit for
some.
Most older people on limited incomes don't live in a golden fantasy world. Besides young
people not being able to afford outrageous rents, now include the older people. Couple this
with the "reports" that there are people hungry in this country. Age has become no restrictor
on this tragic fact. This can not stand. Trickle down the ,as was mentioned , breads and
circuses in all of their guises. Cheap, junk fast food will become not so cheap when in dire
poverty. Housing is just cold, hearted cash for the owners. Who gets to watch the circuses
and gladiators ? Got cable tv( even if you personally choose not to not the point)? Afford
the cost of any pro sports tickets ? Attend any cultural events that include paying for
tickets? Yep, am not going to include the all American past time of watching a game at the
local pub. Many people can not afford the luxury of the food and drinks OK, it's time to stop
now with my pov. I am fortunate to not be in the above circumstances. Too many are,
though.
God knows what's being planned behind closed doors for this increasing tragedy, the
reality is too clear for Congress not to be aware of it. Meanwhile, I'm fully sure that
amoral predators who are investing in those areas they're betting the homeless will be forced
to dwell and die in, or choose to be euthanized at.
Meanwhile, Congress does absolutely nothing about putting a stop to obscenely biased,
corrupted and deadly in its blatant discrimination AI, which is increasingly decimating
millions of jobs, and virtually tagging people with social scores they'll never get
out from under, no matter how false. This, ever since Obama glibly announced there would be
many jobs lost, and some pain, due to technologyThe Technocracy . A
Bipartisan, Horrid Congress accepted it as a necessary reality.
The only thing missing was a police officer going in after with a drawn gun. When millions
of people were being kicked out of their homes about a decade a go, I saw a photo that won an
award at the time. It showed a cop, with pistol drawn, going into a house that had the family
kicked out from it. Surrounding him was all the left overs from a family's life and it was
very sad.
It is heart rending. Even watching renters who leave before being evicted is heart
rending, they're forced to throw away many belongings, like perfectly good mattresses and
basic necessities. Lived at an apartment complex turned into ratty ass condos for mostly
foreign property 'flippers' who continued renting them out, then 'flipping' them. The
despair, fear, and loss during a huge job downturn was horrid to witness, as many had lived
there over ten years. I was lucky to be on my feet somewhat at the time, no longer.
Every fricking sign, particularly in Silicon Valley, that advertises Apartment
Homes ™ should be torn down and destroyed. The average US renters have
always been treated as second class leechers, I've witnessed it my entire adult life, now
they're being treated even worse.
Thanks Clinton/Gore, Obomber/Biden,
Nanny Pelosi , et al; and we thought that was only the mark of Republicans busy at
work.
Thinking on this subject even more, it occurs to me why the powers that be are so invested
in pitting each generation against the other. An empowered US renters' 'lobby' could be
enormous. It would cross all age – along with race, gender, religion, and geographic
– spectrums. Renters, along with the homeless are increasing in vast numbers of all
ages. The last thing the powers that be would want, is for those vast millions to stick
together against them, and age is the easiest barrier for the powers that be to keep renters
separated by.
Despite spending 40 to 60 hours a week picking up riders in his 2015 Subaru Forester, Mr.
Ellenbogen is barely surviving financially. He had to give up his apartment and move into his
mother's condo in Verona, N.J. He relies on Medicaid for health care.
"It's something I'm accepting because I'm in need of money," he said of his Lyft gig. "I'm
capable of better things, but this is what's available to me."
Economists debate how to define this kind of employment, often categorized as
"nontraditional jobs" or "alternative work arrangements," and how to calculate the proportion
of the older work force engaged in it.
Popularly seen as the province of the young, it now provides work for a growing number of
people in their 50s, 60s and beyond.
The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics includes independent contractors (who may be
self-employed but well compensated) and estimates that 11.4 percent of those aged 50 to 62 have
nontraditional jobs. The Government Accountability Office, using an even broader definition
including part-timers, says the figure is 31.2 percent.
Among workers over 62, economists at The New School's Retirement Equity Lab have found that
9 percent were in "on-call, temp, contract or gig jobs" in 2015; the researchers
believe the percentage has grown since then .
Their study defines nontraditional jobs as those that provide no health insurance or
retirement benefits. "They're probably low-paid," said Alicia Munnell, director of the center.
"Some have erratic schedules."
... ... ...
The majority of those in nontraditional jobs at ages 50 to 62 rely on them for most of their
employment, and their retirement income at 62 is 26 percent lower than that of employees
holding traditional jobs. (Nontraditional jobholders have somewhat higher rates of depression,
as well.)
... ... ...
Nontraditional jobs include food service and retail, as well as gig jobs; among the fastest
growing categories are janitorial work, and personal care and health aide positions. "They're
not easy on older bodies," Dr. Ghilarducci pointed out. "They require a lot of physical
stamina."
... ... ...
Mr. Ellenbogen, for instance, has a master's degree in social psychology from the
University of Vermont. After getting laid off from sales positions and finding a return to
business coaching unprofitable, he became a commission-only sales rep for Home Depot, with no
base salary or benefits.
The company let him go, he said, when retina surgery left him unable to drive for two
months. After he recovered, the only work he could find was with Lyft, where about a quarter of
drivers are over 50, the company reported last year.
Mr. Ellenbogen has searched for jobs on LinkedIn, on Indeed, in local newspapers. The New
Start Career Network at Rutgers University has provided free weekly sessions with a coach.
Nothing has materialized, so Mr. Ellenbogen keeps driving, trying to delay claiming Social
Security to maximize his benefits.
Following decades of increased life expectancy rates, Americans have been dying earlier for
three consecutive years since 2014, turning the elusive quest for the 'American Dream' into a
real-life nightmare for many. Corporate America must accept some portion of the blame for the
looming disaster.
Something is killing Americans and researchers have yet to find the culprit. But we can risk
some intuitive guesses.
According to researchers from the Center on Society and Health, Virginia Commonwealth
University School of Medicine, American life expectancy has not kept pace with that of other
wealthy countries and is now in fact decreasing.
The National Center for Health Statistics reported that life expectancy in the United States
peaked (78.9 years) in 2014 and subsequently dropped for 3 consecutive years, hitting 78.6
years in 2017. The decrease was most significant among men (0.4 years) than women (0.2 years)
and happened across racial-ethnic lines: between 2014 and 2016, life expectancy decreased among
non-Hispanic white populations (from 78.8 to 78.5 years), non-Hispanic black populations (from
75.3 years to 74.8 years), and Hispanic populations (82.1 to 81.8 years).
"By 2014, midlife mortality was increasing across all racial groups, caused by drug
overdoses, alcohol abuse, suicides, and a diverse list of organ system diseases," wrote
researchers Steven H. Woolf and Heidi Schoomaker in a
study that appears in the latest issue of the prestigious Journal of the American Medical
Association.
At the very beginning of the report, Woolf and Schoomaker reveal that the geographical area
with the largest relative increases occurred "in the Ohio Valley and New England."
"The implications for public health and the economy are substantial," they added, "making
it vital to understand the underlying causes."
Incidentally, it would be difficult for any observer of the U.S. political scene to read
that passage without immediately connecting it to the 2016 presidential election between Donald
Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Taking advantage of the deep industrial decline that has long plagued the Ohio Valley, made
up of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky, Trump successfully
tapped into a very real social illness, at least partially connected to
economic stagnation , which helped propel him into the White House.
Significantly, thirty-seven states witnessed significant jumps in midlife mortality in the
years leading up to 2017. As the researchers pointed out, however, the trend was concentrated
in certain states, many of which, for example in New England, did not support Trump in
2016.
"Between 2010 and 2017, the largest relative increases in mortality occurred in New
England (New Hampshire, 23.3%; Maine, 20.7%; Vermont, 19.9%, Massachusetts 12.1%) and the
Ohio Valley (West Virginia, 23.0%; Ohio, 21.6%; Indiana, 14.8%; Kentucky, 14.7%), as well as
in New Mexico (17.5%), South Dakota (15.5%), Pennsylvania (14.4%), North Dakota (12.7%),
Alaska (12.0%), and Maryland (11.0%). In contrast, the nation's most populous states
(California, Texas, and New York) experienced relatively small increases in midlife
mortality.
Eight of the 10 states with the highest number of excess deaths were in the industrial
Midwest or Appalachia, whereas rural US counties experienced greater increases in midlife
mortality than did urban counties.
A tragic irony of the study suggests that greater access to healthcare, notably among the
more affluent white population, actually correlates to an increase in higher mortality rates.
The reason is connected to the out-of-control prescription of opioid drugs to combat pain and
depression.
"The sharp increase in overdose deaths that began in the 1990s primarily affected white
populations and came in 3 waves," the report explained: (1) the introduction of OxyContin in
1996 and overuse of prescription opioids, followed by (2) increased heroin use, often by
patients who had become addicted to prescription opioids, and (3) the subsequent emergence of
potent synthetic opioids (eg, fentanyl analogues) -- the latter triggering a large post-2013
increase in overdose deaths.
"That white populations first experienced a larger increase in overdose deaths than
nonwhite populations may reflect their greater access to health care (and thus prescription
drugs)."
In September, Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin, reached a
tentative settlement with 23 states and more than 2,000 cities and counties that sued the
company, owned by the Sackler family, over its role in the opioid crisis
Other factors also helped to drive up the U.S. mortality rate, including alcoholic liver
disease and suicides, 85% of which occurred with a firearm or other method.
The United States spends more on health care than any other country, yet its overall health
report card fares worse than those of other wealthy countries. Americans experience higher
rates of illness and injury and die earlier than people in other high-income
nations.
Researchers were perplexed but not surprised by the data as there existed clear signs back
in the 1980s that the United States was heading for a cliff as far as longevity rates go.
So what is it that's claiming the life of Americans, many at the prime of their life, at a
faster pace than in the past? The reality is that it is likely to be an accumulation of
negative factors that are finally beginning to take a toll. For example, apart from the opioid
crisis, there has also been an almost total collapse of union representation across Corporate
America, which has essentially crushed any form of workplace democracy. This author, a former
member of three worker unions, witnessed this egregious abuse of corporate power firsthand,
which is apparent by the total stagnation of wages for many decades.
Today's real average wage – that is, after accounting for inflation – has about
the same purchasing power it did about half a century ago . Meanwhile, in the majority of
cases, increases in salary have a marked tendency to go to the highest-paid tier of
executives.
In a
report by Pew Research, "real terms average hourly earnings peaked more than 45 years ago:
The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 had the same purchasing power that $23.68 would
today."
One needs only consider the growing mountain of tuition debt now
consuming the paychecks of many university graduates, many of whom have yet to land their dream
6-figure job from their relatively worthless liberal education, to better understand the quiet
desperation that exists across the country.
At the same time, the exponential rise in the use of social media, which has been proven to
trigger depression
and loneliness in users, also deserves serious consideration. What society is experiencing
with its massive online presence is a total overhaul as to the way human beings relate to each
other. Presently, it would be very difficult to argue that the changes have been positive; in
fact, they seem to be contributing to the
early demise of millions of Americans in the prime of life.
Taken together, abusive labor practices that ignores workplace democracy, the epidemic of
opioid usage, compounded by the anti-social features of 'social media' suggests a perfect storm
of factors precipitating the rise of early deaths in the United States. Since all of these
areas fall in one way or another under the control of corporate power, this powerful agency
must find ways to help address the problem. The future success of America depends upon it.
With a college degree and half a brain things are still pretty good. They look pretty good
for trades guys too, as long as they are honest hard workers. I just got a quote from some
guy to dig up a 70 foot driveway and replace it with topsoil... $14,000. Nobody is hurting
too bad where I am except serious white trash with no job skills. Well, blacks and latinos
without job skills are hurting too, the difference is, they're resigned to their fate after
300+ years of getting abused. It's the Trump trailer trash who are mad that they aren't
throwing around big money any more for stealing copper or whatever the **** these trash did
before now.
You think life expectancy has dropped off now? Give it 10 or 20 years. Fentynal+a cheap
plastic mask with nitrogen or co2 emitter will be easily available on the internet...Most
people over 50 are ill equipped to deal with burgeoning economic realities. I'm 51 and I see
it all around me in NW Montana, dudes that are 50 or 100 pounds overweight, smoking, drinking
whisky and taking pills, not showing up for work. The economy here is booming and yet there
are men and women, mostly my age or older wandering around with tombstone eyes all day,
bumming money in front of the grocery stores. I spend more time than I like in Portland OR,
and it's even more apparent there. There are kids that panhandle, but 90% of the people
camping on the street are 45+. Dis Eases of dispair.
When men abandon their families to pursue money and fame, their families move on, and
then, when the men found they were chasing fool's gold, they despaired and died, since they
had fucked themselves, their children and the women who were willing to love them.
There wasn't any reason to live, if one doesn't believe in repairing such social crimes,
or second chances. And there's a time limit for such rehabilitation; wait too long to get
smart, and your chances are gone.
I know of three such cases in my immediate family.
In "Democracy in America", Alexis de Tocqueville commented on Americans' obsession with
money and means of procuring it. I would hypothesize that the deteriorating economic means of
ordinary Americans is behind the increase in midlife mortality. The pursuit of money has
resulted in a lifestyle that is not conducive to a happy and healthy life.
Stress causes the body to release cortisol which responds by building up belly fat for the
emergency times ahead. Sleep and stress reduction can reduce the waist line, slowly.
"there has also been an almost total collapse of union representation across Corporate
America, which has essentially crushed any form of workplace democracy. This author, a former
member of three worker unions, witnessed this egregious abuse of corporate power firsthand,
which is apparent by the total stagnation of wages for many decades." This cracked me up.
companies are NOT Democratic and never should be.
Isn't Capitalism wonderful? We mandate that a company may not make a decision not in the interests of the shareholder.
And then whinge because Big Pharma does just that. It makes drugs that maximize
profits. Why did you expect anything different?
And what about insurance companies? How are shareholders of insurance companies served if
the insurance companies pay up for claims? Anyway, let me present a physicians
point of view , that the AMA represents the shareholders of Big Pharma, not the
doctors. BTW. Black salve works against Big C. (I have to use euphemisms because it is illegal to
utter the words "Cures Big C". Why? I dunno. ( Bloodroot , a common plant.)
How unpatriotic it would be to praise Unions! So I shan't. Instead I recommend Guilds. A complete monopoly of particular trades by their
own Guild House. The guild controls the training of their members. It controls who gets to
work where. It controls their accommodation and pension. It controls for the benefit of it's
members. It is Vast.
It negotiates with politicians on protecting it's own interests by Law. (Hey, why should
only multi-national companies lobby in their own interest!)
For instance. A electrical guild would negotiate a contract with a builders guild for
cheap housing. (You scratch my back, I scratch yours.) It would negotiate with the teacher's
guild for the correct education of their children.
Big international companies are going to love it. But why do we need to consider their
emotions?
This rampant social illness is why Trump ran for President. He knew there were a lot of
hurting people out there who needed to believe in something, anything, and most importantly
he knew they would devour every scoop of manure he shoveled their way.
"real terms average hourly earnings peaked more than 45 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate
recorded in January 1973 had the same purchasing power that $23.68 would today."
No big drama here considering growth in wealth inequality for the period.
"... Meanwhile, greed -- once best known for its place on the list of Seven Deadly Sins -- became a point of pride for Wall Street's Masters of the Universe. With a sophisticated smile, the rallying cry of the rich and fashionable became "1 got mine -- the rest of you are on your own." ..."
And yet America's policies were headed in the wrong direction. The big banks kept lobbying Congress to pass a bill that would
gut families' last refuge in the bankruptcy courts -- the same bill we describe in this book. (It went by the awful name Bankruptcy
Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, but it should have been called the Gut the Safety Net and Pay OIT the Big Banks Act.).
The proposed law would carefully preserve bankruptcy protections for the likes of Donald Trump and his friends, while ordinary families
that had been crushed by debts from medical problems or job losses were thrown under the bus.
When we wrote The Two-Income Trap, it was already pretty clear that the big banks would win this battle. The fight kept going
for two more years, but the tide of blame-the-unlucky combined with relentless lobbying and campaign contributions finally overwhelmed
Congress.
In 2005, the Wall Street banking industry got the changes they wanted, and struggling families lost out. After the law was rewritten,
about 800,000 families a year that once would have turned to bankruptcy to try to get back on their feet were shut out of the system.1
That was 800,000 families -- mostly people who had lost jobs, suffered a medical catastrophe, or gone through a divorce or death
in the family. And now, instead of reorganizing their finances and building some security, they were at the mercy of debt collectors
who called twenty or thirty times a day -- and could keep on calling and calling for as long as they thought they could squeeze another
nickel from a desperate family.
As it turned out, the new law tore a big hole in the last safety net for working families, just in time for the Great Recession.
Meanwhile, the bank regulators kept playing blind and deaf while the housing bubble inflated. Once it burst, the economy collapsed.
The foreclosure problem we flagged back in 2003 rolled into a global economic meltdown by 2008, as millions of people lost their
homes, and millions more lost their jobs, their savings, and their chance at a secure retirement. Overall, the total cost of the
crash was estimated as high as S14 trillion.2
Meanwhile, America's giant banks got bailed out, CEO pay shot up, the stock market roared back, and the investor class got rich
beyond even their own fevered dreams.3
A generation ago, a fortune-teller might have predicted a very different future. With so many mothers headed into the workforce,
Americans might have demanded a much heavier investment in public day care, extended school days, and better family leave policies.
Equal pay for equal work might have become sacrosanct. As wages stagnated, there might have been more urgency for raising the minimum
wage, strengthening unions, and expanding Social Security. And our commitment to affordable college and universal preschool might
have become unshakeable.
But the political landscape was changing even faster than the new economic realities. Government was quickly becoming an object
of ridicule, even to the president of the United States. Instead of staking his prestige on making government more accountable and
efficient, Ronald Reagan repeated his famous barb "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are Tin from the government
and I'm here to help."'8 After generations of faithfulness to the promise of the Constitution to promote general welfare, at the
moment when the economic foundations of the middle class began to tremble, our efforts to strengthen each other and offer a helping
hand had become the butt of a national joke.
Those who continued to believe in what we could do together faced another harsh reality: much of government had been hijacked
by the rich and powerful. Regulators who were supposed to watch out for the public interest shifted their loyalties, smiling benignly
as giant banks jacked up short-term profits by cheating families, looking the other way as giant power companies scam mod customers,
and partying with industry executives as oil companies cut comers on safety and environmental rules. In this book we told one of
those stories, about how a spineless Congress rewrote the bankruptcy laws to enrich a handful of credit card companies.
Meanwhile, greed -- once best known for its place on the list of Seven Deadly Sins -- became a point of pride for Wall Street's
Masters of the Universe. With a sophisticated smile, the rallying cry of the rich and fashionable became "1 got mine -- the rest
of you are on your own."
These shifts played nicely into each other. Every' attack on "big government" meant families lost an ally, and the rules tilted
more and These shifts played nicely into each other. Every attack on "big government" meant families lost an ally, and the rules
tilted more and more in favor of those who could hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers. Lower taxes for the wealthy -- and more money
in the pockets of those who subscribed to the greed-is-good mantra. And if the consequence meant less money for preschools or public
colleges or disability coverage -- the things that would create more security for an overstretched middle class -- then that was
just too bad.
Little by little, as the middle class got deeper and deeper in trouble, government stopped working for the middle class, or at
least it stopped working so hard. The rich paid a little less and kept a little more. Even if they didn't say it in so many words,
they got exactly what they wanted. Remember the 90 percent -- America's middle class, working class, and poor -- the ones who got
70 percent of all income growth from 1935 through 1980?
From 1980-2014, the 90 percent got nothing.9 None. Zero. Zip. Not a penny in income growth. Instead, for an entire generation,
the top 10 percent captured all of the income growth in the entire country. l(X) percent.
It didn't have to be this way. The Two-Income Trap is about families that w'ork hard, but some things go wrong along the way --
illnesses and job losses, and maybe some bad decisions. But this isn't what has put the middle class on the ropes. After all, people
have gotten sick and lost jobs and made less-than-perfect decisions for generations -- and vet, for generations America's middle
class expanded. creating more opportunity to build real economic security and pass on a brighter future to their children.
What would it take to help strengthen the middle class? The problems facing the middle-class family are complex and far-reaching,
and the solutions must be too. We wish there could be a simple silver bullet, but after a generation of relentless assault, there
just isn't. But there is one overriding idea. Together we can. It's time to say it out loud: a generation of I-got-mine policy-making
has failed -- failed miserably, completely, and overwhelmingly. And it's time to change direction before the entire middle class
has been replaced by hundreds of millions of Americans barely hanging on by their fingernails.
Americas middle class was built through investments in education, infrastructure, and research -- and by' making sure we all have
a safety net. We need to strengthen those building blocks: Step up investments in public education. Rein in the cost of college and
cut out- standing student loans. Create universal preschool and affordable child care. Upgrade infrastructure -- mass transit, energy,
communications -- to make it more attractive to build good, middle-class jobs here in America. Recognize that the modem economy can
be perilous, and a strong safety net is needed now more than ever. Strengthen disability coverage, retirement coverage, and paid
sick leave. And for heavens sake, get rid of the awful banker-backed bankruptcy law, so that when things go wrong, families at least
have a chance at a fresh start. We welcome the re-issue of The Two-Income Trap because we see the original book as capturing a critical
moment, those last few minutes in which the explanation of why so many hardworking, plav-by- tho-mlcs people were in so much trouble
was simple: It was their own fault. If only they would just pull up their socks, cinch their belts a little tighter, and stop buying
so much stuff, they -- and our country -- would be just fine. That myth has died. And we say', good riddance.
"... The main culprit for the economy's falling growth rate and the general middle-class economic squeeze is debt - or more specifically, the burden of having to pay it back, with penalties, fees and lower credit ratings. The mainstream press depicts the rising market price of homes as a benefit to homeowners, a capital gam as if they almost were real estate speculators or capitalists in miniature, not wage-eamers running up debt. GDP statisticians include the rise hi valuation of owner-occupied real estate and the rising rents it saves homeowners from having to pay as adding to GDP. ..."
"... "What has occurred is an inversion of values about the proper aim of economies. Today, it is to get rich by means of a financialized rentier economy. From the point of view of rentiers and other investors, the production-and-consumption economy is the overhead. The costs of labor and capital are to be minimized by squeezing out more economic rent. By contrast, our approach treats the production-and-consumption sector as primary, and the FIRE sector and other rent extracting sectors as overhead." ..."
"... "Each debt is a credit on the other side of the balance sheet, because behind each borrower is a lender." ..."
Those who praise the post-2008 economy as a successful recovery point to the fact that the
stock market has soar ed to all-time highs, while the unemployment rate has fallen to a
decade-low. But is the stock market a good proxy for how the overall economy is doing? The low
reported unemployment rate sidesteps the predominance of minimum-wage jobs. part-time "gig''
work, and the fact that the Federal Reserve's Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S.
Households in 201S reports that 39% of Americans do not have $400 cash available for a medical
or other emergency, and that a quarter of adults skipped medical care hi 2018 because they
could not afford it. 1 The latest estimates by the U.S. Government Accountability
Office (GAO) report that nearly half (48 percent) of households headed by someone 55 and older
lack any retirement savings or pension benefits.2 Even in what the press calls an economic
boom, most Americans feel stressed and many are chronically angry and worried. According to a
2015 survey by the American Psychological Association, financial worry is the "number one cause
of stress in America today."3 The Fed describes them as suffering from '•financial
fragility." What is fragile is their economic status and self-worth, teetering 011 the brink of
downward mobility. Living hi today's fmancialized economy creates stresses that seem more
damaging emotionally than living hi a poor country. America certainly is not a poor counfry,
but it has become so debt-ridden, and its wealth and income growth so highly concentrated, that
much of its population is emotionally worse off than that of almost any other country hi the
world.
The U.S. economy's soaring wealth and income finds its counterpart on the liabilities side
of the balance sheet. Rising stock prices have been fueled by corporate stock buyback programs
and debt leveraging, not earnings from new tangible investment and employment. And rising real
estate prices reflect the decline hi interest rates, enabling a given rental flow to be
capitalized hito higher bank loans and market prices. Additionally, the wave of foreclosures
011 junk mortgages and debt- strapped new home buyers has reduced home ownership rates, forcing
more of the population into a rental market, whose rising charges for housing have supported
general real estate prices. Thus, these capital gains do not reflect a thriving economy, but a
higher-cost one that is polarizing between creditors and debtors, property owners and renters,
and the financial sector vis-a-vis the rest of the economy.
The main culprit for the economy's falling growth rate and the general middle-class economic
squeeze is debt - or more specifically, the burden of having to pay it back, with penalties,
fees and lower credit ratings. The mainstream press depicts the rising market price of homes as
a benefit to homeowners, a capital gam as if they almost were real estate speculators or
capitalists in miniature, not wage-eamers running up debt. GDP statisticians include the rise
hi valuation of owner-occupied real estate and the rising rents it saves homeowners from having
to pay as adding to GDP. But
2 William E. Gibson, "Nearly Half of Americans 55+ Have No Retirement Savings or Pension
Benefits," AARP, March 28, 2019.
https://www.aarp.org/retirement/retirement-savings/info-2019/no-retirement-money-saved.html
3 Source: American Psychological Association (2015). "American Psychological Association
survey shows money stress weighing on Americans' Health Nationwide," February 4, 2015.
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2015/02/monev-stiess.aspx.
"What has occurred is an inversion of values about the proper aim of economies. Today, it
is to get rich by means of a financialized rentier economy. From the point of view of
rentiers and other investors, the production-and-consumption economy is the overhead. The
costs of labor and capital are to be minimized by squeezing out more economic rent. By
contrast, our approach treats the production-and-consumption sector as primary, and the FIRE
sector and other rent extracting sectors as overhead."
"Each debt is a credit on the other side of the balance sheet, because behind each
borrower is a lender."
Yes it is, but only for couples with low level of marital satisfaction.
Notable quotes:
"... They also looked at marital breakup more generally, focusing on when couples decided to end their relationships (not necessarily if or when they got divorced). Their findings revealed that when men were unemployed, the likelihood that either spouse would leave the marriage increased. What about the woman's employment status? For husbands, whether their wife was employed or not was seemingly unimportant-it was unrelated to their decision to leave the relationship. It did seem to matter for wives, though, but it depended upon how satisfied they were with the marriage. ..."
"... When women were highly satisfied, they were inclined to stay with their partner regardless of whether they had employment. However, when the wife's satisfaction was low, she was more likely to exit the relationship, but only when she had a job. ..."
The first study considers government data from all 50 U.S. states between the years 1960 and 2005.1 The researchers predicted
that higher unemployment numbers would translate to more divorces among heterosexual married couples. Most of us probably would have
predicted this too based on common sense-you would probably expect your partner to be able to hold down a job, right? And indeed,
this was the case, but only before 1980. Surprisingly, since then, as joblessness has increased, divorce rates have actually
decreased.
How do we explain this counterintuitive finding? We don't know for sure, but the researchers speculate that unemployed
people may delay or postpone divorce due to the high costs associated with it. Not only is divorce expensive in terms of legal fees,
but afterward, partners need to pay for two houses instead of one. And if they are still living off of one salary at that point,
those costs may be prohibitively expensive. For this reason, it is not that uncommon to hear about estranged couples who can't stand
each other but are still living under the same roof.
The second study considered data from a national probability sample of over 3,600 heterosexual married couples in the U.S. collected
between 1987 and 2002. However, instead of looking at the overall association between unemployment and marital outcomes, they considered
how gender and relationship satisfaction factored into the equation. 2
They also looked at marital breakup more generally, focusing on when couples decided to end their relationships (not necessarily
if or when they got divorced). Their findings revealed that when men were unemployed, the likelihood that either spouse would leave
the marriage increased. What about the woman's employment status? For husbands, whether their wife was employed or not was seemingly
unimportant-it was unrelated to their decision to leave the relationship. It did seem to matter for wives, though, but it depended
upon how satisfied they were with the marriage.
When women were highly satisfied, they were inclined to stay with their partner regardless of whether they had employment.
However, when the wife's satisfaction was low, she was more likely to exit the relationship, but only when she had a job.
"... A good economy compensates for much social dysfunction. ..."
"... More than that, it prevents the worst of behaviors that are considered an expression of dysfunction from occurring, as people across all social strata have other things to worry about or keep them busy. Happy people don't bear grudges, or at least they are not on top of their consciousness as long as things are going well. ..."
"... This could be seen time and again in societies with deep and sometimes violent divisions between ethnic groups where in times of relative prosperity (or at least a broadly shared vision for a better future) the conflicts are not removed but put on a backburner, or there is even "finally" reconciliation, and then when the economy turns south, the old grudges and conflicts come back (often not on their own, but fanned by groups who stand to gain from the divisions, or as a way of scapegoating) ..."
"... "backwaters of America, that economy seems to put out fewer and fewer chairs." ~~Harold Pollack~ ..."
"... Going up through the chairs has become so impossible for those on the slow-track. Not enough slots for all the jokers within our once proud country of opportunities, ..."
"... George Orwell: "I doubt, however, whether the unemployed would ultimately benefit if they learned to spend their money more economically. ... If the unemployed learned to be better managers they would be visibly better off, and I fancy it would not be long before the dole was docked correspondingly." ..."
"... Perhaps you are commenting on the aspect that when (enough) job applicants/holders define down their standards and let employers treat them as floor mats, then the quality of many jobs and the labor relations will be adjusted down accordingly, or at the very least expectations what concessions workers will make will be adjusted up. That seems to be the case unfortunately. ..."
A good economy compensates for much social dysfunction.
A bad economy moves people toward the margins, afflicts those
near the margins and kills those at the margins.
This is what policy makers should consider as they pursue policies that do not put the citizen above all else.
cm -> Avraam Jack Dectis...
"A good economy compensates for much social dysfunction."
More than that, it prevents the worst of behaviors that are considered an expression of dysfunction from occurring, as
people across all social strata have other things to worry about or keep them busy. Happy people don't bear grudges, or at least
they are not on top of their consciousness as long as things are going well.
This could be seen time and again in societies with deep and sometimes violent divisions between ethnic groups where in
times of relative prosperity (or at least a broadly shared vision for a better future) the conflicts are not removed but put on
a backburner, or there is even "finally" reconciliation, and then when the economy turns south, the old grudges and conflicts
come back (often not on their own, but fanned by groups who stand to gain from the divisions, or as a way of scapegoating)
Dune Goon said...
"backwaters of America, that economy seems to put out fewer and fewer chairs." ~~Harold Pollack~
Going up through the chairs has become so impossible for those on the slow-track. Not enough slots for all the jokers within
our once proud country of opportunities, not enough elbow room for Daniel Boone, let alone Jack Daniels! Not enough space
in this county to wet a tree when you feel the urge! Every tiny plot of space has been nailed down and fenced off, divided up
among gated communities. Why?
Because the 1% has an excessive propensity to reproduce their own kind. They are so uneducated about the responsibilities of
birth control and space conservation that they are crowding all of us off the edge of the planet. Worse yet we have begun to *ape
our betters*.
"We've only just begun!"
~~The Carpenters~
William said...
"Many of us know people who receive various public benefits, and who might not need to rely on these programs if they made
better choices, if they learned how to not talk back at work, if they had a better handle on various self-destructive behaviors,
if they were more willing to take that crappy job and forego disability benefits, etc."
George Orwell: "I doubt, however, whether the unemployed would ultimately benefit if they learned to spend their money
more economically. ... If the unemployed learned to be better managers they would be visibly better off, and I fancy it would
not be long before the dole was docked correspondingly."
cm said in reply to William...
A valid observation, but what you are commenting on is more about getting or keeping a job than managing personal finances.
Perhaps you are commenting on the aspect that when (enough) job applicants/holders define down their standards and let
employers treat them as floor mats, then the quality of many jobs and the labor relations will be adjusted down accordingly, or
at the very least expectations what concessions workers will make will be adjusted up. That seems to be the case unfortunately.
"... In a recent interview Mr. Deaton suggested that middle-aged whites have "lost the narrative of their lives." That is, their economic setbacks have hit hard because they expected better. Or to put it a bit differently, we're looking at people who were raised to believe in the American Dream, and are coping badly with its failure to come true. ..."
"... the truth is that we don't really know why despair appears to be spreading across Middle America. But it clearly is, with troubling consequences for our society... ..."
"... Some people who feel left behind by the American story turn self-destructive; others turn on the elites they feel have betrayed them. ..."
"... What we are seeing is the long term impacts of the "Reagan Revolution." ..."
"... The affected cohort here is the first which has lived with the increased financial and employment insecurity that engendered, as well as the impacts of the massive offshoring of good paying union jobs throughout their working lives. Stress has cumulative impacts on health and well-being, which are a big part of what we are seeing here. ..."
"... Lets face it, this Fed is all about goosing up asset prices to generate short term gains in economic activity. Since the early 90s, the Fed has done nothing but make policy based on Wall Street's interests. I can give them a pass on the dot com debacle but not after that. This toxic relationship between wall street and the Fed has to end. ..."
"... there was a housing bubble that most at the Fed (including Bernanke) denied right upto the middle of 2007 ..."
"... Yellen, to her credit, has admitted multiple times over the years that low rates spur search for yield that blows bubbles ..."
"... Bursting of the bubble led to unemployment for millions and U3 that went to 10% ..."
"... "You are the guys who do not consider the counterfactual where higher rates would have prevented the housing bubble in 2003-05 and that produced the great recession in the first place." ..."
"... Inequality has been rising globally, almost regardless of trade practices ..."
"... It is not some unstoppable global trend. This is neoliberal oligarchy coup d'état. Or as it often called "a quite coup". ..."
"... First of all, whether a job can or is offshored has little to do with whether it is "low skilled" but more with whether the workflow around the job can be organized in such a way that the job can be offshore. This is less a matter of "skill level" and more volume and immediacy of interaction with adjacent job functions, or movement of material across distances. ..."
"... The reason wages are stuck is that aggregate jobs are not growing, relative to workforce supply. ..."
"... BTW the primary offshore location is India, probably in good part because of good to excellent English language skills, and India's investment in STEM education and industry (especially software/services and this is even a public stereotype, but for a reason). ..."
"... Very rough figures: half a million Chicago employees may make less than $800 a week -- almost everybody should earn $800 ... ..."
"... Union busting is generally (?) understood as direct interference with the formation and operation of unions or their members. It is probably more common that employers are allowed to just go around the unions - "right to work", subcontracting non-union shops or temp/staffing agencies, etc. ..."
"... Why would people join a union and pay dues when the union is largely impotent to deliver, when there are always still enough desperate people who will (have to) take jobs outside the union system? Employers don't have to bring in scabs when they can legally go through "unencumbered" subcontractors inside or outside the jurisdiction. ..."
"... Credibility trap, fully engaged. ..."
"... The anti-knowledge of the elites is worth reading. http://billmoyers.com/2015/11/02/the-anti-knowledge-of-the-elites/ When such herd instinct and institutional overbearance connects with the credibility trap, the results may be impressive. http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2015/11/gold-daily-and-silver-weekly-charts-pop.html ..."
"... Suicide, once thought to be associated with troubled teens and the elderly, is quickly becoming an age-blind statistic. Middle aged Americans are turning to suicide in alarming numbers. The reasons include easily accessible prescription painkillers, the mortgage crisis and most importantly the challenge of a troubled economy. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention claims suicide rates now top the number of deaths due to automobile accidents. ..."
"... The suicide rate for both younger and older Americans remains virtually unchanged, however, the rate has spiked for those in middle age (35 to 64 years old) with a 28 percent increase (link is external) from 1999 to 2010. ..."
"... When few people kill themselves "on purpose" or die from self-inflicted but probably "unintended" harms (e.g. organ failure or accidental death caused by substance abuse), it can be shrugged off as problems related to the individual (more elaboration possible but not necessary). ..."
"... When it becomes a statistically significant phenomenon (above-noise percentage of total population or demographically identifiable groups), then one has to ask questions about social causes. My first question would be, "what made life suck for those people"? What specific instrument they used to kill themselves would be my second question (it may be the first question for people who are charged with implementing counter measures but not necessarily fixing the causes). ..."
"... Since about the financial crisis (I'm not sure about causation or coincidence - not accidental coincidence BTW but causation by the same underlying causes), there has been a disturbing pattern of high school students throwing themselves in front of local trains. At that age, drinking or drugging oneself to death is apparently not the first "choice". Performance pressure *related to* (not just "and") a lack of convincing career/life prospects has/have been suspected or named as a cause. I don't think teenagers suddenly started to jump in front of trains that have run the same rail line for decades because of the "usual" and centuries to millennia old teenage romantic relationship issues. ..."
"There is a darkness spreading over part of our society":
Despair, American Style, by Paul
Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: A couple of weeks ago President Obama mocked Republicans who are "down on America," and reinforced
his message by doing a pretty good Grumpy Cat impression. He had a point: With job growth at rates not seen since the 1990s, with
the percentage of Americans covered by health insurance hitting record highs, the doom-and-gloom predictions of his political
enemies look ever more at odds with reality.
Yet there is a darkness spreading over part of our society. ... There has been
a lot of comment ... over a new paper by the economists Angus Deaton (who just won a Nobel) and Anne Case, showing that mortality
among middle-aged white Americans has been rising since 1999..., while death rates were falling steadily both in other countries
and among other groups in our own nation.
Even more striking are the proximate causes of rising mortality. Basically, white Americans are, in increasing numbers, killing
themselves... Suicide is way up, and so are deaths from drug poisoning and ... drinking... But what's causing this epidemic of
self-destructive behavior?...
In a recent interview Mr. Deaton suggested that middle-aged whites have "lost the narrative of their lives." That is, their
economic setbacks have hit hard because they expected better. Or to put it a bit differently, we're looking at people who were
raised to believe in the American Dream, and are coping badly with its failure to come true.
That sounds like a plausible hypothesis..., but the truth is that we don't really know why despair appears to be spreading
across Middle America. But it clearly is, with troubling consequences for our society...
I know I'm not the only observer who sees a link between the despair reflected in those mortality numbers and the volatility
of right-wing politics. Some people who feel left behind by the American story turn self-destructive; others turn on the elites
they feel have betrayed them. No, deporting immigrants and wearing baseball caps bearing slogans won't solve their problems,
but neither will cutting taxes on capital gains. So you can understand why some voters have rallied around politicians who at
least seem to feel their pain.
At this point you probably expect me to offer a solution. But while universal health care, higher minimum wages, aid to education,
and so on would do a lot to help Americans in trouble, I'm not sure whether they're enough to cure existential despair.
bakho said...
There are a lot of economic dislocations that the government after the 2001 recession stopped doing much about it. Right after
the 2008 crash, the government did more but by 2010, even the Democratic president dropped the ball. and failed to deliver. Probably
no region of the country is affected more by technological change that the coal regions of KY and WV. Lying politicians promise
a return to the past that cannot be delivered. No one can suggest what the new future will be. The US is due for another round
of urbanization as jobs decline in rural areas. Dislocation forces declining values of properties and requires changes in behavior,
skills and outlook. Those personal changes do not happen without guidance. The social institutions such as churches and government
programs are a backstop, but they are not providing a way forward. There is plenty of work to be done, but our elites are not
willing to invest.
DrDick -> bakho...
The problem goes back much further than that. What we are seeing is the long term impacts of the "Reagan Revolution."
The affected cohort here is the first which has lived with the increased financial and employment insecurity that engendered,
as well as the impacts of the massive offshoring of good paying union jobs throughout their working lives. Stress has cumulative
impacts on health and well-being, which are a big part of what we are seeing here.
ilsm said...
Thuggee doom and gloom is about their fading chance to reinstate the slavocracy.
The fever swamp of right wing ideas is more loony than 1964.
Extremism is the new normal.
bmorejoe -> ilsm...
Yup. The slow death of white supremacy.
Peter K. -> Anonymous...
If it wasn't for monetary policy things would be even worse as the Republicans in Congress forced fiscal austerity on the economy
during the "recovery."
sanjait -> Peter K....
That's the painful irony of a comment like that one from Anonymous ... he seems completely unaware that, yes, ZIRP has done
a huge amount to prevent the kind of problems described above. He like most ZIRP critics fails to consider what the counterfactual
looks like (i.e., something like the Great Depression redux).
Anonymous -> sanjait...
You are the guys who do not consider the counterfactual where higher rates would have prevented the housing bubble in 2003-05
and that produced the great recession in the first place. Because preemptive monetary policy has gone out of fashion completely.
And now we are going to repeat the whole process over when the present bubble in stocks and corporate bonds bursts along with
the malinvestment in China, commodity exporters etc.
Peter K. -> Anonymous...
"liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate... it will purge the rottenness out of the system.
High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted,
and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people."
sanjait -> Anonymous...
"You want regulation? I would like to see
1) Reinstate Glass Steagall
2) impose a 10bp trans tax on trading financial instruments."
Great. Two things with zero chance of averting bubbles but make great populist pablum.
This is why we can't have nice things!
"3) Outlaw any Fed person working for a bank/financial firm after they leave office."
This seems like a decent idea. Hard to enforce, as highly intelligent and accomplished people tend not to be accepting of such
restrictions, but it could be worth it anyway.
likbez -> sanjait...
" highly intelligent and accomplished people tend not to be accepting of such restrictions, but it could be worth it anyway."
You are forgetting that it depends on a simple fact to whom political power belongs. And that's the key whether "highly intelligent
and accomplished people" will accept those restrictions of not.
If the government was not fully captured by financial capital, then I think even limited prosecution of banksters "Stalin's
purge style" would do wonders in preventing housing bubble and 2008 financial crush.
Please try to imagine the effect of trial and exile to Alaska for some period just a dozen people involved in Securitization
of mortgages boom (and those highly intelligent people can do wonders in improving oil industry in Alaska ;-).
Starting with Mr. Weill, Mr. Greenspan, Mr. Rubin, Mr. Phil Gramm, Dr. Summers and Mr. Clinton.
Anonymous -> Peter K....
"2003-2005 didn't have excess inflation and wage gains."
Monetary policy can not hinge just on inflation or wage gains. Why are wage gains a problem anyway?
Lets face it, this Fed is all about goosing up asset prices to generate short term gains in economic activity. Since the
early 90s, the Fed has done nothing but make policy based on Wall Street's interests. I can give them a pass on the dot com debacle
but not after that. This toxic relationship between wall street and the Fed has to end.
You want regulation? I would like to see
1) Reinstate Glass Steagall
2) impose a 10bp trans tax on trading financial instruments.
3) Outlaw any Fed person working for a bank/financial firm after they leave office. Bernanke, David Warsh etc included. That includes
Mishkin getting paid to shill for failing Iceland banks or Bernanke making paid speeches to hedge funds.
Anonymous -> EMichael...
Fact: there was a housing bubble that most at the Fed (including Bernanke) denied right upto the middle of 2007
Fact: Yellen, to her credit, has admitted multiple times over the years that low rates spur search for yield that blows bubbles
Fact: Bursting of the bubble led to unemployment for millions and U3 that went to 10%
what facts are you referring to?
EMichael -> Anonymous...
That FED rates caused the bubble.
to think this you have to ignore that a 400% Fed Rate increase from 2004 to 2005 had absolutely no effect on mortgage originations.
Then of course, you have to explain why 7 years at zero has not caused another housing bubble.
Correlation is not causation. Lack of correlation is proof of lack of causation.
pgl -> Anonymous...
"You are the guys who do not consider the counterfactual where higher rates would have prevented the housing bubble
in 2003-05 and that produced the great recession in the first place."
You are repeating the John B. Taylor line about interest rates being held "too low and too long". And guess what - most economists
have called Taylor's claim for the BS it really is. We should also note we never heard this BS when Taylor was part of the Bush
Administration. And do check - Greenspan and later Bernanke were raising interest rates well before any excess demand was generated
which is why inflation never took off.
So do keep repeating this intellectual garbage and we keep noting you are just a stupid troll.
Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century
By Anne Case and Angus Deaton
Midlife increases in suicides and drug poisonings have been previously noted. However, that these upward trends were persistent
and large enough to drive up all-cause midlife mortality has, to our knowledge, been overlooked. If the white mortality rate for
ages 45−54 had held at their 1998 value, 96,000 deaths would have been avoided from 1999–2013, 7,000 in 2013 alone. If it had
continued to decline at its previous (1979‒1998) rate, half a million deaths would have been avoided in the period 1999‒2013,
comparable to lives lost in the US AIDS epidemic through mid-2015. Concurrent declines in self-reported health, mental health,
and ability to work, increased reports of pain, and deteriorating measures of liver function all point to increasing midlife distress.
Abstract
This paper documents a marked increase in the all-cause mortality of middle-aged white non-Hispanic men and women in the United
States between 1999 and 2013. This change reversed decades of progress in mortality and was unique to the United States; no other
rich country saw a similar turnaround. The midlife mortality reversal was confined to white non-Hispanics; black non-Hispanics
and Hispanics at midlife, and those aged 65 and above in every racial and ethnic group, continued to see mortality rates fall.
This increase for whites was largely accounted for by increasing death rates from drug and alcohol poisonings, suicide, and chronic
liver diseases and cirrhosis. Although all education groups saw increases in mortality from suicide and poisonings, and an overall
increase in external cause mortality, those with less education saw the most marked increases. Rising midlife mortality rates
of white non-Hispanics were paralleled by increases in midlife morbidity. Self-reported declines in health, mental health, and
ability to conduct activities of daily living, and increases in chronic pain and inability to work, as well as clinically measured
deteriorations in liver function, all point to growing distress in this population. We comment on potential economic causes and
consequences of this deterioration.
ilsm -> Sarah...
Murka is different. Noni's plan would work if it were opportune for the slavocracy and the Kochs and ARAMCO don't lose any
"growth".
Maybe cost plus climate repair contracts to shipyards fumbling through useless nuclear powered behemoths for war plans made
in 1942.
Someone gotta make big money plundering for the public good, in Murka!
CSP said...
The answers to our malaise seem readily apparent to me, and I'm a southern-born white male working in a small, struggling Georgia
town.
1. Kill the national war machine
2. Kill the national Wall Street financial fraud machine
3. Get out-of-control mega corporations under control
4. Return savings to Main Street (see #1, #2 and #3)
5. Provide national, universal health insurance to everyone as a right
6. Provide free education to everyone, as much as their academic abilities can earn them
7. Strengthen social security and lower the retirement age to clear the current chronic underemployment of young people
It seems to me that these seven steps would free the American people to pursue their dreams, not the dreams of Washington or
Wall Street. Unfortunately, it is readily apparent that true freedom and real individual empowerment are the last things our leaders
desire. Shame on them and shame on everyone who helps to make it so.
DeDude -> CSP...
You are right. Problem is that most southern-born white males working in a small, struggling Georgia town would rather die
than voting for the one candidate who might institute those changes - Bernie Sanders.
The people who are beginning to realize that the american dream is a mirage, are the same people who vote for GOP candidates
who want to give even more to the plutocrats.
kthomas said...
The kids in Seattle had it right when WTO showed up.
Why is anyone suprised by all this?
We exported out jobs. First all the manufacturing. Now all of the Service jobs.
But hey...we helped millions in China and India get out of poverty, only to put outselves into it.
America was sold to highest bidder a long long time ago. A Ken Melvin put it, the chickens came home to roost in 2000.
sanjait -> kthomas...
So you think the problem with America is that we lost our low skilled manufacturing and call center tech support jobs?
I can sort of see why people assume that "we exported out jobs" is the reason for stagnant incomes in the U.S., but it's still
tiresome, because it's still just wrong.
Manufacturing employment crashed in the US mostly because it has been declining globally. The world economy is less material
based than ever, and machines do more of the work making stuff.
And while some services can be outsourced, the vast majority can't. Period.
Inequality has been rising globally, almost regardless of trade practices. The U.S. has one of the more closed economies in
the developed world, so if globalization were the cause, we'd be the most insulated. But we aren't, which should be a pretty good
indication that globalization isn't the cause.
cm -> sanjait...
Yes, the loss of "low skilled" jobs is still a loss of jobs. Many people work in "low skilled" jobs because there are not enough
"higher skill" jobs to go around, as most work demanded is not of the most fancy type.
We have heard this now for a few decades, that "low skilled" jobs lost will be replaced with "high skill" (and better paid)
jobs, and the evidence is somewhat lacking. There has been growth in higher skill jobs in absolute terms, but when you adjust
by population growth, it is flat or declining.
When people hypothetically or actually get the "higher skills" recommended to them, into what higher skill jobs are they to
move?
I have known a number of anecdotes of people with degrees or who held "skilled" jobs that were forced by circumstances to take
commodity jobs or jobs at lower pay grades or "skill levels" due to aggregate loss of "higher skill" jobs or age discrimination,
or had to go from employment to temp jobs.
And it is not true that only "lower skill" jobs are outsourced. Initially, yes, as "higher skills" obviously don't exist yet
in the outsourcing region. But that doesn't last long, especially if the outsourcers expend resources to train and grow the remote
skill base, at the expense of the domestic workforce which is expected to already have experience (which has worked for a while
due to workforce overhangs from previous industry "restructuring").
likbez -> sanjait...
"Inequality has been rising globally, almost regardless of trade practices."
It is not some unstoppable global trend. This is neoliberal oligarchy coup d'état. Or as it often called "a quite coup".
sanjait -> cm...
"Yes, the loss of "low skilled" jobs is still a loss of jobs. Many people work in "low skilled" jobs because there
are not enough "higher skill" jobs to go around, as most work demanded is not of the most fancy type.
We have heard this now for a few decades, that "low skilled" jobs lost will be replaced with "high skill" (and better
paid) jobs, and the evidence is somewhat lacking. "
And that is *exactly my point.*
The lack of wage growth isn't isolated to low skilled domains. It's weak across the board.
What does that tell us?
It tells us that offshoring of low skilled jobs isn't the problem.
"And it is not true that only "lower skill" jobs are outsourced. Initially, yes, as "higher skills" obviously don't exist
yet in the outsourcing region."
You could make this argument, but I think (judging by your own hedging) you know this isn't the case. Offshoring of higher
skilled jobs does happen but it's a marginal factor in reality. You hypothesize that it may someday become a bigger factor ...
but just notice that we've had stagnant wages now for a few decades.
My point is that offshoring IS NOT THE CAUSE of stagnating wages. I'd argue that globalization is a force that can't really
be stopped by national policy anyway, but even if you think it could, it's important to realize IT WOULD DO ALMOST NOTHING to
alleviate inequality.
cm -> sanjait...
I was responding to your point:
"So you think the problem with America is that we lost our low skilled manufacturing and call center tech support jobs?"
With the follow-on:
"I can sort of see why people assume that "we exported out jobs" is the reason for stagnant incomes in the U.S., but
it's still tiresome, because it's still just wrong."
Labor markets are very sensitive to marginal effects. If let's say "normal" or "heightened" turnover is 10% p.a. spread out
over the year, then the continued availability (or not) of around 1% vacancies (for the respective skill sets etc.) each month
makes a huge difference. There was the argument that the #1 factor is automation and process restructuring, and offshoring is
trailing somewhere behind that in job destruction volume.
I didn't research it in detail because I have no reason to doubt it. But it is a compounded effect - every percentage point
in open positions (and *better* open positions - few people are looking to take a pay cut) makes a big difference. If let's say
the automation losses are replaced with other jobs, offshoring will tip the scale. Due to aggregate effects one cannot say what
is the "extra" like with who is causing congestion on a backed up road (basically everybody, not the first or last person to join).
"Manufacturing employment crashed in the US mostly because it has been declining globally. The world economy is less
material based than ever, and machines do more of the work making stuff."
Are you kidding me? The world economy is less material based? OK maybe 20 years after the paperless office we are finally printing
less, but just because the material turnover, waste, and environmental pollution is not in your face (because of offshoring!),
it doesn't mean less stuff is produced or material consumed. If anything, it is market saturation and aggregate demand limitations
that lead to lower material and energy consumption (or lower growth rates).
In the aftermath of the financial crisis, several nations (US and Germany among others) had programs to promote new car sales
(cash for clunkers etc.) that were based on the idea that people can get credit for their old car, but its engine had to be destroyed
and made unrepairable so it cannot enter the used car market and defeat the purpose of the program. I assume the clunkers were
then responsibly and sustainably recycled.
cm -> sanjait...
"The lack of wage growth isn't isolated to low skilled domains. It's weak across the board.
What does that tell us?
It tells us taht offshoring of low skilled jobs isn't the problem."
This doesn't follow. First of all, whether a job can or is offshored has little to do with whether it is "low skilled"
but more with whether the workflow around the job can be organized in such a way that the job can be offshore. This is less a
matter of "skill level" and more volume and immediacy of interaction with adjacent job functions, or movement of material across
distances. Also consider that aside from time zone differences (which are of course a big deal between e.g. US and Europe/Asia),
there is not much difference whether a job is performed in another country or in a different domestic region, or perhaps just
"working from home" 1 mile from the office, for office-type jobs. Of course the other caveat is whether the person can physically
attend meetings with little fuss and expense - so remote management/coordination work is naturally not a big thing.
The reason wages are stuck is that aggregate jobs are not growing, relative to workforce supply. When the boomers
retire for real in another 5-10 years, that may change. OTOH several tech companies I know have periodic programs where they offer
workers over 55 or so packages to leave the company, so they cannot really hurt for talent, though they keep complaining and are
busy bringing in young(er) people on work visa. Free agents, it depends on the company. Some companies hire NCGs, but they also
"buy out" older workers.
cm -> cm...
Caveat: Based on what I see (outside sectors with strong/early growth), domestic hiring of NCGs/"fresh blood" falls in two
categories:
Location bound jobs (sales, marketing, legal, HR, administration, ..., also functions attached to those or otherwise preferring
"cultural affinity") - which are largely staffed with locals, also foreigners (visa as well as free agent (green card/citizen))
"Technical functions" and "technical" back office (i.e. little or no customer contact) - predominantly foreigners on visa
(e.g. graduates of US colleges), though some "free agent" hiring may happen depending on circumstances
Then there is also the gender split - "technical/engineering" jobs are overweighed in men, except technical jobs in traditionally
"non-technical/non-product" departments which have a higher share of women.
All this is of course a matter of top-down hiring preferences, as generally everything is either controlled top-down or tacitly
allowed to happen by selective non-interference.
cm -> sanjait...
"You could make this argument, but I think (judging by your own hedging) you know this isn't the case. Offshoring of
higher skilled jobs does happen but it's a marginal factor in reality. You hypothesize that it may someday become a bigger
factor ... but just notice that we've had stagnant wages now for a few decades."
I've written a lot of text so far but didn't address all points ...
My "hedging" is retrospective. I don't hypothesize what may eventually happen but it is happening here and now. I don't presume
to present a representative picture, but in my sphere of experience/observation (mostly a subset of computer software), offshoring
of *knowledge work* started in the mid to late 90's (and that's not the earliest it started in general - of course a lot of the
early offshoring in the 80's was market/language specific customization, e.g. US tech in Europe etc., and more "local culture
expertise" and not offshoring proper). In the late 90's and early 2000's, offshoring was overshadowed by the Y2K/dotcom booms,
so that phase didn't get high visibility (among the people "affected" it sure did). Also the internet was not yet ubiquitous -
broadband existed only at the corporate level.
15-20 years ago it was testing and "low level" programming, perhaps self contained limited-complexity functions or modules
written to fairly rigid specifications, or troubleshooting and bug fixes implemented here or there.
Then 10-15 years ago it advanced to offshore product maintenance, following up on QA issues, small development projects,
or assisting/supporting roles in "real" projects (either conducted offshore or people visiting the domestic offices for weeks
to months).
This went on in parallel with domestic visa workers from the first 15-20 years ago wave either being encouraged or themselves
expressing a desire to go back home (personal, career, family reasons etc.) and "spread the knowledge" and advancing into technical/organization
management roles.
Then 5-10 years ago with clearly grown offshore skills (my theory is that people everywhere are cut from the same cloth,
and we are now at 10+ years industry experience in this narrative), the offshore sites started taking on ownership of product
components, while all the "previous" functions of testing, R&D support, tech pub (which I didn't mention earlier), etc. remained
and evolved further. Also IT (though IT support is more timezone bound and is thus present in all time zones).
Since then there has been little change, it is pretty much a steady state.
BTW the primary offshore location is India, probably in good part because of good to excellent English language skills,
and India's investment in STEM education and industry (especially software/services and this is even a public stereotype, but
for a reason).
Syaloch -> sanjait...
Whether low skilled jobs were eliminated due to offshoring or automation doesn't really matter. What matters is that the jobs
disappeared, replaced by a small number of higher skill jobs paying comparable wages plus a large number of low skill jobs offering
lower wages.
The aggregate effect was stagnation and even decline in living standards. Plus any new jobs were not necessarily produced in
the same geographic region as those that were lost, leading to concentration of unemployment and despair.
sanjait -> Syaloch...
"Whether low skilled jobs were eliminated due to offshoring or automation doesn't really matter. "
Well, actually it does matter, because we have a whole lot of people (in both political parties) who think the way to fight
inequality is to try to reverse globalization.
If they are incorrect, it matters, because they should be applying their votes and their energy to more effective solutions,
and rejecting the proposed solutions of both the well-meaning advocates and the outright demagogues who think restricting trade
is some kind of answer.
Syaloch -> sanjait...
I meant it doesn't matter in terms of the despair felt by those affected. All that matters to those affected is that they have
been obsoleted without either economic or social support to help them.
However, in terms of addressing this problem economically it really doesn't matter that much either. Offshoring is effectively
a low-tech form of automation. If companies can't lower labor costs by using cheaper offshore labor they'll find ways to either
drive down domestic wages or to use less labor. For the unskilled laborer the end result is the same.
Syaloch -> Syaloch...
See the thought experiment I posted on the links thread, and then add the following:
Suppose the investigative journalist discovered instead that Freedonia itself is a sham, and that rather than being imported
from overseas, the clothing was actually coming from an automated factory straight out of Vonnegut's "Player Piano" that was hidden
in a remote domestic location. Would the people who were demanding limits on Freedonian exports now say, "Oh well, I guess that's
OK" simply because the factory was located within the US?
Dan Kervick -> kthomas...
I enjoyed listening to this talk by Fredrick Reinfeldt at the LSE:
Reinfeldt is a center-right politicians and former Swedish Prime Minister. OF course, what counts as center-right in Sweden
seems very different from what counts as center-right in the US.
Perhaps there is some kind of basis here for some bipartisan progress on jobs and full employment.
William said...
I'm sure this isn't caused by any single factor, but has anyone seriously investigated a link between this phenomena and the
military?
Veterans probably aren't a large enough cohort to explain the effect in full, but white people from the south are the most
likely group to become soldiers, and veterans are the most likely group to have alcohol/drug abuse and suicide problems.
This would also be evidence why we aren't seeing it in other countries, no one else has anywhere near the number of vets we
have.
cm -> William...
Vets are surely part of the aggregate problem of lack of career/economic prospects, in fact a lot of people join(ed) the military
because of a lack of other jobs to begin with. But as the lack of prospects is aggregate it affects everybody.
" At this point you probably expect me to offer a solution. But while universal health care, higher minimum wages, aid to
education, and so on would do a lot to help Americans in trouble, I'm not sure whether they're enough to cure existential despair."
UNOINIZED and (therefore shall we say) politicized: you are in control of your narrative -- win or lose. Can it get any more hopeful
than that? And you will probably win.
Winning being defined as labor eeking out EQUALLY emotionally satisfying/dissatisfying market results -- EQUAL that is with
the satisfaction of ownership and the consumer. That's what happens when all three interface in the market -- labor interfacing
indirectly through collective bargaining.
(Labor's monopoly neutralizes ownership's monopsony -- the consumers' willingness to pay providing the checks and balances
on labor's monopoly.)
If you feel you've done well RELATIVE to the standards of your own economic era you will feel you've done well SUBJECTIVELY.
For instance, my generation of (American born) cab drivers earned about $750 for a 60 hour (grueling) work week up to the early
80s. With multiples strip-offs I won't detail here (will on request -- diff for diff cities) that has been reduced to about $500
a week (at best I suspect!) I believe and that is just not enough to get guys like me out there for that grueling work.
Let's take the minimum wage comparison from peak-to-peak instead of from peak-to-trough: $11 and hour in 1968 -- at HALF TODAY'S
per capita income (economic output) -- to $7.25 today. How many American born workers are going to show up for $7.25 in the day
of SUVs and "up-to-date kitchens" all around us. $8.75 was perfectly enticing for Americans working in 1956 ($8.75 thanks to the
"Master of the Senate"). The recent raise to $10 is not good enough for Chicago's 100,000 gang members (out of my estimate 200,000
gang age minority males). Can hustle that much on the street w/o the SUBJECTIVE feeling of wage slavery.
Ditto hiring result for two-tier supermarket contracts after Walmart undercut the unions.
Without effective unions (centralized bargaining is the gold standard: only thing that fends off Walmart type contract muscling.
Done that way since 1966 with the Teamsters Union's National Master Freight Agreement; the long practiced law or custom from continental
Europe to French Canada to Argentina to Indonesia.
It occurred to me this morning that if the quintessential example of centralized bargaining Germany has 25% or our population
and produces 200% more cars than we do, then, Germans produces 8X as many cars per capita than we do!
And thoroughly union organized Germans feel very much in control of the narrative of their lives.
No longer thoroughly, with recent labor market reforms the door has likewise been blown open to contingent workforces, staffing
agencies, and similar forms of (perma) temp work. And moving work to nations with lower labor standards (e.g. "peripheral" Europe,
less so outside Europe) has been going on for decades, for parts, subassembly, and even final assembly.
Very rough figures: half a million Chicago employees may make less than $800 a week -- almost everybody should earn $800
...
... putative minimum wage? -- might allow some slippage in high labor businesses like fast food restaurants; 33% labor costs!
-- sort of like the Teamsters will allow exceptions when needed from Master agreements if you open up your books, they need your
working business too, consumer ultimately sets limits.
Average raise of $200 a week -- $10,000 a year equals $5 billion shift in income -- out of a $170 billion Chicago GDP (1% of
national) -- not too shabby to bring an end to gang wars and Despair American Style.
Just takes making union busting a felony LIKE EVERY OTHER FORM OF UNFAIR MARKET MUSCLING (even taking a movie in the movies).
The body of laws are there -- the issues presumably settled -- the enforcement just needs "dentures."
Union busting is generally (?) understood as direct interference with the formation and operation of unions or their members.
It is probably more common that employers are allowed to just go around the unions - "right to work", subcontracting non-union
shops or temp/staffing agencies, etc.
Why would people join a union and pay dues when the union is largely impotent to deliver, when there are always still enough
desperate people who will (have to) take jobs outside the union system? Employers don't have to bring in scabs when they can legally
go through "unencumbered" subcontractors inside or outside the jurisdiction.
cm -> cm...
It comes down to the collective action problem. You can organize people who form a "community" (workers in the same business
site, or similar aggregates more or less subject to Dunbar's number or with a strong tribal/ethnic/otherwise cohesion narrative).
Beyond that, if you can get a soapbox in the regional press, etc., otherwise good luck. It probably sounds defeatist but I don't
have a solution.
When the union management is outed for corruption or other abuses or questioable practices (e.g. itself employing temps or
subcontractors), it doesn't help.
Syaloch said...
There was a good discussion of this on last Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher.
Surprisingly, I pretty much agree with David Frum's analysis -- and Maher's comment that Trump, with his recent book, "Crippled
America", has his finger on the pulse of this segment of the population. Essentially what we're seeing is the impact of economic
stagnation upon a culture whose reserves of social capital have been depleted, as described in Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone".
When the going gets tough it's a lot harder to manage without a sense of identity and purpose, and without the support of family,
friends, churches, and communities. Facebook "friends" are no substitute for the real thing.
Peter K. said...
Jared Bernsetin:
"...since the late 1970s, we've been at full employment only 30 percent of the time (see the data note below for an explanation
of how this is measured). For the three decades before that, the job market was at full employment 70 percent of the time."
We need better macro (monetary, fiscal, trade) policy.
Maybe middle-aged blacks and hispanics have better attitudes and health since they made it through a tough youth, have more
realistic expectations and race relations are better than the bad old days even if they are far from perfect. The United States
is becoming more multicultural.
Suicide, once thought to be associated with troubled teens and the elderly, is quickly becoming an age-blind statistic.
Middle aged Americans are turning to suicide in alarming numbers. The reasons include easily accessible prescription painkillers,
the mortgage crisis and most importantly the challenge of a troubled economy. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention claims
suicide rates now top the number of deaths due to automobile accidents.
The suicide rate for both younger and older Americans remains virtually unchanged, however, the rate has spiked for those
in middle age (35 to 64 years old) with a 28 percent increase (link is external) from 1999 to 2010. The rate for whites in
middle-age jumped an alarming 40 percent during the same time frame. According to the CDC, there were more than 38,000 suicides
(link is external) in 2010 making it the tenth leading cause of death in America overall (third leading cause from age 15-24).
The US 2010 Final Data quantifies the US statistics for suicide by race, sex and age. Interestingly, African-American suicides
have declined and are considerably lower than whites. Reasons are thought to include better coping skills when negative things
occur as well as different cultural norms with respect to taking your own life. Also, Blacks (and Hispanics) tend to have stronger
family support, community support and church support to carry them through these rough times.
While money woes definitely contribute to stress and poor mental health, it can be devastating to those already prone to depression
-- and depression is indeed still the number one risk factor for suicide. A person with no hope and nowhere to go, can now easily
turn to their prescription painkiller and overdose, bringing the pain, stress and worry to an end. In fact, prescription painkillers
were the third leading cause of suicide (and rising rapidly) for middle aged Americans in 2010 (guns are still number 1). ...
cm -> Fred C. Dobbs...
When few people kill themselves "on purpose" or die from self-inflicted but probably "unintended" harms (e.g. organ failure
or accidental death caused by substance abuse), it can be shrugged off as problems related to the individual (more elaboration
possible but not necessary).
When it becomes a statistically significant phenomenon (above-noise percentage of total population or demographically identifiable
groups), then one has to ask questions about social causes. My first question would be, "what made life suck for those people"?
What specific instrument they used to kill themselves would be my second question (it may be the first question for people who
are charged with implementing counter measures but not necessarily fixing the causes).
Since about the financial crisis (I'm not sure about causation or coincidence - not accidental coincidence BTW but causation
by the same underlying causes), there has been a disturbing pattern of high school students throwing themselves in front of local
trains. At that age, drinking or drugging oneself to death is apparently not the first "choice". Performance pressure *related
to* (not just "and") a lack of convincing career/life prospects has/have been suspected or named as a cause. I don't think teenagers
suddenly started to jump in front of trains that have run the same rail line for decades because of the "usual" and centuries
to millennia old teenage romantic relationship issues.
"... If returns to experience are in decline, if wisdom no longer pays off, then that might help suggest why a group of mostly older people who are not, as a group, disadvantaged might become convinced that the country has taken a turn for the worse. It suggests why their grievances should so idealize the past, and why all the talk about coal miners and factories, jobs in which unions have codified returns to experience into the salary structure, might become such a fixation. ..."
The Despair of Learning That Experience No Longer Matters
April 10, 2017
.....................
The arguments about Case and Deaton's work have been an echo of the one that consumed so much of the primary campaign, and
then the general election, and which is still unresolved: whether the fury of Donald Trump's supporters came from cultural and
racial grievance or from economic plight. Case and Deaton's scholarship does not settle the question. As they write, more than
once, "more work is needed."
But part of what Case and Deaton offer in their new paper is an emotional logic to an economic argument.
If returns to experience are in decline, if wisdom no longer pays off, then that might help suggest why a group of mostly
older people who are not, as a group, disadvantaged might become convinced that the country has taken a turn for the worse. It
suggests why their grievances should so idealize the past, and why all the talk about coal miners and factories, jobs in which
unions have codified returns to experience into the salary structure, might become such a fixation.
Whatever comes from the deliberations over Case and Deaton's statistics, there is within their numbers an especially interesting
story.
The key to the success of neoliberal was a bunch on bought intellectual prostitutes like Milton Friedman and the drive to
occupy economic departments of the the universities using money from the financial elite. which along with think tank continued
mercenary army of neoliberalism who fought and win the battle with weakened New Del capitalism supporters. After that
neoliberalism was from those departments like the centers of infection via indoctrination of each new generation of students.
Which is a classic mixture of Bolsheviks methods and Trotskyite theory adapted tot he need of financial oligarchy.
Essentially we see the tragedy of Lysenkoism replayed in the USA. When false theory supported by financial oligarchy and then
state forcefully suppressed all other economic thought and became the only politically correct theory in the USA and Western
Europe.
Notable quotes:
"... The neoliberal counterrevolution, in theory and policy, has reversed or undermined nearly every aspect of managed capitalism -- from progressive taxation, welfare transfers, and antitrust, to the empowerment of workers and the regulation of banks and other major industries. ..."
"... Neoliberalism's premise is that free markets can regulate themselves; that government is inherently incompetent, captive to special interests, and an intrusion on the efficiency of the market; that in distributive terms, market outcomes are basically deserved; and that redistribution creates perverse incentives by punishing the economy's winners and rewarding its losers. So government should get out of the market's way. ..."
"... Now, after nearly half a century, the verdict is in. Virtually every one of these policies has failed, even on their own terms. ..."
"... Economic power has resulted in feedback loops of political power, in which elites make rules that bolster further concentration. ..."
"... The culprit isn't just "markets" -- some impersonal force that somehow got loose again. This is a story of power using theory. The mixed economy was undone by economic elites, who revised rules for their own benefit. They invested heavily in friendly theorists to bless this shift as sound and necessary economics, and friendly politicians to put those theories into practice. ..."
"... The grand neoliberal experiment of the past 40 years has demonstrated that markets in fact do not regulate themselves. Managed markets turn out to be more equitable and more efficient. ..."
"... The British political economist Colin Crouch captured this anomaly in a book nicely titled The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism . Why did neoliberalism not die? As Crouch observed, neoliberalism failed both as theory and as policy, but succeeded superbly as power politics for economic elites. ..."
"... The neoliberal ascendance has had another calamitous cost -- to democratic legitimacy. As government ceased to buffer market forces, daily life has become more of a struggle for ordinary people. ..."
"... After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, ours was widely billed as an era when triumphant liberal capitalism would march hand in hand with liberal democracy. But in a few brief decades, the ostensibly secure regime of liberal democracy has collapsed in nation after nation, with echoes of the 1930s. ..."
"... As the great political historian Karl Polanyi warned, when markets overwhelm society, ordinary people often turn to tyrants. In regimes that border on neofascist, klepto-capitalists get along just fine with dictators, undermining the neoliberal premise of capitalism and democracy as complements. ..."
"... Classically, the premise of a "free market" is that government simply gets out of the way. This is nonsensical, since all markets are creatures of rules, most fundamentally rules defining property, but also rules defining credit, debt, and bankruptcy; rules defining patents, trademarks, and copyrights; rules defining terms of labor; and so on. Even deregulation requires rules. In Polanyi's words, "laissez-faire was planned." ..."
"... Around the same time, the term neoconservative was used as a self-description by former liberals who embraced conservatism, on cultural, racial, economic, and foreign-policy grounds. Neoconservatives were neoliberals in economics. ..."
"... Lavishly funded centers and tenured chairs were underwritten by the Olin, Scaife, Bradley, and other far-right foundations to promote such variants of free-market theory as law and economics, public choice, rational choice, cost-benefit analysis, maximize-shareholder-value, and kindred schools of thought. These theories colonized several academic disciplines. All were variations on the claim that markets worked and that government should get out of the way. ..."
"... Market failure was dismissed as a rare special case; government failure was said to be ubiquitous. Theorists worked hand in glove with lobbyists and with public officials. But in every major case where neoliberal theory generated policy, the result was political success and economic failure. ..."
"... For example, supply-side economics became the justification for tax cuts, on the premise that taxes punished enterprise. ..."
"... Robert Bork's "antitrust paradox," holding that antitrust enforcement actually weakened competition, was used as the doctrine to sideline the Sherman and Clayton Acts. Supposedly, if government just got out of the way, market forces would remain more competitive because monopoly pricing would invite innovation and new entrants to the market. In practice, industry after industry became more heavily concentrated. ..."
"... Human capital theory, another variant of neoliberal application of markets to partly social questions, justified deregulating labor markets and crushing labor unions. Unions supposedly used their power to get workers paid more than their market worth. Likewise minimum wage laws. But the era of depressed wages has actually seen a decline in rates of productivity growth ..."
"... Financial deregulation is neoliberalism's most palpable deregulatory failure, but far from the only one ..."
"... Air travel has been a poster child for advocates of deregulation, but the actual record is mixed at best. Airline deregulation produced serial bankruptcies of every major U.S. airline, often at the cost of worker pay and pension funds. ..."
"... Ticket prices have declined on average over the past two decades, but the traveling public suffers from a crazy quilt of fares, declining service, shrinking seats and legroom, and exorbitant penalties for the perfectly normal sin of having to change plans. ..."
"... A similar example is the privatization of transportation services such as highways and even parking meters. In several Midwestern states, toll roads have been sold to private vendors. The governor who makes the deal gains a temporary fiscal windfall, while drivers end up paying higher tolls often for decades. Investment bankers who broker the deal also take their cut. Some of the money does go into highway improvements, but that could have been done more efficiently in the traditional way via direct public ownership and competitive bidding. ..."
"... The Affordable Care Act is a form of voucher. But the regulated private insurance markets in the ACA have not fully lived up to their promise, in part because of the extensive market power retained by private insurers and in part because the right has relentlessly sought to sabotage the program -- another political feedback loop. The sponsors assumed that competition would lower costs and increase consumer choice. But in too many counties, there are three or fewer competing plans, and in some cases just one. ..."
"... In practice, this degenerates into an infinite regress of regulator versus commercial profit-maximizer, reminiscent of Mad magazine's "Spy versus Spy," with the industry doing end runs to Congress to further rig the rules. Straight-ahead public insurance such as Medicare is generally far more efficient. ..."
"... Several forms of deregulation -- of airlines, trucking, and electric power -- began not under Reagan but under Carter. Financial deregulation took off under Bill Clinton. Democratic presidents, as much as Republicans, promoted trade deals that undermined social standards. Cost-benefit analysis by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) was more of a choke point under Barack Obama than under George W. Bush. ..."
"... Dozens of nations, from Latin America to East Asia, went through this cycle of boom, bust, and then IMF pile-on. Greece is still suffering the impact. ..."
"... In fact, Japan, South Korea, smaller Asian nations, and above all China had thrived by rejecting every major tenet of neoliberalism. Their capital markets were tightly regulated and insulated from foreign speculative capital. They developed world-class industries as state-led cartels that favored domestic production and supply. East Asia got into trouble only when it followed IMF dictates to throw open capital markets, and in the aftermath they recovered by closing those markets and assembling war chests of hard currency so that they'd never again have to go begging to the IMF ..."
"... The basic argument of neoliberalism can fit on a bumper sticker. Markets work; governments don't . If you want to embellish that story, there are two corollaries: Markets embody human freedom. And with markets, people basically get what they deserve; to alter market outcomes is to spoil the poor and punish the productive. That conclusion logically flows from the premise that markets are efficient. Milton Friedman became rich, famous, and influential by teasing out the several implications of these simple premises. ..."
"... The failed neoliberal experiment also makes the case not just for better-regulated capitalism but for direct public alternatives as well. Banking, done properly, especially the provision of mortgage finance, is close to a public utility. Much of it could be public. ..."
The
invisible hand is more like a thumb on the scale for the world's elites. That's why market
fundamentalism has been unmasked as bogus economics but keeps winning politically.This article appears in the Summer 2019 issue of The American Prospect magazine.
Subscribe here .
Since the late 1970s, we've had a grand experiment to test the claim that free markets
really do work best. This resurrection occurred despite the practical failure of laissez-faire
in the 1930s, the resulting humiliation of free-market theory, and the contrasting success of
managed capitalism during the three-decade postwar boom.
Yet when growth faltered in the 1970s, libertarian economic theory got another turn at bat.
This revival proved extremely convenient for the conservatives who came to power in the 1980s.
The neoliberal counterrevolution, in theory and policy, has reversed or undermined nearly every
aspect of managed capitalism -- from progressive taxation, welfare transfers, and antitrust, to
the empowerment of workers and the regulation of banks and other major industries.
Neoliberalism's premise is that free markets can regulate themselves; that government is
inherently incompetent, captive to special interests, and an intrusion on the efficiency of the
market; that in distributive terms, market outcomes are basically deserved; and that
redistribution creates perverse incentives by punishing the economy's winners and rewarding its
losers. So government should get out of the market's way.
By the 1990s, even moderate liberals had been converted to the belief that social objectives
can be achieved by harnessing the power of markets. Intermittent periods of governance by
Democratic presidents slowed but did not reverse the slide to neoliberal policy and doctrine.
The corporate wing of the Democratic Party approved.
Now, after nearly half a century, the verdict is in. Virtually every one of these policies
has failed, even on their own terms. Enterprise has been richly rewarded, taxes have been cut,
and regulation reduced or privatized. The economy is vastly more unequal, yet economic growth
is slower and more chaotic than during the era of managed capitalism. Deregulation has produced
not salutary competition, but market concentration. Economic power has resulted in feedback
loops of political power, in which elites make rules that bolster further concentration.
The culprit isn't just "markets" -- some impersonal force that somehow got loose again. This
is a story of power using theory. The mixed economy was undone by economic elites, who revised
rules for their own benefit. They invested heavily in friendly theorists to bless this shift as
sound and necessary economics, and friendly politicians to put those theories into
practice.
Recent years have seen two spectacular cases of market mispricing with devastating
consequences: the near-depression of 2008 and irreversible climate change. The economic
collapse of 2008 was the result of the deregulation of finance. It cost the real U.S. economy
upwards of $15 trillion (and vastly more globally), depending on how you count, far more than
any conceivable efficiency gain that might be credited to financial innovation. Free-market
theory presumes that innovation is necessarily benign. But much of the financial engineering of
the deregulatory era was self-serving, opaque, and corrupt -- the opposite of an efficient and
transparent market.
The existential threat of global climate change reflects the incompetence of markets to
accurately price carbon and the escalating costs of pollution. The British economist Nicholas
Stern has aptly termed the worsening climate catastrophe history's greatest case of market
failure. Here again, this is not just the result of failed theory. The entrenched political
power of extractive industries and their political allies influences the rules and the market
price of carbon. This is less an invisible hand than a thumb on the scale. The premise of
efficient markets provides useful cover.
The grand neoliberal experiment of the past 40 years has demonstrated that markets in fact
do not regulate themselves. Managed markets turn out to be more equitable and more
efficient. Yet the theory and practical influence of neoliberalism marches splendidly on,
because it is so useful to society's most powerful people -- as a scholarly veneer to what
would otherwise be a raw power grab. The British political economist Colin Crouch captured this
anomaly in a book nicely titled The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism . Why did
neoliberalism not die? As Crouch observed, neoliberalism failed both as theory and as policy,
but succeeded superbly as power politics for economic elites.
The neoliberal ascendance has had another calamitous cost -- to democratic legitimacy. As
government ceased to buffer market forces, daily life has become more of a struggle for
ordinary people. The elements of a decent middle-class life are elusive -- reliable jobs and
careers, adequate pensions, secure medical care, affordable housing, and college that doesn't
require a lifetime of debt. Meanwhile, life has become ever sweeter for economic elites, whose
income and wealth have pulled away and whose loyalty to place, neighbor, and nation has become
more contingent and less reliable.
Large numbers of people, in turn, have given up on the promise of affirmative government,
and on democracy itself. After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, ours was widely billed as an
era when triumphant liberal capitalism would march hand in hand with liberal democracy. But in
a few brief decades, the ostensibly secure regime of liberal democracy has collapsed in nation
after nation, with echoes of the 1930s.
As the great political historian Karl Polanyi warned, when markets overwhelm society,
ordinary people often turn to tyrants. In regimes that border on neofascist, klepto-capitalists get along just fine with
dictators, undermining the neoliberal premise of capitalism and democracy as complements. Several authoritarian thugs,
playing on tribal nationalism as the antidote to capitalist cosmopolitanism, are surprisingly popular.
It's also important to appreciate that neoliberalism is not laissez-faire. Classically, the
premise of a "free market" is that government simply gets out of the way. This is nonsensical,
since all markets are creatures of rules, most fundamentally rules defining property, but also
rules defining credit, debt, and bankruptcy; rules defining patents, trademarks, and
copyrights; rules defining terms of labor; and so on. Even deregulation requires rules. In
Polanyi's words, "laissez-faire was planned."
The political question is who gets to make the rules, and for whose benefit. The
neoliberalism of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman invoked free markets, but in practice the
neoliberal regime has promoted rules created by and for private owners of capital, to keep
democratic government from asserting rules of fair competition or countervailing social
interests. The regime has rules protecting pharmaceutical giants from the right of consumers to
import prescription drugs or to benefit from generics. The rules of competition and
intellectual property generally have been tilted to protect incumbents. Rules of bankruptcy
have been tilted in favor of creditors. Deceptive mortgages require elaborate rules, written by
the financial sector and then enforced by government. Patent rules have allowed agribusiness
and giant chemical companies like Monsanto to take over much of agriculture -- the opposite of
open markets. Industry has invented rules requiring employees and consumers to submit to
binding arbitration and to relinquish a range of statutory and common-law
rights.
Neoliberalism as Theory, Policy, and Power
It's worth taking a moment to unpack the term "neoliberalism." The coinage can be confusing
to American ears because the "liberal" part refers not to the word's ordinary American usage,
meaning moderately left-of-center, but to classical economic liberalism otherwise known as
free-market economics. The "neo" part refers to the reassertion of the claim that the
laissez-faire model of the economy was basically correct after all.
Few proponents of these views embraced the term neoliberal . Mostly, they called
themselves free-market conservatives. "Neoliberal" was a coinage used mainly by their critics,
sometimes as a neutral descriptive term, sometimes as an epithet. The use became widespread in
the era of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
To add to the confusion, a different and partly overlapping usage was advanced in the 1970s
by the group around the Washington Monthly magazine. They used "neoliberal" to mean a
new, less statist form of American liberalism. Around the same time, the term
neoconservative was used as a self-description by former liberals who embraced
conservatism, on cultural, racial, economic, and foreign-policy grounds. Neoconservatives were
neoliberals in economics.
Beginning in the 1970s, resurrected free-market theory was interwoven with both conservative
politics and significant investments in the production of theorists and policy intellectuals.
This occurred not just in well-known conservative think tanks such as the American Enterprise
Institute, Heritage, Cato, and the Manhattan Institute, but through more insidious investments
in academia. Lavishly funded centers and tenured chairs were underwritten by the Olin, Scaife,
Bradley, and other far-right foundations to promote such variants of free-market theory as law
and economics, public choice, rational choice, cost-benefit analysis,
maximize-shareholder-value, and kindred schools of thought. These theories colonized several
academic disciplines. All were variations on the claim that markets worked and that government
should get out of the way.
Each of these bodies of sub-theory relied upon its own variant of neoliberal ideology. An
intensified version of the theory of comparative advantage was used not just to cut tariffs but
to use globalization as all-purpose deregulation. The theory of maximizing shareholder value
was deployed to undermine the entire range of financial regulation and workers' rights.
Cost-benefit analysis, emphasizing costs and discounting benefits, was used to discredit a good
deal of health, safety, and environmental regulation. Public choice theory, associated with the
economist James Buchanan and an entire ensuing school of economics and political science, was
used to impeach democracy itself, on the premise that policies were hopelessly afflicted by
"rent-seekers" and "free-riders."
Market failure was dismissed as a rare special case; government failure was said to be
ubiquitous. Theorists worked hand in glove with lobbyists and with public officials. But in
every major case where neoliberal theory generated policy, the result was political success and
economic failure.
For example, supply-side economics became the justification for tax cuts, on the premise
that taxes punished enterprise. Supposedly, if taxes were cut, especially taxes on capital and
on income from capital, the resulting spur to economic activity would be so potent that
deficits would be far less than predicted by "static" economic projections, and perhaps even
pay for themselves. There have been six rounds of this experiment, from the tax cuts sponsored
by Jimmy Carter in 1978 to the immense 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed by Donald Trump. In
every case some economic stimulus did result, mainly from the Keynesian jolt to demand, but in
every case deficits increased significantly. Conservatives simply stopped caring about
deficits. The tax cuts were often inefficient as well as inequitable, since the loopholes
steered investment to tax-favored uses rather than the most economically logical ones. Dozens
of America's most profitable corporations paid no taxes.
Robert Bork's "antitrust paradox," holding that antitrust enforcement actually weakened
competition, was used as the doctrine to sideline the Sherman and Clayton Acts. Supposedly, if
government just got out of the way, market forces would remain more competitive because
monopoly pricing would invite innovation and new entrants to the market. In practice, industry
after industry became more heavily concentrated. Incumbents got in the habit of buying out
innovators or using their market power to crush them. This pattern is especially insidious in
the tech economy of platform monopolies, where giants that provide platforms, such as Google
and Amazon, use their market power and superior access to customer data to out-compete rivals
who use their platforms. Markets, once again, require rules beyond the benign competence of the
market actors themselves. Only democratic government can set equitable rules. And when
democracy falters, undemocratic governments in cahoots with corrupt private plutocrats will
make the rules.
Human capital theory, another variant of neoliberal application of markets to partly social
questions, justified deregulating labor markets and crushing labor unions. Unions supposedly
used their power to get workers paid more than their market worth. Likewise minimum wage laws.
But the era of depressed wages has actually seen a decline in rates of productivity growth.
Conversely, does any serious person think that the inflated pay of the financial moguls who
crashed the economy accurately reflects their contribution to economic activity? In the case of
hedge funds and private equity, the high incomes of fund sponsors are the result of transfers
of wealth and income from employees, other stakeholders, and operating companies to the fund
managers, not the fruits of more efficient management.
There is a broad literature discrediting this body of pseudo-scholarly work in great detail.
Much of neoliberalism represents the ever-reliable victory of assumption over evidence. Yet
neoliberal theory lived on because it was so convenient for elites, and because of the inertial
power of the intellectual capital that had been created. The well-funded neoliberal habitat has
provided comfortable careers for two generations of scholars and pseudo-scholars who migrate
between academia, think tanks, K Street, op-ed pages, government, Wall Street, and back again.
So even if the theory has been demolished both by scholarly rebuttal and by events, it thrives
in powerful institutions and among their political allies.
The Practical Failure of
Neoliberal Policies
Financial deregulation is neoliberalism's most palpable deregulatory failure, but far from
the only one. Electricity deregulation on balance has increased monopoly power and raised costs
to consumers, but has failed to offer meaningful "shopping around" opportunities to bring down
prices. We have gone from regulated monopolies with predictable earnings, costs, wages, and
consumer protections to deregulated monopolies or oligopolies with substantial pricing power.
Since the Bell breakup, the telephone system tells a similar story of re-concentration,
dwindling competition, price-gouging, and union-bashing.
Air travel has been a poster child for advocates of deregulation, but the actual record is
mixed at best. Airline deregulation produced serial bankruptcies of every major U.S. airline,
often at the cost of worker pay and pension funds.
Ticket prices have declined on average over
the past two decades, but the traveling public suffers from a crazy quilt of fares, declining
service, shrinking seats and legroom, and exorbitant penalties for the perfectly normal sin of
having to change plans. Studies have shown that fares actually declined at a faster rate in the
20 years before deregulation in 1978 than in the 20 years afterward, because the prime source
of greater efficiency in airline travel is the introduction of more fuel-efficient planes.
The
roller-coaster experience of airline profits and losses has reduced the capacity of airlines to
purchase more fuel-efficient aircraft, and the average age of the fleet keeps increasing. The
use of "fortress hubs" to defend market pricing power has reduced the percentage of nonstop
flights, the most efficient way to fly from one point to another.
Robert Bork's spurious arguments that antitrust enforcement hurt competition became the
basis for dismantling antitrust. Massive concentration resulted. Charles Tasnadi/AP Photo
In addition to deregulation, three prime areas of practical neoliberal policies are the use
of vouchers as "market-like" means to social goals, the privatization of public services, and
the use of tax subsides rather than direct outlays. In every case, government revenues are
involved, so this is far from a free market to begin with. But the premise is that market
disciplines can achieve public purposes more efficiently than direct public provision.
The evidence provides small comfort for these claims. One core problem is that the programs
invariably give too much to the for-profit middlemen at the expense of the intended
beneficiaries. A related problem is that the process of using vouchers and contracts invites
corruption. It is a different form of "rent-seeking" -- pursuit of monopoly profits -- than
that attributed to government by public choice theorists, but corruption nonetheless. Often,
direct public provision is far more transparent and accountable than a web of contractors.
A further problem is that in practice there is often far less competition than imagined,
because of oligopoly power, vendor lock-in, and vendor political influence. These experiments
in marketization to serve social goals do not operate in some Platonic policy laboratory, where
the only objective is true market efficiency yoked to the public good. They operate in the
grubby world of practical politics, where the vendors are closely allied with conservative
politicians whose purposes may be to discredit social transfers entirely, or to reward
corporate allies, or to benefit from kickbacks either directly or as campaign
contributions.
Privatized prisons are a case in point. A few large, scandal-ridden companies have gotten
most of the contracts, often through political influence. Far from bringing better quality and
management efficiency, they have profited by diverting operating funds and worsening conditions
that were already deplorable, and finding new ways to charge inmates higher fees for necessary
services such as phone calls. To the extent that money was actually saved, most of the savings
came from reducing the pay and professionalism of guards, increasing overcrowding, and
decreasing already inadequate budgets for food and medical care.
A similar example is the privatization of transportation services such as highways and even
parking meters. In several Midwestern states, toll roads have been sold to private vendors. The
governor who makes the deal gains a temporary fiscal windfall, while drivers end up paying
higher tolls often for decades. Investment bankers who broker the deal also take their cut.
Some of the money does go into highway improvements, but that could have been done more
efficiently in the traditional way via direct public ownership and competitive bidding.
Housing vouchers substantially reward landlords who use the vouchers to fill empty houses
with poor people until the neighborhood gentrifies, at which point the owner is free to quit
the program and charge market rentals. Thus public funds are used to underwrite a privately
owned, quasi-social housing sector -- whose social character is only temporary. No permanent
social housing is produced despite the extensive public outlay. The companion use of tax
incentives to attract passive investment in affordable housing promotes economically
inefficient tax shelters, and shunts public funds into the pockets of the investors -- money
that might otherwise have gone directly to the housing.
The Affordable Care Act is a form of voucher. But the regulated private insurance markets in
the ACA have not fully lived up to their promise, in part because of the extensive market power
retained by private insurers and in part because the right has relentlessly sought to sabotage
the program -- another political feedback loop. The sponsors assumed that competition would
lower costs and increase consumer choice. But in too many counties, there are three or fewer
competing plans, and in some cases just one.
As more insurance plans and hospital systems become for-profit, massive investment goes into
such wasteful activities as manipulation of billing, "risk selection," and other gaming of the
rules. Our mixed-market system of health care requires massive regulation to work with
tolerable efficiency. In practice, this degenerates into an infinite regress of regulator
versus commercial profit-maximizer, reminiscent of Mad magazine's "Spy versus Spy," with
the industry doing end runs to Congress to further rig the rules. Straight-ahead public
insurance such as Medicare is generally far more efficient.
An extensive literature has demonstrated that for-profit voucher schools do no better and
often do worse than comparable public schools, and are vulnerable to multiple forms of gaming
and corruption. Proprietors of voucher schools are superb at finding ways of excluding costly
special-needs students, so that those costs are imposed on what remains of public schools; they
excel at gaming test results. While some voucher and charter schools, especially nonprofit
ones, sometimes improve on average school performance, so do many public schools. The record is
also muddied by the fact that many ostensibly nonprofit schools contract out management to
for-profit companies.
Tax preferences have long been used ostensibly to serve social goals. The Earned Income Tax
Credit is considered one of the more successful cases of using market-like measures -- in this
case a refundable tax credit -- to achieve the social goal of increasing worker take-home pay.
It has also been touted as the rare case of bipartisan collaboration. Liberals get more money
for workers. Conservatives get to reward the deserving poor, since the EITC is conditioned on
employment. Conservatives get a further ideological win, since the EITC is effectively a wage
subsidy from the government, but is experienced as a tax refund rather than a benefit of
government.
Recent research, however, shows that the EITC is primarily a subsidy of low-wage employers,
who are able to pay their workers a lot less than a market-clearing wage. In industries such as
nursing homes or warehouses, where many workers qualified for the EITC work side by side with
ones not eligible, the non-EITC workers get substandard wages. The existence of the EITC
depresses the level of the wages that have to come out of the employer's
pocket.
Neoliberalism's Influence on Liberals
As free-market theory resurged, many moderate liberals embraced these policies. In the
inflationary 1970s, regulation became a scapegoat that supposedly deterred salutary price
competition. Some, such as economist Alfred Kahn, President Carter's adviser on deregulation,
supported deregulation on what he saw as the merits. Other moderates supported neoliberal
policies opportunistically, to curry favor with powerful industries and donors. Market-like
policies were also embraced by liberals as a tactical way to find common ground with
conservatives.
Several forms of deregulation -- of airlines, trucking, and electric power -- began not
under Reagan but under Carter. Financial deregulation took off under Bill Clinton. Democratic
presidents, as much as Republicans, promoted trade deals that undermined social standards.
Cost-benefit analysis by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) was more of a
choke point under Barack Obama than under George W. Bush.
"Command and control" became an all-purpose pejorative for disparaging perfectly sensible
and efficient regulation. "Market-like" became a fashionable concept, not just on the
free-market right but on the moderate left. Cass Sunstein, who served as Obama's
anti-regulation czar,uses the example of "nudges" as a more market-like and hence superior
alternative to direct regulation, though with rare exceptions their impact is trivial.
Moreover, nudges only work in tandem with regulation.
There are indeed some interventionist policies that use market incentives to serve social
goals. But contrary to free-market theory, the market-like incentives first require substantial
regulation and are not a substitute for it. A good example is the Clean Air Act Amendments of
1990, which used tradable emission rights to cut the output of sulfur dioxide, the cause of
acid rain. This was supported by both the George H.W. Bush administration and by leading
Democrats. But before the trading regime could work, Congress first had to establish
permissible ceilings on sulfur dioxide output -- pure command and control.
There are many other instances, such as nutrition labeling, truth-in-lending, and disclosure
of EPA gas mileage results, where the market-like premise of a better-informed consumer
complements command regulation but is no substitute for it. Nearly all of the increase in fuel
efficiency, for example, is the result of command regulations that require auto fleets to hit a
gas mileage target. The fact that EPA gas mileage figures are prominently disclosed on new car
stickers may have modest influence, but motor fuels are so underpriced that car companies have
success selling gas-guzzlers despite the consumer labeling.
Image removed
Bill Clinton and his Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin, were big promoters of financial deregulation.
Politically, whatever rationale there was for liberals to make common ground with
libertarians is now largely gone. The authors of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act made no attempt
to meet Democrats partway; they excluded the opposition from the legislative process entirely.
This was opportunistic tax cutting for elites, pure and simple. The right today also abandoned
the quest for a middle ground on environmental policy, on anti-poverty policy, on health policy
-- on virtually everything. Neoliberal ideology did its historic job of weakening intellectual
and popular support for the proposition that affirmative government can better the lives of
citizens and that the Democratic Party is a reliable steward of that social compact. Since
Reagan, the right's embrace of the free market has evolved from partly principled idealism into
pure opportunism and obstruction.
Neoliberalism and Hyper-Globalism
The post-1990 rules of globalization, supported by conservatives and moderate liberals
alike, are the quintessence of neoliberalism. At Bretton Woods in 1944, the use of fixed
exchange rates and controls on speculative private capital, plus the creation of the IMFand
World Bank, were intended to allow member countries to practice national forms of managed
capitalism, insulated from the destructive and deflationary influences of short-term
speculative private capital flows. As doctrine and power shifted in the 1970s, the IMF, the
World Bank, and later the WTO, which replaced the old GATT, mutated into their ideological
opposite. Rather than instruments of support for mixed national economies, they became
enforcers of neoliberal policies.
The standard package of the "Washington Consensus" of approved policies for developing
nations included demands that they open their capital markets to speculative private finance,
as well as cutting taxes on capital, weakening social transfers, and gutting labor regulation
and public ownership. But private capital investment in poor countries proved to be fickle. The
result was often excessive inflows during the boom part of the cycle and punitive withdrawals
during the bust -- the opposite of the patient, long-term development capital that these
countries needed and that was provided by the World Bank of an earlier era. During the bust
phase, the IMF typically imposes even more stringent neoliberal demands as the price of
financial bailouts, including perverse budgetary austerity, supposedly to restore the
confidence of the very speculative capital markets responsible for the boom-bust cycle.
Dozens of nations, from Latin America to East Asia, went through this cycle of boom, bust,
and then IMF pile-on. Greece is still suffering the impact. After 1990, hyper-globalism also
included trade treaties whose terms favored multinational corporations. Traditionally, trade
agreements had been mainly about reciprocal reductions of tariffs. Nations were free to have
whatever brand of regulation, public investment, or social policies they chose. With the advent
of the WTO, many policies other than tariffs were branded as trade distorting, even as takings
without compensation. Trade deals were used to give foreign capital free access and to
dismantle national regulation and public ownership. Special courts were created in which
foreign corporations and investors could do end runs around national authorities to challenge
regulation for impeding commerce.
At first, the sponsors of the new trade regime tried to claim the successful economies of
East Asia as evidence of the success of the neoliberal recipe. Supposedly, these nations had
succeeded by pursuing "export-led growth," exposing their domestic economies to salutary
competition. But these claims were soon exposed as the opposite of what had actually occurred.
In fact, Japan, South Korea, smaller Asian nations, and above all China had thrived by
rejecting every major tenet of neoliberalism. Their capital markets were tightly regulated and
insulated from foreign speculative capital. They developed world-class industries as state-led
cartels that favored domestic production and supply. East Asia got into trouble only when it
followed IMF dictates to throw open capital markets, and in the aftermath they recovered by
closing those markets and assembling war chests of hard currency so that they'd never again
have to go begging to the IMF. Enthusiasts of hyper-globalization also claimed that it
benefited poor countries by increasing export opportunities, but as the success of East Asia
shows, there is more than one way to boost exports -- and many poorer countries suffered under
the terms of the global neoliberal regime.
Nor was the damage confined to the developing world. As the work of Harvard economist Dani
Rodrik has demonstrated, democracy requires a polity. For better or for worse, the polity and
democratic citizenship are national. By enhancing the global market at the expense of the
democratic state, the current brand of hyper-globalization deliberately weakens the capacity of
states to regulate markets, and weakens democracy itself.
When Do Markets Work?
The failure of neoliberalism as economic and social policy does not mean that markets never
work. A command economy is even more utopian and perverse than a neoliberal one. The practical
quest is for an efficient and equitable middle ground.
The neoliberal story of how the economy operates assumes a largely frictionless marketplace,
where prices are set by supply and demand, and the price mechanism allocates resources to their
optimal use in the economy as a whole. For this discipline to work as advertised, however,
there can be no market power, competition must be plentiful, sellers and buyers must have
roughly equal information, and there can be no significant externalities. Much of the 20th
century was practical proof that these conditions did not describe a good part of the actual
economy. And if markets priced things wrong, the market system did not aggregate to an
efficient equilibrium, and depressions could become self-deepening. As Keynes demonstrated,
only a massive jolt of government spending could restart the engines, even if market pricing
was partly violated in the process.
Nonetheless, in many sectors of the economy, the process of buying and selling is close
enough to the textbook conditions of perfect competition that the price system works tolerably
well. Supermarkets, for instance, deliver roughly accurate prices because of the consumer's
freedom and knowledge to shop around. Likewise much of retailing. However, when we get into
major realms of the economy with positive or negative externalities, such as education and
health, markets are not sufficient. And in other major realms, such as pharmaceuticals, where
corporations use their political power to rig the terms of patents, the market doesn't produce
a cure.
The basic argument of neoliberalism can fit on a bumper sticker. Markets work;
governments don't . If you want to embellish that story, there are two corollaries: Markets
embody human freedom. And with markets, people basically get what they deserve; to alter market
outcomes is to spoil the poor and punish the productive. That conclusion logically flows from
the premise that markets are efficient. Milton Friedman became rich, famous, and influential by
teasing out the several implications of these simple premises.
It is much harder to articulate the case for a mixed economy than the case for free markets,
precisely because the mixed economy is mixed. The rebuttal takes several paragraphs. The more
complex story holds that markets are substantially efficient in some realms but far from
efficient in others, because of positive and negative externalities, the tendency of financial
markets to create cycles of boom and bust, the intersection of self-interest and corruption,
the asymmetry of information between company and consumer, the asymmetry of power between
corporation and employee, the power of the powerful to rig the rules, and the fact that there
are realms of human life (the right to vote, human liberty, security of one's person) that
should not be marketized.
And if markets are not perfectly efficient, then distributive questions are partly political
choices. Some societies pay pre-K teachers the minimum wage as glorified babysitters. Others
educate and compensate them as professionals. There is no "correct" market-derived wage,
because pre-kindergarten is a social good and the issue of how to train and compensate teachers
is a social choice, not a market choice. The same is true of the other human services,
including medicine. Nor is there a theoretically correct set of rules for patents, trademarks,
and copyrights. These are politically derived, either balancing the interests of innovation
with those of diffusion -- or being politically captured by incumbent industries.
Governments can in principle improve on market outcomes via regulation, but that fact is
complicated by the risk of regulatory capture. So another issue that arises is market failure
versus polity failure, which brings us back to the urgency of strong democracy and effective
government.
After Neoliberalism
The political reversal of neoliberalism can only come through practical politics and
policies that demonstrate how government often can serve citizens more equitably and
efficiently than markets. Revision of theory will take care of itself. There is no shortage of
dissenting theorists and empirical policy researchers whose scholarly work has been vindicated
by events. What they need is not more theory but more influence, both in the academy and in the
corridors of power. They are available to advise a new progressive administration, if
that administration can get elected and if it refrains from hiring neoliberal
advisers.
There are also some relatively new areas that invite policy innovation. These include
regulation of privacy rights versus entrepreneurial liberties in the digital realm; how to
think of the internet as a common carrier; how to update competition and antitrust policy as
platform monopolies exert new forms of market power; how to modernize labor-market policy in
the era of the gig economy; and the role of deeper income supplements as machines replace human
workers.
The failed neoliberal experiment also makes the case not just for better-regulated
capitalism but for direct public alternatives as well. Banking, done properly, especially the
provision of mortgage finance, is close to a public utility. Much of it could be public. A
great deal of research is done more honestly and more cost-effectively in public, peer-reviewed
institutions such as the NIH than by a substantially corrupt private pharmaceutical industry.
Social housing often is more cost-effective than so-called public-private partnerships. Public
power is more efficient to generate, less prone to monopolistic price-gouging, and friendlier
to the needed green transition than private power. The public option in health care is far more
efficient than the current crazy quilt in which each layer of complexity adds opacity and cost.
Public provision does require public oversight, but that is more straightforward and
transparent than the byzantine dance of regulation and counter-regulation.
The two other benefits of direct public provision are that the public gets direct evidence
of government delivering something of value, and that the countervailing power of democracy to
harness markets is enhanced. A mixed economy depends above all on a strong democracy -- one
even stronger than the democracy that succumbed to the corrupting influence of economic elites
and their neoliberal intellectual allies beginning half a century ago. The antidote to the
resurrected neoliberal fable is the resurrection of democracy -- strong enough to tame the
market in a way that tames it for keeps.
Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect, and professor at
Brandeis University's Heller School. His latest book is The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American
Democracy . In addition to writing for the Prospect, he writes for HuffPost, The Boston
Globe, and The New York Review of Books.
This is a Marxist critique of neoliberalism. Not necessary right but they his some relevant
points.
Notable quotes:
"... The ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. ..."
"... The ex ante tendency toward overproduction arises because the vector of real wages across countries does not increase noticeably over time in the world economy, while the vector of labor productivities does, typically resulting in a rise in the share of surplus in world output. ..."
"... While the rise in the vector of labor productivities across countries, a ubiquitous phenomenon under capitalism that also characterizes neoliberal capitalism, scarcely requires an explanation, why does the vector of real wages remain virtually stagnant in the world economy? The answer lies in the sui generis character of contemporary globalization that, for the first time in the history of capitalism, has led to a relocation of activity from the metropolis to third world countries in order to take advantage of the lower wages prevailing in the latter and meet global demand. ..."
"... The current globalization broke with this. The movement of capital from the metropolis to the third world, especially to East, South, and Southeast Asia to relocate plants there and take advantage of their lower wages for meeting global demand, has led to a desegmentation of the world economy, subjecting metropolitan wages to the restraining effect exercised by the third world's labor reserves. Not surprisingly, as Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, the real-wage rate of an average male U.S. worker in 2011 was no higher -- indeed, it was marginally lower -- than it had been in 1968. 5 ..."
"... This ever-present opposition becomes decisive within a regime of globalization. As long as finance capital remains national -- that is, nation-based -- and the state is a nation-state, the latter can override this opposition under certain circumstances, such as in the post-Second World War period when capitalism was facing an existential crisis. But when finance capital is globalized, meaning, when it is free to move across country borders while the state remains a nation-state, its opposition to fiscal deficits becomes decisive. If the state does run large fiscal deficits against its wishes, then it would simply leave that country en masse , causing a financial crisis. ..."
"... The state therefore capitulates to the demands of globalized finance capital and eschews direct fiscal intervention for increasing demand. It resorts to monetary policy instead since that operates through wealth holders' decisions, and hence does not undermine their social position. But, precisely for this reason, monetary policy is an ineffective instrument, as was evident in the United States in the aftermath of the 2007–09 crisis when even the pushing of interest rates down to zero scarcely revived activity. 6 ..."
"... If Trump's protectionism, which recalls the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1931 and amounts to a beggar-my-neighbor policy, does lead to a significant export of unemployment from the United States, then it will invite retaliation and trigger a trade war that will only worsen the crisis for the world economy as a whole by dampening global investment. Indeed, since the United States has been targeting China in particular, some retaliatory measures have already appeared. But if U.S. protectionism does not invite generalized retaliation, it would only be because the export of unemployment from the United States is insubstantial, keeping unemployment everywhere, including in the United States, as precarious as it is now. However we look at it, the world would henceforth face higher levels of unemployment. ..."
"... The second implication of this dead end is that the era of export-led growth is by and large over for third world economies. The slowing down of world economic growth, together with protectionism in the United States against successful third world exporters, which could even spread to other metropolitan economies, suggests that the strategy of relying on the world market to generate domestic growth has run out of steam. Third world economies, including the ones that have been very successful at exporting, would now have to rely much more on their home market ..."
"... In other words, we shall now have an intensification of the imperialist stranglehold over third world economies, especially those pushed into unsustainable balance-of-payments deficits in the new situation. By imperialism , here we do not mean the imperialism of this or that major power, but the imperialism of international finance capital, with which even domestic big bourgeoisies are integrated, directed against their own working people ..."
"... In short, the ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. To sustain itself, neoliberal capitalism starts looking for some other ideological prop and finds fascism. ..."
"... The first is the so-called spontaneous method of capital flight. Any political formation that seeks to take the country out of the neoliberal regime will witness capital flight even before it has been elected to office, bringing the country to a financial crisis and thereby denting its electoral prospects. And if perchance it still gets elected, the outflow will only increase, even before it assumes office. The inevitable difficulties faced by the people may well make the government back down at that stage. The sheer difficulty of transition away from a neoliberal regime could be enough to bring even a government based on the support of workers and peasants to its knees, precisely to save them short-term distress or to avoid losing their support. ..."
"... The third weapon consists in carrying out so-called democratic or parliamentary coups of the sort that Latin America has been experiencing. Coups in the old days were effected through the local armed forces and necessarily meant the imposition of military dictatorships in lieu of civilian, democratically elected governments. Now, taking advantage of the disaffection generated within countries by the hardships caused by capital flight and imposed sanctions, imperialism promotes coups through fascist or fascist-sympathizing middle-class political elements in the name of restoring democracy, which is synonymous with the pursuit of neoliberalism. ..."
"... And if all these measures fail, there is always the possibility of resorting to economic warfare (such as destroying Venezuela's electricity supply), and eventually to military warfare. Venezuela today provides a classic example of what imperialist intervention in a third world country is going to look like in the era of decline of neoliberal capitalism, when revolts are going to characterize such countries more and more. ..."
"... Despite this opposition, neoliberal capitalism cannot ward off the challenge it is facing for long. It has no vision for reinventing itself. Interestingly, in the period after the First World War, when capitalism was on the verge of sinking into a crisis, the idea of state intervention as a way of its revival had already been mooted, though its coming into vogue only occurred at the end of the Second World War. 11 Today, neoliberal capitalism does not even have an idea of how it can recover and revitalize itself. And weapons like domestic fascism in the third world and direct imperialist intervention cannot for long save it from the anger of the masses that is building up against it. ..."
The ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth.
But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this
ideological prop.
Harry Magdoff's The Age of
Imperialism is a classic work that shows how postwar political decolonization does not
negate the phenomenon of imperialism. The book has two distinct aspects. On the one hand, it
follows in V. I. Lenin's footsteps in providing a comprehensive account of how capitalism at
the time operated globally. On the other hand, it raises a question that is less frequently
discussed in Marxist literature -- namely, the need for imperialism. Here, Magdoff not only
highlighted the crucial importance, among other things, of the third world's raw materials for
metropolitan capital, but also refuted the argument that the declining share of raw-material
value in gross manufacturing output somehow reduced this importance, making the simple point
that there can be no manufacturing at all without raw materials. 1
Magdoff's focus was on a period when imperialism was severely resisting economic
decolonization in the third world, with newly independent third world countries taking control
over their own resources. He highlighted the entire armory of weapons used by imperialism. But
he was writing in a period that predated the onset of neoliberalism. Today, we not only have
decades of neoliberalism behind us, but the neoliberal regime itself has reached a dead end.
Contemporary imperialism has to be discussed within this setting.
Globalization and
Economic Crisis
There are two reasons why the regime of neoliberal globalization has run into a dead end.
The first is an ex ante tendency toward global overproduction; the second is that the
only possible counter to this tendency within the regime is the formation of asset-price
bubbles, which cannot be conjured up at will and whose collapse, if they do appear, plunges the
economy back into crisis. In short, to use the words of British economic historian Samuel
Berrick Saul, there are no "markets on tap" for contemporary metropolitan capitalism, such as
had been provided by colonialism prior to the First World War and by state expenditure in the
post-Second World War period of dirigisme . 2
The ex ante tendency toward overproduction arises because the vector of real wages
across countries does not increase noticeably over time in the world economy, while the vector
of labor productivities does, typically resulting in a rise in the share of surplus in world
output. As Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy argued in Monopoly Capital , following the lead of
Michał Kalecki and Josef Steindl, such a rise in the share of economic surplus, or a shift
from wages to surplus, has the effect of reducing aggregate demand since the ratio of
consumption to income is higher on average for wage earners than for those living off the
surplus. 3
Therefore, assuming a given level of investment associated with any period, such a shift would
tend to reduce consumption demand and hence aggregate demand, output, and capacity utilization.
In turn, reduced capacity utilization would lower investment over time, further aggravating the
demand-reducing effect arising from the consumption side.
While the rise in the vector of labor productivities across countries, a ubiquitous
phenomenon under capitalism that also characterizes neoliberal capitalism, scarcely requires an
explanation, why does the vector of real wages remain virtually stagnant in the world economy?
The answer lies in the sui generis character of contemporary globalization that, for the
first time in the history of capitalism, has led to a relocation of activity from the
metropolis to third world countries in order to take advantage of the lower wages prevailing in
the latter and meet global demand.
Historically, while labor has not been, and is still not, free to migrate from the third
world to the metropolis, capital, though juridically free to move from the latter to the
former, did not actually do so , except to sectors like mines and plantations, which
only strengthened, rather than broke, the colonial pattern of the international division of
labor. 4
This segmentation of the world economy meant that wages in the metropolis increased with labor
productivity, unrestrained by the vast labor reserves of the third world, which themselves had
been caused by the displacement of manufactures through the twin processes of
deindustrialization (competition from metropolitan goods) and the drain of surplus (the
siphoning off of a large part of the economic surplus, through taxes on peasants that are no
longer spent on local artisan products but finance gratis primary commodity exports to
the metropolis instead).
The current globalization broke with this. The movement of capital from the metropolis to
the third world, especially to East, South, and Southeast Asia to relocate plants there and
take advantage of their lower wages for meeting global demand, has led to a desegmentation of
the world economy, subjecting metropolitan wages to the restraining effect exercised by the
third world's labor reserves. Not surprisingly, as Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, the
real-wage rate of an average male U.S. worker in 2011 was no higher -- indeed, it was
marginally lower -- than it had been in 1968. 5
At the same time, such relocation of activities, despite causing impressive growth rates of
gross domestic product (GDP) in many third world countries, does not lead to the exhaustion of
the third world's labor reserves. This is because of another feature of contemporary
globalization: the unleashing of a process of primitive accumulation of capital against petty
producers, including peasant agriculturists in the third world, who had earlier been protected,
to an extent, from the encroachment of big capital (both domestic and foreign) by the
postcolonial dirigiste regimes in these countries. Under neoliberalism, such protection
is withdrawn, causing an income squeeze on these producers and often their outright
dispossession from their land, which is then used by big capital for its various so-called
development projects. The increase in employment, even in countries with impressive GDP growth
rates in the third world, falls way short of the natural growth of the workforce, let alone
absorbing the additional job seekers coming from the ranks of displaced petty producers. The
labor reserves therefore never get used up. Indeed, on the contrary, they are augmented
further, because real wages continue to remain tied to a subsistence level, even as
metropolitan wages too are restrained. The vector of real wages in the world economy as a whole
therefore remains restrained.
Although contemporary globalization thus gives rise to an ex ante tendency toward
overproduction, state expenditure that could provide a counter to this (and had provided a
counter through military spending in the United States, according to Baran and Sweezy) can no
longer do so under the current regime. Finance is usually opposed to direct state intervention
through larger spending as a way of increasing employment. This opposition expresses itself
through an opposition not just to larger taxes on capitalists, but also to a larger fiscal
deficit for financing such spending. Obviously, if larger state spending is financed by taxes
on workers, then it hardly adds to aggregate demand, for workers spend the bulk of their
incomes anyway, so the state taking this income and spending it instead does not add any extra
demand. Hence, larger state spending can increase employment only if it is financed either
through a fiscal deficit or through taxes on capitalists who keep a part of their income
unspent or saved. But these are precisely the two modes of financing state expenditure that
finance capital opposes.
Its opposing larger taxes on capitalists is understandable, but why is it so opposed to a
larger fiscal deficit? Even within a capitalist economy, there are no sound economic
theoretical reasons that should preclude a fiscal deficit under all circumstances. The root of
the opposition therefore lies in deeper social considerations: if the capitalist economic
system becomes dependent on the state to promote employment directly , then this fact
undermines the social legitimacy of capitalism. The need for the state to boost the animal
spirits of the capitalists disappears and a perspective on the system that is epistemically
exterior to it is provided to the people, making it possible for them to ask: If the state can
do the job of providing employment, then why do we need the capitalists at all? It is an
instinctive appreciation of this potential danger that underlies the opposition of capital,
especially of finance, to any direct effort by the state to generate employment.
This ever-present opposition becomes decisive within a regime of globalization. As long as
finance capital remains national -- that is, nation-based -- and the state is a nation-state,
the latter can override this opposition under certain circumstances, such as in the post-Second
World War period when capitalism was facing an existential crisis. But when finance capital is
globalized, meaning, when it is free to move across country borders while the state remains a
nation-state, its opposition to fiscal deficits becomes decisive. If the state does run large
fiscal deficits against its wishes, then it would simply leave that country en masse ,
causing a financial crisis.
The state therefore capitulates to the demands of globalized finance capital and eschews
direct fiscal intervention for increasing demand. It resorts to monetary policy instead since
that operates through wealth holders' decisions, and hence does not undermine their
social position. But, precisely for this reason, monetary policy is an ineffective instrument,
as was evident in the United States in the aftermath of the 2007–09 crisis when even the
pushing of interest rates down to zero scarcely revived activity. 6
It may be thought that this compulsion on the part of the state to accede to the demand of
finance to eschew fiscal intervention for enlarging employment should not hold for the United
States. Its currency being considered by the world's wealth holders to be "as good as gold"
should make it immune to capital flight. But there is an additional factor operating in the
case of the United States: that the demand generated by a bigger U.S. fiscal deficit would
substantially leak abroad in a neoliberal setting, which would increase its external debt
(since, unlike Britain in its heyday, it does not have access to any unrequited colonial
transfers) for the sake of generating employment elsewhere. This fact deters any fiscal effort
even in the United States to boost demand within a neoliberal setting. 7
Therefore, it follows that state spending cannot provide a counter to the ex ante
tendency toward global overproduction within a regime of neoliberal globalization, which makes
the world economy precariously dependent on occasional asset-price bubbles, primarily in the
U.S. economy, for obtaining, at best, some temporary relief from the crisis. It is this fact
that underlies the dead end that neoliberal capitalism has reached. Indeed, Donald Trump's
resort to protectionism in the United States to alleviate unemployment is a clear recognition
of the system having reached this cul-de-sac. The fact that the mightiest capitalist
economy in the world has to move away from the rules of the neoliberal game in an attempt to
alleviate its crisis of unemployment/underemployment -- while compensating capitalists
adversely affected by this move through tax cuts, as well as carefully ensuring that no
restraints are imposed on free cross-border financial flows -- shows that these rules
are no longer viable in their pristine form.
Some Implications of This Dead End
There are at least four important implications of this dead end of neoliberalism. The first
is that the world economy will now be afflicted by much higher levels of unemployment than it
was in the last decade of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first, when
the dot-com and the housing bubbles in the United States had, sequentially, a pronounced
impact. It is true that the U.S. unemployment rate today appears to be at a historic low, but
this is misleading: the labor-force participation rate in the United States today is lower than
it was in 2008, which reflects the discouraged-worker effect . Adjusting for this lower
participation, the U.S. unemployment rate is considerable -- around 8 percent. Indeed, Trump
would not be imposing protection in the United States if unemployment was actually as low as 4
percent, which is the official figure. Elsewhere in the world, of course, unemployment
post-2008 continues to be evidently higher than before. Indeed, the severity of the current
problem of below-full-employment production in the U.S. economy is best illustrated by capacity
utilization figures in manufacturing. The weakness of the U.S. recovery from the Great
Recession is indicated by the fact that the current extended recovery represents the first
decade in the entire post-Second World War period in which capacity utilization in
manufacturing has never risen as high as 80 percent in a single quarter, with the resulting
stagnation of investment. 8
If Trump's protectionism, which recalls the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1931 and amounts to a
beggar-my-neighbor policy, does lead to a significant export of unemployment from the
United States, then it will invite retaliation and trigger a trade war that will only worsen
the crisis for the world economy as a whole by dampening global investment. Indeed, since the
United States has been targeting China in particular, some retaliatory measures have already
appeared. But if U.S. protectionism does not invite generalized retaliation, it would only be
because the export of unemployment from the United States is insubstantial, keeping
unemployment everywhere, including in the United States, as precarious as it is now. However we
look at it, the world would henceforth face higher levels of unemployment.
There has been some discussion on how global value chains would be affected by Trump's
protectionism. But the fact that global macroeconomics in the early twenty-first century will
look altogether different compared to earlier has not been much discussed.
In light of the preceding discussion, one could say that if, instead of individual
nation-states whose writ cannot possibly run against globalized finance capital, there was a
global state or a set of major nation-states acting in unison to override the objections of
globalized finance and provide a coordinated fiscal stimulus to the world economy, then perhaps
there could be recovery. Such a coordinated fiscal stimulus was suggested by a group of German
trade unionists, as well as by John Maynard Keynes during the Great Depression in the 1930s.
9
While it was turned down then, in the present context it has not even been discussed.
The second implication of this dead end is that the era of export-led growth is by and large
over for third world economies. The slowing down of world economic growth, together with
protectionism in the United States against successful third world exporters, which could even
spread to other metropolitan economies, suggests that the strategy of relying on the world
market to generate domestic growth has run out of steam. Third world economies, including the
ones that have been very successful at exporting, would now have to rely much more on their
home market.
Such a transition will not be easy; it will require promoting domestic peasant agriculture,
defending petty production, moving toward cooperative forms of production, and ensuring greater
equality in income distribution, all of which need major structural shifts. For smaller
economies, it would also require their coming together with other economies to provide a
minimum size to the domestic market. In short, the dead end of neoliberalism also means the
need for a shift away from the so-called neoliberal development strategy that has held sway
until now.
The third implication is the imminent engulfing of a whole range of third world economies in
serious balance-of-payments difficulties. This is because, while their exports will be sluggish
in the new situation, this very fact will also discourage financial inflows into their
economies, whose easy availability had enabled them to maintain current account deficits on
their balance of payments earlier. In such a situation, within the existing neoliberal
paradigm, they would be forced to adopt austerity measures that would impose income deflation
on their people, make the conditions of their people significantly worse, lead to a further
handing over of their national assets and resources to international capital, and prevent
precisely any possible transition to an alternative strategy of home market-based growth.
In other words, we shall now have an intensification of the imperialist stranglehold over
third world economies, especially those pushed into unsustainable balance-of-payments deficits
in the new situation. By imperialism , here we do not mean the imperialism of this or
that major power, but the imperialism of international finance capital, with which even
domestic big bourgeoisies are integrated, directed against their own working people.
The fourth implication is the worldwide upsurge of fascism. Neoliberal capitalism even
before it reached a dead end, even in the period when it achieved reasonable growth and
employment rates, had pushed the world into greater hunger and poverty. For instance, the world
per-capita cereal output was 355 kilograms for 1980 (triennium average for 1979–81
divided by mid–triennium population) and fell to 343 in 2000, leveling at 344.9 in 2016
-- and a substantial amount of this last figure went into ethanol production. Clearly, in a
period of growth of the world economy, per-capita cereal absorption should be expanding,
especially since we are talking here not just of direct absorption but of direct and indirect
absorption, the latter through processed foods and feed grains in animal products. The fact
that there was an absolute decline in per-capita output, which no doubt caused a decline in
per-capita absorption, suggests an absolute worsening in the nutritional level of a substantial
segment of the world's population.
But this growing hunger and nutritional poverty did not immediately arouse any significant
resistance, both because such resistance itself becomes more difficult under neoliberalism
(since the very globalization of capital makes it an elusive target) and also because higher
GDP growth rates provided a hope that distress might be overcome in the course of time.
Peasants in distress, for instance, entertained the hope that their children would live better
in the years to come if given a modicum of education and accepted their fate.
In short, the ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with
neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological
prop. To sustain itself, neoliberal capitalism starts looking for some other ideological prop
and finds fascism. This changes the discourse away from the material conditions of people's
lives to the so-called threat to the nation, placing the blame for people's distress not on the
failure of the system, but on ethnic, linguistic, and religious minority groups, the
other that is portrayed as an enemy. It projects a so-called messiah whose sheer
muscularity can somehow magically overcome all problems; it promotes a culture of unreason so
that both the vilification of the other and the magical powers of the supposed leader
can be placed beyond any intellectual questioning; it uses a combination of state repression
and street-level vigilantism by fascist thugs to terrorize opponents; and it forges a close
relationship with big business, or, in Kalecki's words, "a partnership of big business and
fascist upstarts." 10
Fascist groups of one kind or another exist in all modern societies. They move center stage
and even into power only on certain occasions when they get the backing of big business. And
these occasions arise when three conditions are satisfied: when there is an economic crisis so
the system cannot simply go on as before; when the usual liberal establishment is manifestly
incapable of resolving the crisis; and when the left is not strong enough to provide an
alternative to the people in order to move out of the conjuncture.
This last point may appear odd at first, since many see the big bourgeoisie's recourse to
fascism as a counter to the growth of the left's strength in the context of a capitalist
crisis. But when the left poses a serious threat, the response of the big bourgeoisie typically
is to attempt to split it by offering concessions. It uses fascism to prop itself up only when
the left is weakened. Walter Benjamin's remark that "behind every fascism there is a failed
revolution" points in this direction.
Fascism Then and Now
Contemporary fascism, however, differs in crucial respects from its 1930s counterpart, which
is why many are reluctant to call the current phenomenon a fascist upsurge. But historical
parallels, if carefully drawn, can be useful. While in some aforementioned respects
contemporary fascism does resemble the phenomenon of the 1930s, there are serious differences
between the two that must also be noted.
First, we must note that while the current fascist upsurge has put fascist elements in power
in many countries, there are no fascist states of the 1930s kind as of yet. Even if the fascist
elements in power try to push the country toward a fascist state, it is not clear that they
will succeed. There are many reasons for this, but an important one is that fascists in power
today cannot overcome the crisis of neoliberalism, since they accept the regime of
globalization of finance. This includes Trump, despite his protectionism. In the 1930s,
however, this was not the case. The horrors associated with the institution of a fascist state
in the 1930s had been camouflaged to an extent by the ability of the fascists in power to
overcome mass unemployment and end the Depression through larger military spending, financed by
government borrowing. Contemporary fascism, by contrast, lacks the ability to overcome the
opposition of international finance capital to fiscal activism on the part of the government to
generate larger demand, output, and employment, even via military spending.
Such activism, as discussed earlier, required larger government spending financed either
through taxes on capitalists or through a fiscal deficit. Finance capital was opposed to both
of these measures and it being globalized made this opposition decisive . The
decisiveness of this opposition remains even if the government happens to be one composed of
fascist elements. Hence, contemporary fascism, straitjacketed by "fiscal rectitude," cannot
possibly alleviate even temporarily the economic crises facing people and cannot provide any
cover for a transition to a fascist state akin to the ones of the 1930s, which makes such a
transition that much more unlikely.
Another difference is also related to the phenomenon of the globalization of finance. The
1930s were marked by what Lenin had earlier called "interimperialist rivalry." The military
expenditures incurred by fascist governments, even though they pulled countries out of the
Depression and unemployment, inevitably led to wars for "repartitioning an already partitioned
world." Fascism was the progenitor of war and burned itself out through war at, needless to
say, great cost to humankind.
Contemporary fascism, however, operates in a world where interimperialist rivalry is far
more muted. Some have seen in this muting a vindication of Karl Kautsky's vision of an
"ultraimperialism" as against Lenin's emphasis on the permanence of interimperialist rivalry,
but this is wrong. Both Kautsky and Lenin were talking about a world where finance capital and
the financial oligarchy were essentially national -- that is, German, French, or British. And
while Kautsky talked about the possibility of truces among the rival oligarchies, Lenin saw
such truces only as transient phenomena punctuating the ubiquity of rivalry.
In contrast, what we have today is not nation-based finance capitals, but
international finance capital into whose corpus the finance capitals drawn from
particular countries are integrated. This globalized finance capital does not want the world
to be partitioned into economic territories of rival powers ; on the contrary, it wants the
entire globe to be open to its own unrestricted movement. The muting of rivalry between major
powers, therefore, is not because they prefer truce to war, or peaceful partitioning of the
world to forcible repartitioning, but because the material conditions themselves have changed
so that it is no longer a matter of such choices. The world has gone beyond both Lenin and
Kautsky, as well as their debates.
Not only are we not going to have wars between major powers in this era of fascist upsurge
(of course, as will be discussed, we shall have other wars), but, by the same token, this
fascist upsurge will not burn out through any cataclysmic war. What we are likely to see is a
lingering fascism of less murderous intensity , which, when in power, does not
necessarily do away with all the forms of bourgeois democracy, does not necessarily physically
annihilate the opposition, and may even allow itself to get voted out of power occasionally.
But since its successor government, as long as it remains within the confines of the neoliberal
strategy, will also be incapable of alleviating the crisis, the fascist elements are likely to
return to power as well. And whether the fascist elements are in or out of power, they will
remain a potent force working toward the fascification of the society and the polity, even
while promoting corporate interests within a regime of globalization of finance, and hence
permanently maintaining the "partnership between big business and fascist upstarts."
Put differently, since the contemporary fascist upsurge is not likely to burn itself out as
the earlier one did, it has to be overcome by transcending the very conjuncture that produced
it: neoliberal capitalism at a dead end. A class mobilization of working people around an
alternative set of transitional demands that do not necessarily directly target neoliberal
capitalism, but which are immanently unrealizable within the regime of neoliberal capitalism,
can provide an initial way out of this conjuncture and lead to its eventual transcendence.
Such a class mobilization in the third world context would not mean making no truces with
liberal bourgeois elements against the fascists. On the contrary, since the liberal bourgeois
elements too are getting marginalized through a discourse of jingoistic nationalism typically
manufactured by the fascists, they too would like to shift the discourse toward the material
conditions of people's lives, no doubt claiming that an improvement in these conditions is
possible within the neoliberal economic regime itself. Such a shift in discourse is in
itself a major antifascist act . Experience will teach that the agenda advanced as part of
this changed discourse is unrealizable under neoliberalism, providing the scope for dialectical
intervention by the left to transcend neoliberal capitalism.
Imperialist
Interventions
Even though fascism will have a lingering presence in this conjuncture of "neoliberalism at
a dead end," with the backing of domestic corporate-financial interests that are themselves
integrated into the corpus of international finance capital, the working people in the third
world will increasingly demand better material conditions of life and thereby rupture the
fascist discourse of jingoistic nationalism (that ironically in a third world context is not
anti-imperialist).
In fact, neoliberalism reaching a dead end and having to rely on fascist elements revives
meaningful political activity, which the heyday of neoliberalism had precluded, because most
political formations then had been trapped within an identical neoliberal agenda that appeared
promising. (Latin America had a somewhat different history because neoliberalism arrived in
that continent through military dictatorships, not through its more or less tacit acceptance by
most political formations.)
Such revived political activity will necessarily throw up challenges to neoliberal
capitalism in particular countries. Imperialism, by which we mean the entire economic and
political arrangement sustaining the hegemony of international finance capital, will deal with
these challenges in at least four different ways.
The first is the so-called spontaneous method of capital flight. Any political formation
that seeks to take the country out of the neoliberal regime will witness capital flight even
before it has been elected to office, bringing the country to a financial crisis and thereby
denting its electoral prospects. And if perchance it still gets elected, the outflow will only
increase, even before it assumes office. The inevitable difficulties faced by the people may
well make the government back down at that stage. The sheer difficulty of transition away from
a neoliberal regime could be enough to bring even a government based on the support of workers
and peasants to its knees, precisely to save them short-term distress or to avoid losing their
support.
Even if capital controls are put in place, where there are current account deficits,
financing such deficits would pose a problem, necessitating some trade controls. But this is
where the second instrument of imperialism comes into play: the imposition of trade sanctions
by the metropolitan states, which then cajole other countries to stop buying from the
sanctioned country that is trying to break away from thralldom to globalized finance capital.
Even if the latter would have otherwise succeeded in stabilizing its economy despite its
attempt to break away, the imposition of sanctions becomes an additional blow.
The third weapon consists in carrying out so-called democratic or parliamentary coups of the
sort that Latin America has been experiencing. Coups in the old days were effected through the
local armed forces and necessarily meant the imposition of military dictatorships in lieu of
civilian, democratically elected governments. Now, taking advantage of the disaffection
generated within countries by the hardships caused by capital flight and imposed sanctions,
imperialism promotes coups through fascist or fascist-sympathizing middle-class political
elements in the name of restoring democracy, which is synonymous with the pursuit of
neoliberalism.
And if all these measures fail, there is always the possibility of resorting to economic
warfare (such as destroying Venezuela's electricity supply), and eventually to military
warfare. Venezuela today provides a classic example of what imperialist intervention in a third
world country is going to look like in the era of decline of neoliberal capitalism, when
revolts are going to characterize such countries more and more.
Two aspects of such intervention are striking. One is the virtual unanimity among the
metropolitan states, which only underscores the muting of interimperialist rivalry in the era
of hegemony of global finance capital. The other is the extent of support that such
intervention commands within metropolitan countries, from the right to even the liberal
segments.
Despite this opposition, neoliberal capitalism cannot ward off the challenge it is facing
for long. It has no vision for reinventing itself. Interestingly, in the period after the First
World War, when capitalism was on the verge of sinking into a crisis, the idea of state
intervention as a way of its revival had already been mooted, though its coming into vogue only
occurred at the end of the Second World War. 11
Today, neoliberal capitalism does not even have an idea of how it can recover and revitalize
itself. And weapons like domestic fascism in the third world and direct imperialist
intervention cannot for long save it from the anger of the masses that is building up against
it.
Samuel Berrick Saul, Studies in British Overseas Trade, 1870–1914
(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1960).
Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1966).
One of the first authors to recognize this fact and its significance was Paul Baran in
The Political Economy of
Growth (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1957).
For the role of such colonial transfers in sustaining the British balance of payments and the
long Victorian and Edwardian boom, see Utsa Patnaik, "Revisiting the 'Drain,' or Transfers
from India to Britain in the Context of Global Diffusion of Capitalism," in Agrarian
and Other Histories: Essays for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri , ed. Shubhra Chakrabarti and
Utsa Patnaik (Delhi: Tulika, 2017), 277-317.
Federal Reserve Board of Saint Louis Economic Research, FRED, "Capacity Utilization:
Manufacturing," February 2019 (updated March 27, 2019), http://fred.stlouisfed.org .
This issue is discussed by Charles P. Kindleberger in The World in Depression,
1929–1939 , 40th anniversary ed. (Oakland: University of California Press,
2013).
Joseph Schumpeter had seen Keynes's The Economic Consequences of the Peace as
essentially advocating such state intervention in the new situation. See his essay, "John
Maynard Keynes (1883–1946)," in Ten Great Economists (London: George Allen
& Unwin, 1952).
Utsa Patnaik is Professor Emerita at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her books include Peasant Class Differentiation (1987),
The Long Transition (1999), and The Republic of Hunger and Other Essays (2007). Prabhat Patnaik
is Professor Emeritus at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi. His books include Accumulation and Stability Under Capitalism (1997),
The Value of Money(2009), and Re-envisioning Socialism(2011).
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By Laura Ungar, who health issues out of Kaiser Health News' St. Louis office, and Trudy
Lieberman, a journalist for more than 45 years, and a past president of the Association of
Health Care Journalists. Originally published by Kaiser Health
News .
MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Army veteran Eugene Milligan is 75 years old and blind. He uses a
wheelchair since losing half his right leg to diabetes and gets dialysis for kidney
failure.
And he has struggled to get enough to eat.
Earlier this year, he ended up in the hospital after burning himself while boiling water for
oatmeal. The long stay caused the Memphis vet to fall off a charity's rolls for home-delivered
Meals on Wheels , so he had
to rely on others, such as his son, a generous off-duty nurse and a local church to bring him
food.
"Many times, I've felt like I was starving," he said. "There's neighbors that need food too.
There's people at dialysis that need food. There's hunger everywhere."
Indeed, millions of seniors across the country quietly go hungry as the safety net designed
to catch them frays. Nearly 8% of Americans 60 and older were "food insecure" in 2017,
according to a recent study released
by the anti-hunger group Feeding America. That's 5.5 million seniors who don't have
consistent access to enough food for a healthy life, a number that has more than doubled since
2001 and is only expected to grow as America grays.
While the plight of hungry children elicits support and can be tackled in schools, the
plight of hungry older Americans is shrouded by isolation and a generation's pride. The problem
is most acute in parts of the South and Southwest. Louisiana has the highest rate among states,
with 12% of seniors facing food insecurity. Memphis fares worst among major metropolitan areas,
with 17% of seniors like Milligan unsure of their next meal.
And government relief falls short. One of the main federal programs helping seniors is
starved for money. The Older Americans Act -- passed more than half a century ago as part of
President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society reforms -- was amended in 1972 to provide for
home-delivered and group meals, along with other services, for anyone 60 and older. But its
funding has lagged far behind senior population growth, as well as economic inflation.
The biggest chunk of the act's budget, nutrition services, dropped by 8% over the past 18
years when adjusted for inflation, an AARP report
found in February. Home-delivered and group meals have decreased by nearly 21 million since
2005. Only a fraction of those facing food insecurity get any meal services under the act; a
U.S. Government
Accountability Office report examining 2013 data found 83% got none.
With the act set to expire Sept. 30, Congress is now considering its reauthorization and how
much to spend going forward.
Meanwhile, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, only 45% of eligible adults 60
and older have signed up for another source of federal aid: SNAP, the food stamp program for
America's poorest. Those who don't are typically either unaware they could qualify, believe
their benefits would be tiny or can no longer get to a grocery store to use them.
Even fewer seniors may have SNAP in the future. More than 13% of SNAP households with
elderly members would lose benefits under a recent Trump administration proposal.
For now, millions of seniors -- especially low-income ones -- go without. Across the nation,
waits are common to receive home-delivered meals from a crucial provider, Meals on Wheels, a
network of 5,000 community-based programs. In Memphis, for example, the wait to get on the
Meals on Wheels schedule is more than a year long.
"It's really sad because a meal is not an expensive thing," said Sally Jones Heinz,
president and CEO of the Metropolitan
Inter-Faith Association , which provides home-delivered meals in Memphis. "This shouldn't
be the way things are in 2019."
Since malnutrition exacerbates diseases and prevents healing, seniors without steady,
nutritious food can wind up in hospitals, which drives up Medicare and Medicaid costs, hitting taxpayers with an even
bigger bill . Sometimes seniors relapse quickly after discharge -- or worse.
Widower Robert Mukes, 71, starved to death on a cold December day in 2016, alone in his
Cincinnati apartment.
The Hamilton County Coroner listed the primary cause of death as "starvation of unknown
etiology" and noted "possible hypothermia," pointing out that his apartment had no electricity
or running water. Death records show the 5-foot-7-inch man weighed just 100.5 pounds.
A Clear Need
On a hot May morning in Memphis, seniors trickled into a food bank at the Riverside
Missionary Baptist Church, 3 miles from the opulent tourist mecca of Graceland. They picked up
boxes packed with canned goods, rice, vegetables and meat.
Marion Thomas, 63, placed her box in the trunk of a friend's car. She lives with chronic
back pain and high blood pressure and started coming to the pantry three years ago. She's
disabled, relies on Social Security and gets $42 a month from SNAP based on her income,
household size and other factors. That's much less than the average $125-a-month benefit for
households with seniors, but more than the $16 minimum that one in five such households get.
Still, Thomas said, "I can't buy very much."
A day later, the Mid-South Food Bank brought a "mobile pantry" to Latham Terrace, a senior
housing complex, where a long line of people waited. Some inched forward in wheelchairs; others
leaned on canes. One by one, they collected their allotments.
The need is just as real elsewhere. In Dallas, Texas, 69-year-old China Anderson squirrels
away milk, cookies and other parts of her home-delivered lunches for dinner because she can no
longer stand and cook due to scoliosis and eight deteriorating vertebral discs.
As seniors ration food, programs ration services.
Although more than a third of the Meals on Wheels money comes from the Older Americans Act,
even with additional public and private dollars, funds are still so limited that some programs
have no choice but to triage people using score sheets that assign points based on who needs
food the most. Seniors coming from the hospital and those without family usually top waiting
lists.
More than 1,000 were waiting on the Memphis area's list recently. And in Dallas, $4.1
million in donations wiped out a 1,000-person waiting list in December, but within months it
had crept back up to 100.
Nationally, "there are tens of thousands of seniors who are waiting," said Erika
Kelly , chief membership and advocacy officer for Meals on Wheels America. "While they're
waiting, their health deteriorates and, in some cases, we know seniors have died."
Edwin Walker, a deputy assistant secretary for the federal Administration on Aging,
acknowledged waits are a long-standing problem, but said 2.4 million people a year benefit from
the Older Americans Act's group or home-delivered meals, allowing them to stay independent and
healthy.
Seniors get human connection, as well as food, from these services. Aner Lee Murphy, a
102-year-old Meals on Wheels client in Memphis, counts on the visits with volunteers Libby and
Bob Anderson almost as much as the food. She calls them "my children," hugging them close and
offering a prayer each time they leave.
But others miss out on such physical and psychological nourishment. A devastating phone call
brought that home for Kim Daugherty, executive director of the Aging Commission of the
Mid-South , which connects seniors to service providers in the region. The woman on the
line told Daugherty she'd been on the waiting list for more than a year.
"Ma'am, there are several hundred people ahead of you," Daugherty reluctantly explained.
"I just need you all to remember," came the caller's haunting reply, "I'm hungry and I need
food."
A Slow Killer
James
Ziliak , a poverty researcher at the University of Kentucky who worked on the Feeding
America study, said food insecurity shot up with the Great Recession, starting in the late
2000s, and peaked in 2014. He said it shows no signs of dropping to pre-recession levels.
While older adults of all income levels can face difficulty accessing and preparing healthy
food, rates are highest among seniors in poverty. They are also high among minorities. More
than 17% of black seniors and 16% of Hispanic seniors are food insecure, compared with fewer
than 7% of white seniors.
A host of issues combine to set those seniors on a downward spiral, said registered
dietitian Lauri Wright , who
chairs the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of North Florida. Going to
the grocery store gets a lot harder if they can't drive. Expensive medications leave less money
for food. Chronic physical and mental health problems sap stamina and make it tough to cook.
Inch by inch, hungry seniors decline.
And, even if it rarely kills directly, hunger can complicate illness and kill slowly.
Malnutrition blunts immunity, which already tends to weaken as people age. Once they start
losing weight, they're more likely to grow frail and are more likely to die within a year, said
Dr. John Morley, director of the division of geriatric medicine at Saint Louis University.
Seniors just out of the hospital are particularly vulnerable. Many wind up getting
readmitted, pushing up taxpayers' costs for Medicare and Medicaid. A
recent analysis by the Bipartisan Policy Center found that Medicare could save $1.57 for
every dollar spent on home-delivered meals for chronically ill seniors after a
hospitalization.
Most hospitals don't refer senior outpatients to Meals on Wheels, and advocates say too few
insurance companies get involved in making sure seniors have enough to eat to keep them
healthy.
When Milligan, the Memphis veteran, burned himself with boiling water last winter and had to
be hospitalized for 65 days, he fell off the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association's radar. The
meals he'd been getting for about a decade stopped.
Heinz, Metropolitan's CEO, said the association is usually able to start and stop meals for
short hospital stays. But, Heinz said, the association didn't hear from Milligan and kept
trying to deliver meals for a time while he was in the hospital, then notified the Aging
Commission of the Mid-South he wasn't home. As is standard procedure, Metropolitan officials
said, a staff member from the commission made three attempts to contact him and left a card at
the blind man's home.
But nothing happened when he got out of the hospital this spring. In mid-May, a nurse
referred him for meal delivery. Still, he didn't get meals because he faced a waitlist already
more than 1,000 names long.
After questions from Kaiser Health News, Heinz looked into Milligan's case and realized
that, as a former client, Milligan could get back on the delivery schedule faster.
But even then the process still has hurdles: The aging commission would need to conduct a
new home assessment for meals to resume. That has yet to happen because, amid the wait,
Milligan's health deteriorated.
A Murky Future
As the Older Americans Act awaits reauthorization this fall, many senior advocates worry
about its funding.
In June, the U.S. House passed a $93 million increase to the Older Americans Act's nutrition
programs, raising total funding by about 10% to $1 billion in the next fiscal year. In
inflation-adjusted dollars, that's still less than in 2009. And it still has to pass in the
Republican-controlled Senate, where the proposed increase faces long odds.
U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, an Oregon Democrat who chairs the Civil Rights and Human
Services Subcommittee, expects the panel to tackle legislation for reauthorization of the act
soon after members return from the August recess. She's now working with colleagues "to craft a
strong, bipartisan update," she said, that increases investments in nutrition programs as well
as other services.
"I'm confident the House will soon pass a robust bill," she said, "and I am hopeful that the
Senate will also move quickly so we can better meet the needs of our seniors."
In the meantime, "the need for home-delivered meals keeps increasing every year," said
Lorena Fernandez, who runs a meal
delivery program in Yakima, Wash. Activists are pressing state and local governments to
ensure seniors don't starve, with mixed results. In Louisiana, for example, anti-hunger
advocates stood on the state Capitol steps in May and unsuccessfully called on the state to
invest $1 million to buy food from Louisiana farmers to distribute to hungry residents.
Elsewhere, senior activists across the nation have participated each March in "March for Meals"
events such as walks, fundraisers and rallies designed to focus attention on the problem.
Private fundraising hasn't been easy everywhere, especially rural communities without much
wealth. Philanthropy has instead tended to flow to hungry kids, who outnumber hungry seniors
more than 2-to-1, according to Feeding America.
"Ten years ago, organizations had a goal of ending child hunger and a lot of innovation and
resources went into what could be done," said Jeremy Everett, executive director of Baylor
University's Texas Hunger Initiative. "The same thing has not happened in the senior adult
population." And that has left people struggling for enough food to eat.
As for Milligan, he didn't get back on Meals on Wheels before suffering complications
related to his dialysis in June. He ended up back in the hospital. Ironically, it was there
that he finally had a steady, if temporary, source of food.
It's impossible to know if his time without steady, nutritious food made a difference. What
is almost certain is that feeding him at home would have been far cheaper.
Coulnd't get the JOLTS, November 2016 links to work, but the skills gap is
wild.
At an institution of higher ed I'm familiar with, both faculty and
administrative positions continue to be unfilled. There are very few candidates
even for entry level positions. Failed searches are now the norm. It's feast or
famine: either people are perfect for the job and have many options, or have no
related experience at all.
I wonder if the labor force participation rate is starting to catch up with
the job market. That is, there are a lot of healthy adults who have dropped out
of the workforce who would be the people you'd want in those positions.
Or that the job market is not nearly as liquid as they'd have you believe,
and people can't relocate from where they are because of adult children who
live with them, or things of that nature. All kinds of weird things now in the
job market. I know someone who commutes a significant distance to work that has
to look for another job because their workplace's health care plan only covers
a geographic area close to that job.
Discrimination thru stupid job descriptions is catching up to the
economy paying $12 per hour five years experience required nonsense job
descriptions designed to help the accredited and credentialed have a leg up
There seem to be three types of employment categories
real jobs that might last through 12 quarters
gigs
and surfdumb/$lavery gigs where your hours are messed with, your schedule
is messed with & you are expected to pay for the stupid uniform some bean
counter thinks is branding
IMUO it is not a skills gap it is the demanding of irrelevant capacities
and experience that almost always have very little to do with the actual
tasks required
"... Neoliberals often argue that people should be glad to lose employment at 50 so that people from other countries can have higher incomes, and leftists often agree because hey "free movement" and because after all the professional class jobs aren't at risk ..."
"... "I think Trump is afraid the imperial global order presided by the US is about to crash and thinks he will be able to steer the country into a soft landing by accepting that other world powers have interests, by disengaging from costly and humiliating military interventions, by re-negotiating trade deals, and by stopping the mass immigration of poor people." ..."
"... No one has literally argued that people should be glad to lose employment: that part was hyperbole. But the basic argument is often made quite seriously. See e.g. outsource Brad DeLong . ..."
"... To the guy who asked- poor white people keep voting Republican even though it screws them because they genuinely believe that the country is best off when it encourages a culture of "by the bootstraps" self improvement, hard work, and personal responsibility. They view taxing people in order to give the money to the supposedly less fortunate as the anti thesis of this, because it gives people an easy out that let's them avoid having to engage in the hard work needed to live independently. ..."
"... Attempts at repairing historical racial inequity read as cheating in that paradigm, and even as hostile since they can easily observe white people who are just as poor or poorer than those who racial politics focuses upon. ..."
"... The extent to which "poor white people" vote against their alleged economic interests is overblown. To a large extent, they do not vote at all nor is anyone or anything on the ballot to represent their interests. And, yes, they are misinformed systematically by elites out to screw them and they know this, but cannot do much to either clear up their own confusion or fight back. ..."
"... The mirror image problem - of elites manipulating the system to screw the poor and merely middle-class - is daily in the news. Both Presidential candidates have been implicated. So, who do you recommend they vote for? ..."
"... My understanding is trumps support disproportionately comes from the small business owning classes, Ie a demographic similar to the petite bourgeoisie who have often been heavily involved in reactionary movements. This gets oversold as "working class" when class is defined by education level rather than income. ..."
"... Eric Berne, in The Structures and Dynamics of Organizations and Groups, proposed that among the defining characteristics of a coherent group is an explicit boundary which determines whether an individual is a member of the group or not. (If there is no boundary, nothing binds the assemblage together; it is a crowd.) The boundary helps provide social cohesion and is so important that groups will create one if necessary. Clearly, boundaries exclude as well as include, and someone must play the role of outsider. ..."
"... I am somewhat suspicious of leaving dominating elites out of these stories of racism as an organizing principle for political economy or (cultural) community. ..."
"... Racism served the purposes of a slaveholding elite that organized political communities to serve their own interests. (Or, vis a vis the Indians a land-grab or genocide.) ..."
"... Racism serves as an organizing principle. Politically, in an oppressive and stultifying hierarchy like the plantation South, racism not incidentally buys the loyalty of subalterns with ersatz status. ..."
"... For a time, the balkanization of American political communities by race, religion and ethnicity was an effective means to the dominance of an tiny elite with ties to an hegemonic community, but it backfired. Dismantling that balkanization has left the country with a very low level of social affiliation and thus a low capacity to organize resistance to elite depredations. ..."
fn: "Of course there is a subtext to these racist hate campaigns that someone else here raised
and rich ran with a bit, which is the hatred of the unemployed. I think a lot of people voting
leave imagine that the next thing on the agenda is slashing the dole to force poor white people
to do the work the Eastern Europeans did. "
Yes, in part. In part, also, people imagine that
poor citizens will get jobs that previously were done by migrants. This has a hatred of slackers
element that is bad, but as economics, it's pretty well-founded that if you reduce the size of
the labor pool relative to the population then unemployment will go down and wages will go up.
Neoliberals often argue that people should be glad to lose employment at 50 so that people
from other countries can have higher incomes, and leftists often agree because hey "free movement"
and because after all the professional class jobs aren't at risk. But strangely enough some
people seem to resent this.
Lupita: "I think Trump is afraid the imperial global order presided by the US is about to crash
and thinks he will be able to steer the country into a soft landing by accepting that other world
powers have interests, by disengaging from costly and humiliating military interventions, by re-negotiating
trade deals, and by stopping the mass immigration of poor people."
... ... ...
Rich Puchalsky 08.04.16 at 12:03 pm
"I can't recall any particular instance where someone made this argument."
No one has literally argued that people should be glad to lose employment: that part was hyperbole.
But the basic argument is often made quite seriously. See e.g.
outsource
Brad DeLong.
engels 08.04.16 at 12:25 pm
While this may be the effect of some neoliberal policies, I can't recall any particular instance
where someone made this argument
Maybe this kind of thing rom Henry Farrell? (There may well be better examples.)
Is some dilution of the traditional European welfare state acceptable, if it substantially increases
the wellbeing of current outsiders (i.e. for example, by bringing Turkey into the club). My answer
is yes, if European leftwingers are to stick to their core principles on justice, fairness, egalitarianism
etc
Large numbers of low-income white southern Americans consistently vote against their
own economic interests. They vote to award tax breaks to wealthy people and corporations, to
cut unemployment benefits, to bust unions, to reward companies for outsourcing jobs, to resist
wage increases, to cut funding for health care for the poor, to cut Social Security and Medicare,
etc.
The same thing has happened in Mexico with neoliberal government after neoliberal government
being elected. There are many democratically elected neoliberal governments around the world.
Why might this be?
In the case of Mexico, because Peña Nieto's wife is a telenovela star. How cool is that? It places
Mexico in the same league as 1st world countries, such as France, with Carla Bruni.
Patrick 08.04.16 at 4:32 pm
To the guy who asked- poor white people keep voting Republican even though it screws
them because they genuinely believe that the country is best off when it encourages a culture
of "by the bootstraps" self improvement, hard work, and personal responsibility. They view
taxing people in order to give the money to the supposedly less fortunate as the anti thesis
of this, because it gives people an easy out that let's them avoid having to engage in the
hard work needed to live independently.
They see it as little different from letting your kid move back on after college and smoke
weed in your basement. They don't generally mind people being on unemployment transitionally,
but they're supposed to be a little embarrassed about it and get it over with as soon as
possible.
They not only worry that increased government social spending will incentivize bad
behavior, they worry it will destroy the cultural values they see as vital to Americas past
prosperity. They tend to view claims about historic or systemic injustice necessitating
collective remedy because they view the world as one in which the vagaries of fate decree that
some are born rich or poor, and that success is in improving ones station relative to where
one starts.
Attempts at repairing historical racial inequity read as cheating in that paradigm, and
even as hostile since they can easily observe white people who are just as poor or poorer than
those who racial politics focuses upon. Left wing insistence on borrowing the nastiest
rhetoric of libertarians ("this guy is poor because his ancestors couldn't get ahead because
of historical racial injustice so we must help him; your family couldn't get ahead either but
that must have been your fault so you deserve it") comes across as both antithetical to their
values and as downright hostile within the values they see around them.
All of this can be easily learned by just talking to them.
It's not a great world view. It fails to explain quite a lot. For example, they have literally
no way of explaining increased unemployment without positing either that everyone is getting
too lazy to work, or that the government screwed up the system somehow, possibly by making it
too expensive to do business in the US relative to other countries. and given their faith in
the power of hard work, they don't even blame sweatshops- they blame taxes and foreign
subsidies.
I don't know exactly how to reach out to them, except that I can point to some things people
do that repulse them and say "stop doing that."
bruce wilder 08.04.16 at 5:50 pm
The extent to which "poor white people" vote against their alleged economic interests is
overblown. To a large extent, they do not vote at all nor is anyone or anything on the ballot
to represent their interests. And, yes, they are misinformed systematically by elites out to screw
them and they know this, but cannot do much to either clear up their own confusion or fight back.
The mirror image problem - of elites manipulating the system to screw the poor and merely
middle-class - is daily in the news. Both Presidential candidates have been implicated. So, who
do you recommend they vote for?
There is serious deficit of both trust and information among the poor. Poor whites hardly have
a monopoly; black misleadership is epidemic in our era of Cory Booker socialism.
bruce wilder 08.04.16 at 7:05 pm
Politics is founded on the complex social psychology of humans as social animals. We elevate
it from its irrational base in emotion to rationalized calculation or philosophy at our peril.
T 08.04.16 at 9:17 pm
@Layman
I think you're missing Patrick's point. These voters are switching from one Republican to another.
They've jettisoned Bush et. al. for Trump. These guys despise Bush. They've figured out that the
mainstream party is basically 30 years of affinity fraud. So, is your argument is that Trump even
more racist? That kind of goes against the whole point of the OP. Not saying that race doesn't
matter. Of course it does. But Trump has a 34% advantage in non-college educated white men. It
just isn't the South. Why does it have to be just race or just class?
Ronan(rf) 08.04.16 at 10:35 pm
"I generally don't give a shit about polls so I have no "data" to evidence this claim, but
my guess is the majority of Trump's support comes from this broad middle"
My understanding is trumps support disproportionately comes from the small business owning
classes, Ie a demographic similar to the petite bourgeoisie who have often been heavily involved
in reactionary movements. This gets oversold as "working class" when class is defined by education
level rather than income.
This would make some sense as they are generally in economically unstable jobs, they tend to
be hostile to both big govt (regulations, freeloaders) and big business (unfair competition),
and while they (rhetorically at least) tend to value personal autonomy and self sufficiency ,
they generally sell into smaller, local markets, and so are particularly affected by local demographic
and cultural change , and decline. That's my speculation anyway.
T 08.05.16 at 3:12 pm
@patrick @layman
Patrick, you're right about the Trump demographic. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps-working-class-support/
Layman - Why are these voters switching from Bush et al to Trump? Once again, Corey's whole point
is that there is very little difference between the racism of Trump and the mainstream party since
Nixon. Is Trump just more racist? Or are the policies of Trump resonating differently than Bush
for reasons other than race? Are the folks that voted for the other candidates in the primary
less racist so Trump supporters are just the most racist among Republicans? Cruz less racist?
You have to explain the shift within the Republican party because that's what happened.
Anarcissie 08.06.16 at 3:00 pm
Faustusnotes 08.06.16 at 1:50 pm @ 270 -
Eric Berne, in The Structures and Dynamics of Organizations and Groups, proposed that among
the defining characteristics of a coherent group is an explicit boundary which determines whether
an individual is a member of the group or not. (If there is no boundary, nothing binds the assemblage
together; it is a crowd.) The boundary helps provide social cohesion and is so important that
groups will create one if necessary. Clearly, boundaries exclude as well as include, and someone
must play the role of outsider. While Berne's theories are a bit too nifty for me to love
them, I have observed a lot of the behaviors he predicts. If one wanted to be sociobiological,
it is not hard to hypothesize evolutionary pressures which could lead to this sort of behavior
being genetically programmed. If a group of humans, a notably combative primate, does not have
strong social cohesion, the war of all against all ensues and everybody dies. Common affections
alone do not seem to provide enough cohesion.
In an earlier but related theory, in the United States, immigrants from diverse European communities
which fought each other for centuries in Europe arrived and managed to now get along because they
had a major Other, the Negro, against whom to define themselves (as the White Race) and thus to
cohere sufficiently to get on with business. The Negro had the additional advantage of being at
first a powerless slave and later, although theoretically freed, was legally, politically, and
economically disabled - an outsider who could not fight back very effectively, nor run away. Even
so, the US almost split apart and there continue to be important class, ethnic, religious, and
regional conflicts. You can see how these two theories resonate.
It may be that we can't have communities without this dark side, although we might be able to
mitigate some of its destructive effects.
bruce wilder 08.06.16 at 4:28 pm
I am somewhat suspicious of leaving dominating elites out of these stories of racism as an
organizing principle for political economy or (cultural) community.
Racism served the purposes of a slaveholding elite that organized political communities to serve
their own interests. (Or, vis a vis the Indians a land-grab or genocide.)
Racism serves as an organizing principle. Politically, in an oppressive and stultifying hierarchy
like the plantation South, racism not incidentally buys the loyalty of subalterns with ersatz
status. The ugly prejudices and resentful arrogance of working class whites is thus a component
of how racism works to organize a political community to serve a hegemonic master class. The business
end of racism, though, is the autarkic poverty imposed on the working communities: slaves, sharecroppers,
poor blacks, poor whites - bad schools, bad roads, politically disabled communities, predatory
institutions and authoritarian governments.
For a time, the balkanization of American political communities by race, religion and ethnicity
was an effective means to the dominance of an tiny elite with ties to an hegemonic community,
but it backfired. Dismantling that balkanization has left the country with a very low level of
social affiliation and thus a low capacity to organize resistance to elite depredations.
engels 08.07.16 at 1:02 am
But how did that slavery happen
Possible short answer: the level of technological development made slavery an efficient way
of exploiting labour. At a certain point those conditions changed and slavery became a drag on
further development and it was abolished, along with much of the racist ideology that legitimated
it.
Lupita 08.07.16 at 3:40 am
But how did that slavery happen
In Mesoamerica, all the natives were enslaved because they were conquered by the Spaniards.
Then, Fray Bartolomé de las Casas successfully argued before the Crown that the natives had souls
and, therefore, should be Christianized rather than enslaved. As Bruce Wilder states, this did
not serve the interests of the slaveholding elite, so the African slave trade began and there
was no Fray Bartolomé to argue their case.
It is interesting that while natives were enslaved, the Aztec aristocracy was shipped to Spain
to be presented in court and study Latin. This would not have happened if the Mesoamericans were
considered inferior (soulless) as a race. Furthermore, the Spaniards needed the local elite to
help them out with their empire and the Aztecs were used to slavery and worse. This whole story
can be understood without recurring to racism. The logic of empire suffices.
Workers of all ages are caught in a vice. Older workers need to keep working longer in an economy which values younger
workers (and their cheaper healthcare premiums). Younger workers are caught in the vice of "you don't have enough experience" and
"how do I get experience if nobody will hire me?"
Middle-aged workers are caught between the enormous Millennial generation seeking better jobs and the equally numerous baby Boom
generation seeking to work a few more years to offset their interest-starved retirement funds. (Thank you, predatory and rapacious
Federal Reserve for siphoning all our retirement fund interest to your cronies the Too Big to Fail Banks.)
Workers 55 and older are undeniably working longer. Here is the labor participation rate for 55+ workers:
... And here's why so many workers have to work longer--earned income's share of the GDP has been in a free-fall for decades
as Fed-funded financiers and corporations skim an ever greater share of the nation's GDP.
I am 62, very much an older worker with a startling 46 years in the work force (first formal paycheck, 1970 from Dole Pineapple).
(Thanks to the Fed's zero-interest rate policy, I should be able to retire at 93 or so--unless the Fed imposes a negative-rate policy
on me and the other serfs.)
But I recall with painful clarity the great hardships and difficulties I experienced in the recessions of 1973-74, 1981-82 and
1990-91 when I was in younger demographics. My sympathies are if anything more with younger workers, as it is increasingly difficult
to get useful on-the-job experience if you're starting out.
That said, here are some suggestions for 55+ workers seeking to find work in a very competitive job/paid work market.
1. Target sectors that haven't changed much. There's a reason so many older guys find a niche in Home Depot and
Lowe's--power saws, lumber, appliances, etc. haven't changed that much (except their quality has declined) for 40 years.
The same can be said of many areas of retail sales, house-cleaning, caring for children, etc.
Everyone knows the young have an advantage in sectors dominated by fast-changing technology, so avoid those sectors and stick
to sectors where your knowledge and experience is still applicable and valued by employers.
2. If at all possible, get your healthcare coverage covered by a spouse or plan you pay. Those $2,000/month premiums
for older workers are a big reason why employers would rather hire a $200/month premium younger worker, or limit the hours of older
workers to part-time so no healthcare coverage is required.
Telling an employer you already have healthcare coverage may have a huge impact on your chances of getting hired.
3. If you have any computer-network-social media skills, you can get paid to help everyone 55+ with fewer skills.
Your computer skills may not be up to the same level as a younger person's, but they are probably far more advanced than
other 55+ folks. Many older people are paying somebody $35/hour or more to help them set up email, fix their buggy PCs and Macs,
get them started on Facebook, etc. It might as well be you.
4. Focus on fields where managerial experience and moxie is decisive. Even highly educated young people have
a tough time managing people effectively because they're lacking experience. Applying biz-school case studies to the real world isn't
as easy as it looks. (I found apologizing to my older employees necessary and helpful. Do they teach this in biz school? I doubt
it.)
The ability to work with (and mentor) a variety of people is an essential skill, and it's one that tends to come with age and
experience.
5. Reliability matters. The ability to roll with the punches, show up on time, do what's needed to get the job
done, and focus on outcomes rather than process are still core assets in a work force.
Being 55+ doesn't automatically mean someone has those skills, but they tend to come with decades of work.
6. If nobody will hire you, start your own enterprise to fill scarcities and create value in your community.
The classic example is a handyperson, as it's very difficult for a young person to acquire the spectrum of experience needed to efficiently
assess a wide array of problems and go about fixing them.
#3 above is another example of identifying one's strengths and then seeking a scarcity to fill. Value, profits and high wages
flow to scarcity. Don't try to compete in supplying what's abundant; seek out scarcities and work on addressing those in a reliable
fashion.
Every age group has its strengths and weaknesses, and the task facing all of us is to 1) identify scarcities we can fill and 2)
seek ways to play to our strengths.
Shizzmoney
That's easy: the elitist old people in power will start a war, force the young people into that war, where they will all be
killed and the old people get their jobs.
Also, for those young people who protest the war, the government and corporate military security forces will detain and kill
them, too.
Exactly. Value youth? Is that why we saddle them with $250,000 worth of student loan debt and a degree in women's studies to
find no jobs because we let in illegals and skilled workers with Visas from foreign countries? Seems like we hate our youth. Of
course, they deserve it since they have been focused on being social justice fucktards rather than getting any marketable skills
and paying attention to what the gov't is doing to their future. Schadenfreude.
deja
No, they are stupid enough to saddle themselves with $250,000 worth of student loan debt for a degree in womens' studies.
cougar_w
The OP doesn't make much sense to me. Most of the work people my age do, the young people either don't want or are not qualified
for. Maintaining vital COBOL apps or air traffic controller software from the 70's? Really? And the ones are, they don't mind
working with older employees and seem to enjoy our "gravity".
I work in IT so maybe things are a bit different. Grey beards are huge around here and always will be.
But this has been a challenge for centuries, young people have to find their own way and "their way" (being probably a dream
from childhood or an inspiration from a college professor) might not be practical at first. They bounce around a little until
marriage hits them and then they find something that works for supporting a family. Same as it ever was. The idea that "their
way" is some kind of unswerving life's mission is usually part of the corporate "just do it" meme that sells $400 specialty running
shoes. Yeah whatever, just figure it out actually, life will tell you what you are supposed to be doing, and who you are supposed
to be doing it with.
GeezerGeek
The market for COBOL programmers had a sudden surge around Y2K, but only certain industries still maintain their old COBOL
apps. Curiously, a certain computer/software has recently tried pushing a visual version of COBOL, much like Gates did when he
came out with Visual Basic back in the early 1990s. I retired after 40 years in IT in 2011, so I am a bit out of touch where COBOL
is concerned. Does anyone even teach it anymore in college? Maybe if someone modified it to create phone apps and games it would
once again be popular.
Abbie Normal
Then it's a good thing I didn't follow my undergrad English Prof's advice and switch my major from science to arts, because
he thought there was some "real intelligence" in my writing style that even his grad students lacked. Maybe I should look him
up....
eatthebanksters
I have two buddies, one a 61 year old attonery who has never lost a case and the other a 59 year old facilities director. The
lawyer has been seeking work for 6 years and has pretty much given up...he can't even get hired at lesser jobs because he is overqualified
and 'will leave when something better comes along'. The facilities director has a great resume and knows his stuff but has been
out of work for almost two years. He has come in 'second' more times than I can count. He is working od jobs and living with a
friends mother, exchanging work on the house for rent and meals. Welcome to Obama's economy.
N0TaREALmerican
He'd work if he'd accept less money, but he feels "entitled to earn what HE thinks he's worth". Just another lazy old-fart
who feels the world owns him something. Welcome to a competitive economy old-fart, nobody said life was fair. Stop bitching and
work for less.
mary mary
If you ever need an attorney, you might look for an experienced attorney who worked so hard that he never lost a case.
If you ever inherit a zillion bucks and buy a bunch of properties, you might confer with an experienced facility manager who
actually managed a bunch of properties.
I doubt an attorney who never lost a case achieved that record by going around saying, "somebody owes me something".
I doubt a facilities manager who managed a bunch of properties achieved that by going around saying, "somebody owes me something".
Baa baa
What a load of crap. Most will take anything. I know, I am one. Don't lecture me about being "entitled" you punk. Your post
reeks of the entitlement generation. Slug through 50 years of working, rearing a family, kids to college... I am beginning to
wonder if the hundreds of thousands spent on the education and well-being of your ingrate ass was a misallocation of funds.
corporatewhore
Give credit where credit is due. This inability to find work at an older age has been going on for years and can't be blamed
on Obama. Senior buyers at Macy's, older workers at Monsanto or television weather people at KSDK in St Louis all suffer the same
fate. Labor cost and benefits are all less for the younger generation no matter what level of experience or capability. We develop
a mindset throughout our productive career that we are indispensable and worth it because of our knowledge, contacts and industry
wherewithal. It's all an illusion and we are NOT prepared or equipped to face the reality at an older age that we are completely
dispensable.
At an older age if you want meaning you have to find it and think out of the paradigm that you've been led to believe is real.
No one owes you anything for your experience or wealth of knowledge. Figure it out and rethink yourself as to what you love to
do and want to do not what you must do to make money.
At 58 in 2008 I was fucked over by my corporation and wallowed in miserableness and poverty while i worked every contact and
firm I knew. Nothing resulted. I had to work 3 part time jobs until I earned 2 full time ones and work over 90 hours per week
because I enjoy it. It is work that covers the bills and allows me to create what I want to work on for the future while I still
can walk think and breathe.
Best advice to your children: Go in business for yourself because just as it happened to me, it will happen to you when you
become 55.
Nobody For President
Thanks for that, corporate whore. That sounds like an honest reprise of an incredibly hard time in your life, and I totally
agree. I'm telling all (4) my grandkids, from 7 to 20, to live your life, not someone else's. The oldest one gets it, and I think
the other ones will also, if I live long enough, because I walked that walk.
I'm old, and work full time (more or less) and make a living - not a killing, but a living - at it.
nuubee
Good news old people, the economy currently doesn't value anything you can produce, unless you can print money.
Cautiously Pessimistic
You get up every morning
From your 'larm clock's warning
Take the 8:15 into the city
There's a whistle up above
And people pushin', people shovin'
And the girls who try to look pretty
And if your train's on time
You can get to work by nine
... ... ...
mary mary
MSM says Baby Boomers "have stolen everything", but in fact Baby Boomers are having to extend their careers because they're
broke. This is the easily foreseeable result of 20+ years of the Fed keeping interest rates artificially low, making Baby Boomers
suffer the double-whammy of (1) not having their deferred income (pensions) grow, while (2) inflation in fact continued at 6%
annual, thanks also to the Fed keeping interest rates artificially low.
Yes, someone "have stolen everything". That someone is the owners of the Fed.
"... Being an unemployed techie myself, I cannot begin to describe what a godsend this book is. NETSLAVES finally reveals the truth about what it is to be part of what is likely the most under-appreciated sect of the working class. ..."
"... It is a comment on upper and middle management corporate business practices in general, and the dismal fate of the vast armies of workers used as cannon fodder since day one for the follies of unscrupulous robber barons; or morons who just happen to find themselves in the right place at the right time to make market killings; or Scrooges who will never learn what it is to have a heart. Baldwin and Lessard are heirs to the muckrakers of the early 20th Century. Corporate E-merica, take heed. ..."
Being an unemployed techie myself, I cannot begin to describe what a godsend this book is. NETSLAVES finally reveals the
truth about what it is to be part of what is likely the most under-appreciated sect of the working class.
The stale stories of "dorm-room success" have been supplanted by the pathetically sad/darkly humorous accounts of those who
have been saddled with with million-dollar job titles, bleeding ulcers, and ramen noodle grocery budgets.
NETSLAVES is an entertaining and enligtening read, written by two men who have actually been passengers in every sewer pipe
that is the new-media industry. This book is a must for every modern library, as it can be considered a "warning shot" for those
with IT aspirations, or as a source of vindication for those of us who have been dismissed and trampled on. Bravo!
A customer, November 24, 1999
Handwriting on the Wall
NetSlaves tells it like it is for the millions of us on the business end of the IPO and monopoly screwdrivers. Apply these
lessons to the law, publishing, automotive, chemical, airline industries, etc., etc. This book is not just a cerebral and satirical
indictment of the internet industry.
It is a comment on upper and middle management corporate business practices in general, and the dismal fate of the vast
armies of workers used as cannon fodder since day one for the follies of unscrupulous robber barons; or morons who just happen
to find themselves in the right place at the right time to make market killings; or Scrooges who will never learn what it is to
have a heart. Baldwin and Lessard are heirs to the muckrakers of the early 20th Century. Corporate E-merica, take heed.
The motivator is " Gap
Psychology ," the human desire to distance oneself from those below (on any scale), and
to come nearer to those above.
The rich are rich because the Gap below them is wide, and the wider the Gap, the richer
they are .
And here is the important point: There are two ways the rich widen the Gap: Either gain
more for themselves or make sure those below have less.
That is why the rich promulgate the Big Lie that the federal government (and its agencies,
Social Security and Medicare) is running short of dollars. The rich want to make sure that
those below them don't gain more, as that would narrow the Gap.
Negative sum game, where one wins but the other has to lose more so the party of the first
part feels even better about winning. There is an element of sadism, sociopathy and a few
other behaviors that the current systems allow to be gamed even more profitably. If you build
it, or lobby to have it built, they will come multiple times.
"... I know what it feels like to be marginalized because you're out of work. To be judged by others as if there's something wrong with you. To grow increasingly depressed, demoralized and despairing as three months turns into six months and that goes on for a year or more; as rejection after rejection becomes crushing, humiliating, and leaves you feeling worthless. ..."
"... All money-related impacts aside, you lose confidence. You wear out. You start to give up ..."
"... Now and then, an acquaintance will make an off-hand remark about those who borrow money or live on credit cards. The assumption is that credit purchases are frivolous, or that the person who racks up consumer debt does so out of irresponsibility and poor judgment. ..."
"... Never assume. Yours truly? I borrowed to put food on the table. I borrowed to pay for school supplies for my kids. I borrowed to enable them to take advantage of academic opportunities that they earned through their own hard work. I also counted my blessings. While I had no family to assist, my kids were healthy and doing well, I was basically healthy despite chronic pain, and I was able to use credit. Borrowing is a double-edged sword of course, especially if it continues for an extended period. But for my little household, debt was the only path to survival. For all I know, it will be again. ..."
"... These days? I still live on a tight budget, I dream of recovering from the years of financial devastation "someday," and I take every gig I can get. Willingly. I've gained new skills along the way and continue to refine them, I'm always looking for another project and thrilled when I nab one, and I'm accustomed to a 12- to 14-hour workday. I put in long hours throughout my corporate career and I have no problem doing so now. In fact, I'm grateful for these workdays and I take none of them for granted. Moreover, I suggest that few of us should take our sources of income as a given ..."
"... The longer that Americans are unemployed, the more likely they are to report signs of poor psychological well-being," says the study. "About one in five Americans who have been unemployed for a year or more say they currently have or are being treated for depression - almost double the rate among those who have been unemployed for five weeks or less. ..."
"... To be in this position - wanting to work, needing to work, knowing you still have much to contribute but never getting a foot in the door - is deeply frustrating, horribly depressing, and leaves us feeling powerless. Add up these elements and you have the formula for despair. ..."
"... One small act of compassion can breathe new hope into the worst situation. And here's what I know with 100% certainty. We may be unemployed, we may be depressed but we aren't powerless if we come together and try to help one another. ..."
Are you over 50, unemployed, depressed and feeling powerless? For that matter, are you any age
and feeling hopeless because you can't seem to land a job?
Frustrated Middle Age Man
The recession may be officially over, and for some segments of the population, things are
looking up. But too many are still sinking or hanging on by the skin of their teeth. Long-term
unemployment or underemployment has become a way of life.
This issue, for me, is personal.
I know what it feels like to be marginalized because you're out of work. To be judged by
others as if there's something wrong with you. To grow increasingly depressed, demoralized and
despairing as three months turns into six months and that goes on for a year or more; as
rejection after rejection becomes crushing, humiliating, and leaves you feeling worthless.
All money-related impacts aside, you lose confidence. You wear out. You start to give up.
And you don't even make it into the "statistics." It's been too long since your last employment
relationship.
Overqualified, Over-Educated, Over 50
Despite my fancy educational background and shiny corporate career history, for a number of years
I was unable to obtain work that was even remotely close to using my skills. Paying me a living
wage? Let's not even discuss it. I must have applied to 100 positions over the course of several
years, attended the usual networking events, and schmoozed every contact I could come up with.
No go. I suffered from the three O's: Overqualified, Over-educated and Over 50, though I may not
have looked it. That last? If you ask me, age was the kicker. Throughout that period, as
post-divorce skirmishes continued to flare (further complicating matters), I nonetheless took
every project I could eke out of the woodwork, supplemented by debt.
Hello, bank bail-out? How about a few bucks for those of us who foot the bill in tax dollars?
The Borrowing Trap
Now and then, an acquaintance will make an off-hand remark about those who borrow money or live
on credit cards. The assumption is that credit purchases are frivolous, or that the person who
racks up consumer debt does so out of irresponsibility and poor judgment.
Never assume. Yours truly? I borrowed to put food on the table. I borrowed to pay for school
supplies for my kids. I borrowed to enable them to take advantage of academic opportunities that
they earned through their own hard work. I also counted my blessings. While I had no family to
assist, my kids were healthy and doing well, I was basically healthy despite chronic pain, and I
was able to use credit. Borrowing is a double-edged sword of course, especially if it continues
for an extended period. But for my little household, debt was the only path to survival. For all
I know, it will be again.
Fighting Your Way Back
These days? I still live on a tight budget, I dream of recovering from the years of financial
devastation "someday," and I take every gig I can get. Willingly. I've gained new skills along
the way and continue to refine them, I'm always looking for another project and thrilled when I
nab one, and I'm accustomed to a 12- to 14-hour workday. I put in long hours throughout my
corporate career and I have no problem doing so now. In fact, I'm grateful for these workdays and
I take none of them for granted. Moreover, I suggest that few of us should take our sources of
income as a given.
You know the expression - "There but for the grace of God go I." Misfortune can visit any one of
us. Layoff. Accident or illness. Gray divorce. The phone call or email with no warning, saying
"you're done" as you're replaced by someone 20 years younger.
And yes, I've internalized the wisdom of this little gem: "If opportunity doesn't knock, build a
door." But I also know it isn't always possible, and the secret to success is not as simple as
hard work. It's aided by the assistance of others, not to mention - luck.
Forbes staff writer Susan Adams cites a Gallup poll as follows:
The longer that Americans are unemployed, the more likely they are to report signs of poor
psychological well-being," says the study. "About one in five Americans who have been
unemployed for a year or more say they currently have or are being treated for depression -
almost double the rate among those who have been unemployed for five weeks or less.
She goes on to note:
The long-term unemployed, unfortunately, have good reason to be depressed. They suffer
plenty of discrimination in the job market. A 2012 study by economist Rand Ghayad found that
employers preferred candidates with no relevant experience, but who had been out of work for
less than six months, to those with experience who had been job hunting for longer than that.
.... ... ...
How many of you have found yourselves laid off and unable to get another job?
How many of you are
struggling in midlife to create a career where once you were responsible for taking care of a
family?
How many of you have knocked on doors and connected until your blue in the face, only to give
up?
How many of you have drained away any savings you may have had or incurred crushing debt?
Have you had more success at creating new ventures for yourself - a business or freelance work?
Were you able to rely on the assistance of family or friends for a temporary period?
If you're over 50, have you found it harder? Have you had an experience similar to Cindy's?
I'm certain that many of you have fought your way back; I'm still fighting after years, but I
have seen progress. Slower than I'd like, but progress all the same.
If someone helped you out, have you paid it forward by making connections for others?
Please do read this comment from Cindy. I have responded as best I can. I'm sure she would
welcome your suggestions.
A Note on Despair
To be in this position - wanting to work, needing to work, knowing you still have much to
contribute but never getting a foot in the door - is deeply frustrating, horribly depressing, and
leaves us feeling powerless. Add up these elements and you have the formula for despair.
It's brutally hard to fight your way back from despair. But sometimes, an act of compassion can
help.
I've been on the receiving end of those incredible kindnesses - from strangers, from readers, and
from one friend in particular, herself too long living on the edge.
One small act of compassion can breathe new hope into the worst situation. And here's what I know
with 100% certainty. We may be unemployed, we may be depressed but we aren't powerless if we
come together and try to help one another.
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.
This is essentially a scam. Help in landing $13 per hour job is not a big achievement.
Notable quotes:
"... Older workers like Lane make up a larger percentage of the persistently jobless than ever before. Nearly 40 percent of unemployed workers are over the age of 45 - a 30 percent rise from the 1980s. ..."
"... P2E is an intensive, individualized five-week bootcamp that teaches job skills and works to build job-seekers' confidence and emotional health. "We acknowledge that there are serious emotional issues for people who'd been unemployed for that long," Carbone said. ..."
"... The privately-funded program makes deals with businesses who hire P2E graduates for "internships," a few-week trial period for the would-be employee, whose salary is subsidized by the WorkPlace. Often, it leads to full-time work. According to P2E, 80 percent of their participants have been granted trial periods, and of those, more than 85 percent have been hired by employers. ..."
"... This acceptance of a new economic reality is at the heart of P2E; the program isn't solving the problems of precarity, real-wage decline, or manufacturing losses so much as doing damage control. ..."
"... "I'd say 100 percent of the people who went through Platform are making less than they did previously," said Carbone. "We get them prepared for the fact that their standard of living will go down, that they probably have to change careers." ..."
When Bret Lane was laid off from his telecommunications sales job after 16 years, he wasn't worried.
He'd never been unemployed for more than a few days since he started working as a teenager. But months
passed, and he couldn't find a job. One day, he heard the Purina plant in his Turlock, Calif., neighborhood
was hiring janitors for $14 an hour. When he arrived early at 4 a.m., he counted more than 400 people
lined up to interview.
"That's when I realized things had gotten serious," said Lane, 53, who called being out of work
"pure hell."
Lane's experience is hardly unique.
As of September 2013, 4
million people had been unemployed for six months or more. The economy has been slow to regain the
8.7 million jobs lost during the Great Recession, making prospects grim for many of the long-term
unemployed.
Older workers like Lane make up a larger percentage of the persistently jobless than ever before.
Nearly 40 percent of unemployed workers are over the age of 45 - a 30 percent rise from the 1980s.
And for this group, the job hunt can be particularly long and frustrating. Unemployed people aged
45-54 were jobless for 45 weeks on average, and those 55 to 64 were jobless for 57 weeks, according
to an October 2013
Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.
Younger workers didn't have such a hard time, perhaps because many employers perceive them to
be more energetic or productive than older workers, said Linda Barrington, an economist at Cornell
University's Institute for Compensation Studies. Employers "acting on such inaccurate assessments
or stereotypes is what benefits younger workers and disadvantages older workers," she said.
Addressing the emotional side of unemployment
An innovative program based in Bridgeport, Conn., is helping to get those who are over 50 and
unemployed for long periods back into the market. Platform to Employment started in 2011 when a Connecticut
job center called the WorkPlace was overwhelmed by calls from "99ers"-people who had been unemployed
for 99 weeks, exhausting their unemployment benefits-many of whom were older workers.
The exact number of 99ers across the country is unknown; the Bureau of Labor Statistics hasn't
distinguished between 99ers and those out of work for a year since 2010, an oversight that
some say renders this group even more politically invisible. Already, the long-term unemployed
face biases in hiring. It's both legal and common for employers to write "unemployed need not apply"
on job postings.
There has been virtually no public policy tackling long-term unemployment since the recession
hit, said P2E founder Joe Carbone, and his program seeks to fill that gap. "These people have lost
access to opportunity, which is a basic American tenet," said Carbone. "We find a way to make them
competitive and feel hopeful."
P2E is an intensive, individualized five-week bootcamp that teaches job skills and works to build
job-seekers' confidence and emotional health. "We acknowledge that there are serious emotional issues
for people who'd been unemployed for that long," Carbone said.
The privately-funded program makes deals with businesses who hire P2E graduates for "internships,"
a few-week trial period for the would-be employee, whose salary is subsidized by the WorkPlace. Often,
it leads to full-time work. According to P2E, 80 percent of their participants have been granted
trial periods, and of those, more than 85 percent have been hired by employers.
Accepting a new economic reality
Bret Lane washes out his coffee pot at his home after a shift at a call center in San Diego, Calif.,
on Oct. 31. Lane was laid off after 16 years as a salesman in telecommunications and was unemployed
until he got a job at a call center. Sandy
Huffaker / Getty Images for NBC News
The program has spread to 10 other cities across the United States, including San Diego, where
Lane, a P2E graduate, has been employed full-time at a call center since May. After a year and nine
months of unemployment, Lane sold his two-bedroom house, pared down his possessions to fit in a 5x10
storage unit, and drove to San Diego to live with his sister. That's when he saw an ad in the paper
for Platform to Employment.
He learned how to make his online resume more searchable by adding keywords, as well as how to
create an impressive LinkedIn profile. "It also occurred to me that I was being discriminated against"
because of age, rather than being rejected for not being good enough. Lane now makes about half of
his previous salary and still lives with his sister, but he's "happy to be working again."
This acceptance of a new economic reality is at the heart of P2E; the program isn't solving the
problems of precarity, real-wage decline, or manufacturing losses so much as doing damage control.
"I'd say 100 percent of the people who went through Platform are making less than they did previously,"
said Carbone. "We get them prepared for the fact that their standard of living will go down, that
they probably have to change careers."
This guidance is necessary, Barrington said. "A lot of [the long-term unemployed] came into the
workforce still thinking you could work for the same company for your whole life," she said. "Someone
has to sit you down and tell you that's not going to happen."
She added that businesses need to be reminded of the value of older workers, who often bring intangible
skills, such as punctuality, responsibility, and "being able to write a memo," that younger employees
may not yet have.
Heidi DeWyngaert, President of Bankwell, a holding company of several banks in Connecticut, said
one of her banks hired an older worker from P2E who is succeeding on the job precisely for these
reasons. "She's mature, reliable and responsible with a great attitude," said DeWyngaert.
The program has gained so much prominence that it's become competitive in its own right. Early
last year, after P2E was featured on 60 Minutes, the Bridgeport office was flooded with inquiries.
The program routinely gets 1,000 applicants for around 20 spots.
Hoping to spark a national conversation
Vanessa Jackson, 57, saw the segment and kept track of P2E's growth until it expanded to her area
in Chicago. Jackson had been unemployed off and on since 2008, when she lost her $100,000 job as
a marketing manager during a corporate downsizing. "I thought, of course, I would get another comparable
job," she said.
But it didn't happen. She decided to get an MBA to "ride out the recession," but that just landed
her more debt. She finally got a part-time job as a deli clerk, until she broke her arm and went
on disability for 10 months. Her $300,000 401(k) account dwindled to $60,000. She sold her house
in the suburbs and moved in with her boyfriend on the South Side of Chicago.
"It was the most desperate thing in the world," Jackson said. It pained her to remember the days
when recruiters would tell her she was one of "the top African-American women in marketing."
P2E "revived my energy," she said. "It lifted the depression that was very much there."
Jackson now works part-time as a project coordinator at a home care service agency for $13 an
hour, which she admits is inadequate for her level of education. Still, she almost missed out on
the opportunity. When P2E came to Chicago earlier this year, she wasn't selected at first. "It felt
like applying for a job in itself," she said. "I beseeched [Chicago program manager Michael Morgan].
He said 'I admire your ambition' and let me in."
Carbone is all too aware of P2E's limited reach. "We've helped hundreds of people, but that doesn't
put even a small dent in the amount who need help," he said. Carbone hopes to spark a national conversation
and, eventually, get the attention of Washington.
"Let's be clear," Carbone said. "I wouldn't be doing this if there were appropriate and relevant
government policies."
2000 | Rated R directed by Steven Soderbergh
Based on the true story of an unemployed mother of three who forced her way into a job as a legal clerk and built an anti-pollution
case against a California utility company. Erin Brockovich has become a name for someone with tenacity and perseverance.
The Journey of Natty Gann
1985 | Rated PG directed by Jeremy Kagan
Disney's family-friendly adventure demonstrates how tough the Great Depression was on kids, namely the teenage girl of the title
who journeys across America to reunite with her father. Grounded by strong performances, including a young John Cusack, this gem
serves as a fine introduction of a difficult subject to younger viewers.
Tootsie
1982 | Rated PG directed by Sydney Pollack
This light-hearted, quirky comedy stars Dustin Hoffman as an unemployed actor who pretends to be a woman for a full-time role in
a soap opera. Beneath the hilarity is a sobering reminder that landing a job sometimes requires thinking outside the box, to say
the least.
Up in the Air
2009 | Rated R directed by Jason Reitman
George Clooney is stellar as a veteran hatchet man who has lost his ability to form meaningful relationships, living a life on the
road. Ultimately this is a poignant drama about identity and what defines us. If we are nothing more than our occupation, what remains
when that is gone?
Russ Breimeier, a freelance film critic who lives in Indianapolis, was unemployed for two years until recently landing a part-time
job.
Probably not. But the quantities necessary might diminish considerably...
Notable quotes:
"... Adapted from the new book The Future of the Professions by Richard Susskind & Daniel Susskind (Oxford University Press, 2015).Originally published at Alternet ..."
"... The proof is in how there is one premium cost if the medical provider is on their own and magically it is cheaper if theu are part of a group or hospital.. Same doctor same practices lower rates prima facia evidence of insurance company rate fraud ..."
"... Re solidarity, you might be surprised. One reason law school enrollments are down is that it is becoming public knowledge that employment for graduates in upwardly mobile career positions is way down ..."
"... Many are shunted into low level proletarian type legal work, churning out evidence for use in lawsuits owned and managed by large firms. Lawyers who do this earn less then a good paralegal with less job security and no benefits. ..."
"... So much of the 'grunt work' of professions – once the entry and training province of new graduates – is now being done overseas by shops that specialize in legal research, or reading x-rays, or accounting and tax preparation. ..."
"... The 'grunt work' that grounds one in the full knowledge of the profession and how it works is slowly removed from the profession. That omission leaves future practitioners with an incomplete understanding. ..."
"... This loss makes them more reliant on big data as both assistant and excuse/defense, and makes them less master craftsmen (if I may use the term without giving offense) and more the front-end interface of one-size-fits-all processes. Very good for corporate profits. Not so good for the professions or their clients. ..."
"... Long ago, firms started off-shoring basic, tedious, repetitive tasks, generally considered as unrewarding, such as software testing or error correction to India. The idea was to focus on "high added-value" jobs such as system architects or project management, and leave low-level operations, supposedly requiring less qualifications, to cheaper Indian contractors. Decades later, there is a shortage of qualified people for those high-skilled jobs - precisely because fewer and fewer young people have had the possibility ..."
"... The result? It is now necessary to import expensive project managers and system architects from foreign countries. ..."
"... Bottom line: the race to the bottom for wages is "on". ..."
"... Professionals would be the next logical choice of squeezing cost out of work; unions, middle management, big industry, airlines, manufacturing and construction have all paid their price at the alter of the 1%. ..."
"... I also agree with the concept of there being less for the bottom 90% to spend. And as more automation kicks in, there will be even less bad choice jobs for these folks to scramble for. Just waiting for truck drivers to be slowly replaced with auto-drive trucks. ..."
"... " . Prefer a fence at the top of the cliff to an ambulance at the bottom " ..."
"... The rich and the truly rich will always have skilled, artistic human professionals to serve their personally tailored bespoke needs. It is the rest of us who will be assigned the doctorobots, the lawyer machines, etc. ..."
"... Part of the "crapification of everything" except for managers and owners, it is part of their cost cutting plan. ..."
"... First they came for the blue collar workers, and I did nothing? Then they came for the white collar workers, and I did nothing? Now they are coming for the professionals, and they are laughing at my passivity? ..."
"... They have played all the classes, higher than the one they are currently discarding, and the remaining consumers are happy to throw their neighbors under the bus. But your turn will come. Karma. ..."
"... Once corporations start setting guidelines and dictating the drugs you can and can't use for treatment, do you think they'll do it according to what's cost effective and least risky for the patient based on current science or do you think they'll do it based on their own profits? ..."
Posted on
January 9, 2016 by Yves Smith Yves here. Many
members of the top 10% regard their role in society as relatively secure, particularly if the are in a niche that serves the capital-deploying
1% or better yet, 0.1%. But a new book suggest their position is not secure. And trends in motion confirm this dour reading, such
as the marked decline in law school enrollments, and the trend in the US to force doctors to practice out of hospitals or HMOs, where
they are salaried and are required to adhere to corporate care guidelines. For instance, my MD is about to have her practice bought
out, and is looking hard as to whether she can establish a concierge practice. Mind you, she appears regularly on TV and writes a
monthly column for a national magazine [not that is how I found her or why I use her]. Yet she has real doubts as to whether she
can support all the overhead. If someone with a profile can't make a go at it solo in a market like Manhattan, pray tell, who can?
The end of the professional era is characterized by four trends: the move from bespoke service; the bypassing of traditional gatekeepers;
a shift from a reactive to a proactive approach to professional work; and the more-for-less challenge.
The Move From Bespoke (Custom) Service
For centuries, much professional work has been handled in the manner of a craft. Individual experts and specialists-people who
know more than others-have offered an essentially bespoke service ("bespoke" is British for "custom"). In the language of the tailor,
their product has been "made-to-measure" rather than "off-the-peg." For each recipient the service has been disposable (used once
only), handcrafted ordinarily by a solitary scribe or sole trusted adviser, often in the spirit of an artist who starts each project
afresh with a blank canvas.
Our research strongly suggests that bespoke professional work in this vein looks set to fade from prominence, as other crafts
(like tailoring and tallow chandlering) have done over the centuries. Significant elements of professional work are being routinized:
in checklists, standard form materials, and in various sorts of systems, many of which are available online. Meanwhile, the work
that remains for human beings to handle conventionally is often not conducted by individual craftspeople, but collaboratively in
teams, sometimes collocated, but more often virtually. And, with the advance of increasingly capable machines, some work may not
be conducted by human beings at all.
Just as we witnessed the "death of gentlemanly capitalism" in the banks in the 1980s, we seem to be observing a similar decline
in bespoke professionalism.
The Bypassed Gatekeepers
In the past, when in need of expert guidance we turned to the professions. Their members knew things that others did not, and
we drew on their knowledge and experience to solve our problems. Each profession acted as a "gatekeeper" of its own, distinct body
of practical expertise. Today this set-up is under threat.
We are already seeing some work being wrested from the hands of traditional professions. Some of the competition is coming from
within. We observe professionals from different professions doing each other's work. They even speak of "eating one another's lunch."
Accountants and consultants, for example, are particularly effective at encroaching on the business of lawyers and actuaries. We
also see intra-professional friction, when, for example, nurses take on work that used to be exclusive to doctors, or paralegals
are engaged to perform tasks that formerly were the province of lawyers.
But the competition is also advancing from outside the traditional boundaries of the professions-from new people and different
institutions. We see a recurring need to draw on people with very different skills, talents, and ways of working. Practicing doctors,
priests, teachers, and auditors did not, for example, develop the software that supports the systems that we describe. Stepping forward
instead are data scientists, process analysts, knowledge engineers, systems engineers, and many more. Today, professionals still
provide much of the content, but in time they may find themselves down-staged by these new specialists. We also see a diverse set
of institutions entering the fray-business process outsourcers, retail brands, Internet companies, major software and service vendors,
to name a few. What these providers have in common is that they look nothing like twentieth-century doctors, accountants, architects,
and the rest.
More than this, human experts in the professions are no longer the only source of practical expertise. There are illustrations
of practical expertise being made available by recipients of professional work-in effect, sidestepping the gatekeepers.
On various platforms, typically online, people share their past experience and help others to resolve similar problems. These "communities
of experience," as we call them, are springing up across many professions (for example, PatientsLikeMe and the WebMD communities
in medicine). We say more about them in a moment. More radical still are systems and machines that themselves generate practical
expertise. These are underpinned by a variety of advanced techniques, such as Big Data and artificial intelligence. These platforms
and systems tend not to be owned and run by the traditional professions. Whether those who do so will in turn become "new gatekeepers"
is a subject of some concern.
The keys to the kingdom are changing. Or, if not changing, they are at least being shared with others.
You nailed it on medical professionals would like to add, that at least here in flori duh there seems to be massive pricing
fraud by malpractice and liability insurance providers which state regulators allow to continue to force small or single practitioners
to join groups by financial obliteration at least in floriduh, there is the usual massive distortion suggesting insurance companies
are paying out huge amounts when there in fact seems to be collusion amongst insurance companies neglecting the legal requirement
to try to settle on good faith and end up forcing people to settle for pennies on the dollar yet the insurance companies keep
picking the pockets of medical professionals
The proof is in how there is one premium cost if the medical provider is on their own and magically it is cheaper if theu
are part of a group or hospital.. Same doctor same practices lower rates prima facia evidence of insurance company rate fraud
Yes some of it is only logical though, if masses of the population see their income declining and yet the costs of medical
care keeps increasing eventually noone can afford to see the doctor never mind the ACA etc.. And it can get to be this way with
a lot of professional services less urgent and distorted than medical care, like soon noone can afford an accountant, you use
turbo tax, a lawyer – no middle class people start to make their own wills. Many professions seek ever further protections of
government for their guilds (more and more requirements to practice to try to preserve their privilege) and yet with nothing protecting
the income of the other 80% (read: unions, that would be their role) unless they plan to only serve the fellow 20%
So solidarity? Yea, but making the solidarity argument with many (not all) members of such professions is a waste of time as
they instinctively side with the 1s.
Re solidarity, you might be surprised. One reason law school enrollments are down is that it is becoming public knowledge
that employment for graduates in upwardly mobile career positions is way down
Many are shunted into low level proletarian type legal work, churning out evidence for use in lawsuits owned and managed
by large firms. Lawyers who do this earn less then a good paralegal with less job security and no benefits.
It has been said Paralegals are being squeezed out, to make way for the huge increase in law graduates from prior class booms.
Why not use cheap lawyers, with better credential, and desperate for employment?
So much of the 'grunt work' of professions – once the entry and training province of new graduates – is now being done
overseas by shops that specialize in legal research, or reading x-rays, or accounting and tax preparation.
There are 3 downsides to this, in my opinion. New college grads have fewer entry slots. The 'grunt work' that grounds one
in the full knowledge of the profession and how it works is slowly removed from the profession. That omission
leaves future practitioners with an incomplete understanding.
This loss makes them more reliant on big data as both assistant and excuse/defense, and makes them less master craftsmen
(if I may use the term without giving offense) and more the front-end interface of one-size-fits-all processes. Very good for
corporate profits. Not so good for the professions or their clients.
Your first two points (no entry-level jobs for beginners, no acquisition of professional basics) are essential - and their
detrimental effects are already painfully felt in some professions.
Case in point: software development.
Long ago, firms started off-shoring basic, tedious, repetitive tasks, generally considered as unrewarding, such as software
testing or error correction to India. The idea was to focus on "high added-value" jobs such as system architects or project management,
and leave low-level operations, supposedly requiring less qualifications, to cheaper Indian contractors. Decades later, there
is a shortage of qualified people for those high-skilled jobs - precisely because fewer and fewer young people have had the possibility
to
(a) start in the profession at entry-level positions (when job postings all require qualifications as senior software engineer
and five years experience, what do you do?)
(b) learn the ropes and practice the skills from the ground up (the necessary step before rising in the professional hierarchy).
The result? It is now necessary to import expensive project managers and system architects from foreign countries.
From what I read, the UK has been especially hit by this phenomenon, because it was particularly enthusiastic about off-shoring
IT to India.
I can't find the cite, but last year I read that some of the Indian companies that American law firms have outsourced to are
now moving offices "stateside" to hire American attorneys, here.
The Washington State Bar has initiated a
legal technician
program , and I find the timing questionable, even if the premise of the program is good-hearted. As the market is awash in
underemployed, licensed attorneys, the Bar is going ahead and turning veteran paralegals into the people to undercut the market
even further. It seems like bad timing to let someone who has years of experience, and no law school debt get over on a bunch
law school grads who are facing a life of being hounded for their debts. I spoke to someone at the Bar who made a good defense,
that the legal technician is like an ARNP. Only later did it occur to me that there are very few out-of-work doctors.
From another perspective, the legal technician answers another problem of the collapsing paralegal market. Much of the collapse
has been driven by advances in document management, especially scanning that 'reads' the text and makes it searchable. But hey,
here is a shiny new program. Go ahead and set up a parenting plan with your abusive ex for $75! What could go wrong?
The key to really get the legal field de-humanized would be robot judges and robotic juries. I hope someone is already working
on it.
Don't worry what's old is new again. At some point in the future we'll all be scratching glyphs on clay tablets .once the 2nd
law of thermodynamics really kicks in ..plenty of work then!
Work! What about George Jetson? The go west value system we are stuck with these days is almost perfectly incompatible with
a future that requires very little human labor.
Professionals would be the next logical choice of squeezing cost out of work; unions, middle management, big industry,
airlines, manufacturing and construction have all paid their price at the alter of the 1%.
Public sector unions are hanging on but as the majority of local & state taxpayers have less to give, these wages, benefits
and especially pensions will be cut. Those earning less and less will gleefully pull down those public employees who are 'living
like kings'.
I also agree with the concept of there being less for the bottom 90% to spend. And as more automation kicks in, there will
be even less bad choice jobs for these folks to scramble for. Just waiting for truck drivers to be slowly replaced with auto-drive
trucks.
This leads us to an enhanced confrontation at the Federal level on how to go forward. The earned income tax credit, a good
concept also under siege, I believe, will have to be supplemented with a minimum guaranteed income.
By this time, 20 years, the DEMs will be the party of business and the GOP will be entirely dependent on fed govt subsidies.
Oh the irony.
Reading Rise of a The Robots right now, and the law and accounting profession have and will continue to be hurt hard by computers
armed with big data, and the education and medical profession are next. Has to be. It's already a travesty that education and
medical costs continue to rise as incomes stagnate and drop, and that just cannot continue. Well, maybe it can, until all of those
guns out there are used by the people as they rise up. Look at the buffoon who many are considering for the Republican nominee,
more out of blind, misinformed anger, than anything. Scary.
The rich and the truly rich will always have skilled, artistic human professionals to serve their personally tailored bespoke
needs. It is the rest of us who will be assigned the doctorobots, the lawyer machines, etc.
The French phrase "Everything changes and remains the same" remains true today.
Whereas today the top of society has its professionals to isolate and protect them from the remainder of the population and
the rules nobility and the church had its knights, nobles, obedient serfs and peasants to fight and protect "their" nobility.
Names and titles changed but the rules remained. Those who have will get those who don't will not.
Correct. The same applies in education. The wealthy know what kinds of schools serve their children best: those with better
teacher to student ratios, rich arts curricula, and a progressive approach to instruction. Just see what Obama's kids got at their
fancy Quaker school. The rest get standardized lesson plans, big class sizes, deep cuts in music and the arts, and high-stakes
testing.
Part of the "crapification of everything" except for managers and owners, it is part of their cost cutting plan.
Why would you trust a medical system run by politicians and insurance companies a system promoted by those same managers
and owners. Like hiring the Three Stooges as your plumber, electrician and roofer. Gullibility will be the death of us that
and malice.
First they came for the blue collar workers, and I did nothing? Then they came for the white collar workers, and I did
nothing? Now they are coming for the professionals, and they are laughing at my passivity?
They have played all the classes, higher than the one they are currently discarding, and the remaining consumers are happy
to throw their neighbors under the bus. But your turn will come. Karma.
In Oregon some doctors are unionizing to resist medical assembly line medicine.
From NYTimes:
Doctors Unionize to Resist the Medical Machine
"Dr. Alexander and his colleagues say they are in favor of efficiency gains. It's the particular way the hospital has interpreted
this mandate that has left them feeling demoralized. If you talk to them for long enough, you get the distinct feeling it is
not just their jobs that hang in the balance, but the loss of something much less tangible - the ability of doctors everywhere
to exercise their professional judgment."
I find myself thinking about an episode of the original Connections series, that was produced in the 70s.
There it was mused about how corporate management would idle their days away waiting for the computer in the basement to crunch
the numbers and come up with company decisions they were then to implement.
Instead what happened was that the professional managerial class, the MBAs, dug in while computers instead replaced the laborers
via robotics.
Or shorter: The common argument that 'we (by that I mean you) have to become more employable' is about to hit home among the
people with long education. Will they recognize the similarity to what has already happened to others and/or will they themselves
make themselves more 'employable'?
I think one of the major consequences we are seeing as a result of a misguided professional system is the lack of basic legal
services for millions of people. This resulted in people being thrown out of their homes as the result of very obvious fraud and
yet having no recourse unless they were able to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees.
I think the popular new series 'Making of a Murderer' emphasizes this problem. I don't think a show that emphasizes the problems
that the very poor have with justice from the lack of being able to pay for legal services would have been this popular 10 years
ago.
Once corporations start setting guidelines and dictating the drugs you can and can't use for treatment, do you think they'll
do it according to what's cost effective and least risky for the patient based on current science or do you think they'll do it
based on their own profits?
What happens when they own their own pharmacies – as they're all scrambling to do right now – and try to jack up reimbursement
through that unit too? Do you think patients were served when Philidor started (criminally) altering scripts and making substitutions?
For profit healthcare is really sickcare, isn't it? Why cure a disease when treating it brings in more revenue? Why sell cheap
human insulin when you can patent a variety on the molecule, jack up the price and carve up the market?
Keep the sucker paying the vig
These guys aren't adopting better guidelines for treating chronic disease based on the best available science. In fact, as
they corporatize they're getting worse. I've talked to these clowns. They're typically ten years behind the state of the art in
their field. Patients do the reading and then they stare at us like we're morons. Fifteen years later they swear they knew the
truth all along.
If these corporate suits are setting the guidelines for care, how come there's no common national board standard for care,
no portfolio investment model approach where they model the disease with the best available experts, determine how to intervene
in the various genetic pathways that are perturbed and then pick the simplest, cheapest methods/chemicals to try first?
That sounds like a pretty reasonable, scientific approach to treatment – but, if that's your standard, then these people are
in breech of fiduciary duty left and right and it all has to do with that old canard "maximizing shareholder value." What about
maximizing customer service? Corporate medicine will lead to tobacco-level deaths. I know doctors who have been personally injured
in this system already. Corporations want to avoid risk to their profit – *not* their patient. Imagine what *those* mandatory
arbitration clauses are going to look like. Imagine what the sequel to _Merchants of Doubt_ will look like in the era of corporate
medicine and Supreme Court decisions that bust doctors' unions.
I'm still burning from Peter Thiel's comments on monopolies in the New York Times this morning. Does he have any clue how bad
the service is in regional hospital cartels already and how fast prices are rising?
It's not even a matter of price in the drug markets now. It's basic availability. Aside from the persistent shortages of cheap,
effective generics due to the kickback scheme in PMOs/PBMs, we now have explicit regulatory interference. The FDA has been moving
to withdraw entire lines of medication from compounding pharmacies even when there's no rival big pharma product competing against
them or any indication of patient risk. These are decades-old treatments. (It's the CDC's job to set treatment guidelines, by
the way, not the FDA's).
It's just a knee-jerk reaction at this point to protect imaginary future profits, I suppose. You can't make up this stuff.
The FDA has even imposed a 30% sales volume rule for "safety." It has nothing to do with purity or contamination of compounded
products. If Tesla sold exploding cars, how would restricting 30% of their sales volume to California improve consumer safety?
It's clearly a market-rigging reg – and it's because the corporate medicine lobby wants it.
What does this have to do with corporate medicine? Compounding pharmacies in big chain hospitals – which are often pitifully
narrow in their professional scope – are all magically exempt (oligopolistic and more expensive too). Isn't that wonderful?
The current corporatization of medicine rests on the notion that the chief challenge faced by those of us with serious illnesses
is that we simply don't read enough fine print or fill out enough paperwork.
If you think that corporations have done a fine job handling your retirement investments in this era of lax accounting standards,
wait until you see what they do with your actual body.
This article is based on the faulty perception that this is all normal benign efficiency working it's way out of an antiquated
system, perhaps with a few -to be expected- hiccups. It isn't.
What we are experiencing is wholesale greed and corruption on an international scale working it's way into the core of our
civilization like mold or cancer, and perverting technology as well as the process of social change and adjustment to that change
– for it's exclusive benefit – as it goes. It is unconscionable that we could call this progress or adjustment in anything but
the most cruelly ironic sense.
The shift from reactive to proactive my foot! 60 years ago doctors were getting out proactive messages far better
than today via education, television, the media and so on. And they gave a damn!!! Today, insurance companies are devising ever
new ways to minimize what they spend on your care, maximize what they charge you for it, and call it, "proactive." Proactive theft,
or genocide for fun and profit, would be closer to the mark.
Secular stagnation of the US economy might be parcially driven by high (above $50 per barrel) oil prices. That nessesarity
generates high level of unemployment, especially chromic unemployment and "perma-temps".
Masterpiece, offers solution for THE problem of our time/div> I am astonished at the quality of this book, which is about the
eighth book in a personal reading program that included Paul Roberts' The End of Oil, Kenneth Deffeyes' Beyond Oil, Jared Diamon's
Collapse, Cottrell's Energy and Society, Michael Klare's Blood and Oil, and others, all extremely good and relevant books.
The task this author undertakes is to help readers find a new perspective from which to constructively and usefully interpret
inevitable and major changes the world around us. By taking this approach, the author is providing the very essential tool we
need to cope with these changes.
The issue is our ecological footprint.
Catton uses the term "Age of Exuberance" to represent the time since 1492 when first a newly discovered hemisphere and then
the invention of fossil-fuel-driven machines allowed Old-World humans to escape the constraints imposed by a population roughly
at earth's carrying capacity, and instead to grow (and philosophize and emote) expansively.
He then reminds us that we are soon to be squeezed by the twin jaws of excessive population and exhausted resources, as our
current population is utterly dependent on the mining and burning of fossil energy and its use to exploit earth's resources in
general.
In spring 2005, the buzz about "the end of cheap energy" is reaching quite a pitch, and when and if the "peak oil" scenario
(or other environmental limit-event) is reached, the impact on our social / political world will be enormous. Already the US is
brandishing and using its superior weaponry to sieze control of oil assets; this same kind of desperate struggle may well erupt
at all levels of society if we don't find a way to identify the problem, anticipate its consequences, and find solutions.
Catton offers a perspective based on biology / ecology -- not bad, since we are indeed animals in an ecology and we are indeed
subject to the iron laws of nature and physics.
With this perspective we can avoid ending up screaming nonsense at each other when changes begin to get scary. My urgent recommendation
is, read this G.D. book and do it now.
"... It has to be explained that Stoics believe that nothing external to the individual is secure, and thus the truly important thing is virtue, based on ethics and moral. ..."
"... Stoicism is the appropriate philosophy for what awaits us. It brings out the best of us and it eases the anguish. The illusion of control is our worst enemy. Matters are completely out of our control and Nature will deal with them as she pleases. ..."
I wholeheartedly agree that even a cursory look at things reveals the overwhelming scope
of things and quickly leads to despair.
It doesn't have to lead to despair. I recommend
Stoicism
, which is the way
Greeks and Romans coped with their own decline.
In the words of Seneca:
"Let Nature deal with matter, which is her own, as she pleases; let us be cheerful and brave
in the face of everything, reflecting that it is nothing of our own that perishes." (De Provid.
v.8)
It has to be explained that Stoics believe that nothing external to the individual is secure,
and thus the truly important thing is virtue, based on ethics and moral.
Virtue can not be
taken from an individual whatever the circumstances, and helps him deal with adversity. That is
what Seneca means with
"nothing of our own that perishes"
.
Stoicism is the appropriate philosophy for what awaits us. It brings out the best of us
and it eases the anguish. The illusion of control is our worst enemy. Matters are completely out
of our control and Nature will deal with them as she pleases.
"... I am lucky in that I lived very frugally my whole life as I have always feared what was coming, and what in my opinion has now come. I am retired, and have been for over 4 years, but not by choice. ..."
"... For me, the misery index is High. I am lucky that I am not in danger of homelessness, but I have to be very careful about what I spend as prices keep going up and up and most things I consume. Meaning, food, utilities, taxes, etc. These days food doesn't go up by cents, but rather usually a dollar at a time. Carrots at my local Costco just went from $6.99 to $7.99 for example. ..."
"... I think that for everyone but the top 10%, the Misery Index is High ..."
From just outside Boulder, CO: John Edwards said "there are two Americas". I am thinking
he was more than correct, but that it should be 4 Americas: the top ,1%, the rest of the top
10%, the people who were prudent and saved and are older who are suffering but still can
afford to live, and the truly poor who can't come up with $400 in an emergency, which would
include the homeless. I am lucky in that I lived very frugally my whole life as I have
always feared what was coming, and what in my opinion has now come. I am retired, and have
been for over 4 years, but not by choice. Nobody here wants to hire an over 60 IT
worker.
I measure the "economy" and the it's health by what I refer to as the "misery index". It
isn't measured in numbers but rather in how one feels about their life and the world around
them. For me, the misery index is High. I am lucky that I am not in danger of
homelessness, but I have to be very careful about what I spend as prices keep going up and up
and most things I consume. Meaning, food, utilities, taxes, etc. These days food doesn't go
up by cents, but rather usually a dollar at a time. Carrots at my local Costco just went from
$6.99 to $7.99 for example.
I think that for everyone but the top 10%, the Misery Index is High . But, around
here, it is I believe one of the more affluent areas of the country. People are buying up
$1.5 million dollar houses like crazy, and tearing down $1 million dollar old houses to build
new custom houses. Tesla's and Mercedes are everywhere. Google has taken over Boulder and the
young Tech workers are numerous. My little town of about 10,000 people is building new homes
on every square inch of available land. They are talking about another 500 new homes of close
to a million dollars to well over a million dollars. Traffic is outrageous, and bad air
pollution days seem to be more and more numerous these days.
So, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times". Depends on who you are.
I think though that we are in the midst of a class war. The racial issues we are
experiencing are to distract people and divide people. Divide people on race, divide people
on age, divide people on ideology. No matter what, just divide people so while the common
"man" is fighting each other, the rich plunder more and more.
Finally, from my perspective, as a student of history, especially Nazi Germany, and Russia
under Stalin, I am more and more frightened each day by the acceptance of the Trump rhetoric.
It is messianic and dangerous.
"... A lesson of use at job interviews, schools and even in families. I am thankful for an added knowledge and understanding of the many problems associated with these Endeavors. This book should be a "must" to all young people. ..."
Bold Endeavors by Jack Stuster proved to be a real page-turner! Since childhood reading about adventures and explorers had
been my favorite literature. In this book the persons behind these endeavors came to life.
They were of flesh and blood and you as a reader took part of their everyday life, their hardships and personal problems. A
thrilling experience. A lesson in the importance of relationships not only among people in isolation
A lesson of use at job interviews, schools and even in families. I am thankful for an added knowledge and understanding
of the many problems associated with these Endeavors. This book should be a "must" to all young people.
Unemployment benefits currently are usually is just six month or so; this is the time when you can plan you "downsizing". You do
not need to rush but at the same time do not expect that you will get job offers quickly, if at all. Usually it does not happen.
many advertised positions are fakes, another substantial percentage is already reserved for H1B candidates and posting them is the
necessary legal formality.
Often losing job logically requires selling your home and moving to a modest apartment, especially if no children are living with
you. At 50 it is abut time... You need to do it later anyway, so why not now. But that's a very tough decision to make... Still, if the current housing market is close to the top
(as it is in 2019), this is one of the best moves
you can make. Getting from your house several hundred thousand dollars allows you to create kind of private pension to compensate for
losses in income till you hit your Social Security check, which currently means 66.
$300K investment in A quality bonds that returns 3% per year is enough to provides you with $24K per year "private pension" from 50 to
age of 66 when social security kicks in. That allows you to pay for the apartment and amenities. The food is extra but with this
level of income you qualify for food assistance.
This way you can take lower paid job, of much lower paid job (which mean $15 per hour), of temp job and survive.
And if this are many form you house sell your 401k remains intact and can supplement your SS income later on. Simple Excel spreadsheet can provide you with
a complete picture of what you can afford and what not. Actually the ability to walk of fresh air for 3 or more hours each day worth a lot
of money ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Losing a job in your 50s is a devastating moment, especially if the job is connected to a long career ripe with upward mobility. As a frequent observer of this phenomenon, it's as scary and troublesome as unchecked credit card debt or an expensive chronic health condition. This is one of the many reasons why I believe our 50s can be the most challenging decade of our lives. ..."
"... The first thing you should do is identify the exact day your job income stops arriving ..."
"... Next, and by next I mean five minutes later, explore your eligibility for unemployment benefits, and then file for them if you're able. ..."
"... Grab your bank statement, a marker, and a calculator. As much as you want to pretend its business as usual, you shouldn't. Identify expenses that don't make sense if you don't have a job. Circle them. Add them up. Resolve to eliminate them for the time being, and possibly permanently. While this won't necessarily lengthen your fuse, it could lessen the severity of a potential boom. ..."
Losing a job in your 50s is a devastating moment, especially if the job is connected to a long career ripe with upward mobility.
As a frequent observer of this phenomenon, it's as scary and troublesome as unchecked credit card debt or an expensive chronic health
condition. This is one of the many reasons why I believe our 50s can be the most challenging decade of our lives.
Assuming you can clear the mental challenges, the financial and administrative obstacles can leave you feeling like a Rube Goldberg
machine.
Income, health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, bills, expenses, short-term savings and retirement savings are
all immediately important in the face of a job loss. Never mind your Parent PLUS loans, financially-dependent aging parents, and
boomerang children (adult kids who live at home), which might all be lurking as well.
When does your income stop?
From the shocking moment a person learns their job is no longer their job, the word "triage" must flash in bright lights like
an obnoxiously large sign in Times Square. This is more challenging than you might think. Like a pickpocket bumping into you right
before he grabs your wallet, the distraction is the problem that takes your focus away from the real problem.
This is hard to do because of the emotion that arrives with the dirty deed. The mind immediately begins to race to sources of
money and relief. And unfortunately that relief is often found in the wrong place.
The first thing you should do is identify the exact day your job income stops arriving . That's how much time you have
to defuse the bomb. Your fuse may come in the form of a severance package, or work you've performed but haven't been paid for yet.
When do benefits kick in?
Next, and by next I mean five minutes later, explore your eligibility for unemployment benefits, and then file for them if
you're able. However, in some states severance pay affects your immediate eligibility for unemployment benefits. In other words,
you can't file for unemployment until your severance payments go away.
Assuming you can't just retire at this moment, which you likely can't, you must secure fresh employment income quickly. But quickly
is relative to the length of your fuse. I've witnessed way too many people miscalculate the length and importance of their fuse.
If you're able to get back to work quickly, the initial job loss plus severance ends up enhancing your financial life. If you take
too much time, by your choice or that of the cosmos, boom.
The next move is much more hands-on, and must also be performed the day you find yourself without a job.
What nonessentials do I cut?
Grab your bank statement, a marker, and a calculator. As much as you want to pretend its business as usual, you shouldn't.
Identify expenses that don't make sense if you don't have a job. Circle them. Add them up. Resolve to eliminate them for the time
being, and possibly permanently. While this won't necessarily lengthen your fuse, it could lessen the severity of a potential boom.
The idea of diving into your spending habits on the day you lose your job is no fun. But when else will you have such a powerful
reason to do so? You won't. It's better than dipping into your assets to fund your current lifestyle. And that's where we'll pick
it up the next time.
We've covered day one. In my next column we will tackle day two and beyond.
Peter Dunn is an author, speaker and radio host, and he has a free podcast: "Million Dollar Plan." Have a question for Pete
the Planner? Email him at [email protected]. The views and opinions expressed in this column are the author's and do not
necessarily reflect those of USA TODAY.
"... The idea of the 'American dream' seems to have morphed into a nasty belief that if you're poor it's your own fault. You didn't 'want it enough'. You must be secretly lazy and undeserving, even if you're actually working three jobs to survive, or even if there are no jobs. ..."
"... It always seems very odd to me that so many people who think like that profess to be Christian. 'Poverty equals moral failure' is the complete opposite of what Jesus Christ got into so much trouble for saying. ..."
The idea of the 'American dream' seems to have morphed into a nasty belief that if
you're poor it's your own fault. You didn't 'want it enough'. You must be secretly lazy and
undeserving, even if you're actually working three jobs to survive, or even if there are no
jobs.
This view has taken hold in the UK too, where the tabloids peddle the view that anyone who
claims state benefits must be a fraud. But at least, people here and in mainland Europe have
the direct experience of war within living memory and we understand that you can lose
everything through no fault of your own. In the US, even when there's a natural disaster like
Katrina it seems to be the poor people's fault for not having their own transport and money
to go and stay somewhere else.
It always seems very odd to me that so many people who think like that profess to be
Christian. 'Poverty equals moral failure' is the complete opposite of what Jesus Christ got
into so much trouble for saying.
"... Both neoliberal-driven governments and authoritarian societies share one important factor: They care more about consolidating power in the hands of the political, corporate and financial elite than they do about investing in the future of young people and expanding the benefits of the social contract and common good. ..."
"... Michael Yates (economist) points out throughout his book 'The Great Inequality', capitalism is devoid of any sense of social responsibility and is driven by an unchecked desire to accumulate capital at all costs. As power becomes global and politics remains local, ruling elites no longer make political concessions to workers or any other group that they either exploit or consider disposable. ..."
"... At bottom, neoliberals believe in a social hierarchy of "haves" and "have nots". They have taken this corrosive social vision and dressed it up with a "respectable" sounding ideology which all boils down to the cheap labor they depend on to make their fortunes. ..."
"... The ugly truth is that cheap-labour conservatives just don't like working people. They don't like "bottom up" prosperity, and the reason for it is very simple. "Corporate lords" have a harder time kicking them around. ..."
Both neoliberal-driven governments and authoritarian societies share one important factor:
They care more about consolidating power in the hands of the political, corporate and
financial elite than they do about investing in the future of young people and expanding the
benefits of the social contract and common good.
Michael Yates (economist) points out throughout his book 'The Great Inequality', capitalism
is devoid of any sense of social responsibility and is driven by an unchecked desire to
accumulate capital at all costs. As power becomes global and politics remains local, ruling
elites no longer make political concessions to workers or any other group that they either
exploit or consider disposable.
At bottom, neoliberals believe in a social hierarchy of "haves" and "have nots". They have
taken this corrosive social vision and dressed it up with a "respectable" sounding ideology
which all boils down to the cheap labor they depend on to make their fortunes.
The ugly truth is that cheap-labour conservatives just don't like working people. They
don't like "bottom up" prosperity, and the reason for it is very simple. "Corporate lords"
have a harder time kicking them around.
Once you understand this about the cheap-labor
conservatives, the real motivation for their policies makes perfect sense. Remember,
cheap-labour conservatives believe in social hierarchy and privilege, so the only prosperity
they want is limited to them. They want to see absolutely nothing that benefits those who
work for an hourly wage.
You also need to remember that voting the coalition out, which you need to do, will not
necessarily give you a neoliberal free zone; Labor needs to shed some the dogma as well.
But the world didn't work like that, and the people who didn't fit had to be shoved
under the wheel of history.
This is a remarkably similar summation of Rand's worldview of entire classes of people: if
you are poor, you deserve it. Expect nothing from the State to raise you from the cycle of
poverty. The State is evil and should be eliminated. No evil can come from the Business
Culture (or more accurately the Business Cult). The U.S. Republican worldview summed up right
there.
The only sane response to Ayn Rand is the creation of the Human Values Project ,
where creating a better world for all is its manifesto and mandate.
Many thanks for the article. The Right keep erecting her on a pedestal and saying her
ideas are infallible like the Pope. She can't be pulled down off that pedestal enough
times.
"... 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.
"... I see a lot of people saying, "They should just move to where the jobs are." 1) They would need accurate and defined information about where the jobs are that are looking for their skills 2) They would need some money to get there 3) They would need a place to stay and the rents and mortages are sky high 'where the jobs are' 4) They would have to be welcome. Two previous mass migrations within the USA come to mind: Black Americans out of the South and the dust bowl migrations to California. They were not welcomed with "open arms". ..."
"... I think the author understates the importance of Corporations being Good Citizens and Good Persons. ..."
"... My father was selected to go to Akron for training and if he passed the tests and did well in the training he might get a chance at Managing a Firestone Store. He was gone for weeks at a time for this process and was even required to go to Akron for more training after becoming a store manager. My father was an intelligent person but did not have a college degree. But I can see now that Firestone did an outstanding job training their store managers in all aspects of the job. Just think about that for a while. ..."
"... Corporations today hate themselves because its only about the money. I guess the point I am trying to make is this loss of Corporate Responsibility to the Nation and its Citizens was something that did exist but is now long gone. ..."
"... All across the West you can find old ghost towns. Towns that flourished until the gold or silver ran out of the local hill. The towns then were deserted. The similar thing can happen when a major employer runs out of "gold'. What the article ignores is all of the other reasons towns die. ..."
"... I would much rather rural stay rural and not become urban. There is more to the quality of life than a constant red hot economy. ..."
"... "The schools go to hell, the crime goes way up, liberals get elected and raise taxes, etc." One only needs to look at Kansas to see that this sentence is flawed. It needs to be changed and re-ordered to properly represent cause and effect. "Conservatives cut taxes, the schools go to hell, the crime goes way up, etc." ..."
"... The days of being qualified for good, well paying work without having more than a mediocre high school are in the past. This doesn't necessarily mean college because the trades require more education than ever before. Cutting school funding to pay for tax cuts is a loser's game. Trickle down economics has failed. ..."
I recently read and reviewed Tim Carney's
excellent book Alienated America , a sort of combination of the "how we got Trump" genre with the sociological works of
researchers like Robert Putnam and Charles Murray. Carney's exploration of the Trump phenomenon, and his grappling with the timeless
question of economic security versus personal responsibility in regard to the formation of virtue, family, and community, are among
the best you'll find. There is a deeper subtext in his book, however, that is not excavated. But first, a quick recap.
As in most treatments of inequality, geographic immobility, deindustrialization, and related issues, Alienated America
features the requisite visits to faded old towns with ghostly main streets, and paeans to the blue-collar jobs that once allowed
men with high school educations to comfortably own homes, raise families, and retire with pensions.
Through a long analysis, including a fascinating visit to a fracking camp in North Dakota -- awash in money but utterly lacking
in neighborliness and community -- Carney concludes that wealth alone does not produce human flourishing. It is rather community
and what social researchers call "civil society" that makes the American Dream possible. Obviously, money helps, but it is not sufficient,
nor, in Carney's telling, even necessary.
... ... ...
Indeed,
large
numbers of human settlements never do, and never have . A one-dimensional, economically undiversified city is essentially a housing
tract for a factory or a wharf or whatever industry drives its economy. What is left when that economic engine breaks down? A company
town without a company. This is the fate that has befallen many of America's declining places, and it is hard to argue that this
economic reality doesn't play a direct role in the decline of the family and of civil society. Is this a "materialist" explanation?
Perhaps. But it may also be true.
There are those who
admirably hope and work
for revival, for restoration in places like Gary, Detroit, or any number of gutted small towns. But many of the buildings in
these ghostly, empty blocks, even with their mighty and almost pleasantly timeworn facades, are far beyond the point where renovation
is economical. For now, poverty is a sort of preservative. More money, for many hollowed-out cities, would simply mean more demolition.
The unwinding of rural and post-industrial America is a human tragedy, not to be written off, much less tacitly celebrated. Yet the
facts of the post-industrial landscape may not care about remaining working-class feelings. This does not mean that any of these
places "
deserve to die ." But it may well mean that their collapse is beyond the ability of policy -- or church -- to alter.
Addison Del Mastro is assistant editor of The American Conservative . He tweets at@ad_mastro.
Interesting and probably spot on. It doesn't take a degree in economics or history to understand how prosperity came and went;
a passing knowledge of the 20th century will suffice. Dating back to the '20s we experienced a classic example of the boom/bust
cycle, with the bust of the 30s lasting basically the entire decade. The good times rwith the onset of WWII and continued afterward
because we, of all the major combatant nations, actually experienced minimal economic, social, and cultural disruption. The devastation
elsewhere was sufficient to provide us a head-start worth a couple decades of strong growth. It wound down around the beginning
of the 70s, coincident with the end of the Vietnam War. We retained some strong advantages, though, and they were sufficient to
provide more growth – on paper at least – even as today's yawning income-distribution gap began to open up. The the Cold War ended
and the days of free-trade saving the world (aka 'Globalism') commenced. It seemed great for awhile but now we're left holding
an empty bag and the rest of the world has sidelined our old industrial workforce through off-shoring for the sake of cheaper
labor. Nope, there's no turning back.
Re: The revival of the American Dream requires the re-churching of America.
Maybe, but it also requires jobs paying a living wage that offer a reasonable degree of long-term security (It's the latter
is lacking in short-lived fracking boom towns)
Having lived in the inner Chicago burbs since the mid 1970's I have watched Chicago turn from being an industrial powerhouse to
a have and have not economy. If you're working in professional/service sector or part of the management of multinational globalist
activity you're doing reasonably well. What's swept under the rug is that Chicago and their ilk hide the vast swaths of decayed
blight and human warehousing with pretty downtown / privileged few neighborhoods. Most of our once great second city serves little
purpose other than to provide housing for the poverty class. So called "Revitalization" only provides window dressing for the
parade of the chosen few.
Prior to living in Chicago, my folks lived in a small city in western IL that was a poster child for the small town decay referred
to above that Mr. Williamson thinks should die.
The town was famous for their productivity. Civic pride was evident in most all aspects of community life there. A major steel
mill anchored the economy as well as numerous smaller hardware manufacturers. The steel mill went belly up, the hardware manufacturers
became distributors of Asian made goods.
The gravy train just dried up. Times aren't so good now for the town that holds so many fond memories for me. Progress. I guess.
"Americans are the descendants of people who crossed oceans and continents for a better life, why are Americans who live
in this dying towns so different? I just don't get it."
Because there is no longer a place with a better life. People left families and homes because life could be dramatically better
someplace else.
An unemployed steel-worker used to making $60,000/year in a $100,000 house isn't going to find life somehow better making $8/hour
as a barista in San Francisco with a $2000/month rent.
I see a lot of people saying, "They should just move to where the jobs are."
1) They would need accurate and defined information about where the jobs are that are looking for their skills
2) They would need some money to get there
3) They would need a place to stay and the rents and mortages are sky high 'where the jobs are'
4) They would have to be welcome. Two previous mass migrations within the USA come to mind: Black Americans out of the South and
the dust bowl migrations to California. They were not welcomed with "open arms".
First let me say that I agree with the author almost 90+%. But I think the author understates the importance of Corporations
being Good Citizens and Good Persons. That is clearly what has happened to America. As the son of a former Firestone Store
Manager, I can attest that Firestone trained all of their store managers in Akron, OH.
My father was selected to go to Akron for training and if he passed the tests and did well in the training he might get
a chance at Managing a Firestone Store. He was gone for weeks at a time for this process and was even required to go to Akron
for more training after becoming a store manager. My father was an intelligent person but did not have a college degree. But I
can see now that Firestone did an outstanding job training their store managers in all aspects of the job. Just think about that
for a while.
The Company cared what the Company looked like everywhere, not just in Akron, OH. There was almost no turnover in my father's
store of employees. He was finally burnt out from dealing with the public in retail sales but they promoted him to District Manager
a job that he kept till he passed away. No employer today gives a crap about any employee or any client. Of course you can't learn
to love someone else till you learn to love yourself. Corporations today hate themselves because its only about the money.
I guess the point I am trying to make is this loss of Corporate Responsibility to the Nation and its Citizens was something that
did exist but is now long gone.
While some will surely say I am crazy, I strongly believe that a very high progressive tax rate on individuals and corporations
would help to change this attitude and at least get money into circulation. We also have to remove the corrupt and criminal group
that has taken over the US Corporations and with that the Governments both National and Local or the US is doomed.
All across the West you can find old ghost towns. Towns that flourished until the gold or silver ran out of the local hill.
The towns then were deserted. The similar thing can happen when a major employer runs out of "gold'. What the article ignores
is all of the other reasons towns die.
The schools go to hell, the crime goes way up, liberals get elected and raise taxes, etc. A town can survive with a big company
leaving, but if all of the social factors cause the best, brightest and hardest working people to pull up roots and leave, maybe
the town didn't die, it committed suicide.
I would much rather rural stay rural and not become urban. There is more to the quality of life than a constant red hot
economy. And really, today, many rural areas are more rural than they were a generation ago. Yes, farms are bigger and so
there are fewer people on more land and so many small rural towns have dried up. Personally, I love it. More room to hunt and
fish, less hectic, more fresh air, and more freedom.
"The schools go to hell, the crime goes way up, liberals get elected and raise taxes, etc." One only needs to look at
Kansas to see that this sentence is flawed. It needs to be changed and re-ordered to properly represent cause and effect. "Conservatives
cut taxes, the schools go to hell, the crime goes way up, etc."
The days of being qualified for good, well paying work
without having more than a mediocre high school are in the past. This doesn't necessarily mean college because the trades require
more education than ever before. Cutting school funding to pay for tax cuts is a loser's game. Trickle down economics has failed.
As is usual, the headline economic number is always the
rosiest number .
Wages for production and nonsupervisory workers accelerated to a 3.4 percent annual pace,
signaling gains for lower-paid employees.
That sounds pretty good. Except for the part where it is a lie. For starters, it doesn't account for
inflation .
Labor Department numbers released Wednesday show that real average hourly earnings, which
compare the nominal rise in wages with the cost of living, rose 1.7 percent in January on a
year-over-year basis.
1.7% is a lot less than 3.4%. While the financial news was bullish, the
actual professionals took the news differently.
Wage inflation was also muted with average hourly earnings rising six cents, or 0.2% in April
after rising by the same margin in March. Average hourly earnings "were disappointing," said Ian Lyngen, head of U.S. rates strategy at
BMO Capital Markets in New York.
Secondly, 1.7% is an average, not a median.
For instance, none of this applied to you if you are an
older
worker .
Weekly earnings for workers aged 55 to 64 were only 0.8% higher in the first quarter of 2019
than they were in the first quarter of 2007, after accounting for inflation, they found.
For comparison, earnings rose 4.7% during that same period for workers between the ages of 35
and 54.
On the other hand, if you worked for a
bank your wages went up at a rate far above average. This goes double if you are in
management.
Among the biggest standouts: commercial banks, which employ an estimated 1.3 million people in
the U.S. Since Trump took office in January 2017, they have increased their average hourly wage
at an annualized pace of almost 11 percent, compared with just 3.3 percent under Obama.
Finally, there is the reason for this incredibly small wage increase fo regular workers.
Hint: it wasn't because of capitalism and all the bullsh*t jobs it creates.
The tiny wage increase that the working class has seen is because of what the capitalists said
was a
terrible idea .
For Americans living in the 21 states where the federal minimum wage is binding, inflation
means that the minimum wage has lost 16 percent of its purchasing power.
But elsewhere, many workers and employers are experiencing a minimum wage well above 2009
levels. That's because state capitols and, to an unprecedented degree, city halls have become
far more active in setting their own minimum wages. ... Averaging across all of these federal, state and local minimum wage laws, the effective minimum
wage in the United States -- the average minimum wage binding each hour of minimum wage work --
will be $11.80 an hour in 2019. Adjusted for inflation, this is probably the highest minimum
wage in American history. The effective minimum wage has not only outpaced inflation in recent years, but it has also
grown faster than typical wages. We can see this from the Kaitz index, which compares the
minimum wage with median overall wages.
So if you are waiting for capitalism to trickle down on you, it's never going to happen.
span y gjohnsit on Fri, 05/03/2019 - 6:21pm
Thousands of South Carolina teachers rallied outside their state capitol Wednesday, demanding
pay raises, more planning time, increased school funding -- and, in a twist, more legal
protections for their freedom of speech SC for Ed, the grassroots activist group that organized Wednesday's demonstration, told CNN
that many teachers fear protesting or speaking up about education issues, worrying they'll
face retaliation at work. Saani Perry, a teacher in Fort Mill, S.C., told CNN that people in
his profession are "expected to sit in the classroom and stay quiet and not speak [their]
mind."
To address these concerns, SC for Ed is lobbying for the Teachers' Freedom of Speech Act,
which was introduced earlier this year in the state House of Representatives. The bill would
specify that "a public school district may not willfully transfer, terminate or fail to renew
the contract of a teacher because the teacher has publicly or privately supported a public
policy decision of any kind." If that happens, teachers would be able to sue for three times
their salary.
Teachers across the country are raising similar concerns about retaliation. Such fears
aren't unfounded: Lawmakers in some states that saw strikes last year have introduced bills
this year that would punish educators for skipping school to protest.
Millennial and generation Z workers are becoming increasingly miserable with their jobs and careers. Since we are told several
times a day by the media that the economy is booming, why are so many young workers so disastrously melancholy all the time?
"When you're struggling with your mental health it can be much harder to stay in work or manage your spending, while being
in debt can cause huge stress and anxiety – so the two issues feed off each other, creating a vicious cycle which can destroy
lives," said Helen Undy the institute's chief executive.
"Yet despite how connected these problems are, financial services rarely think about our mental health, and mental health
services rarely consider what is happening with our money."
So why are we constantly being told everything is fine? The mainstream media loves to say that the U.S. is nearly ten years into
one of the longest economic expansions in history, unemployment is the lowest it's been in almost half a century, and employees have
more job choices than they've had in years. But there's just one problem. That's not actual truthful when taking all of the data
into consideration. Sure, unemployment is low the way the government calculates it, but there's a reason for that.
102 million Americans are no longer "in the workforce" and therefore, unaccounted for.
When a working-age American does not have a job, the federal number crunchers put them into one of two different categories.
Either they are categorized as "unemployed" or they are categorized as "not in the labor force".
But you have to add both of those categories together to get the total number of Americans that are not working.
Over the last decade, the number of Americans that are in the "unemployed" category has been steadily going down, but the number
of Americans "not in the labor force" has been rapidly going up.
In both cases we are talking about Americans that do not have a job. It is just a matter of how the federal government chooses
to categorize those individuals. –
Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse Blog
That could partially explain the misery some are feeling, but those who have jobs aren't happy either. They are often reeling
from student loan and credit card debt. Being depressed makes shopping feel like a solution, but when the bill comes, the depression
once again sets in making this a difficult cycle to break for so many just trying to scrape by.
Depression and suicide rates are rising sharply
and other than putting the blame on superficial issues, researchers are at a loss as to the real reason why. But could it possibly
be that as the elite globalists continue to take over the world and enslave mankind, people are realizing that they aren't meant
to be controlled or manipulated, but meant to be free?
There's something we are all missing all around the globe. Could it possibly be free will and a life of freedom from theft and
violent coercion and force that's missing?
When even your own article lies to everyone... so the modern person that does well are those who lie the best and are the best
con artists. Trump is an example. Low talent High con.
Example the US unemployment number.
Only the pool of unemployed that is Presently eligible for unemployment benefits is counted in the Unemployment number. That
means self employed, commissioned workers, contractors etc are not included in the pool of unemployment even if they are out of
work because they are unemployment ineligible.
Thus, over time, as unemployment benefits are lost, the unemployment pool shrinks. This is called a mathematical regression.
How far does it shrink? To the point of equilibrium which is roughly 4% in which new persons enter the work force to the same
extent of those losing benefits and being removed and become invisible.
Thus, Unemployment is a bogus number grossly understating truthful Unemployment. This method was first used under Obama and
persists today under the Orange poser.
Nepotism and Affirmative action
Why would this make people unhappy? Chronic underemployment. Advancement is mostly by nepotism or affirmative action the flip
side of the same coin. The incoming Harvard Class this year was 30% legacy student... and 30% affirmative action and the rest
be damned. Happy?
Feminism has gripped the workplace.
Men hate working for female bosses. They don't trust them, they don't trust their judgment which often looks political and
never logical. Men feel those women were promoted because of gender.
I saw this years ago in a clean room at National Semiconductor. A woman was put in charge of a team of roughly 30 white nerd
males. She was at them constantly for not locking doors behind them and other menial infractions. She could not comprehend the
complexity of the work or how inspiration operates but she would nag them and bully them.
At another facility there was a genius that would come to work and set up a sleeping bag and go to sleep under his desk. He
was a Unix programmer and system engineer. So when something went wrong they would wake him and he would get up, solve the problem
and go back to sleep.
Then the overstuffed string of pearls showed up as the new unit boss. She was infuriated that somebody would dare sleep on
the clock and so blatantly. So she would harass him and wake him. Then one day she got so mad she started kicking him while he
was sleeping. He grabbed his sleeping bag and briefcase and stormed out.
Ultimately the woman's boss took her to task and explained to her that it didn't matter if that employee slept under his desk
because when he worked to solve problems only he could solve he saved the company millions. She was fired. As a token stipulation
the sleeping genius came back and a sign was posted on his desk. "Kicking this employee is grounds for immediate dismissal."
Usually the nerd walks and just gets replaced by some diversity politician and string of pearls then sets the tone by making
the workplace ****. Women simply are not as intelligent as men and pretending they are just wrecks morale of the people who are
really intelligent. The rise of the shoulder padded woman string of pearls bully is a scourge to one and all.
Simple answer: because people are spineless and terrible negotiators.
Long answer: for years the adage has been "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life" or "find a good job and
never leave" or "work your way to the top" or "be a hard worker, trust your leadership, keep your head down, and don't make waves."
********.
If you do what you love, you'll learn to hate it. Welcome to misery.
Upward mobility doesn't happen unless you leave. If you're a good little productive worker drone, management has no incentive
to give you more than 1-3% raises every year to keep you 'loyal.' Once you've wasted 20 or so years being a robot, welcome to
misery.
Nobody gets promoted unless you're a useless ***-kisser who fails to be productive and hasn't done anything egregious enough
to get canned. Once you've been passed by for that promotion you want enough times, welcome to misery.
The people making the decisions at the top are the useless ***-kissers that can't do what you do but they talk a good game.
Most of them are case studies in the Peter Principle. Once you realize that the 'top' consists of nothing but fuckwads, welcome
to misery.
The only way to get ahead and get what you want out of a career is to develop the skills you need and market yourself top someone
who'll pay you what you're worth.
Develop strong negotiation skills early, know your market value, and don't be afraid of change.
Employer loyalty is a farce; if you think your employer is loyal to you, I've got some oceanfront property in New Mexico to
sell you.
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.
"... 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.
It is unclear how long this vulnerability exists, but this is pretty serious staff that shows
how Hillary server could be hacked via Abedin account. As Abedin technical level was lower then
zero, to hack into her home laptop just just trivial.
Microsoft also patched
Exchange against a vulnerability that allowed remote attackers with little more than an
unprivileged mailbox account to gain administrative control over the server. Dubbed
PrivExchange, CVE-2019-0686 was publicly disclosed last month , along with
proof-of-concept code that exploited it. In Tuesday's
advisory , Microsoft officials said they haven't seen active exploits yet but that they
were "likely."
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.
"... By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She is currently writing a book about textile artisans. ..."
"... Kleber filed suit, pursuing claims for both disparate treatment and disparate impact under the ADEA. The Chicago Tribune notes in Hinsdale man loses appeal in age discrimination case that challenged experience caps in job ads that "Kleber had out of work and job hunting for three years" when he applied for the CareFusion job. ..."
"... Unfortunately, the seventh circuit has now held that the disparate impact section of the ADEA does not extend to job applicants. .Judge Michael Scudder, a Trump appointee, wrote the majority 8-4 opinion, which reverses an earlier 2-1 panel ruling last April in Kleber's favor that had initially overruled the district court's dismissal of Kleber's disparate impact claim. ..."
"... hiring discrimination is difficult to prove and often goes unreported. Only 3 percent have made a formal complaint. ..."
"... The decision narrowly applies to disparate impact claims of age discrimination under the ADEA. It is important to remember that job applicants are protected under the disparate treatment portion of the statute. ..."
"... I forbade my kids to study programming. ..."
"... I'm re reading the classic of Sociology Ain't No Makin It by Jay MacLeod, in which he studies the employment prospects of youths in the 1980s and determined that even then there was no stable private sector employment and your best option is a government job or to have an excellent "network" which is understandably hard for most people to achieve. ..."
"... I think the trick is to study something and programming, so the programming becomes a tool rather than an end. ..."
"... the problem is it is almost impossible to exit the programming business and join another domain. Anyone can enter it. (evidence – all the people with "engineering" degrees from India) Also my wages are now 50% of what i made 10 years ago (nominal). Also I notice that almost no one is doing sincere work. Most are just coasting, pretending to work with the latest toy (ie, preparing for the next interview). ..."
"... I am an "aging" former STEM worker (histology researcher) as well. Much like the IT landscape, you are considered "over-the-hill" at 35, which I turn on the 31st. ..."
"... Most of the positions in science and engineering fields now are basically "gig" positions, lasting a few months to a year. ..."
The case was brought by Dale Kleber, an attorney, who applied for a senior position in
CareFusion's legal department. The job description required applicants to have "3 to 7 years
(no more than 7 years) of relevant legal experience."
Kleber was 58 at the time he applied and had more than seven years of pertinent experience.
CareFusion hired a 29-year-old applicant who met but did not exceed the experience
requirement.
The purpose of the ADEA is to prohibit employment discrimination against people who are 40
years of age or older. Congress enacted the ADEA in 1967 because of its concern that older
workers were disadvantaged in retaining and regaining employment. The ADEA also addressed
concerns that older workers were barred from employment by some common employment practices
that were not intended to exclude older workers, but that had the effect of doing so and were
unrelated to job performance.
It was with these concerns in mind that Congress created a system that included liability
for both disparate treatment and disparate impact. What's the difference between these two
concepts?
According to the EEOC:
[The ADEA] prohibits discrimination against workers because of their older age with
respect to any aspect of employment. In addition to prohibiting intentional discrimination
against older workers (known as "disparate treatment"), the ADEA prohibits practices that,
although facially neutral with regard to age, have the effect of harming older workers more
than younger workers (known as "disparate impact"), unless the employer can show that the
practice is based on an [Reasonable Factor Other Than Age (RFAO)]
The crux: it's much easier for a plaintiff to prove disparate impact, because s/he needn't
show that the employer intended to discriminate. Of course, many if not most employers are
savvy enough not to be explicit about their intentions to discriminate against older people as
they don't wish to get sued.
District, Panel, and Full Seventh Circuit Decisions
The district court dismissed Kleber's disparate impact claim, on the grounds that the text
of the statute- (§ 4(a)(2))- did not extend to outside job applicants. Kleber then
voluntarily dismissed his separate claim for disparate treatment liability to appeal the
dismissal of his disparate impact claim. No doubt he was aware – either because he was an
attorney, or because of the legal advice received – that it is much more difficult to
prevail on a disparate treatment claim, which would require that he establish CareFusion's
intent to discriminate.
Or at least that was true before this decision was rendered.
Unfortunately, the seventh circuit has now held that the disparate impact section of the
ADEA does not extend to job applicants. .Judge Michael Scudder, a Trump appointee, wrote the
majority 8-4 opinion, which reverses an earlier 2-1 panel ruling last April in Kleber's favor
that had initially overruled the district court's dismissal of Kleber's disparate impact
claim.
The majority ruled:
By its terms, § 4(a)(2) proscribes certain conduct by employers and limits its
protection to employees. The prohibited conduct entails an employer acting in any way to
limit, segregate, or classify its employees based on age. The language of § 4(a)(2) then
goes on to make clear that its proscriptions apply only if an employer's actions have a
particular impact -- "depriv[ing] or tend[ing] to deprive any individual of em- ployment
opportunities or otherwise adversely affect[ing] his status as an employee." This language
plainly demonstrates that the requisite impact must befall an individual with "status as an
employee." Put most simply, the reach of § 4(a)(2) does not extend to applicants for
employment, as common dictionary definitions confirm that an applicant has no "status as an
employee." (citation omitted)[opinion, pp. 3-4]
By contrast, in the disparate treatment part of the statute (§ 4(a)(1)):
Congress made it unlawful for an employer "to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any
individual or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation,
terms, conditions, or privi- leges of employment, because of such individual's age."[opinion,
p.6]
The court compared the disparate treatment section – § 4(a)(1) – directly
with the disparate impact section – § 4(a)(2):
Yet a side-by-side comparison of § 4(a)(1) with § 4(a)(2) shows that the
language in the former plainly covering appli-cants is conspicuously absent from the latter.
Section 4(a)(2) says nothing about an employer's decision "to fail or refuse to hire any
individual" and instead speaks only in terms of an employer's actions that "adversely affect
his status as an employee." We cannot conclude this difference means nothing: "when 'Congress
includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another' -- let
alone in the very next provision -- the Court presumes that Congress intended a difference in
meaning." (citations omitted)[opinion, pp. 6-7]
The majority's conclusion:
In the end, the plain language of § 4(a)(2) leaves room for only one interpretation:
Congress authorized only employees to bring disparate impact claims.[opinion, p.8]
People 55 or older comprised 22.4 percent of U.S. workers in 2016, up from 11.9 percent in
1996, and may account for close to one-fourth of the labor force by 2022, according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The greying of the workforce is "thanks to better health in older age and insufficient
savings that require people to keeping working longer," according to the Chicago Tribune.
Yet:
numerous hiring practices are under fire for negatively impacting older applicants. In
addition to experience caps, lawsuits have challenged the exclusive use of on-campus
recruiting to fill positions and algorithms that target job ads to show only in certain
people's social media feeds.
Unless Congress amends the ADEA to include job applicants, older people will continue to
face barriers to getting jobs.
The Chicago Tribune reports:
The [EEOC], which receives about 20,000 age discrimination charges every year, issued a
report in June citing surveys that found 3 in 4 older workers believe their age is an
obstacle in getting a job. Yet hiring discrimination is difficult to prove and often goes
unreported. Only 3 percent have made a formal complaint. Allowing older applicants to
challenge policies that have an unintentionally discriminatory impact would offer another
tool for fighting age discrimination, Ray Peeler, associate legal counsel at the EEOC, has
said.
The decision narrowly applies to disparate impact claims of age discrimination under the
ADEA. It is important to remember that job applicants are protected under the disparate
treatment portion of the statute. There is no split among the federal appeals courts on this
issue, making it an unlikely candidate for Supreme Court review, but the four judges in
dissent read the statute as being vague and susceptible to an interpretation that includes
job applicants.
Their conclusion: "a decision finding disparate impact liability for job applicants under
the ADEA is unlikely in the near future."
Alas, for reasons of space, I will not consider the extensive dissent. My purpose in writing
this post is to discuss the majority decision, not to opine on which side made the better
arguments.
There were 3 judges who dissented in whole and one who dissented in part. Of the three
full dissensions, two were Clinton appointees (including the Chief Justice, who was one of
the dissenters) and one was a Reagan appointee. The partial dissenter was also a Reagan
appointee.
"depriv[ing] or tend[ing] to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or
otherwise adversely affect[ing] his status as an employee."
–This language plainly demonstrates that the requisite impact must befall an
individual with "status as an employee."
So they totally ignore the first part of the sentence -- "depriv[ing] or tend[ing] to
deprive any individual of employment opportunities " -- "employment opportunities" clearly
applies to applicants.
Its as if these judges cannot make sense of the English language. Hopefully the judges on
appeal will display better command of the language.
I agree. "Employment opportunities," in the "plain language" so meticulously respected by
the 7th Circuit, must surely refer at minimum to 'the chance to apply for a job and to have
one's application fairly considered'. It seems on the other hand a stretch to interpret the
phrase to mean only 'the chance to keep a job one already has'. Both are important, however;
to split them would challenge even Solomonic wisdom, as I suppose the curious decision
discussed here demonstrates. I am less convinced that the facts as presented here establish a
clear case of age discrimination. True, they point in that direction. But a hypothetical
58-year old who only earned a law degree in his or her early 50s, perhaps after an earlier
career in paralegal work, could have legitimately applied for a position requiring 3 to 7
years of "relevant legal experience." That last phrase, is of course, quite weasel-y: what
counts as "relevant" and what counts as "legal" experience would under any circumstances be
subject to (discriminatory) interpretation. The limitation of years of experience in the job
announcement strikes me as a means to keep the salary within a certain budgetary range as
prescribed either by law or collective bargaining.
Almost like the willful misunderstanding of "A well regulated militia being necessary to
the security of a free State "? Of course, that militia also meant slave patrols and the
occasional posse to put down the native "savages," but still.
Being pro-Labor will not get you Federalist Society approval to be nominated to the bench
by Trump.
This decision came down via the ideological makeup of the court, not the letter of the
law.
Their stated pretext is obviously b.s.. It contradicts itself.
I'm re reading the classic of Sociology Ain't No Makin It by Jay MacLeod, in which he
studies the employment prospects of youths in the 1980s and determined that even then there
was no stable private sector employment and your best option is a government job or to have
an excellent "network" which is understandably hard for most people to achieve. So I'm
genuinely interested in what possible options there are for anyone entering the job market
today or God help you, re-entering. I am guessing the barriers to entry to those trades are
quite high but would love to be corrected.
what is the point of being jackpot ready if you can't even support yourself today? To
fantasize about collapse while sleeping in a rented closet and driving for Uber? In that case
one's personal collapse has already happened, which will matter a lot more to an individual
than any potential jackpot.
Plumbers and electricians can make money now of course (although yea barriers to entry do
seem high, don't you kind of have to know people to get in those industries?). But
permaculture?
I think the trick is to study something and programming, so the programming becomes a tool
rather than an end. A couple of my kids used to ride horses. One of the instructors and stable owners said
that a lot of people went to school for equine studies and ended up shoveling horse poop for
a living. She said the thing to do was to study business and do the equestrian stuff as a
hobby/minor. That way you came out prepared to run a business and hire the equine studies
people to clean the stalls.
Do you actually see that many jobs requiring something and programming though? I haven't
really. There seems no easy transition out of software work which that would make possible
either. Might as well just study the "something".
Programming is a means to an end, not the end itself. If all you do is program, then you
are essentially a machine lathe operator, not somebody creating the products the lathe
operators turn out.
Understanding what needs to be done helps with structured programs and better input/output
design. In turn, structured programming is a good tool to understand the basics of how to
manage tasks. At the higher level, Fred Brooks book "The Mythical Man-Month" has a lot of
useful project management information that can be re-applied for non computer program
development.
We are doing a lot of work with mobile computing and data collection to assist in our
regular work. The people doing this are mainly non-computer scientists that have learned
enough programming to get by.
The engineering programs that we use are typically written more by engineers than by
programmers as the entire point behind the program is to apply the theory into a numerical
computation and presentation system. Programmers with a graphic design background can assist in creating much better user
interfaces.
If you have some sort of information theory background (GIS, statistics, etc.) then big
data actually means something.
the problem is it is almost impossible to exit the programming business and join another
domain. Anyone can enter it. (evidence – all the people with "engineering" degrees from
India) Also my wages are now 50% of what i made 10 years ago (nominal). Also I notice that almost
no one is doing sincere work. Most are just coasting, pretending to work with the latest toy
(ie, preparing for the next interview).
Now almost every "interview" requires writing a coding exam. Which other profession will
make you write an exam for 25-30 year veterans? Can you write your high school exam again today? What if your profession requires you to
write it a couple of times almost every year?
I am an "aging" former STEM worker (histology researcher) as well. Much like the IT
landscape, you are considered "over-the-hill" at 35, which I turn on the 31st. While I do not
have children and never intend to get married, many biotech companies consider this the age
at which a worker is getting long in the tooth. This is because there is the underlying
assumption that is when people start having familial obligations.
Most of the positions in
science and engineering fields now are basically "gig" positions, lasting a few months to a
year. A lot of people my age are finding how much harder it is to find any position at all in
these areas as there is a massive pool of people to choose from, even for permatemp work
simply because serfs in their mid-30s might get uppity about benefits like family health
plans or 401k
I am 59 and do not mind having employers discriminate against me due to age. ( I also need
a job) I had my own business and over the years got quite damaged. I was a contractor
specializing in older (historical) work.
I was always the lead worker with many friends and
other s working with me. At 52 I was given a choice of very involved neck surgery or quit. (
no small businesses have disability insurance!)
I shut down everything and helped my friends
who worked for me take some of the work or find something else. I was also a nationally
published computer consultant a long time ago and graphic artist.
Reality is I can still do
many things but I do nothing as well as I did when I was younger and the cost to employers
for me is far higher than a younger person. I had my chance and I chose poorly. Younger
people, if that makes them abetter fit, deserve a chance now more than I do.
I'm sorry for your challenges but I don't think there were many good careers you could
have chosen and it would have required a crystal ball to know which were the good ones.
Americans your age entered the job market just after the very end of the Golden Age of labor
conditions and have been weathering the decline your entire working lives. At least I entered
the job market when everyone knew for years things were falling apart. It's not your fault.
You were cheated plain and simple.
I don't see how it's possible to predict the labor market years in advance. Why blame
yourself for poor choices when so much chance is involved?
With a Jobs Guarantee, such questions would not arise. I also don't think it's only a
question of doing, but a question of sharing ("experience, strength, and hope," as AA -- a
very successful organization! -- puts it, in a way of thinking that has wide
application).
Unelected plutocrat and his international syndicate funded by former IBM artificial
intelligence developer and social darwinian. data manipulation electronic platforms and
social media are at the levels of power in the USA. Anti justice, anti enlightenment,
etc.
Since the installation of GW Bush by the Supreme Court, almost 20 yrs. ago, they have
tunneled deeply, speaking through propaganda machines such as Rush Limbaugh gaining traction
.making it over the finish line with KGB and Russian oligarch backing. The net effect on us?
The loss of all built on the foundation of the enlightenment and an exceptional nation no
king, a nation of, for and by the people, and the rule of law. There is nothing
Judeo-Christian about social darwinism but is eerily similar to National Socialism (Nazis).
The ruling againt the plaintiff by the 7th circuit in the U.S. and their success in creating
chaos in Great Britain vis a vis "Brexit" by fascist Lafarge Inc. are indicators how easy
their ascent.
ows how powerful they have become.
Where are the Bipartisan Presidential Candidates and Legislators on oral and verbal
condemnation of Age Discrimination , along with putting teeth into Age Discrimination
Laws, and Tax Policy. – nowhere to be seen , or heard, that I've noticed;
particularly in Blue ™ California, which is famed for Age Discrimination of
those as young as 36 years of age, since Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed anyone over 35, over
the hill in the early 2000's , and never got crushed for it by the media, or the
Politicians, as he should have (particularly in Silicon Valley).
I know those Republicans are venal, but I dare anyone to show me a meaningful Age
Discrimination Policy Proposal, pushed by Blue ™ Obama, Hillary, even
Sanders and Jill Stein. Certainly none of California's Nationally known (many well over
retirement age) Gubernatorial and Legislative Democratic Politicians: Jerry Brown, Gavin
Newsom, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, and Ro Khanna (or the
lesser known California Federal State and Local Democratic Politicians) have ever addressed
it; despite the fact that homelessness deaths of those near 'retirement age' have been
frighteningly increasing in California's obscenely wealthy homelessness 'hotspots,' such as
Silicon Valley.
Such a tragic issue, which has occurred while the last over a decade of Mainstream News
and Online Pundits, have Proclaimed 50 to be the new 30. Sadistic. I have no doubt this is
linked to the ever increasing Deaths of Despair and attempted and successful suicides of
those under, and just over retirement age– while the US has an average Senate age of
65, and a President and 2020 Presidential contenders, over 70 (I am not at all saying older
persons shouldn't be elected, nor that younger persons shouldn't be elected, I'm pointing out
the imbalance, insanity, and cruelty of it).
Further, age discrimination has
been particularly brutal to single, divorced, and widowed females , whom have most
assuredly made far, far less on the dollar than males (if they could even get hired for the
position, or leave the kids alone, and housekeeping undone, to get a job):
Patrick Button, an assistant economics professor at Tulane University, was part of a
research project last year that looked at callback rates from resumes in various
entry-level jobs. He said women seeking the positions appeared to be most affected.
"Based on over 40,000 job applications, we find robust evidence of age discrimination in
hiring against older women, especially those near retirement age, but considerably less
evidence of age discrimination against men," according to an abstract of the study.
Jacquelyn James, co-director of the Center on Aging and Work at Boston College, said age
discrimination in employment is a crucial issue in part because of societal changes that
are forcing people to delay retirement. Moves away from defined-¬benefit pension plans
to less assured forms of retirement savings are part of the reason.
> "Based on over 40,000 job applications, we find robust evidence of age discrimination
in hiring against older women, especially those near retirement age, but considerably less
evidence of age discrimination against men," according to an abstract of the study.
Well, these aren't real women, obviously. If they were, the Democrats would
already be taking care of them.
From the article: The greying of the workforce is "thanks to better health in older age
and insufficient savings that require people to keeping working longer," according to the
Chicago Tribune.
Get on the clue train Chicago Tribune, because your like W and Trump not knowing how a
supermarket works, that's how dense you are. Even if one saved, and even if one won the luck
lottery in terms of job stability and adequate income to save from, healthcare alone is a
reason to work, either to get employer provided if lucky, or to work without it and put most
of one's money toward an ACA plan or the like if not lucky. Yes the cost of almost all other
necessities has also increased greatly, but even parts of the country without a high cost of
living have unaffordable healthcare.
Benefits may be 23-30% or so of payroll and represent another expense management
opportunity for the diligent executive. One piece of low-hanging fruit is the age-related
healthcare cost. If you hire young people, who under-consume healthcare relative to older
cohorts, you save money, ceteris paribus. They have lower premiums, lower loss experience and
they rebound more quickly, so you hit a triple at your first at-bat swinging at that fruit.
Yes, metaphors are fungible along with every line on the income statement.
If your company still has the vestiges of a pension or similar blandishment, you may even
back-load contributions more aggressively, of course to the extent allowable. That added
expense diligence will pay off when those annuated employees leave before hitting
the more expensive funding years.
NB, the above reflects what I saw and heard at a Fortune 500 company.
A reason why the court system is overburdened is lack of clarity in laws and regulations.
Fix the disparity between the two sections of the law so that courts don't have to decide
which section rules.
It amazes me how often the government will give itself exemptions to its own laws and
principles, and also how often "progressive" nonprofits and political groups will also give
themselves such exemptions, for instance, regarding health insurance, paid overtime, paid
training, etc. that they are legally required to provide.
There are specific physical demands in things like policing. So it doesn't make much sense
to hire 55 year old rookie policemen when many policemen are retiring at that age.
Its an interesting quandary. We have older staff that went back to school and changed
careers. They do a good job and get paid at a rate similar to the younger staff with similar
job-related experience. However, they will be retiring at about the same time as the much
more experienced staff, so they will not be future succession replacements for the senior
staff.
So we also have to hire people in their 20s and 30s because that will be the future when
people like me retire in a few years. That could very well be the reason for the specific
wording of the job opening (I haven't read the opinion). I know of current hiring for a
position where the firm is primarily looking for somebody in their 20s or early 30s for
precisely that reason. The staff currently doing the work are in their 40s and 50s and need
to start bringing up the next generation. If somebody went back to school late and was in
their 40s or 50s (so would be at a lower billing rate due to lack of job related experience),
they would be seriously considered. But the firm would still be left with the challenge of
having to hire another person at the younger age within a couple of years to build the
succession. Once people make it past 5 years at the firm, they tend to stay for a long time
with senior staff generally having been at the firm for 20 years or more, so hiring somebody
really is a long-term investment.
People who are kicked out of their IT jobs around 55 now has difficulties to find even
full-time McJobs... Only part time jobs are available. With the current round of layoff and job
freezes, neoliberalism in the USA is entering terminal phase, I think.
A survey by
Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies found on average Americans are retiring at age
63, with more than half indicating they retired sooner than they had planned. Among them, most
retired for health or employment-related reasons.
... ... ...
On April 3, 2018, Linda LaBarbera received the phone call that changed her life forever. "We
are outsourcing your work to India and your services are no longer needed, effective today,"
the voice on the other end of the phone line said.
... ... ...
"It's not like we are starving or don't have a home or anything like that," she says. "But
we did have other plans for before we retired and setting ourselves up a little better while we
both still had jobs."
... ... ...
Linda hasn't needed to dip into her 401(k) yet. She plans to start collecting Social
Security when she turns 70, which will give her the maximum benefit. To earn money and keep
busy, Linda has taken short-term contract editing jobs. She says she will only withdraw money
from her savings if something catastrophic happens. Her husband's salary is their main source
of income.
"I am used to going out and spending money on other people," she says. "We are very generous
with our family and friends who are not as well off as we are. So we take care of a lot of
people. We can't do that anymore. I can't go out and be frivolous anymore. I do have to look at
what we spend - what I spend."
Vogelbacher says cutting costs is essential when living in retirement, especially for those
on a fixed income. He suggests moving to a tax-friendly location if possible.
Kiplinger ranks Alaska, Wyoming, South Dakota, Mississippi, and Florida as the top five
tax-friendly states for retirees. If their health allows, Vogelbacher recommends getting a
part-time job. For those who own a home, he says paying off the mortgage is a smart financial
move.
... ... ...
Monica is one of the 44 percent of unmarried persons who rely on Social Security for 90
percent or more of their income. At the beginning of 2019, Monica and more than 62 million
Americans received a 2.8 percent cost
of living adjustment from Social Security. The increase is the largest since 2012.
With the Social Security hike, Monica's monthly check climbed $33. Unfortunately, the new
year also brought her a slight increase in what she pays for Medicare; along with a $500
property tax bill and the usual laundry list of monthly expenses.
"If you don't have much, the (Social Security) raise doesn't represent anything," she says
with a dry laugh. "But it's good to get it."
In Christian tradition, the
love of money is condemned as a sin primarily based on texts
such as Ecclesiastes 5.10 and
1 Timothy 6:10. The Jewish and
Christian condemnation relates to avarice
and greed rather than
money itself. Christian texts (scriptures) are full of
parables and use easy to understand subjects, such as money, to convey the actual message, there are further parallels in
Solon and
Aristotle,[1]
and Massinissa-who ascribed love of
money to Hannibal and the
Carthaginians.[2].
While certain political ideologies, such as
neoliberalism, assume and promote the view that the behavior that capitalism fosters in individuals is natural to humans,[2][3]
anthropologists like
Richard Robbins
point out that there is nothing natural about this behavior - people are not naturally dispossessed to accumulate wealth and
driven by wage-labor
Neoliberalism abstract the economic sphere from other aspects of society (politics, culture, family etc., with any political
activity constituting an
intervention into the natural process of the market, for example) and assume that people make rational exchanges in the sphere
of market transactions. In reality rational economic exchanges are actually heavily influenced by pre-existing social ties and
other factors.
Under neoliberalism both the society and culture revolve around business activity (the accumulation of capital). As such,
business activity and the "free market" exchange (despite the fact that "free market" never existed in human history) are often
viewed as being absolute or "natural" in that all other human social relations revolve around these processes (or should exist to
facilitate one's ability to perform these processes
Notable quotes:
"... Conwell equated poverty with sin and asserted that anyone could become rich through hard work. This gospel of wealth, however, was an expression of Muscular Christianity and understood success to be the result of personal effort rather than divine intervention. [5] ..."
"... They criticized many aspects of the prosperity gospel, noting particularly the tendency of believers to lack compassion for the poor, since their poverty was seen as a sign that they had not followed the rules and therefore are not loved by God ..."
According to historian Kate Bowler , the prosperity gospel was formed
from the intersection of three different ideologies: Pentecostalism , New Thought , and "an American gospel of
pragmatism, individualism, and upward mobility". [4]
This "American gospel" was best exemplified by Andrew Carnegie 's Gospel of Wealth and Russell Conwell 's famous sermon
"Acres of Diamonds", in which Conwell equated poverty with sin and asserted that anyone could
become rich through hard work. This gospel of wealth, however, was an expression of Muscular Christianity
and understood success to be the result of personal effort rather than divine intervention.
[5]
... ... ...
In 2005, Matthew
Ashimolowo , the founder of the largely African
Kingsway International Christian Centre in southern England, which preaches a "health and
wealth" gospel and collects regular tithes, was ordered by the Charity Commission to repay money he had
appropriated for his personal use. In 2017, the organisation was under criminal investigation
after a leading member was found by a court in 2015 to have operated a Ponzi scheme between 2007 and 2011, losing or
spending £8 million of investors' money. [43]
36]Hanna Rosin of The Atlantic argues that
prosperity theology contributed to the housing bubble that caused the
late-2000s
financial crisis . She maintains that home ownership was heavily emphasized in prosperity
churches, based on reliance on divine financial intervention that led to unwise choices based
on actual financial ability. [36]
... ... ...
Historian Carter
Lindberg of Boston University has drawn parallels
between contemporary prosperity theology and the medieval indulgence trade .
[69] Coleman notes that several pre–20th century Christian movements in the
United States taught that a holy lifestyle was a path to prosperity and that God-ordained hard
work would bring blessing. [16]
... ... ...
In April 2015, LDS apostle
Dallin H. Oaks
stated that people who believe in "the theology of prosperity" are deceived by riches. He
continued by saying that the "possession of wealth or significant income is not a mark of
heavenly favor, and their absence is not evidence of heavenly disfavor". He also cited how
Jesus differentiated the attitudes towards money held by the young rich man in Mark
10:17–24, the good Samaritan, and Judas Iscariot in his betrayal. Oaks concluded this
portion of his sermon by highlighting that the "root of all evil is not money but the love of
money". [90]
In 2015, well known pastor and prosperity gospel advocate Creflo Dollar launched a
fundraising campaign to replace a previous private jet with a $65 million Gulfstream G650.
[91] On the August
16, 2015 episode of his HBO
weekly series Last
Week Tonight , John Oliver satirized prosperity
theology by announcing that he had established his own tax-exempt church, called Our Lady of
Perpetual Exemption . In a lengthy segment, Oliver focused on what he characterized as the
predatory conduct of televangelists who appeal for repeated gifts from people in financial
distress or personal crises, and he criticized the very loose requirements for entities to
obtain tax exempt status as churches under U.S. tax law. Oliver said that he would ultimately
donate any money collected by the church to Doctors Without Borders .
[92]
In July 2018, Antonio Spadaro and Marcelo Figueroa, in the Jesuit journal La Civilità
Cattolica , examined the origins of the prosperity gospel in the United States and
described it as a reductive version of the American Dream which had offered
opportunities of success and prosperity unreachable in the Old World . The authors distinguished the
prosperity gospel from Max
Weber 's Protestant
ethic , noting that the protestant ethic related prosperity to religiously inspired
austerity while the prosperity gospel saw prosperity as the simple result of personal faith.
They criticized many aspects of the prosperity gospel, noting particularly the tendency of
believers to lack compassion for the poor, since their poverty was seen as a sign that they had
not followed the rules and therefore are not loved by God . [93][94]
This is an attractive but idealistinc notion, because the person destiny often is shaped by
forces beyond his control. Like Great Depression or WWII. The proper idea is that the society as
a whole serves as a "social security" mechanism to prevent worst outcomes. At the same time
neoliberalism accept bailout for financial sector and even demand them for goverment.
@dmckm - Nobody is owed a good living in this world. That's what freedom means: one is free
to chose the best way to make a living. Are you saying that by forcing people to pay you
something they don't want to is freedom?
"... Four years in GTS ... joined via being outsourced to IBM by my previous employer. Left GTS after 4 years. ..."
"... The IBM way of life was throughout the Oughts and the Teens an utter and complete failure from the perspective of getting work done right and using people to their appropriate and full potential. ..."
"... As a GTS employee, professional technical training was deemed unnecessary, hence I had no access to any unless I paid for it myself and used my personal time ... the only training available was cheesy presentations or other web based garbage from the intranet, or casual / OJT style meetings with other staff who were NOT professional or expert trainers. ..."
"... As a GTS employee, I had NO access to the expert and professional tools that IBM fricking made and sold to the same damn customers I was supposed to be supporting. Did we have expert and professional workflow / document management / ITIL aligned incident and problem management tools? NO, we had fricking Lotus Notes and email. Instead of upgrading to the newest and best software solutions for data center / IT management & support, we degraded everything down the simplest and least complex single function tools that no "best practices" organization on Earth would ever consider using. ..."
"... And the people management paradigm ... employees ranked annually not against a static or shared goal or metric, but in relation to each other, and there was ALWAYS a "top 10 percent" and a "bottom ten percent" required by upper management ... a system that was sociopathic in it's nature because it encourages employees to NOT work together ... by screwing over one's coworkers, perhaps by not giving necessary information, timely support, assistance as needed or requested, one could potentially hurt their performance and make oneself look relatively better. That's a self-defeating system and it was encouraged by the way IBM ran things. ..."
Four years in GTS ... joined via being outsourced to IBM by my previous employer. Left
GTS after 4 years.
The IBM way of life was throughout the Oughts and the Teens an utter and complete
failure from the perspective of getting work done right and using people to their appropriate
and full potential. I went from a multi-disciplinary team of engineers working across
technologies to support corporate needs in the IT environment to being siloed into a
single-function organization.
My first year of on-boarding with IBM was spent deconstructing application integration and
cross-organizational structures of support and interwork that I had spent 6 years building
and maintaining. Handing off different chunks of work (again, before the outsourcing, an
Enterprise solution supported by one multi-disciplinary team) to different IBM GTS work silos
that had no physical special relationship and no interworking history or habits. What we're
talking about here is the notion of "left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing"
...
THAT was the IBM way of doing things, and nothing I've read about them over the past
decade or so tells me it has changed.
As a GTS employee, professional technical training was deemed unnecessary, hence I had
no access to any unless I paid for it myself and used my personal time ... the only training
available was cheesy presentations or other web based garbage from the intranet, or casual /
OJT style meetings with other staff who were NOT professional or expert trainers.
As a GTS employee, I had NO access to the expert and professional tools that IBM
fricking made and sold to the same damn customers I was supposed to be supporting. Did we
have expert and professional workflow / document management / ITIL aligned incident and
problem management tools? NO, we had fricking Lotus Notes and email. Instead of upgrading to
the newest and best software solutions for data center / IT management & support, we
degraded everything down the simplest and least complex single function tools that no "best
practices" organization on Earth would ever consider using.
And the people management paradigm ... employees ranked annually not against a static
or shared goal or metric, but in relation to each other, and there was ALWAYS a "top 10
percent" and a "bottom ten percent" required by upper management ... a system that was
sociopathic in it's nature because it encourages employees to NOT work together ... by
screwing over one's coworkers, perhaps by not giving necessary information, timely support,
assistance as needed or requested, one could potentially hurt their performance and make
oneself look relatively better. That's a self-defeating system and it was encouraged by the
way IBM ran things.
The "not invented here" ideology was embedded deeply in the souls of all senior IBMers I
ever met or worked with ... if you come on board with any outside knowledge or experience,
you must not dare to say "this way works better" because you'd be shut down before you could
blink. The phrase "best practices" to them means "the way we've always done it".
IBM gave up on innovation long ago. Since the 90's the vast majority of their software has
been bought, not built. Buy a small company, strip out the innovation, slap an IBM label on
it, sell it as the next coming of Jesus even though they refuse to expend any R&D to push
the product to the next level ... damn near everything IBM sold was gentrified, never cutting
edge.
And don't get me started on sales practices ... tell the customer how product XYZ is a
guaranteed moonshot, they'll be living on lunar real estate in no time at all, and after all
the contracts are signed hand the customer a box of nuts & bolts and a letter telling
them where they can look up instructions on how to build their own moon rocket. Or for XX
dollars more a year, hire a Professional Services IBMer to build it for them.
I have no sympathy for IBM. They need a clean sweep throughout upper management,
especially any of the old True Blue hard-core IBMers.
Step back and think about this for a minute. There are plenty of examples of people who were
doing their jobs, IN SPADES, putting in tons of unpaid overtime, and generally doing whatever
was humanly possible to make sure that whatever was promised to the customer was delivered
(within their span of control... I'm not going to get into a discussion of how IBM pulls the
rug out from underneath contracts after they've been signed).
These people were, and still are, high performers, they are committed to the job and the
purpose that has been communicated to them by their peers, management, and customers; and
they take the time (their OWN time) to pick up new skills and make sure that they are still
current and marketable. They do this because they are committed to doing the job to the best
of their ability.... it's what makes them who they are.
IBM (and other companies) are firing these very people ***for one reason and one reason
ONLY***: their AGE. They have the skills and they're doing their jobs. If the same person was
30 you can bet that they'd still be there. Most of the time it has NOTHING to do with
performance or lack of concurrency. Once the employee is fired, the job is done by someone
else. The work is still there, but it's being done by someone younger and/or of a different
nationality.
The money that is being saved by these companies has to come from somewhere. People that
are having to withdraw their retirement savings 20 or so years earlier than planned are going
to run out of funds.... and when they're in nursing homes, guess who is going to be
supporting them? Social security will be long gone, their kids have their own monetary
challenges.... so it will be government programs.... maybe.
This is not just a problem that impacts the 40 and over crowd. This is going to impact our
entire society for generations to come.
The business reality you speak of can be tempered via government actions. A few things:
One of the major hardships here is laying someone off when they need income the most -
to pay for their children's college education. To mitigate this, as a country we could make a
public education free. That takes off a lot of the sting, some people might relish a change
in career when they are in their 50s except that the drop in salary is so steep when changing
careers.
We could lower the retirement age to 55 and increase Social Security to more than a
poverty-level existence.Being laid off when you're 50 or 55 - with little chance to be hired
anywhere else - would not hurt as much.
We could offer federal wage subsidies for older workers to make them more attractive to
hire. While some might see this as a thumb on the scale against younger workers, in reality
it would be simply a counterweight to the thumb that is already there against older
workers.
Universal health care equalizes the cost of older and younger workers.
The other alternative is a market-based life that, for many, will be cruel, brutish, and
short.
As a new engineering graduate, I joined a similar-sized multinational US-based company in the
early '70s. Their recruiting pitch was, "Come to work here, kid. Do your job, keep your nose
clean, and you will enjoy great, secure work until you retire on easy street".
Soon after I started, the company fired hundreds of 50-something employees and put we
"kids" in their jobs. Seeing that employee loyalty was a one way street at that place, I left
after a couple of years. Best career move I ever made.
As a 25yr+ vet of IBM, I can confirm that this article is spot-on true. IBM used to be a
proud and transparent company that clearly demonstrated that it valued its employees as much
as it did its stock performance or dividend rate or EPS, simply because it is good for
business. Those principles helped make and keep IBM atop the business world as the most
trusted international brand and business icon of success for so many years. In 2000, all that
changed when Sam Palmisano became the CEO. Palmisano's now infamous "Roadmap 2015" ran the
company into the ground through its maniacal focus on increasing EPS at any and all costs.
Literally. Like, its employees, employee compensation, benefits, skills, and education
opportunities. Like, its products, product innovation, quality, and customer service. All of
which resulted in the devastation of its technical capability and competitiveness, employee
engagement, and customer loyalty. Executives seemed happy enough as their compensation grew
nicely with greater financial efficiencies, and Palisano got a sweet $270M+ exit package in
2012 for a job well done. The new CEO, Ginni Rometty has since undergone a lot of scrutiny
for her lack of business results, but she was screwed from day one. Of course, that doesn't
leave her off the hook for the business practices outlined in the article, but what do you
expect: she was hand picked by Palmisano and approved by the same board that thought
Palmisano was golden.
In 1994, I saved my job at IBM for the first time, and survived. But I was 36 years old. I
sat down at the desk of a man in his 50s, and found a few odds and ends left for me in the
desk. Almost 20 years later, it was my turn to go. My health and well-being is much better
now. Less money but better health. The sins committed by management will always be: "I was
just following orders".
"... Correction, March 24, 2018: Eileen Maroney lives in Aiken, South Carolina. The name of her city was incorrect in the original version of this story. ..."
Consider, for example, a planning presentation that former IBM executives said was drafted by heads of a business unit carved
out of IBM's once-giant software group and charged with pursuing the "C," or cloud, portion of the company's CAMS strategy.
The presentation laid out plans for substantially altering the unit's workforce. It was shown to company leaders including Diane
Gherson, the senior vice president for human resources, and James Kavanaugh, recently elevated to chief financial officer. Its language
was couched in the argot of "resources," IBM's term for employees, and "EP's," its shorthand for early professionals or recent college
graduates.
Among the goals: "Shift headcount mix towards greater % of Early Professional hires." Among the means: "[D]rive a more aggressive
performance management approach to enable us to hire and replace where needed, and fund an influx of EPs to correct seniority mix."
Among the expected results: "[A] significant reduction in our workforce of 2,500 resources."
A slide from a similar presentation prepared last spring for the same leaders called for "re-profiling current talent" to "create
room for new talent." Presentations for 2015 and 2016 for the 50,000-employee software group also included plans for "aggressive
performance management" and emphasized the need to "maintain steady attrition to offset hiring."
IBM declined to answer questions about whether either presentation was turned into company policy. The description of the planned
moves matches what hundreds of older ex-employees told ProPublica they believe happened to them: They were ousted because of their
age. The company used their exits to hire replacements, many of them young; to ship their work overseas; or to cut its overall headcount.
Ed Alpern, now 65, of Austin, started his 39-year run with IBM as a Selectric typewriter repairman. He ended as a project manager
in October of 2016 when, he said, his manager told him he could either leave with severance and other parting benefits or be given
a bad job review -- something he said he'd never previously received -- and risk being fired without them.
Albert Poggi, now 70, was a three-decade IBM veteran and ran the company's Palisades, New York, technical center where clients
can test new products. When notified in November of 2016 he was losing his job to layoff, he asked his bosses why, given what he
said was a history of high job ratings. "They told me," he said, "they needed to fill it with someone newer."
The presentations from the software group, as well as the stories of ex-employees like Alpern and Poggi, square with internal
documents from two other major IBM business units. The documents for all three cover some or all of the years from 2013 through the
beginning of 2018 and deal with job assessments, hiring, firing and layoffs.
The documents detail practices that appear at odds with how IBM says it treats its employees. In many instances, the practices
in effect, if not intent, tilt against the company's older U.S. workers.
For example, IBM spokespeople and lawyers have said the company never considers a worker's age in making decisions about layoffs
or firings.
But one 2014 document reviewed by ProPublica includes dates of birth. An ex-IBM employee familiar with the process said executives
from one business unit used it to decide about layoffs or other job changes for nearly a thousand workers, almost two-thirds of them
over 50.
Documents from subsequent years show that young workers are protected from cuts for at least a limited period of time. A 2016
slide presentation prepared by the company's global technology services unit, titled "U.S. Resource Action Process" and used to guide
managers in layoff procedures, includes bullets for categories considered "ineligible" for layoff. Among them: "early professional
hires," meaning recent college graduates.
In responding to age-discrimination complaints that ex-employees file with the EEOC, lawyers for IBM say that front-line managers
make all decisions about who gets laid off, and that their decisions are based strictly on skills and job performance, not age.
But ProPublica reviewed spreadsheets that indicate front-line managers hardly acted alone in making layoff calls. Former IBM managers
said the spreadsheets were prepared for upper-level executives and kept continuously updated. They list hundreds of employees together
with codes like "lift and shift," indicating that their jobs were to be lifted from them and shifted overseas, and details such as
whether IBM's clients had approved the change.
An examination of several of the spreadsheets suggests that, whatever the criteria for assembling them, the resulting list of
those marked for layoff was skewed toward older workers. A 2016 spreadsheet listed more than 400 full-time U.S. employees under the
heading "REBAL," which refers to "rebalancing," the process that can lead to laying off workers and either replacing them or shifting
the jobs overseas. Using the job search site LinkedIn, ProPublica was able to locate about 100 of these employees and then obtain
their ages through public records. Ninety percent of those found were 40 or older. Seventy percent were over 50.
IBM frequently cites its history of encouraging diversity in its responses to EEOC complaints about age discrimination. "IBM has
been a leader in taking positive actions to ensure its business opportunities are made available to individuals without regard to
age, race, color, gender, sexual orientation and other categories," a lawyer for the company wrote in a May 2017 letter. "This policy
of non-discrimination is reflected in all IBM business activities."
But ProPublica found at least one company business unit using a point system that disadvantaged older workers. The system awarded
points for attributes valued by the company. The more points a person garnered, according to the former employee, the more protected
she or he was from layoff or other negative job change; the fewer points, the more vulnerable.
The arrangement appears on its face to favor younger newcomers over older veterans. Employees were awarded points for being relatively
new at a job level or in a particular role. Those who worked for IBM for fewer years got more points than those who'd been there
a long time.
The ex-employee familiar with the process said a 2014 spreadsheet from that business unit, labeled "IBM Confidential," was assembled
to assess the job prospects of more than 600 high-level employees, two-thirds of them from the U.S. It included employees' years
of service with IBM, which the former employee said was used internally as a proxy for age. Also listed was an assessment by their
bosses of their career trajectories as measured by the highest job level they were likely to attain if they remained at the company,
as well as their point scores.
The tilt against older workers is evident when employees' years of service are compared with their point scores. Those with no
points and therefore most vulnerable to layoff had worked at IBM an average of more than 30 years; those with a high number of points
averaged half that.
Perhaps even more striking is the comparison between employees' service years and point scores on the one hand and their superiors'
assessments of their career trajectories on the other.
Along with many American employers, IBM has argued it needs to shed older workers because they're no longer at the top of their
games or lack "contemporary" skills.
But among those sized up in the confidential spreadsheet, fully 80 percent of older employees -- those with the most years of
service but no points and therefore most vulnerable to layoff -- were rated by superiors as good enough to stay at their current
job levels or be promoted. By contrast, only a small percentage of younger employees with a high number of points were similarly
rated.
"No major company would use tools to conduct a layoff where a disproportionate share of those let go were African Americans or
women," said Cathy Ventrell-Monsees, senior attorney adviser with the EEOC and former director of age litigation for the senior lobbying
giant AARP. "There's no difference if the tools result in a disproportionate share being older workers."
In addition to the point system that disadvantaged older workers in layoffs, other documents suggest that IBM has made increasingly
aggressive use of its job-rating machinery to pave the way for straight-out firings, or what the company calls "management-initiated
separations." Internal documents suggest that older workers were especially targets.
Like in many companies, IBM employees sit down with their managers at the start of each year and set goals for themselves. IBM
graded on a scale of 1 to 4, with 1 being top-ranked.
Those rated as 3 or 4 were given formal short-term goals known as personal improvement plans, or PIPs. Historically many managers
were lenient, especially toward those with 3s whose ratings had dropped because of forces beyond their control, such as a weakness
in the overall economy, ex-employees said.
But within the past couple of years, IBM appears to have decided the time for leniency was over. For example, a software group
planning document for 2015 said that, over and above layoffs, the unit should seek to fire about 3,000 of the unit's 50,000-plus
workers.
To make such deep cuts, the document said, executives should strike an "aggressive performance management posture." They needed
to double the share of employees given low 3 and 4 ratings to at least 6.6 percent of the division's workforce. And because layoffs
cost the company more than outright dismissals or resignations, the document said, executives should make sure that more than 80
percent of those with low ratings get fired or forced to quit.
Finally, the 2015 document said the division should work "to attract the best and brightest early professionals" to replace up
to two-thirds of those sent packing. A more recent planning document -- the presentation to top executives Gherson and Kavanaugh
for a business unit carved out of the software group -- recommended using similar techniques to free up money by cutting current
employees to fund an "influx" of young workers.
In a recent interview, Poggi said he was resigned to being laid off. "Everybody at IBM has a bullet with their name on it," he
said. Alpern wasn't nearly as accepting of being threatened with a poor job rating and then fired.
Alpern had a particular reason for wanting to stay on at IBM, at least until the end of last year. His younger son, Justin, then
a high school senior, had been named a National Merit semifinalist. Alpern wanted him to be able to apply for one of the company's
Watson scholarships. But IBM had recently narrowed eligibility so only the children of current employees could apply, not also retirees
as it was until 2014.
Alpern had to make it through December for his son to be eligible.
But in August, he said, his manager ordered him to retire. He sought to buy time by appealing to superiors. But he said the manager's
response was to threaten him with a bad job review that, he was told, would land him on a PIP, where his work would be scrutinized
weekly. If he failed to hit his targets -- and his managers would be the judges of that -- he'd be fired and lose his benefits.
Alpern couldn't risk it; he retired on Oct. 31. His son, now a freshman on the dean's list at Texas A&M University, didn't get
to apply.
"I can think of only a couple regrets or disappointments over my 39 years at IBM,"" he said, "and that's one of them."
'Congratulations on Your Retirement!'
Like any company in the U.S., IBM faces few legal constraints to reducing the size of its workforce. And with its no-disclosure
strategy, it eliminated one of the last regular sources of information about its employment practices and the changing size of its
American workforce.
But there remained the question of whether recent cutbacks were big enough to trigger state and federal requirements for disclosure
of layoffs. And internal documents, such as a slide in a 2016 presentation titled "Transforming to Next Generation Digital Talent,"
suggest executives worried that "winning the talent war" for new young workers required IBM to improve the "attractiveness of (its)
culture and work environment," a tall order in the face of layoffs and firings.
So the company apparently has sought to put a softer face on its cutbacks by recasting many as voluntary rather than the result
of decisions by the firm. One way it has done this is by converting many layoffs to retirements.
Some ex-employees told ProPublica that, faced with a layoff notice, they were just as happy to retire. Others said they felt forced
to accept a retirement package and leave. Several actively objected to the company treating their ouster as a retirement. The company
nevertheless processed their exits as such.
Project manager Ed Alpern's departure was treated in company paperwork as a voluntary retirement. He didn't see it that way, because
the alternative he said he was offered was being fired outright.
Lorilynn King, a 55-year-old IT specialist who worked from her home in Loveland, Colorado, had been with IBM almost as long as
Alpern by May 2016 when her manager called to tell her the company was conducting a layoff and her name was on the list.
King said the manager told her to report to a meeting in Building 1 on IBM's Boulder campus the following day. There, she said,
she found herself in a group of other older employees being told by an IBM human resources representative that they'd all be retiring.
"I have NO intention of retiring," she remembers responding. "I'm being laid off."
ProPublica has collected documents from 15 ex-IBM employees who got layoff notices followed by a retirement package and has talked
with many others who said they received similar paperwork. Critics say the sequence doesn't square well with the law.
"This country has banned mandatory retirement," said Seiner, the University of South Carolina law professor and former EEOC appellate
lawyer. "The law says taking a retirement package has to be voluntary. If you tell somebody 'Retire or we'll lay you off or fire
you,' that's not voluntary."
Until recently, the company's retirement paperwork included a letter from Rometty, the CEO, that read, in part, "I wanted to take
this opportunity to wish you well on your retirement While you may be retiring to embark on the next phase of your personal journey,
you will always remain a valued and appreciated member of the IBM family." Ex-employees said IBM stopped sending the letter last
year.
IBM has also embraced another practice that leads workers, especially older ones, to quit on what appears to be a voluntary basis.
It substantially reversed its pioneering support for telecommuting, telling people who've been working from home for years to begin
reporting to certain, often distant, offices. Their other choice: Resign.
David Harlan had worked as an IBM marketing strategist from his home in Moscow, Idaho, for 15 years when a manager told him last
year of orders to reduce the performance ratings of everybody at his pay grade. Then in February last year, when he was 50, came
an internal video from IBM's new senior vice president, Michelle Peluso, which announced plans to improve the work of marketing employees
by ordering them to work "shoulder to shoulder." Those who wanted to stay on would need to "co-locate" to offices in one of six cities.
Early last year, Harlan received an email congratulating him on "the opportunity to join your team in Raleigh, North Carolina."
He had 30 days to decide on the 2,600-mile move. He resigned in June.
David Harlan worked for IBM for 15 years from his home in Moscow, Idaho, where he also runs a drama company. Early last year,
IBM offered him a choice: Move 2,600 miles to Raleigh-Durham to begin working at an office, or resign. He left in June. (Rajah Bose
for ProPublica)
After the Peluso video was leaked to the press, an IBM spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal that the "
vast
majority " of people ordered to change locations and begin reporting to offices did so. IBM Vice President Ed Barbini said in
an initial email exchange with ProPublica in July that the new policy affected only about 2,000 U.S. employees and that "most" of
those had agreed to move.
But employees across a wide range of company operations, from the systems and technology group to analytics, told ProPublica they've
also been ordered to co-locate in recent years. Many IBMers with long service said that they quit rather than sell their homes, pull
children from school and desert aging parents. IBM declined to say how many older employees were swept up in the co-location initiative.
"They basically knew older employees weren't going to do it," said Eileen Maroney, a 63-year-old IBM product manager from Aiken,
South Carolina, who, like Harlan, was ordered to move to Raleigh or resign. "Older people aren't going to move. It just doesn't make
any sense." Like Harlan, Maroney left IBM last June.
Having people quit rather than being laid off may help IBM avoid disclosing how much it is shrinking its U.S. workforce and where
the reductions are occurring.
Under the federal WARN Act , adopted in the wake
of huge job cuts and factory shutdowns during the 1980s, companies laying off 50 or more employees who constitute at least one-third
of an employer's workforce at a site have to give advance notice of layoffs to the workers, public agencies and local elected officials.
Similar laws in some states where IBM has a substantial presence are even stricter. California, for example, requires advanced
notice for layoffs of 50 or more employees, no matter what the share of the workforce. New York requires notice for 25 employees
who make up a third.
Because the laws were drafted to deal with abrupt job cuts at individual plants, they can miss reductions that occur over long
periods among a workforce like IBM's that was, at least until recently, widely dispersed because of the company's work-from-home
policy.
IBM's training sessions to prepare managers for layoffs suggest the company was aware of WARN thresholds, especially in states
with strict notification laws such as California. A 2016 document entitled "Employee Separation Processing" and labeled "IBM Confidential"
cautions managers about the "unique steps that must be taken when processing separations for California employees."
A ProPublica review of five years of WARN disclosures for a dozen states where the company had large facilities that shed workers
found no disclosures in nine. In the other three, the company alerted authorities of just under 1,000 job cuts -- 380 in California,
369 in New York and 200 in Minnesota. IBM's reported figures are well below the actual number of jobs the company eliminated in these
states, where in recent years it has shuttered, sold off or leveled plants that once employed vast numbers.
By contrast, other employers in the same 12 states reported layoffs last year alone totaling 215,000 people. They ranged from
giant Walmart to Ostrom's Mushroom Farms in Washington state.
Whether IBM operated within the rules of the WARN act, which are notoriously fungible, could not be determined because the company
declined to provide ProPublica with details on its layoffs.
A Second Act, But Poorer
W ith 35 years at IBM under his belt, Ed Miyoshi had plenty of experience being pushed to take buyouts, or early retirement packages,
and refusing them. But he hadn't expected to be pushed last fall.
Miyoshi, of Hopewell Junction, New York, had some years earlier launched a pilot program to improve IBM's technical troubleshooting.
With the blessing of an IBM vice president, he was busily interviewing applicants in India and Brazil to staff teams to roll the
program out to clients worldwide.
The interviews may have been why IBM mistakenly assumed Miyoshi was a manager, and so emailed him to eliminate the one U.S.-based
employee still left in his group.
"That was me," Miyoshi realized.
In his sign-off email to colleagues shortly before Christmas 2016, Miyoshi, then 57, wrote: "I am too young and too poor to stop
working yet, so while this is good-bye to my IBM career, I fully expect to cross paths with some of you very near in the future."
He did, and perhaps sooner than his colleagues had expected; he started as a subcontractor to IBM about two weeks later, on Jan.
3.
Miyoshi is an example of older workers who've lost their regular IBM jobs and been brought back as contractors. Some of them --
not Miyoshi -- became contract workers after IBM told them their skills were out of date and no longer needed.
Employment law experts said that hiring ex-employees as contractors can be legally dicey. It raises the possibility that the layoff
of the employee was not for the stated reason but perhaps because they were targeted for their age, race or gender.
IBM appears to recognize the problem. Ex-employees say the company has repeatedly told managers -- most recently earlier this
year -- not to contract with former employees or sign on with third-party contracting firms staffed by ex-IBMers. But ProPublica
turned up dozens of instances where the company did just that.
Only two weeks after IBM laid him off in December 2016, Ed Miyoshi of Hopewell Junction, New York, started work as a subcontractor
to the company. But he took a $20,000-a-year pay cut. "I'm not a millionaire, so that's a lot of money to me," he says. (Demetrius
Freeman for ProPublica)
Responding to a question in a confidential questionnaire from ProPublica, one 35-year company veteran from New York said he knew
exactly what happened to the job he left behind when he was laid off. "I'M STILL DOING IT. I got a new gig eight days after departure,
working for a third-party company under contract to IBM doing the exact same thing."
In many cases, of course, ex-employees are happy to have another job, even if it is connected with the company that laid them
off.
Henry, the Columbus-based sales and technical specialist who'd been with IBM's "resiliency services" unit, discovered that he'd
lost his regular IBM job because the company had purchased an Indian firm that provided the same services. But after a year out of
work, he wasn't going to turn down the offer of a temporary position as a subcontractor for IBM, relocating data centers. It got
money flowing back into his household and got him back where he liked to be, on the road traveling for business.
The compensation most ex-IBM employees make as contractors isn't comparable. While Henry said he collected the same dollar amount,
it didn't include health insurance, which cost him $1,325 a month. Miyoshi said his paycheck is 20 percent less than what he made
as an IBM regular.
"I took an over $20,000 hit by becoming a contractor. I'm not a millionaire, so that's a lot of money to me," Miyoshi said.
And lower pay isn't the only problem ex-IBM employees-now-subcontractors face. This year, Miyoshi's payable hours have been cut
by an extra 10 "furlough days." Internal documents show that IBM repeatedly furloughs subcontractors without pay, often for two,
three or more weeks a quarter. In some instances, the furloughs occur with little advance notice and at financially difficult moments.
In one document, for example, it appears IBM managers, trying to cope with a cost overrun spotted in mid-November, planned to dump
dozens of subcontractors through the end of the year, the middle of the holiday season.
Former IBM employees now on contract said the company controls costs by notifying contractors in the midst of projects they have
to take pay cuts or lose the work. Miyoshi said that he originally started working for his third-party contracting firm for 10 percent
less than at IBM, but ended up with an additional 10 percent cut in the middle of 2017, when IBM notified the contractor it was slashing
what it would pay.
For many ex-employees, there are few ways out. Henry, for example, sought to improve his chances of landing a new full-time job
by seeking assistance to finish a college degree through a federal program designed to retrain workers hurt by offshoring of jobs.
But when he contacted the Ohio state agency that administers the Trade Adjustment Assistance, or TAA, program, which provides
assistance to workers who lose their jobs for trade-related reasons, he was told IBM hadn't submitted necessary paperwork. State
officials said Henry could apply if he could find other IBM employees who were laid off with him, information that the company doesn't
provide.
TAA is overseen by the Labor Department but is operated by states under individual agreements with Washington, so the rules can
vary from state to state. But generally employers, unions, state agencies and groups of employers can petition for training help
and cash assistance. Labor Department data compiled by the advocacy group Global Trade Watch shows that employers apply in about
40 percent of cases. Some groups of IBM workers have obtained retraining funds when they or their state have applied, but records
dating back to the early 1990s show IBM itself has applied for and won taxpayer assistance only once, in 2008, for three Chicago-area
workers whose jobs were being moved to India.
Teasing New Jobs
A s IBM eliminated thousands of jobs in 2016, David Carroll, a 52-year-old Austin software engineer, thought he was safe.
His job was in mobile development, the "M" in the company's CAMS strategy. And if that didn't protect him, he figured he was only
four months shy of qualifying for a program that gives employees who leave within a year of their three-decade mark access to retiree
medical coverage and other benefits.
But the layoff notice Carroll received March 2 gave him three months -- not four -- to come up with another job. Having been a
manager, he said he knew the gantlet he'd have to run to land a new position inside IBM.
Still, he went at it hard, applying for more than 50 IBM jobs, including one for a job he'd successfully done only a few years
earlier. For his effort, he got one offer -- the week after he'd been forced to depart. He got severance pay but lost access to what
would have been more generous benefits.
Edward Kishkill, then 60, of Hillsdale, New Jersey, had made a similar calculation.
A senior systems engineer, Kishkill recognized the danger of layoffs, but assumed he was immune because he was working in systems
security, the "S" in CAMS and another hot area at the company.
The precaution did him no more good than it had Carroll. Kishkill received a layoff notice the same day, along with 17 of the
22 people on his systems security team, including Diane Moos. The notice said that Kishkill could look for other jobs internally.
But if he hadn't landed anything by the end of May, he was out.
With a daughter who was a senior in high school headed to Boston University, he scrambled to apply, but came up dry. His last
day was May 31, 2016.
For many, the fruitless search for jobs within IBM is the last straw, a final break with the values the company still says it
embraces. Combined with the company's increasingly frequent request that departing employees train their overseas replacements, it
has left many people bitter. Scores of ex-employees interviewed by ProPublica said that managers with job openings told them they
weren't allowed to hire from layoff lists without getting prior, high-level clearance, something that's almost never given.
ProPublica reviewed documents that show that a substantial share of recent IBM layoffs have involved what the company calls "lift
and shift," lifting the work of specific U.S. employees and shifting it to specific workers in countries such as India and Brazil.
For example, a document summarizing U.S. employment in part of the company's global technology services division for 2015 lists nearly
a thousand people as layoff candidates, with the jobs of almost half coded for lift and shift.
Ex-employees interviewed by ProPublica said the lift-and-shift process required their extensive involvement. For example, shortly
after being notified she'd be laid off, Kishkill's colleague, Moos, was told to help prepare a "knowledge transfer" document and
begin a round of conference calls and email exchanges with two Indian IBM employees who'd be taking over her work. Moos said the
interactions consumed much of her last three months at IBM.
Next Chapters
W hile IBM has managed to keep the scale and nature of its recent U.S. employment cuts largely under the public's radar, the company
drew some unwanted attention during the 2016 presidential campaign, when then-candidate
Donald Trump lambasted it for eliminating 500 jobs in Minnesota, where the company has had a presence for a half century, and
shifting the work abroad.
The company also has caught flak -- in places like
Buffalo, New
York ;
Dubuque, Iowa ; Columbia,
Missouri , and
Baton Rouge, Louisiana -- for promising jobs in return for state and local incentives, then failing to deliver. In all, according
to public officials in those and other places, IBM promised to bring on 3,400 workers in exchange for as much as $250 million in
taxpayer financing but has hired only about half as many.
After Trump's victory, Rometty, in a move at least partly aimed at courting the president-elect, pledged to hire 25,000 new U.S.
employees by 2020. Spokesmen said the hiring would increase IBM's U.S. employment total, although, given its continuing job cuts,
the addition is unlikely to approach the promised hiring total.
When The New York Times ran a story last fall saying IBM now has
more employees in India than the U.S.,
Barbini, the corporate spokesman, rushed to declare, "The U.S. has always been and remains IBM's center of gravity." But his stream
of accompanying tweets and graphics focused
as much on the company's record for racking up patents as hiring people.
IBM has long been aware of the damage its job cuts can do to people. In a series of internal training documents to prepare managers
for layoffs in recent years, the company has included this warning: "Loss of a job often triggers a grief reaction similar to what
occurs after a death."
Most, though not all, of the ex-IBM employees with whom ProPublica spoke have weathered the loss and re-invented themselves.
Marjorie Madfis, the digital marketing strategist, couldn't land another tech job after her 2013 layoff, so she headed in a different
direction. She started a nonprofit called Yes She Can Inc. that provides job skills development for young autistic women, including
her 21-year-old daughter.
After almost two years of looking and desperate for useful work, Brian Paulson, the widely traveled IBM senior manager, applied
for and landed a position as a part-time rural letter carrier in Plano, Texas. He now works as a contract project manager for a Las
Vegas gaming and lottery firm.
Ed Alpern, who started at IBM as a Selectric typewriter repairman, watched his son go on to become a National Merit Scholar at
Texas A&M University, but not a Watson scholarship recipient.
Lori King, the IT specialist and 33-year IBM veteran who's now 56, got in a parting shot. She added an addendum to the retirement
papers the firm gave her that read in part: "It was never my plan to retire earlier than at least age 60 and I am not committing
to retire. I have been informed that I am impacted by a resource action effective on 2016-08-22, which is my last day at IBM, but
I am NOT retiring."
King has aced more than a year of government-funded coding boot camps and university computer courses, but has yet to land a new
job.
David Harlan still lives in Moscow, Idaho, after refusing IBM's "invitation" to move to North Carolina, and is artistic director
of the Moscow Art Theatre (Too).
Ed Miyoshi is still a technical troubleshooter working as a subcontractor for IBM.
Ed Kishkill, the senior systems engineer, works part time at a local tech startup, but pays his bills as an associate at a suburban
New Jersey Staples store.
This year, Paul Henry was back on the road, working as an IBM subcontractor in Detroit, about 200 miles from where he lived in
Columbus. On Jan. 8, he put in a 14-hour day and said he planned to call home before turning in. He died in his sleep.
Correction, March 24, 2018: Eileen Maroney lives in Aiken, South Carolina. The name of her city was incorrect in the original
version of this story.
Do you have information about age discrimination at IBM?
Peter Gosselin joined ProPublica as a contributing
reporter in January 2017 to cover aging. He has covered the U.S. and global economies for, among others, the Los Angeles Times and
The Boston Globe, focusing on the lived experiences of working people. He is the author of "High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives
of American Families."
Ariana Tobin is an engagement reporter at ProPublica,
where she works to cultivate communities to inform our coverage. She was previously at The Guardian and WNYC. Ariana has also worked
as digital producer for APM's Marketplace and contributed
to outlets including The
New Republic , On Being , the
St. Louis
Beacon and Bustle .
There's not a word of truth quoted in this article. That is, quoted from IBM spokespeople. It's the culture there now. They don't
even realize that most of their customers have become deaf to the same crap from their Sales and Marketing BS, which is even worse
than their HR speak.
The sad truth is that IBM became incapable of taking its innovation (IBM is indeed a world beating, patent generating machine)
to market a long time ago. It has also lost the ability (if it ever really had it) to acquire other companies and foster their
innovation either - they ran most into the ground. As a result, for nearly a decade revenues have declined and resource actions
grown. The resource actions may seem to be the ugly problem, but they're only the symptom of a fat greedy and pompous bureaucracy
that's lost its ability to grow and stay relevant in a very competitive and changing industry. What they have been able to perfect
and grow is their ability to downsize and return savings as dividends (Big Sam Palmisano's "innovation"). Oh, and for senior management
to line their pockets.
Nothing IBM is currently doing is sustainable.
If you're still employed there, listen to the pain in the words of your fallen comrades and don't knock yourself out trying
to stay afloat. Perhaps learn some BS of your own and milk your job (career? not...) until you find freedom and better pastures.
If you own stock, do like Warren Buffett, and sell it while it still has some value.
This is NOTHING NEW! All major corporations have and will do this at some point in their existence. Another industry that does
this regularly every 3 to 5 years is the pharamaceutical industry. They'll decimate their sales forces in order to, as they like
to put it, "right size" the company.
They'll cloak it as weeding out the low performers, but they'll try to catch the "older" workers in the net as well.
"... I took an early retirement package when IBM first started downsizing. I had 30 years with them, but I could see the writing on the wall so I got out. I landed an exec job with a biotech company some years later and inherited an IBM consulting team that were already engaged. I reviewed their work for 2 months then had the pleasure of terminating the contract and actually escorting the team off the premises because the work product was so awful. ..."
"... Every former or prospective IBM employee is a potential future IBM customer or partner. How you treat them matters! ..."
"... I advise IBM customers now. My biggest professional achievements can be measured in how much revenue IBM lost by my involvement - millions. Favorite is when IBM paid customer to stop the bleeding. ..."
I took an early retirement package when IBM first started downsizing. I had 30 years
with them, but I could see the writing on the wall so I got out. I landed an exec job with a
biotech company some years later and inherited an IBM consulting team that were already
engaged. I reviewed their work for 2 months then had the pleasure of terminating the contract
and actually escorting the team off the premises because the work product was so
awful.
They actually did a presentation of their interim results - but it was a 52 slide package
that they had presented to me in my previous job but with the names and numbers changed.
see more
Intellectual Capital Re-Use! LOL! Not many people realize in IBM that many, if not all of the
original IBM Consulting Group materials were made under the Type 2 Materials clause of the
IBM Contract, which means the customers actually owned the IP rights of the documents. Can
you imagine the mess if just one customer demands to get paid for every re-use of the IP that
was developed for them and then re-used over and over again?
Beautiful! Yea, these companies so fast to push experienced people who have dedicated their
lives to the firm - how can you not...all the hours and commitment it takes - way
underestimate the power of the network of those left for dead and their influence in that
next career gig. Memories are long...very long when it comes to experiences like this.
I advise IBM customers now. My biggest professional achievements can be measured in how
much revenue IBM lost by my involvement - millions. Favorite is when IBM paid customer to
stop the bleeding.
Under neoliberlaism the idea of loyalty between a corporation and an employee makes no more sense than loyalty between a motel and its guests.
Notable quotes:
"... Any expectation of "loyalty", that two-way relationship of employee/company from an earlier time, was wishful thinking ..."
"... With all the automation going on around the world, these business leaders better worry about people not having money to buy their goods and services plus what are they going to do with the surplus of labor ..."
"... This is the nail in the coffin. As an IT manager responsible for selecting and purchasing software, I will never again recommend IBM products ..."
"... The way I saw it, every time I received a paycheck from IBM in exchange for two weeks' work, we were (almost) even. I did not owe them anything else and they did not owe me anything. The way I saw it, every time I received a paycheck from IBM in exchange for two weeks' work, we were (almost) even. I did not owe them anything else and they did not owe me anything. The idea of loyalty between a corporation and an at-will employee makes no more sense than loyalty between a motel and its guests. ..."
"... The annual unemployment rate topped 8% in 1975 and would reach nearly 10% in 1982. The economy seemed trapped in the new nightmare of stagflation," so called because it combined low economic growth and high unemployment ("stagnation") with high rates of inflation. And the prime rate hit 20% by 1980. ..."
I started at IBM 3 days out of college in 1979 and retired in 2017. I was satisfied with my choice and never felt mistreated because
I had no expectation of lifetime employment, especially after the pivotal period in the 1990's when IBM almost went out of business.
The company survived that period by dramatically restructuring both manufacturing costs and sales expense including the firing
of tens of thousands of employees. These actions were well documented in the business news of the time, the obvious alternative
was bankruptcy.
I told the authors that anyone working at IBM after 1993 should have had no expectation of a lifetime career. Downsizing, outsourcing,
movement of work around the globe was already commonplace at all such international companies. Any expectation of "loyalty",
that two-way relationship of employee/company from an earlier time, was wishful thinking .
I was always prepared to be sent packing, without cause, at any time and always had my resume up-to-date. I stayed because
of interesting work, respectful supervisors, and adequate compensation.
The "resource action" that forced my decision to retire was no surprise, the company that hired me had been gone for decades.
With all the automation going on around the world, these business leaders better worry about people not having money to buy
their goods and services plus what are they going to do with the surplus of labor
I had, more or less, the same experience at Cisco. They paid me to quit. Luckily, I was ready for it.
The article mentions IBMs 3 failures. So who was it that was responsible for not anticipating the transitions? It is hard enough
doing what you already know. Perhaps companies should be spending more on figuring out "what's next" and not continually playing
catch-up by dumping the older workers for the new.
I was laid off by IBM after 29 years and 4 months. I had received a division award in previous year, and my last PBC appraisal
was 2+ (high performer.) The company I left was not the company I started with. Top management--starting with Gerstner--has steadily
made IBM a less desirable place to work. They now treat employees as interchangeable assets and nothing more. I cannot/would not
recommend IBM as an employer to any young programmer.
Truly awesome work. I do want to add one thing, however--the entire rhetoric about "too many old white guys" that has become so
common absolutely contributes to the notion that this sort of behavior is not just acceptable but in some twisted way admirable
as well.
Is anyone surprised that so many young people don't think capitalism is a good system any more?
I ran a high technology electronic systems company for years. We ran it "the old way." If you worked hard, and tried, we would
bend over backwards to keep you. If technology or business conditions eliminated your job, we would try to train you for a new
one. Our people were loyal, not like IBMers today. I honestly think that's the best way to be profitable.
People afraid of being unjustly RIFFed will always lack vitality.
I'm glad someone is finally paying attention to age discrimination. IBM apparently is just one of many organizations that discriminate.
I'm in the middle of my own fight with the State University of New York (SUNY) over age discrimination. I was terminated by
a one of the technical colleges in the SUNY System. The EEOC/New York State Division of Human Rights (NYDHR) found that "PROBABLE
CAUSE (NYDHR's emphasis) exists to believe that the Respondent (Alfred State College - SUNY) has engaged in or is engaging in
the unlawful discriminatory practice complained of." Investigators for NYDHR interviewed several witnesses, who testified that
representatives of the college made statements such as "we need new faces", "three old men" attending a meeting, an older faculty
member described as an "albatross", and "we ought to get rid of the old white guys". Witnesses said these statements were made
by the Vice President of Academic Affairs and a dean at the college.
This saga at IBM is simply a microcosm of our overall economy. Older workers get ousted in favor of younger, cheaper workers;
way too many jobs get outsourced; and so many workers today [young and old] can barely land a full-time job. This is the behavior that our system incentivises (and gets away with) in this post Reagan Revolution era where deregulation is
lauded and unions have been undermined & demonized. We need to seriously re-work 'work', and in order to do this we need to purge
Republicans at every level, as they CLEARLY only serve corporate bottom-lines - not workers - by championing tax codes that reward
outsourcing, fight a livable minimum wage, eliminate pensions, bust unions, fight pay equity for women & family leave, stack the
Supreme Court with radical ideologues who blatantly rule for corporations over people all the time, etc. etc. ~35 years of basically
uninterrupted Conservative economic policy & ideology has proven disastrous for workers and our quality of life. As goes your
middle class, so goes your country.
I am a retired IBM manager having had to execute many of these resource reduction programs.. too many.. as a matter of fact. ProPUBLICA....You
nailed it!
IBM has always treated its customer-facing roles like Disney -- as cast members who need to match a part in a play. In the 60s
and 70s, it was the white-shirt, blue-suit white men whom IBM leaders thought looked like mainframe salesmen. Now, rather than
actually build a credible cloud to compete with Amazon and Microsoft, IBM changes the cast to look like cloud salespeople. (I
work for Microsoft. Commenting for myself alone.)
I am a survivor, the rare employee who has been at IBM for over 35 years. I have seen many, many layoff programs over 20 years
now. I have seen tens of thousands people let go from the Hudson Valley of N.Y. Those of us who have survived, know and lived
through what this article so accurately described. I currently work with 3 laid off/retired and rehired contractors. I have seen
age discrimination daily for over 15 years. It is not only limited to layoffs, it is rampant throughout the company. Promotions,
bonuses, transfers for opportunities, good reviews, etc... are gone if you are over 45. I have seen people under 30 given promotions
to levels that many people worked 25 years for. IBM knows that these younger employees see how they treat us so they think they
can buy them off. Come to think of it, I guess they actually are! They are ageist, there is no doubt, it is about time everyone
knew. Excellent article.
Nice article, but seriously this is old news. IBM has been at this for ...oh twenty years or more. I don't really have a problem with it in terms of a corporation trying to make money. But I do have a problem with how IBM also
likes to avoid layoffs by giving folks over 40 intentionally poor reviews, essentially trying to drive people out. Just have the
guts to tell people, we don't need you anymore, bye. But to string people along as the overseas workers come in...c'mon just be
honest with your workers. High tech over 40 is not easy...I suggest folks prep for a career change before 50. Then you can have the last laugh on a company
like IBM.
From pages 190-191 of my novel, Ordinary Man (Amazon):
Throughout
it all, layoffs became common, impacting mostly older employees with many years
of service. These job cuts were dribbled out in small numbers to conceal them
from the outside world, but employees could plainly see what was going on.
The laid off
employees were supplanted by offshoring work to low-costs countries and hiring
younger employees, often only on temporary contracts that offered low pay and
no benefits – a process pejoratively referred to by veteran employees as
"downsourcing." The recruitment of these younger workers was done under the
guise of bringing in fresh skills, but while many of the new hires brought new
abilities and vitality, they lacked the knowledge and perspective that comes
with experience.
Frequently,
an older more experienced worker would be asked to help educate newer
employees, only to be terminated shortly after completing the task. And the new
hires weren't fooled by what they witnessed and experienced at OpenSwitch,
perceiving very quickly that the company had no real interest in investing in
them for the long term. To the contrary, the objective was clearly to grind as
much work out of them as possible, without offering any hope of increased
reward or opportunity.
Most of the
young recruits left after only a year or two – which, again, was part of the
true agenda at the company. Senior management viewed employees not as talent,
but simply as cost, and didn't want anyone sticking around long enough to move
up the pay scale.
This is the nail in the coffin. As an IT manager responsible for selecting and purchasing software, I will never again recommend
IBM products. I love AIX and have worked with a lot if IBM products but not anymore. Good luck with the millennials though...
I worked for four major corporations (HP, Intel, Control Data Corporation, and Micron Semiconductor) before I was hired by IBM
as a rare (at that time) experienced new hire.
Even though I ended up working for IBM for 21 years, and retired in 2013, because
of my experiences at those other companies, I never considered IBM my "family."
The way I saw it, every time I received a paycheck
from IBM in exchange for two weeks' work, we were (almost) even. I did not owe them anything else and they did not owe me anything.
The way I saw it, every time I received a paycheck
from IBM in exchange for two weeks' work, we were (almost) even. I did not owe them anything else and they did not owe me anything.
The idea of loyalty between a corporation and an at-will employee makes no more sense than loyalty between a motel and its guests.
It is a business arrangement, not a love affair. Every individual needs to continually assess their skills and their value to
their employer. If they are not commensurate, it is the employee's responsibility to either acquire new skills or seek a new employer.
Your employer will not hesitate to lay you off if your skills are no longer needed, or if they can hire someone who can do your
job just as well for less pay. That is free enterprise, and it works for people willing to take advantage of it.
I basically agree. But why should it be OK for a company to fire you just to replace you with a younger you? If all that they
accomplish is lowering their health care costs (which is what this is really about). If the company is paying about the same for
the same work, why is firing older workers for being older OK?
Good question. The point I was trying to make is that people need to watch out for themselves and not expect their employer to
do what is "best" for the employee. I think that is true whatever age the employee happens to be.
Whether employers should be able to discriminate against (treat differently) their employees based on age, gender, race, religion,
etc. is a political question. Morally, I don't think they should discriminate. Politically, I think it is a slippery slope when
the government starts imposing regulations on free enterprise. Government almost always creates more problems than they fix.
Sorry, but when you deregulate the free enterprise, it created more problems than it fixes and that is a fact that has been proven
for the last 38 years.
That's just plain false. Deregulation creates competiiton. Competition for talented and skilled workers creates opportunities
for those that wish to be employed and for those that wish to start new ventures. For example, when Ma Bell was regulated and
had a monopoly on telecommunications there was no innovation in the telecom inudstry. However, when it was deregulated, cell phones,
internet, etc exploded ... creating billionaires and millionaires while also improving the quality of life.
No, it happens to be true. When Reagan deregulate the economy, a lot of those corporate raiders just took over the companies,
sold off the assets, and pocketed the money. What quality of life? Half of American lived near the poverty level and the wages
for the workers have been stagnant for the last 38 years compared to a well-regulated economy in places like Germany and the Scandinavian
countries where the workers have good wages and a far better standard of living than in the USA. Why do you think the Norwegians
told Trump that they will not be immigrating to the USA anytime soon?
What were the economic conditions before Regan? It was a nightmare before Regan. The annual unemployment rate topped 8% in 1975 and would reach nearly 10% in 1982. The economy seemed trapped in the new nightmare
of stagflation," so called because it combined low economic growth and high unemployment ("stagnation") with high rates of inflation.
And the prime rate hit 20% by 1980.
At least we had a manufacturing base in the USA, strong regulations of corporations, corporate scandals were far and few, businesses
did not go under so quickly, prices of goods and services did not go through the roof, people had pensions and could reasonably
live off them, and recessions did not last so long or go so deep until Reagan came into office. In Under Reagan, the jobs were
allowed to be send overseas, unions were busted up, pensions were reduced or eliminated, wages except those of the CEOs were staganent,
and the economic conditions under Bush, Senior and Bush, Jr. were no better except that Bush, Jr, was the first president to have
a net minus below zero growth, so every time we get a Republican Administration, the economy really turns into a nightmare. That
is a fact.
You have the Republicans in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin using Reaganomics and they are economic disaster areas.
You had an industrial base in the USA, lots of banks and savings and loans to choose from, lots of mom and pop stores, strong
government regulation of the economy, able to live off your pensions, strong unions and employment laws along with the court system
to back you up against corporate malfeasance. All that was gone when Reagan and the two Bushes came into office.
Amazingly accurate article. The once great IBM now a dishonest and unscrupulous corporation concerned more about earnings per
share than employees, customers, or social responsibility. In Global Services most likely 75% or more jobs are no longer in the
US - can't believe a word coming out of Armonk.
I'm not sure there was ever a paradise in employment. Yeah, you can say there was more job stability 50 or 60 years ago, but that
applied to a much smaller workforce than today (mostly white men). It is a drag, but there are also lot more of us old farts than
there used to be and we live a lot longer in retirement as well. I don't see any magic bullet fix either.
Great article. What's especially infuriating is that the industry continues to claim that there is a shortage of STEM workers.
For example, google "claim of 1.4 million computer science jobs with only 400,000 computer science graduates to fill them". If
companies would openly say, "we have plenty of young STEM workers and prefer them to most older STEM workers", we could at least
start addressing the problem. But they continue to promote the lie of there being a STEM shortage. They just want as big a labor
pool as possible, unemployed workers be damned.
I've worked there 17 years and have worried about being layed off for about 11 of them. Moral is in the toilet. Bonuses for the
rank and file are in the under 1% range while the CEO gets millions. Pay raises have been non existent or well under inflation
for years. Adjusting for inflation, I make $6K less than I did my first day. My group is a handful of people as at least 1/2 have
quit or retired. To support our customers, we used to have several people, now we have one or two and if someone is sick or on
vacation, our support structure is to hope nothing breaks. We can't keep millennials because of pay, benefits and the expectation
of being available 24/7 because we're shorthanded. As the unemployment rate drops, more leave to find a different job, leaving
the old people as they are less willing to start over with pay, vacation, moving, selling a house, pulling kids from school, etc.
The younger people are generally less likely to be willing to work as needed on off hours or to pull work from a busier colleague.
I honestly have no idea what the plan is when the people who know what they are doing start to retire, we are way top heavy with
30-40 year guys who are on their way out, very few of the 10-20 year guys due to hiring freezes and we can't keep new people past
2-3 years. It's like our support business model is designed to fail.
Make no mistake. The three and four letter acronyms and other mushy corporate speak may differ from firm to firm, but this is
going on in every large tech company old enough to have a large population of workers over 50. I hope others will now be exposed.
This article hits the nail right on the head, as I come up on my 1 year anniversary from being....ahem....'retired' from 23 years
at IBM....and I'll be damned if I give them the satisfaction of thinking this was like a 'death' to me. It was the greatest thing
that could have ever happened. Ginny and the board should be ashamed of themselves, but they won't be.
Starting around age 40 you start to see age discrimination. I think this is largely due to economics, like increased vacation
times, higher wages, but most of all the perception that older workers will run up the medical costs. You can pass all the age
related discrimination laws you want, but look how ineffective that has been.
If you contrast this with the German workforce, you see that they have more older workers with the skills and younger workers
without are having a difficult time getting in. So what's the difference? There are laws about how many vacation weeks that are
given and there is a national medical system that everyone pays, so discrimination isn't seen in the same light.
The US is the only hold out maybe with South Africa that doesn't have a good national medical insurance program for everyone.
Not only do we pay more than the rest of the world, but we also have discrimination because of it.
This is very good, and this is IBM. I know. I was plaintiff in Gundlach v. IBM Japan, 983 F.Supp.2d 389, which involved their
violating Japanese labor law when I worked in Japan. The New York federal judge purposely ignored key points of Japanese labor
law, and also refused to apply Title VII and Age Discrimination in Employment to the parent company in Westchester County. It
is a huge, self-described "global" company with little demonstrated loyalty to America and Americans. Pennsylvania is suing them
for $170 million on a botched upgrade of the state's unemployment system.
In early 2013 I was given a 3 PBC rating for my 2012 performance, the main reason cited by my manager being that my team lead
thought I "seemed distracted". Five months later I was included in a "resource action", and was gone by July. I was 20 months
shy of 55. Younger coworkers were retained. That was about two years after the product I worked on for over a decade was off-shored.
Through a fluke of someone from the old, disbanded team remembering me, I was rehired two years later - ironically in a customer
support position for the very product I helped develop.
While I appreciated my years of service, previous salary, and previous benefits being reinstated, a couple years into it I
realized I just wasn't cut out for the demands of the job - especially the significant 24x7 pager duty. Last June I received email
describing a "Transition to Retirement" plan I was eligible for, took it, and my last day will be June 30. I still dislike the
job, but that plan reclassified me as part time, thus ending pager duty for me. The job still sucks, but at least I no longer
have to despair over numerous week long 24x7 stints throughout the year.
A significant disappointment occurred a couple weeks ago. I was discussing healthcare options with another person leaving the
company who hadn't been resource-actioned as I had, and learned the hard way I lost over $30,000 in some sort of future medical
benefit account the company had established and funded at some point. I'm not sure I was ever even aware of it. That would have
funded several years of healthcare insurance during the 8 years until I'm eligible for Medicare. I wouldn't be surprised if their
not having to give me that had something to do with my seeming "distracted" to them. <rolls eyes="">
What's really painful is the history of that former account can still be viewed at Fidelity, where it associates my departure
date in 2013 with my having "forfeited" that money. Um, no. I did not forfeit that money, nor would I have. I had absolutely no
choice in the matter. I find the use of the word 'forfeited' to describe what happened as both disingenuous and offensive. That
said, I don't know whether's that's IBM's or Fidelity's terminology, though.
Jeff, You should call Fidelity. I recently received a letter from the US Department of Labor that they discovered that IBM was
"holding" funds that belonged to me that I was never told about. This might be similar or same story .
"... As long as companies pay for their employees' health insurance they will have an incentive to fire older employees. ..."
"... The answer is to separate health insurance from employment. Companies can't be trusted. Not only health care, but retirement is also sorely abused by corporations. All the money should be in protected employee based accounts. ..."
American companies pay health insurance premiums based on their specific employee profiles. Insurance companies compete with each
other for the business, but costs are actual. And based on the profile of the pool of employees. So American companies fire older
workers just to lower the average age of their employees. Statistically this is going to lower their health care costs.
As long as companies pay for their employees' health insurance they will have an incentive to fire older employees.
They have an incentive to fire sick employees and employees with genetic risks. Those are harder to implement as ways to
lower costs. Firing older employees is simple to do, just look up their ages.
The answer is to separate health insurance from employment. Companies can't be trusted. Not only health care, but retirement
is also sorely abused by corporations. All the money should be in protected employee based accounts.
By the way, most tech companies are actually run by older people. The goal is to broom out mid-level people based on age. Nobody
is going to suggest to a sixty year old president that they should self fire, for the good of the company.
"... It's no coincidence whatsoever that Diane Gherson, mentioned prominently in the article, blasted out an all-employees email crowing about IBM being a great place to work according to (ahem) LinkedIn. I desperately want to post a link to this piece in the corporate Slack, but that would get me fired immediately instead of in a few months at the next "resource action." It's been a whole 11 months since our division had one, so I know one is coming soon. ..."
"... I used to say when I was there that: "After every defeat, they pin medals on the generals and shoot the soldiers". ..."
"... 1990 is also when H-1B visa rules were changed so that companies no longer had to even attempt to hire an American worker as long as the job paid $60,000, which hasn't changed since. This article doesn't even mention how our work visa system facilitated and even rewarded this abuse of Americans. ..."
"... Well, starting in the 1980s, the American management was allowed by Reagan to get rid of its workforce. ..."
"... It's all about making the numbers so the management can present a Potemkin Village of profits and ever-increasing growth sufficient to get bonuses. There is no relation to any sort of quality or technological advancement, just HR 3-card monte. They have installed air bearing in Old Man Watson's coffin as it has been spinning ever faster ..."
"... Corporate America executive management is all about stock price management. Their bonus's in the millions of dollars are based on stock performance. With IBM's poor revenue performance since Ginny took over, profits can only be maintained by cost reduction. Look at the IBM executive's bonus's throughout the last 20 years and you can see that all resource actions have been driven by Palmisano's and Rominetty's greed for extravagant bonus's. ..."
"... Also worth noting is that IBM drastically cut the cap on it's severance pay calculation. Almost enough to make me regret not having retired before that changed. ..."
"... Yeah, severance started out at 2 yrs pay, went to 1 yr, then to 6 mos. and is now 1 month. ..."
"... You need to investigate AT&T as well, as they did the same thing. I was 'sold' by IBM to AT&T as part of he Network Services operation. AT&T got rid of 4000 of the 8000 US employees sent to AT&T within 3 years. Nearly everyone of us was a 'senior' employee. ..."
dragonflap• 7
months ago I'm a 49-year-old SW engineer who started at IBM as part of an acquisition in 2000. I got laid off in 2002 when IBM
started sending reqs to Bangalore in batches of thousands. After various adventures, I rejoined IBM in 2015 as part of the "C" organization
referenced in the article.
It's no coincidence whatsoever that Diane Gherson, mentioned prominently in the article, blasted out an all-employees email
crowing about IBM being a great place to work according to (ahem) LinkedIn. I desperately want to post a link to this piece in the
corporate Slack, but that would get me fired immediately instead of in a few months at the next "resource action." It's been a whole
11 months since our division had one, so I know one is coming soon.
The lead-in to this piece makes it sound like IBM was forced into these practices by inescapable forces. I'd say not, rather
that it pursued them because a) the management was clueless about how to lead IBM in the new environment and new challenges so
b) it started to play with numbers to keep the (apparent) profits up....to keep the bonuses coming. I used to say when I was
there that: "After every defeat, they pin medals on the generals and shoot the soldiers".
And then there's the Pig with the Wooden Leg shaggy dog story that ends with the punch line, "A pig like that you don't eat
all at once", which has a lot of the flavor of how many of us saw our jobs as IBM die a slow death.
IBM is about to fall out of the sky, much as General Motors did. How could that happen? By endlessly beating the cow to get
more milk.
IBM was hiring right through the Great Depression such that It Did Not Pay Unemployment Insurance. Because it never laid people
off, Because until about 1990, your manager was responsible for making sure you had everything you needed to excel and grow....and
you would find people that had started on the loading dock and had become Senior Programmers. But then about 1990, IBM starting
paying unemployment insurance....just out of the goodness of its heart. Right.
1990 is also when H-1B visa rules were changed so that companies no longer had to even attempt to hire an American worker
as long as the job paid $60,000, which hasn't changed since. This article doesn't even mention how our work visa system facilitated
and even rewarded this abuse of Americans.
I found that other Ex-IBMer's respect other Ex-IBMer's work ethics, knowledge and initiative.
Other companies are happy to get them as a valueable resource. In '89 when our Palo Alto Datacenter moved, we were given two
options: 1.) to become a Programmer (w/training) 2.) move to Boulder or 3.) to leave.
I got my training with programming experience and left IBM in '92, when for 4 yrs IBM offerred really good incentives for leaving
the company. The Executives thought that the IBM Mainframe/MVS z/OS+ was on the way out and the Laptop (Small but Increasing Capacity)
Computer would take over everything.
It didn't. It did allow many skilled IBMers to succeed outside of IBM and help built up our customer skill sets. And like many,
when the opportunity arose to return I did. In '91 I was accidentally given a male co-workers paycheck and that was one of the
reasons for leaving. During my various Contract work outside, I bumped into other male IBMer's that had left too, some I had trained,
and when they disclosed that it was their salary (which was 20-40%) higher than mine was the reason they left, I knew I had made
the right decision.
Women tend to under-value themselves and their capabilities. Contracting also taught me that companies that had 70% employees
and 30% contractors, meant that contractors would be let go if they exceeded their quarterly expenditures.
I first contracted with IBM in '98 and when I decided to re-join IBM '01, I had (3) job offers and I took the most lucrative
exciting one to focus on fixing & improving DB2z Qry Parallelism. I developed a targeted L3 Technical Change Team to help L2 Support
reduce Customer problems reported and improve our product. The instability within IBM remained and I saw IBM try to eliminate
aging, salaried, benefited employees. The 1.) find a job within IBM ... to 2.) to leave ... was now standard.
While my salary had more than doubled since I left IBM the first time, it still wasn't near other male counterparts. The continual
rating competition based on salary ranged titles and timing a title raise after a round of layoffs, not before. I had another
advantage going and that was that my changed reduced retirement benefits helped me stay there. It all comes down to the numbers
that Mgmt is told to cut & save IBM. While much of this article implies others were hired, at our Silicon Valley Location and
other locations, they had no intent to backfill. So the already burdened employees were laden with more workloads & stress.
In the early to mid 2000's IBM setup a counter lab in China where they were paying 1/4th U.S. salaries and many SVL IBMers
went to CSDL to train our new world 24x7 support employees. But many were not IBM loyal and their attrition rates were very high,
so it fell to a wave of new-hires at SVL to help address it.
It's all about making the numbers so the management can present a Potemkin Village of profits and ever-increasing growth
sufficient to get bonuses. There is no relation to any sort of quality or technological advancement, just HR 3-card monte. They
have installed air bearing in Old Man Watson's coffin as it has been spinning ever faster
Corporate America executive management is all about stock price management. Their bonus's in the millions of dollars are
based on stock performance. With IBM's poor revenue performance since Ginny took over, profits can only be maintained by cost
reduction. Look at the IBM executive's bonus's throughout the last 20 years and you can see that all resource actions have been
driven by Palmisano's and Rominetty's greed for extravagant bonus's.
Bravo ProPublica for another "sock it to them" article - journalism in honor of the spirit of great newspapers everywhere that
the refuge of justice in hard times is with the press.
Also worth noting is that IBM drastically cut the cap on it's severance pay calculation. Almost enough to make me regret
not having retired before that changed.
You need to investigate AT&T as well, as they did the same thing. I was 'sold' by IBM to AT&T as part of he Network Services
operation. AT&T got rid of 4000 of the 8000 US employees sent to AT&T within 3 years. Nearly everyone of us was a 'senior' employee.
As a permanent old contractor and free-enterprise defender myself, I don't blame IBM a bit for wanting to cut the fat. But
for the outright *lies, deception and fraud* that they use to break laws, weasel out of obligations... really just makes me want
to shoot them... and I never even worked for them.
Where I worked, In Rochester,MN, people have known what is happening for years. My last years with IBM were the most depressing
time in my life.
I hear a rumor that IBM would love to close plants they no longer use but they are so environmentally polluted that it is cheaper
to maintain than to clean up and sell.
One of the biggest driving factors in age discrimination is health insurance costs, not salary. It can cost 4-5x as much to
insure and older employee vs. a younger one, and employers know this. THE #1 THING WE CAN DO TO STOP AGE DISCRIMINATION IS TO
MOVE AWAY FROM OUR EMPLOYER-PROVIDED INSURANCE SYSTEM. It could be single-payer, but it could also be a robust individual market
with enough pool diversification to make it viable. Freeing employers from this cost burden would allow them to pick the right
talent regardless of age.
The American business have constantly fought against single payer since the end of World War II and why should I feel sorry
for them when all of a sudden, they are complaining about health care costs? It is outrageous that workers have to face age discrimination;
however, the CEOs don't have to deal with that issue since they belong to a tiny group of people who can land a job anywhere else.
Single payer won't help. We have single payer in Canada and just as much age discrimination in employment. Society in general
does not like older people so unless you're a doctor, judge or pharmacist you will face age bias. It's even worse in popular culture
never mind in employment.
Thanks for the great article. I left IBM last year. USA based. 49. Product Manager in one of IBMs strategic initiatives, however
got told to relocate or leave. I found another job and left. I came to IBM from an acquisition. My only regret is, I wish I had
left this toxic environment earlier. It truely is a dreadful place to work.
The methodology has trickled down to smaller companies pursuing the same net results for headcount reduction. The similarities
to my experience were painful to read. The grief I felt after my job was "eliminated" 10 years ago while the Recession was at
its worst and shortly after my 50th birthday was coming back. I never have recovered financially but have started writing a murder
mystery. The first victim? The CEO who let me go. It's true. Revenge is best served cold.
Well written . people like me have experienced exactly what you wrote. IBM is a shadow of it's former greatness and I have
advised my children to stay away from IBM and companies like it as they start their careers. IBM is a corrupt company. Shame on
them !
I suspect someone will end up hunt them down with an axe at some point. That's the only way they'll probably learn. I don't
know about IBM specifically, but when Carly Fiorina ran HP, she travelled with and even went into engineering labs with an armed
security detail.
Was let go after 34 years of service. Mine Resource Action latter had additional lines after '...unless you are offered ...
position within IBM before that date.' , implying don't even try to look for a position. They lines were ' Additional business
controls are in effect to manage the business objectives of this resource action, therefore, job offers within (the name of division)
will be highly unlikely.'.
I've worked for a series of vendors for over thirty years. A job at IBM used to be the brass ring; nowadays, not so much.
I've heard persistent rumors from IBMers that U.S. headcount is below 25,000 nowadays. Given events like the recent downtime
of the internal systems used to order parts (5 or so days--website down because staff who maintained it were let go without replacements),
it's hard not to see the spiral continue down the drain.
What I can't figure out is whether Rometty and cronies know what they're doing or are just clueless. Either way, the result
is the same: destruction of a once-great company and brand. Tragic.
Well, none of these layoffs/ageist RIFs affect the execs, so they don't see the effects, or they see the effects but attribute
them to some other cause.
(I'm surprised the article doesn't address this part of the story; how many affected by layoffs are exec/senior management?
My bet is very few.)
I was a D-banded exec (Director-level) who was impacted and I know even some VPs who were affected as well, so they do spread
the pain, even in the exec ranks.
That's different than I have seen in companies I have worked for (like HP). There RIFs (Reduction In Force, their acronym for
layoff) went to the director level and no further up.
IMHO this is perilous for RHEL. It would be very easy for IBM to fire most of the
developers and just latch on to the enterprise services stuff to milk it till its dry.
Why would you say that? IBM is renowned for their wonderful employee relations.
</s>
If I were a Red Hat employee over 40, I'd be sweating right now.
blockquote> We run just about everything on CentOS around here, downstream of
RHEL. Should we be worried?
I don't think so, at least no more than you should have already been. IBM has adopted RHEL
as their standard platform for a lot of things, all the way up to big-iron mainframes. Not to
mention, over the two decades, they've done a hell of a lot of enhancements to Linux that are
a big part of why it scales so well (Darl Mcbride just felt like someone walked over his
grave. Hey, let's jump on it a bit too!).
Say what you like about IBM (like they've turned into a super-shitty place to work for or
be a customer of), but they've been a damn good friend to Linux. If I actually worked for Red
Hat though, I would be really unhappy because you can bet that "independence" will last a few
quarters before everyone gets outsourced to Brazil.
Brazil is too expensive. Last time I heard, they were outsourcing from Brazil to chapear
LA countries...
IBM are paying around 12x annual revenue for Red Hat which is a significant multiple so
they will have to squeeze more money out of the business somehow. Either they grow
customers or they increase margins or both.
IBM had little choice but to do something like this. They are in a terminal spiral
thanks to years of bad leadership. The confused billing of the purchase smacks of rush, so
far I have seen Red Hat described as a cloud company, an info sec company, an open source
company...
So IBM are buying Red Hat as a last chance bid to avoid being put through the PE
threshing machine. Red Hat get a ludicrous premium so will take the money.
And RH customers will want to check their contracts...
They will lay off Redhat staff to cut costs and replace them with remote programmers
living in Calcutta. To big corporations a programmer is a fungible item, if you can swap
programmer A woth programmer B at 1/4 the cost its a big win and you beat earnings estimate
by a penny.
No good will come from this. IBM's corporate environment and financial near-sightedness
will kill Red Hat. Time to start looking for a new standard bearer in Linux for business.
This will kill both companies. Red has trouble making money and IBM has trouble not
messing up what good their is and trouble making money. They both die, but a slow, possibly
accelerating, death.
F or nearly a half century, IBM came as close as any company to bearing the torch for the American Dream.
As the world's dominant technology firm, payrolls at International Business Machines Corp. swelled to nearly a quarter-million
U.S. white-collar workers in the 1980s. Its profits helped underwrite a broad agenda of racial equality, equal pay for women and
an unbeatable offer of great wages and something close to lifetime employment, all in return for unswerving loyalty.
But when high tech suddenly started shifting and companies went global, IBM faced the changing landscape with a distinction most
of its fiercest competitors didn't have: a large number of experienced and aging U.S. employees.
The company reacted with a strategy that, in the words of one confidential planning document, would "correct seniority mix." It
slashed IBM's U.S. workforce by as much as three-quarters from its 1980s peak, replacing a substantial share with younger, less-experienced
and lower-paid workers and sending many positions overseas. ProPublica estimates that in the past five years alone, IBM has eliminated
more than 20,000 American employees ages 40 and over, about 60 percent of its estimated total U.S. job cuts during those years.
In making these cuts, IBM has flouted or outflanked U.S. laws and regulations intended to protect later-career workers from age
discrimination, according to a ProPublica review of internal company documents, legal filings and public records, as well as information
provided via interviews and questionnaires filled out by more than 1,000 former IBM employees.
Among ProPublica's findings, IBM:
Denied older workers information the law says they need in order to decide whether they've been victims of age bias, and required
them to sign away the right to go to court or join with others to seek redress. Targeted people for layoffs and firings with techniques
that tilted against older workers, even when the company rated them high performers. In some instances, the money saved from the
departures went toward hiring young replacements. Converted job cuts into retirements and took steps to boost resignations and firings.
The moves reduced the number of employees counted as layoffs, where high numbers can trigger public disclosure requirements. Encouraged
employees targeted for layoff to apply for other IBM positions, while quietly advising managers not to hire them and requiring many
of the workers to train their replacements. Told some older employees being laid off that their skills were out of date, but then
brought them back as contract workers, often for the same work at lower pay and fewer benefits.
IBM declined requests for the numbers or age breakdown of its job cuts. ProPublica provided the company with a 10-page summary
of its findings and the evidence on which they were based. IBM spokesman Edward Barbini said that to respond the company needed to
see copies of all documents cited in the story, a request ProPublica could not fulfill without breaking faith with its sources. Instead,
ProPublica provided IBM with detailed descriptions of the paperwork. Barbini declined to address the documents or answer specific
questions about the firm's policies and practices, and instead issued the following statement:
"We are proud of our company and our employees' ability to reinvent themselves era after era, while always complying with the
law. Our ability to do this is why we are the only tech company that has not only survived but thrived for more than 100 years."
With nearly 400,000 people worldwide, and tens of thousands still in the U.S., IBM remains a corporate giant. How it handles the
shift from its veteran baby-boom workforce to younger generations will likely influence what other employers do. And the way it treats
its experienced workers will eventually affect younger IBM employees as they too age.
Fifty years ago, Congress made it illegal with the Age Discrimination
in Employment Act , or ADEA, to treat older workers differently than younger ones with only a few exceptions, such as jobs that
require special physical qualifications. And for years, judges and policymakers treated the law as essentially on a par with prohibitions
against discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation and other categories.
In recent decades, however, the courts have responded to corporate pleas for greater leeway to meet global competition and satisfy
investor demands for rising profits by expanding the exceptions and
shrinking
the protections against age bias .
"Age discrimination is an open secret like sexual harassment was until recently," said Victoria Lipnic, the acting chair of the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or EEOC, the independent federal agency that administers the nation's workplace anti-discrimination
laws.
"Everybody knows it's happening, but often these cases are difficult to prove" because courts have weakened the law, Lipnic said.
"The fact remains it's an unfair and illegal way to treat people that can be economically devastating."
Many companies have sought to take advantage of the court rulings. But the story of IBM's downsizing provides an unusually detailed
portrait of how a major American corporation systematically identified employees to coax or force out of work in their 40s, 50s and
60s, a time when many are still productive and need a paycheck, but face huge hurdles finding anything like comparable jobs.
The dislocation caused by IBM's cuts has been especially great because until recently the company encouraged its employees to
think of themselves as "IBMers" and many operated under the assumption that they had career-long employment.
When the ax suddenly fell, IBM provided almost no information about why an employee was cut or who else was departing, leaving
people to piece together what had happened through websites, listservs and Facebook groups such as "Watching IBM" or "Geographically
Undesirable IBM Marketers," as well as informal support groups.
Marjorie Madfis, at the time 57, was a New York-based digital marketing strategist and 17-year IBM employee when she and six other
members of her nine-person team -- all women in their 40s and 50s -- were laid off in July 2013. The two who remained were younger
men.
Since her specialty was one that IBM had said it was expanding, she asked for a written explanation of why she was let go. The
company declined to provide it.
"They got rid of a group of highly skilled, highly effective, highly respected women, including me, for a reason nobody knows,"
Madfis said in an interview. "The only explanation is our age."
Brian Paulson, also 57, a senior manager with 18 years at IBM, had been on the road for more than a year overseeing hundreds of
workers across two continents as well as hitting his sales targets for new services, when he got a phone call in October 2015 telling
him he was out. He said the caller, an executive who was not among his immediate managers, cited "performance" as the reason, but
refused to explain what specific aspects of his work might have fallen short.
It took Paulson two years to land another job, even though he was equipped with an advanced degree, continuously employed at high-level
technical jobs for more than three decades and ready to move anywhere from his Fairview, Texas, home.
"It's tough when you've worked your whole life," he said. "The company doesn't tell you anything. And once you get to a certain
age, you don't hear a word from the places you apply."
Paul Henry, a 61-year-old IBM sales and technical specialist who loved being on the road, had just returned to his Columbus home
from a business trip in August 2016 when he learned he'd been let go. When he asked why, he said an executive told him to "keep your
mouth shut and go quietly."
Henry was jobless more than a year, ran through much of his savings to cover the mortgage and health insurance and applied for
more than 150 jobs before he found a temporary slot.
"If you're over 55, forget about preparing for retirement," he said in an interview. "You have to prepare for losing your job
and burning through every cent you've saved just to get to retirement."
IBM's latest actions aren't anything like what most ex-employees with whom ProPublica talked expected from their years of service,
or what today's young workers think awaits them -- or are prepared to deal with -- later in their careers.
"In a fast-moving economy, employers are always going to be tempted to replace older workers with younger ones, more expensive
workers with cheaper ones, those who've performed steadily with ones who seem to be up on the latest thing," said Joseph Seiner,
an employment law professor at the University of South Carolina and former appellate attorney for the EEOC.
"But it's not good for society," he added. "We have rules to try to maintain some fairness in our lives, our age-discrimination
laws among them. You can't just disregard them."
When it comes to employment claims, studies have found that arbitrators overwhelmingly favor
employers.
Research by Cornell University law and labor relations specialist Alexander Colvin found
that workers win
only 19 percent of the time when their cases are arbitrated. By contrast,
they win 36 percent of the time when they go to federal court, and 57 percent in state
courts. Average payouts when an employee wins follow a similar pattern.
Given those odds, and having signed away their rights to go to court, some laid-off IBM
workers have chosen the one independent forum companies can't deny them: the U.S. Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission. That's where Moos, the Long Beach systems security
specialist, and several of her colleagues, turned for help when they were laid off. In their
complaints to the agency, they said they'd suffered age discrimination because of the company's
effort to "drastically change the IBM employee age mix to be seen as a startup."
In its formal reply to the EEOC, IBM said that age couldn't have been a factor in their
dismissals. Among the reasons it cited: The managers who decided on the layoffs were in their
40s and therefore older too.
This makes for absolutely horrifying, chills-down-your-spine reading. A modern corporate horror story - worthy of a 'Black Mirror'
episode. Phenomenal reporting by Ariana Tobin and Peter Gosselin. Thank you for exposing this. I hope this puts an end to this
at IBM and makes every other company and industry doing this in covert and illegal ways think twice about continuing.
Agree..a well written expose'. I've been a victim of IBM's "PIP" (Performance Improvement Plan) strategy, not because of my real
performance mind you, but rather, I wasn't billing hours between projects and it was hurting my unit's bottom line. The way IBM
instructs management to structure the PIP, it's almost impossible to dig your way out, and it's intentional. If you have a PIP
on your record, nobody in IBM wants to touch you, so in effect you're already gone.
I see the PIP problem as its nearly impossible to take the fact that we know PIP is a scam to court. IBM will say its an issue
with you, your performance nose dived and your manager tried to fix that. You have to not only fight those simple statements,
but prove that PIP is actually systematic worker abuse.
Cindy, they've been doing this for at least 15-20 years, or even longer according to some of the previous comments. It is
in fact a modern corporate horror story; it's also life at a modern corporation, period.
After over 35 years working there, 19 of them as a manager sending out more of those notification letters than I care to remember,
I can vouch for the accuracy of this investigative work. It's an incredibly toxic and hostile environment and has been for the
last 5 or so years. One of the items I was appraised on annually was how many US jobs I moved offshore. It was a relief when I
received my notification letter after a two minute phone call telling me it was on the way. Sleeping at night and looking myself
in the mirror aren't as hard as they were when I worked there.
IBM will never regain any semblance of their former glory (or profit) until they begin to treat employees well again.
With all the offshoring and resource actions with no backfill over the last 10 years, so much is broken. Customers suffer almost
as much as the employees.
I don't know how in the world they ended up on that LinkedIn list. Based on my fairly recent experience there are a half dozen
happy employees in the US, and most of them are C level.
Well done. It squares well with my 18 years at IBM, watching resource action after resource action and hearing what my (unusually
honest) manager told me. Things got progressively worse from 2012 onward. I never realized how stressful it was to live under
the shadow of impending layoffs until I finally found the courage to leave in 2015. Best decision I've made.
IBM answers to its shareholders, period. Employees are an afterthought - simply a means to an end. It's shameful. (That's not
to say that individual people managers feel that way. I'm speaking about IBM executives.)
Well, they almost answer to their shareholders, but that's after the IBM executives take their share. Ginni's compensation is
tied to stock price (apparently not earnings) and buy backs maintain the stock price.
If the criteria for layoff is being allegedly overpaid and allegedly a poor performer, then it follows that Grinnin' Jenny should
have been let go long ago.
Just another fine example of how people become disposable.
And, when it comes to cost containment and profit maximization, there is no place for ethics in American business.
Businesses can lie just as well as politicians.
Millennials are smart to avoid this kind of problem by remaining loyal only to themselves. Companies certainly define anyone
as replaceable - even their over-paid CEO's.
The millennials saw what happen to their parents and grandparents getting screwed over after a life time of work and loyalty.
You can't blame them for not caring about so called traditional American work ethics and then they are attacked for not having
them when the business leaders threw away all those value decades ago.
Some of these IBM people have themselves to blame for cutting their own economic throats for fighting against unions, putting
in politicians who are pro-business and thinking that their education and high paying white collar STEM jobs will give them economic
immunity.
If America was more of a free market and free enterprise instead of being more of a close market of oligarchies and monopolies,
and strong government regulations, companies would think twice about treating their workforce badly because they know their workforce
would leave for other companies or start up their own companies without too much of a hassle.
Under the old IBM you could not get a union as workers were treated with dignity and respect - see the 3 core beliefs. Back
then a union would not have accomplished anything.
Doesn't matter if it was the old IBM or new IBM, you wonder how many still actually voted against their economic interests in
the political elections that in the long run undermine labor rights in this country.
So one shouldn't vote? Neither party cares about the average voter except at election time. Both sell out to Big Business - after
all, that's where the big campaign donations come from. If you believe only one party favors Big Business, then you have been
watching to much "fake news". Even the unions know they have been sold out by both and are wising up. How many of those jobs were
shipped overseas the past 25 years.
No, they should have been more active in voting for politicians who would look after the workers' rights in this country for the
last 38 years plus ensuring that Congressional people and the president would not be packing the court system with pro-business
judges. Sorry, but it is the Big Business that have been favoring the Republican Party for a long, long time and the jobs have
been shipped out for the last 38 years.
Age discrimination has been standard operating procedure in IT for at least 30 years. And
there are no significant consequences, if any consequences at all, for doing it in a blatant
fashion. The companies just need to make sure the quota of H1B visas is increased when they
are doing this on an IBM scale!
Age discrimination and a myriad other forms of discrimination have been standard operating
procedure in the US. Period. Full stop. No need to equivocate.
I recall, back in the mid-1960s, encountering employees of major major corporations like IBM,
US Steel, the Big Three in Detroit, etc, There was a certain smugness there. I recall hearing
bragging about the awesome retirement incomes. Yes, I was jealous. But I also had a clear eye
as to the nature of the beast they were working for, and I kept thinking of the famous
limerick:
There was a young lady of Niger Who smiled as she rode on a Tiger; They came back from the ride With the lady inside, And the smile on the face of the Tiger.
As an ex-IBM employee, I was given a package ( 6 months pay and a "transition" course)
because I was getting paid too much or so I was told. I was part of a company (oil industry)
that outsourced it's IT infrastructure support personnel and on several occasions was told by
my IBM management that they just don't know what to do with employees who make the kind of
money I do when we can do it much cheaper somewhere else (meaning offshore).
Eventually all
the people who I worked with that were outsourced to IBM were packaged off and all of our
jobs were sent offshore. I just turned 40 and found work back in the oil industry. In the
short time I was with IBM I found their benefits very restricted, their work policies very
bureaucratic and the office culture very old boys club.
If you weren't part of IBM and were
an outsourced employee, you didn't fit in. At the time I thought IBM was the glory company in
IT to work for, but quickly found out they are just a dinosaur. It's just a matter of time
for them.
"... There's not an intrinsic advantage to being of a certain nationality, American included. Sure, there are a lot of bad companies and bad programmers coming from India, but there are plenty of incompetent developers right here too. ..."
"... A huge problem with the good developers over there is the lack of English proficiency and soft skills. However, being born or graduated in Calcutta (or anywhere else for that matter) is not a determination of one's skill. ..."
"... I get what the intention of the first comment was intended to be, but it still has that smugness that is dangerous to the American future. As the world becomes more interconnected, and access to learning improves, when people ask you why are you better than that other guy, the answer better be something more than "well, I'm American and he is from Calcutta" because no one is going to buy that. The comment could've said that to a bean counter a solid developer with 10 years of experience is worth the same as a junior dev who just came out of school and make the same point. What exactly was the objective of throwing in Calcutta over there? ..."
"... I have dealt with this far too much these VPs rarely do much work and simply are hit on bottom line ( you are talking about 250k+), but management in US doesn't want to sit off hours and work with India office so they basically turn a blind eye on them. ..."
No good will come from this. IBM's corporate environment and financial near-sightedness will kill Red Hat. Time
to start looking for a new standard bearer in Linux for business.
I agree. Redhat has dev offices all over. A lot of them in higher cost areas of the US and Europe. There's no way
IBM doesn't consolidate and offshore a bunch of that work.
This. To a bean counter a developer in a RH office in North America or Europe who's been coding for RH for 10 years
is valued same as a developer in Calcutta who just graduated from college. For various definitions of word 'graduated'.
I'm just waiting until some major company decides that some of the nicer parts of middle America/Appalachia can be a
LOT cheaper, still nice, and let them pay less in total while keeping some highly skilled employees.
I don't know about that. Cities can be expensive but part of the reason is that a lot of people want to live there, and
supply/demand laws start acting. You'll be able to get some talent no doubt, but a lot of people who live nearby big cities
wouldn't like to leave all the quality of life elements you have there, like entertainment, cultural events, shopping, culinary
variety, social events, bigger dating scene, assorted array of bars and night clubs, theatre, opera, symphonies, international
airports... you get the drift.
I understand everyone is different, but you would actually need to pay me more to move to a smaller town in middle America.
I also work with people who would take the offer without hesitation, but in my admittedly anecdotal experience, more tech people
prefer the cities than small towns. Finally, if you do manage to get some traction in getting the people and providing the
comforts, then you're just going to get the same increase in cost of living wherever you are because now you're just in one
more big city.
Costs of life are a problem, but we need to figure out how to properly manage them, instead of just saying "lets move them
somewhere else". Also we shouldn't discount the capability of others, because going by that cost argument outsourcing becomes
attractive. The comment you're replying to tries to diminish Indian engineers, but the reverse can still be true. A developer
in India who has been working for 10 years costs even less than an American who just graduated, for various definitions of
graduated. There's over a billion people over there, and the Indian Institutes of Technology are nothing to scoff at.
There's not an intrinsic advantage to being of a certain nationality, American included. Sure, there are a lot of bad
companies and bad programmers coming from India, but there are plenty of incompetent developers right here too. It's just
that there are a lot more in general over there and they would come for cheap, so in raw numbers it seems overwhelming, but
that sword cuts both ways, the raw number of competent ones is also a lot.
About 5% of the American workforce are scientists and engineers, which make a bit over 7 million people. The same calculation
in India brings you to almost 44 million people.
A huge problem with the good developers over there is the lack of English proficiency and soft skills. However, being
born or graduated in Calcutta (or anywhere else for that matter) is not a determination of one's skill.
I get what the intention of the first comment was intended to be, but it still has that smugness that is dangerous to
the American future. As the world becomes more interconnected, and access to learning improves, when people ask you why are
you better than that other guy, the answer better be something more than "well, I'm American and he is from Calcutta" because
no one is going to buy that. The comment could've said that to a bean counter a solid developer with 10 years of experience
is worth the same as a junior dev who just came out of school and make the same point. What exactly was the objective of throwing
in Calcutta over there? Especially when we then move to a discussion about how costly it is to pay salaries in America.
Sounds a bit counterproductive if you ask me.
I think a lot of the dislike for Indian developers is that they usually are the outsourced to cheap as possible code monkey
developers. Which can be a problem anywhere, for sure, but at least seem exacerbated by US companies outsourcing there. In my
limited experience, they're either intelligent and can work up to working reasonably independently and expanding on a ticket intelligently.
Or they're copy a pasta code monkey and need pretty good supervision of the code that's produced. Add in the problem if timezones
and folks who may not understand English that great, or us not understanding their English, and it all gives them a bad name.
Yet I agree, I know some quite good developers. Ones that didn't go to a US college.
My impression, totally anecdotal, is that unless you can hire or move a very good architect/lead + project/product manager
over there so you can interact in real-time instead of with a day delay, it's just a huge PITA and slows things down. Personally
I'd rather hire a couple of seemingly competent 3 years out of college on their 2nd job (because they rarely stay very long at
their first one, right?) and pay from there.
Companies/management offshore because it keep revenue per employee and allows them to be promoted by inflating their direct
report allowing them to build another "cheap" pyramid hierarchy. A manager in US can become a director or VP easily by having
few managers report to him from India. Even better this person can go to India ( they are most often Indian) and claim to lead
the India office and improve outsourcing while getting paid US salary.
I have dealt with this far too much these VPs rarely do much work and simply are hit on bottom line ( you are talking about
250k+), but management in US doesn't want to sit off hours and work with India office so they basically turn a blind eye on them.
Outstanding. I had to train people in IBM India to do my job when (early) "retired". I actually found a new internal job in IBM,
the hiring manager wrote/chat that I was a fit. I was denied the job because my current group said I had to transfer and the receiving
group said I had to be on a contract, stalemate! I appealed and group HR said sorry, can't do and gave me one reason after another,
that I could easily refute, then they finally said the job was to be moved overseas. Note most open jobs posted were categorized
for global resources. I appealed to Randy (former HR SVP) and no change. At least I foced them to finally tell the truth. I had
also found another job locally near home and received an email from the HR IBM person responsible for the account saying no, they
were considering foreigners first, if they found no one suitable they would then consider Americans. I appealed to my IBM manager
who basically said sorry, that is how things are now. All in writing, so no more pretending it is a skill issue. People, it is
and always has been about cheap labor. I recall when a new IBM technology began, Websphere, and I was sent for a month's training.
Then in mid-2000's training and raises pretty much stopped and that was when resource actions were stepped up.
IBM is bad, but it's just the tip of the iceberg. I worked for a major international company that dumped almost the entire IT
workforce and replaced them with "managed services", almost exclusively H-1B workers from almost exclusively India. This has been
occurring for decades in many, MANY businesses around the country large and small. Even this article seems to make a special effort
to assure us that "some" workers laid off in America were replaced with "younger, less experienced, lower-paid American workers
and moving many other jobs overseas." How many were replaced with H-1B, H-4 EAD, OPT, L-1, etc? It's by abusing these work visa
programs that companies facilitate moving the work overseas in the first place. I appreciate this article, but I think it's disingenuous
for ProPublica to ignore the elephant in the room - work visa abuse. Why not add a question or two to your polls about that? It
wouldn't be hard. For example, "Do you feel that America's work visa programs had an impact on your employment at IBM? Do you
feel it has had an impact on your ability to regain employment after leaving IBM?" I'd like to see the answer to THOSE questions.
These practices are "interesting". And people still wonder why there are so many deadly amok
runs at US companies? What do they expect when they replace old and experienced workers with
inexperienced millenials, who often lack basic knowledge about their job? Better performance?
This will run US tech companies into the ground. This sort of "American" HR management is
gaining ground here in Germany as well, its troubling. And on top they have to compete against
foreign tech immigrants from middle eastern and asian companies. Sure fire recipe for social
unrest and people voting for right-wing parties.
I too was a victim of IBM's underhanded trickery to get rid of people...39 years with IBM,
a top performer. I never got a letter telling me to move to Raleigh. All i got was a phone
call asking me if i wanted to take the 6 month exception to consider it. Yet, after taking the
6 month exception, I was told I could no longer move, the colocation was closed. Either I find
another job, not in Marketing support (not even Marketing) or leave the company. I received no
letter from Ginni, nothing. I was under the impression I could show up in Raleigh after the
exception period. Not so. It was never explained....After 3 months I will begin contracting
with IBM. Not because I like them, because I need the money...thanks for the article.
dropped in 2013 after 22 years. IBM stopped leading in the late 1980's, afterwards it
implemented "market driven quality" which meant listen for the latest trends, see what other
people were doing, and then buy the competition or drive them out of business. "Innovation that
matters": it's only interesting if an IBM manager can see a way to monetize it.
That's a low standard. It's OK, there are other places that are doing better. In fact, the
best of the old experienced people went to work there. Newsflash: quality doesn't change with
generations, you either create it or you don't.
Sounds like IBM is building its product portfolio to match its desired workforce. And of
course, on every round of layoffs, the clear criterion was people who were compliant and
pliable - who's ready to follow orders ? Best of luck.
I agree with many who state the report is well done. However, this crap started in the early
1990s. In the late 1980s, IBM offered decent packages to retirement eligible employees. For
those close to retirement age, it was a great deal - 2 weeks pay for every year of service
(capped at 26 years) plus being kept on to perform their old job for 6 months (while
collecting retirement, until the government stepped in an put a halt to it). Nobody eligible
was forced to take the package (at least not to general knowledge). The last decent package
was in 1991 - similar, but not able to come back for 6 months.
However, in 1991, those offered the package were basically told take it or else. Anyone
with 30 years of service or 15 years and 55 was eligible and anyone within 5 years of
eligibility could "bridge" the difference.
They also had to sign a form stating they would not sue IBM in order to get up to a years
pay - not taxable per IRS documents back then (but IBM took out the taxes anyway and the IRS
refused to return - an employee group had hired lawyers to get the taxes back, a failed
attempt which only enriched the lawyers).
After that, things went downhill and accelerated when Gerstner took over. After 1991,
there were still a some workers who could get 30 years or more, but that was more the
exception. I suspect the way the company has been run the past 25 years or so has the Watsons
spinning in their graves. Gone are the 3 core beliefs - "Respect for the individual",
"Service to the customer" and "Excellence must be a way of life".
could be true... but i thought Watson was the IBM data analytics computer thingy... beat two
human players at Jeopardy on live tv a year or two or so back.. featured on 60 Minutes just
around last year.... :
IBM's policy reminds me of the "If a citizen = 30 y.o., then mass execute such, else if they
run then hunt and kill them one by one" social policy in the Michael York movie "Logan's
Run."
From Wiki, in case you don't know: "It depicts a utopian future society on the surface,
revealed as a dystopia where the population and the consumption of resources are maintained
in equilibrium by killing everyone who reaches the age of 30. The story follows the actions
of Logan 5, a "Sandman" who has terminated others who have attempted to escape death, and is
now faced with termination himself."
"... The annual unemployment rate topped 8% in 1975 and would reach nearly 10% in 1982. The economy seemed trapped in the new nightmare of stagflation," so called because it combined low economic growth and high unemployment ("stagnation") with high rates of inflation. And the prime rate hit 20% by 1980. ..."
If anything, IBM is behind the curve. I was terminated along with my entire department from a
major IBM subcontractor, with all affected employees "coincidentally" being over 50. By
"eliminating the department" and forcing me to sign a waiver to receive my meager severance,
they avoided any legal repercussions. 18 months later on the dot (the minimum legal time
period), my workload was assigned to three new hires, all young. Interestingly, their
combined salaries are more than mine, and I could have picked up all their work for about
$200 in training (in social media posting, something I picked up on my own last year and am
doing quite well, thank you).
And my former colleagues are not alone. A lot of friends of mine have had similar
outcomes, and as the article states, no one will hire people my age willingly in my old
capacity. Luckily again, I've pivoted into copywriting--a discipline where age is still
associated with quality ("dang kids can't spell anymore!"). But I'm doing it freelance, with
the commensurate loss of security, benefits, and predictability of income.
So if IBM is doing this now, they are laggards. But because they're so big, there's a much
more obvious paper trail.
One of the most in-depth, thoughtful and enlightening pieces of journalism I've seen. Having
worked on Capitol Hill during the early 1980's for the House and Senate Aging Committees, we
worked hard to abolish the remnants of mandatory retirement and to strengthen the protections
under the ADEA. Sadly, the EEOC has become a toothless bureaucracy when it comes to age
discrimination cases and the employers, as evidenced by the IBM case, have become
sophisticated in hiding what they're doing to older workers. Peter's incredibly well
researched article lays the case out for all to see. Now the question is whether the
government will step up to its responsibilities and protect older workers from this kind of
discrimination in the future. Peter has done a great service in any case.
The US tech sector has mostly ignored US citizen applicants, of all ages, since the early
2000s. Instead, preferring to hire foreign nationals. The applications of top US citizen
grads are literally thrown in the garbage (or its electronic equivalent) while companies like
IBM have their hiring processes dominated by Indian nationals. IBM is absolutely a
poster-child for H-1B, L-1, and OPT visa abuse.
Bottom line is we have entered an era when there are only two classes who are protected in
our economy; the Investor Class and the Executive Class. With Wall Street's constant demand
for higher profits and increased shareholder value over all other business imperatives, rank
and file workers have been relegated to the class of expendable resource. I propose that all
of us over fifty who have been riffed out of Corporate America band together for the specific
purpose of beating the pants off them in the marketplace. The best revenge is whooping their
youngster butts at the customer negotiating table. By demonstrating we are still flexible and
nimble, yet with the experience to avoid the missteps of misspent youth, we prove we can
deliver value well beyond what narrow-minded bean counters can achieve.
I started at IBM 3 days out of college in 1979 and retired in 2017. I was satisfied with my
choice and never felt mistreated because I had no expectation of lifetime employment,
especially after the pivotal period in the 1990's when IBM almost went out of business. The
company survived that period by dramatically restructuring both manufacturing costs and sales
expense including the firing of tens of thousands of employees. These actions were well
documented in the business news of the time, the obvious alternative was bankruptcy.
I told the authors that anyone working at IBM after 1993 should have had no expectation of
a lifetime career. Downsizing, outsourcing, movement of work around the globe was already
commonplace at all such international companies. Any expectation of "loyalty", that two-way
relationship of employee/company from an earlier time, was wishful thinking. I was always
prepared to be sent packing, without cause, at any time and always had my resume up-to-date.
I stayed because of interesting work, respectful supervisors, and adequate compensation. The
"resource action" that forced my decision to retire was no surprise, the company that hired
me had been gone for decades.
With all the automation going on around the world, these business leaders better worry about
people not having money to buy their goods and services plus what are they going to do with
the surplus of labor
I had, more or less, the same experience at Cisco. They paid me to quit. Luckily, I was ready
for it.
The article mentions IBMs 3 failures. So who was it that was responsible for not
anticipating the transitions? It is hard enough doing what you already know. Perhaps
companies should be spending more on figuring out "what's next" and not continually playing
catch-up by dumping the older workers for the new.
I was laid off by IBM after 29 years and 4 months. I had received a division award in
previous year, and my last PBC appraisal was 2+ (high performer.) The company I left was not
the company I started with. Top management--starting with Gerstner--has steadily made IBM a
less desirable place to work. They now treat employees as interchangeable assets and nothing
more. I cannot/would not recommend IBM as an employer to any young programmer.
Truly awesome work. I do want to add one thing, however--the entire rhetoric about "too many
old white guys" that has become so common absolutely contributes to the notion that this sort
of behavior is not just acceptable but in some twisted way admirable as well.
Is anyone surprised that so many young people don't think capitalism is a good system any
more?
I ran a high technology electronic systems company for years. We ran it "the old way." If
you worked hard, and tried, we would bend over backwards to keep you. If technology or
business conditions eliminated your job, we would try to train you for a new one. Our people
were loyal, not like IBMers today. I honestly think that's the best way to be profitable.
People afraid of being unjustly RIFFed will always lack vitality.
I'm glad someone is finally paying attention to age discrimination. IBM apparently is just
one of many organizations that discriminate.
I'm in the middle of my own fight with the State University of New York (SUNY) over age
discrimination. I was terminated by a one of the technical colleges in the SUNY System. The
EEOC/New York State Division of Human Rights (NYDHR) found that "PROBABLE CAUSE (NYDHR's
emphasis) exists to believe that the Respondent (Alfred State College - SUNY) has engaged in
or is engaging in the unlawful discriminatory practice complained of." Investigators for
NYDHR interviewed several witnesses, who testified that representatives of the college made
statements such as "we need new faces", "three old men" attending a meeting, an older faculty
member described as an "albatross", and "we ought to get rid of the old white guys".
Witnesses said these statements were made by the Vice President of Academic Affairs and a
dean at the college.
This saga at IBM is simply a microcosm of our overall economy. Older workers get ousted in
favor of younger, cheaper workers; way too many jobs get outsourced; and so many workers
today [young and old] can barely land a full-time job.
This is the behavior that our system incentivises (and gets away with) in this post Reagan
Revolution era where deregulation is lauded and unions have been undermined & demonized.
We need to seriously re-work 'work', and in order to do this we need to purge Republicans at
every level, as they CLEARLY only serve corporate bottom-lines - not workers - by championing
tax codes that reward outsourcing, fight a livable minimum wage, eliminate pensions, bust
unions, fight pay equity for women & family leave, stack the Supreme Court with radical
ideologues who blatantly rule for corporations over people all the time, etc. etc. ~35 years
of basically uninterrupted Conservative economic policy & ideology has proven disastrous
for workers and our quality of life. As goes your middle class, so goes your country.
I am a retired IBM manager having had to execute many of these resource reduction programs..
too many.. as a matter of fact. ProPUBLICA....You nailed it!
IBM has always treated its customer-facing roles like Disney -- as cast members who need to
match a part in a play. In the 60s and 70s, it was the white-shirt, blue-suit white men whom
IBM leaders thought looked like mainframe salesmen. Now, rather than actually build a
credible cloud to compete with Amazon and Microsoft, IBM changes the cast to look like cloud
salespeople. (I work for Microsoft. Commenting for myself alone.)
I am a survivor, the rare employee who has been at IBM for over 35 years. I have seen many,
many layoff programs over 20 years now. I have seen tens of thousands people let go from the
Hudson Valley of N.Y. Those of us who have survived, know and lived through what this article
so accurately described. I currently work with 3 laid off/retired and rehired contractors. I
have seen age discrimination daily for over 15 years. It is not only limited to layoffs, it
is rampant throughout the company. Promotions, bonuses, transfers for opportunities, good
reviews, etc... are gone if you are over 45. I have seen people under 30 given promotions to
levels that many people worked 25 years for. IBM knows that these younger employees see how
they treat us so they think they can buy them off. Come to think of it, I guess they actually
are! They are ageist, there is no doubt, it is about time everyone knew. Excellent article.
Nice article, but seriously this is old news. IBM has been at this for ...oh twenty years or
more.
I don't really have a problem with it in terms of a corporation trying to make money. But I
do have a problem with how IBM also likes to avoid layoffs by giving folks over 40
intentionally poor reviews, essentially trying to drive people out. Just have the guts to
tell people, we don't need you anymore, bye. But to string people along as the overseas
workers come in...c'mon just be honest with your workers.
High tech over 40 is not easy...I suggest folks prep for a career change before 50. Then you
can have the last laugh on a company like IBM.
From pages 190-191 of my novel, Ordinary Man (Amazon):
Throughout
it all, layoffs became common, impacting mostly older employees with many years
of service. These job cuts were dribbled out in small numbers to conceal them
from the outside world, but employees could plainly see what was going on.
The laid off
employees were supplanted by offshoring work to low-costs countries and hiring
younger employees, often only on temporary contracts that offered low pay and
no benefits – a process pejoratively referred to by veteran employees as
"downsourcing." The recruitment of these younger workers was done under the
guise of bringing in fresh skills, but while many of the new hires brought new
abilities and vitality, they lacked the knowledge and perspective that comes
with experience.
Frequently,
an older more experienced worker would be asked to help educate newer
employees, only to be terminated shortly after completing the task. And the new
hires weren't fooled by what they witnessed and experienced at OpenSwitch,
perceiving very quickly that the company had no real interest in investing in
them for the long term. To the contrary, the objective was clearly to grind as
much work out of them as possible, without offering any hope of increased
reward or opportunity.
Most of the
young recruits left after only a year or two – which, again, was part of the
true agenda at the company. Senior management viewed employees not as talent,
but simply as cost, and didn't want anyone sticking around long enough to move
up the pay scale.
This is the nail in the coffin. As an IT manager responsible for selecting and purchasing
software, I will never again recommend IBM products. I love AIX and have worked with a lot if
IBM products but not anymore. Good luck with the millennials though...
I worked for four major corporations (HP, Intel, Control Data Corporation, and Micron
Semiconductor) before I was hired by IBM as a rare (at that time) experienced new hire. Even
though I ended up working for IBM for 21 years, and retired in 2013, because of my
experiences at those other companies, I never considered IBM my "family." The way I saw it,
every time I received a paycheck from IBM in exchange for two weeks' work, we were (almost)
even. I did not owe them anything else and they did not owe me anything. The idea of loyalty
between a corporation and an at-will employee makes no more sense than loyalty between a
motel and its guests. It is a business arrangement, not a love affair. Every individual needs
to continually assess their skills and their value to their employer. If they are not
commensurate, it is the employee's responsibility to either acquire new skills or seek a new
employer. Your employer will not hesitate to lay you off if your skills are no longer needed,
or if they can hire someone who can do your job just as well for less pay. That is free
enterprise, and it works for people willing to take advantage of it.
I basically agree. But why should it be OK for a company to fire you just to replace you with
a younger you? If all that they accomplish is lowering their health care costs (which is what
this is really about). If the company is paying about the same for the same work, why is
firing older workers for being older OK?
Good question. The point I was trying to make is that people need to watch out for themselves
and not expect their employer to do what is "best" for the employee. I think that is true
whatever age the employee happens to be.
Whether employers should be able to discriminate against (treat differently) their
employees based on age, gender, race, religion, etc. is a political question. Morally, I
don't think they should discriminate. Politically, I think it is a slippery slope when the
government starts imposing regulations on free enterprise. Government almost always creates
more problems than they fix.
Sorry, but when you deregulate the free enterprise, it created more problems than it fixes
and that is a fact that has been proven for the last 38 years.
That's just plain false. Deregulation creates competiiton. Competition for talented and
skilled workers creates opportunities for those that wish to be employed and for those that
wish to start new ventures. For example, when Ma Bell was regulated and had a monopoly on
telecommunications there was no innovation in the telecom inudstry. However, when it was
deregulated, cell phones, internet, etc exploded ... creating billionaires and millionaires
while also improving the quality of life.
No, it happens to be true. When Reagan deregulate the economy, a lot of those corporate
raiders just took over the companies, sold off the assets, and pocketed the money. What
quality of life? Half of American lived near the poverty level and the wages for the workers
have been stagnant for the last 38 years compared to a well-regulated economy in places like
Germany and the Scandinavian countries where the workers have good wages and a far better
standard of living than in the USA. Why do you think the Norwegians told Trump that they will
not be immigrating to the USA anytime soon?
What were the economic conditions before Regan? It was a nightmare before Regan.
The annual unemployment rate topped 8% in 1975 and would reach nearly 10% in 1982. The
economy seemed trapped in the new nightmare of stagflation," so called because it combined
low economic growth and high unemployment ("stagnation") with high rates of inflation. And
the prime rate hit 20% by 1980.
At least we had a manufacturing base in the USA, strong regulations of corporations,
corporate scandals were far and few, businesses did not go under so quickly, prices of goods
and services did not go through the roof, people had pensions and could reasonably live off
them, and recessions did not last so long or go so deep until Reagan came into office. In
Under Reagan, the jobs were allowed to be send overseas, unions were busted up, pensions were
reduced or eliminated, wages except those of the CEOs were staganent, and the economic
conditions under Bush, Senior and Bush, Jr. were no better except that Bush, Jr, was the
first president to have a net minus below zero growth, so every time we get a Republican
Administration, the economy really turns into a nightmare. That is a fact.
You have the Republicans in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin using Reaganomics and they are
economic disaster areas.
You had an industrial base in the USA, lots of banks and savings and loans to choose from,
lots of mom and pop stores, strong government regulation of the economy, able to live off
your pensions, strong unions and employment laws along with the court system to back you up
against corporate malfeasance. All that was gone when Reagan and the two Bushes came into
office.
Amazingly accurate article. The once great IBM now a dishonest and unscrupulous corporation
concerned more about earnings per share than employees, customers, or social responsibility.
In Global Services most likely 75% or more jobs are no longer in the US - can't believe a
word coming out of Armonk.
I'm not sure there was ever a paradise in employment. Yeah, you can say there was more job
stability 50 or 60 years ago, but that applied to a much smaller workforce than today (mostly
white men). It is a drag, but there are also lot more of us old farts than there used to be
and we live a lot longer in retirement as well. I don't see any magic bullet fix either.
Great article. What's especially infuriating is that the industry continues to claim that
there is a shortage of STEM workers. For example, google "claim of 1.4 million computer
science jobs with only 400,000 computer science graduates to fill them". If companies would
openly say, "we have plenty of young STEM workers and prefer them to most older STEM
workers", we could at least start addressing the problem. But they continue to promote the
lie of there being a STEM shortage. They just want as big a labor pool as possible,
unemployed workers be damned.
I've worked there 17 years and have worried about being layed off for about 11 of them. Moral
is in the toilet. Bonuses for the rank and file are in the under 1% range while the CEO gets
millions. Pay raises have been non existent or well under inflation for years. Adjusting for
inflation, I make $6K less than I did my first day. My group is a handful of people as at
least 1/2 have quit or retired. To support our customers, we used to have several people, now
we have one or two and if someone is sick or on vacation, our support structure is to hope
nothing breaks. We can't keep millennials because of pay, benefits and the expectation of
being available 24/7 because we're shorthanded. As the unemployment rate drops, more leave to
find a different job, leaving the old people as they are less willing to start over with pay,
vacation, moving, selling a house, pulling kids from school, etc. The younger people are
generally less likely to be willing to work as needed on off hours or to pull work from a
busier colleague. I honestly have no idea what the plan is when the people who know what they
are doing start to retire, we are way top heavy with 30-40 year guys who are on their way
out, very few of the 10-20 year guys due to hiring freezes and we can't keep new people past
2-3 years. It's like our support business model is designed to fail.
Make no mistake. The three and four letter acronyms and other mushy corporate speak may
differ from firm to firm, but this is going on in every large tech company old enough to have
a large population of workers over 50. I hope others will now be exposed.
This article hits the nail right on the head, as I come up on my 1 year anniversary from
being....ahem....'retired' from 23 years at IBM....and I'll be damned if I give them the
satisfaction of thinking this was like a 'death' to me. It was the greatest thing that could
have ever happened. Ginny and the board should be ashamed of themselves, but they won't be.
Starting around age 40 you start to see age discrimination. I think this is largely due to
economics, like increased vacation times, higher wages, but most of all the perception that
older workers will run up the medical costs. You can pass all the age related discrimination
laws you want, but look how ineffective that has been.
If you contrast this with the German workforce, you see that they have more older workers
with the skills and younger workers without are having a difficult time getting in. So what's
the difference? There are laws about how many vacation weeks that are given and there is a
national medical system that everyone pays, so discrimination isn't seen in the same
light.
The US is the only hold out maybe with South Africa that doesn't have a good national
medical insurance program for everyone. Not only do we pay more than the rest of the world,
but we also have discrimination because of it.
This is very good, and this is IBM. I know. I was plaintiff in Gundlach v. IBM Japan, 983
F.Supp.2d 389, which involved their violating Japanese labor law when I worked in Japan. The
New York federal judge purposely ignored key points of Japanese labor law, and also refused
to apply Title VII and Age Discrimination in Employment to the parent company in Westchester
County. It is a huge, self-described "global" company with little demonstrated loyalty to
America and Americans. Pennsylvania is suing them for $170 million on a botched upgrade of
the state's unemployment system.
In early 2013 I was given a 3 PBC rating for my 2012 performance, the main reason cited by my
manager being that my team lead thought I "seemed distracted". Five months later I was
included in a "resource action", and was gone by July. I was 20 months shy of 55. Younger
coworkers were retained. That was about two years after the product I worked on for over a
decade was off-shored.
Through a fluke of someone from the old, disbanded team remembering me, I was rehired two
years later - ironically in a customer support position for the very product I helped
develop.
While I appreciated my years of service, previous salary, and previous benefits being
reinstated, a couple years into it I realized I just wasn't cut out for the demands of the
job - especially the significant 24x7 pager duty. Last June I received email describing a
"Transition to Retirement" plan I was eligible for, took it, and my last day will be June 30.
I still dislike the job, but that plan reclassified me as part time, thus ending pager duty
for me. The job still sucks, but at least I no longer have to despair over numerous week long
24x7 stints throughout the year.
A significant disappointment occurred a couple weeks ago. I was discussing healthcare
options with another person leaving the company who hadn't been resource-actioned as I had,
and learned the hard way I lost over $30,000 in some sort of future medical benefit account
the company had established and funded at some point. I'm not sure I was ever even aware of
it. That would have funded several years of healthcare insurance during the 8 years until I'm
eligible for Medicare. I wouldn't be surprised if their not having to give me that had
something to do with my seeming "distracted" to them. <rolls eyes="">
What's really painful is the history of that former account can still be viewed at
Fidelity, where it associates my departure date in 2013 with my having "forfeited" that
money. Um, no. I did not forfeit that money, nor would I have. I had absolutely no choice in
the matter. I find the use of the word 'forfeited' to describe what happened as both
disingenuous and offensive. That said, I don't know whether's that's IBM's or Fidelity's
terminology, though.
Jeff, You should call Fidelity. I recently received a letter from the US Department of Labor
that they discovered that IBM was "holding" funds that belonged to me that I was never told
about. This might be similar or same story.
Great article. And so so close to home. I worked at IBM for 23 years until I became yet
another statistic -- caught up in one of their many "RA's" -- Resource Actions. I also can
identify with the point about being encouraged to find a job internally yet hiring managers
told to not hire. We were encouraged to apply for jobs outside the US -- Europe mainly -- as
long as we were willing to move and work at the prevailing local wage rate. I was totally
fine with that as my wife had been itching for some time for a chance to live abroad. I
applied for several jobs across Europe using an internal system IBM set up just for that
purpose. Never heard a word. Phone calls and internal e-mails to managers posting jobs in the
internal system went unanswered. It turned out to be a total sham as far as I was concerned.
IBM has laid off hundreds of thousands in the last few decades. Think of the MILLIONS of
children, spouses, brothers/sisters, aunts/uncles, and other family members of laid-off
people that were affected. Those people are or will be business owners and in positions to
make technology decisions. How many of them will think "Yeah, right, hire IBM. They're the
company that screwed daddy/mommy". I fully expect -- and I fully hope -- that I live to see
IBM go out of business. Which they will, sooner or later, as they are living off of past
laurels -- billions in the bank, a big fat patent portfolio, and real estate that they
continue to sell off or rent out. If you do hire IBM, you should fully expect that they'll
send some 20-something out to your company a few weeks after you hire them, that person will
be reading "XYZ for Dummys" on the plane on the way to your offices and will show up as your
IBM 'expert'.
> I was given the choice, retire or get a bad review and get fired, no severance. I
retired and have not been employed since because of my age. Got news for these business
people, experience trumps inexperience. Recently, I have developed several commercial Web
sites using cloud technology. In your face IBM.
> This could well have been written about Honeywell. Same tactics exactly. I laid myself
off and called it retirement after years of shoddy treatment and phonied up employee
evaluations. I took it personally until I realized that this is just American Management in
action. I don't know how they look themselves in the mirror in the morning.
> As an HR professional, I get sick when I hear of these tactics. Although this is not the
first company to use this strategy to make a "paradigm shift". Where are the geniuses at
Harvard, Yale, or the Wharton school of business (where our genius POTUS attended)? Can't
they come up with a better model of how to make these changes in an organization without
setting up the corp for a major lawsuit or God forbid ......they treat their employees with
dignity and respect.
> They are not trained at our business schools to think long-term or look for solutions to
problems or turn to the workforce for solutions. They are trained to maximizes the profits
and let society subsidies their losses and costs.
> Isn't it interesting that you are the first one (here or anywhere else that I've seen)
to talk about the complicity of Harvard and Yale in the rise of the Oligarchs.
Perhaps we should consider reevaluation of their lofty perch in American Education. Now if
we could only think of a way to expose the fraud.
"... In the early 1980's President Regan fired the striking air traffic controllers. This sent the message to management around the USA that it was OK to abuse employees in the workplace. By the end of the 1980's unions were totally emasculated and you had workers "going postal" in an abusive workplace. When unions were at their peak of power, they could appeal to the courts and actually stop a factory from moving out of the country by enforcing a labor contact. ..."
"... The American workplace is a nuthouse. Each and every individual workplace environment is like a cult. ..."
"... The American workplace is just a byproduct of the militarization of everyday life. ..."
"... Silicon Valley and Wall Street handed billions of dollars to this arrogant, ignorant Millennial Elizabeth Holmes. She abused any employee that questioned her. This should sound familiar to any employee who has had an overbearing know-it-all, bully boss in the workplace. Hopefully she will go to jail and a message will be sent that any young agist bully will not be given the power of god in the workplace. ..."
In the early 1980's President Regan fired the striking air traffic controllers. This
sent the message to management around the USA that it was OK to abuse employees in the
workplace. By the end of the 1980's unions were totally emasculated and you had workers
"going postal" in an abusive workplace. When unions were at their peak of power, they could
appeal to the courts and actually stop a factory from moving out of the country by enforcing
a labor contact.
Today we have a President in the White House who was elected on a platform of "YOU'RE
FIRED." Not surprisingly, Trump was elected by the vast majority of selfish lowlives in this
country. The American workplace is a nuthouse. Each and every individual workplace
environment is like a cult.
That is not good for someone like me who hates taking orders from people. But I have seen
it all. Ten years ago a Manhattan law firm fired every lawyer in a litigation unit except an
ex-playboy playmate. Look it up it was in the papers. I was fired from a job where many of my
bosses went to federal prison and then I was invited to the Christmas Party.
What are the salaries of these IBM employees and how much are their replacements making?
The workplace becomes a surrogate family. Who knows why some people get along and others
don't. My theory on agism in the workplace is that younger employees don't want to be around
their surrogate mother or father in the workplace after just leaving the real home under the
rules of their real parents.
The American workplace is just a byproduct of the militarization of everyday life. In the
1800's, Herman Melville wrote in his beautiful book "White Jacket" that one of the most
humiliating aspects of the military is taking orders from a younger military officer. I read
that book when I was 20. I didn't feel the sting of that wisdom until I was 40 and had a 30 year old appointed as
my supervisor who had 10 years less experience than me.
By the way, the executive that made
her my supervisor was one of the sleaziest bosses I have ever had in my career. Look at the
tech giant Theranos. Silicon Valley and Wall Street handed billions of dollars to this
arrogant, ignorant Millennial Elizabeth Holmes. She abused any employee that questioned her.
This should sound familiar to any employee who has had an overbearing know-it-all, bully boss
in the workplace. Hopefully she will go to jail and a message will be sent that any young agist bully will not be given the power of god in the workplace.
Half the population prefers a politics that is racist and unethical, that demonises the poor
and idolises the rich, that eschews community and embraces amoral individuality. These people
don't care about the economic inconsistencies of neo-liberalism, they are far more attracted
to the divisive societal aspects of free market fundamentalism.
Like Joe Hockey, Rinehart saw the problem of inequality as having more to do with the
character of the poor than with the rules of the game:
They don't "see" it this way. They just say they see it this way to perpetuate that
inequality. They know that their wealth depends on the labour of the other 95-99%.
To keep us all working and voting for their lackeys, they make promises of wealth if you
are a persistent hard worker, never mentioning that the entire game depends on only a tiny
minority ever reaching the top. No, the real people holding them back are those who don't
work hard. Who don't contribute to the game. They're the ones to blame for why you're not
levelling up. The true scapegoats.
Victim blaming is a classic neo-con tactic, they seek to deflect from the impact of their
heartless policies by demonising the victims, from the unemployed and those stuck in the
welfare cycle to refugees trapped in offshore detention, indefinitely . We've all seen how
appalling their commentary can get, from Abbott and Hockey's "lifters and leaners" to Gina
Mineheart's "two dollars a day" & "spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising"
they show just how out touch they are. They honestly believe that people can lift themselves
out of poverty if only they "spent more time working", ignoring the fact that many are
working two jobs just to stay ahead.
Seems that on planet RWNJ there are more than 24 hours in a day..
Half the population need welfare to survive.
1% have 90% of all the toys in the sandpit and won't share. They feel that they are entitled
to all the toys.
It takes a lot of courage for an addict to recover and stay clean. And it is sadly not news that drug addiction and high levels
of prescription drug use are signs that something is deeply broken in our society. There are always some people afflicted with deep
personal pain but our system is doing a very good job of generating unnecessary pain and desperation.
Mady Ohlman was 22 on the evening some years ago when she stood in a friend's bathroom looking down at the sink.
"I had set up a bunch of needles filled with heroin because I wanted to just do them back-to-back-to-back," Ohlman recalled. She
doesn't remember how many she injected before collapsing, or how long she lay drugged-out on the floor.
"But I remember being pissed because I could still get up, you know?"
She wanted to be dead, she said, glancing down, a wisp of straight brown hair slipping from behind an ear across her thin face.
At that point, said Ohlman, she'd been addicted to opioids -- controlled by the drugs -- for more than three years.
"And doing all these things you don't want to do that are horrible -- you know, selling my body, stealing from my mom, sleeping
in my car," Ohlman said. "How could I not be suicidal?"
For this young woman, whose weight had dropped to about 90 pounds, who was shooting heroin just to avoid feeling violently ill,
suicide seemed a painless way out.
"You realize getting clean would be a lot of work," Ohlman said, her voice rising. "And you realize dying would be a lot less
painful. You also feel like you'll be doing everyone else a favor if you die."
Ohlman, who has now been sober for more than four years, said many drug users hit the same point, when the disease and the pursuit
of illegal drugs crushes their will to live. Ohlman is among at least
40 percent of active
drug users who wrestle with depression, anxiety or another mental health issue that increases the risk of suicide.
Measuring Suicide Among Patients Addicted To Opioids
Massachusetts, where Ohlman lives, began formally
recognizing
in May 2017 that some opioid overdose deaths are suicides. The state confirmed only about 2 percent of all overdose deaths as suicides,
but Dr. Monica Bhare l, head of the
Massachusetts Department of Public Health, said it's difficult to determine a person's true intent.
"For one thing, medical examiners use different criteria for whether suicide was involved or not," Bharel said, and the "tremendous
amount of stigma surrounding both overdose deaths and suicide sometimes makes it extremely challenging to piece everything together
and figure out unintentional and intentional."
Research on drug addiction and suicide suggests much higher numbers.
"[Based on the literature that's available], it looks like it's anywhere between 25 and 45 percent of deaths by overdose that
may be actual suicides," said
Dr. Maria Oquendo
, immediate past president of the American Psychiatric Association.
Oquendo pointed to one study of overdoses
from prescription opioids that found nearly 54 percent were unintentional. The rest were either suicide attempts or undetermined.
Several large studies show an increased risk of suicide among drug users addicted to opioids, especially women. In
a study of about 5 million veterans, women were eight
times as likely as others to be at risk for suicide, while men faced a twofold risk.
The opioid epidemic is occurring at the same time suicides have
hit a 30-year high , but Oquendo said few doctors
look for a connection.
"They are not monitoring it," said Oquendo, who chairs the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. "They are
probably not assessing it in the kinds of depths they would need to prevent some of the deaths."
That's starting to change. A few hospitals in Boston, for example, aim to ask every patient admitted about substance use, as well
as about whether they've considered hurting themselves.
"No one has answered the chicken and egg [problem]," said
Dr. Kiame Mahaniah , a family physician who runs the
Lynn Community Health Center in Lynn, Mass. Is it that patients "have mental health issues that lead to addiction, or did a life
of addiction then trigger mental health problems?"
With so little data to go on, "it's so important to provide treatment that covers all those bases," Mahaniah said.
'Deaths Of Despair'
When doctors do look deeper into the reasons patients addicted to opioids become suicidal, some economists predict they'll find
deep reservoirs of depression and pain.
In a seminal paper published in 2015, Princeton economists
Angus Deaton and
Anne Case tracked falling marriage rates,
the loss of stable middle-class jobs and rising rates of self-reported pain. The authors say opioid overdoses, suicides and diseases
related to alcoholism are all often "deaths of despair."
"We think of opioids as something that's thrown petrol on the flames and made things infinitely worse," Deaton said, "but the
underlying deep malaise would be there even without the opioids."
Many economists agree on remedies for that deep malaise. Harvard economics professor
David Cutle r said solutions include a good education, a steady
job that pays a decent wage, secure housing, food and health care.
"And also thinking about a sense of purpose in life," Cutler said. "That is, even if one is doing well financially, is there a
sense that one is contributing in a meaningful way?"
Tackling Despair In The Addiction Community
"I know firsthand the sense of hopelessness that people can feel in the throes of addiction," said
Michael Botticelli , executive director of the Grayken Center
for Addiction at Boston Medical Center; he is in recovery for an addiction to alcohol.
Botticelli said recovery programs must help patients come out of isolation and create or recreate bonds with family and friends.
"The vast majority of people I know who are in recovery often talk about this profound sense of re-establishing -- and sometimes
establishing for the first time -- a connection to a much larger community," Botticelli said.
Ohlman said she isn't sure why her attempted suicide, with multiple injections of heroin, didn't work.
"I just got really lucky," Ohlman said. "I don't know how."
A big part of her recovery strategy involves building a supportive community, she said.
"Meetings; 12-step; sponsorship and networking; being involved with people doing what I'm doing," said Ohlman, ticking through
a list of her priorities.
There's a fatal overdose at least once a week within her Cape Cod community, she said. Some are accidental, others not. Ohlman
said she's convinced that telling her story, of losing and then finding hope, will help bring those numbers down.
(propublica.org)As the world's dominant technology firm, payrolls at International Business Machines swelled
to nearly a quarter-million U.S. white-collar workers in the 1980s. Its profits helped
underwrite a broad agenda of racial equality, equal pay for women and an unbeatable offer of
great wages and something close to lifetime employment, all in return for unswerving loyalty.
But when high tech suddenly started shifting and companies went global, IBM faced the changing
landscape with a distinction most of its fiercest competitors didn't have: a large
number of experienced and aging U.S. employees .
The company reacted with a strategy that, in the words of one confidential planning
document, would "correct seniority mix." It slashed IBM's U.S. workforce by as much as
three-quarters from its 1980s peak, replacing a substantial share with younger,
less-experienced and lower-paid workers and sending many positions overseas. ProPublica
estimates that in the past five years alone, IBM has eliminated more than 20,000 American
employees ages 40 and over, about 60 percent of its estimated total U.S. job cuts during those
years. In making these cuts, IBM has flouted or outflanked U.S. laws and regulations intended
to protect later-career workers from age discrimination, according to a ProPublica review of
internal company documents, legal filings and public records, as well as information provided
via interviews and questionnaires filled out by more than 1,000 former IBM employees.
"... The general idea has been to isolate Russia and to make it so hard for anyone to defend Russia. This extends to the media. Whereas lots of articles on Russia and Syria were open to comments in the Guardian and lots of people write and disagree with the constant propaganda it is now rare to have these open to comment. Any questions is always dominated by anti Russia and anti SAG rhetoric. ..."
"... It is a constant psyop that is gathering momentum. I am sure the use of nerve agent is a not so subtle way of linking Russia with what is supposedly happening in Syria. ..."
"... But as we know that the supposed use of chemical weapons is a series of false flags then the same may apply here. ..."
"... So thanks to to the toxic tory blatant propaganda it's now an accepted fact in US Democrats minds that it was the Russians wot done it as they push for tougher sanctions against Russia. ..."
"... just remember it was the usa/uk under bush/blair that had all the info needed to attack iraq in 2003 so much for any lesson learned in any of that, or this at present the political class remain in the gutter serving the military-financial-energy complex of course these special interest groups would have it no other way as war=money what's a few dead people to get in the way of making a killing off the next war, or preparation for war? i heard porton down was given a few $ in the past day or two as well lets keep those chemists busy ..."
I agree with you. But there is more, much more. There was an 8 part drama series on the. BBC called McMafia showing how criminality
including arms and narcotics and so on, is closely linked to the Russian state. Then there was a series of very superficial BBC
programmes, one on Putin as a new Tsar (sic) and the other on the elections with a spotlight on Navalny. Radio 4 is constantly
almost daily talking about Russian aggression and of course there is the vilification of Russian athletes and the drugs.
The general idea has been to isolate Russia and to make it so hard for anyone to defend Russia. This extends to the media.
Whereas lots of articles on Russia and Syria were open to comments in the Guardian and lots of people write and disagree with
the constant propaganda it is now rare to have these open to comment. Any questions is always dominated by anti Russia and anti
SAG rhetoric.
It is a constant psyop that is gathering momentum. I am sure the use of nerve agent is a not so subtle way of linking Russia
with what is supposedly happening in Syria.
But as we know that the supposed use of chemical weapons is a series of false flags then the same may apply here.
"The sanctions today are a grievous disappointment, and fall far short of what is needed to respond to that attack on our democracy,
let alone deter Russia's escalating aggression, which now includes a chemical weapons attack on the soil of our closest ally,"
Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee said in a statement.
So thanks to to the toxic tory blatant propaganda it's now an accepted fact in US Democrats minds that it was the Russians
wot done it as they push for tougher sanctions against Russia.
There might just be an answer to the cui bono question somewhere in there. Just maybe, but I'm not rushing to judgement!
just remember it was the usa/uk under bush/blair that had all the info needed to attack iraq in 2003 so much for any lesson
learned in any of that, or this at present the political class remain in the gutter serving the military-financial-energy complex
of course these special interest groups would have it no other way as war=money what's a few dead people to get in the way of
making a killing off the next war, or preparation for war? i heard porton down was given a few $ in the past day or two as well
lets keep those chemists busy
"... It tells me that the bottom line is that Christmas has become a harder season for White families. We are worse off because of BOTH social and economic liberalism which has only benefited an elite few. The bottom half of the White population is now in total disarray – drug addiction, demoralization, divorce, suicide, abortion, atomization, stagnant wages, declining household income and investments – and this dysfunction is creeping up the social ladder. The worst thing we can do is step on the accelerator. ..."
As we move into 2018, I am swinging away from the Republicans. I don't support the Paul Ryan
"Better Way" agenda. I don't support neoliberal economics. I think we have been going in the
wrong direction since the 1970s and don't want to continue going down this road.
Opioid Deaths: As we all know, the opioid epidemic has become a national crisis and the White working class
has been hit the hardest by it. It is a "sea of despair" out there.
White Mortality: As the family crumbles, religion recedes in his life, and his job prospects dwindle, the
middle aged White working class man is turning to drugs, alcohol and suicide: The White suicide
rate has soared since 2000:
Median Household Income: The average household in the United States is poorer in 2017 than it was in 1997:
Real GDP: Since the late 1990s, real GDP and real median household income have parted
ways:
Productivity and Real Wages: Since the 1970s, the minimum wage has parted ways with
productivity gains in the US economy:
Stock Market: Since 2000, the stock market has soared, but 10% of Americans own 80% of
stocks. The top 1% owns 38% of stocks. In 2007, 3/4th of middle class households were invested
in the stock market, but now only 50% are investors. Overall, 52% of Americans now own stocks,
which is down from 65%. The average American has less than $1,000 in their combined checking
and savings accounts.
Do you know what this tells me?
It tells me that the bottom line is that Christmas has become a harder season for White
families. We are worse off because of BOTH social and economic liberalism which has only
benefited an elite few. The bottom half of the White population is now in total disarray
– drug addiction, demoralization, divorce, suicide, abortion, atomization, stagnant
wages, declining household income and investments – and this dysfunction is creeping up
the social ladder. The worst thing we can do is step on the accelerator.
Paul Ryan and his fellow conservatives look at this and conclude we need MORE freedom. We
need lower taxes, more free trade, more deregulation, weaker unions, more immigration and less
social safety net spending. He wants to follow up tax reform with entitlement reform in 2018. I
can't but see how this is going to make an already bad situation for the White working class
even worse.
I'm not rightwing in the sense that these people are. I think their policies are harmful to
the nation. I don't think they feel any sense of duty and obligation to the working class like
we do. They believe in liberal abstractions and make an Ayn Rand fetish out of freedom whereas
we feel a sense of solidarity with them grounded in race, ethnicity and culture which tempers
class division. We recoil at the evisceration of the social fabric whereas conservatives
celebrate this blind march toward plutocracy.
Do the wealthy need to own a greater share of the stock market? Do they need to own a
greater share of our national wealth? Do we need to loosen up morals and the labor market? Do
we need more White children growing up in financially stressed, broken homes on Christmas? Is
the greatest problem facing the nation spending on anti-poverty programs? Paul Ryan and the
True Cons think so.
Yeah, I don't think so. I also think it is a good thing right now that we aren't associated
with the mainstream Right. In the long run, I bet this will pay off for us. I predict this
platform they have been standing on for decades now, which they call the conservative base, is
going to implode on them. Donald Trump was only the first sign that Atlas is about to
shrug.
(Republished from Occidental Dissent by permission of author or representative)
"... The U.S. has a retirement crisis on its hands, and with the far right controlling the executive branch and both houses of Congress, as well as dozens of state governments, things promise to grow immeasurably worse. ..."
"... It wasn't supposed to be this way. Past progressive presidents, notably Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson, took important steps to make life more comfortable for aging Americans. FDR signed the Social Security Act of 1935 into law as part of his New Deal, and when LBJ passed Medicare in 1965, he established a universal health care program for those 65 and older. But the country has embraced a neoliberal economic model since the election of Ronald Reagan, and all too often, older Americans have been quick to vote for far-right Republicans antagonistic to the social safety net. ..."
"... Since then, Ryan has doubled down on his delusion that the banking sector can manage Social Security and Medicare more effectively than the federal government. Republican attacks on Medicare have become a growing concern: according to EBRI, only 38 percent of workers are confident the program will continue to provide the level of benefits it currently does. ..."
"... As 2017 winds down, Americans with health problems are still in the GOP's crosshairs -- this time because of so-called tax reform. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (both the House and Senate versions) includes provisions that would undermine Obamacare and cause higher health insurance premiums for older Americans. According to AARP, "Older adults ages 50-64 would be at particularly high risk under the proposal, facing average premium increases of up to $1,500 in 2019 as a result of the bill." ..."
"... Countless Americans who are unable to afford those steep premiums would lose their insurance. The CBO estimates that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would cause the number of uninsured under 65 to increase 4 million by 2019 and 13 million by 2027. The bill would also imperil Americans 65 and over by cutting $25 billion from Medicare . ..."
"... Analyzing W2 tax records in 2012, U.S. Census Bureau researchers Michael Gideon and Joshua Mitchell found that only 14 percent of private-sector employers in the U.S. were offering a 401(k) or similar retirement packages to their workers. That figure was thought to be closer to 40 percent, but Gideon and Mitchell discovered the actual number was considerably lower when smaller businesses were carefully analyzed, and that larger companies were more likely to offer 401(k) plans than smaller ones. ..."
"... Today, millions of Americans work in the gig economy who don't have full-time jobs or receive W2s, but instead receive 1099s for freelance work. ..."
"... The combination of stagnant wages and an increasingly high cost of living have been especially hellish for Americans who are trying to save for retirement. The United States' national minimum wage, a mere $7.25 per hour, doesn't begin to cover the cost of housing at a time when rents have soared nationwide. Never mind the astronomical prices in New York City, San Francisco or Washington, D.C. Median rents for one-bedroom apartments are as high as $1,010 per month in Atlanta, $960 per month in Baltimore, $860 per month in Jacksonville and $750 per month in Omaha, according to ApartmentList.com. ..."
"... yeah, Canada has a neoliberal infestation that is somewhere between the US and the UK. France has got one too, but it is less advanced. I'll enjoy my great healthcare, public transportation, and generous paid time off while I can. ..."
"... Europeans may scratch their heads, but they should recall their own histories and the long struggle to the universal benefits now enjoyed. Americans are far too complacent. This mildness is viewed by predators as weakness and the attacks will continue. ..."
"... Not sure if many of the readers here watch non-cable national broadcast news, but Pete Peterson and his foundation are as everpresent an advertiser as the pharma industry. Peterson is the strongest, best organized advocate for gutting social services, social security, and sending every last penny out of the tax-mule consumer's pocket toward wall street. The guy needs an equivalent counterpoint enemy. ..."
"... The social advantages that we still enjoy were fought in the streets, and on the "bricks" flowing with the participants blood. 8 hr. day; women's right to vote; ability and right for groups of laborers to organize; worker safety laws ..and so many others. There is no historical memory on how those rights were achieved. We are slowly slipping into an oligarchy greased by the idea that the physical possession of material things is all that matters. Sheeple, yes. ..."
"... Mmm, I think American voters get what they want in the end. They want their politicians because they believe the lies. 19% of Americans believe they are in the top 1% of wealth. A huge percentage of poor people believe they or their kids will (not can, but will) become wealthy. Most Americans can't find France on a map. ..."
"... I may have been gone for about thirty years, but that has only sharpened my insights into America. It's very hard to see just how flawed America is from the inside but when you step outside and have some perspective, it's frightening. ..."
"... Our government, beginning with Reagan, turned its back on promoting the general welfare. The wealthy soon learned that their best return on investment was the "purchase" of politicians willing to pass the legislation they put in their hands. Much of their investment included creating the right wing media apparatus. ..."
"... The Class War is real. It has been going on for 40 years, with the Conservative army facing virtually no resistance. Conservatives welcome Russia's help. Conservatives welcome barriers to people voting. Conservatives welcome a populace that believes lies that benefit them. Conservatives welcome the social and financial decline of the entire middle class and poor as long as it profits the rich financially, and by extension enhances their power politically. ..."
"... "Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day, but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing [a people] to slavery" Thomas Jefferson. Rights of British America, 1774 ME 1:193, Papers 1:125 ..."
"... yes, my problem with the post as well, completely ignores democrat complicity the part where someone with a 26k salary will pay 16k in insurance? No they won't, the system would collapse in that case which will be fine with me. ..."
"... As your quote appears to imply, it's not a problem that can be solved by voting which, let's not forget, is nothing more than expressing an opinion. I am not sticking around just to find out if economically-crushed, opiod-, entertainment-, social media-addled Americans are actually capable of rolling out tumbrils for trips to the guillotines in the city squares. I strongly suspect not. ..."
"... This is the country where, after the banks crushed the economy in 2008, caused tens of thousands to lose their jobs, and then got huge bailouts, the people couldn't even be bothered to take their money out of the big banks and put it elsewhere. Because, you know, convenience! Expressing an opinion, or mobilizing others to express an opinion, or educating or proselytizing others about what opinion to have, is about the limit of what they are willing, or know how to do. ..."
Yves here. I imagine many readers are acutely aware of the problems outlined in this article, if not beset by them already. By
any rational standard, I should move now to a much cheaper country that will have me. I know individuals who live most of the year
in third-world and near-third world countries, but they have very cheap ways of still having a toehold in the US and not (yet or
maybe ever) getting a long-term residence visa. Ecuador is very accommodating regarding retirement visas, and a Social Security level
income goes far there, but yours truly isn't retiring any time soon. And another barrier to an international move (which recall I
did once, so I have some appreciation for what it takes), is that one ought to check out possible destinations but if you are already
time and money and energy stressed, how do you muster the resources to do that at all, let alone properly?
Aside from the potential to greatly reduce fixed costs, a second impetus for me is Medicare. I know for most people, getting on
Medicare is a big plus. I have a very rare good, very old insurance policy. When you include the cost of drug plans, Medicare is
no cheaper than what I have now, and considerably narrows my network. Moreover, I expect it to be thoroughly crapified by ten years
from now (when I am 70), which argues for getting out of Dodge sooner rather than later.
And that's before you get to another wee problem Lambert points out that I would probably not be happy in a third world or high
end second world country. But the only bargain "world city" I know of is Montreal. I'm not sure it would represent enough of an all-in
cost saving to justify the hassle of an international move and the attendant tax compliance burdens .and that charitably assumes
I could even find a way to get permanent residence. Ugh.
By Alex Henderson, who has written for the L.A. Weekly, Billboard, Spin, Creem, the Pasadena Weekly and many other publications.
Follow him on Twitter @alexvhenderson. Originally published at
Alternet
Millions can no longer afford to retire, and may never be able when the GOP passes its tax bill.
The news is not good for millions of aging Baby Boomers and Gen Xers in the United States who are moving closer to retirement
age. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute's annual report on retirement preparedness for 2017, only 18 percent of
U.S.-based workers feel "very confident" about their
ability to retire comfortably ; Craig Copeland,
senior research associate for EBRI and the report's co-author, cited "debt, lack of a retirement plan at work, and low savings" as
"key factors" in workers' retirement-related anxiety. The Insured Retirement Institute finds a mere 23 percent of Baby Boomers and
24 percent of Gen Xers are confident that their savings will last in retirement. To make matters worse, more than 40 percent of Boomers
and over 30 percent of Gen Xers report having
no retirement savings whatsoever .
The U.S. has a
retirement crisis on its hands, and with the far right controlling the executive branch and both houses of Congress, as well
as dozens of state governments, things promise to grow immeasurably worse.
It wasn't supposed to be this way. Past progressive presidents, notably Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson, took
important steps to make life more comfortable for aging Americans. FDR signed the Social Security Act of 1935 into law as part of
his New Deal, and when LBJ passed Medicare in 1965, he established a universal health care program for those 65 and older. But the
country has embraced a neoliberal economic model since the election of Ronald Reagan, and all too often, older Americans have been
quick to vote for far-right Republicans antagonistic to the social safety net.
In the 2016 presidential election, 55 percent of voters 50 and older
cast their ballots for Donald Trump
against just 44 percent for Hillary Clinton. (This was especially true of older white voters; 90 percent of black voters 45 and older,
as well as 67 percent of Latino voters in the same age range voted Democratic.)
Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) economic proposals may have been wildly popular with millennials, but no demographic has a greater
incentive to vote progressive than Americans facing retirement. According to research conducted by the American Association of Retired
Persons, the three greatest concerns of Americans 50 and older are Social Security, health care costs and caregiving for loved ones
-- all areas that have been targeted by Republicans.
House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, a
devotee of social Darwinist Ayn Rand , has made no secret of his desire to
privatize
Social Security and replace traditional Medicare with a voucher program. Had George W. Bush had his way and turned Social Security
over to Wall Street, the economic crash of September 2008 might have left millions of senior citizens homeless.
Since then, Ryan has doubled down on his delusion that the banking sector can manage Social Security and Medicare more effectively
than the federal government. Republican attacks on Medicare have become a growing concern: according to EBRI, only 38 percent of
workers are confident the program will continue to provide the level of benefits it currently does.
The GOP's obsession with abolishing the Affordable Care Act is the most glaring example of its disdain for aging Americans. Yet
Obamacare has been a blessing for Boomers and Gen Xers who have preexisting conditions. The ACA's guaranteed issue plans make no
distinction between a 52-year-old American with diabetes, heart disease or asthma and a 52-year-old who has never had any of those
illnesses. And AARP notes that under the ACA, the uninsured rate for Americans 50 and older decreased from 15 percent in 2013 to
9 percent in 2016.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the replacement bills Donald Trump hoped to ram through Congress this year would
have resulted in staggering
premium hikes for Americans over 50. The CBO's analysis of the American Health Care Act, one of the earlier versions of Trumpcare,
showed that a 64-year-old American making $26,500 per year could have gone from paying $1,700 annually in premiums to just over $16,000.
The CBO also estimated that the GOP's American Health Care Act would have deprived
23 million Americans of health insurance by 2026.
As 2017 winds down, Americans with health problems are still in the GOP's crosshairs -- this time because of so-called tax
reform. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (both the House and Senate versions) includes provisions that would undermine Obamacare and cause
higher health insurance premiums for older Americans. According to AARP, "Older adults ages 50-64 would be at
particularly high risk under the proposal, facing average premium increases of up to $1,500 in 2019 as a result of the bill."
The CBO estimates that the bill will cause premiums to spike an average of 10 percent overall, with average premiums increasing
$890 per year for a 50-year-old, $1,100 per year for a 55-year-old, $1,350 per year for a 60-year-old and $1,490 per year for a 64-year-old.
Premium increases, according to the CBO, would vary from state to state; in Maine, average premiums for a 64-year-old would rise
as much as $1,750 per year.
Countless Americans who are unable to afford those steep premiums would lose their insurance. The CBO estimates that the Tax
Cuts and Jobs Act would cause the number of uninsured under 65 to increase 4 million by 2019 and 13 million by 2027. The bill would
also imperil Americans 65 and over by
cutting $25 billion from
Medicare .
As morally reprehensible as the GOP's tax legislation may be, it is merely an acceleration of the redistribution of wealth from
the bottom to the top that America has undergone since the mid-1970s. (President Richard Nixon may have been a paranoid right-winger
with authoritarian tendencies, but he expanded Medicare and supported universal health care.) Between the decline of labor unions,
age discrimination, stagnant wages, an ever-rising cost of living, low interest rates, and a shortage of retirement accounts, millions
of Gen Xers and Baby Boomers may never be able to retire.
Traditional
defined-benefit
pensions were once a mainstay of American labor, especially among unionized workers. But according to Pew Charitable Trusts,
only
13 percent of Baby Boomers still have them (among millennials, the number falls to 6 percent). In recent decades, 401(k) plans
have become much more prominent, yet a majority of American workers don't have them either.
Analyzing W2 tax records in 2012, U.S. Census Bureau researchers Michael Gideon and Joshua Mitchell found that only 14 percent
of private-sector employers in the U.S. were offering a 401(k) or similar retirement packages to their workers. That figure was thought
to be closer to 40 percent, but Gideon and Mitchell discovered the actual number was considerably lower when smaller businesses were
carefully analyzed, and that larger companies were more likely to offer 401(k) plans than smaller ones.
Today, millions of Americans work in the gig economy who don't have full-time jobs or receive W2s, but instead receive 1099s
for freelance work. Tax-deferred SEP-IRAs were once a great, low-risk way for freelancers to save for retirement without relying
exclusively on Social Security, but times have changed since the 1980s and '90s when interest rates were considerably higher for
certificates of deposit and savings accounts. According to Bankrate.com,
average rates for one-year
CDs dropped from 11.27 percent in 1984 to 8.1 percent in 1990 to 5.22 percent in 1995 to under 1 percent in 2010, where it currently
remains.
The combination of stagnant wages and an increasingly high cost of living have been especially hellish for Americans who are
trying to save for retirement. The United States' national minimum wage, a mere $7.25 per hour, doesn't begin to cover the cost of
housing at a time when rents have soared nationwide. Never mind the astronomical prices in New York City, San Francisco or Washington,
D.C. Median rents for one-bedroom apartments
are as high as $1,010 per month in Atlanta, $960 per month in Baltimore, $860 per month in Jacksonville and $750 per month in Omaha,
according to ApartmentList.com.
That so many older Americans are renting at all is ominous in its own right. FDR made home ownership a primary goal of the New
Deal, considering it a key component of a thriving middle class. But last year, the Urban Institute found that 19 million Americans
who previously owned a home are now renting, 31 percent between the ages of 36 and 45. Laurie Goodman, one of the study's authors,
contends the Great Recession has "permanently raised the number of renters," and that the explosion of foreclosures has hit Gen Xers
especially hard.
The severity of the U.S. retirement crisis is further addressed in journalist
Jessica Bruder's new book
"Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century," which follows Americans in their 50s, 60s and even 70s
living in RVs or vans , barely eking out a living doing
physically demanding, seasonal temp work from harvesting sugar beets to cleaning toilets at campgrounds. Several had high-paying
jobs before their lives were blown apart by the layoffs, foreclosures and corporate downsizing of the Great Recession. Bruder speaks
with former college professors and software professionals who now find themselves destitute, teetering on the brink of homelessness
and forced to do backbreaking work for next to nothing. Unlike the big banks, they never received a bailout.
These neo-nomads recall the transients of the 1930s, themselves victims of Wall Street's recklessness. But whereas FDR won in
a landslide in 1932 and aggressively pursued a program of progressive economic reforms, Republicans in Congress have set out to shred
what little remains of the social safety net, giving
huge tax breaks
to millionaires and billionaires . The older voters who swept Trump into office may have signed their own death warrants.
If aging Americans are going to be saved from this dystopian future, the U.S. will have to forge a new Great Society. Programs
like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will need to be strengthened, universal health care must become a reality and age discrimination
in the workplace will have to be punished as a civil rights violation like racial and gender-based discrimination. If not, millions
of Gen Xers and Boomers will spend their golden years scraping for pennies.
I certainly will never go back to the States for these and other reasons. I have a friend, also an American citizen, who travels
frequently back to California to visit his son. He is truly worried about getting sick or having an accident when he is there
since he knows it might bankrupt him. As he jokes, he would be happy to have another heart attack here in France since it's free!
For those of you who have traveled the world and talked to people, you probably know that most foreigners are perplexed by
America's attitude to health care and social services. The richest nation in the world thinks that health and social security
(in the larger sense of not being forced into the street) are not rights at all. Europeans scratch their heads at this.
The only solution is education and information, but they are appalling in America. America remains the most ignorant and worst
educated of the developed nations and is probably beaten by many developing nations. It is this ignorance and stupidity that gets
Americans to vote for the likes of Trump or any of the other rapacious millionaires they send to office every year.
A first step would be for Americans to insist that Congress eliminate its incredibly generous and life-long healthcare plans
for elected officials. They should have to do what the rest of Americans do. Of course, since about 95% of Congress are millionaires,
it might not be effective. But it's a start.
France has its share of problems, but boy do they pale next to the problems in America or even Canada. Life here is overall
quite pleasant and I have no desire to go back to N.A.
yeah, Canada has a neoliberal infestation that is somewhere between the US and the UK. France has got one too, but it is
less advanced. I'll enjoy my great healthcare, public transportation, and generous paid time off while I can.
The newest neoliberal effort in Canada was put forward by our
Minister of Finance (a millionaire) who is touting a bill that will get rid of defined benefit pension plans given to public
employees for so-called target benefit pension plans. The risk for target plans is taken by the recipient. Morneau's former firm
promotes target benefit pension plans and the change could benefit Morneau himself as he did not put his assets from his firm
in a blind trust. At the very least, he has a conflict of interest and should probably resign.
There is always an insidious group of wealthy people here who would like to re-make the world in their own image. I fear for
the future.
Europeans may scratch their heads, but they should recall their own histories and the long struggle to the universal benefits
now enjoyed. Americans are far too complacent. This mildness is viewed by predators as weakness and the attacks will continue.
We really should be able to turn this around, and have an obligation to ourselves and our 'nation state' , IF there were a
group of folks running on a fairness, one-for-all, all-for-one platform. That sure isn't the present two-sides-of-the-same-coin
Democraps and Republicrunts.
Not sure if many of the readers here watch non-cable national broadcast news, but Pete Peterson and his foundation are
as everpresent an advertiser as the pharma industry. Peterson is the strongest, best organized advocate for gutting social services,
social security, and sending every last penny out of the tax-mule consumer's pocket toward wall street. The guy needs an equivalent
counterpoint enemy.
Check it out, and be vigilant in dispelling his message and mission. Thanks for running this article.
Running away: the almost-haves run to another nation state, the uber-wealthy want to leave the earth, or live in their private
Idaho in the Rockies or on the Ocean. What's left for the least among us? Whatever we create? https://www.pgpf.org/
I think pathologically optimistic is a better term than complacent. Every time someone dumps on them, their response is usually
along the lines of "Don't worry, it'll get better," "Everything works itself out in the end," "maybe we'll win the lottery," my
personal favorite "things will get better, just give it time" (honestly it's been 40 years of this neoliberal bullcrap, how much
more time are we supposed to give it?), "this is just a phase" or "we can always bring it back later and better than ever." The
last one is most troubling because after 20 years of witnessing things in the public sphere disappearing, I've yet to see a single
thing return in any form at all.
I'm not sure where this annoying optimism came from but I sure wish it would go away.
The "optimism" comes from having a lack of historical memory. So many social protections that we have/had is seen as somehow
coming out of the ether benevolently given without any social struggles. The lack of historical education on this subject in particular
is appalling. Now, most would probably look for an "APP" on their "dumbphones" to solve the problem.
The social advantages that we still enjoy were fought in the streets, and on the "bricks" flowing with the participants
blood. 8 hr. day; women's right to vote; ability and right for groups of laborers to organize; worker safety laws ..and so many
others. There is no historical memory on how those rights were achieved. We are slowly slipping into an oligarchy greased by the
idea that the physical possession of material things is all that matters. Sheeple, yes.
WOW! You must have been outside the U.S. for a long time. Your comment seems to suggest we still have some kind of democracy
here. We don't get to pick which rapacious millionaires we get to vote for and it doesn't matter any way since whichever one we
pick from the sad offerings ends up with policies dictated from elsewhere.
Mmm, I think American voters get what they want in the end. They want their politicians because they believe the lies.
19% of Americans believe they are in the top 1% of wealth. A huge percentage of poor people believe they or their kids will (not
can, but will) become wealthy. Most Americans can't find France on a map.
So, yes, you DO get to pick your rapacious millionaire. You send the same scumbags back to Washington every year because it's
not him, it the other guys who are the problem. One third of Americans support Trump! Really, really support him. They think he
is Jesus, MacArthur and Adam Smith all rolled up into one.
I may have been gone for about thirty years, but that has only sharpened my insights into America. It's very hard to see
just how flawed America is from the inside but when you step outside and have some perspective, it's frightening.
The Democrat party isn't a reform party. Thinking it is so, is because of the "No Other Choice" meme. Not saying that the Republican
party works in my favor. They don't. Political reform goes deeper than reforming either main party. It means going to a European
plurality system (with its own downside). That way growing Third parties will be viable, if they have popular, as opposed to millionaire,
support. I don't see this happening, because of Citizens United, but if all you have is hope, then you have to go with that.
Had George W. Bush had his way and turned Social Security over to Wall Street, the economic crash of September 2008 might
have left millions of senior citizens homeless.
Substitute Bill Clinton for George Bush in that sentence and it works just as well. Neoliberalism is a bipartisan project.
And many of the potential and actual horrors described above arise from the price distortions of the US medical system with
Democratic acquiescence in said system making things worse. The above article reads like a DNC press release.
And finally while Washington politicians of both parties have been threatening Social Security for years that doesn't mean
its third rail status has been repealed. The populist tremors of the last election -- which have caused our elites to lose their
collective mind -- could be a mere prelude to what will happen in the event of a full scale assault on the safety net.
Substitute Obama's quest for a Grand Bargain as well.
Our government, beginning with Reagan, turned its back on promoting the general welfare. The wealthy soon learned that
their best return on investment was the "purchase" of politicians willing to pass the legislation they put in their hands. Much
of their investment included creating the right wing media apparatus.
The Class War is real. It has been going on for 40 years, with the Conservative army facing virtually no resistance. Conservatives
welcome Russia's help. Conservatives welcome barriers to people voting. Conservatives welcome a populace that believes lies that
benefit them. Conservatives welcome the social and financial decline of the entire middle class and poor as long as it profits
the rich financially, and by extension enhances their power politically.
If retirees flee our country that will certainly please the Conservatives as that will be fewer critics (enemies). Also less
need or demand for social programs.
"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day, but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished
period and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing
[a people] to slavery" Thomas Jefferson. Rights of British America, 1774 ME 1:193, Papers 1:125
yes, my problem with the post as well, completely ignores democrat complicity the part where someone with a 26k salary
will pay 16k in insurance? No they won't, the system would collapse in that case which will be fine with me.
"President Richard Nixon may have been a paranoid right-winger with authoritarian tendencies, but he expanded Medicare and
supported universal health care."
"Gimme that old time Republican!"
One of the reasons I love NC is that most political economic analysis is often more harsh on the Democrats than the Repubs
so I am a bit dismayed how this article is way too easy on Team D. How many little (and not so little) knives in the back from
Clinton and Obama? Is a knife in the chest that much worse?
This entire thread is simply heartbreaking, Americans have had their money, their freedom, their privacy, their health, and
sometimes their very lives taken away from them by the State. But the heartbreaking part is that they feel they are powerless
to do anything at all about it so are just trying to leave.
But "People should not fear the government; the government should fear the people"
As your quote appears to imply, it's not a problem that can be solved by voting which, let's not forget, is nothing more
than expressing an opinion. I am not sticking around just to find out if economically-crushed, opiod-, entertainment-, social
media-addled Americans are actually capable of rolling out tumbrils for trips to the guillotines in the city squares. I strongly
suspect not.
This is the country where, after the banks crushed the economy in 2008, caused tens of thousands to lose their jobs, and
then got huge bailouts, the people couldn't even be bothered to take their money out of the big banks and put it elsewhere. Because,
you know, convenience! Expressing an opinion, or mobilizing others to express an opinion, or educating or proselytizing others
about what opinion to have, is about the limit of what they are willing, or know how to do.
"... And, recent studies have shown, the longer you're out of work - especially if you're older and out of work - the harder it becomes to get a job offer. ..."
I thought this was an interesting article. Apologies if this has been posted on NC
already.
A stunning 33% of job seekers ages 55 and older are long-term unemployed, according to
the AARP Public Policy Institute. The average length of unemployment for the roughly 1.2
million people 55+ who are out of work: seven to nine months. "It's emotionally devastating
for them," said Carl Van Horn, director of Rutgers University's John J. Heldrich Center for
Workforce Development, at a Town Hall his center and the nonprofit WorkingNation held
earlier this year in New Brunswick, N.J.
... ... ...
The fight faced by the long-term unemployed
And, recent studies have shown, the longer you're out of work - especially if you're older and out of work - the harder
it becomes to get a job offer.
The job-finding rate declines by roughly 50% within eight months of unemployment, according to a 2016 paper by economists
Gregor Jarosch of Stanford University and Laura Pilossoph of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. "Unemployment duration
has a strongly negative effect on the likelihood of subsequent employment," wrote researchers from the University of
Maryland and the U.S. Census Bureau in another 2016 paper.
"Once upon a time, you could take that first job and it would lead to the next job and the job after that," said Town
Hall panelist John Colborn, chief operating officer at the nonprofit JEVS Human Services, of Philadelphia. "The notion of a
career ladder offered some hope of getting back into the labor market. The rungs of the ladder are getting harder and harder
to find and some of them are broken."
In inner cities, said Kimberly McClain, CEO of The Newark Alliance, "there's an extra layer beyond being older and out of
work. There are issues of race and poverty and being defined by your ZIP Code. There's an incredible sense of urgency."
... ... ...
Filling a work gap
If you are over 50, unemployed and have a work gap right now, the Town Hall speakers said, fill it by volunteering,
getting an internship, doing project work, job-shadowing someone in a field you want to be in or taking a class to re-skill.
These kind of things "make a candidate a lot more attractive," said Colborn. Be sure to note them in your cover letter and
résumé.
Town Hall panelist Amanda Mullan, senior vice president and chief human resources officer of the New Jersey Resources
Corp. (a utility company based in Wall, N.J.), said that when her company is interviewing someone who has been out of work
lately, "we will ask: 'What have you done during that time frame?' If we get 'Nuthin,' that shows something about the
individual, from a motivational perspective."
... ... ...
The relief of working again
Finally finding work when you're over 50 and unemployed for a stretch can be a relief for far more than financial
reasons.
"Once I landed my job, the thing I most looked forward to was the weekend," said Konopka. "Not to relax, but because I
didn't have to think about finding a job anymore. That's 24/7 in your head. You're always thinking on a Saturday: 'If I'm
not doing something to find a job, will there be a posting out there?'"
At 5:30 every morning, Tony Gwiazdowski rolls out of bed, brews a pot of coffee and carefully arranges his laptop, cell phone
and notepad like silverware across the kitchen table.
And then he waits.
Gwiazdowski, 57, has been waiting for 16 months. Since losing his job as a transportation sales manager in February 2009, he wakes
each morning to the sobering reminder that, yes, he is still unemployed. So he pushes aside the fatigue, throws on some clothes and
sends out another flurry of resumes and cheery cover letters.
But most days go by without a single phone call. And around sundown, when he hears his neighbors returning home from work, Gwiazdowski
-- the former mayor of Hillsborough -- can't help but allow himself one tiny sigh of resignation.
"You sit there and you wonder, 'What am I doing wrong?'" said Gwiazdowski, who finds companionship in his 2-year-old golden retriever,
Charlie, until his wife returns from work.
"The worst moment is at the end of the day when it's 4:30 and you did everything you could, and the phone hasn't rung, the e-mails
haven't come through."
Gwiazdowski is one of a growing number of chronically unemployed workers in New Jersey and across the country who are struggling
to get through what is becoming one long, jobless nightmare -- even as the rest of the economy has begun to show signs of recovery.
Nationwide, 46 percent of the unemployed -- 6.7 million Americans -- have been without work for at least half a year, by far the
highest percentage recorded since the U.S. Labor Department began tracking the data in 1948.
In New Jersey, nearly 40 percent of the 416,000 unemployed workers last year fit that profile, up from about 20 percent in previous
years, according to the department, which provides only annual breakdowns for individual states. Most of them were unemployed for
more than a year.
But the repercussions of chronic unemployment go beyond the loss of a paycheck or the realization that one might never find the
same kind of job again. For many, the sinking feeling of joblessness -- with no end in sight -- can take a psychological toll, experts
say.
Across the state, mental health crisis units saw a 20 percent increase in demand last year as more residents reported suffering
from unemployment-related stress, according to the New Jersey Association of Mental Health Agencies.
"The longer the unemployment continues, the more impact it will have on their personal lives and mental health," said Shauna Moses,
the association's associate executive director. "There's stress in the marriage, with the kids, other family members, with friends."
And while a few continue to cling to optimism, even the toughest admit there are moments of despair: Fear of never finding work,
envy of employed friends and embarassment at having to tell acquaintances that, nope, still no luck.
"When they say, 'Hi Mayor,' I don't tell a lot of people I'm out of work -- I say I'm semi-retired," said Gwiazdowski, who maxed
out on unemployment benefits several months ago.
"They might think, 'Gee, what's wrong with him? Why can't he get a job?' It's a long story and maybe people really don't care
and now they want to get away from you."
SECOND TIME AROUND
Lynn Kafalas has been there before, too. After losing her computer training job in 2000, the East Hanover resident took four agonizing
years to find new work -- by then, she had refashioned herself into a web designer.
That not-too-distant experience is why Kafalas, 52, who was laid off again eight months ago, grows uneasier with each passing
day. Already, some of her old demons have returned, like loneliness, self-doubt and, worst of all, insomnia. At night, her mind races
to dissect the latest interview: What went wrong? What else should she be doing? And why won't even Barnes & Noble hire her?
"It's like putting a stopper on my life -- I can't move on," said Kafalas, who has given up karate lessons, vacations and regular
outings with friends. "Everything is about the interviews."
And while most of her friends have been supportive, a few have hinted to her that she is doing something wrong, or not doing enough.
The remarks always hit Kafalas with a pang.
In a recent study, researchers at Rutgers University found that the chronically unemployed are prone to high levels of stress,
anxiety, depression, loneliness and even substance abuse, which take a toll on their self-esteem and personal relationships.
"They're the forgotten group," said Carl Van Horn, director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers,
and a co-author of the report. "And the longer you are unemployed, the less likely you are to get a job."
Of the 900 unemployed workers first interviewed last August for the study, only one in 10 landed full-time work by March of this
year, and only half of those lucky few expressed satisfaction with their new jobs. Another one in 10 simply gave up searching.
Among those who were still unemployed, many struggled to make ends meet by borrowing from friends or family, turning to government
food stamps and forgoing health care, according to the study.
More than half said they avoided all social contact, while slightly less than half said they had lost touch with close friends.
Six in 10 said they had problems sleeping.
Kafalas says she deals with her chronic insomnia by hitting the gym for two hours almost every evening, lifting weights and pounding
the treadmill until she feels tired enough to fall asleep.
"Sometimes I forget what day it is. Is it Tuesday? And then I'll think of what TV show ran the night before," she said. "Waiting
is the toughest part."
AGE A FACTOR
Generally, the likelihood of long-term unemployment increases with age, experts say. A report by the National Employment Law Project
this month found that nearly half of those who were unemployed for six months or longer were at least 45 years old. Those between
16 and 24 made up just 14 percent.
Tell that to Adam Blank, 24, who has been living with his girlfriend and her parents at their Martinsville home since losing his
sales job at Best Buy a year and half ago.
Blank, who graduated from Rutgers with a major in communications, says he feels like a burden sometimes, especially since his
girlfriend, Tracy Rosen, 24, works full-time at a local nonprofit. He shows her family gratitude with small chores, like taking out
the garbage, washing dishes, sweeping floors and doing laundry.
Still, he often feels inadequate.
"All I'm doing on an almost daily basis is sitting around the house trying to keep myself from going stir-crazy," said Blank,
who dreams of starting a social media company.
When he is feeling particularly low, Blank said he turns to a tactic employed by prisoners of war in Vietnam: "They used to build
dream houses in their head to help keep their sanity. It's really just imagining a place I can call my own."
LESSONS LEARNED
Meanwhile, Gwiazdowski, ever the optimist, says unemployment has taught him a few things.
He has learned, for example, how to quickly assess an interviewer's age and play up or down his work experience accordingly --
he doesn't want to appear "threatening" to a potential employer who is younger. He has learned that by occasionally deleting and
reuploading his resume to job sites, his entry appears fresh.
"It's almost like a game," he said, laughing. "You are desperate, but you can't show it."
But there are days when he just can't find any humor in his predicament -- like when he finishes a great interview but receives
no offer, or when he hears a fellow job seeker finally found work and feels a slight twinge of jealousy.
"That's what I'm missing -- putting on that shirt and tie in the morning and going to work," he said.
The memory of getting dressed for work is still so vivid, Gwiazdowski says, that he has to believe another job is just around
the corner.
"You always have to hope that that morning when you get up, it's going to be the day," he said.
"Today is going to be the day that something is going to happen."
I collect from the state of iowa, was on tier I and when the gov't recessed without passing extension, iowa stopped paying
tier I claims that were already open, i was scheduled to be on tier I until july 15th, and its gone now, as a surprise, when i
tried to claim my week this week i was notified. SURPRISE, talk about stress.
This is terrible....just wait until RIF'd teachers hit the unemployment offices....but then, this is what NJ wanted...fired
teachers who are to blame for the worst recession our country has seen in 150 years...thanks GWB.....thanks Donald Rumsfeld......thanks
Dick Cheney....thanks Karl "Miss Piggy" Rove...and thank you Mr. Big Boy himself...Gov Krispy Kreame!
For readers who care about this nation's unemployed- Call your Senators to pass HR 4213, the "Extenders" bill. Unfortunately,
it does not add UI benefits weeks, however it DOES continue the emergency federal tiers of UI. If it does not pass this week many
of us are cut off at 26 wks. No tier 1, 2 -nothing.
The longer you are unemployed, the more you are effected by those factors.
Notable quotes:
"... The good news is that only a relatively small number of people are seriously affected by the stress of unemployment to the extent they need medical assistance. Most people don't get to the serious levels of stress, and much as they loathe being unemployed, they suffer few, and minor, ill effects. ..."
"... Worries about income, domestic problems, whatever, the list is as long as humanity. The result of stress is a strain on the nervous system, and these create the physical effects of the situation over time. The chemistry of stress is complex, but it can be rough on the hormonal system. ..."
"... Not at all surprisingly, people under stress experience strong emotions. It's a perfectly natural response to what can be quite intolerable emotional strains. It's fair to say that even normal situations are felt much more severely by people already under stress. Things that wouldn't normally even be issues become problems, and problems become serious problems. Relationships can suffer badly in these circumstances, and that, inevitably, produces further crises. Unfortunately for those affected, these are by now, at this stage, real crises. ..."
"... Some people are stubborn enough and tough enough mentally to control their emotions ruthlessly, and they do better under these conditions. Even that comes at a cost, and although under control, the stress remains a problem. ..."
"... One of the reasons anger management is now a growth industry is because of the growing need for assistance with severe stress over the last decade. This is a common situation, and help is available. ..."
"... Depression is universally hated by anyone who's ever had it. ..."
"... Very important: Do not, under any circumstances, try to use drugs or alcohol as a quick fix. They make it worse, over time, because they actually add stress. Some drugs can make things a lot worse, instantly, too, particularly the modern made-in-a-bathtub variety. They'll also destroy your liver, which doesn't help much, either. ..."
"... You don't have to live in a gym to get enough exercise for basic fitness. A few laps of the pool, a good walk, some basic aerobic exercises, you're talking about 30-45 minutes a day. It's not hard. ..."
It's almost impossible to describe the various psychological impacts, because there are so many. There are sometimes serious consequences,
including suicide, and, some would say worse, chronic depression.
There's not really a single cause and effect. It's a compound effect, and unemployment, by adding stress, affects people, often
badly.
The world doesn't need any more untrained psychologists, and we're not pretending to give medical advice. That's for professionals.
Everybody is different, and their problems are different. What we can do is give you an outline of the common problems, and what
you can do about them.
The good news is that only a relatively small number of people are seriously affected by the stress of unemployment to the extent
they need medical assistance. Most people don't get to the serious levels of stress, and much as they loathe being unemployed, they
suffer few, and minor, ill effects.
For others, there are a series of issues, and the big three are:
Stress
Anger, and other negative emotions
Depression
Stress
Stress is Stage One. It's a natural result of the situation. Worries about income, domestic problems, whatever, the list is as
long as humanity. The result of stress is a strain on the nervous system, and these create the physical effects of the situation
over time. The chemistry of stress is complex, but it can be rough on the hormonal system.
Over an extended period, the body's natural hormonal balances are affected, and this can lead to problems. These are actually
physical issues, but the effects are mental, and the first obvious effects are, naturally, emotional.
Anger, and other negative emotions
Not at all surprisingly, people under stress experience strong emotions. It's a perfectly natural response to what can be quite
intolerable emotional strains. It's fair to say that even normal situations are felt much more severely by people already under stress.
Things that wouldn't normally even be issues become problems, and problems become serious problems. Relationships can suffer badly in these circumstances, and that, inevitably, produces further crises. Unfortunately for those
affected, these are by now, at this stage, real crises.
If the actual situation was already bad, this mental state makes it a lot worse. Constant aggravation doesn't help people to keep
a sense of perspective. Clear thinking isn't easy when under constant stress.
Some people are stubborn enough and tough enough mentally to control their emotions ruthlessly, and they do better under these
conditions. Even that comes at a cost, and although under control, the stress remains a problem.
One of the reasons anger management is now a growth industry is because of the growing need for assistance with severe stress
over the last decade. This is a common situation, and help is available.
If you have reservations about seeking help, bear in mind it can't possibly be any worse than the problem.
Depression
Depression is universally hated by anyone who's ever had it. This is the next stage, and it's caused by hormonal imbalances which
affect serotonin. It's actually a physical problem, but it has mental effects which are sometimes devastating, and potentially life
threatening.
The common symptoms are:
Difficulty in focusing mentally, thoughts all over the place in no logical order
Fits of crying for no known reason
Illogical, or irrational patterns of thought and behavior
Sadness
Suicidal thinking
It's a disgusting experience. No level of obscenity could possibly describe it. Depression is misery on a level people wouldn't
conceive in a nightmare. At this stage the patient needs help, and getting it is actually relatively easy. It's convincing the person they need to do something about it that's difficult. Again, the mental state is working against the person. Even admitting there's a problem is hard for many people in this condition.
Generally speaking, a person who is trusted is the best person to tell anyone experiencing the onset of depression to seek help. Important: If you're experiencing any of those symptoms:
Get on the phone and make an appointment to see your doctor. It takes half an hour for a diagnosis, and you can be on your
way home with a cure in an hour. You don't have to suffer. The sooner you start to get yourself out of depression, the better.
Avoid any antidepressants with the so-called withdrawal side effects. They're not too popular with patients, and are under
some scrutiny. The normal antidepressants work well enough for most people.
Very important: Do not, under any circumstances, try to use drugs or alcohol as a quick fix. They make it worse, over time, because they actually add stress. Some drugs can make things a lot worse, instantly, too, particularly
the modern made-in-a-bathtub variety. They'll also destroy your liver, which doesn't help much, either.
Alcohol, in particular, makes depression much worse. Alcohol is a depressant, itself, and it's also a nasty chemical mix with
all those stress hormones.
If you've ever had alcohol problems, or seen someone with alcohol wrecking their lives, depression makes things about a million
times worse.
Just don't do it. Steer clear of any so-called stimulants, because they don't mix with antidepressants, either.
Unemployment and staying healthy
The above is what you need to know about the risks of unemployment to your health and mental well being.
These situations are avoidable.
Your best defense against the mental stresses and strains of unemployment, and their related problems is staying healthy.
We can promise you that is nothing less than the truth. The healthier you are, the better your defenses against stress, and the
more strength you have to cope with situations.
Basic health is actually pretty easy to achieve:
Diet
Eat real food, not junk, and make sure you're getting enough food. Your body can't work with resources it doesn't have. Good food
is a real asset, and you'll find you don't get tired as easily. You need the energy reserves.
Give yourself a good selection of food that you like, that's also worth eating.
The good news is that plain food is also reasonably cheap, and you can eat as much as you need. Basic meals are easy enough to
prepare, and as long as you're getting all the protein veg and minerals you need, you're pretty much covered.
You can also use a multivitamin cap, or broad spectrum supplements, to make sure you're getting all your trace elements. Also
make sure you're getting the benefits of your food by taking acidophilus or eating yogurt regularly.
Exercise
You don't have to live in a gym to get enough exercise for basic fitness. A few laps of the pool, a good walk, some basic aerobic
exercises, you're talking about 30-45 minutes a day. It's not hard.
Don't just sit and suffer
If anything's wrong, check it out when it starts, not six months later. Most medical conditions become serious when they're allowed
to get worse.
For unemployed people the added risk is also that they may prevent you getting that job, or going for interviews. If something's
causing you problems, get rid of it.
Nobody who's been through the blender of unemployment thinks it's fun.
Anyone who's really done it tough will tell you one thing:
Don't be a victim. Beat the problem, and you'll really appreciate the feeling.
"... According to Amazon's metrics, I was one of their most productive order pickers -- I was a machine, and my pace would accelerate throughout the course of a shift. What they didn't know was that I stayed fast because if I slowed down for even a minute, I'd collapse from boredom and exhaustion ..."
"... toiling in some remote corner of the warehouse, alone for 10 hours, with my every move being monitored by management on a computer screen. ..."
"... ISS could simply deactivate a worker's badge and they would suddenly be out of work. They treated us like beggars because we needed their jobs. Even worse, more than two years later, all I see is: Jeff Bezos is hiring. ..."
"... I have never felt more alone than when I was working there. I worked in isolation and lived under constant surveillance ..."
"... That was 2012 and Amazon's labor and business practices were only beginning to fall under scrutiny. ..."
"... I received $200 a week for the following six months and I haven't had any source of regular income since those benefits lapsed. I sold everything in my apartment and left Pennsylvania as fast as I could. I didn't know how to ask for help. I didn't even know that I qualified for food stamps. ..."
Nichole Gracely has a master's degree and was one of Amazon's best order pickers. Now, after
protesting the company, she's homeless.
I am homeless. My worst days now are better than my best days working at Amazon.
According to Amazon's metrics, I was one of their most productive order pickers -- I was a machine,
and my pace would accelerate throughout the course of a shift. What they didn't know was that
I stayed fast because if I slowed down for even a minute, I'd collapse from boredom and exhaustion.
During peak season, I trained incoming temps regularly. When that was over, I'd be an ordinary
order picker once again, toiling in some remote corner of the warehouse, alone for 10 hours,
with my every move being monitored by management on a computer screen.
Superb performance did not guarantee job security. ISS is the temp agency that provides warehouse
labor for Amazon and they are at the center of the SCOTUS case Integrity Staffing Solutions
vs. Busk. ISS could simply deactivate a worker's badge and they would suddenly be out of work.
They treated us like beggars because we needed their jobs. Even worse, more than two years later,
all I see is: Jeff Bezos is hiring.
I have never felt more alone than when I was working there. I worked in isolation and lived
under constant surveillance. Amazon could mandate overtime and I would have to comply with any
schedule change they deemed necessary, and if there was not any work, they would send us home
early without pay. I started to fall behind on my bills.
At some point, I lost all fear. I had already been through hell. I protested Amazon. The
gag order was lifted and I was free to speak. I spent my last days in a lovely apartment constructing
arguments on discussion boards, writing articles and talking to reporters. That was 2012 and
Amazon's labor and business practices were only beginning to fall under scrutiny. I walked away
from Amazon's warehouse and didn't have any other source of income lined up.
I cashed in on my excellent credit, took out cards, and used them to pay rent and buy food
because it would be six months before I could receive my first unemployment compensation check.
I received $200 a week for the following six months and I haven't had any source of regular
income since those benefits lapsed. I sold everything in my apartment and left Pennsylvania
as fast as I could. I didn't know how to ask for help. I didn't even know that I qualified for
food stamps.
I furthered my Amazon protest while homeless in Seattle. When the Hachette dispute flared
up I "flew a sign," street parlance for panhandling with a piece of cardboard: "I was an order
picker at amazon.com. Earned degrees. Been published. Now,
I'm homeless, writing and doing this. Anything helps."
I have made more money per word with my signs than I will probably ever earn writing, and
I make more money per hour than I will probably ever be paid for my work. People give me money
and offer well wishes and I walk away with a restored faith in humanity.
I flew my protest sign outside Whole Foods while Amazon corporate employees were on lunch
break, and they gawked. I went to my usual flying spots around Seattle and made more money per
hour protesting Amazon with my sign than I did while I worked with them. And that was in Seattle.
One woman asked, "What are you writing?" I told her about the descent from working poor to homeless,
income inequality, my personal experience. She mentioned Thomas Piketty's book, we chatted a
little, she handed me $10 and wished me luck. Another guy said, "Damn, that's a great story!
I'd read it," and handed me a few bucks.
On the topic of outsourcing, IMO it can be cheaper if done right. On paper it always seems like a great idea, but in practice
it's not always the best idea financially and/or getting the same or better result in comparison to keeping it in-house. I've worked
for companies where they have outsourced a particular department/function to companies where I am the one the job is outsourced to.
My observation has been the success of getting projects done (e.g.: programing) or facilitating a role (e.g.: sys admin) rely on a few
factors regardless of outsourcing or not.
Notable quotes:
"... On the topic of outsourcing, IMO it can be cheaper if done right. On paper it always seems like a great idea, but in practice it's not always the best idea financially and/or getting the same or better result in comparison to keeping it in-house. I've worked for companies where they have outsourced a particular department/function to companies where I am the one the job is outsourced to. My observation has been the success of getting projects done (e.g.: programing) or facilitating a role (e.g.: sys admin) rely on a few factors regardless of outsourcing or not. ..."
On the topic of outsourcing, IMO it can be cheaper if done right. On paper it always seems like a great idea, but in practice
it's not always the best idea financially and/or getting the same or better result in comparison to keeping it in-house. I've
worked for companies where they have outsourced a particular department/function to companies where I am the one the job is outsourced
to. My observation has been the success of getting projects done (e.g.: programing) or facilitating a role (e.g.: sys admin) rely
on a few factors regardless of outsourcing or not.
The first is a golden rule of sorts on doing anything:
Cheap
Quality
Fast
You can only pick two; NO exceptions. I've encountered so many upper management types that foolishly think they can get away
with having all three. In my experience 9/10 of the time it turns out a lack of quality bites them in the butt sometime down the
road when they assumed they somehow managed to achieve all three.
The second is communication. Mostly everyone in at least the US has experienced the pain of being subjected to some company's
outsourced customer service and/or tech support that can't effectively communicate with both parties on the same page of understanding
one another. I really shouldn't need to explain why communication, understanding one another is so important. Sadly this is something
I have to constantly explain to my current boss with events like today where my non-outsourced colleague rebooted a number of
production critical servers when he was asked to reboot just one secondary server.
Third is the employee's skill in doing the job. Again, another obvious one, but I've observed that it isn't always on the hiring
menu. Additionally I've seen some people that interview well, but couldn't create a "Hello World" HTML page for a web developer
position as an example. There's no point in hiring or keeping a hired individual to do a job that they lack the skill to do; even
if it's an entry-level position with training, that person should be willing to put for the effort to learn and take notes. I
accept that everyone has their own unique skills that can aide or hinder their ability to learn and be proficient with a particular
task. However, I firmly believe anyone can learn to do anything as long as they put their mind to it. I barely have any artistic
ability and my drawing skills are stick figures at best (XKCD is miles ahead of me); if I were to put forth the effort to learn
how to draw and paint, I could become a good artist. I taught an A+ technician certification class at a tech school a while back
and I had a retired Marine that served in the Vietnam War as one of my students. One could argue his best skill was killing and
blowing stuff up. He worked hard and learned to be a technician and passed CompTIA's certification test without a problem. That
leads me to the next point.
Lastly is attitude of the end employee doing the actual work. It boggles my mind how so many managers loose the plot when it
comes to employee morale and motivation. Productivity generally is improved when those two are improved and it usually doesn't
have to involve spending a bunch of money. The employee's attitude should be getting the work done correctly in a reasonable amount
of time. Demanding it is a poor approach. Poisoning an employee will result in poisoning the company in a small manner all the
way up to the failure of the company. Employees should be encouraged through actual morale improvements, positive motivation,
and incentives for doing more work at the same and/or better quality level.
Outsourcing or keeping things in house can be successful and possibly economical if approached correctly with the appropriate
support of upper management.
How dramatic? Isn't outsourcing done (like it or not) to reduce costs?
Outsourcing is done to reduce the projected costs that PHBs see. In reality, outsourcing can lead to increased costs and delays
due to time zone differences and language/cultural barriers.
I have seen it work reasonably well, but only when the extra effort and delays caused by the increased need for rework that
comes from complex software projects. If you are working with others on software, it is so much quicker to produce quality software
if the person who knows the business requirements is sitting right next to the person doing design and the person cutting code
and the person doing the testing, etc, etc.
If these people or groups are scattered around the world with different cultures and native languages, communication can suffer,
increasing misunderstanding and reducing the quality. I have personally seen this lead to massive increase in code defects in
a project that went from in house development to outsourced.
Also, time zone differences cause problems. I have noticed that the further west people live, the less likely they are to take
into account how far behind they are. Working with people who fail to realise that their Monday morning is the next day for someone
else, or that by the time they are halfway through Friday, others are already on their weekend is not only frustrating, it leads
to slow turn around of bug fixes, etc.
Yeah, I'm told outsourcing keeps costs down, but I am yet to see conclusive evidence of that in the real world. At least in
complex development. YMMV for support/call centre stuff.
"... 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
"This overly narrow hiring spec then leads to absurd, widespread complaint that companies can't find people with the right skills"
. In the IT job markets such postings are often called purple squirrels
Notable quotes:
"... In particular, there seems to be an extremely popular variant of the above where the starting proposition "God makes moral people rich" is improperly converted to "Rich people are more moral" which is then readily negated to "Poor people are immoral" and then expanded to "Poor people are immoral, thus they DESERVE to suffer for it". It's essentially the theological equivalent of dividing by zero ..."
"... That said, the ranks of the neoliberals are not small. They constitute what Jonathan Schell calls a "mass minority." I suspect the neoliberals have about the same level of popular support that the Nazis did at the time of their takeover of Germany in 1932, or the Bolsheviks had in Russia at the time of their takeover in 1917, which is about 20 or 25% of the total population. ..."
"... The ranks of the neoliberals are made to appear far greater than they really are because they have all but exclusive access to the nation's megaphone. The Tea Party can muster a handful of people to disrupt a town hall meeting and it gets coast to coast, primetime coverage. But let a million people protest against bank bailouts, and it is ignored. Thus, by manipulation of the media, the mass minority is made to appear to be much larger than it really is. ..."
Over the past three decades, large parts of our culture here in the US have internalized the lessons of the new Social Darwinism,
with a significant body of literature to explain and justify it. Many of us have internalized, without even realizing it,
the ideas of "dog eat dog", "every man for himself", "society should be structured like the animal kingdom, where the weak and
sick simply die because they cannot compete, and this is healthy", and "everything that happens to you is your own fault. There
is no such thing as circumstance that cannot be overcome, and certainly no birth lottery."
The levers pulled by politicians and the Fed put these things into practice, but even if we managed get different (better)
politicians or Fed chairmen, ones who weren't steeped in this culture and ideology, we'd still be left with the culture in the
population at large, and things like the "unemployed stigma" are likely to die very, very hard. Acceptance of the "just-world
phenomenon" here in the US runs deep.
perfect stranger:
"Religion is just as vulnerable to corporate capture as is the government or the academy."
This is rather rhetorical statement, and wrong one. One need to discern spiritual aspect of religion from the religion as a
tool.
Religion, as is structured, is complicit: in empoverishment, obedience, people's preconditioning, and legislative enabler in
the institutions such as Supreme – and non-supreme – Court(s). It is a form of PR of the ruling class for the governing class.
DownSouth:
perfect stranger,
Religion, just like human nature, is not that easy to put in a box.
For every example you can cite where religion "is complicit: in empoverishment, obedience, people's preconditioning, and legislative
enabler in the institution," I can point to an example of where religion engendered a liberating, emancipatory and revolutionary
spirit.
Examples:
•Early Christianity •Nominalism •Early Protestantism •Gandhi •Martin Luther King
Now granted, there don't seem to be any recent examples of this of any note, unless we consider Chris Hedges a religionist,
which I'm not sure we can do. Would it be appropriate to consider Hedges a religionist?
perfect stranger:
Yes, that maybe, just maybe be the case in early stages of forming new religion(s). In case of Christianity old rulers from
Rome were trying to save own head/throne and the S.P.Q.R. imperia by adopting new religion.
You use examples of Gandhi and MLK which is highly questionable both were fighters for independence and the second, civil rights.
In a word: not members of establishment just as I said there were (probably) seeing the religion as spiritual force not tool of
enslavement.
In particular, there seems to be an extremely popular variant of the above where the starting proposition "God makes moral
people rich" is improperly converted to "Rich people are more moral" which is then readily negated to "Poor people are immoral"
and then expanded to "Poor people are immoral, thus they DESERVE to suffer for it". It's essentially the theological equivalent
of dividing by zero
DownSouth:
Rex,
I agree.
Poll after poll after poll has shown that a majority of Americans, and a rather significant majority, reject the values, attitudes,
beliefs and opinions proselytized by the stealth religion we call "neoclassical economics."
That said, the ranks of the neoliberals are not small. They constitute what Jonathan Schell calls a "mass minority." I
suspect the neoliberals have about the same level of popular support that the Nazis did at the time of their takeover of Germany
in 1932, or the Bolsheviks had in Russia at the time of their takeover in 1917, which is about 20 or 25% of the total population.
The ranks of the neoliberals are made to appear far greater than they really are because they have all but exclusive access
to the nation's megaphone. The Tea Party can muster a handful of people to disrupt a town hall meeting and it gets coast to coast,
primetime coverage. But let a million people protest against bank bailouts, and it is ignored. Thus, by manipulation of the media,
the mass minority is made to appear to be much larger than it really is.
The politicians love this, because as they carry water for their pet corporations, they can point to the Tea Partiers and say:
"See what a huge upwelling of popular support I am responding to."
JTFaraday:
Well, if that's true, then the unemployed are employable but the mass mediated mentality would like them to believe they
are literally and inherently unemployable so that they underestimate and under-sell themselves.
This is as much to the benefit of those who would like to pick up "damaged goods" on the cheap as those who promote the unemployment
problem as one that inheres in prospective employees rather than one that is a byproduct of a bad job market lest someone be tempted
to think we should address it politically.
That's where I see this blame the unemployed finger pointing really getting traction these days.
attempter:
I apologize for the fact that I only read the first few paragraphs of this before quitting in disgust.
I just can no longer abide the notion that "labor" can ever be seen by human beings as a "cost" at all. We really need to refuse
to even tolerate that way of phrasing things. Workers create all wealth. Parasites have no right to exist. These are facts, and
we should refuse to let argument range beyond them.
The only purpose of civilization is to provide a better way of living and for all people. This includes the right and full
opportunity to work and manage for oneself and/or as a cooperative group. If civilization doesn't do that, we're better off without
it.
psychohistorian:
I am one of those long term unemployed.
I suppose my biggest employment claim would be as some sort of IT techie, with numerous supply chain systems and component
design, development, implementation, interfaces with other systems and ongoing support. CCNP certification and a history of techiedom
going back to WEYCOS.
I have a patent (6,209,954) in my name and 12+ years of beating my head against the wall in an industry that buys compliance
with the "there is no problem here, move on now" approach.
Hell, I was a junior woodchuck program administrator back in the early 70's working for the Office of the Governor of the state
of Washington on CETA PSE or Public Service Employment. The office of the Governor ran the PSE program for 32 of the 39 counties
in the state that were not big enough to run their own. I helped organize the project approval process in all those counties to
hire folk at ( if memory serves me max of $833/mo.) to fix and expand parks and provide social and other government services as
defined projects with end dates. If we didn't have the anti-public congress and other government leadership we have this could
be a current component in a rational labor policy but I digress.
I have experience in the construction trades mostly as carpenter but some electrical, plumbing, HVAC, etc. also.
So, of course there is some sort of character flaw that is keeping me and all those others from employment ..right. I may have
more of an excuse than others, have paid into SS for 45 years but still would work if it was available ..taking work away from
other who may need it more .why set up a society where we have to compete as such for mere existence???????
One more face to this rant. We need government by the people and for the people which we do not have now. Good, public focused,
not corporate focused government is bigger than any entities that exist under its jurisdiction and is kept updated by required
public participation in elections and potentially other things like military, peace corps, etc. in exchange for advanced education.
I say this as someone who has worked at various levels in both the public and private sectors there are ignorant and misguided
folks everywhere. At least with ongoing active participation there is a chance that government would, once constructed, be able
to evolve as needed within public focus .IMO.
Ishmael:
Some people would say I have been unemployed for 10 years. In 2000 after losing the last of my four CFO gigs for public companies
I found it necessary to start consulting. This has lead to two of my three biggest winning years. I am usually consulting on cutting
edge area of my profession and many times have large staffs reporting to me that I bring on board to get jobs done. For several
years I subcontacted to a large international consulting firm to clean up projects which went wrong. Let me give some insight
here.
First, most good positions have gate keepers who are professional recruiters. It is near impossible to get
by them and if you are unemployed they will hardly talk to you. One time talking to a recruiter at Korn Fery I was interviewing
for a job I have done several times in an industry I have worked in several times. She made a statement that I had never worked
at a well known company. I just about fell out of my chair laughing. At one time I was a senior level executive for the largest
consulting firm in the world and lived on three continents and worked with companies on six. In addition, I had held senior
positions for 2 fortune 500 firms and was the CFO for a company with $4.5 billion in revenue. I am well known at several PE
firms and the founder of one of the largest mentioned in a meeting that one of his great mistakes was not investing in a very
successful LBO (return of in excess of 20 multiple to investors in 18 months) I was the CFO for. In a word most recruiters
are incompetent.
Second, most CEO's any more are just insecure politicians. One time during an interview I had a CEO asked
me to talk about some accomplishments. I was not paying to much attention as I rattled off accomplishments and the CEO went
nuclear and started yelling at me that he did not know where I thought I was going with this job but the only position above
the CFO job was his and he was not going anywhere. I assured him I was only interested in the CFO position and not his, but
I knew the job was over. Twice feed back that I got from recruiters which they took at criticism was the "client said I seemed
very assured of myself."
Third, government, banking, business and the top MBA schools are based upon lying to move forward. I remember
a top human resource executive telling me right before Enron, MCI and Sarbanes Oxley that I needed to learn to be more flexible.
My response was that flexibility would get me an orange jump suit. Don't get me wrong, I have a wide grey zone, but it use
to be in business the looked for people who could identify problems early and resolve them. Now days I see far more of a demand
for people who can come up with PR spins to hide them. An attorney/treasurer consultant who partnered with me on a number of
consulting jobs told me some one called me "not very charming." He said he asked what that meant, and the person who said that
said, "Ish walks into a meeting and within 10 minutes he is asking about the 10,000 pound guerilla sitting in the room that
no one wants to talk about." CEO do not want any challenges in their organization.
Fourth, three above has lead to the hiring of very young and inexperienced people at senior levels. These
people are insecure and do not want more senior and experienced people above them and than has resulted in people older than
45 not finding positions.
Fifth, people are considered expendable and are fired for the lamest reasons anymore. A partner at one of
the larger and more prestigious recruiting firms one time told me, "If you have a good consulting business, just stick
with it. Our average placement does not last 18 months any more." Another well known recruiter in S. Cal. one time
commented to me, "Your average consulting gig runs longer than our average placement."
With all of that said, I have a hard time understanding such statements as "@attempter "Workers create all wealth. Parasites
have no right to exist." What does that mean? Every worker creates wealth. There is no difference in people. Sounds like communism
to me. I make a good living and my net worth has grown working for myself. I have never had a consulting gig terminated by the
client but I have terminated several. Usually, I am brought in to fix what several other people have failed at. I deliver basically
intellectual properties to companies. Does that mean I am not a worker. I do not usually lift anything heavy or move equipment
but I tell people what and where to do it so does that make me a parasite.
Those people who think everyone is equal and everyone deserves equal pay are fools or lazy. My rate is high, but what usually
starts as short term projects usually run 6 months or more because companies find I can do so much more than what most of their
staff can do and I am not a threat.
I would again like to have a senior challenging role at a decent size company but due to the reasons above will probably never
get one. However, you can never tell. I am currently consulting for a midsize very profitable company (grew 400% last year) where
I am twice the age of most people there, but everyone speaks to me with respect so you can never tell.
Lidia:
Ishmael, you're quite right. When I showed my Italian husband's resume to try and "network" in the US, my IT friends assumed
he was lying about his skills and work history.
Contemporaneously, in Italy it is impossible to get a job because of incentives to hire "youth". Age discrimination is
not illegal, so it's quite common to see ads that ask for a programmer under 30 with 5 years of experience in COBOL (the purple
squirrel).
Hosswire
Some good points about the foolishness of recruiters, but a great deal of that foolishness is forced by the clients themselves.
I used to be a recruiter myself, including at Korn Ferry in Southern California. I described the recruiting industry as "yet more
proof that God hates poor people" because my job was to ignore resumes from people seeking jobs and instead "source" aka "poach"
people who already had good jobs by dangling a higher salary in front of them. I didn't do it because I disparaged the unemployed,
or because I could not do the basic analysis to show that a candidate had analogous or transferrable skills to the opening.
I did it because the client, as Yves said, wanted people who were literally in the same job description already.
My theory is that the client wanted to have their ass covered in case the hire didn't work out, by being able to say that they
looked perfect "on paper." The lesson I learned for myself and my friends looking for jobs was simple, if morally dubious.
Basically, that if prospective employers are going to judge you based on a single piece of paper take full advantage of the fact
that you get to write that piece of paper yourself.
Ishmael:
Hosswire - I agree with your comment. There are poor recruiters like the one I sited but in general it is the clients fault.
Fear of failure. All hires have at least a 50% chance of going sideways on you. Most companies do not even have the ability to
look at a resume nor to interview. I did not mean to same nasty things about recruiters, and I even do it sometimes but mine.
I look at failure in a different light than most companies. You need to be continually experimenting and changing to survive
as a company and there will be some failures. The goal is to control the cost of failures while looking for the big pay off on
a winner.
Mannwich:
As a former recruiter and HR "professional" (I use that term very loosely for obvious reasons), I can honestly say that you
nailed it. Most big companies looking for mid to high level white collar "talent" will almost always take the perceived
safest route by hiring those who look the best ON PAPER and in a suit and lack any real interviewing skills to find the real stars.
What's almost comical is that companies almost always want to see the most linear resume possible because they want to see "job
stability" (e.g. a CYA document in case the person fails in that job) when in many cases nobody cares about the long range view
of the company anyway. My question was why should the candidate or employee care about the long range view if the employer clearly
doesn't?
Ishmael:
Manwhich another on point comment. Sometimes either interviewing for a job or consulting with a CEO it starts getting to the
absurd. I see all the time the requirement for stability in a persons background. Hello, where have they been the last 15 years.
In addition, the higher up you go the more likely you will be terminated sometime and that is especially true if you are hired
from outside the orgnanization. Companies want loyalty from an employee but offer none in return.
The average tenure for a CFO anymore is something around 18 months. I have been a first party participant (more than once)
where I went through an endless recruiting process for a company (lasting more than 6 months) they final hire some one and that
person is with the company for 3 months and then resigns (of course we all know it is through mutual agreement).
Ishmael:
Birch:
The real problem has become and maybe this is what you are referring to is the "Crony Capitalism." We have lost control of
our financial situation. Basically, PE is not the gods of the universe that everyone thinks they are. However, every bankers
secret wet dream is to become a private equity guy. Accordingly, bankers make ridiculous loans to PE because if you say no to
them then you can not play in their sand box any more. Since the govt will not let the banks go bankrupt like they should then
this charade continues inslaving everyone.
This country as well as many others has a large percentage of its assets tied up in over priced deals that the bankers/governments
will not let collapse while the blood sucking vampires suck the life out of the assets.
On the other hand, govt is not the answer. Govt is too large and accomplishes too little.
kevin de bruxelles:
The harsh reality is that, at least in the first few rounds, companies kick to the curb their weakest links and perceived
slackers. Therefore when it comes time to hire again, they are loath to go sloppy seconds on what they perceive to be
some other company's rejects. They would much rather hire someone who survived the layoffs working in a similar position in a
similar company. Of course the hiring company is going to have to pay for this privilege. Although not totally reliable, the fact
that someone survived the layoffs provides a form social proof for their workplace abilities.
On the macro level, labor has been under attack for thirty years by off shoring and third world immigration. It is no surprise
that since the working classes have been severely undermined that the middle classes would start to feel some pressure. By mass
immigration and off-shoring are strongly supported by both parties. Only when the pain gets strong enough will enough people rebel
and these two policies will be overturned. We still have a few years to go before this happens.
davver:
Let's say I run a factory. I produce cars and it requires very skilled work. Skilled welding, skilled machinists. Now I introduce
some robotic welders and an assembly line system. The plants productivity improves and the jobs actually get easier. They require
less skill, in fact I've simplified each task to something any idiot can do. Would wages go up or down? Are the workers really
contributing to that increase in productivity or is it the machines and methods I created?
Lets say you think laying off or cutting the wages of my existing workers is wrong. What happens when a new entrant into the
business employs a smaller workforce and lower wages, which they can do using the same technology? The new workers don't feel
like they were cut down in any way, they are just happy to have a job. Before they couldn't get a job at the old plant because
they lacked the skill, but now they can work in the new plant because the work is genuinely easier. Won't I go out of business?
Escariot:
I am 54 and have a ton of peers who are former white collar workers and professionals (project managers, architects, lighting
designers, wholesalers and sales reps for industrial and construction materials and equipment) now out of work going on three
years. Now I say out of work, I mean out of our trained and experienced fields.
We now work two or three gigs (waiting tables, mowing lawns, doing free lance, working in tourism, truck driving, moving company
and fedex ups workers) and work HARD, for much much less than we did, and we are seeing the few jobs that are coming back on line
going to younger workers. It is just the reality. And for most of us the descent has not been graceful, so our credit is a wreck,
which also breeds a whole other level of issues as now it is common for the credit record to be a deal breaker for employment,
housing, etc.
Strangely I don't sense a lot of anger or bitterness as much as humility. And gratitude for ANY work that comes our way. Health
insurance? Retirement accounts? not so much.
Mickey Marzick:
Yves and I have disagreed on how extensive the postwar "pact" between management and labor was in this country. But if you
drew a line from say, Trenton-Patterson, NJ to Cincinatti, OH to Minneapolis, MN, north and east of it where blue collar manufacturing
in steel, rubber, auto, machinery, etc., predominated, this "pact" may have existed but ONLY because physical plant and
production were concentrated there and workers could STOP production.
Outside of these heavy industrial pockets, unions were not always viewed favorably. As one moved into the rural hinterlands
surrounding them there was jealously and/or outright hostility. Elsewhere, especially in the South "unions" were the exception
not the rule. The differences between NE Ohio before 1975 – line from Youngstown to Toledo – and the rest of the state exemplified
this pattern. Even today, the NE counties of Ohio are traditional Democratic strongholds with the rest of the state largely Republican.
And I suspect this pattern existed elsewhere. But it is changing too
In any case, the demonization of the unemployed is just one notch above the vicious demonization of the poor that has
always existed in this country. It's a constant reminder for those still working that you could be next – cast out into
the darkness – because you "failed" or worse yet, SINNED. This internalization of the "inner cop" reinforces the dominant ideology
in two ways. First, it makes any resistance by individuals still employed less likely. Second, it pits those still working against
those who aren't, both of which work against the formation of any significant class consciousness amongst working people. The
"oppressed" very often internalize the value system of the oppressor.
As a nation of immigrants ETHNICITY may have more explanatory power than CLASS. For increasingly, it would appear that
the dominant ethnic group – suburban, white, European Americans – have thrown their lot in with corporate America. Scared of the
prospect of downward social mobility and constantly reminded of URBAN America – the other America – this group is trapped with
nowhere to else to go.
It's the divide and conquer strategy employed by ruling elites in this country since its founding [Federalist #10] with the
Know Nothings, blaming the Irish [NINA - no Irish need apply] and playing off each successive wave of immigrants against
the next. Only when the forces of production became concentrated in the urban industrial enclaves of the North was this
strategy less effective. And even then internal immigration by Blacks to the North in search of employment blunted the formation
of class consciousness among white ethnic industrial workers.
Wherever the postwar "pact of domination" between unions and management held sway, once physical plant was relocated elsewhere
[SOUTH] and eventually offshored, unemployment began to trend upwards. First it was the "rustbelt" now it's a nationwide
phenomenon. Needless to say, the "pact" between labor and management has been consigned to the dustbin of history.
White, suburban America has hitched its wagon to that of the corporate horse. Demonization of the unemployed coupled with demonization
of the poor only serve to terrorize this ethnic group into acquiescence. And as the workplace becomes a multicultural matrix this
ethnic group is constantly reminded of its perilous state. Until this increasingly atomized ethnic group breaks with corporate
America once and for all, it's unlikely that the most debilitating scourge of all working people – UNEMPLOYMENT – will be addressed.
Make no mistake about it, involuntary UNEMPLOYMENT/UNDEREMPLYEMT is a form of terrorism and its demonization is terrorism in
action. This "quiet violence" is psychological and the intimidation wrought by unemployment and/or the threat of it is intended
to dehumanize individuals subjected to it. Much like spousal abuse, the emotional and psychological effects are experienced way
before any physical violence. It's the inner cop that makes overt repression unnecessary. We terrorize ourselves into submission
without even knowing it because we accept it or come to tolerate it. So long as we accept "unemployment" as an inevitable consequence
of progress, as something unfortunate but inevitable, we will continue to travel down the road to serfdom where ARBEIT MACHT FREI!
FULL and GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT are the ultimate labor power.
Eric:
It's delicate since direct age discrimination is illegal, but when circumstances permit separating older workers they have
a very tough time getting back into the workforce in an era of high health care inflation. Older folks consume more health
care and if you are hiring from a huge surplus of available workers it isn't hard to steer around the more experienced. And nobody
gets younger, so when you don't get job A and go for job B 2 weeks later you, you're older still!
James:
Yves said- "This overly narrow hiring spec then leads to absurd, widespread complaint that companies can't find people
with the right skills"
In the IT job markets such postings are often called purple squirrels. The HR departments require the applicant to be expert
in a dozen programming languages. This is an excuse to hire a foreigner on a temp h1-b or other visa.
Most people aren't aware that this model dominates the sciences. Politicians scream we have a shortage of scientists, yet it
seems we only have a shortage of cheap easily exploitable labor. The economist recently pointed out the glut of scientists that
currently exists in the USA.
This understates the problem. The majority of PhD recipients wander through years of postdocs only to end up eventually changing
fields. My observation is that the top ten schools in biochem/chemistry/physics/ biology produce enough scientists to satisfy
the national demand.
The exemption from h1-b visa caps for academic institutions exacerbates the problem, providing academics with almost unlimited
access to labor.
The pharmaceutical sector has been decimated over the last ten years with tens of thousands of scientists/ factory workers
looking for re-training in a dwindling pool of jobs (most of which will deem you overqualified.)
I wonder how the demonization of the unemployed can be so strong even in the face of close to 10% unemployment/20% underemployment.
It's easy and tempting to demonize an abstract young buck or Cadillac-driving welfare queen, but when a family member
or a close friend loses a job, or your kids are stuck at your place because they can't find one, shouldn't that alter your perceptions?
Of course the tendency will be to blame it all on the government, but there has to be a limit to that in hard-hit places like
Ohio, Colorado, or Arizona. And yet, the dynamics aren't changing or even getting worse. Maybe Wisconsin marks a turning point,
I certainly hope it does
damien:
It's more than just stupid recruiting, this stigma. Having got out when the getting was good, years ago, I know
that any corporate functionary would be insane to hire me now. Socialization wears off, the deformation process reverses, and
the ritual and shibboleths become a joke. Even before I bailed I became a huge pain in the ass as economic exigency receded, every
bosses nightmare. I suffered fools less gladly and did the right thing out of sheer anarchic malice.
You really can't maintain corporate culture without existential fear – not just, "Uh oh, I'm gonna get fired,"
fear, but a visceral feeling that you do not exist without a job. In properly indoctrinated workers that feeling is divorced
from economic necessity. So anyone who's survived outside a while is bound to be suspect. That's a sign of economic security,
and security of any sort undermines social control.
youniquelikeme:
You hit the proverbial nail with that reply. (Although, sorry, doing the right thing should not be done out of malice) The real fit has to be in the corporate yes-man culture (malleable ass kisser) to be suited for any executive position
and beyond that it is the willingness to be manipulated and drained to be able to keep a job in lower echelon.
This is the new age of evolution in the work place. The class wars will make it more of an eventual revolution, but it is coming.
The unemployment rate (the actual one, not the Government one) globalization and off shore hiring are not sustainable for much
longer.
Something has to give, but it is more likely to snap then to come easily. People who are made to be repressed and down and
out eventually find the courage to fight back and by then, it is usually not with words.
down and out in Slicon Valley:
This is the response I got from a recruiter:
"I'm going to be overly honest with you. My firm doesn't allow me to submit any candidate who hasn't worked in 6-12
months or more. Recruiting brokers are probably all similar in that way . You are going to have to go through a connection/relationship
you have with a colleague, co-worker, past manager or friend to get your next job .that's my advice for you. Best of luck "
I'm 56 years old with MSEE. Gained 20+ years of experience at the best of the best (TRW, Nortel, Microsoft), have been issued
a patent. Where do I sign up to gain skills required to find a job now?
Litton Graft :
"Best of the Best?" I know you're down now, but looking back at these Gov'mint contractors you've enjoyed the best socialism
money can by.
Nortel/TRW bills/(ed) the Guvmint at 2x, 3x your salary, you can ride this for decades. At the same time the
Inc is attached to the Guvmint ATM localities/counties are giving them a red carpet of total freedom from taxation. Double subsidies.
I've worked many years at the big boy bandits, and there is no delusion in my mind that almost anyone, can do what I do and
get paid 100K+. I've never understood the mindset of some folks who work in the Wermacht Inc: "Well, someone has to do this work"
or worse "What we do, no one else can do" The reason no one else "can do it" is that they are not allowed to. So, we steal from
the poor to build fighter jets, write code or network an agency.
Hosswire:
I used to work as a recruiter and can tell you that I only parroted the things my clients told me. I wanted to
get you hired, because I was lazy and didn't want to have to talk to someone else next.
So what do you do? To place you that recruiter needs to see on a piece of paper that you are currently working? Maybe get an
email or phone call from someone who will vouch for your employment history. That should not be that hard to make happen.
Francois T :
The "bizarre way that companies now spec jobs" is essentially a coded way for mediocre managers to say without saying so explicitly
that "we can afford to be extremely picky, and by God, we shall do so no matter what, because we can!"
Of course, when comes the time to hire back because, oh disaster! business is picking up again, (I'm barely caricaturing here;
some managers become despondent when they realize that workers regain a bit of the higher ground; loss of power does that to lesser
beings) the same idiots who designed those "overly narrow hiring spec then leads to absurd, widespread complaint that companies
can't find people with the right skills" are thrown into a tailspin of despair and misery. Instead of figuring out something as
simple as "if demand is better, so will our business", they can't see anything else than the (eeeek!) cost of hiring workers.
Unable to break their mental corset of penny-pincher, they fail to realize that lack of qualified workers will prevent them to
execute well to begin with.
And guess what: qualified workers cost money, qualified workers urgently needed cost much more.
This managerial attitude must be another factor that explain why entrepreneurship and the formation of small businesses is
on the decline in the US (contrary to the confabulations of the US officialdumb and the chattering class) while rising in Europe
and India/China.
Kit:
If you are 55-60, worked as a professional (i.e., engineering say) and are now unemployed you are dead meat. Sorry to be blunt
but thats the way it is in the US today. Let me repeat that : Dead Meat.
I was terminated at age 59, found absolutely NOTHING even though my qualifications were outstanding. Fortunately, my company
had an old style pension plan which I was able to qualify for (at age 62 without reduced benefits). So for the next 2+ years my
wife and I survived on unemployment insurance, severance, accumulated vacation pay and odd jobs. Not nice – actually, a living
hell.
At age 62, I applied for my pension, early social security, sold our old house (at a good profit) just before the RE crash,
moved back to our home state. Then my wife qualified for social security also. Our total income is now well above the US median.
Today, someone looking at us would think we were the typical corporate retiree. We surely don't let on any differently but
the experience (to get to this point) almost killed us.
I sympathize very strongly with the millions caught in this unemployment death spiral. I wish I had an answer but I just don't.
We were very lucky to survive intact.
Ming:
Thank you Yves for your excellent post, and for bringing to light this crucial issue.
Thank you to all the bloggers, who add to the richness of the this discussion.
I wonder if you could comment on this Yves, and correct me if I am wrong I believe that the power of labor was sapped by the
massive available supply of global labor. The favorable economic policies enacted by China (both official and unofficial), and
trade negotiations between the US government and the Chinese government were critical to creating the massive supply of labor.
Thank you. No rush of course.
Nexus:
There are some odd comments and notions here that are used to support dogma and positions of prejudice. The world can be viewed
in a number of ways. Firstly from a highly individualised and personal perspective – that is what has happened to me and here
are my experiences. Or alternatively the world can be viewed from a broader societal perspective.
In the context of labour there has always been an unequal confrontation between those that control capital and those that offer
their labour, contrary to some of the views exposed here – Marx was a first and foremost a political economist. The political
economist seeks to understand the interplay of production, supply, the state and institutions like the media. Modern day economics
branched off from political economy and has little value in explaining the real world as the complexity of the world has been
reduced to a simplistic rationalistic model of human behaviour underpinned by other equally simplistic notions of 'supply and
demand', which are in turn represented by mathematical models, which in themselves are complex but merely represent what is a
simplistic view of the way the world operates. This dogmatic thinking has avoided the need to create an underpinning epistemology.
This in turn underpins the notion of free choice and individualism which in itself is an illusion as it ignores the operation
of the modern state and the exercise of power and influence within society.
It was stated in one of the comments that the use of capital (machines, robotics, CAD design, etc.) de-skills. This is hardly
the case as skills rise for those that remain and support highly automated/continuous production factories. This is symptomatic
of the owners of capital wanting to extract the maximum value for labour and this is done via the substitution of labour for capital
making the labour that remains to run factories highly productive thus eliminating low skill jobs that have been picked up via
services (people move into non productive low skilled occupations warehousing and retail distribution, fast food outlets,
etc). Of course the worker does not realise the additional value of his or her labour as this is expropriated for the shareholders
(including management as shareholders).
The issue of the US is that since the end of WW2 it is not the industrialists that have called the shots and made investments
it is the financial calculus of the investment banker (Finance Capital). Other comments have tried to ignore the existence of
the elites in society – I would suggest that you read C.W.Mills – The Power Elites as an analysis of how power is exercised
in the US – it is not through the will of the people.
For Finance capital investments are not made on the basis of value add, or contribution through product innovation and the
exchange of goods but on basis of the lowest cost inputs. Consequently, the 'elites' that make investment decisions, as
they control all forms of capital seek to gain access to the cheapest cost inputs. The reality is that the US worker (a
pool of 150m) is now part of a global labour pool of a couple of billion that now includes India and China. This means that the
elites, US transnational corporations for instance, can access both cheaper labour pools, relocate capital and avoid worker protection
(health and safety is not a concern). The strategies of moving factories via off-shoring (over 40,000 US factories closed or relocated)
and out-sourcing/in-sourcing labour is also a representations of this.
The consequence for the US is that the need for domestic labour has diminished and been substituted by cheap labour to
extract the arbitrage between US labour rates and those of Chinese and Indians. Ironically, in this context capital has
become too successful as the mode of consumption in the US shifted from workers that were notionally the people that created the
goods, earned wages and then purchased the goods they created to a new model where the worker was substituted by the consumer
underpinned by cheap debt and low cost imports – it is illustrative to note that real wages have not increased in the US since
the early 1970's while at the same time debt has steadily increased to underpin the illusion of wealth – the 'borrow today and
pay tomorrow' mode of capitalist operation. This model of operation is now broken. The labour force is now being demonized as
there is a now surplus of labour and a need to drive down labour rates through changes in legislation and austerity programs to
meet those of the emerging Chinese and Indian middle class so workers rights need to be broken. Once this is done a process of
in-source may take place as US labour costs will be on par with overseas labour pools.
It is ironic that during the Regan administration a number of strategic thinkers saw the threat from emerging economies and
the danger of Finance Capital and created 'Project Socrates' that would have sought to re-orientate the US economy from one that
was based on the rationale of Finance Capital to one that focused in productive innovation which entailed an alignment of capital
investment, research and training to product innovative goods. Of course this was ignored and the rest is history. The race to
the lowest input cost is ultimately self defeating as it is clear that the economy de-industrialises through labour and capital
changes and living standards collapse. The elites – bankers, US transnational corporations, media, industrial military complex
and the politicians don't care as they make money either way and this way you get other people overseas to work cheap for you.
S P:
Neoliberal orthodoxy treats unemployment as well as wage supression as a necessary means to fight "inflation." If there was
too much power in the hands of organized labor, inflationary pressures would spiral out of control as supply of goods cannot keep
up with demand.
It also treats the printing press as a necessary means to fight "deflation."
So our present scenario: widespread unemployment along with QE to infinity, food stamps for all, is exactly what you'd expect.
The problem with this orthodoxy is that it assumes unlimited growth on a planet with finite resources, particularly oil
and energy. Growth is not going to solve unemployment or wages, because we are bumping up against limits to growth.
There are only two solutions. One is tax the rich and capital gains, slow growth, and reinvest the surplus into jobs/skills
programs, mostly to maintain existing infrastructure or build new energy infrastructure. Even liberals like Krugman skirt around
this, because they aren't willing to accept that we have the reached the end of growth and we need radical redistribution
measures.
The other solution is genuine classical liberalism / libertarianism, along the lines of Austrian thought. Return to sound money,
and let the deflation naturally take care of the imbalances. Yes, it would be wrenching, but it would likely be wrenching for
everybody, making it fair in a universal sense.
Neither of these options is palatable to the elite classes, the financiers of Wall Street, or the leeches and bureaucrats of
D.C.
So this whole experiment called America will fail.
"... By Bill Mitchell, Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity at the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia. Originally published at billy blog ..."
"... The overwhelming importance of having a job for happiness is evident throughout the analysis, and holds across all of the world's regions. ..."
"... The pattern of human concerns ..."
"... The pattern of human concerns ..."
"... Journal of Happiness Studies ..."
"... The results show the differences between having a job and being unemployed are "very large indeed" on the three well-being measures (life evaluation, positive and negative affective states). ..."
"... Psychological Bulletin ..."
"... 1. "unemployment tends to make people more emotionally unstable than they were previous to unemployment". ..."
"... 2. The unemployed experience feelings of "personal threat"; "fear"; "sense of proportion is shattered"; loss of "common sense of values"; "prestige lost in own eyes and as he imagines, in the eyes of his fellow men"; "feelings of inferiority"; loss of "self-confidence" and a general loss of "morale". ..."
"... in the light of the structure of our society where the job one holds is the prime indicator of status and prestige. ..."
"... Psychological Bulletin ..."
"... Related studies found that the "unemployed become so apathetic that they rarely read anything". Other activities, such as attending movies etc were seen as being motivated by the need to "kill time" – "a minimal indication of the increased desire for such attendance". ..."
"... In spite of hopeless attempts the unemployed continually look for work, often going back again and again to their last place of work. Other writers reiterate this point. ..."
"... The non-pecuniary effects of not having a job are significant in terms of lost status, social alienation, abandonment of daily structure etc, and that has not changed much over history. ..."
"... I think what is missing from this article is the term "identity." If you meet new people, often the conversation starts with what you do for a living. Your identity, in part, is what you do. You can call yourself a plumber, a writer, a banker, a consultant, a reporter but the point is this is part of your identity. When you lose your job long term, your identity here loses one of its main anchor points. ..."
"... This is a crucial point that UBI advocates often ignore. There is a deeply entrenched cultural bias towards associating our work status with our general status and prestige and feelings of these standings. ..."
"... When unemployed, the stress of worry about money may suppress the creative juices. Speaking from experience. People may well 'keep looking for jobs' because they know ultimately they need a job with steady income. The great experience of some freelancers notwithstanding, not all are cut out for it. ..."
"... When considering the world's population as a whole, people with a job evaluate the quality of their lives much more favorably than those who are unemployed. ..."
"... Data like that provided by Mitchell is important to demolishing the horrid "economic anxiety" frame much beloved by liberals, especially wonkish Democrats.* It's not (a) just feelings , to be solved by scented candles or training (the liberal version of rugged individualism) and (b) the effects are real and measurable. It's not surprising, when you think about it, that the working class is about work . ..."
Posted on
November 21, 2017 by Yves Smith Yves here. Reader
UserFriendly sent this post with the message, "I can confirm this." I can too. And before you
try to attribute our reactions to being Americans, note that the study very clearly points out
that its finding have been confirmed in "all of the world's regions".
By Bill Mitchell, Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment
and Equity at the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia. Originally published at billy blog
Here is a summary of another interesting study I read last week (published March 30, 2017)
– Happiness at Work
– from academic researchers Jan‐Emmanuel De Neve and George Ward. It explores the
relationship between happiness and labour force status, including whether an individual is
employed or not and the types of jobs they are doing. The results reinforce a long literature,
which emphatically concludes that people are devastated when they lose their jobs and do not
adapt to unemployment as its duration increases. The unemployed are miserable and remain so
even as they become entrenched in long-term unemployment. Further, they do not seem to sense
(or exploit) a freedom to release some inner sense of creativity and purpose. The overwhelming
proportion continually seek work – and relate their social status and life happiness to
gaining a job, rather than living without a job on income support. The overwhelming conclusion
is that "work makes up such an important part of our lives" and that result is robust across
different countries and cultures. Being employed leads to much higher evaluations of the
quality of life relative to being unemployed. And, nothing much has changed in this regard over
the last 80 or so years. These results were well-known in the 1930s, for example. They have a
strong bearing on the debate between income guarantees versus employment guarantees. The UBI
proponents have produced no robust literature to refute these long-held findings.
While the 'Happiness Study' notes that "the relationship between happiness and employment is
a complex and dynamic interaction that runs in both directions" the authors are
unequivocal:
The overwhelming importance of having a job for happiness is evident throughout the
analysis, and holds across all of the world's regions. When considering the world's
population as a whole, people with a job evaluate the quality of their lives much more
favorably than those who are unemployed. The importance of having a job extends far beyond
the salary attached to it, with non-pecuniary aspects of employment such as social status,
social relations, daily structure, and goals all exerting a strong influence on people's
happiness.
And, the inverse:
The importance of employment for people's subjective wellbeing shines a spotlight on the
misery and unhappiness associated with being unemployed.
There is a burgeoning literature on 'happiness', which the authors aim to contribute to.
They define happiness as "subjective well-being", which is "measured along multiple
dimensions":
life evaluation (by way of the Cantril "ladder of life"), positive and negative affect to
measure respondents' experienced positive and negative wellbeing, as well as the more
domain-specific items of job satisfaction and employee engagement. We find that these diverse
measures of subjective wellbeing correlate strongly with each other
Cantril's 'Ladder of Life Scale' (or "Cantril Ladder") is used by polling organisations to
assess well-being. It was developed by social researcher Hadley Cantril (1965) and documented
in his book The pattern of human concerns .
You can learn more about the use of the 'Cantril Ladder' HERE
.
As we read, the "Cantril Self-Anchoring Scale consists of the following":
Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero at the bottom to 10 at the top. The
top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder
represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you
personally feel you stand at this time? (ladder-present) On which step do you think you
will stand about five years from now? (ladder-future)
[Reference: Cantril, H. (1965) The pattern of human concerns , New Brunswick,
Rutgers University Press.]
[Reference: Bjørnskov, C. (2010) 'How Comparable are the Gallup World Poll Life
Satisfaction Data?', Journal of Happiness Studies , 11 (1), 41-60.]
The Cantril scale is usually reported as values between 0 and 10.
The authors in the happiness study use poll data from 150 nations which they say "is
representative of 98% of the world's population". This survey data is available on a mostly
annual basis since 2006.
The following graph (Figure 1 from the Study) shows "the self-reported wellbeing of
individuals around the world according to whether or not they are employed."
The "bars measure the subjective wellbeing of individuals of working age" by employment
status .
The results show the differences between having a job and being unemployed are "very large
indeed" on the three well-being measures (life evaluation, positive and negative affective
states).
People employed "evaluate the quality of their lives around 0.6 points higher on average as
compared to the unemployed on a scale from 0 to 10."
The authors also conduct more sophisticated (and searching) statistical analysis
(multivariate regression) which control for a range of characteristics (gender, age, education,
marital status, composition of household) as well as to "account for the many political,
economic, and cultural differences between countries as well as year-to-year variation".
The conclusion they reach is simple:
the unemployed evaluate the overall state of their lives less highly on the Cantril ladder
and experience more negative emotions in their day-to-day lives as well as fewer positive
ones. These are among the most widely accepted and replicated findings in the science of
happiness Here, income is being held constant along with a number of other relevant
covariates, showing that these unemployment effects go well beyond the income loss associated
with losing one's job.
These results are not surprising. The earliest study of this sort of outcome was from the famous study published by Philip
Eisenberg and Paul Lazersfeld in 1938. [Reference: Eisenberg, P. and Lazarsfeld, P. (1938) 'The psychological effects of
unemployment', Psychological Bulletin , 35(6), 358-390.]
They explore four dimensions of unemployment:
I. The Effects of Unemployment on Personality.
II. Socio-Political Attitudes Affected by Unemployment.
III. Differing Attitudes Produced by Unemployment and Related Factors.
IV. The Effects of Unemployment on Children and Youth.
On the first dimension, they conclude that:
1. "unemployment tends to make people more emotionally unstable than they were previous to
unemployment".
2. The unemployed experience feelings of "personal threat"; "fear"; "sense of proportion is
shattered"; loss of "common sense of values"; "prestige lost in own eyes and as he imagines, in
the eyes of his fellow men"; "feelings of inferiority"; loss of "self-confidence" and a general
loss of "morale".
Devastation, in other words. They were not surprised because they note that:
in the light of the structure of our society where the job one holds is the prime
indicator of status and prestige.
This is a crucial point that UBI advocates often ignore. There is a deeply entrenched
cultural bias towards associating our work status with our general status and prestige and
feelings of these standings. That hasn't changed since Eisenberg and Lazersfeld wrote up the findings of their study in
1938.
It might change over time but that will take a long process of re-education and cultural
shift. Trying to dump a set of new cultural values that only a small minority might currently
hold to onto a society that clearly still values work is only going to create major social
tensions. Eisenberg and Lazarsfeld also considered an earlier 1937 study by Cantril who explored
whether "the unemployed tend to evolve more imaginative schemes than the employed".
[Reference: Cantril, H. (1934) 'The Social Psychology of Everyday Life', Psychological
Bulletin , 31, 297-330.]
The proposition was (is) that once unemployed, do people then explore new options that were
not possible while working, which deliver them with the satisfaction that they lose when they
become jobless. The specific question asked in the research was: "Have there been any changes of interests
and habits among the unemployed?" Related studies found that the "unemployed become so apathetic that they rarely read
anything". Other activities, such as attending movies etc were seen as being motivated by the
need to "kill time" – "a minimal indication of the increased desire for such
attendance".
On the third dimension, Eisenberg and Lazersfeld examine the questions – "Are there
unemployed who don't want to work? Is the relief situation likely to increase this number?",
which are still a central issue today – the bludger being subsidized by income
support.
They concluded that:
the number is few. In spite of hopeless attempts the unemployed continually look for work,
often going back again and again to their last place of work. Other writers reiterate this
point.
So for decades, researchers in this area, as opposed to bloggers who wax lyrical on their
own opinions, have known that the importance of work in our lives goes well beyond the income
we earn. The non-pecuniary effects of not having a job are significant in terms of lost status,
social alienation, abandonment of daily structure etc, and that has not changed much over
history. The happiness paper did explore "how short-lived is the misery associated with being out of
work" in the current cultural settings.
The proposition examined was that:
If the pain is only fleeting and people quickly get used to being unemployed, then we
might see joblessness as less of a key public policy priority in terms of happiness.
They conclude that:
a number of studies have demonstrated that people do not adapt much, if at all, to being
unemployed there is a large initial shock to becoming unemployed, and then as people stay
unemployed over time their levels of life satisfaction remain low . several studies have
shown that even once a person becomes re-employed, the prior experience of unemployment
leaves a mark on his or her happiness.
So there is no sudden or even medium-term realisation that being jobless endows the
individual with a new sense of freedom to become their creative selves, freed from the yoke of
work. To bloom into musicians, artists, or whatever.
The reality is that there is an on-going malaise – a deeply entrenched sense of
failure is overwhelming, which stifles happiness and creativity, even after the individual is
able to return to work.
This negativity, borne heavily by the individual, however, also impacts on society in
general.
The paper recognises that:
A further canonical finding in the literature on unemployment and subjective wellbeing is
that there are so-called "spillover" effects.
High levels of unemployment "increase fear and heighten the sense of job insecurity". Who
will lose their job next type questions?
The researchers found in their data that the higher is the unemployment rate the greater the
anxiety among those who remain employed.
Conclusion
The overwhelming conclusion is that "work makes up such an important part of our lives" and
that result is robust across different countries and cultures.
Being employed leads to much higher evaluations of the quality of life relative to being
unemployed.
The unemployed are miserable and remain so even as they become entrenched in long-term
unemployment. They do not seem to sense (or exploit) a freedom to release some inner sense of
creativity and purpose.
The overwhelming proportion continually seek work – and relate their social status and
life happiness to gaining a job, rather than living without a job on income support.
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) allows us to understand that it is the government that chooses
the unemployment rate – it is a political choice.
For currency-issuing governments it means their deficits are too low relative to the
spending and saving decisions of the non-government sector.
For Eurozone-type nations, it means that in surrendering their currencies and adopting a
foreign currency, they are unable to guarantee sufficient work in the face of negative shifts
in non-government spending. Again, a political choice.
The Job
Guarantee can be used as a vehicle to not only ensure their are sufficient jobs available
at all times but also to start a process of wiping out the worst jobs in the non-government
sector.
That can be done by using the JG wage to ensure low-paid private employers have to
restructure their workplaces and pay higher wages and achieve higher productivity in order to
attract labour from the Job Guarantee pool.
The Series So Far
This is a further part of a series I am writing as background to my next book with Joan
Muysken analysing the Future of Work . More instalments will come as the research
process unfolds.
The blogs in these series should be considered working notes rather than self-contained
topics. Ultimately, they will be edited into the final manuscript of my next book due in 2018.
The book will likely be published by Edward Elgar (UK).
Perhaps I'm utterly depressed but I haven't had a job job for over 5 years. Plenty of
work, however, more than I can handle and it requires priorisation. But I am deliberately not part of the organized herd. I stay away from big cities –
it's scary how managed the herd is in large groups – and I suppose that unemployment
for a herd animal is rather distressing as it is effectively being kicked out of the
herd.
Anyway my advice, worth what you pay for it but let he who has ears, etc. – is to go
local, very local, grow your own food, be part of a community, manage your own work, and
renounce the energy feast herd dynamics. "Unemployment", like "recession", is a mechanism of
control. Not very practical advice for most, I realize, trapped in the herd as they are in
car payments and mortgages, but perhaps aspirational?
I think what is missing from this article is the term "identity." If you meet new people,
often the conversation starts with what you do for a living. Your identity, in part, is what
you do. You can call yourself a plumber, a writer, a banker, a consultant, a reporter but the
point is this is part of your identity. When you lose your job long term, your identity here
loses one of its main anchor points.
Worse, there is a deliberate stigma attached with being long term unemployed. In that article
you have seen the word bludger being used. In parts of the US I have read of the shame of
'living off the county'. And yes, I have been there, seen that, and got the t-shirt. It's
going to be interesting as mechanization and computers turn large portions of the population
from workers to 'gig' workers. Expect mass demoralization.
yes the lives many of us have lived, no longer exist though we appear not notice, as we
"can" live in many of same "ways" ..rather well known psychologist defined some 40 years ago, best to "drop through
cracks"
Well, you also lose money, maybe you become homeless etc. as you have nowhere else to turn
(if there are kids involved to support it gets even scarier though there are some programs).
Or maybe you become dependent on another person(s) to support you which is of course
degrading as you know you must rely on them to live, whether it's a spouse or lover when you
want to work and bring in money, or mom and dads basement, or the kindest friend ever who
lets you sleep on their couch. I mean these are the things that really matter.
Privileged people whose main worry in unemployment would be losing identity, wow out of
touch much? Who cares about some identity for parties, but the ability to have a stable
decent life (gig work hardly counts) is what is needed.
I normally wouldn't comment like this, but you have brought up some extremely important
points about identity that I would like to address.
Recently I had the most intense mushroom experience of my entire life–so intense
that my identity had been completely stripped and I was left in a formless state, at the
level of seeing my bare, unvarnished animal neural circuitry in operation. Suddenly with a
flash of inspiration I realized that the identity of everyone, all of us, is inextricably
tied up in what we do and what we do for other people.
Following from that, I understood that if we passively rely on others for survival,
whether it be relying on friends, family, or government, then we do not have an identity or
reason for existing. And the inner self, the animal core of who we are, will realise this
lack of identity (even if the concious mind denies it), and will continually generate
feelings of profound depression and intense nihilism that will inevitably destroy us if the
root cause is not addressed.
Before this experience I was somewhat ambivalent about my politics, but immediately after
I knew that the political right was correct on everything important, from attitudes on sex to
economic philosophy. People need a core of cultural stability and hard work to grow and
become actualized. The alternative is rudderless dissatisfaction and envy that leads
nowhere.
On the topic of giving "out of kindnes and goodwill", giving without demanding anything in
return is a form of abuse, as it deprives those who receive our feel-good generosity the
motivation to form a coherent identity. If the parents of a basement-dweller were truly good
people, instead of supporting said dweller they'd drag her out by the ear and make her grow
food in the yard or some such. Likewise, those who have supported you without also giving
concrete demands and expecations in return have been unkind, and for your own good I hope
that you will immediately remove yourself from their support. On the other hand, if you have
been thoughtlessly giving because it warms the cockles of your heart, then stop it now. You
are ruining other people this way, and if your voting habits are informed by this kind of
malevolence I'd encourage you to change those as well.
Anyway the original poster is right about everything. Working and having a purpose in life
is an entirely different animal from making money and being "successful" in the
government-sponsored commercial economy. Society and government deliberately try to conflate
the two for various reasons, primarily graft of labor and genius, but that is only a
deliberate mis-framing that needlessly harms people when the mainstream economic system is in
catastrophic decline, as ours is today. You should try to clear up this misconception within
yourself as a way of getting better.
Well, I hope this message can give you a few different thoughts and help you find your way
out of the existential angst you're caught in. Don't wallow in helplessness. Think of
something useful to do, anything, whether it earns you money or not, and go out and start
doing it. You'll be surprised at how much better you feel about yourself in no time.
The problem is you said – I – had an extreme experience [burning bush], the
truth was reviled to – I – and I alone during this extreme chemically altered
state. Which by the way just happens to conform to a heap of environmental biases I
collected. This is why sound methodology demands peer review. disheveled some people think Mister Toads Wild ride at Disneyland on psychotropics is an
excellent adventure too.
I think your observation about the importance of work to identity is most perceptive. This
post makes too little distinction between work and a job and glosses over the place of work
in defining who we are to ourselves and to others. I recall the scene in the movie "About a
Boy" when the hero meets someone he cares about and she asks him what he does for a
living.
I believe there's another aspect of work -- related to identity -- missing in the analysis
of this post. Work can offer a sense of mission -- of acting as part of an effort toward a
larger goal no individual could achieve alone. However you may regard the value in putting
man on the moon there is no mistaking the sense of mission deeply felt by the engineers and
technicians working on the project. What jobs today can claim service to a mission someone
might value?
Agreed on your points. Wage slavery is nothing to aspire to. Self-determination within a
context of an interdependent community is a much better way to live. We do our thing in the city, however.
Finding that "interdependent community" is the hard part. My experience has been that this
endeavour is almost chance based; Serendipity if you will.
Here Down South, the churches still seem to have a stranglehold on small and mid scale social
organization. One of the big effects of 'churching' is the requirement that the individual
gave up personal critical thinking. Thus, the status quo is reinforced. One big happy 'Holy
Circlejerk.'
This is a crucial point that UBI advocates often ignore. There is a deeply entrenched
cultural bias towards associating our work status with our general status and prestige and
feelings of these standings.
That hasn't changed since Eisenberg and Lazersfeld wrote up the findings of their study
in 1938.
It might change over time but that will take a long process of re-education and cultural
shift. Trying to dump a set of new cultural values that only a small minority might
currently hold to onto a society that clearly still values work is only going to create
major social tensions.
I would agree about the entenched cultural norms, etc. But not the pessimism and timeline
for change. An individual can communicate a complex idea to millions in seconds, things move
fast these days.
For me, it seems that what we (we being UBI/radical change proponents) are lacking is a
compelling easily accessible story. Not just regarding UBI (as that is but one part of the
trully revolutionary transformations that must occur) but encompassing everything.
We have countless think pieces, bits of academic writing, books, etc that focus on
individual pieces and changes in isolation. But we've largely abandoned the all-encompassing
narrative, which at their heart is precisely what religion offers and why it can be so
seductive, successful, and resilient for so long.
The status quo has this type of story, it's not all that compelling but given the fact
that it is the status quo and has inertia and tradition on its side (along with the news
media, political, entertainment, etc) it doesn't have to be.
We need to abandon the single narrow issue activism that has become so prominent over the
years and get back to engaging with issues as unseparable and intimately interconnected.
Tinkering around the edges will do nothing, a new political religion is what is
required.
Sorry, I disagree vehemently. Deeply held cultural attitudes are very slow to change and
the study found that work being critical to happiness examined a large number of
societies.
Look at feminism. I was a half-generation after the time when women were starting to get a
shot at real jobs. IIRC, the first class that accepted women at Harvard Law School was in the
1950 and at Harvard Business School, 1965. And the number of first attendees was puny. The
1965 class at HBS had 10 8 women out of a graduating class of over 800; my class in 1981 had
only 11% women.
In the 1980s, you saw a shift from the belief that women could do what men could do to
promotion of the idea that women could/should be feminine as well as successful. This looked
like seriously mixed messages, in that IMHO the earlier tendency to de-emphasize gender roles
in the workplace looked like a positive development.
Women make less than 80% of what men do in the US. Even female doctors in the same
specialities make 80% of their male peers.
The Speenhamland in the UK had what amounted to an income guarantee from the 1790s to
1832. Most people didn't want to be on it and preferred to work. Two generations and being on
the support of local governments was still seen as carrying a stigma.
More generally, social animals have strongly ingrained tendencies to resent situations
they see as unfair. Having someone who is capable of working not work elicits resentment from
many, which is why most people don't want to be in that position. You aren't going to change
that.
And people need a sense of purpose. There are tons of cases of rich heirs falling into
drug addiction or alcoholism and despair because they have no sense of purpose in life. Work
provides that, even if it's mundane work to support a family. That is one of the great
dissservices the Democrats have done to the citizenry at large: sneering at ordinary work
when blue-collar men were the anchors of families and able to take pride in that.
Regarding the large number of societies, we often like to think we're more different than
we actually are focusing on a few glaringly obvious differences and generalizing from there.
Even going back a few hundred years when ideas travelled slower we were still (especially the
"west" though the "east" wasn't all that much more different either) quite similar. So I'm
less inclined to see the large number of societies as evidence.
Generally on societal changes and movements: The issue here is that the leadership has not
changed, they may soften some edges here or there (only to resharpen them again when we're
looking elsewhere) but their underlying ideologies are largely unchanged. A good mass of any
population will go along to survive, whether they agree or not (and we find increasing
evidence that many do not agree, though certainly that they do not agree on a single
alternative).
It may be impossible to implement such changes in who controls the levers of power in a
democratic fashion but it also may be immoral not implement such changes. Of course this is
also clearly a similar path to that walked by many a demonized (in most cases rightfully so)
dictator and despot. 'Tread carefully' are wise words to keep in mind.
Today we have a situation which reflects your example re: social animals and resentment of
unfairness: the elite (who falls into this category is of course debatable, some individuals
moreso than others). But they have intelligently, for their benefit, redirected that
resentment towards those that have little. Is there really any logical connection between not
engaging in wage labor (note: NOT equivalent to not working) and unfairness? Or is it a myth
crafted by those who currently benefit the most?
That resentment is also precisely why it is key that a Basic income be universal with no
means testing, everyone gets the same.
I think we should not extrapolate too much from the relatively small segment of the
population falling into the the inherited money category. Correlation is not causation and
all that.
It also seems that so often individuals jump to the hollywood crafted image of the
layabout stoner sitting on the couch giggling at cartoons (or something similarly negative)
when the concept of less wage labor is brought up. A reduction of wage labor does not equate
to lack of work being done, it simply means doing much of that work for different reasons and
rewards and incentives.
As I said in the Links thread today, we produce too much, we consume too much, we grow too
much. More wage labor overall as a requirement for survival is certainly not the solution to
any real problem that we face, its a massively inefficient use of resources and a massive
strain on the ecosystems.
I am really gobsmacked at the sense of entitlement on display here. Why are people
entitled to an income with no work? Being an adult means toil: cleaning up after yourself,
cleaning up after your kids if you have them, if you are subsistence farmer, tending your
crops and livestock, if you are a modern society denizen, paying your bills and your taxes on
time. The idea that people are entitled to a life of leisure is bollocks. Yet you promote
that.
Society means we have obligations to each other. That means work. In rejecting work you
reject society.
And the touting of "creativity" is a top 10% trope that Thomas Frank called out in Listen,
Liberal. It's a way of devaluing what the bottom 90% do.
My argument with the article is that, to me, it smacks of Taylorism. A follow-on study
would analyze how many hours a laborer must work before the acquired sense of purpose and
dignity and associated happiness began to decline. Would it be 30 hours a week of
backbreaking labor before dignity found itself eroded? 40? 50? 60? When does the worker
break? Just how far can we push the mule before it collapses?
The author alludes to this: "The overwhelming proportion relate their social status and
life happiness to gaining a job"
Work equals happiness. Got it.
But, as a former robotics instructor, and as one who watches the industry (and former
students), I see an automated future as damn near inevitable. Massive job displacement is
coming, life as a minimum wage burger flipper will cease, with no future employment prospects
short of government intervention (WPA and CCC for all, I say). I'm not a Luddite, obviously,
but there are going to be a lot of people, billions, worldwide, with no prospect of
employment. Saying, "You're lazy and entitled" is a bit presumptuous, Yves. Not everyone has
your ability, not everyone has my ability. When the burger flipping jobs are gone, where do
they go? When roombas mop the floors, where do the floor moppers go?
We could use a new Civilian Conservation Corps and and a Works Progress Administration.
There's lots of work that needs doing that isn't getting done by private corporations.
The outrage at non-work wealth and income would be more convincing if it were aimed also
at owners of capital. About 30% of national income is passive -- interest, rents, dividends.
Why are the owners of capital "entitled to an income with no work?" It's all about the
morality that underlies the returns to capital while sugaring over a devaluation of labor. As
a moral issue, everyone should share the returns on capital or we should tax away the
interest, rents, and dividends. If it's an economic issue, berating people for their beliefs
isn't a reason.
The overwhelming majority do work. The top 0.1% is almost entirely private equity managers
who are able to classify labor income as capital gains through the carried interest loophole.
Go look at the Forbes 400.
The 1% are mainly CEOs, plus elite professionals, like partners at top law and consulting
firms and specialty surgeons (heart, brain, oncology). The CEOs similarly should be seen as
getting labor income but have a lot of stock incentive pay (that is how they get seriously
rich) which again gets capital gains treatment.
You are mistaking clever taking advantage of the tax code for where the income actually
comes from. Even the kids of rich people are under pressure to act like entrepreneurs from
their families and peers. Look at Paris Hilton and Ivanka as examples. They both could have
sat back and enjoyed their inheritance, but both went and launched businesses. I'm not saying
the kids of the rich succeed, or would have succeed to the extent they do without parental
string-pulling, but the point is very few hand their fortune over to a money manager and go
sailing or play the cello.
What's your take on Rutger Bergman's ted talk? i think most jobs aren't real jobs at all,
like marketing and ceo's. why can't we do 20 hour work weeks so we don't have huge amounts of unemployment? Note, I was "unemployed" for years since "markets" decide not to fund science in the US.
Yay Germany At least I was fortunate enough to not be forced to work at Walmart or McDonalds
like the majority of people with absolutely no life choices. Ah the sweet coercion of
capitalism.
Your hopes for a UBI are undone by some of the real world observations I've made over many
years, with regard to how a guaranteed income increase, of any measure, for a whole
population of an area, affects prices. Shorter: income going up means prices are raised by
merchants to capture the new income.
Examples: A single industry town raises wages for all employees by 2% for the new calendar
year. Within the first 2 weeks of the new year, all stores and restaurants and service
providers in the town raise their prices by 2%. This happens every year there is a general
wage increase.
Example: Medicare part D passes and within 2 years, Pharma now having new captive
customers whose insurance will pay for drugs, raise prices higher and higher, even on generic
drugs.
A more recent example: ACA passes with no drug price ceilings. Again, as with the passage
of Medicare part D, Pharma raises drug prices to unheard of levels, even older and cheap but
life saving drugs, in the knowledge that a new, large group will have insurance that will pay
for the drugs – a new source of money.
Your assumption that any UBI would not be instantly captured by raised prices is naive, at
best. It's also naive to assume companies would continue to pay wages at the same level to
people still employed, instead of reducing wages and letting UBI fill in the rest. Some
corporations already underpay their workers, then encourage the workers to apply for food
stamps and other public supports to make up for the reduced wage.
The point of the paper is the importance of paid employment to a person's sense of well
being. I agree with the paper.
For the vast majority, a UBI would be income-neutral – it would have to be, to avoid
massive inflation. So people would receive a UBI, but pay more tax to compensate. The effect
on prices would be zero.
The advantage of a UBI is mostly felt at the lower end, where insecure/seasonal work does
now pay. At the moment, a person who went from farm labourer to Christmas work to summer
resort work in the UK would certainly be working hard, but also relentlessly hounded by the
DWP over universal credit. A UBI would make this sort of lifestyle possible.
Davidab,
Good for you, but your perspicacity is not scalable. People are social animals and your attitude toward "the herd", at least as expressed here,
is that of a predator, even if your taste doesn't run toward predation. Social solutions will necessarily be scalable or they won't be solutions for long.
> the organized herd a herd animal trapped in the herd
I don't think throwing 80% to 90% of the population into the "prey" bucket is especially
perspicacious politically (except, of course, for predators or parasites). I also don't think it's especially perspicacious morally. You write:
Not very practical advice for most, I realize, trapped in the herd as they are in car
payments and mortgages, but perhaps aspirational?
Let me translate that: "Trapped in the herd as many are to support spouses and children."
In other words, taking the cares of the world on themselves in order to care for others.
Unemployed stay at home dad here. My children are now old enough to no longer need a stay
at home dad. Things I have done: picked up two musical instruments and last year dug a
natural swimming pond by hand. Further, one would need to refute all the increased happiness
in retirement (NBER). Why social security but not UBI? I get being part of the precariat is
painful and this is a reality for most the unemployed no matter where you live in the world.
A UBI is unworkable because it will never be large enough to make people's lives
unprecarious. Having said that, I am almost positive if you gave every unemployed person 24 k
a year and health benefits, there would be a mass of non working happy creative folks.
UBI seems to me to encourage non-virtuous behavior – sloth, irresponsibility,
fecklessness, and spendthriftness. I like the Finnish model – unemployment insurance is
not limited – except if you refuse work provided by the local job center. Lots of work
is not being done all over America – we could guarantee honest work to all with some
imagination. Start with not spraying roundup and rather using human labor to control weeds
and invasive species.
I do agree that universal health insurance is necessary and sadly Obamacare is not
that.
The crux of this problem is the definition used for "non-virtuous behaviour."
A new CCC is a good place to start though. (Your Tax Dollars At Work! [For some definition of
tax dollars.])
As for BJ above, I would suppose that child rearing was his "employment" for years. good so
far, but his follow-up is untypical. The 'Empty Nester' mother is a well known meme.
Spendthriftness on 24K a year? Seriously? If we are disgorging unprofessional opinions, I will add my own: sloth and
irresponsibility are more signs of depression rather than freedom from having to work. In
fact, I believe (and I think much of the stuff here) supports the idea that people want to be
seen as useful in some way. Doesn't include me! :) .. unfortunately, I have the charmingly named "dependents" so there
you have it.
I lived 6 years as a grad student on 24k a year and would say it was easy. Only thing I
would have to had worried about was awful health insurance. A two household each with 24k
would be even easier, especially if you could do it in a low cost area. So I am not sure what
you mean by spendthrift. But again it will never happen, so we will be stuck with what we
have or most likely an even more sinister system. I guess I am advocating for a JG with
unlimited number of home makers per household.
except if you refuse work provided by the local job center
And who's to say that the local "job center" has work that would be appropriate for every
person's specific talents and interests? This is no better than saying that you should be
willing to go work for some minimum-wage retail job with unpredictable scheduling and other
forms of employer abuses after you lose a high-paying job requiring special talents. I have
to call bullshit on this model. I went through a two-year stretch if unemployment in no small
part because the vast majority of the available jobs for my skill set were associated with
the MIC, surveillance state or the parasitic FIRE sector. I was able to do this because I had
saved up enough FY money and had no debts or family to support.
I can also attest to the negative aspects of unemployment that the post describes. Its all
true and I can't really say that I'e recovered even now, 2.5 years after finding another
suitable job.
The job center in the neighbouring Sweden had the same function. Had is the important
word. My guess is that the last time someone lost their unemployment insurance payout due to
not accepting a job was in the early 1980s. Prior to that companies might, maybe, possibly
have considered hiring someone assigned to them – full employment forced companies to
accept what was offered. Companies did not like the situation and the situation has since
changed.
Now, when full employment is a thing of the past, the way to lose unemployment insurance
payouts is by not applying to enough jobs. An easily gamed system by people not wanting to
work: just apply to completely unsuitable positions and the number of applications will be
high. Many companies are therefore overwhelmed by applications and are therefore often forced
to hire more people in HR to filter out the unsuitable candidates.
People in HR tend not to know much about qualifications and or personalities for the job so
they tend to filter out too many. We're all familiar with the skills-shortage .
Next step of this is that the companies who do want to hire have to use recruitment agencies.
Basically outsourcing the HR to another company whose people are working on commission.
Recruiters sometimes know how to find 'talent', often they are the same kind of people with
the same skills and backgrounds as people working in HR.
To even get to the hiring manager a candidate has to go through two almost identical and
often meaningless interviews. Recruiter and then HR. Good for the GDP I suppose, not sure if
it is good for anything else.
But back on topic again, there is a second way of losing unemployment insurance payout:
Time. Once the period covered has passed there is no more payouts of insurance. After that it
it is time to live on savings, then sell all assets, and then once that is done finally go to
the welfare office and prove that savings are gone and all assets are sold and maybe welfare
might be paid out. People on welfare in Sweden are poor and the indignities they are being
put through are many. Forget about hobbies and forget about volunteering as the money for
either of those activities simply aren't available. Am I surprised by a report saying
unemployed in Sweden are unhappy? Nope.
meanwhile NYTimes testimonials Friday, show average family of 4 healthprofit costs
(tripled, due to trump demise ACA) to be $30,000. per year, with around $10,000. deductible
end of any semblance of affordable access, "murKa"
Where does a character like Bertie Wooster in "Jeeves" fit in your notions of virtuous
behavior? Would you consider him more virtuous working in the management of a firm,
controlling the lives and labor of others -- and humorously helped by his his brilliant
valet, Jeeves, getting him out of trouble?
For contrast -- in class and social status -- take a beer-soaked trailer trash gentleman
of leisure -- and for sake of argument blessed with less than average intelligence -- where
would you put him to work where you'd feel pleased with his product or his service? Would you
feel better about this fellow enjoying a six-pack after working 8 hours a day 5 days a week
virtuously digging and then filling a hole in the ground while carefully watched and goaded
by an overseer? [Actually -- how different is that from "using human labor to control weeds
and invasive species"? I take it you're a fan of chain-gangs and making the poor pick up
trash on the highways?]
What about some of our engineers and scientists virtuously serving the MIC? Is their
behavior virtuous because they're not guilty of sloth, irresponsibility [in executing their
work], fecklessness, and spendthriftness? On this last quality how do you feel about our
government who pay the salaries for all these jobs building better ways to kill and maim?
It is a design by David Pagan Butler. It is his plunge pool design, deepend is 14 by 8 by
7 deep. I used the dirt to make swales around some trees. Win win all around.
The answer is yes my spouse works. So I do have a schedule of waking up to make her lunch
everyday, meeting her at lunch to walk, and making dinner when she gets home, but we do all
those things on her days off so .
But again we would need to explain away, why people who are retired are happier? Just
because they think they payed into social security? Try explaining to someone on the SS dole
how the government spends money into existence and is not paid by taxes or that the
government never saved their tax money, so there are not entitled to this money.
I hated working for other people and doing what they wanted. I began to feel some
happiness when I had a half acre on which I could create my own projects. Things improved
even more when I could assure myself of some small guaranteed income by claiming Social
Security at age 62. To arise in the morning when I feel rested, with interesting projects
like gardens, fences, small buildings ahead and work at my own pace is the essence of delight
for me. I've been following your arguments against UBI for years and disagree vehemently.
I feel I would behave the same as you, if I had the chance. *But* no statements about
human beings are absolute, and because UBI would work for either of us does not mean it would
work for the majority. Nothing devised by man is perfect.
first you had to buy the half acre in a suitable location, then you had to work many years
to qualify for social security, the availability of which you paid for and feel you deserve.
You also have to buy stuff for fences gardens and small buildings. At most that rhymes with a
ubi but is significantly different in it's make up.
> when I had a half acre on which I could create my own projects
That is, when you acquired the half acre, which not everyone can do. It seems to
me there's a good deal of projecting going on with this thread from people who are, in
essence, statistical outliers. But Mitchell summarizes the literature:
So for decades, researchers in this area, as opposed to bloggers who wax lyrical on
their own opinions, have known that the importance of work in our lives goes well beyond
the income we earn.
If the solution that works for you is going to scale, that implies that millions more will
have to own land. If UBI depends on that, how does that happen? (Of course, in a
post-collapse scenario, the land might be taken , but that same scenario makes the
existence of institutions required to convey the UBI highly unlikely. )
Very glad to hear that Bill Mitchell is working on the "Future of Work" book, and to have
this post, and the links to the other segments. Thank you, Yves!
I don't agree with this statement. Never will. I'm the complete opposite. Give me more
leisure time and you'll find me painting, writing, playing instruments and doing things that
I enjoy. I recall back to when I was a student, I relished in the free time I got (believe me
University gave me a lot of free time) between lectures, meaning I could enjoy this time
pursuing creative activities. Sure I might be different than most people but I know countless
people who are the same.
My own opinion is that root problem lies in the pathology of the working mentality, that
'work' and having a 'job' is so engrained into our society and mindset that once you give
most people the time to enjoy other things, they simply can't. They don't know what to do
with themselves and they eventually become unhappy, watching daytime TV sat on the sofa.
I recall back to a conversation with my mother about my father, she said to me, 'I don't
know how your father is going to cope once he retires and has nothing to do' and it's that
very example of where work for so many people becomes so engrained in their mindset, that
they are almost scared of having 'nothing to do' as they say. It's a shame, it's this
systemic working mentality that has led to this mindset. I'm glad I'm the opposite of this
and proud by mother brought me up to be this way. Work, and job are not in my vocabulary. I
work to live, not live to work.
I agree with Andrew. I think this data on the negative effects says more about how being
employed fundamentally breaks the human psyche and turns them into chattel, incapable of
thinking for themselves and destroying their natural creativity. The more a human is molded
into a "good worker" the less they become a full fledged human being. The happiest people are
those that have never placed importance on work, that have always lived by the maxim "work to
live, not live to work". From my own experience every assertion in this article is the
opposite of reality. It is working that makes me apathethic, uncreative, and miserable. The
constant knowing that you're wasting your life, day after day, engaged in an activity merely
to build revenue streams for the rich, instead of doing things that help society or that
please you on a personal level, is what I find misery inducing.
I agree. If financial insecurity is removed from the equation -- free time can be used creatively
for self-actualization, whatever form that may take: cultivating the arts, hobbies, community
activities, worthy causes and projects. The ideology wafting from Mitchell's post smells to me like a rationale for wage slavery
(market driven living, neo-liberalism, etc.)
Besides how are people supposed to spend their time "exploring other opportunities" when
unemployed anyway? To collect unemployment which isn't exactly paying that much anyway, they
have to show they are applying to jobs. To go to the movies the example given costs money,
which one may tend to be short on when unemployed. They probably are looking for work
regardless (for the income). There may still be some free time. But they could go back to
school? Uh in case one just woke up from a rock they were under for 100 years, that costs
money, which one may tend to be short on when unemployed, plus there is no guarantee the new
career will pan out either, no guarantee someone is just chomping at the bit to hire a newly
trained 50 year old or something. I have always taken classes when unemployed, and paid for
it and it's not cheap.
Yes to use one's time wisely in unemployment in the existing system requires a kind of
deep psychological maturity that few have, a kind of Surrender To Fate, to the uncertainty of
whether one will have an income again or not (either that or a sugar daddy or a trust fund).
Because it's not easy to deal with that uncertainty. And uncertainty is the name of the game
in unemployment, that and not having an income may be the pain in it's entirety.
Sadly this breaking down into a "good worker" begins for most shortly after they begin
school. This type of education harms society in a myriad of ways including instilling a
dislike of learning, deference to authority (no matter how irrational and unjust), and a
destruction of a child's natural curiosity.
I don't buy your premise that people are "creative". The overwhelming majority do not have
creative projects they'd be pursuing if they had leisure and income. Go look at retirees,
ones that have just retired, are healthy, and have money.
You are really misconstruing what the studies have found and misapplied it to your
situation. Leisure time when you have a job or a role (being a student) is not at all the
same as having time when you are unemployed, with or without a social safety net.
Work: that can be me hiring someone to cut my yard, or another type of one-off thing
filled with precariousness.
Job: that less temporary work, but by no means permanent. Just a step up from the
precariousness of work.
Career: that is work in the same field over a long period of time and it is more likely
that someone will develop an identity through performing the work. Still precarious, but
maybe more fulfilling.
Sense of purpose: I was always under the impression that is something you have to give
yourself. If it can be taken away by someone what was the purpose?
one often has a role when unemployed: finding work. But it's not a very fulfilling one!
But if one is trying to find work, it's not exactly the absence of a role either even if it
still leaves significantly more free time than otherwise, maybe winning the lottery is the
absence of a role.
But then it's also not like we give people a UBI even for a few years (at any time in
adult life) to get an education. Only if they take out a student loan approaching the size of
a mortgage or have parents willing to pony up are they allowed that (to pay not just for the
education but to live because having a roof over one's head etc. is never free, a UBI via
debt it might be called).
> Give me more leisure time and you'll find me painting, writing, playing instruments
and doing things that I enjoy.
Nothing to breed resentment of "the creative class" here! Blowback from Speenhamland
brought on the workhouses, so be careful what you wish for.
UBI won't happen and JG has been tried (and failed).
The argument that JG would allow the public sector to hire more people is demeaning to
people already employed in the public sector and demonstrably false – people are hired
into the public sector without there being a JG. It is most certainly possible to be against
a JG while wanting more people working in the public sector.
The way forward is to have a government acting for people instead of for corporations.
Increase the amount of paid vacations, reduce the pension age and stop with the Soviet style
worship of work: While some people are apparently proud of their friends and relatives who
died while at work it is also possible to feel sad about that.
The JG was tried in Communist countries in Europe, Asia and Americas. The arguments then
and there were the same as here and now, made by the same type of social 'scientists'
(economists).
Would a JG be different here and now as the Republicans and Democrats are representing the
best interests of the people? Or are they representing the same kind of interests as the
Communist parties did?
Data, please. The USSR fell because it was spending on its military to keep up with the
US, a much larger economy. Countering your assertion we have this:
As long as people argue that "it's not fair" to fix the inequality issue and employ things
like debt jubilee or student loan forgiveness, or if we fix the ridiculous cost of health
care what will all those insurance agents do then we will wind up with the real kind of class
warfare, rather than the current punching from the top down, the punching will come from the
bottom, because the situation is not fair now, it's just TINA according to those who profit
from it. In my own life there is a balance of creativity and work, and I find work enables my
creativity by putting some pressure on my time, i.e., I get up earlier, I practice at 8:30 am
instead of sleeping til 10 and winding up with S.A..D., I go to bed rather than watch tv or
drink to excess.. in other words i have some kind of weird schedule, I have days off sort of
When I've been unemployed I feel the way s described in the article. I find the arguments in
favor of ubi tend to come from people who already have assets, or jobs, or family who they
take care of which is actually a job although uncommonly described as such. The only truth I
see in real life is that the unemployed I am intimately familiar with first are mentally
oppressed by the notion that to repair their situation will require they work every waking
hour at substandard wages for the rest of their life and that is a major barrier to getting
started, and that is a policy choice the gov't and elite classes purposefully made which
created the precariat and will be their undoing if they are unable to see this.
Interesting point. I read a science fiction story in which the protagonist arrives for
work at his full time job at 10:00 AM, and he's finished for the day at 4:00 PM. I can't
remember the name of the story or novel, unfortunately.
Agreed. And they already have it in places like Denmark. Why don't we talk about that? It
actually exists unlike utopian schemes for either total UBI or total work guarantee
(government job creation is not utopian, but imagining it will employ everyone is, and I
would like the UBI to be more widely tried, but in this country we are nowhere close). Funny
how utopia becomes more interesting to people than actual existing arrangements, even though
of course those could be improved on too.
The Danish work arrangement is less than a 40 hour week, and mothers especially often work
part-time but both sexes can. It's here in this country where work is either impossibly
grueling or you are not working. No other choice. In countries with more flexible work
arrangements more women actually work, but it's flexible and flexible for men who choose to
do the parenting as well. I'm not saying this should be for parents only of course.
My own situation is that I am unhappy in my well-paying job and would like nothing more
than to devote myself to other interests. I'm thirty years on in a relationship with someone
who grew up in bad financial circumstances and panics whenever I talk about leaving my job. I
tell her that we have 2 years of living expenses in the bank but I can't guarantee making the
same amount of money if I do leave my job. She has a job that she loves and is important and
pays barely 1/2 of my own income. So she worries about her future with me. She worries about
losing her home. I suppose that makes me the definition of a wage slave. And it makes for an
increasingly unhappy marriage. I admire those who have faced similar circumstances and found
a way through this. Sorry to vent, but this topic and the comments hit a nerve with me and
I'm still trying to figure this out.
Otis;
We are presently going through a period where that "two year cushion" has evaporated, for
various reasons. We are seeing our way through this, straight into penury and privation.
Take nothing for granted in todays' economy.
yes find the lower paying job that you like more first. If you just quit for nothing in
the hopes of finding one it might not happen. Of course unemployment also happens sometimes,
whether we want it or not.
The newer generations are worse when it comes to lifestyle. Those of that are older can at
least remember a time without cellphones internet streaming services leasing a new car every
2 years etc.
What about the young? My niece and her husband should be all set , his mom sunk money into
a home on the condition she moved into a mother in law apartment. So far so good right? 2
years in they are imploding even with the free child care she provides. Combined their
wireless bill a month is over $300. The sit on the couch side by side and stream netflix
shows to dueling iphones in front of a 65 inch tv that is not even turned on. Wearing
headphones in silence.
Both driving new vehicles , both have gym memberships they don't use . They buy lattes 3
or 4 times a day which is probably another 500 a month.
My uncle passed away recently and my niece asked if she was in the will. It was literally
her only communication on the subject. They are going under and could easily trim a few
thousand a month from the budget but simply won't. No one in the family is going to lift a
finger for them at this point they burned every possible bridge already. I have seen people
living in cars plenty lately but I think these will be the first I see to living in brand new
cars .
Somewhere along the line they got the impression that the american dream was a leased car
a starbucks in one hand and an iphone in the other .
Confront them with the concept of living within a paycheck and they react like a patient
hearing he has 3 months to live.
Yeah being poor, never mind growing up poor, just well and truly sucks and it can really
@@@@ you up. Gives people all sorts of issues. I'm rather like her, but I have had the joy of
multi-hour commutes to unexciting soul crushing work. Happy, happy, joy, joy! However don't
forget that with the current political economy things are likely to go bad in all sorts of
ways. This whole site is devoted to that. My suggestion is to keep the job unless you have
something lined up. Not being able to rent has it own stresses too. Take my word for it.
I may be engaging in semantics but I think conflating work and jobs makes this article a
bit of a mixed bag. I know plenty of people who are terribly unhappy in their jobs, but
nonetheless extract a sense of wellbeing from having a stable source of INCOME to pay their
bills (anecdotally speaking, acute stress from recent job losses is closely linked to
uncertainty about how bills are going to be paid, that's why those with a safety net of
accumulated savings report less stress than those without). Loss of status, social standing
and identity and the chronic stress borne from these become evident much later I.e. when the
unemployment is prolonged, accompanied of course by the still unresolved top-of-mind concern
of "how to pay the bills".
As such, acute stress for the recently unemployed is driven by financial/income
uncertainty (I.e. how am I going to pay the bills) whereas chronic stress from prolonged
unemployment brings into play the more identity driven aspects like loss of social standing
and status. For policy interventions to have any effects, policy makers would have to
delineate the primary drivers of stress (or lack of wellbeing as the author calls it) during
the various phases of the unemployment lifecycle. An Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) like
we have here in South Africa appears to address the early stages of unemployment, and the
accompanying acute stress, quite well by providing the income guarantee (for six months) that
cushions the shock of losing a job. What's still missing of course are interventions that
promote the quick return to employment for those on UIF, so maybe a middle of the road
solution between UBI and a jobs guarantee scheme is how policy makers should be framing this,
instead of the binary either/or we currently have.
Lots' of people think they're unhappy with their jobs. Let them sit unemployed for 9
months and ask them if they want that job back. The usual parade of anecdata is on display here in the comments. Mitchell's real data and
analysis in the article above still stand.
If you'd read through my comment, and not rushed through it with a view of dishing out a
flippant response, you'd have seen that nowhere do I question the validity of his data, I
merely question how the argument is presented in some areas (NC discourages unquestioning
deference to the views of experts no??). By the way, anecdotes do add to richer understanding
of a nuanced and layered topic (as this one is) so your dismissal of them in your haste to
invalidate people's observations is hardly helpful.
Yes people many not like their jobs but prefer the security of having them to not. Yes
even if the boss sexually harasses one (as we are seeing is very common). Yes even if there
is other workplace abuse. Yes even when it causes depression or PTSD (but if one stays with
such a job long term it ruins the self confidence that is one prerequisite to get another
job!). Yes even if one is in therapy because of job stress, sexual harassment or you name it.
The job allows the having health insurance, allows the therapy, allows the complaining about
the job in therapy to make it through another week.
When unemployed, the stress of worry about money may suppress the creative juices.
Speaking from experience. People may well 'keep looking for jobs' because they know ultimately they need a job with
steady income. The great experience of some freelancers notwithstanding, not all are cut out
for it.
I would love to see some more about happiness or its lack in retirement–referenced
by stay-at-home dad BJ , above.
I wonder, too, about the impact of *how* one loses one's job. Getting laid off vs fired vs
quitting vs involuntary retirement vs voluntary, etc feel very different. Speaking from
experience on that, too. I will search on these points and post anything of interest.
There are also other things that are degrading about the very process of being unemployed
not mentioned here. What about the constant rejection that it can entail? One is unemployed
and looking for work, one sends out resumes, many of them will never be answered, that's
rejection. Then if one is lucky they get interviews, many will never lead to jobs, yet more
rejection. Does the process of constant rejection itself have a negative effect on a human
being whether it's looking for jobs or dates or whatever? Isn't it learned helplessness to if
one keeps trying for something and keeps failing. Isn't that itself demoralizing entirely
independent of any doubtful innate demoralizing quality of leisure.
I am not so sure if I agree with this article. I think it really depends on whether or not
you have income to support yourself, hate or love your job, and the amount of outside
interests you have, among other things. Almost everyone I know who lives in the NYC area and
commutes into the city .doesn't like their job and finds the whole situation "soul-crushing".
Those that live in Manhattan proper are (feel) a bit better off. I for one stopped working
somewhat voluntarily last year. I write somewhat because I began to dislike my job so much
that it was interfering with my state of well being, however, if I had been allowed to work
remotely I probably would have stuck it out for another couple of years.
I am close enough to
62 that I can make do before SS kicks in although I have completely changed my lifestyle
– i.e. I've given up a materialistic lifestyle and live very frugally.
Additionally I
saved for many years once I decided to embark on this path. I do not find myself depressed at
all and the path this year has been very enriching and exciting (and scary) as I reflect on
what I want for the future. I'm pretty sure I will end up moving and buying a property so
that I can become as self sufficient as possible. Also, I probably will get a job down the
line – but if I can't get one because I am deemed too old that will be ok as well. The
biggest unknown for me is how much health insurance will cost in the future .
The article made clear that the studies included "unemployed but with income" from
government support. It is amazing the degree to which readers ignore that and want to make
the findings about "unemployed with no income".
That's because we Americans all have work=good=worthy=blessed by God while
workless=scum=worthless=accursed by God engraved into our collective soul. Our politics, our
beliefs, are just overlays to that.
Even when we agree that the whole situation just crushes people into paste, and for which
they have no defense regardless of how hard they work, how carefully they plan, or what they
do, that underlay makes use feel that this is their/our fault. Any suggestions that at least
some support can be decoupled from work, and that maybe work, and how much you earn, should
not determine their value, brings the atavistic fear of being the "undeserving poor,"
parasites and therefore reprobated scum.
So we don't hear what you are saying without extra effort because it's bypassing our
conscious thoughts.
Add my voice to those above who feel that forced labor is the bane of existence, not the
wellspring. All this study says to me is that refusing to employ someone in capitalist
society does not make them happy. It makes them outcasts.
So, I say yes to a JG, because anyone who wants work should be offered work. But at the
same time, a proper JG is not forced labor. And the only way to ensure that it is not forced
labor, is to decouple basic needs from wage slavery.
I am critical of those who distinguish between the job and the income. Of course the
income is critical to the dignity of the job. For many jobs, it is the primary source of that
dignity. The notion that all jobs should provide some intrinsic dignity unrelated to the
income, or that people whose dignity is primarily based on the income they earn rather than
the work they do are deluded, is to buy in to the propaganda of "passion" being a requirement
for your work and to really be blind to what is required to make a society function. Someone
has to change the diapers, and wipe the butts of old people. (yes, I've done both.) It
doesn't require passion and any sense of satisfaction is gone by about the second day. But if
you could make a middle class living doing it, there would be a lot fewer unhappy people in
the world.
It is well known that auto factory jobs were not perceived as good jobs until the UAW was
able to make them middle class jobs. The nature of the actual work itself hasn't changed all
that much over the years – mostly it is still very repetitive work that requires little
specialized training, even if the machine technology is much improved. Indeed, I would guess
that more intrinsic satisfaction came from bashing metal than pushing buttons on a CNC
machine, and so the jobs may even be less self-actualizing than they used to be.
The capitalist myth is that the private sector economy generates all the wealth and the
public sector is a claim on that wealth. Yet human development proves to us that this is not
true – a substantial portion of "human capital" is developed outside the paid economy,
government investment in R&D generates productivity growth, etc. And MMT demonstrates
that we do not require private sector savings to fund public investment.
We are still a ways from having the math to demonstrate that government investment in
caring and nurturing is always socially productive – first we need productivity numbers
that reflect more than just private sector "product." But I think we are moving in that
direction. Rather than prioritize a minimum wage JG of make-work, we should first simply pay
people good wages to raise their own children or look after their elderly and disabled
relatives. The MMT JG, as I understand it, would still require people to leave their kids
with others to look after them in order to perform some minimum wage task. That is just
dumb.
Maybe it's dumb, it's certainly dumb in a system like the U.S. where work is brutal and
often low paid and paid childcare is not well remunerated either. But caretakers also working
seems to work in countries with greater income equality, good job protections, flexible work
arrangements, and a decent amount of paid parental leave – yea Denmark, they think
their children should be raised by professionals, but also work-life balance is still pretty
good.
My take is that capitalism has made the benefits and malus of having a job so ingrained
into culture and so reinforced. Having a job is so closely linked to happiness because it
gives you the money needed to pursue it.
A job affords you the ability to pursue whatever goals you want within a capitalist
framework. "Everything" costs money and so having a job gives you the money to pay for those
costs and go on to fulfill your pursuit of happiness.
Analyzing whether people are happy or not under these conditions seem apparent that it is
going to lead to results heavily biased towards finding happiness through employment.
The unemployed are often living off someone else's income and feel like an undeserving
parasite. Adults are generally ingrained with the culture that they have to grow up and be
independent and be able to provide for a new family that they will start up. Becoming
unemployed is like being emasculated and infantile, the opposite of what is expected of
adults.
There's also that not having a job is increasingly being punished especially in the case
of America. American wages have stayed either largely static or have worsened, making being
unemployed that much more of a burden on family or friends. Unemployment has been demonized
by Reaganism and has become systematically punishable for the long term unemployed. If you
are unemployed for too long, you start losing government support. This compounds the frantic
rush to get out of unemployment once unemployed.
There is little luxury to enjoy while unemployed. Life while unemployed is a frustrating
and often disappointing hell of constant job applications and having many of them lead to
nothing. The people providing support often start to become less so over time and become more
convinced of laziness or some kind of lack of character or willpower or education or ability
or whatever. Any sense of systemic failure is transplanted into a sense of personal failure,
especially under neoliberalism.
I am not so sure about the case of Europe and otherwise. I am sure that the third world
often has little or no social safety nets so having work (in exploitative conditions in many
cases) is a must for survival.
Anyways, I wonder about the exact methodologies of these studies and I think they often
take the current feelings about unemployment and then attempt to extrapolate talking points
for UBI/JG from them. Yes, UBI wouldn't change culture overnight and it would take a very,
very long time for people to let down their guard and adjust if UBI is to be implemented in a
manner that would warrant trust. This article seems to understand the potential for that, but
decides against it being a significant factor due to the studies emphasizing the malus of
unemployment.
I wonder how different the results would be if there were studies that asked people how
they would feel if they were unemployed under a UBI system versus the current system. I know
a good number of young people (mostly under 30) who would love to drop out and just play
video games all day. Though the significance of such a drastic demographic shift would
probably lead to great political consequences. It would probably prove the anti-UBI crowd
right in that under a capitalist framework, the capitalists and the employed wouldn't
tolerate the unemployed and would seek to turn them into an underclass.
Personally I think a combination of UBI and JG should be pursued. JG would work better
within the current capitalist framework. I don't think it is without its pitfalls due to
similar possible issues (with the similar policy of full employment) either under
Keynesianism (e.g. Milton Friedman sees it as inefficient) or in the USSR (e.g. bullshit
jobs). There is the possibility of UBI having benefits (not having the unemployed be a burden
but a subsidized contributer to the economy) so I personally don't think it should be fully
disregarded until it is understood better. I would like it if there were better scientific
studies to expand upon the implications of UBI and better measure if it would work or not.
The upcoming studies testing an actual UBI system should help to end the debates once and for
all.
My $0.02:
I have a creative pursuit (no money) and a engineering/physical science technical career
(income!). I am proficient in and passionate about both. Over the last few years, the
technical career became tenuous due to consolidation of regional consulting firms (endemic to
this era)- wages flat to declining, higher work stress, less time off, conversation to
contact employment, etc.- which has resulted in two layoffs.
During the time of tenuous employment, my art took on a darker tone. During unemployment the
art stopped altogether.
I'm recently re-employed in a field that I'm not proficient. Both the peter principle and
imposter syndrome apply. My art has resumed, but the topics are singular about despair and
work, to the point that I feel like I'm constantly reworking the same one piece over and over
again. And the quality has plummeted too.
In some fields (e.g. engineering), being a wage slave is the only realistic option due to
the dominance of a small number of large firms. The big players crowd out independents and
free lancers, while pressuring their own employees through just-high-enough wages and
limiting time off. Engineering services is a relationship- based field, and the big boys (and
they are nearly all boys) have vastly bigger networks to draw work from than a small firm
unless that small firm has a big contact to feed them work (until they get gobbled up). The
big firms also have more areas of expertise which limits how useful a boutique firm is to a
client pool, except under very narrow circumstances. And if you are an introvert like most
engineering people, there's no way to compete with big firms and their marketing staff to
expand a network enough to compete.
In that way, consulting is a lot like art. To make a living at it you need either contacts or
a sponsor. Or an inheritance.
I would be interested to know what the definition of unemployment was for the purpose of
this study (I couldn't find it in the supplied links). If it's simply "people who don't have
a job," for example, then it would include the likes of the idle rich, retirees, wards of the
state, and so on. Binary statements like this one do make it sound like the broad definition
is the one in use:
When considering the world's population as a whole, people with a job evaluate the
quality of their lives much more favorably than those who are unemployed.
The conclusion seems at odds with results I've seen for some of those groups – for
example, I thought it was fairly well accepted that retirees who are supported by a
government plan that is sufficient for them to live on were generally at least as happy as
they had been during their working life.
If, on the other hand, the study uses a narrow definition (e.g. people who are of working
age, want a job or need one to support themselves financially, but can't find one) then the
conclusion seems a lot more reasonable. But that's a heavily loaded definition in economic
and cultural terms. In that case, the conclusion (people are happier if they have a job) only
holds true in the current prevailing model of society. It doesn't rule out the possibility of
structuring society or the economy differently in such a way that people can be non-working
and happy. The existence of one such population already (retirees) strongly suggests that
outcomes like this are possible. A UBI would be an example of just such a restructuring of
society, and therefore I don't think that this study and its result are necessarily a valid
argument against it.
Which makes a person happier -- being considered worthless by one's society or valuable?
How many studies do we need to answer that question? Apparently, a lot, because studies like
this one keep on going. The underlying assumption is that jobs make one valuable. So if you
don't have a job you're worthless. Now, who's happier on the whole, people with jobs or the
unemployed? That's surely good for a few more studies. Did you know that members of socially
devalued groups (minorities, non-heteros, and the like) have higher rates of dysfunction,
rather like the unemployed? Hmm, I wonder if there's maybe a similar principle at work. And
my solution is not to turn all the people of color white nor to change all the women to men
nor to "cure" gays. Well, maybe a few more conclusive studies of this kind will convince me
that we must all be the same, toeing the line for those whom it has pleased God to dictate
our values to us.
I am convinced that we shouldn't outlaw jobs, because I believe the tons of stories about
happy people in their jobs However, I also believe we shouldn't force everyone into jobs,
because I know tons of stories about happy people without jobs. You know, the stories that
the JG people explain away: parents caring for their children (JG -- "oh, we'll make that a
job!"), volunteers working on local planning issues (JG -- "oh, we'll make that a job, too.
In fact, we'll make everything worth doing a job. The important thing is to be able to force
people to work schedules and bosses, because otherwise, they'll all lie around doing nothing
and be miserable"), the retired (JG -- "that's not really the same, but they'd be better off
staying in a job"). And this is all before we get to those who can't really hold a job
because of disability or geography or other responsibilities.
I support the JG over the current situation, but as to what we should be working for, the
more I read the JG arguments, the more paternalistic and just plain narrow minded judgmental
they seem.
Data like that provided by Mitchell is important to demolishing the horrid "economic
anxiety" frame much beloved by liberals, especially wonkish Democrats.* It's not (a) just feelings , to be solved by scented candles or training (the liberal version of
rugged individualism) and (b) the effects are real and measurable. It's not surprising, when
you think about it, that the working class is about work .
* To put this another way, anybody who has really suffered the crawling
inwardness of anxiety, in the clinical sense, knows that it affects every aspect of one's
being. Anxiety is not something deplorables deploy as cover for less than creditable
motives.
Nick 7 months ago Totally
agree with you. Personally I'll always wear shirt and trousers to work regardless of the
dress code. It seems to put me into 'work mode' leaving casual wear to provide me with a
disconnect from work for evenings and weekends.
I find this approach to be even more important when I'm working from home. My Son seems
to respect the 'do not disturb daddy' when I'm in formal wear.
Lindsay Hill Nick7 months
ago I hadn't thought about it in the context of working from home. Makes total sense
- gives you that physical cue to switch between 'work mode' and 'home mode'
Yves here. On the one hand, as someone who is getting to be pretty long in
tooth, I'm not sure about calling un and under-employed older workers
"spare". But when the alternative is being thrown on the trash heap, maybe
that isn't so unflattering.
Even though this analysis is from Australia,
most of if not all of its finding would almost certainly prove out in the
US. However, there is a whole 'nother set of issues here. Australia is 85%
urban, with most of the population living in or near four large cities. So
its labor mobility issues are less pronounced than here. Moreover, a lot of
the whinging in the US about worker shortages, as even readers of the Wall
Street Journal regularly point out in its comment section is:
1. Not being willing to pay enough to skilled workers, which includes
not being willing to pay them to relocate
2. Not being willing to train less skilled workers, as companies once
did as a matter of course
A few weeks back, the Benevolent Society
released a report
which found that age-related discrimination is
particularly rife in the workplace, with over a quarter (29%) of survey
respondents stating they had been turned down for a job because of their old
age, whereas 14% claimed they had been denied a promotion because of their
old age.
Today, the Regional Australia Institute (RAI) has warned that Australia
is facing a pension crisis unless employers stop their "discrimination"
against older workers. From
The ABC
:
[RAI] has warned the Federal Government's pension bill would rise from
$45 billion to $51 billion within three years, unless efforts were made
to help more mature workers gain employment, particularly in regional
communities.
Chief executive Jack Archer said continued unemployment of people
older than 55 would cut economic growth and put a greater strain on
public resources.
"We hear that there is a lot of people who would like to work, who
would love to stay in the workforce either part-time or full-time even
though they're in their late 50s, 60s and even into their 70s," he said.
"But we're not doing a very good job of giving them the training,
giving them the incentives around the pension, and working with employers
to stop the discrimination around employing older workers"
"It basically means you've got a lot of talent on the bench, a lot of
people who could be involved and contributing who are sitting around
homes and wishing they were doing something else," he said
Mr Archer said as the population aged the workforce shrank, and that
risked future economic growth.
But he said that could be reversed provided employers embraced an
older workforce
"[When] those people are earning [an income], their pension bills will
either disappear or be much lower and the government will get a benefit
from that."
For years the growth lobby and the government has told us that Australia
needs to run high levels of immigration in order to alleviate so-called
'skills shortages' and to mitigate an ageing population. This has come
despite the Department of Employment
showing
that Australia's skills shortage
"remains low by historical
standards"
and Australia's labour underutilisation rate tracking at
high levels:
Economic models are often cited as proof that a strong immigration
program is 'good' for the economy because they show that real GDP per capita
is moderately increased via immigration, based on several dubious
assumptions.
The most dubious of these assumptions is that population ageing will
necessarily result in fewer people working, which will subtract from per
capita GDP (due to the ratio of workers to dependents falling).
Leaving aside the fact that the assumed benefit to GDP per capita from
immigration is only transitory, since migrants also age (thereby requiring
an ever-bigger immigration intake to keep the population age profile from
rising), it is just as likely that age-specific workforce participation will
respond to labour demand, resulting in fewer people being unemployed. This
is exactly what has transpired in Japan where an ageing population has
driven the unemployment rate down to only 2.8% – the lowest level since the
early-1990s:
The ABS
last month
revealed
that more Australians are working past traditional retirement
age, thereby mitigating concerns that population ageing will necessarily
reduce the employment-to-population ratio:
Clearly, however, there is much further scope to boost workforce
participation among older workers.
Rather than relying on mass immigration to fill phantom 'labour
shortages' – in turn displacing both young and older workers alike – the
more sensible policy option is to moderate immigration and instead better
utilise the existing workforce as well as use automation to overcome any
loss of workers as the population ages – as has been
utilised in Japan.
It's worth once again highlighting that
economists at MIT
recently found that there is absolutely no
relationship between population ageing and economic decline. To the
contrary, population ageing seems to have been associated with improvements
in GDP per capita, thanks to increased automation:
If
anything, countries experiencing more rapid aging have grown more in
recent decades we show that since the early 1990s or 2000s, the periods
commonly viewed as the beginning of the adverse effects of aging in much
of the advanced world, there is no negative association between aging and
lower GDP per capita on the contrary, the relationship is significantly
positive in many specifications.
The last thing that Australia should be doing is running a mass
immigration program which, as
noted many times
by the Productivity Commission cannot provide a
long-term solution to ageing, and places increasing strains on
infrastructure, housing and the natural environment.
The sustainable 'solution' to population ageing is to better utilise the
existing workforce, where significant spare capacity exists.
At what point might an impatient constituency demand greater
accountability by its elected representatives? In the business world, the
post-2000 accounting scandals like Enron resulted in legislation to make
company execs sign off on financial statements under threat of harsh
personal penalties for misrepresentation. If legislators were forced by
constituents to enact similar legislation about their own actions, the
transparency could be very enlightening and a type of risk reduction due to
acknowledgement of material factors. Imagine seeing in print the real
reasons for votes, the funding sources behind those votes and prospect of
jail time for misrepresentation about what is just their damn job. Call it
Truth-In-Legislating, similar to the prior Truth-In-Lending act.
It's a nice idea, but I don't think that very many executives have
been penalized under the Sarbanes Oxley Act. Jamie Dimon certainly wasn't
penalized for the actions of the London Whale. I guess we'll see what
happens in the near future to the executives of Wells Fargo. I suspect
that a Truth-In-Legislating law would be filled with loopholes or would
be hampered by enforcement failures, like current Congressional ethics
rules and the Sarbanes Oxley Act.
At what point might an impatient constituency demand greater
accountability by its elected representatives?
At that point when they start shooting them (as they did in Russian in
the very early 1900s, or lop their heads off, as they once did in
France).
Personally, I'll never work for any Ameritard corporation ever again,
as real innovation is not allowed, and the vast majority are all about
financialization in some form or other!
My work life the past thirty years became worse and worse and worse,
in direct relation to the majority of others, and my last jobs were
beyond commenting up.
My very last position, which was in no manner related to my
experience, education, skill set and talents -- like too many other
American workers -- ended with a most tortuous layoff: the private equity
firm which was owner in a failed "pump and dump" brought a "toxic work
environment specialist" whose job was to advise the sleazoid senior
executives (and by that time I was probably one of only four actual
employee workers there, they had hired a whole bunch of executives,
though) on how to create a negative work environment to convince us to
leave instead of merely laying us off (worked for two, but not the last
lady there I myself).
The American workplace sucks big time as evidenced by their refusal to
raise wages while forever complaining about their inability to find
skilled employees -- they are all criminals today!
I lived and worked in Australia in the late '70s and early '80s. Times
were different. Back then, the government jobs came with mandatory
retirement. I believe (but could be wrong) that it was at 63, but you could
request staying until 65 (required approval). After that, one could continue
working in the private sector, if you could find a job.
The population was much less than it is now. I believe the idea was to
make room for the younger generation coming up. Back then, government
workers, as well as many private sector workers, had defined benefit pension
plans. So retiring younger typically worked out ok.
I had one friend who continued working until about 70 because she wanted
to; liked her job; and wasn't interested in retiring. However, I knew far
more people who were eager to stop at 63. But back then, it appeared to me
that they had the financial means to do so without much worry.
Things have changed since then. More of my friends are putting off
retirement bc they need the money now. Plus defined benefit pension plans
have mostly been dispensed with and replaced by, I believe (I'm not totally
clear on this), the Aussie version of a 401 (k) (someone can correct me if
I'm wrong).
What the article proposes makes sense. Of course here in the USA, older
workers/job seekers face a host of discriminatory practices, especially for
the better paying jobs. Nowadays, though, US citizens in their golden years
can sell their house, buy an RV, and become itinerant workers – sometimes at
back breaking labor, such as harvesting crops or working at an Amazon gulag
– for $10 an hour. Yippee kay-o kay-aaay!
So let us also talk about cutting Medicare for all of those lazy slacker
Seniors out there. Woo hoo!
There is really two issues:
1) for those whom age discrimination in employment is hitting in their
50s or even younger, before anyone much is retiring, it needs to be
combatted
2) eventually (sometimes in their 60's and really should be at least by
65) people ought to be allowed to retire and with enough money to not be
in poverty. This work full time until you drop garbage is just that (it's
not as if 70 year olds can even say work 20 hours instead, no it's the
same 50+ hours or whatever as everyone else is doing). And most people
won't live that much longer, really they won't, U.S. average lifespans
aren't that long and falling fast. So it really is work until you die
that is being pushed if people aren't allowed to retire sometime in their
60s. Some people have good genes and good luck and so on (they may also
have a healthy lifestyle but sheer luck plays a large role), and will
live far beyond that, but averages
Working past 65 is one of those things where it just depends. I
know people who are happily (and don't "really" need the money)
working past 65 bc they love their jobs and they're not taking a toll
on their health. They enjoy the socialization at work; are
intellectually stimulated; and are quite happy. That's one issue.
But when people HAVE TO work past 65 – and I know quite a few in
this category – when it starts taking a toll on their health, that is
truly bad. And I can reel off several cases that I know of personally.
It's just wrong.
Whether you live much longer or not is sort of up to fate, no
matter what. But yes, if work is taking a toll on your heath, then you
most likely won't live as long.
In January, economists from MIT published a paper, entitled Secular
Stagnation? The Effect of Aging on Economic Growth in the Age of
Automation, which showed that there is absolutely no relationship between
population aging and economic decline. To the contrary, population aging
seems to have been associated with improvements in GDP per capita, thanks
to increased automation:
From the cited article.
I don't know why it never occurred to me before, but there's no reason to
ditch your most knowledgeable, most skilled workers toward the eve of their
careers except if you don't want to pay labor costs. Which we know that
most firms do not, in their mission for profit for shareholders or the
flashy new building or trying to
Innuhvate
.
There's a myth that innovation comes from the 20 something in their
basement, but that's just not the case. Someone who has, for instance,
overseen 100 construction projects building bridges needs to be retained,
not let go. Maybe they can't lift the sledge anymore, but I'd keep them on
as long as possible.
1. Not being willing to pay enough to skilled workers, which includes not
being willing to pay them to relocate
2. Not being willing to train less skilled workers, as companies once did
as a matter of course
3.
older workers have seen all the crap and evil management has
done, and is usually in a much better position than young less established
employees to take effective action against it
This. Don't expect rational actors, in management or labor. If
everyone was paid the same, regardless of age or training or education or
experience etc then the financial incentives for variant outcomes would
decrease. Except for higher health costs for older workers. For them, we
could simply ban employer provide health insurance then that takes that
variable out of the equation too. So yes, the ideal is a rational Marxism
or the uniformity of the hive-mind-feminism. While we would have "from
each according to their ability, to each according to their need" we will
have added it as an axiom that all have the same need. And a whip can
encourage the hoi polloi to do their very best.
Fully agee! To your list I would add a corollory to your item #3 --
older workers having seen all the crap and evil management has done are
more likely to inspire other employees to feel and act with them. -- This
corollory is obvious but I think it bears stating for emphasis of the
point.
I believe your whole list might be viewed as symtoms resulting from
the concept of workers as commodity -- fungible as cogs on a wheel. Young
and old alike are dehumanized.
The boss of the branch office of the firm I last worked for before I
retired constantly emphasized how each of us must remain "fungible" [he's
who introduced me to this word] if we wanted to remain employed. The firm
would win contracts using one set of workers in its bids and slowly
replace them with new workers providing the firm a higher return per hour
billed to the client. I feel very lucky I managed to remain employed -- to
within a couple of years of the age when I could apply for Medicare.
[Maybe it's because I was too cowed to make waves and avoided raises as
best I could.]
[I started my comment considering the idea of "human capital" but ran
into trouble with that concept. Shouldn't capital be assessed in terms of
its replacement costs and its capacity for generating product or other
gain? I had trouble working that calculus into the way firms treat their
employees and decided "commodity" rather than "capital" better fit how
workers were regarded and treated.]
"skills vs. demand imbalance" not labor shortage. Capital wants to tip
the scale the other way, but isn't willing to invest the money to train the
people, per a comment I made last week. Plenty of unemployed or
under-employed even in Japan, much less Oz.
Keeping the elderly, who already have the skills, in the work place
longer is a way to put off making the investments. Getting government to tax
the poor for their own training is another method. Exploiting poor nations
education systems by importing skills yet another.
Some business hope to develop skills that only costs motive power
(electric), minimal maintenance, and are far less capital intensive and
quicker to the market than the current primary source's 18 years. Capitalism
on an finite resource will eat itself, but even capitalism with finite
resources will self-destruct in the end.
Importantly, the chart labeled as Figure 2 uses GDP
per capita
on
the y-axis.
Bearing in mind that GDP growth is composed of labor force growth times
productivity, emerging economies that are growing faster than the rich world
in both population and GDP look more anemic on a per capita basis, allowing
us rich country denizens to feel better about our good selves. :-)
But in terms of absolute GDP growth, things ain't so bright here in the
Homeland. Both population and productivity growth are slowing. Over the past
two-thirds century, the trend in GDP groaf is relentlessly down, even as
debt rises in an apparent attempt to maintain unsustainable living
standards. Chart (viewer discretion advised):
Van Onselen doesn't address the rich world's busted pension systems. To
the extent that they contain a Ponzi element premised on endless growth,
immigration would modestly benefit them by adding new
victims
workers to support the greying masses of doddering Boomers.
Will you still need me
Will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four?
There's been an increase in the employment of older people in the U.S. in
the U.S. population. To provide a snapshot, below are three tables referring
to the U.S. by age cohorts of 1) the total population, 2) Employment and 3)
employment-population ratios (percent).based on Bureau of Labor Statistics
weightings for population estimates and compiled in the Merge Outgoing
Rotation Groups (MORG) dataset by the National Bureau of Economic Research
(NBER) from the monthly Current Population Survey (CPS).
The portion of the population 16 to 54 has declined while those over 54
has increased.
1. Percent Population in Age Cohorts: 1986 & 2016
1986 2016 AGE
18.9 15.2 16-24
53.7 49.6 25-54
12.2 16.3 55-64
9.4 11.2 65-74
5.8 7.7 75 & OVER
100.0 100.0 ALL
The portion of the population 16 to 54 employed has declined while the
portion over 54 has increased..
2 Percent Employed in Age Cohorts: 1986 & 2016
1986 2016 AGE
18.5 12.5 16-24
68.4 64.7 25-54
10.4 16.9 55-64
2.3 4.8 65-74
0.4 1.0 75 & OVER
100.0 100.0 ALL
The employment-population ratios (percents) show significant declines for
those under 25 while increases for those 55 and above.
3. Age-Specific Employment Population Ratios (Percents)
1986 2016 AGE
59.5 49.4 16-24
77.3 77.9 25-54
51.8 61.8 55-64
14.8 25.9 65-74
3.8 7.9 75 & OVER
60.7 59.7 ALL
None of the above data refute claims about age and experience inequities.
Rather these provide a base from which to explore such concerns. Because
MORG data are representative samples with population weightings, systematic
contingency analyses are challenging.
In the 30 year interval of these data there have been changes in
population and employment by education status, gender, race, citizenship
status along with industry and occupation, all items of which are found in
the publicly available MORG dataset.
I think you are missing the point. Life expectancy at birth has
increased by nearly five years since 1986. That renders simple
comparisons of labor force participation less meaningful. The implication
is that many people are not just living longer but are in better shape in
their later middle age. Look at the dramatic drop in labor force
participation from the 25-54 age cohort v. 55 to 64. How can so few
people in that age group be working given that even retiring at 65 is
something most people cannot afford? And the increase over time in the
current 55=64 age cohort is significantly due to the entry of women into
the workplace. Mine was the first generation where that became
widespread.
The increase in the over 65 cohort reflects desperation. Anyone who
can work stays working.
Even if life-expectancy is increasing due to improved health, the
percentage of those in older cohorts who are working is increasing at
an even faster rate. If a ratio is 6/8 for a category and goes up to
10/12 the category has increased (8 to 12 or 50%) and the subcategory
has increased (6 to 10 i or 67% and the ratios go from 6/8 or 75/100
to 10/12 or 83.3/100)
I assume you are referencing the employment-population (E/P) ratio
when noting "the dramatic drop in labor force participation from the
25-54 age cohort v. 55 to 64." However the change in the E/P ratio for
25-54 year olds was virtually unchanged (77.3/100 in 1986 to 77.9/100
in 2016) and for the 55-64 year olds the E/P ratio INCREASED
significantly, from 51.8/100 in 1986 to 61.8/100 in 2016.
You query: "How can so few people in that age group be working
given that even retiring at 65 is something most people cannot
afford?" That's a set of concerns the data I've compiled cannot and
thus cannot address. It would take more time to see if an empirical
answer could be constructed, something that doesn't lend itself to
making a timely, empirically based comment. The data I compiled was
done after reading the original post.
You note: ". . . ;;[T] the increase over time in the current 55-64
age cohort is significantly due to the entry of women into the
workplace." Again, I didn't compute the age-gender specific E/P
ratios. I can do that if there's interest. The OVERALL female E/P
ratio (from FRED) did not significantly increase from December 1986 (
51.7/100) to December 2016 (53.8/100).
Your write: "The increase in the over 65 cohort reflects
desperation. Anyone who can work stays working." Again, the data I was
using provided me no basis for this interpretation. I suspect that the
MORG data can provide some support for that interpretation. However,
based on your comments about longer life expectancy, it's likely that
a higher proportion of those in professional-middle class or in the
upper-middle class category Richard Reeves writes about (Dream
Hoarders) were able and willing to continue working. For a time in
higher education some institutions offered incentives for older
faculty to continue working thereby they could continue to receive a
salary and upon becoming eligible for Social Security draw on that
benefit. No doubt many, many vulnerable older people, including
workers laid off in the wake of the Great Recession and otherwise
burdened lengthened their or sought employment.
Again the MORG data can get somewhat closer to your concerns and
interests, but whether this is the forum is a challenge given the
reporting-comment cycle which guides this excellent site.
I don't understand how the media promotes the "society is aging, we need
more immigrants to avoid a labor shortage" argument and the "there will be
no jobs in the near future due to automation, there will be a jobs shortage"
argument at the same time. Dean Baker has discussed this issue:
In any event, helping to keep older workers in the workforce can be a
good thing. Some people become physically inactive after retirement and
their social networks decline which can cause depression and loneliness.
Work might benefit some people who would otherwise sink into inactivity and
loneliness.
Of course, results might vary based on individual differences and those
who engaged in hard physical labor will likely have to retire earlier due to
wear and tear on their bodies.
Increase in life expectancy is greatly influenced by a decrease in
childhood mortality. People are living longer because they aren't dying
in large numbers in childhood anymore in the US. So many arguments that
start out "we're living longer, so something" confuse a reduction in
childhood mortality with how long one can expect to live to in old age,
based on the actuarial charts. Pols who want to cut SS or increase the
retirement age find this confusion very useful.
"
Life expectancy at birth is very sensitive to reductions in the
death rates of children, because each child that survives adds many years
to the amount of life in the population. Thus, the dramatic declines in
infant and child mortality in the twentieth century were accompanied by
equally stunning increases in life expectancy.
"
I've noticed ever since the 1990s that "labor shortage" is a signal for
cost-cutting measures that trigger a recession. Which then becomes the
excuse for shedding workers and really getting the recession on.
It is not just older workers who are spare. There are other forms of
discrimination that could fall by the wayside if solving the "labor
shortage" was the sincere objective.
Often productively, sales, and profits decrease with those cost
cuttings, which justified further cuts which decreases productivity,
sales, and profits which justifies
It's a pattern I first noticed in the 1990s and looking back in the
80s too. It's like some malevolent MBAs went out and convinced the whole
of American middle and senior business management that this was the Way
to do it. It's like something out of the most hidebound, nonsensical
ideas of Maoism and Stalinism as something that could not fail but only
be failed. It is right out of the Chicago Boys' economics playbook.
Thirty-five years later and the Way still hasn't succeeded, but they're
still trying not to fail it.
Love your reflections. Yeah, it's like a religion that they can't
pay more, can't train, must cut people till they are working to their
max at ordinary times (so have no slack for crises), etc. etc., and
that it doesn't work doesn't change the faith in it AT ALL.
This is ranting, but most jobs can be done at most ages. If want someone
to be a SEAL or do 12 hours at farm labor no of course not, but just about
everything else so what's the problem?
All this "we have a skilled labor shortage" or "we have a labor surplus"
or "the workers are all lazy/stupid" narratives" and "it's the unions'
fault" and "the market solves everything" and the implicit "we are a true
meritocracy and the losers are waste who deserve their pain" and my favorite
of the "Job creators do make jobs" being said, and/or believed all at the
same time is insanity made mainstream.
Sometimes I think whoever is running things are told they have to drink
the Draught of UnWisdom before becoming the elites.
So I'm a middle aged fella – early thirties – and have to admit that in
my industry I find that most older workers are a disaster. I'm in tech and
frankly find that most older workers are a detriment simply from being out
of date. While I sympathize, in some cases experience can be a minus rather
than a plus. The willingness to try new things and stay current with modern
technologies/techniques just isn't there for the majority of tech workers
that are over the hill.
"... In the 1970s a programming shop was legacy American, with only a thin scattering of foreigners like myself. Twenty years later programming had been considerably foreignized , thanks to the H-1B visa program. Now, twenty years further on, I believe legacy-American programmers are an endangered species. ..."
"... So a well-paid and mentally rewarding corner of the middle-class job market has been handed over to foreigners -- for the sole reason, of course, that they are cheaper than Americans. The desire for cheap labor explains 95 percent of U.S. immigration policy. The other five percent is sentimentality. ..."
"... Now they are brazen in their crime: you have heard, I'm sure, those stories about American workers being laid off, with severance packages conditional on their helping train their cheaper foreign replacements. That's our legal ..."
"... A "merit-based" points system won't fix that. It will quickly and easily be gamed by employers to lay waste yet more middle-class occupational zones for Americans. If it was restricted to the higher levels of "merit," we would just be importing a professional overclass of foreigners, most East and South Asians, to direct the labors of less-meritorious legacy Americans. How would that ..."
"... Measured by the number of workers per year, the largest guestworker program in the entire immigration system is now student visas through the Optional Practical Training program (OPT). Last year over 154,000 aliens were approved to work on student visas. By comparison, 114,000 aliens entered the workforce on H-1B guestworker visas. ..."
"... A History of the 'Optional Practical Training' Guestworker Program , ..."
"... incredible amount ..."
"... on all sorts of subjects ..."
"... for all kinds of outlets. (This ..."
"... no longer includes ..."
"... National Review, whose editors had some kind of tantrum and ..."
"... and several other ..."
"... . He has had two books published by VDARE.com com: ..."
"... ( also available in Kindle ) and ..."
"... Has it ever occurred to anyone other than me that the cost associated with foreign workers using our schools and hospitals and pubic services for free, is more than off-set by the cheap price being paid for grocery store items like boneless chicken breast, grapes, apples, peaches, lettuce etc, which would otherwise be prohibitively expensive even for the wealthy? ..."
Item-wise, the biggest heading there is the second one, "Interior Enforcement." That's very
welcome.
Of course we need improved border security so that people don't enter our country without
permission. That comes under the first heading. An equally pressing problem, though, is the
millions of foreigners who are living and working here, and using our schools and hospitals and
public services, who should not be here.
The President's proposals on interior enforcement cover all bases: Sanctuary
cities , visa
overstays , law-enforcement
resources , compulsory E-Verify , more
deportations , improved visa security.
This is a major, wonderful improvement in national policy, when you consider that less than
a year ago the
White House and
Justice Department were run by committed open-borders
fanatics. I thank the President and his staff for having put so much work into such a
detailed proposal for restoring American sovereignty and the rights of American workers and
taxpayers.
That said, here come the quibbles.
That third heading, "Merit-Based Immigration System," with just four items, needs work.
Setting aside improvements on visa controls under the other headings, this is really the only
part of the proposal that covers legal immigration. In my opinion, it does so imperfectly.
There's some good meat in there, mind. Three of the four items -- numbers one, three, and
four -- got a fist-pump from me:
cutting down chain
migration by limiting it to spouse and dependent children; eliminating the Diversity
Visa Lottery ; and limiting the number of refugees admitted, assuming this means severely
cutting back on the numbers, preferably all the way to
zero.
Good stuff. Item two, however, is a problem. Quote:
Establish a new, points-based system for the awarding of Green Cards (lawful permanent
residents) based on factors that allow individuals to successfully assimilate and support
themselves financially.
sounds OK, bringing in talented, well-educated, well-socialized people, rather than
what the late Lee
Kuan Yew referred to as " fruit-pickers ." Forgive
me if I have a rather jaundiced view of this merit-based approach.
For most of my adult life I made a living as a computer programmer. I spent four years
doing this in the U.S.A. through the mid-1970s. Then I came back in the late 1980s and
worked at the same trade here through the 1990s. (Pictured right–my actual H-1B visa ) That gave me two
clear snapshots twenty years apart, of this particular corner of skilled middle-class
employment in America.
In the 1970s a programming shop was legacy American, with only a thin scattering of
foreigners like myself. Twenty years later programming had been considerably foreignized ,
thanks to the H-1B visa program. Now, twenty years further on, I believe legacy-American
programmers are an endangered species.
So a well-paid and mentally rewarding corner of the middle-class job market has been
handed over to foreigners -- for the sole reason, of course, that they are cheaper than
Americans. The desire for cheap labor explains 95 percent of U.S. immigration policy. The other
five percent is sentimentality.
On so-called "merit-based immigration," therefore, you can count me a cynic. I have no doubt
that American firms could recruit all the computer programmers they need from among our legacy
population. They used to do so, forty years ago. Then they discovered how to game the
immigration system for cheaper labor.
A "merit-based" points system won't fix that. It will quickly and easily be gamed by
employers to lay waste yet more middle-class occupational zones for Americans. If it was
restricted to the higher levels of "merit," we would just be importing a professional overclass
of foreigners, most East and South Asians, to direct the labors of less-meritorious legacy
Americans. How would that contribute to social harmony?
With coming up to a third of a
billion people, the U.S.A. has all the talent, all the merit , it needs. You might
make a case for a handful of certified geniuses like Einstein or worthy dissidents like
Solzhenitsyn, but those cases aside, there is no reason at all to have guest-worker programs.
They should all be shut down.
Some of these cheap-labor rackets don't even need congressional action to shut them down; it
can be done by regulatory change via executive order. The scandalous OPT-visa scam, for
example, which brings in cheap workers under the guise of student visas.
Here is John Miano writing about the OPT program last month, quote:
Measured by the number of workers per year, the largest guestworker program in the
entire immigration system is now student visas through the Optional Practical Training
program (OPT). Last year over 154,000 aliens were approved to work on student visas. By
comparison, 114,000 aliens entered the workforce on H-1B guestworker visas.
Because there is no reporting on how long guestworkers stay in the country, we do not know
the total number of workers in each category. Nonetheless, the number of approvals for work
on student visas has grown by 62 percent over the past four years so their numbers will soon
dwarf those on H-1B visas.
End quote. (And a cheery wave of acknowledgement to John Miano here from one of the
other seventeen people in the U.S.A. that knows the correct placement of the hyphen in
"H-1B.")
Our legal immigration system is addled with these scams. Don't even get me started
on
the EB-5 investor's visa . It all needs sweeping away.
So for preference I would rewrite that third heading to include, yes, items one, three, and
four -- cutting down chain migration, ending the Diversity Visa Lottery, and ending refugee
settlement for anyone of less stature than Solzhenitsyn; but then, I'd replace item two with
the following:
End all guest-worker programs, with exceptions only for the highest levels of
talent and accomplishment, limit one hundred visas per annum .
So much for my amendments to the President's October 8th proposals. There is, though, one
glaring omission from that 70-item list. The proposal has no mention at all of birthright
citizenship.
Yes, yes, I know: some constitutional authorities argue that birthright citizenship is
implied in the
Fourteenth Amendment , although it is certain that the framers of that Amendment did not
have foreign tourists or illegal entrants in mind. Other scholars think Congress could
legislate against it.
The only way to find out is to have Congress legislate. If the courts strike down the
legislation as unconstitutional, let's then frame a constitutional amendment and put it to the
people.
Getting rid of birthright citizenship might end up a long and difficult process. We might
ultimately fail. The only way to find out is to get the process started . Failure to
mention this in the President's proposal is a very glaring omission.
I agree with ending birthright citizenship. But Trump should wait until he can put at
least one more strict constitutionalist in the supreme court. There will be a court
challenge, and we need judges who can understand that if the 14th Amendment didn't give
automatic citizenship to American Indians it doesn't give automatic citizenship to children
of Mexican citizens who jumped our border.
John's article, it seems to me, ignores the elephant in the room: the DACA colonists.
Trump is offering this proposal, more or less, in return for some sort of semi-permanent
regularization of their status. Bad trade, in my opinion. Ending DACA and sending those
illegals back where they belong will have more real effect on illegal and legal
immigration/colonization than all sorts of proposals to be implemented in the future, which
can and will be changed by subsequent Administrations and Congresses.
Trump would also be able to drive a much harder bargain with Congress (like maybe a
moratorium on any immigration) if he had kept his campaign promise, ended DACA the afternoon
of January 20, 2017, and busloads of DACA colonists were being sent south of the Rio
Grande.
The best hope for immigration patriots is that the Democrats are so wedded to Open Borders
that the entire proposal dies and Trump, in disgust, reenacts Ike's Operation Wetback.
Well, in the real world, things just don't work that way. It's pay me now or pay me
later. Once all the undocumented workers who are doing all the dirty, nasty jobs Americans
refuse to do are run out the country, then what?
Right, prior to 1965, Americans didn't exist. They had all starved to death because, as
everyone knows, no Americans will work to produce food and, even if they did, once Tyson
chicken plants stop making 50 percent on capital they just shut down.
If there were no Somalis in Minnesota, even Warren Buffett couldn't afford grapes.
Illegal immigrants picking American produce is a false economy.
Illegal immigrants are subsidized by the taxpayer in terms of public health, education,
housing, and welfare.
If businesses didn't have access to cheap and subsidized illegal alien labor, they would
be compelled to resort to more farm automation to reduce cost.
Cheap illegal alien labor delays the inevitable use of newer farm automation
technologies.
Many Americans would likely prefer a machine touch their food rather than a illegal alien
with strange hygiene practices.
In addition, anti-American Democrats and neocons prefer certain kinds of illegal aliens
because they bolster their diversity scheme.
@Realist "Once all the undocumented workers who are doing all the dirty, nasty jobs
Americans refuse to do are run out the country, then what?"
Eliminate welfare...then you'll have plenty of workers. Unfortunately, that train left the
station long ago. With or without welfare, there's simply no way soft, spoiled, lazy,
over-indulged Americans who have never hit a lick at anything their life, will ever perform
manual labor for anyone, including themselves.
@Randal Probably people other than you have worked out that once their wages are not
being continually undercut by cheap and easy immigrant competition, the American working
classes will actually be able to earn enough to pay the increased prices for grocery store
items, especially as the Americans who, along with machines, will replace those immigrants
doing the "jobs Americans won't do" will also be earning more and actually paying taxes on
it.
The "jobs Americans/Brits/etc won't do" myth is a deliberate distortion of reality that
ignores the laws of supply and demand. There are no jobs Americans etc won't do, only jobs
for which the employers are not prepared to pay wages high enough to make them worthwhile for
Americans etc to do.
Now of course it is more complicated than that. There are jobs that would not be
economically viable if the required wages were to be paid, and there are marginal
contributions to job creation by immigrant populations, but those aspects are in reality far
less significant than the bosses seeking cheap labour want people to think they are.
As a broad summary, a situation in which labour is tight, jobs are easy to come by and
staff hard to hold on to is infinitely better for the ordinary working people of any nation
than one in which there is a huge pool of excess labour, and therefore wages are low and
employees disposable.
You'd think anyone purporting to be on the "left", in the sense of supporting working
class people would understand that basic reality, but far too many on the left have been
indoctrinated in radical leftist anti-racist and internationalist dogmas that make them
functional stooges for big business and its mass immigration program.
Probably people other than you have worked out that once their wages are not being
continually undercut by cheap and easy immigrant competition, the American working classes
will actually be able to earn enough to pay the increased prices for grocery store items,
especially as the Americans who, along with machines, will replace those immigrants doing
the "jobs Americans won't do" will also be earning more and actually paying taxes on
it.
There might be some truth in this. When I was a student in England in the 60′s I
spent every summer working on farms, picking hops, apples, pears, potatoes and made some
money and had a lot of fun too and became an expert farm tractor operator.
No reason why US students and high school seniors should not pick up a lot of the slack.
Young people like camping in the countryside and sleeping rough, plus lots of
opportunity to meet others, have sex, smoke weed, drink beer, or whatever. If you get a free
vacation plus a nice check at the end, that makes the relatively low wages worthwhile. It is
not always a question of how much you are paid, but how much you can save.
We can fix the EB-5 visa scam. My suggestion: charge would-be "investors" $1 million to
enter the US. This $1 is not refundable under any circumstance. It is paid when the
"investor's" visa is approved. If the "investor" is convicted of a felony, he is deported. He
may bring no one with him. No wife, no child, no aunt, no uncle. Unless he pays $1 million
for that person.
We will get a few thousand Russian oligarchs and Saudi princes a year under this
program
As to fixing the H-1B visa program, we charge employer users of the program say $25,000
per year per employee. We require the employers to inform all employees that if any is asked
to train a replacement, he should inform the DOJ immediately. The DOJ investigates and if
true, charges managerial employees who asked that a replacement be trained with fraud.
As to birthright citizenship: I say make it a five-year felony to have a child while in
the US illegally. Make it a condition of getting a tourist visa that one not be pregnant. If
the tourist visa lasts say 60 days and the woman has a child while in the US, she gets
charged with fraud.
None of these suggestions requires a constitutional amendment.
In the United States middle class prosperity reached its apogee in 1965 – before the
disastrous (and eminently foreseeable) wage-lowering consequence of the Hart-Celler Open
Immigration Act's massive admission of foreigners increased the supply of labor which began
to lower middle class prosperity and to shrink and eradicate the middle class.
It was in 1965 that ordinary Americans, enjoying maximum employment because employers were
forced to compete for Americans' talents and labor, wielded their peak purchasing
power . Since 1970 wages have remained stagnant, and since 1965 the purchasing power of
ordinary Americans has gone into steep decline.
It is long past time to halt Perpetual Mass Immigration into the United States, to end
birthright citizenship, and to deport all illegal aliens – if, that is, our leaders
genuinely care about and represent us ordinary Americans instead of continuing their
legislative, policy, and judicial enrichment of the 1-percenter campaign donor/rentier class
of transnational Globali$t Open Border$ E$tabli$hment $ellout$.
Re the birthright citizenship argument, that is not settled law in that SCOTUS has never
ruled on the question of whether a child born in the US is thereby a citizen if the parents
are illegally present. Way back in 1897, SCOTUS did resolve the issue of whether a child born
to alien parents who were legally present was thereby a citizen. That case is U.S. vs Wong
Kim Ark 169 US 649. SCOTUS ruled in favor of citizenship. If that was a justiciable issue how
much more so is it when the parents are illegally present?
My thinking is that the result would be the same but, at least, the question would be
settled. I cannot see justices returning a toddler to Beijing or worse. They would never have
invitations to cocktail parties again for the shame heaped upon them for such uncaring
conduct. Today, the title of citizen is conferred simply by bureaucratic rule, not by
judicial order.
Arguments Against Fourteenth Amendment Anchor Baby Interpretation
J. Paige Straley
Part One. Anchor Baby Argument, Mexican Case.
The ruling part of the US Constitution is Amendment Fourteen: "All persons born or
naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of
the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
Here is the ruling part of the Mexican Constitution, Section II, Article Thirty:
Article 30
Mexican nationality is acquired by birth or by naturalization:
A. Mexicans by birth are:
I. Those born in the territory of the Republic, regardless of the nationality of
their parents:
II. Those born in a foreign country of Mexican parents; of a Mexican father and
a foreign mother; or of a Mexican mother and an unknown father;
III. Those born on Mexican vessels or airships, either war or merchant vessels. "
A baby born to Mexican nationals within the United States is automatically a Mexican
citizen. Under the anchor baby reasoning, this baby acquires US citizenship at the same time
and so is a dual citizen. Mexican citizenship is primary because it stems from a primary
source, the parents' citizenship and the law of Mexico. The Mexican Constitution states the
child of Mexican parents is automatically a Mexican citizen at birth no matter where the
birth occurs. Since the child would be a Mexican citizen in any country, and becomes an
American citizen only if born in America, it is clear that Mexico has the primary claim of
citizenry on the child. This alone should be enough to satisfy the Fourteenth Amendment
jurisdiction thereof argument. Since Mexican citizenship is primary, it has primary
jurisdiction; thus by the plain words of the Fourteenth such child is not an American citizen
at birth.
[MORE]
There is a second argument for primary Mexican citizenship in the case of anchor babies.
Citizenship, whether Mexican or American, establishes rights and duties. Citizenship is a
reciprocal relationship, thus establishing jurisdiction. This case for primary Mexican
citizenship is supported by the fact that Mexico allows and encourages Mexicans resident in
the US, either illegal aliens or legal residents, to vote in Mexican elections. They are
counted as Mexican citizens abroad, even if dual citizens, and their government provides
widespread consular services as well as voting access to Mexicans residing in the US. As far
as Mexico is concerned, these persons are not Mexican in name only, but have a civil
relationship strong enough to allow a political voice; in essence, full citizenship. Clearly,
all this is the expression of typical reciprocal civic relationships expressed in legal
citizenship, further supporting the establishment of jurisdiction.
Part Two: Wong Kim Ark (1898) case. (Birthright Citizenship)
The Wong Kim Ark (WKA) case is often cited as the essential legal reasoning and precedent
for application of the fourteenth amendment as applied to aliens. There has been plenty of
commentary on WKA, but the truly narrow application of the case is emphasized reviewing a
concise statement of the question the case was meant to decide, written by Hon. Horace Gray,
Justice for the majority in this decision.
"[W]hether a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who, at the
time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicile and
residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in
any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his
birth a citizen of the United States by virtue of the first clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment of the Constitution." (Italics added.)
For WKA to justify birthright citizenship, the parents must have " permanent domicile and
residence " But how can an illegal alien have permanent residence when the threat of
deportation is constantly present? There is no statute of limitation for illegal presence in
the US and the passage of time does not eliminate the legal remedy of deportation. This alone
would seem to invalidate WKA as a support and precedent for illegal alien birthright
citizenship.
If illegal (or legal) alien parents are unemployed, unemployable, illegally employed, or
if they get their living by illegal means, then they are not ". . .carrying on business. .
.", and so the children of indigent or criminal aliens may not be eligible for birthright
citizenship
If legal aliens meet the two tests provided in WKA, birthright citizenship applies.
Clearly the WKA case addresses the specific situation of the children of legal aliens, and so
is not an applicable precedent to justify birthright citizenship for the children of illegal
aliens.
Part three. Birth Tourism
Occasionally foreign couples take a trip to the US during the last phase of the wife's
pregnancy so she can give birth in the US, thus conferring birthright citizenship on the
child. This practice is called "birth tourism." WKA provides two tests for birthright
citizenship: permanent domicile and residence and doing business, and a temporary visit
answers neither condition. WKA is therefore disqualified as justification for a "birth
tourism" child to be granted birthright citizenship.
@Carroll Price Unfortunately, that train left the station long ago. With or without
welfare, there's simply no way soft, spoiled, lazy, over-indulged Americans who have never
hit a lick at anything their life, will ever perform manual labor for anyone, including
themselves. Then let them starve to death. The Pilgrims nipped that dumb ass idea (welfare)
in the bud
An equally pressing problem, though, is the millions of foreigners who are living and
working here, and using our schools and hospitals and public services, who should not be
here.
Has it ever occurred to anyone other than me that the cost associated with
foreign workers using our schools and hospitals and pubic services for free, is more than
off-set by the cheap price being paid for grocery store items like boneless chicken breast,
grapes, apples, peaches, lettuce etc, which would otherwise be prohibitively expensive even
for the wealthy?
Let alone relatively poor people (like myself) and those on fixed incomes? What
un-thinking Americans want, is having their cake and eating it too. Well, in the real world,
things just don't work that way. It's pay me now or pay me later. Once all the undocumented
workers who are doing all the dirty, nasty jobs Americans refuse to do are run out the
country, then what? Please look up;History; United States; pre mid-twentieth century. I'm
pretty sure Americans were eating chicken, grapes, apples, peaches, lettuce, etc. prior to
that period. I don't think their diet consisted of venison and tree bark.
But since I wasn't there, maybe I'm wrong and that is actually what they were eating.
I know some people born in the 1920′s; I'll check with them and let you know what they
say.
(wired.com)
Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday September 23, 2017 @09:30PM from the looking-inside dept.
Amazon aggressively recruited thousands of retirees living in mobile homes to migrate to
Amazon's warehouses for seasonal work, according to a story shared by nightcats . Wired reports: From a hiring perspective,
the RVers were a dream labor force. They showed up on demand and dispersed just before
Christmas in what the company cheerfully called a "taillight parade." They asked for
little in the way of benefits or protections . And though warehouse jobs were physically
taxing -- not an obvious fit for older bodies -- recruiters came to see CamperForce workers'
maturity as an asset. These were diligent, responsible employees. Their attendance rates were
excellent. "We've had folks in their eighties who do a phenomenal job for us," noted Kelly
Calmes, a CamperForce representative, in one online recruiting seminar... In a company
presentation, one slide read, "Jeff Bezos has predicted that, by the year 2020, one out of
every four workampers in the United States will have worked for Amazon." The article is
adapted from a new book called " Nomadland
," which also describes seniors in mobile homes being recruited for sugar beet harvesting and
jobs at an Iowa amusement park, as well as work as campground hsots at various national parks.
Many of them "could no longer afford traditional housing," especially after the financial
downturn of 2008. But at least they got to hear stories from their trainers at Amazon about the
occasional "unruly" shelf-toting "Kiva" robot: They told us how one robot had tried to drag
a worker's stepladder away. Occasionally, I was told, two Kivas -- each carrying a tower of
merchandise -- collided like drunken European soccer fans bumping chests. And in April of that
year, the Haslet fire department responded to an accident at the warehouse involving a can of
"bear repellent" (basically industrial-grade pepper spray). According to fire department
records, the can of repellent was run over by a Kiva and the warehouse had to be
evacuated.
"... Karen Panetta, the dean of graduate engineering education at Tufts University and the vice president of communications and public relations at the IEEE-USA, believes the outcome for tech will be Logan's Run -like, where age sets a career limit... ..."
"... It's great to get the new hot shot who just graduated from college, but it's also important to have somebody with 40 years of experience who has seen all of the changes in the industry and can offer a different perspective." ..."
Will the median age of tech firms rise as the Millennial generation
grows older...? The median age range at Google, Facebook, SpaceX, LinkedIn,
Amazon, Salesforce, Apple and Adobe, is 29 to 31, according to a study last
year by PayScale, which analyzes self-reported data...
Karen Panetta, the dean
of graduate engineering education at Tufts University and the vice president
of communications and public relations at the IEEE-USA, believes the outcome
for tech will be Logan's Run -like, where age sets a career limit...
Tech firms want people with the current skills sets and those "without those
skills will be pressured to leave or see minimal career progression," said Panetta...
The idea that the tech industry may have an age bias is not scaring the new
college grads away. "They see retirement so far off, so they are more interested
in how to move up or onto new startup ventures or even business school," said
Panetta.
"The reality sets in when they have families and companies downsize
and it's not so easy to just pick up and go on to another company," she said.
None of this may be a foregone conclusion.
Millennials may see the experience
of today's older workers as a cautionary tale, and usher in cultural changes... David Kurtz, a labor relations partner at Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete,
suggests tech firms should be sharing age-related date about their workforce,
adding "The more of a focus you place on an issue the more attention it gets
and the more likely that change can happen.
It's great to get the new hot shot
who just graduated from college, but it's also important to have somebody with
40 years of experience who has seen all of the changes in the industry and can
offer a different perspective."
"... The entire spectrum of political thought from the neoliberal center to the reactionary right is really about setting up punitive systems of coercion and control. They hate the "losers" and want them punished. They really believe that the beatings should continue until morale improves, that if you make things unbearable people will pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and if they don't then they deserve all the cruelty that can be heaped upon them. ..."
"... The poor are errant children who need to be molded. Conservatives may whine about the "nanny state" but what they really want to see is either the negligent mommy state or the abusive daddy state. They want to "help" the poor the way a drill instructor wants to help you learn to obey and kill. And remember: it's for your own good. Perhaps I am being unfair, but beneath the platitudes this seems to be the motivating ideology of too much of the contemporary governing class. ..."
"... This is how totalitarian regimes operate and how they view the "brainiacs" of this World. Brainiacs are merely military assets to be deployed brutally against the enemy. Or, if the Brainiacs are perceived to be "Assets of the Enemy", they are targeted for destruction- First, Foremost and on the double! ..."
I used to think that much of modern conservatism was simply a misguided, wrong-headed alternative
attempt to formulate policies for the general welfare. Then I read Corey Robin's book The Reactionary
Mind and started reevaluating that presumption.
The entire spectrum of political thought from the neoliberal center to the reactionary
right is really about setting up punitive systems of coercion and control. They hate the "losers"
and want them punished. They really believe that the beatings should continue until morale improves,
that if you make things unbearable people will pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and if
they don't then they deserve all the cruelty that can be heaped upon them.
The poor are errant children who need to be molded. Conservatives may whine about the "nanny
state" but what they really want to see is either the negligent mommy state or the abusive daddy
state. They want to "help" the poor the way a drill instructor wants to help you learn to obey
and kill. And remember: it's for your own good. Perhaps I am being unfair, but beneath the platitudes
this seems to be the motivating ideology of too much of the contemporary governing class.
IMO, Parise (an economist) is following a well-worn "playbook".
(1) Identify the group targeted for liquidation. (Roma, Jew, kulak, Aborigine, American
Indian, American Deplorables .)
(2) Recruit insider scientists/intellectuals to to "discover" that the targeted group is
sub-normal cognitively (unworthy of Life).
(3) Have a Noble Cause that requires Tough Action by Determined Leaders (Collectivization,
Racial Purity, Bringing Christian Values, Saving the Planet .)
(4) Proceed, as Stalin would say, to "break the eggs to make the omelette". (Democide).
This is the "unpleasant cleansing" that, however disturbing, must be done for the "greater
good".
It is happening, as I speak, in the beautiful little town that I grew up in, on the banks of
the Ohio River, in Southern Ohio. (drugs and hopelessness)
Seventy-five years ago, it happened to my Jewish forebears in Belarus. Three hundred years
ago my Minqua (Iroquois) forbears were destroyed by this murderous rationalization.
This sort of article is not an exchange of ideas, but rather a crafted assault on a vulnerable
group of humanity (in this case, the Poor)
Thank you Yves for bringing this to our attention!
This last century, Scientists, Intellectuals, Academics, and Religious Leaders have been viewed
as Powerful Military Assets, or Military Threats by totalitarian regimes. They have been used
to progress the goals of regimes. (The Nazi Doctors of Auschwitz)
Or, if they question the regime, they are the first to be rounded up, jailed or murdered.
The Khmer Rouge immediately murdered anybody who wore glasses or had soft hands.(Intellectuals).
When the Soviet Union invaded Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in 1940, the first thing the NKVD
did was round up local Scientists, Intellectuals, Academics, Religious Leaders and Cultural Leaders
and deport them to the Gulags or, more likely, kill them.
The Nazis behaved in exactly the same way with the Cultural leadership of Poland, Czechoslovakia,
Yugoslavia ..
This is how totalitarian regimes operate and how they view the "brainiacs" of this World.
Brainiacs are merely military assets to be deployed brutally against the enemy. Or, if the Brainiacs
are perceived to be "Assets of the Enemy", they are targeted for destruction- First, Foremost
and on the double!
I believe that we have a naive view of "experts"; imagining benign, tweed coated/skirted, helpful,
good-hearted, "Good Will Hunting" types. Thanks Hollywood!
Crocodile tears of WaPO staff... Who fully supported implementation of Washington consensus that
robbed the nations in favor of international companies... this was a new mass scale economic rape of
the Western countries and it was especially brutal in xUSSR area.
Nobel-winning economist Angus Deaton argues against giving aid to poor countries
It sounds kind of crazy to say that foreign aid often hurts, rather than helps, poor people
in poor countries. Yet that is what Angus Deaton, the newest
winner of the Nobel Prize in economics , has argued.
Deaton, an economist at Princeton University who studied poverty in India and South Africa
and spent decades working at the World Bank, won his prize for studying how the poor decide to
save or spend money. But his ideas about foreign aid are particularly provocative. Deaton argues
that, by trying to help poor people in developing countries, the rich world may actually be corrupting
those nations' governments and slowing their growth. According to Deaton, and the economists who
agree with him, much of the
$135 billion that the world's most developed countries spent on official aid in 2014 may not
have ended up helping the poor.
Angus Deaton (LARRY LEVANTI/AFP/Getty Images)
The idea of wealthier countries giving away aid blossomed in the late 1960s, as the first humanitarian
crises reached mass audiences on television. Americans watched through their TV sets as
children starved to death in Biafra, an oil-rich area that had seceded from Nigeria and was now
being blockaded by the Nigerian government, as Philip Gourevitch
recalled
in a 2010 story in the New Yorker. Protesters
called on
the Nixon administration for action so loudly that they ended up galvanizing the largest nonmilitary
airlift the world had ever seen. Only a quarter-century after Auschwitz, humanitarian aid seemed
to offer the world a new hope for fighting evil without fighting a war.
There was a strong economic and political argument for helping poor countries, too. In the
mid-20th century, economists widely believed that the key to triggering growth -- whether in an
already well-off country or one hoping to get richer -- was pumping money into a country's factories,
roads and other infrastructure. So in the hopes of spreading the Western model of democracy and
market-based economies, the United States and Western European powers encouraged foreign aid to
smaller and poorer countries that could fall under the influence of the Soviet Union and China.
The level of foreign aid distributed around the world
soared from the 1960s
, peaking at the end of the Cold War, then dipping before rising again.
Live
Aid music concerts raised public awareness about challenges like starvation in Africa, while
the United States launched major,
multibillion-dollar aid initiatives . And the World Bank and advocates of aid aggressively
seized on research that claimed that foreign aid led to economic development.
Deaton wasn't the first economist to challenge these assumptions, but over the past two decades
his arguments began to receive a great deal of attention. And he made them with perhaps a better
understanding of the data than anyone had before. Deaton's skepticism about the benefits of foreign
aid grew out of his research, which involved looking in detail at households in the developing
world, where he could see the effects of foreign aid intervention.
"I think his understanding of how the world worked at the micro level made him extremely suspicious
of these get-rich-quick schemes that some people peddled at the development level," says Daron
Acemoglu, an economist at MIT.
The data suggested that the claims of the aid community were sometimes not borne out. Even
as the level of foreign aid into Africa soared through the 1980s and 1990s, African economies
were doing worse than ever, as the chart below, from
a paper
by economist Bill Easterly of New York University, shows.
William Easterly, "Can Foreign Aid Buy Growth?"
The effect wasn't limited to Africa. Many economists were noticing that an influx of foreign aid
did not seem to produce economic growth in countries around the world. Rather, lots of foreign aid
flowing into a country tended to be correlated with lower economic growth, as this chart from a paper
by Arvind Subramanian and Raghuram
Rajan shows.
The countries that receive less aid, those on the left-hand side of the chart, tend to have higher
growth -- while those that receive more aid, on the right-hand side, have lower growth.
Raghuram G. Rajan and Arvind Subramanian, "Aid and Growth: What Does the Cross-Country Evidence Really
Show?"
Why was this happening? The answer wasn't immediately clear, but Deaton and other economists argued
that it had to do with how foreign money changed the relationship between a government and its people.
Think of it this way: In order to have the funding to run a country, a government needs to collect
taxes from its people. Since the people ultimately hold the purse strings, they have a certain amount
of control over their government. If leaders don't deliver the basic services they promise, the people
have the power to cut them off.
Deaton argued that foreign aid can weaken this relationship, leaving a government less accountable
to its people, the congress or parliament, and the courts.
"My critique of aid has been more to do with countries where they get an enormous amount of aid
relative to everything else that goes on in that country," Deaton said in an interview with Wonkblog.
"For instance, most governments depend on their people for taxes in order to run themselves and provide
services to their people. Governments that get all their money from aid don't have that at all, and
I think of that as very corrosive."
It might seem odd that having more money would not help a poor country. Yet economists have long
observed that countries that have an abundance of wealth from natural resources, like oil or diamonds,
tend to be more unequal, less developed and more impoverished, as the chart below shows. Countries
at the left-hand side of the chart have fewer fuels, ores and metals and higher growth, while those
at the right-hand side have more natural resource wealth, yet slower growth. Economists postulate
that this "natural resource curse" happens for a variety of reasons, but one is that such wealth
can strengthen and corrupt a government.
Like revenue from oil or diamonds, wealth from foreign aid can be a corrupting influence on weak
governments, "turning what should be beneficial political institutions into toxic ones," Deaton writes
in his book "The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality." This wealth can make
governments more despotic, and it can also increase the risk of civil war, since there is less power
sharing, as well as a lucrative prize worth fighting for.
Deaton and his supporters offer dozens of examples of humanitarian aid being used to support despotic
regimes and compounding misery, including in Zaire, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Somalia, Biafra, and the Khmer
Rouge on the border of Cambodia and Thailand. Citing Africa researcher Alex de Waal, Deaton writes
that "aid can only reach the victims of war by paying off the warlords, and sometimes extending the
war."
He also gives plenty of examples in which the United States gives aid "for 'us,' not for 'them'"
– to support our strategic allies, our commercial interests or our moral or political beliefs, rather
than the interests of the local people.
The United States gave aid to Ethiopia for decades under then-President Meles Zenawi Asres, because
he opposed Islamic fundamentalism and Ethiopia was so poor. Never mind that Asres was "one of the
most repressive and autocratic dictators in Africa," Deaton writes.
According to Deaton, "the award for sheer creativity" goes to Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, president
of Mauritania from 1984 to 2005. Western countries stopped giving aid to Taya after his government
became too politically repressive, but he managed to get the taps turned on again by becoming one
of the few Arab nations to recognize Israel.
Some might argue for bypassing corrupt governments altogether and distributing food or funding
directly among the people. Deaton acknowledges that, in some cases, this might be worth it to save
lives. But one problem with this approach is that it's difficult: To get to the powerless, you often
have to go through the powerful. Another issue, is that it undermines what people in developing countries
need most -- "an effective government that works with them for today and tomorrow,"
he writes .
The old calculus of foreign aid was that poor countries were merely suffering from a lack of money.
But these days, many economists question this assumption, arguing that development has more to do
with the strength of a country's institutions – political and social systems that are developed through
the interplay of a government and its people.
There are lot of places around the world that lack good roads, clean water and good hospitals,
says MIT's Acemoglu: "Why do these places exist? If you look at it, you quickly disabuse yourself
of the notion that they exist because it's impossible for the state to provide services there." What
these countries need even more than money is effective governance, something that foreign aid can
undermine, the thinking goes.
Some people believe that Deaton's critique of foreign aid goes too far. There are better and worse
ways to distribute foreign aid, they say. Some project-based approaches -- such as financing a local
business, building a well, or providing uniforms so that girls can go to school -- have been very
successful in helping local communities. In the last decade, researchers have tried to integrate
these lessons from economists and argue for more effective aid practices.
Many people believe that the aid community needs more scrutiny to determine which practices have
been effective and which have not. Economists such as Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, for example,
argue for creating
randomized control trials that allow researchers to carefully examine the development effects of
different types of projects -- for example, following microcredit as it is extended to people in
poor countries.
These methods have again led to a swell in optimism in professional circles about foreign aid
efforts. And again, Deaton is playing the skeptic.
While Deaton agrees that many development projects are successful, he's
critical of claims that these projects can be replicated elsewhere or on a larger scale. "The
trouble is that 'what works' is a highly contingent concept," he said in an interview. "If it works
in the highlands of Kenya, there's no reason to believe it will work in India, or that it will work
in Princeton, New Jersey."
The success of a local project, like microfinancing, also depends on numerous other local factors,
which are harder for researchers to isolate. Saying that these randomized control trials prove that
certain projects cause growth or development is like saying that flour causes cake, Deaton writes
in his book. "Flour 'causes' cakes, in the sense that cakes made without flour do worse than cakes
made with flour – and we can do any number of experiments to demonstrate it – but flour will not
work without a rising agent, eggs, and butter – the helping factors that are needed for the flour
to 'cause' the cake."
Deaton's critiques of foreign aid stem from his natural skepticism of how people use -- and abuse
-- economic data to advance their arguments. The science of measuring economic effects is much more
important, much harder and more controversial than we usually think, he told The Post.
Acemoglu said of Deaton: "He's challenging, and he's sharp, and he's extremely critical of things
he thinks are shoddy and things that are over-claiming. And I think the foreign aid area, that policy
arena, really riled him up because it was so lacking in rigor but also so grandiose in its claims."
Deaton doesn't argue against all types of foreign aid. In particular, he believes that certain
types of health aid – offering vaccinations, or developing cheap and effective drugs to treat malaria,
for example -- have been hugely beneficial to developing countries.
But mostly, he said, the rich world needs to think about "what can we do that would make lives
better for millions of poor people around the world without getting into their economies in the way
that we're doing by giving huge sums of money to their governments." Overall, he argues that we should
focus on doing less harm in the developing world, like selling fewer weapons to despots, or ensuring
that developing countries get a fair deal in trade agreements, and aren't harmed by U.S. foreign
policy decisions.
Deaton also believes that our attitude toward foreign aid – that developed countries ought to
swoop in and save everyone else – is condescending and suspiciously similar to the ideas of colonialism.
The rhetoric of colonialism, too, "was all about helping people, albeit about bringing civilization
and enlightenment to people whose humanity was far from fully recognized," he has written.
Instead, many of the positive things that are happening in Africa – the huge adoption in cell
phones over the past decade, for example – are totally homegrown. He points out that, while the world
has made huge strides in reducing poverty in recent decades, almost none of this has been due to
aid. Most has been due to development in countries like China, which have received very little aid
as a proportion of gross domestic product and have "had to work it out for themselves."
Ultimately, Deaton argues that we should stand aside and let poorer countries develop in their
own ways. "Who put us in charge?" he asks.
"... "Struggling " is a far better term if we need a category for distressed citizens. Jobless of course leaves out The huge Category of low wage short hours households. Liberals want to help, want to be charitable, but the real social blight is lack of opportunity to make a decent living thru wage work ..."
"... Safety nets are not necessary if opportunity provides alternatives. More jobs more hours ..."
"... And instead we curb the jobs and hours expansion rate because we refuse to socialize even in part the pricing mechanism ..."
"... That was war time and we "tolerated" rations and price boards for the war effort ..."
"... A similar sense of urgency however can be instilled if leading circles embrace the effort ..."
"... We moved from the landed aristocracy to the landed gentry. Democracy still remains to be seen in full light of day, even relatively representative. ..."
"... Distribution system of US/EU capitalism has failed. [It is a ] systemic plunder* it passed ..."
"... Well yeah, but that is the best that we can get with largely unanswerable elites in charge of everything. Patronizing triangulation is the natural modus operandi for republican politics under a system of dollar democracy and arcane rules of compartmentalized representation. Sure, pure democracy is too cumbersome, but would a rough approximate of representativeness be too much to ask? ..."
I hate the the use of word "THE POOR " by liberal politicians It's like deplorable It's an insult
"Struggling " is a far better term if we need a category for distressed citizens. Jobless
of course leaves out The huge Category of low wage short hours households. Liberals want to help,
want to be charitable, but the real social blight is lack of opportunity to make a decent living
thru wage work
Wage rates and hours
Households cope with this blight. They struggle tinline and hold on to some happiness in the
Jeffersonian use of the word happiness
Most people are complicated and Thomas Jefferson was no exception. The better part of him was
associated with James Maddison and largely came from Thomas Paine.
But TJ had far too many personal problems to be held up like a saint. To be fair his time was
well before even a faint glimmer of effective democracy during the dawn of the modern quasi-electorally
appointed republic, an institution designed to emphasize property rights economic and political
efficacy over inherited bloodlines.
We moved from the landed aristocracy to the landed gentry. Democracy still remains to be
seen in full light of day, even relatively representative.
Well yeah, but that is the best that we can get with largely unanswerable elites in charge
of everything. Patronizing triangulation is the natural modus operandi for republican politics
under a system of dollar democracy and arcane rules of compartmentalized representation. Sure,
pure democracy is too cumbersome, but would a rough approximate of representativeness be too much
to ask?
"... Baker correctly diagnoses the impact of boomers aging, but there is another effect - "knowledge work" and "high skill manufacturing" is more easily outsourced/offshored than work requiring a physical presence. ..."
Baker correctly diagnoses the impact of boomers aging, but
there is another effect - "knowledge work" and "high skill
manufacturing" is more easily outsourced/offshored than
work requiring a physical presence.
Also outsourcing
"higher wage" work is more profitable than outsourcing
"lower wage" work - with lower wages also labor cost as a
proportion of total cost tends to be lower (not always).
And outsourcing and geographically relocating work
creates other overhead costs that are not much related to
the wages of the local work replaced - and those overheads
are larger in relation to lower wages than in relation to
higher wages.
libezkova -> cm... May 20, 2017 at 08:34 PM
"Also outsourcing "higher wage" work is more profitable than outsourcing "lower wage" work"
"... The poor [under neoliberalism] are errant children who need to be molded. Conservatives may whine about the "nanny state" but what they really want to see is either the negligent mommy state or the abusive daddy state. They want to "help" the poor the way a drill instructor wants to help you learn to obey and kill. And remember: it's for your own good. Perhaps I am being unfair, but beneath the platitudes this seems to be the motivating ideology of too much of the contemporary governing class. ..."
The poor [under neoliberalism] are errant children who need to be molded. Conservatives may whine about the "nanny
state" but what they really want to see is either the negligent mommy state or the abusive daddy
state. They want to "help" the poor the way a drill instructor wants to help you learn to obey and
kill. And remember: it's for your own good. Perhaps I am being unfair, but beneath the platitudes
this seems to be the motivating ideology of too much of the contemporary governing class.
"... things might have worked out with better luck on timing), you need your head examined to start a small business ..."
"... If you can tolerate the BS, it is vastly better to be on a payroll. 90% of all new businesses fail and running one is no picnic. ..."
"... And new business formation has dived in the US, due mainly IMHO to less than robust demand in many sectors of the economy. ..."
"... You're so right. It used to be that there were set asides for small businesses but nowadays Federal and State Governments are only interested in contracts with large businesses. The SBA classification for small business is based on NAICS code (used to be SIC code) is usually $1-2 million or up to 500 employees. I wonder how they can be small businesses! ..."
"... To survive, small businesses need to sell their goods/services to large businesses. Most of the decision makers who purchase these items are unreachable or already have their favorites. Unless your small business has invented a better mousetrap you're SOL! ..."
As someone who has started three businesses, two of them successful (I went to Australia right
before the Gulf War started, which led to new business in Sydney coming to a complete halt for
six months; things might have worked out with better luck on timing), you need your head examined
to start a small business. The most common characteristic of people running their own business
was that they'd been fired twice.
If you can tolerate the BS, it is vastly better to be on a payroll. 90% of all new businesses
fail and running one is no picnic.
And new business formation has dived in the US, due mainly IMHO to less than robust demand
in many sectors of the economy.
Unless your family fully bankrolls you until BK kicks in (snark). I would have loved to write
as a career. Unfortunately, at the time, promises that had been made were broken and I had to
go to work for a F500 just to survive right after my undergraduate degree was completed. Fate
and Karma.
You're so right. It used to be that there were set asides for small businesses but nowadays
Federal and State Governments are only interested in contracts with large businesses. The SBA
classification for small business is based on NAICS code (used to be SIC code) is usually $1-2
million or up to 500 employees. I wonder how they can be small businesses!
To survive, small businesses need to sell their goods/services to large businesses. Most
of the decision makers who purchase these items are unreachable or already have their favorites.
Unless your small business has invented a better mousetrap you're SOL!
Gregor Jarosch (2015, Chicago, Stanford): Jarosch writes a model to explain why losing your
job leads to a very long-lasting decline in your lifetime wages. His hypothesis is that this is due
to people climbing a ladder of jobs that are increasingly secure, so that when one has the
misfortune of losing a job, this leads to a fall down the ladder and a higher likelihood of having
further spells of unemployment in the future. He uses administrative social security data to find
some evidence for this hypothesis.
"... Ignoring Rand's evangelical atheism, the Tea Party movement has taken her to its heart. No rally of theirs is complete without placards reading "Who is John Galt?" and "Rand was right". Rand, Weiss argues, provides the unifying ideology which has "distilled vague anger and unhappiness into a sense of purpose". She is energetically promoted by the broadcasters Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santelli. She is the guiding spirit of the Republicans in Congress. ..."
"... Like all philosophies, Objectivism is absorbed, secondhand, by people who have never read it. ..."
"... It is not hard to see why Rand appeals to billionaires. She offers them something that is crucial to every successful political movement: a sense of victimhood. She tells them that they are parasitized by the ungrateful poor and oppressed by intrusive, controlling governments. ..."
Her psychopathic ideas made billionaires feel like victims and turned millions of followers
into their doormats
It has a fair claim to be the ugliest philosophy the postwar world has produced. Selfishness,
it contends, is good, altruism evil, empathy and compassion are irrational and destructive. The poor
deserve to die; the rich deserve unmediated power. It has already been tested, and has failed spectacularly
and catastrophically. Yet the belief system constructed by
Ayn Rand , who died 30 years
ago today, has never been more popular or influential.
Rand was a Russian from a prosperous family who emigrated to the United States. Through her novels
(such as Atlas Shrugged) and her nonfiction (such as The Virtue of Selfishness) she explained a philosophy
she called Objectivism. This holds that the only moral course is pure self-interest. We owe nothing,
she insists, to anyone, even to members of our own families. She described the poor and weak as "refuse"
and "parasites", and excoriated anyone seeking to assist them. Apart from the police, the courts
and the armed forces, there should be no role for government: no social security, no public health
or education, no public infrastructure or transport, no fire service, no regulations, no income tax.
Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957, depicts a United States crippled by government intervention
in which heroic millionaires struggle against a nation of spongers. The millionaires, whom she portrays
as Atlas holding the world aloft, withdraw their labour, with the result that the nation collapses.
It is rescued, through unregulated greed and selfishness, by one of the heroic plutocrats,
John Galt .
The poor die like flies as a result of government programmes and their own sloth and fecklessness.
Those who try to help them are gassed. In a notorious passage, she argues that all the passengers
in a train filled with poisoned fumes deserved their fate. One, for instance, was a teacher who taught
children to be team players; one was a mother married to a civil servant, who cared for her children;
one was a housewife "who believed that she had the right to elect politicians, of whom she knew nothing".
Rand's is the philosophy of the psychopath, a misanthropic fantasy of cruelty, revenge and greed.
Yet, as Gary Weiss shows in
his new book, Ayn Rand Nation, she has become to the new right what Karl Marx once was to the left:
a demigod at the head of a chiliastic
cult. Almost one third of Americans, according to a recent poll, have read Atlas Shrugged, and
it now sells hundreds of thousands of copies every year.
Ignoring Rand's evangelical atheism,
the Tea Party movement
has taken her to its heart. No rally of theirs is complete without placards reading "Who is John
Galt?" and "Rand was right". Rand, Weiss argues, provides the unifying ideology which has "distilled
vague anger and unhappiness into a sense of purpose". She is energetically promoted by the broadcasters
Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santelli. She is the guiding spirit of the Republicans in Congress.
Like all philosophies, Objectivism is absorbed, secondhand, by people who have never read
it. I believe it is making itself felt on this side of the Atlantic: in the clamorous new demands
to remove the 50p tax band for the very rich, for instance; or among the sneering, jeering bloggers
who write for the Telegraph and the Spectator, mocking compassion and empathy, attacking efforts
to make the word a kinder place.
It is not hard to see why Rand appeals to billionaires. She offers them something that is
crucial to every successful political movement: a sense of victimhood. She tells them that they are
parasitized by the ungrateful poor and oppressed by intrusive, controlling governments.
It is harder to see what it gives the ordinary teabaggers, who would suffer grievously from a
withdrawal of government. But such is the degree of misinformation which saturates this movement
and so prevalent in the US is Willy Loman syndrome (the gulf between reality and expectations) that
millions blithely volunteer themselves as billionaires' doormats. I wonder how many would continue
to worship at the shrine of
Ayn Rand if they knew that towards the end of her life she signed on for both Medicare and social
security. She had railed furiously against both programmes, as they represented everything she despised
about the intrusive state. Her belief system was no match for the realities of age and ill health.
But they have a still more powerful reason to reject her philosophy: as Adam Curtis's BBC documentary
showed last year, the most devoted member of her inner circle was
Alan Greenspan , former
head of the US Federal Reserve. Among the essays he wrote for Rand were those published in a book
he co-edited with her called
Capitalism:
the Unknown Ideal . Here, starkly explained, you'll find the philosophy he brought into government.
There is no need for the regulation of business – even builders or Big Pharma – he argued, as "the
'greed' of the businessman or, more appropriately, his profit-seeking is the unexcelled protector
of the consumer". As for bankers, their need to win the trust of their clients guarantees that they
will act with honour and integrity. Unregulated capitalism, he maintains, is a "superlatively moral
system".
Once in government, Greenspan applied his guru's philosophy to the letter, cutting taxes for the
rich, repealing the laws constraining banks, refusing to regulate the predatory lending and the derivatives
trading which eventually brought the system down. Much of this is already documented, but Weiss shows
that in the US, Greenspan has successfully airbrushed history.
Despite the many years he spent at her side, despite his previous admission that it was Rand who
persuaded him that "capitalism is not only efficient and practical but also moral", he mentioned
her in his memoirs only to suggest that it was a youthful indiscretion – and this, it seems, is now
the official version. Weiss presents powerful evidence that even today Greenspan remains her loyal
disciple, having renounced his partial admission of failure to Congress.
Saturated in her philosophy, the new right on both sides of the Atlantic continues to demand the
rollback of the state, even as the wreckage of that policy lies all around. The poor go down, the
ultra-rich survive and prosper. Ayn Rand would have approved.
Most of the poverty in the United States is
artificially manufactured. It is poverty created in the pursuit of "free market ideals," expressed
in recent times by the imposition of
neoliberal economic policies
– the sort of policies that cut taxes on the wealthy, do away with fiscal and other business regulations,
shred the social safety net, and erode middle-class stability – all while singing the praises of
self-reliance and individual responsibility.
As a result we have done very well in making the rich richer and the poor both poorer and more
numerous.
How many poor people are there in the United States?
According to Current Population
Survey (CPS), which puts out the government's official figures, as of 2012 about 15 percent of
the population, or some 46.5 million people, were living in poverty. The rate for children under
18 comes in higher, at about 21.8 percent.
The U.S. government measures poverty in monetary terms. In 2012 poverty was defined as yearly
total income of $23,050 or less for a family of four. The figure is adjusted for individuals or other
size families. Then there is the
depressing fact that "most
Americans (58.5 percent) will spend at least one year below the poverty line at some point between
the ages of 25 and 75."
There happens to be more than one level to this economic version of hell, and so we should take
note of the category of "deep
poverty." Deep poverty is defined as having an income that is 50 percent of the official poverty
level. This part of the population is growing.
In my area, which takes in southeast Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey, the percentage in deep
poverty runs from 5 to 19 percent, depending on the county. These are people who, according to social
service and charity workers, "have given up hope" and "given up on finding jobs."
Consider what all this really means. Our economic system is condemning at least 48.5 million people
to high rates of un- or underemployment, poor performance in school and at work (when it is available),
poor nutrition and eating habits, high instances of drug abuse, high crime rates, homelessness, high
rates of preventable diseases, shorter life-spans, and all the other vicissitudes typically associated
with a life of poverty.
Yet neoliberals and their allies would say none of this is society's fault or responsibility,
rather it is the fault of the individual who, living in a "free" economic environment, makes his
or her own choices and then must live with the consequences.
Well, that is one particularly inhumane way of looking at the situation. However, we have proof
from relatively recent U.S. history that poverty can be ameliorated through government action without
seriously disrupting "market choice."
Back in the mid-1960s millions of citizens marched on Washington for "jobs and freedom," and President
Lyndon Johnson responded with his War on Poverty
programs. Those programs reduced poverty significantly and did so without transforming the U.S.
into a socialist republic. Unfortunately, this momentum was not to last.
Two things brought it to a crashing halt: a murderous war in Vietnam and the tragically wrongheaded
neoliberal economic policies mentioned above. We are still stuck in this rut. We are still at war
(though now it is in the Middle East) and our economic policies continue to be self-destructive.
Cognitive Dysfunction
The neoliberal outlook is demonstrably wrong in a significant way. The notion that the poor can
make "free and rational choices" and thus can be held responsible for their situation is incorrect.
There is accumulating evidence that poverty literally "messes with your mind" in a way that obstructs
responsible choices.
In fact, the "free market" contributes to an environment that makes the poor decidedly unfree:
confused, preoccupied, and feeling overwhelmed and hopeless. In other words, being poor makes you
cognitively dysfunctional.
The latest research to show this
was published in August 2013 in the journal Science and is titled "Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function."
The gist of the argument is, "Poverty captures attention, triggers intrusive thoughts, and reduces
cognitive resources." In other words, the more preoccupied one is with troubles, the less able one
is to muster the "cognitive resources" necessary to rationally "guide choice and action."
Most people find themselves overwhelmed with problems now and then, but not constantly. What living
in poverty does is to hit a person with a toxic cocktail of overwhelming problems day in and day
out: financial problems, health problems, parenting issues, victimization by criminals and others,
and the problem of just finding and keeping a job.
The authors also point out that the IQ difference between those living in poverty and those living
above the poverty line can be as high as 13 points. This difference is not a function of genetics
or race. It is created by the environment of poverty itself.
This study is political dynamite. It lends support to the assertion that as long as neoliberal
economics claims our allegiance, we will continue to condemn tens of millions of our citizens to
a life not only of want, but also of high anxiety and poor cognitive ability. This puts the lie to
the popular myth that the poor are disadvantaged because most of them are congenitally lazy.
It likewise challenges the conclusions of such works as Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's
The Bell Curve, which attributed
at least part of the statistical difference in intellectual performance between American blacks and
white to genetics. In truth, whatever statistical difference there is does not reflect inherent intellectual
ability so much as high levels of long-term stress, which reduces a person's ability to develop and
apply their cognitive strengths.
It is quite interesting how the authors of the Science article conclude their piece. As it turns
out, they have chosen to sidestep the real implications of their own data. Thus, they tell us "this
perspective has important policy implications. First, policy-makers should beware of imposing cognitive
taxes on the poor."
What does that mean? It means that policy-makers should try to reduce the number of forms the
poor have to fill out, the number of "lengthy interviews" they have to experience, the number of
"new rules" they have to "decipher," all of which "consume cognitive resources" that we now know
the poor have less of than those who are better off.
Also, policy-makers should time their demands on the poor for specific periods when they are best
able to handle them, such as when they receive whatever periodic income that they do get and momentarily
feel less monetary stress. These conclusions constitute a rather shocking anticlimactic letdown!
The authors have helped us see the enormous damage poverty does. In response society has a moral
obligation to deal with more than forms and lengthy interviews. History tells us that we can do,
and indeed have done, much better.
Short of radical changes in our economic thinking, what the poor in the U.S. need is another "War
on Poverty." Indeed, the obligation is not just a moral one. There is a collective economic self-interest
to minimize poverty for to do so will decrease income inequality, increase overall health, promote
social stability and lessen crime. It will also promote consumption, which should make the capitalists
among us happy.
Do our politicians understand any of this? Seems not. Just this week the House of Representatives
voted to
cut the Food Stamp program by some $40 billion. That is neoliberal economics in action and proof
positive that ideology and prejudice are stronger than scientific research when it comes to policy
formulation.
Is there a way to reverse this stupidity? Yes, but it will take mass action. It is time to consider
replaying the 1960s and force the politicians to act responsibly despite themselves.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any
form without permission or license from the source.
On David Brooks and the "Moral Failures" of the Poor
We aren't bereft of morals, as Brooks argues-we are plagued with bad ones that blame the poor for
their own condition.
There is a moral failure at the bottom of American poverty-but this failure does not belong to
its own victims.
David Brooks believes that the hardships of poverty are the wages of sin. He calls it "The Cost of
Relativism."
In Tuesday's New York Times, Brooks discussed the recent publication of Our Kids by Robert Putnam,
the Harvard social scientist most famous for his book Bowling Alone. Our Kids, according to Brooks,
is one of those books that has become so necessary under the idolatry of data, the kind that gives
empirical credence to what any fool could've guessed: in this case, it is that the children of America's
poorer high school graduates fare far worse than those of well-off college grads.
Brooks's column, meanwhile, is one of those little essays that have become inevitable in the era
of his implacable employment, the kind that lends the comfort of confirmation bias to what Brooks
already believes-in this case, that the root of the American underclass's supposed dysfunction is
the moral failures of the impoverished.
Brooks knows that life for America's poor is becoming worse. But he does not believe that sympathy,
strong social welfare policies or increased wages can constitute a cure. Rather, he sees the desperate
minds of his generation "destroyed by a plague of nonjudgementalism"; starving for the return of
"norms" to "hold them responsible." "There are no basic codes and rules woven into daily life," he
says, and it is this absence-the refusal of society "to assert that one way of behaving [is] better
than another"-that has brought about the declining quality of life for America's poor.
"People got out of the habit of setting standards or understanding how they were set," he writes.
If only the least among us possessed enough moral courage to ask themselves tough questions. If only
they could consider whether they're living "for short-term pleasure or long-term good," "for yourself
or for your children," whether they "have the freedom of self-control" or are "in bondage to [their]
desires." If only the poor were beacons of virtue-then perhaps their children would have a shot at
the American Dream.
I am not surprised that David Brooks believes these things. I am not surprised that he argues for
them with the kind of half-hearted bluster of a crank at last call, more tired than drunk on his
own posturing. Reading between his lines these last few years, all I can see is "somebody please
put me out of my misery" scrawled over and over on a prison wall. I imagine Brooks is as eager as
anyone to discover how long this strange self-parody can last before an editor catches on. I comfort
myself by believing that this is the secret curiosity guiding David Brooks these days.
Rather, I am concerned with how pervasive his logic of moral decay is in American life-not only on
the Right, where we expect it, but in the celebrated good intentions of erstwhile "liberal" causes,
in the programs of Democrats who ostensibly represent our viable near-left. I am concerned with the
notion that the principle failure of poor parents is that they aren't enough like middle-class ones.
It is this idea that leads initiatives like Too Small to Fail, a nonprofit nominally led by Hillary
Clinton, to spend significant sums of money buying bus banners and radio ads telling poor parents
to read to their children-as if this is what will solve the educational achievement gap; as if "reading
to your children" was principally responsible for higher test scores, despite the wealth of data
demonstrating over and over that wealth and poverty are the strongest determining factors in American
children's educational achievement (when as little as a few thousand dollars cash given to the parents
of poor children can push as many as 10% of them over the threshold to a collegiate future). No,
Too Small to Fail says, the trouble is that poor parents don't have the habits of rich ones.
It is this idea, too, that allows even President Barack Obama to advocate "responsibility" and "fatherhood"
among black parents as a cure for what ails them-as if, despite being more involved in the lives
of their children than any other demographic of single parents, the thing holding back our black
underclass is the breakdown of Brooks's "basic codes" and not the systematic plunder of their wealth
over the course of centuries. It is what allows him to recognize the growth of income inequality
in one breath while insisting that a little free community college will meaningfully impact it. As
if median income didn't divorce itself from productivity a generation ago, and had the two metrics
remained together, the difference would be $40,000 per year, per median family. No, it's only that
poor Americans are doing it to themselves through a lack of moral fiber.
It is this idea that animates commentary on the condition of Chicago, where we are presently enduring
a mayoral election wherein the incumbent Democrat Rahm Emanuel insists his closure of 49 public schools
was a necessary response to the schools' low test scores and the fact that these campuses were "underutilized."
As if it's only an unhappy accident that 90% of the students so affected were poor and black or Latino.
It would be one thing if we didn't recognize the problem of American poverty. It would be easy if
the moral scolding of our poor were confined to one section of our polity. Then we might pursue the
many avenues of fiscal and monetary policy available to us. But among even those whose rhetoric suggests
an awareness of the situation, even those who know that to be born monied in America is to be heir
to a self-fulfilling prophesy of the kind of "good" behavior Brooks is crying out for, are so easily
seduced by a reversal of effect and cause.
But out here, poor parents, poor kids and poor schools don't have the luxury of indulging Brook's
harmful, costly relativism. They live by the most inflexible "code" of our national life: If you're
poor, you're on your own. Good luck. Oh, and we'll be watching. Future pay will reflect performance.
Brooks finds some empathy in the end. "Every parent loves his or her children", he writes. "Everybody
struggles. But we need ideals and standards to guide the way."
I can't disagree. But the thing is, we're not operating without standards. We're not without the
unconscious rules, absorbed and followed, that David Brooks desires. We aren't bereft of ideals.
Rather, we are plagued with bad ones-that discipline is proved by wealth, that the ideas of middle
class luxury help children more than material wealth.
A better set might be the kind that makes the elected, empowered, ostensible advocates of America's
poor ask "tough questions" about their culpability in the condition of "our kids." The kind that
recognizes that there is a moral failure at the bottom of American poverty-but this failure does
not belong to its own victims.
The drive to "efficiency" produced monstrously perverted results in IT hiring. Design for 100% match of the resume is absurd.
Notable quotes:
"... Back in the mid/late 90's, there was a running joke that tech companies were looking for people with more years of experience with certain programming languages than the programming languages even existed ..."
"... That's a very good and historically accurate point (in 90th Java was a crush ;-). And this type of parasitism continues to flourish even now. ..."
"... Also it is not necessary to have exactly all the asked experiences, at least when your resume will be selected/reviewed by a human. Of course if the recruiting process has been made "efficient" that will filter resumes by strict criteria, then the honest/modest applicants will be disproportionately screened out. ..."
"... In a lot of big corps, the early stages of recruiting (processing/screening incoming resumes) are often outsourced to HR who obviously have little idea about the subject matter of the work, and can only go by buzzwords, possibly using computer software (OCR processing of resumes). ..."
"... I can tell you that, from a consulting standpoint, I have been on several contracts where we've interviewed someone who had great skills, and the person who showed up had zero. So now companies will Skype with people to make sure they're talking to the actual consultant. ..."
"... Sadly, that is true of far too many companies of all sorts today, who refuse to train their workers and expect them to come preprogrammed with the company's proprietary software. ..."
"Back in the mid/late
90's, there was a running joke that tech companies were
looking for people with more years of experience with certain programming languages than the programming languages even
existed (in a form to be usable for commercial work)."
That's a very good and historically accurate point (in 90th
Java was a crush ;-). And this type of parasitism continues
to flourish even now. Just with the new buzzwords...
When employee's complain that that can't fill open positions
that often means that they painstakingly define the position
is such a way that the person deemed suitable can hit ground
running on the first day or week on the job. No retraining
period is needed. Like a new brake pads in a car. Totally
replaceable.
To say nothing that in reality Google and other giants
(Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, etc) are to a large extent
"cemeteries" for IT talent. What's so exciting is creating
Gmail and many other Google products ? Absolutely nothing.
This is a pretty disgusting reimplementation work.
One issue that you both don't mention is lags. Translating a
demand for skill into available skill takes years to decades
in the best of circumstances. Even for many so called "low
skilled" jobs, people have to be trained commonly for several
years. For "knowledge work" or "new technology paradigms",
you basically have to bring up a new generation of
school/college graduates.
Expecting training to happen
"just like that", or to be funded by the workers themselves,
is a non-starter.
And when the business has to pay for the training (with
the risk that some of the cost cannot be recouped because
trained up people may leave), then we are back at "lack of
profitability".
Back in the mid/late 90's, there was a running joke that
tech companies were looking for people with more years of
experience with certain programing languages than the
programming languages even existed (in a form to be usable
for commercial work).
"Back in the mid/late 90's, there was a running joke that
tech companies were looking for people with more years of
experience with certain programing languages than the
programming languages even existed (in a form to be usable
for commercial work)."
The trouble is, I think that was no
joke, it was literally true. Which means that were
deliberately recruiting liars. Maybe that explains a lot.
Yes, the joke was based on true anecdotes. Not sure about
"deliberately", my most plausible assumption is that they
just plugged the "skill" description into the standard job ad
templates.
Looking for about 5 years experience - enough to
(presumably) be able to do stuff, but not yet too
old/tainted.
Also it is not necessary to have exactly all the asked
experiences, at least when your resume will be
selected/reviewed by a human. Of course if the recruiting
process has been made "efficient" that will filter resumes by
strict criteria, then the honest/modest applicants will be
disproportionately screened out.
In a lot of big corps, the early stages of recruiting
(processing/screening incoming resumes) are often outsourced
to HR who obviously have little idea about the subject matter
of the work, and can only go by buzzwords, possibly using
computer software (OCR processing of resumes).
I have heard
the story often that hiring managers are presented with
unsuitable resumes/candidates, and often find better matches
going through the raw data themselves. But that costs time
("inefficient").
I can tell you that, from a consulting standpoint, I have
been on several contracts where we've interviewed someone who
had great skills, and the person who showed up had zero. So
now companies will Skype with people to make sure they're
talking to the actual consultant.
Sadly, that is true of far too many companies of all sorts
today, who refuse to train their workers and expect them to
come preprogrammed with the company's proprietary software.
Tech jobs took it on the chin last year. Layoffs at computer, electronics, and telecommunications companies were
up 21 percent to 96,017 jobs cut in 2016
, compared to 79,315 the prior year.
Tech layoffs accounted for 18 percent of the total 526,915 U.S. job cuts announced in 2016, according to Challenger,
Gray & Christmas, a global outplacement firm based in Chicago.
Of the 2016 total, some 66,821 of the layoffs came from computer companies, up 7% year over year.
Challenger attributed much
of that increase to cuts made by Dell Technologies, the entity formed by the $63 billion convergence of Dell and EMC. In preparation
for that combination, layoffs were instituted across EMC and its constituent companies, including VMware.
Here's something you probably never saw or heard about in the west. This is Putin answering questions
regarding ISIS from a US journalist at the Valdai International Discussion Club in late 2014.
from the U.S.. much love for you Putin. you really opened the eyes of many, even in our country.
this man is the definition of president and the u.s hasnt had one for over 40 years... smh.
As an American I can say that all of this is very confusing. However, one thing I believe is
true, Obama and Hillary are the worst thing to ever happen to my country !!!! Average Americans
don't want war with Russia. Why would we ?? The common people of both countries don't deserve
this !!!!
+Emanuil Penev Obama is a human puppet who chose to be controlled, He is therefore culpable
for his action of supporting Islamic terrorists. Right now Islamic invasion of western countries
is the real problem. The USA is now under the control of Obama the Muslim Trojan horse who wants
the world to be under the rule of an Islamic empire. USA's military action in the Middle East
is the result of USA being under occupation by a Muslim Trojan horse that wants to create tidal
waves of Muslim refugees harboring Muslim radicals and terrorists for invading Europe and the
USA. Watch video (copy and paste for search) *From Europe to America The Caliphate Muslim Trojan
Horse The USA is a victim, not a culprit, in the Muslim invasion of western counties. Obama and
his cohorts are the culprits.
basically Russia wants to be friends with America again and America ain't having it. they have
the capabilities to set up shop all around the world. it's like putting guard towers in everyone's
lawn just in case somebody wants commit crime. but you never see inside the towers or know who
is in them but they have giant guns mounted on them ready to kill. that's how Putin feels. I mean
I get it but every other country has nukes. get rid of the nukes and the missile defense will
go away. if the situation were reversed it would be out president voicing this frustration. but
Putin said it, America is a good example of success that's what Russia needs to do is be more
like America. they have been doing it in the last year or so. I think America will come around
and we will have good relations with Russia again. so wait... did we support isis as being generally
isis or support all Qaeda / Saddam's regime which lead to isis??
The US supported multiple Rebel Groups that fought against Syria, they armed them, gave them
money, and members of those groups split up and formed more Rebel groups or joined different ones.
ISIS (at the time, not as large) was supported by the rebel groups the US armed and they got weapons
and equipment from said Rebel Groups, even manpower as well.. That is how ISIS came to be the
threat it is today.
putin doesnt view the us as a threat to russia..?? he has said countless times that he considers
the us as a threat.. and that russian actions are a result of us aggression
US people are a threat for all the world because they are not interested in politics, they
don't want to know truth, they believe to their one-sided media and allow their government and
other warmongers in the US military industry to do whatever they wish all over the world. US politics
are dangerous and lead to a new big war where US territory won't stay away this time. It''s time
for Americans to understand it. If you allow your son to become a criminal, don't be surprised
that your house will be burned some day.
Obama and Clinton are progressive evil cunts funded by Soros. Their decision making is calculated
and they want these horrendous results because it weakens the US and benefits globalism. Putin
kicked the globalists the fuck out, and when Trump wins he will do the same! They are scared shitless.
TRUMP/PENCE 2016
With a stupid and warmongering opponent such as the USA, Russia do not need to construct a
narrative or think out some elaborate propaganda. Russia simply needs to speak the truth. And
this is why the US and its puppets hates Russia and Putin so much.
"... Russia is aware of the United States' plans for nuclear hegemony ..."
"... The Russian president also highlighted the fact that although the United States missile system is referred to as an "anti-missile defense system," the systems are just as offensive as they are defensive: ..."
"... Putin further explained the implications of this missile defense system's implementation without any response from Russia. The ability of the missile defense system to render Russia's nuclear capabilities useless would cause an upset in what Putin refers to as the "strategic balance" of the world. Without this balance of power, the U.S. would be free to pursue their policies throughout the world without any tangible threat from Russia. Therefore, this "strategic balance," according to Putin, is what has kept the world safe from large-scale wars and military conflicts. ..."
(ANTIMEDIA)
As the United States continues to
develop and upgrade their nuclear weapons capabilities at an alarming rate,
America's ruling class refuses to heed warnings from President Vladimir Putin
that Russia will respond as necessary.
In his most
recent
attempt to warn his Western counterparts about the impending danger of a
new nuclear arms race, Putin told the heads of large foreign companies and business
associations that Russia is aware of the United States' plans for nuclear
hegemony. He was speaking at the 20th St. Petersburg International Economic
Forum.
"We know year by year what will happen, and they know that we know,"
he said.
Putin argued that the rationale the U.S. previously gave for maintaining
and developing its nuclear weapons system is directed at the so-called "Iranian
threat." But that threat has been drastically reduced since the U.S. proved
instrumental in reaching an
agreement with Iran that should
put to rest any possible Iranian nuclear potential.
The Russian president also highlighted the fact that although the United
States missile system is referred to as an "anti-missile defense system," the
systems are just as offensive as they are defensive:
"They say [the missile systems] are part of their defense capability,
and are not offensive, that these systems are aimed at protecting them from
aggression. It's not true the strategic ballistic missile defense is part
of an offensive strategic capability, [and] functions in conjunction with
an aggressive missile strike system."
This missile system has been launched throughout Europe, and despite
American promises at the end of the Cold War that NATO's expansion would
not move "as much as a thumb's width further to the East," the missile system
has been implemented in many of Russia's neighboring countries, most recently
in Romania.
Russia views this as a direct attack on their security.
"How do we know what's inside those launchers? All one needs to do
is reprogram [the system], which is an absolutely inconspicuous task,"
Putin stated.
Putin further explained the implications of this missile defense system's
implementation without any response from Russia. The ability of the missile
defense system to render Russia's nuclear capabilities useless would cause an
upset in what Putin refers to as the "strategic balance" of the world. Without
this balance of power, the U.S. would be free to pursue their policies throughout
the world without any tangible threat from Russia. Therefore, this "strategic
balance," according to Putin, is what has kept the world safe from large-scale
wars and military conflicts.
Following
George W. Bush's 2001 decision to unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from the
1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, Russia was, according to Putin, left with
no choice but to upgrade their capabilities in response.
Putin warned:
"Today Russia has reached significant achievements in this field.
We have modernized our missile systems and successfully developed new generations.
Not to mention missile defense systems We must provide security not only
for ourselves. It's important to provide strategic balance in the world,
which guarantees peace on the planet.
Neutralizing Russia's nuclear potential will undo, according to Putin,
"the mutual threat that has provided [mankind] with global security for decades."
It should, therefore, come as no surprise that NASA scientists want to
colonize the moon by 2022 - we may have to if we don't drastically alter
the path we are on. As Albert Einstein
famously stated:
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World
War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
Their dirty ways: " One day last October, when employees at Cenovus Energy showed up at the office, many discovered that they couldn't
access their computer files on the company's internal system. That's how they found out they were being laid off.
Companies that fought to attract and keep staff have been learning the hard way how to shed them in a hurry. But that doesn't mean
it can't – and shouldn't – be done right
One day last October, when employees at Cenovus Energy showed up at the office, many discovered that they couldn't access their
computer files on the company's internal system. That's how they found out they were being laid off. Two months earlier, employees
at Hutchison Ports Australia in Sydney and Brisbane got a text message, then an email in the middle of the night inviting them to
a beachside hotel. They, too, were being laid off.
Cenovus called its move a mistake. Hutchison Ports Australia said it had begun its consultations with staff and unions regarding
redundancies in June. Whatever the explanation, companies need to start approaching layoffs more carefully. And though everyone in
the energy business is hoping the bloodletting is over, if it isn't, there are ways to soften the blow of layoffs, and do them fairly
and transparently.
Communication
A company should keep its employees informed of the economic forces acting on the business and their employment prospects, says
Martin Birt, president of HRaskme.com and a human resources consultant with 30 years in the business. "Closures should never, in
my view, be a surprise," he says. Neither should layoffs. You can communicate messages with your employees such as how decisions
will be made in what Birt calls a "long-game communications plan," a set of HR principles that will be applied should anything be
decided regarding the company's long-term employment potential. That way, employees have some context as to what to expect when market
circumstances change.
If you choose not to share your long-game communications plan in your employee manual, when speaking to the people you're laying
off, at least communicate how, why and when you made the decision, Birt says. Your actions will get back to suppliers, contractors
and layoff survivors. And if you've communicated fairly and awarded appropriate compensation and benefits, the external environment
will understand what kind of corporate citizen you are.
Listen to Your Experts
Involve the correct teams – operations, human resources and legal – and involve them as early in the decision-making process as
possible, says Birt. These teams will protect you as a corporation from any liability associated with a layoff.
Soften the Blow
Henry Hornstein is an assistant professor at Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario's Algoma University, specializing in organizational change
management. In the early 1990s, he was among the staff let go from Imperial Oil's Strathcona refinery. "It was not pleasant," says
Hornstein, "but the way Imperial Oil handled that at the time cushioned the blow." They provided him with a year's worth of salary
and benefits, and services with an outplacement firm. These included resumé writing, interview training and networking support. "Rather
than treating people as commodities, people are treated compassionately," says Hornstein of the experience. You can provide your
employees with psychological support in addition to proper severance, benefits and outplacement services, he says. Consider offering
group meetings where people can talk to others about the negative psychological impacts of downsizing that they've experienced. "Downsizing
is a significant assault on an individual's self-esteem Everybody has a story, and when somebody is downsized, the organization can
[seem to] take an approach that they don't care what the background story is, they just want to get rid of the people." says Hornstein.
Birt agrees, saying companies should be prepared to offer an employee assistance program (EAP), a short-term counseling service for
employees in need of support. This can also add a buffer against the company's liability.
Confidentiality
Having said that, to maintain confidentiality, limit the planning group to only those whose participation is necessary, says Birt.
Consider using specific project-related confidentiality agreements, as well, and clearly describe the consequences for breaching
confidentiality. He also suggests reminding participants with pre-existing confidentiality agreements of the terms of those agreements.
If you are a publicly traded company, you should know if you are required to first inform the markets of your actions. If that is
the case, managers must be prepared to communicate with employees immediately after informing the markets.
Finalize the Details
Before you deliver the news of layoffs, finalize all the details with human resources and legal, including severance, benefits
and pension entitlements, says Birt. You'll be prepared to immediately answer individual questions. Everything you say orally in
a termination meeting should be captured in a termination letter as well, he says. However, give terminated employees a few days
to review their termination package and ask any questions, says Fraser Johnson, a professor at the Ivey School of Business in London,
Ontario. "As soon as you hear the words that you're being laid off, your mind might go blank," he says.
Share the Pain
Rather than targeting employees with layoffs, share the cuts across the corporation, just as Canadian Natural Resources did when
all staff pay was cut by up to 10 percent. Or, introduce flexible work arrangements like part-time work, voluntary leaves of absence,
or deferred compensation in which an employee can work full-time at 80 percent salary for several years before taking a paid sabbatical.
"... His motto (which he shares with me every other day), is, "Never throw anything away". And damned if he can't find exactly what I need when I come over to scrounge at what I call, "Our Store". ..."
"... We wear our clothes out and watch what we buy. We don't travel by air, and limit trips to local visits with family. In the future, perhaps this will be the norm for most instead of today's extravagent consumption which is thought of as normal for Canadians and a birthright. ..."
"... Perhaps as a group, as a species, it seems as if we never learn and make the same and even greater mistakes over and over. But as individuals we can try to do things better, live better; until we can't go on. That is my plan, and I am sticking with it until I can't go on. ..."
"... the banjo prevailed and damned if it isn't getting better. I am well on the way to mastering (to use that term loosely) an Iris Dement version of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms", "I can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash, and "I Believe In You" by Don Williams. I think I have sub-conciously chosen these songs to combat my own confessions of doom and gloom. ..."
Back in early 2012, the Premier of Ontario
suggested that the loonie (Canadian
dollar) was becoming a petro-dollar. He was slapped down by the Cons, and
walked back his comment.
"That has knocked the wind out of Ontario exporters and manufacturing in particular," explained McGuinty.
"The only reason the dollar is high - it's a petro dollar , right? It's been driven by the global demand for oil
and gas to be sourced in Western Canada.
"So if I had my preferences, as to whether we have a rapidly growing oil-and-gas sector in the West or a lower dollar benefiting
Ontario, I'll tell you where I'd stand - with the lower dollar."
By the middle of 2014, oil's share of Canada's total exports reached 19 percent from about 6 percent a decade earlier. Meanwhile,
the Ontario-based auto industry was seeing its share of the export pie fall to to 14 percent from 22 percent. The heavier reliance
on crude became an issue in last October's national election, as Harper and his Western-based Conservatives were accused by
all their opponents of having favored oil to the detriment of other regions.
In the process, the Canadian dollar had effectively joined the ranks of petro-currencies. The correlation between movements
in the price of oil and the loonie has increased five-fold since 2000, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In 2015, while
all commodity-exporting countries faced currency pressure, the Canadian dollar was more sensitive to oil price movements
than such petro-states as Mexico, Norway and Russia.
I don't actually see low oil prices re-balanacing the Canadian economy. The cure for low oil prices is low oil prices. Would
you invest in an export dependent industry in Canada? One can reasonably model a scenario where the price of oil goes up to $100/barrel,
the loonie returns to parity with the greenback and an exporters competitiveness disappears with our petro-loonie's parity with
the U.S. dollar.
Being a petro-state makes for a pretty ugly domestic economy.
I believe the decline will bring us Canadians back to our roots and strengths. Personally, I have been disgusted with our past
30 year transformation into urban consumers, no matter what part of the country we live in.
I remember my Grandparents playing penny poker on winter evenings. I grew up with stories of the Depression. While I am 60,
my good friend down the road is 75. He often tells me about living in our Valley from '46 onwards ..a time of bailing water from
the river into a 45 for home supply, canned venison and salmon for winter, oil lamps because Hydro did not arrive until the latter
'60s. His Dad built up a sawmill and his folks provided room and board for 'the crew'. His mom washed their clothing by hand on
Saturdays and finally got a gas powered ringer washer to make it easier. Nowadays, he scrounges scrap steel (old bedframes and
the like) from the recycling bins for our welding projects. He helps me make up power saw chains from scraps and pieces. His
motto (which he shares with me every other day), is, "Never throw anything away". And damned if he can't find exactly what I need
when I come over to scrounge at what I call, "Our Store".
I don't know what will happen to the Vancouverites or Torontonians when property values dive. I imagine that many will lose
everything they think they have, (when their debt bomb blows). I guess then we will see what people are made of. Will they whine?
Or will they pick themselves up and make the best of it?
As for Ron's post, it is similar to one last year. I could hardly read that one as well. Yes, there are deserts and sewers
made by man, and that will be the best that many can hope for. But what is your sphere of influence and power to change things?
I have replanted several thousand trees on our property and let most of it regen into a bramble-filled mixed forest. I have put
in a pond that trout have found from the drainage ditches and flooded wetlands next door. I have cut trails for deer and elk crossing
routes. We grow our gardens without pesticides and with as much compost as possible. We wear our clothes out and watch what
we buy. We don't travel by air, and limit trips to local visits with family. In the future, perhaps this will be the norm for
most instead of today's extravagent consumption which is thought of as normal for Canadians and a birthright.
Ron, the facts are glum. Your story is true. I accept that. What I don't accept is allowing it to bring me down and giving
up .on myself, my loved ones, and my people. Perhaps as a group, as a species, it seems as if we never learn and make the
same and even greater mistakes over and over. But as individuals we can try to do things better, live better; until we can't go
on. That is my plan, and I am sticking with it until I can't go on.
I am teaching myself to play the banjo. (My blessed wife is so so patient). Today, the weather was cold and foggy, my lumber
is frozen into ice lumps, and I was quite house bound being sick of crunching around my frozen yard trying to be productive. So,
the banjo prevailed and damned if it isn't getting better. I am well on the way to mastering (to use that term loosely) an
Iris Dement version of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms", "I can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash, and "I Believe In You" by Don
Williams. I think I have sub-conciously chosen these songs to combat my own confessions of doom and gloom. Sometimes, it
is all we have. For you post readers, I will provide the Youtube links for a pick-me-up. A nice glass of whiskey makes for a good
listening partner.
regards and thanks for your heartfelt honesty and efforts
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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Lindsay Hill Nick 7 months ago I hadn't thought about it in the context of working from home. Makes total sense - gives you that physical cue to switch between 'work mode' and 'home mode'
AWS (and Ron)
