Working Life

Poor Amazon. It’s unhappy that it can’t do what it wants with its workers in Europe.

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That elites and the transcribers of press releases (formerly known as “journalists”) don’t understand what is happening to most working people is never more apparent when discussing the Federal Reserve Board, and the basic abandonment of the idea of full employment.

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Sometimes you can get numbed by numbers. Other times numbers make my eyes get wide. This is an example of the latter.

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A few days ago, I wondered why we anyone would think that there needs to be a debate about whether there should be a corporate income tax. Yes, I know the answer — it has nothing to do with economics and everything to do with dumb, blind ideology. I never tire of showing how stupid the argument is. So, here you go.

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I got a couple of emails about my post yesterday that posed the idea that the danger from trade deals is higher than the spying uproar underway. And those emails were, how should I say, skeptical about my point. Fair enough. Let me expand.

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Look, having the government spy on millions of people is not a good thing. But, it’s fascinating to me the lack of interest the traditional media shows in going after an equally dangerous and, arguably, a more damaging power exercised by the president: the power to seize away Congressional power when it comes to trade, and pushing through trade deals cobbled together in secret.

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Well, yes, it’s a debate that should never be had, except in the U.S…should there be a corporate income tax? Ha. So, the answer is pretty simple.

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Well, I have to hand it to Wal-Mart in one sense. The company, if only subconsciously, understands that it deals in fantasy — a fantasy that ignores the deep corruption of the company, from an entirely cavalier attitude towards the mass deaths of garment workers in Bangladesh to its own putrid track record abusing workers in the U.S. to the greed of the Waltons. So, to play out the game of fantasy, they role out one of the best: Tom Cruise.

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If you listened to the elites talk about the economy, they usually have a litany of phony excuses for economic troubles: high taxes (phony), regulation (nonsense) and, of course, high wages for workers (never a word about CEO pay). But, the truth is much more about greed and corrupt management philosophy. And there is no better example than Wal-Mart.

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To the list of institutions and individuals who totally screwed up the global economy — and the lives of tens of millions of people — let us now read the mea culpa of the International Monetary Fund. But, this isn’t a mea culpa in the sense of “we didn’t understand”. It’s an admission of “we didn’t care what other people said, we didn’t listen, we did what we wanted and none of us will pay the price”. The fucking arrogance.

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Gee, scratch your head. Hundreds of people die in a horrific garment factory fire in Bangladesh. Then, just yesterday, 120 people die in a poultry factory in China. Is there a connection? Of course.

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I personally don’t need anything more to be outraged about the murder of hundreds of garment workers in the Bangladesh factory collapse. But, in these situations, a little something can trigger more outrage. I lost it after reading this.

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I’ve written a ton about phony so-called “free trade” and, a close cousin, the whole system of Generalized System of Preferences, which basically is a sham run by the World Trade Organization to open up countries to be plundered by big corporations. But, since the system exists right now, it’s a point of leverage to move a bit of safety into the lives of the garment workers in Bangladesh.

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I’ve never been a fan of the New York governor. I guess it was subtle when I coined him “the poodle for the rich”. And so, no surprise, he’s giving out goodies again.

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For a very long time, I’ve been critical of the unwillingness of the government to put bankers behind bars. Unless some of these guys end up in jail, another crisis will happen because fines — ultimately paid by shareholders and customers — are not a deterrent to the big boys.

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Can you imagine the hushed and panicked calls going back and forth today between the wealthiest, their lawyers and other sycophants who had to read about a deal that has got to scare the shit out of them?

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