Politicians bickering over private equity's impact on jobs and how to bring down the high unemployment rate are entirely missing the point about the crisis facing working Americans. The predicament we face isn't simply that there are too few jobs; it's also that an increasing number of workers don't have the kind of job that can pay the bills.
The rest of this point is here in my op-ed for The Los Angeles Times.
You want to know how your dollars are spent when you buy stuff? It's not for the wages of the workers who serve you:
Retail workers in New York City earn a median of $9.50 an hour, most are part-time or temporary, and just 3 in 10 receive health insurance through their jobs, according to a new study of the city’s larger retailers.
The study, based on interviews with nonunion workers and released on Monday, largely found poverty wages and highly unstable schedules for the city’s retail employees, with less than a fifth having a set schedule each work week. The study said many workers had a hard time planning for, say, child care or classes because more than half learned their schedules a week or less before a work week would begin.
And you wonder why there are some folks who are surprised by the rise in poverty in America. Duh.
In some ways, the worst phenomena in political and public life is the way in which we--the people--give over power to the financial and corporate elite partly because we internalize marketing phrases and economic nonsense beaten into our brains over 30 years by the brain-dead traditional media and a capitulation by the political leaders of both parties. Take just as a small sampling the foolish obsession over a non-existent debt and deficit "crisis", or the much longer-term "taxes are bad for business".
And we have enormous power--if we just use it. Which brings me to a most recent threat by Wall Street.
I've written a lot about the Financial Transactions Tax (here is one basic piece from a year ago): a tiny tax on financial market transactions that would raise hundreds of billions of dollars, encourage big traders to "buy and hold" financial instruments rather than engage in the crazy casino-like environment that fuels a speculative bubble—-which hurts all the regular people when the bubble bursts, which it always does--but not be felt at all by the small investor.
Of course, Wall Street has gone bonkers, opposing the FTT because...well, it's simply about greed. But, the phony argument being used by the political leaders who are helping Wall Street block the idea--and this IS a phony argument--is that oh, my god, financial markets business will pick up and move away.
So, The New York Times discovered this startling fact:
But many researchers have reached a conclusion that turns conventional wisdom on its head: Americans enjoy less economic mobility than their peers in Canada and much of Western Europe. The mobility gap has been widely discussed in academic circles, but a sour season of mass unemployment and street protests has moved the discussion toward center stage.
The truth has been out there for a very long time. It's simply that The Times has spent way too much time singing the praises of the "free market", "free trade" and the rest of the marketing phrases that have turned out to be phoney baloney, though those marketing phrases have been used very effectively to widen the gap between rich and poor and end mobility. What is not so surprising is that this article contains not one mea culpa--no "we were wrong and we apologize" for promoting the "free market".
And the complete blindness continues: by continuing to promote in its editorial and new pages the phony debt and deficit crisis--which calls for imposing austerity in the name of "fiscal soundness"--the Times continues, to this day, to cheer on policies that excerbate the social mobility crisis. Not that the august paper gets that.
I meant to highlight the beginning of this story when it first came up a day or two ago. Here is an update:
Indiana House Democrats met behind closed doors on Wednesday, delaying the start of the 2012 legislative session and blocking action on controversial anti-union legislation backed by Republicans.
House Democratic Leader Pat Bauer defended the walkout, saying his members had been forced to boycott the first day of the new session to thwart a Republican effort to quickly ram the so-called right-to-work measure through the house.
But, it looks grim for union rights in that state--RTW really means "Rob The Workers"...and defund unions.
Those of you with long memories may recall when Caterpillar declared war on the UAW, provoking a long, bitter strike in the 1990s (is there any strike that isn't bitter?). Well, here it comes again, this time seeking the hides of Canadians:
Caterpillar late Sunday locked out about 420 union workers at a train-locomotive plant in London, Ontario, in a sign that the world's largest maker of construction and mining equipment is still pushing hard for labor-cost savings despite a big recovery in earnings over the past two years.
You want to know about greed?
Caterpillar's earnings for the third quarter ended Sept. 30 totaled US$1.14 billion, up 44% from a year earlier.
I took a longer break from blogging than I thought--to think, observe a bit, rest the brain, cycle New Zealand's spectacular South Island. But, what stirred me to break this hiatus, at the very moment that people are switching off their computers to turn to libations and debauchery, was, well, the modest observation that the rumbling throughout the globe is just beginning--and the 2012 elections won't change much because neither party wants to challenge the bankruptcy of the so-called "free market".
That seemed obvious to me for a long time but what might help explain this are two pieces worth dipping into. First, from the Financial Times yesterday:
I could blame Joe Lieberman for deciding to take a week off starting Monday but it would be unfair. I'm doing that for other reasons--my computer will be, intentionally, in a different place for that week.
But, reading this crap reminds me why it will be good riddance when Lieberman rides off into retirement after next year so he can cash in as a corporate lobbyist:
Sen. Joe Lieberman plans to unveil a deficit reduction bill as early as next week based on the Simpson-Bowles fiscal commission’s work.
It's actually fitting: a man who has been so associated with awful positions--in favor of the Iraq War, religious moralizing about culture, a shill for insurance industry CEOs--is not trying to wrap his hands around another truly awful concept. As the anchor drags down the failed Catfood Commissions I and II, hopefully it can take with it the soon-to-be ex-Senator from Connecticut.
In one sense, okay, this is fine:
Boeing Co. and leaders of its main union reached a tentative settlement that could end one of the biggest U.S. labor disputes in recent times but leave unresolved key questions about the government's right to determine where companies locate their plants.
Boeing's labor troubles took on political overtones in April when the National Labor Relations Board accused the jet maker of trying to illegally shift union work to a nonunion facility. That triggered outrage at the Obama administration from the business community. Some accused it of interfering in basic business decisions at a fragile time for the economy.
The deal announced Wednesday between Chicago-based Boeing and the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, if ratified by union members, would help pave the way for a planned jump in production by the aerospace giant. It would alleviate the threat of strikes that could derail ambitious sales plans for a retooled version of Boeing's best-selling 737 aircraft, its new 787 Dreamliner and other jets.
But, on the other hand, the whole issue was really nonsense.
The question one has to ask here is: will the CEO or the top executives of American Airlines lose any money from THEIR retirements because of the bankruptcy? Or will a bankruptcy also include the provision that all top management and the entire board resign? Of course, the answer to both question is no but workers are going to face a much tougher retirement:
The parent of American Airlines had been trying to renegotiate pay and work rules for pilots in the weeks before Tuesday's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. Now, pension benefits could be at risk.
AMR Corp. has about $8.3 billion in assets to cover $18.5 billion in pension benefits owed to active and retired employees, according to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., the federal agency that insures pensions. Pension plans covering about 130,000 people, including 69,000 active employees, could be among the obligations on the chopping block as AMR goes through bankruptcy proceedings.
Austerity comes in many forms.
