Working Life

Well, gee, no surprise here. A big CIVIL penalty for a major financial scam but no banker is heading to jail. Yet. Or probably never.

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For the millions of people hitting the road at this very hour, and in the hours to come, it’s going to be a bumpy journey, crashing through potholes after pothole, rutted road after rutted road, and creaky bridge after creaky bridge–all thanks to the dismal shape of the country’s infrastructure (which gets a D+ from the American Society of Civil Engineers). No doubt, drivers will curse a whole list of people–but a small wager that few give up a few choice words for a big culprit: corporate greed.

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The campaign for a $10.10 federal minimum wage, championed by the president, Democrats in Congress and a whole raft of “liberal/progressive” organizations, is a very bad idea.

To be clear, I’m not arguing it’s too ambitious. The opposite: what we need is a campaign, now, today, for a minimum wage of $20-an-hour. Anything less is a failure to confront poverty in America and a bankrupt economic system.

$10.10-an-hour will not allow people to make a fair living, or challenge the basic, “We-make-profits-thanks-to-poverty” system that underpins today’s real world economy.

Anything short of $20-a-hour is a capitulation to the most narrow politics, particularly on the part of so-called “liberals/progressives” who are, unintentionally, locking into place deep poverty in America and ratifying the basic principle of the so-called “free market”.

And $20-an-hour actually relates to real life after you look at a very complicated idea: simple math.

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Personally, I have to say I’m a bit queasy about the “Buy American” campaign. Seems to me that the problem is not, ultimately, that people don’t buy American products. It’s that wages are way too low elsewhere — which is what needs to be solved. But, for the record, the Trans Pacific Partnership will obliterate “Buy American”.

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It seems more likely than not that, in a short while, the Supreme Court will inflict a deep wound in public union organizing, and, ultimately, the power of organized labor in the workplace and in politics. But, just a small word on what silver lining could be found here–and I know my friends will perhaps violently disagree.

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Behind all the hoopla and fervor surrounding the World Cup, an inconvenient fact is forgotten: Brazil handed over a huge amount of money in tax breaks to the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), much of it flowing into the pockets of huge multi-national corporations–money that roughly calculated would have lifted 37 million people out of poverty.

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Yesterday, I posted a quick story about the lawsuit filed by NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman against Barclays alleging. I’ve had a chance to read again and more carefully the complete complaint and there’s a bit more to say about the importance of this suit.

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This won’t put any of the bankers in jail–a place some of them still belong–because its only a civil suit. But, glad to see this from New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman: he’s suing Barclays for fraud.

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I’ve been looking long and hard, trying to find something, just one thing, to say positive about the crooks on Wall Street and in the banking industry. Maybe it’s the Summer Solstice–but, eureka! Those guys have helped moved the poverty conversation in the right direction.

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Every company and every industry runs around yelling, like a little child, “I’m special” and, so, don’t tax me. And Congress just falls all over itself to pass one dumb tax break after another. Here’s the dumb one regarding the Internet.

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