Working Life

It’s a sad state of affairs when the people have to rely on Senator “Wall Street” to stand in the doorway to block the barbarians from storming in to, once again, rob the national treasury. But, it does give us a window into how narrow the debate is over our economy — and why people are rightly pissed off.

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It’s not surprising that a growing number of workers around the globe are losing faith in political leaders. After all, the economic debate often seems completely divorced from the realities of workers’ lives, whether it’s blaming workers for national budget squeezes actually caused by bankers or CEOs imposing mass layoffs to cover up obscene executive compensation at the heart of bottom-line revenue shortfalls. The debate in the United States is a good example.

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Right after the now-infamous debate (or, exchange of sounds bites), I wrote a bit about the fallacy of the exchange on taxes. Just a quick clean up here to underscore an important point — both candidates support, in one form or another, extending some or all of the Bush tax cuts. And that is sheer lunacy.

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I guess it’s a function of inflation and/or a numbness to reality but the rhetoric about money isn’t what is used to be. Back in the day, Republican Senator Everett Dirksen (whose name probably means nothing to the shallow commentators who think political history started with Ronald Reagan) is alleged to have said, ” A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money”. Dirksen, who served in the 1950s and 1960s (and probably could never win a Republican primary in today’s wing-nut world), would have been a piker by today’s standards of throwing around figures without regard to reality. Which brings me to the Romney lie about taxes–which the president got right, admittedly, in a clumsy way, but most liberal-progressive pundits are getting wrong.

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I’m not in the habit of promoting a corporation’s marketing pitch but, heck, if we can clear out the nuttiest, most divisive 1,000 people starting the day after the election, why not? So, JetBlue, you get a one-time pass here.

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People complain a lot about Congress not working hard enough. For my money, and the money and pocketbooks of millions of people, I’d be happy to give the entire lot of them say a year off. Then, maybe, we could enroll them in an advanced political “recovery” program and wean them off this idiotic obsession with the non-existent debt and deficit crisis.

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It is great that JP Morgan has been sued–and congrats to NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. But, we’ve seen this picture before: suits are filed and the executives who committed fraud or financial crimes or misconduct are NEVER–NEVER–held accountable. If we want real change–not phony, uplifting change–these people must go to jail. NO DEALS.

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Really, I can’t tell whether people who work at the major banks moonlight as comedy writers for The Daily Show, or they are so immune to public shame or punishment that they just don’t give a damn.

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Hey, Bank of America shareholder, how does it feel to have the executives deceive investors (in other words, lie), escape any personal responsibility for the lies, cause huge losses and, then, stick YOU with a bill for over $2 BILLION? Well, probably not a great feeling but, screw you, you are just an investor, not a coddled, overpaid executive who just got handed a stay-out-of-jail card.

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This isn’t a stop-the-presses new piece of information to people paying attention — the capital gains tax preferences benefit only the very rich, like Mitt Romney. But, here is a simple way to argue it.

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