Working Life

Just in case you wondered if the pigs weren’t still at the trough looking to take every dollar they could.

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Good to see Elizabeth Warren taking on the Trans Pacific Partnership. Aside from her terrific leadership opposing Wall Street, her views on some other issues (for example, her fairly mainstream blindly pro-Israel views) have been less clearly progressive. But kudos on this.

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Let me give credit, up front, to a splendid idea from the actors Greg Wise and Emma Thompson that clarified my own outrage at a simple reality: the bankers destroyed the economy with their greed and incompetence, the Obama Administration lets each bank CEO off the hook with a negotiated deal for a fine that the institution, not the banker pays, and with no jail time for a single high-ranking Wall Streeter and WE PAY FOR THIS.

That’s right: each one of us, with our taxes, pays for this sleazy deal with the financial elite.

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We’ve never had a problem with finding money in the federal budget. Iraq War/Afghanistan/Drones? Pfft…a few trillion, no problem. Tax cuts for the rich? Here, take hundreds of billions of dollars. The problem is PRIORITIES and MORALITY.

Today, the question boils down to: does the Congress want to help 25 million kids and their families have a few dollars more in the household budget–to buy food, clothes and pay for heating–OR would the Congress rather give billions of dollars in useless, wasteful tax cuts to business?

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It’s still too low in actual terms. But, tipped restaurant workers in New York will get a bump.

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The gun is still being to the head of the people of Greece. Give us more austerity for a better future, cry the bankers. But, truth is more stimulus is the answer.

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To be sure, the austerity mongers around the world want to throttle and silence the new Greek government lest the revolt against austerity spread to other countries. But, in this fight, the Greek government–in particular, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis–are really waging another campaign: against right-wing racism and xenophobia. And there’s something to be learned about this for politics in the U.S.

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The problem with press releases and economic gorilla dust is no one bothers to do the math. So, Wal-Mart will get a lot of hugs and free good press from announcing that it will raises workers’ wages–but the truth is it’s still a sham. People working for Wal-Mart will still live in poverty. The only positive part of the announcement–though unintended–is how Wal-Mart’s announcement shows how pathetic the pre-election (is it even still on the agenda?) White House-Democratic Party’s signature minimum wage proposal is.

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The austerity mongers, who have essentially ravaged economy after economy around the world, are on the brink of destroying Greece. But, Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s finance minister, isn’t ready to be broken.

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Whew. Though to paraphrase Dylan, I really don’t need The Economist to tell me this.

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