Social Security is my only income. Last year we were cheated because we were charged extra money for a non-proven drug for Alzheimer's. The cost of living increase we'll receive in 2023 is really not much. My landlord has already informed me of a $35 monthly increase in rent. With costs of everything rising every week it doesn't seem like much. Believe me, no one gets wealthy from receiving Social Security. Thank goodness I only have myself to worry about...
"If it’s automatic, then we can’t fight about it,” a senior Democratic senator explained. “And in presidential election years, it’s a fight we like to have.”
Perspective! THIS senior citizen earned $15 . /hr the best year I ever had, a non-union salary at Textron New Hampshire; my wife's college paid in cash, and our home paid off in 20 years.. Now my children and grandchildren make that or less without the hope of owning homes or seeing the end of student debt. THAT's poverty! I have infinite trouble convincing them of the Progressive Democrat's plans. We need a stronger plan so they can see being more than random independent voters.
The Chicago School of Economics strikes again. The don't control social security, but they want to. Someday, in a different time and a different economic system someone will recognize that the ability to pay a fair, livable wage is really a profit. It is part of loving your neighbor as yourself. I am afraid that we as a country have become unable to love our neighbors. Instead they are our enemies, taking our wealth. We need to learn to care again.
I live in a small town in New Mexico. I think the median age here is about 55. Lots of seniors here. I work cleaning houses for my local senior center. Some clients live in HUD or USDA housing. I have already heard that with the latest increase to Social Security, several people will no longer meet the income restrictions to live in said housing and will have to move out? This is because the federal poverty guidelines have not been adjusted for inflation. These folks live in this housing because they can’t afford anything else. Where do they go? There is already a severe housing shortage in my town.
Now that large corporate donors control political candidates on both sides of the isle and lobby prolifically, the only way to pass policies like minimum wage increases, windfall profit taxes, and antitrust legislation, is to get organized labor to demand those policies so democratic candidates must go along or go against the unions.
The minimum wage is aptly named. It’s the minimum that businesses figure they can get away with paying their workers without getting themselves thrown in jail. Inflation represents an uncompensated pay cut. The Neo liberals have played along with this game for decades. Institutionalized poverty ensures a steady supply of low paid labor as our heroes, the saintly entrepreneurial classes, build their fortunes on the backs of the poor. And when they are done building that fortune? “I earned every penny of it“
Clearly, what we are viewing here hearkens back to 2010 and the passage of that abomination of a "law" called "Citizen's United". "CU" gave Corporations the status of "People" under the Constitution and other Laws, and made Corporate Money the equivalent of "Free Speech" under the law.
So long as this stands, any effort to pass legislation even pretending to be "of the people, for the people, and by the people" is nothing but a risible rib-tickler. Can we truly believe that the *same people who bought elections back in the day when doing so was *illegal, have suddenly STOPPED buying elections since Citizens United made doing so absolutely and apparently irrevocably *legal ??
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg recently said of Republicans, "For them, the problem is more useful than the solution." I guess that sometimes applies to Democrats as well. Too bad for the country.
Inflation and the minimum wage are two distinctly different issue tied together because of a social need. I recently stopped ordering fast food due to the price. Burger King, for two double Whopper meals the bill came to over 40 dollars. Taco Bell, the same story. Pizza is almost as bad. It's cheaper to dine out at a sit down restaurant then it is to order fast food.. Time has affected every aspect of our lives through the continual effects of inflation. I remember my Mother complaining when Campbell's soup hit 9 cents a can. During my years in high school the best pair of Jack Purcell tennis shoes set my mom back about 10 dollars, my Father brought me a brand new 68 Mustang from Dean sellers Ford in Detroit Michigan, off the showroom floor the sticker price was a whopping $2,200.00. My tuition for college was $1,500 a semester, and it was a semi private school, now it's $30,000. It's an economic spiral that is out of control and still heading in the wrong direction. One thing I have learned, things never go back to the way things were in the good old days. It comes down to a balancing act between need and the ability to obtain. Unlike lady justice and what she holds the economic scales never seem to balance.
Dark money that flows to both parties has turned our so-called democracy into an oligarchy. If I did not have veteran's disability benefits I also would be feeing poverty's bite. I get a COLA that is becoming significant because I am 100% disabled. What a way to earn money! 20 years I got SSDI. It was $1250 a month as if a person could live on that. There may have been a time when someone could survive on the minimum wage but not where I live. You are better off on welfare than working for minimum wage with no benefits.============
This post illustrates my comment earlier about Marx's suspicion of social democrats: they actually like worker poverty because it gives them an obvious issue to campaign on. To get out of the trap you have to fundamentally change the assumptions about who owns capital and legislate to ensure that the workers (producers) have their fair share by right.
The question is why, when the “democracy-minded” party is in power, they don’t take care of their purported most important citizens in their voting base? They want migrants to be allowed into our country at will, no questions asked, and know most will be only eligible for minimum-wage jobs, yet their inaction on this topic, decade after decade, goes unaddressed. One has to wonder at their profession of democracy for America.
Odd Prof Reich should bring this up today. After a number of impressions prompted by the news, I sent a few texts to an old friend yesterday observing:
"It just occurred to me. If the economy is that bad, and people are struggling so much, how is it that so many can spend all the money they do on holiday decorations and costumes? Somebody is either >definitely< not hurting, or they're living well beyond their means!"
In response to seeing packed football stadia this weekend, while the number of expensive concert event advertisements seem not to be slowing down:
"Expensive concert and football tickets? I think someone's a'lyin' to me!"
I saw a news item about a self-sustaining "living pod" now on the market, designed to permit the owner to completely dethatch themselves from "the grid."
"And now, the damn $1/2M mobile home!"
It seems that those "nice people" most likely to be banging on about inflation and the economy have no difficulty sustaining their conspicuous consumption, or as they like to portray it, their "way of life," while begrudging those who are really suffering any assistance with making ends meet.
As I said at the top of this comment, please understand this as a statement of vague impressions, rather than an attempt to form a coherent thought.
The US could use a democratic constitution.
And people could stop pretending that its rule-by-big-business system is democracy.
(Voting is not the same thing as democracy, unless the voting has properly democratic foundations)
Social Security is my only income. Last year we were cheated because we were charged extra money for a non-proven drug for Alzheimer's. The cost of living increase we'll receive in 2023 is really not much. My landlord has already informed me of a $35 monthly increase in rent. With costs of everything rising every week it doesn't seem like much. Believe me, no one gets wealthy from receiving Social Security. Thank goodness I only have myself to worry about...
"If it’s automatic, then we can’t fight about it,” a senior Democratic senator explained. “And in presidential election years, it’s a fight we like to have.”
We’re doomed. Not sorry. Scared.
Perspective! THIS senior citizen earned $15 . /hr the best year I ever had, a non-union salary at Textron New Hampshire; my wife's college paid in cash, and our home paid off in 20 years.. Now my children and grandchildren make that or less without the hope of owning homes or seeing the end of student debt. THAT's poverty! I have infinite trouble convincing them of the Progressive Democrat's plans. We need a stronger plan so they can see being more than random independent voters.
The Chicago School of Economics strikes again. The don't control social security, but they want to. Someday, in a different time and a different economic system someone will recognize that the ability to pay a fair, livable wage is really a profit. It is part of loving your neighbor as yourself. I am afraid that we as a country have become unable to love our neighbors. Instead they are our enemies, taking our wealth. We need to learn to care again.
I live in a small town in New Mexico. I think the median age here is about 55. Lots of seniors here. I work cleaning houses for my local senior center. Some clients live in HUD or USDA housing. I have already heard that with the latest increase to Social Security, several people will no longer meet the income restrictions to live in said housing and will have to move out? This is because the federal poverty guidelines have not been adjusted for inflation. These folks live in this housing because they can’t afford anything else. Where do they go? There is already a severe housing shortage in my town.
Now that large corporate donors control political candidates on both sides of the isle and lobby prolifically, the only way to pass policies like minimum wage increases, windfall profit taxes, and antitrust legislation, is to get organized labor to demand those policies so democratic candidates must go along or go against the unions.
The minimum wage is aptly named. It’s the minimum that businesses figure they can get away with paying their workers without getting themselves thrown in jail. Inflation represents an uncompensated pay cut. The Neo liberals have played along with this game for decades. Institutionalized poverty ensures a steady supply of low paid labor as our heroes, the saintly entrepreneurial classes, build their fortunes on the backs of the poor. And when they are done building that fortune? “I earned every penny of it“
Clearly, what we are viewing here hearkens back to 2010 and the passage of that abomination of a "law" called "Citizen's United". "CU" gave Corporations the status of "People" under the Constitution and other Laws, and made Corporate Money the equivalent of "Free Speech" under the law.
So long as this stands, any effort to pass legislation even pretending to be "of the people, for the people, and by the people" is nothing but a risible rib-tickler. Can we truly believe that the *same people who bought elections back in the day when doing so was *illegal, have suddenly STOPPED buying elections since Citizens United made doing so absolutely and apparently irrevocably *legal ??
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg recently said of Republicans, "For them, the problem is more useful than the solution." I guess that sometimes applies to Democrats as well. Too bad for the country.
Inflation and the minimum wage are two distinctly different issue tied together because of a social need. I recently stopped ordering fast food due to the price. Burger King, for two double Whopper meals the bill came to over 40 dollars. Taco Bell, the same story. Pizza is almost as bad. It's cheaper to dine out at a sit down restaurant then it is to order fast food.. Time has affected every aspect of our lives through the continual effects of inflation. I remember my Mother complaining when Campbell's soup hit 9 cents a can. During my years in high school the best pair of Jack Purcell tennis shoes set my mom back about 10 dollars, my Father brought me a brand new 68 Mustang from Dean sellers Ford in Detroit Michigan, off the showroom floor the sticker price was a whopping $2,200.00. My tuition for college was $1,500 a semester, and it was a semi private school, now it's $30,000. It's an economic spiral that is out of control and still heading in the wrong direction. One thing I have learned, things never go back to the way things were in the good old days. It comes down to a balancing act between need and the ability to obtain. Unlike lady justice and what she holds the economic scales never seem to balance.
Dark money that flows to both parties has turned our so-called democracy into an oligarchy. If I did not have veteran's disability benefits I also would be feeing poverty's bite. I get a COLA that is becoming significant because I am 100% disabled. What a way to earn money! 20 years I got SSDI. It was $1250 a month as if a person could live on that. There may have been a time when someone could survive on the minimum wage but not where I live. You are better off on welfare than working for minimum wage with no benefits.============
The sad part is that much of the voter base
can't understand even the simplest graph as the one you shown on the minimum wage.
That ignorance keeps electing Republicans that are anti minimum wage.
This post illustrates my comment earlier about Marx's suspicion of social democrats: they actually like worker poverty because it gives them an obvious issue to campaign on. To get out of the trap you have to fundamentally change the assumptions about who owns capital and legislate to ensure that the workers (producers) have their fair share by right.
The question is why, when the “democracy-minded” party is in power, they don’t take care of their purported most important citizens in their voting base? They want migrants to be allowed into our country at will, no questions asked, and know most will be only eligible for minimum-wage jobs, yet their inaction on this topic, decade after decade, goes unaddressed. One has to wonder at their profession of democracy for America.
Odd Prof Reich should bring this up today. After a number of impressions prompted by the news, I sent a few texts to an old friend yesterday observing:
"It just occurred to me. If the economy is that bad, and people are struggling so much, how is it that so many can spend all the money they do on holiday decorations and costumes? Somebody is either >definitely< not hurting, or they're living well beyond their means!"
In response to seeing packed football stadia this weekend, while the number of expensive concert event advertisements seem not to be slowing down:
"Expensive concert and football tickets? I think someone's a'lyin' to me!"
I saw a news item about a self-sustaining "living pod" now on the market, designed to permit the owner to completely dethatch themselves from "the grid."
"And now, the damn $1/2M mobile home!"
It seems that those "nice people" most likely to be banging on about inflation and the economy have no difficulty sustaining their conspicuous consumption, or as they like to portray it, their "way of life," while begrudging those who are really suffering any assistance with making ends meet.
As I said at the top of this comment, please understand this as a statement of vague impressions, rather than an attempt to form a coherent thought.