Edward, you are right about voting. People in Russia, China, and a lot of other non-democratic nations vote and no one would ever suggest the voting is democratic or even fair. It is an exercise to let people think they have some say in what is being done to them. I don't want to see that happening here, but with Citizens United and the SC allowing all kinds of clearly partisan gerrymandering, it is moving perilously close to that irrelevant voting other nations have adopted. It seems that is what Republicans are hoping for. I don't understand why anyone goes along with it, but I know busy, struggling people don't take time to actually pay attention to what is happening. Lack of unions, low wages for frontline workers, and other bad business practices insure there are a whole lot of struggling people to be used. They are encouraged to "vote with your gut." Voting with one's gut is a thing considered good, even righteous. It isn't because our guts are rarely accurate and can be easily manipulated. Ugh!
It’s not just about voting but who we have to vote for. There are times when there’s only one person on the ticket in the primary. No choice. During one election season a few years ago, my state rep was knocking doors. He was irate that there was someone challenging him, the incumbent, in the primaries. I guess he thought he should slide in without effort. And he hasn’t done anything for us but attend ceremonies.
As to why most of both major political parties and all of business won't agree to an inflation indexed minimum wage, the answer is simple, if a two-parter. First, business hates the minimum wage period, and if they have to put up with one the last thing they want is for it to retain its value over time. So the certain _relative_ decline in purchasing power of the minimum which actual inflation imposes (we have not had actual deflation in the US in living memory) is a very, very high priority of the business community beat into the ears and brows of both parties.
Second, business hates the minimum wage because having no or at least an eroding wage floor is essential to 'discipline the workforce,' both to accept benefit and even lesser wage clawbacks from management but even to take the bullshit, pitifully compensated jobs on offer for decades to begin with. If you can't live on the minimum wage, you'll look for and hang onto something paying even $.25 an hour more; and think yourself lucky rather than an abused dupe without a future which is what you are. If you could live on the minimum, you'd walk without notice . . . but you can't, so you don't: that is completely by design of corporate capitalism. Business needs a bad and eroding minimum wage if they have to have one to force labor to 'voluntarily' don the serf collars of bad jobs. Period.
We'll get an indexed minimum wage when we get a revolution or its equivalent. Because business would rather crash the system and force a crisis than to voluntarily give up the leverage of bad or no minimum compensation guarantees: this is an essential feature of 'the system,' not a bug.
And because of unlimited money in our politics, billionaires and corporate interests (oligarchs) have power over both parties (and own the media). This is by their design. Bought and paid for by their investment into the political system. The dark money they have been pouring into the Federalist Society and similar organizations has paid for a majority on the Supreme Court. Because congress is unable to pass legislation (due to the filibuster), that allows them (oligarchs) to pass or change laws to benefit their agenda and give them more wealth/power, via the Supreme Court- Allow more unlimited money in the political process (citizens united, etc.), weaken voting rights (assault on the Voting Rights Act), weaken governments ability to regulate them (legal attacks on regulatory agencies), avoid/diminish civil juries- juries of their piers/the people (arbitration and/or trial by judge), continue to divide and distract the electorate by reversing abortion laws, reversing same sex marriage laws and reversing Obamacare (AFA). (Oligarchy- a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution.) see Sheldon Whitehouse expose Dark Money Politics- https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4914716/user-clip-sen-whitehouse-dark-money-judicial-court
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...
The sad part is that SS retirement and disability funds are under attack. In fact, Republicans threaten to "sunset" all benefits. This should be the Democrats' silver bullet in this election.
Don't look now, but most media are not supporting Democracy very well ; with 'both sides ism' or just silence about issues like what the Republicans actually support. Like ending SS. And Medicare. Medicaid, Anything that helps the workers and the poor.
Great post Laurie. It would be great to hear on the evening news condemnation of the plan to end Social Security, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act in favor of more tax breaks for the extra wealthy billionaires.
Hard to understand how that is possible democratic administrations are not using that leverage. Two years from now someone will have written a book explaining everything.
What about AARP? Maybe they can do more than just sell insurance!? Why don't they take up this issue for seniors? They would certainly get people's attention! Everyone gets older, or has older relatives.
They do, Laurie. AARP has a group of lobbyists in DC, but, like most publicly funded organizations they don't have the billions of dollars it costs to wine, dine, and stuff money into PACs. In today's age of unchecked greed, too many politicians, like Lindsay Graham, and Joe Manchin see political office as a get-richer-quicker opportunity than a chance to do your Civic duty and legislate what's best for your constituents. I'm fortunate to have one of the old-fashioned type who takes his representation in the House as a means of improving the quality of life (roads, healthcare, etc) for those of us in his constituency.
Fay Reid ; But the whole identity and purported purpose of AARP is advocating for seniors. All they seem to do is push insurance, and other products. One would think they have some advocacy powers. I cancelled my subscription as soon as I saw what they are.
Daniel, you are right that SS and Medicare should be the silver bullets for Dems, so why aren't they? Older people are hardly even mentioned in this year's elections that I have heard. Can we get that out there in two weeks? It might stand up to the Willy Horton type ads about Dems releasing violent criminals to "terrorize you." Republicans moves against SS and Medicare should terrorize older people far more.
Yes to disabled on social security I don't know about orphans but there is aid to dependent children also on it. But remember at first under FDR it was only meant to subsidize your retirement and nothing more. Like most things once big money rolled in special interest got in and messed with it now like everything that was messed with after FDR it is messed up.
Also, that money was taken from the paychecks of every employed person since they started working at age 16 (myself). Some of us had a huge mid-life hike in our SS contributions in 1983 under Clinton and Gingrich, to absorb the baby boomers. We've paid it like a tax every year we've earned money. Don't ask me about what the "Medigap" private sector is doing to the Medicare fund. It's a travesty, and we should abolish the relationship, which the republicans constructed with the insurance companies those many decades back.
I am surprised that you can live on Social Security at all. In my state (Nevada) My Social Security barely covers groceries and my pension check is half of that. Fortunately, my husband has a good retirement from the state and we have invested what we could in real estate so we are ok. But I worry about my sister-in-law who will only have Social Security to live on
You and I are the people I have been posting about which also includes over 250 million Americans that in one form or another relay on SS. PLEASE scream from the roof tops that the republicans are going to take SS from us. Almost everyone is affected either directly such as yourself or indirectly when someone like yourself has to have family members suddenly pick up the huge gap by the rich taking more of our money. Please tell everyone to vote against the multi trillion dollar grab by the rich by taking our SS. Somehow the so-called intellectuals don't get it. I guess I am just to stupid not to see the trees in the forest.
read the post affected (not on) by SS cuts I said. So since you can't reason it out let me help.
I get SS thus it helps pay for my retirement. Now if I don't get SS where does that money come from. Well in most cases your family. So now my kids and in most cases, grandkids as well have to do without something to support me because the rich people took my money ( that I paid into since I was 16 or 17 and in most years I paid in the max amount) so do the simple math and you will find I am correct. Also, you are only counting the retirees how about the disabled-on SS and aid to dependent children on SS. I guess for you that doesn't count. Then as I stated about their cuts work the same way so very people aren't AFFECTED in a negative way. Almost all working people in the country will be negatively affected. simple
The number of people on SSI and on Aid to Dependent Children are FAR fewer than those on Soc Sec retirement benefits.
Your FICA tax dollars go into the Soc Sec Trust Fund, to which those earning LOTS of money pay into only up to the income cap. Income beyond the cap is not subject to FICA, unfortunately, and which must be made subject to FICA in one way or another (Bernie Sanders' plan is probably the most equitable). The Trust Fund then loans that revenue not needed for current distribution to the federal govt. which pays interest on the loan. Your kids and grandkids will get their full Social Security benefits so long as the thieves in the GOP and the financial services industry don't get their hands on it. Unfortunately, that full benefit will be as inadequate when they retire as it is now thanks to 50 years of wage and productivity suppression and theft by our and their employers.
Yes, Yvonne, Social Security will not make anyone rich, but it should allow for a standard of living that covers decent shelter, food, and clothing. Medicare should cover healthcare expenses that are not filtered through private for-profit insurance corporations, ever! Social Security taxers should be paid on all income even for the super rich. It's time. Now we need to elect people who will make sure Social Security is actually "secure."
We don't need people to be unkind to one another...
When I wrote that statement I said it in the context of thanking goodness I don't have other mouths to feed and clothe. Dissipate that anger... Not good for your health.
"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.”
That politician’s comment saddened me. People have more than enough stress in their daily lives without our “leaders” purposely trying to anger and divide us! That’s not making our lives better. No wonder some people tune politics out completely.
There are many issues where it seems as though politicians in both parties prefer to avoid solving them so they can use them in their fund-raising appeals. Probably a lot of problems could be solved if we could get money out of politics, but getting money out of politics is highly unlikely to happen.
Rose, yes, the childishness of our representatives does turn people off, which is just what their handlers want. If people are turned off, they will either not vote or vote for the person who puts out the most appalling ads online or on TV. It's shameful, but Republicans right now are masters at this activity. They have nothing to offer anyone but nonsense, a loud mouth, and a lot of toddleresque behavior. How sad that so many people fall for it.
Rose, form a small, semi-formal group of neighbors, if you can—or associates, if you don't know your neighbors. Try to be sure there are numerous political perspectives. Get together regularly and more often than once a month. Google various techniques for getting conversation off and running. Talk to them about anything. Listen most of the time. Eventually you'll find common ground with them. This is what you can do about politics.
Atma, you have put your finger on the truth here. Our representatives so often act like children, standing against anything their opponents are for, even if it would positively impact a lot of their constituents or the American people in general. How is it we keep electing child-men and child-women. Is it that we are drawn to their whining and blaming, the hallmarks of spoilt toddlers, our parental instincts in play? Nah, I think it's that the child-people tend to get the most money because they often are the most likely to be bought and manipulated.
Larissa, you are right to question this attitude that SS and Medicare should be just political footballs to be kicked around when candidates need an issue. It was an issue in 1935; it should not be an issue now. It should be a set in stone item that needs to be tweaked now and then to make the system more fair and to see that people who depend on SS can actually have a good life without massive unnecessary struggles. Requiring SS taxes on ALL income would make a big difference so recipients can get cost of living raises and help with Medicare premiums regularly. Candidates, even Dems need to respect the people they represent, and not just at election season.
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.
I went to college in the ‘70’s, so the current cost of college and the high student debt has been a curiosity to me. I’ve heard that college teachers don’t make much. Why is college so expensive now? Then I heard a podcast address it. They said it was because colleges were privatized. I’d like to hear more on the subject of college costs. It is a benefit to our society to have an educated (college OR technical) populace.
After WWII and FDR the mind set in America said it was time for more of us to get educated. The Russians beat us into Space and I got to have a National Defense Student Loan and a better job than my parents had. In the early days of this college phase we all believed we needed an education in order to "get ahead." The government's goal was to find talent so we could beat the Russians. Then Nancy Reagan began whispering Ayn Rand into her husband's ear and "privatization" reached all the way up into my government publications office. I was told to "outsource" the work load they would not hire a second person to do. It was a time-consuming disaster. Nevertheless, nearly all the state institutions of "higher" learning now have more corporate ownership than state-supported funding. Those institutions were built so that less-fortunate-and-bright people could be cultivated and boot-strapped. The 50-year private sector rip-off has to end. We separate church and state. Now we also have to find the will to separate state from marketplace. Church, State and Marketplace are three separate paradigms, and should have as little to do with each other as possible.
General Electric, thanks to his hosting GE Theater on TV, began indoctrinating Ronnie about the same time he married Nancy. He was required to give talks to GE employees all across the country (they had factory workers here in those days). And Earl Dunckel traveled with him. They never flew; they always traveled by train, and Dunckel lectured him on the right-wing and Ayn Rand concepts of economics and policy the whole time. Not being too bright, Ronnie bought it all, hook, line and sinker.
I've also heard that. It would stand to reason that she would collect anything she had already paid for. She didn't like it in principle, but since she was forced to pay into it, she got what she could. She wrote the book called, "The Virtue of Selfishness" and if you allow yourself to get lost in her rationale, you can begin thinking she's right. Far right.
You might want to check out a book "The Ayn Rand Cult" by Jeff Walker. It is simultaneously frightening and funny. There's also a youtube video of her being interviewed by Mike Wallace. Interesting.
Being autistic myself, I now believe that she was too. All of her writings seem to want to present an autistic philosophy. You can google this. In my mid-20s I was sucked in for a couple of years, until I was diverted by Marshall McLuhan, who was much more interesting at the time. Her required reading list in those years included David Riesman's Lonely Crowd, and Betty Friedan's book (I've forgotten the title!). I went in both directions after that, abandoning Rand when Dagney Taggart committed murder, late in Atlas Shrugged. Also, I had two babies, something Rand never had to deal with. Much later I re-read The Fountainhead, looking for the place where Howard Roark explains that he didn't "get" other people; instead of once, I found it at least a dozen times. Undiagnosed autism.
I really should read a few of Rand's books just to try to understand why individuals like Alan Greenspan and others bought into her philosophy; I sometimes wonder if they simply went through the motions of taking her seriously. An online video provider (Amazon?) made a remake of Atlas Shrugged several years back. I found the plot preposterous and the acting unbelievably boring. What others have written about her works is almost all scathing.
It looks like one of them is a dedicated Independent,which in New Hampshire parlance could mean a free stater/ liberal who won't vote D or R . The other is in an environment of libertarian Republicans and his only option is to keep his mouth shut so he's learned not to discuss his vote, a streak that is pure N H.
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.
What isn't hard to understand is that neighbor buys things so paying them a working wage means better business over time. Everyone comes out a head, it is much more than an zero sum game. The problem is that those who want it all now refuse to take a longer view. They just want to seal it and to hell with the neighbor.
Dave, I find myself wondering often these days what is being taught in Master's level business programs and what the students are learning. I am guessing empathy and caring about those who will use their products or services is hardly covered at all or if it is, it's dismissed as a, well, consideration, but not a major one. I keep hearing the nonsense "The customer is always right," but rarely see examples of that except perhaps, among the already-wealthy. With profits and the Stock Market being the most important business aspects today, it is hard to see businesses caring about living wages. They will pay wages as low as they can get away with and hire workers who will accept those low wages. The workers stay in those companies because it is hard for poor folks to look for another job for so many reasons. Corporations know that and exploit it, not for the benefit of the workers. We have a lot of work to do if we will improve things.
I am retire now, 20 years, but was a high level engineering manager in a worldwide metals company. Also I was a licensed Professional Engineer although it wasn't a direct requirement of the job. I remember well the ethics training as part of becoming licensed early in my career. Caring about the health and safety of people is a key part of that code of ethics and taking care of your neighbor is just the same.
I always remember a saying by Alex Stewart "A good neighbor is worth more than money" This is from a book on Alex Stewart by John Rice Irwin the founder of the Museum of Appalachia in Norris, TN. Alex Stewart was a "poorly educated" self taught high knowledge person from the mountains of East Tennessee. The book is worth a read. Another thing Alex Stewart had to say when ask what he charged for making a wooden casket. "Oh, I would never charge for making a casket as someone will have to make one for me someday."
Wayne, I too wish we the people could also find a way to connect with our neighbors without contempt but with empathy and caring. It could happen, but as long as there are outrageous lying in ads, ignoring constituents while in office to do whatever is personally beneficial, and being unwilling to distinguish a fact from a lie, it is going to be really hard. We do keep electing childish dividers to office rather than people who actually want a more positive nation that can together solve the massive problems we now face. When one group can't even bend to the reality that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, that he is a self-centered man who cares about no one but himself and those who can boost him, and that he has committed crimes against the United States, we face an extremely uphill struggle. Most people due to their own personal challenges have decided they don't have the energy to do that. We all pay for their lack of energy to care about the truth.
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.
Are these folks 1) writing to their Congressional reps; and 2) planning to vote Democratic in two weeks? The Repubs have made clear that they plan to "sunset" social security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs if they take Congress. As James Carville said yesterday on MSNBC, the Repubs have handed the Dems a BIG issue on this; are the Dems smart enough to grab it and use it? Don't just be outraged; DO something!!!!
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.
Polling shows midterm election candidates in very tight toss-up races. In most cases the races are within the margin of error of the poll, so Democrats' sweeping the midterms is very unlikely, but barley holding the Senate is still a possibility. Both houses of congress will probably stay somewhat evenly split but with Republicans retaking the House and with new radical Trump freshman congressmen coming in, so congress will likely be in gridlock, with showdowns on funding the government to even stay up and running. Candidates of neither party can present solutions useful to ordinary Americans because that would lower corporate profits and big money donors to the candidates of both parties and lobbyist won't allow that so getting labor unions to demand the real solutions we need, like increasing worker wages, windfall profit taxes, and antitrust legislation is the only way to inspire ordinary working Americans to vote Democrat at this point.
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“
You bet it is mythical. I know two millionaires. Both inherited their wealth from the untimely deaths of family members. To hear them talk, you would think they earned those millions by hard work.
William, Yeah, I just love that "I earned every penny of it" BS. They also believe in the "pulling yourself up by your own boot straps" nonsense (If you did that you'd fall on your butt on the floor). The way businesses use poor, often migrant workers while complaining about invasions of immigrants is hypocrisy that needs to be called out loudly and often. Then they should be required to pay the back wages that didn't at least hit minimum wage. The challenge, who are we going to get to do what is right? Too much money in politics buys rather than elects our representatives and public officials.
Never believe that "the powers that be" want to stop illegal immigration. If they *truly wanted to ban same, they would prosecute the people who HIRE illegal immigrants. That is not *about to happen. Illegal immigrants are *so much easier to manipulate and to rip off than are Legal Immigrants or Asylum Seekers.
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 ??
Rose ; many 'persons' (corporations) are 'multinational'. So yes, foreign money is definitely coming in to our politicians and judges and maybe even secret service. All 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.
I wonder what could be achieved if our resources were spent on the betterment of our society and not greedy, egomaniacal power struggles. The problem seems to be that the people that could work together and solve problems for the betterment of the nation are not drawn to politics. It’s the greedy, power hungry that are and they seem unable to work with others.
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 is also why the GOP does not want Americans to be educated! There is a huge push to privatize schooling and defund public education. Betsy DeVoss was one pushing that too. And I still want to know what happened to those immigrant children that were taken from their mothers and given to her brother to adopt out! How is that not human trafficking?
Minimum wage was established to prevent exploitation of low education workers because there are mean humans. Minimum wage did nothing, however, to encourage the improvement of the workers’ opportunities unless the individual had ambition to move up and out of said menial jobs and was not intended to. Many young workers starting out in the work world did and do move up and out of those starter jobs, but many workers, uneducated and without support, be it social, familial, etc., would/will never rise up and out of the minimum employment status. This is universal in the human condition and I don’t think the human race will ever fully cure it. We can blame whomever we want but humans do exercise free will and some choose lives for which others would not and do not settle. But, at least a minimum wage, no matter your thoughts on the value or how high or low it should be, and no matter which evil human or party managing it you choose to blame, puts a basic, if minimal, value on a human showing up and performing a task. If we were to accurately align said tasks’ value to financial compensation compared with other tasks and their related compensation, minimum wage would/will always remain fairly low, as it should. Consider if you’ve spent time and money to get an education which prepares you for brain surgery or a legal career or enables you to build a successful business manufacturing products; the compensation you receive in the future is directly proportional to said profession or production and sale of products and only increases if you increase caseload hours, or surgeries or production output. Additional financial compensation exchanged for quantity and/or value of your work. Consider the minimum wage employee, who even though they faithfully do the job each day, and may do it well, how much more value can they contribute for a simple task, like flipping the required and feasible number of burgers, which does not exponentially create additional value for the employer for which additional compensation from a sale to a customer can be generated? Financial compensation has to align with output, and market value and to simply continue to raise the compensation for no other reason, argues the value of the task into extinction or replacement by machination. Even the brain surgeon knows there’s a limit to what he can charge for an operation before customers go elsewhere and his financial compensation diminishes. The market stays in balance. Flipping a burger yields only so much financial value to the customer and subsequently to the flipper. Our efforts to improve the human condition would be better spent on educating or skill-improving the minimum wage employee into higher value tasks vs forcing the production market to simply pay more for a non-improved task where the value proposition does not change. And no matter how much we believe we should improve life conditions for other humans, many will still freely choose the menial tasks; we will always have minimum wage jobs and there will always be humans willing to settle for nothing more. We think because we would not settle for such that we must fix this human condition, “for their own good”. There’s a reaction to every action. A Rush song tells it plainly, “...even if you do not choose, you still have made a choice.” It’s not all bad; we need menial task workers. Nature maintains balance with the human species just as it does with the lower food-chain animals.
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.
There are jobs in America that are dirty, nasty, ugly, dangerous, unfulfilling, and excruciatingly physical. Most Americans will not even consider doing these jobs. This has been true since Caucasians first entered North America. The young USA, sans-slavery, turned to the hordes of immigrants who needed to leave their homes out of desperation, and come here. Immigrants would do these awful jobs because they were the only jobs nobody else wanted, and even this was better than returning to their original homes. (Personally, I think we let in too many old-world Europeans back in the 1800s who brought a lot of negative cultural problems to our neighborhoods.) Only once this past month have I heard someone say in public that our current labor shortage could be solved by issuing more green cards. We've stopped the flow of a resource that once kept us rising.
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 willful ignorance of intelligent people is a big part of what is wrong in the world. I worked for 40years as a nurse and at 71 had to retire due to illness. Because I worked for the majority of my career at a state facility, I am 4 quarters short of qualifying for social security. My retirement money was in a 401K which is down 49%. There is not enough money to retire. Early in my career, I didn’t eat meat for 5 years because it was not in the budget, did not buy a coffee out, did not eat out, no vacations. This has been my economic status for most of my life. And I had it much better than many. I dare you to make a budget based on a minimum wage job and see how much conspicuous consumption you can engage in. If this doesn’t work, google how many people have to live in poverty and what hunger looks like. Just because this is not your experience, how can you not see the suffering of others. This lack of honesty and empathy kinda just makes you a real jerk. Wake up. If you want to live in a civil society you need to be concerned about equality and equity or don’t be surprised when exploited people feeling hurt and afraid get angry. Those are the emotions that always come first. Next time you are angry, ask yourself why you are afraid and/or hurt and maybe you can then put yourself in another’s shoes and see why they might expect to have a living wage.
I think you misinterpreted my intention. >You< are clearly not the target of my comment. You simply took it that way. >You< aren't among those packing football stadia, concert halls, movie theaters, or up-market restaurants. And >neither am I.< Yet, those packing those venues are the ones citing inflation to justify the prices they raise that exacerbate inflation, while blaming government spending targeted to help folks like you. I've worked temporary labor for pennies, beside folks who went home to sleep in their cars in the parking lot. You need not instruct me on human suffering. I consider myself lucky to not be in such a circumstance as yours or theirs, and I'm not your political opponent in depriving "the mooches" of the entertainments by making them pay their damn taxes, that they'll ultimately pass on to you and me like having us pay their taxes for them - effectively double taxing us - as a legitimate way to prosper and give themselves pay raises and tickets to the goddam ball games.
It’s the continuous “good for we but not for thee” syndrome of all politicians; public servants, or so they say, on the stump, but now the elected elite who ignore the minions they rule.
I don’t resent people for spending their money. I resent our law makers that have for decades reduced taxes on corporations and the rich. I urge you to write your representatives in Congress and demand that they pass progressive taxes, and higher taxes on corporations. Demand that Citizens united is reversed and get billionaires money out of politics. We are only as god as our laws and it is the people that can demand better laws. Demand the ERA is entered into our constitution, demand that they protect voting rights and prosecute anyone involved in sedition. No one involved should be allowed to be in or run for office. Continue to fight for what brings about more equality and equity for all.
Those "living pod" houses (sometimes called "tiny houses") can be reliably sourced for less than one-tenth that cost... so maybe it's not all so bad (the spike in interest rates is probably worse)...
Thanks for the info. I actually approve of the concept, if not the price tag I heard about. I'd say $100K would approach reasonable. After all, it's a glorified shipping container tacked out with solar power, recycled sewage, and a cistern water supply. It still requires fuel-oil to maintain the solar system, and the chemical reagents to maintain the recycling. That's a continuing maintenance cost. You'd still need a very healthy income to own and live in one, although >I'd< consider that option if I could afford it.
(Study shows it has potential in urban places - like Berkeley... but the cost estimate is high & the financing available is limited; let's keep an eye on it!)
The selling point is that you can park such a unit >anywhere.< An ordinary mobile home needs a facility that provides sewer & water hook-ups at very least. These units are completely self-contained, and recycle >everything<, while gathering and filtering rain water. They effectively have zero impact on the environment, and need no provision other than the location upon which they sit - including electric power.
Definitely a "hot topic" of innovation - especially in The Bay Area (because of large numbers of homeless people & difficulty in the supply of affordable housing); probably a tough sell for families - but seems like it would be great fun for singles & couples...
(Other factors - like less single-family zoning - will probably make a bigger difference for homelessness... but who knows!)
Oh, I think it would be workable for families. Think "modular." That's old tech, and could easily be accounted for in designing the primary unit at the outset. You could provide several "add-on" room options, including toilets, etc.
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)
Edward, you are right about voting. People in Russia, China, and a lot of other non-democratic nations vote and no one would ever suggest the voting is democratic or even fair. It is an exercise to let people think they have some say in what is being done to them. I don't want to see that happening here, but with Citizens United and the SC allowing all kinds of clearly partisan gerrymandering, it is moving perilously close to that irrelevant voting other nations have adopted. It seems that is what Republicans are hoping for. I don't understand why anyone goes along with it, but I know busy, struggling people don't take time to actually pay attention to what is happening. Lack of unions, low wages for frontline workers, and other bad business practices insure there are a whole lot of struggling people to be used. They are encouraged to "vote with your gut." Voting with one's gut is a thing considered good, even righteous. It isn't because our guts are rarely accurate and can be easily manipulated. Ugh!
It’s not just about voting but who we have to vote for. There are times when there’s only one person on the ticket in the primary. No choice. During one election season a few years ago, my state rep was knocking doors. He was irate that there was someone challenging him, the incumbent, in the primaries. I guess he thought he should slide in without effort. And he hasn’t done anything for us but attend ceremonies.
Gerrymandering- When politicians choose their constituents, rather than the other way around???
I think you and many others have fallen for the pretence.....
"If voting changed anything, they would make it illegal".
- Emma Goldman
Agreed, indeed.
As to why most of both major political parties and all of business won't agree to an inflation indexed minimum wage, the answer is simple, if a two-parter. First, business hates the minimum wage period, and if they have to put up with one the last thing they want is for it to retain its value over time. So the certain _relative_ decline in purchasing power of the minimum which actual inflation imposes (we have not had actual deflation in the US in living memory) is a very, very high priority of the business community beat into the ears and brows of both parties.
Second, business hates the minimum wage because having no or at least an eroding wage floor is essential to 'discipline the workforce,' both to accept benefit and even lesser wage clawbacks from management but even to take the bullshit, pitifully compensated jobs on offer for decades to begin with. If you can't live on the minimum wage, you'll look for and hang onto something paying even $.25 an hour more; and think yourself lucky rather than an abused dupe without a future which is what you are. If you could live on the minimum, you'd walk without notice . . . but you can't, so you don't: that is completely by design of corporate capitalism. Business needs a bad and eroding minimum wage if they have to have one to force labor to 'voluntarily' don the serf collars of bad jobs. Period.
We'll get an indexed minimum wage when we get a revolution or its equivalent. Because business would rather crash the system and force a crisis than to voluntarily give up the leverage of bad or no minimum compensation guarantees: this is an essential feature of 'the system,' not a bug.
True! And because of unlimited money in our politics, billionaires and corporate interests have power over both parties.
And because of unlimited money in our politics, billionaires and corporate interests (oligarchs) have power over both parties (and own the media). This is by their design. Bought and paid for by their investment into the political system. The dark money they have been pouring into the Federalist Society and similar organizations has paid for a majority on the Supreme Court. Because congress is unable to pass legislation (due to the filibuster), that allows them (oligarchs) to pass or change laws to benefit their agenda and give them more wealth/power, via the Supreme Court- Allow more unlimited money in the political process (citizens united, etc.), weaken voting rights (assault on the Voting Rights Act), weaken governments ability to regulate them (legal attacks on regulatory agencies), avoid/diminish civil juries- juries of their piers/the people (arbitration and/or trial by judge), continue to divide and distract the electorate by reversing abortion laws, reversing same sex marriage laws and reversing Obamacare (AFA). (Oligarchy- a small group of people having control of a country, organization, or institution.) see Sheldon Whitehouse expose Dark Money Politics- https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4914716/user-clip-sen-whitehouse-dark-money-judicial-court
Great comment. Agree 100%.
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...
Hang on Yvonne.
The sad part is that SS retirement and disability funds are under attack. In fact, Republicans threaten to "sunset" all benefits. This should be the Democrats' silver bullet in this election.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJWvvmSrOVw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1Wi9NXIhTo
I’m not hearing the Democrats bring the subject up much. It should be raised in every campaign rally and interview.
Media and Democratic institutions have failed democracy.
Republicans haven't?
Yes ----I no longer consider them in this regard. Expect only the lowest from that crowd.
That is realistic, you're right, sadly.
In many ways. The Democratic Party does not seem to have the moral umf it had in years past.
it has always been cyclical.
Don't look now, but most media are not supporting Democracy very well ; with 'both sides ism' or just silence about issues like what the Republicans actually support. Like ending SS. And Medicare. Medicaid, Anything that helps the workers and the poor.
Great post Laurie. It would be great to hear on the evening news condemnation of the plan to end Social Security, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act in favor of more tax breaks for the extra wealthy billionaires.
Hard to understand how that is possible democratic administrations are not using that leverage. Two years from now someone will have written a book explaining everything.
Send letters to the media.
What about AARP? Maybe they can do more than just sell insurance!? Why don't they take up this issue for seniors? They would certainly get people's attention! Everyone gets older, or has older relatives.
They do, Laurie. AARP has a group of lobbyists in DC, but, like most publicly funded organizations they don't have the billions of dollars it costs to wine, dine, and stuff money into PACs. In today's age of unchecked greed, too many politicians, like Lindsay Graham, and Joe Manchin see political office as a get-richer-quicker opportunity than a chance to do your Civic duty and legislate what's best for your constituents. I'm fortunate to have one of the old-fashioned type who takes his representation in the House as a means of improving the quality of life (roads, healthcare, etc) for those of us in his constituency.
Fay Reid ; But the whole identity and purported purpose of AARP is advocating for seniors. All they seem to do is push insurance, and other products. One would think they have some advocacy powers. I cancelled my subscription as soon as I saw what they are.
Daniel, you are right that SS and Medicare should be the silver bullets for Dems, so why aren't they? Older people are hardly even mentioned in this year's elections that I have heard. Can we get that out there in two weeks? It might stand up to the Willy Horton type ads about Dems releasing violent criminals to "terrorize you." Republicans moves against SS and Medicare should terrorize older people far more.
Ruth ; not just older people, but disabled and orphaned, too are affected, aren't they?
Yes to disabled on social security I don't know about orphans but there is aid to dependent children also on it. But remember at first under FDR it was only meant to subsidize your retirement and nothing more. Like most things once big money rolled in special interest got in and messed with it now like everything that was messed with after FDR it is messed up.
Also, that money was taken from the paychecks of every employed person since they started working at age 16 (myself). Some of us had a huge mid-life hike in our SS contributions in 1983 under Clinton and Gingrich, to absorb the baby boomers. We've paid it like a tax every year we've earned money. Don't ask me about what the "Medigap" private sector is doing to the Medicare fund. It's a travesty, and we should abolish the relationship, which the republicans constructed with the insurance companies those many decades back.
1983 -- Ronald Reagan was president, not Clinton. And Gingrich didn't get the Speaker's gavel until 1995.
Certainly not prominent in the news, is it?
the Lincoln project WTF wow when they put it out you know you are in trouble.
I been posting on this I agree I asked Robert to go big on this but as most intellectuals they can't see the forest from the trees.
This intellectual can't make out one sentence from another in your rambling above.
how can they when they keep running into the trees
Nicely observed, yes !
I am surprised that you can live on Social Security at all. In my state (Nevada) My Social Security barely covers groceries and my pension check is half of that. Fortunately, my husband has a good retirement from the state and we have invested what we could in real estate so we are ok. But I worry about my sister-in-law who will only have Social Security to live on
There is a lot I go without...
You and I are the people I have been posting about which also includes over 250 million Americans that in one form or another relay on SS. PLEASE scream from the roof tops that the republicans are going to take SS from us. Almost everyone is affected either directly such as yourself or indirectly when someone like yourself has to have family members suddenly pick up the huge gap by the rich taking more of our money. Please tell everyone to vote against the multi trillion dollar grab by the rich by taking our SS. Somehow the so-called intellectuals don't get it. I guess I am just to stupid not to see the trees in the forest.
The population of the US is about 350 million. Retirees on Soc Sec number about 49 million.
read the post affected (not on) by SS cuts I said. So since you can't reason it out let me help.
I get SS thus it helps pay for my retirement. Now if I don't get SS where does that money come from. Well in most cases your family. So now my kids and in most cases, grandkids as well have to do without something to support me because the rich people took my money ( that I paid into since I was 16 or 17 and in most years I paid in the max amount) so do the simple math and you will find I am correct. Also, you are only counting the retirees how about the disabled-on SS and aid to dependent children on SS. I guess for you that doesn't count. Then as I stated about their cuts work the same way so very people aren't AFFECTED in a negative way. Almost all working people in the country will be negatively affected. simple
The number of people on SSI and on Aid to Dependent Children are FAR fewer than those on Soc Sec retirement benefits.
Your FICA tax dollars go into the Soc Sec Trust Fund, to which those earning LOTS of money pay into only up to the income cap. Income beyond the cap is not subject to FICA, unfortunately, and which must be made subject to FICA in one way or another (Bernie Sanders' plan is probably the most equitable). The Trust Fund then loans that revenue not needed for current distribution to the federal govt. which pays interest on the loan. Your kids and grandkids will get their full Social Security benefits so long as the thieves in the GOP and the financial services industry don't get their hands on it. Unfortunately, that full benefit will be as inadequate when they retire as it is now thanks to 50 years of wage and productivity suppression and theft by our and their employers.
That' "too" stupid not to see . . .
Yes, Yvonne, Social Security will not make anyone rich, but it should allow for a standard of living that covers decent shelter, food, and clothing. Medicare should cover healthcare expenses that are not filtered through private for-profit insurance corporations, ever! Social Security taxers should be paid on all income even for the super rich. It's time. Now we need to elect people who will make sure Social Security is actually "secure."
We don't need people to be unkind to one another...
When I wrote that statement I said it in the context of thanking goodness I don't have other mouths to feed and clothe. Dissipate that anger... Not good for your health.
.... or for the overall integrity of the feed ...
"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.
Sounds like the GOP and abortion. Buzzwords to rile up the base. They're playing with the lives of people with real life consequences.
That politician’s comment saddened me. People have more than enough stress in their daily lives without our “leaders” purposely trying to anger and divide us! That’s not making our lives better. No wonder some people tune politics out completely.
There are many issues where it seems as though politicians in both parties prefer to avoid solving them so they can use them in their fund-raising appeals. Probably a lot of problems could be solved if we could get money out of politics, but getting money out of politics is highly unlikely to happen.
It's almost as hard as keeping the churches separate from the state. (We did it once; we can do it again.)
@Glenn A.
Certainly so as long as Citizens United remains in effect !
Rose, yes, the childishness of our representatives does turn people off, which is just what their handlers want. If people are turned off, they will either not vote or vote for the person who puts out the most appalling ads online or on TV. It's shameful, but Republicans right now are masters at this activity. They have nothing to offer anyone but nonsense, a loud mouth, and a lot of toddleresque behavior. How sad that so many people fall for it.
Rose, form a small, semi-formal group of neighbors, if you can—or associates, if you don't know your neighbors. Try to be sure there are numerous political perspectives. Get together regularly and more often than once a month. Google various techniques for getting conversation off and running. Talk to them about anything. Listen most of the time. Eventually you'll find common ground with them. This is what you can do about politics.
Indeed, because squabbling like children is now what passes for actually representing the interests of the people who voted these leeches into power.
Atma, you have put your finger on the truth here. Our representatives so often act like children, standing against anything their opponents are for, even if it would positively impact a lot of their constituents or the American people in general. How is it we keep electing child-men and child-women. Is it that we are drawn to their whining and blaming, the hallmarks of spoilt toddlers, our parental instincts in play? Nah, I think it's that the child-people tend to get the most money because they often are the most likely to be bought and manipulated.
Larissa, you are right to question this attitude that SS and Medicare should be just political footballs to be kicked around when candidates need an issue. It was an issue in 1935; it should not be an issue now. It should be a set in stone item that needs to be tweaked now and then to make the system more fair and to see that people who depend on SS can actually have a good life without massive unnecessary struggles. Requiring SS taxes on ALL income would make a big difference so recipients can get cost of living raises and help with Medicare premiums regularly. Candidates, even Dems need to respect the people they represent, and not just at election season.
Amen again, Ruth.
While I am not surprised by the comment, I am surprised by the unusual candor from a politician’s lips.
Only because it is being said to Mr. Reich "behind closed doors". Note that Mr. Reich does not identify who said it -- he is too smart to do that.
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.
I went to college in the ‘70’s, so the current cost of college and the high student debt has been a curiosity to me. I’ve heard that college teachers don’t make much. Why is college so expensive now? Then I heard a podcast address it. They said it was because colleges were privatized. I’d like to hear more on the subject of college costs. It is a benefit to our society to have an educated (college OR technical) populace.
After WWII and FDR the mind set in America said it was time for more of us to get educated. The Russians beat us into Space and I got to have a National Defense Student Loan and a better job than my parents had. In the early days of this college phase we all believed we needed an education in order to "get ahead." The government's goal was to find talent so we could beat the Russians. Then Nancy Reagan began whispering Ayn Rand into her husband's ear and "privatization" reached all the way up into my government publications office. I was told to "outsource" the work load they would not hire a second person to do. It was a time-consuming disaster. Nevertheless, nearly all the state institutions of "higher" learning now have more corporate ownership than state-supported funding. Those institutions were built so that less-fortunate-and-bright people could be cultivated and boot-strapped. The 50-year private sector rip-off has to end. We separate church and state. Now we also have to find the will to separate state from marketplace. Church, State and Marketplace are three separate paradigms, and should have as little to do with each other as possible.
General Electric, thanks to his hosting GE Theater on TV, began indoctrinating Ronnie about the same time he married Nancy. He was required to give talks to GE employees all across the country (they had factory workers here in those days). And Earl Dunckel traveled with him. They never flew; they always traveled by train, and Dunckel lectured him on the right-wing and Ayn Rand concepts of economics and policy the whole time. Not being too bright, Ronnie bought it all, hook, line and sinker.
I have not read any of Ayn Rand. I heard she was against social security yet in her old age, she relied on it. Do you know if that’s true?
I've also heard that. It would stand to reason that she would collect anything she had already paid for. She didn't like it in principle, but since she was forced to pay into it, she got what she could. She wrote the book called, "The Virtue of Selfishness" and if you allow yourself to get lost in her rationale, you can begin thinking she's right. Far right.
According to the reports I have read, yes, that is true. She also relied on Medicare.
You might want to check out a book "The Ayn Rand Cult" by Jeff Walker. It is simultaneously frightening and funny. There's also a youtube video of her being interviewed by Mike Wallace. Interesting.
Being autistic myself, I now believe that she was too. All of her writings seem to want to present an autistic philosophy. You can google this. In my mid-20s I was sucked in for a couple of years, until I was diverted by Marshall McLuhan, who was much more interesting at the time. Her required reading list in those years included David Riesman's Lonely Crowd, and Betty Friedan's book (I've forgotten the title!). I went in both directions after that, abandoning Rand when Dagney Taggart committed murder, late in Atlas Shrugged. Also, I had two babies, something Rand never had to deal with. Much later I re-read The Fountainhead, looking for the place where Howard Roark explains that he didn't "get" other people; instead of once, I found it at least a dozen times. Undiagnosed autism.
I really should read a few of Rand's books just to try to understand why individuals like Alan Greenspan and others bought into her philosophy; I sometimes wonder if they simply went through the motions of taking her seriously. An online video provider (Amazon?) made a remake of Atlas Shrugged several years back. I found the plot preposterous and the acting unbelievably boring. What others have written about her works is almost all scathing.
why ? what do they say when you try to convince them ?
It looks like one of them is a dedicated Independent,which in New Hampshire parlance could mean a free stater/ liberal who won't vote D or R . The other is in an environment of libertarian Republicans and his only option is to keep his mouth shut so he's learned not to discuss his vote, a streak that is pure N H.
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.
What isn't hard to understand is that neighbor buys things so paying them a working wage means better business over time. Everyone comes out a head, it is much more than an zero sum game. The problem is that those who want it all now refuse to take a longer view. They just want to seal it and to hell with the neighbor.
In the words of Paul Wellstone, "We all do better when we all do better."
Dave, I find myself wondering often these days what is being taught in Master's level business programs and what the students are learning. I am guessing empathy and caring about those who will use their products or services is hardly covered at all or if it is, it's dismissed as a, well, consideration, but not a major one. I keep hearing the nonsense "The customer is always right," but rarely see examples of that except perhaps, among the already-wealthy. With profits and the Stock Market being the most important business aspects today, it is hard to see businesses caring about living wages. They will pay wages as low as they can get away with and hire workers who will accept those low wages. The workers stay in those companies because it is hard for poor folks to look for another job for so many reasons. Corporations know that and exploit it, not for the benefit of the workers. We have a lot of work to do if we will improve things.
Ruth, I think the saying “the customer is always right” went out years ago. The current one is “maximum profit at all costs”
I am retire now, 20 years, but was a high level engineering manager in a worldwide metals company. Also I was a licensed Professional Engineer although it wasn't a direct requirement of the job. I remember well the ethics training as part of becoming licensed early in my career. Caring about the health and safety of people is a key part of that code of ethics and taking care of your neighbor is just the same.
I always remember a saying by Alex Stewart "A good neighbor is worth more than money" This is from a book on Alex Stewart by John Rice Irwin the founder of the Museum of Appalachia in Norris, TN. Alex Stewart was a "poorly educated" self taught high knowledge person from the mountains of East Tennessee. The book is worth a read. Another thing Alex Stewart had to say when ask what he charged for making a wooden casket. "Oh, I would never charge for making a casket as someone will have to make one for me someday."
Wayne, I too wish we the people could also find a way to connect with our neighbors without contempt but with empathy and caring. It could happen, but as long as there are outrageous lying in ads, ignoring constituents while in office to do whatever is personally beneficial, and being unwilling to distinguish a fact from a lie, it is going to be really hard. We do keep electing childish dividers to office rather than people who actually want a more positive nation that can together solve the massive problems we now face. When one group can't even bend to the reality that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, that he is a self-centered man who cares about no one but himself and those who can boost him, and that he has committed crimes against the United States, we face an extremely uphill struggle. Most people due to their own personal challenges have decided they don't have the energy to do that. We all pay for their lack of energy to care about the truth.
Amen, amen 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.
Laura, thank you for spotlighting this issue. It is overlooked!
Are these folks 1) writing to their Congressional reps; and 2) planning to vote Democratic in two weeks? The Repubs have made clear that they plan to "sunset" social security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs if they take Congress. As James Carville said yesterday on MSNBC, the Repubs have handed the Dems a BIG issue on this; are the Dems smart enough to grab it and use it? Don't just be outraged; DO something!!!!
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.
Sweep the midterms.
Unions to Overcome Gridlock
Polling shows midterm election candidates in very tight toss-up races. In most cases the races are within the margin of error of the poll, so Democrats' sweeping the midterms is very unlikely, but barley holding the Senate is still a possibility. Both houses of congress will probably stay somewhat evenly split but with Republicans retaking the House and with new radical Trump freshman congressmen coming in, so congress will likely be in gridlock, with showdowns on funding the government to even stay up and running. Candidates of neither party can present solutions useful to ordinary Americans because that would lower corporate profits and big money donors to the candidates of both parties and lobbyist won't allow that so getting labor unions to demand the real solutions we need, like increasing worker wages, windfall profit taxes, and antitrust legislation is the only way to inspire ordinary working Americans to vote Democrat at this point.
Steven Johns 10-25-22
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“
William Burke ; It is true that the 'self made man ' is often mythical.
You bet it is mythical. I know two millionaires. Both inherited their wealth from the untimely deaths of family members. To hear them talk, you would think they earned those millions by hard work.
William, Yeah, I just love that "I earned every penny of it" BS. They also believe in the "pulling yourself up by your own boot straps" nonsense (If you did that you'd fall on your butt on the floor). The way businesses use poor, often migrant workers while complaining about invasions of immigrants is hypocrisy that needs to be called out loudly and often. Then they should be required to pay the back wages that didn't at least hit minimum wage. The challenge, who are we going to get to do what is right? Too much money in politics buys rather than elects our representatives and public officials.
@Ruth Sheets
Never believe that "the powers that be" want to stop illegal immigration. If they *truly wanted to ban same, they would prosecute the people who HIRE illegal immigrants. That is not *about to happen. Illegal immigrants are *so much easier to manipulate and to rip off than are Legal Immigrants or Asylum Seekers.
You should read Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “Outliers”.
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 ??
I have nothing to base this on, but it also seems that “CU” has caused an influx of foreign money into our politics.
Rose ; many 'persons' (corporations) are 'multinational'. So yes, foreign money is definitely coming in to our politicians and judges and maybe even secret service. All legal!
And it has not even suffered *danger of being repealed since it passed in 2010.
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.
I wonder what could be achieved if our resources were spent on the betterment of our society and not greedy, egomaniacal power struggles. The problem seems to be that the people that could work together and solve problems for the betterment of the nation are not drawn to politics. It’s the greedy, power hungry that are and they seem unable to work with others.
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 is also why the GOP does not want Americans to be educated! There is a huge push to privatize schooling and defund public education. Betsy DeVoss was one pushing that too. And I still want to know what happened to those immigrant children that were taken from their mothers and given to her brother to adopt out! How is that not human trafficking?
Minimum wage was established to prevent exploitation of low education workers because there are mean humans. Minimum wage did nothing, however, to encourage the improvement of the workers’ opportunities unless the individual had ambition to move up and out of said menial jobs and was not intended to. Many young workers starting out in the work world did and do move up and out of those starter jobs, but many workers, uneducated and without support, be it social, familial, etc., would/will never rise up and out of the minimum employment status. This is universal in the human condition and I don’t think the human race will ever fully cure it. We can blame whomever we want but humans do exercise free will and some choose lives for which others would not and do not settle. But, at least a minimum wage, no matter your thoughts on the value or how high or low it should be, and no matter which evil human or party managing it you choose to blame, puts a basic, if minimal, value on a human showing up and performing a task. If we were to accurately align said tasks’ value to financial compensation compared with other tasks and their related compensation, minimum wage would/will always remain fairly low, as it should. Consider if you’ve spent time and money to get an education which prepares you for brain surgery or a legal career or enables you to build a successful business manufacturing products; the compensation you receive in the future is directly proportional to said profession or production and sale of products and only increases if you increase caseload hours, or surgeries or production output. Additional financial compensation exchanged for quantity and/or value of your work. Consider the minimum wage employee, who even though they faithfully do the job each day, and may do it well, how much more value can they contribute for a simple task, like flipping the required and feasible number of burgers, which does not exponentially create additional value for the employer for which additional compensation from a sale to a customer can be generated? Financial compensation has to align with output, and market value and to simply continue to raise the compensation for no other reason, argues the value of the task into extinction or replacement by machination. Even the brain surgeon knows there’s a limit to what he can charge for an operation before customers go elsewhere and his financial compensation diminishes. The market stays in balance. Flipping a burger yields only so much financial value to the customer and subsequently to the flipper. Our efforts to improve the human condition would be better spent on educating or skill-improving the minimum wage employee into higher value tasks vs forcing the production market to simply pay more for a non-improved task where the value proposition does not change. And no matter how much we believe we should improve life conditions for other humans, many will still freely choose the menial tasks; we will always have minimum wage jobs and there will always be humans willing to settle for nothing more. We think because we would not settle for such that we must fix this human condition, “for their own good”. There’s a reaction to every action. A Rush song tells it plainly, “...even if you do not choose, you still have made a choice.” It’s not all bad; we need menial task workers. Nature maintains balance with the human species just as it does with the lower food-chain animals.
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.
There are jobs in America that are dirty, nasty, ugly, dangerous, unfulfilling, and excruciatingly physical. Most Americans will not even consider doing these jobs. This has been true since Caucasians first entered North America. The young USA, sans-slavery, turned to the hordes of immigrants who needed to leave their homes out of desperation, and come here. Immigrants would do these awful jobs because they were the only jobs nobody else wanted, and even this was better than returning to their original homes. (Personally, I think we let in too many old-world Europeans back in the 1800s who brought a lot of negative cultural problems to our neighborhoods.) Only once this past month have I heard someone say in public that our current labor shortage could be solved by issuing more green cards. We've stopped the flow of a resource that once kept us rising.
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 willful ignorance of intelligent people is a big part of what is wrong in the world. I worked for 40years as a nurse and at 71 had to retire due to illness. Because I worked for the majority of my career at a state facility, I am 4 quarters short of qualifying for social security. My retirement money was in a 401K which is down 49%. There is not enough money to retire. Early in my career, I didn’t eat meat for 5 years because it was not in the budget, did not buy a coffee out, did not eat out, no vacations. This has been my economic status for most of my life. And I had it much better than many. I dare you to make a budget based on a minimum wage job and see how much conspicuous consumption you can engage in. If this doesn’t work, google how many people have to live in poverty and what hunger looks like. Just because this is not your experience, how can you not see the suffering of others. This lack of honesty and empathy kinda just makes you a real jerk. Wake up. If you want to live in a civil society you need to be concerned about equality and equity or don’t be surprised when exploited people feeling hurt and afraid get angry. Those are the emotions that always come first. Next time you are angry, ask yourself why you are afraid and/or hurt and maybe you can then put yourself in another’s shoes and see why they might expect to have a living wage.
I think you misinterpreted my intention. >You< are clearly not the target of my comment. You simply took it that way. >You< aren't among those packing football stadia, concert halls, movie theaters, or up-market restaurants. And >neither am I.< Yet, those packing those venues are the ones citing inflation to justify the prices they raise that exacerbate inflation, while blaming government spending targeted to help folks like you. I've worked temporary labor for pennies, beside folks who went home to sleep in their cars in the parking lot. You need not instruct me on human suffering. I consider myself lucky to not be in such a circumstance as yours or theirs, and I'm not your political opponent in depriving "the mooches" of the entertainments by making them pay their damn taxes, that they'll ultimately pass on to you and me like having us pay their taxes for them - effectively double taxing us - as a legitimate way to prosper and give themselves pay raises and tickets to the goddam ball games.
It’s the continuous “good for we but not for thee” syndrome of all politicians; public servants, or so they say, on the stump, but now the elected elite who ignore the minions they rule.
I don’t resent people for spending their money. I resent our law makers that have for decades reduced taxes on corporations and the rich. I urge you to write your representatives in Congress and demand that they pass progressive taxes, and higher taxes on corporations. Demand that Citizens united is reversed and get billionaires money out of politics. We are only as god as our laws and it is the people that can demand better laws. Demand the ERA is entered into our constitution, demand that they protect voting rights and prosecute anyone involved in sedition. No one involved should be allowed to be in or run for office. Continue to fight for what brings about more equality and equity for all.
Those "living pod" houses (sometimes called "tiny houses") can be reliably sourced for less than one-tenth that cost... so maybe it's not all so bad (the spike in interest rates is probably worse)...
Thanks for the info. I actually approve of the concept, if not the price tag I heard about. I'd say $100K would approach reasonable. After all, it's a glorified shipping container tacked out with solar power, recycled sewage, and a cistern water supply. It still requires fuel-oil to maintain the solar system, and the chemical reagents to maintain the recycling. That's a continuing maintenance cost. You'd still need a very healthy income to own and live in one, although >I'd< consider that option if I could afford it.
https://ternercenter.berkeley.edu/research-and-policy/reaching-californias-adu-potential-progress-to-date-and-the-need-for-adu-finance/
(Study shows it has potential in urban places - like Berkeley... but the cost estimate is high & the financing available is limited; let's keep an eye on it!)
Thanks!
DZK ; A place to park it is needed too.
The selling point is that you can park such a unit >anywhere.< An ordinary mobile home needs a facility that provides sewer & water hook-ups at very least. These units are completely self-contained, and recycle >everything<, while gathering and filtering rain water. They effectively have zero impact on the environment, and need no provision other than the location upon which they sit - including electric power.
Not under most “democracy-minded city and municipality ordinances. “They” don’t want any semblance of lesser value blight in their beautiful views.
That's the selling point. You don't >have< to live in cities. That's why people would buy them. Anywhere means anywhere.
Cool!
Definitely a "hot topic" of innovation - especially in The Bay Area (because of large numbers of homeless people & difficulty in the supply of affordable housing); probably a tough sell for families - but seems like it would be great fun for singles & couples...
(Other factors - like less single-family zoning - will probably make a bigger difference for homelessness... but who knows!)
Oh, I think it would be workable for families. Think "modular." That's old tech, and could easily be accounted for in designing the primary unit at the outset. You could provide several "add-on" room options, including toilets, etc.