Monday, October 10, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
Krugman: Obama gives away the store
Um, what he said.
Not that the Dems have given us much reason to care if they win lately ... like in the last, oh, 30 years. At least. (Even then, in the South, well ... ) [OK, maybe never. Sorry, Krugman.]
But in a way in the last few years the Donkeys've seized almost every last parcel of previously Elephant territory now. (... the GOP having mostly vacated their old political home, not to mention their original one around the American Civil War period, for their new home in Outer Space.) And, yeah, it looks like this Democrats-to-the-right rebound just keeps happening.
Oops, I forgot: we elected these clowns. Well, sort of. Funny how many people I run into, and how many people that people I know run into, in kitchens and on docks and at the gas station and the grocery store and bus stop, everywhere really, who come up with the same idea: throw 'em all out and start over.
Of course, we'd have to be ready and organized or we'd just get the same Shinola, different day. Hm. Maybe could start getting that way now.
Not that the Dems have given us much reason to care if they win lately ... like in the last, oh, 30 years. At least. (Even then, in the South, well ... ) [OK, maybe never. Sorry, Krugman.]
But in a way in the last few years the Donkeys've seized almost every last parcel of previously Elephant territory now. (... the GOP having mostly vacated their old political home, not to mention their original one around the American Civil War period, for their new home in Outer Space.) And, yeah, it looks like this Democrats-to-the-right rebound just keeps happening.
Oops, I forgot: we elected these clowns. Well, sort of. Funny how many people I run into, and how many people that people I know run into, in kitchens and on docks and at the gas station and the grocery store and bus stop, everywhere really, who come up with the same idea: throw 'em all out and start over.
Of course, we'd have to be ready and organized or we'd just get the same Shinola, different day. Hm. Maybe could start getting that way now.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Satan sandwiches over a barrel
So, let me get this straight -- Obama gives away half the store, and still loses the AAA rating?
IMF protesters used to get at least honorable mention in the small presses on the problem with "Third World debt". No matter what we learned in high school about democracy of the marketplace, and so on, Haitian slaves and others who overthrew their European overlords found themselves unable to buy goods they needed, not for lack of money, but because most traders simply wouldn't sell to them, or demanded punitive prices ... and because former colonial governments insisted that the newly freed peoples should pay the debts of (you guessed it) the former colonial governments, international loan sharks made up phony debts or jacked up interest rates specially for the liberees. You might call it a conspiracy, or just co-piracy, but either way these folks suddenly didn't care so much about supply and demand, and sellers and buyers in an open marketplace: they just wanted to stick it to the little guy.
Sound familiar? It should. The US economy is being held hostage, and the coolest thing about negotiating with hostage-takers is, paying them often fuels the fire. We talk about investors, bankers, capital gains recipients -- it amounts to one thing: the rich. For 40 years the rich have been demanding, and getting, deeper and deeper tax cuts. That has not been enough. Union busting has run rampant. Private sector unions have dropped to less than 10 percent of the workforce, which means they have little effect any more on anyone's wages outside their own membership. Bad. For everybody, union or no. Cuts to social services (what the government does for the poor and working people) soon followed. The rich and their own politicians thinly justify the cuts based on reduced revenues and increased debt (which of course is a result a result of the tax cuts, etc.), and then these reductions impact working people's ability to spend an pay taxes, and so on, and so on, and so on.
They have us over a barrel. I would argue it's not necessary or permanent, but there it is. They crash, we bail them out. We crash, they say sorry but we'll have to raise our interest rates because you cats aren't buying enough of our (friends') garbage. So we have a phony debt crisis. And we bargain. Obama seems to have no desire to fight, at least not for us. And we lose big, with no tax increases, etc., from the other side. Whew, crisis averted, right? Wrong. They are just getting started with this little shakedown. And if we have any sense at all, we will have just begun to fight it.
IMF protesters used to get at least honorable mention in the small presses on the problem with "Third World debt". No matter what we learned in high school about democracy of the marketplace, and so on, Haitian slaves and others who overthrew their European overlords found themselves unable to buy goods they needed, not for lack of money, but because most traders simply wouldn't sell to them, or demanded punitive prices ... and because former colonial governments insisted that the newly freed peoples should pay the debts of (you guessed it) the former colonial governments, international loan sharks made up phony debts or jacked up interest rates specially for the liberees. You might call it a conspiracy, or just co-piracy, but either way these folks suddenly didn't care so much about supply and demand, and sellers and buyers in an open marketplace: they just wanted to stick it to the little guy.
Sound familiar? It should. The US economy is being held hostage, and the coolest thing about negotiating with hostage-takers is, paying them often fuels the fire. We talk about investors, bankers, capital gains recipients -- it amounts to one thing: the rich. For 40 years the rich have been demanding, and getting, deeper and deeper tax cuts. That has not been enough. Union busting has run rampant. Private sector unions have dropped to less than 10 percent of the workforce, which means they have little effect any more on anyone's wages outside their own membership. Bad. For everybody, union or no. Cuts to social services (what the government does for the poor and working people) soon followed. The rich and their own politicians thinly justify the cuts based on reduced revenues and increased debt (which of course is a result a result of the tax cuts, etc.), and then these reductions impact working people's ability to spend an pay taxes, and so on, and so on, and so on.
They have us over a barrel. I would argue it's not necessary or permanent, but there it is. They crash, we bail them out. We crash, they say sorry but we'll have to raise our interest rates because you cats aren't buying enough of our (friends') garbage. So we have a phony debt crisis. And we bargain. Obama seems to have no desire to fight, at least not for us. And we lose big, with no tax increases, etc., from the other side. Whew, crisis averted, right? Wrong. They are just getting started with this little shakedown. And if we have any sense at all, we will have just begun to fight it.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
SEIU stands up at UI
I may have mentioned before how proud I am to have worked for ACORN. I am also proud to work for SEIU once again, this time for ass-kicking Local 73 in Illinois and Indiana.
Recently I had the honor of working with approximately 750 building service and food service workers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who were fighting back against an Administration that has been crying broke and at the same time handing out fat, juicy raises to top administrators and coaches, raising tuition every year, raising student fees, and dropping millions on pet projects. (Did they think we wouldn't notice?)
But we did, we stuck together, we fought back, and we won!
We didn't get everything we wanted. In fact, the raises we got will most likely not even keep up with inflation. But the University tried to scare us into accepting a pay freeze by threatening cuts. They threatened random drug tests, cutting out seniority provisions that allowed some workers to put in for vacant positions in their departments, and instituted numerous unilateral changes while refusing -- illegally -- to negotiate. The union had to file three Unfair Labor Practice charges against the University, and was set to file another by the end.
At the beginning, workers expected little. The recession and State budget "crunch" (created in part by an abject failure to tax the wealthiest Illinoisans, and in part by the recession) combined to lay a wet blanket over their hopes to keep up with inflation and their anger at being given the big shaft for two years previous (0% the last year of the last contract).
But the workers surprised themselves and all observers (including me) and rejected the "Zero Contract" in large numbers.
They had seen a UI President and Chancellor resign in scandal and still continue to earn $300,000 and $250,000, respectively, at UI. They had seen consultants paid over $1 million to teach University administrators "planning to plan." (What, after all, were the administrators' job qualifications in the first place?) And they had seen the University hire a new president at 37.5% more than the previous president pulled down -- not counting his annually increasing $45,000 bonus, the house provide by the UI, the condo the UI bought him in Chicago, the car, the driver, and an executive assistant raking in over 81% more than the previous president's assistant... not to mention a 9.5% tuition hike in the summer of 2010, and various increases in student fees and costs. (UI later raised tuition another 6.9%.)
At the same time, 3000 SEIU members at the University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC) had been fighting for a contract for over a year. A threatened strike had been averted in August, and the little birds were saying UIC workers were finally getting some movement toward some kind of raises. They did. In November 2010, UIC members of SEIU approved a contract including significant raises.
SEIU members in Urbana-Champaign immediately began requesting mediation to settle their contract after rejecting the "Zero Contract." The University refused for two months.
By the time they finally agreed, the workers were thoroughly fed up and had voted to strike if the bargaining team called them out. During mediation, the workers only grew angrier as the University stalled, lied, and finally offered chickenfeed. We picketed every negotiation session from December right through the winter months into April -- "in the wind, in the rain, in the heat, in the cold," we chanted ("What do you want? A contract... became ... "What do you want? To strike!") And in the end, the University realized we were not bluffing.
Management began handing out propaganda to the workers, which only pissed them off more. They started to threaten the workers, which just fueled the fire. In the last few days they started bringing in fruit and vegetables already chopped up, preparing for the strike, which let the workers know the boss was running scared. The last two days, Management literally doubled their offer. That's the money. And they gave ground on important non-monetary issues. So we took a vote.
Debate was hot, and after the first day of voting I went to bed knowing that in 24 hours my friends were walking off the job. The second day, folks seemed a little cooler. And in the end, union members voted yes -- not by a lot, but by enough. The strike was off. It was disappointing in a way, all the build up and anger, pretty anticlimactic. But my friends at UIUC stood their ground, they did what nobody thought they could do, words can't express the heroism I saw out there in the snow, the sweltering heat, and in the meeting rooms. Oh, yes, they won.
Note (8/12/11): Money isn't everything, but it helps. In the space of two months, once the dust settled and the contract was signed and everything in place, building service and food service workers at UIUC added 4% to their previous pay (with 1% back pay to last July) -- in the midst of recessions and budget crises at every level of government, and triple-dip unemployment -- more than anybody else in the University system or in the area. They earned it. My hat's off to 'em.
Recently I had the honor of working with approximately 750 building service and food service workers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who were fighting back against an Administration that has been crying broke and at the same time handing out fat, juicy raises to top administrators and coaches, raising tuition every year, raising student fees, and dropping millions on pet projects. (Did they think we wouldn't notice?)
But we did, we stuck together, we fought back, and we won!
We didn't get everything we wanted. In fact, the raises we got will most likely not even keep up with inflation. But the University tried to scare us into accepting a pay freeze by threatening cuts. They threatened random drug tests, cutting out seniority provisions that allowed some workers to put in for vacant positions in their departments, and instituted numerous unilateral changes while refusing -- illegally -- to negotiate. The union had to file three Unfair Labor Practice charges against the University, and was set to file another by the end.
At the beginning, workers expected little. The recession and State budget "crunch" (created in part by an abject failure to tax the wealthiest Illinoisans, and in part by the recession) combined to lay a wet blanket over their hopes to keep up with inflation and their anger at being given the big shaft for two years previous (0% the last year of the last contract).
But the workers surprised themselves and all observers (including me) and rejected the "Zero Contract" in large numbers.
They had seen a UI President and Chancellor resign in scandal and still continue to earn $300,000 and $250,000, respectively, at UI. They had seen consultants paid over $1 million to teach University administrators "planning to plan." (What, after all, were the administrators' job qualifications in the first place?) And they had seen the University hire a new president at 37.5% more than the previous president pulled down -- not counting his annually increasing $45,000 bonus, the house provide by the UI, the condo the UI bought him in Chicago, the car, the driver, and an executive assistant raking in over 81% more than the previous president's assistant... not to mention a 9.5% tuition hike in the summer of 2010, and various increases in student fees and costs. (UI later raised tuition another 6.9%.)
At the same time, 3000 SEIU members at the University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC) had been fighting for a contract for over a year. A threatened strike had been averted in August, and the little birds were saying UIC workers were finally getting some movement toward some kind of raises. They did. In November 2010, UIC members of SEIU approved a contract including significant raises.
SEIU members in Urbana-Champaign immediately began requesting mediation to settle their contract after rejecting the "Zero Contract." The University refused for two months.
By the time they finally agreed, the workers were thoroughly fed up and had voted to strike if the bargaining team called them out. During mediation, the workers only grew angrier as the University stalled, lied, and finally offered chickenfeed. We picketed every negotiation session from December right through the winter months into April -- "in the wind, in the rain, in the heat, in the cold," we chanted ("What do you want? A contract... became ... "What do you want? To strike!") And in the end, the University realized we were not bluffing.
Management began handing out propaganda to the workers, which only pissed them off more. They started to threaten the workers, which just fueled the fire. In the last few days they started bringing in fruit and vegetables already chopped up, preparing for the strike, which let the workers know the boss was running scared. The last two days, Management literally doubled their offer. That's the money. And they gave ground on important non-monetary issues. So we took a vote.
Debate was hot, and after the first day of voting I went to bed knowing that in 24 hours my friends were walking off the job. The second day, folks seemed a little cooler. And in the end, union members voted yes -- not by a lot, but by enough. The strike was off. It was disappointing in a way, all the build up and anger, pretty anticlimactic. But my friends at UIUC stood their ground, they did what nobody thought they could do, words can't express the heroism I saw out there in the snow, the sweltering heat, and in the meeting rooms. Oh, yes, they won.
Note (8/12/11): Money isn't everything, but it helps. In the space of two months, once the dust settled and the contract was signed and everything in place, building service and food service workers at UIUC added 4% to their previous pay (with 1% back pay to last July) -- in the midst of recessions and budget crises at every level of government, and triple-dip unemployment -- more than anybody else in the University system or in the area. They earned it. My hat's off to 'em.
Friday, March 18, 2011
BP lessons for Japanese horror
A lot of disasters these days. Shouldn't be an excuse to forget that the consequences of earlier disasters are ongoing -- like BP. Just the opposite. There are lessons for our ongoing disasters from the past, though I know that is a potentially disturbing thought in our nation of goldfish.
Rachel Maddow is right about what Obama should have done (on a long list of things he should have done!), but there is still something we should do, too.
BP should cease to exist. Shut down. The consequences of its activity and inactivity should not be underestimated, and their responsibility should be made clear to everyone who is in that business. People died. The Mississippi Gulf Coast, not even close to recovered from Hurricane Katrina, is devastated economically, biologically, psychologically, and so on. The goal should be fear. Abject fear for anybody in the business of offshore drilling -- or really any other business as potentially deadly as BP -- in case they might even consider cutting corners on safety, lobbying for deregulation, or playing fast and loose with people's lives for profit in any way.
There is only one way to ensure that goal: shut down BP. Don't buy anything BP or BP-affiliated. Don't let their lobbyists in the door. Fine them. Fine them again. And then fine them some more. Then make the liable for all damages and cleanup. Sink them. Completely. Wipe them from the face of the earth.
Then take a hard look at nuclear power plants. And mines. And let's take a look at that list of deadly industries ... make them think a lot more than twice...
Rachel Maddow is right about what Obama should have done (on a long list of things he should have done!), but there is still something we should do, too.
BP should cease to exist. Shut down. The consequences of its activity and inactivity should not be underestimated, and their responsibility should be made clear to everyone who is in that business. People died. The Mississippi Gulf Coast, not even close to recovered from Hurricane Katrina, is devastated economically, biologically, psychologically, and so on. The goal should be fear. Abject fear for anybody in the business of offshore drilling -- or really any other business as potentially deadly as BP -- in case they might even consider cutting corners on safety, lobbying for deregulation, or playing fast and loose with people's lives for profit in any way.
There is only one way to ensure that goal: shut down BP. Don't buy anything BP or BP-affiliated. Don't let their lobbyists in the door. Fine them. Fine them again. And then fine them some more. Then make the liable for all damages and cleanup. Sink them. Completely. Wipe them from the face of the earth.
Then take a hard look at nuclear power plants. And mines. And let's take a look at that list of deadly industries ... make them think a lot more than twice...
Friday, February 25, 2011
Wisconsin, Indiana union-busting
Somebody said to me recently, "the Democrats are at their best when they are not there." Actually, I think that's a little harsh, but there is an important point there. Workers in this country have only rarely been able to count on politicians of any political stripe to back us up, much less pitch in with improvements.
Most often we have to fight like hell just to not get robbed, for example in the state sector when workers' contributions to their own pensions are used -- we should say "stolen" -- to pay the employer's other bills. (Somehow this little tidbit gets lost when the public debate begins over public employee pensions, along with the "pension holidays" we get in Illinois for example when the employer doesn't have to pay its obligations: maybe because so many in office are guilty of this legal racketeering?)
Democrats are often as guilty as Republicans on that score, sometimes moreso.
But these legislators who have fled their states to deny quorum to these reprehensible anti-worker bills are very close to heroes at the moment, , like a kind of more creative Mr.-Smith-goes-to-Washington-type-filibuster. See them as a suit-and-tie 300 in the pass at Thermopylae, if you like. (I actually think of the workers in Wisconsin more that way.) But these legislators are not avoiding their responsibilities, which are after all not to the governor and his nutcase agenda, or to some misbegotten sense of decorum, but to the people.
Don't let anyone tell you they are avoiding anything. They are doing the only responsible thing.
Most often we have to fight like hell just to not get robbed, for example in the state sector when workers' contributions to their own pensions are used -- we should say "stolen" -- to pay the employer's other bills. (Somehow this little tidbit gets lost when the public debate begins over public employee pensions, along with the "pension holidays" we get in Illinois for example when the employer doesn't have to pay its obligations: maybe because so many in office are guilty of this legal racketeering?)
Democrats are often as guilty as Republicans on that score, sometimes moreso.
But these legislators who have fled their states to deny quorum to these reprehensible anti-worker bills are very close to heroes at the moment, , like a kind of more creative Mr.-Smith-goes-to-Washington-type-filibuster. See them as a suit-and-tie 300 in the pass at Thermopylae, if you like. (I actually think of the workers in Wisconsin more that way.) But these legislators are not avoiding their responsibilities, which are after all not to the governor and his nutcase agenda, or to some misbegotten sense of decorum, but to the people.
Don't let anyone tell you they are avoiding anything. They are doing the only responsible thing.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Jobs AND Justice
Hitting the nail on the head as usual, Jobs with Justice and allies are demanding -- whaaat? -- jobs?? publicly funded? in the middle of a recession? a "Great Recession"?!?
But aren't we all lucky hold on to what we have without some Big Brother World Government Belgian Queen Elizabeth-Osama bin Laden Jr. Great Satan stepping in and taking away all our tea and freedoms, especially our filthy rich brothers and sisters, who are sitting on a mountain of cash and won't give us a job at the moment, but if we just give them a few more tax breaks they might?
In other words, you my innocent friend may ask, don't taxes take money out of the economy?
The only rational response when you hear this (all over the fracking place) is: WRONG!
(Actually it should be "Wrong, YOU DIPSTICK!") In fact what is taking money out of the economy is giving it to the rich! They aren't investing it. They're hoarding it! (See above.)
OK, carefully, now, carefully: Taxes on the rich, especially on money they are stashing away or blowing on the markets, and using that money to create jobs for working class folks who will certainly spend it, probably locally, is ... what? Taking money out of the economy? Or putting it back in? Hmmm... tough one, eh?
But aren't we all lucky hold on to what we have without some Big Brother World Government Belgian Queen Elizabeth-Osama bin Laden Jr. Great Satan stepping in and taking away all our tea and freedoms, especially our filthy rich brothers and sisters, who are sitting on a mountain of cash and won't give us a job at the moment, but if we just give them a few more tax breaks they might?
In other words, you my innocent friend may ask, don't taxes take money out of the economy?
The only rational response when you hear this (all over the fracking place) is: WRONG!
(Actually it should be "Wrong, YOU DIPSTICK!") In fact what is taking money out of the economy is giving it to the rich! They aren't investing it. They're hoarding it! (See above.)
OK, carefully, now, carefully: Taxes on the rich, especially on money they are stashing away or blowing on the markets, and using that money to create jobs for working class folks who will certainly spend it, probably locally, is ... what? Taking money out of the economy? Or putting it back in? Hmmm... tough one, eh?
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
More Uses for Poverty
"The number of people in the US who are in poverty is on track for a record increase on President Barack Obama's watch, with ranks of working poor approaching 1960's levels that led to the national war on poverty," says an AP story on recent census figures. And considering all the low-income paranoids I know (and maybe you know) who dodge the census while their coworkers land stopgap gigs walking for the Census Bureau, not to mention how hard it always is to count the very people who need counting the most, we can safely assume that like most dire government statistics, these are optimistic.
You might think that news like this would automatically wind up as fuel for a fire to shake up our economic structure beyond ankle-deep. That is, you might think that if you hadn't been paying attention for, I don't know, your whole life.
The story earns play in conservative outlets, like my local rag, most likely because it reflects badly on the -er- "socialist" Administration, which of course is anything but. (Witness: Summers, Geithner, etc.)
But in fact, news like this - and the reality behind it - has much more insidious uses. Job losses, poverty or other economic instability drive down wages through competition, for one thing, and often lead to a chill on workers' rabble-rousing. If nothing else, bosses use it to gain leverage against their workers' demands, knowing how much of the public will - perhaps with a little hint - see workers demands in hard times. It's disaster capitalism by the book.
This goes double for public employees, easy targets for teabagger and other frustrated taxpayer anger. In my immediate vicinity here in Central Illinois alone, a recent teachers' strike in the little white-flight town of Mahomet drew a number of hateful comments in the local paper from readers citing the recession, a la 'you should be glad you have a job.' The fact that the school district had millions on hand had no observable effect on letter writers.
An ongoing teacher's strike in nearby Danville is another case of a local economy in shambles, a school district with surpluses and reserves, and a pay freeze on the table for teachers on the front lines of social breakdown.
Then there's the $4 billion University of Illinois, with record fundrising, over a billion in its UI Foundation coffers, and a new president reeling in a big fat raise of 37.5% over his predecessor and an executive assistant getting an additional 81%. The previous president is still earning $300,000 a year and the Urbana campus Chancellor another $250,000 after being forced to resign in a "clout" scandal involving admissions for rich kids. But when it comes to workers' demands or parents or students' desires not to see tuition raise, the University has "lint in [its] pockets."
A strike of 3000 union members on the Chicago looms, as the UI offers pay freezes, cuts and wails of poverty at the bargaining table with unions on both major campuses. After all, there's a much-touted IOU from the State. The fact that the UI is looking forward to a growing budget once again is also somehow a non-issue.
Even aside from the lies, however, paycuts and layoffs are exactly the opposite of the appropriate strategy during a recession like this especially for public employers. The employees who spend their money and pay their taxes are the anchor of the economy, as Keynes realized, even if you're not a commie, as Keynes certainly wasn't. Massive growth in public expenditures, employment, and public wages and benefits, could be the ticket out of this.
Trouble is, the "Great Recession," much like the Great Depression 75 years before, holds such promise for the decision-makers, they may not exactly want out.
You might think that news like this would automatically wind up as fuel for a fire to shake up our economic structure beyond ankle-deep. That is, you might think that if you hadn't been paying attention for, I don't know, your whole life.
The story earns play in conservative outlets, like my local rag, most likely because it reflects badly on the -er- "socialist" Administration, which of course is anything but. (Witness: Summers, Geithner, etc.)
But in fact, news like this - and the reality behind it - has much more insidious uses. Job losses, poverty or other economic instability drive down wages through competition, for one thing, and often lead to a chill on workers' rabble-rousing. If nothing else, bosses use it to gain leverage against their workers' demands, knowing how much of the public will - perhaps with a little hint - see workers demands in hard times. It's disaster capitalism by the book.
This goes double for public employees, easy targets for teabagger and other frustrated taxpayer anger. In my immediate vicinity here in Central Illinois alone, a recent teachers' strike in the little white-flight town of Mahomet drew a number of hateful comments in the local paper from readers citing the recession, a la 'you should be glad you have a job.' The fact that the school district had millions on hand had no observable effect on letter writers.
An ongoing teacher's strike in nearby Danville is another case of a local economy in shambles, a school district with surpluses and reserves, and a pay freeze on the table for teachers on the front lines of social breakdown.
Then there's the $4 billion University of Illinois, with record fundrising, over a billion in its UI Foundation coffers, and a new president reeling in a big fat raise of 37.5% over his predecessor and an executive assistant getting an additional 81%. The previous president is still earning $300,000 a year and the Urbana campus Chancellor another $250,000 after being forced to resign in a "clout" scandal involving admissions for rich kids. But when it comes to workers' demands or parents or students' desires not to see tuition raise, the University has "lint in [its] pockets."
A strike of 3000 union members on the Chicago looms, as the UI offers pay freezes, cuts and wails of poverty at the bargaining table with unions on both major campuses. After all, there's a much-touted IOU from the State. The fact that the UI is looking forward to a growing budget once again is also somehow a non-issue.
Even aside from the lies, however, paycuts and layoffs are exactly the opposite of the appropriate strategy during a recession like this especially for public employers. The employees who spend their money and pay their taxes are the anchor of the economy, as Keynes realized, even if you're not a commie, as Keynes certainly wasn't. Massive growth in public expenditures, employment, and public wages and benefits, could be the ticket out of this.
Trouble is, the "Great Recession," much like the Great Depression 75 years before, holds such promise for the decision-makers, they may not exactly want out.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Ending the Great Recession
Robert Reich is usually on the right track, and he is again: wage or wealth inequality is clearly the festering sore at ground zero of the current Great Recession. And taking costs off the other end of the see-saw, through earned income tax credit or health insurance reform or free education, clearly help workers. (... when the health reform is fixed.) Splitting the difference when workers are forced to shift down a pay grade would help, too.
Not sure why Reich omits the speculation tax (see also this), but on another point maybe he's joining the trigger happy crowd ready to declare the Employee Free Choice Act* dead and that's too bad. Long term, as Reich knows, there will be no economic recovery without strengthening workers' rights -- and the most important right is the right to organize, which we no longer fully have. The Employee Free Choice Act is going to have to come back, and keep coming back.
Of course that's true of worker control, and sindicalism, social revolution, and so on, but there are also specific short-term reforms that need to stay in the sunshine. Of course we always have to remember to say out loud that single-payer healthcare is a necessary but not sufficient condition for social & economic justice, and so on.
The bottom line is, the rich have to be relieved of some of the spoils they've managed to accrue by hook and by crook over generations. Wealth taxes. Speculation taxes. Progressive income taxes. Industrial nationalization. We can debate and argue over which is best -- and we should -- but without one or more of these taking a big bite out of the mountain of loot the rich are sitting on, the working class will never solve any of our deep-seated economic problems.
They've been robbing us of land, wages, taxes, and on and on, and it's time they made some restitution.
But we have to remember that that's not the end. The "Peace Dividend" if nothing else proved that freeing up the money does not guarantee that we get it, by any stretch of the imagination. Part of the package has to always be spending the money on our priorities: health, education, welfare, rights at work. Their priorities get plenty of play.
[*This article gives Emanuel and the White House too much credit. In fact, just after Obama became "President-Elect" Emanuel was already signaling deep doubts in answer reporters' questions about the incoming Administration's presumed support for EFCA - despite what other aides said later. In fact, Emanuel laughed off EFCA questions, implying that the question was loaded, as if support were already thin ice. My reading of the tea leaves is this Administration never intended to help EFCA in any way, shape or form. Shame on them.]
Not sure why Reich omits the speculation tax (see also this), but on another point maybe he's joining the trigger happy crowd ready to declare the Employee Free Choice Act* dead and that's too bad. Long term, as Reich knows, there will be no economic recovery without strengthening workers' rights -- and the most important right is the right to organize, which we no longer fully have. The Employee Free Choice Act is going to have to come back, and keep coming back.
Of course that's true of worker control, and sindicalism, social revolution, and so on, but there are also specific short-term reforms that need to stay in the sunshine. Of course we always have to remember to say out loud that single-payer healthcare is a necessary but not sufficient condition for social & economic justice, and so on.
The bottom line is, the rich have to be relieved of some of the spoils they've managed to accrue by hook and by crook over generations. Wealth taxes. Speculation taxes. Progressive income taxes. Industrial nationalization. We can debate and argue over which is best -- and we should -- but without one or more of these taking a big bite out of the mountain of loot the rich are sitting on, the working class will never solve any of our deep-seated economic problems.
They've been robbing us of land, wages, taxes, and on and on, and it's time they made some restitution.
But we have to remember that that's not the end. The "Peace Dividend" if nothing else proved that freeing up the money does not guarantee that we get it, by any stretch of the imagination. Part of the package has to always be spending the money on our priorities: health, education, welfare, rights at work. Their priorities get plenty of play.
[*This article gives Emanuel and the White House too much credit. In fact, just after Obama became "President-Elect" Emanuel was already signaling deep doubts in answer reporters' questions about the incoming Administration's presumed support for EFCA - despite what other aides said later. In fact, Emanuel laughed off EFCA questions, implying that the question was loaded, as if support were already thin ice. My reading of the tea leaves is this Administration never intended to help EFCA in any way, shape or form. Shame on them.]
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Every indicator
More bad news: foreclosures, unemployment, you name it.
It's starting to stack up on us. Earlier layers include the big news - recession since 2008 - and the barely made the news - real income spiral-down over the last few decades.
Back to that recession thing, and Rasmus, he points out: this recession is impressively worse by every economic indicator than every preceding recession this century - but not at depression -- yet.
Until now, recession meant GDP declined 2-4 percent for a couple quarters. This time it's 5-15%. Depressions have been much worse, but we could get there.
Until now, recession meant 10 percent unemployment or less. This time we hit 17%, including a million job losses per month from Nov. 08 to May 09. It's complicated by the fact that the government keeps changing how it calculates unemployment, but controlling for that, it seems clear that we are looking at much worse unemployment now than previous recessions. Depressions have been over 20%. And as public employers continue slashing deep, we could move that way.
Industrial production, exports, and stock markets, all worse than previous recessions. But not hitting levels we had in depressions -- yet. If you want a jolt, read this book.
It's starting to stack up on us. Earlier layers include the big news - recession since 2008 - and the barely made the news - real income spiral-down over the last few decades.
Back to that recession thing, and Rasmus, he points out: this recession is impressively worse by every economic indicator than every preceding recession this century - but not at depression -- yet.
Until now, recession meant GDP declined 2-4 percent for a couple quarters. This time it's 5-15%. Depressions have been much worse, but we could get there.
Until now, recession meant 10 percent unemployment or less. This time we hit 17%, including a million job losses per month from Nov. 08 to May 09. It's complicated by the fact that the government keeps changing how it calculates unemployment, but controlling for that, it seems clear that we are looking at much worse unemployment now than previous recessions. Depressions have been over 20%. And as public employers continue slashing deep, we could move that way.
Industrial production, exports, and stock markets, all worse than previous recessions. But not hitting levels we had in depressions -- yet. If you want a jolt, read this book.
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