How rich are we?

We always hear the USA is the richest country in the world and the freest, which is why everybody supposedly wants to come here except for the people who hate us because we have something they don't.  Something like that.  A lot of silly arguments ensue, but one interesting point concerns Sweden and environs.

Sweden and its neighbors have free health care and education, strong public assistance, and a growing public sector, kinda the opposite of the USA.  Yet infant mortality in Sweden is about half the rate in the USA.  Life expectancy is higher in Sweden than in the USA.  Whaaaat?

I ran across this vid arguing against the "Scandinavian Myth" of socialism (YIKES!) and higher living standards.  Smart guy (probably one of the smarter proponents of the "free-market" point of view), but as one of the comments points out, he completely overlooks inequality, which is measurable.  Several of the comments echo the point with examples.  Back to that in a minute.

There's a lot of talk these days about (gasp) "SOCIALISM" because of Obama (who is not a socialist) and Obamacare (which is not socialism), but this comparison is really about two different ways of looking at capitalist economies and the people who live in them (see next paragraph).

Another commenter, a sympathizer with Mr. Molyneux, complained of a contradiction: first he says Scandinavians are more free than US citz, then he says they are worse off.  Besides, he doesn't seem to understand that Switzerland is NOT a Scandinavian country.  I'm just sayin'.  I mean, Molyneux does say he's debunking the connection between socialism and higher standards of living, but what he does is first show how un-socialist the Scandinavian countries (plus Switzerland!) are, then tries to show their standards of living are not as high as the USA's.  I think he forgot what he was talking about.

What he actually does is show that in Scandinavian countries, there is a highly active social infrastructure system, but they still have highly active market-based economies.  He tries to show that Sweden's private employment dropped as governments employment rose, but look closely at the chart: at least half the time the declines in private sector employment come first.  So which is driving what?

But the biggest thing I noticed -- back to main point about how rich we are (or aren't) in the USA -- was living standards.  If you look at vague (conservative) measures, like average income, a country like the USA comes out smelling pretty good.  That's because we have a lot of very rich people, rich enough to tip the balance away from the millions of poor people we have.  But figure in the inequality, and you get a very different picture.

So, to sum up, USA: nice people, birthplace of great music, poker, and great pie (pecan, better than apple), but not as free as we think, not as rich as we think, worse for babies, old people, sick people, workers (OK, read my other posts), and we need to change the way we do things.  Boo!  More on the Myth of the Free Market later.

Left opposition to Obamacare

It is partly true that Obamacare is a Republican plan or "Republican-inspired" plan, but that insult -- and I am guilty myself at times -- obscures some very significant differences that are worth noting before we take off advocating, "The best thing that could happen would be a quick and total collapse," -- which is reckless and inhumane, besides being juvenile.

Here's a historical fact: When Massachusetts passed "Romneycare" it was Democrats who dominated the legislature and overrode several Romney vetoes of aspects like the employer mandate to provide insurance.  Romney also advocated that nobody, no matter how poor, should get health care for no cost at all and instead promoted the idea of a small premium for the very poorest, but the Democratic legislature overrode him.  Obamacare includes both a strong employer mandate (with all its problems) and an enormous expansion of Medicaid -- which is much better than Medicare anyway, as people who have been on both (like my mother) can attest.

Low Wages

Why would you not support this?

Good paying jobs with decent benefits and rights have been systematically eliminated in the USA, by union-busting, off-shoring, "free trade," strong dollar policies, you name it.  Unemployment and underemployment, together with the rising cost of the regressively underfunded system of public higher education are keeping huge numbers of today's young people out of both work and school.  In both places they compete against older folks, booted out of their 10-20 year seniority jobs by market corrections and the like.  And when they do find work - ugh! - the wages are low, the disrespect is high, and the grind is lucky-if-daily.

These are the new coal mines.  Cola mines, we might call 'em.

The corrosive effect of this re-proliferation low wage work is concrete.  But liberals miss half the point.  It isn't stupidity that leads to policies favoring this social ill, it's self-interest on the part of the really big bosses.  People accept lower wages and work with greater compliance when they are desperate and ill-fed (I use the word advisedly: people in this country tend to have enough to eat in terms of quantity -- when's the last time  kwashiorkor was a big problem in the US?  Never? -- but the poorer you are the worse is the quality of your sustenance.)

Dick Durbin Lies About Social Security

No kidding, a politician lied.  Who'da thunk it?  Well, this one's a whopper, and it's insidious because it's been around since the late 1970's and many millions of people actually buy the crap.  Since Social Security was first proposed, its detractors have screamed "socialism!"  When that didn't fly, they started saying the idea would never work.  Here's the problem with that: it works.  

Service Employees strike

Sorry for the long delay, anybody who was watching, but I was a little tied up with a MASSIVELY SUCCESSFUL STRIKE at the University of Illinois!  After months of seemingly endless negotiations and picketing, almost 800 food service and building service employees (including maids, linen maids, and the folks who deliver campus mail) walked off the job at midnight March 11, 2013, and set up 24-hour pickets all over campus!

Defend the Bank of AMERICA

Those New York liberals!  Suing the bank of America!  It's the Bank - of - AM-ER-IC-A ferchrissakes!  What are they trying to do, bring down the whole free enterprise system?  So a bunch of bankers - who just HAPPEN to be filthy rich already - see a scam that's working.  And purchase it fair and square in the free market. 

So they scam is to trick people into bad loans.  So they cheat people.  So-called "POOR" people [eyes rolling, fingers making quote marks].  And then they pawn it off on the federal government.  So WHAT?

It's that what America's ALL ABOUT?

How are honest capitalists supposed to make money (OK, MORE money) if they can't lie, cheat the poor and steal from the taxpayers?

Somebody start a petition!  Before it's too late!  We have to help them!

Votes, Bees & Watermelon

When South Carolina legislator Alan Clemmons saw an email comparing poor and black voters to "bees going after a watermelon" - and answered "Amen!" - he didn't just tell the world how stupid he is.  He didn't just let on that he's a bigot.  He didn't just reinforce all the old stereotypes of racist white Southerners (as if THAT needed any more reinforcing!  More on that later - whew!).  Clemmons also let the cat out of the bag about what these voter ID laws are really all about: keeping poor folks from voting.

Scrooge McDuck Goes to Washington - Again

Have you ever noticed how the ones who are crying the loudest for more money are the same ones who aren't gonna spend it anyway, not because they're scraping by, mind you, but because they're FILTHY RICH?

Eulogy

Alex Cockburn is dead.  Now I can finally subscribe to The Nation.

But will I be sorry when I read it after he's gone?

We need a shorter work week

Ever wonder where little countries like, oh, France ... the USA and most of Europe ... , got the idea that making people work longer before they retire, ... or laying off government employees ... was just what the doctor ordered in a recession, with unemployment riding high?  Wait.  Does that sound 100 percent loose-screw, squirrel-nest nuts to anybody else?