Anybody having trouble posting comment here? I have not been able to post one comment this week or last on open thread — but I posted two others on open thread and elsewhere. Maybe because it has two links. ??? I am only posting this because I notice nobody else has posted here either since yesterday. ???
I finally came up with a justification — in at least one segment of the labor market — to switch in the words “Great Wage Depression” and switch out the wan, antiseptic word “inequality.”
Much unemployment is due to Americans now willing to work for badly substandard wages — especially for a minimum wage that is $3.25/hr below LBJ’s 1968 minimum — double the per capita income or productivity later!
Which super low minimum wage results in 100,000 out of 200,000 — half! — of Chicago’s gang age minority males *working* for drug dealing street gangs (also results in schools not working because students wont make the effort when nothing reasonable is waiting for them in the labor market).
[Gang Wars at the Root of Chicago’s High Murder CBS — no link]
Progressive economists should research just how many Americans are unemployed because of super-low pay — especially not for a minimum wage that would have to be *tripled* to catch up with a doubling of productivity over the last 45 years.
[Elizabeth Warren: Minimum Wage Would Be $22 An Hour If It Had Kept Up With Productivity — Huffington Post — no link]
“inequality” is a poor choice of word to base a political campaign on.
most people understand that inequality is a basic fact of life. They might want to be “more equal” to the rich. But they don’t want the poor to be more equal to them.
There are very serious problems with the growing concentration of wealth in the very-rich, criminal, class. But that problem is not “inequality” It is corruption, which enables the very rich criminals to write the laws by which they become even richer … without breaking the laws they wrote for themselves.
Serious poverty is also a problem, but one that is not addressed by calling for “equality.” Or even open ended welfare without a serious plan to solve the poverty problem by giving even “the least of these” a good chance to live a real human life.
coberly,
I don’t like “inequality” because it is such a weak word — in my growing up years if meant a minority set upon by a majority. But now it if is supposed to cover the great majority getting greatly done in by the minority — more like South Africa — but doesn’t sound drastic enough at all.
No sense jabbering about the concentration of wealth if we can’t do anything about it. The only way back is re-unionization so, not only will the average person have the organized finance and voting power to hold their own — but just as important — we will have the organization to actually keep up with all the different crooks trying to loot us; somebody will actually be minding the store and know what is going wrong as it is going wrong.
test
Anybody having trouble posting comment here? I have not been able to post one comment this week or last on open thread — but I posted two others on open thread and elsewhere. Maybe because it has two links. ??? I am only posting this because I notice nobody else has posted here either since yesterday. ???
denis, i havent had trouble posting, even with multiple links, but wordpress is a bit weird about links, and some may get hung up in moderation..
Rjs,
Thanks; I’ll try something else — the old <a href= — don't know if you've ever heard of it.
didn’t work — try it w/o links
I finally came up with a justification — in at least one segment of the labor market — to switch in the words “Great Wage Depression” and switch out the wan, antiseptic word “inequality.”
Much unemployment is due to Americans now willing to work for badly substandard wages — especially for a minimum wage that is $3.25/hr below LBJ’s 1968 minimum — double the per capita income or productivity later!
Which super low minimum wage results in 100,000 out of 200,000 — half! — of Chicago’s gang age minority males *working* for drug dealing street gangs (also results in schools not working because students wont make the effort when nothing reasonable is waiting for them in the labor market).
[Gang Wars at the Root of Chicago’s High Murder CBS — no link]
Progressive economists should research just how many Americans are unemployed because of super-low pay — especially not for a minimum wage that would have to be *tripled* to catch up with a doubling of productivity over the last 45 years.
[Elizabeth Warren: Minimum Wage Would Be $22 An Hour If It Had Kept Up With Productivity — Huffington Post — no link]
Denis
“inequality” is a poor choice of word to base a political campaign on.
most people understand that inequality is a basic fact of life. They might want to be “more equal” to the rich. But they don’t want the poor to be more equal to them.
There are very serious problems with the growing concentration of wealth in the very-rich, criminal, class. But that problem is not “inequality” It is corruption, which enables the very rich criminals to write the laws by which they become even richer … without breaking the laws they wrote for themselves.
Serious poverty is also a problem, but one that is not addressed by calling for “equality.” Or even open ended welfare without a serious plan to solve the poverty problem by giving even “the least of these” a good chance to live a real human life.
coberly,
I don’t like “inequality” because it is such a weak word — in my growing up years if meant a minority set upon by a majority. But now it if is supposed to cover the great majority getting greatly done in by the minority — more like South Africa — but doesn’t sound drastic enough at all.
No sense jabbering about the concentration of wealth if we can’t do anything about it. The only way back is re-unionization so, not only will the average person have the organized finance and voting power to hold their own — but just as important — we will have the organization to actually keep up with all the different crooks trying to loot us; somebody will actually be minding the store and know what is going wrong as it is going wrong.
Denis
I agree with you about unionization. there is a biography of walter reuther somewhere that might give you some idea what it takes.
there is a faction of “progressives” out there that keeps calling for “equality.” ordinary workers run screaming from them.