What Gordon — and Krugman — may both be missing out on in the growth slow down scenario is the doubling of medical knowledge every ten years — our fastest expanding industry: evenly spread throughout the nation and creating real high-paying, high-tech jobs.
Formerly always fatal heart failure may now be cured outright or permanently improved in most cases by non-invasively planted a balloon-like cuff around the upper aorta to aid in pumping which seems to give the heart time to heal. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/283566.php
We all know about the discovery of a cure for Hepatitis C which the company unfortunately prices at $100,000 a treatment for 3,000,000 American sufferers (who late research says are 30% more likely to come down with Parkinson’s): only $300 billion! http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/283566.php
The list explodes. The only problem is that as our medical monopolist Rockefellers multiply with the list we are going to have to mortgage everything we own including the Statue of Liberty to pay for the monopolies we have created.
The displaced workers wouldn’t have to move to low paying jobs if the jobs were not so low paying. Sound silly? How about the federal minimum wage (we’ll get to the typical low skill wage) was $440 a week in 1968 when US per capita income was $15,000. Now the federal minimum weekly is $290 while per capita has doubled in the meantime?
Sound impossible? Would have sounded if projected to Americans of 1968. They would have asked: a comet strike, repeated plagues, limited nuclear exchange? What could they possibly have thought: American labor market totally gutted by de-unionization: nobody minding the minimum wage store, or any of the other stores?
$800 a week for normal low-skill jobs (e.g., retail work in stores where labor costs are 10-15%, if not fast food with 33% — Walmart 7%!).
In late 70s, early 80s I used to make $800 a week for 60 hours in NYC or Chicago taxis. Today’s cabbies may make $500 (don’t know) after per capita has grown 50%. Point is, the money is there for the cabbies — but a de-unionized environment leaves them out in the cold.
I should throw in that the combination of immigration and the pay floor for low skilled jobs constantly dropping has “virtually out-sourced” many American jobs: my old job to all parts of the world (Pakistan, Russia, Nigeria) and Chicago fast food seems totally Mexican and Indian employed. Not blaming the immigrants (who are willing to suffer more for less than we “spoiled” Americans).
Jason Furman, Obama’s Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers: “There is little dispute that Wal-Mart’s price reductions have benefited the 120 million American workers employed outside of the retail sector. Plausible estimates of the magnitude of the savings from Wal-Mart are enormous – a total of $263 billion in 2004, or $2,329 per household.”
Mmm. Cut $24 billion off that $263 billion — a couple of hundred a year off their customers — and you could give 1.2 million Walmart workers a $20,000 raise. Can America — not just Walmart; it’s the consumers who ultimately pony up — afford to pay it’s employees.
Supermarket workers had good middle class contracts until Walmart forced two-tier contracts down store throats. Point is the money for $800 is there — it was there in the past for cabbies and clerks.
And don’t forget (listening Gordon and Krugman?) the next high growth/high tech industry that will be evenly spread (more like explode?) across the land with well paying jobs: the medical industry.
What’s needed to take advantage of all this is the decades overdue reform the one market in which one side is able (and willing) to economically muscle the other side into sub-par arrangements …
… the labor market …
… where everything that should be illegal is illegal but there just happens to be no realistic penalties.
Union racketeering bleeds off the benefits of collective bargaining (if bleeding less political muscle). Union busting evaporates it all. But union busting is done by the most respectable people — the pillars of the community, the natural leaders — so that’s supposed to make it okay. It is not.
Only answer to almost every American pressing problem is to make union busting the felony that it long since should have been — backed automatically by RICO so management cannot play at the edges of intimidation without worrying about building an “ongoing” record of violations.
Now is the time of this campaign season when Clinton’s attack machine has no choice but to reveal their true colors. And a blinding display it is. Along with the Krugman takedown , Yves gives some little-known details about other “fauxgressives” like Mike Konczal and Ezra Klein.
If you like your change in microscopic steps , two forward and one back ( and far too often , the reverse ) , then Clinton is your woman , and these are the pundits who’ll hold your hand along the way.
Love Yves. And she is a true friend of this blog. But if I had to put an adjective on her, and one I don’t think she would resent in the slightest?
“Fierce”
Which doesn’t conflict with “fair” or still less “true”. But she doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Or at all even. And is quick to strike.
I love the fierceness, and the fundamental grounding in decency. But sometimes wince at her chosen targets. And the takeaways some of her admirers have.
That said I have always though Ezra overrated since his earliest blogging days as an undergrad. But “fauxgressive” is a little far. And the same for Konczal. That both are to the right of me doesn’t make them Goebbesl gobblers.
Thanks , Run , but I think it’s kinda like how if you put enough monkeys behind a keyboard , one of them will type something by Shakespeare.
Yes , Bruce , “fierce” fits Yves nicely , and ferocity is exactly what we need more of on our side. While we’re hoping against hope to raise top marginal rates a few percent , the other side has confidence in their plans to kill the “death tax” , public unions , SS , Medicare , etc. They have ” The Art of the Deal ” , we have ” The Art of Capitulation “.
Stuff like this today makes me ferociously pissed off :
Marko starting in 2001 or maybe election season 2000 I found myself increasingly consumed by anger. Passionate keyboard pounding anger at everything that was happening to this country and to this world in the Bush years. And that anger consumption burned me up, it turned out to be the necessary and proximate (though not sufficient) cause of me losing my health, my job and my house. Well that wasn’t good.
Then, I got invited here and turned to snark and humor. Not always kind mind you, and here and there perhaps describable as “fierce”, but always, always keeping a foundation of self-mockery. Because not everything is worth dying for.
And it kind of worked for me. If I moved anyone at all it was through this place and my less anger-filled posts at DailyKos. You just reconcile yourself to the reality that our political life is full of the Lying Liars and the Lies they Tell (thanks Al F!!) and Big Fat Idiots (thanks again!) and just work with the material they supply.
But straight out ‘anger-fication’ doesn’t really get anyone anywhere. Even when you are convinced the contradictions won’t heighten themselves. Ferocity is good in its place. But it tends to lead to lack of focus. And an anger that ends up eating you up inside. Trust me, not an entirely healthy way to go.
What Gordon — and Krugman — may both be missing out on in the growth slow down scenario is the doubling of medical knowledge every ten years — our fastest expanding industry: evenly spread throughout the nation and creating real high-paying, high-tech jobs.
E.G. TWO experiments in the last six months produced TWO (!) positive looking cures for Type I diabetes: one, implanted insulin producing cells in mice which worked for the whole 174 days the experiment ran — the other multiplied the patients own T-reg immune cells that normally protect insulin making cells but diabetics don’t have enough of.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3415843/Is-CURE-Type-1-diabetes-horizon-Scientists-imp.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/12016532/End-of-daily-injections-for-diabetes-as-scientists-restore-insulin-production.html
Formerly always fatal heart failure may now be cured outright or permanently improved in most cases by non-invasively planted a balloon-like cuff around the upper aorta to aid in pumping which seems to give the heart time to heal.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/283566.php
We all know about the discovery of a cure for Hepatitis C which the company unfortunately prices at $100,000 a treatment for 3,000,000 American sufferers (who late research says are 30% more likely to come down with Parkinson’s): only $300 billion!
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/283566.php
The list explodes. The only problem is that as our medical monopolist Rockefellers multiply with the list we are going to have to mortgage everything we own including the Statue of Liberty to pay for the monopolies we have created.
This sounds like a job for high union density.
Everyone who wants to keep up with today’s medical/economic explosion would be advised to consult Medical News Today everyday. More on Diabetes:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/305568.php
Re:
Free Trade With China Wasn’t Such a Great Idea for the U.S.
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-01-26/free-trade-with-china-wasn-t-such-a-great-idea
The displaced workers wouldn’t have to move to low paying jobs if the jobs were not so low paying. Sound silly? How about the federal minimum wage (we’ll get to the typical low skill wage) was $440 a week in 1968 when US per capita income was $15,000. Now the federal minimum weekly is $290 while per capita has doubled in the meantime?
Sound impossible? Would have sounded if projected to Americans of 1968. They would have asked: a comet strike, repeated plagues, limited nuclear exchange? What could they possibly have thought: American labor market totally gutted by de-unionization: nobody minding the minimum wage store, or any of the other stores?
$800 a week for normal low-skill jobs (e.g., retail work in stores where labor costs are 10-15%, if not fast food with 33% — Walmart 7%!).
In late 70s, early 80s I used to make $800 a week for 60 hours in NYC or Chicago taxis. Today’s cabbies may make $500 (don’t know) after per capita has grown 50%. Point is, the money is there for the cabbies — but a de-unionized environment leaves them out in the cold.
I should throw in that the combination of immigration and the pay floor for low skilled jobs constantly dropping has “virtually out-sourced” many American jobs: my old job to all parts of the world (Pakistan, Russia, Nigeria) and Chicago fast food seems totally Mexican and Indian employed. Not blaming the immigrants (who are willing to suffer more for less than we “spoiled” Americans).
Jason Furman, Obama’s Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers: “There is little dispute that Wal-Mart’s price reductions have benefited the 120 million American workers employed outside of the retail sector. Plausible estimates of the magnitude of the savings from Wal-Mart are enormous – a total of $263 billion in 2004, or $2,329 per household.”
Mmm. Cut $24 billion off that $263 billion — a couple of hundred a year off their customers — and you could give 1.2 million Walmart workers a $20,000 raise. Can America — not just Walmart; it’s the consumers who ultimately pony up — afford to pay it’s employees.
Supermarket workers had good middle class contracts until Walmart forced two-tier contracts down store throats. Point is the money for $800 is there — it was there in the past for cabbies and clerks.
And don’t forget (listening Gordon and Krugman?) the next high growth/high tech industry that will be evenly spread (more like explode?) across the land with well paying jobs: the medical industry.
What’s needed to take advantage of all this is the decades overdue reform the one market in which one side is able (and willing) to economically muscle the other side into sub-par arrangements …
… the labor market …
… where everything that should be illegal is illegal but there just happens to be no realistic penalties.
Union racketeering bleeds off the benefits of collective bargaining (if bleeding less political muscle). Union busting evaporates it all. But union busting is done by the most respectable people — the pillars of the community, the natural leaders — so that’s supposed to make it okay. It is not.
Only answer to almost every American pressing problem is to make union busting the felony that it long since should have been — backed automatically by RICO so management cannot play at the edges of intimidation without worrying about building an “ongoing” record of violations.
Truth-teller Yves Smith with a nice piece of work on the bearded bully :
” Krugman’s Cowardly, Dishonest Attack on David Dayen Over Krugman’s Misrepresentation of Sanders’ Financial Reforms ”
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/01/krugmans-cowardly-attack-on-david-dayen-over-krugmans-misrepresentation-of-sanders-financial-reforms.html
Now is the time of this campaign season when Clinton’s attack machine has no choice but to reveal their true colors. And a blinding display it is. Along with the Krugman takedown , Yves gives some little-known details about other “fauxgressives” like Mike Konczal and Ezra Klein.
If you like your change in microscopic steps , two forward and one back ( and far too often , the reverse ) , then Clinton is your woman , and these are the pundits who’ll hold your hand along the way.
Marko:
That is kind of a kool last sentence. Almost a paraphrase of what Obama said. I do not agree with you; but, I do like the wording.
Love Yves. And she is a true friend of this blog. But if I had to put an adjective on her, and one I don’t think she would resent in the slightest?
“Fierce”
Which doesn’t conflict with “fair” or still less “true”. But she doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Or at all even. And is quick to strike.
I love the fierceness, and the fundamental grounding in decency. But sometimes wince at her chosen targets. And the takeaways some of her admirers have.
That said I have always though Ezra overrated since his earliest blogging days as an undergrad. But “fauxgressive” is a little far. And the same for Konczal. That both are to the right of me doesn’t make them Goebbesl gobblers.
Thanks , Run , but I think it’s kinda like how if you put enough monkeys behind a keyboard , one of them will type something by Shakespeare.
Yes , Bruce , “fierce” fits Yves nicely , and ferocity is exactly what we need more of on our side. While we’re hoping against hope to raise top marginal rates a few percent , the other side has confidence in their plans to kill the “death tax” , public unions , SS , Medicare , etc. They have ” The Art of the Deal ” , we have ” The Art of Capitulation “.
Stuff like this today makes me ferociously pissed off :
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-27/the-world-s-favorite-new-tax-haven-is-the-united-states
I can see Bernie going after this with guns blazing.
Hillary , not so much.
Marko starting in 2001 or maybe election season 2000 I found myself increasingly consumed by anger. Passionate keyboard pounding anger at everything that was happening to this country and to this world in the Bush years. And that anger consumption burned me up, it turned out to be the necessary and proximate (though not sufficient) cause of me losing my health, my job and my house. Well that wasn’t good.
Then, I got invited here and turned to snark and humor. Not always kind mind you, and here and there perhaps describable as “fierce”, but always, always keeping a foundation of self-mockery. Because not everything is worth dying for.
And it kind of worked for me. If I moved anyone at all it was through this place and my less anger-filled posts at DailyKos. You just reconcile yourself to the reality that our political life is full of the Lying Liars and the Lies they Tell (thanks Al F!!) and Big Fat Idiots (thanks again!) and just work with the material they supply.
But straight out ‘anger-fication’ doesn’t really get anyone anywhere. Even when you are convinced the contradictions won’t heighten themselves. Ferocity is good in its place. But it tends to lead to lack of focus. And an anger that ends up eating you up inside. Trust me, not an entirely healthy way to go.
Well, Smith likes cats and adores green lanterns. And refuses to allow many participants to take shots at either of those two things.
Personally, her fondness for cats is more than enough to keep me away from her blog.