They'll stone you when you're at the breakfast table. They'll stone you when you are young and able. They'll stone you when you're tryin' to make a buck. They'll stone you and then they'll say good luck. from “Rainy Day Women #12 and 35,” Bob Dylan There comes a time in the history of a nation when extreme inequality turns into pillage. If economic power is concentrated so is political power, and the wealthy are able to do whatever they damn well please. They can lie, cheat, and steal because they know they won’t be held to account.
"I’ve been begging progressive labor leaders to start a new organization that would fight against mass layoffs and for workers who are not in unions. (How about Workers United for Justice?)"
Hmmm, yes, something we were warned about at least a decade ago: https://www.opednews.com/populum/page.php?f=By-What-Means-Have-Income-by-Richard-Clark-Productivity_Unemployment_Wealth-Concentration_Wealth-Poverty-Class-140816-459.html The problem isn't the workers becoming unemployed/underemployed; it's the business owners being allowed to pocket the $$$$ that used to go to former workers in the form of wages & benefits. This is why we all need a UBI that's high enough to live comfortably on. How high is "comfortably"? Since Congress hasn't complained much about the recent leap in inflation, it looks like they've figured out what the cost of living really is. I say we demand a UBI equal to what Congress chooses to pay itself.
Interesting points. However, I think mass layoffs are really something that has to be slowed down dramatically. It's too massive a disruption in people's lives. Thanks for your comments.
It does seem a lot; and after all, half of that, per household, would probably end poverty. However, allowing Congressmen to pay themselves one cent more than their poorest constituent gets looks to me like rewarding them for their malfeasance. Allowing poverty to exist costs us A LOT in running half-assed "assistance" programs, paying bureaucrats comfy salaries to do that, crime control, for-profit prisons (I know, whether or not those things are bad depends on whether or not you're on the receiving end). But even not counting cost savings from ending poverty, the Constitution allows Congress to create all the $$$$$ it needs, directly, w/out having to attach interest to it, or having to interest private banksters to do it for them (& attach interest). Also, we could try taxing stock trades: https://ellenbrown.substack.com/p/another-look-at-the-financial-transactions
Hear you and I love Ellen Brown's work. But to get form here to there we need a very big, well-organized movement. Let's do what we can to build one. Thanks for your thoughtful comments.
As is usual for you, vital info and salient advice. Thanks for your work!
I worked at Boeing's (the 's' is a Puget Sound area localism) for a short time in the early '90s. The contrasts between their hiring process and that of a local government agency were telling. At an interview for the latter I met with 6 people for more than an hour, maybe one of whom would actually understand my replies to their printed list of questions and answers. I was asked what tools I would use to overhaul an engine. I really, really wanted to say "vice grips and a claw hammer!"
For Boeing's, I was screened by human resources; a bit misleading since one of the criteria was a title for a previous job that matched theirs but was for something not all that similar. I was passed on to the direct supervisor, who'd been a foreman. He determined in 10 minutes I knew what I was doing. Typical of skilled maintenance people. And typical of Boeing's at the time--they brought engineers into management, figuring (correctly) they could train adept engineers to manage and promote higher management out of that group.
When company management moved to Chicago, that was an ill omen. It separated them from local roots, probably seen by them as a plus. But it was also a disconnect between physical production and abstract management, exacerbated by a rapid transition to management by finance types. I read all the fad biz books of the '80s and one of them proclaimed "if you know the numbers, you can manage anything!" Yeah, sure. Apples = oranges. Knowing how to build an airplane? Unimportant. Revealing the flaw in the premise that a corporation is in business to make money. No, you're in business to provide goods and services by which you make money, and the product must be worth buying. Articles of incorporation assume a benefit to community; where that's no longer the case, like personal enrichment at the cost of everything else, that charter should be rendered null and void.
That sure tells the story. Finance people always think they're the smartest people in the room even when it comes to building airplanes. And yes, today the business of business is producing stock buybacks, not products IMHO. Thanks for our great comments.
There's a fatal flaw (fatal to us and the rest of life on Earth) in how financiers think. They are the ultimate in left brain hemisphere processing. No, not New Age faddish dreck. Look up Iain McGilchrist, a prof of English Lit puzzled by why poetry or any other art cannot be analyzed. So he went to med school, becoming a psychiatrist and neuroscientist. I have his books; highly recommend //The Master and His Emissary.// I also correspond with him.
His 1580 pp (189 pp ref.) imagnum opus: //The Matter with Things (Or Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World)// and the title says it all. Left hemisphere (LH) became dominant in western culture--science and logic are great, but not at the cost of everything else. John Ralston Saul's //Voltaire's Bastards// covers that subject.
McGilchrist says (and thoroughly backs up scientifically) that the LH values control, certainty, precision, abstract analysis, focus on parts and not the whole, hierarchical authoritarianism, etc. Worse yet, it cannot see what's missing. Unlike the right hemisphere, which in addition to processing by means of traits opposite to LH like empathy, uncertainty, metaphor and meaning, being comfortable with ambiguity, gestalt/pattern recognition, etc. is aware of the LH. As non-verbal, it's way more subtle.
McG says LH is about grasping, literally holding physically. So then manipulating...isn't that the acme of financier hubris? And Acme as the ultimate in faulty products as we all learned from watching Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons. I got McG's attention during an on-line Q and A by doing a riff on Browning's "A man's reach should exceed his grasp. Or what's a heaven for?" rendering it as "A man's reach should exceed his grasp or what's a metaphor?" Prime RH critique of LH.
This info is vital to understanding what we're dealing with. LH is of course obsessed with measurement and numbers. A book McG mentioned: //The Tyranny of Numbers// by David Boyle, a Brit econ journalist. A review says "He reminds us of the danger of taking numbers so seriously at the expense of what is non-measurable, non-calculable--intuition, creativity, imagination, happiness..." Not to mention that for 100 years, subatomic physicists have been telling us that we live in a post-Einstein universe of relativity, uncertainty, and multiple interpretations. I'll let you know when I finish the Boyle book. But I'd bet it's a stinging rejoinder to "if you know the numbers, you can manage anything."
"I’ve been begging progressive labor leaders to start a new organization that would fight against mass layoffs and for workers who are not in unions. (How about Workers United for Justice?)"
Have you checked out Workers Strike Back?
will do so. thx
Hmmm, yes, something we were warned about at least a decade ago: https://www.opednews.com/populum/page.php?f=By-What-Means-Have-Income-by-Richard-Clark-Productivity_Unemployment_Wealth-Concentration_Wealth-Poverty-Class-140816-459.html The problem isn't the workers becoming unemployed/underemployed; it's the business owners being allowed to pocket the $$$$ that used to go to former workers in the form of wages & benefits. This is why we all need a UBI that's high enough to live comfortably on. How high is "comfortably"? Since Congress hasn't complained much about the recent leap in inflation, it looks like they've figured out what the cost of living really is. I say we demand a UBI equal to what Congress chooses to pay itself.
Interesting points. However, I think mass layoffs are really something that has to be slowed down dramatically. It's too massive a disruption in people's lives. Thanks for your comments.
Yes, but, how much of a disruption would any layoff be if those laid-off were automatically getting paid $170K/year?
Hmm, $170k per year? That's quite a UBI. I'd like to see how its funded (And I'd quite my job!)
It does seem a lot; and after all, half of that, per household, would probably end poverty. However, allowing Congressmen to pay themselves one cent more than their poorest constituent gets looks to me like rewarding them for their malfeasance. Allowing poverty to exist costs us A LOT in running half-assed "assistance" programs, paying bureaucrats comfy salaries to do that, crime control, for-profit prisons (I know, whether or not those things are bad depends on whether or not you're on the receiving end). But even not counting cost savings from ending poverty, the Constitution allows Congress to create all the $$$$$ it needs, directly, w/out having to attach interest to it, or having to interest private banksters to do it for them (& attach interest). Also, we could try taxing stock trades: https://ellenbrown.substack.com/p/another-look-at-the-financial-transactions
Hear you and I love Ellen Brown's work. But to get form here to there we need a very big, well-organized movement. Let's do what we can to build one. Thanks for your thoughtful comments.
As is usual for you, vital info and salient advice. Thanks for your work!
I worked at Boeing's (the 's' is a Puget Sound area localism) for a short time in the early '90s. The contrasts between their hiring process and that of a local government agency were telling. At an interview for the latter I met with 6 people for more than an hour, maybe one of whom would actually understand my replies to their printed list of questions and answers. I was asked what tools I would use to overhaul an engine. I really, really wanted to say "vice grips and a claw hammer!"
For Boeing's, I was screened by human resources; a bit misleading since one of the criteria was a title for a previous job that matched theirs but was for something not all that similar. I was passed on to the direct supervisor, who'd been a foreman. He determined in 10 minutes I knew what I was doing. Typical of skilled maintenance people. And typical of Boeing's at the time--they brought engineers into management, figuring (correctly) they could train adept engineers to manage and promote higher management out of that group.
When company management moved to Chicago, that was an ill omen. It separated them from local roots, probably seen by them as a plus. But it was also a disconnect between physical production and abstract management, exacerbated by a rapid transition to management by finance types. I read all the fad biz books of the '80s and one of them proclaimed "if you know the numbers, you can manage anything!" Yeah, sure. Apples = oranges. Knowing how to build an airplane? Unimportant. Revealing the flaw in the premise that a corporation is in business to make money. No, you're in business to provide goods and services by which you make money, and the product must be worth buying. Articles of incorporation assume a benefit to community; where that's no longer the case, like personal enrichment at the cost of everything else, that charter should be rendered null and void.
That sure tells the story. Finance people always think they're the smartest people in the room even when it comes to building airplanes. And yes, today the business of business is producing stock buybacks, not products IMHO. Thanks for our great comments.
There's a fatal flaw (fatal to us and the rest of life on Earth) in how financiers think. They are the ultimate in left brain hemisphere processing. No, not New Age faddish dreck. Look up Iain McGilchrist, a prof of English Lit puzzled by why poetry or any other art cannot be analyzed. So he went to med school, becoming a psychiatrist and neuroscientist. I have his books; highly recommend //The Master and His Emissary.// I also correspond with him.
His 1580 pp (189 pp ref.) imagnum opus: //The Matter with Things (Or Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World)// and the title says it all. Left hemisphere (LH) became dominant in western culture--science and logic are great, but not at the cost of everything else. John Ralston Saul's //Voltaire's Bastards// covers that subject.
McGilchrist says (and thoroughly backs up scientifically) that the LH values control, certainty, precision, abstract analysis, focus on parts and not the whole, hierarchical authoritarianism, etc. Worse yet, it cannot see what's missing. Unlike the right hemisphere, which in addition to processing by means of traits opposite to LH like empathy, uncertainty, metaphor and meaning, being comfortable with ambiguity, gestalt/pattern recognition, etc. is aware of the LH. As non-verbal, it's way more subtle.
McG says LH is about grasping, literally holding physically. So then manipulating...isn't that the acme of financier hubris? And Acme as the ultimate in faulty products as we all learned from watching Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons. I got McG's attention during an on-line Q and A by doing a riff on Browning's "A man's reach should exceed his grasp. Or what's a heaven for?" rendering it as "A man's reach should exceed his grasp or what's a metaphor?" Prime RH critique of LH.
This info is vital to understanding what we're dealing with. LH is of course obsessed with measurement and numbers. A book McG mentioned: //The Tyranny of Numbers// by David Boyle, a Brit econ journalist. A review says "He reminds us of the danger of taking numbers so seriously at the expense of what is non-measurable, non-calculable--intuition, creativity, imagination, happiness..." Not to mention that for 100 years, subatomic physicists have been telling us that we live in a post-Einstein universe of relativity, uncertainty, and multiple interpretations. I'll let you know when I finish the Boyle book. But I'd bet it's a stinging rejoinder to "if you know the numbers, you can manage anything."