Maggots, Part 2

Steven Mnuchin and other Trump economic advisers...

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said today that, "It just wouldn't be fair to use taxpayer dollars to pay people more to sit home than they would working and get a job."

You know what else isn't fair?  The fact that Mnuchin's boss so magnificently fucked up America's coronavirus response that over fifty million people are out of work, many of them having lost jobs that will never be coming back.

Hell, if he wants to talk economic fairness, I have a host of unfair realities:

• How about republicans refusing to raise the minimum wage for 11 years despite the fact that the cost of living isn't getting any lower?
• Or what about wage stagnation, which has been engineered by Corporate America so that most Americans were lucky to see a 1 or 2% raise in their wages over the past three and a half years despite Trump's "boom"  bullshit economic voodoo?
• Or how about that Trump tax cut which gave millions to billionaires and pennies to the average American?
• Or what about those folks who lost their jobs the last time republicans fucked up the economy, the Great Recession, and had to take jobs that paid significantly less than the job they lost, and have never recovered that lost income (on a personal note, I figure I'm down about eighty grand at this point)?

The pennies they've thrown at us these past few months don't even put a dent in the money lost by American workers because of policies that are written by and for the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us.  As far as I'm concerned, Mnuchin can go fuck himself.

In the end, this also shows how clueless the Trump administration is about the pandemic we've now been facing for five months--the unemployment supplement was to keep people home so we could slow the virus and keep the economy churning.  Sending people back to work when COVID-19 is still raging out of control will do nothing to stop it, and therefore send our economy even further into the abyss that Mnuchin and Trump have created.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm?

It's a whole new world...

Lindsay Graham told a group of South Carolina businessmen this week that another federal stipend (like the current $600 a week being added to unemployment benefits) in the next stimulus package would only happen over his dead body (he should give thanks we're a peaceful sort or most assuredly we could grant that request), as it was more money than most folks make and would not be conducive to their risking their lives returning to work for the peanuts they currently earn.  In the same breath he also warned that businesses would have to be careful how it's handled lest they piss off the miserable  bastards having to return to piss poor paying jobs.

Probably a bit late for that--most of those folks making $7.25 an hour to put away folks smelly bowling shoes or themselves reeking of cooking grease after flipping their fucking burgers are probably already pretty pissed about it.

You'll note that Senator Graham didn't mention what would be the one obvious solution to their dilemma:  raising the minimum wage.  Democrats have already passed a bill in the house raising it to $15,00 an hour,  so all it needs is a vote in the Senate.  While it wouldn't be worth losing one's life over, at least the survivors could afford a decent funeral (especially if hazard pay was added to that).

But that wouldn't help their wealthy benefactors who have shown again and again that they are more than happy to let them die stocking shelves for pennies as long as they can float between their first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth homes or sail out to sea on their yachts to keep themselves safe.

The rest of us can just eat cake.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Trump's economic ka-boom

Trump and republicans this November?

For all Donald Trumps talk about our booming economy, the truth is that it's been a great one for the rich, and not so much for the rest of us.  Studies released this week showed that after being adjusted for inflation, workers wages rose 0% last year.

Just booming, I tell you.

Even worse, the same studies showed that 51% of Americans got no raise last year, which means, adjusted for inflation, that most Americans fell farther behind economically last year.  And another study from the Brookings Institute shows that 44% of the jobs in the U.S. economy are low wage jobs.

Add in the fact that the USDA announced that 37 million Americans experienced hunger last year (that's better than one in ten), and Donald Trump better be hoping that Americans don't vote their paycheck this November.

Because if they do, there's a good chance he's going to add to the unemployment numbers in January of 2021.

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

What goes around comes around

Well lookee here:  a recent Gallup poll shows that Americans' support for Labor Unions is growing with an approval rate reaching almost 60%.

Can't imagine why--other than record breaking income inequality, and being on the losing end of the class war since the Reagan administration, and a shrinking standard of living, and wage stagnation, and Wall Street, and the Koch Brothers, and jobs being shipped overseas, and workplace powerlessness, and corporate welfare, and Citizen's United, and...

Peace,
emaycee

Idiot idea #2

Jeb! Bush is shooting for a 4% economic growth rate during his Presidency, and the way we're going to do it is by having American workers work more hours, and in turn, this would increase our pay.

Been there, done that, and got screwed in the process.  We already work more hours than everyone else in the rest of the world,  have raised productivity to all-time highs, and all we have to show for it is wage stagnation

Short response:  Fuck You,  Jeb!

And should the Democratic nominee in 2016 be Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, their campaigns should absolutely hammer Jeb! Bush over this comment until he's back in the dark cave from which this horrid idea originated.

Peace,
emaycee

One small step

There is still an awful long way to go concerning income inequality, but news today that Wal-Mart is raising wages for a half million of its employees to $9.00 this year and $10.00 next year is definitely a good first step.

And proof positive that organized workers can make a difference.

Peace,
emaycee

Welcome to the doomtown

What do you get when you cross an economy that's creating more and more low wage jobs (less than $15 an hour) with income inequality that's growing exponentially state by state in a nation where everyone is taught from the moment they come out of the womb that feasts, fast cars, and flamboyant mansions can be theirs if only they work hard enough?

Answer:  the French Revolution on steroids.

And if you live in America, you're going to get a front row seat.

Peace,
emaycee

Democrat good, republican bad

News that 252,000 jobs were created in December and that the unemployment rate fell to 5.6% was tempered somewhat by wages falling five cents for the month.

This is a good time to absolutely hammer republicans on the minimum wage.  While they fiddle-fart around with whatever their hokum issue of the day is and refuse to work for a bump in the woefully inadequate federal minimum wage, we should be reminding Americans every day that we're the ones who want to pump billions into the American economy, and republicans are the ones who are causing wages to stagnate.

Democrats create jobs; republicans kill wages--it's as simple as that.

Peace,
emaycee

Here in the real world

Jim Cramer predicted this week that corporate profits would be so huge that companies would be embarrassed not to give raises this year--hell, you won't even have to ask for one, they're going to be giving raises to everybody.

Ha, ha, ha, hee, hee--that Cramer, what a hoot.

Here's how it really works anymore:  once a year, it's raise time.  If the company feels like giving you one, you get one.  If the company doesn't, you don't (this would be most years).  It has absolutely nothing to do with corporate profits, your unit's profits, your job performance, your evaluation scores, or what the company can afford.

And you do not ask for a raise--that would be far too gauche for most executives to have to deal with.

This is not new--I'd venture to guess it's been like this for the last thirty years, excepting that up until about a dozen or so years ago, yearly raises were more likely.

Not particularly surprising that Cramer is completely clueless, though--he does, after all, work for a TV network that specializes in business news but somehow managed to be caught completely unaware when the economy collapsed in September of 2008.

Peace,
emaycee

Rich people hate you

How do I know this?  Let me count the ways:

• Although it's not as good as we would like, the unemployment rate is going down and more people are finding jobs.  Know who's not happy about that?  Rich people!  They want the Fed to cut interest rates so that jobs will stop being created.  No jobs being created, no need to increase wages--kind of like the myth of Sissyphus for the rest of us, though.  Keeping pushing that rock up the hill...oops, back down to the bottom....
• Want to guess who cut back on their charitable giving the most throughout the Great Recession?  Rich people!  Know why?  They've still got theirs and they don't give a shit that you lost yours because of their utter avarice and incompetence.  Easy come, easy go--as long as its the poor and the middle class losing.
• Remember how in high school it wasn't enough for the cool kids to be the most popular and and the best looking--they had to rag on the freaks and geeks, too?  Rich people never outgrew that--only now they lie about everything and demean the poor.
• Like sports?  Nice diversion, right?  The NBA is busy trying to turn Steph Curry and LeBron James into robots.  It's not bad enough that we have robots for bosses and robots reporting our news, now they want to turn our sports heroes into robots, too.  Missed shots and fouling out of the game?  That's so 20th century!
• We're working harder and longer than we did a generation ago--and not only is it killing us, it's killing the people we're responsible for.  Fred died on the job today?  Fuck it, have Wilma do his job and her job for the same money!  Rich people get richer, and we, um, die.
• You know the worst kind of rich people?  CEOs--man, these fuckers give Lucifer a run for his money when it comes to spreading evil on the unsuspecting masses.  And the shit they say--they're about as disgusted by us as they are by a dog turd.  Want to know the worse part?  They're not that smart nor that talented at their job--as evidenced by the link, they're just bigger assholes than the rest of us.
• And in the end, it probably doesn't much matter because we're all disposable to them anyway.  Hell, rich people even have a six step process to get the job done.  Nothing like knowing you're little more than a sopping Huggies diaper.

And yet despite the odds akin to a frog hitting a hole-in-one, so many of us keep on fighting the godless bastards for a fairer and more economically robust future.

On New Year's Eve, here's a toast to those who really deserve one:  us.

Peace,
emaycee

1000

It's been a busy few weeks in the news--protests in light of grand jury decisions regarding the murders of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, the CIA torture report, President Obama's change in policy toward Cuba, the Cromnibus bill.  Lost in the shuffle is a new report from the Pew Research Center which shows that the wealth gap between rich and poor and rich and the middle class is at record levels.

Now, the top .1 percent of Americans own 22 percent of all the wealth in America or more than the bottom 90% of us.  A little more than 300,000 people own more than a little more than 300,000,000 of the rest of us.  It's hard to see how that can be sustainable in what they tell us is the land of hope and dreams.

Not to take anything away from the importance of the stories of the last few weeks, but it's doubtful how much they'll matter in a country where more and more Americans either live in economic misery or have to take up arms just to survive.

Peace,
emaycee

Faux good news

The S & P 500 set a new milestone this week, breaking 2000 for the first time in its history.

For the vast majority of working class Americans, this means nothing.

Beginning with the stock market explosion during the Clinton years, it's become pretty much a habit for me to check the numbers for the stock market each day, but I don't know why.  I think we've become conditioned to believe that if the stock market numbers are good, the economy is good--it is, but not for anyone but those at the top.  As the above link notes, wages are at 65 year lows, unemployment remains high, and 16% of Americans live in poverty.  Only 14% of Americans say that the record highs in the stock market are helping them financially.  Seventy percent of us (preceding link) believe that the downturn of the Great Recession is permanent--basically that financially we will never improve.  It's hard to see how the lower 80% of us economically ever will.

But for the 1% and Corporate America (profits breaking records, too) life is oh, so good.

At least until the walls come down.

Peace,
emaycee

Feeding the rich while we bury the poor

There were two reports in the past couple of weeks that have really stood out for me:

• In a big surprise, corporate profits rose to an all-time high of almost $1.7 trillion (that number looks like this:  $1,700,000,000,000) in 2013.  In another big surprise, despite a 25% increase in productivity, wages are growing at the slowest pace since the 1960s.
• Over 50 million Americans, or 18.9% of us, were food insecure last year.

The incongruity between the two reports is striking, don't you think?

It also reminded me of this from a recent article from Thomas Frank, of What's the Matter with Kansas? fame:

“Inequality” is the most basic issue of them all, the very reason for liberalism’s existence. It is about who we are and how we live. Virtually every other liberal cause pales by comparison. This is the World War II of political subjects, and if we are going to win it must be a people’s war...."

Who we are and how we live...from his pen to the Liberal Gods' ears.

Peace,
emaycee

Democracy and your pay

Last week, voters in Chicago were asked in an advisory referendum if they would support an increase in the city's minimum wage for large employers to $15 an hour.  The city's residents passed the referendum with 87% of the vote.

I'm of two minds on the referendum (much like I am on all minimum wage votes):  on the one hand, it's great that we can force the hand of those who would see us all live on poverty wages; on the other hand, it's kind of sad that the system is so rigged that hard work doesn't merit increases in pay anymore (it's also infuriating that minimum wage, even at $15 an hour--$31,200 a year--isn't making anyone rich and continues the Sissyphean toil that is living economically month to month).  If America is to survive, something must be done to reverse the trend and actually expand the middle class, not continue to let it shrink.

And what exactly, you're thinking, would that be?  Something that's getting more traction with me lately is the idea of a universal basic income.  Much like the best parts of Obamacare, it would free people to go back to school, take time off to raise children or take care of sick loved ones, go into business for themselves, or just make a decent living with the addition of the basic income funds.

And best of all?  One's livelihood, one's family's well-being, wouldn't be contingent on the whims of Corporate America and the 1% who can buy their fantasy of a country that works for them and them alone, while the rest of us suck on it.

It sure beats the hell out of the dystopian economy we've been facing since the onset of Bush the Lesser's Great Recession.

Peace,
emaycee

The second greatest trick

A new study reports that in 2012, the top 10% of Americans took home over 50% of all income.  This number represents the largest gap since such information was first gathered in 1917. 

You know, there's a great line in The Usual Suspects where Verbal Kint (portrayed by Kevin Spacey) tells Agent Dave Kujan (portrayed by Chazz Palminteri) that, "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

If that's true, than the second greatest trick he ever pulled was convincing enough Americans that it was somehow in their best interest to live on the edge of poverty and economic insecurity ad inifinitum so that a very few could amass untold wealth.

How else to explain how any working class America could ever vote for a republican?

Peace,
emaycee

Now I got a job, but it don't pay

With their record on job creation about as sterling as a charcoal briquet, republicans are turning to their age old bullshit:  there's plenty of jobs out there, but no one can pass a drug test and those lavish unemployment benefits are keeping people from taking a job.  Why, they're saying, all sorts of businesses are having these problems.  Setting aside the facts that a) drugs cost money, and b) unemployment benefits are finite, here is a lesson in employment economics:

I have a "friend" who has been unemployed for some time now.  Said friend has never used drugs (doesn't drink, either) and unemployment benefits ended a couple of years ago.  My friend has given up on finding a full-time job (wise decision, they're just not offering those jobs anymore) and decided to look into a part-time position with several nearby retailers (all of which are nationally known).  My friend found that the only jobs available average fifteen to twenty hours a week, and that an open availability was required.  My friend has one child and a spouse who works in retail, as well.  The numbers for one week:

           Michigan minimum wage ($7.40) x 20 hours:          $148.00
           Taxes (conservatively @ 20%):                             -$29.60      
           Gas expense (again conservatively):                        -$15.00
           Child care expense (10 hours at $5 an hour):          -$50.00
           Net pay:                                                                  $53.40

Keep in mind that I figured my friend could get some hours when the child was at school/the spouse wasn't scheduled.  If that didn't happen, my friend would fucking lose money if you add the half-hour travel time per scheduled day.  As is, this comes to roughly $2600 a year--and for that my friend has to work nights, weekends, holidays, swallow customers bullshit, swallow management's bullshit, entrust the child's care to strangers, and receive zero benefits..all for what is effectively $2.50 an hour. It's often said that part-time minimum wage jobs are good for students, but if our national merchants had to run their stores with nothing other than students working for spending money they'd be out of business in a few weeks.  Frankly, these comapnies are run by people like my friend, but absent a living wage, it's easy to see why so many of them are saying fuck you and staying home.

One of the great early lessons my parents taught me and my siblings was that in this world, you get what you pay for.  I'm not the slightest bit surprised that many businesses are having trouble finding candidates to fill all their open positions--when you pay next to nothing, you get next to nothing.

My hunch is that the ignorant mavens who run our businesses don't care either.  They'll just make everybody who is working for them work harder to make up for the lack of help.

After all, masters can do that with slaves.

Peace,
emaycee

Whistle while you (don't) work

A short while ago I read a fairly uninteresting piece with a very interesting premise:  Is corporate America trying to distract us from our dismal economic situation with their support for social issues (specifically gay rights)?  The answer, not surprisingly, was yes.

I've been thinking about this premise over the past few days as any number of the Liberal websites I visit regularly have been overrun with pieces (a good one here) discussing what our role--mostly against any role--should be in Syria (the uproar on those same sites about the NSA revelations brought out the same thought).  Not so much that corporate America has orchestrated either of them, but that all the while Liberals are discussing Syria and the NSA, we're not discussing the piss poor state of our economy and American corporations can continue their survival of the richest campaign unabated.

For the record, mostly because of our abysmal record in the Middle East, I am against any kind of action in Syria.  But regardless of what Congress decides on the President's call to arms (and I'll give President Obama his deserved props for not acting unilaterally as has become the precedent), whether we drop bombs or not, when it's all over the ever increasing gap in income inequality will not have been whittled one iota, wage stagnation will have remained constant, one in six Americans will still live in poverty, one in five Americans will still have not had enough money to buy food, the number of poor Americans will continue to grow, and the middle class will continue to shrink.

And for the life of me, I don't know why the average American should give two shits about what Congress decides to do concerning the use of chemical weapons in a country thousands of miles away.

Peace,
emaycee