Monday, January 17, 2011
MLK got his people on the up escalator just in time for it to start going down for everybody
Today, after the "big" Democratic increase of a couple of years ago, the buying power of the federal minimum wage is $3/hr below what it was in 1968! -- double the average income later. The median wage has only grown 20% since 1968 while average income doubled -- from $12.50/hr (adjusted) to all of $15/hr for the middle wage American.
Didn't happen in Europe where they have something called "social democracy" -- A.K.A., "socialism" in this economically ignorant badland. The economic components of social democracy -- MANDATORY SECTOR-WIDE LABOR AGREEMENTS, free health and education -- were instituted by very anti-communist, very conservative, very Roman Catholic German politicians (think Conrad Adenauer) after WWII to MODERATE labor demands so Germany's just post fascist industrialists could invest more in rebuilding.
The same sector-wide agreements that prevent the race to the top for labor turn out to prevent the RACE TO THE BOTTOM (the American way) for labor -- why Wal-Mart recently closed 88 big boxes in Germany; because it could not compete paying the SAME wages and benefits as honest competitors.
Sector-wide labor agreements are the proven formula to restored economic AND political power for the majority -- practiced over most of the better paying first-world and even in the second and third-worlds (Argentina and Indonesia). Rebalancing America's labor market is the ticket to solving 90% of our other social problems. MLK would understand that today.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
TSA sexting and groping may destroy employee ability to function
TSA passenger x-raying and groping may be disheartening TSA employee morale so much that search effectiveness at luggage x-ray points -- the trickiest and potentially most dangerous porthole for terrorists -- is seriously degraded. It is just a security job and now you don't want to tell anyone you work for TSA anymore -- how much can you take?
Who would take their wife and children to a bowling alley if they had to be pictured naked by a guard (half the time of the opposite sex) at the other end of the building? Ditto for entering Disneyland. Why should your family have to be stripped in front of strangers to travel to Disney Land? If the pictures were moving instead of snap shots -- jiggling everything you've got -- at that point would people finally revolt and just refuse to go through the scanners?
If the opposite sex groping forced* upon females of all ages (whenever female TSOs are absent -- more often at small airports) were performed by a male impersonating a TSO (not sure how this could happen -- but just theoretically) what crime could he be charged with? The same crimes the TSA is committing under the aegis of so-called "administrative search." Unheard of in the annals of law enforcement -- including high security prison visits. * http://ontodayspagelinks.blogspot.com/2010/12/tsa-opposite-gender-screening-mandatory.html
And I'm not even getting to same sex scanning and groping -- just citing felony sex intrusions. Add it all up and who would want to work -- or work effectively -- for TSA anymore?
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
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