No union would wait 5 years for $15 an hour (minimum wage)

I was shocked, going through salaries at Jobitorial and Glassdoor to find that most of the people I interact with at businesses I attend everyday are lucky to be making $400 a week. How is it possible for most of the American workers I deal with every day to live on such impossible to live on salaries? It’s like it’s one big Depression era workforce out there.
http://www.jobitorial.com/browse.php?Filter=A
http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/AutoZone-Salaries-E610.htm

(Let’s get it straight: a true poverty line is about $45,000 for a family of three – if they have to pay for their own medical – which is about 40 percentile. Compute this from the minimum needs table (3-2) on p.44 of the 2001 book Raise the Floor – ignore the official federal guideline based on three times the price of an emergency diet; which some people still carelessly cite.)

This impossible American wage scale is some kind of emergency that cannot wait for five years for a couple of progressive locales to take five years to phase in a $15 minimum wage (and then five more for everybody else to sit around and wonder if they should phase it in). If a strong union were the active agent here it would not take five years to raise wages as long as in knew the money was there.

We’ve gotten over worrying about workers losing their jobs – let’s get over worrying about putting anybody out of business. Fortune magazine currently has an article explaining why Wal-Mart should not even lose stock share price if it voluntarily raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour (we should note w/o even other firms being forced to do the same, flooding Wal-Mart with newly flush customers).
http://fortune.com/2013/11/12/why-wal-mart-can-afford-to-give-its-workers-a-50-raise/

If the federal minimum wage jumped to $15 tomorrow, then, taxi fares would have to be raised a dollar a mile overnight all over the country. Otherwise all the terribly exploited foreign born drivers would jump ship overnight. Will the taxi business survive? The only difference will be an influx of new American born (including African American) drivers. Any progressive reason not to jump the fares right now? (Chicago fare almost 60 cents a mile below 1981 – adjusting for inflation; 50% per capita income increase since then.)

Currently 100,000 out of 200,000 (the latter my guesstimate) gang-age, minority Chicago males are in street gangs – wont work for Egyptian wages. That’s an emergency.

The ultimate social/political/cultural game change – the only possible economic and political rebalancing path – if of course legally mandated, centralized bargaining (ask James Riddle Hoffa).

Centralized bargaining seems the only labor market setup in history that — new theory here? — not exactly puts labor on the same bargaining power level in setting its pay as ownership; but more like puts labor on the same bargaining power level as ownership to set the price of the PRODUCTS with the CONSUMER.

In this setup the hidden hand — the ultimate arbiter of who gets what production — ends up being the wishes of the consumer (we are mostly all employees and consumers).

Imagine if early steam loom operators could have bargained — and not just with their employer but — with every employer at once. Not only would they have had a better life than the individual weavers who preceded them (who had had a good economic life) but they would have tested the max the consumer would pay for their product (with the alternate of cheap, what I call subsistence-plus labor, segregated from the consumer you never know how much consumers might have paid).

Instead, as we historically know, the hundred times more productive steam loom operators were reduced to feeding their families oat cakes three times a day because they could not afford wheat bread.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Making-English-Working-Class/dp/0394703227/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404222789&sr=8-1&keywords=history+of+the+english+working+class

PS. Forget the Koch brothers once we have the same number of lobbyists, the same aggregate amount of finance and 99% of the votes. It will be time to re-institute what Robert Kuttner calls financial repression, right down to confiscatory taxation — sold to a very eager to please Congress.
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It should be obvious to you ladies that legally mandated, centralized bargaining is the only way — in the world, in history — to go. Ladies are willing to talk about anything even if there is no immediate practical result — in any case ladies define practical as how the thing works (what “practical” means, no?).

No; not to gentleman.

Gentleman only want to talk — or THINK — about things they can practicably do something about. “Practical” to an — instinctively pack hunting, much more totally group oriented than he ever suspects — is defined by whether he may PRACTICABLY TALK about how the thing might work — gauged almost purely by what his hunting pack (of 300,000,000) is thinking already. Nothing more intellectually intimidating and mind freezing to a gentleman than a topic that is not currently topical.

All I can say is: Instinctive individual gatherers (and individual thinkers): rock your boys!
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Moan progressives moan.

I read everybody from Joseph Stiglitz to Nick Hanauer to David Kay Johnston, moaning about how the right monopolizes the national conversation with their silly big government and big deficit fobias. Whoa, Whoa, Whoaaa is us!

Progressives could completely dominate the national conversation tomorrow if they ever came up with true game changing issues — not phobias — that would capture everyone’s’ imaginations and make an opportunity to really educate the public to what is happening to them. The issues are of course as fast a jump as possible to the minimally survivable $15 an hour minimum wage (not the virtual/impossible $10 minimum of the present — see above) and the ultimate labor market AND political forum make over, legally mandated centralized bargaining.

YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO WIN (at first)! The scales will melt away from everybody’s eyes when you take the opportunity to teach them what they really need.

People don’t really sit around coffee shops and discuss what the deficit will be 40 years from now or whether big government is the problem — unless there is nothing else to distract them. And they don’t spend a lot of time discussing climate change or Wall Street re-regulation. Single payer would be great (win OR lose) but most people are covered and everyone was/is scared of Obamacare.

What else can I say? Individual gatherers: Rock your boys!

I was shocked, going through salaries at Jobitorial and Glassdoor to find that most of the people I interact with at businesses I attend everyday are lucky to be making $400 a week. How is it possible for most of the American workers I deal with every day to live on such impossible to live on salaries? It’s like it’s one big Depression era workforce out there. http://www.jobitorial.com/browse.php?Filter=A http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/AutoZone-Salaries-E610.htm
(Let’s get it straight: a true poverty line is about $45,000 for a family of three – if they have to pay for their own medical – which is about 40 percentile. Compute this from the minimum needs table (3-2) on p.44 of the 2001 book Raise the Floor – ignore the official federal guideline based on three times the price of an emergency diet; which some people still carelessly cite.)
This impossible American wage scale is some kind of emergency that cannot wait for five years for a couple of progressive locales to take five years to phase in a $15 minimum wage (and then five more for everybody else to sit around and wonder if they should phase it in). If a strong union were the active agent here it would not take five years to raise wages as long as in knew the money was there.
We’ve gotten over worrying about workers losing their jobs – let’s get over worrying about putting anybody out of business. Fortune magazine currently has an article explaining why Wal-Mart should not even lose stock share price if it voluntarily raised its minimum wage to $15 an hour (we should note w/o even other firms being forced to do the same, flooding Wal-Mart with newly flush customers). http://fortune.com/2013/11/12/why-wal-mart-can-afford-to-give-its-workers-a-50-raise/
If the federal minimum wage jumped to $15 tomorrow, then, taxi fares would have to be raised a dollar a mile overnight all over the country. Otherwise all the terribly exploited foreign born drivers would jump ship overnight. Will the taxi business survive? The only difference will be an influx of new American born (including African American) drivers. Any progressive reason not to jump the fares right now? (Chicago fare almost 60 cents a mile below 1981 – adjusting for inflation; 50% per capita income increase since then.)
Currently 100,000 out of 200,000 (the latter my guesstimate) gang-age, minority Chicago males are in street gangs – wont work for Egyptian wages. That’s an emergency.
The ultimate social/political/cultural game change – the only possible economic and political rebalancing path – if of course legally mandated, centralized bargaining (ask James Riddle Hoffa).
Centralized bargaining seems the only labor market setup in history that — new theory here? — not exactly puts labor on the same bargaining power level in setting its pay as ownership; but more like puts labor on the same bargaining power level as ownership to set the price of the PRODUCTS with the CONSUMER.
In this setup the hidden hand — the ultimate arbiter of who gets what production — ends up being the wishes of the consumer (we are mostly all employees and consumers).
Imagine if early steam loom operators could have bargained — and not just with their employer but — with every employer at once. Not only would they have had a better life than the individual weavers who preceded them (who had had a good economic life) but they would have tested the max the consumer would pay for their product (with the alternate of cheap, what I call subsistence-plus labor, segregated from the consumer you never know how much consumers might have paid).
Instead, as we historically know, the hundred times more productive steam loom operators were reduced to feeding their families oat cakes three times a day because they could not afford wheat bread. http://www.amazon.com/The-Making-English-Working-Class/dp/0394703227/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404222789&sr=8-1&keywords=history+of+the+english+working+class
PS. Forget the Koch brothers once we have the same number of lobbyists, the same aggregate amount of finance and 99% of the votes. It will be time to re-institute what Robert Kuttner calls financial repression, right down to confiscatory taxation — sold to a very eager to please Congress.
*********************
*********************
It should be obvious to you ladies that legally mandated, centralized bargaining is the only way — in the world, in history — to go. Ladies are willing to talk about anything even if there is no immediate practical result — in any case ladies define practical as how the thing works (what “practical” means, no?).
No; not to gentleman.
Gentleman only want to talk — or THINK — about things they can practicably do something about. “Practical” to an — instinctively pack hunting, much more totally group oriented than he ever suspects — is defined by whether he may PRACTICABLY TALK about how the thing might work — gauged almost purely by what his hunting pack (of 300,000,000) is thinking already. Nothing more intellectually intimidating and mind freezing to a gentleman than a topic that is not currently topical.
All I can say is: Instinctive individual gatherers (and individual thinkers), rock your boys!
*************************
*************************
Moan progressives moan.
I read everybody from Joseph Stiglitz to Nick Hanauer to David Kay Johnston, moaning about how the right monopolizes the national conversation with their silly big government and big deficit fobias. Whoa, Whoa, Whoaaa is us!
Progressives could completely dominate the national conversation tomorrow if they ever came up with true game changing issues — not phobias — that would capture everyone’s’ imaginations and make an opportunity to really educate the public to what is happening to them. The issues are of course as fast a jump as possible to the minimally survivable $15 an hour minimum wage (not the virtual/impossible $10 minimum of the present — see above) and the ultimate labor market AND political forum make over, legally mandated centralized bargaining.
YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE TO WIN (at first)! The scales will melt away from everybody’s eyes when you take the opportunity to teach them what they really need.
People don’t really sit around coffee shops and discuss what the deficit will be 40 years from now or whether big government is the problem — unless there is nothing else to distract them. And they don’t spend a lot of time discussing climate change or Wall Street re-regulation. Single payer would be great (win OR lose) but most people are covered and everyone was/is scared of Obamacare.
What else can I say? Individual gatherers: Rock your boys!
- See more at: http://angrybearblog.com/2014/07/open-thread-july-1-2014.html#respond

How unionizing America would end the milking of America -- and when are we going to get around to it?

The late David Broder, dean of the Washington press corps, told a young reporter that the biggest difference between today and when he arrived in D.C. 50 years ago was that all the lobbyists were union back then.

Without unions supplying the advocacy people power — the gross numbers of employee reps minding the legislative store(s) — every form of chicanery breaks loose just for lack of anyone to specifically oppose every specific con job — it’s the missing numbers (stupid :-]).

In a recent week I gathered news stories of unchecked scams — I say unchecked because there are not enough good bodies to keep up with the bad bodies, there are almost NO good bodies — for just one week, just at random. Noting the kinds of rip offs like some management group last year or before temporarily taking control of Burger King, milking it for half a billion dollars, then departing the scene. The following were of just one random week, by one not overly observant observer. 

Accidental Tax Break Saves Wealthiest Americans $100 Billion — BLOOMBERG

Absurdities of Copyright Protection — CONVERSABLE ECONOMIST

Still Don’t Care About Net Neutrality? Give the Internet Slow Lane a Try — SLATE

Why Did AIDS Ravage the U.S. More Than Any Other Developed Country? Solving an epidemiological mystery — NEW REPUBLIC

In North Dakota, there will be blood
The state has highest rate of worker deaths in country, thanks to lax regulations and the favor of the oil industry
[+] Enron-style price gouging is making a comeback
Wall Street makes naked attempt to jack up electricity prices in New England
ALJAZEERA, DAVID CAY JOHNSTON

No unions; nobody minding the store(s); the whole economy is like one big game show where they give you a shopping cart and set you loose with X amount of time to grab all you can.
 * * * * * * 
Krugman: Mr. Obama is Looking Like a Very Consequential President Indeed

Indeed?

Even if Obama had succeeded over the top with (1) single-payer health care, (2) climate control to end all global warming, (3) full financial re-regulation of Wall Street …
… the country would still be going down the drain as more and more of us are worked harder and harder for less and less pay — and as the country is wide open to endless variety of high-end looting …

… because of massive deunionization …

… which, Paul, Obama (and almost nobody else) is doing anything at all about. So, go celebrate Obama scoring well in a couple of rounds in a fight that win or lose will leave most of us suffering in 19th century hell. 
* * * * * *
PS. Louise Marie Rantzau, a 21-year-old McDonald’sworker in Denmark … said she earns about $21 an hour because of the collectiveagreement.  [Plus health benefits, vacation time, etc. I would presume.]

Krugman: Mr. Obama is Looking Like a Very Consequential President Indeed
Indeed?
Even if Obama had succeeded over the top with (1) single-payer health care, (2) climate control to end all global warming, (3) full financial re-regulation of Wall Street …
… the country would still be going down the drain as more and more of us are worked harder and harder for less and less pay — and as the country is wide open to endless variety of high-end looting …
… because of massive deunionization …
… which, Paul, Obama (and almost nobody else) is doing anything at all about. So, go celebrate Obama scoring well in a couple of rounds in a fight that win or lose will leave most of us suffering in 19th century hell.
- See more at: http://angrybearblog.com/2014/06/open-thread-june-17-2014.html#comment-770300

Deleting our doubly dubious trillion dollars of student debt?

In Ha-Joon Chang’s "23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism” he explains that so many more people going to college isn’t really that big a plus for economic output — that they have to go only because everybody else goes; meaning without it they wont be competitive -- on a relative basis.

He gives the example of Switzerland having had only 15% college educated up to 1990 — with about the highest worker productivity in the world — up to 40% by now; same reason.

What occurs to me is that if a college education is not that much of an INHERENT plus economically — then — the gigantically jumping costs of recent years are not justified even the slightest little bit. If everybody understood that — or had understood that all along — then, whatever has was added to college costs that has ballooned them so high and put everybody into such a deep pit (now there’s the mixed metaphor of the week) APPARENTLY FOR NO REASON could have been cut to the bone without hesitation.
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Given that this generation’s unnecessarily (super) deep college debt was just that, UNNECESSARY — maybe that gives us an opening to give them extraordinary one-time relief (one-time assuming we can reverse the crazy high cost trend) — perhaps putting all such debt under the Income Based Repayment program (and not charging tax on unpaid at the end — should be easier in a presumably more sane 25 years from now).
 * * * * * *
Too add to the forgiving justification: this generation has also been subjected to the results of 30 years of Republicans getting every last Voodoo economic wish (following written in 2011):
80′s Reagan got his 25% across the board income tax cuts — building unprecedented peacetime debt – his dereg’ing savings and loans crashing the industry. ’90′s Sen. Gramm and friends tore down the Glass-Steagall Chinese wall between retail and investment banking – not without help from Clinton Democrats — setting the stage for our much troubled 2000s. ’90s Greenspan noted Wall Street partying too hard while failing to remove the punch bowl – the burst bubble end gave us the 2001 recession.

2000′s Bush cleared away more financial reg’s — while smiling on little reg’ed shadow banking’s proliferation – converted Clinton budget surpluses into trillions in tax cuts for the better off — which cuts flooded by now much degreg’ed banks and never much reg’ed non-banks with too much savings to be lent to too many borrowers – inflating an oversize real estate bubble whose burst aftermath left said prolonged illiquidity contraction and said low demand dips — while trillions of piled up Reagan-Bush debt inhibit routine Keynesian easing of low demand dips with temporary deficit spending. 

[Coming up?  A possible end run of the Constitution's bar to legislatively altering contracts -- for public contracts only (Chicago's parking meter rip off, restructuring student loans) -- under eminent domain?]

PS.  Thomas Frank's (of What's the Matter With Kansas fame) Salon article "Colleges are full of it: Behind the three-decade scheme to raise tuition, bankrupt generations, and hypnotize the media -- Tuition is up 1.200 percent in 30 years.  Here's why you're unemployed, crushed by debt -- and no one is helping" exposes the exponentially rising costs of (fundamentally unnecessary?) college degrees as just another financial game (#1001) where Americans are being squeezed because the alternative of not buying at exaggerated price will be even worse.

Everything we do in this country seems to be turning into a LOSING casino game — manipulated by the sharpies. (Hint: legally mandated, centralized bargaining will make everything healthy and happy again — make a completely different power setup.)

exposes the exponentially rising costs of (fundamentally unnecessary?) college degrees as just another financial game (#1001) where Americans are being squeezed because the alternative of not buying at exaggerated price will be even worse.
Everything we do in this country seems to be turning into a LOSING casino game — manipulated by the sharpies. (Hint: legally mandated, centralized bargaining will make everything healthy and happy again — make a completely different power setup.)
- See more at: http://angrybearblog.com/2014/06/ny-feds-bogus-estimate-of-return-on-college-and-brookings-misses-the-student-loan-crisis.html#more-25278

exposes the exponentially rising costs of (fundamentally unnecessary?) college degrees as just another financial game (#1001) where Americans are being squeezed because the alternative of not buying at exaggerated price will be even worse.
Everything we do in this country seems to be turning into a LOSING casino game — manipulated by the sharpies. (Hint: legally mandated, centralized bargaining will make everything healthy and happy again — make a completely different power setup.)
- See more at: http://angrybearblog.com/2014/06/ny-feds-bogus-estimate-of-return-on-college-and-brookings-misses-the-student-loan-crisis.html#more-25278

exposes the exponentially rising costs of (fundamentally unnecessary?) college degrees as just another financial game (#1001) where Americans are being squeezed because the alternative of not buying at exaggerated price will be even worse.
Everything we do in this country seems to be turning into a LOSING casino game — manipulated by the sharpies. (Hint: legally mandated, centralized bargaining will make everything healthy and happy again — make a completely different power setup.)
- See more at: http://angrybearblog.com/2014/06/ny-feds-bogus-estimate-of-return-on-college-and-brookings-misses-the-student-loan-crisis.html#more-25278

Links to: Cost of College Degree in U.S. Soars 12 Fold: Chart of the Day