MY CONTRIBUTION ON THE ROOT TODAY

http://www.theroot.com/views/santorum-right-time

In his book "Cracks in the Pavement: Social Change and Resilience in Poor Neighborhoods", professor Martín Sánchez-Jankowski -- who spent 9 years on the ground observing the goings in 5 ghetto neighborhoods in NYC and LA -- concludes that ghetto schools don't work because there is so little waiting for graduates (or non-graduates) in the American labor market that working at getting a good education often isn't considered worth the bother.
http://www.amazon.com/Cracks-Pavement-Social-Resilience-Neighborhoods/dp/0520256751/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326986246&sr=1-1

Look up president LBJ's 1968, $1.60/hr minimum wage on the BLS inflation calculator (which uses CPI-U -- the most broadly accepted inflation index) and you get just short of $10.50/hr -- in 1968! Look up senate majority leader LBJ's 1956 minimum wage (he snuck it through the chamber when the opposition was out -- senator Hubert Humphrey wanted $1.25/hr -- in 1956!) and you get just over $8.25/hr!
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

Look up Census historical income tables (historical > people > all races) and you get $15,000 per capita income in 1968 -- $28,500 in 2006 (before the bottom fell out). 2012's federal minimum wage is over $3/hr lower -- almost double the average income later.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/people/

Before the "big" Democratic increase in 2007 the federal minimum wage in 2011 dollars was $5.60/hr -- dropped almost in half since 1968.

MUCH MORE SHOCKING (!):
The annual US median wage is $26,363 -- as reported by Harold Myerson -- which if you divide by 2080 working hours (you would probably need to factor in how many full or part time jobs was average, etc. -- this is the best my non-expert self can figure), today's US median wage comes in at $12.68/hr -- about where it probably was in 1968! The US median wage is reported at about $14/hr in 1973 -- the year wages stopped keeping up with productivity increases; or regressing -- in the book "The State of Working America 2008/2009", p. 134, table 3.5.
http://www.prospect.org/article/what-americans-make
http://www.amazon.com/State-Working-America-2008-2009/dp/0801474779/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326987915&sr=1-3

The answer to all this is legally mandated, sector wide labor agreements, the only labor market setup that produces both a fair labor market -- and fair political forum because labor is effectively organized -- everywhere it is used world-wide in the decades since WWII -- back when it was instituted to avoid an organized labor "race to the top" in Europe so more money could go to rebuilding -- prevents the race to the bottom just as well (Wal-Mart closed 88 big boxes in Germany where it could not compete paying the same as everyone else). If you want to read more about sector-wide Google it -- it's mostly my (frantic) posts; nobody else discusses it (most economists not being as poor as retired cab drivers).

Today, 9:59:20 AM

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annie nymess

opus512

EDMUND BURKE
Min. wage is def. a culprit. The unemployment of teens, part. of AAs, has grown over the past 60 years. Now in alot of cities, the only opportunities for some folks is drug dealing which produces about $3.50/hr. of income (Freakonomics).

Today, 10:17:07 AM

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ddrew2u
What's really a lost opportunity is that doubling the minimum wage would add only 3.5% direct inflation -- giving half the country a raise. As in the Crips and the Bloods couldn't whip a decent paying Ronald McDonald -- and presumably wouldn't want to.

To wit:
Jumping to a federal minimum wage to $15 would add about 3% direct inflation – easily computed: 70 million (half the workforce – at very most; many positions not hourly or salaried) X $3.25 average raise (close enough) X 2000 hours (work year) + 3.5 million* more half raises for those at or below the minimum (in 2009) X $3.25 X 2000 hours = $477.75 billion altogether -- out of a GDP of $14 trillion = 3.4% direct inflation.

* http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2009tbls.htm

Today, 11:30:49 AM

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opus512
There you go using liberal facts and context.

The reason the rich have gotten so much richer is because the poor and middle class have gotten so much poorer. The economy was much more evenly spread out back then, back in the days that conservatives claim to long for, yet they completely and willfully ignore the rest of what it was like back then.

Today, 11:03:17 AM

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ddrew2u
Right; basically, if you squeeze a toothpaste tube at the bottom it will all come out the top. The first baseman who recently got a contract big enough to buy half the stadium ($245 million over 10 years!) is not out to exploit anyone. Ditto for TV anchors and CEOs for that matter -- they are just taking what is available given no resistance. Who wouldn't?

Without organizing labor effectively -- and sector wide is the only proven way -- there will never again be resistance at the political lever in America either. My unfavorite example of no political resistance is what happened in my old Bronx neighborhood over the last 10 years.

First, Mad King (Mayor) Bloomberg closed two of the (legitimately) most beautiful courthouses in New York City -- one was brand new when I was going there with kids back in the 70s (sparkling new marble) -- after building a $500 million replacement (in today's money) -- after the bottom had dropped out of crime.

Second, over this hill, blocks away, a new Yankee Stadium was built over a track and field used by 39 Bronx schools (including my grammar school a mile north and my high school a mile south) so 43 more millionaires could be glassed in. When the Yankees moved into the new stadium did the city tear down the old one and replace the track and field? Too bad kids; it just left the old one there. (As yuppies move in in the future I am sure a much more beautiful new park than the old will be built.)

Could the proposition to leave 3 more derelict structures in the architectural center of gravity of the Bronx -- at the cost of $500 million and for 43 more millionaires -- have survived the outrage of the middle classes when I was growing up there? Not a howling chance; but now there is no opposition to anything anyone does to us.

Got to get organized again. Google "sector-wide labor agreements" to find out how.

Today, 11:48:38 AM

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An interesting insight into Israeli demographics -- from David McWilliams (Irish economist)

An interesting insight on Israeli demographics -- from David McWilliams (Irish economist)

A recent OECD report told them the message they least want to hear, which is that this year, for the first time ever, 50pc of all schoolgoing children are either Israeli Arabs or ultra-orthodox Jews. This means that the secular Israelis are witnessing what they have always feared, which is that they will be out-bred on one flank by the local Arabs and by the religious Jews on the other flank. They conclude that these trends mean the country will become politically more right-wing and more isolated while their ability to defend the place will diminish because the orthodox Jews don’t go to the army. All the while, the Arab population will rise which will obviously mean that the very Jewish nature of the Jewish homeland will diminish.

From: http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2011/12/21/our-children-wont-be-able-to-pay-cost-of-our-debt-folly

If there had been no 9/11...

If there had been no 9/11...

...would one crazy little guy sneaking a few ounces of explosive on board an airplane have set off a nation wide system of strip searching 800 million passengers a year and/or fondling 24 million of those a year (3% X 800 million) once X-rate-scanners are in place all over. This question will be begin my next anti-TSA screed, whatever month I get around to it.

PS. My comment on "We Wont Fly" to a passenger's complaint he was groped twice because a rookie TSA didn't witness carefully enough the first time -- was quickly followed by -- my comment on my 89 year old mother's own report (never a complainer) she was groped all over twice because the TSA sniffer was set off by he carry on (probably perfume) -- second time out of public view (probably to avoid looking as stupid as it all was).

MY COMMENT (#831) TO BARRY RITHOLT'Z WASH POST COLUMN

How to make fun of the Big Lie [spread now by Mayor Bloomberg]:
A few poor people in our ghettos are blamed for bringing down the entire financial world -- our toxic mortgage packs were sold overseas too. Too bad the poor never understood their power; they could have threatened not to pay their mortgages and forced concessions across the economic landscape (forget about riots)!

Mad King Bloomberg's construction company in my old Bronx neighborhood:
Closed down the Concourse court house which is too beautiful to tear down empty -- closed down the BRAND NEW (when I was going there with neighborhood kids in the late '70s) courthouse down the hill -- after building a half billion dollar (today's money) new replacement AFTER CRIME MORE THAN HALVED.

Built the new Yankee Stadium across the street from the old one -- on top of a track and field used by 39 schools -- never tore down the old one to rebuild the track and field. Never fear; when enough yuppies take over the neighborhood, like they are taking Harlem, the track and field will surely be rebuilt and to much higher (yuppie) standards (see all new waterfront parks in lower yuppie land).

MY COMMENTS ON ANGRY BEAR'S "OPEN THREAD"

I have been spamming around that $10.15/hr [was the] 1968 federal minimum wage ($1.60/hr adjusted) -- going by the Minneapolis fed reserve bank online inflation calculator...
...and that today's US median wage is $15/hr going by chart 3.5 on p. 134 of "The State of Working America, 2008/2009."

The lost growth facts may be more extreme.

According to the BLS online calculator -- which uses the most widely accepted index (CPI-U) -- $10.43/hr was the 1968 minimum...
...and dividing an annual median wage of $26,363 -- reported by Harold Myerson -- by 2080 hours, today's US median wage comes in at $12.68/hr.

All -- following 43 years of improving productivity (we are both old enough to remember the typing pool) -- double the per capita income since.

Somebody -- please! -- just say the words out loud: sector wide labor agreements, sector wide labor agreements, sector wide labor agreements.

Yesterday, 11:02:59 AM
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I think Germany got a min wage for the first time of $7.50 a couple of years ago. I supposed then it was mostly for the east. Last I heard -- a few years back -- the German 10 percentile wage was $15/hr (the American median wage; perhaps even that optimistically), so the min seems not a critical measure of German worker conditions -- Germany pretty much having invented sector wide labor agreements, which labor market setup chased Wal-Mart 88 big boxes out of the country a couple of years back for not being competitive at the same wages everybody else pays.

New theory comes in -- like Richard C. Koo's "government as the BORROWER of last resort"; the answer to the Great Depression?; the obvious angle both Keynes and Milton missed? -- and people at least discuss it. Decades old, round the world successful practice -- like sector wide labor agreements; the only possible out of the race to the bottom that I have ever learned of or can think of (it's one of those things you wish you had though of) -- and nobody even says the words out loud. ???

Yesterday, 5:04:11 PM
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I don't care if the minimum wage is $30,000/yr if the median wage is $100,000 (in today's buying power) as some day it undoubtedly will be (if we don't blow ourselves up or Jesus comes first) -- I want the minimum to reflect the maximum that could be extracted for that job without harming the worker more than helping (because I am very likely to be that worker). Suppose you dignified life wage is lower than that.

If -- at that "maximum extraction point" (don't look for that phrase in any text book :-]) -- there is still not enough for a dignified life, then it is time for the earned income tax credit or a subsidized higher minimum. Since the minimum should minimally be (in this cab driver's indubitable wisdom) $31,200/yr (2080 hours) this should not be a problem.
Yesterday, 3:07:06 PM
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You are right. I am pushing sector wide labor agreements here without even explaining what they are all about. Under legally mandated, sector wide labor agreements every worker doing the same type of job (e.g., retail sales) in the same geographic local must work under one common contract for all employers.

This originated on continental Europe after WWII as a program Republicans would have loved in the beginning. It was intended to restrain labor unions from beginning a race to the TOP (we actually had some of that here in the late 60s and early 70s): each workplace claiming they deserved more money because another company was paying more -- and round and round. Keeping labor's price down was intended to free up more money to go to reconstruction of war torn nations. (England didn't do it which is why England fell behind according to Barry Eichengreen in "The European Economy [Since] 1945."

The fabled European welfare state was considered at the time a compensation to get labor to accept sector wide collective bargaining.

Upshot: sector wide also fends off the race to the bottom -- seemingly creating the perfectly fair and balanced labor market -- seemingly perfect compared to the labor market craziness we have here anyway.

I was like one of those nineteenth century farmers who read pamphlets to try to understand how they were be crucified (on a cross of gold). Endless stories like this: My husband worked as a unionized butcher for whatever chain for 25 years and then one day they just told his local that next week they would start getting their meat from an outside nonunion firm. All the stories seemed in one direction -- down, down; with no way out.

Then I accidentally read about sector wide somewhere and instantly recognized a way out -- because I was desperately looking for one -- unlike our progressive economists, even our very best ones.

A few weeks ago Brad DeLong -- one of our very few top progressive economists -- was musing on his blog about Matthew Yglesias' -- one of our very few top progressive columnists -- speculating (they were just talking; not seriously proposing) whether breaking up the barber cartel would help the poor people. THE BARBER CARTEL!? On commenter on DeLong's blog told of doing his two barbers' tax return to insure they got their earned income tax credit. DeLong was apparently embarrassed enough by the reaction that he (I think) deleted his own post.

The lack of sense of proportion about the real world by even our very top progressive shows why they never pick up on sector wide -- I guess. They are not desperately looking for a way out. They never even notice that the median wage may now be way down below what the minimum wage could very workably could have been.

So I do what I can to wake them up from my home computer -- like above comparing how a new idea ("BORROWER of last resort") gets at least some discussion while a decades old, world wide proven idea like sector wide never sees the light of day between the oceans here (not quite: it is used in Canada). Something, somehow has to wake our best progressives up.

Today, 8:12:33 AM
******

All that has to happen is for someone to tell the people what has happened to them -- that the median wage is now lower than what the minimum could very workably have been.

If we could have foretold to Americans of 1968 that by early 2007 the minimum wage would have shrunk almost half ($5.50 adjusted) and that 25% of our hourly workforce would be earning less than LBJ's minimum ($10.15?, $10.43?) they would have assumed some disaster happened on the level of a comet strike. If we told them that, no, per capita income would have doubled they might have burned us at the stake for mad witchery.

Americans of today are in the position of the proverbial frog put in cold water, gradually heated to boiling, doesn't notice and jump out. Tell wage starved Americans their boiling point should have been reached and tell them how easy it is to jump out (sector wide, fair rebalancing of the labor market) and don't vote for anybody who does not support (careful introduction of) madated, sector wide collective bargaining ? :-)

Point out that mandatory union formation will correct the political imbalances too with financing equal to special interests and the overwhelming majority of votes.

Let's not commit Obama's cardinal sin and never discuss the most opportune way out with the people. I believe supermarket and airline workers would kill for sector wide. Just tell them where to vote!

Today, 12:39:27 PM

END THE GREAT WAGE DEPRESSION!

MY COMMENT ON: http://www.prospect.org/article/protest-and-possibility

I have been spamming around that LBJ's 1968 minimum wage was $10.15/hr ($1.60/hr adjusted for inflation) -- and -- today's MEDIAN wage is $15/hr -- probably what the minimum wage should (minimally) be.

Correction?: I was using the Minneapolis fed reserve online inflation calculator for the first -- and -- drawing on a table on p. 134 in "The State of Working America, 2008/2009" for the second.

But according the the BLS online inflation calculator the UDS 1968 minimum was $10.43/hr -- and -- according to Harold Meyerson's article on AP online the US MEDIAN wage is now $12.75/hr ($26,363/2080hrs).
http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
http://www.prospect.org/article/what-americans-make
******
Want a slogan for the movement Mr. Kuttner? Try what calling "inequality" by how it hits me -- an enslaved American worker -- by the "Great Wage Depression" -- as in "End the."

Then try selling the one and only labor market set up that can possibly rebalance both the US labor market and the political forum: legally mandated S-E-C-T-O-R W-I-D-E L-A-B-O-R A-G-R-E-E-M-E-N-T-S!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Try explaining this labor market setup originated as a Republican type program designed to thwart a race to the top by militant labor unions in post war Europe (we had a similar situation in the US in the late '60s and early '70s (as I fondly remember -- good ole Teamster's local 804; which last I heard had a defined retirement benefit of $3600/mo for high school educated truckers and warehousemen -- oh, and the securities are owned by the Teamsters, not some firm that may go out of business).

Miracle cure: sector wide collective bargaining thwarts any race to the bottom just as certainly. The only way to have a fair market is if both sides must agree to terms (no legally mandated contract for scabs; no legal work for scabs). American supermarket and airline workers would kill for sector wide (Northwest recently squeezed $1 billion in pay cuts out of flight crews -- next year gave $1 billion in bonuses to 1000 execs) -- the end of helpless American labor! But somebody has to tell American labor about it (Obama?, you?).

Maybe Milton Friedman was on to something on the Depression after all

For what it is worth for today's puzzles:
I just read in Richard C. Koo's book, "The Holy Grail of Macro Economics" (the explanation for our Great Depression) that Milton Friedman may have got the cause of the Great Depression right -- shrunken money supply -- but Friedman and everyone else missed the key -- monetary policy is helpless to maintain (or expand) money supply as long as corporations are not borrowing, are paying down the balance sheet deficits instead of borrowing, which is what happened here in 1929 and in Japan in 1990.

When corporations stop borrowing for years while they pay down debt -- what Japanese corporations have been doing since the real estate crash in 1990; just coming out of the woods now -- is what happens. If you make 1000 yen and save 100 (typical Japanese) the bank normally keeps the 100 yen in circulation by lending it -- and somebody somewhere earns 1000 yen. If the bank doesn't, somebody somewhere earns only 900 yen and saves 90. Some other body earns 810 and saves ... etc.

So the Japanese government has been using fiscal policy since 1990
-- borrowing vast sums and running a vast debt (commercial land prices in six major cities dropped 87%), but has avoided 1929; not that the Japanese government knew what it was doing according to Koo --
to make monetary policy work. Took both Milton. Surprise; Milton was on to something.

So the way to avoid a depression -- in a contraction -- is for government to become the borrower of last resort? Hey; that's Milton Friedman (almost?) Republicans.

http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Grail-Macroeconomics-Revised-Recession/dp/0470824948/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316024126&sr=8-1

Surprised on 9/11/2001 -- more surprised on 9/11/2011

Surprised on 9/11/2001 -- more surprised on 9/11/2011

http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/09/09/_9_11_flight_93_heather_penney_and_marc_sasseville_sent_on_suici.html

I was shocked on 9/11 to read that only 7 fighter pairs were on scramble alert in the whole continental US. I was raised under the Russian bomber threat back in the '50s and '60s when the US had 1000 dedicated interceptors -- dedicated meaning they were not designed to handle dog fights or bombing, only bombers: huge F-89Ds in the '50s, first, with 6 20 mm cannon, then, upgraded to 104 2.5 inch rockets and the biggest radar and (analog?) firing computer available at the time. Later 1000 supersonic F-102s took over, then filled in with 400 F-106s.

Russians bombers are long ago but getting down to 14 planes that could not cover our largest city or capital city in time is just out of proportion. Didn't we just purchase 3000 F-16s and F-15s starting with Reagan era, not to mention Navy F-18s and F-14s? Only 7 fighter pairs?

Now comes a bigger surprise. The two F-16s designated to take down Flight 93 -- the one that crashed -- were on a suicide-crash mission because no missiles or bullets were available! !!!

Teen sexting and the First Amendment -- just an idea ???

Just had a First Amendment idea on teen sexting. Suppose a straight girl sends a pic to a straight girl or a straight boy to a straight boy (maybe just to make a joke of the statute -- sounds like the kind of stunt I would have pulled around 1960).

Fear it is going to end up in the hands of somebody else -- a homosexual male? Sounds a bit of a stretch to set the First Amendment aside for. ???

What legislatures had in mind banning child pornography was the harm done to the child by the act of the adult taking the picture of a naked child for prurient reasons. That is what the gargantuan penalties are for. That is what excepts child porn from the First Amendment.

A girl sexting a picture to a boy she can legally have sex with is not what the legislatures had in mind either count: the picture taking harm or the giant penalties. That would be enough for me not to apply the law to teens if I were a judge instead of a cabdriver -- without the First Amendment, just doesn't apply to what the legislatures had in mind. When sex is not even involved (how about those bruised behind paddling pictures that make the news) that should make three not to apply the harsh laws to teens -- the latter the First.

What every desperate federal student loan debtor desperately needs to know

What every desperate federal student loan debtor desperately needs to know:
http://www.tgslc.org/borrowers/repay/ibr.cfm
Partial contents below:


How do I qualify?

You must meet certain criteria in order to qualify for IBR. You can use TG's IBR calculator to help you determine if you may be eligible for this program. If it appears that you are eligible, the calculator will provide you an estimated monthly payment amount under IBR.

---

What kinds of loans are eligible for IBR?

IBR is only available for federal student loans, such as the Stafford, Grad PLUS, and certain Consolidation loans. It is not available for Parent PLUS loans, Consolidation loans that include Parent PLUS loans, non-federal student loans, or defaulted loans.

---

How long is the repayment term for loans under the IBR plan?

The repayment term for loans paid under the IBR plan may extend up to 25 years. Any outstanding principal and interest still owed after 25 years of qualifying payments will be forgiven and may be taxable.

A couple of universal dental care equations

Dentists -- oral surgeons for sure -- seem to have doubled their prices in real terms over the last 15 years. I had root canal done for $500 around 1996. At the same place it was $1400 for the exact same procedure recently -- which seem universal; I checked for a cheaper price around the country.

Maybe dentists watching medical prices double and redouble because of new treatments figured they could double theirs for the same old and nobody would notice. ???

Crazy idea: freeze today' prices and then tax enough off those prices to put dental coverage back in Medicaid. Better yet, government dental insurance for all back at the old price level (allow for average income increase since 1996 -- which average I suspect medical doctors have not kept up with since the early 70s; which may be why cutting doctors fees are the wrong place to look for Medicare and Medicaid savings) paid for with a dental tax that would take less than they pay from everybody on the average.

Good idea for a dental care dictator. For current democracy: make enough stink about doubling dental prices -- looking like under cover of exploding medical prices -- and something like the above might get done (whenever Democrats go back to being 1960 Democrats)

Just a couple of crazy equations.

LINK for today

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/27/BU1K1KROOA.DTL

"prime working-age men between 25 and 54, only 81.2 percent held jobs, a barely noticeable improvement from its low point last year - and still well below the depths of the 1982-83 recession, when employment among prime-age men never dropped below 85 percent. To put those numbers in perspective, consider that in 1969, 95 percent of men in their prime working years had a job"

"After accounting for inflation, median wages for men between 30 and 50 dropped 27 percent - to $33,000 a year - from 1969 to 2009"

Today's article by David McWilliams -- best economic writer in the world

Today's article by Irish economic writer David McWilliams -- the best economic writer in the world (disclosure: I have five Irish grandparents counting my mother' stepmother).

http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2011/08/15/time-to-tackle-the-traders

30 years of Republicans fulfilling their every voodoo economics wish

30 years of Republicans fulfilling every (last) voodoo economics wish have left America awaiting a second-dip low-demand recession inside a prolonged illiquidity contraction (normal recovery 7-8 years) and US Treasury bonds downgraded and ducking default.

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.
******
Decades of de-unionization have left half our hourly wage workforce earning less than what the minimum wage woulda-coulda-shoulda been. Today’s median (not minimum) wage is $15/hr.

LBJ’s 1968 minimum was $10.53/hr ($1.60/hr adjusted). Doubled per capita output since 1968 -- as jet engines, copying machines (put millions of pool typists out or work), computers and improvements in between made us twice as productive per capita – would expect the minimum wage to increase at least 50% -- to $15/hr.

After the “big” $2.10/hr federal minimum wage hike, in early 2007, it remains $3.28/hr below LBJ’s. A $15/hr federal minimum wage would give half of America's hourly wage earners a raise at an easily computed cost of 4% direct inflation. My Chicago neighborhood Mac's traffic seemed to go up with Governor Blagojevich’s $8/hr minimum wage (Ike’s 1956 level!) – mostly in the third world end.

[Bonus: In the essay linked to above, the author (perhaps the strongest voice warning against irresponsible over lending) suggests that moderate inflation -- 4-6% a year -- could quicken our exit from the illiquidity contraction (would clear the real estate market). Would reduce real federal debt too.]
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Over the past two-thirds of a century and around the world only one collective bargaining mechanism has proven able to fend off the race to the pay and benefits bottom as well as guarantee representative political forums via labor lobbying power: legally mandated, sector wide labor agreements -- wherein every employee working the same job in the same geographic locale (nationwide for airline workers, etc.) works under a single collectively bargained contract with all employers.

In every OECD economy where sector wide labor agreements is not the bargaining model the average person’s interests have gone bye-bye: in Japan, the lifetime security half of the workforce pays for it with 60 hour weeks, the other half may live more like our illegals; in Australia, unionization has dropped from 40% to 20% over 25 years; in England (did not adopt sector wide postwar; not sure if or how much since), watch TV; in Israel reformers complain of “ 'an economic policy of privatization that leaves the free market without reins…making our daily existence a war for survival to subsist with dignity' ”, read para. 4 & 5 in "What to make of the Israeli movement for social justice." In America, the "Great Wage Depression" prevails (also known as "inequality" to our progressive elite), see above.

American supermarket and airline workers would kill for sector wide agreements – the perfect places to introduce the only fair and balanced labor market model known to contemporary economics (if never, ever heard of from our contemporary progressive economists).

[Bonus: restoring lost income share to segments who would spend (all of) it could ease low-demand dips -- without building federal debt. According to this author of a Wall Street Journal blog post, "Five False Premises about Economic Recovery", top 1% earners share alone grew from 10% to 22.9% between 1979 and 2006 (see #4).