I have officially maxed out on ignorance

March 6, 2013 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments
The mindset of the American Tea Party.

The mindset of the American Tea Party.

That’s right, I am suffering from ignorance fatigue. I am done with people telling me the free market can handle health care and that the minimum wage is a horrible burden on employers. I have heard enough from people who believe churches should handle health care or that taxes and the national deficit are at an all-time high.

For those of you who don’t know how to check such things beyond listening to Fox News and “reading” Andrew Breitbart, perhaps you weren’t alive in the 1950s, when the economy was booming and the top tax rate on regular income was 91 percent (now, remember — and I will use small words here — that rate only applied to income above $200,000, which would be income over $1.78 million today), and the top rate on capital gains was 25 percent (this year it will be 20 percent, after a hike from 15 percent). All this research was done in about two minutes using tax tables and an inflation calculator.

When taxes were so high and oh, so terribly burdensome, our country was enjoying prosperity like it would not see again. People who worked a 40-hour week made enough to live on because workers had unions to protect them from the carnivorous uber-rich.

In 1955, the average wage was $5,610 — more than $48,000 in today’s money. It was enough to buy a small home, own a car, feed your family, even save enough to send a kid or two to college.

But the good manufacturing jobs have been sent to places where big business can pay people $1 a day and keep them locked up in compounds, and Americans are told to be happy there are jobs at Walmart.

Walmart pays its people such low wages that 70 percent of them are eligible for government assistance, and then we criticize them for being “takers” because they want to feed their families. Why aren’t we criticizing the people who won’t even pay subsistence wages while they pocket billions that they can’t possibly even spend?

Do you understand what that means? We, the taxpayers, those of us lucky enough to still have decent jobs, are subsidizing Walmart with our tax money so the owners can amass even more money. That’s right, our tax dollars are going into the Walton family’s pockets, and they want even lower tax rates on their income.

Did you know the national deficit is falling faster than it ever has without a recession going on? According to Investors’ Business Daily, “…(the Congressional Budget Office) expects the deficit to shrink from 8.7 percent of GDP in fiscal 2011 to 5.3 percent in fiscal 2013 if the sequester takes effect and to 5.5 percent if it doesn’t. Either way, the two-year deficit reduction — equal to 3.4 percent of the economy if automatic budget cuts are triggered and 3.2 percent if not — would stand far above any other fiscal tightening since World War II.” (Read the whole story at: http://news.investors.com/blogs-capital-hill/021213-644063-chart-should-embarrass-deficit-hawks.htm#ixzz2MmyM2D3j).

So, if you get your info from Fox News, Glenn Beck, Andrew Breitbart, Ann Coulter or any of that ilk, please don’t try and “educate” me, OK? I have reached my yearly limit on ignorance and it’s barely March.

 

 

 

 

Working harder for less money

July 31, 2012 a world of progress, letters, progressive living No comments

From the NC Budget & Tax Center

In North Carolina at least (and I suspect in many other states), this so-called economic recovery has come slowly — slower than the previous three recessions in 1981, 1990 and 2001,  especially when it comes to jobs.

Our “job creators” are asking the people who work for them to work harder and then rewarding them by paying them less, according to a new report by the Budget & Tax Center at the NC Justice Center (http://www.ncjustice.org/sites/default/files/BTC-Brief-Working-Hard—Economy-Hardly-Working-Final.pdf).

According to the report: “Unlike in previous recoveries, productivity gains after the Great Recession have been transferred to capital income distributed to shareholders from corporate profits, rather than going to increased wages or new-job creation. As job creation has lagged amidst continuing high unemployment, the growing pool of jobless people in search of work has only increased competition for scarce jobs and served to drive wages down even further—more than 4 percent since the end of the recession in 2009.”

In other words, corporations are keeping the money and asking people to work harder and harder — or lose their jobs.

Already, the productivity of US workers is the highest in the world, but Big Money wants more from the workers, and they’re getting away with paying less — 4.2 percent less in North Carolina.

Three years ago, I attended an economic summit where a financial expert predicted the job market was about to boom because the productivity rate was so high and corporations were sitting on nearly $2 trillion dollars.

Well, corporations are still sitting on their money and workers are still being asked to do the jobs of two or three people and to be grateful they have a job at all.

From the NC Budget & Tax Center

What’s worst is that wages are falling fastest for the lowest-earning workers — the very people who need wage increases the most.

It’s starting to look a little like indentured servitude.

Since 2009, increasing inequality in pay has caused a significant drop in wages among the lowest fifth of earners, whose pay dropped 7 percent (from $10.18 to $9.47 an hour, according to the report), while the top fifth of earners experienced the same 4.2 percent drop as median earners.

America’s wealthiest claim they need more tax breaks to create more jobs; I think this report is evidence that all they want is more money.