T1B

By BOB HERBERT

So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, this time in Libya, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers and police officers, and generally letting the bottom fall out of the quality of life here at home.

Welcome to America in the second decade of the 21st century. An army of long-term unemployed workers is spread across the land, the human fallout from the Great Recession and long years of misguided economic policies. Optimism is in short supply. The few jobs now being created too often pay a pittance, not nearly enough to pry open the doors to a middle-class standard of living.

Arthur Miller, echoing the poet Archibald MacLeish, liked to say that the essence of America was its promises. That was a long time ago. Limitless greed, unrestrained corporate power and a ferocious addiction to foreign oil have led us to an era of perpetual war and economic decline. Young people today are staring at a future in which they will be less well off than their elders, a reversal of fortune that should send a shudder through everyone.

The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely.

Nearly 14 million Americans are jobless and the outlook for many of them is grim. Since there is just one job available for every five individuals looking for work, four of the five are out of luck. Instead of a land of opportunity, the U.S. is increasingly becoming a place of limited expectations. A college professor in Washington told me this week that graduates from his program were finding jobs, but they were not making very much money, certainly not enough to think about raising a family.

There is plenty of economic activity in the U.S., and plenty of wealth. But like greedy children, the folks at the top are seizing virtually all the marbles. Income and wealth inequality in the U.S. have reached stages that would make the third world blush. As the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the richest 10 percent of Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income growth in the years 2000 to 2007, the most recent extended period of economic expansion.

Americans behave as if this is somehow normal or acceptable. It shouldn’t be, and didn’t used to be. Through much of the post-World War II era, income distribution was far more equitable, with the top 10 percent of families accounting for just a third of average income growth, and the bottom 90 percent receiving two-thirds. That seems like ancient history now.

The current maldistribution of wealth is also scandalous. In 2009, the richest 5 percent claimed 63.5 percent of the nation’s wealth. The overwhelming majority, the bottom 80 percent, collectively held just 12.8 percent.

This inequality, in which an enormous segment of the population struggles while the fortunate few ride the gravy train, is a world-class recipe for social unrest. Downward mobility is an ever-shortening fuse leading to profound consequences.

A stark example of the fundamental unfairness that is now so widespread was in The New York Times on Friday under the headline: “G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether.” Despite profits of $14.2 billion — $5.1 billion from its operations in the United States — General Electric did not have to pay any U.S. taxes last year.

As The Times’ David Kocieniewski reported, “Its extraordinary success is based on an aggressive strategy that mixes fierce lobbying for tax breaks and innovative accounting that enables it to concentrate its profits offshore.”

G.E. is the nation’s largest corporation. Its chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt, is the leader of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. You can understand how ordinary workers might look at this cozy corporate-government arrangement and conclude that it is not fully committed to the best interests of working people.

Overwhelming imbalances in wealth and income inevitably result in enormous imbalances of political power. So the corporations and the very wealthy continue to do well. The employment crisis never gets addressed. The wars never end. And nation-building never gets a foothold here at home.

New ideas and new leadership have seldom been more urgently needed.


This is my last column for The New York Times after an exhilarating, nearly 18-year run. I’m off to write a book and expand my efforts on behalf of working people, the poor and others who are struggling in our society. My thanks to all the readers who have been so kind to me over the years.

As the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the richest 10 percent of Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income growth in the years 2000 to 2007, the most recent extended period of economic expansion.

War Wagon wrote:Stick a sock in it, pussy.

Goober McTuber wrote:

By BOB HERBERT

So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war.......

88 wrote:

Goober McTuber wrote:As the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the richest 10 percent of Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income growth in the years 2000 to 2007, the most recent extended period of economic expansion.

OK. I'll play. First off, what makes that at all unconscionable? Is there some rule or requirement out there that "average income growth" during periods of economic expansion must be distributed differently? How do you do that, aside from theft and other criminal means?

mvscal wrote:

88 wrote:

Goober McTuber wrote:As the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the richest 10 percent of Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income growth in the years 2000 to 2007, the most recent extended period of economic expansion.

OK. I'll play. First off, what makes that at all unconscionable? Is there some rule or requirement out there that "average income growth" during periods of economic expansion must be distributed differently? How do you do that, aside from theft and other criminal means?

Probably because this so called economic expansion has only benefited that top ten percent. Everyone else's wages have either been stagnant or declining for the last forty years.

You think that is a recipe for long term economic prosperity? We are going to become Mexico if we continue down this path.

mvscal wrote:Probably because this so called economic expansion has only benefited that top ten percent. Everyone else's wages have either been stagnant or declining for the last forty years.

You think that is a recipe for long term economic prosperity? We are going to become Mexico if we continue down this path.

Screw_Michigan wrote:

mvscal wrote:Probably because this so called economic expansion has only benefited that top ten percent. Everyone else's wages have either been stagnant or declining for the last forty years.

You think that is a recipe for long term economic prosperity? We are going to become Mexico if we continue down this path.

What the fuck are you on?

Screw_Michigan wrote:

mvscal wrote:Probably because this so called economic expansion has only benefited that top ten percent. Everyone else's wages have either been stagnant or declining for the last forty years.

You think that is a recipe for long term economic prosperity? We are going to become Mexico if we continue down this path.

What the fuck are you on?

Tom In VA wrote:

Screw_Michigan wrote:

mvscal wrote:Probably because this so called economic expansion has only benefited that top ten percent. Everyone else's wages have either been stagnant or declining for the last forty years.

You think that is a recipe for long term economic prosperity? We are going to become Mexico if we continue down this path.

What the fuck are you on?

Reality ?

Tom In VA wrote:I've never perceived mvscal as "lockstep" with much of anything. Seems to be an intelligent individual who can read and make up his own mind about things.

OCmike wrote:You forgot eliminating federal funds of any kind to cities that declare themselves to be "sanctuaries" for illegals.

Goober McTuber wrote:Oh, and Whitey is many things. Predictable is one of them. Intelligent is not.

Young people today are staring at a future in which they will be less well off than their elders, a reversal of fortune that should send a shudder through everyone.

88 wrote:theft and other criminal means

Warren Buffett Lieutenant Resigns Amid Stock Purchases.

Buffett also dropped a bombshell in a letter about Sokol: he said Sokol had purchased shares of Lubrizol, a specialty chemicals company which Berkshire announced it is buying, before Sokol convinced Buffett on the merits of the deal.

Buffett said neither he nor Sokol believe the stock purchases “were in any way unlawful.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2011/03/30/w ... he-letter/

MidAmerican Energy, the Iowa-based international power subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, got docked Friday in an Omaha court for $32 million. The judge found that the company had intentionally miscalculated future profits to force out minority stockholders in a project in the Philippines

http://www.omaha.com/article/20100403/MONEY/100409895

War Wagon wrote:I know you have a job, dipshit. I was referring to Bob Herbert.

88 wrote:

Goober McTuber wrote:As the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the richest 10 percent of Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income growth in the years 2000 to 2007, the most recent extended period of economic expansion.

OK. I'll play. First off, what makes that at all unconscionable? Is there some rule or requirement out there that "average income growth" during periods of economic expansion must be distributed differently? How do you do that, aside from theft and other criminal means?

And during a period of relatively low inflation, why would the incomes of persons not taking comparable investment risks be expected to rise?

smackaholic wrote:Anyone that thinks the next generation will have it better than us needs to put down the rice light ice for awhile.

For that matter if you think this current batch us grown ups has it better than our fathers, you are equally dumb.

Yes, those with cushy gubmint union gigs have it pretty sweet as do some highly skilled types, but, the average shmuck is fukked. His average shmuck old man had it way better.

And to those that say too fukking bad, get edumacated, guess what, this current system we have doesn't need unlimited brain scientists. Fresh out of college brain scientists are discovering this.

The bottom line is, the pie's getting pretty fukking small, because, we don't fukking make the pie here anymore.

The answer as mvscal has said is to tell the corporate shitbags that they can't continue this bullshit. It would be nice to think that we will just pull the chinese standard of living up to ours and then we'll be on an even playing field. Ain't gonna happen. There's too fukking many of them and they are run by a ruthless dictatorship that kinda likes things as they are.

We need to go to a tariff system that charges the hell out of anyone with a trade surplus. Will we lose some jet engine sales? Maybe, but so fukking what. We would gain countless jobs and give regular shmucks a chance to make a decent living again.

smackaholic wrote:organized workers are not the answer.

limiting the gubmint's control over everything and taking away lobbyists reason for being would be a nice start.

smackaholic wrote:why does it take forced union membership to fix the problem? it doesn't. it is just another form of coercion.

War Wagon wrote:Stick a sock in it, pussy.

smackaholic wrote: limiting the gubmint's control over everything

BSmack wrote:

smackaholic wrote:why does it take forced union membership to fix the problem? it doesn't. it is just another form of coercion.

Who was saying anything about FORCED membership. The only way the thing works is when workers realize their interest lies in collective action. Until then, they might just as well lay back and enjoy it.

KC Scott wrote:

mvscal wrote:The first thing we need to do is keep American jobs in America. To do this we need to ease the regulatory burden on employers somewhat in order to make American labor more attractive and we need to ruthlessly punish corporations which continue to offshore jobs by voiding their registration and kicking them out of the country. You want access to American markets, you use American labor, you pay American tariffs or you can go fuck yourself because whatever the fuck it is you're selling, we don't need it.

I'll assume you are only speaking of manufacturing and IT jobs?
The problem with that is you would create the hyperinflation you've worried about in the past

A far better method would be punitive tarrifs of markets ('sup China?) that don't allow the full spectrum of western goods / services

Corporate persons such as GE should be the first to receive the death sentence. 14.2 billion in profit and didn't pay a dime in taxes? That's the wrong fucking answer. They should be seized and their assets liquidated. Oh yeah, you were saying something about theft and criminality? There you go.

Or we could just revamp the tax code and close all of the Corp loopholes

88 wrote:

Goober McTuber wrote:As the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the richest 10 percent of Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income growth in the years 2000 to 2007, the most recent extended period of economic expansion.

OK. I'll play. First off, what makes that at all unconscionable?

88 wrote: No corporation should ever pay income taxes.

KC Scott wrote:You've misread MVS diatribe on this totally. He's outraged GE Didn't pay any corporate taxes. His post had nothing at all to do with investors paying taxes on Dividends

mvscal wrote:Corporate persons such as GE should be the first to receive the death sentence. 14.2 billion in profit and didn't pay a dime in taxes? That's the wrong fucking answer. They should be seized and their assets liquidated. Oh yeah, you were saying something about theft and criminality? There you go.

88 wrote:

mvscal wrote: and we need to ruthlessly punish corporations which continue to offshore jobs by voiding their registration and kicking them out of the country. You want access to American markets, you use American labor, you pay American tariffs or you can go fuck yourself because whatever the fuck it is you're selling, we don't need it.

As you note, that will work only if you tarriff the fuck out of lower priced goods from other countries. And that means higher prices to US consumers. I would like to read a study that evaluated whether Americans would be better off with high tarriffs or lower priced goods. I know many economists think that imposing tarriffs would be economic suicide for most workers in the U.S. I don't have enough information to make an informed judgment on tarriffs vs. free trade. Here are a couple of interesting takes on the issue:

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/01/top ... html#links

http://misunderstoodfinance.blogspot.co ... s-and.html