-Laelth

k&r

All my life I've seen Detroit used as a scapegoat for the nation's economic and racial insecurities. And for almost as long I've been telling people this process was just beginning here, not ending.

building public debt that benefited private corps knowing the population shift to suburbs would not provide the tax base to repay that debt

Ft.Worth may be a little better off then Detroit but it's been going hill ever since the War on Viet Nam ended. And DeQueen looks like FDR never existed, except for Walmart and the fast food joints.

Nt

nt

I went back and fixed a couple of links.

....this is a DIRECT RESULT of all of those "free trade" deals we've made with various countries and coalitions.

The entire purpose of those trade deals was for corporations to take advantage of CHEAP LABOR. Nothing more. Nothing less.

lead to huge increases in food prices

think about it,what do we have to export....food

putting grocery staples on the stock exchange as commodities didnt help either

Food prices will increase.

Access to medications will decrease.

Internet freedom will decrease.

And corporations will be handed the power to override national sovereignty on major issues ranging from deregulation to worker protection.

This is more than a disaster. It is a direct, deliberate, corporate predatory assault aimed at all of us.

by reality tv and the Producers Guild buying off the leaders of the Writer's Guild and the Actor's unions to sell them out. Craftspeople used to be able to live middle class lifestyles with union benefits. Because of outsourcing and union busting, a job that used to be $1500 a day is not listed at $500 a WEEK with the most outrageous workloads. The majority of the people I know have had to take other jobs or have left the industry altogether.

It will take an amazing leader to right this course and put in place policies that protect American jobs and domestic goods. For instance, Australia's tariffs are so high, it almost doesn't make sense to import many goods there. Things like tax breaks for American employees and harsh penalties for outsourcing. But how can you do this when the biggest outsourcers of all consult the Whitehouse on "jobs". We see the unemployment numbers going down, but a little digging shows the new jobs are low wage. There may be no stopping it.

Right now, the employers have the upper hand because people need jobs more than they need people.

When you hit full employment, employers are forced into a position of competing for workers and they can only do that by offering better pay and better benefits. This is, of course, another reason the big corporations like a little bit of high unemployment.

if/when we (Democrats) take the House and expand the Democratic majority in the Senate.

... you can pick from the 20 or 30 who are qualified, based on which will take the lowest salary.

When its only 2 or 3 applicants, or lower, they have to up the wages and benefits.

The idea that the new jobs would be at higher wages doesn't fit reality.

they move everything overseas to cheap labor locations or they bring in workers from those cheap locations.

They're addicted to cheap labor, and I mean really addicted.

Unfortunately, our government seems to be their dealer.

has been no recovery.

The way I hear it, there's absolutely no excuse not to do so.

Slackers!

"Life would be a hell of a lot easier fer these kids today if they just mythically pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and got Super PhDs in long-term, non-outsourceable career fields they should have predicted the FUTURE on, by gumption!"

"I mean, if guys like me could have things like 'pensions', 'job security', 'unions', 'a wage that met the cost of living', 'an economic climate that didn't require musical chairs or a bottomless pit of money for multiple trips to college', etc., ANYone can!!11!!!"

if you want to drive wages up. Gone are the days of 7% annual wage increases that the baby boomer's got while they smoked at their desk and had their two martini lunches.

Unfortunately, it seems a byproduct of relying on corporations for our sustenance is low wages.

was 15 years ago. Ir was replaced by 2 or 2.5, if lucky

I worked with a bunch in the '90's that always bragged that during the '70's decade they would all get 7%. Additionally they were allowed to smoke at their desk and basically work only half days. After getting liquored up at lunch, most just goofed around.

I've never seen anything close to 7%.

Surely a significant swing to lower pay would show up there

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t01.htm

The trend toward eliminating the jobs that sustained whole families in favor of the McJob that won't support even the worker, himself, has been going on for three decades now.

Men's wages have fallen steadily since the 1970s. Women's wages have fallen less because women were more likely to be stuck in McJobs and didn't have that far to fall.

That is exactly what it was.
But they do it slow so that there is no sudden pain.

and their many allies in power are killing us softly, creating the illusion that things are getting better through their stats but we know better.

Yes. I actually heard that today and some even thought we needed to do something about it. Oh my.

Utilities have doubled...food and gas prices are high. In five years, I gone from preparing to buy a house, with a decent 401k...to wondering if I will be able to rent an apartment by myself. The only blessing is that I did not get a mortgage for twice what the property is worth.

This Census data is from the piece that your last link was to direct readers to.

COC types and their concubines in the media will ballyhoo "job creation" or "business friendly" in the abstract, as though a job is a job is a job. In this manner, an anti-labor shit pit like Texas will poach once good paying jobs from blue states and replace them with lower paying ones.

haven't you read the LIST in the BOG? HE'S PERFECT!!!

American workers slip into poverty.

"Half of America in poverty and creeping toward 75%"

American workers are now much worse off than quite a few other 'first world' countries.

Bet some states can't wait until people can't afford their required yearly property taxes and neighborhood association fees. So the state/county/neighborhood association lawyers can legally take their homes away.

ARE NORMAL PART OF THE SYSTEM. What's happened lately is that the recessions that are a normal part of the system have gotten worse and closer together. The result of this is that the average person doesn't have a chance to recover before the NEXT one hits.

It's always been known that the recovery starts at the top and THEN "trickles down" to the workers and the masses. Since we're in the process of end-stage capitalism the "recoveries", such as they are, doesn't have a chance to "trickle down" before the next one hits.

I've wondered whether the speed up might be partially attributable to technology that speeds up nearly every process. We've had three recessions that can be attributed in part to financial bubbles--junk bonds and the S&L crisis that started in the late '80s, the tech bubble bust in the early 2000s, and the derivatives-mortgage-backed-securities crash in 2008-9. Financial transactions run at lightning speeds now with computerized trading, and computers allow the faster spread of bad ideas through out the financial work.

The way the recession waves are timed, it would seem that we should be having another recession around 2015. That won't be good for us Dems. Folks will be more apt to throw the bums out if we Dems can't show progress by November 2016.

I earn 8 dollars an hour doing a job that, in most places, you'd get paid at least 11-15 for. No benefits, along with a "special set" of rules that apply to certain types of workers (hotel, front desk) such as not qualifying for the half hour unpaid break. My schedule is ridiculous, frequently forcing me to work 8, 9, even 10 days in a row - while management is careful to make sure my hours don't go above forty on any given week.

Even up here in the backwoods of Northern Maine, rent is too high for me (approximately 500 a month, just for rent, lower than some places, but...) and the idea of buying a house is just laughable. You need things for that, like a down payment, or a credit score that creditors don't look at and wince.

No choice for most of us, Woo. This job and all of it's many details and lacks is kind of kicking my ass. But it's better than being unemployed, so I keep telling myself.

And you speak for millions.

Thank you for putting this here. You deserve better. This country deserves better.

and 8 out of 10 will tell you the problem is the poor are gaming the system and that is where all the waste is

try it, i shit you not

You can basically give the profits to the people who do the work or to the CEO and shareholders demanding a return on their investment (while they lounge by the pool). Or stash it in offshore accounts to avoid taxes and enable a quick getaway if the guillotines ever start to make a comeback.

Enjoy the cat food!

But I honestly wouldn't mind if we rounded up every copy of every Ayn Rand book in the country and tossed them in a giant bonfire.

to sign the repeal of Glass Steagall

She made him sign NAFTA too. It's right there on the video. Most people can't even see her.

And she's in the background threatening Rodham-Clinton in this short clip- see her?