Category Archives: Economy

Student Protest Against Tuition Hikes Helps Bring Parti Quebecois to Power in Quebec

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Remember the “Arab Spring?”

In Canada, something has just occurred  that might qualify as the “Quebec Summer.” South of the border, the U.S. media is totally unaware.

Seems the Quebec provincial government, run by the Liberal Party, imposed a huge tuition increase on college students. I know next to nothing about Canadian politics, but it would appear that the tuition increase was a foolhardy and arrogant decision. The right to a college education has long been a cause celebre in Quebec, a French province in an otherwise English-speaking country. You might say the right to a college education is a cause with “class” overtones. I recommend an analysis by Richard Seymour, “Quebec’s students provide a lesson in protest politics,” in today’s UK Guardian.

Quebec students, having a long history of organizing and protest,

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Factory Girls and Boys

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This post, “Factory Girls and Boys,” documents child labor in the early years of the 20th century. The photos make me extremely angry. Not long ago, I wrote a post titled, “Austerity, The New Slavery.”  More and more, I become convinced that modern capitalism depends for its existence on the exploitation of cheap labor.    “Business ethics” really is an oxymoron. In America alone, we had widespread slavery and child labor, out in the open, in broad daylight! And not in the distant past. American industry has always supported immigration for a steady supply of cheap, expendable labor. The White House and the Capitol were built by slaves, the railroads were built by immigrants, and the industrial sweatshops were operated by women and children. After slavery and child labor were abolished, unions gained a toehold. Minimum wage laws and occupational safety laws were enacted over the objections of business. Not surprising that in the second half of the 20th century, industrialists began to move American factories to any faraway land where labor is cheap, plentiful, and unregulated. Thanks to historian and blogger Donna Seger and photographer Lewis Wickes Hine for opening my eyes.

— John Hayden

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I always feel a bit sorry for myself on Labor Day weekend, as it’s back-to-school time and usually I am engaged in a mad dash to get my course syllabi done.  Of course this is ridiculous, as I have the cushiest job ever and most of the summer I’ve been free to do as I liked.  It’s good to remind myself what labor really is, and nothing does that better than the photographs of Lewis Wickes Hine (1874-1940), who transitioned from educator to social activist, all the while armed with a camera.  In 1908 Hine became the official photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) and began his life’s work:  documenting child labor across the United States. This was a time when one in six children between the ages of five and ten worked outside the home in “gainful occupation”, and the percentage increases dramatically for children over the…

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Worshipping False Gods — Americans Bow Before Business

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Americans worship at the altar of BUSINESS.

The faith was renewed at the Republican Convention. Nearly every speaker gave praise to BUSINESS, voicing both devotion and reverence. Blessed be BUSINESS.

The delegates, all devout practitioners of BUSINESS, rose to their feet and clapped their hands in spontaneous outbursts of adoration. Many are converts from the wretched status of employee. They were more than willing to  share their testimony — how they broke free from the chains of sin and employment, overcame great adversity, and gained salvation through BUSINESS.

Speaker after speaker repeated variations on the central dogma, that everything good  flows from BUSINESS. Only those who join the church of BUSINESS and diligently practice BUSINESS shall be blessed with prosperity all their days. Their children and their children’s children shall inherit the riches of the Earth. Nor shall they fear the Death Tax. Continue reading →

Business Owners Only

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Based on the rhetoric, I conclude that all delegates to the Republican convention in Tampa were business owners. Specifically, men and women who built their businesses themselves, from scratch, with their bare hands. Proud people! Independent people who neither need nor accept help, not from God or anybody. The delegates do acknowledge, however,   the positive influence of their parents — impoverished immigrants all — who sacrificed everything so the next generation could be free, business-building Americans. Also allowed on the convention floor were qualified spouses, those who stay at home for the benefit of their home-schooled children.

— John

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Better Off?

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Question:  “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

Answer: YES, Mr. ROMNEY, AS A MATTER OF FACT, WE ARE BETTER OFF THAN WE WERE FOUR YEARS AGO!

Four years ago, we were looking into the abyss. Four years ago, Wall Street and the banks were trembling. Four years ago, the American automobile industry was on the eve of destruction. Every job associated with the auto industry was about to go away. Forever. Four years ago, we were fighting two wars. No end in sight. Or was it three wars? It’s hard to remember. Four years seems like a long time. Hard to remember what it was like. It’s like a nightmare that we woke up from. A catastrophic plane crash that we walked away from. YES, the truth is, we are better off.

— John

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Overproduction & Excess Supply of Everything — Except Food

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“My greatest fear is that much of the world could devolve into a dystopian nightmare in which increasing productivity brought on by automation and a global labor arbitrage crashes up against a reality of an overstretched global middle class no longer hungry to spend their every waking hour at the mall or the car dealership. This global goods glut arrives at the very moment that a combination of climate change, population growth and senseless farm policies have led to a potential global food crisis.”

The above quote is from Jon Taplin’s blog. If you’d like to know which way the wind is blowing at this bizarre point in history, you could read Jon Taplin.

Taplin calls the puzzling time in which we live “The Interregnum.”

— John Hayden

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Raise the Social Security Retirement Age? Huh?

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English: Demonstration in Barcelona on January...

Demonstration in Barcelona on January 22 against raising the retirement age (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

People are living longer, therefore the U.S. needs to raise the Social Security retirement age.

The above statement fills me with despair. It can be spoken with a straight face only by a young person or a rich person who doesn’t understand:  a) What it feels like to be sixty-something in the 21st century, and b) The place of the American worker in the market for human labor,  given the new-normal, flat-world economy.

Full disclosure: I come at this retirement age question from a Baby Boomer point of view. I celebrated (?) a 64th birthday in June. For which I’m grateful. It means I’m one of the survivors. I am now enjoying my 65th summer on the planet Earth, which is one of my favorite planets.

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Darkness in India, Drought in America; You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

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The power grid in India failed this week, leaving half the population of the world’s largest democracy without electric power.

Half the counties in America have been declared drought disaster areas by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Half of India in the dark, half of America in drought. Makes you wonder: Where is the tipping point? How much failure can a country endure?

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Five Warning Signs of Continuing Economic Collapse

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It’s not Armageddon. But it’s not economic recovery. We’re not all going to live happily ever after.

The Statue of Liberty front shot, on Liberty I...

We’ll not be returning to the status quo ante 2006. That’s gone forever. The assumption of endless growth and prosperity is over in America. The American Dream of the past half-century is cooked.

What about more jobs, jobs, jobs for American workers, like the politicians pretend they believe? They can’t deliver it. Not going to happen. Glimmers of recovery here and there, maybe; but it will be the exception, not the rule.

Reindustrialization of America? Maybe a little bit, but new industry won’t need factories filled with unskilled workers. Or any kind of workers. Automation, robotization, computerization. All signs point to fewer jobs, not more jobs.

The promise of more jobs and economic recovery is a lie, or at least a mirage. I have to believe that many knowledgeable people in high places are aware of the truth. But they dare not say it out loud. Too many Americans are still in denial.

In order for people to accept the loss of the endless growth and prosperity model, they have to be able to replace it with a substitute. Leaders of government and business have not been able to come up with a substitute. They don’t know what to do except dissemble, and hope for a miracle.

The signs of continuing collapse in the near term and medium term are all around. Here are five of the most important warning signs, Continue reading →

‘Responsibility’ is Key to World Economic Crisis

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Is the present generation willing to accept the simple responsibility of paying its bills?

Or will we refuse to pay? That’s what it all comes down to, isn’t it?

The Roberts decision upholding the Affordable Care Act turned the spotlight on RESPONSIBILITY.  The effect of the High Court decision is to require that people of means take responsibility for buying their own health insurance. Some view that as an unreasonable request.

The decision also leaves a central question open to debate. Will society accept responsibility for the health care costs of the poor? The High Court’s position on Medicaid essentially requires each state to decide whether it will accept responsibility for its poor citizens. (A related question is: Can individuals act responsibly to preserve their own health?)

On the world economic stage, the crisis in Europe also spotlights responsibility.

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