Union Busting

Recently, a vote to unionize a Volkswagon plant in Tennessee failed by a narrow margin.  Were the workers scared by threats to withdraw state subsidies to the automaker, or have they forgotten our labor history?  They probably forgot the good old days when unions were weak and had no Federal government protection.  In the Great Coalfield War of 1914,the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company owned by John D. Rockefeller, used standard union-busting techniques such as mass firings, and if that was not enough, they obtained the help of Colorado's National Guard who turned a machine gun on the strikers encampment killing twenty of its inhabitants including women and children. 
     Class war continues.

Melding finance and politics

William A. Ackman, the activist hedge fund manager who had bet a billion dollars on the collapse of the nutritional supplement company Herbalife, offered his latest evidence to a handful of other hedge fund managers about why the company’s stock could soon plummet. He also spreads the word in Congress and regulatory agencies, hoping the bad publicity will ruin Herbalife and cause its stock price to fall to benefit his short position.  (see NYT 10 March)
    Small time crooks who steal a purse or have an ounce of pot go to jail for long periods.   But if you steal a billion, you probably are featured in the Wall Street Journal.

A Dreadful Deceit

A selection from a review of the A Dreadful Deceit--The Myth of Race From the Colonial Era to Obama's America is worth repeating:
"To explain how racial conflict has masked power struggles for control over others' labor, Jones surveys compelled work in its many varieties, from slave labor under the lash on tobacco plantations in Maryland to mandatory overtime in unsafe and sweltering auto plants in Detroit.  Racial ideologies, she argues are like mob violence, disenfranchisement and discriminatory laws--merely tactics used to secure material advantages in social contexts perceived as zero-sum"
         review by Tommie Shelby in the New York Times Book Review, Feb. 16, 2014

War on the Low income worker

Robert Reich makes the following points about the ruling class in Congress:
1. They refuse to extend unemployment benefits.
2. They don't want to raise the paltry minimum wage.
3. They are against extending medicare benefits to millions (Congress of course has its own medical benefits.)
4. They cut food stamps in the latest farm bill.
5. They refuse to invest in education and job training.
6. They do not want to rebuild America's crumbling infrastructure, or any other job creating program.
7. They are out to bust what unions remain.
Why do they do this? 
Big employers like a docile workforce who are thankful for whatever they get.

     I say that this low wage policy is backfiring.  Poorly paid and unemployed can't buy the products of these corporations.  Weak consumer spending is hampering our recovery.
Besides, this war on the poor and working class is greedy and immoral.

Rich Farmers, Yes. Poor hungry, NO

The new farm bill assures relatively rich farmers $956 billion for the next 10 years. Taxpayers pay about 60% of the cost of insurance against low prices for farmers.  Spending on food stamps for the poor and unemployed meanwhile, will be cut $8 billion. 
     Of course, it is good that money is added to the bill to combat fraud in the food stamp and crop insurance programs, but the whole thing is a fraud.

Farm Welfare

We do not have welfare for the poor and unemployed, but we have it for large, rich farmers.

"The new farm bill, which had been mired in partisan gridlock, makes fundamental changes to both nutrition and farm programs. It cuts the food stamp program by $8 billion, and about 850,000 households will lose about $90 in monthly benefits under the change. (Let them eat cake.)

Anti-hunger groups called the food stamp cuts draconian. Feeding America, a coalition of food banks across the county, said the change would result in 34 lost meals per month for the affected households.

The bill does provide a $200 million increase in financing to food banks, though many said the money might not be enough to offset the expected surge in demand for food.

Farm programs were not spared from the cuts in the new bill. The most significant change to farm programs is the elimination of a subsidy known as direct payments. These payments, about $5 billion a year, are paid to farmers whether or not they grow crops, and the issue had become politically toxic over the last several years as farm income has risen to record levels.

The new bill cuts this subsidy and adds some of the money to the government-subsidized crop insurance. The government pays 62 percent of premiums for the $9 billion-a-year insurance program."   NYT 30 jan 2014

World Wealth Distribution is Skewed

One percent of the world's population owns 45 percent of the wealth.  Absurd!
At least the President of France has proposed a substantial tax on the super wealthy.
How long will we put up with this before people revolt.  Maybe they already are, and we call them terrorists.