Example: An ice cream plant with three dozen jobs, and 1,600 applicants — and counting.
Category: The New Depression
Poverty gets more expensive every day
Yesterday at the shack we woke to bone-chilling wind and a blanket of ice. The swamp rabbit was huddled in a corner with a bottle from the case of Wild Turkey I stole to help him get through his post-holiday funk. I told him to fetch wood from the swamp so we don’t freeze, it would be two below zero soon.
“That booze won’t warm you for long,” I said. “I’ll find you stiff as a board tomorrow morning.”
“Won’t be my fault,” the rabbit said. “You ain’t nothin’ but an enabler, don’t ya know?”
While the rodent fetched wood, I chopped ice off the roof and surfed the Net for more weather and news and so on. I saw a letter to the Naked Capitalism guy that I read to the rabbit when he got back with some dead branches that looked like bones:
My expenses are beginning to get the better of me and month’s end is stretching beyond my dollars. Next year is looking the same. So, yesterday I was pointedly reminded how expensive it is to be poor. Instead of buying a lot when something I use is on sale, I have to buy what I have dollars for. No savings for me! And instead of buying by unit price–I’m a ferocious unit price shopper–I have to buy whatever size I have dollars for. And now I have to make more trips because I can only buy small dollars worth at a time.
“Amen to that,” the swamp rabbit said. “I used to buy carrots at twelve bucks a carton when I worked for that magician, gettin’ pulled out of a hat. Now I can barely afford one of them two-dollar bags that don’t hold no more’n a half-dozen carrots.”
The lying varmint never worked for a magician but I could feel his pain, especially now that our secessionist Congress is cutting food stamps and unemployment, and reactionary governors in 25 states, with help from our neo-Confederate Supreme Court, are denying Medicaid to 4.8 million people who aren’t eligible for Obamacare. I read to the rabbit from something by William Greider:
The Supremes have done quite a lot in the last fifteen years to mess up our already weakened democratic system. They stole the presidential election in 2000. They cut loose Big Money to swamp elections by destroying lawful restraints. They are trying step-by-step to restore hoary old legalisms that favor capital over labor, corporations over individuals. Shouldn’t we be talking about how to stop them?
“No, we should be talkin’ about gettin’ somethin’ to eat,” the rabbit said. “I’m too hungry to talk politics.”
I told him to get a fire going in the stove so I could unfreeze the pack of wieners I pinched from Pathmark.
“What you take me for, a heathen?” he said. “I don’t eat no swine.”
“Better get used to it,” I said, “or start growing your own carrots.”
Footnote: Now I’ve got in my head Captain Beefheart’s “A Carrot Is as Close as a Rabbit Gets to a Diamond.”
‘The austerity agenda is winning’
Krugman on the budget deal.
H/t
If this doesn’t illustrate the problem, I don’t know what does: Sales more than $1 million in Philadelphia climbed 31 percent to 122 deals in the 12 months ending September 2012, according to data from Zillow Inc. Nine of those agreements were for properties priced more than $3 million, the most since at least 2007. This year so far, eight units at $3 million or more sold at either 10 Rittenhouse Square or 1706 Rittenhouse Square, according to Philadelphia property records. H/t to Jason Kalafat. http://youtu.be/DNttT7hDKsk The idea that the market will solve such things as environmental concerns, as our racial divides, as our class distinctions, our problems with educating and incorporating one generation of workers into the economy after the other when that economy is changing; the idea that the market is going to heed all of the human concerns and still maximise profit is juvenile. It’s a juvenile notion and it’s still being argued in my country passionately and we’re going down the tubes. And it terrifies me because I’m astonished at how comfortable we are in absolving ourselves of what is basically a moral choice. Are we all in this together or are we all not? If you watched the debacle that was, and is, the fight over something as basic as public health policy in my country over the last couple of years, imagine the ineffectiveness that Americans are going to offer the world when it comes to something really complicated like global warming. We can’t even get healthcare for our citizens on a basic level. And the argument comes down to: “Goddamn this socialist president. Does he think I’m going to pay to keep other people healthy? It’s socialism, motherfucker.” What do you think group health insurance is? You know you ask these guys, “Do you have group health insurance where you …?” “Oh yeah, I get …” you know, “my law firm …” So when you get sick you’re able to afford the treatment. The treatment comes because you have enough people in your law firm so you’re able to get health insurance enough for them to stay healthy. So the actuarial tables work and all of you, when you do get sick, are able to have the resources there to get better because you’re relying on the idea of the group. Yeah. And they nod their heads, and you go “Brother, that’s socialism. You know it is.” And … you know when you say, OK, we’re going to do what we’re doing for your law firm but we’re going to do it for 300 million Americans and we’re going to make it affordable for everybody that way. And yes, it means that you’re going to be paying for the other guys in the society, the same way you pay for the other guys in the law firm … Their eyes glaze. You know they don’t want to hear it. It’s too much. Too much to contemplate the idea that the whole country might be actually connected. Wow. I didn’t expect this: PHILADELPHIA – December 6, 2013 (WPVI) — Temple University announced on Friday that it is cutting seven intercollegiate sports. The sports being cut are: baseball, softball, men’s and women’s rowing, men’s gymnastics, men’s indoor track and field and men’s outdoor track and field. Some 150 students will be affected and nine full-time coaches will lose their jobs, the university confirmed to Action News. So what’s their excuse this time? With fast food and Walmart, it’s that you’re too stupid to work anywhere else and not worth more money. What do they have to say about the people who run their retail operations?
Big banks eating up taxpayer subsidies isn’t a new story. We heard a lot about the hundreds of billions of dollars doled out to Wall Street in the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). And a May analysis by Bloomberg News estimated that the six…
I only hope they one day feel the kind of pain they so blithely deal out to the rest of us: WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans controlling the House oppose a drive by Democrats to renew jobless benefits averaging less than $300 a week nationwide for the long-term unemployed, a senior GOP lawmaker said Tuesday. “I don’t see much appetite on our side for continuing this extension of benefits,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. “I just don’t.” Benefits for 1.3 million long-term unemployed people expire just three days after Christmas. Lawmakers say another 1.9 million people would miss out on the benefits in the first six months of next year. Democrats are pressing for legislation continuing a program in place since 2008 that gives federally paid benefits to jobless people after their 26 weeks of state benefits run out. Federal benefits have typically been offered during periods of high unemployment, though fewer weeks of extended jobless benefits are available than in previous years. The unemployment rate is averaging 7.3 percent nationwide. Last week I bought enough Wild Turkey to get the swamp rabbit through the week, which left me just enough money to buy a real turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. But I can’t bake a turkey because there’s no oven in my shack, so I hitchhiked from the swamp where we live to a convenience store to buy turkey hoagies. These turned out to be almost as expensive as a whole turkey but what the hell, it’s a holiday, let tomorrow take care of itself. My shack has no heat, so we ate on the porch in feeble sunlight. I talked politics and the rabbit talked philosophy. Which means he lectured me on the wisdom of the poet Lucretius, who believed there’s no afterlife, and we therefore should squeeze as much pleasure as possible out of our limited lifespans. Not necessarily by overindulging our appetites, as the rabbit does, but rather by learning to appreciate the modest pleasures — a simple meal, a beautiful sunset, the company of good friends, and so on — that Lucretius believed are conducive to peace of mind. “You ain’t never gonna have no peace of mind you keep worrying about them politicians,” he said. This was in reference to my ranting about Republican Congressman Eric Cantor, who wants to eliminate overtime pay for hourly workers. “But this Cantor guy is special,” I replied. “A smug little right-wing weasel, always a smirk on his face, always pretending he’s doing working people a favor by ripping them off.” The rabbit picked a red pepper from his hoagie and threw it in the swamp. “He’s doin’ what weasels do, Odd Man. You expectin’ divine justice or something?” He thinks I’m a Platonist, maybe even a closet Christian. “I’m expecting earthly justice. Just because Lucretius was an atheist doesn’t mean he didn’t believe in justice.” “Them’s nothin’ but words,” the rabbit said. “You’re like one of them frogs in the scum pond over there, croakin’ at the top of your lungs I’m special, I’m special. You don’t even get no hourly wage, let alone OT.” “That’s my point, you dumb rodent. Things get worse unless we fix them. The fact that the universe is indifferent is no excuse to behave like sheep. It’s a reason to behave like humans.” I read to him from Stephen Greenblatt’s book about Lucretius, The Swerve: All speculation — all science, all morality, all attempts to fashion a life worth living — must start and end with a comprehension of the invisible seeds of things: atoms and the void and nothing else. The rabbit took a drink and said, “That’s my point. Humans, sheep, weasels — what’s the difference? We’ll all be dead in an eye blink.” “I don’t get you,” I said. “Last week you said those people who work at Walmart should burn down the stores if they don’t get pay raises.” “Well, I changed my mind.” he said. “Last week I didn’t have no whisky.” I shook my head. “The times are changing, rabbit. Humanism is back. Even the new pope is down with it.” He sucked a few last drops from his bottle and said, “Great. Tell that to Rush Limbaugh and his army. Tell Eric Cantor.” Footnote: In case you missed it, Pope Francis called the current brand of free-market capitalism “a new tyranny,” so Limbaugh called him a Marxist. I’d consider that a compliment. I’ve been thinking of JFK and of those hard-luck cases who work at places like McDonald’s and Walmart. (There but for the grace of God and the wearing of a clown uniform go I.) Those who are old enough can recall exactly where they were 50 years ago when JFK was killed, but I’ll bet few of them recall when the fight to eradicate poverty, a key factor in Kennedy’s New Frontier spiel, turned into acceptance of the widening gap between rich and poor. No, worse than that — acceptance of the idea that government’s main job is to ensure the rich get richer at the expense of the rest of us. The union-busting Ronald Reagan had something to do with it, but there wouldn’t have been a Reagan without the legions of working-class white voters who thought Reagan had their interests at heart. From Noam Chomsky, with my boldings: We don’t use the term “working class” [in America] because it’s a taboo term. You’re supposed to say “middle class,” because it helps diminish the understanding that there’s a class war going on. It’s true that there was a one-sided class war, and that’s because the other side hadn’t chosen to participate, so the union leadership had for years pursued a policy of making a compact with the corporations, in which their workers — say, the autoworkers —- would get certain benefits like fairly decent wages, health benefits and so on. But it wouldn’t engage the general class structure. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why Canada has a national health program and the United States doesn’t. The same unions on the other side of the border were calling for health care for everybody. Here they were calling for health care for themselves and they got it. Of course, it’s a compact with corporations that the corporations can break anytime they want, and by the 1970s they were planning to break it and we’ve seen what has happened since. How’s that “compact with the corporations” working for you now, former labor unionists and ex-members of the middle class? Footnote: The income gap between rich and poor has been growing since the 1970s. Ninety-five percent of the gains made in recovery from the 2008 crash have gone to the richest one percent of Americans. Apparently some people are doing quite well
‘Now there are two Americas’
Continue reading “‘Now there are two Americas’” Temple to cut seven sports
One in three bank tellers need public assistance
Continue reading “One in three bank tellers need public assistance”
Heartless pricks
Turkey Day with Lucretius and Eric Cantor
Where were you when poverty became acceptable?