If The Fed's Powell Is Ready To 'Print Trillions' To Help The States, Tightwad GOP Should Let Him!

Fed chairman Jay Powell, makes an excellent case for providing a safety net to states, as well as corporations.

"Congress seems to be at war with the states. Only $150 billion of its nearly $3 trillion coronavirus relief package – a mere 5% – has been allocated to the 50 states; and they are not allowed to use it where they need it most, to plug the holes in their budgets caused by the mandatory shutdown. On April 22, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he was opposed to additional federal aid to the states, and that his preference was to allow states to go bankrupt"- Ellen Brown, today, 'Crushing The States, Saving The Banks', smirkingchimp.com blog


'Powell Urges Policy Makers To Spend More'  (WSJ, April 30, p. A2)  shows that Fed Chairman Jerome ('Jay') Powell has a much deeper appreciation of the financial straits the nation is in than the Repuke bean counters, Scrooges and austerity clowns. Right now, the greatest imperative is to get money to state and local governments, which the earlier CARES act omitted.  Why infuse  more $$$ for the states and local governments? Well, because they embody the essence of what government is about.   I mean, what citizen in his or her right might wants to see schools, law enforcement, fire departments and utilities shut down - because of lack of funding?  That way madness lies.   

To fix ideas, as reported in The Denver Post (p. 1A,  5/2) , Colorado's state government is now planning some $228 million in spending cuts that could affect everything from police departments, to schools, to health clinics to correctional facilities and even Medicaid.   In Maryland, the state we used to live (before coming to Colo. in December,  2000) 90 days of shelter in place orders are forecast to blow a $3 billion hole in its $90 b annual budget.   That will mean severe cutting of vital services. Other states are having to do the same with no federal lifelines in the pipeline.   Do people in these states really want to do without police, fire depts. and schools?

But this is the gist of the Republican penny-pinching strategy which -  if it succeeds - will see the U.S. end up in a 2nd Great Depression, not just a bad recession.   In fact, while the austerity -minded Repubs have resisted calls for additional funding, citing added debt burdens,  Jay Powell pointed out (ibid.):

"This is not the time to act on these concerns. This is the time to use the great fiscal power of the United States to get through this with as little damage to the longer run productive capacity of the economy as possible."

It's incredible that the Scrooge clones like Mitch McConnell don't grasp this, and would rather put us into another Depression but there it is.  They would rather be chintzy now - especially with the states, local governments-  and pay ten to fifty times later to dig out from the carnage.   Which is why it's good we didn't have these losers in power after the credit meltdown in 2008.

Across the country now there are  massive budget shortfalls  in state and local governments arising from cratering tax revenues. 21 states will have to fill budget gaps of at least ten percent to avoid furloughs of police, firemen and other critical service workers.  And don't even think the existing federal benefits are enough. For example, just applying for and renewing the SNAP (food stamps) requires overcoming a host of bureaucratic hurdles.  And even the fraction who qualify must also rely on food banks given the average monthly SNAP benefit amounts to $134.

In truth, we desperately need not just a $1, 200 one off payment to each American, but a universal basic income (UBI) of at least $2,000/ month for the next 6 months.  (As policy analyst Heather McGee noted on 'All In' last week). So despite the caterwauling and gaslighting from the Repukes, it is clear we need a massive infusion of at least $800 b to help the states, and possibly another $2 trillion more by the end of the fiscal year.  This despite the endless austerity whining of the likes of The Wall Street Journal (e.g. 'The Government Economy',  April 30, p. A14) who bellyache the states "contributed only 0.2% to  the CARES Act".  Well, duh! That's because THEY took the brunt of the lockdown hit ("economy put into the equivalent of a medical coma"), and also they have laws that require balanced budgets -  so must cut if spending exceeds a certain threshold. Also they have no latitude to print money like the Federal Reserve.

Playing into the WSJ editors' hands, Moscow Mitch and his sidekick in stupidity, Rick Scott, blame many blue states for "mismanagement" of their money to explain the predicament and having to cut services, furlough state employees. That is bollocks.  As  NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo  has acidly observed (according to Joe Conason), New York pays $116 billion more than it gets back annually, while Kentucky, the deadbeat home of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, gets $148 billion more than it pays each year. By that reckoning, New York has kicked in far more over the past few decades than any of the states whose Republican leaders criticize supposed liberal profligacy.

McConnell, meanwhile, doesn't get the dire straits states are in could lead to a true Depression era, and collapse of remaining demand.   The goober with the mouth of a drunken Guppy blabbed:

"We're not interested in borrowing money from future generations to send down to states to help them with bad decisions they've made in the past, unrelated to the coronavirus."

But this is horse manure. As economist Paul Krugman pointed out Friday on Morning Joe , there is no "borrowing from future generations" since we are  borrowing  internally and in our own currency - not from outside creditors like the IMF or other nations. The truth is there is almost no limit to what can be borrowed given we are borrowing  from ourselves, and also interest rates are effectively zero.   Other nations like Great Britain and Japan have done it, and the U.S. can do the same. As Krugman has recently  written in the WaPo:

"Deficit obsession was deeply destructive in the years that followed the global financial crisis, helping conservatives push for austerity measures that held back economic recovery for years." 

And on 'Morning Joe' last week Prof. Krugman made it clear deficit spending was the primary way to alleviate hardship for the 30 million now unemployed, as well as the states.  As he told Joe Scarborough, who mentioned his abiding concern over the deficit for 25 years and asked why we shouldn't be concerned now:  

"If  you ask what is the future burden on the budget by the borrowing we're doing now, it's negligible, a rounding error.  It's just not going to matter.   Yeah, the headline numbers will be large and debt as a percentage of GDP will be as larger or larger than during World War II.  But everything we know about advanced nations that borrow in their own currency - like Great Britain and Japan - shows they are able to carry very high debt loads without crisis.  Even when interest rates aren't as low as they are now they are consistently below the growth rate of the economy.  So the debt will erode over time relative to GDP so long as you aren't totally irresponsible.   

Yes, there must be some limit but looking at the historical record it's very hard to find it. Look at Japan, its debt is 200 percent of GDP and no problems.  We came out of World War Two with debt at 100 percent of GDP and which everyone thought was terrible, but it turned out to be no problem at all.  And by the way we never paid that debt back, we just grew out of it.  Britain had debt that was 270 percent of GDP and they grew out of it too, after a few years down to 50 percent of GDP.

If there is an upper limit it should be so far from where we are that it shouldn't  bear on our policy decisions now."

The  responses to deficit worries given above also comport with what Krugman wrote for the Guardian not long ago:

In such an economy (with zero interest rates) the government does everyone a service by running deficits and giving frustrated savers a chance to put their money to work. Nor does this borrowing compete with private investment. An economy where interest rates cannot go any lower is an economy awash in desired saving with no place to go, and deficit spending that expands the economy is, if anything, likely to lead to higher private investment than would otherwise materialize...  

Why does deficit obsession and pandering to austerity work, say in the public debate sphere? Krugman again:

"Part of the answer is that politicians were catering to a public that doesn’t understand the rationale for deficit spending, that tends to think of the government budget via analogies with family finances."


The point Krugman is making is that while family finances are limited by the family income, and hence a family cannot spend more than it earns (unless it uses credit cards and runs up debt and a greater likelihood of delinquency), the federal gov't can print as much money as it needs to. Yep, debt is generated but in its own currency.  Also the debtor here is also the creditor so there's no problem. But the family has to answer to outside banks, credit card issuers, collectors etc.  So the family debtors are not the same as the creditors.   Nor can the family just print money to pay off its outside obligations, whether an auto loan, mortgage or medical bill.


Bottom line? If we measured national debt and deficits in the standard ways other nations do, i.e. to external  nations, or agencies like the IMF (like Barbados, when it needs loans)  there wouldn't be  half the kerfuffle about it.  Rather than wasting time fretting over an increase in the national debt that amounts to a "rounding error" we need to help the states and 30 m suffering citizens get the money they need.  And in the process help the whole nation avoid an economic calamity.  

All the Fed needs is the green light from congress (namely the GOP run Senate), since it cannot lend or provide money to states on its own, only to businesses. 

   See also:

Economic Policy | Mitch McConnell

As McConnell Tries to Hold Aid to States and Cities Hostage, Mass Layoffs of Public Employees Begin

Excerpt:

"People like having their garbage collected, their roads plowed, and their 911 calls answered. They want their cities to function. They like their kids' teachers. They know all these people in their communities. That's the fire Mitch McConnell is playing with, and you can bet more than one vulnerable Republican senator recognizes that."

And:

Economic Policy

Republicans Are Indulging in a Nasty Gambit — but They Won’t like the Final Endgame

A Four-Day Work Week? Be Careful What You Wish For

All of a sudden we're learning that Microsoft is "testing" a 4 day work week. Indeed, the company had already commenced with an experiment earlier this year in Japan.   We also learn from a recent Denver Post Business article ('In Test Run, Four -Day Work Week Boosts Output', Nov, 10, p. 5K):

"Even in a country known for its extreme overwork, the shorter week had a big boost in prdoctivity".

Adding:

"The test run, which took place in august and gave employees five consecutive Fridays off, boosted sales per employee by 40 % compared to the same month a year earlier....The test was billed as being part of a 'work life choice;  strategy helping employees work more flexibly."

A great boon to workers, especially with families?  Hold strain!  The shorter work week comes with a cost: less free time each day because you will now be working TEN hour days, not 8-hour.  And because corporate employers will still want to squeeze out that extra face time - just as 8 hour days becoming 9 or 10, look for 10 hour days becoming 11 or 12.  Don't think that's possible? Then you are fooling yourself. As one UK website points out:

"In reality, most employees on a four day week will most likely be expected to work the same 40-hour weeks, but in four days instead of five. In this case, shifts might be extended to 10 hours. Longer days could have a significant effect on your employees' stress levels and therefore their overall wellbeing and productivity. "

  As the Post piece also warns:

"Some smaller companies that have tried the idea cheer its benefits ...but they have also said it can lead to workers pushing the limits on long weekend scheduling and result in more pressure- filled days when people are on the job,"

Adding:

"Some have warned the push could cut workers' pay, hurt competitiveness, and that a move toward reducing hours rather than legislating  cap is more desirable"

Indeed, futurist writers like Alvin Toffler, e.g.  in his two books,  'Future Shock' and 'The Third Wave', had predicted vastly increased leisure time for future U.S. citizens. For example, in the latter book, he wrote (p. 276):

"Thus we are moving toward a future economy to which very large numbers never hold full time paid jobs, or in which 'full time' is redefined .. .to mean a shorter or shorter work week or work year."

He then cited the case of Sweden in which a "full time" work year continued to mean "1840 hours" or in more practical terms, 1600 hours.   Using that example, then under the currently offered "4 day work week" one ought to expect 4 days with eight hours a day put in, no more.  This would be the work week redefined downward as Toffler indicated.

 We know that never came to pass given that more computers, added gizmos etc. simply compounded the volume of work and thereby increased the demand for more productivity.  All this tied to the GDP or GNP (gross national product)

Let's also please note that comparing the workaholic Japanese  and their productivity gains to those of American workers is  like comparing chalk and cheese.  This is perhaps why, according to the Post article:

"None of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates had embraced the idea (of the four day week) even though they have backed other ambitious ideas, such as universal basic income or a federal jobs guarantee."

But there really is no mystery in their avoidance here, as opposed to their embrace of the two other proposals. The reason is that they would know - as the UK website pointed out - there's vast room for corporate exploitation of this 4 day week, especially without legal caps on work hours.  So as the site noted, repeating it again:

"Longer days could have a significant effect on your employees' stress levels and therefore their overall wellbeing and productivity. 

SO why would any Dem candidate worth a grain of salt back such a daft proposal?  UBI or universal basic income on the other hand is a :"plus one" for workers in that they receive that money (most estimates are $1,000 a month) in addition to their wages.  Hence, can more easily pay off debts and keep up with medical bills etc.  As for the federal jobs guarantee, that is an unconditional plus for any unemployed but qualified person, again not open to exploitation like a four day work week would be.

What the Dem candidates WOULD back, but which we are unlikely to see from the Neoliberal corporatists,  is a TRUE 4 day week, meaning four,  eight -hour work days but with the pay scaled to a 5 day, 40 hour week.  In other words, less total hours worked but still receiving the same pay as for the longer, original  5-day  work week.

But as I wrote in previous blog posts, don't look for this alternative to happen anytime soon.  That better option isn't what's on offer  because economists keep to a rigid definition of GDP and what constitutes paid work.  As Toffler explained at the time (pp. 282-83):

"Should not a man or woman who stays home and rears a child, thereby contributing to the productivity of Sector B (the formal exchange sector market)  through his or her efforts in Sector A (the informal self-directed, unpaid labor market) receive some income even if he or she does not hold down a job in Sector B?"

This echoes what I wrote in a Feb. 5, 2018 post on the need to redefine the GDP:

"GDP is supposed to measure the total production and consumption of goods and services in the United States. But the numbers that make up the Gross Domestic Product by and large only capture the monetary transactions we can put a dollar value on  ....Almost everything else is left out.  ....In addition, there are hundreds of other contributions not registered that arguably have  major economic impacts. For example, a 2015 Forbes article highlighted how 40 million family caregivers in the U.S. are putting their own careers on hold to provide unpaid care — sometimes for decades.   The estimated  total value of the care has been put at nearly $1 trillion. This isn't reckoned into the GDP but IF it were,  the labor productivity would surely be much higher in the years since 2007."


As Toffler further observed (p. 280):

"There is no recognition as yet that actual production also takes place in Sector A  - that the goods and services produced for oneself are quite real, and that they may displace or substitute for goods and services turned out in Sector B.  Conventional production figures, especially GNP figures, will make less and less sense until we expand them to include what happens in Sector A."

To simplify all this further, if American workers are already doing much "Sector A" work, say care giving for a child or spouse, it should be a no brainer that a 32 hour (4 day) work week makes eminent sense. It allows the worker to commit 32 hours to "Sector B" paid work but also allows him or her time to take care of family needs on the 8 other hours (for which he will now be paid, but are not worked in the formal job).  The issue here is that a 4 day, 10 hour a day job does not make that cut and I am sure Toffler would agree with me - if he was still alive.

The problem we face is that the wealthy owners and capitalists (especially hedge fund owners of hospitals, banks etc) who largely  fund economists' research,  still are committed to reducing pay as much as possible while squeezing every last additional hour of toil from hapless, already overworked (Sector B working) citizens. No one, therefore, ought to be fooled that this 4-day work week now on offer is any kind of boon.

Unless one is a confirmed workaholic, of course.  Or has no family that requires outside of (paid) work attention.

See also:


http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/06/modern-economics-its-evil-basis-pareto.html

and

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/06/modern-economics-its-evil-basis-pareto_13.html

The 'Dangerous Fantasy of a Jobs Guarantee'? - Then Pass Universal Basic Income!

In yet another conservo think tank permutation, some of us have now beheld the "American Institute for Economic Research' - whose denizen Max Gulker scribbled a recent WSJ op-ed entitled 'The Dangerous Fantasy of a Jobs Guarantee' (Nov. 15, p. A23), writing:

"Forget for the moment about 'Medicare for All'. A proposal is gaining steam on the left that would overhaul the U.S. economy in a far more radical way. Known as a federal job guarantee, the plan would require the government to provide work on demand to any American at a minimum wage of about $12 per hour, plus full benefits/"

Yes, so what? Twelve bucks an hour works out to about $1920 before any taxes. Apply those, and the take home pay is down to around $1600.  That is still less than paying every work- displaced American a monthly UBI stipend of $2,000 (tax free).

Gulker's problem with the plan (laid out by Sens. Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders and Kirsten Gillibrand), is the cost ($543 billion)  and the objective to "find work for more than 10 million" and for a $12 minimum wage, especially "given 41 million workers currently earn less than the program's $11.83 minimum wage". Gulker also kvetches that "their projections are based on an historically low unemployment rate."

Gulker also claims (ibid.):

"Beyond its cost, the job guarantee would turn the fundamental logic of work on its head. Generally, people work for employers, whether private organizations or government agencies,  because employees add enough value to sustain their wages and still benefit the employer. 

But is this really true? Not according to Michael Robbins, whose Nation article (' Looking Busy:The Rise Of Pointless Work', December, p. 33) ',  argues forcefully that most work today is "bullshit" make work,  "determined by a system, e.g. capitalism. of abstract compulsion".   To bolster his case he cites the work of David Graeber ('Bullshit Jobs: A Theory'), i.e.  that we exist amidst a "proliferation of pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working".    Graeber's work basically collects a trove of anecdotal accounts in which the respondents describe how they have to "look busy" much of the time, just to clock in time to get paid their often pathetic wages.  Thereby Robbins notes, Graeber's book "offers us an engaging - albeit at the same time tremendously disheartening portrait of labor in 21st century capitalism"

Example:  One woman's job was to go around demanding IDs and proof of income from temporarily sheltered homeless folk, so her unit could claim back the housing benefit.  If the necessary paperwork wasn't provided, the homeless were kicked out by the caseworker.

Another example: A museum guard whose entire job was to protect an empty room. To ensure his vigilance he was forbidden to read or even text on his cell.

Robbins himself cites his own post-college job as a paralegal temp, doing data entry for  a corporate law firm.  He earned "a little over minimum wage" and when all caught up with his spreadsheets he'd surf the web.  When a co-worker spotted him on one occasion, he blabbed at Robbins self-righteously: "You're not getting paid to surf the web!"    Robbins then ruminated on his "rebellious" actions in the piece (ibid.):

"I was just trying to reclaim a little of my time from those who were stealing it. After all, I still had to sit in that depressing room and fill out enough spreadsheets to keep from getting fired.  My co-worker was simply expressing an assumption so commonplace that it hardly ever needs to be articulated: Your time does not belong to you."

Then Robbins cites Andre Gorz' example of factory workers whose wages were cut by a certain set of innominate owners to subsistence level - to the point workers had to put in even more time just to survive. In Gorz' take: "Productive activity began to be cut off from its meaning, its motivation and its object and became simply a means of earning a wage."

This cynical take, interestingly, is given credence in a WSJ Exchange piece (p. B1, Nov. 24-25) citing a Powerpoint presentation by analyst Dan Lyons released in 2009 by Netflix exec Reed Hastings.  The bottom line of the presentation?   "Hard work isn't relevant, only results" and "no matter where you work and how well you're doing your job is never secure."

In other words, your wage labor, your "productive activity" is divorced from any real meaning, or basis for real motivation (other than to collect the wage).

If this is true, then Gulker's complaints hold no water. "Sustaining wages" just becomes a matter of make work to please a given employer or owner to get whatever he deems are "results". Whatever productive activity is alleged to exist in the job lacks any meaning, time quantum to achieve  or rationale for any enduring motivation. In this case, it really doesn't matter if we have a lifetime guarantee of jobs, given most lack any meaning anyway.

Where I do concur with Gulker is when he writes (ibid.):

"The program's administration would present numerous opportunities for corruption, such as businesses bribing government  officials for free labor."

Of course, this has already been going on in the 'welfare to work' domain as per a Baltimore Sun report in 1998.(Detailed and explained in my book, 'The Elements of the Corporatocracy')  That report  showed millions of folks on welfare receiving barely two -fifths of the then  minimum wage to work for Maryland  businesses - basically almost free labor.  So, Gulker's worries are really that the workers affected under the new plan won't be indentured servants like the welfare to work folks.  He's barking at the "waste" from business corruption, which again, is a symptom of capitalism and a screwed up greed philosophy, e.g.

Bruce E. Levine

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Conservatives and the Right

Here's How Ayn Rand Helped Turn The Us Into A Selfish And Greedy Nation

Another Gulker bitch is that "a federal job guarantee would harm the overall labor market."

What he really means is that the usual "unemployment rent" the Federal Reserve  enlists. i.e.  to ensure enough workers are unemployed - to keep wages low and employers happy - will not exist.  This is the labor surplus,  which enables employers and businesses to dictate terms to workers, instead of the other way around. Well, true, it will no longer help employers or greedy capitalist owners exploit them, i.e. pay dirt wages and next to zero benefits.

Of course, given all  this I'd argue it's probably preferable just to use the earmarked funds - e.g. the $543 b - to implement a universal basic income (UBI) system and pay people - mainly those displaced by AI or robots, to do whatever the hell they want.  Maybe some wish to paint, so let them. Others may wish to tutor neighbor kids in math or musical instruments, so they can do that. Others may just wish to meditate and that's ok too. Or doing absolutely nothing, a sacrilege in a Calvinist, capitalist society predicated on the value of work, an aspect Gulker jumps on when he scribbles: "Public policy should help people not make them lifelong dependents."

Well, uh yeah, provided it doesn't make employers dependent on being lifelong masters and exploiters of workers' time!

But the main point missed by Gulker and his cohort, is that the aim - whether of UBI or the D-Senators prescription - is to reduce economic inequality, not to givve employers or companies a supposed  "value" excuse  to "support wages."

As Guy Standing write in his latest smirkingchimp.com blog entry:
Social Wealth Funds to Universal Basic Income: the Precariat Age Demands Far-Reaching Solutions to Dismantle Mass Inequality

"Historically, every progressive surge has been propelled by the demands of the emerging mass class. Today’s progressive transformation must, therefore, be oriented to the precariat, driven by a strategy that appeals to enough of all its factions to garner adequate strength. Unlike the proletariat, which sought labor security, the progressives among the precariat want a future based on existential security, with a high priority placed on ecology—environmental protection, the “landscape,” and the commons. By contrast, when confronted by a policy choice between environmental degradation and “jobs,” the proletariat, labor unions, and their political representatives have given “jobs” priority.

The precariat is a transformative class partly because, as it is not habituated to stable labor, it is less likely than the proletariat to suffer from false consciousness, a belief that the answer to insecurity is more labor, more jobs. In the twentieth century, mainstream commentators believed that putting more people into jobs and for longer was a progressive strategy—that doing so offered people the best route out of poverty. It was a trap into which many on the left fell.

For hundreds of years, the idea of putting everybody in jobs would have been regarded as strange. The ancient Greeks saw labor as being unworthy of the citizen. Their society was hierarchical and sexist, but their distinctions between labor and work, and between leisure (schole) and recreation, are vital for defining the good life. 

Being in a job is to be in a position of subordination, answering to a boss. That is not a natural human condition nor an emancipatory one. In the nineteenth century, being “in employment” was a badge of shame, often referring to a woman reduced to being a domestic servant. In the early years of the United States, wage laborers were denied the vote on the grounds that they could not be independent if they were not property owners.
\

A transformative politics should promote work that is not resource-depleting and encourage leisure in the ancient Greek sense of schole, the pursuit of knowledge and meaning, rather than endless consumption. That points to the need to reconceptualize work, to develop a new politics of time, and to decommodify education so that it revives its original purpose of preparing young adults for citizenship. Most fundamentally, such a politics must promote a new income distribution system because the reimagining of work depends on it."

With which I fully concur. I've also  - in previous posts- described ways such non-resource depleting work might be achieved.  For example, in my Feb. 5 post on productivity and the GDP  as a useless barometer, I noted:

 "A 2015 Forbes article highlighted how 40 million family caregivers in the U.S. are putting their own careers on hold to provide unpaid care — sometimes for decades.   The estimated  total value of the care has been put at nearly $1 trillion."

This also reopens the argument of Andrew Yang to see UBI more as a social investment  stipend, where we ask citizens to consider doing service work or care work in return for this stipend - say of $2,000 per month for life. As one reviewer  (WSJ, 'The Cure For Poverty?' July 10, p. A13).of Yang's relevant book describes the difference:

Care work would include parenting or home schooling of young children, assisting aging parents or helping a friend with mental or physical disabilities.  Service work would focus on much of the nonprofit and volunteer groups - leading after school activities, guiding tours at parks or collecting oral histories from elders in their communities,

So we  earmark up to  $1 trillion to all those caregivers or service workers - currently getting nada-  as permanent wages. Where would we get the money? Standing's solution for getting the funds entails:

'The income from using commons resources should belong to every commoner equally. Accordingly, the tax system should shift from earned income and consumption to taxing commercial uses of the commons, thereby facilitating their preservation. Levies on income gained from using our commons should become major sources of public revenue. This means such measures as a land value tax, a wealth transfer tax, ecological taxes such as a carbon tax, a water use levy, levies on income from intellectual property and on use of our personal data, a “frequent flyer levy,” and levies on all income generated by use of natural resources that should belong to us as commoners.

Fed by these levies, a Commons Fund could be set up as a democratic variant of the sovereign wealth funds that exist in over sixty countries. Then, the questions would become how to use the funds in a transformative way. The Fund should be operated on proper economic lines, adhering to investment rules geared to socially beneficial forms of capital, taking into account ecological principles and tax-paying propriety."

At the end of the day the task of all these writers (Robbins, Standing, Glaeser et al)  is to try to break us out of the conditioned capitalist mind mold that only wage work has meaning, and if you're not doing it you're some species of bum. The epitome of this is when at social occasions, for example, the inevitable goofball approaches you asking "What do you do?"   Which means, as Robbins points out, "How do you earn a living?"  Adding:

"And this is so even when there is no social need for everyone to be working all the time."

Hence, in this  context, the very question becomes insipid and vacuous. Somewhat akin to frosh goofballs at their first college social asking peers,  "What's your major?"  Indicating a total lack of imagination, creativity or originality- and further being locked into a fixed mental mold. Why not instead, approach someone at a party or social gathering and ask: "What sort of interests do you have?" It's vastly more intelligent and doesn't reveal one to be a money-obsessed,  one dimensional capitalist drone.


See also:

Sarah Anderson

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Corporate America

Corporations Should Share the Wealth Before Buying Back Stock

Now It's Electric Vehicles Driving Out Jobs

When Alan Emtage, the father of the modern search engine ("Archie") told me during a conversation in Barbados in April, 2017 that most jobs that required driving would be gone by 2025, I didn't believe him.

"How is this going to happen?" I asked. Of course, I knew about the advent of self-driven vehicles but truth be told, these were nowhere near ready to be taking the highways en masse anytime soon. There were still too many technical details to work out.

But he didn't budge.

"Those issues will all mostly be solved by 2020. Then that will pave the way for long haul self-driven trucks carrying cargo, so humans won't be needed on such drives any longer. Also, bus drivers as well as taxi drivers stand to be replaced. Already, Uber is considering self-driving vehicles, removing most of the problems they've had with driver - passenger negative interactions."

He also assured me that was the tip of the proverbial iceberg, and very soon electric vehicles would be rendering redundant most jobs that depend on maintaining internal combustion engines.  I knew Emtage was also something of a futurist, but believed at the time even this might be too big a stretch even for his seer powers.

That was before I read the December 17, 2017 Denver Post article, 'Electric Vehicles Driving Jobs Out',  by Peter Holley.  We learn therein:

"As a wave of electric vehicles quickly approaches, experts say, it could wash away a large portion of a skilled labor group that has been around for decades: the automobile mechanic."

And why?

"The reason is simple: Unlike gas-powered engines, electric engines don't require oil changes, have far fewer moving parts and rarely break down, eliminating much of the maintenance repair shops rely on. The latest electric vehicles can be services using parts purchased online or fixed remotely through over-the -air updates."

That has serious implications when one considers the U.S. auto repair industry currently employs some 750,000 workers - or almost four times the number employed in the coal industry.   The worst aspect? None of these workers is remotely prepared for the end of the era of gas powered transportation.  Thus, they will likely remain on their soon to be extinct jobs until informed they aren't needed any longer.

According to one long time auto mechanic, Craig Van Batenburg, quoted in the piece:

"People are freaking out. Ninety percent of our industry has done nothing - absolutely nothing - to prepare. They just turn the hybrids and EVs away and say 'We don't work on those cars, take them back  to Ford or Toyota."

This is a sad commentary given there are 160,000 independent auto shops in the U.S. which may all be going out of business very soon.  They are literal dinosaurs given that EVs - unlike gas powered cars- require no traditional oil changes, fuel filters, spark plug replacement or emission checks.  You can also basically say goodbye to changing timing belts, differential and transmission fluid.

This elicits the question of what all these auto mechanics will do once displaced?  Well, it seems clear the same provision of UBI (universal basic income) as needed by the other 300 million in the world about to be displaced by automation. According to one recent WSJ  report ('Firms Leave The Bean Counting To The Robots') in the Business and Investing section (p, B5, Oct. 23) .AI -based robots will soon be taking over CFO and accounting work across the land.  And this is but a fraction of all the workers that will be displaced globally.

The same applies to the realm of manual labor, and  in an October column Jim Hightower cites the example of "SAM" a robotic bricklayer that "lays three times as many bricks in a day as a human can". Hence, it has the potential to displace three times the number of human workers.

Hightower then sizes things up with crystal clarity:

"It's not robots that are taking our jobs, but corporate profiteers. They're creating a robot economy in order to displace you and me with inexpensive machines that don't demand higher wages or health care, don't take sick days or vacations and don't organize unions, file lawsuits or vote for pro-worker politicians. It's to be a plutocratic utopia designed by and for the corporate elite "

His words ought to sound resonant chords in any sentient worker, especially if your job is of a repetitive nature even if not manual labor.   As Hightower notes:

"Also, the jobs of librarians, pharmacists, lawyers, air traffic controllers, doctors, teachers, hospital administrators, bartenders — and so many more — are targeted for massive displacement."

As I warned in earlier posts, now is the time for our vaunted leaders to get serious about implementing the UBI solution.  The alternative is not something any of us will wish to see.

Is Paid Wage Labor Really Worth It?

Writing in his two-volume masterpiece, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth Of Nations,  Adam Smith envisaged a market society of individual proprietors: butchers, bakers, printers etc. all of whom would be self-employed and not dependent on performing wage labor under a single employer.  Abraham Lincoln was no different, stating in an 1859 address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society:

"The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labors for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labors on his own account another while and - at length- hires another beginner to help him".

In other words the beginning job taker may work under wage labor himself but ultimately becomes an employer of others.  Thus the takeaway that even well into the 19th century wage labor was seen as only a temporary step to individual entrepreneur.    Today, many who've lost their wage jobs are also attempting this route, but alas- because of the competition - too many are failing.  Most tragically, the yearly glut of degree-holding younger job seekers has pushed many into the unskilled labor force - including as Starbucks baristas and retail clerks.

A lot of other systemic factors contribute too, including lack of guaranteed health care for self-employed folks - so that they now have to gamble they won't fall ill or have a serious accident under Trump Care.  Then there is the scale of initial investment needed, often making it a huge risk even to operate a franchise.

As opposed to Lincoln's era then, establishing a small business today is simply too fraught with risk for too many Americans, who still rely on their employers for health insurance and long term income. And that's assuming they can even get the level of pay and benefits needed.  Too many Americans now, including amongst the Trumpies, are forced to patch together a precarious existence and income from freelance gigs, using Uber, 'TaskRabbit' etc.  Or being an adjunct prof - who has to ply his teaching trade at 5 or 6 different universities.

WSJ columnist William Galston in his May 8 piece ('An Econ Mystery: Why Did Wages Flatline"') makes an even more cogent case for avoiding wage labor, but alas, offers no solutions how to escape it. This is despite the fact, as he points out "the labor-force participation rate which nudged above 67 percent in the 1990s, stands at only 62.9 percent today".

So what's happened? Well, for one thing much less investment in paid work, human labor. As I noted already (April 14), automation is grabbing more and more jobs, citing the WaPo article (4/ 8) by Jeff Guo,  'Robots Take Production Up Another Notch'

"Industrial robots alone have eliminated up to 670,000 American jobs between 1990 and 2007, according to new research from MIT's Daron Acemoglu and Boston University's Pascual Restrepo."

But in addition there is the Neoliberal dynamic explained by William Wolman and Anne Colamosca in their 1997 work, 'The Judas Economy: The Triumph of Capital And The Betrayal of Work'.  The authors argue that the modern Neoliberal state has no interest in human labor, paying it properly, or re-investing. It is capital that takes precedence, hence business is only invested in its own aggrandizement and proliferation at the expense of citizens. A key indicator? The magnitude of investment by corporations in stock buybacks as opposed to labor investment.   Since 2009, U.S. firms - entrenched in their own myopic interests- boosted capital investment by only 43%, dividends by 67% and stock buybacks by a whopping 194%. This according to Jason Thomas of Carlyle Group. In addition, rather than investing in new plants for new jobs, businesses have squandered $2 trillion on mergers and acquisitions .

Galston in his WSJ piece is clear on the trends:

"Firms have gains they could share with workers, but they have chosen not to do so. Even in occupations where there companies complain of labor shortages, there is scant evidence they are responding by raising compensation."

So one arrives at the question of whether paid labor is even worth pursuing anymore, or - to use the refrain of James Livingston - a historian at Rutgers: "Fuck work!".  Livingston takes up this theme in his new book, 'No More Work: Why Full Employment Is A Bad Idea.'.  His arguments are corroborated and reinforced by a similar work by Elizabeth Anderson of the University of Michigan: 'Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (And Why We Don't Talk About It).

I mean think about these titles before even considering the respective content (for which the general theme in each case is that corporations now rule our lives as opposed to the government).  Think this is preposterous? For most workers entering wage labor at a corporation it's no joke. They are warned by finance columnists (like Jill Schlesinger) that they had better take down any anti-capitalist or controversial blogs or posts on news forums before going to that interview. (Some of the material such as I've written on 'Brane Space' would prevent most from even getting in the door for that interview, because employers now Google you first).

Then there are the other warnings, i.e. to remove all "controversial" photos, images etc. from one's Facebook pages. Also, any comments, writings that might be construed as anti-free market, or espousing any kind of "aggressive" environmentalism, or activist protests including climate change tracts.

If one is "lucky' enough to then get hired by "Corporation One", the extensive contract terms in fine print (sometimes given by HR depts.) let you know you are under constant surveillance. That includes all your outgoing (and incoming ) emails read by the boss and oh yeah - your keystrokes recorded as well as time consume for any bathroom breaks. If you have to take a crap - as one boss once confided to a friend at a radiotherapy software company "Make sure you're wearing Depends if you have overtime..")

But it doesn't stop there. In today's proto-fascist corporate work environment where ten million bosses channel Donald Trump, they can dictate how underlings wear and style their hair, when they can eat, how often drug tests are imposed, and the right to rifle through belongings in your desk any time they want. These tyrants can also require their slaves.....errrr, workers, to complete - as endurance test for entry - lengthy questionnaires concerning off-hours alcohol consumption, exercise habits as well as childbearing intentions.  The real howler here? The number of conservatives and Right wingers who whine and moan about "government intrusion" in our lives but are quite okay with a hotshot corporate CEO doing it to them - daily.

So much for any "rights". Meanwhile, Americans are daily fed the codswallop that "work builds character", "work will give you meaning", "work will give you satisfaction"  and other hogwash. Surely, if any of those tropes was true it ought to be possible to work full time in the 'richest nation on Earth" and not have to apply for food stamps or Medicaid. But we all know that's not the case and it isn't because those affected are "lazy" or "lack, ambition". They have plenty of ambition, there just aren't the quality jobs available to provide ample support - including to afford decent housing.

For these reasons, Livingston - like me- believes the cockeyed aspiration to "full employment" is misplaced and in the wrong direction. With automation and shrinking available quality jobs - along with too many people chasing them, it makes more sense to implement a "universal basic income" (UBI) to correct the course.  A start in that direction meanwhile would be to lower the maximum number of hours that comprise a "full work week". The French have already done that, capping the work week at 35 hours.  

A recent WSJ editorial (May 8) didn't like that, carping:

"Successive French presidents have failed to undo the 1999 35-hour workweek law amid militant union protests"

But the French are correct, because on its face the 35-hour week (in the context of a still "full employment" era)  enables more workers to be hired. It also paves the way for further lowering of paid wage hours as automation and other (economic efficiency) forces exert their unstoppable attrition on wage labor.  The next step, at some point, is the implementation of UBI.  The trick is to get politicians and other academic elites to use their heads and get going sooner than later, when it may be too difficult. This is especially as global population continues growing to the point of tripling (by 2050) from what it was 50 years ago.

The two authors cited in this post - Livingston and Anderson - make clear that no one should bemoan the demise of paid wage labor. It has already stolen too much in the way of time from families and caregivers, even while we've ceded an unconscionable amount of our energy in making wage work the primary conduit for our liberty and morality. In the end, all we've done is sacrifice our time and humanity to an entrenched Corporatocracy and its overpaid CEO henchmen.  Insisting the companies can improve our "work-life balance" misses the point, according to the authors, and is too timid. The cold hard fact is that corporate employers hold the means to our well being and currently have the law on their side.

Livingston's recommendation is blunt:  Instead of idealizing work and making it the linchpin of our society he asks: "Why not just get rid of it?"

Something to ponder.