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January 17, 2022
Journalists can't get the labor problem into perspective, because it doesn't apply to them. In fact, the middle classes cannot understand the lower classes. There is a high degree of rationalizing involved, as well-off persons do not want to admit that they might be responsible for others being less well-off, as if some sacrificing might be required, while everyone is sacrificed trying to make a failed state functional. The U.S. is now a failed state, as some indications have been mentioned along the lines of production, longevity and health. More relevant is the incapabilities in a highly competitive global economy resulting from incompetents taking over the social structures in the U.S. The same has been occurring everywhere but not as concertedly as in the U.S. The labor problem is one of the consequences of that deterioration. Lack of functionality in the economy falls, first and foremost, upon the most vulnerable persons at the bottom. Economic analysts keep referring to relative wages and then evaluate the labor market in terms of subjective choices. They never relate the economy to the four elephants in the bathtub, which are 1) cost of housing, 2) cost of health care, 3) cost of education and 4) cost of child care. Minimum wage workers can no longer afford to go to work, because they can't pay expenses doing so. While low-level wages almost kept up with inflation, expenses ballooned to unmeetable extremes for about 30% of the work force. It's no longer possible to shift downward on demand, as it used to be in earlier times. For that reason, analysts do not see the crash into the unmovable wall that happened to low level workers. The primary purpose of the health care initiative which was studied for 20 years and legislated during the Obama years was to exploit the income of middle aged persons who do not have much for health expenses. Those persons needed to brought into the income loop for health care in the view of analysists, who didn't notice that such persons are strapped with expenses and debt which older persons don't have. So increasing health care expenses for those persons made life more difficult. While Obama tacked on niceties including 12 million more persons at the bottom of society getting health care, conservatives went ballistic and shoved them back out later. Getting rid of "Obama Care" meant getting those 12 million persons back out of the process and back into emergency-room health care. After accomplishing that result, conservatives moved on to more pressing concerns in the area of eradicating all social structures including government. Economists evaluate nothing. They determined the characteristics of their field during the 1950s and resist the harsh realities of economics that developed since then. In that analysis, stocks are the driving force of industry and inflation is controlled through interest rates. What non-economists are saying about the economy is that endless disruptions are increasing expenses and creating rapid inflation. How does increasing interest rates fix that problem? No explanation from economists, even after jacking inflation up to 24% in 1981 by raising interests rates as the solution. But the biggest elephant standing in a thimble is the shift in the whole economy upward and out of reach of most persons. The doom and gloom of society results from that fact. The economy no longer exists for most persons. But even the victims do not understand what went wrong. They often assume that someone has not destroyed enough enemies to solve their problems and the next fascist to lead them should be able to accomplish that. The reason why fascism becomes the sought-after solution to unsolvable problems is because corrupters want to be led by someone who is more corrupt than themselves. Otherwise, demands will be placed upon them for increased rationality and constructivity, which will leave them behind and allow their enemies to prevail over them. The historical example was fake Christians turning to Paul as a replacement for Christ in defining the religion. Paul could not be wrong, because there are no errors in the Bible, but Christ could be ignored while Paul contradicted him on the value of rationalizing sin instead of overcoming it. Church authorities never set the record straight, because there would not have been a physical structure to Christianity without the followers of Paul. The followers of Christ were too few and overwhelmed to sustain a major social structure. Paul was fool proof as a murderer of Christians. Repenting was irrelevant to the message of rationalizing sin instead of overcoming sin. The same is true of every demagogue that appeals to corrupters as a source of power. Promoting corruption instead of ending corruption is the ticket to success, because promoting corruption places no demands upon corrupters, while ending corruption is unthinkable to corrupters. Hence Trump as the answer to their problems. Tweeting, name calling and lying should be the answer to their problems; and when it isn't, there must still be enemies creating their problems. The economy no longer exists for more than half of society, because it was the purpose of incompetent power mongers to produce that result as they took over the social structures. The mechanisms for draining the economy for most persons are endless. The method that draws the most out of the economy is "mergers and acquisitions." That means companies buying up other companies. Each time they do that, the sellers walk away with billions of dollars in cash, while consumers re-pay for the company in purchasing products. The cost of products does not need to go up in doing that, because companies always get more efficient, which would normally cause products to get cheaper. Instead of lowering prices, which is anathema to power mongers, more companies are tacked on as a method of increasing expenses to justify expensive products. The endless cash that accumulates at the top of society through mergers and acquisitions is redistributed among power mongers through investments in new activities which leave out the banks. Loaning money to industry used to be the primary source of income for banks. With that source gone, banks reverted to other types of income related to the stock market, which used to be illegal. So their sycophants in journalism keep hyping the stock market, which has become nothing but a gambling casino. Of course, slave labor is a method of keeping a viable economy from developing at the bottom of society. The slave labor is supposed to include single mothers with children, as "Aid to Families with Dependent Children" was abandoned during the 1990s based on the claim that the women are supposed to go to work. About $80 billion per year (1990s value) was withdrawn from the low class economy and not replaced. The whole concept of college kids paying off loans, with as much as 13% interest compounded annually, bank style, is ludicrous. Seldom can such loans be payed off. Home owners can usually not pay more than 3% interest, a few 4%; and they have equity building up doing so. Lawmakers used to know that; so they started the process at zero percent interest for college loans. But conservatives said that result was anti-capitalist and robbing banks of the business. So they changed the method to loan sharking, as they took over the world in 1981 and buried "80 years of liberalism gone awry."
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