Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1014-1016

…an unemployed English IT technician failed to sell his services on eBay for $1.50 an hour.
Harper's Weekly Review — July 23, 2013

Don’t worry about labor force participation. It’s not coming back.
    ...
The unemployment rate has dropped almost entirely because of this decline in labor force participation. In other words, it has not fallen because people are finding jobs. It has fallen because fewer people are looking for jobs.
Labor Force Participation Is Not Coming Back
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
New York Times
July 18, 2013

Nobody states the obvious truth: that the marketplace has changed and there will never again be enough jobs for everyone who wants one -- no matter who is in the White House or in Congress.
...
"Work" and jobs are not the answer to ending poverty. This has been the hardest concept for us to understand. It's the hardest concept to sell to citizens and policy makers. To end poverty and to achieve true economic freedom, we need to break the link between work and income.
...
When we say we need more jobs, what we really mean is we need is more money to live on.
...
A BIG would be cheaper than a jobs program. President Obama's 2009 stimulus plan promised to create 3 to 4 million jobs at a cost of $862 billion. That's over $200,000 per job.
 Jobs Are Not the Answer 
By Allan Sheahen, Tikkun
Thursday, 20 June 2013

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1011-1013

The one minute feminist case for a basic income:

Patriarchy has put the world’s wealth in the hands of men, prevented women from being professionals and entrepreneurs, forced poor women into dead-end second-class labor jobs, and forced all women to become unpaid domestic servants and caretakers of the young, elderly, and disabled of their families. Women have been forced to be financially dependent on fathers or husbands who are often abusive. A basic income would change all of this. A basic income would be a massive transfer of wealth from men to women. Women would be free of financial dependence on any man, and the young, elderly, and disabled would all be fully supported. Women could afford to leave abusive husbands, those who chose to be caretakers would be fully compensated, and no woman would be forced into a dead-end job, and would instead be able to pursue her own financial goals as she saw fit.
OPINION: The One Minute Case for a Basic Income
Basic Income News

…new diplomas may send them to the front of the employment line, but the jobs they find there don’t offer as much money or career potential as before.
...
Largely as a result of “jobless” or “unintended” entrepreneurship, the number of individuals starting businesses increased in recent years. But the number bailing out grew even faster.
...
A recent Congressional Budget Office report shows that small and medium-size companies had disproportionately greater job losses than large companies in recent years. The latest Intuit Small Business Employment Index registers levels far below that of 2007.
Let Them Make Their Own Jobs
By NANCY FOLBRE
New York Times
May 27, 2013
[emphasis JS]

 Every year  thousands of American workers die on the job, and  millions are injured.

The reason? Lax worker safety laws, and weak enforcement of those that do exist. Another way of putting it is that we are letting men and women die simply by failing to afford them basic protections.
...
In 2011 there were  nearly 450,000 workplace-related injuries and illnesses in California, including an increasing number among low-wage female workers, from maids and housekeeping cleaners to food prep workers to janitors.
America's Deadly Jobs
AlterNet / By Julie Gutman

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedcom Quotations Of The Week 1008-1010

As the Economic Policy Institute points out, we would need more than five years of job growth at this rate to get back to the level of unemployment that prevailed before the Great Recession. Full recovery still looks a very long way off. And I’m beginning to worry that it may never happen.

...

Investment in equipment and software is already well above pre-recession levels, basically because technology marches on....
Defining Prosperity Down
By PAUL KRUGMAN

New York Times
Published: July 7, 2013
[emphasis JS]

 Researchers find that nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and more than half receive at least two prescriptions.

Mayo Clinic researchers report that antibiotics, antidepressants and painkiller opioids are the most common prescriptions given to Americans. Twenty percent of U.S. patients were also found to be on five or more prescription medications.

...

According to the CDC, the percent of persons using at least one prescription drug in the past month increased nearly 50 percent between 2007 and 2010.
Study:70 Percent Of Americans On Prescription Drugs
June 19, 2013

CBS Atlanta
[emphasis JS] 

 The fact of the matter is that the past four years of high unemployment numbers represent the worst economy the country has suffered in 70 years, and young adults are shouldering a hefty part of the burden.

...

Many graduates find that when they do get a job, there’s no real opportunity for advancement. They're stuck on a treadmill.

Class of 2013: All Dressed Up and No Place to Work

AlterNet / By Lynn Stuart Parramore

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1005-1007

 Manufacturing Gains Strength, but Hiring in Sector Stays Weak

By REUTERS
Headline
NYT
Published: July 1, 2013






Most [people] have the ridiculous notion that anything they do which produces an income is work — and that anything they do outside ‘working’ hours is play. There is no logic to that.
    …
Your life is too short and too valuable to fritter away in work.

    If you don’t get out now, you may end up like the frog that is placed in a pot of fresh water on the stove. As the temperature is gradually increased, the frog feels restless and uncomfortable, but not uncomfortable enough to jump out. Without being aware that a chance is taking place, he is gradually lulled into unconsciousness.

    Much the same thing happens when you take a person and put him in a job which he does not like. He gets irritable in his groove. His duties soon become a monotonous routine that slowly dulls his senses. As I walk into offices, through factories and stores, I often find myself looking into the expressionless faces of people going through mechanical motions. They are people whose minds are stunned and slowly dying.
Lewis Hyde
[thanks to Maria Popova]
[emphasis JS]



A survey by Ipsos Reid revealed that one in three working Canadians felt that “delivering results in their organization was more important than doing the right thing.” Furthermore, 22% of respondents said they felt they had to compromise their personal ethics to keep their job.
...
According to the survey, ethical breakdowns in the workplace vary.  For example, 28% of respondents said they have seen the misuse of company property; 25% said they saw harm to employees; 17% said they’ve witnessed violations of privacy; 17% involved fraud; 13% witnessed conflicts of interest; 9% knew about bribery or corruption; 12% observed environmental violations and 11% reported they had knowledge of sketchy financial reporting.
Canadians see misconduct in workplace, but few are reported: study
Theresa Tedesco
Financial Post
[emphasis JS]

A little advice re student loans

Suze Orman

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1002-1004

Understanding that not your work but your story is what enriches and nourishes the world may give you some different sense of identity. You are not what you work or what you do, you are, what you perceive and what you can marvel about. This not only nourishes you but the world as well. When you see that happy unemployment consists in the understanding that you and the world are undeserved, but loving, buddies, then you may even start to pick up a tool one day, a pen, something this or that. When you understand that your activity is not about you but the you inside all, then addiction has been replaced by gratitude and admiration. You may then even work, now and then. But not too much. Because the world needs less work, not more. And so do you.
A Beginner’s Guide to Happy Unemployment
Posted on June 29, 2013
simsa0's wordpress
[thanks to @livable4all]
[emphasis JS]

Twitter-like microblogging sites in China are full of laments from graduates with dim prospects.

The Chinese government is worried, saying that the problem could affect social stability, and it has ordered schools, government agencies and state-owned enterprises to hire more graduates at least temporarily to help relieve joblessness. “The only thing that worries them more than an unemployed low-skilled person is an unemployed educated person,” said Shang-Jin Wei, a Columbia Business School economist.
Faltering Economy in China Dims Job Prospects for Graduates
By KEITH BRADSHER and SUE-LIN WONG
New York Times
Published: June 16, 2013
[emphasis JS]

 LONDON — Unemployment in the euro zone continued its relentless march higher in April, according to official data published Friday, hitting yet another record, amid a prolonged recession and the absence of a coordinated response by policy makers.
Unemployment Hits Record High in Euro Zone
By JACK EWING
New York Times
Published: May 31, 2013
[emphasis JS]