Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1079-1081

It takes some time to realize that your old working li[f]e is over, that your degree, experience, professional demeanor and over eagerness to work means nothing. It comes in increments. First you go through anger and all the nonsense that you've endured on every job you've ever worked. After being mistreated and employment agencies and realizing that not only are people fist fighting for jobs at McDonald's, this company is using guest workers. The day the unemployment is finished is a dark day. Then one goes to apply for food stamps. Then that final humiliating day when you have to apply for cash assistance. It's the day the internet was cut off smack in the middle of a 45-minute online application. So you go to the library for free internet. The day you are made to sit in mandatory job search classes held by some of the most ignorant instructors who resent you because your last salary was 3x theirs and then you have to go to state mandated WEP-Workers Experience Classes is the darkest day ever. Having to clean the park, bathrooms, make photocopies, etc. among people who were already lost in the system, ex-cons, other people who need help is reality Krugman can't speak of.

 Deborah

 Staten Island, NY

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The Jobless Trap

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: April 21, 2013

We can afford a basic income guarantee.  We can give every citizen enough money to survive. It will stimulate an economy starved of demand.  It will make our society more equitable. It will feed the hungry and house the homeless.  It respects the individual. It provides a constant level of demand that firms can depend on and so stimulate the animal spirits of businessmen.  It will strengthen workers bargaining position because they will be able to tell their employers to “take this job and shove it.” It will also reduce labour costs since firms won’t be required to provide a living wage.  It will give us more free time to dance and play and love our children.  I would also suggest, it might just end up making us better human beings.

Tom Streithorst

MORAL ASPECTS OF BASIC INCOME

Pieria  

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33 and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34 Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35 for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38 And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39 And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,[a] you did it to me.’ 41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Matthew 25:31-46

New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

The Judgment of the Nations

[emphasis JS. Let revisions continue]