Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1407-1409

A few weeks later, your boss calls a one-on-one in his office, walks up behind you, and stands too close. His breath fogs your neck. His hand crawls up your new dress. You squirm away. He says, “Sorry, I thought…”

You know what to do. You’re just shocked to find you’re not doing it. You are not telling him to fuck off. You are not storming out. All you’re doing is math. You have $159 in the bank and your car payment and your maxed out credit cards and you’ll die before you ask your dad for a loan again and it all equals one thought: I need this job.
A Story of a Fuck Off Fund
Paulette Perhach

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 The richest one percent of the world’s population now own more than the rest of us combined, aid group Oxfam said Monday, on the eve of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos.

“Runaway inequality has created a world where 62 people own as much wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population — a figure that has fallen from 388 just five years ago”...

"One of the other key trends behind rising inequality set out in Oxfam International’s report is the falling share of national income going to workers in almost all developed and most developing countries… The majority of low paid workers around the world are women.”

Richest 1 Percent Now Own More Than the Rest of Us Combined: Oxfam
By AFP / AFP
January 18, 2016
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 True compassion is more than flinging a coin at a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
Martin Luther King Jr.








 

Discussing the lucky ones - with jobs.

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1404-1406

…the overall number of private-sector jobs is still far too few. In the last two years, according to the European Central Bank, 2.16 million jobs were created in the eurozone: 724,000 in Spain, 592,000 in Germany, but only 127,000 in Italy. And of these, almost two-thirds are part time. Unemployment in Germany is 6.3 percent; in Italy it’s going down, but is still high at 11.3 percent. And only 15.1 percent of Italians between 15 and 24 have a job at all, against 43.8 percent in Germany.

And so, even as Mr. Renzi and the Italian media celebrate the private sector, many Italians are longing for the security of the dull but solid life of the government clerk.

The Secret Behind Italy’s Favorite New Film
Beppe Severgnini JAN. 14, 2016

   New York Times
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 According to the Wall Street Journal, today's jobs report imposes a huge amount of pressure on the Fed. Jobs are up; half the jobs created are temporary positions. The rest are in service industries that pay very low wages and no benefits.

Wages went down again this month, making it harder or nearly impossible for a family to make ends meet. Temporary positions, when finished, will lead to many more unemployed people. Part time jobs, a sizable chunk of the jobs that have been created, aren’t enough for a family to live on.

Our economy and GDP have been growing in the 2% range, the lowest in the last 50 years.

The economy is not working for the majority of Americans.
Why Can’t People Be Told The Truth #Economy

   Andrew S. Ginsburg
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 …outsourcing is not the main driver of domestic job loss.

...

 a lot of the manufacturing jobs the United States lost over the past 50 years didn’t go overseas; they simply disappeared with the advent of new technology.

James Sherk, a research fellow in labor economics at the Heritage Foundation, said the trend in machines taking over factory work that was previously done by humans has been going on since the 1950s. But for presidential candidates, it’s a lot easier to blame other countries rather than robots.

...

Don’t blame stingy companies or over-regulation by the government; blame the rapid progress of technology.

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Instead of talking down to blue-collar workers, candidates should admit that trying to restore manufacturing to what it once was in this country is not an attainable, or even a desirable, goal.

Machines are cheaper than people, marginal wage increase or not.
Time to Talk Robots
Emma Roller JAN. 5, 2016

    New York Times
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Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1401-1403

The feminist argument for a U.B.I. is that it’s a way to reimburse mothers and other caregivers for the heavy lifting they now do free of charge. Roughly one-fifth of Americans have children 18 or under. Many also attend to ill or elderly relatives. They perform these labors out of love or a sense of duty, but still, at some point during the diaper-changing or bedpan cleaning, they have to wonder why their efforts aren’t seen as “work.” They may even ask why they have to pay for the privilege of doing it, by cutting back on their hours or quitting jobs to stay home.

It’s Payback Time for Women
Judith Shulevitz
New York Times
JAN. 8, 2016
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For centuries we have tapped the potential of only a small proportion of the British people; the rest have been powerless to initiate or discover where their true talents lay. With the UBI, innovators would be given the room to experiment knowing they would still have something to fall back on; it would see more small businesses and less grovelling on Dragons’ Den.

A no-strings basic income? If it works for the royal family, it can work for us all

John O'Farrell

theguardian

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It’s time for a true nonpartisan extremist, one whose platform combines the following:

■ A single-payer universal health care system. If it can work for Canada, Australia and Sweden and provide generally better health outcomes at lower prices, it can work for us, and get U.S. companies out of the health care business.

■ Expansion of the earned-income tax credit to top-up wages for low-income workers and introduction of a negative income tax to ensure a government-guaranteed income floor for every American. In an age when machines are gobbling low-skilled jobs, we’ll need both.

Up With Extremism
Thomas L. Friedman
New York Times
JAN. 6, 2016

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Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1398-1400

The myth that basic income “would be extremely expensive” is often stated as fact without supporting evidence. To realize it fully in Canada could require an investment in the range of $32 billion, as Goar mentions. Such a number seems large but in 2013 it comprised but 1.7 per cent of the value of Canada’s gross domestic product, estimated at $1.82 trillion.

What must also be factored are (1) the efficiencies from redirecting the funds of ineffective and even harmful programs (notably stigmatizing welfare) into a basic income, and (2) the savings from avoiding poverty’s immense cost. A 2008 study estimated $72 billion to $86 billion as the price Canadians pay for health care, criminal justice and lost productivity costs associated with poverty. Poverty’s demand on health care alone may now approach $40 billion per year.
How can we not afford a ‘basic annual income’?
Rob Rainer Kelly Ernst
thestar.com[emphasis JS]

 The Citizens Income Trust has shown that by eliminating all welfare payments and the personal tax exemption, a Basic Income Guarantee can be made close to revenue neutral. But making Basic Income revenue neutral might obviate one of its most profound benefits. Since the financial crisis, central banks have tried to stimulate the economy mostly by creating money and giving it to banks, hoping that would entice them to lend. So far, the results have been mediocre. The Basic Income would instead “helicopter drop” money straight into individual’s bank accounts, thus enabling them to spend.

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Traditionally, progressives have focused on stimulating employment and raising wages. But automation and software today are job killers. The “Rise of the Robots” threatens to destroy up to 47 per cent of all existing jobs within the next two decades. A robot may be able to build an iPhone but it cannot buy one. A Basic Income Guarantee will eliminate poverty, lessen inequality, destroy bureaucracy, and empower the most vulnerable among us but perhaps even more important, it would solve capitalism’s most basic and growing problem, lack of demand.

Should governments give away more money?
by Tom Streithorst
December 30, 2015
Prospect Magazine
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Personal conflicts between husband, wife, and children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on a scale of dollars is eliminated.
Martin Luther King Jr.