Left In Lowell

In case you missed my interview on WUML this morning with Bob Forrant about his new book, you can listen or download it here. Thanks to Bob for coming in and giving an interesting overview of the economic history of the rise and fall of industrialization in the Connecticut River Valley!

Sorry if the audio is an issue at any point, I did my best to fix the levels.

 Thinking Out Loud - 3/27/09 Interview with Bob Forrant [13:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This dkos diary by TocqueDeville, besides sounding the alarm that half of America’s credit lines will be cut (which is terrible timing considering that the American consumer is already not spending), also says one of the things that has been at the back of my mind a long time (emphasis mine):

How did we allow ourselves to be brought to our knees by parasites who produce nothing, and a monetary/banking policy that has sucked all of the money away from the real producers?

Corruption. Plain and simple.

Most people go their entire lives without even questioning where money comes from. It’s just always been. But currency is supposed to be a symbol, a tool. Not a shackle. We, as a society, have grown so accustomed to never asking questions about where the money comes from, that we don’t see the most obvious thing in the world - we have become slaves to bankers who make more money off the money itself, than the goods or services the money is supposed to represent.

Money is supposed to represent real wealth - so you don’t have to carry around your chickens. It should never be the sole source of wealth. Anyone who is making money solely off of money is a parasite.

What kind of system penalizes the producers of real wealth, things that have real value, and rewards the parasites? A system designed by parasites.

This is the greatest opportunity in almost a century to fix this absurd monetary system, and rebuild our country. But it won’t happen because the parasites also control our political system. So the people are being taxed to death to pay for the parasites ponzi scheme.

This is the meat of the nut of the whole entire problem. The reason the economy is failing and the credit crisis exists is because people making money off of money (mortgage-backed securities et al.) screwed all of us true producers of real wealth (the workers and the companies that produce things). They not only screwed us of our own money, but they overreached and overextended their investments and screwed us with the very real failure of their money, and now we are bailing out these parasites, because we have no choice, our whole system is going down because of it, and we all would lose if that happened. This crisis has shown us what this system truly is - of parasites, for parasites, so help me God.

The deck is stacked against the producer and the real wealth generator in this system, and it appears there’s nothing we can do about it. The robber barons will continue to make money with our money, our wealth, stealing it from us as surly as if they held up a bank. Which is, essentially, what they have been doing all these years under our noses.

And then, on top of all this, they pass themselves off as patriotic and American heroes. They pat themselves on the back, these giants of industry, and think they deserve the accidents of their birth or their luck in getting to robber baron status. Then as they begin to be buried by the detritus and dung that is a result of their greed, they come to Washington, with their hands out, to ask us, the producers they stole the money from in the first place, for more money to bail them out. It’s criminal.

Wow, I would totally go pick lettuce in Yuma for $50/hour. That’s more than either my husband or I get per hour in our jobs! That’s like around $100K per year! Hard labor for $50/hr sounds good to me. I do it all weekend in the backyard anyway, for free! For $100K per year I could hire someone else to do the landscaping.

Edit: This is the context, the quote which leads to this Amazing Exploding McCain:

John McCain: “I don’t think I need to tell you that there are jobs that Americans will not do. I don’t think I have to tell you that there are … the backbone of our economy…

Audience members: “Pay them the right wages.”

John McCain: “You know I’ve heard that statement before. Now, my friends, I’ll offer anybody here fifty dollars an hour if you’ll go pick lettuce in Yuma this season and pick for the whole season. So, ok, sign up! Ok, when you sign up, you sign up, and you’ll be there for the whole season, the whole season, ok, not just one day. Because you can’t do it, my friend.”

This would be Angry McCain we’re seeing in this video, I think…note the petulance. This is the last thing you want to do when speaking to an audience you are trying to get the votes of, and yet he can’t help himself.

Makes you wonder just how volatile he would be as President when things didn’t go his way. War with Russia, anyone?

Changes in the state’s policy regarding the use of civilian flaggers on some construction sites on state roads coming down the Pike (pardon the pun). Obviously, this is only a partial change, but I think going slow but steady on this is the wise choice - especially since the police unions claim it’s an issue of safety. Well, low-trafficked or slower-speed roads can hardly be considered too dangerous for a civilian flagger.

Patrick is also hoping that this will encourage cities and towns to change their own policies at least along this line.

Patrick also vetoed the pension bill, just as BMG recommended. You see, conservatives and liberals can sometimes agree. Fiscal sanity is fiscal sanity.

However, to claim that oh, the horror, Patrick’s (suggested and not passed) amendment to this bill would have given 87% of beneficiaries a cost-of-living increase, is disingenuous. Patrick’s would-be amendment? To limit this increase to those whose benefits are less than $40,000, which happens to be about 87% of state retirees. Not exactly those living high off the hog.

Employees at Lifelinks, Inc, a Lowell and Chelmsford group that provides care to those with developmental disabilities via both day and residential programs, will go on a one-day strike on Monday. Strikers are demanding better wages and training. They cite high turnover as detrimental to the clients of Lifelinks, and the average paycheck is just around $11 an hour, which if you ask me, accounts for the turnover in employees.

From the statement of the employees, via SEIU Local 509:

We are even willing to tie our paychecks to training, but the company has rejected our proposals. Our average wage is little over $11.00 per hour. Many of us must work 2-3 jobs to support our own families. Management of the company has rejected these common sense ideas and has insisted on numerous take backs from the employees.

“We want better training, and we’re willing to tie our paychecks to better training, but the company keeps saying no,” according to Agnes Irungu, a direct care worker at LifeLinks who assists developmentally disabled people. “Our clients deserve better than they are getting and we’re willing to fight to make sure they get it.”

These are not “mere” service jobs, like cleaning houses (for which $11/hour is not a living wage either). This is human services, which requires skills, caring, and trusted employees. There is no way to argue that paying $11/hour for these jobs is helping anyone, least of all the clients.

From the statement again:

The decision to strike is not one that we take lightly; unfortunately we feel we are being forced into an unacceptable situation. All of us care deeply about the individuals we serve. We have been working hard to improve turnover and the quality of care not just at Lifelinks, Inc. but in the Human Services field in general. The company is rejecting common sense contract language that will not cost them a cent, allow the company to access new state revenue and improve training at our agency. In addition management wants to reduce leave time and reduce job security for many staff at the agency.

The 24-hour strike begins at 7:00 am on Monday, May 12, with a rally at 12 noon at 55 Middlesex Street. If anyone has any questions, they can call Cliff Cohn at 617-924-8509 x530.

Bush’s economic policy has had real world consequences. You know it and I know it. It does matter who you elect. I can’t stress that enough…as cynical as I am, as disappointed in my own party as I often am, I still think it matters. Leadership at the top dictates how well your government runs; your economy, your foreign policy, and your regulatory bodies.

Jerome a Paris over at dKos always has the most comprehensive economic diaries. Often, they go way over my head. But this one really helps lay out the “rules” (or lack thereof) that the Bush economy relied on, and why it was so terrible. It outlines that a country which spends more than it makes, whether that’s the enormous trade deficit, or the rampant government borrowing, or the individual debt rate, will eventually have to pay the piper. It seems like common sense. Nothing is free forever.

But I get the feeling that this is part of an attempt (likely to get louder as things get worse) to blame the “foreign” bit rather than the “credit” bit.

I hope I’m wrong, but as we begin to see loud calls for bailouts (unfair, as they reward the bankers that created the problem n the first place, but, you see, the alternative is worse), the availability of a ready-made outsider scapegoat is likely to be irresistible.

And yet, the fact remains that the problem is not who provided the credit, but the fact that it was provided in such large amounts.

Did anyone really think that credit could be extended to float the economy forever? How could anyone who claimed to be an MBA president be so stupid? Now we have a falling dollar, and the banks are asking for their money due before extending more credit, and the assets that we borrowed to buy are getting to be worth less and less as there are fewer people who want them.

Because that sea of debt had one real purpose: hide the fact that income for most are stagnating.

I never tire of posting this graph of the “W economy”, because it summarises in a nutshell what happened: growth happened, but did not trickle down to the middle classes, let alone the poor. Thanks to wage stagnation, made possible by the threats of outsourcing and offshorisation, and by the demonisation, emasculation or dismantlement of regulations and institutions (like unions) protecting workers, the fruits of growth have been captured by a very few - and this has been hidden because consumption was propped up by readily available debt and the apparently growing virtual wealth of homeowners.

The problem is that, while a lot of that growth was illusory (and is now unravelling), the wealth capture that took place thanks to it was very real, and, in particular, the mechanisms ensuring that an ever grower share of the pie got into a few lucky hands are still in place, and will bite even more harshly as the pie shrinks.

And what’s more, this is masked by the “conventional wisdom” of economic political policy: free trade good, protectionism always bad.

The current economic consensus - that of “labor market reform”, of “unsustainable liabilities of Medicare”, of “protectionism is the ultimate danger” - in short, of those that think that economic prosperity is correctly summarised by the value of the Dow Jones Index is the one that has been cheerleading the shrinking of the share of the pie (remember: labor market reform = lower wages. Full stop), and they are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

And you see that all the remedies are focusing on ways to make the pie be (or better, look) bigger than it can - more money injections, more cheap debt, more support for the financial sector.

They are the problem, not the solution.

Jerome a Paris tells us there is a simple, common sense solution to all this. There always has been.

Too much debt and not enough income was the problem.

And the solution is simple: stop debt (this is happening on its own anyway). and boost income.

How do you do that when there isn’t enough money around?

By creating real activity rather than the money-shuffling kind.

He even gets really specific - solve our current climate crisis and create “real” value instead of fake ballooning debt value:

And, as it were, there is a sector that is “real” and has an urgent need for action: infrastructure, and in particular energy-related infrastructure.

A plan that focuses on a few simple things:

• massive public support for energy efficiency refurbishment of existing homes;
• a massive, New Deal rural electrifaction scale plan to build renewable energy assets and the corresponding grid infrastructure;
• a similarly massive plan to develop smart public transportation, both locally and intercity;

Spending the money currently wasted in Iraq on these 3 things alone would provide a real boost to the economy in the sectors that actually need it, would reduce oil&gas consumption and carbon emissions, and be an actual investment in the future, as opposed to the current drain on the future that’s been engineered via debt used on mindless consumption of junk.

Add in plans to boost minimum wage, reinforce union rights and tax imports of carbon-rich goods, and you’d have a pretty damn good economic - and geopolitical programme.

Like any household planning a smart budget, the federal government can be responsible in the choices it makes, the way it encourages money to be produced and moved around, and in how it regulates money (for instance, not allowing the banks to make stupid bad loans now so we can reduce the pain in the future). All of this dictates the government telling us how to do some things, or telling business how to do some things. But the alternative is to have huge ups and downs in the economy, to have stagnant wages for the middle class and the poor, and for the rich to get far richer. Laissez-faire failed this time around, as it always has. As Jerome a Paris says (bold mine),

Because the problem is the most of America’s population is living, by design, above its means. It is kept dependent, fearful and distracted while the happy few gorge. Call it what it is: class war. Time to fight back.

Back when I went on WBUR to talk about my opposition to the Governor’s casino plan, I was very clear that I wasn’t against the Governor, but against this specific plan. Indeed, I had supported several other commonsense and positive proposals (unfortunately, our legislature thinks the Chamber of Commerce more important than citizens…money over votes, I guess). And I said I would support any good ones the Governor had in the future.

I had a for-instance on my lips, that of tackling and changing the policy of requiring a police officer to direct traffic around construction sites. When the state, or a city or town, wants to fix a road (or build a Big Dig), they are forced by law to hire a police officer for traffic detail. Now, I don’t think we have to argue that the police are a liiiiitle overqualified to direct traffic. And they generally get overtime pay for it. Most states have now switched to using flagpeople, requiring much less in cost, as you can pay them like, well, regular peoples. But in MA, we are one of the last states to pay exorbitant costs for overtime policemen to wave cars around with a little orange flag.

Of course, the police unions love this, and it is the sacred cow of sacred cows in this state. No Governor has been able to crack this one. And ‘BUR host Bob Oakes gently chided me that he’s seen proposals along these lines many times and they’ve never succeeded before (no one wants to piss off the police unions).

Well, Patrick’s taking a crack at it, and I am 100% behind him on this one. Brave (possibly impossible) but it means he’s still willing to take on the tough fights. Kudos, and let me know what I can do to help, because this one’s been bugging me a long time.

Unions certainly have a bad rep these days. Whether a police, state, or teacher’s union, you don’t have to be near the editor of the Lowell Sun to hear some negative opinions on labor unions. (Though, the worst bitching comes from the Lowell Sun, unnecessarily.)

It was a blah sort of day last Sunday, the sort of day you do your laundry and play poker while watching yet another omnipresent Democratic ‘08 debate. But it sure beat working all weekend, right? If you like your weekends, thank a union.

There was a recent report that showed that Americans are not taking their full vacation time, or are bringing work with them on vacation. It seems that this might be the case because of all the pressure on our workers in this day and age…competition from H1B immigrants and a global economy where jobs are as fluid as rain and nearly as fleeting. But you still get vacation, and holidays, and long weekends…well, thank a union.

What would happen if we lost all our unions? Do you like human fingers in your ground beef or 40 kids being taught ineffectively in an elementary classroom? That’s what would happen without unions, and the right for workers to organize and ensure their workplace is safe, fair, and sane. When unions are left out of the work equation, we have Wal-Mart violating fair workplace laws, depressing wages, and doling out no benefits, sloughing those workers’ health care costs onto the state and reducing their quality of life. Thereby ensuring a class of workers who can do no more than to afford the cheap imported goods Wal-Mart sells (sort of the reverse of Henry Ford, isn’t it?).

Yeah, sometimes unions are short sighted, myopic, and stubborn. Actually, that’s sort of a union’s job, isn’t it? They demand. Sometimes they demand too much, or won’t let go of something which is unfair to taxpayers. And yet, I am pro-union despite the bumps. Why? Because the democratic right to organize and advocate and speak with one loud voice is every bit a part of our best attributes as a nation as is the voting booth.

Unions, as the moderator at last night’s AFL-CIO 5th CD debate said, are not a special interest. They work in the interest of the little guy - specifically the ones who are members, but really, for all of us who work. If we as private citizens don’t love that idea, maybe we’re just jealous that our own economic sector isn’t unionized. After all, it’s not really that we despise others for getting a little slice of the pie. Maybe we just want a little for ourselves.

Well, get organized.

Tonight I attended the 5th Congressional District AFL-CIO debate at Lowell High. It was a crowded room once again, and while there’s always a decent amount of supporters at these things, the audience was largely made up of voters, particularly of union stripe.

Notable people I saw in the audience: Marie Sweeney of GLAD, School Committeeperson Jackie Doherty, City Council candidates Curt Lemay and Kristin Ross-Sitcawich, among others.

The candidates attending were City Councilor Eileen Donoghue, Rep. Jamie Eldridge, Rep. Barry Finegold, Rep. Jim Miceli, independent candidate Patrick Murphy, and Niki Tsongas. It was interesting to finally see Patrick Murphy in person.

The following are my notes from the debate. Things are paraphrased and shortened and I’m sure I missed things here and there; these notes may not accurately reflect actual candidates’ views. I invite any corrections if that’s the case.

I used initials to label the candidates’ remarks.

(more…)

The Massachusetts AFL-CIO and the Merrimack Valley Central Labor Council are cosponsoring yet another MA-05 candidates’ forum, this one focusing on labor and working family issues, this coming Monday, June 4, at the Little Theater at the Lowell High School, 50 Father Morrissette Blvd, Lowell. The doors open at 6:30 PM and the forum will start at 7:00. All announced candidates were invited, and some have confirmed as of the press release: City Councilor Eileen Donoghue, Representative James Eldridge, Representative Barry Finegold, Representative James Miceli and Niki Tsongas.

I’m hoping to attend, and the event is open to the public.