[p2p-research] Post-Depression first: Americans get more money from government than they give back | csmonitor.com

[Michel Bauwens]

I must say I strongly disagree about the blaming of the unions ...

the unions were defending not just their reasonable incomes (how can a wage
be greedy combined with the neoliberal fleecing by the top 1%), but the
availability of public services,

on the other side the tax revolt fueled by the reagan right made it
impossible to level realistic taxes required for such public services ...

interesting stat that recently came out is that if the labor-capital
distribution had remained the same as before the reagan era, the minimum
wage would be at $40 !!!

this gives you an indication of the scale of the looting that took place ...

blaming the victims, the workers and their unions, for this, I find that
quite perverse,

(this is of course not to say that corporatist unions, looking only for
their own, cannot be agents of unhealthy conservatism, but in the larger
scheme of things, this is not a key cause, but rather, it would have been
much worse without their defense of public services)

Michel




On Wed, Nov 25, 2009 at 5:45 AM, J. Andrew Rogers
<reality.miner at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 12:09 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Greed wasn't good.
>
>
> Right, except in the case of California the pathological greed was to
> be found in the government unions.
>
>
> > Now a lot of systems are collapsing.  The question in the US will be a
> > libertarian right response or a stable North European styled market
> > socialism or green capitalism, etc.  Right now there is stalemate, but
> the
> > numbers and time lean toward a social solution.  As usual, I suspect
> > California will lead it.  I never worry much about California.  No place
> so
> > beautiful with so many gifted people can ever be down for very long.
>
>
> Your optimism is misplaced. Also, California is socially conservative
> outside of the medium-sized city of San Francisco -- it is easy to
> confuse the politics of the government with the politics of the state.
> I've lived in California a long time, and among all the friends and
> acquaintances I've had over the years here I am one of the last to
> leave. There is a slow but apparently irreversible exodus in key
> industries that has been in motion for many years. The "gifted people"
> are bolting and there is little evidence that the government is
> interested in fixing the problems that are causing it.
>
> The biggest winner in all this is probably the Pacific Northwest,
> which has seen a steady influx of businesses normally associated with
> California, like technology and television/movies. Most of the people
> I used to know in Silicon Valley or Los Angeles back in the day are
> now in Seattle or Portland or British Columbia. And for obvious and
> good reasons -- I am in the process of moving my tech company from
> Silicon Valley to Seattle at this very moment. California has
> poisoned itself. Since California mismanaged their water supplies for
> many decades, I expect agriculture will be on the decline as well.
>
> I think you might be conflating the myth of California with the
> reality of California, though they were not all that different half a
> century ago. The reality is that it is a socially conservative state
> run by deeply corrupt unions that are fiscally irresponsible in the
> extreme. It might have nice scenery, but the business, social, and
> cultural environment are pretty toxic. There are other places I would
> much rather live and work now.
>
>
> > I worry about the desertification and aging of the hellish states in the
> > middle that still command two senators much more than I do about
> California.
>
>
> Which states are those?  Here is an interesting fact for you: the
> least religious states in the United States are the so-called
> "sagebrush" States. The most socially liberal states in terms of
> actual laws on the books?  The sagebrush states. Demographically
> youngest region? Sagebrush again. These flyover states are also the
> second most urbanized regions of the US after the New York City
> corridor. The Midwest states (the other flyover states) are in steep
> decline, so they will evaporate on their own.
>
> The US has five or six distinctive demographic regions, and the
> demographic statistics are interesting in that they violate most
> stereotypes.  Due to long-term demographic trends, the centers of
> gravity in the US are moving toward the South and the Sagebrush
> states.  People are familiar with the political characteristics of the
> South (20th century Democrats, Bush Jr. administration).  Sagebrush
> politics are very different from anything Americans are used so you
> will likely see something new and different as their influence
> increases.
>
>
> --
> J. Andrew Rogers
> realityminer.blogspot.com
>
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>



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