Showing posts with label dog eat dogism sucks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dog eat dogism sucks. Show all posts

Monday, September 23, 2024

Overpriced America Strikes Again: Straddling The Stability Lottery


<Alas, Still Timely: Office Space Movie Poster>


Winners and losers, which one am I?
Is it the same, under the sky?
Black motorcycles, and the will to survive:
Losers and winners, low and high...
<Iggy Pop, "Winners & Losers">

<i.>
You've probably noticed, if you visit here regularly, how much lower key the activity's gotten this year. Rest assured, it's not for lack of ideas. Actually, I completed the graphic that eventually accompanied "Life's Little Injustices (Take XXIV): Not My Bumper Sticker, Not My Neighbor," so that's a small win.

Let's see, what else? I've got a cartoon or two in progress, sitting on my desk. I've done the drawing, but one more significant bit of heavy lifting awaits, and that's the inking. Then I've got to scan them, or take a photo, before I can stick them up.

All creative folk suffer this dilemma. You always have a million ideas, rattling around your head, colliding like so many billiard bills, but never enough time nor resources to pull them off, boom-boom-boom, as neatly and efficiently as you'd like.

Sometimes, you're simply at the mercy of events, which is how I wound up rewriting two posts ("What's Project 2025?": The Horseracing Of The 2024 Election," "Weimar Analogy #101: Will Democrats Finally Ditch Austerity Economics?") two or three times, having based them on the assumption that President Joe Biden would somehow claw back into contention. Didn't happen, of course, which meant that my fingers had to do the walkin' all over again.

That's why, as I've explained here from time to time, we don't chase every twist of the news cycle, since the headline of the day often becomes the headline of the hour, or the minute. Who expected Trump's second assassination attempt, as crazy as it sounds? Considering how many voices will rush to fill that space, we'll leave that job to somebody else.

The bigger reason boils down to the bear trap that our society sets for so many millions. I call it The Stability Lottery, in which a handful of winners sail unchecked through life, with the rest left to fend for themselves as best as they can, amid ever-diminishing returns.

This is hardly a new concept, though not one you're hearing much about on our so-called national political scene. But here's the rub, as far as I'm concerned: before we start making some grand plans about how to extricate ourselves from the mess we're in, we need to revisit how we got here. 


<Words of Bourdain-style punk rock wisdom:
I'm sure Johnny would have approved
(well, except for the last part, maybe --
since his well-documented vices didn't come cheap!>

<ii.>
For me, no discussion of The Stability Lottery feels complete without mentioning Office Space (1997), which I recently had the pleasure of viewing late at night, for the umpteenth time. That's when it hit me: "Maybe they'll show this film in history classes, so people can see how ancient civilizations lived."

Think about it. Judging by how the plot unfolds, Peter (Ron Livingston), the film's disgruntled cubicle commando, never played The Stability Lottery. Yes, he had a job and a boss that he hated -- but only one job, and one boss, Bill Lumbergh (played to oily perfection by Gary Cole).

And a boss, I might add, with a graph paper brain, judging by his limp response to one of the movie's pivotal scenes -- when Peter simply ignores his demand to come in, on a Saturday, to catch up on those damned TPS reports. How long would any of us last, if we pulled the same stunt, aside from your friendly neighborhood pot shop, if we pulled the same stunt?

Peter also seems to have no problem rustling up enough money to take out Joanna (Jennifer Aniston), the woman he's so avidly pursuing. They see each other regularly --and become an item, eventually -- so I'm guessing that Joanna never draws any late shifts. When he's not satisfying his sex drive, Peter spends most of his remaining downtime with his work buddies, who never seem to work late themselves.

I don't know about you, but we might well ask: is Peter so badly off? Yes, his cubicle job seems boring and mundane, but it's a far cry from the repetitive, soul crushing work that I've seen a lot of folks stuck doing. Apparently, Peter's bills don't change a lot, because he always seems able to pay them.

In other words, Peter and company aren't experiencing the reality that's ground so many down these last couple years. My phone has jumped from $75, to $90, 100, and lately, $115. The electric, last time I checked, hovers around $150-180. Cable has skyrocketed too, from $170, to $190, $200, $210, and of last week, $258. 

Let me repeat that for everyone: two-hundred-and-fifty-fucking-eight, just to watch what little TV you can stomach, because you can't afford to go many places, anyway. I'm sure that nugget won't leave my mind, the next time that I watch Office Space.


<The album that gave us "Winners & Losers," 1986 (Wikipedia)>

<iii.>
In many respects, the propertied classes cast the die long ago, in the '80s, and various bad actors rushed to fill the gap. Look what happened, once unions went on the vane: temp agencies mushroomed overnight. Union leaders crowbarred themselves into signing so-called two-tiered contracts, with the veterans on the totem pole getting to keep all their hard-won goodies, which their younger counterparts would never see. Cue up the coda of "God Save The Queen" ("Nooo future, nooo future, nooo fuuu-ture for you!").

Colleges and universities rapidly followed suit, as tenure became an elusive dream for newly-minted professors -- as Bob Marley says, in "War," "a fleeting illusion, to be pursued, but never attained." Incoming generations would become adjuncts, with no benefits, and no security, joining armies of other part-timers abandoned to the same fate. 

As much as they want you to think so, colleges and universities are not "the good guys." Good guys don't sit on massive multibillion-dollar endowments, whose money will never flow to all those adjuncts and part-timers struggling to stay afloat. Good guys don't fight attempts to organize, like some 19th century robber baron. Good guys don't scream for the cops to crack skulls, as so many panicked administrators did, when students began asking, "Isn't this endless slaughter in Gaza getting just a wee bit over the top?" 

The fallout over Gaza has produced some interesting media casualties, like Jerry Seinfeld, who reared up in righteous indignation, once we learned what his other half's doing on her downtime -- paying pro-Israel counter-protesters to crack student heads (by Venmo, no less). The Seinfelds haven't waxed so ecstatic, after getting their overendowed chops busted so righteously. For hypocritical overdogs like them, life remains a perpetual cafeteria, where they can always have it their way, and one of everything is no problem to afford. Does that sound like you, or anybody in your immediate circle? I didn't think so.

They want our undivided money and attention, but the minute we question what they're doing, look out! Doesn't sound so hot over all those burbling bass lines taking you into the commercial break, does it? "OK, so my wife's a vicious, right-wing Zionist. Who'd you think I was?" Gah-ding-ding-ding-a-ding-a-ding-ding! And so on, and so forth.

Oh, and you'll never guess where I learned about the Seinfelds' extracirrcular activities: a story on Yahoo New Zealand. That's right -- not Yahoo US, UK, or even Canada, but Yahoo-frickin'-New-Zealand. Throw that one back at somebody who tells you, "What media censorship?" You get the picture.


<https://www.downwithtyranny.com/>

<iv.>
The Stability Lottery began churning at helicopter blade speed, as the 1990s and 2000s progressed. Big companies grew bigger, as the rich kept on getting richer, and living wage jobs went out the window, while the political class continued to extol the virtues of Make Believe Money (AKA the stock market), as a means to some higher end -- that is, their end. Only, it sounded better when they made it seem like a means to your end.

Few people seemed to pay attention, though. If you made decent money -- or even if you didn't -- you learned to "put it on play money," as one of my late friends described his ever-arcing credit card balances.  Why not, with gas still two bucks a gallon, and average rents not hovering anywhere near the four-figure mark? If you harbored some fantasy of joining the creative class -- actor or DJ, filmmaker or rock star, or whatever -- you'd find some make work job at the uber-cool coffee shop, or record store, and wait for your ship to come in.

How many movies milked that particular trope till the cows came home, right? Art School Confidential, Clerks, Empire Records, Ghost World, Mallrats, Reality Bites, Singles, Slacker, and that's just for starters. I saw them all, and loved them all, too, though part of me also thinks: Boy, Hollywood sure had fun selling our self-images back to us. No wonder they -- and we -- got so jaded.

Amid all these cultural fun 'n' games, though, another landmine was about to detonate. It took a new bestseller to blow the whistle: The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke (2004) documented growing anxiety over a new problem -- how one job no longer seemed enough to pay the bills. And even if that job paid well, getting ahead was out of the question, thanks to rocketing food, medical, and rent costs. Lack of job security and income keeping pace with inflation meant that even "good jobs" were no longer enough to keep the wolf from the door. Sound familiar?

Co-written by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and her daughter, Amy Warren Tyagi, The Two-Income Trap eloquently summarized what so many millions already knew: thanks to the overclass finding ever more efficient ways to Hoover up what little money we still, somehow, stick in our pockets, two incomes would no longer  get the job done, either. 

I'm trying to imagine, as I write, how Everymom and Everydad reacted, if they bought Warren's and Tyagi's book, to determine just what went so wrong. How many couples bought into those classic social tropes -- Hey, if I only get into grad school, that doctorate will make me more attractive. Sure, I'm working two or three jobs right now, but that's only temporary: I'll quit once I graduate. How much longer will the job market stagnate? I'll find something that makes my debt worthwhile. Then I find myself wondering, how many made it through the book, and felt profoundly betrayed? The answers, I'm sure, are anything but comforting.

No Santa Claus, no happy elves
In this smoking gun existence...
It gets harder to unwind,
I'll just eat my breakfast...
<"Winners And Losers">

<v.>
Still, for the fortunate few who did win the Stability Lottery, life continues, uninterrupted. Same as it ever was, and all that. Call it catching a perennial lucky break -- a generational one, most likely -- they never had to face signing up for those two-tiered contracts, never worked as an adjunct, never needed to scramble for some lo-fi temp gig, nor dead end McJob.

Who are they, exactly? I get a daily reminder, every time I have to steer around those tanklike, battleship-sized trucks, and their endless tailgates that they bought themselves, once they return from the umpteenth vacation they've enjoyed with all the Make Believe Money they socked away. Ever seen a Baby Boomer driving a Honda Civic, or a Yugo, or some off-brand sub-compact? Doesn't f#cking happen, right?

But they can get away with it, because most of them came up during the '60s and '70s, when a strong social consensus still existed, as the Stranglers so memorably stated: "I was always taught in school, everybody should get the same" ("Always The Sun"). Look what happened, once that ideal went by the wayside: this person keeps their benefits, that one doesn't. This person earns a living wage, that one doesn't. This person made enough to save for a comfortable retirement, that one didn't. And so on, and so forth. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Just imagine how you'd remake Office Space in today's environment. Peter and his Initech buddies would be independent contractors, if they were lucky. They'd live half a dozen, crammed elbow to eblow, like so many angry rats into some shoebox-sized apartment, for which they'd shell out $3,000-plus per month in the big city. 

And instead of working at some high profile chain, Joanna would end up a terminally pissed off barista, juggling those hours with some other part-time McJob. The childless cat lady would become a future bag lady, thanks to creeps like J.D. Vance, who -- like most of his fellow, well-heeled and well-oiled, fascist Republican bros -- seems to think that life "begins and ends at conception," as the Massachusetts Congressman, Barney Frank, so memorably stated.

But, hey, better keep your mouth shut, and stay a good little worker bee, right? Because you never know when Lumbergh's creeping around the corner, and God knows, if you don't wrap up those damned TPS reports yesterday, he'll put your ass out on the sidewalk -- alongside Peter, Samir, Michael, Milt, and all your fellow unfortunates. Only this time, the concrete will serve as your bed, with the sky as your roof.

Where this is all taking us, God only knows, but it's way past time for some stronger pushback, isn't it? Just imagine not having paddle in place all day anymore, as you try to outrun all those ever-mushroom bills. Imagine a world that doesn't begin and end with a collection notice, and a past due statement. Think about how you'd feel, with enough time to hear yourself think. What's the point of playing such a one-sided game, when the same one-armed bandits are still running it? 

It's a familiar feeling to any compulsive gambler, feeding token after token, coin after coin, into the unblinking mouth of the nearest slot machine, as you sink, slowly but surely, to your knees. Your mouth goes agape, and your eyes turn bloodshot, as you somehow manage to convince yourself, "Things will get better, eventually, some way, somehow," even as your arm grows stiffer from the toll that the game keeps taking on you.

You get a little bit older, a little grayer. You start to feel a little more resigned, a little less energetic, as that thousand yard stare creeps across your face, and the smile you managed to flash, every once in awhile, gives way to that thousand yard stare. And you just keep losing. You grit your teeth for another go-round. And you just keep losing. Suddenly, it finally crosses your mind, that slacker or not, the joke really was on you, all along. And you just keep losing. Your pockets stay empty, but the cavalry is never coming. And you just keep losing. --The Reckoner


Links To Go: Hey, Kids, Look...

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Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Weimar Analogy #101: Will Democrats Finally Ditch Austerity Economics?

 

<"Alas, Mein Herr, that overdue library book 
will cost you five more marks a day now...":
Heinrich Brüning, circa 1930,
stares down his detractors: Wikipedia.com>

<i>
Heinrich Brüning (1885-1970): unless you're a student of German history, his name probably won't ring a bell. Yet it's worth revisiting the less than stellar career of  Germany's notorious "Hunger Chancellor," especially after the stunning flipflop of the Democrats' electoral hopes -- and see if there's a correlation to their previous face plants, that's worth exploring.

Who was Heinrich Brüning, and what makes his story relevant today? Well, with so many historians sifting through the tea leaves of Weimar-era analogies amid fears of a potential Trump restoration, Brüning's misfortunes serve as a powerful reminder of the perils of austerity economics, and how they often grease the skids for autocrats.

Brüning emerged on the German national stage in March 1930, when President Paul von Hindenberg appointed him Chancellor, following the collapse of the so-called "Grand Coalition," led by his predecessor, Hermann Müller. Nevertheless, the Müller government did manage to implement some fairly impressive baseline progressive reforms, before its own political fortunes came crashing down.

Those reforms included the introduction of nationwide, state-controlled unemployment insurance (1928), the addition of 22 occupationally induced diseases to accident insurance coverage (1929), and the creation of a special pension for jobless people at age 60 (1929). Note the year of the last two examples -- 1929, when the US stock market crash triggered the worldwide agonies of the Great Depression.

But once the Depression took hold, most of these reforms essentially came undone by the summer of 1930, as Brüning's government -- hobbled by the increasing headwinds that it faced -- uncorked a series of harsh economic policies, characterized by steep wage and salary cuts, and a significant tightening of credit. However, Brüning lacked the votes to pass them in Germany's main legislative body, the Reichstag. It had become an increasingly dysfunctional body, whose largest parties -- Communists and Nazis -- traded insults, punches, and threats on a daily basis. So Brüning relied on emergency decrees to impose his legislative will, a move that would soon become his go-to response to the adverse situations that he continually faced. 

Predictably, the unemployed suffered the harshest blows, as the Brüning government sharply curtailed eligibility criteria, jacked up taxable contributions, and shrank the length of time for claiming benefits. By December of 1931, unemployment would max out at 20 weeks, thanks to the last of Brüning's five emergency decrees, a move that left many of the jobless scrambling for basic survival.

The results were as inevitable as they were predictable. By June 1932, an additional 3.31 million Germans, or roughly 9% of the work force, joined the jobless ranks (see Econstor link below). Gross Domestic Product also shrank by 4.5%. By then, these problems were longer Brüning's concern. He stepped down in May 1932, after von Hindenburg -- offended by a series of land reform proposals that would have impacted his own large estates, and those of his aristocrat buddies -- brusquely demanded his resignation.

Harsh as his policies were, Brüning argued that he needed them to deal with the burdens of reparations payments imposed after World War I, and keep the economy on some sort of operational footing. Although Germany's obligations had been reduced under the Young Plan, brokered in 1929, they continued to remain a major drag on the economy, one that also chilled foreign investment. 

For millions of voters, however, it was business as usual. With no obvious end to their hardships in sight, a starving nation ignored Brüning's stern admonitions to just continue eating their spinach. Like any good normie politician, Brüning proved incapable of meeting the moment, and unable to grasp why popular resentment now ran so visibly and strongly against him -- to the point of stones being hurled against his personal train and motorcade, as he campaigned for von Hindenburg during the March 1932 national elections.

The results ended in a runoff, with von Hindenburg narrowly denying Hitler the chancellorship, and the enormous power it represented. In spite of this setback, however, the Nazis emerged as the Reichstag's largest party, which made their presence in the government seem inevitable, if not its eventual masters. If you've seen the movie, you know how it ended, as von Hindenburg -- aided and abetted by operators like the notorious Franz von Papen, and Brüning's replacement, Kurt von Schleicher -- opened talks to bring Hitler into the government.

Even after the Nazis finally slithered into power in January 1933, after Hitler's appointment as Chancellor, Brüning could not shake his addiction to "lesser evil" logic. Why else, it's fair to ask, did he join the Centre Party that he continued to lead in supporting the aptly-titled Enabling Act, that finally gave Hitler the dictatorial powers that he'd craved so openly, and for so long? 

Like many of his peers, Brüning couldn't grasp the existential threat that such a measure represented, even at this particular eleventh hour. The rigors of party discipline required it; indeed, his political self-identity as "the adult in the room" demanded it.

Brüning's reward for impoverishing his fellow Germans was to end up being marked for death, once Hitler unleashed the Night of the Long Knives against his political enemies in June 1934. Seeing the danger, Brüning finally fled Germany, and fled to America. He returned to his academic roots at Harvard, where he taught from 1937 to 1952.

One anecdote sums up Brüning's legacy better than any other. In 1945, as Germany tasted the ashes of total defeat, a claque of Brüning supporters approached Allied officers, with a proposition: would they consider bringing back the former Chancellor? Who better, they argued, than the "adult in the room," who'd done his best, however ineffectual it had been deemed, to stem the Nazi tide?

Back came the reply, terse and dismissive, as soon as the suggestion had been made: "We were afraid you would mention him." And there, we will leave it.


<Doing his political duty: 
Brüning campaigns for von Hindenburg,
1932, at the Berlin Sportpalast: 
Bundesrachiv, Bild 192-13229>

<ii.>
Now that President Biden has finally admitted that he's finishing his term on December 31, it becomes easier to see why his re-election prospects looked so dim -- even against an opponent like Trump, with all his Grand Canyon-sized baggage, Still, if the race was neck and neck, the commentariat fretted, how could polls consistently show an outsized advantage for Trump over Biden, on whom voters trusted better to handle the economy?

The answer is simpler than they may want to admit. From the get-go, Team Biden banked heavily on conventional economic indicators to anchor their 2024 strategy, as this statement released from the President in April suggests: 

"The economy has grown more since I took office than at this point in any presidential term in the last 25 years -- including 3% growth over the last year -- while unemployment has stayed below 4% for more than two years. But we have more work to do. Costs are too high for working families, and I am fighting to lower them."

All well and good, right? Biden, like his predecessors, was filling his role as cheerleader in chief; otherwise, why would anybody follow him over the top? The problem lay in the glaring disconnect between the C-suite's narrative, and what those on the ground are enduring behind the scenes. Because, for the most part, their struggles go unreported, and therefore, unnoticed. 

Two-thirds of Americans, for example, say they couldn't find $500 to resolve an emergency, while half of all renters are cost burdened, meaning that 30% or more of their income is going to housing. (If that figure is 50% or more, you're considered severely cost burdened.) If this is really how the world's richest nation is doing, what does mean for poorer or middling ones?

And that's before we get to the relentless squeezing of the masses, whether it's happening at the kitchen table, or on basic monthly bills. My phone, for example, has rocketed from $70 to $115; electric, from $120 to $170; and cable, from $170 to $240 per month, all within the last two years.

It's the same story for smaller bills, like laundry, which has jumped from $1.50 to $2 per load for washing, and $1.25 to $1.75 per load for drying. It all adds up, and not in your favor -- because, in most cases, you're either getting the same, or way less, than you did previously, for your dollar. The last thing anybody wants to hear is how well the stock market's doing. "You mean, more make believe money, for those who've already socked away too much of it? Who's ready to party?"

Oh, wait. What about that unemployment metric, or Biden's claims of creating 400,000 new jobs per month? Well, there's a black joke making the rounds, that goes something like this: "Mr. President, I'm glad you're creating so many new jobs, because I have three of them." Pause for the punchline. "And they still don't pay my bills!"

It's a familiar refrain that leaves millions drained and defeated at the box office. Life loses any semblance of meaning when you're spending most of it trying to outrun the folks at the finish line, waiting with their hands held out. It's the kind of climate that leaves bank accounts as little more than polite fictions, since you don't get to keep most of the green paper that you struggle to accumulate, anyway. Someone else has already figured out a different use for it, so you might as well cough it up, and be done with it.

But it's a lesson that Biden -- much like his bygone German counterpart -- seemed hellbent on learning the hard way. When you insist, "Just keep on eating that spinach, and staring straight ahead, I don't exactly know when the hamburgers and steak dinners are coming yet," people begin tuning out the message, if not the messenger. And, of course, as we've detailed -- seeking out alternatives, no matter how extreme they may sound, to those who see through them.



<"Timely Reminder"/Take I:
The Reckoner>

<iii.>
Of course, it's simplistic to attribute Biden's exit from the Presidential race solely on the economy -- we're giving the "Cliff Notes" version here, to keep things moving -- but it definitely played a major part. So did the ongoing concerns about his age and overall condition, as well as his inability to hold the Democratic coalition, which had begun to fracture over those very issues.

In many ways, BIden proved a more consequential President than anyone could have expected, despite the constraints that he faced. The tragedy is that, like most established politicians, Biden didn't go bolder, when the opening presented itself. Quitting as he did -- right on the eve of the Republican convention -- marked the most punk rock thing that Biden ever did. 

It's a pity that Biden didn't apply those punk rock instincts to other dilemmas that bedeviled him, like the Supreme Court's dismissal of his student debt forgiveness plan. What would have it cost Biden to flip the bird to Extreme Supremes like Alito and Thomas, and say on national TV, "We're doing it, anyway, folks! Send the Supreme Court Police to arrest me, if you don't like it!"

The same goes Biden's belated embrace of a Supreme Court reform package -- including term limits, and an enforceable code of ethics, a notion that raises undeniable anxiety in the likes of  Alito and Thomas, who have gleefully accepted an eye-popping array of goodies from their billionaire bro buddies. 

However, like most of the punk rock thinking that Team Biden finally embraced, it came too little, and too late, to have any hope of saving his bacon. For progressives, Biden's refusal to entertain any regulation of the same court hellbent on kneecapping him marked one of his more puzzling lapses -- the Extreme Supremes being the only public figures with consistently lower approval ratings than his own. Failing to capitalize on such discrepancies seems like political malpractice, though again, Biden won't be the last established politician to commit it. 

Heinrich Brüning has also gone down in negative terms as a shy, reserved policy wonk, whose earnest approach and economics doctorate marked him as a poor fit in an age that had little patience for either, as Benjamin Carter Hett notes, in his Weimar autopsy, The Death Of Democracy:

"As chancellor, he was always trying to bring reasoned arguments to people who would never be reasonable, who in fact had no interest at all in facts or logic. Brüning's problem was that he was too reasonable to grasp such unreason." 





<iv.>
All right, then. With the sun slowly setting on the Biden era, it's worth asking, will the eleventh hour ascent of Vice President Kamala Harris take us to a better place? Perhaps, although so far, the initial evidence is inconclusive. 

On the plus side, Harris has staked out some strong markers through the various economic proposals that she's floated, starting with the need to crack down on price gouging. Everybody can get behind that one, right? Because, quite frankly, we've seen how well the gougers police themselves: 

It -- Doesn't -- F#cking -- Work!

She has thrown out a slew of proposals that are sound, and desperately needed, starting with cost of living: crack down on mergers and acquisitions that entrench monopoly power. Slap a ceiling on how much food producers and grocers can continue to charge.

Housing? Build three million more units. Cut bureaucratic red tape that's stifled the construction of affordable housing, and led to the explosion of McMansions. Ban the use of algorithms that landlords and property management companies to keep prices in line with each other, and frozen at permanent stratospheric levels. Promote new homeownership by making up to $25,000 in down payment assistance available. 

Taxes and medical costs? Cancel up to $7 billion in medical debt for three billion qualifying Americans. Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, one of the few financial lifelines that working people get, by up to $1,500. Restore the child tax credit that gremlins like Joe Manchin ostentatiously tossed on the junk heap, once they declared "normalcy" back in fashion, by up to $3,600, plus a new credit (up to $6,000) for families with newborns. Speed up a Biden-era effort that would allow for regulation on drug prices, and lower them for everybody.

Once again, all well and good, right? On the worrying side, we've heard all this before -- until the Austerity Gumps, as I like to call them, pop up from their hiding places, wringing their hands, and unreeling their standard issue mantras: "Ooh, that's too expensive." "What's wrong with you? Do you really want the overclass going out in the cold and snow?" And so on, and so forth. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I bring this up, because we're looking at the potential fourth cycle of a Democrat coming in, to sweep up the enormous messes left by Republican predecessors (predators?). What happens, though, once the initial wave of excitement subsides? Every time the Democrats claw back into power, they lose their nerve, and fall back on standard lines -- which makes this particular nugget, marbled in Harris's nomination acceptance speech, sound suspiciously familiar:

"That’s why we will create what I call an opportunity economy. An opportunity economy where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed.”

As idealistic as this catch phrase sounds, it's really just the latest variation on similar mantras that I recall hearing in the Obama ("We are the people that we have been waiting for") and Clinton eras ("not a hand out, but a hand up"). Creating more opportunity sounds wonderful, until you realize that the United States has worked quite hard at becoming the world's most socially unequal society. All the high-flown vows won't mean anything, if Harris follows her predecessors, and remains content to tinker around the edges of an undeniably broken system.

How will we know if, or when, she finds the nerve? It might help to lift a page or two from the past, such as the approach that President Harry Truman undertook to jolt his Republican rivals -- and reset expectations among a public that largely written off his chances of winning a second term in office.

I leave you with these words from a radio address that Truman gave on October 13, 1948, in St. Paul, MN, during his celebrated "whistle stop" speaking tour of the nation. They feel every bit as relevant now, as they did then, especially when you consider what it takes to fight for truly transformative change, and bring it about:

"Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home — but not for housing. They are strong for labor — but they are stronger for restricting labor's rights. They favor minimum wage — the smaller the minimum wage the better.

"They endorse educational opportunity for all — but they won't spend money for teachers or for schools. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine — for people who can afford them... They think American standard of living is a fine thing — so long as it doesn't spread to all the people. And they admire the Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it."

Let's hope that Team Harris gets that message, too, and puts out the word, once it does, and follow those intentions with some old school direct action. For a handy reminder, look no further than the slogan on any DOA record sleeve:

"Talk - Action = 0."

I rest my case, Your Honor. Even though the defense, mind you, never rests. Because there is always so much work to do.--The Reckoner


Links To Go (Food For Thought --
Figuratively, And Literally)
Econstor: Brüning's Austerity Policies...:
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/261405/1/1811659055.pdf

Naked Capitalism: The Rebellion Will Not Go Away:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/03/gaius-publius-the-rebellion-will-not-go-away.html

[Written on the eve of the 2016 election, with many comments that seem eerily prescient of our current malaise]

[Well written- and reasoned summary of our current malaise...]


Peterson Institute For International Economics:

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Sunday, July 30, 2023

Support National Rent Control (Don't Let Landlords Stuff The Ballot Box!)

 

<Screenshot from the More Perfect Union 
mini-documentary (see below)>

Picking up from our last post, I want to call another opportunity to your attention, one that will prove interesting to those who follow housing issues. This email bulletin came through People's Action, a million-strong grass roots organizing group with 38 member organizations in 28 states.

Tomorrow (Monday, July 31) is the deadline to voice support for rent control and tenant protections that the Federal Housing Financing Authority (FHFA) is considering -- including a ban against evictions without good cause, limits on rent hikes, and standardized leases. These changes would affect landlords who receive federal financing, in an estimated 12.4 million apartment units nationwide. 

For those who don't already know, the FHFA is the entity tasked with regulating Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose money has been used to buy apartment complexes like so many dominoes (see More Perfect Union documentary link below), one of the most obscene aspects of the whole skyrocketing rent craze. Are the FHFA proposals some type of atonement, or a tacit admission of guilt? Either way, it works for me.

Now comes the sticky part, as Peoples Action's email details: "In a callous and greedy move, corporate landlords are flooding the comment portal, opposing tenant protections, and trying to drown out the voices of hundreds. It's critical that they hear from you." Here is the place to do it:

https://tenantcomment.org/?link_id=3&can_id=4e6c8046819e1ba183f676fa03eddc7a&source=email-join-us-in-dc-next-week-to-defend-medicare-and-medicaid&email_referrer=email_2001960&email_subject=final-days-to-weigh-in-on-tenant-protections

Landlord industry groups have spent $10 million lobbying against the proposals. That's an awful lot of legalized bribery, though nothing on the scale of the pharmaceutical and healthy product industry's spending spree ($372 million alone in 2022, according to Open Secrets).

How typical of the bastards to pull these stunts, isn't it? The only democracy they understand is the one they can buy off the rack. The only representatives they respect are those they can bribe unconditionally, intimidate absolutely, or control completely. The only concept of civic engagement that interested them is the sound of the coins clanking into their perennially overstuffed, bottomless money bins.

All of their noxious, malicious, feral notions of unimpeded and unrestrained commerce are directed toward feeding the monstrous status quo that empowers them at our expense. As Shane McGowan puts it: "Greed knows no boundaries, greed does not feel." 

Obviously, this type of proposal is only a starting point for what should happen nationally. That's of the great curses of our system, with all its endless Rube Goldberg mechanisms -- like the Electoral College -- designed to thwart the most badly needed changes.

All of us need basic protections against these predatory operations, not just those living in federal housing. Otherwise, we're doomed to playing a perennial game of 50-State Whack-A-Mole, which benefits the monied interests and their deep-pocketed far right allies -- the same ones who brought us the "Corporations are people, too" logic that saddled us with the infamous Citizens United ruling.

The other obvious thing that needs to happen is getting the next generation -- the voices of the Tennessee Three, and others like them -- into power sooner, rather than later, and finally start nudging all these Boomer politicians off the national stages that they've hogged for decades. Obviously, getting that goal done is a much bigger job, but a necessary one, too.

The flipside of the argument is that we have to take our opportunities when they pop up, to negate whatever ballot stuffing that these outfits are trying to do. So take some time to review the video link -- there's lots of good info there, I've seen it -- and crank up that Pogues song, as you fill out your comments. as Peoples Action asks us to do:

"We know that the rent is STILL too damn high. And we know that this is flexible, so we will keep fighting for our rights and our homes. These proposed tenant protections are a critical step toward holding greedy corporate landlords accountable, and your voice needs to be heard."

To which I can only say, "Amen, and then some." You don't have to be religious to get behind that sentiment. Still, it's fair to say that if Jesus ever returns, in all of his apocalyptic glory, he'll likely send landlords and their corporate allies tumbling into the Lake of Fire first -- before he gets around to the other sinners on his list. --The Reckoner


Too much pressure, and 
all them certain kind of people
Too much pressure, them having it easy
Too much pressure, them having it easy
Too much pressure, them sail through life


Too much pressure, them have no joy
Too much pressure, them have no joy
It's too much pressure, it's too much pressure




Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,
Before Your Rent Goes Up Yet Again):

More Perfect Union:

The Pogues: Bastard Landlord:
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Looking For A Picket Line? The AFL-CIO Has Your Bat-Signal

 

http://joehillslc.org/joe-hill/joe-hill-songs/there-is-power-in-a-union/

"There is power in the factory, power in the land,
Power in the hands of the worker...
But it all amounts to nothing,
if together we don't stand:
There is power in a union..."
<Billy Bragg: "There Is Power In A Union">

I've been on various mailing lists for as long as I've surfed the 'net, and the AFL-CIO happens to be one of them. This latest nugget of theirs, which I got last week, really got my attention, though -- it's a link to find strikes that they've authorized, which you can check out right here:


To find out about all strikes happening across the U.S., click  this map from Cornell, via its niftily-named Labor Action Tracker:


Whichever one you click, there's a fair amount going on, as you can easily see. The entertainment industry strike is obviously the hottest one of the moment, by no means the only action that's happening. 

The AFL-CIO link also offers various resources to follow up, and show solidarity, to make its link even more relevant and valuable -- like the Tom Morello tune, which I have to check out yet, as well as advice, contacts, and other organizing tools.

Overall, it looks like a neat package, and it's certainly good to see organized labor flexing some kind of muscle again, after decades of dormancy, and continued attempts to dismantle unionism as a political force -- which is always a precondition for wannabe authoritarians, like Donald Trump, or the water carriers he jammed onto the so-called Supreme Court, like Sam "I Love Giant Salmon" Alito.

Or maybe we can call him "Scandal-ito," for short? At any rate, whatever gets you to click that link, don't ever forget the central premise, as the AFL-CIO expresses it:

"Working people want safe jobs with good health care, flexibility, sick leave, and where they feel respected and valued."

Now there's a bottom line that we can all get behind! On your mark, get set...start clicking! --The Reckoner

Links To Go: Get Organized (Not Atomized):

Billy Bragg: There Is Power In A Union:
Why The Current Supreme Court Is A Threat To Democracy:

JoeHillSLC.org: There Is Power In A Union:

(*Remember, folks -- this analysis came out before we heard about their giant salmon, giant stogies, and all the other extravagant bribes lavished on these right-wing culture warriors they've installed there! 

(But, worth a read, all the same, to remind us what we're fighting for, all the same -- the curbing of all this unchecked corporate power, and the brutalist architecture on which it depends to function.)

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Wednesday, March 3, 2021

Stop Hugging Sacred Cows 101 (Sh#itcan The Filibuster)


<Official Portrait: Public Domain>

"The rules in the Senate have really been put there 
to preserve the power of the minority. Now we have to show that it's going to make a difference that we're not going to get caught up in the tyranny of the minority that exists in the Senate."

<Congresswoman Pramilla Jayapal (D-WA)>

You don't let no-one know
Just where the money goes
Because of parasites
I ain't got no rights
All the aces
All the aces
All the aces, I don't like people who ain't got no faces
Motorhead, "All The Aces" (Bomber, 1979)

<i.>
I've just finished shelling out almost $700 in medical bills, between the Squawker and myself. So why do I still have to listen to shriveled mummies like Senator Joe Manchin (D?-WV) lecture me about how costly is to fix the problems that pillage my pocketbook? 

“I think all of them realize that what we have with ACA (Affordable Care Act), it needs to be fixed. Now, they're talking in their grand plan of what they want to do. But then it has to come to fiscal responsibilities. How do you do it? Because those are major changes. It's easier to fix what we have now.” (Washington Post, 6/26/19)

That's where Joe stood then, and he hasn't budged since. As Democrats go, he makes a good Republican, given his overstuffed net worth, which we've variously posted at $6 to 8 million, and $10 million (so our Google walkin' fingers tell us, at various times). I call him The $10 Million Country Boy, because it sounds catchier. Guess that's just my punk rock crankiness calling,.

But I also understand why creeps like Manchin are such immovable objects. Empathy isn't  part of their makeup. They live by an entirely different set of rules that doesn't apply to me. I have no insurance, so therefore, I don't exist. Simple as that. Wait, I take that back. I had insurance, for two years, through the Michigan Medicaid expansion, until my income exceeded the magic number needed to boot me off it.

Still, the music biz is nothing like the healthcare biz, when it comes to what they charge you. Of the $700 I cited above, I racked up almost $500, just from one visit to the urologist ($325), not to mention the resulting tests ($175). Ka-ching! That included a second urine test, for the princely sum of $33. (Once I got the discount, that is.)

Whoops, almost forgot. I stubbed my toe, resulting in a nasty red blotch on the tip of it. Amid whispers of dry and/or wet gangrene, I was advised to check it out, so I duly trooped down to the local urgent care, and had them look at it. Which they did, once I paid the $139 they wanted, upfront. Ka-ching! The diagnosed a blood blister, one that thankfully required no X-rays or testing. Otherwise, they'd have wanted another $100 upfront. Ka-ching!

I don't blame the medical professionals involved for any of this stuff. They often seem apologetic about their position in the American healthcare circus, and the absurdities it enforces on those caught in the ebb and flow of its blackened whirlpool. 

"Do you want to pay me part of this now?" I asked the woman at the urology reception desk. "I'm not with Meridian* anymore." 

"No, we'll just bill you." Pause. Here comes the punchline, I told myself. "That way, you'll still get the 20 percent discount."

"That takes a load off my mind, I guess..."

But seriously, folks. I just flew in from the urology clinic, and boy, are my arms tired. And that's not even what irks me off the most. 



<"Who Do You Work For, Really?"/
The Reckoner>


"I must be an acrobat/To talk like this, and look like that..." (U2, Acrobat)

<ii.>
Now that the ACA has survived so many Republican kamikaze raids to kill it, there's three paths forward, the talking heads tell us. We can try to create some kind of single-payer system (God forbid); implement Medicare For All, and its associated solutions, such as lowering the eligibility age to 55 or 60 (not as painful, but still requires lots of needle threading); or bolster the existing law, by making its subsidies more generous, for those who struggle to pay its monthly premiums (deemed the safest, likeliest bet).

Whatever scenario you favor, you still have to worry about the 60-vote hump needed to kill any potential filibuster, a parliamentary procedure designed to stop bills in their tracks. The most common example occurs when one or more Senators move to block or delay debate on a measure, typically by making lengthy speeches against it, or offering numerous procedural amendments.

Often, the mere threat of a filibuster is enough to persuade Senator Blowhard to pull his dream bill off the floor. The repeated failure to enact civil rights laws is the most notorious (and obvious) example of "death by filibuster," but hardly the only one. The struggle to pass a comprehensive voting rights protection law might well end up as the next notorious casualty.

However, the Joe Manchins and Kyrsten Sinemas have expressed much public queasiness about scrapping the filibuster, amid the how-much-is-too-much debate over the latest stimulus package in a 50-50 Senate. Or maybe they're bucking their fellow Democrats because of that math. It's hard to tell when you're dealing with human weathervanes. Hence, the Democrats are relying on the budget reconciliation process, which only requires a simple majority to push through the whole shebang, without any Republicans muddying the waters.

But relying on reconciliation to do all your heavy lifting carries big drawbacks. It's solely reserved for measures affecting revenue, spending, and the federal debt limit. Congress can only pass such three bills per year. Either side can appeal whatever provisions displease them to the Senate parliamentarian, who somehow decided recently that a $15 minimum wage proposal doesn't fall into that bucket.

The logic escapes me, but one fact is clear. While the math of reconciliation is simple, the process is a Rube Goldbergian nightmare, as Esquire observes:

"The whole process is like squeezing your way through a tiny window when the door is right there. And the squeeze has caused Congress to recede as a branch of government, increasingly ceding power to the Executive and Judiciary. The Senate has basically banned itself from doing anything but allocating funds."

Honestly, it's strange watching Democrats acting so skittish about the very weapon that their Republican antagonists have wielded to such devastating effect since 2009. You'd think that hearing former President Obama label the filibuster as "a Jim Crow relic" would offer the ideal cue, if not some type of air cover, for all those traditionalists who want to keep on playing by the same rules that their counterparts routinely gamed, ignored, or sidestepped. 

Remember the GOP rallying cry ("Fire the parliamentarian!") that went up during their 2017 ACA repeal crusade, when aspects of the Rube Goldberg process didn't go their way? It didn't happen, but as the old saying goes, "Who dares, wins." Now, close your eyes, and try to imagine Joe Biden and his advisers saying it. See how long that image lasts, before you start busting a gut. 

Yeah, I thought so. Didn't even take more than a couple seconds. Hell. It might even make a great indoor game for you during these COVID-blighted times.




“I do not support Medicare for All. I'm really focused on solutions that are realistic and pragmatic and we can get done.”

Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D?-AZ), clarifying matters for "The Hill" blog (8/22/18)

<iii.>
Okay, now that we've had our civics lesson, and recent history refresher course, what are some compelling reasons for killing the filibuster, the next time Moderate Mickey and Mallory start carping and quailing about staying the course? Let's roll the credits, and count the ways:

"But it'll blow up the Senate!" That's well underway. The Democrats eliminated filibusters for executive branch and some judicial nominees in 2013; the Republicans scratched them in 2017 for Supreme Court nominations, allowing them to shoehorn three of the Federalist Society's latest graduates onto the bench. Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.

"But it'll further undermine our democracy!" The  filibuster greases the gridlock that prompts sitting Presidents to rely on executive orders, and thus, make end runs around those pests in Congress. The "phone and pen" model, as practiced by Presidents Obama and Trump, has arguably wreaked as much (or more) havoc on our system as the filibuster. But only the losing side complains.

"But it goes against how the Senate works!" Actually, no. The filibuster isn't some sacred rite handed down by Those Guys In Stockings and Wigs, as they went about dreaming up our republic. It didn't square with their original concept of the Senate, so they didn't put into the Constitution. If they could live without the filibuster, so can we.

"But it'll kill any further chance of bipartisan cooperation!" There's nothing bipartisan about Republicans who a) stay silent over the January 6 coup attempt, b) play along with Trump's Big Lie about winning the election, c) unleash an avalanche of proposed new laws designed to suppress voting (read: no more pesky minorities  getting in our way), d) resist all attempts to hold themselves or their violent, unhinged cult followers accountable for all of the above. 

Searching for that second, third or fourth Republican vote is like searching for the Loch Ness Monster. Have you seen one in a zoo lately? I thought so. The GOP has made its preferences clear enough lately. So should we.

"But it's needed to protect minority rights!" See Ms. Jayapal's quote above. Anyone who swallows that bait doesn't know how the Senate really works, where it only takes one individual Senator to throw sand in the machinery, and grind it to a halt.

"But the Republicans will use it as a club to take revenge, when the Senate falls back into their hands!" Undoubtedly, yes. No question about it; the current generation of GOPers, from Josh Hawley, to Ted Cruz, are scheming, seditious, petty, vindictive you-know-whats, whose lack of regard for anyone but themselves and their clique has raised spitefulness to a whole new level. That being said...

So What?



<Official Portrait: Public Domain>

<"Preserving the filibuster is not worth letting millions of people in this country go hungry, sleep in their cars, or struggle to afford baby formula."

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY),
Twitter feed, three days ago>

<iv.>
If all we do is wait for the Cruzes, Hawleys and similar seditious-minded colleagues to do something terrible, and then, somehow try to fix their damage after the fact, we might as well fold our tents and go home right now. 

Keeping the filibuster preserves Democrats in the same suffocating amber that's dogged them since Napoleon From Louisville, AKA Mitch McConnell, began regularly dropping his procedural pipe bombs a decade or so ago. The script goes like this: Republicans do something horrible; Democrats squeak, "Oh, my goodness me, whatever shall we do," and scurry to play catchup, usually without much success.

Killing the filibuster smashes that dynamic, and potentially offers Democrats more room to dream bigger on goals like the $15 an hour minimum wage, immigration reform, and election reform. Threats of, "We've got 51 votes," might force some Republicans to rethink their tactics on some bills, since the days of odd couples like Bob Dole and Ted Kennedy hammering out some backroom compromise are a distant memory now.

Yes, Centrist Charlie, not every bill will advance or pass, even without a filibuster to smother it, but so far, Biden isn't finding 10 Republicans willing to help him, anyway, let that elusive second or third one on a narrower vote. Without either of those options materializing, the argument becomes more purely academic.

Failing to grasp that simple fact risks springing the same 2010-era trap that nearly cost Obama the ACA, his signature legislative achievement, and ushered in the Age of Cruelty, under Trump. Republicans got away with a double game, first, by paralyzing Congress, the weaponizing that same paralysis against the Democrats.

Sounds absurd? Maybe so, but thanks to the Tea Party's rise, enough people bought it, costing Democratic control of the House of Representatives in 2010, and the Senate, in 2014. The fallout of this failure becomes even more painful when we consider that, for his first 178 days, Obama actually enjoyed a filibuster-proof Senate majority that peaked at 60-40, when he could well have passed whatever he wanted.

That didn't happen, of course, thanks to geniuses like Obama's dimwitted, foul-mouthed chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who legendarily advised his boss not to bother aggressively filling judicial vacancies, because he "didn't give a f#ck about federal judgeships." Mitch McConnell certainly did; we all know how that movie turned out.

But losing a majority is one thing; losing our democracy is quite another, so the logic of self-preservation should be enough to convince Democrats it's time to think beyond the box, like modifying or scrapping the filibuster. Otherwise, we risk a rerun of January 6th, with another mindless mob baying for our blood, at the business end of their bear spray and body armor. It's time we find an exit off the Highway of Learned Helplessness, because the price of occupancy is way too high. 


<Coda>
Oh, and as for my medical bills? On the bright side, I'll qualify for Medicare and Medicaid in just under a decade, assuming our democratic experiment isn't a smoking ruin by then, or I'll have to find some way to become wealthy enough to pay out of pocket, however unrealistic that sounds.

You know what? On second thought, I think I'll just buy a lottery ticket when the jackpot gets large enough. Unlike the work world, at least I have the same  chance as anybody else. And it sure beats waiting for Democrats to play catchup. We all know how that movie turns out, too. --The Reckoner


(*The provider who served me during my two-year flirtation with state-sponsored insurance.)

Links To Go
Esquire: Democrats Need
To Sh#tcan The Filibuster, 
Or We Are All Screwed:

Yahoo.com: Analysis: Biden Ambitions
Run Into Reality Of Senate's Rules:

Yahoo.com: Democrats Launch 
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