Posts Tagged ‘ows’

Wage Stagnation is the Silent Killer of #Economic Equality

Posted: July 15, 2014 in Excess and Algorithms
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eanda logoajclogo2

by @anarchyroll
7/14/2014

Wages have not kept up with inflation or the consumer price index for over thirty years. That is what is meant when you hear people talk about wage stagnation.

As long as wages remain stagnant compared to how much stuff costs there will never be a fully robust economic recovery.

Wage stagnation is why there is currently an all time record high of income inequality in America.

This is why you don’t need a degree in economics to understand why all debates over economic issues in America are made to seem overly complicated on purpose. Because if people were paid more for their time and effort, they could buy more things. But wouldn’t those things then be more expensive? Yes, but people would be making more money. It would be a cycle, kind of like the cycle our economy is on now but less vicious and soul crushing for the generationally poor.

You’ve heard about class warfare between the 1% of earners who possess more wealth than the other 99% of earners in the country, right? That is the heart of the Occupy Wall Street movements and protests. Why is there such a gap in income equality? Why is there class warfare? Why is there a sentiment that the “game” that is the US economy is rigged and the American Dream is dead? The underlying cause/answer is wage stagnation.

Wage stagnation is not an accident, it has been done very much on purpose for almost half a century. The haves don’t want to pay the have-nots an honest salary for their honest work and have been allowed to get away with it. The 1% could make the choice to pay their workers more. But other than it being the right thing to do, why? After all, paying the masses a living wage would mean less one-percenters could afford private yachts, jets, and islands.

Wage stagnation is tied directly to the rise in consumer debt (people use credit to pay for necessities they don’t have the money to have because they don’t get paid enough), student loan debt (parents and students need to take loans because they don’t get paid enough to pay for college tuition), and mortgage debt (not being paid enough to afford a home). Being able to afford a home is the center piece of the American Dream. To afford property, not simply to achieve financial prosperity as many would have you believe.

Until wage stagnation is addressed and done away with, very little else matters in terms of turning around America’s economy for 99% of the population. To deny this is to deny reality, or be apart of the minority of the population that is benefiting from the system as it is currently constructed. There is no gray area or in between.

A living wage is the only humane solution to this problem. But traditionally, humanity and the American economy don’t always go hand in hand. The fierce resistance to paying a living wage in America is only the most recent example.

#OWS + #NetNeutrality = #OccupyFCC

Posted: May 8, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
5/8/2014

The most influential protest movement this side of the 1960s has now had it’s overly wide net cast over the battle for net neutrality. Although not formally part of the movement, an Occupy Wall Street style protest camp has emerged outside of the FCC headquarters.

  • Why? Because net neutrality is on the verge of extinction.
  • How? Verizon won a case against the FCC in federal court which has set the stage for tiered internet service based on payola.
  • When did this verdict happen/when will new internet rules & regulations be announced? The verdict was issued in January. May 15th is when the FCC is set to announce the path going forward.
  • What is net neutrality anyway? It means that all content on the internet is treated equal regardless of content or content provider. No content can be delivered faster or slower or censored for any reason just or unjust. It means that the internet is a truly open road or blank canvas or democratic communication tool.
  • Who wants net neutrality to end? Internet Service Providers (ISPs). They want to charge more for certain content like streaming video. They want people who are willing to pay more to have faster internet access. They want a tiered system. Not just a highway with tolls to pay for infrastructure and maintenance, but an entirely separate highway (not just a lane) for those with money and power to dictate the speed and content that is delivered.
  • Where is the battle for net neutrality taking place? FCC HQ in Washington DC. That is where the future of the internet is being discussed and legislated. That is where the #OccupyFCC movement has physically opened up camp.

You may be wondering or assuming that this is a case of David vs Goliath. That Verizon, Comcast, AT&T and the other internet providers are going to steamroll over the little guys (aka 99% of the population) and get everything that they want. However, in the battle against the ISP Godzilla, the little guys have a Mothra on their side. Yesterday a coalition of companies whose entire business model and fortunes have been made on the back of the open internet let their voice and lobbyists be heard to try to protect net neutrality.

Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, Amazon, Reddit and Google sent a letter to the FCC voicing their collective, formal support for net neutrality to remain the law of the land. They also backed the call of the common person, to change how broadband ISP’s like telecomm companies which would give the FCC more regulatory control.

You know a bill or potential law is bad if billionaires are on the same side as college students and common folk. The fact that all of these billion dollar companies think tiered internet is a bad idea, then there is likely fire behind that smoke. Net neutrality has allowed the internet to evolve into what it has become. Broadband providers trying to take net neutrality away is nothing more than a despicable money grab. Billionaires who wish to be trillionaires. The battle against net neutrality is greed at it’s worst. Contrary to what middle class white people use the internet for, an open internet is about more than cat videos, selfies, memes, and gifs.

The internet is a necessity at a level just under that of water, food, clothing, and shelter.

Forget the concept of the internet as an entertainment tool and time waster. Forget about social networks, You Tube, torrent sites, and porn. The fight for net neutrality has nothing to do with those. The fight for an open internet is about the internet as the greatest communication tool in the history of humanity. How many people NEED the internet to make a living? How many businesses rely on e-commerce? How big of a role is email in business and education? How many kids do their homework online? How many people around the world lift themselves out of poverty through the internet? How many inventions have been invented because of the internet?

The answer is to all of those is none. It’s not just the “internet” it is an OPEN INTERNET. The internet without network neutrality is not the internet. The death of network neutrality would fundamentally change the way the majority of human beings are able to access the internet. The end of network neutrality is the end of the internet as we know it. The internet will still exist, but in a new form that favors the rich and the powerful. A form that is detrimental to the common person. Ask yourself, who would want to do this to the internet and why?

Sign the petition.

 

 

#NATO3 Verdict Arrives = Victory? Justice?

Posted: February 8, 2014 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional
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by @anarchyroll
2/7/2014

Justice came for the NATO 3 today in Chicago, sort of.  The three twenty somethings were charged with mob action and arson related charges instead of terrorism, which they were charged with as well.  It was the first terrorism case in the history of Cook County, Illinois.

The “damning” evidence was a recording of the three talking about fire bombing police stations, President Barack Obama’s re election HQ, and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s home. However, defense attorneys were able to convince the jury that the undercover officers bated, egged on, and entrapped the intoxicated protesters into making the claims.

The three men’s lawyer did not paint them in flattering lights. The closing statement saw them called goofs directly. They were often referred to as drunks, posers, big headed, and so on.  The point being that these drunk, white, suburban posers simply got drunk and talked big to impress their peers.  Last I checked that doesn’t qualify as terrorism.  The jury agreed.

The three men didn’t walk out free. You can’t get caught during a NATO conference in a major American city with molatov cocktail making equipment by undercover cops and not go to jail. But the jury was clear that they did not see the three men as terrorists. They did not see their actions as intent to commit terrorism. This was a win for protestors in America period.  Whether the judge who will decide the length of the prison terms sees it that way or not, still remains to be seen.

#QE = Economic Crack III : Pusher in Charge

Posted: February 4, 2014 in Excess and Algorithms
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eanda logoby @anarchyroll
2/1/2014

Part One  |  Part Two

Ex cons have a hard time getting jobs in America due to a stigma that they can’t be trusted due to past actions. Even though going through the incarceration process is supposed to bring you the other end rehabilitated with a clean slate, the reality of the situation is often quite the opposite. It also often only applies to racial minorities who commit blue collar crimes as opposed to white collar criminals who not only don’t go to jail but often barely get a metaphoric slap on the wrist.  In the spirit of the latter example, Janet Yellen is the new Fed Chief.

Janet Yellen is a much better choice than Larry Summers.  Summers is one of the forgotten architects of the 2008 economic collapse thanks to his economic policy of derivatives deregulation during the Clinton administration during the 1990s.  Summers was thought to be getting the job last year before the liberal wing of the Democratic party threatened rebellion in the midterm elections if it happened.

Ben Bernanke who Yellen is replacing, well he is to the economy what George W Bush is to national security.  9/11 happened on Bush’s watch, the 2008 collapse happened on Bernanke’s watch, that’s all you need to know.

Janet Yellen was recently featured in a TIME magazine cover story since she is about to become the most powerful person in the economic world. Why does she fit into the Quantitative Easing conversation? Two reasons. One, she helped create it in 2010. Two, she will be responsible for the tapering (fading out of) and ending of it. But do drug dealers and drug addicts often voluntarily quit their habit? Or do they continuously justify their habit to themselves?

Yellen and QE have been, are presently, and will be in the future tied together for better and for worse.  Wall Street has benefited immensely from QE. The massive bond buying program has held down interest rates (QE’s stated intent).  This has allowed the casino that is the stock market to function smoothly and at times on steroids, seeing unprecedented highs.

But these highs are drug induced. When a person does blow, crack, or meth they get an intense high for a limited amount of time.  Someone who drops acid sees walls melt and a new world of colors birth before their very eyes. But these things do not last, because they are induced by an outside substance.  The crash afterwards can be brutal, even from a simple alcohol or marijuana high. The high may feel real, but not as real as the hangover.

The American economy was high after the recovery from the dot com bubble burst. Deregulation, default swaps, and derivatives were the drug of choice of the early 2000s and the high was tremendous making houses as affordable as cars, cars as affordable as vacations, and vacations as affordable as a credit card induced weekend shopping spree. The hangover that started in 2008 was and is very real. Make no mistake we are still in recession, the recovery is false.

The recovery is false because it is also drug induced, stock market highs snorted, smoked, and shot up thanks to quantitative easing.  Asset bubbles have been created, inflation is inevitable, and any time tapering is stated or hinted at the stock market nose dives.

Tapering is occurring at about $5 to $10 billion a month, which is a good thing.  Yellen has publically stated her support for stricter economic regulation and has the backing of Elizabeth Warren.  My concern is that Yellen is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In addition to being an architect of the current quantitative easing policy written about here, she is also proponent of trickle-down economics or Reaganomics.

The last paragraph of her TIME interview is a quote which that TIME tries to spin as “a rising tide can lift all boats” and then point out that phrase was first used by President Kennedy.  The problem is Yellen states that the purpose of QE is directly tied to trickle-down theory. The more money rich people have, the more they will spend, and that will mean more money for the poor by osmosis.  Aka when a drunk person drinks a lot, they’ll piss a lot more. QE is nothing more than a tax cut substitute in the Reaganomics equation. She claims to have main street on her mind, but her economic actions indicate she is looking out for the people at the top, hoping their crumbs become big enough to feed the poor when they trickle down after their hedge fund has enough capital freed up to buy another section of homes.

Better than Larry Summers? Yes. Does she deserve some time as the Fed Chair to prove herself? Yes. But QE is her baby. The stock market and unemployment numbers are her master.  She is going to nurture her baby and serve her master as long as they are tied together.  And all economic indicators show that QE is directly tied to stock market gains and losses as well as the unemployment numbers.  Yellen has stated as long as unemployment remains high, QE will remain.

Drug cartel kingpins tend not to be at the forefront of legalization movements. Why? Because the status quo makes them rich.  Janet Yellen helped devise QE and now she’s in charge of ending it? Next thing you know you’re going to tell me the insurance companies helped write the Affordable Health Care Act…..

#OWS Shines Light on Dark Debt Market

Posted: January 14, 2014 in Excess and Algorithms
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eanda logoby @anarchyroll
1/13/2014

Did you know what the secondary debt market was? I sure as hell didn’t. Now I do, thanks Occupy Wall Street and Strike Debt (an OWS offshoot).

Raising that question and answering it is precisely what the intention behind the action of buying and forgiving the debt, first $1 million, then $15 million. I hope this silences the movements critics (that aren’t members of the 1%). The debt they forgave was primarily medical debt, they said they will next be targeting student loan debt.

The movement is not as chic as it was a few years ago, and certainly doesn’t receive the news coverage it did during it’s initial run in Zuccotti Park, but that has been a blessing in disguise. Without national media attention and the inevitable ego boom that comes with it, they have been able to quietly do the work of the 99%.  Now the press only covers them when they make a big splash in the form of helping people, which is what any protest movement is supposed to be all about.

Low Tax Rate = Collapsing Bridges

Posted: November 8, 2013 in Anarchy Journal Constitutional, Excess and Algorithms
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eanda logoajclogo1by @anarchyroll
11/7/2013

At some point during the 1970s the tax code in the United States of America was deliberately turned in a complex labyrinth of small typed font, subsections, exemptions, and  industry speak double talk.  It is not a coincidence that from 1970 until now, the infrastructure of the United States has been in consistent decline.  Parallel to this urban decay that all of us have seen that driving through any major metropolitan city has been a rise of gated communities and McMansions, again not a coincidence.

“Between 1946 and 1970, very prosperous years, the highest tax rate for the top earners was never below 70%—even under Dwight Eisenhower, whom no one called a socialist. We have so much deferred maintenance on roads and bridges and tunnels and ports. Money does not have to be raised, and the rich have never been as rich.” Robert Reich in the 10/7/13 issue of TIME magazine.

This is part of what the Occupy Wall Street movement is referring to with their 99% slogan.  The income/wealth of the top 1% is more than the rest of the 99% possess in combined.  There is no one reason why this is the case, however the fact that marginal tax rate for top earners is 39.6% leads one down a rabbit hole of simple math. If the top wage earners in America are playing 30% less in taxes, then what things can’t local, state, and federal government(s) able to do with that missing tax revenue?

Build bridges, pave roads, renovate schools, not have to privatize stuff because of massive budget short falls. Do you know any old people who talk about the good ole days? They’re referring to the years between WWII ending and Vietnam taking a turn for the worse. During that time part of what made things so good was everything felt new, fresh, safe, etc…a direct contributor to that was that local, state, and federal government(s) had money to pay for anything and everything. Police, post offices, highways, homeless shelters, etc, etc, etc, et f’n c…

Ask yourself, why can’t the rich pay more in taxes? Why haven’t they? Why would the rich rather pay lobbyists and politicians money to keep taxes low, rather than just use that money to pay more in taxes?

Innocent bystanders in public places will keep dying due to collapsing infrastructure until they do.  What do you think the breaking point body count is? I have my guesses, but this isn’t a long form piece.