The economic miracle revisited (fwd)
-- Forwarded message -- Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1998 11:36:44 -0800 From: Caspar Davis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: The economic miracle revisited This post, which I forwarded to some almost a year ago, takes on new relevance as we are told on the one hand that Canada is inferior (even) to the US in the creation of "good" jobs and see on the other the emergence of a worldwide glut, brought on by overinvestment/production and lack of purchasing power/demand. Rather than pay huge companies to create jobs at the scale of $200,000.00 per job or more, might it not make more sense to pay people for not working, thereby incrfeasing purchasing power/demand while stabilizing supply? Just a thought. It makes it clear that the US "economic miracle" of low unemployment has been created by rolling back 150 years of social progress and making wage slaves cheaper than machines (or actual slaves, who have to be cared for and supported even in old age) would be. Also the 1.8 million people in jail* are not considered unemployed (and indeed many of the incarcerated are working for multinationals at less than third world wages), nor are the 1.5 million in the military. Caspar Davis * This is the highest per capita incarceration rate in history. Forwarded message- an oldie but goodie: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Progressive Economists' Network) Subject: AUT: AMERICA All work, low pay (fwd) For those unfamiliar with Australian industrial relations history, "the awards" referred to at the end of the article are industry-wide standards of pay and working conditions (I gather something similar once held in New Zealand also). Traditionally these awards were ratified (and often arbitrated) by State-level or Federal-level industrial courts after negotiations between employer and union bodies - more and more, they are being pared back to very minimum criteria, with the emphasis being shifted to workplace and/or individual contracts . . . Steve Subject: Sydney Morning Herald: AMERICA All work, low pay From: Paul Canning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sun, 28 Dec 1997 23:22:20 +1100 (EST) AMERICA Saturday, December 27, 1997 All work, low pay The deregulated, no-union, zero-employment economy of the United States is seen by some Australian employers and politicians as a model for this country. But as ADELE HORIN travelled America, she found the downside - an army of worn-out, exploited working poor. "GETTING a job is easy," says Rose Scott. "It's getting the pay you want that's hard - $7 an hour is the most I've ever made." A small, blonde, shy woman in her 30s, Scott is talking in the office of the Adecco Employment Agency in Greenville, South Carolina, where she has come to get a job. In Greenville, population 65,000, a Bible-thumping, anti-union town, the jobless rate is 3.8 per cent, even less than the US national rate of 4.9 per cent. As Scott says, getting a job is easy. In the booming US economy, where unemployment is at a 25-year low, crack addicts have jobs, alcoholics have jobs, and single mothers of newborn babies have jobs. For an Australian, accustomed to more than a decade's bad news on the jobs front, the atmosphere is electric. South Carolina, which only four years ago recorded Australian-style unemployment rates, has achieved what economists loosely define as full employment - and other States such as Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin boast even lower jobless figures. But having a job in the US does not mean having a living wage. When Scott's husband left her with three children under eight to support, she found a job in a convenience store, working the midnight to 8 am shift. "It paid $6 an hour and I could barely support myself let alone my children," she says as we wait in Adecco's over-bright, no-frills office. Unable to find overnight child care or feed her children, Scott was forced to send them to live with her mother in a town 50 kilometres away. But relinquishing her children was not the only trauma for Scott. An armed robber held up the convenience store when she was on duty. Terrified, she resigned the next day, which is what has brought her, still shell-shocked, into the Adecco employment office. It isn't long before Adecco's placement officer calls Scott to the desk, having scanned the computer and found her another job - just like that. This time, she will be making boxes for a packaging company at $US7 (about $10.50) an hour, starting at 7am. "I should be able to have my children back in a few months," Scott says happily as she leaves, clutching complicated directions to her new workplace. But who, I wonder, will mind her children when she leaves for work at 6.30 am, and how will she afford child care? AS I travelled around the US, wondering whether Australia should emulate or beware the US economic model, Rose Scott'
The economic miracle revisited
This post, which I forwarded to some almost a year ago, takes on new relevance as we are told on the one hand that Canada is inferior (even) to the US in the creation of "good" jobs and see on the other the emergence of a worldwide glut, brought on by overinvestment/production and lack of purchasing power/demand. Rather than pay huge companies to create jobs at the scale of $200,000.00 per job or more, might it not make more sense to pay people for not working, thereby incrfeasing purchasing power/demand while stabilizing supply? Just a thought. It makes it clear that the US "economic miracle" of low unemployment has been created by rolling back 150 years of social progress and making wage slaves cheaper than machines (or actual slaves, who have to be cared for and supported even in old age) would be. Also the 1.8 million people in jail* are not considered unemployed (and indeed many of the incarcerated are working for multinationals at less than third world wages), nor are the 1.5 million in the military. Caspar Davis * This is the highest per capita incarceration rate in history. Forwarded message- an oldie but goodie: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Progressive Economists' Network) Subject: AUT: AMERICA All work, low pay (fwd) For those unfamiliar with Australian industrial relations history, "the awards" referred to at the end of the article are industry-wide standards of pay and working conditions (I gather something similar once held in New Zealand also). Traditionally these awards were ratified (and often arbitrated) by State-level or Federal-level industrial courts after negotiations between employer and union bodies - more and more, they are being pared back to very minimum criteria, with the emphasis being shifted to workplace and/or individual contracts . . . Steve Subject: Sydney Morning Herald: AMERICA All work, low pay From: Paul Canning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sun, 28 Dec 1997 23:22:20 +1100 (EST) AMERICA Saturday, December 27, 1997 All work, low pay The deregulated, no-union, zero-employment economy of the United States is seen by some Australian employers and politicians as a model for this country. But as ADELE HORIN travelled America, she found the downside - an army of worn-out, exploited working poor. "GETTING a job is easy," says Rose Scott. "It's getting the pay you want that's hard - $7 an hour is the most I've ever made." A small, blonde, shy woman in her 30s, Scott is talking in the office of the Adecco Employment Agency in Greenville, South Carolina, where she has come to get a job. In Greenville, population 65,000, a Bible-thumping, anti-union town, the jobless rate is 3.8 per cent, even less than the US national rate of 4.9 per cent. As Scott says, getting a job is easy. In the booming US economy, where unemployment is at a 25-year low, crack addicts have jobs, alcoholics have jobs, and single mothers of newborn babies have jobs. For an Australian, accustomed to more than a decade's bad news on the jobs front, the atmosphere is electric. South Carolina, which only four years ago recorded Australian-style unemployment rates, has achieved what economists loosely define as full employment - and other States such as Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin boast even lower jobless figures. But having a job in the US does not mean having a living wage. When Scott's husband left her with three children under eight to support, she found a job in a convenience store, working the midnight to 8 am shift. "It paid $6 an hour and I could barely support myself let alone my children," she says as we wait in Adecco's over-bright, no-frills office. Unable to find overnight child care or feed her children, Scott was forced to send them to live with her mother in a town 50 kilometres away. But relinquishing her children was not the only trauma for Scott. An armed robber held up the convenience store when she was on duty. Terrified, she resigned the next day, which is what has brought her, still shell-shocked, into the Adecco employment office. It isn't long before Adecco's placement officer calls Scott to the desk, having scanned the computer and found her another job - just like that. This time, she will be making boxes for a packaging company at $US7 (about $10.50) an hour, starting at 7am. "I should be able to have my children back in a few months," Scott says happily as she leaves, clutching complicated directions to her new workplace. But who, I wonder, will mind her children when she leaves for work at 6.30 am, and how will she afford child care? AS I travelled around the US, wondering whether Australia should emulate or beware the US economic model, Rose Scott's pale face stayed with me. She came to embody the contradictions of this "economic miracle." America has put its underclass to work. Virtually everyone not incarcerated - and there are 1.7 million of those - can get a job. But the workers are exhausted. They are suffering from too much work - 12-hour shifts, seven-day w
