employment

“The premise of democracy, if it’s to be taken seriously, has to focus on youth, which become the ultimate symbol of the future.” H. Giroux

Last week, I explained how economists and policymakers destroyed our economy for the sake of short-term corporate profits from jobs offshoring and financial deregulation.

David Cay Johnston renown for his exposes of tax loopholes and inequities: Put in historical context, a $10.10 minimum wage is still substantially lower than it was in the 1960s.

“Are Adjunct Professors the Fast-Food Workers of the Academic World?” Is this provocative, evocative, adversarial, or emblematic of an age of casino capitalism, corrupted Admin Class, and a see/ hear/speak no evil compliant groups of people who are in the 20 percent?

The American propaganda machine rolls on, superior to the paltry efforts of past American, British, and German public relations machinery. Then, it was enough to sketch terrifying cartoons of Huns or Jews or other ethnicities and fulminate nonsensically about racial purity. No more. We have evolved. Now the deception of the tirelessly distracted masses requires dissimulations of far greater sophistication.

Have you seen the economic recovery? I haven’t either. But it is bound to be around here somewhere, because the National Bureau of Economic Research spotted it in June 2009, four and one-half years ago.
It is a shy and reclusive recovery, like the “New Economy” and all those promised new economy jobs. I haven’t seen them either, but we know they are here, somewhere, because the economists said so.

A just society should provide everyone with access to a job yet nearly 2 million Canadians can’t find work.
Officially 6.9 per cent of the Canadian workforce is unemployed. But this number rises to 10.3 per cent when those who’ve given up searching for work are included. Counting “discouraged workers”, about 1.8 million Canadians can’t find a job.
Looked at from a different perspective, StatsCan announced last week that there were six job-seekers for every job available in September. Counting “discouraged workers” that number increases 50 percent.

A clear diagnosis of the Oil Sands fever variant of Dutch Disease may be just what the doctor ordered to rally Canadian workers in the fight against global warming.
A rapid increase in natural resource investment and revenue usually drives up a nation’s currency. This generally makes other industries less competitive and can greatly weaken a country’s manufacturing base.

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is relevant these days with many in Congress playing the role of Scrooge before he was visited by the Christmas spirits. Dickens was greatly concerned about the plight of children forced to work under dreadful conditions and about the lives of the poor in Britain under industrial capitalism in the 1840s.
Pope Francis recently echoed these ideas when he expressed concern about unfettered capitalism. The Pope also called on world leaders to address poverty and growing inequality. Specifically, he said:

There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class – the rich class – that’s making war, and we’re winning.
- Warren Buffett (2006)