Smug Hypocrites
I could barely contain myself when reading the second of Susan Bruce’s outstanding recent posts here on income disparity. In “You’re Overpaid” Susan quotes from, and links to, a piece by conservative economic policy adviser Kevin Hassett, in which he calls for reducing workers’ incomes, arguing that high unemployment is caused by high wages, and that driving down wages will, somehow, bring down unemployment.
Hassett, by the way, chose to publish that piece when? On Labor Day.
Let me join Susan in sounding the alarm here. Hassett is no fringe wingnut, no isolated voice of unreason on the extreme far right. He’s the chief economic policy advocate at the leading neo-con think tank, practically speaking the top policy voice of corporate America and their lobbyists, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. While he’s loaded with big-time economics credentials, Hassett is perhaps best known for the 1999 book Dow 36,000, in which he and co-author James K. Glassman predicted, well, exactly that.
Ahem.
But if you’re willing to use your albeit-somewhat-tarnished economics credentials to attack workers’ wages and try to pit unemployed workers against those still working, some big business interests will surely still pay you lots of money.
So, Mr. Hassett still has his job. And, if Republicans regain control in Congress, they’ll be looking to implement Mr. Hassett’s economic policies — to further reduce workers’ incomes, eliminate minimum wage protections and tear-up union bargaining agreements.
But how revealing is it that Hassett and his fake “free-market” ideologues — who constantly rail against “government interference” — demand exactly that when they want to drive down workers’ incomes? When government must spend to help the economy, they bemoan short-term deficits, yet demand that government maintain their precious corporate tax loopholes so that they can protect their profits overseas. And when workers freely organize to improve their lives and livelihoods, Hassett and the bizcons cry out for government to intervene to break workers’ unions.
Hassett’s and the bizcons’ adherence to “free-market” economics is a fake. (Always has been.)
Still, his policy recommendations are serious — and dangerous. Hassett himself says their effects would be “painful” and “beastly” — something he apparently does not find problematic. Yet, those policies would only deepen the already massive chasm of income disparity in America, further depressing the economy now, and making it even more vulnerable to crises in the future.
Tags: unemployment, unions
When Hassett says my fat paycheck is costing others jobs,
well, maybe that’s so, but let’s introduce some proportion here: If my fat $22,000 salary is costing someone a job, how many jobs is my boss’ $120,000 costing? How many jobs are lost to massive hoards of wealth?
The magic hand of the market has been picking my pockets and the pockets of working people for far too long.
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Not to mention the multi-million dollar paychecks pulled down by guys who are being rewarded for their willingness to throw people out of their jobs and/or houses.
Wonder what Hasset makes, rewarding him for his ability to write thousands of words making wildly inaccurate predictions.
And we’ve GOT to start directing people’s attention to the elephant in the room, the military.
Having an extra trillion dollars a year to work with would make decisions of how to get money and how to spend it a good deal easier.
Instead of our factories making tanks, planes, bombs and bullets they could be making bicycles, mass transit systems, locally based sustainable energy systems…
The creativity and intelligence that’s now being put to use devising ever more grisly ways to make other people’s lives miserable or ended to could be towards nurturing the planet we depend on back to health and therefore the lives of all of us a bit more pleasant.
The employment generated by these projects would mean full employment, with plenty of room for the many tens of thousands of young people now stationed overseas and even for the many tens of thousands who otherwise would return be returning home unemployable due to death or massive physical or mental disability.
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The cause of massive job loss has been over a quarter of a century of massive, annual corporate “tax relief”, much of which has been used to export our jobs to foreign nations. Workers in those nations largely have a far lower cost of living, and can subsequently live well on lower wages. By contrast, our corporations have been bleeding US consumers.
We pay taxes so corporations don’t have to. Our taxes cover the costs of shutting down and exporting our jobs. This won’t change unless govt imposes/restores reasonable rules and conditions on US corporations.
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