"When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose"

Why does so much of the talk about fixing the economy take a top-down approach, instead of a bottom-up approach? In other words why are we talking so much about corporate welfare, while so many people think that welfare for the poor is a dirty word?

Do the rich really need more money? How much worse can things get for someone who is already poor and homeless? The middle class and the poor have suffered through an economic crisis for years, and the government didn’t care and did nothing to help them. Instead they helped corporations ship jobs overseas. However, when an economic crisis starts to effect the rich the government is ready to give them billions of dollars. Something is wrong with this picture.

From Guest Blogger: Michael Zweig's Proposal for Economic Stimulus:

We set out to design an economic stimulus package that would provide direct relief to distressed workers while bringing the economy towards full employment. But we found that, as important as job creation is, most distressed workers have jobs – just not good ones. So in addition to short-term stimulus we propose longer-term structural reforms that provide universal health care and make it much easier for workers to organize unions.

For the past 35 years we have lived through one of the greatest redistributions of wealth away from working people to the corporate elite that this country has ever seen. Worker productivity has gone up while wages adjusted for inflation have gone down. That’s what class warfare looks like, and the working class has been on the losing side for almost two generations.

When we criticize the increasing inequality around us and call for economic justice, others denounce such talk as “class warfare.” But the complaint is itself part of the war, designed to change the subject. A market economy can produce great wealth, but what’s the point if the working people who create it don’t live better for it?

Those Damn Teenagers!

Summertime, and the livin's not easy.

George W. Bush will blame anyone and everyone, but himself.

From George Bush blames teenagers for job losses by Jeff Musall:

The Bush Administration continues to put out propaganda aimed at anyone dumb enough to buy it. The problem for them is that more people are waking up to just how badly they have been lied to and mislead. Stop listening, people. Deficit spending, bad fiscal policy, bad trade policy, bad energy policy - those are some of the real reasons for the bad job market. Of all the very bad qualities George Bush demonstrates on a regular basis, his absolute inability to recognize his mistakes is among the worst.

While our fear-inspiring “leader” (with the MBA from Harvard) sees teenagers as the root of all economic evil, others see things differently. Instead of pointing the finger at teenagers entering the job market for summer jobs, some say plummeting auto sales, plummeting home prices, tighter lending standards, shrinking paychecks, and higher prices for raw materials are the reasons for all the job losses. Not to mention the vicious cycle that the economy likes to unleash on us every once in a while.

From Deepening Cycle of Job Loss Seen Lasting Into ’09 by Peter S. Goodman:

The slide in the labor market has become both symptom and cause of a weak economy, pulling many families into a downward spiral. Back when housing prices were still rising, Americans borrowed exuberantly against the value of their homes to finance renovations, vacations and shopping sprees. But that artery of finance has constricted considerably along with access to credit cards, forcing a reversion to the traditional limits of household finance. Millions of American families must now confine their spending to what they can bring home from work.

With job losses growing and working hours shrinking, many paychecks are eroding, prompting millions of families to cut their spending. Soaring prices for food and gasoline are overwhelming modest wage gains for most workers, leaving households with even less money to spend. All of which deprives struggling businesses of sales, prompting them to shed more workers, sending the cycle down another turn.

I tend to think that the huge debt and the huge deficit we have run up may have something to do with our economic woes. I also think that all the money being flushed down the toilet in Iraq and Afghanistan may have something to do with our economic woes. But what do I know? I only know, that if I threw money away and maxed out all my credit cards and started earning less money on purpose, that I would end up in deep doo doo. And if John McCain is elected, we can keep flushing money for at least another hundred years. (If elected, he’ll be in office that long, won’t he?)

Goldman Sachs predicts that the job cutting process may only be half over. They don’t say that teens looking for summer jobs will have anything to do with this process.

The most amazing thing about the Bush reason for job losses is that there are few jobs out there for teens this summer.

From Teen Summer Job Market Weakest In More Than 50 Years by Peter Goodman:

As the forces of economic downturn ripple widely across the United States, the job market of 2008 is shaping up as the weakest in more than half a century for teenagers looking for summer work, according to labor economists, government data and companies that hire young people.

Yet somehow Bush thinks that teenagers have some kind of great power over the economy.

Let’s apply "Bush logic" to the economy:

Who created the weak job market for the adults? It must be the teenagers.Who created the weak job market for the teens? It must be the pre-teens. Who created the weak job market for the pre-teens? It must be the toddlers. Who created the weak job market for the toddlers? It must be the babies.

Those damn babies!