Posts Tagged 'UNEMPLOYMENT'
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ENDING THE "I WIN/YOU LOSE" POWER OF GREEDY EMPLOYERS
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on December 1, 2022 at 12:10 am
"All those who have written upon civil institutions demonstrate…that whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.
"If their evil disposition remains concealed for a time, it must be attributed to some unknown reason; and we must assume that it lacked occasion to show itself. But time, which has been said to be the father of all truth, does not fail to bring it to light."
Niccolo Machiavelli knew what he was talking about.
As of January 1, 2018, it became illegal for California employers to ask job applicants about their former salaries and benefits.
Governor Jerry Brown signed a state privacy bill into law during the last week of December, 2017.
This is good news for applicants who believe they shouldn't be judged on how much—or little—money they earned in the past.
For decades, employers have used "salary histories" to discriminate against applicants who earned large—or small—salaries in their previous jobs.
For example: If an applicant had been paid a miserly wage even though he had performed major tasks for an employer, the new potential one would use that low salary as a weapon against him: "Well, it says here you earned $—– in your most recent job. Why should we pay you more than that?"
And if an applicant had earned a high salary, an employer would often use that against him: "We can't afford to match that, let alone give you more than that." In many cases, employers simply refused to give a reason for refusing to hire the applicant.
In either case, it was clearly an "I win/You lose" situation.
And, naturally, when employers whine about how expensive it was to pay a living wage to those who made their profits a reality, they never mention the exorbitant salary paid to their own CEO.
Even CEOs who are fired—even for reasons of outright criminality—usually receive severance packages in the tens of thousands of dollars—a gift that no ordinary employee can expect to receive.
According to Glassdoor: "The estimated total pay for a Chief Executive Officer is $403,919 per year in the United States area, with an average salary of $186,399 per year. Additional pay could include cash bonus, commission, tips, and profit sharing."
CEO's of major corporations often wail that they can't afford to hire more employees—or whine that, to "cut costs," they must fire tens of thousands of existing ones. But they almost never offer to trim their own bloated salaries.
One job-seeking applicant tried to finesse the salary history demand by filling out the job application form except for the salary history part. He then attached a cover-letter, which read:
"I am interested in speaking with you or one of your representatives about the above-named position. I have filled out the required application—-with the exception of the box inquiring into my Current/last Income.
"I have been paid on a per-hour basis, a per-assignment basis, and on a bi-weekly basis. Each of these salaries was for a different job, and each job required a specific set of skills and efforts on my part.
"I am prepared to discuss in detail how my skills and experiences can prove of use to your company. But I do not discuss past salaries earned with anyone but the Internal Revenue Service."
But the relationship between employers and job-seekers has always been a lopsided one, with the "rights" of employers far exceeding those of applicants.
Since January 1, 2018, California job-seekers no longer have to worry about that part of the application.
Supporters of the law believe it will help reduce the notorious wage-gap between male and female employees.
"Women negotiating a salary shouldn't have to wrestle an entire history of wage disparity," said the bill's principal author, California Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman.
California's law also requires potential employers to disclose a salary range for the job in question, should an applicant ask about it.
This arms job seekers with valuable information because they will now know how much a company is willing to offer for that position.
In the past, employers held that information close to the vest as one more way of gaining control over their potential employee.
Although California has long been a trailblazer in employee/employer relations, it was not the first state to pass such a law. Oregon, Delaware and Massachusetts had already passed laws forbidding employers from asking about salary history.
Many employers and their paid shills believe that President Calvin Coolidge was right when he said: "The man who builds a factory builds a temple; the man who works there worships there."
Cheryl Behymer, an attorney for the law firm Fisher & Phillips, which represents employers, said: "Here's another point where the government is dictating to an employer how to conduct its business and employers resent that."
She speaks for all tyrants forced to relinquish any part of their tyranny.
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THE EMPLOYER IS THE ENEMY: PART SEVEN (END)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on March 1, 2022 at 12:11 am
Another way an Employers Responsibility Act (ERA) could promote fulltime employment: It would nicely dovetail with the 1946 Employment Act.
Codified as 15 U.S.C. § 1021, this is a United States federal law. It states: "It is the continuing policy and responsibility of the Federal government…to promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power."
Unfortunately, that act has been seriously neglected, according to the late Wallace C. Peterson, George Holmes Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Peterson, who died in April, 2012, was a proponent of Keynesian economics and authored a textbook on macroeconomics that was widely adopted in colleges and universities through eight editions.
He authored a second economics textbook, five specialized economics books and over 60 articles.
He was elected president of the Association for Evolutionary Economics (AFEE), president of the Association for Social Economics, president of the Midwest Economics Association and was the 1992 recipient of the Veblen-Commons award.
"No administration since the Kennedy-Johnson presidencies in the 1960s has taken the Employment Act seriously," wrote Peterson in a letter to this columnist.
"President Kennedy established a 4% unemployment rate as an interim target on the road to a full employment economy. But after President Johnson left office in 1969, full employment has not been an important policy objective for any administration, Democrat or Republican.
"The nation needs a modernized full employment policy."
Wallace C. Peterson
Such a full-employment policy "would not only seek to bring the unemployment rate down to 3% or less, but would also aim at the creation of 'good jobs'—jobs that carry with them an income appropriate to middle-class hopes and aspirations," wrote Peterson.
"Too many of the millions who have lost good jobs in the last two decades have not been able to find new, fulltime jobs. or have had to take significant reduction in pay even if they were able to find fulltime work.
"Government through the 1946 Employment Act has a major responsibility to promote conditions that tmake full employment possible. Workers have a major responsibility to educate and train themselves for the jobs that become available in a society characterized by rapid technical change.
"What of employers? What is their responsibility?
"Such an [Employers Responsibility] Act would require employers to demonstrate as much responsibility for hiring as job-seekers are expected to display in finding work.
"This "is certain to be controversial, but it adds yet another dimension to the debate on how an adequate number of good, well-paying jobs can be created…."
"An Employers Responsibility Act, in combination with existing legislation such as the 1946 Employment Act and the 1935 National Labor-Relations Act, could be a powerful force in moving labor-management relations in this country away from its current adversarial character, toward a more harmonious and cooperative climate."
For thousands of years, otherwise highly intelligent men and women believed that kings ruled by divine right. That kings held absolute power, levied extortionate taxes and sent countless millions of men off to war—all because God wanted it that way.
That lunacy was dealt a deadly blow in 1776 when American Revolutionaries threw off the despotic rule of King George III of England.
George Washington crossing the Delaware
But today, millions of Americans remain imprisoned by an equally outrageous and dangerous theory: The Theory of the Divine Right of Employers.
Summing up this employer-as-God attitude, Calvin Coolidge still speaks for the overwhelming majority of employers and their paid shills in government: "The man who builds a factory builds a temple, and the man who works there worships there."
America can no longer afford such a dangerous fallacy as the Theory of the Divine Right of Employers.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly crowed over the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed by the Senate on December 19, 2017, and signed into law by him on December 22.
Yet former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich warned before the bill became law:
"What corporations have done [with past tax cuts] is raise executive salaries and also buy back shares of stock, in order to raise stock prices. They don't invest the money in additional jobs or additional machines or additional equipment or things like that because there is no reason for them to unless they have got more demand for their goods and services. And this bill is not going to create more demand."
In short: The powerful never voluntarily behave responsibly or surrender their privileges.
Americans did not win their freedom from Great Britain—and its enslaving doctrine of "the divine right of kings"—by begging for their rights.
And Americans will not win their freedom from their corporate masters—and the equally enslaving doctrine of "the divine right of employers"—by begging for the right to work and support themselves and their families.
And they will most certainly never win such freedom by supporting right-wing political candidates whose first and only allegiance is to the corporate interests who bankroll their campaigns.
Corporations can—and do—spend millions of dollars on TV ads, selling lies—lies such as the "skills gap," and how if the wealthy are forced to pay their fair share of taxes, jobs will inevitably disappear.
But Americans can choose to reject those lies—and demand that employers behave like patriots instead of predators.
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THE EMPLOYER IS THE ENEMY: PART SIX (OF SEVEN)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on February 28, 2022 at 12:12 am
The last three provisions of an Employers Responsibility Act (ERA) would cover the following:
(12) The Justice Department and/or the Labor Department would be required to maintain a publicly-accessible database on those companies that had been cited, sued and/or convicted for such offenses as
discrimination,
harassment,
health and/or safety violations or
violating immigration laws.
Employers would be legally required to regularly provide such information to these agencies, so that it would remain accurate and up-to-date.
Such information would arm job applicants with vital information about the employers they were approaching. They could thus decide in advance if an employer is deserving of their skills and dedication.
As matters now stand, employers can legally demand to learn highly private details of an applicant's life without having to disclose even the most basic information about themselves and their history of treating employees.
(13) CEOs whose companies employ illegal aliens would be held directly accountable for the actions of their subordinates. Upon conviction, the CEO would be sentenced to a mandatory prison term of at least ten years.
This would prove a more effective remedy for controlling illegal immigration than stationing tens of thousands of soldiers on the U.S./ Mexican border. With CEOs forced to account for their subordinates' actions, they would take drastic steps to ensure their companies complied with Federal immigration laws.
Without employers eager to hire illegal aliens at a fraction of the money paid to American workers, the invasions of illegal job-seekers would quickly come to an end.
(14) A portion of employers' existing Federal taxes would be set aside to create a national clearinghouse for placing unemployed but qualified job-seekers.
Right-wing capitalists and their paid shills in Congress would attack such legislation as radically Communist. But an Employers Responsibility Act (ERA) would greatly increase America's economic strength.
With a fully-employed workforce, far more consumers could afford the wide array of goods and services turned out by American business.
When consumers can't afford these, companies are forced to cut their employees and produce fewer goods, which creates an ever-downward spiral.
An ERA would allow Democrats to address the needs of blue-collar workers who once served as one of their primary constituencies.
During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton voiced the frustrations of millions of poor and middle-class Americans who felt abandoned by their employers and Washington policymakers.
On September 26, Clinton said:
There "are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down. Nobody cares about them. Nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they're just desperate for change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from.
"They don't buy everything [Donald Trump] says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."
Eloquent words. But Clinton didn't offer an economic package to quickly and effectively address Americans' needs for jobs and medical care.
Her "remedy"?
The tired Democratic mantra: "Education is the answer."
In May, 2016, Democratic pollster CeLinda Lake had warned Clinton to revamp her economic platform.
"Democrats simply have to come up with a more robust economic frame and message," Lake said after the election.
"We're never going to win those white, blue-collar voters if we're not better on the economy. And 27 policy papers and a list of positions is not a frame. We can laugh about it all we want, but Trump had one."
Corporations are masters at turning disadvantages for others into advantages for themselves.
As countless employers whine about rising inflation during the Coronavirus pandemic, there has been a corresponding rise in corporate profits.
According to Isabella Weber, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, this is no accident.
Isabella Weber
In a February 13 interview on NPR, she said:
"Companies always want to maximize profits, right? In the current context [of supply chain hardships] they suddenly cannot deliver as much anymore as they used to. And this creates an opening where they can say, 'Well, we are facing increasing costs. We are facing all these issues. So we can explain to our customers that we are raising our prices.'
"No one knows how much exactly these prices should be increased. And everybody has some sort of an understanding that, oh, yeah, there are issues, so, yes, of course companies are increasing prices in ways in which they could not justify in normal times.
"But this does not mean that the actual amount of price increase is justified by the increase in costs. And as a matter of fact, what we have seen is that profits are skyrocketing, which means that companies have increased prices by more than cost.
"In the earnings reports, companies have bragged about how they have managed to be ahead of the inflation curve, how they have managed to jack up prices more than their costs and as a result have delivered these record profits."
THE EMPLOYER IS THE ENEMY: PART FIVE (OF SEVEN)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on February 25, 2022 at 12:12 am
America can end this national disaster—and disgrace—of willing-to-work Americans being unable to find willing-to-hire employers.
The solution: A nationwide Employers Responsibility Act (ERA).
Such legislation would legally require employers to demonstrate as much initiative for hiring as job-seekers are now expected to show in searching for work.
Two of its provisions have already been offered. Here are another 10.
(3) Employers would receive tax credits for creating professional, well-paying, full-time jobs.
This would encourage the creation of better than the menial, dead-end, low-paying and often part-time jobs which exist in the service industry. Employers found using such tax credits for any other purpose would be prosecuted for tax fraud.
(4) A company that acquired another—through a merger or buyout—would be forbidden to fire en masse the career employees of that acquired company.
This would be comparable to the protection existing for career civil service employees. Such a ban would prevent a return to the predatory "corporate raiding" practices of the 1980s, which left so much human and economic wreckage in their wake.
The wholesale firing of employees would trigger the prosecution of the company's new owners. Employees could still be fired, but only for provable just cause, and only on a case-by-case basis.
(5) Employers would be required to provide full medical and pension benefits for all employees, regardless of their full-time or part-time status.
Increasingly, employers are replacing full-time workers with part-time ones—solely to avoid paying medical and pension benefits. Requiring employers to act humanely and responsibly toward all their employees would encourage them to provide full-time positions—and hasten the death of this greed-based practice.
(6) Employers would be encouraged to hire to their widest possible limits, through a combination of financial incentives and legal sanctions. Among those incentives: Employers demonstrating a willingness to hire would receive substantial Federal tax credits, based on the number of new, permanent employees hired per year.
Employers claiming eligibility for such credits would be required to make their financial records available to Federal investigators. Employers found making false claims would be prosecuted for perjury and tax fraud, and face heavy fines and imprisonment if convicted.
(7) Among those sanctions: Employers refusing to hire could be required to prove, in court:
Their economic inability to hire further employees, and/or
The unfitness of the specific, rejected applicant.
Companies found guilty of unjustifiably refusing to hire would face the same penalties as now applying in cases of discrimination on the basis of age, race, sex and disability. Employers would thus fund it easier to hire than to refuse to do so. Job-seekers would no longer be prevented from even being considered for employment because of arbitrary and interminable "hiring freezes."
(8) Employers refusing to hire would be required to pay an additional "crime tax."
Sociologists and criminologists agree that "the best cure for crime is a job." Thus, employers who refuse to hire contribute to a growing crime rate in this Nation. Such non-hiring employers would be required to pay an additional tax, which would be earmarked for agencies of the criminal justice system at State and Federal levels.
(9) The seeking of "economic incentives" by companies in return for moving to or remaining in cities/states would be strictly forbidden.
Such "economic incentives" usually:
allow employers to ignore existing laws protecting employees from unsafe working conditions;
allow employers to ignore existing laws protecting the environment;
allow employers to pay their employees the lowest acceptable wages, in return for the "privilege" of working at these companies; and/or
allow employers to pay little or no business taxes, at the expense of communities who are required to make up for lost tax revenues.
(10) Employers who continue to make such overtures would be prosecuted for attempted bribery or extortion:
Bribery, if they offered to move to a city/state in return for "economic incentives," or
Extortion, if they threatened to move their companies from a city/state if they did not receive such "economic incentives."
This would protect employees against artificially-depressed wages and unsafe working conditions; protect the environment in which these employees live; and protect cities/states from being pitted against one another at the expense of their economic prosperity.
(11) The U.S. Departments of Justice and Labor would regularly monitor the extent of employer compliance with the provisions of this Act.
Among these measures: Sending undercover agents, posing as highly-qualified job-seekers, to apply at companies—and then vigorously prosecuting those employers who blatantly refused to hire despite their proven economic ability to do so.
This would be comparable to the long-time and legally-validated practice of using undercover agents to determine compliance with fair-housing laws.
THE EMPLOYER IS THE ENEMY: PART FOUR (OF SEVEN)
More than six million willing-to-work Americans can't find willing-to-hire employers.
And where there are victims, there are always people ready to profit from their desperation.
Consider the following email sent out by Steve Poizner, former Republican State Insurance Commissioner of California (2007-2011).
A successful Silicon Valley high tech entrepreneur, Poizner founded SnapTrack, Inc. and Strategic Mapping, Inc. In June, 2011, he co-founded the Encore Career Institute with the Sherry Lansing Foundation and Creative Artists Agency.
Thus, the email sent out on July 2, 2012, to advertise "Empowered UCLA Extension":
I wanted to share with you some news before my new venture – Empowered Careers – launches around the country….I've started this company to help address one of the key issues we face today — jobs. Our venture aims to close the skills gap through an innovative career development program — all delivered via the iPad.
It's all designed specifically for baby boomers seeking to make a career change, get ahead professionally, or get back into the workforce.
Note the line: "Our venture aims to close the skills gap," which it assumes to be a reality.
And the ad says nothing about closing the "greed gap" between what employers demand from workers—and what they are willing to pay in return.
The Encore Careers Institute will offer online non-degree certificates for out of work adults and baby boomers looking to switch careers.
When did a non-degree certificate ever convince an employer to hire? Even a hiring-inclined employer?
Using our Empowered app, the iPad will transform any adult's living room into a modern day classroom or transform a park bench into a study group while the kids are at soccer practice.
But transforming "any adult's living room into a modern day classroom" will not compel those employers who refuse to hire to begin doing so.
Nor will it change the behavior of employers who:
Will hire—but only on a part-time, no-benefits, minimum-wage basis;
Continue to throw hard-working American employees into the street; and
Move their companies to China, Mexico or Singapore.
And note that this program is aimed at those who can afford an iPad—and $9,800 for the course. So if you're poor because you're jobless, this program has nothing to offer you.
But America can end this national disaster—and disgrace—of willing-to-work Americans condemned to poverty by unwilling-to-hire employers.
A policy based only on concessions—such as endless tax breaks for hugely profitable corporations—is a policy of appeasement.
And appeasement only whets the appetite of those appeased for even greater concessions.
It is past time to hold wealthy and powerful corporations accountable for their socially and financially irresponsible acts.
This solution can be summed up in three words: Employers Responsibility Act (ERA).
If passed by Congress and vigorously enforced by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Labor, an ERA would ensure full-time, permanent and productive employment for millions of capable, job-seeking Americans.
And it would achieve this without raising taxes or creating controversial government "make work" programs.
An Employers Responsibility Act would simultaneously address the following evils for which employers are directly responsible:
The loss of jobs within the United States owing to companies' moving their operations abroad—solely to pay substandard wages to their new employees or avoid American health/safety laws.
The mass firings of employees which usually accompany corporate mergers or acquisitions.
The widespread victimization of part-time employees, who are not legally protected against such threats as racial discrimination, sexual harassment and unsafe working conditions.
The refusal of many employers to create better than menial, low-wage jobs.
The widespread employer practice of extorting "economic incentives" from cities or states in return for moving to or remaining in those areas. Such "incentives" usually absolve employers from complying with laws protecting the environment and/or workers' rights.
The refusal of many employers to provide medical and pension benefits—nearly always in the case of part-time employees, and, increasingly, for full-time, permanent ones as well.
Rising crime rates, due to rising unemployment.
Among its provisions:
(1) American companies that close plants in the United States and open others abroad would be forbidden to sell products made in those foreign plants within the United States.
This would protect both American and foreign workers from employers seeking to profit at their expense. American workers would be ensured of continued employment. And foreign laborers would be protected against substandard wages and working conditions.
Companies found violating this provision would be subject to Federal criminal prosecution. Guilty verdicts would result in heavy fines and lengthy imprisonment for their owners and top managers.
(2) Large companies (those employing more than 100 persons) would be required to create entry-level training programs for new, future employees.
These would be modeled on programs now existing for public employees, such as firefighters, police officers and members of the armed services.
Such programs would remove the employer excuse, "I'm sorry, but we can't hire you because you've never had any experience in this line of work." After all, the Air Force has never rejected an applicant because, "I'm sorry, but you've never flown a plane before."
THE EMPLOYER IS THE ENEMY: PART THREE (OF SEVEN)
There are legitimate reasons why millions of willing-to-work Americans remain unemployed. Or remain trapped in part-time, no-benefits jobs far below their levels of education and experience.
Some companies—such as Toys R Us—declare bankruptcy and go out of business. Others—such as Macy's and J.C. Penney—are struggling to meet the challenges of e-commerce and the decline of shopping malls.
But there are sinister ones, too—such as the deliberate refusal of Congressional Republicans to create job opportunities for their fellow Americans.
United States Senator Bernie Sanders (I, Vermont) made just that argument to guest host Ezra Klein on the June 12, 2012 edition of "The Rachel Maddow Show."
KLEIN: Now, some Republicans say and some people say didn't we do infrastructure a couple years ago? You heard a lot in the stimulus we had done infrastructure. So, how come we have all of this outstanding?
SANDERS: Because we ignored the needs for a long, long, time. Yes, we did put infrastructure. We put it into the state of Vermont, put more money into roads and bridges. But we need a lot more and that`s true for the other 49 states as well.
It's not only roads…bridges…water systems. It's mass transportation. It is rail. China is building high-speed rail all over the place. We are not. Our rail system is in many ways deteriorating.
We have schools that are aging. We have culverts that need work. We have tunnels that need work.
We have an enormous amount of work that is ready to go right now and it is beyond comprehension that our Republican friends will not support infrastructure legislation.
If Sanders is correct, Republicans were deliberately sacrificing the economic life of the nation because:
They hated President Obama; and
They believed that making the American people suffer would lead them to elect Mitt Romney.
On June 4, 2012, veteran political analyst Chris Matthews discussed this possibility with John Heilemann, the national affairs editor for New York magazine.
MATTHEWS: How much of that is bent because of the 1% campaign of the president….going after them for grabbing most of the wealth in this country through tax policy and everything else? Are they resentful enough of that…
HEILEMANN: Yes….If you talk to people in business and finance….about the actual substance of the president's policies, the substance does not bother them as much as the rhetoric.
More than six million Americans are now unemployed because many employers have designed "hiring" systems that simply don't work.
So says Peter Cappelli, the George W. Taylor professor of management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the author of Why Good People Can't Get Jobs: The Skills Gap and What Companies Can Do About It.
Employers often whine that they can't find the talent they need. Today's applicants, they claim, lack skills, education and even a willingness to work.
The truth is altogether different. According to Cappelli, the fault lies with employers, not job-seekers:
Employers "ask for the moon" by vastly inflating their requirements for openings.
Many qualified people are automatically removed from consideration by computer technology. The reason: Their resumés don't match the inflated qualifications demanded by employers.
Many employers aren't willing to pay for the education and skills they claim to respect. They're looking for people who are young, cheap and experienced.
Online applicants are often asked: "What salary do you expect?" If you name a salary that's higher than what the company is willing to pay, you're instantly rejected.
Many of the candidates employers want to hire refuse to accept the positions at the wage level being offered.
Employers don't want to hire entry-level applicants right out of school. They want experienced candidates who can contribute immediately with no training or start-up time.
Employers demand that a single employee perform the work of several highly skilled employees.
When employers can't find the "perfect candidate" they leave positions open for months. But if they were willing to offer some training, they might easily fill those positions.
Companies no longer hire new college graduates and groom them for management. They no longer offer training and development. As a result, companies must recruit outsiders.
Employers' unrealistic expectations are fueled partly by their own arrogance. Employers believe they should be able to find "perfect people."
According to Cappelli, the hiring system desperately needs serious reform:
If jour job descriptions are inflated, bring them down-to earth.
Don't expect to get something for nothing—or next to it. Offer competitive salaries.
Make sure that the automated systems aren't screening out qualified candidates simply because they don't have all the brass buttons in a row.
Beef up the Human Resources section.
Cappelli worries that the complaints about a labor shortage caused by an unwilling, unskilled workforce will be repeated enough that they will be accepted as truth:
"It's a loud story…that could become pernicious if it persists. It does have a blame-the-victim feeling to it. It makes people feel better. You don't have to feel so bad about people suffering if you think they are choosing it somehow."
THE EMPLOYER IS THE ENEMY: PART TWO (OF SEVEN)
Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of modern politics, warns in his masterwork, The Discourses:
Where the crimes of corporate employers are concerned, we do not have to wait for their evil disposition to reveal itself. It has been fully revealed for decades. We need only find the courage to redress the costly outrages we see every day in the workplace.
In its June 8, 2011 cover-story on "What U.S. Economic Recovery? Five Destructive Myths," Time magazine warned that profit-seeking corporations can't be relied on to "make it all better."
Click here: What U.S. Economic Recovery? Five Destructive Myths – TIME
Wrote Rana Foroohar, then Time's assistant managing editor in charge of economics and business:
American companies "are doing quite well," but most American workers "are earning a lower hourly wage now than they did during the recession."
Corporations, in short, are doing extremely well. But they don't spend their profits on American workers.
"There may be $2 trillion sitting on the balance sheets of American corporations globally, but firms show no signs of wanting to spend it in order to hire workers at home."
In short: Giving even greater tax breaks to mega-corporations—the standard Republican mantra—will not persuade them to stop "outsourcing" jobs. Nor will it convince them to start hiring Americans.
While embarrassingly overpaid CEOs squander corporate wealth on themselves, millions of Americans can't afford medical care or must depend on charity to feed their families.
Yet there is also a disconnect between the truth of this situation and the willingness of Americans to face up to that truth.
According to Foroohar:
Republicans have convinced most Americans they can revitalize the economy by slashing "taxes on the wealthy and on cash-hoarding corporations while cutting benefits for millions of Americans."
To restore prosperity, America will need both tax increases and cuts in entitlement programs.
In November, 2017, President Donald Trump and a Republican-dominated House and Senate rammed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 through Congress. It became law on December 22, 2017.
According to Chye-Ching Huang, director of the Tax Law Center at New York University School of Law, the legislation did nothing to help ordinary Americans.
Testifying before the House Budget Committee on February 27, 2019, Huang stated that the law:
Ignored the stagnation of working-class wages and exacerbated inequality;
Weakened revenues when the nation needed to raise more;
Encouraged rampant tax avoidance and gaming that will undermine the integrity of the tax code;
Left behind low- and moderate-income Americans—and in many ways hurt them.
For American corporations, however, the law was a godsend:
Cutting the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%;
Shifting toward a territorial tax system, where multinational corporations' foreign profits go largely untaxed;
Benefitting overwhelmingly wealthy shareholders and highly paid executives.
Despite all these giveaways, it didn't encourage those corporations to hire willing-to-work Americans.
For an ever-expanding number of corporations, "outsourcing" is the received religion.
According to a February 9, 2022 article on the website Fortunly:
About 300,000 jobs get outsourced out of the United States each year.
Almost 54% of all companies use third-party support teams to connect with customers.
There are 59 million freelance workers in the United States.
About 71% of financial service executives outsource some of their services.
About 51% of technology executives say they outsource application and software maintenance, and 40% outsource their data centers.
Among those companies who have replaced American workers with foreign ones:
The most commonly "outsourced" jobs are:
Tax preparring
There are several reasons why CEOs love outsourcing.
They can throw higher-paid American workers into the street and hire lower-skilled foreign workers at "coolie wages."
The CEOs can then pocket much of those "savings."
They can avoid stricter American laws protecting employees against such abuses as racial discrimination and unhealthy/dangerous conditions.
Thus, millions of Americans remain unemployed—or trapped in part-time, no-benefits jobs far below their levels of education and experience.
The most sinister reason for this: The refusal of Congressional Republicans to create job opportunities for their fellow Americans.
When Republicans hold the White House, they bluntly side with corporations—as they did with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. And when they don't hold the Presidency, they refuse to do anything that might make a Democratic President look good.
As United States Senator Bernie Sanders said on the June 12, 2012 edition of "The Rachel Maddow Show": "If it's good for America, if it creates jobs, if it's good for Barack Obama, we can't do it."
THE EMPLOYER IS THE ENEMY: PART ONE (OF SEVEN)
Have you noticed how every American employer has suddenly become a "job creator"?
At least, that's the official Republican line.
But if that's true:
Why are so many employers not hiring at all?
Or, if they are hiring, why aren't they hiring American workers?
Why are they hiring mostly part-time employees on a no-benefits basis?
Why are so many employers shutting down American plants but starting new ones in China, Mexico or the Philippines?
A September 20, 2021 article in Recode—"Why Everybody's Hiring But No One Is Getting hired"—explains "America's broken hiring system."
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) says that 6.6 million potential workers are unemployed—and a record 10.9 million jobs open.
"For some of the jobs available, people don't have the right skills, or at least the skills employers say they're looking for. Other jobs are undesirable — they offer bad pay or an unpredictable schedule, or just don't feel worth it to unemployed workers, many of whom are rethinking their priorities.
"In some cases, there are a host of perfectly acceptable candidates and jobs out there, but for a multitude of reasons, they're just not being matched."
Throughout the United States, "help wanted" signs can be seen virtually everywhere. "But just because a bar or restaurant or gas station wants a worker doesn't mean a worker wants to work for them. The millions of jobs available aren't necessarily millions of jobs people want."
And what makes these jobs undesirable?
Low pay, unpredictable schedules, no benefits, no long-term stability—as well as the employer practice of hiring one person to do the work of 10.
Yet countless employers whine to the media: "Nobody wants to work anymore."
Countless job-seekers who do want to work are locked out of it by the computerized "résumé readers" employed by many companies. Many of the résumés submitted are automatically rejected—because they lack certain keywords that have been programmed into the software.
A classic example: Software scans for registered nurses with computer programming skills—when they just need data entry.
Finally, a lot of employers simply don't want to hire.
An article in the March, 2011 issue of Reader's Digest gives the lie to the excuses so many employers use for refusing to hire.
Entitled "22 Secrets HR Won't Tell You About Getting a Job," it lays bare many of the reasons why America needs to legally force employers to demonstrate as much responsibility for hiring as job-seekers are expected to show toward searching for work.
Among the truths it reveals:
TRUTH NO: 1: After you're unemployed more than six months, employers consider you unemployable.
TRUTH NO. 2: It's not what but who you know that counts.
TRUTH NO. 3: Try to avoid HR. Find someone in the company you know. If you don't know anyone, contact the hiring manager.
TRUTH NO. 4: Cover letters are often ignored, going directly into "the round file."
TRUTH NO. 5: Employers judge you on the basis of your email address. Avoid the type that reads: "Igetdrunkandparty."
TRUTH NO. 6: You're not protected against age discrimination. Many employers regularly ignore the law. Are you in your 50s or 60s? Leave your year of graduation off your resume.
TRUTH NO: 7: Just because it's illegal to discriminate against applicants who have children does not mean you're safe. Many employers try to screen out parents—such as by checking cars for child safety seats.
TRUTH NO. 8: It's harder to get a job if you're fat, since fat people are usually assumed to be lazy.
TRUTH NO. 9: Make sure you give the interviewer a firm handshake. Or he might assume you're a loser for giving him a weak one.
TRUTH NO. 10: The more you can get the interviewer to talk–especially about himself—the more likely you are to be hired. Ego-driven interviewers love hearing the sound of their own voices and will assume you're better-qualified than someone who doesn't want to listen to them prattle.
Millions of Americans blamed President Barack Obama for the nation's high unemployment rate during his administration. And millions more believe that President Donald Trump created an economic miracle—despite those millions of Americans still desperately searching for work.
The brutal truth is that no President can hope to turn unemployment around until employers are forced to start living up to their responsibilities.
And those responsibilities should encompass more than simply fattening their own pocketbooks and/or egos at the expense of their fellow Americans. Such behavior used to be called treason.
Americans need to recognize that a country can be betrayed for other than political reasons. It can be sold out for economic ones, too.
Trea$on
Employers who enrich themselves by weakening their country—by throwing millions of qualified workers into the street and moving their plants to other countries—are traitors.
Employers who set up offshore accounts to claim their American companies are foreign-owned—and thus exempt from taxes—are traitors.
Employers who systematically violate Federal immigration laws—to hire illegal aliens instead of willing-to-work Americans—are traitors.
And with a new definition of treason should go new penalties—heavy fines and/or prison terms–for those who sell out their country to enrich themselves.
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"THE HAPPY TIME" ENDS FOR HITLER'S GERMANY–AND TRUMP'S AMERICA
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on December 22, 2021 at 12:10 am
On April 27, 2020, Joe Scarborough offered an important insight about why most Americans ignored President Donald Trump's crimes and outrages for so long:
"Back in January Joe Biden wrote an Op-Ed that the President was not prepared for this coming pandemic, and things were going to get worse. And he said 'Let your doctors talk. Let your scientists talk. Follow their lead.'
"…And it's been one scam idea after another, that people then promoted on other networks, scam doctors promoting these scam solutions, claiming that everybody who had taken this malaria drug had been cured in certain hospitals. This is just the sort of thing that catches up to Donald Trump.
"I've said from the very beginning: You can lie about independent counsels, people won't listen. You can lie about former FBI directors—"
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: "It doesn't impact their lives."
JOE SCARBOROUGH: "They're still going to work, the kids are doing fine, they've got enough money to pay their rent, to pay their mortgage, You can even lie about the Ukraine call—they don't really care.
"But all of these lies, all of these [COVID-19] scams that he's been pushing…have been revealed as lies—not by the people on cable news, but by their doctors. By nurses they know. If you've got a doctor who's been treating your family for 20-25 years, you're going to believe that person more than a scam artist that's pushing propaganda for Donald Trump on talk radio."
On August 23, 2018, Trump appearing on "Fox and Friends," said: "I tell you what, if I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor."
Thus, he appealed to the greed and fear of his voting base—and no doubt hoped to reach beyond it: "Keep me in power or you'll all suffer for it."
Then-White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders bragged, on June 4, 2018:
"Since taking office, the President has strengthened American leadership, security, prosperity, and accountability. And as we saw from Friday's jobs report, our economy is stronger, Americans are optimistic, and business is booming."
Many Congressional Republicans echoed this: The American people care only about the economy—and how well-off they are.
For eight years, Nazi Germany underwent such an epoch. Germans called it "The Happy Time."
It began on January 30, 1933, when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor—and lasted until June 22, 1941, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.
Germans knew about the Nazis' cruelty to the Jews, the conquests of Austria and Czechoslovakia, the mass arrests and concentration camps.
They didn't care.
Frenzied Germans greet Adolf Hitler
The Gestapo didn't have to watch everyone: German "patriots" gladly reported their fellow citizens—especially Jews—to the secret police.
As far as everyday Germans were concerned:
The streets were clean and peaceful.
Employment was high.
The trouble-making unions were gone.
Germany was once again "taking its rightful place" among ruling nations, after its catastrophic defeat in World War 1.
The height of "The Happy Time" came in June, 1940. In just six weeks, the Wehrmacht accomplished what the German army hadn't in four years during World War 1: The total defeat of its longtime enemy, France.
Suddenly, French clothes, perfumes, delicacies, paintings and other "fortunes of war" came pouring into the Fatherland.
Most Germans believed der Krieg—"the war"—was over, and only good times lay ahead.
Then, on June 22, 1941, three million Wehrmacht soldiers slashed their way into the Soviet Union. The Third Reich was now locked in a death-struggle with a nation even more powerful than itself.
German soldiers in the Soviet Union
And then, on December 11, 1941—four days after Germany's ally, Japan, attacked Pearl Harbor—Hitler declared war on the United States.
"The Happy Time" for Germans was over. Only prolonged disaster lay ahead.
Donald Trump has spent his life appealing to the greed or fear of those around him. For example:
But starting in January, 2020, Trump faced an enemy—to his re-election—that he couldn't bribe or intimidate.
A deadly virus like COVID-19 doesn't accept bribe-monies or grovel before a raging tyrant.
The Germans made a devil's-bargain with Adolf Hitler—and paid dearly for it.
Millions of greedy Americans have embraced Donald Trump—another would-be tyrant—as America's economic savior.
By supporting Trump—or at least not opposing him—they also made a devil's-bargain. And such bargains always end with the devil winning.
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WHAT CRIMINALS CAN LEARN FROM "IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE"
In Business, Entertainment, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on December 7, 2021 at 12:11 am
Every Christmas, TV audiences find comfort and triumph in the rerunning of a black-and-white 1946 movie: It's a Wonderful Life.
It's the story of George Bailey (James Stewart), a decent husband and father who hovers on the brink of suicide—until his guardian angel, Clarence, suddenly intervenes.
Clarence reveals to George what his home town, Bedford Falls, New York, would be like if he had never been born. George finds himself shocked to learn:
With no counterweight to the schemes of rapacious slumlord Henry F. Potter, Bedford Falls becomes Potterville, filled with pawn shops and sleazy nightclubs.
With no George Bailey to save his younger brother, Harry, from drowning in a frozen pond, Harry drowns.
With no Harry to live to become a Naval fighter pilot in World War II, he's not on hand to shoot down two Japanese planes targeting an American troopship.
As a result, the troopship and its crew are destroyed.
George is forced to face the significant role he has played in the lives of so many others.
Armed with this knowledge, he once again embraces life, running through the snow-covered streets of Bedford Falls and shouting "Merry Christmas!" to everyone he meets.
Audiences have hailed George Bailey as an Everyman hero—and the film as a life-affirming testament to the unique importance of each individual.
But there is another aspect of the movie that has not been so closely studied: The legacy of its villain, Henry F. Potter, who, as played by Lionel Barrymore, bears a striking resemblance to former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Henry F. Potter
It is Potter—the richest man in Bedford Falls—whose insatiable greed threatens to destroy it. And it is Potter whose criminality drives George Bailey to the brink of suicide.
The antagonism between Bailey and Potter starts early in the movie. George dreams of leaving Bedford Falls and building skyscrapers. Meanwhile, he works at the Bailey Building and Loan Association, which plays a vital role in the life of the community.
Potter, a member of the Building and Loan Association board, tries to persuade the board of directors to dissolve the firm. He objects to their providing home loans for the working poor.
George persuades them to reject Potter's proposal, but they agree only on condition that George run the Building and Loan. Reluctantly, George agrees.
Later, Potter tries to lure George away from the Building and Loan, offering him a $20,000 salary and the chance to visit Europe. George is briefly tempted.
But then he realizes that Potter intends to close down the Building and Loan and deny financial help to those who most need it. Angrily, he turns down Potter's offer:
"You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well, it doesn't, Mr. Potter!
"In the whole vast configuration of things, I'd say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider."
It is a setback for Potter, but he's willing to bide his time for revenge.
On Christmas Eve morning, the town prepares a hero's welcome for George's brother, Harry. George's scatter-brained Uncle Billy visits Potter's bank to deposit $8,000 of the Building and Loan's cash funds.
He taunts Potter by reading the newspaper headlines announcing the coming tribute. Potter snatches the paper, and Billy unthinkingly allows the money to be snatched with it.
When Billy leaves, Potter opens the paper and sees the money. He keeps it, knowing that misplacement of bank money will bankrupt the Building and Loan and bring criminal charges against George.
But at the last minute, word of George's plight reaches his wide range of grateful friends. A flood of townspeople arrive with more than enough donations to save George and the Building and Loan.
The movie ends on a triumphant note, with George basking in the glow of love from his family and friends.
But no critic seems to have noticed that Henry Potter's theft has gone unnoticed. (Uncle Billy can't recall how he lost the money.) Potter is richer by $8,000. And ready to go on taking advantage of others.
Perhaps it's time to see Potter's actions in a new light—that of America's richest 1%, ever ready to prey upon the weaknesses of others.
Justice never catches up with Potter in the movie. But the joke-writers at Saturday Night Live later conjured up a satisfactory punishment for his avarice.
In this version, Uncle Billy suddenly remembers that he left the money with Potter. Enraged, George Bailey (Dana Carvey) leads his crowd of avenging friends to Potter's office.
Potter realizes the jig is up and offers to return the money. But George wants more than that—and he and his friends proceed to stomp and beat Potter to death.
The skit ends with with George and his friends singing "Auld Ang Syne"—as they do in the movie—as they finish off Potter with clubs.
America is rapidly a divided nation—one where the richest 1% lord it over an increasingly impoverished 99%.
The time may be coming when many Americans are ready to embrace the SNL approach to economic justice.