Among this morass of inequality is another dirty secret. Corporate America continuously pushed the workforce to higher and higher levels of productivity.
I worked ungodly hours that changed dramatically all within a week sometimes. The last three years of my work life I did not get even a one cent raise. This was while my responsibilities increased---supervising and not being paid for it. Add to this a CEO that ran the company into the ground by buying other companies instead of paying us.
Oh, and they made sure to tell us they were doing us a favor by providing insurance. That insurance was "shopped" for each year, and you never knew what crappy plan they would come up with one year to the next. Still wonder who got the kick-backs on that. Also, try dealing with keeping informed on a new insurance every year if you have a chronically sick kid or spouse.
I know I worked hard, showed-up, and deserved better. I quit. Don't blame Gen Z for doing the same. Corporate America wants loyalty, but what you get is Elon Musk.
The greed and transfer of wealth has to stop. It's time to claw back what we need and deserve. I hope your book is widely read, and thanks Thom.
Alis, you left out trying to stay employed or get hired in the employer-based insurance system. I couldn't quit no matter how I was treated because I had children to support, and my supervisors knew that. Republicans want all women to be in that situation, as slaves, because they badly need their jobs to support their children.
Your medical records should be private by law, but share information that doctors don't always share with the patient, such as gallbladder disease. I wrote my graduate thesis on the topic. I had some evidence that employers base hiring and firing decisions on whether they expect a particular employee or family member to raise their insurance costs. The only time I saw this portrayed in a story on television was on a "Simpsons" episode where the competent good worker was fired from the nuclear plant because his wife was ill while the dangerously incompetent Homer Simpson, who was healthy and had a healthy family, remained employed.
The same CEO I mentioned was pushing higher employee insurance payments for those who were not willing to give up their info on their health, i.e. weight and blood pressure to a health care entity. It was under the guise of making us healthier, and all it did was add pressure and make him able to do what you mentioned to make them wealthier.
I sure do get it, Gloria, and we agree people have no idea just how horrible it has gotten. Employer based insurance has this nation tied-up and bound. It's the sickest thing about us. Keep fighting and voting---I appreciate your work.
In my experience a private employer would always pour every dollar into expanding the company and raises simply weren't on the radar without threatening to quit, and then the very minimum they thought they could get away with.
This essay covers the history of devastation wrought by the “Reagan Revolution” without even mentioning the political crimes responsible for his success in 1980. If you were to tell the story of Iran-Contra in similar detail, an even darker picture emerges. The puppet-masters behind all this succeeded with the selling of Reaganism, and Operation REDMAP, and getting Federalist Society approved judges on the bench, and in using culture war wedge issues to enlist an army of religious conservatives to follow them. But they have overstepped their ambitions with Trump, whose awfulness repels every American not already captured by right wing extremism. This is our last best chance to break the cycle, and MAKE AMERICA DEMOCRATIC AGAIN.
Lewis, If you have a pet subject, then create your own substack.
Apparently you expect Thom to bend to your way of thinking.
The subject of this article as limited in scope, and that did not include the crimes or Reagan, Thom has addressed the Crimes of Reagan and Nixon in other books and posts
And if you want to change the subject to one of your own, then do so with an off topic comment, but don't dare disparage Thom as you did by saying "without even mentioning the political crimes".
Again Lewis, the subject of this post from his book is not the crimes of Reagan.
My observation was not meant to disparage Thom’s excellent work but to amplify it. If anyone else took it as you did, I abjectly apologize! Not my intent. In the world of online media, I am a neophyte who knows how to comment…no more. I don’t use social media nor understand its rules and folkways.
I have injected my own thoughts into an article. But I don't use it as a springboard to go off on my own rant. Instead of saying "you forgot to mention" or some such, or "without even mentioning" as you did.
I don't use Thom as a springboard. I either state that I am off topic, or in your case I would say, Something like since you mentioned Reagan, I would like to add:" and then go on with your rant.
You know I love you William but you can be picky, picky, picky. On one level I agree with you. As communicators we've become sloppy but as you suggested there's a gentler way of expressing ourselves. Was I guilty of being of ftopic when I mentioned my favorite subject, Powell Memo? :-0
I immediately shared and reposted this introduction as soon as I finished reading it. It's an excellent summary of why we have been struggling to survive for the past 40 years and why it's getting harder. It's timely and should be a best seller. I hope so. People need to understand what has been done to us and that Trump and his oligarch supporters will bring more of the same. I am very eager to read the rest of the book. Also, when will the audio be available?
I think that that 50 trillion dollars is just money transferred from the middle class to the rich in the form of tax cuts? But does not include capitalist healthcare, unfunded Iraq war, savings and loan and bank bailouts, Vietnam war, trade deficits, offshore banking or interest on the national debt. I strongly suspect it is over 100 trillion dollars that the right wingers have stolen from the middle class the last 60 years, and now they are getting the religious right wingers who were never taught to think rationally to side with them!
The autocrats would rather eliminate the poor people than spend any money keeping them alive. The autocrats know that their taxes will have to be raised or Americans will be starved to death or sent to extermination camps or both, like other dictators throughout history have done, not just Hitler! They don't care, just have more babies.
They are working on a way to take that trillion dollars with them to heaven! The rich are our natural born leaders. They will and are leading the entire Earth to hell! But blame the happy people they will! Like Ukraine.
IMHO mostly luck.... History repeats. Boom to bust. (S)he who knows no history.....
Boomers in their 30s owned 21.3 of the nation’s wealth; Millennials in their 30s today own 4.6% of the nation’s wealth...
My parents were depression era kids.
When I graduated from high school in 1961, many of my friends had left school to take jobs. Most of those jobs no longer exist. A worker at a steel mill working double shifts could make more than a professional -- like a doctor or a lawyer. The job was probably a defense plant so the worker didn't have to worry about the draft. For the most part, those friends of mine were just as smart as the rest of us.
But I come from the rust belt and those jobs started to decline by the time I was in the my 30's, "black Monday" 1977 ended those jobs in the Mahoning Valley, Youngstown Ohio, USA.. By that time US Steel closed its Elwood City works. Thousands of other employers in the region were soon gone.
I'm grateful it didn't happen to me.
Lyrics by E. Yip Harburg
They used to tell me I was building a dream, And so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, Or guns to bear, I was always there, Right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead.
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?
Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; Now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower up to the sun, brick and rivet and lime.
Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Daniel, Michael Moore did a great job of expressing the stress and suffering of the people laid off from the auto industry. I'll never forget the part from his movie where a woman raised rabbits to sell to support herself and placed a sign saying, "Rabbits for sale; for pets or meat." It was so sad because she clearly loved the rabbits and stroked one affectionately as she held one of her rabbits. What was done to the workers was brutal and affected several generations.
(Related topic): Dr. Fraad just did a video about the "birth strike" in America and some European countries. She explained that countries like France and Scandinavia, with financial and other help for new mothers and fathers, are not seeing their country's births decline as they are in the U.S. Dr. Fraad is with "Democracy at Work." She explains that historically, as men began to acquire property and wanted to pass it on to heirs, they felt it necessary to control women to ensure they passed the property to their natural children.
I used to hold some of my hearings in the "Cadillac Center" in Detroit, which at one time was GM headquarters. Most of Detroit had been devastated, crime ridden.
When Moore made his movie in Flint, Oldsmobile and Pontiac still existed.
By that time, there was no (as in zero) steel production in the Mahoning Valley, which also led the nation in crime.
We had the Biden child tax credit, which pretty much eliminated childhood poverty, but the Republicans killed it.
Mr. Solomon, I think that tune was written by Woody Guthrie, wasn't it? Pete Seeger made reprise of it when I was in college back in the 60s. I do not think I ever heard Bing Crosby sing it. Thanks.
Nope. Precedes Woody. Harburg wrote the lyrics and Jay Gorney composed the music for the song “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” The song was part of the 1932 musical revue Americana. Crosby and Rudy Vallée released records in late 1932.
Woody released his first album, Dust Bowl Ballads in 1940.
I identify with Woody in part because I've used his line form Pretty Boy Floyd repeatedly.
In1962, I was an E-4 with a wife and a child, I was transferred to San Antonio, TX to begin my three year tour as a drill instructor. I assumed the loan of a G.I. who had been transferred, a 2 BR Rambler, with a carport , with a mortgage of $9,000, within a year I traded my 1956 Ford customline for a 1960 Corvair, it tried to kill me, so I traded that in for a 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang. purchase price $2,000 .,loan period 3 years, by that time I was an E-5 with a wife and two children.
In 1978 on return from Panama I bought a house still under construction, 800 sq ft, 3 Br and a garage for $35,0000 the tax evaluation on that house today is $240,000. Till 1990 the term of a car loan, to my recollection, was 3 yrs, now they are 6 years, you will be paying off a car loan, after it has been crushed in a junk yard.
I own a 2001 PT Cruiser, 22,000 miles, a POS, the electronics on it are crap, a tire delaminated and the tread still had another 40,000 miles on it.
And don't buy a Chrysler Town and Country or Pacifica, the transmission barely makes it to 60,000, I had a 2013 that went out at 13,000 miles.
Not only are homes and cars, and everything else 10 times costlier than they were in the 1960s and 1970's, but they are inferior as well.
Detroit once changed body styles every two years,planned obsolescence, but no longer, instead the products are made to break down every two years and become junk,and to keep their franchised repair shops busy..
Once upon a time we represented several car dealers from my home town. We also represented Ford in 13 counties in Pennsyltucky. In the industry most of the money is made on car repairs and financing. The manufacturers hold the paper. To get a franchise, dealers have to surrender most of their rights.
Manufacturers treat their own dealers as debtors. … The Automobile Dealer's Day in Court Act, also known as the Dealer Bill or the Automobile Dealer Franchise Act,1956, allows automobile dealers to sue manufacturers in federal district court if the manufacturer fails to act in good faith when performing, terminating, or not renewing the dealer's franchise. The act's purpose was to balance the power between manufacturers and dealers, and to supplement antitrust laws. I had cases where everyone along the chain of sale added phony costs and padded bills.
Many dealers were in the late model used wreck business.
These days anyone can track the real value of cars on the internet. The industry is so rife with fraud and so many cars are lemons that the FTC has a division dedicated to it. In December 2023, the FTC launched its much-anticipated “Combating Auto Retail Scams” or “CARS” Rule targeting allegedly misleading advertising and sales tactics by new car dealers.
I am many years removed from the industry, but I used to know several lawyers who made a living taking nothing but lemon law cases. Laws vary by state, but most of the time, the manufacturer wants to arbitrate and is responsible for attorneys fees and costs.
If you were to try and build a car piece by piece from OEM parts a $30,000 car would cost well over $100,000, there is quite a mark up in parts as well.
My state of Illinois is completely surrounded by right-to-work-for-less states ( although I thought Michigan had recently repealed its right- to-work law). Even so, we are the home of the dreaded Janus v AFSCME case that ended the fair-share (i.e. lower) dues of non-members, thus overturning a compromise ruling that established the fair-share system in 1977.
Mr. Hobbs, yes, Michigan has been more or less taken over by the Democrats. Right to work is gone in Michigan. I lived most of my life there and it was controlled by the auto and Pharmaceutical companies. I think those days are over. The much superior Japanese automobiles (especially Toyota) have taken the starch out of the"Big Three."
Many years ago I came across a chilling and prescient quote about emerging corporate dominance, attributed to Abraham Lincoln. I clipped it, put it away in my special quotes box,, and during a recent move, discovered it again. It is even more chilling today. The quote and my source are cited below. The link for full context is also cited and should be studied by every American of high school age or even earlier. So, how do we even begin to un do this travesty? STRAIT BLUE TICKET on November 5 would be at least a small step forward.
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
—U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864
(letter to Col. William F. Elkins)
Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia: The Spoken and Written Words of A. Lincoln
I am going to throw this discussion into a different spectrum of awareness....primarily because I read a post on FB this morning that grabbed my attention. "I can't believe that almost 40% of this country can't recognize pure evil when they see it." I suspect that this is because of the mastery of these people, mentioned in this article, to create distraction from their true agenda. That's the thing about evil...it never presents itself in a frontal exposure. It always cloaks itself in a mantel of some other energy. How this has happened is accurately described in this article. But, I think it goes much deeper and wider than any of us suspect. I could go into detail over the various financial cartels that exist between the financial sectors and the government, but I this article does a pretty good job of explaining it. So, I'm going to focus on the solution. Certainly you cannot solve a problem until you understand the problem. I see the consciousness of the people continuing to elevate and expand daily. Secondly, you cannot defeat evil by operating inside of the arena that it has designed. You must operate outside of it and you must operate in a fashion that it completely can't comprehend. On a very basic level, it begins with simple acts of kindness and compassion. There is not one individual or group mentioned in this article that can meet or exceed any massive acts of kindness and compassion. They become lost and afraid. All of this guilt, blame, and shame is fine for authors seeking to define the problem, but the solution isn't going to come from someone else. It has to be grassroots and it has to be impenetrable. I would suggest that the women, to whom kindness and compassion naturally occur within them and whose true strength is in this aspect of their nature, pay attention to this and begin enforcing such behavior. After we throw out these con men and women from the ranks of the Mammon infested politics, they should turn their attention to our educational institutions and reform them from the inside out. I would also suggest that they understand that because they hold the solution to the problem, this is why these people are seeking to undermine their power and bring them under their control.
Our Ages are similar, my Father born 1931 on a self sufficient Farm in Nebraska of very modest means, but always enough to eat, in fact my immigrant Grandmother feed most of the other family members that live in town. Jobs were hard to come by. My Father had a country school primary grades, hitchhike to attend High School in Town. Enlisted in the Air Force during Korean conflict, but stationed at Langley as Company Clerk, he knew how to use a Typewriter. His ticket to the beginning of being Middleclass was provided by V.A. Backed mortgage on his first house. Doesn’t this sound familiar?
Helping young families into their first house is the American dream. Our Father went on to build 2 new houses and developed a commercial property for his business. He paid his Taxes and was very generous. Middle Class is the success of America and Kamala Harris is and will lead us to the promise of much brighter Future.
Thom I would like to hope that we have one more chance to save some sort of Democratic system here. However it's so very late in the 9th inning of this game and unless we have the courage and
backbone to employ some sort of mechanism to rapidly irradicate all these ills that you have so eloquently expressed I'm affraid democracy is gonna loose this battle.
We need a roadmap to get us rapidly on a corrective path, unfortunately our change structures can only, only work fast when we have no choice but to act. Take WW2. Many Corporations were forced including the fosillized car industry to start building war trucks and transports or else ...serious consequences. I do not see us moving toward real democracy until we have a major course correction...immediately. Slowly and the rats will work to keep it so slow that there will be no course corrections.
The prerequisite is a Democratic trifecta and surviving the chaos Trumpists will try to create until January 20, 2025. The agenda then has to be enacting the John Lewis VRAA to break the cycle of gerrymandering in the states. That will mean the filibuster is gone, and a Democratic legislative “wish list” can be shoved down the bastards’ throats. The next priority is to eject the most corrupt of the SCOTUS Injustices and replace them with loyal Constitutionalists. This may require some creative use of Executive power, but MUST be done or any progressive legislation we pass will be struck down by 6-3 votes.
We may be headed for a show-down between the two branches if the trifecta happens. We will be lucky to have someone smart with a well used law degree at the helm. VP Harris is brave, and she will have a team of legal eagles.
The trick will be keeping calm and explaining it to the nation. She CAN deliver a message and will have the experts to help her write it.
These questions will remain unanswered even if there might be a trifecta. We will require an iron hand and many hands onboard. Will this happen? Is kamala and Vp Walz going to have the support of the entrenched democratic machinery. I doubt it. Will they fight off the dogs in their own party?
Kamala has what it takes, But will she use it? I'm with you on your course corrective measures. We need to build this agenda ...a strong and rapid course correction and not hide it if and once the White is secured.
Not being a law scholar I can’t think of a legal way to vacate a SC Justice’ seat (or two…or three), as impeachment alone won’t accomplish anything without a Senate conviction. So some kind of extra-legal “power move” seems to be what’s necessary. That would precipitate an unprecedented Constitutional crisis. The politics of it are frightening. Not sure Harris will go there, but what is the alternative? Win a mandate for progress just to have the Court toss it all out?
Excellent, as usual Mr. Hartmann. The Biden Administration has done more to rein in the monopolies than any President since FDR. The regulatory agencies have been busy as beavers, apparently. Your readers might want to look for this essay in the October 2024 edition of Harpers: THE ANTI TRUST REVOLUTION by Barry C. Lynn. It is informative in a way you would appreciate. The essay is about concentrated economic power and the failure to do anything about it in the last half century, (esp. since Reagan) and what has been going on with enforcement of regulations recently. Unfortunately, there is no indication yet, that Kamala Harris is interested in the subject. But we can force her hand once she is in office.
On behalf of the rest of the readers of this blog; I say thank you Ms. Ehrlich. I am too soft -ware illiterate to do what you did with that Harpers essay. I hope many people read it. Maybe I can find a teenager who can show me how.
Almost every time I read one of your articles I realize that things are worse than I thought. Thanks a lot. If people in this country don’t wake up they will soon find themselves living in a place indistinguishable from Russia, where you will stand in line to buy a loaf of bread while oligarchs divide up all the money. Jesus!
Mark Twain once said: "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics. After retiring, I started studying economics as several of my colleagues were economists, and as a psychologist, I was curious to learn more about how money motivates. Also, probably 20% of the statistical analyses I learned in grad school had their roots in economics.
A simple factor in economics, currency inflation, can confuse comparative impressions. A great example is college tuition. I ran the cost of my college tuition in 1970 through an inflation calculator and was surprised that, adjusted for inflation, tuition at my college had not changed a bit. Wow. What had changed was the inflated value of my tuition - the price of a new Mercedes.
One thing researchers keep an eye on is kurtosis. How skewed (different from the normal curve) the numbers are often can lead to misinterpretation of results. In economics, looking at changes in household wealth between generations, will skew distributional results. That is, the average score, even the median score, increasingly misrepresents the norm over time when you average in outliers like billionaires.
Econ 101: wealth accumulates over time. Thus, the stock portfolio of a 30-year-old will, on average, be far less than that of a 50-year-old or a 70-year-old. If you factor in inflation, the differences look even larger. As a kid, I could buy a coke from a machine for a dime. Now, you have to pay for that cola at a register so they can keep jacking up the prices from month to month.
What is a valid conclusion from our skewed intergenerational wealth numbers is Thom’s point. Some people have become obscenely wealthy due to politicians changing how America’s capitalist system is rigged – these days – in favor of the ultra-wealthy. Most of us paid more income tax last year than so-called billionaire Donald Trump.
Trump and his billionaire cronies like Musk and Kennedy want to rig the system in their favor even more! Cut wealth taxes entirely and go to tariffs. The joke is on MAGAs! Tariffs only affect the proletariat (average workers). Billionaire capitalists consume very little in contrast to even millionaires. A Mercedes Benz cost the same for Musk as it does for me. But that amount of money is .00000001% of Musk’s wealth. Thus, unfettered by taxes and trust limits, billionaires could amass evermore wealth and power under Trump's stupid plan.
You stated that your dad,”like most men of his generation” was able to pay for college through the GI bill. Isn’t it true that Blacks were not included in the GI bill?
The G.I. Bill of 1944 provided free education, unemployment pay and home loans for millions of veterans returning from fighting in World War II. These benefits helped to expand the American middle class after the war. But many returning Black veterans were excluded because of segregation
Read carefully, blacks were not excluded by the federal government, but by colleges and universities because of segregation in the colleges and universities, however my blacks were able to gain education because of HBC;s like Representatives: Ronald Dellums and Charles Rangel
Civil rights activists: Medgar Evers and Hosea Williams
Among this morass of inequality is another dirty secret. Corporate America continuously pushed the workforce to higher and higher levels of productivity.
I worked ungodly hours that changed dramatically all within a week sometimes. The last three years of my work life I did not get even a one cent raise. This was while my responsibilities increased---supervising and not being paid for it. Add to this a CEO that ran the company into the ground by buying other companies instead of paying us.
Oh, and they made sure to tell us they were doing us a favor by providing insurance. That insurance was "shopped" for each year, and you never knew what crappy plan they would come up with one year to the next. Still wonder who got the kick-backs on that. Also, try dealing with keeping informed on a new insurance every year if you have a chronically sick kid or spouse.
I know I worked hard, showed-up, and deserved better. I quit. Don't blame Gen Z for doing the same. Corporate America wants loyalty, but what you get is Elon Musk.
The greed and transfer of wealth has to stop. It's time to claw back what we need and deserve. I hope your book is widely read, and thanks Thom.
Alis, you left out trying to stay employed or get hired in the employer-based insurance system. I couldn't quit no matter how I was treated because I had children to support, and my supervisors knew that. Republicans want all women to be in that situation, as slaves, because they badly need their jobs to support their children.
Your medical records should be private by law, but share information that doctors don't always share with the patient, such as gallbladder disease. I wrote my graduate thesis on the topic. I had some evidence that employers base hiring and firing decisions on whether they expect a particular employee or family member to raise their insurance costs. The only time I saw this portrayed in a story on television was on a "Simpsons" episode where the competent good worker was fired from the nuclear plant because his wife was ill while the dangerously incompetent Homer Simpson, who was healthy and had a healthy family, remained employed.
The same CEO I mentioned was pushing higher employee insurance payments for those who were not willing to give up their info on their health, i.e. weight and blood pressure to a health care entity. It was under the guise of making us healthier, and all it did was add pressure and make him able to do what you mentioned to make them wealthier.
I sure do get it, Gloria, and we agree people have no idea just how horrible it has gotten. Employer based insurance has this nation tied-up and bound. It's the sickest thing about us. Keep fighting and voting---I appreciate your work.
Yep - we were encouraged to work our fingers to the bone - - - and what did we get ?
BONY FINGERS - someone should write a song like that - oh wait - someone did but I forget who it was .
My company “ did me a favor “ by allowing me to spend more time with my family - the lay off notice arrived 32 days short of a fully vested
401K .
In my experience a private employer would always pour every dollar into expanding the company and raises simply weren't on the radar without threatening to quit, and then the very minimum they thought they could get away with.
This essay covers the history of devastation wrought by the “Reagan Revolution” without even mentioning the political crimes responsible for his success in 1980. If you were to tell the story of Iran-Contra in similar detail, an even darker picture emerges. The puppet-masters behind all this succeeded with the selling of Reaganism, and Operation REDMAP, and getting Federalist Society approved judges on the bench, and in using culture war wedge issues to enlist an army of religious conservatives to follow them. But they have overstepped their ambitions with Trump, whose awfulness repels every American not already captured by right wing extremism. This is our last best chance to break the cycle, and MAKE AMERICA DEMOCRATIC AGAIN.
Lewis, If you have a pet subject, then create your own substack.
Apparently you expect Thom to bend to your way of thinking.
The subject of this article as limited in scope, and that did not include the crimes or Reagan, Thom has addressed the Crimes of Reagan and Nixon in other books and posts
And if you want to change the subject to one of your own, then do so with an off topic comment, but don't dare disparage Thom as you did by saying "without even mentioning the political crimes".
Again Lewis, the subject of this post from his book is not the crimes of Reagan.
Pay attention dude.
My observation was not meant to disparage Thom’s excellent work but to amplify it. If anyone else took it as you did, I abjectly apologize! Not my intent. In the world of online media, I am a neophyte who knows how to comment…no more. I don’t use social media nor understand its rules and folkways.
I have injected my own thoughts into an article. But I don't use it as a springboard to go off on my own rant. Instead of saying "you forgot to mention" or some such, or "without even mentioning" as you did.
I don't use Thom as a springboard. I either state that I am off topic, or in your case I would say, Something like since you mentioned Reagan, I would like to add:" and then go on with your rant.
Or simply say "Off Topic, but Reagan centered".
You know I love you William but you can be picky, picky, picky. On one level I agree with you. As communicators we've become sloppy but as you suggested there's a gentler way of expressing ourselves. Was I guilty of being of ftopic when I mentioned my favorite subject, Powell Memo? :-0
I immediately shared and reposted this introduction as soon as I finished reading it. It's an excellent summary of why we have been struggling to survive for the past 40 years and why it's getting harder. It's timely and should be a best seller. I hope so. People need to understand what has been done to us and that Trump and his oligarch supporters will bring more of the same. I am very eager to read the rest of the book. Also, when will the audio be available?
Keep on fighting, Thom. More people are listening now.
I think that that 50 trillion dollars is just money transferred from the middle class to the rich in the form of tax cuts? But does not include capitalist healthcare, unfunded Iraq war, savings and loan and bank bailouts, Vietnam war, trade deficits, offshore banking or interest on the national debt. I strongly suspect it is over 100 trillion dollars that the right wingers have stolen from the middle class the last 60 years, and now they are getting the religious right wingers who were never taught to think rationally to side with them!
The autocrats would rather eliminate the poor people than spend any money keeping them alive. The autocrats know that their taxes will have to be raised or Americans will be starved to death or sent to extermination camps or both, like other dictators throughout history have done, not just Hitler! They don't care, just have more babies.
They are working on a way to take that trillion dollars with them to heaven! The rich are our natural born leaders. They will and are leading the entire Earth to hell! But blame the happy people they will! Like Ukraine.
IMHO mostly luck.... History repeats. Boom to bust. (S)he who knows no history.....
Boomers in their 30s owned 21.3 of the nation’s wealth; Millennials in their 30s today own 4.6% of the nation’s wealth...
My parents were depression era kids.
When I graduated from high school in 1961, many of my friends had left school to take jobs. Most of those jobs no longer exist. A worker at a steel mill working double shifts could make more than a professional -- like a doctor or a lawyer. The job was probably a defense plant so the worker didn't have to worry about the draft. For the most part, those friends of mine were just as smart as the rest of us.
But I come from the rust belt and those jobs started to decline by the time I was in the my 30's, "black Monday" 1977 ended those jobs in the Mahoning Valley, Youngstown Ohio, USA.. By that time US Steel closed its Elwood City works. Thousands of other employers in the region were soon gone.
I'm grateful it didn't happen to me.
Lyrics by E. Yip Harburg
They used to tell me I was building a dream, And so I followed the mob,
When there was earth to plow, Or guns to bear, I was always there, Right on the job.
They used to tell me I was building a dream, with peace and glory ahead.
Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?
Once I built a railroad, I made it run, made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad; Now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower up to the sun, brick and rivet and lime.
Once I built a tower, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that yankee doodle dum.
Half a million boots went sloggin' through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!
This song was originally posted on protestsonglyrics.net
Say don't you remember?
They called me Al. It was Al all the time.
Why don't you remember?
I'm your pal. Say buddy, can you spare a dime?
Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell,
Full of that yankee doodle dum.
Half a million boots went sloggin' through Hell,
And I was the kid with the drum!
Oh, say don't you remember?
They called me Al. It was Al all the time.
Say, don't you remember?
I'm your pal. Buddy, can you spare a dime?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I8-CbJYGMA
Daniel, Michael Moore did a great job of expressing the stress and suffering of the people laid off from the auto industry. I'll never forget the part from his movie where a woman raised rabbits to sell to support herself and placed a sign saying, "Rabbits for sale; for pets or meat." It was so sad because she clearly loved the rabbits and stroked one affectionately as she held one of her rabbits. What was done to the workers was brutal and affected several generations.
(Related topic): Dr. Fraad just did a video about the "birth strike" in America and some European countries. She explained that countries like France and Scandinavia, with financial and other help for new mothers and fathers, are not seeing their country's births decline as they are in the U.S. Dr. Fraad is with "Democracy at Work." She explains that historically, as men began to acquire property and wanted to pass it on to heirs, they felt it necessary to control women to ensure they passed the property to their natural children.
I used to hold some of my hearings in the "Cadillac Center" in Detroit, which at one time was GM headquarters. Most of Detroit had been devastated, crime ridden.
When Moore made his movie in Flint, Oldsmobile and Pontiac still existed.
By that time, there was no (as in zero) steel production in the Mahoning Valley, which also led the nation in crime.
We had the Biden child tax credit, which pretty much eliminated childhood poverty, but the Republicans killed it.
Mr. Solomon, I think that tune was written by Woody Guthrie, wasn't it? Pete Seeger made reprise of it when I was in college back in the 60s. I do not think I ever heard Bing Crosby sing it. Thanks.
Nope. Precedes Woody. Harburg wrote the lyrics and Jay Gorney composed the music for the song “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” The song was part of the 1932 musical revue Americana. Crosby and Rudy Vallée released records in late 1932.
Woody released his first album, Dust Bowl Ballads in 1940.
I identify with Woody in part because I've used his line form Pretty Boy Floyd repeatedly.
As through this world you travel
You'll meet some funny men
Some rob you with a six gun
Some with a fountain pen
In1962, I was an E-4 with a wife and a child, I was transferred to San Antonio, TX to begin my three year tour as a drill instructor. I assumed the loan of a G.I. who had been transferred, a 2 BR Rambler, with a carport , with a mortgage of $9,000, within a year I traded my 1956 Ford customline for a 1960 Corvair, it tried to kill me, so I traded that in for a 1964 1/2 Ford Mustang. purchase price $2,000 .,loan period 3 years, by that time I was an E-5 with a wife and two children.
In 1978 on return from Panama I bought a house still under construction, 800 sq ft, 3 Br and a garage for $35,0000 the tax evaluation on that house today is $240,000. Till 1990 the term of a car loan, to my recollection, was 3 yrs, now they are 6 years, you will be paying off a car loan, after it has been crushed in a junk yard.
I own a 2001 PT Cruiser, 22,000 miles, a POS, the electronics on it are crap, a tire delaminated and the tread still had another 40,000 miles on it.
And don't buy a Chrysler Town and Country or Pacifica, the transmission barely makes it to 60,000, I had a 2013 that went out at 13,000 miles.
Not only are homes and cars, and everything else 10 times costlier than they were in the 1960s and 1970's, but they are inferior as well.
Detroit once changed body styles every two years,planned obsolescence, but no longer, instead the products are made to break down every two years and become junk,and to keep their franchised repair shops busy..
Once upon a time we represented several car dealers from my home town. We also represented Ford in 13 counties in Pennsyltucky. In the industry most of the money is made on car repairs and financing. The manufacturers hold the paper. To get a franchise, dealers have to surrender most of their rights.
Manufacturers treat their own dealers as debtors. … The Automobile Dealer's Day in Court Act, also known as the Dealer Bill or the Automobile Dealer Franchise Act,1956, allows automobile dealers to sue manufacturers in federal district court if the manufacturer fails to act in good faith when performing, terminating, or not renewing the dealer's franchise. The act's purpose was to balance the power between manufacturers and dealers, and to supplement antitrust laws. I had cases where everyone along the chain of sale added phony costs and padded bills.
Many dealers were in the late model used wreck business.
These days anyone can track the real value of cars on the internet. The industry is so rife with fraud and so many cars are lemons that the FTC has a division dedicated to it. In December 2023, the FTC launched its much-anticipated “Combating Auto Retail Scams” or “CARS” Rule targeting allegedly misleading advertising and sales tactics by new car dealers.
I am many years removed from the industry, but I used to know several lawyers who made a living taking nothing but lemon law cases. Laws vary by state, but most of the time, the manufacturer wants to arbitrate and is responsible for attorneys fees and costs.
If you were to try and build a car piece by piece from OEM parts a $30,000 car would cost well over $100,000, there is quite a mark up in parts as well.
My state of Illinois is completely surrounded by right-to-work-for-less states ( although I thought Michigan had recently repealed its right- to-work law). Even so, we are the home of the dreaded Janus v AFSCME case that ended the fair-share (i.e. lower) dues of non-members, thus overturning a compromise ruling that established the fair-share system in 1977.
Mr. Hobbs, yes, Michigan has been more or less taken over by the Democrats. Right to work is gone in Michigan. I lived most of my life there and it was controlled by the auto and Pharmaceutical companies. I think those days are over. The much superior Japanese automobiles (especially Toyota) have taken the starch out of the"Big Three."
Many years ago I came across a chilling and prescient quote about emerging corporate dominance, attributed to Abraham Lincoln. I clipped it, put it away in my special quotes box,, and during a recent move, discovered it again. It is even more chilling today. The quote and my source are cited below. The link for full context is also cited and should be studied by every American of high school age or even earlier. So, how do we even begin to un do this travesty? STRAIT BLUE TICKET on November 5 would be at least a small step forward.
“I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
—U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864
(letter to Col. William F. Elkins)
Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia: The Spoken and Written Words of A. Lincoln
https://www.ratical.org/corporations/Lincoln.html#:~:text=corporations%20have%20been%20enthroned%20and,and%20the%20Republic%20is%20destroyed.%E2%80%9D
Arranged for Ready Reference, Archer H. Shaw (NY, NY: Macmillan, 1950)
Some
The only appropriate words after reading that Lincoln quote: Holy Shit!
I am going to throw this discussion into a different spectrum of awareness....primarily because I read a post on FB this morning that grabbed my attention. "I can't believe that almost 40% of this country can't recognize pure evil when they see it." I suspect that this is because of the mastery of these people, mentioned in this article, to create distraction from their true agenda. That's the thing about evil...it never presents itself in a frontal exposure. It always cloaks itself in a mantel of some other energy. How this has happened is accurately described in this article. But, I think it goes much deeper and wider than any of us suspect. I could go into detail over the various financial cartels that exist between the financial sectors and the government, but I this article does a pretty good job of explaining it. So, I'm going to focus on the solution. Certainly you cannot solve a problem until you understand the problem. I see the consciousness of the people continuing to elevate and expand daily. Secondly, you cannot defeat evil by operating inside of the arena that it has designed. You must operate outside of it and you must operate in a fashion that it completely can't comprehend. On a very basic level, it begins with simple acts of kindness and compassion. There is not one individual or group mentioned in this article that can meet or exceed any massive acts of kindness and compassion. They become lost and afraid. All of this guilt, blame, and shame is fine for authors seeking to define the problem, but the solution isn't going to come from someone else. It has to be grassroots and it has to be impenetrable. I would suggest that the women, to whom kindness and compassion naturally occur within them and whose true strength is in this aspect of their nature, pay attention to this and begin enforcing such behavior. After we throw out these con men and women from the ranks of the Mammon infested politics, they should turn their attention to our educational institutions and reform them from the inside out. I would also suggest that they understand that because they hold the solution to the problem, this is why these people are seeking to undermine their power and bring them under their control.
Well, Captain my Captain it really did all start with Reagan, thank you very much. Thom
Our Ages are similar, my Father born 1931 on a self sufficient Farm in Nebraska of very modest means, but always enough to eat, in fact my immigrant Grandmother feed most of the other family members that live in town. Jobs were hard to come by. My Father had a country school primary grades, hitchhike to attend High School in Town. Enlisted in the Air Force during Korean conflict, but stationed at Langley as Company Clerk, he knew how to use a Typewriter. His ticket to the beginning of being Middleclass was provided by V.A. Backed mortgage on his first house. Doesn’t this sound familiar?
Helping young families into their first house is the American dream. Our Father went on to build 2 new houses and developed a commercial property for his business. He paid his Taxes and was very generous. Middle Class is the success of America and Kamala Harris is and will lead us to the promise of much brighter Future.
Thom I would like to hope that we have one more chance to save some sort of Democratic system here. However it's so very late in the 9th inning of this game and unless we have the courage and
backbone to employ some sort of mechanism to rapidly irradicate all these ills that you have so eloquently expressed I'm affraid democracy is gonna loose this battle.
We need a roadmap to get us rapidly on a corrective path, unfortunately our change structures can only, only work fast when we have no choice but to act. Take WW2. Many Corporations were forced including the fosillized car industry to start building war trucks and transports or else ...serious consequences. I do not see us moving toward real democracy until we have a major course correction...immediately. Slowly and the rats will work to keep it so slow that there will be no course corrections.
The prerequisite is a Democratic trifecta and surviving the chaos Trumpists will try to create until January 20, 2025. The agenda then has to be enacting the John Lewis VRAA to break the cycle of gerrymandering in the states. That will mean the filibuster is gone, and a Democratic legislative “wish list” can be shoved down the bastards’ throats. The next priority is to eject the most corrupt of the SCOTUS Injustices and replace them with loyal Constitutionalists. This may require some creative use of Executive power, but MUST be done or any progressive legislation we pass will be struck down by 6-3 votes.
We may be headed for a show-down between the two branches if the trifecta happens. We will be lucky to have someone smart with a well used law degree at the helm. VP Harris is brave, and she will have a team of legal eagles.
The trick will be keeping calm and explaining it to the nation. She CAN deliver a message and will have the experts to help her write it.
These questions will remain unanswered even if there might be a trifecta. We will require an iron hand and many hands onboard. Will this happen? Is kamala and Vp Walz going to have the support of the entrenched democratic machinery. I doubt it. Will they fight off the dogs in their own party?
Kamala has what it takes, But will she use it? I'm with you on your course corrective measures. We need to build this agenda ...a strong and rapid course correction and not hide it if and once the White is secured.
Not being a law scholar I can’t think of a legal way to vacate a SC Justice’ seat (or two…or three), as impeachment alone won’t accomplish anything without a Senate conviction. So some kind of extra-legal “power move” seems to be what’s necessary. That would precipitate an unprecedented Constitutional crisis. The politics of it are frightening. Not sure Harris will go there, but what is the alternative? Win a mandate for progress just to have the Court toss it all out?
Excellent, as usual Mr. Hartmann. The Biden Administration has done more to rein in the monopolies than any President since FDR. The regulatory agencies have been busy as beavers, apparently. Your readers might want to look for this essay in the October 2024 edition of Harpers: THE ANTI TRUST REVOLUTION by Barry C. Lynn. It is informative in a way you would appreciate. The essay is about concentrated economic power and the failure to do anything about it in the last half century, (esp. since Reagan) and what has been going on with enforcement of regulations recently. Unfortunately, there is no indication yet, that Kamala Harris is interested in the subject. But we can force her hand once she is in office.
The Harper's article:
https://harpers.org/archive/2024/10/the-antitrust-revolution-big-tech-barry-c-lynn/
On behalf of the rest of the readers of this blog; I say thank you Ms. Ehrlich. I am too soft -ware illiterate to do what you did with that Harpers essay. I hope many people read it. Maybe I can find a teenager who can show me how.
Almost every time I read one of your articles I realize that things are worse than I thought. Thanks a lot. If people in this country don’t wake up they will soon find themselves living in a place indistinguishable from Russia, where you will stand in line to buy a loaf of bread while oligarchs divide up all the money. Jesus!
Mark Twain once said: "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics. After retiring, I started studying economics as several of my colleagues were economists, and as a psychologist, I was curious to learn more about how money motivates. Also, probably 20% of the statistical analyses I learned in grad school had their roots in economics.
A simple factor in economics, currency inflation, can confuse comparative impressions. A great example is college tuition. I ran the cost of my college tuition in 1970 through an inflation calculator and was surprised that, adjusted for inflation, tuition at my college had not changed a bit. Wow. What had changed was the inflated value of my tuition - the price of a new Mercedes.
One thing researchers keep an eye on is kurtosis. How skewed (different from the normal curve) the numbers are often can lead to misinterpretation of results. In economics, looking at changes in household wealth between generations, will skew distributional results. That is, the average score, even the median score, increasingly misrepresents the norm over time when you average in outliers like billionaires.
Econ 101: wealth accumulates over time. Thus, the stock portfolio of a 30-year-old will, on average, be far less than that of a 50-year-old or a 70-year-old. If you factor in inflation, the differences look even larger. As a kid, I could buy a coke from a machine for a dime. Now, you have to pay for that cola at a register so they can keep jacking up the prices from month to month.
What is a valid conclusion from our skewed intergenerational wealth numbers is Thom’s point. Some people have become obscenely wealthy due to politicians changing how America’s capitalist system is rigged – these days – in favor of the ultra-wealthy. Most of us paid more income tax last year than so-called billionaire Donald Trump.
Trump and his billionaire cronies like Musk and Kennedy want to rig the system in their favor even more! Cut wealth taxes entirely and go to tariffs. The joke is on MAGAs! Tariffs only affect the proletariat (average workers). Billionaire capitalists consume very little in contrast to even millionaires. A Mercedes Benz cost the same for Musk as it does for me. But that amount of money is .00000001% of Musk’s wealth. Thus, unfettered by taxes and trust limits, billionaires could amass evermore wealth and power under Trump's stupid plan.
You stated that your dad,”like most men of his generation” was able to pay for college through the GI bill. Isn’t it true that Blacks were not included in the GI bill?
The G.I. Bill of 1944 provided free education, unemployment pay and home loans for millions of veterans returning from fighting in World War II. These benefits helped to expand the American middle class after the war. But many returning Black veterans were excluded because of segregation
Read carefully, blacks were not excluded by the federal government, but by colleges and universities because of segregation in the colleges and universities, however my blacks were able to gain education because of HBC;s like Representatives: Ronald Dellums and Charles Rangel
Civil rights activists: Medgar Evers and Hosea Williams