NATION OF WHINERS GOES ON SUICIDE BINGE !

The Big Squeeze: Steven Greenhouse on Tough Times for the American Worker

A book by New York Times labor reporter Steven Greenhouse examines how much of the American workforce is working more but earning less. Wages have stagnated, health and pension benefits have grown stingier, and job security has shriveled.

STEVEN GREENHOUSE explains a few things on DEMOCRACY NOW…
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/29/the_big_squeeze_steven_greenhouse_on

There’s this big squeeze on the nation’s workers, wages have been flat, health and pension benefits are getting worse, at the same time corporate profits have gone up very, very nicely. Employee productivity has gone up 15, 20 percent, yet wages have been flat, plus companies are pressuring workers, you know, to work harder and harder.

And that’s part of a broader health crisis in the nation, where, since the year 2000, even though we’ve had pretty good economic times until the last few months, nine million more Americans are out of work than was the case in 2000. So now, almost 50 million Americans, nearly one-sixth of the workforce, is uninsured. And you think how crazy that is, in ways.

You know, we’re the world’s wealthiest nation, yet one-in-six workers are out of work.

And another, you know, health statistic that surprised me when I was researching the book was, United States spends about $6,500 per person for health coverage, which is more than twice what France and Germany spent, about two-and-a-half times what Japan spent, yet, you know, they have universal health coverage. They have longer life spans than Americans. Yet, you know, we spend twice as much, and one-in-six people are uninsured. So something is badly broken in the health system.

Things are out of whack, out of balance in the workplace, that corporate profits have hit record levels, employee productivity has really zoomed upward 15, 20 percent over the past six, seven years, yet, you know, wages have gone nowhere.

Corporate profits, as a percentage of overall national income, have hit record levels, and wages, as a percentage of income, national income, have fallen to the lowest level since basically the Depression.

So, what’s wrong here? That’s a good question. I think part of it is that employees unions have much less bargaining power, much less power vis-a-vis corporations than was the case thirty, forty, fifty years ago. Part of that is weaker unions. Part of that is globalization has really increased corporate power over workers, because corporations can tell employees, “Look, if you don’t accept a wage freeze, we’ll just move your job to China or India. If you’re too vocal in demanding wage increases, raises, well, maybe you’ll be caught up in the next round of downsizing.” So I think Wall Street, since the 1980s and the rise of the institutional investor, the rise of mutual funds, hedge funds, pension funds, Wall Street is exerting much more pressure on corporations to maximize their share prices, as you know, which means maximize profits, which often translates into lowering costs and especially lowering payroll costs. So a lot of managers will say, you know, the area where they have most flexibility to reduce cost and increase profits is on payroll. So that’s why we’re seeing all these waves of downsizing.

AND NOW WE FEAR LOOSING THE REST OF IT ALL !

You know, in researching the book, I was kind of surprised, even shocked, that the United States is the only industrial nation without universal health coverage. We’re the only industrial nation without – actually, one of the very few nations in the world, one of four nations of the world, without paid maternity leave.

We’re the only industrialized nation without a law saying everyone gets x number of vacation days. In the European Union, the twenty-seven nations, every worker is guaranteed four weeks’ vacation. And also, we’re the only industrialized nation where workers are not by law guaranteed a set number of paid sick days. So, you know, I think we still have a lot to learn from the so-called social democracies of Europe, in terms of their model versus our model.

A second thing, I think the nation, by and large, hasn’t paid enough respect to workers as workers. You know, all the attention is about, you know, the Bill Gateses, the Warren Buffetts, the A-Rods, the Paris Hiltons, and not enough about workers. I think workers, in many ways, have become invisible as workers.

They’re seen as Bud drinkers or Oprah watchers, but they’re not really seen as workers who, you know, bust their derrieres day in and day out, you know, making the trains run on time, you know, cleaning hotel rooms. And I think if the news media or if politicians really started paying more attention, more respect to workers, that might discourage corporations’ CEOs from squeezing their workers so much.

Meanwhile, back to where we never left…

Suicide is becoming an increasingly popular response to debt. James Scurlock's brilliant documentary, Maxed Out, features the families of two college students who killed themselves after being overwhelmed by credit card debt. http://www.maxedoutbuzz.com/

"All the people we talked to had considered suicide at least once," Scurlock told a gathering of the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys in 2007. According to the Los Angeles Times, lawyers in the audience backed him up, "describing clients who showed up at their offices with cyanide, or threatened, 'If you don't help me, I've got a gun in my car.'

India may be the trend-setter here, with an estimated 150,000 debt-ridden farmers succumbing to suicide since 1997. With guns in short supply in rural India, the desperate farmers have taken to drinking the pesticides meant for their crops.

Dry your eyes, already: Death is an effective remedy for debt, along with anything else that may be bothering you too. And try to think of it too from a lofty, corner-office, perspective: If you can't pay your debts or afford to play your role as a consumer, and if, in addition -- like an ever-rising number of Americans -- you're no longer needed at the workplace, then there's no further point to your existence. I'm not saying that the creditors, the bankers and the mortgage companies actually want you dead, but in a culture where one's credit rating is routinely held up as a three-digit measure of personal self-worth, the correct response to insoluble debt is in fact, "Just shoot me!"

So, to put all that in a nutshell, no one really cares for us here.

suicide: don't do it - money aint worth it

I suggest a radical redistribution of the wealth immediately - before the revolution hits the streets & all hell breaks loose.

Published by SocialistAlternative.org
Read online at: www.SocialistAlternative.org/news/article11.php?id=1018
Iceland: Demonstrations of Anger Bring Down Government

Feb 1, 2009
Per-Ake Westerlund, Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna (CWI Sweden)
A few days of demonstrations, including protesters throwing eggs being met by riot police with tear gas, have been enough to force a new election in Iceland. The mass protests in what is, to date, the worst hit country in the global economic crisis, have been referred to as a revolution – a ’fleece’, ’Facebook’, or ’saucepan’ revolution. Among those who have come onto the streets, there are discussions about the need for a new political force.

On Monday January 26, the government handed in its resignation. This was clearly an attempt to defuse the protest movement. So was the proposal from resigning Prime Minister Haarde of a "national unity government".

It is only three months ago, in early October, that Iceland went from being the fifth richest country in the world – based on GDP per capita – to experiencing the worst crisis of all countries, so far. The super-indebted Icelandic banks were nationalized in an attempt to limit the crisis. Today, 70 per cent of all companies and 40 per cent of households are technically bankrupt. GDP is expected to drop 10 per cent this year. Unemployment increased from six to nine per cent in December alone, inflation is close to 20 per cent, while interest rates are 18 per cent. The currency, the Icelandic krona, is hardly exchangeable.

Widespread hatred
There is a widespread hatred against the bankers who orchestrated the crisis and their friends, the politicians. While the top bankers seem to have left the country, however, the politicians remained in power. This changed last week.

As I try to "follow the money", a few questions pop up that I have NO answer what so ever too,

I was wondering if any of you ‘out there’ had any leads or is this but more of the CHAOS = OPPORTUNITY = $$$$$ morphed into PRIVATIZE THE PROFITS & SOCIALIZE THE LOSS

Just shooting from the hip here ;)

1. How much of all this bank heist hoopla has to do with white washing the huge & constant influx of money from black market & illegal trades such as drugs, sex & wize guys unlimited Inc. ?

2. How much of this economic warfare is directed at China/Japan to get a bailout from them too ?

3. How much of the bailout money is now in Caiman's (or others) tax shelters? (near the island where Ken Lay is enjoying his new face & identity ;)

4. Are we all being played like a fiddle by the CFR for ulterior motives we can only shrivel in anticipation? (Cheney's late comment about new terrorist attacks comes to mind) Why is he such a dick ? http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/125754/

5. Is this but a gigantic 'Vulture Fund' scheme ? Look what Greg Palast had uncovered but was keep from America’ public eye for a change…

Greg Palast Reports: BBC NewsNight- Vulture Funds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbxj8azQb80

Greg Palast Reports- Part 2 of BBC NewsNight Vulture Bond
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7-w7b4Bq6I&feature=channel

Return of the Vultures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns9EfZlBdEk

Vulture Fund Threat to Third World
http://www.gregpalast.com/vulture-fund-threat-to-third-world/

Debt Relief Groups Attack Vultures After our BBC Exposé
http://www.gregpalast.com/in-response-to-bbc-report-jubilee-calls-on-debt-adviso...

The World Bank & IMF sanctioned economic genocide is described in all its gruesome reality by economic Nobel Joe Stiglitz here… http://www.gregpalast.com/the-globalizer-who-came-in-from-the-cold/

6. Is America getting nearer, by the minute, to the dreaded 'Step-Three-and-a-Half': of what Stiglitz calls, "The IMF riot." Again…http://www.gregpalast.com/the-globalizer-who-came-in-from-the-cold/

7. Is America finally having a taste of the economic terrorism it applied to the rest of the world for so long via the IMF & World Bank ? Again & again…http://www.gregpalast.com/the-globalizer-who-came-in-from-the-cold/

8. Was Maddoff's money used to build Israel's illegal settlements? Hey, someone has to pay for this. Where is that money coming from anyway ?

So you see, this is what happens when we are left with but a shit load of unanswered questions…

Nature has horror of the void and we humans will fill it all up with our best educated guesses & speculations just as a defense mechanism (hence the creation of the God concept,but I digress ;)

The guys at Global Research are on the button but obviously to no avail...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=theme&themeId=2

Who are the Architects of Economic Collapse?
Will an Obama Administration Reverse the Tide?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10860

Financial Meltdown: The Greatest Transfer of Wealth in History
How to Reverse the Tide and Democratize the US Monetary System
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10589

I am, obviously, not the only one mesmerized & left scratching its head in utter disbelief at what is happening...

As old time brit rocker Eric Burdon once pointed out in a song…
“There is a man somewhere who is closer to the truth !”
“There is a man somewhere who is closer to it all !”
“There is a man !”

I still have the feeling this whole mess is not entirely the making of capitalism gone wild & array… Something's fishy !

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not traitor, he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared." - Cicero, 42 B.C.

So we are squarely back at : Follow the money, but it seems to have dissapeard into thin air … how quaint, since it’s the biggest amount to do in history ;)

THE GREATEST THEFT IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANKIND
http://current.com/items/89330596/the_greatest_theft_in_the_history_of_humankind...
PENTAGON SCORES A BIGGER RIP-OFF THAN BAILOUT
http://current.com/items/89342370/pentagon_scores_a_bigger_rip_off_than_bailout....
ECONOMISTS AGAINST BAILOUT
http://current.com/items/89344263/economists_against_bailout.htm
Reality check : The 56 trillion hole !
http://current.com/items/89396208/reality_check_the_56_trillion_hole.htm

You raise up your head
And you ask, "Is this where it is?"
And somebody points to you and says
"It's his"
And you say, "What's mine?"
And somebody else says, "Where what is?"
And you say, "Oh my God
Am I here all alone?"
Because something is happening here
But you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?
Ballad Of A Thin Man – Bob Dylan

I wish it was that easy ;)

Investigative reporting is as expensive as time consuming. With the abject failure of the 4th estate, it is exactly the first job definition that is thrown to the dog. That is also why I have a huge admiration for Greg Palast & decided to do what ever I could to chug along.

All I can offer is an educated guess based on the work of giants.

As White Noise I am 100% behind these 3 journalist-musketeers with Greg Palast as D'Artagnan...

Greg Palast
http://www.gregpalast.com

Jeremy Scahill
http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/jeremy_scahill

Naomi Klein
http://www.naomiklein.org/main

Chris Hedges
http://www.truthdig.com/report/category/hedges/

Now don't get me wrong here, there is still, against all odds, great investigative reporting going on. Seymour Hersh, comes to mind. Check here for more : http://centerforinvestigativer eporting.org/

Problem is; most of that work is diligently kept from the public's eye, as plainly demonstrated here : http://www.projectcensored.org

It has become so bad that we can now accurately predict what stories will not see the light of day while we are inundated with showbiz galore & people willingly hurting themselves on You Tube for a shot at their 15 minutes of cyber-stardom. www.projectcensored.org/top-st ories/category/y-2009/

The pabulum narrative we are being fed has become reality and commentators & pundits regurgitate it as gospel.

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." - Noam Chomsky

"A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself," - Joseph Pulitzer