Poverty is not natural. It is man-made and can be eradicated.

Following on my look at LGBTQ comedians from last week (and wanting something short and light) I started the Netflix show Tig, a documentary about Tig Notaro. Scenes didn’t look familiar, but the ideas did. So I did a bit of checking (of texts of previous posts) and I saw that I had seen it, more than a year ago. So I switched to Tig’s comedy show Happy to Be Here taped at a Houston comedy venue back in 2018 and an hour long. During the show she talked about being mistaken for a man at least once a week (she’s very flat chested and even flatter after breast cancer), one of her temp jobs before being a comedian paid enough, funny comments from her wife Stephanie (Can a bee sting a bee?), playing with her cat, fun things her twin sons said (probably toddlers at the time), and the pranks she would pull at parties. My overall view of this show is there were funny moments, but I kept checking how soon it would be over. And the closing gag went on way too long. In the comments of a pundit roundup for Daily Kos are several cartoons appropriate for Labor Day, which is today. One by Garth German shows workers in a break room just after the boss has put up several anti-union signs, such as “De-regulate, it makes life easier.” “‘Strike’ is just another word for ‘I quit.’” Vasco Costa posted one by Barry Deutsch that shows corporate bosses through the years, starting in 1842, complaining that if workers got such-and-such right their business would be doomed. The workers rights are such things as the right to strike, equal pay for black people, worker safety, child labor, 40 hour workweek, and equal pay for women. Thank a union for each of these and, yeah, businesses had to deal with them and still managed to survive. Remember that faulty prediction of doom the next time they want to withhold worker rights. Another one by Deutsch explaining that “Right to Work” doesn’t mean the right to a job, but the right not to pay union dues, which weakens the union. A third by Deutsch shows workers shows workers explaining why they are against unions, such as a woman saying “I deserve less pay than men.” Captain Frogbert included several good quotes:

“Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” — Abraham Lincoln, Republican, 1861. “Forgive me for noticing that conservatives seem to believe that the rich will work harder if we give them more, and the poor will work harder if we give them less.” — E. J. Dionne, Jr. “Republicans... think the American standard of living is a fine thing -- so long as it doesn’t spread to all the people... And they admire of Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it.” — Harry S. Truman “Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.” — Nelson Mandela We live in a nation where doctors destroy health; lawyers destroy justice; universities destroy knowledge; governments destroy freedom; the press destroys information; religion destroys morals; and our banks destroy the economy. — Chris Hedges “The fears of one class of men are not the measure of the rights of another.” — George Bancroft (1800-1891) “That, in its essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt

I was never in a job covered by a union. But in a big corporation whatever union got we office workers got too. So I’m thankful for the union.

But that phrase is in the Constitution

A pundit roundup on Daily Kos includes several Labor Day cartoons. Here’s one by McLeod Cartoons with a historic text:

Labor is prior to, and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. – Abraham Lincoln, 1861

Joan McCarter of Kos reported that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse filed a formal complaint against Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. It was a seven page letter sent to Chief Justice John Roberts. The letter has several points: 1. Alito said there is nothing in the Constitution that allows Congress to regulate the Court. Whitehouse responded that is an “Improper Opining on a Legal Issue that May Come Before the Court.” 2. Alito essentially invited allies to challenge any ethics legislation that Congress might pass. 3. Whitehouse says Alito is doing it “at the Behest of Counsel in that Matter.” That counsel is David Rivkin of the Federalist Society that got the current conservatives onto the court. 4. All that opining and intruding is on behalf of a “longstanding personal and political relationship” with a person that’s a party of the dispute. In this case it is Leonard Leo, Federalist Society co-chair and companion on that luxurious Alaskan fishing trip. 5. Alito is using the office for personal benefit.

Right now, Roberts is the only one who can do anything about it. The Supreme Court is exempt from all of the rules the rest of the federal judiciary is bound by. Roberts is the only and final authority on justices’ conduct. He has refused to engage with the Senate on the issue and has insisted that the court—meaning him—can and will handle it without any interference from what he clearly believes is a lesser branch. This official complaint from Whitehouse is a challenge to Roberts to do just that.

I’ve talked about the idea that the 14th Amendment’s clause about insurrectionists not being allowed to hold public office. Daniel Estrin of NPR talked about that with Kin Wehle, a constitutional law scholar at the University of Baltimore, and with David Frum, senior editor at The Atlantic. I’ll start with Frum’s comments. He said if the nasty guy is kept off the ballot and Biden wins will the election be accepted? We’ll have “civil disorder” on a grand scale. Part of the country supports these undemocratic measures and that needs to be confronted. We need to drive our friends to the polls to save our country from a threat to democracy. I add that yeah, those undemocratic measures do need to be confronted. So, Mr. Frum, are you? I’m already tired of conservatives saying do it our way or there will be this huge wave of violence. That’s a threat from a mafia don. I’ll let Wehle give a proper rebuttal: Yes, the nasty guy qualifies for being kept off the ballot. This part of the Constitution doesn’t specify how it is to be invoked. A trial or criminal conviction? No court has weighed it yet. But that phrase is in the Constitution because the electoral process can fail. We can’t count on the voters to reject an insurrectionist. If a Democrat wins the election – even if the nasty guy isn’t removed and all measures show the election was legitimate – there will be millions who won’t accept it. We should be committed to the text of the Constitution. It exists. We should reckon with it now because if the nasty guy gets back in the White House we know he will undo democracy. Even so, America’s problems are much larger than whether we pursue this clause or don’t. Also on NPR is the story of Anderson Clayton. She is now the chair of the Democratic Party in North Carolina. And she’s 25. She doesn’t believe the mantra that people living in dying rural areas deserve what they get. Also, Democrats have been ignoring rural areas and have been ignoring young people like herself. Her job for the next 14 months is to spread the word that Bidenomics will improve rural areas too. She says, “Joe Biden is the first president in 50 frickin' years that said, if you live in a rural area, [you] deserve to have a future.” She knows she has a tough job selling her message. Though rural voters are strongly Republican, young rural voters are more evenly split. But she believes the way forward is to do outreach outside the traditional Democratic strongholds. One way to do that is make sure there is a Democratic candidate for every state House and Senate race. In 2022 forty of those races were uncontested. So she has a daunting tasks. Young people are told they need to leave small towns to succeed. But Clayton says there should be opportunity no matter the zip code. Hunter of Kos discussed the Republican obsession with Hunter Biden. He noticed at the first Republican debate none of the candidates mentioned Hunter Biden. The reason is simple. Beyond those actively trying to dig up dirt on the president’s son, nobody cares. In addition, the story Republicans have concocted to declare there really is a story here is so convoluted that eyes glaze over before places like Fox News can get through an explanation. There’s another aspect of the story to ponder. Why are the only ones pushing the Hunter Biden investigation are nasty guy supporters or backers of sedition? Derek Cai and Martin Yip of the BBC report that the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal has ruled that while same-sex couples don’t have a right to marriage they do have a right to a legal framework for their relationships. The lack of legal framework is a violation of their rights.

"The absence of legal recognition of (same-sex partners') relationship is apt to disrupt and demean their private lives together in ways that constitute arbitrary interference," said Justice Patrick Keane.

The ruling gives the government two years to create that legal framework. Support of same-sex couples is growing in Hong Kong. 60% now favor marriage equality compared to 38% a decade ago. Hong Kong will host the 11th Gay Games later this year. Even so, there is backlash.

A zillionaire for raising the minimum wage

The radio program On Point, hosted by Tom Ashbrook discussed income inequality with Nick Hanauer. I heard a bit of the program Tuesday evening before arriving home to a house without power. Hanauer was an initial investor of Amazon, has founded or funded over 30 companies, and now is one of the super-rich. He has the plane, yacht, and multiple fancy homes. His message is that if the 1% don't work to re-balance the wealth in the economy the whole thing will come crashing down. Alas, there is no transcript of the show, so I summarized while listening on the web. The audio is 47 minutes.

Capitalism is the greatest engine for creating wealth, but it can benefit everyone or it can benefit the few. It is the role of democracy to make sure it benefits everyone. The problem isn't inequality. The problem is high levels of inequality. And we're at record high levels now and the spread is widening. Such levels lead to pitchforks in the streets and damage to democracy.

The upheavals in Ferguson, MO over the shooting death of Michael Brown are an example of the disenfranchised beginning to fight back.

It doesn't make sense for the rich to push for policies that extend and accentuate the inequality gap. First reason: Throughout human history when the inequality got this severe, the pitchforks have always come out – unless there is a police state in place. But a lot of Americans think we're a peaceful society. We don't do that stuff here. True statement?

A correction to what capitalism is: It isn't an efficient allocation of resources. It is creating new solutions to human problems.

Of course, fellow super-rich consider Hanauer to be bonkers. They buy into the "trickle-down" idea that the more money the job creators have, the more jobs they create and the better off everyone is. But it isn't true. Jobs are part of a feedback loop between customers and businesses. When workers have more money, businesses have more customers and need more workers.

Those at the top would rather believe the efficient market hypothesis because if markets are efficient then those at the top deserve to be rich and others deserve to be poor. But markets aren't efficient, they're effective – if well managed.

Hanauer notes that five years ago income inequality was a taboo subject in polite society. But now many of the rich agree that inequality is an issue that needs discussion. But what to do is still an open debate with many of the rich hesitant about the tradeoffs they would need to make. Even so, they recognize the central point (and the second reason to close the inequality gap): When their customers have no money the businesses owned by the rich have no customers.

Reason three: High levels of inequality stretch the society apart. The rich become disconnected from the rest, which reduces empathy and increases contempt (by the rich for the poor and by the poor for the rich), a dangerous and corrosive mix. The poor no longer have a stake in the society. The situation can get wildly out of control very quickly (a tipping point). Alas, if the rich feel aggrieved one thing they are very good at is contacting their senator.

Complaining about the rich and ranting about what the bankers are doing is not a theory of growth. This is: The more people, entrepreneurs and customers, who are included in prosperity the more innovative the economy becomes and the more it grows. The more participants in the economy the more it grows. This is reason four.

Thirty years ago the American middle class was the largest and richest in the world. That's no longer true. Canada is no longer the poor cousin. Their cities are much more vibrant than American cities. A measure of an economy should be how much better the middle class is doing than in other countries.

Today's politicians don't make decisions based on sound economic policy, they make decisions based on rules-of-thumb, which were taught as good economics maybe 50 years ago but are now being shown to be false. One of those is tax cuts to the rich benefit the entire economy. Another is the rich are job creators, the more money they have the more jobs they create. The people at the top matter, the people at the bottom do not. Trickle-down economics works. The bigger the big get the better off everyone is. When you raise the price of employment, you get less of it. The GOP budget encapsulates those rules. Some of these rules are used because of confusion, some because rich people know who will be advantaged by using them.

Seattle raised the minimum wage to $15 an hour. It raised the wages of tipped workers to somewhere around $9 an hour – the federal minimum for tipped workers is around $2. So why is the restaurant scene in Seattle booming? Because even tipped workers can now afford to eat in restaurants. The poor getting richer is not bad for the economy.

We as a country can choose policies that spread prosperity. Raising minimum wage, especially of tipped workers, is one such policy. Another is to help the small business compete against the big. Also, balance the power between owners and workers.

Our policies used to help people become rich. They now reward people for being rich.

We've already outsourced all the jobs that can be. The job of hotel maid can't be outsourced. But why should that job be a low-paying job? Walmart made $27 billion in profit last year. Why can't it use $10 billion of that to pay each of its million workers another $10,000 a year, which would get them off food stamps – and give them enough money to buy more products from Walmart? Why shouldn't the service job of today match the manufacturing job of 50 years ago that provided a middle-class income? The big reason why it doesn't is power. Manufacturing workers had unions.

Will the rich see this understanding and change their ways? Maybe not. But another goal of Hanauer's message is to wake up the other 99.8% of us, remind us we're the source of growth and prosperity, and get us to demand policies that spread prosperity.

Hanauer was invited to be on the show because he had written an article for Politico making the same points he made on the air. It is easier and more complete to read that rather than listen to the show.

A quote from the article:

In any large group, some people absolutely will not do the right thing. That’s why our economy can only be safe and effective if it is governed by the same kinds of rules as, say, the transportation system, with its speed limits and stop signs.

And some more ideas:

Want to reduce the size of government? Reduce the need for government. Pay workers well and they don't need food stamps or rent assistance or medical care.

Democrats say raising the minimum wage is a justice issue, all about fairness. And that's why they lose the argument. Republicans campaign on growth, but they provide the wrong solution. Minimum wage is a growth issue.

There can never be enough super-rich Americans to power the economy. Paying a CEO 1000 times more than the average worker does not benefit the economy. That CEO does not buy 1000 shirts for every shirt the average worker buys. Instead, that CEO puts the cost of 998 shirts into savings.

A problem with the Occupy movement is their message that capitalism is bad. What is bad is mismanaged capitalism, which concentrates wealth. Smart capitalists will make sure capitalism is sustainable, and that means spreading prosperity.

Tim Worstall is a contributor to Forbes and thinks Hanauer's ideas are insane. Some of his rebuttals:

A central story by Hanauer is that when Henry Ford raised wages to $5 a day he boosted sales of his cars. But Ford had 14,000 employees, which wouldn't put a big change in annual sales of 200,000. The raise cost Ford $9 million a year. If all employees bought a car that would increase sales by $7.75 million. That doesn't increase profits. The reason why Ford went to $5 a day was to reduce turnover so he didn't have to hire 50,000 a year to fill 14,000 jobs.

Worstall considers the price of labor and says, "People who employ more expensive labor use it more sparingly." Raising the minimum wage changes the way companies use their workers – though it seems Worstall doesn't factor in the number of workers may need to stay the same or grow to handle increased customers.

Worstall says Hanauer dismisses the effect of savings – it was savings that allowed Hanauer to invest in Amazon. So Hanauer should use his money to fund more companies rather than tell companies to raise wages. Even I see a disconnect here, and my last economics class was a long time ago. Hanauer won't invest in a company (which would create jobs) unless he knows that company is likely to make money. And for that it needs customers, which would come from a healthy middle class.

I note that Worstall doesn't refute one of Hanauer's central themes – when their customers have no money the businesses owned by the rich have no customers.

Happy Labor Day!

The reason for the day off

In honor of Labor Day Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin describes the conditions of coal miners in the 1910s. Everything in town was controlled by the company and the worker never made enough money to pay for his housing, clothing, food, and tools for himself and family. The result was he could only go into debt to the company and essentially become a slave. This resulted in riots, attempts at union organizing, and the West Virginia Mine War and its Battle of Blair Mountain.

According to Burroway, Labor Day is to honor the labor union.