Life in the Third Layer

Dick Cheney said during the campaign that more people are keeping more of their money due to the Bush tax cuts. Have you noticed that a lot of state and local taxes are going up and medical insurance costs and cost shares are going up to compensate for lost federal funding? You may have to check your local newspaper (if you still have one that is not a subsidiary of THE NEWS INC), or talk to your neighbors to get a feel for this as a trend. When it happens to you, you may think it is local and not a trend, because THE NEWS INC skims over or just neglects to report it nationally.
As I noticed back in August 2004 when Cheny made his statement, the people keeping more of their money must still be the ones on the far right end of David Chandler’s L Curve, because it is not happening around me. Below the picture of the L Curve are a few short paragraphs of text, under the title “What are the implications of this picture?” While we are watching the news, we need to remember this one:

The mainstream media has been bought up by people in the “vertical spike.” The primary channels for information and expressed opinion are controlled and filtered by a small, powerful group on the vertical spike whose interests are not representative of the majority of Americans. Even when there is no direct political message the programming is tailored to the perspectives and sensitivities of large corporations. The business of media is to sell advertising. Programming is simply the hook to hold an audience until the next commercial. Serious examination of ideas of any kind is seen as counterproductive because it may alienate or bore part of the potential audience. The result is nonstop sensationalistic binges of O.J., Princess Di, Monica, and Elian. The growing media monopoly dilutes and distorts the national dialog, and thereby destroys the basis for democracy. We must find ways to rebuild community and learn to talk to each other directly.

With the cover of Time hitting the real news — the weight loss potential of Americans who restrict their diets in various ways not imposed by war or poverty — it is easy to forget the violence going on in Iraq.
We had to be reminded of it continually to keep us afraid so we would vote to continue George W. Bush in office in November. Now we need to be directed to other urgent and more local matters so we do not regret our decision and question the continuing and escalating war in Iraq. Apparently the appointment of Bully Bolton to the U.N. is not enough motivation to pump up the fear factor on his behalf, so the distraction policy is still working.
After all, there are real concerns to distract us. These include things like Social Security reform and the price of oil. And have you heard any figures lately on creation of jobs other than jobs at Wal-Mart? On the really local front, has your job gone offshore or been outsourced? Have you been given extra work with no extra pay? Has your job been down-graded to a lower income or grade of benefits? Have you delayed your retirement because you see that you can’t afford your medical insurance if you don’t keep working? Or have you taken an extra job to make ends meet? Do you see the economic slow-down around you that I see around me?
Meanwhile, back at the war, in Suicide Attacks Rising Rapidly, a story today by Carol J. Williams, Staff Writer at the L.A. Times, we read: “Suicide bombings have surged to become the Iraqi insurgency’s weapon of choice, with a staggering 90 attacks accounting for most of last month’s 750 deaths at the militants’ hands.” I scanned back over that to make sure that I read “last month’s 750 deaths,” and sure enough, there it was. The story also points out “Increasingly, the bombers are Iraqis instead of foreign infiltrators. Civilians and police, not GIs, are the prime targets.” I read on to discover that American installations and activities in Iraq are better protected now, so it is ineffective to attack us. Instead, attacks are directed at the government and police we are supporting. The Iraq war is a civil war in which we supply one side and refuse to consider who supports the other side. How is this helping us or the Iraqi people?
The Republican administration and its affiliates are grabbing all the economic and political loot they can get in the time they have left, and the mop-up of the mess they leave, here and abroad, is going to be the business of a whole generation of Americans.

Robbing from the poor to give to the rich is bad economic policy, like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Most of us heard the story as a child, but someone should tell Bush II that you have to keep the goose alive and feed it well, or there will be no more eggs:
In Wages Lagging Behind Prices LA Times Staff Writer Nicholas Riccardi explains:

The effective 0.2-percentage-point erosion in workers’ living standards occurred while the economy expanded at a healthy 4%, better than the 3% historical average.

Meanwhile, corporate profits hit record highs as companies got more productivity out of workers while keeping pay increases down.

Some see climbing profits and stagnant wages as not only unfair but also ultimately unsustainable. “Those that are baking the larger pie ought to see their slices expanding,” said Jared Bernstein, an economist with the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington.

Riccardi blames the slack job market, which does not encourage employers to raise wages, and notes that “Although the unemployment rate has dropped to a relatively low 5.2%, that figure doesn’t count the hundreds of thousands of jobless people who’ve given up their searches and dropped out of the labor market at a greater rate than anytime since 1988.” Also to blame is the cost of health care:

“Healthcare has eroded the wage base,” said Janemarie Mulvey, chief economist with the Employment Policy Foundation, a business-funded think tank in Washington.

“In the long run, we can’t continue like this. If healthcare keeps crowding out wages forever, something’s got to give.”

The squeeze is especially intense on the 47% of the workforce whose employers don’t directly provide their health insurance. For lower-income workers, who are more likely to be uninsured, the falling value of their wages is even more serious because they’re more likely to live paycheck to paycheck. And rising food and energy prices take a proportionately higher toll on the poor than on the rich.