Krugman: Losing Our Country

[swag]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/10/opinion/10krugman.html?hp

Losing Our Country
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: June 10, 2005

excerpts:

. . .

Working families have seen little if any progress over the past 30 years. Adjusted for inflation, the income of the median family doubled between 1947 and 1973. But it rose only 22 percent from 1973 to 2003, and much of that gain was the result of wives' entering the paid labor force or working longer hours, not rising wages.

Meanwhile, economic security is a thing of the past: year-to-year fluctuations in the incomes of working families are far larger than they were a generation ago. All it takes is a bit of bad luck in employment or health to plunge a family that seems solidly middle-class into poverty.

But the wealthy have done very well indeed. Since 1973 the average income of the top 1 percent of Americans has doubled, and the income of the top 0.1 percent has tripled.
. . .
Since 1980 in particular, U.S. government policies have consistently favored the wealthy at the expense of working families - and under the current administration, that favoritism has become extreme and relentless. From tax cuts that favor the rich to bankruptcy "reform" that punishes the unlucky, almost every domestic policy seems intended to accelerate our march back to the robber baron era.

. . . more

[mermaid]

1. Sucks. Your Link Makes You Register. I Don't Want Spam.

I'd like to read the article, but I don't want the spam. Can you send me a PM with the text of the article, please?

[swag]

4. May I suggest

http://www.bugmenot.com/

[mermaid]

5. Hmmm....

Seems like that might work, but then I need the FULL URL of the link...then I can try it.

ON EDIT: Never mind...I see how that works now. Pretty cool. Thanks.

[swag]

6. Hire a maid.

[BlueEyedSon]

34. kick

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

37. You can also find it here

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/228053_krugman12.html

[libertypirate]

9. they never email me anything....

[scarletlib]

16. later on today or tomorrow the website

Smirkingchimp.com will have the entire article posted to read.

[kliljedahl]

22. I'm registered

I get no spam that I can attribute to them and very little from them, & no advertising. Every couple of weeks I get an E-mail listing the latest most poular stories is all. Same with the WaPo.


Keith’s Barbeque Central

[Coastie for Truth]

23. Spam from NYTimes.com

is a one page summary (with links) of the front page of that day's NYTimes. I can live with that.

[SharonAnn]

26. I'm subscribed to NYT and I don't get spam from them nor have

they sold my email address.

If you don't want to do the work of subscribing, you shouldn't expect someone else to do it for you.

[Boo Boo]

27. Doesn't suck. NYT doesn't spam. /nt

[Gyre]

36. I agree.

I left NYT online for several reasons. The fact is these articles are just not available to us unless a poster uses cut and paste. I can live w/ that.

Gyre

[Newsjock]

2. Krugman makes me cry tonight :(

He's captured the essence of what's happened to this country in the nearly 25 years that I've been out in the "real world" and watching that world morph from a land of opportunity into a dystopian nightmare. At least it's a dystopian nightmare with Wi-Fi.

He makes me cry because he knows what it's going to take to get the middle class back -- and he knows it's not going to be a pretty road to get from here to there. And I really don't want to be spending the rest of my life in that netherworld.

[dweller]

7. that road

will be littered with road kill. It will not be pretty. And someone will have to clean it up.
It's an ugly job, but somebody will have to do it.

here's how.
If we do manage to stave off a GOP totalitarian state, somebody is going have to pick up the working class road kill with bare hands. But before we will even be allowed to do that dirty job, some of us will have to get out there and do the hard work of educating the people and spelling it out for them and moving hearts and minds.


dp

[Mythsaje]

8. He's right

about education. It's the beat-all in the game. It's AT LEAST as important as universal healthcare. Educate the hell out of the kids, give them as much schooling as they can handle, all the way through college and grad school if they want it and work at it. Make education a priority and, in the end, you end up with a populace that knows what the hell's going on.

They ARE dismantling education, particularly higher education. If this continue, this country's woes can only get worse.

[anitar1]

10. Anyone remember reading about the Hedge Schools

in Ireland ages ago. The Irish were so suppressed by the British and no schools were allowed for the poor. So people who could read and write would have children meet them for lessons. They hid behind hedges while teaching. We may end up the same way one day.

[Mythsaje]

11. That would assume

that Americans have half the fighting spirit of the Celts. Well, many of us do, coming from the Celts ourselves. But a lot of Americans really seem, these days, to be know-nothing, wanna know-nothing types.

It's sad, really.

For example...you know how many people I know who tell me (esp. women, for some reason) that they don't "do" politics?

"That's okay," I tell them. "Politics are quite willing to 'do' you."

[deacon2]

32. "Politics are quite willing to 'do' you."

With extreme prejudice, my friend. Love that response.

[blindpig]

35. Education is the key

Our public education is being systematically dismantled. Perhaps it is not worth fighting for. The politicization is inevitable and getting worse. The crap that passes for history in K-12 has always been with us but science is under major assault , the book banners/burners are legion and our schools are increasingly platforms of corporate agitprop. This is not to dis all of the public school teachers who bust their asses to make a difference but we'll not change the world for the better by going in this direction.

In his Outline of History H G Wells, a strong advocate of socialism, suggested that to build a socialist society education must be taken in hand and away from dominant society. I don't have a clue how to pull this off but Hermann Hesse might have. In his novel Magister Ludi(The Glass Bead Game) an independent teaching order is responsible for all education in a post WWIII Europe. This order is strictly secular and nonpolitical. I'm not suggesting using this for a blueprint but it is food for thought.

Some may not agree with me that a more socialist society is necessary for long term survival of civilization but I think we all agree that major change is mandatory.

Perhaps our side could take advantage of all of the gifts the bu$hies have thrown to the anti public school/home schooling crowd. Can we not figure out how to deliver Montessori to the masses?

[bloom]

30. And then on Democracy Now - "It's a race to the bottom."

The last segment about CAFTA:

Anti-Sweatshop Activist and Chief Nicaragua Negotiator on CAFTA Debate Central America Free Trade

CHARLES KERNAGHAN: Oh, well, I mean, it's - in Nicaragua, for example, since it is a very tragically poor country, there's a special agreement to allow Nicaragua to use 640 square million yards of fabric from outside the CAFTA region. And so, those garments will come into the United States duty-free. 427 million garments with fabric made in China. So, we have already lost 440,000 apparel jobs and textile jobs in the United States since George Bush came to office. There's maybe about 600,000 jobs left. I mean, there are real problems with the way the CAFTA is set up, because there's no level playing field. There's no respect for worker rights.

Like the gentleman said, the jobs in Nicaragua have increased. In fact, they have quadrupled between 1998 and 2004, the maquiladora jobs went from 15,000 to over 61,000. There are 77 maquila factories in Honduras -- in Nicaragua right now. In terms of apparel, it's booming. Between 2003 and 2004, apparel exports were up 23%. They were up 50% in the first two months of 2005. Everything is going up. The only thing that’s going down is wages and worker rights. So why should the workers in the Nicaragua or the workers in the United States, for that matter, buy into a trade agreement, which is meant for business? Like Bill Thomas at the House Ways and Means Committee, trying to push this through, trying to push CAFTA through Congress, the other day, he told the real reason. He said, “Look, the U.S. companies need access to cheap wages in nearby countries.” This is what's going on.

...But what we're actually seeing is jobs are leaving Mexico under NAFTA. The workers are now worse off than they have ever been. Same thing, the wages are going down. 87 cents an hour for auto parts workers in Mexico. The highest wage in the country that we saw for auto parts workers was $2.47. Those jobs are now leaving for Honduras and Nicaragua. And in Mexico, Alcoa, a very big producer of auto parts, is telling the workers in Mexico, hey, we can hire three Hondurans for every one of you Mexicans. So now they are pitting Mexico against Honduras. In Honduras, like I said, the wages were about 80 cents an hour. In Honduras, about 80 cents an hour, $22.73 a week, now $35 a week, now Nicaragua has these 44 cent an hour wages, so they're cannibalizing each other. It's a race to the bottom.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/10/1410254

[wurzel]

3. Reagan Tax Cuts did it!

When the rich paid 75% of their income in taxes, and Corporations paid 50% the rich preferred to give the money to their employees rather than to the Government. But when their taxes reduced to 25% it became much more worthwhile to keep it. So they did. That and the destruction of unions has led to where we are today. The Land of the Pharaohs. Actually we never did have a large "middle-class". It was that stupid idea that gave Republicans their power. What we had was the most affluent working class the world had ever seen. But we forgot who we were, and where we came from.

[Daphne08]

14. You are exactly right about Reagan. That's when it started and

I should know since I was already married and had children by then.

Oh, I'm also still waiting for that $$ to trickle down.

[acmejack]

17. Um, Voodoo Economics?

The Reagan era was when the egalitarian dream was rejected by the ME generation, it seems. All of sudden you could have it all, and it was good to desire that.

btw, I am an old guy who is also still waiting...

[Wright Patman]

25. I would say it is more "globalism"

and the whole "global free trade" religion which has concentrated the wealth at the top. That's not to say progressivity-reducing tax cuts didn't play a role.

But without the threat of moving jobs and entire industries to other countries, the employees who made up what used to be the middle class would have had more bargaining power. Instead we have a "race to the bottom" worldwide which will result and is resulting in a 1984-style, total surveillance, high-tech police state. Gotta keep an eye on all those serfs for any revoltin' developments.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Krugman worships at the Church of Free Trade himself. Maybe that's why he doesn't write much about its devastating effects on the middle classes of the world. At least he's not bad as Friedman, though.

[tblue37]

29. He has addressed that in articles in the past,

and said that his previous support of unfettered free trade was a mistake, which was evident now becuse of its consequences. That's what honest, intelligent people do: when they are wrong and reality shows they are wrong, they revise their earlier positions.

[wurzel]

33. Globalism was made possible by union destruction.

I have a big picture of George Meany allowing outsourcing of American jobs. There would have been a national strike by now.

[RBHam]

12. The Politics Of Greed.

Charles Dickens is turning in his grave.

[Democrats_win]

31. Foreclosures: Save your money, you could be next!

In Adams County Colorado, foreclosures are up 150%!!!

That's on top of the record set last year!!!!

Local newspaper is nothing but foreclosure notices.

[NVMojo]

13. He nailed it all. This is some scary shit, a real dose of Bushworldreality

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/10/opinion/10krugman.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

try the print link of the copy!

[Larkspur]

15. You mean Krugman had time to write about a legit issue and not bash Dean!

</sarcasm>

Yes, I know, Krugman unofficially endorsed Dean during the primaries and supports Dean view of where the Dem Party should go, but just had to take a sarcastic swipe at the Dean-bashers in the Media.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

18. "Since 1980, US policies have consistently favored the wealthy"

I pick that out as the most important sentence in this article. Please note that it is NOT just Republican regimes which have participated in the wealth shifting and the stealth shafting of the broad American middle class. We have no guarantee of healthcare, our universities have been priced out of the reach of most people (or our young adults have to emerge toting a crushing debt burden), housing is inflating far beyond income (I saw a statistic yesterday that said the affordibilty factor for the median home in California is down to 17%) Medicare is in financial crisis, and the most enduring, vital, safety net of Social Security is under assault.

It is BOTH Democrats and Republicans who have done that to us. They are entirely beholden to their corporate donors and have abandoned the rest of us in their rush to join the "I Got Mine" club. I apologized to a good friend last night who voted for Nader and said - "you were right and I was wrong". I am totally re-evaluating my stand on individual politicians and the Democratic Party. I am reserving my esteem for John Conyers, Dennis Kucinich and Howard Dean at the moment. We need term limits, massive election finance changes, and freedom from election fraud. We also need a new political party to represent us, as we have been so thoroughly and cavalierly discarded by those we trusted.

One last question - we went to war, lost our standing as the moral leaders of the world, threw out our civil liberties,and became torture apologists because of 3,000 civilian casualties. And yet yesterday I heard that there are 10s of thousands of American lives that have been lost due to Vioxx and that we reduced the settlement of the tobacco companies from 130 billion to 10 billion. Does it seems that we condone and excuse corporate "collateral damage" casualties? Are those lives less valuable than the deaths in the WTC?

[youspeakmylanguage]

20. I have NO love for Nader or his supporters. We were anything but right...

I was one in 2000. Without Nader there never would have been a President Chimpy to begin with.

If you want to fix what is wrong, it needs to be within the party. If you want to enact drastic change, it still needs to be within the party. Splintering off into the fringe only divides us at a time when conservatives of all stripes have banded together to wreck a remarkable amount of havoc.

[Kolesar]

21. The five Dems who represent Northern Ohio in Congress are good

Kaptur, Kucinich, Ryan, Tubbs-Jones, and Sherrod Brown.

I don't agree with you about term limits, they have been an absolute disaster for our state government. They have allowed suburban and rural GOP yay-hoos to take over the government and piss away decades of progress and prosperity.

As for forming a new political party? I say go for it. I do activism on issues, and I would love to evaluate your candidates.

[youspeakmylanguage]

19. This may sound heartless...

...but Chimpy was elected and re-elected on the support of a lot of these middle-class rural "amuricans" presently getting screwed. Until they wake up and realize what's going on, I don't have a lot of sympathy.

This won't go on forever. The repugs are coasting on a lot of hot air and it can't last. When things get really bad I still believe a majority of the electorate will snap out of their sleepwalk and vote democrat again.

[Coastie for Truth]

24. European "Between The Wars" (WW1 and WW2) Experience

The problem of Europe "between the Wars"

But the real reasons to worry about the explosion of inequality since the 1970's have nothing to do with envy. The fact is that working families aren't sharing in the economy's growth, and face growing economic insecurity. And there's good reason to believe that a society in which most people can reasonably be considered middle class is a better society - and more likely to be a functioning democracy - than one in which there are great extremes of wealth and poverty.

which (albeit with other factors like the Great Depression and Germany's reparations and hyper-inflation) gave rise to many of the undemocratic "-isms."

[rodeodance]

28. a good example of losing America was at the Sensenbrener Patriot Act/

Civil rights hearing his morning-see this Du thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=3826497&mesg_id=3827264

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

38. Good editorial

Unfortunately most of our leaders, as Howard Dean put it,"Have never done a day's honset work in their lives." As such they are insulated from the middle class.

If the present trends conitinue we'll be nothing but a bananna republic. Countries like India and China which educate their young people will eventually surpass us.

[Serial Mom]

39. How much simpler does it need to be stated

so "they" will listen what the fuck dubya and his pals are doing to this country?