NCAA sports is akin to slavery

Read "Let’s Start Paying College Athletes" by Joe Nocera on the OpEd page of today's The New York Times.

It clearly shows how today's "enterprise" management is focused on not giving labor—in this case the athletes—a fair share of the wealth they produce.

In fact it is my hypothesis—actually, I believe it is a fact—that our style of "free" market capitalism is managed/controlled to redirect as much as possible of the fair share of the wealth that labor produces to the managers/controllers of the enterprises that market/sell the goods and services in the marketplace.

It is doubly ironic when workers design and build the robots that replace workers.

And with a greater share of the wealth generated by the marketplace, and all the power and perks that brings, comes a greater share of the control of the market ... which feeds back into even greater control over the worker's access to the wealth-producing job he or she needs to earn a living. And the worker spirals down into as near a form of slavery as the law allows ... or, to put it another way, rents him or herself out as a mule.

Nocera's article clearly shows all this.

Workers must have jobs in a market economy

It's simple, very simple. In order to live in a market economy, a worker must have a job that pays a living wage.

We are barred—generally—from being hunter-gatherers to provide for ourselves and our families by the economics of today's global marketplace. However, there is more than enough productive work to do, and accumulated wealth to prime the pump of productive work—jump start—to give everyone willing and able to work a wealth-producing job that pays a living wage. And if that is not done in a market economy where the medium of exchange is money then the worker becomes a new type of slave in order to have a job. We workers have become mules, renting ourselves out for enough to buy hay.

Let me repeat it in another way, if we need money to get the things we need to live, then we need a job to do the wealth-producing work to earn the money to get the things we need to live. And it is up to the market "controllers", the "keepers of the keys to the marketplace" to provide access to wealth-producing work through a job.

Please note: There is a real difference between "work" and "wealth-producing work". Not all work is wealth-producing work ... unless you factor in the benefit of doing work itself for the worker.

Two basic marketplace principles

     There are two basic marketplace principles that we the workers—the folks who work for a living using our minds and bodies producing goods and services for the marketplace—should be able to support. Our support for these principles should come even while we are divided by the acrimonious debate among ourselves in response to the "divide and conquer" strategy of those who control the wealth we produce. Needles to say, I call them "the controllers."
     These two principles apply to our market economy, and it is my strong belief that a market economy where goods and services—the "real" wealth of a nation—can be freely produced and exchanged, bought and sold via the medium of money—is the best by far for the common good.

Note: If you have trouble with any of this so far and you work for a living—I mean doing work that produces real value/wealth, not work that controls the value/wealth produced—then you have been thoroughly brainwashed—in my humble opinion—by the controllers—aka from history as the "plantation owners"—on the one hand or the anti-marketplace activists on the other. And, yes, these labels may need further explanation.

     The first principle is that in a market economy where we have to exchange goods and services via the medium of money—which I believe maximizes efficiency in the exchange—in order to live, every able-bodied person willing to work must have a job that pays at least a living wage. A "job" is doing work for an enterprise—that could be oneself—that produces goods or services that have real value—create wealth—in the market economy in which the enterprise operates. For these purposes government is an enterprise.
     The second principle is that in a market economy all costs of producing the goods and services must be matched to and taken from the income received in the exchange of these goods and services. Simply put, I can't dump the waste from my farm, factory, mine, store or other enterprise on you and then expect you to pay for the harm it causes to you. To do otherwise is to capitalize income and socialize cost.
     I would suggest that if we the workers would concentrate our efforts on maximizing the effectiveness on these two market economy principles we would go a long way toward creating equitable economic justice and maximizing the common good. Assuming that by "common good" we mean "of benefit all of us." 

Addendum October 13, 2011. Edited December 31, 2011: And yes, FDR presented an "Economic Bill of Rights" to the U.S. Congress in 1944. It included:

 The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

 The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

 However, it had four more rights, enough to get us arguing among ourselves under the "divide and conquer" strategy of the controllers.

The right of every family to a decent home;


The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

In these last four rights, the controllers picked their strongest points in rebuttal of FDR's Economic Bill of Rights and fought it to a standstill. I believe the two principles I have set forth—the first principle being the focus of the first four of FDR's Economic Bill of Rights and are nothing new and my second principle based on elementary fairness—are overwhelming supported by we the people and if adopted into the legal fabric of our nation—we are a nation of laws—then we will have laid the cornerstone of equitable economic justice. And without them, we will continue to to suffer the deleterious vicissitudes of the monopoly side of capitalism.

Ahhhh ... is Obama getting his groove back?

Y'know ... maybe Obama is learning. Maybe it's beginning to dawn on him that Timothy Geithner was more interested in his own financial services career than in Obama's political one ... and making big banks whole while the people flounder.

But Obama still has a steep climb out of the hole he dug himself following Tim's guidance.

Medical costs? Obama gave up the public option and now has to cut medicare and medicaid to keep us from going over the edge ... or so the political conventional wisdom tells us. And he had the hammer of the single-payer system to beat the Republicans over the head with if they didn't want the public option. (I couldn't believe it when he folded so early in the struggle.)

Taxes? Obama gave up on letting the Bush Tax cuts die last December (2010) and now has to use political capital--if he has any left--to call for the Buffet Rule. (I wasn't as surprised by his not letting the Bush Tax cuts die after the ludicrous surrender of the public option in healthcare.)

However ...

Tom Friedman's column today in The New York Times,Are We Going to Roll Up Our Sleeves or Limp On?, said a lot:

"Mr. Obama gave us the credible $447 billion jobs program, but his deficit reduction plan announced on Monday to pay for it and trim long-term spending does not rise to the scale we need."

Like I said, maybe Obama is learning how to get his groove back, but he still has a long way to go before he's there ... and it still doesn't look like he will be there by next year's election ... which is a damn shame ... really ... when you think of what the Republicans are bringing to the table. Ah, what might have been

Ah well, he gives good speeches ... so he can always earn a living on the dinner circuit.

Obama's "focus on jobs" is a joke!

The sad thing about Obama is that he makes me laugh.

Watch Obama pivot to jobs again ... and again ... and again ...

Tim Geithner: Last Man Standing

With the departure of Austan Goolsbee, chairman of Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, Tim Geithner is left as "the last man standing."

Geithner with his Wall Street viewpoint, should never have been selected as an adviser to the president in the first place. And he should have accompanied Larry Summers out the door. By that time in late 2010, it had become obvious that the Geithner-Summers economic policies had slowed the recovery before it had a viable head of steam.

IMHO

Speaking of democracy, let us remember ...

"Aristotle once said that 'democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.' We as a country are moving further and further away from that ideal."

-Charles M. Blow, "The Bin Laden Bounce"

The New York Times, OpEd
Saturday, May 7, 2011

What is work?

What is work?

Work is mental and physical effort that produces something of value ... to myself or to others.

While work is not the only way something of value is produced ... apples grow on trees, fish spawn in the sea ... work is the only thing that produces what we call wealth. Apples must be picked, fish must be caught. Improvements in picking and catching must be invented. This mental and physical effort is what produces real wealth.

False wealth resides in the relative exchange value of the components of real wealth, a value represented by the "paper" instruments ... money ... of finance. If there were no items of real wealth then there would certainly be no relative exchange value between those items, no false wealth, and money would be worthless.

So if we keep printing money without also increasing our production of items of real wealth ... well, you can see the outcome.

And if work is what produces real wealth ... and we have large numbers of unemployed, unproductive workers ... well, you can see the outcome even more clearly now.

In fact, there is only one way to produce the real wealth that gives money its value, and that is to put people back to work producing items of value.

And when there aren't any more apples to pick or fish to catch, then you put people to work building the infrastructure that reduces the time and effort it takes to get the apples and fish to market ... the railroads, highways, high-speed communication ... because we know that the speed of transactions—a product of work—is a component of real wealth.

Note: Thoughts after reading Paul Krugman's column, "Fears and Failure," in today's New York Times.

There is no such thing as a "free market" ... unless ...

The slogan "free market" must be a tribal symbol for those of a certain persuasion to identify each other in the crowded corridors of humanity, like sports team colors.

A free market certainly has no basis in reality, at least not without considering the surreal real because the mind can think of it and attach a name to it.

Without a regulated market the powerful get away with not paying for the costs of making a profit. I was reminded of this simple fact once again with the New York Times editorial, "Washing Away the Fields of Iowa," published in today's paper.

The powerful dump these costs on the rest of us, to be paid out of our future earnings from other efforts ... by us, our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, ...

It's the cancer and heart disease from cigarettes, the loss of fishery habitat from the strip mining of mountain tops ...

Are you old enough to remember "Unsafe at Any Speed" and the changes that have been forced upon the automobile industry since? We would still be paying the costs of their profiting from dangerous vehicles if it weren't for regulation.

On the other hand, if you accept the surreal notion that a free market allows others to pay the costs of your profits ... then I will grant you that free markets do exist.

The best thing we can do for humanity ...

As I read Nicholas Kistof's column, "Beyond Flowers for Mom" in today's New York Times, I had what is now a frequently recurring thought: the best thing we can do for humanity is empower women.

Kristof tells about "an extraordinary Somali woman, Edna Adan" who runs a maternity hospital in Somaliland, "a breakaway republic carved from Somalia but recognized by no outside country."

You can connect with Edna at a tax-deductible charity founded by Americans, the Friends of Edna Maternity Hospital (www.EdnaHospital.org).

We don't need women who emulate men to lead our tribes and assign rules and rewards. We need women who understand that nurturing the powerless newborn through the lengthy journey to adulthood is the root of our humanity. I would venture to add that it is the compassion of this venture and its outcomes that imbues our spirit with love and hope and contributes most to our success as a species, not the selfish savage lust of Ayan Rand's alpha male.

As a member of the working class ...

Yes, I am a member of the working class. I earn my living solely through compensation for my labor—my physical and mental efforts. My economic objective in life is not to own things,but to do things. "Owning" supports my "doing," not "doing" supports my "owning."

What is more, I have always been a member of the working class. And my parents before me were working class. That's as far as I take it because my father was an immigrant, as were my mother's parents.

And from that perspective I ask, very simply: What is wrong with American Unions? They don't seem to get the needs of labor. They get the needs of their members ... and in so doing alienate all other workers ... then they wonder why overall membership in unions keeps dropping.

The primary need of workers is to be able to work and earn a living. It's clear then that the primary objective of the labor movement must be to insure that each and every individual able and willing to work can work at a job that earns a living wage ... and not a third world living, but an United States of America living. Period.

Think plantation, or company store ...

Note: This is a draft containing some ideas that I am developing.

We have a small group of elite rich folks siphoning off our nation's wealth that is produced by labor ... the mental and physical effort of workers, those who perform the labor.

The elite rich folks no longer acquire the wealth labor produces by owning the workers as slaves, which gave them unassailable rights to that wealth. They now acquire the wealth through contracts bearing interest also giving them unassailable rights to that wealth when there is no fraud. For example, people are being driven from their homes—today in droves—because they cannot pay the mortgage. The banks are the new company store where you can purchase anything you want on credit, in a pyramid raising to the pinnacle of "too big to fail."

The real problem though is the failure of these elite folks to pay the true cost of producing the wealth let alone invest in the nation's future. Their greed is so palpable that is hard to understand how their use of usury in "doing business" could have gained such a foothold in a populace voicing adherence to an Abrahamic religious faith when all three Abrahamic religions condemn usury.

They do not pay for the use of infrastructure that is provided to them by the "common good." We see all around the crumbling of our infrastructure—highways, powerlines, waterways, and so forth; due to lack of maintenance, let alone improved to meet future needs.

They do not pay for the natural resources they consume out of the common bounty of the earth, nor do they clean up after themselves unless forced to do so like any spoiled child, brought kicking and screaming to the task by the courts.

How to create jobs ...

In a country as rich as the United States of America—which already has the goal of full employment—creating jobs is a no-brainer. It's just that we don't have the political will to do it. We simply need to establish the policy that anyone old enough, willing, and physically and mentally able to work can have a job. Turn the employment offices into real employment offices, not unemployment offices.

Our nation has the resources and the needs to but everyone who qualifies—age, desire, ability—to work at a minimum living wage—providing basic food, clothing, shelter, education, and medical care for a family of four with two adults and two minor children.

First, we are rich enough as a nation from the wealth produced by our mental and physical labor to pay for real full employment. Second, we have more than enough work to do as an investment in our future to provide jobs for everyone meeting the age, desire, and ability qualifications. It would be just like a business investing to reap the future rewards of that investment.

Think of the social problems real full employment solves relative to welfare and prisons alone. In fact the cost benefit analysis should start with the costs of welfare, prison, and unemployment for those who would otherwise qualify for employment under a real full employment policy.

We don't have a labor party

We have a a political party representing enterprise ownership, the Republicans, but we don't have a political party representing the interests of we the people who do the work—physical and mental—that produces wealth. Just to remind you, ALL wealth is created by human labor, again both mental & physical. The Democrats are hard at work appeasing the Republicans.

Unions? Give me a break! When they abandoned the fight for real full employment wherein anyone willing and able to work could get a job that pays a living wage, union stopped working for "labor". They began working for their own self-interest, or—to put it bluntly—for the self-interest of union executives.

Labor vs. enterprise ownership is not class warfare. It is the struggle for the equitable and fair distribution of the profits, or wealth, that labor creates.

The owners actively pursue some form of slavery or indentured servitude in order to reap an unfair share of profits. The history of Western Civilization with the emergence of capitalism out of feudalism clearly show us this.

Notes to my son - Introduction

I had a conversation with my older son the other evening during which I realized I had never fully explained to him what I believe and why. As I argued with him, it became clear that I had not provided him with a foundation for my point of view. These notes will be my attempt to correct that.

The ideas or concepts in these notes are not the stuff of genius except what is their genius, that they are readily gleaned from ordinary observation ... if that observation is devoid of dogma attempting to shape or explain the observation.

First, awareness comes out of existence. The body comes first and then the mind ... a mind that is undeniably human ... even to the point of creating our gods ... as explained and documented by Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth, among other works.

In my case, I realized that the dogma taught me as a child was wrong as I learned that sexuality was not a cesspool of sin but a fountain of pleasure and joy ... when experienced without coercion.

So what does this mean, awareness comes out of existence? It means we can test our awareness—what we think—by concrete means, by evidence, by the results of what we do ... remembering—as in my case— that dogma when believed will shape the outcomes of our efforts—mental and physical—by its application to those efforts.

But then the question quickly comes: What evidence can we trust to be free of dogma? Is personal faith sufficient especially when corroborated by others of like faith?

Hbr 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. - King James Bible

That opens the dialogue at its core. What is believable to me? And why to I believe it? Is there anything that I believe that isn't influenced by the "authorities"&mdashthe wise ones&mdashof my world?

And it opens the discussion of chance and necessity, the randomness of the cosmos coupled to the infinite recurrence of events or actions that will always occur with a given set of conditions, conditions—interestingly enough—that may in themselves occur randomly.

Next: Chance & Necessity

Is Obama for real?

Obama's not kidding, or is he? I mean ... he's still complaining that we progressives don't understand all the good he has done ... like championing universal health care that resulted in a gigantic windfall for insurance companies, companies whose high administrative costs will make affordable health care unattainable.

I would prefer single payer (like Medicare for all), but I can settle for the public option (Medicare for those who choose it). That is, I can settle for a Medicare-style health care plan IF it is not emasculated through unreasonable reductions in reimbursements to the health care providers who maintain life support for senior citizens like myself with chronic heart and kidney diseases.

Obama doesn't get it. Without at least a public option, our health care system is doomed because of that heavy layer of cream—those administrative costs—skimmed off the top by the insurance companies. AND because he failed to deliver a workable health care plan from the left, the right will be able to say that we on the left can't get it done. Obama burst the political energy from the left with a flawed plan.

Now Obama is up to it again. Championing a tax plan that may look good on the surface to some—and especially the extension of unemployment benefits to those facing the end of their unemployment payments ... not the 99ers, though—those who have already exhausted their extensions. But the loss of revenue because of the extension of tax cuts to rich, and, yes, the reduction in payroll taxes adding to the insolvency of Social Security and Medicare both by adding to the deficit ... is a package that has more minuses than pluses. It's the pleasure of having one's porridge upfront and losing our birthright in the long run.

If we and our leaders cannot stiffen our backbones now to actually rebuild our nation with renewable energy resources, high-speed communications, fixing of the "concrete" infrastructure in our cities and towns, and laying high-speed rail between these same cities and towns ... putting people to work rebuilding our nation when it is the only thing that will rebuild the middle class and provide jobs for all who want them ... well, if we can't do that now under a progressive program, we will be doing it next under a fascist program ... in which we will lose many, if not most, of the freedoms we hold so dear.

Because the right is going to throw our lost chance to make it happen in the left's face ... and when all the money Obama and Bernake have been printing comes back to haunt us with inflation (think Germany after WWI and Argentina more recently) ... because things of real value will be crumbling and falling further and further out of date ... including the skills of our workforce ... and things here will become worth less and less ... the right will tell the people that they, the right, can and will create the new millennium, if given the opportunity. And look, the left failed. And where has the world heard that before?

The sad truth is that Obama claimed and won the mantel of the left, and he did fail. But it is Obama's policies that are failing, not the left's. The left wanted a public option in our health care. The left wanted the stimulus to go to the rebuilding of our nation. Obama did things that sounded like they should placate the left, but did not go for the substance of what we, the left, proposed ... loudly and clearly.

Let's face it, folks. We are still rich enough as a nation to pay for a safety net out of the wealth we create ... and if we renew our nation by rebuilding it, we will be able to do continue the safety net as well as put the people back to work.

And you know what? I believe that people working under a transparent and honest progressive government is what the right fears most. It is only when the left is corrupted and loses its way that the right has a chance.

Obama gives up his hole card ... again

Obama shows a pattern, doesn't he? The failure to fight for the public option in health care ... especially onerous when we consider that he had the single payer option to use as leverage ... and he gave it all up for a health care program that is the insurance companies dream.

And now it's the failure to fight for an end to the Bush tax cuts for the rich when he has the leverage of not ending the tax cuts for the middle class.

Did someone say Obama played poker? Couldn't have, at least not very well. He keeps giving up his hole card before the betting even starts.

On the other hand, thank you, Madam Speaker! Thank you for showing some backbone in the face of President Obama's tossing in the towel.

Hallelujah! Maybe we won't be saddled with the tax cuts for the rich after all ... especially onerous after being saddled with bailing their butts out.

"We" as in "we the workers" in this country.

Diverted from progressive results to the progressive rhetoric of a black man

Something is very wrong in the leadership of the Obama Administration ... I think it goes beyond incompetence to fraud.

There was a discussion on MSNBC's program, The Last Word, last week about Obama's competence, and who it's core constituency is: those who pay to play. Check it out:

Obama's Business http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/40363218#40363218

At this juncture it has been clearly demonstrated that Obama's political purpose for the money interests behind him is to sap the political strength of progressive issues by diverting our focus and energy from progressive results to the progressive rhetoric of a black man.

It's having a job, stupid.

Unemployment is not having a job. Going 99 weeks on unemployment and still not getting a job is definitely not the same as having a job. And offering more unemployment is not the answer to not having a job.

What so hard to figure out? Individual dignity in our cultural ethics is tied to earning what we and our families need.

The common denominator for everyone living in a family that does not own enough assets whose earnings provide the economic wherewithal for a satisfying life, needs a job to earn that economic wherewithal, and wants a job that offers the opportunity to earn it.

For those who need a job to earn a living for their family, no matter our religious beliefs, our sexual orientation, or our political persuasion, we can unite on the issue of needing work for everyone who can work and who needs it.

And when are as wealthy a nation as we are, wealth that has been produced by the labor of our minds and bodies, there is no reason why everyone who needs a job shouldn't have one. We have both the resources and the need to provide these jobs.

What we don't have is a political party that articulates our common denominator as wage earners needing a job as a fundamental requirement outside any other divisive issue.

When we let the political parties divide us, the wage earners, over other issues, we let the those who own the assets of production drive the cost of labor down to below that of providing a living wage—which they now can do by producing goods AND services offshore—and further divide us over the fear of unemployment and poverty.

Note: First posted on August 20, 2010 at
http://hglindquist.blogspot.com/2010/08/its-having-job-stupid.html

What can I say? Obama is way out of his depth ...

Great leaders inspire the citizens to follow them, first with their words then with their actions. It seems Obama never got the hang of that second part.

And now Obama doesn't even speak to our concerns ... no, "concerns" is too weak of a word. He doesn't address our anxiety or our fear or our pain. You can't tell millions who are out of work and unable to support their families that Obama's economic plan is working ... not when real long-term unemployment is the highest its been since the depression and not moving ... and he and his administration moved heaven and earth to save the wealthy criminals who got us into this mess. (Is there any doubt after learning how the subprime mortgages were handled that these brilliant thieves committed fraud?)

And what about the 23% reduction in Medicare reimbursement that will decimate healthcare for many Seniors, and is now—literally—being kicked down the road month to month? (See http://www.emaxhealth.com/1506/senate-agrees-delay-medicare-reimbursement-cuts )

And when Obama doesn't address these issues except obliquely in the general sense of we should trust him to know best ... and look how much he has already done ... while we are experiencing personal catastrophe ... well?

And their is little that is more catastrophic to the average family bread-winner than long term unemployment with no real hope of getting another job that pays the bills ... or loss of specialized medical care to a Senior Citizen like myself suffering from end-stage renal disease aka kidney failure, afib (heart disease), and prostate cancer. That's pretty darn "local" as in Tip O'Neill's "All politics is local." (See http://maplewood.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/the-old-man-medicare-matters/ )

Obama is way out of his depth and doesn't get it ... in part because he has isolated himself from the people. He seems to think we should accept his view of the way we are when he isn't looking at it from our position. And he has not convinced us that his view is our reality, because if it were, he would be doing more to change that reality, wouldn't he? ... or is he so impervious to our pain and fear that he accepts it as necessary and unavoidable?

Obama shows no sign of feeling the pain of the unemployed family bread-winner or the fear of the Senior Citizen tethered to specialized medical care that is keeping us alive.

And he shows no sign of understanding the political fallout of blaming the troops for not understanding or supporting the battle plan ... or how that reflects on his leadership. When leaders start blaming the citizens for having lost confidence in their leadership, it is a sure sign that we need new leaders.