Wealthiest Nation in the World? Really?

Right. The United States. "Wealthiest nation in the world."  Sure we are.  Let's look closer.

First of all, there's that pesky issue of this biggest, most killing international pandemic in the last more than 100 years.

Coronavirus: Why America Has More Deaths Than Any Other

And sure, this COVID pandemic is an event, a "one off", if you will, that will go away. Here's statistics that are more complete, more over time and the entire nation and world.

US ranks last in worker benefits among developed countries: data

In comparisons to other developed nations, the U.S. lags in providing fundamental employee benefits.

For starters, we're the only Western, industrialized nation that a) doesn't have universal health care and that b) ties health care to profit and profits.

Real rocket scientists, we are.

Some of the facts from the article:

• Famed for their successful public health care systems, northern and Scandinavian countries like Canada, Denmark, Sweden and Norway ranked the highest in the top 10 countries with the best health care benefits.
• In the U.S., health care is privatized and does not offer universal health care, and Zenefits notes that private hospitals also propagate treatment inequalities between individuals who can afford higher quality treatment and those who cannot.
• Retirement benefits are another weak spot for the U.S.; older reports indicate that the U.S. comes in 16th place among the countries with the best retirement plans.
• This inequality in U.S. retirement planning extends to racial injustice as well. Some 24 percent of white family households are covered with an employee-sponsored retirement plan, compared to 16 percent of households of color.
• Throughout the globe, the U.S. also came in 32nd place for highest life expectancy, averaging 78.5 years.
• The U.S. is also notoriously stingy with its paid time off. Be it for sick leave, parental leave, or general work-life balance, the U.S. shows zero mandated paid holidays whereas similar countries within the European Union average between 20-30 paid holidays for discretionary use. Maternity leave is protected under U.S. labor laws, though, with 12 weeks of unpaid leave being the baseline for companies.
• Other countries, such as Finland, Germany, Japan, and Canada give their employees more time, ranging from 161 weeks to 52 weeks.

Note, too, above, what nations have higher standards of living, folks.

Yes.  Socialist. Democratic Socialist governments and countries. Go figure.

So congratulations, America, Americans. At least, with all this, above, we also have this, below, eh?

U.S. Has Worst Wealth Inequality of Any Rich Nation

Say... Do you suppose, just suppose the two could be related?

Ya' think?

Additional link:

COVID-19 pandemic death rates by country

Quote of the Day -- On War and Peace

Buckminster Fuller's words still ring true.

How many hours at minimum wage to pay just for an apartment in Missouri and Kansas?

Check it out for yourself (click on image for larger view):

FDR on a "living wage"--true then, true now

‎

"In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living."

- Franklin Roosevelt's Statement on the National Industrial Recovery Act June 16, 1933.

http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/odnirast.html

Image: Froosevelt, Wikimedia Commons http://bit.ly/Xbe8bR

America: Can we get back to more making a true living wage?

A Living Wage in America

A true "living wage": It's not too much to ask

‎"We stand for a living wage. Wages are subnormal if they fail to provide a living for those who devote their time and energy to industrial occupations. The monetary equivalent of a living wage varies according to local conditions, but must include enough to secure the elements of a normal standard of living–a standard high enough to make morality possible, to provide for education and recreation, to care for immature members of the family, to maintain the family during periods of sickness, and to permit a reasonable saving for old age." 

- Teddy Roosevelt in an address originally delivered to the national convention of the Progressive party in Chicago on August 6, 1912.

Link: http://johncashon.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/a-little-history-theodore-roosevelt/

What Apple wants is, apparently, slaves

There is a now fairly famous (infamous?) article in The New York Times yesterday on Apple and its iPhones and computer work. It asks why the company doesn't bring and keep those manufacturing jobs here in the States. (see first link at bottom) If nothing else illustrates what Apple and apparently other manufacturers want and think they need, it's this quote: "A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day." Did you get that? "Immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company's dormotories...", gave them "a biscuit and a cup of tea" and got them to work right away. I ask you, is that not just saying you need slave labor? It certainly seems so to me. Between this ability they want and the wages they notoriously pay, it seems clear and obvious they've come to the conclusion that only this kind of slave labor will do. The American worker and so, the middle class, is screwed here. Oh, and according to the article, it's been estimated that having Americans manufacture their products would add approximately $65 cost to each phone. Now that's just too much to ask, isn't it? Link to original article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general Links to articles and information on Apple's working conditions here: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/ff_joelinchina/all/1; http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/12/2701990/foxconn-150-suicide-threat; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn_suicides

Nearly unbelievable legislation coming out of Jeff City right now

It shouldn't surprise me but it does. According to Missouri Legislator Jake Hummell, "bills have already been filed to strip prevailing wage from the Joplin reconstruction work and for Right to Work." As I said, nearly unbelievable. The people of Joplin need this work done, clearly, and the people doing the work need the employment, of course. More than that, all of us need a decent, living wage, a "prevailing wage." Is that so much to ask? Apparently, of the Republican leadership down in Jeff City---and, of course, in Washington, too--it is. It's so disappointing. So disgusting.

Some good news for the new year

A little good news... 8 states are raising their Minimum Wage rates on New Year's Day, including Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Montana, Ohio, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. Their rates will increase by 28 to 37 cents an hour to between $7.64 and $9.04. The National Employment Law Project (NELP) calculates that will bring nearly 1.4 million full-time minimum wage workers an extra $582 to $770 per year. Studies show that even during times of high unemployment, raising the minimum does not lead to a loss of jobs. Actually, the number of jobs has grown after each of the 19 times the federal minimum has increased over the past 73 years. Happy new year, y'all.

The smart, symbiotic relationship that used to be America

"For most of the last century, the basic bargain at the heart of the American economy was that employers paid their workers enough to buy what American employers were selling. That basic bargain created a virtuous cycle of higher living standards, more jobs, and better wages. Back in 1914, Henry Ford announced he was paying workers on his Model T assembly line $5 a day – three times what the typical factory employee earned at the time. The Wall Street Journal termed his action “an economic crime.” But Ford knew it was a cunning business move. The higher wage turned Ford’s auto workers into customers who could afford to buy Model T’s. In two years Ford’s profits more than doubled. That was then. Now, Ford Motor Company is paying its new hires half what it paid new employees a few years ago. The basic bargain is over – not only at Ford but all over the American economy. A basic bargain was once at the heart of the American economy. It recognized that average workers are also consumers and that their paychecks keep the economy going. We can’t have a healthy economy until that bargain is restored." --Robert Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley, writer, columnist. Link: http://robertreich.org/post/13469691304

Maybe we need to come down a few notches?

Because the average guy and gal on the street isn't really thinking about the "big picture" of the American economy, maybe we should.

Let me propose an idea, folks, that some economists are batting around that has to do with you and I, directly, in our country and the world.

There is a theory out there that proposes that maybe you and I make too much money, spend too much and live too high on the hog, so to speak, and that maybe we need to bring it down to the rest of the world's level.

Yeah.

It's called our "standard of living." You've heard of that.

The ideas are that maybe you and I and the whole country live beyond our means and both cost too much (we're paid too highly per hour, etc.) and spend too much.

Think about it.

It's virtually impossible to deny that we--both as a group (read: a country) and as individuals (people individually and per households)--are in way too much debt so I think we can safely take that for granted.

The one, last part of this to consider is that maybe we do, as a nation and individuals, maybe make too much money, especially compared to the rest of the world.

And this is the tricky--and unpleasant--part.

Maybe what we do isn't all that special, and that much above what all the rest of the world does and makes. Sure, we used to make GM cars and all that but we know we've put most of our manufacturing offshore.

And when you put this all in the context of our debt and this huge downturn in the economy, with the Federal government trying to spend our way back to where we used to be and propping up not only huge manufacturing sectors of our economy but also banks and financial and insurance institutions, it gets to looking as though this may be true.

Those economists who are discussing these thoughts and issues are suggesting that maybe our government shouldn't, in fact, be throwing $700 billion in TARP money at us, in an effort to prop up our economy and economic way of life.

Sure, they should keep us out of a true economic depression in the shape of the 1930's but we're already in huge debt. Does it make sense to get and put us in much, much deeper debt, instead of letting this business cycle play out a bit more?

Are we, perhaps, setting ourselves up for a much worse situation by doing this?


But no one wants to think on these things--with the exception of economists.

Granted, if we did or do "ratchet ourselves down," it would be painful. Incredibly painful. We'd have to look at ourselves and our country in a completely new way.

For decades, we've thought of ourselves as rather wealthy, even by our own standards. There was nothing we couldn't have, if we only worked hard enough. Hell, our billboards, radios and televisions told us all this, ad infinitum. Why would we think or believe anything else?

And we really did believe, as Michael Douglas' character--Gordon Gekko--in the movie "Wall Street" said, that "greed is good", whether we want to believe that or not.

So, if this is true, that we have to lower our standards, that is, lower our wages, lower our purchases (and we're already doing that, as a nation, check it out), lower, really everything, it's going to likely be painful.

And the more we fight it and push this possible, even likely, possibility away, the more painful it will be.

Denial makes things worse, especially in these matters.

If this isn't all true, the data sure makes it look this way. Stay tuned.

Links: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094291/
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/

Side note: Tip of the hat to Michael on this. We've been discussing this for a couple years. I've been meaning to write on it for some time. Thanks.