The Los Angeles Times, June 6, 2000
BULLS RUN RIOT OVER THE UNEMPLOYED
The economy: We need the jobless to make our profits off the stock
market. Let's
throw them a few lousy crumbs.
ROBERT SCHEER, Times contributing editor.
What great news last week-116,000 people, mostly black, Latino and poor,
lost their jobs. The stock market boomed in appreciation, and a few new
NASDAQ billionaires and many more millionaires were anointed.
The NASDAQ had its best week ever because, with unemployment edging up,
the Federal Reserve might not feel compelled to once again increase
interest rates to slow down an "overheated" economy. A tight labor
market-meaning that workers' wages, which have barely risen despite
years of unprecedented prosperity, might slightly increase-is feared as
inflationary.
Poverty and prosperity evidently go hand in hand, according to Fed
Chairman Alan Greenspan, the non-elected but most powerful figure in the
American economy. Although unemployment plays havoc with the family life
of those struggling to pay the rent, it's bullish good news for those
making a killing off the stock market.
But here's a question for you as you're toting up your profits on your
401k: If the health of the economy requires a permanent pool of the
underpaid and unemployed, should the well-off not return the favor by
letting a few more crumbs fall off the table?
Why not show the working poor how much we value their role in keeping
the economy healthy by throwing them a few fringe benefits?
Sounds wildly socialistic I know, although it does seem to be happening
in a few enlightened places, such as San Jose, Calif., and the state of
Minnesota. Perhaps for some people, the gap between those who have made
out like bandits in the run-up of the stock market and those who haven't
made it past working-stiff status has become just too morally
disconcerting. Also, given that many of the new millionaires are
rewarded handsomely for failing to produce a profit, or even a product,
can charity for the truly destitute be so far out of line?
Not in the city of San Jose, in the heart of the Silicon Valley, where
the local government is considering providing health insurance for all
children not covered by private plans. Why not insure all working adults
as well? The social cost of not providing adequate health care to those
who handle our food or care for our children is obvious. Better to
detect and treat a communicable disease among the working poor before
they spread it to those wealthier people whose salads they toss. Even a
self-made Internet entrepreneur ought to appreciate the win-win beauty
of that proposal.
In larger urban areas in New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles, the
failure of private employers to provide health care has reached epidemic
proportions. Fully 2.8 million people in Los Angeles County-one out of
three workers and 40% of public school children-lack such coverage.
County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky is merely being practical when he
states: "It's a national shame that the richest country in the world has
yet to come to the conclusion that health care is a basic human right."
Yaroslavsky warns that a downturn in the economy, which Greenspan so
desperately wants, will wipe out whatever gains have been made in
getting people off welfare and into the work force. But here, too, we
have an opportunity to reward the working poor for accepting low,
noninflationary wages.
Follow the example of Minnesota, the one state that has produced
measurable evidence that "welfare reform" might actually reduce poverty.
A good thing, since 70% of those on welfare are children, and
unfortunately in most states the standard of success for welfare reform
is getting those kids and their mothers off the rolls without any
serious concern for the families' well-being.
Minnesota has advanced the oft-forgotten but originally stated goal of
welfare reform-to leave the poor less poor-but it only accomplished this
worthy goal by sharing a wee bit of the wealth. The state now spends
more money on its poor by supplementing the wages of their low-income
jobs than it did when those
were simply on welfare. The results has been good: Domestic abuse is
down, self-esteem is up, families stay together and children perform
better in school.
Nor should the social Darwinians be concerned that the poor are being
corrupted by too much state-supported largess. The average income earned
by the working poor in the Minnesota program is $8,000 a year, which,
after the state supplement, rises to $10,800 annually. That would hardly
make a dent in the annual wine bill for most of those new stock market
millionaires. Or in the income of the elite media folk who cover the
rise and fall of the stock market with the frenzied preoccupation of
those whose fattened stock portfolios are basic to their sense of
well-being.
For the winners, the mantra is "keep those stock prices up," and if the
working poor have to be sacrificed, it's best not to notice.
COMMENTS
This is an interesting article, but while it has numerous important and
intriguing points, everything in it has been covered elsewhere. However,
nowhere is there an article that says it so concisely.
Even the title is worth some thought �Bulls Run Riot Over The
Unemployed.� It�s worth some thought because it is so accurate. However,
in a sense, it could be misleading. One might draw the conclusion that
the �bulls� are extremely bad people. They are not. We live in a
socioeconomic structure, a �Price System,� and this system is a dog eat
dog system: Get as much as you can and get it as soon as you can. These
�bulls� are a good example for the rest of us to follow. And as Truman
said �If you cannot stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.� In other
words, don�t be a cry-baby.
Do you remember the slogan �We�re going to change welfare as we know
it.� Good enough. It�s quite obvious that the slogan didn�t mean We�re
going to rearrange welfare so that people who live in poverty will be in
a high income bracket. Giving them �a few more crumbs� (or even a few
less) really is what �We�re going to change welfare as we know it� has
accomplished.
So what�s the �beef?� Really nothing. Or maybe we should say everything.
The fact of the matter is that our social problems are being �plastered
over;� they are not being solved.
Can they be solved? No, not as long as we continue trying to solve them
and keep intact our socioeconomic structure, our �Price System.� Case
closed.
Solution will only come when we dump our Price System. We have carried
over this system from the past primitive agrarian age. In modern times,
our scientific-technological age, it�s bring us to a point of disaster.
So that we can avoid disaster, we need a system that is laid out to be
compatible with our age. With this in mind, Technocracy proposes its
Technological Social Design. By no means is it �perfect.� However, in
that humans did the designing, it�s remarkable how close it comes to
being perfect. Your time will be well spent checking it out. Ample
literature is available.
