Well, I looked on the LA Times archive for this post but couldn't find it.
Could you give me info as to where you got it. I would like to send it to
another list but I have to be clear about the source.
REH
"Johnny Holiday/John A. Taube" wrote:
> 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.
