Zombie-Eyed Granny Starvers; Greedy-Handed Kiddie Slavers

Conservatives are reaching new depths in their insistence upon outright cruelty to children and old people. Some version of the meme has always been part of the conservatives' creed, but it's getting worse.

Everyone remembers Charles Pierce's famous labeling of Paul Ryan as a "zombie-eyed granny starver" in August 2012 in the run-up to the presidential election for Ryan's proposals regarding Social Security and Medicare in his "budget." Pierces' reaction:

Paul Ryan is an authentically dangerous zealot. He does not want to reform entitlements. He wants to eliminate them. He wants to eliminate them because he doesn't believe they are a legitimate function of government. He is a smiling, aw-shucks murderer of opportunity, a creator of dystopias in which he never will have to live.

Conservatives' fondest dream

And most people remember Newt Gingrich's November 2011 proposal that schools fire their janitors and hand brooms to kids enrolled in the free lunch program, a recommendation subsequently echoed by Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) as recently as December 2013.

For reasons beyond my comprehension, a commitment to absolutely no redistribution of wealth is important to many conservatives. I am thinking of an old friend of mine who used to say, "TANSTAAFL," an acronym from possibly the 1930s made famous by s/f author Robert Heinlein in 1966. You could almost see my friend raise his index finger in the classic gesture of quoting a wise proverb... at least I think it was his index finger... as if the acronym were holy writ.

In any case, "no redistribution" is absurd: the very people who advocate it loudest are the same people who would be howling in outrage if it were enforced upon their wealth. Look, folks: the whole friggin' world is a free lunch. Life is a free lunch: you didn't earn it, it just happened to you. For most wealthy people, wealth is a free lunch: that's the consequence of living in a society that legally protects most inheritance from parents to children.

So don't give me that "TANSTAAFL" nonsense! And stop starving grannies and slave‑driving children, right this minute!

Robert Reich: The Great (Upward) Redistribution

To make Reich's long story short:

...

... And 2013 was a banner year for profits.

Robert Reich

Where did those profits come from? Here’s where redistribution comes in. American corporations didn’t make most of their money from increased sales (although their foreign sales did increase). They made their big bucks mostly by reducing their costs — especially their biggest single cost: wages.

They push wages down because most workers no longer have any bargaining power ...

... In the 1950s, over a third of private-sector workers were members of labor unions. Now, fewer than 7 percent are unionized.

All this helps explain why corporate profits have been increasing throughout this recovery (they grew over 18 percent in 2013 alone) while wages have been dropping. Corporate earnings now represent the largest share of the gross domestic product — and wages the smallest share of GDP — than at any time since records have been kept.

Hence, the Great Redistribution.

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Merely the workings of the "free market"? First, show me a free market; then maybe you can make that argument. Reich points out the ways in which government has put its thumb on the scales, to the benefit of corporations (hence investors, hence mostly wealthy people) and the detriment of their employees. This may be a zero-sum game, but it is far from a fair game. And it's the worst it's ever been in recorded American history. Just how far can the 1% push matters before the 99% collapses? and what happens then?

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Off topic, tonight, Houston is forecast to experience a freeze down to 22°F. This morning, after last night's (apparent) 26°F freeze, the temperature has not exceeded freezing despite a partly sunny morning. The only thing saving us from utter misery is the lack of precipitation. Stella drove to work this morning... standing at bus stops in this weather is to be avoided. I can only hope the lack of rain continues until she gets home.

When A Bargain Is Not A Bargain

Robert Reich

Robert Reich explains the flow of the process by which the "great deals" Americans find on holiday purchases ultimately come at the expense of American workers. Americans either lose their jobs to lower-wage workers in other countries (the Pacific Rim is noteworthy in this respect) or to new technologies (e.g., robots in manufacturing processes), or else see their own wages driven down dramatically by the same factors that give them such "great deals."

Reich correctly observes that there are no easy answers to this very real problem, but I am going to look sideways to another class of possible solutions: more equitable distribution of the wealth gained by such savings. Since Saint Ronald Reagan's days in office, those gains have gone almost exclusively to the top 1%, 0.1%, 0.01%, even 0.001% of Americans. While there are intrinsic reasons... technology and offshoring... for the savings and wealth themselves, there is no intrinsic reason for its distribution exclusively to the wealthiest Americans. If we of the 99.999% ever regained control of our government by one means or another (*cough* *cough*), a more equitable distribution of wealth could be legislated.

There is a fundamental human right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," a right we declared along with our nation's independence, the birthright of every American regardless of their economic status. There is no comparable right to unbounded personal or corporate wealth. As the late lamented Molly Ivins used to say, God is in the details. We can address those details!