Chart: Comparative percentage of children in poverty, USA vs. 34 countries

 

UNITED STATES OF AUSTERITY 

Best collection of charts yet showing the self-destruct phase of capitalism

Best collection of charts yet showing the self-destruct phase of capitalism
http://www.businessinsider.com/dear-america-you-should-be-mad-as-hell-about-this-charts-2012-6?op=1

for the visual thinkers out there, or people who prefer the charts-and-graphs mode of getting their data, this is it. 

How do you maintain a "consumer economy" when you're hard at work destroying the consuming classes on which your economy depends?

This is the question our 1% needs to answer.

A collection of readings on why "job creation" isn't working: the self-destruction phase of capitalism

Here’s a brief intro to a suite of articles that every candidate running in Wisconsin elections, whether recalls, or the fall elections, should take the time to read.

I deliberately avoided any Marxist, Leninist, Stalinist, or anarchist writings on the topic. After reading, a person should have a better grasp on why the concept of “job creation” and ‘job creators” is really meaningless Newspeak.  Also the reader may see why capitalism seems to be undercutting its own consumer base--a kind of self-destructive sequence.

Jan 13, 2013--
Recent 60 Minutes segment "Are Robots Hurting Job Growth?" link
(short answer:  yes, yes they are).
Interview with Race Against the Machine authors Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew ­McAfee.

Breaking News, 12/12/2012, from Andrew McAfee's blog:


The Great Decoupling of the U.S. Economy

So how have we actually been doing in the US? Well, as the graphs below show we’ve been experiencing a long, slow decoupling between the first two of these — output and productivity — and the last two — jobs and wages. For more than three decades after the end of World War II all four of these measures went up together:

apparently, even Krugman has taken notice, quoted as commenting on the above blog material:

Krugman writes that “I think it’s fair to say that the shift of income from labor to capital has not yet made it into our national discourse… but it’s time to get started, before the robots and the robber barons turn our society into something unrecognizable.”

Just in, Oct. 27 2012
A part-time life as hours shrink and shift for American workers

Recently, in a Detroit newspaper:
Leonard Pitts, Jr. Driving toward human obsolescence (Detroit Free Press)

So Much for the Benefits of College in America's "New Normal"
Piece by "Tyler Durden" on Zero Hedge --

Shows the long slow decline in labor force participation for both high-school graduated, and college-graduated, young people, over a 20 year period including the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations.  And the staggering rise in student loan debt. 

Temp Worker Nation -- If You Do Get Hired, It Might Not Be for Long
"Instability is going to be with us,” says Sara Horowitz, head of the New York-based Freelancers Union. “The truth is that we’re in a period of decline for workers.”

"The post-employee economy: Why sky-high profits are here to stay." (Archived out of The Atlantic).
http://workerspartypac.blogspot.com/2012/07/post-employee-economy-why-sky-high.html

"Number of long-term unemployed older workers has quintupled. The help (for these workers-ed.) hasn't."
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/0423/Number-of-long-term-unemployed-older-workers-quintupled.-The-help-hasn-t

"From  unemployed to unemployable" - National Public Radio piece. Here's the gist:  "More than 6 million Americans are now among the long-term unemployed, up from about 1 million before the recession. The long-term unemployment rate is far higher than it's been at any time since before War II."
http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/npr/140122883/from-unemployed-to-unemployable

“The increasingly irrelevant unemployment rate”
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/06/01/unemployment-rate-may/?section=money_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fmoney_topstories+%28Top+Stories%29

“Race Against the Machine” by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew ­McAfee, two economists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is reviewed in Financial Times–and archived on our blog
http://workerspartypac.blogspot.com/2012/01/race-against-machine-review.html

“Tectonic Shifts in Employment” – also covers “Race Against the Machine” and other topics
http://workerspartypac.blogspot.com/2012/01/tectonic-shifts-in-employment-precariat.html

“Robotic Nation” by Marshall Brain, explores some of the sociology that comes with a rapidly displaced working class. In particular, pay attention to his comments about what will become of the people made homeless in this onslaught–
http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm

“The Precariat: the New Dangerous Class” – A really smart effort at new class analysis for the early 21st century. 

The Future of Mining:  Less Workers, More Robots
–Why the Gogebic Taconite mine proposal is nothing but a cruel hoax.