It's not
about being liberal or conservative anymore y'all. That is a hype offered by the fascist whores who want to confuse the people with lies while they turn this country into an aristocratic police state. Some people will say anything to attain power and money. There is no such thing as the Liberal Media, but the Corporate media is very real.
The Russia-gate scandal will be the biggest scandal in the history of the USA
Saturday, 29 April 2017 at 18h 56m 42s
Why Productivity has been stripped from wage gains to labor
Notice that the first dip of the red line (wages) happened between 1980 and 1990, the decade that
was the myth of the Reagan administration. It was the decade that the mega rich corporations and
wealthy took over and gutted the social order that was sustaining the wage gains from productivity.
Notice the next dip occurred after 2010. Historians are going to have a mixed view of the Obama
administration I think because behind the scenes the corporations and wealthy took more wealth and
privileges, completely changing the political landscape everywhere after the Citizens United v.
Federal Election Commission 2010 United States Supreme Court decision [from wikipedia]|[from the scotusblog]. The decision cemented the legal definition of spending
money as a form of free speech protected under the first amendment. Hence, the more money, the more
free speech, AND the government may not keep corporations (or unions) from spending money to
support or denounce individual candidates in elections. Which is why the corporate powers are
going after and gutting the various unions. They don't want any competition.
Fucking wonderful. Oh joy.
Anyway Al Walker does a better job at explaining the disconnection between productivity and wages.
Here is a quote from his latest
blogpiece at emptywheel.
Once capital achieves a new baseline of return, it doesn’t drop back without a bitter fight,
sometimes just political, but always with the threat or reality of physical violence. That’s how
labor got its share in the first place, a fact no one wants to talk about. When was the last time
you heard an economist discuss the violence in the coal fields, the violence that won miners safer
working conditions and better wages. Once labor loses its power, workers can’t defend themselves,
and can’t force the rich to share the benefits that flow from any level of productivity, whether or
not that level is increasing. And indeed, the rich are now taking all the gains from productivity
and more, the labor participation rate is at pre-1980 levels, and wages have been stagnant for
decades. Even so, all discussion about wages is centered around increasing productivity, as if it
mattered to workers when all the benefits flow to the richest among us.
One school of thought blames workers, saying they have to increase their training and preparation
for the work force. A kinder version blames hysterisis effects, the idea that when workers are
unemployed for extended periods, they lose their skills. The Republican answer is invest in
yourself, borrow money, and get that training. Of course, you take all the risks, for example,
whether you can master the schooling, or figure out what training might get you a job, or find a
school that will actually train you, and by the way, if you fail, you still have to pay until you
die. The Democratic version is jobs training, but that’s only sporadically available, and it’s
always underfunded and rarely useful, thanks to the neoliberals in both parties. As to the older
people in the workforce who can’t retrain, and can’t move to where there are jobs, both parties do
nothing. We don’t just blame the victim, we ignore them, and treat them as losers who deserve nothing.
Many of the 23 economic writers cited in the Focus Economics article, and the other experts it
discusses, say the problem is inadequate business investment. So the solutions offered are centered
around stimulating demand and cutting taxes and regulations. No one explains how this solves the
problem of the rich taking all the gains.
There are few outside the box observations. A couple of the writers think maybe the problem is that
there are too many low-productivity jobs available, and too few high-productivity jobs. People see
the available jobs as dead-end, and their treatment as demeaning, and they don’t do more than the
absolute minimum necessary to get that miniscule paycheck. Another writer points out that the next
wave of capital investment is not going to make people more productive, it’s going to replace them.
I assume he means industrial robots, for the short term at least.
Another suggests that we are already very efficient at a lot of things, and in those areas,
improvements in productivity won’t make much difference. In areas we aren’t very efficient at, it’s
going to require something enormous to make a difference, or we would already done it. John Quiggan
says that the financial sector has separated itself from the productive sector, which seems true.
You can almost hear the words “Vampire Squid”. All these are intractable problems.
But I think the problem is different. The economic orthodoxy is that capital is always efficient,
while labor is always bloated, lazy, indifferent, greedy, demanding, corrupt and insufferable. That
was and is the rallying cry of the union-busters, and you can hear it today. That is a perfect
description of the capitalists of today. they don’t want to take risks. They want protected markets,
special tax treatment, immunity from criminal prosecution and civil suits, and they have the money
to pay off politicians to get that and more. They want all the money. They don’t want to pay their
share. They want the right to wreck the economy with impunity. They want the right to screw
consumers into the ground. They want the right to destroy the environment. And they want to make all
the decisions about the future.
Sorry about the delay y'all. My hard drive is close to being maximized, so the normal drag and drop
method of videos took an excessively long time. I found a temporary work around today, but
inevitably I am going to have to wipe my hard drive and re-sync the data. That usually takes at
least 8 hours.
Maybe I will get to that this weekend. Maybe not. Once the situation is resolved I will continue
the daily rant, but until then the rant might be more sporadic.
As such this is actually a video 2 days ago (on Wednesday, and today is Friday).
Wednesday, 26 April 2017 at 3h 18m 56s
Nawlins Napsters Rant
Tuesday, 25 April 2017 at 3h 3m 19s
Wha Duh Fuh Stats
Stats that will surprise you this year in MLB
Brad Brach already has the same amount of Saves, with more strikeouts(13K) and a better whip
(0.50) then Kenley Jansen (8K, 0.83) and Aroldis Chapman (9K, 0.79)
Zach Cozart, shortstop of the Cincinnati Reds, is number 5 in OPS, at 6 doubles, 4 triples, and
1 home run in 56 At Bats. He is second in the MLB -- behind Bryce Harper -- in Batting Average at .393.
The top 10 in ABs per Homer (from 6.7 to 10.7) : Eric Thames, Freddie Freeman, Khris Davis, Ryan
Zimmerman, Bryce Harper, Yoenis Cespedes, Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, George Springer, Joey Gallo
The next 5 (from 11.0 to 12.0) : Mike Moustakas, Ryan Braun, Mark Reynolds, Jay Bruce, Marcell Ozuna
Tuesday, 25 April 2017 at 1h 57m 46s
Nawlins Napsters Rant
Saturday, 22 April 2017 at 17h 15m 19s
Bill Maher at his best on Earth Day 2017
The delusion of sending colonies to Mars cannot escape the reality of the necessity to stop trashing
mother earth.
We hear a lot about putting America first, let's put Earth first... Ladies and gentleman Mars is a
mirage not an oasis.
Makes me think of Adam and Eve being kicked out of the Garden of Eden because they ate the forbidden
fruit. Humans are sucking out fossil fuels, elemental rocks and minerals, and then using chemical
reactions to produce things which have side pollutants and waste. We are transforming the
environment and geology and there will be consequences. The exponential increase in earthquakes in
Oklahoma is not a random event; it is a canary in the coal mine. Exponential data indicates
causation and cannot be eschewed as mere
random events. The continents are essentially floating islands, because the oceans constitute 70%
of the earths' surface and the surface above the water is only 5 miles above the crust, with the
radius 3,959 miles. All the drilling and shale oil fracking is creating swiss cheese out of the
continental land masses. When you have 12 times more water above the mantle than continental Earth
mass, the innate geological stresses that cause Earthquakes and continental drift don't have to obey
the current global configurations of land masses and ocean, especially now that glaciers and ice are
melting and frozen tundra is falling apart and clogging all the northern artic rivers. We are in the
midst of exponential geologic change.
So while you celebrate Earth Day today, think about how you as a mindless consumer are contributing
to the aggregate. All those paper cups you throw away, instead of carrying a portable thermos. All
of those plastic bags you use, instead of using your own bag or solid containers you keep in the
fridge. How hard are you trying to use less and avoid plastic?
Earth Day is not a party event to
feel good about your good intentions. The Earth needs actions not protestations of sentimentality.
Friday, 21 April 2017 at 2h 5m 23s
Nawlins Napsters Rant
In this episode I discuss:
Making trades
Chase Headley
Ranking the teams based on Runs scored, box-and-whiskers plot
Yankees are looking good y'all -- if the pitching holds up