taskorientation:

Study: Union Decline Accounts for Much of the Rise in Wage Inequality

From 1973 to 2007, wage inequality in the private sector increased by more than 40 percent among men, and by about 50 percent among women. In their study, Western and co-author Jake Rosenfeld, a…

(Source: separability, via thepovertyoftheory)

“If a designer shoe goes up from $800 to $860, who notices?” said Arnold Aronson, managing director of retail strategies at the consulting firm Kurt Salmon, and the former chairman and chief executive of Saks.

First, consider:

1. Nobody’s taxes have been raised in the last 3 years.
2. The House GOP Caucus in the 112th Congress has not proposed anything that even remotely resembles a job bill.

Now, the problem:

Rose Bear, 52, said her husband travels 800 miles round trip to work in North Dakota because there are not enough jobs near their home in Laurel, Mont. Bear said she supports the tea party in part because of its focus on taxes and employment.

“If you keep throwing up the taxes and busting the guy who’s employing you, people are gonna lose jobs,” she said. “They’re addressing the issue of the joblessness.”

Austerity is doing wonders in the United Kingdom!

A slowdown in Britain’s growth in the second quarter means that the economy is weaker than thought and has no chance of meeting its official growth target this year.

The eagerly awaited preliminary GDP estimate for April to June showed the economy growing by 0.2%, rather than contracting. Although this was better than some of the gloomier forecasts, it is still slower than the 0.5% growth seen in the first quarter, which came after a 0.5% decline in the fourth quarter of last year. City economists and thinktanks warned that the Office for Budget Responsibility would have to revise down its 1.7% growth forecast for this year.

[…]

However, Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, said the figures were “deeply worrying” and a sign that the economy is flatlining in the face of a global hurricane. “When there is a hurricane you do not rip the foundations out of your own house. That is exactly what George Osborne has done,” Balls told the BBC.

In his official response, he accused the chancellor of being “in total denial”. “Families, pensioners and businesses can feel that tax rises and spending cuts which go too far and too fast are hurting, but it’s increasingly clear that they aren’t working,” Balls said. “It’s now almost certain that George Osborne’s growth forecasts will be revised down for a fourth time, which will mean government borrowing is revised up once again.”

Austerity was the answer in the late 70s with stagflation. It was the answer when “times were good” in the 1990s. And now it’s the answer when we’re circling the drain. It’s the answer in spite of the fact that there is absolutely zero evidence that austerity is the answer and a shit-ton of evidence that it’s the absolute wrong answer.

If you want to look at the bankruptcy of the current political-economic frame, tada!

wilwheaton:

That’s the sound of the Democratic Party’s leader in the House caving on the argument that motivated Democrats for the past three years; or 80 years, if you want to get smart about it. But that’s the statement in support of the Reid Plan: “It is clear we must enter an era of austerity; to reduce the deficit through shared sacrifice.”

So, to recap: just a few months ago: LESS TAXES ON THE ULTRA RICH AND MORE LOOPHOLES FOR CORPORATIONS!

And today: Austerity for everyone! Americans who are suffering through the worst economy in a generation should suffer even more so the ultra-rich can have even more! God Bless America!

Head Asplode

It. Isn’t. Shared. Anything. You. Goddamn. Fucking. Shitbags.

“Raynor said the group believes MoveOn.org is a communist front and said he would not stand for America becoming a fascist nation.”

Via digby.