Factoring in my raise, Kati's extra part-time income, and the ending of one particular debt (yay!), our "useful" (after-tax) household income probably went up about 15% in total. Factor in the fact that we had to replace our car and the fact that we are raising a (cute) kid, and that means our expenses (including usual COL ones like groceries) went up right around ... 12%. So that's a net increase of about 3%...oh, and Kati will be moving in with her father now, so she will have to leave her part time job and find another on the other side of the State, one which has to be kid-raising-friendly, and our house payment is scheduled to go up 2% in Sept.
I can understand your frustration. But if I may ask, and please feel free to ignore this question if it's none of my business, do you think the current situation is due to your employers being soulless bloodsuckers, or is this perhaps more of a temporary money crunch much like those experienced by many other young couples who are hearing the pitter-patter of tiny feet?
No, I don't believe my employers are bloodsuckers, nor have I ever thought so. Lately, in fact, they have been unexpectedly generous. We were upside-down on my mortgage long before Cary came along (a situation which was the direct result of previously having to get an ex-girlfriend's name off the deed), and we (I) knowingly entered into an upside-down auto loan because we absolutely
had to acquire more reliable transportation as soon as possible. What I was saying is that our
necessary expenses (auto/home/insurance/medical/utilities/food/etc) appear to be increasing at a rate disturbingly close to the amount we have managed to increase our income(s). There is that axiom which states that, "Expenses will rise to meet income," but I believe that was meant to portray the tendency of people to increase their spending as their income grows, and not our current situation, which is that the effects of the costs of inflation/energy/new clothes/moving/unexpected events/depreciation/loans are coincidentally keeping pace every time we manage to increase our earnings.
I've said before that the only way we're going to make a huge leap ahead is if someone dies. Welp, two people just died, but in such a way that things are actually going to get
more expensive for the immediate future, not less. Yay.
Soo...yeah. If I track the paperwork
very carefully, I can see that we got a raise. I don't really get to direct it or do anything awesome with it, though. This is what makes articles like
this one about wage disparity,
this one about the 'new' slave labor, and
this one about "educating the work force for work" look more and more appealing to someone seeing things from my perspective.
My take on those three articles:
The first one is interesting, though it seems to try and make a strong connection between the high corporate profits and reduction of employees' benefits. I'm not sure if this is entirely accurate. In the current economic situation where a lot of people are out of a job and not a great deal of hiring takes place, it is true that the companies may enjoy some advantage, but I think that's just one reason. There are many other reasons as well for the high profits. Earlier I listed the effects of adjustment measures, and there are others further still.
The first one shows that corporate profits have increased, and it suggests that this has happened due to employing fewer workers AND paying out less in wages. In other words, the article is suggesting that companies are maximizing their profits by returning less and less of what they gain back into the economy. The graph does not account for benefits/bonuses, but I would posit that hourly employees do not normally enjoy benefits/bonuses beyond vac/sick/health. I would also posit that the people who receive the largest percentage of that compensation which is paid in the form of benefits/bonuses/stock options also tend to acquire assets (locking away value) rather than returning it to the economy. Additionally, keep in mind that corporations are immortal, meaning they can keep sitting on their profits theoretically
forever, while real persons will eventually die and return their assets to the pool.
The second one strikes me as a piece of rather sensationalist journalism. Drenched in exaggerating language, it claims exploitation, hints at racism, and suggests some kind of a conspiracy between the judiciary, the executive, and the private sector. I'm not saying there are not things that need correcting in prison labor, but I wonder if the situation is truly as dire and the scale of abuses as significant as the article paints it to be. I mean, "prison-industrial complex"? Really?
There are
plenty of
articles and
analyses out there regarding privatization. Plenty of it is biased, and unashamedly so. But as my wife (who is very smart) will point out time and time again, there are plenty of things that you do
not want overseen by someone whose primary interest will be in maximizing profit, and that would be (in my estimation) pretty much anything which falls under the category of 'public interest.' Prisons, infrastructure, welfare, and some would even include health care and agriculture. It only stands to reason that
any corporate-owned prison system will not sit on its hands, content to merely earn $x per prisoner housed. No, the shareholders will clamor for the board to think up new ways to extract money from their assets. Labor is one obvious answer. I think public outcry would keep down
organlegging...at least at first. Some may think I am being sensational, but I honestly am uneasy at
how quickly greed can wear down some people's morals.
As to the third one, there are some professional educators on these boards and perhaps they'd be willing to give a more informed opinion than I can on the goals of the educational system. As I've understood, education is in large part meant to teach students the skills with which they can succeed in life. I suppose job skills would rank quite highly in that. So color me unsurprised if that's what they teach.
The focus of the article is not that necessary job skills are/aren't being taught, it is that the curricula are ostensibly being manipulated in order to "order up" a custom-designed workforce, once which merely has all of the
minimum skills required rather than allowing each individual to rise to his or her (presumably higher) level of expertise. There is no need to crush anyone's dreams if they are never allowed to develop any in the first place.
For the skeptical and/or horrified reader, let me be clear that I don't think
any of these things are as serious as the articles represent. After all, they are all crafted to get attention for their respective causes, and as such they are built to play heavily on emotion, they deliberately ignore data that don't support their conclusions, and there are more than a few tautological constructs at work. Unfortunately, my faith in the ability of legislators to operate with the welfare of The People foremost in their minds has taken quite a hit lately. For instance, I thought the whole
company=person and money=speech thing would get laughed out of Congress, but it got passed. This does not fill me with joy and anticipation about my kid's future.
--Patrick[DOUBLEPOST=1341877343][/DOUBLEPOST]
July 9, 2012 - Never Forget
Ooo, thanks. It's my Dad's birthday, and I almost forgot to call him.
--Patrick
I'm all about downsizing the government and entitlement reform, but I don't necessarily believe in the whole "the free market is the answer to everything! Libraries are a scourge! Any sort of taxation is theft! Let's privatize ALL THE INSTITUTIONS -- there's no way anyone will abuse the shit out of that" philosophy espoused by most libertarians. I consider myself a social liberal and an right-leaning economic moderate.
