Harold Meyerson Hits Another Out Of The Park

Read it:

Not to be difficult, mind you, but what is it that the Democrats see themselves running on in the next 75 days -- or, for that matter, the next two years? Health-care reform? Since many of its benefits don't kick in until 2014, it exists in the minds of millions of Americans chiefly as a nebulous threat. Financial reform? A major achievement, but largely negated by the public's perception that the Obama administration, like its predecessor, moved heaven and Earth to bail out the banks. The economy? The evidence is overwhelming that the Obama stimulus saved millions of jobs, but the economy is still the worst we've seen since the Depression, and there are almost no signs that it's going to get better.

The Democrats have a doctrinal problem: They (well, many of them) believe, with good reason, that the government must step in where the private sector fears to tread, boosting consumer demand through stimulus, subsidizing health insurance for millions of Americans who otherwise would go without. But the administration's failure to jolt a structurally dysfunctional economy back to health has discredited the very idea of governmental activism with much of the public, and not just the far right. That leaves the Democrats not as the party of government so much as the party of paralyzed government. That the Republicans are largely responsible for the paralysis isn't a big problem for a minority-status GOP so long as the public has concluded that activism per se is a bad idea.

So how do the Democrats defend and improve their brand? Is there a type of governmental activism that still retains public support -- and actually extricates us from the deepest hole we've been in since the '30s?

There is. If the Democrats focused on boosting manufacturing, with a corollary upgrade to our infrastructure, they'd tap into the only area in which the public wants a more activist government.

Let's be honest here: conservatives can support this type of thing because it plays into their nativist bigotry.  So what.  The various 'free trade' deals that our corporate masters have been pushing down our throats haven't exactly come from a desire to reduce racial prejudice in the world.

It's a sign of how thoroughly corporations own the political process that the Democrats in Congress and the White House, usually so stinking desperate to find something, anything, that they can do to make 'moderates' and conservative happy, never seem to get around to this issue.

Meyerson needs to be read and heavily promoted by every blogger, every person who considers himself or herself a progressive.  Anyone interested in social justice and civil liberties needs to understand how necessary a strong, growing middle class is and how getting America making things again is how we bring that middle class back.

Comments

[Toast]

Did anyone hear the story on NPR this morning touting the world's newest source of cheap labor: America? As Exhibit A, the reporter pointed out that wages at call centers in the U.S. are almost commensurate now with those of competing workers in India (partly, of course, because their wages have come up). Hearing this, I couldn't help picturing a gathering of CEO's and corporate board members partying in a great, opulent ballroom under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished!"

[minstrel hussain boy]

i get amtrak promotional emails all the time. they have announced a big refurbishing plan to get the average speeds on eastern trains from 40mph to 60. while that's cool what it really means is that if they spend a shitload of money they will bring train service to the levels of 1885. which, wouldn't be bad. railroads were an incredible engine of prosperity and commerce. the central valley of california, the ranches of texas, the potatoes of idaho, wheat from everywhere all used to move on rails, until we sold our souls to cars and trucks.

if transportation ends up around 1885 this ol horse soldier can cope.

[litbrit]

Toast, ugh, that's horribly sad.

I've been banging the rail drum here for a while. Florida DESPERATELY needs both high-speed and light rail. Our highways and roads are a joke. Air travel is a nightmare--it takes longer to fly from Tampa to Miami than to drive, when you add in the security bullshit and time spent waiting in line to rent a car--and our highways are about fifteen-to-twenty years behind the capacity they need to be, meaning what should be a 20 minute commute is usually an hour long or more due to congestion.

We could put so many people to work--builders, architects, engineers, landscape people, manual labor and skilled labor alike. And of course, we are simply going to have to do something about the fossil fuel situation--we should have started doing something about that decades ago, too. SIGH.

[Eric Wilde]

I've only got anecdotal evidence; but, the salary disparity with India and China has more to do with their wages incrasing. At least in my experience, wgaes in the US have "merely" been stagnant. When you figure in the myriad overhead costs of hiring overseas, the price differential needs to be better than 2:1 before it really becomes worthwhile to hire low cost geo labor.

Right now in my areas. India is 4:1 and China is 5:2.

[discount ugg boots]

I've only got anecdotal evidence; but, the salary disparity with India and China has more to do with their wages incrasing. At least in my experience, wgaes in the US have "merely" been stagnant. When you figure in the myriad overhead costs of hiring overseas, the price differential needs to be better than 2:1 before it really becomes worthwhile to hire low cost geo labor.

[Krubozumo Nayankoye]

Interesting claims about cost ratios etc. What about all the other factors including the biggest and most arbitrary factor of all, profit? How do they fit into the equation?
Then there is management, executive compensation, how does that fit into the equation, particularly if it is 900 times the cost of one laborer?

Let's say that average executive compensation is only 600 times the value of one laborer, and there are ten executives who enjoy that margin, so cutting the salaries of ten executives by half, from 3.6 million a year to 1.8 million a year would have the same effect as firing 3000 workers. Why is this never done?

My next and last question is what would we make? We can only make the kinds of stuff we have already invented, it will take time to make the stuff we need for new inventions.

I think the problem is much larger than just a change of attitude and intention. It is difficult to get a job in the US without having to piss in a cup and thereby incriminate yourself. You see, business is exempt from the constraints placed upon the judiciary arm of the government. Your employer is entitled to do anything they want to investigate you as an individual. And they are entitled to discriminate against you on a wide range
of conditions because the soverign credo of all life is quest for profits. Ever increasing profits.

One is tempted to ask,what will be the condition of the world when profit reaches 100%?

[Eric Wilde]

KN, I don't get it. Do executives make an obscenely large amount of money? Yes. Do they deserve it? No. Is it generally evil? Yes.

Not quite sure how that relates to Toast's comment or mine. Of course, you could just be bringing up another topic tangentially related to the thread and that's OK.

[Shane]

Everyone seems to take it as an article of faith, that America doesn't make anything any more.
Some evidence to the contrary.

True, employment in the manufacturing sector is ever-falling, but American manufacturing output is just fine.