Category Archives: Economics

The Breakdown: The Ripple Effects of Unemployment | Marketplace from American Public Media

Times are still hard, even months after this article.

I am kind of working again, making nowhere near what I used to. I imagine many, many others are considering themselves lucky to be in the same boat.

I know the news sounds better – and I truly hope it is – but we’ve got a long way to go. And getting back to where we started isn’t going to make me cheer either. Let us find a way to do better. All of us.

The Big Three’s dramatic U-turn – CBS News

A case in point to my last post, American carmakers seem to be getting back on their feet. Part of it is finally learning the lessons they should have learned during the 1970s and 1980s. Another part of it is workers settling for half the old pay and yet another of just overall doing things better.

I totally understand taking what you can get to keep a job, but this has been going on for years. At some point – and let’s not remember Henry Ford was smart enough to realize this – you have to pay people enough to actually buy the stuff they are making.

And seriously, shouldn’t this country be *at least* as smart as Henry Ford?

Mitt Romney Thinks $360,000 Is “Not Very Much” Money

Willard isn’t one of us.

I mean, we already knew that, but he won’t tell us how much he makes so it doesn’t have a definite mark.

However, we DO know he made almost $400k in speaking fees, a number he has now said is not very much.

His “not very much” is enough, by itself, to put him into the top 1% of American earners.

It is certainly more than my family has pulled in together over a year. Hell, over a few years to be honest. Prior to our move, we were doing okay, or so we thought.

We were barely making a down payment on what Romney thinks is “not very much”.

Gingrich’s Racial Doubletalk On Food Stamps | Mother Jones

Gingrich, and the rest of the GOP, want you to believe that the only people on food stamps are black and lazy. Or at least minorities. And only Democrats.

And for some weird reason, they think people are proud of taking welfare. I have never understood that argument. Then again, I don’t get capital gains tax cuts, farm subsidies or pay a pittance to dig out federal resources and then overcharge consumers, the way most of the GOP’s biggest contributors do. THOSE guys are VERY proud of their government handouts.

So maybe that is where the get the idea.

foodstampuse.png

Marketplace covers the truth on this. Many of these folks are elderly or under 18, but also many of them actually have jobs, just not great ones.