Labor Market Policy - Tackling the Pyramid of Inequality

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Thursday March 22, 2012 · 1:30 PM PDT

2012/03/22 · 13:30

Note: this is a cross-post from The Realignment Project. Follow us on Facebook!

Introduction:

It's somewhat out of vogue to talk about the quality of jobs and the shape of the labor market at a time when unemployment is so high and the obvious issue is the number of jobs being created. This wasn't the case prior to the recession, although rather specious reasons were given to justify the rapidly increasing inequality of wages as the outcome of superior education or productivity. What can't be denied is that even before the recession, we were sliding into a highly unequal labor market in which many low-paid, insecure workers (50% of American workers made less than $26,000 or 230% of poverty in 2010) serve a small number of ever-richer elites.

This trend has only continued since the recession, and it's a problem that has to be solved if we are to either fully recover or protect ourselves from the next recession.

Vikingkingq for In Support of Labor and Unions

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Monday March 05, 2012 · 2:29 PM PST

2012/03/05 · 14:29

Note: this is a cross-post from The Realignment Project. Follow us on Facebook!

Introduction:

The sad reality of the recent spat of right-to-work laws, collective bargaining bans, anti-picketing laws, and other state level anti-union legislation is that, despite our victories in Ohio and the recalls in Wisconsin, the labor movement will never begin to make progress as long as we are fighting a piecemeal defense of an industry (the public sector) that is only 37% organized and reliant on state politics for its very existence.

In short, what we need is a Wagner Act for the public sector.

Vikingkingq

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Friday February 24, 2012 · 2:16 PM PST

2012/02/24 · 14:16

Note: this is a cross-post from The Realignment Project. Follow us on Facebook!

Introduction:

In the past, I’ve written about the way in which new urbanism needs to do a better job attending to issues of class. However, I want to avoid the accusation that new urbanism is classist in the same way that others have made the argument about race. The reality is that the kind of transformations that new urbanism envisions are a lot easier to do with resources, and those are easier to find in a city that’s expanding, and given the history of post-war urban development that tends to be a particular kind of city.

If we want to revive cities, and not just help cities already on the upswing, if we want to bring New Urbanism to the Detroits, Baltimores, and New Havens and not just the Seattles, Portlands, and Denvers, New Urbanists need to bring industrial policy into their worldview.

Vikingkingq

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Tuesday February 14, 2012 · 10:37 AM PST

2012/02/14 · 10:37

Note: this is a cross-post from The Realignment Project. Follow us on Facebook!

Introduction:

In my last piece, I discussed the irrational nature of how the bond markets have reacted to the financial crisis and the recession that followed, simultaneously demanding austerity and then reacting to the recessionary crises their demands have created by demanding government intervention to provide growth (as long as it doesn't result in inflation, higher taxes, or more borrowing).

As the Greek Parliament passes the kind of austerity that makes Andrew Mellon look like a bleeding-heart and Athens burns, we see European politicians demand further austerity at the same time that everyone realizes it's not going to work. So how do we construct a new conventional wisdom amidst the tyranny of the old, and then how do we transform understanding into action?

Vikingkingq

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Saturday February 11, 2012 · 10:57 AM PST

2012/02/11 · 10:57

Note: this is a cross-post from The Realignment Project. Follow us on Facebook!

Introduction:

If the slow-motion meltdown of the Euro has taught us anything in the last few months, it's that the idea of the bond market is the most powerful force in international political economy at the moment. The idea of the bond market has so obsessed European leaders even to the point where they seem willing to throw their economy (and possibly the world's) back into a recession for the sake of interest rates and Greek bondholders. Americans can hardly gloat; the idea of the bond market has pervaded calls for austerity in the U.S for the past three years, despite the fact that a first-ever downgrading of U.S Treasuries lead to lower, not higher interest rates on government debt.

So, how do we break our political system of the fear of the bond market bogeyman?

Vikingkingq for Income Inequality Kos

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Monday November 21, 2011 · 11:50 AM PST

2011/11/21 · 11:50

Note: this is a cross-post from The Realignment Project. Follow us on Facebook here.

Introduction:

The emergence of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) has, if nothing else, has led to a welcome shift in political discourse away from conflicts over what kind of austerity policy to pursue and towards important questions of inequality. Unsurprisingly, this rhetoric has revolved around demography and identity:

Who are the 99%? Who is the 1%? What the hell is the 53%? And what do these labels mean when it comes to popular and other forms of political legitimacy, or arguments about political economy? Read on for some answers.

Vikingkingq

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Saturday October 01, 2011 · 4:28 PM PDT

2011/10/01 · 16:28

Note: this is a cross-post from The Realignment Project.

Introduction:

One of the oddest flaws in American public policy is our persistent belief that unemployment and poverty can be dealt with in the main by improving the "employ-ability" of potential workers - in other words, by improving the quality of labor supply.

In the 1960s and 1970s, "manpower development" and "work training" were seen as the solution to moving the poor into a labor market that would surely sweep them up. When Reagan dismantled the War on Poverty and CETA, he left in place training programs as an acceptably bootstrapping policy sufficient to deal with the 1981-1983 recession. Clinton leaned especially hard on training and education as his solution to all problems – the early 90s recession, displacement from NAFTA, welfare reform, and rising inequality. While Obama has gone a step beyond mere job training with the public works of the stimulus bill, his more recent comments about "winning the future" show the persistent strength of supply-oriented labor market policy.

What a shame that it doesn't work.

Vikingkingq

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Sunday August 28, 2011 · 10:14 AM PDT

2011/08/28 · 10:14

Note: this is a cross-post from The Realignment Project. Follow us on Facebook!

Introduction:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt's First Inaugural Address diagnosed the essential weirdness of recessions: "our distress comes from no failure of substance," he noted. "Plenty is at our doorstop, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply." The reason for this? "Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind's goods have failed...they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition."

This last factor, that in the grip of a massive decline in production, employment, and consumption, the world's leaders decided to maintain the gold standard and free exchange of currency by balancing budgets, cutting spending, and raising taxes and then to do it over and over again, despite the failure of that policy to show any positive result, is to my mind an absolutely critical one. For all that the critiques of John Maynard Keynes and other dissident economists were eloquent and correct, the reality was that they had been making their arguments for over a decade to no avail.

Today, we seem to be stuck in a similar pattern, where the conventional wisdom on economic policy fails to produce results, but retrenches even more strongly despite this.

Why is this?

Vikingkingq for Income Inequality Kos

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Thursday August 18, 2011 · 1:43 PM PDT

2011/08/18 · 13:43

Note: this is a cross-post from The Realignment Project. Follow us on Facebook!

Introduction:

If the Great Recession has one common thread that links the U.S, much of the E.U (Ireland, Spain, the U.K), and the rest of the world, it's our common mistake of treating housing as a speculative commodity whose purpose is to create profits for investors, rather than structures that serve a basic human need for shelter and sanctuary. Even those nations which avoided a housing bubble themselves (like France or Germany) got themselves involved through their banking industries, who lent and speculated into the housing bubbles.

If we want to get out of our current economic stagnation and avoid future housing bubbles, the logical place to start is to de-commodify housing.

Vikingkingq

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Monday July 25, 2011 · 11:28 AM PDT

2011/07/25 · 11:28

Note: this is a cross-post from The Realignment Project. Follow us on Facebook!

Introduction:

All political movements at their core face an internal tension between conflicting tenets of their ideology. 19th century liberalism was split between its commitment to universal suffrage and the fear that the unwashed majority might use their votes to infringe on theproperty rights of the propertied. Even the Republican party, famous in recent years for iron discipline, is divided between cultural conservatives who would like to abolish gay people, and business conservatives who are happy to sell to gay people.

Within the broad left in the U.S, our divided dreams have often found us torn between our hope that economic planning might restore some democratic sovereignty over the anarchy of the market, and our belief that public provision of social goods was necessary for economic security.

However, I think this was a false choice, and that the progressive movement can learn much if it avoids such a division in the future.

Vikingkingq

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Monday July 04, 2011 · 10:12 AM PDT

2011/07/04 · 10:12

Note: this is a cross-post from The Realignment Project. Follow us on Facebook!

Introduction:

In any other area of public policy where we see rich hedge-funders providing government agencies with private funds with strings attached, demanding control over choice of administrators and direction of public policy (such as was the case with various foundations and the D.C schools), and financing the opponents of elected officials who disagree with them (such as was the case with the 2010 city council race in New York City), we'd call it corruption by a special interest group.

Yet with education reform, prominent liberals treat it as acceptable and instead turn the traditional liberal analysis of "special interests" on teachers unions instead.

Vikingkingq

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Tuesday June 14, 2011 · 9:56 AM PDT

2011/06/14 · 09:56

Note: this is a cross-post from The Realignment Project. Follow us on Facebook!

Introduction:

If there is a common malaise of our time, it's short-term thinking in an era when long-term problems loom ever larger. Whether it's in health care, where Congress has decide that the only way for it to deal with the need to restrain doctors and hospital costs is to outsource it to an independent agency, or in climate change, where the Senate is flatly unwilling to pass even a moderate cap-and-trade bill (even though cap-and-trade was the free marketer's solution to climate change), or in dealing with the long-term budget deficit, where the right wing won't even countenance eliminating loopholes and the Democratic Party won't tax enough to end the deficit or spend enough to create a strong recovery. At the same time, the electorate has not even been approached in a way that might lead them to consider long-term consequences of their votes.

Today, I'm going to focus on one particular issue that has become emblematic of our long-term problems - our nation's infrastructure.

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Labor Market Policy - Tackling the Pyramid of Inequality

A Wagner Act for the Public Sector

New Urbanism and Industrial Policy – Toeing the Triple Line

Reining in the Bond Markets - Public Policy in a Context of Ideological Capture

Reining In the Bond Markets – And Knowing Is Half the Battle…

Who Are the (X) Percent?

Beyond the American Jobs Act - Labor Demand Policy

Living in the Age of Magical Austerity Thinking

De-commodifying Housing

Psychology of Public Policy - Planning vs. Provision

Education Reform - the Fix is In

Government in the Long Run - Infrastructure