Don’t think that just because I shredded up your last two articles about class disparity in a volley of righteous elitism (It’s not a bad thing when I really am better than you.) that I won’t come right back at you, Bob Herbert. Let this be a lesson to all of Op-Ed writers–except Maureen Dowd, who really only writes about menopause and her poor, pitiable family—I’m at least as mean as a high school outcast projecting body-image issues onto pictures of cheerleaders. Is this supposed to be self-depricating? I don’t know. I haven’t decided yet.
Anyways, I'll take a step away from the italicized voice that heckles my heckling and simply point out that Bob Herbert is perhaps the most professionally incompetent of all the whiny losers that draw a paycheck from the New York Times' Editorial Board. (At least I assume that's how they segment their payroll; I don't have great insight into accounting practices for the Times.) It is no ironic twist of fate that this incompetent buffoon is leading the charge for better pay for incompetent buffoons everywhere. How does one argue incompetently in favor of incompetence? By supporting public school teachers.
A Terrible Divide
My marketing consultants have obligated me to cordially request that you Embrace the Divide. Perhaps while Being All That You Can Be, Obeying your Thirst, or Just Doing the Dew. … Every Kiss Begins with Kay. Good, now we all feel nice and corporate clean! Seriously, I can’t even tell if you’re being sarcastic. You love corporations.
By BOB HERBERT
Published: February 7, 2011
The Ronald Reagan crowd loved to talk about morning in America
The message is that when America
For millions of individuals and families, perhaps the majority, it’s more like twilight —
I bet $10 Bob Herbert is “Team Edward.”
with nighttime coming on fast.
Does this guy know how to party or what?
Look out the window.
Sorry, I’m one of those “data zealots” you deplore so much for not having a window. Oh! I can open up a webcam of a window though.
More and more Americans are being left behind in an economy that is being divided
Embrace the Divide™
ever more starkly between the haves and the have-nots.
I still steadfastly object to the idea that a goal of the United States
Not only are millions of people jobless and millions more underemployed,
You want a hard job search? Ask a 65 year-old with scant journalistic credibility and no marketable skills. Wait, what year were you born in again?
but more and more of the so-called fringe benefits and public services that help make life livable,
Fringe benefits and public services make your life livable?
or even bearable,
Well clearly this man gave has forfeit those attributes which once made him a man. In case there’s any confusion, I’m alleging that Bob Herbert is dickless.
in a modern society are being put to the torch.
The “torch” is intended as an allusion to a frightened mob of townspeople, fearful of change, science, and outsiders. That’s what he thinks of us.
Employer-based pensions, paid vacations, health benefits and the like are going the way of phone booths and VCRs.
There is a reason that we don’t have phone booths anymore.
There is a reason that you can’t go into Best Buy and get a VCR.
The comparisons that Mr. Herbert chose serve no other purpose than to undercut his point. Phone booths were eliminated because a new technology did the better and cheaper. Same with VCRs. That is because these technologies were subjected to market influences. Meanwhile, public benefits have resisted the market for decades by pretending that governments did not operate in the same environment of resource scarcity as the rest of the world. It’s time to embrace progress in government, which means precisely the opposite of what progressives think.
As poverty increases and reliable employment becomes less and less the norm,
The barriers to entry for new businesses are reduced, as risk-takers are further enticed to take risks working for themselves than they are to take risks working for someone else. This is why recessions end.
the dwindling number of workers with any sort of job security or guaranteed pensions (think teachers and other modestly compensated public employees) are being viewed with increasing contempt.
This sentence is really poorly written. Are people contemptuous of the workers or the dwindling of the workers? You know what fixes this? Effective sentence construction rooted in the ability to “just say no” to excessive commas.
How dare they enjoy a modicum of economic comfort?
Teachers have 3 months off per year and they make more money than most at the entry level. Promotions are arbitrary. Talent and effectiveness are subjective. With massive evidence of product quality in decline, teachers—both collectively and individually—should be punished.
It turns out that a lot of those jobs were never so secure, after all.
I know that I spent an entire column last week about how you would fail junior high math, but I’m about to throw down some knowledge on you. The realization of a risk does not change the probability of that risk occurring going forward. In other words, there was always a low chance that teachers can lose their jobs. The fact that it happened doesn’t mean that it was ever less likely to have occurred. This is the exact same as pulling all your money out of the stock market after a 30% decline.
As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities tells us:
The standard-bearer for the “nonpartisan” left. Even so, I’m not going to dispute the facts presented, both because that entails research that would conflict with my general lethargy and I can guarantee with absolute certainty that Bob Herbert didn’t make it past the executive summary of whatever report he’s about to cite.
“At least 44 states and the District of Columbia
Well that sounds awful impressive, except that August 2008-February 2011 covers the height of the worst recession in forty years. Census data from 2009 (and yes, I am pissed because I had to do research anyways) shows a total state and local government employees numbering 14,951,433 full time plus 4,857,171 part time. Since the above statistic doesn’t segregate full time from part time, neither will I. Bob Herbert, not being one for math, doesn’t understand that losing 2.05% of the state and local government work force is nowhere close to what happened to the private sector. January 2009, for example, saw 741,000 net jobs lost.
We have not faced up to the scale of the economic crisis that still confronts the United States
2.05% is not a crisis unless it’s your batting average. (And yes, I realize that it would be formatted .025 for you baseball snobs.)
Standards of living for the people on the wrong side of the economic divide are being ratcheted lower
That’s not really how ratchets work. If you want to loosen something, just use a wrench. Ratchets really only exist to build pressure.
We have officially begun the gradual meld from mathematical ineptitude to general ignorance.
and will remain that way for many years to come. Forget the fairy tales being spun by politicians in both parties — that somehow they can impose service cuts that are drastic enough to bring federal and local budgets into balance while at the same time developing economic growth strong enough to support a robust middle class.
I know the New York Times Editorial Board thinks so, but does anyone else genuinely believe that private sector growth or the existence of the middle class is contingent upon government services? (Notwithstanding police)
It would take a Bernie Madoff to do that.
See, more confusion about the private sector. Bernie Madoff didn’t actually achieve the returns that he claimed. Just like government doesn’t actually create any economic growth—and yes, the argument that it does is tantamount to fraud.
In the real world, schools and libraries are being closed and other educational services are being curtailed. Police officers are being fired. Access to health services for poor families is being restricted.
While that’s true—and it should be. Ineffective schools should be closed. Bad or incompetent police officers should be fired, and the poor should not have access to health care coverage beyond what they can afford to pay for or what private charities provide.
“At least 29 states and the District of Columbia
Can we call them death panels yet?
For a variety of reasons, there are not enough tax revenues being generated to pay for the basic public services that one would expect in an advanced country like the United States
That is because one—aka you—expects too much from the country. The rest of us expect great things of the country.
The rich are not shouldering their fair share of the tax burden.
The stats on this are well known. Only the rich pay income taxes. And even so, federal revenues have trended flat around 18% of GDP. Tax policy has only a trivial role in determining revenue. Meanwhile, tax policy has a very large role in determining GDP growth.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
I’ll agree to defund Iraq
And there are not enough jobs available at decent enough pay to ease some of the demand for public services while at the same time increasing the amount of taxes paid by ordinary workers.
The U.S.
Depends on how you define the crisis. I define the crisis as the floundering economy, so you absolutely can budget cut your way out of the crisis. You define the crisis as government budget cuts.
Instead of trying to figure out how to keep 4-year-olds out of pre-kindergarten classes, or how to withhold life-saving treatments from Medicaid recipients, or how to cheat the elderly out of their Social Security, the nation’s leaders should be trying seriously to figure out what to do about the future of the American work force.
They do that. In the private sector.
Enormous numbers of workers are in grave danger of being left behind permanently.
What the hell does that even mean? How can we leave them behind if we’re not going anywhere?
Businesses have figured out how to prosper without putting the unemployed back to work in jobs that pay well and offer decent benefits.
So one would be wise to encourage workers to adapt to the new climate.
Corporate profits and the stock markets are way up. Businesses are sitting atop mountains of cash. Put people back to work? Forget about it.
This argument bleeds my judgment of Bob Herbert from general ignorance to professional incompetence. He needs to know what stocks, why people invest, and how profits are distributed to shareholders in order to be a productive member of society, let alone use the biggest megaphone in print media to tell us what is going on with the economy.
The stock market is way up (I take the approach that the stock market is a mass noun). There are three reasons for this:
1) They were undervalued in the first place because skittish investors overreacted to the initial market plunge.
2) Companies have re-assessed their business models to become more profitable.
3) The herd has already been thinned. It’s not like the S&P still includes Lehman Brothers.
Second, the argument that profitable businesses have a moral obligation to hire unproductive employees simply based on an unemployed person’s need for a job is downright un-American.
Finally, the reason that companies are sitting on cash instead of reinvesting it is because they still see opportunities for growth but have opted to wait until there is a more favorable economic and regulatory environment. If businesses had no intention of reinvesting their cash, they would have paid this cash out in dividends to their shareholders.
This is basic stuff here, people.
Has anyone bothered to notice that much of those profits are the result of aggressive payroll-cutting — companies making do with fewer, less well-paid and harder-working employees?
Yes. That’s good business.
For American corporations, the action is increasingly elsewhere. Their interests are not the same as those of workers, or the country as a whole.
Their interest is money because their investors interests are money. The employee’s interests are money because employees are often investors. The country’s interests are money because the country is made up of employees. I fail to see a disconnect.
As Harold Meyerson put it in The American Prospect: “Our corporations don’t need us anymore. Half their revenues come from abroad. Their products, increasingly, come from abroad as well.”
I fail to see a disconnect.
American workers are in a world of hurt. Anyone who thinks that politicians can improve this sorry state of affairs by hacking away at Social Security, Medicare and the public schools are great candidates for involuntary commitment.
I told you they’d come for you. Go to hell, Bob Herbert! You’ll never take us alive!
New ideas on a grand scale are needed.
No, new ideas on a very small scale are needed. That is because invention and innovation are what drive the economy. Believing that the banking industry is going to lead the national recovery is as crazy as thinking that the government is going to do it. It will happen in garages nationwide.
The United States
How does he miss the point that finding adequate employment is about the well-being of employers, not employees.
Long-term joblessness is a recipe for societal destabilization. It should not be tolerated in a country with as much wealth as the United States
I’m relatively sure this is a veiled call for armed revolution.
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