Labor Day? Let’s Tell The Truth And Call It “Assets Day”

[kpete]

Doug Smith: Labor Day? Let’s Tell The Truth And Call It “Assets Day”
Posted on September 7, 2015 by Lambert Strether
By Douglas K. Smith, author of On Value and Values: Thinking Differently About We In An Age Of Me.

Assets are the “be all, end all” of our economy. Labor? Cue the canned laughter.

Come on, face it. “Labor Day” is a national fiction — right up there with “anti-trust enforcement” and “regulating Wall Street.” The only parades that matter this September 7th will trudge through Wal-Mart, Gap, Radio Shack and other retailers in mad pursuit of holiday price reductions that come from eviscerating labor, not investing in it. The grandest pageant of all is going to be virtual: a mass frenzy of online deal seekers surfing eRetailers fixated on cutting labor costs while pushing, prodding, and electronically monitoring warehouse and office employees to get the last possible ounce of productivity.”

Don’t be surprised if some executive at Wal-Mart imagines observing “Labor Day” with a one-time offer of unpaid internships to debt ridden college kids — giving them the chance to build their “personal brands”‘ as a step toward, say, becoming an Uber driver.

Celebrate labor? Are you kidding me? Labor is an obscenity in executive suites, boardrooms and among the 1% generally — including the innumerable elected officials bought and paid for with the 1%’s assets.

Labor is not to be commemorated. Ownership is. Ownership is one of Jeff Bezos’ 11 Commandments at Amazon. Ownership makes America exceptional. The liberty and freedom to own is why our brave and underpaid service men, women and drones battle terrorists who hate our exalted financial wizards — people like Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs who “do God‘s work” by making, selling, securitizing, swapping, re-securitizing, and under-collateralizing assets.

more plus links:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/09/labor-day-lets-tell-the-truth-and-call-it-assets-day.html

[antigop]

1. thanks, kpete. Tells it like it is. Spot on. nt

[bemildred]

2. "Employee Day". nt