Devaluing labor to the point where working doesn't pay or provide

[whistle]

...security as it once did in this country. This has been the road that republicans and corporate fascism has taken us. As case in point is made today by Harold Meyerson at the Washington Post:

<snip>
Devaluing Labor

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, August 30, 2006; Page A19

Labor Day is almost upon us, and like some of my fellow graybeards, I can, if I concentrate, actually remember what it was that this holiday once celebrated. Something about America being the land of broadly shared prosperity. Something about America being the first nation in human history that had a middle-class majority, where parents had every reason to think their children would fare even better than they had.
<.....>
For the bottom 90 percent of the American workforce, work just doesn't pay, or provide security, as it used to.

Devaluing labor is the very essence of our economy. I know that airlines are a particularly embattled industry, but my eye was recently caught by a story on Mesaba Airlines, an affiliate of Northwest, where the starting annual salary for pilots is $21,000 a year, and where the company is seeking a pay cut of 19 percent. Maybe Mesaba's plan is to have its pilots hit up passengers for tips.

Labor Day is almost upon us. What a joke. <more>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/29/AR2006082901042.html?referrer=emailarticle

[sweetheart]

1. but they don't see the inflatinon

when every single social service is privatized, you have to pay minimum wage to
get childcare, dogwalkers, commuter drivers and all those services must be depressed or
our labour-class market would erode, so as things are increasingly privatized, broken
up and made explicit, they can say wages have 'risen' and, indeed, perhaps they have,
but when the total explicit costs are dumped in to the equation, its 16 tonnes all over again.

ya load 16 tonnes and what do you get
another day older and a deeper in debt,
saint peter don't ya call me cuz i cain't go,
i owe my soul to the corporate dole.

[Parisle]

2. That Was Bush's Mission

----- Devaluing labor was among the priority missions for which the corporate aristocracy made such an effort to get GWBush in the White House.

[Greyhound]

3. A large and growing minority of people are just dropping out of the system

Working for cash or barter, not filing returns, not participating in the "credit for obedience" scam, etc.

When/if the house of cards collapses we will already have our systems in place. :tinfoilhat: :evilgrin: