Are you one of the many new first year students at the University of Massachusetts, or another college in the Pioneer Valley? If so, welcome!
There is something I need to tell you, something college presidents do not want you to read: When they say that college is a fast track to success, and that it will lead you to an exciting, meaningful, and well-paying career … they are not telling you the truth anymore.
In fact, we are part of the generation of college graduates with the worst career prospects since World War II. As of April this year, 53 percent of recent college graduates were either working in a job that doesn’t require a college degree, or had no job at all. One study from 2011 indicates that 85 percent of new college graduates are now moving back in with their parents. To top it all off, many of us can expect to be making less money than our parents did after they graduated. Then, of course, there is also student debt, which recently hit a staggering $1 trillion. If you thought government debt was a problem, have a look at private debt.
Of course, the economic crisis is partly to blame for this bleak situation. There are fewer jobs to go around, so naturally the better jobs will go to the people with more experience. That leaves recent college graduates with fewer options and fewer opportunities to gain experience, meaning that a lot of us may well end up being stuck in jobs completely unrelated to our college studies.
This election season, we’ve heard a lot of talk from the candidates about how they are going to create jobs. But this is only in the private sector, since being a government employee – like a teacher, or firefighter, or postal worker – apparently doesn’t count.
President Barack Obama, the candidate elected for hope and change, doesn’t want to change anything. Romney wants to boldly go back to the 1920s, by cutting taxes for the rich even further (they currently stand at their second-lowest level since the Great Depression), removing regulations from Wall Street (which was the main reason for the crisis in the first place), busting unions (who are at their weakest point since the 1930s) and firing public sector employees (more than have already been fired under Obama).
But there is something else that both candidates are missing, besides a good plan to fix the economy: they do not acknowledge the fact that all of our current economic problems have been in the making for decades.
For instance, when I said that many of us will be making less money than our parents; that was based on a study from 2007 – one year before the recession hit. Now our prospects are probably even worse. And the fact that college graduates increasingly have to take bad jobs is a long-term trend.
A recent report has found that the last few decades saw a massive surge of bad jobs in the United States economy. And they define a “bad job” very precisely: it means a job that pays less than $37,000 per year, adjusted for inflation, and which lacks employer-provided health insurance and has no employer-sponsored retirement plan.
In 1979, one in six jobs were considered “bad;” today, that number has risen to one in four. In other words, workers have been steadily losing health insurance coverage and retirement benefits, and it’s getting harder to find good-paying jobs.
Health insurance is getting worse, with less coverage and more out-of-pocket expenses in your typical plan. This means that even those workers whose income has risen over the last couple of decades haven’t seen much improvement in their living standards, as the rise in income is being canceled out by rising health costs (and rising college tuition, for that matter). All of this started to happen long before the recession hit, and no one seems to be in any hurry to address it.
Obama and Romney promise jobs. Oh yes, the private sector will create jobs all right. Jobs at McDonald’s and Wal-Mart, and jobs for teachers at charter schools that barely pay above minimum wage; jobs waiting tables and running the cash register.
Part-time jobs, jobs with no benefits and no prospects for a raise or a promotion, jobs designed to burn you out in a few months and then replace you with fresh blood. Jobs with such low wages that you will still be paying back college loans well into your 50s. Those are the jobs of the future.
Unless, that is, we do something about it. The economic crisis is just a symptom of a larger problem. For a long time now, capitalism has been making average people’s lives worse, not better. We are not better off than we were four years ago, and we are not better off than we were 10 years ago, either. Sure, we have all sorts of fancy new gadgets and toys to distract us, but when it comes to the important things – a good job, health care, secure retirement, affordable rent or mortgages – we are doing worse and worse.
This continues to happen under both Democrats and Republicans. It is capitalism that is failing, not this or that government policy.
And as Gary Lapon points out on Socialistworker.org, the only solution is for workers to stand up and demand what is rightfully theirs. We need to rebuild the labor movement and the unions, and then challenge the two-party system.
There are labor struggles starting up everywhere, from Spain to South Africa to the Chicago teachers’ strike. Here, at UMass, the International Socialist Organization is hosting a public meeting next Monday in the Campus Center at 6:30 p.m. to talk about capitalism, socialism, and the future.
With the budget cuts and tuition hikes hitting us every year, we need to organize and fight back just as much as students and workers elsewhere.
Mike Tudoreanu is a Collegian Columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].
Brian D. • Oct 9, 2012 at 2:36 am
JT, your post is full of baseless assumptions and claims without evidence or justification. Why would “a nearly equivalent recession or depression” ensue after the government “attempts to hold GDP/employment/wages artificially above equilibrium”? How do you even know where equilibrium IS? Are you just ASSUMING that the correct equilibrium value for GDP/employment/wages happens to be exactly the one we have right now? What if we are in fact below equilibrium right now, and government action could put us back up where we need to be? What if there is more than one equilibrium?
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If the government raised wages or employment, that would cut into profits, yes. But profits – particularly for Wall Street and major corporations – have recovered from the recession and currently stand at an all-time high. And in any case, no one is proposing government-mandated higher wages or employment in the private sector. What we need is a government jobs program, meaning the government employing people in the PUBLIC sector and paying them decent wages. With more ordinary people having jobs, there would be stronger consumer demand for a wide variety of products (food, appliances, electronics, furniture, everything). This, in turn, would mean greater income for struggling businesses (especially small ones). They would start to grow again, they would hire more people, and we would be on our way to recovery.
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And where are we supposed to get the money to fund that government jobs program? Higher taxes on the rich. If you haven’t noticed, they are not exactly in a big hurry to use their massive amounts of money to create jobs. And they’re making record profits, as I said. So why not tax them? Why not at least raise their taxes back to where they were 30 years ago?
Brian D. • Oct 9, 2012 at 2:20 am
mike, you said that there’s “plenty of wasteful government spending to go around”, and specifically identified “handouts to countless other countries, nation building, bureaucratic waste through duplicate agencies, the war on drugs” as that wasteful spending you want to cut. Those things do add up to a lot of spending (most of it through the military), but they don’t come close to representing a majority of government spending, like you originally claimed. Let’s take a closer look.
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In 2012, total foreign aid of all kinds – including aid to countries, aid to NGOs, aid to international organizations such as the UN, and the funding of US programs that help other countries, such as the Peace Corps – was $36 billion. The total discretionary federal budget was $1242 billion. Therefore, ALL foreign aid of every kind put together amounts to… about 3% of the budget.
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I’m not sure what you mean by “nation building.” If you mean aid given to foreign governments, including US puppets in Iraq and Afghanistan, that’s included in the above. On the other hand, if you mean the cost of military operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, that’s a different story. THAT cost now stands at $1380 billion over the course of ten years, meaning an average of $138 billion per year. This represents about 11% of the federal discretionary budget for 2012 – a sizable chunk.
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By the way, the vast majority of military spending does NOT go to the war effort. It goes to (1) building up stockpiles of fancy toys that will probably never be used – the latest generation of tanks, planes, submarines, warships, and other such things – and (2) maintaining the arsenal of fancy toys that we currently have.
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The War on Drugs is costing about $44 billion per year, meaning 3.5% of the federal discretionary budget in 2012. So it’s yet another very small slice. But I guess they do add up, if you put enough of them together.
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I have no idea what you mean by “bureaucratic waste through duplicate agencies.” Which duplicate agencies are those? The only ones I can think of are the five different intelligence agencies – CIA, NSA, NRO, NGIA, and DIA. I guess you could make some cuts there (and I’d support you completely), but I have no idea how much (or how little) that would save. I don’t know what those guys spend their money on. I don’t think anyone does.
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So, to sum up, if we completely cut ALL foreign aid, ALL war-related expenses for Iraq and Afghanistan, and ALL expenses on the War on Drugs, we would reduce government spending by $218 billion per year, which is about 17.5% of the current budget. Let’s say we can maybe push it up to 20% by cutting some of those duplicate intelligence agencies. Ok, that’s a lot, and it would be a seriously big cut, but it does not come anywhere close to representing MOST of our tax money, like you originally claimed.
JT • Oct 5, 2012 at 11:20 am
Let’s face facts: absolutely no system is perfect. Even letting the economy operate perfectly freely or even striking a balance between freedom and control in the economy is each imperfect. The problem is that trying to control a market only creates more of an upset.
The market is a dynamic system. With any system, there are peaks and valleys. Let’s consider the swings in GDP/employment. In a market that is unregulated, GDP/employment will fluctuate upward and downward. These fluctuations are natural. A market can do really well at one point, but then it will subsequently fall back toward equilibrium but overshoot heading into a recession. Then, the market will head back upward toward equilibrium and overshoot into a period of prosperity. The cycle continues indefinitely.
This cycle itself does not have any real growth or loss in the economy. A growing economy has a steadily upward trend in the long run, even though it may oscillate up and down along the way. The only way for an economy to grow is through increased production and NOT a redistribution or reorganizing of current production capability.
Now, if some force, say government policies, were to attempt to hold GDP/employment/wages artificially above equilibrium for an extended period of time, market forces will correct for this action and a nearly equivalent recession or depression will ensue. If the government tries to hasten a recovery, it will only prolong the recession.
Why? If the government tries to raise wages artificially, employment will decrease and prices of goods will increase. If the government raises employment artificially, wages will drop and prices of goods will increase. If the government tries to do both, businesses that are near to operating at an economic loss will suddenly find themselves at an economic loss and exit the market. The situation can only be made worse by control over employment and wages.
If the government tries to hasten recovery, money must be taken from others and reinvested by the government. Given that government investments tend to be economically inefficient (as much money goes toward failing pet projects), that is taking money that would have been in the natural producer-consumer cycle that would create jobs and production along the way. Now, that money is producing jobs and physical production at the government’s discretion (at a much lower rate than natural).
What about taxes? What if we only raised taxes on businessmen and businesswomen? Well, they would find that it costs more to produce each item/service that they sell than previously. Since they seek to maximize their profits, they must lower production and raise prices (but mostly lower production) to counteract their increasing costs. Now, there will be lower employment, lower wages, and slightly higher prices on goods. That would mean that the economy is now producing well below its natural potential. On top of that, with less production there is less revenue in the long run for the government to collect even though the tax rate increased, since taxes collected is directly proportional to production (except tax breaks and exemptions). Getting rid of exemptions for businesses would not be a bad idea at all then, but raising taxes is definitely a bad idea!
Now, I still believe that there should be some regulation to prevent concentration of power (monopolies and colluding oligopolies). When power is kept from becoming too concentrated, the market will have enough competition to perform well. I am saying that the government should not try to directly control the market.
No system is perfect, but more people will have a higher standard of living (lower prices, higher wages, higher employment) if the fundamentals of the economy are not attempted to be controlled.
So, then, what is the best solution? Absolute capitalism would lead to a few businesses holding control. This creates the same inefficiencies as increased government control. Socialism would not be a great alternative since it is an attempt to manipulate a complex system. Having a free market with the necessary regulations to prevent concentration of power in any given market would keep competition alive so that businesses succeed when they provide what their customers want at a reasonable price (and also hire enough workers at a wage that they are willing to accept).
Also, about systems: some of you may have heard about how DDT was literally dumped from planes in the 1950s in the US to combat certain insects. This is an attempt to control the natural system of the ecosystem. The DDT not only failed to decrease the number of mosquitoes and other pests in the long run but it also harmed basically everyone and everything else in the ecosystem. Trying to control a complex system is inherently a mistake.
Jean • Oct 4, 2012 at 1:35 pm
Unfortunately, many current undergrads (or recent grads) have very little perspective regarding what it has been like for graduates in the past. Prospects are not good right now; but that has frequently been the case. I graduated from a top college in 1973, in the midst of the Baby Boom generation. That year prospects were terrible. And gas shortages meant that if you were lucky enough to have a car, you had to wait in lines around the block to buy gas. I shared an apartment in Cambridge with 3 friends; and we all worked minimum wage jobs until we could find something better. Over the years things have sometimes been better and sometimes worse. I believe that one thing that has been worse in recent years is the reluctance of employers to fund health insurance; and that is why I have supported the Massachusetts health care model. But we are missing the point unless we acknowledge that the main problem with health care is that there is so much care available, and we all want everything. Something has to give;and we should at least start a dialogue on whether we can/should limit extraordinary care for the last few months of life, which costs a huge share of our health care budget; and which is probably not in the best interest of patients. Frankly, I have been around long enough so that I have no faith that unions are the answer. Where unions exist, it becomes almost impossible to terminate even the worst, least productive employees. Long-term bad employees end up with life-time employment; and new, younger prospects are shut out.
mike • Oct 2, 2012 at 12:41 am
Handouts to countless other countries, nation building, beaurocratic waste through duplicate agencies, the war on drugs. Plenty of wasteful government spending to go around. My point about the military being a viable option was to demonstrate that people can still do what ken did… use the military for a leg up. Also, it is not a middle man, it is a job with guaranteed benefits should you complete it. Civil service in exchange for benefits is much different than a handout. Veterans EARN their tuition coverage through work. I am not advocating that everyone go join the military, just pointing it out as an option that was claimed to no longer exist.
Brian D. • Oct 1, 2012 at 9:08 pm
Oh, and the claim that “most of this [taxes] goes towards wasteful government spending” is a lie. A flat-out, shameless lie. No institution is perfectly efficient, of course, so there’s always some wasteful spending, but the vast majority of tax money goes directly to either (a) helping people – through things like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and so on – or (b) funding the military.
Also, our taxes are not “ever increasing.” In fact, they are ever DECREASING (at least for the rich). Have a look at what has happened to the income tax rate paid by the rich for the past few decades:
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=213
Tax rates for the rich have been going down for 60 years, from over 90% in the 1950s to 35% today.
Brian D. • Oct 1, 2012 at 9:01 pm
Hey Mike, you do realize that the military is paid for by TAXES, right? If more people joined the military and thus got a free college education (among other things), this would all be funded by taxes. So, why not just cut the middleman (the military) and use taxes to pay directly for people’s college expenses, health care, and those other things that veterans get? In any case, whether you like that idea or not, you CANNOT argue *against* government spending and *for* increased military recruitment at the same time. The military IS government spending.
Mike • Oct 1, 2012 at 6:46 pm
The military will cover college, so if all else fails that is a valid option for a large portion of Americans. That is still absolutely 100% true today. So what Ken did is still very possible and being done by HUNDREDS of students at Umass. Because people don’t take advantage of it, does not mean it does not exist. And that is just one of many examples of things that can be used to gain a leg up. Of course that wouldn’t work for the whole country, but it would work for more than who are and have currently taken advantage of it.
Our ever increasing taxes have a LOT to do with the little guy being able to make it big. Most of this goes towards wasteful government spending. You cut the spending, you decrease the taxes, the “people” will be keeping a lot more money.
Mike
Jamie • Oct 1, 2012 at 11:07 am
No one said that it is impossible for young people today to get a good job or have a successful career. The point is that it is MUCH harder than it was for previous generations. The point is that we have to work harder and longer for less money and fewer benefits than our parents. And yes, the point is that we are saddled with enormous college debt, which our parents didn’t have to worry about.
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In other words, the point is that things are getting worse, not better. That is how capitalism failed our generation. Because the great promise made by the supporters of capitalism was that it will make our lives better. And that promise is a lie.
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Ken Sherman, your story tells how your father succeeded by going to college in a time before student debt, and how you also succeeded by going to college in a time before student debt. Those times are long gone. Today, no one can do what you did, because college is very expensive. Today, a kid as poor as you were in the 60s cannot go to college.
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Our living standards and opportunities are falling. We are doing worse than your generation. If this was a one-time drop, maybe it wouldn’t be a problem and we wouldn’t complain. But things are getting worse. College and health care are getting more expensive, wages are being cut, good jobs are harder to find, and since the recession it’s harder to find jobs of any kind. Do you really think we should just get on with it and not worry about where our society is heading?
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You’re a pilot. When you see your plane losing altitude due to a malfunction, do you tell yourself to stop whining about it and just try to fly better?
JT • Sep 30, 2012 at 9:26 pm
How about I just tell my story.
I am only a freshman in college and probably made much less in my minimum wage summer job than most of you who have posted in the above comments. Yet, I’m not wasting my time demanding that this country just give me more money.
Being able to get any job takes initiative and chance. I took the initiative to look for jobs for over the summer, and it was by chance that I found a website hosting company that could use someone who could program for iPhone and iPod. I have been programming for the past 3 years and built a skill set that landed a minimum-wage job over the summer.
Do I deserve more than that? The fact that I did not walk away and look harder and farther away from home for a higher paying job means that I do not deserve more (since I did not take that initiative). However, I do not regret that since I now have experience programming for a company. That can become useful later for finding higher-paying jobs. We all have to start somewhere.
Of course good luck is not something you deserve. However, no one became successful without taking an initiative (unless you are inheriting from family or relatives, but that is being rich and not being successful). Success whether it is financially, academically, politically or any other form requires that you somehow get your feet wet.
mike • Sep 30, 2012 at 8:52 pm
Ken, don’t you know socialists consider military members to be class traders?
Ken Sherman • Sep 30, 2012 at 5:10 pm
Let me say – what a crock!
Re. the above wailing, self-pity, and finger-pointing: I am a member of the class of 1968. Then, as now, we are largely the sum of the decisions we make. I chose the best first job any college graduate could have: military officer. On a cold February morning in 1970 — less than two years after I had packed-up and left my dorm room for the last time — I found myself getting our “in-country” brief as we sat on the frosty ramp at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, with my flight crew, thinking of how an anthropology major had just single-handedly navigated a 145,000 pound airplane carrying 20 people from Washington State to Japan, how I was in charge of a maintenance division of twelve men, and was the tactical officer aboard a Navy bomber. Even though the Vietnam War was at its height, I had had to apply three times before the Navy accepted me for flight training. For those mentioned above who allegedly are sitting in their underwear in their mom’s basement, reading this – is life today so unfair that there really are no opportunities for college grads?
Yes, the economy is tough, but only a shadow of the difficulty faced by so many before you. My dad arrived in America as a two-year-old Polish immigrant whose non-English-speaking family was so poor that he had only two left shoes. By the time he was 19 he had been accepted as an engineering major in a top college and he never looked back.
Is it tougher today financially for college students than in the 1960s? Without question, although students who sit in their new cars and discuss economic unfairness over their iPhone 5s or iPads garner little sympathy. I graduated from college with no debt because in the 1960s UMass was inexpensive. Good thing, because my parents were dead and I had no money. There wasn’t even a mom’s basement for me to return to after graduation. For me flying in the Navy was just what I wanted very much to do, war or not. I didn’t join the Navy to fly in Vietnam. I flew in Vietnam as a proud member of the best organization in the world. The Navy turned-out to be the ride of my life and the foundation for what became a successful career within the Navy and outside as well. No, it wasn’t as romantic as “An Officer and a Gentleman,” but it was amazing.
One of the most pernicious afflictions is self-pity. Did you take a student loan knowing that you’d have to pay it back regardless of what job openings would occur in another four years? You did? Then stop bitching. Perhaps you need to log into woundedwarriorproject.org and check-out real adversity and real courage under very tough circumstances.
“Capitalism failed your generation?” What nonsense. I’m not scolding you for not joining the military or seeking some other way to serve, although not doing so limits your life in ways you will not even understand until years later. But in a nation – and a world – in which people demand to be given a comfortable life rather than get going on making one for themselves, it’s too easy to complain about not getting a fair shake. Don’t sit in self-pity or anger. Go do. And Mr. Tudoreanu? Would you like some cheese to go with that whine?
Ken Sherman
’68, ’75G
[email protected]
mike • Sep 25, 2012 at 10:52 am
I don’t see your point because not only does your analogy not make sense but you are incorrect about hard work not paying off.
Jamie • Sep 24, 2012 at 11:25 am
Mike… let’s say a high-tech thief steals money from your bank account. He’s very good at it, so you have no proof and can’t sue him in court. But you know who he is, and you go ask him for your money back. The thief says, “do you know how much effort I put into hacking your account? You think anyone can do it? It requires advanced knowledge of computers and security systems, it requires an ability to read companies well and guess the type of protection they use, I need to be consistent, I need to do tons of research and so on. You could not do what I do. Why do you think you are entitled to the money I have?”
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What do you say in response? Do you tell him that you WORKED for that money and he didn’t? Yes, exactly! Now you see my point? That’s what I tell to the rich. We WORKED for the wealth that they have, and they did not. We produced goods or services that are useful to people. They just played with money and moved it from point A to point B.
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And no, hard work does NOT pay off in a capitalist society. Most people who work hard never get rich. Many people who work hard don’t even get a decent middle-class income. Seriously, just ask any poor person who has two jobs (there are millions of them), and they’ll tell you all about it.
Mike • Sep 23, 2012 at 10:17 pm
You can think whatever you want… I don’t need to make things up to prove a point. My claim is true. My point was that it was not that you need to work more like me, it was that hard work can and does pay off, that there is plenty of opportunity, and most importantly that other working people like myself don’t feel entitled to the money of the wealthy. Plenty of people are rich who haven’t worked a day in their life, and plenty of people are poor who haven’t worked a day in their life.
It’s gambling and it’s not work? So an ability to read into companies well, look at the big picture, and be consistent in how you invest YOUR money to help these other companies while at the same time reaping a profit for your luck, research, what have you means you don’t deserve that money??? Again, why do YOU think you are entitled to what others have. What triggered this thought process in your head that what someone else has is yours? You didn’t start those companies. You didn’t make them public. You didn’t invest in them.
Mike
Jamie • Sep 23, 2012 at 5:45 pm
Juggernaut, you said nothing to contradict Brian’s assertion that the stock market is gambling. In the stock market, you use your money to buy a piece of a company, and then if that company does well you gain more money, and if it does badly you lose money. There is no work required on your part – you simply BET on a company, and then you win or lose. How is this not gambling? Because there are “10,000 variables” that you need to take into account before you place your bet? Well, the same is true in horse racing, or betting on which team is going to win the Superbowl, or even a game of poker. In fact, betting on companies in the stock market is EXACTLY like betting on sports teams in various sports. If one is gambling, so is the other.
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Not all gambling is about rolling dice. Betting on which team is going to win a competition – or which company is going to win in the market – is still gambling. And it is not work.
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Yes, yes, the stock market is there to raise capital for businesses. We all know that. The point we’re making here is that it’s a BAD method of raising capital, because, in the process of raising capital, it transfers wealth from people who work to people who gamble. It’s like using a lottery to raise money for your business – or, to be more exact, it’s like having the entire economy driven by such lotteries.
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Oh, and Mike is the one who started the whole “blah blah I work so much harder than you and you need to start working more like me!” thing. This is the internet, we’re all anonymous and don’t know each other. Personal stories are worthless, because anyone could make anything up. How do I know Mike isn’t simply lying? And how does HE know that he “worked more dangerous, harder, longer, hours for less pay” than some guy called Brian that he never met? Like you said, what you are/do in real life doesn’t matter here.
The Juggernaut • Sep 22, 2012 at 8:01 pm
Brian D,
It is clear that you have little economic schooling. The risks of adverse selection and moral hazard far exceed the risks of theft and inflation (something that is good in controlled amounts, actually). Not to mention your definition of gambling is incorrect in business, economic, scientific, even English terms when you try to apply it to the stock markets.
If you think the stock market is gambling you have zero knowledge on it’s purpose and function. None. Guaranteed. The stock market there is to raise capital, to increase business, and to own a portion of it. In fact it is more socialist than most other ways, because anyone who can afford it can buy a piece of a public company. If you pick a company that does well and grows, why can’t you sell your piece? It’s not a gambling chip, it’s a piece of a company. Did you know over 90% of growth occurs for a company after it goes public?
Also for future note….
Risk: Calculating out the odds in a far manner and making an informed decision. Insurance and healthcare (even in Canada, calculates risk).
Gambling:Knowing the odds and leaving it to chance. Hence rolling the dice, rather than observing 10,000 variables and mathematically deciding the best move and where to invest.
And Mike’s correct, what you are/what you do in real life doesn’t matter when you’re argument can’t hold up to ours.
Armchair Marxians kill me.
Mike • Sep 21, 2012 at 5:25 pm
You have no idea who I am and what I’ve been given. I can almost guarantee I’ve worked more dangerous, harder, longer, hours for less pay than you ever will in your life, and made SIGNIFICANTLY less many per hour of time I worked, for an end that is even unclear to me. I am able to take that experience and grow from it, and better my future. That is a door that is open to most in this country, I’ve met those who have capitalized on opportunity, and those who have shunned it away and are left to pick up the pieces. For MY work I do deserve more than someone who hasn’t put fourth as much effort. If my family had wanted to give me money and nice things that they earned, than they would be rightfully mine (though they have not, sorry to burst your cookie cutter image of me).
If someone wants to gamble with their money, and they make millions off it, I don’t care what they spend it on, I am no more deserving of it than you are. I have friends who have busted there rear sending themselves through Cornell and Harvard, and ended up wall street. They came to this country at 18 with nothing and using only their intellect they were able to move themselves towards the top.
Mike
Brian D. • Sep 21, 2012 at 2:34 pm
Mike, you are not going to get away with defending the rich in your first sentence on the basis that they deserve every cent they won by gambling (yes, gambling, because that’s PRECISELY what “risky capital investment” actually means), and then somehow equating that gambling with “hard work” in your last sentence.
Working to put yourself through dental school or law school is one thing. Making millions of dollars by playing the stock market is something else entirely.
And yeah, damn right we ARE entitled to more than we already get. How do we know that? Because we’re breaking our backs working 2 or 3 jobs with no benefits, just like your grandparents probably did, while we see the lazy rich blowing off millions of dollars on yachts, mansions and champagne while telling us to work harder.
Your grandparents sound like hard-working, decent people. Too bad their grandson thinks he’s better than everyone else because of what they’ve given him. Let’s see you put yourself through dental school or law school, let’s see you work 2 or 3 jobs and barely making ends meet, and then you can lecture us about hard work.
Gambling, partying and speaking BS to large crowds is not work, and that’s all the rich do. WE are the ones who work hard, WE are the ones who make this country run, and WE create all the wealth that the 1% get to spend.
Mike • Sep 21, 2012 at 12:24 am
Except the risks of hyper-inflation and even less-so theft are insignificant compared with general risks of capital investment. So wrong again.
Maybe it is because my family has generational traditions of making something of themselves that I think you are freeloaders, but who knows. I have grandparents who went from the projects to dental school, and later bought and sold property, and a father who put himself through law school. I also have a grandfather who still works at 84 years old. These people broke their backs to get to where they are, and that is a lot better off than many in this country. The fact that any of you think you are entitled to any more than you already get is quite unfortunate.
Grow up and work hard.
Brian D. • Sep 20, 2012 at 11:58 pm
Well, by keeping my hard earned money and NOT lending it out, I undertake a risk too – there’s a risk someone might steal it, there’s a risk inflation will destroy its value, there’s a risk the place where I keep it might burn down, and so on. You’re ALWAYS taking risks, no matter what you do. So, no, you do not deserve special compensation for a very particular kind of risk.
The Juggernaut • Sep 20, 2012 at 12:06 pm
To the unearned income statement.
By taking my hard earned money and lending it out, do I not undertake a risk of losing it? You deserve compensation for this risk.
x • Sep 20, 2012 at 9:27 am
Nice job stirring the sh*t again Mr. Tudoreanu. So if you’re going to start off with “Capitalism failed us”, I think the kind of stuff people are arguing about in these comments should form the main subject of the piece, instead of boilerplate “the economy sucks so you should support my party because we will fix everything” that is all any politician ever says nowadays. Tacking on “… and it’s because capitalism sucks” is no more substantive than the GOP discourse. This is what I really can’t stand about the entrism that groups like the ISO practice; if you’re Marxists, at least have the ‘courage of your bad taste’ and explain and defend your theory in a coherent manner. Otherwise it’s all too obvious you’re just another politician trying to lead people around by the nose, and you wonder why it’s not working?
ktabz • Sep 20, 2012 at 7:43 am
You guys are crazy. Want to know why the average wage in this country is $26k? It’s because that is what the market wage for an average worker is. In other words, even if you feel you are entitled to more, there is someone else willing to do the work for $26k. So when you pooh-pooh the job offer as too low paying, someone behind you takes it. If no one wanted to do the work at that pay, employers would have to pay more to entice workers to do the work.
Facts are pesky things.
Brian D. • Sep 20, 2012 at 3:04 am
Capitalists don’t get rich by inventing or discovering things. They get rich in one of the following ways:
1. Inheriting a large fortune from daddy. An all-time favorite among the wealthy elites, this tradition is alive and well, with such stellar examples as the Koch brothers, the Walton family (owners of Wal-Mart), Bernard Arnault (the richest person in Europe), Gina Rinehart (the richest woman in Australia), and of course Mitt Romney and the Bush family.
2. Borrowing lots of money, using it to buy some kind of asset, and then selling that asset for a higher price. This is what all the great real estate tycoons did, such as Donald Trump. But land and houses don’t have to be the only things you buy and sell. You can do the same with private companies – and that’s how Warren Buffet and most of the Wall Street billionaires made their money.
3. Setting up nightmarish factories in poor countries and getting the governments of those countries to kick peasants off their land so they’ll have no choice but to work in your factories for inhumanly low wages. This used to be the #1 way to get rich in 19th century America and Europe, but today it’s a method used mainly in the developing world – Lakshmi Mittal, the richest man in India (and the owner of the world’s largest steel-producing empire), is the best example. Others in India, China and Brazil (among other places) are doing the same.
4. Getting hold of oil fields or natural gas fields through corruption, bribery, war, or other criminal or murderous methods. This is how the House of Saud made their money (and got a country named after them, and continue to rule said country with an iron fist). It’s also how the Russian oligarchs got rich.
5. Having one or two good ideas, making a decent amount of money from them, and then using that money to hire other people to think for you while you take credit for their ideas and work. This is the path of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Neither of them have invented or discovered anything since the 1980s – but they continued to take the credit (and money) for their employees’ inventions anyway.
…and that covers most of the capitalists of the world. There are some other paths to “success”, of course, such as drug dealing or selling weapons to warlords, but there’s no need to go into that. Suffice it to say, if these people are “exceptional” at anything, they’re exceptional at making our lives worse.
Mike • Sep 20, 2012 at 12:33 am
Yes taking your money and letting somebody else borrow it and return it to you with interest (or possibly lose it all) is not something you deserve to do. You hit the nail on the head there.
They don’t follow a different set of rules. You too can make money through capital gains. You need more of it to make it an effective income? Invent something. Discover something. Start a company. Save a company. Manage a company. Work to become exceptional. There is some capitalism driven motivation.
Mike
EJ C • Sep 17, 2012 at 8:31 pm
Look at all of these clowns and their superficial understanding of political-economy (HURR SOCIALISM IS BAD LOOK AT THE SOVIET UNION). There is a concept called UNEARNED INCOME. It’s when you take capital and put it somewhere to generate interest, thereby earning money for yourself. This isn’t work. There is no labor involved. You would think because this isn’t hard work, it would be taxed heavier than income someone obtains though working a construction job or some other task. But, it isn’t. Capital gains are taxed at 15%, not including all of the various tax loopholes that are used to reduce that further. Being that most of the super rich don’t actually earn their income and live off capital gains, it’s just one more example about how the “American Dream” of everyone being about to get rich through “hard work” is nothing more than a myth. Instead, it’s one more example of how the deck is stacked in favor of the rich who follow a different set of rules than the rest of us.
Mike • Sep 17, 2012 at 2:16 pm
Often the workers don’t bring special unique talents to the table (not to say they don’t have talents that could be applied elsewhere) so they get paid for the value of their work. The guy who started Mcdonalds, the CEOs who organize and structure the organization, they do jobs that only few are capable enough to fill. You will also find engineers and other specialized smaller jobs that make up workers in other businesses often make a fair amount of money. The people who’s idea it was DESERVE what profits THEIR COMPANIES make.
I just won’t sit here and listen to your garbage about how people who don’t do as much of the manual labor are somehow not deserving of the profits their organizations reap. It’s untrue and I can tell there is a lot of poor me I did manual labor and didn’t get paid as much as my boss attitude. So did I, and so didn’t I, and I’m still low level but I’ve gotten promoted and worked my way up.
Mike
pretz • Sep 16, 2012 at 10:52 pm
Welcome back Mike! Great article.
I think its important that people recognize that people realize that this is a fight we can win as students and workers. Students across the world regularly organize and struggle against university administrations or the governments that run them. More often than not if they are resolute and stand together they win. Just look at the students in Quebec who stood up the the government and the university and ensured that their public education would remain affordable for everyone.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/07/17/davide-mastracci-how-quebecs-student-protesters-won/
Don’t be afraid, we are in this together.
Jamie • Sep 16, 2012 at 7:01 pm
@Mike: I DON’T deserve something I didn’t work for. But I DO deserve something I DID work for.
For example, there are people who work to make t-shirts, and get paid a few cents per t-shirt even though the t-shirt gets sold for $20. They deserve that $20 (minus transport and raw material costs, if applicable), not the few cents they get paid. Or let’s use an example closer to home: take the people who work at McDonald’s, all of them – the ones who cook the food, the ones who serve it, the ones who clean the place, even the drivers who carry it around. If you add up all their wages, you’ll find that it amounts to MUCH less than the money McDonald’s is getting from its customers. But those employees did all the work. Shouldn’t they be getting all the money? (minus raw material costs, of course, which aren’t all that much)
.
We can argue about which workers deserve more money than others, and you’ll say that doctors deserve more money than McDonald’s employees and I will agree completely. But the point is, the people who do all the work deserve all the money – and right now, in many places, they’re only getting a small part of the money. The rest is going to the undeserving rich, who get money just by holding a piece of paper that makes them shareholders in the company.
.
Oh yeah, and the idea that “if you work hard, you get a promotion and a pay raise” is total BS and you know it. Everyone who’s had a job knows people who worked hard and got nothing for their trouble. I know a few, and I’m sure you do as well.
Mike • Sep 15, 2012 at 7:18 pm
Let me explain how this works. Peoples services are valued by what people will pay for them. A doctor who works miracles, a lawyer who wins cases, financial specialists who are consistent, all get high paying customers. Likewise, people who gamble and are intelligent enough to tip the odds in their favor also often come out well, and sometimes wind up at the bottom. This desire is what drives people to work hard, excel, do everything they can, and this competition yields progress.
I like how you say “the workers.” I was a “worker” and frankly I felt my pay was what I was worth. I amazing didn’t feel entitled to more of peoples money who hadn’t worked as hard or put themselves on the line the same why I had, because frankly, many people could do my job and it didn’t demand any crazy expertise. And guess what, if you work hard, you get a promotion and a pay raise. As a result, those who deserved them were in positions of power.
I know because you are some enlightened student who worked a couple crap jobs you think you know how the world works. Well I too am an “enlightened student” and I’ve been around, and you don’t know how wrong you have it. I honestly have NO idea how you came to the conclusion that you some how “deserve” something you didn’t work for.
Mike
Jamie • Sep 15, 2012 at 5:08 pm
And by the way, ktabz: Bringing up the Soviet Union to say that “socialism failed” makes about as much sense as bringing up Somalia to say that “capitalism failed.” I’m pretty sure the kind of capitalism we’re talking about here is not the one practiced in Somalia, just like the kind of socialism we’re talking about here is not the one practiced in the Soviet Union.
Jamie • Sep 15, 2012 at 3:38 pm
“Nothing tangible is RIGHTFULLY anybodies unless they earned it through their work…” – Yes, exactly! And since the rich did NOT work for most of their wealth, that wealth is not rightfully theirs. It rightfully belongs to the people who DID work for it. Namely, the workers.
ktabz • Sep 15, 2012 at 7:01 am
Socialism failed awhile ago, google the Soviet Union and get back to us with a follow up article please.
Mike • Sep 14, 2012 at 2:42 pm
Hahah… What is RIGHTFULLY THEIRS? Nothing tangible is RIGHTFULLY anybodies unless they earned it through their work or someone else who worked for it and is generous enough to provide it by their own free will. I do agree on getting rid of this 2 party system, but I have a feeling we would be nominating different third party candidates. I tend to like those who value personal achievement and liberties over those who think because I got lucky, or worked harder, or was smart enough to figure something out I ought to give the result of that to someone else involuntarily.
Mike
Kris • Sep 14, 2012 at 6:47 am
Are you one of the many first year students at UMass? Here! Have some candy and socialist brainwashing!