Blackwater gets U.S. justice for 2007 Iraq killings

Sedulous readers will recall my opposition to private military contractors, (aka mercenaries), or at least our increasing reliance on them to do jobs the U.S. Military used to do for itself, such as security, logistics and even intelligence.

Why? Because in Iraq and Afghanistan, they haven't been subject to local law, military discipline or the chain of command. They are almost a law unto themselves. 

I also argue they're bad for morale, what with their fat paychecks while our troops' families back home depend on food stamps to survive. And strategically, it's dangerous for our military to lose capabilities it once had and become dependent on outside contractors. 

We do know why the explosive growth in mercenaries though, since 2001: 

  1) They don't count as "troops" that we should care about when generals or politicians talk about U.S. forces overseas; 

  2) None of us has to mourn them when they die or hang a yellow ribbon to keep them safe; 

  3) They are a great way for Republicans to hand out government cheese and re-collect it in the form of campaign contributions (Blackwater alone has collected more than $1 billion in U.S. Government contracts, many of them non-compete); and

  4) There isn't a single government service that Republicans don't want to privatize or outsource, as the eight year of Dubya-Cheney's regime proved.

U.S. mercenaries caused tragedy in September 2007, when a group of Americans from Blackwater, LLC opened fire at a crowded Baghdad intersection and killed 17 innocent Iraqi civilians and seriously wounded 20 others. I posted about it then, writing:

When Blackwater's highly-paid mercenaries indiscriminately shoot and kill innocent Iraqis, the Iraqi people don't know it was mercenaries who did it, they think it was U.S. soldiers. Mercenaries in Iraq are harming the mission of our real troops by turning the Iraqis against America.

Blackwater is a deadly menace, and yet another blight on America's image as our real soldiers try to win hearts and minds in Iraq. 

Or as I've said before in more sanguine terms, it's hard to "win hearts and minds" when you're shooting them in the head and chest. This has always been the fundamental contradiction of America's occupations, er, counter-insurgency efforts  in Afghanistan and Iraq. We call these places "wars" but we also "liberated" their people who we're trying to help while fighting them. 

Even now I hear hot-air pundits like Limbaugh and Hannity say we "lost" Iraq after gaining territory here or there, as if it was a conventional fight to take and hold ground from the Nazis. 

Anyhow... finally justice has been done for some of the Blackwater killers, in the U.S.: Three were found guilty of manslaughter and one of first-degree murder.

And as for Blackwater, well... like many PMCs, they change their name as often as most people change jobs. It went from Blackwater Worldwide to Xe Services, LLC to Academi, LLC and most recently, through a merger with a rival, to Constellis Holdings. Check out Blackwater's detailed but murky history here, including other U.S. federal charges against Blackwater, and its cozy connections with Republicans and even the Family Research Council! 

I'll leave you with this this beaut [emphasis mine]:

[T]he State Department's chief investigator [of Blackwater] reported being threatened by a Blackwater official in Iraq in August 2007. The investigator said project manager Daniel Carroll told him "that he could kill me at that very moment and no one could or would do anything about it as we were in Iraq."

With such an attitude, it's not surprising that a few weeks later Blackwater killed and wounded all those Iraqis. Good thing somebody could and did do something about it!

US jury convicts Blackwater guards in 2007 killing of Iraqi civilians

By Dan Roberts 

October 22, 2014 | Guardian

URL: http://gu.com/p/42kcf

Harvard survey: Businesses don't want to hire

What about Obamacare?  What about "uncertainty?"  This Harvard competitiveness survey can't be right. I'd rather trust one of those instant click-on surveys on Fox News' homepage.

America's 'Job Creators' Would Rather Do Anything But Create Jobs: Survey

By Mark Gongloff

September 8, 2014 | Huffington Post

America's capitalists take every chance they get to remind us that they are our "job creators," but it turns out that their least-favorite thing on earth to do is create jobs.

Most U.S. business leaders would rather build robots, outsource work or use part-time employees than hire workers full-time, according to a new Harvard Business School survey. Here's a nice infuriating graphic from the smarty-pantses at Harvard Business School, who are educating all of our future non-job-creators in the art of not creating jobs:

As you can see from the chart, 46 percent of our job creators would rather spend money on technology than employ humans, compared with a sad 26 percent who prefer people to robots, and another 29 percent who were confused or indifferent about the question or fell asleep while the survey taker was talking. Forty-nine percent would rather outsource than hire, compared with 30 percent who'd rather hire.

Ever notice how the stock market and corporate profits are at all-time highs, while our wages are flat and roughly half of us still think the economy is in recession? This chart helps explain it, and helps explain why workers' share of those corporate profits is near its lowest since the Truman administration.

This is also bad news for the future of the economy because it means fewer workers are getting the training they need for our super-awesome, high-tech, no-job economy, Harvard pointed out:

"Firms invest most deeply in full-time employees, so preferences for automation, outsourcing, and part-time hires are likely to lead to less skills development," the study authors wrote.

This will give business leaders, who already think we lack the necessary skills for their precious jobs, even less reason to hire us in the future.

Half the U.S. makes under $27 K, and other signs the middle class is dying

Half The Country Makes Less Than $27,520 A Year And 15 Other Signs The Middle Class Is Dying

Submitted by Tyler Durden

June 5, 2014 | Zero Hedge

Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog,

If you make more than $27,520 a year at your job, you are doing better than half the country is.  But you don't have to take my word for it, you can check out the latest wage statistics from the Social Security administration right here.  But of course $27,520 a year will not allow you to live "the American Dream" in this day and age. After taxes, that breaks down to a good bit less than $2,000 a month.  You can't realistically pay a mortgage, make a car payment, afford health insurance and provide food, clothing and everything else your family needs for that much money.  That is one of the reasons why both parents are working in most families today.  In fact, sometimes both parents are working multiple jobs in a desperate attempt to make ends meet.  Over the years, the cost of living has risen steadily but our paychecks have not.  This has resulted in a steady erosion of the middle class.  Once upon a time, most American families could afford a nice home, a couple of cars and a nice vacation every year.  When I was growing up, it seemed like almost everyone was middle class.  But now "the American Dream" is out of reach for more Americans than ever, and the middle class is dying right in front of our eyes.

One of the things that was great about America in the post-World War II era was that we developed a large, thriving middle class.  Until recent times, it always seemed like there were plenty of good jobs for people that were willing to be responsible and work hard.  That was one of the big reasons why people wanted to come here from all over the world.  They wanted to have a chance to live "the American Dream" too.

But now the American Dream is becoming a mirage for most people.  No matter how hard they try, they just can't seem to achieve it.

And here are some hard numbers to back that assertion up.  The following are 15 more signs that the middle class is dying...

#1 According to a brand new CNN poll, 59 percent of Americans believe that it has become impossible for most people to achieve the American Dream...

The American Dream is impossible to achieve in this country.

 

So say nearly 6 in 10 people who responded to CNNMoney's American Dream Poll, conducted by ORC International. They feel the dream -- however they define it -- is out of reach.

 

Young adults, age 18 to 34, are most likely to feel the dream is unattainable, with 63% saying it's impossible. This age group has suffered in the wake of the Great Recession, finding it hard to get good jobs.

#2 More Americans than ever believe that homeownership is not a key to long-term wealth and prosperity...

The great American Dream is dying. Even though many Americans still desire to own a home, they are losing faith in homeownership as a key to prosperity.

 

Nearly two-thirds of Americans, or 64%, believe they are less likely to build wealth by buying a home today than they were 20 or 30 years ago, according to a survey sponsored by non-profit MacArthur Foundation. And nearly 43% said buying a home is no longer a good long-term investment.

#3 Overall, the rate of homeownership in the United States has fallen for eight years in a row, and it has now dropped to the lowest level in 19 years.

#4 52 percent of Americans cannot even afford the house that they are living in right now...

"Over half of Americans (52%) have had to make at least one major sacrifice in order to cover their rent or mortgage over the last three years, according to the “How Housing Matters Survey,” which was commissioned by the nonprofit John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and carried out by Hart Research Associates. These sacrifices include getting a second job, deferring saving for retirement, cutting back on health care, running up credit card debt, or even moving to a less safe neighborhood or one with worse schools."

#5 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 36 percent of Americans under the age of 35 own a home.  That is the lowest level that has ever been measured.

#6 Right now, approximately one out of every six men in the United States that are in their prime working years (25 to 54) do not have a job.

#7 The labor force participation rate for Americans from the age of 25 to the age of 29 has fallen to an all-time record low.

#8 The number of working age Americans that are not employed has increased by 27 million since the year 2000.

#9 According to the government's own numbers, about 20 percent of the families in the entire country do not have a single member that is employed at this point.

#10 This may sound crazy, but 25 percent of all American adults do not even have a single penny saved up for retirement.

#11 As I noted in one recent article, total consumer credit in the United States has increased by 22 percent over the past three years, and 56 percent of all Americans have "subprime credit" at this point.

#12 Major retailers are shutting down stores at the fastest pace that we have seen since the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

#13 It is hard to believe, but more than one out of every five children in the United States is living in poverty in 2014.

#14 According to one recent report, there are 49 million Americans that are dealing with food insecurity right now.

#15 Overall, the U.S. poverty rate is up more than 30 percent since 1966.  It looks like LBJ's war on poverty didn't work out too well after all.

Sadly, it does not appear that there is much hope on the horizon for the middle class.  More good jobs are being shipped out of the country and are being lost to technology every single day, and our politicians seem convinced that "business as usual" is the right course of action for our nation.

Unless something dramatic happens, it is going to become increasingly difficult to eke out a middle class existence as a "worker bee" in American society.  The truth is that most big companies these days do not have any loyalty to their workers and really do not care what ends up happening to them.

To thrive in this kind of environment, new and different thinking is required.  The paradigm of "go to college, get a job, stay loyal and retire after 30 years" has been shattered.  The business world is more unstable now than it has been during any point in the post-World War II era, and we are all going to have to adjust.

Reich: 2013 saw huge wealth redistribution

Trickle-down economic theory vs. trickle-up economic fact.

I can't say it any better than this. Read the whole thing and get back to me with any questions!

The Year of the Great Redistribution

By Robert Reich

January 5, 2014 | Huffington Post

One of the worst epithets that can be leveled at a politician these days is to call him a "redistributionist." Yet 2013 marked one of the biggest redistributions in recent American history. It was a redistribution upward, from average working people to the owners of America.

The stock market ended 2013 at an all-time high -- giving stockholders their biggest annual gain in almost two decades. Most Americans didn't share in those gains, however, because most people haven't been able to save enough to invest in the stock market. More than two-thirds of Americans live from paycheck to paycheck.

Even if you include the value of IRA's, most shares of stock are owned by the very wealthy. The richest 1 percent of Americans owns 35 percent of the value of American-owned shares. The richest 10 percent owns over 80 percent. So in the bull market of 2013, America's rich hit the jackpot.

What does this have to do with redistribution? Some might argue the stock market is just a giant casino. Since it's owned mostly by the wealthy, a rise in stock prices simply reflects a transfer of wealth from some of the rich (who cashed in their shares too early) to others of the rich (who bought shares early enough and held on to them long enough to reap the big gains).

But this neglects the fact that stock prices track corporate profits. The relationship isn't exact, and price-earnings ratios move up and down in the short term. Yet over the slightly longer term, share prices do correlate with profits. And 2013 was a banner year for profits.

Where did those profits come from? Here's where redistribution comes in. American corporations didn't make most of their money from increased sales (although their foreign sales did increase). They made their big bucks mostly by reducing their costs -- especially their biggest single cost: wages.

They push wages down because most workers no longer have any bargaining power when it comes to determining pay. The continuing high rate of unemployment -- including a record number of long-term jobless, and a large number who have given up looking for work altogether -- has allowed employers to set the terms.

For years, the bargaining power of American workers has also been eroding due to ever-more efficient means of outsourcing abroad, new computer software that can replace almost any routine job, and an ongoing shift of full-time to part-time and contract work. And unions have been decimated. In the 1950s, over a third of private-sector workers were members of labor unions. Now, fewer than 7 percent are unionized.

All this helps explain why corporate profits have been increasing throughout this recovery (they grew over 18 percent in 2013 alone) while wages have been dropping. Corporate earnings now represent the largest share of the gross domestic product -- and wages the smallest share of GDP -- than at any time since records have been kept.

Hence, the Great Redistribution.

Some might say this doesn't really amount to a "redistribution" as we normally define that term, because government isn't redistributing anything. By this view, the declining wages, higher profits, and the surging bull market simply reflect the workings of the free market.

But this overlooks the fact that government sets the rules of the game. Federal and state budgets have been cut, for example -- thereby reducing overall demand and keeping unemployment higher than otherwise. Congress has repeatedly rejected tax incentives designed to encourage more hiring. States have adopted "right-to-work" laws that undercut unions. And so on.

If all this weren't enough, the tax system is rigged in favor of the owners of wealth, and against people whose income comes from wages. Wealth is taxed at a lower rate than labor.

Capital gains, dividends, and debt all get favorable treatment in the tax code - which is why Mitt Romney, Warren Buffet, and other billionaires and multimillionaires continue to pay around 12 percent of their income in taxes each year, while most of the rest of us pay at least twice that rate.

Among the biggest winners are top executives and Wall Street traders whose year-end bonuses are tied to the stock market, and hedge-fund and private-equity managers whose special "carried interest" tax loophole allows their income to be treated as capital gains. The wild bull market of 2013 has given them all fabulous after-tax windfalls.

America has been redistributing upward for some time -- after all, "trickle-down" economics turned out to be trickle up -- but we outdid ourselves in 2013. At a time of record inequality and decreasing mobility, America conducted a Great Redistribution upward.

Baker: Technology didn't kill middle class jobs, public policy did

Baker doesn't mention other advanced countries like Germany that did not lose their middle class and manufacturing jobs, even though they are subject to the same global, technological forces that ostensibly destroyed U.S. wages and jobs. Why? Because their politicians protected their unions and domestic manufacturers, among other things.

Technology didn't kill middle class jobs, public policy did

By Dean Baker

November 25, 2013 | Guardian

URL: http://gu.com/p/3kka7

U.S. workers and the real 'freeloaders'

Huffington Post featured three excellent articles in two days about the plight of America's workers, who struggle to work enough hours to pay their bills, while not getting any paid leave or health insurance.

This week a Republican friend was complaining to me about "freeloaders" in America who don't pay any income taxes and thus feel no responsibility for our government; they just want to take, take, take.  This was his version of Mitt Romney's secretly taped complaint about the "47 percent" -- a moment of candor that likely cost Romney the 2012 U.S. presidential election.  (Such complaints are bald assertion: there is no indication that a large number of our fellow citizens feel this way; and people who make such accusations don't feel any need to offer evidence for such a conclusion.)

I replied to my friend, first, that Romney's 47 percent by definition includes millions of Red State Republicans.  Second, I said that nobody who works in America is a freeloader, even if they don't pay income tax.  Why?

The article about KFC provides a pretty good example.  A young man worked hard and was promoted by his boss and given extra hours and responsibilities, with a promise that a raise was just around the corner, but the raise never came. When he said he didn't want to be a manager anymore, it was too much stress for a poverty wage, his boss accused him of being "selfish."  Meanwhile, from 2007 to 2011, KFC (part of Yum!Brands) saw its profits rise 45 percent. 

This is true nationwide, where U.S. corporate profits are at an all-time high, while workers' wages are at an all-time low.  Yes, companies are getting more efficient and workers are getting more productive, but the profit gains from all that increased productivity are not going to workers.  

So just who is freeloading off of whom?  I don't mean to sound like a Marxist, but obviously, that guy working his tail off at KFC while living in his uncle's basement is not seeing any of that 45 percent in profits; it's all going to the corporate managers and shareholders.  His story has been repeated millions of times at other fast-food and retail joints around the country.

Or take the article about Amazon that, like many companies, outsources many aspects of its operations to temp agencies that don't give their workers any job security, full-time hours or benefits. Similarly, the U.S. Government's contractors often employ temp and part-time workers who earn below-poverty wages who then must rely partly on government benefits.  

This is not to mention Wal-Mart, the nation's #1 employer, whose average employee earns less than $9 an hour (less than $19,000 a year, full-time), and who has the most employees receiving federal welfare benefits.

Knowing all this, I don't see how anybody can have the gall to complain about the "selfishness" of U.S. workers who don't pay income tax.  Paying income tax is an elite privilege; and I'm sure these poor working Americans would love to be members of that elite club, earning enough money on salary with benefits to qualify for the "burden" of paying income taxes... while still enjoying all the other tax expenditures that middle- and upper-class Americans receive, which, according to Bloomberg, make up the largest category of government spending, $1.3 trillion:

Middle-class families get an average benefit from the mortgage interest deduction of $139, while families in the top 1 percent get $3,752.

Taken together, individual income tax expenditures are the equivalent of sending $686 each year to those in the bottom fifth of the income distribution, $3,175 to those in the middle fifth, and $30,714 to those in the upper fifth. The average member of the top 1 percent gets nearly a quarter of a million dollars a year -- a statistic that might have proved useful for the folks protesting in Zuccotti Park.

Working Poor Face Long Odds: 'You Have To Just Wait Your Turn, But That Turn May Never Come'

By Saki Knafo

May 7, 2013 | Huffington Post

URL: http://huff.to/16U5Yr4

Taxpayers Indirectly Employing More Low-Wage Workers Than Walmart And McDonald's Combined: Study

By Jillian Berman

May 8, 2013 | Huffington Post

URL: http://huff.to/10iQvsy

Amazon Warehouse Workers Sue Over Security Checkpoint Waits

By Dave Jamieson

May 8, 2013 | Huffington Post

URL: http://huff.to/16YKjhz

Florida gov. vs. educators on subsidizing STEM

Fortunately, one of our most populous states is having an overdue debate on the myth of STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) education.

STEM degrees may not mean more jobs

By Michael Vazquez

December 10, 2012 | Miami Herald

URL: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/12/10/176887/stem-degrees-may-not-mean-more.html#storylink=cpy

You make-ey my iPhrone, chop-chop!

Apple may be big geniuses when it comes to computer design, but when it comes to managing their slave-wage supply chain... eh, not so much.

It's tempting to get upset about things like labor strikes and terrible working conditions for poor people in developing countries, but let's keep things in their proper perspective: the important thing is that I get my pre-ordered iPhone 5 before you do.  Hands off!  

Now get back to work, you lazy Chinamen, my iPhone isn't going to assemble itself!  Chop-chop!   

(Sheesh, if the Chinese keep up their bitching and whining we may just have to outsource their jobs to America, where it's every desperate man for himself and workers shut up and do what they're told.  It's so hard to find good help these days.)

Foxconn workers strike over iPhone 5 demands, labor group says

By Julianne Pepitone

October 6, 2012 | CNNMoney

URL: http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/05/technology/mobile/foxconn-iphone-5-strike/index.html?source=cnn_bin

Gulag USA

Those socialist regimes of the past were so brutal and awful.  In the U.S. we have the 13th Amendment that would never allow us to force our citizens into slave labor camps....  Oops:

All told, nearly a million [U.S.] prisoners are now making office furniture, working in call centers, fabricating body armor, taking hotel reservations, working in slaughterhouses or manufacturing textiles, shoes and clothing, while getting paid somewhere between ninety-three cents and $4.73 per day.

Well, at least they're privately-run slave labor camps.  With private outsourcing, I'm sure we can improve on the efficiency of socialist gulags.

Locking Down an American Workforce

By Steve Fraser and Joshua Freeman

April 19, 2012 | The Nation

URL:  http://www.thenation.com/article/167473/locking-down-american-workforce

When they say 'offshore' they really mean OFF SHORE

Umm... this is messed up. I give these guys credit for trying something new, but... this is messed up.

I mean, this offshoring is barely off the shore... of San Diego.

What's next, an artificial island, perhaps made of the Great Pacific Garbage mass?

Or how about a sweatshop in a hydrogen-filled zepellin? A submarine, perhaps?

I found an article about SeaCode from 2005, so this is not a new thing... nor an unsuccessful thing, apparently, if they're still doing business in 2011.

So here's the deal: a few hundred Indian and Russian (which could mean Ukrainian, Belarusian, whatever) programmers sit on an old cruise ship and do programming work for galley-slave wages. Presumably there is no daytime excursion, shuffle board, aqua aerobics, casino, or open bar, so that's all they do. These floating refugees are registered as "seamen" in the Bahamas so there are no U.S. payroll taxes. Here's how one article describes SeaCode's business model, which could catch on, don't laugh:

"Surround the USA with shiploads of migrant workers. Suck away the jobs, don't pay taxes, and funnel money overseas as fast as possible. Come into port once a month to dump sewage. When our economy is finally drained they can steam to another coastal nation that still has a few bucks in the treasury."

As Monty Burns would say... "Eeeexcellent."

Dan Rather: Guest visas at U.S. workers' expense

More people need to know about this, as we try to devise policies to lower current 9 percent U.S. unemployment:

"According to U.S. Department of Labor, a guest worker visa known as H-1B for 'specialty occupations' especially tech workers -- may be issued 'even when a qualified U.S. worker wants the job.' In fact, the bulletin notes, 'A U.S. worker can be displaced from the job in favor of the foreign worker.'"

"The federal government doesn't have any official counts of the guest worker population. Estimates put the current number of H-1B visa holders alone somewhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000. In recent years, U.S. corporations have been using an ever-proliferating array of temporary visas to import foreign labor -- including visitor visas, which as we reported in a recent Dan Rather Reports, are not supposed to be used for any purpose involving gainful employment."

Looking for Jobs in All the Wrong Places

By Dan Rather

June 17, 2011 | Huffington Post

URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-rather/obama-jobs-_b_879300.html

India outsourcing outsourced jobs back to Americans

First we outsourced our call-center jobs to India. Now Indian firms are "cross-sourcing" some of those jobs back to Americans.

Sure, they still abuse America's H1-B visa system, bringing in as many as 30,000 indentured servants to the U.S. per year to earn below-minimum wage, but, thanks to demands in India for higher wages, at least some of those low-paying jobs are coming back to America!

Ronil Hira, a public policy professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, said Indian workers make up more than 90 percent of most outsourcing companies' U.S. head counts. He and other critics argue that many of these workers are not more highly skilled than Americans, they simply work for less. "It's harming American workers," he said. "It's taking away their job opportunities, bringing down their wages and harming their working conditions."

To paraphrase Thomas Friedman, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Score another one for flat-earth globalism!

As Indian companies grow in the U.S., outsourcing comes home

By Paul Glader

May 20, 2011 | Washington Post

URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/as-indian-companies-grow-in-the-us-outsourcing-comes-home/2011/05/17/AFZbrp7G_story.html

The myth of privatization's advantages

Two compelling business cases from Chicago and Indiana on how the public loses out when public assets are privatized for the sake of "efficiency" and "running government services like a business."

Myth Sold as Truth: Privatization

By Ed Wallace
February 4, 2011 | Star-Telegram

URL: http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/02/04/2823930/myth-sold-as-truth-privatization.html#ixzz1DNjq0THF

Bloomberg: Conundrum for U.S.: efficiency = fewer jobs

U.S. corporations now "live in a perpetual state of recession," thanks to globalization. There is always an outlet in lower-cost markets for production.

In the U.S., American mangers are cooperating with the shop floor to minimize labor and maximize machines. Those few workers remaining on the payroll, scared s***less by the Great Recession, are only too happy to oblige their bosses. It's real cooperation to benefit the corporate bottom line.

"When the productivity growth comes, then watch out because that is when companies start not needing so much labor," Edmund Phelps, a Columbia University economist and Nobel laureate, said.

So which political party is going to be honest about this when they lament U.S. unemployment? Or will they keep saying that taxes and burdensome regulations are the problem?

What nobody will admit is that downsizing/efficiency projects are always an easy sell for middle-management, which is operating under assumptions of zero- or low-growth in consumer demand in the short term. Companies are basically making plans under the assumption that sales will be flat for the next few years. So of course efficiency projects are getting all their attention and capital investment.

Bernanke Goal of Optimal Employment Elusive With Profits Bringing No Jobs

By Craig Torres and Anthony Feld

November 24, 2010 | Bloomberg

URL: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-24/bernanke-goal-of-optimal-employment-elusive-with-profits-bringing-no-jobs.html

U.S. workers most overworked, productive, yet spit-upon

Americans are not lazy! They are super f-ing productive. And yet we are told all the time to expect less from our work while are expected to put more into it. We have been brainwashed. There is nothing wrong with the U.S. workforce. It is more productive than ever. It is producing scads of engineers and hard-science grads. Yet workers are not reaping the benefits of their productivity; and their jobs are in constant jeopardy.

If somebody from the Democratic or Tea Parties had the GUTS to ask WHY, then maybe we'd be onto something. Otherwise, we can only expect things to get worse for us.

Right now employed Americans are afraid to lose their jobs. To keep their jobs, they are working more hours than ever, and watching their colleagues' positions get replaced by technology and overseas labor. We are told this is inevitable. We are told this is "globalization." We are told there is nothing we can do. And yet other Western countries, like Germany and Finland, somehow manage to do better. Why? How? What do they have, what do they know, that we don't?

It's time we stopped thinking of ourselves as "exceptional" and started comparing ourselves to other developed countries. If the "American Dream" is for real, then it should offer us something better than what they've got. That dream was never meant to be a one-in-a-million lottery ticket; it was a promise to all those who worked hard and played by the rules.

The U.S. is the Most Overworked Developed Nation in the World – When do we Draw the Line?

Submitted by G.E. Miller

October 12, 2010 | 20 Something Finance

We, as Americans, work too many hours. If you don't believe so, check out the following data points that compare us to our peers around the world.

American Work-Life Balance

According to the Center for American Progress on the topic of work and family life balance, "in 1960, only 20 percent of mothers worked. Today, 70 percent of American children live in households where all adults are employed." I don't care who stays home and who works in terms of gender (work opportunity equality for all – it's a family choice). Either way, when all adults are working (single or with a partner), that's a huge hit to the American family and free-time in the American household.

[And when conservatives hark back to some mythical golden age of the nuclear family, they must take into account that their fleeting ideal was an historical anomaly both before and after the 1950s-1960s. They want "family values" without any families around to espouse those values. Not gonna happen, folks! - J]

• The U.S. is the ONLY country in the Americas without a national paid parental leave benefit. The average is over 12 weeks of paid leave anywhere other than Europe and over 20 weeks in Europe.
• Zero industrialized nations are without a mandatory option for new parents to take parental leave. That is, except for the United States.

American Average Work Hours:

• At least 134 countries have laws setting the maximum length of the work week; the U.S. does not.
• In the U.S., 85.8 percent of males and 66.5 percent of females work more than 40 hours per week.
• According to the ILO, "Americans work 137 more hours per year than Japanese workers, 260 more hours per year than British workers, and 499 more hours per year than French workers."
• Using data by the U.S. BLS, the average productivity per American worker has increased 400% since 1950. One way to look at that is that it should only take one-quarter the work hours, or 11 hours per week, to afford the same standard of living as a worker in 1950 (or our standard of living should be 4 times higher). Is that the case? Obviously not. Someone is profiting, it's just not the average American worker.

American Paid Vacation Time & Sick Time:

• There is not a federal law requiring paid sick days in the United States.
• The U.S. remains the only industrialized country in the world that has no legally mandated annual leave.
• In every country included except Canada and Japan (and the U.S., which averages 13 days/per year), workers get at least 20 paid vacation days. In France and Finland, they get 30 – an entire month off, paid, every year.
• Then there's this depressing graph on average paid vacation time in industrialized countries:

The Impact of Too Much Work

I'm not telling you to work less hours. If you genuinely love what you do and are doing it for the right reasons, you are more than entitled to spend all of your waking hours plugging away.

But for many of us, more work leads to more stress and a lower quality of life. Without time to unwind, take care of your home, spend time with loved ones, enjoy our hobbies, connect with friends, and generally live a more balance life. Stress is the #1 cause of health problems – mentally and physically. And there are few things that stress us out on a consistent basis like work does, especially when it takes away from all of the other things that life has to offer.

Americans are the Outliers

And if all of this data tells anything, it's that we are the outliers, not the norm. Why are we the outliers?

• Our companies fairly ruthlessly let people go. We want to keep our jobs and not be a 'low performer' compared to others.
• The decline of the union has led to less paid time off and other leave benefits.
• Cultural value of money over everything else. We love money, we want more of it, and we think money can buy happiness. And the more we work, the more we get paid.
• It's been drilled in our heads that we are lazy compared to emerging market counterpart workers in India, Mexico, China, and other parts of Asia. Who isn't? And what is our mental image of the work environments in those locales? To validate those fears, our jobs are being outsourced to the cheap labor in those countries. In reality, the U.S. is still the world leader in productivity per person.
• Our legislative branch of the government (on both sides of the aisle) has been bought and as a result has shied away from passing laws that protect workers that every other industrialized nation has passed.
• We generally don't fight for our working rights. We take what is given to us.

What we All Need to Remember

• What we all need to remind ourselves is that it doesn't have to be this way.
• It's OK to ask to move to fewer hours at work.
• It's OK to take a week-long vacation if we need to.
• It's OK to ask to work from home.
• It's OK to take a month of unpaid leave while you raise a child.
• It's OK… you get the idea.

Don't let life pass you by in the name of fear, circumstance, greed, or misguided hopes. Sometimes you just need to draw a line in the sand and say "enough is enough".

Overworked Discussion:

• Do you think we work too hard?
• Do you like the cultural norm around your workplace on working hour expectations?
• How have you been able to limit unhealthy overworking habits?

Obama's 'turnaround experts' for failing schools?

Yep, just another example of how gov't outsourcing to the private sector produces superior outcomes every time.

You see, the private sector just knows better. About everything. Because they're private, they have payroll to meet, profit motivates them, and therefore they're more efficient and stuff.

... Only, I'm dealing with a little cognitive dissonace here because I know Obama is a socialist who wants to grow government, so I'm not sure why he's relying on private-sector consultants to turn around failing public schools. But don't worry, it's like an ice cream headache: it only bothers me for a second and then it's gone.


Inexperienced Companies Chase U.S. School Funds
By Sam Dillon
August 9, 2010 New York Tmes

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/education/10schools.html?_r=2&th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1281441697-M5D1NjAjISgWKA45IdKsEg

Outsourced school tests rife with errors

Yet more evidence that the free market works every time it's tried.

Sure, those public school kids may be getting dumber by taking less-than-perfect tests developed by a private company, but they've got to see the big picture: Look how much money the school saved!

Effishensy, efishensy, efishensey!

Mass. school district tests rife with errors

June 29, 2010 | AP

URL: http://www.aolnews.com/story/mass-school-district-tests-rife-with/1141559?cid=46

Pentagon: Military outsourcing costs more

Gee, whaddya know, maybe all this U.S. military outsourcing not only harmed the morale of our nation's armed forces and undermined the traditional chain of command, but also produced less bang for the buck for U.S. taxpayers. I'm dumbstruck! Whoda thunkit?!

Pentagon sees big savings in replacing contractors with federal employees
By Walter Pincus
December 24, 2009 | Washington Post

URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/23/AR2009122302972.html

WSJ: The Real Chicago Way?

Privatization run amok. Anybody surprised? You shouldn't be.

Check it out:

It was not until months later that Chicagoans discovered what a lousy deal it was. The inspector general's report estimates that the private investors paid a little more than half the amount that the system would have generated had the city held onto the meters itself.

One alderman, described at length in the Chicago Reader last May, figures that the parking system might be worth four times what the investors paid. "The taxpayers had been hosed," the Reader concluded.

Meanwhile, the cost of parking increased dramatically, as the new parking-meter proprietor sought to maximize its return. Meters broke down from the unaccustomed load of quarters. Tickets were handed out with abandon. Chicagoans were furious.

The Real Chicago Way
A privatization scheme that's a loser for taxpayers

By Thomas Frank
December 8, 2009 | Wall Street Journal

URL: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703558004574584232074750544.html

Reply to Mom on school vouchers

Mom,
Tuition and fees at [high school name] for an out-of-district, non-Catholic student are $6,700. And tuition at [elementary school name] for a non-parishioner is $4,195, plus fees. So your $7,000 voucher would cover either. A Catholic School in New York costs at least $7,000 per year. But then there's the cost of transportation to the school, lunches every day, and other misc. fees.

More important, think about [high school name]'s capacity to hold more students, for instance. They just expanded. Could they handle another 100 students per class? Another 500? And even if they could, what would happen to the quality of the education, which depends on intimate classrooms and one-on-one attention? What would happen if non-Catholic, urban students suddenly outnumbered the Catholic students from the suburbs? What would that do to [high school name]'s cultural ethos? How would that affect the amount of money that suburban parents pledge to [high school name] -- would they give more or less? Especially if they saw, for example, that the basketball team suddenly went from 100% white to 80% black? After all, many parents send their kids to [high school name], and donate money because of its athletics, not its academics. In other words, what if [high school name] went from a small school that depended on high tuition plus generous donations, to a large school that serviced the "market" for school vouchers? Wouldn't that fundamentally change the school?

In other words, I think you're mistaken or naive if you think that the private schools would remain unchanged, and simply transform all these incoming students, without the students transforming your beloved private schools (and not always for the better).

And assuming that [high school name] had the right to refuse students (more on that to follow ), what if a child in [city name] found that [high school name] nor any other private school would take him, either because he was too "dumb," or the school was already at capacity, or for some other reason? What could he do then? And yet a child of similar characteristics in [city name] did find a private school to take him. Wouldn't that be a violation of the 14th Amendment (equal protection under the law)? That would mean that two Americans who were basically the same were not given the same level of access to the publicly funded educational system. That would be even worse than "separate but equal" public schools for whites and blacks! Or, what if a child has to bused, at public expense, to a faraway private school because there are no private schools available where he lives?

This is not to mention all the legal and moral implications of what happens when autonomous private schools are suddenly receiving taxpayers' money: Will they have to alter their curriculum and dozens of other things to conform to the Constitution and civil rights legislation? For example, would [high school name] remain an all-boys school if a female student who was refused a spot at [high school name] realized that there was an open spot at [high school name], and sued to win admission there? Or, what if somebody simply counted up all the available spots in all the local boys' and girls' schools, and realized that there was an imbalance: wouldn't that be inherent sex discrimination? Or, could [high school name] still teach that homosexuality was sinful?

And would private schools have to take any student who wanted to matriculate, or could they refuse some students? If yes, on what basis would private schools be allowed to refuse? Just imagine all the discrimination suits! Alternatively, I can imagine a school like [high school name] simply refusing to grow or hire more teachers, even if it could find the money to do so, in order to refuse any more urban, out-of-district, or non-Catholic students with their vouchers.

(I know, [high school name] could have "voucher student Bingo night" in the gym, when underprivileged kids could compete in a lottery to win an admissions spot!)

Moreover, with a voucher system in place, then what would happen to the public schools? Would their funding decrease as funding for vouchers increased? How would school boards and principals be able to project their funding and expenses, and make decisions like issuing education bonds, and hiring teachers, cafeteria workers, and bus drivers based on that (lack of) information? Imagine if 50% of their students opted for vouchers and left the public school in the same year, then you'd have teachers sitting idle and resources wasted.

It seems to me that public schools would always be the fall-back "choice" of last resort; they would always have to be prepared to give up students or take them back; whereas private schools would have some say, "yea or nay," over whom they accepted. And what would be the total cost of educating our children then? In other words, what are the cost implications of funding two different educational systems, simultaneously?

Of course, what school voucher proponents really want -- and what most proponents of privatizing/outsourcing any government-provided service really want -- is for public schools to become dysfunctional, wither on the vine due to lack of funding, and eventually lose all public support until they disappear. Voucher proponents' long-term agenda is not about "school choice," but rather about replacing public schools with publicly-funded private schools. Moreover, I suspect that their hidden-hidden agenda is the establishment of a de facto tiered system of private schools, which would allow white privileged kids to remain separate and above.

I agree that it is tempting to try to replicate the results of a few students here and there, but just imagine the implications if you roll out a massive school voucher program nationwide. Have you really thought this through? How in the heck is it supposed to work? It would be chaos. Until school voucher proponents can answer convincingly these and a hundred other questions, they can't be taken seriously.