Christian Democrats in the United States
Domestic Issues - Jobs and Taxes We demand a living wage for all workers in America and object to attempts to establish a flat tax because of the comparative value of one dollar to one's total capital. We insist on closing tax loopholes for the wealthiest people and corporations, and support tax incentives for corporate programs with substantial public benefit. America must find a way to increase manufacturing exports since service jobs add less to the economy in the long term. We support a shorter, smarter work-week for all Americans. Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
10:56 AM
Debt slavery is the pimp's trick of making a girl feel like she can earn her freedom, when the interest and fees keep her in the red, a working girl forever.
Lady Liberty ain't no slave, and no one here shall be made a slave.
We should consider replacing the light of her torch with an upheld sword, paneled in glass and lit up inside.
work ethic or work psychosis?
Who has time to participate in democracy working 50 or more hours a week to support kids, or caught in the endless trap of debt slavery? That's exactly what people want.Debt slavery is the pimp's trick of making a girl feel like she can earn her freedom, when the interest and fees keep her in the red, a working girl forever.
Lady Liberty ain't no slave, and no one here shall be made a slave.
We should consider replacing the light of her torch with an upheld sword, paneled in glass and lit up inside.
> detail, links and comments >>
Friday, May 11, 2007
9:44 PM
The construction work employs a lot of people, but always at the expense of a small group of disenfranchised who become cast out, in a sense economically untouchable. New condos were unrealistic for most people, and rent went out of sight. (Man, and the Padres got this great "deal" where cable couldn't televise games unless the stadium sold out, so the city always picked up the tab for all the extra seats so we could see the games on T.V.)
In Los Angeles only about the top 12% of the income bracket is qualified to buy real estate. But all the surrounding cities have gone way up, and then traffic from distant cities multiplies the time people spend in cars. The distances are too great to make trains convenient unless you get lucky, besides which, the earth there is full of methane pockets, and the land is already too expensive to buy back for a large surface train system. And let me tell you, getting across L.A. on the bus takes a whole long time, even though it is the best bus system in the country.
A fully free competition model for real estate with an ever-growing land value is not feasible without greatly raising the minimum wage or subsidized housing, because there isn't anywhere to live for working people who drive the trucks and cook the food and clean up afterward. In California at any rate, it seems like the housing cost has gone so far beyond the minimum wage that no one stuck at that wage can get out. The system makes an eddy, a whirlpool at the bottom level that greatly increases the obstacles set in the way of getting out.
People of conscience ought to ask themselves if together we can provide people a way out when we refresh our urban centers with redevelopment construction. The success of our economy does not depend on working a small group of people to death, and we shouldn't punish people more who were trying to get their lives back together and get into houses.
redevelopment and gentrification
In San Diego the new stadium in the 1990's was used to redevelop one of the worst neighborhoods downtown, but the few poor people who had managed to get themselves an apartment down there were pushed right back onto the streets as the new projects went in... the new door was slammed in the face of anyone who had been trying to do right.The construction work employs a lot of people, but always at the expense of a small group of disenfranchised who become cast out, in a sense economically untouchable. New condos were unrealistic for most people, and rent went out of sight. (Man, and the Padres got this great "deal" where cable couldn't televise games unless the stadium sold out, so the city always picked up the tab for all the extra seats so we could see the games on T.V.)
In Los Angeles only about the top 12% of the income bracket is qualified to buy real estate. But all the surrounding cities have gone way up, and then traffic from distant cities multiplies the time people spend in cars. The distances are too great to make trains convenient unless you get lucky, besides which, the earth there is full of methane pockets, and the land is already too expensive to buy back for a large surface train system. And let me tell you, getting across L.A. on the bus takes a whole long time, even though it is the best bus system in the country.
A fully free competition model for real estate with an ever-growing land value is not feasible without greatly raising the minimum wage or subsidized housing, because there isn't anywhere to live for working people who drive the trucks and cook the food and clean up afterward. In California at any rate, it seems like the housing cost has gone so far beyond the minimum wage that no one stuck at that wage can get out. The system makes an eddy, a whirlpool at the bottom level that greatly increases the obstacles set in the way of getting out.
People of conscience ought to ask themselves if together we can provide people a way out when we refresh our urban centers with redevelopment construction. The success of our economy does not depend on working a small group of people to death, and we shouldn't punish people more who were trying to get their lives back together and get into houses.
> detail, links and comments >>
Monday, May 7, 2007
12:55 PM
I remember taking out the leftovers from the weekly catered lunches at an office I worked at in downtown L.A. There was this guy who looked like they'd thrown him out of a hospital, he had a patient bracelet on still, and his medical exam gown, which he had pissed all over.
But if we make them afraid of justice because in their cycle of despair they have picked up an alcohol or drug habit, or they are mentally ill, then they will avoid justice, and they will be pushed further in. Some cities have begun to experiment with providing a certain percentage of free housing. Overall, it costs the community less than it does to send the cops and the paramedics when they go over the edge. It is easier to bring people back to a point where they want to help themselves. And there are jobs generated by construction or redevelopment projects.
homelessness and jobs
When I lived in Los Angeles, where the county has a homeless population of over 80,000 people, there was also a lot of trash. One way to reach homeless populations is to offer them employment picking up trash. Even if they stand around doing nothing, it's better than if we left them out in the cold.I remember taking out the leftovers from the weekly catered lunches at an office I worked at in downtown L.A. There was this guy who looked like they'd thrown him out of a hospital, he had a patient bracelet on still, and his medical exam gown, which he had pissed all over.
But if we make them afraid of justice because in their cycle of despair they have picked up an alcohol or drug habit, or they are mentally ill, then they will avoid justice, and they will be pushed further in. Some cities have begun to experiment with providing a certain percentage of free housing. Overall, it costs the community less than it does to send the cops and the paramedics when they go over the edge. It is easier to bring people back to a point where they want to help themselves. And there are jobs generated by construction or redevelopment projects.
> detail, links and comments >>
10:10 AM
In Internet stuff, for example, only a few open-source developers who got enough money on the first round are able to work for free to move technology ahead. Anyone who has to work for money is doomed to repeating old hack cycles that go nowhere. The "conservative" approach at work. Bah.
We can envision a world where all human knowledge is available free at the touch of a button. In fact, that's basically what we have, but there are still a bunch of uncreative idiots trying to sell it to you.
We can envision a world in which little cart robots grow food and give it away. Why don't we build that? At some point, just as with intellectual property, it becomes less of a hassle just to give stuff away.
The mistake of Marx, Lenin etc. was to envision a utopia and then think you could get there by force. Maybe someone had a nice idea once, but it all goes wrong if you don't respect the spirit of truth.
Capitalism was the only way to develop the technologies to uplift the world. But capitalism sees a need to keep a chokehold on oil, for example, to keep its inequities afloat, instead of releasing the world to fusion. (Micro-scale fusion is a really good idea, but it still wouldn't be quite "cold," would it. It's said the shadow government is at least 70% ahead of the public sector as we approach the 2012 transistor squeeze.) Capitalism has an incentive to hold people back as much as it does to develop new technologies. It has a stronger incentive to hold back technologies that would destroy its system of incentives.
The thing is, the transition has to be voluntary. It can never be achieved by force. "Sell all you have and give the money to the poor."
You'd be surprised what the poor can do with it. There are always a lot of smart poor people out there, people who want to improve themselves and contribute to the lives of others.
b.s. jobs vs. real jobs
The thing that gets to smart people who are experienced with all these computer fango-dango doo-dads is, they are supposed to save work, but instead, everyone new to them uses them to create more work. Then all of work becomes mind games and personality wars. It's a big lie and I'm tired of it.In Internet stuff, for example, only a few open-source developers who got enough money on the first round are able to work for free to move technology ahead. Anyone who has to work for money is doomed to repeating old hack cycles that go nowhere. The "conservative" approach at work. Bah.
We can envision a world where all human knowledge is available free at the touch of a button. In fact, that's basically what we have, but there are still a bunch of uncreative idiots trying to sell it to you.
We can envision a world in which little cart robots grow food and give it away. Why don't we build that? At some point, just as with intellectual property, it becomes less of a hassle just to give stuff away.
The mistake of Marx, Lenin etc. was to envision a utopia and then think you could get there by force. Maybe someone had a nice idea once, but it all goes wrong if you don't respect the spirit of truth.
Capitalism was the only way to develop the technologies to uplift the world. But capitalism sees a need to keep a chokehold on oil, for example, to keep its inequities afloat, instead of releasing the world to fusion. (Micro-scale fusion is a really good idea, but it still wouldn't be quite "cold," would it. It's said the shadow government is at least 70% ahead of the public sector as we approach the 2012 transistor squeeze.) Capitalism has an incentive to hold people back as much as it does to develop new technologies. It has a stronger incentive to hold back technologies that would destroy its system of incentives.
The thing is, the transition has to be voluntary. It can never be achieved by force. "Sell all you have and give the money to the poor."
You'd be surprised what the poor can do with it. There are always a lot of smart poor people out there, people who want to improve themselves and contribute to the lives of others.
> detail, links and comments >>
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
6:05 PM
Jobs
stay tuned> detail, links and comments >>
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