09.08.10

Quotes from the day’s class war

Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, Stumble and Fail at 2:42 pm by George Smith

We’re still losing.

Republicans, and some Democrats, argue that the fragile state of the economy makes this a poor time to raise taxes on anyone — and that increases could stifle wealthier people’s appetite for spending. — AP

Heavens! The ritzy mansion set won’t spend and we’ll all die if their tax cuts aren’t refreshed.

They’ll take all their moolah and go somewhere else to play!

And you can always count on corporate America to pitch in when times are hard:

Firms say Obama tax write-off not enough

The business community likes President Obama’s proposal to accelerate tax write-offs for companies buying equipment and other big ticket items. But it is clamoring for more — extension of all the soon-expiring Bush tax cuts.

“Far and away the most important policy item on the agenda is what to do about the expiring tax cuts.” — the Los Angeles Times

Do I have any bets on the likelihood of corporate America taking Obama’s bribes to US big business tax write-offs, pocketing the money and/or compelling the current workforce to just do more under threat of being fired?

In the end, DD’s prediction is that the Obama tax cuts will become an example of how and why the government should have directly hired workers — the GOP and corporate America be damned — for national reclamation work, rather than doling it out to the usual recipients in the the private sector.

Once it was called the New Deal. Now it’s always the Raw Deal.

A California health insurer got the green light Tuesday to raise premiums an average of 16 percent for 38,000 policy holders who buy insurance on their own … The go-ahead from the state Insurance Department comes less than two weeks after it approved double digit hikes by Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of California. — the LA Times

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Applying at Harvard easier than getting a job in retail sales in the Dickensian corporate sector

Getting hired at Raleigh’s new Container Store takes a lot more than simply going on-line and filling out an application.

The lucky few who are offered one of the store’s 55 to 60 positions will have to make it through an on-line application, a phone interview, a two-hour group interview and as many as three additional one-on-one meetings. (This for a shit job that pays $10 hour for part-time/temp/seasonal work, no benefits.) — the LA Times

What DD can’t show you is the godawful picture in the hardcopy newspaper, a shot of “recruiting manager Beth Paparhonis” leading “job applicant Keri Jackson in a role-playing exercise.”

It looks suspiciously like making the job hunter sing a happy song. Sing, sing, you must sing for your supper!

Sorry, miss, you’re happy singing was off a bit. We want only the best sales people and only those who sing most happily can pass this test. Next!

Especially poignant because the store sells miscellaneous plastic boxes and container-ware made in China. Cabbage could do the job. But the story suggests that in business America, only the best and the brightest are fit for this work now.

“Many stores and restaurants now use recruiters to find managers,” the newspaper adds.

A few years ago DD made a wry joke that soon corporate America would require every potential employee to have an agent, like the entertainment industry. I never thought people were seriously considering it.

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And last, an opinion piece in the LA Times, one entitled “Making the economy work for workers,” by Thomas A. Kochan of the MIT Sloan School of Management, an essay that looks suspiciously like Ted Nugent’s anti-labor Labor Day piece in the WaTimes. Only much nicer, of course.

“Adverserial unions” = bad. “Expand job creation tax credits: “Current policy limits such credits to firms that hire the currently unemployed.”

Yes, it’s so bad to be only able to hire the unemployed for your bribe. You should be eligible for a bribe tax credit for poaching workers from other companies, too. And everyone knows the already employed worker is always better than the one who has been unemployed. It’s only common sense.

“Meanwhile, unemployed Americans stop even looking for work and allow their human capital to further depreciate,” says Kochan.

Yes, you’re allowing your human capital to depreciate!

“Labor Day is the perfect time for all Americans to call for bold actions — backed by research [mine] — like these to solve the jobs crisis,” the man proclaims.

We’re gonna pull ’em outta cars
And dip ’em in some tar — The Patriotic Class War Song

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