Jared Bernstein Posts

The New York Times has a piece about a fascinating development in Tennessee, where management in a privately owned auto company, a VW plant in Chattanooga, appears to be working cooperatively with the UAW to organize the plant. The wrinkle is that “outside agitators” are trying to block the union, which is pitting them against both sides — union and management, since the latter thinks organizing the workforce would be helpful.

These days, when I say “federal contractor,” you think Snowden. And it turns there are lots of them doing highly classified work for which they are handsomely paid. They are not the folks we’re talking about here. The workers who would benefit from an executive order clean federal buildings, sell food, sew uniforms for the armed services, provide security services, and so on. They’re members of the low-wage work force.

Remember when New York bailed out Texas to the tune of $150 billion? It was less than 25 years ago, but a lot has changed — and yet global parallels still abound.

While a growing stock market is important not just for the top 1 percent — a lot of pension funds and 401(k)’s get a boost from the bull — the vast majority of the value of the stock market is held by the wealthiest households.

Even as the labor market expanded in 2012, union membership fell again, both in the private and public sectors a major reason American working families, despite their relatively high productivity levels, benefit significantly less from the fruits of their labor.

I expected this presidential race to tighten up, so why should I find that fact so dispiriting?

At least two reasons come to mind.  First, the stakes are high.  If Romney/Ryan win and really do:
–pass another massive trickle down tax cut on top of making the Bush tax cuts permanent;
–repeal Obamacare, voucherize Medicare, and block grant Medicaid and food stamps;
–deregulate financial markets and environmental protections;
...

Sunday morning’s papers are replete with details about the sequester—automatic, across-the-board spending cuts to the tune of about $110 billion in 2013—scheduled for next January. They’re the lesser part of the much-lamented fiscal cliff, which also includes the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and a bunch of other cats and dogs. If we go over and stay over, there’s a good chance our already wobbly economy would be whacked back into recession.

The issue of sustainably of Social Security and Medicare — I fear that the word “entitlement” feeds into the frenzy — actually has little to do with greed and is largely a function of our uniquely inefficient system of health care delivery, as that’s from where our real long-term fiscal problems derive. And this goes well beyond the public sector — private sector health spending is also unsustainable and, unless we slow it down to a rate closer to overall economic growth, will eventually crowd out too much of the other things we want and need.

We can and should achieve solvency in Social Security, but sacrifices by baby boomers don’t get you very far, as I’ll show in a moment.