Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Higher taxes on the most fortunate, a kinder safety net for the least fortunate. That’s the answer.

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Wealth disparity, poverty, we’d all like to see less of each in the USA.  Some say that education is the key.  Some say that bringing back manufacturing jobs is the answer.  The truth is that neither is the solution because neither one is at the root of widening wealth disparity and growing poverty in America.

If a lack of education was  behind the widening wealth gap in the USA in the period of 1970-today, then we would expect that this gap was most pronounced between the 30% of us with college degrees and the 70% without.  In other words, the massive wealth gap would have a clear line dividing us as “college educated and well off” versus “no college and poor”. This is not the case.  The gap did not widen along the 30/70 line.  It widened between the 99/1 line and even more pronounced between the 99.99/.01 line.  So sorry, Hillary and sorry Bernie, free college is not the answer to this.
Well then, the answer must be manufacturing!   Bring those jobs back!
Okay, let’s do that.Carlos is a college-educated, manufacturing engineer who makes $1,500 a month working the production line at a GE plant in Mexico. He loves GE and sees a future there. His salary works out to about $75 a day.Yeah, Mexico, where one man is worth $23.5 Billion, another man makes $75 a day. 

How does bringing this job to Athol or Sommerville or my town in Massachusetts change things?  I am a college educated senior laborer, been at it for over 40 years and at present, I make about $75 a day.

 

 

Yeah, USA, USA, USA….where one man is worth $87.4 Billion and another man makes $75 a day.

 

 

Of course, 40 years ago, this same guy made about $175 a day.  Back then, I was stocking the shelves of assembly workers.  Today, I am stacking the shelves of a food market.  To be honest, both jobs require the same amount of physical skill and mental aptitude and quite frankly, the new job requires more skills when it comes to customer service.

Ah, but “Globalization!” you say, as if all of this was some natural phenomenon that humans played not part in.   In short, tell me this:  If “globalization” is the reason that both Carlos and I make $75 a day, why is it that Friedrich in Denmark (or Pierre in France or Canada )  has health insurance but I do not?  Why is it that “globalization” only hurts American labor and only rewards the American rich?  Globalization is a “heads I win, tails you lose” to the American laborer.

It’s not manufacturing or education that will change things, it’s a new morality, a new deal for Americans that will change things.  It’s higher taxes on the most fortunate and a kinder safety net for the least fortunate that will change things.

Higher taxes on the most fortunate, a kinder safety net for the least fortunate.  Anything short of this is just avoiding the truth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  1. Anyone who works full time [more than 35 hours a week] should be able to support themselves with what they earn. No CEO should earn more than 50 times what their average worker earns. Back in 1950 that was the norm. Today many CEOs are paid 2000 times what their workers earn, and the average CEO at least 200+ what their workers earn. As long as this is the case “things” will not improve. Plus, not everyone will thrive in a “knowledge economy” – some folks are better working with their hands, because we humans come in different models. See https://www.glassdoor.com/research/ceo-pay-ratio/

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