Astonishing & Perverse

San Francisco is experiencing a building boom driven by the desire of Silicon Valley types for high-priced condos and luxury apartments. Rent controlled buildings are being sold to developers and the tenants evicted; it’s unlikely that many of these tenants will be able to afford places in the new or refurbished buildings.

The power of capital.

On the front page of the New York Times I read an article about executive compensation, a hot topic a few years back, when the economy tanked and the financial industry got bailed-out by sucker taxpayers. Even though many CEO’s had made irresponsible bets on exotic financial instruments that cost their companies billions, they were not held accountable, either by forfeiting compensation or by being indicted. The Times article basically said that nothing can be done to slow the pace of CEO compensation; the median increase at the 200 or so largest firms stands at a hefty 16%.

The power of neoliberal policies: the wealthy get ever wealthier.

Not long after I read the Times article I saw a CNN Money report that claimed that 76% of American households exist paycheck-to-paycheck with no funds set aside for misfortune.

Why isn’t this story on the front page of every major newspaper in the country or being seriously debated in the corridors of Congress? This is the real economic story of our time – the chronic financial insecurity of the majority of American families. It’s obvious and it’s everywhere, and the corporate media could care less. Watching CEO pay skyrocket out of proportion to what one individual is worth to a firm is much sexier.

Working people in America Incorporated are an afterthought, as disposable as a used tampon. Our corporate fathers crushed the unions, exported our jobs, and devalued work. The United States Chamber of Commerce and hundreds of think tanks helped by providing the philosophic underpinnings: wealth is moral, greed is normal, and exploitation is the natural order of the universe. Unfettered by regulation and law, the best will rise to the top, where they naturally belong. The poor have no one to blame but themselves. Lack of industry, moral fiber, self-control and initiative, that’s the problem of the poor.

Everyone can be rich in America!

Nobody ever mentions that the game is rigged, not the New York Times or CNN or ABC. State lotteries are the wealth plan of most Americans. Win the big Powerball and you too can own six homes, a private jet, and a fleet of luxury cars, diamonds, stocks and bonds.

But that’s what separates most of us from the elite few – we hope for a big score against impossibly long odds while the elite cements a guaranteed return by rigging the table. They call it tax “relief” or other quaint euphemisms like “no-bid” contract; they stow their money in offshore accounts invisible to the prying eye of the IRS. It’s a game and they have mastered its rules.

Here’s the bottom line: socialize risk, privatize reward.

Jobs and wages are the real economy, where the majority of us live and breathe – and struggle. We don’t need an economist to tell us that when wages stay flat for more than thirty years, while the cost of health care and education and housing rises, a working person has little chance of doing anything but live paycheck-to-paycheck. He or she can do that dead-end dance, or work two or three jobs and relinquish any hope of achieving a quality of life.  

What the powerful have done to the American Dream is as astonishing as it is perverse.