A few tidbits from the April 2009 Harper’s Magazine (sadly not online):
The U.S. government spent $79,000 last year on phone service for Bill Clinton. New York City collected $624 million last year in parking fines. Texas is the state that retains the highest percentage of people born there, 76%.
The article “Infinite Debt” by Thomas Geoghegan claims that it was the high profits available to financial firms that wrecked the U.S. economy, by diverting all of our resources (smart people, capital) from manufacturing into banking. “[Because usury laws were repealed] when banks get 25-30 percent on credit cards, and 500 or more percent on payday loans, capital flees from honest pursuits, like auto manufacturing. … The people who could have saved GM and Ford went to off to work at AIG, Merrill Lynch, or even [?] Goldman Sachs. … In 2002 and 2003, financial firms took more than 40 percent of the profits that accrued to U.S. corporations … more than double the share the financial industry was taking–about 18 percent–when Ronald Reagan left office. … Who helped the financial sector make too much? We did. In a sense, we use our credit cards to help liquidate our own jobs…”
“Usury Country” by Daniel Brook is about payday lending, but also about how tough it is to work private industry in the U.S. “The average income of a full-time working at Walmart, today the nation’s largest private employer, is only slightly more than $17,000 per year. Fully 47 percent of Americans now report living paycheck to paycheck.” What happens when they get hit with an unexpected bill? They borrow at 500 percent interest from a “payday loan” or “check cashing” bank, expecting things to be better when the next paycheck arrives. In fact, 75-90 percent of these borrowers have to roll the loan over the next time and the next time and the next. They end up paying 20 percent of their income in taxes and another 20 percent to payday loan companies.
[Note to young people: The 47 percent of Americans living paycheck to paycheck is more or less the percentage who do not work for the govenment or in government-supported industries, such as health care. A Walmart cashier earns $17,000 and will soon pay $7 to drive through the airport tunnel here in Boston. The toll-taker working for the Massachusetts Turnpike who collects that $7 gets an average income of $70,000 per year and can retire at age 53 with a full pension and benefits. What if our $17,000/year cashier takes the bus? She’ll hand her new higher fare to an MBTA bus driver earning an average of $55,000 (as of 2006) and retiring at age 41 with a full pension (if the driver started work at age 18; source: Boston Globe).]
An article on Cambodia reminds us that American taxpayers supported the Khmer Rouge, who went on to murder uncountable numbers of their fellow Cambodians; the Soviets were opposed to Pol Pot.
Some thought-provoking facts in the magazine, worth a trip to the library, even if you don’t agree with the authors’ conclusions.
Come with me on a backroad tour of the New England countryside and see worn facades of the once proud factories that were family owned businesses for generations. Now gone,. converted to failed condos in the Merrimack river valley and the backstone valley.
Better yet, Phil, let us take HD camera and you fly me over this region, we will see that not all of these ghosts were the crumbling garment industry, once what we were so famous for, but the defense and computer belt of 128.
We made things, machined things, assembled, and we owned much of our industry. The greatest sold out and were gone…DEC, DG, whoever.
More to the point in your 2nd paragraph: How do you spend $79K on phone service in one year? My largest single expense with phone service is replacing the phone. I have insurance so this costs $50 each time. If i did that every day in a year, that’s only $18,250. I could replace it new at regular price ($399 tops) every day to the tune of $145,635. Now we’re talkin’ (pardon the pun).