Subject:
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"By Their Fruits You Will Know Them"
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 25 Oct 2003 16:08:57 GMT
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Viewed:
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264 times
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Transcript: Bill Moyers interviews Joe Hough
http://www.pbs.org/now/printable/transcript_hough_print.html
MOYERS: You recently did a very radical thing. You called on the children of
Abraham ? Muslims, Christians and Jews ? to engage in an act of refusal.
HOUGH: Well, my perception, Bill, is that there is a definite intentional move
on the part of political leadership in this country. In the direction that I
think is not at all compatible with the prophetic tradition in Islam,
Christianity, or Judaism. And that is the obligation on the part of people who
believe in God to care for the least and the poorest. That central teaching,
that sacred code, I think, is very well summed up in Proverbs where the writer
of Proverbs says, “Those who oppress the needy insult their maker.” “Those who
oppress the needy insult their maker.”
And I think that it would be a wonderful thing if we could stand together, these
three great Abrahamic traditions, and say, “Look, we do not countenance this
sort of thing. It is not only unfair, it is immoral on the basis of our
religious traditions, and we believe it’s an insult to God.”
MOYERS: And it is what?
HOUGH: The growing gap between the rich and the poor which has become almost
obscene by anybody’s standards, and the stated intentional policy of bankrupting
the government so that in the future there’ll be no money for anything the
federal government would decide to do.
Edit: snip
MOYERS: A recent Nobel Laureate has said that he thinks the time is coming for
civil disobedience again. What do you think about that?
HOUGH: I think it may come to that. I think it may come to that - I really do. I
don’t know what form it’s to take. It’s got to be civil disobedience that is not
destructive. One of the problems I have with some of the demonstrations against
for example, the WTO and at Davos.
Edit: The most important thing you will read this year! Hough seemed to me to
be almost near tears and trembling with a kind of indignant rage -- I am not
trying to paint him as a nutcase; to the contrary, I am saying that he seemed
more sincerely passionate about his statements than almost anyone I have ever
seen! It was a marvel to behold. And while I am not a person that identifies as
one of the “Children of Abraham” I was pleased by the way the use of the term
pointed up similarity rather than difference. From a purely economic
perspective, it was very hard to disagree with the simple correctness of Hough’s
views on many issues. We are all of us paying a price for those that do without
because of the likes of Wal-Mart, Tyson, etc. -- taxpayers are paying the gap
between a poverty wage and a living wage. In Other words -- Wal-Mart is no
bargain! You are simply paying for it another way and forcing hard working
people into the circumstances of beggary.
Executive take home pay relative to factory floor workers pay worldwide
see: http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/politics_pop/index.html
may have to “view raw” to make it line up properly
Japan 11 times
Germany 12 times
France 15 times
Italy 20 times
Canada 20 times
S. Africa 21 times
Britian 22 times
Hong Kong 41 times
Mexico 47 times
Venezuela 50 times
U.S. 475 times
wed this to the ongoing corporate scandals that keep rocking the economy
and you will begin to understand why The Economist thinks that investors
should be able to find better investments outside the U.S. Maybe Britain is
a good place for your money -- the CEO is not taking most of the profits and
the corporate financials have a better chance of being far more accurate
than is necessary here in the states. BTW, this is a repeat segment -- but I
also wanted to point out the fact that “The Ecomomist” is not commonly perceived
as a liberal rag
“To Further Free Trade Principles”: Origins of The Economist -- that means the
information is going to hit the bottom line sooner or later and WE WILL PAY THE
PRICE OF THIS OUTRAGEOUS DISPARITY IN EARNINGS! The Economist is basically
saying that the U.S. is an example of the betrayal of “free trade” principles
that do more or less work when it comes to wages in the rest of the Western
World -- there is something uniquely at work within the U.S. beyond “what the
market will bear.”
Downward Mobility: Overview
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/wages.html
October 2003 figures from the U.S. Census Bureau make stark reading:
**Median household incomes are falling
**The number of Americans without health insurance rose by 5.7 percent to 43.6
million individuals
**The number of people living below the poverty line
($18,392 for a family of four) climbed to 12.1 percent ? 34.6 million people.
Q and A with Beth Shulman
http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/wagesqanda.html
What are common misconceptions about low-wage work and workers in America?
A common misconception is that low-wage jobs are only found in your neighborhood
McDonalds. Yet, fast-food jobs constitute less than 5 percent of all low-wage
jobs. Low-wage jobs are nurse’s aides and home health aides, security guards,
child care workers and educational assistants maids and porters, 1-800
call-center workers, bank tellers, data-entry keyers, cooks, food-preparation
workers, waiters and waitresses, cashiers and pharmacy assistants, poultry, fish
and meat processors, laundry and dry cleaning operators and agricultural
workers. They are jobs in the mainstream of our economy and our lives. Another
misconception about low-wage jobs is that they are low-skilled. Most economists,
politicians and the media marry the two terms as if they were inseparable. Yet,
taking care of a sick parent or educating a child is anything but low-skilled.
And there is a misconception about who the 30 million Americans are who work in
low-wage jobs. Many presume they are teenagers, illegal immigrants, or
high-school dropouts. Yet contrary to these stereotypes, America’s low-wage
workers are mostly white, female, high school educated, and with family
responsibilities.
Another misconception about low-wage work is that it is merely a stepping stone
to a better job. Low-wage job mobility has decreased over the last decade. In a
recent study following U.S. adults through their working careers, economics
professors Peter Gottschalk of Boston College and Sheldon Danziger of the
University of Michigan found that about half of those whose earnings ranked in
the bottom 20 percent in 1968 were still in the same group in 1991. Of those who
had moved up, nearly two-thirds remained below the median income. And finally
there is the misconception that low-wage jobs are merely the result of an
efficient market, that the economy is a force of nature, and we as a society
have little control over whatever difficulties it creates. The reality is that
our economic world is the result of our creation, not natural law and we have
the ability to make choices that would improve low-wage jobs.
BTW, this post is a followup to this (kinda old though):
The U.S. Economy: The Thousand
Yard Stare Through the Years
This is all fantastically well-researched stuff. The sources are basically in
the way of conservative to moderate: The Economist, the World Bank, etc. The
rest of the world simply does not tolerate this kind of nonsense. Americans need
to take a long, hard, cold look at what is going on. We shall literally become
a third world player very soon if we are not careful. It may already be too
late.
A predictable few will try to interpret this information in terms of a narrow
“free trade” perspective; or worse, through the blacked-out lenses of our
woefully inadequate partisan political system. Forget it -- it won’t work this
time. Try that and you are playing right into the game that keeps this madness
afloat.
As Moyers’ guest points out -- some kind of “revolution” is probably in the
offing. These are precisely the conditions that have led to economically seeded
riots in the past. The violence and discontent so apparent at rallies against
the WTO are clearly incipient versions of what is to come.
You are through the looking-glass, little Alice. Time to wake up to your new
reality...adapt or die on the vine.
-- Hop-Frog
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: "By Their Fruits You Will Know Them"
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| (...) Richard, you can get non-proportional "code-like" text in FTX usint the | character: | Japan 11 times | Germany 12 times | France 15 times | Italy 20 times | Canada 20 times | S. Africa 21 times | Britian 22 times | Hong Kong 41 times | Mexico (...) (21 years ago, 25-Oct-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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