CSotD: Nothing to lose but your change
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May Day celebrations seem a bit muted this year, as Italian cartoonist Enrico Bertuccioli ("Ebert") notes in this Cartoon Movement panel.
It's nice to know the economy is screwed everywhere and not just in the country that just noted a special centennial celebration. Gosh, it seems like yesterday.
Granted, the worldwide collapse is not as dramatic in the United States, where the contrast is mostly with our comparative standing over the past 50 or 75 years, as Stuart Carlson notes.
Which is to say, while everyone is slipping, we've got further to fall.
But, as Robert Reich noted on his Facebook page, it's not as simple as comparing pay stubs:
Some time within the next year, the United States will no longer be the world’s largest economy. That title will belong to China. But should Gross National Product be the major criterion of an economy’s success? Here are some alternative measures: (1) If the criterion is median income, America wins: The typical American (with a median income close to $40,000) is still far richer than the typical Chinese (with a median income of $4,600). (2) But if the test is upward mobility, China wins: The typical Chinese citizen is getting richer, while the typical American is getting poorer (adjusted for inflation). (3) If the criterion is freedom and opportunity, the United States wins. (4) But if the test is the share of total income and wealth going to the bottom 99 percent, China probably wins (yet it’s a close call, and hard to measure, especially in China). (5) If the test includes clean air and water and the quality of other public goods, America wins.
However, there is a point at which theory and statistics must — at least from a moral standpoint — give way to reality and cases.
While I occasionally get annoyed with over-focusing on the generation gap, Matt Bors is quite correct that "where we used to be" and "compared to what" are kind of abstract concepts if where you used to be was "childhood" and you're comparing yourself to your parents, who — whatever other differences may exist between our generations — had the great good luck to start their adult lives in a functioning economy.
We also came of age in a culture that valued the individual, not in the current sense of encouraging stingy, crabbed selfishness, but in the old-fashioned sense of supporting the interests of the middle class and those who aspired to it.
Kirk Walters' commentary on the cost of living brings up memories of what seemed at the time a transcendant moment in 1973, when "housewives" (yes, a quaint concept, but not one to mess with) rose up and boycotted high meat prices.
(Come to think of it, poor health care and lower wages are probably a good way to cut off that sort of socialist unrest, since one side effect of better conditions was the free time to do something you cared about, like raising your kids or trying to make a difference in your community.)
In any case, the boycott didn't actually do much to lower beef prices (except temporarily), but it did focus stores on being responsive to consumers in a more immediate way than the on-going boycotts of lettuce and table grapes had, and much along the same lines.
In Colorado, where I was living at the time, politically active consumers were boycotting Safeway entirely over its produce-purchasing policies, compared to King Soopers, which at least indicated which lettuce was farm-worker-compliant.
(There were no union-compliant table grapes. King's carried both compliant and non-compliant produce items, but Safeway was said to refuse to stock compliant lettuce. You had to keep up with it all, but we did.)
But when the beef boycott hit, the short-term, less detail-involved movement attracted a far wider spectrum of consumers. In response, King's put out free coffee and doughnuts and made it clear that they were on the shoppers' side, even though they had no practical control over wholesale meat prices.
It was appreciated. Sometimes the point isn't to get a solution. Sometimes the point is to find out if anybody is listening.
The doughnuts were a short-term, specific gesture, but the coffee became such a permanent feature of the grocery shopping experience that, as shopping carts wore out, they were replaced with ones that had cupholders built in.
Which may not change the price of food, but is more responsive to consumer preference than machine-gunning them and their families.
Well, according to an MSNBC poll of consumer preferences.
Fox, of course, has a poll showing the opposite.
For those who still have a little money …
Richard Thompson announces a bonus feature as part of the launch of the Complete Cul de Sac: This poster of the Otterloop Universe, for a mere $13.50. Such a deal!
For those who still have even more money …
This estate auction is of an enormous raft of comic book stuff, with some original strip art as well. You can explore the offerings here. Bring your wallet and a note from your accountant, but it can't all go for stratospheric prices, right?
Okay, some of it is already up there. But some isn't. And looking is free.
Speaking of art collectors
Bug Martini frets better than anybody I know.
In this case, new clinics don't need to fret over this: Just install wifi and put a laptop in each room. I doubt you'd even need to put in any bookmarks.
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