Congrats to Mr. Hanauer again, and thanks for it. Just one little thing, when taking from an article it's fair to the author, and to all readers, to make it clear you are omitting paragraphs when you do. Take this as primarily to fill in the gap you left with no indication - with [...], e.g. - you omitted any:
There are some who blame the current plight of working Americans on structural changes in the underlying economy—on automation, and especially on globalization. According to this popular narrative, the lower wages of the past 40 years were the unfortunate but necessary price of keeping American businesses competitive in an increasingly cutthroat global market. But in fact, the $50 trillion transfer of wealth the RAND report documents has occurred entirely within the American economy, not between it and its trading partners. No, this upward redistribution of income, wealth, and power wasn’t inevitable; it was a choice—a direct result of the trickle-down policies we chose to implement since 1975.
We chose to cut taxes on billionaires and to deregulate the financial industry. We chose to allow CEOs to manipulate share prices through stock buybacks, and to lavishly reward themselves with the proceeds. We chose to permit giant corporations, through mergers and acquisitions, to accumulate the vast monopoly power necessary to dictate both prices charged and wages paid. We chose to erode the minimum wage and the overtime threshold and the bargaining power of labor. For four decades, we chose to elect political leaders who put the material interests of the rich and powerful above those of the American people.
[Here you jumped to the last paragraph without indicating you had omitted any content:] -- Other nations are suffering less from COVID-19 because they made better choices, and the good news is that America can, too. Economics is a choice. We could choose to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 or $20 an hour and peg it to productivity growth like in the decades before 1975. We could choose to revalue work so that the majority of Americans once again earn time-and-a-half pay for every hour worked over 40 hours a week. We could choose to provide affordable high-quality healthcare, childcare, and education to all Americans, while modernizing our social insurance and retirement systems so that contract and gig workers aren’t left out and left behind. We could choose to make it easier for workers to organize, and to defend the rights and interests of those who can’t. We could choose to build a more equitable, resilient, and prosperous America—an America that grows its economy by intentionally including every American in it. But given our nation’s radical redistribution of wealth and power these past 40 years, it won’t be easy.
People wait on a long line to receive a food bank donation at the Barclays Center on May 15 in Brooklyn. The sports arena saw lines wrap around the block as New Yorkers struggle with unemployment and other financial stresses brought on by the COVID-19 outbreak Stephanie Keith—Getty Images.
What American workers need are multiple simultaneous experiments in rebuilding worker power, from tweaking existing labor laws to sectoral bargaining to the creation of whole new trade associations and broad-based not-for-profit organizations. For example, imagine an AARP for all working Americans, relentlessly dedicated to both raising wages and reducing the cost of thriving—a mass membership organization so large and so powerful that our political leaders won’t dare to look the other way. Only then, by matching power with power, can we clear a path to enacting the laws and policies necessary to ensure that that trickle-down economics never threatens our health, safety, and welfare again. -- There is little evidence that the current administration has any interest in dealing with this crisis. Our hope is that a Biden administration would be historically bold. But make no mistake that both our political and economic systems will collapse absent solutions that scale to the enormous size of the problem. The central goal of our nation’s economic policy must be nothing less than the doubling of median income. We must dramatically narrow inequality between distributions while eliminating racial and gender inequalities within them. This is the standard to which we should hold leaders from both parties. To advocate for anything less would be cowardly or dishonest or both.
Am not suggesting you did it for any ulterior motive as others often used to do on this board, just saying it's fairest for all if you make it clear when you leave stuff out.
That said -- Thanks again for the article. Nick is one of the good billionaires.
Aside: Good State of Union. Heaps of energy left after 1:20 hours of straight talking, read that both ways. Top job, Joe.
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