Day 1113 – Jamie

Sunday, February 4, 2024

Jamie Diamond was in Davos. Jamie is head of one of the biggest banks in the world. Jamie has been saying for months, years, that the economy was going to come tumbling down. Jamie said all the signs were there. So what did Jamie say in Davos? Trump was right – sort of. Then Jamie went on to repeat right wing talking points. Hlllary – deplorables. Barack – clinging to their guns. What about Trump’s Nazi talk? Silence.

While Jamie has been saying the economy was going to go to hell I’ve been saying, “I don’t see it.”

Yes, there are signs that it could get worse, but everytime it’s gotten a bit better. Should one be cautious? You bet, because there are signs. However, there is no denying that our economay is doing well. And no thanks to the former occupant of the White House, no matter how much he tries to take credit for it.

Jamie said he liked Trump’s tax plan. Well, yeah. He and the super rich benefitted greatly from it. The rest of us got screwed. 

I’ve been thinking about a little statistical factoid that keeps surfacing from time to time. That is a statement that says the average person needs X amount to live and above that number doesn’t really too much. I think the figure quoted is around $73,000. How much do you need to earn hourly to make $73K a year? (73,000/2,000=$36.50 an hour)

How many of you that are working make that kind of money?

Maybe, it’s only $60K which would be $30/hour.

The state minimum wage varies between $7.25 and $17.00, nowhere near what one needs to meet the threshold of no worries financially. It’s no wonder that people are unhappy, because although the economy seems to be doing well, they are not.

I have multiple people I know who say they are working and working and barely making it. Others aren’t even doing that. Some have had one minor setback: an illness or minor accident that keeps them from working for a week, or they don’t get paid in a timely manner. Whatever, it is they can’t pay their bills and then they get docked, hounded, and the hole gets deeper.

This is America today.

So if $60-$73K is the comfort mark, what is the uncomfortable mark? Anything below that figure? Which would be most hourly wage earners, I’m guessing. But what figure is so low that you really can’t survive? Remember Jewel and her mom lived in their cars for a period of time? How many people are living in their cars or sleeping on the street because they can’t afford housing? Is it incumbent on us to help those people, or should we lecture them?

Do we as a society need to do something for those people? What has been done so far? Well, during the housing crisis when homes were cheap big money came in and bought up all the cheap houses. Now, they’ve turned around and upped the rents. You can’t get an aparment or condo unless you can show you have twelve months of pay stubs that show you can afford it.

If not, what do you do?

You have to figure out ways.

While I was writing this I got a call from someone who is in the exact sort of circumstances I’ve been talking about. I asked him, “How much do you need to get by?”

“$25.00 an hour,” was the answer, no hesitation. Right in line with what I was writing.

$25 an hour is $50K a year.

So, if you aren’t making that then someone or some entity needs to step up to help you. For instance, if you are making $14 an hour you need $11.00 more an hour to make it. You won’t be able to afford rent, food, and gas unless you get it. Health care? Forget it. Hope you don’t get sick and have to go to the ER. Or as Alan Grayson put it – The Republican health care plan is “Die Quickly.”

What my friend told me is most places will pay tops $21 or $22 an hour. You can’t really survive on that. Or just barely. You are trapped.

So Jamie can stuff it.

Let’s start looking at people who are trying but not making the mimimum to survive. Don’t preach. (Sorry Madonna.) Do.

What do we need to do, as a country to help our fellow country folks?

I remember growing up The GI Bill. It was for “The Greatest Generation” that fought in WWII to save us from the authoritarian regimes of Mussolini and Hitler. Republicans then, like now ,lambasted and bemoaned the big giveaway, but immediately took credit for it in their districts even though they voted against it. Then came the election of ’48 – Harry Truman versus the Republican “Do Nothing” Congress. That Congress literally would not pass any legislation so they could blame the President for not doing anything. They purposely wouldn’t even bring a bill to the floor for fear it might pass. Sound familiar?

What did Truman do? He did a whirlwind tour of the country, held big rallies in football stadiums (Did Donald learn from him? I doubt it. But still …) Truman won by the closest of margins. Even holding up a paper saying his opponent won.

Are we going to help the generations X, Y, and Z? What about our vets? The poor, hell the struggling? We can define what that amount is. The cheapest solution is to give them help, not to belittle and incarecerate.

It’s cheaper. It’s better. And it works. 

Studies in other countries and in some cities here prove the point – when you help the downtrodden they get better, healthier and they can then contribute to society. What should we call that? Pulling yourelf up by your boot straps? 

Michael Lewis in his book “The Fifth Risk” tells the story of the Fox News host who had a big ribbon cutting for an agricultural project – a farm? I forget. He was crowing on and on about how he had done it all by himself. How it was possible to suceed by yourself, if you were willing to work. Blah blah blah. There was a lady standing near by and he didn’t know who she was. He asked her.

“I’m from the Agriculture Department,” she said.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I was the one who approved you loan that the local bank gave you.”

The loudmouth didn relaize that the Agricuture Department makes low interest loans to farmers through local banks. If they didn’t, as one person put it, “rural America would look like rural China.”

(I refer you to Econ 101 “The Farm Problem.” ie If farmers have a good year then they all do and the price of wheat (or corn, whatever) goes down. If they have a bad year the price goes up, but they don’t have any to sell. It’s an example of pure supply and demand. What get squeezed? Labor. “You work for nothing.”)

When Trump was in office his Republican financial friends like Jamie Diamond and the payday loan folks wanted to get their hands on those loans. See there’s this great opportunity to squeeze the farmers … So far they have failed. 

But in housing they’ve done well. Now the working poor suffer.

Want to talk medicine? Where else does a government pay drug manufacterers to keep prices high? And then the drug manufacturer pass the high prices on to you?

China who is making all the fentynal that is flooding into this country can make all the drugs we take at a fraction of the price we pay.

Hum. Maybe it’s time to do to the drug manufaterers what the government did to the Wright brothers? Say, “Sorry this is too important for you to have the corner on the airplane market.” Maybe, saying, “Everyone deserves to be healthy.”

I gotta go.

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near  …  

Robert Frost part of “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening”