Opinion
WE THE PEOPLE: How is the Doug Jones index doing?
The late Texas columnist Molly Ivins used to write that we should replace the Dow Jones average with the “Doug Jones Average” – an index indicating how well the average American is doing.
Instead of equating a rising stock market with a healthy economy (the focus of the media and those in the upper echelon), the Doug Jones would show that today’s middle class is struggling.
With one in five Americans either unemployed or underemployed, things don’t look so rosy. One in eight mortgages is in default or foreclosure. In order to get by, families are increasingly turning to food stamps.
Over the past two years, food stamp usage has jumped by 10 million, with one in eight Americans being helped. Almost a quarter of American children are now covered. (Locally 19 percent of residents and 37 percent of children in Cumberland County are recipients.)
More than 120,000 families are filing for bankruptcy each month, with medical bills accounting for more than 60 percent of these misfortunes. An August report in the American Journal of Medicine says that most of those who filed were middle-class homeowners.
The economy has gone topsy-turvy over the past 50 years. In the 1960s, workers shared in the economic prosperity with median family income increasing by 33 percent, adjusted for inflation. The high-tech surge of the early 21st century produced a measly 1.6 percent increase for the average family.
Wall Street and wealthy stockholders rejoiced, while middle-class families barely got by. Two-income families became commonplace during the last generation as wives joined the workforce in order to meet escalating expenses.
Housing costs doubled, as did health insurance. Additional expenses for child care and a second car for the two wage-earners hit these families.
In the meantime, employers laid off workers and cut benefits. Employer-provided pensions are disappearing. There are currently six times as many people looking for jobs as there are jobs. Average unemployment lasts more than six months, the highest since the 1930s.
Income inequality continues to grow. The top 1 percent owns assets equal to those of the bottom 90 percent. Although the economy has cut the number of millionaires, the ratio of CEO pay to the average paycheck was 344 to 1 in 2007.
According to one critic at the Institute for Policy Studies, wealth disparity is the result of corporations squeezing workers. He states that “over the past few decades, downsizing has been a corporate wealth generating strategy. Today, CEOs don’t spend their time trying to make better products: They maneuver to take over other companies, steal their customers and fire their workers.”
I think Molly would agree that the current 10,000 DJIA has no bearing on how families are coping with the financial setbacks that have hit millions during this economic turmoil.
Apparently Ebenezer Scrooge is alive and well and working on Wall Street. And somehow today’s Tiny Tims and their families haven’t managed to touch his heart. It’s all about the bottom line.
Just ask Aetna Insurance who’s dropping 2010 rate increases into their customers’ Christmas stockings in order to boost profits. As a result, up to 650,000 are expected to lose their health insurance. Yet the company managed to find an extra $2 million for their lobbyists in 2009.
Guess Aetna executives and their lobbyists will have a Merry Christmas!
- Opinion
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RANDOM THOUGHTS: Allergies, head injuries and history
Several weeks ago I wrote about my unpleasant experience with bedbugs. That column brought a suggestion from a reader plagued by allergies.
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LION AND THE LAMB: Technology can be used to bring justice
The use of video cameras has increased greatly over the last several years. Families use them to record special events and celebrations. Banks, stores, museums, schools, and police departments use them for surveillance purposes. Baseball and soccer teams use them for instant replay.
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WE THE PEOPLE: Congressmen are living in the ‘60s
This month Congress again failed to extend unemployment benefits while authorizing another $30 billion for the Afghan war before recessing for July 4th election campaigning, apparently their primary job.
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STUMPTALK: The minimum wage increase
How did the most recent progressive backed minimum wage increase work out for everyone? The progressive elitist and their union friends thought it was a great idea.
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Editorial: Don't let intimidation keep you from voting
Tennesseans by nature and by history are independent and this flows over into the voting habits of the majority of Cumberland Countians. While we exist under a two party system, the "yellow dog Democrats" and the "dye-in-the-wool" Republicans are in the minority.
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Lion and the Lamb: Life, not money, real threat in Gulf
For the last three months many people around the world have been watching with trepidation the unfolding drama in the Gulf of Mexico. As increasing numbers of oil-coated birds, fish, and animals lost their lives and humans lost their livelihood, would BP be able to stem the powerful natural forces it had unleashed? As Naomi Klein wrote, "The hole at the bottom of the ocean is more than an engineering accident or a broken machine. It is a violent wound in a living organism."
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Random Thoughts: Dare to make a difference
Consumer issues discussed from a woman’s point of view began in 1955 with a monthly column in "Good Housekeeping" magazine written by Charlotte Montgomery. But that was only the beginning.
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We the People: Media consumer? Caveat emptor!
Recently, a Chronicle contributor lamented the quality of today’s news media. Perhaps the problem is not the news media, but its consumers. News media is probably no more or less honest and forthright than ever.
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Stumptalk: A philosopher king fails again
In Plato’s Republic, Socrates describes his utopian state, one ruled by a philosopher king who knows and understands the Ideal, and who can as a result discern truth better than ordinary citizens and is therefore more qualified than anyone else to rule.
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SMALL TOWN GIRL: I’m happy being a non-girly girl
I look forward to spring and summer for really only one reason — the warmer weather means I can eschew socks, chuck my clunky winter shoes in the closet and break out the sandals!
- More Opinion Headlines
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RANDOM THOUGHTS: Allergies, head injuries and history
