How unions are unfairly scapegoated for Detroit's woes

By Marc McDonald 

There are many reasons for the catastrophic decline of the once-mighty U.S. auto industry over the decades. But it's unfair and inaccurate to point the main finger of blame at unions, the usual scapegoat.

The world's two dominant auto-exporting nations are Germany and Japan. The auto industries in those two nations are heavily unionized. And what's more, unions in Germany and Japan are backed up by strong pro-labor laws that U.S. workers could only dream of.

Although the auto industries of Germany and Japan are heavily unionized, those two nations have absolutely crushed the U.S. auto industry in markets around the world in recent decades. And they've consistently beaten Detroit on its own turf, as well.

In fact, the only reason the U.S. even still has a domestic auto industry at all these days is that Japan Inc. deliberately pulled its punches with "voluntary export restraints" in the 1980s. The latter was a shrewd move by Tokyo to head off moves by the U.S. to raise trade barriers.

Many Conservatives and "free-market" advocates love to scapegoat unions as the cause for Detroit's decline. But as usual, the GOP's simplistic analysis has little to do with the real world.

The fact is, if unions are so bad, then why do the auto industries of Germany and Japan continue to go from strength to strength in conquering world markets? I've done quite a bit of world travel myself and I've seen a number of nations where American cars are a very rare sight on the roads these days. But I have yet to see a country where the roads aren't filled with Volkswagens, BMWs and Toyotas. (It's true that Japan has struggled in China, but that is for political reasons, not competitive reasons).

Although no "free market" U.S. economist would ever admit this, it's clear that unions have actually helped increase the competitiveness of the Japanese and German auto industries.

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How much could McDonald's pay workers?

By Frank Moraes

On Monday, The Huffington Post published an article claiming that McDonald's could double its wages and it would only increase the price of their offerings by 17%. So instead of a McDouble being $1.29, it would be $1.51. The understandable response to this was, "That doesn't sound that bad to provide a living wage to McDonald's workers." It turns out that it isn't quite so simple, but as you will see, I'll show that it still works out about the same.

The original article was called "Doubling McDonald's Salaries Would Cause Your Big Mac To Cost Just 68¢ More." Unlike most news outlets, however, instead of just adding an update, they've replaced that article with a full discussion of what was wrong with the article. In the simplest terms, the whole thing was more or less a prank. A student at the University of Kansas did a back of the envelope calculation. McDonald's entire employment costs are indeed only 17% of their operating budget. The problem is that most of the workforce costs are not due to the corporation but rather the 80% of all the stores that are franchises. Of these franchises, roughly a third of their expenses are due to workforce costs. So that $1.29 McDouble would cost $1.72.

But again, it isn't that simple. The Huffington Post quotes Dean Baker on two related issues. First: doubling wages would doubtless cause some layoffs. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Increased work costs have a tendency to make employers more efficient in how they use their labor force. What's more, the increased wages would attracted better employees. The second issue is more important. Increased labor costs are generally shared between increased prices and decreased profits—with profits getting hit twice as hard as the prices. (I talk about this all the time!) So if labor costs go up by one dollar, the cost will go up 33 cents and profits will go down by 67 cents.

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Fast food revolt: Striking for fair wages, striking for opportunity, striking for justice

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Salon, with a piece worth reading in its entirety to get a sense of the gross injustice facing workers at fast food establishments:

[Yesterday] morning [marked] the start of what will likely be the largest fast food worker mobilization in U.S. history, with a New York City walkout today kicking off strikes in seven cities over four days. These work stoppages by non-union workers are the latest escalation in an embattled labor movement's unprecedented challenge to the overwhelmingly non-union industry, whose ranks are growing and whose conditions are spreading elsewhere in the U.S. economy.

"I know you're tired of suffering," KFC employee Naquasia LeGrand told fellow workers gathered with clergy and politicians at a rally last Wednesday announcing that New York City worker-activists had voted to strike this week. "I don't want to see the next generation suffering and suffering. I don't want my kids suffering. I want to make sure they have a better future than I do." Looking out on a crowd of about 150 at the entrance to Brooklyn's Prospect Park, LeGrand added, "So if I want that to happen, I need you guys to stand with me just as long as I'm standing with you."

As Salon first reported, the fast food effort went public last November, with a strike by about 200 employees of various chains in New York City. Over the past four months, that walkout has been followed by similar work stoppages in five other cities, and a second New York City strike roughly twice as large. Each of those strikes has been backed by the Service Employees International Union and local allies, and each has shared the same demands: a raise to $15 per hour, and the chance to form a union without intimidation by management.

I wish them well. I really do. It is a society that is rotten to the core that treats its workers this way.

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Don Young on the fruits of productivity

By Frank Moraes

Have you heard about Alaska Republican Representative Don Young? People are having a lot of fun with him today because he said, "My father had a ranch; we used to have 50–60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes. It takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now. It’s all done by machine." Oh so much to unpack here! But the focus of most of the discussion (as usual) is about trivial stuff. 

Trivial Stuff

First, the racial slur. It was insensitive and idiotic, but not important. Jonathan Chait had the best response, "Also, dude: 'Wetback' is not the preferred nomenclature." That is a reference to The Big Lebowski. Here's the scene -- just 21 seconds long:


This got me wondering where the term "wetback" comes from. I had always thought that it referred to all Mexicans or Latinos, which for most Americans are the same thing. It turns out that "wetback" refers to people who came to the the United States illegally by crossing the Rio Grande. The word was first used in 1929. My question: why focus on their backs? After all, the Rio Grande is a "large river," so I would figure their whole bodies would be wet. "Wetfeet" I can see. And for those of you who think that the "back" doesn't refer to physical backs? If they were referred to as "wetbacks" after they returned to Mexico, that would make some sense. Otherwise, I'm not buying it. 

Important Stuff

Young's broader point is valid, although it is clear from the original interview that he doesn't have a clue what to do about it or that anything can be done about it. In a world in which more and more production is automated, how are we to employ everyone so that there will be people who can buy all the crap that machines make? I have some ideas about this, but I'm no economist. The problem is that most economists don't treat the issue seriously.

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Progressive Music Classics: The Unacceptable Face of Freedom by Test Dept.

By Marc McDonald

(Ed. note: Here's another installment of Marc's ongoing series. For the full series, check out his site. Our last one was a couple of weeks ago, "Everything That Rises Must Converge" by Shriekback. -- MJWS)


Margaret Thatcher's declaration of war against labor unions in the 1980s kicked off a vicious attack on working-class people that ripped the nation's social fabric. British society never really recovered from the ravages of Thatcherism.

Like Ronald Reagan, Thatcher used the power of the state to force a radical, extreme form of bare-knuckled "Chicago School" economics on the nation. In both countries, the Top One Percent made out like bandits, but the middle class was ravaged.

Since the 1980s, Britain has come to resemble the U.S. in many ways. Like the U.S., Britain has seen the decline of its middle class. Britain has also experienced increasingly mediocre, under-funded social services and declining standards in public schools. Like the U.S. since 1980, Britain has become more and more a deeply undemocratic society that is increasingly ruled by an oligarchy and by multi-national corporations.

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Getting it

By Mustang Bobby

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has decided to veto a bill that would have allowed concealed weapons in such places as schools, day care centers, sports arenas, bars, places of worship, hospitals, dorms, and casinos. The bill had been passed by the legislature the night before the massacre in Connecticut.

That might have had something to do with his decision to back away from the bill.

So might this:

The approval rating of Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) is in the gutter, according to a poll released Tuesday, the strongest evidence yet of the political perils associated with the right-to-work legislation he signed into law last week.

According to the latest automated survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, only 38 percent of Michigan voters approve of the job Snyder is doing, compared with 56 percent who disapprove. In PPP's previous survey of Michigan in November, Snyder's approval rating was 10 points above water: 47 percent of voters approved of his performance as governor, while 37 percent disapproved.

The right-to-work bill, signed by Snyder amid mass protests, appears to have changed the political climate in the Great Lake State. Fifty-one percent of Michigan voters oppose the bill, which made Michigan the country's 24th right-to-work state, while 41 percent support the legislation. Moreover, Snyder trails every Democrat in hypothetical matchups of the 2014 gubernatorial election.

To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, nothing focuses the mind like impending political oblivion. 

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

The new guy: Tim Scott and Republican extremism

By Mustang Bobby

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) has appointed Rep. Tim Scott to fill out the remainder of Sen. Jim DeMint's term in the U.S. Senate. Mr. DeMint, you'll recall, announced his resignation recently so he could go run the Heritage Foundation and turn it into a Tea Party enclave. I'm sure the fact that the previous president of the foundation raked in over $1 million in salary versus the paltry six figures earned by a senator had absolutely nothing to do with it.

As ThinkProgress notes, Mr. Scott's views on issues are virtually the same as Mr. DeMint's, and in his brief career in the House — he was first elected in 2010 — he has made some interesting news: 

Proposed a bill to cut off food stamps for entire families if one member went on strike. One of the most anti-union members of Congress, Scott proposed a bill two months after entering Congress in 2011 to kick families off food stamps if one adult were participating in a strike. Scott's legislation made no exception for children or other dependents. 

Wanted to spend an unlimited amount of money to display Ten Commandments outside county building. When Scott was on the Charleston County Council, one of his primary issues was displaying the Ten Commandments outside the Council building. According to the Augusta Chronicle, Scott said the display "would remind council members and speakers the moral absolutes they should follow." When he was sued for violating the Constitution and a Circuit Judge's orders, Scott was nonplussed: "Whatever it costs in the pursuit of this goal (of displaying the Commandments) is worth it."

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Ten ideas to fix the economy

By Frank Moraes

I have this strange idea that I don't care for Dylan Matthews over at WonkBlog. But I just looked at my writing over the last year, and I find I am always very impressed with his work. I know that from time to time, he falls into false equivalence and splitting-the-difference fallacies. But mostly he is a very good reporter who understands economics.

Last week, he wrote perhaps the best thing I have yet seen from him, "Ten Ways to Reduce Inequality Without Raising Tax Rates." He lists ways that will reduce inequality for "both sides to get what they want." That's reaching up to Ezra Klein-level adorableness. I am far too cynical to think that Republicans would ever go along with these ideas. The reason is simple: Republicans like inequality; they are as a rule against anything that is good for the country generally. (I would not have said this 30 years ago.)

  1. Make it easier to start and join unions. Oh, there's a proposal Republicans are going to jump on! This is a great idea. Unions are one of the big reasons why workers shared in the productivity gains after WWII for 30 years and their demise is one of the big reasons why workers have hardly shared at all in the gains of the last 30 years.
  2. Weaken the dollar. This is all about big dicks on both sides of the aisle. A weak dollar makes our exports more competitive. But those who already have wealth hate a weak dollar because it lowers what their wealth can buy. But this is a no-brainer: a weak dollar is good for the economy. Politicians like a strong dollar because it makes them think they are powerful. Or something.

3. Promote trade in highly-skilled professions. This is one that Dean Baker pushes. We have allowed globalization to hit low wage workers in manufacturing, but we continue to practice protectionism for doctors, lawyers, dentists, college professors, you name it. If we had a truly free market, workers would have less money, but they would need less to pay for things like healthcare and education.

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Railroading right-to-work

By Mustang Bobby

Laura Conaway at The Maddow Blog has a good summary of the rush by the Michigan legislature to pass right-to-work in the state where the modern labor movement was born:

Right to Work legislation has moved through so quickly that one Republican lawmaker voted against it because, he said, "We literally weren't given the legislation to read until minutes before voting." From experience with Right to Work in other states, conservatives and liberals agree that the rule is catastrophic for unions, with significant cuts in membership, and lower wages and benefits.

What's all the more interesting is that up until about twenty minutes ago, Gov. Rick Snyder had no interest in passing right-to-work and he was bragging about how well the state was doing in terms of the economic recovery (i.e., GM and Chrysler's rebound). Now all of a sudden the economy is on the edge of going under unless this law passes.

If, as the Republicans are always telling us, the labor union movement is dying and has no power left to wield, why do they suddenly need this kind of legislation in the first place?

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

No rights at work in Michigan

By Frank Moraes 

I'm thinking of starting a weekly rundown of the best writing I find online, because a lot of it doesn't get mentioned here because I have nothing to add. That is very much true of John Nichols at The Nation who manages to write brilliantly on the local and national level. This evening, he wrote an article that gave me a little bit of hope about Michigan, "GOP, Koch Brothers Sneak Attack Guts Labor Rights in Michigan."

As you have likely heard, the Michigan senate managed to ram through a right-to-work bill and it is certain to be passed by the house and signed by Governor Rick Snyder. Unfortunately -- and I think this is a big part of its power -- most people are confused about what right-to-work means. It certainly sounds like a good thing; who could be against more rights?! But as with similarly Orwellian phraseology like the Clear Skies Act, it is bad. Nichols suggests the term "no-rights-at-work."

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A toast to Twinkies

By Frank Moraes

I know what you're thinking, "What's the point of reading another blog post when soon there will be no more Twinkies and we will all starve?" I hear you. But I have good news! It is very possible that Twinkies will live on, coming out the same factories, albeit under a different name. And maybe for a higher price. But hell, what price is too high for a Twinkie?

As you must know, Hostess is going out of business. This is a big deal. Hostess currently employs 18,000 workers. But this is a typical story with a typical storyline. Of what I've read Dean Baker has the best analysis, "No Cupcake: Workers Turn Down Bad Deal from Hostess."

There are two narratives: conservative and liberal. The conservative narrative is that the greedy unions would not take one for the team and so brought down yet another Great American Business. This is not true at all. As Baker points out, the unions had very good reasons for turning down the deal. (Although it was only one of the unions that actually did so.)

The liberal narrative is incomplete but mostly true: Ripplewood Holdings, a private equity company, took over Hostess in 2009, saddled it with debt, and let it flounder. This is the process that Matt Taibbi laid out in his Rolling Stone cover article. And this one was pretty much by the numbers.

But Dean Baker argues that the biggest problem is that before and after the takeover, Hostess was badly managed. They did not change their products to move with the times. What's more, they kept a very limited product line. This was all bound to happen.

Peter Frase over at Jacobin points out another problem, "Hostess and the Limits of the Private Welfare State." The truth is that our country's lack of a single-payer health-care system, stable pensions, and limited unemployment make it far harder for both workers and companies. There is no doubt about that.

I am a great fan of junk foods. So I'm sorry to see Hostess go, even apart from the economic effects. Just the same, it might have been a good idea if they had worked to break into the Oroweat bread market. I'm sure there will soon be companies popping up to fill the junk food vacuum. And there is even hope that some of Hostess' existing factories will continue to pump out cream filled snack cakes—even if they are called Tweenies or Twankies and Wankers. I'd eat a product called Wankers, if only as a toast to the Hostess management.

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

The NFL officiating clusterfuck and the homer hypocrisy of Paul Ryan and Scott Walker

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

Yeah, I watched the Packers-Seahawks game Monday. Yeah, it was appalling. That call at the end -- the "Touception" -- was the worst game-deciding call, and maybe the worst major call generally, I've ever seen.

But isn't it hilarious how Republicans Paul Ryan and Scott Walker, both Wisconsinite Packers fans, are calling on the NFL to "get the real refs" back (in Ryan's words)? (Presumably Ryan meant all officials, not just the referees, but maybe he really doesn't know any better and is something of a faux fan.)

Because, you know, those "real refs" are unionized and both Ryan and Walker are viciously anti-union. I guess things are different when your team gets screwed.

**********

As for the issue itself, look, the officiating has been pretty awful. The Monday night game was terrible, but so was the Sunday nighter between the Patriots and Ravens. I watch parts of every game, because I have that NFL package, and every game has had its share of bad calls.

For example, while I hesitate to make excuses for my Steelers after their embarrassing 34-31 loss to the Raiders on Sunday, I would like to note that there was illegal motion on a key play near the end of the second quarter that gave the Raiders a first down deep in Steelers territory. It went uncalled and, with a new set of downs, the Raiders ended up scoring.

But I do think the officials should be given the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they're doing their best, or maybe not, but basically they're just not up to the very difficult job of officiating NFL games. (Most of us aren't. Not even close.) They're in way over their heads, and, to make matters worse, they're being bullied by players and coaches alike. Is it really all that surprising that they're making mistakes?

But it's not their fault they're in this position. I suppose they could have turned down the offer to act as replacements, but that's hardly realistic. If you're a football referee or other official and the NFL comes to you with an offer like that, you don't turn them down.

No, the fault lies with Commissioner Goodell and the disgustingly rich (and disgustingly cheap) owners who are playing hardball with the union.

It's time to end the madness. It's time to pay the officials, the real officials, what they want. Because without them it's all just a massive joke, with the players facing even greater risks on the field and the very integrity of the game, not just the league, coming undone at the seams.

On the Chicago teachers strike

By Mustang Bobby

I was going to write a long rant in support of the teachers on strike in Chicago, but Charlie Pierce beat me to it and nobody does rants like him:

I am not flexible about this. If you want to look tough at the expense of public-school teachers, you are a snob or a coward, or perhaps both. Every member of this MSNBC panel that Digby found, including all the liberals and all the Democrats thereon, can bite me, seriously. If I have to read one more smug, Ivy League writer from Slate talking, as the big strike goes on, about public-school teachers as though they were unruly hired help, I may hit someone with a fish. Let Matt Yglesias do 20 percent more work for four percent less pay and see how he likes it. The idea that, say, "Chuck" Lane cares more about "the kids" than do the people walking the picket lines in Chicago is damned near close to obscene.

I couldn't agree more.

To any of you out there who think that teachers have it "easy," that they only work when school is in session, and wow, it must be nice to have all that time off (I get that too, even though my job with the district is full time and summer is the busiest time), I issue the following challenge: go to your neighborhood public school and shadow a teacher for a week. See what they go through, see what they have to do to be ready to put on classes, get ready for the next one, grade papers, go to all the meetings, attend all the after-school and weekend events like football, basketball, and baseball games, drama productions, deal with the parents, work with individual kids before or after class, try to keep up with the professional development requirements, duck the occasional violent outburst, and then listen to some politician or pundit carry on about how public sector union employees are lazy and want it all. Yeah, you'd be walking a picket line, too, if you had the chance.

Oh, look, I ranted anyway. 

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

My Challenge to Rush Limbaugh: Why don't you insult a union worker to his face?

By Marc McDonald

Just as he despises women and minorities, Rush Limbaugh really has it in for labor unions. He is constantly bashing them (as Media Matters and other watchdog sites have noted over the years). Like most Republicans, Limbaugh is convinced that union workers are lazy, pampered, overpaid and leeches on society. He has even called union members "thugs" and questioned their patriotism.

I find it really rich that Limbaugh would consider union workers pampered and overpaid. This, coming from a mega-millionaire whose idea of "work" is to sit on his fat ass in his air-conditioned studio, spewing lies into a microphone for a few hours a day. No wonder Limbaugh pulls down hundreds of millions of dollars from anti-union corporate America.

Memo to Limbaugh: you don't have a f*cking clue as to what real work is. I'm talking about the sort of physically demanding work done every day by millions of ordinary blue collar union workers across America.

Maybe if Limbaugh had ever actually done any real physical work in his life, he wouldn't have the bloated physique of Jabba the Hutt.

I myself know a thing or two about physical labor, having worked in grueling blue collar jobs much of my life, often for little pay and crappy benefits. I once had a job leveling foundations, where I had to crawl underneath houses, lugging heavy equipment. I don't which was worse: the stifling heat, the claustrophobic conditions---or the snake that once slithered over my face while I was lying on my back underneath a house.

In later years, I worked on factory assembly lines -- but the work wasn't much easier. I once worked at a factory gate assembly job, where the razor-sharp gate components often sliced my fingers. At the end of a shift, my uniform was often so blood-splattered that anyone who saw me likely assumed I worked as a butcher.

Of course, I'm hardly alone in my experiences as a blue collar worker. Tens of millions of us toil away every day and we find that it's increasingly difficult to earn a living, no matter how hard we work.

There's only one way to know what it's like to struggle as a working-class person these days -- and that's to live the life first-hand. I suspect that people like Limbaugh (who came from a wealthy background) thinks he understands what it's like to be struggling and working-class in America. And if that's the case, he's even more delusional that his radio ramblings would indicate.

It really galls me when I hear this fat piece of sh*t Limbaugh spew out his anti-worker, anti-union diatribes. Limbaugh wouldn't know real work if it bit him on the ass. For that matter, people in Limbaugh's elite social circles never have any real face-to-face contact with ordinary working Americans. (It's laughable that Limbaugh claims to be a fan of Walmart -- does anyone really think he shops there?)

Which brings me to my challenge for Limbaugh.

Limbaugh: I challenge you to go to any factory in any mean, down-on-its-luck Rust Belt city. I challenge you to walk up to the assembly line and tell the union workers to their face that they're pampered, overpaid and that they're "thugs" and not patriotic.

Oh, and be sure to bring along a lot of OxyContin -- because when you insult these union workers, you're going to be in a lot of pain after they beat the sh*t out of you.

Of course, being the chickensh*t coward that you are, I'm sure that you'll never take me up on this challenge.

Instead, you'll continue to sit in one of your lavish mega-million-dollar mansions, smoking your fancy $200 cigars and drinking your $1,000 bottles of fine French wine. You'll continue to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars for spewing your lies into a microphone and attacking ordinary people who do real work for a living.

Enjoy your lavish lifestyle while you can, Limbaugh. Someday it's all going to come crashing down on your head. History shows what happens in nations where millions of people grow increasingly hungry and desperate, while a pampered leech class rakes in obscene amounts of money, while presiding over (and controlling) a corrupt and out-of-touch political system. Just ask Marie Antoinette.

You can ignore my challenge, Limbaugh. But you're not going to be able to ignore the angry cries of the hungry mob when it comes crashing through your front gate some day.

(Cross-posted at BeggarsCanBeChoosers.)

Mitt Romney... union-loving Keynesian?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Mitt Romney is a rich privileged douchebag willing to do or say anything in his relentless effort to pander to the Republican Party's far-right base, but occasionally, just occasionally, he shows us a glimpse, intentionally or not, of whatever is left of the real Mitt beneath the robotic, soul-less facade.

Sure, that real Mitt is still a douchebag, most likely, with a plutocratic sense of entitlement, but it's still a Mitt that isn't quite as extreme as the one we're witnessing on the campaign trail.

Spending cuts

As he said in Michigan yesterday: "If you just cut, if all you're thinking about doing is cutting spending, why as you cut spending you’ll slow down the economy."

This is certainly a lot more than you hear from most cut-and-cut-more Republicans these days, but of course Romney's not suddenly espousing a Keynesian, demand-side approach to the economy. He wasn't arguing against spending cuts, after all, let alone for stimulus spending, he was just saying that spending cuts alone, in his view (and the near-universal Republican view), aren't enough.

"So you have to at the same time create pro-growth tax policies," he quickly added. Which is to say, you have to have tax cuts for the wealthy, a core plank of all things Republican.

Unions

As he also said in Michigan yesterday: "Now labor unions play an important role in our society. There are some like the carpenters' union that compete on a fair basis and train their members to have greater skills, and so they're an important part of America's economy."

Wait, what? Did Romney not get the anti-union message? Is he departing from the anti-union activism of the likes of John Kasich in Ohio and Scott Walker in Wisconsin? Uh, no.

Note that Romney only said "some" unions (and he mentioned only one) are "important." And while this, too, is more than you hear from most Republicans these days, he quickly shifted his point, as he always does, into an attack on President Obama, in this case for supposedly sucking up to union bosses, and then advocated so-called "right to work" (i.e., right to get screwed) legislation.

This is what anti-union Republicans do. They draw a distinction between unionized workers and union bosses -- though of course what is a union without people running it? It's a way of being anti-union without seeming to be anti-worker. No matter that unionized workers vote for their bosses and are overwhelmingly pro-union. And they advocate legislation that is decidedly pro-employer and that would result in lower wages and fewer benefits for workers, another way of being anti-union while seemingly wanting to give workers "rights."

Sorry, what was I saying about Romney?

Whatever was there before, whatever once was real, appears to have been crushed. It may be his shameless opportunism or he may now believe this right-wing extremism, but it hardly matters.

This is the only Mitt left.

**********

Watch the clips:

The horrendous human costs of your beloved gadgets

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So you like your iPhone, do you? And your iPad? And maybe you're even one of those Apple cultists. (I'm not, but I do love my iPod Touch. I go Samsung/Android with my phone.)

Maybe you love all your gadgets. Maybe you think technology has made your life so much better, so much more fun. Hey, I hear you.

But there's a cost to be paid, and not just whatever low, low, ridiculously low price lured you into your local Best Buy. No, there's a human cost. Actually, many human costs. And it's important that you (and I) know about it (and make decisions accordingly):

In the last decade, Apple has become one of the mightiest, richest and most successful companies in the world, in part by mastering global manufacturing. Apple and its high-technology peers — as well as dozens of other American industries — have achieved a pace of innovation nearly unmatched in modern history.

However, the workers assembling iPhones, iPads and other devices often labor in harsh conditions, according to employees inside those plants, worker advocates and documents published by companies themselves. Problems are as varied as onerous work environments and serious — sometimes deadly — safety problems.

Employees work excessive overtime, in some cases seven days a week, and live in crowded dorms. Some say they stand so long that their legs swell until they can hardly walk. Under-age workers have helped build Apple's products, and the company's suppliers have improperly disposed of hazardous waste and falsified records, according to company reports and advocacy groups that, within China, are often considered reliable, independent monitors.

More troubling, the groups say, is some suppliers' disregard for workers' health. Two years ago, 137 workers at an Apple supplier in eastern China were injured after they were ordered to use a poisonous chemical to clean iPhone screens. Within seven months last year, two explosions at iPad factories, including in Chengdu, killed four people and injured 77. Before those blasts, Apple had been alerted to hazardous conditions inside the Chengdu plant, according to a Chinese group that published that warning. 

And then there's that whole suicide problem. (Yes, a very serious problem. In addition to the suicides themselves, workers at Foxconn, a manufacturer for Apple and others, have threatened mass suicide to protest the horrible working conditions.)

Now, sure, it's easy to pick on Apple and it's huge profits and cash, but it's hardly alone in this. Pretty much every major (and not-so-major) consumer electronics company is implicated.

Will this stop me, or you, or most anyone else from lapping up the latest wonder-gizmo? Maybe not, but, then, what are we to do? Not have these gadgets at all? Please. We need our superphones and tablets and laptops and PCs. I'm on them all the time at home, at work, pretty much everywhere.

But maybe we should at least think twice (or more) about what we're doing, and maybe, if Apple (to take but the most obvious example) is one of the most egregious players in this horrific system, it should pay -- and pay by losing customers, by having customers demand better of it. And perhaps, too, our attention and habits, should we change them in a meaningful way, and the attention this human toll is getting, will turn this into a political issue with governments demanding, and requiring, meaningful change.

Maybe I'm hoping for too much. Actually, I'm sure I am. And I know I'm a hypocrite. Most of us are. But I do know I look at Apple quite a bit differently now, and if making a choice means choosing the less bad of some generally bad options, well, that's something, at least.

Food for thought next time you're playing Angry Birds.

Newt Gingrich supports child labor as solution to poverty

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There are, of course, any number of reasons not to like Newt Gingrich and to think he'd be a terrible choice for Republicans next year. We'll get into many of those reasons here in the coming days, and as long as he's a viable top-tier candidate, but for now let's just focus on one of them:

He supports child labor. Seriously:

Newt Gingrich tonight said at an address at Harvard that child work laws "entrap" poor children into poverty - and suggested that a better way to handle failing schools is to fire the janitors, hire the local students and let them get paid for upkeep.

The comment came in response to an undergrad's question about income equality during his talk at Harvard's Kennedy School.

"This is something that no liberal wants to deal with," Gingrich said. "Core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization against children in the poorest neighborhoods, crippling them by putting them in schools that fail has done more to create income inequality in the United States than any other single policy. It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid.

"You say to somebody, you shouldn't go to work before you're what, 14, 16 years of age, fine. You're totally poor. You're in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I've tried for years to have a very simple model," he said. "Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they'd begin the process of rising."

Of course, there are also any number of reasons he's popular with conservatives, and here he hits several right-wing buttons at once: unions are bad, government regulation ruins the economy, public schools are failing, children have no rights, the poor are really only poor because they don't work hard enough, and income inequality is the fault of government and unions and the left generally.

He's wrong on all counts, but all across the country conservative knees are jerking. Steve M. explains it well:

If you're a fan of far-right demagoguery, there's so much to admire here. Notice how the simple act of paying people to clean and maintain scholls is now "bureaucratization." (Boo! Hiss!) Notice how the main enemy seems to be liberals -- and not just liberals, but eggheady, social-engineering-obsessed, bureaucratizing liberals (a class of people he demonizes at Harvard, no less) ... and yet Newt's attack also takes out evil broom-wielding union thugs.

But there's more. This is for the children. Making them clean the schools is good for them. This plays in the brains of wingnuts one of two ways: either (a) they imagine hoodlums and ruffians being kept off the streets by doing the sort of work they should just be consigned to at birth and forced to accept for life, or (b) they think this is how you save the underclass from a life of liberal dependency, by turning them into a sort of neckerchief-wearing Gingrich Youth, a cadre of Young Newtian Pioneers doing vigorous labor as a means of refuting the notion that the nation has gone flabby.

It would seem that Newt is just the new anti-Romney (following in the footsteps of Bachmann, Perry, and Cain), but the more I think about it the less sure I am. I thought he was done a long time ago, his campaign over save for his desire for more of the spotlight to enhance the Gingrich brand, but he may actually have some staying power -- if only because his rivals on the right, specifically Perry, are so weak. And it helps that, despite often veering from Republican orthodoxy (remember when he criticized Paul Ryan?), he can feed the conservative Republican penchant for cruelty and brutality with such enthusiastic extremism.

Newt's good at this stuff. He's earned his spot at the top.

Yes, indeed. He's a man of ideas, we are told over and over again. It just so happens that those ideas, such as bringing back child labor and making life even more miserable for the poor, are insane.

The slow self-destruction of Herman Cain: Embarrassing himself on Libya, supporting public sector collective bargaining

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Lest we forget, Rick Perry doesn't have a monopoly on brain farting (or abject ignorance) among the Republican presidential candidates. Herman Cain in particular can't seem to open his mouth without discharging some mindless stupidity. For example, in a meeting yesterday with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, he completely botched a question about Libya:

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, in the midst of a Midwestern campaign swing, stumbled badly Monday when attempting to answer a question about whether he agreed or disagreed with President Barack Obama's approach to handling the Libyan crisis.

Meeting with Journal Sentinel reporters and editors before fundraising appearances in Milwaukee and Green Bay, Cain was discussing foreign policy in general when he was asked specifically about Obama's handling of Libya.

Cain paused for some time, then wanted to clarify that Obama had supported the uprising. Clearly struggling to articulate a response, Cain paused again, saying "got all of this stuff twirling around in my head."

Finally, Cain said: "I would have done a better job of determining who the opposition is. And I'm sure that our intelligence people had some of that information. Based upon who made up that opposition... might have caused me to make some different decisions about how we participated. Secondly, no I did not agree with (Moammar) Gadhafi killing his citizens. Absolutely not... I would have supported many of the things that they did to help stop that."

Actually, it was worse than that. Here, as reported by Politico, is how he started his "answer" (emphasis added): 

OK, Libya. President Obama supported the uprising, correct? President Obama called for the removal of Qadhafi. Just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing before I say, "yes I agree," or "no I didn't agree." I do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason – nope, that's a different one. I gotta go back to, see... Got all this stuff twirling around in my head. Specifically, what are you asking me, did I agree or not disagree with Obama on?

And this guy supposedly wants to be president? I wouldn't even let him be my latex salesman. He can't even formulate an answer to a question about one of the most significant issues of the year. (Because he probably hasn't ever thought about it enough to formulate an intelligent response. He just wanted to slam Obama somehow.) And when he finally got something out, it had to do with "assessing the situation differently."

He's such an idiot that no one outside of his narrow sliver of hardcore supporters appears to be taking him seriously. He's become a laughingstock (and a sexual harasser, which is no laughing matter, even if he's trying to laugh it off), more and more of one the longer he remains in the public eye, and even the media can't hide their laughter. (And yet he's still polling well among Republicans, which tells you a lot about the state of the GOP and particularly about the state of the Republican presidential field.)

And it wasn't just Libya:

Cain also appeared to be unclear on the issue of collective bargaining as it involves federal employees.

Asked if he thought federal employees should have the ability to bargain collectively, Cain said: "They already have it, don't they?"

Told they didn't, he said, "They have unions."

The American Federation of Government Employees, which represents 600,000 federal government workers in 65 agencies, says that most federal employees don't have collective bargaining over pay and benefits. They do have collective bargaining rights over working conditions.

*****

Cain's comments came after he was asked his reaction to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker stripping most collective bargaining rights from public unions. Cain said he believes public employees should be allowed to bargain collectively on wages and benefits. 

Apparently he doesn't even have the ability to regurgitate Republican talking points. And expressing this position won't exactly help him with GOP voters.

Mitt Romney flips and flops on Ohio's anti-union law

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(UPDATE: Romney clarified his position on Wednesday. He's "110 percent" anti-union. "I fully support Gov. Kasich's Question 2 in Ohio," he said. "I'm sorry if I created any confusion there." Sure, except that his refusal to be clear was clearly intentional. He likely only clarified his position because he was called out on it. He's going against the majority of Ohioans on this, but pandering to the right-wing GOP base -- and to the party's new mainstream -- would appear to be more important.)

Mitt Romney appeared to depart from the Republican race to the bottom yesterday by refusing to endorse Ohio Gov. John Kasich's law (SB 5) that denies collective bargaining rights to unionized public sector workers. (The law will be put to a state-wide vote in two weeks, and polls show a solid majority (57% according to a poll released yesterday) of Ohioans favoring repeal.) The thing is, Romney endorsed the law back in June. This, of course, is typical Romney. He says one thing when he wants to appeal to the right, another when he wants to appeal to public opinion. As Steve Benen writes:

Think about what transpired: the Republican presidential frontrunner visited with a Republican phone bank to offer support for the Republican campaign to curtail collective bargaining rights. But Romney refuses to take a position on the issue? He's "supportive" of their efforts, but he won't say whether or not he agrees with their efforts? 

Seriously?

Putting aside party and ideology, it's hard to shake the realization that Mitt Romney lacks a certain political courage. He's so desperate to calculate how every decision might affect his ambitions that he struggles to remember what he believes, and either ends up cowardly ducking issues or taking both sides of nearly every fight. It can be hard to watch, and even harder to respect.

Basically, Romney just says whatever he thinks he needs to say to maximize his political appeal, and that means flipping and flopping all over the place. Unlike Perry and Bachmann, he may not always be racing to the bottom in terms of ideology (it's hard to know what he really thinks about SB 5), but he's certainly leading the way, well ahead of Newt Gingrich, in terms of shameless pandering and self-promotional opportunism. This is one of the major reasons why so many Republicans are suspicious of him, or outright loathe him, and why even as the frontrunner with divided and often embarrassing conservative opposition he can barely crack 25% percent support in polls. He's just so transparent, and it's just so obvious what he's up to.

What else is new?

Even extremist Pat Robertson thinks the GOP presidential candidates are too extreme

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Well, too extreme to win the election, not necessarily too extreme in purely ideological terms (where he surely agrees with their extremist views).

But, as ThinkProgress puts it, "[y]ou know you've hit rock bottom when one of the most radical, hate-spewing figures in America calls you 'extreme.'" (Watch the clip below.)

My one quibble: I'm not sure this is rock bottom. Perry, Cain, Bachmann, and, yes, even Romney can still go much lower in their efforts to out-extreme each other. (Consider, for example, Perry's recent flirtation with Birtherism. Haley Barbour, occasionally known for being sensible, or at least pragmatic, is smart enough to know this is bad move.)

And it will likely get much, much worse as we head into 2012.