Bill Mitchell — Welcome to the ‘homeless’ working poor – a new neoliberal KPI

In advanced nations, poverty used to be a thing of old age, once income had stopped due to retirement and savings depleted. Old-aged pension systems were intended as Welfare States emerged to prevent that fall into poverty. The pension systems reduced the incidence of extreme poverty and the full employment era that followed the Second World War, where governments committed to using their fiscal capacities (spending and taxation) to ensure there were sufficient jobs for all, allowed workers to improve incomes and saving. Research in the early 1970s (particularly from the US, where the pension systems were less generous and working conditions less regulated) started to disclose the incidence of the ‘working poor’. In more recent times, the concept of the working poor has spread from the US to most advanced nations. In this modern era of renewed real wage repression, rising energy costs and housing costs, workers are not only facing increased risk of poverty but also of homelessness. Welcome to Australia – the nation with the second highest median wealth per adult in the world. Yesterday (February 21, 2018), the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the – Wage Price Index, Australia – for the December-quarter 2017. Private sector wages growth was 1.9 per cent in the December-quarter continuing the seven consecutive quarters of record low growth. However, with the annual inflation rate running at 1.9 per cent, real wages growth was static. And with real wages growth lagging badly behind productivity growth, the wage share in national income is now around record low levels. This represents a major rip-off for workers. The flat wages trend is also intensifying the pre-crisis dynamics, which saw private sector credit rather than real wages drive growth in consumption spending. And now, the latest data shows that workers are experiencing increased homeless. It is not just a problem of the ‘working poor’ now. Welcome to the ‘homeless’ working poor – a new neoliberal KPI.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Welcome to the ‘homeless’ working poor – a new neoliberal KPI
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Brian Romanchuk — Money Hoarding Versus Saving, And Economic Growth

Brian digs into the implications of the saving versus hoarding distinction.

Bond Economics
Money Hoarding Versus Saving, And Economic Growth
Brian Romanchuk

Barkley Rosser — A Hidden Reason Why The Fed May Raise Interest Rates

Pensions. 

At the same time, the world is facing global deflation.

Economonitor
A Hidden Reason Why The Fed May Raise Interest Rates
J. Barkley Rosser | Professor of Economics at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia

Zero Hedge — The Global War On Pensions Gets Personal - Scenes From A Dying Nation

Baby boomers listen up. This is what neoliberals have planned for you.

BTW, Russia has already been through this. This is why the majority of people are so opposed to neoliberalism. The American notion that Russians are going to rise up and replace Putin with a neoliberal regime is absurd.

Now the same thing is happening in southern Europe.

Zero Hedge
The Global War On Pensions Gets Personal - Scenes From A Dying Nation
Tyler Durden

Maybe police are finally starting to wake up to the fact that the neoliberal looting class is coming for their money, too!

Maybe this is a sign that the police are starting to wake up to the fact that even they are not immune to the parasitic wants of their neoliberal masters. Looks like the NJ State Police are suing Chris Christie over the matter of his cutting of their pensions. Good luck with that.

Of course this is all done so the rich don't have to pay another dime in Jersey or elsewhere. You see, it's happening all over, regardless of who's in office, Democrat or Republican. (Andrew Cuomo in New York State, Mike Bloomberg in NYC, Rick Perry in Texas, etc.)

All these governors and mayors can then boast about how they balanced their state/city budgets without raising taxes, which is a total joke because the budget cuts and looting of pensions IS a tax increase--only it falls on those least able to afford it.

During the Occupy Wall Street days most police were too busy (and still are too busy) cracking heads and pepper spraying peaceful protesters to pay any attention. However, they were warned. I remember very well watching many of these protesters trying to tell the cops that it would soon be their money at risk, but these "law enforcers" were too busy or excited by the thrill of throwing another victim to the ground to pay any attention, I guess. (Or maybe they were too dumb to process the information.)

Whatever the reason, I am personally happy to see the cops get their pension money confiscated and even happier that it's being done by the very same lawmakers who had been cynically praising them all along, for the great work they were doing fighting "crime." What bullshit.

To me, the cops are even more despicable than the neoliberal parasites who bought the government and are now conducting their own personal war against the rest of us. They couldn't do it without the law enforcement apparatus providing the muscle and running roughshod over our Constitutional rights. Shame on police everywhere. My hope is that you inherit a fate far, far, worse than those you helped to rob and brutalize.

I rooting for Christie to win this lawsuit. Take the cops' money, governor. Take it.