Pay

As a result of the media focus on the crash of a commuter flight in Buffalo, NY it has been revealed that pilots starting out and breaking into the industry make about as much as the girl at Starbucks that hands you your coffee in the morning. Add on to that, the fact that the pilots work long days at a job that it is critical they maintain focus and composure and you get a mild national shock.

I was surprised also. I really shouldn't have been given the nature of corporate America that pays the people that actually do the work a pittance while the executives who have never worked a day in their lives rake in exorbitant salaries. Still when you think of a pilot, its the one job that you wanted as a child that even from adulthood still looks like it has the least chance of turning out like the soul crushing office work you wound up doing.

Now more than ever we need the minimum wage to be set to the actual living wage. There really shouldn't be a distinction between the two. Congress should act now because the old argument that raising the minimum wage would cost jobs doesn't fly when companies nation wide have already cut their staff down to bare bones, cutting labor down to workers with essential functions and then cutting just a few more. There aren't any more jobs to loose.

You might still be foolish enough to believe in the American Dream, that hard work pays off, or you might be an aspiring corporate raider and make the argument that this still increases overhead of even small businesses. Sure it does, but you are willfully ignoring the big picture. To be trite, the rising tide raises all boats. If everyone is being paid a living wage, suddenly you have a surge of new consumers that have never had disposable income before. They are buying their coffee from Starbucks instead of from Maxwell House, which increases the dollars in circulation and increases profits and liquidity.

Of course this only happens if Starbucks, forced to increase wages, doesn't increase the price of their already overpriced coffee. Theoretically this could cause an increasing spiral where the costs of goods is increases commensurate to the increase in the minimum wage creating an runaway spiral of inflation. But that's where the other market forces come in. First, not every company will simply raise prices to artificially keep wages low. In our global mega corporation economy where even the store brand discount paper towels are made by the massive conglomerate that makes the costly brand name ones it is easier for such companies to spread any cost increase out over a large population and over time. This doesn't even have to turn into a situation where Congress is robbing the rich to pay the poor.

This was what we once got from unions. We have them to thank for the weekend and the forty hour work week. Unfortunately now they have turned into a punchline about organized crime and an albatross around the neck of the poorly run auto companies. If unions want to become relevant again they need to seize on this recession and take big bold action that will carry us out of the recession. I don't see this happening. They protect workers who don't work and see themselves as the enemy of management. Even worse younger workers have to pay dues into the union and get little out of it by being relegated to the worst jobs not by the company but by the union that is supposed to be looking out for them, and they still get crap wages because the union had to sell out the decent wages of new employees to maintain the benefits of the retired.

That being said, I have worked for companies that hate unions, ones that just aren't unionized, and ones that have a large powerful union and ones where the union is a minor impact on a portion of business, and I have seen that the big powerful unions still have a beneficial impact on more than the quantifiable benefits and wages one gets.

The Urban Shaman

In days long past and in parts of the world untouched by the corporate monoculture there are psychopomps and shamen who know the spiritual secrets of the Earth and can walk between the worlds. These men and women gain access to a spiritual dimension through chanting, ritual, drugs, or raw spiritual power. They walk in a dangerous world in between life and death where they are alive, yet not. Where they walk among the dead and the not-yet born. They are able to pass through this liminal state of not-being without loosing their soul because of their wisdom and spiritual power.

It occurs to me that airline travel has become one such a dangerous liminal state in this post 9/11 world. In a world where one can be apprehended and shipped off to a foreign country or secret prison to be tortured based on faulty intelligence, mistaken identity, or no evidence at all, airline travelers face a very real danger. When one enters an airport they pass within a barrier that the public cannot penetrate. The traveler only enters into this parallel land by performing arcane rituals and by passing the arbitrary and ever changing tests of the gate keepers. They pass into a world where names and shapes are familiar but strange. The worst part is that no one knows whether you will come out on the other side.

The difference is that air travel isn't like this because of the immutable laws of nature and of the spirit but because of the actions of wicked men.

The Department of Defense: We Deliver Weapons to the World

[Note: This posting was authored by TheRedKap, who is currently behind the Great Fire Wall, and is unable to post directly.]

For those of you at home who are worried that the American economy is crumbling beyond repair, take heart in the fact that the United States is still the arms supplier to the world. All of the usual types of equipment are involved, namely the M-16 assault rifle, the F-16 in various configurations, and the C-17 military transport plane. However, there are a few new surprises. For instance, the United Arab Emirates is reportedly considering purchasing Black Hawk helicopters and Hellfire anti-tank missiles.

Details of the record $32 billion year enjoyed by the Pentagon include a package of various weapons systems to countries in the Persian Gulf region. But, don't worry, all of these weapons are going to our friends, such as an advanced missile defense system for the aforementioned U.A.E., helicopters and tanks for Saudi Arabia and Egypt, , and most interestingly technology to help Jordan secure its border with Iraq. Iraq, soon to be flush with billions of dollars in oil revenue is in the market for modern military equipment, including F-16s, armored vehicles, attack helicopters, and mortar systems. An upgrade to the PAC-3 and munitions for Israel is also in the works, along with at least 25 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, with options for up to 50 more, with an eye to getting the planes to the IDF "as quickly as we possibly can."

Meanwhile, Russia's 21% of global arms sales, which partly go to Iran and Syria, were recently characterized by the Israeli Ambassador to Washington, Sallai Meridor as "dangerous and destabilizing to Israel and for peace in the region." Sure, the US and Israel were cooperating with the Georgian military prior to the recent 5 Day War, to the tune of $300 million dollars last year alone, but clearly the Russians were unjustified in their reaction to the Georgian offensive into South Ossetia and Abkahzia. The ambassador, for his part, couldn't understand why anyone would see these arms supplies as threatening or destabilizing. Looking through the old crystalline prism of spheres of influence, the Russians are very concerned about the threat upon its borders.

Do not be confused into thinking that these arms sales are entirely funded by the recipients of these weapons systems. The U.S. government, according to numbers from the BEA, spent approximately $3.8 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2008 financing foreign military sales. While this may be a drop in the bucket compared to the monthly deficit our government is currently running, such as the $111.91 billion dollar deficit for the month of August, arms sales are the classic example of foreign diplomacy that has the biggest potential for unintended catastrophic results.

George Carlin May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008

It may be cliche but I hope it isnt trite to say that commedians are the ones most free to speak the truth. In between jokes about scabs and finger nail clippings George Carlin had tremendously precient social commentary about freedom of speach, the prison system, religion, big corporations, advertising, and government. After 9/11, his bit about airline security seemed eerily prophetic.


As someone who's art was frequently subject of attempts at censorship, he took a long view of history.

doublespeak

Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee to the presidential election, has single handedly made America less safe. It may seem like a stretch to say, but how else would one characterize the way he single-handedly prevented the Air Force from awarding its refueling tanker to Boeing? Instead, Airbus will assemble parts at an assembly plant in Mobile, AL, ala the disaster that Boeing itself encountered in trying to build the 787 Dreamliner on schedule. In truth, this is just the end result of colossal corruption scandals and bureaucratic bungling, and the American taxpayers are getting trampled underfoot as various parties move into position to reap as much profit as possible.

In more conceptual terms, this move could represent the Military Industrial Complex beginning to cannibalize its own pieces as it begins to come to terms with its own unsustainable nature. And so, another 100 year cycle comes to an end. My favorite quote is from Gen. Lichte, who apparently regards the economic concerns as trivial, or of tertiary importance.

At a news conference, Air Force officials said that the creation of domestic jobs was not a factor in the decision. In response to questions about possible negative reaction to the deal in Congress, Gen. Arthur J. Lichte, head of the Air Force’s Air Mobility Command, said, “This will be an American tanker, flown by American airmen with an American flag on its tail and, every day, it will be saving American lives.”