As a journalism lifer and former national economics reporter there are times I just want to scream as I’m reading the knowing lies and sins of omission emanating from the corporate garbage which now passes for a “free press” in this country.
Case in point, today’s glowing article on wage gains by USA Today’s Paul Davidson. The Wall Street cheerleader writes about a recent uptick in U.S. wages – a tiny uptick – with no mention whatsoever of The Moron Presidency’s trade war with China.
According to Davidson, the rise in wages is a complete fucking mystery. Even though anyone with half a brain can see the obvious connection to Donald Trump’s politically expedient dustup with China.
I’m not blowing Donnie Bagadonuts’ horn here out of some kind of idiot loyalty to the hopeless imbecile in The Oval Office. I hate him and his followers with a passion, but I’m still loyal to the American people and I still believe in informing the electorate instead of misleading it.
Painful Truth No. 9.66 Gazillion is that Donnie Trust Fund’s trade war with China is starting to pay dividends for America’s beleaguered workers and faltering middle class.
There. I said it.
It felt like broken glass on my tongue, but I said it.
Average hourly earnings were up 2.9 percent in August from the same month a year earlier, the Labor Department announced Friday.
Granted, this tiny gain is barely more than the 2.3 percent inflation rate and probably disappears altogether once you take into account rising health insurance costs, but it beats getting stuck in the eye with a sharp stick. Which is what’s been happening to American workers since Wall Street began creating jobs in China and India and destroying jobs here at home 20 years ago.
Trump’s trade war with China is also the reason U.S. manufacturing has added 327,000 jobs since July of 2017.
So yeah, not getting ass-raped by Wall Street for once is cause for celebration in my book. No matter how it happens. Even if it’s because Cheeto Jesus was constipated after eating some day-old Lo Mein.
China is a Wall Street plantation these days and whatever’s bad for them is good for American workers.
The sad part about today’s news is that it can’t last because Trump is an erratic fool. Particularly with economics. When it comes to coherent economic policy, he’s what Caitlyn Jenner is to gender.
One day he’s a guy named “Bruce,” the next he’s a girl named “Caitlyn,” and then he wakes up somewhere in between and wants to be referred by the universal symbol for “Satan Had a Bandsaw Accident.”
Meanwhile, the rest of us just want Victor/Victoria to pick something and stick with it so we know what to call him and can stop changing the signs on the bathroom door.
Trump, whose companies have declared bankruptcy five times, doesn’t have the first fucking clue what he’s doing with the economy. But even a broken clock is right twice a day and Dickless’ trade war has been great for America’s beleaguered workers and faltering middle class.
What kind of national “news” organization runs a story about national wage gains in this day and age, without so much as a single reference to the global labor market or our Eco-Fluid President’s trade war with China?
The kind with crappy economic journalists and treasonous private equity owners. Like USA Today.
Instead of informing readers, this flawed article misleads us by omission.
The reality is that U.S. workers compete with foreign workers for jobs in a global labor market, with no meaningful international government or international labor regulation. This competition is especially intense with China and India, where workers make far less than their peers in the U.S., Canada and Europe.
This allows China and India to steal jobs, lowering our standard of living while raising their own.
Why?
Because the U.S. government does not protect American workers, like the functioning democracies do in Europe and Canada. Instead, our corrupt politicians work solely for the billionaire investors of Wall Street.
Duping the masses is part of their job description. It’s the price they pay for the bales of cash deposited in their campaign and charity accounts, the $450,000 speaking fees, and the low-show jobs for their worthless kids.
The current version of “globalization” is corporate code for big corporations hijacking national governments via legal bribery, so they protect global monied interests instead of their own workers.
Wall Street pay-offs have transformed the U.S. Congress from a representative elected body into a modern-day House of Lords with a median net worth of more than $1 million per member. Meanwhile, the median wage for the full-time workers they supposedly represent is about $45,000.
Systemic political corruption is the reason why the U.S. has lost more than 3 million manufacturing jobs just to China since 2000, and more than 5 million overall. It’s also the reason so many of the new jobs being created here pay the equivalent of Chinese wages.
One of every four jobs have been lost to other nations by a manufacturing sector which now employs just 12.4 million. We’re not talking automation here. We’re talking offshoring. As in Apple, Amazon and Wal-Mart.
This enormous job loss has taken place even as our national population has added 47 million new members to expand 16 percent to its present 329 million.
Why hasn’t our labor force expanded by the same amount as corporate profits have soared?
Corrupt lawmakers are permitting American workers to be leveled with their peers in China and India.
Why?
Selling out the middle class is lucrative.
Why can’t USA Today and Paul Davidson tell you that?
Because they have no fucking guts whatsoever.
U.S. employers spent an average of $36.32 for every hour worked in March 2018, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, workers only received about 68 percent of this money before taxes, with benefit costs averaging $11.55.
You’re lucky to take home half of what your employer is paying you after taxes and health care.
It’s a tough situation for them, but is it our problem?
No.
Our job is to raise our own families. Not to short them to try to create parity for 1.4 billion people in China and 1.3 billion in India.
Right now, the price of that parity is being paid by American workers. Meanwhile, American CEOs and investors and their Chinese workers are actually making more. By gobs and gobs.
Why?
Our government looks out for them.
Who looks out for American workers?
No one.
Not even the trust fund baby in the White House pretending to be a populist.
The trade wars are actually Trump screwing up. Not Trump being a courageous and enlightened progressive leader like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Waren.
Donnie Bagadonuts figured he could get away with a politically popular trade war after the enormous tax giveaway he orchestrated for his country club friends.
He was wrong there.
Because Wall Street no longer does anything but take.
What’s the moral of the story?
Enjoy the tiny wage gains while they last, because Trump is a madman on an express train to political oblivion.
If you want a government that represents all of America again, vote third party and shun any candidates who attended private school instead of public school.
Democrat and Republican don’t mean shit any more. They might as well be the old Gambino and Lucchese mob families, selling political protection to corporations instead do wise guys.
What of Trump, the five time draft evader in The White House?
He’s a symptom of American decay. Not the sexually transmitted disease.
The disease is political corruption, and Corporate Dems are just as infected as their Republican adversaries.
What’s the good news?
Come November, we’re going to vote for clamydia instead of syphilis.
Try to control your enthusiasm.
Victor Epstein is a former employee of Gannett, whose stories appeared in USA Today and other Gannett publications before it was taken over by private equity and transformed into a clickbait operation.
