by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Corporate profits as a share of national income continue to break records, not despite unemployment and wage stagnation, but because of them.
Recession is always good for the capitalists and capitalism as it guarantees them a labor force that is scared of losing their jobs and thus will accept lower wages and bad working conditions just to be able to have some sort of an income.
In the US corporations, aided and abetted by government, has now gone so far to make people work overtime at no pay. Instead people are told that they can take the time, as normal hours, off in lieu. In other words no time-and-a-half, as it was, and double time for weekends. And, guess what? People have to accept those conditions or else they are out of a job.
Workers, in the private and public sectors alike, see their wages stagnate or even, in real terms go down, while, that the same time, the bosses, including in the public sector, get salary increases and big bonuses. And let's not even talk about the bankers who have caused the grief in the first place.
While the workers are made to pay for the crimes of the bankers the latter are getting away unmolested and are even rewarded for said crimes by having the banks bailed out at taxpayers expense and still receive millions in bonuses each.
The system is corrupt as are the corporations and governments and a change is needed but it is not a new government. It is a new system that is required. One that is not built on continuous economic growth, which is not possible anyway in a world with finite non-renewable resources. The economy must be a resource-based one and a system one that puts people and the Planet before profits.
© 2013
