October 8, 2010
The Milkman’s Son
By Tracy C. Baker
Message in a Milk Bottle #141
The New Normal

Recently, I have heard a slew of so-called experts (most from Right-Wing think tanks) tell us that the economy we are now living in is the “New Normal.” Personally, I don’t find anything “normal” about it.

I grew up in a single-income household. As you know, my father was a milkman for Berkeley Farms and a proud member of the Teamsters Union for many decades. We were considered lower-to-middle class, but on this blue-collar income we were able to take a vacation every summer with all 5 of us, often driving to Michigan or Washington State.

My father, through the Veterans Administration, received a loan in the mid 1950s and purchased a 3-year old home in San Lorenzo. He never missed a payment and never faced foreclosure.

We purchased two new cars, about a decade apart, a washing machine, a dryer, a color television, a stereo and several other small luxuries throughout the years (thank God for Sears). Not one of these was repossessed or sold at auction.

Through his work, we received high quality medical care, including a leading thoracic surgeon who saved my life. My sister and brothers, including one who had chronic asthma, and I, with my numerous problems, were never denied medical insurance or care.

Some of us attended college, an affordable option at that time, but if didn’t want to, we could have easily attended a trade school that would have prepared us for a well-paying Union job. No one screamed that we were making too much money and that we “shouldn’t expect so much”

How The Abnormal Became Normal

"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

Right-wing operative Grover Norquist said those words over 10 years ago, but it has been the far-right mantra since the Neo-Conservative party was started in the late 1940s. Since 1981, they have been slowly chipping away at the middle class who over the decades since WW II had grown so large, prosperous, and powerful that they posed a threat to the Neo-con’s bread and butter; the Über-rich and the multi-national corporations they run.

I believe the impetus that woke them to unleash their hate and fear filled form of Corporatist Government was twofold; a) Jimmy Carter successfully took on and broke up that bastion of corporate oligarchy, AT&T (Now known as ATT after being known as various and asunder Baby Bells that magically re-merged themselves back together ala Terminator II after Reagan all but gutted the Sherman Anti-Trust Act except Verizon which itself was a baby bell but it got smart and saw the cell phone boom coming and so grew too large for the former now renewed ATT to suck it back into the fold.)

I think that kinda freaked them out a bit as Sherman Anti-trust action had been reduced to a trickle after WWII. The US Economy needed companies to get up and running again and employ all those GIs returning from the war.

The other push came from the success of Nixon’s Southern Strategy. Since the Civil Rights Act was signed under Johnson, the Southern Democratic Bloc had been seething. Nixon and his advisors saw an opportunity to bring them under the Republican wing. Thus the block of red states you find throughout the South. Along with this came the rise in Right-wing religious zealots. Again, the Republican Party saw an opportunity and grabbed it, playing to the lowest common denominator, hate.

With these new recruits and Jimmy Carter’s mishandling of the Presidency (although he did some wonderful things like put us on the road to fossil fuel independence…probably another thing that pissed off the corporate oligarchy and thus Reagan immediately undid the whole program.) Reagan and the Neo-cons swept into office and immediately put their plans into place. The main part of that plan was to grow the deficit, cut taxes on the rich and multi-national corporations, destroy the unions, and bankrupt the New Deal programs…in other words, Reaganomics.

The success (and not in a good way) of the implementation of their plans can be seen in many ways today – real wages (income vs. productivity vs. inflation) have been stagnant since the mid-1980s; the bubble economy has caused five, count them, five recessions, the most in modern history over this period of time (And the next one is on the way); unofficial inflation (unofficial because the Republican government changed how they figured inflation , removing many staples from the calculation.)

Executive salaries are astronomically out of proportion to front line employees’ pay and the gap is widening every year. No matter the company does good, bad, or crashes and burns, the CEO and Board of Directors still cash out. What’s the incentive to innovate, grow, or hire more expensive employees? Just ship it all to India and China, re-import it at no cost and voila! WE win! (The “WE” being the corporate execs).

The lobbyists for this mass of corporatists have invaded Washington DC, taking over the entire city. At any given time you can find from 20,000 to 30,000 lobbyists in Washington DC. This is a 100% increase since George Bush took office in 2001, and a nearly 1000 percent increase since the days of Reagan.

The list goes on and on.

And What About Us?

Recently, several economists looked at what it would take for us to live like our parents did – Single income, house, car, small luxuries, send the kids to college, etc. etc.

In 1960 an annual income that would allow you to do all that was about $6,000. Now adjusting for inflation that is about $35,000 today, so you would think that is what you need (give or take), right? Okay, so maybe we add a little more because of the unofficial inflation in housing and fuel costs and say $50,000, okay?

Not okay – economists say you would need an annual income of $200,000 to match that lifestyle.

My Father is rolling over in his grave…

Fini

Tracy

Copyright 2010, The Milkman's Son and Tracy Baker