GAZETTE COLUMN - NOT WORKING! by John P. Flannery

There are so many people who believe that there is this unerring “invisible hand” that makes the necessary corrections in the balance of capital, land and labor so that our economy stays on track.

It’s not so, and it’s not what Adam Smith was talking about when he made the original reference to an “invisible hand.”

The economy is our individual choices, taken in the aggregate, and, if you want to call that the “invisible hand,” you may do so, but it’s not working.

When some take too much out of our economy, too much in profit, a disproportionate income, others are paid less, they can buy less, businesses close, and jobs evaporate.

We are in the era of selfish ill will– too many at the top taking too much for themselves, leaving too little for everyone else.

In the best of times, we define ourselves in large part by the work we do.

The poet, Maya Angelou, wrote, “Nothing will work unless you do.”

In these times, many more work to subsist or work not at all.

The signs are everywhere.

On the Berlin Turnpike, as the cars stop at the intersection for Route 9, there’s a hand written sign looking for work.  The sign’s relatively new.

A young senior from Loudoun Valley High School graduated this year.  For his graduation “gift,” his mom gave him the keys to the house and left him to fend for himself, driving off for parts unknown in Texas with his younger sibling.  He’s having a tough time of it.

You may have seen some workers on a picket line outside the Verizon Office in Leesburg, at 501 Tolbert Lane, walking with signs, to and fro, from 7 AM to 6 PM.  Verizon insists on cutting its workers’ pension and health benefits even as Verizon’s profits increase.  That’s why they’re there protesting.

Verizon’s revenue rose 2.8 percent to $27.8 billion in the second quarter, mostly because of its new wireless business; Verizon added 1.26 million wireless customers, as compared with 665,000 a year ago; so Verizon is doing better now than a year ago. 

Verizon’s top six executives were paid about $7.5 million each last year. 

Verizon’s customer service reps were paid about $16.64 an hour, or about $34,000 a year.

Instead of empathy, some are mad at the unemployed like there was a job that they could fill but haven’t tried.

Others resent the fact that some workers fight collectively for their rights, for a fair wage and for benefits.  If these workers didn’t bond together, they’d have to take whatever an employer unilaterally dictated.  They’d be little more than wage (or salary) slaves -- condemned to receive less pay and fewer benefits at the whim of their greedy employer.

Increasingly the young come home after college because they can’t get work – and so they can’t live on their own.

Families are trying to get second jobs and working overtime when they can.

There isn’t enough work to go around.

It’s time for big business to take less and give back more – or they’ll kill the economy that makes them so rich.

If there’s an invisible hand, it’s wrapped firmly around the neck of the American worker and it’s choking him to death.

GAZETTE ED: POLITICAL SLEIGHT OF HAND by John Flannery

Political Sleight of hand works best when we’re slight of mind – when we don’t pay careful attention.

Only days ago, President Barack Obama encouraged our leaders to talk “with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”

Some have agreed to curb their rhetoric and others propose to sit with other partisans when the President addresses a joint session of Congress on January 25, 2011.

But what a Congress does can cause violence as destructive as a 9mm bullet.

A former federal employee, living in Loudoun, retired when he was 55, now 10 years ago.  He counts on his monthly retirement check.  Days ago the government told him that he was not getting a COLA (a cost of living adjustment), and his monthly payment has been reduced.  What does he do now?

The government told a woman on Social Security disability that they’ve been over paying her for years, she disputes it, but they are going to pay her less, and the new amount won’t cover her monthly rent.  She said days ago they’re forcing her onto the street.

Across the nation, state governments including Virginia are telling state employees that their retirement will be cut short and they have to pay or do without the benefits they were promised when they agreed to become public servants.  No stimulus for these working men and women.  We depress them instead.

Only last month, a congress of invertebrates told the wealthiest in the nation, their principal contributors, not to pay more in taxes (3% more), and so now the middle class are getting less and being asked to pay and suffer more.

Republican House Speaker John Boehner, a beneficiary of significant contributions from the insurance industry, with a gilt-edged health plan himself, has set out to repeal health care.  The Congressional Budget Office says the cost of repealing this bill will be $230 billion over the next ten years.  Boehner is concerned about reducing the deficit except when it’s inconvenient to his contributors.  If the Speaker succeeds and kills this cost-saving health reform, then millions of Americans won’t be insured, and if you get sick or lose your job, you may lose your coverage as well.  Pre-existing conditions won’t be covered, children will not be covered, and lifetime caps on insurance pay-outs will be restored.

As for Social Security, the trust fund has $2.9 Trillion.  It’s your money.  You pay into this fund every time you’re paid a wage or salary.  Did you know that our government has been borrowing from this trust fund to reduce the deficit?  Speaker Boehner thinks maybe you can wait from 65 until you are seventy to retire, reducing your lifetime benefits by 30 percent.  Republican Congressman Paul Ryan has drafted a program for Speaker Boehner to privatize Social Security and provide vouchers for Medicare. 

Civility is part of the answer but good conduct is the rest and cutting health care and social security doesn’t heal, it wounds, steals dignity, causes pain, and costs lives.