The Good Jobs Strategy

But it doesn't have to...

Digby Jones

Jobs in the United States that once featured good pay and decent benefits in manufacturing, services, and information technology have gone overseas at full-throttle pace in the past several decades. This has decimated America’s middle class, and in it’s wake has set off a chain reaction of problems for the country as a whole.

Restaurants, Car Dealerships, Hotels, and a host of other businesses that prominently dot the urban landscape of the U.S.A. have understandably suffered as a result of a hollowed-out middle class which is now relegated to low (or no) wages.

Zeynep Ton, an M.I.T. Sloan School of Management Professor, uses this recent TED event in Massachusetts to draw on a decade of research that challenges whether there really is a trade-off between offering low prices and paying low wages in this fairly new “bad job” dominated economy.

Just what are bad jobs? They are most often service-sector jobs which pay poverty-level wages, have chaotic schedules, offer the false hope of career advancement, have poorly designed work, and offer no sense of purpose or self-satisfaction when the day is done.

Take for example a retail employee which Zeynep once interviewed, who said that “We are throwaways who are a dime a dozen… just human robots, really”.

Defenders of this system have argued that American corporations, to stay competitive internationally, must cut wages and benefits to a minimum and essentially squeeze as much productive value as possible out of each worker.

However, Zeynep argues that good jobs and happy, well-compensated employees are in fact a key element of a virtuous cycle for companies, which ultimately results in low prices and increased profitability. She focuses on retailing, citing some popular chains such as Costco and Trader Joe’s. Both of those companies offer good pay and benefits to their full-time employees, all while offering prices which closely compare to some of their “bad job” competition such as Sam’s Club.

This article first appeared on Ingenious Press. Follow us on our Facebook and Twitter Pages for weekly updates on independent news and other alternative media.

Learn more about Zeynep Ton at www.zeynepton.com

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Star Wars “Revenge Of The Sith” Meets The NSA Scandal

Digby Jones

Does anybody remember Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith?It was the final chapter of George Lucas’ admittedly underwhelming prequel trilogy, which became somewhat infamous back in the summer of 2005 for having dialogue and themes which closely paralleled the policies of the Bush Administration, and for being a subliminal left-wing critique of the American Empire in general.

Several scenes drew laughs and jokes as they were first uttered on the big screen. One of the most memorable was a confrontational scene between Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, in which Anakin gives his former master the harsh ultimatum "if you are not with me, then you are my enemy," a line which was a direct reference to Bush’s post-September 11 threat to all countries of the world "Either you are with us, or you are with the enemy."

Now, eight years later in the year 2013, Revenge of the Sith brings to light (or shall I say the dark side?) yet another parallel to the modern politics of the Obama Administration and the Edward Snowden / NSA scandal.

The U.S. Government Does Not Want Americans To Travel Abroad

Freda Art

Digby Jones

No other government on the face of this Earth wants to make it’s citizens more ill-at-ease, deathly afraid, or made to feel so guilty for stepping outside of it’s national boundaries as the United States of America. Rather than encouraging Americans to embrace overseas travel as one of the most educational, enjoyable, and emotionally and spiritually satisfying endeavors that people can undertake in the course of our painfully short lives, U.S. government departments and institutions are notorious for wanting to make even just the IDEA of pursuing international travel as unpleasant and unsettling as they can possibly muster.

You must look no further than the U.S. State Department’s “Global Travel Alert” issued this past Friday (August 2nd 2013) to grasp the sheer ridiculousness and paranoia of the U.S. governments stance on it’s citizens travelling abroad. The alert, which is based upon the “most specific, credible threat information in years” (but of course lacking any actual date or timing), warned of the potential for terrorist attacks, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, to be carried out by operatives of Al Qaeda and their associates.

What’s With All These Unnecessary Cop-On-Canine Killings?

Digby Jones

The shocking video of the Hawthorne, CA Police Department gunning down an innocent man’s Rottweiler, who was doing nothing more than coming to his master Leon Rosby’s aid after he was being falsely detained for obstruction, was arguably the viral-video-of-day for July 2nd, 2013. It was the latest in what seems to be a disturbingly high number of Cop-on-Canine assassinations in the United States which have occurred within the last few years.

Many still remember a surreal video from New York City in the late summer of 2012, in which a small dog, barely 20-inches tall, was shot several times on a crowded street in Manhattan. The dog was merely protecting its owner who was lying on the street having a seizure, and by protecting I am literally talking about all bark and no bite. That did not stop two officers on the scene from drawing their weapons and unloading into the small dog without any hesitation, after the animal had approached one of the officers. The fact that those officers truly believed they faced enough “danger” to warrant such a drastic response, and that afterwards the writhing and twitching dog still might have posed enough of a threat to maintain their grandstanding defensive power stance in front of so many horrified witnesses, is really quite pathetic.