Saturday, May 28, 2011

OBAMA'S ASSAULT ON MIDDLE AMERICA ROLLS ON - White House unveils corporate deregulation scheme

White House unveils corporate deregulation scheme


OBAMA’S CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS HAVE ALL BUT DESTROYED THE GLOBAL ECONOMY, MADE OUT LIKE ROBBERS, NONE WENT TO PRISON, OBAMA’S BANKSTER REGULATION A JOKE WRITTEN BY HIS BANKSTER DONORS, AND YET OBAMA WANTS TO UNLEASH THEM TO GREATER RAPE AND PILLAGE… JUST AS HE RELEASES LA RAZA TO EXPAND THE MEXICAN WELFARE STATE IN OUR BORDERS AND ASSURE HIS WALL ST. DONORS HORDES OF “CHEAP” LABOR.
NO ONE IN OUR HISTORY HAS ASSAULTED THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS MORE THAN BARACK OBAMA!
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The Obama administration this week released details of its plans to sharply cut regulations on corporations, as part of the effort to eliminate all constraints on big business profit-making.
The White House deregulation scheme was initially announced in January, as part of the right-wing shift by the administration in the wake of the 2010 elections. This shift included an agreement in December to extend tax cuts for the wealthy. The release of the first installment of proposed deregulation now comes as the White House is engaged in negotiations aimed at sharply cutting federal health care programs.
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White House unveils corporate deregulation scheme
By Joseph Kishore
28 May 2011
The Obama administration this week released details of its plans to sharply cut regulations on corporations, as part of the effort to eliminate all constraints on big business profit-making.
The White House deregulation scheme was initially announced in January, as part of the right-wing shift by the administration in the wake of the 2010 elections. This shift included an agreement in December to extend tax cuts for the wealthy. The release of the first installment of proposed deregulation now comes as the White House is engaged in negotiations aimed at sharply cutting federal health care programs.
The venue for the White House announcement was almost as significant as the details. The initial proposal in January was made in an opinion piece by Obama in the Wall Street Journal. This week, Cass Sunstein, the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, announced the conclusion of a four-month examination of all regulations in another article in the Journal.
Sunstein followed up the Journal piece with a speech at the right-wing American Enterprise Institute, known for its vociferous opposition to any restrictions placed on the corporate and financial elite. Sunstein began by praising the “excellent work on regulatory policy that has been done at AEI for many years.”
As with Obama’s earlier announcement, Sunstein’s comments echoed all the standard anti-regulatory rhetoric of the ultra-right. Obama, Sunstein wrote in the Journal, called for “an unprecedented government-wide review of regulations already on the books so that we can improve or remove those that are out-of-date, unnecessary, excessively burdensome or in conflict with other rules.”
Thirty federal agencies had made proposals to eliminate or modify hundreds of regulations, Sunstein added, in order to “save private-sector dollars [i.e., corporate and bank profits] and unlock economic growth by eliminating unjustified regulations.”
While details are still emerging, the deregulations will have a significant impact on public safety. One of the proposals, for example, would, according to Sunstein, “eliminate the obligation for many states to require air pollution vapor recovery systems at local gas stations, on the ground that modern vehicles already have effective air pollution control technologies.” Of course, not all vehicles on the roads fall into this category.
Another aspect of the anti-regulatory drive will focus on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), responsible for monitoring workplace safety and injuries. Sunstein told the American Enterprise Institute that the new rules would “remove over 1.9 million annual hours or redundant reporting burdens on employers and save more than $40 million in annual costs. Businesses will no longer be saddled with the obligation to fill out unnecessary government forms.”
This presentation―that corporations are burdened by needless regulations relating to workplace safety―is an utter fiction. In fact, US workplace injuries are systematically underreported. As detailed in the recent investigation into the Upper Big Branch mine disaster, which killed 29 coal operators in April 2010, corporations routinely violate basic safety precautions, endangering the lives and safety of workers on a daily basis. Government agencies charged with inspecting workplaces are notoriously understaffed and existing regulations are poorly enforced.
The AFL-CIO’s “‘Dead on the Job’ Report,” 2011, points out: “In 2009, according to preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 4,340 workers were killed on the job―an average of 12 workers every day―and an estimated 50,000 died from occupational diseases. More than 4.1 million work-related injuries and illnesses were reported, but this number understates the problem. The true toll of job injuries is two to three times greater―about 8 million to12 million job injuries and illnesses each year.…
“The number of workplace inspectors is woefully inadequate. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the state OSHA plans have a total of 2,218 inspectors (925 federal and 1,293 state inspectors) to inspect the 8 million workplaces under the OSH Act’s jurisdiction. Federal OSHA can inspect workplaces on average once every 129 years; the state OSHA plans can inspect them once every 67 years. The current level of federal and state OSHA inspectors provides one inspector for every 57,984 workers.”
Sunstein stressed that any regulations will be the product of close discussion with the corporations affected. “The president made an unprecedented commitment to promoting public participation in the rulemaking process,” he stressed to the AEI. The regulations will also be subject to a strict cost-benefit analysis, i.e., they will measure social benefits against the monetary impact of the regulations on corporate profits. Regulations will proceed “only on the basis of a reasonable determination that the benefits justify the costs,” he added.
Notably absent in Sunstein’s comments was any reference to the series of disasters over the past two years alone resulting from corporate malfeasance, in which regulatory agencies functioned as little more than adjuncts of the business and financial interests they supposedly oversaw.
In addition to the Upper Big Branch explosion, this includes the financial collapse of 2008, the product of rampant speculation by the giant banks and hedge funds; the BP oil disaster of April 2010, which set off the worse environmental disaster in US history; and a whole series of food recalls resulting from unsafe agricultural practices.
The initial deregulations are intended only as a first step. They are “the start of an ongoing process,” Sunstein wrote in the Journal. “Our goal is to change the regulatory culture of Washington by constantly asking what’s working and what isn’t.”
In his speech to the AEI, he explicitly contrasted “what we know now” about regulations to the New Deal period of the 1930s and the Great Society programs of the 1960s. The implication was clear: whatever constraints to corporate profit-making were put in place then would be targeted for elimination.
“The announcement of today’s plans is unquestionably a defining moment,” he concluded. “But it is just the start.”

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http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2011/05/alipac-william-gheen-exposes-wikileaks.html
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http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2011/05/wikileaks-exposed-obamas-la-raza-open.html
“What's needed to discourage illegal immigration into the United States has been known for years: Enforce existing law.” ….. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR


*Secret WikiLeaks Document Confirms North American Union Plan

May 18, 2011

For Continental Release

CONTACT: Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC)
The secret document recently released by WikiLeaks reveals a high level US ambassador promoting a merger of the United States, Canada, and Mexico into one combined consumer and labor market, with a common currency and a mutual electronic security perimeter with less focus on physical borders.

The secret documents reveal a well developed plan that advocates secrecy, an incremental approach as not to alarm the public. The document clearly states, that the plan is to prevent US efforts to protect citizens from terrorism or disease from interfering with commerce and other financial interests. The documents also advocate that promotion of this plan focus on "individual firms, industries or travelers, and
especially consumers" instead of the nations as a whole.


This high level leak appears to validate earlier concerns by many groups of plans to create a new government, which would supersede the sovereignty of America, Canada, and Mexico in a way similar to the European Union. Critics of these merger plans call the plan the North American Union. Supporters of the plan call it the North American Community or North American Integration (NAI).

"It is conspiracy, but it is no theory," said William Gheen of ALIPAC. "These traitors are trying to conceal their plans, but they are out in the open now. They are trying to force an economic union on America that is not ratified by the US Congress, not authorized by the US Constitution, and not approved of by the American public. This plan is being facilitated by the nonenforcement of our existing immigration and border laws."

Americans were shocked to learn in 2005 and 2006 that millions of illegal aliens had been imported into America and were now marching in the streets demanding legalization, citizenship, voting rights, and taxpayer resources. Federal lawmakers loyal to the North American Integration plans have claimed "our immigration systems are broken" when in fact the immigration systems have been compromised by those advocating a merger of the populations of America, Mexico, and Canada.

Other examples of this economic union plan which has been pursued by Presidents Bush and Obama, can be found in the writings of Dr. Robert Pastor of American University, in releases by the Council on Foreign Relations such as "Building a North American Community," and in announcements made by heads of state in all three countries supporting the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).

"North American integration requires American disintegration. Americans would never voluntarily enter into this devilish arrangement that would disintegrate the United States beneath a larger super state; and a new government which would destroy the existing US Constitution and borders," said William Gheen. "This is why these elite banking, business, and political influences are flooding America with rampant illegal immigration and hyper legal immigration. They are conquering the freedom-loving innocent citizens of America by bringing in outsiders who will replace us incrementally in our jobs and homes."

While news of this recent WikiLeaks disclosure is circulating on the Internet, Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) is releasing the news and documents to the nation today via national press release.

American citizens are encouraged to take appropriate steps to organize in defense of the nation, and prepare to politically challenge and defeat those pursuing this unlawful, unconstitutional, and nation-destroying agenda.

William Gheen is releasing a more detailed article today titled "WikiLeaks Releases Secret Files: North American Integration" which will be distributed nationally along with this press release.

Article
American Disintegration for North American Integration Plan
http://www.alipac.us/article-6305-thread-1-0.html

Copies of the WikiLeaks documents can be seen at this link...

Leaked Secret WikiLeaks Documents about Integration
http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-1226350.html#1226350

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American Disintegration for North American Integration Plan

by
William Gheen
President of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC)
www.alipac.us

May 18, 2011

Those of us who have studied the nation's crushing effects and causes of
illegal immigration for sometime have become acutely aware of the driving forces facilitating the invasion of the United States of America.

Millions of illegal aliens have not landed in the United States via random acts or the chaotic consequences of market forces. This invasion of the American homeland and mockery of constitutional governance driven by American citizens is being funded, planned, assisted, and facilitated by well financed global power players.
Banks, global corporations, despotic billionaires like George Soros, cryptic organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and an army of their minions are pushing for the integration of North America and the disintegration of the United States!
(THE RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD IS NOW MEXICAN CARLOS SLIM. HE OWNS THE NEW YORK TIMES, NOW MOUTHPIECE FOR LA RAZA PROPAGANDA! ALSO IN NEW YORK, BILLIONAIRE MAYOR BLOOMBERG DEMANDS AMNESTY AND NO E-VERIFY SO ILLEGALS CAN BE EXPLOITED AND AMERICANS MAKE UP THE DIFFERENCE IN THE MISERABLE WAGES PAID TO THEM!)



The most recent information to come to light regarding these plans has come in the form of
secret documents released by the notorious WikiLeaks organization.
WikiLeaks is an international nonprofit organization directed by the currently jailed Australian Internet activist Julian Assange. Many of you have heard of the group in the American press in regards to the issue of released documents related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

These new secret documents appear to confirm an incremental and covert plan within the highest levels of the American and Canadian governments to accomplish deeper "North American Integration," while keeping most average citizens in the dark and bypassing the constitutions of the existing three sovereign nations of America, Canada, and Mexico.

WikiLeaks released these documents on April 28, 2011, and news of these shocking findings is just now reaching the public via patriotic groups and the news media. This game changing document is a secret 2005 U.S. Embassy cable from Ottawa signed by then-Ambassador Paul Cellucci.
Paul Cellucci is a former Republican Governor of Massachusetts and a big supporter of illegal alien Amnesty proponent AZ Senator John McCain!

In the secret document, US Ambassador Paul Cellucci expounds upon a well researched and refined plan to mostly replace the existing borders of sovereign nations with some kind of privacy-invading biometric "security perimeter," where the borders of the nations will still stand, but information will be exchanged on all citizens in the nations, thus creating a super state law enforcement effort to manage security.
The document specifically states that Cellucci and his fellow conspirators fear the US could wake up and secure the borders against contagious diseases and terrorism. He points out that financial interests in Canada fear US attempts to protect citizens from terrorism or pandemics and could interfere with some financial interests in Canada.

"Even with zero tariffs, our land borders have strong commercial effects. Some of these effects are positive (such as law enforcement and data gathering), so our governments may always want to keep some kind of land border in place... The risk that business will be obstructed at the border by discretionary U.S. actions, such as measures to defend against terrorism or infectious disease, in addition to growing congestion, have become major risks to the economy, inhibiting investment in Canada," the document reads.

Here we have a man who has sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America and the people who pay his exorbitant salary and expenses with their hard earned taxes and who is taking the side of financial interests that cannot be bothered by dead Americans killed by Mexican Flu pandemics and other diseases, rampaging armies of illegal alien marauders, or the lethal terrorists among them.

The secret document also advocates that this North American Integration (NAI) will transform sovereign nations into a "single market" with some form of "
monetary union."

Of course, by "single market" they mean single labor market, which means that all the labor they want from other nations can be brought into Canada, Mexico, and America without hindrance from existing laws, constitutions, or pesky existing American citizens who are being systematically conquered and vanquished piecemeal from their jobs and homes.

The document is very clear about moving slowly and incrementally and not attempting to arouse public suspicions by making a big move all at once.

This document is consistent with the North American Community plans we have documented that are coming out of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and Dr. Robert Pastor of American University, as well as other proillegal alien amnesty and open borders groups.

Some Americans who are new to these issues may be asking what this has to do with the topic of illegal immigration?

The nonenforcement of America's existing constitution and federal immigration laws is facilitating this North American Integration, North American Community, North American Union plan.

Unlike the European Union, American citizens are not being asked if they want to lose their sovereignty and self governance; we are not being asked to vote on this or ratify this!

While the passage of unwise trade agreements like
NAFTA and CAFTA have accelerated us down this path to national disintegration, for the most part the Congress is not being asked to ratify these nation-eroding agreements.

By not adequately enforcing America's existing immigration and border laws, and by assisting millions of illegal aliens with everything from credit cards to bilingual voice systems demanding we "
press one for English," an invading economic army has been brought to Americans' doorsteps.

While we have documented that illegal aliens are already voting in mass numbers in probably every state, the populist political uprising of Americans, partially reflected in the Tea Party movement, was stalled west of the Mississippi in the 2010 elections where the largest illegal alien populations resided, yet no investigations or charges are being pursued.

If the plans to make illegal aliens new legal voters via the
Dream Act or Comprehensive Amnesty become reality, then the North American Integration has been accomplished and any political resistance by American patriots will be overridden by the new illegal alien voting block.

The political voices of once free Americans will be silenced by the new illegal alien voting block of over 12 million invaders, who were promised our jobs and lands. and power over us and our descendants, in return for their services of overthrowing the American Republic. Their relatives and friends back in their home nations will soon be joining them in this endeavor.

Many of us who first warned America about these issues after US President Bush, Mexican President Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Martin announced the Security And Prosperity Partnership (SPP) in 2005 to create a "free flow of people, goods, and services" across our borders have been ridiculed by liberal media character assassins. We created the term North American Union to convey a lot of meaning to our fellow Americans quickly.

Even now, if you look at Wikipedia, you will see claims that such concerns about this kind of North American Initiative, Union, Integration, or whatever are the mad rantings of "conspiracy theorists."

Yet, here are leaked documents from a US ambassador advocating this very idea and speaking of it in a way which makes it clear he is not alone and that such plans were already well under way by 2005!

Their eventual goals are to have everyone in North America governed by a new continental government, which would completely supersede what is left of the existing American government.

A recent book called "The Right Balance" written by Canadian Senator Hugh Segal, who is the Canadian equivalent of a Republican, advocates openly for Canadians to understand and accept a "North American Community." This mouthpiece of the traitors says, "A continent-wide commitment to economic and social development, through which models such as Canada's equalization program could be applied elsewhere... The creation of a North American Assembly, similar to the European Parliament in its early days" is needed.

Hugh Segal reveals more of their plans which are afoot in Canada, where freedom of speech among regular citizens has been highly compromised by political correctness tribunals, of which I would have been fined or jailed a long time back. Segal calls for "the creation of a North American Assembly, similar to the European Parliament in its early days." This sounds exactly like the student government triumvirate mock assembly we caught the elites staging in Mexico a few years back, where one student was assigned to impersonate "William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration" during the exercise!

These nation-stealing, treasonous conspirators are quite aware that millions of Americans will not accept the news that the divinely inspired experiment in self governance earned by George Washington, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and many others has been stolen from us.

They are quite aware that in the final steps of this effort to enslave Americans, many Americans will try their best to use their 1st and 2nd Amendment rights to preserve and defend the Constitution of the United States of America; that is likely why all of these recent Homeland Security documents going out to police across America demonize American Patriot defenders as "violent extremists."

American citizens loyal to the US Constitution are not currently extremists, but those perpetrating this North American Integration plan are expecting Americans to become violent eventually in reaction to their plan. This would explain their preparations.

The most recent release from the White House was part of an agreement crafted in secret as well to create this so called "perimeter," and instead of identifying terrorists as Islamic extremists, invading illegal immigrants, or forces from outside of America or Canada who might attack, it reads, "We intend to cooperate to identify, prevent, and counter violent extremism in our two countries. By working cooperatively on research, sharing best practices, and emphasizing community-based and community-driven efforts, we will have a better understanding of this threat and an increased ability to address it effectively."

Those who conspire to move secretly and incrementally against us and our revered US Constitution are called enemies, and it is becoming clear that many of the enemies of the people of America now hold high level positions in the government that our life energy and taxes sustain.

Illegal immigration must be stopped and reversed using humane, peaceful, and political processes via the simple adequate enforcement of America's existing immigration and border laws.

These treasonous politicians, financial and business leaders, academics, and bureaucrats currently pushing for the disintegration of America and the reformation of a new United States of North America, must be identified, stopped, and thrown down from their positions of power or influence, and held accountable for the massive amount of death, loss, and suffering they are inflicting upon innocent American citizens with their elitist plans.

We must stop them because we are Americans. We are the only ones on the planet who have fought this kind of battle before and won. Please remember that America's founders did not just take on the English government. They took on a king, a church, and one of the world's first global corporations and with God's grace prevailed!

The hour is late and our chances look as daunting as when George Washington knelt on his knees in prayer upon the snow-covered ground at Valley Forge.

The new American political revolution that began in 2010 must grow and intensify and we Americans who are still loyal to the principles and the Constitution that once made America the greatest nation on earth must organize in greater numbers.

These secret documents found by WikiLeaks confirm that we have traitors among us that seek the disintegration of America for the creation of a new more regional and global governance. Let us work and pray together to overcome their politics of division and rally our countrymen and women to the American cause once again.

May God save the United States!

DISCUSS THIS ARTICLE WITH ALIPAC's ONLINE ACTIVISTS AT THIS LINK...
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-238361.html



Note:
Please read and distribute our Continental Press Release titled
Secret WikiLeaks Document Confirms North American Union Plan
http://www.alipac.us/article-6304-thread-1-0.html

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MOST OF THE FORTUNE 500 ARE GENEROUS DONORS TO LA RAZA – THE MEXICAN FASCIST POLITICAL PARTY

“The principal beneficiaries of our current immigration policy are affluent Americans who hire immigrants at substandard wages for low-end work. Harvard economist George Borjas estimates that American workers lose $190 billion annually in depressed wages caused by the constant flooding of the labor market at the low-wage end.” Christian Science Monitor
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The massive corporate mouthpiece the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is holding a “North American Forum” to lay out its “shared vision” for the United States, Canada and Mexico – which is to say a borderless, pro-business super-state in which U.S. sovereignty will be dissolved.


Lou Dobbs Tonight
 Monday, June 16, 2008
 Tonight, we’ll have all the latest on the devastating floods in the Midwest and all the day’s news from the campaign trail. The massive corporate mouthpiece the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is holding a “North American Forum” to lay out its “shared vision” for the United States, Canada and Mexico – which is to say a borderless, pro-business super-state in which U.S. sovereignty will be dissolved. Undercover investigators have found incredibly lax security and enforcement at U.S. border crossings, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office. This report comes on the heels of a separate report by U.C. San Diego that shows tougher border security efforts aren’t deterring illegal entries to the United States.
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VISIT THE FOLLOWING LINKS AND DECIDE WHAT IT ALL ADDS UP TO! VIVA LA RAZA? PUSH 2 FOR ENGLISH? ILLEGALS VOTING? HISPANDERING DEMOCRATS? OBAMA’S LA RAZA INFESTED ADMINISTRATION?
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http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2011/04/does-obamas-open-borders-agenda-include.html
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http://www.mexica-movement.org/ They claim all of North America for Mexico!
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Lou Dobbs Tonight
Monday, February 11, 2008
In California, League of United Latin American Citizens has adopted a resolution to declare "California Del Norte" a sanctuary zone for immigrants. The declaration urges the Mexican government to invoke its rights under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo "to seek third‑nation neutral arbitration of disputes concerning immigration laws and their enforcement." We’ll have the story.
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OBAMA HANDS TAX DOLLARS TO MEXICAN SUPREMACIST:



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http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-mceconomy-bombed-american-worker-by.html
How the McEconomy Bombed the American Worker
The Hollowing Out of the Middle Class
By
Andy Kroll
Think of it as a parable for these grim economic times. On April 19th, McDonald's launched its first-ever national hiring day, signing up 62,000 new workers at stores throughout the country. For some context, that's more jobs created by one company in a single day than the net job creation of the entire U.S. economy in 2009. And if that boggles the mind, consider how many workers applied to local McDonald's franchises that day and left empty-handed: 938,000 of them. With a 6.2% acceptance rate in its spring hiring blitz, McDonald’s was more selective than the Princeton, Stanford, or Yale University admission offices.
It shouldn’t be surprising that a million souls flocked to McDonald's hoping for a steady paycheck, when nearly 14 million Americans are out of work and nearly a million more are too discouraged even to look for a job. At this point, it apparently made no difference to them that the fast-food industry pays some of the lowest wages around: on average, $8.89 an hour, or barely half the $15.95 hourly average across all American industries.
On an annual basis, the average fast-food worker takes home $20,800, less than half the national average of $43,400. McDonald's appears to pay even worse, at least with its newest hires. In the press release for its national hiring day, the multi-billion-dollar company said it would spend $518 million on the newest round of hires, or $8,354 a head. Hence the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of "McJob" as "a low-paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement."
Of course, if you read only the headlines, you might think that the jobs picture was improving. The economy added 1.3 million private-sector jobs between February 2010 and January 2011, and the headline unemployment rate edged downward, from 9.8% to 8.8%, between November of last year and March. It inched upward in April, to 9%, but tempering that increase was the news that the economy added 244,000 jobs last month (not including those 62,000 McJobs), beating economists' expectations.
Under this somewhat sunnier news, however, runs a far darker undercurrent. Yes, jobs are being created, but what kinds of jobs paying what kinds of wages?  Can those jobs sustain a modest lifestyle and pay the bills? Or are we living through a McJobs recovery?
The Rise of the McWorker
The evidence points to the latter. According to a recent analysis by the National Employment Law Project (NELP), the biggest growth in private-sector job creation in the past year occurred in positions in the low-wage retail, administrative, and food service sectors of the economy. While 23% of the jobs lost in the Great Recession that followed the economic meltdown of 2008 were “low-wage” (those paying $9-$13 an hour), 49% of new jobs added in the sluggish “recovery” are in those same low-wage industries. On the other end of the spectrum, 40% of the jobs lost paid high wages ($19-$31 an hour), while a mere 14% of new jobs pay similarly high wages.
As a point of comparison, that's much worse than in the recession of 2001 after the high-tech bubble burst.  Then, higher wage jobs made up almost a third of all new jobs in the first year after the crisis.
The hardest hit industries in terms of employment now are finance, manufacturing, and especially construction, which was decimated when the housing bubble burst in 2007 and has yet to recover. Meanwhile, NELP found that hiring for temporary administrative and waste-management jobs, health-care jobs, and of course those fast-food restaurants has surged.
Indeed in 2010, one in four jobs added by private employers was a temporary job, which usually provides workers with few benefits and even less job security. It's not surprising that employers would first rely on temporary hires as they regained their footing after a colossal financial crisis. But this time around, companies have taken on temp workers in far greater numbers than after previous downturns.  Where 26% of hires in 2010 were temporary, the figure was 11% after the early-1990s recession and only 7% after the downturn of 2001.
As many labor economists have begun to point out, we're witnessing an increasing polarization of the U.S. economy over the past three decades. More and more, we're seeing labor growth largely at opposite ends of the skills-and-wages spectrum -- among, that is, the best and the worst kinds of jobs.
At one end of job growth, you have increasing numbers of people flipping burgers, answering telephones, engaged in child care, mopping hallways, and in other low-wage lines of work. At the other end, you have increasing numbers of engineers, doctors, lawyers, and people in high-wage "creative" careers. What's disappearing is the middle, the decent-paying jobs that helped expand the American middle class in the mid-twentieth century and that, if the present lopsided recovery is any indication, are now going the way of typewriters and landline telephones.
Because the shape of the workforce increasingly looks fat on both ends and thin in the middle, economists have begun to speak of "the barbell effect," which for those clinging to a middle-class existence in bad times means a nightmare life.  For one thing, the shape of the workforce now hinders America’s once vaunted upward mobility.  It’s the downhill slope that’s largely available these days.
The barbell effect has also created staggering levels of income inequality of a sort not known since the decades before the Great Depression. From 1979 to 2007, for the middle class, average household income (after taxes) nudged upward from $44,100 to $55,300; by contrast, for the top 1%, average household income soared from $346,600 in 1979 to nearly $1.3 million in 2007. That is, super-rich families saw their earnings increase 11 times faster than middle-class families.
What's causing this polarization? An obvious culprit is technology. As MIT economist David Autor notes, the tasks of "organizing, storing, retrieving, and manipulating information" that humans once performed are now computerized. And when computers can't handle more basic clerical work, employers ship those jobs overseas where labor is cheaper and benefits nonexistent.
Another factor is education. In today's barbell economy, degrees and diplomas have never mattered more, which means that those with just a high school education increasingly find themselves locked into the low-wage end of the labor market with little hope for better. Worse yet, the pay gap between the well-educated and not-so-educated continues to widen: in 1979, the hourly wage of a typical college graduate was 1.5 times higher than that of a typical high-school graduate; by 2009, it was almost two times higher.
Considering, then, that the percentage of men ages 25 to 34 who have gone to college is actually decreasing, it's not surprising that wage inequality has gotten worse in the U.S. As Autor writes, advanced economies like ours "depend on their best-educated workers to develop and commercialize the innovative ideas that drive economic growth."
The distorting effects of the barbell economy aren't lost on ordinary Americans. In a recent Gallup poll, a majority of people agreed that the country was still in either a depression (29%) or a recession (26%).  When sorted out by income, however, those making $75,000 or more a year are, not surprisingly, most likely to believe the economy is in neither a recession nor a depression, but growing.  After all, they’re the ones most likely to have benefited from a soaring stock market and the return to profitability of both corporate America and Wall Street. In Gallup's middle-income group, by contrast, 55% of respondents claim the economy is in trouble. They're still waiting for their recovery to arrive.
The Slow Fade of Big Labor
The big-picture economic changes described by Autor and others, however, don't tell the entire story. There's a significant political component to the hollowing out of the American labor force and the impoverishment of the middle class: the slow fade of organized labor. Since the 1950s, the clout of unions in the public and private sectors has waned, their membership has dwindled, and their political influence has weakened considerably. Long gone are the days when powerful union bosses -- the AFL-CIO's George Meany or the UAW's Walter Reuther -- had the ear of just about any president.
As Mother Jones' Kevin Drum has written, in the 1960s and 1970s a rift developed between big labor and the Democratic Party. Unions recoiled in disgust at what they perceived to be the "motley collection of shaggy kids, newly assertive women, and goo-goo academics" who had begun to supplant organized labor in the Party. In 1972, the influential AFL-CIO symbolically distanced itself from the Democrats by refusing to endorse their nominee for president, George McGovern.
All the while, big business was mobilizing, banding together to form massive advocacy groups such as the Business Roundtable and shaping the staid U.S. Chamber of Commerce into a ferocious lobbying machine. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Democratic Party drifted rightward and toward an increasingly powerful and financially focused business community, creating the Democratic Leadership Council, an olive branch of sorts to corporate America. "It's not that the working class [had] abandoned Democrats," Drum wrote. "It's just the opposite: The Democratic Party [had] largely abandoned the working class."
The GOP, of course, has a long history of battling organized labor, and nowhere has that been clearer than in the party's recent assault on workers' rights. Swept in by a tide of Republican support in 2010, new GOP majorities in state legislatures from Wisconsin to Tennessee to New Hampshire have introduced bills meant to roll back decades' worth of collective bargaining rights for public-sector unions, the last bastion of organized labor still standing (somewhat) strong.
The political calculus behind the war on public-sector unions is obvious: kneecap them and you knock out a major pillar of support for the Democratic Party.  In the 2010 midterm elections, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) spent nearly $90 million on TV ads, phone banking, mailings, and other support for Democratic candidates. The anti-union legislation being pushed by Republicans would inflict serious damage on AFSCME and other public-sector unions by making it harder for them to retain members and weakening their clout at the bargaining table.
And as shown by the latest state to join the anti-union fray, it's not just Republicans chipping away at workers' rights anymore. In Massachusetts, a staunchly liberal state, the Democratic-led State Assembly recently voted to curb collective bargaining rights on heath-care benefits for teachers, firefighters, and a host of other public-sector employees.
Bargaining-table clout is crucial for unions, since it directly affects the wages their members take home every month. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, union workers pocket on average $200 more per week than their non-union counterparts, a 28% percent difference. The benefits of union representation are even greater for women and people of color: women in unions make 34% more than their non-unionized counterparts, and Latino workers nearly 51% more.
In other words, at precisely the moment when middle-class workers need strong bargaining rights so they can fight to preserve a living wage in a barbell economy, unions around the country face the grim prospect of losing those rights.
All of which raises the questions: Is there any way to revive the American middle class and reshape income distribution in our barbell nation?  Or will this warped recovery of ours pave the way for an even more warped McEconomy, with the have-nots at one end, the have-it-alls at the other end, and increasingly less of us in between?
Andy Kroll is a reporter in the D.C. bureau of Mother Jones magazine and an associate editor at TomDispatch. The son of two teachers, he grew up in a firmly -- and happily -- middle-class household. His email is andykroll (at) motherjones (dot) com. To listen to Timothy MacBain’s latest TomCast audio interview in which Kroll discusses what grim news lurks under the monthly unemployment figures, click here, or download it to your iPod here.

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