No comments about The Menu and the Cycle of Cost Control with Webcom.

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4 comments about Ending Poverty As We Know It: Guaranteeing A Right To A Job.

1. Two people that I respect very much have this to say about this book.
   Lani Guinier, Harvard Law Prof and co-author of Miner's Canary says:
   �Bill Quigley draws on the common sense of Thomas Paine, the moral inspiration of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the political wisdom of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to issue a bold challenge for our society: to guarantee people who want to work the right to a job at a living wage. In a brave and witty book that is both visionary and practical, Quigley reminds us that if once-radical ideas like social security and the abolition of slavery can become realities, then the current partnership between poverty and work can be upended too.�
   Sr. Helen Prejean, social activist and author of Dead Man Walking says: "Bill Quigley's book makes us believe that America can really change for the better and provide a decent job and a fair wage to hard-working families. This is a very important book. Bill brings a lifeteim of knowledge and commitment to this; and he really shows us, step by step, how it can be done."
   This book points out that over 45 million people in the US live in poverty. Over 30 million work and earn less than $8.20 an hour and another 15 million people are either out of work or working part-time and would like to be working full-time. I review the real facts and stories about poverty in the US today, especially among the working poor. After reviewing our history and surprising public and religious support for the right to a job and the right to a living wage, I call for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing every person the right to a job at a living wage.
   Hope this helps explain what it is about. Peace!



2. The book is a unique compilation of information that cogently makes the case that poverty is largely misunderstood by the non-poor, mis-diagnosed by politicians and pundits, and the remedies usually prescribed are nearly always nostrums and panaceas which only add misery to the miserable.

   The book lists commonly held but untrue myths about poverty and poor people, and gives evidence that such attitudes are the heritage of English law established nearly 500 years ago and carried forward into the colonies and later states. Think of "Oliver Twist" and the social norms and attitudes toward poor people of that time - that's out heritage.

   The book is a comprehensive deflation of the overwrought fear mongering, character assination, and easy dismissal of the poor. It proposes a down to earth, realistic focus on and admission thatlow wages are the root cause of most poverty in America today. The author, Bill Quigley proposes adoption of a constitutional amendment to establish a right to a job that pays a living wage to all Americans who can work. Polly Anna? That's what was said about Child labor laws, minimum wage, mandatory overtime pay, social security and many other rights and protections we now take for granted. Additionally, the book details the cost of poverty to Americans, who in truth are now subsidizing commercial enterprises. That subsidy comes by way of their taxes, used to supplement the income and the survival of workers paid so little that they and their children cannot live without "public assistance". Most poor work!

   If you are opposed to the concept, I urge you to read the book nonetheless, if only to know more about how history has shaped our views, prejudices and laws dealing with poverty issues and the poor. If you have a better answer to reducing poverty and its costs - go for it!! But learn a little reality before you define the problem. Read this book.




3. It's an enticing proposition: eliminate poverty as we know it, simply by giving everyone the right to a job and a living wage. But is it valid? This is the question I kept asking as I made my way from chapter to chapter.

   A key problem Quigley doesn't even address: the globalization of labor. It's not just low-skilled manufacturing jobs that American companies outsource to China et al. nowadays. It's white collar desk jobs too; highly educated Indians gladly take $5,000/year for a job that would cost $50,000 in the US. It's a king's ransom for them, but for us, it's illegally below minimum wage. This is a problematic anomaly which stands as a major threat to America's economy. If we implemented Quigley's constitutional amendment, the threat might loom closer still. The author's utter silence here was most disappointing.

   Despite that lapse, I recommend a reading. Its diverse facts and figures, while often repetitive, can be eye-opening. The numbers suggest we pay for poverty one way or another. At present, we subsidize parasitic employers and grant wealthy corporations obscenely generous loopholes. Redeploying our public assets to help the less fortunate into dignified employment might be a good idea. I smile at the simple beauty of it.




4. While I would like to see everyone in America able to achieve a good job at a wage that feeds their family and houses them comfortably, the facts of economics fight against this dream. Creating a Constitutional Amendment to guarantee a right to a good-paying job is foolish in the face of the basic economic laws of supply and demand. Someone supplies a job based on their need for the labor; someone agrees to do the job based on their willingness to work and their need for money, and the number of competitors willing to do such work and qualified to do the work. While I nearly cried when I visited the Tenement Museum of the Lower East Side of New York, and while I believe in the reforms that moved workers out of sweatshops, sweatshops still exist and immigrants coming legally or illegally to the US are doing labor for less than minimum wage. Why? Because they need the money, and the competition abroad from lower wage earners make our minimum wage unprofitable for business.

   How do we bridge the gap between low cost foreign work (where even high-tech and skilled jobs are flowing) and our own cost of living, which is admittedly high? This book has NONE of the answers. Merely passing a law cannot push back the massive forces of economics. The author suggests Lester Thurow's solution of a massive government jobs program. The last time this was tried, it created sinecures for those privileged to land a government program job, and didn't teach anyone marketable skills. Even HeadStart is paying low wages to teachers, neither improving their skills or improving the readiness of the hapless client children who are supposed to be getting an education from this low-paid government job holders. There are countless examples of why what Dr. Quigley suggests has already failed, and passing a Constitutional Amendment is just another brick on the way to a failed socialistic system that costs the American worker a percentage of what they earn and throws it away on those who don't produce (the bureaucrats and their clientele that are not meeting market needs.)

   Why don't we find a way to make American products and services in demand, free up business to fuel an economy with high demand for all labor services? Remember when unemployment was so low, jobs went begging? It was barely five years ago. We can have that again, and have even the poorest able to find work at more than minimum wage. But not this way.

No comments about Working and Poor: How Economic and Policy Changes Are Affecting Low-Wage Workers (National Poverty Center Series on Poverty and Public Policy).

1 comments about The Changing Nature of Work (Frontier Issues in Economic Thought).

1. The Frontier Issues in Economic Thought summaries, along with the overview essays, provide a markedly different service from the standard collection of abstracts. The series will benefit not only scholarly work but the application of our best thinking to the problems of the times.

   Kenneth Prewitt, President, Social Sciences Research Council

No comments about One Dies, Get Another: Convict Leasing in the American South, 1866-1928.

1 comments about The Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-Chinese Movement in California.

1. In "The Indispensable Enemy," Alexander Saxton presents a broad study of American ideological history and an intricate examination of the California political system to further a better understanding of the anti-Chinese movement in California from the 1860s to 1902. According to Saxton, Chinese workers were "indispensable" to California for two reasons. First, the Chinese provided an important source of cheap labor for California industries. Second, the Chinese aided the labor movement in California (albeit unintentionally) by being the subject of the issue on which the majority of white workers could agree: the anti-Chinese issue. Saxton examines American ideology in the early nineteenth century to determine the roots of the anti-Chinese movement.

   Alexander Saxton offers a comprehensive study on the ideological origins of the anti-Chinese movement, the political importance of the issue, and the issues's future expansion to include the Japanese. The Jacksonian ideas of nationalism and racial superiority provide a clear foundation for understanding American attitudes towards African Americans and, later, Californian attitutudes towards the Chinese. Moreover, Saxton emphasizes the psychological and ideological reasons for the reactions against the Chinese instead of economic reasons more commonly used by historians. By not relying on the economic motivation for anti-Chinese demonstrations, Saxton is able to distinguish the persecution endured by the Chinese from the persecutions endured by other ethnic groups, like the Irish and Germans. Unfortunately, Saxton's main points often get lost in the maze of comments about social, intellectual, and political history as well as a detailed chronological description of California political affairs. A more focused study on the anti-Chinese movement would help to underline his main points for the reader.

   Saxton relies primarily on primary sources for his work such as newspapers, labor publications, and memoirs. Saxton, however, does deomonstrate an awareness of the limitations of such materials. Saxton also uses his sources appropriately. For example, Saxton does not include a chart on the number of Chinese workers in various occupations (as calculated by the Trades Assembly) as accurate statistical data. Saxton states that the chart is meant to show "how trade unionists viewed the [labor] situation in 1881-1882" (170).

   One main problem with Saxton's study is that he does not explain the actions of the labor unions from the point of view of the Chinese, He does not mention any Chinese leaders in California or the reactions of leaders in their homeland. In a couple of cases, Saxton does hint at a Chinese backlash. For exapmple, Saxton describes Chinatown in San Francisco as a fortress protecting the residents from outside threats. In other cases, however, the Chinese are vaguely described as passive recipients of persecution (for example, the Chinese did not offer any protest against their forced removal from Eureka and Seattle). A closer examination of the Chinese side would make "The Indispensable enemy" a more complete work.

No comments about Taxes and Unemployment: Collective Bargaining and Efficiency Wage Models.

No comments about Employment and Unemployment in India: Emerging Tendencies During the Post-reform Period.

1 comments about Myth and Measurement.

1. For those of us without formal economics training, Card and Krueger present an easy-to-read alternative view of the minimum wage controvery. They undermine powerfully the long held assumption that minimum wages decrease job opportunities for low wage workers, and elegantly descibe what poor workers have known for years.