1. Beneath all the talk of national unity, the pandemic has unleashed a ferocious class war. The latest example is Trump deploying the Defense Protection Act to bolster meat packing plants, a major vector of the disease.https://twitter.com/rachsieg/status/1255217845346148358 …
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2. The meat packing plant is facing a crisis in part because workers (quite rightly) are refusing to go into plants where they could catch the disease. Trump's deployment of DPA is largely for show but he's signalling solidarity with employers against employees.
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3. Iowa governor Kim Reynolds is also sending a signal: that employees who don't return to dangerous workplaces will be seen as quitting and thus not eligible for unemployment. The message: work (at the risk of death) or starve.
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4. All the current chatter about “disincentives to work" (heard in Canada as well) is part of the class war. The idea is to keep people working at life-threatening jobs for as little money as possible. More thoughts here:https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/meatpacking-coronavirus-class-war/ …
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Replying to @HeerJeet
All of this can be true, and there can still be dis-incentives to work. In a month, will people still be saying auto workers and hairdressers are "life-threatening jobs"? - because in a month, they'll still have two months worth of UI payments coming.
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Replying to @anthonyjkreider @HeerJeet
That tells you more about wages than incentives. $2000 a month is barely subsistence in Canada. We should start thinking of that as a floor for wages not an improvement on a person’s lot in life.
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Replying to @jacquesleger17 @HeerJeet
In the US, it's $2400/m, plus whatever state benefits are - so in the worst states, a full-timer gets about $3400. That puts a 2-income household at $80k/yr - which is 30% above median household income Don't see business surviving if this is the floor - unless runaway inflation
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Interest rates are near zero. Not a time to worry about inflation -- deflation is a bigger threat.
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Replying to @HeerJeet @jacquesleger17
Bond markets are broken. Too much cash (stimulus) chasing too few services (half of them shut) means inflation is coming.
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