You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1641)

PLAYS: (1973)

The Times is obviously trying to jump-start the political process that makes our elected representatives so reluctant to go back and ask for more badly-need stimulus spending from the federal government:

The unemployment rate includes only jobless people who have looked for work in the past four weeks. The underemployment rate — which also includes jobless workers who have not recently looked for work and part-timers who need full-time work — reached 17.5 percent in October. And the long-term unemployment rate — the share of the unemployed population out of work for more than six months — also continues to set records. It is now 35.6 percent.

The official job-loss data also fail to take note of 2.8 million additional jobs needed to absorb new workers who have joined the labor force during the recession. When those missing jobs are added to the official total, the economy comes up short by 10.1 million jobs.

Taken together, the numbers paint this stark picture: At no time in post-World War II America has it been more difficult to find a job, to plan for the future, or — for tens of millions of Americans — to merely get by.

At a recent meeting at the White House to discuss job creation, President Obama said that “bold, innovative action,” would be needed — from the administration, Congress and the private sector — to undo the devastation in the labor market. Americans are waiting for Mr. Obama to lead the way.

There were good ideas floated at the White House meeting, including bolstered federal support for efforts to retrofit and weatherize homes and public buildings. There was also talk of using government money to establishing a so-called infrastructure bank that would issue bonds to help finance big construction projects.

The country also needs a program that would create jobs for teenagers — ages 16 to 19 — whose unemployment rate is currently a record 27.6 percent. Deep and prolonged unemployment among the young is especially worrisome. It means they do not have a chance, and may never get the chance, to acquire needed skills, permanently hobbling their earnings potential.

We know that more stimulus spending and government programs are a fraught topic. But they are exactly what the country needs. It may be the only way to prevent a renewed downturn. And the only way to create the jobs needed to put Americans back to work. Those are the essential — and missing — ingredients of a sustained recovery.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (977)

PLAYS: (1041)

Amazing, how concerned bobbleheads become about the deficit right after the Republican administration that created it has left the scene of the crime. As people like Paul Krugman keep reminding us, there are obvious economic reasons the deficit cannot be the priority during a major recession. But those facts seem to elude David Gregory during this NBC News’ “Meet the Press” interview with Tim Geithner:

DAVID GREGORY: Let me talk about the deficit and the debt. These are alarming numbers. You've said they are. Let's look at the deficit-- since inauguration day. $1.2 trillion, now $1.4 trillion. It's up 17 percent. The overall debt, inauguration day, $10.6 trillion, now, $11.9 trillion. What's it gonna be a year from now?

TIMOTHY GEITHNER: Well, it's gonna have to come down now. It's-- it's too high. And I think everybody understands this. You know, we got these two central imperatives. Restore growth, create jobs. But make sure people understand we're gonna have to bring those fiscal deficits down as growth recovers. First growth, though. Without growth, you can't fix those long term fiscal problems. But you're not gonna have a recovery that's gonna be strong enough unless people are confident we're gonna have the will to go back to living within our means.

DAVID GREGORY: How do you bring it down, though? Do taxes have to go up?

TIMOTHY GEITHNER: Well, we're gonna have to do-- we're gonna have to make some hard choices. But we're not really at the point yet, David, where we're gonna know what's gonna be the best path forward. The President's very committed to bringing down these deficits. He's very committed to doing so in a way that's not gonna add to the burden of people-- people making less than $250,000 a year.

DAVID GREGORY: I mean, I think a lot of people - I think its fair to say - what are hard choices? I mean, what hard choices have been made so far? Are you gonna raise taxes?

TIMOTHY GEITHNER: We're gonna have to bring our resources and our expenditures more into balance.

DAVID GREGORY: So, it's possible.

TIMOTHY GEITHNER: Well-- again, the President's committed to make sure we get this economy back on track. We'll bring down deficits over time. And--

DAVID GREGORY: But Mr. Secretary you talked about hard choices. So, why can't you give a straight answer as to whether taxes have to come up, when you have a deficit this big?

TIMOTHY GEITHNER: Because David, right now we're focused on getting growth back on track. Okay? And we're not at the point yet where we have to decide exactly what it's gonna take. And I just want to say this very clearly. He was committed in the campaign to make-- he said in the campaign. And he is committed to make sure we do this in a way that is not gonna add to the burden on people making less than $250,000 a year. Now, it's gonna be hard to do that. But he's committed to doing that. And we can do that.

DAVID GREGORY: You can do it. But it's still a chance that you'd have to raise taxes and go back on that, if you've got a debt this big?

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 1613

PLAYS: 879

(Dr. Walter Heller - tried to save Reagan from himself - didn't work)

With word about the latest recession being "over", I was reminded about the last time we had a deep recession in the 1980s and how we all became familiar with the phrases "Reaganomics", Supply-Side and Voodoo-Economics.

Back in the 80s there was 10% unemployment (on paper) and it felt like it lasted forever. Former Kennedy and Johnson Economic adviser Dr. Walter Heller had a few observations to make when he was interviewed on Face The Nation in 1982.

Dr. Walter Heller: “Had the Carter program, and unfortunately it was rather forgettable, but had the Carter program been enacted, we would be in much better shape today. People seem to forget that Carter, in October of the last year of his presidency proposed a tax program that made just excellent sense. It was much smaller than the President’s program, and it concentrated more of its tax cuts, and this is what people forget, on the supply side, so to speak, on true stimulus of government investment. Instead of having enormous deficits that scare the public and Wall Street, we would have had much more moderate deficits, we’d be much better off today.”

Perhaps hindsight is 20/20 but it's interesting to speculate what might have happened had the Carter program been enacted.

But no, The Great Communicator had a better idea . . or so he said.

Does anything illustrate the bubble some people live in better than this New York Times column?

BEATING up on the wealthy seems to be the order of day. I suspected that. But a recent Wealth Matters column touched a particularly raw nerve. It looked at how even people with sizable fortunes were concerned about money in this recession and the impact that could have on the rest of us.

Readers rejected the attempt to understand the concerns of the rich.

“That’s so stupid that you ought to be slapped for it,” one woman wrote. My favorite began: “Bowties and Reaganomics are for losers. You can cry for the rich all you want, the rest of us will be happy to see them get taxed.”

The vehemence in these e-mail messages made me wonder why so many people were furious at those who had more than they did.

Uh, because we're paying for it when we're out of work and don't have affordable health care?

And why are the rich shouldering the blame for a collective run of bad decision-making? After all, many of the rich got there through hard work. And plenty of not-so-rich people bought homes, cars and electronics they could not afford and then defaulted on the debt, contributing to the crash last year.

"Collective run of bad decision-making"? Let's back up there a minute, pal. As anyone with half a brain knows (yes, even people who write for the New York Times), the financial services industry pushed our country over the economic brink through an assortment of unethical and illegal practices. Someone maxing out their Visa is not exactly in the same category; they merely bought the crack. Wall Street marketed and sold the crack. See the difference?

But in this recession, anger flows one way. Eric Dammann, a Manhattan psychoanalyst, theorizes that a lot of people are angry that the rules of the game seem to have changed.

“There’s always been envy and hatred toward the rich, but there was also a strong undercurrent of admiration that was holding these people up as a goal,” Mr. Dammann said. “This time it’s different because it feels like it’s a closed club and the rich have an unfair advantage.”

Gee, ya think? When corporate gains are privatized and losses are socialized, you think maybe the working people have finally had enough of picking up the slack? Can you say "market manipulation"? Can you say "front running"?

What is troubling is that the anger has hardened for some into a suspicion that all wealthy people are motivated purely by self-interest, said Brad Klontz, a financial psychologist in Hawaii and a co-author of the forthcoming book, “Mind Over Money: Overcoming the Money Disorders That Threaten Our Financial Health” (Random House).

“The script goes like this: Money is bad, rich people are shallow and greedy, and people become rich by taking advantage of others,” Mr. Klontz said. “But the same people who say money is bad say money is connected to their self-worth — they wished they had it and you didn’t.”

Would you like me to explain the difference, Brad? People who have earned their money through providing a service or product, people who hire others and treat them fairly - we still admire those wealthy people. We'd like to be like them.

Wall St. traders - bloodsucking scum who, as Elizabeth Warren puts it, made their money through selling "tricks and traps" - tricks and traps that destroyed our economy and sent them running to Washington with their hands out - those wealthy people can kiss our collective grits.

Go read the rest. It's all about how "good" wealthy people are suffering by association, how they do their fair share, they fund scholarships, live "modest" lives...

Let's be blunt, shall we, Mr. and Mrs. Wealthy Person? You get hefty tax write-offs for those donations. Yes, you like the feeling of helping, but you really like the tax write-offs - and your pictures in the society pages. Wealthy people haven't been paying their fair share of taxes for a really long time, but like to think they're "giving back" quite enough through supporting charities. (Oh, and it's voluntary. Unlike the banking bailout the rest of us are paying for.)

You're not giving back anywhere near what you're taking. Seen the pictures on the news of Americans lining up like cattle for free health care? That's our reality. So if you really want to help, start lobbying to change the tax laws. Support real healthcare reform.

Because for some odd reason, they don't pay much attention to us.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1034)

PLAYS: (5466)

So yesterday, Rush Limbaugh belittled Joe Scarborough's manhood over the differences regarding where the Great Gasbag is taking the Republican Party. He called him a "neutered chickified moderate". Oooooh.

So today, Scarborough fired back, with pal Mika Brzezinski somewhat aghast at the gonadial turn of the conversation:

Scarborough: I would be careful. If I had put my testicles in a blind trust for George W. Bush for eight years I'd be careful ..

Brzezinski: Can you say "testicles" on Morning Joe?

... [Crosstalk]

Scarborough: But there are a lot of people on the right that did in fact put their testicles in a blind trust for the past eight years, and stopped being conservative and started being apologists. And, um, that's about all I'll say.

Other than, other than -- you remember that, that scene with George W. Bush carrying Rush Limbaugh's suitcase into the White House? Now we know what was inside the suitcase.

It's all rather amusing to watch. It's funny, too -- both Scarborough and Limbaugh have been playing the "conservatism could not fail, it was George W. Bush who failed conservatism" card since before the election. Now they're accusing each other of not having the right brand of conservatism.

As we observed already, Scarborough is in pretty deep denial about just how far into the abyss his movement has fallen.

Scarborough went on in this segment to vent that he wrote a book back in 2004 warning that the Bush administration's out-of-control spending would have dire consequences that would make the GOP unpopular. And it's true, he wrote that.

But the Bush budget deficits were only a small part of the picture when it comes to the causes of the massive recession he catastrophically brought down upon the nation's head. The biggest single cause of this recession was the mania for deregulation -- particularly within the financial sector -- and the breakdown of firewalls within that sector that had been erected to protect consumers and the industry itself back during the FDR era.

These policies -- especially the desire to destroy the legacy of the New Deal embodied by the mania for deregulation -- have always been, and continue to be, central themes for conservatism, not just for the Rush Limbaugh wingnut bloc but for the Joe Scarborough "mainstream conservative" bloc too.

In other words, it was conservatism itself that created this mess. And while you boys are off fighting about your penises, we liberals will be busy cleaning it up, as usual.

That's a serious drop from April, which is when this video said we were at a mere five-year high. If you're apartment-hunting, time to renegotiate the rent.

This is right in line with my own economic indicators, which are based on Craigslist. I've noticed that nice apartments that used to go within a day or two now linger for weeks as landlords keep dropping the asking prices. (Also, people are selling fine guitars at deep discounts. Just in case through some miracle, you can actually afford one.)

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. apartment vacancies rose to 7.8 percent in the third quarter, the highest since 1986, as rising unemployment reduced rental demand, Reis Inc. said.

Actual rents paid by tenants, known as effective rents, declined 2.7 percent from a year earlier, the New York-based property research firm said in a report today. Asking rents, or what landlords sought, fell 1.8 percent from a year earlier.

Job losses and falling wages are shrinking the pool of potential tenants. The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent in August, the highest since 1983, the Labor Department said Oct. 2.

Vacancies “continued to rise despite what has traditionally been a strong leasing period for apartment properties,” Victor Calanog, director of research at Reis, said in a statement. “Given the inherent seasonality of rental and lease-up patterns we expect fourth-quarter figures to be even weaker, implying that we may break historic vacancy levels by year-end 2009.”

The apartment vacancy rate was 7.7 percent in the second quarter and 6.2 percent in 2008’s third quarter, Reis said. Compared with the second quarter, asking rents fell 0.5 percent and effective rents fell 0.3 percent.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (54)

PLAYS: (160)

September 28, 2009 News Corp

Heather: Bobby Jindal recites Frank Luntz's talking points on health care reform.

CAVUTO: Well, the push for the public option is gaining a lot of steam. Two top Democrats are pressing to make sure that the Senate bill includes a government-run plan. The Finance Committee is expected to vote on it tomorrow.

My next guest says that public option will kill lots of private sector jobs, and he`s got a plan that will not.

Bobby Jindal is the Republican governor of Louisiana.

Governor, always good to have you. Thanks for coming.

JINDAL: Neil, thank you for having me.

CAVUTO: All right. Now, a lot of folks are concerned that this public option ultimately becomes the only option and ultimately means the government is running everything.

You have an alternative. What is it?

JINDAL: Absolutely. Well, let`s start first of all -- Neil, across this country, I think the debate`s over. I think the American people have spoken loudly. they have said they don`t want a government- run plan that increases their taxes, that increases government spending.

Across the country, our people are worried that government is spending too much money. Only in Washington, D. C. , would they respond by creating a plan that could spend $900 billion more dollars.

Across the country, people are worried about jobs and the economy, and the greatest recession since the Great Depression. Only in Washington, would they respond by saying let`s raise taxes on employers and families.

Across the country, our people are worried about the rising cost of health care, the inaffordability of health care. Only in Washington would they respond by proposing taxes on health insurance, on medical devices, on -- on medical products.

Look, the reality is, the American people don`t want this big Pelosi plan that government take over our health care. But there is an opportunity to get bipartisan reforms done.

Nobody is defending the status quo. As Republicans, we can`t just be the party of no. There`s several things -- if they would scrap these massive government plans, there`s several things we could agree on in a bipartisan way.

Continue reading »

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 21

PLAYS: 3

(In 1961, one of the culprits looked like this)

The eternal trade deficit. Buying imports, manufacturing and outsourcing overseas, imports flooding the market, cheap labor, regulations, de-regulation, unions.

In 1961 it was the beginnings of The Common Market. In 2009 it's the European Union. Either one, it's been with us for longer than anyone cares to remember.

And in November 1961, CBS Radio tried to tackle the issue on their Sunday talk program Leading Question.

Guests were Oscar Strackbein and Charles P. Taft, who didn't agree on very much. Even the number of unemployed there were.

Oscar Strackbein: “Let me point out that the problem is not merely that of how many people lose their jobs because of import competition, it is also a question of who is not being employed because of imports. We have over a million new workers coming on the labor market every year. Not to mention a degree of unemployment that is constantly rising after each recession. After we’ve come out of each recession the last ten years we have been left at the peak of prosperity with a higher number of unemployed than before. So today we have what . . five and a half million unemployed . . “

Charles P. Taft: “Four million the last time.”

Strackbein: “Now, I say.”

Taft: “I’m talking about the last figures. Day before yesterday – four million”.

Strackbein: “All right. Then we have made some headway.”

2009 things seem no different . . except the numbers.

Remember during the stimulus debate, when the Republicans told us birth control funds didn't have a damned thing to do with the economy - and the Democrats, as usual, knuckled under to them?

The Guttmacher Institute has just released a report on the impact of the recession on family planning, and the results are predictable - at least, if you're a normal (i.e. non-wingnut) person. Via Salon:

This summer, researchers surveyed 947 women between the ages of 18 and 34 with household incomes of less than $75,000. They found that women are preoccupied by worry about money, medical costs and childcare. Most of the women hope to get pregnant later on or have decided against having kids because of these tough times -- and that's even more common among women who are less well-off than they were a year ago. A total of 64 percent agreed with the statement, "With the economy the way it is, I can’t afford to have a baby right now."

These findings are all rather intuitive, but what this actually means for pregnancy prevention is less straightforward. A total of 29 percent say they are "more careful" than before about using contraception every time they have sex. There is a flip-side to that, though: Eight percent of women are using birth control less regularly as a means of saving money and, among women in financial decline, that number rises to 12 percent. Things are even sketchier among women on the pill: 18% are popping hormones irregularly to save some cash -- either by missing pills, filling their prescription late, taking at least one month off or picking up fewer packs at a time. That number balloons to 25 percent when it comes to the category of worse-off women.

Overall, 23 percent are having a tougher time than a year ago covering the cost of birth control and -- again, say it with me now -- that number is higher among women whose finances have dwindled. The upshot: Those who are least capable of affording the cost of a child are putting themselves at the greatest risk for an unplanned pregnancy. Women also report avoiding appointments with their gynecologists in the last year -- especially those who have recently lost their health insurance.

Mock, Paper, Scissors: Tengrain Presents the End of the Recession!

WetMachine: Benchmarks and the Broadband Ecology

Rawrahs: Thank you, Jimmy Carter

Susie Bright's Journal (not work-safe): Socialist is the new Black. And while we're doing the not-work-safe stuff, Alabama is still outlawing the sex toys. I'm so outta there forever.

Wonkette: Waitaminit, Judge: 'Saying something is so, does not make it so?' There goes the modern Conservative Movement.

BG filling in today and tomorrow for Mike, who's jamming.

You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: 46

PLAYS: 22

(Truman and The Congress Of Nope in 1947)

The 80th Congress, dubbed the "Do Nothing Congress" by President Truman was the result of a Republican majority from the 1946 mid-term elections. Pretty much bent on overturning legislation enacted during the FDR Administration, they managed to stifle almost all the bills Truman introduced during the 80th session of Congress from 1947-1949. This meant, of course Universal Health Care which had been on the books in various forms since 1941 as well as a number of economic packages needed to deal with the Recession of 1947.

Pres.Truman: “On several occasions during the past year I have reported to the Congress and to the Nation on our general economic situation. These reports have told of new high levels of production and employment. Farmers are producing 37% more than in 1929. Industry is producing 65% more. In terms of actual purchasing power, the average income of individuals after taxes has risen 39%. The rapid growth of our post-war activity has exceeded expectations, and has revealed anew the potentialities of our economy. In each of my reports however, I have had to warn of dangers that lie ahead. Today, inflation stands as an ominous threat to the prosperity we have achieved. We can no longer treat inflation with spiraling prices and living costs as some vague condition we may encounter in the future. We already have an alarming degree of inflation.

Continue reading »

There's the "official" unemployment rate, based on claims for unemployment benefits - and the more accurate U-6, which looks at discouraged workers who have stopped looking:

They were left out of the latest unemployment rate, as they are every month: millions of hidden casualties of the Great Recession who are not counted in the rate because they have stopped looking for work.

But that does not mean these discouraged Americans do not want to be employed. As interviews with several of them demonstrate, many desperately long for a job, but their inability to find one has made them perhaps the ultimate embodiment of pessimism as this recession wears on.

Some have halted their job searches out of sheer frustration. Others have decided it makes more sense to become stay-at-home fathers or mothers, or to go back to school, until the job market improves. Still others have chosen to retire for now and have begun collecting Social Security or disability benefits, for which claims have surged.

[...] The official jobless rate, which garners the bulk of attention from politicians and the public, was reported on Friday to have risen to 9.7 percent in August. But to be included in that measure, which is calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics from a monthly nationwide survey, a worker must have actively looked for a job at some point in the preceding four weeks.

For an increasing number of people in this country who would prefer to be working, that is not the case.

It is difficult to assign an exact figure, because of limitations in the data collected by the bureau, but various measures that capture discouragement have swelled in this recession.

In the most direct measure of job market hopelessness, the bureau has a narrow definition of a group it classifies as “discouraged workers.” These are people who have looked for work at some point in the past year but have not looked in the last four weeks because they believe that no jobs are available or that they would not qualify, among other reasons. In August, there were roughly 758,000 discouraged workers nationally, compared with 349,000 in November 2007, the month before the recession officially began.

The bureau also has a broader category of jobless it calls “marginally attached to the labor force,” which includes discouraged workers as well as those who have stopped looking because of other reasons, like school, family responsibilities or health issues. But economists agree that many of these workers probably would have found a way to work in a good economy.

These are the ostrich people who thought if they ignored it, it would just go away. Still buying the big LCD TVs, still going on nice vacations, still pretending it's all going to be okay. Well, it isn't.

Now that it's been a while and the jobs aren't coming back, those people are now getting hit with the reality stick - and because they carry the bulk of credit debt, the banks are going to be in even worse shape than they already are:

The long recession and rising joblessness are taking an increasing toll on the nation's most credit-worthy borrowers, who are now falling behind on their mortgage and credit-card payments at a faster pace than people with poor financial histories.

The mortgage-delinquency rate among so-called subprime borrowers reached 25% in the first quarter but appears to be leveling off, rising only slightly in the second quarter. The pace of delinquencies for prime borrowers is accelerating. Since prime loans account for 80% of U.S. bank exposure to mortgages and credit cards, these losses could ultimately exceed those from weaker borrowers.

"The subprime pain is in the rearview mirror," says Sanjiv Das, head of Citigroup Inc.'s mortgage business, which is seeing delinquencies rise among prime borrowers, who make up three-quarters of its mortgage portfolio.

In many cases, these "prime" customers, whose high credit scores afforded them the best interest rates on mortgages and credit cards, lost their jobs over the past few months and only now are running out of temporary fixes that have been keeping them afloat.

The trend signals more bad news for U.S. banks. Rising delinquencies on prime mortgages helped drive the total mortgage-delinquency rate to a record 9.24% in the second quarter, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The data reflect loans at least one payment past-due.

[...] About 40% of the strapped consumers seeking help from the OnTrack Financial Education & Counseling center in Asheville, N.C., are prime borrowers, up from 15% last year, says Tom Luzon, director of counseling services at the United Way agency. Many of these clients already scaled back their lifestyles after losing their jobs or seeing their salaries slashed. Some are small-business owners whose companies foundered as a result of the recession.

"They have made adjustments and made adjustments, but then you get to a point where you can't adjust anymore," says Mr. Luzon, who is a former banker.

"People who are middle-class wage earners initially may have severance pay and think they have plenty of time to find a job, but then they start using credit cards to support living expenses," he says.

The manufacturing sector lost 63K, the financial sector 28K and Construction lost 65. Health care added 47.4 thousand jobs.

One of the more interesting findings is that up till April government jobs were increasing, since April they have declined. The decline isn’t huge, but it exists at all levels of government. For some reason the postal service in particular seems to be shedding jobs.

Though the job loss is less than we’ve seen in the past it’s surprisingly uniform: except for health care and social assistance everything else is either down, or just barely increasing. Fundamentally, every industry without pricing power is taking it on the chin, but if you’re sick, you’re sick, so the medical industry retains the ability to hire. I suspect that the manufacturing numbers would be much worse if defense related manufacturing was removed.

Continue reading »

See, I would have been a lot happier if Obama's economic recovery plan forgave school loans (or at least a portion of them), instead of throwing money at bankers. But I guess there's a reason why I'm not in charge!

On Tuesday, the AFL-CIO released the results of a disturbing new Peter Hart survey, "Young Workers: A Lost Decade" that found that about a third of workers under 35 live at home with their parents, and they're far less likely to have health care or job security than they were ten years ago. Even then, in a 1999 survey, when they faced economic insecurity, they still had reasons to be hopeful.

Those days are long gone. A quarter of young workers say they don't earn enough to even pay their monthly bills, a 14% rise from the last survey. As Richard Trumka, the presumptive incoming president of the AFL-CIO, said in a press conference today:

We're calling the report "A Lost Decade" because we're seeing 10 years of opportunity lost as young workers across the board are struggling to keep their heads above water and often not succeeding. They've put off adulthood - - put off having kids, put off education - and a full 34 percent of workers under 35 live with their parents for financial reasons.

Thirty-five percent are significantly less likely to have health care than older workers, only 31 percent make enough money to pay their bills while putting anything aside in savings, and almost half are more worried than hopeful about their economic future.

That's one reason that Trumka and other labor leaders announced this week a new outreach campaign to recruit young workers -- and a stepped-up drive for the Employee Free Choice Act and health care reform. They're using the upcoming Labor Day, with the expected involvement of 100,000 union members in just the AFL-CIO alone in events and actions, as a launching pad to spur Congressional action.

Young people do need to find their collective voice, the way the AARP speaks for the middle-aged and elderly. Because what's happening to them isn't an accident. It's the result of corporate-centered policies.