Fix Income and Job Inequality? Let's take a look at the service industry!

Been thinking about a couple things lately. First, income inequality. It's the worst it's been since 1928. That's a little scary, considering what happened in 1929. Considering what happened in 2008 and how we haven't yet recovered from it, really. And the fact that nowadays, FDR's New Deal would get killed by paid Russian trolls on the right and milquetoast pleas to a decades out of date economic model on the left.

Let's get a few things straight: manufacturing and coal jobs are dying, and good riddance. They weren't particularly good jobs, anyway. Repetitive motion injuries are a thing. In fact they may be a contributing factor in opioid addiction.

So what industry is growing? The service industry. Now imagine if you will, a candidate, on either side of the aisle, coming out in their campaign and saying, "service workers, you do a fantastic job for America. I want to make your lives and those of your families better. What would you need?"

I have trouble of imagining it. But let's think about it.

The death of the labor union has set back the collective bargaining that helped keep those manufacturing jobs at competitive pay rates. But again, I'm not sure how well that kind of model would work for low-tier service workers. Considering that means, essentially, call center employees. A strike would be a joke. Call centers account for high turn over rates in their business models, anyway, because their turn over rates are so high.

What about a co-op model? I don't know. Co-ops seem designed around agriculture and manufacturing, industries already on the decline, where a small group of generalists has developed. In addition to front line workers, service industries require an awful lot of specialists to keep things running smoothly. You would need very robust in-house training and re-training programs to make a call center co-op work.

Why is there a resistance or lack of interest into looking at this seriously? Probably because we have a cultural expectation that low-tier jobs like that are "starter" jobs or "temporary" jobs. But there's another problem: because of the pay and benefit degradation, people are staying in the workforce longer. This means its harder (if not downright impossible), for lower-tier workers to move-up, even if they're otherwise qualified and interested in moving up.

So do you know anyone willing to take a long hard look at the service industry? Do you have any ideas on how to improve the lot of the people working in it? Leave a comment.

Something else to trouble you

So I called Ms. Reagan's office today to voice my concerns. They did explain that the only information being provided is what is available in public records. I understand, but countered that even that much still made me uncomfortable as an Arizona citizen. Let's face it, the least sinister use of that data is purging voter rolls between now and 2018 or 2020.

Anyway: have some unpaid debt? Maybe you did the right thing and declared bankruptcy to clear the slate? Did you know employers can use either fact to deny you a job?

Yup, even though the law is supposed to protect you from that kind of discrimination, courts have decided to reinterpret it to let employers use that fact against you. Incidentally, there's a problem: your credit report could very well have mistakes on it! Also, there's no research into whether bad credit affects your performance or likelihood to commit fraud.

Since federal law isn't stepping up (and isn't likely to step up while President Nonsense Twitterrant is in office), we'll have to go local. Nine states already have laws restricting these shenanigans. I'd love to increase that number to 50. Or, in lieu of that, just add your own city to a new list of cities and townships that disallow that nonsense.

By the way Arizonans, that list includes Nevada and California, our neighbors to the north and west respectively. I'm pretty sure we could get something like this on a ballot initiative. I can't do it alone, readers. If you're willing to help, post a comment!

Note: Special thanks to this Cracked article for pointing me at today's topic. A humor website nitpicking pop culture and sprinkling it with dick jokes CAN do good journalism, too. Especially this guy. Seriously just check out this video and this article.

Voter Fraud?

I'm going to open this post with a new linguistic initiative. No longer use "liberal" and "conservative." Use the proper terms: "progressive" and "regressive" to represent the actual social and economic directions those particular groups wish us to take.

Hopefully you all called your Senators to tell them to vote "no" on their ACA repeal/replace. Since they're delaying the vote like cowardly cowards, call them again. Think of it as a more patriotic activity than setting off fireworks for 4th of July. Something you ought to include for those freedom lovin' Republicans: they wrote this bill behind closed doors. Like Vladamir Putin would have done.

Here's the switchboard number: 202-224-3121.

Now I want to talk about Trump's administration launching an "investigation" into "voter fraud."

Seriously. Fuck this noise. Especially since Mississippi told them to go jump into the Gulf of Mexico.

But Michele Reagan, Arizona's Secretary of State, is deciding to cooperate.

So, let's look at some facts: Between 2000 and 2010 more people were struck by lightning than committed Voter Fraud. So why make accusations of wide spread voter fraud? Why to give you an excuse to disenfranchise voters, of course. Do any of you think Trump's handlers are looking for this data to sniff out real voter fraud where much more qualified people have failed? Or to gather data on the people who didn't vote for their boss so they can begin to systemically disenfranchise those voters of their voting rights?

Anyways, visit this site. Donate to them.

Also, if you're in Arizona, call Michele Reagan's office: 602-542-4285, or toll free: 800-458-5842.

The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for the good to do nothing.