Honeywell CEO: Debt Biggest Drag on US Jobs
If CEO, David M. Cote, of Honeywell—a $38 billion Fortune 100 company— really thinks that the economic problems are due to government debt and the failure of the confidence fairy to appear, he could do the patriotic thing and give back the 15% of his company’s revenue that comes from the federal government.
And the journalist could share this fact with viewers.
Commentary reworked from the original post by Atrios on Eschatonblog.
Eliminating Minimum Wages as a Jobs Plan?
Fox News said Cain’s opportunity zone plan risks angering unions because it would enact policies they consider bad policy, such as the elimination of the U.S. minimum wage.
Eliminating unemployment is a necessary yet not sufficient solution. We need living wages. At issue here is not whether eliminating minimum wages would diminish joblessness (increase employment); rather it is to question living standards. Implementing a policy as this would create a larger poverty class. Even currently employed workers in affected areas would suffer as they would now be competing in a race to the bottom.
via Cain to scrap minimum wage in poor areas? – politics – Decision 2012 – msnbc.com.
Only the most educated 3% saw wage gains between 2000 and 2010
Welcome to another edition of Charts that Speak for Themselves. This one shows that we live in a country in which the 97 percent of the population without education beyond a master’s degree experienced declining income over the past decade.
via Daily Kos: Only the most educated 3% saw wage gains between 2000 and 2010.
Hospitals Buy Back-Door Drugs Due to Shortages
Fifty-two percent of hospital purchasing agents and pharmacists reported they’d bought drugs from so-called “gray market” vendors during the previous two years, according to a just-released survey of 549 hospitals by the Institute for Safe Medication practices, an advocacy group.
Gray-market suppliers are those that operate outside official channels, often buying drugs from uncertain sources and reselling them at a steep profit. A report issued last week by a one hospital association found their average mark-up was 650 percent.
via Half of hospitals buy back-door drugs – Health – Health care – msnbc.com.
Price-Gougers Hike Drug Costs During Shortage
Amid growing shortages of life-saving drugs, some back-door suppliers are capitalizing on the problem, jacking up prices for medications for cancer, high blood pressure and other serious problems by as much as 4,500 percent, a new hospital survey shows.
via Price-gougers hike drug costs during shortage – Health – Health care – msnbc.com.
The President Surrenders on Debt Ceiling
Start with the economics. We currently have a deeply depressed economy. We will almost certainly continue to have a depressed economy all through next year. And we will probably have a depressed economy through 2013 as well, if not beyond.
The worst thing you can do in these circumstances is slash government spending, since that will depress the economy even further. Pay no attention to those who invoke the confidence fairy, claiming that tough action on the budget will reassure businesses and consumers, leading them to spend more. It doesn’t work that way, a fact confirmed by many studies of the historical record.
Ending Minimum Wage Won’t Create Many Jobs
Republican Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has soft-pedaled her opposition to the minimum wage law considerably since 2005, when she was quoted as saying, at a Minnesota State Senate hearing, “Literally, if we took away the minimum wage — if conceivably it was gone — we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level.”
Ending minimum wage won’t create many jobs.
What’s wrong with this logic?
How Do You Feel About A Flat Tax?
This blog post asks the age-old question, How do you feel about a flat tax? Nevermind, that the author doesn’t prefer this solution or that the Time magazine cover is from January 1996, the question remains valid.
America’s Poor
Mint.com put together a Flash chart depicting poverty in the United States.
http://www.mint.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/MNT-POVERTY-INT-R2.swf
If this blog supported embedded objects, you could see it here. 
US May Consider Wages in Awarding Government Contracts
This proposal aims to give more contracts to companies with generous pay plans. Should government uses its influence to strengthen the middle class and promote higher labor standards?
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