Bob Herbert: 'Treatment of workers by American corporations has been more treacherous than most of the population realizes'

Gaius Publius writes:

I've been writing about this for a while (for example, here and here and here), as have a great many others.

Profits are up on the backs of workers, who desperately need their share of whatever wealth the country is producing. Because, frankly, if workers can't buy — if demand doesn't increase — there's no way out. Deflation, here we come.

Now Bob Herbert in his New York Times column (my emphasis):

The treatment of workers by American corporations has been worse — far more treacherous — than most of the population realizes. There was no need for so many men and women to be forced out of their jobs in the downturn known as the great recession.

Many of those workers were cashiered for no reason other than outright greed by corporate managers. . . . “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Andrew Sum, an economics professor and director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. “Not only did they throw all these people off the payrolls, they also cut back on the hours of the people who stayed on the job.” . . .

Having taken everything for themselves, the corporations are so awash in cash they don’t know what to do with it all. Citing a recent article from Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Professor Sum noted that in July cash at the nation’s nonfinancial corporations stood at $1.84 trillion, a 27 percent increase over early 2007. Moody’s has pointed out that as a percent of total company assets, cash has reached a level not seen in the past half-century.

In deflationary times, cash is king and "things" (what cash buys, like wages) are its footstool. More from Professor Sum, quoted in the article above:

Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they grow by the time you get to the first quarter of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.

I can't find a link to the cited Dr. Sum paper, but Andrew Sum is this guy. (If anyone finds the original paper, please let me know in the comments; thanks.)

First, note the underlying data from Dr. Sun. It's truly treacherous.

Next, note that the conclusion to be drawn — that corps are betraying workers and the recovery — is getting more and more play. Herbert is just the latest.

In an earlier article on Blanche Lincoln, I list three things we could do in response to these times:

1. Get serious about primaries. (Did you know there's an election coming? Time to figure out where you can apply some grease — and apply some grease.)
   
2. Be clear-eyed to the point of madness — because being clear means staring the beast in the face and not letting him convert in your eyes into a pseudo-human. The beast is still the beast.
   
3. Use the fact that the Big Boys are getting careless — despite their lead, it's only the third quarter.

Well, here we are at point 3 above. Bob Herbert is calling out the Big Boys, and it really is only the third quarter. The country's being set up for liquidation; but it hasn't been liquidated yet. There's still time.

Lend your voice, pass the data to everyone you know — and use it in your own activism.