Suck It Up! from the NPR Suck-ups

The few times I've listened to NPR lately, I've noticed something interesting.  Instead of examining how deliberate US policies and practices of the last 40 years (and most dramatically of the past 10-15 years) have created stunning rates of poverty and extreme income inequality in the US (40th from the bottom out of 140 countries according to the CIA!), NPR is featuring stories that assert that people suffering from the effects of policies redistributing wealth upwards were "spoiled" by having better incomes in the past and need to accept the reality of working harder for less so that the rich can continue to enrich themselves.

Two recent features caught my attention:

• One was on Friday's ATC and reported on the suck-wages ($11 an hour) for mill work in Maine (BTW, $11/hr for a 40 hour week comes out to $22880 a year) which is frankly squat (and the six-figure script readers at NPR know that very well).  
• The second story was on Saturday's ATC and looked at unemployment and debt among recent college grads.

The Maine mill work feature had a few comments from residents about how low current wages are and how difficult it is to support a family on them, but the report was dominated by locals with such comments as:

"They're spoiled. They're spoiled. They got so used to the bigger paychecks. They don't know how to live without.....it's better than nothing, she says, which is what she had as a kid...Folks today, she says, need to learn how to make do with less."

and

"This might be a good thing for this town. They've had things easy for a long time. They've got all of these toys. They have the snowmobiles, they own a camp. You know, it's - people, I think, should pare back anyway in what they do. You know, a little attitude adjustment, you know?"

The NPR reporter on this story, Tovia Smith, offers her editorial approval of these attitudes, commenting that "It's a kind of bravado that's not uncommon up here in this cold, northern corner of New England, where folks are as hardy as they are frugal, and making do is a kind of badge of honor."

The Saturday story on college grads scoffs at students who study "softer and more qualitative majors" such as literature, psychology, etc., and simply accepts that the university experience should be a kind of trade school experience aimed at landing a well-paying job.  Not a word about the importance of a free (or even affordable), liberal higher education to the health of any democratic society.  Instead of spending any time investigating why student debt has skyrocketed and who is benefiting from this scam, NPR's Jackie Leyden ends her report with this condescending bit of wisdom:

"So maybe it comes down to changing your expectations about what life is really all about..." 

Indeed!

Six Figure Fools Meet Five Figure Problems

Steve Inskeep and Renee Montagne wonder why people don't save anymore, but instead get into debt. To answer this vexing problem they turn to Tim Hartford of the Financial Times. Just so you'll think $337,499-a-year Renee and $331,701-a-year Steve [see the IRS 990s here] are one of us, Renee introduces this segment with: "We owe it to ourselves to consider all the debt we piled on ourselves." Then Steve and Renee do a little back and forth yucking it up:
Inskeep: "...back in the early 1980s Americans saved more than 11% of their income; last year on average Americans saved one half of one percent."
Montange (chuckling): "Steve, uh, that's no savings..."
Inskeep: "Well, basically; although perhaps some people are wondering how'd they manage to save half percent..."

Hartford comes on to make the case that what is fueling high debt among Americans is the availability of loans - which hints at, though never names the deregulation and rise of predatory lending from credit card companies. But Inskeep is more interested in putting the problem on the people in debt. He asks, "Is there something about the availability of credit itself that causes people to go off the rails and make bad decisions?"

Of course it never even occurs to buckrakers like Inskeep and Montagne that a lot of folks turn to credit because their real incomes are shrinking. Let's see what leftist propaganda I can find to support this wild idea? I've got it, how about the Marine Corp Times!

Here's a little information for you two clowns from the five figure crowd like myself. In 1993 I was making about $23,000 a year as a social worker and my second son had just been born. Employer based family health insurance was costing our little fambly about $3000 a year in premiums and rent was running about $500 a month. Let's just say things were kind of tight. Now that the kids are growing up our family income is closer to $60,000, but health insurance is over $7000 a year, gas costs have tripled, public school fees and clothing are more expensive, and the price of food is shooting up (and we just can't wait to spend, spend, spend on college).

Do you 1/3 of a million dollar dimwits at NPR get it? Yes, some people make bad decisions in this crass consumer culture that you worship on NPR, but many of us go into serious debt to fix the broken car, get braces for the kids, repair the leaking roof, buy decent food, pay for heat, etc. Yeah, we just go off the rails for all these luxuries; crazy ain't it?