Friday August 12, 2011

FROM THE LAMPPOSTS. At National Review, David French defends corporations that have succeeded by downsizing many employees and underpaying the rest:

Critics complain that corporations are “hoarding not hiring,” but ask yourself this: Wouldn’t you want to work for a corporation that has the cash reserves to not only weather economic storms but also invest in future products or innovation?

Not for $14,000 a year I wouldn't.

Decades of failed socialist experiments should have convinced us all that governments can’t hire nations into prosperity

Actually, during what French probably considers the most socialist of those decades, American workers could get blue-collar jobs that would feed and clothe their families and even elevate them into the middle class. Back then we called it the American Dream, but more recent, more Reaganesque and laissez-faire decades have taught many, many Americans to lose faith in it. Hence our race to the bottom, whereby citizens who once felt proud to live in a country where anyone might rise must content themselves to feel satisfied to live in a country where anyone might evade death by hunger or exposure.

French ends:

After all, rich people are people too.

Well, that's encouraging -- that means they might be made to feel fear, and reform.