Legal Commentary

"We're all Waiters Now"

By Ethan Brown

That's the conclusion of a must read piece in Harper's by Chicago-based labor lawyer Thomas Geoghegan about what our culture of legalized usury has wrought.

Writes Geoghegan:

"Basically, we're all waiters now; we're bowing and scraping and working for the banks. Look closely at any American, and it's even odds that he or she, directly or indirectly, is somehow employed by the 'financial services' industry,' which covers insurance and real estate and financial instruments of any kind."

[More....]

Geoghegan argues--rightly--that rising education and health care costs swallowed any gains in income. And the rising costs of basics--coupled with de-unionized workplaces--led to a paradox. "As the economy grew," Geoghegan writes, "individual people were actually becoming worse off."

So, the next time the likes of Rick Santelli or Megan McArdle complains about those high-living Americans who helped usher in the financial crisis remember that the economy hit the rocks thanks in large part to mostly stagnant wages despite rising productivity, skyrocketing health care costs and a wave of usurious rates on student loans, credit cards and adjustable rate mortgages.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 22, 2009 (boomark / email).