You can't find a better contrast between the vision for our country than those offered by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Goldman Sachs. One vision sees America as the land of equality and fairness. The other vision sees an America where greed is good.
Here is some of what Trumka will say today at the National Press Club as a way to frame the challenges before the country in the run-up to the president's State of the Union address:
"What kind of country are we? A country of isolated individuals fending for themselves or a country with shared values and a shared vision? A country with scant resources, fading glory and no choices? Or a blessed nation with the potential to do right by its people and be a leader in the world?...In this topsy-turvy world, the same leaders who fought so valiantly to cut taxes for the wealthy turn right around and lecture us about the imminent bankruptcy of Social Security and Medicare. ... When we are reduced to competing to cut spending instead of deciding how to compete in the world economy and secure our future, then we are having the wrong conversation."
Looking ahead to the 2012 election, he says:
"We have just been through one lost decade—when America’s standard of living fell, when our wealth shrank, when millions lost their homes, when young people could not find work. America cannot afford another lost decade. ... Last year’s election was fundamentally about jobs, and I believe the 2012 election will be fundamentally about jobs. America wants to work. People who live in Wonderland may not have noticed, but there is a lot of work to be done here."
It is good to see a leader who understands that the phoniness of the bi-partisan obsession of the phony deficit and debt "crisis" are leading to the wrong conversation.
Now, let's look at the Goldman Sachs vision:
Goldman Sachs executives have long been among the most richly paid on Wall Street in the best of times. They are now poised to reap a windfall that was sown in the dark days of the financial crisis in 2008.
And...
The documents illustrate just how much wealth the partnership owns and has cashed out over the years. Goldman has almost 860 current and former partners, the documents show. In the last 12 years, they have cashed out more than $20 billion in Goldman shares and currently hold more than $10 billion in Goldman stock.
Equality? No.
In addition to the cumulative stock sales and stock ownership, the filings show an inner circle that is chiefly male — 87 percent of the current partners are men — and shed light on how much each partner has cashed out over the years.[emphasis added]
While a lot of the animus towards Goldman Sachs--and its competitors in the financial industry--has focused, understandably, on the financial meltdown, I have pointed out a bigger issue--and the reason that I believe the financial "reforms" did not go far enough:
Even back in "the good 'ole" days of Wall Street--before the 2008 collapse--we, the people suffered, from the Goldman Sachs ethos. Wall Street has been the financial engine behind the unwinding of the American Dream. It financed leveraged buyouts and corporate takeovers based heavily on debt--which resulted in the shedding of millions of good-paying jobs and will continue to create the same sick dynamic in the financial system whereby the "health of a company" is measured by its stock price, not by how well the workers are doing.
And, so, it is Trumka, and the labor movement's general vision, not Goldman Sachs, that offers the road map to a decent society. As I have mentioned before, a number of us are working on creating a Job Party to press for a call for an emergency action to create 15 million jobs. Join us--and let's change the conversation.
UPDATE 10:17 EASTERN: A bit more on Trumka's prepared comments:
"So let me get this straight," Mr. Trumka says, according to excerpts of remarks obtained by The Caucus. "We need to slash retirement and health benefits for the elderly because we are on the brink of fiscal crisis — but we can afford to squander hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts for the super-rich? Only at the Mad Hatter’s tea party does this make sense."
UPDATE 11:46 EASTERN: I was sent the full statement from Trumka by an AFL-CIO insider. It's long...it's not yet on the Federation's website that I can see. So, rather than post it here and bother folks with a long block, I posted it at the end of the repost of this on my own blog.
UPDATE III 12:25 EASTERN: FOLKS, after you've checked in here and participated, please go over to TomP's important diary on the Florida farmworkers and rec it up!
UPDATE IV 12:45: you guys are making me work too hard...So, I want to make one response to the various comments that fall into the "why hasn't Trumka done X" or "why does labor still have ties to Dems" etc. etc...
Look the labor movement is a complicated institution. I would ask people to keep in mind a whole bunch of realities--
1. Trumka is the president of a Federation. He is not a dictator who can tell all the affiliates to do something. In fact, they can just give him the finger and say to heck with you--or more likely just be passively non-compliant. And, like it or not, there are a bunch of union presidents who are still very invested in the Democratic Party, for lots of reasons.
2. The labor movement is under massive attack, at the federal and state levels, by the most intensive anti-labor efforts I can remember--even Reagan-era attacks pale by comparison. You've got a whole lost of Republican governors who are trying to basically eliminate labor--and some Democrats are certainly helping too.
3. In light of #2, in pure survival mode, some labor leaders are responding that their last allies are Democrats--whether you agree with that or not, I think it is not an unreasonable reaction ("not unreasonable" means not crazy, not corrupt, not duplicitous, not aimed at selling out workers)
4. Personally, I believe that we, as a movement, are not willing to risk our institutions that have been built over a long period of time. That is a huge problem. That said, while I believe those risks need to be taken since we are just on the edge of oblivion, I also understand the other side: the existence of the institutions as they are now, on a daily basis, do protect millions of workers via collective bargaining, grievances etc.
5. I admire and salute the energy and efforts of those people who are trying to build 3rd party efforts. But, I also believe we have to understand the FINANCIAL barriers (as well as obviously the barriers put up by the two parties in terms of process) that exist.
6.Generally, I think we need to strive to live in a world of complications and grey areas--what we want versus what is true now. It is not easy. But, I think it would help.
7. If you have an alternative to "why doesn't he do this?", please state it. Otherwise, I find it hard to engage a complaint given the above points.