How Far Behind Are You?

Robert B. Reich argues in an op-ed piece in today's New York Times that, if the economy in the U. S. is to be fixed, the bottom two-third of wage earners must have their incomes increased. Sounds good to me. Reich claims that

America’s median hourly wage is barely higher than it was 35 years ago, adjusted for inflation. The income of a man in his 30s is now 12 percent below that of a man his age three decades ago. Most of what’s been earned in America since then has gone to the richest 5 percent.

That sounds about right to me.

This afternoon's hot news:

Roger Clemens testifies before congress with his accuser sitting just a few short inches away. The baseball pitcher who now holds most of the notable major league pitching records and seems to have discovered the fountain of youth, or at least a way to go more gradually into that dark night of being too old to play the kids' game at a competitive level, swore that all of the people, including his good friend, fellow pitcher Andy Pettitte, are either lying or "misremembering" events from a few years ago about his being enjected with human growth hormone.

You gotta think it's a good day when the hot news is baseball instead of war, genocide, or disease. Or maybe it just says something about the U. S. news media and what American's think is important.

"What he said": "The relations with, uhh—Europe are important relations, and they've uhh—because, we do share values. And, they're universal values, they're not American values or, you know—European values, they're universal values. And those values—uhh—being universal, ought to be applied everywhere." — George W. Bush, Washington, D. C., 2005.

Ain't life grand?