Ellen Schultz has given us a fascinating account of the ways in which corporate America has been able to game legal and accounting rules to emasculate the private pension system. It was only a few decades ago that a secure pension was a staple of middle class life. Workers in middle class jobs, whether in offices, construction, or manufacturing expected to have a pension in retirement to supplement their Social Security income. In many cases, the pension would provide the larger portion of their income, with the Social Security benefit being the supplement.

Kalleberg’s solution requires rethinking the social contract, a tough sell in individualistic America. He refers to the European concept of “flexicurity,” which seeks to combine employer flexibility with worker security. Doing so requires rethinking the relationship between public and private. The essential elements of such a model require universal, affordable, portable health insurance which ideally should be separated from employment. It also requires a more secure and portable pension system, more generous unemployment insurance, and greater opportunities to acquire new skills and education over the course of a lifetime. If employment is more transient and employers invest little in their workers, then a revitalized social safety net needs to fill in the gaps.

The New York Times used an article on Rhode Island’s pension system to denounce “the nation’s profligate ways,” which it warns will catch up with us. Newspapers are supposed to leave such editorializing to the opinion pages.

Public workers, up to seven hundred and fifty thousand teachers and civil servants, participated in a June 30 general strike called for in the United Kingdom after UK Parliament passed changes to pensions and retirement, specifically, increasing the amount an employee has to contribute.

General Electric is paying no taxes after making $14 billion in profits, and in fact is getting $3 billion in returns from the government. At the same time that the corporation isn’t giving one penny to the government for use of the commons, they are trying to exact wage and benefit cuts on their own workers.

The team at MichaelMoore.com is streaming live video all day long from protests in Lansing, the latest site to see a backlash to Republican-led efforts to weaken the rights of workers. Moore says that over 6,000 protesters occupied the Rotunda in the Capitol as of an hour ago. About a thousand stayed overnight last night.

“Shared sacrifice,” or as I like to call it, “sacrifice.”

State budget problems are due to the bursting of a bubble fueled by Wall Street greed and incompetent economic policy. Since the problems originated at the top, we should make those at the top pay the tab, not ordinary workers.

It appears the NYT worries it may lose the fact-free deficit hysteria propaganda market to the Washington Post, so today’s Times has a front page article suggesting public employee retirements benefits are so out of control we need to push states into bankruptcy.

The Washington Post believes that it is the exclusive role of government to redistribute income upward to the rich. They hate it when government acts to benefit ordinary workers.