While we all wring our hands and wonder why it is so many of our young people are leaving the state, perhaps it would be instructive to consider the latest report on wages in New York:

Report says ‘anemic’ wages affect 5.7 million New Yorkers | Democrat and Chronicle

The report from a labor-backed think tank said that 5.7 million New Yorkers are part of families that face a “hardship gap” in which at least one person has a job but the earnings aren’t enough to cover all basic expenses, including food, rent, utilities, health insurance, transportation and child care.

The proportion of New York families who don’t make enough to pay for these services, 30 percent, is well above the national median of 22 percent and is the highest of any Northeast state, according to the Fiscal Policy Institute report.

The report also goes on to state that a wage of $17 an hour is required in order to keep a family of four afloat. That’s a tall order in many professions, and especially in unskilled labors. Keep in mind also that the national average of 22 percent includes states like Louisiana, Arkansas and West Virginia where grinding poverty exists in ways most of us in this state don’t even fully understand as “America.” That we are so far behind in providing our state citizens - to say nothing of national citizens - a decent living wage is an embarrassment to our name.

Nothing says “I’m really, really fucking old” quite like making campaign barbs out of presidents from thirty years ago, and trying to make them look like they’re really relevant:

Jonathan Martin’s Blog: Playing the Carter card - Politico.com

“Senator Obama says that I’m running for a Bush’s third term,” McCain said, picking up the central Democratic line of attack. “Seems to me he’s running for Jimmy Carter’s second.”

This is sad on a number of levels. Firstly, while the above quoted post tries charitably to come up with reasons why the Carter jab is a good one, the author points out things indicative of the Bush Administration such as gas prices and weak national security. But that’s probably too deep, anyway. The real problem is that, as I approach middle age, half the people my age and younger don’t really even know who Jimmy Carter was as a president, and know him rather as the Nobel Prize winning, charming old Southern guy who rocks out interviews on The Daily Show. That seems like a positive thing.

Maybe McCain aught to dig a bit deeper into our history, into something that isn’t half-assed taught in the last few weeks of June when there’s no air conditioning and no one’s even paying attention, anyway. Perhaps a Millard Fillmore crack, of some kind?

The New York Times finally decided to get off it’s dead ass and start talking about a subject this website has been following for a week, now, courtesy of Wired.com news:

Adviser Says McCain Backs Bush Wiretaps - NYTimes.com

In a letter posted online by National Review this week, the adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said Mr. McCain believed that the Constitution gave Mr. Bush the power to authorize the National Security Agency to monitor Americans’ international phone calls and e-mail without warrants, despite a 1978 federal statute that required court oversight of surveillance.

Wonder how quickly this one dies out? The rest of the article is primarily without substance, just a lot of quotations from people who are duty-bound to disagree with each other.

Well, how’s about them green apples?

Political Radar: DNC: No More Contributions from Federal Lobbyists

On Good Morning America Thursday, ABC News’ Chief Washington Correspondent George Stephanopoulos reported “the Democratic National Committee will no longer accept contributions from federal lobbyists, will no longer take contributions from PACs” in keeping with Obama’s well-publicized policy.

Let’s all breathe a sigh of relief that multi-national banking firm UBS is signaling that the worst is over, for them:

AFP: UBS chief says worst is now over

“I definitely think that the worst is behind us,” UBS chief executive Marcel Rohner told Swiss newspaper Le Temps.

“There will certainly be plenty of things for banks to clear up over the next two years but as far as systemic risks are concerned, we’ve got over the hardest part,” he said.

So, where’s the “thank you” for the lack of regulation that made all this possible? There’s no indication of *how* the bank got the worst of it behind them, other than to say that they’ve “written down” 37 billion dollars in “bad investments.” Wonder what happened to that 37 billion dollars of homes? They don’t.

And neither does John McCain and his adviser, Phil Gramm, former lobbyist for UBS. In fact, it was Phil Gramm’s relentless deregulation of the banking industry during his time as Senator that partially set the disaster in motion, removing safeguards placed on banking after the Great Depression.

Way to go, Phil! We look forward to your ample guidance should John McCain win the presidency, and will remind people of it every single day till November.

Here’s a story I’ve been asleep at the switch on. One of John McCain’s chief economic advisers is none other than former Senator Phil Gramm. Phil Gramm was the father of the modern bank deregulation era that led to the subprime mortgage crisis. And more than that, he’s a lobbyist for UBS, one of the largest transnational corporations embroiled in the subprime mess:

Talking Points Memo | Great Company He Keeps

On the McCain/Gramm/UBS front (noted in yesterday evenings posts), it seems that not only is Sen. McCain’s top economics advisor, fmr Sen. Gramm, lobby and work for UBS, but according to today’s Financial Times the company is advising members of its private banking team not to step foot in the United States in order to avoid indictment.

The original story from MSNBC’s Countdown is here for your entertainment. Gramm was a tireless lobbyist against just about any reform measures or relief measures the Congress wanted to pass in the wake of the economic disaster he was largely responsible for. So now we know why John McCain’s economic policy where the subprime situation is concerned was, “you’re on your own, losers.”

Interestingly, the national news media has yet to delve into the personal problems between Barack Obama and John McCain much, even with the current dust-up over foreign policy so much in the news.  Sadly, in transitioning over to the new platform for DFE, I’ve lost my original article on the subject which includes a few links, but here is an after-the-fact article from the MSM about but one such argument.

The point is, this is going to be a long, hot summer in politics thanks to these two gentlemen’s personal long-standing contempt for one another.  More than that, the contempt has largely centered on McCain’s assertion that Obama was an inexperienced hack, the very same argument he’s now pushing as a campaign platform.

I dunno, I think setting about making your personal gripes the center of your public policy is bad form for anybody, but especially for the known hothead that is John McCain.  As for Obama, we’ve seen a fire and an aggression out of him in the last week that was previously unknown in the Democratic debates.  It will make for great theatre, but how long before this argument divorces itself from the reality of the issues facing our nation?

I’m sure the media is working on that angle right now.

So, the national media was so appalled by Barack Obama’s comments on Pennsylvania voters that they had to cover it non stop.  And they wanted to find out what Pennsylvania’s voters really thought about it.  So they’ve taken to slicing the pie in their polling internals along what they clearly think are the most important demographic lines for getting deep inside the minds of working class voters.

What are those demographic lines?  Why, beer drinkers and bowlers, of course.  Not that any of them are elitist, heavens no.

Apparently, those responsible journalists left in the national media have had enough.  Dean Baker reprints the open letter to ABC News demanding more serious debates in the future than the travesty of Wednesday night.

Charles Plosser, chairman of the Federal Reserve in Philly and former UofR dean, predicts that things are going to be just peachy by 2009. I’ve always wondered at the opinions of economic professionals who insist that the market is predictable right up until they’re proven wrong. Then, it’s all a mystery. Between “market analysts,” doctors and scientists, is it any wonder we don’t pay much attention to priest anymore? They’re the same damned thing.

And the reason all you suckers are doomed to die penniless is because, of course, you haven’t been reading your bible:

Business briefs | democratandchronicle.com | Democrat and Chronicle

Plosser said the subprime mortgage problem, which sparked the U.S. economic downturn, highlights the need for increased financial literacy.”This episode should be a lesson in the importance of economic education — that both consumers and businesses alike would be better served if financial literacy were a greater priority.”