Comments
ALPERN AT LARGE - For too long, Labor Day has been associated with union-this, and left-wing that, and “fight the man” here and “eat the rich” there…but what it’s doing is leading to explosive inflation and overwhelming unemployment/underemployment…with the middle-class bearing the brunt of childish, one-liner-driven policies that keep hurting us.
Well, the reality of Economics isn’t very nice…but when one confronts it good things will happen to those who try, to those who work, and to those who labor (obviously, those who put all their energy into excuses as to why they can’t succeed might as well stop reading here).
Here are five ideas that allow us to consider being truly pro-Labor (or just left-wing political panderers), and with an emphasis on the middle-class:
1) Resources and jobs are finite—so do American citizens EVER get first dibs on them?
Let’s be blunt—employers who like hiring illegal immigrants (or whatever name you want to use for that group) want sub-minimum wage and/or slave labor jobs. In enforcing citizenship laws, those employers breaking the law should get nailed FIRST.
The rest will follow—we NEED working visas and sponsored foreign workers, but playing a game of “what can one get away with for one’s personal gain at the expense of the taxpayers” is neither moral nor sustainable.
2) Cheap and affordable housing means lower energy and utility bills—so can we stop the childish, “feel-good”, but failed policies that have been destroying our budgets for the past 20 years, already?
If you haven’t paying attention, our remaining refineries (as ugly as they are to behold) are shutting down.
Does $7-8/gallon prices turn you on? Give you a warm, fuzzy feeling inside? Or does it spell the doom of the working middle-class who (like it or not) require cars to drive their kids to school, go to the grocery store with bags and bags of food and living supplies, or drive to work?
The era of smacking down “Big Oil”, and the era of smashing down dams and reservoirs has to end, and the era of “wind and solar are as efficient as fossil fuels and nuclear energy” has to END. Cheap and affordable energy and water makes for lower food costs, lower living costs, and lower utility/housing costs for the middle-class.
3) As one of the leading pro-transit writers of CityWatch, I assure you that anyone who’s sober about public transportation and mass transit knows that the need for cars to go away…so can we finally allow (and demand) the City build parking structures on major thoroughfares so that developers don’t have to by themselves?
The City needs a long-overdue source of revenue, and we’ve got a way to build developments with developers (who want their tenants/owners of what they build to actually buy what they develop) paying into a public/private partnership of properly-distanced parking structures?
Public transit is good, and certainly well-lit Uber/Lyft/Waymo stops work well for new developments on large thoroughfares, but for the City of Los Angeles to get rid of parking requirements for new housing is about as logical as getting rid of the requirements to include bathrooms to save water/plumbing infrastructure costs for developers.
We need parking, we need cars, and the ability for structures to obviate the need for streetside parking may sound expensive in the short-run, but in the long run makes blatant, obvious sense. Two plus two can only equal four…not five, not six, nor seven.
4) Crime control and safety/security are “things”. They are real. They are necessary. And without them we’ve got fewer and fewer employers in a real world. NO employer wants to lose money with “legally-acceptable” shoplifting and/or other forms of theft…so can we finally just say NO to crime, and that crime is…BAD?
We already threw out Attorney General Gascón (and a plague upon those who funded and encouraged voters that he was a good thing for Los Angeles County!), but if Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, Mayor Karen Bass, and any other local politician won’t demand crime-free private enterprises, then the middle-class will suffer.
As in: THE VONS SUPERMARKET AT SEPULVEDA/NATIONAL IS SET TO CLOSE OCTOBER 16TH, AND THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THIS CORNERSTONE OF WHITE/LIBERAL WEST L.A. WILL SHATTER THE WELL-BEING OF THE MIDDLE-CLASS, AS WELL AS TOSS OUT A HOST OF MIDDLE-CLASS JOBS!
(More to come on this little tidbit). Much of this is related to supermarket mergers, but losing restaurants, supermarkets, and other businesses in black neighborhoods, white neighborhoods, Latino neighborhoods, or Asian neighborhoods is BAD.
Very BAD. Crime has to STOP being “OK”, and we need to cling to the rights and needs of the middle-class.
5) Labor and employers need to have better tax breaks, if not tax credits, for the middle-class to save for retirement…so will the middle-class of the private sector get its retirement needs prioritized as does the public sector?
Whether its extra hours worked to ensure that enough exists in one’s paycheck to dedicate for retirement or not, if YOU READING THIS NOW haven’t put away 10-15% or more for retirement (the younger you are, the better compound interesting works for you to affordably retire some day), you will be in trouble.
In other words, will our society PUSH labor, and PUSH our employers to get to the magic 10-15% needed to allow retirees to live on more than just Social Security (meant to be a supplement ONLY)?
Or is that only restricted to the very wealthy and the public sector workforce?
It’s Labor Day. Shall we labor to resolve to make things better for the working middle-class?
Or do we just rely on our two political parties to make that somehow happen?
(Kenneth S. Alpern, M.D, is a dermatologist who has served in clinics in Los Angeles, Orange, and Riverside Counties, and is a proud husband and father. He was active for 20 years on the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC) as a Board Member focused on Planning and Transportation, and helped lead the grassroots efforts of the Expo Line as well as connecting LAX to MetroRail. His latest project is his fictional online book entitled The Unforgotten Tales of Middle-Earth, and can be reached at [email protected]. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Dr. Alpern.)
