Blogwatch

If you’re wondering why American consumers are still flat on their backs, rendering the economy similarly supine, the answer is both fundamental and simple: It’s not just that so many of them are unemployed. The ones who are employed are also underpaid.

Don’t take my word for it — take that of Michael Cembalest, the chief investment officer of J.P. Morgan Chase. He asserted in the July 11 edition of “Eye on the Market,” the bank’s regular report to its private banking clients, that “US labor compensation is now at a 50-year low relative to both company sales and US GDP.”

Some of the most trusted institutions in the world are finally awakening to the dangers of unrestrained global capitalism. Unions, of course, have for decades warned about the emerging global order. The reason for integrating regional economies into global networks has always been to shift power away from workers.

Dave Hansen is one of the 14 Democratic senators from Wisconsin who courageously left their state in a show of solidarity that has captured the attention of the nation.

The reason we have continued sky-high unemployment has nothing to do with excessive regulation. There was no sudden outpouring of federal regulation in 2007 before the economy tanked and millions lost their jobs.