Merry crisis and a happy new fear

Merry Crisis pictures  by Phillipe Nicolas.

  

For months, thou­sands of peo­ple across the world have now begun protests and else­where show that Europe’s lost gen­er­a­tion has finally found its voice.

the global crises of capitalism have been a disaster for those who work for a living. We knew that. But now, thanks to a new study  by the International Labour Office , we have a clearer picture of what happened to labor from the onset of the crises in 2007 through the end of 2009. Here are some of the salient facts from the report:

• Unemployment increased to 210 million, the highest level ever recorded, and many millions more have simply dropped out of the labour force because they are too discouraged to continue looking for work.
• The global growth in real average wages was reduced by half in 2008 and 2009, compared to earlier years.
• In many countries, wage inequality has been increasing—mostly because of the top earners “flying away” from the majority but also because of the “collapsing bottom” (i.e., the growing distance between median workers and low-paid workers).

The authors of the report conclude that the ongoing wages crisis is a problem for two reasons: first, “social justice and the hardship that inequality and low wages impose on households, particularly at the lower end of the wage distribution”; and, second, the macroeconomic “link between the level of wages in a country and its aggregate demand for goods and services.”

The Visual Du Jour – The 1%

November 16th, 2011 by SocProf . This awesome animation from The Guardian is an absolute must-see:

     

A very clear explanation of inequalities.

If the latest unemployment numbers represent good news, what would constitute bad news?

Yes, the official unemployment rate dropped in the last month. But that’s the beginning and end of the good news. 

Because, if we look more closely, there’s nothing else positive in the latest report. Consider the following:

• There were 1.3 million discouraged workers in last December, an increase of 389,000 in twelve months.
• The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was essentially unchanged in December at 8.9 million.
• The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 1.7 million and accounted for one third of the unemployed.

    

The Employment

Animator Santiago Grasso takes on crappy jobs in his animated short.  Have a look around you before you start complaining about whatever it is you'll be doing today. 

From Argentina-based animator Santiago Grasso, a short, surreal, award-winning film about working for the man.

it shows how easily a person can oppress another in order to go to work but he ends up to be oppressed by others.

Who didn’t felt that way at least one time? Illustrator and animator Santiago Grasso created this spectacular animated short, called El Empleo (The Employment), where we really can see this feeling to be merely an object that everybody has sometimes. 

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