the good old days

The Truth About Taxes, that is.

• Everyone pays taxes, not just rich people! AAAAAAH! [*]
• Léon Blum brought France a New Deal and they were promptly conquered. [**]
• All this New Deal Debt is not giving us enough tanks.
• Your wife puts on taxes instead of stockings, and taxes come with you to the movies.
• A “male fist of centralized bureaucracy that knocks at democracy’s door” — I don’t really know what this one means, but it goes well with rhetoric such as “holy crusade”.

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It’s an odd combination of “taxes are horrible and wasteful” and “we need to pay taxes to build up defense and protect our freedom.” As there has not been a President Wilkie, the ad obviously wasn’t enough to convince the public. (I do like the imagery of a ghostly hand grabbing money from paychecks and bread from the family table, though. It’s a good visual.)

One other thing mentioned in this film is that only approximately 7 billion dollars were spent over 7 years for national defense… something over 100 billion in modern money.

* I will note that the income tax structure has changed quite a bit over this century — rates change, income levels to qualify for tax change, exemptions change… and I’m not nearly interested enough in tax law to research who was paying what in 1940.

** Geez, why do we hate the French so much?

In 1947, the US Chamber of Commerce released a film called Education is Good Business. Gov. Mark Sanford was born in 1967, meaning he probably got stuck watching anti-drug and anti-sex mental hygiene films rather than this one. Maybe he should try taking a look at this, though…

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• Graduates of economically supported schools earn their way more profitably in the community.
• Better schools pay for themselves through larger incomes to more productive people, whose families in turn buy a greater volume of goods and services.
• Educationally, the community gets what it pays for.
• [Russia's education budget] is approximately four times greater than that of the United States. (OK, that’s more of a Scary Communist statistic than a useful fact.)

The alternative to funding your own citizens’ education is hoping that educated adults from other states will decide to move to your backwater community of ignorants and thereby raise the standard. Also, you have to hope the few educated adults you do manage to raise don’t get fed up with the community and leave for better opportunities elsewhere. (Neither of these trends have ever been noticed.)

Going Places, from 1948, teaches us the basics of capitalist manufacturing through the example of one soap-maker who was inspired to make the best soap ever thanks to his childhood chores. At first, Freddie simply wants to make good soap quickly so he can have time off to ogle passing women; once he becomes a success, he is convinced by his main competitor that they should engage in price-fixing.

The devil wins that little argument, but Soap Company #3 quickly defeats their monopoly by selling inexpensive soap — and then the government steps in. After that point, the movie glosses over their illegal monopolizing… the free market fixes everything!

The movie also discusses the benefits that the profit motive (and thereby a successful business) will bring to its worker and to the community.

Operating at a profit, a business can provide the employee with comfortable, colorful working conditions; high wages and steady employment; first aid and health protection; accident and life insurance; time off for vacations.

I’ll illustrate their example with a brief case study… Visteon, my former employer, went through years of trimming health insurance benefits and taking back as many other benefits as they could. Then they closed our factory last year. Strongly correlated with benefit cuts and plant closures was a string of announcements of dismal performance (dressed up as “we lost $12 million less than expected, only $150 loss this quarter!”), as well as fat firing bonuses for managers who left about as quickly as they were hired. And that sort of executive malfeasance doesn’t get any real coverage in Going Places.

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I like how everything ends with the promise that, if we embrace the profit motive, future generations of small children will be able to build jetpacks for themselves.

According to the end credits, this film was made by (with?) Harding College (now Harding University). Seven years later, they would bring us Responsibilities of American Citizenship, even more anti-Communist than this movie.

Prohibition in the United States was repealed, thanks to ratification of the 21st Amendment, on December 5, 1933. Raise a glass in tribute. (Just make sure you don’t go all the way to Step 9 and blow your brains out.)

One out of every 10 people in America is employed in a service that is related to the U.S. auto industry.

That’s a statistic from the Center for Automotive Research, via GM Facts and Fiction. It’s actually plausible; there are factories around the nation, not just in Detroit, that are somehow related to putting a car together. (I will note, though, it’s not clear how many of those sub-suppliers also work for Honda, Toyota, BMW, or “foreign” companies with US operations.)

The “Big Three” will never simply vanish — they (and the extended support structure of dealerships, suppliers, mechanics, etc.) are simply too large and too integral to the country’s manufacturing landscape. The job loss, health care loss, and tax income loss would be spread over the course of a few years. And it’s also worth noting that, to a large extent, the American Auto Maker crisis is largely of its own making; the recession is simply pinching them harder and sooner than expected.

I’m not against bailing out the auto industry, because the ripple effect around the country would be incredibly bad. At the same time, I haven’t decided if I’m in favor enough to write to my elected officials about it. (Yes, Visteon, when you fire loyal employees, they’ll hold a grudge and not help YOU out when the time comes. Payback’s a bitch, ain’t it.) But I am in favor, just enough, to mention it here. The issue is worth awareness and discussion and thought. And perhaps a large dose of nervous worrying as well.

If it is decided that they deserve a second chance, then the automakers need to be held to a much higher standard than they currently are. It would be inspiring to see them remade into an industry that is a leader in sustainable design and manufacturing, rather than grudgingly hoping global warming is a passing fad. But given the firmly entrenched old-style industry and infrastructure they have, I’m not holding out much hope.

Now that the Socialists have won the White House, what can we expect for our nation’s future? Dishwashers for everybody!

Allowing five to a family, there are fifteen million families in this country; and at least ten million of these live separately, the domestic drudge being either the wife or a wage slave. Now set aside the modern system of pneumatic house-cleaning, and the economies of co-operative cooking; and consider one single item, the washing of dishes. Surely it is moderate to say that the dishwashing for a family of five takes half an hour a day; with ten hours as a day’s work, it takes, therefore, half a million able-bodied persons—mostly women to do the dishwashing of the country. And note that [dishwashing] is most filthy and deadening and brutalizing work; that it is a cause of anemia, nervousness, ugliness, and ill-temper; of prostitution, suicide, and insanity; of drunken husbands and degenerate children—for all of which things the community has naturally to pay. And now consider that in each of my little free communities there would be a machine which would wash and dry the dishes, and do it, not merely to the eye and the touch, but scientifically—sterilizing them—and do it at a saving of all the drudgery and nine-tenths of the time!
– The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

The rise of Bad Commies in USSR put an end to Dr. Schliemann’s vision of saving the world (or the USA, at least) from the evils of dishwashing. Luckily, the Capitalists would invent dishwashers anyway. (Or maybe they’re socialist dishwashers in a cunning disguise. That would explain the GRRRNNGTTTZZZ noise mine is making.)

The ad is from the 1940’s for Hotpoint Dishwasher, and thanks to Confessions of an Apron Queen for originally posting it.

Unless you’re familiar with Steven Colbert’s semi-regular Threatdown, you might not appreciate the blog post title. Either way, this vaguely threatening commercial as much is still worth watching.

I’m not entirely sure what to make of the last clause. “If they do exist?” Are we supposed to be scared of the bear, or are we supposed to be hallucinating the bear, or is this bear just a cunning disguise to distract me from the socialist bear standing behind my couch waiting to eat me as soon as I turn off the TV?

I lived most of my life after the Berlin wall was down and communism became simply a place which makes really inexpensive plastic stuff. I thought I could laugh at lurking bears. But, some people still think the woods are full of bears.

Two pounds of sugar a month?

That’s less than half a bag!

That’s only a few cups!

It takes my entire month’s ration to make two pots of sweet tea?!? That’s horrible! And how will I possibly make cookies to go with my sweet tea? To hell with England, France, and Italy!

Then I realized, I would actually get eight pounds of sugar a month (four person household), which is only a bit less than what I use normally. I’d still have to cut back on the tea, though, and since it’s one of the few things I’ve truly enjoyed about South Carolina… well, Federal Government, we might have a problem.

Image source: Library of Congress

I’ve occasionally toyed with the idea of growing my own vegetables. Rather like the Victory Garden idea, the concept of saving money (free vegetables in backyard) and fuel (less trips to the store) appeals to me.

Unfortunately, I kill plants. I have a very un-green thumb, despite having the best of intentions and trying to care for them. Either I overwater, or I plant the seeds wrong, or a cat eats it, or it just decides it’s a good day to die — I usually have no idea what’s gone wrong. So if World War II had relied on my Victory Garden, the Allied Forces would have failed miserably.

I think I’m going to settle for buying excess from the farmers’ market and canning it, I just need to get a pressure canner and those run about $300. So, uh, it’ll be a while…

Did you know that “car club” back in World War II meant “carpool”? At first I thought they were encouraging people to join AAA, and while I think that’s a good idea, I didn’t understand (1) why paying AAA for membership required extensive effort, and (2) how it saved fuel. It’s easy, but not really a gas-saving choice. Anyway, it’s carpooling. And this was just one of many recommendations made by the government during the troubled years of World War II; rationing and conservation were hot topics.

What with gas getting pricier (as I’m sure you’ve heard), there is a gradual return towards government-based endorsement of fuel conservation. One effort I recently saw is EcoDrivingUSA.com, a cute website which details little things you can do to reduce your fuel usage, thereby saving your planet AND your pocketbook — win-win! If nothing else, you can enjoy a brief video of the Terminator Governator Gov. Schwarzenneger discussing conservation.

Overall, the site is much more feel-good than a poster with a wounded soldier, and that’s probably a good thing for the modern audience. The reaction to trying to scare people into environmentalism — for example, describing flooded cities from melting icecaps — is pretty underwhelmed. There are arguments about the validity of scientific evidence, arguments about how it’s all just partisan politics, arguments about fearmongering, and arguments about whether we should be arguing. But when you say, “OK, fine, forget all that. What’s the problem with saving money, by buying less gas, by USING less gas?” it’s hard for someone to argue without looking like a raging asshole who has money to burn. Average Joe Factory Worker (back when I worked in the factory and talked to him regularly) was always pro-conservation when I ignored icebergs and made him think about his wallet instead.

That’s kinda sad, because I’d like Average Joe to care about polar bears, but I’ll settle for me loving polar bears and getting him to save them inadvertently.

Poster borrowed from the New Hampshire State Library collections. EcodrivingUSA.com link from Writes Like She Talks. Weird synergy of sources — that’s all me.