In April 1966, with the economy running hot and workers in short supply, California gubernatorial candidate Ronald Reagan did not mince words about the wisdom of providing government money to the unemployed or about the character of recipients.
“Unemployment insurance,” Reagan is reported to have told a Republican dinner crowd, “is a prepaid vacation for freeloaders.”
Whether Reagan actually meant those words is questionable, but a half-century later they still echo albeit less harshly in the debate over possible reasons for the recent gap between available jobs and workers willing to fill them. Suspicions remain that among the nation’s unemployed are slackers exploiting the pandemic-related benefits flowing from Washington and state governments.
Our Enemy: The Boardroom How business makes a sucker of Middle America
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In the 2020 election, business lined up squarely on the side of the candidate and party that promised higher taxes (including corporate taxes), a higher minimum wage (which will drive up wages across the board), re-regulation and a Green New Deal, which will send energy costs soaring.
Joe Biden spent his entire adult life in the warm embrace of government. His political career was devoted to attacking capitalism. Donald Trump is not only an unapologetic spokesman for the free market, but a highly successful businessman.
So, when given a choice, the boardroom went with the taker over the maker, with the aristocracy of pull (as Ayn Rand called it) over the aristocracy of profit. Lenin’s old axiom needs to be updated – “We’ll sell capitalists the candidate we’ll use to hang them.”
Madison in the Sixties – In Memoriam, University of Wisconsin
The namesakes of two of the three South East dorms passed away this decade. Economics professor emeritus Edwin E. Witte, former department chair and namesake of the second southeast dorm, died May 20, 1960 at age seventy- three. Witte began his UW career as a teaching assistant in the history department, became an economics lecturer, and worked eleven years as head of the state’s Legislative Reference Bureau. He became a full professor of economics in 1933. Two years later, he was the principal author of the Social Security Act.
George C. Sellery, dean of the College of Letters and Science from 1919 to 1942, namesake of the first dorm, died on his ninetieth birthday, January 21, 1962. A scholar of Renaissance history, Sellery, came to Wisconsin for his doctorate at the invitation of the legendary historian Frederick Jackson Turner. An educational conservative, Sellery was acting president after the regents fired Pr
Madison, December 1969
Madison in the Sixties – December, 1969
December 2 A massive urban renewal project for the Miffland neighborhood runs into trouble at the Plan Commission, as area alderman Paul Soglin challenges plans for high-rise condo units. Soglin wants to rehab the existing housing stock through renovation and cooperatives rather than build new.
December 6–7 About seventy women students, TAs, young professionals, wives, and mothers attend the Women’s Liberation Conference at the University YWCA on Brooks St. Workshops include “The Psychology of Women,” “Women and Sex,” “Family Structure Alternatives,” “Women and Racism,” “Images of Women in the Mass Media,” “Women as Exploited Consumers,” “Jobs and Pay Structure for Women.”