It’s class warfare I tell you!

I am still amazed that the Wall Street Journal of all places has hired my favorite writer (or perhaps I should say historian) as a columnist. Today, he gives us a history lesson based on Steve Greenhouse’s new book, The Big Squeeze (which I reviewed very favorably here):

Median “nonelderly” household income, we find, fell consistently through the first half of this decade, despite the solid economic growth enjoyed by the country as a whole.

Some nonmedian folks did just fine, of course: The top 20% of households earned more, after taxes, than the rest of the country combined in 2005, while the topmost 1% of the population took home more than the bottom 40%. The top-earning hedge fund manager of 2007, in fact, made about as much last year in nominal dollars ($3.7 billion) as J. Paul Getty, one of the richest men in the world, was worth in the mid-1970s.

Real hourly wages for most workers, on the other hand, have risen only 1% since 1979, even as those workers’ productivity has increased by 60%. What’s more, American workers now clock more hours per year than their counterparts in virtually every other advanced economy, even Japan. And unless you haven’t read a newspaper for 15 years, you already know what’s happened to workers’ health insurance and pension plans.

Who’d have thunk it? Class warfare on the pages of the Wall Street Journal.

I can’t wait to see what happens when Frank goes directly after Wall Street.

What happened to chicken.

I can’t say I recommend this essay in the New Yorker. Food is not too cheap or too expensive. It’s too cheap in America and too expensive in the developing world and those two conditions are directly related. Nevertheless, the essay does include a very good explanation of why the chicken you buy in the supermarket these isn’t what it used to be:

Roberts has a powerful passage on industrial chicken, showing how its vile flesh is a direct consequence of its status as economic commodity. In the nineteen-seventies, it took ten weeks to raise a broiler; now it takes forty days in a dark and crowded shed, because farmers are under constant pressure to cut costs and increase productivity. Every cook knows that chicken breast is no longer what it once was—it’s now remarkably flabby and yielding. Roberts reveals that poultry experts have a term for this: P.S.E., or “pale, soft, exudative” meat. Today’s birds, Roberts shows, are bred to be top-heavy, in order to satisfy consumers’ desire for “healthy” white meat at affordable prices. In these Sumo-breasted monsters, a vast volume of lactic acid is released upon death, damaging the proteins—hence the crumbly meat. Poultry firms deal with P.S.E. after the fact, pumping the flaccid breast with salts and phosphates to keep it artificially juicier. What they don’t do is try particularly hard to prevent P.S.E. They can’t afford to. The average U.S. consumer eats eighty-seven pounds of chicken a year—twice as much as in 1980—but this generates a profit of only two cents per pound for the farmer.

Roberts is Paul Roberts, and I’m buying his book The End of Food on the basis of that passage alone. I’ve previously written about problems with chicken at Wal-Mart. It’ll be nice to be able to explain them in better detail.

Who coined the term the “division of labor?”

I like this post from Freakonomics talking about early examples of specialization in production, which is essentially a simple way for talking about the division of labor.  However, if you think about it, it’s not really useful.  Of course, people divided labor before Adam Smith explained how it worked in an English pin factory.  The notion is common-sensical enough that anybody who thought about production in any depth would do it that way.

What I want to know is who coined the term division of labor?  Was it Smith?  He certainly popularized it, but who came up with the precise phrase “division of labor?”  Can anybody out there help me with this one?  How do you know?

YouTube players.

I just got an e-mail that took issue with this part of my Perspectives article:

“What separates YouTube from other sites with historical footage available is
not just the ability to post movies of your own (which is not a prerequisite
for using the site), but the fact that you cannot download clips from YouTube
onto your computer for viewing independent of the site. As its help page
explains, “YouTube’s video player is designed to be used within your browser
as an Internet experience.”"

YouTube’s video player is designed to be used within your browser, but it looks like there are folks out there who have invented YouTube players so that you can download stuff off the site and play it separately. I’m going to start experimenting with the one my correspondent suggested and get back to you on how it works. If you’re interested, you can find that player here:

http://mashable.com/2007/05/05/download-youtube-video/

The Black Knight.

And he’s not referring to Obama.

“[Y]ou’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop.”

This clip is absolutely perfect for classroom purposes, not to mention a mighty fine sentiment:

Chicago 1968.

I’m currently kicking myself for not thinking of looking for this earlier:

I’d cut it about 3 minutes in, when the editor here puts Mayor Daley on a loop.

Mmmmmmmm…..red beans [JR makes Homer sound].

What about red beans? Did you have red beans in Mississippi?

WMS: Oh not—no, not too many—black-eyed peas was mostly you know—and butter beans, but red beans, that’s—that’s a Louisiana dish.

Miss White: It sure is. ‘Cause you can’t get it in Texas—not no red beans. They used to could. They used to go over there— getting them around Beaumont and Houston. I used to send red beans to my people in Beaumont. In fact if I go over there I’d bring six—seven packs. Well they wasn’t but 59-cents a pound then. [Laughs]

WMS: They don’t have red beans like we have them. Honey and I just love me some red beans. This is a read bean city here. That’s it. If you don’t have no red beans you just out. And I cooked red beans Monday—I cooked them every day, but I cook the big lima beans on Mondays and Wednesdays. And every occasion I cook black-eyed peas, but them red beans—if I don’t have—oh I know better than not put no pot on the stove not unless I have red beans. Every day. [Emphasis Added] That’s my big seller.

– Willie Mae Seaton of Willie Mae’s Scotch House with Miss Hazel White, Interview with the Southern Foodways Alliance, New Orleans, Louisiana, July 2006.

Buffalo is very yummy!

I cut, sold, and presented a large portion of my purchase, so that it might be thoroughly tested as to its qualifications for the table; and I also tried different parts of it roasted, broiled, etc. The general answer returned to me was-it was excellent eating, being very tender, juicy, and fine-flavored, with a slight “gamey” taste: while some described it as being like the breast of quail, others something like long-killed, sweet, juicy venison….

In comparing the flesh or meat with that of beef, it appears somewhat darker, both flesh and fat, the latter much redder-in fact, the whole appearance was like that of an overheated animal, when killed in that state, and I found it much more juicy than I expected….

Mr John G. Bell, the well-known taxidermist, of our city, who travelled [sic] with “Audubon,” informs me that he had killed many buffaloes, and that the meat which had been cut off from the cow buffalo, when fat, he always found excellent eating. He compared the flesh of one with that of beef from a domestic cow, and thought the choice was in favor of the bison beef.

- Thomas De Voe, “Bison, commonly called buffalo,” The Market Assistant, 1867, pp. 112-13.

The “Little Giant” can’t catch a break.

Stephen, not Frederick. And while we’re at it, it’s Douglas with one “s.” Frederick had two at the end of his name. That second one just drives me crazy, and is common from students who know much more history than the anchors at Fox News do.

Thanks Robert for the tip.