Comic Duffleman

Inspired by the Joseph A. Domino book review posted at the end of this exclusive interview with Cyrus Duffleman, H.E. Whitney, in The Disposable Adjunct, included some of Joe's text and rendered this graphic interpretation:

Post by Disposable Adjunct.

pay adjuncts, work hard, live below your means

I didn't know Joseph A. Domino's article in The Huffington Post was coming, but I have known Joe through various e-mails since the spring of 2010, soon after I first learned that Fight for Your Long Day would be published. His early enthusiasm for the novel led to his testimony as a blurb on the adjunct situation at the front of the book.

Reading Domino's HuffPo piece, good writing that presumably didn't earn him a dime, it struck me that 1) Joe left out a lot of personal adversity he's faced; 2) in several fluid paragraphs, he captures the 1970s recession as well as the present moment for far too many; and 3) the man has worked hard, forty plus years of it, and he deserves his retirement with a degree of dignity.

Also, Joe says that some might call him "cheap," but I'd suggest that the way he implies he has handled his money over the years is very reasonable given the elasticity of the American economy with all of its downsizing, outsourcing, unpredictable inflation, artificial bubbles, and market gyrations. In fact, we're at an intraday all-time high for the S&P 500 right now, but everyone knows that the S&P index is unpredictable and recently has become less reliable as a predictor of the average adult American's fate.

So if there are any younger workers or students reading this blog, I'd encourage you to live like Joe, below your means, and, if possible, save more than a penny for a rainy day and try to navigate the world of lower-expense safer investments. On this topic, for younger Americans, student-loan debt is often a significant obstacle, and so I also wanted to share again one government website and additional information on possibilities for safely and legally lowering payments and even having some debt forgiven outright.

If you work hard, live modestly, and save diligently, there are still plenty of ways to imagine the worst, everything from personal emergencies to total ecological collapse, but it's also possible you may enjoy a little breathing room as an older worker and retiree.

(This post's final paragraphs are dedicated to the good friend who has recently expressed concern that the narrator of "Frade Killed Ellen" has a far too pessimistic view of America. The same friend likes to remind his college students of how we can go through major life changes throughout our middle years, and how it can feel like turning the corner at age 40 is when life really begins. Of course, I realize that for many of us, there's a strong sense of what's done is done and what will be already is, and I wish I knew how to snap my fingers, get rid of this feeling, and improve various lives all at once.)

unionize finance?

The story of the Americas continues to unfold as a union in Brazil funds finance workers organizing in New York:

The Brazilian union CUT (Unified Workers’ Central) has provided seed money for organizing efforts in New York City, Miami and Orlando, home to Banco do Brasil branches and call centers. (Brazilian unions have also supported American automotive workers.) CUT president Vagner Freitas explained this transnational strategy at a union convention in September, saying, “We don’t have the bank workers in the U.S. organized, so we can’t organize workers around the world. A lot of them are in the U.S., and they have a great role to play.”

It's tempting to say that we've come endless cycle, I mean full circle, since the days of Kissinger and Pinochet, and yet as of right now, according to a veteran teller, pseudononymous Ryan Filson, quoted in the article, $10 per hour remains the twenty-year-old starting wage for a NYC bank teller. Read the full article at the unionized paper of record. Oh, sorry. I meant read more at Al Jazeera, but I couldn't find anything online which indicated that Al Jazeera's journalists were unionized.

And this article from The Huffington Post suggests a third of our country's half million bank tellers subsist by drawing upon some form of public assistance. (And, of course, I can't prove that the HuffPo writer receives any monetary compensation, but at least one Tenured Radical suggests this is highly unlikely.)

Anyway, on this warm Friday in early December, the slippery slope leads to new employment numbers released this morning, and the employment figures are positive once again, with another 203,000 jobs added in November, but I imagine that the worker-participation rate remains at or near its all-time lows.

You tell me.