The Personal is Political. The Political is Personal.

 
we're all "first-of-tha-month"-ers now


This week's new vocabulary phrase: "paycheck cycle."

The phrase is a nice euphemism that could be used to talk about a proposition that's more directly stated as: "Wal-Mart can tell from the spikes in its sales data that an increasing number of working class Americans are surviving paycheck to paycheck."

Wal-Mart's factsheets make clear that it understands the phenomena and knows just how to respond: by increased sourcing "from the global market."

What import for the New Economy? Well, Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr. already has explained why he has no intention to try to be the Henry Ford of the 21st Century. In rejoinder, Michael of the "Reading A1" blog already has explained why one can see it as at least a wee bit paternalistic to the extent that one such as Scott presumes to speak on behalf of his customers.

So what do you do with your typical customers after your family has attained $102 billion in worth, and you preside over the largest corporation and private employer in your country, but your country is becoming one where the typical resident is too poor to buy your products?

Dump them.

Meanwhile, anyone living in the biweekly paycheck-to-paycheck crew who gets paid today, June 2nd, can look forward to the month ahead: three "paycheck" Fridays in June 2006! Woo hoo!

[update 10/22/07: "Living Paycheck to Paycheck Gets Harder," from the AP]

posted by TiR at 7:01 AM