If you want to see how future national policy wars will be fought, then keep your eye on Coca-Cola Company and the American Beverage Association. Over the next few years sugar will become the new tobacco – even as they try to quash the movement before it gets going.

"Fructose has nothing to do with obesity" is shaping up to be the "cigarettes don't cause cancer" debate for the 21st Century. Battle lines have been drawn; the fighting has started; the idea of a sugar tax has been getting more and more attention (in CA, NY, MA, MS, among others); and now that the First Lady has made obesity a national issue (calling out high-fructose corn syrup [HFCS] by name), the fighting will only get more intense.

Here we have a terrific case study in the making: the anatomy of a true 21st Century national PR/policy campaign (FYI… the bit about Coke comes at the end):

First Step: Fill The Coffers

The American Beverage Association, one of the primary conduits of sugar into the American bloodstream, is amassing a war chest that's unprecedented in its history.

Last year its lobbying budget swelled from a modest $1 million a year in 2006, 2007, 2008, all the way up to an eye-popping $20 million for FY 2009, with $17 million of that coming in the period October 2009 through January 2010. (According to the U.S. Senate LDA disclosure database.)

What are they getting ready for? All out war.

Step Two: Craft Your Messages

The Corn Refiners Association (CRA) made a good start with its “Sweet Surprise” website and ad campaign. The campaign tells us that high-fructose corn syrup is no worse for you than sugar. Which is like saying heroin is no more addictive than cocaine. But hooray for the effort at clarification.

And while corn refiners were busy on the biochemistry front, the American Beverage Association took a different tack. They added the tax issue to the "education" effort. Their message is that you can't tax people into better health. That's the role of education… helping people make better, smarter choices.

Seems like a reasonable position until you recognize that if the corn refiners succeed in their propaganda war, then refined sugar will remain ubiquitous and "educated" people will still make the same bad choices as before. See how nicely those two initiatives fit together?

The two-pronged approach is actually quite smart: While the aim of the overall program is to avoid taxation on sugar and sugar-heavy products, that goal can't be achieved unless people believe that sugar isn't bad for you – or at a minimum that it's "not that bad for you."

Without a benign public profile, all those sugar-heavy industries would have lost much of their defense against additional taxation. And with hundreds of industries, trillions of dollars, and millions of jobs on the line, we just can't have that. So…

image: fanpop.com

Step Three: "Educate"

Part A of the education program is getting your key representatives out there to talk up your messages. Like this webinar by President of the Corn Refiners Association Audrae Erickson, which is currently up on the website of Supply Side,one of the largest trade shows for the food additives industry (registration required). The goal is to leverage self-interest to recruit key supporters to the cause.

Part B is to get a Spokes-Guru. It appears that the corn refiners have gotten themselves a guy by the name of John S. White, an industry consultant who does business as White Technical Research and brings over 20 of experience in "nutritive sweeteners." (He co-hosted the webinar with Ms. Erickson.) Expect to see a lot of Mr. White blogging, writing articles, lecturing, appearing at government hearings and on TV morning shows as an "independent" analyst.

Part C is to have a whole book of half-true talking points that you can use to coax or cudgel your audience – as required.

Messages like "a calorie is a calorie." In energy content yes. But not metabolically. A calorie of glucose metabolizes differently and in different parts of the body than fructose, with very different results.

Step Four: AstroTurf

The Beverage folks are spearheading an effort called Americans Against Food Taxes, at the charmingly named URL "nofoodtaxes.com." According to the group's profile on the site:

Americans Against Food Taxes is a coalition of concerned citizens – responsible individuals, financially strapped families, small and large businesses in communities across the country – opposed to the Government's proposed tax hike on food and beverages, including soda, juice drinks, and flavored milks. The coalition has twin primary aims: 1) To promote a healthy economy and healthy lifestyles by educating Americans about smart solutions that rely upon science, economic realities and common sense; and 2) To prevent the enactment of this regressive and discriminatory tax that will not teach our children how to have a healthy lifestyle, and will have no meaningful impact on child behavior or public health, but will have a negative impact on American families struggling in this economy.

"A coalition of concerned citizens." Doesn't that sound so… grassrootsy? And if that's not enough, check out these background images lifted from the site:

Not a fat kid in the bunch. All beautiful white teeth. Great skin. Presumably they guzzle soda all day, and still they all look like the pretty, carefree, all-American teenager we all want to be.

And speaking of non-pimply teens… why is an anti-taxation website targeting 14-19 year olds? Because the Beverage Association believes 14-19 year olds are experts on tax policy? Because they're the next generation of Alex P. Keatons? Hell no. It's because kids are the primary market for soda and other sweetened drinks.

In reality — despite the fact that "big companies" comes last on their list of "concerned citizens — this AstroTurf group is bankrolled by more than 400 of the biggest names in food production and distribution, including:

• National Association of Convenience Stores
• Corn Refiners Association
• American Beverage Association
• Grocery Manufacturers Association
• National Supermarkets Association
• Florida Chamber of Commerce
• Georgia Agribusiness Council
• National Association of Theater Owners
• National Retail Federation

It even includes these unlikely groups:

U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Hispanic Leadership Institute, Hispanic Alliance for Prosperity, Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Federation, Hispanic Institute, The Hispanic Media Council, National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators, National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, National Hispanic Leadership Agenda…

Even the National Hispanic Medical Association! A medical association? Really?

How on earth did a medical association get behind a campaign to defend our kids' right to guzzle sugar? This is where we get to the part about The Coca-Cola Company.

Step Five: Mobilize Your "Communities"

Coca-Cola invests millions in Social Media. The company is so far ahead of the curve that it's getting top billing at this week's Ragan Communication's Social Media Conference and is even hosting the event at its Atlanta headquarters. (Feb 22-24).

And this, I believe, is going to be the most interesting part of the policy debate to watch: the Social Media mobilization. It will be the first real test of a corporation's ability to use social media PR not to sell product, but to mount a substantive defense of its business in a bare-knuckled policy fight.

Which brings us to the Hispanic Medical Association… this article from the L.A. Times reports that as part of its "minority marketing" efforts, Coke gives money to a lot of the Latin organizations mentioned above and even has executives on some of their Boards.

And a reporter from MinnPost confirmed with the LAT reporter that something got left out of his story: Bill Clinton spoke out against the sugar tax, but when the reporter checked the donor list for the Clinton Foundation: he found that Coke had given $5 million. Coke is even getting its workers into the act – protesting local sugar taxes.

Yeah so what. Most of this is old hat. No? Well, it is and it isn't.

Back in 2007, the head of Coke's PR department gave a presentation to the Georgia Chapter of the PR Society of America. In that presentation he showed the following graphic. (via O'Dwyer's, subscription required)

The key thing that's different today is that Social Media PR will give Coke the tools necessary to unite and mobilize all of its "communities" in business, government and civil society all at once in ways that "marketers" never imagined: as a PR army focused on fending off a threat to its business.

It will take the form of Facebook and Twitter and MySpace; contests, pages, groups, petitions, ringtones, and iPhone apps; it will be micro-targeted regionally, by age, by employment, by product preference, and by lifestyle choices like recreations and hobbies.

In short: this engine was built for marketing products. But now, it is about to be geared up and mobilized for another purpose: war. Specifically, to protect the profit interests of the corporation and maintain a business model that is potentially harmful to the "communities" that will be defending it.

The nofoodtax website has a few Social Media tools, but it pales in comparison to what a pioneer like Coke brings to the effort… not to mention Pepsi. From a PR point of view it will be a fascinating thing to watch.

If you're a parent worried about your obese pre-diabetic teenager… I'd have to imagine it'll be infuriating.

A Sugar Addict Confesses

sugar skulls by aliciapolicia.blogspot.com

I am a sugar addict. I love the stuff. Can't get enough of it. Takes all my willpower to walk past the dessert tray in the company cafeteria. I tend to cycle up and down and am currently about 180 pounds at 5'10" tall. This is my tipping point. The pants are a bit tight. The face feels a bit fleshy around the jowls… All the warning signs that I'm about to pork out. And yes even with a regular work-out routine and diet of mostly whole foods, sugar still does me in. (Could it be the eggs, butter and flour that the sugar is packaged with? You think?)

And yes, I love Coke. A big frosty glass of Coke with loads of ice. I like to wait until it's so cold it's almost frozen. And then I take little sips. Letting the caramel taste wash over my tongue before I let it slide down. So freakin' delicious.

But I also know it's a potential killer. I say "potential" because there are a lot of caveats to that statement. To get an idea of the content and temperature of the debate, do two things:

1. Watch this video (link)… in which Dr. Lustig makes a pretty compelling case that the metabolic pathways for fructose can create exactly the physiological effects that are the hallmarks of metabolic syndrome. (It's about 90 minutes)
2. Then read this post AND all the comments (link). In the comments Mr. Aragon debates Lustig. And Aragon makes a pretty compelling case that despite the chemistry, clinical research has yet to make a causative link between fructose and obesity. (Took me about 1 hour to read all the comments)

Notwithstanding the histrionics, both camps seem to agree on a couple of key points: the health effects of fructose are dose and context dependent; and excessive consumption of refined fructose really is bad for you.

So a few cents extra to make me think twice before I slug down a 16-ouncer is probably a very good thing. And if you don't drink soda then why the hell do you care if I'm paying a few cents extra in tax?

And if it makes soda more expensive, and kids drink less of it, isn't that the whole point? Foes of the tax need to explain how it's a "burden" on families to drink water and eat fresh fruit, as opposed to buying expensive sodas and sugar-laden, over-processed foods in a box. How can reducing sickness and healthcare costs be a burden?

It can't.

Who's Lobbying for You? Mobilize Yourself!

image: www.eatsugarmusic.com

And this is why a Social Media PR campaign on sugar will be so interesting to watch. All our incentive is to eat less refined fructose. Food companies have no such incentive. All their incentive is to get us to eat more of it.

To food companies, refined fructose (especially HFCS) is an important competitive advantage, in terms of taste, texture, shelf life, cost, among other things. It helps them sell. That's why they want to put more of it in more products, to get you to buy more of those products today than you did yesterday, last week, last month, last year. It's how they grow revenues and profits and generate returns for shareholders.

Their goals are to sell more and keep barriers at bay.

And to the latter point, Coke works with power-player Glover Park Group (GPG), a "strategic communications" firm in DC.  It's no coincidence they picked GPG, which has had two consecutive assignments with the Grocery Manufacturers Association on ethanol… GPG knows corn.. and the Senators that support it!

For their part, the Corn Refiners have retained a lobbying firm called DTB Associates. Their home page explains what they do:

We are committed to helping our clients find and use the most effective legal, lobbying, or negotiating tools to respond to whatever obstacles stand in the way of achieving their objectives in the global marketplace.

The goal of food companies in the "global marketplace" is to sell more product, and if it takes more refined sugar to do that, then that's what they'll do.

It's why corn refiners want to sell you sugar… grocery stores want to sell you sugar… beverage makers want to sell you sugar… bakers and cereal makers and dairy producers and convenience store owners and Burger King and the Hospitality Association and vending machine operators and movie theaters owners… they all want to sell you sugar… as much of it as you'll eat.

Preferably a hell-of-a-lot more than you need. And preferably in food that you don't even know it's there. That's their goal in the "global marketplace" and they're not going to let any "obstacle" stand in their way, not even your health.

Will they be successful in harnessing Social Media PR to get customers (who should be eating less sugar) to mobilize in "communities" in defense of companies who want customers to do just the opposite and eat more sugar?

We'll come back to this in 12 months or so and deconstruct it.

In the meantime, when you get hit up to participate in a fructose community mobilization, before you dive in, ask yourself: when it comes to the negative effects of sugar on your health… Who's really lobbying for your interests? Coke?

No one seems to be dancing to Goldman's tune these days. No matter how hard they crank the 'ole gramophone. But they are trying a new approach, actually publishing dance steps to Goldman's Bonus Hustle… a 14-page presentation on why they make so much damned money.

First though… who's getting the blame for Goldman's missteps? According to Charlie Gasparino it's the highest paid PR guy in the business: Goldman PR chief Lucas Van Praag. (Well… it's hard to say in fact he is the highest paid. Maybe George Sard makes more. But $1 million + probably puts Van Praag close to the top.)

According to the Charlie:

"a much-needed shift in public-relations strategy is in the works, sources close to the firm say"

Hmmm… interesting that this news appeared on the same day that Bulldog Reporter's newsletter (The Daily Dog) reported that Goldman has put out a 14-page slide presentation explaining why its executives deserve to make so much money. And boy is it a dooozy!

DO THE HUSTLE!… THE NEW GOLDMAN DANCE CHART

If this represents the company's "much-needed shift" in PR strategy then it is in big trouble.

The charts and graphs are pretty, if entirely abstruse. Its main point seems to be that Goldman does much better than its peers, which is why its execs get paid more. What it doesn't address are all the issues that people actually have a problem with… like:

– Why does the entire sector suffer from bloated salaries and bonuses?

– Why is your bonus pool so stupendously huge… less than a year after you nearly went bankrupt?

– How did you TRIPLE firm revenues in just three years (2004 – 2007) after five years of relatively flat earnings?

– Could it possibly be that you attached a Hoover to the mortgage and derivatives markets — sucking out tens of billions in earnings and leaving the nation's pockets empty?

THE ZERO-SUM END-GAME

When this game of musical chairs is over, Mr. Van Praag may be without a seat at the Goldman buffet, but my guess would be that Goldman's C-Suite is so hidebound and tin-eared when it comes to reputation risk, that no one could talk sense to them. Even if one dared.

But it does show to go ya, you can bite your tongue in the presence of sr. execs and execute on all their bad ideas to save your job and not rock the boat. But bad ideas are bad ideas and they never work. And the one who ends up executed is you.

The short-term incentive is to shut up and salute. In the long-term it gets you the same place you would have if you'd spoken up and challenged them in the first place.

Kinda makes you think…maybe speaking up and challenging the powerful is worth the risk.

Who knows, you might succeed. At least you can say you tried. And you won't end up the scapegoat for all their bad ideas.

It's tough to pinpoint when the PR profession "jumped the shark." But it has, and in spectacular fashion.

Outsiders are seldom privy to the inner workings of the global spin machine. But every once in a while someone leaves the door ajar and you can peer in to see just how twisted are its guts.

Such is the case with newly released documents in the ever-widening Sarah Palin ethics quagmire. Seems that Andree McLeod just won't give up, even if it is all the result of a "falafel fight." Well, 'tis her right. And accrues to our benefit.

Take the recent emails she unearthed. (Posted by Sam Stein on HuffPo)

Get the Pepto-Bismol ready and then read the following. It's from an internal email, from one of Palin's communications staffers, asking the campaign for clarification about what the candidate believes:

"On abortion, she is pro-life, but does she oppose exceptions for rape and incest? On sex education, does she favor an abstinence-only approach or does she allow for contraceptives?"

Here is one PR staffer flack asking another PR staffer flack to tell him exactly what Palin is supposed to believe. At least, in public.

This is how the game works folks. In black and white. Couldn't be any clearer. Many of Sarah's supposedly deeply held ideas about the moral issues of the day are a confection.

In reality, most public "messages" and images are manufactured to achieve a specific goal, and very rarely are: 1) the messages true to the speaker, and 2) the stated goal of the speaker and her true goal one and the same.

All the feigned certitude by politicians and business scions is just that, feigned with an institutional purpose. All thanks to the "conscience" of the world: its highly paid flack army.

CANONIZING SAINT STALIN, FOR A HEFTY RETAINER FEE

Jack O'Dwyer's Newsletter recently reported that Russia hired a PR firm to rehabilitate the reputation of one Josef Stalin. Yes, that one: he of the ruthless, repressive, dictatorial 30-year reign. He of the Great Purge, and Gulags, and secret Pogroms. 20 million dead. Maybe more… who knows.

According to Eurobserver.com, the program is being run by the state-owned Russian news agency in partnership with a private outfit called RJI Companies… which offers no definition of itself on its website, only that it provides "strategic communications" according to the following ideal:

"In the international game of strategy, winning is the result of global intelligence, expertise, and bold vision. Today, the stakes are higher, the strategies more subtle. With RJI on your team, you bring unparalleled experience, subtlety and integrity to the table."

Interesting that the word "subtle" is the only word (other than "the" and "and") used twice in this short primer. In other words: secret, hush-hush, under-the-radar propaganda. Visit the website and see if its clandestine look and feel doesn't give you the shivers.

Eurobserver reports that RJI has tried to recruit heavy-weight PR firms to the cause:

"A senior executive at the PR firm in question recalled one particular exchange with the RJI Companies envoy: 'I asked him "Do you want us to say that Stalin was not such a bad guy?" And he said "Well, I know it will be difficult." I said So, you want history to be rewritten? And he said "Yes, in a way."'

"'Expect to see more articles in European newspapers saying that Stalin had his good points as well,' the PR executive said."

Inside Russia, such efforts are apparently "well underway," including the rewriting of high-school history books. Outside Russia, it's all a lie or course, according to a flack for the Russian news agency. She told Eurobserver that no such PR contracts exist. Whom do you believe?

(And for the record, Russia's PR firm in the U.S. is Ketchum.)

ENOUGH ABOUT "CONSCIENCE" ALREADY

We need to stop lionizing the PR profession as some sort of "conscience." It's self delusion that only masks PR's terminal disorders and prevents effective treatment.

We've talked about how PRSA chairman Cherenson loves that sort of baseless happy talk. But even the admirable gadfly Wendell Potter still encourages PR professionals to consider themselves the "'conscience' of their employers," according to the Nov 18 issue of O'Dwyer's. Apparently Potter and Arianna Huffington were on a panel together at a PRSA event in San Diego and were of the same mind.

Sadly, as LiteralMayhem has chronicled, when a corporation (or any center of power) is pressed to the wall by outside forces, PR pros have little to no influence in how the powerful respond. Rarely does conscience enter into C-Suite or political decision making.

And all too often PR pros are eager to do any bidding, no matter how foul; say anything any create any image, no matter how stilted; and devise any talking point no matter how obfuscatory; in short, do anything necessary to serve the client/boss… and secure a fat retainer/pay check.

As a result of PR's Machiavellian misadventure, the public is all the poorer… Public discourse corrupted for a pfennig, a corner office, and a lucite memento of the deal. It's a shame really because there is such potential for good.

But maybe I am making a mountain out of a molehill. Perhaps it's just human nature. After all, manufacturing a vice presidential candidate or rehabilitating a vicious dictator is small potatoes compared to American conservatives' efforts to rewrite the Bible.

One of our chief entertainments here at LiteralMayhem is the contortion, manipulation and general abuse of language — primarily at the hands of PR and marketing folks. But sins abound throughout the worlds of business, academia, and politics… and when those worlds collide, watch out.

You're certain to get some truly head-spinning, tongue-teasers like this one:

"We come together to offer a tangential view, not a consensus view, and not the average view. We seek to synthesize information and ideas from different vectors and extrapolate a resultant vector in an orthogonal dimension."

Sometimes you read something and you feel like you've just had brain surgery. It hurts so much you have to ask: Oh for Heaven's sake, what on Earth were you thinking? What does it MEAN??? Please, someone pass the Vicodin.

The quote comes from a blog on Huffington Post by Leslie Pratch, an executive coach who "assesses the leadership potential of executives." Ms. Pratch appears to be a highly qualified academic who:

"helps executives strengthen their capacity for active coping and bring about dramatically improved performance in a relatively short period of time."

In other words (less than the 1,500 or so used on the firm's website to describe its service offering), she counsels CEOs on how not to act like dickweeds.

REDUCING WAGES TO "MARKET-CLEARING LEVELS"

What caught my eye was a recent post by Ms. Pratch entitled: "Are U.S. Workers Overpaid?"

Hmmm… But who, pray tell, is a "worker?" Don't we all work? Doesn't Ms. Pratch herself "work" for a living?

The term "work" comes from Old English "weorc," its original meaning closer to achievement, accomplishment, or deed — the outcome of one's labor rather than the process of one's labor (i.e., doing work). But over the centuries, the term "worker" has evolved to connote more about the process of work, particularly manual, industrial, or manufacturing labor… or as a catch-all: unskilled labor.

For example, Marxists deepened the association of "worker" with manual labor in mid-1800s, as did the U.S. trade union movement during the Industrial Revolution, and Maoists in the 1920s with their identification of "workers and oppressed peoples."

All this is a neat preface to Mr. Pratch's point when she says:

"U.S. workers are overpaid relative to equally-productive foreign workers doing the same work. If the global economy is ever going to get back into balance, that gap needs to be closed…

"It's possible to run the numbers to show that U.S. manufacturing workers should take average real wage cuts as much as 20% to get into global balance. The required cut may be smaller."

[emphasis added]

And if one follows today's economic debate — about jobs, wages, inflation, and middle class prosperity — the crux of the problem always seems to be these pesky "workers" wages. U.S. "workers" are uncompetitive and they have to suck it up and take a pay cut.

Pay has to be "equalized" to "market clearing levels," according to Pratch, so that poor countries no longer outcompete "rich" countries simply on wages and productivity. The threat hanging over our collective heads is… "something approaching 1930s levels of unemployment."

A "WORKER" HERE, A "WORKER" THERE…

What's interesting here is that the cultural definition of "worker" (i.e., our notions about who is and isn't one) is central to the economic debate and greatly influences its outcome.

The products that all "workers" make are pretty much the same (notwithstanding Chinese drywall, pet food, kid's toys, heparin, etc.). A running shoe made in India is usually not materially different from one made in Indiana.

So it begs the question: If that shoe up on the shelf is worth $100 no matter where it's made, then why shouldn't the worker's share of the price be the same no matter where he or she lives? The aggregate work contribution is the same, whether it takes two man-hours on an expensive machine, or twenty man-hours at a wooden bench in thatched hut.

The answer is that if we can get away with paying less to "workers" who live somewhere else, it's better for profits… and thus, shareholders.

But such wage penalties are only applied to a subset of "workers"… only those whose jobs are mobile. It's mobility that's being penalized. Not intrinsic talent, contribution or worth.

The relevance of linguistic hair-splitting becomes clear when one considers other types of "workers"… say, of the over-paid, linguistically challenged consultant variety.

These "workers" get to charge $200 to $300 an hour to tell a CEO not to act like an asshole because that particular job isn't mobile… the CEO lives in a rich country and won't move to a poor country to save the company money.

THE DOUBLE STANDARD FOR EXECUTIVE "WORKERS"

Here's a funny thing about executive "workers": Even if the CEO did decide to move to a poor country, he'd probably get paid MORE to do so. It's called a "foreign service bonus" or a "hardship bonus." 

When "work" shifts overseas for the LOCAL talent to do it, the "worker" gets paid less. But when a U.S. "executive" has to move to such a country, he actually gets paid MORE. Living with substandard amenities earns you a premium, but only if you're starting out from a place of privilege.

There's something pretty hinky about insisting that I deserve to be paid more to go live among you in your foreign, peasant shithole… but since you already live there and you're used to it, you deserve to be paid a lot less than a non-shithole-dwelling (i.e., Western) "worker" gets paid for doing the same job.

Economists will no doubt tell me I have it all wrong. It's all about capital flows, and efficiency gains, and labor cost equalization, and productivity measures, and a whole lot of other intricacies that the un-schooled do not understand. I would reply that it's about language: meaning, understanding, and perception.

Instead of saying that U.S. wages are too high, why can't we just say that really really poor "workers" deserve a really really big raise?

After all, whether I pay the "worker" 15 dollars an hour to work on a machine, or 5 cents an hour to work at a wooden bench, I'm sill going to charge you $100 for the sneakers. And I'm still going to pay Ms. Pratch her First-World salary to show me how to do it in the nicest, most humane, gender-neutral kind of way. With an "active coping style" of course.

The question gives lie to Pratch's assertion about the "required cut" in U.S. wages. There is nothing "required" about it. No invisible hand is signing U.S. pink slips. No unseen irresistible cosmic force "requires" that poor workers get paid less.

These are choices that people make because we can. And while we may look to the complex jargonistic labels of economics for rationalizations and justifications, there really aren't any. Wage levels (for both the unskilled and skilled alike) are a relative value based simply on an accident of history: where you were born. Keeping them that way is a choice, not an act of God.

LEVELLING THE CEO

To the author(s) partial credit, in the comments section of the blog post, Ms.Pratch's colleague clarifies their position on CEO pay:

"In our article we classify CEOs as workers. CEOs are employed by the shareholders via the board. Most CEOs are not owners of their business. CEO wages need to get normalized as well."

Well actually, in the article Ms. Pratch says no such thing. There is no mention anywhere of "CEOs as workers." And CEO wages being equalized DOWNWARD is about as likely as Rush Limbaugh tongue kissing John McCain on the Capitol steps.

All the references in Ms. Pratch's piece clearly are to "workers" of the manual, industrial, manufacturing, unskilled, under-educated variety. And her partner Raj's hostility to "workers" of this ilk is evident in his comment:

"Lazing in a recliner, claiming exploitation, blaming the world and reminiscing about past glories is not the playbook to compete globally."

Unless of course you're an ousted CEO who flew off on his golden parachute to a comfortable retirement in Boca. Or an academic with a thriving CEO baby-sitting practice.

Economists treat "workers" akin to vivisection subjects only because they don't identify with them. The word "worker" has a precise cultural meaning that splits them off from all of us who "work" for a living, but whose jobs are not mobile enough to be vulnerable.

All of that is changing. For those of us lucky enough to have jobs these days, "work" is a blessing. But it's also a source of angst. Even many "workers" of the executive variety are now finding themselves just as vulnerable as workers of every other kind.

Figuring out a solution to our employment, wage and quality of life issues requires dropping our current limited concept of "worker" — as well as its narrow implications. Everyone is vulnerable, even Ms. Pratch and her fellows in the consultant class. Have you seen the quality of the robots coming out of Japan these days?!

[P.S. "orthogonal" = perpendicular; and if you teach yourself how to "extrapolate a vector in an orthogonal dimension" you'll have job security for life!]