Labor Day - once a lively celebration of both work and workers on the first Monday of September – is rapidly becoming a frighteningly clear symbol of where work and the economy have flown over the past many years - offshore. As almost every facet of the economy (except banking itself) is dropping to rock bottom with little hope of recovery except the wealth of investment bakers and corporate CEO's, etc.

Two weeks ago, JobsNow Coalition director, Kris Jacobs, said it as simply as it can be said: "the jobs aren't coming back because employers no longer need workers to make money." Moreover, whatever workers are needed can be had at one-tenth the immediate cost to the bottom line in places like Mexico, China, India. The long-term costs, however, have yet to be  completely known, although we've been reaping what this country's economic system has sown for the 60 years since WWII – tax and other financial incentives for American multinationals to invest everywhere but in their home country, thus destabilizing the middle class such that the culture is in severe danger of complete collapse.

Not a rosy picture many people would rather we didn't paint, but large segments of the so-called middle class have bought into the belief that corporations aren't responsible for this disinvestment - political figures and the government we've elected are. And, now, Labor Day, 2010, is upon us - and while we've been distracted by state fairs and political campaigns and gaga entertainment from every corner of the planet, the slide continues to erode the very earth underneath the United States and the State of Minnesota.

With Kris Jacobs on that TTT show was Steve Francisco of the Minnesota Budget Project, neither feeling at all sanguine about the future, but before our conversation, on that same program, we heard the first half of a great talk by DC Economist Dean Baker that sets the stage both for our later discussion and for his proposal for a special sort of revenue stream to feed the treasury and the deficit from the millions of stocks and bonds transactions occurring every day, despite the Great recession.

This week, we will air both segments of Baker's excellent talk and follow that up with another conversation about work and investment and where they're linked and why America no longer makes anything, but imports almost everything to the detriment of our working families.

Join TTT's ANDY DRISCOLL and LYNNELL MICKELSEN as we listen to Baker's complete talk, then welcome once again political science Professor and labor historian Tom O'Connell of Metropolitan State University to talk about where we've been and where we might go as a people, given the state of economic affairs facing us for the foreseeable future. Then  we hear how fast food workers are organizing and protesting low wages and working conditions from IWW union organizers.