The 22 statistics detailed here prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America.
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace.
So why are we witnessing such fundamental changes? Well, the globalism and “free trade” that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn’t tell us that the “global economy” would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations. The big global corporations have greatly benefited by exploiting third world labor pools over the last several decades, but middle class American workers have increasingly found things to be very tough
Found by QB.
#1… you can make the same argument that liberalism and the dems caused or i should say triggered this…. it started in the 60’s with the vietnam war, the great society, and putting a man on the moon that inflated the dollar and destroyed middle class purchasing power which put pressure on businesses to lower costs. the old saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions was proved out in the 60’s… oh ya the conservative backlash completely made things worse. in fact i personally think that reagan and conservatism has made things so bad they simply can not be fixed now, it is too late for progressive, honest, fact based idealism to save this era… we won’t see the america that many of us grew up in ever again…. its gone… all that’s left is greed, corruption, poverty, bickering, fighting and more misery. god help the usa
NO more??
Darn, this was a good debate.
#60
If a worker got MORE for working HARDER/doing MORE..many would be earning 3x pay.
Again, you are under this mistaken notion that working harder has anything to do with what ought to be paid. Companies hire people based on what they can contribute to their business in conjunction with what the market will bear. If Goldman-Sachs could hire financial advisers at $10/hr they would. They pay no more than $10-$20/hr for a janitor because that is the most they are worth to them.
IF a corp is interested in BUSINESS and reality. but they ARENT
Corporations are interested in maximizing profit. Labor is simply a means to that goal. If a given firm could keep profit the same by replacing all workers with machines, they would.
With a WAGE CAP, a company can Pick and CHOOSE, or hirer the next one, try them out, HIRE the next one until they get the person they WANT/NEED.
You are ignoring the disincentive for people to go into the field in question. Suppose we cap a general practitioner’s pay at 100K. Fewer doctors will go into this field (this is actually happening with geriatrics and medicare). Instead, they will choose other specialties that pay better. The effect is that you will have fewer general practitioners and you will have to offer more to find one. If you are not allowed to pay more to find one, you will have a shortage (again, just like there is a massive shortage of geriatricians).
RE: Profits.
There is absolutely nothing that says that a business must reinvest its profits. It can simply keep it for the shareholders. However, if a business is making tons of profit, that creates an incentive for other companies to enter the market place and partake of those profits. Eventually, competition creates downward pressure on those profits. If you start a business where you hire someone at 10/hr and you make 100/hr off their time. There is no reason you are required to share your profit with that person. If the person is unhappy with that arrangement, they can choose to work elsewhere.
They wont pay him more, because THEY SAY he has NO 20 years experience. REALLY, he wont find ANYONE to pay him much more. as they ALL have the Supervisor. they only need 1 supervisor for 5-10 mechs. Until HE and a FRIEND can build their OWN buisness, he will NEVER make more money.
This is the market doing exactly what it should. Clearly experience is valued more than education in your example. Your friend chose a profession that can only go so far with respect to wages especially without experience. Would you feel the same way for someone whose expertise was fixing horse drawn buggies? He needs to rethink his choices or go into business for himself and take on the risk of a startup. This is the market allocating resources (mechanics) in the most efficient means possible.
“You are ignoring the disincentive for people to go into the field in question. Suppose we cap a general practitioner’s pay at 100K. Fewer doctors will go into this field (this is actually happening with geriatrics and medicare). Instead, they will choose other specialties that pay better. The effect is that you will have fewer general practitioners and you will have to offer more to find one. If you are not allowed to pay more to find one, you will have a shortage (again, just like there is a massive shortage of geriatricians).”
But you WILL get more people as doctors..and NOT as many lawyers.. The POINT is that Anyone will be able to do JOBS THEY WANT/LIKE rather then looking for the HIGHEST WAGE..
LIVING will not be based on MONEY.
AND if you can PROVE an essential job is REQUIRED, you can have the wage RAISED..
I can PROVE a janitor is NEEDED, can you PROVE the CEO of enron is NEEDED?
“There is absolutely nothing that says that a business must reinvest its profits. It can simply keep it for the shareholders. However, if a business is making tons of profit, that creates an incentive for other companies to enter the market place and partake of those profits. Eventually, competition creates downward pressure on those profits. If you start a business where you hire someone at 10/hr and you make 100/hr off their time. There is no reason you are required to share your profit with that person. If the person is unhappy with that arrangement, they can choose to work elsewhere.”
OK, QUIT your job…now try to get one that pays MORE.
AND YES, basic business 101, says..If the profit is TO HIGH and everyone is paid, LOWER YOUR PRICES..It makes for MORE sales.
In the past 15 years, the corps have cut every INCH they can. Insted of returning the profit to the customer in lower prices for the SAVINGS, they have put it in their POCKETS. WHICH would have EASED many things from happening in the economy.
“This is the market doing exactly what it should. Clearly experience is valued more than education in your example. Your friend chose a profession that can only go so far with respect to wages especially without experience. Would you feel the same way for someone whose expertise was fixing horse drawn buggies? He needs to rethink his choices or go into business for himself and take on the risk of a startup. This is the market allocating resources (mechanics) in the most efficient means possible.”
NO it isnt..
Out of ALL professions, corps and business have discovered 1 thing to save money.
You dont need 100 PHD’s. You can get 1 PHD, and 99 IDIOTS to do the SAME JOB. If the idiot has a problem, he asks the PHD. The corps need 1/10 the HIGH END work force. this is a major concern in customer service, as they have found they can FARM this out over seas for EVEN CHEAPER. In manufacturing you need 1 programmer to setup all the machines and 1 person to monitor 5 machines, to keep them stocked and running.. which means we have FEWER MACHINISTS that KNOW what they are doing. WE arent developing KNOWLEDGEABLE people. we are creating IDIOTS, and the cost of education is STUPID.
But you WILL get more people as doctors..and NOT as many lawyers.. The POINT is that Anyone will be able to do JOBS THEY WANT/LIKE rather then looking for the HIGHEST WAGE..
No, you won’t. That is exactly the point. If you artificially cap wages on a given profession, you will create a shortage in that profession. Trying to centrally manage “needed” wage caps is a fool’s errand. It’s been tried and has failed miserably. Bureaucrats cannot react fast enough to changing market conditions. We have evidence of this today. Medicare has caps on what geriatricians can charge patients. The effect is that there are massive shortages in geriatricians and students going into geriatrics. That shortage isn’t because of lack of need; it is people do not want to go into that field when they can make more money in an alternate field. Worse still, most of the geriatricians are foreign because they will accept the lower wages. So, the caps have effectively wiped out American jobs and created a shortage.
Insted of returning the profit to the customer in lower prices for the SAVINGS, they have put it in their POCKETS. WHICH would have EASED many things from happening in the economy.
A. Corporations never return profit to the customer. They can take a lower profit margin but they never give it back to the customer.
B. A corporation will only accept lower profit margin when it has no other choice. Generally, corporations would rather increase prices and/or decrease costs rather than take a lower profit margin.
C. Corporations are not interested in “easing the economy”. That is a role for the government.
You dont need 100 PHD’s. You can get 1 PHD, and 99 IDIOTS to do the SAME JOB.
If 1 PhD and 99 idiots can do the same job why on earth would you hire 100 PhDs?! Further, this is a good thing. This is an incentive for those 99 PhDs to go do work elsewhere where it is needed.
The corps need 1/10 the HIGH END work force
That’s called productivity which is a measure how much you can produce with a given set of resources. If you can produce more with fewer resources, then you are more productive.
this is a major concern in customer service, as they have found they can FARM this out over seas for EVEN CHEAPER
Labor competes in the market place just as corporations do. If have two people that can do the same job and are equally qualified, all other things being equal, the person with the lower salary demands will get hired. A company evaluates the cost of labor by including all the taxes they must pay on that labor. Off-shore labor has its own logistical and cultural costs. If the overall cost of migrating to off-shore labor is cheaper than using domestic labor, it is in the best interest of the company to use that off-shore labor.
In manufacturing you need 1 programmer to setup all the machines and 1 person to monitor 5 machines, to keep them stocked and running.. which means we have FEWER MACHINISTS that KNOW what they are doing.
Which also means that if the number of machinists in the market place goes down, the salary they can command will go up. Having expertise as a machinist would then become a valued. In the late 90’s COBOL programmers were able to charge obscene prices because the language was nearly dead for new development which meant that COBOL programmers were few and far between and they were needed to review and resolve Y2K issues. If eventually it becomes the case that machinists are making very high salaries, it will provide an incentive for more people to learn to become machinists.
The market system is far more efficient at allocating resources than one that is centrally managed even if only through wage caps.
the middel class has to save itself if it can