Why wages really are so low today

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As long as the Cronies can outsource, American labor is in trouble over all. The bargaining position of American workers who want to live at middle class wage levels is none too robust at the moment.

Wages (on average) went flat in 1970 (indexing for inflation of course). What happened then is the wives went to work to provide another income, and when that hit a limit, workers went into debt with those god damned credit cards. You can bet the Cronies pushed that pretty hard. Keep the workers in debut and you have the modern equivalent of a Serf.

ruveyn

What nonsense, I grew up in the Australian equivalent of a council house and thanks to people who thought I might become a king I ended up attending two prestigious universities in the US. I could never afford the education I received off of my own back, or the wealth of my family. I cannot get student loans in America because I am Australian. However, scholarships and government support have given me a massive leg up in life. I was raised on government support, by a single parent, you want to hand out hard lessons, go be a part of the problem someplace else. The cure for cancer is probably in the brain of someone living in a Mumbai slum right now. One of the biggest issues with being poor is you do not even know what opportunities are available to you. As for the whole, you're not actually equal nonsense, I lived in a dorm built by Rockafellas and the Sorros family, my room mate was from Eton and Cambridge, I am immune to snobbery at this point.

If one is in the U.S. I say lots of luck.

ruveyn

That is indeed the problem. The very thing that makes production grow makes the consumption of the goods produced by workers less and less. I simply do not see have a consumer economy can sustain itself unless wages are sufficiently high to permit the people who make the stuff and perform the services capable of purchasing what they make. Even an arch-capitalist like Henry Ford payed his workers enough so they could afford to buy a Ford automobile.

It is in the interest of the Corporate Lords of Creation to have a work force capable of buying what is produced. Even the Cronies ought to be able to grasp that simple principle. One does not have to be an altruist to understand that beggaring one's neighbor is not the key to prosperity. That is just Zero Sum thinking. Christ Almighty! I hate the Zero Sum Lie more than I hate zits and dandruff !

ruveyn

And, again, we are back to the law of supply and demand.

Not to go off on a tangent, but some have decried the problem starting with WWII and women going to work in the factories. It's not about sexism...it's about numbers.

In WWII, men went to war, women had to go into the factories to meet production demands. After WWII, many women liked doing "non-traditional" jobs and having the income. When the men came back, they wanted to stay in the workforce. However, immediately when the men returned, you can see a drop in the rate that wages increased for all people. Up to then, the pay scales reflected a world where the man was a sole income earner for a whole household. Now, we were seeing more dual-income households, and as there was a lot of work to do, people didn't notice this impact on earnings.

Later, as things evened out, more people had dual-income households so they could enjoy more faster (valid point), but in time, it became a necessity for people to have a dual-income household just to meet a relatively low standard of living.

The problem was always the same...too many available workers and too few jobs.

Some of you are tossing about the idea of automation as a solution. The problem is that it won't work. Why should anyone get a free ride while others have to work? Who pays to provide for those who don't work? Maybe in an IDEAL world nobody would have to work, but we don't live in an ideal world. We have a big enough fight over providing welfare benefits for those who legitimately cannot work. I can't imagine the fight we'd have over people who either can't get the skills or don't want to get the skills to find a job now lining up to get what they need for free.

If society must provide you a home, food, clothing, etc., to what extent should you be provided? If the working person enjoys a LOWER standard of living than someone who is on the dole, that's not going to go over very well, but you can imagine the class hatred if those at the bottom "suffer" because we won't give them enough.

In the end, there are too many humans on the planet. We don't have enough "work" that we want to pay for in order to put everyone to work. The more we make it so a machine can do a person's labors, the more people who can't find a job. It's basic math.

As long as we presume scarcity is the norm, we shall have dog eat dog in some form or another.

What we need is a way of promoting human potential without creating a class of welfare bums (and that includes the Cronies who get a government subsidy, by the way), welfare bums who would rather sit on their arses than find new stuff and new ways of going things.

Frankly, I do not know who to promote this worthy goal. Surely share the wealth by a government operated redistribution scheme is a sure fire disaster. But Beggar They Neighbor is just as sure fire a disaster is well.

For the life of me, I cannot figure a way of promoting fairness and justice as normal modes of operation.

If you have any ideas pray do share them.

BTW, Supply and Demand are just as likely to promote greed and the Zero Sum as they are to promote a sustainable rational economy.

ruveyn

I know ... and, at any moment, I expect to be labelled a 'Troll' for my efforts.

I didn't say all jobs would be taken away, did I? Only that their numbers and hours could be severely reduced under automation.

Also, I know pretty well how things are. I was more interested in how things should be and to see how we could work toward that.

Also, I am actually doing quite well as things are, but I see many of my peers doing poorly. I consider this for me to have arisen more from good fortune than from any innate skill or ability. It seems there is an assumption that anybody who is doing well wouldn't be making these arguments, only whiners.

Last edited by beneficii on 03 Jan 2014, 12:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You have nothing but contempt for me, don't you?

Why do you say that?

Because you assumed the only response I can have for you is to call you a troll:

When did I mention you? Does the word 'beneficii' appear in that sentence? Not everything anyone has ever said is all about you.

If people would stop whining and take that to heart, their lives would improve.

Equal outcome =/= Equal ability, personality etc.

There's that assumption.

Actually, you were saying that of all your opponents. If you had more respect for your opponents, then you would never have said that.