A reminder that some things never change...
- Thread starter WATU2
- Start date
The Bottom 20% to 40%, can't get my order right or give me correct change, with a smile.
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So what WATU is saying is that under Obama the 1% has grown stronger. I agree. With the deficit spending we've had lately under Obama, the only ones getting significantly poorer in the long run are the kids who'll be paying for this as long as they live. Instead of pushing grandma over the cliff, it was a baby carriage.
Income inequality is not a bad thing. If my pay check is going up by 10, I don't care if someone else's is going up by 50. The only thing bad about the graph at the right is the bottom 20% going down, and that has only occurred since 1998. All groups have been pretty stagnant since then, but through most of the 80's and 90s all saw significant income growth.
Income is a pretty worthless indicator anyway. Anybody who doesn't think the bottom 20% have better living conditions today than in 1979 is in fantasy land.
Also http://www.manhattan-institute.org/pdf/ir_2.pdf
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i would argue that extreme disparities in income between the ultra rich and the middle class are certainly not a good thing, especially when only a portion of the income of the wealthy is being reinvested reinfected into the economy. It's basically just siphoning out a percentage of the nation's available capital over time and putting it in the hands of maybe 100 people. Who can save it or move it off shore and it's pretty much lost until they decide to bring it back.
Combine that with the inflation we saw over the last 20-30 years and the average American is really hurting.
Combine that with the inflation we saw over the last 20-30 years and the average American is really hurting.
Simply not true. The average American is better off now than at pretty much any time in history, with a few percent more unemployed/underemployed. Wealth is not zero-sum. One person or group increasing wealth does not mean less wealth for someone else. It's not just a fixed pie that must be divided up. The 90's were great economically. Income inequality increased a lot, but everyone did better overall. No one should care that some did better than others. It only matters to the envious and jealous. One could even argue that income inequality is actually a net positive in the context of capitalism.
From a moral perspective, people with outrageous salaries should give most of it away. They should. But no one should make them and no one should be upset that they make more money.
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When living wages are no longer being paid, the sense of fairness in the society is negatively affected. Those well off find it easier to blame those who are not as lazy or not working hard enough. Those at the bottom sense that the system no longer works and find it easier to seek other solutions or slack off by figuring the game is rigged against them. If an economy can no longer be trusted to deliver on its promises (the American Dream), then regardless of what the DowJones or GDP numbers are, the economy is weaker. Sending manufacturing jobs overseas, even continuing to subsidize the transfer, helps stock holders but not those who lost their jobs.
Our politics reflect that now. Trump and Bernie offer different solutions to the same dissatisfaction.
If you normalize wages with inflation via the consumer price index, you'll see that consumers had the largest and most effective income in 1972. Recently the government has also taken to normalizing against another inflation metric the personal consumption expenditure (PCE). The PCE says that wages (normalized for inflation) dipped in the 90's but have actually rebounded. However, if you read about the PCE it is a more 'noisy' metric. It measures the efficiency of the consumers' dollar, but it also lobs in corporations and government agencies that make purchases as "consumers". So, if you're talking about the overall industrial strength of the US, yes the US is up... but if you're talking about JUST the average consumer's (read - middle class) ability to buy goods and services compared to that of previous generations, we're down and have been for some time.
Income inequality is a net positive if you buy into the sanctity of capitalism, like there's nothing wrong with it. I don't. I know that greed is a stronger power than generosity in this world. I'm not arguing for socialism or communism and a redistribution of wealth, just a re-balancing of the pool table so to speak, so that everyone's efforts don't tend to roll one way.... right into the pockets of a small number of people who probably didn't do too much to earn it anyway.
in "olden" days, if someone wanted something, they saved for it.
Now if someone wants something and they can't afford it now, it's not their fault they cant pay for it.
i.e. Frank/Dodd "everyone deserve a house eve if they can't pay for it".
Now if someone wants something and they can't afford it now, it's not their fault they cant pay for it.
i.e. Frank/Dodd "everyone deserve a house eve if they can't pay for it".
Well that's the thing, I didn't say I was talking about JUST the average consumer's ability to buy good's and services. I was talking about quality of life and living standards altogether. What percentage of the poor had airconditiong in 1979? How about owned their own home? And now? Own a car? Have cable TV? Own a computer? In 2009, 96 percent of poor parents stated that their children were never hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford food. The best time in history to be poor in America is now. This doesn't mean they live in luxury or don't struggle. It just means that most poor people(as America classifies poor) are not going without, which could not have been said in your golden age of income equality. I grew up in the bottom 20%-30% depending on the year(though I wouldn't say poor) and we lived better than a typical middle class family in the 70s. And again income is just a really poor metric to use even in adjusting for inflation, because often employers have forgone increases in wages in favor of other work benefits. It also matters if income is measured before/after taxes and whether it includes government expenditures. Not to mention there are several who would dispute your numbers, or at least how they were calculated and interpreted. http://theweek.com/articles/593699/american-middle-class-doing-better-than-think And we haven't even mentioned economic mobility. It's not as if the bottom 20% from 20 years ago are all the same people as today. My parents are probably in the 4th quintile now, maybe even 5th.
Saying that income inequality could arguably be a net positive has nothing to do with the sanctity of capitalism. Think about it for a second. Why could it be advantageous in certain instances for a society to have some people with large concentrations of wealth? And your statement "they probably didn't earn it" is a bit odd. On what basis did they not earn it, and who are you to decide what kind of work earns what amount of money?
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But it does help the people in those countries that we gave that job to. And considering the fact that global extreme poverty has been cut by at least 50% since 2000, I think I'm fine with free trade. Americans are practically earth's 1%. Is there something wrong with providing the rest of the earth's poor a better wage than they typically would get in exchange for cheaper labor costs and cheaper products for America's poor to buy? Aren't dems supposed to be the ones that care about the poor? The three best things to happen to the world's poor are capitalism, free trade, and fossil fuels.
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Wages used to rise along with productivity. But while productivity has risen substantially, real wages have not.
The illusion of prosperity in the remaining middle class is supported by debt. Credit card, home equity loans, student, etc. which have their limits.
People talk about rising wages... But wages are a function of the labor supply. With the immigrant floodgates open we are essentially suppressing any increase in wages.
Not dissimilar to the current petroleum oversupply... As long as cheap Saudi crude is flooding the market the capital engine that was domestic oil and gas exploration will be suppressed.
We had an inflow of immigrants that equaled approximately 13% of the US population from 1900-1930. Over the last 20 years we have had an immigrant inflow of approximately 12%. When you consider the economy of scale, and the population problem throughout the world, we can't handle 12% any longer without the economy continuing to suffer like it is now, and the wealthy getting wealthier while the middle class and poor get poorer. A wall is not the solution, but the immigrant inflow needs to come back down to at least 8% for the next several years to make any headway on improving the middle class significantly. There are obviously other important factors to improving the middle class, as far as losing jobs to automation and losing jobs overseas and in latin america, but immigration is a big part of that equation. As N Cane implied, you cannot have a significant increase in wages without capping the increase in immigration. The fact that wealthier class are having less children, and the poorer classes are continuing at more similar rates to the past does not help either. As has been stated by others on this board, this is the explanation for Bernie and Trump.
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As I like to point out, the job of the government is to act in the best interest of the citizens. People will tell you that this is a country of immigrants. True but during most of our history, we needed more people.
Thirteen lightly populated former colonies with British to the North, Spanish in Florida and Mexico, and the French to the West needed people to occupy the Ohio Valley. After the Louisiana Purchase we needed to occupy that land before someone else [including the French from whom we bought it] decided to take it. While it was wrong, none the less the Native Americans needed to be crowded out and moved to some gawd awful place called Oklahoma.
44'40 or fight would never have been a slogan without people to occupy the area. There would have been no Western leg of the Trans-Continental Railroad without Chinese workers. No filling the upper tier of states without Swedes, Germans, et. al.
We like to think highly of ourselves, which is fine, The truth is the moving here was good for people from other countries was good for the people who came and good for the country. They might have got 40 acres and a plow, but then they were on their own with help to each wave from the ones before them.
But as GMoney points out from 1900 to 1930 the demand started to dwindle but the people didn't stop coming. They didn't cause the Great Depression but it became less advantageous to both sides.
Just like we can't be the world's policeman, we can no longer take huge numbers of new citizens. We aren't the world's welcome wagon.
Thirteen lightly populated former colonies with British to the North, Spanish in Florida and Mexico, and the French to the West needed people to occupy the Ohio Valley. After the Louisiana Purchase we needed to occupy that land before someone else [including the French from whom we bought it] decided to take it. While it was wrong, none the less the Native Americans needed to be crowded out and moved to some gawd awful place called Oklahoma.
44'40 or fight would never have been a slogan without people to occupy the area. There would have been no Western leg of the Trans-Continental Railroad without Chinese workers. No filling the upper tier of states without Swedes, Germans, et. al.
We like to think highly of ourselves, which is fine, The truth is the moving here was good for people from other countries was good for the people who came and good for the country. They might have got 40 acres and a plow, but then they were on their own with help to each wave from the ones before them.
But as GMoney points out from 1900 to 1930 the demand started to dwindle but the people didn't stop coming. They didn't cause the Great Depression but it became less advantageous to both sides.
Just like we can't be the world's policeman, we can no longer take huge numbers of new citizens. We aren't the world's welcome wagon.
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Trump focuses on Mexicans but net immigration from Mexico is a negative number. Good for air time but misunderstands the problem. This is not an immigration issue; it is scapegoating to point at immigration when exporting manufacturing jobs remains in place and is subsidized by our tax system.
It was a net negative, it's not now. Net negative ended at the end of 2013. It has been a fairly large positive from 2014 to present. And then there's the rest of Latin America that is hardly a net negative as well. Trump gets a lot of things wrong, and his motivations are pretty much all wrong, but that doesn't change the fact that Mexican immigration has rebounded significantly since 2014.
I was making a point.
My point was, the anti-immigrant attitude is nothing new to the country. Everyone has always said the population increase from areas of mass exodus aren't sustainable. It happened with the Irish and the Chinese already as well as immigrant groups from places like Poland, the Baltics, etc...
Right now the US is getting an influx of people not from Mexico, but from their even poorer neighbors to the South. Places like Guatemala and El Salvador are apparently becoming gang operated. I just listened to a podcast about two rival gangs targeting public transport in San Salvador. They were killing bus operators and anyone that rode their bus systems just to prove that the government wasn't the one in power. Police officers have to wear balaclavas to cover their faces in order to protect their families. It truly is a disaster area just like Ireland was during the famines.
Of course there's something that have to be done, we have to protect our sovereignty. There are reasons we have means of LEGAL immigration. Maybe that means setting up an Ellis Island of sorts in some border town and cracking down everywhere else. It would also be smart to begin feeling out a United Nations operation in Central America to root out gang violence and activity. It's time we turn our national security gaze from half a world away to issues closer to home.
The bigger question is whether it is sustainable for one country to have 4.5% of the world's population yet use 20% of it's energy resources, especially when so many other countries aspire to the same levels of consumption. The same is true of other natural resources. European and Russian consumption is similar to US consumption while the middle classes in India and China are growing, which leaves little for the rest of the world to divide up. Given that scarcity should we be surprised that rest of the world (parts of Asia and much of Africa and Central/South America) tends to armed competition (robbery, corruption, criminal activity) for what's left?
We can build bigger walls, but if the trend continues that doesn't seem a long term solution.
We can build bigger walls, but if the trend continues that doesn't seem a long term solution.
Here's a Capitalist argument for a minimum wage. A more elegant version of "who is going to buy all this stuff?" Note however the underlying assumption that capitalism requires increased consumption of goods.
Like the old definition insanity (doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result) ; we will need to think differently about the world if we are to change the ultimately destructive course we are on.
Like the old definition insanity (doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result) ; we will need to think differently about the world if we are to change the ultimately destructive course we are on.
This is simply a statement that we can't handle a level of immigrant inflow that hasn't been this high since before the depression. And that it has never been this high in overall #s. You seem to have this pollyanna idea that the US can always handle anything no matter how high. That attitude is what breaks empires. The economy of scale says you are wrong.
Our middle and underclasses have not been this poor since the depression. Hopefully we don't have a war coming our way. And I'm not even sure a war would solve this problem. The problem is the worst it has been for 85 years in a totally different era. With terrorism run amok, the great recession having just happened, recent bailouts, large refugee immigrant problems, weather difficulties imminent on the horizon(costs), rabbit population problems, big economy problems throughout the world like the unrecovered chinese economy, threats of at least another cold war, a really volatile middle east, the energy war with oil prices during this period being the lowest they have been since the 70's,(that's actual price unadjusted for inflation.) what makes you think the empire is not on a pace to a gradual breakdown of monumental proportions and that this breakdown doesn't at least need to at least be slowed down?
Curbing immigration by 1/4-1/3 of the current level has been maintained consistently over the past 85 years and it needs to be done now. I am not isolationist, I do not want to slam our doors shut, I just know we need to put half a finger in the dike to slow it down to more normal levels. This is not the only thing we need to do but is equally important to at least 3 or 4 other things that need quick attention.
I just cannot understand how someone could be so dense as to not see the warning signs. This has nothing to do with race, and that is a red herring. I don't care whether it's blacks, hispanics, asians, europeans, jews, muslims or any other nationalites &/or religions, immigration needs to be slowed down. I get tired of the liberals on this board throwing the more conservative members in with the Trogla-trumpites because it's easy when it doesn't begin to address the problems. Whether subconcious or not, it is an evasion tactic. I am slightly liberal or slightly conservative, depending on the issue, stop painting me with such Rush Limbaugh brush.
Our middle and underclasses have not been this poor since the depression. Hopefully we don't have a war coming our way. And I'm not even sure a war would solve this problem. The problem is the worst it has been for 85 years in a totally different era. With terrorism run amok, the great recession having just happened, recent bailouts, large refugee immigrant problems, weather difficulties imminent on the horizon(costs), rabbit population problems, big economy problems throughout the world like the unrecovered chinese economy, threats of at least another cold war, a really volatile middle east, the energy war with oil prices during this period being the lowest they have been since the 70's,(that's actual price unadjusted for inflation.) what makes you think the empire is not on a pace to a gradual breakdown of monumental proportions and that this breakdown doesn't at least need to at least be slowed down?
Curbing immigration by 1/4-1/3 of the current level has been maintained consistently over the past 85 years and it needs to be done now. I am not isolationist, I do not want to slam our doors shut, I just know we need to put half a finger in the dike to slow it down to more normal levels. This is not the only thing we need to do but is equally important to at least 3 or 4 other things that need quick attention.
I just cannot understand how someone could be so dense as to not see the warning signs. This has nothing to do with race, and that is a red herring. I don't care whether it's blacks, hispanics, asians, europeans, jews, muslims or any other nationalites &/or religions, immigration needs to be slowed down. I get tired of the liberals on this board throwing the more conservative members in with the Trogla-trumpites because it's easy when it doesn't begin to address the problems. Whether subconcious or not, it is an evasion tactic. I am slightly liberal or slightly conservative, depending on the issue, stop painting me with such Rush Limbaugh brush.
What this sounds like is double socialism. First, the people who have more in this country shoud be heavily taxed for the benefit of those who have less. Secondly, everyone in this country should have less and consume less for the benefit of poorer countries.
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Honestly, I'm not disagreeing with you by a lot. Something does need to be done, but I'm not sure I've heard any non-knee jerk reactions by any single politician. I think the primary way the US can help solve its immigration quandary is by working with national governments in central america to stabilize their populous' lifestyle. We don't need to rebuild their entire economy, just help them root out gangs and cartels. I'd much rather have a police force in Guatemala than Iraq right now. If those gangs and cartels are quashed, the flow of immigrants across our borders should decrease somewhat, and we may actually see many refugees return home.
You may be able to build a dam, but if you don't turn off the flow of water upstream, you will just keep opening the floodgates and letting more water through eventually.
Foreign aid is cheap compared to warfare and counterterrorism. Unfortunately it has vilified by many as a welfare program or waste of money. What did the Iraq war cost...so far?
Demonstrably no longer true. Yes, there used to be a direct correlation between increases in productivity and wages through the 70's, but that relationship has evaporated.
Lost me there. Double socialism? Think Malthus not Marx. Unless all resources are unlimited, we are in an unbalanced, unstable situation that can't be sustained in the long term and maybe even the short term.
I'm kind of proposing an in-between solution. I think we need a UN police force in Central America similar to those that were in Africa over the last two or so decades.
The correlation between productivity and workers has been dramatically effected by technology as the latter has become the driving force behind productivity in the workplace. Thus I believe linking the two with wage increases is a red herring. Employees wages increase as they add value to the company. That value can be added in numerous ways such as implementing technology, sales, management, etc..
Our problem is the jobs we've been adding for the past decade plus are service and other low paying jobs which are replacing living wage jobs. This explains why jobs are being added but programs like food stamps are at an all time high while median income continues to decline. This is the only "recovery" in our history where there is a disconnect between job creation and poverty and income. In fact, recovery is probably a word which shouldn't be used since wages and poverty are worse now than they were when this started.
Our problem is the jobs we've been adding for the past decade plus are service and other low paying jobs which are replacing living wage jobs. This explains why jobs are being added but programs like food stamps are at an all time high while median income continues to decline. This is the only "recovery" in our history where there is a disconnect between job creation and poverty and income. In fact, recovery is probably a word which shouldn't be used since wages and poverty are worse now than they were when this started.
What was the UN able to achieve? I don't know much about what the UN achieved; my only impression comes from watching the movie Hotel Rawanda.
My macro view is that it is inherently unsustainable for one set of countries to command so many of the world's resources when the rest of the world aspires to emulate that same level of consumption. There's not enough to go around. So then what? Malthusian solutions: disease, famine, war? Look at starving North Korea with a nuclear bomb and crazy leader working like heck on missiles. Pakistan is nuclear and hardly the most stable, prosperous economy. The DoD ID's climate change is a major threat because it will decrease resources available and increase the pressure for violent competition for resources.
We can trust technology can come up with solutions, and it may. But the technological solution may not be a non violent one.
And on that happy note, have a great weekend!
Actually the same was said about the Bush 'recovery' which also witnessed one of the largest periods of shipping US manufacturing jobs overseas. I know guys who started specialized investment funds solely to buy manufacturing companies so they could ship the jobs overseas. The transfer costs were tax deductible and Bush touted the benefits to the US economy.
I witnessed Singapore forcing low valued added businesses overseas (textiles e.g.) but it was accompanied by an industrial policy that courted higher value added jobs (from US and European multinationals ....aka good manufacturing jobs) and training/educating its workforce to be able to do those jobs plus providing the infrastructure to support the work. Look at the international ratings of high school grads; Singapore ranks much higher than the US.
The US has no similar industrial policy or strategy other than doing trade deals and cutting taxes. So we struggle while Singapore has the highest percentage of millionaires (17+%) of any country in the world. Not bad for a tiny country that was on its lips with zero natural resources in 1965.
