Since when? As far as I remember, median wages rose when productivity rose in the 1990s. They do stagnate when our productivity stagnates. There is nothing wrong with that: why should we get paid more when we don't produce, and therefore not worth, more?
On another note: why is a person as informed about the data as you are speaks about wages in complete disconnect from productivity? You see some kind of conspiracy and data manipulation while disregarding obvious explanands.
things people need to survive, such as housing, medical, energy and food prices have gone up,
Food prices have a very small inflation.
You should stop following the media in thinking that housing prices went up. I doubt you have the data for that and probably confuse the rise in house prices with housing prices. The truth is, housing prices (price per square foot consumed by an individual did NOT go up that much except for the few last years. An average house today is 45% bigger than in 1950s, whereas the family unit is almost twice smaller. Americans consume almost three times as much space than 50 years ago.
Thus, when people pay more for a house they consume a larger quantities of housing, and you confuse that with price of housing. The same is observed in health care: people DEMAND to b e cured at ALL costs, and consumer MORE health care.
The statement about "things needed to survive" is leftist whining unbecoming of a conservative. Since when two rooms per person was needed to survive? We have become a nation of whining, self-centered spoiled brats that no longer remembers what survival is.
hence why consumer confidence numbers have not gone up with the recent reprots on GDP.
Satisfaction of people and their beliefs depend only in part on what they have. Roughly, satisfaction is what is delivered minus what is expected. If the expectations are unreasonably high, people are dissatisfied with what they have, no matter how much they have. It's been observed by sociologist and psychologists, that we do have much, more than even a generation ago but satisfied much, much less. That is completely in line with the observation of self-centeredness in our culture and the feeling of ENTITLEMENT to things that cannot even be achieved.
Your remarks actually illustrate this phenomenon. If you feel that having a three-bedroom house, which your grandparent bought for retirement as a third house in their lifetimes is a basic need for you at 25 (as does an average American of that age), how can you possibly be satisfied? How can you possibly be confident that this will be delivered?
While the economy has been kept afloat by a record amount of govrenmnet spending
Again, for a person so well informed of the data, you are surprisingly one-sided. The economy in the last 25 years has been kept afloat by productivity gains.
and a real estate bubble that has allowed people to use their homes at ATMs, neither of these trends can last forever.
Very silly: there are two sides to the transaction. If you can spend more by borrowing against the now more expensive house, someone had to have paid for that house more. Where did THAT person get the money? Housing bubbles do not sustain the economy; they distort allocations.
I am 100% convinced that if neither immigration and job outsourcing issues are addressed, the political landscape will change dramatically.
With that, I agree completely. When people are frustrated, for whatever reason, they seek changes and often chose those that are detrimental in the long run.
The question is what should address job outsourcing. You appear to imply that it is the government. Socialist measures such as these have indeed solved political problems --- witness the Russian revolution and Hitler's rise to power that kept the masses very happy. But in the long run they have always failed. It is the markets that should solve the problem of job outsourcing, as they have done in the past (you appear to have bought into the MSM garbage that outsourcing is something new).
As for immigration, that is not a purely economic issue and a such MUST be solved by the government (citizenship and culture are public, not private, goods, and such are poorly provided by markets).
You know this from personal experience, or you just taking obsolete "accepted wisdom" as gospel-writ?
Perhaps this is news to you:
LOOK: Nation's Restaurant News
Oct 18, 2004
Food price inflation: the perfect storm for distributors, operators
By Caroline Perkins
According to the IFMA 2004 Forecast Outlook report, foodservice sales are projected to grow 2.6 percent in inflation-adjusted, or real, terms in 2005. Furthermore, operators surveyed by Chicago-based Technomic for the forecast say same-store sales are up, and the industry appears to be recovering.
Coupled with that optimism, however, is the prediction that profits will grow by only 1 percent next year because margins are being squeezed by the rising costs of doing business. So what else is new?
Well, the significant effect of food cost inflation for one. Increases in the costs of insurance, health-care coverage, fuel and labor have been exacerbated by hikes in the cost of food from producers at an across-the-board rate of 6 percent to 7.5 percent.
For instance, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's August numbers showed a 16-percent increase in the price of beef since 2003, along with increases of 17 percent for poultry and 13 percent for dairy items.
For many years the conventional wisdom has been that distributors were not able to raise prices because their operator customers could not or would not raise menu prices. That scenario is history.
At the most recent IFMA Forecast & Outlook Seminar, Technomic revealed that now, unlike last year, when labor was the issue, the cost of food is the top concern among operators. Seven in 10 operators surveyed said costs are rising significantly. Two-thirds had raised menu prices an average of 4 percent in the last six months, and close to half expected another hike of 3 percent in the next six months.
As for manufacturers, Technomic reported that a big part of its sales growth has been a result of price increases. Real sales growth has not been robust. Nearly eight out of 10 manufacturers raised prices to distributors by an average of 6 percent and expect additional increases in the future. In fact, prices have risen so rapidly that some distributors say it is hard to keep up with pricing changes in their systems.
There are two ways to fight food cost increases: by trading down to lower-priced substitutes or by cutting costs elsewhere to meet the increases. However, there are Catch 22s throughout the supply chain with both of those solutions.
While distributors can work with customers to come up with lower-priced menu solutions, many operators are locked in by their own success. A steakhouse still has to serve steak, and chains have to offer their traditional menus or risk losing patrons.
The seriousness of the impact of food inflation on distributors was illustrated by Sysco's fiscal-year-end results. While sales and earnings had increased, sales were softened by "prolonged product inflation of 6.3 percent." The problem with experiencing both fuel- and food-cost inflation simultaneously is that both directly affect the profitability of distributors and operators.
The only logical solution is to increase revenues. Let's hope same-store sales keep going up despite recent dips in consumer confidence and disposable personal income.
Of course, consumers are affected by rising costs as well, especially in the price of gasoline. Technomic reported that 66 percent of consumers are driving less, and 68 percent are cutting spending elsewhere. Seven in 10 are spending less when they eat out. Higher-priced menu items won't be incentives to increase customers' number of dining experiences.
As Technomic's Bob Goldin noted: "Operators and distributors are facing the perfect storm relative to cost pressures. The only positive sign is that business is reasonably robust. [Increasing sales] is the only solution."