https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/
Posted on 04/19/2022 3:55:46 AM PDT by FarCenter
...
We may, as de Tocqueville put it during the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, be ‘sleeping on a volcano’. A still inchoate rebellion from below against the concentration of wealth and power above seems to be gathering momentum. Across the 36 wealthier countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the richest citizens have taken an ever-greater share of national GDP in recent years as the middle class has become smaller. Heavily in debt, mainly because of high housing costs, the middle class ‘looks increasingly like a boat in rocky waters’, suggests the OECD.
One key indicator of the declining middle class is rates of home ownership, which are stagnant or plummeting, particularly among the young, in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. In the United States, the chance of middle-class earners moving up to the top rungs of the earnings ladder has dropped by approximately 20 per cent since the early 1980s. Life expectancy in the US has dropped to the lowest levels in a quarter of a century.
This growing class division is a global phenomenon. In 1974, the proportion of global corporate income that went to labour was about 64 per cent. It dropped to 59 per cent by 2012. This pattern has applied not only to wealthy markets in the West, but also to labour-rich markets like China, India and Mexico. In 2017, the Pew Research Center found that poll respondents in France, Britain, Spain, Italy and Germany are even more pessimistic about the next generation than those in the United States. Such sentiments are shared in countries like Japan and India, where many new college graduates fail to find decent employment. Well over two thirds of Mumbai youths are pessimistic about their prospects.
This erosion of opportunity sets the stage for a potential combustion of class anger, particularly as the pandemic and now Russia’s invasion threaten to make things worse. The unemployment rate reached 32.5 per cent in South Africa during the pandemic years, with almost two thirds of young people with no job in sight. The story is unfortunately similar elsewhere in Africa, with regional powers such as Kenya and Senegal reporting over 40 per cent unemployment. This is a recipe for chaos. Several Latin American, African and Middle Eastern countries have also defaulted on long-term loans and more may follow.
The only hindrance to a tsunami is complacency on the part of conservative and GOP voters, with the belief it’s all in the bag.
The tsunami that needs to happen is sweeping away the RINO traitors in the primaries, especially in the state legislatures who handed the Steal to the Dems on a platter.
That’s part of it, but Job One is getting the dems swept out of power, hopefully for a generation.
lol
if you have a pie and I have a pie... and then I make more pies. YOU STILL HAVE YOUR PIE! but you do have a smaller percentage of the total pies.
So?
Is that “unfair”
I took no pie from you, I made MORE pies!
.
The woke jerks have cast themselves as the ‘underdog’ and the under served. But, that is not the case.
As 'underdogs', they aren't numerically superior. AND they don't have an ideologically sound premise. THIS assault on America (because there have been many), they will prove that the Liberals’ long held ignorance/rejection of logic will FINALLY lead to failure.
Agree, and they get angry when you mention it may not be all in the bag. And...if it is...will it be as bad as the last tine we had the House and Senate.
Could be as bad or worse.
Without actual numbers, a statement like that is just political propaganda.
I want to see the inflation adjusted and population adjusted numbers.
What is the median net worth and median net income in the USA?
What is the median net value of government subsidies in the USA?
How do those numbers compare historically?
What would those numbers have looked like if we had not let 30 million low skill foreign laborers flood into our country?
What has the massive flood of completely average Asian doctors and completely average Asian software engineers done to the median income of completely average American doctors and American software engineers?
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/
Still need to see government subsidies and tax reductions for wage earners.
I am not sure there is any way to model mass immigration.
For one thing, zero immigration would have caused mass investment in labor saving devices and expert software.
Machines and software do not require ObamaCare, Workman's Comp premiums, or maternity leave.
Where your analysis falls short is, far too many of the rich do not make pies. They do not make anything. The rich have become your enemy, and they are at war with you and you do not know that, because you might have read Ayn Rand, and your head is messed up. The Rich FINANCE pie making, or they buy the land under the pie factories and raise the rent. Or, they offshore pie making to China, so their portfolio will grow. Or they gamble on the stock market, and if they win, they pay less tax on their earnings than does a working person. The Rich are pretty much in the process of screwing everybody. Here is a kewl thing the rich do! People live in a mobile home park, and the lot rent is $300 per month. A hedge fund buys the park for more than it is worth, and raises the rent to $500 per month soo that the renters can pay for the inflated price. Oh that is not SCREWING anybody - oh nooo that is Price Discovery. Nothing of value added to society, and that $200 that was spent locally, now goes to New York, so that the hedgie can buy a bigger yacht, or a villa in Peru.
I like pie.
The “laid-back” approach towards the Nov election being taken by the GOP is totally wrong. They will make it a squeaker when it should be a blowout.
“The Rich FINANCE pie making” yes, that’s called lending banks do it all the time and charge interest.
“or they buy the land under the pie factories and raise the rent.” You can only raise the rent as much as the market will bear. That’s how capitalism works. They can move to another piece of property owned by someone else who rents the property for pie making for less, or they can buy their own property for making pies.
Or, they offshore pie making to China. If they can make pies for so much cheaper in China that it’s cheaper to make them there and ship them across the Pacific, then it’s an indication that we either need to make other products besides pies or something like labor costs are way out of wack (probably unions) or it indicates the need to automate more of the pie making process to make us more competitive.
“So their portfolio will grow. Or they gamble on the stock market, and if they win, they pay less tax on their earnings than does a working person.” Even if you have just $100 you can also invest in the market, and no you do not pay less, you exactly the same as the rest of your earnings on short term capital gains. You are thinking of billionaires who haven’t SOLD. Who’s wealth goes up and up billions that they pay no taxes on because they haven’t sold and realized the gains. Rest assured, when they do sell they will pay.
“The Rich are pretty much in the process of screwing everybody.” Pretty much what communists believe.
“Here is a kewl thing the rich do! People live in a mobile home park, and the lot rent is $300 per month. A hedge fund buys the park for more than it is worth, and raises the rent to $500 per month soo that the renters can pay for the inflated price.”
see above, rental property changes owners all the time and the new owner always has the option of raising the rent, the same as the old could of. But like all transactions in capitalism, they can only charge what people are willing to pay. If they charge too much, people will simply move to the trailer park down the road that is cheaper. That’s how all pricing works in capitalism. I own rental property and I could if I wanted raise the rent to 1 million a month, and everyone would promptly leave.
“Oh that is not SCREWING anybody - oh nooo that is Price Discovery. Nothing of value added to society, and that $200 that was spent locally, now goes to New York, so that the hedgie can buy a bigger yacht, or a villa in Peru.” The rental property owner can technically live anywhere, but where is lives doesn’t exempt him for the market forces that determine the price of goods and services in a market economy.
Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies
Let’s just take one of your arguments, to wit:
““Here is a kewl thing the rich do! People live in a mobile home park, and the lot rent is $300 per month. A hedge fund buys the park for more than it is worth, and raises the rent to $500 per month soo that the renters can pay for the inflated price.”
see above, rental property changes owners all the time and the new owner always has the option of raising the rent, the same as the old could of. But like all transactions in capitalism, they can only charge what people are willing to pay. If they charge too much, people will simply move to the trailer park down the road that is cheaper. That’s how all pricing works in capitalism. I own rental property and I could if I wanted raise the rent to 1 million a month, and everyone would promptly leave.”
No, you could not realistically raise the rent to $1,000,000 per month. That is the equivalent of the “Why not raise minimum wage to $1,000 per hour”, which is not a sensible observation, but an insane hunk of sputum to the effect that minimum wages are a totally arbitrary thing, not grounded in reality. The truth is, anybody could sit down with a piece of paper and a pencil and rough out what it would take wage-wise for a person working 40 hours per week to put a roof over their head, buy groceries and pay utilities and car costs.
In contrast, my example was pretty prosaic. From $300 to $500 all at once. That happens every day. And what about the person on social security living in said park? No, they can not just up and move. Figure about $4,000 to move the trailer, and rehook up utilities and such. And then move where??? Sorry but the park down the street just got bought up by a hedge fund too, and their rent is unaffordable too. And buying your own land costs money, and guess who controls all the zoning laws??? Rich people. This is how people end up living in their car, or under a bridge or in a cardboard box.
You see the commies were right about the rich people screwing the poor people. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Rich people control the law making process. How come you think 75% of the country is against illegal immigration, yet we got more illegal immigration than you can shake a stick at??? Why do you think the whole establishment hated Trump???
Pull your head outta yer rear end. You ever thought why New York City has rent control??? I think it is because the people there know exactly what the Wall Street types would do to them if it wasn’t for rent control. They live right there in the same area as them. And what they would do, is the same thing the Wall Street types are doing outside of New York City to the rest of the country - i.e. screwing them over.
You place too much faith in “The Market”, but “The Market” as you are thinking about it, is a fantasy these days. Wise up.
Plus here, educate yourself some.
you have obviously never owned anything, so let me explain to you what happens with the “trailer park” example.
Joe Smo buys a piece of land decades ago just outside of town for nearly nothing. He turns it into a trailer park and earns good money for many years. Occasionally he raises the rent, but he paid so little on the land he doesn’t feel pressured to do so. Over the years Joe Smo, eventually pays off the land completely. Now while all this is happening the city which used to be FAR away has grown and now his little park which used to be waaaaay out in the middle of nowhere on worthless land is now worth a LOT. Now Joe Smo isn’t a developer, but he knows what all his neighbors are selling their land for, so eventually Joe decides... you know what.. maybe I should just sell this land and retire. Now remember Joe Smo bought the land for nearly nothing looooong ago, and looooong ago paid it off in full. Now a NEW investor comes along. It doesn’t matter if it is a person, a hedge fund, or a foreign national. They pay TODAYS prices for the land. And and they have a LOAN from the bank they have to pay each month. If they charged what the old owner was charging, they wouldn’t even be able to pay their loan. They did their research and found out that other similar trailer parks in the area were charging much more, and KNEW prior to purchasing the land they they would have the ability to raise the prices to a similar level most likely without losing too many of the tenants. So then you, the person who lives in the trailer park, who was getting a GREAT deal for many years because of everything I wrote above, are MAD. Because you were too dumb to have purchased land yourself to put your trailer on and it never occurred to you that eventually get unbelievable deal you were getting might eventually end. You could have been building up equity all those years and had your land appreciate, but instead you choose to help the original owner retire.
So don’t blame the “rich” and don’t blame the new owners. Blame yourself.
So a 16 year old working part time needs to earn enough to pay a mortgage/rent?
What if they can only work part time (single mother, student), are you going to pay them more per hour or pay enough per hour for everyone so this select group only has to work 20 hours per week to afford a roof? And what is the minimum standard for housing -- a rat-infested slum? An efficiency apartment in Malibu, California will cost more than a three bedroom house in Podunk, Alabama. Which location are you going to use for your minimum wage? You will still have people just making ends meet in one location and living a comfortable middle class existence in another.
All this ignores the fact that "minimum wage" as you have defined it means something vastly different for a 16 year old high school kid, a twenty four year old single mother, and a fifty year old who needs to put three kids through college. And here is the real rub: and all points in between those cases.
No matter what criteria you choose, you are going to wind up with a wage that ranges from grossly inadequate to wildly profligate depending on the individual situation. You may magically think you can pick the perfect case, but that is just delusion. The case you use is still utterly arbitrary, just as picking a number out of the air is arbitrary.
Generally, "minimum wage" boils down to little more than virtue signalling on someone else's dime.
We all want to make sure no one is taken advantage of, but that too is a useless wish. There is easily a 3X spread in salaries for many jobs, and generally speaking everyone at the bottom of that spread is being taken advantage of in some way. Even though they may be making considerably more than minimum wage, they are still making far less than they could/should be.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.