The Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics admits that they have fallen 4% or so over the past five years.
Inflation-adjusted hourly and weekly wages are below where they were at the start of the recovery in November 2001. See, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics Survey. 2006 http://www.bls.gov/ces/home.htm.Consequently, median household income (inflation-adjusted) has fallen five years in a row and was 4% lower in 2004 than in 1999, falling from $46,129 to $44,389. See U.S. Census Bureau. Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States. 2004. http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/income.html.
We have welfare recipients driving cars, watching color tvs, living in air conditioned apartments, and who have ALL the food they need.
That has nothing to do with wages, and everything to do with those who do work being robbed still more by our never-shrinking Federal and State Governments.
If we are falling behind why is it that the US is still the most desirable nation for immigrants?
Because we just happen to still be better in decline, than those nations they flee, as you alluded to. That should not be difficult to grasp.
It is also FALSE that we had a "practically closed economy" such a statement would only be made by someone who could count on his hearers not knowing much American history.
Actually he is accurate with regard to having a protectionist structure for imports/exports. Designed to encourage self-sufficiency. Let's see where you go wrong:
It must IGNORE the Cotton industry during the 17-1800s
Nope. Not ignored. Just proving we were exporters, not importers....right?
the steel industry later
Again...net exporters.
the oil industry
Again net exporters until, what, the 60's/70's.
British investment during the 1800s
Investment was not precluded...because it aided the general policy of industrialization and self-sufficiency. As you see, being protectionist is hardly isolationist.
the tobacco industry
Again net exporters to this very day...and subsidized I might add.
sugar well almost all our history in fact.
Yes, more exports. You made my case. Thank you.
McKinley's rhetoric is nothing but.
No, he was in full accord with the Republican Congress, and the Party Platform, and really meant it.
Tom Friedman tries to peddle the same baloney that you appear to defend.
What are you smoking? He is the primary "free trade" and "globalist" advocate and celebrant that the Administration relies on. Everyone in the White House has been told to read his books, such as "The World is Flat" and so on. Policy after policy Friedman pushes winds up being the W policy. From the Mideast to China.
He sees nothing but gloom and destruction.
Gee, someone better tell W to stop promoting Friedman's views then.
The Wikipedia quote sets up straw man after straw man to demolish. WHO believes there was an era of free trade in the US? No one I know or have heard.
You sure seemed to imply such.
What major scholar has EVER put the entire blame for the Depression on Smoot-Hawley or for WWII? All I have seen is reference to it as a FACTOR leading up to the Depression.
Correct, but the pack of baying free trade hounds here at FR will undoubtedly ostracize you forevermore...
Hamilton's program was designed to remove the distortions caused by British colonial policy and was only mildly protectionist (rates around 15%).
Mild or not, it was very effective.
He designed the tariff MAINLY as a revenue tariff to fund the government.
And to unify it. To bind North and South, East and West, Farmer and City folk. And it worked.
Hamilton's goal was to allow the US to develop a balanced economy less dependent upon agricultural exports.
He also was extremely keen on kick-starting domestic manufactures.
After him the leaders used the tariff as a means of assisting political allies as much as achieving a national goal. This is one of the major problems of protectionism it leaves the realm of economics and moves into politics.
The same can be said of the Free Trade apostles.
The other is that is slows innovation by protecting industries whose time has passed.
That can indeed happen. But that is why trust busting and other spurs to competition need to be embraced. Foreign oligolopolies are hardly boons to true competiton. Once the U.S. producers fail to be a credible supplier of anything, the prices go up. Oil is a perfect example.
And by reducing international trade it prevents the international division of labor from achieving its full extent and thereby lowers productivity and income as a whole.
The last point is simply laughable. "International Division of Labor." Get real. This is not about labor efficiency. The U.S. was it. The height of productivity. We are even now considered more efficient than our other peer competitor...Japan...who we essentially created, as they followed Arthur Deming's formula.
No, this is really about nation's playing tug of war to get industry...and the U.S. abdicating its responsibility. It is being minded by a bunch of deluded doctrinnaire dilletantes and self-rationalizers and apologists for their devastating trade failures.
Your question "Why are there lower income Americans" is too stupid even to address.
Hence you lose the point, that your free trade is in fact depleting American wealth.