Surprise: The Rich Get Richer and The Poor Get More Numerous
Steven Bustin lives with his wife in a four-bedroom, 2,600-square-foot house in Novato. He drives a gray 2006 Audi A4. He earns more than $200,000 a year in salary and commissions from his job as head of sales for Podaddies, an Internet startup that sells online video ads.
Tamara Johnson lives with her three children in a two-bedroom apartment in the Sunnydale housing project in San Francisco’s Visitacion Valley. She drives a used 2003 Buick Sebring with 74,000 miles on it. Last year, she brought in just under $12,000 from her job as a home health care worker, supplemented by disability payments for two of her kids.
Bustin and Johnson represent California’s increasingly polarized economy.
The gap between the state’s rich and its poor is getting bigger. The bulk of job growth in California over the last generation took place at the top or bottom of the pay scale, a trend that has accelerated since the beginning of this decade. Jobs in the middle are scarcely growing at all.
The changes are documented in a report based on census and tax data set for release today by the California Budget Project, a liberal research and advocacy group.
“The story of the past generation is one of widening income inequality,” the group says about the state.
It’s well documented that the gulf between highly paid and low paid people is growing across the country. But it is more pronounced in California, according to census and tax records.
The divisions suggest that poverty will persist despite California’s growing economy. And the erosion of middle-income jobs could make the American dream of climbing the economic ladder harder to achieve in the state, the budget project warned.
“You’re in essence taking steps out of the ladder,” said Jean Ross, the group’s executive director. “These are troubling signs for our society.”
The growing disparity between the wanting and the well-to-do shows up starkly in pay data.
Since 1979, 26.9 percent of new positions created in California were in such categories as food service and retail trade, which paid hourly wages in the bottom fifth of all jobs, the report finds. At the other end of the spectrum, 28.1 percent of new jobs were in such categories as administration and management, which paid in the top fifth.
The breach has expanded this decade. From 1999 to 2005, 43.1 percent of California’s job growth occurred among jobs at the lowest 20 percent of the pay scale. About 54.4 percent of new jobs were in the top 40 percent of pay. Only 2.6 percent of growth came among jobs at 20 to 60 percent of the pay scale.
“We’re having a hollowing-out of job growth,” Ross said.
As a result, California’s population is polarizing. A large group at the top enjoys a standard of living significantly higher than it did three decades ago. Another large group is living worse. A shrinking fraction of people in the middle is getting squeezed, according to the budget group’s study.
- From 1979 to 2006, the hourly pay of California’s low-wage workers fell by 7.2 percent after adjusting for inflation. High-wage workers saw gains of 18.4 percent, while those exactly in the middle edged up 1.3 percent.
- The richest Californians are capturing a growing share of wealth. Income reported for tax purposes of the top 1 percent of the state’s taxpayers jumped 107.7 percent from 1995 to 2005, after adjusting for inflation. During the same period, income of the middle fifth of taxpayers rose 9.3 percent.
- California households are losing ground compared with their counterparts elsewhere. A California household in the middle of the scale saw inflation-adjusted income from wages, investments and other sources grow 3.1 percent between 1989 and 2005. Nationwide, income for a typical household rose 5.4 percent.
Jobs are growing at the top and bottom for many reasons. But those factors can be summed up in a word - globalization. California lost 464,700 manufacturing jobs - many of them paying middle-class wages - between 1990 and 2006, much of that work moving overseas.
Meanwhile, the service sector boomed. The category includes low-paid jobs, such as retail clerks, and well-paid jobs, such as lawyers and accountants. The California employee head count of Walgreens, the rapidly expanding drug store chain, surged to 14,900 in August 2007 from 8,000 five years before, a company spokeswoman said.
Other trends are intensifying the income gap. California has lots of immigrants willing to accept low-wage jobs. Fewer of the state’s workers belong to trade unions, which historically have given workers bargaining power.
An increasing proportion of the nation’s income is going to corporations, which benefits households that invest in stocks and bonds. And federal policies have reduced the tax burden on upper-income households.
Education is the main factor separating winners and losers. From 1979 to 2006, California workers with bachelor’s degrees saw real wage gains of 19.8 percent. Wages of workers with master’s degrees or higher jumped 34.4 percent. But high school graduates’ wages fell 4.4 percent after adjusting for inflation, while the wages of those who did not graduate high school plunged 23.7 percent.
Some experts believe California is losing middle-income jobs because of the high cost of doing business and public policies that drive employers out of the state.
Many of the state’s middle-income manufacturing and service-sector jobs have moved to states such as Arizona and Texas, where wages are lower and government policies friendlier to business, said Joel Kotkin, an expert on California’s cities and a presidential fellow at Chapman University in Orange.
The budget project’s report “didn’t deal with infrastructure, didn’t deal with competitiveness,” Kotkin said. “You have to look at tax climate and regulatory climate. Business climate matters in terms of job creation.”
Of course, Steven Bustin and Tamara Johnson aren’t bits of data, nor do they want to be poster children for California’s rich and poor. Neither fits stereotypes of suburban affluence or inner-city poverty. Still, both live lives that are, to a very considerable degree, reflections of the means they have at hand.
Bustin, 55, doesn’t have a particularly lavish lifestyle. He and his wife, Gigi, give several thousand dollars each year to Catholic charities and other causes. He recently wrote a book about the cruiser on which his father served during World War II. He and Gigi prefer kayaking in San Francisco bay to a weekend in a fancy hotel.
“We are mindful of the budget,” Bustin, a native of Baltimore, said.
Still, they have the income for luxuries, such as a vacation last year in Hawaii’s Big Island and the occasional dinner at fancy restaurants. San Francisco’s pricy Boulevard is a favorite.
Johnson, 35, who grew up in Berkeley, doesn’t have many choices. She is raising an 8-year-old son and 9- and 15-year-old daughters in crime-ridden public housing, where $744 in monthly rent eats up most of her paycheck. She does the best she can for her kids, taking them to parks and the zoo on weekends. Her oldest daughter has developed a passion for all things Japanese, so the city’s Asian Art Museum is a frequent destination.
She has considered a move to the Dublin area or even to Sacramento, safer environments than Sunnydale, but can’t find the time to make arrangements.
Her life “is very difficult,” she said. “I have to squeeze, squeeze, squeeze every penny. And there’s no resources.”
What to do about California’s income gap
How to address growing economic inequality in California is hotly disputed, based on politics and ideology.
Here are two views:
JEAN ROSS
Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a liberal advocacy group, argues that it’s futile to try to stop globalization by backing protectionist measures. Instead, she favors “public policies that soften the impact of the market.” These include tying the minimum wage to inflation, extending health coverage to all Californians and making sure schools turn out well-trained workers.
JOEL KOTKIN
Author and scholar Joel Kotkin, often linked with conservatives but who describes himself as a “Pat Brown Democrat,” contends California must work to retain middle-class jobs by improving its business climate. He calls for better maintenance of the state’s infrastructure and for review of business regulations and tax policy.
Sources: California Budget Project and Joel Kotkin
© 2007 The San Francisco Chronicle
Two paradigms:
“it takes money to make money” pro-capital
and
“it takes work to make money” pro-labor
which one is a Ponzi pyramid scheme?
calif. is like what? the 5th largest economy in the world? i like the two “experts” at the end. they really express a broad range of options, don’t they?
Yes, I wish the the two experts at the end were a satiricical parody of the range of “allowable discourse” in the US - absolutely laughable!
But, the corporate media-blindered author of this piece was dead serious!
Welcome to the real world . . . .
Several things stand out in this:
Higher education. I’ve gone back to college (I’m 43) and the cost is just crazy. It shouldn’t cost so much for something that is an absolute necessity for survival. (Education allowing for a better job that in turn enables home ownership, health care, etc.)
The decline of Labor. Corporations have done a great job of vilifying labor unions to the point that workers most in need of one wouldn’t consider joining. It’s mind boggling.
Tax rates. Beginning with Reagan the nation’s wealthiest people have successfully shifted their tax burden from themselves (who benefit most from our system) to the middle class. And again, most people have been bamboozled into thinking this is more “fairness”. And don’t get me started on the corporate world’s ability to shift their costs onto us.
Single mothers. There is a direct connection between poverty and single motherhood. Single mothers and children are overrepresented in the ranks of the poor. We need a greater emphasis on contraception (beers are advertised all over the sun, but condoms, the pill, the morning after pill etc, can’t be?) Finally, we should have public financing of abortions.
Bottom line, it’s good for the corporate elite to have a permanent underclass. So I expect no changes in my lifetime unless/until some revolution takes place.
I live in Florida, a “right” to work state. In other words you can be fired for anything or nothing at all. I have a customer that just got fired for not riding to work with her boss! I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried…
There’s nothing new here. Real wages have been declining since the early 70’s even as US and global economic growth has been solid overall. It’s a natural consequence of global capitalism. In such a system wealth is concentrated and wages tend to equalize globally over time. The wages of developed economies will decline and those of developing companies will rise.
The brake on this is democracy, but democracy has taken a backseat to capitalism. Even if wages decline, democracies can put safety nets such as socialized health care to soften the blow…if people take their heads out of their asses.
Note a couple other things in the article:
1. “Since 1979, 26.9 percent of new positions created in California were in such categories as food service and retail trade, which paid hourly wages in the bottom fifth of all jobs, the report finds. At the other end of the spectrum, 28.1 percent of new jobs were in such categories as administration and management, which paid in the top fifth.” - i.e., more top-paying jobs are being created than low-paying jobs.
2. “A California household in the middle of the scale saw inflation-adjusted income from wages, investments and other sources grow 3.1 percent between 1989 and 2005. Nationwide, income for a typical household rose 5.4 percent.” - i.e., income is growing in the middle.
3. “Many of the state’s middle-income manufacturing and service-sector jobs have moved to states such as Arizona and Texas” - i.e., if the state didn’t act to drive businesses out of state, the “middle” would still be in CA. I know a number of companies that have moved manufacturing out of CA because it is much cheaper to do business elsewhere.
Welcome to the real world - if you make it too expensive for someone to do business in your state, they will take their jobs somewhere else.
Frosty bunny, many single mothers didn’t start out single. We need more public support for single (and other lower income) parents such as subsidized day care. I’m not referring to the just over $2/hr Oregon provides, but day care centers with well paid professional providers and a realistic sliding scale fee for parents. The children deserve no less, and would end one of the worst nightmares working parents face, finding and keeping reliable, competent and affordable childcare.
Of course, this whole country from top to bottom needs recovery from neglect while the Republicans (AND Clinton!) have been running off with our treasure starting with Reagan.
And don’t think Hillary and to a slightly lesser extent, Obama, and even Edwards won’t continue these policies. Do you hear any of them talking about canceling NAFTA? They talk about making it fairer. You can’t make it fairer. That’s like expecting to make health insurance fairer. Oxymoron. Bill Clinton promised the unions when he was running for President he would fight NAFTA, and then 2 years later SIGNED it.
I hear Dennis is getting more oxygen from the viewers. ABC took a post debate poll, which Dennis won big and then they deepsixed it. Shame on them.
Peace Warrior… when you have something other than insults, share them.
CA has made it more difficult for businesses. Therefore, businesses that can go elsewhere do. What part of that is too difficult to understand?
2. “A California household in the middle of the scale saw inflation-adjusted income from wages, investments and other sources grow 3.1 percent between 1989 and 2005. Nationwide, income for a typical household rose 5.4 percent.” - i.e., income is growing in the middle.
Oh, that’s rich are you really retarded? A 3.1 increase over the course of almost two DECADES? That’s a good thing?
Also, keep in mind they don’t include fuel prices in that inflation figure. The middle is damn near non-existant and it won’t be long before they are like the dodo bird…
“CA has made it more difficult for businesses. Therefore, businesses that can go elsewhere do. What part of that is too difficult to understand?”
:-> Yeah, put on some lipstick and a mini-skirt and make yourself “more attractive to the investors”…
But seriously,
As trade expands past the boundaries of state and country, regulation by government will fail because that regulation cannot be globalized. We need to move to “regulation through collective action”, which is done through cooperation and non-cooperation. We need to fully unite as consumers and labor so that we can dictate to the market like the larger players do, and so we can do so democratically.
(I am working to provide the tools for people to do this, I’m not ALL talk.)
Jean Ross head of a liberal advocacy group.
” it’s futile to try to stop globalization by backing protectionist measures”
If she’s a liberal Cali’s poor is in deep s**t. She sounds like a Bush fascist to me.
Protectionism is another example of the good for the goose, but not the gander problem. (much like socialism for the wealthy, capitalism on the poor).
The multi-national corporations can freely cross borders, relocate jobs, entire plants, etc. practically at will. Free trade for the wealthy. But there remains protectionism for the poor. Workers need Visas, Joe Sixpacks needs a passport, you can’t bring so much as an apple across the border — but the big giants can ship tons of produce back and forth.
Laws & rules are contextual in American society. They’ve descended from the promise of the Magna Carta in the 13th century back into tools to keep the down down, the up up.
kathyodat:
“day care centers with well paid professional providers”
Sorry I overlooked that. Yes, day care is deplorable in this country. Good, affordable day care, staffed with professionals, would pay dividends for this country far into the future. And I realize not all moms start out single, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a woman limiting pregnancies when an economic future is dim/uncertain/hazy.
“this whole country from top to bottom needs recovery from neglect while the Republicans (AND Clinton!) have been running off with our treasure starting with Reagan.”
100% agreement. It’s truly criminal what’s been done to this nation.
You ain’t seen nothin yet.___ Stock up on dry beans, rice, dry milk and corn meal folks, the fit will hit the shan sometime in the next three to six months.__ Maybe sooner.
Watch the roller coaster stock market and the housing market, which has now reached the brink. The construction trade will follow and the Chinese goods filled stores will start cutting back.
The very rich however will mostly stay rich, and the poor will get poorer. The high middle incomers? Oh boy, they will be just as poor as the poorest. It happend in the mid 1980s, many of the very wealthy got jobs driving school buses, waiting tables and dealing poker at casinos. This time it will be far worse. Stock up and get ready. Am I overly pessimistic? Well I guess if reality is ‘oh-oh look out’,__I are guilty. I’d Rather be wrong and be ready than to be right and unprepared.
kem patrick! what’s your address, bro? i’m stocking up on whiskey and cigarettes. i’ll trade you some for your beans & corn meal.
aardvark: calif jobs are moving to texas…texas jobs are moving to mexico…mexican jobs are moving to china…chinese jobs are moving to indonesia…indonesian jobs are moving to ghana…ghanaaaan jobs are moving to….if you live long enough, eventually they’ll move back to calif, when it is as bizness friendly as you can get, ie, slavery.
“globalization” has meant capital’s ability to move around to exploit the lowest wages & worse environmental standards possible. it is inevitable that this process lower standards around the globe, including in 1st world nations.
Jed, I use roll your own Bugler, only $12 bucks a carton. I have enough cans to last twelve years and nine thousand pounds of peppercorns. I bought that years ago when pepper was a only a buck a pound. I’m sellling it at the swap meet now for fifty cents a pound___ making up for the loss with volumn.
You got any Old Mathusila bourbon?
Please remember the world-wide poverty wages is $2.00 per day and until the republicans are able to lower the minimum wage to that level or lower the republicans will not rest. Since 1980 the first Bush/Reagan presidency the republican party was been moving at the speed of light trying to turn the United States into a third/fourth world country. And will not rest until the objectives have been complete. The Lott/Gingrinch/Delay lead congress made sure Clinton was not able to change the course which has been set since 1980. Who believe this is a better, safer, more progressive nation than it was in 1979 and who has benefited from the nations agenda?
Bush wants to be the greatest republican president of all-time. The Republican Party which he is the leader of takes a lot of pride in killing of all kinds. They love to hunt and kill animals, they love wars and killing of foreigners, and they love to kill other Americans. This is part of the Republican Party platform which Bush will be the number one republican president of all-time.
Think for a moment, what Republican President do all the Republican candidates at least once a debate refer to, “Ronald The Great Reagan”. By all republican standards George has far surpassed Ronny and should be considered the greatest republican president to date. Let’s review the facts.
The real standards republicans use to measure their Presidents are the following:
(Please remember we only have space for a few highlights, these lists and there support would fill volumes.)
1) The amount of worldwide destruction and terror their administration caused; Reagan Iran-Contra, Bush Iraq war, Afghanistan War, worldwide terror squads. Winner Bush hands down, ps.in his day Reagan/ Old Bushes admin was number 1.
2) The amount of despair and hopelessness caused to the greatest majority of free Americans by; not raising minimum wage, shifting the tax burden to the middle class, cutting social programs; OK I’ll concede this one is a tie, they are both number 1..
3) Allowing the most corporate fraud; (critical category to major party donors) Winner Bush hands down, psin his day Reagan/(Old Bushes admin was number 1.
4) Spreading propaganda and destroying Americans freedom and liberty; once again Winner Bush hands down, psin his day Reagan/ Old Bushes admin was number 1
5) Finally who maintained the largest most wasteful military budgets while cutting the most social programs and created the greatest amount of deficit spending, yes boys and girl this is the corner stone of any successful modern republican president; Well by now this must sound like a broken record; Winner Bush hands down, Bushes old man number 2, Bushes old mans first term/Reagan’s term) number 3 .
As close as I can tell the reason the Bush administration decided to declare the most horrific terror attack of all-time on the Iraqi people which they titled, “Shock and Awe” was because Rupert Murdoch had convinced the Bush administration that he needed to help England and finish the crusades. Actually I’m not sure about that last statement but it makes about as much sense as the corporate/white house/free press stories regarding the most needless, costly, and unjust war in the United States history.
PS. I just recently heard that Bush (now number 2) is about to surpass Reagan and become number 1 in the most vacation days taken during a Presidency. Bush is the greatest.
Freedom Loving American,
How distracted and incurious the US populace must be to swallow the drivel from the corporate media regarding our political and economic devolution. I find it unfathomable that most Americans believe the Republican blather about patriotism. Since the beginning of Reagan’s first term, Republicans have clearly acted on the assumption there would soon be a viable world economy, allowing them to find workers and consumers across the globe, and so they saw no reason to fund programs to ensure the continuation of the US middle class or the development of young American minds. That was obvious to me when I was a college student in 1981, and yet in all that time the corporate media has never allowed that opinion to be aired. And now the Republicans have decided that there are insufficient reasons to support the US constitution or rule of law, or to even maintain the pretense that the US is a constitutional republic or a civilized nation.
The inescapable conclusion is that they have no more interest in the long-term welfare of the US or of Americans than they do in the suffering children of Darfur or Iraq.
I know some Democrats aided and abetted the Republican crimes, some just stood by and protected only their own interests, and a few have fought. Sometimes it is not clear whether their caution and risk aversion keeps most of them from fighting harder or from aiding the Republicans more.
It seems that just about anything could come next.
Gee, who woulld have thunk?? The rich get richer and the poor increase.
This administration is set on destroying the middle class; Raygun started it.
I made it into the poor class. Hope Bush is happy.
LOL kitty, I’m hanging on by my fingernails to middle class even though I don’t feel middle anything. Every month is another highwire balancing act of trying to pay the bills and still have enough left over to eat with. Our homeowners insurance has doubled in one year and our taxes our trying really hard to keep up with the insurance. Wages are stagnant and milk is 4 damn dollars a gallon! Yeah, the economy is just peachy keen…
There are many rich people that are very wonderful people. It seems the only real problem is that they are rich.
Perhaps we ought to concern ourselves with Universal Healthcare that’s free for everyone. Maybe too, we should make sure that everyone has enough good food and a good roof their heads. Universal Free Education and meaningful work with a middle class wage are also needed.
“We cannot change yesterday, but we can work today to change tomorrow.”
We’ll get it. Consumers and labor will unite worldwide and we will control all supply and demand democratically. Players in the market will have to play fair or be cut out.
I suspect that, more than real market dynamics, what is popping the US “Housing Bubble” is the mass production of virtual housing products, in the form of housing futures:
http://www.cme.com/trading/prd/re/housing.html
(came out last year. BTW… WTF is a HOUSING FUTURE??? Can you live in it???!!!)
This is yet another form of one form of wealth attacking another in a shorting war, and it also demonstrates how currency doesn’t have to even be involved.
My speculation is that this is an attempt to extract the last real value left in the US before monetizing our national debt.
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer? Hmmmm, ya think?
Recently saw SiCKO and it seems to me that one of the messages I took away from it applies not just to health, but to the economy in general. The difference in attitude in Canada, Britain, and France about the universal right of all of their citizens to medical care vs the system as it is gamed in the US was striking. Is it something in the water? Or, is it, perhaps, the way US citizens are socialized and educated. We are such a me-first society that values, rewards, and adulates superstar excess. There must be something in the way we are raised that we can adopt the “look out for #1″ ideology and think it’s OK to allow poverty, hunger, illiteracy and exploitation — as long as it isn’t me on the wrong end of this s****** stick. We have such a “sucks to be you” kind of attitude about others’ misfortunes, and such a “we’re #1″ assumption about life as US citizens. Yet, when misfortune befalls us, we have the nerve to be amazed that no help is available. See SiCKO and see that at least some of the rest of the industrialized world really does operate on a different value system — one that is far more progressive and humane.
Ardvark,
Peace Warrior is a tad more emotional than you. That does not, however, mean he is less savvy to the economic realities of the US and California than you. As a matter of fact, I find your somewhat parochial and overly simplistic approach to the economic realities of the global economy in 2007 to be drastically inadequate. Peace Warrior displays a much more attuned accumen to the economic morass in America when he rightfully suggests your comments parrot the “race to the bottom” propaganda of conservatives and the corporate World.
The ever widening disparity in the upper and lower income levels in America are a direct result of Globalization. Corporate America can function and prosper pretty much with impunity in the World Market. For instance, in America, Corporations can offshore high paying jobs to lower income markets. Simultaneous to this strategy, they can also import cheap and illegal labor into America. Hence, a Corporate America no longer exists. There is no incentive to remain a good corporate citizen for the Old American Company. Add the ever present Greed factor, and you have America in 2007. The most over profiting, under achieving corporate scavengers the World has ever known. And with 37,000 plus paid lobbyists in DC (up from under 100 lobbyists in the 1960’s), the average new age politician ain’t worth a damn to the average citizen.
We, as middle and working class citizens will suffer further loss of expendable income over the long haul until and unless we can convince governments, starting with our own, to level the playing field in the labor and regulatory market place. Ain’t gonna happen without a big stick.
The sad part of all of this is we, as Americans, on on the cusp of relinquishing the last leveragable tool we have, aside from brute military force; our once boundless purchasing power as a free market.
We have stopped growing our economy, our infrastructure and middle class. Who’s left to buy the shit corporations must foist on the public. Once we have borrowed money to the saturation point, it is over for us. I, for one, am not in the mmod to swallow the pitty-pat blame game that Aardvark has bought into. It’s not the American working class, it’s the “used to be” American Corporate and wealthy class. We, to a point, must our brother’s keeper. Corporate’s will eventually be forced to re-learn that lesson, as they did in the Reckoning of 1929. Hedge funders are the Junk Bond - Michael Malkens of the new century. They add not one iota of value to the American economic infrastructure. No one is even certain what they do and how they do it, as they exist almost devoid of regulation. But I’ll keep it simple for you; they are sucking the value out of America every day, and they know it. We are all leveraged to the max and China, et al, may call our bluff by refusal to purchase any more of our increasingly worthless dollar debt.
So - Aardvark, you got any good ideas on stopping this frieght train to the ghetto called America. I think the Haves are winning big time over the ever increasing Have-Nots. To lay blame on the average American - due to some conservative huff and corporate media hype, is a pre-engineered waste of
our time.
Even War, as an economic recourse, has become an impotent strategy for America. Go figure!
I understand completely. Those who work at “menial” jobs are obviously not deserving of anything beyond a life of poverty and servitude. The simple fact that they don’t have wealth and power is prima facie evidence that they are inferior.
You just have to learn to think like a capitalist.
Ask any billionaire. The economy’s great!
Bush failed at virtually everything he’s touched. So by all rights he should be pushing a mop by now. It’s the modern caste system that causes the powerful to inherit power, the powerless to inherit powerlessness.
Capitalism is fully bootstrapped by the old monarchical system.
Education is good as a device to give slightly more opportunity than the next guy. But corporate outsourcing of all possible jobs and the use of foreign workers legal or illegal for the rest makes massive competition for the few remaining jobs. If applicant 1 gets the job the other applicants don’t.
Also - what kind of education should you get? There are thousands of choices. Which area of study will have jobs after you have the education?
Right now I know a highly qualified computer guy who has had to move at least 3 times in the last 10 years or so because many computer jobs are not available to Americans because the corporations know how to scam the system and import people or export the work.
The goods and services must be taxed at the corporation to fund the government and taxes removed from US citizen labor. That would make labor here more competitive and simplifies tax collection.
You can’t have a global economy without a global minimum wage or anyone whose bank account doesn’t end in “illion” is bound eventually to live as a slave
I disagree this is only happening in Californa. I see this happening in PA, DE and NJ.
The luckiest people are the ones who got out of the rat race and do not have to work any more.
We have some manufactoring and industry in my area. The starting wage is around $8.00 an hour.
I have also noticed a lot of companies will not even state the wage they are paying(they want to get people to work as cheap as possible.)
When Clinton was in office labor was naming their price. A lot of unfilled jobs as people would look for work that paid the most.
Now there are also unfilled jobs because people cannot afford to work for the wages being offered and lack of hours with flexibility.
I mean if you are going to starve working why bother. I would have more luck buming change and say I am collecting for a charity.
I do not believe people in administrative positions will continue to recieve high salaries. When the corporations see they are paying people huge amounts of money and not producing wealth they will have to get the money from somewhere.
Demand for job skills has changed all through my lifetime.
I can recall my sister graduating nursing school in the 80s and not being able to find a job. Also, engineers were not in demand at all in the 50s and 60s.
Accounting is in demand now, what are they looking for some kind of hidden money or a way to evade the public about worth?
The only people who really bring income to a business are the sales people. The rest are overhead.
It looks like becoming an entrepreneur or self-employed service provider should be the way to go for many. But our system is designed to underpin becoming an employee, not an independent businessperson. The larger corporate interests lobby for and get onerous burdens laid on the shoulders of small businesses to drive them under. My plumber was just talking about the unemployment comp he must now pay to the state despite the fact that he has no employees. He had a heart attack last year. But he keeps on working and coughing and worrying over how he will pay for something that cannot benefit him. My son has a small custom art business. He’s also got a pinched fifth vertebra and no health insurance. He used to pick up other more strenuous jobs to fill when orders went slack. Now he can’t because his back won’t take it.
That is Capitalism for you.
John Rosina August,
In response to your comment:
“Ain’t gonna happen without a big stick.”
I’d say it isn’t going to happen until we learn to start cooperating with each other and to stop cooperating with corporate villains.
Anyone with the slightest non-violent inclination should do that before turning to sticks.
We are perfectly capable of controlling all demand and supply through non-violent means, we only suffer from disorganization: We are labor, and we are consumers, and we need to unite and globalize our unity.
Unity and cooperation are the answer, not sticks. United, we could make it so no corporation could buy or sell if they did not adhere to our democratically agreed upon standards.
Let’s hope that the neocon empire formula succeeds. If it does, the empire will be so rich no will have to work and everybody will live to a ripe old age of one hundred.
urthsong: My municipality has rules against running a business from your own home. And a new stripmall built near me has remained vacant after 6+ months because the rent is too high. The system is rigged against small businesses. As a small business person you’d need to borrow (pay the poor man’s tax) whereas the Big Boxes get tax deals, buy the land/building outright, etc. In a nutshell, this economy is all about de-populating the countryside (ala Grapes of Wrath) and making as many people as possible flock to whatever the Fortune-500 offers us in the big city.
I’d LOVE to start a small business. But the goddamned lenders and speculators will need to lower the going-rate on shop space and my mortgage a little bit first. Until then, their strip mall can rot back to mother nature for all I care.
macchendra
Having spent 32 years in the UAW, 22 of them as a Union Official, I can tell you that our once mighty
auto workers union is a mere shell of its former self. Our only hope is to unionize globally, and on that point we agree. I would like to think that this could be accomplished with peaceful unity of purpose, but history teaches otherwise.
For instance; the original sit down strikes at the GM Fisher Body Plant in 1930’s Detroit was the work of about one hundred hard nosed UAW members. They risked it all and were sucessful. But to hear it told today, thousands of UAW members were involved in that defining moment. Not true.
Walter Ruether and his brother and fellow leaders were physically beaten by hired corporate goons for their peaceful attempts at collective bargaining. Mr. Reuther’s home was shot up in 1948 (the year I was born).
While you may not want to employ a big stick, one will surely be used against you. This is especially true in third world countries, where most Union and civil leadership is non-existent due to murder and threat of the same.
Unfortunately, there are no Walter Reuther’s in modern day America. And if there were, he would certainly be killed. Hell, they marginalize mouthpieces like you and me every day - and just for blogging.
I hate to have to tell you this, but as a Vietnam Veteran (Sgt., USAF, dos 1966-70) I can tell you that the military industrial complex serves but one master, wealth generation for the wealthy. Your peaceful attempts would be a noble idea, as were the ideals of the oft-beaten anti-war hippies of the sixties, but you better be prepared for some up- close violence.
That’s the big stick I was refering to! Thousands of united laborers and consumers willing to risk life and limb to stand down punks like GW Bush, who, coward that he is, will hire others to beat you down. Now, having confronted and lost in a lonely crusade against my own toothless UAW - rather than ride a cushy Union job at the expense of my coworkers, I know a bit about being beaten down for a good cause.
Suit up - however, you’re on the right track, macchendra.
Best Wishes
I like those sticks… governments tend level the playing field with different sticks…
“To he who hath much, he shall be given more, and in abundance. To who who hath little, even that which he has shall be taken away.”
-The Gospel of St. Matthew.
The plight of Tamara Johnson and other single mothers is especially sad since tehy have to juggle work and children all by themselves. In collective societies, many women (and some men) who are divorced/widowed will move back with their parents/siblings. This leads to lesser burdens - financially and emotionally. Maybe that could be a good solution.
i don’t care if you shovel shit for a living, you should be able to make a comfortable living. as a matter of fact, i contend that the shit shoveler, probably works harder than most of the educated.
You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.
terryb….You are so right. The one silver lining in this whole miserable cloud is that the shit-shovelers will always have work as long as there are wealthy. We will never run out of shit as long as we have the wealthy with us. But then again, slaves never worried about lay-offs, either.
terryb, the only problem is that shoveling shit creates very little value, and anyone can do it. Therefore, it’s not worth much to anyone to have it done (other than the person who’s shit is being shoveled…)
As a result, the job will never be paid much. Or are you suggesting everyone should be paid the same, regardless of what they do?
John Rosina, PeaceWarrior is more than “a tad more emotional” - all he did was spout insults. There wasn’t an objective comment or suggestion in his post.
To your points though - much more cogent ones - I see only four alternatives:
1. “Beggar your neighbor” - e.g., as someone else pointed out - CA jobs to TX, TX jobs to Mexico, Mexico jobs to China, etc… This is your “race to the bottom”, and not a desirable outcome.
2. Bring back protectionism, with local content laws, tariffs, etc. While this helps employees of companies so protected (and the companies), it hurts consumers, because all of them will bear the higher prices for those protected.
3. Increase standards of living worldwide. As jobs move to India and China, incomes are rising there, creating more demand, and to some extent (albeit not enough) closing the “wage gap” between those locations and the US. Unfortunately, this is a long, slow process of their boats rising.
4. Push globalization of standards - e.g., ecological requirements, health & safety standards, etc. This both serves to move #3 faster, and impose some of the US structural costs on other countries.
Ultimaltely, I believe “globalization” is a fact of life - autarky and “managed” trade ultimately tend to reduce overall well-being, except for the connected. Where the focus needs to be is to accelerate the standards of living world wide. Will this potentially mean some reduction in the Western standard of living? potentially. However, the faster the “Third World” is developed, the lesser that reduction, and ultimately, the better it will be for those in both worlds.
Dr. Zimmerman Robert August 23rd, 2007 6:13 pm
“There are many rich people that are very wonderful people. It seems the only real problem is that they are rich.”
Most of us would not argue there are rich, wonderful people in this country and world. These people would be the ones who earned their money by working for it and not the ones engaging in political legislative schemes to increase their wealth at the expense of the rest of the population.
Having said that, the problem is not that people are rich. The problem is the unethical and sometimes criminal manner in which that wealth was and is accumulated. One example would be the deregulation of industry which essentially allowed multi-billion dollar corporations to engage in creative bookkeeping and enrich top executives while workers’ pension plans vanished. Another example would be the amount of interest that banks charge credit card customers……some people are paying as much as 34% interest. I could go on and on with examples but you get my point.
The system has been rigged to favor the wealthy who have infiltrated our political system and now control economic policy which is obviously designed to increase the wealth of the top 1%.
Protectionism seems to be a term which is conveniently applied when talking about free trade globalization, but never used when discussing legislation that protects the wealthy.
Many of the respondents have expressed a discontent with capitalism, or more specifically the economic system that is discribed in the article. What changes or reforms would you (in this boat) suggest to remedy our path social and economic distruction?
It may naive, but i will suggest that you who believe capitalism is the problem look at our system closer, because i would not call what we (US or globally) have capitalism. The government interferes in the interests of some vs. the interests of others, creating regulation. Of course the idea of private property exist, but it is only a concept because you are really renting your right to land, house, car, etc. by paying taxes. There is nothing voluntary about our system, you do what the government says or you go to jail. Capitalsim is the opposite, valuing free choice over force and that which is earned over that which is not. I’m no advocate of what we have because it is not freedom, the government protect the rich with our stolen money (tax revenue). I wonder how people can have faith or hope in the viability of government to solve the worlds problem, rationally speaking it is neither possible nor desireable. Government is not benevolent, socialist or any other, we must intrust our live to the tyranny of the majority or the benevolent dictator (Fidel or Cavez).
Why is that people on the left oppose this (administration) government, but would support another one in different clothes?
Aardvark,
Please return to terryb’s comment on shit-shoveling. Terryb never suggested that shit-shovelers make as much $$$ as ceos and pampered athletes. Terryb merely suugested that shit-shovelers make a “comfortable” living. As it is today, too many workers qualify for food stamps and other forms of assistance. As long as this condition prevails, we are, in reality, subsidizing the wealthy. If all forms of welfare were to stop immediately, the bloodbath you’d see in the US would far surpass anything you might even imagine in Iraq.
Gail,
I am afraid that part of the problem is that people are rich. I will not concede that people are primarily motivated by selfish reasons, as those who support predatory capitalism and celebrate the creation of a super-wealthy class would argue, but I will admit that such motivation exists and is common. And when some members of society have much more wealth than others, they have much more opportunity to warp the society to serve their interests, and they inevitably do. Not only do they warp the political system, but they corrupt the heart of the culture.
I believe that any society with a number of individuals with thousands or millions of times the wealth of the average individual is or will soon become dysfunctional and self-destructive. And I do not believe there are any good arguments against restricting wealth, as it seems that those who ultimately add the most value to the society (in general, but with a broad view also economically), e.g. Einstein, Hawking, Turing, Godel, Mandela, Gorbachev, MLK Jr., Gandhi, Nobel Prize winners, etc…, generally receive ordinary compensation while very ordinary people doing very ordinary work receive extraordinary compensation, e.g. most CEOs of large companies, usually through using a combination of bargaining power, treachery, and mendacity.
So it is not as if there is a strong positive correlation between income and value produced, and so there is really nothing utilitarian, nothing gained by society, to justify the exhorbitant and outrageous incomes we see today.
I remember when Reagan railed against the “Welfare Queens” during his presidential bid. And all the spit and lather that the right-wing crowd generated over that. The very thought that a non-caucasian female would have the audacity to defraud the welfare system and maybe triple her yearly income (from $5000 to $15,000) was enough to propel the geriatric fool into the White House thanks to the fear and loathing the nincompoop right-wing have for anyone and anything they don’t, won’t or can’t understand.
And here we are, nearly 30 years later. And look where we are. The rich are taking far more than the so-called “Welfare Queens” ever did from all of us, including the xenophobes that vote Republican, but they don’t seem a bit worried that they’re getting shafted 1000 times worse by the fat cats. I guess they really don’t care about getting bent over and screwed, just as long as it’s a rich white guy doing it.
Kivals,
Your statement:
“And I do not believe there are any good arguments against restricting wealth,”
How would you propose restricting wealth, and by what standard would you decide one’s value vs. another’s to “society”? You believe the government could do an adequate job redistributing your income? You believe your income to be your or ours? Do you work to benefit yourself or do you work for the benefit of “society”?
I’m trying to understand what most of you consider a just solution to our income inequality? Of course, there may be another root to our problems, and income inequality may just be another symptom. Why is it that when a problem exist our solution is to curtail our individual rights and freedom for the benfit of “society.” Has that avenue ever been a just solution?
Objectivistthinker,
The government already determines the laws, including the property laws, and so the government determines how much wealth we each have. The government prevents us from controlling property we may believe we are entitled to, and protects the claims of others for property they believe they are entitled to.
Those laws were written by “representatives,” who, more often than not in the “land of the greenback,” serve the interests of the economic elites.
The US rode to great wealth and prominence under a highly progressive tax system, and isn’t it odd that the US is falling in wealth, power, prestige, and quality of life in the aftermath of dismantling that tax system?
ardvark, i’m suggesting only that they make a comfortable living. as far as their value is concerned, i hold them in high esteem. you go out and do it for a while, then get back to me on what it’s worth. anyone that works hard, deserves to not have to worry about taking care of themselves, and their family.
terryb, while I haven’t actually shoveled shit, I’ve done other, disagreeable, “heavy-lifting” jobs. I’m the last one who will ever say they don’t work hard.
What I am saying is that no job guarantees (or can guarantee) someone a “comfortable” living. Putting aside the variable definition of “comfortable” (someone in NYC would have a radically different notion of comfort than someone in Djbouti), it always comes back to what someone is willing to pay to have a job done. At some point, it becomes more effecient to either find a way to mechanize the job or not have someone do it. This, for example, is why we have street sweeping machines rather than babushkas with brooms like they did in the former Soviet Union.
Peter Sirois, every regime since the beginning of time has engaged in “bread and circuses”. I’d argue though that food stamps, et cetera is not a subsidy to the rich, it is part of the tax the rich pays to keep the lower classes content.
What is being argued isn’t whether there will be classes, but rather how much the upper class has to pay the lower to remain where it is. As long as there are variations in human ability, and the oh-so-human desire to benefit the self and those close to the self, there will never be equality of result. Those who believe it is possible are, I believe, self-deluding. If you disagree, ask yourself this question honestly - a boat is sinking, and I can save one person - will I save my child, or a complete stranger? Or, to take it a step further - will I save myself, or a complete stranger?
Why not. Labor is the only capital investment that can be reduced to increase profit. And it proves what is commonly said: “the system works”–”the best of all POSSIBLE systems.”
To clamor for more pay could considered unpatriotic–it goes against the grain the grand scheme, profits and more profits. If the profits are going up, that is an indication that the system is working.
If one does not agree with the system, don’t whine, propose a solution. I don’t see any proposal yet so I submit my below. If anyone else comes up with something I will gladly give it consideration.
http://socialismmarxdeleonforarealunion.org/index.html
smdfaru, labor isn’t the only capital investment that can be reduced to increase profit. Look around you - it’s possible with technology to reduce raw materials, physical plant, capital required. It is all a trade-off. If you think that labor is the only investment that can be reduced to increase profit, then your economic model is woefully simplistic.
Objectivistthinker:
Kivals has already said the first part of what I was going to say. The upshot is that it is a false dichotomy/dualism to see government as some entity wholly separate from private capitalists. If you start with that assumption, you might indeed conclude that what we have is not capitalism — that an evil-minded, independent government serving only the needs of the downtrodden has written all these laws/regulations favoring the poor solely at the expense of the wealthy.
It’s the other way around — the poor do not dominate the halls of Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, etc. Regulations, juicy contracts, laws, protections, deregulations, lack of protections, etc. as the case may be are largely written by elites to serve their interests. There always has been social engineering, class warfare, etc. going on — the goal is to facilitate the movement of money from the laborer to the capitalist, and to keep the laborer down.
A mundane example is a liquor license. Any homebrewer can easily make his own beer, wine, etc. but he’s verboten from selling it. Did homebrewers around the nation write that law? Of course not — it was written by the post-prohibition/mob industry to keep competition down. Our whole system is replete with examples like this. The poor must borrow and pay interest (the poor penalty), whereas the wealthy earn it (reward for being wealthy). The system is totally built around keeping the poor poor, the wealthy wealthy.
So any analysis which embarks on the notion that regulations — or deregulations — were not written by capitalists is an extraordinarily naive one.
Aside from Sanders-VT, D.C. is not, and never has been, running amok with socialists.
aardvark,
That you would liken society to a condition as brutish and desperate as a sinking ship summarizes the Ayn Rand cult’s “objectivism” perfectly.
Sorry, but you “objectivist” so-called libertarians have cause and effect reversed. Your posited selfishness as the defining driving force in all human behavior is an effect of dog-eat-dog capitalist culture, not a cause, nor a justification for it. In cultures where an adequate standard of living and meaningful livlihood is afforded to all, such behavior is largely extingished, as cultures ranging from Scandinavia to leisure-intensive non-westernized tropical societies demonstrate.
And yes, I believe work should be compensated solely on the basis of effort, not status or educational attainment (education should be a free public resource anyway). I see little value to most highly paid occupations, particularly managerial or supervisory ones. When the Argentinian workers took over and formed co-operative enterprises from their shuttered factories, they got rid of all managers - everyone is paid the same and shares in management tasks. as a result, all these supposedly unviable businesses are now being run successfully.
As far as highly educated profgessionals somehow being worth more money, as a civil engineer, I see little relationship between pay and usefulness. In my field, the most valuuable, and value-adding, people in a civil engineering form are the field inspectors (including bridge inspectors!) and surveying and stakeout people, not the senior state-registered “principals” warming a desk chair and playing golf with their clients. Yet the field inspectors are typically paid about the same as the laborers (less if it is a union jobsite).
ardvark, let them eat cake. PJD thank you.
Ooops!
I meant to write thet the argentino co-op workers used NO managers.
KIVALS & PDJ: Good analyses. I looked into this problem in fiction and wrote a spec novel on the year 2020 using the date as a metaphor for society opening to a more balanced vision. Part of that balance is a modicum of fairness between profits and persons. Those who had amassed fortunes during this era of broken rules and ironic regulations went from being title HOLDERS to title GIVERS. That is, they had a choice on whether some of their co-opted lands and valuables could be used say for a park or educational purpose, etc. The second facet of my little sci-fi egalitarian future plan was putting aside money. Instead, using computers, all persons of appropriate age and sufficient physical health LOG their chosen SERVICE into a computer bank exchange. The currency is based on the extension of one’s time! And… everyone’s HOURS of service are equal! Taken in sum, hour based accounts are traded with other communities, in my book, PODS, to obtain necessary resources. Just as “The Manhattan Project” concentrated enormous intellectual power to develop a weapon, my “pods” join people together to invent new ways to enjoy life and spread that JOY around! (I began this novel on October l5, 1990 the day I bought my first home and completed in 221 pages, on December 18 in time for the deadline of a contest sponsored by Ted Turner. Every night I was summoned from sleep to type it, as if by automatic dictation. In my field this is called “channeling.” I had a feeling the time bank would offend pro-capitalist judges of the contest, but the work was and is pretty far out and I am very glad it “came through” me.) I recently self-published it under a different title than the original: “2020: After the Transition.”
being called an “objectivist”… now I AM insulted… I gave up cults decades ago.
PJD, I’ll readily agree that as abundance increases, there is less selfishness displayed, since there is less need for it.
But, I disagree heartily on the notion of everyone being paid the same. Everyone, in every job, does not create the same value. For example, while I can play the cello (in a mediocre fashion at best) people would not be willing to pay me the same as they would YoYo Ma. And even in Scandinavian countries you don’t have that equality of income regardless of job - afterall, the founder of Ikea is one of the richest men in the world.
Also, it’s not a question of level of education - it’s an issue of scarcity of skill. Look in any field - those who perform at a higher level of skill make more than those who perform at a lesser level (unless of course, they’re related to the boss…), and those fields where the skills are in lower supply command more than where they are in high supply (for example doctors or lawyers, although as we all know the medical and legal guilds restrict entrance to keep their numbers artifically low and the rewards artifically high).
terryb, no not “let them eat cake” - rather help them continue to develop skills so that they create enough value to feed themselves better than cake.
The problem, Siouxrose is that everyone’s time isn’t of equal value.
If everyone’s time were of equal value, by implication everyone does everything equally well. We all know that isn’t the case. You have to look at the combination of time, skill, ability, and training, and when you do that, people don’t create equal value.
Then you’re left with the choice - either those who create more value “earn” more, or you choose to confiscate the value they create to give to others. Shades of Harrison Bergernon by Kurt Vonnegut
kivals August 24th, 2007 11:37 am
Gail,
I am afraid that part of the problem is that people are rich. I will not concede that people are primarily motivated by selfish reasons, as those who support predatory capitalism and celebrate the creation of a super-wealthy class would argue, but I will admit that such motivation exists and is common. And when some members of society have much more wealth than others, they have much more opportunity to warp the society to serve their interests, and they inevitably do. Not only do they warp the political system, but they corrupt the heart of the culture.
Kivals,
As long as we live in a capitalistic system, the amount of money we have will determine the number and nature of “options” we have in life. The governments role or main function in a capitalistic society is to see that fair and free competition exists. If we take a good look at much of the legislation that has been passed in this country since the Reagan Administration, it’s obvious that “fair and free” competition has been compromised to a point where anti-trust laws (Clayton Aniti-trust Act & Sherman Anti-trust Act) have become a joke; just look at the media monopoly in this country as one example.
Under a “fair and competitive” system, people would be earning fair wages relative to inflation. Statistics show us that wages for the majority in this country have not kept up with inflation since the early 1970’s.
My point is, if the government did their job to ensure a “fair and competitive” system, Forbes Magazine wouldn’t be advertising how many more millionaires and billionaires were created under this rigged, elitist system; and a majority of average people who are willing to work would have more “options” in their lives.
Enabling predators to continue on this path has destroyed the ability of the majority in this country to obtain the “options” that have been handed to a small ruling elite.
As I said, there’s nothing wrong with having money and therefore more options, if you work for it. Money, like a gun, becomes an evil weapon in the hands of the corrupt and insane.
Aardvark and Siouxrose,
Everyone’s time may not be of equal value, but the correlation between value and compensation in the current US economy at the higher levels appears to be minimal. Those who attain the highest income levels usually do so by focusing on redirecting income streams into their own pockets, not by developing ideas on how to improve products or methods. Those creating the most value, e.g. the scientists and engineers with the new ideas and methods, are usually found in the middle to upper middle income brackets.
We all recognize that some may work to attain higher skill when motivated by a promise of greater compensation. However, many of us also recognize that our motivations are in large part dependent on our experiences, and in certain environments people will come to be motivated by something other than money.
I am not a scientist myself, though I have had many friends and acquaintances who were, and the scientists I have known were more motivated by the desire to achieve respect, or even admiration, by their peers, than they were for monetary rewards. And, though of course this cannot be proven, I suspect that the most important reason that most people desire riches is to gain the respect and admiration of others, particularly of others they respect or admire.
So it seems that attaining riches is not an end in itself but is just a potentially very destructive means of attaining the end of social acceptance from the people one cares about. If society were organized differently, one could strive for that acceptance without reference to compensation or wealth.
ardvark, i guess my point would be compassion, and social justice. capitalism with a social concience. fairness.
None of this hardly matters due to global warming. Soon the global economy is going to unravel. There will be food and water shortages almost everywhere, the world will soon be unlike anything anyone ever imagined. Avoiding the drought, heatwave, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. will be the only concern for most, and those things can hit anybody now matter how much money they have. Investors know our system is unsustainable, they are already starting to pull out of the market. It will be the new Great Depression before we know it. And people will be able to rob and steal from everyone else, chaos will rule soon.
those who perform at a higher level of skill make more than those who perform at a lesser level…
Really? Than why did Einstein die a man of very modest wealth? And, why does YoYo Ma, Anne Sophie Mutter, and a the top Oncologist or Cardiologist at John’s Hopkins combined, make much less than, say, the coal baron Bob Murray, whose only “talents” are a deep lust for wealth and power?
Kivals,
As a civil engineer, with a background in geology, in an organization with many kinds of scientists, I very much agree with your points.
However, for many scientists, it goes beyond just approval of peers, most are motivated simply to satisfy their desire - usually dating to earliest childhood - for an understanding of the mechanics of the physical reality. Many are frankly very satisfied that they can actually find someone to pay them anything at all for work that they would practically pay to do if they could.
Aardvark
“….labor isn’t the only capital investment that can be reduced to increase profit. Look around you - it’s possible with technology to reduce raw materials, physical plant, capital required. It is all a trade-off. If you think that labor is the only investment that can be reduced to increase profit, then your economic model is woefully simplistic.”
Try creating technoloy to reduce raw materials, physical plant without labor. It is a matter of replacing more labor with less. Again, if you know how to increase profits without reducing labor in the prodive process than you know something the capitalist class does not. The financial pages in the media are filled with corporations squealing about the high cost of labor.
Using basic Marxian economics: If a unit required one half of a amount of material then before, that means that there is one half of labor embodied in that material. The only thing that can change the value of the raw material is if a new productive process took less labor to produce it. If the necessary labor time remains the same; the raw material required is cut in half and the selling price remains the same, the buyer, in essence is being charged for value that isn’t there. If the raw material is cut in half plus reducing the necessary labor time required to by a half without reducing the sale price, then the buyer is doublely being overcharged
Not so “woefully simplistic.”
This sentence is to replace the last sentence of my previous comment.
If the raw material is cut in half plus reducing the necessary labor time required to produce it by a half without reducing the sale price accordingly, then the buyer is doublely being overcharged
Direct democracy gives the Swiss one of the highest per capita incomes in the world:
http://www.nationalinitiative.us/
Well one thing for sure now that the democrats are in control the MSM will be all over the congress regarding spending. That’s right you never hear a peep during the 18 years of the repukes stealing the treasury blind giving their buddies all kinds of no bid contracts, tax breaks, no audits, and other way to steal money they can come up with. This is what republicans are all about look at the huge debt they run up. The republican platform is fear, greed, scam, and scum. They like one syllable words and their leaders can understand the message.
The MSM only gets involved when the democrats try to do something for social programs or improve the lives of the needy and handicapped. KBR and Halliburton can waste and steal hundreds of billions no problem but if we spend a few dollars for children’s health care the MSM immediately becomes the repukes attack dogs. Without the idiotic propaganda report in the MSM the repukes would get about .05% of the vote and they know it.
Lets start by putting the tax structure back into place which was removed by the most vile aberration of democracy the world has ever known the bush family. They are traitors that need to be hunted and prosecuted as the traitorous scum they are. Think about it the huge tax burden was moved to the middle class, once the first bush administration cam into power. That was 1980 Reagan was the monkey giving the speeches bush ran the country.
Aardvark people like yourselves who advocate for outsourcing to countries like China that use slave labor as blatant labor arbitrage have ruined the American middle and working class, some of us here in the formerly industrial midwest are paying up attention and are saving up rope and eying lamp posts, you’ve been warned.
Welcome to the real world indeed, not all of us are nicey, nice Ghandian hippies.
Aardvark is the first word in the dictionary. Guess you never got past that one. Did you know that you can burn 150 carories an hour by beating your head agaist a wall?___You probably did know, you obviously know it all.
Aaardvark you are so full of crap I hardly know where to begin:
For example you said:
“Also, it’s not a question of level of education - it’s an issue of scarcity of skill. Look in any field - those who perform at a higher level of skill make more than those who perform at a lesser level (unless of course, they’re related to the boss…”
Hogwash as someone who knows a thing or two about electronics I know most CEOs and other management types are too unskilled to even hook up their own home theaters talk about design the circuits inside them. CEOS and other managers in fact parasite value off of the people who actually create value which in this example are the people who design the circuits, manufacture the actual product, transport it to the store to sell, and then sell it. Hint if any of those people disappeared the business would be finished where as if the mangers disappeared it would function just fine as in the example of worker run cooperatives in Argentina given above. All the owners have are slips of paper that say things like “Harvard MBA” that allow them to get investment capital from the bankers who are also parasites, and who sit at the top of the food chain of parasites who add no actual value to our economy or society at all. And all the managers (including CEOs) do is keep the real workers subservient for the owners and thus they are parasites posesing no real productive skills either. Just because there is a clique of MBAs telling each other that their skills are rare and valuable does not make that actually so. As more and more people figure this out your time as parasites at the top of the heap will be running out