Here is some documentation of the six decade race to the bottom:
“… In the last three decades, gross domestic product doubled but the typical worker's real wages barely increased. … In fact, real wages for middle class men have declined by 28 percent since 1969, according to a report from the Hamilton Project. For men without a high school degree, they've fallen by a whopping 66 percent.…" {Read this report at: http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2011/07_milken_greenstone_looney/07_milken_greenstone_looney.pdf}
"... When you factor in millions of men without weekly salaries, {instead of just average salaries of workers} male wages sink to their lowest level since the 1950s. – {I.e. >60 years of huge corporate gains have been distributed 0% to America’s potential male work force. – No wonder unemployment cost are up and the “consumer economy” is failing}
“… Almost one of every 12 white-collar jobs in sales, administrative support, and nonmanagerial office work vanished in the first two years of the recession," Peck writes, and one in six blue-collar jobs disappeared in production, craft, repair, and machine operation. We know where the jobs are going -- to machines, software, and foreign workers. We also know why they're going away. Global competition gives companies the incentive to be more productive, and technology and foreign labor gives companies the means to be more productive. Automation lets one employee handle the work of three, or three hundred. Off-shoring lets ten Asian workers receive the salary of one. As these corporate “Getting-Things-Done strategies” make the typical worker increasingly expendable, real wages have stagnated, or declined, to their 1950s levels. ..."
“…Before the Great Depression, about 35% of family expenditures went to food and threads. Today, we spend only 10% of our income on food and 3% of our income on clothes. Again, this is an achievement of manufacturing and farming efficiency.It doesn't end there. Behind the most important technology stories of our time, there is a clear theme: The triumph of software ...” {and lower cost, more powerful, electronics like computers, iPads, video downloads instead of going to movies, etc.}
“…You could say that everything is getting cheaper except for almost everything you need. We need places to live,* energy to move, education to move up, and insurance to stay healthy. The productivity revolution isn't doing much to make those things more affordable….”
*{True, the cost of buying older house is down ~35% from inflated peak, but rents are up as more are forced into renting. Even those retainly the home have huge loss of net worth with its decline in value.}
Quotes from: http://www.theatlantic.com/business...reason-americans-feel-so-squeezed/242704/?a=2
{…}s are Billy T inserts.
SUMMARY: Except for electrons, US life for Joe American has been getting worse for 60+ years. The current generation is worse off than that of their parents. For reasons I have explained and mathematically proved here: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2811909&postcount=176
This upward transfer of wealth to the already rich is built into the economic system and has become much more destructive of a stable society with GWB’s policies and decisions. The "middle class" is shrinking and the poor are in pain. Food and job riots followed by marshal law may be only few years away, especially if either my long standing prediction of a run on the dollar by Halloween 2014 is correct; Or China ceases to finance our growing debt and deficits.
“… In the last three decades, gross domestic product doubled but the typical worker's real wages barely increased. … In fact, real wages for middle class men have declined by 28 percent since 1969, according to a report from the Hamilton Project. For men without a high school degree, they've fallen by a whopping 66 percent.…" {Read this report at: http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/papers/2011/07_milken_greenstone_looney/07_milken_greenstone_looney.pdf}
"... When you factor in millions of men without weekly salaries, {instead of just average salaries of workers} male wages sink to their lowest level since the 1950s. – {I.e. >60 years of huge corporate gains have been distributed 0% to America’s potential male work force. – No wonder unemployment cost are up and the “consumer economy” is failing}
“… Almost one of every 12 white-collar jobs in sales, administrative support, and nonmanagerial office work vanished in the first two years of the recession," Peck writes, and one in six blue-collar jobs disappeared in production, craft, repair, and machine operation. We know where the jobs are going -- to machines, software, and foreign workers. We also know why they're going away. Global competition gives companies the incentive to be more productive, and technology and foreign labor gives companies the means to be more productive. Automation lets one employee handle the work of three, or three hundred. Off-shoring lets ten Asian workers receive the salary of one. As these corporate “Getting-Things-Done strategies” make the typical worker increasingly expendable, real wages have stagnated, or declined, to their 1950s levels. ..."
“…Before the Great Depression, about 35% of family expenditures went to food and threads. Today, we spend only 10% of our income on food and 3% of our income on clothes. Again, this is an achievement of manufacturing and farming efficiency.It doesn't end there. Behind the most important technology stories of our time, there is a clear theme: The triumph of software ...” {and lower cost, more powerful, electronics like computers, iPads, video downloads instead of going to movies, etc.}
“…You could say that everything is getting cheaper except for almost everything you need. We need places to live,* energy to move, education to move up, and insurance to stay healthy. The productivity revolution isn't doing much to make those things more affordable….”
*{True, the cost of buying older house is down ~35% from inflated peak, but rents are up as more are forced into renting. Even those retainly the home have huge loss of net worth with its decline in value.}
Quotes from: http://www.theatlantic.com/business...reason-americans-feel-so-squeezed/242704/?a=2
{…}s are Billy T inserts.
SUMMARY: Except for electrons, US life for Joe American has been getting worse for 60+ years. The current generation is worse off than that of their parents. For reasons I have explained and mathematically proved here: http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2811909&postcount=176
This upward transfer of wealth to the already rich is built into the economic system and has become much more destructive of a stable society with GWB’s policies and decisions. The "middle class" is shrinking and the poor are in pain. Food and job riots followed by marshal law may be only few years away, especially if either my long standing prediction of a run on the dollar by Halloween 2014 is correct; Or China ceases to finance our growing debt and deficits.
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