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First, do you believe that American citizens are beholden to contribute to the well being of India? Why?

No, I and I have no idea how you could interpret anything I wrote in the previous post to mean such a thing. My statement regarding the wages of the bottom 90% of American workers is simply that rich is a relative term.

Second, when the article says that the bottom 60% of Americans have 65% of their net worth tied up in their homes, how can you possibly read that as "Americans have mortgaged their homes to the hilt?" If that were that case, Americans would have NO net worth tied up in their homes. You do know what "net worth" means, right? Most Americans do not want to "participate in the culture of excess," they want to be able to eat, house themselves, heat their homes in the winter, and buy necessary medicine, all at the same time. Is that excess?

Net worth is simply Assets-Liabilities. If your 65% of your net worth is tied up in your home, it means could either mean 65% of your assets are represented by your actual house, or 65% of your liabilities is tied up in mortgage payments. Either way, it is not good financial practice to have that much of your net worth tied up in an asset that is not easily convertible to cash.
As for the assertion that most Americans do not wish to participate in the culture of excess:
LCD sales in decline for 2010 compared to double-digit growth for previous two years
Auto sales in America on considerable upturn
Spending on American travel - note especially travel expenditure as a function of household income - it remained remarkably consistent regardless of income.
To me that doesn't read as simply wanting to "eat, house themselves, heat homes in the winter, and buy necessary medicine"...but then I'm just a simple Canadian yokel.
Additionally - I am not advocating for the demise of the American worker - I am saying their needs to be a fundamental shift in consumer attitudes, and there also needs to be a fundamental shift in the way corporate capitalism is viewed and regulated in America (and around the world). However the importance of the corporation and the overvaluation of the CEOs won't change until consumer culture changes.

I don't know who you are arguing with, but I'll bite.

#1: The GP was referring to the numerous less-than-living-wage jobs that are available. These are unskilled jobs and many don't even require a diploma.
#2: Numbers clearly show that a college degree is a better indicator of a worthwhile career than a lack thereof: http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm
#3: They may be higher paid than a lot of folks at wal*mart but the average is nowhere near $19/hr. Nice try though. http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Employer=Costco_Wholesale_company/Hourly_Rate
#4: Skilled labor certainly pays more than unskilled labor, however examples where skilled laborers are making more than those with college degrees are uncommon and if you look at the averages shown for #2, you can see that they are far from the "rule."
#5: Who said anything about how good a foreign degree is vs. a domestic degree? When it comes down to it, a degree is only as "good" as the student who earned it.

yeah well, productivity has been increasing for years but people who actually work for a living are seeing their _real_ wages fall. After all one way you get better productivity is to pay people less for the same work.

Wow - you especially need to take a microeconomics class. In said class you would learn:

a) As productivity increases, profitability increases. Increased profitability leads to greater incentive to provide supply of product and thus, higher demand for labor.
b) Holding supply of labor constant, increased demand for labor will raise real wages.
c) Holding demand for labor constant, increased supply of labor will decrease real wages.

Now look at the increase in real wages (constant 1982 dollars) over the past ten years: $270.61 real weekly wages in Jan 2001 compared to $297.21 in Jan 2011. That's an annualized rate of increase in real wages of about 0.94% - covering two major recessions, mind you.

And that's not even taking the increase in the labor supply into account! Number of labor force in Jan 2001: about 118.3 million. In Jan 2011: about 153.2 million (that's an annualized increase in workers of about 2.6%) So not only did real wages go up, but they did so despite a significant increase in the supply of available labor. (All statistics gathered from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.)

That's what increased productivity does.

Now - before you start in with an argument about what those real wages can actually buy, consider this: Am I more or less likely to argue you need to take an economics class if you can't distinguish between real wages and real prices of products?

Mod this to +1 million

The most efficient method is going to transferable community college for two years + finishing up the last two years at your local state university system = bachelor's degree for the minimum capital outlay. You can do the math yourself if you want, the data sets are available (public & private colleges etc) at nces.ed.gov and (salaries) at bls.gov

As someone mentioned above, education pays - whether it pays you back depends on how much money you spent to get that fancy diploma and what your resulting salary is.

Mod this to +1 million

The most efficient method is going to transferable community college for two years + finishing up the last two years at your local state university system = bachelor's degree for the minimum capital outlay. You can do the math yourself if you want, the data sets are available (public & private colleges etc) at nces.ed.gov and (salaries) at bls.gov

As someone mentioned above, education pays - whether it pays you back depends on how much money you spent to get that fancy diploma and what your resulting salary is.

I don't agree with your statements, and neither does this chart.

Two questions. 1) Which statements do you dispute? 2) How does the chart you linked dispute those statements? You basically said, "Of your ten statements, every single one is wrong. Here's a bar graph." Annnnndddd?

I don't agree with your statements, and neither does this chart.

bought himself a pretty high-classed hooker. Not sure for how long though......

Going by the only information I have on such things (the amount Richard Gere's character paid Julia Roberts' character for a week of 'service' in the 1990 film Pretty Woman, and the government's inflation calculator at http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm), I'd say, 39.6 weeks.

"most government workers are paid less than equivalent civil sector workers"

Bull. Shit.

Do your own homework. Why let facts get in the way of your lie?

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf

Page 1. Look at the plots on page 1. Total comp from State & local is $10/hr more than private or Civilian.

If you actually read that report (ie went beyond the pictures):

Compensation cost levels in state and local government should not be directly compared with levels in
private industry. Differences between these sectors stem from factors such as variation in work
activities and occupational structures. Manufacturing and sales, for example, make up a large part of
private industry work activities but are rare in state and local government. Management, professional,
and administrative support occupations (including teachers) account for two-thirds of the state and local
government workforce, compared with two-fifths of private industry.

Second, according to a recent study at the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee, education level is higher among government workers than peer private sector, so your comment of "government jobs are good for people in relatively low-skilled jobs" makes me think you're either making everything up or worse, people in government are reaching for jobs not to their ability yet wanting to be paid like they are working to their ability.

Actually it's the opposite. A lot of government workers have education and experience beyond the level required for the job, and while using it aren't getting compensated for it. We get people with masters degrees applying for technician jobs that require an associates or 2 years experience.

Anyway, government jobs are cushy in a recession, and crap in boom times. If government jobs are so well paid and so great, go ahead and apply for one. In a year or so, there will be plenty of openings that no one will want because private sector will pay more.

"most government workers are paid less than equivalent civil sector workers"

Bull. Shit.

Do your own homework. Why let facts get in the way of your lie?

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ecec.pdf

Page 1. Look at the plots on page 1. Total comp from State & local is $10/hr more than private or Civilian.

Second, according to a recent study at the University of Wisconsin/Milwaukee, education level is higher among government workers than peer private sector, so your comment of "government jobs are good for people in relatively low-skilled jobs" makes me think you're either making everything up or worse, people in government are reaching for jobs not to their ability yet wanting to be paid like they are working to their ability.

The reason we have few competent teachers is simple: Education is one of the most poorly compensated professions in the USA and has generally atrocious working conditions. Education attracts many teachers, but most last less than 2 years on the job before switching professions. Very few competent people are willing to grind away their soul day-in, day-out for pennies. At the same time, the cost for a college degree and certification is skyrocketing. It just doesn't make economic sense to be a teacher.

The public has an incredibly patronizing attitude that teachers should accept miserable accept out of the goodness of their heart. That attitude worked back when women faced systematic artificial barriers in most other professions. In our grandparents generation, we were effectively subsidizing our education system by restricting opportunities for women. That was true in the 60s. It's not true now. Women are competing in every profession, and now education salaries must also compete.

Blaming the Unions is a popular game, but they are not the central problem. If schools seriously want the top college grads to go into education, then obviously they need to compete with other opportunities that top college grads are offered. But you can't offer people a starting salary of $33,227 and then bitch and moan when your top applicants are C students from state universities. The Unions are basically the only force keeping teacher salaries competitive. States with a heavily unionized teacher work-force are better compensated and, unsurprisingly, produce better results

http://www.bls.gov/bls/blswage.htm

I totally agree with the idea that if you don't like something about your job, you should find something better. That is what keeps benefits like a lunch break from going away completely. There are employers that are required by state law or by the unions to have a lunch break. To remain competitive with hiring, most employers will offer a lunch break, but only the amount required by law. Non-union employers located in states without mandatory lunch break laws still offer a break, because you still can go elsewhere. The invisible hand can be forced sometimes and benefits are a great example.

You are correct in your characterization that minimum wage workers are young and relatively few. Of all workers in the US, 58% worked for hourly rates, only 5% of those work for the minimum. You are wrong about some states not having a minimum wage. Minimum wage is a federal law and applies to all states.

Minimum wage is the floor other wages stand on. If it were taken away, wages would be completely controlled by the market, which may be a good thing for employers. What about those 5%? Their wages would undoubtedly fall, because the demand for unskilled labor will always be outstripped by the supply.

Perhaps so. But how do you define a functional society?

Well, the first cut is that, to the extent that we can reasonably manage it, nobody should starve or go without basic care. Social and economic mobility are big things and come right after basic safety - health care and accessible education do a lot for that.

With hyper-capitalism things are at least black and white.

And it leads to feudalism - we tried that, and oh boy did it fail us. The world is shades of grey, so let's try to address that a bit.

But now look at the society. It's far more complex.

Ok, so we agree on that.

Capitalism uses the death threat to force you to work (or else you can't buy food or shelter.) Whenever this threat is removed the society starts falling apart - some people decide that they don't need to work that hard, since someone else will provide them with food and shelter. This, of course, ends up with nobody working and everyone consuming.

Not so. People (most of them) want to be useful and have control over their lives, so they accept the dole until they can find something better. This has been shown in numerous experiments, and also, to an extent, in EU - France has had riots because people couldn't get jobs due to their name sounding african, for instance, and Germany has lower unemployment than we do and is fairly socialist.

I would be all for building that functional society of yours.

Go to europe and just talk to people; you may find that it's more possible than you think.

A pretty damn high percentage of the 'total workforce', I'm sure. HR? Yeah, it's not like every company doesn't have an army of these workers. Healthcare? It's one of the biggest industries in the US (and growing). (Almost) everyone has a lawyer, and every county has a courthouse (complete with its own paid lawyers, judges, etc.) which need to track cases.

Retail (surely you've heard the term, 'service industry'?) is the gross bulk of the US economy at this point. Maybe some chains use "open source" as part of the systems, but the end result surely isn't shared wholesale with their competitors. (Please realize this includes food service.)

I wager I accounted for at least 50-60% of the total workforce. I'm sure

Take a look at BLS data and find me an economic segment that might actually be able to use "all open source". That's right, just the "Computer and Mathematical Science Occupations" professions, which is a relatively trivial percentage, and maybe general clerical (sometimes). Why is that, do you think? I suspect it has something to do with the fact that most Open Source software is written for those who write software - people like themselves. Those who write software are most likely to be in the sciences, not (say) transportation or business management.

What's salesforce.com have to do with anything? Why should I care, specifically, about yet another 'cloud' service?

Most reports I've seen show that about 30% of PhDs eventually end up with a tenured position. Which I consider good odds.
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/issuebrf/sib97321.htm
Of course, there's more career paths than just being a tenured Professor. Overall, PhDs have a fraction of the unemployment rate of the general public and higher pay.
http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm
So its unlikely that you'll actually be worse off by making the attempt.

Dude, your "30% tenured" numbers are a bit dated (that link is to a 1997 report), and the unemployment / income data in the other link is averaged across all ages and so does not give the real picture of what life is like for recent grads. Most recent numbers I've heard are ~1 in 5 *postdocs* manage to obtain a faculty position of any type (tenured or otherwise) - and that was before the current economic crash. A lot of schools have been paying faculty from the income on their endowments, and when that became a negative number it triggered a lot of hiring freezes. A typical faculty job posting today at a medium-tier institution will draw in 300-400 or more applications - admin assistants are triaging candidates based on keywords in their CVs without even reading the application packages, just to cut down the overload before things even get to the official hiring committee. Consulting houses won't hire postdocs (a friend of mine was told they consider postdocs exploring consulting as being unable to get a faculty position [quite possibly true in this market] and therefore failures / not good enough). Industry is cutting back, some hiring is going on, but a lot of little startups went under when the amount of VC pulled back in the last couple of years, and even companies like Merck are closing whole research insitutes.

I love what I do, but there's no way in hell I'd encourage my kids to follow in my footsteps. Society simply does not value what we do, and the foundation of the whole enterprise is the hard labor of students and postdocs traded against the promise of future gains which are turning out to be more mirage than reality for the current generation of researchers. Check out http://www.nationalpostdoc.org for more current discussion of the situation.

Most reports I've seen show that about 30% of PhDs eventually end up with a tenured position. Which I consider good odds. http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/issuebrf/sib97321.htm Of course, there's more career paths than just being a tenured Professor. Overall, PhDs have a fraction of the unemployment rate of the general public and higher pay. http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm So its unlikely that you'll actually be worse off by making the attempt.

(about 5% of gross pay)

I'm not sure where you get that idea. From here, median household income in 1950 was $3200, while average was $4200. Do you think you could get a new car in 1950 for $200? (A quick Google suggests that $1600-$2000 is more like it.)

A quick google tells me that "the stimulus package" was passed in early 2009.

A look at the gov's data tells me that the seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate rose fairly-steadily for the rest of 2009 and is currently noticeably higher than Jan/Feb of 2009. Now, I'm not qualified to do the appropriate numerical analysis of the numbers. But, the curve seems to get a bit steeper right after Feb '09.

Seems that claiming a belief that "the stimulus package" caused unemployment to rise is patently false, is, well, weak.

What amazes me is that the various "war on..." had placed US in this situation, yet US still persist in them crazy spendings (monthly cost of Iraq+Afghanistan - $11.1 billions; TSA budget 2009: roughly $8.1 billions).

Even letting aside the legitimacy/efficiency of the said "wars", at least the question of affordability springs into mind.

I wonder how long 'til we reach the "we were always at war with eurasia" and/or Herman Kahn's "spasm or insatiate war"... in a period of bust, might not take too long.

According to this CPI inflation calculator, the equivalent cost in 2010 dollars is $2562, which makes the return something more like 8000%

You missed the point: $666 -> $210,100 in 36 years is equivalent to investing $666 for 36 years at 18% annual interest. The power of compounding!

According to this CPI inflation calculator, the equivalent cost in 2010 dollars is $2562, which makes the return something more like 8000%

The H1-b fraud is what kills it for most Americans that stumble upon offshoring's negative qualities.

You don't go to India for US jobs, especially when you're millions of US jobs in the hole.

Yeah, you might think that, but you'd be completely wrong.

The unemployment rate for college graduates is 4.7 percent this year. That essentially means that, for college graduates, there is no recession: 5 percent unemployment is the national rate you see during boom years.

What's more, three years ago the unemployment rate for college graduates was two percent, which is far too low to be sustainable. In other words, the lack of college graduates--people with the qualifications to work the jobs this country was producing--was stifling growth in those areas.

The conclusion is clear: we need more highly educated college graduates in this country, and we need them three years ago. Long term that means education reform, which the President got done by putting it on a rider on the healthcare bill, but short term what it means is importing qualified workers from overseas, until we can legitimately produce them here. The idea that H-1B is robbing Americans of jobs is a myth: the data-driven facts say that we don't have enough highly educated Americans to do the jobs our economy is currently producing, and until we can legitimately make up the gap the H-1B visa program is a barely passable stopgap.

Im not an american. I just dont get you guys.

And I didnt get you either when you elected GWB fucking TWICE.

And I dont get how can you guys pass the check on the economy to Obama when he received a wreck of a country that was made first and foremost by the republicans and GWB.

Its really amazing.

When Republicans and GWB were running the economy, we were doing damn well. Unemployment was less than 4% and the government was raking in record tax receipts, AFTER tax cuts. I don't expect you to remember that since it was more than 3 years ago. Things didn't go to shit until the D's took over Congress starting in 2007. It's gotten worse since 2008 when the D's got the White House and a filibuster proof Senate. The unemployment rate in Oct 2006 was less than 4.5%. What's the unemployment rate now?

Memorize this:

CONGRESS CONTROLS THE ECONOMY

Stop blaming Bush. Stop blaming Obama. Don't give credit to Bush or Clinton. It is all CONGRESS.

It would be a serious ethical breach. It's also a highly subjective area, and lawyers and bar associations are notoriously difficult to persuade to sanction a lawyer, possibly from fear that they, one day, might be subject to sanctions for such a claim.

I agree that bar associations should do more to discipline misbehaving lawyers. However, malpractice suits are fairly effective.

Great soundbite. Then you realize that while there are 700,000 physicians in the US (not all practicing), there are 1.7 million active lawyers.

First, citation needed as to the number. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says "Lawyers held about 759,200 jobs in 2008." Source. The American Bar Association says there were 1.18 million active attorneys in the US in 2009. Source. The difference being that not all active attorneys have 'lawyer' as their primary employment (for example, I am an attorney, but my primary job is as an academic researcher, though I do represent clients).

You also have to consider the amounts involved. Most lawyers don't deal with multi-million dollar issues, but doctors almost all do.

But even granting that it's not a complete apples to apples comparison, the point remains that the annual per-attorney liability is in the thousands of dollars. If you don't think that's serious, then, well, I invite you to consider whether you'd want to practice law without malpractice insurance.

I'm confused both by why you feel inflation is a terrible metric and why you feel the minimum wage would be a better metric. According to a department of labor page I pulled up here, in 2009 only 3% of workers aged 25 or up made at or below the minimum wage. So you've got a number that's only important to a very small percentage of adult workers that's supposed to someone be more important then inflation, which effects everyone?

I could see arguing about which inflation metric to use, ie core inflation rather than the overall inflation rate. However, I think minimum wage is far less valuable to compare prices between time periods than inflation.

I also find it hard to believe, with 10% unemployment, they can't find engineers/software people who are desperate for jobs.

National unemployment for Americans with a bachelor degree or higher is currently 4.6%. Certainly there are plenty of unemployed engineers/software people out there, but not as many as you might expect.

Two words: Security Clearance.

I also find it hard to believe, with 10% unemployment, they can't find engineers/software people who are desperate for jobs.

National unemployment for Americans with a bachelor degree or higher is currently 4.6%. Certainly there are plenty of unemployed engineers/software people out there, but not as many as you might expect.

Nope, I'm just someone who graduated from a 4 year, 45k per year institution with $20k in debt, and am now pursuing graduate studies in Robotics at a top not school.

I agree that there are fields where loans do not make sense, as the "softer" degrees as your link points out (art, music, russian literature).

But the "handful of degrees" you're talking about are the sciences (physics, biology, chemistry, computer), engineering (mechanical, electrical, civil, computer), medicine, law... these degrees make up over half of my undergraduate institution.

But the key mistake you're making is measuring a degree by lifetime earning potential. My friend went to Syracuse for Journalism (one of the degrees your source derides), and now writes for the Phillies. He gets to fly around the country and watch baseball for a living! How do you measure that in "lifetime earning potential"?

I get to work with millions of dollars of robotics equipment every day. I can pull a Honda Asimo off the shelf and run my latest algorithms any time I want. I would gladly take twice the loans out to do what I do today.

And what of those who don't have jobs? Well, I guess that's a shame but it s a tougher economic climate, and it's been shown that unemployment is lower for those that have degrees by almost 50%. I know it's tough now, but when employment is normalized, that diploma will be on your resume as.

So am I worried about compound interest and bankruptcy? No. My loans are deferred because I'm in grad school, but if I had to pay them it would be about $150 a month. That's less than the payment on a new kia subcompact. I'll save up during grad school and pay off as much as I can when I leave, and when I eventually pay them off my credit will be sky high (right about he time I'm ready to by a house, I wager).

So when I'm 65, looking back on my 47 years of productivity I'm confident I'll be looking back at a life lived doing what I loved, rather than a pile of cash and missed opportunities (although I'm also confident I'll be sitting on a pile of cash as well).

I know this reply was long, but it had to be, given your tone. To sum my position, you have to be smart about loans. Want to attend a $40k per year institution for a degree in photography so you can eventually do inner city social work at $30k per year? Not a good idea to take loans. Want to be a scientist, a doctor, a lawyer an engineer? You NEED to go to school, so decide at that point whether loans make sense or not. As in all things, moderation is key. You can leave with $80k in debt, or work through college and leave with $20k in debt or no debt at all.

Unemployment is only 4.6% for those with a bachelor's degree or higher. Considering the kinds of jobs that are in the majority at Microsoft and Amazon, I'd say they're doing enough to create jobs already.

Source: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t04.htm

From another study on the costs involved in auto manufacturing completed at MIT Vehicle Manufacturing Assembly Labor and Other Manufacturing Costs = 6.5% of MSRP

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics the median wage for employees working in auto manufacturing is $58,400.

Assuming an average family household and both adults work in auto manufacturing the gross income will be at least $116, 800. Looking at IRS statistics for the adjusted gross income level of $100,000 to $200,000 the average household income is $132,881 and after deductions paid $17,388 in income tax. The is an effective 13% tax rate on gross income.

So on a $25,000 car with 6.5% going to wages and an effective 13% tax rate on those wages the portion of the retail cost is $211.25 and add to that the corporate gross profit of 6% from the Stanford auto manufacturing study and a 35% tax rate we have another $525 for a total of $736.25 of income tax in the retail price of a $25,000 automobile which is 2.9%.

And yes, I know there are all kinds of other little taxes here and there you want to throw in to where we are no longer talking about income tax but it becomes so convoluted its not clear exactly how everything is associated anymore, but it doesn't matter. Even if the auto manufacturing workers paid 100% of their income in income taxes you still would not be even close to 22%.

But setting all of that data showing the 22% is bogus aside and just assuming this fantasy world is real lets take a quick look at this Fair Tax. With the word "Fair" in its name it sounds great, we all like fair don't we, but reading Boortz he specifically states that "the FairTax plan was revenue neutral". Perhaps I am misunderstanding what you are suggesting but it appears you want no taxes while the FairTax being revenue neutral is not a no tax plan but instead is just tax reform with the same level of taxation but shifted around so revenue for the government, corporations and employees remains the same.

But even in Boortz' comments he makes some outlandish suggestions such as "When the FairTax is implemented, and when business and personal income and payroll taxes disappear, your employer is going to have to make a decision. He will either take some or the entire amount he had been withholding for federal income and payroll taxes and add it to your weekly check, or he will readjust your pay figures so that your entire paycheck will be equal to what you used to call "take home pay" before the FairTax."

HA HA HA!!! Now that is hilarious! Eliminate the payroll tax, which in layman terms means take away the Social Security and Medicare safety net that ensures a minimal level of support for U.S. workers when they reach retirement age, and let the corporations decide if they should keep all that money themselves or maybe if they are nice they will give the U.S. workers some crumbs. Sorry but in the real world history has shown over and over and over that given the opportunity the U.S. worker will get screwed. Scrap that "Fair" Tax plan and try working out something more realistic. :)

Illegal immigrants are bankrolling your SS right now. "Stephen C. Goss, the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration and someone who enjoys bipartisan support for his straightforwardness, said that by 2007, the Social Security trust fund had received a net benefit of somewhere between $120 billion and $240 billion from unauthorized immigrants. That represented an astounding 5.4 percent to 10.7 percent of the trust fund's total assets of $2.24 trillion that year. The cumulative contribution is surely higher now. Unauthorized immigrants paid a net contribution of $12 billion in 2007 alone, Goss said. " SOURCE [washingtonpost.com].

If the 9.6% (Source) of Americans who are currently unemployed were doing these jobs instead of the illegal immigrants, they would be contributing an astounding 5.4-10.7% of our social security trust fund's assets. Since Americans generally get a higher wage, theoretically they would be contributing more to SS than illegal immigrants. My point is that there are plenty of American workers who are capable of doing the same work as illegal immigrants. If you replace every illegal immigrant with an unemployed American, the amount of money going in to SS would remain the same and the amount paid out in benefits (Health care, housing assistance, disability, etc...) would decrease.

This is due to reducing taxes on the rich, tax loopholes for the rich, wages not keeping up with inflation, decrease in benefits for American workers,

1) Despite marginal top tax rates of >90% until the Kennedy tax cut of 1964, the effective tax rate for the richest one 1% of households was 32.2% in 1952 going down to 24.6% in 1963. After the Kennedy tax cuts, effective tax rates for the richest 1% rose to 28.9% until Ronald Reagan took office and declining to 22.1% following the 1986 tax reductions.

The interpretation is massive tax avoidance and outright fraud by the richest 1% during the post-war years to avoid the 90%+ top marginal tax rates. The IRS did not have computers to track down the rich, nor was there much support in the executive branch to do so, nor in the judicial branch to effectively support the high tax rates.

2) Total employee compensation HAS kept up with inflation. The issue is that compensation is being moved from taxable wages to tax-avoiding benefits. We have to blame WWII-era law that made employee-paid health care tax free. Over time as medical technology improved and became more and more utilized, this tax loophole has forced a linkage between health care and employers, which we don't see with auto insurance, for example. Over the past forty years US compensation per hour and productivity per hour have moved up almost in unison.

3) And benefits are not going down, they are going up, especially health care.

To put a number on it, US private industry employers spent an average of $27.64 per hour worked for employee compensation in June 2010. Wages and salaries averaged $19.53 per hour worked and accounted for 70.6% of these costs, while benefits averaged $8.11 and accounted for the remaining 29.4%.

By "real unemployment rate" people usually mean the U6 number, which includes those whose unemployment has expired, discouraged workers, and those working part time for economic reasons (underemployed). This is also know as the "Repbulican president unemployment number", as the press has a habit of reporting the big number when a Republican is in charge, and the small number (the U3) when Democrat is in charge.

The U3 and the U6 are both interesting. The U3 is the most objectively measurable, and so is good for the mathematics of macroeconomics. The U6 is the most representative of the pain level in a bad economy. The U6 tells us that 1 in 6 americans is unemployed or underemployed (which is historically high but no where near Great Depression levels) and likely predictive of voters being quite unhappy with incumbants in November.

The average American house is more than twice as large as it was in the 50s. (A single family home in 1956 would have been less than 1000 square feet).
Americans eat ~ 40% more read meat, 200% more poultry and 50% more seafood than the 50s.

Food, clothing, and housing budgets for the decade of the 50s was between 70 and 65% (65% in 1960). Today those
same items account for 50%.

Tell me, in 1956, how well off would your average single mom be? What about a family of Hispanics or African-Americans?

Nice infographic: http://www.womansday.com/wd2/Content/Family-Lifestyle/Evolution-of-the-Household
Real information:
http://www.usda.gov/factbook/chapter2.htm
http://www.bls.gov/opub/uscs/reflections.pdf

"20% inflation" implies that they raise the cost like this every year. They don't. They raised the price from its 2002 point.

Inflation figures according to http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
$50 in 2002 = $60.59 in 2010.

Also, economies of scale don't necessarily apply. For example, moderation of the player base requires a number if people in direct proportion to the player base, and maybe even a little worse - the more players are, not only the more problem people you have but the more people each of them can piss off. That means a geometrically increasing number of complaints as the player base increases.

Not that I'm not in support of this change; I have a Silver subscription on an Xbox 360 that I got for free, and no intention of purchasing Gold any time soon, so it doesn't really affect me either way. Your post is at best misleading, however.

2 Hours is a lowball for average american television watching though, which is good for comparison of pricing. See http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm which says 2.8 hours per day on average (I've seen it as high as 4 from Nielson ratings). YOU and I may not watch that much TV, but the average american still does. And he's right, comparing it to television with those statistcs, even cable TV, 99 cents is expensive, especially for a "rental." For an ownership price, sure, seems fine to me, but I don't want to own most TV shows anyway, even if I want to watch (though there are plenty I do want to own).

Well, since I moved to Portland in 1994, it always had higher unemployment rates than the Dakotas (where I grew up).

Rural counties in Oregon and Washington likewise had lower unemployment rates than the urban counties of the Portland metro area or Eugene-Springfield.

Here in 10 year data for South Dakota
http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LASST46000003

And Oregon
http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LASST41000003

Oregon has always had a higher unemployment rate.

As for the underemployment rates, I've heard numbers of like 40-50% of the skilled technology workers in the Portland Metro area are unemployed.

Here in Alaska a skilled technology worker is in high demand, a reason why I have no worries, I could quit my job today and be in a better position in 3-6 weeks no problem.

Well, since I moved to Portland in 1994, it always had higher unemployment rates than the Dakotas (where I grew up).

Rural counties in Oregon and Washington likewise had lower unemployment rates than the urban counties of the Portland metro area or Eugene-Springfield.

Here in 10 year data for South Dakota
http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LASST46000003

And Oregon
http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LASST41000003

Oregon has always had a higher unemployment rate.

As for the underemployment rates, I've heard numbers of like 40-50% of the skilled technology workers in the Portland Metro area are unemployed.

Here in Alaska a skilled technology worker is in high demand, a reason why I have no worries, I could quit my job today and be in a better position in 3-6 weeks no problem.

And urbanized states and regions have higher unemployment rates.

Which is why I had to move from a dense urban area (Portland) to a rural area (Alaska).

Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro, OR-WA Metropolitan Statistical Area - 10.2%
Anchorage, AK Metropolitan Statistical Area - 7.2%

Lowest unemployment rates are urban centers in rural states, all places that aren't on the list for high speed rail.

http://www.bls.gov/web/metro/laummtrk.htm

Really? California has the third highest unemployment rate in the US. It's third or fourth in the country for foreclosures. Sacramento is broke and has the lowest credit rating of the 50 states.

Seems pretty gutted to me.

Given the extremely small proportion of local workers on H-1Bs and the relatively high starting salaries in those regions, you'd need to back that up.

If you are saying that the starting salaries in those regions are higher than the rest of the US, then you are correct. This due to the salary adjustments needed to overcome the high cost of living in those regions. This affects the absolute minimum of what it would take to pay a salary worker, meaning I can take the national average salary for a given profession and then apply the required adjustment to offset the cost of living and voila you have the "relatively high starting wages". Since average wage is floating (non-fixed) it can lower each year and thanks to the cost of living adjustments these regions will still have a relatively high starting wage. So you made an accurate statement while masking the effects of the H1B program. I'll also point out that you qualified your wages as "starting" which equates to the lowest salary range of a given profession, and presumably below the average career wage.

I'd like to know where you came to the conclusion that there is an "extremely small proportion of local workers on H-1Bs". Did you mean proportion relative to the general population of workers, or relative to local workers of a given profession?

I think anyone who asks for citations, should at least back up their assertions to the contrary. Otherwise, its a lazy attempt to make your assertions seem more valid while at the same time asserting that the original poster is making stuff up.

There is a staggering amount of material searchable on Google that supports the theory that H1B is being used to keep wages low and being used unnecessarily. This is due to the fact that H1B is such a hot topic in the IT sector.

Anyway I googled for a hard number to give you and right off the bat I see studies citing that 9 out of 10 new jobs in the tech field during 2003 were being filled by H-1Bs.

I also found an essay written by John Miano whose conclusions included:

• Since 1999, the United States has approved enough H-1B visas for computer workers to fill 87 percent of net computer job growth over that period.
• Since 1999, the United States has had a net loss of 76,000 engineering jobs. Over the same time period, the United States has approved an average of 16,000 new H-1B visas each year for engineers.
• If current employment trends continue and the H-1B quota remains unchanged, the United States will approve enough H-1B visas for computer workers to fill about 79 percent of the computer jobs it creates each year.

His data sources are:

• H-1B figures come from the Annual Reports on H-1B visas issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and its successor, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (data available 2000-2005). This supplied the number of new H-1B visas and the number of new H-1B visas for computer and engineering workers.
• Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) come from the Foreign Labor Certification Data Center, http://www.flcdatacenter.com/ (data available 2001-2007). The study used approved LCAs for computer workers.
• Overall employment figures come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Census of Employment and Wages, http://www.bls.gov/cew (annual data available 1994-2006).
• Employment figures for computer and engineering professionals come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/oes (data available 1999-2006).
• Turnover rates are from Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, http://www.bls.gov/jlt/.

He was arguing that top rung foreign workers get paid middle-rung US salaries and are thus competing against middle-rung US workers.

Which, honestl

Given the extremely small proportion of local workers on H-1Bs and the relatively high starting salaries in those regions, you'd need to back that up.

If you are saying that the starting salaries in those regions are higher than the rest of the US, then you are correct. This due to the salary adjustments needed to overcome the high cost of living in those regions. This affects the absolute minimum of what it would take to pay a salary worker, meaning I can take the national average salary for a given profession and then apply the required adjustment to offset the cost of living and voila you have the "relatively high starting wages". Since average wage is floating (non-fixed) it can lower each year and thanks to the cost of living adjustments these regions will still have a relatively high starting wage. So you made an accurate statement while masking the effects of the H1B program. I'll also point out that you qualified your wages as "starting" which equates to the lowest salary range of a given profession, and presumably below the average career wage.

I'd like to know where you came to the conclusion that there is an "extremely small proportion of local workers on H-1Bs". Did you mean proportion relative to the general population of workers, or relative to local workers of a given profession?

I think anyone who asks for citations, should at least back up their assertions to the contrary. Otherwise, its a lazy attempt to make your assertions seem more valid while at the same time asserting that the original poster is making stuff up.

There is a staggering amount of material searchable on Google that supports the theory that H1B is being used to keep wages low and being used unnecessarily. This is due to the fact that H1B is such a hot topic in the IT sector.

Anyway I googled for a hard number to give you and right off the bat I see studies citing that 9 out of 10 new jobs in the tech field during 2003 were being filled by H-1Bs.

I also found an essay written by John Miano whose conclusions included:

• Since 1999, the United States has approved enough H-1B visas for computer workers to fill 87 percent of net computer job growth over that period.
• Since 1999, the United States has had a net loss of 76,000 engineering jobs. Over the same time period, the United States has approved an average of 16,000 new H-1B visas each year for engineers.
• If current employment trends continue and the H-1B quota remains unchanged, the United States will approve enough H-1B visas for computer workers to fill about 79 percent of the computer jobs it creates each year.

His data sources are:

• H-1B figures come from the Annual Reports on H-1B visas issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and its successor, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (data available 2000-2005). This supplied the number of new H-1B visas and the number of new H-1B visas for computer and engineering workers.
• Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) come from the Foreign Labor Certification Data Center, http://www.flcdatacenter.com/ (data available 2001-2007). The study used approved LCAs for computer workers.
• Overall employment figures come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Census of Employment and Wages, http://www.bls.gov/cew (annual data available 1994-2006).
• Employment figures for computer and engineering professionals come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/oes (data available 1999-2006).
• Turnover rates are from Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, http://www.bls.gov/jlt/.

He was arguing that top rung foreign workers get paid middle-rung US salaries and are thus competing against middle-rung US workers.

Which, honestl

Given the extremely small proportion of local workers on H-1Bs and the relatively high starting salaries in those regions, you'd need to back that up.

If you are saying that the starting salaries in those regions are higher than the rest of the US, then you are correct. This due to the salary adjustments needed to overcome the high cost of living in those regions. This affects the absolute minimum of what it would take to pay a salary worker, meaning I can take the national average salary for a given profession and then apply the required adjustment to offset the cost of living and voila you have the "relatively high starting wages". Since average wage is floating (non-fixed) it can lower each year and thanks to the cost of living adjustments these regions will still have a relatively high starting wage. So you made an accurate statement while masking the effects of the H1B program. I'll also point out that you qualified your wages as "starting" which equates to the lowest salary range of a given profession, and presumably below the average career wage.

I'd like to know where you came to the conclusion that there is an "extremely small proportion of local workers on H-1Bs". Did you mean proportion relative to the general population of workers, or relative to local workers of a given profession?

I think anyone who asks for citations, should at least back up their assertions to the contrary. Otherwise, its a lazy attempt to make your assertions seem more valid while at the same time asserting that the original poster is making stuff up.

There is a staggering amount of material searchable on Google that supports the theory that H1B is being used to keep wages low and being used unnecessarily. This is due to the fact that H1B is such a hot topic in the IT sector.

Anyway I googled for a hard number to give you and right off the bat I see studies citing that 9 out of 10 new jobs in the tech field during 2003 were being filled by H-1Bs.

I also found an essay written by John Miano whose conclusions included:

• Since 1999, the United States has approved enough H-1B visas for computer workers to fill 87 percent of net computer job growth over that period.
• Since 1999, the United States has had a net loss of 76,000 engineering jobs. Over the same time period, the United States has approved an average of 16,000 new H-1B visas each year for engineers.
• If current employment trends continue and the H-1B quota remains unchanged, the United States will approve enough H-1B visas for computer workers to fill about 79 percent of the computer jobs it creates each year.

His data sources are:

• H-1B figures come from the Annual Reports on H-1B visas issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service and its successor, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (data available 2000-2005). This supplied the number of new H-1B visas and the number of new H-1B visas for computer and engineering workers.
• Labor Condition Applications (LCAs) come from the Foreign Labor Certification Data Center, http://www.flcdatacenter.com/ (data available 2001-2007). The study used approved LCAs for computer workers.
• Overall employment figures come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Census of Employment and Wages, http://www.bls.gov/cew (annual data available 1994-2006).
• Employment figures for computer and engineering professionals come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/oes (data available 1999-2006).
• Turnover rates are from Bureau of Labor Statistics Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, http://www.bls.gov/jlt/.

He was arguing that top rung foreign workers get paid middle-rung US salaries and are thus competing against middle-rung US workers.

Which, honestl

Microsoft has 90,000 employees. Intel has 83,000 at least. Considering that there are around 100,000 H1B recipients, you could place nearly all of them at just these two companies and they wouldn't have to pay a dime for any applications, since it would be less than 50% of their employment.

In other words, this is little more than a tempest in a teapot. Yeah, Microsoft and Intel are big companies who employ lots of people. However, as a fraction of the overall economy, they only make up a small portion. Immediately revoking all of the H1-B visas and deporting those workers would barely have a perceptible impact on unemployment figures.

According to the latest report, in July there were 6.6 million people who had been unemployed for more than 27 weeks, 8.5 million underemployed part-time workers, 1.2 million discouraged workers, and countless more underemployed full-timers. Cutting 100,000 from that figure would be little more than a drop in the barrel.

Teachers make 20-35 thousand a year
 
Where do you get this absurdly lowball number? Check the bureau of labor stats for teachers The median is 52k and even the lowest 10% get 34k. The top 10% rake in over 80k which is what a good private sector programmer makes.

"Credibility in fighting inflation"? Ha! Since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, the value of the U.S. dollar has lost 95% of its value due to inflation. Their other mandate of achieving maximum sustainable employment is also a failure with our country currently at 9.5% unemployment and 5.6% involuntary part-time employment. Sustainable, this is not.

"Credibility in fighting inflation"? Ha! Since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913, the value of the U.S. dollar has lost 95% of its value due to inflation. Their other mandate of achieving maximum sustainable employment is also a failure with our country currently at 9.5% unemployment and 5.6% involuntary part-time employment. Sustainable, this is not.

and sometimes very dangerous work.

That bullshit has never been, and never will be, a good excuse.

You know what is a far more dangerous job than being a police officer? Being a pizza delivery guy.

I'm not being tricky and counting accidental deaths either. That is for homicide. For some reason you never hear about people in the food services industry beating the shit out of innocent civilians.