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Of course, I'm at work right now, and I'm on /., so YMMV.

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Where does this figure come from? Its certainly not a per-employee figure, and to be so high I think it is being slippery on the definition of manufacturing. It could be including foreign operations by US-based multinationals (ISTR some US jobs data was guilty of this) for example. Or there could be manufacture for domestic consumption - however the claim seems off the wall simply in regards to the trade deficit.

I tried to find some corroboration of your figures but came up with nothing.
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_tradepict20050210Here are some deficit numbers

I won't be feeling guilty about "inflated" salaries anytime soon. Productivity and profits have been soaring while compensation is stagnant for years now. There's still plenty of caterwauling from bosses about worker shortages and jobs people won't take (...for what we want to pay, of course), but I've realized that's just normal and not indicative of anything in particular. Bosses will always want lower wages.

The unemployment rate is below 5%. It doesn't get much better without forced labor!

The method for calculating the "official" unemployment rate ignores large swaths of people. The numbers that the administration reports is the total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force. This leaves out all marginally attached workers, adds people employed part time only because of economic reasons (IE, they'd work full time if they could). "Marginally attached workers" are persons who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the recent past. So, if you're not looking for a job because you're a Widget Assembly specialist, and the local Widget company closed the factory and put you out of a job, you're not counted in the "official" rate. You're also not counted if you're an aircraft engineer and you're working part time at a 7-11 because you can't find work as an aircraft engineer.

The stock market is at near record highs. It has never passed 13000. Right now the Dow is at 12,983.19. The stock market has never been better!

Furthermore, much of these profits aren't making their way down past the upper class. Wage growth is lagging behind inflation. Labor compensation is lower than it has been in 40 years. Since 2001, as a percentage of the GDP, labor compensation has decreased by 4%. Meanwhile, corporate profits are up by 4%. Yes, the Bush administration has been good for the rich.

Re oil prices:

And whose fault is that?

Anyway, drilling in Alaska wouldn't have any impact on the price of gas; not for another decade, at least.

How many Al Qaeda members did we kill yesterday?

Fact is, we are kicking major ass in Iraq and Afghanistan

Things are getting worse, not better, in Iraq, and Afganistan has even gotten worse in recent years. We wouldn't be in Iraq if it hadn't been for Bush's war mongering, and we could have a stabilized Afganistan if Bush hadn't gotten us over-committed. We're in a weak position militarily, because both N. Korea and Iran know we can't afford to invade either of them while we're mired in Iraq, and we don't get much support on the world stage because of Bush's unilateral posturing.

But, just because sucks as a president, it doesn't prove he's a crook who steals elections. That evidence is in the 2004 Ohio polling discrepancies and stories like this.

--- SER

I didn't see anything about wages at all in the OP post.

Did you read the article? The article summary? Do you know what fair-trade products means in terms of wages? Hint: Fair-trade products are ones where those along the supply chain are paid living wages.

Now do you see the reference to wages in the OP? Hint: It's in the subject.

As near as I can tell, the minimum wage makes my hamburgers a bit more expensive, and teenagers a bit richer.

That's because you only see the teenagers earning minimum wage. You didn't notice that 80% of minimum wage earners are adults age 20 or over.
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issueguides_minw age_minwagefacts

If one opposes minimum wage, wouldn't that be compassionate, understanding, and acknowledging society's ills? After all, minimum wage leaves society's youngest and weakest members unemployed. It understands that 10 hours of work at $5/hour might be better than 0 hours of work at $7/hour. It acknowledges that we can't compare society to an ideal (in which everyone has a well-paying job), but only to the alternatives that we have.

First of all 71% of all people affected by a minimum wage increase are over 20, so it's not just for 'young people'. People who oppose raising the minimum wage, fail to recognize the burden low income workers place on charitable giving, domestic programs, and the courts. I don't know the exact numbers, but many(if not most) adults living on minimum wage salaries live in government supported apartments, get food stamps, and they typically are dead-beats to the local emergency rooms. As these people work full time some would call them 'productive members of society', not me. However I don't see it as their fault, it's market conditions affected by the welfare state. In the perfect free market world, people would starve in the streets, homelessness would be rampant, and hospitals would turn back those that cannot pay. Just to be able to show up for work, in something less than a disheveled state workers would make far more than the current minimum wage, as society wouldn't be helping. Some see those conditions as preferable, but most of us rightfully horror at the thought of a country like that, it would have to a police state just to keep order. We could choose to eliminate all social programs for those who work full time, but then you get the problem of people who find that it is better not to work than to work.

Instead of placing the burden on society to care for their basic needs it should go to those who benefit from their labors. Increasing the minimum wage would be a net gain for society, as the need for social programs would be reduced, and I believe it would even reduce crime. At what cost, burger costing an extra quarter, maybe fifty five dollars, hell, even most fast food workers now make more than even the highest proposed minimum wage.

A person who works more than full time should not need social programs or charities for subsistence, but they do.

What that really means to an economist is that you're taking labor and capital out of the market (by reducing a bank account balance), and you're allocating it so that unemployed people can use it to consume. The result is that the unemployed person doesn't employ themselves as quickly, and someone else loses their job because there is less money in the market to be used for labor and capital.

Well, first of all, I never mentioned 'taking from the rich and giving to the poor' like as in Robin Hood. However, consumer spending in general is Good for the economy, particularly spending for local services. No one buys more local services for every 'extra dollar' than the poor. Also, the argument that giving tax breaks to the rich because they will 'trickle down' with raises and more hiring is bunk. Businessmen will only give raises and have new hiring if the business 'needs it' not just because they find 'extra' money in their pocket. Some business 'may' feel like they can afford to expand, but most will just pocket the money into some form of savings. Poor people are MUCH more efficient at circulating money than rich.

But don't pretend like "compassion" and a desire for the unfortunate to be successful are traits unique to liberals.

I never said that it is an exclusive trait, 'we' just have more of it. But the real problem is the you believe that this is some kinda 'pissing contest' between Conservative and Liberal, as if these are two opposing camps, constantly at odds with each other, and with little common ground. First of all, I may 'l

Hmmm... Are you sure that isn't what you have now? "the average worker -- who earned $41,861 in 2005 -- made about $400 less last year than what the average large-company CEO made in one day." and"by 2005 the average CEO was paid $10,982,000 a year, or 262 times that of an average worker ($41,861)." (That'd be 26200% of the normal devs' pay.) You could claim they're not "layman", but I'd bet the majority of them couldn't produce their company's products. Hide money in tax-sheltered off-short subsidiaries, make paper profits seem larger, and bail on golden parachutes, sure -- that they can do.

do people understand that the dollar can't make it as a global reserve currency for more than a few more years and likely can't make it as a currency at all within the next decade?

That's one thing I didn't realize before I read about it in the newspaper about 2 years ago. A side-effect of the introduction of the euro, is that a relatively stable currency was introduced, which attracted people to use it as a currency for international trade, already since a few years it is used for drug transactions!

That was not the original goal of the euro, but you can see it as a side effect. The big problem for the US will come when countries will look for a harder currency than the dollar, and thereby stop borrowing money to the US (or wanting their borrowed money back). Did I get this somewhat right? I'm not an economist, but just think it's pretty interesting stuff :) Did the US do anything to get back on track?

link on the matter

But it's not American US Dollars! US foreign debt in is enormous.
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snap shots_archive_01152003

Saudi US Dollars is probably considered less "filthy" or "moral Corrupting".

This is how big government projects *should* be done. Hire a good contractor, set a minimum and then give bonuses for good performance and penalties for bad. Did the final tally cost a lot in bonuses? Yes. Was it worth it? Yes- they fixed a major problem in amazing time and did it correctly, plus they had a bunch of blue-collar folks make serious coin working triple time, all of which got plowed back into the local economy.

You can argue it wasn't on budget due to the bonuses, but it was assumed from the beginning they'd be paying out. Since the daily economic loss to LA was higher than the daily bonus for finishing early, I'd argue it was actually under budget.

According to economic theory, when a minimum wage is above the 'market' wage it causes unemployment.

Yes, and according to the geocentric theory the sun moves around the earth.

However, neither currently mainstream economic theory nor the geocentric theory have much to do with the actual world in which we live, and fail when pushed beyond the most simple predictions. Minimum wage laws have not caused unemployment to rise.

Who are the imprisoned people with no access to lawyers?

People in poverty? Look at the studies- the average family in poverty has a color tv and other ammenities. The poorest people in the U.S. live better than 99% of the people in some countries.

No easy access to medical services? Where did you get that from? Anyone in the U.S. can walk into a hospital, and they will be treated.

Have you ever been to the U.S.? Where are you getting your facts?

A money quote from above article:
"In addition, NAFTA included unprecedented guarantees to protect the value of corporate investments and even the rights to earn profits in the future arising out of changes in government regulations or policy. In particular, NAFTA created specific clauses that provide for compensation for lost investments and loss of future profits due to regulations that are "tantamount to expropriation" (NAFTA Secretariat 2003, article 1110). No other part of NAFTA has generated as much controversy as this "investor state" clause. To date, 27 cases have been reviewed under this clause by companies alleging that their foreign investments or their right to earn profits in other countries have been expropriated (Hemispheric Social Alliance 2003, 68-74). These claims, several of which have resulted in damages paid or regulations rescinded, have had a chilling effect on government efforts to regulate private businesses throughout the hemisphere."

I wonder what has changed from the 1960's-80's and today. Why is it today most companies don't want to offer health insurance or pensions, or make people pay into their own private funds. What has changed? Companies could afford it back then, but today they outsource work, they close factories, and they don't want to pay workers.

Several things have changed. We have learned that we cannot really afford the benefits promised in those days.

Population growth is leveling off and average age is increasing, increasing the non-productive proportion of the population significantly. We also decided to start competing with the rest of the world on a slightly more level playing field, after we coerced them into a harsh kind of capitalism, and pay a more equitable price for oil, which also happens to be running out. We pay increasing interest over debt, notably the government debt created by the delayed public expenses of our parents. At the same time we consume much more per capita, and inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient, inside Western economies has been increasing as well.

It is an unlikely, and actually suspect, miracle we still seem to be able to pay for all of this. The short term strategies we use for this are consumption growth at the expense of saving (look at the scary graph), cutting government benefits and services, artificially inflating real estate and stock prices, and more government deficits. Some countries even go as far as simply attacking oil-producing countries to intimidate them. There are four possible medium and long term strategies: consuming much less per capita, inventing things that really increase productivity and using them in such a way that they actually do, cancellation of debt (which reduces the Gini coefficient, but usually requires a Napoleon, Lenin, or Hitler to effect the cancellation), or fencing off or killing a significant part of the world population.

The people that benefit from the increasing Gini coefficient, who also happen to rule us, are not in a hurry to solve the problem as long as there are still short-term solutions left. My hunch is that eventually we will go with the last solution first. The pretexts are already being created.

[Yet. People are rather creative, and we often don't give them enough credit. Look at how transmitting numbers across phone lines has become a trillion dollar industry.]

That's the whole point. "Yet" doesn't cut it for the millions of people put out of work by globalization and who currently are stuck with lower paying service sector jobs (which are the bulk of new jobs being created). See this documentation for proof: http://www.rte.ie/business/2005/0714/economy.html

You can't pay rent and pay for your health care on Mickey D's. To wit: the average price of new homes is far, far and away greater than the average income can finance (by traditional means). See this for documentation regarding California - the entire nation is seeing similar patterns: http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stori es/2005/05/02/daily27.html

Everything else in life is also catching up with or passing, cost-wise, the average wage. See this for documentation: http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snap shots_12172004

Wages are stagnant for the most part, except for the handful of rich who now account for the majority of the growth in US tax income. See this for proof: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3138232.stm

Meanwhile, you want those without jobs and who are competing against six billion others in the greatest game of musical chairs EVER, to believe you, and follow your ideology, based on a "not yet" answer?

Do you do business with your customers by saying "not yet"?

[Wow did I miss the nanotech revolution? Right now I think that industry, as well as genetics, are still in their early stages. Where the internet was probably in the 80's.]

It doesn't matter what stages it gets to. Automation and offshoring will kill any further domestic job growth. Mark my words on that.

Tell me, why would anyone hire very many people in the US when
a) You can hire work overseas cheaper, and with no workplace safety laws, pollution laws and no benefits
b) India has a ton of college graduates?

There is really no reason for a corporation to hire anyone here except sales people to contact customers in the US directly. You'll see what I mean in the near future if offshoring is not legally clamped down on.

[And we replaced human welders who made those cars with robot ones. There is no giant welding robot arm industry for those people who were displaced. Sometimes it's obvious what change will bring, other times it isn't.]

That is your theory. Here's reality. What it is bringing now is underemployment - a lot of formerly high paid white collar workers stuck in service mcjobs.

Soon you will find that this translates into the majority of citizens not being able to afford goods and services. The warp and woof of consumer buying volumes you see today are nothing compared to what's coming if high paying jobs keep disappearing and this musical chairs game keeps escalating.

[The IT industry won't evaporate completely, and in fact has an opportunity to continue growing domesticlly and globally. With globalization communications networks are becoming more complex, and businesses are looking towards custom solutions. Also, consulting businesses will be a growth market in legal, technical, and marketing fields.]

Growing domestically? Ever see how many resumes exist for a single IT job? I'm a project manager, I filter through this shit every day, and I can smell a person who has mad skills and a family to feed. For every one I give an interview I have to pass on ten other qualified people, and then another ninety unqualified people.

Those unqualified people will never be qualified bec

And secondly, real incomes are falling

A more accurate statistic is total compensation, which includes the employer's share of health insurance and other such expenses. Total compensation is rising, although granted not at a terribly high rate.

Young College Graduates Are Struggling. Guess One (Unmentionable) Reason

This spring, thousands of young Americans are graduating from college. They and their tuition-strapped parents regard the degree as a good investment--a ticket to financial independence and a better life. Unfortunately, the labor market no longer seems to share this view.

The real wages of young college graduates (ages 25 to 35) fell in 2004 for the third consecutive year. According to figures complied by the Economic Policy Institute, "Young College Graduates Face Weak Labor Market," Job Watch, May 6, 2005.] Between 2001 and 2004, the real wages of young college graduates dropped from $23.04 per hour to $22.41 per hour.

Employment is finally turning around, but not fast enough to soak up the influx of new college grads. Thus the employment rate of young graduates in 2004 was 85.2 percent, down from 87.4 percent in 2000. It has been 20 years since the fraction of young college graduates with jobs has been as low as it was in 2003 and 2004.

It's trendy to blame the declining economic fortunes of the college-educated on outsourcing or the post-bubble collapse of high-tech. But immigration may be, as usual, the factor that dare not speak its name.

Immigrants represent a rapidly growing share of the college educated workforce--and an even larger fraction of the educated unemployed. (Table 1.)

From 2000 to 2003 (the latest year of available data):

• The college-educated labor force grew by 10.3 percent
• The foreign-born college educated labor force grew 24.6 percent
• The U.S.-born college educated labor force grew 8.2 percent

The growth rate of college-educated immigrants was three-times that of college-educated natives.

This occurred despite the post 911 slowdown in student visa processing. This also occurred despite a doubling of the unemployment rate of college-educated foreigners.

Economists call this a "supply-shock" --a situation where excess labor causes wages to fall.

The role of college-educated foreigners in depressing wages of U.S. natives is brought home by Harvard economist (and Cuban immigrant) George Borjas. In his seminal Quarterly Journal of Economics paper [The Labor Demand Curve Is Downward Sloping: ] Borjas concludes that immigration 1980-2000 reduced wages of the average U.S.-born worker by 3.2 percent in 2000.

The reduction varied dramatically among education levels. Native high-school dropouts suffered an 8.9 percent wage reduction. But even college-educated natives suffered an above-average reduction of 4.9 percent.

The impact was greatest on college graduates with 11-15 years of work experience - i.e., most likely to have

> People in the western world (or anywhere in the world) spend less time working than they ever have before. Because of technology, people are gaining free time at a pretty good rate.

Bullshit. People [in US anyway] work 10% more hours now than they did in 1975

http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snap shots_07072004

It takes a lot of nerve to criticize Indian or other Asian firms for providing outsourcing. Consider that IBM and many of the top firms in the USA get more than 50% of their revenues from abroad -- and think of what those countries might say about outsourcing. If they protect their economies in the way Lou Dobbs acidly recommends every night, there will be far more jobs lost here.

You were doing OK until you started mixing outsourcing with getting revenues from abroad, which can come for nearly any reason, not just outsourcing. So I started wondering if you had begun to overstate the case. Turns out you have overstated it. If every country on Earth were to protect their economies, it appears that there will not be "far more jobs lost here."

So maybe it doesn't "take a lot of nerve to criticize" outsourcing. Apparently in the larger context -- which you dragged into the picture -- the situation isn't so rosy for US Americans after all.

Who are the Barbarians

I think terrorists would be the best analogy.

...where is the enormous economic divide (don't even begin to talk about the middle-class squeeze, it cannot compare with Roman economics)

Let's compare and contrast the poor and the rich. There are several classes of people making less than minimum wage in the US. Illegal immigrants immediately come to mind. However, waiters and waitresses in some states only make $2.13 an hour because tips would presumably make up the rest. A family living on the minimum wage is certainly beneath the poverty line. In 2000, 11.3% of the U.S. population, or 31.1 million people, lived in poverty. Poverty in the US is defined as earning just less than $15,000. To put this in perspective, rent for a one bedroom apartment in a bad neighborhood of Seattle costs $8400 a year.

Let's compare this with the wealthiest of the US. Bill Gates is reported to be worth about $30,000,000,000. That's six orders of magnitude higher than someone earning minimum wage in the Microsoft cafeteria. Granted, I'm comparing Bill's accumulated wealth to the cafeteria worker's yearly income. However, the income difference is still at least five orders of magnitude. Either way, we're still talking about a medieval or romanesque difference of incomes.

...where was the death of democracy

The highjacking of the 2000 election? The nomination of the president of the US by an activist Supreme Court? The subsequent trampling of the rights of citizens by the administration in the name of security? Shall I continue?

...where are the growingly incompetent dynasties?

We could look at American companies. Costs are a little better, but that's because the work is being done in third world countries. Quality is poor. Customer service is down the drain. Management gets more and more incompentent by the year.

We could look at American students, the "future of America". They increasingly turn to cheating, grade inflation, and teacher intimidation in place of actual learning. They also tend to put sports ahead of academics. There's also the pressure to dumb down classes get high numbers of graduates.

Don't make me bring up the politicians. We already know how incompetent those fools are.

= 9J =

The Heritage Foundation is just one particular source of sponsored information.

Read the Heritage Foundation as one data point, then look also over here at EPI for an alternative viewpoint that suggests the official poverty line has stagnated so that people below are much worse off than people below the poverty line 30-40 years ago.

In the same way, the minimum wage stagnation.

The harsh reality is that global wage competition means the rest of the world gets to catch up while wages in the developing world stay stagnant or decline in real terms.

Currently, it's more important to own appreciating assets, stock, real estate, etc., than to work for wages, which are taxed much more heavily.

There is an analysis of the so-called "flat tax" at Citizens for Tax justice (www.ctj.org)

http://www.itepnet.org/sale0904.pdf

The Economic Policy Instuitute (http://www.epinet.org) has also analyzed the consumption tax.

Basically, in order to preserve the current level of government spending, it would need to be 45-60% It would represent a huge tax cut for the rich, since they consume a much smaller percentage of their income. It would shift most of the tax burden to the middle class.

Its a huge mistake..

The Republicans hidden agenda is to decimate the middle class..

See this article:
Hidden Agenda- The convention trumpets compassion, but the real Bush agenda is clear: Use tax policy to starve the government even more.

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root &n ame=ViewWeb&articleId=8449

Care to refute analysis provided by a previous post which indicates you have the facts completely wrong? According to that chart, the top 1% of earners got a 5% tax reduction, and the *most* any other income group saw was a 1.4% reduction!

I'm sorry, I want to be really fair about this, but in any analysis, even percentage-paid-based, the majority of this administration's tax cuts ( especially if you include the estate tax ) are heavily weighted towards the very, very wealthy.

Ever get the feeling you've been lied to? I don't suppose you'd like to read "Lies and the Lying Liers Who Tell Them" for an amusing analysis of GW's twisted logic on this topic, which you've apparently decided to take as truth? Every Bush supporter and Fox News watcher should read it...

I do believe the war on terror is the single most important issue of the day- and I believe invading Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terror, and that GW is the last guy we want in office while trying to hunt down a Bin Laden! WHY would you think this guy is good at getting rid of terrorists?!? So far, he's done little more than provide a fertile breeding ground for terrorists in Iraq... and used Bill Clinton's army to drive Al-Queda in Afganistan into hiding, something *any* administration would have done...

Across the board, yes. But not evenly.

Here you can see how the board looks.

The facts show two things (one liked by the right, one liked by the left):

1. Rich people pay more taxes. And still do.
2. The lion's share of the tax breaks went to the rich.

If you really want lower taxes, then cease being a person and start becoming a corporation.

More numbers from the Economic Policy Institute, specifically from the here.

"In 2001, 20% of all income went to the top-earning 1% of households, which held 33.4% of all net worth. The 90% of households with the lowest incomes received 54.8% of all income but only had 28.5% of all net worth."

"Since 1983, the top 1% of wealth holders consistently owned more than 30% and the bottom 80% held less than 16% of all wealth from 1983 to 2001."

"In 2001, the top fifth of households held 84.4% of all wealth; the middle fifth held only 3.9% -- the smallest share since 1962. The bottom fifth had negative net worth -- owing more than they owned."

If 20% of the American population is kept in debt I don't need to be a statistician to know there's something wrong with the economic system.

"In 2001, 17.6% of all households had a zero or negative net worth; just over 30% had a net worth of less than $10,000."

Since net worth includes any equity for their homes it's pretty reasonable to think they're living with some form of credit debt. Not all of their net worth is in their incomes.

"Average wealth grew by $2.8 million from 1989 to 2001 for the top 1% of households -- a 2.1% annual increase. For the middle 20%, average wealth increase by $11,100 -- or 1.3% per year."

Net flow is moving up the economic ladder. It's a pyramid scheme not a conspiracy.

"For the past 40 years, approximately 80% of all wealth has been held by 20% of households."

I've always thought of it as 95/5, but same thing.

"The top 1% of stock owners hold 44.9% of all stocks, by value, while the bottom 80% own just 5.8% of total stock holdings."

It's not a conspiracy. It's a pyramid scheme.

More numbers from the Economic Policy Institute, specifically from the here.

"In 2001, 20% of all income went to the top-earning 1% of households, which held 33.4% of all net worth. The 90% of households with the lowest incomes received 54.8% of all income but only had 28.5% of all net worth."

"Since 1983, the top 1% of wealth holders consistently owned more than 30% and the bottom 80% held less than 16% of all wealth from 1983 to 2001."

"In 2001, the top fifth of households held 84.4% of all wealth; the middle fifth held only 3.9% -- the smallest share since 1962. The bottom fifth had negative net worth -- owing more than they owned."

If 20% of the American population is kept in debt I don't need to be a statistician to know there's something wrong with the economic system.

"In 2001, 17.6% of all households had a zero or negative net worth; just over 30% had a net worth of less than $10,000."

Since net worth includes any equity for their homes it's pretty reasonable to think they're living with some form of credit debt. Not all of their net worth is in their incomes.

"Average wealth grew by $2.8 million from 1989 to 2001 for the top 1% of households -- a 2.1% annual increase. For the middle 20%, average wealth increase by $11,100 -- or 1.3% per year."

Net flow is moving up the economic ladder. It's a pyramid scheme not a conspiracy.

"For the past 40 years, approximately 80% of all wealth has been held by 20% of households."

I've always thought of it as 95/5, but same thing.

"The top 1% of stock owners hold 44.9% of all stocks, by value, while the bottom 80% own just 5.8% of total stock holdings."

It's not a conspiracy. It's a pyramid scheme.

Despite recent good news on employment growth, the current economic recovery, now approaching its third year, remains the most unbalanced on record in respect to the distribution of income gains between corporate profits and labor compensation. Essentially, rapid gains in productivity have been translating into higher corporate profits without increasing the wage and salary income of American workers.

or:

In the new millennium, as the use of intelligent computers increase, jobs will vanish, with several million expected to disappear over the next five to seven years, Cohen said. While less labor to do more work is great for business, there will be an impact on society as people find decent paying jobs harder to find.

Apathy&Denial's my middle name.

--

When you hear "the economy is doing great!", especially these days, that doesn't necessarily mean that PEOPLE as a whole are better off, it means corporations are disproportionately concentrating wealth at the highest rate in recent history.

Our increasingly efficient, insanely productive economy doesn't NEED that many human jobs anymore, but our society is still structured in such a way that humans still need jobs to justify their share of scarce resources.

--

That's right - instead of the productivity gains of accelerating automation being spread out more equally, it is increasingly being concentrated by the extremely wealthy; us "useless eaters" are left to scramble for shittier and lower-paying make-work jobs (and hopefully die of disease-of-the-month to free up some realestate for more golf courses)

"Despite recent good news on employment growth, the current economic recovery, now approaching its third year, remains the most unbalanced on record in respect to the distribution of income gains between corporate profits and labor compensation. Essentially, rapid gains in productivity have been translating into higher corporate profits without increasing the wage and salary income of American workers."

The pyramid needs to be flattened...

--

The problem isn't "cheap labor" actually - it's cheap-ass bosses that won't pay the animators what they should be paid to earn a half-way decent living, especially considering the huge profits their art is ultimately responsible for bringing in.

In 1978, the chief executive officers of major American corporations earned about 29 times the pay of average workers in their companies. By 1999, this multiple had grown to 107 times I am sure this has also happened in Japan and other countries too. Greed will be what kills Japinese anime, not cheaper Korean labor.

US Climate and road conditions are vastly different to Europe.

I disagree, from the far north of scandinavia to the far south of spain, you'll find just about any condition, of both weather and road, that can be found in the US.

There will be 5 persons on the trip. Try that in your EU small car.

Most EU small cars do seat 5 (including the driver), but not over long distances. But this isn't relevant. I'm too lazy to look up the studies, but you are definitely the exception. Most people in the US, as in Europe, don't drive long distances, and don't carry a lot of people in their car. The majority of traffic is relatively short home-work traffic, with one or two car occupants. Besides, you can't forget, Europe is a continent too. There are plenty of reasons to travel thousands of kilometers in Europe too. In fact, as a kid, my family would travel to the south of france every year, a trek of 1200 km.

I would also note that the EU tends to depend for its economy on the US guys buying their goods.

You're proud that the US currently has a downright huge trade deficit? Read up on how bad a trade deficit is. I don't know what your view on China is, but you are funding the economic growth of communist China, even more than you're funding EU economic growth.

Anyway, the point I was trying to make in my original post can be summed up like this (these number are pre-EU expansion):

EU:
population: 379 million
total energy consumption (1999): 63 quads

US:
population: 278 million
total energy consumption (1999): 97 quads

In Europe we live roughly the same quality of life as people in the US, in roughly the same circumstances. Why is it that even when the EU has been so slow on reducing energy use that they've been attacked over it by just about every environmental movement, they look downright frugal next to the US?

In the United States, the conventional wisdom of most economists can be a little baffling to the people facing the immediate lifestyle-management effects of increased offshore outsourcing of white-collar service jobs.

A lot of economists will spin out a line that-- after you strip off all the jargon, and the econoleetspeek--will sound an awful lot like "Quit whining, you slacker, and get a real job."

That's why I recommend Max Sawicky's Guide To Economics Web Sites. He works for The Economic Policy Institute, a "liberal" economics think tank.

It's really easy to find a million clones of Donald Luskin. You can't hardly swing a dead cat without running into economists who will tell you that global free trade in services is unqualifiably good in the short run, the long run and everything in between. It's harder to find thoughtful economists who might have pesky questions about how the mobility of capital can be easily reconciled with the immobility of most labor.

Rather than go on much about this old canard myself, I'll refer to the research of the Economic Policy Institute about the minimum wage. Among other fallacies it debunks is that of the demographics involved: most minimum wage employees are adults, and about half are full-time.

Don't overuse the simple model of supply and demand, especially when issues like pricing, competition, floors, and perception are involved. The most useful models are far, far more complex. - because all other things are not equal. Additionally, my original point stands: if there is necessary work that is peformed at the minimum wage, increasing the minimum wage ensures that a greater percentage of net buying power throughout the economy is in the hands of the working poor.

In fact, the effects you describe have not been "demonstrated again and again." The last increase of the minimum wage actually accompanied a drop in unemployment. And the net effect of an increased minimum wage is what's important: the strengthening of the economy at its roots.

Read Yggdrasil's "The Domestic End Game" for an analysis of how you have been dispossessed -- but no one more so than the boomers

Why can't the US have a healthy 10-15% unemployment rate?

First of all, the US statistics are an illusion because many people who would be counted as unemployed in Europe aren't counted as unemployed in the US.

But even taking the US unemployment rate at face value, it is simply kept so low through massive foreign borrowing. If the dollar were devalued and the US economy deflated to the point of bringing it anywhere near balance, US unemployment would soar past European unemployment even with the US's already illusory standards.

It is going to be fun watching France dig itself out of the economic hole it threw itself into.

France is running its economy pretty conservatively. Europeans seem less wealthy than Americans (whether they actually are is another question) because European governments are making the necessary economically hard choices. The US, on the other hand, is living an economic lie, financed by unsustainable foreign borrowing.

Ths US trade deficit is $500bn, about 5% of GDP (e.g., here). US net foreign debt is $2.3 trillion, about 25% of GDP.

Bringing just the trade deficit into balance would require a massive increase in unemployment and a sharp drop in US GDP (here).

Maybe that 35 hours work week was a bad idea? Ha ha.

You make it sound as if the 35 hour work week was some kind of attempt to create a socialist paradise. It wasn't. It was an attempt to spread less available work among a fixed labor pool. What's the US alternative? Massive borrowing to maintain the illusion of wealth and to put the remaining unemployed out on the street.

And whether the US will be able to live with its tough position on welfare reform is an open question: welfare benefits are just starting to run out; even Americans don't seem to have the stomach to live with that. I predict welfare benefits will just keep getting extended.

No flame, just a cautious disagreement. There were a lot of headlines this week about the economy finally doing well, but it was based on GDP numbers. I'm not sure how much the war in Iraq is affecting that, but I'm sure it is having some impact. Lots of manufacturing is needed to repair the damage. In addition, consumer spending went up in the 3rd quarter, but there are problems with that: Part of it is the spending of the latest tax refund. And part of it is the continued hot real estate buying as a result of historic low interest rates.

Why are those problems? The war is not something to base long-term economic revival on, and can easily mask hidden GDP weakness. Tax refunds are one-off events. And real estate has gotten about as hot as it can for now since rates will not go lower, but will go higher in the next year.

There's a bigger problem: This "recovery" doesn't look like one to the average wage-earner. Note this look at wage and salary income and how this "recovery" doesn't look like other recoveries in the past. If the average guy doesn't see benefits, there will be no real recovery. Thow in massive deficit spending and a pending credit crunch when interest rates inevitably rise, and I'm not yet convinced that we are seeing a real recovery.

See? Not a flame. Just a reasoned disagreement. I would be interested in people's views of the above.

Standards of living rise when people do that.
That's a statement that can mean a lot of things. Better is a relative term. Check this out.

Here's a story (no I don't have a link to prove it):

A few days ago the DoL found out that this union IFPTE reserved thier auditorium some weeks ago & were planning a rally/press conference with other unions, economists, etc for Monday.

They shat themselves at the potential pie-in-the-face & cancelled all the week's rented events in their auditorium, claiming some interns needed the space for something. So now the party has move outside, in front of the DoL on Constitution Ave, D.C. at 12:00. Geeks will be in attendance.

Some good info and a nice chart half way down the page at the Economic Policy Institute (they make overtime & they're unionized!)

Fair Disclosure: this AC is a union member & a union researcher (obviously) & gets paid overtime. woohoo.

America's dominance is not a passing phase that started with WWII and ended on 9/11

The beginning of the decline probably was some time in the 1980's when the US started going into debt more and more (see here). Ultimately, the whole idea of "America" itself becomes fuzzy, when a significant fraction of its assets are foreign-owned.

I think 9/11 is mostly irrelevant to the long term position of the US in the world. If anything, it has harmed US power because of Bush's foreign policy blunders.

and an apples-to-apples comparison would measure the EU against NAFTA

No. NAFTA is primarily a trade arrangement, while the EU is much closer to a federation (free movement of people, harmonized laws, etc.).

it's a phenomenon that will last as long as America lasts,

Well, you reiterate common attitudes among Americans; the question is: are there any rational reasons to believe this?

or until other nations become so much like America that one can't tell them apart.

That's impossible: there simply isn't enough foreign investment (or oil, for that matter) to run other large nations like the US.

In any case, the issue is not whether Europe or the US is "better" or a little bigger. The issue is whether the US is clearly predominant or whether it is just one of many centers of power in the world. I think the world will actually consist of half a dozen or so roughly equally powerful blocks or regions, one of which is the US. The question is whether Americans will accept that fact willingly.

Geezus, voodoo economic never really dies, does it?

First off, state (and federal, for that matter) fiscal crises at the moment aren't being caused because of escalating spending (with the significant exception of prisons). Rather, it's because the economy is tanking, so revenues are declining. Also, the corporate welfare that legislators have been passing out over the past few decades are finally catching up with them. (You know, the ones where they give employers tax breaks just in time for them to layoff large numbers of people -- does a great job stimulating the economy, I can assure you.)

Secondly, if you want to put more money into the economy, reducing taxes across the board is a bad way to do it, because you'll mostly wind up putting money in the pockets of the wealthy, who have a low marginal propensity to consume (so the money doesn't wind up going into the economy).

Rather, we should pursue tax policy specifically designed to put money in the hands of working class people, who are much more likely to spend it. The Economic Policy Institute has a great counter-economic stimulus plan which calls for, among other things, a one-time bonus of 3.5% on the first $15,000 of earned wages. Another major stimulus to the economy would be a national single-payer health plan, which would massively cut overhead and red tape in health care, saving billions of dollars for everyone concerned.

Or, to return to the point, we could abolish sales taxes, which not only discourage consumption but are also regressive, with the burden falling unfairly on poor and working-class people. Failing that, however, not applying sales taxes to transactions occuring over the internet creates an unfair business advantage which threatens the vitality of locally-based retail business, which has serious economic and social consequences.

Geezus, voodoo economic never really dies, does it?

First off, state (and federal, for that matter) fiscal crises at the moment aren't being caused because of escalating spending (with the significant exception of prisons). Rather, it's because the economy is tanking, so revenues are declining. Also, the corporate welfare that legislators have been passing out over the past few decades are finally catching up with them. (You know, the ones where they give employers tax breaks just in time for them to layoff large numbers of people -- does a great job stimulating the economy, I can assure you.)

Secondly, if you want to put more money into the economy, reducing taxes across the board is a bad way to do it, because you'll mostly wind up putting money in the pockets of the wealthy, who have a low marginal propensity to consume (so the money doesn't wind up going into the economy).

Rather, we should pursue tax policy specifically designed to put money in the hands of working class people, who are much more likely to spend it. The Economic Policy Institute has a great counter-economic stimulus plan which calls for, among other things, a one-time bonus of 3.5% on the first $15,000 of earned wages. Another major stimulus to the economy would be a national single-payer health plan, which would massively cut overhead and red tape in health care, saving billions of dollars for everyone concerned.

Or, to return to the point, we could abolish sales taxes, which not only discourage consumption but are also regressive, with the burden falling unfairly on poor and working-class people. Failing that, however, not applying sales taxes to transactions occuring over the internet creates an unfair business advantage which threatens the vitality of locally-based retail business, which has serious economic and social consequences.

But anyone working 60 hours a week with no kids should be putting money in the bank every month, and significant money.
Let's check the math on that:

60/hrs a week
52 weeks/year
$5.35/hour - minimum wage (historical vs. inflation adjusted value))
== $16,068 before taxes. You make about $12,000 after federal state and local taxes (don't forget payroll taxes.)
So that would give you 1k per month for food, clothing, rent, car payments, health insurance, car insurance, and miscellaneous expenses like deductibles. I presume that we are not dealing with a burger flipping english graduate here, or else add student loans to the mix.

Budget:
$200/month - food. (don't kid yourself on going lower, unless you are serious about the food bank.)
$250/month - rent. (that will get you a bed if lucky in a very low rent neighborhood if you are anywhere near a city, and you will be because you are working.)
$100/month - car payment. (Live in NYC, so not sure about actual car payments but I'm betting that that figure is pretty damn conservative.)
$50/month - gasoline. (Unless you are paying a lot more for rent to live close to work.)
$150/month - health insurance.
$100/month - car insurance. (again, I live in NYC, so a little clueless on that one.)
$50/month - clothing.
$50/month - miscellaneous.

That leaves $50/month to put into the bank... or maybe not, maybe you recklessly blow your future savings by having a few beers after a hard days work with friends once a week.

Thoughts?

I don't have to show you the numbers. It's absolutely logical. And your references to a questionable report written by liberal economists for the liberal EPI think-tank is hardly "proof" of your position. This is one of those papers where some insane claim is made ("raising minimum wage helps and doesn't hurt anyone") and then countless others refer to it ad-nauseum without questioning the original report.

If there is no harm in raising the minimum wage, then why not assign a minimum wage of $100k per year for everyone? Then we can all buy houses, have two SUVs in the garage, and take a couple trips to Cancun each year.

That's absurd, I hear you cry? I agree. It won't work. You can't just set the minimum wage at $100k per year and believe that society will legislate its way into prosperity.

So why won't it work? $100k per year is a rediculous mininum wage? What about $50k? What about $30k? At what point does it stop being rediculous? At what point will companies either go bankrupt because they can't pay the minimum wage, or will have to let people go so that they CAN pay the minimum wage to those who are left?

It turns out, it's NOT a magic number. It's not all or nothing. A $30k minimum wage isn't going to work and then a a $31k minimum wage cause all companies to fail or layoff employees. It's incremental. Every increase pushes, little by little, companies into either raising their prices (pressuring inflation), letting a few employees go, or going out of business.

If miniumum wage was 5 cents an hour we'd most likely have full employment, although poorly paid. For every amount you increase minimum wage, those earning minimum wage will earn more--but SOME NON-ZERO NUMBER of people will be without work. That's why with a 5 cent minimum wage everyone would be employed while with a $100k minimum wage you would call it absurd and very few would be employed.

Despite liberals' attempts to try to reject simple economic principles, if we can admit that with a 5 cent minimum wage virtually everyone would be employed while with a $100k minimum wage the system would collapse, then you have just agreed with me--and rejected the conclusions of "Bernstein and Schmitt (1998)."

Re-quoting from the page you cited, and including part of the following paragraph:

• The most recent increase in the minimum wage -- the $0.90 increase phased in over the 1996-97 period -- is a case in point. The study noted above examined the short-term effects of the increase and found that the policy had its intended effect: it raised the wages of low-wage workers from low-income families without leading to job losses.

  However, many critics of the last increase argued that the negative effects take a few years to materialize. [5] If so, the current low-wage labor market should certainly be providing this evidence. Yet, month after month, low-wage and minority workers post historic employment gains.

As is the case with Clinton, the economy grew IN SPITE of a minimum wage hike (and in spite of Clinton), not because of either.

It's hard to argue with some liberals that produce "studies" written by liberal "professors" in the liberal bastions of "higher learning" for liberal organizations such as the Keystone Research Center to disprove what must be true in the hopes that their conclusions would achieve a POLITICAL end: getting a state minimum wage law passed in Pennsylvania. Check the original material produced by Bernstein and Schmitt--the conclusion at the end of their report was:

• "In light of the evidence, Pennsylvania should join the six other states that have increased their state-level minimum wage above the federal level... Even so, to accommodate those with concerns about competition for investment Pennsylvania legislators could condition a state minimum wage increase on increases in three or more of the six surrounding states."

I'm sorry, but unless you believe we can set the minimum wage to $100k and solve the income problems of our population, then you are admitting that Bernstein and Schmitt are spewing animal feces.

It's called a living wage. It's a growing movement that bases a minimum wage on the actual living standards.

"1. The language is going to be broad. Face it. Jus about anything will qualify because as soon as the precedent is set, everybody will be clamoring to have their pet peeve branded as hate speech. Someone makes a joke like: "How do you make a dog go meow? You run it quickly over a circular saw," and it will be branded as hateful to animals and animal lovers.
2. As a direct consequence, since everyone is guilty of this in one way or another, the law will only be selectively applied. It will only be used against minority viewpoints. Anti-globalization protesters (which I am not a part of and to some extent find some disquieting parallels with Naziis m in their beliefs) will be branded hatemongers and barred from internet use. These laws will turn into icing on the cake and cheap means to punish people when nothing else can be pinned on them. "

I wouldn't label citizens trying to protect society from repeating history, as "Naziis"!

Fifty centuries of recorded history have taught us that, "Societies which failed to conserve resources for it citizens" are only remembered in the history books !

The globalists have an agenda. Use the world's weakest societies
too roll back the acheivements of the strongest societies.

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20020214-31481 960.htm
http://www.epinet.org/webfeatures/viewpoints/globa l_strat_labor.html

Now decide which of societies protections, you would like to live without?.

Maybe the Environmental laws, or Minimum wage, or the Eight (8) Work day, or the 40 hour work week, an impartial Court system, or Workmans compensation, or even Social security/medicare?

Hell, why not repeal the 13th amendment, and bring back slavery?

There is a lot to loose by letting the globalists/(IVPP), run things !

"1. The language is going to be broad. Face it. Jus about anything will qualify because as soon as the precedent is set, everybody will be clamoring to have their pet peeve branded as hate speech. Someone makes a joke like: "How do you make a dog go meow? You run it quickly over a circular saw," and it will be branded as hateful to animals and animal lovers.
2. As a direct consequence, since everyone is guilty of this in one way or another, the law will only be selectively applied. It will only be used against minority viewpoints. Anti-globalization protesters (which I am not a part of and to some extent find some disquieting parallels with Naziis m in their beliefs) will be branded hatemongers and barred from internet use. These laws will turn into icing on the cake and cheap means to punish people when nothing else can be pinned on them. "

I wouldn't label citizens trying to protect society from repeating history, as "Naziis"!

Fifty centuries of recorded history have taught us that, "Societies which failed to conserve resources for it citizens" are only remembered in the history books !

The globalists have an agenda. Use the world's weakest societies
too roll back the acheivements of the strongest societies.

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20020214-31481 960.htm
http://www.epinet.org/webfeatures/viewpoints/globa l_strat_labor.html

Now decide which of societies protections, you would like to live without?.

Maybe the Environmental laws, or Minimum wage, or the Eight (8) Work day, or the 40 hour work week, an impartial Court system, or Workmans compensation, or even Social security/medicare?

Hell, why not repeal the 13th amendment, and bring back slavery?

There is a lot to loose by letting the globalists/(IVPP), run things !

It's a waste byproduct if you can't sell it. Or get it to market.

That's the short version. The longer version is that natural gas in North America comes primarily from Canada, and from the United states. Very little of it is ever shipped by boat from one country to another. Natural gas is expensive to ship, it requires cryogenic/high pressure storage, special ships, and on and on (but they're trying to increase safety and lower expense all the time). The cost of shipping natural gas is quite low by pipeline, and higher for petroleum and oil because you must heat the oil so that it's thin enough to be pumpable. The lowest grade crude oil is thicker than peanut butter.

If all of the Alaska Wildlife Refuge were tapped and drilled, it would produce a maximum of something like 600,000 barrels of oil per day, starting in about 8-10 years. The current global oil production is around 75,000,000 barrels per day, with the U.S. sucking about 15-20,000,000 of that down. For a good reference to read on this topic, see here. Overall, because the U.S. hasn't modernized at the same pace as Europe, we consume roughly 25% more energy to perform the same tasks (both at home and in industry). If we had modernized over the past years at the same rate Europe did, we would currently have a 10-20% energy surplus, compared to what we consume right now. And we wouldn't have to build a single power line, power plant, or drill a single well to get it. Energy companies would have to invest no new money in risky exploration and development. They would earn more, and their stockholders would achieve higher returns. There is no long term downside to conservation. In the short term, energy sales goes down. Lower sales drives process efficiences, and the companies learn to make more money on less effort.

Back to natural gas. Because of the specialized equipment required in shipping natural gas, and the expense of moving it long distances, almost no one will buy it who's not living on that continent. That means that NG in Saudi Arabia doesn't get sold to the U.S. If there is no market, it is not transported. If it is not transported or sold, then there is no reason to store it locally, as that is another expense. Thus it is burned onsite as a waste product.

It's a fact of doing any task. What you consider waste product might not be considered waste if someone else had a use for it. Very few people these days have use for the bones and hides of the animals they consume (or even see the bones and hides).

The short truth is that it will take years, even at a frantic war-time pace, to develop the oil that's under the Alaska's wildlife refuges. There's the surveying, getting equipment there, infrastructure, finding laborers, moving the prodcut -- it all takes time.

Conservation, on the other hand, can have an effect right now. Rolling blackouts are a form of forced conservation. Much less drastic measures are tax breaks/incentives, and new taxes on consumption to affect behaviour. While that sounds evil, it's already done quite a bit. Taxes on cigarettes, alcohol, gasoline, furs and diamonds, expensive cars, SUV's (low miles-per-gallon tax), airport gate taxes.... The list goes on. If President Bush had made an impassioned plea to the people of California to conserve, and to set their air conditioning three degrees warmer, and so on, there would have been an overnight change. America conserved all it could during World War II, because it needed to. It needs to again, and the enemy is ourselves.

You may find this hard to believe, but my oldest daughter, who is graduating from high school next month, has gotten a first-rate high school education in a public "magnet school," Tampa Bay Tech, in Tampa, Florida.

Yes, Florida! I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I went to Florida public schools thirty years ago, and back then my school was absurdly bad. Not that they couldn't have been worse - at least my school's teachers didn't, for example, physically abuse the Jews in their classes because those Jewish students wouldn't accept that Christian Coalition parody of Jesus as their personal Savior. But I hardly learned anything in my high school classes and I was bored practically to madness. In contrast, my daughter's classes have been really hard and challenging, so she will be well prepared for her college classes next year. I wish I could have gone to a school as good as hers when I was her age.

The secret to the success of the "magnet schools" is that if a student is lazy or a troublemaker, the school authorities are allowed to kick him right out and send him back to the ordinary, high-school-as-day-care schools.

My biggest problem with the "magnet school" program is that it is too exclusive. It's great if you can get in, but for every student that is accepted into the program there are three applicants. As the "magnet schools" don't cost significantly more than the regular schools, which, as you rightly note, are more accurately described as baby-sitting compounds than educational institutions, I don't see any reason why the local school board doesn't immediately expand the "magnet school" program so that all the applicants, or at least all the ones who are academically qualified, can get in.

Incidentally, all three of my kids skipped out of public schools for the first few grades, instead doing home-schooling.

Why doesn't every family home-school? The answer should be obvious. When I was a kid, the average U.S. family had one parent with an outside job and one parent who stayed at home and kept house. On that single income, that average family was able to afford a house, a car, a TV, and the rest of the usual middle-class trappings. But in the last thirty years or so, the wealthy class, who control the prices and wages for the rest of us, have arranged things so that if the average family wants to own a house, both parents must work. While inflation disguises the effect, the fact remains that the American working class has thus gotten a massive effective pay cut over the last generation. Productivity is up, too, but that rich, powerful minority sequesters every cent of the excess wealth that is produced, resulting in America's ever-widening gulf between the median income and the income of the richest fraction.

Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net