A weak federal system, laissez faire capitalism, state governments enablement of industry all work. Obviously the United States of America have different shades of these issues but the closer any country gets to these principles the better.
This is a religious statement.
Increasingly laissez faire capitalism, in particular, is doing massive damage to the at local, national and global levels.
Yes a huge returning labor force taking advantage of major increases in production methods and materials research probably didn't factor in nearly as much as regulations, taxes, and government spending.
Low unemployment, strong industry and a solid wage base makes for a prosperous economy ?
Despite tight regulations, high taxes and high Government spending ?
Yes. So when their wages are getting proportionally smaller, they have to spend more of them on essentials and have less of them to spend on the other stuff that drives an economy.
Hence said economy - which is demand-driven - slows down and stagnates.
Debt can (and has) kept up the facade of increasing disposable incomes for a time, but that time is drawing to a close.
Can you explain why that is relevant? If my wages were suddenly to drop by a factor of 200, but prices of goods and services I use were to drop by a factor of 500, I would be very happy.
Your wages have increased in real terms.
Whether something equivalent to this happened, or will happen - depends on the location and time period and can only be discussed once you drop the obsession with "wages" and start talking about something real.
Wages are what most people rely on to live. They're pretty "real" for them.
If you want to discuss a Star Trek-esque world where people are provided everything they need or want without having to labour or pay for it, then that's a reasonable context in which to say "wages don't matter". But you don't sound like that kind of guy, and it is not the world we live in today (though we could probably be a lot closer than we are).
Again, new iPhone, bigger TV or faster computer was not mentioned so I don't see why you don't address real text that one can read on a screen without artifacts rather than rewriting my post to suit yourself before replying to it.
Because "the real text" is just misdirection and dissembling.
My point was that wages have not improved in thirty-odd years.
The other poster firstly moved the goal posts to "living standards", because that better suits his argument, then further changed the entire game by rebasing to 1900, rather than the 20ish years post-WW2 that I was referring to - again, because it better suits his argument. You leapt on board because, again, it better suits your argument.
So don't give me bullshit about "screen artifacts" when you're the one being dishonest.
The comment about iPhones getting faster each year is to help make the point that wages haven't really gone anywhere, but "living standards" are getting better because each year we can get a faster computer, or a bigger TV, or a faster iPhone. But real incomes aren't increasing, and disposable incomes are being increasingly eaten into by real inflation (as opposed to the dodgy headline number) and interest on the ever increasing debt.
Another way to describe it is the bread and circuses view of living standards improvement - so long as the people are sufficiently fed by the bread and entertained by the circuses, they shouldn't care about their ever decreasing share of the pie. Right ?
"one of them being only able to work, say, three days a week and the other stay at home raising the family" hasn't been true for the huge majority of majority in, about, forever. In around 1900, the "stay at home" didn't involve much of giving attention to kids rather than cleaning, preserving food, getting water, managing home etc.
Yes. So achieving that would be a genuine and significant improvement in living standards.
Rather than just having shinier toys each year which is the current benchmark being used.
Again, I don't see why you insist on dreaming up my dreams for me. I am perfectly capable of dreaming my dreams for myself , thanks.
Only going on the position of ever increasing inequality - and all the deleterious impacts it brings along with it - you are supporting
There is no iPhone mentioned. Does your computer screen suffer from artifacts?
It's a figure of speech.
You appear to be a subscriber as well. So long as you get a new iPhone, or a bigger TV, or a faster computer every year then you're happy.
Even in 1900, 2 people did have to work full time. But typically the ladies worked full time at home - it is hard work to manage a home without home comforts that spread later in 20th century.
So now two people have to work full time in jobs, farming their children out to care, rather than one of them being only able to work, say, three days a week and the other stay at home raising the family, and you think that's progress ?
I do wonder what you guys think will happen when you achieve your dream and the wages of most of society have been suppressed so much that two full time incomes can barely sustain a family. I mean, they'll probably have cool VR computer games, mobile phones embedded in their bodies and gigabit cellular internet, so you won't see a problem on the face of it, but from a practical perspective, with most people having no disposable income to speak of, what do you think is going to drive the economy ? Who is goign to be having children when they can barely support themselves ?
Except now the home includes clean running water, central heating, electricity and an internet connection. The food is flown in from across the globe. The children are significantly more likely to reach adulthood, let alone the mother's chance of being around to raise them.
So you're in the "faster iPhone each year" school of living standards.
Why are you so blinkered and refusing to acknowledge this? Why are you so fucking hung on on basic wage? Why do you seem to think I really give a shit about wages, given that's not what I've been talking about throughout this entire exchange?
Because my measure of increasing living standards is surplus. Surplus goods, surplus money (ie: increased spending power) and, most importantly, surplus time.
We grunts still have to work that same 40 hours each week to live. In fact for a growing percentage of families *two* people now need to work 40 hours to support a family. We don't see most of the benefits of the massive production surplus the world has because it's all flowing upwards and captured by a smaller and smaller group of people.
Why are you so blinkered about the vast majority of benefits from the last half century of progress going to a handful of people at the top ?
Yeah. You know that philosophy that's been running the world since its patron saints, Thatcher and Reagan took power ? Crippling economies with income suppression, unemployment and debt ? Selling off public assets ? Undermining publicly funded services ? Driving inflation and assets prices with reduced taxes ? Deregulating everything (especially the FIRE industries) ? Destroying local [western] industry through globalisation ? Expanding intellectual property laws ? Criminalising huge swathes of the population to feed the privatised prison systems ? Eroding the people's rights and freedoms ? Imposing increasingly anti-democratic systems, particularly authoritarian Governments ? Channeling more and more of the world's wealth into a smaller number of people ? Monetising everything from food to education ?
That's the cancer of neoliberalism.
But I guess you reckon it's OK for a handful of people to live lives of unfathomable luxury holding most of the wealth, because all the commoners get a new iPhone every couple of years for the same price (living standards increase, yay !).
Ah. So you're the kind of guy who thought Jodie Foster was the heroine in Elysium ?
Most of the heavy lifting around easing absolute poverty was done before the '80s and the cancer of neoliberalism had started to take hold. It's been hit and miss since then, increasingly more miss than hit.
The living standards of the western world for the last few decades have been sustained by ever increasing debt while all the wealth has been concentrated to a few.
The debt machine is nearly tapped out though. The world is drowning in it. Some countries are already dabbling with negative interest rates. We'll start to see more last-ditch efforts to confiscate what little the normal people still have through bank bail-ins and such in the coming decade.
Presumably once the process is complete and a handful of elites own nearly everything, people like you might accept that increasing inequality can actually constitute a problem. But the only solution then is going to be war or genocide.
Ultimately, the average person has been getting screwed the "freer the market"[0] gets. Because "the freer the market gets", the more influence over it the selfish, the greedy and the psychopaths have and the less control the people have over it, through laws.
[0] A moronic statement anyway. The only free market is one without rules. Anything else is someone arguing their pet ideology. Ie: it's a religious statement.
Trump doesn't really want it (he's only there for his ego), the rest of the Republican candidates are loons and the establishment won't allow Sanders (even though he'd be the best thing for America in more than half a century).
On the miracle Sanders does somehow make it through to nomination, he'll be lucky to survive to election day.
(Disclaimer: I am not an American. Purely watching from the outside in.)
All in all, this is one of the most dangerous policies out there, due to how people only seem able to see the upsides of this policy, and not the potential dangers.
Indeed. A UBI is basically a public subsidy for business. It goes straight into profits and hence promotes more upwards wealth transfer. A jobs guarantee is a better and more equitable solution.
That said, in a few generations some sort of UBI (/"Citizens dividend") will be necessary simply because 50-75% of the population will be literally unemployable - and this is not a situation that will happen overnight.
But if we don't get away from current attitudes towards welfare and the unemployed first, a UBI is basically just going to be a return to serfdom (ie: a subsistence income rather than a comfortable one).
Slashdot Mirror
I don't understand. Then why did you say they depend on wages?
Can't buy "real stuff" without wages (or some other income).
Why do you say wages are real - instead of acknowledging that the stuff bought using the wages is real, and wages is just a fiction?
"Real wages" == inflation adjusted.
A weak federal system, laissez faire capitalism, state governments enablement of industry all work. Obviously the United States of America have different shades of these issues but the closer any country gets to these principles the better.
This is a religious statement.
Increasingly laissez faire capitalism, in particular, is doing massive damage to the at local, national and global levels.
America hasn't been "prospering" for decades. Neither has the rest of the developed world. For similar reasons.
Yes a huge returning labor force taking advantage of major increases in production methods and materials research probably didn't factor in nearly as much as regulations, taxes, and government spending.
Low unemployment, strong industry and a solid wage base makes for a prosperous economy ?
Despite tight regulations, high taxes and high Government spending ?
Inconceivable !
Low unemployment, strong industry and a solid wage base makes for a prosperous economy ?
Inconceivable !
FFS.
Yes. So when their wages are getting proportionally smaller, they have to spend more of them on essentials and have less of them to spend on the other stuff that drives an economy.
Hence said economy - which is demand-driven - slows down and stagnates.
Debt can (and has) kept up the facade of increasing disposable incomes for a time, but that time is drawing to a close.
Can you explain why that is relevant? If my wages were suddenly to drop by a factor of 200, but prices of goods and services I use were to drop by a factor of 500, I would be very happy.
Your wages have increased in real terms.
Whether something equivalent to this happened, or will happen - depends on the location and time period and can only be discussed once you drop the obsession with "wages" and start talking about something real.
Wages are what most people rely on to live. They're pretty "real" for them.
If you want to discuss a Star Trek-esque world where people are provided everything they need or want without having to labour or pay for it, then that's a reasonable context in which to say "wages don't matter". But you don't sound like that kind of guy, and it is not the world we live in today (though we could probably be a lot closer than we are).
Again, new iPhone, bigger TV or faster computer was not mentioned so I don't see why you don't address real text that one can read on a screen without artifacts rather than rewriting my post to suit yourself before replying to it.
Because "the real text" is just misdirection and dissembling.
My point was that wages have not improved in thirty-odd years.
The other poster firstly moved the goal posts to "living standards", because that better suits his argument, then further changed the entire game by rebasing to 1900, rather than the 20ish years post-WW2 that I was referring to - again, because it better suits his argument. You leapt on board because, again, it better suits your argument.
So don't give me bullshit about "screen artifacts" when you're the one being dishonest.
The comment about iPhones getting faster each year is to help make the point that wages haven't really gone anywhere, but "living standards" are getting better because each year we can get a faster computer, or a bigger TV, or a faster iPhone. But real incomes aren't increasing, and disposable incomes are being increasingly eaten into by real inflation (as opposed to the dodgy headline number) and interest on the ever increasing debt.
Another way to describe it is the bread and circuses view of living standards improvement - so long as the people are sufficiently fed by the bread and entertained by the circuses, they shouldn't care about their ever decreasing share of the pie. Right ?
"one of them being only able to work, say, three days a week and the other stay at home raising the family" hasn't been true for the huge majority of majority in, about, forever.
In around 1900, the "stay at home" didn't involve much of giving attention to kids rather than cleaning, preserving food, getting water, managing home etc.
Yes. So achieving that would be a genuine and significant improvement in living standards.
Rather than just having shinier toys each year which is the current benchmark being used.
Again, I don't see why you insist on dreaming up my dreams for me. I am perfectly capable of dreaming my dreams for myself , thanks.
Only going on the position of ever increasing inequality - and all the deleterious impacts it brings along with it - you are supporting
There is no iPhone mentioned. Does your computer screen suffer from artifacts?
It's a figure of speech.
You appear to be a subscriber as well. So long as you get a new iPhone, or a bigger TV, or a faster computer every year then you're happy.
Even in 1900, 2 people did have to work full time. But typically the ladies worked full time at home - it is hard work to manage a home without home comforts that spread later in 20th century.
So now two people have to work full time in jobs, farming their children out to care, rather than one of them being only able to work, say, three days a week and the other stay at home raising the family, and you think that's progress ?
I do wonder what you guys think will happen when you achieve your dream and the wages of most of society have been suppressed so much that two full time incomes can barely sustain a family. I mean, they'll probably have cool VR computer games, mobile phones embedded in their bodies and gigabit cellular internet, so you won't see a problem on the face of it, but from a practical perspective, with most people having no disposable income to speak of, what do you think is going to drive the economy ? Who is goign to be having children when they can barely support themselves ?
40 hours of labour now pay for the same things.
No they don't.
Except now the home includes clean running water, central heating, electricity and an internet connection. The food is flown in from across the globe. The children are significantly more likely to reach adulthood, let alone the mother's chance of being around to raise them.
So you're in the "faster iPhone each year" school of living standards.
Why are you so blinkered and refusing to acknowledge this? Why are you so fucking hung on on basic wage? Why do you seem to think I really give a shit about wages, given that's not what I've been talking about throughout this entire exchange?
Because my measure of increasing living standards is surplus. Surplus goods, surplus money (ie: increased spending power) and, most importantly, surplus time.
We grunts still have to work that same 40 hours each week to live. In fact for a growing percentage of families *two* people now need to work 40 hours to support a family. We don't see most of the benefits of the massive production surplus the world has because it's all flowing upwards and captured by a smaller and smaller group of people.
Why are you so blinkered about the vast majority of benefits from the last half century of progress going to a handful of people at the top ?
Real wages, not nominal.
Think about it in terms of ounces of gold per hour of labour if that makes it easier for you.
So you need the rest of the world to be busted so you can be prosperous ?
I find that people who apply a label and argue on the grounds of identity lack credibility and aren't worth my time.
I find that people who dismiss points they don't like without engaging any of them aren't worth my time, either. So it seems we have an accord.
The most prosperous period of time in human history was the few decades after WW2 in America before the neoliberals took over.
It was a time of tight regulations, high progressive taxes, extensive publicly funded services and huge investment in public infrastructure.
It's fairly clear that's where Bernie wants to go.
Perhaps your misunderstanding is why you don't realise that I'm perfectly comfortable with facts. I'm just not seeing any that back up your arguments.
That's because you're dishonestly arguing a "living standards" straw man rather than the original statement about wages.
Yeah. You know that philosophy that's been running the world since its patron saints, Thatcher and Reagan took power ? Crippling economies with income suppression, unemployment and debt ? Selling off public assets ? Undermining publicly funded services ? Driving inflation and assets prices with reduced taxes ? Deregulating everything (especially the FIRE industries) ? Destroying local [western] industry through globalisation ? Expanding intellectual property laws ? Criminalising huge swathes of the population to feed the privatised prison systems ? Eroding the people's rights and freedoms ? Imposing increasingly anti-democratic systems, particularly authoritarian Governments ? Channeling more and more of the world's wealth into a smaller number of people ? Monetising everything from food to education ?
That's the cancer of neoliberalism.
But I guess you reckon it's OK for a handful of people to live lives of unfathomable luxury holding most of the wealth, because all the commoners get a new iPhone every couple of years for the same price (living standards increase, yay !).
I'm not in your election, voting for yr dudes, champ. I'm commenting on Slashdot.
(I'm also not sure what's so different about the American people that what's good for them is not the same as what's good for any other people.)
My country's population is a tenth the size, and like most of us "defended" by the USA, we have little choice in the matter.
Ah. So you're the kind of guy who thought Jodie Foster was the heroine in Elysium ?
Most of the heavy lifting around easing absolute poverty was done before the '80s and the cancer of neoliberalism had started to take hold. It's been hit and miss since then, increasingly more miss than hit.
The living standards of the western world for the last few decades have been sustained by ever increasing debt while all the wealth has been concentrated to a few.
The debt machine is nearly tapped out though. The world is drowning in it. Some countries are already dabbling with negative interest rates. We'll start to see more last-ditch efforts to confiscate what little the normal people still have through bank bail-ins and such in the coming decade.
Presumably once the process is complete and a handful of elites own nearly everything, people like you might accept that increasing inequality can actually constitute a problem. But the only solution then is going to be war or genocide.
Ultimately, the average person has been getting screwed the "freer the market"[0] gets. Because "the freer the market gets", the more influence over it the selfish, the greedy and the psychopaths have and the less control the people have over it, through laws.
[0] A moronic statement anyway. The only free market is one without rules. Anything else is someone arguing their pet ideology. Ie: it's a religious statement.
Not if he doesn't have any interest in actually doing the job.
It's not "distributed", it's earned.
I've yet to see anyone justify this without circular logic.
You're an idiot. Look at north and south korea. Look at east and west germany before unification.
Look at inequality steadily increasing as more and more regulations are removed...
The freer the market, the better off the average person gets.
This is a religious statement. (And is demonstrably false anyway. Wages for the average person have gone nowhere in decades.)
Hilary will win.
Trump doesn't really want it (he's only there for his ego), the rest of the Republican candidates are loons and the establishment won't allow Sanders (even though he'd be the best thing for America in more than half a century).
On the miracle Sanders does somehow make it through to nomination, he'll be lucky to survive to election day.
(Disclaimer: I am not an American. Purely watching from the outside in.)
Like the basic business model of a bank ?
All in all, this is one of the most dangerous policies out there, due to how people only seem able to see the upsides of this policy, and not the potential dangers.
Indeed. A UBI is basically a public subsidy for business. It goes straight into profits and hence promotes more upwards wealth transfer. A jobs guarantee is a better and more equitable solution.
That said, in a few generations some sort of UBI (/"Citizens dividend") will be necessary simply because 50-75% of the population will be literally unemployable - and this is not a situation that will happen overnight.
But if we don't get away from current attitudes towards welfare and the unemployed first, a UBI is basically just going to be a return to serfdom (ie: a subsistence income rather than a comfortable one).