Now, don’t get me wrong, I deal with some of those REAL Titans of Industry, and they are truly amoral in their business dealings. But by that, I mean they care only about increasing profitability and growing their business. They do not go out of their way to screw workers – they are just another line item, though.

But, as outsourcing has not been the panacea expected, both due to quality issues and now rising costs, they are both starting to raising wages and hiring domestically gain, as they are now seeing that as the best business strategy.

I agree it is too bad that they are not more interested in the workers as people (and to be fair, there are a few that do think of that, but they are both in the minority, and when push comes to shove, business is business in their minds).

Thanks.

And I agree, nothing would be better right now for the economy than a period of sustained wage growth.

The investment market, as indicated by the DOW, has fully rebounded, and corporate profits are healthy, and top-line revenue is growing as a whole.

There is absolutely no indication of inflation being a concern at this time, or in the foreseeable future.

There is a looming (and occurring) consumer liquidity crunch to be worried about, that if severe enough, would threaten our overall economy, globalization or not.

Unemployment is almost too low (not an oxymoron, as economists can tell you).

Add it all up, I think it points to a healthy growth in real wages (for regular workers, not the just ‘elite’) over the next few years, and maybe even a closing of the gap, which while I have argued over people’s use of rhetoric surrounding the issue, I have never refuted as a real problem.

I do not believe in caps in top-tier wages, but I do believe that lower-tier wages are overdue for significant increases.

Was it the complete picture, with every nuance of the economy, pay, benefits, inflation, taxes (state, local, federal, sales, gas, etc.), every form of government assistance factored back in, covering every sector of the entire economy, private, corporate, farming and government workers, analyzing and contrasting micro- and macro- trends in monthly, quarterly and annual time-frames over 1, 2, 5 10, and 25 years?

No.

And I never claimed it was. I just said it showed average wages have gone up in nearly every sector over the past 12 months.

Would it kill you after checking the link to admit I actually made a factually correct statement?

The problem in each case: not enough people who are both able and willing to do the work for the posted pay…

What’s going on here? With global growth running at a strong 5% a year since 2004, the strategies that companies developed to hold down labor costs–including offshoring work to low-wage countries–are running out of gas far sooner than many expected. The seemingly inexhaustible pools of cheap labor from China, India, and elsewhere are drying up as demand outstrips the supply of people with the needed skills. “Companies were hoping they wouldn’t have to worry about human resources at all,” says Peter Cappelli, director of the Center for Human Resources at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “Now they do.”

Some of the companies that are desperate to keep their worker’s salaries low have good reasons to do so. They are losing money or on the bubble. But some are like Citibank, firing people just to keep the bonuses of upper level management up there.

I followed your link AR. The averages still don’t mean a lot to this argument because they don’t reveal the numbers of people receiving those pay scales. They don’t speak to factors such as benefits or lack of same. What is visible in those numbers? Average weekly pay for people in the Leisure and Hospitality industry are $257.80. Retail is $382.50. There are three other categories that are under $500 a week.There are four categories that pay over $900 a week, seasonally adjusted. By the time all is said and done the seasonally adjusted average for all workers is $583.76. That comes to $30355.52 a year. Not bad. It’s above poverty level. It’s also not that good. It’s not middle class. It’s also a gross amount. The increase (estimated) over one year of 4.17% isn’t bad but where did it wind up? What happened in the several years previous? Context is all.

My call of BS is simple. Class warfare is not pointing out that millions are hurting while a relative few are extremely wealthy. Class warfare is when you set things up so that this is the way things are. It’s working hard to make certain that things stay that way. That’s class warfare.

So little time, so many misunderstandings.

I think that you, Entropy and I are in agreement that youthful slothfulness is color blind.

If I misread your criticism in your previous post, I am truly sorry, but based on your use of punctuation, it IS what the sentence says (Entropy should have cited non-black sources), and as you are a professional writer, I assumed it was that way on purpose.

Umm . . . I didn’t say that Entropy said “black.” I noted the Oprah citation regarding inner city kids and South African kids. I dunno. Maybe Oprah was not talking about blacks, but I doubt it.

My point was and remains that too many American kids — whether inner city, suburbia or rural — would respond similarly.

I agree that Bush’s “compassionate conservatism” has been a dismal failure. He has done nothing to solve the core issues and the one thing he has done – school testing, has produced mixed results at best. On the other hand, the Democrats haven’t produced or proposed much either. It’s a huge problem our political class ignores because addressing them requires difficult choices that don’t provide short-term benefit. Tough decisions with no benefit for the current election cycle is, sadly, political suicide. Yet the importance of addressing these fundamental problems is critical if America is to remain competitive with the world. Although not a perfect book, I think Tom Friedman’s “The World is Flat” makes a very compelling case of the challenges we face.

And you’re right about Oprah – I didn’t mean to suggest the phenomenon she complains about is restricted to black kids. If there’s one demographic that gets no coverage or exposure at all, it’s probably the rural, white poor. What coverage they do get is reduced to redneck jokes that are just as despicable as many thrown toward urban blacks.

domajot,

Somehow I knew you might misinterpret what I wrote. The simple fact is that many in the American underclass do not value education. Stating that fact does not mean that the underclass is to blame, nor should it suggest that they do not hold any responsibility either. There are many factors involved ranging from the legacy of slavery to our materialist culture, to a broken education system, to teenage pregnancy among many others. Like I asked before, what is the solution? For some of the commenters here, and my socialist verbiage is aimed at those few, the solution is income redistribution. The solution is taking money from people they view as too successful and therefore greedy. I think the solution lies elsewhere, requires a multifaceted approach, and will only be successful in the long term – two-to-three generations down the line. I’m all for a safety net, but increasing the size and comfort of the net does little to help those who fall into it get out and climb back up again. The focus, in my view, should not be on making the net more comfortable, but providing incentive and material support to make getting out of the net easier.

I see ‘underclass’, I see ‘the poor’, I see ‘American workers’, I see ‘inner-city’. Only you seem to see ‘black’ in his post, or Oprah’s.

Why is that?

Other than the inevitable labeling (“the socialists here”) you make some very good points and allow me to reinforce one: George Bush inherited some long-term economic trends that in many cases he — or any other president and Congress — would have a difficult time checking, let alone slowing.

But he has made matters worse, arguably far worse, and while the concept of compassionate conservatism tested well with focus groups, it has been a cruel joke.

Finally, I am uncomfortable with your citing Oprah, who is spot on correct as far as it and she goes, without noting that non-black American kids from poor backgrounds would offer the same kind of responses.

We can, instead, spend our money on building more prisons, higher walls for our gated communities and, private secutiry guards. Maybe we can herd them all into a fenced off area of a desert.

Anything but trying to find ways to deal with our national problems.

First of all, most people today are better off than they were through most of America’s history. There was not social safety net, not even income tax for the socialists here to redistribute. By any measure, the average American, even the poor ones, are better off today than through most of American history.

Secondly, the income gap is indeed large. However, for the most part, it’s because the top 1% have gotten richer while the poor have largely remained stagnant. The income gap is a poor metric for determining how Americans are doing in general.

Third, I agree it’s a good goal to alleviate the needs of the poorest in our society. Where I disagree with the socialists here is how to do that. History has pretty definitively shown that income-redistribution is not all that effective. Making welfare checks fatter does nothing to help the poor get out of poverty, though it certainly makes socialists feel good. I would rather see money spent to provide free education, training and other life-skills that materially improve a person’s opportunity. It goes back to the old “teach a man to fish” adage.

Fourth, the global economy is in transition, and the US is at the forefront of that economy. Transition means change and change means disruption and disruption means people’s lives are negatively affected. There is no use pining away about pensions or the liquidity of the labor market, or the loss of high-wage, low skill manufacturing jobs. The world is a much more competitive environment and all the socialist programs in the world won’t change that. American workers are now directly competing with Indian, Chinese and Vietnamese workers. The sad fact is that workers from other countries – workers who truly know what real poverty is – are hungrier and more motivated to succeed than the average American low-wage worker. It’s one reason why immigrants are so successful here. Just read this article for a taste of why the underclass in America stays poor:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01012007/news/worldnews/why_oprah_built_school_in_s__africa_worldnews_marianne_garvey.htm

“I became so frustrated with visiting inner-city schools that I just stopped going,” the talk-show queen says in Newsweek, on newsstands today.

“If you ask the kids what they want or need, they will say an iPod or some sneakers. In South Africa, they don’t ask for money or toys; they ask for uniforms – so they can go to school.”

Oprah is not exactly a raging conservative. The sad fact is that education is not valued by the underclass in America. Blame that on our materialist culture, or whatever, but it’s a problem that transcends partisan politics. People’s priorities are screwed up and so immigrants and Indians will kick the crap out of the domestic American underclass in the global economy. All the income redistribution in the world won’t address that fundamental problem. Rather, it will get us to where France is today – with high real unemployment, no liquidity in the job market, slow growth, etc.

This reference will not help those who have none of these. There are a growing number of people losing jobs, having to use what was invested to make ends meet. There are also the employed faced with a devastating illness.

This is precisely the trouble. The people struggling are invisible or discounted as moral failures.

> The haves invest and
> their wealth grows
> exponentially. The
> have-nots spend
> their resources on the
> basics of life, and
> cannot invest.

We all need to distinguish between spending on essentials and what really is the issue here with too many people, that of lack of future orientation and a refusal to defer present gratification of desires for consumer items. Nobody needs an expensive car, large-screen teevee, cartons of beer, etc.

> Also, should illness or job
> loss strike, that person’s
> IRA is the only source for
> seeing him through

True, and to its dimunition or loss one must add the tax penalties.

I wonder if after 2008 the Dems might not revise the bankruptcy laws in a health-care activist manner to create a special type of bankruptcy, “medical bankruptcy,” that is much more lenient than other forms of bankruptcy. (Real bankruptcy should be as harsh as IRS garnishments and seizures, and should last on the books for 20-25 years.)

> I don’t have a problem
> that Bill Gates or Derek
> Jeter or Jeffrey Immelt
> make a whole lot more
> money than I do.

The book I mentioned earlier discusses this and uses Hollywood as an example (which remains valid even though the art of acting has disappeared in the past decades). A few are superstars, many still are waiting tables and are still dreaming. Also mentioned are writing computer software (there are large differences in productivity) and the auto workers (one bolt-tightener really isn’t that much different than another).

> And I’m not going to
> lose any sleep over laid
> off autoworkers not being
> able to find comparably
> paying jobs that require
> only the limited skill set
> that they have to offer.

Actually, they’re often retained at nearly full (overly high) pay by the US firms under the JOBS bank scheme (which the UAW pledges to insist be retained in the coming 2007 huge negotiations). Legacy costs (pension and Cadillac health benefits, given to people who retire at ridiculously young ages) are eating Ford and GM alive. (The auto plants in the South are thriving, meanwhile.)

Your main point is obviously well taken. Some younger workers are accepting buyouts currently at Ford and GM and counting on training to improve their future prospects.
Many employees are exposing themselves to risk by holding out, either in the expectation of remaining employed until they retire after “30 and out” (itself ridiculous), or until they get a better buyout offer. They are risking a lot, including bankruptcies of Ford and GM.

Daimler-Chrysler is dumping Chrysler. What is its future and that of its workers? Will the sale be delayed until after the big UAW negotiations?