A Strong Middle Class

[garyd]

No Chris they don't, not in the US anyway.

Rayboy Wages haven't gone down in fact they are much higher than they've ever been. It's just that half of it isn't cash. It cost your employer as much as twice your salary just to have you on the payroll. Among the things you never see on your pay check that your boss pays you are Social security matching, unemployment compensation, workers compensation, and the biggie health insurance of which most companies pay half or more of the costs.

 

[editec]

People with highly marketable skills and a willingness to work are getting paid better and better to do what they do.

Wages have consistently gone down while productivity has gone up. Do you work at the fucking kool aid factory?

Manufacturing Productivity up 4.1% Per Hour Yr/Yr
But Real Wages Down -1.8% Per Hour Yr/Yr

But CEOs (rich people) wages have gone up:

In 2005, the average CEO in the United States earned 262 times the pay of the average worker, the second-highest level of this ratio in the 40 years for which there are data. In 2005, a CEO earned more in one workday (there are 260 in a year) than an average worker earned in 52 weeks.

EAt the frigging oats gary

What about the small business people of this country who employ the overwhelming majority of this country? Their wages have not gone up--but their risk sure has. I think you are referring to the wall street crowd in those figures & not the everyday auto shop, construction company, small retailer or restaurant/cafe owner?

Don't get confused by the news media. Believe me, small business people who employ, who take risks don't get golden parachutes or huge bonuses. I know I am one of them. They're lucky if they can pay their monthly bills. One month they made be in red ink, the next black--but the overwhelming majority of them are in no way "rich".

Without small business in this country there would be no jobs. Too much union would break the backs of small business people.

Unions do not typically get involved in TRULY small businesses.

So this question really depends on how we define a small business.

Now if you use the Government's definition of a small business, that's one thing.

If you use the average person's definition, that's quite another.

Unions, despite their problems, made the middle class possible.

They wrest some of the profits (that they created) back from the owners.

Byt doing so, they improved the quality of life for all workers, and ironically by doing that they made our monied classes even wealthier.

In the last 40 years, thanks to free trade policies, America went from a basically closed economy to a worldwide economy.

Since workers in empoverished nation will work cheaper, industries moved offshore since they could still benefit fromt he wealth of the American middle class.

Well now that wealth is pretty much sucked out of this nation.

And look, just look, at how well our economy is doing when we STILL HAVE lots and lots and lots of rich people.

It's in the fucking crapper.

So much for your theory that the rich create wealth.

They don't.

They are PART of the wealth creation process, but they are not ALL of it.

The imbalance that has been created by FREE TRADE between the monied class and the middle class workers had screwed the pooch.

You nation, the one that most of you swear you love, is dying because of the greed of the monied class.

Of course, they don't give a shit.

They never do.

That why empire after empire falls.

Eventuallyt eh middle class have no sense of love for a nation which turns them into paupers and then when some outside nation tests the resolve of the people of that nation, the monied classes can't understand why people who they've been treating like SHIT, don't give a fuck what happens to their nation.

The rich have become parasites on this nation's economy instead of what they once were...team players for America.

I will remind you all that wealth comes from LABOR -- intellectual labor or maual labor.

But wealth is NOT money. Money is but a represntation of labor which can be exchanged for something with intrensic value.

Money is a tool of LABOR that creates things and services which are the only TRUE wealth that mankind has.

 

[garyd]

No the unions did not make the middle class possible there was a Middle class existed long before anyone ever heard of a union.

 

[Red Dawn]

"We need to level the playing field for workers and the unions that represent their interests," Obama said during a signing ceremony in the East Room of the White House.

"I do not view the labor movement as part of the problem. To me, it's part of the solution," he said. "You cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement."

Obama touts middle-class task force led by Biden - Yahoo! News

Nice words. But, I don't think Obama, by liberal standards, is all that pro-labor and pro-union. A lot more than Sarah Palin, and Rush Limbaugh to be sure. But some of his prior postions on NAFTA and NEA betray a certain Clinton-esque, corporate friendly centrist Democrat tendency.

Liberal and labor are going to have to pressure Obama. I think he can be labor friendly. But he's going to have to be pressured to do the correct thing.

 

[garyd]

Or in the case of sucking up to the unions the wrong thing.

 

[editec]

No the unions did not make the middle class possible there was a Middle class existed long before anyone ever heard of a union.

Yeah...in Holland.

In the USA, the middle class was very tiny until industrialization AND unionism wrest enough of the industrialized wealth back to create a much larger middle class.

 

[rayboyusmc]

No the unions did not make the middle class possible there was a Middle class existed long before anyone ever heard of a union.

Do you want to post some data that supports that or is that your opinion?

 

[AllieBaba]

No the unions did not make the middle class possible there was a Middle class existed long before anyone ever heard of a union.

Yeah...in Holland.

In the USA, the middle class was very tiny until industrialization AND unionism wrest enough of the industrialized wealth back to create a much larger middle class.

Until industrialization the only middle class were tradesmen and craftsmen.

When we are allowed to produce and progress, our middle class grows and flourishes. When we shut down production and take huge strides backwards, it flounders.

 

[rayboyusmc]

The explanation for the decline lies in the enormous increase in inequality over the last fifteen years. The shape of economic growth has changed fundamentally over this period so that virtually all of the gains have been concentrated among those at the top, while those in the middle or bottom have seen stagnant or declining living standards. The poorest fifth of families had a decline in income of 14.8% from 1979 to 1993. The second and third poorest fifth had declines of 7.2% and 2.6%, respectively. By comparison, the richest fifth had their income increase by 18.4%, and the richest five percent by 29.1% (SWA p. 37). Those at the very top did especially well. The pay of the top executives of major corporations is at present approximately 100 times as high as that of a typical worker. In the 1960s, it was about 30 times as high.

Corporations have clearly prospered in this environment as have some highly paid professionals, but the bulk of the population has not. The before tax rate of profit has risen more than 1.5 percentage points, from approximately 6.8% in the period from 1952 to 1979, to over 8.4% in the first half of 1995 (Baker 1996). Since corporate taxes have been reduced during this period, the after-tax rate of profit has risen even more, from 4.6% in the earlier period to 6.7% in the most recent business cycle. This fall in corporate taxes costs the government nearly $40 billion per year in lost revenue.

USW: The U.S. Wage Gap and the Decline of Manufacturing

If you don't like the source, then post some data that disproves this.

 

[garyd]

You can make that claim but in order to do so you have to ignore the fact that the compensation package of most workers is only about fifty percent cash with the rest being various benefits.