(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Crossposted at Daily Kos
A hat tip to Inky99, one of my favorite bloggers out
there. This story was so BIG I had to expand on it.
Got that Tiny Tim? Mr. Scrooge isn’t the problem, the problem is that overpaid bum, Cratchett.
American Wages Out of Balance
By EDWARD HADAS, MARTIN HUTCHINSON and ANTONY CURRIE
Published: November 10, 2009American workers are overpaid, relative to equally productive employees elsewhere doing the same work. If the global economy is to get into balance, that gap must close.
Bold text added by the diarist
So how much more do the Masters Of the Universe at Goldman Sachs and elsewhere think that Americans should be paid comapred to the outright slaves and other indentured servants throughout the world? Join me below the fold to find out, and do’t forget your torches and pitchforks.
Of course, workers in the United States should earn more than their peers in China, Moldova or Vietnam. Americans take advantage of the higher productivity that makes their country rich: better education and infrastructure, abundant capital and a strong work ethic. But how much higher should American wages be?
~snip~
The global wage gap has been narrowing, but recent labor market statistics in the United States suggest the adjustment has not gone far enough.
Bold text added by the diarist
Wages in America have been stagnant since the 1980’s. But how can we make them lower so Multinational Corporations can exploit labor here the way they do in other Third World countries? In their article, the New york Times suggests that we are likely to see Great Depression levels of Unemployment until American wage slaves are willing to settle for a lot less.
YAY! Three Cheers for Capitalism!
A few days ago I wrote about how Wall St is trying to get aroun new regulations that would ban SLAVE LABOR and other forms of enforced and indentured labor. Now we see the other side of that plan, which is to reduce Americans who are’t CEO’s to a state of desperation where they will work for slave wages that are comparable to what other laborers world wide accept in their 3rd world states of desperation.
And yet, what the NYTimes does NOT point out is that, in an age where the wealthiest make more and more, somehow everyone else is expected to accept less and less. Is that a coincidence? Of course not! But don’t mention it too loudly, or you must be a socialist who hates America, unlike those wealthy captains of industry who love America so much that they are willing to starve it into submission.
In my article the other day about wage slavery and the class war, I wrote this.
But know this, and remember it when you fight and confront the Corporatism that lies at the heart of the Conservative movement and their fake populist enablers. They would enslave you too if they could, and they are doing everything they can to reduce the American worker to the wage slaves that they seek.
It seems I am more right than I thought I was, but that doesn’t give me any reason to feel proud.
The class war is raging on, and We The People are losing badly. The Neo-Conservative Reagan inspired “Government is the problem” seeks to avoid placing blame on Capitalism and the Greed drive profit motive that causes it. I think one of the best things we could do for our country is to wake up the people on the right side of the political spectrum to the fact that the class war is real, we are your friends and Corporate America is the enemy, or, at least as much a part of the problem as our corrupt political process.
Because, when I read things like this, it sends a shiver down my spine, and my mind goes red with rage.
But if American wages get stuck above global market clearing levels, as in the 1930’s,, the result could be something approaching Depression-era levels of Unemployment.
Anything would be better than that. Both moderate inflation to cut real wages and a further drop in the dollar’s real trade-weighted value might be acceptable.
Bold text added by the diarist
Got that? The Great Depression wasn’t caused by Unregulated Businesses and a Wall t gobe wild, no, it was those greedy overpaid American laborers that were the REAL problem, just like today!
And the answer seems to be that Americans should accept even less than they did when the real wages in America started falling at the beginning of the 1980’s, but nevermind rising prices and all of the other increases in cost of living that are inevitable in order for profits, precious profits to be made.
The NYTimes glosses over some of Wall Streets excesses in their article, but the point is clear, it is the poorest person in the rooms fault, NOT the richest guy. Class War? What class wwar? Everything is just fine, so stop complaining, you lazy overpaid, America hating socialist.
Make no mistake, the Wall St crowd and the Masters of the Universe are GLAD that unemployment is this high. They get to drive down your wages and blame it on the President and the politicians, and all while racking up even higher bonuses and other profits.
So keep your pitchforks sharp and your torches ready to be lit, because things are certain to get worse before they get any better. That seems to be EXACTLY what the wealthiest 1% who are waging the class war seem to want.
But not me. I want justice.
So what would you prefer, the Blue Pill or the Red Pill?
Remember, all I’m offering is the Truth, nothing more.
Also crossposted at The Progressive Electorate.com
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This is class war, people. Don’t settle for less, we want MORE!
That’s called Progress
What about workers in the UK, Germany, and Japan?
Aren’t they our true ‘peers’? Or at least should be?
Dollars flow up.
None of what has transpired since Reagan is an accident. The Bush Administration just pushed the gas peddle down to the floor.
The urgency of immigration reform was for me, a clue, too! Get rid of the immigrants, so Americans can take over their jobs! Afterall, since no jobs have been created for the last eight plus years in this country, you would have to leave a little something for the American people.
Here are some statistics (posted back in October here) of interest and apropos the topic:
I think there might be a way other than “R,” and Americans could really do this. We need solidarity amongst us, we start up our own little businesses — heck, if we really were “together” enough, we could screw the government and the corporatists, and form our own Medicare for All, pooling our monies on a sliding scale and paying the doctors, hospitals, etc. from those funds. Starting with our communities, people could join together, pool some money, and start up needed businesses, to break away from the corporatists. There is a City in Michigan, for example, that owns all its utility companies and survives very nicely.
But right now, we are on our way to being totally screwed and rendered to a third world plight!
that if wages were where they wanted them, the global economy would suffer a ferocious crisis of overproduction, as nobody in the working class would be able to afford the products they themselves produced.
As for the “shrinking” global middle class, well, I’d like to see some statistics, since a rhetorical cudgel without facts is no cudgel at all. Of course, it really doesn’t matter if the global working class is shrinking or expanding if it’s in fact extremely small relative to the population as a whole. The middle class in India is, what, .1%? .2% of the total population (as measured by US standards)? I can’t seem to find a statistic that I can use — the best I’ve seen is this little tidbit:
This in a nation of a billion people.
Meanwhile half of humanity lives on less than $2.50/day while the global working class struggles to support 793 billionaires…
all trade agreements should have collective bargaining, worker safety and environmental protection provisions in them and cost of living comparisons. So we know competition is truly fair and that the maggots are not just suggesting a race to the regulatory, human rights and environmental safety bottom.
that American workers are overpaid compared to their competitors. Does anybody here have an alternative? We can’t easily buy “American” products since much of the content is made elsewhere. Even if we do, we are shooting ourselves in the foot. It is silly to buy an American car since the manufacturers are largely uninterested in making a good product (this comes from a contact in the industry).
We live in the age of globalization and that’s the only game in town. Only pledging to buy goods that are made by workers who are not exploited mercilessly and created without polluting the environment will change the trends. We need a central clearing house on the internet that provides us with the information to buy products that are made with some consciousness other than pure greed and boycott the rest of the products.
WAS NOT a news story. It was an opinion piece by the shills for Billionaires R Us.
As far as I can tell, it only appeared in a NYT blog, not in the dead-tree edition where the real news is published.
So although I join you in being outraged by the opinions expressed: they are merely opinions, as valid as those opined by, for example, David Brooks or George Will or Sarah Palin (if Sarah Palin could put a sentence together without the efforts of a ghostwriter and two copyeditors).
I am very tired, so I did not track the “writers'” histories…but I am willing to bet that they are in the pocket of Big Bidness, as Molly Ivins used to say.