OMG, data. <faints>
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OMG, data. <faints>
And perhaps that capital will go toward fostering a business that will pay a living wage. Win win.Quote:
Originally Posted by LDAHL
Casually-expressed correlation is not causation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan
See what I said in response. We're going to have to agree to disagree until you present proof of causation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gregg
Which is of course what we were talking about.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gregg
Unfortunately, the percentage data doesn't project what will happen within the United States in absolute terms. We know that the percentage share of consumption will decrease radically, thereby resulting in the United States having far less say about what is produced with the available resources, but that's a minor concern as compared to what the burgeoning financial power of other nations' consumers will have vis a vis American's buying power today.Quote:
Originally Posted by redfox
Furthermore, as offensively as the poverty situation has been swept under the rug in this country over the last fifty years, it boggles the mind how things will go over the next fifty years, given that this increase in financial power in other nations will preclude the United States from exploiting its business relationships with those other nations as it has in the past, to bolster our own standard of living. Does China want a large portion of that almost-two trillion dollars of GDP growth being shipped off to the United States, to purchase goods and services from here? Definitely not.
So while all this growth is great, we can expect that the vast majority of the benefits of that growth will be realized by those emerging economies themselves, economies that are far more (for lack of a better term) liberal about their use of central coordination to both protect and foster their own standard of living and foster broad-based realization of benefits from foreign markets. With the exception of Russia, none of the six countries listed in the third chart are as likely as the US has been to foster policies that foster concentration of wealth at the expense of broad-based growth of wealth.
And remember: It isn't about, as LDAHL tried to deceive us into thinking, making it impossible for business to justify the cost of labor. Quite the opposite really: It's about making paying a living wage part of the way to achieving gains with capital. If exploiters think they can make more profit investing in money market accounts, then they're crazy.
After slapping my forehead and saying "duh" a few times I realized you're probably right about this Yos. Kind of the elephant in the room going forward, isn't it? I'm thinking our illustrious leaders are having as hard a time as I am shifting from provincial thinking to a more global pattern. I'm not sure how we derive a benefit for our lower economic tiers from India's growing middle class (for example) beyond trying to move some of their production back onshore, which sounds like a very cumbersome way to approach the issue.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yossarian
Even those leaders who are aware and have reconciled themselves to the shift probably recognize that there is no way to build a campaign integrating this shift into proposed policy, because the American voter generally isn't ready to make the shift in their thinking.
A related article:
WHAT HAPPENED TO WAGES? March 20, 2013
http://visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2013/3/4/wages
Perhaps, but isn't it more likely that capital will be allocated to funding a substitute for that labor; either through automation or finding a substitute labor source outside the reach of the "central coordinators"? And even if we were were to erect the regulatory or trade barriers that would make that more difficult, wouldn't that create a permanent flow of capital to more congenial climes?Quote:
Originally Posted by bUU
Maybe it's time to look down the road a little bit. As a practical matter stemming the move toward automation is akin to holding back the tides. In the long run there is zero incentive for producers to allocate work to humans that can be accomplished by machines. Machines don't need healthcare, medicare, vacations, sick days, personal days, workman's comp, coffee breaks, social security, other retirement plans, bathrooms, maternity leaves, labor unions, training, incentive pay, bonuses, day care, a cafeteria or anything else beyond routine maintenance and the occasional repair. The living wage jobs of the future will be held by people that know how to fix machines, that can operate the machines that haven't been completely automated or by people who do something machines can't do. My guess is that the middle class will fit into those three categories. The top economic tiers will own the machines. The low skill/low wage segment of the workforce will be replaced by the machines at an ever increasing rate. If we don't open our minds to other possibilities regarding how to make the lower tier viable in our economy and instead continue on our present course they are S.O.L.
http://www.amazon.com/The-End-Work-D.../dp/0874778247
This is a book I read in grad school. Published in 1995.
From Publishers Weekly"In this challenging report, social activist Rifkin (Biosphere Politics) contends that worldwide unemployment will increase as new computer-based and communications technologies eliminate tens of millions of jobs in the manufacturing, agricultural and service sectors. He traces the devastating impact of automation on blue-collar, retail and wholesale employees, with a chapter devoted to African Americans. While a small elite of corporate managers and knowledge workers reap the benefits of the high-tech global economy, the middle class continues to shrink and the workplace becomes ever more stressful, according to Rifkin. As the market economy and public sector decline, he forsees the growth of a "third sector"-voluntary and community-based service organizations-that will create new jobs with government support to rebuild decaying neighborhoods and provide social services. To finance this enterprise, he advocates scaling down the military budget, enacting a value-added tax on nonessential goods and services and redirecting federal and state funds to provide a "social wage" in lieu of welfare payments to third-sector workers."
A few years back, a local agricultural business I help own and operate decided to figure out how we could arrange things to pay our workers a living wage.
We streamlined operations somewhat, changed our cultivation practices, changed our marketing, mechanized a few production steps, and other textbook-type stuff.
Our product now costs twice as much, and still sells out every year, just to a very different market.
And we now pay our workers a living wage.
However, we have far fewer workers. The ones we have left are far more productive.
If they weren't, we'd be out of business, since unlike the Federal government, we have to balance our books and can't simply print more money.
how interesting. Your fewer workers sound like they have a good deal if they are willing to work hard. But it leaves the people who are not interested or unable to be hard productive workers out. Maybe the answer is that all through history there have been beggars, lazy people, drunkards, con men, layabouts etc. and no matter what you call them or how you feel about them or what the causes are there always will be some people who are not interested or maybe not able to do hard work.Quote:
Originally Posted by bae