The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%

[DBT]

Yep, the point is missed.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Which companies? How many?

You need to cite cases, including percentage, where it was specifically the union that destroyed companies.

Meanwhile the rich have gotten richer and their wealth continues to grow. This, while workers are not getting the market value of the wealth they help to generate through their labour.

That is what you conveniently overlook.

DBT: if getting rich is the goal, I hate to point out the obvious, but a person will never get rich working for someone else. If a person works hard, develops their trade, and becomes very valuable to their employer, they can command a great wage. And if they live frugally, and invest well, they can achieve a very comfortable life. But you'll never get rich. If your goal is to become rich (which is overrated) simply identify a service or product that people want; start a company; work 80 hours a week, grow your RE. Growing equity in your company and then selling at the right point is how most self made people get rich.

Way to miss the point, dude.

Well, it should be clear that I'm not responding to his point. I'm responding to DBT's central point that the top 1% are taking from the workers. And I'm also adding a critique that being rich isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Yep, the point is missed.

Okay. I get it. If any response outside of responding to unions causes such confusion, I'm out. I don't want to cause confusion.

 

[Elixir]

I'm responding to DBT's central point that the top 1% are taking from the workers. And I'm also adding a critique that being rich isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

The dynamic that you use to demonstrate "how to get rich" isn't exclusive to the top 1%.
It's how I became quite comfortable. But I have never aspired to become rich - at least not "1%" rich. I have modest wants and needs, so a mini-version of start a Company, work 40-50 hrs/wk for a decade or so, then sell ... that works for "reg'ler" people, not just the greedy rich who ARE (IMO) "taking" from the rest.

 

[ZiprHead]

I'm responding to DBT's central point that the top 1% are taking from the workers. And I'm also adding a critique that being rich isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

The dynamic that you use to demonstrate "how to get rich" isn't exclusive to the top 1%.
It's how I became quite comfortable. But I have never aspired to become rich - at least not "1%" rich. I have modest wants and needs, so a mini-version of start a Company, work 40-50 hrs/wk for a decade or so, then sell ... that works for "reg'ler" people, not just the greedy rich who ARE (IMO) "taking" from the rest.

No one was talking about workers getting rich until HB brought it up. But if getting rich is a goal, severely limiting worker pay also severely limits their ability for them to someday get rich.

 

[Elixir]

No one was talking about workers getting rich until HB brought it up. But if getting rich is a goal, severely limiting worker pay also severely limits their ability for them to someday get rich.

QFT!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Never mind exploitation and profiting from cheap labour.

Which doesn't change the fact that the union approach destroys the companies and thus the jobs. You persist in thinking that if you can magically get rid of bad jobs there will be plenty of good jobs--when the reality is you're throwing people into unemployment.

Which companies? How many?

You need to cite cases, including percentage, where it was specifically the union that destroyed companies.

Meanwhile the rich have gotten richer and their wealth continues to grow. This, while workers are not getting the market value of the wealth they help to generate through their labour.

That is what you conveniently overlook.

Just look around. America used to have an awful lot of unions. Now most of them are dead because their employers went under. The existing unions are mostly government-protected.

 

[ZiprHead]

Which companies? How many?

You need to cite cases, including percentage, where it was specifically the union that destroyed companies.

Meanwhile the rich have gotten richer and their wealth continues to grow. This, while workers are not getting the market value of the wealth they help to generate through their labour.

That is what you conveniently overlook.

Just look around. America used to have an awful lot of unions. Now most of them are dead because their employers went under. The existing unions are mostly government-protected.

Which companies? How many?

You need to cite cases, including percentage, where it was specifically the union that destroyed companies.

 

[DBT]

Which companies? How many?

You need to cite cases, including percentage, where it was specifically the union that destroyed companies.

Meanwhile the rich have gotten richer and their wealth continues to grow. This, while workers are not getting the market value of the wealth they help to generate through their labour.

That is what you conveniently overlook.

Just look around. America used to have an awful lot of unions. Now most of them are dead because their employers went under. The existing unions are mostly government-protected.

You haven't supported your claim. You have been asked to provide examples and stats for union destruction of companies.

 

[Bomb#20]

Meanwhile the rich have gotten richer and their wealth continues to grow.

OMG, your outgroup's lives are getting better. The horror!

This, while workers are not getting the market value of the wealth they help to generate through their labour.

That is what you conveniently overlook.

You say that like it's a bad thing. Why on earth would you suppose one specific group ought to get the market value of the wealth they >>> help <<< to generate? If your favorite group got the market value, there would be none left to share with the other people who also help generate it. When the market value of the generated wealth is split up everybody who helps generate it has to get a share; otherwise he or she will stop helping, and then less wealth will get generated.

 

[DBT]

Meanwhile the rich have gotten richer and their wealth continues to grow.

OMG, your outgroup's lives are getting better. The horror!

This, while workers are not getting the market value of the wealth they help to generate through their labour.

That is what you conveniently overlook.

You say that like it's a bad thing. Why on earth would you suppose one specific group ought to get the market value of the wealth they >>> help <<< to generate? If your favorite group got the market value, there would be none left to share with the other people who also help generate it. When the market value of the generated wealth is split up everybody who helps generate it has to get a share; otherwise he or she will stop helping, and then less wealth will get generated.

That misses the point. That world poverty has declined in no changes the fact that workers in some of the richest nations on earth have been experiencing wage stagnation for decades, losing their market share in the wealth they help to create..... even while the top end of town enjoys ever higher incomes, wealth and power.

That is the point.

Change 1979–2018:
Productivity
+69.3%
Hourly pay
+11.6%

Productivity has grown 6.0x more than pay

Since 1979, pay and productivity have diverged.

From 1979 to 2018, net productivity rose 108.1 percent, while the hourly pay of typical workers essentially stagnated—increasing only 11.6 percent over 39 years (after adjusting for inflation). This means that although Americans are working more productively than ever, the fruits of their labors have primarily accrued to those at the top and to corporate profits, especially in recent years.

Why this happened—and how we can fix it

Rising productivity provides the potential for substantial growth in the pay for the vast majority. However, this potential has been squandered in recent decades. The income, wages, and wealth generated over the last four decades have failed to “trickle down” to the vast majority largely because policy choices made on behalf of those with the most income, wealth, and power have exacerbated inequality. In essence, rising inequality has prevented potential pay growth from translating into actual pay growth for most workers. The result has been wage stagnation.''

 

[Bomb#20]

The double standard lies in one party, the employer, holding all the cards.

That's fiction. It's just demonization of the outgroup. Employees have plenty of cards; it's why employee living standards are far above subsistence level, and continue to improve.

The problem is a gross imbalance in power.

Unions were formed for this reason.

Well, sure. This is capitalism in action: find a need and fill it. Employers and employees are cooperating but they're also competing; employees needed a more effective competitive strategy, and unions filled the need. It's the same reason that if Ford is the only car manufacturer, car customers will need a more effective negotiating strategy, and then GM fills that need.

Labour unions helped spread the balance of power more evenly so that labourers could bargain for more rights such as more pay and better working conditions.''

Well, that was smart.

''The early labor movement was, however, inspired by more than the immediate job interest of its craft members. It harbored a conception of the just society, deriving from the Ricardian labor theory of value

The Ricardian labor theory of value is a load of codswallop. But hey, people take inspiration from whatever memes are in circulation at the time -- no doubt a lot of workers were inspired by Christianity too. For some reason a lot of us find "We're doing what we're doing because we want a bigger share of the profits, same as why our competitors are doing what they're doing." emotionally unsatisfying. People have a psychological need to make up a heroic narrative with themselves as protagonist, a story about how they're virtuously pursuing their own self-interest for noble reasons, unlike their mirror images who are villainously pursuing their own self-interest for wicked reasons.

There's nothing wrong with unionizing for the sake of the immediate job interest of your craft members. You do not need a self-congratulatory magical creation myth to justify yourself.

and from the republican ideals of the American Revolution, which fostered social equality,

An apt inspiration -- just as the American Revolution fostered social equality for white people, so the early labor movement was well-stocked with whites-only unions. (Which of course stands to reason -- the northward migration of freed slaves was one of the chief factors putting downward pressure on wages.)

The transforming economic changes of industrial capitalism ran counter to labor’s vision. The result, as early labor leaders saw it, was to raise up “two distinct classes, the rich and the poor.”

And that's counter to the labor movement's vision, is it? Do tell...

CEO and executive compensation is skyrocketing, while the middle class suffers from layoffs, unemployment and stagnant wages.

And the labor movement is against inequality, is it? Do tell...

Employers are trying to shed responsibility for providing health insurance,

Employers should never have been responsible for providing health insurance in the first place. What, so unemployed people don't need health care too? So sick people should be unable to change jobs because no new employer wants to bet they'll be healthy? It's a stupid arrangement. It only happened in the first place because in WWII the government forbade employers from raising wages.

good pension coverage,

Well what do you expect when workers have taken up changing jobs every few years? My grandfather worked for the same company for forty years. Good pension coverage makes sense when that's the norm; but a 401K/IRA is a better lifestyle fit if you're just going to go to another company in two years.

reasonable work hours and job safety protections. Additionally, companies are making workers' jobs and incomes less secure through downsizing,

And unions are doing their jobs for their members by trying to obstruct that.

part-timing, contracting out

Some workers prefer part-time and contract work. Companies that provide that kind of job are making those workers' jobs and incomes more secure. It's the unions lobbying for legislation against that sort of work who are the ones making those workers' jobs and incomes less secure. Activists tell themselves they're protecting "the workers" from "the employers"; but that's a comforting lie. They are protecting a subset of workers -- their own union members -- by deliberately hurting non-members. It's no different from Ford trying to protect Ford shareholders from the American car-buying public's choices, when it lobbies to have Hyundais kept out of America.

and sending jobs off-shore.

Bingo. The truth comes out. The fact that unions are trying to keep employers from sending jobs off-shore is what gives the lie to their carefully constructed self-congratulatory self-image as opponents of inequality. Off-shoring has been the greatest promoter of equality the world has yet seen. The modern labor movement has been determinedly trying to "raise up two distinct classes, the rich and the poor": rich American workers and poor third-world workers. They're doing it because it's in the interests of their members -- exactly the same reason why a hundred years ago their predecessors were likewise determinedly trying to "raise up two distinct classes, the rich and the poor": rich white workers and poor black and Asian workers.

In the long run, employers won't pay more for workers than the marginal increase in revenue from adding workers. Even if you make it illegal to fire the ones who became money-losing when you raised the price, hiring freezes and attrition will bring marginal revenue and expense into balance. So the mechanism by which unionizing raises a worker's pay can only be by raising the marginal increase in revenue from adding workers, which can be done by shifting to a different position on the revenue/worker curve and relying on the law of diminishing returns: i.e., by keeping the number of workers down. So stopping somebody from getting an audition for your members' jobs -- whether you do it by race, or by geography, or by preference for part-time work, or nakedly by exclusionary union membership itself -- is not an unfortunate side-effect of unionism. It's the whole reason unions work.

Nothing wrong with workers unionizing when they find it to be in their best interests; but let's not romanticize it. It's a strategy for pursuing personal advantage, same as forming a corporation.

 

[ZiprHead]

OMG, your outgroup's lives are getting better. The horror!

You say that like it's a bad thing. Why on earth would you suppose one specific group ought to get the market value of the wealth they >>> help <<< to generate? If your favorite group got the market value, there would be none left to share with the other people who also help generate it. When the market value of the generated wealth is split up everybody who helps generate it has to get a share; otherwise he or she will stop helping, and then less wealth will get generated.

That misses the point. That world poverty has declined in no changes the fact that workers in some of the richest nations on earth have been experiencing wage stagnation for decades, losing their market share in the wealth they help to create..... even while the top end of town enjoys ever higher incomes, wealth and power.

That is the point.

Change 1979–2018:
Productivity
+69.3%
Hourly pay
+11.6%

Productivity has grown 6.0x more than pay

Since 1979, pay and productivity have diverged.

From 1979 to 2018, net productivity rose 108.1 percent, while the hourly pay of typical workers essentially stagnated—increasing only 11.6 percent over 39 years (after adjusting for inflation). This means that although Americans are working more productively than ever, the fruits of their labors have primarily accrued to those at the top and to corporate profits, especially in recent years.

Why this happened—and how we can fix it

Rising productivity provides the potential for substantial growth in the pay for the vast majority. However, this potential has been squandered in recent decades. The income, wages, and wealth generated over the last four decades have failed to “trickle down” to the vast majority largely because policy choices made on behalf of those with the most income, wealth, and power have exacerbated inequality. In essence, rising inequality has prevented potential pay growth from translating into actual pay growth for most workers. The result has been wage stagnation.''

And to add to your points:

CEOs see pay grow 1,000% in the last 40 years, now make 278 times the average worker

Since 1978, CEO compensation rose 1,007.5% for CEOs, compared with 11.9% for average workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

 

[Canard DuJour]

New research suggests that wage repression — far more than monopoly power, offshoring or technological change — is driving rising inequality.

"In Lance Taylor’s new book, Macroeconomic Inequality from Reagan to Trump, the noted economist examines how and why the United States, starting in the 80s, started to break down into a sharply divided country of haves and have-nots.

 

[Canard DuJour]

In the long run, employers won't pay more for workers than the marginal increase in revenue from adding workers.

But they can always pay less than the marginal increase in revenue from adding workers while there is less than full employment.

The declining wage-share of GDP with declining GDP growth since ~1975 is evidence of that having happened.

So stopping somebody from getting an audition for your members' jobs -- whether you do it by race, or by geography, or by preference for part-time work, or nakedly by exclusionary union membership itself -- is not an unfortunate side-effect of unionism. It's the whole reason unions work.

It's one reason unions work. Another is forcing employers to pay more like the marginal cost of adding workers rather than bidding wage growth down. And employers have not raised marginal productivity by outsourcing. Global productivity growth has also fallen since ~1975 as production has moved from high wage/high productivity countries to relatively low wage/low productivity countries.

 

[Bomb#20]

That misses the point. That world poverty has declined in no changes the fact that workers in some of the richest nations on earth have been experiencing wage stagnation for decades, losing their market share in the wealth they help to create..... even while the top end of town enjoys ever higher incomes, wealth and power.

That is the point.

Bangladeshis are now also helping create that wealth, so Bangladeshis get a share too. Why should anybody's fraction of a growing pie have to grow as fast as the whole pie, even as more people than ever are contributing to baking it?

Change 1979–2018:
Productivity
+69.3%
Hourly pay
+11.6%

Productivity has grown 6.0x more than pay

Since 1979, pay and productivity have diverged.

Productivity of what? Of American workers? All the EPI did to compute those numbers was divide total production by the work hours of Americans. It's a global economy. All that American GDP was created by all the inputs to the production process, including inputs other than the work hours of Americans. For instance, Bangladeshi work hours.

From 1979 to 2018, net productivity rose 108.1 percent, while the hourly pay of typical workers essentially stagnated—increasing only 11.6 percent over 39 years (after adjusting for inflation). This means that although Americans are working more productively than ever,

How do you know Americans are working more productively than ever? Don't say "By dividing production by American hours worked." That would be circular reasoning. How do you know the increase in production was caused by an improvement in the way American workers work, rather than caused by any of the myriad other changes in the economy?

the fruits of their labors have primarily accrued to those at the top and to corporate profits, especially in recent years.

Why do you call all that production "the fruits of their labors", as though none of the other inputs had anything to do with it? It's the fruits of their labors and foreigners' labors and managers' labors and investors' capital and taxpayers' infrastructure and police and firefighters and soldiers' vigilance and lawyers' and judges' justice, and even, very occasionally, legislators' wisdom.

"Rising productivity provides the potential for substantial growth in the pay for the vast majority."

Rising productivity did provide substantial growth in the pay for the vast majority. I showed you a graph proving it. The EPI authors looking at the situation tribally, and only caring about the pay of their ingroup -- people in about the 80th to 98th income percentile -- does not make Americans "the vast majority".

"The income, wages, and wealth generated over the last four decades have failed to “trickle down” to the vast majority largely because policy choices made on behalf of those with the most income, wealth, and power have exacerbated inequality."

Once again, if you think the sky should not be the limit for the CEO and upper management, and that inequality is bad, and that a big chunk of upper management's earnings ought to "trickle down" to the "vast majority", then why the bejesus should it be given to other Americans?!?

"In essence, rising inequality has prevented potential pay growth from translating into actual pay growth for most workers. The result has been wage stagnation.''

Yeah, no. I already posted the chart showing that "rising inequality" is a tribalist myth.

 

[laughing dog]

Yeah, no. I already posted the chart showing that "rising inequality" is a tribalist myth.

The worldwide distribution of income is more equal mostly because of China. I believe the worldwide distribution of income without China is more unequal.

 

[Bomb#20]

In the long run, employers won't pay more for workers than the marginal increase in revenue from adding workers.

But they can always pay less than the marginal increase in revenue from adding workers while there is less than full employment.

But if they do that, then that means each worker they add increases revenue by more than what they pay for the worker, i.e., it means each worker they add increases profit. So why wouldn't they just keep hiring more and more workers until the law of diminishing returns brings the marginal increase in revenue from adding workers down to what they're paying for labor?

The declining wage-share of GDP with declining GDP growth since ~1975 is evidence of that having happened.

Well, total employment has increased since then. So maybe they did what you said, and the result was what I said, and wages are still at equilibrium at the marginal increase in revenue from adding workers. Still means unions work by excluding people.

So stopping somebody from getting an audition for your members' jobs -- whether you do it by race, or by geography, or by preference for part-time work, or nakedly by exclusionary union membership itself -- is not an unfortunate side-effect of unionism. It's the whole reason unions work.

It's one reason unions work. Another is forcing employers to pay more like the marginal cost of adding workers rather than bidding wage growth down.

Huh? The marginal cost of adding workers is whatever they pay. Did you mean the marginal revenue of adding workers? Assuming that's what you meant, if employers are bidding wage growth down in order to pay less than that, then they will increase profits by hiring more workers. If the union wants to have wages rise to meet marginal revenue rather than have marginal revenue fall to meet wages, then the union will have to forestall the extra hiring. So you aren't offering another reason unions work: you're offering the same reason in different words.

 

[Bomb#20]

The worldwide distribution of income is more equal mostly because of China. I believe the worldwide distribution of income without China is more unequal.

Funny how closely the reversal of income trends coincides with the death of Mao. China is probably not the only country that would benefit from a change of leadership.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And to add to your points:

CEOs see pay grow 1,000% in the last 40 years, now make 278 times the average worker

Since 1978, CEO compensation rose 1,007.5% for CEOs, compared with 11.9% for average workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Another case of data taken out of context.

Plot CEO pay vs company size, you get a very different story. What you're seeing here is far more due to consolidation.