Why is FAIR TRADE better than FREE TRADE?

[laughing dog]

Billionaire Wealth Hits $10 Trillion For First Time Ever Thanks To Government Stimulus: UBS

Once again, looking at bad data.

That $10T is almost all in the value of shares owned. That is not value which could be liquidated!

Basic finance - the point of equity is that can be easily liquidated.

You're counting equipment as if it's spendable money.

Equipment can be liquidated, just not as quickly.

 

[DBT]

That doesn't address a single thing that I have said, and supported with stats. You are merely expressing your objections, while failing to support what you claim.

The fact is that wealth is flowing into the hands of a small percentage of the population while pay for workers has been stagnating for decades.

Your 'three pieces of the pie' is simply not working. 'Trickle down' is not working, it is BS.

Why anyone who is not in the super rich class would defend this state of affairs is beyond me. It is neither good for society or the economy at large.

The "evidence" your side keeps presenting is showing the worker's section of the pie decreasing (and that's not even honest--it's looking at hourly wages where most good jobs these days are salaried) and implying that the owner's section of the pie is increasing--without ever even trying to calculate the portion of the pie going into equipment etc.

Quit using flawed data if you want to be taken seriously.

What flawed data? The data provided paints a picture of the situation as it is. The contribution that workers make to the economy is a large part of the pie, they build houses, cars, roads, serve customers, etc, etc.

You have provided nothing to support your own claims, 'three pies' or anything else, only offering personal objections and opinion.

The fact is that wages have been stagnating for decades while the very rich have increased their wealth in leaps and bounds.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Basic finance - the point of equity is that can be easily liquidated.

Basic finance--there isn't always a market.

Besides, I was talking about the underlying value. The shares could be traded, the value they represent can't be converted to cash without major losses. Note that trading the shares simply moves cash around, it doesn't produce spendable cash.

You're counting equipment as if it's spendable money.

Equipment can be liquidated, just not as quickly.

Liquidate that $10T and we are probably a third world nation.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That doesn't address a single thing that I have said, and supported with stats. You are merely expressing your objections, while failing to support what you claim.

The fact is that wealth is flowing into the hands of a small percentage of the population while pay for workers has been stagnating for decades.

Your 'three pieces of the pie' is simply not working. 'Trickle down' is not working, it is BS.

Why anyone who is not in the super rich class would defend this state of affairs is beyond me. It is neither good for society or the economy at large.

The "evidence" your side keeps presenting is showing the worker's section of the pie decreasing (and that's not even honest--it's looking at hourly wages where most good jobs these days are salaried) and implying that the owner's section of the pie is increasing--without ever even trying to calculate the portion of the pie going into equipment etc.

Quit using flawed data if you want to be taken seriously.

What flawed data? The data provided paints a picture of the situation as it is. The contribution that workers make to the economy is a large part of the pie, they build houses, cars, roads, serve customers, etc, etc.

You have provided nothing to support your own claims, 'three pies' or anything else, only offering personal objections and opinion.

The fact is that wages have been stagnating for decades while the very rich have increased their wealth in leaps and bounds.

You still haven't provided any data showing the three pieces of pie. You show the worker's piece and pretend the owners get the rest. Continuing to repeat this mistake over and over doesn't magically make it right.

 

[DBT]

What flawed data? The data provided paints a picture of the situation as it is. The contribution that workers make to the economy is a large part of the pie, they build houses, cars, roads, serve customers, etc, etc.

You have provided nothing to support your own claims, 'three pies' or anything else, only offering personal objections and opinion.

The fact is that wages have been stagnating for decades while the very rich have increased their wealth in leaps and bounds.

You still haven't provided any data showing the three pieces of pie. You show the worker's piece and pretend the owners get the rest. Continuing to repeat this mistake over and over doesn't magically make it right.

You are the one making a claim of three separate pieces of pie.

I made no such claim. I have provided stats to support what I said. Now it's your turn to support your claims. Can you do that?

 

[DrZoidberg]

It doesn't matter whether being a CEO is a sweet deal or not, nor is it an issue that CEO's and people who have great responsibility in general, doctors, surgeons, etc, should be compensated or rewarded for their work: they should.

Since the market decides how much their work is worth, I'd say they are.

The problem is your phrasing. You're saying stuff like "fair share" or "market value". I'm in IT. I think IT professionals are grossly overpaid. It's based on the ease of the work. It's barely a job. It's like playing a fun game all day. I'm not tired after coming home from work. It was a different feeling when I worked a summer as a construction worker. But it's certainly market value. In that sense it's fair. So what do you mean?

The issue is that workers have been falling behind for decades, they have been losing their share of the wealth that their work helps to generate.

You keep saying this and I keep explaining. What about my explanation do you have a problem with? You just ignore it and keep repeating yourself. With increased roboticisation we should see a relative falling of workers wages. They are, relatively, contributing less of the overall wealth generation. Which is why this is happening.

Do you disagree with my explanation?

On the other hand, upper management, CEO and executive salaries have increased in leaps and bounds, which has widened the gap between workers and management by a significant margin....the rich get richer while workers fall behind.

Because overall there's more value generation in the entire economy. So manager wages become relatively inflated.

Why an objective observer would defend the situation is puzzling. The situation we are in is neither sustainable, good for society or the economy for the given reasons

I'm not defending it. I'm a socialist. What I react to is that you're using the words wrong. You are looking at reality. Objecting to reality. You want a different reality. And then just say you want reality to change, without providing a mechanic with which to change it.

I think it's sustainable. I think the road towards robotisation and automation is irreversible. With increasingly advanced AI more and more jobs will get devalued or disappear. We'll get unemployment rates pushing 95%. We're heading that way fast.

We just need to let go of the idea that everybody will have a job. We'll have to create a society where it's ok not to have a job. We'll have to find a way to take money from those who have and give to the people who don't. I'm not advocating it. I'm just saying that this is inevitable, given the current economic development.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Snake-Oil Economics = "jobs! jobs! jobs!" and higher wages --

-- so workers have more to spend, to buy more, to create more "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" and higher wages so they can -- etc.

Here's another poll question (unofficial):

Which demagogue takes first prize for employer-bashing and pandering to the mindless masses?

1) Donald Trump
2) Bernie Sanders
3) Franklin D. Roosevelt

Here's a vote for employer-basher FDR:

“It is to the real advantage of every producer, every manufacturer and every merchant to cooperate in the improvement of working conditions, because . . .

They already do cooperate in such improvement -- they've always had to. They're driven to do this by competition, for the sake of the company, profit, etc.

But even so, you can always whine that it's not enough, to increase your popularity and win votes. Employers could be forced to double the improvement for workers, and the cost, or to triple or quadruple it, and get still more improvement, beyond what's profitable. There is no level of improvement which can be scientifically identified as the right amount. The higher the cost goes, the more the working conditions can be improved, but also the more production has to be reduced because of the increased cost, because each small improvement adds additional cost. Higher cost = lower production. How do you calculate what the cost limit should be?

There has to be a limit beyond which any additional improvement to benefit the workers would be too costly. Any preaching about needing to improve the working conditions is mindless utopianism if it does not include a rule about what the limit is beyond which it's not worth the additional cost. FDR never answered this with his sermons, nor any of his economists, nor does any "fair trade" crusader today include such a principle for putting a limit on improving the worker conditions at higher and higher cost.

The working conditions could always be made better, far beyond anything FDR demanded. Why did he put a limit on how much? How did he draw the line? There were still bad and unsafe conditions and still some preventable accidents and deaths, even after ALL his improvements. And there were still workers unable to make enough to support their families after all the wage increases and labor improvements. Virtually no labor union leaders today would accept the same working conditions as those of the 1930s and 40s as sufficient for today.

There's no proof that the state-imposed higher wage-and-benefit standards today have resulted in an overall improvement for the whole economy. They have imposed huge costs onto the production and thus much higher prices consumers must pay, with no way to calculate that this produces a net beneficial result. Some of the higher cost almost certainly has been a detriment to the overall living standard. Just because a few thousand or million workers benefit does not make it a net benefit for all of society which has to pay for it in much higher prices.

But many or most of the improved working conditions are a result of the profit motive and competition, with no help from FDR or any labor law, because companies automatically made conditions better in order to improve the production to make it more efficient, because such improvement happens automatically as a result of free trade, or free market cost-and-benefit decisions by the dirty capitalist pigs doing what's good for their company and also for the consumers. You have no evidence that FDR made it better than it would have been anyway.

. . . because the best customer of American industry is the well-paid worker.”

FDR

Which industry? how about jet airliners? How many workers go out and buy themselves a jet airliner?

Companies buy jet airliners because workers have enough money to purchase tickets to ride on them.

But why do they have money? or why did companies pay them that money? It wasn't so they could buy tickets, or "industry" products, or so they could buy anything. The reason to pay the workers is not to provide them with spending money to buy stuff. And the amount to pay the workers is not determined by how much they need in order to buy products.

The reason they pay workers is to get the work done (produce the stuff), not in order to provide them with the means to buy the stuff. They are paid only according to the need to get stuff produced, not according to their need for customers to buy the stuff produced. The company does not find its customers by hiring people to become its customers and buying the company's product with the money the company pays them. That's not what workers are for.

If the function of the workers was to serve as customers to buy the product (e.g. airline tickets),


then -- who will purchase the tickets
when the workers are replaced by robots?

If the role of workers was to serve as customers for the company's product, then the company would not ever replace them with robots. The value of the workers disappears if or when they can be replaced with something which does the same job cheaper. But their value as customers who spend money does not change just because they became replaceable with robots.

It's obvious that the need for workers is not that they can spend money on the products. No, the only need is for them to produce the stuff, not to buy it. When they're no longer needed to produce it, then they're not needed at all -- there's no other need for them except to produce the stuff, and when they're no longer needed for this, they're not needed (by that company). The company never hired them and paid them in order to make customers out of them, but only to produce the stuff, and the workers never had any other value or function for the company except to produce the stuff, never to consume it.

When they're replaced by robots, their ability to spend and consume exists just as much as before, and yet it's irrelevant because this was never their function and was never the reason to pay them something. I.e., their importance was not to serve as customers to buy the products they produced, or to buy anyone's products. Their importance to the employer was to do the work needed to get the stuff produced, regardless what they would do with the income paid to them, or even if they would do anything at all with it. What they do with their income is an issue only for them, not for their employer who pays it to them.

Companies buy jet airliners because workers have enough money to purchase tickets to ride on them.

Let's assume that's sort of true, even though it's also true that virtually all poor underpaid workers do have enough money to purchase an airline ticket, despite being poor. So companies would buy the airliners even if workers were poor. Also the companies could produce MORE airliners if the cost of producing them was less, which it would be if the labor cost was lower. So you don't know for sure that higher incomes to those workers would mean increased traveling by them on airliners.

Maybe FDR meant that if workers generally have more to spend, they will buy more stuff produced by companies generally (though not necessarily the particular product of their own company), and so workers should be "well-paid" because the companies want them to buy the stuff companies produce.

Does that make sense? If so, you have to answer this:

What about workers who do NOT buy that stuff? (or buy very little?) You could argue that virtually ALL of them do buy the stuff companies produce. But still, there might be a small number who live in a way that they don't need to buy from "American industry" (whatever "American industry" includes). It's possible there's an Amish worker, or some other kind of worker, who rejects "industry" and instead lives without buying such products. Not everyone is equally dependent on buying stuff in order to survive.

If you claim workers must be paid "well" in order that they may buy from "American industry," then it follows that any worker who does NOT do this -- i.e., who buys virtually nothing from "American industry" -- is not a desirable worker and either should be fired or at least should be paid less than the others, if the company knows of such a worker. Suppose there is a worker whose lifestyle is to NOT buy "industry" products (or to buy almost none), but to live independently of "industry" products and who instead does production at home, or in a village not reliant on modern appliances from "industry." Maybe he walks to work, or is dropped off in a carriage which takes such workers from the village to worksites, so that this worker lives without buying "industry" products (or buying virtually none).

It doesn't matter that there might be very few such workers (maybe even none, though in a society of millions there's likely a few). Does it then follow that such a worker is not desirable, because he's not contributing his share to the buying of "industry" products?

The point is this: It simply is not true that companies pay workers in order that those workers will have enough money to buy products. Even if the company knows of this particular worker, and even if the company could easily dismiss this worker without any conflict, without needing to even give a reason for the dismissal, etc., still it would not get rid of this worker if it needs that worker in the particular job they hired him for.


What is the worker needed for? to spend money?

It's just silly to suggest that the reason a company hires a worker, or pays a worker well, is that they want that worker to go out and spend his paycheck buying products of "American industry" or anything else. The company does not care what the worker does with the money he is paid. Even if the worker stuffs the money in his mattress, and leaves it there, the company does not care.

There are at least some workers who somewhat fit this description, in that they spend very little of their money on the "industry" products. In some cases they might save a very large percent of their earnings, so that very little of it goes to "industry" products. In some cases it might go into some kind of investing which has nothing to do with "industry" or products. It could go into antiques, e.g., and other values which have little to do with "industry" or production by companies.

Maybe it's impossible to totally detach from "industry," but one could become so detached that the nation's "industry" is capturing only a tiny fraction of that worker's income, so that the company would want to replace that worker with someone else if it's true that the company's need for the worker is for him to buy "American industry" products.

Even if it's mostly hypothetical, still we can consider the real possibility of there being such workers, and that the company would know of one and have an easy way to replace him with a different one who would spend more on "industry" products. And yet the company would never get rid of a worker for this kind of reason. It's out of the question. It really makes no sense. Because the truth is that no company cares what its workers spend their money on. They don't care in the slightest. They just want the work done. That's all they ever hire a worker for.

If they learn that the worker spends no money whatever on "industry" products, it wouldn't matter to them at all. In fact, it's delusional to suggest that this is of any concern whatever to the company in considering whether to hire that worker, or whether to keep that worker in that job.


Why pay workers more? so they'll have more to spend?

And it's delusional to suggest that it's in the company's interest to pay the workers a higher wage in order that they will spend more money on "industry" products. The only reason to pay them any more is that there might be a greater need for certain workers, and the supply of them is low, so that a higher wage is necessary to attract more of them. It's nutty to suggest that the concern of the company, or all the companies, is to pay workers more in order to get them to buy more of the stuff they produce. Nor SHOULD it be their concern.

The companies want to sell more, but the way they do it is by finding out what consumers want and then figuring out how to produce it. They don't care if their customers are workers -- some of them are not. It's by IMPROVING PRODUCTION that companies increase their sales to buyers, not by paying their workers more in order to enable them to buy their products. If the production is inferior, then paying their workers more isn't going to increase their sales. While if their production is superior, then they will attract more customers, regardless what they pay their workers. In some cases they have to increase the pay in order to get better performance from workers, or attract more of the needed ones. But never in order to provide more customers to buy products.

There is a disconnect between the company's customers and the workers, because even if they know for certain that a particular worker is spending nothing on "industry" products, they still want that worker just as much. There's not the slightest motivation to get rid of a worker who is not doing his "share" of the buying. Even if they found a large number of the workers not buying "industry" products, they still wouldn't care. All they care is that someone wants the stuff they're producing, or they make sure there's a market for it, or they change to something there is a market for. They never think, or should think, something like, "Oh, the reason our sales are off is that we're not paying our workers enough." No, that's Nutcase Economics.

What if they can REPLACE the workers with robots in order to get the work done, and building the robots requires only a fraction of the workers and a fraction of the labor cost. So installing the robots would mean much LESS money spent on "industry" products (by workers replaced and no longer paid). So does this then hurt the economy, to replace those workers with robots, and is it then against the company's or the nation's interest for the robots to be installed? If the companies' best customers are the well-paid workers, then replacing those workers with robots would be against their interest, wouldn't it? or keeping some of them but REDUCING their pay because now the need for them is less?


higher replaceability = lower value = lower price (wage)

And yet the reality is that they do replace the workers with robots, or even reduce the wages, when the need for those workers decreases and they can more easily be replaced, regardless that this might mean less money into workers' pockets for them to spend on "industry" products. That it means less money going out for spending on "industry" products is irrelevant, because that's not what workers are paid for.

Suppose the company would profit most by keeping many of the workers but reducing their pay, because now they could replace them with robots, and yet many of the workers are willing to stay and take a pay cut rather than be laid off. So what should the company do? It's either reduce the wage and keep some of them, or just replace them all. Does that mean the company will lose its "best customers" now, by reducing their wage?

No, it won't lose customers, but will gain more, precisely because it either replaces all those workers or keeps some of them at lower pay than before. Obviously they are losing their "well-paid" workers, and yet they are not losing customers, but gaining them as a result of improving the production. So FDR is wrong to say that the company's "well-paid" workers are the customers, or that the "well-paid" workforce is the source from which the customers come.

So it makes no sense to say that the best customers are well-paid workers, because in these cases keeping those well-paid workers ends up losing them customers, not gaining them.

So it's not "well-paid" workers the company needs in order to get good customers. Rather, it needs to improve its product, increase the quantity and quality of the products, and this is what brings the best customers. While increasing the number of "well-paid workers" can end up costing the company customers and profit.

The only need for "well-paid workers" is in those cases where additional workers are needed in order to get the production done better. So sometimes "well-paid workers" are needed, while other times the need is to replace them, or pay them less because their value has decreased. It's obvious that their value is never that they're needed in order to buy "industry" products. Rather, the need for them is to produce stuff, and when something else is better at doing this, then the "well-paid workers" are expendable, or are a net cost or loss to the company, rather than a value, despite their ability to spend money.

And of course it's ludicrous to say that the money to buy its products comes from the company itself, paying it to the workers/customers who in turn then pay it back to the company. Again -- NUTCASE Economics.

To not make that connection and form another overly wordy response to it requires . . .

FDR's idea that workers are paid in order that they might have money to buy "industry" stuff is a Nutcase Economics delusion which has been repeated over and over again in literally BILLIONS of words and MILLIONS of Text Walls to which hardly anyone ever responds. The volume of this garbage is huge compared to my Text Wall, and it's all repeated slogans and chants and "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" babble which has been repeated again and again and again and . . . . And yet no one ever gives an example of a worker who was fired because he did not spend his fair "share" on "industry" products, or who was called into the boss's office for a lecture on why he needs to get out there and do his duty, like the others, to spend more of his money to support "industry" jobs jobs jobs jobs.

Why doesn't anyone ever complain about the overly worded "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" babble and repeated slogans for higher wages we need to pay workers so they can better do their function of spending it on "industry" products like FDR and everyone else says is their duty? to provide "demand" in order to jump-start the economy? The glut of this babble and these slogans is infinitely greater than this Text Wall plus other efforts to question the peddlers of this Nutcase Economics dogma preached by all parties, Blues and Reds, Trumpsters, etc. -- all of them, and yet no one ever questions the dogma, but just keeps repeating it.

. . . to it requires some pretty deep willful ignorance.

So then, not being ignorant, you know of cases where a company fired an employee because he was not spending enough of his paycheck on "industry" products. Or at least they wanted to fire him:

Workers who are DUDS? because they don't spend much?

I.e., that company was thinking, "Oh damn it, if only we could fire that worker, or get rid of him somehow! Look at him, never spending the money we pay him to buy "industry" products -- oh, what a drag he is on our economy, if only we hadn't hired this dud who never buys anything --
and you think it would have been in the company's interest to get rid of that worker, if they could, because he wasn't buying his share of "industry" products, or of "American industry" products.

And you know of such workers, who had to be lectured by the company on their duty to spend more, to support "industry" and "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!" etc.? Who are they? Which companies do this? You have the knowledge of them, so name those companies and some examples of workers who had to be lectured because they were negligent in their duty to spend more. Companies DO lecture workers who individually shirk their duty, so where is an example of such a recalcitrant worker being called in to be lectured on shirking his duty to spend more of his paycheck on "industry" products to support "jobs! jobs! jobs! jobs!"?

Maybe Donald "jobs!-jobs!-jobs!-jobs!" Trump did such lecturing of some of his employees?

. . . requires some pretty deep willful ignorance [to not see that the company is suffering from this worker's failure to spend his paycheck on "American industry" products] . . .

Yes, I plead guilty of "ignorance" of such a need companies have for their workers to buy the company's products, or "industry" products, such that this is why the company hires them, and increases the wage it pays them in order to give them more money to spend on those products, and so wishes it could get rid of any workers who don't buy their share of those products, or feels cheated by those workers who don't buy their fair share of the products. Or at least they feel this particular worker is a net loss to the company because he does not buy his fair share, and so they regret having hired him in the first place.

And what company is that, which you apparently know about?

No, it is nutty nutty Wacko Economics to say that a company hires people and pays them in order to provide money to them to buy its products, or any products.

No, they pay you to do the work, to produce stuff, whether you yourself would ever buy it or not, or whether you would ever buy anything -- they do not care if you ever spend that money, or what you ever spend it on, as a reason to hire you or pay you that money. They pay it to you because it's what you want as a condition to do the work they want done, and what you spend it on, or IF you spend it at all, is of no concern to your employer.

It's not a legitimate concern of the employer what you do with the money, and it's wrong if they do care -- it's even perverse. Nor is it any concern of the society, the economy, the nation, etc. All that matters is getting the work out of you, whatever it takes to motivate you to do it, and it would be OK to do it as barter or any other kind of trade or production, if it were convenient and not fraudulent.


What about UNPAID volunteers? Are they duds also? not paid more money to spend?

And if you preach this Nutcase Economics, that the customers of the company are the "well-paid" workers, and this is why they're hired, in order to have money with which to buy "industry"-produced stuff, then you must explain why there's such a thing as the UNpaid volunteer worker, who does work just as legitimate as the paid worker, serving social need, contributing to the economy just as the paid worker does, and yet not receiving any spending money at all as a result of the work.

Are the unpaid volunteers any less valuable to the economy, because they're "low"-paid? i.e., the LOWEST-paid possible?

For FDR's dogma to make any sense -- that the workers' value is that they spend their money on the products the companies make -- then you have to flush all the unpaid volunteers down the toilet, because they are going to waste, as their work adds nothing to satisfy the need for CUSTOMERS "well-paid" so they can buy the "industry" products that are supposed to be bought by workers who are paid precisely in order to turn them into customers to buy those products.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What flawed data? The data provided paints a picture of the situation as it is. The contribution that workers make to the economy is a large part of the pie, they build houses, cars, roads, serve customers, etc, etc.

You have provided nothing to support your own claims, 'three pies' or anything else, only offering personal objections and opinion.

The fact is that wages have been stagnating for decades while the very rich have increased their wealth in leaps and bounds.

You still haven't provided any data showing the three pieces of pie. You show the worker's piece and pretend the owners get the rest. Continuing to repeat this mistake over and over doesn't magically make it right.

You are the one making a claim of three separate pieces of pie.

I made no such claim. I have provided stats to support what I said. Now it's your turn to support your claims. Can you do that?

Where do the factories come from? The Marxist fairy?

 

[ZiprHead]

You are the one making a claim of three separate pieces of pie.

I made no such claim. I have provided stats to support what I said. Now it's your turn to support your claims. Can you do that?

Where do the factories come from? The Marxist fairy?

You keep bringing up your "third piece of the pie." You've been repeatedly asked to show that your third piece is a significant reason why the wage gap between the ceo class and the worker class has grown tremendously and you've failed to do so every single time, just repeating your same argument over and over again. At this point, I'm starting to think you are arguing dishonestly and disrespectfully to other members who have provided facts and figures to back up their arguments.

Please, back up your argument with something more than simple-minded derailing conjecture.

 

[DBT]

You keep saying this and I keep explaining. What about my explanation do you have a problem with? You just ignore it and keep repeating yourself. With increased roboticisation we should see a relative falling of workers wages. They are, relatively, contributing less of the overall wealth generation. Which is why this is happening.

I don't see where you have given an adequate explanation. And I repeat the point that wages have been stagnating for decades while the top end of town has enjoyed increased income and wealth because that is the current situation and it has not been addressed. It is brushed aside. The situation is indefensible.

 

[DBT]

You are the one making a claim of three separate pieces of pie.

I made no such claim. I have provided stats to support what I said. Now it's your turn to support your claims. Can you do that?

Where do the factories come from? The Marxist fairy?

There are no factories without miners extracting raw materials. There are no factories without construction crews or people to work in the factories when they are built.....those with capital cannot eat their banknotes, their banknotes didn't physically/magically provide the rich/those with capital with houses, cars, clothes or put food on their plates, that requires workers. Workers who are not getting their market share of the wealth they help to create.

 

[Harry Bosch]

You keep saying this and I keep explaining. What about my explanation do you have a problem with? You just ignore it and keep repeating yourself. With increased roboticisation we should see a relative falling of workers wages. They are, relatively, contributing less of the overall wealth generation. Which is why this is happening.

I don't see where you have given an adequate explanation. And I repeat the point that wages have been stagnating for decades while the top end of town has enjoyed increased income and wealth because that is the current situation and it has not been addressed. It is brushed aside. The situation is indefensible.

This really dosn't seem like rocket science to me. Wages goes up by 2 or 3% per year for most. Stocks appreciate 7 or 9 percent each year. Well managed companies increase at higher rates each year. Of course those relying on wages (and not investing) will lose to those who rely on shares of stock. This could easily remedied by implementing a system like what we have in North Korea. After that, stocks will always appreciate long term faster than wages.

 

[DBT]

You keep saying this and I keep explaining. What about my explanation do you have a problem with? You just ignore it and keep repeating yourself. With increased roboticisation we should see a relative falling of workers wages. They are, relatively, contributing less of the overall wealth generation. Which is why this is happening.

I don't see where you have given an adequate explanation. And I repeat the point that wages have been stagnating for decades while the top end of town has enjoyed increased income and wealth because that is the current situation and it has not been addressed. It is brushed aside. The situation is indefensible.

This really dosn't seem like rocket science to me. Wages goes up by 2 or 3% per year for most. Stocks appreciate 7 or 9 percent each year. Well managed companies increase at higher rates each year. Of course those relying on wages (and not investing) will lose to those who rely on shares of stock. This could easily remedied by implementing a system like what we have in North Korea. After that, stocks will always appreciate long term faster than wages.

''In the decade since the 2008 recession we’ve had an enormous runup in the stock market, accelerating growth in GDP, and a steady increase in job growth. Yet despite these positive economic trends, wages are not keeping up.

Yes, they ticked up in the most recent jobs report, but they're still lagging in a significant way.''

In the decade since the 2008 recession we’ve had an enormous runup in the stock market, accelerating growth in GDP, and a steady increase in job growth. Yet despite these positive economic trends, wages are not keeping up.

Yes, they ticked up in the most recent jobs report, but they're still lagging in a significant way.'

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You are the one making a claim of three separate pieces of pie.

I made no such claim. I have provided stats to support what I said. Now it's your turn to support your claims. Can you do that?

Where do the factories come from? The Marxist fairy?

You keep bringing up your "third piece of the pie." You've been repeatedly asked to show that your third piece is a significant reason why the wage gap between the ceo class and the worker class has grown tremendously and you've failed to do so every single time, just repeating your same argument over and over again. At this point, I'm starting to think you are arguing dishonestly and disrespectfully to other members who have provided facts and figures to back up their arguments.

Please, back up your argument with something more than simple-minded derailing conjecture.

So where do those factories come from? That's the third piece of the pie I'm talking about! Take my former employer because I knew something of the numbers involved--our costs were roughly evenly split between labor, capital (buying tools etc) and raw materials--and as time went on it was shifting from labor to capital. The piece of the pie going to capital was far larger than what went in the owner's pockets. In one sense you could have said the owners were worth $50 million at one point--but it would have been impossible to actually put that money in their pockets. The guy who owned the biggest share died penniless.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

You are the one making a claim of three separate pieces of pie.

I made no such claim. I have provided stats to support what I said. Now it's your turn to support your claims. Can you do that?

Where do the factories come from? The Marxist fairy?

There are no factories without miners extracting raw materials. There are no factories without construction crews or people to work in the factories when they are built.....those with capital cannot eat their banknotes, their banknotes didn't physically/magically provide the rich/those with capital with houses, cars, clothes or put food on their plates, that requires workers. Workers who are not getting their market share of the wealth they help to create.

You're just bible-thumping here, not addressing the issue.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In the decade since the 2008 recession we’ve had an enormous runup in the stock market, accelerating growth in GDP, and a steady increase in job growth. Yet despite these positive economic trends, wages are not keeping up.

The run-up in the stock market is mostly a phantom. The issue is the interest rate. The thing is the interest rate is closely related to the rate that future value is discounted. Low interest = low discounting = the net present value of a company goes up.

Yes, they ticked up in the most recent jobs report, but they're still lagging in a significant way.'

Once again, hourly wages. Most good jobs aren't hourly.

 

[ZiprHead]

You keep bringing up your "third piece of the pie." You've been repeatedly asked to show that your third piece is a significant reason why the wage gap between the ceo class and the worker class has grown tremendously and you've failed to do so every single time, just repeating your same argument over and over again. At this point, I'm starting to think you are arguing dishonestly and disrespectfully to other members who have provided facts and figures to back up their arguments.

Please, back up your argument with something more than simple-minded derailing conjecture.

So where do those factories come from? That's the third piece of the pie I'm talking about! Take my former employer because I knew something of the numbers involved--our costs were roughly evenly split between labor, capital (buying tools etc) and raw materials--and as time went on it was shifting from labor to capital. The piece of the pie going to capital was far larger than what went in the owner's pockets. In one sense you could have said the owners were worth $50 million at one point--but it would have been impossible to actually put that money in their pockets. The guy who owned the biggest share died penniless.

There's no way for any of us to verify anything you said so it's just useless anecdotal information. Your third piece of the pie bullshit does nothing to explain the wildly increasing remuneration gap between the ceo class and the working class. You've been given numerous facts and figures from reputable sources that this is occuring yet you still come back with the same conjecture over and over and you never, EVER back it up with facts and figures to show what your saying is happening is really what is happening. It's dishonest and disrespectful to other poster to continue to do so.

In other words, put up or shut up.

 

[ZiprHead]

Take my former employer because I knew something of the numbers involved--our costs were roughly evenly split between labor, capital (buying tools etc) and raw materials--and as time went on it was shifting from labor to capital. The piece of the pie going to capital was far larger than what went in the owner's pockets.

And what went into the owners pockets is the part you continue to avoid explaining.

 

[ZiprHead]

There are no factories without miners extracting raw materials. There are no factories without construction crews or people to work in the factories when they are built.....those with capital cannot eat their banknotes, their banknotes didn't physically/magically provide the rich/those with capital with houses, cars, clothes or put food on their plates, that requires workers. Workers who are not getting their market share of the wealth they help to create.

You're just bible-thumping here, not addressing the issue.

Seems it's you that is doing so. You are religiously defending the ceo class with mindless and unverified fantasies. You're the Ken Ham of business/economic discussions.

 

[DBT]

In the decade since the 2008 recession we’ve had an enormous runup in the stock market, accelerating growth in GDP, and a steady increase in job growth. Yet despite these positive economic trends, wages are not keeping up.

The run-up in the stock market is mostly a phantom. The issue is the interest rate. The thing is the interest rate is closely related to the rate that future value is discounted. Low interest = low discounting = the net present value of a company goes up.

Yes, they ticked up in the most recent jobs report, but they're still lagging in a significant way.'

Once again, hourly wages. Most good jobs aren't hourly.

You know that hourly rate just refers to pay rate? Many businesses advertise or offer an hourly rate regardless of whether the job is permanent or casual. You are scraping the bottom of your barrel of rationales.