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Re: We're Number......LAST
Profits are only profits AFTER all costs of labor are calculated in. The graph shows profits not gross sales. The additional money did not go to pensions it went to the CEO's and management who saw enormous increases in salaries and benefits most likely as "reward" for the huge increases in productivity that automation, stagant wage growth and reduced labor needs gave their balance sheets. And it came at such a conveinient time, rates for high earners had just been slashed and those executives could sock away alot of that money for themselves. Wasn't that nice of the US Govt? Now the top 5% have "socked away" over $40 Trillion and the Govt. is broke and needs to cut it's budget.
How did that happen?
Why that is, mainly, is it simply takes less skill to feed "the machine" and remove its output, than to have the skill to actually make the things that "the machine" now makes. Except for those few skilled workers that adjust/repair "the machine" the rest are mostly semi-skilled "drones" that are fairly easy to replace. A missing link in your graph is that wages (take home pay) is not the only employer cost of labor, those wonderful pension and medical care benefit "labor" costs that are not in that paycheck went up instead. Note the increase in employer provided medical care benefits over that 1980 - present period. Also note the cost of "defined benefit" retirement plans for past retirees, that were phased out at about that time (even the federal gov't switched from CSRS to FERS in 1986), continued to grow for those "lucky" folks that had COLA deals that kept pace with inflation. After the switch to "defined contribution", rather than "defined benefit", retirement plans the employer did not increase the salaries of those workers, but instead used the "savings" to pay (otherwise unfunded) retirement obligations to past workers "defined benefit" plans. After these "lucky" folks die off, the profits may rise enough to give decent raises to current "drone" workers.
Profits are only profits AFTER all costs of labor are calculated in. The graph shows profits not gross sales. The additional money did not go to pensions it went to the CEO's and management who saw enormous increases in salaries and benefits most likely as "reward" for the huge increases in productivity that automation, stagant wage growth and reduced labor needs gave their balance sheets. And it came at such a conveinient time, rates for high earners had just been slashed and those executives could sock away alot of that money for themselves. Wasn't that nice of the US Govt? Now the top 5% have "socked away" over $40 Trillion and the Govt. is broke and needs to cut it's budget.
How did that happen?