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Paychecks Lag as Profits Soar, and Prices Erode Wage Gains

MTAtech

MTAtech

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Paychecks Lag as Profits Soar, and Prices Erode Wage Gains
July 13, 2018

Corporate profits have rarely swept up a bigger share of the nation’s wealth, and workers have rarely shared a smaller one.
...
Hourly earnings have moved forward at a crawl, with higher prices giving workers less buying power than they had last summer. Last-minute scheduling, no-poachingand noncompete clauses, and the use of independent contractors are popular tactics that put workers at a disadvantage. Threats to move operations overseas, where labor is cheaper, continue to loom.
And in the background, the nation’s central bankers stand poised to raise interest rates and deliberately rein in growth if wages climb too rapidly.
...
Workers’ paychecks account for much less of the nation’s total income since the last recession, and the profits of businesses account for more.
...
With tariffs piling up and potentially pushing prices higher, odds are that the Fed will push through two more increases before 2018 ends. The Labor Department reported this week that one inflation measure, the Consumer Price Index, had increased 2.9 percent in 12 months — the highest level in six years.
...
Click to expand...
Wait. But some will tell you that the GOP tax-cut put more money in worker's pockets.

What we have here is what happens when we elect a plutocrat masquerading as a populist -- he tells you he'll pass policies that help workers, then, when elected, passes policies that help millionaires and billionaires.
His tariffs are hurting Americans and will hurt more in the coming months and years.
His attack on the ACA is driving prices up. Even Tom Price, Trump's former top health official said the Republican tax law would raise the cost of health insurance for some Americans because it repealed a core provision of the Affordable Care Act.
 
MTAtech said:
Paychecks Lag as Profits Soar, and Prices Erode Wage Gains
Wait. But some will tell you that the GOP tax-cut put more money in worker's pockets.

What we have here is what happens when we elect a plutocrat masquerading as a populist -- he tells you he'll pass policies that help workers, then, when elected, passes policies that help millionaires and billionaires.
His tariffs are hurting Americans and will hurt more in the coming months and years.
His attack on the ACA is driving prices up. Even Tom Price, Trump's former top health official said the Republican tax law would raise the cost of health insurance for some Americans because it repealed a core provision of the Affordable Care Act.
Click to expand...

The failure of the US Economy has been more than 50 years in the making.

Some people pretend really hard that this is not so.
 
Wages are a lagging indicator. :shrug:
 
MTAtech said:
Paychecks Lag as Profits Soar, and Prices Erode Wage Gains
Wait. But some will tell you that the GOP tax-cut put more money in worker's pockets.

What we have here is what happens when we elect a plutocrat masquerading as a populist -- he tells you he'll pass policies that help workers, then, when elected, passes policies that help millionaires and billionaires.
His tariffs are hurting Americans and will hurt more in the coming months and years.
His attack on the ACA is driving prices up. Even Tom Price, Trump's former top health official said the Republican tax law would raise the cost of health insurance for some Americans because it repealed a core provision of the Affordable Care Act.
Click to expand...

Damn! A lagging indicator is lagging! LOL.

Bezos has enough money. A non paywall article about Obamacare prices rising:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/01/tom...ling-individual-mandate-will-raise-costs.html

Repealing the requirement that people buy insurance was repealed, so yes, forcing your kids to pay into your pool is a good idea, but not a smart one.
 
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Hawkeye10 said:
The failure of the US Economy has been more than 50 years in the making.

Some people pretend really hard that this is not so.
Click to expand...

More like 40 years ago. In the prior period, the middle class was growing due to policies that encourages worker organizing, a high marginal tax-rate and a high minimum wage.

Since then, income inequality has risen dramatically. Most people assume that this rise in inequality was the result of impersonal forces, like technological change and globalization. But the great reduction of inequality that created middle-class America between 1935 and 1945 was driven by political change; politics has also played an important role in rising inequality since the 1980s. It’s important to know that no other advanced economy has seen a comparable surge in inequality – even the rising inequality of Thatcherite Britain was a faint echo of trends here.

Because of movement conservative political dominance, taxes on the rich have fallen, and the holes in the safety net have gotten bigger, even as inequality has soared. And the rise of movement conservatism is also at the heart of the bitter partisanship that characterizes politics today.
 
As I look around the real world where I live......I see people with too much money.

Huge SUVs are everywhere, fancy cell phones are everywhere, big boats and campers are flooding the highways for summer, restaurants and bars are full, people are traveling in airplanes on fine vacations and even the so-called Poverty cases have a car and a television and a stereo and a lot of the poverty cases have giant screen TVs and.....sadly.....are obese.

What I see is an over abundance of prosperity and people who don't appreciate it.

The poor people have a lot and are angry because they feel they should have even more......

They should read some history and discover what REAL poverty really IS.
 
Vox said:
As I look around the real world where I live......I see people with too much money.

Huge SUVs are everywhere, fancy cell phones are everywhere, big boats and campers are flooding the highways for summer, restaurants and bars are full, people are traveling in airplanes on fine vacations and even the so-called Poverty cases have a car and a television and a stereo and a lot of the poverty cases have giant screen TVs and.....sadly.....are obese.

What I see is an over abundance of prosperity and people who don't appreciate it.

The poor people have a lot and are angry because they feel they should have even more......

They should read some history and discover what REAL poverty really IS.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the poor are just lucky duckies. 99.6% of poor have refrigerators!



Today's enlightened column:
Benefits, Work, and Poverty
Last week the Trump Council of Economic Advisers declared not only that the War on Poverty has in fact substantially reduced poverty – which is what progressives have been saying all along – but that poverty is “largely over”. (Do these people ever visit the real world?)
And because poverty is over, they say, we should impose lots of work requirements on Medicaid and food stamps, which would have the effect of slashing spending on these programs. Somehow a completely opposite reading of the facts leads to the same policy conclusion. Funny how that works.
But are benefits like Medicaid and food stamps really discouraging a lot of people from working?
Click to expand...
 
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The "poor" will get no sympathy while their corpulent bodies are slouched on the couch watching a giant-screen TV and munching French fries and Big Mac's.
 
"But it's NOT THEIR FAULT," the Liberal whines......

OK......anyway, it sure as hell ain't MY fault.

I didn't have anything to do with their genes.
 
Vox said:
The "poor" will get no sympathy while their corpulent bodies are slouched on the couch watching a giant-screen TV and munching French fries and Big Mac's.
Click to expand...
Your post represents the false narrative that YOU sitting in front of the Fox News propaganda channel all day. Generally, those receiving gov't help are seniors, disabled, and the working poor -- who just happen to work but earn very little.

The idea of the Welfare Queen driving a Cadillac is a lie.
 
MTAtech said:
Your post represents the false narrative that YOU sitting in front of the Fox News propaganda channel all day. Generally, those receiving gov't help are seniors, disabled, and the working poor -- who just happen to work but earn very little.

The idea of the Welfare Queen driving a Cadillac is a lie.
Click to expand...

Bull****.

I'm a senior and I was working class all my life and due to smart investments hard work (sometimes at three jobs at once) and military service I have more money than I know what to do with......and BTW.......I watch CNN (and laugh at the fake news).
 
MTAtech said:
Paychecks Lag as Profits Soar, and Prices Erode Wage Gains
Wait. But some will tell you that the GOP tax-cut put more money in worker's pockets.

What we have here is what happens when we elect a plutocrat masquerading as a populist -- he tells you he'll pass policies that help workers, then, when elected, passes policies that help millionaires and billionaires.
His tariffs are hurting Americans and will hurt more in the coming months and years.
His attack on the ACA is driving prices up. Even Tom Price, Trump's former top health official said the Republican tax law would raise the cost of health insurance for some Americans because it repealed a core provision of the Affordable Care Act.
Click to expand...

Prices aren't being driven up; wages aren't falling.

You claim to understand economics and you consider yourself an intelligent individual, yet you fail for misleading statistic so easily. How am I expected to take you seriously?
 
Vox said:
Bull****.

I'm a senior and I was working class all my life and due to smart investments hard work (sometimes at three jobs at once) and military service I have more money than I know what to do with......and BTW.......I watch CNN (and laugh at the fake news).
Click to expand...
Ah, so because you worked and happen to luck into good investments, that means that every working class person can do the same? I think you should consider yourself lucky and be a bit more sympathetic to those less fortunate to you.

There are many problems with that line of reasoning. The first is that working class people today -- not during the 1970s when you were working -- don't have the ability to invest because they have no money after normal expenses. In fact, only 39% of Americans have enough savings to cover a $1,000 emergency.

Second, you said you had "military service." That means that you get medical insurance and may get a military pension.
 
MTAtech said:
Ah, so because you worked and happen to luck into good investments, that means that every working class person can do the same? I think you should consider yourself lucky and be a bit more sympathetic to those less fortunate to you.

There are many problems with that line of reasoning. The first is that working class people today -- not during the 1970s when you were working -- don't have the ability to invest because they have no money after normal expenses. In fact, only 39% of Americans have enough savings to cover a $1,000 emergency.

Second, you said you had "military service." That means that you get medical insurance and may get a military pension.
Click to expand...

Yes, I have both.......basically free Tri-Care insurance and Express Scripts meds and a military retirement, a civilian retirement and Social Security plus good income from (smart, not "lucky") investments.

My fairly wealthy status is available to ANYBODY with brains and ambition......I was born into poverty--and I AM sympathetic to the poor and disabled......just NOT the lazy whining poor who manage to have giant screen TVs and fancy smart phones and cars and eat Big Mac's at every meal and feel entitled to have what I have even though they refuse to work like I did.
Screw them.

SCREW THEM!
 
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Hedgology said:
Prices aren't being driven up; wages aren't falling.

You claim to understand economics and you consider yourself an intelligent individual, yet you fail for misleading statistic so easily. How am I expected to take you seriously?
Click to expand...
You can deny reality, but that doesn't make your alternate reality so.

Prices:
Consumer prices rise at the fastest pace in 6 years
U.S. consumer prices rose 0.1 percent in June.
The underlying trend continued to point to a steady buildup of inflation pressures that could keep the Federal Reserve on a path of gradual interest rate increases.
In the 12 months through June, the CPI increased 2.9 percent, the biggest gain since February 2012.
Click to expand...

Wages:
For the biggest group of American workers, wages aren’t just flat. They’re falling.
 
Greenbeard said:
For the second year in a row, Trump is the biggest factor driving premium increases. On purpose!
Click to expand...

Why charge low wage young earners extra to take care of old workers who are below SS age? I'll tell you why you like it: it's one more brick in the democrat's Socialist wall.
 
chuckiechan said:
Why charge low wage young earners extra to take care of old workers who are below SS age? I'll tell you why you like it: it's one more brick in the democrat's Socialist wall.
Click to expand...

You may want to look into how the ACA works, particularly with respect to how the premiums for low-wage earners are determined.
 
iliveonramen said:
50 years of gutting unions, giving corporations more power, and allowing corporations to gain to buy out their competitors.
Click to expand...

The mismanagement is a lot worse than that.

But hey Trump will be loaded up with as much of the blame as the so-called journalists and other FAILED INTELLIGENTSIA! can manage, there is a job to get done and they threw honesty overboard long long ago.
 
Vox said:
The "poor" will get no sympathy while their corpulent bodies are slouched on the couch watching a giant-screen TV and munching French fries and Big Mac's.
Click to expand...

Trump is a fat, obese slob, that eats Big Macs like there is no tomorrow; I guess Trump is poor ..........
 
Greenbeard said:
You may want to look into how the ACA works, particularly with respect to how the premiums for low-wage earners are determined.
Click to expand...

that is too much 'work' for the typical conservative ............... jus' sayin' ...........
 
inflation is currently at it's highest rate of growth since 2012 ............... thanks Trump ............
 
MTAtech said:
Your post represents the false narrative that YOU sitting in front of the Fox News propaganda channel all day. Generally, those receiving gov't help are seniors, disabled, and the working poor -- who just happen to work but earn very little.

The idea of the Welfare Queen driving a Cadillac is a lie.
Click to expand...

Yes, but it's a necessary lie. If you can't paint the poor as lazy, and morally deficient, and living high on the taxpayers' dime it makes it hard to justify screwing them over.
 
Few things display rampant liberal economic illiteracy such as complaining about companies making profits... Profits are a good thing, expanding equity and generating wealth are good things.
 
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