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Wage stagnation: the real economic issue.

What we need...and we need it quickly...is for the GOP Congress to quit their opposition to Trump and start working for the American people...but it's looking like they care more about hurting Trump than helping their voters.
Wanting the GOP to work for the average American person is a conflict of interest if there ever was one.
 
Wanting the GOP to work for the average American person is a conflict of interest if there ever was one.

You are correct...at least, as far as the Congressional GOP Elites are concerned.

They are more interested in punishing Trump for kicking each of their successively worse candidate choices to the curb, for actually beating Hillary and for having the balls to threaten their cushy relationship with the lobbyists...and the big money behind those lobbyists.

Of course, the Democrats aren't any better. They are angry that Trump kicked Hillary to the curb, they enjoy the same benefits the GOP does regarding the lobbyists...so THEY aren't about to take any action that could possibly benefit our economy or the citizens, either.

The problem, of course, for both parties is that the people are on to them. The people aren't buying their con job anymore. That's why Congress "enjoys" a 10% approval rating.

I see a bi-party shellacking coming soon.
 
They DO want to cut taxes for the wealthy to worsen wage stagnation. They wanted specifically to reduce government spending on low/middle class and the sick via the healthcare reform cuts, to then justify their tax cuts for the wealthy. That's not a partisan knock, that's what they tried. And if Trump's bungling helped derail that...
We went over this before didn't we Mach?

1. Government spending even pegged to inflation is at an all time high. So how is that cuts for the middle? If you mean a changed priority maybe. It's however way over budget some 30-40% to begin with without flatten increased in spending economic growth can't balance the books so you'd be steering us to more drastic cuts later. You know it cost more to debt finance right?
2. High bracket Income taxes do not affect "the wealthy" but rather high paid workers and small businesses this is because low interest rates means most of the investment/capital gain income of the wealthy is debt factored and as such those returns are supplemented in ways direct employment can't, alternatively most established money is stowed in trust. So they are attacking limits on income mobility not the wealthy as you claim.
3. Reducing promised expansion when we are already over budget and greater than inflation rate are not cuts especially when we know currently obligations are set to increase for the next 15 years due to demographics not the mention higher rates of disability.
 
We went over this before didn't we Mach?
Probably disagreed then too! :)
1. Government spending even pegged to inflation is at an all time high. So how is that cuts for the middle? If you mean a changed priority maybe.
I mean what I wrote: "They wanted specifically to reduce government spending on low/middle class"
Reduce health care spending, decrease taxes on the wealthy, and let's imagine that's budget neutral. Just what I wrote.

2. High bracket Income taxes do not affect "the wealthy" but rather high paid workers and small businesses
I usually write "ultra-wealthy", because I agree it is important that I'm not talking about $400K as the bracket to hit hardest. It's convenient for people earning millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, to be lumped in with professionals who work hard and went to school for 10 years and earn $400K+ in a dual income household. People earning $400K, $600K, etc., likely pay out the nose in taxes. Gives them a better chance of opposing tax cuts on themselves. Clearly targeting them with higher earnings brackets and specifically taxes that hit them including everything that Republicans want cut for the ultra-wealthy...capital gains, high finance on wall street claiming their incomes as LT cap gains, estate tax over a certain amount, etc.
It is very important to point out that the 1% is not the issue as a group as occupy Wall street folks exclaimed in between tokes, it's probably more like the top 0.1% or 0.05%. the specifics of which won't matter whatsoever until Democrats have some power, somewhere, other than the filibuster.

The republican tax goals they released this year decreased taxes on the ultra-wealthy in 5 important ways. Madness.
 
I should have use the caveat "anyone reasonable", I get a bit lazy with the qualifiers sometimes.

To quote a friend, "I knew there were people like that out there, I just never realized there were that damn many of them".
 
Here are two low hanging fruit describing wage stagnation:

Wage Stagnation in Nine Charts | Economic Policy Institute

This one is interesting in that it's from a liberal think-tank, and suggests wage stagnation is not
http://www.urban.org/sites/default/.../2000331-Beyond-the-Wage-Stagnation-Story.pdf


They basically argue that standards of living have grown faster than wages, and wages have grown 1.1% (low but not stagnant), combining the two is not so tragic as some would make it seem.

Of course, Trump hasn't done much of anything other than run his mouth, and reluctantly sign what he claimed was an unconstitutional bill, that put sanctions on his beloved Mother Russia.
He DID try to cut health insurance for a lot of low/middle income folks, but even that stab at the little-guy was so far, a failure.

If he stays in office, he's got another 3+ years to do something. But let's be honest, based on his track record so far, I don't think most people still entertain that as likely or even possible.

That is interesting because that has largely been the conservative argument.

It is something I have been thinking about recently as well. While automation and immigration contribute to fewer jobs available and wage suppression the silver lining is that the cost of living goes down. Poor in America is substantially better than at any time in history and by current world standards American poor would largely be considered middle class. While there needs to be more balance between the wages and cost of living, the issue gets compounded because both sides have drastically different positions on how to fix it that usually conflict and make matters worse.
 
We went over this before didn't we Mach?

1. Government spending even pegged to inflation is at an all time high. So how is that cuts for the middle? If you mean a changed priority maybe. It's however way over budget some 30-40% to begin with without flatten increased in spending economic growth can't balance the books so you'd be steering us to more drastic cuts later. You know it cost more to debt finance right?
2. High bracket Income taxes do not affect "the wealthy" but rather high paid workers and small businesses this is because low interest rates means most of the investment/capital gain income of the wealthy is debt factored and as such those returns are supplemented in ways direct employment can't, alternatively most established money is stowed in trust. So they are attacking limits on income mobility not the wealthy as you claim.
3. Reducing promised expansion when we are already over budget and greater than inflation rate are not cuts especially when we know currently obligations are set to increase for the next 15 years due to demographics not the mention higher rates of disability.

For starters, 9/11 was used as an excuse to double (more than double) DoD spending. We also got 2 shiny, new government agencies to make us "feel" safe - TSA and DHS. Then there's that shiny, unfunded liability called Medicare-D.

On top of those things, the GOP (they were in charge the whole time) cut taxes twice with now spending cut offsets.

Either all of that was necessary, and we shouldn't complain about spending/debt, or we should unwind all of them?
 
For starters, 9/11 was used as an excuse to double (more than double) DoD spending. We also got 2 shiny, new government agencies to make us "feel" safe - TSA and DHS. Then there's that shiny, unfunded liability called Medicare-D.

On top of those things, the GOP (they were in charge the whole time) cut taxes twice with now spending cut offsets.

Either all of that was necessary, and we shouldn't complain about spending/debt, or we should unwind all of them?

And after 9/11 you wanted to decrease spending on defense?
 
And after 9/11 you wanted to decrease spending on defense?

Where did I say that?

I would have increased it some, but I would not have used 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq and I would not have cut taxes. Afghanistan would not have been a nation building exercise.
 
Wage stagnation is caused by lack of wage competition. Why should I pay an engineer $80K a year, when I can get an H2b visa employee for $50K? Architects routinely send plan revisions to India at 5 o' clock and have them in their in box when they return to work in the morning.

Also, retail is under great pressure from Amazon, so the cash flow is not there for raises. Then there is more automation. Why should I tell Miss Muffet at Mc Donalds what keys to push when I order a Big Mac Meal Deal. They can turn the machine around and I can do it myself, and she can be laid off and the store saves $15.00 and hour making me push my Big Mac Meal Deal button.

And if you have line around the block for a job opening, don't expect competition for wages when workers are begging for work. It should be the other way around.

That is called productivity.

Isn't automation and self serve ultimately cheaper than just about any Wage? It seems weird to me that people are angry at fast food workers wanting $15 an hour when the CEOs of the same companies can lose it millions of dollars and get huge increases in salary in the millions. There is a strange disconnect for conservatives in this country.
 
That is interesting because that has largely been the conservative argument.

It is something I have been thinking about recently as well. While automation and immigration contribute to fewer jobs available and wage suppression the silver lining is that the cost of living goes down. Poor in America is substantially better than at any time in history and by current world standards American poor would largely be considered middle class. While there needs to be more balance between the wages and cost of living, the issue gets compounded because both sides have drastically different positions on how to fix it that usually conflict and make matters worse.
There really are a lot of hidden or hard to see "benefits" aren't there? I agree, our ability to enjoy what we want, when we want it, is at an astounding high. It's so high, that I think in some areas it's literally at capacity, overflowing such that the more we add to it, we actually LOSE rather than gain. Think of the number of shows on the combined streaming media we have access to right now...more than any normal person can consume in a lifetime. Same with PC games. Online books. A liberal view would may be that if you could channel some of that excess into industries that really matter, like health care, via (taxes, incentives, whatever), we'd actually be *better off* in the long run, than just letting things run amok.

But another one along those lines that I would like to mention, this one's a bit out there but I think all economists say it all the time...globalization helps everyone.

We have been literally outsourcing jobs for decades, and investing money and training, year compounded after year, in a whole host of foreign countries. They have seen *incredible* growth in part, as a result of our investment in them. Fast forward to day, and while the average rural person doesn't necessarily put a high value on this...they do today have:
- access to higher skilled, lower cost labor abroad, than ever before
- if they visit or rely on any of these other nations for trade, security cooperation, etc., these nations are now better developed and more able to help the U.S., or even host us for foreign travel, etc.
- these other nations immigrants, since the have seen enormous education and job growth (industry expertise, not necessarily # of jobs), the immigrants we get from those nations are much more competitive and better educated (in theory).
- reduced costs for those products/services (or better bang for the buck)

In other words, even in the area of spending our jobs and and money overseas, we do see some benefits at home.

I see it more as Repulicans and Dems and libertarians push free trade.
Trump oddly doesn't..what demographic is that supported by...xenophobes? I mean, economists generally all agree that everyone wins...non partisan.

In any case, I think we can strike a balance between disputing our nation and our citizens too much with 100% free trade/outsourincg, and protectionism/unions. I have worked with Germans not too long ago and they were quite clear that their government forbids them using foreign contractors for more than very short term needs. Good for some German workers, bad for everyone a little...where is that balance? I think in the U.S. since we have almost no private unions and very loose labor laws...we should compensate some with mild protections on supporting U.S. business.
 
So far as I know less than 10% of the so-called journalists admit to be righties, so journalism getting this wrong generally cant be blamed on Right Thinking.

But they will join in the quest to divide rather than have a conversation.
 
But they will join in the quest to divide rather than have a conversation.

Who evar is interested in strength through Unity?

I am like the only one.

*SEE SIG*

:2wave:
 
Part of the problem with wage stagnation is the massive growth in group plan costs for companies. Back in 2000, a company paid about 5k for an employees family health insurance plan. Today the average is 17k. So about $12k a year in compensation increases has been ate up by increased benefits costs.
 
For starters, 9/11 was used as an excuse to double (more than double) DoD spending. We also got 2 shiny, new government agencies to make us "feel" Either all of that was necessary, and we shouldn't complain about spending/debt, or we should unwind all of them?
Well let's see inflation adjusted 2000 -> 2016

2.03 trillion (today's $: 2.8) -> 3.26 Trillion or 16% more revenues for new spending
1.7 trillion (today's $: 2.4) -> 3.99 Trillion or 66% increase in new spending

So we don't need to unwind them completely but yes it's very clear there's room to grow if we let the current growth make up for the shortfall. We need a pause in growing government so we can be ready for the coming decades demographic shifts.
 
Here are two low hanging fruit describing wage stagnation:

Wage Stagnation in Nine Charts | Economic Policy Institute

This one is interesting in that it's from a liberal think-tank, and suggests wage stagnation is not
http://www.urban.org/sites/default/.../2000331-Beyond-the-Wage-Stagnation-Story.pdf


They basically argue that standards of living have grown faster than wages, and wages have grown 1.1% (low but not stagnant), combining the two is not so tragic as some would make it seem.

Of course, Trump hasn't done much of anything other than run his mouth, and reluctantly sign what he claimed was an unconstitutional bill, that put sanctions on his beloved Mother Russia.
He DID try to cut health insurance for a lot of low/middle income folks, but even that stab at the little-guy was so far, a failure.

If he stays in office, he's got another 3+ years to do something. But let's be honest, based on his track record so far, I don't think most people still entertain that as likely or even possible.

If you torture the data long enough, it will confess. That article has simple minded comparisons.
 
Well let's see inflation adjusted 2000 -> 2016

2.03 trillion (today's $: 2.8) -> 3.26 Trillion or 16% more revenues for new spending
1.7 trillion (today's $: 2.4) -> 3.99 Trillion or 66% increase in new spending

So we don't need to unwind them completely but yes it's very clear there's room to grow if we let the current growth make up for the shortfall. We need a pause in growing government so we can be ready for the coming decades demographic shifts.

On the surface, this all sounds reasonable.

I think we actually need to reconsider our priorities as a country. Do we want/need to try to remake the world in our image? In other words - neoconservatism? I don't want that. A little 'policing the world' by a superpower like the U.S. is unavoidable, but we don't need to do it all ourselves, or allow our own citizens to suffer as we spend blood and treasure on that exercise.

The neocons took the reins after 9/11 and made a mess. There isn't a thing they did that worked out well.

Obama pulled back to an extent, but there are obvious places he pulled back too much. We need sane leadership, and Trump? We are in for rough ride.
 
If you torture the data long enough, it will confess. That article has simple minded comparisons.
<br>And your post was an example of a thorough critique of something?  Or was it simple-minded and lacking of any detail whatsoever? <br><br>And which article?  The one that agreed wage stagnation was an issue, or the one that suggests wages aren't actually stagnant?  Seems like your deep analysis is in your own mind.
 
You're right, the so called journalists on the right don't even think wage stagnation is a problem, so there won't be any honesty about it.

The message I heard from the left was, 'the jobs aren't coming back, get used to it. Either go back to school and earn a tech degree, or shut up'. Then the illegal H1B flood of people dramatically lowered those wages too. Republicans aren't much better on the issue, in fact, they're probably worse.
 
There really are a lot of hidden or hard to see "benefits" aren't there? I agree, our ability to enjoy what we want, when we want it, is at an astounding high. It's so high, that I think in some areas it's literally at capacity, overflowing such that the more we add to it, we actually LOSE rather than gain. Think of the number of shows on the combined streaming media we have access to right now...more than any normal person can consume in a lifetime. Same with PC games. Online books. A liberal view would may be that if you could channel some of that excess into industries that really matter, like health care, via (taxes, incentives, whatever), we'd actually be *better off* in the long run, than just letting things run amok.

But another one along those lines that I would like to mention, this one's a bit out there but I think all economists say it all the time...globalization helps everyone.

We have been literally outsourcing jobs for decades, and investing money and training, year compounded after year, in a whole host of foreign countries. They have seen *incredible* growth in part, as a result of our investment in them. Fast forward to day, and while the average rural person doesn't necessarily put a high value on this...they do today have:
- access to higher skilled, lower cost labor abroad, than ever before
- if they visit or rely on any of these other nations for trade, security cooperation, etc., these nations are now better developed and more able to help the U.S., or even host us for foreign travel, etc.
- these other nations immigrants, since the have seen enormous education and job growth (industry expertise, not necessarily # of jobs), the immigrants we get from those nations are much more competitive and better educated (in theory).
- reduced costs for those products/services (or better bang for the buck)

In other words, even in the area of spending our jobs and and money overseas, we do see some benefits at home.

I see it more as Repulicans and Dems and libertarians push free trade.
Trump oddly doesn't..what demographic is that supported by...xenophobes? I mean, economists generally all agree that everyone wins...non partisan.

In any case, I think we can strike a balance between disputing our nation and our citizens too much with 100% free trade/outsourincg, and protectionism/unions. I have worked with Germans not too long ago and they were quite clear that their government forbids them using foreign contractors for more than very short term needs. Good for some German workers, bad for everyone a little...where is that balance? I think in the U.S. since we have almost no private unions and very loose labor laws...we should compensate some with mild protections on supporting U.S. business.

It is rather interesting the switch on free trade. That has been a long held principle of those on the Right yet now the Left and Democrats are picking it up as Trump seems to be leading the Republican party away from it.
 
Trump loved to criticize the new job numbers under Obama by calling them "bad jobs" because they were primarily low wage, service sector positions. The new numbers under Trump are not much different. Wages continue to stagnate and he cannot fulfill any real economic promise to his middle class supporters without real solutions to this problem.

In the early 1990s one of the major public goods that we didn't undertake was a recalibration of our handling of our economy id est the sociological basis on which it is based. That continued and the consequences are building. It turns out that americans are not happy with the policy mix that has put so many into jobs around the world and made life so relatively cheap in the USA, while making it easy for so many Americans to go the easy way and getting educations that were not going to give them the careers they dreamed of.
 
We have been working on that problem for over 40 years, and yet the geniuses still dont understand the problem....dont make the mistake of holding your breath for a solution.

Nor waiting for the so-called journalists to be honest about it....there is an impeachment to get done.

Most sociological problems that have been forming for 60 years, it will take a generation to fix. At least. But we don't seem to have even made the first step of honestly discussing it. But that is par for the course. The things we probably need to do are antithetical to the paradigm we have been living and are considered evil.
 
On the surface, this all sounds reasonable.

I think we actually need to reconsider our priorities as a country. Do we want/need to try to remake the world in our image? In other words - neoconservatism? I don't want that. A little 'policing the world' by a superpower like the U.S. is unavoidable, but we don't need to do it all ourselves, or allow our own citizens to suffer as we spend blood and treasure on that exercise.

The neocons took the reins after 9/11 and made a mess. There isn't a thing they did that worked out well.

Obama pulled back to an extent, but there are obvious places he pulled back too much. We need sane leadership, and Trump? We are in for rough ride.
I am with you a few huge messes were made now. I would add Obamacare although a nice sentiment to a real problem (verse the political trend to chase phantoms) has made things a little worse throwing fuel on a fire (not that these "republican" replacements are looking even a degree better albeit perhaps more realistic)... There is no doubt though the neo-con social engineering pet projects of "war on drugs" and "war on terror" costs both societal and the budgetary many factors higher than social spending issues.

Trump might well not be what we need, he certainly hasn't played to my best hopes of being a true pragmatist and seems to be pretty beholden to some deeply partisan interests (although I fail to see how Hillary wasn't headed for worse traps) which is going to keep his impacts pretty minimal unless he can surprise the skeptics and come through with some of those unconventional tactics he hinted at during the campaign. Although wouldn't blame you for not holding that hope not liking the guy. In the meantime cutting spending/entitlements even the little trivial stuff doesn't hurt, some of it will just have to come back no doubt (but likely in more realistic form) but unpopularity gives certain advantages in terms of shaving the low hanging fruit. He a diplomat of a different kind: being unlinked on the global stage may even have advantages - America has a horrible history of way over funding globalist pet projects(push national intrest has shown to have big returns in some cases). Getting allies to pay more costs can help some very real problems and imbalances - he's not wrong on this his most passionate issue (foreigners playing nationalist interests at the expense of the us who defends global) even if trade renegotiation can go either way. In regard to DoD overspending - at least his overwhelming priority will be on veterans not military-industrial complex. Seems to me. He still needs to play republican internal politics though so that could change.

And although he talks big with things like tax cuts, wall & infrastructure (likely should be taken down to account for marketing language) everything I've seen confirms to me at least he's more likely only going to accomplish pausing much of what we have and implementing unpopular but inevitable reforms and degrades considering the overspending and current/projected growth rate. Congress is to skeptical to ever give him too much...politics is a game of interests and the dived climate means gridlock.

Any hope he'd be a uniter (the sane leadership to oversee such a reform of priorities) we both looking for though were pretty much out the window when he opened his campaign on a wall but I doubt we'll see a "sane" viable candidate for a few generations of real pain from all these cumulative messes...too many interests are benefiting too much from the current system the ones interested in the big picture are drowned. When your best comparative options to very unpopular choices are someone who would pushed hardest to raise taxes on everyone in slowest growth period and where sector inflation is on the rise; a true believer in a flat tax (great concept - not viable policy); the same neocon+ the country is fat and made the best choices are based on the psychology of what's the worse options which rarely produce "sane"

Like a said though until interest rates return to 4%+ we are going to see growing inequality and less and less total tax revenue even if we put the top bracket to 90% (or raise across the board) I wish more Americans studied the more detailed numbers for Europe not just best cases that have no relation to our situation :-|
 
It is rather interesting the switch on free trade. That has been a long held principle of those on the Right yet now the Left and Democrats are picking it up as Trump seems to be leading the Republican party away from it.

I not sure republicans have gone anti free trade via the unionist left. More they are being more vocal on seeing that less trade restrictions when other players are prioritizing national interests has added important downsides from the pro-talking points which may require reactions. It is nice to see the left be on side with free trade.

After all the major benefit to free trade is lower cost of living, but when your buying power is getting killed and the areas where globalization are barred from deflating: education, healthcare, housing are now consuming all your budget it makes some sense you want to hit the breaks to keep your home, job competitiveness and health.

It's concerning more to be the left is pro free trade with no answer to the crazy inflation of housing, health and education...maybe because they are employed by those sectors
 
The message I heard from the left was, 'the jobs aren't coming back, get used to it. Either go back to school and earn a tech degree, or shut up'. Then the illegal H1B flood of people dramatically lowered those wages too. Republicans aren't much better on the issue, in fact, they're probably worse.

The basic idea makes sense. However, if the issuance of the H1B visas is not properly administered, it is the failure you point out. The theory is that there is a job for which a qualified American cannot be found. That dramatic lowering of wages should not occur since the question is supposed to be "cannot be found" not "cannot be found who will work for peanuts".
 
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