Sky-rocketing Net Worth

[Gimmesometruth]

Why not?

Because it is an extremely short-lived blip of wealth gains that, for the lowest quintile, did not make up for income losses 2020-2021.

I think crowing about good things is important. As I said in my reply to Surrealistik, I think one of the mistakes the left makes is being so relentlessly negative -- so reflexively dismissive of any ray of light in the news -- that people just tune them out entirely. Motivating people requires both the carrot and the stick. Yes, warn them of how things can get worse, and show them examples of that. But also show them that the situation isn't hopeless -- that things can and do get better.

There are few things that lower quintiles can do to cause significant changes in income/wealth outside of unionization, I don't see that a couple of small payments that went to everyone, poor and rich alike, will motivate those groups to organize. I think it is ultimately insignificant from a "motivation" perspective.

 

[Mina]

There are few things that lower quintiles can do to cause significant changes in income/wealth outside of unionization,

One thing they can do is vote Democrat. Check out the change in real incomes at the median, or at the 20th quintile, comparing Democratic presidencies to Republican ones. Or check out the poverty rate. Do you know what the total change in the poverty rate has been under Republican presidents since the Census started tracking (in 1959)? PLUS 1.2 points. In all that time, the net impact they had was to dump a larger share of the population into poverty. Now how about the Democrats.? In the same period of time, during Democratic presidencies, do you know what the change to the poverty rate has been? MINUS 12.2 points. That's a massive improvement.

That's why I get frustrated by anyone who I think is flirting with defeatism or even just bothsiderism and the idea that improvement can only come from outside the political system. We know for a FACT that it makes a GIGANTIC difference to the poor and middle class which party is in charge. When Republicans are in charge, life generally gets worse. When Democrats are, things generally improve dramatically (as happened last year). Those facts matter, and obscuring them with excessive pessimism or establishment hostility could foreclose one of the surest paths for actually helping people. People need to be made aware of these successes to make informed choices.

 

[Gimmesometruth]

One thing they can do is vote Democrat. Check out the change in real incomes at the median, or at the 20th quintile, comparing Democratic presidencies to Republican ones. Or check out the poverty rate. Do you know what the total change in the poverty rate has been under Republican presidents since the Census started tracking (in 1959)? PLUS 1.2 points. In all that time, the net impact they had was to dump a larger share of the population into poverty. Now how about the Democrats.? In the same period of time, during Democratic presidencies, do you know what the change to the poverty rate has been? MINUS 12.2 points. That's a massive improvement.

That's why I get frustrated by anyone who I think is flirting with defeatism or even just bothsiderism and the idea that improvement can only come from outside the political system. We know for a FACT that it makes a GIGANTIC difference to the poor and middle class which party is in charge. When Republicans are in charge, life generally gets worse. When Democrats are, things generally improve dramatically (as happened last year). Those facts matter, and obscuring them with excessive pessimism or establishment hostility could foreclose one of the surest paths for actually helping people.

I don't think that change can only come from outside of the political system, I think the declines in labor power came from policy, especially at the state level, and I agree, the poor should vote D, it is what caused labor to make great gains post WWII, the rise of libertarian ideology has caused its demise.....but again, 2 small supplements are insignificant as wealth gains.

 

[Mina]

I don't think that change can only come from outside of the political system, I think the declines in labor power came from policy, especially at the state level, and I agree, the poor should vote D, it is what caused labor to make great gains post WWII, the rise of libertarian ideology has caused its demise.....but again, 2 small supplements are insignificant as wealth gains.

Just on a side note, the NYT had an interesting article a couple days back about the role college-educated people working at places like Starbucks have had in a resurgence of unionization.

 

[Gimmesometruth]

Just on a side note, the NYT had an interesting article a couple days back about the role college-educated people working at places like Starbucks have had in a resurgence of unionization.

I know, and that is sad from 2 perspectives, that college educated folks are baristas, and that it is 2022. I hope it is a reversal of a long trend, I hope those workers can win their battles against megacorps like SB and Amazon while overturning "right to work" laws at the state level.

 

[Mina]

I know, and that is sad from 2 perspectives, that college educated folks are baristas, and that it is 2022. I hope it is a reversal of a long trend, I hope those workers can win their battles against megacorps like SB and Amazon while overturning "right to work" laws at the state level.

I'd like to see more unionization, too. However, I do worry about the left's focus just on antagonism towards "megacorps." Like I've worked for megacorps and I've worked for mom & pops, and the latter is so much worse.

Generally speaking, the megacorps provide better pay (e.g., Amazon's $15 minimum wage), better benefits (small companies aren't even mandated to provide health insurance), better worker protections (small companies often have size-based exclusions from even the most basic FMLA and ADA protection), and better opportunities for advancement (work your butt off somewhere like Walmart and the sky's the limit on your advancement, whereas with a mom and pop, you'll probably always just be a peon for mom and pop). Bigger outfits also provide more likelihood of unionization (since you have a critical mass of workers to organize), and more realistic paths to enforce your rights in the courts (if a small operation with just a few employees discriminates against Black employees, for example, there will be almost no way to show that, whereas if Amazon does it, it'll show up pretty clearly in the stats). Big companies also tend to be safer, since they actually have safety officers, and know they're not flying under Osha's radar.

So, I can get frustrated with the left's tendency to act like everything would be peachy if they just got a few big companies in line. And it's not even like they go after all the big companies equally. They tend to focus on the ones with familiar consumer brands, like Walmart, Amazon, and Starbucks, instead of ones like Allied Universal, which have hundreds of thousands of employees with much worse pay and prospects, but don't pop up on the left's radar for some reason.

 

[Surrealistik]

I'd like to see more unionization, too. However, I do worry about the left's focus just on antagonism towards "megacorps." Like I've worked for megacorps and I've worked for mom & pops, and the latter is so much worse.

Generally speaking, the megacorps provide better pay (e.g., Amazon's $15 minimum wage), better benefits (small companies aren't even mandated to provide health insurance), better worker protections (small companies often have size-based exclusions from even the most basic FMLA and ADA protection), and better opportunities for advancement (work your butt off somewhere like Walmart and the sky's the limit on your advancement, whereas with a mom and pop, you'll probably always just be a peon for mom and pop). Bigger outfits also provide more likelihood of unionization (since you have a critical mass of workers to organize), and more realistic paths to enforce your rights in the courts (if a small operation with just a few employees discriminates against Black employees, for example, there will be almost no way to show that, whereas if Amazon does it, it'll show up pretty clearly in the stats). Big companies also tend to be safer, since they actually have safety officers, and know they're not flying under Osha's radar.

So, I can get frustrated with the left's tendency to act like everything would be peachy if they just got a few big companies in line. And it's not even like they go after all the big companies equally. They tend to focus on the ones with familiar consumer brands, like Walmart, Amazon, and Starbucks, instead of ones like Allied Universal, which have hundreds of thousands of employees with much worse pay and prospects, but don't pop up on the left's radar for some reason.

Oh please.

Ma and pa and small and medium size businesses run the gamut in terms of pay and work conditions; your anecdote is not evidence.

But even assuming it was, it's not these Ma and Pa shops that are dropping tens of millions or more on systemically destroying workers rights and unions. It's not Ma and Pa warehousing that leads America in musculoskeletal injuries by an heinous margin to the point of exceeding the industry average by 5 to 1 in the case of Amazon, which to me describes torturous working conditions that no 15 / HR min wage (which Sanders had to essentially coerce Amazon to enact via sustained pressure) suitably compensates for.

If the anger of the left is focused on Walmart, Amazon and Starbucks, that's probably because they deserve it, seeing as they're among the most aggressive and egregious vanguard against labour and workers rights in this country, to the point of breaking the law.

The left doesn't think that a few unions in a few companies are going to make everything 'peachy'; that is a ridiculous and complete misreading of their intent and agenda to the point it almost comes off as willful. To the contrary, it does not seek to stop at a small handful of iconic companies; the left strives to resuscitate workers rights and reunionize this country across the board, and frankly, at this moment, we're the only ones who are seeking to remediate this glaring issue in the American labour market (centrist Dems will sometimes try to posture and spew lip service when they feel it benefits them politically after we've done the hard work).

 

[ALiberalModerate]

Yes, the top 20% outpaces the bottom 80%, just as the top 1% outpaces them. The bottom line is that wealth is becoming unsustainably and poisonously consolidated and inequality is at a historic high; this is a serious, ongoing and intensifying problem. You don't need to employ basic middle school math to make a point I'm already abundantly aware of.

I will also note it is exceedingly foolhardy to assume that people get what they deserve in this economy and that it is largely fair and just, particularly given the calcified advantages of increasingly inaccessible quality higher education and intergenerational wealth and the US having some of the worst economic mobility in the developed world (not even touching on old haunts like systemic racism), and that leads to dangerous and inhumane places.

You are oversimplifying the problem. There is plenty of economic mobility in America, however, it is concentrated in the top 1/2. For households in the top 1/2 of the economy, there is plenty of economic mobility. This is exemplified by the fact that the upper middle class has grown immensely since the 1960s: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/social-mobility-upwards-decline-usa-us-america-economics/

The problem is that if you are in the bottom half of households, its hard to get into the top half. That is where we perform poorly compared to our peers. Unfortunately, there is no panacea for that, because its not taxes that created this problem, its the changing of our economy from a labor, blue collar economy to a knowledge based economy. https://news.mhelpdesk.com/mhelpdesk-community/white-collar-vs-blue-collar-jobs-decade/#

This is due to the outsourcing of manufacturing made possible by the move to containerships in the early 70s, just-in-time inventories in the 80s and 90s, and increased automation. We could have had the most liberal, union friendly Democrats in power for the last 50 years and these things would have still happened. At most, the impacts might have been delayed by a few years.

Any kid that has just graduated high school, can go to their local community college and get a 2 year degree in software engineering, and they will be earning over a 100k a year by the time they are 30 years old. The demand for those jobs are so high that its foolish to even pay for a 4 year degree in software engineering because you are just cutting into your earnings time. The same is true for data science, many careers in healthcare, and many other knowledge based careers. The problem of course is that not everyone has an aptitude for those fields. So the people that do have an aptitude for those careers are moving up while everyone else is stuck unless they can get into a trade in the right place.

That is the problem in a nutshell, but unfortunately, there is no panacea for this. We could increase taxes substantially on the top 1%, and it doesn't fix the fact that not everyone has the aptitude for the good paying jobs our economy creates today.

 

[Surrealistik]

You are oversimplifying the problem. There is plenty of economic mobility in America, however, it is concentrated in the top 1/2. For households in the top 1/2 of the economy, there is plenty of economic mobility. This is exemplified by the fact that the upper middle class has grown immensely since the 1960s: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/09/social-mobility-upwards-decline-usa-us-america-economics/

The sheer irony of that statement is palpable.

If anyone is oversimplifying the situation, it is yourself in that you're trying so very hard to paint a picture of America as a sort of largely fair technocracy where the benefits accrue to those who deserve them by their own merits, and those who are poor likewise get what they deserve; this is clearly not the case as even a surface examination would readily determine. I assume this comes from a place of personal ancedote, but as should be obvious by now, ancedote is not evidence, and while it is tempting to the ego to believe that, as a person who has achieved some measure of success, the system is just, this is unfortunately just not true. I make six figures shuffling papers around in the real estate industry and I have no illusions about the obvious injustice of the economy, as much as it might be nice for my sense of self-worth to believe otherwise, and to otherwise fail to acknowledge the advantages that brought me to where I am.

First of all, your article clearly shows that only the upper class has made out well; the middle class has hollowed out, so when you say top 50%, it should probably read top 40% at best; the economy has absolutely left the majority of this country behind (as per your own article), which is an obvious problem. If economic mobility is stunted for the majority of the population, that is obviously a serious issue requiring remediation.

Second, you acknowledge on one hand that it is hard to get from the bottom to the top, and is a failing of the country relative to its peers, yet seem to commit to the cognitive dissonance that America performs poorly in terms of economic mobility/inequality solely on the basis of its transition to a knowledge based economy. That would be all well and good if not for the fact that other developed countries don't struggle with mobility as we do for the majority of its population despite facing the exact same challenges, and moreover don't have nearly the same issues with wealth inequality. Clearly they are doing something right that we're doing very wrong; in light of the differences, I would expect this has to do with better access to healthcare, higher education and unionization. This is not a problem of aptitude, but a lack of access to fundamentals and opportunity, either with respect to higher education, or the lead up/foundations (like basic economic security and quality primary and secondary education) thereof.

Third, your description of the forces that got us here is woefully incomplete; you fail to describe massive increases to the costs of education, housing and healthcare needed to achieve economic mobility (as your own article points out) in addition to stagnant to declining real wages for most, and the tireless crusade of corporate America against labour, unions and workers rights which have been indispensable in suppressing wages and benefits.

Obviously, I don't think tax policy alone is a silver bullet or panacea (nor does anyone else who has studied these problems at all); a more systemic and comprehensive set of reforms is required. Moreover, it absolutely ridiculous, unsupported and reductive to claim that these problems are solely or even mostly due to people lacking the aptitude and talent to realize a good standard of living. Unfortunately, the kinds of comprehensive reform that are needed are unlikely to happen, at least in the foreseeable future, in a country that has becoming increasingly plutocratized, where private campaign finance and lobbying demonstrably and substantially pervert the course of democracy and its outcomes. There are some promising developments with respect to grassroots movements revivifying unionization, but other than that, things seem pretty bleak.

 

[ALiberalModerate]

Second, you acknowledge on one hand that it is hard to get from the bottom to the top, and is a failing of the country relative to its peers, yet seem to commit to the cognitive dissonance that America performs poorly in terms of economic mobility/inequality solely on the basis of its transition to a knowledge based economy. That would be all well and good if not for the fact that other developed countries don't struggle with mobility as we do for the majority of its population despite facing the exact same challenges, and moreover don't have nearly the same issues with wealth inequality. Clearly they are doing something right that we're doing very wrong; in light of the differences, I would expect this has to do with better access to healthcare, higher education and unionization. This is not a problem of aptitude, but a lack of access to fundamentals and opportunity, either with respect to higher education, or the lead up/foundations (like basic economic security and quality primary and secondary education) thereof.

Third, your description of the forces that got us here is woefully incomplete; you fail to describe massive increases to the costs of education, housing and healthcare needed to achieve economic mobility (as your own article points out) in addition to stagnant to declining real wages for most, and the tireless crusade of corporate America against labour, unions and workers rights which have been indispensable in suppressing wages and benefits.

Obviously, I don't think tax policy alone is a silver bullet or panacea (nor does anyone else who has studied these problems at all); a more systemic and comprehensive set of reforms is required. Moreover, it absolutely ridiculous, unsupported and reductive to claim that these problems are solely or even mostly due to people lacking the aptitude and talent to realize a good standard of living. Unfortunately, the kinds of comprehensive reform that are needed are unlikely to happen, at least in the foreseeable future, in a country that has becoming increasingly plutocratized, where private campaign finance and lobbying demonstrably and substantially pervert the course of democracy and its outcomes. There are some promising developments with respect to grassroots movements revivifying unionization, but other than that, things seem pretty bleak.

Look at why the middle class has shrank, it's not because those in poverty has grown, but rather, more people are in the upper middle class than before. The upper middle class didn't grow because rich people moved into the upper middle class but rather from movement from middle class to upper middle class.

The rest of your argument is pie and the sky nonsense. Like it or not, we have the government and society that people want. Does everyone want the same thing, of course not, but in the end it's a center to center right country. Frankly, I think people are crazy for not at least wanting some sort of public health coverage for all, but they don't (if they did and it was truly a voting issue for a majority of Americans, we would have it by now) If you want the public sector to do more, you have to show the public sector is capable of doing more. For example, here in KC, we have a very popular, though not very long, modern streetcar system. They wanted to expand it by 3.5 miles. The cost, 331 million and they started on it in 2017. The expected year there will be riders on the extension, 2025. So that is 8 years and 331 million to put in 3.5 miles of additional streetcar line. This is something I was all for and still am but that is utterly ridiculous.

LA passed a bond program to build housing for the homeless. So far the cost, $600,000 per unit. The French can put subway in for nearly a tenth the cost of doing in America. I can go on and on, the point is, people will not trust the government to do anything else when their government performs this poorly.

 

[Surrealistik]

Look at why the middle class has shrank, it's not because those in poverty has grown, but rather, more people are in the upper middle class than before. The upper middle class didn't grow because rich people moved into the upper middle class but rather from movement from middle class to upper middle class.

You can attempt to conceal this core, salient fact with all the sophistry you like, but the bottom line is that the majority of the country has been left behind by its trajectory since the 80s; again, a fact your own article clearly espouses, and that America's issues with inequality and lack of economic immobility among its majority stems from its comparative deficit of quality and affordable public education and healthcare and a lack of economic security underpinned by aggressively hollowed out labour power, not some especial and inherent lack of talent among its populace, otherwise we'd be seeing many more developed countries featuring similar metrics and issues.

The rest of your argument is pie and the sky nonsense. Like it or not, we have the government and society that people want. Does everyone want the same thing, of course not, but in the end it's a center to center right country. Frankly, I think people are crazy for not at least wanting some sort of public health coverage for all, but they don't (if they did and it was truly a voting issue for a majority of Americans, we would have it by now) If you want the public sector to do more, you have to show the public sector is capable of doing more. For example, here in KC, we have a very popular, though not very long, modern streetcar system. They wanted to expand it by 3.5 miles. The cost, 331 million and they started on it in 2017. The expected year there will be riders on the extension, 2025. So that is 8 years and 331 million to put in 3.5 miles of additional streetcar line. This is something I was all for and still am but that is utterly ridiculous.

We do not in fact have the government that people want; at best it can be said we have the government the people want between two regrettable options.

More accurately, we have a government that the wealthy want, that has time and time again, and for decades, failed to deliver policy with super majority support, and there is clear academic research in support of this fact; when preferences are in conflict, the wealthy routinely win out. This should not be at all surprising when we consider the sheer explosion of money in politics since the floodgates were opened by Buckley v Valeo 76, and the insanely disproportionate returns on lobbying dollars (which is virtually proof positive of the influence of money over the political process).

The notion that the public sector is utterly incapable of running a tight and efficient ship is put to a lie by Medicare and Medicaid alone; while I'm sure you can find no lack of anecdotes of inefficient and wasteful government programs, once more, anecdote is not evidence, nevermind that there are plenty of cases to likewise cherrypick where the private sector has been egregiously inefficient or made public works more inefficient in joint ventures. To blame things such as a lack of universal healthcare and affordable university on a public perception of government waste is the absolute height of disingenuity and is totally baseless. De facto corruption is the primary obstacle to the reforms I describe, not a deficit of public will, but I certainly will agree that they are unlikely to be realized because of how deeply embedded that corruption is.

 

[Mina]

Oh please.

Ma and pa and small and medium size businesses run the gamut in terms of pay and work conditions; your anecdote is not evidence.

True. However, my anecdote is consistent with the evidence.

Obamacare's employer mandate doesn't apply to places with fewer than 50 employees:

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-qa/pages/offeringdifferentbenefitsfordifferentemployees.aspx

Some ADA rules only apply if you've got 15 or more employees:

Do Small Businesses with Fewer Than 15 Employees Have to Be ADA Compliant?

Title I of the ADA applies to businesses with 15 or more employees, sometimes leading to confusion about whether any of the ADA applies to small businesses.

www.accessibility.com

Surveys agree that typically benefits, salaries, vacation time, and opportunity for advancement are better at big employers:

Small vs. Large Employers: The Pros and Cons of Who You Work For

See what we discovered after surveying nearly 1,000 American employees about their preferences for working at big, midsize, and small employers. Is bigger always better?

www.paychex.com

Empirical studies confirm wages are better at large employers:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1925949

Similar for paid time off:

How Much Is Average PTO in the U.S.?

Between unlimited PTO and flexible vacation, our workforce sees a lot of PTO variability in 2020. So how much is average PTO for the U.S.?

www.zenefits.com

This evidence can be uncomfortable for people on the left, because there's been a decades-long focus on attacking big employers, creating an impression they're worse, when in fact they tend to be better.

If Bernie Sanders is going on about bad employer behavior, it's likely to be Amazon or Walmart, not the mom-and-pop store that pays half the wages, doesn't provide health insurance, gives employees considerably less paid time off, does less to accommodate disabled people, and offers no hope for meaningful advancement (and which, by the way, likely has all its profits go to the upper class, as compared to a publicly traded company, where dividends wind up partly in the retirement accounts of middle- and lower-class people, too). The petty little feudal lords of Main Street run entirely under his radar, even though, on average, they treat their workers a lot worse.

But even assuming it was, it's not these Ma and Pa shops that are dropping tens of millions or more on systemically destroying workers rights and unions.

They didn't have to, since unions don't even tend to form in environments with small employers, because workers are too atomized (and infiltrated with family of the owners) to organize. It's worth remembering that although there were guilds and occasional strikes in the era when nearly all employers were small employers, the modern union movement, and the big progress with things like the 8-hour day, the 5-day week, and OSHA protections, got its start when thousands of workers started to be brought under single employers, like textile mills, large scale mines, or railroads, and they had a critical mass to work with.

If the anger of the left is focused on Walmart, Amazon and Starbucks, that's probably because they deserve it, seeing as they're among the most aggressive and egregious vanguard against labour and workers rights in this country, to the point of breaking the law.

I don't think that's the main reason why it's them, and not, say, Allied Universal, which uses the same methods and also has a large workforce (much bigger than Starbucks). I think it's because they're name brands, and from the perspective of a politician, talking about companies that everyone has heard of gets more attention. As you say, they're "iconic." Maybe, from a strategic perspective that make sense -- winning a few high-profile fights against symbolically important firms and hoping that'll build momentum for a broader fight. But that's been the focus for a long time, and I'm not sure it's working.... and meanwhile, employers that, on average, treat workers a whole lot worse stay under the radar, including those exploitative mom and pop operations.

Basically, worker advocates are exhausting themselves trying to improve the already-relatively-good deal that employees at a handful of high-profile big employers are getting, and maybe that means diverting energy that could do more good for workers if it focused on getting changes in laws that would help EVERYONE, including those who can only dream right now of having a deal as good as those of Amazon and Starbucks employees. For example, how about pushing for mandatory PTO nationally, or expanding the ADA, FMLA, and affordable care, so that small employers aren't exempted? Before turning our attention to further enhancing the work experience of a relatively privileged class of workers, why not focus on helping out those who have been screwed over by the current rules that have effectively written into law the right of small employers to mistreat their workers in ways big ones can't?

 

[ALiberalModerate]

You can attempt to conceal this core, salient fact with all the sophistry you like, but the bottom line is that the majority of the country has been left behind by its trajectory since the 80s; again, a fact your own article clearly espouses, and that America's issues with inequality and lack of economic immobility among its majority stems from its comparative deficit of quality and affordable public education and healthcare and a lack of economic security underpinned by aggressively hollowed out labour power, not some especial and inherent lack of talent among its populace, otherwise we'd be seeing many more developed countries featuring similar metrics and issues.



We do not in fact have the government that people want; at best it can be said we have the government the people want between two regrettable options.

More accurately, we have a government that the wealthy want, that has time and time again, and for decades, failed to deliver policy with super majority support, and there is clear academic research in support of this fact; when preferences are in conflict, the wealthy routinely win out. This should not be at all surprising when we consider the sheer explosion of money in politics since the floodgates were opened by Buckley v Valeo 76, and the insanely disproportionate returns on lobbying dollars (which is virtually proof positive of the influence of money over the political process).

The notion that the public sector is utterly incapable of running a tight and efficient ship is put to a lie by Medicare and Medicaid alone; while I'm sure you can find no lack of anecdotes of inefficient and wasteful government programs, once more, anecdote is not evidence, nevermind that there are plenty of cases to likewise cherrypick where the private sector has been egregiously inefficient or made public works more inefficient in joint ventures. To blame things such as a lack of universal healthcare and affordable university on a public perception of government waste is the absolute height of disingenuity and is totally baseless. De facto corruption is the primary obstacle to the reforms I describe, not a deficit of public will, but I certainly will agree that they are unlikely to be realized because of how deeply embedded that corruption is.

The fact is, as a country, we are quite literally the worlds tech leader. We out compete every country on earth in tech. We have the highest paid knowledge industry jobs on earth here. The problem is, precisely because we are a knowledge economy, we have left people behind. There simply isn't an easy solution for that. Let's say you are a top tier software engineer in Canada. If you are willing to move, Canada is going to have a hard time keeping you because you can earn at least 40% more money in America. The same is true if you are one in Germany, the U.K., or even Finland (a tech country). Tech, pharmaceuticals, healthcare tech, these are the areas we outcompete the world in. Not everyone is cut out for those jobs though, that is the problem.

This notion that we could have kept more manufacturing jobs here is nonsense. Only someone that knows nothing about production and logistics makes that argument. Next time you are at a port, go look at a containership. That's why a lot of manufacturing jobs went overseas. As to housing, even with the recent huge increases in housing costs, priced per square foot, we have the cheapest homes of any modern industrialized nation on earth. You think it's expensive to buy a home here, go to Canada and try to buy a home in any major city. Go to the U.K. and try to buy a home in any major city. Go to Nordic countries and try to buy a home in any major city. You are going to be in for quite a sticker shock.

Property Prices Index by Country 2023

Property Investment Index by Country. Contains comparison of indicators for residential property investment. Apartment price to income ratio, price to rent ratio, gross rental yield, loan affrodability index, ...

www.numbeo.com

 

[Surrealistik]

This evidence can be uncomfortable for people on the left...

If Bernie Sanders is going on about bad employer behavior, it's likely to be Amazon or Walmart...

I don't find it uncomfortable at all, nor does most of the left in fact; again you are pulling turds out of your ass with the intent to discredit and belittle. As effectively stated earlier, I find it irrelevant to the actually salient point that the institutions that have been systemically destroying workers rights and unions have been big employers, which is one of the main reasons Sanders and the rest of the left focuses on them, as well the fact that unlike many ma and pa places, they can actually and easily afford to compensate their workers better. However, I am glad to see you actually try to cite sources, rather than throw out insipid anecdotes that prove nothing.

They didn't have to, since unions don't even tend to form in environments with small employers, because workers are too atomized (and infiltrated with family of the owners) to organize...

The problem with your argument here is that we're not just talking about an erosion of unions, but worker rights in general; ma and pa doesn't generally erode those, but large employers have assaulted them tirelessly, curbing safety and health regulations for the sake of being able to legally cut corners, lobbying for increased hours, employer rights at the expense of employees as per fire at will ala Florida, etc...

I don't think that's the main reason why it's them, and not, say, Allied Universal, which uses the same methods and also has a large workforce (much bigger than Starbucks)...

Amazon openly and egregiously mistreats its workers as anyone looking at its injury metrics and work conditions would notice at a glance, nevermind its underhanded union busting tactics that often run afoul of the law, so yes, as someone of the left and embedded in the left, I can say first hand, this is indeed a big factor (nevermind that Allied Universal doesn't have nearly the same footprint as Amazon and Walmart). Of course that they're iconic is a big part of it too, and the strategy does appear to be working in light of recent major wins that are snowballing into action at other locations and companies.

Basically, worker advocates are exhausting themselves trying to improve the already-relatively-good deal that employees at a handful of high-profile big employers are getting...

Ridiculous.

First of all, as the economy becomes more and more consolidated, big employers are increasingly preside over an ever larger amount of the work force; as far back as 2014, 8 years ago, small firms, the kind that would not be subject to unions, and enjoy small employer exemptions, employed a minority of workers: https://www.wsj.com/graphics/big-companies-get-bigger/

As of 2021, big employers specifically are responsible for a majority of jobs.

Second, those big employers, as stated, are instrumental in eroding worker rights generally, and not just with respect to deunionization as stated earlier; they're the ones throwing around the money and lobbying dollars.

Third, union membership is by far one of the most causal elements in determining higher compensation and benefits.

 

[Surrealistik]

The fact is, as a country, we are quite literally the worlds tech leader. We out compete every country on earth in tech. We have the highest paid knowledge industry jobs on earth here. The problem is, precisely because we are a knowledge economy, we have left people behind...

So what's your argument here exactly? That the main reason US outperforms in tech is because it economically brutalizes the majority of its population and vastly enriches the rest at their expense? Y'know as opposed to merely holding onto its massive post WW2 momentum and headstart when virtually the rest of the developed world was devastated and sustaining and snowballing this advantage? If so, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence; prove it.

The US doesn't leave people behind merely because it's a knowledge economy, again, most developed countries are at this point, and if these issues were only due to the macro-economic situation, many other countries would be in the exact same boat with similar metrics, but they're not; the theory just doesn't wash. The US leaves people behind because its institutions have failed to help its people to make that transition, and are undeveloped to realize the potential of its human capital; it leaves the majority of its population to find its way forward through increasingly inaccessible and prohibitively expensive quality education to a backdrop of the most costly and inefficient healthcare in history and economic insecurity. It's obviously much harder to earn a high paying STEM degree at a top school when you're struggling to satisfy basic necessities of life in a way you simply wouldn't in most of the rest of the developed world.

Again, you seem to desperately want to believe that the US is by and large a meritocracy where the cream invariably rises to the top, and people get what they deserve, but the facts simply don't agree, as amusing as it is to watch you perform all kinds of disingenuous mental acrobatics to dance around them. If the evidence articulates anything, it is that the US is a place of calcified advantage and deep seated economic injustice, especially when contrasted against its peers.

This notion that we could have kept more manufacturing jobs here is nonsense...

...As to housing, even with the recent huge increases in housing costs, priced per square foot, we have the cheapest homes of any modern industrialized nation on earth. You think it's expensive to buy a home here, go to Canada and try to buy a home in any major city. Go to the U.K. and try to buy a home in any major city. Go to Nordic countries and try to buy a home in any major city. You are going to be in for quite a sticker shock.

Literally no one mentioned manufacturing jobs; what's with this abrupt misdirection and nonsequitur other than trying to score a point on a front I never argued?

As to housing affordability, sure, the US isn't quite as badly off on the whole as many other wealthy countries, but that's scant praise indeed when it underperforms on virtually every other metric; my argument doesn't speak to any individual metric so much as the totality of them making it particularly difficult for most people to achieve economic mobility and realize their potential.

 

[HangLow]

Just on a side note, the NYT had an interesting article a couple days back about the role college-educated people working at places like Starbucks have had in a resurgence of unionization.

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[Surrealistik]

View attachment 67389345​

It's an interesting and unusual anti-union tactic, but workers with any kind of intelligence and foresight will understand this to be the desperate feint it is, realizing that employers go to lengths to destroy and undermine unions precisely because they ultimately champion and improves the situation of workers at the expense of the employer: if an employer offers a concession at the cost of union membership, it is obviously because they believe it'll cost them less in the long run than a union.

 

[bave]

All that wealth gain of the lower/middle class is going to evaporate in the next year or two. It will be consumed with cost of living and inflation eroding it and then the value of assets is going to come back to earth by ~20-30%. Fed bubbles are just that, bubbles.

 

[Lovebug]

A lot of news coverage has been given to the fact that in 2021 the net worth of billionaires shot up dramatically. What's been given less attention is that the net worth of poor and middle class Americans shot up even faster. Thanks to surging home values, higher stock values, and COVID rescue payments (which poorer people used to pay down massive amounts of debt), Americans saw an increase in net worth unlike anything since the Fed started tracking, and quite probably ever.

Anyway, I thought of an interesting way to visualize the change over time. Basically, take total household net worth and subtract the federal debt (so you have the net worth we'd be left with if we paid off the debt). Then divide by inflation (so that you're measuring real growth, rather than just inflated prices). Finally, divide by population (so that you're measuring per-capita growth, not just population growth). Here's what the result looks like:

View attachment 67388571

You can really see, there, how much of net worth is driven just by property values. For example, after the Q1 2007 peak, we had the housing collapse, with net worths falling dramatically and taking years to return to sustained growth.

Trump's fault.