We had such an enlightenment today reading Robert Raise wages, improve working conditions, and Americans Last September, Robert Gordon and Ian Dew-Becker, economists from Northwestern They found that nearly all of it had gone to the richest 10 percent of So if we had a distribution of income more like the one that prevailed from Boston Globe Op-ed page<\/a><\/p>\n So that’s how come real wages have been stagnant Where did all of that increased productivity The fact that American business as a whole has been Meanwhile, big business has just abut bought or This devaluation of honest working class jobs, leads Although we recognize the centrality of Economics in any understanding of the modern world we live in, and have in fact taken several courses in the material,many of the economic phenomena we observe first hand remain absolute mysteries until explained … Continue reading ![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/daylabo.jpg\")
Although we recognize the centrality of Economics
\n in any understanding of the modern world we live in, and have in fact
\n taken several courses in the material,many of the economic phenomena
\n we observe first hand remain absolute mysteries until explained by
\n someone with a stronger knowledge background and a knack for explaining
\n things to knuckleheads like the Dowbrigade.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n Kuttener’s column in the Boston Globe about the millions of jobs immigrants
\n are taking because supposedly Americans aren’t interested in them.
\n He maintains that the reason they aren’t interested is that the jobs
\n suck unnecessarily:<\/em><\/p>\n
\n will materialize. But won’t that be inflationary? Here are some statistics
\n that suggest it needn’t.<\/p>\n
\n University, observed that productivity and per-capita GDP had roughly
\n doubled in three decades, while median wages had hardly budged. So they
\n conducted a study titled “Where Did All the Productivity Go?"<\/p>\n
\n the population, and the most extreme gains to the richest 1 percent,
\n who now have a share of national income equal to the bottom 50 percent.
\n The people who really made out were the top one- 10th of 1 percent —
\n one American in 1,000.<\/p>\n
\n in 1966, when chief executives made "only" 60 times what a
\n normal worker made instead of 600 times, we could raise the wages of
\n ordinary
\n people without adding to the nation’s overall wage bill.<\/p>\n
\n for the last 30 years and families now have to work 50% more hours
\n to stay
\n in the middle class! Productivity has DOUBLED, meaning a worker nearing
\n retirement is producing twice as much as he or she was when they started,
\n but still getting paid the same crummy wage.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n go? During the past three decades, as the worker’s slice of the pie stayed
\n the same, 100% of the benefits of the growth in productivity went to
\n owners, investors and top managers.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n able to get away with this boondoggle is directly related to the decline
\n of the American labor movement. Organized labor is the only practical
\n counterbalance to the greed of Ivy league executives and their legions
\n of highly educated lackeys, but because of scandal, corruption and disinterest
\n American labor as currently constituted has largely betrayed and abandoned
\n those it should be representing.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n co-opted every important politician in all three branches of government,
\n facilitating
\n the rip off of America’s workers and the concentration of the resulting
\n concentration of profits in the bank accounts of the richest fraction
\n of a percent of Americans.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n to the twin cancers of a large, non-productive underclass of
\n poor minority
\n citizens,
\n and
\n an
\n indigestible army of alienated illegal immigrants working in illegal
\n conditions for illegal wages. It does a tremendous disservice to the
\n millions of ordinary men and women who keep this country going, and represent
\n everything that is worth saving about this poor beleaguered land.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"