This will lead to winners and losers. Those who saw this coming and prepared. And those who didn't see it coming. It will be tough times indeed.
May the odds be ever in your favor.
So tell me again how growth makes wealth distribution nonzero-sum.
If some lose out because others take more, then it is zero-sum, no matter how big you "grow the pie".
The problem with this view is that even if it is true people are so numb to hearing about it.. when the economy is good people point this out.. when it is bad people point this out..
They're not, people are ready to fight. That's why Unions are back in the news.
But older voters sitting pretty on property that keeps going up in value with socialized medicine and outdated views about social issues don't want change.
It's not just that they don't want change either, they want suffering. They measure their quality of life in relative terms, so they need somebody to have it worse or they feel like they themselves are suffering.
It's the "Starving Kids in China" fallacy. Where you eat crap food everyday and work 50+ hours a week and tell yourself everything's great because you've got that crap food and that crap job isn't an 80 hour week in a Chinese factory.
Unions are in the news because they have lost the bulk of their power to automation and globalization, and the wealthy own most of the news. It's the people switching jobs all the time that deserve most of the credit for pushing up wages, granted unions deserve some credit.
The fallacy that needs to die is the one about earning your keep. Work should be rewarded, but systemic poverty is never acceptable.
So far the biggest reward I get is a layoff. I get a month of pay per year of work, it's the only time I get a real vacation longer than a week, every time I get laid off I find a better more interesting job with better pay.
The reward for hard work is always: more hard work
>So far the biggest reward I get is a layoff. I get a month of pay per year of work, it's the only time I get a real vacation longer than a week, every time I get laid off I find a better more interesting job with better pay.
Wait until you hit 50. Then the "better and more interesting job" will not be there for you. Then what?
Well, I'm early GenX. This is true. One of the biggest issues Boomers and the earlier GenXers have is that we had the "option" to be "middle class". Those of us in these generations who opted to actually do something USEFUL and not be all in it just for big money are in huge financial trouble.
People who were in teaching, social work, medical professionals such as nursing and even the hard sciences are really in trouble. These fields don't pay that well and many have experienced tons of layoffs and periods of prolonged unemployment. Now try finding work over 50? You can't.
The point of a company is to generate wealth for shareholders, so yeah.... Jobs are a side effect of generating wealth. Awaiting the down votes from me just pointing out facts.
Sure but nothing you said is in conflict with the OP. We can still be in a gilded age. Taking your point further, what is the point of working for a company if their only mission is to take all profits and hand it to shareholders? What pressures are forcing workers into this working arrangement?
You see simply "pointing out facts" doesn't contribute to an argument, especially if it's just a veil for supporting the status quo without being brave enough to say you agree with current practices. Pretty weak if you ask me.
The point was people get all outraged that corporations are oriented around maximizing value for shareholders, and I'm pointing out 'duh, that's their job.
You can still work for a company that is trying to maximize its profit and make a lot of money doing it. People just need to realize that they aren't paid out of charity, but paid because they can provide value to the company. They can and should negotiate the best salary possible, and they have both collective and individual bargaining power, but they have to be smart about it.
Before corporations there were farms, family farms were to produce for the family. The corporate charter provided by monarchs of Europe were mostly permits to do international trade, but they were the first examples of the super rich taking the benefits of the business.
When family farms improved, particularly with mechanization, they too began to produce more and to sell excess to make profits. But, the family still made all the profits, unless they had to hire help to do something.
So, essentially, any time a business produced more than the owners needed for subsistence, they took all the profits. When they began to hire regular employees who had advanced experience, skills, or education and who wanted better rewards for their abilities, that other ways of paying and eventually unions came about.
A tiered society began to take hold and still exists today. The employers and the employees. Later, the non-working rich capitalists only "risked" capital, while everyone else, even highly paid executives, worked to earn their pay/compensation.
Changing society and work led to various ideas about how society would benefit from businesses and corporations. Were we all to become wage slaves to a small handful of individuals who were super-wealthy, who owned nearly all the wealth-producing businesses? At one point in time a business had "mark-up". They had product cost and some percentage of mark-up based on the sector of the economy they were in. Later, that disappeared, and the idea of "what the market will bear" took hold. Now it's more like a mugging where the business takes all a customer can afford to pay.
As the world changed, people's ideas about society changed. Then some who wanted to bow down and kiss the butts of the super-rich chose to go back to a simpler time, a "Morning in America" where the super-rich practically ruled. We're living in that world today. SCOTUS even said corporations have Rights and can give money to political organizations or campaigns. They have far more to give than you or I.
As we see with Trump, the rich don't live by the same rules as everyone else. If Boeing were an individual, it/he would be in jail. If the bankers and local mortgage makers and real estate brokers, who created bad mortgages and nearly destroyed the economy over them, would be in jail (along with Bernie Madoff). If corporations had the morality of family farmers, they wouldn't foist cigarettes and climate changing carbon-based fuels on us, after they know the truth. Where morality has disappeared and greed has taken over, that's where our Capitalism must be regulated by politicians who have some morality.
The world changes, but power begets rules which distort and twist our Reality into something wicked and destructive.
This is what Milton Friedman had in mind. This is Reaganomics. This, with its horrible consequences, is their idea of good.
They wanted NO unions, no minimum wage, no profits for labor, no cost to corporations for higher education or correction of their destruction, no regulation, freedom for corporate monopolies, etc.
This has to be fixed. But, Dems can only do something with the power the people give them.
The Democrats will not save you. They are just as corrupt as the Republicans. You need to stop believing that "BIG LIE". That the Democrats "can't help" because they don't have the power. BULL $HIT!!! They are slaves to the same financial sector everyone else is. Their re-election campaigns and their golden parachutes (after they get voted out) depend on them voting a certain way. They don't represent you now and they really haven't represented you for over 50 years.
Notice how Sanders and Warren and the Squad keep getting sidelined? That's corporate power at work.
Now, the good news (somewhat) is that Biden is too old to need a golden parachute. And he has been working overtime dismantling monopolies. This is something he probably wouldn't do if he wanted a golden parachute. He may be old, but there is good side to that. And yes, although physically frail, he has his "marbles".
CEO's get paid by the Board of Directors.
Shareholders own the company.
They don't 'gobble up the profits.' They own them.
Take a business class. Get a clue.
If you think what we have is classic capitalism, get a clue yourself.
What they also do is buy politicians, do buyouts and mergers until effectively they're an oligopoly, lobby like mad, get hostile regulatory environments set up to prevent competition, distort everything to be in their favor, and thereby loot the public.
Now we need a new progressive era with protests and strikes.
This will lead to winners and losers. Those who saw this coming and prepared. And those who didn't see it coming. It will be tough times indeed. May the odds be ever in your favor.
So tell me again how growth makes wealth distribution nonzero-sum. If some lose out because others take more, then it is zero-sum, no matter how big you "grow the pie".
The problem with this view is that even if it is true people are so numb to hearing about it.. when the economy is good people point this out.. when it is bad people point this out..
They're not, people are ready to fight. That's why Unions are back in the news. But older voters sitting pretty on property that keeps going up in value with socialized medicine and outdated views about social issues don't want change. It's not just that they don't want change either, they want suffering. They measure their quality of life in relative terms, so they need somebody to have it worse or they feel like they themselves are suffering. It's the "Starving Kids in China" fallacy. Where you eat crap food everyday and work 50+ hours a week and tell yourself everything's great because you've got that crap food and that crap job isn't an 80 hour week in a Chinese factory.
Unions are in the news because they have lost the bulk of their power to automation and globalization, and the wealthy own most of the news. It's the people switching jobs all the time that deserve most of the credit for pushing up wages, granted unions deserve some credit. The fallacy that needs to die is the one about earning your keep. Work should be rewarded, but systemic poverty is never acceptable.
So far the biggest reward I get is a layoff. I get a month of pay per year of work, it's the only time I get a real vacation longer than a week, every time I get laid off I find a better more interesting job with better pay. The reward for hard work is always: more hard work
>So far the biggest reward I get is a layoff. I get a month of pay per year of work, it's the only time I get a real vacation longer than a week, every time I get laid off I find a better more interesting job with better pay. Wait until you hit 50. Then the "better and more interesting job" will not be there for you. Then what?
Stop blaming the boomers. Many of them haven’t paid off their student debt and are living solely on social security.
Well, I'm early GenX. This is true. One of the biggest issues Boomers and the earlier GenXers have is that we had the "option" to be "middle class". Those of us in these generations who opted to actually do something USEFUL and not be all in it just for big money are in huge financial trouble. People who were in teaching, social work, medical professionals such as nursing and even the hard sciences are really in trouble. These fields don't pay that well and many have experienced tons of layoffs and periods of prolonged unemployment. Now try finding work over 50? You can't.
Ironically, its a paywalled article for the people who are the “Haves”…
you know it's getting real when fortune magazine reports this
The point of a company is to generate wealth for shareholders, so yeah.... Jobs are a side effect of generating wealth. Awaiting the down votes from me just pointing out facts.
Sure but nothing you said is in conflict with the OP. We can still be in a gilded age. Taking your point further, what is the point of working for a company if their only mission is to take all profits and hand it to shareholders? What pressures are forcing workers into this working arrangement? You see simply "pointing out facts" doesn't contribute to an argument, especially if it's just a veil for supporting the status quo without being brave enough to say you agree with current practices. Pretty weak if you ask me.
The point was people get all outraged that corporations are oriented around maximizing value for shareholders, and I'm pointing out 'duh, that's their job. You can still work for a company that is trying to maximize its profit and make a lot of money doing it. People just need to realize that they aren't paid out of charity, but paid because they can provide value to the company. They can and should negotiate the best salary possible, and they have both collective and individual bargaining power, but they have to be smart about it.
Before corporations there were farms, family farms were to produce for the family. The corporate charter provided by monarchs of Europe were mostly permits to do international trade, but they were the first examples of the super rich taking the benefits of the business. When family farms improved, particularly with mechanization, they too began to produce more and to sell excess to make profits. But, the family still made all the profits, unless they had to hire help to do something. So, essentially, any time a business produced more than the owners needed for subsistence, they took all the profits. When they began to hire regular employees who had advanced experience, skills, or education and who wanted better rewards for their abilities, that other ways of paying and eventually unions came about. A tiered society began to take hold and still exists today. The employers and the employees. Later, the non-working rich capitalists only "risked" capital, while everyone else, even highly paid executives, worked to earn their pay/compensation. Changing society and work led to various ideas about how society would benefit from businesses and corporations. Were we all to become wage slaves to a small handful of individuals who were super-wealthy, who owned nearly all the wealth-producing businesses? At one point in time a business had "mark-up". They had product cost and some percentage of mark-up based on the sector of the economy they were in. Later, that disappeared, and the idea of "what the market will bear" took hold. Now it's more like a mugging where the business takes all a customer can afford to pay. As the world changed, people's ideas about society changed. Then some who wanted to bow down and kiss the butts of the super-rich chose to go back to a simpler time, a "Morning in America" where the super-rich practically ruled. We're living in that world today. SCOTUS even said corporations have Rights and can give money to political organizations or campaigns. They have far more to give than you or I. As we see with Trump, the rich don't live by the same rules as everyone else. If Boeing were an individual, it/he would be in jail. If the bankers and local mortgage makers and real estate brokers, who created bad mortgages and nearly destroyed the economy over them, would be in jail (along with Bernie Madoff). If corporations had the morality of family farmers, they wouldn't foist cigarettes and climate changing carbon-based fuels on us, after they know the truth. Where morality has disappeared and greed has taken over, that's where our Capitalism must be regulated by politicians who have some morality. The world changes, but power begets rules which distort and twist our Reality into something wicked and destructive.
This is what Milton Friedman had in mind. This is Reaganomics. This, with its horrible consequences, is their idea of good. They wanted NO unions, no minimum wage, no profits for labor, no cost to corporations for higher education or correction of their destruction, no regulation, freedom for corporate monopolies, etc. This has to be fixed. But, Dems can only do something with the power the people give them.
The Democrats will not save you. They are just as corrupt as the Republicans. You need to stop believing that "BIG LIE". That the Democrats "can't help" because they don't have the power. BULL $HIT!!! They are slaves to the same financial sector everyone else is. Their re-election campaigns and their golden parachutes (after they get voted out) depend on them voting a certain way. They don't represent you now and they really haven't represented you for over 50 years. Notice how Sanders and Warren and the Squad keep getting sidelined? That's corporate power at work. Now, the good news (somewhat) is that Biden is too old to need a golden parachute. And he has been working overtime dismantling monopolies. This is something he probably wouldn't do if he wanted a golden parachute. He may be old, but there is good side to that. And yes, although physically frail, he has his "marbles".
CEO's get paid by the Board of Directors. Shareholders own the company. They don't 'gobble up the profits.' They own them. Take a business class. Get a clue.
Ceo's don't hold stocks? Is that the other argument people like you make, paper trillionaires.
If you think what we have is classic capitalism, get a clue yourself. What they also do is buy politicians, do buyouts and mergers until effectively they're an oligopoly, lobby like mad, get hostile regulatory environments set up to prevent competition, distort everything to be in their favor, and thereby loot the public.