Don White wrote:
"Tom Francis - SWSports" wrote in
message ...
On Sun, 14 Dec 2008 16:12:10 -0600, wrote:
On Sun, 14 Dec 2008 14:03:17 -0500, Tom Francis - SWSports wrote:
http://www.bls.gov/lpc/prodybar.htm
Well, that's kind of the point. What data do you trust?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Fine - but what caused the increase? Something has to change - what
was it?
Who should benefit from the obvious productivity increase - the company
or the workers?
Historically, when productivity increases, there may be a lag, but wages
also increase. What's changed?
The answer to that, is far more devastating to this country's long term
economic health, than the middle-class not getting their share.
You raise some important questions and frankly, I don't have an answer
for you - I'll admit it.
Obviously, its far to simplistic to blame the fat cats and corporate
executives. Perhaps there has been a fundamental shift in how money
is distributed, the money supply being managed - there's a whole host
of factors that could explain it, but I'm not an economist although I
do play one on TV. :)
I watch CNBC a lot - in particular the early show Squawk Box or if I'm
out and about, I listen on Sirius. When you watch two opposing sides
take the same sets of data and make them fit their own agendas and
viewpoints, you begin to wonder if anybody really and truly knows
what's going on.
Now for the really oddball opinon. I've often suspected that "real
wages" are being sucked up by government in various ways. I had an
experience Friday that floored me. I was kind of messing around in
the kitchen and I gathered up the bills for the paper pusher to
handle. I just started looking through them - there are more fees,
taxes and "adjustments' on my cable, telephone and wireless bills that
I could shake a stick at - easily adding 3-4% to the cost of the bill
and that's before sales/service taxes which add another - what, 6%?
What are all these fees/taxes/access charges doing to real wages?
What's the measure of productivity he's quoting? Per unit, per hour,
per what? I would think that if a company over 8 years increased it's
productivity by 20% (which is 2.5%/yr by the way) that's not a whole lot
considering inflation, raw material costs, etc. And if your company has
a high labor quotient to the cost of production, that's almost
negligible.
If you want to consider inflation, real wages have decreased.
Well, I think the last time I could buy a decent cigar for .75¢ was
about twenty years ago. :)
You should see my water bill. After all the extras like waste water
management and environmental protection fees aew tacked on, the basic charge
and actual usage fees (per cubic meter) triples.
Unbelievable..
Here in my county you are charged for each gallon of water coming in and
you are charged for that same gallon of water twice going out as
waste. So if you pay .10 cents for the gallon coming in you get charged
for .20 cents for the gallon going out in the sewage line. The next
logical question is why am I charged for sewage for watering my garden
and lawn? The answer is you can pay about $1000 to get a meter placed
on your sewage to meter your outgoing flow. The meter costs about $200
and you have to use the water company's licensed plumbers to install the
meter and that costs about $800. So, the grass turns brown in the summer
and the flowers die.