On Sun, 14 Dec 2008 17:31:35 -0600, wrote:

On Sun, 14 Dec 2008 17:55:18 -0500, Tom Francis - SWSports wrote:

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?

2.5% annual increase in productivity isn't unusual coming out of a
recession. What is unusual, is that wages didn't increase, and this
isn't Bush bashing. The productivity/wage gap could also be seen under
Clinton.

While the top 1% still got there's, it doesn't account for all of the
difference. I would suggest we are now seeing the effects of the past 25
years of Globalization exerting it's downward pressure on wages.

Production is only one side of the marketplace paradigm. The reason this
country has been the world's marketplace, was because we had a robust
middle-class. No more.

Personally, I feel it's too late to seal our borders to imports, but, I
hope Obama has the sense to use whatever leverage we have left, to open
foreign markets. Japan, India, and China, need to know that if they want
to sell here, we have to be able to sell there. We've been giving it
away, and it's time to stop.


Now you're making good sense, and you're not quoting a Bush-bashing article
to do it.
--
John