On 27-Sep-2010, bpuharic wrote:

- automation, imported cheaper materials and robotics
accellerate productivity. Output of labor has declined due to automation,
but the yield is of higher quality.

you can have EITHER a capital intensive economy OR a labor intensive
economy. you can not have both. we had full employment a few years
back remember? and we STILL had NO wage increases. we had 28%
increase in producdtivity in the last 10 years and STILL no wage
increases while the wealthly went up.

why only in the US?

For much of this period Canada took it in the ass like companies did in your
country. It has improved faster in Canada, but will not return to 2000 to
2004 levels.

Full employment of minimum wage clerks (crap wages, not the artificial and
destructive statute minimum wage) is fine for the equivalent lifestyle. The
previous subject was the middle class. Wages stagnated and decreased due to
a tremendous decrease in demand for everything from design and engineering
to factory labor. I had a machine department manager that offered to take
the job at the same rate I paid my secretary 18 years prior. Why? The
market sets the price of wages. Always. If you aren't needed, why would you
be paid more, or be employed at all? What I'm explaining is visible to the
naked eye, it has nothing to do with the idiocy of political superstitions
or the bedwetters you stare slack jawed at on television. I detect YOU
haven't had a wage increase either. You're in the wrong country.