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Work in the Age of Anxiety-The 40 Year Slump


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2013 Nov 13, 11:46am   8,107 views  25 comments

by Robert Sproul   ➕follow (1)   💰tip   ignore  

Like to blame the boomers for milking off all the prosperity?
Here is the other side of the coin.
Most of the working folks I know have been swimming against this rip-tide their whole working life.

A good friend of mine's dad drove a truck through the 50's and 60's, and made a good living from it. My friend started driving right about 1974, when the story changed, as Meyerson describes in this article. My friends career was nothing like his dad's who had a Cadillac Car and a tight 3/2, with pool, in our little Central Valley town.
My pal worked all the same hours, but slowly fell behind as his wages never remotely kept up with inflation.
Truck driving went from a proud working man's occupation to a sweatshop on wheels. Declining wage, no benefits, no pension.

http://prospect.org/article/40-year-slump

"…….in 1974. Hardly anyone paid attention to a story that seemed no more than a statistical oddity: That year, for the first time since the end of World War II, Americans’ wages declined."

And never stopped.

Comments 1 - 25 of 25        Search these comments

1   freak80   2013 Nov 13, 12:26pm  

In a globalized economy, everyone makes Bangladesh wages.*

*except for the protected banking class

2   anonymous   2013 Nov 13, 1:24pm  

It seems like the corporate jobs will generally be fine, but it's the blue-collar-type jobs that are either being off-shored or automated. However, we've ended up with cheaper prices (like from Walmart) as companies have perfected cheap production and efficient supply chains, so we have to remember that there's a benefit to the consumer if blue-collar labor is cheaper and/or done by machines.

3   everything   2013 Nov 13, 2:34pm  

Cheaper prices, bah, they sell us crap, cheap production is right. Quite a few jobs these days in making the machines, softwares (programming the machine), cleaning up after the machine (renewable or alternative energies), but as always still keeping heading towards that push button lifestyle, thank you Zenith.

4   Blurtman   2013 Nov 13, 2:39pm  

Great story.

5   Robert Sproul   2013 Nov 13, 11:43pm  

freak80 says

In a globalized economy, everyone makes Bangladesh wages.*

My observation is that for the fist 30 years, at least, of this wage repression, the people working harder for less had no idea what was happening to them.
They thought it was their failing. That made them an easy mark for those selling credit to make up for shortfalls in funding their dreams.
Borrowing money on revolving terms to buy disposable landfill fodder, or at the end borrowing to pay the cable bill.

6   Shaman   2013 Nov 13, 11:55pm  

The cheap production has done great things for masking the declining wages. If the electric drill that cost $120 in 1980 now costs $75, it's hard for workers to draw a true comparison. And since the truest markers of inflation (housing, fuel, food) are deliberately excluded from inflation calculations, the picture is further occluded. Production costs drop as factory jobs are outsourced. Workers wages are cut from $25/hour to $12/hour, but since they can afford that $40 coffee maker with all the bells and whistles, they still get by, meanwhile gas prices have quadrupled, instead of owning a home they now pay two or three times as much to rent an apartment, and they can only afford to eat ramen.
That's the lie of inflation that our wonderful government has sold us.

7   Blurtman   2013 Nov 13, 11:59pm  

And so what does GDP really mean, when it can be rising when the standard of living is falling?

8   everything   2013 Nov 14, 12:09am  

Government is the bubble now, the biggest spender, and creator of fiat.
Read in between the lines here. Health care is in a monopoly as well. My wages have been frozen for 6 years, my nurse friend who started out at the same wage I did 12 years ago, makes over double what I do now.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/11/14/usa-fed-qe-effects-idINDEE9AD00120131114

9   MisdemeanorRebel   2013 Nov 14, 12:12am  

Quigley says

he cheap production has done great things for masking the declining wages. If the electric drill that cost $120 in 1980 now costs $75, it's hard for workers to draw a true comparison. And since the truest markers of inflation (housing, fuel, food) are deliberately excluded from inflation calculations, the picture is further occluded.

Yep, 1980 Glendale, you could rent for a couple of hundred. Today, you're looking at well over $1000.

10   SJ   2013 Nov 14, 12:14am  

Actually millions of once high wage STEM jobs have been outsourced, offshored and lost to cheap H1b coolie labor from India, China and Eastern Europe. So no, it is all jobs affected not just blue color. Americans are getting the shaft from both ends by large multinational corps, the government and the banks. A triple fucking if you think about it!

11   anonymous   2013 Nov 14, 12:20am  

SJ says

Actually millions of once high wage STEM jobs have been outsourced, offshored and lost to cheap H1b coolie labor from India, China and Eastern Europe. So no, it is all jobs affected not just blue color. Americans are getting the shaft from both ends by large multinational corps, the government and the banks. A triple fucking if you think about it!

That's true. Computer programmers are a good example.

12   anonymous   2013 Nov 14, 12:26am  

Blurtman says

And so what does GDP really mean, when it can be rising when the standard of living is falling?

Gross domestic product = how high can we bid up real estate (how poor can we make ourselves)

13   Robert Sproul   2013 Nov 14, 12:29am  

This guy thinks, "White-collar workers to become 'new poor’ as computers take over".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/10448086/White-collar-workers-to-become-new-poor-as-computers-take-over.html

14   HEY YOU   2013 Nov 14, 12:52am  

The only solution is to keep voting Rep/Dem!

"The poor shall be with you always." To bad you will end up poor.

Sheeple Assholes

One more time.

http://shoqvalue.com/george-carlin-on-the-american-dream-with-transcript/

15   Entitlemented   2013 Nov 14, 3:06am  

SJ says

Actually millions of once high wage STEM jobs have been outsourced, offshored and lost to cheap H1b coolie labor from India, China and Eastern Europe. So no, it is all jobs affected not just blue color. Americans are getting the shaft from both ends by large multinational corps, the government and the banks. A triple fucking if you think about it!

I work with many good foreign born engineers, and its with sadness in my heart that they are often more intelligent, rational, and dedicated than many US born "locals". heres what they do when the study in the USA:
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304868404579190062164404756

16   Reality   2013 Nov 14, 3:48am  

The article made a very good choice in focusing on the trucking industry for the study. It was not an industry facing outsourced competition in the past 40 years. In fact, outsourcing would benefit trucking and shipping as more goods would have to be moved around. Yet, the pay in the trucking industry also declined.

It is proof that outsourcing and foreign competition in the form of less expensive goods and services are not the source of the problem. In fact, lower prices enabled by the less expensive imported goods is what has kept the trucker's purchasing power from declining more than it would have otherwise.

The real profligates that have been eating everyone else' lunch are the government enforced monopolies: the multiplying government bureaucrats themselves, the banksters running the central banking bureaucracy, the medical-insurance bureaucracy, the education-financing bureaucracy . . . Jobs in those "industries"/monopolies have mushroomed. All those high paying jobs (high pay not due to consumer choice but due to government coercion) have to be paid by the average American workers, such as that truck driver, at gun point! The average American worker has literally been robbed!

17   MisdemeanorRebel   2013 Nov 14, 4:27am  

Robert Sproul says

This guy thinks, "White-collar workers to become 'new poor’ as computers take over".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/10448086/White-collar-workers-to-become-new-poor-as-computers-take-over.html

Yeah Robert.

Anywhere you look - Nursing, Software Development, etc. You see a "Middling Out". The Middle Positions are being eliminated, replaced by a few managerial/highly technical positions at the top of the scale, and a host of "Flexible" (ie Intermittent) Low-wage, low-skill, no chance of climbing the ladder jobs at the bottom.

The bottom jobs aren't even lower Middle Class, because they're contract or temporary positions that don't even provide crap pay month after month - only for a few months at a time.

18   anonymous   2013 Nov 14, 4:32am  

Robert Sproul says

This guy thinks, "White-collar workers to become 'new poor’ as computers take over".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/10448086/White-collar-workers-to-become-new-poor-as-computers-take-over.html

I get what he's saying, but what's the alternative? I don't think any of us want efficiency and productivity in our corporations to drop by using humans instead of machines that can do it cheaper, better and faster.

Should we force population control (like China does) since we're just running out of jobs? We can't have a nation where 90% of the population just doesn't work and we simply redistribute to them the wealth of the 10%. What's the solution?

19   MisdemeanorRebel   2013 Nov 14, 4:49am  

debyne says

I get what he's saying, but what's the alternative?

The basic income. Or, 25 hours a week at same pay.

We should definitely start taxing the shit out of people who have more than 2 children, and mandating sterilization for those who have 2 or more children, and have been on lifetime welfare with little to no employment history, in order to continue to receive benefits. There simply isn't a need for an expanding population, given global warming and high worldwide unemployment. 2 is the replacement rate (though in reality, because of accidents and voluntary childlessness, it'll be a slight, steady decline.)

If you have 2 children, you've exercised your right to reproduce.

We can't have a nation where 90% of the population just doesn't work and we simply redistribute to them the wealth of the 10%. What's the solution?

Why can't we? Humans have had chiefs who took in all the wealth, just to distribute it back out. These societies lasted for millenium, and possibly even tens of thousands of years.

Enjoy a Potlach!

Can't be any worse than having 1% of the population taking the wealth produced by 99% of it.

What do the Walton heirs do for society? Do they invent better lightbulbs or something?

20   anonymous   2013 Nov 14, 4:58am  

thunderlips11 says

Why can't we? Humans have had chiefs who took in all the wealth, just to distribute it back out. These societies lasted for millenium, and possibly even tens of thousands of years.

Enjoy a Potlach!

Can't be any worse than having 1% of the population taking the wealth produced by 99% of it.

What do the Walton heirs do for society? Do they invent better lightbulbs or something?

My point is redistribution to people who don't do anything...who don't have jobs because there are none. We'll just have a nation of people sitting around collecting paychecks and living comfortably...I guess that concept is foreign to me, but maybe we'll eventually get so much production out of so little labor that most of the population will just be retired while machines do everything.

21   MisdemeanorRebel   2013 Nov 14, 5:01am  

debyne says

My point is redistribution to people who don't do anything...who don't have jobs because there are none. We'll just have a nation of people sitting around collecting paychecks and living comfortably...I guess that concept is foreign to me, but maybe we'll eventually get so much production out of so little labor that most of the population will just be retired while machines do everything.

Well, debyne, what's the point of all this efficiency?

What's the point of railroads, logistics management systems, the internet, etc. if not to reduce labor hours while providing a better standard of living?

If you think of all the amazing technologies over the past 30-40 years, the real question is, how come the hours aren't reduced AND the wages increase? For Joe Schmoe, the PPP is the same, the work less skilled (thus less mobility), and the hours the same.

The reason is that society is set up to over-reward the people who control abstract wealth. It might be time to examine a new paradigm of greatly reduced work for all.

22   anonymous   2013 Nov 14, 5:09am  

thunderlips11 says

If you think of all the amazing technologies over the past 30-40 years, the real question is, how come the hours aren't reduced AND the wages increase? For Joe Schmoe, the PPP is the same, the work less skilled (thus less mobility), and the hours the same.

The reason is that society is set up to over-reward the people who control abstract wealth. It might be time to examine a new paradigm of greatly reduced work for all.

I had never thought of it that way.

Then who am I? Why am I here? How do I vote now? Damn, I gotta go see a shrink.

I have to say my philosophy has been affected just now.

23   Robert Sproul   2013 Nov 14, 5:45am  

debyne says

using humans instead of machines that can do it cheaper, better and faster.

There is much more that i don't know, than what I do know, about our ludicrously complex world, but this always makes me think: voicemail.

Better; fuck no. Cheaper; I guess. If ALL you count is money. Faster; fuck no.

Very simplistic I am sure, but what other systems have been completely taken over in the same manner, with much the same results.
Many of you will know much better than I.

(Edit; what I am referring to here is the lunacy you get when you call Comcast, not personal v-mail.)

24   anonymous   2013 Nov 14, 5:48am  

Robert Sproul says

debyne says

using humans instead of machines that can do it cheaper, better and faster.

There is much more that i don't know, than what I do know, about our ludicrously complex world, but this always makes me think: voicemail.

Better; fuck no. Cheaper; I guess. If ALL you count is money. Faster; fuck no.

Very simplistic I am sure, but what other systems have been completely taken over in the same manner, with much the same results.

Many of you will know much better than I.

I'm sure there's numerous cases where machines haven't adequately been able to replace humans, but machines are only going to get better and smarter.

I'm seeing automation take over even in my own team where we're going to use technology to basically eliminate a lot of the problems we have to deal with as a result of human error. The trend will only continue.

25   Shaman   2013 Nov 14, 6:51am  

debyne says

Robert Sproul says

This guy thinks, "White-collar workers to become 'new poor’ as computers take over".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/10448086/White-collar-workers-to-become-new-poor-as-computers-take-over.html

I get what he's saying, but what's the alternative? I don't think any of us want efficiency and productivity in our corporations to drop by using humans instead of machines that can do it cheaper, better and faster.

Should we force population control (like China does) since we're just running out of jobs? We can't have a nation where 90% of the population just doesn't work and we simply redistribute to them the wealth of the 10%. What's the solution?

Who the duck do you think will buy your widgets if you reduce everyone but the plutocrats to poverty by eliminating all non managerial jobs? Where will you get your consumers?
Case in point: China. For decades they've needed to markets in the West to sell their manufactured goods. Why? Because their people were poor and had no money! Most still are in this sad situation, and a 370 million person market in the USA is four times as strong as their domestic market of 1.2 billion! It's only recently, as an upper middle class has arisen in china, that they have a domestic market!
Does this teach you nothing? How about a quote from the guy who invented the assembly line:
"The first rule of the industrialist is this: make the best product possible at the lowest cost possible paying the greatest wage possible." Henry Ford

If the workers can afford the products, you create both supply and demand, and this is replicated throughout the economy. If you eliminate workers or drop their wages to penury, you destroy your market.
DUH!

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