Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Eating Their Dust, the 1% Pull Away

If we go back 38 years to 1980 — an entire lifetime of work — we find real (adjusted for official inflation, which seriously understates big-ticket expenses such as rent, healthcare and college tuition/fees) wages have notched higher by $10/week — a gain of $500 annually.

Read more: https://dailyreckoning.com/pie-shrinking-99/

This ties in with LBD's questions about the future where labor is devalued relative to capital. 

57 comments:

Unknown said...

The people joining the military out of high school have no memory of 9-11-2001. They have never known a budget surplus or a growing middle class. I don't think their expectations of the future are the same as their grandparents.

Rob Dawg said...

There's a wave coming. Surf or get churned and spit out.

LBD said...

If Americans where taught a realistic truth the good days where post WWII and the decline started in the early 60's. The world was beat down and we where the only industrial country left standing. We where broke by the 70's when we left the gold back currency. Simple inflation chart shows the mass production of credit money which ended up supplementing income. When this fails then what?

I was amazed that Detroit wasn't burnt to the ground when the car companies failed. This example tells me that welfare supplements where able to cover the retaliation. Now low wage earners get food stamps, wic, rent and utilities assistance. Well on our way to supplying an income to all the workers with out jobs. Where does the tax money come from? VAT on everything purchased. Loop complete with out jobs. Crazy and so glad I'm old.

Rob Dawg said...

We are sneaking up on guaranteed minimum payments.

VATs are fine as long as they are instead of not in addition to existing taxes.

LBD said...

If you don't have a job then who cares about taxes? New world and a new life style where the ones on the bottom won't need to compete with the upper class and the upper class has no fear of losing to the lower class. Strange new world, where will your kids be when the cut comes? We gave ours the tools and will they will get the $ to make it if they see it coming and are wise.

Lawyerliz said...

I think the black and grey markets Are far, far larger tha n anyone Estimates. For as example Christmas tips, anyone report then? Or money ha dead to the cleaning lady, not to speak of entire businesses conducted under the table.

Lawyerliz said...

Cubans do that a lot.

Lawyerliz said...

Well, if fish fly, build we tax the too 2% heavily?

Lawyerliz said...

Can we
Or 3%?

Firemane said...

The question is really not how much grey market activity is not picked up in official numbers. The important question is "is that number relatively stable, or is it trending up or down?"

But, while asking the question is valid - and it can have ramifications on official statistics ... the truth is, even in cases where we know without question that a migration is occurring, historically we ignore it and pretend whatever economic number we are following at the time is 'the same' as previously.

Take Participation Rate. From 1950-2000, female participation went from about 30% to about 60%. It doubled. This was a cultural change from Housewife to SoccerMom -- but every economist out there continues to treat the steady increase of participation from 1950-2000 as an "economic" phenomenon. (Ignoring that from 1950-2000 male participation was steadily going down).

One needs to be on the lookout for impacts that are not captured in the data (though most of those aren't in the data because they are HARD to capture) - but that's a quantum leap when brutally obvious changes are blithely ignored that can be easily quantified or already are in the data - but ignored.

Lawyerliz said...

Can we count our houses forwealth?

Lawyerliz said...

Well black not people aren't standing around waving flags.

Lawyerliz said...

Market dyac.

Cinco-X said...

http://www.businessinsider.com/florida-high-school-shooting-coral-springs-2018-2

LBD said...

Another sad day. :(

Unknown said...

"I was amazed that Detroit wasn't burnt to the ground when the car companies failed."

Detroit failed and the Bronx burned to the ground.

I saw a beautiful photo essay of the abandoned Packard plant in Detroit. Full grown trees in the middle of rusting machinery.

Lawyerliz said...

I think if my kids were school age, I would seriously consider not sending them to school, and home schooling. It's too dangerous.
It's also too dangerous too expel a student without arranging some sort of help foot him.

Lawyerliz said...

Why didn't anyone want the metal for scrap. Was it too much trouble even to steal it?

Lawyerliz said...

For him

Lawyerliz said...

Guns. Make me sad.p

LBD said...

I still think private schools would be a safe alternative. They are smaller and can easily expel kids with signs of trouble. This kid looks like once again has a very troubling history.

Lawyerliz said...

I saw one of those that showed all sorts of.formerly beautiful places in Detroit, just abandoned. Some things, even now, could be restored, if anyone was interested

Lawyerliz said...

And everybody should just ignore the troubled expellee?

Lawyerliz said...

This kid was not a part of a well ordered militia, by the way.

Lawyerliz said...

The school is called Margerie Stoneman Douglas who is famed for trying to save the Everglades and lived to be around 100. That her name should be bewitched makes me extra sad, because people in the rest of the country have likely never heard of her.

Lawyerliz said...

Besmirched dyac!!

Lawyerliz said...

Fannie and Freddie have repaid their bailout money and then some. I why shouldn't they be sold now? Old share owners should get a slight discount

Lawyerliz said...

If we are going to keep destroying our children, we need to produce more or let more in.

Cinco-X said...

Packard went under just about the time I was born. You could grow a pretty sizeable oak in that timeframe

Lawyerliz said...

Good nite

Lawyerliz said...

Good morning.

Rob Dawg said...

Hi Liz. I’m up early between needy kittehs and checking the markets. Inflation heating up and equities ready for another up day. Amazon now worth more than Microsoft.

Unknown said...

which one has brought more value to the world?

LBD said...

Good Morning!

Difficult to answer. Could Amazon exist with out the technology Microsoft created or advanced. Amazon is leaving a trail of failing retailers and lost jobs but is proving better cost savings to everyone. Value will be in the eyes of the beholder. IMO

Lawyerliz said...

Always

Lawyerliz said...

Anybody want to guess at the yield on the 10 year say, 2 months from now?

Rob Dawg said...

10y Apr 2,94

Lawyerliz said...

Anybody want to post anything about anything.

TJandTheBear said...

Rob, SMLL,

I've always thought that VATs were massively anti-small business.

Large companies can avoid VAT-associated bureaucracy altogether by in-sourcing intermediate processes that would otherwise go to small businesses.

Large companies can also employ trained, dedicated resources to handle the increased paperwork, whereas the SBOs have to handle it themselves and risk yet another means of running afoul of the IRS.

Due to rebates they may be tax-neutral to small businesses but they're definitely not cost-neutral.

That said... you two know better than I. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Lawyerliz said...

I was convinced they were bad because the govt could never resist double dipping and we'd just end up with an additional tax.

Unknown said...

Giving grant money to schools is problematic. They have strict guidelines they have to follow to prove how the grant money was spent. $100,000 doesn't go very far when you have to hire a $50,000 salary to track the money.

Lawyerliz said...

Good morning😍 hub feels sick.

Lawyerliz said...

True, but wouldn't they already have someone?

Lawyerliz said...

Said with Kensianism. Good idea, but it would never work. Not until philosophers were kings.

Unknown said...

Liz it's like needing more rocket fuel to lift the weight of the rocket fuel, the more grants you have to track, the more people it takes to track them.

LBD said...

Good Morning!

Sad day yesterday as our Snow Angle, Sadie passed away.

Schools are a union driven jobs program. Very true about grant money when you consider the labor to find and process the grant application and then monitor it. Very little left for what it was intended to do. Some schools here have more administration then they do teachers.

I don't like VAT as it is hidden as much is already today. It would be interesting to see a price tag that includes X amount of tax dollars priced in to this product. Not that the average person would notice or care.

Unknown said...

I bet that if we required stores to display the after tax price on the shelf then the price of goods would be adjusted so that their after tax sticker still reads $x.99

Lawyerliz said...

Yep.

Lawyerliz said...

Hidden taxes a wash with hidden black and grey market?

Lawyerliz said...

Reading about the American Revolution
We'd always smuggle and cheated. Tea, which has caffeine a drug, and we thoroughly cheated the Indians at all levels, from rich to poor. Some of my poor ancestors prolly did, since they lived in Appalachia for a few generations. Don't know anything about the rich ones, except a family.legend says they had some sort of connection with the Roosevelts.

Lawyerliz said...

The middling and lower seem to have forgotten that cheating the rich and powerful back is part of the game. Instead they go after each other.

Lawyerliz said...

Enslaved blacks were often cheated for their entire lives.
Washington's half brothers started the Ohio Company, who goal was to cheat the Indians and French out of the Ohio valley so they could get good title to sell land to others in smaller pieces. French and Indian War. George Washington had a part of that and eventually got up to 60,000 acres. Add that to all the good things.

Cinco-X said...

A VAT should replace the income tax for the bottom 90-95%. Corps and the wealthy should still pay an income tax that's the same rate as capital gains tax

Cinco-X said...

And deductions should be highly limited

Lawyerliz said...

Any school shootings today.

Rob Dawg said...

Ranger School.
SEAL school.
All the service academies.
Lots of shootings.

Rob Dawg said...

New post.