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Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

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Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#241

Post by okwhateverdude »

Yeul wrote: post #190
rester324 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing happens in other countries too BTW. Prime example is Japan, where prime minister Abe promoted this nice lie for many long years

Curiously in the Netherlands poverty has gone down. But that's because the government has a pretty solid Robin Hood system going on: take from the rich give to the poor. The amount of wealth that is redistributed is frankly insane.

I'm generally in favor. My taxes provide an amazing experience here. I have never seen the abject poverty that I've seen in other places (such as the US) here in NL. Great infrastructure, labor laws, culture and arts, etc. I worry less about break-ins and theft. All-in-all, the least worst place to live, by far.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#242

Post by 9rx »

nickpp wrote: post #236
9rx wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Free market capitalism is the only system proven to work, over and over again. How come nobody practices it, then? In fact, right now the world's biggest economy is doubling down on trade restrictions.

It's not an on/off switch, of course, but rather a sliding scale. The free-er your markets are, the better the results. Till recently, USA was in top with both, in sharp contrast to, say, the EU who pro-regulation and anti-business. But the tariffs are an interesting experiment, with some non-economical geopolitical goals thrown in, so we'll see how it goes.

> It's not an on/off switch, of course

Not as it is usually defined. Many places take inspiration from free market capitalism, like Javascript takes inspiration from C, but have developed their own systems. The US model is usually referred to as mixed-market capitalism and the EU model is generally thought of as a social market economy.

Of course, that's just semantics. While there is value in using shared terminology, you can make up any definition you want on the spot. You could call the old Soviet system "free market capitalism" if you really want to. The world is your oyster.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#243

Post by wickedsight »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #216
Tadpole9181 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, importantly, tariffs are payed by the importing party. This means they affect the base price of the product and cannot be made progressive. You could set up a deduction system... But that's retroactive (poor people still don't have that money for a whole year) and dramatically complicates their tax filing burden and financial record keeping requirements. The rich can afford lawyers and accountants, so the IRS ha…

And, importantly, tariffs are payed by the importing party. This means they affect the base price of the product and cannot be made progressive Yes. But that cost can be absorbed across the board. The manufacturer can lower their margins. The importer / distributor / wholesaler can do the same. The B2B / B2C seller can do the same. It doesn’t all necessarily get directly passed to the buyer. Another question that few…

> Another question that few are asking is: what has the off shoring of so much manufacturing cost the USA? Looking at the resident of the WH, it appears to be quite a bit.

A question that I see ignored by people who ask your question, is 'what has off-shoring brought the US?' The answer is massive economic growth and improvements in quality of live.

Off-shoring allows you to make stuff cheaper by keeping the economic circumstances of the creator worse than your own. We can get cheap stuff from China because they work many more hours than people in the west do and they live in conditions that are much worse. Because we can get cheap stuff (like pocket computers, clothing, shoes, couches, cars and more) and off-shore most of the downsides (pollution, long working hours, dangerous workplaces), we improve our quality of life significantly.

So unless you prefer working in mines or working 80 hours a week in a dirty, dangerous factory, I think you're probably better off with globalization than you would've been without.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#244

Post by potato3732842 »

westmeal wrote: post #221
chiefalchemist wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, importantly, tariffs are payed by the importing party. This means they affect the base price of the product and cannot be made progressive Yes. But that cost can be absorbed across the board. The manufacturer can lower their margins. The importer / distributor / wholesaler can do the same. The B2B / B2C seller can do the same. It doesn’t all necessarily get directly passed to the buyer. Another question that few…

But why would the manufacturer or distributor lower their margins? Charity?

They wouldn't on purpose but I can tell you from experience that what happens in practice is that you don't re-quote everything or instantly change your quoted pricing based on a small fluctuations in inputs. So most companies will eat a couple percent (gross) margin here and there. So when an input cost rises margins my go to X-1, and then X-2 as it it rises more, then someone notices and changes quoted pricing to say Y+1, 2 or 3 depending on whether you're trying to get ahead of future hikes, how bad you're being squeezed, how bad you want more work, etc. But no matter what the "area under the curve" of all this change is almost always going to be negative. Sure, there's the occasional winner but in total the entire industry and economy loses.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#245

Post by Tryk »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #216
Tadpole9181 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And, importantly, tariffs are payed by the importing party. This means they affect the base price of the product and cannot be made progressive. You could set up a deduction system... But that's retroactive (poor people still don't have that money for a whole year) and dramatically complicates their tax filing burden and financial record keeping requirements. The rich can afford lawyers and accountants, so the IRS ha…

And, importantly, tariffs are payed by the importing party. This means they affect the base price of the product and cannot be made progressive Yes. But that cost can be absorbed across the board. The manufacturer can lower their margins. The importer / distributor / wholesaler can do the same. The B2B / B2C seller can do the same. It doesn’t all necessarily get directly passed to the buyer. Another question that few…

US != The World.

This analysis fails to realise that there are simply other countries with which to trade with.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#246

Post by Hikikomori »

silisili wrote: post #113
bluefirebrand wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This probably means that those wages were being suppressed hard for years and they finally weren't able to hire people at that wage anymore

You're probably right, but it ultimately leads to wage compression which is for most of the middle class a disaster. You don't have to look far to see everyday people complaining about the price of a burger or movie ticket. IMHO, it doesn't "lift all boats", it pulls down the middle and upper middle classes. Yeah, the lower wage jobs made more money, but they didn't gain much if anything in affordability, since all o…

Somehow Europe can pay fast food workers above poverty, including 5 week paid vacation, healthcare and many other benefits without the middle class not being able to afford a burger. America's obsession with forcing people that work full time to live in squalor is insane.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#248

Post by exceptione »

Yeul wrote: post #190
rester324 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing happens in other countries too BTW. Prime example is Japan, where prime minister Abe promoted this nice lie for many long years

Curiously in the Netherlands poverty has gone down. But that's because the government has a pretty solid Robin Hood system going on: take from the rich give to the poor. The amount of wealth that is redistributed is frankly insane.

  > The amount of wealth that is redistributed is frankly insane.
I would change that to: the amount of income tax quickly reaches idiotic heights. Capital taxes are generally low, and income taxes are for the 95% losers.

There is no plan to make the pie larger. The problem is the same as everywhere: a public brainwashed by neo-liberal nonsense voting against their own interests. Private gains and public losses.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#249

Post by viraptor »

refurb wrote: post #232
viraptor wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The error people make all the time is assuming these groups are static and always have the same people in them over time. I believe people actually involved in being active against top percentiles understand the difference between ongoing millions of annual income and one off inheritance. Have you got a some reason to think otherwise? I mean it was "occupy wall street", not "occupy people visiting retirement homes"…

That’s my point - the tax data says that people making millions each year are incredibly rare. Most people earning that kind of income get it in a once in a lifetime.

Ok. And the criticism is not about them.

Re: Poorest US workers hit hardest by slowing wage growth

#250

Post by Tryk »

murderfs wrote: post #58
user9999999999 wrote: post #23

the min wage is long overdue, its should be somewhere near $25/hr this is how you 'tax' billionaires

That's a good way of turning the poorest US workers into the poorest US unemployed. If you raise the minimum wage above the actual value of an employee, then they're just going to get fired. Even if they still provide more value than their being paid, it makes automating away their job more competitive. California tried this with a $20/hr minimum wage in fast food restaurants: the next time you go into a McDonalds, c…

So by your logic we should consider lowering the minimum wage in order to ensure employment.

Employment is not a means in itself, the point of being employed is to "make a living". If a job cannot sustain a person then it should not exist.

People deserve to live with dignity, earning a living wage.

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