Un-American Recovery

[RainDog]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26303-2003Dec23.html

Un-American Recovery
By Harold Meyerson

Wednesday, December 24, 2003; Page A15

Why is the Bush recovery different from all other recoveries?

... Since July the average hourly wage increase for the 85 million Americans who work in non-supervisory jobs in offices and factories is a flat 3 cents. Wages are up just 2.1 percent since November 2002 -- the slowest wage growth we've experienced in 40 years. Economists at the Economic Policy Institute have been comparing recoveries of late, looking into the growth in corporate-sector income in each of the nine recoveries the United States has gone through since the end of World War II. In the preceding eight, the share of the corporate income growth going to profits averaged 26 percent, and never exceeded 32 percent. In the current recovery, however, profits come to 46 percent of the corporations' additional income. Conversely, labor compensation averaged 61 percent of the total income growth in the preceding recoveries, and was never lower than 55 percent. In the Bush recovery, it's just 29 percent of the new income coming in to the corporations.

...There are only a couple of ways to explain how the capacity of U.S. workers to claim their accustomed share of the nation's income has so stunningly collapsed. Outsourcing is certainly a big part of the picture. As Stephen S. Roach, chief economist for Morgan Stanley, has noted, private-sector hiring in the current recovery is roughly 7 million jobs shy of what would have been the norm in previous recoveries, and U.S. corporations, high-tech as well as low-tech, are busily hiring employees from lower-wage nations instead of from our own.

...Indeed, the current recovery is not only the first to take place in an economy in which global wage rates are a factor, but the first since before the New Deal to take place in an economy in which the rate of private-sector unionization is in single digits -- just 8.5 percent of the workforce.

...In short, what we have here resembles a pre-New Deal recovery more than it does any period of prosperity between the presidencies of the second Roosevelt and the second Bush. The great balancing act of the New Deal -- the fostering of vibrant unions, the legislation of minimum wages and such, in a conscious effort to spread prosperity and boost consumption -- has come undone. (The federal minimum wage has not been raised since 1997.) And the problem with pre-new deal recoveries is that they never created lasting prosperity.

[many a good man]

1. The future is upon us

"What is past is prologue":

...In short, what we have here resembles a pre-New Deal recovery more than it does any period of prosperity between the presidencies of the second Roosevelt and the second Bush.

Will it take another great depression to provoke working people to rewrite the social contract? The outlook looks grim. There are no easy solutions.

The US' global economic dominance has been on the wane since 1971. Welfare for corporations and the investor class has outstripped investment in the workforce or protection of its interests. The issues have been downplayed by the media and the political parties. Neither political party is solely responsible and neither one has a solution.

The overall decline in America's strength vis-a-vis the world makes it unlikely that there ever will be a recovery for the American worker. Especially given our enormous outlays of treasure for the military. We have to accept that fact and work on rewriting the social contract to prevent a slide to third world status...

[kalian]

3. Fascism coupled with the militarization of the US population....

its the ONLY way that these fascists will create ANY type of economic
"rebound".
People are going to get hungrier as time goes on...and if inflation
hits (and there are indications that it has already started), then
people will become desperate to be "employed". Doesn't matter in
what. If that means working for the fascists and under unacceptable
conditions...then so be it...people have to feed their families.

This year will be the real turning point...20 years after 1984.

[leftofthedial]

8. and the future looks alot like the distant past

feudalism

[kalian]

2. This article was trying to absolve Bush's complicity....

plain and simple... And this passage at the very end of this editorial
really pissed me off:

The current administration is not responsible for the broad contours of this miserably misshapen recovery, but its every action merely increases the imbalance of power between America's employers and employees. But the Democrats' prescriptions for more broadly shared prosperity need some tweaking, too. With the globalization of high-end professions, no Democrat can assert quite so confidently the line that Bill Clinton used so often: What you earn is a result of what you learn.

So..."what you earn is what you learn", eh? :eyes: I guess that
"the more you learn the less you will earn" is the TRUE permise of
this country. This is DOUBLESPEAK people! DOUBLESPEAK. Play
close attention how this article was written...

[RainDog]

5. I agree that the writer did not make Bush take responsiblity

for his more than fair share of problems at this point, because his economic policies have excellerated a decline, much faster and worse than could or should have been.

For instance, Bush gave a tax break in a time of war...an unthinkable act for any responsible leader. Not only that, but the tax break was the worst possible kind for an economy in trouble...rather than give a payroll break and spread the income around, he kept the money in the hands of the richest of the rich, while giving the middle class mere crumbs and telling them they got the cake.

Also, deficits which are used to build infrastructure in a nation can help an economy grow. Deficits to fund a tax break for the richest of the rich basically do nothing but give them more money to gamble with in the stock market or to horde in gold or other commodities, rather than use to actual uphold a nation.

however, I think the paragraph that you note was meant to also not that SINCE REAGAN our nation has been saddled with the corporatists who use propaganda on the "nascar" voter to make that voter think that what benefits the corp. benefits the nascar voter. This is a lie.

Clinton, too, did his fair share of pandering to corporations, but he was no where near as bad as Reagan or Bush 1 or 2.

The last line was Clinton's, "What you learn is what you earn." That's the education mantra as a way to help yourself out of poverty, a route that has traditionally been used by most lower and middle class Americans who were able to move from one class to another (and that mobility is way over-hyped, btw.)

The writer was saying that now, with software engineer jobs being outsourced to other nations, and with no labor protections for such jobs, education is no longer a hedge against poverty when all the jobs go elsewhere.

The author is not saying that's a good thing...but that with corporations owning our govt policy, that's the truth.

And the truth is also that the right wing nuts are destroying our nation with their greed.

[many a good man]

6. Bush* is NOT solely responsible

As much as I hate to say it it is true. That doesn't absolve misleading Bush* apologists, but there is now a fundamental weakness to the foundation of our economy that has been building for a long time thus far pre-dating this administration. Read some of the scary stuff written in the Economics forum if you don't believe it.

That said, this administration has only made a bad situation worse. Much worse than anyone could have dreamed, including TPTB. I believe there is some truth to the premise that pulling out of free trade agreements could lead to a domino effect that can have disastrous consequences for the broad economy.

Free trade has been a leading cause of our pain because it has been designed only for the benefit of multinationals while ignoring the impact on Labor. It has to be redesigned to put people first in a way that does not sharply curtail trade.

Our economy is now built upon a foundation of financial trickery. We have to find a way get it back on a solid footing (i.e., based on "real" output) without pulling the plug on the only thing which keeps the machine humming. A currency collapse will have a devastating effect on one and all and the process is already under way.

[cryofan]

4. Immigration, Outsourcing, Globalization, Loss of Labor Protections

Say, why is it that with so many Americans AGAINST increased immigration, outsourcing, H1B and L1 visas (at least 60% or more), that Dems still join in with the neocons in the GOP to allow this to happen? It is eroding and tearing apart this country. THe Dems are just as much to blame as the GOP for the loss of wages in this country.
Same thing does for NAFTA--the public doesn't want it. Heck, it was CLinton who screwed us on that.

When are the Dem voters going to wake the $#$~@! UP and put in a protectionist president? Protectionism is good in many ways....

[area51]

7. translating

What Harold Meyerson said...

"... what we have here resembles a pre-New Deal recovery...."

What the USA had in the "pre-New Deal recovery" was the Great Depression. What Meyerson may be trying to point out w/o being censored by his editor, is that we're in a Depression.

[ikojo]

9. I don't know why people say it's un American to have

disparity between rich and poor.

The country was basically founded by a group of elites who at first believed voting should be extended only to property owning white males. That left out a bunch of people (women <rich and poor>, non property owning white males and blacks and Indians).

It was only through the struggle and sacrifice of others that non property owners, women and blacks have any rights in this country.