C.S. Monitor: Boom in corporate profits has not created secure job market

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

from the August 22, 2005 edition

Why a booming economy feels flat
Personal income is one key area where workers have fallen behind, compared with past periods of strong wage growth.
By Mark Trumbull | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0822/p01s03-usec.html?s=hns

Despite continued strong economic growth, this expansion is clouded with enough complications and uncertainties that, for many, it doesn't feel like good times.

The reason? A boom in corporate profits has not yet created a job market that makes workers feel secure, economists say. Hiring hasn't skyrocketed. Worse, wages are stagnant. This paycheck squeeze may prove more worrisome than soaring oil prices and concerns over a housing bubble. Some experts worry that wage stagnation may prove more permanent this time, because of an increasingly global market for labor. Few economists claim that today's economy matches the late 1990s, when unemployment was lower and job numbers seemed to rise as easily as the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The pace of job growth, for one thing, was almost imperceptible during two years of concern about a "jobless recovery." Now that the economy has some momentum, the financial press is focused on threats to consumer well-being, such as the burden of energy costs and a soaring real estate market. "Surveys show that even though the economy is growing reasonably strongly, a lot of households don't feel that," says Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight in Lexington, Mass.

Normally, as employees are able to produce more in each hour of work, the result is greater cash flow that can be divvied up between workers and owners or investors. In the long run, rising productivity means rising wages and living standards. But in the short run, "most of the gains in the economy have gone into profits rather than wages," says Mr. Behravesh.

[Jon8503]

1. And Bush's CEOs Are Making More, Paying Less In Taxes-N/T.

[1932]

2. I suspect a lot of profit is from lower corporate taxes.

Which further contributes to the sort of polarization of wealth that...uh...preceded the Great Depression.

When are we going to realize that extreme polarization of wealth is very unhealthy for society, domestically and globally?

[Atman]

3. Trickle Down simply doesn't work

It never will. Not as long as human nature is part of the equation.

[AndyTiedye]

9. When There is a Trickle Down...

...it means the toilet upstairs is overflowing.

[DBoon]

4. "scared, powerless impoverished wokforce allows record corporate profits"

the actual meaning of the headline

They confuse cause and effect

[Hidden Stillness]

5. They Profit BECAUSE We Suffer

This is a "boom" that is totally unrelated to the society at large. It is not being caused by sales, but by mergers, outsourcing to other countries for cheaper labor and materials, slashing work-forces here, not funding pensions anymore--it exists only BECAUSE the economy is horrible, and by making it worse. It is entirely an operation of the stock market, investments, banks, "consutants"--almost the only time ever, that the parts of an economy have been so separated, that the rich, moneyed class, which does not work but only invests, profits, and the employees, who work for pay, are sinking, desperate, exploited. Two economies, unrelated since deregulated, and all moving to China.

This is like the typical Republican "governing" stunt, where they "win" an election, take over, cut taxes, then start selling off to corporate interests all of the services once done by the (for example, State) government, so they are now commercially done, and not paid by taxes but by corporate fees and charges to customers. This they then tout as a "profit" or "money-saver" for the government, never telling you that, 1) It is a one-time income and cannot be repeated, 2) Now citizens will have bigger expenses as the once-government-service now becomes a commercial price-gouge. It is not a government expense, it is still your expense.

The only way Republicans ever have "good" economic results are by these scams. They are incompetant, and criminal.

[Burried News]

6. Lord knows they are not investing it in double hulled supertankers

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/image/0,1587,1277882_6,00.jpg

[Wizard777]

7. Voodoo Reaganomics 101 and Doodoo Bushinomics 102

Voodoo Reaganomics 101 - If the Government takes care of Big Business. Big Business will take care of it's self and screw the little guy.

Doodoo Bushinomics 102 - If the Government takes care of a war. Halliburton will take care of it's self and screw this country.

[RaulGroom]

8. Other Headlines

Surge in Ice-Cream Eating Has Not Spurred Weight-Loss
Increase in Number of Cars on the Road Fails to Ease Traffic
Study: Yelling Louder Does Not Make it Easier For People to Understand You

The idea that increased corporate profits benefit workers has never been supported by data. Too bad newspaper publishers are management, not labor...

[applegrove]

10. Of course not. Insecure job market makes for lower wages - which

helps fight inflation (an anti-dote to rising gas prices). So the stock markets roar & the rich do not suffer inflation (or a contraction in the market as is the antidote to inflation in the past when all people shared in the job of keeping the market healthy). The rich don't pay taxes, they don't pay for the war (also keeping the market roaring). They don't send their kids to war.

They do dick all.

Only a preteen would find the idea of getting something for nothing - especially at a time of war - rewarding. Any adults would understand that this is an unhealthy existence. But under W's leadership - adolescence is fine.