America, Land of High Productivity and Low Wages
In 2007, for example, American workers were by far the most productive labor force in the world.
Each U.S. worker produces $63,885 of wealth per year, more than their counterparts in all other countries, the International Labor Organization said in its report. Ireland comes in second at $55,986, ahead of Luxembourg, $55,641; Belgium, $55,235; and France, $54,609.
American manufacturing employees were producing an astounding $104,606 per year.
Remember all those Republican talking-heads on TV bitch-bitch-bitching about union labor? Remember all those Republican Presidents and Representatives and Senators bitch-bitch-bitching about union labor?
Of course you do!
Do you also remember the hard-hitting defense of American workers by the Democratic Party?
Of course you don't!
It never happened.
And the productivity of American workers actually increased in 2009!
The Labor Department said Tuesday that the American work force produced, at an annual rate, 6.4 percent more of the goods they made and services they provided in the second quarter of this year compared to a year ago.
Remember the surge in wages and benefits which came along with the surge in productivity?
Of course you don't!
At the same time, "unit labor costs" -- the amount employers paid for all that extra work -- fell by 5.8 percent. The jump in productivity was higher than expected; the cut in labor costs more than double expectations.
Wages were cut even more than expected!
And why was anybody expecting wages to be cut while productivity increased?
Because this is America, the land of higher and higher productivity, and lower and lower wages.
Yep. Wasn't all this laid out in a book somewhere?
August 27, 2009 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
And a movie.
August 27, 2009 5:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
The movie wasn't as good as the book, though I never actually read the book. But I can't wait for Wage Slave! the musical.
August 27, 2009 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
The book wasn't as good as the novelization of the movie, and the "actually blood-sucking" action figures were even better.
August 27, 2009 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fun for boys and girls!
Note: Blood-sucking action figures not actual size (batteries not included).
August 27, 2009 9:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Apparently they're doing a movie - Hit Me, Beat Me, Make Me Your Wage Slave - based on the blood-sucking action figures of less-than-actual size (for which the batteries weren't included.)
Don't worry though, all you hyper-literate liberals! They're already working on the book... based on the movie! Just make sure your kids read that, and they'll stay smarter than their conservative peers.
August 28, 2009 1:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
No good deed goes unpunished. I have to show up late tomorrow for work cause I left early today.
August 27, 2009 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
All of which has been accompanied by a redistribution of wealth
in the US toward the top 1% of our citizens:
Compare the amount of wealth owned by the top 1% of citizens in the US, (69.8%), from table 4 in that paper with France, (61%), UK, (56%), Canada, (53%), and Germany, (44.4%), and the picture is spelled out clearly enough even the most bone-headed ani-union mutts should understand what's going on. Not unlike Keyser Soze's greatest trick of convincing the people that the devil does not exist, the greatest trick ever pulled on the middle and working class was to convince them that trickle down economics was in their best interest.
August 27, 2009 5:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eeek! I'm actually puzzled by some of those figures, and now I have to learn!
Why is Germany apparently more egalitarian than Canada? Maybe wealth in Canada is measured in salted fish. My shack got more fish than your shack.
Or what?
August 27, 2009 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
A quote from that same paper:
.From which I infer that Germany exceeds Canada in the presence of strong trade unions and successful social democratic parties.
August 27, 2009 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
The salted fish theory doesn't hold up, as Finland comes in below Germany at 42.3% of the wealth concentrated in the upper 10%.
August 27, 2009 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for that multicultural perspective on Finland and Canada, Miguelito!
I was in the process of googling around for some insight about those wacky Canadians, but instead I ran into this...
The first example on that link is Mary Lou Eckart, who works for the state of Illinois, taking care of an invalid. No vacation! No sick days! And very hard work!
But there was some good news!
Ms. Eckart got her paid "vacation!"
She just packed up the invalid and off they went to Florida! Fun in the sun!
Harharharhar!!!
August 27, 2009 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't it Pickled Fish, in Finland? Makes a difference.
Great blog, vege.
August 27, 2009 9:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ahhh... the ceviche of the north. Alas, I'm just a peeg, who never developed a taste for gefilte fish, let alone lutefisk, (which was what I was thinking of), which I believe to be salted.
August 27, 2009 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I could be wrong.
It happens.
I was thinking about pickled herring in sour cream sauce... good on crackers.
August 27, 2009 10:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, it IS in fact the salted fish.
And now that I finally got these ice weasels organized, the livin' is easy, baby.
August 28, 2009 1:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
tsk tsk...lutefisk is Norwegian, Miguelito...calling it Finnish is, well, about like calling a Cheese Blintz Navajo. You're looking for something like "keittosuola kalastaa."
(btw, I'm just speaking to the great rivalry between Finns and Scandinavians - Finns hate to be called Scandinavians.)
August 28, 2009 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have nothing invested in my knowledge of Nordic cuisine, and not to pick nits neo, but from wiki,
August 28, 2009 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
You mean you have no fish in the fight?
Do you live in one of those Morada adobes in NM - you're flogging me ;-)
August 28, 2009 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
and lutefisk, btw, is actually made using lye - not salt.
August 28, 2009 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm calling a technical exception with regard to Finnish lutefisk, where
Potassium carbonate being technically, a salt. Again, good blog Rootie. We're learning not only about the transfer and use of wealth as power in America, workers productivity, and, (lack of),recompense, but also how to survive in the Great White North, or minimally help out around the lutefisk curing shack should we be called upon to do so!August 28, 2009 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ok! I give up! Whenever a discussion of food devolves into a chemistry lesson, I know I've met my match! ;O)
btw... is lutefisk officially considered to be in the "food" category? And just who was the first one to say "You know, if you just add a little lye to the processing here, I think you just might have something?"
August 29, 2009 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL SJ! In my book lutefisk is in the category of 'stuff you would eat if you hadn't had anything for , oh... lets say a week, maybe two'. And whoever thought of curing fish in sodium hydroxide solution, had too much NaOH on their hands, IMHO.
August 29, 2009 10:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Am I the only Finlander (Suomalainen) here? (Well, I'm only half, if that counts for anything.)
My Finnish grandmother made fishhead stew, (mojakka) which I hated with a passion. There were EYES in there. But we ate TONS of pickled herring both in brine and in sour cream. I still love it.
Lutefisk is Norwegian and I've never tasted it so I can't even make fun of it.
August 29, 2009 10:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah HA!
August 29, 2009 10:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah!!
August 29, 2009 10:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Methinks putting fish eyes into lutefisk would probably be an improvement.
August 29, 2009 10:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
hmmmmmm,
not surprising.
and people wonder why we're having such a hard time obtaining universal healthcare...
August 27, 2009 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sitting down on the job, eh, piguelito? They say statistics can be made to say whatever you want, but if that were true, I’d prove that the government owes me back taxes, instead of the other way around (and in spite of the math, I’m almost sure this is true).
But this: “A whopping 94% went to the top 20%, which of course means that the bottom 80% received only 6% of all the new financial wealth generated in the United States during the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s (Wolff, 2007).”
Yowza! Now you know why the bottom 25% drinks 96% of the booze in the country (cheers)! One aspect that is left out of the equation is future generation of wealth, future security. IOW, those invested at the top have secured sound investments that will continue to make returns and are worth relatively more long term than their dividends and paper worth than, say, savings or higher risk investments (housing, as we’ve recently discovered, is an example of fluid risk). The worth of an asset like a middle-class family home, when this study was done (to 2004) has been shown to be a highly unstable estimate.
Then again, there are some who really do get bailed out if things go south, and a mass of others who get a lot of hot air. But, looking at your tables, I have to say that the top 19% below the top1% are really getting screwed. I mean one guy gets about 36% while the next 19 guys have to divvy up a paltry 48% between all of them! WWMD (What would Marx do)?
(Nice find on the study, Miguel- bookmarked).
August 27, 2009 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, yeah- this.
August 27, 2009 10:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now why do I find myself getting angrier, and angrier as I read that paper? Don, that paper should be required reading for everyone, esp supply siders. Speaking of Bush II's tax cut/supposed stimulus:
I could quote the whole paper, but suggest everyone straggling by here read it for themselves. The Center for American Progress is becoming one of my main go-to sources for unadulterated information.
August 27, 2009 11:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree and know how you feel (gotta laugh to keep from crying).
August 27, 2009 11:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Get rhythm when you get the blues my friend.
August 28, 2009 12:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wrong clip. Oh, well...
August 27, 2009 11:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know I have read this story before... what was that guy? that old bearded dude? I swear I read him once in ancient history class.
Or how bout good old Adam Smith who argued that this system (our prized capitalism) couldn't work without personal morality, rule of law, and a sense of justice.
Really I am not yet so cynical. I just wish somebody would beat some sense into this country.
August 28, 2009 12:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh sweet jesus this is beyond ridiculous:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/27/AR2009082704193.html
August 28, 2009 12:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Too many people miss Smith's admonitions regarding capitalism. The rich "consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they propose from the labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires..." Selfishness, rapacity, vain and insatiable desires. The father of capitalism and the concept of the 'invisible hand' was not blind to the pitfalls of an economic system controlled by the wealthy.
August 28, 2009 1:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
(Bangs head against wall)
Or how about this:
Smith lectured that labor—rather than the nation's quantity of gold or silver—is the cause of increase in national wealth.[20]
Pretty damn germane I would think (From wikipedia. I have books with these quotes but I am lazy. No surprise that they are so difficult to find on the internet.)
August 28, 2009 1:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Seems to me that looting was another cause of increase in Smith's day.
August 28, 2009 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not to worry, Saladin. No one reads the bearded guy in school anymore. In fact, in an effort to leverage a need for private schools, the GOP is dismantling public, gov't run schools, hardly anyone graduating can read anymore, never mind comprehend what they read.
A recent meeting of the top 1% reached a concensus that they needed to work together to get that other 6%. There was general disappointment that they could not get it all. Proposals as to what methods were to be used included, fear of terrorists [if children can read, the terorrists win], fear of losing gov't programs like social security and Medicare if more gov't run programs are enacted, and Jesus.
August 28, 2009 11:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
From the article:
We don't need "jobs." Serfs have jobs. Galley Slaves had jobs.
What we need is economic justice, beginning with family supporting wages and our share of the economic pie.
$3.9 trillion giveaway. What does that translate into in terms of, let's say, universal health care coverage?
These are pigs at the trough (sorry miguelitoh!) and yet we still have the Joe the Plumbers who look to them as our benefactors and to unions as "the enemy." Such ignorant, spineless, self-defeating bastards really piss me off, and there's way to goddamm many of them! My only hope is that some day they come to understand just how thoroughly they have been played as fools.
August 28, 2009 12:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
'We don't need "jobs." Serfs have jobs. Galley Slaves had jobs."
Yeah, SJ, I've got one of those "jobs."
August 28, 2009 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think anyone was convinced that trickle-down economics was in their best interest, except for the folks doing the trickling.
It's the American spirit - that anything is possible if you just work hard - that has caused such a redistribution of wealth.
Everyone is convinced they can be part of that top 1%, if they just work hard enough. Then THEY will be the ones with all the money!
Except Americans are bad at math, and they fail to realize that only 1% of the population can fit into that 1%, leaving 99% holding the (empty) bag.
August 28, 2009 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Are we bad at math or do we suffer from mass delusions of grandeur?
August 28, 2009 12:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's the trickle up theory. The people at the top want to be paid more so they demand more to be sent up from the bottom...
August 27, 2009 6:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe we should call it "upchuck economics."
August 27, 2009 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
good one.
August 27, 2009 8:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I kinda view it as "Up Yours" economics...they are allowed take it so they will.
August 27, 2009 11:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
hahaha
August 28, 2009 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
I call it geyser economics. The money rushes to the top and drifts away in the wind to the four corners of the flat world: China, India, Russia, and anyplace else but where it came from, the USA.
August 28, 2009 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gregor, did you get ahold of the "moustache of understanding?"
http://voidmanufacturing.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/moustache1.jpg
August 28, 2009 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have something ever more powerful ... the goatee of Gregor!!!
Be warned, inserted in blithering posts are oftentimes small shards of knowledge that may cut thru confusion. You may apply direct pressure to stop the bleeding, but usually it's just a scratch and heals by itself.
August 28, 2009 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
And the proponents of cheap or free government-sponsored health care always fail to mention that the only way out of this economic travesty is to pass a bill with the public option! The Dems keep running scared, as though many believe still in trickle-down economics and private enterprise. Who gives a goddam if Wall Street is back to their old way, and their contribution to the GDP is causing it to increase???? No matter how flat the friedman euncichs of this country believe it is, sooner or later they will have to depend on actual americans having enough money to spend some. Arrrrrggggghhhhh!
August 27, 2009 9:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dammit, Rootie. Dammit all to hell. Workers bustin' a hump to push production, please the bossman, kiss that ass, all so they don't get pinked...working so hard they don't even see they're getting screwed. It just pisses me off.
Maybe we need some Pete Seeger.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syQTLxk4uGU
The vid is kinda, eh. But, it's the song I was after.
August 27, 2009 9:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pete Seeger!
Thanks for the link!
August 27, 2009 11:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Productivity Wedge:
http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Stats_earns.html
Of course you note this was no better under Clinton than under officially designated right wingers.
August 27, 2009 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's a good link.
That's a much smaller slice of the pie for workers, and a much bigger slice for... what?
Non-workers?
August 27, 2009 11:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Profits? Investors? That's where the money seems to be going lately, to the investor class.
August 28, 2009 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
great link. sad.
August 28, 2009 1:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
You've been on a real roll of good posts Ruta. Keep it up!
August 28, 2009 12:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I keep hearing from the defenders of the status quo that it isn't a zero sum game...there don't have to be winners and loser, everyone can win. I consider this idea for a second and think...then again maybe not.
August 28, 2009 12:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good observation Libertine. They used to be able to get away with selling that bill of goods to people when the pie was expanding. It was a very convenient shell game for the mighty. As the economy grew they took the lion's share for themselves and threw crumbs at the other 90% or 95% of the population and then promoted the notion that we should all be grateful for the bounty we had received. Now that the economy has entered long term decline their greed continues but they take more than ever for themselves and dangle the prospect of an expanding economic pie returning and that when that happens the common folks can once again be grateful. But now that old shell game doesn't fool people like it used to and soon it will no longer fool anyone. What people yearned for last year was change writ large, dramatic, real and substantive changes in our economic and governmental setup. They believed that Obama and the Democrats would deliver it, perhaps not exactly as they would like, but at least there would be some real change. It is becoming clear that's not going to happen under the current political leadership we have in Washington. One has to wonder how long the population will tolerate this defense of the old order while their own economic prospects fade.
August 28, 2009 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah they sell the lie off of the premise that the resources we have to work with are infinite. They aren't, we definitely are working with a finite amount of resources and therefore the "we can all be winners" is a lie...and a BIG one.
Yep...the people in DC right now have not been as transformational as promised. The course we are on is unsustainable and the sooner we head in a different direction the better. I fear it will take a crisis of a biblical scale with millions dying to make people wake up. The sad thing is that is really unnecessary but probably unavoidable.
August 28, 2009 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here in Wisconsin, Mercury Marine (A major employer in Fond du Lac) demanded concessions from their union workers of up to a 30% cut in wages and benefit reductions under threat of AT LEAST 800 jobs moving to Oklahoma. (The average worker now earns @$20/hour.)
The workers voted this week against concessions, and real fear has struck throughout the Fox Valley that these jobs will be gone.
@$20/hour cannot possibly be considered an exhorbitant wage. In fact, anything less would seem to make it pretty difficult to acquire discretionary funds sufficient to ever buy an outboard motor and boat of any significance. The Mercury Marine Corporation is founded upon building non-essential products targeted to the working class, but deems it unnecessary to provide a wage that allows for such purchases by their own workers. (Maybe they figure they can sell them to the Chinese?)
It is a telling anecdote regarding the state of the "class war" that I don't know of anyone who has lost their job over the last number of years who actually bettered their circumstance with their next job. (NOTE: I don't know any Wall Street bankers or Congressional Aids.) We are close to free fall in this country, and the long-term sustainability of such an economy is really in question.
Meanwhile, however, short term profits for the corporations have never been so good.
It's time to stick them in the neck. Worker's Unite! Ain't anyone going to look out for our interests, so we might as well get used to fighting for our share once again. After all, if the Machinists Union was as strong today as they once were, the workers in Oklahoma would be telling Mercury "Don't even think of bringing any silly-assed $13/hour jobs our way. Negotiate with the workers you have, or be prepared to sit at the bargaining table here when you hit town, at which time you best be prepared to be talking about a family supporting wage."
Trickle down ain't working. In fact, it's always felt more like a golden shower, and I'm surprised that way too many of my fellow workers are willing to suffer such indignities while still worshipping at the altar of "free market" capitalism.
It really becomes a matter of deciding if you are going to continue bending over with your pants around your ankles? Or are you going to at last stand tall and fight in the best tradition of our fathers and brothers and sisters and mothers who fought for and won for us a better life than they ever knew?
August 28, 2009 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
And BTW, Ruta, Great blog post. Thanks for this. Believe me, I share your anger.
August 28, 2009 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's great news, so when do we start winning? Was there some tangible plan they had in mind to enable us to win? I don't know what it is they have planned, but I would bet it does not include our organizing to obtain a victory. I'll bet they have probably all agreed to disband management because that is evidence of working together in an organized fashion, and they have always said organizing is unproductive.
August 28, 2009 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
The numbers confirm exactly what persons who simply by virtue of age have known for quite some time. We've been watching this for years and know not only that is has been occurring but also that it has been aided by a corrupt congress. This really cannot have occurred except through the false and corrupt theory of 'corporate personhood'. Not to mention laws governing political contributions which are little more than a formulation of legal bribery.
It is more than a little sad to have watched tis happen. I, for one, have written letters for many years to my rep(s) and senator(s) when I saw stuff that was clearly a corruption or an anti-competitive corporate merger of some sort. I can honestly say that of the complaints I made on various things none was ever listened to. I especially complained about banking mergers or other high profile financial mergers.
I became aware of this since the late eighties. The consolidation of financial control and corruption of congress have been in step all along. Labor losses can be correlated simultaneous with these things with productivity increases being an element of the same. It all fits very precisely into a unified pattern having an unmistakable genesis in the overall centralization of power. It all comes down to a general theme of official corruption of our government.
Another piece is the ethical decline. Never before have we been subject to having our elected officials simply lying to the American people where everyone knows they are lying and where congress has condoned the fundamental corruption it implies. This culminated in the Bush lie about Iraq which I am sure will stand as the biggest lie to date in our history and which was a lie of treason for sure.
Every bit of this has become tightly interwoven into our societal fabric and will be our undoing unless we can figure out a way to back away from it. I don't know how we can get there from here. Government itself is at the core of the corruption, with only citizens, who have since lost representation, standing in the way. Polling would indicate citizens have an understanding of this but congress barely acknowledges it.
Mostly this is about a disappearance of honesty. Where this all seems to have started is where government ruled that authorities are allowed to lie to citizens under the guise of law enforcement. This has evolved to where government in general has adopted the same corruptive principle. This has ended with the cornerstone of public trust having completely crumbled. Anyone who knows anything about buildings knows how hard it is to fix a crumbled or broken foundation. This is where we are. The repair process will be costly, will take a long time and is uncertain at best.
Everybody knows, or learns the hard way, that for a relationship to endure the test of time, truth and honesty cannot be violated.
August 28, 2009 3:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for posting, thepeoplechoose.
You reminded me that devaluation of experience and common sense are necessary elements of consumer economics, which is all about novelty and artificial needs which nobody felt yesterday and nobody will remember tomorrow, when yet another marketing campaign shifts into high gear, and analogously in the realm of politics, where slogans which will be incomprehensible in six months outweigh all the rest of human history.
August 28, 2009 4:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
You correctly identify the problem where we have to, in every instance, teach our children things that are historically known so that they may learn them all over again. The extent to which we are successful in this endeavor, especially as it applies to persons we select as leaders, establishes how we evolve. Progress on this is intolerably slow for those who happen to recognize how this mechanism works. It can safely be said, I think, that across the course of one lifetime, progress is almost imperceptible. But then, I'm terribly impatient.
August 28, 2009 6:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for an eloquent description of our current issues that was party agnostic. It is on the voters of both parties to return sanity to Washington, if in fact it was ever there in the first place.
August 28, 2009 8:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sanity is relevant as a function of time and even more of perception. Comparatively though, 1950 vs today would leave little doubt of which is more or less so.
August 28, 2009 9:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
America is both more and less sane than in the fifties, though we do seem to throw away hard-won lessons without much thought along with whatever progress we happen to make.
August 28, 2009 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sounds like it's time to buy hunger insurance.
August 28, 2009 9:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Brilliant!
August 28, 2009 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you remember when AIDS patients were "selling their death" (advance loans against life insurance) in order to pay for treatments?
What's wrong with this picture?
August 28, 2009 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Great post, Ruta. Yes, Reagan smacked down PATCO and the rest of the airline industry unions watched silently. They just kept right on working. Now, there is no way peple can just stop working to make their point. Mercury marine threatens to leave, why wait? Strike NOW! Why give them the time to xfr those jobs to Oklahoma, where people have no desire to do better then #13/hour.
August 28, 2009 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Of course, some might read the presence of trade union strength, social programs, and equality and see that this might be a -cause- of the reduced productivity in other countries. That, perhaps, the somewhat greater economic freedom permitted in the United States was a causative factor in the greater productivity.
But not likely round here.
Also, the rise in productivity in 2009 is a cyclical trick. Productivity always rises as employment falls, because employers are frantically trying to do more with less. Efficiency actually falls when businesses are rapidly expanding.
Now, I'm not saying that I support a standard Republican set of policies (I would have no problem with a somewhat more progressive income tax), but you folks need to realize there's a trade off at stake here.
You can't get the productivity without the freedom.
August 28, 2009 11:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
The causative factor, in the 'APPARENT' disparities in productivity, has more to do with the dollar being in the toilet than your phony freedom message.
August 28, 2009 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, that's hogwash.
The dollar is, if anything, overvalued in the foreign exchange markets. Congress has been complaining about this for ages; that countries like China artificially prop up the dollar by purchasing massive amounts of American debt (Congress stopped complaining when they started worrying that China might actually stop).
The dollar isn't in the toilet. It's artificially strong.
August 28, 2009 12:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
1 Euro = 1.4374 U.S. dollars par is $1.18, that looks like in the toilet to me.
August 28, 2009 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Increases in productivity are the direct result of the "freedom" to exploit labor.
August 28, 2009 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
1 Euro = 1.4374 U.S. dollars par is $1.18, that looks like in the toilet to me.
August 28, 2009 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Relative to a few years ago, yes. But remember, we've printed a lot of money since then, and continued to run a large trade deficit. Unless the demand for dollars (Ex-U.S.) continues to rise then the dollar will tend to fall against foreign currencies.
The demand for dollars -has- risen; partially as a result of the financial crisis and the willingness of foreign investors to invest in the United States (and the U.S. Government, especially). Oddly enough, the United States is still the gold standard for safety.
But demand for dollars hasn't risen quite enough to counteract the continuing forces driving it down: the trade and U.S. Government deficits.
August 28, 2009 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
YOU ARE 100% CORRECT, THE DOLLAR IS IN THE TOILET. THOUGH NOT AS FAR DOWN THE DRAIN AS A YEAR AGO.
August 28, 2009 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink