NYT 2009 American workers are overpaid. Gap must close. Happening now. Thanks, Obama. [View all]

[madfloridian]

Last edited Sun Jun 21, 2015, 04:25 PM - Edit history (1)

and to any other Democrats who have supported trade agreements that apparently are set up to bring our workers' salaries in line with the rest of the world.

EDITing to add:

The article mentions a possible 20% cut for American workers to meet "global balance." Thought I was including it at first, but guess not.

Global wage convergence is great for the poor but tough on the overpaid. It’s possible to run the numbers to show that American manufacturing workers should take average real wage cuts of as much as 20 percent to get into global balance.

The required cut may be smaller. But if American wages get stuck above global market-clearing levels, as in the 1930s, the result could well be something approaching Depression-era levels of unemployment.

American Wages Out of Balance

American workers are overpaid, relative to equally productive employees elsewhere doing the same work. If the global economy is to get into balance, that gap must close.

Of course, workers in the United States should earn more than their peers in China, Moldova or Vietnam. Americans take advantage of the higher productivity that makes their country rich: better education and infrastructure, abundant capital and a strong work ethic. But how much higher should American wages be?

The answer depends in large part on two measures: the difference in productivity in making goods that can be traded across borders, and the quantity of such goods. Both measures point to a narrowing wage gap.

See, that's what it's all about. Closing the gap even if it hurts our workers here.

I really much prefer the way Marmar posted it back at the old DU in 2009.

Read this huge pile of MIERDA from the New York Times:

There are some good comments there, so be sure to read it.

And this is my repost from May just because I feel so passionate about "adjusting" our wages to fit the global economy.

Lowering our living standards to fit with other countries is wrong.

Whenever a new trade agreement is offered up we hear talk of how it will help developing countries and raise their standards of living...which in turn they say will make the world safer for all.

What they never say is that in order to lift other countries up to a supposedly higher level, ours takes another hit. They are equalizing the economic playing field at our expense.

There must some great incentives for a country's leaders to be willing to do that to their own country.

I simply do not understand how a president and/or our major political leaders can push such policies that have the potential to do so much harm to our own people. So what if Nike offers to maybe possibly perhaps create 10,000 jobs here in the next ten years? So what? What about the millions of job from US companies that went elsewhere?

I am sure I will be told I am thinking simplistically on this issue....so be it.

The fact remains that we are losing our lifestyles in just a few decades. When our president gets done praising Nike, let him answer to us.

You know what else makes me angry? The rise of the terrible extremism on the right might not have happened if we had an opposition party in this country instead of one that catered to corporations so they would not have to pay attention to the liberals, unions, and other traditional constituents of the party.

The takeover:

At the national convention of a major political party, an ideologically rigid sectarian clique secures the ultimate triumph. It inserts two of its own as nominees for the Presidency and the Vice Presidency. Heavily financed by the most powerful corporations in the world, the group's leaders gather in a private club fifty-four floors above the convention hall, apart from the delegates of the party they had infiltrated. There, they carefully monitor the convention's acceptance of a platform the organization had drafted almost in its entirety. Then, with the ticket secured and with the policy course of the party set, they introduce a team of 100 shock troops to deploy across the country to lock up the party's grassroots.

For years our political leaders have stood by while billionaire groups financed the rise of the Tea Party while calling it a grassroots movement.

If enough had spoken against their methods of shouting everyone else down, we might have gone in another direction. Now we have some members of congress who are so ignorant they are laughed at around the world.

The way Obama is pushing for the new Trans Pacific trade agreement sounds desperate. It worries me.

It is one of the many reasons I am supporting Bernie Sanders. I am proud of that decision. I hate that since that decision there have been so many snide remarks about the intelligence of Sanders' supporters. Our gullibility. How naive we are.

I have a plan to support him while refusing to say bad things against Hillary Clinton. I think that can be done.

But there is a third thing that must be dealt with. Whenever someone speaks of Clinton's former support for the TPP and her role in its development...we must provide proof which of course is never acceptable.

Here is a video of Secretary Clinton speaking in Singapore in November 2012. If she is not speaking of the TPP, please tell me what she is talking about.

It's a long video, but if you wade through it like I did...it's worth it.

And a little more about the same topic while she was in Australia.

Trade deal poses dilemma for Clinton in Democratic primary

WASHINGTON (AP) — On a trip to Australia in 2012, Hillary Rodham Clinton lavished praise on the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, calling it the "gold standard" in efforts to create open and fair trade.

Now, early in her Democratic presidential campaign, she's striking a different tone — determinedly non-committal, with a hint of skepticism about the sweeping trade agreement she promoted as President Barack Obama's secretary of state. "Any trade deal has to produce jobs and raise wages and increase prosperity and protect our security," Clinton said at a New Hampshire community college last week.

The 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership under negotiation by Obama has divided the Democratic Party, leaving Clinton caught between angry liberal activists and the president she once served. It's a fight Clinton has seen before.

For years our jobs have gone overseas. For years any jobs opening here are at much lower salaries than than before.

I am so angry about this. Don't insult our intelligence by saying just look at what great things we will be doing for other countries.....and not mentioning the harm being done to ours.