i'm sorry but you are the one talking nonsense. real wages have been in decline since 1973.
Real wages and beneits have not been in decline since 1973
www-hoover.stanford.edu
what a nonsensical argument. we have a lot more computers and electronics and fancier cars because of advancements in technology, not because of free trade.
I didn't just say computers and electronics. We have bigger houses, more complex cars, more of all sorts of things. And all of those things includeing the computers and electronics cost money. We have the money to buy them because we have beomce wealthier. People fly more often, can drive further per hour worked, we consume more even when you adjust for the bigger debt burden (we have more money to consume, its not all just borrowing money we don't really have).
another silly argument. there are many factors, including technology, but an important one you fail to take into account is the fact that 30, 40, 50 years ago women weren't in the workforce like they are today. 50 years ago it didn't take two workers to buy a nice house and support and send your kids to college. it could be done with one wage earner. now it takes two wage earners and couples struggle to own their own home and provide for a nice large family.
If technology lowers prices and we can buy more or better then we could be for, then in a very real sense we are wealthier.
We have bigger houses even with smaller familes. The sq. footage per person may have increased as much or more then the labor force participation rate. If you want to live like 1970 (less money spent on medical procedures, no cable or satelite TV, no internet connections, less space per person in your house or apartment, no cell phones, less land line phones numbers per person, one car for a family in many families instead of two or three for the parents and all the teenagers having thier own car, simplier cars without all the new technology (power windows, no polution control equipment, no CD players, a lesser chance of having AC or automatic transmitions ect), less travel, fewer long distance calls, no game consoles or PCs, maybe one or two TVs per family with no big screens ect) then the typical family could do so on one income at least as well as they did in 1970. Yes it takes more labor (two incomes, or a part-time job, or overtime or whatever) for many people to meet the "typical middle class lifestyle" now, but that "typical lifestyle" is not the same, we buy a lot more stuff now. Get rid of all that stuff and a lot of familes would not need two incomes.
if we are so much more productive why are companies packing up and shipping out, moving manufacturing abroad? how do you explain GM being the largest private employer in mexico? how do you explain companies like IBM and Ford with more foreign workers than domestic?
Because companies adjust in a dynamic ever changeing economy. And while all those jobs are "going to Mexico" more jobs are created here to export to Mexico, or other countries, or just to sell goods to increasingly wealthy Americans. The number of jobs in the US has gone up a lot since 1970.
is an american worker more productive than the labor of 40 mexicans? you can hire 40 mexicans for the price of an american.
Average differences in productivity and wages are more like 8 times each then 40.
For some things we are 40 times or more productive then the typical Mexican worker, and the Mexicans that are a lot more productive themselves get a lot more moeny they most Mexicans.
GM has not opened a new
assembly plant in the US in around 15 years!
1. GM is not the whole US. Overall levels of Manufacturing in the US has increased a lot in the last 15 years.
2. GM hasn't grown very fast over the past 15 years.
3. Americans could be more competitive building cars but union wage scales and sometime inflexible work practices makes Americans less competitive at making autos then we would be.
you can simply pack up our superior technology and ship it out to mexico or china
Its not so simple. Its a huge capital investment plus you need a trained educated work force. Also for many goods and most services proximity to the customer helps. If Mexico or China could fully utilize all of the technology and had a level of investment per worker that approached that of the US their wages would also start to approach that of the US. The extra production from all of these new high tech workers with tons of capital investment would greatly increase world wide production. But it takes time for these economies to absorb the technology and investment and to build infrastructure and transportation links so it will take a long time for them to become as productive or as rich as we are.
Tim |
