On 8/6/2013 11:01 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 06 Aug 2013 17:16:45 +0100, scott wrote:
>
>>> Between 1967 and 2003 here in the US, according to the US Census
>>> Bureau, people in the bottom 20% of incomes have seen their incomes
>>> raise an average of 28.4%. ($14,002 at the start and $17,984 in 2003)
>>>
>>> At the same time, people in the 95th percentile have seen their average
>>> incomes go up by about 78%. ($88,678 in '67, $154,120 in '03).
>>
>> I was looking at figures globally, not just for one country. There must
>> be reasons why the USA increases for the bottom 20% have not kept up
>> with the global trend.
>
> If I'm not mistaken, Patrick was talking about US numbers, so the
> comparison started out with an apples/oranges basis to start with.
>
Yes, in fact, I was, given the rather simple fact that, for me, its kind 
of irrelevant if someone in African can buy two sandwiches, when people 
in the US might not, by the same token, be able, without government 
help, to buy just the bread itself, never mind anything else in the 
sandwich, while working 50+ hours a week, and at two jobs.

And, there are several reasons, but one "big" one is the current 
"economic theory" supported buy US lunitarian movement.

US "libertarians" are not like those every place else. The best 
descriptions for their philosophy I have seen are -

On government help: The government is too big, and doesn't help

On worker wages: They can always find a job with more pay, even though 
90% of all jobs are not "service" in the US, and they all pay minimum 
wage (this isn't even necessary, since they ran the numbers, and fast 
food places could pass on 100% of the difference to the customer, at a 
mere 50 cent increase in the cost of the food, while **doubling** the 
salaries of everyone that worked for them, including the CEOs).

On price gouging: You can always buy something else, somewhere else, 
which is cheaper.

On crappy products: Well.. you can always buy the more costly item, 
which won't be a piece of total crap.

On regulation: Regulations are bad, if they stifle my business, but 
good, if they stifle worker's rights.

On personal responsibility: Everyone should be responsible for their own 
mistakes, but.. uh, I didn't actually mean "me" when I said that!

and so on...

On their general logic: "I have mine, so fuck you!"

You can add to this decades, since Reagan, and his voodoo economics 
(people with more money than god will open thousands of new businesses, 
and pay people more money, without someone making them, instead of 
sitting on it, or funneling it to offshore accounts, so it will all 
"trickle back down"), as well as undermining education, especially 
cheap, accessible education, as a result in major changes in regulations 
he imposed on colleges, attacks on social programs, an unwillingness to 
spend money of say.. roads, instead of military campaigns, and the fact 
that, for the same number of decades supposed "experts" teaching MBAs 
have been "teaching" that "free markets" are better than well regulated 
ones, socialism is always bad, no matter what the social program is, and 
that Reagan's model of economics is "sane", instead of totally 
delusional, and.. pretty much the vast majority of CEOs think that the 
whole entire problem is everyone else's fault, and these things will fix it:

1. More, less precise patents, to "protect" their nebulous ideas.

2. Less environmental, worker related, safety, or any other kind of 
"stifling" regulations.

3. Eliminating social programs, so all those damn whiners will go out of 
find jobs (because, already working, in some cases, at 5 jobs, 70 hours 
a week, all of them minimum wage, just to feed you family and then 
"also" having to have government aid, to fill in the gaps, mean you are 
"lazy, and not trying hard enough."

No, seriously, this is **exactly** what these idiots and their political 
lap dogs, keep claiming.

4. Getting rid of minimum wages (which they insist are actually "too 
high". o.O

5. Getting rid of all unions, because maybe 2% of them are actually bad, 
but **all of them**, even in states that make them almost illegal (or at 
least ineffective), like the "right to work" ones, where any concessions 
they do manage to force apply to "everyone", not just the union workers, 
thereby removing the incentive to join on in the first place. Well, 
other than the fact that, even in those states, if you didn't have some 
of them, you are screwed anyway), all because they "force unreasonable 
demands on the company."

You want to know what "unreasonable" is? A grocery chain called Krogers 
thought it would be unfair to reduce some of its staff to a minimum 
wage, when it wasn't before, and several other things which I don't know 
all the details of. The union disintegrated, and now Krogers pays 
**everyone** no matter what job they have, which department they work 
in, or how long they have been there, "minimum wage".

It went from an objection about them taking money, and thus food, out of 
the pockets of people with kids, who worked for them, because they 
claimed they "had to" to save money, during a year when they made 
billions in profits, despite the "slow economy", to screwing **all** of 
their workers, including the ones that where already working there, for 
decades.

This is the stuff happening in the US, and what all those people, who 
the media lambasted, the president ignored, and all the politicians, and 
anyone else with an agenda to make it seem like there was no legitimate 
cause being promoted by them, sometimes called the "Occupy Movement", 
but mostly just called, "dirty, lazy, unwilling to find work, etc., 
etc." Because.. its not like there where, and still are, millions of 
people out of work here, and no one willing to hire them, or tens of 
millions more, being paid crap wages who, for the most part, didn't show 
up at the rallies **purely** because, literally, couldn't afford to lose 
one single days pay, never mind their, possibly conservative, boss, 
firing them for attending one, then claiming it was, for legal reasons, 
for something else. Though.. most of them could, probably, have gotten 
by with firing them using the catch all for "things we don't want our 
workers to do, even in their free time, off the job, or in the privacy 
of their own homes, should we somehow find out they are doing them", 
which is called, "Negatively impacting the image of the business."


>> The table "Income growth by decile" holds the key data. Essentially the
>> low-mid earners have seen the largest growth, with the very lowest and
>> high earners seeing lower growth (but still significantly positive). The
>> only real negative growth (in real terms) was for those in the 75-85
>> percentile from 1990-2000. In the same period the bottom 10% saw 12%
>> growth.
>
> Again, though, growth factors are not the same as widening gaps in income
> disparity.  Someone who made $250K back in 1990 who makes $500K now has
> not had to deal with being part of the lower income class.  They've not
> had to make decisions between health care, food, housing, and clothes.
>

And, in fact, in the US, this isn't even accurate either. The low-mid 
are "falling" into the lowest category, while the rich are gaining (at, 
as has been pointed out, a much slower rate than, stupidly, they did 
when they a) actually had to pay taxes, and higher taxes, and b) 
actually paid their workers better wages). The middle class, in the US, 
are vanishing.

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