Harold Meyerson at the Washington Post has another excellent, and thoroughly depressing, column on the ‘jobless recovery‘:
… Our current recovery, alas, is different from all previous recoveries that America has experienced since the end of World War II. The earlier ones were marked by wage increases. As the economy picked up and more revenue started flowing to business, those businesses shared the revenue with their employees. Mark Whitehouse of the Wall Street Journal looked at how businesses were dividing up the pie 18 months into every previous recovery since 1947 and found that 58 percent of their increases in productivity trickled down to their workers in increased wages.
__
This time around, the numbers are starkly different. Productivity increased 5.2 percent from the recovery’s start in mid-2009 to the end of 2010, he found, but wages rose by a minuscule 0.3 percent. That means just 6 percent of productivity gains have gone to our newly more-productive workers.
__
Where is the other 94 percent going? To profits, which have been increasing at a record clip for the past three quarters. To funds on the corporations’ balance sheets, which the Federal Reserve calculates at nearly $2 trillion. To shareholders. To the companies’ stock buybacks…
__
Why the difference between this recovery and its predecessors? For one thing, it’s happening at a time when almost the entire private-sector workforce is nonunion – 93.1 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the highest level of nonunion employment since some time in the 19th century, before such record-keeping began. Absent unions, workers are dependent entirely on management’s willingness to share their increased revenue with their employees. And absent unions, apparently, no such willingness exists.
(Cartoon, Joel Pett via Gocomics.com)
MattMinus
This tracks with my experience. Every quarterly all-hands meeting, we hear all these wonderful stories about how the company is growing, revenue is exceeding expectations, etc. Then someone will ask, “Does this mean the pay freeze is over?”
At which point the entire mood changes, and we are asked if we’ve seen the unemployment rate today,we’re lucky to have a job, if we don’t like it someone else will do it for less, etc.
Adam Tebrugge
Stephen King attends Sarasota rally, says “My next horror novel will star Rick Scott”
href=”http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20110309/BREAKING/110309471/2416/NEWS&tc=ix”>
Suck It Up!
Have you seen the story about Senate Dems calling on Obama to be more engaged in the budget battle? Apparently they want MORE cuts! tough re-election and all that blah blah blah
Baud
I’m not sure it makes sense to compare the current recovery, which is still going on, with the outcomes of prior recoveries that are completed. IIRC, past recoveries occurred much more quickly because the collapses were less severe. This recession is much closer to the Depression conditions than other recessions since WWII have been.
Not saying the Meyer’s s is wrong, it’s just that I’m wary of these sorts of comparisons.
Suck It Up!
Have you seen the story about Senate Dems calling on Obama to be more engaged in the budget battle? Apparently they want MORE cuts! tough re-election and all that blah blah blah
Has she always been like this?
geg6
Face it, people. We live in an oligarchy. And history shows that oligarchy never ends well but they do end, often very violently and with massive numbers of unintended consequences. The people are not sufficiently pissed or informed for it to end now. But I do see hopeful signs in polling. I just hope it’s not too late, although I haz a sad because I think it may be.
arguingwithsignposts
@Suck It Up!:
Yes. She’s a Missouri Senator. I can’t recall where she’s ever been reliable.
Comrade Javamanphil
@MattMinus:
Ah, the ever popular “Be glad you aren’t Farmer Johnson’s slaves because he beats them every day not every other like us” defense. I bet morale is sterling at your employer.
Culture of Truth
I read this morning we in are in the middle of biggest stock market rally since Dwight Eisenhower was President.
Napoleon
@Culture of Truth:
And of course I kept all of my retirement in bonds during it because I just have had a hard time believing that profitability would return so quickly.
Culture of Truth
So where exactly is the money going, after ‘profits’?
Well, NetJets just ordered 50 new private jets, one of the largest such orders in history.
Culture of Truth
That’s 50 jets with an option for 70 more.
Culture of Truth
Manchin and McCaskill are Obama’s ‘allies’ – that he can’t sway them is prove he is selling out progressives
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Culture of Truth:
This proves that the economy is recovering. Now that the wealthy can buy new jets, all is well in AmeriCorp (r).
The slaves are doing more with less so this means they will do even more for even less.
Palaces for everyone (with money)!
debit
@geg6: I have my own pitchfork, so I am ready for the revolution when it finally comes.
ETA: Except it’s plastic. And Fleet Farm called it a “manure fork”. But it has manure on it!
Alex S.
@Suck It Up!:
Let’s start with farm subsidies and watch her shut up.
rickstersherpa
Among the other odd parts of Governor Walker’s budget bill is this part as posted by Menzie Chen on Econobrowser:
“Dispatches (VIII): A Dog’s Life in Wisconsin
Or, don’t lose your dog in Wisconsin.
Just one of the odd bits of legislation winding through Madison, WI. From AB40:
SECTION 2704. 174.13 (2) of the statutes is amended to read: 174.13 (2) Any officer or pound which has custody of an unclaimed dog may release the dog to the University of Wisconsin System, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the Medical College of Wisconsin, Inc., or to any other educational institution of higher learning chartered under the laws of the state and accredited to the University of Wisconsin System or University of Wisconsin–Madison, upon requisition by the institution.
The requisition shall be in writing, shall bear the signature of an authorized agent, and shall state that the dog is requisitioned for scientific or educational purposes. If a requisition is made for a greater number of dogs than is available at a given time, the officer or pound may supply those immediately available and may withhold from other disposition all unclaimed dogs coming into the officer’s or pound’s custody until the requisition is fully discharged, excluding impounded dogs as to which ownership is established within a reasonable period. A dog left by its owner for disposition is not considered an unclaimed dog under this section. If operated by a county, city, village or town, the officer or pound is entitled to the payment of $1 for each dog requisitioned. An institution making a requisition shall provide for the transportation of the dog.
It’s been pointed out the bill only adds UW Madison to the list of organizations that can purchase dogs, but I’m compelled to wonder about the motivation for this measure, given UW-Madison doesn’t rely upon purchases of strays [1]. Perhaps, the hope is that local governments can rely upon the sales of stray dogs to help offset the multi-million dollar reductions in state funding of local governments, as proposed in Governor Walker’s budget.
I have not seen any formal estimates of the fiscal impact of this measure.
Posted by Menzie Chinn at March 7, 2011 09:25 PM”
mikefromArlington
It’s funny you posted this cartoon. Just yesterday, I was thinking of the complainers complaining of teacher benefits and union members in general of how over the top they are. Then I thought to myself, these same people have probably been sucked into the unions are bad lazy people propaganda, voted out pro-union politicians at the county and state level because of promises of more higher paying jobs, then are looking at a bad guy to explain why they don’t have good paying jobs to get the benefits union members get.
It’s because your states are right to work states that have crushed unions and their rights.
I can’t think of one reason why a highly educated individual that could get any number of jobs would pick teaching when teachers become the target of Republican voters and those they elect any time there is a budget crisis. Compared to other countries, our teachers are compensated little. Teaching in this country used to be held in high regard. Something happened. Not sure what. But in the 80’s, there was a mass exodus of teachers during that big recession, and it’s going to start happening now that there is an ideological battle going on right now and teachers are becoming political fodder.
It’s a damn shame.
Punchy
@MattMinus: My company: 11+% growth yoy. Raises? 2%. Niiiiiiiiice.
Poopyman
Quelle surprise. So evidently no one learned the lessons of the 19th century. My only question is who will play the Pinkerton’s roll once we replay the massive strikes.
Southern Beale
So that ratfucker James O’Keefe got another scalp for his wall of shame. Absofucking amazing to me how quick NPR and the left is to throw people under the bus.
I distinctly remember seeing in the past 2 days a YouTube video of someone saying the most awful thing about Democrats at a fundraiser. Things that make Ron Schiller’s “the Tea Party has hijacked the GOP” thing look pale by comparison. I cannot for the life of me remember who or what it was though. It may have been Newt Gingrich or one of these other assholes with presidential aspirations.
debit
@Southern Beale: Remember when that campaign manager for a Republican went to jail for stomping on a woman’s head? And how made national news and everyone was so upset? Oh, wait…
Greg
Every single job offer I have had in the last year wants me to work as an “independent contractor”. Which means no salary, no benefits, no….well, anything.
Southern Beale
@debit:
GAH ….
Southern Beale
@Greg:
But … freedom! Liberty! And … freedom!
Or something…
Kryptik
@Southern Beale:
A-fucking-mazing, isn’t it? Despite the guy proving he couldnt’ be trusted about 4 times over, he wins ANOTHER FUCKING SCALP.
Because apparently saying that liberals are traitors, marxist usurpers who deserve to be run out and shot is somehow so much better and more mainstream than saying the Tea party is racist.
GOOD FUCKING GOD, this country really just does run on fucking hippie punching.
Scott
@Greg:
Yeah, I’m really dreading the next time I get laid off. It’s looking more and more likely that one way or another, my current job will be the last one I’ll ever have. :(
Kryptik
Oh, I forgot, apparently another part of the NPR thing is the video somehow proving that NPR hates jews and Israel and trolled for money from the Muslim Brotherhood. Despite even in O’Keefes edited hackjob the NPR folks refusing to even acknowledge the heavy handed crap and the money being offered by his “extremist group” he was trying to punk the NPR guy as.
Of course all anyone seems to remember is that ‘NPR is liberal, hates jews, and supports Muslim Extremists, thank god they’re dead now!!!’
God, it just never fucking ends. I’m heartened and amazed that the Wisconsin fight is going well, since it seems like in the other 49, the “Death to All Liberals!!” parade is going stronger than ever.
MikeJ
Re the cartoon: Not IGMFY, but IDGMFY.
Scott
@Kryptik:
The pushback in Wisconsin is from normal people, not Villagers. It’s a damn smart bet that the “We hate all liberals” bullshit is strictly from the Villagers, politicians, and media. The rest of the country is either supportive or doesn’t care.
Rpx
@Poopyman: Assume it will be whichever new American mercenary firm staffed with ex-special operations vets is in vogue at the time.
singfoom
@Kryptik: Yeah, there’s a serious double standard here. Beck and Limbaugh, and especially Mark Levin say the most horrible awful things on a daily basis, calling liberals a disease, traitors, cancer in the body politic, etc….mentally deranged… no one bats an eye.
But a liberal says that the Tea Party is racist, which is borne out by evidence of racist signs, racist e-mails, etc, and everyone goes apeshit. I’m really disappointed by NPRs reaction to this story. They could have stood behind their man and pointed to the evidence and also pointed out that that was his personal opinion and not necessarily his.
But that’s an unallowed opinion at NPR evidently. We must not point out that the Emperor has no clothes.
Now, I need some hippies to punch to get some shit done. Anyone know where they are?
Kryptik
@Scott:
Unfortunately, Villagers run our fucking country for the most part, which is why we’re about to have a totally fucking gutted EPA, de facto bans of abortion nearly nationwide, continued erosion of further women’s rights, the death of Unions just about everywhere else in the country now despite protests and people power, the return of Child Labor Support in fucking Missouri, disenfranchisement under the guise of ‘secure voting’ (i.e. secured against anyone too liberal to deserve a ballot) and a host of other bullshit that solves no other problem other than ‘How do we spite the fuckin’ Hippies this time?’
The Wisconsin fight is awesome, but it’s also the only thing that seems to be going our way anymore.
singfoom
@singfoom: Since I can’t edit, I meant “Not Necessarily theirs”.
Suck It Up!
@Southern Beale:
Recently fired Juan Williams:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/npr_ceo_vivian_schiller_resigns_over_james_okeefe.php#more
Poopyman
@Suck It Up!: Ah, self awareness! Where is thy sting?
Kryptik
@Suck It Up!:
Except even in the fucking edited video the offered money was fucking refused, you disingenuous fucking islamophobic hack!
But, I forgot, anyone who says anything liberal is automatically a fucking lying America-hater and deserves nothing but scorn and pitchforks, right, Juan?
eemom
“I used to like to go to work
but they shut it down
I got a right to go to work
but there’s no work here to be found
And they say we’re gonna have to pay what’s owed
We’re gonna have to reap from some seed that’s been sowed….”
To “see desperation explode into flames” — that is what we need.
The Republic of Stupidity
I hate to point the FARKIN’ OBVIOUS…
But what did you expect?
Haven’t five thousand years of recorded human history taught us anything?
debit
@singfoom:
I would love for someone to bring that point up somewhere with a little more national prominence than a blog, but we all know that’s never going to happen. Well, maybe Rachel will do it. That’s it.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@eemom:
That song has been on my mind recently. The Villagers are “birds up on a wire”. They can always fly away from this rain and this cold.
I haven’t quite made it to the point of thinking this is “what we need” in the sense that I want it to happen, but I agree that at this point it appears to be the only way out. I don’t think peaceful change has a chance any more in this country. The Gilded Age was an era of mass social violence and from the study I’ve done of the reforms which gradually brought it to an end, that violence and threat of even more of it if something wasn’t done was an essential motivating factor in getting the powerful to either support or at least tolerate reforms.
eemom
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
yes, I agree.
Another way of saying it is another favorite quote of mine, from Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth, which takes place in pre-revolutionary China:
“There is a way, when the rich are too rich.”
Excellent point about the birds as the Villagers, btw. I hadn’t made that connection, but that is exactly what I loathe about them — they are just spectators at this grotesque circus where human lives are in the ring.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@eemom:
The other thing that strikes me is that, for the top 1% and the top 0.1% especially, taking away everything that we have (and I really do mean everything) is for them just a negotiating strategy, as part of a big game.
They are used to going in to a meeting and asking for more than they want or need and it is up to the other guy to say “no”. If you can’t or won’t say “no”, well then too bad for you, sucker. Better luck next time. And they will just continue taking and taking and continue with no limit to it until somebody says “no” to them and makes it stick. They really will take not 80%, not 90%, not 99%, but 100% of the national income until somebody stops them.
And they really don’t care about long-term consequences. That is somebody else’s problem. Frankly, I wonder how many of them deep down don’t really like (or even hate) their children, because they aren’t doing a very good job of building a platform for long term sustainable wealth on a scale of multiple generations the way the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age did. Those men thought more long term than the current bunch. Or maybe they think the global economy is going to hit a wall and crash hard, and they are just looting everything they can grab now, before the roof collapses on our heads.
Sasha
Also important: This recovery is not being driven by small business.
Those Net-60, 90, 120, whenever-we-feel-like-paying corporate policies aren’t helping either.
Disraeli
Well it strikes me that the “trickle down” economic theory is working perfectly well.
There are a few minor glitches, semantic stuff really.
It’s not a trickle it’s a flood.
And it’s not down it’s up.
But apart from those really picayune points everything is working as designed.
Davis X. Machina
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: They’ll take it, on pure principal, simply to satisfy their theory, because the sum taken in any one instance is undetectable in practice.
The difference between Rich Dude’s X, and his X + 0.0001% is a number so small that Rich Dude can’t measure it, and certainly can’t notice it in the way Rich Dude lives his life, but that minuscule increment in his X is enough to pay off Normal Dude’s mortgage, and car loan, and HELP loans…
Not until thousands and thousands of Normal Dude’s friends also lose the house, and the car, and their dream of college for the kids, does it add up enough for Rich Dude to, you know, notice.
We’re not being asked to make the rich rich, by our sacrifice.
We’re being asked to make the rich infinitesimally richer.
DBrown
ThatLeftTurnInABQ – you are hitting the nail on the head: peak oil and it is starting to get ulgy and we are (close0 but not there. In less than five years the world will change and you will look back at this time and wonder how good it was and why you weren’t thinking that that light at the end of the tunnel was name speeding straight at you and called crash of the oil based economy. people, listen, those are the foot steps and they are catching up with you – been watching the price of oil and how very littl ewas lost but we are short? That even China is now in an aggressive mode to save oil use over the next five years (major crash program, really)? All the natinal reports say if the economy picks up, 2012 could be the start of near peak oil? baby, we are in deep shit compared to anyone else due to our dependance on liquid fuels – jobs won’t be the lone issue but it is already getting ugly – wake up.
Linda Featheringill
@eemom:
Amid the calls for revolution [which I FULLY empathize with], we should remember that a lasting revolution would have to be built on a different economic system, a different way of meeting our needs. So far, we haven’t invented this new system.
So if we did overthrow all those who richly deserve being overthrown, but keep the same economic system, we will all eventually come back to the place we are in today.
What is that song about “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”?
I’m in favor of mitigating the grief when we can but really don’t think we are ready for revolution yet.
I could be wrong, of course.
El Cid
@Greg: Have you applied for a position as “sharecropper” yet?
Ruckus
@Kryptik:
hippies are the new soylent green
eemom
@Linda Featheringill:
well, I am not much of a student of history, but I would venture that most revolutions aren’t implemented pursuant to carefully thought out plans for what comes next.
And even those which were motivated by a coherent ideology, most notably communism, ended in betrayal of those ideals.
The French seem to have done all right though.
Ruckus
@Linda Featheringill:
It’s not the system that’s broken. It’s how the system is played that’s broken. It’s my contention that most people would like to be rich but understand that they never will be. So what they’d like is to be able to live reasonable lives. House, car, dinner out with the kids every once in a while, some hobby to keep them occupied.
The problem is that the truly rich don’t understand/give a shit that allowing that would not change their lives but would help others. They don’t care/give as shit about anything but getting richer. They use money as a popularity score. The more they have the better. So they have gamed the system. They have bought the politicians. They have bought the tax code. But because they don’t have every fucking thing/last dollar yet they haven’t won. And they won’t stop until they have won or been beaten.
They were beaten before, it can happen again. But their weapons are better and they are most likely willing to use them. Which means when it comes down to it people will not just get beat up, they will die. And I don’t think the vast majority of people are ready for that yet.
Mnemosyne
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
There was also another factor: starting in the Gilded Age, capitalism finally had a competitor in communism, and the threat to business interests that they would lose everything by having it expropriated by a communist government if they continued to refuse to pay their fair share kept them in line for a long time.
Now communism is no longer a threat — it’s been completely discredited as a governing philosophy — and capitalism can swing to its natural extreme of fascism.
ETA: FDR was able to get business to fall in line with the New Deal because there was a credible threat that a soshulist or communist government could take over like it had it Russia only 20 years before. What’s the same credible threat we can use against the banksters today?
ETA #2: FYWP and your stupid moderation trigger keywords.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Let’s say a word – “sabotage”.
If people are being screwed over by companies, at what point will they start retaliating by screwing over those companies? Consider just how big a mess the banking industry is in over not having the right paperwork for mortgages – what happens if companies start discovering that two weeks after file clerks resign or get canned, they can no longer find their most critical files?
What if that becomes an organised, national pastime, aimed at the worst companies? Sorta an Anonymous for the working stiff?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Mnemosyne:
Agreed.
I’ve been saying something similar for a while; that the downward spiral (which we are currently living thru) of the US into a morass of incompetence, stupidity and madness led by our wealthy and powerful elites, this event really began in the 1989-1991 time frame as a result of the implosion of our ideological competition. One of the Soviets told us at the time something along the lines of (this is a paraphrase) “We have done our worst to you. We have deprived you of an enemy”. US hyperpower has proved to be a curse. First hubris, then nemesis.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Phoenician in a time of Romans:
It doesn’t even have to go that far. If people feel that our society offers them nothing, what is that going to do for productivity? In the USSR a joke was common: “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work”. That level of apathy and cynicism could be our future too.
TenguPhule
I understand that India has found an innovative solution to this problem.
They burn the offending CEOs alive.
Can we start insourcing yet?
Paul in KY
@Ruckus: Alot of them (the uberwealthy) like to ‘keep score’ with other members of their class. Some of them (Aga Khan, for instance) are heriditary heads of religions, despots, etc.
Doesn’t metter that a master-of-the-universe from USA is really in a different game from a monarch, they keep score with them too & they need more, more, more.