"...incomes for most workers have stagnated..."

[Rydz777]

The July/August 2007 issue of "Foreign Affairs" (foreignaffairs.org) has a lengthy article about the effect of globalization on workers' incomes. This is the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations which is essentially pro-globalization but worried. Another quote:

"...inequality is greater now than at any time in the last 70 years...."

A key finding of economists quoted in the article was this: A study of 7 educational categories ranging from high school drop-outs to those with doctorates and professional graduate degrees showed that only the last group had experienced any growth in earnings from 2000 to 2005.

The writers fear a "backlash" against globalization. Personally, I think it is high time for a backlash.

[scarletwoman]

1. Yeah, bring on the "backlash"! (nt)

[defendandprotect]

10. Forty years to create a "backlash"????

All of this began to happen immediately with the coup on JFK --
Salaries have "stagnated" since then -- except for CEO's

AND -- as Republicans took over Congress, Congressional salaries have skyrocketed!!!

Btw, we're paying Bush $400,000 a year for screwing taxpayers, the nation and the planet!!

[Selatius]

2. The only people who have benefitted from globalization are the top 1 percent in terms of wealth

For them, globalization has been very good to them. For everybody else, it has been a loss.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. Prediction:

Before it gets better, there will be violence. Especially from those who wake up brutally and quickly.

It pleases me not in the least, but I hear that train a'comin'.

[GainesT1958]

4. And some of those categories...

Have actually declined in pay, I believe.

Income inequality the greatest in seventy years, huh? And in the U.S.--and in much of the world--we were still struggling to come out of the Depression in 1937.

It was also the time of the rise of the power of dictatorships...Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Franco, the Japanese militarists. Fortunately, we had FDR, who saved the free-market economy with the New Deal. Today, we see the rise of religious fundamentalism--in both East and West--as well as a rise in corporate oligarchy and in projecting power through militaristic means (the Neo-Cons).

Kevin Phillips talks at length about this income inequality--and how we've seen it before in our history--in his book, "Wealth and Democracy". He basically warns that a top-heavy economy could lead to exactly what the last top-heavy one did--another Great Depression, with potentially much harsher, much more immediate impacts world-wide. As well of the collapse of trust in our political system. When the guy who wrote "The Emerging Republican Majority" in the late '60s comes up with something like that, people had better pay attention.:scared:

B-)

[leftofthedial]

5. my income has not stagnated

It has decreased by 97.4% since 2001.

[Hart2008]

6. Duuh! We've been exporting jobs and importing workers.

What did they think would happen?

[MannyGoldstein]

7. A Big Thank You To The Clintons!

Sure, many others, like Hedge Fund Johnny, voted for and pushed 'free' trade with China. But the Clintons were the #1 enablers of this awful policy.

They got shekels from the Chinese - and we got job loss, lowered wages, and dangerous goods.

[JANdad]

9. Actually the blame ies with Reagan

And the trickle down economy...

Remember the union busting and pushing for cheap auto imports of the early 80's...

Clinton did what he had to do to get the economy rolling.

I remember having an American made TV bought from a local TV shop in the 80's...thanks to Reagan and Bush 1, they were the watershed for the economic devastation we are now facing...

[The2ndWheel]

11. This is far bigger than Reagan and Bush Sr.

Or Clinton for that matter. Globalization is a process that has been happening incrementally for thousands of years. It took until the 90's before the globe was more integrated into one system. Before then there were too many competing centers of power(Britain, Japan, Germany, Russia, America, Rome, Greece, Persia, etc, etc). The result of each war has brought more integration, because diversity creates conflict, and slows production.

If only it were Reagan and Bush Sr.

[Warren Stupidity]

8. Remember how globalization was going raise all boats?

Wasn't that great? Instead they pulled the flush cord and workers are all swirling down the bowl racing to the absolute real-wage floor. But hey we got us HD-DVD so everything is just fine!