When Worker Productivity Goes Up & Worker Pay Goes Down - That Is Wealth Redistribution

[Tom Rinaldo]

The U. S. is a capitalist nation and our wealth primarily flows through our national "market place". Who ends up with that wealth is an unambiguous result of how that wealth is distributed. When corporations generate more money than they need to operate, decisions must be made where to allocate those surplus fiscal resources. They can go toward upgrading facilities, toward research, toward marketing, toward employee compensation, or toward owner profits. These are conscious choices.

The hands that guide that distribution are not some invisible unseen market force. They belong to managers and owners and corporate boards. They belong to the one percent and to their most trusted agents. Together they have directed a massive redistribution of American wealth away from middle class Americans to the wealthiest among us. When both worker productivity and corporate profits rise while the income of the average American family falls, that isn't preordained and blameless. It is the ownership class in America furthering its own interests by redistributing the fruits of the American economy disproportionately into their own pockets simply because they can, and they are counting on no one stopping them. That's why they want a smaller government, and that's why they are willing to invest heavily in the political process in order to buy one.

We know wealth redistribution in America. It is the class warfare that most of us currently are losing.

[BeyondGeography]

1. Indeed...and it has been going on for a very long time

Rec'd.

[Tom Rinaldo]

2. At least 30 years...

According to Romney and the Republican Party we are not supposed to begrudge the success of the wealthy, nor are we to begrudge their ability to use high power tax lawyers to avoid paying taxes through special interest loopholes that they insert into the tax code. We are supposed to react that It just shows how "competent" someone like Romney is at business that he "pays all the taxes he owes" and pays at a lower rate than his house cleaners.

But it is a national crisis now it seems that poor people manage to work for low incomes that are too low to qualify for income taxes.

[BeyondGeography]

5. I work for these types

and I can safely say that profit maximization is a pile of crap. No matter how high you jump, they want you to jump higher. When it becomes apparent that you can't jump any higher no matter how hard you try (the top line flatlines), they raid the business for "savings" and put it in their own pockets. Cut the salaries of hundreds/thousands of people to support the owners. Or do it the Bain way using borrowed money to convert still productive assets into ATM's for a tiny group of people, whose numbers are a fraction of what the enterprise actually can support.

And then they up the narrative ante by questioning our effort, which is another way of saying, watch out, there's a pile of young-uns out there willing to do what you do for half the price. Which, of course, is an old game. The reality is we still generate plenty of free cash for the owners, just not as much as they told their boards or their bankers there would be. Or not as much as they think they need for themselves.

I think more people are catching on, but it has taken forever, which is why I am grateful to whomever recorded Romney's 47% riff, which was both false and evil. The more people have an idea of what they're dealing with the more hesitant they will be to cede control.

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. I just hope the Obama team isn't oo cautious in response

Until recently the Liberal politician response to a Republican attack like accusing the poor of being free loaders or calling a politician a Socialist because s/he favors progressive taxation has been to duck and cover, or at least try to change the subject.

As important as it is, much more is at stake here than just the Presidential election. Obama's ability to govern effectively if elected is on the line also. NOW is when the public is paying the most attention to political issues, during a presidential campaign. Either Democrats effectively refute the ongoing Republican game plan to privatize America and shrivel up government in the guise of budget balancing now, or we will be forced into a position of negotiating away vulnerable people's lives during conference committees later

Take on wealth redistribution head on. All the statistics favor our position. Start with income growth figures during the Great Recession. The top 1% has continued to make out like bandits. They are draining money away from the middle class at an astonishing rate.

[BeyondGeography]

12. I have very high hopes for a second term

The President will be freer to play offense. He will be playing for his place in history, which, I think, is very meaningful to him. The current campaign might have to last all the way to the mid-terms.

Our party will depend on his leadership. This shouldn't come down to one person, but a lot will ride on Obama. Given all the abuse he has taken from those whose good faith he once relied on, and his ambitions, which I believe to be both healthy and good, the President matters. He can help set the proper course for the country and the party. Lord knows the latter needs all the courage it can get.

[Tom Rinaldo]

11. Hey BG, please work this post up into a seperate OP

Few are good at putting this scenario down in word though so manyh of us recognize it first hand in our lives. It needs its own thread!

[BeyondGeography]

14. One of these days...

Thanks for the encouragement.

[leftstreet]

3. Commie!

DURec

[Tom Rinaldo]

4. If Obama is a Socialist that must make me a Commie, at least!

Maybe even an anarcho-communist, lol

[PowerToThePeople]

7. Good morning to you, Comrade leftstreet.

[Bonhomme Richard]

6. I'm going to steal that. n/t

[Tom Rinaldo]

9. You can't steal it, it's free! :) n/t

[Bonhomme Richard]

20. Damn! Foiled again. n/t

[genxlib]

10. Bingo

Well said.

It has been a thirty year process since Reagan that accelerated with off shoring. Then it gets really serious during the recession when people are so desperate for work that they will do more for less.

[jonesgirl]

18. That was their intent wasn't it

They filled people's heads that better opportunities and better wages come to those who have a college degree. Then when a big chunk of those college grads hit the job search market for those "higher paid jobs" the businesses didn't want to hire because it would cost too much. So they shut it all down, making the innocent pay and suffer the consequences during the course of just a few years...this way the innocent will be grateful for finally obtaining a job that pays minimum wage or a little higher. However, this mindset has had deeper repercussions.

[DaveJ]

13. Money is the opposite of work

Thanks. Money IS man made. Republicans think it's created by God.

Since money is man made, it has flaws, like interest. Interest is fine for someone who wants to retire on their interest income, who worked hard all their lives for it. Not for those who hoard hundreds of millions, use it to control people, with no understanding of what they do to earn it.

So naturally, if they think money is God, and behave as though money is the opposite of work, those who suck up all the money are detrimental to those who actually contribute to the world.

[ProSense]

15. Great point, and also true of the stagnant minimum wage. n/t

[Tom Rinaldo]

16. Yes, that too...

If the minimum wage was set at a livable wage, more of us could actually earn enough to pay income taxes which presumably would make Romney happy. I don't remember where I saw a chart, but the minimum wage overall has been losing ground on the cost of living for decades, and almost all Republican almost always oppose raising it.

[toddwv]

17. That is trickle-down coupled with global corporatism.

And it's working EXACTLY as intended.

That's the scary part.

[Deacon Blue]

19. Job Creators v. The Moochers

To blame the poor for subsisting on welfare has no justice unless we are also willing to judge every rich member of society by how productive he or she is. Taken individual by individual, it is likely that there's more idleness and abuse of government favors among the economically privileged than among the ranks of the disadvantaged. -Norman Mailer, author (1923-2007)

[Tom Rinaldo]

21. Nice quote, I never saw that one before.

There are so many opportunities to become wealthier once one is already wealthy. Being born into wealth, for example, is practically a free pass that takes sustained usually degenerate effort to forfeit. Of course the Republican party opposes inheritance taxes.

[HiPointDem]

22. kr

[Canuckistanian]

23. Yes! That's what I've been saying for years

Workers' pay should be TIED to productivity and profit, something like a fixed ratio or other agreement.

There is NO reason that real, inflation-adjusted pay should be going DOWN in a time of record productivity.

And I agree, it's NOT ANYTHING to do with the "invisible hand". It's just the pure greed of the owners and officers of the corporations.

[Tom Rinaldo]

24. America is not threatened by a "Culture of Dependency"...

It is threatened by a Culture of Greed.

[Mnemosyne]

25. K&R nt