Aug. 21, 2006 - 20:37 MDT

APPLE PIE

Quite interesting the things that columnists come up with. Remarkable it is that many of them are not concentrated on the Jon Benet Ramsey case at this time. Paul Krugman of The New York Times has a column in this morning's Rocky Mountain News that gives me the idea that truth is within him. Quoted in full herein (Italics and Bolds mostly mine):

ECONOMIC INEQUALITY NEEDS ACTION, NOT DENIAL

"Recently Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, acknowledged that economic inequality is rising in America. In a break with previous administration pronouncements, he also conceded that this might be cause for concern."

But he quickly reverted to form, falsely implying that rising inequality is mainly a story about rising wages for the highly educated. And he argued that nothing can be done about this trend, that "it is simply an economic reality, and it is neither fair nor useful to blame any political party." HISTORY SUGGESTS OTHERWISE."

"I've been studying the long term history of inequality in the United States. and it's hard to avoid the sense that it matters a lot which political party, or more accurately, which poitical ideology rules Washington."

"##The Great Compression, 1929 - 1947: The real wages of production workers in manufacturing rose 67 percent, while the real income of the richest 1 percent of Americans actually fell 17 percent."

"## The Postwar Boom. 1947 - 1973: Real wages rose 81 percent, and the incomeof the richest 1 percent rose 38 percent."

"##Stagflation. 1973 - 1980: Real wages fell 3 percent, and the income of the richest 1 percent fell 4 percent."

"##The New Gilded Age, 1980 - ?: Between 1980 and 2004, real wages in manufacturing fell 1 percent, while the real income of the richest 1 percent -- people with incomes of more than $277,000 in 2004 - rose 135 percent."

"What's noticeable is that except during stagflation, when virtually all Americans were hurt by a tenfold increase in oil prices, what happened in each era was what the dominant political tendency of that era wanted to happen."

"Franklin Roosevelt favored the interests of workers while declaring of plutocrats who considered him a class taitor, "I welcome their hatred." Sure enough, under the New Deal wages surged while the rich lost ground."

"What followed was an era of bipartisanship and political moderation that saw equable growth."

"Finally since 1980 the U.S. political scene has been dominated by a conservative movement firmly committed to the view that what's good for the rich is good for America. Sure enough, the rich have seen their incomes soar, while working Americans have seen few if any gains."

"It seems likely that government policies have played a big role in America's growing economic polarization. And if that is true, it matters a lot which party is in power -- and more important, which ideology. For the last few decades, even Democrats have been afraid to make an issue out of the inequality, fearing that they would be accused of practicing class warfare and lose the support of wealthy campaign contributors."

"That may be changing. If, for example, the growing movement to pressure Wal-Mart to treat its workers better is any indication, economic populism is making a comeback. It's still unclear when the Democrats might regain power, or what economic policies they'll pursue when they do. But if and when we get a government that tries to do something about rising inequality, rather than responding with a mixture of denial and fatalism we may find that Paulson's "economic reality" is a lot easier to change than he supposes."

++++++++++++

I suppose that we as a populace stood for any form of outsourcing rather than fight. What I think we should have done as a people would be to have insisted on fair wages and benefits and not go for more and more wages. We should have insisted that our businesses keep all operations in this country. When I went to work in 1977 for one of those mega-corporations, most every part of the finished product was manufactured overseas, all we did was assemble and test the finished product.

What I can gather from here, is that manufacturing has gone overseas long ago. And from what I can see the productive brains are being outsourced now as well, which includes the well educated and technical wizards.

Which in the end it seems that we will be a nation of low paid assemblers ( if that can't be outsourced cheaply ) and service people like janitors and lawn care, maid and butler services. And come to think of it, there just aren't enough rich folks to employ all of us, which means that service work will be slave labor too.

I have nothing against a person or family becoming rich, more power to them. What I do object to is for people to get weirdly obscene salaries, perks and incentive bonuses to manage a corporation that is not doing well. Why on earth should any person get several million dollars a year, plus stock options, plus incentive pay and plus other things to manage even a good corporation ?

That and corporations having all those little loopholes to excuse paying real taxes. Makes things inequitable to my way of looking at things.

Of course I am not an economic academic, and even most of them don't agree on much of anything. Yet I wonder, will we end up being a nation of very rich shopkeepers who keep all activity out of our nation, have a huge staff of accountants and leave the rest of us to get tin bills and compete with the chickens ?"

Ya know, put them together and they don't remotely add up to Mother, let aloneAPPLE PIE . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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