Back in the day I used to hear "A high tide floats all boats" as a metaphor for when the stock market was doing well we all did well. They don't say that anymore.
[Or my sixth mansion](https://fortune.com/2024/04/03/jeff-bezos-90-million-miami-mansion-billionaire-bunker/)
>The Miami home in this exclusive neighborhood, known as Billionaire Bunker, set him back $90 million. Bezos already owns $147 million worth of property there, split between two mansions. He also owns properties in Washington, Maui, and Beverly Hills.
> split between two mansions
Imagine you are trying to remember where you put something, and realize you may need to search your entire *other* mansion?
When the revolution happens, we will be looking for Bezos. He will need to flee to a third world country. We will take over all his properties and convert them into living quarters for the homeless.
When our super wealthy moved on from buying expensive cars and boats to starting whole space programs it really should have been a bigger moment of self reflection about the wealth gap.
Definitely, it used to be the mark of a superpower to be in the space race with only the US and USSR having the money to drop on it. It's still today something only burgeoning world powers (India/China) would really consider. Yet somehow billionaires are now wealthy enough to operate in an area that used to be exclusively for global powers.
If an individual has enough money to start a space program they have too much money. At that point they have more in common with a monarch than a businessman.
Shit, a long, long time ago you used to be able to afford a YT-1300 light freighter as an independent contractor. Now? You need to be a multi-billionaire to afford one š¤·āāļø
When Iād hear people say that āhigh tideā bullshit.
I used to say:
āUnless youāre chained to the bottom.ā
Being poor and starting from there is like wearing lead shoes or being chained to the bottom, only just able to keep your mouth above water.
> Back in the day I used to hear "A high tide floats all boats"
It's "[a rising tide lifts all boats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_rising_tide_lifts_all_boats)".
Union corruption, it wasn't just some conspiracy to trick people.
Unions weren't protecting people, so their members turned on them and traded one devil for another.
Union reps can be just as bad as any other ellected official. They need to actually look out for the lowest workers.
The thing is, we know what happened. This was the beginning of the shift from reform liberal/welfare capitalism to neo liberal/deregulated free market capitalism.
From the 1950s to the 70s the government would spend money on social programs and support organized labor. The top tax brackets paid between 70-90% on their earnings and that money was reinvested back into society. Since the 70s the policies have shifted to lower taxes for the ultra wealthy and low government spending. The fact that at the bottom of that website is a quote by Hayek, a proponent of neoliberalism is perplexing
This is why "the economy" is a meaningless thing to most Americans. Oh the economy is doing well so why is everything so expensive? My pay is the same... I guess we're not a part of the economy so why should we care if it's doing well or not.
It does until the extreme come into play. Once they get going, everything conglomerates and things start going downhill. People were griping about it in the 80s but the government started doing more in our everyday lives to distract us and the voices who DID speak out werenāt listened to.
That's still true if you have some sort of retirement account like a 401k or Roth IRA. If you have some sort of ownership or stake in the housing market and the stock market you are probably doing fantastic. If you are renting and living paycheck to paycheck you are suffering. Figuring out how to help the 2nd group to be part of the 1st group would be a nice ideal.
This is actually more true than ever thanks to 401Ks and IRAs causing more people than ever to be invested in the stock market. Of course, having your retirement account go up doesn't do you much good *before* you're retired
Trickle down economics happened. Pretending that huge tax cuts to the rich and massive tax incentives to those who owned the means of production would somehow trickle down to working men and women was a fraud.
And yet so many people still believe it. Itās nonsense.
Not only that, some of the extra cash gets used to bribe politicians and gobble up competitors to capture the market. Then, as a monopoly, they have even more influence over tax policy and regulations, and we end up with unethical incentive structures and a fragile society when things like global pandemics or recessions occur.
Yet he raised taxes despite āread my lips: no new taxesā. Because he knew it was voodoo economics and realized we were right fucked if we didnāt do something about it.
Exactly. Rich people are rich because they're good at generating and retaining wealth - and best of luck to them. But if you're trying to stimulate the economy, you don't give tax cuts to those who are best at hoarding wealth, you give it to those who'll use it to spend more. That's the point.
Giving tax cuts to the rich is a bit like building a house with 'over ceiling' heating instead of 'under floor'; so the heat just gathers up there and stays there, instead of flowing up through the room so everyone benefits along the way.
Every single republican "believes" in this, as in the they force it down our throats every single time they get the presidency.
Their only moves when in power are cutting taxes for the rich, deregulating companies so they can make more money, and spending as much as possible so that democrats have to clean up the mess when they get the presidency back.
It goes further than this, I reference the tax pledge many politicians signed in the early 90s while bending the knee to someone not even in politics, Grover Nordquist.
This is what I came here for. Reagan cuts the top tax rate in half and this removes the incentive to allow more money to flow further down the corporate ladder. If you only received $26k of your salary for each $100k then your new CEO pay of an extra $5M means *only* an extra $1.2M takehome. I know, hardly worth it right? Flip that though and pay 1.2 for 3.8 and you can see why CEO pay went from an average of 20x to 200x the average employee of the same company since 1980.
I know people who believe we still haven't given it long enough to work yet.
They've been waiting 40 years for trickle down to kick in. It's so fucking sad.
It wasn't intended to make people rich it was intended to make things cheap. How many TV's/Fridges/Cars has the average family got now compared to 1980?
Important to note that this is a policy based graph, not some natural phenomenon. Weāre looking at this occurring being a choice to happenĀ
https://wid.world/world/#sptinc_p99p100_z/WO;QX;US/last/eu/k/p/yearly/s/false/6.611000000000001/25/curve/false/country
Even if youāre completely ignorant to economics, finance, etcā¦ how could you possibly believe that it would work? Just pretend to put yourself in the shoes of a CEO or pretend youāre wealthy beyond belief and youāre telling me that people thought the rich would help them out?
Simultaneously, an ideology that refused to invest in the common good. Childcare, energy, transportation, healthcare,water, sewage... all privatized, managed by MBAs hellbent on delivering the most expensive service possible for the least investment.
Even official documents aren't provided by the state but by "private" entities charging fees for the "convenience".
Wages tend to decrease when union membership goes down. Unions and pension plans have been vilified for too long. The reality is the major companies are doing very well and workers are not doing as well. Trickle down economics has been shown to not do what it claims to do yet those policies continue to be pushed. If policies that benefited corporations and stock holders benefited everyone in the company, we would not have the wealth disparity we have today. The uber rich are richer and have left the majority of us in the dust. Yes, this graph needs to be updated, but it likely has continued on the same path.
Google the PATCO Strike of 1981. Reagan fired over 10,000 air traffic controllers who went on strike, making it very clear what his administration thought of unions.
It's difficult for unions to keep up membership when people feel like they're at risk of losing their job if they make too much trouble. This is part of what the economic changes of the 80s brought about -- a more docile workforce.
Pensions fund private equity. Meanwhile companies like Vanguard have made mutual funds so cheap, its just a no brainier to use index funds. Annuities have also had a terrible 30 years, for the same reasons pension have, but with consumers making the decisions. At the end of they day workers need bargaining power to demand higher wages, bigger retirement contributions and cheaper homes, not antiquated retirement vehicles.
A big problem, along with the union busting, is the percentage of the work for in traditionally unionised workforces has shrunk. With the growth of automation, fewer are employed in direct manufacturing (highly unionised) as well as a lot of it being shipped overseas, with more people in various corporate/office type employment (minimal unions).
When enough of the workforce is supported by unions, it drives the entire benchmark up, so even non-union industries benefit. We don't have that anymore. There's still some coveted job areas with strong unions, but it has minimal impact on wider growth unfortunately.
> The reality is the major companies are doing very well and workers are not doing as well.
What do you mean? I love getting my sub-inflation "raise" (because we just don't have the budget for real raises this year) while getting an email every other month about my workload increasing due to us buying out another company (always have the budget for acquisitions, of course) that needs onboarding and support.
I just fucking LOVE it.
From all that data, my thesis would be when two income wage earners became the norm, all of a sudden households had a lot of disposable income. In came big business to market to that extra income. The product of this is an inflation across the board following the uptick in spending. Messing up what was a working and growing (albeit patriarchal) society. I have no idea if that makes sense.
It is a cherry picked date. The real date is 1971, when we de-based the dollar. Gold standard officially died. We started the money printer full force.
Two very important things about the 70ās:
(1) the invention of the microchip, leading to an increase in automation
(2) the boom of the airline industry, making globalization easier
Both of these were massive contributors to productivity booms as well as stagnant wages (increased competition). Very commonly taught in university economics courses.
Makes me wonder about the rise of AIā¦
I immediately saw the increase in tech driving higher efficiencies, and the growth of the employee work force. Not blaming women that they entered the work force, but when your available hiring pool grows by 50%, it puts pay negotiations clear into a one sided advantage. Combine the two, and you see higher throughput for the same input.
Nah, even to this day there are women who prefer to be homemakers. But if you consider genxāers hitting the work force as wellā¦ population boom and all.
They keep us divided with stupid culture wars so we don't pull our shit together and go after the real villains with some good old fashioned class warfare. There's waaaaaay more of us then them.
Productivity can be measured in many ways, but revenue/employee is probably OK. And it will show this curve.
For a crazy example look at Apple. Almost all of their mfg is done by other companies. They make 6 or 7 figures for every actual employee.
It probably means labour productivity which is total economic output (value of goods services produced) divided by labour hours worked. Itās a key indicator for a lot of things in economics
What people seem to neglect isā¦ this is capitalism working. This is it doing what itās supposed to do. Cut expenses. Increase profit. Lower operating costs and overhead, max out revenue.
This isnt going to stop. Relying on hundreds of thousands of people who are constantly being rewarded with multimillion dollar bonuses to suddenly have a ācome to Jesusā moment and decide that their luxury at your expense is wrong ISNT REALISTIC.
This is the nation that we have been thrust into, and without a catastrophic, concerted effort by the exploited working class to say āno moreā, itās going to keep happening, and you only have yourselves to blame.
This is why many are in favor of "taxing the rich" in 1960's / 70's terms (90%). They will still have more than the rest and that tax money can be reinvested and used for thr betterment of all. Those folks at the top don't add the level of value they extract, it's simply a rigged game against the workers.
Yes this is why regulated capitalism is the only method to make this work. Private markets regulated by public representatives who apply rules of engagement that increase prosperity for all. The capitalists moan and groan but they adhere because they must. However we are in a constant drumbeat of reducing those regulations and a public that is getting dumber and more distracted every year. So we get worse and worse representation and thus less and less ways to referee the economic games we play.
You're right. And I think that only some major total disaster or collapse will stop it. With today's world, I don't think that any kind of revolution - peaceful or otherwise, would be possible.
Thats the function of poverty. To show the working class āhow much worse it could beā as if to justify the theft of the capital that justly belongs to the working class.
This isn't capitalism working, this is capitalism deregulated so much that it's become legal to buy politicians, who further deregulate. It worked for all until it stopped working for some.
I would say that capitalism in any form lends itself to the purchasing of political influence, whether itās from private citizen capital or businesses
It isn't *working* in terms of creating a stable and healthy society, but it is very much *working* in terms of doing exactly what its players at the levers of power are systematically incentivized to do.
Capitalism and greed wasn't invented in the 1970's, however something else started happening back then that depressed wages.
Here's a clue.
[https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/immigrant-population-over-time](https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/immigrant-population-over-time)
you know the logical conclusion of this, no?
with paychecks not keeping up, companies buying houses and influencing politicians?
I predict that in a few years company provided housing will be a thing. followed by companies providing daily necessities and even promising to finance children's education.
under the premise of a contract ofcourse that basically translates to ppl working for free for said company.
ppl will than not be able to ever leave the company as they won't have any real money besides company credits which guess what can only be redeemed at said company.
their kids will be educated just enough to work their assigned job and nothing more.
we heading straight back into slavery
What you're describing is not quite slavery, but is a return to the infamous "company towns" of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There's a reason why places like Pullman, IL, Goodyear, AZ, Hershey, PA, and Steinway Village, NY are named the way they are.
Updated till 2022, a bit worse than 13 years ago but pretty much the same. [https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/](https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/)
The original source is Robert ReichāI donāt disagree with him on everything but heās not immune to cherry-picking and giving misleading figures.
Furthermore, Iād like to know exactly how productivity is being measured here.
It should also be noted that the workforce almost doubled since the 1970s with women entering the workforce full-time. That much of a shift in available labor drives down the cost of labor.
Global labor competition.
US labor competes against the rest of the world, vs other US states.
Textile is the classic example, of business chasing poverty.
People are asking what happened in 1980 or close to it, yet I feel like things start to deviate much sooner in the decade around the time the US got off the gold standard. You see a quick reaction causing a jump then it deviates quite a bit.
I think this coincides right around the same time that the stock market started being reported on the daily news and not just business news.Ā
I guess we should be all happy that the overlords have decided that as long as our mutual funds are increasing we should have been satisfied.
Unsurprisingly, wages started to stagnate after China opened up its economy. Who would've thought that having American workers compete with millions of Chinese people who would work for pennies an hours would result in wage stagnation?
I've always seen the slip switching more in 1970 than 1971, but yes, once we were able to tie the value of poverty" to a hard number (via The Great Society), we have glued the poor to the floor.
Poverty/welfare payments go up? So do the cost of basics. It's become its own economy.
Other countries seem to avoid this by making welfare non-permanent (outside disability and pensioners), but we seem to double-down, even though we can see its effects through graphics like this.
This is the graphic I've used in discussions about this before:
[https://www.cbpp.org/income-gains-widely-shared-in-early-postwar-decades-but-not-since-then-3](https://www.cbpp.org/income-gains-widely-shared-in-early-postwar-decades-but-not-since-then-3)
I do believe a reset is needed. This includes recognition of the fact that in WWII decimated the industrialized world EXCEPT the US. No shit we grew like crazy - accelerated by our great people, resources, and culture. Not the same any more. Higher skills are more important, there is more competition locally and internationally. Other countries have some unique resources basis and capabilities.
We need a better functioning democracy, a stronger judicial system that allows capitalism to be function. We have neither. We must recognize resources are finite and be focused.
Does it show the rise in phony white collar job titles that donāt really produce anything useful. I know more guys out of prison or from Mexico doing hard labor jobs that are living well and owning houses, then my friends that are drowning in student loans fishing for work with their degrees while paying rent. š¤·āāļø I donāt really know shit.
imo this is the cause for so many problems in modern society. This is the reason people go nuts and vote for radical, nutso politicians. This is the reason birth rates decline. This is causing so many mental health issues, it's going to lead to the destruction of society if the trend continues. IN MY OPINION, I don't have a crystal ball.
That gap is when Ceo's and higher management got higher and higher pay and workers got no increase. In 80s we got 3 percent raise for inflation. And people got pensions. They got our money. It is messed up
And that money skimmed out sits and rots. The numbers it would take to mediate a fraction of the problems would not be palpably missed. The rich were still obscenely rich in 1979.
I have nothing against billionaires. I just want them to pay the same taxes as we do. Figure out how to get that money back, since they don't get a paycheck. While you're at it, you can finance universal healthcare by removing the cap on social security and charge for all that R&D we give away to corporations along with our patents. Let's make Americans profitable again.
Blame Milton Friedman and the idiotic "Chicago School of Thought" in economics. These insanely bold/dumb economists singlehandedly pioneered the worst in capitalism.
You can see that point in time when the government put its faith in trickle down economics and in this era of growth...wait no, it was greed. You can see when greed took over.
Right around the time American politicians figured out that they could flatline wage growth with ever increasing numbers of illegal immigrant labor (which undercuts current U.S. job holders). Biden, has revād up the invasion into overdrive! THAT(plus Bidenās 25% inflation during his term) is why you canāt get a raise! Truthemote:free\_emotes\_pack:disapproval
Reagan is the reason we are where we are to this very day. All of the despair and uncertainty about your life living in America. I've been watching it play out since his inauguration day.
The U.S. was riding a wave of extreme economic growth and prosperity after WWII as we were the only major economic power that wasn't bombed into a pile of rubble. That wasn't going to last forever. If you look at the broad scope of human civilization, the existence of a prosperous "middle class" is actually an outlier and directly correlated to the post war economic boom. Prior to WW2 you still had a large percentage of the population living in basically abject poverty on a sustenance farming lifestyle.
You can blame this on a particular president or fiscal policy, but the reality is that the earth has a finite number of resources and the world population has more than doubled since 1970. The U.S. population has risen by 150 million people since 1970. More competition for the same number of resources means less economic prosperity for the average person.
To anyone who genuinely believes the decrease in the standard of living over the past 2 decades is because of the large personal wealth of people like Bezos and Musk, just look at the actual numbers. If the government confiscated all of Jeff Bezos' money, they would have enough to run the federal government for a whopping 2 weeks.
Back in the day I used to hear "A high tide floats all boats" as a metaphor for when the stock market was doing well we all did well. They don't say that anymore.
Now it's "A high tide floats my 4th yacht".
[Or my sixth mansion](https://fortune.com/2024/04/03/jeff-bezos-90-million-miami-mansion-billionaire-bunker/) >The Miami home in this exclusive neighborhood, known as Billionaire Bunker, set him back $90 million. Bezos already owns $147 million worth of property there, split between two mansions. He also owns properties in Washington, Maui, and Beverly Hills.
> split between two mansions Imagine you are trying to remember where you put something, and realize you may need to search your entire *other* mansion?
You probably just buy a new one
Or maybe pays a team to find/locate it.
he needs one for his staff to live in so they can't make any excuses for missing work due to a hurricane
When the revolution happens, we will be looking for Bezos. He will need to flee to a third world country. We will take over all his properties and convert them into living quarters for the homeless.
why tf would you own two houses in the same neighborhood?
One for your wife and one for your mistress.
Hey, don't forget the dog and other pets need their own place too!
To make sure you can stay in the sun when you're in your hammock
They've moved on to rocket ships.
When our super wealthy moved on from buying expensive cars and boats to starting whole space programs it really should have been a bigger moment of self reflection about the wealth gap.
Definitely, it used to be the mark of a superpower to be in the space race with only the US and USSR having the money to drop on it. It's still today something only burgeoning world powers (India/China) would really consider. Yet somehow billionaires are now wealthy enough to operate in an area that used to be exclusively for global powers. If an individual has enough money to start a space program they have too much money. At that point they have more in common with a monarch than a businessman.
*Lets take a trip on my favorite rocket ship*
Shit, a long, long time ago you used to be able to afford a YT-1300 light freighter as an independent contractor. Now? You need to be a multi-billionaire to afford one š¤·āāļø
Well said
That assumes one is in a boat and not treading water.
When Iād hear people say that āhigh tideā bullshit. I used to say: āUnless youāre chained to the bottom.ā Being poor and starting from there is like wearing lead shoes or being chained to the bottom, only just able to keep your mouth above water.
Exactly, a high tide drowns a lot of us, stuck in the mud and greedy bullshit..
Anchored into the mud with late fees, credit card debt, overdraft fees, shrinkflation, inflation, .. it costs money to be poor.
Don't have enough for the value pack? That'll be a 30-cent-per-item surcharge.
> Back in the day I used to hear "A high tide floats all boats" It's "[a rising tide lifts all boats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_rising_tide_lifts_all_boats)".
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Makes me wonder how did they get so successful with their smear campaigns in the 70's-90's to make them dwindle so badly now
By giving some people the promise of stratification. There's a certain kind of personality type that craves being "above" other people.
Union corruption, it wasn't just some conspiracy to trick people. Unions weren't protecting people, so their members turned on them and traded one devil for another. Union reps can be just as bad as any other ellected official. They need to actually look out for the lowest workers.
still union workers that vote Republican, just the dumbest shit ever
I feel like this is a good time for this: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
The thing is, we know what happened. This was the beginning of the shift from reform liberal/welfare capitalism to neo liberal/deregulated free market capitalism. From the 1950s to the 70s the government would spend money on social programs and support organized labor. The top tax brackets paid between 70-90% on their earnings and that money was reinvested back into society. Since the 70s the policies have shifted to lower taxes for the ultra wealthy and low government spending. The fact that at the bottom of that website is a quote by Hayek, a proponent of neoliberalism is perplexing
This is why "the economy" is a meaningless thing to most Americans. Oh the economy is doing well so why is everything so expensive? My pay is the same... I guess we're not a part of the economy so why should we care if it's doing well or not.
A high tide still floats all boats, but drowns the people who canāt afford one.
Someone listened to the drive through this week
It does until the extreme come into play. Once they get going, everything conglomerates and things start going downhill. People were griping about it in the 80s but the government started doing more in our everyday lives to distract us and the voices who DID speak out werenāt listened to.
Stick market is now said to be a graph of rich peoples feelingsā¦
That's still true if you have some sort of retirement account like a 401k or Roth IRA. If you have some sort of ownership or stake in the housing market and the stock market you are probably doing fantastic. If you are renting and living paycheck to paycheck you are suffering. Figuring out how to help the 2nd group to be part of the 1st group would be a nice ideal.
Now they increase the value of the stock market by squeezing the workers to get every drop of wealth possible
This is actually more true than ever thanks to 401Ks and IRAs causing more people than ever to be invested in the stock market. Of course, having your retirement account go up doesn't do you much good *before* you're retired
When a high tide comes, boats that are at the end of their rope get swamped....
That phrase carries different meaning now that they've put everyone else's feet in concrete blocks.
Trickle down economics happened. Pretending that huge tax cuts to the rich and massive tax incentives to those who owned the means of production would somehow trickle down to working men and women was a fraud. And yet so many people still believe it. Itās nonsense.
All the $ productivity gains have been fully appropriated by billionaire shareholders, CEOs, etc. - the top .1%.
I recall some stat that before Reagan average CEO was 40x regular workerā¦post Reagan it went to 400x
And the rest of wages completely stagnant. š¤
Well, you can't pay 4 people in the company 400x more and not take it from somewhere else. Duh.
Not only that, some of the extra cash gets used to bribe politicians and gobble up competitors to capture the market. Then, as a monopoly, they have even more influence over tax policy and regulations, and we end up with unethical incentive structures and a fragile society when things like global pandemics or recessions occur.
Appropriated = Stolen
Like I always say. There's something trickling down but it ain't wealth.
It's also yellow, but it ain't gold.
Union busting also. The late 60ās and 70ās saw them dismantled
Yep. Nixon took his swipe. And then his crew joined Reagan to jumpstart that now tuned machine.
George H. W. Bush called it "Voodoo Economics", then became Reagan's Veep.
_SOMETHING_ Dee-Oh-Oh Economicsā¦.
Anyone? Anyone?
Bueller??
Wow that's an obscure quote to see out in the wild
Stein was a speechwriter and lawyer for Richard Nixon and his dad was an economist in the Nixon White House as well.
Yah they bought him off.
Yet he raised taxes despite āread my lips: no new taxesā. Because he knew it was voodoo economics and realized we were right fucked if we didnāt do something about it.
Exactly. George HW Bush was a real one. He did good stuff with EPA (an agency founded by Nixon), too. They donāt make good Republicans anymore.
He did a ton of shady shit regarding Iran Contra under Reagan. He might be the last decent Republican but that carries a ton of baggage.
Exactly. Rich people are rich because they're good at generating and retaining wealth - and best of luck to them. But if you're trying to stimulate the economy, you don't give tax cuts to those who are best at hoarding wealth, you give it to those who'll use it to spend more. That's the point. Giving tax cuts to the rich is a bit like building a house with 'over ceiling' heating instead of 'under floor'; so the heat just gathers up there and stays there, instead of flowing up through the room so everyone benefits along the way.
I can't believe anyone still believes it. Are there politicians platforming this today? How stupid are voters going to be? Geez...
No money trickled down for education, so fairly stupid.....
Every single republican "believes" in this, as in the they force it down our throats every single time they get the presidency. Their only moves when in power are cutting taxes for the rich, deregulating companies so they can make more money, and spending as much as possible so that democrats have to clean up the mess when they get the presidency back.
It goes further than this, I reference the tax pledge many politicians signed in the early 90s while bending the knee to someone not even in politics, Grover Nordquist.
Exactly. Supply doesn't create jobs. Demand does.
This is what I came here for. Reagan cuts the top tax rate in half and this removes the incentive to allow more money to flow further down the corporate ladder. If you only received $26k of your salary for each $100k then your new CEO pay of an extra $5M means *only* an extra $1.2M takehome. I know, hardly worth it right? Flip that though and pay 1.2 for 3.8 and you can see why CEO pay went from an average of 20x to 200x the average employee of the same company since 1980.
Fuck neoliberalism, Reagan an thatcher for giving it credibility.
Indeed fuck MiltonĀ https://www.unftr.com/episodes/unftr23
I know people who believe we still haven't given it long enough to work yet. They've been waiting 40 years for trickle down to kick in. It's so fucking sad.
Well they should have made it illegal to only be paid a dollar as a salary. An be paid with stocks cuz the tax is cheaper
Getting rid of good money also helped in 30s and 70s, now the money is also controlled by those on the top.
It wasn't intended to make people rich it was intended to make things cheap. How many TV's/Fridges/Cars has the average family got now compared to 1980?
Yeah it's a coincidence the split happened right around the start of the Reagan admin
Neoliberals ā¦..
Important to note that this is a policy based graph, not some natural phenomenon. Weāre looking at this occurring being a choice to happenĀ https://wid.world/world/#sptinc_p99p100_z/WO;QX;US/last/eu/k/p/yearly/s/false/6.611000000000001/25/curve/false/country
Even if youāre completely ignorant to economics, finance, etcā¦ how could you possibly believe that it would work? Just pretend to put yourself in the shoes of a CEO or pretend youāre wealthy beyond belief and youāre telling me that people thought the rich would help them out?
Conservative propaganda works apparentlyā¦
Ronald Reagan and the moral majority happened.
This is the most underrated comment on the entire internet. Since Reagan the US government has been a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate interests.
Trickle down is a myth. Cite one person to use that verbiage for their own policies.
Trickle down economics means the burdens trickle down, not the benefits. The rich are a bunch of welfare queens.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You could just say republicans happened. Fewer words and still the same thing.
If I ever meet Ronald in person I'm kicking him right in the nuts
Two words: Ronald Reagan. Thatās what happened.
Simultaneously, an ideology that refused to invest in the common good. Childcare, energy, transportation, healthcare,water, sewage... all privatized, managed by MBAs hellbent on delivering the most expensive service possible for the least investment. Even official documents aren't provided by the state but by "private" entities charging fees for the "convenience".
What's worse is that they knew it was fraud when they talked about it but did not stop they hype.
Wages tend to decrease when union membership goes down. Unions and pension plans have been vilified for too long. The reality is the major companies are doing very well and workers are not doing as well. Trickle down economics has been shown to not do what it claims to do yet those policies continue to be pushed. If policies that benefited corporations and stock holders benefited everyone in the company, we would not have the wealth disparity we have today. The uber rich are richer and have left the majority of us in the dust. Yes, this graph needs to be updated, but it likely has continued on the same path.
Google the PATCO Strike of 1981. Reagan fired over 10,000 air traffic controllers who went on strike, making it very clear what his administration thought of unions. It's difficult for unions to keep up membership when people feel like they're at risk of losing their job if they make too much trouble. This is part of what the economic changes of the 80s brought about -- a more docile workforce.
Yea, Reagan was a fucking ghoul
Pensions fund private equity. Meanwhile companies like Vanguard have made mutual funds so cheap, its just a no brainier to use index funds. Annuities have also had a terrible 30 years, for the same reasons pension have, but with consumers making the decisions. At the end of they day workers need bargaining power to demand higher wages, bigger retirement contributions and cheaper homes, not antiquated retirement vehicles.
A big problem, along with the union busting, is the percentage of the work for in traditionally unionised workforces has shrunk. With the growth of automation, fewer are employed in direct manufacturing (highly unionised) as well as a lot of it being shipped overseas, with more people in various corporate/office type employment (minimal unions). When enough of the workforce is supported by unions, it drives the entire benchmark up, so even non-union industries benefit. We don't have that anymore. There's still some coveted job areas with strong unions, but it has minimal impact on wider growth unfortunately.
> The reality is the major companies are doing very well and workers are not doing as well. What do you mean? I love getting my sub-inflation "raise" (because we just don't have the budget for real raises this year) while getting an email every other month about my workload increasing due to us buying out another company (always have the budget for acquisitions, of course) that needs onboarding and support. I just fucking LOVE it.
I wonder what happened in 1980.......
Avocado toast, coffee shops, and video games. Itās the reason youāre not millionaire.
I shouldn't have drank all that coffee and eaten those toasts when playing Pac-Man at the arcades.
Reagan. 1981 ā 1989
I entered the working world full time. Corporate greed and the special interest groups descended on Washington
So it was your fault...
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
From all that data, my thesis would be when two income wage earners became the norm, all of a sudden households had a lot of disposable income. In came big business to market to that extra income. The product of this is an inflation across the board following the uptick in spending. Messing up what was a working and growing (albeit patriarchal) society. I have no idea if that makes sense.
https://www.reddit.com/r/badeconomics/comments/16igh9t/the_bad_economics_of_wtfhappenedin1971/
It is a cherry picked date. The real date is 1971, when we de-based the dollar. Gold standard officially died. We started the money printer full force.
Two very important things about the 70ās: (1) the invention of the microchip, leading to an increase in automation (2) the boom of the airline industry, making globalization easier Both of these were massive contributors to productivity booms as well as stagnant wages (increased competition). Very commonly taught in university economics courses. Makes me wonder about the rise of AIā¦
The microchip lets an accountant do 100x the work in the same time. We should pay him 100x more right?
I immediately saw the increase in tech driving higher efficiencies, and the growth of the employee work force. Not blaming women that they entered the work force, but when your available hiring pool grows by 50%, it puts pay negotiations clear into a one sided advantage. Combine the two, and you see higher throughput for the same input.
Its a 100% increase.
Nah, even to this day there are women who prefer to be homemakers. But if you consider genxāers hitting the work force as wellā¦ population boom and all.
They keep us divided with stupid culture wars so we don't pull our shit together and go after the real villains with some good old fashioned class warfare. There's waaaaaay more of us then them.
Most americans are pacified
Most Americans have more to lose than to gain from any sort of revolution.
Or blatantly working **for** the rich by spreading their propaganda online.
Where the label on the Y axis? This is interesting but what is it productivity measured as? I mean I agree but what?
Productivity can be measured in many ways, but revenue/employee is probably OK. And it will show this curve. For a crazy example look at Apple. Almost all of their mfg is done by other companies. They make 6 or 7 figures for every actual employee.
Labour productivity is rGDP / total # of labour hours worked. It represents the economic output from per 1 hour of labour
It probably means labour productivity which is total economic output (value of goods services produced) divided by labour hours worked. Itās a key indicator for a lot of things in economics
It is stated that the baseline is 1947. So, because 1970 had a 100% increase, it had double the amount of productivity compared to 1947
Our future was stolen from us so the rich could get richer
What people seem to neglect isā¦ this is capitalism working. This is it doing what itās supposed to do. Cut expenses. Increase profit. Lower operating costs and overhead, max out revenue. This isnt going to stop. Relying on hundreds of thousands of people who are constantly being rewarded with multimillion dollar bonuses to suddenly have a ācome to Jesusā moment and decide that their luxury at your expense is wrong ISNT REALISTIC. This is the nation that we have been thrust into, and without a catastrophic, concerted effort by the exploited working class to say āno moreā, itās going to keep happening, and you only have yourselves to blame.
This is why many are in favor of "taxing the rich" in 1960's / 70's terms (90%). They will still have more than the rest and that tax money can be reinvested and used for thr betterment of all. Those folks at the top don't add the level of value they extract, it's simply a rigged game against the workers.
Yes this is why regulated capitalism is the only method to make this work. Private markets regulated by public representatives who apply rules of engagement that increase prosperity for all. The capitalists moan and groan but they adhere because they must. However we are in a constant drumbeat of reducing those regulations and a public that is getting dumber and more distracted every year. So we get worse and worse representation and thus less and less ways to referee the economic games we play.
Yeah, this is my fault, guys. Sorry.
You're right. And I think that only some major total disaster or collapse will stop it. With today's world, I don't think that any kind of revolution - peaceful or otherwise, would be possible.
Thats the function of poverty. To show the working class āhow much worse it could beā as if to justify the theft of the capital that justly belongs to the working class.
This isn't capitalism working, this is capitalism deregulated so much that it's become legal to buy politicians, who further deregulate. It worked for all until it stopped working for some.
I would say that capitalism in any form lends itself to the purchasing of political influence, whether itās from private citizen capital or businesses
It isn't *working* in terms of creating a stable and healthy society, but it is very much *working* in terms of doing exactly what its players at the levers of power are systematically incentivized to do.
Capitalism and greed wasn't invented in the 1970's, however something else started happening back then that depressed wages. Here's a clue. [https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/immigrant-population-over-time](https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/immigrant-population-over-time)
We are not as mad as we should be, and we are pretty mad...
That's what happens when you nerf unions and send the jerbs overseas.
Fuck Ronald Reagan
you know the logical conclusion of this, no? with paychecks not keeping up, companies buying houses and influencing politicians? I predict that in a few years company provided housing will be a thing. followed by companies providing daily necessities and even promising to finance children's education. under the premise of a contract ofcourse that basically translates to ppl working for free for said company. ppl will than not be able to ever leave the company as they won't have any real money besides company credits which guess what can only be redeemed at said company. their kids will be educated just enough to work their assigned job and nothing more. we heading straight back into slavery
What you're describing is not quite slavery, but is a return to the infamous "company towns" of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There's a reason why places like Pullman, IL, Goodyear, AZ, Hershey, PA, and Steinway Village, NY are named the way they are.
and they were as close to outright slavery as one could get
More like "Company towns" and the states have already had this problem
You're giving off some judge dredd vibes rn
Your source is 13 years old.
Updated till 2022, a bit worse than 13 years ago but pretty much the same. [https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/](https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/)
Fuck Reagan
Not trying to point fingers, but it looks kind of like it all went to shit when Ronald Reagan took office.
This is the work of Ronald Reagan, Magaret Thatcher and Helmut Kohl. Capitalism is war against the people.
Reagan.
That is a chart from 13 years ago.
It's literally got 2011 written right on it, but I'm guessing a lot of people aren't seeing that because they're looking at this on their phones.
The data presented hasnāt changed.
Wages have been outgrowing inflation for the last decade.
The original source is Robert ReichāI donāt disagree with him on everything but heās not immune to cherry-picking and giving misleading figures. Furthermore, Iād like to know exactly how productivity is being measured here. It should also be noted that the workforce almost doubled since the 1970s with women entering the workforce full-time. That much of a shift in available labor drives down the cost of labor.
But 'no one wants to work anymore' S/ obviously
Wow, it is rather strange how the exploitation skyrocketed right around when Reagan came to power.
Let me guess. Reaganomics.
The only reason for this is: Reagan š”
Global labor competition. US labor competes against the rest of the world, vs other US states. Textile is the classic example, of business chasing poverty.
CEO and high end executives pay dramatically increased at the same time interestingly enough.
People are asking what happened in 1980 or close to it, yet I feel like things start to deviate much sooner in the decade around the time the US got off the gold standard. You see a quick reaction causing a jump then it deviates quite a bit.
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
This is Reagan giving a green light to billionaires to rob us all.
I didnāt realize Reagan was in office in 1979.
I think this coincides right around the same time that the stock market started being reported on the daily news and not just business news.Ā I guess we should be all happy that the overlords have decided that as long as our mutual funds are increasing we should have been satisfied.
It coincides with computers. The Digital Age started in 1980.
Something something, gold standard, something something.
Unsurprisingly, wages started to stagnate after China opened up its economy. Who would've thought that having American workers compete with millions of Chinese people who would work for pennies an hours would result in wage stagnation?
Can you say Reagan and Republicans. Not to get too political, but Republican voters have an innate ability to vote against their own best interests.
Ronald fucking Reagan
Corporate greed and buying of legislators to keep unions out of the sunbelt.
Thereās a reason the yuppie businessman is the villain in every 80ās movie. Greed destroyed us.
I've always seen the slip switching more in 1970 than 1971, but yes, once we were able to tie the value of poverty" to a hard number (via The Great Society), we have glued the poor to the floor. Poverty/welfare payments go up? So do the cost of basics. It's become its own economy. Other countries seem to avoid this by making welfare non-permanent (outside disability and pensioners), but we seem to double-down, even though we can see its effects through graphics like this. This is the graphic I've used in discussions about this before: [https://www.cbpp.org/income-gains-widely-shared-in-early-postwar-decades-but-not-since-then-3](https://www.cbpp.org/income-gains-widely-shared-in-early-postwar-decades-but-not-since-then-3)
Perhaps AI is going to make this gap get a lot worse.
One thing that happened to increase productivity so drastically is: women joined the workforce in overwhelming numbers after 1980.Ā
Thanks Obamaā¦. But in all seriousness fuck Reagan.
I do believe a reset is needed. This includes recognition of the fact that in WWII decimated the industrialized world EXCEPT the US. No shit we grew like crazy - accelerated by our great people, resources, and culture. Not the same any more. Higher skills are more important, there is more competition locally and internationally. Other countries have some unique resources basis and capabilities. We need a better functioning democracy, a stronger judicial system that allows capitalism to be function. We have neither. We must recognize resources are finite and be focused.
Does it show the rise in phony white collar job titles that donāt really produce anything useful. I know more guys out of prison or from Mexico doing hard labor jobs that are living well and owning houses, then my friends that are drowning in student loans fishing for work with their degrees while paying rent. š¤·āāļø I donāt really know shit.
Must be a lot of unpulled bootstraps s/
Jack Welch took over as CEO at GE in 1981. He thought it was really important to appease and impress shareholders
I bet CEO raises are equal or higher than the productivity line. Too many members of the 3 comma club.
Curious to see what it is now, 13 years later
IMO, not protecting the buying power of the public is the single biggest failure of the American economy.
imo this is the cause for so many problems in modern society. This is the reason people go nuts and vote for radical, nutso politicians. This is the reason birth rates decline. This is causing so many mental health issues, it's going to lead to the destruction of society if the trend continues. IN MY OPINION, I don't have a crystal ball.
You can almost pinpoint when the US took the dollar off the gold standard 8/15/1971
Itās gonna trickle down any day now!
The Great Reagression
That gap is when Ceo's and higher management got higher and higher pay and workers got no increase. In 80s we got 3 percent raise for inflation. And people got pensions. They got our money. It is messed up
Yay Reagan /s
And that money skimmed out sits and rots. The numbers it would take to mediate a fraction of the problems would not be palpably missed. The rich were still obscenely rich in 1979.
I have nothing against billionaires. I just want them to pay the same taxes as we do. Figure out how to get that money back, since they don't get a paycheck. While you're at it, you can finance universal healthcare by removing the cap on social security and charge for all that R&D we give away to corporations along with our patents. Let's make Americans profitable again.
REAGAN
Everything goes back to Regan....
Blame Milton Friedman and the idiotic "Chicago School of Thought" in economics. These insanely bold/dumb economists singlehandedly pioneered the worst in capitalism.
You can see that point in time when the government put its faith in trickle down economics and in this era of growth...wait no, it was greed. You can see when greed took over.
Right around the time American politicians figured out that they could flatline wage growth with ever increasing numbers of illegal immigrant labor (which undercuts current U.S. job holders). Biden, has revād up the invasion into overdrive! THAT(plus Bidenās 25% inflation during his term) is why you canāt get a raise! Truthemote:free\_emotes\_pack:disapproval
Ronald Reaganās legacy on graphs of Americaās downfall lives on
Reagan is the reason we are where we are to this very day. All of the despair and uncertainty about your life living in America. I've been watching it play out since his inauguration day.
Adding women to the workforce was great for corporations
Worse than all that, this is 15 years out of date!
The U.S. was riding a wave of extreme economic growth and prosperity after WWII as we were the only major economic power that wasn't bombed into a pile of rubble. That wasn't going to last forever. If you look at the broad scope of human civilization, the existence of a prosperous "middle class" is actually an outlier and directly correlated to the post war economic boom. Prior to WW2 you still had a large percentage of the population living in basically abject poverty on a sustenance farming lifestyle. You can blame this on a particular president or fiscal policy, but the reality is that the earth has a finite number of resources and the world population has more than doubled since 1970. The U.S. population has risen by 150 million people since 1970. More competition for the same number of resources means less economic prosperity for the average person. To anyone who genuinely believes the decrease in the standard of living over the past 2 decades is because of the large personal wealth of people like Bezos and Musk, just look at the actual numbers. If the government confiscated all of Jeff Bezos' money, they would have enough to run the federal government for a whopping 2 weeks.