I read it, but you are comparing one technological advance to another and they are not all equal. Installing a pulley may have increased production, allowed for fewer workers, or was a cost avoidance of having to hire new workers. Having a robot do all the work the workers could do and do it better would have more impact. No more workers.
Minimum wage would be $26 an hour if it had grown in line with productivity
- Thread starter billanole
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Doubly so since it's absurd on it's face. It would require that everyone could be a billionaire many times over simply through grit and determination.
Company A spends $1M on a building. Ten years later that building is now worth $5M. Their wealth increased $4M.
Holy shit...have you EVER been in an automated plant? Do you seriously think there are no workers there? Your ignorance is palpable,
There are workers there for sure but there is also automation doing work that workers are no longer needed for. See switchboard operators, their jobs no longer exist to the level they once did. Now all that work done by thousands upon thousands of individuals can be done by computers and a handful of workers. Many of these workers are needed to maintain the computers.
And workers do different things that are more valuable to the company.
Part of the trouble is that too few “people at the bottom” of the pay scale didn’t see the writing on the wall and get more technical skills and/or formal education as the nature of the economy evolved.
Same argument U of I faculty makes to demand higher wages for professors...
Again...case in point. You seem totally fine with the top 1% owning 85% of the wealth and avoiding paying taxes. You seem totally fine with tax dollars going to bail out wealthy corporations who then give their CEOs raises or take our money and reinvest in the company. You think exactly how they want you to think, apparently. They get wealthier and wealthier, and everyone else is supposed to feel good if we ever get a $50 tax break.
*sigh* And your "handful of workers" haven't seen any of that savings in THEIR paychecks. After EVERY technological advance there were workers who lost jobs and workers who continued to work...with increased productivity AND increased pay. An increase in productivity equaled in increase in pay for those doing the work...the number of people benefiting is totally irrelevant. Until recently.
Just out of curiosity, where do you think the 400%-500% increase in CEO pay (and massive increases in pay for all other top management positions) over the past 40 years has come from? Once again, the point that you seem incapable of understanding...the increase in $$ fueled by growth in productivity is flowing ONE way rather than both ways. And you're fully on board with that thanks to this myth you have stuck in your head. Mind bottling.
Did you notice what happened to the price of computers at the same time?
In 1985, when my dad brought home our first computer. It had 256k of memory, a monochrome monitor, and no hard drive. Cost was close to $2000.
The Fed's inflation calculator says that would carry a $5000 price in today's dollars.
I can get you a whole lot more computer for $500 today.
It didn't all go into the CEO's pocket, a lot of the productivity gains go into the consumer's pocket.
Raising the minimum wage is a ploy for the simpletons to vote D.
I'd be in favor of some sort of system that provides tax breaks for companies that the bottom 25% of their workers and middle 50% of their workers make X% of their top 5 or 10% of workers (CEOs, etc.) as a way to reign in top level pay.
I'd be in favor of some sort of system that provides tax breaks for companies that the bottom 25% of their workers and middle 50% of their workers make X% of their top 5 or 10% of workers (CEOs, etc.) as a way to reign in top level pay.
Very true. The workers who took on the responsibilities of dozens or even hundreds of workers displaced by technology is now far more valuable to the company, but is not being paid commensurate for that value. Those $$ flow up and accumulate in the coffers of executives.
As. They. Always. Have.
So answer the question...where DID those massive spikes in CEO pay come from?
Only if that employee has valuable skills.
My cousin has spent his career at a Briggs and Stratton plant in SE Missouri.
His first job there 20 years ago was grinding the casting tits off of parts.
Now most of the stuff is done by robots. He spends roughly the first two hours of his shift checking the bits, etc then spends the next six reading a book waiting for an alarm to go off to indicate a failure that needs critical thinking and mechanical skills to resolve.
When the plant is retooled for new assemblies he’s one of the few working on setting up the new lines. He teaches robotics classes part time at the local college now as well.
He’s paid a lot more these days compared to when he started.
The fallacy in your argument is you are equating increased productivity as a direct result of the laborers. It may have been that way in the past, but the rate of productivity increased exponentially as a result of computing technological advances over the past half century. This has led to much of the divergence. Now those additional incomes are going to upper management because they are the ones doing more with less. They are in charge of a factory creating 10x as many widgets with 1/10th the workforce.
The laborer on the ground may be more productive than their predecessor, but they aren't necessarily working any harder or they themselves more productive, but the overall productivity is a result of the tools the company have provided them-- the machines they are operating.
This isn't true for all industries, but many.
Perfect case in point. The work he is responsible for is now far more productive and valuable. He makes more but he likely does not make the equivalent to what he now produces. I'm not saying he should make that much but he should have more share of what eventually flows to the executive ranks. That's what has led to the vast income and wealth disparity.
Increased income as a result of increased productivity with smaller overhead.
Most of that is true. If someone does something to earn money and grow their wealth, I don't want to punish them for it. I also know the difference between wealth and income, which seems to confuse you.
Your argument would be compelling if the wages of skilled workers grew at the same rate as CEOs over the same time period. The fact is that it's not just those making minimum wage whose wages have stagnates while the top have skyrocketed. The gains in productivity are not being shared. People are working longer and longer hours - taking their jobs home with them via smartphones and laptops and yet their pay does not reflect it.
But they are producing more value for the company and should share in those gains more fairly than we have seen.
Has anyone ever told you that you live in the wrong country? Maybe you would be happier in N Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, somewhere where the majority sees the world as you do.
I thought kimmie ended the money train earlier this summer and i still hear outlets like KCRG pump these stories of how businesses cant find employees.
All of the “wOnT sUmBoDeE tHiNk oF tHe fAsT fOoD jOiNtZ” crying people are doing itt when those same people have told anybody who would listen for years that fast food jobs werent meant to support family, and is only meant for kids in school to have spending money and are now apprently shocked that nobody is taking these jobs.
How so? Someone who sweeps floors at Google HQ isn’t necessarily more valuable or produces more value than someone who sweeps floors at K-Mart. In fact, if they are the same size and they do equal amounts of quality work, should the one at Google make 30x more than the one at K-Mart because that company is better?
And how - exactly - does one accumulate wealth? For most Americans, the majority of their total wealth lies in their homes. Can you tell the class where the money to buy the vast majority of those homes came from?
The problem is robots can't spend money (yet) and the humans that this money went to (corporate white people) have much lower propensity to spend.
Once again you show you have no clue at all what reality is. You have a gift...or a lot of LSD.
I'm in a blue state but maybe iowa is the same.
Fast food jobs are not meant to support families.
I don't know the real issue, but common sense tells us paying people to stay home and rent forgiveness aren't going to help the situation.
Case in point. You're in bizarro world.Please just stop, you're embarrassing yourself.
You're taking things to ridiculous extremes and it looks foolish. Certainly companies have shown that the CAN hold wages down and fill the pockets of executive and investors, the debate is whether they should do that. Sharing the wealth more equitably would resolve many of the issues we see today and it seems businesses would want to do that. The problem is the greed of individuals who have the power to make decisions to affect their own wealth are doing so selfishly.
Should the one worker’s wages have remain stagnant since the ‘70s? This is not very hard to grasp.
The comparison of average workers pay vs. CEOs in the 1970’s vs. today is eye opening.
If you wanna throw up, then look at for instance Germany during the same periods.
There has been a continual rise in productivity since the beginning of the industrial revolution... with your arguement, the middle class should have been booming in the 17 and 1800s.... but it wasnt.
As he should be. It would be interesting to see how he has done vs. cost of living increases. You know, like going from $7.25/hour to $26/hour kind of raise as a percentage increase.
The workers who are knowledgeable about those things that have greatly increased productivity (think of those with skills to manage technology, information and people) are doing just fine. Those who have no skills and can only offer unskilled labor are obviously falling behind because there are almost an unlimited number of people with no skills and there are many more productive alternatives to unskilled labor.
