Sen. Kerry vs. Nobel Prize Economists

[John Ashcroft]

6/18/04, Washington – While John Kerry calls for a 36% increase in the minimum wage, the majority of economic research, including the statements of five Nobel Prize-winning economists, continue to show that raising the minimum wage is a dangerous political ploy that will only serve to make life harder for the nation’s least skilled employees.
“Leading economists such as Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman are honest brokers of information who realize that a minimum wage will have the unintended consequence of hurting the least skilled employees in America. It is unfortunate and unconscionable that Sen. Kerry would seek to gain political advantage despite the decades of research and scores of economic studies highlighting the damage caused by these wage increases,” said Richard Berman, executive director of the Employment Policies Institute.

This research dates back to Franklin Roosevelt’s own Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, whose researchers found that following the creation of the first minimum wage, low-skill employees lost their jobs to higher skilled and more experienced applicants attracted to the new wage. More recent research from Cornell University shows that groups such as high school dropouts and African-American young adults suffer four times more employment loss from a minimum wage hike than all other employees.

So John "jiggy-fly" Kerry isn't a man of the street??? Say it isn't so!:eek:

“These lost job opportunities for low-skill employees are the real results from a minimum wage hike,” said Berman. “Rather than help those who most need assistance, Sen. Kerry’s minimum wage hike will push low-skill family heads out of the labor market and deeper into poverty.”

According to U.S. Census data, only 15% of the beneficiaries from Kerry’s proposed increase are single earners with children. The remaining 85% are teenagers living with their working parents, adults living alone, or they are married with a working spouse. As a result, the average income of these beneficiaries is over $44,000 a year. Concurring, former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich has acknowledged, “after all most minimum wage workers aren’t poor.”

Link: here (http://www.epionline.org/news_detail.cfm?rid=24)

[Pink Spider]

What a load of corporate media crap. Greenspan is an "honest broker of information" about as much as I'm a Republican.

A higher minimum wage will inevitably have to cut into the profits of the higher-ups after they find that one person can't do the work of 4 and that's what they're really concerned about. Can't have those workers actually able to afford things you know.

[freak]

Originally posted by Pink Spider
What a load of corporate media crap. Greenspan is an "honest broker of information" about as much as I'm a Republican.

A higher minimum wage will inevitably have to cut into the profits of the higher-ups after they find that one person can't do the work of 4 and that's what they're really concerned about. Can't have those workers actually able to afford things you know.


Sooooo.....Corporate America's plan for greater profit involves the selling of goods and services to a smaller pool of consumers.

You might want to re-examine your theory or, at least, take an economics course.

[Pink Spider]

Ashcroft, do you have an alias?

BTW, you might want to look into real world economics instead of studying Wall Street propaganda. The world doesn't work like the fantasy-land of capitalist theory economic courses. There are sweatshops and cheap labor loving conservatives seem to support that kind of thing. So, I wouldn't count on them to see that as a bad.

In fact I bet they'd love to lower minimum wage to $.50 an hour to compete with places like China and Mexico. Then capitalism could really work, right?

[freak]

Originally posted by Pink Spider
Ashcroft, do you have an alias?

BTW, you might want to look into real world economics instead of studying Wall Street propaganda. The world doesn't work like the fantasy-land of capitalist theory economic courses. There are sweatshops and cheap labor loving conservatives seem to support that kind of thing. So, I wouldn't count on them to see that as a bad.

In fact I bet they'd love to lower minimum wage to $.50 an hour to compete with places like China and Mexico. Then capitalism could really work, right?

Hmmmmm....

Let's take the largest free market in the world and remove every last vestige of its' purchasing power to compete with China.

And, we're selling to who, exactly?

Do you even think before you spew this nonsense?

[Pink Spider]

Originally posted by freak
Hmmmmm....

Let's take the largest free market in the world and remove every last vestige of its' purchasing power to compete with China.

And, we're selling to who, exactly?

Do you even think before you spew this nonsense?

Do you even think period?

The cheap labor conservatives hate the labor movement and hate the idea of minimum wage. They're the non-thinkers destroying their own system. I was pointing out their falacies that you didn't seem to understand.

So, why not raise minimum wage so the consumer can buy more goods? You've just trapped yourself. Very good. :)

[freak]

Originally posted by Pink Spider
Do you even think period?

The cheap labor conservatives hate the labor movement and hate the idea of minimum wage. They're the non-thinkers destroying their own system. I was pointing out their falacies that you didn't seem to understand.

They didn't get rich by being stupid.


So, why not raise minimum wage so the consumer can buy more goods? You've just trapped yourself. Very good. :)

Sounds like you're talking out of your ass. :)

[Lincoln]

While John Kerry calls for a 36% increase in the minimum wage,

36% - ppfffttt, why not just make the minimum wage 50,000 a year? I mean what the hell corporate profits can absord that kind of number. :rolleyes:

[John Ashcroft]

Actually Lincoln, you'll hear these clowns parrot the "living wage" idea around here quite often. What do you think they're talking about?

Essentially it'd be the first large step towards outright Socialism.

And Pinky, no alias. Not quite sure what you meant by the question, but I'd be glad to answer whatever it is you're looking for (provided certain pictures are posted...) Anyway, read the article again. There have been studies on the impact of a raise in minimum wage. And it didn't come from Greenspan.

Here it is:

This research dates back to Franklin Roosevelt’s own Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins, whose researchers found that following the creation of the first minimum wage, low-skill employees lost their jobs to higher skilled and more experienced applicants attracted to the new wage. More recent research from Cornell University shows that groups such as high school dropouts and African-American young adults suffer four times more employment loss from a minimum wage hike than all other employees.

I know, I know, you're arguing exclusively on how you "feel" about the topic. Research and proof be damned! But, I've seemed to hit a sore spot with you here. Tell me, is you passion for a raise in the minimum wage vested in personal interest? Is this the only way you ever get a raise?

[Pink Spider]

So, didn't the market recover after the last minimum wage increase and hasn't production doubled since the 60s? Its you, the low wage conservatives that are full of it.

You forget that the first minimum wage laws were written coming out of a depression when higher skilled employees were jobless and the second report doesn't take into account of the temporary market adjustments. Someone will have to do those high skilled jobs.

It has nothing to do about how I "feel". It's all about how you're incapable of simple logic.

[Lincoln]

Originally posted by John Ashcroft
Actually Lincoln, you'll hear these clowns parrot the "living wage" idea around here quite often. What do you think they're talking about?


You are quite right JA, I know they are gearing toward socialism. But you and I know that the minimun wage is just that, minimun. Its not meant to be a carrier wage.

[Pink Spider]

Yeah, let's go back to pure capitalism. Perhaps they could bring back child labor. Ashcroft would love that idea. ;)

[Lincoln]

Yeah, that is a logical retort. :rolleyes:

[John Ashcroft]

I worked a minimum wage job once, when I was 15 on working papers my parents had to sign. The wage was $3.35 per hour, working the counter at a meat market (absolutely no skills required). I stayed at that wage for approximately 4 weeks, after which I was given a $1 per hour raise. You see, all I had to do is work hard. I didn't have to show any great skill or ability. I didn't need experience. I didn't need a college degree. Just hard work.

The problem with you commies, is that you feel employers owe you something just for showing up. Somehow you're entitled to more of their money because you're giving them your time. Hard work is almost never even mentioned by your type. But the fact is, even at minimum wage, if you're willing to work hard mimimum wage is just that... And it's temporary.

But hell Pinky, I'll bite. Where's your statistics showing that a large segment of our labor force works at minimum wage? The article I posted breaks it down, but you take issue with it. Where's your supporting data?

[Pink Spider]

Originally posted by John Ashcroft
The problem with you commies, is that you feel employers owe you something just for showing up. Somehow you're entitled to more of their money because you're giving them your time. Hard work is almost never even mentioned by your type. But the fact is, even at minimum wage, if you're willing to work hard mimimum wage is just that... And it's temporary.

Their money?

Hard work? :rolleyes: Do you actually think that CEOs do hard labor for their cash? Give me a break. They get rich by making others work for them without lifting a finger. You're completely and utterly clueless. The minimum wage worker usually works harder than those paid more. Just showing up? You're just showing ignorance.

But hell Pinky, I'll bite. Where's your statistics showing that a large segment of our labor force works at minimum wage? The article I posted breaks it down, but you take issue with it. Where's your supporting data?

I never said that they did. So, stop making up stuff to support your hollow arguments.

[FORD]

Originally posted by freak
They didn't get rich by being stupid.

Actually, some of them did. For example, people like Junior, who inherited money, not earned it (his teenage gig at Sears being an exception, and he certainly didn't get rich from that)

And in Junior's case , his dad and grandpa earned the money through crime and fascism, not stupidity.

[John Ashcroft]

Weak.

You can do better, no? Once again, absolutely no support for you positions, yet it's all of us that are "ignorant" and "clueless".

You're the only enlightened one here, even though you can't support your "enlightenment" with any facts whatsoever.

[Pink Spider]

What do you want me to back up, dummkopf?

And make it something I really said this time.

[John Ashcroft]

Originally posted by Pink Spider
What do you want me to back up, dummkopf?

And make it something I really said this time.

Do you actually believe you're coming off as clever? :confused:

Anyway, let's start from the beginning:


Originally posted by Pink Spider
A higher minimum wage will inevitably have to cut into the profits of the higher-ups after they find that one person can't do the work of 4 and that's what they're really concerned about. Can't have those workers actually able to afford things you know.

What do you know of the concerns of business owners? Who do you know that actually doesn't want consumers to be able to afford their goods?

Now this:


Originally posted by Pink Spider
BTW, you might want to look into real world economics instead of studying Wall Street propaganda. The world doesn't work like the fantasy-land of capitalist theory economic courses.

I've asked so many times now I'm actually beginning to bore of it. But I'll ask again. Which socialist country should be the model economy for the United States to follow? How's the standard of living in any of your beloved socialist economies? Which socialist country drives world economies? And how's about's human rights violations, did you libs lose concern for those? I'm interested in your "real world economics". This is what I'm talking about. You think you're being overly clever by floating bullshit out like this, yet you show no examples of "real world economics" that support your socialist drivel.

And here we go again:


Originally posted by Pink Spider

The cheap labor conservatives hate the labor movement and hate the idea of minimum wage. They're the non-thinkers destroying their own system. I was pointing out their falacies that you didn't seem to understand.


I don't believe you know anyone who hates the idea of a minimum wage. If so, put your money where your cock sucker is. Also, maybe I missed something, but you pointed out nothing, let alone the "falacies" of capitalism. And I tell ya, I just wish I could include myself on the "thinkers" list you apparently reside on... That'd be dandy! You're doing a wonderful job of proving your vast intellectual superiority!


Originally posted by Pink Spider
You forget that the first minimum wage laws were written coming out of a depression when higher skilled employees were jobless and the second report doesn't take into account of the temporary market adjustments. Someone will have to do those high skilled jobs.


Which temporary market adjustments? I still don't get your point here. Maybe it's because I'm incapable of simple logic, or maybe it's because you're full of shit.

And finally:


Originally posted by Pink Spider
Their money?

Hard work? Do you actually think that CEOs do hard labor for their cash? Give me a break. They get rich by making others work for them without lifting a finger. You're completely and utterly clueless. The minimum wage worker usually works harder than those paid more. Just showing up? You're just showing ignorance.

Yes, their money. Your problem is very transparent. You're jealous. Well, the system isn't going to change because you're jealous of the achievers in society. And just how many business owners do you know? You like to speak for all of them like you're part of the "club". How many rich people do you know who've gotten there without "lifting a finger"? Who do you know to make such absurd accusations? I'm quite sure you know plenty of minimum wage earners, but what the hell do you know about the work habits of the rich. If anything, the opposite is true of the rich. They work too hard, for too many hours. Many times sacrificing their families for work. This habit is well documented. Time has done stories on it, Newsweek, People, Money... Hell, alot of people consider the work habits of the rich as a vice rather than a virtue.

Not to mention, they are the risk takers. They win and lose. They take the risks in leaving a 9 to 5 job to start a small business. It happens all the time, all over America. Very little wealth is inherited in this country. And you know damn well it's true. I've posted articles before on the breakdown of wealth in this country (at DDLR.com, unfortunatley Von lost his database a while back and I can't retrieve it. I'll do some searching later to see if I can find it, it was a good one). But I specifically remember having similar dialogue with you there on the post. It's not the large corporations that are affected by hikes in the minimum wage (per sey), it's the small businesses that suffer. Tommorrows corporations. These people hire people, create revenue for the government and their employees (not to mention health benefits in many cases). The larger they are to become, the more the wealth is spread. This is both documented and common sense. Again, name a system on the planet that has as equitable a distribution of wealth as we do. I've asked you to many times, and you've never been able to. Face it, capitalism spreads wealth more equitably than any socialist system. People starve in North Korea and China every day. Our "poor" have cable television and a car.

So get on with your superior knowledge of all things capital, and educate us all. We're waiting.

[Pink Spider]

Originally posted by John Ashcroft

Do you actually believe you're coming off as clever? :confused:

Do you? :confused:

What do you know of the concerns of business owners? Who do you know that actually doesn't want consumers to be able to afford their goods?

Why do corporate capitalists like dictatorships and 3rd world countries? Whether we'll always be that rich yuppie empire that they're selling to is very questionable.



I've asked so many times now I'm actually beginning to bore of it. But I'll ask again. Which socialist country should be the model economy for the United States to follow? How's the standard of living in any of your beloved socialist economies? Which socialist country drives world economies? And how's about's human rights violations, did you libs lose concern for those? I'm interested in your "real world economics". This is what I'm talking about. You think you're being overly clever by floating bullshit out like this, yet you show no examples of "real world economics" that support your socialist drivel.

I'm not a socialist so I don't have an answer to that. Although, I do have a few socialist tendencies against big business. For the most part I hold a libertarian/anarchist philosophy to most issues. Big government and big business start to look the same if you'd bother to look high enough.

But, as a matter of fact you're living in a quasi-socialist economy. Welfare, social security, organized labor. That looks socialist to me. Of course there's also corporate welfare with big business willfully socializing itself by taking government bail-outs. Socialism is in fact helping and propping up the system. Should I go on?



I don't believe you know anyone who hates the idea of a minimum wage. If so, put your money where your cock sucker is. Also, maybe I missed something, but you pointed out nothing, let alone the "falacies" of capitalism. And I tell ya, I just wish I could include myself on the "thinkers" list you apparently reside on... That'd be dandy! You're doing a wonderful job of proving your vast intellectual superiority!

And you've pointed out that you're an asshole with a fragile ego.

To put yourself on that list of thinkers, you would first have to have an idea of your own.

Which temporary market adjustments? I still don't get your point here. Maybe it's because I'm incapable of simple logic...

Bingo.


Yes, their money. Your problem is very transparent. You're jealous. Well, the system isn't going to change because you're jealous of the achievers in society. And just how many business owners do you know? You like to speak for all of them like you're part of the "club". How many rich people do you know who've gotten there without "lifting a finger"? Who do you know to make such absurd accusations? I'm quite sure you know plenty of minimum wage earners, but what the hell do you know about the work habits of the rich. If anything, the opposite is true of the rich. They work too hard, for too many hours. Many times sacrificing their families for work. This habit is well documented. Time has done stories on it, Newsweek, People, Money... Hell, alot of people consider the work habits of the rich as a vice rather than a virtue.

Aw.....how sweet. Corporate American gets another blow job from their favorite Gestapo. I'm so glad that you've come around to reading the "liberal" press too. Can we expect any of these fluff publications to be critical of corporate America? I think not. I'm not saying that some of the rich don't work there way up. To compare the work habits of middle or bottom America though to corporate pencil pushers is just ludicrous.

You could make a great corporate "Yes-man" with sucking up like that. If you need a reference, I'm there for you.

Not to mention, they are the risk takers. They win and lose. They take the risks in leaving a 9 to 5 job to start a small business. It happens all the time, all over America. Very little wealth is inherited in this country. And you know damn well it's true.

Actually, no I don't. But, if you can post facts to back that up, I might actually care or reconsider.

I've posted articles before on the breakdown of wealth in this country (at DDLR.com, unfortunatley Von lost his database a while back and I can't retrieve it. I'll do some searching later to see if I can find it, it was a good one). But I specifically remember having similar dialogue with you there on the post.

It's not the large corporations that are affected by hikes in the minimum wage (per sey), it's the small businesses that suffer. Tommorrows corporations. These people hire people, create revenue for the government and their employees (not to mention health benefits in many cases). The larger they are to become, the more the wealth is spread.

The larger they become, the more stingy, corporatized and bureaucratic they become. People get laid-off when corporations merge. People take pay cuts.. Then you have outsourcing from the largest corporations because when they get that large, there tends to be a shift from an individual with a pride in his or her company to a board of directors worried about increasing their profit margins. That goes from ruining the environment to giant megaliths like Wal-mart coming into small town America peddling their cheap goods from outsourced companies. Offering their minimum wage jobs while effectively driving these other small business' into bankruptcy. I've seen it happen. Don't spin it and tell me that the sky is purple.


Again, name a system on the planet that has as equitable a distribution of wealth as we do. I've asked you to many times, and you've never been able to. Face it, capitalism spreads wealth more equitably than any socialist system. People starve in North Korea and China every day. Our "poor" have cable television and a car.

China is nearly capitalist. And let's see, to paraphrase the quote in my sig, ask someone in Mexico, Saipan, Indonesia and roughly any other third world cheap labor colony the benefits of corporate capitalism. Your system does just as well at leeching and making people poor.

The US is at the top of the totem pole, have you ever bothered to look down?

[MNFan]

Two points:

First: Companies don't absorb the increase in minimum wage-consumers do-its called INFLATION.

Second: "Capitalism has the seeds of its own destruction- the profit margin"-Karl Marx

[Ally_Kat]

Originally posted by John Ashcroft
I worked a minimum wage job once, when I was 15 on working papers my parents had to sign. The wage was $3.35 per hour, working the counter at a meat market (absolutely no skills required). I stayed at that wage for approximately 4 weeks, after which I was given a $1 per hour raise. You see, all I had to do is work hard. I didn't have to show any great skill or ability. I didn't need experience. I didn't need a college degree. Just hard work.


Yep. Seems like just yesterday I was 14 and starting off at the Board of Elections. Minimum wage and I was doing crap work -- alphabetizing the dead voter's buff cards. I was one in seven kids and the youngest by a huge gap. The next oldest was 19.

After a month of alphabetizing like I've never alphabetized before, I finished the share that they had given to me. I offered to help one of the other kids out, but they laughed at me and told me I was too eager to work. I could sit all day all summer in the back room doing nothing and get paid for it. Now, I get restless easily, so I knew that was not an option for me. I went to all the supervisors asking if they had anything for me to do, and I did small crap jobs to keep me busy. Petition time came (thank God!) and there was more stuff to run around and do. The boys were all taken out of the back room to haul boxes to and from the Manhattan court office and we gals were told to sit and watch the visitors who came to check info in the system against info on the petitions.

Then the pollworker department got behing in work because, well frankly, everyone that was in the pollworker department transferred out since it's not the greatest department. They only had/have 3 members in the whole department. Well, one Monday they make an announcement that they need volunteers to stay after work and help out the pollworker department. The kids all dismissed the idea saying that it wouldn't get them anywhere and that they'd rather go and hang out. I stayed and was the only summer hire to do so. Didn't have anything better to do, so why not, ya know? I stayed til 10 at night that whole week -- me and the other 3 members of the pollworker department. Didn't have any prior experience or knowledge about the petition process or what we had to do with them all, but they showed me. And my hard work paid off. I went from minimum wage to 11 bucks an hour, plus overtime for when I stayed. That and when there was going to be a project that would give enough overtime to deliver a nice paycheck, I was always asked first. I was 14, and with all the overtime I banked, I was making more than some of the full-timers.

When sumemr was over and I had to go back to school, they gave me a couple of huge books about different procedures for pollworkers, coordinators, pollsite requirements, and voting laws. Told me to study up and that I would be tested next summer. If I passed, I would work solely with the pollworker department. Studied my ass off, passed, got another raise, and got sent out for more overtime. I was hired to alphabetize dead voters and I ended up registering new ones, looking for fraud on petitions and new voter cards, researching for petition cases, teaching pollworkers how to do their jobs, and selecting pollworkers for election day. All within one summer. So yeah, it can be done.

My friend (Joey the Commie if any can remember her from DDLR) loves to point out how I'm this rich republican because I have enough money in my bank account to cover my student loans before I even get out of college and because I have an IRA already. She's got an internship that gives her a $3500 stipend for the summer. I tell her she can have the same thing, esp since she gets more FASA than I could ever hope for, if she just takes care of it right.

[ODShowtime]

Somehow I remember a key point from employment economics:

Raising the minimum wage raises unemployment (and inflation, good point)!!! Good idea, let's get all the "marginal people" out there, and make less jobs for them. I'm sure they'll find something useful to do with themselves...

[John Ashcroft]

Yeah, like getting them hooked on the Government tit.

And Ally, you go girl! Oh good Lord testify! Again, hard work is all it takes in America. Problem is, too many people don't want to do it.

[FORD]

Originally posted by John Ashcroft
Yeah, like getting them hooked on the Government tit.

And Ally, you go girl! Oh good Lord testify! Again, hard work is all it takes in America. Problem is, too many people don't want to do it.

What about the guy who has worked hard for years, only to find his job outsourced to India?

Or the small business owner forced out because there's no fucking way in Hell to compete with the WalMart (or Starfucks or whomever) that moved in across the street? Can't exactly lump them in with Reagan's "welfare queen" stereotype.

[John Ashcroft]

Like who? I'd really like to know who you know personally that falls in this category. No stories, no "I have a friend who knows someone" either.

If a person decides to make a career out of call center duty, well... I can't help him. Other than saying that they are popping up all over the place here in Oklahoma. Maybe a move is in order for those in the call center "profession" if their jobs get outsourced to India.

Oh, and about WalMart. Do you shop there? Mom and Pop aren't forced out of anything. They either compete, or don't. It's very simple. And how come plenty of foreigners seem to have no problem making money here? I can't tell you how many Arab and Indian business owners I've seen around. And the Chinese seem to have little to no problem doing quite well here in the good old U.S.

You see, your soup kitchen version of America doesn't exist other than by the choices of those in line. Most voting Americans realize this. These aren't the Carter years anymore (thank God). Maybe you didn't get the memo Ford... You know, class envy/warfare isn't working as a political issue anymore.

[FORD]

Originally posted by John Ashcroft
Like who? I'd really like to know who you know personally that falls in this category. No stories, no "I have a friend who knows someone" either.[/i]

I can think of at least three independent coffee shops who went out of business when Starfucks opened in the same block. Olympia hasn't sufferred that much due to Wal-Mart, but that's mostly due to the fact that it's on the recently developed northeast extremities of town, and not in the traditional business core, or even near the established mall. And their customer base likely comes from Ft. Lewis military families as much if not more than the Olympia area proper. But that's the exception, not the rule, with Wal-Mart. As a matter of fact, the first location they tried to buy would have forced the eviction of a senior citizens low income mobile home park. Luckily that didn't happen, but it was probably due more to the traffic hassles it would have cost the city more than it was the concern for the poor and the elderly.

Other nearby cities like Shelton and Aberdeen didn't get off so easy from WalMart damage. Their downtown cores are history. And given the fact that they are "timber towns" already bankrupted by an industry that drove itself out of business through greed, it was the last thing they needed.

If a person decides to make a career out of call center duty, well... I can't help him. Other than saying that they are popping up all over the place here in Oklahoma. Maybe a move is in order for those in the call center "profession" if their jobs get outsourced to India.

Move to where? Oklahoma or India?

Oh, and about WalMart. Do you shop there? Mom and Pop aren't forced out of anything. They either compete, or don't. It's very simple.

Yes it's very simple. Mom and Pop can't buy in the volume that a mega chain store can, therefore they have to pay more wholesale and accordingly, charge more retail than Wal-Mart. Hardly a fair playing field.

And how come plenty of foreigners seem to have no problem making money here? I can't tell you how many Arab and Indian business owners I've seen around. And the Chinese seem to have little to no problem doing quite well here in the good old U.S.

Ask around and you'll find that your typical Arab/Indian/Korean owned business, such as convenience stores, dry cleaners, etc. usually is owned by several members of the same family, and in many cases, they all live together in the same house, and pool their resources, most of the time staffing the business themselves because they aren't making enough money to hire outside help. Can't knock their committment, but it's hardly the stereotypical "American Dream"

You see, your soup kitchen version of America doesn't exist other than by the choices of those in line. Most voting Americans realize this. These aren't the Carter years anymore (thank God). Maybe you didn't get the memo Ford... You know, class envy/warfare isn't working as a political issue anymore.

The only "class warfare" going on is the fact that the BCE and their corporatist-fascsist friends are attempting to eliminate the middle class entirely. In the last 20 years, the rich have gotten richer, the poor have gotten poorer and the good family wage jobs are vanishing. Flipping fucking burgers is not "manaufacturing" no matter what the BCE says.

[John Ashcroft]

You big kidder you! You don't know anyone who fits your definition of the "average American". Just a bunch of people making a living (and probably a pretty damn good one at that).

Oh, and about the "rich getting richer, and the poor getting poorer". That's complete and utter bullshit. The NY Times even did an article on the "phenonoma". Guess what they concluded??? The rich indeed are getting richer, but the poor are getting richer as well. Here's the goods:

The Rich Get Rich and Poor Get Poorer. Or Do They?

To critics of economic liberalization and international trade, it is an article of faith that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer.

"Inequality is soaring through the globalization period — within countries and across countries," Noam Chomsky told a conference last fall, summarizing this common view.

Antiglobalization activists are not just making up this idea. They have taken it from seemingly authoritative sources, notably the 1999 United Nations Human Development Report.

That widely cited report stated: "Gaps in income between the poorest and richest countries have continued to widen. In 1960 the 20 percent of the world's people in the richest countries had 30 times the income of the poorest 20 percent — in 1997, 74 times as much." It added that "gaps are widening both between and within countries."

Fortunately, this scary portrait is highly misleading.

"When I started looking at the numbers, I saw a lot of mistakes," says Xavier Sala-i-Martin, an economist at Columbia. Some were departures from standard economic procedures, like not correcting for price levels from country to country.

"Some agencies didn't adjust for the fact that Ethiopia is cheaper than the U.S.," he said. "Some of them were hiding numbers that we know exist." For instance, the report included data from only 19 of the 29 industrialized countries then in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

But the biggest problem was not so technical. It was hidden in plain sight. The United Nations report and others looked at gaps in income of the richest and poorest countries — not rich and poor individuals.

That means the formerly poor citizens of giant countries could become a lot richer and still barely show up in the data.

"Treating countries like China and Grenada as two data points with equal weight does not seem reasonable because there are about 12,000 Chinese citizens for each person living in Grenada," writes Professor Sala-i-Martin in "The World Distribution of Income (Estimated from Individual Country Distributions)." That is one of two related working papers for the National Bureau of Economic Research. (The papers are available on Professor Sala-i-Martin's Web site at www.columbia.edu/~xs23/home.html.)

Counting by countries misses the biggest economic advance in history, completely distorting the record of the globalization period.

Over the last three decades, and especially since the 1980's, the world's two largest countries, China and India, have raced ahead economically. So have other Asian countries with relatively large populations.

The result is that 2.5 billion people have seen their standards of living rise toward those of the billion people in the already developed countries — decreasing global poverty and increasing global equality. From the point of view of individuals, economic liberalization has been a huge success.

"You have to look at people," says Professor Sala-i-Martin. "Because if you look at countries, we do have lots and lots of little countries that are doing very poorly, namely Africa — 35 African countries." But all Africa has only about half as many people as China.

In his paper, "The Disturbing `Rise' of Global Income Inequality," he estimates the worldwide distribution of income by individuals rather than countries. The results are striking.

In 1970, global income distribution peaked at about $1,000 in today's dollars, a common measure of poverty ($2 a day in 1985 dollars). In 1998, by contrast, the largest number of people earned about $8,000 — a standard of living equivalent to Portugal's.

"That's what I call a new world middle class," says Professor Sala-i-Martin. It is mostly made up of the top 40 percent of Chinese and Indians, and the effect of their economic rise is big.

What about the argument that income gaps are widening within these rapidly advancing countries? With a few exceptions, it is true, but still misleading.

The rich did get richer faster than the poor did. But for the most part the poor did not get poorer. They got richer, too. In exchange for significantly rising living standards, a little more internal inequality is not such a bad thing.

"One would like to think that it is unambiguously good that more than a third of the poorest citizens see their incomes grow and converge to the levels enjoyed by the richest people in the world," writes Professor Sala-i-Martin. "And if our indexes say that inequality rises, then rising inequality must be good, and we should not worry about it!"

There is, however, one large country where the poor really are getting poorer while the rich grow richer: Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa.

Nigeria's economy has actually shrunk over the last three decades, and the absolute poverty rate — the percentage of the population living on less than $1 a day in 1985 dollars — skyrocketed to 46 percent in 1998 from 9 percent in 1970.

While most Nigerians were falling further into destitution, the political and economic elite grew richer. The problem is not too much liberalization but too little, a politicized economy with widespread corruption.

"The rich guys are doing well, therefore reforms will not come," says a pessimistic Professor Sala-i-Martin. He has begun studying Nigeria, trying to come up with ways around the political problem.

That country is typical of Africa, which is growing ever poorer. Fully 95 percent of the world's "one-dollar poor" live in Africa, and in many countries they make up the vast majority of the population. That poverty, not the rising wealth of Asian countries, is the global economy's real problem.

"The welfare implications of finding how to turn around the growth performance of Africa are so staggering," he writes, "that this has probably become the most important question in economics."

From the NY times, 15th August, 2002. You need to register to see it, so I can't link directly

Anyway, all but the poor folks in Nigeria are doing just dandy. And like I've said countless times before, in the U.S., our poor are rich by most of the world's standards (yet you libs still bitch and whine).

Oh, and Pinky, I knew you couldn't do it. You're like arguing with a child. Pretty pathetic really. But at least you think you're intelligent... I'm not so sure. Anyone want to comment on Pinky's highly developed intellect, as displayed here?