Date: 2024-08-16 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00025469
US WORKING CONDITIONS
BETTER WAGES, BETTER WORKING CONDITIONS
The UAW is striking ... and with good reason. Investors have recovered from the debacle of 2008, but workers have not !!!!!!
BETTER WAGES, BETTER WORKING CONDITIONS
The UAW is striking ... and with good reason. Investors have recovered from the debacle of 2008, but workers have not !!!!!!
Original article: https://twitter.com/i/status/1704136706574741988
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Republican lawmakers are pretty clear on where they stand with regard to American workers ... and it is essentially 100% in favor of the 'bosses' and nothing for workers.
For me, referencing Ronald Reagan's attitude to workers and strikes is a stark reminder of how the American economy has been gamed in favor of rich owners over the past 40+ years enabling the greatest level of inequality since the 1920s and maybe even 'for ever'!
It is not only Republican politicans who should be called to account, but also many ... if not most ... of the people who advise investors and the people who run the very large companies. The fiancialization of the US economy ... as well as some others like the UK, and to a lesser extent most of the other major 'free' economies around the world ... has caused a very unhealthy focus on profit performance while avoiding both social responsibility and environmental responsibility.
During my academic education I embraced engineering, economics, management and accountancy and have built on these basics for all of my adult life.
Back in 1973 I observed that the Arab oil boycott ... the impact of the OPEC cartel ... was the biggest economic event ever. I opined that this was bigger than even WWII. At the time I had the responsibility for running a company that employed about 1,300 people* when we were faced with the turmoil associated with the global OPEC oil shock.
President Nixon tried some pretty draconian policy initiatives to get some control, but did not succeed ... and then President Ford ... and then President Carter
By the time Ronald Reagan became President, the business community had figured out that the low energy efficiency and high wages of the US economy could not be profitable given better energy efficiency almost everywhere else in the world. Accordingly business investment migrated from the US to low wage low regulation parts of the world. Nixon had initiated a relationship with China using 'ping-pong' diplomacy a decade before and low cost manufacturing in China became a way for American investment in business to become profitable once again. The fact that American workers lost their jobs was almost totally ignored by the ruling class in the USA ... both political and business.
I have called what has emerged first with Reagan and then in subsequent administrations, the 'financialization' of the economy. Fiancialization is somewhat the same as 'globalization', but goes beyond in order to include the real negative impacts on both society and the environment which are studiously ignored by those who work in the financial world!
American workers have been losing economic ground since 1973 ... but now, 50 years later, workers in the USA are asking for a fair deal.
I hope workers are able to get a fair deal ... but in order for this to work, we also have to understand where all the benefits of productivity improvement of the last 50 years have gone. My conclusion is that much of this accumulated benefit has gone into the ownership of assets of many sorts which have increased in price were they to be sold. The problem with this is that it is effectively removing real wealth from the real operating economy ... and is essentially unsustainable.
Almost everything that is important has gone up in price to make it unaffordable for a normal wage earner without going into debt. This is a reflection of an economic system that no longer follows the basic principles of the market as articulated by Adam Smith around the time of American independence, but follows more the rules of the great 'trusts' of the late 19th century which created huge wealth for rather few!
Robert Reich tends to be on the right side of most issues !!!!!!!
* To be more precise ... two of us were Co-Presidents and responsible for running the company, I was in charge of the factory and the accounting, and my colleague was responsible for sales and the product engineering.
Peter Burgess