Impeachment

[Kirkland Laing]

And yes, unions I say. Reagan smashing the unions is the reason wages have been stagnant since he took office. The lack of union power is the reason for the unchecked deregulation and tax cuts that have blown the national debt, inequality and the deficit, wrecked middle class incomes, the 2008 economic meltdown and more. It's the worst thing that has happened to America in the last century.

Again I'll insert the disclaimer that I'm no expert on unions..... but I'll mention the air traffic controllers strike of 1981. After Reagan fired them all, it got a little dicey there for awhile. PATCO probably thought they were irreplaceable. Yet somehow Reagan got them all replaced and after limping along a little bit with a makeshift force largely made up of Navy controllers and other such sources, the system quickly got back on track and PATCO learned a hard lesson.

I'm not a fan of unions myself, having had experience with them in the work environment. Maybe their origin was needed and well overdue. But like everything else that is created to right a wrong, many times the pendulum swings too far to the other side, creating totally new problems. I'm not gonna claim they're all bad... but certainly some unions have outlived their usefulness and should've probably morphed into something else a long time ago.

Back when unions had real political power in America wages kept pace with national income/productivity growth. Since unions have been neutered a back of the envelope calculation says it's cost the median earner twenty thousand dollars a year in income which now stays in their bosses' pockets. That's one point six million in income that the median household has lost in the forty years since Reagan smashed the unions. How many American households, were they to know the facts of the matter, would say you know what these guys are definitely no use at all, who needs an extra one point six million (not incuding benefits like healthcare, pensions, paid holidays/sickleave/maternity/paternity leave etc etc). These unions have clearly outlived their usefulness and should have morphed into sewing circles or cycling clubs.

If the pendulum has swung too far to the other side maybe it's swung too far to the side of capital away from labour? Certainly the entirety of the last forty years of economic numbers would suggest this is the case. I can feel a graph coming on. I'm going to dig a graph up.

You steadfastly mention the wages, for which I have no data to counter with. But you ignore the productivity side of the equation, and certainly did not mention anything on that air traffic controller strike which Reagan ended rather quickly. From personal experience, let me tell you the frustration a manager/supervisor feels when he asks a unionized worker to tighten the leaking universal union on the compressed air line, only to be countered with "I only loosen universal unions... I don't tighten them. You need to get a Class 2 Division B Millwright." I personally witnessed at some point in my life the sight of unionized workers lounging around refusing to do work they were perfectly capable of doing, with the only reason being that their collective agreement didn't allow them to do so. As a young, hands-on person, I learned the hard way that you can't do a unionized person's job for them, either. That's like opening a free can of shit, resulting in wasted time and money while grievances are being heard.

Sorry....... not a union fan.

One strike is kinda meaningless compared to the whole Reagan era anti union regulation/legislation. It's another example of powerful interests smashing workers though ultimately creating powerless workers working for what they're told they can have rather than them being able to negotiate their fair share of increasing national income. And as far as anecdotes go, the plural of anecdote is not data. As far as productivity goes the era of real union power in America, the fifties to the late seventies, saw the biggest sustained growth in productivity in American history. From about the year 2000, an era when capital has been absolutely dominant and unions have been smashed, we've seen the poorest productivity growth in American history.

I've worked in both unionized and non-unionized industries. It's my personal experience that the non-unionized environment tends to be more productive. Charts and graphs I don't have. What I have though, is personal experience. My wife has worked a long time for a company that twice tried to institute a union for their workers. Twice they failed. It's widely perceived it was for the better. Unions in many industries act like their own little Mafia. You don't get to choose whether you want to belong to the union and pay their dues. It comes with the job. Many unions indirectly promote worker wastefulness, regardless of what your economics numbers might say.

I already stated that in some industries is pretty much a necessary evil. Namely the rough, potentially dangerous industries where safety standards must be stringently met. But as with most things, too much of anything is rarely a good thing. Many unions restrict employment, subsequently driving up labor costs as a result. We're not talking about starving wages here. Many unions are unrealistic about their labor cost demands, sometimes even deterring investment and growth. Not every worker likes or chooses to work in unionized companies. Yet most of them have no choice. I don't know that that's necessarily a good thing.

I also fail to see how a unionized environment, where workers are told exactly what they can and can't do, even when fully capable of doing it, leads to more productivity.

Again, the plural of anecdote is not data. And you're making a load of incorrect claims about investment and growth being deterred. Once again here are economic growth rates in America since the end of WW2:



Back when America had the highest rates of growth and investment was the time one in three Americans belonged to a union (now under tenpercent) and nonunion workers could unionise so easily that nonunion companies had to keep pace with union wage and benefit increases or their workers would unionise meaning back before 1980 American labour was effectively fully unionised.

Here's productivity:



Productivity fell off due to the two gigantic oil shocks in the seventies (in 1973 alone the price of oil quadrupled overnight). It picked back up in the nineties and 2000s due to Microsoft which is a one in a lifetime kind of productivity jump and we'll probably get a similiar jump when AI bears fruit in a decade or three. But look at productivity right now. We've had forty years of successively smashing the unions, every single "business friendly" policy (slashing taxes and regulation) that business wanted and look at the situation right now. Really low productivity, the lowest levels of investment in the modern era and a massively unequal economy. De facto nionisation of labour back in the day certainly didn't affect producivity too much, did it?

Amazing that high taxes, a properly regulated economy and strong unions provided much better economic growth that was broadly shared, not shitty economic growth that all goes to top earners with three quarters of Americans living paycheque to paycheque.

[TitoFan]

Again, the plural of anecdote is not data. And you're making a load of incorrect claims about investment and growth being deterred. Once again here are economic growth rates in America since the end of WW2:

You keep saying that, and countering with data that I can easily argue is circumstantial. You yourself have said there are numerous factors that affect the economy, including productivity and investment. So why can't I counter your "plural of anecdote is not data" with..... "data presented out of context can be misleading and easily manipulated"? You tell me I've made a "load of incorrect claims about investment and growth being deterred"..... then you turn around and present me with growth rate data, presumably wanting to assign all of it to the growth (or lack thereof) of unions. Do you honestly expect me to just take you at your word?

You know I'm not going to get into a graphs and charts battle with you. Also we both know I don't have the economics background that you seem to have. But to easily dismiss personal experience as "anecdotes, not data" is a bit presumptuous, if you don't mind my saying so. Let's establish here that just like you're obviously a huge fan of unions....... I'm NOT.

Back when America had the highest rates of growth and investment was the time one in three Americans belonged to a union (now under tenpercent) and nonunion workers could unionise so easily that nonunion companies had to keep pace with union wage and benefit increases or their workers would unionise meaning back before 1980 American labour was effectively fully unionised.

Here's productivity:



Productivity fell off due to the two gigantic oil shocks in the seventies (in 1973 alone the price of oil quadrupled overnight). It picked back up in the nineties and 2000s due to Microsoft which is a one in a lifetime kind of productivity jump and we'll probably get a similiar jump when AI bears fruit in a decade or three. But look at productivity right now. We've had forty years of successively smashing the unions, every single "business friendly" policy (slashing taxes and regulation) that business wanted and look at the situation right now. Really low productivity, the lowest levels of investment in the modern era and a massively unequal economy. De facto nionisation of labour back in the day certainly didn't affect producivity too much, did it?

Amazing that high taxes, a properly regulated economy and strong unions provided much better economic growth that was broadly shared, not shitty economic growth that all goes to top earners with three quarters of Americans living paycheque to paycheque.

Circumstantial. For every article that says unions have been (and are) good for productivity and investment, I can find another that says the opposite. Articles written by economists, not me.

But whatever. Neither of us will ever change our stance. The point I've constantly made, which has been constantly ignored, is that unions have brought a whole set of ills to industry that cannot be measured simply by dollars and cents. You may or may not agree with that statement, or even pull out your "anecdote" comment again....... but it remains true. Maybe if you had a broader background in industry and we could discuss things not covered in your graphs, you'd see the other side of the coin.

[walrus]

Again, the plural of anecdote is not data. And you're making a load of incorrect claims about investment and growth being deterred. Once again here are economic growth rates in America since the end of WW2:

You keep saying that, and countering with data that I can easily argue is circumstantial. You yourself have said there are numerous factors that affect the economy, including productivity and investment. So why can't I counter your "plural of anecdote is not data" with..... "data presented out of context can be misleading and easily manipulated"? You tell me I've made a "load of incorrect claims about investment and growth being deterred"..... then you turn around and present me with growth rate data, presumably wanting to assign all of it to the growth (or lack thereof) of unions. Do you honestly expect me to just take you at your word?

You know I'm not going to get into a graphs and charts battle with you. Also we both know I don't have the economics background that you seem to have. But to easily dismiss personal experience as "anecdotes, not data" is a bit presumptuous, if you don't mind my saying so. Let's establish here that just like you're obviously a huge fan of unions....... I'm NOT.

Back when America had the highest rates of growth and investment was the time one in three Americans belonged to a union (now under tenpercent) and nonunion workers could unionise so easily that nonunion companies had to keep pace with union wage and benefit increases or their workers would unionise meaning back before 1980 American labour was effectively fully unionised.

Here's productivity:



Productivity fell off due to the two gigantic oil shocks in the seventies (in 1973 alone the price of oil quadrupled overnight). It picked back up in the nineties and 2000s due to Microsoft which is a one in a lifetime kind of productivity jump and we'll probably get a similiar jump when AI bears fruit in a decade or three. But look at productivity right now. We've had forty years of successively smashing the unions, every single "business friendly" policy (slashing taxes and regulation) that business wanted and look at the situation right now. Really low productivity, the lowest levels of investment in the modern era and a massively unequal economy. De facto nionisation of labour back in the day certainly didn't affect producivity too much, did it?

Amazing that high taxes, a properly regulated economy and strong unions provided much better economic growth that was broadly shared, not shitty economic growth that all goes to top earners with three quarters of Americans living paycheque to paycheque.

Circumstantial. For every article that says unions have been (and are) good for productivity and investment, I can find another that says the opposite. Articles written by economists, not me.

But whatever. Neither of us will ever change our stance. The point I've constantly made, which has been constantly ignored, is that unions have brought a whole set of ills to industry that cannot be measured simply by dollars and cents. You may or may not agree with that statement, or even pull out your "anecdote" comment again....... but it remains true. Maybe if you had a broader background in industry and we could discuss things not covered in your graphs, you'd see the other side of the coin.

Tits welcome to kirks world

[Kirkland Laing]

Again, the plural of anecdote is not data. And you're making a load of incorrect claims about investment and growth being deterred. Once again here are economic growth rates in America since the end of WW2:

You keep saying that, and countering with data that I can easily argue is circumstantial. You yourself have said there are numerous factors that affect the economy, including productivity and investment. So why can't I counter your "plural of anecdote is not data" with..... "data presented out of context can be misleading and easily manipulated"? You tell me I've made a "load of incorrect claims about investment and growth being deterred"..... then you turn around and present me with growth rate data, presumably wanting to assign all of it to the growth (or lack thereof) of unions. Do you honestly expect me to just take you at your word?

You know I'm not going to get into a graphs and charts battle with you. Also we both know I don't have the economics background that you seem to have. But to easily dismiss personal experience as "anecdotes, not data" is a bit presumptuous, if you don't mind my saying so. Let's establish here that just like you're obviously a huge fan of unions....... I'm NOT.

Back when America had the highest rates of growth and investment was the time one in three Americans belonged to a union (now under tenpercent) and nonunion workers could unionise so easily that nonunion companies had to keep pace with union wage and benefit increases or their workers would unionise meaning back before 1980 American labour was effectively fully unionised.

Here's productivity:



Productivity fell off due to the two gigantic oil shocks in the seventies (in 1973 alone the price of oil quadrupled overnight). It picked back up in the nineties and 2000s due to Microsoft which is a one in a lifetime kind of productivity jump and we'll probably get a similiar jump when AI bears fruit in a decade or three. But look at productivity right now. We've had forty years of successively smashing the unions, every single "business friendly" policy (slashing taxes and regulation) that business wanted and look at the situation right now. Really low productivity, the lowest levels of investment in the modern era and a massively unequal economy. De facto nionisation of labour back in the day certainly didn't affect producivity too much, did it?

Amazing that high taxes, a properly regulated economy and strong unions provided much better economic growth that was broadly shared, not shitty economic growth that all goes to top earners with three quarters of Americans living paycheque to paycheque.

Circumstantial. For every article that says unions have been (and are) good for productivity and investment, I can find another that says the opposite. Articles written by economists, not me.

But whatever. Neither of us will ever change our stance. The point I've constantly made, which has been constantly ignored, is that unions have brought a whole set of ills to industry that cannot be measured simply by dollars and cents. You may or may not agree with that statement, or even pull out your "anecdote" comment again....... but it remains true. Maybe if you had a broader background in industry and we could discuss things not covered in your graphs, you'd see the other side of the coin.

Seventy five years of economic data is circumstantial whereas the opinion of one person is the definitive answer to whether unions have been and are a good thing for the economy and its participants.

Let's look at one aspect of it to try and explain this more clearly to the hard of thinking. Productivity, the amount one person produces per unit (normally per hour) of work. Productivity has increased by twenty percent since 2007. That means we can produce twenty percent more output with the same amount of work that we could back in 2007. That's about a three trillion dollar increase in income which works out at about $36000 a year per family.

Now Kirkland, I hear you say. You told us that the average family would be making $20000 a year more in 2020 than they were in 1980 if they'd maintained the share of increased income that they used to get pre Reagan. How come they'd get nearly twice that just since 2007? Well it's because workers don't get all the increase for themselves. They only get a share. Back in the seventies the lion's share of increased income went to the people who own the capital -- the existing money stock and means of production, factories, shops and so on. And that's good! As one of the owners of that capital I completely agree that the Plains Apes who own the capital should get the largest share of the returns on that capital.

But it turns out that if the Plains Apes who own all the capital take all of the increase in income, which is what has happened since Reagan took office, it fucks the economy up to the point where forty years later our now massively unequal rigged economy is sputtering along badly despite massive fiscal and monetary stimulus. A small minority of people are doing well and the vast majority are living paycheque to paycheque. And things are only going to get worse.

Does this look to you like a situation in which unions have too much power and control over the economy versus the small number of Plains Apes with the dough?

[El Kabong]

Looks like JFK had quite the economic impact. I guess 0% of that was his "a rising tide floats all boats" tax cuts....in fact I bet you'd probably say "if he didn't cut taxes he would have done even better".

[El Kabong]

Also worth noting not only the unionization of the companies back from the mid-late 40s to the early 70s but also immigration. One could surmise that Hart-Celler brought that era of prosperity to a halt. Timeline works out.

[Kirkland Laing]

Looks like JFK had quite the economic impact. I guess 0% of that was his "a rising tide floats all boats" tax cuts....in fact I bet you'd probably say "if he didn't cut taxes he would have done even better".

It depends on rates and levels and the tax base Lyle. Kennedy cut the top rate from ninety one percent to seventy percent but broadened the tax base which meant loopholes were cut and more people paid the top rate. Kennedy also increased the minimum wage. The net result wasn't much of anything at all.




The most significant change in the US tax regime came in the 1980s. Reagan slashed the top rate, realised that there was now a huge revenue gap and then plugged the gap with new taxes on low/middle income earners. This still didn't cover the shortfall so read my lips no new taxes Bush 41 had to come up with some new taxes because obviously increasing the top rate was out of the question.

And you're correct that how many people you let into a country affects economic growth. GDP growth is made up of two (2) things: productivity increases, which we've already covered and population growth. That's it. Lots of nice new immigrants mean lots more economic growth. Even the Trump administration knows this, they just feed anti immigrant bullshit to idiots like you to get them to vote for them:

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told a crowd at a private gathering in England on Wednesday night that the Trump administration “needs more immigrants” for the U.S. economy to continue growing, according to an audio recording of his remarks obtained by The Washington Post.“We are desperate — desperate — for more people,” Mulvaney said. “We are running out of people to fuel the economic growth that we’ve had in our nation over the last four years. We need more immigrants.”

The Trump administration wants those immigrants to come in a “legal fashion,” Mulvaney said, according to the recording.

Mulvaney’s remarks appear in contrast to the public position of several top figures in Trump’s White House — especially that of senior policy adviser Stephen Miller — who have been working to slash legal and illegal immigration through a slew of policies that aim to close off the U.S. border to foreigners. They have insisted that the steady arrival of newcomers depresses wages for the blue-collar U.S. workers whose votes helped lift Trump to the presidency in 2016.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...dd7_story.html

[TitoFan]

Again, the plural of anecdote is not data. And you're making a load of incorrect claims about investment and growth being deterred. Once again here are economic growth rates in America since the end of WW2:

You keep saying that, and countering with data that I can easily argue is circumstantial. You yourself have said there are numerous factors that affect the economy, including productivity and investment. So why can't I counter your "plural of anecdote is not data" with..... "data presented out of context can be misleading and easily manipulated"? You tell me I've made a "load of incorrect claims about investment and growth being deterred"..... then you turn around and present me with growth rate data, presumably wanting to assign all of it to the growth (or lack thereof) of unions. Do you honestly expect me to just take you at your word?

You know I'm not going to get into a graphs and charts battle with you. Also we both know I don't have the economics background that you seem to have. But to easily dismiss personal experience as "anecdotes, not data" is a bit presumptuous, if you don't mind my saying so. Let's establish here that just like you're obviously a huge fan of unions....... I'm NOT.

Back when America had the highest rates of growth and investment was the time one in three Americans belonged to a union (now under tenpercent) and nonunion workers could unionise so easily that nonunion companies had to keep pace with union wage and benefit increases or their workers would unionise meaning back before 1980 American labour was effectively fully unionised.

Here's productivity:



Productivity fell off due to the two gigantic oil shocks in the seventies (in 1973 alone the price of oil quadrupled overnight). It picked back up in the nineties and 2000s due to Microsoft which is a one in a lifetime kind of productivity jump and we'll probably get a similiar jump when AI bears fruit in a decade or three. But look at productivity right now. We've had forty years of successively smashing the unions, every single "business friendly" policy (slashing taxes and regulation) that business wanted and look at the situation right now. Really low productivity, the lowest levels of investment in the modern era and a massively unequal economy. De facto nionisation of labour back in the day certainly didn't affect producivity too much, did it?

Amazing that high taxes, a properly regulated economy and strong unions provided much better economic growth that was broadly shared, not shitty economic growth that all goes to top earners with three quarters of Americans living paycheque to paycheque.

Circumstantial. For every article that says unions have been (and are) good for productivity and investment, I can find another that says the opposite. Articles written by economists, not me.

But whatever. Neither of us will ever change our stance. The point I've constantly made, which has been constantly ignored, is that unions have brought a whole set of ills to industry that cannot be measured simply by dollars and cents. You may or may not agree with that statement, or even pull out your "anecdote" comment again....... but it remains true. Maybe if you had a broader background in industry and we could discuss things not covered in your graphs, you'd see the other side of the coin.

Seventy five years of economic data is circumstantial whereas the opinion of one person is the definitive answer to whether unions have been and are a good thing for the economy and its participants.

Let's look at one aspect of it to try and explain this more clearly to the hard of thinking. Productivity, the amount one person produces per unit (normally per hour) of work. Productivity has increased by twenty percent since 2007. That means we can produce twenty percent more output with the same amount of work that we could back in 2007. That's about a three trillion dollar increase in income which works out at about $36000 a year per family.

Now Kirkland, I hear you say. You told us that the average family would be making $20000 a year more in 2020 than they were in 1980 if they'd maintained the share of increased income that they used to get pre Reagan. How come they'd get nearly twice that just since 2007? Well it's because workers don't get all the increase for themselves. They only get a share. Back in the seventies the lion's share of increased income went to the people who own the capital -- the existing money stock and means of production, factories, shops and so on. And that's good! As one of the owners of that capital I completely agree that the Plains Apes who own the capital should get the largest share of the returns on that capital.

But it turns out that if the Plains Apes who own all the capital take all of the increase in income, which is what has happened since Reagan took office, it fucks the economy up to the point where forty years later our now massively unequal rigged economy is sputtering along badly despite massive fiscal and monetary stimulus. A small minority of people are doing well and the vast majority are living paycheque to paycheque. And things are only going to get worse.

Does this look to you like a situation in which unions have too much power and control over the economy versus the small number of Plains Apes with the dough?

I'll overlook the obvious condescension of particularly the first few sentences while I respond. But thanks for dumbing it down for me.

With all your charts and graphs, you still haven't tied the state of the economy strictly to the fate of unions, which by the way, are not gone.... just more limited. But that's ok. I don't wish to engage in a never-ending squabble over that one. Beyond the charts and graphs, it still boils down to your speculation vs mine. The Plains Apes or whatever other cute name you've used to illustrate your point have certainly gotten fat and happy off the backs of workers in the overall picture. That still doesn't erase the ills of at least some of the unions in industry throughout history. We don't have to agree. Just please do not offer to hand me crayons or attempt to teach me math.

As I said, you're a HUGE fan of unions. Maybe a mix of personal experience with horror stories from people close to you. Or maybe some sensationalized accounts of the horrid abuse the Plains Apes have rained down on the downtrodden, plain ol' monkeys that are doing all the work (might as well stay with the jungle theme).

My personal industry experience (and those of many of my colleagues) may mean diddly squat to you, next to your shiny charts and graphs. But they're meaningful nonetheless. In my opinion (which is how I like to preface most things), unions have by and large resembled a giant pendulum in the history of industry. It went from a dire necessity, to protect workers' health and very lives....... to becoming a cumbersome and expensive ball and chain on industry, having achieved an amount of power and influence totally out of proportion with reality.

But rather than risk engaging in what could become a nasty back-and-forth (I don't appreciate being talked down to), I'll just accept your opinion as what it is........ an OPINION.

[Kirkland Laing]

Again, the plural of anecdote is not data. And you're making a load of incorrect claims about investment and growth being deterred. Once again here are economic growth rates in America since the end of WW2:

You keep saying that, and countering with data that I can easily argue is circumstantial. You yourself have said there are numerous factors that affect the economy, including productivity and investment. So why can't I counter your "plural of anecdote is not data" with..... "data presented out of context can be misleading and easily manipulated"? You tell me I've made a "load of incorrect claims about investment and growth being deterred"..... then you turn around and present me with growth rate data, presumably wanting to assign all of it to the growth (or lack thereof) of unions. Do you honestly expect me to just take you at your word?

You know I'm not going to get into a graphs and charts battle with you. Also we both know I don't have the economics background that you seem to have. But to easily dismiss personal experience as "anecdotes, not data" is a bit presumptuous, if you don't mind my saying so. Let's establish here that just like you're obviously a huge fan of unions....... I'm NOT.

Back when America had the highest rates of growth and investment was the time one in three Americans belonged to a union (now under tenpercent) and nonunion workers could unionise so easily that nonunion companies had to keep pace with union wage and benefit increases or their workers would unionise meaning back before 1980 American labour was effectively fully unionised.

Here's productivity:



Productivity fell off due to the two gigantic oil shocks in the seventies (in 1973 alone the price of oil quadrupled overnight). It picked back up in the nineties and 2000s due to Microsoft which is a one in a lifetime kind of productivity jump and we'll probably get a similiar jump when AI bears fruit in a decade or three. But look at productivity right now. We've had forty years of successively smashing the unions, every single "business friendly" policy (slashing taxes and regulation) that business wanted and look at the situation right now. Really low productivity, the lowest levels of investment in the modern era and a massively unequal economy. De facto nionisation of labour back in the day certainly didn't affect producivity too much, did it?

Amazing that high taxes, a properly regulated economy and strong unions provided much better economic growth that was broadly shared, not shitty economic growth that all goes to top earners with three quarters of Americans living paycheque to paycheque.

Circumstantial. For every article that says unions have been (and are) good for productivity and investment, I can find another that says the opposite. Articles written by economists, not me.

But whatever. Neither of us will ever change our stance. The point I've constantly made, which has been constantly ignored, is that unions have brought a whole set of ills to industry that cannot be measured simply by dollars and cents. You may or may not agree with that statement, or even pull out your "anecdote" comment again....... but it remains true. Maybe if you had a broader background in industry and we could discuss things not covered in your graphs, you'd see the other side of the coin.

Seventy five years of economic data is circumstantial whereas the opinion of one person is the definitive answer to whether unions have been and are a good thing for the economy and its participants.

Let's look at one aspect of it to try and explain this more clearly to the hard of thinking. Productivity, the amount one person produces per unit (normally per hour) of work. Productivity has increased by twenty percent since 2007. That means we can produce twenty percent more output with the same amount of work that we could back in 2007. That's about a three trillion dollar increase in income which works out at about $36000 a year per family.

Now Kirkland, I hear you say. You told us that the average family would be making $20000 a year more in 2020 than they were in 1980 if they'd maintained the share of increased income that they used to get pre Reagan. How come they'd get nearly twice that just since 2007? Well it's because workers don't get all the increase for themselves. They only get a share. Back in the seventies the lion's share of increased income went to the people who own the capital -- the existing money stock and means of production, factories, shops and so on. And that's good! As one of the owners of that capital I completely agree that the Plains Apes who own the capital should get the largest share of the returns on that capital.

But it turns out that if the Plains Apes who own all the capital take all of the increase in income, which is what has happened since Reagan took office, it fucks the economy up to the point where forty years later our now massively unequal rigged economy is sputtering along badly despite massive fiscal and monetary stimulus. A small minority of people are doing well and the vast majority are living paycheque to paycheque. And things are only going to get worse.

Does this look to you like a situation in which unions have too much power and control over the economy versus the small number of Plains Apes with the dough?

I'll overlook the obvious condescension of particularly the first few sentences while I respond. But thanks for dumbing it down for me.

With all your charts and graphs, you still haven't tied the state of the economy strictly to the fate of unions, which by the way, are not gone.... just more limited. But that's ok. I don't wish to engage in a never-ending squabble over that one. Beyond the charts and graphs, it still boils down to your speculation vs mine. The Plains Apes or whatever other cute name you've used to illustrate your point have certainly gotten fat and happy off the backs of workers in the overall picture. That still doesn't erase the ills of at least some of the unions in industry throughout history. We don't have to agree. Just please do not offer to hand me crayons or attempt to teach me math.

As I said, you're a HUGE fan of unions. Maybe a mix of personal experience with horror stories from people close to you. Or maybe some sensationalized accounts of the horrid abuse the Plains Apes have rained down on the downtrodden, plain ol' monkeys that are doing all the work (might as well stay with the jungle theme).

My personal industry experience (and those of many of my colleagues) may mean diddly squat to you, next to your shiny charts and graphs. But they're meaningful nonetheless. In my opinion (which is how I like to preface most things), unions have by and large resembled a giant pendulum in the history of industry. It went from a dire necessity, to protect workers' health and very lives....... to becoming a cumbersome and expensive ball and chain on industry, having achieved an amount of power and influence totally out of proportion with reality.

But rather than risk engaging in what could become a nasty back-and-forth (I don't appreciate being talked down to), I'll just accept your opinion as what it is........ an OPINION.

If you don't want to be talked down to then don't make utterly moronic posts. Trying to argue against seventy five years of data with fucking anecdotes is laugh out loud idiotic. I've been really polite considering the garbage you're posting.

What I've written isn't speculation. Unions managed to secure about a third of increases in national income for their members and the wider workforce. Since the unions were neutered forty years ago the US workforce now gets absolutely fuck all because American labour has no bargaining power anymore. You can come up with an explanation why this has happened that doesn't involve unions losing their power anytime you want.

But you don't want to do that. You just can't face the fact that you're significantly worse off financially today than you would have been had unions still had the power they had back in the fifties and sixties. You're quite happy to see the top one percent loot the economy and parrot their propaganda about how it all works. It's like you're watching me come out of a bank with trolleys full of bags of cash and I'm loading my van to make a getaway and you're saying sit, wait, you dropped a bag. Let me help you load your truck. Idiot.

[TitoFan]

Again, the plural of anecdote is not data. And you're making a load of incorrect claims about investment and growth being deterred. Once again here are economic growth rates in America since the end of WW2:

You keep saying that, and countering with data that I can easily argue is circumstantial. You yourself have said there are numerous factors that affect the economy, including productivity and investment. So why can't I counter your "plural of anecdote is not data" with..... "data presented out of context can be misleading and easily manipulated"? You tell me I've made a "load of incorrect claims about investment and growth being deterred"..... then you turn around and present me with growth rate data, presumably wanting to assign all of it to the growth (or lack thereof) of unions. Do you honestly expect me to just take you at your word?

You know I'm not going to get into a graphs and charts battle with you. Also we both know I don't have the economics background that you seem to have. But to easily dismiss personal experience as "anecdotes, not data" is a bit presumptuous, if you don't mind my saying so. Let's establish here that just like you're obviously a huge fan of unions....... I'm NOT.

Circumstantial. For every article that says unions have been (and are) good for productivity and investment, I can find another that says the opposite. Articles written by economists, not me.

But whatever. Neither of us will ever change our stance. The point I've constantly made, which has been constantly ignored, is that unions have brought a whole set of ills to industry that cannot be measured simply by dollars and cents. You may or may not agree with that statement, or even pull out your "anecdote" comment again....... but it remains true. Maybe if you had a broader background in industry and we could discuss things not covered in your graphs, you'd see the other side of the coin.

Seventy five years of economic data is circumstantial whereas the opinion of one person is the definitive answer to whether unions have been and are a good thing for the economy and its participants.

Let's look at one aspect of it to try and explain this more clearly to the hard of thinking. Productivity, the amount one person produces per unit (normally per hour) of work. Productivity has increased by twenty percent since 2007. That means we can produce twenty percent more output with the same amount of work that we could back in 2007. That's about a three trillion dollar increase in income which works out at about $36000 a year per family.

Now Kirkland, I hear you say. You told us that the average family would be making $20000 a year more in 2020 than they were in 1980 if they'd maintained the share of increased income that they used to get pre Reagan. How come they'd get nearly twice that just since 2007? Well it's because workers don't get all the increase for themselves. They only get a share. Back in the seventies the lion's share of increased income went to the people who own the capital -- the existing money stock and means of production, factories, shops and so on. And that's good! As one of the owners of that capital I completely agree that the Plains Apes who own the capital should get the largest share of the returns on that capital.

But it turns out that if the Plains Apes who own all the capital take all of the increase in income, which is what has happened since Reagan took office, it fucks the economy up to the point where forty years later our now massively unequal rigged economy is sputtering along badly despite massive fiscal and monetary stimulus. A small minority of people are doing well and the vast majority are living paycheque to paycheque. And things are only going to get worse.

Does this look to you like a situation in which unions have too much power and control over the economy versus the small number of Plains Apes with the dough?

I'll overlook the obvious condescension of particularly the first few sentences while I respond. But thanks for dumbing it down for me.

With all your charts and graphs, you still haven't tied the state of the economy strictly to the fate of unions, which by the way, are not gone.... just more limited. But that's ok. I don't wish to engage in a never-ending squabble over that one. Beyond the charts and graphs, it still boils down to your speculation vs mine. The Plains Apes or whatever other cute name you've used to illustrate your point have certainly gotten fat and happy off the backs of workers in the overall picture. That still doesn't erase the ills of at least some of the unions in industry throughout history. We don't have to agree. Just please do not offer to hand me crayons or attempt to teach me math.

As I said, you're a HUGE fan of unions. Maybe a mix of personal experience with horror stories from people close to you. Or maybe some sensationalized accounts of the horrid abuse the Plains Apes have rained down on the downtrodden, plain ol' monkeys that are doing all the work (might as well stay with the jungle theme).

My personal industry experience (and those of many of my colleagues) may mean diddly squat to you, next to your shiny charts and graphs. But they're meaningful nonetheless. In my opinion (which is how I like to preface most things), unions have by and large resembled a giant pendulum in the history of industry. It went from a dire necessity, to protect workers' health and very lives....... to becoming a cumbersome and expensive ball and chain on industry, having achieved an amount of power and influence totally out of proportion with reality.

But rather than risk engaging in what could become a nasty back-and-forth (I don't appreciate being talked down to), I'll just accept your opinion as what it is........ an OPINION.

If you don't want to be talked down to then don't make utterly moronic posts. Trying to argue against seventy five years of data with fucking anecdotes is laugh out loud idiotic. I've been really polite considering the garbage you're posting.

What I've written isn't speculation. Unions managed to secure about a third of increases in national income for their members and the wider workforce. Since the unions were neutered forty years ago the US workforce now gets absolutely fuck all because American labour has no bargaining power anymore. You can come up with an explanation why this has happened that doesn't involve unions losing their power anytime you want.

But you don't want to do that. You just can't face the fact that you're significantly worse off financially today than you would have been had unions still had the power they had back in the fifties and sixties. You're quite happy to see the top one percent loot the economy and parrot their propaganda about how it all works. It's like you're watching me come out of a bank with trolleys full of bags of cash and I'm loading my van to make a getaway and you're saying sit, wait, you dropped a bag. Let me help you load your truck. Idiot.

Fuck off, Kirk. You're a lot more belligerent than I remember you. As an avowed Reagan hater, you laughingly talk about unions getting "neutered" forty years ago, implying they don't exist or are woefully ineffective. You stupidly ignore their existence today, even if on a more measured level. You laser focus on your charts and graphs, ignoring all other factors, and the basic fact that most in the industry acknowledge and argue both the good and the bad that labor unions bring. You also laughingly attribute all of the economy's woes to the drop in union memberships and in their power and influence as well. You're good at posting charts and graphs, but lousy at logic.

Basically you're just another fucking fanatic who can't see the forest for the trees. Union... good. Management.... bad. Still living in the 60's, or whatever the fuck other era you happen to be stuck in. You conveniently ignore any other factors that may get in the way of your horse blinders. I honestly thought you were smarter and more even-tempered than that. I guess I thought wrong.

Unions can, and have on occasion, impeded their company's ability to compete by their unwillingness to compromise, even when it means reducing the competitiveness of the firm. In the end, everybody loses. But you don't see that side of that, because you have this puzzling attitude that keeps you from seeing anything big picture. You're just another fanatical bozo like the loser from Good Will Hunting who regurgitates what he memorizes from the textbooks.

Really..... fuck off.

[TitoFan]

Kirk, since you're too small-minded for personal experience and "anecdotes", I'll put it in terms even you can understand.

Back in the 70's and before, the U.S. steel industry, one of the backbones of American industry, was flourishing. There was no reason for that to change, given the amount of resources and technology to keep the industry growing and flourishing. Then, a funny thing happened on the way to Happily Ever After Land. In the late 70's and beyond, Japan started to take large pieces away from the pie, and U.S. steel started floundering. Now..... you can cite product dumping in the U.S. market, cost of environmental controls, etc, all you want. But obviously you'll gloss over and ignore one of the biggest reasons of them all.

While the U.S. Steelworkers unions were fighting for half-hour coffee breaks and overly generous wage increases, Japan was quietly taking over the industry with its worker mindset and culture of working as one with company management. You know..... those Plains Apes you stupidly refer to in your childishly moronic descriptions. Sure..... there were other factors, as well as other countries in Europe taking from the pie. But it was Japan steel squashing U.S. steel that was making all the headlines. The U.S. steel industry has never recovered, and countless plants were closed, affecting the livelihoods of thousands of workers and their families. Maybe you can find us a nice chart and graph on that.

What holds for the steel industry can likely be repeated with ditto marks for other core industries as well. But you get the point (or not).

You see Kirk....... when Johnny and Sally join unions that proceed to drive up labor costs and making all sorts of outlandish demands, their employer ACME Company starts to lose competitiveness. ACME's costs go up, so product prices go up. Johnny and Sally's friends and family can no longer afford to buy the purple widgets from ACME Company. Eventually, a country such as Japan, with the foresight to know that industry can be a win-win with the right attitude, starts to make the purple widgets at half the price as ACME Company was making them. Soon all of Johnny and Sally's friends and family (including Johnny and Sally) start buying the purple widgets from the Japanese company. Lo and behold, ACME Company can no longer survive and closes. Ooooooohhhh!!! Johnny and Sally are left without jobs, and no longer make the money needed to buy their purple widgets from anybody.

Now...... how's about you printing up some of those little, neat charts and graphs and go wipe your own ass with them.

[Kirkland Laing]

If you don't want to be talked down to then don't make utterly moronic posts. Trying to argue against seventy five years of data with fucking anecdotes is laugh out loud idiotic. I've been really polite considering the garbage you're posting.

What I've written isn't speculation. Unions managed to secure about a third of increases in national income for their members and the wider workforce. Since the unions were neutered forty years ago the US workforce now gets absolutely fuck all because American labour has no bargaining power anymore. You can come up with an explanation why this has happened that doesn't involve unions losing their power anytime you want.

But you don't want to do that. You just can't face the fact that you're significantly worse off financially today than you would have been had unions still had the power they had back in the fifties and sixties. You're quite happy to see the top one percent loot the economy and parrot their propaganda about how it all works. It's like you're watching me come out of a bank with trolleys full of bags of cash and I'm loading my van to make a getaway and you're saying sit, wait, you dropped a bag. Let me help you load your truck. Idiot.


Fuck off, Kirk. You're a lot more belligerent than I remember you. As an avowed Reagan hater, you laughingly talk about unions getting "neutered" forty years ago, implying they don't exist or are woefully ineffective. You stupidly ignore their existence today, even if on a more measured level. You laser focus on your charts and graphs, ignoring all other factors, and the basic fact that most in the industry acknowledge and argue both the good and the bad that labor unions bring. You also laughingly attribute all of the economy's woes to the drop in union memberships and in their power and influence as well. You're good at posting charts and graphs, but lousy at logic.

Basically you're just another fucking fanatic who can't see the forest for the trees. Union... good. Management.... bad. Still living in the 60's, or whatever the fuck other era you happen to be stuck in. You conveniently ignore any other factors that may get in the way of your horse blinders. I honestly thought you were smarter and more even-tempered than that. I guess I thought wrong.

Unions can, and have on occasion, impeded their company's ability to compete by their unwillingness to compromise, even when it means reducing the competitiveness of the firm. In the end, everybody loses. But you don't see that side of that, because you have this puzzling attitude that keeps you from seeing anything big picture. You're just another fanatical bozo like the loser from Good Will Hunting who regurgitates what he memorizes from the textbooks.

Really..... fuck off.

"The industry". I'm not going on one industry or even the industrial sector of the US economy. I'm going on the entire US economy over 75 years. Not anecdata from one person's experience and the experience of a bunch of similarly clueless people that he's talked to.

And by the way, the Japanese steel industry had the same experience with being undercut by cheaper labour that America did. By the mid eighties Japan was having its lunch eaten by Korea, Taiwan and other Asian countries where the labour was cheaper. It wasn't down to unions of anything else, it was down to a second world economy becoming a first world economy and then being undercut by emerging second world economies.

But your incorrect anecdata leads me beauttifully to be able to make my point again with another excellent example. America suffered in the seventies and eighties from emerging economies taking global market share away from its domestic businesses. But eventually all these people found new jobs. You may be aware that our current president is trumpeting the best economy ever and the lowest unemployment in half a century. But there's a problem here. A lot of these new jobs are shitty jobs with low pay and no benefits compared to jobs back in the day.

Want to take a guess why? GDP per capita has doubled in real terms since Reagan busted the unions. But that huge increase in income hasn't gone to the vast majority of the country. It's going to a tiny number of people at the top of the tree. Why is that? Is the fact that American labour now can't bargain collectively with their bosses to be given a slice of that increased income to blame? Maybe the fact that the date labour/unions lost their political muscle coinciding with American wages stagnating isn't a coincidence?

Other questions you won't answer. Why did industrial/factory type jobs pay so well in the first place? Was it because it was easy to organise the labour in big industrys because big groups of people worked in the same place? Why did they have great wages and benefits back then to the point where a union wage could buy a house, raise a family, pay for holidays and cars and the American dream and even enough for college funds for the kids? How could all that be done on one wage compared to now? Have you seen when women first started to move into the employment market en masse? Nowadays families can't make ends meet working two full time jobs. How can national income per person have doubled in the last forty years yet families have gone from one income to two and are still struggling?

How come the workers at Foxconn (the people who assemble iphones) are working for a dollar an hour doing a hundred and twenty hours a week with working conditions so inhumane that the dormitories they live in are surrounded by suicide nets to stop workers creating bad publicity for Apple?




Maybe the fact that they're not allowed to unionise has something to do with it. Just a thought.

Like I said previously, take unions out of this altogether. Ban unions. End them completely. The fact remains that American labour needs some way to be able to get a slice of the increasing economic pie from bosses. American labour used to have a way to do this, now they don't. Whether it's unions or some other actor negotiating for labour then labour really needs this. It's not just a question of families struggling or fairness or anything like that. I'm not that fussed about other people to be honest. What I can see as clear as day, because I study this stuff for a living and have done for nearly thirty years now, is that the economy has become so unequal -- coincidentally starting to become so when unions lost their power -- that it is now a deformed entity, unable to generate decent economic growth even with massive ongoing economic stimulus and increasing large scale debt. And this has consequences eventually.