Harold Meyerson, editor of The American Prospect, writes today:
JULY 19, 2018
Meyerson on TAP
Even Trump’s Man at the Fed Says Workers Are Being Screwed. Anyone who still remains bewildered by the rebirth of American socialism should consider this: Jerome Powell, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve, says he’s concerned that the share of the national income going to labor has fallen “precipitously.”
In testimony Tuesday before the Senate Banking Committee, Powell bemoaned the fact that “labor’s share of profits has been sideways.” This, he said, was “very troubling.”
That’s Jerome Powell who said this. Donald Trump’s appointee as the nation’s top banker.
The unhappy development Powell was referencing was the fact that the share of the national economy going to workers’ wages and benefits has fallen since the turn of the millennium from 66 percent to 62 percent, while the share going to corporate profits has risen correspondingly, from 8.3 percent to 13.2 percent. (And, adding insult to injury, more than 90 percent of those profits have been doled out in the form of increased dividends and share buybacks to shareholders and top corporate executives.) Had the workers’ share stayed at 66 percent of the economy, according to estimates by Jared Bernstein, Vice-President Biden’s former chief economist and a contributing columnist to the Prospect, their average annual income would have risen by $3,400.
Cautiously, Powell intimated this wasn’t good. “We want an economy that works for everyone,” he concluded.
That, however, is as far as the Fed chairman was willing to go. He didn’t adduce causes for the decline of the labor share, other than “global factors.” He didn’t cite the role that the business community’s and the Republican Party’s war on unions had played, or the Republicans’ opposition to raising the federal minimum wage, or the shareholders-uber-alles ethos that has governed corporations since Milton Friedman first propounded it and Ronald Reagan’s SEC supercharged it by legalizing share buybacks. He did admit he wasn’t sure how to reverse the decline—in fairness, a cluelessness that follows logically from his refusal to recognize the causes of that decline.
Still, even Trump’s man at the Fed is distressed that the labor share has dwindled. Is it any wonder that, among more sentient Americans, socialism is on the rise? ~ HAROLD MEYERSON
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The conservative war on workers has played a significant role in the decline in both union membership and wages. The US has one of the lowest rates of union membership among industrialized nations. This is by design, not accident, or merely the result of globalization. Other industrialized nations have faced the global economy as well, yet their rate of union membership remains higher in other countries. Right to work states, privatization and now the Janus decision are all a factor. While union membership has declined more in the private sector than the public, Janus and privatization will whittle those numbers down further. Likewise, the government has refused to enforce anti-trust laws, and bigger companies to not bode well for workers. Corporations are pulling the strings, and puppet politicians are dancing to their tune. https://www.vox.com/2014/9/1/6078697/decline-of-unions-united-states-worldwide-oecd
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In other nations, wealth is also more evenly distributed. There is more compréhensive equity.
We are headed to become Brasil or Mexico or China if we don’t turn this around.
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“We”? You keep this up and you’ll have to change your username to “American Filmmaker” soon.
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Didn’t anyone blame the fact that the economy doesn’t work for the majority on bad teachers? Where’s the 21st century skills blah blah? Where’s Rhee with her broom to sweep away all the bad teachers and make the job creators want to take less for themselves? iPads for all will eliminate inequality? Anyone? Come on, billionaires, where are all your excuses and empty promises?
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I saw an interview with Tim Cook. When he was asked about why Apple manufactures in China, he said with a straight face, “There’s a skills gap in the US.” Trump is not the only liar.
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I blame those who “pushed” The COMMON GORE and constant online testing and everything. They are the few who make $$$$$ off the back of kids and public schools, a common good.
But, I will not forget this question, too: WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN SEPARATED from their families?
Child Trafficking?
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Apple manufactures in China because it can pay workers $20 a day—or less. Tim Cook is BS. The NY Times wrote articles about the Foxconn facility in China where workers are on call 24/7. The building is surrounded by netting to prevent suicides.
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Someone interviewing in Iowa about Trump and tariffs said that the supporters of Trump might flip if the price of soy beans dropped even more than has since the beginning of Trump’s tariffs.
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Lots of farmers, many of whom voted for Trump, are losing money from the tariffs, and lots of people in manufacturing as well.
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Sickening. Impeach.
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Gas prices are rising most in red states according to Bloomberg News
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I call it a silver lining.
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Quote of the day (for the 99%ers)
“…when the swains the Libyan lion chase,
He makes a sour retreat, nor mends his pace;
But, if the pointed jav’lin pierce his side,
The lordly beast returns with double pride”
Publius Vergilius Maro
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Here’s even worse news from that dump administration. They want to administer immigrants tests, which dump and most of his cronies can’t pass. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Impeach.
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-administration-immigrants-test-128ddf67348f/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tp-letters
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By the way, the unionization rate is down in Europe and Japan as well. Of course not as bad as it is in the US. Britain is in Brexit because of increasing inequality. The British Mexican was a Pole. The entire continent is being ripped apart in nationalist fervor.
It’s no coincidence that the rise of right-wing movements and economic insecurity have links. Although it may be tough to find a direct correlation here with many Trump voters..
I remember rooting for Macron to win the election and saying apes Macron le deluge. It was one thing to hear Piketty call for a hard swing left and away from the New Neo-Liberal world order. But quite another to hear on Ali Velshi’s show a deputy Minister from the European commision steal my line (LOL) “people are not aggregates what is good for the aggregate may cause serve harm to many. ” Not an exact quote but close enough.
And of course, Velshi came back with a line about skills.
So if somebody can tell me what the “Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey ” data set from the BLS has to do with skills; I need the help. Because when I look at it I see a shortage of waitresses, maids, and retail clerks. (sarcasm noted ) not 6.6 million open jobs that Americans don’t have the skills for. Six million of which were replaced within the month.
So today Trump publicly asked Powell to not raise interest rates supposedly a big ‘no-no’. Was he wrong? Jared Bernstein probably said the same thing a dozen times in the last year. The best way to explain stagnant wages is to question the headline unemployment number out of BLS. Perhaps the U6 number of 6.8 % explains the stagnant wages. Of course, the Fed will fight inflation rather than worry about American workers.
But is Trump wrong on pointing out that our trade policy and immigration policy both documented and undocumented have not served many Americans? In the aggregate, both have had positive effects. Try telling that to a factory worker who lost his job. Try arguing with a NYC construction worker making over 150k a year with his benefits. That an undocumented worker earning between $9 and $23 an hour is not taking his job. As greedy Developers put up Luxury Buildings with 10 million dollar penthouses using undocumented labor. Or a teacher in a school district paying poverty level wages who sees the district bringing in teachers from the Phillipenes to keep wages down. Or a computer tech at Disney who has trained his foreign replacement.
The problem with Trump is that he is rightly targeting some of the things that have helped cause inequality, while he at the same time has proposed all the wrong solutions. In addition to the fact that his policy from Union busting to tax cuts will exacerbate the problem; he doesn’t give a F**K about American wages or American workers.
He will declare a great win on trade when he gets China to protect property rights which will make Bill Gates and Pfizer a lot wealthier while leaving that factory worker behind.
And on immigration, he will replace an undocumented immigrant with a wage slave with no path to citizenship whose status depends on his employer. While he busts the unions that would have loved to organize the undocumented.
But we do ourselves no favor when we deny that there are problems in the established world order and buy into popular memes like skills shortages or robots taking the jobs. Let the Robots take all the jobs the problem is how we distribute the fruits of that productivity.
I am still waiting for the World of the Future envisioned in the 1964 Worlds Fair. A world where “work, a break from leisure will be like a breath of fresh air”
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