Are you tiring of seeing American workers being blamed for corporate incompetence?
GENEVA — American
workers stay longer in the office, at the factory or on the farm than
their counterparts in Europe and most other rich nations, and they
produce more per person over the year.
They also get more done per hour than everyone but the Norwegians,
according to a U.N. report released Monday, which said the United States
“leads the world in labor productivity.”
The average U.S. worker produces $63,885 of wealth
per year, more than their counterparts in all other countries, the
International Labor Organization said in its report. Ireland comes in
second at $55,986, followed by Luxembourg at $55,641, Belgium at $55,235
and France at $54,609.
The productivity figure is found by dividing the country’s gross domestic product
by the number of people employed. The U.N. report is based on 2006 figures for many countries, or the most recent available.
Only part of the U.S. productivity growth, which has outpaced that of
many other developed economies, can be explained by the longer hours
Americans are putting in, the ILO said.
The United States, according to the report, also beats all 27 nations
in the European Union, Japan and Switzerland in the amount of wealth
created per hour of work — a second key measure of productivity.
Norway, which is not an EU member, generates the most output per
working hour, $37.99, a figure inflated by the country’s billions of
dollars in oil exports and high prices for goods at home. The United
States is second at $35.63, about a half dollar ahead of third-place
France.
Source http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20572828/ns/business-world_busine...
That report is from 2007, but it points out beyond question that American workers are clearly not to blame for the shortfalls of American business. We continue to give our employers more for less every single day.
So why is it that we bear the price of our manager's incompetence? They receive more value for their labor dollar than anyone else on the planet, but they claim they can't compete.
Pepsi just announced they will shitcan 8,700 of their workers and their families, not because they are losing money, they made more than they expected, but to coddle the same executives that exhibit their incompetence in every facet of American business. Those executives cited the uncertainty of the market as their reason for destroying these families, but hasn't there always been uncertainty in the market? Isn't that a normal part of the risk/benefit analysis that is the justification for profit to begin with?
We know beyond doubt American workers are doing their part more competently than ever before, we also know that despite the whining and gnashing of teeth, our taxes are lower now than they've been for 7 decades. That leaves only management as the weak link in American industry. Will they ever be made to take responsibility for their incompetence?
Top Opinion
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CAROLYN NTARWNJBS 2012/02/09 23:56:10
Jimmy Carter was in shock. “This action of the Soviets,” he told ABC News, “has made a more dramatic change in my own opinion of what the Soviets’ ultimate goals are than anything they’ve done in the previous time I’ve been in office.”
A comment like this, coming from an American leader three years into his presidency, was almost as shocking as the invasion itself. During Carter’s own time in office the horror of the communist genocide in Cambodia unfolded. Before that, the world had witnessed the slaughters in Vietnam, Korea, and Red China. Certainly he would have known of Stalin’s mass murders, of Solzhenitsyn’s personal account of Soviet concentration camps. Carter knew that the Soviet army had moved into Hungary and Czechoslovakia to crush citizen freedom fighte...
Jimmy Carter was in shock. “This action of the Soviets,” he told ABC News, “has made a more dramatic change in my own opinion of what the Soviets’ ultimate goals are than anything they’ve done in the previous time I’ve been in office.”
A comment like this, coming from an American leader three years into his presidency, was almost as shocking as the invasion itself. During Carter’s own time in office the horror of the communist genocide in Cambodia unfolded. Before that, the world had witnessed the slaughters in Vietnam, Korea, and Red China. Certainly he would have known of Stalin’s mass murders, of Solzhenitsyn’s personal account of Soviet concentration camps. Carter knew that the Soviet army had moved into Hungary and Czechoslovakia to crush citizen freedom fighters. And he knew that desperate East Germans were regularly shot on sight simply for trying to escape communist tyranny over the Berlin Wall. The evil of communism was no secret.
Jimmy Carter was not a stupid man. The only conclusion we can draw is that he was willfully blind to the Soviet leadership’s horrific history of violence. The communists’ record for mass murder was well-known long before Carter’s presidency. Given all that, how could a man like Jimmy Carter attain the highest office in the world’s most powerful nation—and still be surprised at the Soviet Union’s capacity for evil?
Former Texas Governor John Connally called President Carter’s statement “absolutely frightening,” and he wasn’t alone in his assessment. Carter’s comment wasn’t just naïve, it was dangerously disconnected from reality. Let’s look at the cold statistics. A recent accounting of the death toll under communist tyranny is sobering:
Find someone else to bother.
The number of persons using support services jumped while real wages DECREASED. The dollar in 1984 had the same purchasing power as it did in 1973, and that along with the loss of 12 million GOOD paying jobs (replaced by 15 million low paying service jobs led to the worst period for the poor and the middle class. So, you can take your misery and stick it. I was there, and lived it.
The rich did get richer, but the majority did not gain anything.
Your view of Reagan and Reaganomics is skewed by numbers that mean close to nothing.
The recession we have now is a DIRECT result of Reaganomics. Conservative economic policy has never worked in this country, and never will.
just look at the Great Recession, another example of the rich getting richer, the poor suffering and the GNP growing. (1923-1929)
The end result is the same.
by Paul Klugman: "For it did fail. The Reagan economy was a one-hit wonder. Yes, there was a boom in the mid-1980s, as the economy recovered from a severe recession. But while the rich got much richer, there was little sustained economic improvement for most Americans. By the late 1980s, middle-class incomes were barely higher than they had been a decade before — and the poverty rate had actually risen."
“...when Reagan came into office we were the largest exporter of manufacturing goods and the largest importer of raw materials on the planet. And, the largest creditor–more people owed us money than anybody else in the world. Now, just 28 years later, we’re the largest importer of finished goods, manufactured goods; the largest exporter of raw materials–which is kind of the definition of a third-world nation — and we’re the most in-debt of any country in the world. This is the absolute consequence of Reaganomics.”
The Reagan Revolution
The 1980’s were the triumph of upper America. It was a celebration of wealth and the political ascendancy of the richest third of the population. It was the glorification of capitalism, free markets and finance. But at the same time there were growing hord...
by Paul Klugman: "For it did fail. The Reagan economy was a one-hit wonder. Yes, there was a boom in the mid-1980s, as the economy recovered from a severe recession. But while the rich got much richer, there was little sustained economic improvement for most Americans. By the late 1980s, middle-class incomes were barely higher than they had been a decade before — and the poverty rate had actually risen."
“...when Reagan came into office we were the largest exporter of manufacturing goods and the largest importer of raw materials on the planet. And, the largest creditor–more people owed us money than anybody else in the world. Now, just 28 years later, we’re the largest importer of finished goods, manufactured goods; the largest exporter of raw materials–which is kind of the definition of a third-world nation — and we’re the most in-debt of any country in the world. This is the absolute consequence of Reaganomics.”
The Reagan Revolution
The 1980’s were the triumph of upper America. It was a celebration of wealth and the political ascendancy of the richest third of the population. It was the glorification of capitalism, free markets and finance. But at the same time there were growing hordes of homeless sleeping on heater grates. Wealth was further accumulated in the hands of those already rich.
The liberal economics and politics in the years between 1932 to 1968 left a legacy of angry and bitter conservatives who had seen for two generations the downward distribution of wealth. The Reagan years between 1980 and 1988 to be sure had created over 19 million new (low paying)jobs, exploding technology, unprecedented prosperity and had rekindled national pride. It also led to firing of 10 million high paying manufacturing jobs as corporations received tax incentives to move their operations overseas. In fact in the 1980’s so many millionaires had been created that the term essentially had become meaningless. By 1988 it was estimated that there were over 100,000 decamillionaires.
But critics of the time saw another America were the 1980’s were one last national fling with credit card economics one filled with beggars It was also in the decade of the 1980’s that the U.S. was transformed from the world’s largest creditor nation to the world’s largest debtor nation. Throughout the 1980’s conservatives argued that this really didn’t matter. At the end of 1986 the U.S. had a national debt of $269 billion, at the end of 1987 it was $368 billion, but by 1992 it was $3.5 trillion. It was the greatest economic miscalculation in recorded world history.
What is more important is the distribution of its wealth.
The Reagan decade was a heyday for unearned income as rents, dividends, capital gains and interest gained relative to wages and salaries as a source of wealth and growing economic inequality. The average millionaires income might be soaring, but the average family’s income was stagnating since the late 1970’s in real dollars.
In fact real income in 1987 finally recovered back to 1973 levels. The income of White males fell through the 1980’s especially in the manufacturing sector as corporations received tax breaks to move their operations overseas. The GAO reported in 1988 that there had been a resurgence of sweatshops and other businesses that openly violated wage, child labor, safety and health laws in almost every sector of the U.S. due to business deregulation.
While wages fell the number of economically active population fell as well throughout the 1980’s. By the summer of 1988 45.3% of the inhabitants of New York city were not part of the economically active due to poverty, lack of skills and education, drug abuse, apathy or other problems. The nation of average of economically inactive was 34.5%. Women were also losers in the Reagan Revolution.
Airlines, supermarket chains, offices and almost all businesses began to hire temporary labor rather than full time workers. It was cheaper and also seriously undermined the power of organized labor. For the first time since the depression a majority of Americans by 1989 could not afford to buy a home. In each period of American history wealth was redistributed regionally and from one income to another.
The cornerstone of the Reagan/Bush era was something called supply-side economics that stressed the idea that supply creates its own demand and that incentive to individual investors was much more important than preoccupation of distribution. In many respects supply side economics was simply the old trickle-down theory in new clothes. Building on this was new theories on taxation. The Reagan economist Arthur Laffer had the interesting idea that increased tax rates actually lower government revenue. This was called the Laffer Curve and the idea was that tax rates were the key to economic growth. Interestingly, candidate George Bush called supply-siders and the Laffer Curve of the Reagan agenda "Voodoo Economics".
The first part of Reaganomics was tax-reduction. The reduction or elimination federal income tax had been the goal of all three major U.S. capitalist periods, but were a personal preoccupation for Ronald Reagan. Under Reagan the top personal tax bracket would drop from 70% to 28% in just 7 years. In terms of income tax history, In 1861 a Republican administration and Congress imposed the first U.S. income tax to finance the Civil War. After two wartime increases the federal tax was terminated in 1872 which aided the mushrooming fortunes of the Astors, Carnegies, Vanderbilts, Morgans and Rockefellers. When the U.S. found itself in WWI the tax was resurrected and by 1920 the top rates was 73%. When Harding took office the tax rates were quickly reduced to a top bracket of just 25% in 1925. Again the prime beneficiaries were the top 5% of Americans.
Tax rates for corporations and the wealthy were slashed with the middle class bearing the brunt of the new tax rates. The Crash 1987 -- The stock market was booming throughout the 1980’s and there appeared to be no end in sight. By the last week in August 1987 the market had established its 55th record close of the year. Still the boom continued. At this rate in only four more months the Reagan bull-market would set a record of expansion for the century, exceeding the surge that lasted fro 1924-1929. As Labor Day approached, the Dow stood at 2722.42 and experts were predicting that it would rise another thousand points within the coming year. As the most important savers in the world the Japanese were pouring much of their excess cash into US markets and real estate. Americas leading corporations were buying in more shares than they were selling. But some analysts saw ominous parallels with 1929.
The first was the financing of prosperity by insupportable debt, the erosion of the assets supporting that debt (e.g. farmland and oil), the difficulty in sustaining the boom late in the decade, the flow of wealth to the rich, and wild fluctuations of the market. The most striking parallel with 1929 was disastrous innovation in financial structures. "Pyramiding" it was called in 29, in 87 it was called leveraged buyouts. This was evidenced in the wave of corporate takeovers, mergers and acquisitions and the leveraged buyouts. Bank loans and junk bonds were arranged to finance these operations. The common feature of these activities was the creation of debt.
The regressive tax policy of the 1980’s did not encourage job growth and savings as it promoted wild speculation in the stock market and real estate. At the same time real capital spending that would induce genuine economic growth and job formation was rapidly declining throughout the 1980’s.
The elite of America reveled in their glory and people like Jack Kemp and Arthur Laffer and George Gilder who brought us reaganomics. But an economic tidal wave was moving in on the US that Monday morning of October 19, 1987. The Dow-Jones averages fell 508 points. By the time the NY exchange closed up stock market prices had dropped 22.6%, almost double the record losses of the crash of 1929. An astonishing 604.5 million shares had been traded that day more than double that of the crash of 1929. It was the greatest crash in US economic history. Black Monday was followed by Terrible Tuesday which was never reported by the US press. On the following Tuesday the world’s financial system came to within one hair’s breadth of extinction. It appeared that by noon that the market had in fact died. All trading in stocks, options, and futures shuddered to halt. For almost one hour the world’s capitalist system had completely collapsed. There were no buyers at any price. At this point of maximum crisis the Federal Reserve Board stepped in and flooded the banks with cheap credit. At 12:38 that afternoon the stack market rose from the dead.
Reagan’s reputation suffered grievously during the crisis. On Black Monday he said the free-fall was due to "some people grabbing profits". Sounding eerily like Herbert Hoover Reagan issued a terse statement after Monday’s collapse "that the underlying economy remains sound." On Wednesday he stated that it was merely "some kind of correction." Reagan had emerged from the crisis of 87 as the emperor with no clothes. But there was a double irony of the orgy of Reagan basing that occurred after 1987. Unlike most presidents Reagan had delivered exactly on what he had promised: deregulation, tax cuts and policy that favored the wealthy and he had created a new American morality that elevated personal greed and glory into national values. Wall street and Yuppies had cheered Reagan passionately and they had handsomely profited from the speculative boom and stock manipulations. Then when the dream of easy riches and rising profits and prices disintegrated in the crash of 1987, they turned on Reagan. The greatest irony of all was that in the end what kept 87 from completely turning into another 29 was the very hand of the federal government that Reagan and the supply-siders had tried for seven years to destroy.
the article sort of shoots all your numbers to hell and back. Numbers are not the defining point of anything except sports scores.
Face it- Reagan and conservative economics were both failures for the majority of Americans.
If that happens we will be in recovery for the next two decades.
The GOP don't have a clue of their own history or the misery that they cause by their policies that benefit only the top.
History does not lie. What we have today is from this idea put into action:
“The Reagan-Bush years have exalted private gain over public obligation, special interests over the common good, wealth and fame over work and family. The 1980s ushered in a Gilded Age of greed and selfishness, of irresponsibility and excess, and of neglect.”
And that is where we are now.
There are all degrees of capitalism, but the type we have will be the ruination of the country unless it puts more emphasis on people and less on profits that are given to the top CEO's and investors who do little to nothing to actually earn the money. (side note: see the Wall Street Journal report of how USB [2/8/2012] of Switzerland is restructuring the wages and bonuses of its top people. Look for it to happen here- that is part of what Take Back Wall Street is all about.)
The economy is run from the bottom up and not the top down. Reagan and Bush both proved this by trying to sell the idea that the opposite is true with tax cuts that did nothing except make the rich richer. Conservative economics do not work- plain and simple.
"This crisis did not fall from the sky. In 2004 the economic trends that ailed the economy and led to the sharp rise in household debt were unsustainable. American workers lived through the weakest labor market since the Great Depression after the previous recession ended in November 2001. Yet prices for key household items such as health care, energy, transportation, food, and housing rose, often at runaway speed. American families only managed to pay their bills by borrowing on their credit cards, for large consumer items and on their homes. The massive debt boom was a reflection of the economic squeeze American families were in during the 2000's.
The sad part is that the Great Recession could have been prevented. The George W. Bush administration had several opportunities to seriously address the unfolding crisis."
Welfare takes up less than 3% of ...
"This crisis did not fall from the sky. In 2004 the economic trends that ailed the economy and led to the sharp rise in household debt were unsustainable. American workers lived through the weakest labor market since the Great Depression after the previous recession ended in November 2001. Yet prices for key household items such as health care, energy, transportation, food, and housing rose, often at runaway speed. American families only managed to pay their bills by borrowing on their credit cards, for large consumer items and on their homes. The massive debt boom was a reflection of the economic squeeze American families were in during the 2000's.
The sad part is that the Great Recession could have been prevented. The George W. Bush administration had several opportunities to seriously address the unfolding crisis."
Welfare takes up less than 3% of the total budget (not counting ss and medicare as they are member supported) while corporate welfare (tax breaks, etc.) costs more in lost revenue than what is shelled out in basic family welfare.
The country for the first time is exporting more finished petrol products than it imports. Why? Because we are using less gas per vehicle-thanks to green technology:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- "The United States is awash in gasoline. So much so, in fact, that the country is exporting a record amount of it.
The country exported 430,000 more barrels of gasoline a day than it imported in September, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That is about twice the amount at the start of the year, and experts and industry insiders say the trend is here to stay."
Bottom up economy has always been around. It is a simple idea that Henry Ford stated in 1922. "The people who work in the factories MUST get paid enough to buy the products that they make."
Without the bottom, there is no need for the top.
SOMEONE must buy/purchase/spend money and it has to be the largest segment of the population. That is what drives the economy. That is what creates production. Yes, the top has to fund the expansion of filling those needs, BUT the NEED has to be there first. This is a basic concept of economics. NO market, NO products need to be produced. The middle class/poor spend more that any other group. If they do not spend....
That is bottom up economy. No, the bottom don't invest in new factories, don't design new products, they only make all of that possible by spending.
Try reading a book by John Talbot: "How bottom up economic prosperity will replace trickle down economics"
After all, trickle down economics has proven over and over to be a dismal economic failure. Look at where we are now, all because of failed conservative economic policies.
Wake up. Conservative economics are a thing of the past.
What we have today was put in place by conservative economics of the last 32 years, and nothing else.
Unions are what made the middle class and Reagan basically destroyed it and them.
You need a strong middle class or the country will not survive. The conservative stance against unions will be their downfall, just as we have seen in Wisconsin.
"An estimated 2.5 million foreclosures were completed from 2007 – 2009. On completed foreclosures, most on mortgages made between 2005 and 2008 [and who was in office?], we estimate that 56% involved a white family.
Strikes, or the threat there of, have their place and purpose, just as lock outs do.
So, you worked for a bad union, but I am sure that you did not give back any of the union benefits while you were there.
Unions are what made this country's middle class without them you are going to be in deep do-do.
According to Human Events, Obama himself sued banks on behalf of ACORN, to force the banks to make these risky loans.
Obama sued Citibank under the Community Reinvestment Act in a typical ACORN-style lawsuit to force the bank to make these risky loans. ACORN filed many of this type of lawsuit alleging racism in all of them.
According to opensecrets.org, Obama was also the second-highest recipient of political contributions from the GSEs. The American Spectator notes that he included 5.2 billion dollars of taxpayer money for ACORN in the porkulus bill.
Then there is Rupert Murdoch who himself bought and controls a whole political party the GOP. He runs it from Fixed Noise.
Then there is the Chamber of Commerce who owns the GOP top dogs also. Don't give me your childish crap. For every one rich guy donating to the dems you have 10 giving to the Greedy Old Party (GOP).