Republicans..The real allies of African Americans

[Dragon]

When you were a boy -- I'm guessing that Caterpillar Tractor was a successful mid-size company in Peoria Ill.. TODAY --

Yes, outsourcing is one of the two big reasons for the loss of manufacturing jobs in the U.S., the other being automation. However, the loss of manufacturing jobs is NOT the reason for the decline in real wages. Most of the people who lost those factory jobs found service jobs; unemployment didn't soar. But the service jobs paid lower wages on the average.

Why is that? Is it some inherent characteristic or intrinsic value to service as opposed to manufacturing work? Not at all. There was a time when manufacturing jobs paid shit wages, too (overseas in third world countries, they still do). What changed that? Very simple: manufacturing was unionized.

Why wasn't the service sector unionized in the 1980s-1990s the way that manufacturing was in the 1930s? Here's one clue:

File:Illegal Union Firing 1952 - 2007.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From 1952 to 1975, the percentage of union elections that featured an illegal firing never topped 8%. Starting about the time Jimmy Carter became president, the rate of illegal firings soared to 14%, and then jumped to 31% in Reagan's first term. Since then, it has fluctuated from 16% under Clinton to around 25% under the Republican presidents.

Why did this happen? Most likely hypothesis: because the government's policy on enforcing labor law has changed. Penalties for illegal suppression of unions have become inadequate to deter the practice; fines for this can now be seen as part of the cost of doing business, cheaper than allowing the employees to organize. And of course, legislation to correct the matter has never succeeded in passing Congress.

The only thing that would prevent us from having real wages comparable to what my father earned would be an economy that couldn't afford it, and that isn't the reality.

 

[flacaltenn]

When you were a boy -- I'm guessing that Caterpillar Tractor was a successful mid-size company in Peoria Ill.. TODAY --

Yes, outsourcing is one of the two big reasons for the loss of manufacturing jobs in the U.S., the other being automation. However, the loss of manufacturing jobs is NOT the reason for the decline in real wages. Most of the people who lost those factory jobs found service jobs; unemployment didn't soar. But the service jobs paid lower wages on the average.

Why is that? Is it some inherent characteristic or intrinsic value to service as opposed to manufacturing work? Not at all. There was a time when manufacturing jobs paid shit wages, too (overseas in third world countries, they still do). What changed that? Very simple: manufacturing was unionized.

Why wasn't the service sector unionized in the 1980s-1990s the way that manufacturing was in the 1930s? Here's one clue:

File:Illegal Union Firing 1952 - 2007.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From 1952 to 1975, the percentage of union elections that featured an illegal firing never topped 8%. Starting about the time Jimmy Carter became president, the rate of illegal firings soared to 14%, and then jumped to 31% in Reagan's first term. Since then, it has fluctuated from 16% under Clinton to around 25% under the Republican presidents.

Why did this happen? Most likely hypothesis: because the government's policy on enforcing labor law has changed. Penalties for illegal suppression of unions have become inadequate to deter the practice; fines for this can now be seen as part of the cost of doing business, cheaper than allowing the employees to organize. And of course, legislation to correct the matter has never succeeded in passing Congress.

The only thing that would prevent us from having real wages comparable to what my father earned would be an economy that couldn't afford it, and that isn't the reality.

This gets waay off topic Dragon. But I'm surprised that the points you took away from post were were points that I didn't make. Outsourcing being a result of Caterpillar expansion is arguable. Since American employment at Caterpillar has easily TRIPLED in the same period of time. It's hard to make thousands of tons of tractors for Russia in Peoria and ship the results.

I only wanted you to consider that there are REAL VALID reasons for increases in LARGE corp CEO pay. And I only gave one of many reasons WHY those jobs are more valuable today..

 

[rightwinger]

Dragon::

Just a comment on one point..

When I was a boy, a CEO of a major corporation made no more than 40 or 50 times as much as a typical factory worker. Today, that ratio is getting close to 1000 to 1. 50 to 1 is of course not absolutely equal, but it's a lot closer to it than 1000 to 1.

When you were a boy -- I'm guessing that Caterpillar Tractor was a successful mid-size company in Peoria Ill.. TODAY --

Caterpillar products and components are manufactured 110
facilities worldwide. 51 plants are located in the United States
and 59 overseas plants are located in Australia, Belgium, Brazil,
Canada, England, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia,
Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Northern Ireland, the
People's Republic of China, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South
Africa and Sweden.

They now employ almost 100,000 people worldwide and manage $70BILL in assets. They make everything from shoes to financial products to the worlds largest construction machines.

That 50 to 1 versus 1000 to 1 "salary problem" you're so worried about? How do you think the Union negotiation would go if the boss was asking you to go from managing 1955 Caterpillar to 2010 Caterpillar worldwide and 20 large sub-businesses? The responsibilities, stresses and employee ratio has changed almost 10 fold. Take that into account when you're bitchin about having to work late.

Your analogy would work unless you compare the compensation of American CEOs to foreign CEOs. American CEOs do not outperform their foreign competitors, in fact, they have lost market share. Yet they receive considerable more compensation

 

[Dragon]

Your analogy would work unless you compare the compensation of American CEOs to foreign CEOs. American CEOs do not outperform their foreign competitors, in fact, they have lost market share. Yet they receive considerable more compensation

Damn, I completely missed the point of his post, didn't I? That should teach me to be more careful. Sorry about that.

Oh, well, what I said in response still needed to be said.

As Rightwinger points out, U.S. CEO salaries are ridiculously over-competitive compared to the world market. Of course, the labor market in the U.S., including at that exalted level, is to a large extent self-contained because of U.S. immigration law. If CEO compensation were to drop by a factor of 10, while at the same time wages were doubled, we would return to that 50-to-1 ratio that prevailed before. (If CEO compensation dropped by a factor of 20, that would really solve no problems; what we need to do is raise wages.)

I'm sure that existing CEOs would howl at a tenfold pay cut, but that would still leave CEO compensation in the high six figures, which is quite enough to attract the best talent available. Where else would they go to make money like that?

 

[flacaltenn]

So? Our SPORTS figures are ridiculously overpaid compared to the rest of the world also. So are our movie stars and prostitutes. Are you two all indignant about that?

You could mugged that CEO in the parking lot and distribute his salary among 100,000 employees or so and they could all afford one new set of cheap tires for their cars. But if the guy they hire at 1/20 of his salary screws up -- 20,000 could be unemployed next year..

 

[Dragon]

So? Our SPORTS figures are ridiculously overpaid compared to the rest of the world also. So are our movie stars and prostitutes. Are you two all indignant about that?

Only in another thread . . .

The excessive compensation of overpaid sports stars and movie stars isn't directly related to the maldistribution of wealth in this society the way absurd executive compensation is. Overpaid executives and underpaid workers are two sides of the same coin, two parts of a system designed to funnel an increasing share of the nation's income to its richest people. That is not only unfair, it's also economically disastrous.

The real problem in our economy today is that too few people have enough money. That leaves consumer demand depressed. For a while, this was compensated for with excessive consumer credit, but that's no longer an option. The economy will remain depressed, cycling around a lower level of performance, just as it did in the 1930s, until that maldistribution is corrected.

 

[flacaltenn]

So? Our SPORTS figures are ridiculously overpaid compared to the rest of the world also. So are our movie stars and prostitutes. Are you two all indignant about that?

Only in another thread . . .

The excessive compensation of overpaid sports stars and movie stars isn't directly related to the maldistribution of wealth in this society the way absurd executive compensation is. Overpaid executives and underpaid workers are two sides of the same coin, two parts of a system designed to funnel an increasing share of the nation's income to its richest people. That is not only unfair, it's also economically disastrous.

The real problem in our economy today is that too few people have enough money. That leaves consumer demand depressed. For a while, this was compensated for with excessive consumer credit, but that's no longer an option. The economy will remain depressed, cycling around a lower level of performance, just as it did in the 1930s, until that maldistribution is corrected.

So exactly what should multiple be for Peyton Mannings salary compared to the 10 people cleaning the locker room? Would 1000 to 1 be excessive? And who made you the expert on compensation? That's EXACTLY the same "maldistribution of wealth" that you are bitchin' about.. Consistency is good.

So many misconceptions -- so little time.. No wonder you don't see a need for black Americans to even consider "the other political" party..

First off -- USED to be that consumer demand MADE a difference to salaries and jobs. Today, when we make less and less domestically -- all consumer demand does is drive up the number of boats from China docking in Long Beach.. You can no longer move this economy AS effectively from the consumer level.. TODAY trying to stimulate the economy from consumer demand DOES INCREASE the wealth gap by putting profits in American corporate pockets and more jobs in foreign factories.

Secondly, the stagnant economy is NOT waiting on a wealth redistribution, it's waiting on Govt policy certainty.. The banks are holding money because the FED is paying them more to KEEP it than to loan it. And the regulators are waiting to pounce on their asses if they don't like HOW they loaned it. 100 MORE important impediments to the economy than how much money Phil Mickleson makes this year on tour...

 

[Dragon]

The relation between consumer demand and wages and salaries hasn't changed merely because we are outsourcing manufacturing jobs to third-world countries. Before the economy tanked, those who lost manufacturing jobs found service jobs; unemployment didn't soar. The problem was that the lost manufacturing jobs were mostly union jobs, while the service jobs that replaced them mostly weren't, and consequently paid less. Before manufacturing was unionized, factory work paid shit wages, too (still does in those third-world countries).

We had a sea change in government policy around 1980 (it actually started in the Carter years but found full expression under Reagan) that reversed just about everything the government did in the four decades during and after World War II that created the most prosperous economy in the history of the world. Support for organized labor took a dive under Carter and a worse one under Reagan and has never really been restored. Reagan abandoned the commitment to a graduated income tax that prevailed for those highly-prosperous decades and returned us to essentially the pre-Depression tax system. And yes, outsourcing has also been encouraged by the government, although as noted above its impact can be exaggerated. (And is, more by liberals than conservatives.)

The fact that most employment is now in services (while U.S. manufacturing output remains very strong by the way -- it is simply not true that we don't make things any more, it's just true that we don't employ many people to make them compared to in the past), if services were well paid, would not matter. Raising everyone's pay would indeed promote more imports from abroad, as well as more purchases of what is produced here -- and more purchases of services staffed by Americans. That's a fundamental economic reality that doesn't change with changes of that nature.

While regulations and the actions of bankers or the Fed may have some (trivial) impact on investment, the fact is that companies are sitting today on mountains of cash. There is no capital shortage, there is a capital glut, and therefore nothing that reduces the availability of capital can explain why businesses aren't expanding and hiring. The explanation for that is what it always is: lack of customers to justify doing it.

 

[Jroc]

With jobs, Reagan inherited a collapsing economy with unemployment rates rising from 7 percent in 1980 to 8 and 10 percent, respectively, in 1981 and 1982. By 1989, Reaganomics had cut the U.S. jobless rate in half, to 5 percent - especially good news, again, for those at the bottom who found themselves standing in ever-lengthening unemployment lines prior to the era of Reaganomics.

Altogether, 19 million U.S. jobs were created from 1982 to 1989, more than the total number of jobs created in Europe and Japan combined, two-thirds of them high- or middle-paying, producing real income increases in every income group, from the poorest fifth of households to the richest fifth. By 1988, over three-quarters of the tax filers in the poorest fifth of families in 1980 had moved out of that bottom quintile, with some 16 percent moving all the way to the top fifth of income earners.

Among African-American households in the 1980s, the number of families earning more than $50,000 in real dollars doubled from 7 to 14 percent, the unemployment rate for black teenagers fell by 21 percent, black employment in professional and managerial occupations expanded by one-third, and the number of black-owned businesses increased by 38 percent, triple the rate of overall business growth during that period. Overall, the real median income of African-American households increased by 17 percent between 1982 and 1989, reversing the 10 percent decline from 1978 to 1982.

It doesn’t much matter, in short, whether ketchup is a vegetable or if Reagan embellished a bit about how many names the Cadillac lady had in Chicago (the welfare recipient to whom Reagan was referring was actually convicted for using two different aliases), what worked was a program of tax cuts, incentives and deregulation that unleashed one of the strongest and longest economic expansions in U.S. history, an expansion that cut unemployment, increased business investment, raised productivity, reduced poverty and reversed the overall decline in the purchasing power of American paychecks.

And the red ink? Think of how deep it might have been if Reaganomics hadn’t reversed the nation’s economic decline, if the unemployment rate had continued on its way up, from 8 and 10 percent to 15 or 20 percent, pulling down the level of incoming taxes while simultaneously expanding government outflows on the newly unemployed and poor.

Reaganomics and the Poor

 

[Dragon]

File:Oil Prices 1861 2007.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In 1973, the U.S. economy entered the period of slow growth coupled with high inflation that is known as "stagflation."

In 1983-4, the U.S. economy rebounded from the severe recession of the early Reagan years into a period of restored prosperity in which inflation was fairly low and growth was fairly good.

In 1973, OPEC imposed an oil embargo on the U.S. and several other Western nations in retaliation for Western support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War, and maintained oil prices at very high levels for years after the embargo was lifted.

In 1983, new oil fields, especially the North Sea oil field, brought their products to market, breaking the ability of OPEC to control prices, resulting in a period of low oil prices that lasted about twenty years.

In the second set of events, regarding the price of oil, we have a full, complete, and adequate account of the first set of events, regarding the U.S. economy. The years match exactly as do the effects (the high inflation of the 1970s being in fact pseudo-inflation for the most part, due to the price of oil).

Reagan's policies had absolutely nothing to do with the good economic times of his administration. He was simply the beneficiary of an accident of timing. If the high oil prices had gone on a year or two longer, he would have been a one-term president.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Whatzamatter Jake --- no Black business people in this country? You're right somewhat. Reaching out works both ways. And if the black voters cared as much about their economic freedoms, it would be a more equal playing field. I get kinda nauseous when a politician panders directly to me. I don't need them eating fried okra and wearing a Tenn Vols Hat to get my interest.

The idea that our social freedoms and "programs" can exist without Capitalism or a vibrant economy are kinda shakey. We need both..

I agree with much you say, but if the GOP cares about the economic freedom of blacks, then we should reach out to where it works. You sound like the guy on the sidewalk shouting, "Go to work." There's far more to that. We have failed as a party, period, but we can change that.

SNIP

No, kiddo, you don't get to be the economic massa telling old black american what he gotta do to succeed in a white man's world.

America is no longer, has not been for a long time, and will never go back to the white American world of the 1950s and 1960s.

We are in the 21st century, we are all in it together, and if we don't succeed together, we will fail as a nation state. That's the part of Rush Limbaugh's social compact that he has rejected. Fuck him. The hard right is not going to succeed in their twisted goals culturally, economically, and politically. Not going to happen.

 

[rightwinger]

Guess what Republicans?

African Americans get to decide who their allies are. Guess you are not doing too well

 

[JakeStarkey]

We need to do much better as GOP with black Americans.

 

[Jroc]

I agree with much you say, but if the GOP cares about the economic freedom of blacks, then we should reach out to where it works. You sound like the guy on the sidewalk shouting, "Go to work." There's far more to that. We have failed as a party, period, but we can change that.

SNIP

No, kiddo, you don't get to be the economic massa telling old black american what he gotta do to succeed in a white man's world.

America is no longer, has not been for a long time, and will never go back to the white American world of the 1950s and 1960s.

We are in the 21st century, we are all in it together, and if we don't succeed together, we will fail as a nation state. That's the part of Rush Limbaugh's social compact that he has rejected. Fuck him. The hard right is not going to succeed in their twisted goals culturally, economically, and politically. Not going to happen.

What might those goals be? What's the master plan? and why do you never critize democrats? it seems to me that you're as brain washed as the rest of the libs. if you are a Republican why?

 

[Dragon]

if you are a Republican why?

Actually I'm kind of wondering the same thing.

Be that as it may, rightwinger, above, stated the bottom-line truth: it is African-American voters who get to decide who their allies are, and it is clear enough that they've done just that. To say, "We're the ones who are REALLY on your side, you've just been fooled by liberal propaganda and don't realize that policies pandering to the rich really will help everyone, and that our subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle courting of racists is just politics and doesn't mean anything," is an insult to people's intelligence.

If you want to gain black voters back as allies of the GOP, offer them what they want. Don't tell them what they ought to want instead.

 

[flacaltenn]

The relation between consumer demand and wages and salaries hasn't changed merely because we are outsourcing manufacturing jobs to third-world countries. Before the economy tanked, those who lost manufacturing jobs found service jobs; unemployment didn't soar. The problem was that the lost manufacturing jobs were mostly union jobs, while the service jobs that replaced them mostly weren't, and consequently paid less. Before manufacturing was unionized, factory work paid shit wages, too (still does in those third-world countries).

We had a sea change in government policy around 1980 (it actually started in the Carter years but found full expression under Reagan) that reversed just about everything the government did in the four decades during and after World War II that created the most prosperous economy in the history of the world. Support for organized labor took a dive under Carter and a worse one under Reagan and has never really been restored. Reagan abandoned the commitment to a graduated income tax that prevailed for those highly-prosperous decades and returned us to essentially the pre-Depression tax system. And yes, outsourcing has also been encouraged by the government, although as noted above its impact can be exaggerated. (And is, more by liberals than conservatives.)

The fact that most employment is now in services (while U.S. manufacturing output remains very strong by the way -- it is simply not true that we don't make things any more, it's just true that we don't employ many people to make them compared to in the past), if services were well paid, would not matter. Raising everyone's pay would indeed promote more imports from abroad, as well as more purchases of what is produced here -- and more purchases of services staffed by Americans. That's a fundamental economic reality that doesn't change with changes of that nature.

While regulations and the actions of bankers or the Fed may have some (trivial) impact on investment, the fact is that companies are sitting today on mountains of cash. There is no capital shortage, there is a capital glut, and therefore nothing that reduces the availability of capital can explain why businesses aren't expanding and hiring. The explanation for that is what it always is: lack of customers to justify doing it.

Really good response. I agree with most of it. Except for a couple important points.

Probably our biggest diff is how and why the unions have lost relevence. That's a whole nother thread. But the gist of it is -- I support the right to collective bargaining but I don't agree with it. I'm just convince that unions have failed their membership by maintaining an early 20th century view of what a job is and refusing to care as much as about member's CAREERS as they do about the current contract.

It's the unions that are now doing the dehumanization of the workforce and treating a job as a robotic position definable in contract. Every minor workrule mod is a bloody grudge match. When in fact, with new technology and changes in manufacturing techniques it's FLEXIBLITY that allows companies to survive. And forget CAREER help as a member of a union that sees programmed robots as it's membership. Your chance of getting into a desk job or a sales job or shifting from physical to mental burden as you age is near zero.

China knows where the future of manufacturing is and it's NOT in cheap labor. It's in INTELLIGIENT FLEXIBLE labor.. I posted a thread http://www.usmessageboard.com/3943059-post1.html --- that ALL union supporters should consider. If China beats us to a 21st century manufacturing model -- the game is truly over.

Anyway -- ties right into your comments about the service industry. I've been ranting about that for about a decade now. A service based economy is not as likely to be able to expand and grow a GDP as a manufacturing one. Services are not as innovative and creative as goods. And service businesses are LOCALLY based models where in general there's a fixed pool of consumers to serve. It's the reverse of ONE widget factory distributing nation or world wide with unlimited access to customers. Define a new goods based product and you can capture the world from your base. Define a new service product and you have to laboriously build infrastructure in each new podunk town with a single traffic light. IT's a much harder and more capital intensive slog..

Economists are missing some of these nuisances. They are still working out of their 1970 college textbooks when the world has changed. Trying to inject consumer demand to build jobs doesn't have close to same effect it had 20 years ago. I KNOW that the path to more jobs is redefining manufacturing to make CHEAP labor irrelevent. That it will take a different kind of worker. A more skilled and flexible worker. THIS -- is the guidance we SHOULD be getting from the clowns in charge. And it's not "lack of customers" that keeps capital from investment. It's the concentration of capital and control in the hands of increasing large and inflexible corporations. Because they've learned to feast on taxpayer subsidies instead of feeding themselves. And the LITTLE guys, the innovators - have to jump larger barriers in regulation and financing to get started here.

 

[JakeStarkey]

SNIP

No, kiddo, you don't get to be the economic massa telling old black american what he gotta do to succeed in a white man's world.

America is no longer, has not been for a long time, and will never go back to the white American world of the 1950s and 1960s.

We are in the 21st century, we are all in it together, and if we don't succeed together, we will fail as a nation state. That's the part of Rush Limbaugh's social compact that he has rejected. Fuck him. The hard right is not going to succeed in their twisted goals culturally, economically, and politically. Not going to happen.

What might those goals be? What's the master plan? and why do you never critize democrats? it seems to me that you're as brain washed as the rest of the libs. if you are a Republican why?

Drinkin da koolade are yah, podjo. I criticize Dems for being racist too, as an example. You are simply whining. We have failed in the GOP toward the black Americans. Grow up. Whining and pining ain't shining, little star.

 

[flacaltenn]

if you are a Republican why?

Actually I'm kind of wondering the same thing.

Be that as it may, rightwinger, above, stated the bottom-line truth: it is African-American voters who get to decide who their allies are, and it is clear enough that they've done just that. To say, "We're the ones who are REALLY on your side, you've just been fooled by liberal propaganda and don't realize that policies pandering to the rich really will help everyone, and that our subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle courting of racists is just politics and doesn't mean anything," is an insult to people's intelligence.

If you want to gain black voters back as allies of the GOP, offer them what they want. Don't tell them what they ought to want instead.

Well Dragon -- I offered my COMPLETE support to those black and minorities parents looking to place their kids out of failing govt schools NOW TODAY -- and Jakeman suggested I was acting "all MASSA and 60s"... Wouldn't even copy my response that he found so offensive.

Guess I need to go order the "Idiot's Guide to Talking Political Shit with Blacks" off of Amazon and come back and impress y'all with my sincerity.. Can't comply with giving everybody "what they want". There are good ideas and bad ideas. There are economically sound ideas and disasterous ones. Just like there are good choices and bad choices in life.
If we don't agree -- we don't agree.

Jake:: Whatever I said to set you off -- I can't find it.. There are real folks with real problems out there that NEED choices in leadership. Can't believe that ANY person or group is satified with either of the two monopoly parties right now..

If the polls say that they are --- I gotta believe they are fooling themselves..

 

[JakeStarkey]

if you are a Republican why?

Actually I'm kind of wondering the same thing.

Be that as it may, rightwinger, above, stated the bottom-line truth: it is African-American voters who get to decide who their allies are, and it is clear enough that they've done just that. To say, "We're the ones who are REALLY on your side, you've just been fooled by liberal propaganda and don't realize that policies pandering to the rich really will help everyone, and that our subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle courting of racists is just politics and doesn't mean anything," is an insult to people's intelligence.

If you want to gain black voters back as allies of the GOP, offer them what they want. Don't tell them what they ought to want instead.

Dragon, you are wondering about something that isn't difficult. I can't change the Dems. I don't want to, because much of what the Dems do beats themselves. Since 1860, only nine Dems have won the presidency for 15 terms. The pubs have won fifteen for 22 terms. In other words, the country has grown to prefer traditionally a solid middle class with purchasing power, a traditionally progressive right of center GOP. However, when the Pubs fail as they have steadily since 1980, the Dems have snuck in with left of center progressivism of increasing liberal reform.

In the 21st century, if the Dems remain the party of the minority powers, while the minority powers are steadily increasing their numbers, the GOP will inevitably be pushed to the side. The Ryanistas and the libertarian wings of the GOP, should they gain power, will place the GOP in the minority permanently.

I can't change the Dems, but I sure can work for change in the GOP.

 

[Angry_Vegetable]

A lot of those racist southern Democrats became Republicans in the 70's and the 80's, like a game of musical chairs.