Discussion: Fed Chief 'Puzzled' That Despite Good Economy, Few Workers Getting Raises

“we don’t really have the tools that will address the distribution of profits and that kind of thing.”

Well we used to. They were called unions I think.

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No! The problem is at the top.

It’s Trickle Down, and 1% of the workforce is getting hefty wages. Consider that. Consider the infrastructure is falling apart, making it harder to perform. Consider that. Consider the profitability of crime, and that we’re under assault every minute on every device we own.

No, there’s nothing wrong with workers. We’re not to blame for our poverty.

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                        ‘Puzzled’

Whew ! …

Thank doG that some people can’t put a round peg in a round hole –

Now I’ve got to get a bigger boat …
My little 300 ft. jalopy just isn’t cutting it ! —

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“So it’s a bit of a puzzle,” the chairman mused, somewhat philosophically. “I wouldn’t say it’s a mystery. But it’s, it’s a bit of a puzzle.”

Yeah, it’s a puzzlement alright.

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Obviously another moron who does not understand the plan. Funnel all the money to the CEO, who will then contribute to the Republican party, which will then pull the wool over the eyes of the rubes. At this point I am not hopeful that those who continually vote against their own interests will ever wake up. They have been bamboozled and will stay that way thanks to the confluence of marketing science and the internet.

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…can we a get a big group DUH! here?

Of course it is no mystery… the greedy rich who own most everything just can’t GET enough, they will always want MORE.

And that plan certainly doesn’t include paying fair wages to their hard working employees.

Does anyone think, as a noble example to the rest of these struggling billionaires who just got MORE, Trump raised the pay to a living wage for the domestic and foreign workers changing sheets and sweeping floors in his gilded-plastic towers?

Not likely…

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Now that markets are global, and unions busted, there is no corporate incentive or obligation to ensure that ordinary Americans have jobs that provide money to spend to make their lives comfortable and their children educated.

Businesses in America are free to take the spoils of productivity increases, and they’ve done so with all the gusto of a dog rolling in the carcass of a rotting raccoon.

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Actually, the puzzle is quite easy to put together – I haven’t gotten a raise in two years. Want to know why? Because my boss wants to keep that $$$ for himself.

Puzzle solved.

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When even a burger flipper has to sign a noncompete agreement, there is no mobility between jobs. In the “old” days, you worked for a company for life because they gave you good pay and benefits. Today, you work for a company for life (until they find you disposable) because they onw you.

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worse yet, when the blue-collar gang this creep exploits join him voting for the same Republicans at election time… cuz Hannity toldem’ so.

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Now, if we’d just stop voting for our abusers, something might actually change.

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No, he just can’t reveal that he does.

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EXACTLY!!! LOTR lore abounds.

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Can we have a less colorful metaphor, please?

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This is a big part of the puzzle. Podcast and text.

Why we should bulldoze the business schools

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I wouldn’t bulldoze them.

Maybe turn them into union halls.

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Bulldoze them, but wait until all classes are in session.

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One of the full-circle issues here is that, although the American Middle Class has abdicated its “manufacturer to the world” throne, we are still the ultimate champions at consumption. They may be able to find laborers to do their manufacturing somewhere else, but they will have a very hard time finding a market for those goods that isn’t wholly and inextricably entwined with that American middle class consumer

Its a real catch-22 for authoritarians bent on making people work that 40 hour week and OVERTIME to earn their championship consumer status.In order to have both cheap foreign labor and annual economic expansion, they may HAVE to make wage and hour and universal healthcare concessions if they want the demand side of that global economy to operate efficiently enough to support their greedy supply side.

It is a serious conundrum for the billionaire boss class. They want Americans to tote those barges and lift those bales , and still have the energy to drink a couple six-packs and watch football and ortherwise go out and consume their products, but they can’t quite figure how to do both.

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