NightlyPoe said:
Well, finally someone addresses the point. What a refreshing change of pace on this thread. I would reply that income inequality is not the same thing as being left behind. In fact, like I said earlier, I consider income inequality to be a rather childish thing to complain about. It's essentially jealousy as an excuse for policy. It doesn't actually get us anywhere. The debt graph and the growth graphs are really the important ones. Debt in particular creates stress. However, the video's point remains more germane I think. Do you think that people living through stagflation in the 70s wouldn't trade with us now in a heartbeat? I mean, which time period do you want to go back to as better for the working class than right now? |
Income inequality is a problem when it does not match skill or work performed. The wages for worker's have not budged since the 80s, meaning that their wage did not increase significantly with inflation. Let's say that a teacher made $30,000 a year in 1987, and the chairman of education (or whoever the hell) $70,000. This is fine, right? The Chairman has more responsibility and should have the higher wage.
Today, chances are that the teacher still makes $30,000 while the chairman makes 100k. Why did the wages not increase for the teacher? It is much harder to survive with the same amount of money that it was then. While 30k could have bought you a house in 1987, it gets you a small apartment now. Not to mention that the larger gap is much harder than it is to explain, since the skill of the labour has not changed. (It is, after all, the same job).
It's a fictitious example, of course, but it explains the point.
The bolded is funny because we just had a recession that was factually worse hitting on the economy than what happened in the 70s. They don't call it the "Great Recession" because it was a joke.
