Would have been nice for you to actually quote me so that I could respond.
Oh look, you cherry-picked two statistics to prove your point. I can do that too:
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But wage increases aren't keeping pace with inflation. Your facts are simply wrong.
I didn't cherry pick squat. I picked two government sources. One was direct and the other used government data. Additionally, they did show wages keeping pace with inflation because one source was the CONSUMER PRICE INDEX. The definition of inflation is basically the rise in the cost of goods and services over time. In other words, the best way to figure it out, is to take note of the trends in prices of goods and services, hence the consumer price index.
Deflation can also be an issue, most notably in 2008-2009 under George W. Bush, when the financial crisis first hit. But more importantly, you are aware that there's more to this issue than simple wage increases, yes? Other factors that have an impact on quality of life...benefits, health care, time off, etc. You've heard of these things?
Yes, obviously. I'm only working with what you've given me here. Your initial argument was basically that unions kept us from poor wages and working conditions, remember? And my argument is that unions are irrelevant and that the free market is what protects us against that. Keep it straight.
You brought it up because it's an emotionally charged issue and one that's only tangentially related to the topic. You figured that "no one could possibly disagree that child prostitution is a bad thing," which is true, but you introduced it to create the false impression that third-world workers should have only two alternatives: accept whatever low-paying, terrible working conditions they are offered, or send their kids off to be child prostitutes. This is called a straw man argument.
It's not a straw man. Here's why. I'm not misrepresenting your position. I'm giving you a fact. It's not that they
should only have two alternatives. It's that all of their alternatives are crap and that is the least crappy one. The third alternative is to starve. Perhaps in some countries they could go to a military camp and never see their families again.
China's issues are a "direct result" of more than one simple factor. It's a country of billions of people with limited resources that has lived under a totalitarian regime for decades. Since the market has been opened up, the majority of the wealth has been channelled to elites, passing average Chinese people by. This is what typically happens unless social justice and fairness-minded entitites (including unions) are able to exert some pressure on society.
The market hasn't been fully opened up. So your assumption that free market = bad for workers is false. The government still controls the majority of regulations.
Dig a little deeper and you'll see that China is in dire straits. Because they refuse to introduce many of the most basic rights for workers, elites profit at the expense of the masses and as a result there is almost no domestic household spending in China, a situation that is soon to lead to disaster if you listen to many leading economists. They have focused relentlessly on exporting products to the rest of the world at the cheapest prices possible while ignoring the welfare of their own people. It will come back to haunt them, unfortunately. (And once again, it won't be the elites who suffer most.)
They have no market stability. You cannot spend money when there is no stability. That's the issue that the USA faces today. That's why "stimulus spending" has done little to improve our own economy.
The "elites" you speak of are government cronies. China has a relatively closed market and crony capitalism. Such issues are irrelevant in a truly free market.
No, I'd say you've missed the major point. Your dogmatic worship of the free market has blinded you to history. There is such a thing as the past, you know...you might want to study it. The free market certainly did not desire to offer workers fair wages. That was hard fought for and won by previous generations at great expense. Those in power were too short-sighted then (as they are now) to realize that the real engine of growth in the United States has always been middle-class spending, fuelled by decent wages. Without that, all you have are a few rich oligarchs and then masses of plebs. It still mystifies me that many Americans would like to go back to that.
You're kidding, right? Perhaps you ought to study the past as well. Just after the industrial revolution this minor thing happened. Yeah, it's called government intervention. Somehow you think that more of it is good. Because of that, we haven't had even a modicum of a free market since the 30s. And the market before that was insulated. News didn't spread as quickly. People weren't informed consumers. And the choice that we enjoy today wasn't available then. Strikes were relevant then. Now they just aren't. Goods, services, and labor is more fluid. I can get on a plane tomorrow and start work in New York, London, or Tokyo. That wasn't a possibility for most people back in 1922.
And because of that unions have turned to lobbying to make sure that companies can't move factories to other states, etc. And what does that become? Crony capitalism.
So if, as you still seem to believe, unions keep us from low wages, why is it that 89% of people are paid above minimum wage? I'm curious. Enlighten me.
I'll consent that unions helped people back in the day because the market was so insular. But in 2012 they are irrelevant. The reason that people don't want union labor these days is because it costs more and the product isn't as good because the weak aren't culled. Union members like to act as if every member contributes just as much as the others, but history shows that this is impossible. And you can't get rid of them.
The real engine of growth isn't middle-class spending. That's not even logical. That's a chicken and egg situation. You need business spending for middle-class spending to exist.
The real engine of growth is a stable environment with low regulation and low taxes. That's why Hong Kong outpaces us in growth. And the killer of that is the additional thousands of pages of regulation, taxes, etc. we add each year. If you can anticipate what is coming, you can plan for it. You can spend money. You can hire someone. You can start a business. This administration and the previous one have done a terrible job at creating stability. And now we reap the "benefits."
If you make it easier for people to start and run businesses (which are our backbone) we will prosper. I just don't understand how many Americans think a free market won't work when we've never fully had the chance to try it. Yet we've almost always tried government intervention and regulation (at least in modern times). It is curious that it doesn't seem to work. Wait, no. It's obvious.
BTW, I believe many of the those who respond to every "made in China" thread are Chinese agents posing as right wing anti-union Americans. The arguments are always the same, like they have talking points they work from.
Actually, I'm Libertarian. I'm from the South and I'm anti-union. But I won't want to tell you what to do or care what you do in the bedroom. I would imagine that the reason the arguments are the same is because they're logical. And you know what? You probably could find some of my old posts on here that were pretty Liberal. I used to believe the BS that I was taught in school about how wonderful unions are.
Then I rethought my position and refined it, married a teacher, and realized I was wrong. Thankfully her union loses more ground with each passing day. There are some really crap teachers out there that need to go. They don't deserve a job because they pay $15 a pay period to keep it.
I always leaned Libertarian, but I always held on to some Liberal ideas through college, and shed them as soon as I figured things out and learned to debate with facts.
Also, I wouldn't have even gotten into this conversation if I hadn't noticed erroneous information about unions keeping us from poor wages and poor working conditions in 2012.
Yes, a headache to corporations such as Apple. The economic meltdown in which the US is right now its caused because there's little regulation over what corporations can do, and that includes how they treat and pay their workers without whom they couldn't even survive.
Entirely incorrect. There are TONS of regulations over what corporations can do. Here's just one simple example. Next year, when I start my LLC, I'll have to keep meeting minutes even though I'll be the only person in the meeting.