Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

D1984
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 730
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2011 7:23 pm

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by D1984 » Wed Sep 07, 2022 12:44 am

Kbg wrote:
Tue Sep 06, 2022 11:01 pm
And folks here's the deal...both parties are completely lying out of both sides of their mouths economically...what you see here is average hour wages (non-management types) divided by the CPI. Even if you think CPI is crap, it's still been the same denominator for the most part.

Economically folks are doing pretty good...I was a lower middle class kid in the 60-70s and categorically people where I live have more toys, go on more vacations, eat out way more and have bigger houses comparatively.

Image
How exactly is that "pretty good"? It looks to me like it peaked in 1973 or so, went on a long downward slide (with a brief interruption from late 1975 to mid-1979 that still didn't get it back to its 1973 high) until late 1995 or early 1996, and only then started slowly growing again. The big spikes in 2008 and 2020 are actually kind of distortions as well...some of that was due to the people with the least skills/experience/seniority (and thus likely the lower end of the wage scale) being the first ones to be laid off in a recession and thus their (lower) wages being removed from the calculation of the average--seeing as how they were no long employed....granted, this also accounts for some of the slow/stagnant apparent average hourly wage growth in the first few years after both of those recessions (as the low wage workers were either hired back and/or found other jobs and thus their wages once again helped to lower the average) so some of that does even out in the end. Still, I wouldn't call real inflation-adjusted average production and non-supervisory worker wages being no higher (or from the looks of it, even a bit lower) in mid-2022 than they were in 1973 a huge success story.

I'll have to look up the numbers again (I saved them on one of my portable hard drives a few months ago; I had to concatenate the 1960-2011 series from FRED that was in constant 2011 $ with the World Bank data that was in constant 2017 $; this meant slowly and painstakingly converting the pre-2011 data year by year to 2017 dollars so as to have a continuous series) but from what I recall real GDP per person employed (i.e. real GDP per worker....I like to refer to this statistic rather than simply use real GDP per capita* because it avoids any distortions from either more/less of the population being working age--which could distort things since nonworking retirees don't really contribute much to economic growth--or from composition effects where more/less of the potential working age population itself is employed i.e. when women starting joining the workforce in greater numbers in the 70s through the 90s) has gone up by about 90% or 91% from 1973 to 2021. Suffice it to say real wages aren't up by this amount....not by a long shot.

How much of the "people can afford bigger houses, nicer stuff, etc, nowadays" is because most households now have two workers contributing an income (which even if average/median worker wages have stagnated should still result in somewhat of a higher standard of living--although nowhere near a doubling despite basically doubling the amount of breadwinners in the household--unless both workers are in job or occupational categories that have actually seen wages not just stagnate but fall sharply in real terms) while back in the 1950s/60s/early 70s only dad had to work and even on just his earnings mom could afford to stay home full time with the kids?

*With that duly noted, using real GDP per capita as the yardstick--instead of real GDP per worker--still shows a big yawning gap between real average hourly production and non-supervisory wage growth and real GDP per capita growth.
Kbg
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 2815
Joined: Fri May 23, 2014 4:18 pm

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by Kbg » Wed Sep 07, 2022 9:05 am

Excellent response D1984, seriously. I always enjoy informed, well articulated push back to anything I write. It's how we learn/expand our knowledge base.

Won't argue with the basic premise of what you wrote...at the end of the day we simply recovered to the early 70s with the data I showed. I also agree that a huge part of "maintaining" is dual income couples.

Counterpoints...

Since the early 1990s (3 decades now) things have improved under both parties. So as they say, it's all relative (to the starting point). I never give either party much credit or discredit for economic conditions. The economy is way more complex than politicians are capable of effectively managing (or mismanaging) assuming decent rule of law and respect for property rights. (I know, tons of assumptions packed in there.)

My personal take on all of this however is: The decline/treading water of American wages since ~ the mid 80s is by and large a result of the rise of China and off shoring of jobs to cheaper manufacturing locations (e.g. globalization). The China thing is reversing I believe due to lessons learned from supply chain disruption (minor factor) and the cresting/soon to be decline in Chinese population (major factor). Less well known is the same thing is happening in India though not as extreme due to not having a one child policy. In the US the boomers are rapidly exiting the workforce. In sum, a lot of forces in play that suggest workers are going to have quite a bit of pricing power going forward when the economic situation is "ok" or better. Running against this thesis is technology/automation...and I'm not informed enough to venture a guess what the impact of that might be.
User avatar
I Shrugged
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 2062
Joined: Tue Dec 18, 2012 6:35 pm

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by I Shrugged » Wed Sep 07, 2022 3:47 pm

glennds wrote:
Tue Sep 06, 2022 5:45 pm
I Shrugged wrote:
Tue Sep 06, 2022 4:44 pm
This is the basis for the feelings for Trump, and the newfound disdain for the old GOP people. They haven't been sold a bill of goods. They have been told that it's okay to remember how much better their lives and the direction of the country were and that things are going wrong now.

That's an existential threat to the establishment, and it has to destroy him. As you can plainly see.
I Shrugged - I'm just trying to better understand this logic.
(Your quote) "People who are Trump supporters have been told that it's okay to remember how much better their lives and the direction of the country were"..... when, and under which President/party?
Before jobs all left to other countries. When a person with just a willingness to work could make a decent living making water heaters at A.O. Smith in Kankakee, Illinois, or steel in Pittsburg, or shoes in Massachusetts, or TVs or .... When dual incomes were not a requirement to get by. Etc. Our lower middle class is not doing well. On the plus side, a gazillion Chinese, and Mexican immigrants, are doing a lot better.

Trump was saying, hey, let's stop aiding this. Let's see what we can do to turn the tables in our direction. And unlike others, he tried real hard to keep his campaign promises. This is completely different and his supporters felt/feel that someone finally gets it.
User avatar
vnatale
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 9423
Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2019 8:56 pm
Location: Massachusetts
Contact:

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by vnatale » Wed Sep 07, 2022 7:20 pm

I Shrugged wrote:
Wed Sep 07, 2022 3:47 pm

glennds wrote:
Tue Sep 06, 2022 5:45 pm

I Shrugged wrote:
Tue Sep 06, 2022 4:44 pm

This is the basis for the feelings for Trump, and the newfound disdain for the old GOP people. They haven't been sold a bill of goods. They have been told that it's okay to remember how much better their lives and the direction of the country were and that things are going wrong now.

That's an existential threat to the establishment, and it has to destroy him. As you can plainly see.


I Shrugged - I'm just trying to better understand this logic.
(Your quote) "People who are Trump supporters have been told that it's okay to remember how much better their lives and the direction of the country were"..... when, and under which President/party?


Before jobs all left to other countries. When a person with just a willingness to work could make a decent living making water heaters at A.O. Smith in Kankakee, Illinois, or steel in Pittsburg, or shoes in Massachusetts, or TVs or .... When dual incomes were not a requirement to get by. Etc. Our lower middle class is not doing well. On the plus side, a gazillion Chinese, and Mexican immigrants, are doing a lot better.

Trump was saying, hey, let's stop aiding this. Let's see what we can do to turn the tables in our direction. And unlike others, he tried real hard to keep his campaign promises. This is completely different and his supporters felt/feel that someone finally gets it.


May have been what he said. However, how much did he actually accomplish?
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
glennds
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 1265
Joined: Mon Jan 28, 2013 11:24 am

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by glennds » Wed Sep 07, 2022 8:26 pm

I Shrugged wrote:
Wed Sep 07, 2022 3:47 pm
glennds wrote:
Tue Sep 06, 2022 5:45 pm
I Shrugged wrote:
Tue Sep 06, 2022 4:44 pm
This is the basis for the feelings for Trump, and the newfound disdain for the old GOP people. They haven't been sold a bill of goods. They have been told that it's okay to remember how much better their lives and the direction of the country were and that things are going wrong now.

That's an existential threat to the establishment, and it has to destroy him. As you can plainly see.
I Shrugged - I'm just trying to better understand this logic.
(Your quote) "People who are Trump supporters have been told that it's okay to remember how much better their lives and the direction of the country were"..... when, and under which President/party?
Before jobs all left to other countries. When a person with just a willingness to work could make a decent living making water heaters at A.O. Smith in Kankakee, Illinois, or steel in Pittsburg, or shoes in Massachusetts, or TVs or .... When dual incomes were not a requirement to get by. Etc. Our lower middle class is not doing well. On the plus side, a gazillion Chinese, and Mexican immigrants, are doing a lot better.

Trump was saying, hey, let's stop aiding this. Let's see what we can do to turn the tables in our direction. And unlike others, he tried real hard to keep his campaign promises. This is completely different and his supporters felt/feel that someone finally gets it.
I think it was a good talking point for Trump, and I can see why it appealed to so many.
I have a love/hate relationship with the subject of outsourced manufacturing jobs. On the surface, it seems like a bad thing. But digging deeper, wouldn't you say the American public is highly reliant on low priced products?

Outsourcing manufacturing to low cost labor countries like China, Vietnam, India, Mexico has been the path to low prices.
If more manufacturing were happening domestically where we have labor laws, benefits, higher wages, HR rules, the prices of products would go in one direction - up. I think it's a case of picking your poison. We can either have manufacturing jobs or we can have low priced products, maybe not both. If all AO Smith water heaters were made in the USA, would you pay say, 25% more for one? Would others?

The loss of a job is quantifiable, but the benefits of lower cost offshore manufacturing are diffuse and broad. Not easy to calculate the offset of one against the other.
There's also the issue of job loss due to robotics and automation. This raises the question of whether those jobs are permanently gone and cannot be "brought back".
Last point - is manufacturing even the primary driver of our economy? And has it really declined? Here's an interesting article that suggests maybe not:
https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-econo ... -declining

On a plus note though, according to the chart Kbg shared, it looks like the trend for real wages during Trump's years but pre-Covid, was good.
Last edited by glennds on Wed Sep 07, 2022 9:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
joypog
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 561
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2022 7:42 pm

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by joypog » Wed Sep 07, 2022 8:44 pm

from Nick Catoggio's (Allahpundit) first post for the Dispatch.
Too much of conservative media defines big media by its worst episodes of ideological bias and information suppression and resolves to live down to that standard. When forced to choose between the truth and the cause, most right-wing sites now unfailingly choose the cause—to the extent there remains any “cause” beyond defending the authoritarian impulses of Donald Trump and his disciples. Many have become the propagandists they once undertook to expose, a facet of the Trump-era ethos that conservatives can succeed only by behaving as badly as their opponents have in their most depraved moments.
1/n weirdo. US-TSM, US-SCV, Intl-SCV, LTT, STT, GLD (+ a little in MF)
glennds
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 1265
Joined: Mon Jan 28, 2013 11:24 am

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by glennds » Wed Sep 07, 2022 9:54 pm

It seems like Trump and Biden may have protectionism in common.

Biden might not be quite as loud about it, but the article below talks about how his administration has barred tech companies that take Federal funds from building "advanced tech" factories in China for 10 years.
This comes on the heels of the new export rule that's limiting chip makers like NVDA from exporting certain chips to China. This rule caused NVDA stock to tank last week (much to my disappointment).

https://www.bbc.com/news/62803224

I wonder if Trump fans will give Biden any more credit for these actions than Biden fans gave Trump for his attempts at protective economic policies?
User avatar
joypog
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 561
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2022 7:42 pm

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by joypog » Wed Sep 07, 2022 10:31 pm

glennds wrote:
Wed Sep 07, 2022 9:54 pm
It seems like Trump and Biden may have protectionism in common.

Biden might not be quite as loud about it, but the article below talks about how his administration has barred tech companies that take Federal funds from building "advanced tech" factories in China for 10 years.
This comes on the heels of the new export rule that's limiting chip makers like NVDA from exporting certain chips to China. This rule caused NVDA stock to tank last week (much to my disappointment).

https://www.bbc.com/news/62803224

I wonder if Trump fans will give Biden any more credit for these actions than Biden fans gave Trump for his attempts at protective economic policies?
To be fair to Trump, the harder stance against China seems to be applauded all around.

Trump got grief for his bluster and some of his tactics, but it seems that most pundits ultimately agree with his shift towards a more confrontational stance towards China as the CCP.
1/n weirdo. US-TSM, US-SCV, Intl-SCV, LTT, STT, GLD (+ a little in MF)
dockinGA
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 245
Joined: Tue May 04, 2021 9:29 am

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by dockinGA » Thu Sep 08, 2022 6:26 am

In response to the narrative that Trump has been a 'champion of the common man', fighting for the middle class, etc. I think one needs look no further than the ongoing situation with Steve Bannon to realize that Trump's rhetoric is largely for show. Bannon has been accused (and in fact indicted by Trump's own justice department) for taking money from donations to 'build the wall', and then pocketing huge chunks of the money. In Trump's final days in office, he pardoned Bannon for this, which to me just seems like a huge poke in the eye to Trump's core supporters.

Of course, this was behavior by Bannon, and Trump presumably had nothing to do with it, but how can it be justified that Trump pardoned a man who basically stole money (allegedly) from hard working Trump supporters who thought they were donating to build Trump's wall? If Trump truly cared about his supporters, he would've made sure Bannon was punished for his behavior. But, it all makes more sense when you realize it's something of a pattern of behavior for Trump, including his fundraising after the election with 'Stop the Steal' PAC's to the tune of $250 million, very little if any of which went to election litigation. His behavior was most likely not criminal, but taking money from supporters for a stated goal and then not using any of it for the stated goal is extremely shady behavior, and not in the best interests of the supporters who love him and the supporters that he claims to love back.
User avatar
vnatale
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 9423
Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2019 8:56 pm
Location: Massachusetts
Contact:

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by vnatale » Thu Sep 08, 2022 7:29 am

dockinGA wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 6:26 am

In response to the narrative that Trump has been a 'champion of the common man', fighting for the middle class, etc. I think one needs look no further than the ongoing situation with Steve Bannon to realize that Trump's rhetoric is largely for show. Bannon has been accused (and in fact indicted by Trump's own justice department) for taking money from donations to 'build the wall', and then pocketing huge chunks of the money. In Trump's final days in office, he pardoned Bannon for this, which to me just seems like a huge poke in the eye to Trump's core supporters.

Of course, this was behavior by Bannon, and Trump presumably had nothing to do with it, but how can it be justified that Trump pardoned a man who basically stole money (allegedly) from hard working Trump supporters who thought they were donating to build Trump's wall? If Trump truly cared about his supporters, he would've made sure Bannon was punished for his behavior. But, it all makes more sense when you realize it's something of a pattern of behavior for Trump, including his fundraising after the election with 'Stop the Steal' PAC's to the tune of $250 million, very little if any of which went to election litigation. His behavior was most likely not criminal, but taking money from supporters for a stated goal and then not using any of it for the stated goal is extremely shady behavior, and not in the best interests of the supporters who love him and the supporters that he claims to love back.


It's all more evidence to judge the quality of Trump's character.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
Kbg
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 2815
Joined: Fri May 23, 2014 4:18 pm

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by Kbg » Thu Sep 08, 2022 2:23 pm

joypog wrote:
Wed Sep 07, 2022 10:31 pm
To be fair to Trump, the harder stance against China seems to be applauded all around.

Trump got grief for his bluster and some of his tactics, but it seems that most pundits ultimately agree with his shift towards a more confrontational stance towards China as the CCP.
I will definitely give Trump credit for three things.

1. He (and Bernie Sanders) dialed into a deepening voter sentiment that globalization was basically screwing the average worker over

2. China as has been stated

3. NATO was basically freeloading on the US.

On the flipside, "taking on" Canada, Japan and South Korea made zero sense to me. Pulling out of the Pacific trade agreement also didn't make a whole lot of sense particularly when all that happened was China stepped into the gap we walked away from. I also chuckled that he thought he could cut a deal with North Korea. My guess is he must have had a conversation with that well known diplomat Dennis Rodman...and he was as successful as Bill Clinton was with them.

On the domestic front, he proved Republicans can give money away as large and as fast as Democrats.
D1984
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 730
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2011 7:23 pm

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by D1984 » Thu Sep 08, 2022 11:31 pm

Kbg wrote:
Wed Sep 07, 2022 9:05 am
Excellent response D1984, seriously. I always enjoy informed, well articulated push back to anything I write. It's how we learn/expand our knowledge base.

Won't argue with the basic premise of what you wrote...at the end of the day we simply recovered to the early 70s with the data I showed. I also agree that a huge part of "maintaining" is dual income couples.

Counterpoints...

Since the early 1990s (3 decades now) things have improved under both parties. So as they say, it's all relative (to the starting point). I never give either party much credit or discredit for economic conditions. The economy is way more complex than politicians are capable of effectively managing (or mismanaging) assuming decent rule of law and respect for property rights. (I know, tons of assumptions packed in there.)

My personal take on all of this however is: The decline/treading water of American wages since ~ the mid 80s is by and large a result of the rise of China and off shoring of jobs to cheaper manufacturing locations (e.g. globalization). The China thing is reversing I believe due to lessons learned from supply chain disruption (minor factor) and the cresting/soon to be decline in Chinese population (major factor). Less well known is the same thing is happening in India though not as extreme due to not having a one child policy. In the US the boomers are rapidly exiting the workforce. In sum, a lot of forces in play that suggest workers are going to have quite a bit of pricing power going forward when the economic situation is "ok" or better. Running against this thesis is technology/automation...and I'm not informed enough to venture a guess what the impact of that might be.
I look at it like this: Saying that "things have been improving since the mid-1990s" is kind of a farce since they have barely gotten the median or average worker even with where he was by 1973. Imagine if you were running in a foot race and someone moved you back from the starting line 90 yards and (after the experience of being moved back that far was over and you could again start running forward again) you ran with all your might and were just back to the starting line by the time the race ended. Had you not been moved back to begin with, you would've been a lot farther than "just at the starting line" when the race concluded.

Or consider that if a guy goes through a nasty divorce through no fault of his own (his wife was just unhappy in the marriage and was being hypergamous and wanted to leave him for another man) and he loses virtually everything to his (now ex) wife and gets hit with hefty alimony payments on top of that. If it takes him twenty years to get back to where he started in terms of wealth and net (after paying alimony) income, then clearly it's doesn't make sense to say "well, he's at least back to where he started, and for the last twenty years or so he has at least been moving in the right direction finances-wise, so everything is hunky dory". No, twenty years of potential economic well-being growth were taken from him, and he has every right to be damn angry and pissed off about that.

I do agree that China may have played a (small) role in what happened to the average American worker but the timeline doesn't quite fit for that to be all or even most of it. China was economically nearly nothing until at least the late 80s/early 90s....plus it didn't even get into the WTO until, what...2000? 2001? Meanwhile, the AHETPI data you posted clearly shows that average/median wages had been decreasing since the mid-1970s. Mexico and other 3rd world nations can't be the full story either; NAFTA was only signed in 1993 and by that time the period of almost continuously stagnating/falling wages from 1974-early 1996 was about played out (to be fair, while real AHETPI did indeed increase from mid 1996 to 2021 or so it didn't increase as much as actual economic growth or productivity growth from 1996-2021 so China/Mexico/NAFTA/other forms of offshoring did probably have something to do with it but they aren't the full story by any stretch of the imagination).

Several other factors that IMO bear much of the actual lion's share of the reason for wage stagnation vs what wages potentially could've been if they tracked actual productivity and economic output:

1. Corporate income tax cuts, capital gains tax cuts, dividend tax cuts, and regular ordinary income tax cuts that made it more attractive (after tax) to squeeze/outsource/downsize workers, pay them as little as possible, freeze pensions, break unions, cut benefits, hire temps rather than permanent workers, move production to whatever country is cheapest, ignore labor laws, anti-collusion laws, and environmental laws, strip companies of assets like some private equity companies do, etc. If you are a CEO and your compensation is partly/mostly based on your company's profitability, you will have a lot less incentive to try to raise profits "by any means necessary whether fair or foul" when the govt takes 46% to 52% of your company's profits in taxes, and then after that any dividends are taxed at 70 to 90%, and when your own pay is taxed at between 50 and 90% (these being tax rates that prevailed from the 50s through the 70s on high incomes and on corporate profits). To add insult to injury, all the economic growth miracle promises of these supposed "supply-side economics" and "trickle down" tax cuts didn't even really pan out; average annual productivity growth from the mid-1970s to today was actually lower than it was from the 1940s to the early or mid 1970s.

2. Unions becoming less and less powerful and less people being represented by them as--from the mid 70s onward--the government and NLRB turned more and more of a blind eye to union busting tactics by companies.

3. The government failing to raise the minimum wage from the late 1960s/early 1970s onward such that it kept pace with actual productivity like it had from the late 1930s to 1968-69 or so; if it had kept up with productivity it would be around $23 an hour today.

4. The rise and primacy of the "shareholder value" doctrine that held the companies only had obligations to their shareholders and if it benefited shareholders (and for that matter top executives whose pay was linked to profitability/earnings/share prices) then everyone else be damned. Other stakeholders (workers, their families, consumers, communities the company had factories in, the state and Federal government, the interests of the nation as a whole, etc) essentially didn't matter one bit; shareholders uber alles and let the devil take everyone else. If you look at (for example) GE's annual reports from the 1950s, some of them bragged about how much they paid in taxes and how much they paid their workers. Try and find the like from any major company today in its annual report.

5. Rising inequality within the labor sector itself (i.e. within income that neither went to corporate profits, interest payments, or rents for land/buildings); CEOs typically earned around 20-25 times what their lowest paid workers earned in the late 1960s; it has since increased to around 325-330 times today. if you look at actual overall average wages (i.e. take the money paid to every worker in the US and divide it by the total number of workers to get an average) you will find that while it hasn't grown quite as fast as economic growth per capita or productivity growth it has shown nowhere near the stagnation that AHETPI or median wages have.

6. Health care costs squeezing out economic gains (from increasing productivity) that could've been paid instead as wages; this didn't have to happen but it did happen (largely thanks to our system being uniquely unable to impose pricing controls due to its heavily free market nature and lack of any central regulatory authority overall); around the late 70s/early 80s America's health care system began soaring in costs vs those of other comparable OECD nations without much if any commensurate increase in health statistics or life expectancy vs them.

7. Finally, last but not least, the fact that--despite inflation being mostly slayed by the early 1980s--the Fed kept rates rather higher than it likely should have if it equally valued "full employment" vs "price stability"; this led to an economy operating somewhat under potential--and at less close to full employment than was possible--which in turn increased unemployment (the unemployment rates from 1982 to mid-1996 was not even once below 5%--and in fact was in the mid to high single digits much of this time--much less at the 3.4 to 3.8% range it was in the late 1960s), which that in turn reduced worker bargaining power to demand higher wages (i.e. it's hard to threaten to quit if you don't get higher pay if you know that when you quit it'll be difficult to find another job and also if you know that you leaving is no real threat to your employer because there are two or three unemployed people who would be desperate to have your job for any wage just to get a paycheck).

As to whether things will get better for average working Americans if we re-shore a good bit of manufacturing from China and as Boomers exit the workforce....well, I hope so but I think increasing automation will somewhat blunt the effects of the former and the Fed keeping the economy below full potential (and thus worker bargaining power lower than it could've been, and thus workers' ability to claim a larger share of the national income lower than it could've been) if they always insist on raising rates too aggressively to try and stem inflation (yeah, inflation is bad but there are almost certainly better ways to control inflation from a macroeconomic perspective than simply raising rates as the only option) that might happen as--when/if Boomers start retiring en masse--more jobs are chasing after a smaller pool of available workers...well, I don't hold out a bunch of hope for the latter either. I'd love to be wrong on this, though.
User avatar
I Shrugged
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 2062
Joined: Tue Dec 18, 2012 6:35 pm

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by I Shrugged » Fri Sep 09, 2022 7:03 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Fri Sep 09, 2022 4:12 pm
D1984 wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 11:31 pm


2. Unions becoming less and less powerful and less people being represented by them as--from the mid 70s onward--the government and NLRB turned more and more of a blind eye to union busting tactics by companies.

You should move to IL. You would love it here. The unions pretty much run everything here and as a result we have the second highest real estate tax in the country and one of the top total tax burdens as well. And if that's not enough to lure you, they are trying to pass a state constitutional amendment to make union powers stronger than state lawmakers, which is projected to cause the avg real estate bill to rise by $2500. It's so awesome, people are fleeing in droves.
I fled in a U-Haul.
;)
User avatar
vnatale
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 9423
Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2019 8:56 pm
Location: Massachusetts
Contact:

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by vnatale » Sat Sep 10, 2022 8:02 am

MangoMan wrote:
Fri Sep 09, 2022 4:12 pm

D1984 wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 11:31 pm



2. Unions becoming less and less powerful and less people being represented by them as--from the mid 70s onward--the government and NLRB turned more and more of a blind eye to union busting tactics by companies.




You should move to IL. You would love it here. The unions pretty much run everything here and as a result we have the second highest real estate tax in the country and one of the top total tax burdens as well. And if that's not enough to lure you, they are trying to pass a state constitutional amendment to make union powers stronger than state lawmakers, which is projected to cause the avg real estate bill to rise by $2500. It's so awesome, people are fleeing in droves.


I think I heard that unions are at their all-time low with only 10% of employees being in unions? Any idea what percentage of Illinois workers are unionized?
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
glennds
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 1265
Joined: Mon Jan 28, 2013 11:24 am

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by glennds » Sat Sep 10, 2022 11:57 am

vnatale wrote:
Sat Sep 10, 2022 8:02 am
MangoMan wrote:
Fri Sep 09, 2022 4:12 pm
D1984 wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 11:31 pm


2. Unions becoming less and less powerful and less people being represented by them as--from the mid 70s onward--the government and NLRB turned more and more of a blind eye to union busting tactics by companies.

You should move to IL. You would love it here. The unions pretty much run everything here and as a result we have the second highest real estate tax in the country and one of the top total tax burdens as well. And if that's not enough to lure you, they are trying to pass a state constitutional amendment to make union powers stronger than state lawmakers, which is projected to cause the avg real estate bill to rise by $2500. It's so awesome, people are fleeing in droves.
I think I heard that unions are at their all-time low with only 10% of employees being in unions? Any idea what percentage of Illinois workers are unionized?

Answers: By membership, Illinois is not materially different than the rest of the country. But perhaps unions there have more influence for some reason that I wouldn't know. The larger national trend supports what D1984 is saying.
Attachments
94042union.png
94042union.png (9.45 KiB) Viewed 2039 times
huxley-union-density-1536x1052.jpg
huxley-union-density-1536x1052.jpg (83.36 KiB) Viewed 2039 times
User avatar
vnatale
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 9423
Joined: Fri Apr 12, 2019 8:56 pm
Location: Massachusetts
Contact:

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by vnatale » Sat Sep 10, 2022 12:40 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Sat Sep 10, 2022 12:24 pm

glennds wrote:
Sat Sep 10, 2022 11:57 am

Answers: By membership, Illinois is not materially different than the rest of the country.

I interpret your graph in the opposite; It appears that IL is about 20% more unionized than the US avg, which I would consider VERY statistically significant.

glennds wrote:
Sat Sep 10, 2022 11:57 am

But perhaps unions there have more influence for some reason that I wouldn't know.

IL's Dem politicians are super beholden to the public sector unions that have kept them in power for decades.


The way I interpret the graph ... it looks like more than 40% (14% to 10%)? 40% is definitely significant. How much power that 14% actually does wield is subject to interpretation.
Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
User avatar
I Shrugged
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 2062
Joined: Tue Dec 18, 2012 6:35 pm

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by I Shrugged » Sat Sep 10, 2022 4:00 pm

Illinois public sector unions are part of the Illinois Democrat power structure. Big time.
The private sector trade unions in the big cities are too, but they are more constrained by market economics than are the public ones. The stories of the costs to exhibitors at conventions in Chicago are legendary. "You can't plug that cord in, you have to have a union electrician." "You have to have union carpenters to set up your display booth." etc. I think there has been some effort to rein that in, but I bet it's still hilarious, unless you are an exhibitor.

As far as "normal" unions for normal, non politically connected people, I dunno, Illinois is probably the same as any northern state. I mean, most of the factories have left, so....
glennds
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 1265
Joined: Mon Jan 28, 2013 11:24 am

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by glennds » Sat Sep 10, 2022 5:29 pm

I thought it was interesting to see what union membership looks like around the world. In the global context, I'm not sure I'd call either the US or Illinois union heavy, at least in terms of membership. If unions have significant political influence that may be a different story.

BTW, I was surprised France wasn't higher. Also surprised that Mexico would be higher than the US national average.
The other thing that might make a difference is the breakdown between public and private sector unionization.
Attachments
20170620_Trade_Union (1).jpg
20170620_Trade_Union (1).jpg (56.73 KiB) Viewed 2005 times
User avatar
joypog
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 561
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2022 7:42 pm

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by joypog » Sat Sep 10, 2022 8:25 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Sat Sep 10, 2022 12:24 pm
glennds wrote:
Sat Sep 10, 2022 11:57 am
But perhaps unions there have more influence for some reason that I wouldn't know.
IL's Dem politicians are super beholden to the public sector unions that have kept them in power for decades.
If the unions are such a small percentage of the working population (as discussed earlier) but hold outsized influence...then the fine citizens in Illinois need to get their act together!

We need to stop focusing on the federal elections at the expense of the State and Local ones. Now that I work in State government and I see how much we do, its pretty clear that we overlook these less spectacular events at to our own detriment.
1/n weirdo. US-TSM, US-SCV, Intl-SCV, LTT, STT, GLD (+ a little in MF)
D1984
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 730
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2011 7:23 pm

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by D1984 » Sat Sep 10, 2022 8:50 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Fri Sep 09, 2022 4:12 pm
D1984 wrote:
Thu Sep 08, 2022 11:31 pm


2. Unions becoming less and less powerful and less people being represented by them as--from the mid 70s onward--the government and NLRB turned more and more of a blind eye to union busting tactics by companies.

You should move to IL. You would love it here. The unions pretty much run everything here and as a result we have the second highest real estate tax in the country and one of the top total tax burdens as well. And if that's not enough to lure you, they are trying to pass a state constitutional amendment to make union powers stronger than state lawmakers, which is projected to cause the avg real estate bill to rise by $2500. It's so awesome, people are fleeing in droves.
Exactly how much is the median (not average, but median...the average will be distorted by high earners and probably by those who double or triple dipped or "pension spiked" if that's still a thing in Illinois) unionized public employee salary in Illinois, anyway? How much is the median pension? By what standard are you comparing either of those as being "too generous"? Perhaps they are overly generous vs comparable private sector packages (although you would need to reasonably adjust for things like age and education level to be sure one was comparing like to like vis-a-vis public and private sector employees).....but if comparing them to equivalent current private employee salaries and pensions, then maybe the question shouldn't be "why are public employee wages/benefits/pensions so relatively high" but rather, why are the ones for private employees so low (i.e. discussion above in this thread about how median wages and compensation haven't kept up with actual economic growth)?

The 3% automatic pension benefit COLA (which IIRC does not even apply to post-2010 employees) instead of a COLA being based on inflation may indeed be overly generous but consider two things (neither of which are public employee unions' doing or indeed much of anyone's deliberate fault)

1. When this began to apply starting 1-1-1990, the inflation rate for the previous 30 or so years had been around 5% on average (FWIW over the previous 40 years it had been around 4.3%; over the previous 20 years it had been roughly 6.3%; over the previous 10 years it had been 4.64%, and over the previous 5 years it had averaged 3.61%). A 3% ask for the annual COLA at the time was if anything LESS than what reasonably expected inflation would've been.

2. If the retirement benefit payout annual COLA for Tier 1 employees is 3% regardless (rather than "either 3% or actual inflation whichever is higher"...I believe it is indeed 3% regardless but I may be wrong on this) then over the past two years or so public employee pension payouts have in effect been cut by around 8% in real terms (if inflation comes out to 7% for 2022 like it did for 2021 then a 3% COLA is a 4% cut in real terms; 4% a year x 2 years is a roughly 8% cut). In any event, my understanding of the situation is that Tier 2 employee benefit COLAs are based on a different formula (IIRC either 3% or one half of CPI, whichever is less) which effectively means a guaranteed slow loss of purchasing power every year after retirement and is actually quite a bit less generous than the COLA of, say, Social Security.

Illinois property taxes do seem quite high vs the national average. From what I can see of it, though, a huge reason that property taxes are so high is due to having to pay for public pensions (IIRC about 24% or 25% so of some Illinois city and school district budgets are going to pension costs) but that a lot of that is not that all the public employee pensions were ridiculously generous per se but that pension systems had been underfunded more or less for decades (there were reports of underfunding happening as far back as the late 40s and early 50s)....and only weak or halfway attempts were made to fix this...whether it was the supposed "ramp up" (to try and catch up with the underfunding and to reach 90% funded or more by the early 2040s) that was started in the mid 1990s at a far too low rate (the state of Illinois ignored its own actuaries on this and acted like "yay, we are at almost 70% fully funded at the end of 1999" when anyone with a brain could see that much of that was an illusion unless you expected 20%+ stock market returns to continue in perpetuity and the dotcom bubble to never burst), or the "pension funding holidays" from 2005 to 2007, etc. Whether unionized or not, whether for private or public or nonprofit employees or any other kind of employees, when an employer underfunds a defined benefit pension for decades on end, well.....when all the costs of that underfunding come due it hits hard and all at once.

Besides, if Illinois public employee unions were so powerful the how come they couldn't prevent a post-2010 "Tier 2" pension system that on its face is so un-generous and stingy that it will--when people actually start retiring under it in the next 15-20 years--violate Federal law safe harbor provisions that state that while states/localities/municipalities/school districts can opt out of Social Security for their employees and run their own equivalent retirement benefit systems instead, the benefit calculation cannot be such that the benefit would be less than if the employee and employer had paid FICA taxes and the employee was covered under Social Security (which in an ironic--and eventually quite expensive--twist of fate means that unless the law changes at some future point, when these pensions start paying out, the state of Illinois--and for that matter any cities or school districts in Illinois with Tier 2 employees--will need to make a retroactive top up payment of 40 quarters worth of minimum FICA taxes for every Tier 2 employee in order to have those employees be covered under Social Security such that the safe harbor law is not violated). For that matter, the Tier 2 system benefits are actuarially a bit low relative to contributions; if you look at what the employer and employee are putting in together, the employer--i.e. the state or local gov't unit in Illinois--share plus about 7.3% of the employee's 9% share (i.e. the employee is paying 9% of salary in order to cover his/her share of pension funding based on the actuarially fair assumed lifetime of the average employee and on the assumed interest rate the pension fund will earn) actually goes to paying for the accruing future pension benefits of said employee; the other 1.7% or so is in effect going to pay for shoring up the system of benefits for Tier 1 (i.e. pre-1-1-2011) employees.

Finally, any state ideally should have a broadly diversified tax base; Illinois currently seems to have to heavily rely on property taxes because its current income tax top rate is only 4.95%...that's lower than the top rate in such (not exactly deep blue) states as Alabama, Georgia, Kansans, South Carolina, Nebraska, Iowa, Montana, and Idaho. And yes, am am well aware that this idea was voted down in 2020 but there was almost nothing in that amendment that would've lowered property taxes paid (with the exception of a tiny increase in the property tax credit from 5% to 6%....which if I am reading it correctly this would've only allowed a tax credit increase of, say, $240--vs $200 currently--for a person who was paying, say, $4,000 a year in property taxes). If you are going to increase income taxes in order to broaden the tax base--rather than increase them only to increase revenues--so that less of a percentage of state revenue is based simply on property taxation, a near dollar for dollar average reduction in property taxes should've been a focus of, say at least 1/3 or 1/2 of the projected increased revenue. Whether that took the form of a serious upping in the tax credit for property taxes, say, or a giant increase in the homestead exemption (in either case, something should also have been done to help reduce the property taxes indirectly paid by renters as well), or something else entirely, if the tax--even though it theoretically only would've increased income taxes on the top 3 or 4% of Illinoisans--was able to be promoted as a a "let's use this increase in the income tax rate to help reduce sky-high property taxes for Mr. and Ms. Average Illinois Taxpayer" rather than simply seen as "this is a tax increase" it likely would've had a higher chance of success. Of course, it also goes without saying that property taxes should ideally be shifted--not increased or decreased per se, but shifted--from being on both land value and building value to being mostly/largely on land value but that is another topic entirely.
D1984
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 730
Joined: Tue Aug 16, 2011 7:23 pm

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by D1984 » Sat Sep 10, 2022 10:58 pm

glennds wrote:
Sat Sep 10, 2022 5:29 pm
I thought it was interesting to see what union membership looks like around the world. In the global context, I'm not sure I'd call either the US or Illinois union heavy, at least in terms of membership. If unions have significant political influence that may be a different story.

BTW, I was surprised France wasn't higher. Also surprised that Mexico would be higher than the US national average.
The other thing that might make a difference is the breakdown between public and private sector unionization.
The reason France is so low is that in France (and for that matter Germany and in most Scandinavian countries as well) almost all labor contract bargaining is done on a sectoral basis rather than company-by-company (for snatcher, for the whole grocery retailing sector in a given nation or given state/subdivision of a nation rather than for Kroger, Safeway, Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, Tesco, Carrefour, etc on company-by-company or even a store-by-store basis); once a union has bargained for workers in a given sector and successfully gotten a contract, by labor law the contract terms apply to pretty much every worker in that sector, union or not.

Oh, and as for a place that is really "run by unions" Illinois doesn't hold an even barely flickering candle to Scandinavia. There was an instance back in 2019 where Finland's postal service tried to move just 700 workers into a new contract and new collective bargaining unit that effectively would've cut their compensation a bit; damn near every union in the country--starting with the postal, freight, transport,and warehousing sectors and spreading from there--eventually went on sympathy strike--or was preparing to do so--and within two weeks the whole country was virtually shut down except for absolutely essential workers; the whole affair eventually resulted in the downfall of a prime minister and his government losing power in the next election...all over something that only directly effected 700 unionized workers!

Come to think of it, I don't think many/most of the Scandinavian nations even have certain labor law features like minimum wages per se; the reason fast food workers earn $21 or $22 USD an hour there--and get six weeks paid vacation besides--is because of the strength and power of unions in those countries. See https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/20 ... o-denmark/ for an example of what happened when a company--in this case McDonald's--decided to F.A.F.O. this the hard way.
boglerdude
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 1313
Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2016 1:40 am
Contact:

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by boglerdude » Sun Sep 11, 2022 2:02 am

Public unions can agree to vote for candidate X, if candidate X gives them a raise. Any why not, tax dollars are unlimited. Starbucks can explain to the union that they'll all go broke if wages go over $X

How do we weaken public unions without violating freedom of assembly
User avatar
joypog
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 561
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2022 7:42 pm

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by joypog » Sun Sep 11, 2022 10:43 am

boglerdude wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 2:02 am
Public unions can agree to vote for candidate X, if candidate X gives them a raise. Any why not, tax dollars are unlimited. Starbucks can explain to the union that they'll all go broke if wages go over $X

How do we weaken public unions without violating freedom of assembly
Umm...without unions, candidate X can just promise to give all public employees a raise. Rent seeking is not exclusively a problem with unions.

I'm not a fan of public unions - its the one organization where I literally get to vote on my bosses...but the other citizens in this democracy need to do their damn job and show up at the polls and it should be pitifully easy to break unions if their interests do not align with the common good.
1/n weirdo. US-TSM, US-SCV, Intl-SCV, LTT, STT, GLD (+ a little in MF)
glennds
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 1265
Joined: Mon Jan 28, 2013 11:24 am

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by glennds » Sun Sep 11, 2022 12:13 pm

D1984 wrote:
Sat Sep 10, 2022 10:58 pm

The reason France is so low is that ........
D1984,
Thank you, that was informative. Some people like to think of us as a "shining city on a hill" in the US, in other words exceptional beyond comparison. But I find it useful to look at our issues in the context of other countries around the world, especially the G7.
glennds
Executive Member
Executive Member
Posts: 1265
Joined: Mon Jan 28, 2013 11:24 am

Re: Anybody got Beef with the Dispatch, Jonah Goldberg, David French etc.

Post by glennds » Sun Sep 11, 2022 1:28 pm

MangoMan wrote:
Sun Sep 11, 2022 12:37 pm

That logic is like: I'm shot in the leg and bleeding, but I shouldn't complain bc the guy lying on the ground next to me is shot in the stomach and probably going to die a long painful death.

And the striking is another reason to hate unions. Regular folks just get another job with a different employer if they don't like the pay or working conditions. As a small business owner, I have zero sympathy for organized labor.
Or the logic might be: the other guy has been shot in the leg and is bleeding, and you're wailing about your mosquito bite.

Seriously, my point is the severity of your situation is an opinion. If it is shared by enough of your fellow citizens, why aren't they changing it? I get that you're saying people are leaving in droves, but for those with roots, family, investment in Illinois that's not an option. So why isn't the status quo being voted out?
Because your opinion isn't shared by enough of your fellow citizens? Or is there some other reason?
Post Reply