----- Original Message ----- From: "Nick Arnett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2004 9:02 AM Subject: Re: Br!n: some thoughts and quotes.
> Dan Minette wrote: > > > Actually, not. Its fairly standard stuff for ecconomists. We could ask > > Brad Delong (who is a list member and fairly liberal) but IIRC, I've read > > stuff of his indicating that productivity growth is the foundation of real, > > non-inflationary growth. > > Only if wages keep up with it. At least one set of statistics for the > last 25 years or so says that productivity was up 52 percent, while > hourly average wages dropped 10 percent. The growth is there, even if the distribution is not. There are two seperatable questions: the creation of wealth and the distribution of wealth. > This adds up, literally, to a large and ongoing transfer of wealth to > employers, doesn't it? And hardly threatens inflation! Average wages for hourly workers are down about 10%. Fixed salries are up. On the whole, I think pay can be seen as fairly stagnent over the last 25 years. Its not a transfer of wealth; its a problem with the distribution of newly created wealth. You can see, from '40 to '75, that the increases in productivity were matched with increases in wages. Around '75, that stopped. But, that has nothing to do with the fact that increases in productivity are good. Without them, there wouldn't be additional wealth to distribute. Productivity actually creates wealth. If someone wants to argue with that, OK, but I think that is fairly easily proven. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
