I recall years ago seeing the impact of IT on the workforce. The smarter the machine the dumber need be the worker. Simply stated the intelligence and ways of knowing residing in workers could be transferred to smart machines of all types, courtesy of software. What were the implications of IT for organized labour? I was in touch with the chief economist at the AFL CIO and suggested that the unions might want to understand/investigate the role of IT and the future of organized labour. Reply: Not interested. I was surprised and wondered Why. Why weren't they interested. So with little interest by unions and with a growing cultural push to discredit unions we see the decline of organized labour and I think this became one factor in the middle class stagnation. Why did the unions give up hard won gains?
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2010 9:30 AM To: [email protected]; RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] [Ottawadissenters] Ultra-rich getting richerwhile middle class stagnates I'd have to reread parts of Hacker and Pierson to give you a good answer, Harry, but I believe their argument is that the rich got richer by maneuvering things in their favour. Via legislative and other means, they moved power toward themselves and with that power came wealth. Tax cuts for the rich, part of trickle down economics, came into being under Ronald Reagan. Unions, once a very powerful force, declined into being almost impotent. Lobbying played a significant role in moving political matters to favour the rich. Under a Supreme Court ruling corporations in which the super-rich play a major ownership role can now virtually buy members of the House and Senate by funding their elections. I'd better stop before I put myself into the role of having to reread the book. Do read it yourself, Harry. It's well worth it. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Harry Pollard <mailto:[email protected]> To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION,EDUCATION' <mailto:[email protected]> ; [email protected] Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 11:13 PM Subject: Re: [Futurework] [Ottawadissenters] Ultra-rich getting richerwhile middle class stagnates Points well taken, Ed. How exactly did they become mega-rich - or even just rich? Just how was the wealth shifted? Harry From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Thursday, December 02, 2010 7:33 AM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Futurework] [Ottawadissenters] Ultra-rich getting richer while middle class stagnates I posted something on the American situation re this a few weeks ago. Here's some of what I said: I've been reading "Winner-Take-All Politics" by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, two political scientists. Hacker and Pierson examine the period from the 1970s to the present and find a very large shift wealth from the bottom and middle classes of American society to the uppermost classes. While all classes gained some income between 1979 and 2006, the incomes of the top one percent of all recipients increased by 256%! By 2007, the richest one percent received some 23% of all of the income earned or accruing to Americans. Along with this upward redistribution, the power of unions diminished, unemployment rose and the political clout of the middle class faded away. We Canadians like to look upon our neighbors to the south with a little disdain. Hey, we're not like that, we tell ourselves. Well, perhaps we are, at least a little. Hacker and Pierson have a chart that shows that Canada's top income recipients were not very far behind their US counterparts between 1973 and 2000. During that period, the share of income held by the US top one percent rose from about 7% to about 16%, whereas in Canada it rose from over 8% to over 12%. I'd have to take another look at Hacker and Pierson, but what they were arguing is that the ultra-rich have spent a lot of time rigging the p0litical process to suit their purposes. Increasingly, members of Congress have been working in their interests and not in those of the population as a whole. It matters little to them that the country as a whole is on a downward economic slope. What matters is that their power and wealth increases. Things are not quite like that in Canada yet, but we may be heading in the same general direction. It seems that wealth and power have become the game, and not the common good. Ed ----- Original Message ----- From: Michael Gurstein <mailto:[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 5:12 PM Subject: RE: [Ottawadissenters] Ultra-rich getting richer while middle class stagnates I guess what I don't understand here is exactly why this has been happening... Is it: a. a consequence of the new (open) trade arrangements b. an indirect effect of the digitized workplace/logistical infrastructure c. "subversion" of the political system by the ultra-wealthy to change the tax (?)/regulatory (?) structure to suit themselves d. a bi-product of the "class war" (a la Warren Buffett) between the working and middle/lower middle class vs. the upper middle and upper class (being won by the latter... e. other? Second question: why has this to date caused little or no reaction: a. the ownership of the media by the ultra-rich b. sufficient spoils all round as a result of the post-war long peace c. false consciousness by the non-ultra rich whose life style has improved as a result of increased instensification of labour (women in the work force etc. d. other? M -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John Verdon Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2010 12:40 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Ottawadissenters] Ultra-rich getting richer while middle class stagnates Arthur you might enjoy Umair Haque's latest blog post http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2010/11/the_irish_banking_crisis_a_par.html?utm_s ource=feedburner <http://blogs.hbr.org/haque/2010/11/the_irish_banking_crisis_a_par.html?utm_ source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness%2Fhaq ue+%28Umair+Haque+on+HBR.org%29&utm_content=Google+International> &utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness%2Fhaque+%28Umair+Haque +on+HBR.org%29&utm_content=Google+International On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 2:01 PM, Arthur Cordell <[email protected]> wrote: Ultra-rich getting richer while middle class stagnates, report says OTTAWA - Canada has entered a 1920s-like Gilded Age, where the super-rich consolidate their wealth while the middle class stagnates. That's the conclusion of a new study based on income-tax forms filed up until 2007, showing that the richest one per cent of Canadians took home 13.8 per cent of all incomes claimed that year. The share of total income going to the richest of the rich has risen steadily since the early 1980s, reversing a long-term trend toward a more equal distribution of the country's income during the postwar '50s, '60s and '70s, the study says. "The higher up the ladder you go, the more colossal this glomming of wealth becomes," author Armine Yalnizyan, senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said in an interview. Her paper, to be released Wednesday, is based on unpublished tax form data crunched by Mike Veall, an economics professor at McMaster University in Hamilton. The numbers show that the richest one per cent quickly gained ground in Canada between 1925 and 1935. It was the era epitomized by the writings of Horatio Alger - the days of rags to riches, when millions of poor North Americans believed they could strike it rich. "Like the Gilded Age a century ago, Canada is awash in money generated by an emerging new global economy," Yalnizyan writes. "During both slow and rapid periods of growth, incomes have increasingly become concentrated in the hands of the elite few rather than creating greater prosperity for all." The inequality gap of the '20s and early '30s eventually collapsed and then switched direction with the Second World War, narrowing and steadily declining until about 1982. Since then, the super-rich have gradually claimed larger and larger pieces of the total income pie. "Most Canadians are inching their way through recovery, trying to hang on to what they've got," Yalnizyan writes. "But for some Canadians, things have never been so good." The higher up the income scale, the more dramatic the gains. For the richest one per cent, the share of all Canadian incomes almost doubled between the late 1970s and 2007. For the richest 0.1 per cent of tax files, their total share almost tripled during those 20 years. And for the creme-de-la-creme - the richest 0.01 per cent making more than $640,000 a year - their share of total incomes more than quintupled. The trends shown in the tax data are undeniable, analysts say. What is in question, however, is why the trends are so relentless, whether they are cause for concern, and what the appropriate public-policy response should be. "It's best data we have on the issue," said Andrew Sharpe, executive director of the Centre for the Study of Living Standards. "The key issue is, what's driving this?" Yalnizyan's study shows that the super-rich are increasingly reliant on their wages - much like the rest of us. That hasn't always been the case. In the 1940s, for example, the top income-earners were mainly entrepreneurs who made it rich directly from the proceeds of their businesses. In other words, the super-rich in Canada are mainly the top executives of large companies who are being well compensated by their boards and shareholders. At the same time, the income tax regime has not kept up with the super-sized salaries of the ultra-rich, Yalnizyan says, so they're able to retain more of their earnings. There's no solid explanation for why executives are being so well paid, especially when wages for most other sectors of the economy have stagnated. A similar phenomenon can be seen in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and especially the United States, said Veall at McMaster. But non-English-speaking countries such as France and Italy don't show the same inequality gap. While some researchers believe the super-rich are beneficiaries of advancing technology in a global economy, the discrepancies between countries undermine that theory, Veall said. Corporate governance structures in English-speaking countries may offer a partial explanation, but there too, there's no reason why the trend would suddenly change in the early 1980s, he said. Long-time policy guru Peter Nicholson - who published his own analysis on an earlier version of the income-tax findings - suspects the numbers speak to a cultural shift. "Corporate chieftains have entered the realm that was formally reserved for sports stars and rock stars," Nicholson said. In his earlier paper, Nicholson warned of social unrest if the trend towards increasing inequality were to persist. The trend has indeed persisted, but Nicholson said any backlash would likely start in the United States, where the inequality is far more exacerbated than here in Canada. There, public discontent over large salaries going to bankers who nearly brought down the global financial system and required taxpayer-funded bailouts has simmered down somewhat. More concerning, said Nicholson and other researchers, is that Canadians have no firm grasp on why the super-rich are increasingly in an untouchable league of their own. "At least you have to understand why this is happening. Is it fair, or is it a good thing?" Excerpted from Ultra-rich getting richer while middle class stagnates, report says - Winnipeg Free Press http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/ultra-rich-getting-rich er-while-middle-class-stagnates-report-says-111096344.html -- John Verdon 4 Ashbury Place Ottawa, ON K1M1H3 voice 613-744-4278 searching for the pattern which connects.... knowing the difference that makes a difference... Sapere Aude - The true is the whole. 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