Are you sure that the "service" sectors (including Civil Servants) were not the first to feel this? The service sector I'm in, has had a 50% pay cut, over the last forty years, while the expertise necessary has risen tremendously as has the competition. The tremendous success of the live performing arts in New York City is killing the live arts all across the country. The Federal government is supporting only the large "too big to fail" organizations which is cutting the development base off at the knees. The labor is being imported largely from Asia and the old Soviet Union. National identity is faux European and serious Russian. You have more Russian works being done in the large arts organizations than American. One might think this is just peanuts but if you include all of the Arts and Entertainment sector, in New York City, it's second only to the Financial Sector which is the largest business in the city.
The yearly income both principal and secondary figures for the Arts and Entertainment in New York is 14 billion dollars a year. For every dollar invested by government in direct funding and tax write offs for the Arts and Entertainment Industry, $11 of business is stimulated throughout the economy. This factor is rarely taken into account in other industries as well. We are remarkably short term in our business thinking. For example, I had a surgeon voice student married to a financial wizard who advocates that what the medical profession should do is take a cut of all future earnings when they save a life since they made it possible. The idea of value is an unexplored country in our economic system. We are still limited to the simple-minded ideas of that nut with his addicted father J.S. Mill and the damaged Stanley Jevons. 19th century ideas of worth that have little to do with human potential, genuine growth, psycho-physical or spiritual values. The dollar since 1964 is eight to one. Just to keep up my fee would be $300 an hour. It's not even close and yet I teach the same amount, as my teachers, because artists have always taught for the development rather than for the costs. In the real entrepreneurial class you are only as good as your latest product. When it takes 12 to 15 years to develop someone that limits your ability to be flexible. Your reputation or as they say now, your "brand" is the only way you are able to recapitalize with the attrition rate. The current market understanding is so primitive that when Reagan did his tax write over he said that an art work couldn't be valued until it was sold. All over the country, private collectors reclaimed their art from museums because paintings and sculpture donated, with only the first sale from artists who became masters, were literally valued for the price of the paint and the canvas. That included van Gogh's "Irises" which was in a public museum built for it by the state of Maine. When the owner family understood that they would get no serious deduction for the donation because it had been purchased for so little when it came to this country, they reclaimed the painting and sold it at auction for the highest price of any painting in history. This was repeated all over the country until the Jewish accountant Ruben Gorewitz went to Congress and persuaded them to value what was truly valuable. After Reagan made the mistake with the Arts he commissioned a study on the value of the National Endowment of Arts. That eleven dollar figure is from his study. While the GOP wanted to cut the NEA, Reagan resisted because of the stimulating factor and because as former President of the Screen Actors Guild he knew the neo-classical economic hicks were stupid about how valuable to the export economy the Arts were. Movies were and may still be the highest grossing exports with the highest productivity of any American business according (to the late Edward Deming). REH -----Original Message----- REHFrom: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Spencer Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2012 1:14 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [Futurework] Re: FW: [CITASA] Seeking a recommendation of a reading on socialstratification About: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/09/04/opinion/04reich-graphic.html I asked: me> Nice graphic. Okay, what happened in 1977 or '78, represented by me> the kink in '79 - '80 and the subsequent downward trend in me> compensation/wages and the corresponding migration of money upwards me> in the social strata? Mike G wrote: > I would hazard a guess that what happened in 1977/78 was that the > productivity impacts of computing began to kick in... Mainframes were > being implemented in the '60's in mega-corps but by the '70's the > smaller but still large companies which probably would benefit most > from the automation of record keeping (for example) were getting > automated with mini-computers. I mention this Peggy and she suggested that '77 or'78 was when off-shoring production really got on a roll. Yes, we've had Japanese and Taiwanese products since the 50s, VW went big on the 60s and so on. But wasn't it about then than the US began to slack off on production? Clothing and shoes, electronics, cars and parts for domestic products, housewares.... Did something significant happen in finance or financeial regulation about then? OTOH, I don't know what "productivity" really means beyond the vague notion of some measure of gross profit or "product" vs. wages and salaries paid. - Mike _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
