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The income of the middle class grew dramatically during the 1940s and 1950s, because of an expanded government and inflation was outpaced by middle class income gains. Those were the golden years for the middle class. It was the time when that expanded government spent more on public education and programs that helped the masses. Eisenhower did not cut back those programs. He honored them, as his below quote states.
Reality:
The income of the WHITE middle class grew dramatically during the 1940s and 1950s....it was a time when white males ruled the roost, over females and minorities. This period of so-called prosperity was hardly prosperity for all.
Government defense spending was in the range of 10% of GDP at the time, more than double what it is now. How much manufacturing was tied to defense then? How much of the middle class worked for the government?
Are corporate profits breaking records? As a percentage of revenue?
Productivity is usually reported as something like revenue per employee. How much of that is simply because our economic output is more associated today with high technology, higher margin business like information technology instead of lower margin businesses such as manufacturing?
If the MW had kept pace with corporate profits the MW today would be $450 an hour. If corporate profits aren't breaking records then those records are damn high
Glad Hostess is back; don't care for the Republican way
Shame that that unions have to exist to force companies to take care of their workers. Companies should pay great wages, give great benefits, ensure job security, maintain excellent working conditions, and shun foreign labor as a matter of course.
Republicans don't want unions, which as usual, is the opposite of what is right. 97% of the executives in this country are white. Republicans would like to keep it that way. They want wages to be as low as possible so that they can maximize profits and keep the execs fat, dumb, and happy. They don't want to be regulated, so they can discriminate and preserve the good ol boy network, hire foreign labor on the cheap, give lousy benefits, and cut corners in making the inferior product. What a tragic joke that ideology continually shows itself to be.
I support Unions. The goals they represent are right. I hope they gain strength, as Republicans continue to implode, lose elections, and show their utter worthlessness in this society.
You know why they are doing that? And believe me you, it's not because the Japanese are charitable people. They are paying decent wages, although if they were unionized it would be higher, in order to prevent unionization from happening in the first place. On the street it's called throwing a bone to placate the workers.
Most important lesson to be learned here, is that when huge union demands are destroying your business, the way to get rid of them is to declare bankruptcy and shut down. Then you can reopen under new management... rid of the union thugs.
BTW, were you wondering why Obama etc. bailed out GM instead of letting it go bankrupt? They would have reopened a short time afterward, you know, under new management. And gone right back to making cars, with the same employees if they wanted the jobs.
But the unions would never have voted massively for Obama again.
Shame that that unions have to exist to force companies to take care of their workers. Companies should pay great wages, give great benefits, ensure job security, maintain excellent working conditions, and shun foreign labor as a matter of course.
Republicans don't want unions, which as usual, is the opposite of what is right. 97% of the executives in this country are white. Republicans would like to keep it that way. They want wages to be as low as possible so that they can maximize profits and keep the execs fat, dumb, and happy. They don't want to be regulated, so they can discriminate and preserve the good ol boy network, hire foreign labor on the cheap, give lousy benefits, and cut corners in making the inferior product. What a tragic joke that ideology continually shows itself to be.
I support Unions. The goals they represent are right. I hope they gain strength, as Republicans continue to implode, lose elections, and show their utter worthlessness in this society.
The union won. They drove Hostess to declare bankruptcy and all those union members were set free to look for new jobs.
Why the angst ?
That's called a race to the bottom until American workers make as little as the lowest foreign worker. It's also why corporate profits are breaking records while worker pay is stagnant.
It is amazing to me that the official conservative position where it concerns workers is to cheer low pay and crappy benefits. Unions increase the pay and benefits of workers when compared to non union workers doing the same job.
conservatives explicitly make this argument of greedy unions demanding too much.
It is truly amazing to read conservatives when it concerns American workers.
They drove Hostess to declare bankruptcy and all those union members were set free to look for new jobs.
Leave it to a Texan to re-write history ... without regard for accuracy.
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Glad Hostess is back; don't care for the Republican way
