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You do realize big business (the same people you allege to be against) LOVE when the country is flooded with more cheap labor (like you), right?
This elementary level stuff here, kris.
Nah, you're forgetting that big business is also against the minimum wage laws and other worker protections. Your boy in the White House is stoking your xenophobia with cheers while at the same time taking away your protections and rights....AND sending jobs out of the country (despite his protectionist rhetoric), which kind of circumvents all your wailing about foreigners coming to take your jobs. So who's the fool now?
All of the “liberal vs. conservative” stuff is a distraction.
Life is not a war between “liberals” and “conservatives,” life is a war between labor and big business. The sooner we Americans realize this, the sooner we can rebuild the middle class.
Big business loves cheap labor - flooding of America with millions of "legal" and illegal non-Americans.
So...are you with big business or not? If you think the flooding of America with non-Americans is good, you by definition are with big business (billionaires and millionaires).
Nope....membership has been on the steady decline since the 50's.
It certainly has declined since the 80's (20% then, 10% now), but to put it on Reagan is just silly.....
I wish he had busted them up even more than he did though......he just messed up the air traffic controllers, hardly a powerful union.
You can hardly call 10-20% of the country's workers the 'middle class'
When you have 20 Banking Lobbyist for every politician in Washington DC, the results are very predictable.
Corporate and Banking Lobbyists need to be thrown out of DC and the revolving door needs to be closed.
Actually, immigrants have actually ADDED to the economy and growth. Entrepreneurship is pretty high with recent Americans. Come to Silicon Valley and you'll see. Heck, I've done well BECAUSE most of my clientele are immigrant families.
Bigger factors that have hurt the middle class include regressive tax policies, weakening of labor unions, deregulation of the finance industry, and outsourcing --- none of which have to do with immigration policies.
Anything to stoke your nativist screeds doesn't necessarily lie with the facts and truth. Sorry, mate.
Actually, labor supply increase does effect strengths of unions but you are generally correct. Liberal immigration policies are good providing we choose the immigrants. The welfare state makes accepting the poor huddled masses economically unrealistic.
By liberal immigration policies I mean policies that allow high levels of legal immigrants. Not allowing everyone who sneaks in to stay n
Big business loves cheap labor - flooding of America with millions of "legal" and illegal non-Americans.
So...are you with big business or not? If you think the flooding of America with non-Americans is good, you by definition are with big business (billionaires and millionaires).
You can't have it both ways.
I never advocated for unlimited immigration, legal or otherwise. We may need some legal immigration to offset low birth rates, but I wouldn’t want it to be unlimited. We don’t want to flood the labor market.
Some grim realities and a little history lesson. The American middle class was really just a blip on the radar screen. It only last from the end of WWII 1945 to around 1970. Europe was destroyed and we were the only major steel, auto and other durable goods producers. No competition. There were strong unions that ensured reasonable wages, safe working conditions, healthcare and retirement benefits.
European and Asian economies recovered. Industry moved overseas. Union power declined. Why would manufactures bargain with unions if they could move production overseas with cheap labor and make more profit. By the 70's average American wages began a slow and steady decline.
American business is now mostly high skill high tech requiring specialized training and expertise. You're either one of the elites in Silicon Valley or some other high skill part of the country or flipping burgers for minimum wage at Burger King. And even flipping burgers can be robotized. Goodbye middle class it was nice knowing you.
Some grim realities and a little history lesson. The American middle class was really just a blip on the radar screen. It only last from the end of WWII 1945 to around 1970. Europe was destroyed and we were the only major steel, auto and other durable goods producers. No competition. There were strong unions that ensured reasonable wages, safe working conditions, healthcare and retirement benefits.
European and Asian economies recovered. Industry moved overseas. Union power declined. Why would manufactures bargain with unions if they could move production overseas with cheap labor and make more profit. By the 70's average American wages began a slow and steady decline.
American business is now mostly high skill high tech requiring specialized training and expertise. You're either one of the elites in Silicon Valley or some other high skill part of the country or flipping burgers for minimum wage at Burger King. And even flipping burgers can be robotized. Goodbye middle class it was nice knowing you.
Maybe their is some hyperbole going on here as well. Everyone I know is middle class from retirees to elementary school students. My kids and grandkids and all their extended families and all my friends and all their families as well. All of them are surviving with a roof over their head, clothing and food. They all have cell phones. The kids all play video games. They all have cable TV and the internet. The adults are all employed and making ends meet one way or the other. None are homeless or hungry. Their lifestyle is more luxurious than mine was in the 50's or 60's or my parents' were in the 30's and 40's. I think that is what the middle class is supposed to be. Maybe the middle class is as good or better than ever, but in comparison to the wealthy it just looks like we are getting screwed.
Some grim realities and a little history lesson. The American middle class was really just a blip on the radar screen. It only last from the end of WWII 1945 to around 1970. Europe was destroyed and we were the only major steel, auto and other durable goods producers. No competition. There were strong unions that ensured reasonable wages, safe working conditions, healthcare and retirement benefits.
European and Asian economies recovered. Industry moved overseas. Union power declined. Why would manufactures bargain with unions if they could move production overseas with cheap labor and make more profit. By the 70's average American wages began a slow and steady decline.
American business is now mostly high skill high tech requiring specialized training and expertise. You're either one of the elites in Silicon Valley or some other high skill part of the country or flipping burgers for minimum wage at Burger King. And even flipping burgers can be robotized. Goodbye middle class it was nice knowing you.
In general, yes.
Which is why it's postiively maddening to see the left just advocate for complete and unadulterated flooding of America with non-stop uneducated, indigent third-worlders.
What is going to happen in 50 years when the similarly low-skilled descendants of these people, now "citizens", don't want to do the janitorial jobs that have disappeared due to automation?
The fact that the self-eating Left cannot see this obvious reality is mortifying.
The Middle Class is an artificial construct.
Unions, more so than anything, lifted the masses onto the lower rungs of Middle Class and Europe in the US and Europe. That was swell so long as the US had very limited competition from the rest of the world.
Unions fought for “ living wage” ( whatever that means) all along. Like any collective body, anywhere, corruption sets in. And unions were certainly no exception.
Since the 70’s, technology substitution and industrial robotics have eliminated more jobs than offshoring.
Not all offshoring is equal. Setting up plants in foreign countries to employ local people to create and sell product to local people makes sense. That is the primary basis for multinational corporations.
Some grim realities and a little history lesson. The American middle class was really just a blip on the radar screen. It only last from the end of WWII 1945 to around 1970. Europe was destroyed and we were the only major steel, auto and other durable goods producers. No competition. There were strong unions that ensured reasonable wages, safe working conditions, healthcare and retirement benefits.
European and Asian economies recovered. Industry moved overseas. Union power declined. Why would manufactures bargain with unions if they could move production overseas with cheap labor and make more profit. By the 70's average American wages began a slow and steady decline.
American business is now mostly high skill high tech requiring specialized training and expertise. You're either one of the elites in Silicon Valley or some other high skill part of the country or flipping burgers for minimum wage at Burger King. And even flipping burgers can be robotized. Goodbye middle class it was nice knowing you.
The manufacturers have the freedom to move to cheap labor countries but we also have the right to ban their products from being sold here. I think many countries should work together to ban these manufacturers products from being sold across many countries as well.
They will have no one to sell to except the country they are in.
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