# MSNBC distorts post-debate poll results to falsely depict Ron Paul as just barely win



## Arnold (Sep 8, 2011)

*MSNBC distorts post-debate poll results to falsely depict Ron Paul as just barely winning*
_by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger_

(NaturalNews) A post-debate poll shown on MSNBC.com reveals Ron Paul to be the landslide winner of the internet survey, capturing 43.5% of the votes on the question, "Who do you think won the Republican debate at the Reagan library?"

The next closest candidate, Mitt Romney, received just 21.5% of the votes, or almost exactly half the number of votes received by Ron Paul. You might expect Mitt Romney's graph bar, therefore, to be half the size of Ron Paul's right? Nope. These poll results, it turns out, have been radically distorted to diminish the apparent lead of Ron Paul in the poll.

The poll results shown on MSNBC.com are depicted with a horizontal bar for each candidate. The bar lengths are proportional for all other candidates except for Ron Paul, whose bar has been shortened by nearly half in order to falsely depict Ron Paul as being just "barely ahead" of Mitt Romney.

(Note: The live URL at MSNBC may have changed since I wrote this story, which is why I posted my screen capture below. It was taken at 12:30 a.m. on September 8, 2011, and is not edited in any way other than the make it fit on this page.)

As you can see from the screen shot (below), this deliberate shortening of the Ron Paul bar was reserved solely for him, as all the rest of the candidates have accurate bar lengths. For example Rick Perry, who received 16.4% of the votes, has a bar that's roughly twice as long as Jon Huntsman, who received 7.8%.

And Huntsman's bar is roughly twice as long as that of Newt Gingrich, who received 4% of the votes. In fact, all the bars are accurate in the depiction of the pole except for Ron Paul's. His has been artificially shortened.

It's yet another example of the malicious dirty tricks being used against Ron Paul by the mainstream media which has gone out of its way to smear this man in every way possible, including distorting survey results in a way that makes them visually misleading. In reality, Ron Paul is the landslide favorite because Americans are waking up and realizing there is no candidate running for President (from either party) that has the integrity and 100% constitutional track record of Rep. Ron Paul.

No wonder the media has to cheat and lie to try to destroy this guy. If given an honest shot at the presidency, without the black box voting fraud and media smear campaigns, Ron Paul would undoubtedly win in a landslide.

*Here's the screen shot I took early in the morning on September 8, 2011:*







Learn more: MSNBC distorts post-debate poll results to falsely depict Ron Paul as just barely winning


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## Big Smoothy (Sep 8, 2011)

Good thread Prince, because I was thinking about this too after seeing the MSNBC "interpretation."

I watched the debates _2 times._ By watching it twice I can more easily detect the common obfuscation and avoidance of questions politicians make. 

Afterwards I saw the MSNBC "anaylysis" by some "talking-heads" including Chris Matthews.

My perception _was very different from theirs._

Some B.S. today.  Telling us was what explicitly said or meant - let us decide, jerk-offs.

Almost everyone in the media has an agenda.


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## dogsoldier (Sep 8, 2011)

That was one of the worst moderated "debates" I ever saw.  It was more like the Romney-Perry Show.  Cain, Santorum and Paul had to jam themselves in. Newt and Bachmann were pretty much cold shouldered. Sorry, but in terms of journalism, MSNBC just flat blew it.


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 8, 2011)

Ron Paul makes more since in 5 minutes than all those guys in an hour!!


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 8, 2011)

dogsoldier said:


> That was one of the worst moderated "debates" I ever saw.  It was more like the Romney-Perry Show.  Cain, Santorum and Paul had to jam themselves in. Newt and Bachmann were pretty much cold shouldered. Sorry, but in terms of journalism, MSNBC just flat blew it.




I agree....it was


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## myCATpowerlifts (Sep 9, 2011)

Shitty bastards.

I went to the website, and now R.P. is WAY out in the lead.

GO BoyEEEEE


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## myCATpowerlifts (Sep 9, 2011)

First Read - Who do you think won the Republican debate at the Reagan library?


VOTE RON PAUL BITCHESz


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 9, 2011)

ive been rooting for Ron Paul for a long ass time.   I hope to god he gets president.


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## FUZO (Sep 10, 2011)

Not to burst anyones bubbles but I dont think Ron Paul has a chance


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## dogsoldier (Sep 10, 2011)

FUZO said:


> Not to burst anyones bubbles but I dont think Ron Paul has a chance



No bubble busting here. He is the exception to the power structure. RP doesn't stand a chance for many reasons, the main being 1) He understand the Constitution and wants to see it applied properly, 2) Too many people have been weened off of what our government was really supposed to be. 3) The political power structure, both left and right, will no go away.  Giving up political class power is what being a Constitutionalist is all about.

ANd as much as I like RP's message, he has gotten too old. Now he sounds like your crazy uncle with ADD. Smart as hell, fun to be around, but you never know what is going to come out of his mouth at the supper table.


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## Gissurjon (Sep 10, 2011)

Woodrow1 said:


> Ron Paul makes more *since* in 5 minutes than all those guys in an hour!!



Is this the Texas educational system at work?


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 10, 2011)

dogsoldier said:


> No bubble busting here. He is the exception to the power structure. RP doesn't stand a chance for many reasons, the main being 1) He understand the Constitution and wants to see it applied properly, 2) Too many people have been weened off of what our government was really supposed to be. 3) The political power structure, both left and right, will no go away.  Giving up political class power is what being a Constitutionalist is all about.
> 
> ANd as much as I like RP's message, he has gotten too old. Now he sounds like your crazy uncle with ADD. Smart as hell, fun to be around, but you never know what is going to come out of his mouth at the supper table.




WTF does age have to do with anything? lol  seriously?  He has been preaching the EXACT same shit for decades.

I don't get how he sounds crazy either....   To me the other candidates sound crazy.   Ron Paul is as American as it gets.  

You already said it.  Americans are used to how the presidents have run things in the past half of a century. Ron Paul is wanting to run things by the constitution....when this nation was founded.   How is that crazy compared to the asshats that are running against him?

Ron Paul has been winning a fuck load of polls and a lot of them by a landslide.......he stands a chance and I hope to god he gets it because our nation needs it.   Rick Perry, Romney, Bachman and Obama will only dig this country further into the hole.


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## LAM (Sep 11, 2011)

Woodrow1 said:


> You already said it.  Americans are used to how the presidents have run things in the past half of a century. Ron Paul is wanting to run things by the constitution....when this nation was founded.   How is that crazy compared to the asshats that are running against him?
> 
> Ron Paul has been winning a fuck load of polls and a lot of them by a landslide.......he stands a chance and I hope to god he gets it because our nation needs it.   Rick Perry, Romney, Bachman and Obama will only dig this country further into the hole.



the US constitution was written in the late 1700's and it's now 2011.  so to say that he wants to run things "by the Constitution" really doesn't mean anything.  one of the inherit problems with language is that words are abstractions of reality and they must be interpreted in order to be applied to the real world.  that being the case words are only approximations of shared meanings.   the Constitution minus the bill of rights is not a long document at all only a tad over 4500 words, it is very vague written like a standard legal document of that time.  this was intentional as many legal documents are open to interpretation.

the constitution isn't even the real problem it's the combination of extensive lobbying and campaign finance in the US that's corrupted democracy. but this is all part of the neo-liberal agenda to have a representative government that "appears" democratic in nature but functions only to serve businesses and the markets.  and with trillions of dollars to be made in upcoming decades nobody is going to change this.

he also has some really bad ideas like getting rid of the federal minimum wage, which is what the neo-cons want which means it's def bad for those on the receiving end of that policy change.  it needs to be increased not lowered as just every economist in the US and world has stated, and what all the data shows.

in the grand scene of things Ron Paul is nothing but a congressman with a lot of ideas that can never be acted on.  many of his ideas would be counter productive to the financial sector, etc. so he will never see the inside of 1600 PA Ave.


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

Minimum wage is a pretty bad policy.  You should probably go ready why.  Don't count Ron Paul out just because you don't understand why his idea is a good one.

From what i've researched... most economists believe that minimum wage laws cause unnecessary hardship for the very people they are supposed to help.   Which they do...   



Here....go read some articles on it.  

The Minimum Wage: Good Intentions, Bad Results | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty
Articles & Commentary
Raising the Minimum Wage Is Bad for the Poor and for Business Owners - Vote Down Issue 2 on Nov. 7 | Right Remedy
http://www.balancedpolitics.org/minimum_wage.htm (this is a good one)

Hell.....just Google "Why minimum wage is bad"....   Read the articles...some have proven studies of why minimum wage is a horrible idea.  If you still think it should be raised, then you still don't understand.  





The vast majority of economists believe the minimum wage law costs               the economy thousands of jobs.
Teenagers, workers in training, college students, interns, and part-time workers all have their options                      and opportunities limited by the minimum wage.
A low-paying job remains an entry point for those with few marketable skills.
Abolishing the minimum wage will allow businesses to achieve greater efficiency and lower prices.
When you force American companies to pay a certain wage, you increase the likelihood that those companies                 will outsource jobs to foreign workers, where labor is much cheaper.
Non-profit charitable organizations are hurt by the minimum wage.
The minimum wage can drive some small companies out of business.
A minimum wage gives businesses an additional incentive to mechanize duties previously held by humans.
Cost-of-living differences in various areas of the country make a universal minimum wage difficult to set.
Elimination of the minimum wage would mean more citizens and fewer illegals would be hired for low-pay hourly                  jobs, leading to greater tax revenues and less incentive for illegal immigration.
The minimum wage creates a competitive advantage for foreign companies, providing yet another obstacle in                 the ability of American companies to compete globally.
The minimum wage law is just another example of government condescendingly controlling our actions and                 destroying personal choice. Citizens do have the ability to say _no_ to a lower wage.


 In 2009, thanks in large part to a higher minimum             wage, brought the national  teenage unemployment rate soaring--over 25%!


Looks like a bad policy to me...







Also when i say by the constitution I mean more or less for liberty and freedom.  A lot of policies/regulations cross that line and cost this nation hardship.....minimum wage being one of those policies.


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## Chubby (Sep 11, 2011)

Woodrow1 said:


> Abolishing the minimum wage will allow businesses to achieve greater efficiency and lower prices.
> When you force American companies to pay a certain wage, you increase the likelihood that those companies will outsource jobs to foreign workers, where labor is much cheaper.


If minimum wage is too expensive for American companies, how much lower wages do you think these companies should pay to the workers? One dollar per hour or 50 cents per hour?


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## Gissurjon (Sep 11, 2011)

Woodrow1 said:


> Minimum wage is a pretty bad policy.  You should probably go ready why.  Don't count Ron Paul out just because you don't understand why his idea is a good one.
> 
> From what i've researched... most economists believe that minimum wage laws cause unnecessary hardship for the very people they are supposed to help.   Which they do...
> 
> ...



so let me get this straight. Instead of paying someone 7.25 an hour (which is not enough to live on) they pay 2 workers 3.60 and hour. That is the idea right? the company can pay less and hire more?

So if you can't live of 7.25, what in the world makes people think that 3.60 an hour is going to be beneficial just because *more *people are making 3.60 than were making 7.25. 

please explain how this is going to work? nobody who supports your opinion has been able to so far.


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## danzik17 (Sep 11, 2011)

Woodrow1 said:


> Ron Paul has been winning a fuck load of polls and a lot of them by a landslide.......he stands a chance and I hope to god he gets it because our nation needs it..



Wining polls doesn't mean anything until election time.  The same thing happened back in 2008 with Ron Paul demolishing other candidates in various straw polls, internet polls, etc.., and yet he didn't even win the primary.

It's unfortunate that this is true, however he needs the backing of the media in order to be competitive which he obviously is not getting.


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## Gissurjon (Sep 11, 2011)

"The Bible  speaks to this issue of wages. John the Baptist commanded workers to “be  content with your wages.” Coveting wealth that God hasn’t given you is a  transgression of the tenth commandment, and according to Colossians,  covetousness is idolatry. "

This is from one of the articles woodrow posted.

seriously? dude seriously? this is what you back your opinion with? 

What about the slaves? they should have been cool with room and board? after all, that is a form of payment right?

When someone goes into justifying paying people little with the bible (as the author did) I'm forced to completely disregard their argument


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

Chubby said:


> If minimum wage is too expensive for American companies, how much lower wages do you think these companies should pay to the workers? One dollar per hour or 50 cents per hour?



I doubt anyone would go for that...   If the minimum wage was abolished it doesnt mean everyone would start paying less than minimum wage....  Of course some will that think the job isnt worth 7.25 or whatever minimum wage is....or can't afford it.  This is one reason small businesses aren't thriving..   People also have a right to choose thier pay also

For instance....I know NO ONE that makes minimum wage.  Everyone i know makes a good amount more.  Most people that make minimum wage are entry level teenagers. Hell even the entry level teenagers i know make more than minimum wage..    Not many companies would change anything.  Smaller businesses most likely..


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

Gissurjon said:


> "The Bible  speaks to this issue of wages. John the Baptist commanded workers to ???be  content with your wages.??? Coveting wealth that God hasn???t given you is a  transgression of the tenth commandment, and according to Colossians,  covetousness is idolatry. "
> 
> This is from one of the articles woodrow posted.
> 
> ...



I back my opinion with facts.  Look at the articles....a lot of them have proven studies on the cons of minimum wage...

Just because one article had a bible quote doesn't mean my entire argument is backed behind the bible.   Thats a stupid statement.


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

danzik17 said:


> Wining polls doesn't mean anything until election time.  The same thing happened back in 2008 with Ron Paul demolishing other candidates in various straw polls, internet polls, etc.., and yet he didn't even win the primary.
> 
> It's unfortunate that this is true, however he needs the backing of the media in order to be competitive which he obviously is not getting.



Ron Paul lost miserably on every single pre-election poll back then... 

Ron Paul Polls - Biography & 2008 Presidential Election Polls


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

Gissurjon said:


> so let me get this straight. Instead of paying someone 7.25 an hour (which is not enough to live on) they pay 2 workers 3.60 and hour. That is the idea right? the company can pay less and hire more?
> 
> So if you can't live of 7.25, what in the world makes people think that 3.60 an hour is going to be beneficial just because *more *people are making 3.60 than were making 7.25.
> 
> please explain how this is going to work? nobody who supports your opinion has been able to so far.




Pay less.  More businesses thrive, more people have jobs, products & services prices go down. Economy goes up.  Cost of living goes down. Taxes can go down.

No they can't really live like that NOW....now that the economy is complete shit because of retarded policies & regulations just like this one.  But if all of Ron Paul's ideas were in place and the economy was flourishing again, then yes....easily..

A lot more to it than just abolishing minimum wage though...  Thats just one small piece of the pie.   You guys obviously don't listen to Ron Pauls message thoroughly.


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## Zaphod (Sep 11, 2011)

Woodrow1 said:


> Minimum wage is a pretty bad policy.  You should probably go ready why.  Don't count Ron Paul out just because you don't understand why his idea is a good one.
> 
> From what i've researched... most economists believe that minimum wage laws cause unnecessary hardship for the very people they are supposed to help.   Which they do...
> 
> ...



1.  If this were true then unemployment would have made a huge jump each time minimum wage were raised.  That never happened.  Being an economist doesn't make one in touch with reality.

2.  No, they don't.  Name one instance of this.

3.  A low paying job isn't an entry point.  It's a low paying job.  

4.  Minimum wage has not kept up with the cost of living.  Where are the low prices that should be passed on to the consumer?  The extra profit gets funneled to a select few people that are already making a shit-ton of money.  

5.  Untrue.  When companies are given tax breaks for shipping jobs out of the country that is when they are more likely to ship jobs out.  The cost of importing manufactured goods from Mexico and Canada being reduced by NAFTA can easily be considered the biggest hit to the US worker.  The lower costs of those same manufactured goods hasn't been passed on to the consumer.  Those extra profits have been funneled to a select few people.  

6.  No, the aren't.  That's a claim made by the senior management of those charities who already draw deep into the seven digit income bracket and want more.  That's what hurts non-profits.  Imagine how much more efficient those non-profits could be and how much more they could do if the pay of the top guy was reduced to 1/8 what it currently is and the excess was used to hire more people that do the real work.

7.  Just another wild claim by those that only stand to profit more by paying people less.  What is really damaging to small companies is when regular people can't afford to frequent those places because their prices are going to be a bit higher than larger stores and chain stores because they don't have the buying power from suppliers.  The people with little money in their pocket need to go where the prices are lowest rather than help the local economy by going to the local mom & pop shop.  

8.  No, it doesn't.  Do you have any idea the cost of replacing people with machines?  The cost would take years to be recouped if replacing a minimum wage worker with a machine.  

9.  No, it doesn't.  It's quite easily done.  Set it at $X amount and there you have it:  A minimum wage.  

10.  Not at all.  Illegals would be taking even MORE jobs because the average US citizen can't live on $3/hour.  

11.  No, it doesn't.  It cripples the single largest market in the world because people in the US would suddenly see a drop in income further reducing sales in what is still the single largest market in the world.  

12.  It doesn't destroy personal choice.  It destroys companies being able to take advantage of people.  

Rich people telling you what good monetary policy for the country is certainly isn't going to benefit you or me.  It's only going to benefit them.


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

Zaphod said:


> 1.  If this were true then unemployment would have made a huge jump each time minimum wage were raised.  That never happened.  Being an economist doesn't make one in touch with reality.
> 
> IT DID!  I mentioned it already in the very post you qouted!
> 
> ...






You should really read up man. These are all FACTS proved by statistics.


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## LAM (Sep 11, 2011)

Woodrow1 said:


> Minimum wage is a pretty bad policy.  You should probably go ready why.  Don't count Ron Paul out just because you don't understand why his idea is a good one.
> 
> From what i've researched... most economists believe that minimum wage laws cause unnecessary hardship for the very people they are supposed to help.   Which they do...
> 
> ...




Global Wage Report 2008 / 09
Minimum wages and collective bargaining
Towards policy coherence

http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_100786.pdf

Page 59: 

Summary (It was to long to cut & paste the entire thing)

"Altogether this report has presented a rather disappointing picture for wage earners, despite an apparently favourable economic context. Over the period 2001???07, inflation was low and the global economy grew at 4.0 per cent per year in real terms. The growth in wages, however, lagged behind overall economic performance. According to our estimates, real wages only grew by an estimated 1.9 per cent during 2001???07, notwithstanding
the impressive recovery in some current and former transitions countries. For the countries included in our sample, we found that over the period 1995???2007, each additional 1 per cent in the annual growth of GDP per capita only led, on average, to a 0.75 per cent increase in the annual growth of wages. There are some preliminary indications that this wage elasticity (the responsiveness of wage increases to changes in GDP growth) has further weakened in recent years. These trends occurred in a context
of growing economic integration, characterized by the increasing international movement of people, goods, services and capital.

The slow growth in wages was accompanied by a decline in the share of GDP
distributed to wages compared with profi ts. We estimate that every additional 1 per cent of annual growth of GDP has been associated on average with a 0.05 per cent decrease in the wage share. We also found that the wage share has declined faster in countries with a higher openness to international trade, possibly because openness places a lid on
wage demands based on a fear of losing jobs to imports. Inequality among workers has also increased. Overall, more than two-thirds of the countries included in our sample experienced increases in wage inequality. This was both because top wages took off in some countries and because bottom wages fell relative to median wages in many other countries. The wage gap between women and men is also still high and is closing only very slowly. This is disappointing in the light of women???s recent educational achievements
and the progressive closing of the gender gap in work experience."


ILO Global Wage Report 2010
http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/pu...m/@publ/documents/publication/wcms_145265.pdf

Page 34:
While there is a global trend of increasing low-pay employment, the incidence
of low-wage employment shows considerable variation across countries. The latest national estimates of low-wage incidence are provided in figure 21. While some countries provide estimates that refer to all wage earners, others restrict the sample to fulltime employees. It is known that the estimates which exclude part-time employment tend to underestimate the scale of low-wage employment, because part-time workers often receive lower hourly earnings in comparison to their full-time counterparts. For this reason, the estimates are grouped separately to allow more meaningful comparisons. When only full-time workers are considered, the incidence of low-wage employment varies from about 6 per cent in Sweden to about 25 per cent in the United States or in the Republic of Korea. The size of variations is even larger in the case of the estimates for all wage employment, which includes a number of developing countries. In some countries, such as Austria, Honduras or Panama, at least one out of three employees is in a low-paid job. In Finland, by contrast, low wages affect only about 5 per cent of employees.


Page 74:
"One of the key concerns about low pay, especially in terms of its welfare implications, is the risk that low-wage work will lead to poverty, in spite of a person being employed and working. The relationship between poverty and low pay is not straightforward, primarily due to the different definitions and the resulting differences in measurements. As already pointed out, low pay is concerned with an individual???s gross wage earnings, while poverty is typically related to the net disposable income of a household, adjusted for the size and composition of the household. 98 For this reason, low-paid
workers (such as young labour market entrants who are living with their parents) may not be poor, particularly when they belong to higher-income households with multiple jobholders. Conversely, high-paid workers (such as heads of household) can be poor if they are the only breadwinner in a big family with many dependants. Despite these conceptual differences, however, it is clear that low pay increases the probability of poverty. The risk of ???in-work poverty??? is illustrated in table 8, which provides estimates of poverty rates by pay level and employment status in China, where
there has been much debate about the impact of high economic growth on poverty reduction. The table clearly shows that poverty rates are lowest when a person is employed and receives a wage above two-thirds of the median. Low-paid work significantly raises the probability of being in poverty. The difference between local and migrant workers is striking. About 45 per cent of low-paid migrant workers are subject to poverty, while
the risk is much smaller for local workers (5 per cent). For these migrant workers, the effect of transition to higher paid jobs is particularly noticeable, as only 13.9 per cent of migrant workers with higher paid jobs live in poverty. Given the relationship between low pay and poverty, one key policy concern is how to weaken this linkage. Even when low pay is inevitable, policies can be implemented to alleviate the financial difficulties for the families of low-paid workers. Indeed, while measures which directly influence wage outcomes, such as collective bargaining and minimum wages policies, play a useful role, the welfare of low-paid workers can also be improved through policies that increase net disposable income for poor households. In fact, recent studies indicate that, in advanced countries, the relationship between low pay and poverty has been weakened through a wide range of policy initiatives targeting low-paid workers. 99 In developing countries, given the massive extent of informal employment, minimum wage policy needs to be combined with other income policy measures aimed at the very bottom of the labour market, especially its informal segment. 100 In this respect, the real policy challenge is how to develop a coherentsystem in which both welfare institutions and the labour market measures are developed to secure a minimum level of income for poor households."

Page 80:
Another emerging concern is the fact that wage stagnation before the crisis may actually have contributed to the crisis and also weakened the ability of economies to recovery quickly. Although there are many other factors involved in triggering the global financial and economic crisis, one view is that the crisis had its structural roots in the decline in aggregate demand that preceded the crisis. Redistribution from wages to profits and from median-wage earners to high wage earners reduced aggregate demand by transferring income from individuals with a high propensity to spend to people who save more. Before the crisis, some countries were able to maintain household consumption
through increased indebtedness, while other countries based their economic growth mainly on exports. This model, however, has proved to be unsustainable. In the future, countries may find it in their interests to base their economic growth on stronger household consumption, and on household consumption that is anchored in earned income rather than based on increasing debt.

 Our report argues that wage policies can make a positive contribution towards a more sustainable economic and social model. Both collective bargaining and minimum wages can help to achieve a more balanced and equitable recovery by ensuring that working families and households on low wages obtain a fair share of the fruits of every single percentage point of economic growth. Our previous Global Wage Report 2008/09 showed that the connection between wages and productivity is stronger in countries where collective bargaining covers more than 30 per cent of employees, and that minimum wages can reduce inequality in the bottom half of the wage distribution. Our current report shows that collective bargaining and minimum wages can also contribute to reducing the share of workers on low pay. At the same time, there are considerable challenges still facing unions trying to reach out to vulnerable workers and in the establishment of an effective system of minimum wages. 

First, low and decreasing union membership and the weakening of collective bargaining in many countries remain causes of concern. This is not just because of the difficulties which workers face in trying to organize themselves (often due to increases in numbers of non-standard workers, including many domestic workers, as highlighted earlier in the report) but also because unorganized workers often have access to few alternative mechanisms to secure fair and decent wages. In this context, it is interesting
to see that, during the crisis, there has been renewed interest in the role of the state in promoting collective bargaining through various incentive schemes (for example, work-sharing and employment subsidies). There has also been growing recognition of the relevance of collective bargaining in raising wages along with economic growth, including in Asian countries. If feasible and necessary, tripartite wage bargaining ??? while not collective bargaining per se ??? could also potentially benefit vulnerable workers, thanks to its comprehensive coverage. 

Second, diminishing reliance on collective bargaining for wage determination tends to create incentives for assigning an increasingly important role to minimum wages so that, in some countries, they become almost the only wage policy tool. In this case, minimum wages policy may go through a qualitative transformation, which, in turn, could result in the minimum wage system becoming caught between a number of competing policy demands and goals. Indeed, as a result of such a transformation, minimum wages are set for median-wage workers rather than for low-wage workers. It is not difficult to see that, in this event, the fundamental goal of minimum wages ??? to protect the most vulnerable workers ??? might be compromised. Therefore, it is important to ensure that the minimum wage policy is more beneficial to low-paid workers. However, restoring the original goals of minimum wages must be accompanied by the creation of alternative mechanisms which facilitate meaningful wage negotiations for median-wage workers. In other words, there must be a system of wage policies which benefits all workers, irrespective of wage levels, union membership or employment status. Third, as this report argues, policies which augment disposable income for lowincome households need to be considered, along with the more traditional policy measures of collective bargaining and minimum wages. These policies should be designed and evaluated in terms of preventing low wages from being translated into poverty for the family. In-work benefits, such as tax credits, are certainly helpful in this regard. However, they should be accompanied by (and not replace) wage-floor regulations, either through minimum wages or coordinated collective bargaining; otherwise, in-work benefits may provide incentives for wage depression. In countries where in-work benefits are not a feasible option, due, for instance, to the presence of massive informal employment, more direct income support policies for poor families (such as cash transfer) need to be considered. Again, in order to maximize their impacts, all of these policies should be designed to complement other wage policies."

Finance and Economics Discussion Series
Divisions of Research & Statistics and Monetary Affairs
Federal Reserve Board, Washington, D.C.

The Contribution of the Minimum Wage to U.S. Wage Inequality
over Three Decades: A Reassessment
http://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2010/201060/201060pap.pdf


Partisan Politics and the U.S. Income Distribution
http://www.princeton.edu/~bartels/income.pdf

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/neppc/memos/2008/shavit100608.pdf

A Decade Of Health Care Cost Growth Has Wiped Out
Real Income Gains For An Average US Family
http://www.ctmirror.org/sites/default/files/documents/Auerbach FF.pdf

EPI: HOW UNIONS HELP ALL WORKERS
http://www.epi.org/page/-/old/briefingpapers/143/bp143.pdf


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

^^ I don't see anything significant here that proves minimum wage was useful or has been useful.

The cons beat the pros of minimum wage by far....


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## LAM (Sep 11, 2011)

Woodrow1 said:


> ^^ I don't see anything significant here that proves minimum wage was useful or has been useful.
> 
> The cons beat the pros of minimum wage by far....



Que?  the 2008/9 and 2010/11 ILO Global Wage Reports are ALL about wages.  You should probably read them.

Just about every economists in the world that does not work at cato or heritage states time and time again that the US needs to address this problem.  the CPI is manipulated to understate inflation also, that is briefly touched on in the ILO Wage reports.

the service sector is paying wages from $8-$14 US once adjusted for inflation that comes out to $2.5-$5.3/hr in 1980 dollars.  good luck consuming in 2011 on that!  

this stuff is basic macro-economics...


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

LAM said:


> Que?  the 2008/9 and 2010/11 ILO Global Wage Reports are ALL about wages.  You should probably read them.
> 
> Just about every economists in the world that does not work at cato or heritage states time and time again that the US needs to address this problem.  the CPI is manipulated to understate inflation also, that is briefly touched on in the ILO Wage reports.
> 
> ...




Well, duh.... of course you won't make it anywhere on that in today's economy. 

That's exactly why policies like these need to change.  To make this economy flourish again.  These policies are part of the reason/problem why you can't live on that amount today!!!    

Like i said....your article proves NOTHING.





I can name a crap load of proven statistics about how minimum wage has ruined this economy....

Unemployment rate skyrockets every time we raise it.
Prices on everything are inflated every time we raise it.
Employment goes down every time we raise it.
Illegal immigrants take the lower paying jobs under the table.
 Prevents low skilled workers from gaining valuable job experience that can lead to more skilled, higher paying jobs
Foreign companies have better competitive lead on local companies.
Mom and Pop stores can't afford it, therefore making it worse for small businesses..

I could go on and on.  These are *proven* statistics...   


What has it done to help???


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## Zaphod (Sep 11, 2011)

All you are doing is spouting the same thing the rich WANT you to believe.  Wages go down and prices do not follow.  They continue going up.  That is proven.  

Back in '92 I was making slightly more than minimum wage and paid for an apartment and a new car.  You aren't doing that today.


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## LAM (Sep 11, 2011)

Woodrow1 said:


> That's exactly why policies like these need to change.  To make this economy flourish again.  These policies are part of the reason/problem why you can't live on that amount today!!!
> 
> Like i said....your article proves NOTHING.



yes it proves you have a complete lack of understanding of real world economics, not quite sure why you even mentioned the constitution that is even more confusing.  the sole purpose of the constitution is to provide the basic legal doctrine for operation of the US federal government.  the bill or rights supplements the constitution.  

I posted information from 5 extremely credible sources that state that low wages in the are major contributing factor to increasing poverty rates, that low wages contribute to economic bubble and burst cycles and severely hamper recession recovery.  I also posted information as to how low labor wages in the US is not a function of the markets/capitalism but of political economic policy.  the fact that you can not apply this information to the consumption based economy in the US is on you.  


increases in labor wages do not cause price inflation when there is a corresponding increase in productivity, this is economics 101.  you also seem to have forgotten about the effects that monetary policy has on inflation and purchasing power, which is controlled by the central bank.  which historically also controls employment by increasing decreasing interest rates.

and employment does not skyrocket when the minimum wage is increased. not quite sure where you got that from.


it's 2011 not 1700 the basic laws of supply and demand no longer apply in the real world.


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

Zaphod said:


> All you are doing is spouting the same thing the rich WANT you to believe.  Wages go down and prices do not follow.  They continue going up.  That is proven.
> 
> Back in '92 I was making slightly more than minimum wage and paid for an apartment and a new car.  You aren't doing that today.




you arent doing that today because the economy is FUCKED.....pretty simple logic there man.

Go look at your last post you tried to argue with FACTS on.  I guess some people just don't want to learn...


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## irish_2003 (Sep 11, 2011)

i'm voting for barry hussein soetero this time.....i want the economy to get even worse, and he's always saying it could be worse.....i'd like him to continue destroying us....then i'll invest right before the rebound of the markets in 2016 when the GOP wins convincingly and get super rich....i will then piss on all the poor fuckers that blame everyone else for their situations when they had the opportunity every day to decide to do something and move forward....fuck 'em......being poor is like being a homo....you have the choice.....you make the wrong choice and fuck you....not my fault....not my problem


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

LAM said:


> yes it proves you have a complete lack of understanding of real world economics, *not quite sure why you even mentioned the constitution that is even more confusing.  the sole purpose of the constitution is to provide the basic legal doctrine for operation of the US federal government.  the bill or rights supplements the constitution.  *
> 
> Exactly....and the minimum wage is completely against the constitution.   How many times do i have to explain that?  I know i have several  times.  I don't see how it is confusing. You are wrong about the constitution.  It was designed to limit the government and provide freedom and liberty.  These policies do the exact opposite and hurt our economy.
> 
> ...


 

Here ya go..  50 years of research on why you are WRONG....  



Sorry....you claim to know what you are talking about, but you sure as shit don't have anything to back it up.  

Do you just want the government to wipe your little hiney every time you take a poopie?


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## sofargone561 (Sep 11, 2011)

Ron paul or tea bag a bear trap motha fuckers!


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

irish_2003 said:


> i'm voting for barry hussein soetero this time.....i want the economy to get even worse, and he's always saying it could be worse.....i'd like him to continue destroying us....then i'll invest right before the rebound of the markets in 2016 when the GOP wins convincingly and get super rich....i will then piss on all the poor fuckers that blame everyone else for their situations when they had the opportunity every day to decide to do something and move forward....fuck 'em......being poor is like being a homo....you have the choice.....you make the wrong choice and fuck you....not my fault....not my problem




But we have the government making retarded policies to bail them out.....or making them rely on the government to live....


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## irish_2003 (Sep 11, 2011)

Woodrow1 said:


> But we have the government making retarded policies to bail them out.....or making them rely on the government to live....



yep, the more liberal minded the gov't gets, the more f'd up the country gets......unless you're a leach on society such as the 51% who are being paid for by the other 49%


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## LAM (Sep 11, 2011)

Woodrow1 said:


> Here ya go..  50 years of research on why you are WRONG....
> 
> Sorry....you claim to know what you are talking about, but you sure as shit don't have anything to back it up.
> 
> Do you just want the government to wipe your little hiney every time you take a poopie?



you posted a link to a web page which has sources cited from various documents dating from the 60's to the mid 80's.

I backed up my views with 2 reports from the ILO that were released in 2008 and 2010 on Global Wages which cover 30 years of economic data across 130 countries...

try again...

* No I do not want or need the government to wipe my hiney but I am a realist.  I base my decisions on things as they are today, not on the past or the way things should be.


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## LAM (Sep 11, 2011)

The Causes of Economic Hardship for the Middle Class

January 31, 2007, Testimony of Dean Baker before the Ways and Means Committee (House of Representatives)

I want to thank Chairman Rangel for the opportunity to present my views on the key factors obstructing economic progress for the middle class. Chairman Rangel is correct in making this question a central focus of the Ways and Means Committee’s agenda for the next two years. As we know, the quarter century following World War II was a period of rapid economic growth, with the benefits being widely shared by groups all along the income ladder. Since about 1980, the economy has experienced healthy growth, but the gains have largely bypassed those at the middle and bottom. Congress must understand the causes of this growing gap in income and wealth in order to design policies to reverse it.

I will argue that the upward redistribution over the last quarter century was primarily the result of policy changes and not simply the natural workings of the market. Specifically, the federal government pursued policies that tended to benefit corporations and better educated workers at the expense of most of the working population. There are many areas of public policy in which it is possible to identify an upper class bias. I will focus on the four areas that I consider most important:

1) Trade and Immigration. The federal government has pursued policies in this area that had the effect of putting workers without college degrees in direct competition with low-paid workers in developing countries. At the same time, it has largely protected the most highly educated workers (e.g. doctors, lawyers, accountants) from the same sort of competition. The predicted result of this asymmetric opening of trade is the sort of upward redistribution that we’ve seen over the last quarter century.

2) Federal Reserve Board Policy. The Federal Reserve Board has pursued an aggressive anti-inflation policy over the last quarter century, largely ignoring its legal mandate to target full employment, which is defined in the law as 4.0 percent unemployment. The Fed’s main weapon for controlling inflation is higher unemployment, which has the effect of putting downward pressure on wages. The workers who are most affected when the unemployment rate rises are those at the middle and bottom. Sales clerks and manufacturing workers are far more likely to be laid off in a downturn than doctors or lawyers. There is also an important racial dimension to this issue. If the overall unemployment rises by 2.0 percentage points because of the Fed’s efforts to contain inflation, the unemployment rate for African Americans is likely to rise by 4 percentage points, while the unemployment rate for African American teens would rise by close to 12 percentage points.

3) Labor-Management Policy. In the last quarter century, corporations have become far more aggressive in confronting unions, especially in obstructing efforts to organize. It is now standard practice for management to simply fire any workers who are thought to be involved in an organizing drive. While firing workers for union activity is illegal, the sanctions are too small to discourage lawbreaking. Largely as a result of management hostility, unionization rates in the private sector have fallen to just above 7 percent from more than 20 percent back in 1980. De-unionization has substantially lowered wages for workers without college degrees.

4) Corporate Governance. For a variety of reasons, the factors that constrained the behavior of CEOs and top corporate management have largely broken down. As a result, these insiders have unprecedented ability to plunder corporations to serve their own interests. CEO pay for Fortune 500 companies now averages almost 300 times the pay of an average production worker. Such exorbitant salaries not only take away money from shareholders and workers, they also set benchmarks for the rest of the economy. As a result, it is now common for top executives in institutions like universities, non-profit hospitals, and even private charities to earn salaries in the high six figures.

A fifth topic that I will mention briefly is health care costs. Per capita health care expenditures in the United States already exceed $7,000 a year, or $28,000 for a family of four. In just over a decade, per person costs are projected to exceed $15,000 a year. There is no way that even a middle income family can pay these sorts of health care costs and still have enough money left over to sustain a reasonable standard of living.

It is essential that health care be reformed in a way that contains costs. The United States is the only country in the world that faces such out of control costs. Other wealthy countries pay less than half as much per person for health care and enjoy longer life expectancies. Surely, we can find a better way to run our health care system.

I will address each of the first four issues in more detail, but there is one basic theme that I will emphasize throughout my testimony. The upward redistribution that has taken place over the last quarter century did not just happen – it was a process that was aided and abetted by government policy.[1] While considerable attention has been placed on the regressive tax cuts of the current administration, the regressive policies that led to a redistribution of before-tax income have had a far more important effect on the lives of the middle class.

Trade and Immigration Policy

Over the last quarter century, administrations of both political parties have pursued a variety of trade related measures that have had the effect of placing less educated workers in direct competition with their counterparts in the developing world. This effect has been felt most intensely in manufacturing, where an explicit goal of trade agreements like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been to make it as easy as possible for U.S. corporations to invest in manufacturing facilities in the developing world and then export their output back to the United States. Since workers in the developing world are paid far less than U.S. workers, this competition places downward pressure on the wages of manufacturing workers in the United States. Manufacturing has historically been an important source of relatively well-paying jobs for workers without college degrees, therefore the loss of jobs in this sector to imports, and the downward pressure on the wages of the workers remaining in the manufacturing sector, has placed downward pressure on the wages of workers without college degrees more generally.

The downward pressure on the wages of U.S. workers is not an accidental outcome of our trade policy: to a large extent it is the point of that policy. The gains from trade result from being able to purchase goods and services at lower prices from foreign producers. The predicted result from this trade is that the income of the workers who make products that compete with imports will fall, as has been the case. While this benefits consumers who pay lower prices, those who see their wages fall as a result of import competition are likely to end up as net losers, since their pay will fall by more than they save by consuming cheap imports.

Even if we want to see the United States trade more with the rest of the world, there was nothing inevitable about the trade policy implemented over the last quarter century. A series of decisions was made to place manufacturing workers in direct competition with workers in the developing world. To do this, trade agreements have included detailed rules for foreign investment in developing countries that protect it from nationalization, restrictions on repatriating profits, or other actions that could jeopardize the profitability of these investments. These trade agreements also imposed rules that prevent the United States from imposing tariff or non-tariff barriers that obstruct the importation of manufacturing goods to the United States.

However, the developing world does not only have manufacturing workers who are willing to accept lower pay than their counterparts in the United States. It also has doctors, lawyers, accountants and other professionals who would be happy to work for a small fraction of the pay that U.S. professionals receive. While these professionals in the developing world are not generally trained to U.S. standards, this is largely due to the fact that they have little reason to train to these standards. Immigration and licensing restrictions would still make it very difficult for them to ever practice their profession in the United States, even if they attained U.S. levels of competence.

Instead of focusing on trade in manufactured goods, U.S. trade negotiators could have pursued trade agreements that would have facilitated a process whereby professionals in developing countries could train themselves to meet U.S. standards and then freely practice their professions in the United States. This would have led to enormous gains to U.S. consumers and for the economy as a whole, through a process that equalized income. For example, according to data from the OECD, the compensation of physicians in the United States exceeds the compensation of physicians in Western Europe by an average of more than $100,000 a year.[2] (This is net of costs such as malpractice insurance.) The United States has 800,000 practicing physicians. This means that if free trade in physicians’ services could bring the cost of physicians’ services in the United States down to the level of West Europe, it would save consumers $80 billion a year (almost $300 per person) in health care spending.

It is possible to tell similar stories about the gains from freer trade in other highly paid professionals like law, dentistry, accounting, even economics. Trade agreements could have been crafted to bring down the wages for the highly paid professionals in these areas, allowing for large gains to consumers. However, U.S. trade negotiators instead pursued trade agreements that placed downward pressure on the wages of less educated workers, leaving our most highly educated workers largely protected from international competition. (I have focused on inequality among wage earners because this has been the largest source of redistribution from trade. Over the last decade, wage and profit shares have remained reasonably stable even as trade and the trade deficit have exploded.[3])

Immigration is part of this same story. Immigrant workers have been an extremely important factor in many sectors of the U.S. labor market over the last quarter century, competing primarily with less educated workers. While many of the jobs that are primarily filled by immigrants are extremely unpleasant and low-paying, this is largely a result of the fact that employers can find immigrant workers willing to take these jobs. In West European countries, many of these same jobs offer much higher pay and better working conditions because employers do not have the same access to immigrant workers. Therefore they have to improve conditions enough to attract native workers.

In the case of immigration, as with trade, consumers benefit from having access to lower cost immigrant labor. Restaurants and hotels can charge lower prices as a result, and our farm goods cost less because immigrants are willing to work in the fields for much lower wages than their U.S. born counterparts. But the U.S. workers who might otherwise hold these jobs end up as losers.[4]

The current policy on immigration, with sporadic enforcement of immigration laws, also helps to ensure that it is only less educated workers who face substantial competition from immigrant workers. Relatively unskilled workers in the developing world may be willing to take the risks associated with working without proper documentation in the United States (and also endure a dangerous border crossing). However, a well-educated professional in the developing world is unlikely to take the same risks, even if they could potentially earn a much higher salary in the United States. Of course, the enforcement of licensing standards for professionals in the United States also makes it far more likely that a doctor or lawyer who tried to practice their profession in the United States would face deportation than a dishwasher or custodian. In short, as is the case with trade, we have implemented an immigration policy that is designed to largely protect the most highly educated workers.

There is one other important policy issue on trade that is worth mentioning in this context. Over the last decade, both the Clinton and Bush administrations committed themselves to a high dollar policy. This policy has led to a huge trade deficit. At present, our trade deficit exceeds $800 billion a year, more than 3 times the size of the federal budget deficit. The high dollar policy, and the resulting trade deficit, further tilts the playing field against less-educated workers. A high dollar makes imports into the United States cheaper and exports from the United States more expensive. Most economists estimate the over-valuation of the dollar in the range of 20 percent to 40 percent. This is equivalent to having a subsidy of 20 percent to 40 percent on imported goods, and imposing a tariff of the same size on good exported from the United States to other countries.

As with the measures noted above, a high dollar benefits consumers by making imports available at a lower cost. However, it disadvantages the less educated workers who produce the goods that compete in world markets. Here also it is important to remember that the basket of items that are subjected to international competition is the result of policy choices. We could have chosen to subject our doctors and lawyers to international competition, in which case they would be the losers from a high dollar policy. Instead, we forced our autoworkers and custodians to face international competition.

Federal Reserve Board Policy

Monetary policy is usually discussed as being a purely technical matter, with the Federal Reserve Board trying to pursue an interest rate policy that keeps inflation under control, while also sustaining high levels of employment. In fact, the Fed’s decisions have huge distributional implications. It fights inflation by raising interest rates. Higher interest rates are expected to slow the economy, reduce the rate of job creation, and thereby raise the rate of unemployment. Higher unemployment in turn puts downward pressure on wages. By slowing wage growth, the Fed can keep inflation in check.

While few economists would disagree with this basic story, it is important to realize that the Fed’s anti-inflation policy does not affect everyone equally. When higher interest rates lead to job loss, it is more likely to be a sales clerk or manufacturing worker who loses their job rather than a doctor or lawyer. The unemployment rate for less educated workers rises disproportionately when the economy slows, and it is these workers that will feel the most pressure to lower their wages.

There is also an important racial dimension to unemployment. The unemployment rate for African Americans tends to be twice the overall average, while the unemployment rate for African American teens tends to be about six times the overall average. This means that if the overall unemployment rate rises from 4 percent to 6 percent, this is likely to mean a rise in the unemployment rate for African Americans from 8 percent to 12 percent, and a rise in the unemployment rate for African American teens from 24 percent to 36 percent.

In the years since 1980, the Federal Reserve Board has been far more focused on containing inflation than it had been in the prior 35 years. One result has been that the unemployment rate has been on average higher in the last quarter century than in the earlier post-war period (unemployment averaged 5.6 percent from 1948 to 1980, compared to 6.2 percent since 1980). It is striking to note that the only period in which workers at all levels of the wage distribution sustained strong wage growth was between 1996-2001, when the unemployment rate averaged 4.7 percent, and in fact fell as low as 3.9 percent for five months in 2000.[5]

Whatever the merits of the Fed’s anti-inflation policy, it is important to remember that it has a cost, and that this cost is borne disproportionately by less educated workers. Even those who agree with the policy must recognize the burden it imposes on those least able to afford it.

Labor-Management Policy

In the case of both trade policy and monetary policy, the changes leading to an upward redistribution of income were the result of explicit policy shifts. However, in labor-management policy, the main issues have been enforcement and the failure to respond to a change in behavior by employers. While there have always been conflicts in labor-management relations, the 30 years following the end of World War II were a period of relative peace, with management accepting the right of workers to form unions. Unions used their bargaining power to ensure that workers got their share of productivity gains, but they also often cooperated with management to try increase the productivity of their members.

Labor-management relations took a marked turn for the worse in the 80s. With the Reagan administration setting an example by firing striking air traffic controllers, many employers embraced the tactic of threatening striking workers with permanent replacements who would take their jobs.[6] This made strikes a far less effective weapon, since workers knew that in many cases they were risking their jobs. While there were efforts to pass legislation that would make it more difficult to fire striking workers, Congress has thus far done nothing to discourage the practice.

The other major change in employer behavior has been the use of aggressive campaigns to prevent unions from organizing. While employers may have always tried to prevent their workers from joining a union, they were more likely to respect the law in the years prior to 1980. In the last quarter century, employers have taken advantage of the fact that the sanctions are trivial for firing workers who are trying to organize a union.[7] A recent study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, using data on wrongful firings from National Labor Relations Board, concluded that close to 1 in 5 workers involved in a union organizing drive can expect to be fired.[8]

The result of this growing hostility of management to unions, and the failure of the government to impose effective sanctions, has been a sharp drop in the rate of unionization in the private sector, from more than 20 percent in 1980 to just over 7 percent in 2006. While many have attributed this drop in large part to changing attitudes towards unions among workers, it is important to recognize that there has been no comparable decline in unionization rates in the public sector. The unionization rate in the public sector remains over 36 percent, with no downward trend during the last quarter century. The most obvious difference between the private and public sectors is that it is much more difficult for managers in the public sector to fire workers for organizing. In the absence of the extreme hostility from management, it is reasonable to believe that the unionization rate in the private sector would be comparable to the 36 percent figure for the public sector.

Corporate Governance

As has been widely reported by the media, the compensation of top executives has exploded over the last two decades. It is common for CEOs of major corporations to earn annual compensation in the tens of millions of dollars. In extreme cases, annual compensation packages have run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. While there is no obvious change in government policy that has led to this explosion in CEO pay, clearly the government has not effectively responded in a way that could contain pay for top executives.

The issue of CEO pay raises basic questions of corporate governance. The CEO and other top management are typically better situated to control a company than its diverse shareholders. The CEO will usually have close allies among the corporate board, many of whom are likely to owe their board seat to the CEO. This means that when the board, or a compensation committee selected by the board, decides the CEO’s pay, they may not have the interests of the shareholders as their top priority.

While shareholders could in principle organize to limit CEO pay, it is very difficult to bring such a diverse group together (especially since corporate bylaws typically allow management to count unreturned shareholder proxies as supporting its position). The gains to shareholders from such action will also be relatively limited. Even in the most extreme cases, CEO compensation is unlikely to come to more than 10 percent of the profit of a major company in a normal year. If shareholders believe that CEO pay is too out of line, they most likely would just sell the company’s stock.

It is not entirely clear what set of factors led to the explosion of CEO pay, but the government certainly does have the ability to change the rules of corporate governance in ways that might more effectively contain CEO pay. It is important to realize that the government already imposes a long set of rules on corporations in order to limit the likelihood that management, or one group of shareholders, will use its power to unfairly profit at the expense of other shareholders. For example, laws of corporate governance prohibit discrimination against minority shareholders. This means that a group of shareholders cannot gain control of the corporation and only pay dividends to itself. The government also has extensive rules on disclosure of information on profits and liabilities to ensure that market participants have full knowledge of a company’s financial situation.

In this vein, it can be argued that Congress failed to adjust the rules of corporate governance as the forces containing CEO pay collapsed. It can rewrite the rules of corporate governance in a way that redresses this imbalance. For example, Congress could require that CEO compensation packages are sent out for shareholder approval at regular intervals. It can also prohibit management from counting non-returned proxies as supporting its position in these votes. Congress could even change the rules on board liability so that board members can more easily be sued by shareholders if they fail to make reasonable efforts to contain CEO pay.

While it is not clear what set of policies would be optimal in the current environment, the point here is that Congress has always recognized the need to set rules of corporate governance that prevented insiders from exploiting their position. These rules are no longer accomplishing this task and therefore need to be changed.

As noted earlier, excessive CEO pay is not only a problem because of the resources it drains from corporations. The huge paychecks received by CEOs set standards that come to be applied in other sectors of the economy. This leads to extraordinary salaries for top executives in other institutions as well. The high salaries earned by hospital executives, university presidents, and other top management positions must come at the expense of either the pay of workers lower down the pay ladder or be passed in higher costs for the services provided. Either way, the exorbitant salaries for top executives outside of corporations, like the salaries of corporate CEOs, lead to more inequality in the economy.

Moving Toward Shared Prosperity

The discussion of the factors that have led to growing inequality points to many of the policies that would be important in reversing this trend. At the top of this list is a trade policy that focuses on bringing down the wages of the most highly educated professionals, thereby reducing the cost of health care, college education, and other services provided by the most highly paid workers. If future trade agreements were structured to make it as easy as possible for students in India, Mexico, and other developing countries to educate themselves to U.S. standards and then work in the United States as doctors, lawyers, and accountants, it would lead to huge gains for consumers and the economy, while leading to a much more equal distribution of income.[9]

It is also important that the dollar be brought down to a sustainable level. This will happen in any case, but it is better that it happen sooner rather than later, before the country builds up more foreign debt and loses more of its manufacturing capacity. It is important to recognize that the Treasury has the power to unilaterally lower value of the dollar. In the extreme case, it can set a lower value for the dollar, just as the Chinese government has set a low value for the yuan. The Treasury can seek to negotiate a path towards a lower dollar as it did with the Plaza accords in the mid-eighties. However, the willingness to take unilateral action to lower the dollar will be more likely to persuade other countries to cooperate in easing down the value of the dollar.

As to the Fed’s monetary policy, it is reasonable for the Congress to use its oversight authority to insist that the Fed take the law’s target of 4.0 percent unemployment seriously. Furthermore, the Fed has chosen to ignore asset bubbles (the stock market bubble in the 90s and the housing bubble in the current decade). These bubbles have increased inequality and the collapse of both bubbles (especially the housing bubble) have serious consequences for the middle class.

Congress can take steps to counter the aggressive anti-union stance taken by management in the last quarter century. For example, it can allow workers to form unions through the card check process, as laid out in the Employee Free Choice Act. It could also increase the sanctions against employers who are found guilty of firing workers for union activity. For example, it can require that employers pay legal fees, as is done in civil rights cases.

Finally, as noted earlier, Congress can adjust the rules of corporate governance to reinstate checks on the insider power of CEOs and top management. The exorbitant pay packages of CEOs are a drain of resources from the rest of society. They also encourage others to exploit their positions of power for personal gain.

The pattern of economic growth over the last quarter century is disturbing for those who envision a society in which everyone can benefit from a prosperous economy. However, there was no reason that income and wealth had to be redistributed upward over this period – this upward redistribution was the result of deliberate policy decisions. The upward redistribution can therefore be reversed with a different set of policy decisions.

Notes

[1] This point is discussed in more detail in Baker, D. 2006. The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer, Washington, D.C.: Center for Economic and Policy Research.

[2] According the OECD the average annual pre-tax income of doctors in the United States in 1995 was $196,000. By comparison, it reports that doctors in Switzerland earned an average $82,000, in Japan $57,300 and in Denmark $52,600 (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development: Development Center. OECD Health Data, 1998. Paris: OECD, 1998). While these figures are now somewhat dated, there is no reason to believe that the relative wages have changed. This suggests that the average earnings of doctors in Europe is at least $100,000 less than in the United States. There are approximately 800,000 physicians in the United States, which implies that the savings from paying doctors at European wage rates would be close to $80 billion a year.

[3] The profit share of net income in the corporate sector was 20.1 percent in 1997, the profit peak of the last cycle. In 2005, the last full year for which data is available, the profit share was 19.7 percent (Bureau of Economic Analysis, National Income and Product Accounts, Table 1.14, line 8 divided by line 3).

[4] The two main views on the impact of immigration on wages are laid out by George Borjas and David Card. While Borjas’s research finds that immigration has had a substantial negative effect on the wages of less skilled workers, Card finds no effect of immigration on the relative wages of high school dropouts. A possible flaw in Card’s methodology is that he does not consider rents in his analysis. Many of the cities that have seen large inflows of immigrant workers have had sharp increases in rent over the last quarter century (e.g. San Diego and Los Angeles), while rent increases have been relatively modest in cities without substantial inflows of immigrants (e.g. Cleveland and St. Louis). Since rent is a very large share of the income of the lowest paid workers, it is reasonable to believe that if real wages were adjusted for the cost of living that workers actually face, there would be large differences in the trends in relative wages in cities with and without large inflows of immigrants.

[5] See Bernstein, J. and D. Baker. 2004. The Benefits of Full Employment. Washington, D.C.: Economic Policy Institute.

[6] The air traffic controllers strike violated a federal law prohibiting strikes by federal government employees. However, such laws had rarely led to firings in the case of prior strikes by public sector workers.

[7] If an employer is found guilty by the National Labor Relations Board of having fired a worker for participating in an organizing drive, they must offer the worker her job back and give her the difference between the pay that she would have earned had she remained employed at her former job and the pay that she actually did earn at her new job. The Dunlop Commission estimated that this penalty averaged less than $3,000 per worker in 1990 (cited in Schmitt and Zipperer, 2007, page 3). Adjusting for wage growth, this would be close to $5,000 in 2007. This is a rather small price to pay for an employer, if it prevents a union from organizing, especially there is no guarantee that a fired worker will drag through an NLRB case, nor they will succeed even if they have been wrongly fired.

[8] Schmitt, J. and B. Zipperer, 2007. Dropping the Ax: Illegal Firings During Union Election Campaigns, Washington, D.C.: Center for Economic and Policy Research
[9] It is important that developing countries be compensated for the loss of workers who in many cases the governments have paid to educate. It is easy to design policies that would assess some fee on the work visas granted to these workers so that developing countries could educate two or three professionals for every one that works in the United States. It is important to remember that the supply of highly educated workers in developing countries is virtually unlimited over time, if the government has the resources to educate them. A properly designed policy should ensure that developing countries gain at least as much as the United States.
Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy. He also has a blog on the American Prospect, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues.

The Causes of Economic Hardship for the Middle Class | Testimony


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## LAM (Sep 11, 2011)

irish_2003 said:


> yep, the more liberal minded the gov't gets, the more f'd up the country gets......unless you're a leach on society such as the 51% who are being paid for by the other 49%



If you had half a brain you would still be economically retarded. 

Occupational Employment Statistics
Employment and mean wages for the ten largest occupations by supersectors, May 2010

A Decade Of Health Care Cost Growth Has Wiped Out Real Income Gains
For An Average US Family
http://www.ctmirror.org/sites/default/files/documents/Auerbach FF.pdf


Unequal Fortunes, Unstable Households: Has Rising Inequality Contributed to Economic Troubles for Households?
http://www.boeckler.de/pdf/v_makro_2004_10_boushey_weller.pdf


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## irish_2003 (Sep 11, 2011)

i'm gonna be honest here lam.....your posts all start out with blah blah blah and they end with blah blah blah with some copy and pasted links and reposts in between.......so knowing that i simply don't read 99% of what you post.......it would cut into my financial growth since time is money


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## sofargone561 (Sep 11, 2011)

irish_2003 said:


> i'm gonna be honest here lam.....your posts all start out with blah blah blah and they end with blah blah blah with some copy and pasted links and reposts in between.......so knowing that i simply don't read 99% of what you post.......it would cut into my financial growth since time is money


 lmao p.s. ron pual


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## LAM (Sep 11, 2011)

irish_2003 said:


> i'm gonna be honest here lam.....your posts all start out with blah blah blah and they end with blah blah blah with some copy and pasted links and reposts in between.......so knowing that i simply don't read 99% of what you post.......it would cut into my financial growth since time is money



I could care less if you read them or not, you are ignorant and apparently proud of it.  be thankful that you work in healthcare which pays much higher than average wages as the annual costs increase at the rate of GDP +1.  by 2080 Healthcare costs will account for 50% of the GDP of the US.


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

LAM said:


> you posted a link to a web page which has sources cited from various documents dating from the 60's to the mid 80's.
> 
> I backed up my views with 2 reports from the ILO that were released in 2008 and 2010 on Global Wages which cover 30 years of economic data across 130 countries...
> 
> ...





So you just want the government to do stupid shit regardless if it does well or not.  You think since the economy is fucked we should be bailed out and rely on the government to wipe our ass for us.  Ok i get it now.  


Those were proven studies once again.  Don't downplay them because you don't understand them.  It is studies over the past 50 years showing you the negative side effects of minimum wage are.  Everything that has happened is in the past....  and from this we see what minimum wage has done to us since it started!  There are plenty of statistics that can prove you wrong from the 2007 minimum wage raise...


Want me to post more from our time????????? There are plenty showing how unemployment skyrocketed in 2007 because of the raise in minimum wage..   Jesus christ.....i could probably show you the entire damn internets proof and you would still say, "DUR DUR DURRRRR  i like opinions better than facts."  




And you are still posting opinion based bullshit that has NO PROOF of minimum wage being a good thing....   Im not reading it all though so if i missed the part where you proved me wrong...please point it out.


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## irish_2003 (Sep 11, 2011)

Woodrow1 said:


> And you are still posting opinion based bullshit that has NO PROOF of minimum wage being a good thing....




i've recently looked around at some employment opportunities and come to find out that since the increase of the minimum wage here, the starting pay for many companies is being reduced so it's closer to minimum.....not the opposite like LAMtard would argue will happen


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## LAM (Sep 11, 2011)

Woodrow1 said:


> Those were proven studies once again.  Don't downplay them because you don't understand them.


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

LAM said:


>




What?  

Nothing else to say?  

No more opinion based reports?

Find any proof?

Didn't think so.  

I'm sorry you were wrong, but facts are facts.  Minimum wage is a bad policy proven by them.


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## sofargone561 (Sep 11, 2011)

acnt we just shut the fuck up, stop posting articles and shit no one will read and just vote ron paul?


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

sofargone561 said:


> acnt we just shut the fuck up, stop posting articles and shit no one will read and just vote ron paul?




im there man!  Been voting in all the polls so far.  He did quite well last week and gaining momentum each and every poll.

in 2008 he did horrible!!!  But his message is getting across this time!  People are listening! 

Should be a debate tomorrow i think....remember to vote!

*September 12th, 2011*8pm ET on CNN ??? Submit Questions
*Location: *Florida State Fair Grounds in Tampa, FL 
*Sponsor: *CNN and the Tea Party Express
*Participants*: Perry, Bachmann, Romney, Paul, Gingrich, Cain, Santorum, Huntsman


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## sofargone561 (Sep 11, 2011)

Woodrow1 said:


> im there man! Been voting in all the polls so far. He did quite well last week and gaining momentum each and every poll.
> 
> in 2008 he did horrible!!! But his message is getting across this time! People are listening!
> 
> ...


 YES! also the media is having a much harder time keeping orn paul out of the spotlight


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

sofargone561 said:


> YES! also the media is having a much harder time keeping orn paul out of the spotlight




lol i know...


That last debate was a set up!   Completely focused on romney and perry.  They barely asked Ron Paul anything and when they did it was something trying to jack with him, but he nailed it imo...


I think the media blackout is getting him more attention haha


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## LAM (Sep 11, 2011)

irish_2003 said:


> i've recently looked around at some employment opportunities and come to find out that since the increase of the minimum wage here, the starting pay for many companies is being reduced so it's closer to minimum.....not the opposite like LAMtard would argue will happen



yea...I'm the retard.  every time the FRB increases the money supply inflation increases which causes a loss of buying power.  wages in the lower income quintiles increase the least which means they are effected by inflation the most.

you do know that in a healthy economy homes appreciate at the same rate of real income growth.  yea, that doesn't really happen with stagnant or falling wages.  good luck building wealth that way.


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## ExLe (Sep 11, 2011)

I have already argued with LAM about min. wage. He just doesn't get it.

Everything with LAM is some sort of Neo-liberal agenda. He spends all day reading progressive and socialist websites and watches Rachel Maddow at night. 

What more would you expect from someone who voted for Obama and is going to vote for him again.


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## LAM (Sep 11, 2011)

Woodrow1 said:


> What?
> 
> Nothing else to say?
> 
> ...



you obviously didn't read the ILO Global Wage Reports because there is nothing except data in there from the past 3 decades and those reports are over 100 pages which discourages most.

Last time I checked it was 2011, good luck with that data from the 1980's.  

Let me know when you catch up to the 21st century as that's where the rest of us are at.


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## sofargone561 (Sep 11, 2011)

half the shit u post discourages most let along 100 pages ^


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## LAM (Sep 11, 2011)

ExLe said:


> He spends all day reading progressive and socialist websites



and you get your info from the tv spoon feed to you via politicians.

so the FRB, OECD, EPI, CSR, CBPP, CBO, CEPR, BLS and the tax policy center are all socialist websites?  

you should just stop, it's painfully obvious this stuff is way beyond you.


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## LAM (Sep 11, 2011)

sofargone561 said:


> half the shit u post discourages most let along 100 pages ^



and this is why the US constantly ranks at the bottom of the OECD in terms of the economic IQ and critical thinking...


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## sofargone561 (Sep 11, 2011)

LAM said:


> and this is why the US constantly ranks at the bottom of the OECD in terms of the economic IQ and critical thinking...


 agreed, but i admit im not the brightest and a tad bit lazy, i do enjoy a nice read now and then maybe ill actaully give some of the shit u post a read but until then im cool with my iq my life is pretty good for being a dumb ass =)


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

LAM said:


> you obviously didn't read the ILO Global Wage Reports because there is nothing except data in there from the past 3 decades and those reports are over 100 pages which discourages most.
> 
> Last time I checked it was 2011, good luck with that data from the 1980's.
> 
> Let me know when you catch up to the 21st century as that's where the rest of us are at.




Data from the last 50yrs man.  There is data from 2007 that is all over the internet i could happily post.  I don't see the difference, 50 years up to our current date there is data showing its a bad policy.  

Don't be a douche because you know you are wrong man....

The date you posted didn't prove anything.  It was opinionated bullshit.

Show me some proof or shut the hell up.


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

LAM said:


> and this is why the US constantly ranks at the bottom of the OECD in terms of the economic IQ and critical thinking...




You sure it's not because people like you that believe in bad policies that ruin our economy?


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

LAM said:


> and you get your info from the tv spoon feed to you via politicians.
> 
> so the FRB, OECD, EPI, CSR, CBPP, CBO, CEPR, BLS and the tax policy center are all socialist websites?
> 
> you should just stop, it's painfully obvious this stuff is way beyond you.




Ive shown you countless facts and you still don't believe.  ITS OBVIOUS that it is beyond *YOU*!


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 11, 2011)

sofargone561 said:


> agreed, but i admit im not the brightest and a tad bit lazy, i do enjoy a nice read now and then maybe ill actaully give some of the shit u post a read but until then im cool with my iq my life is pretty good for being a dumb ass =)




Trust me it isn't worth it....


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## LAM (Sep 12, 2011)

what most don't understand is that the "economy" is dynamic and is constantly changing.


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## sofargone561 (Sep 12, 2011)

Woodrow1 said:


> Trust me it isn't worth it....


 im gonna have to beleive u. the man seems pretty educated and backs everything he says up with links and quaotes and shit maybe ill actualy read some stuff he posts lol


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## Woodrow1 (Sep 12, 2011)

LAM said:


> what most don't understand is that the "economy" is dynamic and is constantly changing.


 I think everyone understands that. Its getting worse and worse as we speak


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