Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Obama, Romney and the Low-Wage Future of America

Thanks to a reader for the tip.
Vote for Obama and you'll get economic stagnation combined with a weird urge to rule* rather than govern.
Vote for Romney and you'll get the tax cuts and deficits as far as the eye can see.

From Nieman Reports:

Obama, Romney and the Low-Wage Future of America
...Jeff Faux, a progressive economist who founded the Economic Policy Institute in 1986, is the author of the new book, “The Servant Economy: Where America’s Elite Is Sending the Middle Class.” “The mantra, as you know, in today’s political debate is jobs, jobs, jobs,” he told an audience at EPI recently. “Listen carefully because the subtext is low wages, low wages, low wages.”

Faux argues that by the mid-2020s, even with the most optimistic assumptions about economic growth, current trends indicate that the average American’s wages will drop about 20 percent. One big factor is that more and more good jobs will go overseas, leaving even America’s best and brightest no alternative but to enter the service industry.

“You go into an Apple store and you see the future,” Faux said. “The future’s not in the technology—the future of the labor force is all in those smart college-educated people with the T-shirts whose job is to be a retail clerk for Chinese goods.”

One impetus for job growth, Faux writes in his book, is that as the super-rich get even richer, they’ll need more and more servants:

They will hire people to take care of their large homes and to tutor their children in Chinese, tennis, and sophisticated strategies for getting into the best private schools and universities. They will hire personal assistants to shop, pay their bills, and run their errands. Coaches will come to their homes to instruct them in physical fitness, mental relaxation, and spiritual transcendence. They will need maids, cooks, and gardeners.
....MORE
Hence Long or Short Capital's Mission Statement:

Using Science to Improve the Lives of the Rich
At Long or Short Capital LLC, we leverage our superior intellect and extensive investing experience to recommend explicit Long or Short positions and related abstract trades, which may or may not be possible with real world financial derivatives. We use science to improve the lives of the rich.

*Via Brainyquote

 Given the daunting challenges that we face, it's important that president elect Obama 
is prepared to really take power and begin to rule day one.
-Valerie Jarrett
Co-chair, Obama-Biden Transition Project
Nov. 9, 2008

Ms. Jarrett is currently Senior Adviser to both the President and First Lady.