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Title: What’s Germany’s Secret?
Source:
TRUTHDIG
URL Source: http://www.truthdig.com/eartothegro ... erican_prosperity_20110616/?ln
Published: Jun 21, 2011
Author: Robert Reich
Post Date: 2011-06-21 11:44:17 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 6324
Comments: 11
Why the Republican War on Workers’ Rights Undermines the American Economy
The battle has resumed in Wisconsin. The state supreme court has allowed Governor Scott Walker to strip bargaining rights from state workers.
Meanwhile, legislators in New Hampshire and officials in Missouri are attacking private unions, seeking to make the states so-called “open shop” where workers can get all the benefits of being union members without paying union dues. Needless to say this ploy undermines the capacity of unions to do much of anything. Other Republican governors and legislatures are following suit.
Republicans in Congress are taking aim at the National Labor Relations Board, which is likely to consider a relatively minor rule change allowing workers to vote on whether to unionize soon after a union has been proposed, rather than allowing employers to delay the vote for years. Many employers have used the delaying tactics to retaliate against workers who try to organize, and intimidate others into rejecting a union.
This war on workers’ rights is an assault on the middle class, and it is undermining the American economy.
The American economy can’t get out of neutral until American workers have more money in their pockets to buy what they produce. And unions are the best way to give them the bargaining power to get better pay.
For three decades after World War II – I call it the “Great Prosperity” – wages rose in tandem with productivity. Americans shared the gains of growth, and had enough money to buy what they produced.
That’s largely due to the role of labor unions. In 1955, over a third of American workers in the private sector were unionized. Today, fewer than 7 percent are.
With the decline of unions has come the stagnation of American wages. More and more of the total income and wealth of America has gone to the very top. The middle class’s purchasing power has depended on mothers going into paid work, everyone working longer hours, and, finally, the middle class going deep into debt, using their homes as collateral.
But now all these coping mechanisms are exhausted — and we’re living with the consequence.
Some say the Great Prosperity was an anomaly. America’s major competitors lay in ruins. We had the world to ourselves. According to this view, there’s no going back.
But this view is wrong. If you want to see the same basic bargain we had then, take a look at Germany now.
Germany is growing much faster than the United States. Its unemployment rate is now only 6.1 percent (we’re now at 9.1 percent).
What’s Germany’s secret? In sharp contrast to the decades of stagnant wages in America, real average hourly pay has risen almost 30 percent there since 1985. Germany has been investing substantially in education and infrastructure.
How did German workers do it? A big part of the story is German labor unions are still powerful enough to insist that German workers get their fair share of the economy’s gains.
That’s why pay at the top in Germany hasn’t risen any faster than pay in the middle. As David Leonhardt reported in the New York Times recently, the top 1 percent of German households earns about 11 percent of all income – a percent that hasn’t changed in four decades.
Contrast this with the United States, where the top 1 percent went from getting 9 percent of total income in the late 1970s to more than 20 percent today.
The only way back toward sustained growth and prosperity in the United States is to remake the basic bargain linking pay to productivity. This would give the American middle class the purchasing power they need to keep the economy going.
Part of the answer is, as in Germany, stronger labor unions — unions strong enough to demand a fair share of the gains from productivity growth.
The current Republican assault on workers’ rights continues a thirty-year war on American workers’ wages. That long-term war has finally taken its toll on the American economy.
It’s time to fight back.
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Getting America to pay Europe's debts.
war has to do something for entertainment. The voices in his head aren't speaking to him and his imaginary friends have found reasons not to come over anymore.
#2. To: Rudgear (#1)
Getting America to pay Europe's debts
LOL - try figuring out more lies to explain why the Reagan Republican model of the economy is shit and voodoo economics - and has not worked ever while Germany's social market model continues to make German lives better.
"Keep Your Goddamn Government Hands Off My Medicare!" - Various Tea Party signs.
#3. To: Brian S (#0)
Their chief weapons are: fear, surprise, a ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope. Oh, and nice uniforms.
-------------------------------------
Why don't you make like a tree and get out of here?
#4. To: Godwinson (#2)
try figuring out more lies to explain why the Reagan Republican model of the economy is shit and voodoo economics -
I'm still waiting for that 80's trickle down to get here.
And most of the corps are still on track for record earnings. I keep hearing all over the internet that if they just be allowed to keep more of their profits via lower taxes they would create more and more jobs. I see the profits but I don't see the jobs, not in the US anyway.
#5. To: mininggold (#4)
see the profits but I don't see the jobs, not in the US anyway.
I don't think the plan was to ever create jobs in the US. That was just a false assumption.
As HP's Carly Fiorina once said "no American is entitled to a job" (except overpaid CEOs, that is).
#6. To: mininggold (#4)
I'm still waiting for that 80's trickle down to get here.
Did it ever occur to you to go out looking for and working for it instead of sitting by the door waiting for opportunity (or the mailman bringing a check) to knock?
Of course not. If logic and ambition were a part of your make up you wouldn't be a Dim.
"I adore John McCain, support him 100 percent and will do everything I can to support his reelection. As everyone knows, I was honored and proud to run with him. And Todd and I were with him in D.C. just a week ago." (Sarah Palin,Dec 2009) ************************************ DID Palin say or write these things or not? (Me) I don't know or F ing care. (Mad Dog posted on 2009-12-26 16:36:33 ET,post # 105 http://libertysflame.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=5510&Disp=114#C114)
#7. To: mininggold (#4)
I keep hearing all over the internet that if they just be allowed to keep more of their profits via lower taxes they would create more and more jobs. I see the profits but I don't see the jobs, not in the US anyway.
They need to be secure too. They need to know that government will be there for them with the kind of rules that permit them to abuse employees and pay low taxes.
It is our responsibility to protect that child once that child’s born too. When we start debating a budget, let’s make sure we don’t cut 100,000 vaccines. Let’s make sure we’ve got health insurance. We seem to worship what we cannot see, but as soon as that baby’s born, oh no, we don’t want to be intrusive. Texas is going to shrink government until it fits inside a women’s uterus. Senator Leticia Van de Putte
#8. To: lucysmom (#7)
They need to be secure too. They need to know that government will be there for them with the kind of rules that permit them to abuse employees and pay low taxes.
Some say they are entitled as they pay for it in high taxes, but then some say they cost the taxes to the price of goods so they don't actually pay any taxes, the consumer does.
#9. To: mininggold (#8)
Some say they are entitled as they pay for it in high taxes, but then some say they cost the taxes to the price of goods so they don't actually pay any taxes, the consumer does.
I've also heard that business pays all taxes because one way or another consumers get their money from business either as employees or shareholders.
It is our responsibility to protect that child once that child’s born too. When we start debating a budget, let’s make sure we don’t cut 100,000 vaccines. Let’s make sure we’ve got health insurance. We seem to worship what we cannot see, but as soon as that baby’s born, oh no, we don’t want to be intrusive. Texas is going to shrink government until it fits inside a women’s uterus. Senator Leticia Van de Putte
#10. To: mininggold (#4)
And most of the corps are still on track for record earnings.
I think we should concentrate on getting rid of all the tax breaks they get, then we could probably lower the rates some and still increase revenues. We should also reward them somehow for creating jobs here and punish them for moving jobs overseas to third world countries.
#11. To: Brian S (#0)
What’s Germany’s Secret?
I'll tell you what their secret is. They didn't elect Obama.
Unemployment rates over the last decade:
| Year | America | Germany |
| 2000 | 4.0% | 10.5% |
| 2001 | 4.7% | 9.9% |
| 2002 | 5.8% | 9.8% |
| 2003 | 6.0% | 9.8% |
| 2004 | 5.5% | 10.5% |
| 2005 | 5.1% | 10.6% |
| 2006 | 4.6% | 11.7% |
| 2007 | 4.6% | 7.1% |
| 2008 | 5.8% | 9.0% |
| Obama Takes Office | ||
| 2009 | 9.3% | 7.8% |
| 2010 | 9.6% | 7.2% |
| 2011 | 9.1% | 6.8% |
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."-- Charles Duell, Commissioner of US Patent Office, 1899
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