Inequality not growing, median incomes up

[WIP]

We in Canada need to think about such things on our own terms - not in terms of the US. We should be able to find solutions to our problems that suit us.

You're dreaming in technicolor again! Doesn't the steady increase in foreign ownership tell you something about how far we will be able to go before the chain gets yanked? The globalization agenda of "free trade" treaties keeps chipping away at whatever sovereignty we have left. Once we sign on to TPP, we will have no control over our resources, and once we are indebted to the bankers, we will be stuck with the same austerity regiments that afflict most of Europe now, and will soon be landing on the U.S.

[Michael Hardner]

You're dreaming in technicolor again! Doesn't the steady increase in foreign ownership tell you something about how far we will be able to go before the chain gets yanked?

There are still countries, and we still have a major say over our own laws, and healthcare policies. If we didn't, you wouldn't have the controls over alcohol and tobacco that we have.

[WIP]

There are still countries, and we still have a major say over our own laws, and healthcare policies. If we didn't, you wouldn't have the controls over alcohol and tobacco that we have.

Aside from minor social issues, we are not going to be able to keep social programs like healthcare if our economy is hollowed out by globalization! Just in the news today: General Motors Canada to move new Camaro production to Michigan plant. Now that new U.S. GM workers starting on the assembly line are working for half the rate of employees under the existing contract ($14.00 per hr.), our auto workers lose their jobs, as they move back across the U.S. border....unless they are willing to join the U.S. workers in the race to the bottom!

The fact that the American workers were forced into cutting wages in half to keep their jobs, was the great untold story behind the "Obama saves GM" headlines that Democrats trumpeted, and Republicans overlooked....because...well anything that drives down wages to slave labour is not going to be subject to criticism by corporate Republicans.

So, should workers in Canada join their American counterparts, and the desperate in third world countries in the race to the bottom? As I pointed out among the overlooked backstories in that Bangladeshi sweatshop factory fire, the manufacturer was given incentives to drive wages even lower and cut corners on any safety measures because their factories were being threatened by Walmart and the other buyers, that they would cancel further contracts and find other suppliers elsewhere if they didn't continue cutting costs. This is the ugly story behind globalization, which has given corporate artificial entities the power to blackmail governments at all levels to provide "incentives" to get their factories and stores, and to keep unions out and wages low to keep those jobs.

This is how the seeds for inequality were sown by the only international institutions with real power: WTO, IMF, World Bank, and unless there is an educated population who understands the game that is being played at their expense, and is capable of organizing to fight back, inequality will only get worse as time goes on.

The only reason why Canada is more equal than the U.S. is because we have been slower than they are to embrace gangster capitalism and join them in the race to the bottom. But, thanks to Harper, we are about to sign on to a new and more intrusive globalization treaty, and here in Ontario - if we are stupid enough to hate McGuinty enough to elect Hudak, that will be the end of unions in Ontario and middle class incomes for the average worker! And then we will not have the tax base to support medicare, Canada Pension etc.. Europe is being forced to unwind and dissolve their social programs right now; if present trends continue, we will be joining them very soon.

[bush_cheney2004]

....The only reason why Canada is more equal than the U.S. is because we have been slower than they are to embrace gangster capitalism and join them in the race to the bottom.

Really? Perhaps you think GM Canada is a separate entity from the corporate "gangsters" in Detroit? How many more American autoworker jobs do think Ontario has a right to at inflated CAW wage levels.

[Michael Hardner]

So, should workers in Canada join their American counterparts, and the desperate in third world countries in the race to the bottom?

Kind of a loaded question, wouldn't you say ?

Of course, competition is a fact of life as B_C points out and even Unions can't offer unlimited wealth to their members. There are limits to these things. But there's also the problem of spreading the benefits of globalization across society. Canada seems to be better at that than other countries.

[WIP]

Really? Perhaps you think GM Canada is a separate entity from the corporate "gangsters" in Detroit? How many more American autoworker jobs do think Ontario has a right to at inflated CAW wage levels.

"has a right to?" This is the no.1 reason I am a socialist in the first place! People like you think those who have the capital to turn people into human components on a manufacturing or assembly line, have the right to dictate all the terms to their workers. The average workplace is a dictatorship, where the business owner is taking us back to the days before the beginning of the 20th century and the start of the union movement. And that's why real, effective unions are an essential to clawback some of the benefits that the owners will try to grab for themselves if allowed to.

If you don't like unions, then the alternative should be workplace democracy, or an expansion of the cooperative movement, where the people who do the jobs and make the products share the profits and have a real say in how their labour is utilized.

And, what a joke, calling CAW wages inflated, when auto workers have seen their average hourly rates eroded by inflation....just like everyone else in manufacturing. As globalization makes capital international and ready to cross borders, the earnings for workers are driven down to the lowest common denominator. If it's labour intensive, like textiles, it's 37c per hour, like those clothing makers in Bangladesh; if it requires some degree of skill and training...wages may be a little higher. But even skilled workers and professionals are affected by the race to the bottom....as are small business owners...who seem to be the stupidest twits of the lot...because they are oblivious to how much their little crapbox business depends on the discretionary income of the people living in their community...until they stop coming through their doors or paying for their services.

It's worth noting that everyone who works as an employee is underpaid! And if you don't believe it, ask yourself how any business is profitable unless they pay their workers less than the full value of their work. That is the whole game of capitalism in a nutshell -- to get as much value out of people for as little compensation as possible!

Edited December 20, 2012 by WIP

[WIP]

Kind of a loaded question, wouldn't you say ?

Of course, competition is a fact of life as B_C points out and even Unions can't offer unlimited wealth to their members.

Unions weren't offering "unlimited wealth" prior to globalization either! The difference has been that in the new regimen of the last 30 years, when workers walk out, the threat of closure and job loss is much greater than it was before. Nowadays our governments facilitate the outsourcing of the jobs by allowing the product to be shipped back here from China or South Asia without being hit with tariffs and import duties that would have made a company have second thoughts before closing down factories before.

There are limits to these things. But there's also the problem of spreading the benefits of globalization across society. Canada seems to be better at that than other countries.

What are the benefits of globalization? I mean specifically, the benefits for everyone who is not a banker or the owner of a corporation? There were a lot of promises made when free trade agreements were proposed and signed at first; and from what I have seen - those promises have not been kept! We were told that, while there may be job losses in some low skilled, intensive labour industries, they would be more than compensated for by adapting to a more specialized economy that utilized people and resources more effectively. And, sending low skilled manufacturing to third world countries would raise their living standards. The reality is that we have lost the jobs, while the poor nations that have taken them on have not improved their living standards by going from subsistence farming to being forced off their land and providing cheap labour for the new sweatshops. And globalization's tendency to concentrate and specialize nations with certain industries has increased the quantity and distance of shipping, and made individual economies less self-sufficient and more dependent on trade. Besides the increased complexity and brittleness of interconnected economies in the era of globalization has also had a negative impact on the environment, because of the increase in carbon costs from transportation.

[Michael Hardner]

Unions weren't offering "unlimited wealth" prior to globalization either! The difference has been that in the new regimen of the last 30 years, when workers walk out, the threat of closure and job loss is much greater than it was before. Nowadays our governments facilitate the outsourcing of the jobs by allowing the product to be shipped back here from China or South Asia without being hit with tariffs and import duties that would have made a company have second thoughts before closing down factories before.

Yes, all of that is correct.

What are the benefits of globalization?

I think you have mentioned them. The thing that wasn`t anticipated is that the jobs replacing so-called low skilled jobs did not in fact pay more.

[Wilber]

I'm big on worrying about income inequality. But if the percentage gains of the poorest really are higher than those of the richest, that would show that we're heading in the right direction or at least not the wrong one. Of course absolute dollar gains will be bigger at the top - they have the most dollars. Even if the poorest made a huge percentage jump in income, while the top increased only slightly, absolute gains would still likely be higher at the top. Percentages is what counts, not absolute. But I sure would like to look at TD data, because I just can't believe that the middle and bottom income earners have done nothing but stagnate at best, lose at worst. We just see it in the hollowing out of good, middle class jobs. A few move up the ladder, many are dropping down to McJobs, and we're importing people to take the few good jobs still going. (As well as the McJobs).

100 percent of nothing is still nothing where I come from.

[bush_cheney2004]

"has a right to?" This is the no.1 reason I am a socialist in the first place! People like you think those who have the capital to turn people into human components on a manufacturing or assembly line, have the right to dictate all the terms to their workers. The average workplace is a dictatorship, where the business owner is taking us back to the days before the beginning of the 20th century and the start of the union movement.

That's fine by me....it's the Golden Rule....whoever has the gold (capital)..makes the rules. Don't like that....leave.

You didn't answer the question about GM...so GM answered it for you: Camaro production will move out of Ontario to a consolidated rear-wheel drive plant in Right to Work Michigan. The CAW is crying the blues..again. How dare an American company build American cars in America.

It's worth noting that everyone who works as an employee is underpaid! And if you don't believe it, ask yourself how any business is profitable unless they pay their workers less than the full value of their work. That is the whole game of capitalism in a nutshell -- to get as much value out of people for as little compensation as possible!

Speak for yourself....I am grossly overpaid, with oodles of free time to play games with "socialists" like you during working hours. Who needs a union !

Edited December 21, 2012 by bush_cheney2004

[Bonam]

Speak for yourself....I am grossly overpaid

No kidding. How can he presume to speak on behalf of all employees? That's the problem with unionists: they think they have the right to speak for everyone, when really their labor ideology represents only a small minority.

Just a few days ago I was speaking with some of my friends at Boeing. Now, they're in they're 20s, just getting rolling with their careers. But their engineers union at Boeing is contemplating striking. Of course, they have no position to bargain from, since Boeing is already in the process of moving more and more jobs to other states. What do the union guys say? Who cares, if job action backfires, we're just a few years from retiring anyway. Do the young people with their careers ahead of em get any say? Nope. The union is an old boys club, catering to the concerns of people who started their in the 60s: their pensions and retirements are what they are thinking about, not the future of the company or the employees who still have their lives ahead of them.

Edited December 21, 2012 by Bonam

[WIP]

No kidding. How can he presume to speak on behalf of all employees? That's the problem with unionists: they think they have the right to speak for everyone, when really their labor ideology represents only a small minority.

And what do you do for a living Bonam? Obviously, your job is so important that even the greediest, most ruthless executive has to pay you top dollar! You think people working in the Walmarts or McDonalds's now wouldn't want a union if they could get one certified without running the risk of losing a job that they can't afford to lose? Who do you speak for? Besides yourself and a few puffed up prima donnas who think they are the masters of the universe. Like I said previously, a corporation is a dictatorship! And workers who don't have a union, have no means to balance the power of their employer to control their lives. With the collapse and dwindling of unions and the labour movement, the repercussions have been felt by unionized and non-unionized workers together. Union members have less space to bargain in an era where their jobs can easily be outsourced to anywhere that will do them cheaper (with the help of enabling governments that facilitate outsourcing), and the non-union workers have suffered as well, because prior to the erosion of unions, employers had to keep their wages more competitive to maintain quality employees. Now that there are so many desperate unemployed and underemployed in many areas, they can...and do pay whatever they feel like....which is often about 25c above minimum wage.

Just a few days ago I was speaking with some of my friends at Boeing. Now, they're in they're 20s, just getting rolling with their careers. But their engineers union at Boeing is contemplating striking. Of course, they have no position to bargain from, since Boeing is already in the process of moving more and more jobs to other states. What do the union guys say? Who cares, if job action backfires, we're just a few years from retiring anyway. Do the young people with their careers ahead of em get any say? Nope. The union is an old boys club, catering to the concerns of people who started their in the 60s: their pensions and retirements are what they are thinking about, not the future of the company or the employees who still have their lives ahead of them.

Did you tell these 20 somethings, fresh out of university that the "careers" at the company you claim they are all dreamy-eyed about, are being outsourced? So they might have to learn Spanish and get used to the pay scale of Mexican workers: Boeing invites suppliers to conference on outsourcing to Mexico

Boeing is actively encouraging its suppliers to outsource work to Mexico.

Patrick McKenna, director of Supply Chain Strategy and Supplier Management at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, has urged suppliers to attend a Nov. 15 workshop in Chicago to learn how to do business in Mexico.

"Several of our suppliers have successfully set up factories in Mexico because of the numerous advantages that Mexico offers to aerospace suppliers," McKenna wrote in a letter dated Oct. 17. "Boeing will be sending several people to this event, and we wanted to inform our supply base of this opportunity."

The event's organizers will waive the $200 registration fees for Boeing suppliers, he said.

Boeing's invitation comes near the end of a presidential-election campaign in which the outsourcing of U.S. jobs is a hot issue.

Until I started hearing stories about labour unrest at Boeing, the only thing I knew about them was they made airplanes and were based in Seattle. Now we find that their greed to maximize profits has come at the cost of quality control -- you have more control over product quality, if you are making it in house, rather than expecting a supplier to adhere to your reliability standards, and doing random testing on parts received. That may work well enough for the car companies...they'll just cover the flaws until the warranty runs out, and drop the supplier if they cost them too much with recalls; but an airline manufacturer! This is supposed to top of the line! Any mistake is one too many! Now, along with underpaid, less qualified pilots crashing planes, we'll have to worry about wings falling off in the middle of flight!

Learning from Boeing’s outsourcing disaster

Boeing’s goal, it seems, was to convert its storied aircraft factory near Seattle to a mere assembly plant, bolting together modules designed and produced elsewhere as though from kits.

The drawbacks of this approach emerged early. Some of the pieces manufactured by far-flung suppliers didn’t fit together. Some subcontractors couldn’t meet their output quotas…

Rather than follow its old model of providing parts subcontractors with detailed blueprints created at home, Boeing gave suppliers less detailed specifications and required them to create their own blueprints.

Some then farmed out their engineering to their own subcontractors. At least one major supplier didn’t even have an engineering department when it won its contract.

Not only was all this forseeable, it was foreseen — not only by the unions, but also by executives. And, of course, the aforementioned Hart-Smith:

Among the least profitable jobs in aircraft manufacturing, he pointed out, is final assembly — the job Boeing proposed to retain. But its subcontractors would benefit from free technical assistance from Boeing if they ran into problems, and would hang on to the highly profitable business of producing spare parts over the decades-long life of the aircraft. Their work would be almost risk-free, Hart-Smith observed, because if they ran into really insuperable problems they would simply be bought out by Boeing.

What do you know? In 2009, Boeing spent about $1 billion in cash and credit to take over the underperforming fuselage manufacturing plant of Vought Aircraft Industries, which had contributed to the years of delays.

The lesson here is that Boeing executives, just like most of the rest of corporate and political America, were incredibly bad at pricing moral hazard and tail risk. Outsourcing is a bit like taking collateral from your repo operation and investing it in subprime credit. Most of the time, you make a small amount of money — and then, occasionally and unpredictably, you lose an absolute fortune. Boeing was picking up pennies in front of a steamroller, and ended up getting crushed.

I do wonder what proportion of corporate “efficiencies” are false ones along these lines. Did Mark Hurd improve HP’s margins by cutting back on R&D expenditure? Or did he sign the company’s long-term death warrant? And of course when Win Neuger’s reach for yield in the AIG securities-lending operation was truly disastrous.

Hiltzik concludes:

The company now recognizes that “we need to know how to do every major system on the airplane better than our suppliers do.”

One would have thought that the management of the world’s leading aircraft manufacturer would know that going in, before handing over millions of dollars of work to companies that couldn’t turn out a Tab A that fit reliably into Slot A. On-the-job training for senior executives, it seems, can be very expensive.

The sad thing is that this lesson has to be learned the hard way so many times. Can’t anybody else learn from Boeing’s mistakes?

These two articles cover a lot of the issues that have poisoned the workplace at Boeing, but it needs to be added that Boeing's decision to start the move from an inhouse operation to one like the major car manufacturers, that contract out most of the parts to independent suppliers, has obviously destroyed whatever loyalty most of the workers had with the company! And that's something that will make all the airline passengers feel more safe and secure!

Forgot to mention, lots of union members (like me and my local) lost a lot of money sitting out on a picket line - just like GM workers, to try to stop companies from busting up collective agreements, so they could put all the new hires at lower pay rates. We were fighting to try to protect their future earnings and the ability to earn a decent living at the same jobs, as previous generations of workers did. It wasn't for our benefit, and the company at first tried to sweeten the pot by offering us special bonuses and concessions to shaft the new people. A nine month strike was only partially successful, because we improved the terms for the new hires, but couldn't bring them in under the existing collective agreement. And we did it with the full realization that we wouldn't get back the money we lost while being out on strike! So much for your bullshit about the senior employees only being concerned with their pensions and benefits!

Edited December 21, 2012 by WIP

[DFCaper]

Political Advocacy will be the ruin of unions here in NA. Doing so has caused a divide for and against. It is what bothers me about the current arrangement with the Public sector unions. The last provincial election in Ontario, was a disgrace to democracy. Teacher are crying that the Liberals are destroying democracy, but I feel the actions the public sector unions was the biggest issue with our current system of democracy. And I thought Corporate influence on government was bad! No need to discuss what is wrong with Sid Ryan, as either you see him as a poison or already drank too much kool-aid.

With private industry unions, wages isn't there biggest issue. The atmosphere they create in a work place is so poisonous that it makes them uncompetitive. They are stuck in doing things like they did in the past. Probably partially the result of High school drop outs running the show. They claim victories by being inefficient to create the need for more people. The added personnel needed to do the job is how they like to create jobs. In one of my previous jobs, I experienced how the CAW is just another company. If you ever were a member of the CAW at a non-automotive plant trying to get a contract, and see how much they care about the common worker.

It is unfortunate that we have the unions we have today. They are essential to take on the forces against the average Joe. I think we need to look to countries that have effective and strong unions who care about their employer. The Germans I know are always shocked by how unreasonable our unions are, despite being believers in the unions they are part of. The political attacks our unions are doing is not going to result in improvements, but the Right will just attack them with policies that will just likely make things worse. I doubt right to work is going to modernize unions. Maybe opening their books can help.

You think people working in the Walmarts or McDonalds's now wouldn't want a union if they could get one certified without running the risk of losing a job that they can't afford to lose? Who do you speak for? Besides yourself and a few puffed up prima donnas who think they are the masters of the universe. Like I said previously, a corporation is a dictatorship! And workers who don't have a union, have no means to balance the power of their employer to control their lives. With the collapse and dwindling of unions and the labour movement, the repercussions have been felt by unionized and non-unionized workers together. Union members have less space to bargain in an era where their jobs can easily be outsourced to anywhere that will do them cheaper (with the help of enabling governments that facilitate outsourcing), and the non-union workers have suffered as well, because prior to the erosion of unions, employers had to keep their wages more competitive to maintain quality employees. Now that there are so many desperate unemployed and underemployed in many areas, they can...and do pay whatever they feel like....which is often about 25c above minimum wage.

I think the biggest issue against Service employees is allowing foreign labour in. It is not allowing the financial imbalance to self correct with market forces. Minimum wage is not enough to fully staff the industry, so the industry should correct with increase pay and improve working conditions. If the true cost for a coffee shop in Canada with Canadian employees is $10, so be it. The people work way too hard at Tim’s for what they make, and the market is reflecting that with a labour shortage. Allowing foreigners to come in at low wages is just messing with the market to screw the service employees. I don't want to make less so others can get a cheaper product, why should they. As an Engineer, I would be in trouble if we just flooded our country with Cheap Chinese Engineers. So much so, I would likely be forced to leave this country.

(EDIT TEXT SIZE)

Edited December 21, 2012 by DFCaper

[WIP]

Political Advocacy will be the ruin of unions here in NA. Doing so has caused a divide for and against. It is what bothers me about the current arrangement with the Public sector unions. The last provincial election in Ontario, was a disgrace to democracy. Teacher are crying that the Liberals are destroying democracy, but I feel the actions the public sector unions was the biggest issue with our current system of democracy. And I thought Corporate influence on government was bad! No need to discuss what is wrong with Sid Ryan, as either you see him as a poison or already drank too much kool-aid.

I'm not completely up to speed with what the teachers are doing with rotating strikes et al., since my youngest has finished high school, and I might have agreed at one time, but that was prior to what the U.S. has done to their public schooling systems. We can see the same things that are tried to bust unions in the U.S., find their away across the border within 10 years. A simple rule of contract is that you don't get to break or rewrite agreements that have been signed and are still in effect. And I don't care which government does it; back when fake NDP leader Bob Rae abrogated all of the public service union contracts with provincial and municipal workers in Ontario, the NDP payed a huge price for it, and lost all but the traditional NDP strongholds as a result.

With private industry unions, wages isn't there biggest issue. The atmosphere they create in a work place is so poisonous that it makes them uncompetitive. They are stuck in doing things like they did in the past. Probably partially the result of High school drop outs running the show. They claim victories by being inefficient to create the need for more people. The added personnel needed to do the job is how they like to create jobs. In one of my previous jobs, I experienced how the CAW is just another company. If you ever were a member of the CAW at a non-automotive plant trying to get a contract, and see how much they care about the common worker.

I am starting to call bullshit every time I see the word - competitive today! If employers want or expect any loyalty from their employees, the workers have to have some confidence that the company will not continually keep demanding cuts in pay....because someone in the South, or Mexico, or China, will do it cheaper! If the company shows no loyalty to the workers, why should the workers have any loyalty to the company?

When I was young, I couldn't get into the auto plants or the steel mills, which were considered lifetime jobs back in the 70's, if you wanted to stay in the same place, while raising a family. At that time, there were hiring freezes because of recession; but after the recessions, the jobs never came back like they did before, so most of us had to look for the next job, wherever we happened to be at the time. Actually working in the same place for more than 20 years today is something of a miracle....or luck.

I think the biggest issue against Service employees is allowing foreign labour in. It is not allowing the financial imbalance to self correct with market forces. Minimum wage is not enough to fully staff the industry, so the industry should correct with increase pay and improve working conditions. If the true cost for a coffee shop in Canada with Canadian employees is $10, so be it. The people work way too hard at Tim’s for what they make, and the market is reflecting that with a labour shortage. Allowing foreigners to come in at low wages is just messing with the market to screw the service employees. I don't want to make less so others can get a cheaper product, why should they. As an Engineer, I would be in trouble if we just flooded our country with Cheap Chinese Engineers. So much so, I would likely be forced to leave this country.

(EDIT TEXT SIZE)

Same thing happened to trades, as many companies found ways to bring in welders and machinists from Eastern Europe, who had the training and on-the-job experience, and were willing to do it for a lot less. But, eventually....certainly by the next generation, the people will expect the same money for the same job as everyone else. Unless someone starts pushing back against the forces of globalization, the race to the bottom will continue! The only thing slowing them down right now is rising energy costs affecting transportation costs.

[bush_cheney2004]

I'm not completely up to speed with what the teachers are doing with rotating strikes et al., since my youngest has finished high school, and I might have agreed at one time, but that was prior to what the U.S. has done to their public schooling systems. We can see the same things that are tried to bust unions in the U.S.,

Aren't there any original CanCon ways to bust unions in Canada ?

I am starting to call bullshit every time I see the word - competitive today! If employers want or expect any loyalty from their employees, the workers have to have some confidence that the company will not continually keep demanding cuts in pay.

There is no more expectation of "loyalty" by either party. Such a silly notion went away years ago.

[Bonam]

There is no more expectation of "loyalty" by either party. Such a silly notion went away years ago.

Depends on the company. At smaller, non-unionized R&D companies such as where I and many of my friends/acquaintances work at, I'd say the notion of loyalty is still alive and kicking.

[bush_cheney2004]

Depends on the company. At smaller, non-unionized R&D companies such as where I and many of my friends/acquaintances work at, I'd say the notion of loyalty is still alive and kicking.

Loyalty is now a bad long term strategy because it sets up a false expectation that even the best intentioned ownership or management cannot always meet. Workers should not delay personal planning or defensive measures to protect their interests in the hope that "loyalty" will save the day. The very notion of a union and collective bargaining agreement with labour actions defies loyalty concepts. Even the union one may join will screw you when necessary.

Edited December 22, 2012 by bush_cheney2004

[Michael Hardner]

Loyalty is now a bad long term strategy because it sets up a false expectation that even the best intentioned ownership or management cannot always meet. Workers should not delay personal planning or defensive measures to protect their interests in the hope that "loyalty" will save the day. The very notion of a union and collective bargaining agreement with labour actions defies loyalty concepts. Even the union one may join will screw you when necessary.

Agreed. The labour market is a prisoner's dilemma game and if anybody wants to play the loyalty option, they should only expect self-satisfaction as a reward.

[bush_cheney2004]

Agreed. The labour market is a prisoner's dilemma game and if anybody wants to play the loyalty option, they should only expect self-satisfaction as a reward.

Abandoning loyalty for an objective self-interest strategy also has obvious benefits related to mobility and opportunity. The psychological benefit is just added gravy, as those who take charge of their own future are not left to struggle with a layoff victim's mentality.

[WIP]

I mentioned some of these points previously, but it's worth adding an expert rebuttal of Andrew Coyne's propaganda that started this thread:

Sorry, Andrew Coyne, but income inequality is a real problem

But Miles Corak, an economist and international authority on the links between income inequality and social mobility, effectively rebutted both Mr. Coyne’s conclusion and the TD study. Mr. Corak’s blogs (at milescorak.com) show income inequality has not stopped increasing in Canada, and offer better ways to measure it. He also points out that Canada is not immune to the many ways in which inequality threatens opportunity.

But this skips over a more important question: Why hasn’t Canada seen a reduction in income inequality?

In the decade before the global crisis, our economy was firing on all cylinders and employment rates reached record highs. From the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, 15 of 32 OECD countries reduced income inequality. Not us. Instead of harnessing our extraordinary track record of job creation and economic growth, Canada tumbled further down the inequality rankings than any other country, slumping from above-average equality to below-average. If such a buoyant market didn’t help close the gap, what will?..................

A year ago, economist Stephen Gordon offered some insights on how to assess income inequality in Canada, noting it has grown constantly over the last 30 years, but in different ways.

From the 1970s to the ’90s, inequality grew because more people lost ground at the bottom of the income distribution in the wake of two big recessions. After the mid-’90s, on the other hand, the gap grew because the rich did so much better than everyone else, seeing the lion’s share of income gains from economic growth. So much for trickle-down economics.

The IMF has warned that higher inequality is correlated to shorter spells of growth, and more market volatility. The Conference Board of Canada cautions that Canada’s levels of inequality mean squandered potential. Just this week, TD Bank CEO Ed Clarke acknowledged inequality in Canada has been growing for the last 30 years, raising a challenge for society that demands discussion.

Whether you want less poverty or a more robust economy, greater innovation or improved productivity, better life chances or a healthier democracy, the way forward in Canada involves reducing income inequality.

But markets alone don’t reduce income inequality, not even when the economy is chugging away at full speed. So what can we do?

First, don’t dismiss the issue. Start a conversation about how we can reduce income inequality. The ideas will flow from across the political spectrum, because this isn’t a partisan issue. It’s a problem for everyone.

Income inequality has its share of deniers. But the evidence that is accumulating around the world makes clear: Burying the issue under a false sense of progress won’t protect us from the massively disruptive consequences of a growing gap. Stay awake. Start talking.

There you have it! Even the IMF recognizes that you can't address poverty issues or economic decline without dealing with the problem of inequality. Too bad that their actions don't follow their rhetoric! Since the bankers and corporate raiders they unleash to cannibalize struggling, indebted nations and their actions in forcing the indebted governments to sign on to austerity programs guarantee economic decline for all, especially the lower income groups.....thus increasing inequality even further.

[Canuckistani]

Thanks for that. Lays it out very clearly and cuts thru the Fraser Institute bs.

[eyeball]

Agreed. The labour market is a prisoner's dilemma game and if anybody wants to play the loyalty option, they should only expect self-satisfaction as a reward.

Abandoning loyalty for an objective self-interest strategy also has obvious benefits related to mobility and opportunity. The psychological benefit is just added gravy, as those who take charge of their own future are not left to struggle with a layoff victim's mentality.

This pagan employee/employer ethos sounds like so much bullshit when applied in situations where both have a shared interest in the sustainability of a natural common property resource and the ecosystems that produce them.

Loyalty and community do exist in the human economy, it's no surprise to me that both are integral to effective stewardship of common interests. Without them, there are few if any common interests.

[Michael Hardner]

This pagan employee/employer ethos sounds like so much bullshit when applied in situations where both have a shared interest in the sustainability of a natural common property resource and the ecosystems that produce them.

I can't imagine such a thing for myself, nor can I imagine how that type of scarcity would impact their relationship - or even IF it would.

Loyalty and community do exist in the human economy, it's no surprise to me that both are integral to effective stewardship of common interests. Without them, there are few if any common interests.

Loyalty, how ? Loyalty as pledging to stand by another entity through thick and thing doesn't entirely make sense when everybody is openly acting in their own interests only.

[Guest Manny]

Abandoning loyalty for an objective self-interest strategy also has obvious benefits related to mobility and opportunity. The psychological benefit is just added gravy, as those who take charge of their own future are not left to struggle with a layoff victim's mentality.

Thank You Ayn Rand

[Michael Hardner]

Thank You Ayn Rand

Objectivism doesn't apply here, exactly. We're talking about a deal between two people, not selflessness vs selfishness.

Even if you choose to be loyal to your employer, that's not entirely selfless either so I don't think the Ayn Rand comment fits very well.

This, to me, is more about a corporate culture that valued loyalty and practiced it until a certain point in history. Like the Prisoner's Dilemma game it eventually made no sense for any participant to assume that they could rely on the other players.