Economic pressures

[Danny B]

Cash pulled out,,, debt created to cover the hole

Canada is a resource economy and resources are crashing. Consequently, the money is leaving Canada. Forget China: This Extremely "Developed" Country Just Suffered Its Biggest Money Outflow Ever | Zero Hedge
Stockman says to end the FED's money creation ability. Seems strange because private banks create most of the money. End The Fed’s Money Monopoly–The Only Escape From Monetary Central Planning & The Wall Street Casino | David Stockman's Contra Corner
China seems to be losing control. "Did Something Just Snap In China: Total SOE Debt Rises By $1 Trillion In One Month"
Did Something Just Snap In China: Total SOE Debt Rises By $1 Trillion In One Month | Zero Hedge
"Every year, China is now adding $2.5 trillion of private sector debt to a $9.7 trillion GDP." Why does that sound like a BAD idea? China's "Minsky Moment" Is Here, Morgan Stanley Finds | Zero Hedge
The banking industry just gets more and more concentrated in fewer hands. Considering just how big it has gotten, the meltdown / explosion will probably be heard on Pluto. https://hendersonlefthook.wordpress....en-of-banking/

[wayne.ct]

Centralized Banking, etc.

If you care to examine what is going on along with the hows and whys, perhaps you will see what I see. There seems to be a pendulum or wave phenomenon in which power becomes centralized on the one hand and then swings back toward a decentralized paradigm over time and in various contexts.

In the recent past the US Dollar formed a 'centralized' common reference point in the global economy, not just in the US. Even though individual countries had their "own" currencies and individual banks had their own depositors, creditors and stockholders, etc, there was this "central" factor. This was, of course, the reserve currency, the USD.

The pendulum is swinging the other way. The central planners are resisting this with counter force. I think this is more than a mere change from one reserve currency to another. I think we are headed for economic hard times.

Now, regarding Iceland, the article about Iceland says they are putting the money printing authority in the hands of a central bank. Really? I guess they have not really learned anything. Or, perhaps, the central banker types have been hard at work behind the scenes to get what they really want and have deceived the people of Iceland, again.

There really is, in my view, a psychology to this and until more people understand this stuff, they will continue to get manipulated and controlled by powerful people with their own selfish interests.

[Danny B]

Falling wages,,, falling economy

After WW II, America built a high-wage, high-price economy by having a lock on manufacturing. By about 1970, we lost that lock and it has been a downhill slide ever since then. It stands to reason. We are in a transition period where we still have high prices even though aggregate labor income has crashed through the basement.

21 Facts About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America That Will Blow Your Mind
#16 There are simply not enough good jobs to go around anymore. It may be hard to believe, but 51 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.
So, 102.6 million not working. 10,000 people sign up for social security every day. So, not working,, not earning.
American industry was thrown into global competition.
Aluminum; When a 127-Year-Old U.S. Industry Collapses Under China's Weight - Bloomberg Business
Steel; https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ree-heres-why/
Oil; It's a gusher! Oil industry layoffs hit 6-month high: report - NY Daily News

America has crashed badly with globalism. The financial sector has tried to soldier on by printing lots of money. It would like to remain independent and detached from the pain of the working man. BUT, a 4 decade slide in wages is dragging down Wall St. Globalism chipped away at wages / purchasing power. Manufacturers had to get more efficient to deal with our falling wages. They did more outsourcing to lower the cost of their goods. This, of course, is a downward spiral. They resorted to ever-more mergers and trade agreements for more efficiency to try to meet our shrinking wages.
As industry, especially banking finds it ever-more difficult to make a profit, they exert ever-more control over GOV to get more favorable deals. The latest trade deals would gut all GOV regulation. We're sliding towards a global-mean wage and industry just can't make a profit no matter how many robots they buy. They take ever-more control of GOV as we slide into fascism. Big Pharma, especially, has BIG profits mandated by law. WE can't pay for their high-priced medicines so, GOV mandates that we must join up. We still can't pay so, GOV pays in our names and expects to charge it off to our children. Our children are not working.
Lacking their former levels of profit ( because we are lacking our former wages), industry (especially banking) pushed even harder for more State control of our wallets.
Jim Willie: Fascism & Gold | SilverDoctors.com
51% of Americans receive a check from GOV so, it's going to be difficult for us to Support both GOV and industry with our new-found poverty.
Oil used to be a guaranteed source of money for GOV, but, it has reversed and Big Oil is losing $ billions.
War industries used to be big money-makers but, things haven't gone so well lately. "In May 2003 Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) discovered that Halliburton subsidiary KBR had received a $425 million contract to rebuild Iraq in December 2001, a full year and a half before the war had even started. "
"All told Halliburton had received over $7 billion worth of contracts and the job of putting Iraq back together had barely even begun."
https://hendersonlefthook.wordpress....anking-on-war/ Raping a country for it's resources makes good business sense so, we do it a lot. That's over with now.

Russia has been super-effective in Syria. This has re-energised the Syrian army. China wants a piece of the action because they see it as a turkey shoot. They have plans in the MENA. With that much muscle in Syria, Iranian planes are bring in a volunteer battalion from Iraq. Hezbollah is happy to do the ground work and spare Russia the casualties. ISIS is getting their butts kicked so bad, they can't even use the weapons we send; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwCKsPzanbg
Russia is going to blockade the coast, China will help. http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/10...-syrian-coast/
Russia has brought in lots of missiles for hostile aircraft. There is WAY too much firepower in Syria for the Pentagram to even consider setting foot inside. The war-mongers are rabid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC7Fz0d9H8M
This decline contributes to a decline in other areas. Lots of States are dumping U.S. bonds. Many are in the process of rejecting the U.S. dollar.
All of this will help to bring back the gold standard. Because of Triffin's dilemma, any State that has the reserve currency will always over-print and crash. There is much talk about the SDR but, I don't think that it will fly.

Manufacturing has left. Steel has left, Aluminum, going. Lead gone. Oil leaving. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...Vu739ppkkMs.97
We're all going to have a lot of free time.

[Danny B]

Banking,,, central banking losing credibility

" The share of households in the middle tier of income earners has fallen to 43% from 55% since the 1970s, according to The New York Times.
And those households in the middle tier haven't gotten a raise since 1999. "
As America's middle class collapses, no one is buying stuff anymore / Boing Boing
Earnings are sliding but, the banks don't want to slide with us. Through manipulation of everything under the sun (except wages), they have managed to keep going. The Central Banks are now running out of both "tools" and believers. The banks are slowly being pulled towards the black hole of insolvency. S&P Puts Too-Big-To-Fail US Banks On Ratings Downgrade Watch, Blames Fed | Zero HedgeYou only grow the economy with more production AND more consumption.Extremism seems to equate to money printing. The Council on Foreign Relations has called for sending everybody $ 80,000.
When the Cult of Central Banking Collapses… | Casey ResearchGOV will never do anything like dismantling itself. The Hegelian dialectic calls for never ending growth of GOV until it controls everything. Communitarianism - Final Synthesis In Hegelian Dialectic
" leading to a collapse in demand for the official money" Blatant lie. The non-producers would demand even more of this free money. the producers would be a different story.Gee whiz, this system only lasted for 500 years. What a failure. "essentially worthless pieces of wood " The sticks were notched to indicate their value as a receipt. Then the sticks were split in half lengthwise. Each person received his half of a receipt that could not be counterfeited or modified. Steven Saville Blog | Why governments can't just print the money they need | Talkmarkets
The article could have examined the pros and cons of GOV created money but, it is much easier to just spout propaganda.
We slide towards a global mean wage at the same time that we have a demographic crash. The upper loop of the economy where all the free money is circulating is in complete denial.

[Danny B]

Employment way up,,, FED hike needed

In the simplest terms, ZIRP originally helped the banks. Later, it hurt them. ZIRP hurts hedge funds and insurance funds and retirement funds. ZIRP hurts savers and anyone who depends on interest-income. ZIRP helps corporate America to a certain extent. They are taking on a LOT of debt because money is so cheap. ZIRP is now hurting the big banks and they have been down-graded. They must be REALLY bad for S&P to publicly downgrade them. To a great extent, ZIRP is locked into the system because there are hundreds of $ trillions in interest rate swaps. Corporate America is in bad shape and only 3 companies have AAA rated credit. The lack of earnings is hurting corporate America. The crash of interest-earnings-income has driven many consumers to cut way back.

The FED is NOT independent. It has no army and is under the thumb of the district of corruption. Their balance sheet is up above $ 4 trillion. They take all their orders from the kleptocrats. They print to fund runaway socialism in D.C.
Forbes Welcome
Originally, the FED collected interest on the money it created. They now reimburse this money back to Washington.
The FED is printing with a knife at their throat. ZIRP was supposed to last no longer than 6 months. The big banks have been downgraded and the FED is desperate to save them with a rate hike.
Currently, they are talking up a storm about how good employment is and the need for a December rate hike.
Employment; Goldman Sachs, "just yesterday hiked its forecast from 175K to 190K" A LOT of people see that thy are not prepared for retirement and are trying to build up savings,,, or just stay out of the poorhouse "As the chart below shows, in October the age group that accounted for virtually all total job gains was workers aged 55 and over. They added some 378K jobs in the past month, representing virtually the entire increase in payrolls. And more troubling: workers aged 25-54 actually declined by 35,000, with males in this age group tumbling by 119,000!"
" workers aged 55 and older have gained over 7.5 million jobs in the past 8 years, workers aged 55 and under, have lost a cumulative total of 4.6 million jobs."
The Most Surprising Thing About Today's Jobs Report | Zero HedgeRIGHT, off the charts and out of the truth zone" ADP Report Latest Sign of Cooling Job Market
"The jobs report released Wednesday doesn't bode well for Friday's official government data release." NOT to worry, GOV jimmied the numbers.
"102.6 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now." They jimmy the numbers and fools believe it. ANY excuse for a rate hike to save the banks.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyxyRK39N4o

[Danny B]

HOW DO Empires Die? | Armstrong Economics
It's a long article but, you can skip much of it. It is worth reading. The important point to take away is that commerce collapses.

Armstrong; "What Destroyed Rome was its Unfunded Government Employee Pensions" http://s3.amazonaws.com/armstrongeco...ons-051811.pdf
The article has EVERY detail that you could ask for.

Kotlikoff; "$205 Trillion in Unfunded Liabilities" $205 Trillion in Unfunded Liabilities - The Daily Reckoning

http://s3.amazonaws.com/armstrongeconomics-wp/2011/09/armstrongeconomics-after-the-riots-091311.pdf

This is what happens when you put the parasite in charge.

Charles Hugh Smith, " Life Cycle of a Bureaucracy" This is an EXCELLENT read. Of Two Minds - When Collapse Is Cheaper and More Effective Than Reformhttp://www.silverdoctors.com/jim-wil...se/#more-58656

This is an excellent article on the balance between capitalism, socialism and free markets; http://economyandmarkets.com/economy...s-of-our-time/If you look at the amount of interest that we are paying that is leaving this country, it is far more than what we are losing in trade. Ah, but the primary dealers just got downgraded. All Governments eventually default. The FED is holding a HUGE part of GOV debt. The FED gave the banks something like $ 2.7 trillion in excess reserves and pays some interest on them. How bad is the situation if they have been downgraded when GOV is trying to pump up confidence? in addition to the $4 trillion that the FED claims that it is holding, it is printing of tons of pixels to rescue crashing energy hedges and derivatives. The poor get screwed but, it is the rich who are holding the bag.

[Danny B]

Tyler Durden and helicopter money

Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge is always years ahead of whatever is coming along in the financial world.
Back in early 2009, just around the time the Fed announced it would unleash QE1, we warned that any attempt to reflate the debt (a pathway which ultimately leads to hyperinflation as monetary paradrops are the only logical outcome as a result of the deflationary failure of the intermediate steps) would fail, and instead would saddle the world with even more debt, making monetary financing, i.e., paradropping money, the inevitable outcome.

We said that instead, the right move would be to liquidate the excess debt, and start anew - a step which, however, would wipe out trillions in (underwater) equity, something which the status quo would never agree to, as that is where the bulk of its wealth is contained.

7 years later, debt is well over $200 trillion, having risen by more than $60 trillion in the interim, and we are rapidly approaching the peak of the world's debt capacity as we noted a month ago in "The World Hits Its Credit Limit, And The Debt Market Is Starting To Realize That."

Today, we find that none other than Adair Turner, a member of the Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee and a Chairman of the Financial Services Authority, wrote a long essay in Bloomberg which admits everything we have warned about.
Equity value had to be preserved no matter how much employment crashed.
"More important, national incomes and living standards in many countries are 10 percent or more below where they could have been, and are likely to remain there in perpetuity. " Yep, that is what happens when you slide to a global wage at the same time that everything is automated.
"Almost any economics or finance textbook will describe how banks take money from savers and lend it to borrowers" Pure BS but, go on.
"Advanced economies' public debt on average increased by 34 percent of GDP between 2007 and 2014. More important, national incomes and living standards in many countries are 10 percent or more below where they could have been, and are likely to remain there in perpetuity.

The fundamental problem is that modern financial systems inevitably create debt in excessive quantities. The debt they create doesn't finance new capital investment but the purchase of existing assets, It doesn't finance new capital investment because nobody has wages to buy the products of capitalism. The investors know that we are broke.

At the core of financial instability in modern economies lies this interaction between the infinite capacity of banks to create new credit, money and purchasing power, and the scarce supply of urban land. Self-reinforcing cycles of boom and bust are the inevitable result" No mention whatsoever of crashing wages.
"We seem to need credit to grow faster than GDP to keep economies growing at a reasonable rate," So, credit will keep the economy growing even as wages crash,,,, on what planet?
" the deflation risk is fuelling fears the global economy could be fast stuck into a deep low-growth mire." Maybe the crash of the core population has something to do with low growth.
A Stunning Admission From A BOE Central Banker: This Is What The Coming "Helicopter Money" Will Look Like | Zero HedgeBloody marvellous idea. 102 million Americans of working age not in the labor force and you're going to give them a tax cut. What about the 51% of Americans who already receive a check from GOV.

[Danny B]

Borrowing to survive

Wages and earning power are crashing but, "Consumer Borrowing in U.S. Rose at Faster Pace in September" "The $28.9 billion jump in total credit followed a $16 billion gain in the previous month, Federal Reserve figures showed Friday"
"lending for auto purchases and bigger credit-card balances." GREAT, bump up my limit on my card and I will be your friend forever.
Consumer Borrowing in U.S. Rose at Faster Pace in September - Bloomberg Business
Anthony Wile writes about the coming collapse. The Daily Bell - The Inevitable Collapse of the World's Economic System – It's Coming
He makes a common mistake / omission. If you are going to plan for a collapse of credit and GOV, there is one, basic first step. Do a mental exercise. If the banks closed tomorrow, what would you do? THAT is what most people will do. Make your plans accordingly.

[Danny B]

Creeping socialism,,, creeping automation

Socialism requires a command economy but, a command economy has never worked. The more that the PTB push for a centralized economy, the more things go wrong.
Jim Grant;"We are in a regime of price administration. Price control is a policy that has failed for millennia. " " We are under the governance of former tenured economics professors who think they know more than they could possibly know."
"The 2008 Crisis Didn't Come From Nowhere," Jim Grant Slams The Fed's Utopian World Of "Economic Sleepwalking" | Zero HedgeQuantitative Easing & the Illogical Conclusion | Armstrong Economics
OK, so QE erodes the economic base. Ending QE wipes out almost everything. 1/2 the pundits are convinced that the FED will raise rates. 1/2 the pundits are sure that they won't. The economists have been seriously wrong every time for the last 5 years so, it is anybody's guess. Either path is destructive.
The FED is stuck with $ trillions in bonds that it can never sell. I suppose that U.S. GOV will default to the FED when times get tight.
When speaking about price inflation, you must recognize the difference between the 3 types. Demand inflation is when prices go up because the economy is honestly growing. There is no possibility of demand inflation when wages are falling. So, all price inflation that we see is spill-over from money supply inflation.
One write claims that GOV will try very hard to juice the economy for the upcoming election year. They are out of bullets AND juice.

OK, that is a summation of the good news. The bad news is; after we crash, we will never escape.
Robots Will Change World Beyond Recognition Says BoA
The Telegraph comments on the viewpoint of Bank of America in Robots May Shatter the Global Economic Order Within a Decade.
"Robots will take over 45pc of all jobs in manufacturing and shave $9 trillion off labour costs within a decade, leaving great swathes of the global society on the historical scrap heap." Shaving $ 9 trillion off labor costs is also shaving $ 9 trillion off of wages. What if they are too stupid to educate? Re-educate for what. We just don't need them in the labor force.Right, capital will take a bigger share. No it won't. Lacking wages, there won't be any buyers.
"not to mention the 800m illiterates in the world. It is easy to imagine the explosive political consequences if governments fail to take action to mitigate the effects," How do you mitigate stupidity?
"We may achieve the dream of prosperity without toil as robots take over, but find ourselves living in a jobless dystopia."
"The higher the wage inflation, the greater the incentive to replace workers with robots."
Read more at Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Robots Will Change World Beyond Recognition Says BoA; Automation Will Change Jobs More Than Kill Them Says McKinsey
MANY politicians see socialism as the only cure for runaway automation. The mass murderer (vaccinator ) Bill Gates says that only socialism can stop global warming. http://i100.independent.co.uk/articl...e--b1xNpbL8O_x

Mother Nature always allows "superior" species to overtake "inferior" species. What if the superior species is a robot?
Labor's share of income continues to drop. if capital owns all the robots, the income from the labor of the robots will accrue to them. Capital just grows and grows. Aggregate human wages just continue to shrink. IT'S ALREADY HAPPENING. Manufacturing and capital are pushing things like the TPP and the TTIP. This would give all control of commerce to supra-national companies and take it away from GOV. They can't make a profit because our wages are shrinking. They count on more control to make up for lost earnings.
Do you think that they will drive UP wages? ALL the Western trade agreements are attempts to lower costs to meet lower consumptive power. Capital is hard at work trying to create price deflation. If they accomplish this by creating wage deflation (aggregate), it will be a zero-sum game.

[Danny B]

Running out of momentum,,, slamming it into reverse

102.6 million of working age not employed. This reduces GDP. Armstrong; "If you look at the amount of interest that we are paying that is leaving this country, it is far more than what we are losing in trade. " " 80% of the increase in the national debt was all interest."
This debt repayment has to be squeezed out of the GDP. Eric Sprott says that there just isn't enough GDP to service the debt; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C58jGfVcplg
Then, there is the problem of various States redeeming their U.S. Treasury paper. The FED is fully controlled by the district of corruption. The FED is printing to rescue $ trillions in collapsing derivatives. The FED is as busy as a one-legged man at and A$$-kicking contest.
The primary dealers are the banks that sell and redeem GOV debt. They were recently downgraded AND they are selling off corporate bonds to raise cash. Maybe business isn't so good. Maybe, nobody is buying U.S debt.

The financial system operates at maximum leverage to get maximum return. Everything is fine as long as the shifter doesn't get thrown into reverse while humming down the road. When the private sector crashed into a low-wage competitor, things were crammed into reverse. The upper loop of the economy where the free money lives tried to party on. They grew the money supply for themselves but, NOT for the lower loop. This eventually cut back consumption in the lower loop. Lack of consumption bumped into productivity. This, in turn, bumped into earnings.
This caused the money-magic to go into reverse. Imagine driving your car at 60 MPH in reverse. You are going to bump into a LOT of obstacles.
The tally of damaged obstacles is rising.
18 Numbers That Scream That A Crippling Global Recession Has Arrived
Every contraction is an "opportunity" for a default. Every default is an opportunity of a cascade.

[Danny B]

Defaults, small, large and gargantuan

Well, the important events are just coming faster and faster. China is the nexus at the moment.
The Chinese banks are crashing but, they just got a $ 400 billion margin call.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/too-big-fail-chinese-banks-124857291.html

U.S. banks have loads of exposure to risky trades; U.S. banks said to hold $10 trillion of 'risky' trades | Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee
Corporate debt has gone up quite a bit, "As Net Leverage Soars 15% Above Its 2008 Peak" It's Not The Record High Debt That Is The Biggest Risk, It's This | Zero Hedge
So, global trade has collapsed. This might start a few defaults. We Have Never Seen Global Trade Collapse This Dramatically Outside Of A Major Recession. So Buckle Your Seat Belts Boys And Girls, Because We Are Definitely In For A Bumpy Ride.
Student loan debt is higher that what RE subprime was in the 2008 crash; http://www.gordontlong.com/Articles/...Auto_Abyss.pdf It has a very high default rate. Students even have their very own debt clock, http://schiffgold.com/commentaries/w...ime-bomb-tick/
Car loans and over productivity are on the rise, http://www.gordontlong.com/Articles/...Auto_Abyss.pdf
This is all building up to a default crescendo. http://wolfstreet.com/2015/11/10/wer...in-us-history/http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-1...row-government

https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/koos-jansen/un-preparing-for-global-sovereign-debt-restructuring/

[Danny B]

The catwalk for detfault.

That 1/2 $ trillion threatens to become $9 trillion. The US Dollar Bull Market Could Trigger a $9 Trillion Debt Implosion | Zero HedgeSomething Very Strange Is Taking Place Off The Coast Of Galveston, TX | Zero Hedge

Well, Greece is stuffed; Greece Comes to a Standstill as Unions Turn Against Tsipras - Bloomberg Business
Portugal is going crazy and Spain wants to split BUT, somehow, Finland is the sick man of Europe; 'Sick man of Europe' Finland agonises over austerity | Reuters

Venezuela is currently the sick man of S. America.
Venezuela Default Countdown Begins: After Selling Billions In Gold, Caracas Raids $467 Million In IMF Reserves | Zero Hedge
Puerto Rico is close to the edge; http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...out-of-options
So the defaults are on the way. When and who?
Four US Firms With $4.8 Billion In Debt Warned This Week They May Default Any Minute

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-11/energy-credit-risk-spikes-back-above-1000bps-no-one-putting-new-capital-here

The defaults are starting to pick up in China. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-1...-more-defaults Who knows when the contagion will explode?
The banks are in deep do-do but, the bet is that they are in better shape than GOV; http://www.bloombergview.com/article...vatives-market

[Danny B]

"Horrible Headlines" Go Parabolic, "Economic Mother Nature" Nears All-Out Victory | SilverSeek.comYep, mass default is on the way.Yep, call it repudiate or call it default.Shocking, Little-Known Facts About Debt. Private Debt Exploding | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization
When GOV passed out free money, it was bound to go into bad investments. The natural credit system would have financed good investments. When banks were allowed to sell their loans on the secondary market, they were bound to relax lending standards. The legal system mandates that the borrower must pay for ill-advised borrowing. But, human nature is always present in a transaction. Mother Nature is going to have a say in all of this.
Previously, the irresponsible borrower was flogged and suffered losses. What about irresponsible lenders? The upcoming worldwide crash of defaults is going to be a stern reminder that the lender must be mindful of risk too.

[Danny B]

Real Gold Bills are the only way to rescue / revive international trade. The guy is really smart.

http://www.professorfekete.com/articles%5CAEFOctandor.pdf

Professor Antal E. Fekete - Articles
Honduras is now making the news; Get Ready For Crazy | Zero HedgeFederal Reserve Admits It Has NO IDEA What It's Doing Washington's BlogIf We Don't Change the Way Money Is Created and Distributed, Rising Inequality Will Trigger Social Disorder Washington's Blog

[Danny B]

Working harder and earning less

"U.S. -- a vast majority of working Americans -- saw no gains in their wages between 2000 and 2012. At the same time their productivity increased nearly 25 percent."
"While wage stagnation is not new -- a median U.S. wage earner has seen a 5 percent growth in wages between 1979 and 2012 while boosting productivity nearly 75 percent"
America Workers Are More Productive, But Their Wages Are Flat, And In Some Cases, Lower

Increase in real value of the minimum wage since 1990: 21%
Increase in cost of living since 1990: 67%
One year's earnings at the minimum wage: $15,080
Income required for a single worker to have real economic security: $30,000
Productivity has surged, but income and wages have stagnated for most Americans. If the median household income had kept pace with the economy since 1970, it would now be nearly $92,000, not $50,000.
Overworked America: 12 Charts That Will Make Your Blood Boil | Mother Jones
"From 1973 to 2014, American worker productivity increased 72.2 percent while median worker compensation rose just 8.7 percent. From 1948 to 1973, by contrast, typical worker compensation and productivity grew at roughly the same rate."
This chart shows a clear divergence right about 1973, just after we went off the gold standard completely. http://www.epi.org/files/91664-figA-body.png
Post WW II, America had a lock on manufacturing. By about 1970, the rest of the world had rebuilt their factories and we had a lot of new competition.
It's true that we are slipping towards a global-mean-wage BUT, 50% of the cost, on average, is for finance.
Socialism for the rich is really grinding us down.