Falling average real wages everywhere? False.
Rising income inequality in developed economies is the RECENT trend. Its due to techonology reducing the relative wage for unskilled labour.
Glad that wealth is being spread by globalisation to developing countries? Good. So am I. But exclude this from the discussion? How can you?! Its the whole sodding point of the discussion and you just conceded it!
The whole point of the discussion I would of thought was peoples happiness and well being. Money plays a role, as too does culture, political system, health care, employment opportunites, science the arts. Rising incomes is a small part of globalization.
I think you’ll find that the purchasing power of the average real wage in England is less than it was in the 60’s and 70’s.Do a google. In those days you could by a house in London for a couple of thousand pounds. Housing inflation has well and trully outstriped wages over the same period.
I think you will also find that income disparites have always been higher in rich countries. Even before the recent boom in wealth created by trade liberalization and the freeing up of financial markets.
One of the most equitable developments of all time occured here in Taiwan. Although that too has changed in recent times as Taiwans economy matured. A country like Australia even in the days of the “Workers Paridise” still had a worse income distribution than Indonesia now of course the average Australian works more hours than anywhere else on the planet and only worked to see this disparity increase.
Get your books out!
Fox, Fox, Fox,… I despair.
From the Social Security Administration: Over 20 years, US average wages have risen by 23%. For the UK: 63% in one study.
House price rises in the UK do not adversely affect real incomes because 70% houses are owner-occupied!!!
Oops!
Me get out my books?
If you argue that average wages have fallen in industrial economies, you’re wrong. The facts are against you. If you argue that unskilled workers wages have fallen in developed economies, you’re right: because of technology not globalisation.
If youclaim that income disparities are larger in the US than Indonesia, good luck! In Indonesia, the wealthiest are US$ billionaires; the poorest, so poor their income is still measured in CALORIES!!!
I see your confusion. You think that technology stole purchasing power from workers to give to capitalists. So, you think average wages fell. But average wages rose. You need to adjust your theory. And the solution is:
Technology transferred purchasing power from unskilled workers to skilled workers. Average wages rose, but the unskilled workers lost out.
The question then comes back to why attack the WTO and the IMF. Why attack free trade and globalisation?
I am more convinced than ever that the demonstrators do not have a point. Fox’s replies do not implicate the WTO at all… well, if you cannot even find one argument, why protest?
Let me state my beliefs in brief: this is an unequal world. However, not so due to globalisation. Free trade raises GDP levels and real wages.
The WTO tries to promote free trade in an imperfect world and against narrow-minded governments that restrict imports for political gain. The IMF sincerely tries to provide emergency cash and independent economic advice for countries in crisis. Both serve the interests of raising living standards and diminishing inequality.
And Fox, am I crazy to believe that globalisation reduces inequality?Read:
globalpolicy.org/socecon/ine … conver.htm
Decent evidence that inequality is falling. It does not say that trade is the reason why, but it alters the parameters of the argument somewhat. (For those too lazy to use links, I may post the whole essay later)
Back to average real wages. Deflate nominal wages by cost-of-living and you cause problems. 40 years ago - no mobile phones no websites. Quality has improved: clothing, restaurant food, the variety of food in supermarkets. How do you capture these real changes?
Conservative studies estimate quality issues alone can take 1% per year of the cost-of-living index. Over 20 years, that throws your real wage calculation out by 22%; over 40 years, by 49%
Try doing a search on declining real incomes and you might discover hundreds of thousands of articles on the topic. Most of them discussing the declining real incomes to unskilled, semi-skilled and youth labor as well as the elderly.
These are the people who need money for food not cellular phones. My challenge to you is find me an article that indicates otherwise.
You are quite wrong about the income disparities in countries like the States and developing countries. And it’s income disparity that has the biggest inpact on peoples health and feelings of wellbeing in a society.
No, Fox, i am not quite wrong.
Your last post went on about declining real wages for unskilled and semi-skilled and youth.
But… I agree. These are facts. I never said other wise. YOU said that the AVERAGE real wage had declined. It hasn’t.
Wages for unskilled have.
But most research says its due to technology raising wages for skilled and lowering them for unskilled. Its still possible for the average wage to rise. Most studies suggest it has. Some have detected a 5% fall in the US over 20 years, but nevertheless a rise since the 60s. Others suggest a 25% rise since the 80s. Almost ALL suggest a rise since the 60s.
YOU said that real average wages had fallen in EVERY industrial nation over the last 20 years.
THIS IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE.
And I ask again: what does this have to do with the WTO??? WHERE IS YOUR ARGUMENT???
Factors of Production Mobility.
Most economic models hold that capital is mobile and labor isn’t this is generally true except in the case of migrant labor.
Companies can now set up their administration centers in London, call centers in India and manufacturing in China. This is fine for the companies and skilled labor, but what about the effect on your domestic workforce. Most studies show that it isn’t worth retraining your domestic workforce in dollar and cent economic terms and so it doesn’t really occur.
And this group is not a small percentage of any of the industrialized nations. Poverty line studies show that in almost every rich country 15 to 19% of people would be below the poverty line without cross subsidization form governments. And these are the people below the poverty line then there is another large % who just get by. At present globilization is marginializing these people. Your original post asked where did the anti-globalization movement get it’s steam from and I think this is the source.
Why do people protest outside WTO forums? Because the WTO is where they see world leaders gathering and feel it is the appropriate place to land thier protests. I think they are probably right, like it or not people feel disenfranchized by globilization and for a large % of the population in Western countries they feel that way because they have been.
Traditional right and left wing politics in Western countries has been blurred as politicans espouse similar economic ideologies. Whilst left wing political parties in most Western countries have been able to marginalize right wing conservatives by stealing the middle ground away from them they no longer adequately represent their traditional labor rooted constituents.
The WTO has turned the world into one giant market place where capital is mobile and labor is not. This can only spell great returns for capital and proportionally less returns to labor. It’s a simple equation really.
The EU is aware of this that’s why they made labor mobile, but realistically how mobile can labor be. Think of your family, and cultural ties. Why should people have to give this up for companies to make squillions? As you mentioned improvements in technology have also improved labor productivity which only means less jods and more returns to capital as technology is generally associated with capital.
That brings us to the point of who owns the capital most of it of course is owned by the superrich; however, as you are likely to be aware this situation has been changing over the past 20 years with your average householder buying stock. So that in many Western countries trade union membership is down and stock ownership is up. Now that you’ve bought in to the system you can nolonger stand to see your share prices go down. The back of labor has been broken. Now you are unrepresented by your politicans, have no union and no power to cast a vote at General Meetings, because of your piddly few shares which are controlled by some one you’ve never met and who wouldn’t cross the street to say hello to you.
You my friend have been subjugated.
It is also worth remarking that most listed companies are owned by investment funds whose only interest is the share price. The idea that there is something somehow “democratic” about privatising nationalised industries, and that this gives the “people” “ownership” of state assets is a nonsense. The reality is that the state assets become owned by a myriad of investment trusts, themselves heavily cross-invested by other investment trusts, yet when the railways / water treatment plants / power companies etc require critical investment or become insolvent, it is the taxpayer who must bail out these now private companies. See Railtrack / and the nuclear industry in the UK for examples.
No benefit whatsoever has accrued to the British people from the privatisation of British Rail, British Telecom, British Gas, the Royal Mail / Post Office, or the Electricity Boards. No longer supervised by Parliament, these entities now remit their profits to shareholders, whilst the taxpayer picks up the tab for their losses. When these huge investment trusts (pension and insurance funds being the most contemptible) make huge losses due to mindboggling incompetence that would have curled the toes of a supposedly “inefficient” civil service manager, insurance premiums go up, and pensions are cut. What does it mean to me that losses due to the WTC being blown up mean my car insurance (a legal requirement) premiums must double or that increases in occupiers’ liability insurance must put small businesses in the UK out of business ? It means nothing. It means some suit in some insurance company has made a balls of his job, for which he will be richly rewarded in the spirit of the culture of rewarding mediocrity and failure which permeates UK boardrooms.
Now, as for international conferences. It was the same when Disraeli gadded off to the Berlin Conference in 1878 instead of staying at home to look after domestic policy. Sod England, I’m off abroad. Every politician wants to jet off on some junket or other to hob-nob with other “leaders” - that is human nature. However, the idea that there will be some “trickle down” benefit from all this in 20 years time is too laughable for comment. It’s like asking motorists to fund the space program in the hope that some car safety benefit will materialise in 30 year’s time. International conferences on climate control when it’s perfectly obvious no-one will adhere pay a blind bit of notice. Might as well have an international conference on bad handwriting. Complete waste of money. Plenty of money to go and flatten Iraq, but UK hospitals can’t afford to buy essential equipment (want a CAT scan ? be prepared to grow very old ! MRI scan ?! No chance !!), or employ more medical staff to cut enourmous waiting lists that would be a source of national shame in any self-respecting “third world” military dictatorship. Half the kids in the USA can’t point out America on a world map for chrissakes, but that’s obviously not important to the Bushman (or any other US President - who remembers their education policies ?) Look at the millions spent on European “integration”. The world’s biggest and most inefficient bureaucracy. Bearing in mind the astronomical cost of the EU, let’s name some of the wonderful benefits brought to us from the Brussels. Your starter for ten.
Fox:
I am going to make some pretty harsh comments about the views
represented in your last post, Fox. But I mean to keep this discussion open, even-tempered and non-personal. So, let me preface these comments by saying that I do not think that you are aware of the logical implications of many of these “cut-and-pasted” views from the website you visited. So, when I talk of discrimination and racism, I do not mean to accuse you but to accuse the narrow-minded nature of the views of the “Factors of Production Mobility” once they are taken to their logical conclusion and are scrutinised in the light of more sober, serious analysis by professional economists.
“Companies can now set up their administration centers in London, call
centers in India and manufacturing in China. This is fine for the companies
and skilled labor, but what about the effect on your domestic workforce.”
“Domestic workforce” is of course an exaggeration. It would be more
accurate to ask: "This is fine for the companies and skilled labor, but what about the effect on your domestic UNSKILLED workforce. It is as if, from the point of view of the writer, that SKILLED workers are not part of the domestic workforce. But of course, once you realise the agenda of the writer, you then understand that he has no interest in the skilled worker. He is hell bent on winning the heart and mind of the UNSKILLED WORKER ONLY. The one without union representation. This is a desperate search by a marginal political group for a stable political power base. It causes the writer to neglect the good affects trade has on other peoples, other nations, outside his own chosen constituency of the DOMESTIC UNSKILLED, NON-UNIONISED worker. They are entitled to seek that constituency, of course. However, as free-thinking, critical individuals, we should also ask who this group would be taking wealth from if it was able to affect the redistribution it wants. Fox, you miss the point that being able to move call centres to India and China RAISES wages there! The trouble with this guy’s argument is that it concentrates solely on the affects in one country (HOME) and neglects those on the other country (FOREIGN.) That is why the writer stresses DOMESTIC. To my mind, though, this kind of argument is DISGUSTINGLY RACIST because
the implication is that better pay for unskilled workers abroad does not
count because they are FOREIGN; whereas better pay for HOME unskilled workers does count. I cannot support this kind of view. And, yes, I claim the moral high ground for the free traders.
“And this group is not a small percentage of any of the industrialized
nations. Poverty line studies show that in almost every rich country 15
to 19% of people would be below the poverty line without cross subsidization from governments.”
But, these people are NOT below the poverty line!!! Because of those
subsidies. You are saying that they would be poor if they weren’t
actually not poor. This is a silly argument. But again, you miss the point: you want to argue that globalisation takes money from the poor to give to the rich WITHIN ONE COUNTRY - but even if that were true (which studies suggest it is NOT) the fact of the matter is, however, that when you stop looking within countries and look at the WORLD AS A WHOLE, income inequality is falling on just about every measure. Principally due to growth in China. Now, the anti-Globalisation protesters may think this is bad because it means unskilled wages at HOME are suffering. I say, its good. I won’t discriminate on the basis of race. Unfortunately, the (I assume) Marxist stuff that you quote, “Factors of Production Mobility,” is only aimed at increasing influence within the unskilled, non-unionised domestic labour movement - and only within this particular subsection of workers. The fact that they are so small shows that workers as a whole do not accept their pauper labour theory. The fact that they would take the newfound wealth out of China and transfer it back to the unskilled US workers shows to me that they are cynical and racist.
“Like it or not people feel disenfranchised by globalisation and for a
large % of the population in Western countries they feel that way because
they have been.”
You overstate it. And the failure of the movement to gain mainstream
support, even support within the large trade unions, shows that you are
wrong. The reason you are wrong is that you complain about the plight
of UNSKILLED workers (whose wages have fallen) and ASSUME that is the same as for workers EN MASSE. But it isn’t!!! I am getting tired of having to reinforce this point! In 1979, median weekly earnings were about 61% higher for college graduates compared to those with less than a secondary school education. In 1998, they were was 143% higher. Inequality? Yes! The reason: higher wages for computer engineers and stagnating, even falling, wages for unskilled labour. But AVERAGE wages have RISEN. To quote generally accepted figures (not revised for quality of life improvements) "Between the late 1970s and the early 1990s the real annual compensation of the average American worker rose between 1 and 6 per cent, depending on which price index is used; but the real wages of low-ranked workers like janitors fell 15 per cent or more, while the real earnings of high-end occupations like doctors and corporate executives rose 50 per cent or more (Krugman, www.pkarchive.org “Europe Jobless, America Penniless”). Krugman, in the same article, states the problem quite explicitly: “It is therefore
remarkable that poverty could have increased so much even while the average real income of Americans was continuing to rise.” How can you continue to deny this point? AVERAGE WAGES HAVE RISEN - ONLY WAGES FOR UNSKILLED US WORKERS HAVE FALLEN. Here’s another way of looking at it: average family income has risen since 1973 for the highest-earning 60% of US households, stagnated for about the next 20%, and declined by about 9% for the poorest 20%. (Reflections on
US Labour Market Performance, Lawrence Katz).
But this rising inequality is NOT DUE TO GLOBALISATION!!! (in the
sense of trade in goods). I strongly recommend that you read some careful, scientific economic research on this question instead of copying down second-hand some appallingly biased claptrap. In gias.snu.ac.kr/wthong/IEJ/97spring/s5.pdf, it is shown how
international goods trade actually POSITIVELY IMPACTED average real
wages in the late 80s, precisely the period of greatest retardation in average real wage growth. Then again, read ny.frb.org/rmaghome/econ_pol/195rlaw.pdf to show that
technological factors have caused rising inequality, NOT GLOBALISATION,
and that nevertheless, between 1979 and 1993 average real compensation GREW 5.5%. By the way, the slow rate of average wage growth was due to LOW PRODUCTIVITY. You seem to think that HIGH productivity causes fewer jobs (see below) and declining real wages. The experts and economists would suggest that LOW productivity causes low wages. Which is just common sense, after all. If we make more goods and services, we can consume more goods and services - that is what rising real wages means!!!
And there is another dimension to globalisation and competition for
unskilled wages of which you seem to be unaware. Read this
ksghome.harvard.edu/~.GBorjas.Ac … /frb95.pdf and you will see that one of the reasons for falling wages for unskilled
workers in the US is a large influx of immigrants. Is this what you mean by globalisation? You want to deny a better-paying job to these immigrants? I fight for their rights and against you! There is another interesting point you may like to know: whereas real wages for unskilled males have fallen in the US (1971 -1995); those for unskilled females have risen! So, part of the pressure on unskilled wages is coming from women competing against men. The real truth, here, I believe, is that because manufacturing jobs have been declining in the US ( to be replaced by service jobs) then we have seen a shift in favour of women. Manufacturing jobs tended to be dominated by men; professional, business, and service jobs are more equally split between
men and women. Again, nothing to do with globalisation. (Reflections on US Labour Market Performance, Lawrence Katz).
Add to all this evidence for RISING AVERAGE REAL WAGES, the
common-sense observation that there has bee a great improvement in product innovation and quality that I spoke of in earlier posts and you can see that there is a lot of room for UPWARD REVISIONS in the AVERAGE REAL WAGE DATA. The above figures are achieved by deflating nominal wages by various price indices - but they do not account for new products which are a REAL improvement in wages. For example, how many people had a mobile phone in the 1970s? Now, in places like the UK, penetration rates for mobiles are 70% and more. (By the way, don’t tell me young workers and unskilled workers don’t have mobile phones. I mean, really, Fox, just about everyone has one these days. Particularly the young!!!) That fact alone should show you how limited a number of workers has been impoverished over the last 20 years!
“The WTO has turned the world into one giant market place where capital
is mobile and labor is not. This can only spell great returns for capital
and proportionally less returns to labor. It’s a simple equation really.”
Labour immobile? How do you account for the immigration boom in the US? What you mean is that it is LESS mobile than capital. True. But this is not due to the WTO. Its due to national governments putting up barriers to
immigration. Its also due to language / cultural differences. But is
highly mobile capital a bad thing? High returns to capital in a country
suggest that capital is in scarce supply; unskilled labour predominates. This is obviously the case in places like India. If capital can move to poor,
developing nations like India, it can earn a higher return. It thus raises
income overseas. India has abundant unskilled workers, so it makes sense that unskilled wages would rise in India and fall in places like the
US. But why are the wages of the US worker more important than those of an Indian? Why do you quote the Marxist groups that take this (racist) stance in order to build their power among the (disenfranchised) unskilled labourers of the US? Fox, it is indeed “a simple equation really” - but you don’t even see the implications of your simple equation. Now, either you missed this logic, in which case - OK, no harm done. Or, you saw it all along and just would rather see US workers have better pay at the expense of the Indians. In which case, shame on you!
A technical point: whereas trade may be a THEORETICALLY VALID
explanation of the decline in UNSKILLED US WAGES, it is NOT EMPIRICALLY VALID. International trade is just too small a fraction of the US economy (about 15%) to account for anything but a fraction of the decline in unskilled wages. The real culprit is the rise of technology that has raised the demand for skilled labour. But I have banged on about this for too long already and you still don’t get the point. ITS NOT GLOBALISATION"S FAULT!!! And are you ready to stop technological change in order to restore wage equality?
Allowing capital to move from capital-rich economies to developing
economies, helps, the poor countries to develop and catch-up with the
West. Indeed, it is precisely in the most open developing economies (Asia) that growth has been fastest; and in the more closed ones (Eastern Europe) where it has been slowest - until the awful Berlin Wall came down and they got “GLOBALISED”. So, by all means, protect your small constituency of impoverished US unskilled workers at the expense of growth in the poor nations. I, for one, will not side with the people who build walls.
“As you mentioned improvements in technology have also improved labor
productivity which only means less jo[b]s and more returns to capital
as technology is generally associated with capital.” Fox, this is wrong - it shows an ignorance of economics. The rate of return on capital has nothing to do with the TOTAL NUMBER OF JOBS available.
It has everything to do with the RELATIVE RETURNS TO CAPITAL AND LABOUR. If capital invests overseas, for example China, where it can get a higher return, this will raise profitability (money for the capitalists/shareholders); it will also increase wages overseas as the new investment bids up salaries in Guangdong (money for the poor Chinese). It will put US workers out of a job, but only temporarily - they will go on to new jobs. There is always some new job to be done. If this were not the case, then how could unemployment levels have continued to fall in the US despite increasing trade since the 80s and, even without trade, how could unemployment have continued to fall despite the many corporate bankruptcies that happen in the US every year?
The answer, Fox, is that the level of unemployment (TOTAL NUMBER OF
JOBS) is dependent, not on trade, but largely on monetary policy and the
activity of the entrepreneur. Fox, how on earth could you not have heard of the name Greenspan? The point is that manufacturing jobs have continued to decline in number in the US, but overall job growth has been positive because the laid-off manufacturing workers have shifted into service sector jobs.
There is also the point that higher labour productivity means on average
RISING REAL WAGES. How could it be otherwise? If an economy produces more, it consumes more. (Unless, of course, we just bury all the extra goods and services at the bottom of the ocean.)
“That brings us to the point of who owns the capital most of it of
course is owned by the superrich;…Now you are unrepresented by your
politicians, have no union and no power to cast a vote at General Meetings, because of your piddly few shares”
Or the huge tranches of shares that are controlled by pension funds and
are voted on your behalf. Yes, they are voted to get maximum benefit for
the shareholder - you. But, if you are going to argue for “democratic
control” (government control) of business, Fox, then you must argue for some kind of socialisation of the economy. (But you already professed to supporting capitalism.) And how can someone who thinks capitalism is better than the alternatives support a course of action that would bring it to an end? You are not logical, Fox. Stand up for your beliefs, don’t run away from them.
“You my friend have been subjugated.”
You, my friend, have simply read (uncritically) the rantings of a
marginal anti-capitalist political group that see: declining real wages for the unskilled in the US and declining union representation. They are then
trying to increase their power base within this group by a lot of propaganda that simply doesn’t make sense if you sit down and think about it. Or, if you follow their arguments logically and decide that it does make sense to you, is quite disturbingly racist. But, my dear Fox, if you want to stand on their side in the Anti-globalisation War, if you want to curtail trade, then you must be prepared to take the money out of poor, foreign workers’ pockets. This puts you on the same side not only as the ultra-leftists, but also the ultra-rightist (big business types) who want to “protect” parts of US industry from cheap competition by some third-world firms, and the bigots who believe that those outside the US don’t matter because of the colour of their skin.
I don’t believe for one second that you hold these views yourself. BUT
FOX, WHAT COMPANY YOU KEEP!!!
(edited to remove two typos)
Hi imyourbiggestfan,
Thanks for your insights.
As you well know Factors of Production Mobility isn’t some left wing concoction, but a description of the basic parameters of the neo classical economic growth model used to describe all the benefits to be extracted from globalization.
You are right, however, in describing my concern to be for the unskilled labor in my home country, sorry about that just take me out and shoot me.
Why shouldn’t people be concerned about that? You seem to think we are on the road to Utopia. I seem to think we are on the road to diminished corporate responsibility to the citizens of the world which can be evidenced in the countries where many of these corporate giants first got their start. You seem to think it’s fine to allow an underclass to continue to develop and grow inside your own country and consider any kind of search for a new paradigm to be Maxist ideology.
Whatever happened to the term social democracy some of the wealthiest countries in the world have thrived on this model for example Germany and the Netherlands.
You may not be aware that cross subsidaztion to the poor is declining in most developed nations, even in countries such as those mentioned above. The reason being that governments these days must run surplus budgets and move debt form the public to the private sector. The easiest areas to cut services are to the poor who have been effectively marginalized and disenfranchized.
Governments feel it is necessary to run surpluses and reduce government debt to ensure low interest rates as their monetary policy is increasingly governed by interest charges on government debt and the effect it may have on their domestic curreny. This is dependent of course on the elasticity of demand for that currency as you are also aware. This has been a direct result of globilization in the international money markets. I’m not really arguing against globilization of international money markets per se; however, I think it’s important for people to be able to control how your domestic society is being effected by globilization so that the best policy choices can be made to improve the circumstances of everybody in society- foreign and domestic.
I don’t believe these concerns of mine are the mark of radical marxist or right wing political thinking. You seem to be living in a fairyland of world citizenry where we all speak the same language, share a unique indelible culture, and nobody has decenting opinions because we’ve all been eating our Mac Mind Managers every week. Personally, I don’t think I could have embraced globilization at this point in time any more than I have without having it tattooed on my rear end. I speak 4 languages (some a little rustier than others) have lived in 4 different countries, have a business registered in three different countries, work with major international corporations daily, own shares in three countries, have worked in two different refugee camps, raised 450,000USD for Rawandan refugee relief, a degree in development economics, family married to native Australians, Germans and Taiwanese with kids- lots of them. So I guess I can consider myself a world citizen too. The thing is mine’s not inhabited by fairies, but flesh and blood.
“You are right, however, in describing my concern to be for the unskilled labor in my home country, sorry about that just take me out and shoot me.”
I am surprised, Fox. But it means your views are logical. I could never agree though. I will not hold the rights of the poor in my country above the rights of the poor in a foreign country. Call me an idealist. I prefer my idealism, though, to your repugnant nationalism.
I wondered what the Anti-Globalisation protesters’ ideas came down to… wondered if I had missed anything. But if your views are representative, then it merely comes down to: “I protect my poorest at the expense of your poorest.” This is a game I do not want to play. I just do not feel strongly that MY POOR deserve special treatment. Now I know where the differences between us lie, I am satisfied that the debate is over. It has strengthened my views enormously and strengthened my conviction that free trade is morally superior to the alternatives.
But whatever our differences, Fox, thanks for the argument!
For those who want to continue the argument, let me post here the full article on DECLINING INEQUALITY WORLDWIDE (about one of those neo-classical growth guys, published in The Economist)
Is global inequality really getting worse? A new study says no
MOST people who have a view on the matter
OK. Couldn’t resist a further parting shot:
Why would anyone oppose a force that between 1975 and 2001, raised the average wage of Taiwanese from 6% of the US wage to 30%???
Helllllloooooooo! Hellloooooooo! CAN YOU HEAR ME IMYOURBIGGESTFAN? HELLOOOOOO!
Our poor versus your poor. Repugnant nationalism. What is this rubbish. It seems to me to be the last refuge of a scoundrel - claiming moral indignation when he found his flaky argument to be floundering.
Fox. The last refuge of a scoundrel is patriotism. Your view that globalisation imporverishes unskilled US workers is valid if you believe that it is because wage earners in underdeveloped countries compete with them. So, your argument is logical only if you would “look after your own” and deny wealth to foreign poor. In fact, empirically, you are wrong; technology not globalisation is to blame for falling unskilled wages.