America After MAGA

[GoneFishingX]

I my opinion one of the biggest things is the need to shut down and prevent a Fox News and reactionary talk radio from showing up again. While nothing has a single cause, Rupert Murdock, Glen Beck, and Rush Limbaugh rotted the minds of nearly every conservative. There is a direct link from them being popularized to the place we are now.

 

[Broken_Erika]

I my opinion one of the biggest things is the need to shut down and prevent a Fox News and reactionary talk radio from showing up again. While nothing has a single cause, Rupert Murdock, Glen Beck, and Rush Limbaugh rotted the minds of nearly every conservative. There is a direct link from them being popularized to the place we are now.

Reagan killing the Fairness Doctrine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_doctrine

 

[Lexicus]

Where do I even start with this graph which gets shared everywhere?

1. It compares an average (productivity) to a median (wage).
2. It uses CPI to get real hourly compensation which structurally overestimates inflation by due to not accounting for substitution elasticities. PCE does this and is preferred by economists.
3. The 70s-90s saw a major compositional change in the workforce (women entering) which drove down the median hourly compensation. Simpson's paradox in action.
4. It cuts off before the major real wage rise we have seen between 2015 and today. (Source)

The specific form of the chart is essentially irrelevant; there are many versions of this graph out there and they all tell the same story. It isn't just in the US, either. An OECD paper on the phenomenon can be found here:

https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/decoupling-of-wages-from-productivity_d4764493-en.html

I find the point about women entering the workforce somewhat interesting, as it seems you're implying that we would expect wages to fall as a result of women entering the workforce because they are less valuable/productive workers than men are. Is this indeed what you're saying?

The graph I posted cuts off in 2018, meaning it accounts for the large majority of the net change in wages from 2015 to 2020 according to the graph you posted. Speaking of that graph, you brought up Simpson's paradox, so what do you think happens if we disaggregate the income data, say by quintiles? We would find that incomes in the bottom three quintiles are nearly stagnant while virtually all of the growth is driven by the top two quintiles (and especially the top quintile, and by even smaller groups like the top 1% and top 0.1%). Incidentally, this increasing income inequality is, not surprisingly, a major part of what's driving the decoupling of wages from productivity in the first place.

 

[Hygro]

that's because of computers not Reaganomics

It's also a much weaker boom, but because of Reaganomics.

 

[ls612]

I find the point about women entering the workforce somewhat interesting, as it seems you're implying that we would expect wages to fall as a result of women entering the workforce because they are less valuable/productive workers than men are. Is this indeed what you're saying?

I said nothing of why women had lower wages, merely that they did. The answer to the former question is multifaceted and off topic for this thread.

The graph I posted cuts off in 2018, meaning it accounts for the large majority of the net change in wages from 2015 to 2020 according to the graph you posted. Speaking of that graph, you brought up Simpson's paradox, so what do you think happens if we disaggregate the income data, say by quintiles? We would find that incomes in the bottom three quintiles are nearly stagnant while virtually all of the growth is driven by the top two quintiles (and especially the top quintile, and by even smaller groups like the top 1% and top 0.1%). Incidentally, this increasing income inequality is, not surprisingly, a major part of what's driving the decoupling of wages from productivity in the first place.

Dis-aggregating by quintiles doesn't address anything about the compositional effects. Income inequality as measured has risen for four main reasons (and really it is largely #1).

1. Tech has greatly changed the returns to scale for skilled labor across a variety of fields. For the median person, tech doesn't make them as much more productive as it makes the 99th percentile person in many fields. This will, even if people are all paid their marginal product (which would be the case in a competitive labor market, not saying that that is what happens but I'm illustrating a point) lead to average productivity rising while median wages don't rise as much.
2. Income inequality doesn't measure health insurance, which the median (and really, all but probably the bottom quintile) get through work and should absolutely be counted as income. As health insurance has risen as a proportion of total compensation this makes only looking at income on the tax return look more unequal.
3. Home production has fallen as women enter the labor force. Again I'm not saying it's good or bad just that it is. This leads to more lower-market-value tasks that used to be done in home production (and thus not count as income) now be done as market production and count as (low) income.
4. Tax policy changes in the 1980s onward that favored high labor income earners relative to high capital earners.

Here's a good thought experiment; What would I have to pay you to teleport you to 1971 (or 1980, 1990, 2000, etc) at the exact same percentile and relative socioeconomic status that you are at today and for you to be OK with it. If that value is positive and large that is equivalent to saying that the typical person (or at least a person similar to you) today is better off than they were then.

 

[soundjata]

^^ Please yes! yes!
Bring me back to the seventies now!

 

[Ordnael]

Better bring a power trimmer with you!

 

[Lexicus]

The answer to the former question is multifaceted and off topic for this thread.

No more off-topic than this whole discussion is.

Dis-aggregating by quintiles doesn't address anything about the compositional effects. Income inequality as measured has risen for four main reasons (and really it is largely #1).

You missed the actual most important reasons: deregulation, shareholder value ideology, and the defanging and subsequent decline of the labor movement

 

[soundjata]

deregulation, shareholder value ideology, and the defanging and subsequent decline of the labor movement

I would call that Thatcherism.
Which side of the Atlantic inspired the other?

 

[Lexicus]

I would call that Thatcherism.
Which side of the Atlantic inspired the other?

UChicago is ground zero for this probably

 

[Birdjaguar]

Moderator Action: And back to our regularly scheduled program please.

 

[Zardnaar]

I my opinion one of the biggest things is the need to shut down and prevent a Fox News and reactionary talk radio from showing up again. While nothing has a single cause, Rupert Murdock, Glen Beck, and Rush Limbaugh rotted the minds of nearly every conservative. There is a direct link from them being popularized to the place we are now.

Fox is one of the biggest offenders but USA news is basically trash tier.

Talking heads, opinion and infotainment role playing as news. And that's the good ones.

 

[Ordnael]

Fox is one of the biggest offenders but USA news is basically trash tier.

Talking heads, opinion and infotainment role playing as news. And that's the good ones.

The worst of it, is that trend is spreading across the world. Even before we got our own version of CNN (for some reason!, who the fudge thought Portugal should have it's own CNN channel!?) 24h "news" channels and even generalist channels primetime news-hours had degenerated into opinions and stories, it's disgraceful...and one of the many reason why I don't often pay attention to TV news. With notable exception to public TV, who still try to keep news somewhat on point! Radio, like yesterday during the blackout, can still provide relevant concise news and that's enough for me. I can dig the rest from CFC off-topic and elsewhere.

 

[GoneFishingX]

Fox is one of the biggest offenders but USA news is basically trash tier.

Talking heads, opinion and infotainment role playing as news. And that's the good ones.

I agree even the best America can offer, which is NPR/PBS, is still pretty toothless compared to the media in other countries. Fox is just on a completely different continent compared to the others.

There was a study where reliance on fox news' website made you in some aspects about as uninformed as people who engaged with no news.

Also don't forget the dominon lawsuit, where the judge released all the documents and we learned that the entire higher echelon of the company was deliberately lying for ratings.

They gave Glen Beck, a insane conspiracy theroist, a prime time spot for a few years.

The final one that gets me so mad is the Delta Smelt stuff. They ran a totally fabricated story at the behest of a bunch of rich farmers, and that destroyed decades of work trying to fix California's water issues. Trump currently references this story, which aired in 2009, whenever an issues happens in Cali. That fabricated story is literally creating policy 16 years after it aired.