Middle Class People are the Job Creators

[grammafreddy]

Don't see Henry Ford on that list.

grammy - did you really miss the point, or are ya just being a smarty-pants ? :127:

Hang on ... if Henry Ford invented the combustion engine he should be almost at the top of that list I posted. Maybe I missed it??? I'll do a doublecheck.

NoooooooooooooooooooooooooIdidn'tmissthepoint. Ichosetoignoreit. Autoworkers today get a pretty nice wage already.

[steven lloyd]

NoooooooooooooooooooooooooIdidn'tmissthepoint. Ichosetoignoreit. Autoworkers today get a pretty nice wage already.

The parrot is back !

[grammafreddy]

Hey GF you are always railing against people using credit to survive, yes survive. Have you put in even one second of thought as to why that is? No its not for their daily “timmies” as you like to say.
The average wage in Canada has not increased in 35 years. At the same time user fees have been introduced, sales tax has increased, food and fuel prices have exploded. (I know you don’t eat much so food isn’t a big one for you, we don’t need to hear again how you spend 50 a month on food ) but for a father with two growing boys food is a big expense, an average family house that cost a hundred grand fifteen years ago is a half million today etc. The average family is really struggling right now. I know things were tough in the past also with high interest rates and so on but its worse now and not getting any better. I think that people are using credit to make up for the never ending erosion of their incomes. Most of the credit is being used for day to day survival not to buy big screen tv’s. People are using credit to fill the gap. The middle class is dying and will take the economy with them. Also it isn’t because today’s generation is lazy or entitled, or whatever derogatory expression you want to use to describe us, that we are in debt it’s a symptom of a much bigger problem.
Just my opinion, feel free to point out just how wrong my thinking is. Can’t wait to hear how kids now-a-days want everything handed to them. I like hearing that from the generation that paid low low taxes while our infrastructure rotted into the ground.

Hey Motoguy. You would be so proud of me. I blew $4.99 on 6 monster cinnamon buns today. Gawd, I can't believe I did that!

I presume you are the father with two growing boys? PM me your menu plan for the week, your shopping list for your once-a-week trip to the grocery store, your weekly list of what's in your fridge, your freezer and your pantry and your food budget for the month and the ages of these two growing boys - and I guarantee you I can trim it in many, many ways.

And don't you dare tell me you can't cook from scratch. If the budget is so tight you are using credit to buy food, then Honey, you better learn to cook from scratch in a hurry!

[grammafreddy]

The parrot is back !

That image should be banned. It falls into the category of "personal insult". Personal insults are against the User Agreement rules.

On the other hand, it does rather say a lot about your character, doesn't it?

If you want to discuss or debate an issue with me, then do it. That image shuts you down and makes you not worth further comment or consideration on your posts in a thread.

You aren't stupid, SL - quit pretending you are with that damn parrot. You earn no Brownie points with it.

[steven lloyd]

That image should be banned. It falls into the category of "personal insult".

Actually grammy - I'd never deliberately insult you ( I have too much respect and admiration for you ). The parrot simply represents a point completely missed. Perhaps if I state my point this way – Henry Ford was one of the greatest capitalists of our time and even he knew he had to pay his workers well enough so they could afford to buy his product.

[grammafreddy]

That image should be banned. It falls into the category of "personal insult".

Actually grammy - I'd never deliberately insult you ( I have too much respect and admiration for you ). The parrot simply represents a point completely missed. Perhaps if I state my point this way – Henry Ford was one of the greatest capitalists of our time and even he knew he had to pay his workers well enough so they could afford to buy his product.

I hope most sincerely that we've seen the last of that *bleeping* parrot. If he lived in my house, I'd trim his toes at the knuckles so he'd fall off his perch.

Thanks for the compliment. For the most part, I appreciate your thoughtful and insightful comments, too. Until that parrot appears. Lose that image file, okay?

Sooooooooooooo ... if that's what you intended to say, why didn't you just say it? You think I won't call you on erroneous info?

Yeah, Henry Ford was brilliant. Yes, he paid his workers above average wages.

How about comparing wages they got then with wages they get now and the price of Ford motorcars then with the price of Fords now? Nothing fancy, mind you - basic models and you can have any colour you want as long as its black.

[steven lloyd]

How about comparing wages they got then with wages they get now and the price of Ford motorcars then with the price of Fords now?

I agree that the demands and expectations of the automotive unions of present in Canada (as well as many other unions) have been out of control. It is not so simple, however, to just say the unions have been greedy. Interestingly, we are seeing everything unfold as fortold by the neo-Marxists who explained that Marx's predictions of uprising were only stopped due to first the capitalist invention of welfare (to prevent civil uprising), then unionization and then globalization that allowed the exploitation of new markets. As the neo-Marxists point out (and as you have acknowledged), however, the world is shrinking and now exploited markets are seeking fairer terms. There was a time when capitalists were taking real risk, but now, the extent of collusion that exists between power groups has pretty much negated that. Failure can just be absorbed. "Free market economies"? Ya - not in yours or mine lifetime. The world is a finite system and I strongly suspect the current global economic crisis being felt most in Europe right now will make its way west. Ancient Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting times".

[hobbyguy]

Many unions have become too large for their own good, becoming organizations that are so large that they require significant management expertise. Needing this management expertise can be an oxymoron within unions. There are examples I know of where the management of a union was unable to negotiate a contract with their own unionized employees, resulting in strike action by the employees of a union. Some unions do better than others in this regard.

This is unfortunate as unions, whether we like to admit it or not, played a significant role in the rise of the middle class in North America. We shouldn't forget that things like the 40 hr work week, worker safety, decent holidays - all things we tend to take for granted - were largely advanced by unions.

To some extent, this is the flip side of the argument I make for revisiting some of the old competition and antitrust laws. Any initiatives to look at the size of unions, would, however, have to come AFTER or in conjunction with a revisit of these laws.

The "chicken and egg" point with regard to the middle class being the job creators is a good one. A healthy economy requires both entrepeneurs that can take advantage of opportunities and a large market of customers that have disposable income - the middle class.

Nick Hanauer makes that point. He might buy 10 cars, or maybe even 40 if he were a collector, but that pales in comparison to the combined number of cars that the "99%" purchase. He also makes the point that his interest, as a "1%'er" is to limit the number of jobs created so that he can maximize his profit.

By comparison, an entrepreneur arising from the middle class, and aspiring to be a "1%'er" tends be trying very hard to grow their business for future (not current short term) profit, and to "follow their passion". So the 99%'er with a business wants it to have more employees, and critically, is unlikely to be able to have the option of "global outsourcing" (a convenient propaganda metaphor for shipping jobs to low wage countries).

Steve Jobs is a pretty obvious example of an entrepreneur rising out of the middle class.

The Henry Ford example is there to point out that he understood this connection. He knew that the car market was limited by a small market due to affordability. He set out to change that by doing two things, one - produce a car that was vastly more affordable, and two - pay his workers top dollar so that they would represent an expansion of the market. Pretty big gamble when you think about it. But as history shows, a very successful one, not only hugely enriching Henry Ford, but enriching those around him and working for him.

Globalization has changed the equation, and there is no way back at this point. However, if we don't come to grips with keeping a strong middle class, markets will decline and so will overall trade - and with that the standard of living.

There are a lot of issues involved in this, but the key thing is to recognize that it is a strong middle class that is at the heart of everyone's economic interest. That interest includes countries like China, so bringing them on board is critical.

[Smurf]

Good post hobbyguy. I believe that we could further that by saying many companies have grown to big for their own and the worlds good. The top has lost total touch with the bottom. People at the top who have no idea what is happening at the bottom. They are just there to keep the wheel rolling at any cost and to keep profits increasing. I understand that profits are the reason for business but they are only part of the game and I believe that Henry Ford and many others understood that. We have a long way to go to bring back our and global economies and part of it being sucessful will be the rebuild of a strong middle class. Without them and their puchasing power there will be no economy. I believe the US is getting a taste of that right now. When the current seniors and Babyboomers are gone there will be a huge gap to fill. Right now imigratiion is helping but that can end also and I believe it will.

[grammafreddy]

I think the solution is going to lie with countries like China, India and other "global economies" where the manufacturing has gone. When the majority of their lower class becomes the middle class, then our NA companies will be coming back here to make their products - or they will recognize the value in regional production and put their manufacturing plants closer to their markets because of the cost of shipping their products worldwide. We are seeing the beginnings of this new trend now in manufacturing. Workers "offshore" are becoming more Westernized and want more than what their governments have kept them from knowing and having. They want better wages, better working conditions and better living standards - and they are getting them, slowly but surely. We here will benefit from that.

[Smurf]

I agree, but do you think when governments like China see that happening that they will not step in. At the very least there could be internal fighting like Syria and that could be just as serious. As I said we have a long way to go at home and globally. We will soon be so tied to these countries that they will affect us like the US does now. I'm not sure I look forward to that.

[Motoguy]

GF I'm shocked that you spent money on something prepackaged almost fell off my chair. Bet they were good though. You see the problem isn’t weather I can cook from scratch or not (I can and do by the way) The problem is that wages have eroded so much in the last three decades that both parent must now work just to have a modest home and one vehicle. Now that both parents must work full time and the chores still need to been done where is the time supposed to come from to start cooking large meals for freezing? In your generation the wife completed the day to day chores of running a household now that is all done on the weekend. By the way I spend less than 400 dollars a month on groceries. We make lists, freeze leftovers pack lunches we do what we can. There are only so many hours in a week. Times have changed and not for the better.

[grammafreddy]

GF I'm shocked that you spent money on something prepackaged almost fell off my chair. Bet they were good though. You see the problem isn’t weather I can cook from scratch or not (I can and do by the way) The problem is that wages have eroded so much in the last three decades that both parent must now work just to have a modest home and one vehicle. Now that both parents must work full time and the chores still need to been done where is the time supposed to come from to start cooking large meals for freezing? In your generation the wife completed the day to day chores of running a household now that is all done on the weekend. By the way I spend less than 400 dollars a month on groceries. We make lists, freeze leftovers pack lunches we do what we can. There are only so many hours in a week. Times have changed and not for the better.

Actually, I was a working mom. I still cooked from scratch, though. I just made bigger meals and planned for leftovers - enough for at least one more meal, usually two - for the freezer. After a full work week of doing that, I had 10 extra meals in the freezer.

I must confess, though, that I did have a two-year spell when I didn't work. My husband figured out at tax-paying time that my income bumped our household into the next higher tax bracket and it wasn't financially smart for me to work - I was actually costing our household money by working ... extra lunches, fancier clothes, babysitting costs, double daily vehicle expenses, etc. Then we got transferred to a new town and he got a fat raise and so I went back to work because his income alone put him into the higher bracket and my income actually became extra for the household without changing how much income tax we'd have to pay (percentage-wise). Some folks don't think of that aspect of both-parent-working families.

[hobbyguy]

Motoguy, just for reference, the decline of the ability to comfortably have a single wage earner family started in the 1960's. By the early 1970's it took two incomes for a young family to have any appreciable disposable income, unless you were lucky enough to be able to get into a union job - which at the time were pretty much "closed shops".

The only union job I could get was working in the bush, only those who had a father or a close relative already a memeber could even get an apprenticeship application form for unions like the IBEW.

Then came the high interest rates that follwed the creation of OPEC, and with mortgages at 18%, and it got really tough. Think about putting your mortgage on a high interest credit card and trying to make the payments! That just about finished off the odds of having a comfortable single earner family.

My parents, and their parents before them had their own challenges, WW1, WW2, the dirty thirties. So really, looking from generation to generation, it's really never been "easy" for the average family. My grandparents never had fresh vegetables or salads in the winter until the 1950's. The class system in the UK was so tough to crack, that my grandfather moved his family to Malaya (now Malaysia) for a job. For my great grandparents, an orange was an expensive treat reserved for Christmas...etc.

That stuff said, family's continue to have their challenges today - so I think it very much evens out except for the period from about 1950 to 1965 (if you lived in Canada or the US). But, I would rather have faced the challenges I faced than the ones my great grandparents faced.

[Homeownertoo]

Cripes ... no one even knew they needed a wheel before the first enterprising, creative Neanderthal decided to chip something round out of stone and created a use for it. Even Fred Flintstone had to have them then. Some other inventive person decided Fred's car should have a motor instead of wearing out the soles of their feet making those stone tires go around, so now we have engines in our cars.

Thank you. Nice to see someone here has some understanding of economics.