The impoverishment of citizens of the "free world": 1980-2011
The myth that neoliberal market reforms have enriched the average citizen of the West is a blatant lie. Radical market reforms brought real impoverishment and terrifying stratification in the rich countries of the Big Seven. This is a pledge of the collapse of liberal democracy and the entry of the world into the era of either a new totalitarianism, or a nightmare of the new Middle Ages.
SUSPENSIVE STRIP
The reality is as follows: the average Westerner has only become poorer since 1973. Real statistics do not confirm the tales that neoliberal economists feed us - liars or degenerates. To start the conversation, let's open Lester Turow's The Future of Capitalism, published in America in 1997.
According to the data at that time, in the United States, from 1973-th to 1995, the GDP per capita, according to official data, grew by 36%. At the same time, the hourly wage of ordinary workers has decreased by 14%! In 1980-s, most of the growth in earnings went to the top 20% of the workforce. But if you look in more detail, then 64% wage growth accounted for the entire 1% of employees. And these are top managers. Their earnings have increased by tens of times, while for the rest they have decreased since 1973.
“How much can this inequality increase before this system collapses?” - Professor Turow asked then.
According to his calculations, by the end of the twentieth century, the real wages of an American employee would return to the level of the 1950-s, despite the fact that the GDP has grown significantly since that time. That is, the essence of neoliberal reforms in the West (1979-2011) is to take away from the workers - and give everything to managers and capitalists. This policy has led to the destruction of the foundations of the foundations of democracy: a well-off and large middle class. What in the Russian Federation, that in the West.
If we consider total income instead of earnings, then the picture will come out even worse. The share of the top 1% of workers (top managers and capitalists) accounted for 90% of income growth for 1980. Even then, the average salary of managers of the five hundred largest US companies on the Fortune list increased on average from 35 to 157, the average worker’s wages. (Now this gap is even greater). In those years, the incomes of white families in the United States fell so much that women went to work in large numbers: they had no time to have children and keep the house as before. They had to get lost incomes of the family budget. The average earnings of men in the US working year-round and full-time, for 1973-1993. fell by 11% (from 34 thousand dollars a year to 30,4 thousand), although per capita GDP seems to have increased by 29% over the same years. If we take only white full-time men, their average earnings fell by 14%. If we take the incomes of white educated men from 25 to 34 years, then the decrease in average earnings there is especially dramatic - by 25%.
SWEET LIFE?
Then Turou said: “Half a century has not brought any gain in earnings to the ordinary worker. This has never happened in America. ” Real household incomes, having slightly increased due to the mass output of women to work, reached a peak in 1989, and then also began to fall.
Do you think the situation is better now? We present data from the magazine "Expert" as of August 2011.
“... According to a study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Federal Reserve, since the 1970s, corporate incomes including inflation have quadrupled, while 90% of Americans’s earnings have not changed. In 1970, the salary of the head of the corporation was 28 times higher than the salary of an ordinary employee, and by 2005 this ratio increased to 158 times. AT historical US perspective returned to the situation of the 1920s. According to the Census Bureau, in 1929 under Republican President Herbert Hoover, the Gini coefficient (income ratio of 10% of the poorest and 10% of the richest) was 45. Today it is 46,8 ... "
So, by reading the Turow 1997 of the year, you read about the current America. And then he wrote that in the net value of the property, the share of the upper half of the percentage of the population rose from 1983 to 1989 year from 26 to 31%. By the beginning of 90's, the share of wealth belonging to the upper 1% doubled compared to the middle of 70's and exceeded 40%, essentially returning to the end of 1920's. By the era before the introduction of a progressive tax on personal income. No wonder that our "reformers" screamed out to copy this system. Steal this cattle and enrich yourself! You see - the older brothers in the West do it. We are all, and hired workers are the lowest race!
Let's take the realities of 2000 of the year - the time of completion of the “economically successful” reign of Democrat Clinton (1992-2000). It has long been said: to study the realities of the United States, it is better not to read donkeys economists, but American detectives. There is a mass of passing details. So...
“... Why are the bosses of the New World Order needing efforts with an armed seizure (USA - M.K.)? People are already killed in two or three jobs to make ends meet. The average American every year gives his income for four and a half months to pay federal income taxes, after which they are stripped of turnover tax, property tax, additional taxes, excise taxes, not to mention all the hidden fees incurred in everyday prices under the guise of commission, endless orders of the Price Control Bureau and other toothy government agencies. Ultimately, citizens give seventy percent of their earnings to the bureaucracy ... ”
This was written by F. Paul Wilson. In the book Conspiracies, 2000
Do you know what led to the impoverishment of the Yankees? Mass withdrawal of production in China. They have lost quality, well-paid jobs.
WHERE DOES EXTERNAL LUXURY? LIFE GOES IN DEBT!
Doodle-man in the street judged by the external effect. Well, of course! Americans lived richly. We bought cars and houses, went shopping in supermarkets-malls, where and now - a lot of all sorts of things.
But we are not stupid ordinary people. We know very well that external abundance in the same United States is achieved through two factors.
The first - China began to supply a lot of cheap goods. But this created a side effect: China has taken tens of millions of jobs from the United States because of American de-industrialization. And the “post-industrial herd” of workers began to earn much less than the American 70 workers.
The second factor - to consume, the Americans began to get into debt, take loans. In contrast to previous times, as Dmitry Tratas correctly noted, an ordinary person in the West cannot buy a house or an apartment for his savings. And I will add: the time is gone when an employee in 1930-1970 could save money to start his own business.
... At the beginning of the 1950s, the name of Hallie Hamlin thundered among the first aquanauts and seekers of underwater treasures. He was no less famous than Edwin Link himself - the excavator of the sunken Port Royal and the builder of the underwater elevator house. Hemlin also built a mini-submarine to search for sunken ships. He built himself. In his firm. Do you know how he got rich?
In fact, H. Hamlin came from a poor family of American laborers. Born in 1910, he worked as a lumberjack (breaking his spine fifteen years old), a worker in Hollywood, and a climber. But in the thirties, he decided to look for sunken treasure. But what shishi start a business? A simple worker is unable to equip an expedition from his own pocket. Go to the bank? Well, who of the bankers will give credit to the worker, and even under such an adventurous project? Nor did he wish to seek rich sponsors. And so, in order to get money, our hero becomes a diver at the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco (1933-1937). That was the shock construction of “American socialism” - the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt. To work there as a diver was a hell of a dangerous but well-paid business. Hamlin worked in a group of twenty divers. Nine of them died in the construction of the bridge. Hamlin survived - although the eardrum was damaged. He left the construction site with twenty thousand dollars in his pocket, honestly earned by hard work.
20 thousand dollars in 1937 year - a lot of money. Then the brand new Ford cost 900 dollars. In general, the hard worker Hamlin was able to honestly earn the equivalent of about a quarter of a million dollars today. It is not surprising that an American could build the first subsea vehicles and even found the ship "H.J.", earned by a diving fishery. Cochrane. He could not lift it, but then he invented and patented a car for bottling carbonated drinks. This brought him enough capital for Hamlin to build the first mini-submarine to search for sunken treasures ... (Jane and Barney Crile. Treasury Diving Holidays. 1954, Soviet edition - 1956)
If Hamlin was not a fanatic of underwater searches, he could buy a house with earned money, have a lot of children, start his own small business. Yes, in general, after the 1945, employees in the USA lived so well that they started bringing 4-5 children to a family (baby boom), while having their own homes, cars, washing machines and televisions.
Fast forward to the pre-globalization US blessed 1970-s, not yet disfigured by the neoliberal-monetarist experiments of Reagan and subsequent presidents of America. The great industrial builder of the USSR and the future head of the State Labor Committee, Yuri Batalin, visited Alaska in 1976. Looked at how the Yankees are building the pipeline. White workers-Americans worked here under a contract - 10 months, one day off per month, a working day - 10 hours. But earnings - 140-160 dollars per shift. For a season worker, eating at a construction site entirely at the expense of the firm, set aside 20-25 thousands of dollars. This is 1976 dollars of the year, which is translated to the current - somewhere 50 thousands. For several seasons, an American wage worker in Alaska could stand firmly on his feet and, as Y.Batalin writes, start his own business. That is, to earn the same quarter million in five or six years. I emphasize that we are not talking about a manager or a businessman, but about a simple hired worker!
Good? Today, against the background of the realities of the neoliberal-monetary globalization era, all this causes nostalgic tears even in the USA.
Having lost their good earnings, the Americans began to take everything on credit. And this has led the neoliberal economy to the current debt catastrophe. Mortgage collapsed, giving the illusion of a high standard of living. And now consumer loans do not take: you need to give a bunch of old debts, spending earned on the return of loans, and not on new products. And the USA is flying up the ass - retail trade is stagnating. The worst thing is that not only households, but also the Big Seven states have drowned in debt.
Well, where are the fantastic successes of radical market reforms in the West? Eh? In the ass they are. The people really become poorer and stratified. And this means that the analogue of Hugh Long, who in 1930-e came to power with the slogan of creating a national socialist state in the United States with a fair redistribution of wealth, will inevitably come. The people were ready to vote for him in the 1936 election of the year (his rating was against the rating of Roosevelt — like Obama’s popularity as opposed to Bush-son and McCain). But Long was killed on the eve of those elections.
And today such Longs will inevitably arise again. As well as new national socialist and red movements. The world has gone to the era of new totalitarianism. And if not him, then we will fall into a new feudalism. That's the whole choice.
ALMOST AS GORBACHEVSKOE NOMENCLATURE
What was the meaning of market reforms in the West, now failed? In giving the top (top managers and capitalists) the right to eat at three throats, to consume (for super-consumption tax is removed) and to receive astronomical salaries with bonuses.
The current top managers of the West want to receive tens and hundreds of millions of dollars of "salary" per year, taking them from employees and taking the industry to China. And get them only for their status. Because, despite the increased revenues since 70, this managerschina manages corporations and banks ineptly. She brought them to collapse - and from 2008, she hung up the losses incurred on the state (privatization of revenues, nationalization — losses). The US economy, these creatures filled up cleaner than the marasmic late Soviet nomenclature - the national economy of the USSR. But just as the nomenklatura stood to death for its privileges — American capitalist managers also stand for them. They do not want to lose their fat cake, rearing up at the slightest attempt by Obama to impose their super-profits. They want to continue - giant yachts, women of sleek, luxurious villas.
After the 2008 crisis of the year, when Western states had to tumble into private corporations trillions of dollars and euros to save their countries from collapse and the consequences of "effective management", the voter began to demand: let the top corporations show their personal "wages" and bonuses! Why the hell are we pouring trillions into their firms, and they pour gold on themselves? In the US, even the relevant law held.
Only now it is not. Canceled. Managers want to hide the way they live in fat. I will quote an article from the August Expert ...
"... American business against transparency
Sergey Kostyaev, Ph.D. (Political Science), Senior Researcher, INION, RAS
A big US business is trying to hide a widening gap between management salaries and ordinary employees.
The US Congress Profile Committee approved a bill to ease the burdensome data collection, which allows US corporations not to disclose the pay gap for senior management and ordinary employees. Big business won the first victory on the way to the adoption of this law. Most likely, it will be adopted by the Republican House of Representatives, but will be able to go through the Democratic Senate only as an element of a package agreement. For example, during the negotiations on increasing the limit of public debt, which should happen before August 2, otherwise the United States may default on its obligations for the first time in history. A lobbying campaign in support of this bill is taking place against the backdrop of a national debate about increasing income inequality in the United States.
The bill aims to repeal article 953 (b) of the Dodd-Frank Act on the reform of the American financial system, adopted a year ago. This article requires the Federal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to amend federal administrative acts, according to which all public companies must provide the following data: the arithmetic average annual earnings of all of its employees, with the exception of the CEO; annual income of the general director; the ratio of the first and second indicators.
The offensive on the Securities Commission is on all fronts. So, on June 1, 23, the day after the bill was approved, the House Appropriations Committee rejected the SEC budget increase proposed by the Barack Obama administration, which was necessary for hiring new employees, whose task would be to monitor the progress of financial reform.
Among the authors of the draft law “On Alleviating burdensome data collection,” Peter King, a member of the third district of New York, received, according to the American non-profit organization Center for Responsible Politics, more than 12 thousand dollars in an electoral fund from General Dynamics Corporation, which serves for the abolition of the unfortunate article.
Noteworthy is the speed with which this bill is viewed. 14 March, he was introduced to the House of Representatives, and two days later it was already held a hearing in the subcommittee on financial markets and state enterprises of the House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services. 3-4 of April was recommended for consideration by the committee, where 22 was approved on June and sent to the plenary session of the entire chamber.
The initiator of the draft law, Rep. Nan Hayworth, said that "the required calculations are a heavy burden for companies, especially those that do business around the world." However, “the real reason that Republicans in the House of Representatives want to keep the typical employee’s secret is uncomfortable is that many companies find themselves forced to declare that their management receives 400 more times than its average worker,” noted the author of the article 953 (b) Democratic Senator from New Jersey Robert Menendez.
... A lobbying campaign for the abolition of the article of the law on financial reform a year ago was launched by 81 largest US corporations, in particular McDonald's, General Dynamics, American Airlines, IBM. A feature of the big business strategy is the use of The HR Policy Association and the reluctance to expose the work in this area in the reports of our own corporate lobbyists. This association brings together over 250 HR directors of the largest American corporations. To solve her problems, she uses the services of the law firm McGuiness & Yager, which specializes in labor law. According to the lobbyists' reporting documents, from 2010 to the first quarter of 2011, the fees of this firm amounted to $ 1,9 million. Targets include the House of Representatives, the Senate and the Federal Securities and Exchange Commission. It is interesting to note that Jeffrey McGuinness is simultaneously the chairman of both the association and the law firm; in other words, as the head of the association, he hired himself as the head of a consulting firm to provide lobbying services to himself ... "
The impudent, shameless and worthless "nomenclature" of the United States has shown itself in all its glory. Their relatives, the Soviet nomenclature, had already destroyed the Soviet Union. And these - will kill America. Mark my words.
HOW INTERMEDIATE AFTERWORD
But maybe all these wage cuts for white Americans and the inconceivable incomes of top managers have at least ensured the unprecedented economic growth rates of the USA and Europe in 1980-2000-s?
Nonsense! We will talk about this in particular. And here I’ll confine myself to a small remark: with neo-liberal monetarist globalizers (Reaganists, Clintonists, Bushists, etc.), the US economic growth rates are almost twice as low as those of 1960, when America lived under conditions of strong government regulation and a severe progressive tax for personal consumption (but not for personal investment in new production). Growth rates with the "supermarkets" in the West did not exceed the average annual growth rates of the "stagnant" seventies in the West. Neither privatization nor liberalization helped.
I appeal to the domestic intelligentsia. Hey, a flock of stupid sheep! When you realize that in the West, we have nothing to look for? What is there - also a dead end, and local intellectuals - the same gathering of morons? If you do not believe - read the book "Black Swan", written by a wealthy financier Taleb. When you, anti-Soviet degenerates, slavishly stop copying everything Western and begin to think for yourself? When you comprehend that all these Gaidar, Chubais, Dvorkovich, Gref are slag, waste rock?
20 years ago we had to save the USSR and carry out reforms of common sense. Instead, a flock of idiots decided to imitate the West. This terminally ill Syphilitic of History. And now, after the West, Ukraine and the Russian Federation are flying into the abyss.
We will continue our insight into the history of radical market reforms in the once-developed countries of the former “golden billion”.
Already the former. For there is no longer any "golden billion" ...
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